Susi repeated to him the words of his brother and said, “Recall the wise words of your brother Chitambo, who said to us that death often comes to those on journeys, even when they do not expect it.”
“My brother,” said Muanamuzungu, “is a fool.”
Armed with spears, his men lined up along our path to make sure that we left his land. What a contrast there was between our departure from his brother’s land and this!
As his final act of spite against us, Muanamuzungu took back the cow he had given us as a gift. He grudgingly allowed us to keep the donkey, and it was on this creature that Susi lay as he could not walk at all. Seven of the pagazi were too weak to serve as porters, and even the Nassickers had to become pagazi and assist in the carrying of loads. John Wainwright was the loudest in complaining, but I made sure to tell him that this resentment had to give way to the necessary exigencies of our situation.
We were further burdened by having to carry the corpses of Kaniki, Misozi, and Songolo as far as we could outside Muanamuzungu’s territory. Chirango volunteered to carry so many packages that he was left with a heap, which he then had to request assistance to carry. We managed as best as we could and made slow progress.
It took half a day to reach the small hill that was the boundary of Muanamuzungu’s land, and a true Hill Difficulty it proved to be. At the first opportunity, we conducted burial services for the fallen three. Before that there were some arguments as to what we should do with the bodies. The women were long in arguing that we should do to the bodies what we had done with the Bwana. Halima wailed loud and long. Misozi, she said, would not rest happily because she had always feared turning into a shetani ghost. Amoda, rather more roughly than was warranted, told her not to be stupid. It was bad enough to carry the Doctor’s body; how could we carry four bodies at once?
Chuma was gentler in his opposition and pointed out the gathering clouds above. “We were fortunate to get sun to dry Bwana Daudi’s body in Chitambo,” he said. “These threatening rains mean that the best course would be to bury them at once.”
It was hard to tell whether Susi mourned Misozi, for he was prostrated by his illness. Halima certainly mourned for her, giving voice to her grief, though it seemed to be more from guilt than any other feeling, for certainly, she had not always been kind to the woman.
As for Chirango, the man conducted himself with a dignity that was most pleasing to see. He displayed great sanguinity at the death of his companion, the woman Kaniki. “It is how fate has always been with me,” he said. “I am heir to a kingdom that is lost, and now my woman has gone before she could give me just one seed.”
I was most gratified that Chirango asked me to say a few words over her body. There is no mind more fertile to the reception of His word than one ravaged by a new grief, or recovering from an affliction, and here was Chirango, in both these interesting states. I did not hesitate to suggest to him that he might seek solace in He who comforts all.
But it would seem that I was planting in a field already furrowed. My words at the Bwana’s funeral appear to have had a most penetrating effect on Chirango. What I said had struck him so forcibly, he said, that he wanted to know more about my God, for he had not yet found any god who truly suited him.
Though I naturally frowned on his belief that he could try on and discard a god as one chose a garment, I was pleased to see that, as far as my mission went, I had, at least, one prospect. “The first commandment, Chirango,” I said to him, “is thou shalt have no other gods than me. There is only one God: I am the Lord your God, He says.”
It came to me then that I was the most appropriate person to render a translation of His Holy Word into Suaheli. What a thing that would be. What souls would be turned to God then, if they understand the Word in their own language! Perhaps I could do in the Suaheli language what my former headmaster, the Reverend Isenberg, had done in the Abyssinian tongue. But I soon turned my thoughts in the direction of the more urgent matter of conducting a service over the bodies of our fallen companions.
Having buried them and rested three nights in a clearing, we resumed our journey and headed in the direction of the Luapula. Chirango stuck by me while I told him of the glories of God’s kingdom. Even when it was his turn to carry the Doctor’s body, he insisted that I walk close to him.
A pang struck me when I considered that but for the death of his wife, I might have had two converts in the party, but I soon put the thought out of my mind when I considered that without Kaniki’s death, Chirango might not have been so receptive to His word. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform! Call to me and I will answer you, he says, and I will show you Wonders you have never heard of.
