Women
never partook of human flesh. Eating sokos or gorillas must
have been a step in the process of teaching them to eat men.
The sight of a soko nauseates me. He is so hideously ugly, I
can conceive no other use for him than sitting for a portrait
of Satan. I have lost many months by rains, refusal of my
attendants to go into a canoe, and irritable eating ulcers on
my feet from wading in mud instead of sailing. They are
frightfully common, and often kill slaves. I am recovering,
and hope to go down Lualaba, which I would call Webb River or
Lake; touch then another Lualaba, which I will name Young's
River or Lake; and then by the good hand of our Father above
turn homeward through Karagwe. As ivory-trading is here like
gold-digging, I felt constrained to offer a handsome sum of
money and goods to my friend Mohamad Bogharib for men. It was
better to do this than go back to Ujiji, and then come over
the whole 260 miles. I would have waited there for men from
Zanzibar, but the authority at Ujiji behaved so oddly about
my letters, I fear they never went to the coast.
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