-BURAGGA 
 
 ^ &. 
 
 C*i 
 
 )* LIVINGSTONE'S 
 TRAVELS IN 
 
 SOUTH AFRICA -H 
 
 Scale 1: 25.000.000. 
 
 Statute Miles 
 
 mfffm^ His fumary Journeys , 1849 -56. 
 MM^HB Zambezi aqpeiitu>n,,JS58-64. 
 m*mt J,ast Journey, 1866-73. 
 
 ! i 
 
 *
 
 LIVINGSTONE.
 
 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 
 
 C /''com a drawinj by Sit- II. U. Johnston, K.C.D., after a photoyraph 
 by J. E. May all.)
 
 LIVINGSTONE 
 
 AND THE 
 
 EXPLORATION OF 
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA 
 
 BY 
 
 Sir H. H. JOHNSTOty G.C.M.G., K.C.B., D.Sc., 
 *" F.R.G.ST F.Z.S., etc. 
 
 WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LONDON 
 GEORGE PHILIP & SON, LTD., 32 FLEET STREET, E.G. 
 
 Liverpool: PHILIP, SON & NEPHEW, Ltd.; 45 - 5I South Castle Street
 
 PUBLISHER'S NOTE. 
 
 The approaching Centenary of the birth of David 
 Livingstone appears a suitable time to issue 
 a cheap edition of the accompanying work 
 which originally appeared in "The World's 
 Great Explorers" Series, edited by Dr. J. Scott 
 Keltic, H. J. Mackinder, M.A., M.P., and E. G. 
 Ravenstein, F.R.G.S. 
 
 As Sir H. H. Johnston states in his preface to 
 the original edition, " this work is to be regarded 
 more in the light of a sketch of Livingstone's 
 life as an African explorer than a regular 
 biography," and he goes on to say that " until I 
 travelled in Livingstone's footsteps and entered 
 minutely into the recorded details of Living- 
 stone's work in Africa, I realised but feebly the 
 debt which African civilisation owes to that great 
 man, and the permanent and solid value of his 
 careful researches into the physical conditions 
 and natural history of the Dark Continent"

 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PUBLISHER'S NOTB 
 
 I. CENTRAL AFRICA NATURAL HISTORY .... I 
 
 II. CENTRAL AFRICA HUMAN HISTORY .... 24 
 
 III. THE HOUR AND THE MAN : LIVINGSTONE'S UPBRINGING 50 
 
 IV. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MISSIONARY LIFE ... 63 
 V. MARRIES, TEACHES, AND IS TROUBLED . . 70 
 
 VI. THE BOERS, " GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE" ... 84 
 
 VII. MISSION-WORK ; ITS FAILURES AND SUCCESSES . . 92 
 
 VIIL MISSIONARY BECOMES EXPLORER 98 
 
 IX. BETSHUANALAND 113 
 
 X. FEVER, TSETSE-FLY, AND HORSE-SICKNESS . . .128 
 
 XI. FROM THE ZAMBEZI TO ANGOLA 144 
 
 XII. FROM LOANDA TO QUILIMANE ACROSS AFRICA . . 1 68 
 
 XIII. THE ZAMBEZI 1 92 
 
 XTV. LIVINGSTONE RETURNS TO ENGLAND . . . .231 
 
 XV. THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION .... 242 
 
 XVI, LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND , 288
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAOK 
 
 XVII. FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER . . 296 
 
 XVIII. THB MANYEMA AND THEIR LAND 326 
 
 XIX. STANLEY RELIEVES LIVINGSTONE 339 
 
 XX. THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTONE 348 
 
 INDEX . '. '. . ' .... 369
 
 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL 
 Il't AFRICA. T^;}-,'^ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA NATURAL HISTORY. 
 
 THE history of the southern half of the African continent 
 has widely differed from the northern portion as regards 
 the manner and period in which it has been explored 
 and made known by races higher than the Negro. 
 More than that, the Negroes inhabiting the long half 
 of the Dark Continent which lies to the south of an 
 irregular border-line commencing at the Carneroons on 
 the West Coast, and passing across the continent to 
 the East Coast at Mombasa, present two x very distinct 
 language-stocks, which are totally unrepresented in the 
 northern half of Africa, For convenience, I shall call 
 this line dividing Northern from Southern Africa the 
 " Bantu Border-line," because it coincides exactly with 
 the northern limit of the Bantu 2 language-field. 
 
 1 The Bantu and the Hottentot- Bushman. 
 
 2 Bantu is the name now given to that remarkably homogeneous 
 larnily of prefix-governed South African languages to which belong 
 the dialects of the Cameroons, the Congo and Zambezi basins, the 
 Great Lakes, the Zanzibar coast, and, in fact, all Southern Africa 
 except the western part of Cape Colony and Namakwa-land.
 
 2 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 It is remarkable that in Africa north of the Bantu 
 border-line the progress of almost all exploration has 
 been from the north southward, while south of this 
 irregular limit its general direction has been from the 
 south upwards to the north ; and in spite of the rapid 
 progress of African exploration at the present time, 
 there still remains a narrow zigzag ribbon of unknown 
 country lying between the extreme reaches of the 
 northern and southern waves ot discovery. It is true 
 that this unexplored belt no longer extends unbroken 
 in its continuity. Speke and Grant were the first to 
 cross it in 1861 in their journey from Zanzibar to the 
 Victoria Nyanza, and thence down the Nile to Egypt ; 
 but for some twenty-six years afterwards the Nile 
 Valley remained the only travelled passage for Euro- 
 peans from North to South Africa overland. 1 The 
 next cut through the ribbon (I except the journeys 
 made by Dr. Schweinfurth and Dr. Junker when they 
 passed from the Nile basin to the upper waters of the 
 Welle, because it is not certain that they reached the 
 Bantu border-line) was performed by a not sufficiently 
 known German traveller, Dr. Zintgraff, who succeeded 
 in 1889, after repeated plucky attempts, in crossing from 
 the northern limits of the Cameroons watershed to the 
 south bank of the Benue. Stanley's recent journey from 
 the Aruwimi to the Albert Nyanza was a more abrupt, 
 decided passage from the Congo to the Nile basin than 
 was Dr. Schweinfurth's, but he did not, so far as I can 
 learn, actually cross the Bantu border-line, though in 
 
 1 Speke and Grant were succeeded in their passage across the Bantu 
 boundary in the Nile basin by Sir Samuel and Lady Baker, by Colonel 
 ChaiH4 Long. M. Linant de Bellefonds, Messrs. Chippiudall, Wilson, 
 and Felkin, Mason Bey, Gessi Pasha, Colonel Gordon, Eniin Pasha, 
 and Uignor Casati.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA NATURAL HISTORY. 3 
 
 some places he skirted it very closely. In the real 
 centre of Africa, Dr. Henry Barth l had pushed south- 
 wards as far as that still mysterious river the Shari 
 in the year 1854 ; but although his researches in that 
 direction were subsequently amplified by Dr. Nachtigal, 
 and although Dr. Junker, coming from the Nile, and 
 Mr. Grenfell (the well-known Baptist missionary) and 
 Captain Van Gele, travelling up from the Congo, have 
 carried the course of the Welle-Dua-Muban ' River, and 
 with it the Bantu border-line, to a little beyond the fourth 
 parallel of north latitude, there still remains an unex- 
 plored gap of some four hundred miles in width between 
 the two limits of exploration in that direction the 
 Shari and the Dua-Mubangi. Then, again, in Eastern 
 Africa, in spite of the great journeys up from the 
 south, through Masailand, of Joseph Thomson and 
 Count Teleki (the latter reaching as far as 5 north 
 latitude), and of Borelli, down from the north through 
 the almost unknown lands southward of Abyssinia, and 
 the plucky attempt of the James Brothers and Mr. 
 Lort Phillips to pass through Somaliland, there re- 
 mains yet in Eastern Africa an unexplored belt nearly 
 as wide as that which lies between the Upper Nile and 
 the Cameroons. 
 
 Curiously enough, this " divide " in the direction of 
 European exploration is almost exactly followed by the 
 manner in which the Mohammedan propaganda has 
 attacked the great savage continent. By the Moham- 
 medan propaganda I mean the slave-making, ivory- 
 hunting raids of Arabs, semi- Arabs, or Arabised races 
 
 1 One of the greatest names in African exploration. He was of 
 German nationality, but (after the death of Consul Richardson, whom 
 he accompanied) entered the employ of the British Government, at 
 whoso expense his truly remarkable journeys were made.
 
 4 LJVJNUtSJONK AMD OKIMTKAL, A*K1UA. 
 
 such as the Berbers, 1 Fulahs, 2 llausa, Nubians, and 
 Wa-swahili. Propaganda it no longer is, in the re- 
 ligious signification of the word, although certainly 
 in the northern half of the continent this rush of 
 Mohammedan conquerors was originally started by 
 the successive inroads of proselytising Arabs which 
 occurred during six centuries after the death of Mo- 
 hammed. 
 
 The Fulahs and the Hausa; the armies of Bornu, 
 Baghirnii, Wadai, and Darfur ; the Arabs and Nubians 
 of the Nile Valley and the Eastern Soudan ; the Abys- 
 sinians and Gallas (whose preposterous Christianity 
 offers no real distinction from the nature of their 
 Mohammedan neighbours) : all these peoples have for 
 centuries raided and ravaged Tropical Africa up to, but 
 not beyond, the Bantu border-line. The Hadhramaut 
 and Persian Gulf Arabs, who have been settled on the 
 Zanzibar Coast ever since the early centuries of the 
 Christian era (if not before), have by degrees, and of 
 late by leaps and bounds, penetrated the interior of 
 Central Africa in a north-westerly direction, starting 
 from Zanzibar, till they have at length reached, as 
 the northern limits of their extension, the country of 
 Buganda, the Upper Congo, and even the Ituri River 
 (Aruwimi), and possibly the south shores of the Albert 
 Nyanza; and with these Zanzibar Arabs may be practi- 
 cally identified the remarkable Swahili people, the race 
 
 1 " Moors," Tuaregs, Tamasheq peoples speaking languages of the 
 Libyan or Hamitic type, inhabitants of the great Sahara Desert. 
 
 2 Or, as they should properly be called, "Ful-be," which is the 
 plural form of Pul-o, a " Ful " man. The Fulbe, like the Tibu of the 
 Central Sahara, the Nubians, Gallas, Somalis, and perhaps to some 
 extent the Mandingo, are Negroids rather than Negroes, with finer 
 features and longer hair. The Hausa are Negroes, but speak a lan- 
 guage with Semitic-Hamitic affinities.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA NATURAL HISTORY. 5 
 
 formed by the mingling of Arab and Negro. But in 
 all their slave-raids or trading journeys, these Arabs 
 and Wa-swahili have never yet, to our knowledge, 
 crossed to the north of the Bantu border-line, except in 
 the company of Europeans. Neither is it known to 
 us that any Mohammedan invaders have passed to the 
 south of the Bantu border-line coming from the north, 
 though there are reported to have been one or two 
 doubtful cases contingent on the journeys of Europeans. 
 Practically speaking, the Mohammedan, like the Chris- 
 tian explorer's, have halted at this meandering line, which 
 runs across the continent from the estuary of the Rio 
 del Rey on the West Coast to let us say the mouth of 
 the River Tana on the East Coast. The Zanzibar Arabs, 
 who travel as far north as the country of Bunyoro and 
 the Victoria Nile, do not yet meet their co-religionists 
 from Khartum ; the Mohammedans from Bornu and 
 Wadai have not yet penetrated from the upper waters 
 of the Shari to the banks of the Mubangi, that great 
 northern affluent of the Congo ; no Swahili trader has 
 succeeded in reaching Abyssinia from the Masai country, 
 nor has any Abyssinian slave-dealer been known to 
 come overland across the Galla countries to the Zanzibar 
 dominions. 
 
 What has caused this remarkable break in the relations 
 between Northern and Southern Africa ? Between the 
 Africa of the Egyptian, the Nubian, the Libyan, the 
 Hausa, the Fulah, the Niam-niam, and the Africa of the 
 Bantu and the Hottentot ? Between the Nigritia, the 
 Libya, the Ethiopia, the Bilad-as-Sudan, the Land of the 
 Blacks, which was known to the old Egyptians, the 
 Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Greeks, the Romans, 
 and the Saracens, and which, in spite of the intervening
 
 3 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Sahara Desert, 1 held far-off relations with the ancient 
 Mediterranean peoples, and that great southern half of 
 Africa which was first made known to us by the Eastern 
 Arabs and the Portuguese '( 
 
 There is seemingly no line of natural obstacles stretch- 
 ing across Africa to account for this division in its 
 history. It is true the dense forests of the Congo basin 
 may have arrested the advance of the Mohammedan 
 raiders from the Benue and the Shari, for these people 
 ride horses and prefer a more or less open country for 
 their operations ; but to the eastward of the Congo 
 watershed the country on both sides of the Bantu border- 
 line appears to be the same in character. Why then 
 should the Nubians, who have reached the Monbutu 
 country, stop short at Burega, or the Swahili Arabs 
 who visit Bunyoro not continue their journey to Gon- 
 dokoro '( Perhaps the real explanation may lie in 
 several causes combined : in the dense forests of West 
 Central Africa, in the difficulty of penetrating this un- 
 known tract from the east or west, owing to the harsh 
 deserts and savage people of Somaliland and the pathless 
 woodlands of the Cameroons, and in the fact that explora- 
 tion coming from the north and south has about spent 
 its force when it has reached the Bantu border-line. 
 
 It is of that Bantu half of Africa which lies to the 
 south of this zigzag but well-defined language-limit that 
 I propose to treat in the present volume, more especially 
 in conjunction with a review of the life and work and 
 
 1 The Sahara quite possibly was less arid two or three thousand 
 years ago than it is now. We know from the remarkable rock-paintings 
 discovered by lliehardson and others in Fez/.an that in ancient times 
 bullocks were employed for transport across the Sahara. The camel 
 only came into use quite recently, perhaps about thd eleventh century 
 of our ora.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA NATURAL HISTORY. 7 
 
 results which have followed on the work of that great 
 traveller, David Livingstone, who may be said to have 
 initiated the scientific exploration of Central Africa by 
 the European race. I think fit to apply to that por- 
 tion of the African Continent which was illumined and 
 affected by Livingstone's discoveries the designation of 
 Central Africa, in contradistinction to the Temperate 
 South Africa already known to us in its main features 
 before Livingstone's day, to the great mass of Moham- 
 medan North Africa, and to those eastern and western 
 extensions of the Dark Continent that are practically 
 unconnected in the history of their exploration and 
 development with that Bantu Africa which will for all 
 time be associated with Livingstone's name. 
 
 Central Africa may be roughly subdivided into the 
 East and West Coast-lands, the Lake Region, and the 
 basins of the Congo and the Zambezi Draw a line 
 down through its middle, and you will find that the 
 eastern half contains nearly all the great lakes and 
 high mountains, while the western portion, except for 
 the coast-range marking the edge of the central basin, 
 is mainly flat, and most abundantly watered by innumer- 
 able streams. The western half belongs to the "Forest" 
 Region, 1 while the eastern section exhibits that park- 
 like, savannah country which is so characteristic of the 
 
 1 Wallace's "West African " sub-region. This definition is now chiefly 
 restricted to a narrow strip of coast-land stretching from the River 
 Gambia on the north to the River Kwanza on the south, with a vast 
 inland extension over nearly the whole of the Congo basin, up to the 
 western shores of Lakes Albert Edward and Tanganyika. This West 
 African or " Forest " country, which off ers acurious parallel to the forest 
 regions of the Amazon basin in South America, was once, I believe, 
 characteristic of the greater part of Tropical Africa, but largely through 
 the action of man during many centuries in destroying- the trees by tore 
 and axe, the forest region is now confined to the West Coast and the
 
 8 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 greater portion of Tropical Africa. The forest region 
 has a richer flora, but in some respects a poorer fauna, 
 than the park country, and from the protection afforded 
 by its dense forests to feeble forms of life and unsuc- 
 cessful species, it presents a more primitive and truly 
 African aspect in its characteristic types than the 
 eastern, northern, and southern parts of the continent 
 something, in fact, suggesting a slight resemblance to 
 Madagascar, which island represents to a great extent 
 the character of the African fauna of the period ante- 
 cedent to the irruption into Africa from the Mediter- 
 ranean countries and Western Asia of the larger and 
 more striking types of mammalia which occupy the main 
 part of this continent at the present day. 
 
 Among such mammalian forms as are peculiar to West 
 Central Africa, I may cite the three or four species of 
 anthropoid apes, 1 which approach more nearly to man- 
 kind in their structure than their Asiatic congeners; 
 two most extravagantly - developed baboons, the drill 
 and the mandrill; the Mangabey monkeys (Cercocebus) ; 
 eleven or twelve kinds of Cercopithecus, among which the 
 most remarkable are the Diana and Pluto monkeys ; 
 two remarkable lemurs (Arctocebus and Perodicticus) ; 
 two bats; the otter-like insectivore, Potamogale ferox ; 
 two peculiar civets (Nandinia and Poiana) ; a red tiger- 
 cat ; a species of manatee ; a curious pig - like little 
 ruminant, Hyomoschus ; a red-haired buffalo ; a large 
 
 Congo basin, where the much greater rainfall and consequent moisture 
 sustains a vegetation too exuberant to be easily coped with, and too 
 damp and full of sap to afford much scope for bush-fires. 
 
 1 The gorilla, the common or white-skinned chimpanzee, the bald- 
 headed chimpanzee, and possibly the Barn-chimpanzee from the Welle 
 district, and the Soko, found by Livingstone in Manyema, though these 
 two latter animals may be the same species as the common chimpanzee.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA NATURAL HISTORY. 9 
 
 Cephalophus antelope with a white back, and a smaller 
 species with a back strangely barred with black stripes ; 
 and the red river- hog (Potamochoerus penicillatus). 
 
 Among remarkable or peculiar West African birds 
 are a tit (Parinia), four flycatchers, four shrikes, a 
 swallow ( Waldenia), several finches and weaver-birds ; 
 a peculiar crow (Picathartes), a starling (Onychognathus), 
 a ground - thrush (Pitta africand), a genus of wood- 
 peckers ( Verreauxia), three peculiar genera and several 
 species of barbets; a remarkable genus (Myioceyx) of 
 kingfishers, and one or two peculiar species of hornbill ; 
 that handsome bird the great blue plantain - eater 
 (Schizorhis yigantea), and two or three other species of 
 Turacu ; the celebrated grey parrot, and possibly several 
 species of Poeocephalus parrots, a love-bird (Agapornis), 
 and a West African form of Palaeomis ; two very re- 
 markable genera of guinea-fowl, 1 and two peculiar species 
 of the common genus Numida ; a slaty egret (Ardea 
 
 1 Phasidus niger and Agelastes meleagroides, the former with dull 
 black-grey plumage, but head nearly bare, except for a few isolated 
 plumules and a crest of black feathers along the occiput [naked skin 
 of head a reddish colour] ; and the latter with the bulk of its plumage 
 a bluish-grey, speckled "saupoudre" with tiny white spots, and 
 the feathers of the neck and breast white, while the upper part of the 
 neck and the head are bare. Both these birds possess spurs, which 
 distinguishes them from all the other guinea-fowl (except the Vultu- 
 rine species, which has a rudimentary spur in the male), for these 
 African Pfta&ianidcE, unlike their congeners in Asia, Europe, and 
 North America, have no spurs on the tarsus. 
 
 The Guinea-fowl form an interesting group of Pavonine birds, which 
 are the peculiar appanage of the African region throughout which 
 they extend, even to Madagascar and Western Arabia. Tney are in- 
 digenous nowhere else, though they have become naturalised by man 
 in the West Indies and Central America. Their nearest allies are the 
 Tragopans, the Peacocks, the Polyplectrons, and the Turkeys. The 
 turkey is simply an aberrant peacock which has found its way through 
 Eastern Asia to North America, just like the wild goat and wild sheep
 
 10 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 gidaris), a tiger bittern, a white-bellied stork (Abdimia 
 sphvnorhymha), a Tantalus stork (Pseudofantalus) ; two 
 peculiar genera of hawks ( Urotriorchis and Dryotriorchis), 
 and an interesting form of fishing vulture (Gt/pohiera 
 angolensis, also found on Upper Zambezi) ; a rail 
 (Hydrornia alleni), and a peculiar fruit-pigeon (Treron 
 rnacrorhyncha). 
 
 Twelve genera of snakes are supposed to be restricted 
 in their range to the West African sub-region, and a 
 few species of other genera among them two specially 
 venomous vipers Vip&ra nasicornis and V. rhinoceros 
 are also, as far as we know, confined to this portion of 
 the continent. Three genera of lizards, two of tortoises, 
 and two of tree-frogs are said to be peculiar to West 
 Africa, as also ten genera of butterflies and fifty-three 
 genera of beetles ; but, of course, with the lower forms 
 of vertebrates, and still more with insects, it is not so 
 
 of the Rocky Mountains, which are the only ring-horned ruminants in 
 North America, and have their nearest allies in Asia. 
 
 As the region of Central Africa under description possesses nearly 
 all the genera and species of Guinea-fowl, it may be of interest 
 to append a complete list of the memoera of this sub-family of 
 Pheasants : 
 
 Habitat. 
 Phasidus niger . . . West African forests, from Old 
 
 Calabar to Congo. 
 Agdastes meleagr&ides . . West African littoral, Liberia. 
 
 to Niger Delta. 
 
 Numida vulturlna . . . East Equatorial Africa. 
 ptilorhyncha . , Abyssinia. 
 meleagris . . . All Tropical Africa. 
 cornuta . . . South Africa, 
 coronate . . . East Africa. 
 mitrata , . . Madagascar. 
 cristata . . . West Africa. 
 rendatti . . . West Africa. 
 puckerani . . . East Africa. 
 plwuifcra . . . East Africa.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA NATURAL HISTORY. 11 
 
 easy to prove their restricted range as it is with the 
 more readily discernible mammals and birds, so that 
 many of these butterflies, beetles, frogs, and lizards, 
 which are at present considered to be restricted in their 
 range to the West African forests, may ultimately be 
 found in other parts of Africa, as that continent comes 
 to be more carefully searched. 
 
 The same condition applies not only to the fresh-water 
 (ishes of the West African rivers, but in a still greater 
 degree to the flora of this sub-region, which, in spite of 
 its much greater luxuriance of growth, possesses but few 
 genera or species which are absolutely confined to this 
 district in their range and denied to the rest of Tropical 
 Africa. A few kinds of ferns perhaps, two genera of 
 palms l (Podococcus and Calarmis), several genera of 
 arums, one or two orchids, a certain number of Rubiaceous 
 plantd (Psychotria, for instance, and a good many species 
 of Musscendd), the genus Begonia (which, so far as it is 
 distributed in Africa, is confined to the western sub- 
 region), a few papilionaceous shrubs and herbs, such as 
 Camo&nsia and Leucomphahis, one or two genera of 
 Connaracece and Ochnacece, nearly all the specias of Gola 
 (some of which yield the cola-nut of commerce), the 
 handsome monotypic genus Omphalocarpum, several spe- 
 cies and genera of the Guttiferce, such as many of the 
 Sarcinice, and the peculiar genera of Pentadesma and 
 Allanblackia / 2 also four or five species of Anona are 
 believed to be restricted in their habitat to the West 
 
 1 Elais GuinSensis, the oil palm, although thought to be peculiar to 
 the West African sub-region, has been discovered by Sir John Kirk 
 growing wild on the island of Pemba (Zanzibar), and on the mainland 
 of East Africa ; and I have found it at the north eud of Lake Nyasa. 
 
 2 Professor Oliver is responsible for this very cacophonic name. 
 What causr=- botanists to compose such ill-Bounding, unclassical names
 
 12 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 African forest regions. But, as I have already stated, 
 West Africa differs from the eastern side of the conti- 
 nent, in respect to its flora, rather in greater exuberance 
 of growth and individual abundance of forms than in 
 generic or in strong specific character. What may be a 
 poor starveling shrub on the east coast of Tanganyika 
 may be, owing to greater moisture of climate and richer 
 soil, a fine bushy tree on the west shore of that lake. 
 Some plants that are deciduous in the drier parts of the 
 Zambezi basin are evergreen in the rainy lands of 
 Lunda. The difference in the aspect of the flora which 
 Schweinfurth and Junker noticed when they passed 
 from the basin of the Nile to that of the Congo, which 
 Cameron observed when he crossed from one side of 
 Tanganyika to the other, and Livingstone when he 
 passed from the park-lands of the Zambezi to the forests 
 of the Upper Liba and the Kasai, and which the present 
 writer has also witnessed in his journey from Angola tc 
 the Congo, and Nyasa to Tanganyika, arose less from 
 the difference of species and genera than from the more 
 luxuriant character of the vegetation, the profuse dis- 
 play of plants and trees, which are practically unknown 
 to the traveller coming from the east side of the con- 
 tinent ; not because they are absent from that region 
 for their range probably extends all over Tropical Africa 
 but because in the drier atmosphere of the eastern 
 versant of the continent they are hidden away in re- 
 stricted localities, where special conditions of moisture 
 and soil favour their growth or their perennial greenery. 
 For an example to explain this, let us take an imaginary 
 
 for new orders and genera of plants ; as, for instance, Teriistroemiacea?- 
 Kosteletzkya, Chailletiacece, Wormskioldi/a, Smithia, Smeathmanniu 
 fStoodenoviece 1 1
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA NATURAL HISTORY. 13 
 
 journey from Mombasa, on the east coast of Africa, to 
 the edge of the great Congo Forest, just beyond the 
 Sernliki River, travelling via Mount Kilimanjaro and 
 Lake Victoria Nyanza. From the coast to near the 
 base of the big snow mountain, we shall pass through a 
 country of scanty vegetation, varied by a little pleasing 
 growth of flowering shrubs and clumps of acacias, 
 baobabs, and fan-palms; still, nothing whatever which 
 comes up to the ideal tropical forest, with its dense 
 glossy-green foliage, its ferns, mosses, lichens, fungi, 
 creepers, which are delicate lace-like veils of verdure, 
 parasitic orchids, epiphytic arums, and trees with smooth, 
 white, column-like stems running up seventy feet above 
 the leaf canopy of the lesser shrubs before they deign to 
 expand themselves into a crown of foliage. But some 
 thirty miles from the snows of Kilimanjaro, along the 
 course of the little River Lumi, which drains the eastern 
 slopes of the mountain, you will pass from out of the 
 glaring sunburnt plains into the dense forest of Taveita, 
 where, from the character of the vegetation, you may 
 reasonably fancy yourself in West Africa This little 
 district of Taveita is some thirty square miles in extent, 
 and the River Lurni, for ever fed by the snows of 
 Kilimanjaro, trickles through it into Lake Jipe beyond, 
 and, because of its sluggish flow and several branches, 
 keeps the soil always moist, and thus maintains this 
 extravagant growth of forest. A botanist dropped into 
 Taveita from a balloon, and told to guess where he was 
 by the character of the vegetation, would say, " West 
 Africa." Very well; let us leave Taveita, and, skirting 
 the north side of Kilimanjaro, strike straight for the 
 Victoria Nyanza, cross the lake, and march overland 
 ill you have passed the Semliki and entered the great
 
 14 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 West African forest which stretches from the edge of 
 the Congo watershed to the Atlantic. Herein we shall 
 see just the same kind of forest and the same trees, 
 flowers, creepers, ferns, and fungi which were charac- 
 teristic of Taveita; and yet, if we have followed the 
 route indicated, we shall not have seen the like assem- 
 blage of vegetation elsewhere between Taveita and the 
 Congo basin. In fact, it may be said that East Africa, 
 from the borders of the Somali Desert to the Zambezi, 
 is dotted in places, where the water-supply and compo- 
 nents of the soil are propitious, with patches of " West 
 African " forest. 
 
 Western Africa, however, with all its wealth of flora 
 and its peculiar and recondite forms of animal life, lacks 
 not a few of the higher vertebrates beasts and birds 
 which are so characteristic of the more open park-lands, 
 grassy plateaux, and arid steppes of the Ethiopian sub- 
 region. 1 It possesses the elephant and hippopotamus in 
 numbers, 2 but not the rhinoceros or the wart-hog. The 
 giraffe, the kudu, 3 the common variety of eland, and 
 
 1 The Ethiopian sub-region really includes the whole of Africa 
 within the tropics, except the Congo basin, the Cameroons, the Lower 
 Niger, and a narrow strip of coast-land from the mouth of the Kwanza 
 River in 9 S. latitude to the mouth of the River Gambia in 14 N. 
 latitude. It is the "East African " sub-region of Wallace, but I pre- 
 fer to call it the " Ethiopian," as " East African " is too restricted a 
 term to apply to a subdivision of the African region which includes 
 Senegal, Lake Tshad, and Benguela within its limits. 
 
 2 Besides the common hippopotamus, which is found abundantly in 
 West Africa, there is another species, the pigmy hippopotamus, which 
 is restricted in its distribution to the rivers of Liberia. 
 
 8 The place of the true kudu appears to be taken by two large 
 Tragelaphs, the Tragelaphus gratus and T. Euryceros. The striped 
 or " Derbian" eland is found in parts of Western and West Central 
 Africa, but not the common dun-coloured species, which is peculiar 
 to South, East, and Kast Central Africa. The Traydaphince are an 
 nteresting group of purely African ruminants, analogous to the guinea-
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA NATURAL HISTORY. 15 
 
 nearly all the great antelopes, except those of the genus 
 Coitus, are also absent; neither is there any zebra or 
 
 fowl among the pheasants, and equally muddled, misnamed, and badly 
 classified by many naturalists. It may therefore be well to append 
 here a little synopsis of the known species and genera and their dis- 
 tribution over Tropical Africa. I would further premise that it is as 
 incorrect to call the Tragelaphs "antelopes" as it would bo to apply 
 that term to the Bovinas. "Antelopes" should be reserved to desig- 
 nate the ring-horned ruminants, such as the Cephalophines, the 
 Rupicaprines, the goats, sheep, and gazelles. The nearest ally of 
 the Tragelaphs is the Nylgaie (Bosdapkus tragocamelus), which is a 
 generalised Tragelaphine form that has been developed in every 
 direction but in length of horns. After the Nylgaie, the oxen come 
 nearest to the Tragelaphs. The leading features of the latter rumi- 
 nants are the tendency to spiral growth in the horns (which are not 
 ringed as in the antelopes), and the white spots and stripes on the hair 
 of the head and body. These white markings are evidently char- 
 acteristic of the primitive ruminants, and even of the original Artio- 
 dactyla. They reappear in young pigs, in the deer, and in the 
 Tragelaphs and some of the oxen. The Anoa (a small buffalo in 
 Celebes) and the Nylgaie are both spotted with white on the face : 
 
 TRAGELAPHIN.S;. 
 
 Habitat. 
 Tragdaphus tcrtptu, j Western Africa. 
 
 (Harnessed antelope) } 
 
 T. sylvaticus ) f Ethiopian sub-region: principally South 
 
 (Bush buck) ) ' ' ( and East Africa. 
 
 /Marshy districts of West African lit- 
 T. gratus ...... < toral from mouth of Congo to mouth 
 
 (. of Niger. 
 T. Spekii \ ( Marshy districts of Ethiopian sub- 
 
 (Setshire) J ' ( region. 
 
 T. Angasii ...... South Africa. 
 
 T. euryceros ..... Mountains of Gaboon and Cameroons. 
 
 T. strevsiccrcs \ ( Ethiopian sub-region (except Somali- 
 
 (Kudu) ' I land) and South Africa. 
 
 T 'H**y? , . I . . . Somaliland down to River Tana. 
 (Dwarf kudu) J 
 
 } ' ' ' ' Ethi P ian sub-region and South Africa. 
 
 Dsrbianus ) The less forested parts 
 (Striped eland] j West Central Africa. 
 
 0. canna var. Dsrbianus ) The less forested parts of West and 
 j
 
 16 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AJUICA. 
 
 other wild equine species. The place of the great buffa- 
 loes l of East and South Africa is taken by the smaller, 
 weaker, red buffalo (Bubalus brachyceros). Over the 
 greater part of West Africa the lion (so abundant in 
 the Ethopian sub- region) is practically absent, though 
 the leopard ranges impartially over the whole of Africa, 
 West, East, North, and South, excepting the unin- 
 habitable parts of the Sahara and Kalahari deserts, 
 and the over-inhabited districts of Algeria, Egypt, and 
 South Africa. The cheetah, on the other hand, is con- 
 fined to the Ethiopian sub-region, and never enters West 
 Africa, where, however, its near ally, the serval, is found. 
 Hyenas, so abundant in all other parts of Africa, are 
 almost absent from the true West African sub- region ; 
 but if any species of this scavenger does enter the fringe 
 of that district, it is the striped hyena, and not the 
 spotted. The hunting-dog (Lycaori) is also absent from 
 West Africa, and confined in its range to the Ethiopian 
 sub-region, while that most primitive of all living dog 
 forms, Otocyon, is confined to South Africa, and the 
 various desert foxes (the Fennecs Canis cerdo and 
 C. chamd) keep to the north-east and south of the 
 continent in their range. The only wild dogs in West 
 Africa are the black-backed and side-striped jackals. 
 Many of the rodents, so abundant in East Africa, do not 
 extend their range to the western districts. The four 
 genera of mole-rats (Spalacidce) are unrepresented there ; 
 so are many of the Muridce, and all the jerboas, the 
 octodonts, and the hares. Yet these animals range 
 over all the Ethiopian sub-region, as do the Oryderopus 
 
 1 Bubalus coffer, which is found all over the Ethiopian region, and 
 B. cequinoctialis, which is restricted to Abyssinia and part of the 
 Egyptian Sudan. This latter animal, by the shape of its horns, is an 
 interesting link between the Asiatic and African buffaloes.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA NATURAL HISTORY. 17 
 
 edentate and the Hyrax or rock-coney, which are also 
 absent from West Africa. The manatee is not found in 
 East African river estuaries, but an allied animal, the 
 dugong, takes its place. 
 
 There is no ostrich in West Africa, no secretary-bird, 1 
 no bustard, no sand-grouse, and no lark. Many species 
 of eagle 2 and vulture are absent, as are the Vulturine 
 guinea-fowls, the Stanley and Demoiselle cranes, the 
 great-billed ravens, and several genera of starlings (such 
 as Buphaga, Amydrus, and Spreo), all of which birds are 
 numerously represented in East and South Africa. 
 
 If the grandeur of West Africa lies in its superb 
 forests, which recall in their extravagant development of 
 vegetation the long past geological epochs of the Goal 
 measures, it is the special glory of East Africa to possess 
 still, and despite the vigorous slaughterings of British 
 sportsmen, 3 the finest collection of large and striking 
 mammals of any district in the world. Besides the 
 elephant, hippopotamus, and the river-pig (Polamo- 
 chcerus), the Tragelaphs, and the Oobus antelopes, the 
 leopard and the serval, which it shares with the western 
 half of the continent, Eastern Africa still harbours the 
 remarkable Gelada monkey, with its bare breast and huge 
 mane, the large Tshakma baboon, and the culminating 
 species of Colobus monkey, with its white-plumed tail; the 
 lion, the cheetah, the spotted and the brown hyenas, the 
 rhinoceros, the zebra and other wild asses, the giraffe, 
 the buffalo, the oryxes, hartebeests, gnus, pallahs, and 
 gazelles. Eastern Africa has, in fact, been the refuge of 
 
 1 Serpentarius reptiiivorus. 
 
 2 Those of the genera Aquila, Helotarsus, Spizcetus, and Circcetus. 
 
 3 The most inexcusable, and ordinarily the most unintelligent, of 
 destroyers, in that they neither kill for food, as do the natives, nor for 
 science, but merely for sport.
 
 18 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 the great carnivorous and herbivorous mammalia which 
 developed into specialised forms in Eastern Europe and 
 Western Asia, and were driven thence into the Dark 
 Continent through Syria and Arabia by the rise and 
 rapid increase of mankind, who crowded these beasts out 
 of their feeding-grounds; it may also be by the cold 
 touch of some glacial epoch. 
 
 By the same road, no doubt, through Syria and 
 Arabia l came the first human immigrants into Tropical 
 Africa. It is the most reasonable solution of the pro- 
 blems raised by the contemplation of the existing 
 varieties of mankind and their present distribution over 
 the land surface of the globe to imagine that, in what- 
 ever part of the world our species first originated, it was 
 in Asia that the human tribe effected its first decided 
 concentration. From its centre of distribution in this 
 continent it sent forth horde after horde of emigrants, 
 north-east into America, west into Europe, south-east 
 into Malaysia, Australia, and the Pacific Ar-chipelagoes, 
 and south-west into Africa. No doubt the earliest type 
 of mam had fine, long, silky hair on his head, with just a 
 slight kink or crimp in it. 2 In his Asiatic home, how- 
 ever, there soon sprang up two distinct variations from 
 the primal stock the men with short, curly hair, and 
 the men with long, coarse, straight hair. The latter 
 spread more to the north, and in long ages differentiated 
 into the red American, the yellow Mongol, and the 
 white European ; the former turned more to the south, 
 settled in India perhaps, and in that hive of nations 
 developed itself into a Nigritic type, which overflowed 
 
 1 The Rod Sea is supposed to have been at different times reduced 
 to an isolated lake by a slight rise of its shallow bed near Perim. 
 * This is much the character of the head-hair in the Chimpanzee.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA NATURAL HISTORY. 19 
 
 to the south-east over Malaysia and Polynesia, and as 
 far away as to Australia, Tasmania, and even to New 
 Zealand (and there gave rise, by further changes and by 
 intermixtures with the fringe of the long-haired type, 1 
 to Negritos, Papuans, Australians, Tasmanians, and 
 Maories), and westwards into Arabia, 2 where probably 
 the true Negro variety of man was first initiated. A 
 Nigritic influence is distinctly traceable among the 
 autochthonous tribes of Eastern Arabia, Mesopotamia, 
 and Balutshistan, which is not to be sufficiently explained 
 by a supposed intermixture with Negro slaves. The 
 classical geographers and historians also make mention 
 of dark-skinned peoples inhabiting the shores of the 
 Persian Gulf. It must not be forgotten, indeed, that, as 
 regards race and language, there are quite sufficient links 
 existing to connect the Arab and the Negro with a chain 
 of intermediate types. 
 
 The original Nigritic stock in Western Asia developed 
 three leading types the ascending Hamite and Semite, 
 and the somewhat retrograding Negroes and Hottentot- 
 Bushmen. The first immigrants from Asia into Africa 
 were no doubt the lowest Negro forms, the ancestors of 
 the present Bushmen and other dwarf races of Central 
 Africa. To them succeeded the Hottentots (a slightly 
 higher type, with Harnitic affinities in their language), 
 and probably for many centuries the Bushmen-Hotten- 
 tot tribes monopolised the whole southern half of Africa, 
 
 1 The Malays and Polynesians, on the other hand, are the long- 
 haired type which has mingled slightly with the Negrito ; so are the 
 Dravidian peoples. 
 
 3 We have reason to believe, from the deeply-cut beds of its dried- 
 up rivers, and from other signs and traditions, that Arabia, like the 
 Sahara, has suffered from a continued and increasing desiccation, and 
 that it was once a better watered, more fertile country, able to support 
 a varied fauna and a largo population.
 
 20 LIVINGSTONE AND GJ5JSTKAL, AFJtUCA. 
 
 leading an unprogressive existence among its woods and 
 mountains. Other Nigritic invasions occupied a great 
 band of North Central Africa from east to west, and here 
 the typical dark-skinned, burly Negro became more 
 emphatic in his development. In the meantime, the 
 Hamites were advancing considerably in the scale of 
 humanity. They were acquiring longer and more bushy, 
 less kinky hair than their Negro relations, and their 
 intelligence was sharpening. They had in them the 
 impulse to progress while the Negro remained stationary, 
 and the Bushman -Hottentot retrogressed. The Hamites 
 settled in the lower valley of the Nile (whence they 
 developed into that marvellous Egyptian race, the first 
 civilised people in human history). They extended 
 across the Sahara Desert to the Atlantic, the Mediter- 
 ranean, and the Canary Islands, while other and earlier 
 branches of their stock had established themselves along 
 the Red Sea coast, round the flanks of Abyssinia, the 
 eastern versant of the Nile, and over Somali and Galla 
 lands. 
 
 The Semites, in the meantime, had acquired still 
 lighter complexions and straighter hair than their 
 Hamitic brethren, though even with them the " kink " 
 in the hair is not wholly lost. 1 They probably branched 
 off from the Hamites in North-Eastern Africa, and 
 spread out over Palestine, Syria, the Euphrates Valley, 
 Arabia, and both sides of the Persian Gulf. In the two 
 last-named districts (Arabia and Southern Persia) 
 increasing drought had probably the effect of driving 
 away (into Africa chiefly) most of the old Nigritic inhabi- 
 
 1 It reappears among the Arabs still, and even among the modern 
 Jews occasionally, in a certain " waviness " of the hair of the head, 
 which has a crimped appearance.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA NATURAL HISTORY. 21 
 
 tants who had been the prior occupants of the land : 
 the remainder were absorbed by the Semites, and much 
 intermixtures produced races like the Elamites. In 
 the north and west and east the Semite invasion was 
 ultimately checked, and its border types much modi- 
 fied and "whitened" by the descent of Aryans 1 and 
 Mongols. 2 
 
 The earliest types of man which invaded Central and 
 South Africa from Arabia were probably (as I have 
 already pointed out) the ancestors of the Bushmen and 
 Hottentots. 3 It is possible these pygmy, yellow-skinned, 
 low-type Negroids spread even over nearly all the African 
 continent, but were earlier and more completely effaced 
 or absorbed by superior races in the northern than in the 
 southern half of Africa. At the present day they are 
 only represented by the Bushmen and the Hottentots in 
 the countries south of the Zambezi and by the scattered 
 pygmies in the great Congo Forest. 4 These latter people 
 are of a much less definite type than the Bushmen- 
 Hottentots ; and although reported to possess a language 
 of their own, are only known to speak the dialects of 
 the Bantu or Nilotic-Negro tribes among whom they 
 dwell. 
 
 The true black Negro, who entered Africa somewhere 
 about Abyssinia, spread right across the continent to 
 the west in a broad band, bounded on the south by the 
 
 1 Early Greeks, Armenians, Persians. 
 
 2 Hittites, Accadians, Turks. 
 
 3 The modern Hottentot has been greatly modified in physical 
 characteristics by Bantu intermixture. 
 
 4 The only sections of these Central African dwarf races at present 
 known are the Akka or Batwa of the eastern basin of the Congo, the 
 Ba-yaka of the Mubangi, and the Obongo of the Gaboon forests. Krapf 
 professed to have discovered a dwarf race, the Doko, to the south of 
 Abyssinia, but we know too little about this tribe to be able to classify it.
 
 22 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Congo basin, but on the north only limited and kept in 
 check by the uninhabitable nature of portions of the 
 Sahara Desert, and by the haughty repulse of the superior 
 Hamitic race, which had occupied North Africa from 
 Egypt to Morocco. It is probable that at one time the 
 Negroes sent little offshoots of their race northwards 
 across the Sahara Desert to the southern slopes of the 
 Atlas Mountains and the verge of the Mediterranean, 
 though these invasions were finally checked and their 
 results absorbed by the Hamites. But the main stem 
 of the Negro race the " right down, regular " Negroes, 
 so to speak had pushed steadily across Africa from the 
 Red Sea coast to the Atlantic shores in a belt lying 
 more or less between the loth and 5th degrees of north 
 latitude, though commencing and ending farther to the 
 north. Another subsidiary Negro embranchment occu- 
 pied the country northward of the main stock, and a 
 third branch spread out over the Upper Nile basin. 
 Somewhere about the very centre of the continent, in 
 some forest district midway between the watersheds of 
 the Nile, Lake Tshad, the Benue, and the Congo, there 
 diverged and developed from the main Negro stock that 
 great southern section of the race which we call the 
 Bantu. The obstacles, whatever they were, 1 which had 
 hitherto checked the big black Negroes from invading 
 
 1 Though it is not clear what prevented a superior type of black 
 man from invading Southern Africa from the eastern portion of the 
 Nile basin, it was no doubt the belt of dense forest stretching from 
 the Lower Niger to the Congo watershed and the Nile sources which 
 was the main obstacle, extending over three-quarters of the breadth 
 of Africa. The Bushmen-Hottentots appear to have kept pretty 
 much to the eastern side of Africa in their descent, and the great 
 western forest region before the Bantu invasion was probably only 
 penetrated by a few bands of Pygmies. It was at that time mainly 
 given up to those incomplete men, the anthropoid apes.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA NATURAL HISTORY. 23 
 
 Southern Africa were now overcome, and the Bantu, 
 who had probably, in the fertile regions of their primal 
 home, increased and multiplied extraordinarily, burst, as 
 might a dammed-up lake, through the weakest portion 
 of the barrier, and swept over the southern half of 
 Africa with a rush, driving the Pygmies, Bushmen, and 
 Hottentots before them, licking them up, absorbing 
 them, killing them, or leaving isolated fragments of 
 those interior races to subsist in the densest forests or 
 the dreariest deserts. This important change in the his- 
 tory of African man has occurred in comparatively recent 
 times, not much more than two thousand years ago, 
 probably. This is shown by the extraordinary similarity 
 of all the Bantu languages one towards another, a 
 similarity which exceeds that of the various members of 
 the Aryan family, and is the more remarkable and thus 
 the more evident proof of the recent dispersal of the 
 Bantu Negroes from the known tendency of unwritten 
 tongues to vary speedily from the primal stock. Further 
 and more definite reasons in support of this theory of 
 the relatively recent expansion of the Bantu are given 
 in my work on the " Kiliman jaro Expedition " (pp. 483, 
 484), to which I would refer the very few (alas !) among 
 my readers to whom this question is of any interest. 
 For the purpose of more clearly understanding the 
 views which I have ventured to express in the foregoing 
 pages as to the origin and intricate relationships of the 
 African races of man, the reader is advised to study the 
 accompanying diagram.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA HUMAN HISTORY 
 
 AFTER these ages of continual race-movements between 
 Asia and Africa, wherein the foundations of the leading 
 types of African peoples were laid down, there was, no 
 doubt, a kind of lull, during which the Negroes and the 
 Hamites settled down to colonise the northern half 
 of the Dark Continent, and the Semites concentrated 
 themselves in Western Asia and Arabia. Perhaps the 
 gradual depression of the bed of the Red Sea, and the 
 consequent intervention of a gulf of water between 
 Africa and Arabia, may have had something to do with 
 the isolation of Africa which ensued on the first great 
 invasions and migrations of the primitive Negroes and 
 Negroids. 
 
 Some ages passed many thousand years perhaps and 
 then the dawn of History arose in Egypt. In the valley 
 of the Nile, as almost simultaneously in the far east of 
 Asia, man had finally quitted the beast in becoming able 
 to turn round and consciously review his position, in 
 transforming the disconnected pictures he had hitherto 
 drawn l of the objects round him into conventional char- 
 acters which recorded his thoughts, his beliefs, his wars, 
 and the names of those who ruled over him. No doubt 
 
 1 Drawing is really an extremely low art, possessed by the lowest 
 races of man, past and present. 
 
 24
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA HUMAN HISTOEY 25 
 
 man was man long before writing was invented, but 
 that organised scheme of representing sounds by figures 
 which we call "writing" was the first means to his 
 hand of convincing future generations that the human 
 species had definitely left beasthood. We may yet find 
 the osseous remains of anthropoid apes so extremely 
 human in their appearance, so high in their develop- 
 ment, that the osteologist who examines them will be 
 puzzled to say whether they represent the most advanced 
 species of ape or the lowest type of man. The border- 
 line between the genus Homo and other mammals never 
 becomes strongly marked until men are able to put 
 history in writing. Oral traditions go for nothing. 
 They are simply Instinct not yet crystallised, not yet 
 stamped on the convolutions of the brain, or added to 
 the primal impulse of the germ. Man is not the only 
 mammal who manufactures, remembers, ponders, com- 
 municates his thoughts to others, acts in concert, weeps, 
 sings, laughs, 1 or reasons. There is, however, a certain 
 degree of mental development which we are generally 
 agreed marks the confines of humanity, and as this can 
 only be attested by written records in the case of ancient 
 races who passed away before the science of compara- 
 tive anthropology began, the earliest papyrus, the oldest 
 inscribed tablet, the most anciently scribbled rocks are 
 the first reliable landmarks of the existence of real 
 humanity. 
 
 Progress in development is by no means uniform, 
 whether it be in man and the things of men, or in the 
 mute, stupid, blundering operations of Nature. It is 
 an affair of long pauses, apparent stagnation, quiet, 
 
 1 All the higher old- world monkeys grin and laugh, while the 
 anthropoid apes cachinnate like man.
 
 2J LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 gradual accumulation of causes, and then, suddenly, a 
 rise, a revolution, a rush of development, a catastrophe 
 lasting ten minutes or ten months, which changes the 
 condition of ten thousand square miles of land and 
 water, or ten millions of people. For countless cen- 
 turies the Zambezi flowed down through South Central 
 Africa into a great lake which covered much of Northern 
 Betshuanaland and the Kalahari Desert ; then there was 
 a volcanic disturbance in the rim of high land which 
 separates the lower part of its course from the basin of 
 the Kafue and the watershed of the Indian Ocean : a 
 rent was made, a zigzag crack possibly in an hour of 
 earthquakes in the bed of the Zambezi, and the great 
 river was deflected in its course, hewed its way through 
 the cliffs of basalt, and flowed henceforth to the Indian 
 Ocean, leaving the once great lake to slowly evaporate 
 till its bed becomes the Kalahari Desert, and its deepest 
 hole the trivial Lake N garni. 
 
 For two hundred years and more chemists in their labo- 
 ratories made experiments as to the nature of electricity 
 without clearly foreseeing whither their gropings were 
 leading them. At length their discoveries converged to 
 a combination, in which the parts of the puzzle were 
 fitted together, and then, all at once, electricity became 
 a practical force placed ready for use in our hands, and 
 in a few years the lands of Europe were criss-crossed 
 with telegraph wires, while successive developments of 
 the initial discovery have since begun to revolutionise 
 the conditions of civilised existence. In this century of 
 unexampled inventions the same thing may be said about 
 the history of steam-power, the development of photo- 
 graphy, the success of automatic machines at railway 
 stations ; of all sudden results coming after long, patient,
 
 CENTRAL Al' RICA HUMAN HISTORY. 27 
 
 unapparent experiments ; the amazingly rapid spread of 
 new ideas and the bursting of social reservoirs. 
 
 A million years and more man spent in emerging 
 from the brute ; another five hundred thousand, it may 
 be, were passed in attaining to the level of the Austra- 
 lian savage ; but it is quite likely that civilisation in the 
 valleys of the Nile, the Euphrates, the Ganges, and the 
 Yang-tse-Kiang sprang up suddenly out of savagery, 
 and was developed with a marvellous quickness com- 
 pared to the tardy and almost imperceptible rate of 
 man's previous progress. In some trees the bud grows 
 on the branch for months slowly, slowly swelling, and 
 perfecting itself within, but showing in its outer aspect 
 scarcely any visible change from day to day ; then, 
 all at once, in one warm night, the sepals part, the 
 petals expand, and in a few hours the dull-coloured, 
 sulky-looking bud has become a radiantly beautiful 
 flower. 
 
 So in the same way, perhaps, a hundred years sufficed 
 for the emergence of the Hamitic savages of the Lower 
 Nile into the historical period, into the astonishing civi- 
 lisation of ancient Egypt ; just as the same short course 
 of time in this unsurpassed nineteenth century has 
 raised the higher types of civilised man into beings with 
 the powers of demi-gods. 
 
 For many, many centuries, no doubt, after the first 
 great incursions of Negroid men from Arabia, Tropical 
 Africa was left pretty much to itself to develop its 
 Bushmen and black Negroes without outside interfer- 
 ence ; but as soon as Hamitic Egypt had attained to 
 that degree of comfort and prosperity which permitted 
 and incited it to interfere with the concerns of its neigh- 
 bours, besides invading Syria and Cyprus, and raiding
 
 28 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Canaanites and Hittites, 1 it turned round on Black 
 Africa and sent its forces up the Nile to Nubia and 
 Ethiopia, and round by sea to the Land of Put the 
 aromatic country modern Somaliland. I do not think 
 the explorations of the ancient Egyptians extended far 
 into Tropical Africa. They probably knew a little about 
 the rivers, lakes, and mountains of Abyssinia, and if 
 they thought or cared about the question of the Nile 
 sources, they probably attributed them to the latter 
 country. Nubian and Nile-Negro slaves possibly brought 
 tales of the White Nile and the Bahr-al-ghazal or 
 Western Nile, but I cannot believe that the Egyptians 
 themselves were sufficiently animated by a love of geo- 
 graphical exploration to venture far up the Nile valley, 
 away from the comforts of Egypt, in a land of intense 
 heat, and among savage, brute-like people. 
 
 The first impulse to explore Central Africa in an 
 intelligent way (other, I mean, than a mere blind, un- 
 reasoning race-movement, such as the unrecorded Semitic 
 invasion of Abyssinia) came from the Phrenicians. This 
 restless, enterprising branch of the Semitic stock appears 
 to have first originated on the western shores of the 
 Persian Gulf, but it soon afterwards reappeared in little 
 colonies on the Mediterranean littoral of Syria. The 
 Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the 
 Atlantic and Indian Oceans soon became the resort of 
 the galleys and daus of the first bold navigators of 
 human history ; for the deliberate and repeated voyages 
 of the Phoenicians to India, Africa, Spain, and Britain 
 were very different from the occasional outings of wind- 
 
 1 It would be an interesting question for Egyptologists to solve why 
 Egypt, with all its vigour, never turned its forces westwards. It 
 could conquer northwards as far as Asia Minor, and southwards to 
 Dongola : why did it not invade Triooli and Mauretania ?
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA HUMAN HISTORY. 29 
 
 driven junks in the China seas. The Phoenicians, by 
 agreement with the Egyptian monarchs, launched their 
 ships on the Gulf of Suez, and sailed down the Red Sea 
 round the great Somali promontory, and along the East 
 Coast of Africa, attracted by the gums and spices of 
 Somaliland and Southern Arabia, possibly also by the gold 
 of the Zambezi valley, though this I doubt. I fancy there 
 was no gold worked in South- Eastern Africa much before 
 the Christian era. The land was considerably more for- 
 ested in ancient days than when subsequently invaded and 
 settled by the pastoral Bantu tribes, and at the time of 
 the Pho3nieians' visits to the Zambezi (if they made any), 
 the only inhabitants would be timid, spiteful, half- 
 animal Bushmen or Hottentots, who would know and 
 care nothing about gold, they not being metal-workers 
 like the Bantu. It was not likely, therefore, that they 
 would indicate its presence to the Phoenicians, who 
 would further have to go some distance up-country, and 
 reside some time in the land, to find out the existence of 
 gold for themselves. 
 
 The Ophir of the Bible, whence the Phoenicians brought 
 gold, ivory, monkeys, and peacocks to the Jewish king, 
 was probably the West Coast of India. 
 
 However, it is possible that these bold mariners, these 
 Portuguese of antiquity, not only coasted East Africa 
 and (starting from their Carthaginian colony) West 
 Africa as far as Sierra Leone, but that a Phoenician 
 navigator in Egyptian employ actually effected the cir- 
 cumnavigation of the continent. 
 
 When the Phoenician power had died away, the Egyp- 
 tian Greeks and the Persians made a few half-hearted 
 attempts to explore East Africa ; but although certain 
 Greek and Persian settlements were formed respectively
 
 30 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 on the coasts of Sornaliland and Socotra, and on the 
 Zambezi littoral, no known attempts were made to 
 explore the interior. The Romans, when they became 
 the masters of Egypt, did something towards dis- 
 covering the source of the Nile, but were soon dis- 
 couraged by the heat and the savage tribes of the 
 Sudan. 
 
 The first thoroughgoing exploration and colonisation 
 of Black Africa was undertaken by the Arabs of South- 
 West, South, and East Arabia, both before and after 
 Mohammedanism added a powerful 'ncentive to emigra- 
 tion and conquest. During the first ten centuries of the 
 Christian era, Arab colonies, growing into Arab sul- 
 tanates, had been founded all along the East Coast of 
 Africa, from the south of Somaliland to Sofala, and up 
 the Zambezi as far as Sena. In some cases these Arab 
 settlements were founded on a foregoing Persian basis, 
 for it must not be forgotten that under the Khozru 
 dynasty, and even before that period, Persia had estab- 
 lished trading depots, and even colonies, at different places 
 along the Zangian l coast, such as Lamu, Zanzibar, 
 Kilwa, and Mozambique. (At the two former places 
 Persian influence was so strong that it created, especially 
 at Lamu. quite a local civilisation and distinct race of 
 people, win -h U) this Jay is light coloured, owing to 
 its far-off Persian ancestry. A few Persian words are 
 found in the TCi-swahili language, and a Persian festival, 
 the Nairuz, or " New-year," still lingers among the cus- 
 toms of Zanzibar.) The Arab invasions of Africa north 
 
 1 The very terras "Zangiaii," ' Zangibar," "Zanzibar," are derived 
 from the Persian word Zang or JZanj, " a black man." The termina- 
 tion bar is, I believe, also Persian or Arabo-fersiau, and means 
 "country/' This word has, in the form barra, been adopted into 
 Ki cwaliili^ ^1 ere it means " wilderness."
 
 OKNTKAL AFKICA HUMAN HISTORY. 31 
 
 of the Bantu border-line l have little to do with the scope 
 of this book, and indeed proceeded more from the north 
 and north-west of Arabia than those which have brought 
 at different times so much of Eastern Africa under Arab 
 sway. 
 
 I believe it was the early Arab settlers in South-East 
 Africa who first discovered and worked the gold exist- 
 ing in Zambezi-land. To them I attribute the building 
 of those strange stone walls, forts, and towers in the 
 countries of the Mashona and Matabele. At the end 
 of the fifteenth century the Arabs had created a strong 
 Sultanate at Kilwa, 2 to which the subsidiary states or 
 minor Sultanates of Sofala, Sena (Zambezi), Mocam- 
 bique, Zanzibar, Mombasa, Malindi, and Lamu (pro- 
 perly spelt Al-Amu) were more or less tributary. They 
 had also greatly influenced the Comoro (Kamar = full 
 moon) Islands and the north end of Madagascar. This 
 latter island had apparently been peopled at a very 
 distant period with men of Bushmen race, who in turn 
 were followed by some Bantu tribe from the opposite 
 coast (the traditional Va-zimba) ; and later still the 
 great island was invaded and occupied by a Malay 
 people coming across from the Eastern Archipelago. 
 
 Although the Zanzibar Coast, the Lower Zambezi, and 
 Sofala were long occupied by the Arabs, they nowhere ad- 
 vanced far into the interior (except possibly in Southern 
 Africa) till the beginning of this century, when there was 
 
 1 Namely, the different Arab invasions of Egypt, from time imme- 
 morial to, say, the end of the twelfth century of this era ; the Arab 
 incursions into North and North-West Africa, principally in the 
 seventh and twelfth centuries ; and the Arab settlements formed in 
 North Central Africa (Kordofan. Darfur, Wadai, and part of Bornu) 
 from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries. 
 
 8 A place on the coast in lat. 8 50' S.
 
 82 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 a recrudescence of Arab activity and immigration at Zan- 
 zibar and on the opposite coast-line, and similarly a large 
 increase in the slave-trade. To supply their own wants 
 and keep up the huge demands for Negro slaves which 
 came from Turkey, Arabia, Persia, and the United 
 States of America, 1 the Zanzibar and 'Omani Arabs, and 
 their black half-breed children, the Wa-swahili, 2 pene- 
 trated farther and farther inland, till they were estab- 
 lished on the shores of Nyasa and Tanganyika, and 
 until they even met and joined hands and trade with 
 the half-caste Portuguese of the West Coast. In our 
 own day they have become masters of the Upper Congo 
 and the Aruwimi, and extend their influence to the 
 Victoria and Albert Nyanzas. 
 
 But while these Arab movements enter into the 
 history of Bantu Africa, they can scarcely rank as acts 
 of geographical discovery. No individual stands out 
 from among the crowd of illiterate slave-traders or 
 ivory merchants who rambled over parts of Africa south 
 of the Equator. Beyond certain vague rumours of lakes 
 or a lake in the interior, they told the outer world 
 nothing about African geography. It was different 
 with the more cultured Arabs of North Africa men 
 like Ibn Batuta, Muhammad at Tunsi, 3 and Muhammad 
 Bu-al-Moghdad 4 whose itineraries can be to some extent 
 
 1 Until the cessation of slavery in North America in the earlier 
 '"Sixties," the Mocambique Channel, the Zanzibar and Madagascar 
 coasts, used to be haunted by piratical American slave-ships. 
 
 2 Swahili is believed to be derived from the Arab word (in the 
 plural) Sawahel, i.e., "coast-lands." Wa-sawahel or Wa-swahili = 
 " coast-people." In the singular this word is SaJiel. 
 
 3 Who travelled in Darf ur at the end of the last century. He was 
 a native of Tunis. 
 
 4 Travelled across the Western Sahara from Senegal to Morocco. 
 He was an Algerian.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA HU MAN HISTORY. 33 
 
 traced on the map, and whose information is reliable and 
 of value ; but still these men, to a great extent, were 
 Europeanised ; that is to say, partook of the Mediter- 
 ranean civilisation, and the last two of them explored 
 Africa in relatively recent times. The first people who 
 really gave the modern world any glimpse of the great 
 southern half of Africa were the Portuguese. Marco 
 Polo brought back from the Persian Gulf tales of Mada- 
 gascar and Zanzibar, and possibly was shown by the 
 Arabs the dry, grey, plume- like frond of the Raphia 
 palm (brought from the east coast of Africa), which he 
 took to be a feather of the " Rukh " or " Roc," but he 
 did not, as far as we know, himself visit Bantu Africa. 
 A few Dieppe navigators and whalers are said to have 
 found their way for some distance along the West 
 African coast in the twelfth century, but they are 
 hardly worth mention, because even if they did get 
 farther south than the coast of Morocco, Europe was 
 none the wiser for their ignorant voyagings. No; the 
 first intelligent explorers, worthy of the name, who 
 mapped out the coast of Bantu Africa, sailed from the 
 ports of that remarkable little kingdom of Portugal 
 while Castile and Aragon were still fighting their last 
 battles with all that remained of Moorish power in 
 Spain, and Columbus, the Genoese, was planning and pre- 
 paring his discovery of the New World lying beyond the 
 only ocean which was known to European civilisation. 
 
 During the fourteenth century the Canary Islands 
 had been rediscovered l by Aragonese ships ; then, in the 
 early part of the century that followed, the Portuguese 
 lit upon Madeira, and voyaged bit by bit along the West 
 
 1 I write " rediscovered " because they were dimly known to 
 classical geographers Pliny, for example. 
 
 B
 
 34 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 African coast till they had found the Senegal River, 
 rounded Cape Verde, and Fernao do Poo had discovered 
 the first bit of Bantu Africa which (as far as we know) 
 had been reached by Europeans on the west coast the 
 island which bears his name. 1 In 1484 Diego Cam * 
 reached the mouth of the Congo River, and put up a 
 stone pillar at the promontory of Sant' Antonio on its 
 southern bank. In 1487 Bartolomen Diaz landed at 
 Angra Pequena (which name means a " little narrow 
 bay "), and erected a stone cross to commemorate his 
 visit, which cross endured there more than three hundred 
 years, till some English or Dutch vandals threw it down. 3 
 Shortly afterwards he rounded the Cape of Good Hope, 
 and coasted along South Africa as far as the great Fish 
 River, where his officers and men insisted on returning. 
 On his way back he saw the Cape of Good Hope (or, as 
 he called it, " Cabo Tormentoso " = the " Stormy Cape "), 
 which he had passed unknowingly on his outward 
 voyage. 
 
 In the meantime the Portuguese paid considerable 
 attention to the kingdom of the Congo and its southern 
 province, Angola, where they obtained a footing at the 
 place they namei Sao Paulo de Assumpcao de Loanda, 
 and on the River Quanza (Kwanza) ; and when, in 1495, 
 Vasco da Gama passed round the Cape of Good Hope and 
 landed in Delagoa Bay, he was struck with the resem- 
 blance which the Bantu tribes of that district bore in 
 race and language to the natives of Angola. 
 
 Vasco da Gama passed on from Delagoa Bay to the 
 Arab settlements at Sofala and Mo9ambiqiie, and so on 
 
 1 Fernando Po, as it is usually written, was discovered in 1471. 
 
 2 Cam or CSo, pronounced the same way, "Cowng." This name 
 moans nothing more or less than "dog " (Latin, Canis). 
 
 3 It is now in the Museum at Lisbon.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA HUMAN HISTORY. 35 
 
 up the east coast to Malindi, whence he obtained an 
 Arab pilot to take him across to India. A few years 
 afterwards, Albuquerque had snatched from the Arabs 
 Sofala, Mocambique, Kilwa (Quiloa), Zanzibar, Mombasa, 
 Malindi, Barawa (Brava), Magdishu (Magadoxo), on the 
 East African coast ; and Aden, Maskat, and Ormuz in 
 Arabia and in the Persian Gulf. In 1569 an expedition 
 under Francisco Barreto, with three ships, nearly a 
 thousand men, and many horses, asses, and camels, set 
 out from Lisbon, reached the Zambezi l the following 
 year, and ascended it (in boats, I presume) as far as 
 Sena, where they found the Arabs strongly established 
 as traders. From Sena they set out, over five hundred 
 strong, to discover the gold-mines of Manika ; but the 
 tsetse- fly killed most of their horses, the natives attacked 
 them, and the unhealthy climate of the Zambezi valley 
 laid so many of them low with fever that they had to 
 return to their ships and abandon the search for gold. 
 
 In 1616 a Portuguese gentleman, named Jaspar 
 Bocarro, formerly in the service of the Marquez de 
 Ferreira, offered to carry samples of Zambezi silver 
 overland to Malindi without going near Mozambique. 
 He really journeyed overland from Tete to the Shire 
 River, through the country then ruled over by the 
 Maravi, crossed that stream near the Ruo junction, 
 passed through the Manguru or Anguru country, then 
 northwards down the Lujenda valley to the Rovuma 
 River (which he spells Eufuina), and after crossing this 
 stream, reached the coast at or near Mikindani, whence 
 he took ship to Kilwa (Quiloa). 
 
 1 Vasco da Gama had already discovered the Zambezi Delta, and 
 had called one of its branches the "Rio doa bons Signaes" the 
 " River of good indications."
 
