"It was one continuous jungle, except three interjacent glades of narrow limits, which gave us three breathing pauses in the dire task of jungle-traveling. The odor emitted from its fell plants was so rank, so pungently acrid, and the miasma from its decayed vegetation so dense, that I expected every moment to see myself and men fall down in paroxysms of acute fever. Happily this evil was not added to that of loading and unloading the frequently falling packs. Seven soldiers to attend seventeen laden donkeys, were entirely too small a number while passing through a jungle; for while the path is but a foot wide, with a wall of thorny plants and creepers bristling on each side, and projecting branches darting across it, with knots of spiky twigs, stiff as spike-nails, ready to catch and hold anything above four feet in height, it is but reasonable to suppose that donkeys, standing four feet high, with loads measuring across, from bale to bale, four feet, would come to grief.
"This grief was of frequent recurrence here, causing us to pause every few minutes for re-arrangements. So often had this task to be performed, that the men got perfectly discouraged, and had to be spoken to sharply before they would set to work. By the time I reached Msuwa, there was nobody with me and the ten donkeys I drove but Mabruk, who perseveringly, though generally stolid, stood to his work like a man. Bombay and Uledi were far behind with the most jaded donkeys. Shaw was in charge of the cart, and his experiences were most bitter, as he informed me he had expended the whole vocabulary of stormy abuse known to sailors, and a new one which he had invented ex tempore. He did not arrive until two o'clock next morning, and was completely worn out. Truly, I doubt if the most pious divine, in traveling through that long jungle, under those circumstances, with such oft-recurring annoyances, Sisyphean labor, could have avoided cursing his folly for coming hither."
A halt was made here, that men and animals might recuperate. The chief of this village was "a white man in everything but color," and brought him the choicest mutton. He and his subjects were intelligent enough to comprehend the utility of his breech-loading guns, and by their gestures illustrated their comprehension of the deadly effects of those weapons in battle.
On the 10th, somewhat recuperated, the caravan left this hospitable village and crossed a beautiful little plain, with a few cultivated fields, from which the tillers stared in wonder at the unwonted spectacle it presented. But here Stanley met one of those sights common in that part of the world, but which, it is to be hoped, will soon be seen no more. It was a chained slave-gang, bound east. He says the slaves did not appear to be in the least down-hearted, on the contrary, they were jolly and gay. But for the chains, there was no difference between master and slave. The chains were heavy, but as men and women had nothing else to carry, being entirely naked, their weight, he says, could not have been insupportable.
He camped at 10 A. M., and fired two guns, to show they were ready to trade with any of the natives in the region. The halting-place was Kisemo, only twelve miles from Msuwa which was the centre of a populous district, there being no less than five villages in the vicinity fortified by stakes and thorny abattis, as formidable, in their way, as the old fosse and draw-bridge of feudal times. "The belles of Kisemo," he says, "are of gigantic posterioral proportions," and are "noted for their variety in brass wire, which is wound in spiral rings round their wrists and ankles, and for the varieties of style which their wisped heads exhibit; while their poor lords, obliged to be contented with dingy, torn clouts and split ears, show what wide sway Asmodeus holds over this terrestrial sphere—for it must have been an unhappy time when the hard besieged husbands gave way before their hotly-pressing spouses. Besides these brassy ornaments on their extremities, the women of Kisemo frequently wear lengthy necklaces, which run in rivers of colors down their black bodies." But a more comical picture is seldom presented than that of one of those highly-dressed females, "with their huge posterior development, while grinding out corn. This is done in a machine very much like an old-fashioned churn, except the dasher becomes a pestle and the churn a mortar. Swaying with the pestle, as it rises and falls, the breast and posteriors correspond to the strokes of the dasher in a droll sort of sing-song, which gave to the whole exhibition the drollest effect imaginable."
A curious superstition of the natives was brought to light here by Shaw removing a stone while putting up his tent. As he did so, the chief rushed forward, and putting it back in its place, solemnly stood upon it. On being asked what was the matter, he carefully lifted it, pointed to an insect pinned by a stick to the ground, which he said had been the cause of a miscarriage of a female of the village.
In the afternoon the messengers came back with the deserter and all the stolen goods. Some of the natives had captured him and were about to kill him and take the goods, when the messengers came up and claimed both. He was given up, his captors being content with receiving a little cloth and a few beads in return. Stanley, with great sagacity, caused the thief to be tried by the other carriers, who condemned him to be flogged. They were ordered to carry out their own sentence, which they did amid the yells of the culprit.
Before night a caravan arrived, bringing, among other things, a copy of the Herald, containing an account of a Presidential levee in Washington, in which the toilette of the various ladies were given. While engrossed in reading in his tent, Stanley suddenly became aware that his tent-door was darkened, and looking up, he saw the chief's daughters gazing with wondering eyes on the great sheets of paper he was scanning so closely. The sight of these naked beauties, glittering in brass wire and beads, presented a ludicrous contrast to the elaborately-dressed belles of whom he had been reading in the paper, and made him feel, by contrast, in what a different world he was living.
On the 12th, the caravan reached Munondi, on the Ungerangeri River. The country was open and beautiful, presenting a natural park, while the roads were good, making the day's journey delightful. Flowers decked the ground, and the perfume of sweet-smelling shrubs filled the air. As they approached the river, they came upon fields of Indian corn and gardens filled with vegetables, while stately trees lined the bank. On the 14th, they crossed the river and entered the Wakami territory. This day and the next the road lay through a charming country. The day following, they marched through a forest between two mountains rising on either side of them, and on the 16th reached the territory of Wosigahha. As he approached the village of Muhalleh he was greeted with the discharge of musketry. It came from the fourth caravan, which had halted here. Here also good news awaited him. An Arab chief, with a caravan bound east, was in the place, and told him that he had met Livingstone at Ujiji, and had lived in the next hut to him for two weeks. He described him as looking old, with long, gray mustache and beard, just recovered from illness, and looking very wan. He said, moreover, that he was fully recovered, and was going to visit a country called Monyima. This was cheering news, indeed, and filled Stanley's heart with joy and hope. The valley here, with its rich crops of Indian corn, was more like some parts of the fertile west than a desert country. But the character of the natives began to change. They became more insolent and brutal, and accompanied their requests with threats.
Continuing their journey along the valley of the river, they suddenly, to their astonishment, came upon a walled town containing a thousand houses. It rose before them like an apparition with its gates and towers of stone and double row of loop-holes for musketry. The fame of Stanley had preceded him, being carried by the caravans he had dispatched ahead, and a thousand or more of the inhabitants came out to see him. This fortified town was established by an adventurer famous for his kidnapping propensities. A barbaric orator, a man of powerful strength and of cunning address, he naturally acquired an ascendency over the rude tribes of the region, and built him a capital, and fortified it and became a self-appointed sultan. Growing old, he changed his name, which had been a terror to the surrounding tribes, and also the name of his capital, and just before death, bequeathed his power to his eldest daughter, and in her honor named the town Sultana, which name it still bears. The women and children hung on the rear of Stanley's caravan, filled with strange curiosity at sight of this first white man they had ever seen, but the scorching sun drove them back one by one, and when Stanley pitched his camp, four miles farther on, he was unattended. He determined to halt here for two days to overhaul his baggage and give the donkeys, whose backs had become sore, time to recuperate. On the second day, he was attacked with the African fever, similar to the chills and fever of the west and southwest. He at once applied the remedies used in the Western States, using powerful doses of quinine, and in three days he pronounced himself well again.