The 21st of September sees him at Bambarré, the capital of the Manyuema country, noting with thankfulness that as he perseveres3 his strength increases. In front of him is the Luamo River, flowing west to its confluence4 with the Lualaba, which again is not far distant. He might have fulfilled his ambition to navigate5 the Lualaba now, but could get no canoes—“all are our enemies’”—and so returned reluctantly to Bambarré. It was from Bambarré that he wrote two letters—they were probably posted months later—which actually got through the Arab cordon6, and eventually reached their owners. One was to his son Tom. He tells of his hopes to go down the Lualaba; but he has frightful7 ulcers8 on his feet “from wading9 in mud.” Another to Sir Thomas Maclear, which is more explicit10 as to his{167} plans. “I have to go down and see where the two arms unite—the lost city Meroe ought to be there—then get back to Ujiji to get a supply of goods which I have ordered from Zanzibar, turn bankrupt after I secure them, and let my creditors11 catch me if they can, as I finish up by going outside and south of all the sources, so that I may be sure none will cut me out and say he found other sources south of mine.... I have still a seriously long task before me.” To his daughter Agnes, whose courage he never failed to praise, he writes: “The death knell12 of American slavery was rung by a woman’s hand. We great he-beasts say Mrs. Stowe exaggerated. From what I have seen of slavery I say exaggeration is a simple impossibility. I go with the sailor who, on seeing slave-traders, said: ‘If the devil don’t catch those fellows we might as well have no devil at all.’”
After Christmas he goes away to the north, and discovers the Chanya range. Marching through rank jungle, and suffering much from fever, and “choleraic symptoms,{168}” he turns south again, and on the 7th of February goes into winter quarters at Mamohela. Mohamad is still with him, but goes off at this stage in search of ivory. The entries in his diary are now few, but on June 26th the winter season is evidently over and he proposes to start once again for the Lualaba. Once more, however, he has to reckon with a revolt of his men, who desert, with the exception of three, among whom are the ever-faithful Susi and Chumah. The path this time is to the north-west. It is difficult and hazardous13, but the situation is relieved by the timely arrival of Mohamad Bogharib. It was well, for Livingstone was at the end of his strength. “Flooded rivers, breast and neck deep, had to be crossed, and the mud was awful.” His feet “failed him” for the first time in his life. “Irritable, eating ulcers fastened on both feet.” In indescribable pain, he “limped back to Bambarré.” This was on July 22, 1870.
For the next eighty days he was a prisoner in his hut. He could do nothing but think, “I READ THE BIBLE THROUGH FOUR TIMES WHILST I WAS IN MANYUEMA.”
read the Bible, and pray. He read the Bible through four times during his stay in the Manyuema country. He was fascinated by the personality of Moses and his connection with the Nile; and thinks favourably14 of the legend that associates him with the lost city, Meroe, at the junction15 of the two rivers Lualaba. He meditates16 tenderly on the stratagem17 of the “old Nile” hiding its head so cunningly, and baffling so many human efforts. One of his resources is the Soko, a kind of gorilla18, often made captive. It is physically19 repulsive20 to him, but it interests him as a naturalist21; and later on he becomes possessed22 of one, which he pets and proposes to take back to Europe. When most helpless he sketches23 out his future; and in imagination names certain lakes and rivers after old English friends and benefactors—Palmerston, Webb, and Young; and one lake after the great Lincoln. On the 10th of October, he is able for the first time to crawl out of his hut. On the 25th he makes this significant entry in his journal: “In this journey I have endeavoured to follow with{171} unswerving fidelity25 the line of duty. All the hardship, hunger and toil26 were met with the full conviction that I was right in persevering27 to make a complete work of the exploration of the sources of the Nile. The prospect28 of death in pursuing what I knew to be right did not make me veer29 to one side or the other.” Never had any man a better right to use such words.
He is waiting now for the arrival of Syde bin30 Habib, Dugumbé, and others who are bringing him letters and medicines from Ujiji. Months pass and there is no sign of them. He is heartsick and weary with the intolerable delay. The one excitement is in the shedding of blood. Every day has its story of horrors, and he can bear it no longer. But there are to be darker tragedies yet before he escapes out of the Manyuema country.
The year 1871 dawns. “O Father! Help me to finish this work to Thy glory.”
It was February before the men arrived who were bringing letters and stores for him; but, alas31! “only one letter reached, and forty{172} are missing.” The men, too, have been corrupted32 by the Arabs, and refuse to go north with him. He is again outwitted by his cunning foes33. Weary days of bargaining follow, and at last terms are arranged. The expedition starts, and on March 29th Livingstone is at Nyangwé on the bank of the Lualaba, the furthest point westward34 that he was to reach at this time. He finds the Lualaba here “a mighty35 river 3,000 yards broad.”
Livingstone was to learn to his cost that the men who had been sent up country to him, ostensibly to help him on his way, were his worst enemies. They poisoned the minds of the Manyuema against him. They stirred up strife36, and were guilty of every kind of crime. All Livingstone’s efforts to get canoes for exploring the river were neutralised by them; though he afterwards saw in this the hand of God for his deliverance, for other canoes were lost in the rapids. “We don’t always know the dangers we are guided past.”
