At 8 A.M. we start, freely distributing our farewells as the Arabs and quidnuncs wave their hands. On the part of one or two of them there was an attempt to say something sentimental and affecting, especially by the convicted sinner Mohammed bin Sali; but though outwardly I manifested no disapprobation of his words, or of the emphatic way in which he shook my hand, I was not sorry to see the last of him, after his treachery to Livingstone in 1869. I was earnestly requested to convey to Unyanyembe "Mengi salaams" to everybody, but had I done so, as he evidently desired me to do, I would not have been surprised at being regarded by all as hopelessly imbecile.
We pushed off from the clayey bank at the foot of the market-place, while the land party, unencumbered with luggage, under the leadership of gigantic Asmani and Bombay, commenced their journey southward along the shores of the lake. We had arranged to meet them at the mouth of every river to transport them across from bank to bank.
The Doctor being in Sayd bin Majid's boat, which was a third or so shorter than the one under my command, took the lead, with the British flag, held aloft by a bamboo, streaming behind like a crimson meteor. My boat-manned by Wajiji sailors, whom we had engaged to take the canoes back from Tongwe Cape to Ujiji Bunder—came astern, and had a much taller flagstaff, on which was hoisted the ever-beautiful Stars and Stripes. Its extreme height drew from the Doctor—whose patriotism and loyalty had been excited—the remark that he would cut down the tallest palmyra for his flagstaff, as it was not fitting that the British flag should be so much lower than that of the United States.
Our soldiers were not a whit behind us in lightheartedness at the thought of going to Unyanyembe. They struck up the exhilarating song of the Zanzibar boatmen, with the ecstatic chorus—
Kinan de re re Kitunga,
rowing away like madmen, until they were compelled to rest from sheer exhaustion, while the perspiration exuded from the pores of their bodies in streams. When refreshed, they bent back to their oars, raising the song of the Mrima—
O mama, re de mi Ky,
which soon impelled them to an extravagant effort again, It was by this series of ferocious spurts, racing, shouting, singing, perspiring, laughing, groaning, and puffing, that our people vented their joyous feelings, as the thought filled their minds that we were homeward bound, and that by the route I had adopted between us and Unyanyembe there was not the least danger.
We have given the Waha, the slip! ha, ha!
The Wavinza will trouble us no more! ho! ho!
Mionvu can get no more cloth from us! by,by!
And Kiala will see us no more—-never more! he, he!
they shouted with wild bursts of laughter, seconded by tremendous and rapid strokes with their oars, which caused the stiff old canoes to quiver from stem to stern.