On the other side of the Dui we made a rough muster of the people, and discovered that thirty-four of the rear column had died, and that out of sixteen Zanzibaris on the sick list, fourteen were of the Yambuya party, and they all appeared to be in such a condition that a few days only would decide their fate. Every goat and fowl that we could procure were distributed to these poor people in the hope of saving them. We cooked for them; Mr. Bonny was directed to administer medicines daily; we relieved them of every article, excepting their own rations, and yet so wrecked were their systems by what they had endured at Yambuya and Banalya, that a slight abrasion from plants, branches or creepers, developed into a raging ulcer, which in three or four days would be several inches across. Nothing but the comforts and rest obtained in a metropolitan hospital would have arrested this rapid decline.
We made a short march to the small village of Andiuba, and from thence we reached in three hours the large settlement of Addiguhha. On the 4th we reached Ngwetza in four-and-a-half hours, and formed camp outside of the plantain-grove. We had passed through ten villages of the pigmies, but without having seen one of them. The woods were dense, and the undergrowth flourishing. Belts of sloughy mud, disparted by small streams, divided one village from another. It was in just such a locality our camp was pitched on the 4th of December. Presently into the centre of the camp a full uddered goat, with two fine kids four months old, walked, and after a short stare of undisguised surprise at the family, we sprang upon them and secured the undoubted gift of the gods, and sacrificed them. Half-an-hour later we were told that one of the Uchu natives attached to Mr. Bonny had received an arrow in his body, and that the dwarfs had attacked and killed a Manyuema boy. A party was sent to convey the boy’s body into the woods, where it could be buried by his friends, but in the morning the meat had been carried away.
The criers were instructed to proceed through the camp to prepare five days’ provisions of food. Their cries were heard ringing from end to end, and huge loads of material for the wooden grates were brought in, and throughout the 5th the people devoted themselves to the preparation of flour.
1888.
Dec. 5.
Ngwetza.
The next day, as we marched southerly, it was observed that we were following a gradual slope to the river Ihuru. We crossed six broad and sluggish streams, with breadths of mud coloured red by iron; banked by dense nurseries of Raphia Palm and rattan. About 3 P.M. the advance-guard stumbled upon several families of dwarfs, and a capture was made of an old woman, a girl, and a boy of eighteen, besides a stock of bananas, and some fowls. The “old” lady was as strong as a horse apparently, and to the manner of carrying a load of bananas she appeared to be quite accustomed.
The family of little people intimated that they knew the forest well, but they had a strong inclination for an E.N.E. course, which would have taken us away from Fort Bodo. They were therefore sent to the rear, and we swung along S., and by E., sometimes S.S.E., traversed six streams on the 7th, and a similar number on the 8th.
Soon after the headquarters’ tent had been pitched, and the undergrowth of leafy plants had been cleared somewhat, I observed a young fellow stagger; and going up to him I questioned him as to the cause. I was astonished to be told that it was from weakness, and want of food. Have you eaten all your five days’ rations already? No, he had thrown it away because the dwarf captives had said that in one day they would reach a famous place for plantains, the “biggest in the world.”