"How I have been punished for having left you, my loved companion! for having preferred the novelty and excitement of distant travel to the calm joy of our dear fireside; for having dared to let my love of science outweigh my love for you! You deem me at this moment dead, and are weeping for me. You may, indeed, weep for me; I live still, but I am so weak, so utterly destitute of resources, and so disheartened, that I shall not go much farther; you may wear mourning for me; it is only a little premature.
"But I will not die without having said good-bye to you. I will tear this page out of my note-book, I will fasten it to the partition of my hut, and I will try to impress upon the unfortunate invalid who inhabits it, the only being who, in this country, has shown me one grain of pity, that this piece of paper is a fetish able to protect him. He will never tear it down, and some day, perhaps, other travellers, following the same route that I have done, will find these lines and take them back to my country.
"What has happened to me?—If my enfeebled memory would only come back to my assistance! Let me try.
"I made a great mistake in allowing Degberra's soldiers to enter the territory of the Domondoos. I very soon succeeded, as I had always intended to do, in getting rid of my compromising escort, and in alarming them to such a degree that they were glad to make the best of their way to their own country. But the Domondoos had recognised their mortal enemies in the midst of my caravan, the men who, every year, plunder them, kill them, and carry them away into captivity. I and my people were destined to bear their vengeance on the Monbuttoos.
"Day after day they attacked us, harassed us with their arrows, and killed some of my men. Then we fell into an ambush, and, in spite of our determined resistance, we were overwhelmed by numbers. They seized upon everything I possessed, baggage, provisions, and arms; my ammunition they could not take, for it was exhausted, and for a long time we had been fighting with side-arms. With ten rifles I could have routed the whole tribe!
"Instead of vanquishing them, I am become their slave, the slave of a tribe of wild beasts! The Monbuttoos are right in stigmatising them with the degrading title, the Momvoos. The Monbuttoos! They are the refinement of civilisation compared with this tribe. The wretches have but one merit; they are not cannibals. On this side of Africa, cannibalism appears to cease on their frontier. But if they do not eat their prisoners, they make them suffer horribly, and I almost think they would display more humanity if they did eat them!
"One day, worn out by privation and fatigue, tortured in mind and body, broken down and utterly overcome, I fell in one of the streets of the village, and I did not get up again.
"What happened then I know not, and never shall know. They, no doubt, thought I was dead; I must have been thrown aside in some corner, where, later on, I was picked up and brought here. What was the nature of my illness? Sunstroke, I imagine, or malignant typhoid fever. Who looked after me? Nobody—I only remember a negro, a poor invalid, the sole inhabitant of the hut, dragging himself occasionally to my side, and putting to my lips a gourd filled with a beverage of his own brewing. How came an angel of mercy into this Domondoo hell? I owe him my life, and T cannot show him my gratitude. May God reward him; may He watch over the awakening of this benighted soul, and bring it to the full knowledge of Himself!
"Afterwards, long afterwards, I was able to open my eyes, and look around me; I felt that I still lived, and that was all—I could neither move, speak, nor think.
"By degrees my strength came back to me, and my host gave me now and then a banana or a little flour mixed with water. My weakness diminished, and I was once more becoming master of myself. In about ten days from this time I was able to walk about the hut, but my saviour made me understand that I must not cross the threshold. His countrymen thought me dead, and, thanks to this mistake, I might be able to escape during the night.