The missionary David Livingstone is said to have converted only two people in his proselytizing career. By far his greater legacy is as one of the most intrepid explorers of all time, who was not only one of the first white men to journey to the heart of Africa, but in doing so heightened awareness of the slave trade being practised there, thus leading eventually to its abolition in 1873, the year of his death. An addictive journal keeper, when he ran out of ink he would make a substitute from plant juice. When paper supplies dwindled, he used scraps of paper, or wrote over old writing, making it extremely difficult to decipher his words. His late journals, written during his nerve-racking expeditions to the Great Lakes, make painful reading. Still lonely after the death of his doughty wife Mary in 1862, he was in very poor health and low spirits, his mood worsened by the tribal violence he witnessed. In the days preceding these entries, he and his party had almost been killed on a couple of occasions, by spear and ambush. Here he gives an account of events running up to his famous meeting at Ujiji by Lake Tanganyika with American journalist Henry Morton Stanley, who had been sent to find out if he was still alive. Livingstone’s dates do not match those of Stanley, who said they met in November, not October.
We now passed through the country of mixed Barua and Bagaha, crossed the River Lon˜gumba twice and then came near the great mountain mass on west of Tanganyika. From Mokwaniwa’s to Tanganyika is about ten good marches through open forest. The Guha people are not very friendly; they know strangers too well to show kindness: like Manuema, they are also keen traders. I was sorely knocked up by this march from Nyan˜gawe´ back to Ujiji. In the latter part of it, I felt as if dying on my feet. Almost every step was in pain, the appetite failed, and a little bit of meat caused violent diarrhoea, whilst the mind, sorely depressed, reacted on the body. All the traders were returning successful: I alone had failed and experienced worry, thwarting, baffling, when almost in sight of the end towards which I strained.
3rd October
I read the whole Bible through four times whilst I was in Manyuema.
8th October
The road covered with angular fragments of quartz was very sore to my feet, which are crammed into ill-made French shoes. How the bare feet of the men and women stood out, I don’t know; it was hard enough on mine though protected by the shoes. We marched in the afternoons where water at this season was scarce. The dust of the march cause ophthalmia … this was my first touch of it in Africa. We now came to the Lobumba River, which flows into Tanganyika, and then to the village Loanda, and sent to Kasanga, the Guha chief, for canoes. The Lon˜gumba rises, like the Lobumba, in the mountains called Kabogo West. We heard great noises, as if thunder, as far as twelve days off, which were ascribed to Kabogo, as if it had subterranean caves into which the waves rushed with great noise, and it may be that the Lon˜gumba is the outlet of Tanganyika: it becomes the Luasse´ further down, and then the Luamo before it joins the Lualaba: the country slopes that way, but I was too ill to examine its source.
At dawn, off and go to Ujiji. Welcomed by all the Arabs, particularly by Moenyeghere´. I was now reduced to a skeleton, but the market being held daily, and all kinds of native food brought to it, I hoped that food and rest would soon restore me, but in the evening my people came and told me that Shereef [the chief Arab in Ujiji] had sold off all my goods, and Moenyeghere´ confirmed it by saying, ‘We protested, but he did not leave a single yard of calico, out of 3000, nor a string of beads out of 700 lbs.’ This was distressing. I had made up my mind, if I could not get people at Ujiji, to wait till men should come from the coast, but to wait in beggary was what I never contemplated, and I now felt miserable. Shereef was evidently a moral idiot, for he came without shame to shake hands with me, and when I refused, assumed an air of displeasure, as having been badly treated; and afterwards came with his ‘Balghere,’ good-luck salutation, twice a day, and on leaving said, ‘I am going to pray,’ till I told him that were I an Arab, his hand and both ears would be cut off for thieving, as he knew, and I wanted no salutations from him. In my distress it was annoying to see Shereef’s slaves passing from the market with all the good things that my goods had bought.
24th October
My property has been sold to Shereef’s friends at merely nominal prices. Syed bin Majid, a good man, proposed that they should be returned, and the ivory be taken from Shereef; but they would not restore stolen property, though they knew it to be stolen. Christians would have acted differently, even those of the lowest classes. I felt in my destitution as if I were the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves; but I could not hope for Priest, Levite, or good Samaritan to come by on either side, but one morning Syed bin Majid said to me, ‘Now this is the first time we have been alone together; I have no goods, but I have ivory; let me, I pray you, sell some ivory, and give the goods to you.’ This was encouraging; but I said, ‘Not yet, but by-and-bye.’ I had still a few barter goods left, which I had taken the precaution to deposit with Mohamad bin Saleh before going to Manyuema, in case of returning in extreme need.
But when my spirits were at their lowest ebb, the good Samaritan was close at hand, for one morning Susi came running at the top of his speed and gasped out, ‘An Englishman! I see him!’ and off he darted to meet him. The American flag at the head of a caravan told of the nationality of the stranger. Bales of goods, baths of tin, huge kettles, cooking pots, tents, &c., made me think ‘This must be a luxurious traveller, and not one at his wits’ end like me.’ (28th October) It was Henry Moreland [sic] Stanley, the travelling correspondent of the New York Herald, sent by James Gordon Bennett, junior, at an expense of more than 4,000l., to obtain accurate information about Dr Livingstone if living, and if dead to bring home my bones.
The news he had to tell to one who had been two full years without any tidings from Europe made my whole frame thrill. The terrible fate that had befallen France, the telegraphic cables successfully laid in the Atlantic, the election of General Grant, the death of good Lord Clarendon – my constant friend, the proof that Her majesty’s Government had not forgotten me in voting 1,000l. for supplies, and many other points of interest, revived emotions that had lain dormant in Manyuema. Appetite returned, and instead of the spare, tasteless, two meals a day, I ate four times daily, and in a week began to feel strong.
I am not of a demonstrative turn; as cold, indeed, as we islanders are usually reputed to be, but this disinterested kindness of Mr Bennett, so nobly carried into effect by Mr Stanley, was simply overwhelming. I really do feel extremely grateful, and at the same time I am a little ashamed at not being more worthy of the generosity.