Part 36 (1/2)

1 Starr's ” ” ”

1 Henry (16-shooter) ” ”

1 revolver.

200 rounds revolver ammunition.

2000 ” Jocelyn and Starrs ammunition.

1500 ” Henry rifle ammunition.

Cooking utensils, medicine chest, books, s.e.xtant, canvas bags, &c., &c., &c.

The above made a total of about forty loads. Many things in the list would have brought fancy prices in Unyanyembe, especially the carbines and ammunition, the saw, carpenter's tools the beads, and wire. Out of the thirty-three loads which were stored for him in my tembe--the stock sent to Livingstone, Nov. 1,1870--but few of them would be available for his return trip to Rua and Manyuema. The 696 doti of cloth which were left to him formed the only marketable articles of value he possessed; and in Manyuema, where the natives manufactured their own cloth, such an article would be considered a drug; while my beads and wire, with economy, would suffice to keep him and his men over two years in those regions. His own cloth, and what I gave him, made in the aggregate 1,393 doti, which, at 2 doti per day for food, were sufficient to keep him and sixty men 696 days. He had thus four years' supplies. The only articles he lacked to make a new and completely fitted-up expedition were the following, a list of which he and I drew up;--

A few tins of American wheat-flour. ” ” soda crackers.

” ” preserved fruits A few tins of salmon, 10 lbs. Hyson tea. Some sewing thread and needles.

1 dozen official envelopes. 'Nautical Almanac' for 1872 and 1873. 1 blank journal. 1 chronometer, stopped. 1 chain for refractory people.

With the articles just named he would have a total of seventy loads, but without carriers they were an inc.u.mbrance to him; for, with only the nine men which he now had, he could go nowhere with such a splendid a.s.sortment of goods. I was therefore commissioned to enlist,--as soon as I reached Zanzibar,--fifty freemen, arm them with a gun and hatchet each man, besides accoutrements, and to purchase two thousand bullets, one thousand flints, and ten kegs of gunpowder. The men were to act as carriers, to follow wherever Livingstone might desire to go. For, without men, he was simply tantalized with the aspirations roused in him by the knowledge that he had abundance of means, which were irrealizable without carriers. All the wealth of London and New York piled before him were totally unavailable to him without the means of locomotion. No Mnyamwezi engages himself as carrier during war-time. You who have read the diary of my 'Life in Unyanyembe' know what stubborn Conservatives the Wanyamwezi are. A duty lay yet before me which I owed to my ill.u.s.trious companion, and that was to hurry to the coast as if on a matter of life and death--act for him in the matter of enlisting men as if he were there himself--to work for him with the same zeal as I would for myself--not to halt or rest until his desires should be gratified, And this I vowed to do; but it was a death-blow to my project of going down the Nile, and getting news of Sir S. Baker.

The Doctor's task of writing his letters was ended. He delivered into my hand twenty letters for Great Britain, six for Bombay, two for New York, and one for Zanzibar. The two letters for New York were for James Gordon Bennett, junior, as he alone, not his father, was responsible for the Expedition sent under my command. I beg the reader's pardon for republis.h.i.+ng one of these letters here, as its spirit and style indicate the man, the mere knowledge of whose life or death was worth a costly Expedition.

Ujiji, on Tanganika, East Africa, November, 1871.

James Gordon Bennett, Jr., Esq.

My Dear Sir,--It is in general somewhat difficult to write to one we have never seen--it feels so much like addressing an abstract idea--but the presence of your representative, Mr. H. M. Stanley, in this distant region takes away the strangeness I should otherwise have felt, and in writing to thank you for the extreme kindness that prompted you to send him, I feel quite at home.

If I explain the forlorn condition in which he found me you will easily perceive that I have good reason to use very strong expressions of grat.i.tude. I came to Ujiji off a tramp of between four hundred and five hundred miles, beneath a blazing vertical sun, having been baffled, worried, defeated and forced to return, when almost in sight of the end of the geographical part of my mission, by a number of half-caste Moslem slaves sent to me from Zanzibar, instead of men. The sore heart made still sorer by the woeful sights I had seen of man's inhumanity to man racked and told on the bodily frame, and depressed it beyond measure.

I thought that I was dying on my feet. It is not too much to say that almost every step of the weary sultry way was in pain, and I reached Ujiji a mere ruckle of bones.

There I found that some five hundred pounds' sterling worth of goods which I had ordered from Zanzibar had unaccountably been entrusted to a drunken half-caste Moslem tailor, who, after squandering them for sixteen months on the way to Ujiji; finished up by selling off all that remained for slaves and ivory for himself. He had ”divined” on the Koran and found that I was dead. He had also written to the Governor of Unyanyembe that he had sent slaves after me to Manyuema, who returned and reported my decease, and begged permission to sell off the few goods that his drunken appet.i.te had spared.

He, however, knew perfectly well, from men who had seen me, that I was alive, and waiting for the goods and men; but as for morality, he is evidently an idiot, and there being no law here except that of the dagger or musket, I had to sit down in great weakness, dest.i.tute of everything save a few barter cloths and beads, which I had taken the precaution to leave here in case of extreme need.

The near prospect of beggary among Ujijians made me miserable.

I could not despair, because I laughed so much at a friend who, on reaching the mouth of the Zambezi, said that he was tempted to despair on breaking the photograph of his wife. We could have no success after that. Afterward the idea of despair had to me such a strong smack of the ludicrous that it was out of the question.

Well, when I had got to about the lowest verge, vague rumors of an English visitor reached me. I thought of myself as the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho; but neither priest, Levite, nor Samaritan could possibly pa.s.s my way. Yet the good Samaritan was close at hand, and one of my people rushed up at the top of his speed, and, in great excitement, gasped out, ”An Englishman coming! I see him!” and off he darted to meet him.

An American flag, the first ever seen in these parts, at the head of a caravan, told me the nationality of the stranger.

I am as cold and non-demonstrative as we islanders are usually reputed to be; but your kindness made my frame thrill. It was, indeed, overwhelming, and I said in my soul, ”Let the richest blessings descend from the Highest on you and yours!”

The news Mr. Stanley had to tell was thrilling. The mighty political changes on the Continent; the success of the Atlantic cables; the election of General Grant, and many other topics' riveted my attention for days together, and had an immediate and beneficial effect on my health. I had been without news from home for years save what I could glean from a few 'Sat.u.r.day Reviews' and 'Punch' of 1868. The appet.i.te revived, and in a week I began to feel strong again.

Mr. Stanley brought a most kind and encouraging despatch from Lord Clarendon (whose loss I sincerely deplore), the first I have received from the Foreign Office since 1866, and information that the British Government had kindly sent a thousand pounds sterling to my aid. Up to his arrival I was not aware of any pecuniary aid. I came unsalaried, but this want is now happily repaired, and I am anxious that you and all my friends should know that, though uncheered by letter, I have stuck to the task which my friend Sir Roderick Murchison set me with ”John Bullish” tenacity, believing that all would come right at last.