My Kalulu, Prince, King and Slave: A Story of Central Africa

by Henry M. Stanley

“Don’t start, Selim, and don’t curse me when I tell you that I have the jederi (the small-pox).”

“The small-pox! What makes thee think that?” Selim asked.

“I have seen it often enough, and have seen the men die on the road from it, and I fear I shall die too,” said Isa, mournfully.

The next morning Isa was very much worse, and it was obvious to every one that the boy had it very badly, but he was not permitted to halt or to be carried. Slaves are not carried: there are no means of carrying sick slaves in Africa, and so he was driven along with the rest; but about ten o’clock, after four hours’ march, as they were approaching a forest, the sick lad became delirious, and he began to reel like a drunken man, and after a short time the load fell from his head, and as Tifum came up raging furiously at this weakness, Isa fell across his bale with his eyes half protruding from their sockets, and his tongue hanging out. But Tifum had no sense of kindness in his heart; so he began to flog the unfortunate wretch with all the force that an unnatural cruelty alone could have impelled, until Selim, unable longer to bear the disgusting sight, hurled the load he carried on his head full at the head of the savage ruffian, and while he was down he snatched the whip from his hand, and began to belabour him with all his might until he was overthrown himself on the ground by the infuriated Tifum, and belaboured in his turn until Tifum was obliged to desist lest he might kill him.

Gutting the rope which joined the prostrate bodies of the boys, the one insensible from violence, the other from a deadly sickness, he called for a gourdful of water, and pouring it on Selim’s head; soon restored him to consciousness. Then the refined cruelty of the slave-traders, and the utter abomination of the inhuman traffic, began to be exhibited. Trembling with rage and merciless hate, he called for the long, heavy, wooden yoke, which, furnished with two prongs a little apart from each other, is used for the most refractory slaves. When green, this yoke-tree weighs about thirty pounds, but dry it generally weighs about twenty pounds. One of these tree-yokes had been prepared but a few days before, so that it could not be much reduced in weight from what it weighed originally. This was the clumsy, heavy instrument of torture with which Tifum designed to encumber Selim’s body.

After the neck of the half-unconscious lad was placed between the prongs, the ends of the prongs were drawn together by means of a strong cord, so that the head remained firmly imprisoned, while the huge unwieldly tree of the yoke sloped behind him about ten feet off from his shoulders.

In order to avoid employing a guard to carry the tree, the end was lifted up and tied to Abdullah’s shoulders and arm.

When things had thus been prepared for the continuance of the march Tifum proceeded to the dying Isa, and seeing it was hopeless to expect further work from him, as the look of death was already on his face, the savage fiend bestowed a kick on the body, and swishing his kurbash warningly, gave the hint to Selim, who was now the file-leader, to proceed. In a short time the caravan was out of sight, while the unfortunate Isa was left in the middle of the road to gasp his last, unseen, unwept, and unhonoured.

On the twentieth day of the march it was found that little Mussoud was attacked with the small-pox. Numbers of the slaves had already perished from this fell disease; for as fast as they fell from the ranks and could not rise again, despite repeated applications of the staff of a spear, or a rod, or a kurbash, they were left to die the miserable death of deserted sick where they fell, and not one thought was ever directed to them again.

Thus when Mussoud became sick, the alarm of his brother Abdullah and his friend Selim was extreme. They requested permission to share the burden of his load by having it tied to the yoke-tree with which Selim’s neck was still furnished, but the slight request was refused, and when the latter’s eyes again flashed a dangerous light, Tifum, who saw that he had a stubborn soul to deal with, replied with another dose of vigorous lashing on the boy’s shoulders until they were one mass of weals and bruises.