On his arrival, Cameron determined to push on at once with Dillon and such men as were already on the spot, leaving Murphy and Moffat to follow with the rear division of the caravan. The country through which they marched consisted of 'rolling grass-land interspersed with belts of timber, and every now and then small knolls crowned with clumps of trees and shrubs;' and as they got farther from the coast small lagoons made their appearance, 'in which beautiful large blue-and-white water-lilies grew.' Before they reached the Usagara Mountains, which form the first elevation after leaving the coast, the country became 'well cultivated, and dotted with numerous hamlets peeping out of woods and bosquets.' While close to Kisémo they met with baobab-trees for the first time; gigantic representatives of the vegetable kingdom, whose smallest twigs are 'two or three inches in circumference, and their forms of the most grotesque ugliness.' Indeed the scenery of this part of Africa is as highly spoken of by Lieutenant Cameron as by former travellers; he says: 'It was so delightful that we scarcely thought of fatigue.'
After passing the Usagara range, the travellers came to 'a vast expanse of mud with two or three troublesome morasses on the western side,' known as the Makata Swamp, in crossing which an untoward incident occurred, which resulted in Dr Dillon having a severe attack of fever and dysentery, which confined him to his bed for three weeks. While Cameron was thus detained, bad news reached him from those in the rear. Both Murphy and Moffat had suffered from several attacks of fever, and the latter was very ill. This was on the 16th May; and on the 26th the party under their command arrived, but with only one of the Europeans—Moffat was dead: the first victim claimed by the insatiable African climate, and another name added to the long and noble list of those who have sacrificed their lives in the cause of exploration and the suppression of the slave-trade.
A few days after the receipt of this sad intelligence, the expedition moved forward, though Murphy was only partially recovered and the author was very lame. Their road lay through a mountainous country, in the dips and valleys among which the mparamusi tree was observed. This is one of 'the noblest specimens of arboreal beauty in the world, having a towering shaft sometimes fifteen feet in diameter and one hundred and forty feet high, with bark of a tender yellowish green, crowned by a spreading head of dark foliage.' Shortly afterwards they entered the kingdom of Ugogo, 'a dried-up country with occasional huge masses of granite, and the stiff Euphorbia clinging to their sides.' The inhabitants of this district were reputed to be a brave and warlike race; but Lieutenant Cameron found them 'the veriest cowards and poltroons it is possible to conceive.' They are easily distinguished from other tribes by the custom of piercing their ears and enlarging the lobes to an enormous size; 'in fact the ear of a Mgogo answers much the same purpose as a pocket to people indulging in wearing apparel.' At this time, as during the whole journey, much trouble was experienced from the idleness of the men, who were also 'constantly grumbling and growling;' and there is no doubt, as Cameron afterwards discovered for himself, that they were treated with too much consideration, and as is almost invariably the case, took advantage of their master's kindness.
In the centre of Ugogo is a broad depression known as Kanyenyé, ruled over by a chief named Magomba, who is mentioned by Burton in 1857, and is said by the natives to be over three hundred years of age and to be cutting his fourth set of teeth. Lieutenant Cameron believes this ancient chieftain to be in truth 'considerably over a century,' as his grandchildren were gray and grizzled; and it is an undoubted fact that the natives of Africa under favourable conditions attain to an extremely old age. The price of provisions in this district was enormous; 'eggs, milk, and butter were more expensive than in England;' the natural result of the continual passage of caravans and the few wants of the natives, who having no use for money, decline to part with their food except at exorbitant rates, as soon as their modest requirements in the shape of cloth and beads are temporarily satisfied.
Unyanyembé, the first stage of the journey, was at length reached; and the expedition was very kindly received by the principal Arabs, though their stay there was destined to be a far from pleasant one. Within two days of their arrival the author was attacked by fever, quickly followed by Dillon and Murphy, which never left them again for many hours during their stay there. About this time Dillon wrote home in the following terms: 'On or about (none of us know the date correctly) August 13, Cameron felt seedy. I never felt better; ditto Murphy. In the evening we felt seedy. I felt determined not to be sick. "I will eat dinner; I'll not go to bed." Murphy was between the blankets already. I did manage some dinner; but shakes enough to bring an ordinary house down came on, and I had to turn in. For the next four or five days our diet was water or milk. Not a soul to look after us. The servants knew not what to do. We got up when we liked and walked out. We knew that we felt giddy; that our legs would scarcely support us. I used to pay a visit to Cameron, and he used to come in to me to make complaints. One day he said: "The fellows have regularly blocked me in—I have no room to stir. The worst of it is one of the legs of the grand piano is always on my head, and people are strumming away all day. It's all drawing-room furniture that they have blocked me in with."' It seems marvellous that expeditions can be successfully carried through such a country as this, where all the Europeans composing them are liable to be simultaneously delirious from fever, and have to trust to Providence and their constitutions to get well again, there not being a soul to look after them. It is indeed most painful to read the narration of the continual sufferings of these brave men; fever, dysentery, and blindness in continuous succession, and through it all the work had to be and was carried on. At last the news of the sad death of Africa's greatest traveller reached them, and altered all their plans. The author and Dillon determined to press on for the west coast viâ Ujiji; while Murphy, considering the work of the expedition at an end, decided to return coastwards. Dillon, however, was unable to carry out his determination, owing to being attacked a few days later by inflammation of the bowels, which rendered his return to the coast the only course which gave any hope of recovery; and consequently he accompanied Murphy, while Lieutenant Cameron pursued his journey alone.
