PART X.

INCIDENTS OF PERSONAL PERIL AND DISCOMFORT OF TRAVELLERS AND EXPLORERS.

CHAP. XXV.--Pains and penalties of explorers and adventurers--the reader’s selfishness--Mr. Hutchinson’s experience of a night’s lodging at Brass, a western African town--his bed--his bedfellows--how stupid to have blown out the light!--the biting and scratching, and crawling within, and the everlasting cackle without--daylight, and the mystery solved--a night’s lodging on the banks of the Gambia--voices of the night--assailed by mosquitoes--“I smell the blood of an Englishman”--sleeping on ants and cockroaches--“Sitting up” for the night--an arboreal lodging--going up to bed--making oneself comfortable--half a cigar for supper--unpleasant neighbours--leopards and other gentle beasts below--mosquitoes above and around about--eleven hours’ roosting--the leafy couch abandoned--lost and starved--found and rejoiced--Doctor Livingstone’s savage experiences--one of many thousand nights--the grass cutter and the tent pitcher--the “kotla” or tent-fire--the sleepers, and the dogs who came and ate the blankets--the dish-washers and the cooks--every man his own washerwoman--the doctor’s strict cleanliness--“it is questionable if a descent to barbarous ways ever elevates a man in the eyes of the savage”--watchmen and watch-dogs--an alarming camping out incident--the African traveller’s greatest enemy, the little tsetse fly--its perfect harmlessness towards mankind and wild animals--its fatal affection for draught oxen and horses--symptoms of tsetse poison--the cattle of an entire tribe almost destroyed by the tsetse--the traveller in the desert of Eastern Africa--Mr. Burton’s experience--his account of a day’s march--rousing the camp--the porters loth to stir from the fire--“collect,” “pack,” “set out”--off at last--the African porter a stickler for prepayment--the privileges and perquisites of a Pagazi--his gorgeous attire and his insignia of office--how the Pagazi keeps tally of offenders on the road--mischievous firing of the huts--queer directions left by the Pagazi as to where water may be found--the ivory porters and how they carry their loads--average of the weights carried--no finery worn on the road--a use found for “bustles”--every man a bearer of weapons of defence--recreations on the road--signs of a halt--bravery of the porters--a hundred and fifty of them scared by a cow--rows on the road--broken heads no provocatives of ill blood--rammish modes of fighting--the African’s great objection to hurry--not used to it--daily life at home--quite happy on plenty of sleep, “pombe,” tobacco, and gossip--the domestic African given to gambling--“heads or tails”--high play--my grandmother against yours--eating, the sole aim of his life--forty winks after dinner--no admirer of the maxim of “early to bed”--the first approach of Europeans to a cannibal shore--three fish-hooks for a lobster--queer pockets to put fish-hooks in--smelling the place the white man touched--the chief’s distrust of a chair--gigantic savages--barefaced attempt to steal a cabin-boy--bent on thieving--an attempt to make off with a mastiff and his kennel--more successful with a kitten--the dog recovers his spirits and makes free with the calf of a thief’s leg--summary dismissal of the unscrupulous guests. Pages 183–203.