We now reach the event which was the{173} climax37 of Livingstone’s moral sufferings, and which, when known in Europe, sent a thrill of horror through the nations which had heard of the lesser38 agonies of the slave traffic with comparative indifference39. On the 28th of June, one of Syde bin Habib’s slaves, named Manilla, set fire to eight or ten villages, alleging40 an old debt by way of an excuse. He then made blood-brotherhood with other tribes, which angered Dugumbé and his followers41, who planned revenge. The 15th of July was a lovely summer day, and about 1,500 people came together for the market. Livingstone was strolling round observing the life in the market place, when three of Dugumbé’s men opened fire upon the assembled crowd, and another small troop began to shoot down the panic-stricken women as they fled to the canoes on the river. So many canoes were pushed off at once down the creek43 that they got jammed, and the murderers on the bank poured volley after volley into them. Numbers of the victims sprang into the water and swam out into the river. Many were hit and sank;{174} others were drowned. Canoes capsized and their occupants were lost. The Arabs reckoned the dead at four hundred; and even then the men who had tasted blood continued the awful butchery and fired village after village. “No one will ever know,” writes Livingstone, “the exact loss on this bright, sultry, summer morning; it gave me the impression of being in hell.” Dugumbé protested his innocence44, and helped to save some who were drowning; but it is clear that Livingstone in his heart accuses him of complicity. He counted twelve burning villages; and on the next day sees as many as seventeen. “The open murder perpetrated on hundreds of unsuspecting women fills me with unspeakable horror.” It “felt to me like Gehenna,” he writes later; and the nightmare never left him afterwards. “I cannot stay here in agony,” he adds; and on the 20th he starts back for Ujiji, in spite of the entreaties45 of those who had every reason to desire that he should not go away and publish the story. The atrocious wickedness of the Arabs was that they demoralised their slaves, and trained them to perpetrate these butcheries of natives, and then excused themselves on the ground that they had nothing to do with the crime.
The homeward march lay through miles of villages, all burned; and it was impossible to convince the wretched survivors46 that he himself had not been guilty. Ambushes47 were laid to murder him and his party. A large spear “almost grazed my back.” Another spear missed him by only a foot. Two of his men were slain48. A huge tree had been loosened at the roots, and almost fell upon him. Three times in one day he escaped death by a hair’s-breadth. So impressed were his people that they cried, “Peace! peace! you will finish your work in spite of everything.” He took it as an omen42, and gave thanks to the “Almighty Preserver of men.” For five hours he ran the gauntlet, “perfectly indifferent whether I were killed or not.”
The march was pursued in great suffering through August and September, and on into{177} October. Once, he says, he felt like dying on his feet. He was profoundly shaken and depressed49. The infamous50 traders succeeded, but he had failed, he alone, “and experienced worry, thwarting51, baffling, when almost in sight of the end for which I strained.”
On the 23rd of October, reduced to a skeleton, “a mere52 ruckle of bones,” he arrived at Ujiji. Shereef, who had custody53 of his goods, had sold them all off. Shereef, says Livingstone, is “a moral idiot.” Little wonder that he feels like the man in the parable54 who fell among thieves, only, alas! there was no Good Samaritan. So he felt; but this time he was mistaken. “When my spirits were at their lowest ebb24, the Good Samaritan was close at hand.” No part of his amazing story is better known. On the morning of October 28, 1871, Susi came running to him “at the top of his speed and gasped55 out, ‘an Englishman. I see him!’”
A caravan56 was approaching with the American flag flying over it. A few minutes and the stranger was in front of him, holding{178} out his hand, with the words, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume!” It was Henry Morton Stanley, who had undertaken to find him, alive or dead. He had engaged to do so two years before; and he had kept his word.
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1
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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masticate
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| v.咀嚼 | |
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perseveres
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| v.坚忍，坚持( persevere的第三人称单数 ) | |
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confluence
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| n.汇合，聚集 | |
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navigate
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| v.航行，飞行；导航，领航 | |
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cordon
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| n.警戒线，哨兵线 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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ulcers
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| n.溃疡( ulcer的名词复数 )；腐烂物；道德败坏；腐败 | |
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wading
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的现在分词 ) | |
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explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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creditors
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| n.债权人，债主( creditor的名词复数 ) | |
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knell
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| n.丧钟声；v.敲丧钟 | |
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hazardous
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| adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的 | |
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favourably
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| adv. 善意地，赞成地 =favorably | |
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junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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meditates
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的第三人称单数 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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stratagem
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| n.诡计，计谋 | |
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gorilla
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| n.大猩猩，暴徒，打手 | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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naturalist
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| n.博物学家(尤指直接观察动植物者) | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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persevering
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| a.坚忍不拔的 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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veer
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| vt.转向，顺时针转，改变；n.转向 | |
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bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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corrupted
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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alleging
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| 断言，宣称，辩解( allege的现在分词 ) | |
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41
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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42
omen
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| n.征兆，预兆；vt.预示 | |
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43
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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entreaties
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| n.恳求，乞求( entreaty的名词复数 ) | |
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46
survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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47
ambushes
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| n.埋伏( ambush的名词复数 )；伏击；埋伏着的人；设埋伏点v.埋伏( ambush的第三人称单数 )；埋伏着 | |
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48
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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49
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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50
infamous
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| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
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51
thwarting
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| 阻挠( thwart的现在分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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52
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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53
custody
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| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
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54
parable
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| n.寓言，比喻 | |
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55
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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caravan
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| n.大蓬车；活动房屋 | |
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