Turning westward, broad daylight showed them a beautiful and picturesque country, with wild fruit-trees, rare flowers, and brooks tumbling over polished pebbles.
Crossing a streamlet, to their great satisfaction they left Uhha and its extortionate inhabitants behind, and entered Ukaranga.
Their appearance created great alarm as they approached the village, the king and his people supposing them to be Rugruga, the followers of Mirambo, but, discovering their mistake, they welcomed them cordially.
On the 10th of November, just two hundred and thirty-six days after leaving Bagomoyo, and fifty-one since they set out from Unyanyembe, surmounting a hill, Tanganyika is seen before them. Six hours' march will bring them to its shores.
On they push, the air fresh and cool--a glorious morning. The "stars and stripes" float out in the breeze; repeated volleys are fired. The village is reached. The faithful Chumah and Susi, Dr Livingstone's old followers, rush out to see who the stranger is, and in a short time Stanley is rewarded for all the dangers and hardships he has gone through by meeting the long-looked-for traveller face to face.
His own book must give the description of the meeting; it is not the least graphic portion of his deeply interesting work.
At the time, when reduced almost to death's door by sickness and disappointment, the assistance thus brought to Dr Livingstone was of inestimable worth. What might have been his fate had he not been relieved, it is impossible to say. The society of his new friend, the letters from home, the well-cooked meal which the doctor was able to enjoy, and the champagne quaffed out of silver goblets, and brought carefully those hundreds of miles for that especial object, had a wonderfully exhilarating influence.
Some days were spent at Ujiji, during which the doctor continued to regain health and strength. Future plans were discussed, and his previous adventures described. The longer the intercourse Stanley enjoyed with Livingstone, the more he rose in his estimation.
He formed, indeed, a high estimate of his character, though, he fully believed, a just one.
"Dr Livingstone," he says, "is about sixty years old. His hair has a brownish colour, but here and there streaked with grey lines over the temples. His beard and moustache are very grey. His eyes, which are hazel, are remarkably bright: he has a sight keen as a hawk's. His frame is a little over the ordinary height; when walking, he has a firm but heavy tread, like that of an over-worked or fatigued man. I never observed any spleen or misanthropy about him. He has a fund of quiet humour, which he exhibits at all times when he is among friends. During the four months I was with him I noticed him every evening making most careful notes. His maps evince great care and industry. He is sensitive on the point of being doubted or criticised. His gentleness never forsakes him, his hopefulness never deserts him; no harassing anxiety or distraction of mind, though separated from home and kindred, can make him complain. He thinks all will come out right at last, he has such faith in the goodness of Providence. Another thing which especially attracted my attention was his wonderfully retentive memory.
His religion is not of the theoretical kind, but it is constant, earnest, sincere, practical; it is neither demonstrative nor loud, but manifests itself in a quiet, practical way, and is always at work. In him religion exhibits its loveliest features; it governs his conduct not only towards his servants, but towards the natives. I observed that universal respect was paid to him; even the Mahommedans never passed his house without calling to pay their compliments, and to say: 'The blessing of God rest on you!' Every Sunday morning he gathers his little flock around him, and reads prayers and a chapter from the Bible in a natural, unaffected, and sincere tone, and afterwards delivers a short address in the Kisawahili language, about the subject read to them, which is listened to with evident interest and attention.
"His consistent energy is native to him and his race. He is a very fine example of the perseverance, doggedness, and tenacity which characterises the Anglo-Saxon spirit. His ability to withstand the climate is due not only to the happy constitution with which he was born, but to the strictly temperate life he has ever led.
"It is a principle with him to do well what he undertakes to do, and, in the consciousness that he is doing it, despite the yearning for his home, which is sometimes overpowering, he finds to a certain extent contentment, if not happiness.
"He can be charmed with the primitive simplicity of Ethiopia's dusky children, with whom he has spent so many years of his life. He has a sturdy faith in their capability--sees virtue in them, where others see nothing but savagery; and wherever he has gone among them, he has sought to ameliorate the condition of a people who are apparently forgotten of God and Christian men."