 86 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Previous to this, however, Jesuit priests had ascended 
 the Zambezi, and had established themselves as far as 
 the confluence with the Loangwa (Zumbo), and at other 
 places between that limit and Sena. As a rule they had 
 succeeded in winning the friendship of the turbulent 
 Zambezians ; but one priest at least was martyred, no 
 doubt more from political suspicion than from any 
 bigotry against Christianity. The dominant chief of the 
 countries of the Lower Zambezi in those days, who went 
 by the name of the " Lord of Motapa " (Monomotapa), 
 was responsible for this murder of one of the earliest 
 Jesuit propagandists, and the name of the Bishop Han- 
 nington of his day was Gon9alo da Silveira. The work 
 of the Jesuits on the Zambezi will be for ever com- 
 memorated by the introduction into these countries of 
 the mango, the orange, the lime, and other useful fruit- 
 trees. On the Lower Congo, and especially to the south 
 of that river, in West Africa, the Jesuits had, some 
 few years earlier, commenced the same good work of 
 civilisation as they initiated on the Zambezi. They 
 rapidly Christianised the kingdom of the Congo, and 
 introduced into West Africa, as they had done into the 
 eastern part of the continent, the orange and the lime, 
 with the addition of fruits derived from Brazil, such as 
 the pine-apple and the cashew. 
 
 From these devoted men, the less cultured, less known, 
 inglorious Livingstones of their day, was learnt almost 
 all that little knowledge which Europe possessed of the 
 interior of Bantu Africa before the beginning of this 
 century. The Jesuits are said to have travelled up the 
 Congo River as far as the vicinity of the modern station 
 of Manyanga. It is likely, also, that they knew of the 
 existence of Stanley Pool (or " Mpumbu," as the natives
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA HUMAN HISTORY. 37 
 
 call it), that lake-like expansion of the Upper Congo 
 before its last falls, either by the reports of the natives 
 or their own rambles, and that this, in a much exag- 
 gerated form, is one of the lakes through which or from 
 which the Congo is made to flow in the old Portuguese 
 maps. The other Jesuits on the Zambezi no doubt 
 heard and transmitted rumours of the existence of Lake 
 " Maravi " (Nyasa), and those priests, who like Father 
 Lobo travelled far to the south of Abyssinia, brought 
 back hearsay information of yet other large inland seas : 
 possibly Lake Samburu or the Victoria Nyanza. In fact, 
 until the first scientific journey into South Central Africa 
 made by Dr. Lacerda in 1798, European geographers re- 
 lied chiefly on the information supplied by the Jesuits 
 for such paltry attempts as they might make to lay down 
 the geography of Inner Africa south of the equator, just 
 as, until some thirty years ago, we knew nothing of the 
 interior of China and Tibet but through the hands of 
 Jesuits and other Eoman Catholic missionaries. 
 
 In the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the 
 Jesuits were expelled from all the Portuguese dominions 
 by order of the Marquez de Pombal, and after their retreat 
 from the Congo kingdom and from the Central Zambezi, 
 those countries rapidly fell back into barbarism. 
 
 At the end of the last century the Portuguese Govern- 
 ment was stirred up to do something towards exploring 
 South Central Africa, and, curiously enough, the English 
 appear to have been indirectly the cause of this action 
 on the part of the Portuguese; for in 1795 England had 
 seized Cape Town from the Dutch East India Company, 
 lest it should fall into the hands of the French ; and the 
 Portuguese shrewdly surmised that England would stick 
 to South Africa, and that British enterprise might drive
 
 38 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFK1CA. 
 
 a wedge northwards between the colonies of Angola and 
 Sena (i.e., Lower Zambezi). These, at least, are the argu- 
 ments employed successfully by the learned Dr. Francisco 
 Jos6 Maria de Lacerda e Almeida, a native of Brazil, a 
 doctor of mathematics of Coimbra University (Portugal), 
 and the first scientific explorer who set foot in Bantu 
 Africa ; and Dr. Lacerda so far convinced the Portuguese 
 Government on the subject that he was made Governor 
 of the Rios de Sena (Zambezi), 1 and appointed to conduct 
 an expedition " & contracosta " across Africa to Angola. 
 Previously to Dr. Lacerda's journey two Goanese of 
 the name of Pereira, father and son, had gone gold- 
 hunting to the north of the Zambezi, and had eventually 
 pushed on with their armed slaves till they reached 
 the Kazernbes' country, near Lake Moero. The reports 
 they gave of the wealth and power of the Kazembe (a 
 lieutenant or satrap of the Muata Yanvo of Lunda) de- 
 cided Dr. Lacerda to proceed thither on his way across 
 to Angola. His expedition numbered seventy-four or 
 seventy- five white Portuguese and the two Goanese, 
 Pereira and son, who were to serve as guides. Dr. 
 Lacerda made a careful but uninteresting journey as far 
 as Kazembe's capital, in about 8 30' S. latitude, but 
 avoided, as did the two other Portuguese expeditions 
 which followed along that route, all those big lakes which 
 Livingstone afterwards discovered. Unfortunately, Dr. 
 Lacerda died untimely on October 18, 1798. After 
 many wrangles and much double-dealing and secret 
 opposition to their plans shown by the Kazembe, the 
 disorganised expedition had to give up the idea of con- 
 tinuing the journey to Angola and return to Tete on the 
 Zambezi. 
 
 1 A post answering to the modern government of Teto.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA HUMAN HISTORY. 3 
 
 Subsequently two half-caste Portuguese, the Pom- 
 beiros, 1 P. J. Baptista and Amaro Jose\ crossed from 
 Kasanji on the Kwango River (Angola) to the Kazem- 
 bes' country, and thence to Tete, on the Zambezi. This 
 journey occupied them from 1802 to 1811, and left 
 geographers almost as much in the dark as to Inner 
 African geography as if it had never been undertaken. 
 The same thing may be said about the journey of Majoi 
 Monteiro and Captain Gamitto, who, in 1831, conducted 
 a second mission from the Portuguese Government from 
 Tete to the Kazembe. Neither of these gentlemen were 
 scientific observers, and therefore the map of Africa 
 profited but little by their expedition. 
 
 What is noteworthy, however, about all these Portu- 
 guese travellers of earlier days, and of Silva Porto, 2 who 
 succeeded them, and who journeyed for trading purposes 
 over much of South Central Africa, is not what they 
 discovered, but what they missed. They picked theii 
 way among great lakes, and saw none of them. They 
 lit on interesting rivers and never followed them up in 
 an intelligent manner, so as to arrive at some under- 
 standing of the hydrography of these countries, which 
 remained an inexplicable enigma until the subsequent 
 journeys of Livingstone, Cameron, Serpa Pinto, Capello, 
 Ivens, Selous, and Arnot. In the Portuguese visual 
 discovery of any of the great lakes I scarcely believe. 3 
 All that we can attribute to them is having gathered a 
 
 1 Pombeiro means a vassal, a serf ; a superior, trustworthy slave. 
 
 2 Silva Porto was an old Portuguese colonist who lived in Bihe, at 
 the back of the Benguela district, and who travelled chiefly between 
 the years 1849 and 1889. He committed suicide a few months ago in 
 chagrin at his services being ignored by the Portuguese Government. 
 
 3 Unless we may credit Senhor Candido de Costa Cardoso with 
 having sighted the south-west corner of Lake Nyasa in 1846.
 
 40 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 few vague rumours of these lakes which pointed to their 
 existence and site. The utmost they actually saw was 
 probably limited to the little salt lake, Shirwa, and to 
 the lake-like expansions of the Shire river, now reduced 
 to vast marshes. 1 They reported a large lake existing 
 in the direction of Lake Nyasa which they called 
 " Zachaf," but Zachaf is a very un-Bantu-like word, and 
 hardly likely to be derived from a local name. Lacerda 
 heard that to the east of his route there was a large 
 "water" or river called " Nyanja " (in Portuguese 
 spelling, Nhanja), and the same " water " was more 
 commonly known by the name of Lake Maravi, after 
 the Maravi people who dwelt to the west of it. The 
 Pombeiros make one or two doubtful allusions to 
 Tanganyika as a big river or lake to the north of 
 Kazembe's country, but of Bangweolo or Moero we iiear 
 nothing. 
 
 Between the end of the fifteenth century and the 
 middle of the nineteenth the Portuguese had explored 
 much of the West African coast from Morocco to the 
 Cape of Good Hope, and had named nearly every impor- 
 tant river, lagoon, and headland. They never, however, 
 attempted to exercise rule elsewhere than in Angola, 
 between 7 S. latitude and 18. In this district they 
 concentrated their dominion on the River Kwanza (Co- 
 anza), and from the end of its navigable channel struck 
 across to the Kwango, near which stream they esta- 
 blished the " fair " or market of Kasanji. On the east 
 coast of Africa they simply held a few isolated spots 
 little fortified islands and islets in most cases from the 
 north shores of Delagoa Bay to Malindi and Magadoxo ; 
 and nowhere extended their rule inland, except along 
 
 1 The Elephant and Morambala marshes.
 
 CENTKAL AFRICA HUMAN HISTORY. 41 
 
 the Zambezi banks (up which stream they possessed forts 
 and trading stations as far as Zumbo) and a short dis- 
 tance up the Loangwa (or Aroangoa) River, which flows 
 into the Zambezi near Zumbo. A little gold-mining 
 was done in the Maravi country to the north of Tete 
 and south of the Lower Zambezi in Manika. 
 
 Portugal had as much intended at one time to keep 
 all Africa, or, at any rate, all Bantu Africa, to herself, as 
 Spain had endeavoured to monopolise Tropical America. 
 But other rivals soon appeared in the new field, and of 
 all the ospreys which swooped on little Portugal and 
 tried to tear from her beak or make her disgorge from her 
 pouch part or the whole of her big fish, none was fiercer 
 than Holland. The Dutch seized places on the Gold Coast 
 and made desperate attempts to take Angola from the 
 Portuguese during the enfeeblement of Portugal which 
 resulted from its unwilling subjection to the Spanish 
 throne. 1 About the same time, too, the Dutch settled 
 at the Cape of Good Hope, which, although not actually 
 a Portuguese possession, was still a place of constant 
 call for Portuguese Indiamen, and a part of South Africa 
 which Portugal looked on as hers by right of discovery, 
 although she might not choose to occupy it. 
 
 However, although the Dutch collected and collated 
 much geographical information from the Portuguese, 
 and compiled some of the best maps of Africa during the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they did but little 
 original work themselves as explorers. In South Africa 
 they extended their colonisation along the coast from the 
 Elephant (Oliphant) Biver to the Great Fish River, and 
 
 1 A little later on, also, they attacked the Portuguese on the east 
 coast at Mozambique and elsewhere, and took Mauritius from them. 
 The Portuguese, after a hard struggle, regained Mozambique as they 
 regained Brazil, which the Dutch had also seized.
 
 42 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 inland as far as the second range of mountains, called in 
 different parts the Roggeveld, Nieuwveld, and Sneeuw- 
 bergen ; and they made several journeys of exploration 
 in a northerly direction at a short distance from the 
 south-west coast. In 1685 Commander Van der Stel 
 went up through Namakwaland to within a very short 
 distance of the lower course of the Orange River (then 
 and long afterwards known as the Groote Rivier = Great 
 River). The chief bait which led to persistent ramblings 
 of the Dutch through Western Namakwaland was tho 
 desire to find the gold and copper mines (above all, the 
 latter) reported to exist by the Hottentots, who backed 
 up their reports by, at any rate, producing samples of 
 the copper, if not of the gold. It was not, however, till 
 the middle of the eighteenth century that a Boer ele- 
 phant-hunter reached and crossed the Orange River. 
 His reports led to the despatch of a well-equipped ex- 
 pedition in 1761, led by Captain Hop, and accompanied 
 by a botanist, mineralogist, and surveyor. 1 The expe- 
 dition found and crossed the Orange River, and with 
 much difficulty, owing to the scarcity of water to the 
 north of that stream, struggled on as far as the latitude 
 of Angra Pequena ; after which they returned, bringing 
 back but little information excepting vague reports of 
 the Damakwa, 2 a big, black people dwelling to the 
 
 1 Great, very great credit must be given to the Dutch for the help 
 they rendered science during the eighteenth century by the manner 
 in which they encouraged and helped naturalists of all nations in 
 acquiring a knowledge of the South African fauna and flora. Espe- 
 cially noteworthy as a patron of science was Governor Ryk Tulbagh, 
 a truly great man in every respect. Captain Hop's expedition obtained 
 several giraffes, and Governor Tulbagh sent home the skin of one of 
 these to Leyden, the first giraffe ever sent to Europe from South Africa. 
 
 2 The Hottentot name for the Ova-herero or Damara. Damara is 
 14 contemptuous feminine form of the same word in the dual number.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA HUMAN HISTORY. 43 
 
 north of the Hottentots, and the Birikwa, 3 a goat-keeping 
 nation to the west. In 1791-92 Willem van Reenen 
 journeyed along Captain Hop's route, but extended his 
 exploration as far north as the verge of the Damara 
 country, at the back of Walfish Bay; and in 1793 a 
 large party of Dutchmen sailed to Walfish Bay and 
 Angra Pequena, explored the vicinity of those harbours, 
 and took possession of them in the name of the Dutch 
 East India Company. Pieter Pienaar travelled inland 
 from Walfish Bay to the Damara country, a journey of 
 about 1 20 miles. 
 
 I cannot find recorded any other remarkable explora- 
 tions on the part of the Dutch, though during the latter 
 days of Holland's possession of South Africa several 
 foreign explorers did good work under the Dutch aegis. 
 Notable among these was Captain Robert Jacob Gordon, 
 a Scotchman in the service of the Dutch East India 
 Company, who in 1777 discovered the Orange River at 
 its junction with the Vaal, 600 miles from its mouth. 
 Lieutenant William Paterson, an Englishman, and 
 one of the first real, bond fide British explorers in 
 South Africa, accompanied Captain Gordon part of the 
 way; but in 1779 both these gentlemen made another 
 journey overland through the Little Namakwa country 
 to the mouth of the Great River, which they ascended 
 in a boat they had brought with them for thirty or forty 
 miles. It was Captain Gordon who named this stream 
 the " Orange River," after the Dutch Stadhouder. About 
 the same period there travelled in various parts of 
 South Africa (not very far from the coast) the Swedish 
 naturalists, Sparrmann and Thunberg, and the celebrated 
 
 * Birikwa, from Biri, a goat (an unknown domestic animal to the 
 Hottentots), was the name given by the Hottentots to the Betebunno.
 
 44 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 French zoologist, Le Vaillant. They all three added 
 markedly to our knowledge of the botany, the birds, arid 
 beasts of Cape Colony. 
 
 The French nation had paid very little heed to Africa 
 till the eighteenth century, and French explorers of 
 Bantu Africa are not heard of till the afore-mentioned 
 Le Vaillant travelled over a small portion of Kaffirland. 
 But in the early decades of the eighteenth century 
 France began to take an interest in South Africa, which 
 arose from two causes : the successful colonisation of 
 some parts of Cape Colony by Huguenots, and the growth 
 of the French East India Company. The desire to 
 possess India impelled France to obtain a foothold in 
 South Africa and the Southern Indian Ocean. She ac- 
 cordingly seized and colonised Mauritius (then Dutch) 
 and Bourbon (afterwards called Reunion) ; attempted 
 to make a settlement at Delagoa Bay ; was finally ousted 
 thence by mingled clamour and force on the part of 
 Portugal ; and, lastly, cast longing eyes on Cape Colony, 
 where her trade had become very large, and her ships l 
 constituted about one-half of the total shipping of all 
 nations trading with the South African ports. Through 
 the friendliness or weakness of the Dutch Government, 
 Cape Colony had become in the latter part of the 
 eighteenth century a powerful basis of supplies, and a 
 safe refuge for the French fleet when at war with Eng- 
 land. In 1781 it was resolved by the British Govern- 
 ment that the Cape of Good Hope must be seized and 
 occupied, to prevent it from becoming a powerful base 
 of action to the French, who would thus command the 
 route to India. War had broken out between Holland 
 and France on the one side, and England on the other, 
 1 In 1781-84.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA HUMAN HISTORY. 45 
 
 so that all compunction in seizing a Dutch colony (which 
 had hitherto restrained the British Government from 
 dislodging the French from their growing hold on South 
 Africa) was at an end, and a fleet of forty-six vessels, 
 with 3000 troops on board, was despatched under Com- 
 modore Johnstone to take possession of Cape Colony. 
 Unfortunately, this secretly planned expedition was re- 
 vealed to the French Government by a spy in London, 
 Delamotte by name, who was afterwards hanged for his 
 pains, and the British were forestalled. The French 
 Government despatched Admiral Suffren to the Cape 
 with seven ships- of -war and eight transports carrying 
 troops. Suffren overtook the English fleet in Porto 
 Praya (Cape Verde Islands), attacked them unexpect- 
 edly, destroyed three ships, and although not without 
 damage to his own vessels, sailed away and got to the 
 Cape before Captain Johnstone, who, on his arrival, 
 found the place so strongly garrisoned that he could 
 not attempt to take it. In revenge, he destroyed or 
 captured all the Dutch East Indiamen and other ships 
 lying in Saldanha Bay. 
 
 Nevertheless, the British Government kept its eye on 
 the Cape. It was tacitly understood that South Africa 
 must either fall to France or England. Holland was 
 too weak a power to maintain her hold on such a great 
 stake in the game of political supremacy. Accordingly, 
 as soon as the French marched into Holland in 1794, 
 and the Prince of Orange, the Stadhouder, fled to Eng- 
 land, the British Government obtained from the fugitive 
 Prince an authorisation to occupy Cape Colony until 
 he was restored to his position of chief magistrate in 
 the United Provinces. A powerful fleet and a large 
 body of troops (eventually increased to nearly 4000)
 
 46 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 were sent out under Admiral Elphinstone and General 
 Craig, and Cape Colony was invited to place itself under 
 British protection and control until the Prince of Orange 
 should be restored to his rights. The Cape Govern- 
 ment declined, and opposed a half-hearted resistance 
 to the British occupation ; a few skirmishes took place, 
 but at length an amicable arrangement was come to, 
 and the forts and Government offices of the Dutch 
 East India Company were handed over to the British 
 officials. 
 
 Having thus been frustrated and forestalled in the 
 occupation of South Africa, France or rather her great 
 and far-seeing ruler, Napoleon Bonaparte resolved to 
 secure what was then considered the secondary route to 
 India, that through Egypt and the Red Sea. Hence 
 the Egyptian expedition of 1798. Here, too, fate was 
 unkind to France. British naval victories compelled 
 her to leave Egypt, which she has never since reoccupied. 
 For a while her African aspirations were relentlessly 
 nipped in the bud, even Senegal being taken from her ; 
 but at the conclusion of peace in 1815, she regained the 
 island of Reunion and a feeble foothold in Senegambia. 
 During the earlier decades of this century she rapidly 
 extended her sway over the Senegal Basin, she occupied 
 Algeria, founded establishments on the Gold Coast and on 
 the Gaboon, and nibbled at Madagascar and the Comoro 
 Islands. Finally, she has found ample compensation for 
 the loss of Egypt in a vast North African empire which 
 extends from Tunis to the confines of Liberia and the 
 rivers of Senegambia. Her South African aspirations 
 are surely satisfied in her Madagascar protectorate ; she 
 has the Comoro Islands, Obock, and a province of the 
 Congo which alone is larger than her own home terri-
 
 CENTRAL AFBIOA HUMAN HISTORY. 47 
 
 tory in extent. France at the present day has a bigger 
 African empire than any other European power. 
 
 The first British occupation of Cape Colony lasted 
 from 1795 to 1803, when, on the conclusion of the peace 
 of Amiens, it was somewhat unwillingly restored to the 
 Batavian Republic. War broke out again, however, 
 between England and Napoleon (who had drawn Hol- 
 land into his circle of subsidiary kingdoms), and the 
 British Government again seized the Cape of Good Hope, 
 this time never to give it up. The possession of the 
 colony was confirmed to Great Britain in 1814. 
 
 After the addition of South Africa to the British 
 Empire, exploration went on apace, Campbell, a Scotch 
 missionary, in 1812 laid down on the map, pretty accu- 
 rately, the course of the Orange River, and discovered 
 the sources of the Limpopo ; Moffat and other mission- 
 aries extended our knowledge of Bechuana-land ; Angas 
 illustrated Zululand ; Major Vardon explored the Lim- 
 popo ; Lieutenant Farewell (in 1824) opened up what is 
 now the colony of Natal ; l and Captain Owen, who was 
 the first to survey with any care the east and west 
 coasts of Bantu Africa, made a careful examination of 
 Delagoa Bay and its vicinity. The emigration of the 
 dissatisfied Dutch farmers across the Orange and the 
 Vaal Rivers, and their settlement in what are now 
 the Transvaal and Orange River States, also added con- 
 siderably to the area of explored South Africa. 
 
 The systematic exploration of Africa by the British 
 may be said to have commenced in 1788 by the founding 
 of the African Association. 2 Before that period, how- 
 ever, the attention of our Government had been turned 
 
 1 Pounded as a colony in 1843. 
 
 " Afterwards developed into the Royal Geographical Society.
 
 48 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 towards Africa, partly with a view to regulating or 
 suppressing the slave-trade and opening up fresh fields 
 for legitimate commerce, and partly (as was seen in the 
 abortive attempt to seize the Cape of Good Hope in 
 1781) for securing convenient points of vantage on the 
 ocean route to India. 1 For the first or second of these 
 motives, the settlement of Sierra Leone had been founded 
 in 1787 ; and later on, the irregular trading stations of 
 the Gambia and Gold Coast were erected into colonies. 
 At the end of the last and commencement of the present 
 century, Mungo Park had explored the Gambia River 
 and the Niger from near its source to the rapids of Busa, 
 where he was killed. On his second journey to the 
 Niger he went at the expense of the African Association, 
 which body was influential in urging the Government to 
 undertake the exploration of the Sahara, the Central 
 Soudan, Lake Tshad, and the Lower Niger and Benue. 
 In 1816, Captain Tuckey was sent out to examine the 
 Congo and attempt to trace its course upward from its 
 mouth. He surveyed the river as far as the Yellala 
 Falls, and carried his exploration inland above these 
 rapids to near the modern station of Isangila. Captain 
 Tuckey and most of the members of his expedition died 
 from fever, but his journey resulted in considerable 
 additions to our knowledge of Bantu Africa, its people, 
 languages, and^Zora. 
 
 The Cross river which skirts the north-west corner of 
 the Bantu language-field was ascended by Consul Beecroft 
 as far as its rapids in 1841 ; the same gentleman ex- 
 plored the Benin River and a portion of the Cameroons 
 Delta. 
 
 1 With this view St. Helena Island had been taken from the Dutch 
 in 1673.
 
 CENTRAL AFRICA HUMAN HISTORY. 49 
 
 Our very limited knowledge of Bantu Africa before the 
 advent of Livingstone is well illustrated in the accom- 
 panying maps by Mr. Ravenstein. From this it will be 
 seen that, beyond the southern extremity of the continent, 
 the Portuguese province of Angola, and a narrow strip 
 of country from Kazembe's town to the Lower Zambezi, 
 the interior of South Central Africa from the Bight of 
 Biafra to the Orange River, from Somaliland to Delagoa 
 Bay, was either a mere blank or a bewildering maze 
 of false and nonsensical geography until the Apostle of 
 Africa commenced those explorations which incited others 
 and yet others to explore, and sent forth ever- widening 
 circles of knowledge ; so that, in less than fifty years from 
 the commencement of Livingstone's career, Central Africa, 
 in its main geographical features, its marvels, its riches, 
 and its horrors, has been completely laid bare to the 
 contemplation of the white mn.n.
 
 JAT. 30 
 
 ,{;-_>;/;. V> twit'/; i.; r^ij!)>.Mi(>4. aiil 
 r o? tw-vt f,'-KiiH-vsj;.-i. i-jsyii ^-MmKW fo 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 mG di <>u irdaifl 
 
 HOUR AND THE MAN: LIVINGSTONE'S 
 UPBRINGING. 
 
 ON the i pth March 1813 David Livingstone was born, 
 the second son of Neil and Agnes Livingstone. This 
 event took place at the little manufacturing town of 
 Blantyre, on a beautiful part of the River Clyde, where, 
 even up to the present time of writing the year 1890 
 man has been unable wholly to obliterate the natural 
 loveliness of the scenery. The Clyde here winds between 
 steep banks which are surmounted and overhung by 
 umbrageous trees, oaks and ashes, birches and haw- 
 thorns. In places, the broad, calm mirror of the reflect- 
 ing stream is marred by weirs and rapids which break 
 up the glassy duplication of houses, chimneys, wharves, 
 trees, banks, and sky with bars of white foam and 
 stretches of swirling, hurrying, frothing water. Round 
 the rim of half the horizon, looking southwards, are 
 richly-wooded heights interspersed with slender red 
 shafts of chimneys which belch out wreaths of white, 
 grey, and black smoke. Northwards, round the great 
 green shoulder of a hill, is a peep of Glasgow, eight 
 miles distant, with its thousand-and-one furnace chim- 
 neys dimly discernible through that iridescent mist of 
 smoke, sunshine, and rain which is the normal atmosphere 
 of Blantyre. In the nearer distance, between the confines 
 
 50
 
 THE HOUR AND THE MAN : UPBRINGING. 51 
 
 of the great city and the outskirts of Blantyre, lie strips 
 of murdered country, fields of rye alternating with fields 
 of baking bricks. This description of Blantyre scenery, 
 though written in the present tense, is applicable, with 
 scarcely any alteration, to what Livingstone must have 
 seen in his childhood from the front and back of the 
 house in which he was born ; for no great or easily dis- 
 cernible change has, I am told, taken place in the sur- 
 roundings of Blantyre since the early part of the century : 
 that is to say, the river and hills have not altered, the 
 trees are not much diminished, and though Glasgow may 
 have trebled its extent since the " twenties," still there 
 were smoking chimneys in Livingstone's youth, and that 
 is what you chiefly see of Glasgow from Blantyre. The 
 house in which Livingstone was born remains, according 
 to local opinion, 1 practically unchanged in its exterior 
 appearance from that very early part of the nineteenth 
 century 1810 when Livingstone's father and mother 
 first settled down here, after a brief residence in Glasgow. 
 The building in question is situated on one side of a 
 little blind-alley (closed in with a paling and densely - 
 foliaged trees), near the summit of a small hill overlook- 
 ing the river, with cotton-spinning factories below it and 
 between it and the Clyde. It is a large house, built very 
 solidly of stone, and flanked in front with great circular 
 bastions which screen the outer staircases communicat- 
 ing with the different floors ; for I need hardly say this 
 
 1 It should be mentioned that Livingstone's two surviving sisters 
 nssert that their father's original house at Blantyre was burned down 
 after they left it in 1839, and another one built on its site exactly like 
 it ; but local opinion and tradition is positive in averring that, while 
 gome of the surrounding houses and part of the factory have been 
 burnt or pulled down and rebuilt since Livingstone's boyhood, his old 
 home remains unaltered.
 
 52 
 
 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 building is, and always was, divided into a number of 
 separate tenements, one of which was occupied by Living- 
 stone's parents. On the opposite side of the court or 
 alley is a curious whitewashed turret like a low, angular 
 dome. " What is that place used for ? " I asked a bright- 
 faced boy in tatters, who had attached himself to me as 
 cicerone when I went to visit Blantyre. " That's whar' 
 they keep the 'doos,'" 1 he replied. From the old 
 appearance of this building, no doubt the progenitors of 
 
 BIRTHPLACE OF LIVINGSTONE. 
 
 the pretty blue-rock pigeons which were strutting about 
 the ground at my feet inhabited this same "colum- 
 barium " in Livingstone's boyhood. At the back of the 
 house, after being led through an evil- smelling, dirty 
 archway, and past a common wash-house, you are shown 
 the dull -looking, small -paned window of Livingstone's 
 room on the second floor. But though this room L* 
 1 Doves, pigeons.
 
 THE HOUR AND THE MAN : UPBRINGING. 53 
 
 small and poky and ill-lit, it is by no means a dreary 
 lodging for a studious, contemplative boy, and the view 
 from the open window has a certain suggestive charm of 
 quiet screened-in industry which recalls to you vaguely 
 the saw-mills at work in some tranquil Swiss valley. 
 There are factories, it is true, in the foreground and 
 middle distance ; indeed the air is full of the subdued 
 roar of their machinery mingled with the noise of the 
 falling Clyde ; but the bricks of which they are made are 
 a pleasant red in tone; and these buildings, with their 
 slender furnace-chimneys, suggest in a far-off way the 
 palaces, monasteries, and campanili of an old Italian 
 town. Beyond the factories, with the invisible Clyde 
 rushing over weirs in the gorge between, is a high ridge 
 of wooded down ; and above all, that strange, opalescent 
 heaven, with its rainbows and curtains of vapour, its 
 wreaths and rolling masses of cloud, its mists and films 
 of smoke, its watery sunshine ; or its lurid glare of 
 fire when night falls, and the smoke-pall which daylight 
 has rendered so dull- coloured and opaque becomes one 
 vast shimmer of rosy flame. 
 
 Livingstone's grandfather was a Highlander of the 
 Isle of Ulva, off the west coast of Mull in Argyleshire. 
 He could, as can most Highlanders, trace his ancestry 
 back for six or seven generations, and boasted proudly 
 that there had never been a dishonest man among his 
 forbears. The honesty of the Highland Livingstones 
 (whose Gaelic name, by-the-bye, was M'Leay 1 ) was no 
 doubt more of the limited and tribal character than is 
 
 1 How this came to be translated into " Livingstone " as its English 
 version, is not very clear, because " M'Leay " appears to mean " The 
 Son of the Grev-headed."
 
 54 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 our modern and wider understanding of that quality in 
 the nineteenth century. That is to say, they were loyal 
 to their chiefs, followed them eagerly to the field of 
 battle (one of Livingstone's ancestors was killed at 
 Culloden fighting for Prince Charlie), and probably no 
 bribe of any kind would have induced them to betray 
 a member of the clan ; but I dare say, all the same, they 
 robbed and raided and ravished on the lands of other 
 clans with hearty self-approval. However, in 1792, the 
 grandfather of Dr. Livingstone, together with most of 
 his relations, left the Island of Ulva for more profitable 
 countries. Some of these Livingstones emigrated to 
 Canada, Prince Edward's Island, and the United States ; 
 but the grandfather of the great David settled at Blan- 
 tyre, where he found employment in a cotton factory. 
 This emigrant from Ulva left a reputation for the 
 same sterling, rugged honesty that he claimed for 
 his ancestors ; and having served his cotton-spinning 
 employer with just such unswerving fidelity as his 
 forefathers would have accorded to their bandit chiefs, 
 he eventually retired on a pension. All his sons, with 
 one exception, fought in the army and navy during the 
 Napoleonic wars, and seem to have died mostly in the 
 prime of life, either in battle or the sicknesses of 
 camps. The one exception was Neil Livingstone (the 
 Doctor's father), who remained at home and became a 
 tea-dealer. He was fervently religious in temperament 
 and in the whole tenor of his life almost oppressively 
 so (though he was no hypocrite), if we may judge by his 
 son David's frankly-recorded reminiscences, wherein the 
 father, in his misdirected zeal for the attainment of his 
 ideal of godliness, is shown as endeavouring to prevent 
 his son from reading scientific works or books of travel
 
 THE HOUR AND THE MAN : UPBRINGING. 55 
 
 in order that he might give his attention to weary, un- 
 profitable disquisitions on theology. " The difference of 
 opinion between father and son," says David Livingstone, 
 in his brief review of his early life, " reached the point 
 of open rebellion on my part, and his last application 
 of the rod was on my refusal to peruse ' Wilberforce's 
 Practical Christianity.' " " This dislike to dry, doctrinal 
 reading and to religious reading of every sort," writes 
 Livingstone of himself, " continued for many years 
 afterwards." 
 
 It would seem, however, as though, in the composi- 
 tion of David Livingstone's character, the religious 
 zeal of the father had been mingled with the more 
 tolerant, kindlier nature of the mother; for Living- 
 stone, from his boyhood to the very end of his days, 
 was never for one moment a bigot, nor exhibited 
 the least shade of hypocrisy, sanctimoniousness, or 
 ostentation of religious feeling. The father, as I have 
 already stated, was a tea-dealer, but he seems to have 
 had such a distinctly " missionary " bent that his worldly 
 business apparently somewhat suffered by his devotion 
 to the affairs of a Sunday-school and a Missionary 
 Society, the promotion of prayer-meetings, and the 
 spread of teetotalism. " He had indeed the veiy soul 
 of a missionary," says Dr. Blaikie, who also tells us that, 
 when travelling through the neighbouring parishes in 
 his vocation of retail tea-merchant, Neil Livingstone 
 acted at the same time as colporteur, " distributing tracts 
 and encouraging the reading of useful books." But 
 whether this devotion to religious teaching interfered 
 unduly with the profitable pursuit of his business as a 
 tea-merchant, or whether that trade in itself was in those 
 days a poor one on whicb to support and educate a
 
 56 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTKAL AKK1UA. 
 
 family of five children, is not to be clearly determined 
 from the scanty records we have of David Livingstone's 
 early years ; but it would seem, from all we know, that 
 the Livingstone family for some time found it difficult to 
 maintain a comfortable existence, the mother well-nigh 
 wearing herself out in her struggle to make both ends 
 meet, and David himself, like both his brothers, having 
 to begin work at a very early age in order to contribute 
 to the support of the home. In fact, he was only ten 
 
 FACTORY AT BLANTYRE. 
 
 when he was sent to work in the cotton-spinning factory 
 close by, belonging to Monteith & Company, the same 
 wherein his grandfather had occupied a position of trust. 
 Here, working as a " piecer," and afterwards as a cotton- 
 spinner, Livingstone laboured day after day during the 
 six days of the working week, from six o'clock in the 
 morning till eight o'clock at night, with only slight 
 intervals for breakfast and dinner.
 
 THE HOUR AND THE MAN: UPSWINGING. 57 
 
 Although, of course, the eulogistic biographies of 
 Livingstone already published are bound to make him 
 out under all conditions a model of good behaviour, it 
 would seem, from the local traditions which I have 
 gathered up at Blantyre, Livingstone was not a hearty 
 worker at the cotton-spinning factory. His passionate 
 and all-absorbing love of reading made him an absent- 
 minded and even careless workman ; and although it 
 gives the reader of his reminiscences a glow of sympathy 
 to learn from his own description how he so arranged a 
 book on a portion of a spinning-jenny that he could 
 manage to read during his work by snatching a sentence 
 minute after minute as he passed backwards and for- 
 wards, still, no doubt, this devotion to study somewhat 
 tended to abstraction and slowness in his work At 
 least such was the opinion of some of his old acquaint- 
 ances at Blantyre, and of others still working in the 
 same factory, one of whom told the writer that " Dr 
 Livingstone was no thocht to be a by-ordinar' l laddie ; 
 just a sulky, quiet, feckless sort o' boy." 
 
 From his earliest years David Livingstone was an 
 ardent and omnivorous reader, and although he received 
 that good general education which, even in those early 
 days, was acquired by the very poorest in Scotland, by 
 attending night-classes supported by the subscriptions 
 of himself and a number of other lads from the factory, 
 he practically taught himself the half of what he knew 
 by his private studies at home, and by the reading which 
 he snatched during his long hours of work at the factory. 
 Out of his first week's earnings, when he was only ten 
 years old, he purchased Ruddiman's " Rudiments of 
 Latin," at which he would work till far into the night. 
 1 Extraordinary, out of the way.
 
 58 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 In this way he acquired such a knowledge of Latin that 
 he had mastered many of the classical authors while still 
 it his boyhood. 
 
 Brought up in different surroundings, arid with 
 different influences reacting on him, or rather no in- 
 fluences at all, it seems likely that David Livingstone, 
 with his intense love of nature (which manifested itself 
 in early botanical and geological studies in the fields 
 and on the hills) and his tendency to reason and theorise 
 from his observations, might have become a second Dar- 
 win ; but it would seem as though the pressure brought 
 to bear on him by his father's teaching and preaching 
 succeeded in giving his mind just a sufficient religious 
 warp to make him a missionary of religion instead of an 
 emissary of science. We can gather, by a careful perusal 
 of his frank statements as regards the evolution of his 
 religious ideas, that he was not naturally disposed to 
 concern himself much with supra-mundane questions ; 
 but the natural imitativeness of youth, the desire to feel 
 as those around him felt, or affected to feel, and the real, 
 earnest goodness in the lad, which regretted that it could 
 not find orthodox expression in conformity with the 
 sectarian bigotry of his parents, pastors, and masters : 
 these various causes pi-oduced the usual effect of making 
 his thoughts run to some extent in the same groove as 
 that in which the average feeling around hinx was 
 directed. About his twelfth year he was worried into 
 reflecting "on his state as a sinner." During his early 
 adolescence the native originality of his inquiring mind 
 indisposed him to go through the stereotyped course of 
 religious development ; " his convictions were effaced," 
 we are told, "and his (religious) feelings blunted." 
 However, as everybody in those days professing that
 
 THE HOUR AND THE MAN : UPBRINGING. 59 
 
 class of evangelical Christianity had to " experience 
 conversion " that is to say, at some period of their lives 
 undergo a spasmodic change in their religious feelings 
 which brought before them a clearer sense of their own 
 innate wickedness and unworthiness, and sank them to 
 the depths of spiritual despair in inducing the belief 
 that they were eternally lost, before the almost hysterical 
 revulsion took place in the more definite realisation that 
 through the atonement of Christ they were saved, in 
 spite of their sins so Livingstone, insensibly affected 
 by the religious routine of his parents and companions, 
 himself imagined, after an intervening period of callous- 
 ness, that he had attained " grace " and been converted. 
 He speaks but sparingly of this change in his nature 
 which was really no change at all, but simply a faint, 
 unconscious simulation of the religious hysteria of those 
 around him partly because the man had such a loath- 
 ing of humbug and gush that he afterwards avoided as 
 far as possible any parade of devotional feeling, and 
 partly, I think, because he felt conscious that this crisis 
 had not been a very marked one in his life. Some men- 
 tion of it he had to make in his early writings, because 
 in those sanctimonious times it was expected of him. 
 No real godliness could be seen in a man unless he could 
 accurately precise the time and occasion in which he 
 had experienced conversion. People in those days still 
 believed in Original Sin. In fact, when presenting him- 
 self to the Directors of the London Missionary Society 
 for entrance into mission- work, he had to satisfy them 
 as scrupulously as to the details of his conversion as a 
 modern missionary would be required to convince the 
 successors of the same Directors of his practical know- 
 ledge of medicine and hygiene. The exploration fever
 
 60 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 in his blood, the love of research in natural history, 
 combined with the religious impress given to his mind, 
 directed David Livingstone's thoughts towards the career 
 of a missionary as one calculated to satisfy these longings 
 for travel and evangelisation. The writings of Giitzlaff, 
 a German missionary, 1 gave point to his aspirations, and 
 made him resolve to go out as a medical missionary 
 to China. He accordingly, with the assistance of his 
 parents and elder brother, proceeded to Glasgow in 
 his twenty-third year, and entered himself as a student 
 at the University, where he studied Greek, theology, 
 chemistry, and medicine. He offered himself to the 
 London Missionary Society in 1837, being attracted 
 towards that body from the unsectarian nature of its 
 Christianity ; for Livingstone even in those days held 
 broad views as to creeds and formulas, and detested what 
 he called " geographical Christianity " and the sharply- 
 drawn differences of dogma. By the London Missionary 
 Society he was somewhat cautiously and hesitatingly 
 accepted as a probationer. In 1838 he proceeded, at 
 their invitation, to London, where his sweet, simple dis- 
 position and quiet enthusiasm made him many friends. 
 After passing two examinations, he was so far accepted 
 by the Society that he was sent to pursue his studies 
 under the Rev. Richard Cecil at Chipping Ongar, in 
 Essex, with whom he read Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. 
 It is not clear who supported him at this time and 
 defrayed the cost of his education, whether his parents, 
 his brother, or the London Missionary Society. At the 
 end of three months' study with Mr. Cecil, the first 
 report sent in to the Directors of the Society was un- 
 favourable, on account of Livingstone's utter failure as a 
 
 * Born in Pomerania. 1801.
 
 THE HOUR AND THE MAN : UPBRINGING. 61 
 
 preacher, his hesitating manner in conducting family 
 worship, and his lack of fluency in extempore prayer ; 
 and the result of this was very nearly being the closure 
 of Livingstone's missionary career ; but, fortunately, the 
 Directors decided to give him another chance, and during 
 the next three months which ensued he became suffi- 
 ciently conversant with the glib phraseology of common- 
 place prayer to scrape through his examination. Then 
 he was definitely accepted, and threw himself heart and 
 soul into his medical studies. For nearly two years he 
 worked thus in London, walking the hospitals, while his 
 ultimate destination as a missionary vacillated between 
 the West Indies, China, and Africa. To the West Indies 
 he objected to go, because, as he very rightly argued, 
 there was no good opening for a medical missionary, in- 
 asmuch as the islands were already well provided with 
 qualified doctors. China was closed to him on account 
 of the opium war ; so, sick of this period of indecision 
 he persuaded the Directors of the London Missionary 
 Society to send him to South Africa. His thoughts 
 were directed towards that Dark Continent, which he 
 afterwards did so much to enlighten, by his future father 
 in-law, Mr. Moffat, one of the greatest of African mis 
 sionaries, whom he met in London in 1840, at a time 
 when Exeter Hall had gone mad over African mission- 
 aries and Mrs. Jellyby ruled supreme. He returned once 
 more to Glasgow, passed an examination in medicine, 
 and received his diploma as a Licentiate of the Faculty of 
 Physicians and Surgeons, bade good-bye to his parents, 
 returned to London, was ordained a missionary in Albion 
 Chapel on the 2oth November 1840, and on the 8th
 
 62 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 December embarked on board the ship George under 
 Captain Donaldson, and proceeded to the Cape, and 
 thence to Algoa, Bay. 
 
 
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 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MISSIONARY LIFE. 
 
 ON the way out to South Africa the vessel on which 
 Livingstone travelled called at Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. 
 Here, for the first time, he gazed on the glories of 
 tropical vegetation, and was deeply impressed by this 
 aspect of nature. His senses were also somewhat cap- 
 tivated by the gorgeous ritual of the Roman Church, 
 and in a letter to his friend, the Rev. G. D. Watt, he 
 writes : " The Church Establishment there (at Rio) is 
 beautiful ; they really do the thing in style. If ever I 
 join an establishment, it won't be the poor degenerate 
 1 sisters ' at home, but the good mother herself in 
 Brazil." On the voyage out his untiring industry led 
 him to learn to take astronomical observations under 
 the captain's instructions, and this new knowledge 
 rendered him a real geographical explorer. 1 
 
 In those days the voyage to Africa occupied three 
 months instead of the three weeks now spent in travel- 
 
 1 Livingstone was perhaps the most exact computer of astronomical 
 observations who has yet appeared among African explorers. With 
 reference to the instruction he had received from Captain Donaldson, 
 he reinarks in the above-quoted letter to Mr. Watt : " The captain of 
 our vessel was very obliging to me, and gave me all the information 
 respecting the use of the quadrant in his power, frequently sitting up 
 till twelve at night for the purpose of taking lunar observations with 
 me. The captain is of a most agreeable nature, a well-informed, 
 shrewd Scotchman, but no Christian." 
 
 63
 
 64 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 ling by the slowest of the steamers which ply between 
 England and Cape Town, so that it was well on in the 
 spring of 1841 before Livingstone had reached Algoa 
 Bay, which he finally left on the 2oth May to start for 
 Kuruman, in Betshuanaland. In the same interesting 
 letter addressed to his friend, Mr. Watt, from which I 
 have already quoted, he gives such a vivid picture of 
 his first impressions of travel, his longings for explora- 
 tion, and at the same time such a frank exposition of 
 the character and condition of the missionary work then 
 existing, that I cannot do better than produce consider- 
 able portions of it in extenso : 
 
 " I was introduced by Dr. Philip to the Colonial Secretary, 
 and the 'cases' were promptly ordered. I found three of 
 them, but most unfortunately an error in packing has caused 
 the destruction of many of the glass vessels. I hope, however, 
 to have as many as may make oue complete case ; and if so, I 
 may say, from what I have seen of the auimals of this country, 
 that it won't be difficult to make a collection of some value to 
 Mr. Owen. I saw many specimens of agatised wood. The 
 concentric rings were beautifully distinct, and the pith crystal- 
 lised regularly, and as clear as a crystal ; but the edges of the 
 crystals were mostly rubbed off by friction amongst other 
 stones. In a plain about fifty miles from the river I passed 
 au entire tree completely agatised, yet retaining so much of 
 the original appearance that I took it at first for real wood. 
 It was broken into blocks of about a foot and a half in length. 
 I took pieces of it ; but I must not begin to describe all or 
 any of the wonders I have seen. Any book of travels will 
 supply you with wonders ad infinitum. 
 
 " The missionaries on this side the river are in a sad state. 
 Every man's hand is against his neighbour. Whatever may 
 have been the original cause of dispute, the present state of 
 feeling amongst our brethren is disgraceful. is not on
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MISSIONARY LIFE. 65 
 
 speaking terms with the Griqna Town missionaries, and takes 
 another route when visiting the colony to avoid seeing them. 
 They, in their turn, hate the brethren in the colony, and 
 amongst the whole there exists a pretty considerable amount 
 of floating scandal, one against the other ; all uniting on this 
 
 side to scandal (sic) Dr. , and on the other side generally 
 
 favourable to the Doctor and unfavourable to those on this side. 
 The devil is in it, but they cannot see him, or rather won't. I 
 am determined to stand aloof from both parties. I confess I 
 feel every difficulty on the subject of the Doctor's superin- 
 tendence now, but you must not imagine I am in the least 
 changed in my views respecting thorough-going independency. 
 
 The burden of Mr. and Mrs. 's song to me was always 
 
 derogatory to the character of Dr. and Mrs. . This 
 
 filled me with prejudice against the latter. A month's resi- 
 dence in their house, during which time I had sufficient op- 
 portunities of scrutinising their characters, has completely 
 dissolved the whole of it With respect to his superintend- 
 ence, he told me he never had considered himself as anything 
 more than the money agent of the Society. With spiritual 
 affairs or modes of operation he had nothing to do, and never 
 wished to interfere in these matters ; but he had been fre- 
 quently compelled, by the Society referring disputes to his 
 decision, to act a part he had no inclination to, for generally 
 one party was dissatisfied and became his calumniator. He 
 may have domineered in some instances, but is, I under- 
 stand, not the man who should cast the first stone. The 
 Doctor is now in his dotage, and won't do any more harm ; 
 but were he in his vigour, I should greatly prefer the des- 
 potism of one to that of many. The latter seems bent 
 
 on establishing, and my poor neighbour here seems delighted 
 with the idea of having a 'presbytery.' I hope Griffith is a 
 staunch independent. You see the part I must act. The 
 present system is real liberty-committee-ocracy. I feel I am 
 giving you a very partial view of the subject. It would take 
 a day's talk to explain the whole subject. I can't fully ex- 
 plain the Colonial feeling. It is somewhat like caste in India. 
 Dr. Philip has been a staunch advocate of the coloured popu- 
 lation. There is a strong feeling amongst the Colonists against 
 
 C
 
 66 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 him, and they (and, strange to say, most of the Doctor's 
 enemies) have imbibed it I mean of the missionaries. I 
 won't say all, but all I have seen certainly have. They divide 
 into Radicals and Conservatives. They have not these names, 
 but it is of that nature. You would be a friend of the natives ; 
 you would plead their cause against the Boers. I know you 
 would, for I know your feelings on that subject, and from this 
 I conclude you would take sides with the Doctor and his 
 friends. I can't help feeling friendly to him when I think of 
 all he has done in the cause of liberty, and when he tells me 
 distinctly that he will not interfere at all in my operations, 
 that he wishes all the missionaries to follow their own plans, 
 for these are generally the most efficient that they as indi- 
 viduals can employ. Every one has his own way of doing 
 things, and each can do more in his own way than he can bj- 
 adopting the plans or modes of operation of another. . . . 
 
 " I find that the fresh-water lake l of which Mokotere told 
 us is a pond about which there is an anxiety amongst all the 
 missionaries to do something. Every one would like to be 
 the first to see it, for it is quite certain that one does actually 
 exist. The distance is two months in bullock-waggon, and 
 the French missionaries have it in contemplation soon to 
 take a trip thither. One of them of rather an enterprising 
 character was solicited to become a corresponding member of 
 the Geographical Society, but declined, as he meant to give 
 all his discoveries to his Missionary Society, and let them 
 make what use of them they choose. His brother-in-law 
 Bounded me as to my intentions, but got nothing out. Mr. 
 Moffat lias got ,400 from some gentleman in England for 
 the purpose of fitting out an expedition to it. This I heard 
 
 incidentally. R blabbed it out in my presence to one of 
 
 Mr. M.'s chief friends at the Gape. I am afraid this will 
 find its way to the ears of the French missionaries, who will 
 be sure to lose no time in setting out. If they give your 
 humble servant a month so as to acquire the colloquial 
 language, they may spare themselves the pains of being first 
 ' in at the death.' I can acquire the language while travelling 
 
 1 The first rumours of Lake
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MISSIONARY L1FK. 87 
 
 without this ponderous vehicle, as well as by remaining at 
 Kuruman : perhaps better, for I shall live as they do and 
 mix constantly with them, and I can obtain information 
 respecting the population, &c., at the same time. I wish you 
 were here to give me some lessons in composition. I am a 
 bad hand at that, never having studied it, and my poor friend 
 
 R has such a precious idea of his extensive learning that 
 
 I have not the heart to ask him. I dare say I would, after 
 all, stoop from my pride were I not fully convinced by all 
 I have seen of him that he knows very little about that or 
 anything else. He and I are not on good terms because I 
 speak out and pay no more regard to his opinions on the 
 ground of his nine years' education (his wife's boast) than ii 
 he were my Hottentot boy and could not read. I could have 
 
 made something by Dr. H , but this man is mule-headed 
 
 beyond calculation. His wife is sensible, but his wife, though 
 married, will remain an old maid to the end of the chapter. 
 As for ' olive plants round the table,' eheu fugaces post, 
 &c. ! They are both adjuncts of or to Mr. M. Nothing is 
 right but what he has said. Mrs. Sewell tells me in a letter 
 I received at the same time with yours that she believes 
 vou are heartily sorry you had not a helpmate with you. 
 I have told her I am sure you were not. I am conscious 
 myself that I am better without ; and with respect to scandal 
 arising amongst the natives, no fewer than five married mis- 
 sionaries have been charged with incoutinency. The charge, 
 however, in each case has been, I believe, quite groundless. 
 I can be in no worse plight than they, should anything of 
 that sort arise. . . . From these and other considerations 
 which 1 need not mention, I conclude that marriage, like 
 vaccination in small-pox, is not a specific preventive of 
 scandal in Africa. (By the way, tell me if the matter which 
 is called 'grease' in horses'-heels is used in India in the 
 same manner that the vaccine virus is here and in Britain.) 
 All the missionaries' wives I have seen denounce my single- 
 blessedness in no measured terms. Some even insinuated 
 that the reason why I am thus is, that I have been unable to 
 get a spouse, but I put down that very speedily by assuming 
 that it is a great deal easier for a missionary to get married
 
 68 
 
 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 in England than to come out single, as in the latter case a 
 vigorous resistance must be made, but in the former only 
 yield up the affair into the hands of any friend and it is 
 managed for you in a twinkling ; only hold the neck down 
 like one of our oxen and the yoke is fixed, and no mistake. 
 
 AN OLD BUSHMAN. 
 
 Of course I have abundance of instances at my finger-ends, 
 and don't fail to point to all the silly married people I can 
 remember as proof of how easy it ia to get noosed. This is a 
 digression, but perhaps it will come in seasonably if Mr.
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MISSIONARY LIFE. 69 
 
 Kennedy's spouse is hard upon you. You can, however, 
 defend yourself well enough. What do you say to my going 
 up to Abyssinia? This ia talked of by many of the mis- 
 sionaries as a desirable object, and some propose doing it. 
 Would it not promote our cause by making known to the 
 Churches the awfully degraded state of an immense popula- 
 tion ? Looking at the map published by the Society for the 
 Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, you see far beyond us a ' very 
 populous country,' &c. I think one may be quite safe if 
 alone and without anything to excite the cupidity of the 
 natives. I should cost the Society nothing during these years 
 I should be away. It might be six or seven years before I 
 should return, but if languages are dialects of the Bechuana, 
 I could soon make known a little of the blessed plan of 
 mercy to the different tribes on the way ; and if I should never 
 return, perhaps my life will be as profitably spent as a fore- 
 runner as in any other way. I thank God I have no desire to 
 accumulate money. Whatever way my life can be best spent 
 to promote the glory of our gracious God, I feel desirous to 
 do it"
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MARRIES, TEACHES, AND IS TROUBLED. 
 
 THE headquarters of the London Missionary Society in 
 the interior of South Africa had been established in 
 those days at Kuruman, 1 in about 27 20' S. lat. and 
 23 20' E. long., on the upper part of the Kuruman 
 affluent of the Molopo River, and then in the debatable 
 land between the country of the Betshuana and the 
 Grikwa. 2 This district between the Orange River and 
 the Molopo, which is now called British Betshuanaland, 
 is a great plateau with an average altitude of about 4500 
 feet above the sea. Except in one or two favoured 
 spots where there is running water, or where man has 
 interfered with the natural conditions by artificial irriga- 
 tion, the country presents a singularly dreary aspect of 
 partial or complete desert. Even at the present day 
 round Kimberley, beyond the web of gardens and parks 
 which surround that nourishing city of corrugated iron, 
 
 1 Now a flourishing township in British Betshuanaland. 
 
 8 Grikwa (a Hottentot word : in the singular, Grip ; plural, Grikwa) 
 is the name given to the considerable population of half-castes 
 which sprang up on the northern and north-eastern border-lands of 
 Cape Colony by the intercourse between the Dutch and the Hotten- 
 tots. These hybrids held aloof from their Hottentot mothers' people, 
 and were cast out by their white fathers, so they constituted in time 
 a tribe of their own. I believe they are dying out, like their Hotten- 
 tot relations, before the rigorous competition of the white man and the 
 Bantu negro. 
 
 70
 
 MARRIES, TEACHES, AND IS TROUBLED. 71 
 
 you see a dreary waste, sparsely dotted with low thorny 
 acacias, whose scanty foliage scarcely veils their gaunt 
 skeletons of white boughs and long thorns. But at 
 Kuruman, as elsewhere in Africa, the advent of the mis- 
 sionaries effected an immediate change for the better : 
 
 " Kuruman has been made all that it is by the almost 
 slave-drudgery of its missionaries. They have had to 
 dig its canals themselves, and from the nature of the 
 country this was no small task. All round is a dreary 
 desert for a great part of the year ; enough, indeed, from 
 Its nakedness and sand to give its people most of that 
 ophthalmia with which they are so often afflicted. There 
 is not a tree near the station which has not been planted 
 by the missionaries. Some stunted scraggy bushes, many 
 of them armed with thorns villainously sharp and strong, 
 are the chief objects which present themselves to the eye." 
 
 Without waiting at Kuruman longer than was neces- 
 sary to recruit his oxen, which were pretty well tried 
 by the long journey from Algoa Bay (Port Elizabeth), 
 Livingstone made a rapid journey of about 300 miles 
 northwards into Betshuanaland to visit an important 
 chief called Setshele, who was then residing at Shokwane. 
 Then, after returning to Kuruman from this reconnais- 
 sance, he once more started for Betshuanaland, intend- 
 ing to make a settlement at what is now called Mole- 
 polole, a place or district which was at that time called 
 Koloben or Litubaruba, where he spent six months 
 isolated from all European society in order to gain an 
 insight into the habits, ways of thought, laws, and 
 language of that section of the Betshuana race called 
 the Ba-kwena. 1 From the Molepolole he extended his 
 
 1 Ba-kwena (formerly and incorrectly spelt Bakwains) means liter- 
 ally the "Crocodile People." Kwena, the word for crocodile in
 
 72 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 journey even farther north till, without knowing it, he 
 came to within a short distance of Lake Ngami. Return- 
 ing, however, to Kururnan in order to bring up his 
 luggage to the proposed settlement, he was followed by 
 the news that his friends the Ba-kwena had been 
 driven from their town by the Ba-rolon, another section 
 of the Betshuana. He, therefore, decided to select 
 another locality for the establishment of his station, and 
 finally fixed on Mabotsa, 1 which was a little nearer to 
 Kuruman than Molepolole, and now lies within the 
 boundaries of the Transvaal Republic. Here it was 
 that the adventure with the lion befell him, which has 
 been so often quoted in works of natural history and 
 lives of Livingstone that I will only make this brief 
 allusion to it here. The Betshuana country, like most 
 other parts of South Africa in those days, was infested 
 by lions, though this beast is now nearly extinct in 
 British South Africa. 2 Livingstone had joined the 
 people of Mabotsa in a lion-hunt, and had wounded a 
 lion, which sprang at him and dragged him to the 
 ground, where it crunched the bone and bit the flesh 
 of his left shoulder. The effect of this mishap was 
 the partial disablement of his left arm for the rest of 
 his life. 
 
 It is rather amusing to notice how, in his private 
 
 Betshuana, is a very widespread Bantu root. The original form was 
 nywena, which becomes nwcna, nwina, kwena, gwona, iigone, nwone, 
 &c., and this root extends in its range from the Carueroons to Zulu- 
 land, though it is not present in every tongue. 
 
 1 This word means "marriage feast." 
 
 2 Formerly the lion ranged over all South Africa down to the sea- 
 coast. Now it is quite extinct everywhere within the boundaries of 
 Cape Colony, Natal, the Orange Free State, and the south-east and 
 west of the Transvaal. It has also disappeared from Southern Betshu- 
 analand.
 
 MARRIES, TEACHES, AND IS TROUBLED. 73 
 
 correspondence, Livingstone's views on marriage gradu- 
 ally changed during his first few years in the African 
 wilds. At first he was inclined to deprecate marriage 
 on the part of missionaries, and writing to his friend 
 Watt in 1843 he says: "I suppose from the tenor of 
 your last letter it being in a kind of apologetic-for- 
 marriage strain you are now nearly about to multiply, 
 increase, and replenish the earth. Hoot ! man, there 
 are plenty at that work without you. But I hope you 
 will be happy, however it is. ... Here, although I was 
 inclined at first to be foolish, there is nobody worth 
 taking off one's hat to. Daughters of missionaries have 
 miserably contracted minds. Colonial ladies are worse 
 and worse. There is no outlet for me when I think of 
 getting married than that of sending home an advertise- 
 ment for the Evangelical Magazine, and if I get old it 
 must be for some decent widow. In the meantime I am 
 too busy to think of anything of the kind." 
 
 Nevertheless, soon after writing this letter Livingstone 
 made the acquaintance of Miss Mary Moffat, at Kuru- 
 man (the daughter of the celebrated Dr. Moffat, the 
 greatest of South African missionaries), and was married 
 to her towards the end of 1844. His choice seems to 
 have been a thoroughly suitable one, for Mrs. Living- 
 stone was just what a hard-working pioneer missionary's 
 wife should be : able to do, and to teach others to do, all 
 the work of a general servant ; a good cook, a good 
 seamstress, a good housewife, and yet possessing the 
 instincts and tastes of a cultured woman. In a private 
 letter written soon after his marriage, Livingstone, in his 
 quaint, prosaic manner, describes his wife as being " not 
 romantic," but " a matter-of-fact lady, a little, thick, 
 black-haired girl, sturdy and all I want." In other and
 
 74 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 succeeding letters he speaks with enthusiasm of the 
 comforts and refinements of his home, which he owes to 
 his wife's hard work and housewifely skill. The young 
 couple settled down at Mabotsa, where Livingstone 
 built with his own hands a large, strong house. He 
 had a companion at his station, a Mr. Edwards, who 
 was a carpenter and builder by profession ; but between 
 him and Livingstone there seems to have been consi- 
 derable incompatibility of temper. Edwards rendered 
 Livingstone practically no assistance in the building of 
 his house, although that may be said to have come 
 within his own special province. He showed ridiculous 
 jealousy of Livingstone as an explorer, threatened to 
 bring a series of charges before the committee at Kuru- 
 man ; and though he afterwards withdrew these charges 
 and wrote apologetically to Livingstone, he made him- 
 self so very disagreeable that, sooner than continue these 
 acrimonious disputes, Livingstone and his wife quitted 
 the station they had organised at such personal trouble 
 and expense, and moved to a place called Tshonuane, 
 about forty miles to the north, and the headquarters, at 
 that time, of the well-known Setshele, the Betshuana 
 chief. From Tshonuane he made a long journey east- 
 wards to the Kashane Mountains or " Magaliesberg," 
 through the heart of what is now known as the Transvaal 
 State. While at Tshonuane his eldest son Robert l was 
 born. At Tshonuane, however, they found that the 
 
 1 Robert Livingstone, when a youth, rather impulsively went off to 
 America and joined the Federal army. He was wounded in battle, 
 and died in a hospital in North Carolina in 1865. He will be best 
 remembered by having given his mother her African name. In 
 Betshuanaland a mother is always called after the name of her first- 
 born. Thus, Mrs. Livingstone's first-born being named Robert, she 
 was always henceforth known to the natives as "Ma' Robert," i.e., 
 "Mother of Robert."
 
 MARRIES, TEACHES, AND IS TROUBLED. 75 
 
 increasing drought which was afflicting the country 
 rendered agriculture almost impossible. The Ba-kwena 
 people under Setshele were already suffering grievously 
 from lack of rain, and Livingstone relates with humour, 
 and with a kindly tolerance rare in those days amongst 
 the usually bigoted missionaries, the efforts of the native 
 rain-doctors to break the spell of continuous drought, and 
 the arguments by which they sought to adduce the efficacy 
 of their " rain -medicines." All things considered, the 
 heathen was not much more unreasonable in his theory 
 of provoking supernatural interference with the weather 
 than the Christian disputant. The latter says, " So you 
 really believe that you can command the clouds 1 I 
 think that can be done by God alone." And the rain- 
 doctor replies, " We both believe the very same thing. 
 It is God that makes the rain ; but I pray to Him by 
 means of these medicines, and, the rain coming, of course 
 it is mine. It was I who made it for the Ba-kwena during 
 many years, when they were at Shokwane ; through my 
 wisdom, too, their women became fat and shining. Ask 
 them; they will tell you the same." To which Dr. 
 Livingstone answers, " But we are distinctly told in the 
 parting words of our Saviour that we can pray to God 
 acceptably in His name alone, and not by means of 
 medicines." " Truly ! " replies the rain-maker ; " but 
 God told us differently. He made black men first, and 
 did not love us, as He did the white men. He made you 
 beautiful, and gave you clothing, and guns, and gun- 
 powder, and horses, and waggons, and many other 
 things about which we know nothing. But toward 
 us He had no heart. He gave us nothing except the 
 assegai, and cattle, and rain-making ; and He did not 
 give us hearts like yours. We never love each other.
 
 76 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Other tribes place medicines about our country to prevent 
 the rain, so that we may be dispersed by hunger, and 
 go to them and augment their power. We must dissolve 
 their charms by our medicines. God has given us the 
 knowledge of certain medicines by which we can make 
 rain. We don't despise those things which you possess, 
 though we are ignorant of them ; we don't understand 
 your book, yet we don't despise it. You ought not to 
 despise our little knowledge, though you are ignorant 
 of it." 
 
 Setshele's people at this time had recourse to driving 
 the wild animals of the district into the hopo trap for 
 the purpose of obtaining meat, as their cattle were dying 
 fast from the drought. This hopo consisted of two 
 hedges in the form of the letter V, which were very high 
 and thick near the angle. They did not, however, 
 actually join at this point, but were extended parallel in 
 a narrow lane, at the extremity of which a pit was 
 formed six or seven feet deep and about twelve or fifteen 
 in breadth and length. Trunks of trees were laid across 
 the margins of the excavation, and more especially over 
 the brink nearest to the end of the lane where the 
 animals were expected to leap in. Tree-trunks formed 
 an overlapping border, and rendered escape impossible. 
 The fragile surface was carefully strewn with short 
 green rushes and grass and twigs, so as to completely 
 conceal the pitfall. As the hedges were about a mile 
 long, and nearly that distance apart at their extremities, 
 a tribe making a circle three or four miles round the 
 country adjacent to the opening, and gradually closing 
 up, were almost sure to encircle a large body of game. 
 Driving the animals up with shouts to the narrow part 
 of the hopo, the men who were secreted there would
 
 MARRIES, TEACHES, AND IS TROUBLED. 77 
 
 throw their assegais into the affrighted herds, while the 
 poor beasts rushed on and into the opening presented at 
 the converging hedges, and, unable to stop their impetus, 
 would smash through the frail covering of boughs and 
 grass and collapse into the pit, until that excavation was 
 full to the brim with a fighting, struggling, suffocating 
 mass of antelopes, buffaloes, and zebras. Then the 
 natives would close in and spear the animals at their 
 leisure. In this way between sixty and seventy head of 
 large game were often killed at the different hopos in a 
 single week. 1 
 
 Finding it impossible to carry on any agriculture at 
 Tshonuane from the want of water that prevailed (for 
 the rain-maker's medicines were futile in their effect), 
 Livingstone moved westward another forty miles to the 
 River Koloben, 2 practically to the same district wherein 
 he had wished to settle years before at the time of his 
 experimental incursion in the Ba-kwena country. He 
 not only moved himself and his wife and family to the 
 Koloben, and commenced building his third experimental 
 mission station there, but he also induced Setshele and 
 all his people to come with him. He taught them here 
 how to irrigate their gardens by runnels from the never- 
 failing river, and a prosperous agricultural colony soon 
 sprang up. 
 
 Setshele, the chief of the Ba-kwena, was a good fellow, 
 and an excellent type of the frank, straightforward, 
 
 1 This method of killing game is by no means peculiar to South 
 Africa, though it is not met with elsewhere in quite such thorough- 
 going, extensive fashion. Converging hedges and pitfalls are in use 
 among the tribes of the Batanga country south of the Cameroons for 
 the capture of elephants. Vide, for an illustration of this, my " His- 
 tory of a Slave." 
 
 * Koloben means "pig-stye," from Tcolobt, "pig," in Setshuana.
 
