Letter to John Kirk
David Livingstone

Date of composition: 13 February 1871
Place of composition: Manyema
Repository: National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Shelfmark: MS.10701, f. 154
Clendennen & Cunningham number(s): Letters, 1967
Digital edition and date: Livingstone Online, 2016
Publisher: University of Maryland Libraries, College Park, MD, USA
Project id: liv_002568
TEI encoding: Adrian S. Wisnicki, Megan Ward, Heather F. Ball, Kate Simpson, Ashanka Kumari, Alexander Munson

[liv_002568_0001]

3d P.S. - 13th Feb 18[ ] - The [ ]rabs here all lament that
Banian slaves were sent without a free Arab to superintend
them - I reply that no doubt you acted on the best advice [154]
you could obtain - You must not think please from what
5I told you in P.S. N 2 that I am grumbling at you or that I
feel aught but extremely thankful to you for all your
exertions in my behalf if I add that after refusing to go
anywhere but back to Ujiji and telling many lies to effect
an advance of pay to six dollars a month they yesterday
10sat still when told to tie up their bundles to march - This
was unbearable so I promised the ringleader Chakanja
to shoot him on the word of an Englishman if he did not
at once do his duty. Muhamad swore to them that he would
kill them if they wrangled with me - they then went to work
15I suspect that Price & Abram who with inimitable
effrontery wish to go with me are at the bottom of this mutiny
for Chakanja came and asked me to take them - that would
be to take the fomenters of every mutiny at every Moslem
camp we came to teach these Banian slaves to desert too.
20I have been too lenient making every allowance for their early
education under slavetrading Muhamadans & recieving
deserters forgiving feeding & clothing some of them 5 times
over - but at last they despised running away & stood
with insults telling me they would not work - It has been
25like Baines after confessing his theft to me twice over and
offering to pay for the goods - confessing also to Rae & Charles -
and Tito moreover admitting to me that he had recieved the
goods "but they were little little" said he - Then forging that he
had issued at least 12 months cabin fare for 8 persons to 3
30men in 3 months - Then bedaubing me with lies to the utmost
that he would like to go with me again & his confidante
little Mr George was sure that with Baines to help we should lay
open "all Africa" Today I am detained by one seized with
choleraic purging -

35

I dont know what to say of Sherreef Bosher - He refused
to allow more beads to come to me than 2 frasilahs of a cheap
dirty red called Junduguru - by saying Manyema dont want
the fine red Talaka or samsam of which there are or ought to be
frasilahs at Ujiji - nor would he allow a long box which I
40believe you packed & which has been detained for years to be
opened to take out medicines & letters - though Muhamad bin
Saleh (late prisoner at Cazembe's) had a note asking him
either to send it or take medicines & letters out & put them
in a light tea box for carriage - The ten men came carrying
45next to nothing because apparently Sherreef waats to
force me back by starvation - I am only about 150 miles
W. N. W. of Ujiji here - I came back about a 100 more to wait
for the men and they were told I was near, yet this drunken
Sherreef refuses to let me have a share of my goods
50He kept 3 men too at Ujiji - a fourth Awathe a good-
man was sick and has constantly & loudly protested
against Sherreef squandering my property after he had
made away with all that was given for the provisions
on the way - It is now 16 months since the 15th October 1869
55when they set out - I send authority by Muhamad Bogharib
to take a list of all that remains and place them in
Moenyeghere's tembe who I have requested to supply
Awathe with provisions - Would it not be fair to
stop the value of what he abstracts from my stock out of
60the pay of himself & [ ]e accomplices - Muhamad cant
be at [ ] yet to come - something [liv_002568_0002]
should be done to prevent wholesale plunder of English goods - now all believe that with
the double pay we give we shall stand any amount of fraud meekly - In the rainy season of
/67 fever without medicine produced fits of total insensibility - In /58 severe pneumonia of the right
lung - I reached Ujiji like one far gone in consumption - In /70 rainy season produced choler-
5-aic purging & great emaciation & forced me to encamp for many months - now I dread
travelling in the rains - I go in canoes but to Ujiji - would be all on foot - and at least four
months would be lost & in four or five I hope to finish the exploration - I have a few of
the beads I brought here I shall by and buy more from an Arab down the Lualaba but the
price will be enor[ ]mous - M Bogharib gives me a note to take 20 large copper bracelets from
10his men if I meet them - I give him 5 pieces Americano 5 Do Kanike & 2 frasilahs of
of samsam at Ujiji - He has been extremely kind all through - It is mortifying to have my
goods near at hand and I must go with hard fare because this Sherreef chooses to
come between them and me - no wine or spirits but I am most thankful to
recieve coffee & sugar - ^ in a second lot of things that came by Hassani to Unyembe
15I was down to Make believe coffee of maize and no sugar - Quinine nauseates
without wine or spirits - But when I came to Ujiji I was 30 months or 2 ½ years
without either tea coffee or sugar - A box of tea sent by Captain Black of the
P & O company was a great boon & I fear never acknowledged for it was among
the missing 40 - A letter sent to you & one to Sir Roderick from the outskirts of
20Manyema went to the Governors care through M. Bogharib & M bin Saleh
asking you to send for vaccine virus in tubes but I fear it went the same
[ ]ay as the 40 - I wrote Meller also in answer to a kind note & fear it met a
similar fate - tell him if you write - your wish that you were with me I have often
wished that you were - the trees are mostly new to me but new plants are not
25numerous save climbing plants - you alone could have stood the hardships
[ ] have endured but you are doing more important work and my blessing on it -
I dont like to make a whine over my efforts but they have made me old toothless
and shaky - a dreadful old fogie - such as I used to laugh at when they shut me up
with a glorious blether about ^ something fo{i}fty years ago - aye men were men then - (of course)

30

No list of the goods sent by Hassani to Unyembe came but the men say that
one box of sugar one of soap and one of sundries probably that detained unaccountably
by the ill conditioned governor - Shereefs refusal to open it and give medicines & letters pre
vents my knowing if the two guns & pistol are in it I was uncharitable [ ]nough to suspect a wor[ ]
to fall heir to my guns as his motive no clothing seen Sherreef may be help[ ] [ ] Governor [ ] avid [ ] [ ]
35to conceal th[ ] [ ]

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