Read Ebook: The Boy Travellers on the Congo Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey with Henry M. Stanley Through the Dark Continent by Knox Thomas Wallace Stanley Henry M Henry Morton

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Ebook has 762 lines and 110480 words, and 16 pages

Not silently; on the contrary, there is a loud interchange of comments upon the white's appearance; a manifestation of broad interest to know whence I come, whither I am going, and what is my business. And no sooner are the questions asked than they are replied to by such as pretend to know. The replies were followed by long-drawn ejaculations of 'Wa-a-a-antu!' 'Eha-a, and these are men!'

"Now imagine this! While we whites are loftily disputing among ourselves as to whether the beings before us are human, here were these creatures actually expressing strong doubts as to whether we whites are men!

"A dead silence prevailed for a short time, during which all the females dropped their lower jaws far down, and then cried out again 'Wa-a-a-a-a-antu!' The lower jaws, indeed, dropped so low that, when, in a posture of reflection, they put their hands up to their chins, it really looked as if they had done so to lift the jaws up to their proper place and to sustain them there. And in that position they pondered upon the fact that there were men 'white all over' in this queer, queer world!

"The open mouths gave one a chance to note the healthy state and ruby color of the tongues, palates, and gums, and, above all, the admirable order and brilliant whiteness of each set of teeth.

"'Great events from trivial causes spring'--and while I was trying to calculate how many Kubaba of millet-seed would be requisite to fill all these hutch-oven mouths, and how many cowries would be required to pay for such a large quantity of millet, and wondering at the antics of the juveniles of the population, whose uncontainable, irrepressible wonder seemed to find its natural expression in hopping on one leg, thrusting their right thumbs into their mouths to repress the rising scream, and slapping their thighs to express or give emphasis to what was speechless--while thus engaged, and just thinking it was time to depart, it happened that one of the youthful innocents already described, more restless than his brothers, stumbled across a long, heavy pole which was leaning insecurely against one of the trees. The pole fell, striking one of my men severely on the head. And all at once there went up from the women a genuine and unaffected cry of pity, and their faces expressed so lively a sense of tender sympathy with the wounded man, that my heart, keener than my eyes, saw, through the disguise of filth, nakedness, and ochre, the human heart beating for another's suffering, and I then recognized and hailed them as indeed my own poor and degraded sisters.

"Under the new light which had dawned on me, I reflected that I had done some wrong to my dusky relatives, and that they might have been described less harshly, and introduced to the world with less disdain.

"Before I quitted the village they made me still more regret my former haughty feelings, for the chief and his subjects loaded my men with bounties of bananas, chickens, Indian corn, and malafu , and escorted me respectfully far beyond the precincts of the village and their fields, parting from me at last with the assurance that, should I ever happen to return by their country, they would endeavor to make my second visit to Uhombo much more agreeable than my first had been.

"On the 5th of October our march from Uhombo brought us to the frontier village of Manyema, which is called Riba-Riba. It is noteworthy as the starting-point of another order of African architecture. The conical style of hut is exchanged for the square hut with more gradually-sloping roof, wattled, and sometimes neatly plastered with mud; especially those in Manyema. Here, too, the thin-bodied and long-limbed goat, to which we had been accustomed, gave place to the short-legged, large bodied, and capacious-uddered variety of Manyema. The gray parrots with crimson tails here also first began to abound, and the hoarse growl of the fierce and shy 'soko' was first heard.

"As we increase the distance from the Tanganika we find the land disposed in graceful lines and curves; ridges heave up, separating valley from valley, hills lift their heads in the midst of the basins and mountain-ranges, at greater distances apart, bound wide prospects, wherein the lesser hill-chains, albeit of dignified proportions, appear but as agreeable diversities of scenery.

"Over the whole, Nature has flung a robe of verdure of the most fervid tints. She has bidden the mountains loose their streamlets, has commanded the hills and ridges to bloom, filled the valleys with vegetation breathing perfume; for the rocks she has woven garlands of creepers, and the stems of trees she has draped with moss; and sterility she has banished from her domain.

"Yet Nature has not produced a soft, velvety, smiling England in the midst of Africa. Far from it. She is here too robust and prolific. Her grasses are coarse, and wound like knives and needles; her reeds are tough and tall as bamboos; her creepers and convolvuli are of cable thickness and length; her thorns are books of steel; her trees shoot up to a height of a hundred feet. We find no pleasure in straying in search of wild-flowers, and game is left undisturbed, because of the difficulty of moving about, for, once the path is left, we find ourselves over head among thick, tough, unyielding, lacerating grass.

