Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David Livingstone (fun to read .txt) 📕

Now it is very grievous to find one portion of this race practicing the gigantic evil, and the other aiding, by increased demands for the produce of slave labor, in perpetuating the enormous wrong.

The Mauritius, a mere speck on the ocean, yields sugar, by means of guano, improved machinery, and free labor, equal in amount to one fourth part of the entire consumption of Great Britain.

On that island land is excessively dear and far from rich: no crop can be raised except by means of guano, and labor has to be brought all the way from India. But in Africa the land is cheap, the soil good, and free labor is to be found on the spot. Our chief hopes rest with the natives themselves; and if the point to which I have given prominence, of healthy inland commercial stations, be realized, where all the produce raised may be collected, there is little doubt but that slavery among our kinsmen across the Atlantic will, in the course of some years, cease to assume the form of a necessity to even the slaveholders themselves. Natives alone can collect produce from the more distant hamlets, and bring it to the stations contemplated.

This is the system pursued so successfully in Angola.

If England had possessed that strip of land, by civilly declining to enrich her "frontier colonists" by "Caffre wars", the inborn energy of English colonists would have developed its resources, and the exports would not have been 100,000 Pounds as now, but one million at least. The establishment of the necessary agency must be a work of time, and greater difficulty will be experienced on the eastern than on the western side of the continent, because in the one region we have a people who know none but slave-traders, while in the other we have tribes who have felt the influence of the coast missionaries and of the great Niger expedition; one invaluable benefit it conferred was the dissemination of the knowledge of English love of commerce and English hatred of slavery, and it therefore was no failure. But on the east there is a river which may become a good pathway to a central population who are friendly to the English; and if we can conciliate the less amicable people on the river, and introduce commerce, an effectual blow will be struck at the slave-trade in that quarter. By linking the Africans there to ourselves in the manner proposed, it is hoped that their elevation will eventually be the result. In this hope and proposed effort I am joined by my brother Charles, who has come from America, after seventeen years' separation, for the purpose. We expect success through the influence of that Spirit who already aided the efforts to open the country, and who has since turned the public mind toward it.

A failure may be experienced by sudden rash speculation overstocking the markets there, and raising the prices against ourselves.

But I propose to spend some more years of labor, and shall be thankful if I see the system fairly begun in an open pathway which will eventually benefit both Africa and England.

The village of Kilimane stands on a great mud bank, and is surrounded by extensive swamps and rice-grounds. The banks of the river are lined with mangrove bushes, the roots of which, and the slimy banks on which they grow, are alternately exposed to the tide and sun.

The houses are well built of brick and lime, the latter from Mozambique.

If one digs down two or three feet in any part of the site of the village, he comes to water; hence the walls built on this mud bank gradually subside; pieces are sometimes sawn off the doors below, because the walls in which they are fixed have descended into the ground, so as to leave the floors higher than the bottom of the doors. It is almost needless to say that Kilimane is very unhealthy. A man of plethoric temperament is sure to get fever, and concerning a stout person one may hear the remark, "Ah! he will not live long; he is sure to die."

A Hamburgh vessel was lost near the bar before we came down.

The men were much more regular in their habits than English sailors, so I had an opportunity of observing the fever acting as a slow poison.

They felt "out of sorts" only, but gradually became pale, bloodless, and emaciated, then weaker and weaker, till at last they sank more like oxen bitten by tsetse than any disease I ever saw.

The captain, a strong, robust young man, remained in perfect health for about three months, but was at last knocked down suddenly and made as helpless as a child by this terrible disease. He had imbibed a foolish prejudice against quinine, our sheet-anchor in the complaint.

This is rather a professional subject, but I introduce it here in order to protest against the prejudice as almost entirely unfounded.

Quinine is invaluable in fever, and never produces any unpleasant effects in any stage of the disease, IF EXHIBITED IN COMBINATION WITH AN APERIENT.

The captain was saved by it, without his knowledge, and I was thankful that the mode of treatment, so efficacious among natives, promised so fair among Europeans.

After waiting about six weeks at this unhealthy spot, in which, however, by the kind attentions of Colonel Nunes and his nephew, I partially recovered from my tertian, H. M. brig "Frolic" arrived off Kilimane.

