“The Charm and Terror of Africa”
“ I don’t know whether I am to go on the shelf or not. If I do, I make Africa the shelf! ”
(Livingstone to Waller, 1863.) LITTLE to the north of the mouth of
the Rovuma River is a typical East
^ African bay called Mikindani. There
at the end of March, 1866, might have been seen a strange-looking Arab dhow. It contained as queer a collection of beasts and men as one could wish to see, and might easily have been an Arab caricature of Noah’s Ark. On board were six camels, three Indian buffaloes and a buffalo calf, four donkeys, two mules and, last but not least, a poodle named Chitane, which owned as devoted master and follower an explorer named David Livingstone.
“ The charm and terror of Africa ” and the call of the wild had brought this traveller back to the old haunts once more. The dhow contained the material for a new voyage of discovery. The Government had appointed him British Consul—with no salary, and “ no pension,” it was clearly to be understood. But his friend Sir Bartle Frere at Bombay had made o
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• him a sort of ambassador to the Sultan, and Livingstone had been able to accumulate just what he wanted for his third expedition to find the great lakes.
All these different beasts of burden were an experiment; so were the men whom he had with him. There were ten natives from Johanna; nine negro boys from. the Nassick mission in India; two Yao men (ex-slaves) two men of Shupanga; thirteen Mohammedan Indians from Bombay. It must have been as difficult to keep the peace among the men as among the beasts. An angry buffalo very soon disposed of one of the donkeys. It took Livingstone all his time to prevent the Indians from ill-treating the animals. He had sold his little ship, the Lady Nyassa, and nearly his whole fortune was now in his pocket, or in that Arab dhow; but Livingstone never thought of money at any time; and instead of making a vast “ pile ” out of Africa, as he might easily have done, he remained a poor man to the last.
When his menagerie had been disembarked his troubles began afresh. Chitane, the poodle, was the only member of the party who was perfectly happy and contented. He and Livingstone and the Johanna men at last pushed on ahead and came to Mtarika’s.
All along that route was absolute desolation. The country had been made a valley of dry bones by the slave raiders. Livingstone saw
TERROR OF AFRICA ” 211 pathetic groups of dead slaves at every turn of the road; skeletons tied to trees; dead slave women lying stabbed by* the path-side. Some slave men, lying with the heavy yokes about their necks, were too weak to tell him where they had come from. There were often mere children lying there abandoned by the roadside in chains.
His own men from India gave Livingstone a moSt annoying time. They lied and thieved, and ill-treated his beasts, till at last, in disgust, he paid them off and got rid of them. In fact, so far the expedition seemed a downright failure. But Livingstone never used such a word as “ failure ” in his life. He pressed on, reached the eastern shores of Lake Nyassa, and crossed the mountains to a village on the south-western shore. There they had such alarming news of the Zulu slavers that Livingstone’s Johanna men deserted and fled. The runaways reached Zanzibar, and to account for their desertion made up ingenious lies about Livingstone being a prisoner among the Zulus. So likely a tale it seemed that Livingstone’s friends sent out a search expedition to find him, headed by his old chum, Edward Young.
At the beginning of the year 1867 a report reached England that Livingstone was dead. It sounded such a possible story that nearly everyone at home believed it; and just for a moment even Oswell himself gave up hope,
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although he had always refused to listen to similar rumours of his friend’s death or disappearance. The old hunter shut himself up in his room for many hours, overcome with grief. But suddenly he entered the room where his wife was, with quite a different look on his face, and said: “I have been writing to Sir Roderick Murchison to tell him that I believe the story to be a lie. I have most carefully considered it, and I find the men talk of returning after the skirmish, in which they say Livingstone was killed, to bury their dead. Why, not one of them would stop to bury his father if there was the slightest risk. If the rascals have lied in one part of their story, I disbelieve it all. They ran away and left him, that’s all! ”
After that Oswell quietly stuck to his belief, although nearly everyone, except his friend, William Webb, had given up hope of Livingstone’s safety. He occupied himself with his roses and his horses and dogs in his beautiful home at Groombridge, and gradually set about arranging his enormous collection of “ heads ” and African trophies in the hall. He loved each one of those “ heads ” as only a hunter can, for they recalled many memories of happy hunting-grounds, and of travels with Baba Daud in the wilds. In January, 1868, came news of the terrible distress in Ireland, and Oswell took down one of the best of his
TERROR OF AFRICA” 213 trophies from the wall, the huge tusk of an African elephant, and sold it for the benefit of the Irish. It was a big sacrifice to make, but one that was thoroughly characteristic of him.