"At Manyema the beauty of Nature becomes terrible, and in the expression of her powers she is awful. The language of Swahili has words to paint her in every mood. English, rich as it is, is found insufficient. In the former we have the word Pori for a forest, an ordinary thickly-wooded tract; but for the forests of Manyema it has four special words--Mohuro, Mwitu, Mtambani, and Msitu. For Mohuro we might employ the words jungly forest; for Mwitu, dense woods; but for Msitu and Mtambani we have no single equivalent, nor could we express their full meaning without a series of epithets ending with 'tangled jungle' or 'impervious underwood, in the midst of a dense forest'--for such is in reality the nature of a Manyema Msitu.

"I am of opinion that Manyema owes its fertility to the mountains west of the Tanganika, which by their altitude suddenly cool and liquefy the vapors driven over their tops by the southeast monsoon; for while Uguha west was robed in green, its lake front was black with the ashes of burned grass.

"We left Riba-Riba's old chief, and his numerous progeny of boys and girls, and his wonderful subjects, encamped on their mountain-top, and journeyed on with rapid pace through tall forests, and along the crests of wooded ridges, down into the depths of gloomy dingles, and up again to daylight into view of sweeping circles of bearded ridges and solemn woods, to Ka-Bambarr?.

"Even though this place had no other associations, it would be attractive and alluring for its innocent wildness; but, associated as it is with Livingstone's sufferings, and that self-sacrificing life he led here, I needed only to hear from Mwana Ngoy, son of Mwana Kusu, 'Yes, this is the place where the old white man stopped for many moons,' to make up my mind to halt.

"'Ah! he lived here, did he?'

"'Yes.'

"'Did you know the old white man? Was he your father?'

"'He was not my father; but I knew him well.'

"'Eh, do you hear that?' he asked his people. 'He says he knew him. Was he not a good man?'

"'Yes; very good.'

"'You say well. He was good to me, and he saved me from the Arabs many a time. The Arabs are hard men, and often he would step between them and me when they were hard on me. He was a good man, and my children were fond of him. I hear he is dead?'

"'Yes, he is dead.'

"'Where has he gone to?'

"'Above, my friend,' said I, pointing to the sky.

"'Ah,' said he, breathlessly, and looking up, 'did he come from above?'

"'No; but good men like him go above when they die.'

"We had many conversations about him. The sons showed me the house he had lived in for a long time, when prevented from further wandering by the ulcers in his feet. In the village his memory is cherished, and will be cherished forever.

"It was strange what a sudden improvement in the physiognomy of the native had occurred. In the district of Uhombo we had seen a truly debased negro type. Here we saw people of the Ethiopic negro type, worthy to rank next the more refined Waganda. Mwana Ngoy himself was nothing very remarkable. Age had deprived him of his good looks; but there were about him some exceedingly pretty women, with winsome ways about them that were quite charming.

"Mwana Ngoy, I suppose, is one of the vainest of vain men. I fancy I can see him now, strutting about his village with his sceptral staff, an amplitude of grass-cloth about him, which, when measured, gives exactly twenty-four square yards, drawn in double folds about his waist, all tags, tassels, and fringes, and painted in various colors, bronze and black and white and yellow, and on his head a plumy head-dress.

"What charms lurk in feathers! From the grand British dowager down to Mwana Ngoy of Ka-Bambarr?, all admit the fascination of feathers, whether plucked from ostriches or barn-door fowl.

"Mwana Ngoy's plumes were the tribute of the village chanticleers, and his vanity was so excited at the rustle of his feathered crest that he protruded his stomach to such a distance that his head was many degrees from the perpendicular.

"On the 10th of October we arrived at Kizambala, presided over by another chief called Mwana Ngoy, a relative of him of Ka-Bambarr?.

"Up to this date we had seen some twenty villages, and probably four thousand natives, of Manyema, and may therefore be permitted some generalizations.

"The Manyema, then, have several noteworthy peculiarities. Their arms are a short sword scabbarded with wood, to which are hung small brass and iron bells, a light, beautifully balanced spear--probably, next to the spear of Uganda, the most perfect in the world. Their shields were veritable wooden doors. Their dress consisted of a narrow apron of antelope-skin, or finely-made grass-cloth. They wore knobs, cones, and patches of mud attached to their beards, back hair, and behind the ears. Old Mwana Ngoy had rolled his beard in a ball of dark mud; his children wore their hair in braids, with mud fringes. His drummer had a great crescent-shaped patch of mud at the back of the head. At Kizambala the natives had horns and cones of mud on the tops of their heads. Others, more ambitious, covered the entire head with a crown of mud.

"The women, blessed with an abundance of hair, manufactured it with a stiffening of light cane into a bonnet-shaped head-dress, allowing the back hair to flow down to the waist in masses of ringlets. They seemed to do all the work of life, for at all hours they might be seen, with their large wicker baskets behind them, setting out for the rivers or creeks to catch fish, or returning with their fuel baskets strapped on across their foreheads.