It was in this way, with me talking while Chirango listened at my side, that we caught sight of the Luapula. We headed to the village of a chief named Chisalamalama, who offered us canoes for the passage across the river in exchange for beads and cloth. As we sat around the fire that night as Chirango plucked at his instrument, Chuma said, “Bwana Daudi would have wanted to know from Chisalamalama if this river was one of the fountains that he was looking for.”
Halima wanted to know why the Bwana wanted to find this river so much. “Though I have cracked my head on the matter,” she said, “I still cannot fathom why it is that he wanted to find the beginning of this river so much.”
Susi said, “Have you never known the glory of coming to some spot that you think you are the first to see?”
Halima said, “There are no such spots, for there have been people everywhere. Ancestors, my mother called them. We all have Ancestors who lived before we did, and it is their Spirits that look after us.”
“But not everything that is there has been seen,” said Amoda, “and Bwana Daudi was one of those who seek that which is hidden.”
“I agree with Halima,” Ntaoéka said, “I do not see what business all these men have in coming all this way, digging up bones and digging up this and digging up that and discovering places where people already live.”
“It is because you have not been caught by the wanderlust,” said Amoda. “Susi there, though he winks at every woman and smiles in every direction, he will never settle in one place. Once a man takes to traveling he will go far.”
“I want to escape the land altogether,” said Susi. “It is my dream that I will have enough money to buy a dhow and fit it up for a long voyage. I want to sail down the coast, from Zanzibar to Shupanga, my home.”
“I do not understand it at all,” said Halima. “All I want is a small house somewhere, where I can cook my fish and grow a fruit tree, maybe two.”
The music stopped as a soft voice called out, “Maybe if you go with him you will understand. I am sure he would take you with him. It is clear what he thinks of you, for it is as though he eats you with his eyes.”
Amoda and Halima glared at Chirango, but he said, “I mean to say, if you go with Amoda—your man—for he is greatly traveled and has seen many things that he can show you.”
I must confess that though I would not express my sentiments in the crude, unlearned terms used by Halima, traveling for its own sake seems like a most wasteful way to spend time. It is the thing I least understood about the Doctor. Sidi Mubarak, whom everyone called Bombay, and who led Mr. Stanley’s expedition, often said that Lieutenant Burton, who was the leader of his First Expedition, had confessed that he knew every time he left on an expedition, it was on a fool’s errand, and one driven by the Devil.
I know not whether it is the Devil who drives these men to such deeds, but it is certainly a great pity that men of such industry and determination seem entirely unable to direct their talents into a more industrious path. This Lieutenant Burton, it seems, was a most gifted man who spoke more than twenty tongues. He had also traveled extensively among the Mohammedans, even to the point of having penetrated Mecca. That such energy and industry should be expended on something as frivolous as mere travel and exploration for its own sake is a sorrowful pity. If
he had converted but just one Mohammedan on his journey, what a gift there would have been to the world!
It is the same with the Doctor. Had he but only been laboring for God! Now, if the government of his land could only send ordained priests, to preach and convert, baptize and catechize, then afterward to oversee the building of churches and schools across the breadth of Africa to bring this entire race to the Light of Christ, and to uplift all who come within it from the poverty of ignorance, that would be a mission worthy of any expedition. But this ever-present hunger to discover, and to rename that which is already named, is, I confess, something I cannot comprehend.
Imagine the gains that could be made for Christ if a man like Susi could be converted. He could then sail with me, with a small party of porters; he could take me up and down the coast, perhaps even as far as the land of my birth, not for the mere animal pleasure of traveling, but because Christ commands it.
As I was cogitating thus while the others talked around the fire, from the darkness without came the tortured sound of an animal in great pain. We jumped up and ran in the direction of the noise. Amoda snatched a log and set fire to the grass, for it was pitch-dark. In the light of the burning grass, we saw a most horrible sight.
