The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death | Page 3

MANYUEMA HUNTERS KILLING SOKOS 5.
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG SOKO 6. A DANGEROUS PRIZE 7.
FACSIMILE OF A PORTION OF DR. LIVINGSTONE'S JOURNAL
8. THE MASSACRE OF THE MANYUEMA WOMEN AT
NYANGWE 9. THE MANYUEMA AMBUSH 10. "THE MAIN
STREAM CAME UP TO SUSI'S MOUTH" 11. THE LAST MILES
OF DR. LIVINGSTONE'S TRAVELS 12. FISH EAGLE ON
HIPPOPOTAMUS TRAP 13. THE LAST ENTRY IN DR.
LIVINGSTONE'S JOURNALS 14. TEMPORARY VILLAGE IN

WHICH DR. LIVINGSTONE'S BODY WAS PREPARED
Smaller Illustrations.
1. LINES OF GREEN SCUM ON LAKE TANGANYIKA 2. MODE
OF CATCHING ANTS 3. DR. LIVINGSTONE'S MOSQUITO
CURTAIN 4. MATIPA AND HIS WIFE 5. AN OLD SERVANT
DESTROYED 6. KAWENDÉ SURGERY
MAP OF CONJECTURAL GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL AFRICA,
FROM DR. LIVINGSTONE'S NOTES
CHAPTER I.
Bad beginning of the new year. Dangerous illness. Kindness of Arabs.
Complete helplessness. Arrive at Tanganyika. The Doctor is conveyed
in canoes. Kasanga Islet. Cochin-China fowls. Beaches Ujiji. Receives
some stores. Plundering hands. Slow recovery. Writes despatches.
Refusal of Arabs to take letters. Thani bin Suellim. A den of slavers.
Puzzling current in Lake Tanganyika. Letters sent off at last.
Contemplates visiting the Manyuema. Arab depredations. Starts for
new explorations in Manyuema, 12th July, 1869. Voyage on the Lake.
Kabogo East. Crosses Tanganyika. Evil effects of last illness. Elephant
hunter's superstition. Dugumbé. The Lualaba reaches the Manyuema.
Sons of Moenékuss. Sokos first heard of. Manyuema customs. Illness.
[The new year opened badly enough, and from letters he wrote
subsequently concerning the illness which now attacked him, we gather
that it left evils behind, from which he never quite recovered. The
following entries were made after he regained sufficient strength, but
we see how short they necessarily were, and what labour it was to make
the jottings which relate to his progress towards the western shore of
Lake Tanganyika. He was not able at any time during this seizure to
continue the minute maps of the country in his pocket-books, which for
the first time fail here.]
_1st January, 1869._--I have been wet times without number, but the
wetting of yesterday was once too often: I felt very ill, but fearing that

the Lofuko might flood, I resolved to cross it. Cold up to the waist,
which made me worse, but I went on for 2-1/2 hours E.
_3rd January, 1869._--I marched one hour, but found I was too ill to go
further. Moving is always good in fever; now I had a pain in the chest,
and rust of iron sputa: my lungs, my strongest part, were thus affected.
We crossed a rill and built sheds, but I lost count of the days of the
week and month after this. Very ill all over.
_About 7th January, 1869._--Cannot walk: Pneumonia of right lung,
and I cough all day and all night: sputa rust of iron and bloody:
distressing weakness. Ideas flow through the mind with great rapidity
and vividness, in groups of twos and threes: if I look at any piece of
wood, the bark seems covered over with figures and faces of men, and
they remain, though I look away and turn to the same spot again. I saw
myself lying dead in the way to Ujiji, and all the letters I expected there
useless. When I think of my children and friends, the lines ring through
my head perpetually:
"I shall look into your faces, And listen to what you say, And be often
very near you When you think I'm far away."
Mohamad Bogharib came up, and I have got a cupper, who cupped my
chest.
_8th and 9th January, 1869._--Mohamad Bogharib offered to carry me.
I am so weak I can scarcely speak. We are in Marungu proper now--a
pretty but steeply-undulating country. This is the first time in my life I
have been carried in illness, but I cannot raise myself to the sitting
posture. No food except a little gruel. Great distress in coughing all
night long; feet swelled and sore. I am carried four hours each day on a
kitanda or frame, like a cot; carried eight hours one day. Then sleep in a
deep ravine. Next day six hours, over volcanic tufa; very rough. We
seem near the brim of Tanganyika. Sixteen days of illness. May be 23rd
of January; it is 5th of lunar month. Country very undulating; it is
perpetually up and down. Soil red, and rich knolls of every size and
form. Trees few. Erythrinas abound; so do elephants. Carried eight
hours yesterday to a chief's village. Small sharp thorns hurt the men's

feet, and so does the roughness of the ground. Though there is so much
slope, water does not run quickly off Marungu. A compact
mountain-range flanks the undulating country through which we passed,
and may stop the water flowing. Mohamad Bogharib is very kind to me