hange of plan was necessary. On 5th July he offered to Dugumbe L400,
with all the goods he had at Ujiji besides, for men to replace the
Banian slaves, and for the other means of going up the Lomame to
Katanga, then returning and going up Tanganyika to Ujiji. Dugumbe took a
little time to consult his friends before replying to the offer.

Meanwhile an event occurred of unprecedented horror, that showed
Livingstone that he could not go to Lomame in the company of Dugumbe.
Between Dugumbe's people and another chief a frightful system of
pillage, murder, and burning of villages was going on with horrible
activity. One bright summer morning, 15th July, when fifteen hundred
people, chiefly women, were engaged peacefully in marketing in a village
on the banks of the Lualaba, and while Dr. Livingstone was sauntering
about, a murderous fire was opened on the people, and a massacre ensued
of such measureless atrocity that he could describe it only by saying
that it gave him the impression of being in hell. The event was so
superlatively horrible, and had such an overwhelming influence on
Livingstone, that we copy at full length the description of it given in
the _Last Journals:_

"Before I had got thirty yards out, the discharge of two guns
in the middle of the crowd told me that slaughter had begun;
crowds dashed off from the place, and threw down their wares
in confusion, and ran. At the same time that the three opened
fire on the mass of people near the upper end of the
market-place, volleys were discharged from a party down near
the creek on the panic-stricken women, who dashed at the
canoes. These, some fifty or more, were jammed in the creek,
and the men forgot their paddles in the terror that seized
all. The canoes were not to be got out, for the creek was too
small for so many; men and women, wounded by the balls,
poured into them, and leaped and scrambled into the water,
shrieking A long line of heads in the river showed that great
numbers struck out for an island a full mile off; in going
toward it they had to put the left shoulder to a current of
about two miles an hour; if they had struck away diagonally
to the opposite bank, the current would have aided them, and,
though nearly three miles off, some would have gained land;
as it was, the heads above water showed the long line of
those that would inevitably perish.