“Near Lomani the Bakuss or Bakoons cultivate coffee, and drink it highly scented with vanilla. Food of all kinds is extremely abundant and cheap. The men smelt iron from the black oxide ore, and are very good smiths; they also smelt copper from the ore and make large ornaments very cheaply. They are generally fine, tall, strapping fellows, far superior to the Zanzibar slaves, and nothing of the West Coast negro, from whom our ideas of Africans are chiefly derived, appears among them; no prognathous jaws, barndoor mouth, nor lark heels are seen. Their defects arise from absolute ignorance of all the world.
“There is not a single great chief in all Manyema. No matter what name the different divisions of people bear—Manyema, Balegga, Babire, Bazire, Bokoos—there is no political cohesion; not one king or kingdom. Each head man is independent of every other. The people are industrious, and most of them cultivate the soil largely. We found them every where very honest. When detained at Bambarre we had to send our goats and fowls to the Manyema villages to prevent them being all stolen by the Zanzibar slaves.
“Manyema land is the only country in Central Africa I have seen where cotton is not cultivated, spun, and woven. The clothing is that known in Madagascar as ‘lambas’ or grass cloth, made from the leaves of the ‘Muale’ palm.”
This despatch, it will be observed, is about a year later than the one to Lord Stanley, in which the statement occurs that the fact as to whether the Manyema were man-eaters was “not proven,” though the explorer observed that they ate the gorilla, of which beast Dr. Livingstone evidently has a rather favorable opinion, as respects his disposition, and as surely holds his gross stupidity as clearly demonstrated. In the development of instinct, there appear to be several animals in Africa approaching nearer the capacity of reflection than the gorilla.
The next despatch is to Earl Granville, and is dated at Ujiji, November, 1871. It is almost wholly official, and relates in a clear and most forcible manner, the insurmountable difficulties by reason of which he had been forced to cease explorations at a time when a little longer work would most probably have been crowned with complete success. It is in this despatch that Dr. Livingstone relates the particulars of the horrid massacre at Nyanme, the fearful outlines of which have appeared in Mr. Stanley’s letter already quoted. On his return to Ujiji, Dr. Livingstone narrowly escaped death three times in a single day from the savages, who would not be persuaded that he did not belong to “the traders” guilty of the massacre.
The despatch to Dr. Kirk, Consul at Zanzibar, is of interest, as showing how the explorer had been annoyed, pained, and his plans frustrated by the inefficiency of those charged with sending him supplies from Zanzibar. In view of the dispute that has arisen upon this subject among certain representatives of public opinion in the United States and England, it may be well to show whether Dr. Livingstone himself thought he had been well or ill treated. In a postscript to this communication, he says, with evident reluctance and evident feeling:
“P. S.—November 16, 1871.—I regret the necessity of bringing the foregoing very unpleasant subject before you, but I have just received letters and information which make the matter doubly serious. Mr. Churchill informed me by a letter of September 19, 1870, that Her Majesty’s government had most kindly sent £1,000 for supplies, to be forwarded to me. Some difficulties had occurred to prevent £500 worth from starting, but in the beginning of November all were removed. But it appears that you had recourse to slaves again, and one of these slaves informs me that goods and slaves all remained at Bagamoio four months, or till near the end of February, 1871. No one looked near them during that time, but a rumor reached them that the Consul was coming, and off they started, two days before your arrival, not on their business, but on some private trip of your own. These slaves came to Unyanyembe in May last, and there they lay till war broke out and gave them, in July, a good excuse to lie there still.
“A whole year has thus been spent in feasting slaves on £500 sent by government to me. Like the man who was tempted to despair when he broke the photograph of his wife, I feel inclined to relinquish hope of ever getting help from Zanzibar to finish the little work I have still to do. I wanted men, not slaves, and free men are abundant at Zanzibar; but if the matter is committed to Ludha instead of an energetic Arab, with some little superintendence by your dragoman or others, I may wait twenty years and your slaves feast and fail.
D. L.
“I will just add that the second batch of slaves had, like the first, two freemen as the leaders, and one died of smallpox. The freemen in the first party of slaves were Shereef and Awathe. I enclose also a shameless overcharge in Ludha’s bill. $364 061⁄2.—D. L.”