"Their villages consist of one or more broad streets, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet wide, flanked by low, square huts, arranged in tolerably straight lines, and generally situated on swells of land, to secure rapid drainage. At the end of one of these streets is the council and gossip house, overlooking the length of the avenue. In the centre is a platform of tamped clay, with a heavy tree-trunk sunk into it, and in the wood have been scooped out a number of troughs, so that several women may pound grain at once. It is a substitute for the village mill.

"The houses are separated into two or more apartments, and on account of the compact nature of the clay and tamped floor are easily kept clean. The roofs are slimy with the reek of smoke, as though they had been painted with coal-tar. The household chattels or furniture are limited to food-baskets, earthenware pots, an assortment of wickerwork dishes, the family shields, spears, knives, swords, and tools, and the fish-baskets lying outside.

"They are tolerably hospitable, and permit strangers the free use of their dwellings. The bananas and plantains are very luxuriant, while the Guinea palms supply the people with oil and wine; the forests give them fuel, the rivers fish, and the gardens cassava, ground-nuts, and Indian corn.

"The chiefs enact strict laws, and, though possessed of but little actual power either of wealth or retinue, exact the utmost deference, and are exceedingly ceremonious, being always followed by a drummer, who taps his drum with masterly skill born of long and continued practice.

"On the 11th we crossed the Luama River--a stream two hundred yards wide and eight feet deep in the centre at the ferry--called the Rugumba in Ubujw?. Below the ford, as far as the Lualaba, its current is from three to six knots an hour, and about five feet deep, flowing over a shaly bed.

"On the western side of the Luama the women at once fled upon the approach of our caravan--a certain sign that there had been trouble between them and Arabs.

"My predecessors, Livingstone and Cameron, had, after crossing the stream, proceeded west, but I preferred to follow the Luama to its junction with the Lualaba, and thence to Nyangw?.

"The Luama valley is about twenty miles wide, furrowed with many water-courses; the soil is poor, abounding with yellow quartz, but resting upon soft shale. The ridges are formed of dykes of granite, which peep out frequently in large masses from among the foliage of trees.

"The people appeared to be very timid, but behaved amiably. Over fifty followed us, and carried loads most willingly. Three volunteered to follow us wherever we should go, but we declined their offer.

"Our riding-donkeys were the first ever seen in Manyema, and effected a striking demonstration in our favor. They obtained more admiration than even we Europeans. Hundreds of natives ran up to us at each village in the greatest excitement to behold the strange, long-eared animals, and followed us long distances from their homes to observe the donkeys' motions.

"One donkey, known by the name of Muscati, a high-spirited animal from Arabia, possessed braying powers which almost equalled the roar of a lion in volume, and really appeared to enjoy immensely the admiration he excited. His asinine soul took great delight in braying at the unsophisticated Africans of the trans-Luama, for his bray sent them flying in all directions. Scores of times during a day's march we were asked the name of the beast, and, having learned it, they were never tired of talking about the 'Mpunda.'

"One must not rashly impute all the blame to the Arabs and Wa-Swahili of the Zanzibar coast for their excesses in Manyema, for the natives are also in a way to blame. Just as the Saxon and Dane and Jute, invited by the Britons, became their masters, so the Arabs, invited by the Manyema to assist them against one another, have become their tyrants.

"Bribes were offered to us three times by Manyema chiefs to assist them in destroying their neighbors, to whom they are of near kin, and with whom they have almost daily intimate relations. Our refusal of ivory and slaves appeared to surprise the chiefs, and they expressed the opinion that we white men were not as good as the Arabs, for--though it was true we did not rob them of their wives and daughters, enslave their sons, or despoil them of a single article--the Arabs would have assisted them.

"One really does not know whether to pity or to despise the natives of Manyema. Many are amiable enough to deserve good and kind treatment, but others are hardly human. They fly to the woods upon the approach of strangers, leaving their granaries of Indian corn, erected like screens across the streets, or just outside the villages, in tempting view of hungry people. If the strangers follow them into the woods to persuade them to return and sell food, the purpose of the visit is mistaken, and they are assailed from behind depths of bush and tall trees. They are humble and liberal to the strong-armed Arab, savage and murderous and cannibalistic to small bands, and every slain man provides a banquet of meat for the forest-natives of Manyema. Livingstone's uniform gentle treatment of all classes deserved a better return than to have his life attempted four times. His patience finally exhausted, and his life in danger, he gave the order to his men, 'Fire upon them, these men are wicked.'

These granaries consist of tall poles--like telegraph poles--planted at a distance of about ten feet from each other, to which are attached about a dozen lines of lliane, or creepers, at intervals, from top to bottom. On these several lines are suspended the maize, point downwards, by the shucks of the cob. Their appearance suggests lofty screens built up of corn.

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