 78 
 
 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 manly savage. His great-grandfather, Motshoasele, had 
 been a great traveller, and was the first that had brought 
 to the Ba-kwena news of the existence of white men. 
 Setshele's father, also called Motshoasele, was murdered 
 by his own people for taking to himself the wives of 
 his rich under-chiefs. The children being spared, their 
 
 
 A MA'KOLOLO. 
 
 friends invited Sebituane, the chief of the Ma-kololo, 
 who was then in those parts, to reinstate them in the 
 chieftainship, and in this way Setshele was ultimately 
 installed as chief over the Ba-kwena. In consequence 
 of this, he ever afterwards felt under a sense of obliga- 
 tion to Sebituane, his Ma-kololo ally. This occurred a
 
 MARRIES, TEACHES, AND IS TROUBLED. 79 
 
 few years before Livingstone entered the country and 
 made his acquaintance. An immediate friendship sprang 
 up between the kindly, patient missionary and the im- 
 pulsive chief full of zeal for new knowledge. Setshele 
 was so anxious to learn to read, and applied himself with 
 such assiduity to this task, that the change from his 
 former life of a hunter to the sedentary existence of a 
 student made him quite corpulent. He learned the 
 alphabet in one day, and acquired rapidly a knowledge 
 of arithmetic from a few lessons given him by Mr. 
 Oswell, the celebrated traveller and hunter, who at 
 various periods stayed with Livingstone at his station. 
 Setshele's religious convictions were far more reasonably 
 and intelligently acquired, and more clearly connected 
 with his mode of life, than are those of most aborigi- 
 nal heathen. Once being convinced himself as to the 
 merits of Christianity as a religion, he was immediately 
 anxious his people should follow him into the fold; so 
 he proposed to Livingstone that they should be coerced 
 into Christianity by the use of rhinoceros-hide whips. 
 He was surprised when the missionary expressed dis- 
 approval of this mode of forcible conversion, and it 
 became a matter of deep regret to him that persuasion, 
 entreaty, and example failed to induce the bulk of his 
 people to follow him into an acceptance of the new 
 religion. " In former times," he said to Livingstone, 
 " when a chief was fond of hunting, all his people got 
 dogs and became fond of hunting too. If he loved 
 dancing or music, all showed a preference for these 
 amusements. If the chief drank beer, his people all 
 rejoiced in strong drink. But in this case it is different. 
 I love the Word of God, and not one of my people will 
 join me." Setshele found out that, in order to be a
 
 80 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 consistent Christian according to the method of Chris- 
 tianity as taught by missionaries in the middle of the 
 nineteenth century, a man must be the husband of one 
 wife only ; l and although he was far from being an 
 uxorious man, his pity for the superfluous wives, who 
 would be dishonoured in local opinion, through no fault 
 of their own, by being dismissed, prevented him from 
 immediately presenting himself for baptism. Nor did 
 Livingstone hurry him towards this outward profession 
 of conversion, because in his wise tolerance he sympa- 
 thised with Setshele's position, and the unmerited wrong 
 it would inflict on his wives. However, at last an 
 arrangement was come to by which the supernumerary 
 spouses were handsomely pensioned off and sent back 
 to their families, the principal wife alone being retained. 
 " She," says Livingstone, "was about the most unlikely 
 subject in the tribe ever to become anything else than 
 an out-and-out greasy disciple of the old school Again 
 and again have I seen Setshele send her out of church 
 to put her gown on, and away she would go with her 
 lip shot out, the very picture of unutterable disgust at 
 his new-fangled notions." On the day when Setshele 
 and his children were baptized, great numbers of Ba- 
 kwena came to see the ceremony. During the service 
 several of the old men were actually in tears, and gave 
 as the cause of their weeping their belief that their 
 father, Setshele, was henceforth " left to himself ; " that 
 he had become, as it were, one set apart from the rest 
 of the tribe and dissociated from them in the tenor of 
 his life and the direction of his thoughts. There sprang 
 up soon afterwards a considerable reaction against Chris- 
 
 1 This was evidently the main reason of his sensual-minded subjects 
 holding back from the white man's faith.
 
 MARRIES, TEACHES, AND IS TROUBLED. 81 
 
 tianity on the part of the Ba-kwena, which, was instigated 
 by the friends of the divorced wives. 
 
 In this case there is little doubt that, had the mis- 
 sionary permitted, or, as it were, condoned the existence 
 of polygamy for a while, the whole tribe of the Ba-kwena 
 would have followed their chief's example and become 
 Christians. You cannot hope so suddenly to change the 
 habits and customs of a people. Suppress an institution 
 in one form and it springs up in another. Setshele, it 
 is possible, may have remained faithful to the one wife, 
 but I think it not unlikely on his part that there were 
 occasional lapses into incontinenca I know of an 
 old chief in the Oil Rivers who became a Christian 
 many years ago at the expense of dismissing all his 
 legitimate wives but one. He was, and is, a really good 
 man according to his lights, and he took back many of 
 the discarded spouses as " concubines ; " a practice which 
 was not condemned by the local missionaries because 
 they found a sanction for it in the lives of the Old 
 Testament worthies. 
 
 Setshele is described by Livingstone as tall, rather 
 corpulent, and typically negro in feature, with fine, large 
 eyes, but a very dark skin. On account of his swarthi- 
 ness he was called by his people " Black Setshele." He 
 soon acquired great skill in reading, and was a fluent 
 and effective orator. He taught his people zealously, 
 and introduced something like good government among 
 them, especially after a visit he paid to Cape Colony. 
 Seeing convicts at work in the British possessions, he 
 conceived the idea of turning his own criminals to useful 
 account, and he introduced successfully into Betshuana- 
 land the system of forced labour as a punishment in 
 place of more barbarous penalties. Despite his original
 
 82 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 belief at the time when Livingstone first visited him, 
 that the Kalahari Desert was impassable on account of 
 the drought, his faith in his missionary friend became so 
 firm, that, when Livingstone made his first journey to 
 the Zambezi, Setshele and large numbers of his people 
 accompanied him thither. Setshele's increasing pros- 
 perity, and, above all, his friendship for the English, 
 soon attracted the greed and aroused the enmity of the 
 Transvaal Boers, to whose actions at this period in 
 Betshuanaland I shall refer later on ; but, as far as 
 Setshele was concerned, it may be well to give some idea 
 of how this man was punished by the Dutch brigands 
 for his encouragement of English missionaries and 
 sportsmen. 
 
 They first of all demanded that he should place his 
 territory under their rule, and that he should refuse a 
 passage northwards through his country to the English 
 and the Grikwa. 1 Then, when he refused to comply 
 with these orders, he was suddenly and unprovokedly 
 attacked by four hundred Boers, who were despatched 
 on this errand by the late Mr. Pretorius. The Dutch- 
 men fired on the scarcely resisting people, of whom they 
 killed sixty in their first encounter. They burnt the 
 town down, plundered Livingstone's house, carried off 
 all his stores, and those belonging to Gordon Gumming 
 and other English hunters which had been safely 
 deposited hitherto in the natives' keeping, and en- 
 slaved a number of men, women, and children, among 
 whom where two of Setshele's own. Fortunately, 
 the Boers did not get off quite scot-free, for the Ba- 
 kwena collected themselves after their first dispersal, 
 and managed to kill twenty-eight of the marauding 
 1 Half-castes between the Boers and the Hottentots
 
 MARRIES, TEACHES, AND IS TROUBLED. 83 
 
 farmers. The only excuse offered by the Boer news- 
 papers for this unprovoked attack on the Ba-kwena 
 was, that " Setshele was getting too saucy." As Living- 
 stone says, his real faults in their eyes were "his 
 independence and love of the English." 
 
 Setshele was so hurt in his senso of justice at this 
 Boer raid, which, he felt, had been completely unpro- 
 voked, that he resolved to appeal to the Queen of 
 England for justice. He, therefore, scraped together 
 all the means at his command, and managed to get as 
 far on his way as Cape Town ; but the coldness and 
 discouragement which he met with from the Colonial 
 authorities (who were at that time entirely indifferent 
 to what occurred in Betshuanaland, and by no means 
 sensitive to the rights of the natives), and the expendi- 
 ture of his funds, prevented him from crossing the sea 
 to lay his griefs before the throne of the " Great White 
 Mother." He, therefore, wisely returned to his kingdom 
 and set to work to repair his losses. While he had been 
 absent a party of his young men had managed to seize 
 some of the Boer waggons and four Boers. This un- 
 expected " turning of the worm " so completely took the 
 Boers aback that they sent to make proposals of peace, 
 and finally agreed to return Setshele's two sons, who 
 had been made the domestic slaves of a certain Scholz. 
 When one of these was returned it was noticed that his 
 body was a mass of burns. 
 
 With quiet, peaceful organisation, Setshele's power 
 greatly increased, and he reigned as king over his 
 district of Southern Betshuanaland until, long years 
 afterwards, his rule became merged into that of the 
 British Government. Setshele is living still, though a 
 very old man.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE BOERS, "GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE." 
 
 REFERENCE having already been made to the interference 
 of the Boers with the affairs of Betshuanaland, it may 
 be well, before proceeding further with the account of 
 how they came into conflict with Livingstone and with 
 his proteges, to explain how they came to be in this 
 country at all. 
 
 The first British occupation of Cape Colony (which was 
 then limited to a small portion of the western half of 
 Southern Africa, bounded on the east by the Great Fish 
 River, and on the north by the Zeekoe l River) caused 
 a change in the policy hitherto pursued by the whites 
 towards the native races, besides breaking up a number 
 of exclusive trading privileges and monopolies attached 
 to the old rule of the Dutch East India Company. 
 These changes, and the national spirit of the Dutch 
 settlers, who naturally viewed with disfavour the British 
 occupation of a Dutch colony, combined from the first 
 to make the Boers averse to British rule, and dis- 
 posed them to migrate farther and farther towards 
 the north and east in order to escape from its un- 
 welcome philanthropy. This feeling was intensified by 
 the measures taken for the mitigation or suppression of 
 slavery, which strongly incensed the patriarchal Boers, 
 1 Zeekoe = sea-cow = hippopotamus.
 
 THE BOERS, "GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE." 85 
 
 who, during the " 'thirties " trekked away from Cape 
 Colony to the number of nearly 10,000, as far as can be 
 computed. They directed their exodus towards what are 
 now the states of Natal, Orange River, and Transvaal. 
 Their entry into Natal provoked a war between them 
 and the treacherous and savage Zulus, which ended in a 
 final victory for the Dutch. The Boer emigrants would 
 probably have brought the whole of Natal under their 
 domination in time, had it not been for the intervention 
 of the British Government, who, after some vicissitudes, 
 succeeded in inducing the Dutch to submit to British 
 rule, and Natal was soon afterwards proclaimed to be 
 a British colony. Others of the Boers, however, had 
 occupied the Transvaal and Orange River territories, 
 where they were practically allowed a free hand by the 
 British Government at the Cape ; in fact, so free a 
 hand that, according to Livingstone, they were told by 
 Sir George Cathcart, the Governor of Cape Colony, 
 " that they might do as they pleased with the mission- 
 aries." The independence of the Boers across the Orange 
 River and the Vaal having been recognised, a treaty 
 was entered into with them by which the free passage 
 of Englishmen to the interior across the Boer territories 
 was conceded, and slavery disallowed in the Boer states. 
 Nevertheless it was by no means the intention of the 
 Boers, under Pretorius, Potgeiter, and Kruger, to per- 
 mit, if they could prevent it, any further advance of 
 British influence towards the interior. By creating a 
 continuous band of Boer rule from the Transvaal to 
 Damaraland they hoped to effectually obstruct the ex- 
 tension northwards of British domination and British 
 ideas, and beyond this boundary-line across South Africa 
 they intended to reconstitute the goodly patriarchal life
 
 86 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 which they had hitherto enjoyed, and which is (alas ! 
 for it is so pleasant) quite in dissonance with nineteenth- 
 century civilisation. Hero they could continue to farm 
 in their lazy, easy-going way, and live in rude comfort 
 on the labour of the enslaved Kaffirs, Betshuana, and 
 Bushmen. The Boer rule over the territory between 
 the Limpopo and the Vaal had been recognised in a 
 loose sort of way by the British Government ; and 
 nothing in the terms of this recognition debarred the 
 Boers from further extending their rule westwards over 
 Betshuanaland : indeed, I believe that, had it not been for 
 the reckless, indiscreet way in which the Dutch farmers 
 endeavoured at various times to assert their authority 
 over the natives, Betshuanaland would have become a 
 Boer state and a strong barrier in the way of a British 
 movement towards the Zambezi. 1 
 
 In their first invasion of the Transvaal, the Boers 
 actually did good, by routing and dispersing the ravag- 
 ing hordes of Mosilikatse, the father of Lobengula 
 and the chief of the Matabele or Amandebele Zulus ; 
 and for a while the Betshuana country had cause to 
 thank the Dutch for the check given to this Zulu con- 
 queror ; but they afterwards had occasion to complain 
 that " Mosilikatse was cruel to his enemies and kind to 
 those he conquered, but the Boers destroyed their enemies 
 and made slaves of their friends." Those Betshuana 
 tribes who were found by the Boers in what is now called 
 
 1 So resolved were the Boers to prevent English access to Betshuana- 
 land and the regions beyond, and to hinder the country from becoming 
 known, that, besides waylaying, robbing, and expelling such English 
 travellers and traders as found their way thither, they further seized 
 one Maccabe, who had dared to write a letter to the Cape papers on 
 the routes to Lake Ngami, fined him $50x3 for publishing this informa- 
 tion, and kept him in prison until the fine was paid.
 
 THE BOERS, "GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE." 87 
 
 the Transvaal Territory were forced to perform all the 
 labour of the fields, such as manuring the land, weeding, 
 reaping, building, making drains and canals, and at the 
 same time to support themselves at their own expense. 
 Livingstone himself was an eye-witness of Boers coming to 
 a village and, according to their usual custom, demanding 
 twenty or thirty women to weed their gardens ; and had 
 seen these women proceed to the scene of unrequited toil 
 carrying their own food on their heads, their children on 
 their backs, and instruments of labour on their shoulders. 
 When Livingstone taxed them with the meanness of 
 thus employing unpaid labour, the Boers lauded their 
 own humanity and justice in laying down such an equit- 
 able regulation. " We make the people work for us," 
 they said, " in consideration of allowing them to live in 
 our country." This species of corvee only being sufficient 
 to meet the field-labour problem, they were obliged tc 
 have recourse to organised slave-raids for obtaining 
 domestic servants. Knowing well the intractability oi 
 adult negroes, the Boers preferred as a rule to seize little 
 children, whom they captured as young as possible, sc 
 that they might forget their parents and their native 
 language. "It is difficult," writes Livingstone, "fora 
 person in a civilised country to conceive that any body 
 of men possessing the common attributes of humanity 
 (and these Boers are by no means destitute of the better 
 feelings of our nature) should with one accord set out, 
 after loading their own wives and children with caresses, 
 and proceed to shoot down in cold blood men and women, 
 of a different colour, it is true, but possessed with 
 domestic feelings and affections equal to their own. . . . 
 It was long before I could quite give credit to the 
 tales of bloodshed told by native witnesses, and had I
 
 88 
 
 received no other testimony but theirs, I should probably 
 have remained sceptical to this day as to the truth of 
 the accounts; but when I found the Boers themselves, 
 some bewailing and denouncing, others glorying in the 
 bloody scenes in which they had been themselves the 
 actors, I was compelled to admit the validity of the 
 testimony, and try to account for the cruel anomaly. 
 They are all traditionally religious, tracing their descent 
 from some of the best men (Huguenots and Dutch) the 
 world ever saw. Hence they claim to themselves the 
 title of ' Christians,' and all the coloured race are 
 'black property' or 'creatures.' They being the 
 chosen people of God, the heathen are given to them 
 for an inheritance, and they are the rod of Divine 
 vengeance on the heathen, as were the Jews of old." 
 
 One of the cruellest, most unprovoked raids of the 
 Boers ordered by Pretorius was publicly justified in a 
 general sense by the instructions given to the Jewish 
 warrior in Deuteronomy xx. 10-14 : " When thou comest 
 nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace 
 unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of 
 peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the 
 people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto 
 thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no 
 peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then 
 thou shalt besiege it : and when the Lord thy God hath 
 delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every 
 male thereof with the edge of the sword. But the women, 
 and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the 
 city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto 
 thyself ; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, 
 which the Lord thy God hath given thee." So easily, 
 in fact, did the Boers succeed in convincing themselves
 
 THE BOERS, "GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE." 89 
 
 that in slave-raiding and cattle-lifting they were obeying 
 the behest of Almighty God, that when Pretorius, the 
 arch-robber, died, it was said of him in his obituary 
 notice, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." 
 
 After relating a number of atrocities committed by 
 the Boers in Betshuanaland, Livingstone supposes that 
 his readers will ask him how it is that, in view of this 
 treatment, the natives do not rise and annihilate the 
 Boers, whom they far exceed in numbers. He replies 
 to this imaginary question by pointing out that the 
 people attacked are Betshua.na, not Kaffirs, and that the 
 former people, even if they possessed firearms, which 
 were then very rare, were singularly averse to attacking 
 white men, with whom they never engaged in war, unless 
 for the sheer defence of their lives. He goes on to say : 
 " We have a very different tale to tell of the Kaffirs, 
 and the difference has always been so evident to these 
 border Boers, that, ever since those ' magnificent savages ' 
 obtained possession of firearms, not one Boer has ever 
 attempted to settle in Kaffirland, or even to face them 
 as an enemy in the field. The Boers have generally 
 manifested a marked antipathy to anything but ' long- 
 shot' warfare, and sidling away in their emigrations 
 towards the more effeminate Betshuauas, have left their 
 quarrels with the Kaffirs to be settled by the English, 
 and their wars to be paid for by English gold." 
 
 The Boers had already enslaved most of the eastern 
 tribes of Betshuanaland when they turned their atten- 
 tion to the Ba-kwena, who had removed to Kolobefi, 
 under their chief, Setshele, at Livingstone's advice. The 
 revived prosperity of this little tribe excited their greed 
 and apprehension, and they came to look upon Living- 
 stone's presence there as a menace to themselves, inas-
 
 90 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 much as they believed him to be supplying the Betshuana 
 with guns and ammunition and instruction in warfare. 
 An iron pot which he had given to Setshele was trans- 
 formed by rumour into a cannon. As a matter of fact, 
 at the time of Livingstone's residence at Kolobefi, the 
 Ba-kwena had obtained five guns which they bought 
 from English traders, from whom it is possible they also 
 procured a little powder. 1 However that may be, the 
 Boers repeatedly declared that Livingstone and all other 
 British missionaries must leave that part of the country, 
 because they were making the natives "too saucy." At 
 length, taking advantage of Livingstone's absence in 
 Cape Town in 1852, they made, without warning and un- 
 provoked, the raid on Kolobeii which has been already 
 alluded to in connection with Setshele. On this occa- 
 sion they plundered Livingstone's house of everything it 
 contained, they smashed his stock of medicines, sold all 
 his furniture and clothing at public auction, and not 
 caring for the trouble of transporting his books, they 
 tore out handfuls of the leaves and scattered what had 
 once been a good library all over the place. They also 
 seized and carried off all the stores and eighty head of 
 cattle deposited there by English travellers and sports- 
 
 1 The Colonial authorities of this period (1850 and subsequent years), 
 oddly enough, placed no restrictions on the sale of arms and ammuni- 
 tion to the Boers and the Kaffirs, both of whom were then almost 
 avowedly our enemies, but stringently forbade all trade in guns and 
 powder with the Betshuana and Grikwa, then and always the friends 
 of the British. So ready, in fact, were the Colonial authorities of 
 Cape Town to believe the Boer allegations as to Livingstone supplying 
 his people with the means to defend themselves, that he was not per- 
 mitted by the Magistrates of Cape Town to take with him on his great 
 journey to the Zambezi more than 10 Ibs. of gunpowder, lest by design 
 or chance it should fall into the hands of the Betshuana, who at that 
 time were actually holding open for the British the route to the 
 Zambezi.
 
 THE BOERS, "GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE." 91 
 
 men. No reparation for these robberies was ever ob- 
 tained. 
 
 However, the Boers did not succeed in permanently 
 conquering West Betshuanaland ; for the natives, under 
 Setshele, plucked up spirit and made a resistance suffi- 
 ciently serious to prevent the Boers from incorporating 
 their territory with the Transvaal State. The struggle 
 languished during nearly three decades, but revived 
 again after the Transvaal surrender of 1881, when the 
 Boers, flushed with their easy victory over the English, 
 made a determined attempt to annex Betshuanaland. 
 Under the contre coup of our abnegatory policy in the 
 Transvaal, this was more than* the now better-instructed 
 British public could stand, and public opinion insisted 
 that Betshuanaland should be placed under British con- 
 trol and protection. This step was brought about from 
 first to last solely by the insistence of the missionaries, 
 to whom alone we owe that condition of affairs which pre- 
 vented our giving up the route to the Zambezi to those 
 recalcitrant white men who have ever been so hostile to 
 the spread of British civilisation. " The Boers resolved 
 to shut up the interior," writes Livingstone, "and I 
 determined to open the country ; we shall see who have 
 been the most successful in resolution, they or I." 

 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MISSION-WORK; ITS FAILURES AND SUCCESSES. 
 
 LIVINGSTONE'S thoughts while at Koloben were continu- 
 ally directed towards the unknown interior. Under- 
 lying the many excellent reasons he gives himself and 
 then the public to justify his adoption of the life of a 
 travelling pioneer of Christianity rather than that of a 
 settled teacher with a fixed abode and a limited influence, 
 we can see that he possessed (at first unconsciously) the 
 real fever of geographical discovery which forces so many 
 of our countrymen to explore strange countries under 
 the guise of missionaries, naturalists, sportsmen, soldiers, 
 and traders. But he gives several valid reasons why he 
 should become a missionary-explorer. He reckons the 
 whole population of Southern Betshuanaland at no more 
 (then) than 12,000 ; and he justly asks if these 12,000 
 scattered people should occupy the whole attention of 
 the London Missionary Society. He points out, more- 
 over, that it would be highly desirable that the missions 
 should attempt to reach those populous tribes of the 
 unknown interior beyond the Kalahari Desert while 
 they remained in their virgin savagery, unprejudiced 
 against white men by the lawless deeds of the South 
 African colonists and the Boers, and innocent as yet of 
 the brutalisation caused by the introduction of European 
 vices, diseases, and intenser forms of alcohol. That part
 
 MISSION-WORK ; ITS FAILURES AND SUCCESSES. 93 
 
 of Betshuanaland in which the Mission had its chief 
 establishment appeared to be afflicted by increasing 
 desiccation. Everywhere the springs and rivers were 
 drying up or diminishing in volume. " Would it not 
 be better," argued Livingstone, " that we should endea- 
 vour to find a land with an abundance of water, where 
 the people settled round our missions could devote them- 
 selves with some success to agriculture ? " 
 
 Livingstone's views on missionaries and mission-work 
 were at all times thoroughly sound, and free from any- 
 thing like hypocrisy, or the deliberate over-colouring 
 and falsification of reports which is so striking a blemish 
 in the publications of most Christian missionary societies 
 even at the present day. The opinions which he held, 
 and which he set forth clearly in his first book, and in 
 his letters to his friend, Mr. Watt, may be summed up 
 by the phrase, " You can't expect wolves to be turned 
 into sheep-dogs in one generation." Livingstone saw 
 plainly that it takes several generations to implant real, 
 sound civilisation and Christianity in the negro race. 
 He admitted that many of the native Christians around 
 him were but weak-kneed brethren in their effective 
 observance of religious principles. They would lie, steal, 
 drink, and fornicate in spite of their conversion. He 
 saw the hollowness of their glib professions of faith, of 
 their lusty psalm-and-hymn-singing; but he distinguishes 
 these cardinal facts : that the worst of negro Christians 
 is more amenable to civilisation than the best of heathens, 
 and that even among these faulty disciples of a new 
 faith there are here and there " shining lights " real, 
 honest, faithful, sober, chaste Christians, as earnest in 
 their religion, and as desirous of acting up to its 
 precepts, as any white Christian in our own country.
 
 94 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTKAL AFKiUA. 
 
 He prophesies, moreover, that the next generation will 
 be better than the first, and that though the seed 
 scattered by the missionaries is often generations in 
 germinating, yet, after long delay and in unexpected 
 places, it will produce a sudden harvest. And his con- 
 jecture has proved a true one, for Christianity is almost 
 universally professed by the natives of Betshuanaland at 
 the present day, and in their mode of life they show 
 the marked improvement which the practice of this 
 religion almost always brings about. The Christianity 
 of the Betshuana may be of a lower and more concrete 
 kind than the faith held by the majority of English 
 people. For instance, the observance of the Sabbath 
 has become elevated into a disagreeable dogma, which 
 surpasses in importance any other detail of religion. 1 
 But this is counterbalanced by the more organised 
 industry which is displayed on the six working-days 
 of the week, and by the contrast which the harmless, 
 decent excesses in singing, praying, and preaching of 
 their emotional Christianity offer to the beastly, degrad- 
 ing orgies of drunkenness and debauchery which formerly 
 accompanied such feeble worship of ghosts and demons, 
 such superstitious "rain-making" and "witch-finding," 
 as they practised in their old heathen days. When 
 Livingstone first came among them, the Betshuana 
 endeavoured to make rain by administering an infusion 
 of poisonous roots to a sheep, which in a few minutes 
 caused it to expire, while parts of the same roots were 
 burnt and their smoke ascended to the sky as the sheep 
 gasped in its death-agony. Now they put up prayers 
 
 1 The Sabbath as an institution has met with peculiar favour among 
 the negroes as a special sanctification of inactivity. They are also a 
 naturally devotional race, and enjoy nothing more than meeting 
 together to perform noiay religious rites.
 
 MISSION-WORK ; ITS FAILURES AND SUCCESSES. 95 
 
 foi 1 rain, just like the Archbishop of Canterbury. So 
 little of a humbug was Livingstone, however, that in 
 dissuading the poor people in time of drought from 
 " making rain " after their old fashion, he did not teach 
 them to rely solely on beseeching by their prayers a 
 Providence too often deaf to man's piteous entreaty, 
 but taught them to act on the sound principle that " the 
 gods help those who help themselves." As I have 
 before related, he showed the Betshuana how, in the 
 absence of rain, they might keep their crops and cattle 
 alive by a system of irrigation. 
 
 Livingstone strongly advocated that principle of 
 making black Christianity self-supporting by the rais- 
 ing up of a native pastorate which is nowadays much 
 favoured by the Universities' Mission and the Church 
 Missionary Society. While he considered that for some 
 time to come the supreme directorate of the black 
 churches should be placed in the hands of Europeans, 
 he argued that white teachers, being so much more ex- 
 pensive to maintain than black men, should not be 
 lavished in numbers on small areas, but should be 
 scattered far and wide to form the centres of great 
 radii of evangelising influences, and that native Chris- 
 tians should be trained up to do all the lesser work of 
 teaching and preaching among the people of their own 
 colour. In spite of much discouragement and disap- 
 pointment caused at times by individual cases where the 
 black pastor has not always maintained the high level of 
 precept and example expected of him, I think Living- 
 stone was right, and that our great missionary societies 
 may hold this as a sound principle, that, while for some 
 time maintaining the supreme control over the black 
 churches in Tropical Africa in the hands of the white
 
 96 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 men, they should gradually train up the negro Chris- 
 tians to be self-sufficing and self-supporting. 
 
 The London Missionary Society's work in Living- 
 stone's day, and up to the present time (as far as I can 
 understand), was and is conducted on Democratic prin- 
 ciples. That is to say, all its white employes are equals, 
 no one occupying especially a headship over the others, 
 and the affairs of each separate mission such as that of 
 South Africa, Tanganyika, or Madagascar are managed 
 by the majority of the agents being formed into a com- 
 mittee. This system is a weak one. In every organisa- 
 tion which wishes to be successful there must be a head, 
 a leader who can combine the divergent, conflicting wills 
 of many into one clear, determined intention. " I only 
 wish we had a bishop over us," said one day to me one 
 of the most capable of the London Missionary Society's 
 agents on Lake Tanganyika, when he was complaining 
 of the delays and vacillation caused by the difficulty of 
 getting his local committee to decide on any line of 
 action. Livingstone uses almost the same words in his 
 private letters, wherein he describes the disputes and 
 sometimes acrimonious differences which attended the 
 attempt on the part of the committee of which he was a 
 member to make up their minds as to the policy they 
 should pursue on matters great and small. But if there 
 had been a bishop appointed in those days to control the 
 actions of the London Missionary Society's agents in 
 South Africa, it is probable that Livingstone would have 
 lived and died comparatively unknown beyond the narrow 
 circle of his fellow-evangelists, for his career as an ex- 
 plorer would almost certainly have been discouraged and 
 compressed. His brother-missionaries at that time, and 
 the directorate of the Society at home, did not always
 
 MISSION- WORK ; ITS FAILURES AND SUCCESSES. 97 
 
 view with satisfaction the roving life to which he be- 
 came addicted after a while. Though it is possible that, 
 in spite of all difficulties, he might have become an 
 explorer even at the cost of abruptly abandoning the 
 Mission, yet I think that he was too much attached to 
 spreading the Gospel as the first chief object of his life to 
 forswear himself in outward appearance, and to bring 
 scandal on the faith by his falling away. Besides, 
 although he was far from being a mercenary man, the 
 meagre pittance of ^100 a year which was allowed him 
 by the Missionary Society was all he had to look to for 
 the maintenance of himself and his family, and he would 
 not have been able to throw that up suddenly without 
 the prospect cf other and certain emoluments to live on, 
 and this he could hardly have obtained before he had 
 made a great name as an explorer. Consequently, we 
 owe it to the somewhat free and independent organisa- 
 tion which prevailed in the London Missionary Society 
 that Livingstone gradually glided insensibly from the 
 missionary into the explorer without offence, naturally, 
 and himself scarcely conscious at the time of the change 
 taking place in his career.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MISSIONARY BECOMES EXPLORER. 
 
 ON the ist of June 1849 Livingstone started from 
 Koloben with two English sportsmen (Messrs. Oswell 
 and Murray) l to search for the rumoured lake in the 
 interior to which the name of Ngami, Kami, Nhabe, or 
 Rllabe has been varyingly given. 2 This lake was evi- 
 dently far larger than it is at the present time, when it 
 appears a mere insignificant pool compared to the great 
 inland seas with which Africa abounds. It is fed by 
 the Okavango River (called in its lower course the Teoge 
 
 1 There is a flippant little passage in Sir Samuel Baker's otherwise 
 admirable book, ' ' Wild Beasts and their Ways " (vol. i. pp. 108-9), 
 in which he says, " Oswell and Murray took Livingstone with them 
 when they discovered the Lake Ngami." This is a totally incorrect 
 statement, and I have Mr. Oswell 's direct authority for saying so. 
 Livingstone (as one may see by perusing his letters and published 
 works) had contemplated searching for Lake Ngami ever since he 
 landed in Cape Colony, and his preparations for this journey extended 
 over many years. When at last able to start, he invited his friends, 
 Messrs. Oswell and Murray, to go with him. They willingly accepted 
 the proposition, and bore their due share of the expenditure. 
 
 2 The name of this lake is said to be derived from a Bushman word, 
 -ZV||o6e, which means "giraffe," the shape of the long, sloping lake 
 resembling in a fantastic way the contour of that animal. As, how- 
 ever, the commonly accepted form of the word is Nyami, I shall spell 
 the name of the lake in that way throughout this book, especially as 
 the Bushman word N\\abe is almost unpronounceable by those not to 
 the manner born or trained. The Setshuana name for Ngami is Tutla 
 or Tletle, also meaning "giraffe.*'
 
 MISSIONARY BECOMES EXPLORER. 99 
 
 or Tonke), coming from the well-watered country to the 
 south of Angola, 1 and several intermittent streams which 
 drain the highlands of Damaraland. Out of the eastern 
 end of Ngami flows the Zuga River 2 in an easterly direc- 
 tion, ending in a lot of salt swamps and lakes on the 
 western borders of Matabeleland. 
 
 Lake Ngami, with its neighbouring pools and salt 
 lakes and swamps and salt-pans, and its network of dry 
 or intermittent watercourses, is a curious hydrographi- 
 cal region, which has given rise to many speculations. 
 Livingstone, I believe, is responsible for the rather in- 
 genious suggestion that, before the Zambezi forced its 
 way through a fault in the basaltic rock into its present 
 channel towards the Indian Ocean, it flowed southwards, 
 and ended in a great lake, of which Ngami and its 
 attendant lakelets are the half-dried-up relics. If there 
 ever was any outlet of the Ngami watershed, it would 
 appear to have been towards the Limpopo River. 
 
 The subsequent discoveries of Tanganyika, Victoria 
 Nyanza, Nyasa, Bangweolo, Moero, and the other great 
 lakes of Africa put the nose of Ngami out of joint, so 
 that until this narrow lakelet quite recently acquired an 
 adventitious political interest, it had for a while been 
 almost forgotten. In the earlier days of African ex- 
 ploration, however, it was the constant objective of adven- 
 turous journeys from the south and west. Mr. Francis 
 
 1 In the upper portion of its course, the Okavango is a simply-flowing 
 river with an undivided course, but south of Ndala its flow separates 
 into numerous branches, which form a large "sponge." Lake Ngnmi 
 only begins to rise after this sponge has become saturated, and hence 
 the apparent anomaly of this rise taking place at a time when the 
 river is at its lowest. 
 
 2 During the dry season, when the waters of Ngami shrink, the 
 Zuga flows into the lake ; and when Ngami rises above a certain level 
 its waters flow out by the Zuga.
 
 100 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Gal ton attempted to reach this lake in 1851 by an 
 interesting but very difficult journey from Walfish Bay, 
 but he did not succeed in getting nearer to Ngami 
 than the banks of a dried-up watercourse called tho 
 Omaramba. Andersson, however, in 1855, left Waliish 
 Bay, and travelling through Obampoland, managed to 
 arrive at the shores of Ngami. Green explored the 
 lower course of the Okabango-Teoge in 1856, and in 
 later years Baines added to the foregoing examination 
 into the geography of the Lake and its surroundings. 
 All these journeys have enabled us to fix the position of 
 Ngami with tolerable certainty. It is not likely to be 
 found " a degree out in longitude," as was currently 
 reported at the time of the Anglo-German negotiations. 
 The route followed by Livingstone northwards skirted 
 the eastern limits of the Kalarahi Desert until he came 
 to the vicinity of Shoshon. Then he turned off to the 
 north-west, and boldly struck across a corner of the 
 desert, wherein he had to go three or four days without 
 water. This portion of the journey is even more difficult 
 since Livingstone's day, for the desiccation of the country 
 has increased, and some of the pools at which he drank 
 have since dried up. In the centre of what is now called 
 Khama's country, viz., that of the Batletle, they came 
 upon a number of shining salt-pans covered with a white 
 efflorescence which Livingstone thought might prove to 
 be nitrate of soda. When the sinking sun cast a beau- 
 tiful blue haze over the incrustations, it made the surface 
 of these pans look exactly like a lake, and Livingstone 
 and his companions were deceived by the appearance, 
 and believed they had arrived at the long-looked-for 
 Ngami, the more so as the River Zuga, which was close 
 by, was called by the natives by the same name as
 
 MISSIONARY BECOMES EXPLORER. 
 
 101 
 
 Ngami, viz., " Water of the Tletle." 1 Livingstone 
 found the Zuga to be a running river as late as the 
 4th July, which is almost the height of the dry season. 
 I believe this stream, too, has begun to dry up since 
 
 LAKE NGAMI. 
 
 Livingstone's first visit, and that travellers have found 
 
 1 It is a very common thing in Africa for the natives to be unable to 
 discriminate between lake and river, especially if the river is at all a 
 broad one. The River Shire, for example, is called by the natives on 
 its banks "Nyanja" or"Nyasa," which is the same term as that 
 applied to the lake from which it flows. The root Tletle has already 
 heen referred to as the Setshuana equivalent to Ngauri {.., 
 ''giraffe,"
 
 102 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA 
 
 less and less water in it so much so, that in some of the 
 later German maps of this country the Zuga is repre- 
 sented as a dry watercourse. However, on the occa- 
 sion of Livingstone's visit there was so much water in 
 the Zuga that the party left their oxen and all their 
 waggons except one at a place called Ngabisane, and 
 entered the canoes of the Bakoba. They passed the 
 mouth of the Tamunakle or Tamalakane (a river flowing 
 from a big marsh in the north, and almost seeming to 
 have had some ancient connection with the Tshobe or 
 Kwando, an affluent of the Zambezi), and passed on to 
 the north-east end of Lake Ngami, which they reached 
 on the ist August 1849. So large did the lake appear 
 at this time, that from this point Livingstone could see 
 no horizon when he looked to the south-south-east. He 
 guessed its size from the reports of the inhabitants at 
 about seventy miles in circumference. The water of 
 Ngami he describes as perfectly fresh when the lake was 
 full and flowed out into the Zuga, but brackish when 
 the level of Ngami was low and the water stagnant. 
 The altitude of the lake above sea-level is variously 
 stated to be 2100 feet (Livingstone), 2260 (Chapman), 
 and 2664 (Dr. Holden). There is a great divergence 
 among the results of these calculations, and it would 
 be interesting to have the question of Ngami's altitude 
 set at rest by a series of exact calculations, as it is a 
 point which has a decisive bearing on the former con- 
 nection of the Ngami basin with the Zambezi. 1 How- 
 ever, now that this interesting hydrographical region 
 has more or less come within the sphere of action of the 
 British South African Company, we may hope soon to 
 
 1 The height of the Zambezi above the Victoria Falls is 2608 feot 
 above sea-level.
 
 MISSIONARY BECOMES EXPLORER. 103 
 
 obtain a more precise knowledge of its physical geo- 
 graphy. 1 
 
 1 The following particulars about Lake Xgami given by Livingstone 
 may be of interest : " Lake Ngami is the southern and lowest part of 
 the great river system beyond, in which large tracts of country are 
 inundated annually by tropical rains. ... A little of that water, which 
 in the countries farther north produces inundation, comes as far south 
 as 20 20', tie latitude of the upper end of the lake, and, instead of 
 flooding the country, falls into the lake as into a reservoir. It begins 
 to flow down the Mbara, which divides into the rivers Tso and Teoge. 
 The Tso divides into the Tamunakle and Mababe ; the Tamunakle 
 discharges itself into the Zuga, and the Teoge into the lake. The 
 flow begins either in March or April, and the descending waters find 
 the channels of all these rivers dried up, except in certain pools in 
 their beds, which have long dry spaces between them. The kke itself 
 is very low. The Zuga is but a prolongation of the Tamunakle, and 
 an arm of the lake reaches up to the point where the one ends and the 
 other begins. This last is narrow and shallow, while the Zuga is broad 
 and deep. The narrow arm of the lake, which on the map looks like 
 a continuation of the Zuga, has never been observed to flow either 
 way. It is as stagnant as the lake itself. 
 
 " The Teoge and Tamunakle, being essentially the same river, and 
 receiving their supplies from the same source (the Mbara or Vara), 
 can never outrun each other. If either could, or if the Teoge couJd fill 
 the lake a thing which has never happened in modern times then 
 this littla arm would prove a convenient escapement to prevent inun- 
 dation. If the lake ever becomes lower than the bed of the Zuga, a 
 little of the water of the Tamunakle might flow into it instead of down 
 the Zuga ; we should then have the phenomenon of a river flowing in 
 two ways ; but this has never been observed to take place here [It has, 
 however, by other travellers. H. H. J.J, and it is doubtful if it ever 
 can occur in this locality. The Zuga is broad and deep when it leaves 
 the Tamunakle, but becomes gradually narrower as you descend 
 about 200 miles ; there it flows into Kumadau, a small lake about three 
 or four miles broad and twelve long. The water, which higher up 
 begins to flow in April, does not make much progress in filling this 
 lake till the end of June. In September the river ceases to flow. 
 When the supply has been more than usually abundant, a little water 
 flows beyond Kumadau, in the bed first seen by us on the 4th July ; 
 if the quantity were larger, it might go farther in the dry rocky bed 
 of the Zuga, since seen still farther in the east. The water-supply 
 of this part of the river system . . . takes place in channels pre- 
 pared for a much more copious flow. It resembles a deserted Eastern
 
 104 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Livingstone, Oswell, and Murray returned to Koloben, 
 and remained there until 1850, and then left again for 
 the north in company with his wife, his three children, 
 and the chief Setshele, with the intention of proceeding 
 up the northern bank of the Zuga till he reached the 
 Tamunakle, and then ascending that river to visit the 
 great Betshuana chief, Sebituane, in the north, of whose 
 greatness he had heard rumours on his previous visit to 
 Ngami. On this first journey he had also learned that 
 in following up the Tamunakle one came to a region full 
 of big rivers and tall trees a land of forest, in fact ; 
 and this, as he says, was the first assurance he had that 
 the interior of Africa was not the sterile, sandy waste it 
 had been imagined by the geographers of the first half 
 of the nineteenth century. 
 
 At the confluence of the Tamunakle with the Zuga 
 he first heard of the existence of the tsetse- fty. 1 This 
 new and unexpected danger to travelling with oxen and 
 waggons obliged Livingstone to give up proceeding very 
 
 garden, where all the embankments and canals for irrigation can be 
 traced, but where, the main dam and sluices having been allowed to 
 get out of repair, only a small portion can be laid under water. In 
 the case of the Zuga the channel is perfect, but water enough to fill 
 the whole channel never comes down ; and before it finds its way 
 much beyond Kumadau, the upper supply ceases to run, and the rest 
 becomes evaporated. The higher parts of its bed even are much 
 broader and more capacious than the lower towards Kumadau. The 
 water is not absorbed so much as lost in filling up an empty channel, 
 from which it is to be removed by the air and sun. There is, I am 
 convinced, no such thing in the country as a river running into sand 
 and becoming lost. This phenomenon, so convenient for geographers, 
 haunted my fancy for years ; but I have failed in discovering any- 
 thing except a most insignificant approach to it. " Missionary Travels 
 and Researches, page 66 et aeq. 
 
 1 The tsetse-fly was first brought to the notice of scientific men by 
 Major Vardon in 1848, who found it on the banks of the Limpopo 
 (vide Chapter X.).
 
 MISSIONARY BECOMES EXPLORED. 
 
 105 
 
 far on his way up the Tamunakle with his wife and 
 family. He therefore went once more to Lake Ngami, 
 where he arrived in time to find that a party of English- 
 men had recently reached the shores of Ngami in search 
 of ivory, but were all down with fever. One of them, 
 indeed, named Alfred Rider, an accomplished artist, 
 had died a few days before Livingstone's arrival The 
 
 W. OSWKLL. 
 (From a PholoyrapU by Percy S.,anlcester.) 
 
 others were very tenderly nursed by Mrs. Livingstone, 
 and recovered. 
 
 Still desirous of visiting Sebituane, but not liking 
 to take his wife and family on such a risky journey, 
 Livingstone arranged to leave them in charge of a 
 i'viuimiy chief on the shores of Luke Ngami vviiilst he
 
 106 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 rode northwards on a riding-ox; but his children and 
 servants becoming prostrated with fever, he was unable 
 to carry out his intention, and returned once more to 
 Kolobefi. Hence, after a brief visit to Kuruman, he 
 started again for Sebituane's country, on the banks of 
 the Tshobe, little thinking that he was on his way to 
 the discovery of the Zambezi. On this third journey 
 across the Kalahari he was again accompanied by his 
 wife and family, and by Mr. Oswell. As this latter 
 gentleman figures so much in these early explorations 
 of Livingstone's, and proved such a true and good friend 
 to the great traveller, it may be of interest if I give 
 some particulars about him. He was one of the greatest 
 among those British Niinrods of that earlier day who 
 did so much to increase our knowledge of the African 
 fauna. He made three important journeys with Living- 
 stone : two to Lake Ngami and one to the Zambezi, 
 and he had previously travelled in other parts of South 
 Africa with Major Vardon. Livingstone says of him 
 that* he was declared by the natives to be the greatest 
 hunter that had ever come into the country. He had 
 been known to kill four large, old male elephants a day, 
 and as he hunted without dogs, which materially in- 
 creased the difficulty and risk (for a few yelping curs 
 are of great assistance to the elephant-hunter, as they 
 serve to distract the attention of the wounded beast 
 from the sportsman), Mr. Oswell was consequently looked 
 upon by the Betshuana as an exceptionally courageous 
 aian, and when they wished to flatter Livingstone they 
 would say, " If you were not a missionary you would 
 be just like Oswell ; you too would hunt without 
 dogs." Oswell contributed liberally to the expense of 
 Livingstone's preliminary journeys; and when, in 1852,
 
 MISSIONARY BECOMES KXPLOKEK. 107 
 
 Livingstone returned from his first expedition to the 
 Zambezi, and proceeded with his wife and family to 
 Cape Town, Oswell provided an outfit for Livingstone's 
 wife and children (who were returning to England) 
 which cost over ^200, performing also many other acts 
 of kindness which Livingstone warmly acknowledges in 
 his private letters. Mr. Oswell's hunting adventures in 
 South Africa were but an interlude in an Indian career. 
 In India he distinguished himself as a sportsman to an 
 exceptional degree, and later on performed some very 
 remarkable journeys in South America. He eventually 
 returned to England, and settled down in his beautiful 
 home on the border-line between Kent and Sussex, 
 where he lives surrounded by one of the finest collections 
 of African trophies that any one man possesses. Some 
 idea may be obtained of the wearing-out of Livingstone's 
 life when one reflects that he died in 1873 a prematurely 
 old man, while his erst companion, Mr. Oswell, not very 
 much younger than Livingstone, is still, in 1890, a hale 
 and hearty, bright-eyed man, who drives, rides, shoots, 
 and walks with scarcely diminished vigour. 
 
 At the end of June 1851 Livingstone and Oswell first 
 sighted the Zambezi at a place called Sesheke, having 
 travelled thither by a more eastern route than their 
 previous journeys, and having crossed on the way the 
 network of rivers, streams, and marshes called the 
 Tshobe. Before they reached the Zambezi, however, 
 Livingstone and Oswell had stayed for a little while at 
 Linyanti, the residence of the great Ma-kololo chief, 
 Sebituane, who had so long desired to meet with white 
 men, and who had facilitated Livingstone's journey by 
 the orders he had sent to his subsidiary chiefs, Letshula- 
 tebe of Ngami, Sekomi of the Bamangwato, and Setshele,
 
 108 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 chief of the Ba-kwena, to do taeir utmost to assist the 
 white travellers on their way with guides and provisions. 
 Unfortunately, soon after Livingstone had arrived, poor 
 Sebituane, who had greeted his coming with such joyful 
 hospitality, fell sick of inflammation of the lungs, and 
 died. The last words he uttered were directions to one 
 of his servants to take little Robert Livingstone away 
 to one of his wives, who would give him milk. 
 
 Sebituane 's career had been a remarkable one. He 
 originally came from the East Betshuana or Basuto 
 stock, and was born near the sources of the Vaal River 
 in the eastern part of the Transvaal State. Various 
 niter-tribal conflicts drove him, with a number of his 
 companions and relations, to the west, where they were 
 mixed up in an indiscriminate horde of Betshuana, who 
 attempted to settle down in the Kuruman Valley, in 
 which one of the earliest mission stations had been esta- 
 blished. They were driven away from Kuruman, how- 
 ever, by the Grikwas ; and Sebituane, with a small fol- 
 lowing of braves and a few cattle, fled northwards across 
 the eastern fringe of the Kalahari Desert. At a place 
 called Melita they were met by a coalition of the >B- 
 waketse, Ba-kwena, Ba-katla, and Ba-hurutse ; but 
 Sebituane, with desperate courage and clever strategy, 
 completely routed these forces, and took possession of 
 the Ba-nwaketse country. Here he was several times 
 attacked by the Matabele -Zulus, but although he held 
 his own against these raiders, he moved on again north- 
 wards to find a securer, better- watered country. In this 
 pursuit he arrived at Lake Kumadau, a widening of the 
 Zuga River, in the country of the Batletle. Starting 
 again from here, he conquered all the Ngami country 
 right away to the borders of Damaraland, and struck
 
 MISSIONARY BECOMES EXPLORER. 109 
 
 still farther north with his ever-swelling tribe of war- 
 riors, who had come to be called the Ma-kololo or Ba- 
 kololo. 1 At length he settled himself firmly in the angle 
 of country between the Liambai or Upper Zambezi and 
 the Tshobe. His successful raids over the Zambezi 
 countries attracted the attention of Umsilikazi or Mosili- 
 katse, 2 chief of the Matabele, and drew down on him an 
 attack which caused him considerable loss ; but he soon 
 rallied his forces and defeated the Matabele on several 
 occasions, and finally drove them away. He then over- 
 ran the whole country as far as the River Kafue, and 
 eventually conquered the Barotse Valley of the Upper 
 Zambezi. His raids into the Ngami district had brought 
 to his knowledge the existence of white men on the west 
 coast, and he became filled with a desire to open up trade 
 with the Europeans. His conquest of the Barotse coun- 
 try brought him in contact with black and half-caste 
 Portuguese slave-traders, locally known as " Mambari," 
 and these people opened up a trade between Sebituane 
 and the country of Bihe, which lay at the back of the 
 Portuguese colony of Benguela. His fame as a con- 
 queror also attracted to his court some Zanzibar Arabs, 
 who came there to purchase slaves. 
 
 Sebituane created a great kingdom in the Barotse 
 Valley, and his introduction of the sturdy Basuto-Ma- 
 kololo into the countries of the Upper Zambezi was an 
 interesting event in the history of Central Africa. They 
 formed a useful counterpoise to the devastating work of 
 the Matabele-Zulus. By their conquest of the Barotse 
 Valley they facilitated Livingstone's exploration of the 
 
 1 These were nearly all of Basuto origin. 
 
 2 The former is the Zulu, the latter the Betshuana, rendering of tho 
 same name.
 
 110 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Upper Zambezi, and the subsequent settlement of a few 
 members of their tribe on the Shire River became the 
 nucleus of a resistance to the encroachments of Portu- 
 guese rule, which finally ended in the establishment of 
 a. British protectorate over Nyasaland. 
 
 Finding that the un healthiness of these swampy 
 countries between the Tshobe and the Zambezi would 
 preclude his wife and family from making any long stay 
 in this region, Livingstone returned with them once 
 more to Koloben, resolving to leave them there whilst he 
 proceeded again to the Zambezi Valley, to thoroughly 
 explore the course of that river and seek out an easy 
 means of communication with the west coast. 
 
 On the way back across the desert another child was 
 born to him, whom he christened "Oswell," after his 
 friend the sportsman. 
 
 But on arriving at Koloben they found that all further 
 mission-work at that place was rendered futile by the 
 threats and raids of the Boers, so Livingstone decided to 
 despatch his wife and family to England, especially as 
 he reflected that in the roving life they were leading 
 at present the children were growing up without educa- 
 tion. Accordingly he journeyed with them from Kolo- 
 ben to Cape Town, and, with the generous help of Mr. 
 Oswell. provided them with a good equipment and took 
 their passages to England. When they had left Cape 
 Town, and Livingstone was free and unencumbered, he 
 took advantage of his stay in the capital of South Africa 
 to place himself under the tuition of Sir Thomas Mac- 
 lear, the Astronomer-Royal. Under this gentleman's 
 instructions he perfected himself in astronomical obser- 
 vations, and acquired in this respect a skill and accuracy 
 which few subsequent travellers have possessed to a like
 
 MISSIONARY BECOME EXPLORER 111 
 
 degree. In Sir Thomas Maclear he found one of the 
 best friends and helpers he ever possessed, and his lasting 
 gratitude towards him is manifested by frequent refer- 
 ence to him in his books and journals down to the last 
 year of his life. He named after him the most striking 
 promontory on Lake Nyasa Cape Maclear a point at 
 which I have often called, and which is destined perhaps 
 to be the great English capital on Nyasa. 
 
 Having fitted himself out with such stores as he was able 
 to procure, and obtained what little quantity of caps and 
 gunpowder a grudging and suspicious Colonial Govern- 
 ment would allow him to purchase (though they freely 
 permitted their sale to hostile Boers and Kaffirs), he once 
 more turned his face northwards, in June 1852, and 
 after staying a few days at Koloben to counsel the 
 recently raided Ba-kwena and bemoan the loss of his 
 library, which had been destroyed by the Boers, he jour- 
 neyed on northwards with little incident of note till he 
 reached Linyanti, the capital town of the Ma-kololo amid 
 the Tshobe marshes. Here he was received with surprise 
 and delight by the Ma-kololo. Desirous of opening up 
 commerce among these people and teaching them some- 
 thing better than the slave-trade, Livingstone had per- 
 suaded one of the leading merchants of Cape Town to 
 send with him on this journey to the Zambezi a negro 
 trading-agent, named George Fleming, in order that he 
 might settle down there and open a trading-store. They 
 found, on their arrival at Linyanti, that Sebituane had 
 been succeeded by his son, Sekeletu. Here during a 
 month Livingstone prepared for his exploring journey 
 northwards along the course of the Upper Zambezi, 
 while at the same time he assisted Fleming to establish 
 himself as a trader.
 
 112 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA, 
 
 Before relating Livingstone's further explorations, I 
 will briefly pass in review the natural features, animals, 
 and human inhabitants of that large district of Central 
 South Africa which may be called Betshuanaland, wherein 
 Livingstone had spent the first eleven years of his life as 
 a missionary ; for, although in some senses he remained 
 a missionary of Christianity to the end of his days, his 
 purely missionary work may be said to have ceased when 
 he arrived at the Zambezi for the second time and became 
 an explorer, first and foremost, in his resolve to trace the 
 course of that river from its source to the sea.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 BETSHUANALAND. 
 
 IT is a curious fact that in the northern and southern 
 hemispheres the regions of tropical heat and moisture 
 are separated from the temperate zone by areas of nearly 
 rainless desert. Although these bands of arid country 
 are in some parts broken in their continuity by the 
 special atmospheric conditions brought about by high 
 ranges of mountains, or diverted by the same cause to 
 the northwards into the temperate zone or southwards 
 to the vicinity of the equator, they may still be regarded 
 as forming a more or less regular band of desert country 
 separating the region of equatorial rains from the land- 
 surface of the temperate zone wherein rain also falls 
 with certainty and regularity. North of the equator 
 we have the Deserts of the Sahara, of Arabia, Persia, 
 Northern India, Tartary, and Mongolia. South of the 
 equator there are the Atacama and Chaco Deserts of 
 South America, the Kalahari Desert of South Africa, 
 and the almost rainless districts of Central Australia. 
 In Southern Africa the desert region does not uniformly 
 extend across the continent. On the west coast it begins 
 in about 14 south latitude and spreads out south- 
 wards almost as far as the 32nd parallel, but the con- 
 tinuous extent of this arid country over S th Africa 
 
 113
 
 1 14 laviJNWSTUJNii AJNJJ CJKMTKAL AFRICA. 
 
 irom sea to sea is interrupted by a narrow strip of 
 elevated land, with a fairly regular rainfall, stretching 
 from the Mashona Territory to the Transvaal State. 
 Eastwards, again, of this, the country resumes, in Gaza- 
 land, much of its dried-up, waterless character. Still, 
 the eastern half of South Africa may be said, as a general 
 rule, to be far better supplied with rain than the western 
 half. When the term " desert " is used to indicate 
 regions like these, and like the Sahara in Northern 
 Africa, it means a country in which rain falls to the 
 extent of only three or four showers every year, and the 
 surface of which is largely covered by loose sand. This 
 sand is produced by the friable rocks being disintegrated 
 by the extremes of temperature which prevail in these 
 rainless lands where radiation of heat is very rapid. The 
 temperature of over no Fahr., which may be reached 
 at noonday under a usually cloudless sky, rapidly dimin- 
 ishes after sunset ; and before the dawn there may be 
 two or three degrees of frost on the ground. This varia- 
 tion of temperature causes a constant contraction and 
 expansion of the rocks, which in this way split up and 
 crumble, and are triturated into finer and finer sand by 
 the action of the wind. But alternating with hopeless 
 tracts of nothing but sand are regions in which a little 
 scanty vegetation grows, and even certain trees specially 
 adapted to a desert life, such as acacias and tamarisks. 
 There are yet other portions of the so-called desert 
 which, but for their nearly rainless character, scarcely 
 differ from the better-watered regions beyond in the 
 extent of their vegetation ; but this is generally owing 
 to the presence of underground springs. Indeed there 
 is a curious and fortunate compensation in all these 
 African deserts for the absence of rain, in that water
 
 BETSHUAN ALAND. 115 
 
 is almost always to be obtained and sometimes not 
 many feet from the surface by sinking wells. 
 
 Such are the atmospheric conditions of Betshuanaland 
 north of the Orange River, west of the Transvaal and 
 the Matabele country, south of the Zambezi, and east of 
 Damara-Namakwa-land. In these last-named countries 
 lying to the west of Betshuanaland, the conditions of 
 rainlessness are really the same save in one or two 
 specially favoured patches, or in valleys among the 
 high mountains. In fact, Betshuanaland and the Kala- 
 hari Desert are almost convertible terms. Over all this 
 country, as over the Sahara Desert, a process of desic- 
 cation has evidently been going on. The Sahara in the 
 time when the Romans ruled in North Africa had a 
 greater rain-supply, and consequently was more covered 
 with vegetation than it is at the present day, and was 
 therefore far easier for man to traverse. This is shown 
 by the fact that a constant trading communication was 
 kept up between the Mediterranean Littoral and the 
 Land of the Blacks, southward of the Sahara, by means 
 of journeys on foot and in bullock-waggons. The rock- 
 drawings discovered by Richardson and others in Fezzan 
 show that oxen were used as beasts of draught and 
 burden in the Sahara Desert, where they took the place 
 of the camel, which was not introduced into use in the 
 Sahara Desert until the great Arab invasions of the 
 twelfth century. At the present time it would be im- 
 possible for oxen to cross the Sahara, as there would not 
 be sufficient verdure for them to feed on, and the distance 
 between the watering-places would be too great. Then, 
 again, there are many vestiges in North African and 
 Egyptian deserts of the former existence of extensive 
 forests, now represented only by semi-fossil fragments
 
 116 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 of the trunks of trees. The dried-up watercourses which 
 traverse the Sahara in all directions, and some of which 
 are nearly a thousand miles in length, and in beds of 
 which water is often to be found at a depth of from eight 
 to ten feet from the surface, testify to the former exist- 
 ence of mighty rivers. Lake Tshad is but a shrunken 
 nucleus of what was once a mighty inland sea. 
 
 This condition of affairs is very similar to the past 
 history of Betshuanaland, as far as that history can be 
 deciphered by the evidence left in the dry river-beds, 
 the evaporated lakes which are reduced to salt-pans, the 
 traces of a once luxuriant vegetation, the traditions of the 
 natives, and even the first period of eleven years' obser- 
 vations during which Livingstone recorded his proofs 
 of the increasing desiccation. However, the Kalahari 
 Desert, though it no longer possesses running water, can 
 hardly be called a wholly rainless region even at the 
 present day, when the rain-supply is even less than it 
 was forty years ago, at the time of Livingstone's travels. 
 Thei-e are occasional heavy showers in the months of 
 March and April ; and as the sun-baked alluvial soil in 
 the beds of the dried-up rivers is of a more or less im 
 permeable character, water often lies in scattered pools 
 in the desert for several months after the close of the 
 rainy season before it is finally evaporated by the sun. 
 
 From the Orange River northwards to the 22nd degree 
 of latitude, Betshuanaland is mainly a broken plateau of 
 4000 feet to 5000 feet in height above the sea, dry and 
 devoid of perennial streams, swept with scorching winds 
 at certain seasons of the year, exceedingly hot in the 
 day-time, and with the thermometer frequently below 
 freezing-point at night ; yet amazingly healthy, one of 
 the healthiest parts of the world, and singularly effica-
 
 BETSHUAN ALAND. 11V 
 
 cious in its climate for the curing of lung diseases. 
 Beyond the 22nd parallel, however, the plateau slopes 
 gradually down to the basin of Lake Ngami, which is 
 little more than 2000 feet above the sea. In this lower 
 region one enters " Unhealthy Africa." 
 
 The general aspect of Betshuanaland to a superficial 
 observer would be that of a desert, a blank, hopeless 
 wilderness of rocks and sand, and grey, lifeless scrub. 
 As a matter of fact, it consists, generally speaking, of a 
 sun-baked tableland, from which rise flat-topped hill- 
 ranges with steep, crumbling sides, like cake roughly 
 cut with a knife. These latter are really the remains 
 of a still higher plateau that has been eaten away, carved, 
 and crumbled by water, wind, sun, and frost, till there 
 are but the harder, less friable portions remaining in 
 these low ranges of table-mountains, or in the isolated 
 stools or hillocks which the Dutch call kopjes. 1 Dry 
 watercourses, broad enough to be the beds of first-class 
 rivers, wind and wiggle-waggle between the fragments 
 of the broken tableland, which they, when they were 
 strong streams of water in the distant past, cut up and 
 parcelled out into isolated blocks. Here and there in 
 these old river-beds are spots of greenery, which mark 
 the presence of water near the surface of the white sand, 
 in a hollow among grey boulders, perhaps. Round 
 these moister places grow tall acacias, with grey-green 
 trunks and a thin but vivid green crown of foliage, 
 among which glitter the spiteful thorns set at all 
 angles on the twigs among the tiny little pinnate leaves. 
 At some seasons of the year these acacias make an act 
 of grace for their churlish thorns and their mean, shade- 
 less foliage. They break out on the under side of the 
 1 Pronounced "koppies" = "little heads."
 
 118 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 boughs into a yellow dust of small blossoms, which are 
 all stamens and without a petal, but which emit a scent 
 that is thick with almost palpable sweetness, and can 
 be smelt far and wide over the desert. Also round the 
 hidden water other acacias grow which form low scrub, 
 with villainous " wait-a-bit " thorns, curved and sheathed 
 like a cat's claw, with leaves few and far between, and 
 with small white tufts of flowers; and yet another 
 species of acacia which has mauve blossoms, sensitive 
 leaves, and thorns, of course, and which creeps along the 
 ground. Cy penis grasses, with their stiff mop-head 
 crowns of leaf-blades, and their long, continuous stems ; 
 tiny lawn-grasses, forming a tender green turf, sweet 
 for the antelopes to browse on ; rambling cucurbits with 
 coarse yellow flowers and scarlet cucumber-like fruit ; 
 aloes with fleshy purple- blotched leaves and spikes of 
 waxy-red or waxy-yellow tube-flowers ; sky-blue blossoms 
 of *the creeping Commelyna ; a few yellow and purple and 
 pink bean-flowers these are the chief concomitants of 
 the rare presence of water near the surface in these 
 dried-up Betshuanaland river-beds. 
 
 On the high banks of the vanished stream an occa- 
 sionalfglaucous-green Borassus fan-palm grows, sombre- 
 looking with its sage- coloured spiky fronds, but graceful 
 and correct in its sad symmetry. Or there is a weird 
 Candelabra Euphorbia, like a bunch of scorpions with 
 their tails in the air ; or a huge, gouty baobab-tree, with 
 its enormous trunk and its spindly branches, bare of 
 leaves save for two months in the year, and hung for the 
 rest of the time with large, grey-brown calabashes. The 
 baobab looks like a leprous vegetable, a tree in the last 
 stages of Elephantiasis. Its swollen body, of dispropor- 
 tionate girth, simulates, with its longitudinal clefts and
 
 BETSHUANALAND. 119 
 
 its dimples, two huge thighs and legs fused together 
 here parting somewhat, there uniting, but both grossly 
 swollen, as it were, with this hideous disease; and pre- 
 sents a further resemblance to leprous limbs and trunks 
 in the pinkish-grey, shiny, glabrous bark with which it 
 is covered. 
 
 For a few weeks in the year, about April, at the end 
 of the rainy season, these dry river-beds become rushing 
 torrents of turbid water. The few heavy showers which 
 cause this renewal of the streams suddenly bring to life 
 a varied vegetation on the sandy flats. The straggling 
 gourds revive, put out green leaves, flower, and rapidly 
 fruit. Myriads of juicy water-melons are soon strewing 
 the desert. The forgotten bulbs of lilies send up single 
 blossoms of immaculate white, or vigorous crowns of 
 many flowers which are pink or blue, or pink and white, 
 or green and white, according to the species. The dry 
 bushes of papilionaceous shrubs put forth green leaves 
 and violet blossoms in place of the old brown foliage 
 and the empty seed-pods still hanging on the branches. 
 The Mopane trees, with their bifid leaves, have become in 
 the long drought a sickly yellow; they too, when the 
 air is suddenly moistened by the showers, develop new 
 leaf -shoots, which begin by being a tender pinkish -blue, 
 and pass on, as they expand, to blue-green and the 
 yellow-green of maturity. Still, this revival of verdure 
 is evanescent, and the ever-blazing sun soon withers up 
 the flowers, grass, and bushes into rattling seed-pods, 
 blackened tufts, and grey skeletons. The perennial 
 greenery round those weak spots in the sandy hollows 
 of the river-bed, where the cool water is percolating 
 through the sand not far from the surface, still remains, 
 but is a tiny, unimportant patch compared to the vast
 
 120 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 shadeless solitudes of grey rocks and yellow sand ; and if 
 you passed over the land in a balloon, and could take it in 
 at a glance, you would sum it up with the words which 
 began this sketch, " Desert . . . blank, hopeless desert ! " 
 
 Yet, if you soared thus over the length and breadth 
 of Betshuanaland, the monotony of the desert would be 
 sometimes broken by the gleam of lakes : not all of 
 which, however, are of water. Some are evaporated to 
 great salt-pans, which are a whitish- grey in colour seen 
 close at hand, but a delicious, pale, sparkling azure 
 when viewed from a height or from a distance, and 
 when the sun is shining on them. In the midday heats 
 the cruel mirage plays about the saline, concave bed of 
 the evaporated lake, and brings back the ghost of the 
 vanished water, making it ripple and sparkle in the 
 hazy sunshine, and break, seemingly, into wavelets on 
 the marge, while stately non-existent trees and bosky 
 islands of equal unsubstantiality dot the shimmering 
 expanse, and repeat themselves in reflections down the 
 streaky mirror of the unreal water. 
 
 Yet, in spite of their aspect of desolation and their 
 starved and scanty flora, these vast deserts of Betshuana- 
 land are full of animal life. The hot sand and the 
 barren, crumbling rocks are the haunts of fierce scorpions, 
 centipedes, and busy hunting-spiders. In the " veldt," 
 with its thin grass and low shrubs, there are innumer- 
 able wasps, hornets, bees, grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, 
 ants, ant-lions, and flies ; a variety of butterflies and a 
 few monstrous moths, whose huge caterpillars are fat 
 and good to eat, with the taste and colour of pistachio- 
 nuts. In the few rivers which retain pools of water 
 throughout the year, and in the Lake JSTgami, there are 
 said to be found move than ten kinds of fish mostly
 
 BETSHUANALAND. 121 
 
 siluroids, eels, barbel, African mullet, and the interest- 
 ing "mudfish" (Protopterus), which latter habituates 
 itself to living half the year or more without water by 
 burying its body in the mud of the drying pools, where 
 it lies dormant till the reviving floods return. 
 
