1887.
Oct. 30.
Busindi. The following day we halted, during which the Manyuema guides took particular care to show our people that they should have no doubt of their contempt for them. They would not allow them to trade with the natives for fear some desirable article would be lost to themselves, they also vociferated at them loudly if they were seen proceeding to the clearing to cut plantains. As I told them, they did not advance in their favour in the least by abandoning the whites, and turning a deaf ear to our adjurations to be manly and faithful. A word, or even a defiant look, was visited with a sharp cut on the naked body with a rattan from slave boys of the six Manyuema guides with us. What awful oaths of vengeance were uttered for all these indignities they suffered!
On the 31st we came across the first village of Dwarfs, and, during the day, across several empty settlements belonging to them. We marched nine miles in five and a quarter hours, and camped in a dwarf's village in the woods.
Stealing continued steadily. On examining the pouches, there was one cartridge out of three pouches. The cartridges were lost, of course! Hilallah, a boy of sixteen, deserted back to Ipoto with my cartridge pouch, and thirty cartridges in it. A man who carried my satchel ran away with seventy-five Winchester cartridges.
The next day we entered the extensive clearing and large settlement of Mambungu's or Nebassé.
Khamis, the chief of the guides, left Ipoto on the 31st, and arrived at this place with seven men, according to agreement with Ismaili, my Manyuema brother.
The track which we followed has enabled us to increase our rate of progress per hour. Along the river bank, by dint of continued work, and devoting seven, eight, nine hours—sometimes ten hours—we could travel from 3 to 7 miles. We were now enabled to make 1½ to 1-3/4, and even 2 miles per hour; but the pace was still retarded by roots, stumps, climbers, 1887.
Nov. 1.
Mambungu's. llianes, convolvuli, skewers, and a multitude of streams, and green-scummed sinks. We could rarely proceed a clear hundred yards without being ordered to halt by the pioneers.
Each day towards evening the clouds gathered, the thunder reverberated with awful sounds through the echoing forest; lightning darted hither and thither, daily severing some tree-top, or splitting a mighty patriarch from crown to base, or blasting some stately and kingly tree; and the rain fell with a drowning plenty which chilled and depressed us greatly in our poor blooded and anæmic state. But during the march, Providence was gracious; the sun shone, and streamed in million beams of soft light through the woods, which brightened our feelings, and caused the aisles and corridors of the woods to be of Divine beauty, converted the graceful thin tree-shafts into marbly-grey pillars, and the dew and rain-drops into sparkling brilliants; cheered the invisible birds to pour out, with spirit, their varied repertory of songs; inspired parrot flocks to vent gleeful screams and whistlings; roused hosts of monkeys to exert their wildest antics; while now and then some deep, bass roar in far-away recesses indicated a family of soko or chimpanzees enjoying some savage sport.
The road from Mambungu's, eastward, was full of torments, fears, and anxieties. Never were such a series of clearings as those around Mambungu, and the neighbouring settlement of Njalis. The trees were of the largest size, and timber enough had been cut to build a navy; and these lay, in all imaginable confusion, tree upon tree, log above log, branches rising in hills above hills; and amongst all this wild ruin of woods grew in profusion upon profusion bananas, plantains, vines, parasites; ivy-like plants, palms, calamus, convolvuli, etc., through which the poor column had to burrow, struggle, and sweat, while creeping, crawling, and climbing, in, through, and over obstacles and entanglements that baffle description.
On the 4th November we were 13-3/4 miles from 1887.
Nov. 4.
Ndugubisha. Mambungu's in the settlement of Ndugubisha, having passed, in the interval, through five deserted forest villages of pigmies.On this day I came near smiling—for I fancied I observed the dawn of happier days foretold by Uledi. Each member of the caravan received one ear of corn, and 15 plantains as rations.