A lion, with its mouth dripping in blood, was standing over our poor donkey, which was bleeding from its neck. Munyasere, who had had the foresight to take up his rifle, fired at the beast, and on his shot, the lion turned and fled.
We were now gravely alive to the immediate danger in which we all stood. We could not decamp there and then, for who knew into what further danger we might wander. Under Munyasere’s command, the askari took turns to guard the camp that night, with their rifles at the ready and their muskets loaded.
At daylight the next day, a trail of blood showed that Munyasere’s shot had taken effect. At the end of the trail lay the lion; it had fallen dead some distance off, but as we could see quite clearly tracks of a second lion, and possibly, Munyasere said, a whole pride, we agreed to decamp as soon as possible. Munyasere skinned the beast.
“This hide,” he said, “will accompany me all my days.”
As she cast a hungry eye over the meat, Halima was most regretful that we could eat neither the lion nor the donkey. “Not even the juice of a thousand limes could make this palatable fare,” she said.
As we made our way across the Luapula, I made sure to stay close to Chuma. Though I have no interest in matters geographical, I was only too aware that notations of features of the land, particularly if they could lead to further elucidation of the Doctor’s search, could only make my own Humble Journal a more Interesting Object to its Readers.
So I questioned Chuma closely on his observations and wrote down what he said.
Here then, in Chuma’s words, is the Luapula. At the point of our crossing, the Luapula is double the width of the Zambesi at Shupanga, a full four miles. A man could not be seen on the opposite bank, the trees look small; a gun could be heard, but no other sound, like shouting, would ever reach a person across the river. The distance at the deepest point is about four hundred yards.
I can also confirm that the passage took fully two hours across an enormous torrent. In the process, we lost three packages with meat and meal, a loss we all felt keenly, particularly Halima, who seemed to lament this loss more keenly than she had lamented Misozi.
Chuma is now convinced that the Doctor was wrong in his estimation. This river has nothing at all to do with the Nile, for it carries the waters of Bangweulu toward the north. If Chuma is to be believed, the Doctor’s southward march was in vain. For if this is the fountain of Herodotus that he had hoped to find, it is most certainly not the source of the Nile.
After crossing the Luapula, we found ourselves in a great, dense forest. Under the trees was a most shocking and grievous sight. Here and there rested small piles of human bones. This was, alas, all too familiar; on the downward march to join the Doctor, I had seen such pitiful piles of bones, as well as corpses lashed to trees.
This is the only protest that is within the power of the Captured: they simply refuse to walk farther. As they cannot be carried, pulled, or pushed, it is a powerful act of protest. But so infinitely black are the hearts of their Captors that when this happens, they tie the Captured to trees in tight bonds and leave them there to perish.
On matters spiritual, I found myself disappointed in the Doctor. But on the matter of the Great Stain that is on this continent, I find that we are as one. During a moment of repose that night, by firelight, I read the Doctor’s journal entry after the Massacre at Manyuema, and I will confess freely that it made me weep. “As I write,” he says, “I hear the loud wails on the left bank over those who are there slain. Oh, let Thy Kingdom come!”
Let Thy Kingdom come indeed, Dear Lord, let it come, and let it come today! Let it come to Manyuema; let it come to Zanzibar and to Kilwa, and to Lamu and Pemba, let it come to the land of the Yao and to all who profit from this grievous trade. Come down, Lord Jesus, and ransom this captive land. Let Thy Kingdom come, so that never again will we see men die tied to trees, all because the spirit in them cries out against the endless darkness of slavery. Let Thy Kingdom Come, dear Lord, let Thy Kingdom come.
10
15 July 1873
Tenth Entry from the Journal of Jacob Wainwright, written at an Abandoned Village northeast of the Luapula; in which Wainwright prays that the Lord may turn the Hearts of All Men who hold the Weak in the Grip of Terror and Tyranny.