 Toads and frogs are here, more than one would think 
 a desert might harbour. One or more of the larger 
 frogs are good to eat, and are reckoned a dainty item in 
 their diet by the Bushmen and Betshuana. Crocodiles 
 in numbers frequent such lakes and pools as are peopled 
 with fish. Varamis or Monitor lizards are likewise met 
 with, and the abundance of insect life affords sustenance 
 to numerous geckoes, skinks, agamas, zonures, and 
 other lizards which are mainly protectively coloured and 
 mottled brown-grey, like the sandy soil. 
 
 Large and small land-tortoises browse on the scanty 
 vegetation, and themselves are eaten by the omnivorous 
 Bushmen. 
 
 Snakes are almost more abundant in Africa south of 
 the Zambezi than to the north of that river. Except 
 one or two species which are peculiar in their distri- 
 bution to the West African sub-region, South Africa 
 possesses all the serpents of wide African range, and a 
 few more which are specially its own. Its poisonous 
 snakes l are more abundant both in the species and in 
 
 1 The chief poisonous snakes of Betshuanaland are the puff-adder 
 (Vipera arietans), the horned viper (F. cornuta), the Cape adder 
 (F. atropoa), the African cobra (Naja haje), the ring-hals (Sepedon 
 hcemachatis), the Cape viper (Causus rhombalut), and the Tree-cobras 
 (Dendraspis angusticeps and D. Jamesoni) generally known as the 
 black and green "mamba." The "Mamba," which in three or four 
 species is found all over Tropical Africa, and which is peculiar to 
 that continent, belongs to the Cobra family the Colubrine group of 
 poisonous snakes. From its fierceness and the rapidly fatal character 
 uf its venom, it U justly dreaded.
 
 122 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 the individual, more prominent in the fatal results from 
 their bites than those in Central, Eastern, or Western 
 Africa, where as a rule one very rarely hears of death 
 from snake-bite among the natives. 
 
 The ostrich of the common or North African species 
 (Struthio camelus) is found all over Betshuanalancl, right 
 up to the Zambezi, but not beyond that river. It feeds 
 on grasshoppers and other insects, pods, seeds, bulbs, 
 water-melons, grass, and leaves. The Bushmen, as is 
 well known, stalk the ostrich, and approach near enoxigh 
 to kill it, by disguising the upper part of their bodies 
 with the cleverly stuffed skin of a cock-ostrich. This 
 disguise attracts both the males and females among the 
 inquisitive birds to a close inspection of the hunter, who, 
 however, occasionally finds himself thwarted by his own 
 cleverness, for he imitates so closely the appearance, 
 gait, and voice of a cock-ostrich, that before he has time 
 to shoot his poisoned arrow, some furiously jealoiis male 
 among the real ostriches rushes up and strikes his 
 supposed rival to the earth with a stunning blow from 
 his powerful two-toed foot- 
 Others among the commonest or most characteristic 
 birds of Trans-Zambezian Africa are bustards, cranes, 
 plovers, " thick-knees," guinea-fowl, sand-grouse, turtle- 
 doves, and tiny little pigeons; grey desert larks, grey 
 touracoes, brown cuckoos, small grey-yellow-and-blue 
 parrots, wee finches the size of large beetles, grey and 
 red, grey and blue in colour ; black and white shrikes 
 and wagtails, metallic- tinted sunbirds; glossy starlings 
 and black and white crows. Kites and hawks in numbers 
 soar over the hot plains and build among the precipices 
 of the older tableland. Vultures swarm, as they do in 
 most desert countries, because there are few trees and
 
 BET8HU AN ALAND. 123 
 
 brushwood to obstruct their vision. The long-legged 
 secretary-bird, half-way in structure between vulture and 
 bustard, stalks through the scrub and grass of the less 
 arid portions of the land searching for the snakes which 
 it kills and eats. And the handsome bateleur eagle, 
 with short tail, rich black and chestnut-brown plumage, 
 scarlet cheeks and feet, and full-feathered thighs, perches 
 on the topmost boughs of the emaciated acacias and looks 
 out with his large, keen eyes for his prey, the jerboas, 
 the antelope- fawns, and the desert hares. 
 
 In the marshes of the Botletle River and round about 
 the grassy flats which border Lake Ngami the elephant 
 still lingers; the hippopotamus frolics in these waters 
 and delights to smash and upset the frail canoes of the 
 native fishermen. The white rhinoceros the climax 
 and crown of the Rhinocerotida;, with its huge pinkish, 
 yellowish-grey body, and its long head with the two 
 long, flattened, attenuated horns, is, alas, extinct ! He 
 seemed to be a beast peculiar to Southern Africa, and 
 has never been met with to the north of the Zambezi 
 But the other and smaller rhinoceros, the black one, 
 still abounds in Betehuan aland. The giraffe still scuds 
 over the dreary plains in little herds of ten to twenty, 
 and browses on the tops of the low acacias. The eland, 
 the kudu, the hartebeest, the blessbok, the gemsbok, 
 the sable antelope, the equine antelope, the pallah, and 
 the gnu still range in numbers over the desert and round 
 the salt-pans and through the thorn thickets, careless 
 how long they go without water. The springbok, that 
 beautiful species of gazelle peculiar to South Africa, still 
 appears occasionally in enormous flocks that number 
 thousands of individuals, moving compactly forwards, 
 and heeding but little the lions and cheetahs and servals
 
 124 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 and hunting-dogs who prowl wonderingly and longingly 
 round the outskirts of the closely serried flock, able only 
 to attack those who get separated from the mass of their 
 fellows. The buffalo still frequents the deep kloofs of 
 the dried-up river- valleys, the grassy tablelands, and the 
 reed marshes of the salt-lakes. The zebra (Equips Bur- 
 chellii not the true zebra or the quagga ; * they, alas ! 
 having already been almost stamped out by man) still 
 frisks and gambles and trots and gallops through 
 Betshuanaland ; but not, I fear, for long. Not for much 
 longer, unless measures are taken for their protection, 
 will these interesting or pretty beasts frequent the 
 plateaux of Africa south of the Zambezi The main 
 object of all the lusty young Englishmen to whom Africa 
 is now becoming fashionable, and who pour into the 
 country to join pioneer forces or expeditions, is to 
 slaughter the game recklessly, right and left, uselessly, 
 heedlessly. A few years more and Betshuanaland will 
 be able to boast of no mammals but the little conies 
 (Hyrax capensis) which lurk among the rocks, the desert 
 hares, and jerboas ; tiny, lovely little foxes (Canis caama), 
 the earth-pig or Orycteropus (an ant-eating edentate) ; 
 wart-hogs, hyaenas, jackals, hunting-dogs, mice, porcu- 
 pines, and shrews, which find a scanty living in the 
 
 1 The quagga is an interesting half-way stage between the fully- 
 striped zebra and the dun-coloured asses of North-Eastern Africa, 
 which are only striped on the shoulder and occasionally on the legs. 
 1 believe, however, it is not a case of spots and stripes being de- 
 veloped, but rather that the genus was both spotted (in the horses) 
 and striped (in the asses) in its earlier types, and that the wild asses 
 of North-East Africa and Central Asia, and the modern horse, which 
 also came from Asia, have gradually assumed a dun-colour or bay tint 
 all over for protective purposes or from various other causes, just aa 
 the originally spotted lion and puma have gradually become uni- 
 coloured cats.
 
 BETSHUAN ALAND. 125 
 
 desert or on the desert fringe, and which are too in- 
 significant to merit extinction at the hands of British 
 sportsmen and colonists, who do more damage to the 
 larger mammalia than a geological epoch. 
 
 The great man -like Tshakma baboons still haunt the 
 vicinity of the watercourses and of human settlements 
 in Betshuanaland, and a few species of small Cerco- 
 pilhecus monkeys linger in the patches of forest along 
 the banks of the Zuga, but these animals too are tend- 
 ing to disappearance; they are being driven away or 
 exterminated by the increasing drought and the in- 
 tolerance of their successful cousin, man, who grudges 
 them such subsistence as they are able to pilfer from 
 his gardens. 
 
 The human inhabitants of Betshuanaland are of the 
 highest and lowest varieties of mankind. There is, for 
 instance, the little Bushman, who will linger long in 
 this country, because he is more adapted to the exi- 
 gencies of a difficult existence in the desert than the 
 baboon. The Bushman rarely exceeds five feet in 
 stature where he is unmixed with other races. He 
 has scattered clumps of wool on his head, a yellow skin, 
 small slanting eyes, no bridge to his nose only raised 
 nostrils high cheek-bones, a retreating chin, small 
 hands and feet, and spindle-legs. He speaks a language 
 full of inarticulate clicks, which recall not wholly fanci- 
 fully the spluttering, clucking, squeaking chatter of a 
 monkey. He lives in little holes dug in the ground or 
 in caves, like the prehistoric savages of Europe; and, 
 like those prehistoric savages, he is a great hand at 
 drawing. Pictorial representation, indeed, seems to be 
 one of the lowest and first of the arts evolved by man. 
 The Bushman draws or used to draw, before he was
 
 126 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 worried into becoming civilised frescoes in various tints 
 on the flat surfaces of rocks, which represent mainly ante- 
 lopes, ostriches, and men. The Hottentot, distant cousin 
 to the Bushman, but higher in the scale of humanity, 
 can scarcely be said to inhabit Betshuanaland at the 
 present day, unless it be in the extreme south-west. He 
 is fast becoming exterminated by his vices, and before 
 long the only trace of his race that will remain will be 
 the half-breeds which are freely produced between him 
 and the Europeans. 
 
 Then come the darker-coloured Betshuana, who have 
 given their name to this district. They are a section 
 of the great Bantu group which extends from the 
 Cameroons and the Victoria Nyanza to Zululand. The 
 Betshuana people, among whom may be included the 
 Basuto and all the negro tribes of the western part of 
 the Transvaal State and the whole of Betshuanaland up 
 to the Tshobe affluent of the Zambezi, were the avant- 
 couriers in this region of the invading Bantu ; and as 
 they were the first to tackle the Hottentots and Bush- 
 men brought to bay in the south-west angle of the con- 
 tinent, they absorbed a good deal of Bushman and some 
 of the Hottentot blood. They are consequently more 
 yellow in complexion than the usual type of Bantu 
 negro, who is of a dark chocolate or even a bluish- 
 black. The Betshuana are a smart, intelligent people, 
 who have begun to adapt themselves very remarkably to 
 the requirements of civilisation. The majority of them 
 now are Christians, and they live in a more civilised 
 fashion than the more recalcitrant Kaffirs and Zulus. 
 Khama, the great Betshuana prince under whose en- 
 lightened rule the bulk of this nation is gathered, is a 
 Christian and a gentleman, and a standing beacon of
 
 BETSHUANALAND. 127 
 
 hope to those who believe in the civilisation of the 
 negro. There are probably, however, at the present 
 time no more than fifty thousand Betshuana ranging 
 over the whole country between the Tshobe on the 
 north and Cape Colony on the south, Matabeleland 
 and the Transvaal on the east, and Damaraland on the 
 west. 
 
 The white settlement of Betshuanaland has confined 
 itself mainly, up to the present time, to the more fertile, 
 better- watered, south-eastern border-land of that vast 
 district ; though there are signs of approaching colonisa- 
 tion in the vicinity of Lake Ngami. Betshuanaland, up 
 to the 22nd degree of south latitude, is remarkably, excep- 
 tionally healthy one of the most healthy climates in the 
 whole world; but beyond the 22nd parallel, northwards, 
 you enter the fever district, and also come within the 
 range of the tsetse-fly ; and both these plagues will prove 
 for some little while a hindrance to the occupation of 
 the country by Europeans. But for a long time to come 
 this occupation will not be hindered, as it is in other 
 parts of South-East Africa, by a numerous and com- 
 peting population of blacks ; for, as I have already 
 pointed out, this district, larger than England, Scotland, 
 and Ireland put together, has, at most, a native popula- 
 tion Bushmen and Hottentots included of scarcely 
 more than fiftv thousand.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FEVER, TSETSE-FLY, AND HORSE-SICKNESS. 
 
 LIVINGSTONE'S plans for the establishment of white mis- 
 sionaries on the Upper Zambezi and in Central Africa 
 were doomed to be frustrated for a while by three 
 obstacles which he had not altogether anticipated : 
 African fever, the tsetse-fly, and horse -sickness. The 
 first-named seemed to render impossible the prolonged 
 residence of white men within the limits of tropical 
 Africa. The second and third attacked the cattle and 
 horses, and thereby destroyed the white man's chief 
 means of transport. 
 
 African fever is no doubt to some extent the same 
 disease as the ordinary intermittent and remittent fever 
 which prevails in most hot parts of the world, but yet it 
 has peculiarities of its own. It offers two distinct types 
 of malady. One, and the less dangerous form of the 
 two, resembles an aguish influenza of a more or less in- 
 termittent type ; the other is a severe bilious remittent, 
 usually accompanied by hsematuric symptoms, which ap- 
 pears to be a kind of malignant jaundice, and to resemble 
 in many points the yellow fever of tropical America, 
 differing from it, however, in not being infectious. 1 It 
 
 1 It is a remarkable fact that the yellow fever of tropical America 
 originated among African slaves who, in their horrible conliuemeut in 
 the slave-ships, developed this awful disease, which, without muf.H
 
 FEVER, TSETSE FLY, AND HORSE-SICKNESS. 129 
 
 is very hard to decide what is the cause of the ordinary 
 intermittent aguish fever which is so prevalent all over 
 Africa. It is no doubt allied to the various kinds of 
 ague which prevail in most marshy localities, even in 
 the temperate zone ; for instance, in our own Fens, 
 and in part of Kent, in Finland, and in temperate North 
 America. Intermittent fever is usually attributed to 
 " malaria," whatever that vague term may mean ; and 
 the scientific explanation of this theory is, that ague is 
 usually prevalent in marshy localities because the air 
 which comes off the swamps carries with it a quantity 
 of germs, which, being absorbed into the human system, 
 rapidly multiply in the blood and produce fever. Quinine 
 and certain other bitters are credited with being a poison 
 to these germs. These drugs, by killing the microbes, 
 stop the attacks of fever, which otherwise continue with 
 a regular periodicity until at last the patient's system 
 becomes so weakened and deteriorated that he dies, not 
 so apparently from the ague as from some subsidiary 
 disease which it has provoked. The germ theory is 
 usually accounted as the only way of explaining fever, 
 and marshy localities have been universally considered 
 as unhealthy. Nevertheless, authorities like Sir William 
 Moore, who have studied tropical diseases on the spot, 
 are beginning to be convinced that the main and direct 
 cause of ordinary fever is catching cold. The fact is, 
 that most people suffer more or less from feverish attacks 
 in hot countries, because they lead a kind of Turkish- 
 bath existence (owing to the excessive heat), and any 
 imprudent exposure of their perspiring bodies to a cold 
 
 stretch of imagination, may be represented as the punishment fol- 
 lowing on the crime. Yellow fever in its present acute form, and as 
 a contagious disease, was not known in America till the slave-ships 
 introduced it. 
 
 E
 
 130 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 breeze causes the same dangerous chill which would 
 result from one's walking out in pyjamas from the hot 
 room of a Turkish-bath into the cool outside air without 
 the preparatory cold douche which closes the pores of 
 the skin. There is, however, little doubt that the germ 
 theory must find a place somewhere. It is especially 
 noticeable in all parts of the world, but markedly in the 
 tropics, that people who turn up the virgin soil which 
 has hitherto not been disturbed, and inhale the odour of 
 the freshly-exposed mould, are singularly liable to attacks 
 of fever, as though they had in this way absorbed some 
 distinct poison. I think the true explanation of the 
 problem is this, that in marshy localities and in tropical 
 climates, especially in those parts of the world which 
 possess an exuberant vegetation, the human system be- 
 comes more than usually liable to these attacks of fever- 
 producing bacteria ; and that these little germs, ordinarily 
 kept under control in a healthy state of the body, and 
 prevented from increasing to the degree which causes 
 fever, take advantage of that lowering of the system 
 caused by a chill (which produces a special condition of 
 the blood favourable to the rapid increase of the germs), 
 and by multiplying beyond bounds, provoke by their 
 ferment an increase in the temperature of the blood, 
 which is, in other words, fever. 
 
 Catching cold is the most common provocative of fever 
 in Africa ; over-exposure to the sun, indulgence in alco- 
 hol, nervous shocks, severe wounds, and mental worry 
 anything, in fact, which lowers the vitality are other 
 predisposing causes. One of the greatest malefactors, 
 in the present writer's opinion, is the sea-breeze. The 
 wind coming off the land is usually blamed for bringing 
 sickness in its train, but it is the sea-breeze, ruLsnamed
 
 FEVER, TSETSE-FLY, AND HORSE-SICKNESS. 131 
 
 "the doctor," which is the real culprit It blows up 
 wet and chilly from the sea in the hottest time of the 
 day, and strikes you, all bathed in a refreshing per- 
 spiration, with a sudden chill, if you are foolish enough 
 to expose yourself to its deceitful caresses. Much fever 
 is also caught by imprudently leaving the body uncovered 
 at night when the sudden drop in the temperature occurs 
 between midnight and 3 A.M. 1 
 
 The cause of the dangerous bilious remittent fever 
 which afflicts most parts of tropical Africa, but more 
 especially the equatorial zone, is even less clearly 
 determined than that of the ordinary intermittent 
 ague. In its worst form, this febra perniciosa, as the 
 Portuguese call it, is a rapid and deadly malady. The 
 patient, who has possibly felt well and strong in the 
 morning, is taken with vomiting and pains of the back 
 and cold shivers at midday. Hsematuria soon makes 
 its appearance, and the discharge from the kidneys is of 
 a deep " porter " or claret colour, owing to the effusion 
 of blood. The next morning the skin and whites of 
 
 1 People go to bed with a temperature possibly of 80 or 85, and 
 impatiently push all coverings from them, sleeping almost naked. 
 Then after midnight the temperature rapidly falls ten or more 
 degrees, and the perspiring sleeper is struck with a sudden chill, which 
 abruptly checks the perspiration and inflames the kidneys and other 
 organs. If ever anything occurs in a hot climate to check perspiration 
 suddenly, the person affected should immediately take measures for 
 causing a reopening of the pores and that healthy action of the skin 
 which enables the human body to remain cool within by the evapora- 
 tion which goes on without. A familiar example of this action is seen 
 in the porous water-coolers used in hot climates. These are generally 
 vessels of clay or stone which permit of the gradual exudation of the 
 water with which they are filled. The moisture which percolates to 
 the outside of the water-cooler evaporates, and causes a cooling of 
 the contents within. Consequently a stoppage of perspiration in the 
 human body causes an increase of interior temperature, and therefore 
 fever.
 
 132 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 the eyes are orange in colour, owing to the enormous 
 quantities of bile which have been developed, and which 
 have permeated the whole body to the surface of the 
 skin. There is generally a high temperature, strong 
 fever, and delirium, though in some cases these symptoms 
 are not so marked. Incessant vomiting and great loss 
 of blood from the kidneys are the chief causes of the 
 patient's rapid exhaustion. The disease in its worst 
 form may terminate fatally in thirty hours to two days, 
 but in milder cases it lasts much longer. About sixty 
 per cent, of those attacked with febra pcrniciosa recover. 1 
 The convalescence which ensues is long and tedious, and 
 for some time afterwards the patient's constitution is 
 greatly debilitated. The nerves of the eye are apt to 
 become affected in those who suffer from this bilious 
 fever, and temporary or even intermittent blindness is 
 a not infrequent result. This severe form of fever is the 
 
 1 Bilious fever (which is known by various names in Africa, such 
 as malignant jaundice, haematurie fever, febra perniciosa, bilious re- 
 mittent and " black water " fever) is liable to occur, sometimes in 
 epidemics, without a clearly traceable cause, among Europeans on the 
 Zambezi, in Nyasaland, at Zanzibar, in the Congo Basin (especially), 
 on the Lower Niger, and on the west coast of Africa. It is, however, 
 more especially frequent in Western Africa, and, on the other hand, 
 seems to be entirely absent from those parts of the Dark Continent 
 which are of a semi-desert character. 1 am, therefore, disposed to 
 think that it must be to a great extent associated with regions of 
 exuberant vegetation, and no doubt is caused by the prevalence of a 
 special organism. It can no doubt be induced or aggravated by chills, 
 or by imprudent excess in eating and alcohol ; but yet, as I have already 
 pointed out, it often occurs without any direct cause, and in people 
 who have lived with the utmost prudence. If attended to immedi- 
 ately by a qualified doctor, there is a considerable hope of the patient 
 pulling through. The most effective remedies are quinine administered 
 in very large doses ; ice (if obtainable) to allay the vomiting, or a few 
 drops of creosote on nigar ; diaphoretics such as opium, whicb pro- 
 voke perspiration and thus relieve the kidneys ; and dry cupping over 
 the small of tue back.
 
 
 
 IH '
 
 c ' 

 
 FEVER, TSETSE-FLY, AND HORSE-SICKNESS. 135 
 
 only really dangerous disease in Africa which cannot 
 be directly traced to the sufferer's own imprudenca 
 Dysentery is not nearly so common in Africa as it is in 
 other parts of the tropics, and where it occurs is always 
 traceable to a definite and preventable cause, such as 
 extremely bad water, getting wet through and not 
 changing one's clothes, or putting one's self in contact 
 with infection. 
 
 Ordinary fever is so much the result of discomfort, 
 worry, unhappiness of mind, bad food, and bad condi- 
 tions of life, that I really believe, with the introduction 
 of perfect civilisation in Africa, we shall get rid of it as 
 much as we have done in India. 
 
 But in Livingstone's day, and indeed to a lesser 
 extent at the present time, the permanent settlement 
 of Europeans in the neighbourhood of the Zambezi was 
 and has been found well-nigh impossible owing to the 
 prevalence of both the forms of fever I have mentioned. 
 Consequently, his "call" to the Upper Zambezi, which 
 was answered by the London Missionary Society after a 
 short delay, ended disastrously in the death of most of 
 the missionaries sent to Linyanti. A French Protestant 
 Mission has since been established there, but has suffered 
 greatly and has lost several of its agents. 
 
 When Livingstone first reached the southern slope of 
 the Zambezi Basin, which marks the end of the Betshu- 
 analand deserts and the beginning of the zone of abun- 
 dant vegetation (which, however attenuated in parts, is 
 still continuous between the Limpopo River and the 
 Zambezi Valley), he came into contact with the tsetse- 
 fly. 1 The existence of that insect had been previously 
 made known by Major Vardon and other English sports- 
 1 Glouina mortitan*.
 
 136 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 men who had visited the Limpopo Valley, but Living- 
 stone was the first to give any popular account of the 
 insect and its ravages. The tsetse has an insignificant 
 appearance, and is scarcely larger than a common house- 
 fly. It is chiefly remarkable by a rather lengthy, rigid 
 proboscis, which apparently cannot be coiled up close to 
 the head, like that of the common fly. The tsetse is 
 brown in colour, but with three or four yellow bars 
 across the hind -part of the body, and yellow streaks on 
 the shields covering the upper part of the thorax. The 
 wings, when closed, project considerably beyond the end 
 of the fly's body. At the base of the proboscis there is 
 a curious bulb-shaped thickening which is said to be the 
 gland containing the poison. The tsetse presumably 
 injects its venom into the blood for the same purpose of 
 thinning or diluting it as is attributed to the mosquito, 
 the flea, and other poisonous or irritating insects. The 
 tsetse has a peculiar singing buzz, which immediately 
 attracts the attention of those who have once heard it, 
 and who have reason to fear for their cattle or horses. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that the bite of this insect 
 should be harmless to mankind and to all wild animals, 
 and even to the calves of domestic cattle or foals of 
 horses while the latter are very young and chiefly 
 nourished on milk. 1 When a man is bitten by the 
 tsetse, he simply feels the slight itching which follows 
 on the bite of a mosquito, and no further symptoms 
 follow. But in the case of domestic cattle, horses, and 
 dogs, the bite of the tsetse brings on a disease which 
 proves fatal either in a few days or in a few months. 
 No other animals than those mentioned are so seriously 
 
 1 This exception, however, does not apply to young dogs, who, 
 even while being fed on milk, are liable to die from tsetse-poison.
 
 FEVER, TSETSE-FLY, AND HOKSE-SICKNESS. 137 
 
 susceptible to the poison of the tsetse. The mule, ass, 
 goat, and sheep enjoy nearly the same immunity from 
 its bites as men, apes, cats, pigs, zebras, buffaloes, and 
 antelopes. 
 
 In the case of some flies, sores are produced in man 
 and other mammals by the fly lodging its ova beneath 
 the skin of its victims by means of the sharp proboscis 
 or the ovipostor. The grub then hatches in the flesh 
 and eats away round its environment until it sets up an 
 inflammation and an abscess which eventually expel it 
 from the body. But in the case of the tsetse the mis- 
 chief is brought about by the injection of venom through 
 the middle prong of the proboscis from the bulb at its 
 base 
 
 " When the tsetse is allowed to feed freely on the 
 hand," writes Livingstone, " it is seen to insert the 
 middle prong of the three portions into which the pro- 
 boscis is divided somewhat deeply into the true skin ; 
 it then draws it out a little way, and it assumes a 
 crimson colour as the mandibles come into brisk opera- 
 tion. The previously shrunken belly swells out, and if 
 left undisturbed the fly quietly departs when it is full. 
 ... In the ox this same bite produces no more immediate 
 effects than in man. It does not startle him as the 
 gad-fly does ; but a few days afterwards the following 
 symptoms supervene : the eye and nose begin to run, 
 the coat stares as if the animal were cold, a swelling 
 appears under the jaw, and sometimes at the navel ; 
 and, though the animal continues to graze, emaciation 
 commences, accompanied with a peculiar flaccidity of 
 the muscles, and this proceeds unchecked until, perhaps 
 months afterwards, purging comes on, and the animal, 
 no longer able to graze, dies in a state of extreme
 
 138 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 exhaustion. Those -which are in good condition often 
 perish soon after the bite is inflicted with staggering 
 and blindness, as if the brain were affected by it. 
 Sudden changes of temperature produced by falls of 
 rain seem to hasten the progress of the complaint ; but 
 in general the emaciation goes on uninterruptedly for 
 months, and, do what we will, the poor animals perish 
 miserably. 
 
 " When opened, the cellular tissue on the surface of 
 the body beneath the skin is seen to be injected with 
 air, as if a quantity of soap-bubbles were scattered over 
 it, or a dishonest, awkward butcher had been trying to 
 make it look fat. The fat is of a greenish-yellow colour, 
 and of an oily consistence. All the muscles are flabby, 
 and the heart often so soft that the fingers may be made 
 to meet through it. The lungs and liver partake of the 
 disease. The stomach and bowels are pale and empty, 
 and the gall-bladder is distended with bile. 
 
 " These symptoms seem to indicate what is probably 
 the case, a poison in the blood, the germ of which enters 
 when the proboscis is inserted to draw blood. The 
 poison-germ, contained in a bulb at the root of the 
 proboscis, seems capable, although very minute in 
 quantity, of reproducing itself, for the blood after death 
 by the tsetse is very small in quantity, and scarcely 
 stains the hands in dissection." 
 
 It is curious that the tsetse shows a marked dislike 
 to animal excreta, and when a village is planted in the 
 middle of its habitat, and becomes in time surrounded 
 by the exuviae of its inhabitants, the tsetse abandons 
 the locality in disgust. This fact, according to Living- 
 stone, has been turned to account by some of the native 
 doctors, who mix the droppings of animals, milk, and
 
 FEVER, TSETSE-FLY, AND HORSE-SICKNESS. 139 
 
 various medicines together, and smear with it the cattle 
 that are about to pass through a tsetse-infested district ; 
 but this, though it proves a preventive at the time, is 
 not a permanent deterrent unless frequently renewed. 
 Once the disease has manifested itself from the tsetse- 
 bites, there is as yet no known cure, but it is possible 
 that some great doctor like Pasteur or Koch might 
 excogitate a successful process of inoculation if he gave 
 his mind to it. At present the inoculation caused by 
 one or two bites of the fly which have not proved 
 sufficient to kill the animal constitute no immunity 
 from further attacks, for the same animal bitten more 
 frequently subsequently may die from the greater amount 
 of poison injected into its system. The tsetse not often 
 having horses and cattle and dogs placed at its disposal 
 for its sustenance, feeds mainly on the wild animals, 
 especially on the antelopes and buffaloes. As this big 
 game, however, is gradually reduced or exterminated or 
 driven away, so the tsetse disappears, either because it 
 follows the game in its migrations, or because with its 
 extermination it has no sufficient source of nourishment 
 left. But nothing seems to more effectually scare it 
 away than the presence of man, especially of native man, 
 with the attendant concomitants of uncivilised settle- 
 ments, which are delicately described in medical reports 
 as " lack of all sanitary precautions." As Central Africa 
 becomes opened up and continuously peopled, the tsetse- 
 fly will disappear and the keeping of cattle and horses 
 become possibla 
 
 This noxious insect is distributed over Africa, as far 
 as we can learn, in a very patchy manner. It is particu- 
 larly faithful to the valley of the Zambezi, though even 
 here it is by no means universally present, being some-
 
 140 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 times a positive pest on the south bank, while it is totally 
 absent from the opposite district on the north. Still, its 
 partiality for the Zambezi Valley is so marked that its 
 habitat runs northwards in little tongues along the 
 course of the Zambezi affluents. Thus, the tsetse is 
 found everywhere along the banks of the Loangwa 
 River right up to the edge of the Nyasa-Tanganyika 
 plateau, where that stream takes its rise ; but the insect 
 is absent from the watershed of the Tshambezi River, 
 which rises not far from the Loangwa (and which is a 
 tributary belonging to the Congo System), and from 
 much of the northern and western shores of Lake Nyasa. 
 Along the course of the Shire River the tsetse is fouud 
 in patches, sometimes not more than a few miles in area. 
 It is absent from the elevated part of the Shire high- 
 lands. It is passing away from much of the littoral of 
 Eastern and Western Africa, and is seldom met with in 
 the north-central or north-eastern portions of the con- 
 tinent. In many parts of West Africa horses and cattle 
 die rapidly, especially in newly cleared districts of the 
 forest regions ; but this is owing much less to the attacks 
 of the tsetse-fly (for this insect is not common in the 
 dense forests) than, in the case of the horse, to a kind 
 of pneumonia which I shall further allude to as "horse- 
 sickness," and amongst the cattle to poisonous herbs and 
 grasses which their instinct has not yet taught them to 
 avoid. 
 
 The " horse-sickness," which Livingstone distinguishes 
 as peripneumonia, is a disease particularly affecting the 
 equine genus throughout a considerable portion of tropi- 
 cal Africa, but more especially in that part of the conti- 
 nent which lies to the south of the equator. It is pre- 
 valent in Southern Africa between the Zambezi and a
 
 FEVER, TSETSE-FLY, AND HORSE-SICKNESS. 141 
 
 line drawn across the continent at about 27 S. latitude. 
 It reappears in parts of South-West Africa, less upon 
 the sea-board, however, than in the interior ; is prevalent 
 in such parts of the Congo Basin as those in which horses 
 or asses have yet been tried ; it is met with in districts 
 of Nyasaland and on the shores of Tanganyika ; and on 
 some parts of the west coast of Africa, such as Sierra 
 Leone. But, like the range of the tsetse- fly, the areas 
 in which "horse-sickness" prevails are often discon- 
 nected and alternate with regions in which a horse may 
 be kept without any difficulty and even to advantage. 
 For instance, whereas at Sierra Leone it is almost im- 
 possible to keep horses for any length of time, they 
 flourish on the Gambia. Lagos is well suited to them, 
 and yet parts of the Oil Rivers, with an absolutely 
 similar climate, conditions of soil, and vegetation, are 
 actually deadly to the horse. In one district of the 
 Gold Coast they can be kept, and in another part it is 
 impossible to maintain them long alive. On the east 
 coast, it may be observed that they flourish at Zanzibar, 
 and yet do not succeed at Mombasa, or have not done so 
 hitherto. They prosper at the north end of Nyasa, and 
 they die on the south coast of that lake. In Angola, 
 horses thrive to such an extent in the vicinity of 
 Loanda that there is, or was at the time of my last visit 
 there, a regular horse-breeding establishment on the 
 north side of the city, near the River Bengo, while on 
 the neighbouring River Kwanza horses rapidly pined 
 away with "horse-sickness." At Mossamedes, lower 
 down on the coast, they succeed remarkably well, and 
 continue to find the country suitable for a distance of a 
 hundred miles inland; but no sooner are they taken up 
 the Shela Mountains to the Mpata and Wila plateaux
 
 142 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 beyond than they sooner or later succumb to this strange 
 malady. 
 
 This disease appears to be coincident in the commence- 
 ment of its attacks with the beginning of the rainy season, 
 and seems, as far as the horse is concerned, to be in some 
 way connected with the unusual moisture of the atmos- 
 phere which prevails at this period, and at the same 
 time to be caused or aggravated by the eating of exces- 
 sive quantities of green food. Although it generally 
 attacks the horse and, to a lesser extent, those wild 
 species of horse which we call zebras, cattle, sheep, and 
 antelopes are also liable to its attacks, but with those 
 ruminants it does not appear to have such a fatal or 
 widespread effect as on the horse tribe, and especially 
 on the domestic horse. All horses, however, who are 
 attacked with it do not die ; some recover, and those 
 who have passed through the ordeal successfully are 
 termed " salted " horses, and are no longer liable to the 
 attacks of the disease. This is the reason a salted horse 
 is so much more costly in South Africa than a horse who 
 has not had the " sickness " and lived through it. I 
 believe that it is generally considered that by breeding 
 from a " salted " stud you gradually obtain a race of 
 horses less and less subject to this disease. The symp- 
 toms of the malady appear to vary somewhat according 
 to the district, but they generally include a gradual 
 emaciation of the animal and, as he grows weaker, less 
 and less disposition to work or eat ; hcematuria ; and, in 
 the latter stages, foaming at the mouth and at the 
 nostrils. If by any chance the flesh of cattle, sheep, 
 antelopes, or horses which have died from this disease is 
 eaten by man, it is liable to cause a malignant carbuncle 
 in those who have partaken of it, which is frequently
 
 FEVER, TSETSE-FLY, AND HORSE-SICKNESS. 143 
 
 fatal. Livingstone states that the virus in the flesh of 
 the diseased animal is not destroyed either by boiling or 
 roasting. 
 
 These were the chief obstacles to a colonisation of 
 Central Africa by white men in the days when Living- 
 stone first beckoned to the lands beyond the Zambezi 
 fever, tsetse-fly, and " horse-sickness." Surely we may 
 hope that no one of these obstacles is permanently insur- 
 mountable ! The dangers of fever begin to diminish 
 as they have diminished in India with comfortable 
 houses, good food, hard work, and pleasant society. The 
 tsetse-fly disappears before the settlements of man and 
 the diminution or suppression of large herds of wild 
 beasts ; " horse-sickness " is gradually wearing itself out 
 as salted horses increase in number and perpetuate 
 their greater powers of resistance to the disease. Other 
 difficulties may arise to prevent the white settlement 
 of South-Central Africa, but I do not think they will 
 be any of these three in persistence which hampered the 
 immediate fulfilment of Livingstone's aspirations.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FROM THE ZAMBEZI TO ANGOLA. 
 
 ARRIVED for the second time at Linyanti, Livingstone 
 found that Sekeletu, the son of Sebituane, had been 
 elected king in his father's stead. 
 
 Sebituane himself before his death had appointed his 
 daughter Mamotshisane to be his successor in the chief- 
 tainship ; but she, having no taste for rule, transferred 
 her powers to her brother Sekeletu, who at that time 
 was a young man of eighteen years of age. But another 
 and an elder brother, Mpepe, claimed the throne, and 
 got up a revolution just about the time of Livingstone's 
 arrival, in which he invoked the assistance of the " Mam- 
 bari" (the half-caste Portuguese slave-traders) who had 
 arrived from the west coast. The Mambari espoused 
 Mpepe's cause, on the consideration that, if the weight 
 of their intervention turned the scale in his favour and 
 enabled him to depose Sekeletu, he was to reward them 
 with a large number of slaves. However, Mpepe's rising 
 was put down almost without a struggle. He asked for 
 a conference with Sekeletu, intending to suddenly assas- 
 sinate him as they sat together, and then his followers, 
 who had brought their weapons with them into the hut 
 where the meeting took place, were to rise at this signal 
 and murder all Sekeletu's followers ; but Mpepe's plans 
 were frustrated, half accidentally and half intentionally, 
 
 144
 
 FROM THE ZAMBEZI TO ANGOLA. 145 
 
 by Livingstone, who came to the conference and placed 
 himself between Mpepe and Sekeletu. Consequently, 
 Mpepe, fearing to injure the white man, abstained from 
 carrying out his intention, and did not attack Sekeletu ; 
 but the plot being revealed to the king that night, he 
 sent one of his captains to take his half -brother by sur- 
 prise and kill him. The brother, who seems to have 
 been a very unsuspicious personage himself, consider- 
 ing the tenuity of his relations with Sekeletu, received 
 the messenger unarmed, and was suddenly overpowered, 
 bound, led out into the wilderness, and killed. This 
 nipped the revolution in the bud, and Sekeletu reigned 
 afterwards as undisputed king over the Barotse until his 
 death in 1864; after which the usual anarchy ensued 
 which supervenes in all African empires after every two 
 or three reigns, and which in this case resulted in the 
 ureak-up of the Makololo power, the return of many 
 of the Makololo to Lake ISTgami, and the revival of 
 the indigenous Barotse as a ruling race. 1 But on the 
 
 1 As far as one can piece it together from the scattered and often 
 contradictory statements of travellers, this has been the history of 
 the Barotso country during the present century. The valley of the 
 Upper Zambezi ninety years ago was in the possession of the Barotse 
 people, who formerly called themselves Balui or Baloi, and also 
 Baloiana, which is the diminutive form of the original name Balui, 
 and expresses the meaning that that portion of them which afterwards 
 occupied the valley of the Upper Zambezi was a minor tribe of the 
 Balui race, which still inhabits the region bordering on the Lunda 
 country, in the land which is the watershed of the Zambezi and the 
 Congo. The Balui were closely related to the tribes of the south- 
 western part of the Congo Basin. They had gradually descended the 
 Upper Zambezi until they approached its confluence with the Tshobe, 
 and thus came into contact with the Ba-toka, who in language belong 
 more to what may be called the Zulu-Kaffir stock. The Baloi having 
 fallen out among themselves, a part of them called in the intervention 
 of Sebituane, the powerful Makololo chieftain who had emigrated 
 from the Basuto country uud had established himself near the Zam-
 
 146 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 occasion of Livingstone's second visit to the Zambezi 
 there was no sign of the approaching breaking-up of 
 this Makololo empire, the influence of which extended 
 northwards to near the sources of the Zambezi. 
 
 Livingstone's first ostensible object was to ascend the 
 Liambai until he could get out of the swampy district 
 and find some spot favourable for the settlement of an 
 European missionary. He accordingly journeyed with 
 Sekeletu and about a hundred and sixty attendants 
 up the Zambezi (or the " Liambai," as the river is 
 usually called in that district) as far as the confluence 
 of the Kabompo and the Liba. 1 But in all this journey 
 he found the tsetse-fly prevailing in the districts along 
 
 bezi. Sebituane came and conquered the Baloiana or Little Baloi, 
 and established the Makololo along the valley of the Upper Zambezi. 
 For some reason or other, the Makololo called the Baloi the " Barotso," 
 which name has stuck to them ever since. The few hundred Makololo, 
 who were, of course, simply Basnto from Basutoland, had such a 
 powerful influence over the Baloi that they gradually imposed on 
 them the Se-suto language, which is a dialect of the Se-tshuana group, 
 and this tongue still maintains its sway among the Barotse, although 
 the political influence of the Makololo has passed away. After the 
 death of Sekeletu, the last of the Makololo kings, in 1864, a period of 
 internecine war ensued, and resulted in the rising of the Barotse and 
 the downfall of the Makololo power. Nearly all the Makololo men 
 were massacred, but the women were spared and mated with the 
 victorious Barotse. The Barotse chiefs, however, quarrelled a good 
 deal among themselves after reconquering their country from the 
 Makololo. The Barotse had next to deal with the Ba-toka of the 
 Central Zambezi, and then with the Ba-shukulumhwe, both of which 
 tribes they reduced to a kind of vassalage, and thus created the 
 powerful and extensive Barotse empire of to-day, which occupies 
 nearly all the country between the Upper and Central Zambezi and 
 the Iramba and Mushinga Mountains. There were many quarrels, 
 however, among the Barotse chieftains, and eventually the throne was 
 seized, ana has since been held by the present king, Liwanika, who 
 originally came from the country near the junction of the Kabompo 
 and the Liba. The present Barotse capital and royal residence is 
 Lialui. 
 1 Liba is the name given to the extreme Upper Zambezi.
 
 FROM THE ZAMBEZI TO ANGOLA. 147 
 
 the banks of the river, and from the apparent unhealthi- 
 ness of the country, he concluded that it was not yet 
 suitable for the establishment of colonies of MakvJolo on 
 the upper banks of the Zambezi which would serve as 
 the bases for the foundation of European missionary 
 settlements. So, wanting an excuse for the exploring 
 mania which was in him, and which he was not able to 
 admit to himself and indeed did not consciously recog- 
 nise as the true motive for his divagations he recurred 
 to his alternative plan of opening up communications 
 with the west coast of Africa, so that there might be a 
 nearer way to the sea over Northern Betshuanaland 
 than what was in those days the long, weary journey 
 over the Kalahari Desert to Cape Town or Algoa Bay. As 
 the natives reported the prevalence of the tsetse to the 
 westwards of Linyanti, he resolved not to attempt a 
 direct overland journey thence to the west coast, at 
 Benguela or Mossarnedes, but, instead, to reascend the 
 Liambai to where it was formed by the junction of 
 two streams, the Kabompo and the Liba. 1 The Liba, 
 according to native accounts, came from the north-west, 
 and Livingstone hoped to follow it for a very consider- 
 able distance, until he should come within a hundred and 
 odd miles to the River Kwanza, which he proposed to 
 descend until he emerged at the coast near Sao Paulo de 
 Loanda, the capital of the Portuguese province of Angola. 
 He accordingly applied to Sekeletu for help in the way 
 of canoes and men, and held out as the chief inducement 
 
 1 It is somewhat difficult to decide which of these two rivers can be 
 considered as the main Zambezi. Livingstone opined that it was the 
 Kabompo, which to him appeared broader by a hundred yards than 
 the Liba, but subsequent travellers have decided in favour of the 
 Liba, as being the stream with a longer course and greater volume 
 than the Kabompo.
 
 148 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 for this journey the opening up of the country for trade 
 between the Makololo and the Portuguese colonies. A 
 "Pitso" 1 was held to consider the question of agree- 
 ment with Livingstone's views. The general voice of 
 this assembly was in his favour, and so a band of 
 twenty-seven men was appointed to accompany him to 
 the west, their services being given to Livingstone for 
 nothing. Only two of them were real Makololo, that is 
 to say, of actual Basuto origin ; the rest consisted of 
 Barotse, Ba-toka, Bashubia, and Ambonda. 
 
 Having committed his waggon and his remaining 
 goods to the care of Sekeletu, Livingstone started 011 his 
 journey to the west coast with an outfit which was in- 
 deed modest compared to that with which most modern 
 African expeditious are provided. 2 But, as Livingstone 
 
 1 A council of deliberation. 
 
 2 The following is the outfit with which Livingstone started from 
 Linyanti to go to Loanda on the nth November 1853 : 
 
 "I had three muskets for my people, a rifle and double-barrelled 
 smooth-bore for myself ; and, having seen such great abundance of 
 game in my visit to the Liba, I imagined that I could easily supply the 
 wants of my party. Wishing also to avoid the discouragement which 
 would naturally be felt on meeting any obstacles if ray companions 
 were obliged to carry heavy loads, I took only a few biscuits, a few 
 pounds of tea and sugar, and about twenty of coffee, which, as the 
 Arabs find, though used without either milk or sugar, is a most 
 refreshing beverage after fatigue or exposure to the sun. We carried 
 one small tin canister, about fifteen inches square, filled with spare 
 shirting, trousers, and shoes, to be used when we reached civilised 
 life, and others in a bag, which were expected to wear out on the 
 way ; another of the same size for medicines ; and a third for books, 
 my stock being a nautical almanac, Thomson's Logarithm Tables, 
 and a Bible. A fourth box contained a magic-lantern, which we found 
 of much use. The sextant and artificial horizon thermometer and 
 compasses were carried apart. My ammunition was distributed in 
 portions through the whole luggage, so that, if an accident should befall 
 one part, we could still have others to fall back upon. Our chief hopes 
 for food were upon that, but in case of failure I took about 20 lb:-. of 
 beads, worth forty shillings, which still remained of the stock I brought
 
 FROM THE ZAMBEZI TO ANGOLA. 149 
 
 remarks and leads us to infer in various passages of his 
 writings, the simplicity of his outfit was not by any 
 means an unmixed good. He points out that, had he 
 been more comfortable on this and other -journeys, he 
 would not have suffered so much in health. Indeed, it 
 is no exaggeration to say that, had he from first to last 
 travelled with that reasonable amount of comfort which 
 would provide a bed to sleep on and a rain-tight tent to 
 sleep within, good clothes, good books, a sufficiency of 
 medicines, a little good wine, small luxuries in the way 
 of preserved provisions, and various other items which 
 are now thought necessary in a traveller's equipment, he 
 would have completed his great scheme of geographical 
 discovery, and have been alive now in the enjoyment 
 of honours and competence, as are several of his old 
 companions. 1 
 
 Livingstone left linyanti for his west coast journey 
 
 from Cape Town ; a small gipsy tent, just sufficient to sleep in ; a 
 sheepskin mantle as a blanket, and a horse-rug as a bed. . . . The 
 instruments I carried, though few, were the best of their kind : a 
 sextant, by the famed makers, Troughton & Sims, of Fleet Street ; a 
 chronometer watch, with a stop to the seconds'-hand an admirable 
 contrivance for enabling a person to take the exact time of observa- 
 tions. . . . Besides these, I had a thermometer by Dollond ; a com- 
 pass from the Cape Observatory, and a small pocket one in addition ; 
 a good small telescope with a stand capable of being screwed into a 
 tree." Missionary Travels and Researches, pp. 230, 231. 
 
 1 Although Livingstone, from want of means, hurry, and latterly a 
 somewhat listless inattention, did not travel provided with a good 
 many articles of comfort which would have materially aided him in 
 maintaining his health, he was very far from recommending a shabby 
 and careless method of equipment and personal appearance. He 
 always endeavoured to be both neat and clean, and to maintain a 
 distinctly European mode of life. He says, with reference to a slip- 
 shod, dirty appearance which travellers of common mind and vulgar 
 dispositions are liable to descend to, that " it is questionable if this 
 descent to barbarous ways does not lower the man in the eyes of the 
 savages."
 
 150 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA, 
 
 on the nth November 1853. He first descended the 
 Tshobe, and then turned round and ascended the Liambai 
 or main Zambezi. He travelled, of course, in canoes, 
 and suffered terribly from fever on this journey. Indeed, 
 the whole Barotse Valley of the Upper Zambezi seems 
 to be a peculiarly unhealthy district, judging from the 
 accounts of Livingstone, Arnot, and Coillard. The River 
 Zambezi, between the confluence of the Tshobe and the 
 junction of the Kabompo and Liba, that portion of the 
 river, in fact, which goes by the name of Liambai, is 
 not continuously navigable, even for canoes, between the 
 Tshobe and Kabompo. The rapids of Katema-Mololo, 
 of Bombwe, of Kale, and of the Falls of Gonye, are all of 
 them quite impassable in the dry season, and the canoes 
 have to be taken out of the water and carried overland 
 round these cataracts ; but it would seem as though, 
 when the river rises in the rainy season, all these rapids 
 could be passed in canoes, with the exception of the Falls 
 of Gonye, which are at least thirty feet in their descent. 
 In the narrow gorge below Gonye the river rises sixty 
 feet above the low-water level when in flood. 
 
 Without incident of note, save the charming obser- 
 vations on natural history with which Livingstone's 
 narrative of this journey is sprinkled, and which will 
 be noticed in my general review of the Upper Zambezi 
 region, Livingstone's party reached Libonta, the last 
 town of the Makololo kingdom going towards the north 
 (which was situated a short distance beyond the present 
 capital Lialui). Here they had to remain collecting 
 fat and butter, to be afterwai-ds given as presents to the 
 Ba-londa chiefs of the country beyond. While waiting 
 at Libonta he writes in his Journal a little description 
 of the manner in which his camp is organised while
 
 FROM THE ZAMBEZI TO ANGOLA. 151 
 
 travelling; and as this was the mode he frequently 
 followed in nearly all his journeys, and, with certain 
 extensions and amplifications, is almost exactly the 
 method which most well-advised African travellers adopt 
 when circumstances permit, it merits being described at 
 length in Livingstone's own words: "As soon as we 
 land, some of the men cut a little grass for my bed, 
 while Mashauana plants the poles of the little tent. 
 These are used by day for carrying burdens, for the 
 Barotse fashion is exactly like that of the natives of 
 India, only the burden is fastened near the ends of tho 
 pole, and not suspended by long cords. The bed is 
 made, and boxes ranged on each side of it, and then tho 
 tent pitched over all. Four or five feet in front of my 
 tent is placed the principal or ' kotla ' fire, the wood for 
 which must be collected by the man who occupies the 
 post of herald, and takes as his perquisite the heads of 
 all the oxen slaughtered, and of all the game too. Each 
 person knows the station he is to occupy, in reference to 
 the post of honour at the fire in front of the door of tho 
 tent. The two Makololo occupy my right and left, both 
 in eating and sleeping, as long as the journey lasts. But 
 Mashauana, my head boatman, makes his bed at the 
 door of the tent as soon as I retire. The rest, divided 
 into small companies according to their tribes, make 
 sheds all round the fire, leaving a horseshoe-shaped space 
 in front, sufficient for the cattle to stand in. The fire 
 gives confidence to the oxen, so the men are always 
 careful to keep them in sight of it. The sheds are 
 formed by planting two stout forked poles in an inclined 
 direction, and placing another over these in a horizontal 
 position. A number of branches are then stuck in the 
 ground in the direction to which the poles are inclined,
 
 152 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 the twigs drawn down to the horizontal pole and tied 
 with strips of bark. Long grass is then laid over the 
 branches in sufficient quantity to draw off the rain, and 
 we have sheds open to the fire in front, but secure from 
 beasts behind. In less than an hour we were usually all 
 under cover." 
 
 From Libonta they journeyed on to the confluence of 
 the Liba and the Kabompo, thrcmgh a country that was 
 radiant with the advent of spring, and swarming with 
 game to a degree never before witnessed by Livingstone, 
 who writes in ecstasy of the enormous numbers of mam- 
 mals and birds which he saw on this part of his journey. 
 He ascended the Liba for some distance, meeting with 
 no natural hindrance to its navigation ; but in passing 
 through the Lunda country he had some difficulty in 
 averting a hostile reception, because the Makololo had 
 recently been raiding in those countries, and naturally, 
 therefore, the Ba-lunda people were not disposed to re- 
 ceive Livingstone's canoe-men as friends. Nevertheless, 
 with his usual tact and patience he explained away all 
 their apprehensions and won their friendship. Most 
 of the chiefs he found to be chieftainesses, for in 
 this country women are held in higher estimation 
 than is usual in Africa, and frequently ruled as queens 
 or great ladies. A prominent personage in this land 
 was the queen Nyamoana, who dwelt at about the 
 limit of navigation on the Liba. This lady took a 
 great interest in Livingstone's journey, and in his desire 
 to open up a direct trade between the west coast and 
 the Barotse country. She objected, however, to his 
 continuing his water-journey up the Liba any farther, 
 on the plea that there were impassable cataracts farther 
 on, and that the Ba-luvale tribe of the Lunda people who
 
 FROM THE ZAMBEZI TO ANGOLA. 153 
 
 dwelt by the banks of the Upper Liba would certainly 
 kill his Makololo boatmen, unless an explanation of 
 his coming had been made to the supreme chief of 
 the country, whose name appears to have been either 
 Kabompo or Shinte, but who was usually called by the 
 latter appellation. Accordingly, Queen Nyamoana de- 
 spatched Livingstone on the back of a riding-ox overland 
 to Shinte's capital, and sent her daughter Manenko with 
 him as guide and protectress. Manenko was a fine, 
 Amazon type of woman, quite a princess-royal, with a 
 commanding manner, and a very subservient husband 
 whom she treated quite as her chattel. She started on 
 the march with her husband, her drummer, and a suite 
 of ladies and gentlemen, and walked at the head of the 
 caravan herself, in the slightest possible clothing, and at 
 such a pace that few of the men could keep up with her. 
 
 On the road to Shinte's town, Livingstone for the 
 first time entered the true tropical forest which is so 
 characteristic of the greater part of the Congo Basin 
 and of Western Equatorial Africa, and which, from 
 Livingstone's account, would appear to extend over a 
 portion of the extreme Upper Zambezi Valley. He 
 found considerable pleasure, in spite of incessantly rainy 
 weather, in this new scenery. The deep gloom of the 
 dense forest contrasted strongly with his remembrance 
 of the shadeless glare of Betshuanaland. Though 
 drenched day by day for he was travelling during the 
 rainy season it was long before he could bring himself 
 to complain of the profusion of water which created such 
 a splendid flora. 
 
 He arrived at the town of Shinte 1 on the i6th 
 January 1854, and found himself emphatically in West 
 1 Latitude 12 37' 35" S., longitude 22 47* E.
 
 154 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFEICA. 
 
 Central Africa, for the town was embowered in magnifi- 
 cent banana groves, shaded with huge trees, with straight 
 streets and rectangular houses. 1 Two mulatto Portu- 
 guese traders were here, together with a large number 
 of Mambari (as the natives of Bihe and the interior 
 of West Africa call the black Portuguesised natives of 
 Angola). The Portuguese, of course, had come here to 
 buy slaves, and as it was the first time Livingstone's 
 Makololo had seen a slave-gang in chains, they affected 
 to be very shocked at such treatment. 
 
 Shinte gave Livingstone a magnificent reception in 
 the true West African style. The place of audience was 
 about a hundred yards square, and was shaded by two 
 enormous trees, under one of which sat the chief, Shinte, 
 on a sort of throne covered with a leopard-skin. He 
 had on a checked jacket and a kilt of scarlet baize edged 
 with green ; many strings of large beads hung from his 
 neck, and his limbs were covered with iron and copper 
 armlets and bracelets ; on his head he wore a helmet 
 made of beads woven neatly together, and crowned with 
 a great bunch of feathers from a spur-winged goose. 
 After the various companies of soldiers had performed 
 war-dances, and had saluted their chief by companies, 
 the spokesman of Livingstone's party recited in a loud 
 voice the objects of the expedition. Behind Shinte sat 
 about a hundred of his wives, clothed in a profusion of 
 red cloth (his chief wife, Odena, was a Matabele-Zulu). 
 During the intervals between the speeches these ladies 
 broke forth into a sort of plaintive ditty in praise of the 
 orator, of Shinte, and of themselves. The clamour was 
 
 1 The native house along the Zambezi, in all South-West, South, and 
 East Africa, besides North-Central Africa and much of the west coast, 
 is round. The style of hut which prevails in the Congo Basin and 
 West Equatorial Africa is usually rectangular and oblong.
 
 FROM THE ZAMBEZI TO ANGOLA. 155 
 
 increased by a party of musicians who went round the 
 square drumming on the typical West African drum, 1 
 or else playing on another West African instrument, 
 the " marimba." 2 Altogether about 1300 people were 
 present, including 300 soldiers ; and nine orators spoke 
 before the chief. 
 
 Shinte was apparently a man of fifty-five years of age, 
 of frank and open countenance, and about the middle 
 height. Curiously enough, like the greater part of the 
 Congo Basin, which his country (though on the Zambezi 
 watershed) so closely resembles, the land of Lobale or 
 Luvale, in which Shinte dwelt, possessed apparently 
 no domestic cattle, and the chief consequently asked 
 Livingstone for an ox. The traveller somewhat re- 
 nictantly presented one to him, suggesting at the same 
 time that he might open a trade in cows with the 
 Makololo. 3 This gift of Livingstone's, however, very 
 
 1 These drums are made of the hollowed trunk of a tree, and are 
 four to six feet in length. The ends are covered with tightly-stretched 
 skin, which is either the skin of an antelope, a goat, or a serpent 
 (in the more cannibal countries it is not infrequently man's skin). 
 There is a small hole in the side which Livingstone speaks of as being 
 covered by spider's web, but I have not noticed this kind of covering 
 myself. The instrument is usually beaten with the hands, but some- 
 times a drumstick is used. 
 
 3 " The ' marimba ' consists of two bars of wood placed side by side, 
 here quite straight, but farther north, bent round so as to resemble 
 half the tire of a carriage- wheel ; across these are placed about fifteen 
 wooden keys, each of which is two or three inches broad, and fifteen 
 or eighteen inches long ; their thickness is regulated according to the 
 deepness of the note required : each of the keys has a calabash beneath 
 it ; from the upper part of each a portion is cut off to enable them 
 to embrace the bars, and from hollow sounding-boards to the key.s, 
 which also are of different sizes, according to the note required ; and 
 little drumsticks elicit the music. Rapidity of execution seems 
 much admired among them, and the music is pleasant to the ear." 
 LIVINGSTONE. 
 
 * Which hint was afterwards taken.
 
 156 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 much angered the Lady Manenko (who, it appeared, was 
 Shinte's niece). She complained " that the white man 
 belonged to her; she had brought him here, and there- 
 fore the ox was hers, not Shinte's." She therefore 
 ordered her men to take it away from Shinte, got it 
 slaughtered, and presented her uncle with one leg only. 
 He did not, however, seem at all annoyed at her im- 
 petuous behaviour. 
 
 Livingstone had brought with him a magic-lantern 
 which exhibited Scriptural slides, and the exhibition of 
 these pictures was received by the Ba-lunda with the 
 utmost delight and astonishment. The use of the magic- 
 lantern, in fact, is one of the most potent aids to friend- 
 ship with savages that I know of. There are very few 
 missionary stations in Africa which are without it. 
 
 This part of the Lunda l country was found by Living- 
 stone to bo much given up to drunkenness, and its 
 inebriety was produced solely by enormous quantities of 
 what Livingstone calls "mead," and which may have 
 been made from honey (which is very abundant in that 
 land), but which I should myself think was the fer- 
 mented sap of palms, as that is the usual native in- 
 toxicating drink over all West Central Africa. 2 
 
 1 Livingstone writes this word sometimes Londa and sometimes 
 Lunda. The latter I believe to be the most usual pronunciation. 
 There is the same hesitancy between Luvale and Lolale, the fact being 
 that native pronunciation often fails to discriminate distinctly between 
 o and u and b and v. 
 
 2 The drunkenness in Shinte's territory, where, at the time of 
 Livingstone's visit, people had nothing to get drunk on but the 
 intoxicants which they themselves made out of the products of their 
 country, may be compared with the remarkable inebriety which 
 prevails in parts of Nyasaland, where the people are equally confined 
 to the use of such fermented liquors as they can make for themselves, 
 and are not "corrupted" by the introduction of European forms of 
 alcohol.
 
 FROM THE ZAMBEZI TO ANGOLA. 157 
 
 The heavy rains and the drunkenness of the people 
 delayed Livingstone for ten days in Shinte's town, but 
 on the 26th January he got away, and travelled in a 
 northerly direction more or less parallel with the course 
 of the Liba, the main stream of which he crossed near 
 its confluence with the Lukalueje affluent, which, together 
 with a number of little tributary streams, flows through 
 the great Luvale flat, and renders it a vast sodden marsh 
 for more than half the year. In the middle of this 
 swampy prairie is the little Lake Dilolo, about twenty- 
 eight miles in extent in the rainy season. It was at 
 one time thought that this lake gave rise, not only to 
 the affluents of the Zambezi, but also to streamlets 
 flowing north into the Congo Basin ; this has since been 
 shown to be incorrect. These vast marshy plains of 
 Luvale apparently have a tilt both to the north and 
 south, and therefore feed both the Zambezi and the 
 Congo systems. In spite of this, the Luvale flats seem 
 to be a great sponge from which the water is never 
 properly drained, but merely sinks a little below the 
 surface, and there keeps the earth perpetually sour. 
 For this reason but little forest grows thereon, though 
 here and there a few trees are seen surrounded by 
 hillocks of elevated soil which dot the surface of the 
 marsh. 
 
 Near the shores of Lake Dilolo was the straggling 
 village of Katema, 1 who was then the great chief of the 
 Luvale country. Here Livingstone had to stay for a 
 few days. He was well treated, but found that Katema 
 paid but little heed to religious instruction, distinctly 
 showing his boredom when attempts were made to 
 describe Christianity. He was, however, very suscep- 
 
 1 His town has since been moved to the north side of the laka
 
 158 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 tible to compliments, and was much pleased at being 
 congratulated on possessing a herd of thirty cattle. 
 Domestic oxen were apparently very rare in these 
 countries, and the people were quite unused to utilising 
 them for milk or for labour. Katerna's cattle, in fact, 
 were so wild that when he wished to kill one he had 
 to shoot it as though it were a buffalo. Katema was 
 evidently an immigrant from the north, and not a 
 native of the Luvale country. 
 
 Obtaining guides from this man, Livingstone pursued 
 his course north-westwards across the Kifumaji and 
 Dilolo flats to the banks of the Kasai or Kasabi, one of 
 the great affluents of the Congo. He discovered, some- 
 svhat to his surprise, that this almost level swampy plain 
 which he had crossed over was the watershed between the 
 Congo and the Zambezi, and having reached its northern 
 limits, he found that the wet tableland in its descent 
 towards the Kasai was scored with deep valleys, strangely 
 contrasting with the monotonous levels of the elevated 
 plain above. In all directions, as he descended from 
 this raised-up marsh, which had a mean level of nearly 
 5000 feet, he saw water oozing or spurting out from 
 the stream -fur rowed soil. 
 
 On arriving at the banks of the Kasai, Livingstone 
 describes this stream as being a most beautiful river, 
 and therefore, like a Scotchman, at once compared it 
 with the Clyde. Where he struck it (about 220 miles 
 from its source) it had a width of over a hundred yards, 
 and was winding slowly from side to side in a beautiful 
 green glen, flowing towards the north-east. The slopes 
 of its valley were finely wooded, but in some places they 
 receded to a little distance from the banks, and the river 
 flowed through rich grassy meadows. The inhabitants
 
 FROM THE ZAMBEZI TO ANGOLA. 159 
 
 dwelling along the Kasai told Livingstone that one might 
 sail down this stream for months and yet turn back 
 without seeing the end of it a perfectly truthful piece 
 of information when one looks at the since-discovered 
 course of the Kasai as represented on the latest maps. 
 This river is to the main Congo on the south what the 
 great Mubangi-Welle is on the north. 
 
 The subjects of the chief Kagenke, who ruled on this 
 portion of the Kasai, were fairly friendly, but exceedingly 
 mean about selling food ; and Katenke, another chief, 
 was not much more hospitable. Still, no serious obstacles 
 were put in the way of Livingstone's party. They 
 crossed the Kasai, and directing their course due west, 
 entered the extensive country of Kioko. 1 On the borders 
 of this land a little incident occurred in the crossing of 
 a flooded stream which well illustrates the affectionate 
 relations which had sprung up between Livingstone and 
 his Makololo. Livingstone attempted to cross the river 
 by swimming his ox over and laying hold of its tail, but 
 the ox had already dashed into the deepest part of the 
 stream before he could dismount. He was therefore 
 obliged to throw himself off the creature's back and 
 swim over to the opposite bank by himself. His Mako- 
 lolo were dreadfully alarmed when they saw him parted 
 from the ox, and about twenty of them made a simul- 
 taneous rush into the water to his rescue, and helped 
 him out of his difficulty very speedily. Great was the 
 pleasure they expressed when they found he could swim 
 like themselves, without being obliged to hold on to the 
 
 1 The original name of this land seems to have been Kiboko or 
 Kibokwe. Livingstone calls it Tshibokwe. On the other hand, 
 Cameron and many of the Portuguese write the word Kioko (Quioco), 
 which seems to be the more widespread and more modern form of 
 the name.
 
 160 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL Al'KiCA. 
 
 tail of the ox. After this they all laughed at the idea 
 of being frightened by rivers, and said, " We can all 
 swim ; who carried the white man across the river but 
 himself?" 
 
 The country of Kioko seemed to Livingstone and his 
 men so perfectly adapted for the breeding of cattle, and 
 yet so devoid ot iLe domestic ox in any numbers (though 
 such herds as were possessed by the big chiefs were in 
 a flourishing condition), that he formed the belief that 
 the general scarcity of oxen throughout these lands 
 which lie along the southern basin of the Congo arose 
 from the former prevalence of the tsetse-fly, but that 
 since the inhabitants had received guns and powder 
 from the Portuguese they had resolutely set to work to 
 slaughter and exterminate the big game, and that with 
 the disappearance of the large wild herbivora the tsetse- 
 fly had died out, leaving the land open to the introduc 
 tion of cattle. 
 
 The Va-kioko or Va-tshibokwe were a somewhat 
 turbulent, ill-conditioned people, who endeavoured to put 
 many obstacles in Livingstone's way, and seized every 
 pretext for robbing him, fining him, or opposing his 
 progress through their country. By dint of much 
 patience and a few judicious payments, and a quiet, 
 unaggressive obstinacy in pushing on, Livingstone passed 
 through their country without any breach of the peace. 
 During this part of the journey he suffered incessantly 
 from attacks of fever, but really one cannot wonder at 
 his ill-health when it is considered what very little care 
 he took of himself along this portion of his route. He 
 had to cross streams or rivers daily, and on these occa- 
 sions was always wetted up to his thighs, if not up to 
 his neck. It never seems to have occurred to him to
 
 FROM THE ZAMBEZI TO ANGOLA. 161 
 
 change and dry his clothes ; he either attempted to dry 
 himself by walking on through the blazing sun, or he 
 did not even make that attempt, but sat down or re- 
 mained stationary in his wet clothes whenever he had 
 occasion to wait for his men or to stop for any purpose 
 on the line of march. Is it surprising under these 
 conditions that he was attacked with fever ? Is it not 
 rather surprising that he lived through such experiences 
 at all ? 
 
