Africa^ its Past and Future. 119 



at Zanzibar. The ivory and slave-traders have made caravann- 

 ing a pi'ofession, and every thing the explorer wants is to be 

 found in these bazaars, from a tin of sardines to a repeating-rifle. 

 Here these black villains the porters — the necessity and despair 

 of travelers, the scum of slave-gangs, and the fugitives from 

 justice from every tribe — congregate for hire. And if there is 

 any thing in which African travelers are for once agreed, it is, 

 that for laziness, ugliness, stupidity, and wickedness, these men 

 are not to be matched on any continent in the world." Upon 

 such men as these Stanley was obliged to depend. 



Though traveling in this way is more rapid than the other, it 

 is very expensive, and has many diflSculties not encountered by 

 the solitary traveler. The explorer always goes on foot, following 

 as far as possible the beaten paths. A late traveler sa3^s : " The 

 roads over which the land-trade of equatorial Africa now passes 

 from the coast to the interior are mere footpaths, never over a 

 foot in breadth, beaten as hard as adamant, and rutted beneath 

 the level of the forest-bed by centuries of native traffic. As a 

 rule, these foot-paths are marvellously direct. Like the roads of 

 the old Roman, they move straight on through every thing, — 

 ridge and mountain and valley, — never shying at obstacles, nor 

 anywhere turning aside to breathe. No country in the world is 

 better supplied with paths. Every village is connected with 

 some other village, everj'^ tribe with the next tribe, and it is 

 possible for a traveler to cross Africa without being once out of 

 a beaten track." 



But if the tribes using these roads are destroyed, the roads are 

 discontinued, and soon become obstructed by the rapid growth 

 of the underbrush; or, if the route lies through unknown regions 

 outside the great caravan-tracks, the paths are very different 

 from those desci'ibed by Mr. Drummond, for the way often lies 

 through swamps and morass, or thick woods, or over high moun- 

 tain-passes, or is lost in a wilderness of waters. 



The great difficulty in these expeditions is to obtain food. As 

 supplies cannot be carried, they must be procured from the 

 natives. Very few tribes can furnish food for a force of six 

 hundred men (the number with Stanley); and when they have 

 the food, they demand exorbitant prices. Often the natives not 

 only refuse food to the famished travelers, but oppose them with 

 such arms as they have; and theurit is necessary, in self-defence, 

 to fire upon them. 



