Burton and Speke have a massive caravan of people, porters, slaves and goods for trade moving from the coast of Zanzibar inland, in search of a great lake they'd heard about, which they suspect could be the source of the Nile River. There seem to be over 100 people.
Many of the porters come from the Nyamwezi tribe. They seem to have been a tribe of hunting people until they began earning a living carrying loads on their heads for traders and explorers like Burton. Only half would make it home alive and with a wage in their pockets. And after returning home, they would have to soon set off again "with a bale of a bundle on their head and a good view of death. And they couldn't always stand that view. So they fled."
The narrator of this section, a guide who led the caravan, goes on to explain what happened when these porters fled.
"They ran away in the night, and sometimes we went after them and sometimes we let them be, and sometimes they were caught by another caravan and brought back to us. Then they were whipped with a koorbash, a scourge plaited from hippopotamus hude, a terrible weapon, especially when it was new and as honed and sharp as the blade of a knife. Or they were hanged. I tell you, whoever invented that punishment couldn't tell cleverness from stupidity. There is no lash of any whip in this world that can prevent you taking the path your heart has set you on. When your fear or despair or anger or longing grow too strong for your reckoning, weighing mind, then you do what your heart tells you to do, even if all the torments of Hell in this world and the next are waiting for you."We are not unlike the Nyamwezi people. We are contracted to indoor jobs to earn money we need to support ourselves and families. That view of sitting under neon lighting, behind a computer, within a screened cubicle is one that not many manage to successfully flee. But, ultimately, the ones who listen to their hearts do make it because nothing can prevent them from taking the path that their heart has set them on. They find a way. You'll meet some of these brave 'escapees' at FEAT.
A decade ago, when I was in turmoil and at the point of making a decision to walk away from 6.5 years of studies, I went to see a psychologist - uncertain whether I was crazy and impulsive (this had been building for many months) or making a sensible decision. I clearly remember him telling me, "Lisa, follow your heart; it knows what you want to do". The next day I handed in my deregistration papers and I have not for one day regreted it.
I liked something else that the guide says a few pages on about Burton and Speke setting their eyes on the first great lake.
"At the beginning, none of us knew what was in store for us, none of us could imagine what we were going to experience, and if we had been able to, none of us would have embarked on that path of scars and suffering. [...] and the wazungu [white men], my brothers, are strange creatures. I can recognise them, I can tell them apart, but I will never be able to understand them. They think a person's highest calling is to go where his ancestors have never been before. How can we, who are afraid of going where no one has been before, understand that? How can we understand their happiness at performing a task they have set themselves? You should have seen the expression on their faces: they were as happy as a father holding his newborn child, as happy as someone who has just falled in love when he sees his sweetheart coming... [...] This was the look on their faces when they reached a goal that no other wazungu had reached before them."
I read a release today about a new expedition called the '737 Challenge'. According to The Adventure Blog, "Welsh adventurer Richard Parks plans to reach the top of all of the Seven Summits, as well as both the North (last degree) and South Pole (last two degrees), in just seven months - starting December. He's calling his expedition the 737 Challenge, which stands for 7 Summits, 3 Poles, 7 Months. Mt. Everest, the highest mountain in the world, is sometimes called the 'third pole'."
Ja, another first, if he gets it right.
It's nice to be first to find, discover and do things. This is motivation that has driven not only exploration, but also science, medicine, technology and other research. Thank goodness. Long live the desire to achieve personal goals whether they are accomplishments just for your own pleasure or feats that change the way we see our abilities and the world.
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