In another place Stanley says: "Livingstone followed the dictates of duty. Never was such a willing slave to that abstract virtue. His inclinations impel him home, the fascinations of which it requires the sternest resolution to resist. With every foot of new ground he travelled over he forged a chain of sympathy which should hereafter bind the Christian nations in bonds of love and charity to the heathen of the African tropics. If he were able to complete this chain of love by actual discovery, and, by a description of them, to embody such people and nations as still live in darkness, so as to attract the good and charitable of his own land to bestir themselves for their redemption and salvation, this Livingstone would consider an ample reward.
"Surely, as the sun shines on both Christian and infidel, civilised and pagan, the day of enlightenment will come; and though the apostle of Africa may not behold it himself, nor we younger men, nor yet our children, the hereafter will see it, and posterity will recognise the daring pioneer of its civilisation."
Yes, and Stanley might have added: with his enlarged and far-seeing mind, this it is what encourages Livingstone to persevere in his task to do what he knows no other man can do as well. It might be far pleasanter to tell crowded congregations at home about the wrongs of the sons and daughters of Africa, but, with the spirit of a true apostle, he remains among those whose wrongs it is the ardent desire of his soul to right, that he may win their love and confidence, and open up the way by which others may with greater ease continue the task he has commenced.
After they had been some weeks together at Ujiji, Stanley and Livingstone agreed to make a voyage on Lake Tanganyika, one of the chief objects of which was to settle the long mooted point as to whether the Rusizi river is an effluent or an influent. They embarked in a somewhat cranky canoe, hollowed-out of a mvule-tree, which carried sixteen rowers, Selim, Ferajji, the cook, and two guides, besides themselves.
The lake was calm, its waters of a dark green colour, reflecting the serene blue sky above. The hippopotami came up to breathe in close proximity to the canoe, and then plunged down again, as if playing at hide and seek with them.
At one place where they sounded, the depth was found to be thirty-five fathoms near the shore, and further out a hundred and fifteen fathoms of line was let down without finding bottom, and the doctor stated that he had sounded opposite the lofty Kabogo, and attained the depth of three hundred fathoms.
A range of hills, beautifully wooded and clothed with green grass, sloping abruptly--almost precipitately--into the depth of the fresh-water, towered above them, and as they rounded the several capes or points, high expectations of some new wonder or some exquisite picture being revealed to them were aroused: nor were they disappointed.
However, we must not venture to attempt a description of the magnificent scenery of this enormous lake. Each night they landed and encamped, continuing their voyage the next day.
Generally they were well received by the natives, though they had to avoid one or two spots where the people were said to be treacherous and quarrelsome.
On reaching the mouth of the Rusizi, they pushed up it a short distance, but were stopped by its shallowness, it not being navigable for anything but the smallest canoes. It, however, abounds in crocodiles, though not one hippopotamus was seen.
The most important point, however, which they discovered was that the current was flowing, at the rate of six to eight miles an hour, into the lake. Still the doctor asserted that there must be an outlet somewhere to the Tanganyika, from the fact which he adduced that all fresh-water lakes have outlets.
Coasting round the north shore, they paddled down the west coast till nearly opposite the island of Muzimu, when they crossed back to the shore from whence they had come, and steered southward beyond Ujiji till they reached nearly the sixth degree of latitude, at a place called Urimba.
Their voyage, altogether, took twenty-eight days, during which time they traversed over three hundred miles of water.
On their return to Ujiji, they resolved to carry out one of the several plans which Stanley had suggested to Livingstone. One of them was to return to Unyanyembe to enlist men to sail down the Victoria Nyanza in Stanley's boats, for the purpose of meeting Sir Samuel Baker; but this, with several others, was dismissed. Livingstone's heart was set on endeavouring to settle numerous important points in Manyema connected with the supposed source of the Nile. He, therefore, finally agreed to allow Stanley to escort him to Unyanyembe, where he could receive his own goods and those which Stanley proposed to deliver up to him, and where he could rest in a comfortable house, while his friend would hurry down to the coast, and organise a new expedition, composed of fifty or sixty men, well-armed, by whom an additional supply of needful luxuries might be sent.
Christmas Day was kept with such a feast as Ujiji could furnish them, the fever from which Stanley had lately been suffering having left him the night before.
