Quadruple ration-money was also distributed to
each man, woman, and child; but, owing to the
excessive poverty of the country, and the keen
trading instincts and avaricious spirit of the
aborigines, little benefit did the long-enduring,
famine-stricken Wangwana derive from my liberality.
Fancy knick-knacks, iron spears, knives, axes,
copper, brass wire, were then distributed to
them, and I emptied the medicine out of thirty
vials, and my private clothes-bags, blankets,
waterproofs, every available article of property
that might be dispensed with, were also given
away, without distinction of rank or merit, to 1
invest in whatever eatables they could procure, j
The 31st July was consequently a busy day,
devoted to bartering, but few Wangwana were
able to boast at evening that they had obtained j
a tithe of the value of the articles they had !
sold, and the character of the food actually \
purchased was altogether unfit for people 1
such poor condition of body.
A t sunset we lifted the brave boat, after her
adventurous journey across Africa, and carried
her to the summit of some rocks about five
hundred yards north of the fall, to be abandoned
to her fate. Three years before, Messenger of
Teddington had commenced her construction;
two years previous to this date she was coasting
the bluffs of Uzongora on Lake Victoria; twelve
months later she was completing her last twenty
miles of the circumnavigation of Lake Tanganika,
and on the 31st July 1877, after a journey of
nearly 7000 miles up and down broad Africa,
she was consigned to her resting-place above
the Isangila Cataract, to bleach and to rot to
dust!
* * * *
A wayworn, feeble, and suffering column
were we when, on the 1st August, we filed
across the rocky terrace of Isangila and sloping
plain, and strode up the ascent to the tableland.
Nearly forty men filled the sick list with
dysentery, ulcers, and scurvy, and the victims
of the latter disease were steadily increasing.
Yet withal I smiled proudly when I saw the
brave hearts cheerily respond to my encouraging
cries. A few, however, would not believe that
within five or six days they should see Europeans.
They disdained to be considered so credulous,
but at the same time they granted that the
“master” was quite right to encourage his
people with promises of speedy relief.
So we surmounted the table-land, but we could
not bribe the wretched natives to guide us to
the next village. “Mirambo,” the riding-ass,
managed to reach half-way up the table-land,
but he also was too far exhausted through the
miserable attenuation which the poor grass of
the western region had wrought in his frame to