“The next day we travelled over a plain which had a gradual uplift towards the northwest, and was covered with dense, low brush. Our path was ill-defined, as only small Wagogo caravans traveled to Urimi; but the guide assured us that he knew the road. In this dense brush there was not one large tree. It formed a vast carpet of scrub and brush, tall enough to permit us to force our way among the lower branches, which were so interwoven one with another that it sickens me almost to write of this day’s experience. Though our march was but ten miles, it occupied us as many hours of labor, elbowing and thrusting our way, to the injury of our bodies and the detriment of our clothing.
“We camped at 5 P. M. near another pool, at an altitude of 4350 feet above the sea. The next day, on the afternoon of the 8th, we should have reached Urimi, and, in order to be certain of doing so, marched fourteen miles to still another pool at a height of 4550 feet above sea-level. Yet still we saw no limit to this immense brushfield, and our labors had, this day, been increased tenfold. Our guide had lost the path early in the day, and was innocently leading us in an easterly direction!
“The responsibility of leading a half-starved expedition—as ours now certainly was—through a dense brush, without knowing whither or for how many days, was great; but I was compelled to undertake it rather than to see it wander eastward, where it would be hopeless to expect provisions. The greater number of our people had consumed their rations early in the morning. I had led it northward for hours, when we came to a large tree to the top of which I requested the guide to ascend, to try if he could recognize any familiar feature in the dreary landscape. After a short examination, he declared he saw a ridge that he knew, near which, he said, was situate the village of Uveriveri. This news stimulated our exertions, and myself leading the van, we travelled briskly until 5 P. M., when we arrived at the third pool.
“Meantime Barker and the two Pococks, assisted by twenty chiefs, were bringing up the rear, and we never suspected for a moment that the broad track which we trampled over grass and through brush would be unperceived by those in rear of us. The Europeans and chiefs, assisted by the reports of heavily-loaded muskets, were enabled to reach camp successfully at 7 P. M.; but the chiefs then reported that there had not arrived a party of four men and a donkey boy who was leading an ass loaded with coffee. Of these, however there was no fear, as they had detailed the chief Simba to oversee them—Simba having a reputation among his fellows for fidelity, courage, and knowledge of travel.
“The night passed, and the morning of the 9th dawned, and anxiously I asked about the absentees. They had not arrived. But as each hour in the jungle added to the distress of a still greater number of people, we moved on to the miserable village of Uveriveri. The inhabitants consisted of only two families, who could not spare us one grain! We might as well have remained in the jungle, for no sustenance could be procured here.
“In this critical position, many lives hanging on my decision, I resolved to despatch forty of the strongest men—ten chiefs and thirty of the boldest youths—to Suna in Urimi, for the villagers of Uveriveri had of course given us the desired information as to our whereabouts. The distance from Uveriveri to Suna was twenty-eight miles, as we subsequently discovered. Pinched with hunger themselves, the forty volunteers advanced with the resolution to reach Suna that night. They were instructed to purchase 800 pounds of grain, which would give a light load of twenty pounds to each man, and urged to return as quickly as possible, for the lives of their women and friends depended on their manliness.
“Manwa Sera was also despatched with a party of twenty to hunt up the missing men. Late in the afternoon they returned with the news that three of the missing men were dead. They had lost the road, and, traveling along an elephant track, had struggled on till they perished of despair, hunger, and exhaustion. Simba and the donkey boy, the ass and its load of coffee, were never seen or heard of again.
“With the sad prospect of starvation impending over us we were at various expedients to sustain life until the food purveyors should return. Early on the morning of the 10th I travelled far and searched every likely place for game; but though tracks were numerous, we failed to sight a single head. The Wangwana also roamed about the forest—for the Uveriveri ridge was covered with fine myombo trees—in search of edible roots and berries, and examined various trees to discover whether they afforded anything that could allay the grievous and bitter pangs of hunger. Some found a putrid elephant, on which they gorged themselves, and were punished with nausea and sickness. Others found a lion’s den, with two lion’s whelps, which they brought to me. Meanwhile, Frank and I examined the medical stores, and found to our great joy we had sufficient oatmeal to give every soul two cupfuls of thin gruel. A ‘Torquay dress trunk’ of sheet-iron was at once emptied of its contents and filled with twenty-five gallons of water, into which were put ten pounds of oatmeal and four one-pound tins of ‘revalenta arabica.’ How the people, middle-aged and young gathered round that trunk, and heaped fuel underneath that it might boil the quicker! How eagerly they watched it lest some calamity should happen, and clamored, when it was ready, for their share. And how inexpressibly satisfied they seemed as they tried to make the most of what they received, and with what fervor they thanked ‘God’ for his mercies!”
On the 12th of January, Stanley reached Suna, where he halted four days. Owing to the deplorable condition of his people, but through the evident restlessness of the Warimi tribe at their presence, the insufficient quantity of food that could be purchased, and the growing importunings of the Wangwana to be led away from such a churlish and suspicious people, Stanley was sorely perplexed. He had now over thirty men on the sick list, and among them Edward Pocock, one of the young Englishmen, and who subsequently died. Owing to the sickness of temper from which the Warimi suffered, it became imperative that he should keep moving, if only two or three miles a day. Accordingly, on the 17th of January, he moved from his camp, the sick being carried in hammocks. Hundreds of the natives, fully armed, kept up with the caravan, on either side of its path.
“Never since leaving the sea were we weaker in spirit than on this day,” says Stanley. “Had we been attacked, I doubt if we should have made much resistance. The famine in Ugogo, and that terribly protracted trial of strength through the jungle of Uveriveri, had utterly unmanned us.”... “We are an unspeakably miserable and disheartened band; yet, urged by our destiny, we struggled on, though languidly. Our spirits seemed dying, or resolving themselves into weights which oppressed our hearts. Weary, harassed, and feeble creatures, we arrived at Chiwyu, four hundred miles from the sea, and camped near the crest of a hill, which was marked by aneroid as 5400 feet above the level of the ocean.”