At this time the author says of himself: 'I was nearly blind from ophthalmia, and almost unable to walk from the pain in my back; while fever, which was still hanging about me, had reduced me to a skeleton, my weight being only seven stone four.' Yet he determined to persevere. A few days after his start a messenger arrived with the dreadful news that Dr Dillon had shot himself on November 18, while delirious from fever; and how severely this intelligence was felt by the survivor may be imagined from his describing the day on which he received it as the saddest in his life. The exigences of his own position, however, at that moment were so great as to demand his whole attention; porters could hardly be obtained, and it was only by leaving twelve loads behind, and reducing his personal kit to a minimum, that further progress was rendered possible. The country travelled through 'was perfectly charming, the trees delicately green and fresh, the open grassy glades enamelled with various wild-flowers.' Indeed he says that it would have required no great stretch of imagination to fancy one's self 'in the wooded part of an English park,' had it not been for an occasional lion or elephant's skull which bestrewed the ground. The Sindi was crossed on February 2, on a mass of floating vegetation, similar to that which our readers may remember offered so many obstructions to Sir Samuel Baker's advance up the Nile; and about a fortnight later the expedition came in sight of the great Lake Tanganyika.
The author was hospitably received by the Arabs at Kawélé, where he remained a few days, while procuring boats in which to cruise round the southern coast of the lake. This occupied about two months; and the reader will find much interesting information in the portion of the book devoted to it. By the end of May, the journey was again resumed, Nyangwé being now the immediate goal, from where Cameron hoped to reach the mouth of the Congo by descending the Lualaba in boats. Here the Mpafu tree was observed for the first time, from the fruit of which scented oil is obtained. It is a magnificent tree, often thirty feet or more in circumference, and rising to eighty or a hundred feet before spreading and forming a head, the branches of which are immense. India-rubber vines were also very common, their stems being the thickness of a man's thigh. Indeed 'sufficient india-rubber to supply the wants of the whole world' could easily be collected there. On this march, as indeed throughout the whole journey, we hear much about the slave-trade and its fearful results. The inhabitants constantly came into camp with slaves for sale, who were gagged by having 'a piece of wood like a snaffle tied into their mouths.' Heavy slave-forks were placed round their necks, and their hands were fastened behind their backs. 'They were then attached by a cord to the vendor's waist.'
On arrival at Nyangwé, a station of the Zanzibar traders on the banks of the Lualaba, and situated at the lowest point in the great depression which exists across Central Africa, he found the natives so unwilling to part with their canoes that he was forced to forego his plan of descending that river by water; and having met with a half-caste Arab named Tipo-tipo, who had a settlement towards the south-west, he decided to accompany him and attempt to reach Lake San korra, a large sheet of water into which he was told the Lualaba ran overland. His hopes in this direction were, however, also dashed to the ground by the answer of the chief whose territory it would be necessary to traverse, that 'no strangers with guns had ever passed through his country, and none should without fighting their way.' He therefore decided to go to the capital of Urua, a kingdom about a month's journey to the S.S.W., where some Portuguese were reported to be, and if possible work his way from there towards the mysterious lake.
For some days they journeyed through a 'fairly populated country, with large villages of well-built and clean huts, disposed in long streets, with bark-cloth trees planted on each side;' and a friendly intercourse was kept up with the natives, until one day Cameron was 'unpleasantly surprised' by having some arrows fired at his party while they were passing through a narrow strip of jungle. This culminated a day or two afterwards in a regular attack from a large body of natives, who were, however, easily beaten off. In this affair Cameron acted with the very greatest forbearance; a forbearance which was probably interpreted by the natives to mean fear, as they continued to harass him for some days. The reason given for the attack was that a Portuguese caravan had been destroying villages in the neighbourhood, murdering the men, and carrying off the women and children as slaves. It may be here noted that Lieutenant Cameron speaks in the very strongest terms of the conduct of the Portuguese, and says that 'the cruelties perpetrated in the heart of Africa by men calling themselves Christians, and carrying the Portuguese flag, can scarcely be credited by those living in a civilised land;' indeed it is not going too far to assert that the fearful state of anarchy and misery into which Central Africa is plunged is chiefly if not entirely owing to the behaviour and example of the Portuguese—the late protest to the contrary of the Chamber of Deputies at Lisbon notwithstanding—as well in their settlements on either coast as in the interior.
The capital of Kasongo, king of Urua, was reached without further accident; and here we are introduced to two personages, representing the extreme type of their respective classes. Jumah Merikani, an Arab with a dash of the negro, was a very estimable specimen of his race, being 'the kindest and most hospitable' of the many Arab traders met with, of whom, as a body, Cameron speaks in favourable terms; the other, José Antonio Alvez, a half-caste Portuguese, though spoken of by the natives as a white man, proved himself, by his treatment of the English traveller, to be a hypocritical liar, thief, and ruffian, even beyond the ordinary measure of his class; and it is disheartening, after all that has been done, to think the name of European must necessarily become synonymous in the native mind with that of unmitigated blackguard and slave-dealer, so long as it is represented by such as Alvez. Kasongo, the Urua king, himself as debauched a ruffian as could well be imagined, willingly assisted Alvez and his crew in their murdering and plundering expeditions, while he placed every obstacle in the way of Cameron's explorations, and detained him to all intents and purposes a prisoner at his capital. He was, however, permitted to visit a lake in the neighbourhood, which contained three detached villages, built on piles, and only approachable by canoes; but as Kasongo would give him no help in trying to reach the Congo, nothing remained but to make the best of his way to the west coast, as already his stores and goods had so greatly diminished, chiefly through theft and robbery on the part of his own servants, many of whom were the off-scourings of Zanzibar, that it was doubtful whether they would prove sufficient even for that distance.