We currently find ourselves quartered in a small village that has seen most of its inhabitants flee. An air of stillness hangs about this abandoned place, for the people we found here were mainly the lame and the old. Those who are at all young appear to be either diseased or crippled, with some bearing on their faces the dread mark of the Small Pox.
On the first night we were here, as I came from the nearby stream where I had completed my ablutions, the woman Ntaoéka accosted me. For reasons that are beyond me to understand, we often find ourselves alone in the same places, and even when we are moving in groups, I seem to always be aware of her presence close to me.
“Regard,” she said. “Is this silence not strange?”
I did not know what she meant, for we were in a forest in which birds were calling to each other and a nearby stream was babbling pleasantly.
“I mean that there are no children’s voices. Our children are the only ones here,” she said.
The moment she said this, I understood what it was about the place that had so unsettled me on our arrival. In our travels, when we approached any village, it was normal to hear the sounds of occupation: women’s laughter as they pounded and ground their corn, the crowing of the cocks and clucking of chickens, and the high voices of children.
And yet here, for the first time since I arrived on African soil, I find myself in a place in which there is no sound of children at all, neither their laughter, their play, nor their crying. I do not pay particular attention to children when they are there, I have said already that women and children are enough to slow down an Expedition, but certain it is that their high chattering voices make a normal part of everyday life.
As I walked around the village I saw abandoned musical instruments, mats, mortars for pounding meal, that were lying about unused and becoming the prey of the white ants. When I remarked upon these things to an old crippled man who was listlessly staring up at the heavens, I got only the laconic answer, “Those were left there a long time ago. No one uses them now.”
I have never in my life met with a more wretched group of people. They make no effort at all to stir themselves beyond doing the necessities to keep the body together. They eat, they sleep, they barely work, for they believe there is no point to any effort because they believe that the Mazitu will come and destroy it all over again. Even the presence of the Doctor’s body has not stirred their lassitude. We expected that they would be alarmed that we carried such a thing, and had made up our minds to dissemble as to w
hat it was, but all they did was to point us to where we should store our packages, along with the body.
Truly, the Lord is needed here, more than in any place I have been. In this miserable and pitiful place, we are now more than ever alive to the danger that we may meet slave traders on our journey. Though we have been careful not to take the most direct route to the coast, which would have seen us heading for the slave-trading port of Kilwa, it seems to be the case that even this far inland, we may yet encounter the slave parties of the four most fearsome traders, who are Casembe, Mirambo, Kumbakumba, and Tippoo Tip.
These four have been fighting each other over the control of territory in the interior. It would appear from the news that has made its way to our ears that Casembe has been defeated in a great war with Mirambo and Kumbakumba. It also appears however that Casembe is not his name but a title, like king or sultan. So this one Casembe may have been defeated but there is very likely another Casembe who will rise to take his place.
In addition to these loathsome traders, it was forced on us to consider that we may also encounter a fierce warrior group from the south called the Mazitu, the same tribe of warriors that Chitambo had warned us about. As Chuma explained, on many occasions as they journeyed with Doctor Livingstone, they came across villages that had been emptied and depleted by these Mazitu.
As is the case with those who are most feared, the Mazitu are known throughout these lands by many names. In some lands, they are the Maviti, in others the Madzviti, and in yet others the Matuta or Watuta, each name invoking fear and terror in those who hear of it. They have amassed great power through conquering neighboring lands, so that even just the whisper that the Mazitu were coming was enough to send people scurrying farther into the interior until they heard the menace had passed.
This is what has happened in this village, which has been abandoned by its chief. Along with his courtiers and advisers, and the able-bodied of the whole village, the Chief abandoned the village as soon as they heard the rumor that the Mazitu were coming. I worry that Chitambo may well do the same, and abandon his village, along with the grave of the Doctor’s heart, if the Mazitu make their way there.
Out of Darkness, Shining Light Page 15