 The difficulties of the Kioko country began to have a 
 bad effect on the men-ale of Livingstone's expedition, 
 and but a few days after the loving devotion evinced by 
 his men in rushing into the river to save him from the 
 least chance of being drowned, some of these same people 
 began to grumble at the small amount of beads distri- 
 buted for the purchase of food ; and although he ex- 
 plained this away and remonstrated with the grumblers, 
 their demeanour waxed in noisiness and impudence, 
 until it amounted to open disregard of his orders, which 
 was the more serious because he was very ill with fever. 
 Finding that kind words and patient arguments were of 
 no use, he resolved to try sterner measures, which he 
 describes in the following language : " Knowing that 
 discipline would be at an end if this mutiny were not 
 quelled, and that our lives depended on vigorously up- 
 holding authority, I seized a double-barrelled pistol and 
 darted forth from the domicile, looking, I suppose, so 
 savage as to put them to a precipitate flight. As some 
 remained within hearing, I told them that I must main- 
 tain discipline, though at the expense of some of their 
 limbs; so long as we travelled together they must 
 remember that I was master, and not they. There 
 being but little room to doubt my determination, they 
 
 F
 
 162 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 immediately became very obedient, and never afterwards 
 gave me any trouble, or imagined that they had any 
 right to my property." 
 
 I mention this little incident to show that collo- 
 quially speaking Livingstone was no fool. No one had 
 a greater sympathy or a more indulgent regard for the 
 black people than he, and even he knew that they are 
 only grown-up children, that they must be made to sub- 
 mit to a certain amount of direction for their ultimate 
 good and for the eventual benefit of their country ; and 
 when this direction is not accepted by them after verbal 
 arguments, as a last resort force must be used to compel 
 them to do as they are told. Livingstone never forgot 
 that we stand to the negro in loco parentis. A wise 
 father endeavours to persuade his son to follow in that 
 line of conduct which, in the opinion of the father and 
 according to the father's lights, is the best calculated to 
 cause his son to succeed in the world ; but when verbal 
 persuasion is of no use and the naughty child absolutely 
 refuses to obey, then even the kindest of fathers is com- 
 pelled to resort to a gentle smacking as a final argument. 
 Later on we shall see that in his last journeys many of 
 Livingstone's disasters came from his want of firmness 
 with his men ; but in his first great expeditions in Africa 
 he just hit upon the happy medium of conduct towards 
 his black followers. He was kind, considerate, and even 
 affectionate towards them, but he never allowed them to 
 forget that he was the master, and that his will must be 
 implicitly obeyed, and the result was the quite extra- 
 ordinary success of his journey across Africa from the 
 Zambezi to Loanda, and from Loanda to Quilimane. 
 
 On leaving the country of the Kioko and entering the 
 valley of the Kwango, Livingstone quitted the region
 
 FROM THE ZAMBEZI TO ANGOLA. 163 
 
 of the great Congo forest through which he had been 
 travelling, and re-entered that typical African park-land 
 so characteristic of the greater portion of the continent 
 within the tropics. Before he reached the banks of the 
 Kwango, which was in those days and is still practically 
 the eastern boundary of Portuguese West Africa, he 
 suffered much from the hostility of the Ba-shinje people, 
 who very nearly provoked his party to a breach of the 
 peace. However, in spite of the orders of the Ba-shinje 
 to return, Livingstone steadily kept on his way ; and 
 being aided by a continuous downpour of rain, which 
 damped the fighting spirit of his persecutors, he man- 
 aged to reach the banks of the Kwango without being 
 attacked. Where he crossed it, the Kwango was a fine 
 river of 150 yards in width and very deep. It was im- 
 possible to traverse it without canoes, and here another 
 difficulty arose, because the natives refused to ferry him 
 over to the western bank unless he gave one of his 
 followers as a slave. Just when he was almost in a 
 state of despair with worry and fever, a young half-caste 
 Portuguese sergeant of militia, named Cypriano de Abreu, 
 made his appearance, and advised Livingstone and his 
 people to move down to the shore of the river, so as to 
 be more out of the reach of attacks from the disagree- 
 able natives. This advice they took, and only just in 
 time, because as soon as they moved away the natives 
 opened fire on them with their guns, hoping by this 
 display of force to cause a rout of the expedition ; but, 
 as Livingstone and his party walked on quietly without 
 hurry, the firing ceased, and, through the persuasion of 
 Cypriano, the natives in charge of the ferry were induced 
 to transport the whole party across to the Portuguese 
 bank, which was reached without further difficulty.
 
 164 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 On the other side they found a little garrison of 
 Portuguese militia (mulattoes), who received Livingstone 
 with kindness and respect. As to their commander, 
 Cypriano, he seems to have been a friend in need, 
 and to have exhibited that extraordinarily kind-hearted 
 hospitality which is a marked characteristic of the 
 Portuguese. 
 
 For the first time after leaving Koloben, Livingstone 
 experienced something like civilisation at this little 
 Portuguese settlement on the left bank of the River 
 Kwango. The good food, comfort, and well -ordered, 
 decent behaviour of the settlement did much to restore 
 him to health. He found that all the members of this 
 little garrison could read and write with ease, and that 
 they possessed in their little library Encyclopaedias, medi- 
 cal works, dictionaries, and religious books. This is not 
 a bad certificate for the state of Portuguese rule in West 
 Central Africa in the year 1854. 
 
 Four or five days' journey beyond the Kwango brought 
 Livingstone to the important trading settlement at Ka- 
 sanji, which was then a regular Portuguese town, but 
 which has since had many fluctuations of prosperity. 1 
 At Kasanji the kindness and hospitality he received 
 from the Portuguese was such as to move him to expres- 
 sions of the deepest gratitude. 2 " May God remember 
 them," he writes, "in their day of need !" 
 
 1 At the time of my own journeys in Angola, in 1882, Kasanji had 
 been abandoned by the Portuguese garrison, and the farthest inland 
 station occupied by the Portuguese in this direction was Malanje. I 
 believe, however, that Kasanji has now been reoccupied. 
 
 a In another part of his Journal he says : " The universal hospitality 
 of the Portuguese was most gratifying, as it was most unexpected. 
 And even now, as I copy my Journal, 1 remember it all with a glow 
 of gratitude."
 
 FROM THE ZAMBEZI TO ANGOLA. 165 
 
 Under the guidance of a black Portuguese soldier, 
 and with much general assistance rendered by the 
 Portuguese authorities at Kasanji and by others on the 
 way, he reached the River Kwango, and thence passed 
 on to Ambaka and Golungo Alto, traversing some of 
 the most beautiful scenery in Africa and a thickly- 
 populated, well-cultivated country. He received every- 
 where an unvarying kindness and hospitality from the 
 Portuguese, but was in a frightfully debilitated state 
 from the constant attacks of fever, which were the 
 results of his past hardships. However, a few days' 
 rest with Lieutenant Antonio Canto e Castro, 1 the com- 
 mandant of Golungo Alto, and the careful treatment 
 he received from his kind host, enabled him to regain 
 much of his strength. He could look with pleasure on 
 the luxuriant scenery around him. " We were quite 
 shut in among green hills, many of which were culti- 
 vated up to their tops with manioc, coffee, cotton, 
 ground-nuts, bananas, pine-apples, guavas, papaus, cus- 
 tard-apples, pitangas, and jambos, fruits brought from 
 South America by the former missionaries. The high 
 hills all round, with oil-palms on many points, made 
 this spot appear more like the Bay of Rio de Janeiro in 
 miniature than any scene I ever saw ; and all who have 
 seen that confess it to be unequalled in the world beside. 
 The fertility evident in every spot of this district is quite 
 wonderful to behold." 
 
 Several times, on passing through Angola, the teasing 
 natives had frightened Livingstone's Makololo by telling 
 them that their leader was only taking them to the coast 
 to fatten them and sell them to the white men to be 
 
 1 ''A young gentleman whose subsequent conduct will make mo 
 remember him with affection." LIVINGSTONE.
 
 166 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTKAL AFKICA. 
 
 eaten. The silly fellows, in spite of their filial attach- 
 ment to Livingstone and their occasional bursts of pas- 
 sionate affection for him, actually attached credence to 
 these jesting remarks, and on one or two occasions were 
 very nearly deserting. Such are the fluctuations of the 
 negro's childish disposition. One must always guard 
 oneself from disappointment in expecting too much 
 consistency from these poor savages. They will live 
 with a good master for two or three years, and become 
 apparently so much attached to him that he vaguely 
 pictures to himself their remaining with him till a good 
 old age and being pensioned off, when one day, on the 
 slightest pretext, or no pretext whatever, they will leave 
 him for good and for all, and show no sign afterwards 
 of regret or gratitude. However, Livingstone's patience 
 and tact allayed their suspicions, and although they 
 approached the coast with much doubting and dread, 
 they followed their leader without serious demur. 
 When, after leaving Golungo Alto, they came to the 
 verge of the elevated plains behind Loanda and first 
 beheld the sea, they looked upon the boundless ocean 
 with awe. Afterwards, on describing their feelings, 
 they remarked that " we marched along with our 
 Father, believing that what the ancients had always 
 told us was true, that the world has no end, but all at 
 once the world said to us, ' I am finished ; there is no 
 more of me.' " 
 
 As Livingstone himself came within sight of Loanda 
 he was depressed in spirits, and filled with apprehension 
 lest his welcome to civilisation should be a cold one. He 
 had understood that in a population of 12,000 souls 
 there was but one English gentleman. He felt anxious 
 to know whether this British representative was of a
 
 FROM THE ZAMBEZI TO ANGOLA. 167 
 
 kindly nature or not, as it was a matter of the greatest 
 importance to him that he should meet with a kindly, 
 helpful reception in his worn-out, destitute condition. 
 
 Livingstone reached Sao Paulo de Loanda, the capital 
 of the Portuguese possessions in West Africa, on the 
 last day of May 1854. All doubts as to the manner 
 in which he would be received by the one Englishman 
 residing in that place (who was Mr. Gabriel, H.M. 
 Commissioner for the Suppression of the Slave -Trade, 
 and Consul for Angola) were soon set at rest. " When 
 I entered his porch," he writes, "I was delighted to see 
 a number of flowers cultivated carefully, and inferred 
 from this circumstance that he was what I soon dis- 
 covered him to be a real, whole-hearted Englishman. 
 Seeing me ill, he benevolently offered me his bed. 
 Never again shall I forget the luxuriant pleasure I 
 enjoyed in feeling myself again on a good English 
 couch, after six months' sleeping on the ground. I was 
 soon asleep ; and Mr. Gabriel, coming in almost imme- 
 diately, rejoiced at the soundness of my repose."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 r *i. M r; ?;;i -.;^'n\-u u{ 
 FROM LOANDA TO QUILIMANE ACROSS AFRICA. 
 
 SOON after Livingstone arrived at Loanda he was the 
 recipient of marked courtesies from the leading Portu- 
 guese of that place, and especially from the Bishop of 
 Angola, 1 who was at the time the acting Governor- 
 General. Some of our ships of war, notably the Pluto 
 and the Philomel, called at Loanda during Livingstone's 
 stay, and their commanders offered him a passage to St. 
 Helena, whence he could return easily to England ; but, 
 tempting as the offer was, he would not accept it, be- 
 cause, in the first place, he felt bound to escort his 
 Makololo back to their country ; and, second, finding 
 the impracticability of the existing route between the 
 
 1 Livingstone says of this prelate : " His whole conversation and 
 conduct showed him to be a 11 an of great benevolence and kindness 
 of heart. Alluding to my being a Protestant, he stated that he was 
 a Catholic from conviction ; and though sorry to see others, like my- 
 self, following another path, he entertained no uncharitable feelings, 
 nor would he ever sanction persecuting measures, lie compared the 
 various sects of Christians, on their way to heaven, to a number of 
 individuals choosing to pass down the different streets of Loanda to 
 one of the churches all would arrive at the same point at last. His 
 great influence both in the city and the country is universally acknow- 
 ledged : he was promoting the establishment of schools, which, 
 though formed more on the monastic principles than Protestants 
 might approve, will no doubt be a blessing. He was likewise success- 
 fully attempting to abolish the non-marriage custom of the country ; 
 and several marriages had taken place in Loanda among t'.ose who, 
 but for his teaching, would have been content with concubinaga. " 
 168
 
 LOANDA TO QUILIMANE ACROSS AFRICA. 169 
 
 Zambezi and the west coast as an outlet for the 
 Makololo country, he had determined to follow the 
 Zambezi down to the sea in order to ascertain if an 
 easier road to the sea-coast lay in that direction. 
 Accordingly he remained, staying on at Loanda till the 
 2oth September (he had readied that place about the 
 ist June), as his departure for the interior was re- 
 peatedly delayed by attacks of dysentery, which reduced 
 him to a state of prostration. During his stay in this 
 place, however, his Makololo became profitably ac- 
 quainted with the outer world and the manners, customs, 
 and dignities of the white men. They were shown over 
 our ships-of-war and allowed to fire cannons, they were 
 taken to see the services in the Cathedral, 1 they were 
 employed at unloading ships and in cutting firewood, 
 and these latter occupations brought them in respect- 
 able earnings, which they invested in articles of trade to 
 take back to their own country. 
 
 When Livingstone finally quitted Loanda to return 
 to the Zambezi, the acting Governor-General (the Bishop 
 of Angola already referred to) directed that he should 
 be furnished with a handsome present for Sekeletu, and 
 he was also provided by the Portuguese authorities with 
 letters of recommendation to the Portuguese officials in 
 Eastern Africa. The same Government further supplied 
 him with carriers, and sent forward orders to all the com- 
 
 1 "The gorgeous ritual of the .Roman Church did not arouse in 
 thorn very reverent feelings. The frequent genuflections, changing 
 of i ositions, burning of incense with the priests' backs to the people, 
 the laughing, talking, and manifest irreverence of the singers, &c.," 
 says Livingstone, "did not convey to the minds of my men the idea 
 of adoration. I overheard them, in talking to each other, remark that 
 they had seen the white men charm their demons ; a phrase identical 
 with one they had used on seeing the Ba-londa beat drums before 
 their idols."
 
 170 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFKIOA. 
 
 mandants of the district through which he was to pass 
 to render him every assistance in their power. His 
 friends on board H.M. ship Philomel had made him a 
 good new tent, and he had supplied himself with a large 
 stock of trade goods, the money of the interior. To 
 each of his men also was given a new musket and 
 ammunition. He was accompanied on his way as far 
 as the River Bengo by his excellent host, Mr. Edmund 
 Gabriel, H.M. Commissioner and Consul, whose geniality 
 and goodness to Livingstone and his men created a 
 lasting impression on their memories. 
 
 In connection with the River Bengo, Livingstone 
 notes an interesting fact which accords with my own 
 experiences to some extent; namely, that mosquitoes 
 abound much more in the vicinity of muddy rivers than 
 by those which have clear water. 
 
 From the Bengo, Livingstone struck across to the 
 Kwanza to visit the important town of Massango. 
 From there he returned to Golungo Alto. Arrived once 
 more in this beautiful part of Angola, he visited the 
 remains of the old Jesuit settlements. Of the work of 
 the Jesuits in Angola 1 he always speaks with intelligent 
 approbation. 
 
 After leaving Golungo Alto, Livingstone proceeded to 
 the remarkable district of Pungo Andongo, where he 
 took up his abode for nearly three months with a Portu- 
 guese officer, Colonel Manoel Antonio Pires. 
 
 1 The Jesuits did more than any one else to create the strong 
 Portuguese influence which has spread over Western Africa south of 
 the Congo. They laid the foundation of much of the civilisation 
 which still prevails in those regions. In course of time, however, by 
 a decree of the Marques'! de Pombal, they were expelled (in 1760, or 
 thereabouts) from Angola, as from all the Portuguese possessions 
 (vide Chap. II.).
 
 LOANDA TO QUILIMANE-ACROSS AFRICA. 171 
 
 Jfungo Andongo is celebrated for its extraordinary 
 columns of rock, which, in their disposition, may be said 
 to resemble a gigantic Stonehenge. Each isolated mass 
 of rock is upwards of 300 feet in height from the soil at 
 
 PUNGO ANDONGO. 
 
 its base, and is composed of a conglomerate of gneiss, 
 clay, shell, mica, sandstone- schists, trap-rock, and por- 
 phyry embedded in a matrix of dark red sandstona 
 These rocks rest on a thick stratum of this same sand-
 
 172 LIVINGSTON*, AND CENTRAL AFIUCA. 
 
 stone. Livingstone attributes their formation to a cur- 
 rent of the sea having flowed through this country, and 
 believes that the rocks of Pungo Andongo are the frag- 
 ments of an old sea-coast ; but this theory is scarcely 
 tenable with our larger knowledge of the geology of this 
 district. The Pungo Andongo rocks, and many similar 
 fragments of sandstone which we meet with in this part 
 of Africa reduced to little isolated fingers and columns, 
 are probably the result of the heavy tropical rains wash- 
 ing away the softer parts of an old tableland, and leaving 
 these columns of rock as vestiges of the old plateau, 
 which, from their harder nature, have not yet been 
 washed away. 
 
 Soon after arriving at the well-ordered establishment 
 of Colonel Pires, Livingstone received the news of the 
 total loss, off Madeira, of the mail-steamer Forerunner, l 
 in which he had sent home all his despatches and maps 
 describing his journey from the Zambezi to Loanda. He 
 therefore set to work with dogged perseverance to write 
 out the whole thing again from memory as far as pos- 
 sible, aided no doubt by the note-books in his possession. 
 
 Leaving Pungo Andongo on the ist January 1855, 
 he passed on rapidly westwards through the district of 
 Malange and over the heights of Tala Mungongo, and 
 reached once more the town of Kasanji in about seven- 
 teen days from the time of leaving Pungo Andongo, with 
 
 1 The Forerunner was the first steamer which the African 
 Steamship Company despatched to the west coast of Africa. She 
 was wrecked off the coast of Madeira. Her loss, however, did not dis- 
 courage her owners from this enterprise, and the African Steamship 
 Company, in conjunction with its closely affiliated Association, the 
 British and African Steamship Company, carries cur mails at the pre- 
 sent day to all the ports on the west coast of Africa from the Gambia 
 to Loanda.
 
 LOANDA TO QUILIMANE ACROSS AFRICA. 173 
 
 no more unpleasant incidents on the way than one or 
 two attacks from the brownish-red soldier-ants which 
 are so characteristic of Central Africa. The description 
 which Livingstone gives of these pests is so truthful, 
 and these ants form such a feature in the experience of 
 African explorers, that I venture to append his account 
 of them in a footnote. 1 
 
 1 " These ants are frequently met with in numbers like a small army. 
 At a little distance they appear as a brownish-red band, two or three 
 inches wide, stretched across the path, all eagerly pressing on in one 
 direction. If a person happens to tread upon them, they rush up his 
 legs and bite with surprising vigour. The first time I encountered 
 this by no means contemptible enemy was near Cassange. My atten- 
 tion being taken up in viewing the distant landscape, I accidentally 
 stopped upon one of their nests. Not an instant seemed to elapse 
 before a simultaneous attack was made on various unprotected parts, 
 up the trousers from below, and on my neck and breast above. The 
 bites of these furies were like sparks of fire, and there was no retreat. 
 I jumped about for a second or two, then in desperation tore off all 
 my clothing, and rubbed and picked them off seriatim as quickly as 
 possible. Ugh ! they would make the most lethargic mortal look 
 alive. Fortunately no one observed this rencontre, or word might 
 have been taken back to the village that I was mad. I was once 
 assaulted in a similar way when sound asleep at night in my tent, and 
 it was only by holding my blanket over the fire that I could get rid of 
 them. It is really astonishing how such small bodies can contain so 
 large an amount of ill-nature. They not only bite, but twist themselves 
 round after the mandibles are inserted, to produce laceration and 
 pain more than would be effected by the single wound. Frequently, 
 while sitting on my riding-ox, as he happened to tread near a band, 
 they would rush up his legs to the rider, and soon let him know that 
 he had disturbed their march. They possess no fear, attacking with 
 equal ferocity the largest as well as the smallest animals. When 
 any person has leaped over the band, numbers of them leave the ranks 
 and rush along the path, seemingly anxious for a fight. They are 
 very useful in ridding the country of dead animal matter, and when 
 they visit a human habitation, clear it entirely of the white-ants and 
 other vermin. They destroy many noxious insects and reptiles. The 
 severity of their attack is greatly increased by their vast numbers, 
 and rats, mice, lizards, and even the Python natalensis, when in a 
 state of surfeit from recent feeding, fall victims to their fierce on- 
 slaught. These ants never make bills like the white-ant. Their nests
 
 174 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 While at Kasanji, Livingstone received a packet of 
 newspapers, with news of the Crimean war up to the 
 charge of the Light Brigade. He well describes the 
 tantalising effect of the news breaking off at this junc- 
 ture, and the thought that he would get no more until 
 he reached the eastern side of the continent. 
 
 From Kasanji he was strongly inclined to start for 
 the capital of Mwata Yanvo's country in company with 
 a Portuguese mission which was just starting to visit 
 that important chief, but his Makololo followers did not 
 approve of the idea, and he was not willing to exercise 
 any pressure on them in the matter. Accordingly, 
 he merely journeyed on in company with the Portu- 
 guese to the River Kwango, and crossing that stream, 
 passed on without any difficulty through the country of 
 the Bashinje people, who had formerly, tried to quarrel 
 with him. But, just as he was about to enter the land 
 of Kioko, the heavy rains which he had to endure daily, 
 and the soddened condition of the soil at the camping- 
 places, brought on a severe attack of rheumatic fever. 
 With this he became so ill during eight days, that he 
 was indifferent to all that was going on around him, 
 and would probably have ended his experience of Africa 
 then and there had it not been for the nursing of Senhor 
 Antonio Narcisso Pascoal, a half-caste Portuguese, who 
 arrived at Livingstone's camp just when he was at his 
 worst, and relieved his acute pain in a very practical 
 manner by utilising the leeches which swarmed in the 
 neighbouring rivulets, and applying them to Livingstone's 
 
 are but a short distance beneath the soil, which has the soft appear- 
 ance of the abodes of ants in England. Occasionally they construct 
 galleries over their path to the cells of the white-ant, in order to 
 secure themselves from the heat of the sun during their marauding 
 expeditions." Missionary Travels and Researches.
 
 LOANDA TO QUILIMANE ACKOSS AFK1CA. 175 
 
 neck and loins. After seeing his patient take a turn for 
 the better, Senhor Pascoal had to move on to another 
 village in advance, in order to procure food for his large 
 party. Meanwhile Livingstone lingered in a dreary con- 
 valescence at the miserable little village where he had been 
 taken ill. Just as he was about to start to join Pascoal, 
 the Pombeiro, 1 a disagreeable incident occurred, which, 
 however, brought out well the firmness of Livingstone's 
 character in dealing with the natives. The head-man 
 of the village wherein he had been lying sick had begun 
 quarrelling in his camp about a piece of meat, and one 
 of Livingstone's men, losing patience, had struck him 
 on the mouth. Willing to give redress for this hasty 
 act, Livingstone paid five pieces of cloth and a gun to 
 the head-man as compensation for the slap; but no 
 sooner had he done this than the wretched little chieftain 
 became outrageous in his demands, and attempted to 
 raise all the country-side to assist him in attacking and 
 plundering Livingstone's party. Seeing that it was 
 useless to argue any further with this cantankerous 
 personage, Livingstone left the village with his men to 
 join Senhor Pascoal, but soon after he had started he 
 was attacked from behind by a large body of natives, 
 who fired off their guns and knocked the burdens off 
 some of his men's shoulders. Livingstone promptly got 
 off his riding-ox, and in spite of his weak state of health, 
 rushed up to the chief who was the cause of all this 
 trouble, and presented a six- barrelled revolver at his 
 stomach. This demonstration had an immediately paci- 
 fying effect, and the chief declared he had only come to 
 speak to Livingstone, and his men protested their amic- 
 
 1 Pombeiro is the name applied to the half-caste Portuguese traders 
 who range over the West of Africa
 
 176 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 able intentions, and finally retreated without attempting 
 to renew the attack. 
 
 Livingstone soon afterwards joined Senhor Pascoal, 
 and travelled with him through the gloomy forests of 
 Kioko and Southern Lunda as far as the town of Kabango, 
 where he parted company with him, having decided to 
 abandon the idea of proceeding to Mwata Yanvo's capital, 
 and to return as quickly as might be to the Zambezi, in 
 order to resume his direct journey to the east coast. 
 Had be decided otherwise, and accompanied the Poin- 
 beiros to Mwata Yanvo's court, the results of Living- 
 stone's explorations might have been altogether different. 
 He would probably have followed the Kasai down to its 
 junction with the Congo, and to a great extent have anti- 
 cipated Stanley's discoveries. As it was, he collected a 
 considerable amount of information about the Kasai and 
 the rivers which join it, which, in the light and fuller 
 knowledge of to-day, is shown to be singularly correct. 
 Numerous southern affluents of the Congo and some 
 of the big lakes of Central Africa, besides important 
 African tribes whose real existence has only been quite 
 recently ascertained, are mentioned by Livingstone in 
 his resume of the information acquired by him from the 
 Portuguese and Arabs of the geography of the Congo 
 Basin. 
 
 Livingstone and his Makololo were received with 
 hospitality and rejoicing by their old friend Katema, 
 near Lake Dilolo, and by Shinto, farther south. Un- 
 fortunately, on returning to the Zambezi Valley, although 
 they found themselves once more among friends, they 
 also had re-entered the home of the tsetse fly, and 
 Livingstone's riding-ox, "Siribad," who had carried him 
 all the way from the Barotse country to Angola and
 
 LOANDA TO QUILIMANE ACROSS AFRICA. J77 
 
 hack again, was so bitten by these pests that it fell sick, 
 and eventually died. Everywhere, however, they were 
 greeted with such affection by the Ba-lunda people of 
 the Upper Liba, that it was almost like returning home 
 again. This friendliness, however, had a somewhat 
 demoralising effect over his men, one of whom deserted 
 him in order to settle down under a chief called Masiko. 
 When the party reached the town of Libonta, and 
 were back again in the Makololo empire, they were 
 received with extravagant demonstrations of joy. The 
 women came forth to meet them, making curious dancing 
 gestures and singing loud "lulliloos." Some carried a 
 mat and stick, in imitation of a spear and shield. Others 
 rushed forward and kissed the hands and cheeks of the 
 different persons of their acquaintance among the party 
 of returned travellers, raising such a dust that it was 
 quite a relief to get away from them to the staider men 
 assembled in decorous council in the "kotla." Livingstone 
 and his men were looked upon as persons risen from the 
 dead, for the most skilful of their diviners had pro- 
 nounced the whole party to have perished long ago. 
 "The following day," he writes, "we observed as our 
 thanksgiving to God for His goodness in bringing us all 
 back in safety to our friends. My men decked them- 
 selves out in their best, and I found that, although their 
 goods were finished, they had managed to save suits of 
 European clothing, which, being white, with their red 
 caps, gave them rather a dashing appearance. They tried 
 to walk like the soldiers they had seen in Loanda, and 
 called themselves my ' braves ' (ballabani). During the 
 service they all sat with their guns over their shoulders, 
 and excited the unbounded admiration of the women and 
 children. I addressed them all on the goodness of God
 
 178 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 in preserving us from all the dangers of strange tribes 
 and diseases. We had a similar service in the after- 
 noon." The men of Libonta gave Livingstone two fine 
 oxen for slaughter, and the women supplied the expe- 
 dition abundantly with milk, meal, and butter. These 
 presents were made without thought of any return, as 
 the white men and his followers had expended all their 
 means and demonstrated their inability to make return 
 of presents. 
 
 Their continued progress down the Barotse Valley 
 was like a triumph. Every village gave them an ox, 
 and sometimes two. The people felt that, in opening 
 up a possible trade-route with the west coast, Livingstone 
 had worked well in the interests of the Makololo, and 
 they were unstinting in their favours. The very face of 
 the country, too, seemed to rejoice at the wanderers' home- 
 coming. The land, which had hitherto been exhibiting 
 all the signs of the African winter, 1 was just beginning 
 to show the first promise of spring in the new leaf -shoots. 
 
 Livingstone remarks with accuracy on the beautiful 
 and strange tints assumed by the young expanding 
 leaves in an African forest. The present writer has 
 generally observed in tropical Africa that much of the 
 very young foliage is red, a kind of brownish-crimson. 
 
 1 The winter, or period of rest, is coincident with the dry season, 
 and is much more apparent in those parts of Africa where the year is 
 divided sharply into two seasons, wet and dry. In the basin of the 
 Congo and in Western Equatorial Africa this winter is much less 
 noticeable than in the regions north and south and east, owing to 
 the frequency with which rain falls throughout the year in the first- 
 named districts. Livingstone noticed, when he passed from the densely- 
 forested Lunda country into the watershed of the Zambezi, how 
 markedly wintry was the aspect of. the trees, which in those countries 
 where there was a clearly-defined dry season shed their leaves just as 
 do the deciduate trees of the temperate zone.
 
 LOANDA TO QU1LIMANE ACKOSS AFRICA. 179 
 
 This tint, as the leaf expands, changes to a most deli- 
 cate mauve, and from that into a bluish-green, and so 
 on to the grass-green or olive-green which it will 
 eventually remain when mature. But this progress of 
 colouring is not always the same in all trees and shrubs. 
 In some of them, as Livingstone observes, the early tints 
 of the leaves are yellow, purple, copper, liver-colour, and 
 even inky-black. 
 
 Without incident of importance in their descent of 
 the Liambai, save the upsetting of their canoe by an ill- 
 tempered female hippopotamus, they reached Sesheke, 
 where Livingstone found that a number of packages had 
 been sent to him from Mr. Moffat by means of Matabele 
 carriers. On opening his letters and papers he dis- 
 covered that Sir Roderick Murchison (the President of 
 the Royal Geographical Society) had already formulated 
 the same theory about the dish-like contour of the 
 African continent as Livingstone had arrived at inde- 
 pendently through his own observations. 1 Sir Roderick's 
 theory was mainly based on a geological map of South 
 Africa prepared by Mr. Bain, and Livingstone appears 
 to have shown some regret at being forestalled in the 
 promulgation of this Central- African basin theory. " I 
 had cherished," he writes, "the pleasing delusion that I 
 should be the first to suggest the idea, that the interior 
 of Africa was a watery plateau of less elevation than 
 the flanking hilly ranges." 
 
 1 The theory of the dish-shaped structure of the southern half of 
 Africa, or even, as it was thought, of the whole of the continent, 
 never seemed to the present writer a very exact or brilliant hypothesis, 
 or one which is borne out to any extent by what we now know of its 
 actual surface-contours. Like most sweeping and would-be brilliant 
 generalisations, it becomes minimised and split up and modified by a 
 more careful examination in detail.
 
 180 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 From Sosheke, Livingstone and his party rode to 
 Linyanti, and found the waggon and all the stores 
 which they had left there nearly two years before per- 
 fectly safe. A grand meeting of all the Makololo 
 people was called to receive his report and the presents 
 which had been brought from Loanda. Such an excel- 
 lent impression was produced by the descriptions of 
 their experiences given by the Makololo who accom- 
 panied Livingstone that he soon received offers of 
 service from other Makololo, who volunteered to go 
 with him to the east coast. The men who had been 
 with Livingstone to Loanda were to remain behind at 
 Linyanti and rest themselves, and afterwards proceed on 
 another trading adventure to the west coast. Mean- 
 while Livingstone rested too, and quickly recovered the 
 health and strength he had lost in the feverish regions 
 of the Barotse and Ba-lunda. During his stay at Lin- 
 yanti he conversed with Ben Habib, an Arab who had 
 arrived there from Zanzibar, and whose description of 
 the relatively easy route he had followed from the 
 Zanzibar coast across the lands of Ugogo and Wunyam- 
 wezi, the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau, and the country of 
 the Kazembe seemed to promise an easy and peaceful 
 route to the east coast. But Livingstone, after weigh- 
 ing the matter carefully, decided to keep to his original 
 intention of following the course of the Zambezi, so that 
 he might discover what value that river had as a direct 
 waterway into the interior. 
 
 Whilst waiting at Linyanti for the commencement 
 of the rains, so that the ground might be cooled before 
 they set out on their journey to the east, Livingstone 
 spent his time in imparting religious instruction to the 
 people, in inquiring into their needs arid wants, and
 
 LOANDA TO QUILI MANE ACROSS AFRICA. 181 
 
 suggesting many practical methods of bettering their 
 existence and creating profitable ti*ade products. He 
 also noticed with surprise that the two horses he had 
 left behind him at Linyanti had not suffered from the 
 tsetse-fly, which was a very remarkable fact, because 
 that insect existed in numbers in the vicinity of Lin- 
 yanti. Indeed, these two horses of Livingstone's seem 
 to have been the forerunners of the establishment of a 
 regular breed in the Barotse country. Livingstone had 
 also brought with him one horse and several donkeys 
 from Loanda. The donkeys and one or more of the 
 horses he took with him on his journey to the east 
 coast. It is interesting to remark that on all his earlier 
 journeys Livingstone scarcely ever walked if he could 
 help it He either travelled on ox-back, or horse-back, 
 or donkey-back, or in canoes ; or, in later times, in his 
 second Zambezi expedition, in boats and steamers. When, 
 in his third and last expedition, he was compelled to 
 walk over great distances, the exertion seems to have told 
 on his health more than any other fatigue of travel. 
 
 He left Linyanti on the 3rd November 1855, and 
 was accompanied by Sekeletu and about two hundred 
 Makololo as far as Sesheke. Sekeletu supplied him 
 with twelve oxen, a number of hoes and other trade 
 goods, and abundance of good fresh butter and honey ; 
 in fact, as he remarks, he was indebted to the bounty of 
 the Makololo for his means of reaching the east coast. 
 
 In following the course of the Zambezi he discovered 
 the celebrated Victoria Falls, which are one of the 
 wonders of the world. The Makololo had called these 
 mighty cataracts " Mosioatunya " (" smoke or vapour 
 sounds there ") ; but Livingstone, finding no generally 
 accepted native name for this African Niagara, called
 
 182 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 the cataracts in the English tongue "The Victoria 
 Falls." l As I shall deal in detail with this remarkable 
 feature of the Zambezi River in an ensuing chapter, I 
 shall not delay the reader with any description of it 
 here. 
 
 Before leaving the Victoria Falls, Livingstone planted 
 in one of the islands ever watered by the fine, diffused 
 spray of the cataract a hundred peach and apricot 
 stones 2 and a quantity of coffee-seeds, and he also, for 
 the first and only time in his travels, had the pardon- 
 able vanity of cutting his name on a tree overlooking 
 the Falls. 
 
 Having accompanied Livingstone as far as the Victoria 
 Falls, Sekeletu bade good-bye to him there, and furnished 
 him with a company of one hundred and fourteen men, 
 and with these he passed along through the country 
 of the quarrelsome Batoka. Livingstone's observations 
 on natural history on this part of his journey are in- 
 cessant and deeply interesting to read. He makes a 
 useful contribution to our knowledge of the part played 
 by the termites (the so-called white-ants) in the creation 
 of the soil, a part somewhat analogous to the role filled 
 
 1 Possibly no monarch that ever lived had his or her name so widely 
 spread about the surface of the globe as is that of our good Queen. 
 In Africa she has the finest of lakes, the grandest of falls, a branch 
 of the Nile, the highest peak of the Cameroons Mountains, and a town 
 at its base called after her. In tropical America the most gigantic 
 water-lily in the world bears her name. In our little Chinese colony, 
 Hong-Kong, the capital is "Victoria." One of the highest points of 
 New Guinea is the "Victoria Peak" of the Owen Stanley Mountain. 
 The most flourishing colony of Australia, the capital of Vancouver 
 Island in North- West America, and many little-known rivers, islands, 
 mountains, lakes, towns, birds, beasts, butterflies, and plants, have 
 been christened with the same justly honoured name. 
 
 2 These seeds germinated, but the young saplings were devoured 
 by the hippopotamuses.
 
 LOANDA TO QUILIMANE ACROSS AtfKlCA. 183 
 
 by the earth-worm in more temperate regions, though 
 the action of the white-ant is vaster and speedier in 
 its effects. In his short essay on this subject (pp. 
 539, 540 of his "Missionary Travels in South Africa") 
 Livingstone forestalls Professor Henry Drummond, 
 whose pleasantly- written essay on the white-ant is no 
 doubt founded to a great extent on Livingstone's opinions 
 as well as on his own observations. 
 
 Passing along through the Batoka country and the 
 southern borders of the land inhabited by the Bashuku- 
 lombwe, and managing, with his usual tact, to appease 
 the suspicions of these people, who had never seen a 
 white man before, and only associated the idea of our 
 race with slave-raiding, 1 Livingstone crossed the Kafue 
 and the Loangwa, affluents of the Zambezi, and arrived 
 at Zumbo, where he first came in touch with Portuguese 
 influence on the Zambezi. Zumbo at the date of his 
 arrival (the isth January 1856) was entirely abandoned 
 by the Portuguese, who had withdrawn from this 
 advanced post of their East African dominions in the 
 early part of the nineteenth century. They were net 
 apparently forced to leave by the natives, but theii 
 garrison had taken alarm at the approach of a plun- 
 dering army, led by three chiefs, named Tshangamera, 
 Ngaba, and Mpakane, and had retreated to Tete. This 
 took place at the time of a general shrinkage of the 
 Portuguese power in East Africa, which was to a great 
 extent brought about by the damage and disorganisation 
 of the Portuguese kingdom caused by the Napoleonic 
 
 l Their only idea of white men being obtained from the descriptions 
 which had reached them of the half-caste Portuguese, who at that 
 time, as still more at the present day, were known far and wide as 
 merciless slave-raiders.
 
 184 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFK1UA. 
 
 invasion. Zumbo has since (1879) been reoccupied by 
 the Portuguese, but the following was the condition in 
 which Dr. Livingstone found it in 1856 : 
 
 " I walked about some ruins I discovered built of 
 stone, and found the remains of a church, and on one 
 side lay a broken bell with the letters I. H. S., and a 
 cross, but no date. . . . We found seven mango-trees 
 and several tamarinds, and were informed that the chief, 
 Mburuma, sends men annually to gather the fruit, but, 
 like many Africans whom I have known, has not had 
 patience to propagate more trees. . . . 
 
 " Next morning we passed along the bottom of the 
 range, called Mazanzwe, and found the ruins of eight or 
 ten stone houses. They all faced the river, and were 
 high enough up the flanks of the hill Mazanzwe to com- 
 mand a pleasant riew of the broad Zambezi. These 
 establishments had all been built on one plan a house 
 on one side of a large court, surrounded by a wall ; both 
 houses and walls had been built of soft grey sandstone, 
 cemented together with mud. The work had been per- 
 formed by slaves ignorant of building, for the stones 
 were not often placed so as to cover the seams below. 
 Hence you frequently find the joinings forming one 
 seam from the top to the bottom. Much mortar or 
 clay had been used to cover defects, and now trees of 
 the fig family grow upon the walls, and clasp them with 
 their roots. When the clay is moistened, masses of the 
 walls come down by wholesale. Some of the rafters and 
 beams had fallen in, but were entire, and there were 
 some trees in the middle of the houses as large as a 
 man's body. On the opposite or south bank of the 
 Zambezi, we saw the remains of a wall on a height 
 which was probably a fort, and the church stood at
 
 LOANDA TO QUILIMANE ACROSS AFRICA. 185 
 
 a central point, formed by the right bank of the 
 Loangwa and the left of the Zambezi. 
 
 " The situation of Zumbo was admirably well chosen 
 as a site for commerce. Looking backwards we see a 
 mass of high, dark mountains, covered with trees ; 
 behind us rises the fine high hill Mazanzwe, which 
 stretches away northwards along the left bank of the 
 Loangwa ; to the S.E. lies an open country with a small, 
 round hill in the distance called Tofulo. The merchants, 
 as they sat beneath the verandahs in front of their 
 houses, had a magnificent view of the two rivers at 
 their confluence, of their church at the angle, and of 
 all the gardens which they had on both sides of the 
 rivers. In these they cultivated wheat without irriga- 
 tion, and, as the Portuguese assert, of a grain twice the 
 size of that at Tete." 
 
 Two days after leaving Zumbo, Livingstone met a 
 man coming from one of the islands of the Zambezi with 
 a jacket and hat on. He was quite black, but was a 
 Portuguese subject of Tete. He informed the explorer 
 that that Portuguese settlement was at war with the 
 people of the chief Mpende, and advised Livingstone to 
 cross over to the south side of the Zambezi in order to 
 avoid the chief, who ruled on the north bank, and was 
 resolved to prevent the passage of white men through 
 his territories. However, when Livingstone proposed to 
 carry out this Portuguese negro's advice by borrowing 
 liis canoes to cross the river in, he declined to lend 
 them; consequently, in spite of his warnings, Livingstone 
 was obliged to continue his journey through Mpende's 
 country. Arrived at the village where this chief re- 
 iLied, their reception was a suspicious one ; but, as 
 usual, hostilities were avoided by patience and tact on
 
 186 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 the part of this great explorer, who probably possessed 
 the instinctive knowledge of how best to deal with 
 savages better than any Briton who has yet travelled 
 in Africa. Nevertheless, their reception from Mpende 
 and his people was both absurd and full of provocation. 
 Soon after Livingstone's arrival a party of Mpende's 
 people came close to his encampment, uttering strange 
 cries and waving some bright red substance. They then 
 lighted a fire with charms in it, and departed uttering 
 the same hideous screams as before. This was intended 
 to render the strangers' witchcraft powerless, and also 
 to scare them. When Livingstone's men went into the 
 village to endeavour to buy food, a man walked round 
 them making a noise like a lion. They were then called 
 upon to do homage to the chief, and when they complied 
 he presented them with some chaff, in mockery, as if it 
 were a gift of food. Livingstone, fearing that a fight 
 was inevitable, killed one of his oxen, so that his men 
 might have a good feast beforehand and fight on a full 
 stomach. He sent a leg of this ox to Mpende, who had 
 assembled all his available men under arms at a dis- 
 tance of about half a mile from Livingstone's camp. 
 After waiting some time in suspense, two old men made 
 their appearance, and said they had come to inquire who 
 he was. Livingstone replied, "I am a Lekoa." 1 The 
 old men then said, " We do not know that people. We 
 suppose you are a Mozungu, 2 the tribe with whom we 
 
 1 Koa or Kua (sing. Lekoa, pi. Makoa) is the name given by the 
 Betshuana to the English. 
 
 2 Mozungu or Muzungu (pi. Ba-zungu) is the name given by tho 
 Zambezi people to the Portuguese, white, yellow, and black. The 
 root, -zungo, is always the name applied to white men (or civilised 
 black men who are European subjects) by the Bantu tribes of East 
 Africa from the Zambezi to the River Tana, and Zanzibar to Tan- 
 ganyika.
 
 LOANDA TO QUILIMANE ACROSS AFRICA. 187 
 
 have been fighting." On Livingstone explaining to 
 them that he could not be a Portuguese, they allowed 
 themselves to be convinced, and said, in that case, "that 
 he must belong to that tribe that loves the black men." 
 Livingstone gladly replied in the affirmative. The two 
 old men then returned to Mpende, and, together with 
 others of his people whom Livingstone had met on 
 his way and treated with politeness, they spoke up so 
 strongly in his favour at the chief's council that Mpende 
 made friends with him and furnished him with canoes 
 to cross the Zambezi to the south bank. 
 
 All along this journey down the Zambezi, Living- 
 stone's men had constantly to supply themselves with 
 food by their daring deeds as hunters. They scarcely 
 ever caught sight of an elephant but he was doomed to 
 die sooner or later under their vigorous attacks. One 
 little incident, however, connected with their killing of 
 elephants, deserves mention, as illustrating the way in 
 which their leader adapted himself to the rules and 
 regulations of native chiefs whenever practicable. He 
 had ascertained that on the right bank of the Zambezi 
 he was in a country where the game-laws were very 
 strict, and that it was the custom that when game was 
 killed notice should be sent to the owner of the land on 
 which it had been killed, and that the meat should not 
 be cut up until the lord of the manor had appeared and 
 given permission. The owner of the soil was also en- 
 titled to a portion of the meat and one of the tusks in 
 the case of an elephant; in the case of a buffalo, the 
 left hind leg. Accordingly, when Livingstone's men 
 had killed an elephant on the south bank of the Zambezi, 
 near Tshikova, information was immediately sent to the 
 nearest chief, who despatched his messengers to give the
 
 188 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 requisite permission for the cutting up of the carcass, 
 and, in addition, a nice little present to Livingstone's 
 men for their skill as hunters. The elephant was 
 equitably divided into two parts, the natives carried 
 uway their share and one of the tusks, and the greatest 
 friendliness ensued. 
 
 Pursuing his road towards Tete, Livingstone nearly 
 got into difficulties with a powerful chief called Kato- 
 losa, whom he states in his book to be a degenerated 
 descendant of the once-powerful emperors of Mono- 
 motapa. Livingstone had studiously avoided the villages 
 of this chief, because he dreaded the heavy road-tax 
 which would be levied on his part; but, in spite of all 
 his precautions, he came into contact with Katolosa's 
 men, who threatened to send information to their chief 
 of Livingstone's attempt to pass through their country 
 without leave. He therefore had to purchase their 
 silence with two small tusks, and was thankful to be let 
 oiF so easily. This, however, was the last difficulty he 
 encountered in his march towards the east coast, for a 
 few miles farther brought him to the vicinity of Tete, 
 the capital town of the Portuguese on the Zambezi. 
 Before he reached that town, however, he was met by 
 two Portuguese officers and a company of soldiers who 
 had been sent with the materials for a civilised breakfasx/, 
 and a machilla, or sedan-chair, to convey Livingstone 
 in comfort to Tete. His Makololo thought that their 
 leader had been captured by armed men, but their fears 
 were soon allayed ; and although Livingstone had been 
 awakened by this party at two o'clock in the morning, 
 he ate ravenously of the meat which had been so 
 thoughtfully sent to him. " It was the most refreshing 
 breakfast I ever partook of ; . . . and this pleasure was
 
 LOANDA TO QUILIMANE ACROSS AFRICA. 189 
 
 enhanced by the news that Sebastopol had fallen and 
 the war was finished." 
 
 Major Tito Augusto d'Araujo Sicard, the Portuguese 
 commandant of Tete, received Livingstone with great 
 kindness, and did everything in his power to restore 
 him from the emaciated condition to which he was 
 reduced by his exhausting journeys. Livingstone's ap- 
 proach from the interior had been foreshadowed to 
 Major Sicard by the reports of some natives who had 
 preceded him down the Zambezi, and who had said, 
 alluding to his astronomical observations with the sex- 
 tant and the artificial horizon, that " the Son of God 
 had come, and he was able to take the sun down from 
 the heavens and place it under his arm." 
 
 Livingstone had reached Tete on the 3rd March 1856, 
 but his kind host, Major Sicard, would not allow him to 
 proceed immediately to the coast, because it was con- 
 sidered then to be the unhealthy season in the lands 
 bordering the sea. Livingstone spent his time at Tete 
 most profitably in collecting examples of the plants and 
 metals of the district which might prove valuable in 
 commerce. He had arranged with Major Sicard to 
 leave his Makololo behind at Tete whilst he proceeded 
 to England, and this gentleman gave them a large piece 
 of land on which they might build, and where they 
 might cultivate grain and vegetables whilst they main- 
 tained themselves with elephant-hunting and wood- 
 cutting. Having settled these affairs, therefore, Living- 
 stone left Tete on the 22nd April, and journeying down 
 the Zambezi as far as Mazaro, which is a little below the 
 African Lakes Company's modern station at Vicente, he 
 crossed overland to the Kwa-kwa River, and descended 
 this stream to Quilimane, following, in fact, the route to
 
 190 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA, u 
 
 the coast which is still the one in vogue, owing to the 
 laziness and want of enterprise on the part of both the 
 Portuguese and the English in developing the direct 
 route from the sea up the Zambezi River. 
 
 Livingstone reached Quiliinane (which is twelve miles 
 from the sea) on the 22nd May 1856, very nearly four 
 years after he had quitted Cape Town for the Zambezi. 
 He had been three years without hearing from his 
 family, and although there were no letters awaiting 
 him from them at Quilimane, he nevertheless received a 
 packet of newspapers and a letter from Admiral Trotter 
 which conveyed information of the welfare of his family 
 and the news of the world. H.M.S. Frolic had called at 
 Quilimane to inquire for him in the previous November, 
 and her captain had most considerately left a case of 
 wine, to which present her surgeon, with equal fore- 
 thought, had added a bottle of quinine. Livingstone's 
 joy, however, on reaching the coast was sadly embittered 
 by the news that Commander Maclure, Lieutenant Wood- 
 ruffe, and five men of H.M.S. Dart had been lost on the 
 bar of the Quilimane Kiver in coming to that place to 
 make inquiries about him. 
 
 As these visits of Her Majesty's ships-of-war had un- 
 fortunately not coincided with Livingstone's arrival at 
 Quilimane, he was obliged to wait at that unhealthy 
 place for about six weeks, at the end of which time H.M.S. 
 Frolic again arrived off Quilimane. She had brought 
 Livingstone abundant supplies for all his needs, and 
 ^150 to pay his passage home had been sent him by 
 his kind friend Mr. Thompson, the agent of the London 
 Missionary Society at Cape Town. The Admiral on the 
 Cape station had also sent him an offer of a passage to 
 the Mauritius, which Livingstone thankfully accepted.
 
 LOANDA TO QUILIMANE ACROSS AFRICA. 191 
 
 One more sad incident chequered the joy of his re- 
 turning. He had decided, after much consideration, to 
 take one of his best Makololo head-men with him to 
 England. This man's name was Sekwebu. He pleaded 
 very hard not to be separated from his master, and when 
 Livingstone said to him, " You will die if you go to a 
 country so cold as mine," he answered, " That is nothing ; 
 let me die at your feet." However, the strange- 
 ness of the life on the man-of-war and the wearying 
 journey over the waste of waters proved too much for 
 the balance of the poor savage's mind, and he went com- 
 pletely mad. After resisting ineffectual attempts to 
 restrain him, Sekwebu leapt overboard when the Frolic 
 arrived at Mauritius, and deliberately drowned himself 
 by holding himself under water by the chain cable. 
 
 After some stay at Mauritius, Livingstone started for 
 England by way of the Red Sea, and arrived at London 
 on the 1 2th December, having attained to lasting fame.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 
 
 BEFORE recounting the reception which Livingstone met 
 with on his return to England after his great journey 
 across the continent up and down the Zambezi, it may 
 be well to give at this juncture a general description of 
 that river, and of the countries through which it flows. 
 The Zambezi providing that we consider the Liba 
 branch to be the main river rises at a point in about 
 12 S. latitude and 25 E. longitude, on the slopes of a 
 great clump of mountains to which no g'enerz.1 name 
 has been given, but which are situated very nearly in 
 the middle of the continent, and are sufficiently remark- 
 able in that they give rise to both branches the Liba 
 and Kabompo of the Upper Zambezi, to the Kafukwe 
 or Kafue (one of the Zambezi's most important affluents), 
 and to the Lualaba and Luvira, two great tributaries of 
 the Upper Congo. More than half encircling the high 
 plateau, which is really a broadening-out of the acuter 
 ridges of mountains to the north, 1 the Zambezi-Liba 
 flows first westward, and then south-west, receiving in its 
 turn many little feeders from the Kif umaji marshes and 
 Lake Dilolo, and streams of longer course from the Kioko 
 or Tshibokwe plateau. The Zambezi then flows to the 
 
 1 The western edges of this plateau received the names the Piri 
 Hills anil the Monakadze Mountains. 
 
 192
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 193 
 
 south, and, at the southern angle of the parent plateau, 
 receives the Kabompo, which has almost equal claims to 
 be considered the main stream, but that it has not quite 
 such a long course as the Liba. Just below the junc- 
 tion of these two rivers another important but almost 
 unknown stream, the Lungo-e-bungo or Dung-e-ungo, 
 enters the Zambezi, coming from the far- distant west, 
 and rising in the high-lands of Lutshaze and Kioko 
 not very far to the east of Bihe, and therefore not much 
 more than 300 miles from the Atlantic. After the 
 junction of these three great streams (the Liba, the 
 Kabompo, and the Lungo-e-bungo), the united river, 
 which is now a powerful body of water, receives the 
 name of the Liambai, and flows through the exceedingly 
 fertile but swampy Barotse Valley, which appeared to 
 Livingstone to be the bed of an old lake. At the Gonye 
 Falls, however, which may be described as the outlet to 
 this valley, the river becomes much straitened in breadth 
 and compressed within a narrow rocky bed, and from 
 here to near Sesheke its navigability is hindered by 
 frequent rapids, and by the perfectly impassable Falls of 
 Gonye. A little distance beyond Sesheke is the junction 
 of the Zambezi-Liambai with the Tshobe. This latter 
 river, in its upper course, is called the K\vaudo, and 
 rises in the Lutshaze country, not far from the sources 
 of the Lungo-e-bungo. The Kwando, in its extreme 
 lower coast, appears to be somewhat doubtful in its 
 perennial flow, or at least its visible flow above the 
 surface of its bed. During the height of the dry 
 season, where it passes through the arid country of 
 Mbukushu, it apparently dries up for several months, 
 though the water still continues percolating through the 
 sand, several feet below the bed. It emerges, however, 
 
 o
 
 194 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 in the Tshobe Marsh, wherein it becomes divided into a 
 network of streams which reunite into one river and 
 enter the Zambezi under the name of both Tshobe and 
 Kwando. After this confluence the Zambezi, which has 
 been further increased in volume by numerous streams 
 flowing from the western versant of the Batoka plateau, 
 turns eastward and rolls on to the Victoria Falls, a zigzag 
 crack in a basaltic ridge. Between Rohlf's Island above 
 Sesheke to a little distance below the Victoria Falls the 
 Zambezi is only navigable in portions of its course ; but 
 when the river has broadened out after leaving the tor- 
 tuous chasm of the Victoria Falls, and has slowed down 
 somewhat from its impetuous rush, it once more becomes 
 navigable, with scarcely any insuperable obstacle, as far 
 as the rapids of Kariba; and even these, Livingstone 
 thought, might be passed when the river was in flood, 
 in which case the navigability would continue as far as 
 the Kebra-basa Rapids, a hundred miles above Tete. 
 
 After the Victoria Falls the river continues its eastern 
 direction for over a hundred miles, when it turns to the 
 north-east as far as its junction with the Kafue, a 
 stream of considerable length, which in the direction of 
 its course, as far as it has yet been imperfectly mapped 
 out, offers a curious parallel in miniature to the Upper 
 Zambezi. It is possible that this stream, the Kafukwe 
 or Kafue, was the Upper Zambezi in the days before 
 the Liambai had broken through a fissure in the basaltic 
 rocks, and when it flowed into a vast lake which covered 
 all the northern portion of Betshuanaland. After the 
 Kafue confluence the Zambezi takes a more eastern 
 direction, flows round the edge of a very mountainous 
 country, and receives on its left bank the important Lo- 
 angwa or Aroangoa River.
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 195 
 
 The Loangwa rises far to the north, on the edge of 
 the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau, and flows first south, 
 then south-west, and then, with a bold bend and many 
 wiggle-waggles, south again. Mi - . Alfred Sharpe has 
 recently navigated it in canoes from a point about 200 
 miles above its confluence with the Zambezi down to 
 that point where it enters the latter river. From the 
 mouth of the Loangwa the Zambezi flows pretty regu- 
 larly to the east, without any serious obstacles to navi- 
 gation (unless it be the Kakolole Rapids when the 
 level of the water is low), until the river enters the 
 deep gorge of Morumbua or Kebra-basa, 1 where it 
 descends nearly a thousand feet in a long succession of 
 cataracts and rapids, covering a distance of twenty or 
 thirty miles. At the end of these falls the river turns 
 to the south-east, and its navigability is resumed, not to 
 be wholly lost (though it becomes somewhat arduous in 
 the gorge of Lupata below Tete) from here to the sea. 
 Just below the important town of Tete, the Rifubwe, 
 which rises in the Kirk Mountains near the shores of 
 Nyasa, enters the Zambezi, and a little farther down 
 the Zambezi receives the Mazoe or Arwanya river, 
 coming from Mashonaland. After its junction with this 
 latter stream the Zambezi begins to open out into a very 
 broad river, strewn with countless islands. Just below 
 the Portuguese town of Sena the Zambezi bifurcates, 
 and one branch (the minor one) flows north-west to the 
 
 1 Sir J obn Kirk tells me, and I think it a most probable explana- 
 tion of this latter word, that Kebra-basa, which is the common name 
 given to these falls and rapids by the Portuguese, is a misspelling of 
 the Portuguese words Quebra baqo = " break-the-spleen," which is 
 not a bad word to express the fatigue felt by the native canoe-men 
 in endeavouring to force thoir canoes up such of the rapida as are not 
 quite impassable.
 
 196 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Shire round the island of Inyangoma. 1 Properly speali- 
 ing, the Shire River, coming from Lake Nyasa, enters 
 the Zambezi at the lake-like widening of its northern 
 branch, the Ziwe-Ziwe, and the two streams united 
 complete the circuit of Inyangoma Island, and rejoin 
 the broad main river opposite to the Portuguese settle- 
 ment of Shupanga. One more important stream (the 
 Zange) the Zambezi receives, and then the over-full river 
 begins to give, begins to distribute its waters over the 
 delta. First of all a kind of leakage occurs on the north 
 bank opposite Shupanga, and little streams run concur- 
 rently with the main river without apparent connection, 
 but being fed by underground filtration. These gather 
 strength as they run parallel to the Zambezi, and be- 
 come navigable at a place called Mopea (four miles from 
 the Zambezi banks) under the name of the Kwa-kwa, 
 which stream flows sluggishly to the Quilimane estuary. 
 No branch, however, visibly leaves the Zambezi till much 
 lower down, though there was formerly a short direct 
 outlet communicating with the Kwa-kwa. This is now 
 a dry grassy creek, except when the river rises in flood 
 during March and April, at which time there is actually 
 direct water communication between the Zambezi and 
 Quilimane. But the first branch of the river which is a 
 permanent outlet, and is indeed within the tidal influ- 
 ence, is the Tshinde, which leaves the left bank of the 
 Zambezi at a distance of nearly forty miles from the 
 sea, and following a very tortuous course, enters the 
 estuary of Nanombe. It has recently been discovered 
 that the Tshinde creek is the best bar of all the mouths 
 of the Zambezi, and offers the deepest and most navigable 
 entrance to that river from the sea. This fact was first 
 1 This branch is called the Ziwc-Ziwa.
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 197 
 
 published by Mr. Daniel Rankin in the early part of 
 1889, but it is supposed to have been known long before 
 to the local Portuguese, and it was certainly suspected 
 by Dr. Livingstone ; but the former, for reasons of their 
 own, were not anxious to draw attention to the Tshinde 
 creek, and the latter, through obstacles thrown in his 
 way by the Portuguese, was prevented from exploring 
 this outlet to the great river. The main Zambezi, under 
 the name of Kwama, is five or six miles broad where it 
 enters the sea, but as it has a very shallow and danger- 
 ous bar, it is impracticable for navigation. The other 
 mouths are the Inyamisengo or Kongoni, the Santa 
 Catarina, and the Melambe. 
 
 The navigability of the river for steamers and steam- 
 launches may be summarised as follows : 
 
 It is possible for steamers not drawing more than 
 one foot eight inches to navigate the Zambezi from the 
 Tshinde mouth to Tete all the year round, though, 
 during the height of the dry season, the Lupata Rapids 
 below Tete are somewhat dangerous to pass, on account 
 of hidden rocks ; and although this danger is removed 
 in flood-time by the much greater height of the river, 
 the difficulty of passing the rapids is increased on 
 account of the much greater volume of water which is 
 racing down the stream at the rate of six or seven miles 
 an hour. Above Tete the river can be navigated for 
 a short distance farther, until the force of the stream 
 becomes too strong in the vicinity of the Kebra-basa 
 Falls. These cataracts are, as I have said before, com- 
 pletely impassable to any known form of vessel. There 
 is a small strip of navigable river above them until you 
 come to the Kakolole Rapids which I believe can be 
 passed when the river is high. From the Kakolole
 
 193 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTEAL AFRICA. 
 
 there is no serious bar to navigation until you come 
 to Kariba, where there are more rapids, which are also 
 said to be passable at flood-time. Beyond Kariba there 
 are the Kansalo Rapids, not so difficult of passage 
 except when the river is too low, and then you can 
 steam or paddle to within a short distance of the Victoria 
 Falls. There is not much continuous navigation to be 
 had for a long way above the Victoria Falls until the 
 cataracts of Gonye have been passed ; after which the 
 Zambezi offers a stretch of unimpeded navigability up 
 to the junction of the Liba and Kabompo. 
 
 Almost all that we know of the geology of the Zambezi 
 Valley we learn from the works of Livingstone, who is 
 the only traveller in these regions that has paid any 
 attention to the subject. 
 
 In Lunda the lower part of the Zambezi Valley is 
 formed of ferruginous conglomerate on the surface. 
 Farther along its course the land is hardened sandstone 
 with madrepore holes, banks of gravel, and occasional trap 
 rocks cropping out. South of 12 N. latitude there are 
 large patches of soft calcareous tufa, with pebbles of 
 jasper and agates overlying horizontal trap rocks, amyg- 
 daloids with analcime ; and mesotype through which has 
 burst the basaltic rock, forming hills and showing that 
 the bottom of the valley consists of old silurian schists. 
 In the rapids of the upper part of the Zambezi, before its 
 confluence with the Tshobe, the rocks, which crop out in 
 the bed of the stream, and which, for some miles form 
 its bottom, are of black-brown trap or of hardened sand- 
 stone. A certain amount of disintegration in these rocks 
 is taking place near the water's edge owing to the action 
 of a kind of lichen, and which, as it were, eats into the 
 rock and absorbs much stony matter in its tissue.
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 199 
 
 The banks of the Tshobe are of soft calcareous tufa, 
 and the river has cut for itself a deep perpendicular- 
 sided bed. The plain through which it flows, according 
 to Livingstone, is covered with a deep stratum of tufa, 
 which he takes to be the deposit of an old lake. At 
 the confluence of the Tshobe with the Zambezi there is 
 a dyke of amygdaloid lying across the latter river which 
 contains crystals that are gradually dissolved by the 
 water and leave the rock with a worm-eaten appear- 
 ance. " It is curious to observe," writes Livingstone, 
 " that the water falling over certain rocks, as in these 
 instances, imbibes an appreciable, though necessarily 
 most minute, portion of the minerals they contain." 
 A large island called Mparia stands at the confluence 
 of the two rivers. This is composed of trap (zeolite, 
 probably mesotype) of a younger age than the deep 
 stratum of tufa in which the Tshobe has formed its bed, 
 for, at the point where they come together, the tufa 
 has been transformed into saccharoid and limestone. 
 
 When we come to the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi 
 we arrive at one of the most remarkable sights which 
 any river in the world has to show. 
 
 The broad Zambezi, flowing nearly due south and 
 1900 yards wide, is cleft by a chasm a crack in its bed 
 running athwart its course. The whole river plunges 
 precipitously down this chasm to a depth of about 360 
 feet, or, counting the depth of the water, say 400 feet. 
 The entire volume of water rolls clear over quite unbroken; 
 but after a descent of 400 feet the glassy cascade becomes 
 a seething, bubbling, boiling froth from which spring 
 upwards high into the air immense columns of steam- 
 like spray. On the extreme edge, on the very lip of the 
 chasm, there are four or five raised lumps of rock which
 
 200 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 have become islands densely covered with trees. To a 
 certain extent they break the uniform descent of the 
 whole breadth of the river. Beginning on the south 
 bank, there is first a fall of thirty-six yards in breadth, 
 and, of course, uniform in depth of descent to the rest of 
 the river. Then Boaruka, a small island, intervenes, 
 and there is only a thin veil of water descending over 
 the rock in front of it. Next comes a great fall with 
 a breadth of 573 yards: a projecting rock separates this 
 from a second great fall of 325 yards broad; farther 
 east stands Garden Island ; then comes a good deal of 
 the bare rock of the river-bed uncovered by a descent 
 of water, and beyond that a score of narrow falls, which 
 at the time of flood constL ite one enormous cascade of 
 nearly half a mile in breadth. Those falls, however, 
 which are between the islands are the finest, and there 
 is little apparent difference in their volume at any period 
 of the year. Theli- vast body of water, separating into 
 spurts of comet-like form, encloses in its descent a largo 
 volume of air, which, forced into the cleft to an unknown 
 depth, rebounds, and rushes up in a mass of vapour, 
 and forms three to six columns of steam or smoke-like 
 appearance, visible twenty miles distant. 1 On attaining 
 a height of 200 or 300 feet above the islands, this vapour 
 becomes condensed into a perpetual shower of fine rain, 
 which produces and sustains the most exuberant vege- 
 tation on the islands and on the neighbouring shores. 
 As might be imagined, the most beautiful rainbows of 
 more than semicircular extent play over the face of the 
 Falls. 
 
 1 Fi im the smoke-like semblance of this vapour and the terrific roar 
 of the descending river has been derived the picturesque native name 
 for the Falls, " Mosioatunya" = " smoke sounds (there)."
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 
 
 201 
 
 After the Zambezi has descended into this gulf, which 
 is nearly twice the depth of Niagara, its wonder does 
 not cease. Garden Island, almost in the centre of the 
 Falls, divides the cascade into two main branches at the 
 bottom of the gulf, which flow round a vapour-hidden 
 mass of rock, and reuniting in a boiling whirlpool, find 
 an outlet nearly at right angles to the fissure of the 
 Falls. This outlet is nearer to the eastern end of the 
 
 - - . 
 
 Sketch-Map of tfc 
 VICTORIA FALLS 
 
 of th.e Zambezi. 
 
 chasm than to its western extremity, and is no more 
 than thirty yards wide. Within these narrow limits the 
 Zambezi, which was over a mile wide when it plunged 
 down the Falls, rushes and surges south through this 
 extremely narrow channel for 130 yards, then abruptly 
 turns and enters a second chasm somewhat deeper and 
 nearly parallel with the first. Abandoning the bottom 
 of the eastern half of this second chasm to the growth
 
 202 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 of the large trees, it turns sharply oft' to the west, and 
 forms a promontory of over 1000 yards long, by 400 
 yards broad at the base. After reaching this base the 
 river runs abruptly round the head of another pro- 
 montory, and flows away to the east in a third chasm ; 
 then glides round the third promontory, much narrower 
 than the rest, and away back to the west in a fourth 
 chasm ; and after that it rounds still another promontory, 
 and bends once more in another chasm towards the east, 
 after which the extraordinary zigzags of this gigantic 
 yet narrow trough become softened down into a wider, 
 less abysmal gulf, which broadens and straightens as the 
 river flows eastward in an easier descent. 
 
