is intensified by the malaria of the drying-up surface. A chill from
bathing on the 25th in cold water gave me a slight attack.
_1st May, 1872._--Unyanyembe: bought a cow for 11 dotis of merikano (and
2 kanike for calf), she gives milk, and this makes me independent.
Headman of the Baganda from whom I bought it said, "I go off to pray."
He has been taught by Arabs, and is the first proselyte they have
gained. Baker thinks that the first want of Africans is to teach them to
_want_. Interesting, seeing he was bored almost to death by Kamrasi
wanting everything he had.
Bought three more cows and calves for milk, they give good quantity
enough for me and mine, and are small shorthorns: one has a hump--two
black with white spots and one white--one black with white face: the
Baganda were well pleased with the prices given, and so am I. Finished a
letter for the _New York Herald,_ trying to enlist American zeal to stop
the East Coast slave-trade: I pray for a blessing on it from the
All-Gracious. [Through a coincidence a singular interest attaches to
this entry. The concluding words of the letter he refers to are as
follows:--]
"All I can add in my loneliness is, may Heaven's rich blessing come down
on everyone, American, English, or Turk, who will help to heal the open
sore of the world."
[It was felt that nothing could more palpably represent the man, and
this quotation has consequently been inscribed upon the tablet erected
to his memory near his grave in Westminster Abbey. It was noticed some
time after selecting it that Livingstone wrote these words exactly one
year before his death, which, as we shall see, took place on the 1st
May, 1873.]
_3rd May, 1872._--The entire population of Unyanyembe called Arab is
eighty males, many of these are country born, and are known by the
paucity of beard and bridgeless noses, as compared with men from Muscat;
the Muscatees are more honourable than the mainlanders, and more
brave--altogether better looking and better everyway.
If we say that the eighty so-called Arabs here have twenty dependants
each, 1500 or 1600 is the outside population of Unyanyembe in connection
with the Arabs. It is called an ivory station, that means simply that
elephant's tusks are the chief articles of trade. But little ivory comes
to market, every Arab who is able sends bands of his people to different
parts to trade: the land being free they cultivate patches of maize,
dura, rice, beans, &c.,
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