KILONGA LONGA'S STATION.
We descended the slope of the clearing to a little valley, and from all sides of an opposite slope were seen lines of men and women issuing to welcome us with friendly hails. We looked to the right and left and saw thriving fields, Indian corn, rice, sweet potatoes and beans. The well-known sounds of Arab greeting and hospitable tenders of friendship burst upon our ears; and our hands were soon clasped by lusty huge fellows, who seemed to enjoy life in the wilds as much as they could have enjoyed it in their own lands. These came principally from Manyuema, though their no less stout slaves, armed with percussion muskets and carbine, echoed heartily their superiors' sentiments and professions.
We were conducted up the sloping clearing through fields of luxuriant grain, by troops of men and 1887.
Oct. 17.
Ipoto. youngsters who were irrepressibly frolicsome in their joy at the new arrivals and dawning promise of a holiday. On arrival at the village we were invited to take our seats in deep shady verandahs where we soon had to answer to hosts of questions and congratulations. As the caravan filed past us to its allotted quarters which men were appointed to show, numerous were the praises to God, uttered by them for our marvellous escapes from the terrible wilderness that stretched from their settlement of Ipoto to the Basopo Cataract, a distance of 197 miles, praises in which in our inmost hearts each one of our sorely tried caravan most heartily joined.
CHAPTER X.
WITH THE MANYUEMA AT IPOTO.
The ivory hunters at Ipoto—Their mode of proceeding—The Manyuema headmen and their raids—Remedy for preventing wholesale devastations—Crusade preached by Cardinal Lavigerie—Our Zanzibar chiefs—Anxiety respecting Captain Nelson and his followers—Our men sell their weapons for food—Theft of Rifles—Their return demanded—Uledi turns up with news of the missing chiefs—Contract drawn up with the Manyuema headmen for the relief of Captain Nelson—Jephson's report on his journey—Reports of Captain Nelson and Surgeon Parke—The process of blood brotherhood between myself and Ismaili—We leave Ipoto.
1887.
Oct. 18.
Ipoto. This community of ivory hunters established at Ipoto had arrived, five months previous to our coming, from the banks of the Lualaba, from a point situated between the exits of the Lowwa and the Leopold into the great river. The journey had occupied them seven-and-a-half months, and they had seen neither grass nor open country, nor even heard of them during their wanderings. They had halted a month at Kinnena on the Lindi, and had built a station-house for their Chief Kilonga-Longa, who, when he had joined them with the main body, sent on about 200 guns and 200 slave carriers to strike further in a north-easterly direction, to discover some other prosperous settlement far in advance of him, whence they could sally out in bands to destroy, burn and enslave natives in exchange for ivory. Through continual fighting, and the carelessness which the unbalanced mind is so apt to fall into after one or more happy successes, they had decreased in number within seven-and-a-half months into a force of about ninety guns. On reaching the Lenda River they had heard of the settlements of Ugarrowwa, and sheered 1887.
Oct. 18.
Ipoto. off the limits of his raiding circle to obtain a centre of their own, and, crossing the Lenda, they succeeded in reaching the south bank of the Ituri, about south of their present settlement at Ipoto.
As the natives would not assist them over the river to the north bank, they cut down a big tree and with axe and fire hollowed it into a sizeable canoe which conveyed them across to the north bank to Ipoto. Since that date they had launched out on one of the most sanguinary and destructive careers to which even Tippu-Tib's or Tagamoyo's career offer but poor comparison. Towards the Lenda and Ihuru Rivers, they had levelled into black ashes every settlement, their rage for destruction had even been vented on the plantain groves, every canoe on the rivers had been split into pieces, every island had been searched, and into the darkest recesses, whither a slight track could be traced, they had penetrated with only one dominating passion, which was to kill as many of the men and capture as many of the women and children as craft and cruelty would enable them. However far northward or eastward these people had reached, one said nine days' march, another fifteen days; or wherever they had gone they had done precisely as we had seen between the Lenda River and Ipoto, and reduced the forest land into a howling wilderness, and throughout all the immense area had left scarcely a hut standing.
What these destroyers had left of groves and plantations of plantain and bananas, manioc, and corn-fields, the elephant, chimpanzee, and monkeys had trampled and crushed into decaying and putrid muck, and in their places had sprung up, with the swiftness of mushrooms, whole hosts of large-leafed plants native to the soil, briars, calamus and bush, which the natives had in times past suppressed with their knives, axes and hoes. With each season the bush grew more robust and taller, and a few seasons only were wanted to cover all traces of former habitation and labour.