 In the abrupt turnings of the sharply-cut trough the 
 promontories of rock are flat and smooth, and reduced 
 to quite a narrow ledge at their extremities, so that it 
 would be dangerous to walk to the end. But the re- 
 markable feature of these rocky zigzags is, that their 
 surface is almost on a general level with the upper bed 
 of the Zambezi above the Falls. In fact, one can imagine 
 that, before this strange crack in the basaltic rock was 
 formed in the bed of the Zambezi, the river flowed in 
 undiminished breadth over the basaltic bottom, which 
 had not then been riven with a zigzag chasm 400 feet 
 in depth and thirty to forty feet broad. 
 
 Below the Victoria Falls the formation of the Zam- 
 bezi Valley is mostly white mica schist and gneiss. This 
 is succeeded by black mica with out-cropping granite, 
 and to the north of the Zambezi, in the Batoka country, 
 this granite may be seen thrusting up great masses of 
 mica schist and quartz, and making the strata fall over 
 them on each side, "like clothes hung up on a line," 
 the uppermost stratum being always pink marble dolo-
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 203 
 
 mite or bright white quartz. In one or two places near 
 the valley of the Kafue there are hot springs and 
 conical hills of igneous rocks. Beyond the confluence 
 of the Kafue with the Zambezi the rocks are igneous, 
 and contain specular and magnetic iron ; there are also 
 veins of finely laminated porphyry and granite. More 
 hot fountains appear in this district Near the con- 
 fluence of the Zambezi and the Loangwa the rocks are 
 of various-coloured mica schist, and parallel with the 
 Zambezi lies a broad belt of gneiss with garnets in it. 
 It stands on edge, and several dykes of basalt with dolo- 
 mite have cut through it. The surface-soil in this dis- 
 trict contains so much comminuted talc and mica from 
 the neighbouring hills that " it seems as if mixed with 
 spermaceti." l Between Tete and Zumbo the rocks are 
 mainly sandstone overlying coal; trap dykes, syenitic 
 porphyry dykes, black vesicular trap (penetrating the 
 clay shale of the country and converting it into por- 
 cellanite and partially crystallising the coal). On this 
 sandstone lie fossil palms and coniferous trees (Arau- 
 caria), converted into silica. 
 
 At the Kebra-basa Rapids the chief rock is syenite, 
 some portions of which have a beautiful blue like Idpis- 
 lazuli diffused through them : blocks of granite also 
 abound of a pinkish tinge ; and these, with metamorphic 
 rocks contorted and thrown into every conceivable 
 position, "afford a picture of dislocation or unconform- 
 ability which would gladden a geological lecturer's 
 heart." 2 In the dry season the stream of the Zambezi 
 runs at the botton of a narrow and deep groove in this 
 gorge of Kebra-basa, the sides of which are polished 
 and fluted by the whirling action of the water in flood. 
 1 Livingstone. * Ibid.
 
 204 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 The breadth of the groove is often not more than forty 
 to sixty yards, and it has some sharp turnings, double 
 channels, and little cataracts in it. The depth of the 
 river here in flood-time is more than seventy feet. Huge 
 pot-holes as large as draw-wells have been worn in the 
 sides, and are very deep. Some of these holes have been 
 worn right through, and only the side next the rock 
 remains. 
 
 Below Tete igneous rocks crop out again with hot 
 fountains, and this formation would seem to extend 
 northwards along the valley of the Rifubwe to the west 
 shores of Lake Nyasa, and down the Zambezi to near 
 Sena, after which we come to a region of calcareous tufa 
 which shows signs of having been at one time an inlet 
 of the sea. 
 
 Throughout all this Zambezi region iron seems to be 
 present in greater or less quantities. Gold is found in 
 the river-valleys and rocks from Zumbo to Sena, and 
 in the regions to the north and south of the Zambezi 
 Valley ; in fact, in a regular belt running north and south 
 from the Transvaal to Tanganyika. Copper also is pre- 
 sent, and is to a certain extent associated in locality 
 with the gold. 
 
 Livingstone considered that there was a vast coal-field 
 stretching from the Zambezi between Tete and Zumbo 
 to the banks of the Rovuma River in the north-east. 
 This supposition is strangely borne out by the more 
 recent discoveries of coal on the west shore of Lake 
 Nyasa. The conjunction of coal and iron he considers 
 auspicious for the future development of industries and 
 manufactures in these lands. He also points out the 
 abundance of pink and white marble dolomites along 
 the course of the Zambezi between Zumbo and Tete, and
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 205 
 
 the utter ignorance of the Portuguese that by burning 
 these substances they might obtain lime, for which at 
 the time of his visits to the Zambezi they had to send 
 all the way to Mozambique. It is interesting to note, 
 in connection with this, that the African Lakes Company 
 has obtained excellent lime from the marbles found in 
 the Shire Highlands and on Lake Nyasa, 
 
 The researches of Sir John Kirk, Dr. Peters, and 
 a few others have shown that the flora of the Zam- 
 bezi Valley is as rich in genera and species as almost 
 any part of Africa ; yet, except in the extreme upper 
 portion of the Zambezi course, where it flows through 
 the Lunda country, there are but few fine forests along 
 its banks ; that is to say, forests of the West African 
 character of tropical vegetation. In fact, as regards 
 both flora and fauna, that part of the Upper Zambezi 
 which goes by the name of Liba may be said to be 
 within the West African sub-region, while the whole 
 remainder of the lands through which the river flows 
 belong, in the character of their flora and fauna, to the 
 more generalised, less forested Ethiopian subdivision. 
 
 On those parts of the river which have a sluggish 
 course through tracts of marsh, the beautiful papyrus 
 grass may be seen growing, often over immense areas ; 
 and in all the little sheltered bays and inlets and side- 
 marshes of the river that curious large duck-weed, the 
 Pistia stratiotes, is found. This plant is exactly like a 
 lettuce in superficial appearance. As it grows it sends 
 out a strong horizontal side root, from which springs up 
 another plant, and this again gives rise to a third, and 
 so on ; so that in time, if left undisturbed, this Pistia 
 stratiotes forms a regular mat of vegetation on the sur- 
 face of the water, which effectually impedes the progress
 
 206 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 of a boat and becomes a very serious obstacle to the 
 paddles or screw of a steamer. Yet, as it is a most 
 delicious shade of pure, pale green, with a faint bluish 
 bloom on it, the appearance, to an artist, of one of these 
 quiet inlets of the river, looking like a perfectly flat 
 lawn of compact uniform lettuces, is very pretty, especi- 
 ally with the dainty chocolate-coloured ja^anas (Farm 
 Africana) walking over its surface with their spider-like 
 toes. These masses of huge duck-weed, however, are 
 never met with where there is a strong stream, and the 
 annual floods of the Zambezi constantly break up their 
 floating fields of vegetation and sweep them down over 
 the rapids and cataracts into the more sluggish reaches 
 of the lower river, where they become matted together, 
 and with the grasses and other aquatic plants, which 
 grow on and amid them, form those curious floating 
 islands of vegetation which are carried out to sea from 
 the mouths of the big Tropical African rivers. Several 
 other Gyperus grasses besides the papyrus grow in abund- 
 ance along the Zambezi, and for miles and miles along 
 its banks you see serried ranks of reeds of the genus 
 Andropogon. These reeds bear large heads of creamy- 
 white flower-tufts, almost as big as those of the pampas 
 grass, and as the wind blows across the marshes it sways 
 them into wave-like undulations, whereon the great 
 white heads of blossom appear like flecks of foam crest- 
 ing the billows of shining green leaf-blades beneath. 
 These grasses, however, cease to inspire one with 
 admiration for their beauty when it is a question of 
 forcing one's way through them on land or in canoes, 
 in which case they call forth execrations, from the 
 sword-like nature of their long stiff leaves. These not 
 only prick you with their points, but their edges are of
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 207 
 
 razor-like sharpness, and if drawn quickly across the 
 surface of the skin will cut severely. 
 
 Considerable portions of the lands bordering the 
 Zambezi, especially from its source to the Victoria 
 Falls, and from Tete to the Delta, are admirably suited 
 in their natural conditions to the cultivation of rice, 
 and already in most parts of the Lower Zambezi this 
 grain (introduced by the Arabs and the Portuguese) is 
 grown to a considerable extent by the natives. Under 
 careful management its cultivation might be increased 
 to an enormous extent, and if the right sort of rice 
 were planted, the Zambezi would become one of the 
 greatest and most profitable rice-growing districts in 
 the world. The rice grown by the Arabs on the shores 
 of Lake Nyasa is of the best possible quality. Other 
 cultivated grains in this region are the Holcus sorghum, 
 the Pennisetum, and maize, which is grown almost every- 
 where and thrives exceedingly. Livingstone speaks of 
 wheat being cultivated in places by the Portuguese, but I 
 have never seen any corn myself that has come from 
 the Zambezi. On the high-lands on either side of the 
 river-valley there is no doubt wheat might be grown 
 with very great success. In the same latitudes, and in 
 much the same sort of country, on the Wila plateau 
 behind Mossamedes, the Boers have succeeded in grow- 
 ing crops of wheat of Scriptural abundance. A species 
 of bamboo is noticed by Livingstone on the hills border- 
 ing the Upper Zambezi. 1 
 
 1 No doubt the same species which reappears in the Shire High- 
 lands to the south of Lake Nyasa, and again in the mountains at the 
 north end of that lake, and in those bordering on the south end of 
 Tanganyika. The bamboos, though they have several species of their 
 genus indigenous to Africa, are not nearly as widespread or common 
 in that continent as they are in Tropical Asia.
 
 208 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 In variety of species and genera the palms of the Zambezi 
 are not remarkable, though they make up for this some- 
 what by the abundance in numbers of the few kinds 
 which are found there. The commonest genus is the 
 Borassus the well-known fan-palm. It is represented 
 by one or two species, and the Hyphxne palm appears to 
 be found in this region in the form of the Hyplixne 
 ventricosa. A wild date (Phoenix spinosd) is very com- 
 monly met with, generally growing as a low bush. Of 
 course, the coco-nut palm is found in the Delta and up 
 as far as Tete, in the vicinity of human habitations, but 
 it is not a native of the country, or even of the East 
 African sea-coast, whither it has been brought by the 
 Arabs and Portuguese. It is possible that a species of 
 Calamus climbing- palm may be found in the forest region 
 of the Upper Liba, but its existence has not yet been 
 definitely reported. Livingstone mentions the Oil-palm, 
 however, as penetrating to this upper portion of the 
 Zambezi watershed, and I have myself seen a species of 
 Elais in the Zambezi Yalley, though whether it was the 
 well-known Elais guineensis I was not able to deter- 
 mine. Practically speaking, as far as the average unob- 
 servant traveller is concerned, the only kinds of palm to 
 be commonly seen in the Zambezi Valley are the Borassiis 
 and the wild date. 
 
 Cycads are not infrequently found in the vicinity 
 of the Zambezi, from Tete to the confluence of tho 
 Kabompo. 
 
 Aloes, dracaenas, and lilies are abundantly represented 
 by numerous and in the case of the lilies very beau- 
 tiful species. Crinum is the commonest lily genus, and 
 has species that are white, pink and white, and even 
 scarlet in their blooms. To see, as one may do towards
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 209 
 
 the close of the rainy season, fields near the river's bank 
 or glades in the forest an almost uninterrupted sheet of 
 lily blooms for several acres in extent, is a sight so lovely 
 that you pardon Africa all its sins on the spot. A wild 
 species of Musa (plantain) is found in the Zambezi 
 regions. I do not know whether it is Musa ensete or 
 another kind closely allied to it. Its hard, round, black 
 seeds are frequently converted into ornaments by the 
 natives. 
 
 After the first rains the Zambezi Valley and all the 
 countries near it, no matter how rocky or stony their 
 nature, are covered with innumerable blooms of various 
 species of Amomum, which grow close to the ground, 
 blossom before the appearance of the leaf-shoots, are of 
 the size and somewhat of the appearance of extremely 
 large crocuses, and, like the varieties of cultivated crocus, 
 are an intense purple, a bright yellow, pure white, or pale 
 mauve in colour. The flowers are afterwards succeeded 
 by large bright red seed-pods, which contain the " grains 
 of Paradise " so much sought after for making spices. 
 
 This part of Africa is not remarkably rich in the 
 variety of its orchids, and those genera which are repre- 
 sented are chiefly of a terrestrial, not an epiphytic nature 
 (except, of course, in the forest country of the Lunda, 
 where parasitic orchids abound). The orchids chiefly 
 found in the Zambezi countries belong to that beautiful 
 genus Lissochilus, which presents us here with some five or 
 six different species bearing flowers of mauve-red, mauve 
 and white, mauve and green, white, and yellow colours. 
 A beautiful species of Eulophia, which has flowers of a 
 vivid orange colour, is also terrestrial, as are the various 
 kinds of Habenaria, Satyrium (one of which has flowers 
 of an ultramarine blue), and Disa which are found on the
 
 210 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFKICA. 
 
 islands or in the marshes of the Zambezi Basin. A few 
 species of Angnecum are found as epiphytes among the 
 trees near the sea-coast. 
 
 The Gladioli are numerous and beautiful, the flowers 
 in some species being of strange, indefinable tints of 
 flame-colour and grey-purplish-green. 
 
 The chief trees of commercial value or remarkable 
 appearance found in the Zambezi Valley are several 
 kinds of Vitex (some of which bear seeds containing a 
 valuable oil); fig-trees with pendulous roots from the 
 branches and a viscous sap which produces rubber; 
 Candelabra Euphorbias ; various kinds of ebony (Dios- 
 pyros) ; Baphias, with timber of a bright red colour ; 
 Copaifera guibourtiana (yielding a, valuable gum), and 
 C. Mopane, the " iron- wood " tree found all over the 
 Zambezi Basin, but especially abundant in dry plains, 
 where it forms monotonous shadeless forests; Trachy- 
 lobium hornemannianum, which produces the copal gums 
 of commerce ; the Tamarind, with its delicious acid 
 fruit ; Parinariums, with edible drupes ; many Acacias ; 
 and Papilionaceous trees, such as Loncliocarpus, grow- 
 ing like a laburnum and decked with masses of violet 
 blossom. There are also the lofty JSrythrophlxum (from 
 whose bark is obtained a violent poison), the Sterculia, 
 and the Eriodendron, with their buttressed trunks and 
 crowns of deciduous foliage. 
 
 Numerous creepers and Convolvuli behang the forests, 
 most of them producing the most gorgeous show of 
 vivid-coloured flowers. One of these twining plants, 
 the Landolpliia florida, is a source of rubber-supply. I 
 might note, amongst other useful plants and shrubs of 
 the Zambezi district, the indigo, the various species of 
 wild cotton, the coffee-shrub, the castor-oil plant, and
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 211 
 
 the hemp-producing Hibiscus. Whatever this region 
 may have to complain of in sparseness of forests, it can 
 vie with any country in the world for the beauty and 
 vivid colouring of its flowers. It is also likely to find a 
 market for the valuable drugs which are to be obtained 
 from many of its trees and plants. 
 
 As regards the zoology of the Zambezi Basin, Living- 
 stone well remarks that there are few parts of Africa 
 which are so remarkable for the abundance of beasts, 
 birds, and fishes as the Zambezi Valley and its waters. 
 Especially numerous are the water -fowl in those coun- 
 tries bordering the river's course where the lands are 
 open, flat, and swampy, such as the Barotse Valley and 
 the lower part of the Zambezi from Tete to the sea. 
 Here are the ideal haunts and homes of pink and white 
 Tantalus storks ; of the tall, green-black and white and 
 concave-billed jabiru ; of the bald-headed, naked-cropped, 
 disreputable marabu; of darters and cormorants and 
 grey-white pelicans ; of chocolate-coloured jacands ; of 
 substantial-looking spur-winged geese, knob-nosed geese, 
 yellow-brown Egyptian geese, tree-ducks, and African 
 teal ; of the filthy-feeding, chocolate-brown Scopus um- 
 bretta ; of stilt-plovers, yellow -wattled lapwings, and big 
 blue-green, red-beaked rails ; of giant herons, white 
 egrets, tiger-bitterns, dark-purple herons, fawn-coloured 
 and blue-grey night-herons ; of spoonbills ; of the Sacred 
 Ibis of the Upper Nile, with its naked head and neck of 
 inky-black, its back plumes of the same tint, and its 
 remaining plumage of snowy-white, and of the Hagedash 
 Ibis (whose colours are a gorgeous, glossy, blue-grey-red 
 and golden-green) ; of red-beaked screaming terns, and 
 scissorbills ; of the black and white fishing-vulture, and 
 the splendid white-headed, chocolate- bodied fish-eagle,
 
 Z1Z L,lVlJNCrSTONlG AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 whose cheerful screams are the dominant note through- 
 out the land ; of the lovely, crested peacock crane (one 
 of the most beautiful of birds) ; of the huge Demoiselle 
 crane of ultra-elegant shape and uniform dove-grey 
 colour; and of other coursing, stalking birds who fre- 
 quent the reclaimed grass flats in preference to the 
 permanent swamps. 
 
 Francolins and guinea-fowl abound along the banks 
 of the Zambezi ; fruit-pigeons and blue-green or grey 
 touracoes hide in the bushy trees which border the 
 river's brim. The beautiful Narina trogon the only 
 genus of the Trogonida} found in Africa is frequently 
 met with in the Zambezi forests, and is a strikingly 
 gaudy bird, with its scarlet -crimson breast and iride- 
 scent emerald -beryl -green back. Another lovely bird- 
 form particularly common in Zambezi is the crimson 
 bee-eater, 1 which is of the same gorgeous combination of 
 crimson and green as the Narina trogon. Of this bee- 
 eater Livingstone writes : "It loves to breed in society. 
 The face of a sandbank is perforated with hundreds of 
 holes leading to the bee-eaters' nests, each one of which 
 is about a foot apart from the other, and as we pass 
 them the birds pour out of their hiding-places and float 
 overhead." 
 
 Other interesting birds common in the Zambezi coun- 
 tries are the honey-guide, 2 which chirrups in front of men 
 till it leads them to the place where the wild bees have 
 stored their honey (a piece of the comb is then tossed to it 
 
 1 Aferops bullockoides. I have seen a little colony of a hundred or 
 so of these birds perched on the branches of a low shrub near the river- 
 side, and said to my companions, "Just look at the splendid mass of 
 flowers on that tree," when, at the sound of my voice, the flowers 
 suddenly flew away and left the branches bare and uninteresting. 
 
 2 Indicator.
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 213 
 
 as a reward), and the rhinoceros and buffalo birds, 1 which 
 are severally a starling and a weaver-bird, and which, 
 in their special relations with the rhinoceros and the 
 buffalo, exhibit other quaint instances of profitable part- 
 nerships between diverse animal forms, such as we see 
 in dog and man, honey-bird and honey-loving man, the 
 spur-winged plover and the crocodile, the pilot-fish and 
 the shark. While acting the part of guardian spirits to 
 the rhinoceros and buffalo, these birds at the same time 
 feed on the parasites which infest their large friends. 
 When the buffalo is quietly grazing, the red-billed weaver- 
 bird may be seen hopping on the ground snapping up 
 insects and other food, or sitting on the buffalo's back 
 picking off the ticks with which its skin is infested. The 
 sight of this bird being more acute than that of the 
 buffalo, it is soon alarmed by the approach of danger, 
 and, by flying up, apprises the buffalo of its suspicions. 
 When the big beast gallops away from the approach of 
 the slinking lion or the human hunter, the little weaver- 
 bird sits calmly on its back and is borne off to fresh 
 fields and pastures new. The other bird, the Buphaga 
 Africana, which attends the rhinoceros, is such a faithful 
 satellite that he furnishes a simile for loyal dependence 
 to the Betshuana, who, when they wish to express their 
 complete subservience to another person, address him 
 as "my rhinoceros," comparing themselves to the rhino- 
 ceros-bird. "This bird," says Livingstone, "cannot be 
 said to depend entirely on the insects on that animal, 
 for its hard, hairless skin is a protection against all ex- 
 cept a few spotted ticks ; but it seems to be attached to 
 the beast, somewhat as the domestic dog is to man ; and 
 
 1 Buphaga africana and Textor crythrorhyncus. The first-named 
 is a peculiar starling, and the second a red-billed weaver-bird.
 
 214 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 while the buffalo is alarmed by the sudden flying up of 
 its sentinel, the rhinoceros, not having keen sight, but 
 an acute ear, is warned by the cry of its associate, the 
 Bupliaga africana. The rhinoceros feeds by night, and 
 its sentinel is frequently heard in the morning uttering 
 its well-known call, as it searches for its bulky com- 
 panion. One species of this bird, observed in Angola, 
 possesses a bill of a peculiar scoop-shaped form, which 
 is intended only to tear off insects from the skin ; and 
 its claws are as sharp as needles, enabling it to hang 
 on to a beast's ear, while performing a useful service 
 within it. This sharpness of the claws allows the bird 
 to cling to the nearly insensible cuticle without irritating 
 the nerves of pain on the true skin, exactly as a burr 
 does to the human hand ; but in the case of the Buphaga 
 africana and Textor erythrorhyncus, other food is partaken 
 of, for we observed flocks of them roosting on the reeds, 
 in spots where neither tame nor wild animals were to 
 be found." 
 
 To some extent the Zambezi acts as a boundary in the 
 distribution of certain animals, but it would seem as 
 though this were rather owing to the agency of man, 
 who has possibly broken the continuity of the habitat of 
 beasts and birds of the chase, for many of them are of 
 a nature to be scarcely checked in their range from 
 north to south by the intervention of a river which at 
 certain times of the year they could swim or ford. In 
 the case of the ostrich, however, it is just possible that 
 the Zambezi, ever since it took to flowing into the 
 Indian Ocean, may have served as a complete barrier in 
 obstructing the range of this bird from the south north- 
 wards ; because I believe that ostriches would not be 
 able to cross any depth of water, and as they equally
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 215 
 
 object to a densely-forested country, they could not 
 overcome this obstacle by going round the sources of the 
 Zambezi, as to do so they must pass through the dense 
 forests of Lunda. 
 
 The range of the ostrich in Africa is a very curious 
 problem. In the desert regions of Northern Africa and 
 Arabia, from, roughly speaking, the southern slope of 
 the Atlas Mountains and the shores of the Mediterranean 
 to the Upper Niger, the countries of Bornu, Wadi, Dar- 
 fur, and the valley of the Nile as far south as about 
 10 S. latitude, and then skirting the north of Abyssinia 
 to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, we have the com- 
 mon ostrich. 1 In the eastern horn of Africa (Somali- 
 and Galla-lands), and down through the country between 
 Victoria Nyanza and the Indian Ocean as far south as 
 the lands of Wunyamwezi and Ugogo, there is a second 
 species of ostrich, Struthio danaoides, which is distin- 
 guished from the common species, S. camelus^ by the 
 colouring of the soft parts and naked skin, and the size 
 and markings of the egg; also, it is generally believed, 
 by the poorer character of the plumes. After this there 
 is, as far as we yet know, a gap in the continuous dis- 
 tribution of the ostrich, which has not yet been found 
 in the lands to the east and west of Lake Nyasa, or in 
 Western Africa between the twelfth degree of latitude 
 north and south of the equator. In the interior of 
 South- West Africa, behind Mossamedes and Benguela, 
 and on the south bank of the Zambezi, from the con- 
 fluence of the Tshobe to the Indian Ocean, and thence 
 right away to the extremity of South Africa, the ostrich 
 
 1 This bird ranged over much of North-Western India and Persia, 
 and as far north as the confines of Armenia down to the historical 
 period.
 
 216 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 reappears, and in the form of the common species, S. 
 caniehis, not in that of its nearest neighbour, S. danaoides. 
 What has caused this curious break in the range of the 
 ostrich 1 Why should it be found on the south bank of 
 the Zambezi and not on the north, in a country precisely 
 the same in its natural features ? Why should it in- 
 habit Wunyamwczi, and yet not frequent the very similar 
 lands to the east of Lake Nyasa ? These are questions 
 which, with our present imperfect knowledge of the 
 countries they affect, it is not easy to answer. 
 
 To a certain extent the rhinoceros is affected much in 
 the same way by the Zambezi in its area of distribution. 
 The white species (Rhinoceros simus now, alas ! extinct) 
 was never met with north of the Zambezi ; and the com- 
 mon black species (R. licornis) is, Livingstone thought, 
 also absent from the lands lying immediately to the 
 north of the Zambezi, though this dictum has since 
 been disproved in its sweeping character by other 
 travellers, such as Mr. Richard Crawshay and myself, 
 who have certainly seen the rhinoceros in the country 
 to the west of Lake Nyasa and near the south end of 
 Tanganyika, though it is far from common in those 
 regions. The existence of the rhinoceros has not yet 
 been reported in that wide stretch of country between 
 Lake Nyasa and the Indian Ocean, though the beast 
 has been met with frequently throughout the countries 
 which separate Tanganyika from the Zanzibar coast. 
 From here the rhinoceros, in its area of distribution, 
 stretches up through the lands eastward of the Victoria 
 Nyanza (wherein it is particularly abundant) into the 
 Egyptian Sudan, Somaliland, Abyssinia, Arabia, Darfur, 
 Wadai, Bornu, Sakatu, and (it is said) into a portion of 
 the country enclosed by the bend of the Upper Niger.
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 217 
 
 I do not think it is known in Senegal, but as in other 
 respects Senegal belongs to the Ethiopian sub-region and 
 not to the West African, I should never be surprised to 
 hear of the rhinoceros being found there. 
 
 Another big beast that is checked in its range by the 
 Zambezi is the giraffe. The distribution of this modern 
 representative of the Sivatherium follows very closely 
 that of the rhinoceros. Wherever you meet with the 
 rhinoceros, you are almost certain to see the giraffe. 
 Livingstone supposes that this latter beast is not found 
 on the north side of the Zambezi, and perhaps he is right 
 as far as regards the vicinity of the river (though it is ex- 
 ceedingly abundant on the south bank) ; but Mr. Alfred 
 Sharpe, a good observer and sportsman, has recently 
 informed the present writer that he has seen the giraffe 
 in the lands near the middle course of the Loangwa, and 
 between that river and Lake Nyasa. It has been also 
 said that the giraffe is met with at the back of Mofam- 
 bique, but no proof of this assertion has been given. 
 The nearest district to the Zambezi coming from the 
 north in which I myself have ever found traces of the 
 giraffe was in the country near Lake Rukwa, consider- 
 ably to the north of Lake Nyasa. 
 
 There are also a few other forms, chiefly rodents, which 
 are met with on the south bank of the Zambezi, and 
 thence right away to the extremity of South Africa, but 
 not on the north side of that river. The Cape hunting- 
 dog (Lycaon venator), though not absent, is far rarer on 
 the northern side of the Zambezi. The gemsbok (Oryx 
 gazella) is not found on the north bank of the Zambezi, 
 and indeed going northwards no other species of Oryx 
 appears until you reach the northern parts of Wunyam- 
 wezi and meet with Oryx leisa. There are numerous
 
 218 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 other mammals (which perhaps it would be tedious to 
 catalogue) that share this peculiarity of distribution 
 with the ostrich, rhinoceros, giraffe, hunting-dog, and 
 oryx. There is, in fact, a distinct gap in the continuous 
 area ranged over by these genera and species, which 
 extends northwards of the Zambezi from the boundary 
 of the West African region to the south end of Tan- 
 ganyika, and right across from there to the Indian 
 Ocean. The only plausible reasons I can suggest to 
 explain these facts are, firstly, the alteration of the 
 course of the Zambezi, which, from flowing due south 
 into a large inland lake (of which Ngami and the salt- 
 pans are the nucleus), was suddenly diverted into its 
 present channel across the continent into the Indian 
 Ocean ; and, secondly, the disturber of all things, man. 
 The Arabs, it must not be forgotten, introduced firearms 
 into East - Central Africa, and especially the Nyasa 
 region, nearly a hundred years ago, and for a much 
 longer time north of the Zambezi than south of it the 
 people have been pursuing the big game with superior 
 weapons. 
 
 The marshes of the Upper Zambezi and the Tshobe 
 shelter two very remarkable antelopes which have become 
 specially adapted to an aquatic life. Except in the com- 
 munity of habits and special fitness for an amphibious 
 existence, they are not connected one with another by 
 descent .or affinity, for one of them, the " letshwe " 
 (Cobus letshwe) belongs to the great gazelline sub-family 
 of ring-horned antelopes, goats, and sheep ; and the 
 other, the " nakofi " (Tragelaphiis speldi), belongs to 
 the same group as the eland, kudu, and other Tragela- 
 phince, which are ruminants more nearly allied to the 
 oxen in some respects than to the ring-horned antelopes,
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 219 
 
 The Cobus letshwe is replaced on parts of the south 
 bank of the Tshobe by a nearly-allied species, the 
 " mpuku " (Cobus vardoni), not of such a wholly water- 
 loving character as the "letshwe." This latter animal 
 is usually to be seen standing knee-deep or even up to 
 its belly in water, cropping the grass above the water's 
 surface, or else lying just on the water's edge. When 
 the letshwes run they stretch out their noses and trot ; 
 but on being pressed they break into a springing gallop, 
 now and then bounding high into the air. Even when 
 in water up to their necks they do not swim, but get 
 along by a succession of bounds, making a tremendous 
 splashing, though not as fast as the natives can paddle ; 
 and when the country is flooded great numbers are 
 driven into deep water and speared. The feet of the 
 letshwe do not show any marked adaptation to an 
 aquatic life. The hoofs are small, and the skin above 
 the toes is covered with hair. But in the Tragelaphus 
 spekii, as in the allied species, T. grains, the under-side 
 of the foot is naked, the false hoofs are much prolonged, 
 and the front hoofs are greatly enlarged, lengthened, and 
 flattened, so that the animal is a clumsy walker. The 
 nakofi, or Tragdaplius spekii, is chiefly limited in its 
 distribution over South-Central Africa to the Upper 
 Zambezi, the Tshobe, and the districts about Lake 
 Ngami, though it reappears again in the marshes of 
 Bangweolo and of the Victoria Nyanza, where it was 
 discovered by Speke. The hair is long and silky, and 
 of a uniform greyish-brown, altogether devoid of those 
 spots and stripes which are so characteristic of the 
 Tragelaphince, though Mr. Selous tells us that the young 
 of the nakofi, especially in the foetal stage, are spotted and 
 striped like a bush-buck. Livingstone says of it : " This
 
 220 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 animal has more of ' paunchiness ' than any antelope 
 I ever saw ; " and Selous remarks that it is a very thick- 
 set, clumsy-looking beast. The hair, though long, would 
 seem to be rather sparse, and it would appear that this 
 creature is gradually becoming more adapted to a water- 
 life by losing its hair, after the fashion of other water- 
 loving mammals, such as the hippopotamus, manatee and 
 porpoise, the river-pigs, and the elephant. The gait of 
 the nakon on land closely resembles the gallop of a 
 dog when tired. It feeds by night, and lies hid among 
 the reeds and marshes all day ; when pursued, it dashes 
 into sedgy places containing water, and immerses the 
 whole of its body, leaving only the tips of the nose and 
 the points of the horns exposed. 
 
 In the countries bordering the Liba and in part of 
 the Barotse Valley the prevailing species of eland 
 (Oreas canna) would appear to be the striped or Derbian 
 eland, which is the only form of this antelope met with 
 in Western Africa, the dun-coloured variety being the 
 prevailing form in East and South Africa. Almost all 
 the South and East African antelopes are represented 
 abundantly in the Zambezi Basin, with the exception I 
 have already cited of the Oryx gazella, which is only 
 found to the south of that river. The hippopotamus still 
 infests in great numbers every stream or piece of water 
 which is deep enough to submerge its great body during 
 the day-time. Livingstone makes some very interesting 
 and true remarks about their habits : " In reaches of 
 still, deep water very large herds of hippopotami are 
 seen, and the deep furrows they make, in ascending the 
 banks to graze at night, are everywhere apparent. They 
 are guided back to the water by the scent, but a long- 
 continued, pouring rain makes it impossible for them
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 221 
 
 to perceive by that means in which direction the river 
 lies, and they are found standing bewildered on the 
 land. TLo hunters take advantage of their helplessness 
 on these occasions and kill them. It is impossible to 
 count the numbers in a herd, for they are almost always 
 hidden beneath the waters ; but as they require to come 
 up every few minutes to breathe, when there is a constant 
 succession of heads thrust up, then the herd is supposed 
 to be large. They love a still reach of the stream, as in 
 the more rapid parts of the channel they are floated 
 down so quickly, that much exertion is necessary to 
 regain the distance lost by frequently swimming up 
 again, and such constant exertion disturbs them in their 
 nap. The males are of a dark colour, the females 
 yellowish-brown. There is not such a complete separa- 
 tion of the sexes among them as among elephants. The 
 young hippopotamus when very small takes its stand 
 on the neck of the dam, and the small head rising above 
 the large one comes sooner to the surface. The mother, 
 knowing the more urgent need of air for her calf, rises 
 more frequently above the water when it is in her care." 
 
 The lion, leopard, cheetah, serval, fierce wild cats ; 
 the civet, genet, and ichneumon; the jackal, the spotted 
 hyaena ; the long-nosed elephant -shrew, and most of the 
 small African carnivores and insectivores are found 
 abundantly throughout the Zambezi Basin. An otter 
 (Lutra inunguis) is very common in the Tshobe and 
 parts of the Upper Zambezi. The Ort/cteropus or ant- 
 bear (an edentate) is met with abundantly in the countries 
 to the south of the Zambezi, but is not so common on 
 the north bank. 
 
 This river and all its affluents swarm with fish of the 
 usual African fresh-water genera. Livingstone states
 
 222 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 however, that the fish are more numerous and varied in 
 character in the Zambezi above the Victoria Falls than 
 below them. He cites the native names of about twenty 
 varieties, few of which, however, are identified by any 
 scientific name. We know, however, that siluroids, 
 cyprinoids, muraenoids, scavoids, clupeoids, and chseto- 
 dontoids frequent the waters, together with a Clyostinus, 
 a Malapterurus, and a Clarias. That remarkable ganoid, 
 Polypterus, however, so common in the Nile, Congo, and 
 Niger, is apparently absent from the Zambezi ; but in 
 all the muddy creeks and pools the still more interest- 
 ing Protopterus or " mud-fish " (which is a living link 
 between the fish and the amphibia) is found, and falls 
 an easy prey to the natives, who, when the waters dry 
 up, capture these Protopteri in their mud-burrowa 
 
 The abundance of piscine food naturally explains the 
 swarms of crocodiles (chiefly, if not entirely, of the one 
 kind, Crocodilus vulgaris, the common crocodile of Africa), 
 and possibly also of the large Varanus lizards, which are 
 almost as aquatic as the crocodile, and, though they also 
 feed on eggs and small mammals, are nevertheless very 
 partial to fish. 
 
 In the basin of the Zambezi the indigenous human 
 inhabitants, as far as we know, belong exclusively to 
 the Bantu family of negroes, the only exception to this 
 being possibly a few Bushmen who may approach the 
 Zambezi districts from the west or south. There are 
 also, of course, the Portuguese half-breeds, who are 
 found chiefly along the course of the Zambezi, between 
 Zumbo and Sena, and a few white Portuguese, English, 
 French, Dutch, and Poles, who, mostly since Living- 
 stone's day, have settled at a few points on the river as 
 missionaries or traders.
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 223 
 
 The principal Bantu tribes inhabiting the basin of 
 this river may be catalogued from its source downwards 
 to the sea in the following order : 
 
 There are first of all the Ba-lunda, or A-lunda (as 
 they generally call themselves), who dwell in the lands 
 near the sources of the Liba. These people belong to a 
 very widespread race, and speak a Bantu dialect which 
 extends its affinities from Lake Moero and the Lualaba 
 to the River Kwango and the frontiers of Angola. 1 
 For some centuries, apparently, there has been a sort of 
 central rule throughout the vast Lunda countries, though 
 both the dynasty and the seat of government have fre- 
 quently changed, and subsidiary satraps have become in 
 time independent monarchs. The paramount chief of the 
 A-lunda is the personage known as " Mwata-yanvua," 2 or, 
 as Livingstone calls him, " Matiamvo." The territory 
 more immediately ruled over by this monarch lies between 
 the Kasai and the Kwango, and is bounded on the 
 north by about the sixth degree of south latitude, and 
 southwards by the Zambezi watershed. 3 The A-lunda 
 appear to be usually a placable, industrious people, 
 not wholly savages by any means, but, like most tribes 
 dwelling in a forest country, very superstitious, and 
 holding a more definite religion than the Bantu races 
 
 1 Major H. de Carvalho, who visited Lunda in 1887, wrote on^his 
 return (1889) an admirable treatise and practical grammar of the 
 Lunda tongue. I wish the Belgian officers on the Congo were as 
 industrious as the Portuguese in collecting linguistic information. 
 
 2 This is the correct form of the name, but it is ordinarily spelt and 
 pronounced " Mwata-yanvo." 
 
 s The Mwata-yanvua's kingdom for a century has been to a certain 
 extent under Portuguese influence ; but in 1887 a Portuguese ex- 
 pedition, under Major Henrique de Cavalho, proceeded to the Mwata- 
 yanvua's capital, and concluded a treaty with that monarch, which 
 placed his kingdom under Portuguese protection.
 
 224 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 farther east and south. Below the A-lunda are the 
 various tribes of the Baloi or Barotse (as they are called 
 by their old conquerors, the Makololo), who in race and 
 language are closely akin to the A-lunda and Ambonda 
 of Angola. Settled among them as conquerors in 
 Livingstone's time were small colonies of Makololo, a 
 Betshuana people from the south, but these are now 
 all either absorbed or expelled. West of the Tshobe- 
 Kwando there are tribes related in race and language 
 to the Ova-herero group. South of the Tshobe, the 
 sparse population is mainly composed of Betshuana and 
 Bayeye, who apparently belong to a group related to 
 the Barotse. The people of the Barotse Valley and the 
 Bayeye are exceedingly dark in the colour of their skins, 
 as compared to the much lighter Betshuana, who owe 
 their greater yellowness of complexion, no doubt, to an 
 admixture with the Hottentots and Bushmen. No 
 doubt the black skin of the Barotse comes to a great 
 extent from their living in a hot, marshy valley. On 
 the north bank of the Zambezi, the prevailing type 
 between the Tshobe confluence and the Kafue is the 
 Batonga or Batoka, a tribe which of late has attained 
 rather a bad character for their quarrels with Dr. 
 Holub and the murder of several inoffensive Jesuit 
 missionaries. Of these people, Livingstone says that 
 those who dwell near the banks of the Zambezi are very 
 dai'k in colour, while such sections of the tribe as inhabit 
 the high-lands to the north are a light brown. They 
 have an unsightly custom of knocking out the two front 
 incisor teeth at the age of puberty. This is done in 
 both the sexes, and the under-teeth, being relieved from 
 the attrition of the upper, grow long and somewhat 
 bent out, and thereby cause the under-lip to protrude
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 225 
 
 in a most unsightly way. When questioned by Living- 
 stone respecting the origin of this practice, the Batoka 
 replied that their object was to be like oxen, and those 
 who retained their teeth they considered to resemble 
 zebras. It is curious, however, that among many of 
 those tribes of savage or semi-savage men who knock 
 out, chip, file, or discolour their teeth, the ostensible 
 reason usually given for these practices is, that they 
 thereby distinguish the human being from the brute. 
 Thus, the natives of the Malay Peninsula and of other 
 parts of Eastern Asia who blackened their teeth stated 
 as their reason for doing so their dislike to having white 
 teeth like dogs. 
 
 Neither the Batoka nor the Barotse practise circum- 
 cision. 
 
 Among that section of the Batoka or Batonga 1 (as 
 they are there called) who dwell to the east near the 
 Kafue, it is the custom for the men to go absolutely 
 nude, though they cover their bodies with a coat of red 
 ochre. The women, on the other hand, were more 
 scrupulously clothed than any other of the neighbouring 
 tribes. As to the men, Livingstone writes : " They 
 evidently feel no less decent than we did with our clothes 
 on. ... I asked a fine, large-bodied old man if he did 
 not think it would be better to adopt a little covering. 
 He looked with a pitying leer, and laughed with surprise 
 at my thinking him at all indecent ; he evidently con- 
 sidered himself above such weak superstition." 
 
 These Batonga have also an odd mode of salutation, 
 which custom, however, extends right away to the tribes 
 to the west coast of Nyasa. They throw themselves on 
 
 1 The local name of these people is Bawe or Baenda-pezi = "go- 
 nakeds." 
 
 H
 
 226 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 their backs on the ground, and, rolling from side to side, 
 slap the outside of their thighs as expressions of thank- 
 fulness and welcome. 
 
 Behind the Batoka, along the upper course of the 
 Kafue and between that river and the Loangwa, are the 
 cantankerous, treacherous, quarrelsome people known as 
 the Ba-shukulompo, or Ma-shukulumbwe. With these 
 people Livingstone did not come much into contact, as 
 he scarcely entered their country, but they have since 
 been visited by other travellers, who have always been 
 repelled by their attacks. Not much is known about 
 them, but they are supposed to be midway in race and 
 language between the Ba-bisa of Bangweolo and the 
 Batoka. 
 
 On the south bank of the Zambezi, opposite the Batoka, 
 there are the various tribes of the Ba-nyai, who are of 
 a light coffee-and-milk colour, and are, therefore, con- 
 sidered to be handsome people throughout the whole 
 country. As they draw out their hair into small cords 
 a foot in length and entwine the inner bark of a tree 
 inside each cord and dye the ends red, many of them 
 reminded Livingstone of the ancient Egyptians. The 
 great mass of hair which they possess reaches to the 
 shoulders, but when they intend to travel they draw it 
 up to a bunch and tie it on the top of the head. They 
 are cleanly in their habits. 
 
 North of the Zambezi for some little distance to the 
 east of the Loangwa River and along the banks of that 
 stream for about half of its course the people are called 
 Basenga. They appear to be rather a mixed tribe, and 
 of late they have been nearly exterminated by the 
 ruthless attacks of the black Portuguese slave-hunters 
 and by the raids of the migratory Zulus who have
 
 THE ZAMBEZI, 227 
 
 crossed the Zambezi. In language the Basenga seem 
 to be just midway between the people of Nyasa and of 
 the Zambezi about Tete on the one hand, and the 
 Ba-bisa of Bangweolo on the other. Near the Kebra- 
 basa Rapids there is the small tribe of Badema, who, 
 together with the people on both sides of the Zambezi, 
 as far as its confluence with the Shire, are of the same 
 race and speak the same language, practically, as the 
 Mananja, A-nyanja, Wa-tshewa, A-maravi, and A-tonga, 
 who dwell farther to the north, along the Shire Valley, 
 and on the south-east and west shores of Lake Nyasa, 
 South of this group, which may be called generally the 
 " Nyanja " people, you have the Mashona, the Barue, 
 the Bateve, and various other tribes about whose lan- 
 guages little is known, but who are supposed to be 
 related to the Zulu group. 
 
 The Mashona and the Banyai countries, to the south 
 of the Zambezi, are ruled over by some 30,000 or 40,000 
 Zulus the Amandabele or Matabele, who migrated to 
 these high plateaux of Mashonaland from the Transvaal 
 some seventy years ago. At various periods hordes of 
 these same Zulus have crossed the Zambezi to the north 
 and have settled in the Busenga and Angoni countries 
 to the west of Lake Nyasa, and have extended their 
 raids right up to the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau, and 
 even to the east shore of Lake Tanganyika. Although 
 they are fast becoming mixed in blood and language 
 with their serfs, the Senga and Nyanja people, they 
 still retain to some extent the Zulu tongue. 
 
 Along the banks of the Zambezi from Tete to the sea 
 a special race and language have sprung up since the 
 Portuguese have held dominion over that portion of the 
 river. These are the A-tshigunda people, who speak the
 
 228 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Tshigunda dialect, a kind of lingua franca which is 
 merely composed of a mixture of languages of the 
 principal tongues bordering the Zambezi with the 
 Tshi-nyanja element as the dominant one. The people 
 themselves are a fine-looking lot, ordinarily of good 
 stature, handsome features, and full beards. Though 
 quite black in complexion, they are nevertheless strongly 
 tinctured with Portuguese blood, though the intermix- 
 ture no doubt dates from the early days of Portuguese 
 colonisation. The real origin of these people was the 
 heterogeneous collection of slaves from all parts of 
 Africa which the Portuguese placed on their planta- 
 tions and with many of whom they interbred. 
 
 To the north of the Zambezi Delta, in the Quilimane 
 district, there is a race of people who speak a dialect 
 of Makua, and are closely related to the tribes of the 
 Mozambique province. In the islands of the Delta, and 
 to the south of it, you have the A-tshigunda, and tribes 
 related to the Zulu stock. 
 
 The Portuguese rule on the Zambezi is only of a 
 settled, effective character as far up as Tete, but the 
 Portuguese Government recently resumed the occupation 
 of Zumbo, which had been totally deserted in Living- 
 stone's day. Tete is, however, a considerable town, and 
 can boast of a certain amount of civilisation. It has 
 churches and shops, a fort and a garrison of black sol- 
 diers, with a white commander and non-commissioned 
 officers. 
 
 In an unhealthy locality near the big island of In- 
 yangoma, formed by the Zambezi and the Shire, is the 
 town of Sena, which was the first place on the Zambezi 
 occupied by the Portuguese towards the close of the 
 sixteenth century. It is remarkable to note that when
 
 THE ZAMBEZI. 229 
 
 the Portuguese first arrived there they found a good 
 many Arab traders settled at that place, whose presence 
 on the Zambezi would almost seem to have continued 
 from the establishment of the powerful Arab sultanates 
 of Kilwa, Mogambique, and Sofala, which were founded 
 in the eighth century, if even they did not date from 
 earlier days. I think it not improbable that the re- 
 markable ruins of stone buildings which have been 
 found in various parts of Hashona-, Matabele-, and even 
 Betshuana-lands are to be attributed to these early Arab 
 gold-seekers or to Persians who immediately preceded 
 them rather than to the Phoenicians. 1 The name Zim- 
 babye or Zimbawe given to some of these ruins simply 
 means " stones " in the local dialects. From the resem- 
 blance which much of that stone-work bears to old Arab 
 buildings in Eastern Arabia, I am further inclined to 
 hold his opinion, that the Arabs who strongly held the 
 nearest approach from the sea to Mashonaland made 
 settlements inland for mining purposes, and built these 
 stone walls, turrets, and round towers for smelting 
 purposes, and for their protection from the natives, 
 who were probably in those days savages of the wildest 
 description. 
 
 The Portuguese civilisation is seen at its best on the 
 extreme Lower Shire, near its confluence with the Zam- 
 bezi, in the establishment of neatly-built civilised dwell- 
 ing-houses and telegraph stations. They have now a 
 telegraph-wire from the British boundary at the junction 
 of the Ruo and the Shire to Quilimane on the coast. 
 There is a small Portuguese settlement called Mopeia, 
 on the Kwa-kwa river, about four miles from the 
 
 1 Certainly not to the Portuguese, for many good reasons too long 
 to recapitulate here.
 
 230 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Zambezi. In the delta of the Zambezi, a place called 
 Concei9ao, on the Nyamisengo or Kongoni mouth, some 
 plantations along the Tshinde Creek, and a small gar- 
 rison at the Tshinde mouth are at present the only signs 
 of Portuguese colonisation. The real capital, however, 
 of the Zambezi regions is the important town of Quili- 
 mane (Kilimane), on the estuary of the Kwa-kwa River. 
 This ia a very well-built, civilised-looking settlement, 
 with a fine esplanade along the river-side, handsome 
 public buildings, broad, clean streets, big churches, a 
 club and hotel, and well-planted public gardens. It is 
 the most go-ahead place in the Portuguese East African 
 possessions, except, of course, Delagoa Bay. 1 As, how- 
 ever, Quilimarie is built in the middle of a mangrove 
 marsh, it swarms with mosquitoes, and is not very 
 healthy. 
 
 Taking it all in all, the Zambezi Basin is one of the 
 richest districts in Africa, as regards the fertility of its 
 soil, the value of its mineral deposits, and its amazing 
 abundance of animal life. It compares, however, un- 
 favourably with the Nile, the Niger, and the Congo for 
 navigability ; and although not worse, it is certainly no 
 better than the two last-named rivers in the unhealthi- 
 ness of its climate. 
 
 i Where the progress, however, is only evident among the Ger- 
 mans, Dutch, and English who reside there.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 LIVINGSTONE RETURNS TO ENGLAND. 
 
 LIVINGSTONE was to have been met at Southampton on 
 his return to England by his wife and a large number 
 of friends, but unfortunately an accident occurred to 
 his steamer in the Mediterranean off the island of 
 Zembra, to the south of Sicily. The shaft of the engine 
 broke, and the ship was drifting hopelessly towards the 
 rocks of the island, but, fortunately, just as they were 
 preparing to leave the ship in the boats, a wind sprang 
 up and swept the vessel out of danger into the Bay 
 of Tunis. From here the passengers were sent on to 
 Marseilles, and Livingstone proceeded home via Paris 
 and Dover, where he landed, and journeyed as quickly 
 as possible to Southampton, by way of London, to meet 
 his wife. 
 
 On the 1 5th December 1856 the Royal Geographical 
 Society held a special meeting to welcome him. Sir 
 Roderick Murchison was in the chair, and among the 
 large audience were some of Livingstone's previous 
 fellow-travellers, Captain Steele, 1 Major Yardon, and 
 Mr. Oswell. At their anniversary meeting in the 
 month of May 1855, the Royal Geographical Society 
 had already awarded to Livingstone their Victoria gold 
 medal for his journey from the Cape to the Zambezi, 
 
 1 Afterwards General Sir Thomas Steele. 
 331
 
 232 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 and thence to Loanda, and this was now presented to 
 him, its presentation being preceded by an eloquent and 
 kindly speech on the part of Sir Roderick Murchison. 
 
 After this, meeting succeeded meeting. The London 
 Missionary Society received him, with Lord Shaftesbury 
 in the chair; and later on, at the very beginning of 
 1857, there was a more general assembly at the Mansion 
 House, at which full expression was given by many 
 persons of distinction to the impression which Living- 
 stone's quiet, daring, fruitful work and modest demean- 
 our had made on the British public. 
 
 Soon the stream of popular favour made Dr. Living- 
 stone the lion of that season of 1857. He had received 
 both the freedom of the City of London and of Hamilton 1 
 (which, as he humorously remarks, " insured him protec- 
 tion from the payment of jail fees if put into prison "), of 
 Glasgow and of Edinburgh. The Prince Consort granted 
 him an interview very early in the year ; he received 
 testimonials and addresses from all manner of societies ; a 
 sum of 2000 was raised by public subscription in Glas- 
 gow and presented to him in the autumn. In Dublin he 
 was feted at a meeting of the British Association for the 
 Advancement of Science, at Manchester he was welcomed 
 at the Chamber of Commerce, and even little Blantyre, 
 his native village, gave him a public reception. 
 
 Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L., Glasgow 
 had made him an LL.D., and the Royal Society elected 
 him a Fellow. At Cambridge he received a most en- 
 couraging reception, and in his lecture there practically 
 started the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, 
 which has since done such good work at Zanzibar and 
 on Lake Nyasa. 
 
 1 In Lanarkshire, where his relations and family were living.
 
 LIVINGSTONE RETURNS TO ENGLAND. 233 
 
 Had Livingstone been a Frenchman or a German, a 
 Belgian or a Portuguese, an Austrian or an Italian, or, 
 in fact, had he belonged to any nation but England, 
 which had instituted orders of merit and distinction, 
 he would, no doubt, have received some decoration 
 from his Government; but in those dark days of 1857 
 it was not within the mental scope of the statesmen 
 then in power to conceive that a mere ex-missionary, 
 a mere explorer of a half-savage continent although 
 he might receive from some bland Minister a little 
 good-natured, kindly recognition of his existence could 
 be placed on the same level as, let us say, the Charge 
 d 'Affaires at the Grand-Ducal Court of Pumpernickel 
 or the Colonial Treasurer of Barataria. However, the 
 commercial spirit of the country having been attracted 
 towards these new lands of the Zambezi, a movement 
 was set on foot, starting from the British Association 
 meeting at Dublin, and swelling with concurrence and 
 support from Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds, 
 Sheffield, and other manufacturing towns, and Her 
 Majesty's Government of that day was induced to 
 appoint Livingstone to be H.M. Consul, at ^500 a 
 year, for the Zambezi, and to equip an expedition under 
 his command for the thorough exploration of that part 
 of South-Eastern Africa through which the Zambezi 
 flows. 
 
 Before taking service under the Government, Living- 
 stone had gently severed his connection with the London 
 Missionary Society, with no feeling of aught but friend- 
 liness on either side. The Directors of that Mission fully 
 realised that the scope of Livingstone's work was of a 
 vaster kind than could be controlled by their modest 
 means and organisation, so that in the autumn of 1857
 
 234 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 he ceased to be officially a missionary, although he 
 remained a missionary in spirit to the end of his days 
 in propagating, -wherever he went, the best precepts 
 of Christianity, especially as regards the duty of man 
 towards man. Nevertheless this public intimation of 
 his having changed his ostensible career drew down on 
 him not a few protests from narrow-minded soula To 
 one, a lady, he wrote this excellent reply (I quote from 
 Dr. Blaikie) : 
 
 " Nowhere have I ever appeared as anything else but 
 a servant of God, who has simply followed the leadings 
 of His hand. My views of what is missionary duty are 
 not so contracted as those whose ideal is a dumpy sort 
 of man with a Bible under his arm. I have laboured in 
 bricks and mortar, at the forge and carpenter's bench, 
 as well as in preaching and medical practice. I feel 
 that I am 'not my own.' I am serving Christ when 
 shooting a buffalo for my men, or taking an astronomi- 
 cal observation, or writing to one of His children who 
 forget, during the little moment of penning a note, that 
 charity which is eulogised as ' thinking no evil ; ' and 
 after having by His help got information which I hope 
 will lead to more abundant blessing being bestowed 
 on Africa than heretofore, am I to hide the light under 
 a bushel merely because some will consider it not suffi- 
 ciently, or even at all, missionary ? Knowing that some 
 persons do believe that opening up a new country to the 
 sympathies of Christendom was not a proper work for 
 an agent of a missionary society to engage in, I now 
 refrain from taking any salary from the Society with 
 which I was connected, so no pecuniary loss is sustained 
 by any ona " 
 
 In February 1858 Dr. Livingstone received a formal
 
 LIVINGSTONE RETURNS TO ENGLAND. 235 
 
 commission from the Queen, countersigned by Lord 
 Clarendon (the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs), 
 which appointed him to be H.M. Consul at Quilimane 
 for the East coast of Africa to the south of the do- 
 minions of Zanzibar, and for the independent districts 
 in the interior, as well as commander of an expedition to 
 explore Eastern and Central Africa. Having accepted 
 the appointment, Livingstone set to work during the 
 remaining months of his stay in England to organise 
 this expedition. A paddle-steamer of light draught was 
 procured for the navigation of the Zambezi, and the 
 various officers of the expedition received their appoint- 
 ments. The Admiralty was represented by Commander 
 Bedingfield, R.K. ; the post of secretary and general 
 assistant was bestowed on Charles, the brother of 
 Dr. Livingstone. 
 
 The most important person in the expedition, how- 
 ever, after Dr. Livingstone, was John Kirk, an enthusi- 
 astic and ambitious young doctor and naturalist from 
 Edinburgh, who, after obtaining his degree in the 
 Edinburgh University, started for the Crimea, and was 
 appointed physician to the British hospital at Renkioi 
 in the Dardanelles, in which capacity he so far dis- 
 tinguished himself, that he found it not difficult to 
 obtain one of the leading positions in Dr. Livingstone's 
 expedition to the Zambezi To this post he was appointed 
 almost more as naturalist than as physician, because 
 he had already evinced considerable qualifications as a 
 botanist. His was the one appointment in this ex- 
 pedition which proved an unqualified success. Others 
 failed from want of capacity, or bad temper, or weak
 
 236 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 health, or else circumstances were adverse to the dis- 
 play of their good qualities. Richard Thornton, for 
 instance, who was appointed to be the practical mining 
 geologist under Livingstone, did not quite hit it off with 
 his leader. He did very excellent surveying work 
 in fact, almost all the surveying work that was 
 done on the Zambezi, but he disagreed with Living- 
 stone, and had to leave ; and although he afterwards 
 rejoined the expedition, he had during the interval ex- 
 hausted his strength in remarkable explorations of Mount 
 Kilima-njaro with Baron von der Decken, and in making 
 an arduous overland journey from the Shire to the 
 Zambezi his health gave way, and he died of fever. Mr. 
 Thomas Baines, who was appointed artist and store- 
 keeper (a strange conjunction !), was a rather remarkable, 
 self-educated man, who had greatly distinguished him- 
 self in exploring North- West Australia. Finally, Mr. 
 George Rae was appointed ship's engineer, and proved 
 himself to be an excellent choice. 
 
 All these people, and all who might be afterwards 
 engaged in the service of the expedition, were required 
 to implicitly obey Dr. Livingstone's directions as leader. 
 
 Livingstone was on very friendly terms with the 
 Portuguese ambassador in London, the Conde de Lav- 
 radio, who expressed a strong desire and, I think, a 
 genuine one to help him in his work. Livingstone 
 was natui'ally anxious to get the material assistance of 
 the Portuguese Government in furthering the aims of his 
 expedition, and it was at first thought he would do well 
 to go to Lisbon to make his request at headquarters. The 
 Prince Consort had promised to use his influence with
 
 LIVINGSTONE RETURNS TO ENGLAND. 237 
 
 his cousin, the King of Portugal, 1 but yellow fever and 
 the fear of delays for Livingstone was fretting with 
 impatience to be off caused the project of visiting 
 Lisbon to be abandoned. The Portuguese ambassador 
 returned to London before Livingstone left, and pro- 
 posed to him that representatives of the Portuguese 
 Government should accompany his expedition, an idea 
 to which no doubt rightly Lord Clarendon strongly 
 objected. Finally, the suggested Portuguese co-opera- 
 tion was reduced to the furnishing to Livingstone of 
 letters of introduction to the Portuguese governors at 
 Mocjambique and Quilimana Livingstone complained 
 afterwards that these letters were neutralised by the 
 sending out of secret instructions to the officials in 
 question, who were thus directed to assume a neutral 
 attitude, and neither to assist nor hinder Livingstone's 
 expedition. For this apparent duplicity of conduct the 
 Portuguese Government have been severely blamed by 
 many of Livingstone's friends, and by those who have 
 written on the subject of his work in Africa. In this 
 matter I think the Portuguese have had hard measure 
 meted out to them. What should surprise one in review- 
 ing the question at a later date, and with the fuller know- 
 ledge of the views entertained by the British nation at the 
 time when Livingstone was starting on his second journey 
 to the Zambezi, is that the Portuguese offered no hin- 
 drance or objection to the exploration of these regions. 
 The rights of the Portuguese Government to almost any 
 
 1 This monarch was the young and gifted Dom Pedro V. , whose all- 
 too-short reign showed him to be one of the most promising and en- 
 lightened sovereigns who have sat on the Portuguese throne.
 
 238 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 part of the Zambezi were openly scoffed at in England, 
 and a general impression had got abroad that if the 
 Zambezi were found as navigable as Livingstone hoped, 
 and its lands of a fairly healthy character, in some way 01 
 other that district might be added to the British Empira 
 I do not suppose for a moment that this impression was 
 induced by anything said, or done, or written, or even 
 hinted at by Her Majesty's responsible advisers; but it 
 was put forward in the plainest words by people of high 
 position and notoriety in England, who, though not in 
 any way connected with the Government, were supposed 
 to speak with a certain amount of authority. Under 
 these circumstances, can it be wondered at that the 
 Portuguese did not actively assist the progress of Dr. 
 Livingstone's expedition, which, had it proved as success- 
 ful as at first anticipated, might have resulted, especially 
 at that juncture, in the abstraction from Portuguese 
 rule of all, or nearly all, the Zambezi countries ? I am 
 not venturing to decide as to the validity of the Portu- 
 guese claims to both banks of the Zambezi, or to any 
 part of it which was not actually held by them ; indeed, 
 Dr. Livingstone was able to show, on his return from 
 his first journey, that the south bank of the Zambezi 
 between Tete and its mouth was entirely dominated by 
 Zulus. Still, the Portuguese had claims and pretensions 
 there several centuries old, and felt, no doubt, quite as 
 sentimental about them, as we did about our equally 
 vague rights to the Zanzibar coast when the Germans 
 started to secure it. Under these circumstances, it is 
 ridiculous to blame the Portuguese for not assisting Dr. 
 Livingstone. It is rather to their credit that they did 
 nothing to oppose him.
 
 LIVINGSTONE RETURNS TO ENGLAND. 2S9 
 
 The Portuguese have no doubt claimed far more of 
 Africa than they had any right to possess either by 
 occupation, or conquest, or means of utilisation. They 
 have hampered the commerce of their colonies by absurd 
 tariffs ; they have shirked tha question of the entire 
 suppression of slavery a little more than we have done 
 in our West African colonies ; in short, their little nation 
 of under 5,000,000 has attempted a task commensurate 
 with the capacity of a first-class power, and has left it 
 uncompleted through insufficient resources. But this 
 much must be said for them, that, with all their distrust 
 of our pushing ways and unfriendly zeal, they have never, 
 to my knowledge, put obstacles in the way of British 
 travellers exploring their territories, or the lands they 
 claim as theirs. Their kindness to Livingstone stands 
 on record ; the same kindness and the same facilities 
 have been shown to many other travellers, like Arnot, 
 Lord Mayo, O'Neill, Elton, and myself. We should 
 probably have met with very different treatment under 
 the same circumstances at the hands of Frenchmen, 
 Dutchmen, Germans, or Russians. 
 
 Lord Palmerston was too busy to enter deeply into 
 Livingstone's schemes, but Lord Clarendon threw him- 
 self heart and soul into the planning of this expedi- 
 tion. Africa was new then, and had just begun to 
 attract attention. Not even our disastrous Niger expe- 
 ditions, with their loss of life and poor results, had 
 checked that belief in the possibility of opening up 
 Tropical Africa, which during the " fifties " reached a 
 blaze of indiscriminating enthusiasm. The cold fit of
 
 240 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 discouragement and withdrawal was to follow in the 
 next decade, and Lord John Russell, who succeeded Lord 
 Clarendon as Foreign Secretary, was to be its chief 
 exponent. l 
 
 Livingstone never forgot the kindness and encourage- 
 ment shown him by Lord Clarendon, and he repeatedly 
 recurs to it in his private letters and published writings. 
 He attached this nobleman's name to one of the highest 
 and most notable mountains in South-Central Africa 
 (Mount Tshiperone), which he named Mount Clarendon. 
 This latter name ought, I think, to be retained by the 
 British in Nyasaland as an historical landmark, and a 
 memorial to the first Foreign Secretary who took any 
 intelligent interest in Africa. 
 
 Before leaving for the Zambezi, Livingstone was 
 received by the Queen at a private interview, an honour 
 which afforded him much gratification ; for, as he in- 
 formed Her Majesty, he would now be able to tell the 
 people of Africa that he had seen his " Chief," the fact 
 of his not having done so hitherto being a subject of 
 much surprise to them, who are accustomed to ready 
 access to their monarchs. 
 
 The Royal Geographical Society took leave of him in 
 a splendid banquet held at the Freemasons' Tavern 
 (which seems to have been the Savoy Hotel of its day), 
 and attended by nearly 350 guests, including the Minis- 
 
 1 There was, of course, the short interval between Lord Claren 
 don and Earl Russell, in which the Eurl of Malmesbury was Foreign 
 Secretary.
 
 LIVINGSTONE RETURNS TO ENGLAND. 241 
 
 ters of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, two dukes, two 
 earls, and two bishops.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 
 
 LIVINGSTONE left Liverpool for the Zambezi vid Sierra 
 Leone and the Cape of Good Hope on the loth March 
 1858. He travelled on board H.M.S. Pearl, a steamer 
 affected to colonial purposes, which on this occasion was 
 destined to carry out to the Zambezi a steam-launch in 
 sections called the Ma-Robert. 1 Mrs. Livingstone accom- 
 panied her husband, together with her youngest child, 
 Oswell. She intended to accompany him on his second 
 expedition to the Zambezi, a rather foolish plan at the 
 best, especially as she was expecting to give birth to 
 another child ; but after leaving Sierra Leone (where 
 they had stopped to engage twelve Krumen), it was 
 decided by Livingstone that his wife and little son 
 should be left at Cape Town to go thence to Kuruman, 
 where Mrs. Livingstone could receive proper attention 
 during her confinement and wait until it was convenient 
 to join her husband on the Zambezi 
 
 The Pearl, with Livingstone's expedition on board, 
 arrived off the Zambezi Delta on the I5th May. It was 
 decided at first to attempt the entrance of the River 
 Luawe (sometimes called the West Luabo, and supposed 
 by the Portuguese at that time to be one of the mouths 
 
 1 The Betshuana name for Mrs. Livingstone ; literally, " the mother 
 of Robert" Robert being the name of her eldest son. 
 
 242
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 243 
 
 of the Zambezi), but tbis opening was found to be an 
 independent and deceptive river, which, in spite of a 
 broad and deep entrance, had but a short course and 
 no connection with the Zambezi. However, inside the 
 Luawe bar the sections of the Ma-Robert were put to- 
 gether, and this being done partly on a Sunday, a few 
 foolish fanatics at Cape Town and in Britain actually 
 criticised Livingstone for permitting work on the Sab- 
 bath, objurgations to which he made the very sensible 
 reply (in referring to this and other occasions whereon 
 he had to order work to be done on a Sunday), that 
 "it is a pity some people cannot see that the true and 
 honest discharge of the common duties of everyday life 
 is Divine service." 
 
 Finding the Luawe no good, Mr. Francis Skead, the 
 surveying officer lent to the expedition, 1 made a careful 
 examination of three other mouths of the Zambezi. By 
 some strange oversight, he did not examine the Tshinde 
 or Nanombe mouth (which has since been found to be 
 the best entrance to the main river), but he decided on 
 the next best, the Kongoni, or Nyamisengo, up which 
 the Pearl made a successful journey, and passing through 
 the narrow, winding, natural canal which communicates 
 between the main Zambezi or Kuama and the Nyami- 
 sengo Creek, entered the former river about ten miles 
 above its chief outlet into the sea. 
 
