The next day we arrived, at 10 A.M., after a push through terribly wild water, at a sharp bend curving eastward from N.E., distinguished by its similarity of outline on a small scale to Nsona Mamba, of the Lower Congo. Stepping on shore before we had gone far within the bend, and standing on some lava-like rock, I saw at a glance that this was the end of river navigation by canoes. The hills rose up to a bolder height, quite 600 feet, the stream was contracted to a width of twenty-five yards, and about a hundred yards above the point on which I stood, the Ihuru escaped, wild and furious, from a gorge; while the Ituri was seen descending from a height in a series of cataracts, and, 1887.
Oct. 5.
Starvation
Camp. both uniting at this point, and racing madly at the highest pitch and velocity, bellowed their uproar loudly amongst the embanking and sombre forest heights.
I sent messengers across the river to recall the caravan which was under the leadership of Stairs, and on their return recrossed the people to the south bank.
On the morning of the 6th of October our state and numbers were 271 in number, including white and black. Since then two had died of dysentery, one from debility, four had deserted, and one man was hanged. We had therefore 263 men left. Out of this number fifty-two had been reduced to skeletons, who first, attacked by ulcers, had been unable to forage, and to whom through their want of economizing what rations had been distributed, had not sufficient to maintain them during the days that intervened of total want. These losses in men left me 211 still able to march, and as among these there were forty men non-carriers, and as I had 227 loads, it followed that when I needed carriage, I had about eighty loads more than could be carried. Captain Nelson for the last two weeks had also suffered from a dozen small ulcers, which had gradually increased in virulence. On this day then, when the wild state of the river quite prohibited further progress by it, he and fifty-two men were utterly unfit and incapable of travel.
It was a difficult problem that now faced us. Captain Nelson was our comrade, whom to save we were bound to exert our best force. To the fifty-two black men we were equally bound by the most solemn obligations; and dark as was the prospect around us, we were not so far reduced but that we entertained a lively hope that we could save them. As the Manyuema had reported that their settlement was only five days' journey, and we had already travelled two days' march, then probably the village or station was still three days ahead of us. It was suggested by Captain Nelson that if we despatched intelligent couriers ahead, they would be enabled to reach Kilonga-Longa's settlement long 1887.
Oct. 6.
Starvation
Camp. before the column. As this suggestion admitted of no contradiction, and as the head men were naturally the most capable and intelligent, the chief of the head men and five others were hastened off, and instructed at once to proceed along the south bank of the river until they discovered some landing place, whence they must find means to cross the Ituri and find the settlement, and obtain an immediate store of food.
Before starting officers and men demanded to know from me whether I believed the story of Arabs being ahead. I replied that I believed most thoroughly, but that it was possible that the Manyuema had underestimated the distance to gratify or encourage us and abate our anxiety.
After informing the unfortunate cripples of our intention to proceed forward until we could find food that we might not all be lost, and send relief as quickly as it could be obtained, I consigned the fifty-two men, eighty-one loads, and ten canoes in charge of Captain Nelson—bade him be of good cheer, and hoisting our loads and boat on our shoulders, we marched away.
No more gloomy spot could have been selected for a camp than that sandy terrace, encompassed by rocks and hemmed in narrowly by those dark woods, which rose from the river's edge to the height of 600 feet, and pent in the never-ceasing uproar created by the writhing and tortured stream and the twin cataracts, that ever rivalled each other's thunder. The imagination shudders at the hapless position of those crippled men, who were doomed to remain inactive, to listen every moment to the awful sound of that irreconcilable fury of wrathful waters, and the monotonous and continuous roar of plunging rivers, to watch the leaping waves, coiling and twisting into changing columns as they ever wrestled for mastery with each other, and were dashed in white fragments of foam far apart by the ceaseless force of driven currents; to gaze at the dark, relentless woods spreading upward and around, standing perpetually fixed in dull green, mourning over past ages, past times, and past generations; then think of the 1887.
Oct. 6.
Nsona
Mamba. night, with its palpable blackness, the dead black shadows of the wooded hills, that eternal sound of fury, that ceaseless boom of the cataracts, the indefinite forms born of nervousness and fearfulness, that misery engendered by loneliness and creeping sense of abandonment; then will be understood something of the true position of these poor men.
And what of us trudging up these wooded slopes to gain the crest of the forest uplands, to tramp on and on, whither we knew not, for how long a time we dared not think, seeking for food with the double responsibility weighing us down for these trustful, brave fellows with us, and for those, no less brave and trustful, whom we had left behind at the bottom of the horrible cañon!
As I looked at the poor men struggling wearily onward it appeared to me as though a few hours only were needed to ensure our fate. One day, perhaps two days, and then life would ebb away. How their eyes searched the wild woods for the red berries of the phrynia, and the tartish, crimson, and oblong fruit of the amoma! How they rushed for the flat beans of the forest, and gloated over their treasures of fungi! In short, nothing was rejected in this severe distress to which we were reduced except leaves and wood. We passed several abandoned clearings; and some men chopped down pieces of banana stalk, then searched for wild herbs to make potage, the bastard jack fruit, or the fenessi, and other huge fruit became dear objects of interest as we straggled on.
"Return we could not, nor
Continue where we were; to shift our place
Was to exchange one misery with another.
And every day that came, came to decay
A day's work in us."