On the 27th of December they embarked in two canoes, the one bearing the flag of England, the other that of America; and their luggage being on board, and having bidden farewell to Arabs and natives, together they commenced their voyage on the lake, steering for the south. At the same time the main body of their men, under Asmani and Bombay, commenced their journey, which was to be performed on foot, along the shores of the lake. It had been arranged that the canoes should meet them at the mouth of every river, to transport them across from bank to bank. Their intention was to land at Cape Tongwe, when they would be opposite the village of Itaga, whence, by traversing the uninhabited districts to the east, they would avoid the exactions of the roguish Wavinza and the plundering Wahha, and then strike the road by which Stanley had come.
This plan was completely carried out. Stanley had procured a strong donkey at Ujiji, that the doctor might perform the journey on its back.
Pouring rain, however, came down during the whole journey, and it was to their intense satisfaction that at length the two friends walked into Stanley's old quarters, who said: "Doctor, we are at home."
Here they were again busily employed in examining stores, and the doctor in writing despatches and letters to his friends.
Mirambo still held out, and probably the Arabs would not conquer him for many months to come.
Here the doctor resolved to remain, while Stanley went down to the coast to enlist men and collect such further stores as were required, and to send them back. On their arrival, Livingstone purposed returning with them to Ujiji, and from thence crossing over into Manyema, to make further researches in that province and Ruo; among other things, to examine the underground habitations which he had heard of on a previous journey.
On the 14th of March, Stanley and Livingstone breakfasted together, and then the order was given to raise the flag and march. Livingstone accompanied him some way, but they had to part at last.
The return journey was not performed without many adventures and a considerable amount of suffering by the enterprising traveller.
Passing the stronghold of Kisalungo, a large portion had disappeared.
The river had swept away the entire front wall and about fifty houses, several villages having suffered disastrously, while at least a hundred people had perished. The whole valley, once a paradise in appearance, had been converted into a howling waste.
Further on, a still more terrible destruction of human life and property had occurred. It was reported that a hundred villages had been swept away by a volume of water which had rushed over the banks of the Ungerengeri.
Passing a dense jungle, and wading for several miles through a swamp, on the 6th of May the caravan was again _en route_, at a pace its leader had never seen equalled. At sunset the town of Bagomoyo was entered.
His first greeting was with Lieutenant Henn, who had come out as second in command of the proposed Livingstone search and relief expedition. He next met Mr Oswald Livingstone, the doctor's second son. The two proposed shortly starting on their journey, having come over with no less than a hundred and ninety loads of stores, which they would have had no small difficulty in conveying. Two other members of the expedition, Lieutenant Dawson, RN, and the Reverend C New, had resigned, for reasons which Mr Stanley fully explains. He himself was not over well pleased with some of the remarks made in the papers about himself, some having regarded his expedition into Africa as a myth.
"Alas!" he observes, justly, "it has been a terrible, earnest fact with me: nothing but haul, conscientious work, privations, sickness, and almost death."
However, welcomed cordially by numerous friends at Zanzibar, which he reached the following day, he soon recovered his spirits, and, having disbanded his own expedition, he set to work to arrange the one he had promised to form for the assistance of Dr Livingstone, Mr Henn having in the mean time resigned, and Mr Oswald Livingstone being compelled from ill health to abandon the attempt to join his father.
Fifty guns, with ammunition, stores, and cloth, were furnished by Mr Oswald Livingstone out of the English expedition. Fifty-seven men, including twenty of those who had followed Stanley, were also engaged, the services of Johari, chief dragoman to the American consulate, being also obtained to conduct them across the inundated plains of the Kinganni.
Stanley did not perform his duty by halves. Having engaged a dhow, he saw them all on board, and again urged them to follow the "great master," as they called Livingstone, wherever he might lead them, and to obey him in all things.
"We will! we will!" they cried out.
He then shook hands with them, and, ordering them to take up their loads, marched them down to the beach, seeing them on board, and watched the dhow as she sped westward on her way to Bagomoyo.
Those who had accompanied him had been handsomely rewarded, and he states to their credit, though Bombay and many others had at first annoyed him greatly, that from Ujiji to the coast, they had all behaved admirably.
After being detained at the Seychelles for a month, Mr Stanley reached Marseilles, _via_ Aden, when Mr Bennett, in order to fulfil Mr Stanley's promise that he would post Dr Livingstone's letters to his family and friends in England twenty-four hours after he had seen his public ones published in the London journals, telegraphed two of them by cable, at an expense of nearly two thousand pounds--"one of the most generous acts," as he observes, "that could be conceived, after all he had done in originating and sustaining the enterprise."
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.