"I have four youthful Mercuries, of ebon color, attending me, who, on the march, carry my personal weapons of defense. I do not need so many persons to wait on me, but such is their pleasure. They find their reward in the liberal leavings of the table. If I have a goat killed for European men, half of it suffices for two days for us. When it becomes slightly tainted, my Mercuries will beg for it, and devour it at a single sitting. Just outside of the door of my hut are about two dozen of my men sitting, squatted in a circle and stringing beads. A necklace of beads is each man's daily sum wherewith to buy food. I have now a little over one hundred and sixty men. Imagine one hundred and sixty necklaces given each day for the last three months—in the aggregate the sum amounts to fourteen thousand necklaces—in a year to fifty-eight thousand four hundred. A necklace of ordinary beads is cheap enough in the States, but the expense of carriage makes a necklace here equal to about twenty-five cents in value. For a necklace I can buy a chicken, or a peck of sweet potatoes, or half a peck of grain.
"I left the coast with about forty thousand yards of cloth, which, in the States, would be worth about twelve and a half cents a yard, or altogether about five thousand dollars—the expense of portage, as far as this lake, makes each yard worth about fifty cents. Two yards of cloth will purchase a goat or sheep; thirty will purchase an ox; fifteen yards are enough to purchase rations for the entire caravan."
Why these naked savages put such a high value on cloth, none of these African explorers informs us. We can understand why they should like beads, brass wire, shells and trinkets of all sorts. They certainly use very little cloth on their persons.
He adds: "These are a few of the particulars of our domestic affairs. The expedition is divided into eight squads of twenty men each, with an experienced man over each squad. They are all armed with Snider's percussion-lock muskets. A dozen or so of the most faithful have a brace of revolvers in addition to other arms."
He then goes on to speak of the battles he has fought, and it is but just to him to give his feelings as he describes them in confidential private correspondence, on being compelled to kill the savages. He says: "As God is my judge, I would prefer paying tribute, and making these savages friends rather than enemies. But some of these people are cursed with such delirious ferocity that we are compelled to defend ourselves. They attack in such numbers and so sudden, that our repeating rifles and Sniders have to be handled with such nervous rapidity as will force them back before we are forced to death; for if we allow them to come within forty yards, their spears are as fatal as bullets; their spears make fearful wounds, while their contemptible-looking arrows are as deadly weapons. * * * Since I left Zanzibar, I have traveled seven hundred and twenty miles by land and a thousand miles by water. This is a good six months' work."
CHAPTER XVIII. EXPLORATIONS OF LAKE TANGANIKA.
It was with strange feelings that Stanley caught from the last ridge the sparkling waters of Tanganika. Sweet associations were awakened at the sight, as he remembered with what a thrilling heart he first saw it gleam in the landscape. Then it was the end of a long, wasting and perilous journey—the goal of his ambition, the realization of his fondest hopes; for on its shores he believed the object for which he had toiled so long was resting. No more welcome sight ever dawned on mortal eye than its waters as they spread away on the horizon; and though he should see it a hundred times, it will never appear to him like any other sheet of water. He has formed for it an attachment that will last forever; and whenever in imagination it rises before him, it will appear like the face of a friend.
As he now descended to Ujiji, it was with sensations as though he were once more entering civilized life, for there was something almost homelike about this Arab colony. People dressed in civilized garments were moving about the streets, cattle were coming down to the lake to drink, and domestic animals scattered here and there made quite a homelike scene.