As the village is twelve miles from the bar, and the weather was rough, she was at anchor ten days before we knew of her presence about seven miles from the entrance to the port. She brought abundant supplies for all my need, and 150 Pounds to pay my passage home, from my kind friend Mr. Thompson, the Society's agent at the Cape. The admiral at the Cape kindly sent an offer of a passage to the Mauritius, which I thankfully accepted.

Sekwebu and one attendant alone remained with me now.

He was very intelligent, and had been of the greatest service to me; indeed, but for his good sense, tact, and command of the language of the tribes through which we passed, I believe we should scarcely have succeeded in reaching the coast. I naturally felt grateful to him; and as his chief wished ALL my companions to go to England with me, and would probably be disappointed if none went, I thought it would be beneficial for him to see the effects of civilization, and report them to his countrymen; I wished also to make some return for his very important services. Others had petitioned to come, but I explained the danger of a change of climate and food, and with difficulty restrained them. The only one who now remained begged so hard to come on board ship that I greatly regretted that the expense prevented my acceding to his wish to visit England.

I said to him, "You will die if you go to such a cold country as mine."

"That is nothing," he reiterated; "let me die at your feet."

When we parted from our friends at Kilimane, the sea on the bar was frightful even to the seamen. This was the first time Sekwebu had seen the sea.

Captain Peyton had sent two boats in case of accident.

The waves were so high that, when the cutter was in one trough, and we in the pinnace in another, her mast was hid. We then mounted to the crest of the wave, rushed down the slope, and struck the water again with a blow which felt as if she had struck the bottom.

Boats must be singularly well constructed to be able to stand these shocks.

Three breakers swept over us. The men lift up their oars, and a wave comes sweeping over all, giving the impression that the boat is going down, but she only goes beneath the top of the wave, comes out on the other side, and swings down the slope, and a man bales out the water with a bucket. Poor Sekwebu looked at me when these terrible seas broke over, and said, "Is this the way you go?

Is this the way you go?" I smiled and said, "Yes; don't you see it is?"

and tried to encourage him. He was well acquainted with canoes, but never had seen aught like this. When we reached the ship -- a fine, large brig of sixteen guns and a crew of one hundred and thirty --

she was rolling so that we could see a part of her bottom.

It was quite impossible for landsmen to catch the ropes and climb up, so a chair was sent down, and we were hoisted in as ladies usually are, and received so hearty an English welcome from Captain Peyton and all on board that I felt myself at once at home in every thing except my own mother tongue.

I seemed to know the language perfectly, but the words I wanted would not come at my call. When I left England I had no intention of returning, and directed my attention earnestly to the languages of Africa, paying none to English composition. With the exception of a short interval in Angola, I had been three and a half years without speaking English, and this, with thirteen years of previous partial disuse of my native tongue, made me feel sadly at a loss on board the "Frolic".

We left Kilimane on the 12th of July, and reached the Mauritius on the 12th of August, 1856. Sekwebu was picking up English, and becoming a favorite with both men and officers. He seemed a little bewildered, every thing on board a man-of-war being so new and strange; but he remarked to me several times, "Your countrymen are very agreeable,"

and, "What a strange country this is -- all water together!"

He also said that he now understood why I used the sextant.

When we reached the Mauritius a steamer came out to tow us into the harbor.

The constant strain on his untutored mind seemed now to reach a climax, for during the night he became insane. I thought at first that he was intoxicated. He had descended into a boat, and, when I attempted to go down and bring him into the ship, he ran to the stern and said, "No! no! it is enough that I die alone.

You must not perish; if you come, I shall throw myself into the water."

Perceiving that his mind was affected, I said, "Now, Sekwebu, we are going to Ma Robert." This struck a chord in his bosom, and he said, "Oh yes; where is she, and where is Robert?" and he seemed to recover.

The officers proposed to secure him by putting him in irons; but, being a gentleman in his own country, I objected, knowing that the insane often retain an impression of ill treatment, and I could not bear to have it said in Sekeletu's country that I had chained one of his principal men as they had seen slaves treated.

I tried to get him on shore by day, but he refused. In the evening a fresh accession of insanity occurred; he tried to spear one of the crew, then leaped overboard, and, though he could swim well, pulled himself down hand under hand by the chain cable. We never found the body of poor Sekwebu.

At the Mauritius I was most hospitably received by Major General C. M. Hay, and he generously constrained me to remain with him till, by the influence of the