“My Lord, if the report of some fugitives from his party be true, this brave and good man has ‘crossed the threshold of the unexplored’—he has confronted the future and will never return. He was slain, so it is alleged, during a sudden and unprovoked encounter with those very Zulus of whom he says in his despatch, that they had laid waste the country round about him and had ‘swept away the food from above and in the ground.’ With an escort reduced to twenty by desertion, death and dismissals, he had traversed, as I believe, that terra incognita between the confluence of the Loende and Rovuma rivers, at Nyomano, and the eastern or northeastern littoral of Lake Nyassa; had crossed the lake at some point as yet unascertained; had reached a station named Kompoonda or Mapoonda, on its western, probably its northwestern, shore, and was pushing west or northwest, into dangerous ground, when between Marenga and Mukliosowe a band of implacable savages stopped the way, a mixed horde of Zulus, or Mafilte and Nyassa folk. The Nyassa folk were armed with bow and arrow, the Zulus with the traditional shield, broad bladed spears, and axes. With Livingstone there were nine or ten muskets; his Johanna men were resting with their loads far in the rear.
THE RECEPTION OF DR. LIVINGSTONE BY AN AFRICAN CHIEF.
“The Mafilte instantly came on to fight; there was no parley, no avoidance of the combat; they came on with a rush, with war cries and rattling on their shields their spears. As Livingstone and his party raised their pieces their onset was for a moment checked, but only for a moment. Livingstone fired and two Zulus were shot dead (his boys fired too but their fire was harmless); he was in the act of reloading when three Mafilte leaped upon him through the smoke. There was no resistance—there could be none—and one cruel axe cut from behind him put him out of life. He fell, and when he fell his terror stricken escort fled, hunted by the Mafilte. One? at least of the fugitives escaped; and he, the eye-witness, it is who tells the tale—Ali Moosa, chief of his escort of porters.
“The party had left the western shores of Nyassa about five days. They had started from Kompoonda, on the lake’s borders (they left the havildar of Sepoys there dying of dysentery; Livingstone had dismissed the other Sepoys of the Bombay Twenty-first at Mataka), and had rested at Marenga, where Livingstone was cautioned not to advance. The next station was Mahlivoora; they were traversing a flat country, broken by small hills, and abundantly wooded.
“Indeed, the scene of the tragedy so soon to be consummated would appear to have been an open forest glade. Livingstone, as usual, led the way, his nine or ten unpractised musketeers at his heels. Ali Moosa had nearly come up with them, having left his own Johanna men resting with their loads far in the rear. Suddenly he heard Livingstone warn the boys that the Ma-zitus were coming. The boys in turn beckoned Moosa to press forward. Moosa saw the crowd here and there between the trees.
“He had just gained the party and sunk down behind a tree to deliver his own fire when his leader fell. Moosa fled for his life along the path he had come. Meeting his Johanna men, who threw down their loads and in a body really passed Moosa, his escape and that of his party verges on the marvelous. However, at sunset, they, in great fear, left their forest refuge, and got back to the place where they hoped to find their baggage. It was gone, and then with increasing dread they crept to where the slain traveler lay.
AN AFRICAN SUN DANCE.
“Near him, in front, lay the grim Zulus who were killed under his sure aim; here and there lay scattered some four dead fugitives of the expedition. That one blow had killed him outright, he had no other wound but this terrible gash; it must have gone from their description, through the neck and spine up to the throat in front, and it had nearly decapitated him. Death came mercifully in its instant suddenness, for David Livingstone was ever ready.