 Steaming on up the main Zambezi to what is now 
 Expedition Island, nearly opposite the embranchment of 
 the Tshinde Creek (which Livingstone noticed, and which 
 he opined was the " secret canal " known only to the 
 Portuguese slavers), the voyage of the Pearl came to an 
 
 1 Mr. Skead was, and is still, I believe, Government Surveyor at the 
 Cape of Good Hope.
 
 244 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 end, as it was thought that her considerable draught of 
 water would not permit her to ascend the river any 
 higher with safety. Accordingly, the goods and stores 
 of the expedition were landed on this island, and so 
 arranged that the Ma- Robert and a pinnace could con- 
 vey them by degrees higher up the river. With the 
 departing Pearl, Commander Bedingfield left the ex- 
 pedition owing to a disagreement with Livingstone 
 which occurred in connection with the landing of the 
 stores on Expedition Island. At first Livingstone was 
 disinclined to accept his resignation, but as Commander 
 Bedingfield persisted in tendering it, Livingstone had 
 no option but to acquiesce in his withdrawal. This 
 early contretemps in the history of the expedition vexed 
 Livingstone sorely, but he justified himself at consider- 
 able length in his despatches to the Foreign Office. 
 After a careful inquiry into the whole affair, Lord 
 Malmesbury (who had succeeded Lord Clarendon as 
 Foreign Secretary) wrote to Livingstone to the effect 
 that, having consulted with the Admiralty, he was 
 satisfied as to the propriety and fairness of Living- 
 stone's action in this unfortunate misunderstanding. 
 
 After Commander Bedingfield's departure, Living- 
 stone took his place as skipper of the Ma-Robert, and 
 in spite of his inexperience in such functions, managed 
 to acquit himself pretty well. His first object was to 
 proceed to Tete to pick up his Makololo followers who 
 had been left behind there. The journey thither in the 
 Ma-Robert was somewhat hampered by a war in which 
 the Portuguese were engaged with a bloodthirsty, wicked 
 half-caste named Mariano. 1 This man, whose descen- 
 dants still continue to give the Portuguese trouble, had 
 1 Better known by his native name of ' ' Matakenya. "
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 245 
 
 built a stockade near the mouth of the Shire. However, 
 Livingstone passed the war unscathed, and was even able 
 to render some assistance to the Governor of Quilimane, 
 who had been fighting with Mariano at Mazaro. The 
 Zambezi expedition stopped for a little while at Shu- 
 panga, nearly opposite the mouth of the Shire. Here 
 Kirkpatrick, of Captain Owen's Surveying Expedition, 
 was buried in 1826, and afterwards, in 1862, Mrs. 
 Livingstone. The Portuguese at Shupanga were very 
 friendly, and rendered much assistance in having wood 
 cut for the steamer. 
 
 A start was made from here for Tete on the lyth 
 August, a visit paid to Sena (which had, however, to be 
 reached on foot, as, owing to the shifting of the river's 
 course, it is now situated a few miles from the deep 
 channel of the Zambezi), and finally, after passing suc- 
 cessfully the rapids of Lupata, Tete was reached on the 
 8th September. 
 
 Here Livingstone received an enthusiastic reception 
 from his Makololo. Thirty of the hundred and odd men 
 whom Livingstone had left behind him at Tete to await 
 his return had died of smallpox; six more had been 
 murdered by another of the rascally black Portuguese 
 named Bonga. From Tete three several visits were paid 
 to the Kebra-basa Rapids, which were proved to be an 
 effectual bar to the continuous navigation of the river at 
 all seasons of the year, though Livingstone in the Ma- 
 Robert ascended the Zambezi without much difficulty to 
 within a short distance of the Kebra-basa gorge. Living- 
 stone, however, would not give up hope of passing 
 through this torrent of whirling water, and attributed 
 his failures to the weakness of his wretched little steamer 
 the Ma-Robert. He therefore made strenuous applica_
 
 246 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTEAL AFRICA. 
 
 tions to Her Majesty's Government for a more suitable 
 vessel ; at the same time, and in case these applications 
 failed in their effect, he asked his friend, Mr. James 
 Young, to get him a steamer built at his (Livingstone's) 
 own expense. 
 
 The fact was, that the Ma-Robert, which had promised 
 so well at first, had gradually turned out to be an utter 
 failure. Dr. Blaikie describes her bad qualities very 
 tersely : " Her consumption of fuel was something enor- 
 mous ; her furnace had to be lighted hours before the 
 steamer was serviceable. She snorted so horribly that they 
 called her ' The Asthmatic,' and, after all, she made so 
 little progress that canoes could easily pass her. Having 
 taken much interest in the purchase of the vessel, and 
 thinking he was getting a great bargain because its 
 owner professed to do so much through ' love of the 
 cause,' Livingstone was greatly mortified when he found 
 he had got an inferior and unworthy article ; and many 
 a joke he made, as well as remarks of a more serious 
 kind, in connection with the manner which the ' eminent 
 shipbuilder had taken to show his love.' " 
 
 Pending the arrival of the new steamer hoped for, 
 Livingstone resolved to spend his time in exploring the 
 Shire and hunting for the Great Lake which was reported 
 to be the source of that river. The first trip up the 
 Shire was made in 1859. At that time the Mount 
 Morambala and the Morambala Marsh were pretty well 
 the limits of Portuguese exploration on that river. Be- 
 yond Morambala, Livingstone was told that he would be 
 stopped by the abundance of the Pistia stratiotis weed 
 blocking up the channel, and by the poisonous arrows 
 of the hostile natives, who were so firmly resolved to 
 resist the encroachments of slavers that they opposed
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. *47 
 
 all strangers passing up the river. However, Dr. Living 
 stone and Dr. Kirk managed to appease the suspicions 
 of the Marian ja people who dwell on the banks of the 
 Shire above Morambala, were not stopped by the duck- 
 weed, and navigated the river for some 200 miles, until 
 they found themselves at the foot of impassable rapids 
 and cataracts where their first journey up the Shire 
 came to an end, for they had reached a country where 
 white men had evidently never been seen before, the 
 natives mustered in large numbers, and seemed inclined 
 to be hostile ; so it was deemed best to return once more 
 to Tete and make preparations for a more careful over- 
 land journey to the Big Lake. Livingstone named these 
 cataracts after Sir Roderick Murchison, and this name 
 they have retained ever since. 
 
 In the month of March in the same year (1859) 
 Livingstone and Kirk again started for the Shire, and 
 landing at the village of a chief called Tshibisa (who 
 dwelt at a place near the modern settlement of Katunga, 
 or " Blantyre Port "), they left the steamer in charge of 
 Quartermaster John Walker and Able-seaman Rowe, 
 and started to walk overland to the " Nyanja-nkulu." 
 or Great Lake, of whose whereabouts they kept receiving 
 such misleading accounts; for, inasmuch as the term 
 " Nyan ja " is applied in that country to all rivers, lakes, 
 and marshes of any magnitude, the land was simply full 
 of "Nyanjas" in all directions. This journey, however, 
 resulted in the discovery of Lake Shirwa, a salt-lake 
 which lies to the east of the Shire Highlands, and south 
 of the real Lake Nyasa. This was a somewhat disap- 
 pointing discovery, as this small, bitter lake did not fulfil 
 their expectations of the great Nyanja traditionally 
 reported. The Ma-Robert returned to Tete on the
 
 248 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 23rd June, and there underwent the repairs which this 
 wretched little vessel was always needing. 
 
 The Ma-Robert, in fact, was an experiment, and an 
 unsuccessful one. She was built of thin steel plates, 
 only a sixteenth of an inch in thickness, in which some 
 chemical action of the water caused minute holes to 
 appear. These holes expanded in time into little stars, 
 with wide cracks radiating in all directions. The bottom 
 of the ship soon became like a sieve, completely full of 
 holes, which leaked perpetually. Frequently the cabins 
 were nearly flooded ; for, in addition to the leakage from 
 below, rain poured through the unsound roof, and um- 
 brellas had frequently to be used by the occupants. 
 The method of coupling the compartments was also an 
 imperfect one, and the action of the hinder compartment 
 on the middle one pumped up the water of the river, and 
 sent it in streams over the floor and lockers, where lay 
 the cushions which did double duty as chairs and beds. 
 
 After the necessary stay at Tete, the Ma- Robert pro- 
 ceeded to Kongone to meet one of Her Majesty's ships 
 which was expected to arrive with stores. Whilst 
 Livingstone and Kirk had been away exploring the 
 Shire, Charles Livingstone had been in serious disagree- 
 ment at Tete with two other members of the expedition, 
 Thornton and Baines, and both of these persons were 
 dismissed by Livingstone with some harshness and un- 
 fairness. He seems, in fact, to have become at this 
 juncture slightly impatient and irritable in disposition, 
 and too much disposed to believe unquestioningly the 
 reports furnished to him about Baines and Thornton 
 without taking into consideration the pleas which they 
 themselves had to offer. The cause of quarrel with 
 Thornton is not very clear, and Livingstone so far
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 249 
 
 admitted himself" a after-days to be in the wrong that 
 he re-employed Thornton in the expedition, and paid 
 him that amount of his salary which had been stopped. 
 The reason of Baines' dismissal was an inadequate one. 
 
 THOS. BAINES. 
 
 (From the frontispiece of " The Gold Regions of South Eastern Africa," by 
 permission of Mr. E. Stanford). 
 
 On journeying up the Zambezi in the Ma-Robert, Baines 
 had become exceedingly ill, and was left at the house 
 of the Portuguese Commandant at Tete to be nursed. 
 Here he met with such extraordinary kindness from
 
 250 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 that most amiable and worthy man, Major Tito Sicard, 
 that he cast about for some means of bestowing on his 
 host a mark of his gratitude. Being an artist, it occurred 
 to him to paint Major Sicard's portrait. Baines had, 
 among the stores entrusted to his keeping, a quantity 
 of canvas, oil-paints, and other artist's materials, which 
 he was supposed to use for painting scenes and incidents 
 of the expedition. He therefore used a small piece of 
 canvas and a trifling proportion of the oil-paints in 
 painting the portrait of his Portuguese entertainer. 
 Further, it was alleged and admitted by Baines that 
 he had given one or two loaves of white sugar to Major 
 Sicard. For these trivial reasons he was charged by Mr. 
 Charles Livingstone with embezzling the goods of the 
 expedition ! Dr. Livingstone supported his brother in 
 the matter, and Baines had to go. 1 
 
 It was also decided to send away the Krumen who had 
 come from Sierra Leone, as they were found to be bad 
 walkers, and of little use except on board the steamer. 
 
 1 It is quite time justice was done to the memory of poor Thomas 
 Baines, especially in these days when his gold-discoveries in the 
 Transvaal and Matabeleland are revolutionising the history of South 
 Africa. He was born at King's Lynn in 1822, and was brought up as 
 a painter of heraldic devices in a coachbuilder's establishment. He 
 was full of artistic talent, but never had any training, so that his 
 drawings and paintings were always of a crude, conventional descrip- 
 tion. He had a great desire to travel, and as soon as he was able to do 
 so he started for Cape Colony (in 1842), where he made many friends, 
 but where he found art then, as now, at a discount. However, by 
 painting studies of African landscapes, natives, and animals, and by 
 teaching drawing, he was enabled by degrees to earn a living. His 
 adventurous nature urged him farther and farther into the interior, 
 and, besides minor explorations, he took part in several of the Kaffir 
 wars, where he distinguished himself by considerable bravery. When 
 he returned to England he managed to get attached as artist to the 
 exploring expedition which was to visit Northern Australia under the 
 leadership of Mr. Gregory. Here he attained some notoriety by
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 251 
 
 In the middle of August 1859 another start was made 
 to discover Lake Nyasa. They proceeded, as before, up 
 the Shire to Tshibisa's, where Dr. Livingstone, Dr. 
 
 making a risky voyage in a small schooner from Victoria River in 
 North-West Australia to Java, in order to procure fresh provisions 
 for the expedition. After returning to England on the termination 
 of this journey, Baines, who had greatly distinguished himself, was 
 presented with the freedom of his native town, King's Lynn, and was 
 selected, later on, to accompany Dr. Livingstone's expedition as artist 
 and storekeeper. Unfortunately, he found it from the very first hard 
 to get on with Charles Livingstone, who certainly, from all accounts, 
 appears to have been a somewhat unamiable colleague. The accusation 
 of embezzling was brought against him for painting Major Sicard's 
 portrait, Dr. Livingstone was not satisfied with his explanation, and 
 Baines was therefore dismissed from the expedition, boiling over with 
 anger at the way in which he had been treated. He challenged the 
 strictest inquiry into his conduct from his accusers, but was refused 
 it. He appealed to Earl Russell and to the Council of the Royal 
 Geographical Society, but without effect. He then resolved to await 
 a dispassionate inquiry into his case by public opinion, and in time, 
 when all the facts came to be known, public opinion reinstated him 
 as an honourable man. 
 
 He joined an expedition under Chapman to the Zambezi in 1861, in 
 the hope of meeting Livingstone and personally confronting him on 
 the Zambezi, but the meeting never occurred. This expedition of 
 Baines and Chapman went from the west coast overland to the Victoria 
 Falls, and was in many respects a remarkable journey. Baines painted 
 a series of pictures of Zambezi scenery, which are not without merit as 
 careful delineations of nature, but are rather unpleasing in style from 
 an artistic point of view. 
 
 On his return from this journey Baines again revisited England, 
 and for some time prepared his sketches and paintings for publication 
 and exhibition in a studio lent him by the Royal Geographical Society 
 in Whitehall Place. In 1868, accounts having reached England of 
 the discovery of gold at Tati by Karl Mauch and Mr. Hartley, Baines 
 was sent out by a company formed in London to explore for gold and 
 obtain concessions for working the mines from native chiefs. Ho pro- 
 ceeded to Mutabeleland, and there made friends with the redoubtable 
 Lobengula, who has prominently figured in South African history of 
 late. Lobengula granted him important concessions north of the 
 Tati, but little came of this, as the directors at home lost heart, and 
 failed to provide the proper capital or machinery for extracting gold 
 from the rocks. In the biographical sketch written of him by Mr.
 
 252 
 
 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Kirk, Charles Livingstone, and Rae landed, and started 
 on their journey overland with thirty-six Makololo 
 porters and two native guides, They ascended the 
 beautiful Shire Highlands, passed round by Mount 
 Zomba and Lake Shirwa, and then rejoined the Shire, 
 the left bank of which they followed till they came 
 to the small Lake Pamaloiubwe, into which the Shire 
 
 SHIKE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 broadens soon after leaving Lake Nyasa. The party 
 stopped at the village of a chief called Mwana-mwezi, 
 
 Hall in 1877, it is correctly prophesied that " a day will and must 
 come when great and powerful communities will exist iu these 
 wealthy and fertile countries (i.e., Matabeleland and Mashonaland) ; 
 but Baines' reward was only the fame of being the pioneer to point 
 the way to them, and for him that was reward sufficient." 
 
 Eventually, after many checks and disappointments incurred by the 
 poor amount of support that he met with in his enterprise, Baines fell 
 ill, and succumbed to a long attack of dysentery, dying ou the 8th 
 April 1875.
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 253 
 
 which was a day's march distant from the shores of 
 Lake Nyasa. Here, on inquiring, they were told, much 
 to their dismay, that no " lake " had ever been heard of 
 there ; that the River Shire stretched on as they saw it 
 now to a distance which it would take "two moons" 
 (months) to cover, and then came out from between 
 perpendicular rocks which towered almost to the skies. 
 This information was not as false as it appeared at first 
 sight to Dr. Livingstone and his companions. The 
 word " Shire " is not apparently known to the natives 
 of the upper river. It is a word of somewhat doubtful 
 origin, and adapted from the Portuguese. The native 
 name generally applied to the river is "Nyanja," or 
 sometimes " Gombe " (which really means " river-side "). 
 To the natives of the upper reaches of the Shire the 
 river and the lake seem one, and are called by one and 
 the same name, Nyanja ; therefore, in telling Dr. Living- 
 stone that the Nyanja (which he took to mean actually 
 the River Shire) extended two months' journey to the 
 north and came from perpendicular rocks, they merely 
 meant that Lake Nyasa was about that distance along, 
 in their rough computation, and the perpendicular rocks 
 at the end of it were simply the extraordinary and 
 precipitous Livingstone or Ukinga Mountains. 
 
 However, on the matter being more clearly explained 
 to them, they admitted that the lake itself, the broader 
 " Nyanja," was but a day's journey to the north. 
 
 Livingstone and his party arrived on the southern 
 shores of Lake Nyasa, in that south-eastern gulf whence 
 flows the River Shire, at noon on the i6th September 
 1859. They were, as far as we know with any certainty, 
 the first white men who stood on the shores of Nyasa. 
 It has, however, been asserted that in the year 1846 a
 
 254 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Portuguese named Candido de Costa Cardoso reached the 
 south-western shores of Lake " Maravi," as the rumoured 
 Lake Nyasa was called, in forty-five days' march from 
 Tete; but this statement rests on the slight foundation 
 of his vague statements to Livingstone in conversation : 
 statements which, while showing that, like other Portu- 
 guese traders in the country, he knew of the existence of 
 Lake Nyasa by native report, yet fail to prove that he 
 actually reached its shores and did not merely visit 
 Lake Pamalombwe or a broad part of the Shire River, 
 or catch a distant glimpse of the expanse of Nyasa from 
 the heights of the Angoni country. Besides, the Portu- 
 guese in question might not have been a white man, but 
 only one of those mulatto half-castes who range over 
 Africa, and whose discoveries are worth no more than 
 the raids of the Zulu or an Arab's trading journey. 
 The honour, however, which fell to the lot of David and 
 Charles Livingstone, John Kirk, and Edward Rae was 
 very nearly being snatched from them by a German. 
 Dr. Ernest Roscher, an ardent explorer of the careful 
 type of Earth, Nachtigal, and Junker, had started from 
 Kilwa and marched across along the Arab route to Lake 
 Nyasa, finally reaching the shores of that lake at a place 
 called Lusewa, 1 arriving here, as far as we know, on the 
 i gth November 1859, two months after Livingstone's 
 discovery. At Lusewa he resided for some time, but 
 when he turned his steps back to the coast, however, he 
 was murdered at a place three days distant from the 
 shores of Lake Nyasa by some of those thoroughly bad 
 Yao people who are constantly attacking and massacring 
 strangers passing through their country. Upon repre- 
 sentations being made to the Sultan of Zanzibar, pres- 
 1 For a long time this name was incorrectly written Ntissewa.
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 255 
 
 sure was brought to bear by the Sultan's envoys on the 
 Yao chiefs who were responsible for this crime, and the 
 so-called murderers of Dr. Roscher were sent to Zanzibar 
 and executed. It is not improbable, however, that for 
 this purpose the chiefs selected one or two miserable 
 slaves and sent them to be sacrificed in the place of the 
 real murderers. 
 
 Livingstone's stay at the lake on the occasion of his 
 first visit was necessarily short. He felt anxious about 
 the safety of those who were left on board the steamer, 
 and hastened back to Tshibisa's village. His party arrived 
 at this place on the 6th October in a somewhat exhausted 
 condition, which arose more from a mistake on the part of 
 their cook (who half-poisoned them) than from the usual 
 fatigues of travelling. In fact, throughout Livingstone's 
 journeys, more especially from this time forth to the end 
 of them, one is more and more struck with his heed- 
 lessness as to the quality and preparation of the food 
 that he and his companions ate ; a most fatal mistake, 
 for in Africa the great secret of maintaining one's health 
 is to eat as good food as can be got, and to have it as 
 daintily and carefully cooked as may be possible under 
 the circumstances. To maintain that a traveller cannot 
 do this is ridiculous. By taking a little extra care and 
 trouble it can be done, especially if the European him- 
 self has taken the trouble to learn as much about the 
 theory of cooking as he should about medicine or 
 mapping. With a little instruction and oversight from 
 the white man, the worst native cooks can be made to 
 prepare a passable meal, and it is absurd to maintain 
 that daintiness in eating is incompatible with useful 
 work. As Stanley once remarked, " A dead missionary 
 is no more good than any other dead man." What W3
 
 256 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 want in Africa is working men, not martyrs, and if you 
 want to retain your health and strength in the exhaust- 
 ing life, you must live comfortably. I have generally 
 found that the discomforts of Africa mainly arise from 
 carelessness and neglect of detail on the part of the 
 traveller who suffers from them. Had Dr. Livingstone 
 taken more care of himself, especially in the matter of 
 food and cooking, in all probability he would have been 
 alive now, and have accomplished his life's work. In 
 his latter days he was too much of the Mary and too 
 little of the Martha. 
 
 From Tshibisa's, on the Shire, Dr. Kirk and Mr. Rae 
 made a plucky march overland to Tete, which, however, 
 proved one of the most trying experiences of the whole 
 period of their services on the Zambezi, owing to the 
 want of water and the frightful heat of the sun. 
 Livingstone in the meantime ran down the Shire- 
 Zambezi to the Kongoni mouth, where the wretched 
 little Ma-Robert had once more to be beached for re- 
 pairs. Further misfortunes pursued the ill-fated expe- 
 dition here, misfortunes of a heart-breaking character 
 at the time to poor exiles in Africa. H.M.S Lynx 
 arrived off the Kongoni with supplies and mails. In 
 sending two of her boats in across the bar one of them 
 was capsized by the heavy breakers, and although the 
 officer in charge of the other boat most skilfully and 
 gallantly succeeded in rescuing every one of the first 
 boat's crew, the stores they were bringing to Living- 
 stone, and, above all, the mail-bags, were totally lost. 
 This meant that the unfortunate travellers would be 
 twenty months without other news from home. How- 
 ever, they resigned themselves to this misfortune, and 
 having repaired their crazy little steamer, they left once
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 257 
 
 more for Tete, which they reached on the 2nd February 
 1860, after a most distressing passage up the river, 
 wherein the Ma-Robert constantly broke down. At 
 Tete, about this time, Mr. Thornton rejoined the expedi- 
 tion, having agreed to let bygones be bygones. In the 
 interval between his former dismissal and his return he 
 had made a remarkable journey up to and beyond Zumbo ; 
 then, leaving the Zambezi, he joined the expedition of 
 Baron von der Decken, and in company with him explored 
 and mapped the surroundings of Mount Kilma-njaro. 
 His differences with Livingstone were made up, and the 
 salary which had been stopped was restored to him. 
 
 Finding that it would be better to defer their journey 
 with the Makololo up the Zambezi until the rains were 
 over and the harvest gathered in, Livingstone decided 
 that he would run down the river once more to the 
 Kongoni mouth, in the hope of receiving letters and 
 despatches from an expected man-of-war. On the way 
 down he heard that his lost mails had been picked up 
 on the beach by the natives, carried to Quilimane, sent 
 thence to Sena, and crossing him somewhere on the 
 river, had passed on to Tete. 
 
 On their arrival at the Kongoni they found their 
 friend, Major Sicard, hard at work building a fort and a 
 custom-house, and making good the Portuguese claims 
 to this part of the Delta, to which attention had been, 
 in the first case, directed by Livingstone's exploration of 
 it. Before reaching the Kongoni, however, Livingstone 
 had stopped at a place near the modern station of 
 Vicente, and had despatched Mr. George Rae (the 
 engineer of the expedition) overland to the Kwa-kwa 
 River, with instructions to proceed thence to Quilimane, 
 and at Quilimane to embark for England. Living-
 
 258 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA, 
 
 stone's idea in sending Rae home was that, as he could 
 be of no further use on the wretched " Asthmatic " (as 
 they called the Ma-Robert), he would be better at home 
 advising the Admiralty in the construction of the new 
 vessel asked for. With Mr. Rae were sent five boxes 
 of botanical specimens, carefully collected and prepared 
 by Dr. John Kirk, and destined for examination at the 
 Kew Herbarium. These were eventually entrusted to 
 the naval authorities for forwarding to Kew, but in 
 some undiscoverable way they were shunted into a naval 
 store or depot at Portsmouth, and were never delivered 
 at their destination. Livingstone and Kirk therefore 
 believed them to be lost, and grieved greatly over such 
 a disappointing result of nearly two years' hard work. 1 
 
 Having returned to Tete in the month of May 1860, 
 Dr. Livingstone obtained a small plot of ground to form a 
 garden for the two English sailors 2 who were to remain 
 in charge of the expedition stores during his absence. 
 
 On the 1 5th May he made a start from Tete for the 
 interior, assisted, as usual, by the much-abused Portu- 
 guese, who lent him a couple of donkeys and several 
 porters to supply the places of certain Makololo 
 deserters; for when it came to the test of marching, 
 the Makololo evinced much less enthusiasm about re- 
 turning home than had been expected. Not a few of 
 them had cohabited with the native women of Tete, and 
 as many as fourteen children had been born to them ; 
 they were therefore somewhat loth to leave the comfort 
 
 1 After an interval of nearly thirty years, these collections were eventu- 
 ally discovered in some naval pigeon-hole, and were forwarded on to 
 Kew, having suffered, strange to say, hut little for their long detention. 
 
 2 These two men Rowe and Hutchins appear to have done very 
 well throughout the expedition, and deserve to have their names 
 recorded.
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 259 
 
 and security of this Portuguese settlement, where a 
 living was easily made and money easily spent in 
 European luxuries ; so that a number of them refused 
 to go, and others deserted after the first day's march 
 and returned to Tete. 
 
 Little incident of note occurred to the party 1 on their 
 journey up the Zambezi to the Makololo country. They 
 visited the Victoria Falls and made an examination of 
 them more thorough and complete than Dr. Livingstone 
 was able to undertake at the time he discovered them. 
 On the 1 8th August 1860 they entered the new town 
 of Sesheke, which was built on a site somewhat removed 
 from the old place that Livingstone had visited on his 
 previous journey. They arrived there, however, to be 
 somewhat disappointed in the Makololo chief, Sekeletu, 
 of whom Livingstone had hoped such great things. 
 During the four years which had elapsed since he 
 had left Sekeletu to return to England, the latter had 
 been stricken with leprosy, and believing himself to be 
 bewitched, had put a number of persons to death, and 
 lived apart from his people in sulky sickness and re- 
 tirement. The country was suffering grievously, and 
 Sebituane's great Barotse empire was crumbling to 
 pieces. Already large sections of the Barotse and Batoka 
 tribes had obtained their independence, and the Makololo 
 power was visibly passing away. 2 
 
 Livingstone and Kirk applied themselves industriously 
 
 1 Which consisted of Dr. Livingstone, Charles Livingstone, and Dr. 
 Kirk. 
 
 2 I have already related how Sekeletu died in 1864, and that his 
 death was eventually followed by a civil war, which resulted in the 
 expulsion of most of the Makololo and the re-creation of a native 
 Barotse kingdom, which remains under the Barotse rule to the present 
 time of writing, although the district has now come tinder British 
 protection.
 
 260 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 to Sekeletu's needs, and treated his leprosy with a local 
 application of lunar caustic and internal doses of hydrio- 
 date of potash. A decided temporary improvement was 
 noticed in the chief's health as the result of this assiduity 
 on the part of two medical men of such marked medical 
 attainments as Livingstone and Kirk. Unfortunately, 
 these two doctors incurred, as the result of their atten- 
 tions to Sekeletu, a slight touch of something like leprosy 
 themselves on their hands, but this was stopped and 
 removed by prompt applications of lunar caustic. 
 
 Before leaving Sesheke's to return to the coast, 
 Livingstone and his party were implored to bring 
 about an English settlement on the Batoka Highlands. 
 Sekeletu had taken an especial fancy to Dr. Kirk, and 
 wanted him to reside with him in perpetuity. He 
 offered to cut off a large section of the country for 
 the use of the English, and even proposed to go over 
 with his guests to a district called " Pori," to point out 
 to them a likely site for a residence. 
 
 Livingstone and his party left Sesheke on the iyth 
 September 1860, and were accompanied for a certain 
 distance by two Makololo head-men, called Pitsaue and 
 Leshore, and an escort of rnen who were to go with 
 them as far as the end of the Makololo territory. There 
 further went with them two young Makololo gentlemen, 
 named Moloka and Ramakukane, 1 and half-a-dozen canoe- 
 men. Their return journey was mainly by water, in 
 canoes bought from the Batoka, and thus they were 
 able to put to the test the navigability of the Central 
 Zambezi. They passed the Kariba Rapids with little 
 
 1 Ramakukane settled on the Shire, where he became a great and 
 powerful chief. He remained a firm friend of the English, and died 
 a few years ugo.
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 261 
 
 difficulty, but very nearly came to grief near those of 
 Karivua, some distance farther on, which are nearly 
 opposite the mountains of Mburuma, and not far from 
 the confluence of the Loangwa. However, the disaster 
 was confined to the wetting of their goods, the fright 
 experienced from the narrow escape from drowning of 
 their canoe- men, and did not result in the loss of any- 
 thing. But when they came to the Kebra-basa Rapids, 
 Dr. Livingstone's obstinacy and tenacity in persisting 
 in the oft-repeated attempt to navigate these impassable 
 cataracts nearly resulted in the drowning of Dr. Kirk, 
 for his canoe was raised by the boiling swell of the 
 water (which in some of the rapids rises and falls, so to 
 speak, in a sort of pulsating whirlpool) and capsized 
 against a ledge of rock. By great good fortune Dr. 
 Kirk managed to clutch the ledge with his hands, 
 and in spite of the sucking-down action of the water, 
 scrambled on to it and saved himself from drown- 
 ing, while his steersman holding on to the same rocks 
 saved the canoe. But nearly all its contents, including 
 a chronometer, a barometer, and Kirk's notes and draw- 
 ings of the botany of the Upper Zambezi, were lost. 
 
 After this decisive experience they landed and walked 
 the rest of the way to Tete, which they reached on the 
 23rd November, having spent on this journey a little 
 over six months. Here they found the two English 
 sailors who were left in charge of the steamer in good 
 health, and with an excellent record as regards their 
 conduct. Their garden had not been a success, as it 
 had been plundered by monkeys and hippopotamuses, but 
 they had behaved exceedingly well to the natives, whose 
 liking they had won, and with whom quite a flourishing 
 little trade had been created.
 
 262 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Livingstone, his brother Charles, Kirk, Rowe, and 
 Hutchins left Tete on the 3rd December for the Kongoni 
 in the wretched Ma-Robert. In spite of the sailors' 
 repairs which had been carried out during Livingstone's 
 journey to Sesheke, the Ma- Robert was in a hopeless 
 condition. New leaks broke out every day ; the engine- 
 pump gave way ; the bridge broke down ; three compart- 
 ments filled at night, and except the cabin and front 
 compartment, all was flooded. At length, on the morning 
 of the 2ist December, the "Asthmatic" grounded on a 
 sandbank and filled. She could neither be emptied nor 
 got off. The river rose during the night, and all that 
 was visible of the worn-out craft the next day was about 
 six feet of her two masts. Most of the property of the 
 expedition was saved, but Livingstone and his party had 
 to spend the Christmas of 1860 encamped on the island of 
 Tshimba, a little above Sena. Here again the " wicked " 
 Portuguese acted with a certain amount of Christianity, 
 for they sent canoes from Sena and transported Living- 
 stone and his party to that place, where they were 
 hospitably entertained. In these canoes they afterwards 
 descended the river to the Kongoni mouth, which they 
 reached on the 4th January 1861. Here they were per- 
 mitted to lodge in the newly-built Portuguese station. 
 Their stores were practically at an end. They had to make 
 imitation tea and coffee out of roasted millet. But the 
 large marshy islands of the Zambezi Delta were simply 
 swarming with game, and by using their guns they 
 easily kept themselves supplied with fresh meat. 
 
 On the 3ist January 1861 the long-expected new 
 steamer for the Zambezi, the Pioneer, arrived from 
 England and anchored outside the bar, but she was not 
 able to cross until the 4th February. Two of Her
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 263 
 
 Majesty's cruisers arrived at the same time, bringing 
 with them Bishop Mackenzie and six missionaries, 
 who had been, sent out by the Universities' Mission, 
 which Livingstone had initiated at Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge, to evangelise the tribes of the Shire and Lake 
 Nyasa. 
 
 The Bishop and his party were naturally anxious to 
 proceed at once to Tshibisa's, on the Shire, and com- 
 mence work, but Livingstone was equally determined to 
 explore the Rovuma River without delay. This latter 
 plan was consistent with the orders given to the Pioneer, 
 and Livingstone was anxious to examine that river 
 without delay, because he believed it might afford a 
 navigable channel to the heart of Nyasaland which 
 would not be under the control of the Portuguese, who 
 at that time did not own any part of its estuary, and 
 could not pretend to interfere with its navigation. 
 Livingstone was getting a little heart- sick about the 
 Zambezi. The Portuguese seemed resolved to adopt 
 a "dog-in-the-manger" policy. They were unable to 
 develop the Zambezi themselves, but they would not 
 allow its development by other European nations except 
 under such restrictions and with such profit to the Por- 
 tuguese Government as would interfere with remunera- 
 tive commerce. Their personal conduct towards him- 
 self and his party had certainly been of the kindest, 
 but their authorities, especially of the Home Govern- 
 ment, refused to permit the free navigation of the 
 Zambezi, and had shown on one or two occasions when 
 it had been sought to use the river without their per- 
 mission that they had many effective means, without 
 recurrence to actual force of arms, of preventing this ; 
 one of these means being the prohibition of the cutting
 
 264 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 of firewood for the fuel of steamers, a means the Portu- 
 guese authorities at the present day not infrequently 
 employ when on bad terms with the English. Living- 
 stone had therefore decided that, unless the Zambezi- 
 Shire should be declared a free waterway, an attempt on 
 the part of the English to open up this region must be 
 attended with almost insuperable difficulties. Before 
 endeavouring to force on this throwing-open of the 
 Zambezi to the world, 1 Livingstone resolved first to see 
 what could be done with the Rovuma. 2 
 
 Accordingly it was decided, after some discussion, that 
 the Bishop and his party should be conveyed to the 
 island of Johanna, one of the Comoro group, that the 
 Mission party should reside for a short time in that 
 delicious tropical paradise 3 whilst Bishop Mackenzie 
 
 1 This consummation of Livingstone's hopes has only been effected 
 at the close of the year 1890 by Lord Salisbury's influence with the 
 Portuguese Government. 
 
 2 Although this latter river turned out a great disappointment as 
 far as its navigability was concerned, still its valley was and is a natural 
 highway from the coast to Nyasa, and Livingstone was instinctively 
 right in wishing to open it up. Following this tradition, Sir John 
 Kirk never lost sight of the same idea, and as soon as he was able, 
 induced a former Sultan of Zanzibar to send Mr. Joseph Thomson 
 thither to create a kind of satrapy along the Rovuma, which, although 
 nominally under the Sultan of Zanzibar, would have been as much 
 British in its results and bearing as was Sir Samuel Baker's work on 
 the White Nile. But Mr. Thomson did not view the project with 
 much enthusiasm, and soon relinquished his post in t.hc Sultan's ser- 
 vice. Four years later the Rovuma was within the scope of German 
 influence, and a British highway to Nyasa along its banks was relegated 
 to the limbo of impossibilities. 
 
 3 At that time Johanna Island and most of the Comoros were as 
 much under British influence as Zanzibar, and, as they possessed a 
 much healthier climate, would have proved far more favourable as 
 sanitaria for our fleet in the Indian Ocean. But, instead of clinging 
 to thein as tenaciously as other European powers would have done, we 
 allowed them to be taken by the French. And yet foreign nations 
 speak of us as greedy I
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 265 
 
 rejoined Livingstone at the mouth of the Rovuma and 
 accompanied him in his exploration of that river. 
 
 Accordingly the Pioneer proceeded straight to the 
 mouth of the Rovuma, which she entered without diffi- 
 culty, as there was then apparently no bar. Here, at 
 the entrance to the river, Livingstone awaited the 
 arrival of Bishop Mackenzie, who finally joined him 
 on the Qth March. Two days after, they proceeded up 
 the Rovuma. 
 
 They were only able, however, to ascend the Rovuma 
 for a distance of thirty miles from the sea, as the water 
 was rapidly falling and the rainy season had drawn 
 to a close. Livingstone longed to leave the ship and 
 journey with his now well-seasoned companions over- 
 land to Lake Nyasa, but he was fettered by his some- 
 what unwilling connection with the Mission, a connec- 
 tion which was purely that of sympathy. He felt that 
 he was more or less responsible for their having come 
 out to East Africa, and that it was his duty to see 
 them first of all established on the Shire before he 
 resumed the explorations for which his soul longed. 
 Accordingly, though inwardly pishing and pshawing, 
 he turned his steamer southwards with a good grace. 
 I write "he turned his steamer," because a severe out- 
 break of marsh-fever caught in the swamps of the 
 Rovuma Delta had prostrated the naval officers of the 
 Pioneer, and Livingstone was again obliged to under- 
 take the duties of captain and navigating lieutenant. 
 He took the Pioneer over to the Comoro Islands, picked 
 up the missionaries, re-entered the Zambezi through the 
 Kongone mouth, and passed rapidly up it to the Shire. 
 
 In their third ascent of this latter river they found 
 that disappointment still dogged the unfortunate expedi-
 
 266 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA, 
 
 tion. The Pioneer was an admirable vessel, and had a 
 long life, afterwards doing very good service in the 
 West African Oil Rivers, but she drew far too much 
 water for the Zambezi, and especially for the Shire. 
 She was originally designed for a draught of only three 
 feet, 1 but the weight of her machinery and coal brought 
 her down two feet more, so that she drew five feet of 
 water when she attempted to ascend the Shire. The 
 result of this was, that a terrible amount of time and 
 temper were expended in perpetually toiling at capstans 
 and laying out anchors to get her off sandbanks. 
 
 After a great deal of difficulty, the Pioneer reached 
 Tshibisa's 2 in the middle of July. Here bad news 
 awaited them rumours of approaching raids of the 
 Wa-yao or A-jawa, who were beginning to attack the 
 unfortunate Mananja for the object of procuring slaves 
 to sell to the Portuguese at Tete. Livingstone and the 
 Bishop, however, resolved to explore the Shire High- 
 lands to choose a suitable site for the establishment of 
 the Mission. Shortly after they started they encoun- 
 tered a slave-party on its way to Tete, and recognised 
 as its leader a slave belonging to a former commandant 
 of Tete. Eighty-four of these slaves were liberated, and 
 as they had nowhere to go to, were attached to the 
 Mission as a nucleus of its colony. On the road more 
 slaves were freed as the party continued its journey 
 inland and encountered the caravans returning to Tete. 
 But little violence was used in these proceedings hardly 
 any, in fact, for as soon as the slave-drivers perceived 
 
 1 One foot eight inches is the supposed draught of the modern gun- 
 boats recently placed on the Zambezi by the British Government. 
 
 2 It may be as well to remind my readers that Tshibisa's is close to 
 the modern Katunga, which is the headquarters of our new gunboats 
 on the Shire.
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 267 
 
 the English they bolted into the bush, and it required 
 nothing more to be done than to strike the fetters off 
 the slaves and set them free. 1 
 
 Bishop Mackenzie having decided to accept the invi- 
 tation of a Mananja chief to settle at a place called 
 Magomero, to the east of the Shire Highlands, the party 
 were proceeding thither, when they were attacked by a 
 large body of the Wa-yao slave-raiders. In self-defence 
 they had to fire a volley from their rifles, which had 
 the effect of dispersing the enemy. After this skirmish 
 a council was held among the members of the expedition 
 and the Mission as to what course should be taken, 
 whether they should pursue the offending Wa-yao and 
 recapture the wretched Mananja they had enslaved, or 
 whether they should leave them alone and continue 
 their journey to Magomero. The latter course was 
 decided on, and accordingly the Bishop and his party 
 soon reached that place, and Dr. Livingstone having 
 seen them safely established there, turned with his 
 expedition to the west, engaged a number of porters, 
 and carried his boat round the Murchison Cataracts to 
 the navigable part of the Upper Shire. 
 
 On the 2nd September they sailed into the waters of 
 Lake Nyasa, and proceeded to explore its western coast. 
 Rounding a fine mountain promontory, which Living- 
 stone named " Cape Maclear " after his friend the 
 Astronomer-Royal at the Cape of Good Hope, they 
 caught a glimpse of the south-western gulf of Nyasa, 
 and thence proceeded along its western shore towards 
 the north, pursued and persecuted by the furious storms 
 
 1 A number of the descendants of these freed slaves are now living 
 in the Shire Highlands, forming quite a civilised little community 
 there.
 
 268 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 which prevail on that most stormy lake. Dr. Living- 
 stone had left the 'boat at a place somewhere on the 
 south-west coast, and had proceeded with a party over- 
 land to lighten the boat, and to endeavour to see some- 
 thing of the country along the lake-shores, pausing for 
 the rest of the party for four days, during which time 
 Kirk and Charles Livingstone journeyed in the boat 
 along the west coast of the lake until they got to about 
 11 1 8' S. latitude. From this point they believed that 
 they were able to see some twenty miles farther, and the 
 land-party from a height of about a thousand feet also 
 looked ahead and thought that they saw the high moun- 
 tains bordering the lake closing in to the north and 
 terminating its extent in that direction. 1 During this 
 short land-journey Livingstone met with more and more 
 evidences of the horrible wrongs that the negro inflicts 
 on the negro. He passed through a country raided 
 and ravished by the Angoni-Zulus of Western Nyasa, 
 who there and at that time went by the local name of 
 Mazitu. In the course of his walk he met six boastful 
 young warriors of this tribe, who accosted him insolently 
 and attempted to scare him and his party into flight, or 
 at any rate into handing over a large present, but their 
 bounce had no effect on him. They gradually reduced 
 their demands to the presentation of a goat, but when 
 Livingstone refused them even that, and asked sarcas- 
 tically how many of his party they had killed, the bullies 
 turned into cowards, and actually fled from the people 
 they had intended to rob. 
 
 1 Livingstone's conjecture that Lake Nyasa terminated in about 10 
 S. latitude was a wrong one, for the subsequent explorations of Mr. 
 Edward Young show that it extended some sixty miles farther. The 
 boat-party under Dr. Kirk probably ascended the lake as far as Kuta 
 Bay, about forty miles north of the modern settlement of Bandawe.
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 269 
 
 The two sections of the expedition having been happily 
 reunited, it was resolved to return, lest their goods 
 should be expended before they rejoined the Pioneer. 
 On their journey back, while detained by a storm, they 
 visited the Arab settlement of Kota-kota, since better 
 known as the headquarters of a powerful Arab sultan, 
 Jumbe. who was afterwards constituted a sort of viceroy 
 in those regions by the Sultan of Zanzibar. As they 
 re-entered the Shire they witnessed the most terrible 
 results of the Wa-yao slave-raids ; and what shocked 
 them as much as anything was the utter want of union 
 among the Mananja people, who, instead of making 
 common cause against the Wa-yao, who have blighted 
 that district of late years (and who, if they were dealt 
 with in Mosaic justice, would be simply exterminated), 
 were equally ready to enslave and sell the people of their 
 own tribe who were fugitives from the Yao raids. 
 
 They rejoined the Pioneer on the 8th December 
 1 86 1, in a weak condition, having suffered much from 
 hunger. Bishop Mackenzie visited them at Tshibisa's 
 on the 1 4th of that month, with some of the Pioneer's 
 men who had been visiting Magomero for the benefit of 
 their health, and for the purpose of assisting the Mission. 
 At that time the prospects of the Mission settlement 
 seemed bright enough. The Wa-yao had been driven 
 off, and had sent word that they desired to live at peace 
 with the English. Many of the Mananja had settled 
 round Magomero in order to be under the protection of 
 the Bishop, and as agriculture was taken up vigorously, 
 it was hoped that the little colony might become self- 
 supporting, and not have to rely on supplies from Quili- 
 mane. 
 
 As it was resolved not to bring the Pioneer on
 
 270 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTKAL AFRICA. 
 
 her next voyage higher than the confluence of the Ruo 
 (her draught being too much for the upper part of the 
 river), the Bishop and his companions decided to explore 
 the country between Magomero and the mouth of the 
 Ruo, so that they might be able to meet the ship at that 
 place in the following January, by which date the Bishop's 
 sisters and the wife of one of the missionaries would have 
 arrived. Bishop Mackenzie and his energetic young 
 companion, Mr. Burrup, then bade what was to be a last 
 farewell to Livingstone, and saluted the departure of the 
 Pioneer with three hearty cheers. 
 
 On the way down, shoals and sandbanks again checked 
 their progress in the most disheartening manner. The 
 Pioneer re-entered the Zambezi on the nth January, and 
 steamed down towards the coast, frequently grounding, 
 however, on the way. On these occasions, whenever the 
 Pioneer ran aground in the vicinity of a Portuguese 
 settlement, prompt help was always rendered by the 
 Portuguese, none of whom seemed to bear any malice 
 on account of Livingstone having dispersed the slave- 
 caravans and freed the slaves that were on their way 
 toTete. 
 
 On the 3oth January the Pioneer met H.M.S. Gorgon 
 at the Luabo mouth of the Zambezi. This vessel was 
 towing a brig, on board of which were Mrs. Livingstone, 
 the ladies about to join the Universities' Mission, and a 
 new iron steamer in twenty-four sections for the naviga- 
 tion of Lake Nyasa. This steamer was afterwards called 
 the Lady Nyassa. 1 Having towed this brig into the 
 Kongone harbour, the Pioneer started back for the Ruo, 
 
 1 I retain in this name Livingstone's spelling. On the principle of 
 never doubling a consonant unless it is twice pronounced (as in the 
 Italian word Bas'so), I spell Nyasa with one s, because only one is 
 pronounced. All the missionaries on the lake do the same.
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 2 71 
 
 accompanied by two steam-launches belonging to the 
 Gorgon, and having on board Captain Wilson of that 
 ship, with a number of his officers and men to help in 
 discharging the cargo. Their progress up-river, how- 
 ever, was so distressingly slow, and the engines of the 
 Pioneer had been so entirely neglected of late by the 
 engineer who was supposed to attend to them, that the 
 party were actually delayed six months in the Delta, 
 instead of, as they anticipated, six days. Therefore, 
 finding it impossible to carry the sections up to the Ruo 
 without further loss of time, it was thought better to 
 land them at Shupanga, and put the hull of the Lady 
 Nyassa together there, and then tow her up to the 
 Murchison Cataracts. 
 
 A few days before the Pioneer reached Shupanga's, 
 Captain Wilson, seeing the hopeless state of her engines, 
 had generously resolved to hasten with the Mission ladies 
 up the Shire. He therefore started in his gig for the 
 Ruo, taking with him Miss Mackenzie, Mrs. Burrup, 
 and his surgeon, Dr. Ramsay. They were accompanied 
 by Dr. Kirk and Mr. Sewell, paymaster of the Gorgon, 
 in the whale-boat of the Lady Nyassa. After a terribly 
 difficult journey, pulling against the Shire in the full 
 force of its flood-tide, they reached Tshibisa's (getting 
 no news of the Bishop at the Ruo), and here met with 
 the sad tidings of the death of Bishop Mackenzie and 
 Mr. Burrup. Hearing further bad news of the condition 
 of the Mission at Magomero, Captain Wilson and Dr. 
 Kirk walked up to that place, and met some of the Mission 
 party half-way at the village of Sotshe. The privations 
 to which Captain Wilson and Dr. Kirk on this forced 
 march were subjected were such that they both very 
 nearly died of fever, and Captain Wilson was only saved
 
 27-2 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 by his cockswain who must have been a splendid fellow 
 carrying him on his back when he was too weak to 
 walk. He, however, survived, and returned to Tshibisa's 
 with the remaining missionaries, who, together with the 
 bereaved ladies, returned to the Pioneer at Shupanga. 
 The death of Bishop Mackenzie and Mr. Burrup is one 
 of the saddest episodes which ever occurred in the history 
 of a pioneering enterprise, and the account of the causes 
 of this disaster is one which it is difficult to read with 
 patience, because it is simply an illustration of the stupi- 
 dity of attempting to travel about Tropical Africa in a 
 haphazard manner, and of doing things in " rushes " and 
 unreflecting hurries. 
 
 Soon after the Universities' Mission had established 
 itself at Magomero the Wa-yao had recommenced their 
 raids on the Mafianja in the vicinity of the Mission 
 station. They had been beaten off, and it was ascer- 
 tained, and probably with truth, that the missionaries 
 themselves had taken an active part in the defence of 
 their flock, taking up arms on purpose. 1 Some little 
 while after this action on their part the Bishop sent two 
 of the missionaries, Messrs. Proctor and Scudamore, to 
 explore the country between Magomero and the junction 
 of the Ruo. Their guides, however, led them uninten- 
 tionally or purposely to an Anguro village near the 
 upper waters of the Ruo where slave-trading was going 
 on. They were landed, in fact, among a nest of slave- 
 raiders, who looked upon them as their natural enemies. 
 On their leaving the village the Anguro people followed 
 them and shot arrows after the retreating party. Two 
 of their carriers were captured and all their goods 
 taken away. The two missionaries, baxely escaping with 
 1 For which no one but a perverse fauatic can blame them.
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 2?3 
 
 their lives, swam the Ruo at night and returned to 
 Magomero famished. The wives of the captured carriers 
 besought the Bishop to rescue their husbands from 
 slavery, and he, feeling that the men had been caught 
 while in his service, and that there was no power at 
 hand to whom an appeal could be made for assistance, 
 resolved to go and rescue these kidnapped porters. He 
 invited the Makololo, whom Livingstone had left behind 
 in the Shire, to go with him. Nothing could have been 
 proposed to them which they would have liked better, 
 and they joined his party with alacrity. Had the 
 matter been left entirely in their hands, they would 
 have made a clean sweep of that part of the country 
 (says Livingstone), but the Bishop restrained them, 
 and went in an open manner in order to commend the 
 matter to all the natives as one of justice. This deli- 
 beration of procedure, however, gave the delinquents a 
 chance to escape. 
 
 The expedition was fairly successful ; the offending vil- 
 lage was burned, and a few sheep and goats were secured, 
 which, it must be admitted, was not a very severe punish- 
 ment, considering that the original caravan of the Mission 
 had been robbed of all its goods. The head-man of the 
 offending village, scared by these unlooked-for reprisals, 
 liberated the prisoners, who returned to their homes, 
 while the other missionaries made their way back to 
 Magomero, whence the Bishop immediately started again 
 for Tshibisa's, in order to descend the Shire and reach 
 the mouth of the Ruo by water. Yet at this time 
 both the Bishop and Mr. Burrup were suffering from 
 diarrhoea in consequence of the wet and hunger endured 
 on their punitive expedition to the Anguro village ; and 
 so little had they realised the necessity of taking the
 
 274 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA, 
 
 utmost care of themselves in Africa, that on leaving 
 Magomero to descend to Tshibisa's, the Bishop waded 
 through every stream he met with on the road, instead 
 of having himself carried across, or, if he could get no 
 one to carry him, undressing before entering the water, 
 and donning his dry clothes when he had passed through 
 the stream. The two unfortunate men took five days 
 to reach Tshibisa's, a journey which would otherwise 
 have occupied only two days and a half. Their meals 
 were never properly cooked, and were always of some 
 indigestible substance, such as roasted maize. ' 
 
 When they reached the Shire the river was in flood, 
 and none of the Marian ja were willing, under the cir- 
 cumstances, to take them down the stream. Three of 
 the Makololo, however, volunteered, and they started 
 with these people in a small canoe. Instead of stopping 
 to rest at night (they had no tents, no beds, and no 
 mosquito-curtains with them), they were compelled to 
 go on through the darkness because the mosquitoes were 
 unendurable on the shore. In the middle of the night 
 the canoe, badly steered, was upset in a whirlpool, and 
 although the Bishop and his companions and their three 
 canoe-men reached the shore without difficulty and even 
 saved their canoe, their spare clothing, their medicines, 
 and provisions were all lost. The next morning they 
 reached what is now called the island of Tshiromo, at 
 the mouth of the Ruo, and here the Bishop, wet through 
 to the skin, unfed, and worn out with fatigue, was 
 seized with strong fever. He took refuge in the village 
 of a disagreeable chief who grudged him the use of a hut. 
 Here day after day for three weeks the Makololo tended 
 the slowly-dying Bishop with affectionate solicitude, but 
 without the means of healing him. At length, worn out
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 275 
 
 with fever, with no medicines and no proper food, he 
 died. His companion, Mr. Burrup, all this time far 
 gone with dysentery, staggered from the hut in which 
 the Bishop had expired and read the burial-service over 
 him as the Makololo placed his body in the grave they 
 had dug a grave which should now be surrounded by 
 some more fitting memorial than the crazy paling which 
 at present marks its site. Then, when all was over, 
 the Makololo, with the utmost difficulty, but with the 
 tenderest care, conveyed Mr. Burrup on a litter of 
 branches back to Magomero, which he reached just in 
 time to die among his brethren. 
 
 On the 1 5th March the Pioneer steamed down the 
 Kongoni with Captain Wilson, Miss Mackenzie, Mrs. 
 Burrup, and all the surviving missionaries, except 
 Messrs. Horace Waller and Hugh Rowley, who decided 
 to remain. At the mouth of the river they were dis- 
 appointed to find that the Gorgon had left on account of 
 bad weather; but she returned on the 2nd April, and 
 departed again on the 4th, taking away the unhappy 
 Mission party. 
 
 Livingstone was almost broken-hearted at this de 
 plorable catastrophe of the death of Mr. Burrup and ol 
 the man whom he affectionately calls the "good Bishop.'' 
 Not only did he grieve at the personal loss he had 
 sustained by their decease, but he felt that, argue it as 
 he might, this was a staggering blow to his aspirations 
 for forming a successful establishment of British civilisa- 
 tion on the Shire. Up to this time he had been full of 
 enthusiasm in contemplating the formation of British 
 colonies in this direction ; now he found it hard to battle 
 against the discouragement which was creeping over his 
 own mind and over that of his associates.
 
 276 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTKAL AFRICA. 
 
 Dr. James Stewart had been brought to the Zambezi 
 by H. M.S. Gorgon. He had been sent out by the Free 
 Church of Scotland to inspect the lands of the Zambezi 
 and report on the probable formation of a Scotch Mission 
 in those regions. He made a careful examination of 
 the river as far as Kebra-basa, and of the Shire up to 
 the Murchison Cataracts, but the time of his coming 
 here was inopportune ; the disasters which had befallen 
 the Universities' Mission had such a depressing effect, 
 and the Shire countries which it was proposed to 
 evangelise were at that time being so ravaged and laid 
 waste by Yao raiders, that Dr. Stewart was fain to 
 decide it was not a propitious time for his Church to 
 adveutui*e in that direction. He therefore returned to 
 the Cape of Good Hope, and the project of the Free 
 Church Mission in Nyasaland was allowed to stand 
 over. 1 
 
 But at the time Dr. Stewart left the Zambezi to 
 return with his unfavourable report, Livingstone could 
 not foresee the bright future which was to attend his 
 frustrated plans, and Dr. Stewart's negative decision in 
 the matter of founding a Scotch Mission was another 
 disappointment to the heart-sick Livingstone. 
 
 Yet a further blow was to come. He left Kongone to 
 return to Shupanga with several more sections of the 
 Lady Nyassa on the nth April. Everywhere along 
 his journey up the river he found people, even thf 
 
 1 Dr. Stewart, on his return to South Africa, created the great 
 Missionary College of Lovedale, but he was always hankering to 
 return to the Shire and carry out Livingstone's wishes. Eventually 
 he did so in 1875, and assisted in putting the first steamer, the Jlala, 
 on the lake. He established on the west shore of Nyasa that flourish, 
 ing " Livingstonia " Mission which has since prospered so markedly 
 under the able guidance of Dr. Robert Laws.
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 
 
 277 
 
 natives, suffering from fever, and at Shupanga the 
 season was more than usually unhealthy. About the 
 middle of April Mrs. Livingstone was prostrated by that 
 severe form of bilious remittent which I have described 
 in a foregoing chapter on African fever. She received 
 the most sedulous attention from her husband and from 
 Dr. Kirk, but nothing was of any avail, and she died on 
 the 27th April 1862. Dr. Stewart, who had not yet 
 left the Zambezi, read the burial-service over her. and 
 
 
 MRS. LIVINGSTONE. 
 
 the seamen of the Pioneer mounted guard for some 
 nights at the place where she was buried, which was 
 under the branches of a baobab-tree at Shupanga. A 
 temporary paling and a wooden cross were erected over 
 her grave, and these were subsequently replaced by a 
 stone cross and slab, and iron railings have recently 
 been put up in place of the iron paling. 
 
 The latter years of this poor lady were not happy. 
 In fact, it may be said that the happiness went out of
 
 278 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 her life from the day that she parted with her husband 
 at Cape Town in 1852, she to return to Scotland, and he 
 to commence his great series of explorations. It was 
 more than four years before they came together again, and 
 during those four years Mrs. Livingstone had led a weary, 
 dreary, narrow life in Scotland, worried and persecuted 
 by tiresome pietistic friends who were always bothering 
 her about her religious beliefs. Because she was the 
 wife of a great missionary it was considered that she 
 ought to be always gushing about religion, and as she 
 had not the gift of glib expression, she disappointed the 
 severely good people around her, much in the same way 
 that her husband had done when a youth, because he 
 was not an adept at mouth-religion. Mrs. Livingstone 
 was always being told that she was in a state of much 
 "spiritual darkness;" others of her friends seem to 
 have made her unhappy by hinting that her husband's 
 long separation from her arose from his " not being 
 comfortable at home." When Livingstone returned 
 home at the end of 1856 she thought her troubles were 
 at an end, and a happy interval ensued until they both 
 of them started for Africa in 1858. Then they were 
 once more separated, and Mrs. Livingstone did not 
 rejoin her husband until 1861. She was not, from what 
 we know, up to her husband's level of intellect, but in 
 many respects she was an ideal missionary's wife in her 
 practical understanding of how to make life civilised 
 and comfortable in the wilderness. 
 
 Livingstone bore this last calamity with a quiet 
 resignation and absence of all ostentatious display in 
 public, which of course gained for him from the excellent 
 people who were always longing to find flaws in his 
 character an accusation of not having sufiiciently cared
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 279 
 
 for his wife ; but concurrently with these allegations we 
 find him expressing in private letters the deep and bitter 
 grief with which he regarded the loss which had befallen 
 him. Still, he would not allow private sorrows to inter- 
 fere with his dogged determination to carry on his work 
 in Nyasaland. Dr. Kirk and Charles Livingstone were 
 sent to Tete to bring away the remaining stores and 
 other property of the expedition, and the preparations 
 for the launch of the Lady Nyassa were continued with 
 vigour. The Pioneer went backwards and forwards to 
 Kongone, bringing up the remaining sections, and on 
 the 23rd June 1862 the Lady Nyassa was safely launched 
 on the Zambezi As, however, the waters of the Zam- 
 bezi and the Shire had fallen so low that no attempt 
 could be made to reach the Murchison Falls before the 
 December rains, and as Livingstone fancied the Portu- 
 guese were throwing impediments in the way of trade 
 on the Zambezi, he resolved to make another attempt 
 on the Rovuma. Accordingly he left Kongone in 
 the Pioneer on the 6th August, and proceeded to the 
 island of Johanna, to arrange for the purchase of oxen 
 for use on the Shire, and thence crossed to the mouth of 
 the Rovuma in the beginning of September. Livingstone 
 was somewhat disappointed with the appearance of this 
 river, and the bar at its mouth was not found to be so 
 simple in the dry season as at other times of the year. 
 They journeyed up the Rovuma in their boats to a 
 distance of 160 miles from the sea, measured by the course 
 of the river. At this point they found it narrow and 
 full of rocks, and it was considered unnecessary to go any 
 farther, as more impassable places were reported a little 
 farther on, and Livingstone was soon convinced that a 
 greater interval of land-carriage would intervene from
 
 280 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 the farthest navigable point of the Rovurua to the shores 
 of Nyasa than existed round the cataracts of the Shire. 
 The natives, moreover, were quarrelsome and hostile, 
 and Livingstone therefore decided to give up the Rovuma 
 for a while 1 and return to the Zambezi, which he reached 
 at the end of November, having first called in at Quili- 
 mane, finding the river so low, however, that he did 
 not get up to Shupanga until the igth December, 
 which they left again on the icth January 1863, with 
 the Lady Nyassa in tow. On their way up the river 
 they saw the most sickening scenes of destruction due 
 to the slave-raids of that vile being Mariano, one of 
 those black Portuguese who are a disgrace to humanity. 
 For miles and miles nothing but burnt villages, stinking 
 corpses, and white skeletons could be seen, together with 
 a few wretched survivors slowly starving to death in the 
 absence of the food which the slave-raiders had taken 
 away or destroyed. 2 
 
 Unfortunately, the Pioneer stuck again in a shallow 
 part of the river above the Ruo, and whilst waiting here 
 Mr. Thornton rejoined the expedition. He too was 
 doomed to leave his bones in this land. The remaining 
 missionaries at Magomero had, after the death of Bishop 
 
 1 There was one pleasing feature about this last Rovuma expedition 
 in agreeable contrast to all the other work which had taken place on 
 the Zambezi, and that was the excellent health that prevailed amongst 
 all concerned in this journey. 
 
 2 Throughout the Zambezi expedition Livingstone recounts numerous 
 instances of these destructive ravages due to the slave -raids of the 
 black Portuguese. In allowing these horrors to take place and to 
 continue, the Portuguese Government was certainly to blame in its 
 pusillanimity and indifference. It did not seem able to take stronger 
 measures to keep these half-caste scum under better control ; but, at 
 the same time, it should be clearly understood that no white Portuguese 
 were concerned in these slave-hunts. They were only so far to blame 
 in that they did not actively put a stop to them.
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 281 
 
 Mackenzie, fled from that place down to Tshibisa's, on 
 the Shire, and Thornton, finding that they were suffering 
 from want of animal food, volunteered to go across to 
 Tete and bring thence a supply of goats and sheep. He 
 was anxious at the same time to connect, by a survey, 
 his former work at Tete and that in the mountainous 
 Shire district. But the toil of this terrible journey, 
 which had once very nearly killed Dr. Kirk and Mr. 
 Rae, proved too much for his strength ; for when he 
 returned from Tete to the Pioneer he fell ill with dysen- 
 tery and fever, and died on the 2ist April 1863, adding 
 another grave to the number which dot the banks of the 
 Shire with English bones. 
 
 Having at last got up to the vicinity of the cataracts, 
 Livingstone and his party unscrewed the Lady Nyassa, 
 and began to make a road over the forty odd miles of 
 land porterage round the Murchison Falls. But the 
 task proved too much for their strength. The fact was, 
 they were all in a state of despair. All the native labour 
 being swept away by the slave- raids, the country was in 
 a condition of utter desolation ; no food could be pro- 
 cured but what they shot themselves, and over and above 
 this, the worry, anxiety, and hard work under a tropical 
 sun had laid low nearly every member of the expedition 
 with dysentery. From this terrible disease Dr. Kirk 
 and Charles Livingstone suffered so severely that they 
 were ordered to return home ; but just as they were 
 about to start Livingstone himself fell ill with the same 
 disease, and Dr. Kirk was obliged to remain in attendance 
 till the worst was past, and he was nursed back again to 
 convalescence. Kirk finally left him on the pth May 
 1863. 
 
 A few miles of road had been completed, and the oxen
 
 282 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 had been broken in, so when Livingstone recovered he 
 resolved to go to the Upper Shire and endeavour to 
 recover and patch up the boat which he had left behind 
 him above the cataracts, and reach in her the southern 
 shore of Lake Nyasa, where he would be able to buy a 
 large quantity of provisions, that would render his expe- 
 dition independent of the Portuguese settlements for a 
 while. Accordingly he started, accompanied by Mr. 
 Edward Rae (who had returned to the Zambezi in the 
 Pioneer), and drove part of the way in a cart ; but on 
 arriving at the upper portion of the river, they found 
 their boat had been burned by the Mananja about three 
 months previously. 
 
 On returning to the Pioneer on the 2nd July, Living- 
 stoue found awaiting him a despatch from Earl Russell, 
 containing instructions for the withdrawal of the expedi- 
 tion. In view of the many disasters which had occurred, 
 it is not to be wondered at that the British Ministry 
 considered the expenditure caused by the expedition to 
 be already so large that it was felt it could not be allowed 
 to go on with so little prospect of a favourable result. 
 While concurring in the inevitable necessity for this 
 action on the part of the Secretary of State for Foreign 
 Affairs, Livingstone, with his indomitable perseverance, 
 resolved not to have done with Nyasaland before he had 
 seen a little more of the lake, and taking advantage of 
 the excuse that it was quite impossible for the Pioneer 
 to go down to the sea until the floods of December, he 
 made arrangements to have the Lady Nyassa screwed 
 together once more, and then, while this was doing, he 
 determined to have a boat carried past the cataracts for
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 283 
 
 the second time, and to effect, if it were possible, the cir- 
 cumnavigation of Lake Nyasa. Fate was not tired of 
 spiting him yet. His boat, which he had attempted to 
 get past the cataracts, was wrecked by the carelessness 
 of his men, and dashed down the Falls, everything in 
 her being lost. Bitter as was his vexation, however, 
 Livingstone organised a little caravan of seamen from 
 the Pioneer whose health required a change to the 
 breezy highlands, and started off for the Upper Shire, 
 with the intention of crossing it and proceeding to the 
 south-west of Lake Nyasa, to obtain information about 
 the slave-routes in that direction. Passing through a 
 country to a great extent deserted by its inhabitants, 
 they eventually reached Kota-kota, on the shores of 
 Lake Nyasa, where they were kindly received by the 
 Arabs. After a short stay here, and the acquisition of 
 much information about the slave-trade, they turned due 
 west along the great route to Central Africa which 
 leads to Lake Bangweolo and the Upper Congo. In 
 this direction they travelled as far as a place called 
 Tshimanga, in the vicinity of the Loangwa River. Here 
 Livingstone was told, and not untruly, that he was 
 only ten days' journey from Lake Bemba or Bangweolo. 
 But here they had to turn back, because it had been 
 made clear to them, in a manner more public than 
 was pleasing to Livingstone's feelings, that the pay 
 of all members of the expedition would positively cease 
 on the 3ist December, and Livingstone felt that it 
 would be unfair to the men to delay them any longer, 
 as he had received orders to take the Pioneer down to 
 the sea in the preceding April, and had delayed doing 
 so until the following December. Accordingly, with 
 bitter regret at having to turn back within smell, almost,
 
 284 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 of new lakes and rivers, he gave the order to retrace 
 their steps to Lake Nyasa, the shores of which they 
 reached on the 8th October. His little party finally 
 arrived at the Pioneer on the ist November. The river, 
 however, did not rise sufficiently for their departure 
 until the ipth January 1864. They were not, of course, 
 permitted by the ill-luck which clogged their progress 
 to descend the river even on their homeward journey 
 without some mishap. The Pioneer carried away her 
 rudder in passing suddenly round a bank, which delayed 
 them from reaching Morambala till the 2nd February. 
 At this place they stopped to pick up the remaining 
 members of the Universities' Mission. 
 
