New Year's Day, 1869, found Livingstone laboring under a worse attack of illness than any he had ever had before. For ten weeks to come his situation was as painful as can be conceived. A continual cough, night and day, the most distressing weakness, inability to walk, yet the necessity of moving on, or rather of being moved on, in a kind of litter arranged by Mohamad Bogharib,--where, with his face poorly protected from the sun, he was jolted up and down and sideways, without medicine or food for an invalid,--made the situation sufficiently trying. His prayer was that he might hold out to Ujiji, where he expected to find medicines and stores, with the rest and shelter so necessary in his circumstances. So ill was he, that he lost count of the days of the week and the month. "I saw myself lying dead in the way to Ujiji, and all the letters I expected there--useless. When I think of my children, the lines ring through my head perpetually:
"'I shall look into your faces, And listen to what you say; And be often very near you When you think I'm far away.'"
On the 26th February, 1869, he embarked in a canoe on Tanganyika, and on the 14th March he reached the longed-for Ujiji, on the eastern shore of the lake. To complete his trial, he found that the goods he expected had been made away with in every direction. A few fragments were about all he could find. Medicines, wine, and cheese had been left at Unyanyembe, thirteen days distant. A war was raging on the way, so that they could not be sent for till the communications were restored.
To obviate as far as possible the recurrence of such a disaster to a new store of goods which he was now asking Dr. Kirk to send him, Livingstone wrote a letter to the Sultan of Zanzibar, 20th April, 1869, in which he frankly and cordially acknowledged the benefit he had derived from the letter of recommendation his Highness had given him, and the great kindness of the Arabs, especially Mohamad Bogharib, who had certainly saved his life. Then he complains of the robbery of his goods, chiefly by one Musa bin Salim, one of the people of the Governor of Unyanyembe, who had bought ivory with the price, and another man who had bought a wife. Livingstone does not expect his cloth and beads to be brought back, or the price of the wife and ivory returned, but he says:
"I beg the assistance of your authority to prevent a fresh stock of goods, for which I now send to Zanzibar, being plundered in the same way. Had it been the loss of ten or twelve pieces of cloth only, I should not have presumed to trouble your Highness about the loss; but 62 pieces or gorahs out of 80, besides beads, is like cutting a man's throat. If one or two guards of good character could be sent by you, no one would plunder the pagasi next time.
"I wish also to hire twelve or fifteen good freemen to act as canoe-men or porters, or in any other capacity that may be required. I shall be greatly obliged if you appoint one of your gentlemen who knows the country to select that number, and give them and their headman a charge as to their behavior. If they know that you wish them to behave well it will have great effect. I wish to go down Tanganyika, through Luanda and Chowambe, and pass the river Karagwe, which falls into Lake Chowambe. Then come back to Ujiji, visit Manyuema and Rua, and then return to Zanzibar, when I hope to see your Highness in the enjoyment of health and happiness."
Livingstone showed only his usual foresight in taking these precautions for the protection of his next cargo of goods. In stating so plainly his intended route, his purpose was doubtless to prevent carelessness in executing his orders, such as might have arisen had it been deemed uncertain where he was going, and whether or not he meant to return by Zanzibar.