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Readers will of course ask themselves why I did not, after the first discovery of these shameless proceedings, close my business with him, to which I make reply, that I could not do without him unless his equal were forthcoming, that I never felt so thoroughly dependent on any one man as I did upon him; without his or his duplicate's aid, I must have stayed at Bagamoyo at least six months, at the end of which time the Expedition would have become valueless, the rumour of it having been blown abroad to the four winds.
The morrow came, and with it went Abdullah bin Nasib, or "Kisesa," as he is called by the Wanyamwezi, with all his pagazis, his train of followers, and each and every one of his donkeys, towards Bagamoyo, without so much as giving a "Kwaheri," or good-bye. At this place there are generally to be found from ten to thirty pagazis awaiting up-caravans.
It certainly is not a myth the death of my two white assistants; they, poor fellows, found their fate in the inhospitable regions of the interior. One of my letters received from Zanzibar by my messengers states that there is an expedition at Bagamoyo called the "Livingstone Search and Relief Expedition." What will the leaders of it do now? Livingstone is found and relieved already.
On the 21st of March, exactly seventy-three days after my arrival at Zanzibar, the fifth caravan, led by myself, left the town of Bagamoyo for our first journey westward, with "Forward!" for its mot du guet.
He closed his reply with the astounding remark that he had ten pagazis at his house already, and if I would be good enough to have four bales of cloth, two bags of beads, and twenty coils of wire carried to his house, the pagazis could leave Bagamoyo the next day, under charge of three soldiers. "For, he remarked, "it is much better and cheaper to send many small caravans than one large one.
One of the Wangwana soldiers engaged at Bagamoyo, named Kingaru, improved an opportunity to desert with another Mgwana's kit. They went about their task with an adroitness and celerity which augured well for their success.
From Bagamoyo to Ujiji I had seen nothing to compare to them none of these fishing settlements under the shade of a grove of palms and plantains, banians and mimosa, with cassava gardens to the right and left of palmy forests, and patches of luxuriant grain looking down upon a quiet bay, whose calm waters at the early morn reflected the beauties of the hills which sheltered them from the rough and boisterous tempests that so often blew without.
But peace be to them both, may their shaven heads never be covered with the troublous crown I wore at Bagamoyo! My dear friendly reader, do not think, if I speak out my mind in this or in any other chapter upon matters seemingly trivial and unimportant, that seeming such they should be left unmentioned. Every tittle related is a fact, and to knew facts is to receive knowledge.
I had suffered several fevers between Bagamoyo and Unyanyembe, without anything or anybody to relieve me of the tedious racking headache and pain, or to illumine the dark and gloomy prospect which must necessarily surround the bedside of the sick and solitary traveller.
Then stillness of a sudden and the ground trembles with a far-off throbbing as a convoy of motor lorries approaching thunders past us, rumbling over the bridge and out into the darkness, driving for supplies. The road beside the hospital was the old caravan route that ran from the Congo through Central Africa and by the Great Lakes to Bagamoyo by the sea.
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