At this time Agnes Livingstone had a letter from Oswell, in which he assured her that her father must be safe. “ In my opinion,” he wrote, “he is easily the first of all travellers alive or dead.... Perhaps after all the Doctor (though I for one fervently hope not) will return upon his tracks. He is so plucky, enduring and awfully obstinate that I’m sure he will not if he can help it.” A few months afterwards a wildly exciting note arrived from Agnes. She had received authentic news at last of the safety of her father. Oswell’s message in reply was short but characteristic “ ‘ Alive and well, but destitute ’—that’s all right! What can he want with trousers when no one else has them? Thank God that he is all right.... Hurrah for the Dad about Midsummer! ”
In due course a letter arrived from Livingstone himself. It had been actually written in October, 1869, but was not dispatched for nearly a year afterwards. Probably there was no letter-carrier at hand whom the Doctor could trust to carry his note to the coast in the cleft of a forked stick. It was dated from “ Manyuema Country (say 150 miles west of
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Ujiji).” He was still on the track of the mysterious River Lualaba, whose destination westward he was as certain as ever must be the Nile; “but,” he added, “I must go and see. ... I have been greatly hindered by want of attendants. I long sorely to retire.... I am dreaming of finding the lost city of Meroe... the reality reveals that I have lost nearly all my teeth... and while I feel that all my friends will wish me to make a complete work of the exploration, I am at times distressed in thinking of my family.” He named part of the River Lualaba after his friend Webb, and the spring where the Kafue was said to rise he called “ Oswell’s Fountain.”
After the desertion of his rascally followers Livingstone trudged on sturdily with Chitane, his plucky little poodle, and some Yao porters. His one object was to discover Lake Bangweolo and the great waterway which he was certain led into the very heart of Africa.
Poor little Chitane, game to the last, was drowned in the Tshimbwe River, and Livingstone felt his loss very keenly. Farther on in a great forest he had another very serious loss. His porters deserted with their packs, and in one of them were his quinine and all his drugs. For a moment Livingstone almost gave in: “I felt,” he wrote, “ as if I had now received the sentence of death, like poor Bishop Mackenzie.” But in spite of fever and ex-
TERROR OF AFRICA ” 215 haustion he forced himself to go on, and crossed the stream which farther west becomes the great River Congo. It rained incessantly, and the country was depressing in the extreme, but at last he reached the village of the chief of the Ba-bemba, a man named Chitapangwa.
Chitapangwa had a fat, jolly face and a loud laugh, but was a most incorrigible old rascal. Twenty-four skulls ornamented his stockade. He asked Livingstone why he was making this awful journey; and when the Doctor replied, “For the public benefit,” the chief slowly pulled down the under lid of his right eye. It is a common gesture in North-Eastern Rhodesia at the present day, and signifies the schoolboy question: “ Do you see any green in my eye? ” Unluckily for Livingstone, his cowardly boys “ gave him away ” in treating with this chief. Out of pure terror they assumed “ a chirping, piping tone of voice ” in speaking to the chief, and Chitapangwa thought they were afraid, and might be robbed quite easily.
Livingstone’s own method of speaking to African kings is shown by his interview with Moamba, whose village he entered in February.
Moamba had a cast in his eye, and was “ a stout, public-house-looking person.” He asked Livingstone what on earth he wished to buy, if it was not slaves or ivory. “ The only thing I have seen worth buying,” answered Livingstone, “ is a fat chief like you as a specimen, and
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a woman feeding him with beer.” This greatly tickled the fat chief, and he was perfectly friendly with the white man.
Livingstone struggled on, getting weaker with fever. Every step seemed to “jar in his chest,” and there was a constant buzzing in his ears. The rain had set the “ driver ants ” on the move, and they settled on his head and legs in clouds, biting viciously. On the last day of March he came to the south end of Lake Tanganyika.
