“After the terrible affair in the water this party of Tagamoio’s, who were the chief perpetrators, continued to fire on the people and burn their villages. As I write I hear the loud wails on the left bank over those who are there slain, ignorant of their many friends now in the depths of the Lualaba. Oh, let Thy kingdom come! No one will ever know the exact loss on this bright, sultry summer morning. It gave me the impression of being in hell. All the slaves in the camp rushed at the fugitives on land and plundered them; women were for hours collecting and carrying loads of what had been thrown down in terror.
“Some escaped to me and were protected. Dugumbé saved twenty-one, and of his own accord liberated them. They were brought to me and remained over night near my house. I sent men with our flag to save some, for without a flag they might have been victims, for Tagamoio’s people were shooting right and left like fiends. I counted twelve villages burning this morning. I asked the question of Dugumbé and others, ‘Now, for what is all this murder?’ All blamed Manilla as its cause, and in one sense he was the cause; but it is hardly credible that they repeat that it is in order to be avenged on Manilla for making friends with head men, he being a slave. The wish to make an impression in the country as to the importance and greatness of the new-comers was the most potent motive; but it was terrible that the murdering of so many should be contemplated at all. It made me sick at heart. Who could accompany Dugumbé and Tagamoio to Lomané and be free from blood-guiltiness?
“I proposed to Dugumbé to catch the murderers and hang them up in the market-place as our protest against the bloody deeds before the Manyuema. If, as he and others added, the massacre was committed by Manilla’s people he would have consented, but it was done by Tagamoio’s people and others of the party headed by Dugumbé.
“This slaughter was peculiarly atrocious as we have always heard that women coming to and from market have never been known to be molested. Even when two districts are engaged in actual hostilities ‘the women’ say they ‘pass among us to market unmolested,’ nor has one ever been known to be plundered by the men. These nigger Moslems are inferior to the Manyuema in justice and right. The people under Hasani began the superwickedness of capture and pillage of all indiscriminately. Dugumbé promised to send over men to order Tagamoio’s men to cease firing and burning villages. They remained over among the ruins, feasting on goats and fowls, all night, and next day continued their infamous work till twenty-seven villages were destroyed.
“I restored thirty of the rescued to their friends.... An old man called Kabolo came for his old wife. I asked her if this was her husband; she went to him and put her arms lovingly around him and said ‘Yes.’ I gave her five strings of beads to buy food, all her stores being destroyed with her house. She bowed down and put her forehead to the ground as thanks, and old Kabolo did the same; the tears stood in her eyes as she went off.
“The murderous assault on the market-people felt to me like Gehenna without the fire and brimstone; but the heat was oppressive, and the firearms pouring their iron bullets on the fugitives was not an inapt representation of burning in the bottomless pit.”
CHAPTER CLXIV.
AFRICA—Continued.
THE MANYUEMA—Concluded.
THEIR BLOOD-THIRSTY CHARACTER — BRUTAL CUSTOMS — UNTRUTHFUL BUT HONEST — FEAR OF GUNS — BAD REPUTATION — CANNIBALISM — ONLY ENEMIES EATEN — ABUNDANCE OF FOOD — WANT OF POLITICAL COHESION — NO PROGRESS — THE SAFURA — THE COUNTRY UNHEALTHY — THE SOKO — LIVINGSTONE’S GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION.
The Manyuema do not lack in industry and energy. In their villages they are orderly, courteous and kind toward each other. But if a man of another district ventures into a village, it is in peril of his life; he is not regarded as one of their tribe, and is almost sure to be killed. Those who served as guides to Livingstone would desert him as they approached a village, not daring to go near those between whom and their own people there was a bitter feud. The head men of the villages, in a strange blindness, often enlist by gifts of ivory the Arab traders to inflict punishment upon their enemies. Livingstone passed through eleven villages that had been burned, and all on account of one string of beads,—a mournful illustration of the barbarities committed.
The better he became acquainted with this people the more convinced was he of their degraded and blood-thirsty character. He noticed at one time a pretty woman, the young wife of Monasimba. Ten goats were given for her. Her friends, not satisfied, came and tried to obtain another goat. This being refused they enticed her away. She became sick and died a few days afterward, yet no one expressed one word of regret for the beautiful young creature, but all the grief was for the loss of the goats. “Oh, our ten goats! Our ten goats! Oh, oh!”