Scotland/Scots > Last years of Livingstone

34
THE LAST YEARS OF LIVINGSTONE.
ther ivory nor slaves, but a canoe to kill Manyema.” By
slanders like this the Arabs succeeded in getting nine ca¬
noes, while Livingstone could not purchase one. “ But
four days below this part,” he proceeds to say, “narrows
occur in which the mighty river is compressed by rocks,
which jut in, not opposite to each other, but alternately ;
and the water, rushing round the promontories, forms ter¬
rible whirlpools which overturned one of the canoes, and
so terrified the whole party that by deceit preceded me,
that they returned without ever thinking of dragging the
canoes past the difficulty. This I should have done to
gain the confluence of the Lomame, some fifty miles below,
and thence ascend through Lake Lincoln to the ancient
fountains beyond the copper mines of Katanga ; and this
would nearly finish my geographical work. But it was so
probable that the dyke which forms the narrows would
be prolonged across the country into Lomame, that I had
to turn towards this great river considerably above the
narrows; and where the distance between the Lualaba
and Lomame is about eighty miles.”
At this time, a friend named Dugambe was on his way
from Ujiji, with a large armed caravan, and nine under¬
traders with their people. For him, therefore, Living¬
stone waited three months in the hope of getting some
reliable freemen in the room of the faithless Banians, and
also a canoe. Dugambe appeared to be a gentleman, and
the doctor offered him £400 for ten men and a canoe, and
afterwards all the goods he supposed he had at Ujiji, so
as to enable him to finish his work. His first words were,