This great inland sea, which had been first sighted nine years before by Burton and Speke, was the most beautiful lake Livingstone ever looked upon. It lay absolutely calm amidst tree-clad mountains and rocks of a bright red schist. The valley where he stood was alive with game, and he saw great herds of elephants moving slowly down to water at the lake. All that night he heard the roar of lions; but Livingstone could think of little but the fever which had him in its grip, and almost reduced him to insensibility. When some elephants came close to his tent, he was too weak to hold his gun steadily, and fired at close quarters without hitting them.
In the valley of the Lofu he fell in with some Arabs, and spent more than three months with them at the village of a chief named Tshitimbwa. The principal Arab, Hamees, was very kind to him, and Livingstone attended
Native
Infantry,
Nyasaland
These
are some of the
men who have done good work in East Africa.
TERROR OF AFRICA” 217 his wedding. The bride was a rather stout woman, carried in native fashion “ pickaback ” to her husband’s house. Livingstone was much amused to hear the bridegroom murmur to himself as his guests left him: “ Hamees wadim tagh! ”—“ See to what you have brought yourself!” While there he met the famous slave raider Hamidi, better known as Tippoo Tib, whose doings became so notorious in the Upper Congo.
The country round had been desolated by a great native war; but as soon as he was able to move Livingstone pressed on to Lake Mcero, and there entered the kingdom of a great chief or “ Kazembe.”
This personage had a bad squint, and a heavy, uninteresting countenance. He kept a wretched little court dwarf with a crooked back, whose antics were the only things that could make the monarch smile.
For the least offence he cut off his subjects’ ears or hands, and Livingstone felt anything but comfortable when the court executioner with ear-cropping scissors came close and had a lingering look at him. All this time his own men had been deserting him by ones and twos, and he was left at last with only five attendants. It Was like the song of The Ten Little Nigger Boys, and he quite expected that in due time there would be “ none.”
On 18th July 1868 he discovered Lake
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Bangweolo, and just escaped a most bloody war in the Kazembe’s country between native traders, Arabs and Zulus. Livingstone thought that he must have come upon the sources of the Nile; but he was wrong in that, as the map will show us.
It was a very sick man indeed that arrived many months later in Ujiji, on the north-eastern shores of Lake Tanganyika. For some time his men had had to carry him in a sort of swinging cot made of boughs. Travelling in a hammock through African streams and over difficult country is anything but a joy. It looks nice in a picture; but it is not. Livingstone found, as Bishop Hannington did, that “ shank’s mare ” was far pleasanter and safer. He had had a great influence over the Arabs while he was with them; and although they couldn’t see his point of view at all, they kept from slave raiding to avoid wounding his feelings. He was glad to join an Arab caravan on the other side of the lake; and travelled with them off and on for some distance, utterly regardless of his health, and hardly bothering to change his wet clothes so eager was he to reach the Lualaba River (the Upper Congo). By the time he reached it his Nassick boys were reduced to three; the rest had deserted.
It was at Nyangwe on that river that Livingstone came in for a horrid scene. There were constant blood feuds between the Manyema
TERROR OF AFRICA ” 219 and the Swahili; and one summer morning when the market was at its height in the village of Nyangwe a quarrel broke out and the Swahili fired upon the crowd of native women. Livingstone was walking about the market, and had a narrow escape. Out of about fifteen hundred people, mostly women, at least four hundred were shot down in cold blood. Men and women rushed in a panic-stricken throng to the river and threw themselves into the water to escape to an island a mile off. But one by one they sank, picked off by Arab bullets, and the alligators saw to the rest.
This scene made a vivid impression on Livingstone. “ It gave me the impression of being in Hell,” he wrote. In a letter to his daughter Agnes he said: “ From what I have seen of slavery I say exaggeration is a simple impossibility. I go with the sailor who, on seeing slave traders, said: ‘ If the devil don’t catch these fellows, we might as well have no devil at all.’ ” He wrote a full account of this and other scenes like it to the Foreign Secretary, and the accounts published in our newspapers sent a thrill of horror through this country.
A Royal Commission was appointed, and
Sir Bartle Frere was instructed “ to concert measures for bringing African slavery to an end.” It took long years before that actually came to pass. In 1891 Nyassaland became a British protectorate, and a war to the death 220 “ THE CHARM OF AFRICA ” began with the Arab slave raiders. Four years later their last stronghold in Central Africa was stormed and taken, and now for twenty years Livingstone’s Africa has been free.