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Updated: May 27, 2025
Rushing out from our work to the front door facing Tabora, we heard considerable volleying, and scattered firing, plainly; and ascending to the top of my tembe, I saw with my glasses the smoke of the guns.
They went to Tabora, for Livingstone expected fresh supplies, and in addition Stanley gave him forty men's loads of cloth, glass beads and brass-wire, a canvas boat, a waterproof tent, two breech-loaders and other weapons, ammunition, tools, and cooking utensils. All these things were invaluable to Livingstone, who was determined to remain in Africa at any cost until his task was accomplished.
Towards evening we walked back to our own finely situated tembe in Kwihara, well satisfied with what we had seen at Tabora. My men drove a couple of oxen, and carried three sacks of native rice a most superior kind the day's presents of hospitality from Khamis bin Abdullah.
One feels that they long to pose as martyrs, and that our quixotic chivalry cuts them to the quick. There have been many bombardments of the forts of this town, and huge dugouts for the whole population have been constructed. Great underground towns, twenty feet below the surface, all roofed in with steel railway sleepers. No wonder that many of the inhabitants fled to Morogoro and Tabora.
Our eyes were constantly directed towards unfortunate Tabora. It has been said that three tembes only have stood the brunt of the attack. Abid bin Suliman's house has been destroyed, and over two hundred tusks of ivory that belonged to him have become the property of the African Bonaparte. My tembe is in as efficient a state of defence as its style and means of defence will allow.
To his great astonishment he saw the plain around Tabora filled with approaching savages, and about two miles off, near Kazima, a tent pitched, which he knew to belong to Mirambo, from its having been presented to that chief by the Arabs of Tabora when they were on good terms with him. Khamis bin Abdullah descended to his house saying, "Let us go to meet him.
Where did Hajji Abdullah and Spiki live when they were in Unyanyembe? Was it not in Musa Mzuri's house?" "That was in Tabora." "Well, then, where is Kazeh? I have never seen the man yet who could tell me where that place is, and yet the three white men have that word down, as the name of the place they lived at when you were with them. You must know where it is."
At Tabora they live quite luxuriously. The plain on which the settlement is situated is exceedingly fertile, though naked of trees; the rich pasturage it furnishes permits them to keep large herds of cattle and goats, from which they have an ample supply of milk, cream, butter, and ghee.
The great difficulty was that, apart from the Mahenge plateau, they were not rooted to any spot, and their elusiveness was illustrated by the fact that the Tabora garrison evaded the encircling forces and joined Von Lettow-Vorbeck at Mahenge.
Subsequently a revulsion of feeling set in, and it was generally recognised that he had performed a brilliant feat. In due time the new supply of porters turned up at Tabora, fifty-seven men. They were excellent and trustworthy, and in a letter to Stanley, Livingstone says that he did not know how to thank him sufficiently for this new service.
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