From the last-mentioned place he returned to Kivihara. Here he was detained a considerable time, during which he received authentic news of Livingstone from an Arab, who had met with him travelling into Manyema, and who affirmed that, having gone to a market at Liemba in three canoes, one of them, in which all his cloth had been placed, was upset and lost. The news of Farquhar’s death here reached him.
As he had expected, Mirambo advanced; and one of the leading Arabs and his adopted son, who had gone out with their slaves to meet him, the slaves having deserted, were killed.
The neighbouring village of Tabora was burned, and Kivihara itself was threatened. Stanley made preparations for defence, and, having collected a hundred and fifty armed men, bored loopholes for the muskets in the clay walls of the tembe, formed rifle-pits round it, torn down the huts, and removed everything which might afford shelter to the enemy, felt little fear for the consequences. Mirambo, however, seemed to have thought better of it, and marched away with his troops, satisfied with the plunder he had obtained.
Month after month passed away, and he had great difficulty in obtaining soldiers to supply the places of those who had been killed or died, which was the fate of several.
He one day received a present of a little slave boy from an Arab merchant, to whom, at Bombay’s suggestion, the name of Klulu, meaning a young antelope, was given.
On the 9th of September Mirambo received a severe defeat, and had to take to flight, several of his chief men being slain.
Shaw gave Stanley a great deal of trouble. Again he himself was attacked with fever, but his white companion in no degree sympathised with him, even little Klulu showing more feeling. Weak as he was, he, however, recommenced his march to the westward, with about forty men added to his old followers.
Bombay, not for the first time, proving refractory and impudent, received a thrashing before starting, and when Stanley arrived at his camp at night, he found that upwards of twenty of the men had remained behind. He, therefore, sent a strong body back, under Selim, who returned with the men and some heavy slave-chains, and Stanley declared that if any behaved in the same way again he would fasten them together and make them march like slaves. Shaw also showed an unwillingness to go forward, and kept tumbling from his donkey, either purposely or from weakness, till at last Stanley consented to allow him to return to Unyanyembe.
On the 1st of October, while he and his party lay encamped under a gigantic sycamore-tree, he began to feel a contentment and comfort to which he had long been a stranger, and he was enabled to regard his surroundings with satisfaction.
Though the sun’s rays were hot, the next day’s march was easily performed. On the roadside lay a dead man; indeed, skeletons or skulls were seen every day, one, and sometimes two, of men who had fallen down and died, deserted by their companions.