It would seem that at Ujiji the natives, as in other places, can not bear to have snakes killed. “Chatu,” a species of python, is common, and, from being highly favored, becomes so tame as to enter houses at night. A little meal is placed on the stool, which the uncanny visitor laps up, and then takes its departure; the men significantly say they never saw it with their own eyes. Another species utters a cry, much like the crowing of a young cock; this is well authenticated. Yet another black variety has a spine like a black-thorn at the end of the tail, and its bite is extremely deadly.
At the same time it must be added that, considering the enormous number of reptiles in Africa, it rarely occurs that any one is bitten, and a few months’ residence suffices to dispel the dread which most travelers feel at the outset.
_February, 1874._--No further incident occurred worthy of special notice. At last the coast-town of Bagamoio came in sight, and before many hours were over, a British cruiser conveyed the acting consul, Captain Prideaux, from Zanzibar to the spot which the cortege had reached. Arrangements were quickly made for transporting the remains of Dr. Livingstone to the island, some thirty miles distant, and then it became perhaps rather too painfully plain to the men that their task was finished.
One word on a subject which will commend itself to most before we close this eventful history.
We saw what a train of Indian sepoys, Johanna men, Nassick boys, and Shupanga canoe-men accompanied Dr. Livingstone when he started from Zanzibar in 1866 to enter upon his last discoveries; of all these, five only could answer to the roll-call as they handed over the dead body of their leader to his countrymen on the shore whither they had returned, and this after eight years’ desperate service.
Once more we repeat the names of these men. Susi and James Chuma have been sufficiently prominent throughout--hardly so, perhaps, has Amoda, their comrade ever since the Zambesi days of 1864; then we have Abram and Mabruki, each with service to show from the time he left the Nassick College with the Doctor in 1865. Nor must we forget Ntoaeka and Halima, the two native girls of whom we have heard such a good character; they cast in their lot with the wanderers in Manyuema. It does seem strange to hear the men say that no sooner did they arrive at their journey’s end than they were so far frowned out of notice, that not so much as a passage to the island was offered them when their burden was borne away. We must hope that it is not too late--even for the sake of consistency--to put it on record that _whoever_ assisted Livingstone, whether white or black, has not been overlooked. Surely those with whom he spent his last years must not pass away into Africa again unrewarded, and be lost to sight.