[Instead of rallying, his strength was becoming less and less; and in order to carry him, his servants made a kitanda of wood, consisting of two side-pieces of seven feet in length crossed with rails three feet long, and about four inches apart, the whole lashed strongly together. This frame-work was covered with grass, and a blanket laid on it. Slung from a pole, and born between two strong men, it made a tolerable palanquin, and on this the exhausted traveler was conveyed to the next village through a flooded grass plain. To render the kitanda more comfortable, another blanket was suspended across the pole, so as to hang down on either side, and allow the air to pass under while the sun’s rays were fended off from the sick man. The start was deferred this morning until the dew was off the heads of the long grass sufficiently to insure his being kept tolerably dry.
The excruciating pains of his dysenteric malady caused him the greatest exhaustion as they marched, and they were glad enough to reach another village in two hours and a quarter, having traveled southwest from the last point. Here another hut was built. The villagers fled at their approach; indeed the noise made by the drums sounding the alarm had been caught by the Doctor some time before, and he exclaimed with thankfulness on hearing it, “Ah, now we are near!”]
23d April.—(No entry except the date.)
[They advanced another hour and a half through the same expanse of flooded, treeless waste, passing numbers of small fish-weirs set in such a manner as to catch the fish on their way back to the Lake, but seeing nothing of the owners, who had either hidden themselves or taken to flight on the approach of the caravan. Another village afforded them a night’s shelter, but it seems not to be known by any particular name.]
24th April.—(No entry except the date.)
[But one hour’s march was accomplished to-day, and again they halted among some huts. His great prostration made progress exceedingly painful, and frequently, when it was necessary to stop the bearers of the kitanda, Chuma had to support the Doctor from falling.]
25th April.—(No entry except the date.)
[In an hour’s course southwest they arrived at a village in which they found a few people. While his servants were busy completing the hut for the night’s encampment, the Doctor, who was lying in a shady place on the kitanda, ordered them to fetch one of the villagers. The chief of the place had disappeared, but the rest of his people seemed quite at their ease, and drew near to hear what was going to be said. They were asked whether they knew of a hill on which four rivers took their rise. The spokesman answered that they had no knowledge of it; they themselves, said he, were not travelers, and all those who used to go on trading expeditions were now dead. In former years Malenga’s town, Kutchinyama, was the assembling place of the Wabisa traders, but these had been swept off by the Mazitu. Such as survived had to exist as best they could among the swamps and inundated districts around the Lake. Whenever an expedition was organized to go to the coast, or in any other direction travelers met at Malenga’s town to talk over the route to be taken; then would have been the time, said they, to get information about every part. Dr. Livingstone was here obliged to dismiss them, and explained that he was too ill to continue talking, but he begged them to bring as much food as they could for sale to Kalunganjovu’s.]
26th April.—(No entry except the date.)
[They proceeded as far as Kalunganjovu’s town, the chief himself coming to meet them on the way, dressed in Arab costume and wearing a red fez. While waiting here, Susi was instructed to count over the bags of beads, and on reporting that twelve still remained in stock, Dr. Livingstone told him to buy two large tusks if an opportunity occurred, as he might run short of goods by the time they got to Ujiji, and could then exchange them with the Arabs there for cloth, to spend on their way to Zanzibar.]