line of drainage, and other things
of great value.
At last I said that I would start for Ujiji, in three days, on foot. I
wished to speak to Tagamoio about the captive relations of the chiefs,
but he always ran away when he saw me coming.
_17th July, 1871._--All the rest of Dugumbe's party offered me a share
of every kind of goods they had, and pressed me not to be ashamed to
tell them what I needed. I declined everything save a little gunpowder,
but they all made presents of beads, and I was glad to return
equivalents in cloth. It is a sore affliction, at least forty-five days
in a straight line--equal to 300 miles, or by the turnings and windings
600 English miles, and all after feeding and clothing the Banian slaves
for twenty-one months! But it is for the best though; if I do not trust
to the riffraff of Ujiji, I must wait for other men at least ten months
there. With help from above I shall yet go through Rua, see the
underground excavations first, then on to Katanga, and the four ancient
fountains eight days beyond, and after that Lake Lincoln.
_18th July, 1871._--The murderous assault on the market people felt
to me like Gehenna, without the fire and brimstone; but the heat was
oppressive, and the firearms pouring their iron bullets on the
fugitives, was not an inapt representative of burning in the bottomless
pit.
The terrible scenes of man's inhumanity to man brought on severe
headache, which might have been serious had it not been relieved by a
copious discharge of blood; I was laid up all yesterday afternoon, with
the depression the bloodshed made,--it filled me with unspeakable
horror. "Don't go away," say the Manyuema chiefs to me; but I cannot
stay here in agony.
_19th July, 1871._--Dugumbe sent me a fine goat, a maneh of gunpowder, a
maneh of fine blue beads, and 230 cowries, to buy provisions in the way.
I proposed to leave a doti Merikano and one of Kanike to buy specimens
of workmanship. He sent me two very fine large Manyuema swords, and two
equally fine spears, and said that I must not leave anything; he would
buy others with his own goods, and divide them equally with me: he is
very friendly.
River fallen 4-1/2 feet since the 5th ult.
A few market people appear to-day, formerly they came in crowds: a very
few from the west bank bring salt to buy back the baskets from the camp
slaves, which they threw away in panic, others carried a little food for
sale, about 200 in all, chiefly tho
|