 Bishop Mackenzie had been succeeded, after a con- 
 siderable delay, by Bishop Tozer, who viewed the Shire 
 Mission in a very different light to his enthusiastic 
 predecessor. He had no great liking for the natives, 
 and the appearance of the country, the awful ill-health 
 which prevailed amongst such missionaries as were re- 
 maining, and the terrible desolation which was brought 
 about by the raids of the Wa-yao and the black Portu- 
 guese, filled him with disgust, and he had left the Shire 
 for Quilimane before Livingstone had arrived at Moram- 
 bala to take away the remnant of the Universities' 
 Mission who were awaiting him there. 
 
 Bishop Tozer's conduct is rather severely animadverted 
 on by Livingstone in his account of the Zambezi ex- 
 pedition, but there is little doubt he acted wisely under 
 the circumstances, and his petulant remarks about 
 " black people " were very likely due to worry, vexation, 
 and ill-health. The continuance of the Universities'
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 28 
 
 Mission work on the Shire under the circumstances which 
 then prevailed would probably have only led to fresh 
 disasters. The subsequent history of the Universities' 
 Mission has shown that Bishop Tozer acted prudently 
 in removing its headquarters to Zanzibar. At Zanzilmr 
 the Mission began to get at Central Africa through the 
 intelligent Swahili race. Bishop Tozer was succeeded 
 by that justly-famed man Bishop Steere, whose practical 
 genius established the Mission on a firm basis. Dr. 
 Steere's patient study of East African languages enabled 
 him to produce grammars and vocabularies of the Ki- 
 swahili, which remain the standard text-books of that 
 
 language to this day. 
 
 : jrf;;fO l**9tv 1^13;.I t-.ii i; .-1 <;>: Mivj 
 
 In after-years, and under Bishop Steere's directions, 
 the Universities' Mission in Nyasaland was re-esta- 
 blished, 1 and has grown and flourished ever since. During 
 the interval of time which ensued between the two 
 attempts, our missionaries had learnt much as to the 
 requirements of white men in Tropical Africa, and 
 although a few among this second batch of pioneers have 
 died from fatigue, exposure, and the severe discomfort 
 incidental to the evolution of such a work, still there have 
 been many bright episodes in the history of the Mission 
 to counterbalance its first few losses, and a much better 
 standard of health has since been maintained among its 
 members. 
 
 After a hurried visit to Sena in order to settle 
 outstanding accounts for supplies with the kindly Por- 
 tuguese at that place, Livingstone proceeded with 
 
 1 In 1881.
 
 286 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 the Pioneer and Lady Nyassa to the mouth of the Zam- 
 bezi, which he reached on the I3th February 1864. 
 Here he was met by H.M. ships Orestes and Ariel, 
 which severally towed the Lady Nyassa and the 
 Pioneer to Mofambique. 
 
 On their way thither they were most severely tried 
 by the elements. Indeed, an irreverent person reviewing 
 the history of the Zambezi expedition would almost 
 come to the conclusion that Providence was on the side 
 of the Portuguese and determined to thwart it. A 
 terrible hurricane struck the Ariel, which was towing 
 the Lady Nyassa, and again and again it seemed in- 
 evitable that the latter vessel must be destroyed by the 
 plunging backwards and forwards of the man-of-war. 
 " When the Ariel pitched forward," writes Livingstone, 
 " we could see a large part of her bottom, and when her 
 stern went down we could see all her deck. A boat 
 hung on her stern davits was stove in by the waves. 
 The officers on board the Ariel thought it was all over 
 with us." . . . During the whole of this hurricane, in 
 which three towing hawsers were snapped one after the 
 other, the Lady Nyassa behaved admirably, and never 
 shipped a single green sea. During the same gale the 
 Orestes, which was towing the Pioneer, split eighteen 
 sails, some of the Pioneer's cargo had to be thrown over- 
 board, her roundhouse was washed away, and the cabin 
 was frequently knee-deep in water. The Orestes and the 
 Pioneer did not arrive at Mozambique until nine days 
 after the Ariel and the Lady Nyassa. The cool-headed 
 pluck and admirable seamanship of the British navy 
 had baffled the spite of the powers of the air who are
 
 THE SECOND ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. 287 
 
 for ever plaguing the martyr-man, and will continue to 
 do so until he acquires the knowledge which will bring 
 them under his control.
 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND. 
 
 AT Mozambique the Zambezi expedition came to an 
 end. The Pioneer returned to the Cape with the Rev. 
 Horace Waller and the remnant of the Mission pupils. 
 The other ships dispersed, and Livingstone proceeded in 
 the Lady Nyassa to Zanzibar to endeavour to dispose of 
 her there. But no one being willing or able to buy her, 
 he made a most plucky journey across the Indian Ocean 
 to Bombay in this tiny little craft. At Bombay he was 
 received with much kindness by Sir Bartle Frere (the 
 Governor), and failing to sell the Lady Nyassa here, he 
 left her at this place pending his possible return, and 
 made the best of his way to England via Egypt and 
 France. He reached Charing Cross Station on July 
 23, 1864. 
 
 On the same day that he returned to London he called 
 on Sir Roderick Murchison early in the evening, and 
 was taken by him straight away to a reception at Lady 
 P.ilmerston's, where London society treated him with a 
 certain amount of condescending politeness. Two or 
 three days afterwards he went to the Foreign Office to 
 see the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, but he was 
 not over well received by Earl Russell, whose manner, 
 he notes in his diary, " was very cold, as is that of all 
 the Russells." 
 
 288
 
 LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND. 289 
 
 However, outside the Government offices, the great 
 hearty British public of prosperous merchants, busy 
 clerics, good-natured dukes, and simple-minded, earnest 
 scientific men still more, perhaps, the intelligent arti- 
 zans, who had read about Livingstone, and made him 
 into a popular hero was kind enough, and to some 
 extent made him their lion for the summer season of 
 1864. He attended a meeting of the British Associa- 
 tion, he assisted at the launching of an ironclad, he 
 planted trees at the Duke of Argyll's, and figured in 
 other public functions wherein he was always welcomed 
 with enthusiasm, and not only retained his old friends, 
 but made new ones by the modest, deprecating way in 
 which he received the applause of the populace. In the 
 autumn he set to work writing his book, "The Zambezi 
 and its Tributaries," which is compiled from his own and 
 Charles Livingstone's Journals. This book was written 
 at Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire, the residence 
 of his friend and old companion, Mr. Webb. He had 
 originally gone there with some reluctance and intending 
 to spend but a few days, for he had wished to surround 
 himself with some of his children and retire into privacy, 
 so that he might give undivided attention to his book ; 
 but when his kind hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Webb, learnt the 
 reasons of his reluctance to make a long stay with them, 
 they invited down his daughter Agnes to join him, and 
 made such arrangements for his accommodation that he 
 might have all the seclusion and facilities for writing 
 which he desired. The result was, that his intended stay 
 of a few days expanded into a residence of eight months 
 at Newstead Abbey ; perhaps, all things considered, the 
 eight happiest months of his life, for his was a nature 
 which was peculiarly sensitive and expansive to kindness.
 
 290 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Through the efforts of Sir Roderick Murchison, Living- 
 stone's brother Charles had been appointed Consul at 
 Fernando-Po. Livingstone had also advocated the claims 
 of Dr. Kirk for recognition at the hands of the Govern- 
 ment. 1 As regards himself, it is a strange thing, and one 
 not easily explained by the information which has come 
 down to us, that, whereas most of Livingstone's asso- 
 ciates in his Zambezi expedition were fairly well pro- 
 vided for, Livingstone himself got nothing of the sub- 
 stance and very little of the shadow. Dr. Blaikie informs 
 us that during the early part of 1865 Mr. Hay ward, the 
 Queen's Council and essayist, was the bearer to Living- 
 stone at Newstead of a vague verbal desire from Lord 
 Palmerston " to do something for Livingstone," but 
 nothing came of this, because Livingstone declined to 
 have anything done on his behalf, unless it were the 
 conclusion of a treaty with Portugal for the opening of 
 the Zambezi. About the same period a movement was 
 set on foot by Sir Roderick Murchison for Livingstone's 
 return to the exploration of Africa. 
 
 Sir Roderick's idea was that Livingstone should pro- 
 ceed via the Rovuma to the south end of Tanganyika, 
 and endeavour afterwards to solve the question of the 
 southern limits of the Nile Basin. This idea did not 
 
 1 Shortly afterwards Dr. (now Sir John) Kirk was offered an impor- 
 tant post as Assistant Curator at the Royal Gardens, Kew ; but his 
 ambition tended steadily towards Africa, and, to the surprise of his 
 friends, he declined this. He was ultimately offered the post of 
 medical officer to the Zanzibar Consulate, which he accepted. Soon 
 after he had established himself at Zanzibar he was made Vice-Consul 
 in addition. During the absences of his superior officer, the Consul- 
 General, Dr. Kirk acted in that capacity with distinction for several 
 years, until, in 1873, he was promoted to be Consul-General, to which 
 was added the function of Political Agent in 1880. He retired from 
 the Consular service in 1887, but has since been employed by H.M. 
 Government in various diplomatic negotiations respecting Africa
 
 LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND. 291 
 
 at first coincide wholly with Livingstone's own wishes, 
 which were to devote himself more especially to the 
 opening up of Nyasaland, if not by the Zambezi, then 
 by the Rovuma. However, in time, he was brought to 
 see that the two projects might be combined. At any 
 rate, that strange longing to return to Africa, which 
 besets every one who has visited that continent, urged 
 him to seize the first opportunity that presented itself of 
 returning to Africa. Indeed, the conditions under which 
 he ultimately resumed his explorations were so unsatis- 
 factory and unjust, and so ludicrously inadequate to the 
 value of his work, that the disinterestedness of his desire 
 to devote himself to Africa is clearly apparent. No one, 
 in fact, can say that Livingstone " made Africa pay." 
 It will be remembered that his original salary as an 
 agent of the London Missionary Society was ^100 
 a year. For the two books published in his lifetime he 
 received in all some ^11,000 or ^12,000, a public testi- 
 monial in Scotland brought him in about ^2000, at the 
 Cape of Good Hope he was presented with 800 guineas 
 on his way back to the Zambezi, and a public subscrip- 
 tion at Bombay brought in not quite ^1000. His pay 
 during the six years in which he served Her Majesty's 
 Government on the Zambezi was ^500 a year. And 
 when he returned for the last time to Central Africa, 
 holding the rank of Her Majesty's Consul to the chief 
 and tribes of Central Africa, his pay was nothing, and 
 in addition he was distinctly told by the Foreign Office 
 that he would have no claim on them for a pension. 1 
 
 1 The total of Livingstone's earnings in Africa, and of the bounties 
 he received (not counting his ^100 a year whilst he was in the service 
 of the Mission, which did not even suffice for his needs of food and 
 clothing and the maintenance of his family), may be set forth as 
 follows :
 
 292 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Nor had the Royal Geographical Society much occa- 
 sion to vaunt its goodness to Livingstone. He brought 
 it a vast amount of renown and legions of fellows whose 
 united subscriptions probably amounted to a thousand 
 guineas annually. The Council of the Society had given 
 him after his journey to Angola a gold medal. To the 
 second Zambezi expedition they contributed nothing, as 
 far as I am aware ; and on the occasion of his third and 
 last departure for Africa the Society contributed ^500, 
 and coupled their contribution with provisos and restric- 
 tions of the most stringent kind. To this insufficient 
 donation on the part of the premier geographical society 
 of the world Her Majesty's Government was induced 
 to add P^SOO ; thus Livingstone started with a fund of 
 ;iooo to explore about half Central Africa, to discover 
 
 Aggregate of money awards, testimonials, and subscrip- 
 tions, say jCs> 
 
 Total pay from Government for six years' services on the 
 
 Zambezi at ,500 a year 3,ooo 
 
 Total received from publication of books, say . . . 12,000 
 
 Government grant for last expedition . . . 500 
 
 Grant from Royal Geographical Society . . . 500 
 
 /2I.OOO 
 
 On the other hand, he spent on the Lady Nyassa . . j6,ooo 
 He gave various grants and allowances to fellow-mission- 
 aries, and gratuities to some of the men who were with 
 him on the Zambezi expedition which amounted alto- 
 gether to about 1,000 
 
 And he, further, bore himself the expenses of his first great African 
 journey from the Cape to Angola, and Angola to the Indian Ocean, and 
 ubout two-thirds of his expenditure in Africa during the last eight years 
 of his life. As two items in remarkable contrast to Livingstone's finan- 
 cial straits, it may be mentioned that the Royal Geographical Society 
 expended (partly out of funds subscribed) ji 1,000 on Commander 
 Cameron's expedition across Africa, and Stanley is calculated to 
 have received from his publishers for all the books he has written on 
 Africa about _8o,ooo.
 
 LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND. 293 
 
 three or four lakes of sufficient magnitude for each one to 
 be as good as a knighthood to the explorers of a later day, 
 to determine the true sources of the Nile, and represent 
 Her Majesty among the chiefs and tribes of the interior. 
 We are, however, informed that a private friend l gave 
 a subscription of ^1000 to help him in his projects of 
 exploration, and relieve him of any financial embarrass- 
 ment that he might be in at the time of his departure, 
 for the maintenance of his family during his absence. 
 
 Livingstone could not wait for the publication of his 
 book on the Zambezi (which did not come out until the 
 autumn of 1865). but ^ e ^ London on the I3th August 
 in that year, and stopping a day or two at Paris in order 
 to place his daughter Agnes 2 at a school, he reached 
 Marseilles on the ipth August, and left by steamer for 
 Alexandria. In Egypt he spent a few days on his way 
 overland to Suez, and visited a portion of Lesseps' Canal. 
 He finally reached Bombay on the nth September. 
 
 At this place he sold the Lady Nyassa (which had cost 
 him ;6ooo) for ^2300. He invested this money in 
 shares of an Indian bank, which failed a year or two 
 afterwards, and thus the Lady Nyassa proved a dead loss 
 to him from first to last. He made a pleasant little stay 
 in India from the middle of September 1865 till the 
 middle of January 1866. His old friend the Governor, 
 Sir Bartle Frere, kindly arranged that his arrival at 
 Zanzibar should be associated with as much prestige as 
 he could confer on it. So he killed two birds with one 
 
 1 James Young of Glasgow, who was a true friend to Livingstone, 
 and would have placed half his fortune at the explorer's disposal had 
 the latter consented to accept more than was barely necessary. Living- 
 stone's real friends were the aforesaid James Young, William C. 
 Oswell. and William F. Webb (of Newstead Abbey), 
 
 2 Now JN'rs. Bruce.
 
 294 
 
 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 stone by giving Livingstone a passage in the Thule, a 
 Government steamer, and at the same time commissioned 
 him to present this steamer to the Sultan of Zanzibar as 
 a gift from the Bombay Government. 
 
 Arrived at Zanzibar, he received, as might be imagined 
 under the circumstances, a most friendly reception from 
 the Sultan, and was furnished with letters of recom- 
 
 MKS. LIVINGSTONE BRUCE. 
 (From apliotographby John Fergus.) 
 
 mendation to the Arabs of the interior. He had brought 
 with him from India a number of boys from the Nassick 
 Mission as a nucleus for his expedition to the interior. 
 In the high-lands behind Bombay there had been esta- 
 blished an educational mission by the Church Missionary 
 Society, to which most of the slaves captured on the
 
 LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND. 295 
 
 Indian Ocean by our cruisers were sent. It was Living- 
 stone's idea to utilise some of these educated Africans 
 in the opening up of Africa. Unfortunately, neither 
 with him nor with others did they prove a success. 1 He 
 had also brought with him from India thirteen sepoys, 
 and at Zanzibar he further engaged ten Johanna men, 
 several of whom had been in his service before, and four 
 natives of Nyasaland whom he had originally brought 
 to Zanzibar. In Zanzibar he bought six camels, four 
 buffaloes, two mules, and four donkeys. The buffaloes, 
 of course, were the domesticated buffalo of India. These 
 he was desirous of experimenting with on the African 
 continent in the hope that they might prove able to 
 resist the bite of the tsetse fly. He hoped also to show 
 that camels, mules, and donkeys might be used for tran- 
 sport in East African countries. These animals were em- 
 barked in an Arab dau, whilst Livingstone and his men 
 went on board HM. ship Penguin, which had been com- 
 missioned to transport him to the mouth of the Rovuma. 
 He arrived off this river on the 22nd March, but 
 owing to the difficulty of entering it (for many altera- 
 tions seem to have taken place in the position of the 
 shoals and the nature of the bar since he had visited the 
 river previously), he was unable to land his menagerie of 
 transport animals. Accordingly it was thought better to 
 proceed a little distance to the north and land in the 
 Bay of Mikindani. This was effected without any 
 difficulty, and the Penguin steamed off, leaving Living- 
 stone to set out on his third and last African journey. 
 
 1 The present writer has had several old Nassick boys in his 
 service in Africa, chiefly as cooks. They are generally well taught 
 in whatever may be their trade, but are somewhat inclined to 
 drunkenness. The Christian negro is too apt to lose the restraint on 
 indulgence in alcohol which Mohammedanism imposes on him.
 
 CHAPTKR XVII. 
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER. 
 
 ON the 4th April 1866 Livingstone and his party started 
 from Mikindani for the Rovuma, with the intention of 
 following that river as far as they might towards 
 Nyasa. The expedition, at the commencement, con- 
 sisted of Livingstone, thirteen sepoys (Mohammedan 
 Indians from Bombay), ten Johanna men, nine negroes 
 from the Nassick Mission, two men from Tshupanga, 
 on the Zambezi, named Susi and Amoda, and two Wa- 
 yao, Wekatani and Tshuma (Chuma), who were origi- 
 nally slaves whom Livingstone had freed in the Shire 
 Highlands on the occasion of his first Zambezi expedi- 
 tion, and whom he had afterwards conveyed to Zanzi- 
 bar. The expedition possessed, as beasts of burden, six 
 camels, three Indian buffaloes and a calf, two muies, 
 four donkeys, and a poodle-dog named Chitane. 1 Just 
 at starting, one of the buffaloes gored one of the donkeys 
 so badly that it had to be shot. This was misfortune 
 
 1 Of this pet Livingstone writes : "He had more go in him than a 
 hundred dogs of the country, took charge of the whole line of march, 
 ran to see the first man in the line, and then back to the last, and 
 barked to hasten him up ; and then, when he knew what hut I occu. 
 pied, would not let a country cur come in sight of it, and never stole 
 anything himself." This poodle was afterwards, to Livingstone's 
 great grief, drowned in a marsh on the road between Nyasa and 
 Tanganyika. 
 
 296
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER 297 
 
 number one. On their way south to the Rovuma their 
 camels and buffaloes were bitten by the tsetse fly, and 
 already Livingstone noticed how badly the camels were 
 treated by the sepoys, who overloaded and maltreated 
 them. 
 
 On approaching the Rovuma they passed through 
 dense thickets of trees growing closely together, but not 
 of any great height. Having struck the river, they 
 marched along its north bank as far as the town of 
 Mtarika, on the banks of the Rovuma, in the northern 
 part of the Yao country. On the way neither the mules 
 nor the donkeys were annoyed by the tsetse. The 
 camels and buffaloes, however, were incessantly bitten 
 by this noxious fly, which would only leave them gorged 
 with their blood, and with small streams flowing down 
 the animals' bodies from the bites. Nevertheless, what 
 worried Livingstone more than the attacks of the tsetse 
 was the abominable cruelty on the part of the sepoys 
 to these unfortunate animals. They overloaded them, 
 prodded them with sharp sticks until there were large 
 holes in their bodies, left them standing loaded in the 
 sun, and often neglected to see that they were fed. By 
 the yth May, a little more than a month after starting, 
 two camels and one buffalo were dead, and on the next 
 day, the 8th, Livingstone writes : " One mule is very 
 ill, one buffalo drowsy and exhausted, one camel a 
 mere skeleton from bad sores, and another has a small 
 hole at the point of the pelvis which sticks out at the 
 side. I suspect that this was made maliciously, for he 
 came from the field bleeding profusely." Thinking to 
 give the animals the benefit of a few days' rest, he 
 resolved to push on ahead with his Johanna men and 
 local carriers, leaving the sepoys and Nassick Mission
 
 298 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 boys who were about on a par for rotten badness, 
 laziness, and cruelty behind to tend the animals and 
 rejoin him later. This was certainly not a very wise 
 thing to do, for if these men treated the animals badly 
 when checked with Livingstone's presence, they were 
 not likely to amend their conduct when removed from 
 his scrutiny. Ultimately the havildar of the sepoys 
 and one of the Nassick boys caught them up in the 
 Matambwe country, reporting that a second buffalo was 
 dead, and another camel and a mule had been left behind 
 ill. It was afterwards reported to Livingstone that 
 they had killed one camel with the butt-end of their 
 muskets, beating it till it died. On the 3rd June a 
 third buffalo died, and its calf soon afterwards followed 
 it. Apparently, in spite of the incessant way in which 
 they had been attacked by the tsetse, their death was 
 not due to the poison of that fly, but to the maltreat- 
 ment they had suffered at the hands of the sepoys. On 
 the rest of the way to Mtarika's the sepoys caught 
 them up one by one, but behaved abominably. Most of 
 the Nassick boys re-joined the expedition, but one or 
 two had been left behind ill and these finally died. 
 
 On their way to Mtarika's the expedition passed first 
 through a country harassed by the raids of the Magwan- 
 gwara, the roving Zulu robbers of whom I have written 
 in previous chapters, and then through a district which 
 exhibited the most distressing evidences of the slave- 
 raiding of the Wa-yao and Swahili Arabs. Livingstone 
 here saw many ghastly scenes of slave-women stabbed 
 or shot through the body and left lying on the path 
 because they were unable to walk any longer ; in other 
 places slaves were lying starving with the slave-sticks 
 round their necks, abandoned by their masters from
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER. 299 
 
 want of food. " They were too weak to be able to speak 
 or to say where they had come from ; some were quite 
 young." At Mtarika's place, 1 on the south bank of the 
 Rovuma River, it was decided to turn to the south-west, 
 because by striking straight across to Nyasa along the 
 Upper Rovuma they would have to pass through a 
 country ravaged by the Magwangwara and in a state 
 of famine. They therefore obtained guides and started 
 for the town of Mataka, 2 an important Yao chieftain 
 dwelling in the mountains near the south-east coast of 
 Nyasa. On the way the behaviour of the sepoys became 
 intolerable. They dawdled behind, picking up wild fruit, 
 and took from fourteen to twenty-two days performing 
 a march which Livingstone accomplished in one morning. 
 Livingstone had lent to their sergeant or havildar the 
 remaining donkey to carry his things, and this unfor- 
 tunate brute was killed by striking it on the head when- 
 ever it stuck in any marshy place along the road. They 
 killed the last young buffalo calf and ate it, but when 
 questioned about this by Livingstone, they declared it 
 had been carried away and devoured by a tiger ; in fact, 
 they saw the tiger. Livingstone asked them if they saw 
 its stripes, 3 and they all declared that they had seen them 
 distinctly. Their havildar had no authority over them, 
 and the men wore the sulky look of people who were 
 going where they were compelled but did not wish to 
 go. On one occasion, when Livingstone allowed some 
 of them to sleep at the fire in his house, they plundered 
 
 1 This must not be confounded with another Mtarika much farther 
 to the south, on the River Lujenda. It is a common Yao name. 
 
 2 The son and successor of this man, also called Mataka, has recently 
 been brought into prominence from having caused to be killed two 
 young Portuguese officials, Senhores Valadim and Almeida. 
 
 1 I need hardly remind my readers that there are no tigers in Africa.
 
 300 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTKAL AFRICA. 
 
 him of everything they could sell, such as cartridges, 
 cloth, and meat. They threatened three times to shoot 
 his interpreter for exposing their thefts, and en- 
 deavoured repeatedly to bribe his men to desert him 
 and break up the expedition. Their talk was of the 
 filthiest character, and their evil communications cor- 
 rupted the Johanna men and Nassick boys. At Ma- 
 taka's, Livingstone resolved to endure their wickedness 
 no longer, so he paid them off, and made arrangements 
 for their returning to the coast with an Arab trader. 
 The havildar, however, entreated for permission to go 
 on with Livingstone, and he unwillingly consented, not 
 liking to repulse the man's expressions of attachment. 1 
 In all his dealings with these sepoys and with his 
 Nassick boys and Johanna men one cannot fail to be 
 struck with the great want of discipline and firmness 
 which characterised Livingstone's third expedition. It 
 seemed somehow to lack organisation. There was a 
 " go-as-you-please " air about it, and it was fortunate 
 that Livingstone was received in a friendly way by the 
 natives; otherwise his party might have been exter- 
 minated with the greatest ease. Although, in all, the 
 permanent men of the expedition only numbered some 
 thirty-six (not counting the occasional native porters 
 hired from village to village), they were at times dis- 
 tributed over a hundred miles of country ; one man at 
 this village, another couple staying with that chief, four 
 or five with Livingstone, and so on. Little effort seems 
 to have been made to keep the men together on the 
 march, and although Livingstone complains bitterly of 
 the maltreatment of the animals, he apparently took no 
 measures to prevent it, but was content to push on along 
 1 This rnan returned to the coast later on with the Johanna men.
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER. 301 
 
 the road in feverish haste far in advance of his lagging 
 sepoys and slowly dying beasts. The admirable manner 
 in which he handled his Makololo in his former ex- 
 peditions seems to have deserted him. 
 
 On the 29th July 1866 Livingstone made a start from 
 Hataka's for Nyasa, having been very hospitably treated 
 by this Yao chief. He reached Nyasa without any 
 difficulty on the 8th August, and sent word to Jumbe, 1 
 the important Arab chief of Kota-kota on the opposite 
 coast, of his arrival, asking that a dau might be sent to 
 ferry him across, forwarding at the same time his letter 
 of introduction from the Sultan of Zanzibar to the Arabs 
 of the interior. His message, however, was apparently 
 not delivered, and after waiting a little while and seeing 
 no dau coming, he started off with his men and marched 
 round the south end of the lake, crossing the Shire 
 River at the entrance to its lake-like widening of 
 Pamalombwe. When on the south side of the Shire 
 he proceeded to the settlement formed by Mponda, 2 a 
 big Mohammedanised chief who had settled in this 
 country some years before, and had made himself king 
 among the timid A-nyanja people. At Mponda's one 
 of his Yao servants, Wekatani, found himself among 
 relations, and wished to stop with them. Accordingly 
 Livingstone paid him off, and commended him to 
 Mponda's care, to see that he should not again be sold 
 into slavery. 
 
 From Mponda's, Livingstone marched across the moun- 
 tainous peninsula of Cape Maclear, and continued his 
 journey round the south-western gulf of Lake Nyasa. 
 
 1 Predecessor of the present Jumbe, Sultan of Marimba. 
 - The Mponda who rules there to-day is the son of the man with 
 whom Livingstone stayed.
 
 302 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Here, however, he was to meet with some troubles from 
 his rascally men. At the town of a chief called Marenga, 
 at the south-west angle of the lake, there were rumours 
 that the country in front of them was being raided by 
 the Angoni-Zulus (whom Livingstone speaks of as the 
 " Mazitu "), and that forty-four Arabs and their followers 
 had been killed by these marauders at a place in the 
 interior called Kazungu. The Johanna men, therefore, 
 became scared at this news, and Musa, their spokes- 
 man, said that they would go no farther, but wished 
 to return. Livingstone took these men with him to 
 the chief Marenga and asked for an explanation of 
 the tales about the Mazitu. The chief explained them 
 away, and Livingstone attempted to show his men 
 that on the road they were taking they would incur 
 no danger of meeting these robbers. Musa and the 
 Johanna men, however, refused to believe either Living- 
 stone or the chief Marenga, and when the former 
 attempted to continue his journey, the Johanna men 
 threw down their loads and walked off. Their depar- 
 ture did not cause Livingstone any particular grief, as 
 he found them to be such inveterate thieves that he 
 could not even trust them with flints in their guns 
 (which they would sell to the natives) or allow them 
 to remain behind, for their object was invariably to 
 plunder their loads. When they had left him he 
 obtained canoes from the friendly chief Marenga, and 
 in this way passed round the heel of Lake Nyasa and 
 landed at the town of another very friendly chief, 
 named Kimsusa, who showed him the most thorough- 
 going hospitality, and after escorting him for some 
 distance on his march northwards, handed him over 
 to another chief equally hospitable. Livingstone and
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER. 303 
 
 his party, now consisting of a few Nassick boys, one 
 Yao and one Zambezi man (Susi and Chuma), crossed 
 the end of the long range called the " Kirk Mountains," 
 at a height of over 4000 feet, and pursuing a very zigzag 
 track north-westwards through the Matshewa country 
 (disturbed by occasional scares of Zulus, but never see- 
 ing them, and meeting with no hindrance or event of 
 importance), they reached the Loangwa River on the 
 1 6th December 1866. 
 
 In the meantime the runaway Johanna men had 
 journeyed back rapidly to the coast, and finally reached 
 Zanzibar. It is wonderful that they were not enslaved 
 on the way, and shows the respect with which Living- 
 stone must have been regarded by even the Wa-yao, from 
 the fact that they allowed a handful of his men to pass 
 back unhindered through their country. As they were 
 returning, however, the wily Johannas resolved to con- 
 coct such a tale as should excuse their return and not 
 prevent the payment of their wages. On arriving at 
 Zanzibar, therefore, they related to Dr. Seward and Dr. 
 Kirk x a most cleverly constructed tale, which was so 
 well told that it was not to be wondered that some 
 believed it, though there were one or two small dis- 
 crepancies which those who knew the country were able 
 to detect. The Johanna men, through their spokesman, 
 Musa, related that Dr. Livingstone had crossed Lake 
 Nyasa to its western shore, and was pushing on towards 
 the north-west, when beyond Marenga's village he was 
 met by a band of Zulus, who charged his small party of 
 twenty men with a rush. Livingstone (they said) fired 
 at the advancing Zulus and killed two of them, but 
 
 1 These gentlemen were at that time respectively Acting Ccinsul- 
 General and Vice-Consul at Zanzibar.
 
 304 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 before he could fire again he was felled to the ground 
 with the blow of an axe, which nearly severed his head 
 from his body. His Johanna men had then fled into 
 the dense bush, and not being followed up by the 
 "Maviti," 1 had escaped. Not liking, however, to leave 
 without absolute certainty of Livingstone's death, they 
 went on to relate how they had returned to the place 
 where he had been killed, and finding his body there, 
 they dug a grave with sticks and buried him. Musa 
 was repeatedly cross-examined by Dr. Seward and Dr. 
 Kirk, but he stuck to the one version of his tale. 
 
 In England public opinion was divided as to the truth 
 of Musa's statements. The press generally considered 
 that the story was true in the main, and that Living- 
 stone was really dead, and most of the newspapers has- 
 tened to publish his obituary notice. In various books 
 issued at the time and dealing with African subjects one 
 frequently meets with passages bewailing Livingstone's 
 untimely end at the outset of his exploration. 
 
 However, Mr. Edward Young, the gunner of the 
 Pioneer (of whose work with the Zambezi expedition 
 Livingstone writes so favourably) had had Musa working 
 under him in the Pioneer, and knew what a liar he 
 was, and he for one declared that this history of Living- 
 stone's death was false. The Rev. Horace Waller also 
 expressed incredulity, as some of Musa's statements 
 connected with the geography of the lake and of the 
 Shire were known to him to be inconsistent with actuality. 
 Sir Roderick Murchison, President of the Royal Geo- 
 graphical Society, also, in a speech delivered on one of 
 his last appearances in public, declared his disbelief in 
 
 1 Mazitu, Mavitu, Maviti, are convertible terms given to the invad- 
 ing Zulus by the indigenous inhabitants of East-Central Africa.
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER. 305 
 
 this news of Livingstone's death ; but in his case the 
 reasons for his refusal to believe it were rather of the 
 heart than of the head. However, public opinion was 
 so far stirred on the subject that the Geographical 
 Society determined to organise a search expedition, and 
 they appointed Mr. Edward Young to command it. 
 Judged by the results, a better choice of a leader could 
 scarcely have been made. " The Livingstone Search 
 Expedition " was one of the most brilliant feats ever 
 recorded in African travel. Mr. Young left England 
 in the middle of May 1867, and was accompanied by 
 Mr. Faulkner, 1 John Reid (the excellent seaman who 
 had sailed with Livingstone in the Lady Nyassa from 
 Zanzibar to Bombay), and Patrick Buckley. They 
 reached the mouth of the Zambezi on the 25th July, 
 having brought out with them a steel boat which was 
 named The Search. In this, with their baggage in a 
 flotilla of smaller boats and canoes, they journeyed up 
 the Zambezi and the Shire to the Murchison Cataracts. 
 On this part of the Shire below the falls they found that 
 the remnant of Livingstone's Makololo, who had chosen 
 to remain behind in Nyasaland, had gradually become 
 chiefs among the timid and servile A-nyanja, whom they 
 were protecting to a certain extent from the raids of 
 the Wa-yao and the AngonL They received Mr. Young 
 with enthusiasm, and together with their A-nyanja 
 people assisted him to carry his loads round the Mur- 
 chison Cataracts to the upper reaches of the navigable 
 Shire. The Search was taken to pieces below the falls 
 and skilfully reconstructed on the Upper Shire, and 
 then was navigated up the river to the south end of 
 
 1 Who afterwards returned to Nyasaland as a sportsman, and was 
 eventually killed by the natives.
 
 300 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Lake ISTyasa. Here Mr. Young proceeded to examine 
 the people at Mponda's, and in this way collected a mass 
 of information which conclusively proved the Johanna 
 men to be liars, for the whole circumstances respecting 
 their desertion of Livingstone were related by eye- 
 witnesses, like Marenga. Having thus obtained satis 
 factory proof of the falseness of Musa's story, together 
 with all the news obtainable of Livingstone's further 
 journeys in the interior, Mr. Young and his party 
 returned, and reached England in the very beginning 
 of 1868, having been absent exactly and only eight 
 months. The Search, under another name, still plies to 
 and fro on the Upper Shire. 
 
 In the meantime Livingstone was plodding steadily 
 on through the country of the Ba-bisa towards Lake 
 Tanganyika. The rainy season had come on in all its 
 force, and the land was beautiful in the springtide 
 which the rain, supervening on the drought, produces. 
 Livingstone gives in his Journal a pretty description 
 of this vernal aspect of Central Africa : " The country 
 now exhibits the extreme of leafiness, and the undula- 
 tions are masses of green leaves ; as far as the eye can 
 reach with distinctness it rests on a mantle of that hue, 
 and beyond the scene becomes dark blue. Near at hand 
 many gay flowers peep out. Here and there the scarlet 
 martagon (Lilium chalcedonicum), bright blue or yellow 
 gingers ; * red, orange, yellow, and pure white orchids ; 
 pale lobelias, &c. ; but they do not mar the general green- 
 ness. As we ascended higher on the plateau, grasses, 
 which have pink and reddish-brown seed-vessels, im- 
 parted distant shades of their colours to the lawns, and 
 were grateful to the eye." 
 
 1 Amomum.
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER. 307 
 
 The Bisa, or, as they are sometimes called, the Mu- 
 shinga Mountains, over which he passed, were found to 
 be of pink and white dolomite, beautifully covered with 
 trees and upland vegetation. In crossing the Tshimbwe 
 river or marsh, his poor little dog, Chitane, was drowned, 
 as already related in a footnote. They found the Bisa 
 country a hungry land, owing to the slave-raids, which 
 caused famine everywhere, but the trees at this season 
 of the year bore so many edible fruits that his men 
 were saved from starvation. 1 Some of the altitudes to 
 which Livingstone ascended in crossing the mountains 
 of the Bisa country reached to nearly 6000 feet, and he 
 seemed to have struck on one of those splendid healthy 
 regions of Central Africa which, by their altitude, are 
 raised to an almost temperate climate. 
 
 On the 2oth January 1867, near a place called Lisunga, 
 a disaster happened to Livingstone of the greatest 
 magnitude. He had engaged, some distance back along 
 the road, two Wa-yao porters, who were useful as in- 
 terpreters. They, for some inexplicable reason, after 
 having done excellent service up to this date, deserted 
 Livingstone's expedition as it was passing through a 
 forest, and disappeared with the loads they were carry- 
 ing. One of the loads happened to be Livingstone's 
 medicine-chest, in which were placed all his drugs 
 without exception. Although he stopped on the road 
 and made anxious search and inquiry, no trace could be 
 found either of the deserters or of the medicine-chest 
 they had stolen. This was a terrible blow, because not 
 
 1 Especially one called Masuko, which, in the right condition of 
 ripeness, is delicious. It has a thick brittle rind, and a sweet salmon- 
 coloured pulp with a taste of honey, and two large seeds in the pulp. 
 I have recently sent a number of these seeds to Kew, in the hope that 
 we may be able to try the Masuko under cultivation.
 
 308 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 only would Livingstone have no means of checking 
 illness in himself or in his people, but the mental shock 
 was severe inasmuch as he now began to despair, feeling 
 that he had no safeguard against sickness. It was un- 
 fortunate that he had put all his eggs in one basket (so 
 to speak), that he had stored all his medicines in one 
 receptacle instead of distributing them through several 
 loads ; but he thought they would be best kept from 
 injury and breakage in the carefully constructed medi- 
 cine-chest, and having entrusted this to the most care- 
 ful of his personal attendants to carry, he thought he 
 had taken sufficient precaution against loss. But this 
 attendant, Baraka, had exchanged it with one of the 
 runaway Yao porters for a lighter load, and thus Living- 
 stone was stranded in the heart of Africa without 
 medicines, and this at a very unhealthy part of the year, 
 when he was daily soused by heavy rains. Of this 
 calamity he writes in his Journal : " It is difficult to say 
 from the heart, ' Thy will be done ; ' but I shall try. . . . 
 Yet this loss of the medicine-box gnaws at the heart 
 terribly." 
 
 On the 28th January Livingstone crossed the Tsham- 
 bezi, which may almost be regarded as the upper waters 
 of the Congo. This river rises along the eastern edge 
 of the ISTyasa-Tanganyika plateau, and flows south-west- 
 wards in a very gentle descent (expanding frequently 
 into wide marshes) till it reaches Lake Bangweolo. It 
 then passes in a visible current through the southern 
 end of that lake, and on flowing out of it to the west- 
 ward receives the name of Luapula, under which appella- 
 tion it flows through Lake Moero, and eventually joins 
 with the Lualaba, thus forming the main stream of tho 
 Congo.
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER. 309 
 
 All this land seemed to Livingstone a vast sponge, 
 on account of the incessant rain and the dense, matted 
 vegetation under foot. He describes the character of 
 the Lobemba country at this season of the year as being 
 "dripping forests and oozing bogs." On the 3ist 
 January he arrived at the town of Tshitapangwa, the 
 then chief of the Ba-bemba. Here he was at first re- 
 ceived with great friendliness ; the chief gave him five 
 oxen and several large tusks of ivory. At this place they 
 found staying for a few days a party of Swahili slave- 
 traders who were on their way back to the coast. For ten 
 rupees their leader consented to take a packet of letters 
 to Zanzibar, which letters, it is to be noted, reached 
 England safely. In this way Livingstone was able to 
 send an order for stores and medicines to meet him at 
 
 After a few days, however, Tshitapangwa 's covetous- 
 ness (which had been excited by the descriptions given 
 to him by an old Swahili follower of Burton and Speke 
 of the generosity of those explorers) began to grow 
 troublesome. He asked for all sorts of things, and on 
 being refused vaguely threatened to place obstacles in 
 Livingstone's path. Their unfriendly relations were 
 rather caused by the stupid behaviour of Livingstone's 
 boys, especially the Nassick boys, who were the most 
 abject cowards, and never interpreted honestly between 
 Livingstone and the chief, telling each in turn not what 
 the other had said, but what was pleasant for either 
 to hear. They also, apparently, were wanting in their 
 knowledge of the Ki-bemba tongue, and not liking to 
 confess their ignorance, made up statements on their 
 own account to represent conversations which they 
 did not properly understand. However, Livingstone's
 
 310 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFKICA. 
 
 patient, dignified manner soon began to prevail over 
 the chief's petulance and greediness, and eventually they 
 parted very good friends, Tshitapangwa having pretty 
 well returned the value of Livingstone's presents in fat 
 oxen and implements and curiosities of the country. 
 
 In this district Livingstone notes that the camwood 
 (Baphia nitida) grows abundantly. Its local name is 
 Molombwa. The people take the bark, boil and grind 
 it fine. It then makes a splendid blood-red pigment, 
 which they smear over their bodies, their heads of hair, 
 and the bark-cloths which they wear. It is prepared 
 in the shape of large balls, which are a most common 
 article of local trade all over the Congo Basin and right 
 away to the Niger Delta. 
 
 After three weeks' stay with Tshitapangwa he started 
 again on his journey northwards towards Lake Tan- 
 ganyika. In the high plateau to which he ascended 
 from the valley of the Tshambezi he noticed a quantity 
 of the gum-copal tree (Trachylobium), which, " when per- 
 forated by a grub, exudes from branches no thicker than 
 one's arm masses of soft, gluey-looking gum, brownish- 
 yellow and light grey, as much as would fill a soup- 
 plate." A short distance beyond Tshitapangwa's his 
 porters insisted on deflecting their march to the village 
 of a chief called Moamba, lest they should offend him 
 by passing him by unvisited. However, this individual, 
 whom Livingstone describes as "a big, stout, public- 
 house-looking person, with a slight outward cast in his 
 left eye," proved intelligent and hearty. He gave them 
 plenty of food, and plied them with many questions as 
 to their reasons for travelling. Like most of the chiefs 
 in this region, he was greatly given to drinking " beer," 
 which is really a kind of fermented gruel made from the
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER. 311 
 
 grain of millet. A young wife was specially told off to 
 supply him with this mild intoxicant, which was to him 
 both food and drink in one. Indeed, many of the chiefs 
 in these countries of Nyasaland live wholly on this 
 millet beer, taking no other kind of nourishment, and 
 yet looking remarkably fat and jolly in appearance. I 
 have noticed, however, that these men have very poor 
 constitutions, and easily succumb to a slight illness. 
 
 On the ioth March they had entered the Ulungu 
 country, and Livingstone notes in his diary how ill he 
 has been with fever for some time past, how every step 
 he took " jars in his chest," and how he could scarcely 
 keep up with his people in the march. At length, on 
 the ist April, he came within sight of the south end of 
 Tanganyika, or, as he calls it, " Lake Liemba." Here, 
 at a place called Pambete, near the modern station of 
 ISTiamkolo, he spent more than a fortnight, being too 
 ill with fever to move, falling down in fits of insensi- 
 bility, and sometimes suffering from temporary paralysis 
 in his limbs. Nevertheless he does not fail to record his 
 impressions of the beautiful scenery around him. This 
 lake appears to him to be one of surprising loveliness : 
 " Its peacefulness is remarkable, though at times it is 
 said to be lashed up by storms. It lies in a deep basin 
 whose sides are perpendicular, but covered well with 
 trees ; the rocks which appear are bright-red argillaceous 
 schist ; the trees at present all green : down some of 
 these rocks come beautiful cascades, and buffaloes, 
 elephants, and antelopes wander and graze on the more 
 level spots, while lions roar by night. The level place 
 below is not two miles from the perpendicular. The 
 village (Pambete), at which we first touched the lake, is 
 surrounded by palm-oil trees not the stunted ones of
 
 312 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Lake Nyasa, but the real west coast palm-oil tree, 
 requiring two men to carry a bunch of the ripe fruit. 
 In the morning and evening huge crocodiles may be 
 observed quietly making their way to their feeding- 
 grounds ; hippopotami snort by night and at early 
 morning." 
 
 Going westwards of Pambete, Livingstone crossed a 
 high range of mountains and came down into the valley 
 of the Lofu. Here he met a large party of Arabs, who, 
 as usual, received him with great kindness. On the 
 Lofu, at Tshitimbwa's town, he was delayed for some 
 time owing to a war which had occurred to the westward 
 between the Arabs and a native chief of Itawa called 
 Nsama. Whilst residing at Tshitimbwa's with the 
 Arabs, and awaiting the course of events before deciding 
 on his route, he made the acquaintance of a personage 
 whom he mentions somewhat casually as "an Arab named 
 Hamidibin Muhammad, nicknamed by the natives 'Tipo- 
 Tipo.'" This was none other than the celebrated "Tippoo- 
 Tib," x afterwards renowned as the friend of Cameron, 
 Stanley, Wissmann, and other African travellers ; as the 
 great slave-raider of the Upper Congo; and, finally, as an 
 official of the Congo Free State. 
 
 The three months and ten days' delay which occurred 
 to Livingstone in this town of Tshitimbwa was far from 
 being unpleasantly spent. The Arabs were exceedingly 
 kind and affable. The rest and good food enabled him 
 to regain his health and strength, and he obtained a 
 vast amount of information about Central Africa from 
 conversations with the Arabs, information which, read in 
 
 1 The proper spelling of the word is Tipu-Tipu. He, however, is 
 offended if addressed by his nickname tout court, and desires to be 
 known by the Arab name, Hamid bin Muhammad.
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER. 313 
 
 the fuller light of to-day, appears singularly correct, 
 although its full purport was not grasped by Livingstone 
 at the time he wrote it down. 
 
 At length negotiations were satisfactorily concluded 
 with Nsama, peace was made, and Livingstone, with the 
 help of the Arabs, passed through the country of Itawa 
 without any trouble, in the wake of a very large Arab 
 caravan. Of the Arabs he writes repeatedly. " They have 
 been extremely kind," and they certainly seem to have 
 behaved towards him with generosity and studied courtesy. 
 In spite of Lake Moero being reported to be nearly three 
 days from Nsama's, Livingstone occupied all the time 
 between the 22nd September and the 8th November 
 (1867) in getting there. He reached the shores of the 
 lake, however, on the last-named date, his health having 
 again become bad on the way. From the north-east 
 shores of Moero, Livingstone turned south and entered 
 the country of the chief Kazembe. 1 This personage he 
 describes as having a heavy, uninteresting countenance, 
 without beard or whiskers, and somewhat of the Chinese 
 type. His eyes had an outward squint ; he smiled but 
 once during the day, and that was pleasant enough, 
 though the cropped ears and lopped hands of many of 
 
 1 Kazembe, it will be noticed, is a very common title for a chief in 
 East-Central Africa. It really means general, satrap, or lieutenant, 
 and in most cases originates as a rank held under a supreme monarch 
 by some minor chieftain, who in time becomes independent and retains 
 the title of Kazembe, much as the Bey of Tunis, though practically an 
 independent sovereign, continues to be known by the title of a Turkish 
 officer. The Kazembe of Lake Moero was originally a lieutenant of 
 the great Lunda empire under Mwato-yanvo. He has nowadays, how- 
 ever, shrunk to the position of an independent but almost powerless 
 chief, alternately swayed by Arabs and Ba-bemba. I have already 
 related that in the early part of this century he was rather an im- 
 portant personage in South-Central Africa, and received at different 
 times two Portuguese missions.
 
 314 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 his people, and the human skulls posted at the gate, 1 
 made Livingstone indisposed to look on him with any- 
 think like favour. Kazembe's smiles were elicited by 
 the antics of an uncouth dwarf, three feet nine inches in 
 height, who was a kind of court jester. His executioner 
 also came forward to look at Livingstone, with a broad 
 Lunda sword on his arm, and a curious scissor-like 
 instrument at his neck for cropping ears. On Living- 
 stone saying to him that this was nasty work, he smiled ; 
 so did many present who were not sure of their ears 
 for a moment. Indeed, Livingstone noticed that many 
 people of great respectability at Kazembe's court had 
 been thus punished. 
 
 Kazembe's country was found to be an exceedingly 
 fertile, pleasant land, with abundance of food. Oil- 
 palms were common, the ground-nuts (Arachis and 
 Voandzeid) were the largest he had ever seen, and the 
 cassava or manioc the finest of its kind. 
 
 Livingstone had arrived at Kazembe's on the 2ist 
 November, and he left this town on the 22nd December 
 for another visit to Lake Moero, the eastern shores of 
 which he again explored. He then rejoined the Arabs, 
 and stayed for some time in a large Arab settlement at 
 Kabwabwata. While residing here, during the spring of 
 1868, he decided to start to explore Lake Bangweolo, but 
 the Arabs endeavoured to dissuade him from this project, 
 as they declared that he would meet with insuperable diffi- 
 culties. They advised him to accompany them to TJjiji. 
 However, on the i3th April, when he was about to leave 
 Kabwabwata to return to Kazembe's in order to pass 
 
 1 This custom of decorating the approach or the ramparts of a 
 chief's town with human heads is common throughout South-Central 
 Africa.
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER. 315 
 
 through that country to the reported Lake Bemba or 
 Bangweolo, his people, especially the whining Nassick 
 boys, refused to accompany him. It is curious to note 
 how, in spite of Livingstone's extraordinary kindness to 
 these supposed Christians, for a mere trifle they would 
 throw him over, desert him, steal from him, betray 
 him, and thwart him. However, nothing daunted, 
 Livingstone started the next day with only five atten- 
 dants, leaving most of his baggage with Muhammad bin 
 Saleh, a friendly Arab. The next day another of his 
 men, Amoda, a Yao, ran away. Yet Livingstone viewed 
 this conduct on the part of his men with extraordinary 
 forbearance. " They were tired of tramping, and so 
 verily am I. ... Consciousness of my own defects 
 makes me lenient." 
 
 On the borders of Kazembe's country, however, he 
 was stopped by a number of indignant crop-eared officials, 
 who declaimed excitedly against his entering the country 
 a second time. He patiently waited while the matter 
 was referred to Kazembe, who, to the great surprise of 
 his officious frontier-guards, sent a gracious permission 
 to Livingstone to re-enter his country, where he accorded 
 him an unusually kind reception. At Kazembe's town 
 Livingstone again remained for some weeks, and passed 
 much of his time in the company of an important Arab, 
 Muhammad Bogharib. 
 
 On the nth June (1868) he started once more towards 
 the south for Lake Bangweolo, which he discovered on 
 the 1 8th July. On his journey thither he speaks of a 
 small variety of lion called by the natives the " lions of 
 niasi " or long grass, which particularly affected the dense 
 beds of reeds in Kazembe's country, and which would 
 appear to be a distinct variety of lion without a mane
 
 316 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 and scarcely exceeding three feet in height. At the 
 village of Masantu he hired a canoe and crossed an arm 
 of Lake Bangweolo to the peninsula called Mpambala 
 or Bawara. 
 
 Whilst Livingstone explored the upper part of Lake 
 Bangweolo l considerable confusion had occurred in 
 Kazembe's country. It had been invaded by a number 
 of the roving Zulus or Ba-tuta, and the Arabs and the 
 Nyamwezi traders in this country had joined together 
 to drive back these raiders. To do so they had built 
 
 1 A considerable discrepancy was afterwards found between the 
 maps of Bangweolo compiled from Livingstone's observations and 
 notes, and the outline of the lake resulting from the more complete 
 survey of the French explorer, Lieutenant Giraud. A careful examina 
 tion of the facts attending Livingstone's visits to Bangweolo will ex- 
 plain away this discrepancy without damage to either traveller's work. 
 Livingstone, though he went twice to Bangweolo and died close to its 
 shores, only actually saw and navigated the lake once, and on that 
 occasion merely explored its northern end. No doubt at that period 
 about fifteen years before Lieutenant Giraud's visit Bangweolo was 
 wider and larger in its expanse of open water, for the lake, like Nyasa 
 and Tanganyika, is evidently shrinking in extent. The islands and 
 coast-line which Livingstone actually visited he laid down correctly, 
 but one, if not two, of his islands Tshirue or Tshirubi and Mpambala 
 or Bawara have since, by the shrinkage of the lake, become penin- 
 sulas. Livingstone never visited the outlet of the Luapula, nor ever 
 actually saw the eastern or southern shores of the lake, so that these 
 features were simply laid down by pure conjecture in his sketch-maps. 
 On his second journey to Bangweolo or rather to the east of it he 
 never actually saw the lake ; he travelled merely through the vast 
 marshes which skirt its eastern side and render its eastern coast-line 
 so very indefinite. On this journey, too, he was so harassed and so 
 extremely ill that he kept but little record of distances, and so his 
 route-survey cannot be depended on. Neither can the return journey 
 of his men round the west shores of Bangweolo be considered of much 
 value as geographical evidence. What Livingstone actually saw of 
 the north end of Bangweolo he mapped correctly. What he did not 
 see, but what he and his cartographers hypothetically drew to com- 
 plete the outline of the lake, cannot be regarded as founded on suf- 
 ficiently accurate observations to be set up in rivalry to the careful 
 survey of Lieutenant Giraud.
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER 317 
 
 stockades, and then, when they had finally repulsed the 
 Zulus, Kazembe and his chiefs began to fear that, by 
 means of the stockades the coast people had built, they 
 would themselves hold and possess the country ; accord- 
 ingly Kazembe attacked one of the Nyamwezi strong- 
 holds called Kombo-kombo. In the meantime the Wa- 
 nyamwezi had certainly given some cause for this action 
 on Kazembe's part by attacking two tribes, the Bausi 
 and the Bambozhwa, dwelling to the south of Kazembe's 
 country. In one village Livingstone himself was nearly 
 killed by these people because they identified him with 
 the cause of his Arab friends. But one or two friendly 
 natives, intervening, explained matters and helped him 
 away. He finally joined the Arabs and got safely out 
 of Kazembe's country, re-entered Itawa towards the end 
 of October, and remained some time at Kabwabwata, 
 where he spent his time nursing himself through an 
 attack of fever and reflecting on the sources of the Nile. 
 It was just about this time that he began to be possessed 
 with the idea that the two great lakes he had found to 
 the west of Tanganyika and the great river that flows 
 through them might possibly prove to be the Upper Nile. 
 
 It almost goes without saying that, on his return to 
 Kabwabwata, he was soon induced to forgive the Nassick 
 boys, for whose conduct in deserting him he was fertile 
 in finding excuses. So he took them back into his 
 service, and almost began to persuade himself that it 
 was he who was wrong in wishing to go to Bangvveolo 
 against their desire. 
 
 The delays of the Arabs always the most dilatory of 
 men in starting for Tanganyika began to vex Living- 
 stone very much, as he was desirous of getting to Ujiji. 
 Again and again he was on the point of starting without
 
 318 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 them, but they begged him to accord further delay, and 
 it must be admitted that all this time they were treating 
 him with unvarying kindness and cordiality, and provided 
 him with food every day. His stay with them also had 
 an excellent effect in preventing them from making 
 slave-raids, for he had begun to inspire them with 
 extraordinary respect for his feelings, and they fre- 
 quently ceased to do things he disliked, or refrained 
 from repeating evil actions so that they might avoid 
 wounding his feelings. Just as the Arabs, however, 
 had decided to start and they were about to leave 
 Kabwabwata, their encampment was suddenly attacked 
 by the Ba-bemba. Some quarrel had arisen between an 
 Arab and the head-man of a Bemba village, and a skirmish 
 between the two had aroused the whole country. A 
 large number of people attacked the Arab settlement 
 in which Livingstone was residing. Both defence and 
 attack were equally gallant. Livingstone remained in 
 his house holding aloof from the fight, only resolved to 
 defend himself if he were personally attacked. About 
 ten of the Ba-bemba were killed. The attack was 
 renewed during several days, but eventually the Ba- 
 bemba sued for peace. After fluctuating negotiations 
 some kind of peace was patched up with the Ba-bemba, 
 and Livingstone managed to start with the Arabs who 
 were bound for Ujiji : 
 
 " It is a motley group, composed of Muhammad and 
 his friends, a gang of Wa-nyamwezi hangers-on, and 
 strings of wretched slaves yoked together in their heavy 
 slave-sticks. Some carry ivory, others copper, or food 
 for the march, whilst hope and fear, misery and villainy, 
 may be read off on the various faces that pass in line 
 out of this country, like a serpent dragging its accursed
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER. 319 
 
 folds away from the victim it has paralysed with its 
 fangs." 
 
 During the latter part of 1868 and the beginning of 
 1869 Livingstone's health was extremely bad. He took 
 less and less care of himself, got wet through again and 
 again in the rain, and persistently crossed brooks and 
 rivers by wading through them up to the waist. His 
 wretched health is shown by the dismal entries in his 
 diary during the month of January 1869. 
 
 The Arabs were very kind to him, as usual, and nursed 
 him as well as lay in their power, having him carried 
 along in a kind of swinging cot made of boughs. On 
 the 1 4th February he arrived on the west shore of 
 Tanganyika. Here he obtained canoes from an Arab, 
 and after coasting the lake a little towards the north, 
 struck across to the east side, and so on to Ujiji, which 
 he reached on the I4th March. Here disappointment 
 awaited him, for the goods which had been sent to him 
 overland from Zanzibar had been made away with in 
 all directions, and only a poor remnant of them had 
 actually reached Ujiji. Sixty-two out of eighty pieces 
 of cloth had been stolen, and nearly all the beads. The 
 buffaloes which were to be despatched to him had all 
 died on the way. Fortunately, however, a little tea and 
 coffee remained among the plundered stores, and some 
 flannel, which, when made into vests, did him a great 
 deal of good, and his cough ceased through wearing 
 warmer clothing. He found considerable difficulty in 
 persuading the Arabs to carry his letters from Ujiji to 
 tiie coast, because they feared that he would report their 
 slave- raids in the Bemba country; and, indeed, such 
 letters as they consented to take they never delivered. 
 
 After making many inquiries about a route to the
 
 320 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 north of Tanganyika, and deciding that it would be too 
 difficult to attempt it at that juncture, on account of 
 the impossibility of getting porters to enter the Ruanda 
 country, where the Arabs had hitherto been fiercely 
 repulsed, Livingstone finally settled that he would cross 
 Manyemaland to the west of Tanganyika, and endeavour 
 to find that great river of which the Arabs brought 
 him word. He therefore left Ujiji on the i2th July 
 1869, sailed over to the other side of the lake, joined 
 a large party of Arabs and Swahilis, and with them 
 passed through the Guha and Bambare countries north- 
 westward to the village of Moenekus, 1 a Manyema 
 chieftain, who had recently died. Here he remained 
 till the 5th November, resting and endeavouring to 
 recover his health, which he did partially. He then 
 pushed on towards that Lualaba River of which he had 
 heard so much to excite his curiosity. He travelled on 
 almost incessantly ; his health soon failing again after 
 he had started, for the reckless way in which he got 
 wet through day after day, either by walking through 
 the rain or wading torrents, had reduced him to a 
 terrible condition of illness and exhaustion. As he was 
 compelled to travel with the Arabs and follow them in 
 their erratic course, he zigzagged through the Manyema 
 country until he got to a point as far north as the 
 Binanga Hills (about 3 30' S. latitude). He then 
 turned southwards again with the Arabs, and after more 
 than a year's wandering and waiting in Manyema, he 
 finally reached the banks of the Lualaba, at Nyangwe, 
 on the ist March 1871. During this period the Nassiek 
 boys were very troublesome; they were constantly de- 
 
 1 This name should really be spelt Moenekusu, which means "Lor.i 
 of the Parrot," or " Owner of the Parrot."
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER 321 
 
 serting or threatening to desert, and often he was left 
 with only three attendants, amongst them the peculiarly 
 faithful Susi and Chuma. Once, during his residence 
 at the Arab settlement in Bambare, a worthless lot of 
 porters reached him from the coast with letters and a 
 few stores. 
 
 During his long stay at Nyangwe a dreadful massacre 
 of Manyema women occurred in the market-place of that 
 town, arising from a squabble about a fowl. In this 
 slaughter the Arabs themselves estimated the loss of life 
 among the unarmed Manyema men, women, and children 
 at 330 to 400, killed by shooting, stabbing, or drowning. 
 The chief among the Swahili scoundrels concerned in 
 these atrocities was named Tagamoio. Livingstone's first 
 impulse was to shoot the murderers with a pistol, but a 
 friendly Arab, who had been his host, protested against 
 his getting into a blood-feud. " I was thankful after- 
 wards that I took his advice " (he writes in his Journal). 
 " Two wretched Moslems asserted ' that the firing was 
 done by the people of the English.' I asked one of 
 them why he lied so, and he could utter no excuse ; no 
 other falsehood came to his aid as he stood abashed 
 before me, and so telling him not to tell palpable false- 
 hoods, I left him gaping." Livingstone used all his 
 efforts with the leading Arab of Nyangwe, Dugumbe, to 
 have these murderers caught and hanged up in the 
 market-place as a visible protest in the eyes of the 
 Manyema against the " bloody deeds of the Wa-swahili ; " 
 but although Dugumbe attempted to appease Livingstone 
 by vague promises, he performed nothing, except re- 
 storing to liberty such of the Manyema as had taken 
 refuge in his house. Eventually, through Living- 
 stone's intervention, a sort of peace was patched up 
 
 L
 
 322 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 between the wretched Manyema and the Arabs ; but 
 Livingstone decided to return to Ujiji, being so filled 
 with horror at the crimes of the Arab slave-raiders 
 that he felt he could no longer travel under their escort. 
 Unfortunately, the porters who had been sent him from 
 Zanzibar, and who had reached him. in Manyema, were an 
 extremely bad lot of men. He speaks of them always 
 as " the Banian's slaves ; " and, indeed, it would appear 
 that the Hindi merchants with whom Dr. (now Sir 
 John) Kirk had contracted for a supply of goods and 
 porters to be sent to Livingstone, had simply chosen the 
 porters to convey these goods from among their own 
 slaves, and had picked out the worst men to boot. When 
 these people had been staying with Livingstone a short 
 time at Manyema, they refused to go with him along 
 the course of the unknown Lualaba, and would only 
 consent to carry for him as far as the Arab settlement 
 on the Lomami, a little distance to the west of Nyangwe. 
 Moreover, they were strongly inclined to leave Living- 
 stone and attach themselves to Tagamoio, the Swahili- 
 Arab who had been the main agent in that unprovoked 
 slaughter of the Manyema in the market-place, being 
 attracted by the idea of sharing in his slave-captures. 
 Livingstone, therefore, could see no way out of his diffi- 
 culty but to return to Ujiji and procure other men. 
 
 On the aoth July 1871 he started for Ujiji, Dugumbe 
 loading him with presents and provisions, no doubt with 
 the desire to conciliate him, as he was already beginning 
 to feel considerable apprehension as to how this raid on 
 the Manyema would be viewed at Zanzibar. On the 
 way back through the Manyema country large parties 
 of Arabs joined the caravan, with the desire of protect- 
 ing him, for it was thought probable that the Manyema
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER 323 
 
 might attack them in the forest, out of revenge for the 
 slaughter at Nyangwe. Their apprehensions were justi- 
 fied by after-events. On the road to Bambare they were 
 surprised by the Manyema on the 8th August, and three 
 times during the course of the day Livingstone escaped 
 death by a few seconds of time or a few inches of space. 
 For five hours his caravan had to run the gauntlet of 
 invisible enemies hidden in the dense vegetation. Spear 
 after spear hurtled across the narrow path, sometimes 
 almost grazing Livingstone's back as they just missed 
 him. Great trees were burnt or chopped through at the 
 base, and crashed down as he passed by, the smaller 
 branches snapping off around him, a.nd only his rapid 
 instinctive ducks forward saving him from being smashed. 
 At last, however, they got out of the forest into an open 
 clearing, and were met by the Manyema chief of the 
 district, who coolly sauntered up unarmed and asked 
 what was the matter. When he realised who and what 
 Livingstone was, and how utterly foreign he had been 
 to the raids at Nyangwe, he accorded him his protection, 
 and offered to make good some of his losses ; but Living- 
 stone waived the compensation, and passed on dejectedly, 
 having lost all his remaining cloth, a telescope, an um- 
 brella, and most of the Manyema curiosities which he 
 had been carrying away from Nyangwe. His route 
 through this country, of such natural beauty, but so full 
 of ghastly scenes of man's war on man, led him among 
 some of the most thorough-going cannibals in the world, 
 and his remarks on the eating of man's flesh, as practised 
 by the Manyema, recall vividly the horrors revealed by 
 Stanley's recent journey. 
 
 " Yery ill with bowels; " "I rested half a day, as I 
 am still ill ; " " obliged to rest from weakness ; " " ill
 
 324 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 all night, and remain," are phrases which frequently 
 recur in Livingstone's diary during his journey back to 
 Tanganyika, and convey some idea of his relapse into 
 ill-health from fatigue, frequent wettings in the crossing 
 of rivers, and heart-sickness at the horrors going on 
 around him. As he nears the coast of Tanganyika he 
 writes : " I was sorely knocked up by this march from 
 Nyangwe to Ujiji ; in the latter part of it I felt as if dying 
 on my feet. Almost every step was in pain, the appetite 
 failed, and a little bit of meat caused violent diarrhrea, 
 whilst the mind, sorely depressed, reacted on the body." 
 
 On his return to the west shore of Tanganyika he 
 propounds the first hint that the outlet of Tanganyika 
 is through the Rukuga l River to the Lualaba. 
 
 On the 23rd October he reached Ujiji, in such a con- 
 dition that he was scarcely more than a living skeleton. 
 The Arabs welcomed him with effusion, but he was per- 
 fectly aghast on finding that the leading Arab of Ujiji. 
 a man known as the " Shereef " (Sharif), had sold off 
 all the goods which had been sent to that place for him 
 from che coast ; he had not left a single yard of calico 
 out of three thousand, nor a string of beads out of 700 
 Ibs. The Arab who had done this he describes as " a 
 moral idiot," for he came without shame to shake hands 
 with Livingstone, and when his proffered hand was re- 
 jected he assumed an air of displeasure, but nevertheless 
 did not desist from coming twice a day to give the stereo- 
 typed salutation of " Sabah-'l-kheir ; " 2 after which he 
 would say, in irritating sanctimoniousness, "And now 
 I'm going to say my prayers," until the exasperated 
 Livingstone expelled him from his house. 
 
 1 Livingstone caiis this river Longumba. 
 8 "The best of the morning to you."
 
 FOUR GREAT LAKES AND A MIGHTY RIVER. 325 
 
 One of the better class of Arabs had begged Living- 
 stone to accept goods from him to meet his immediate 
 needs, but Livingstone would not receive his charity 
 until he should be quite destitute, for he had still a few 
 trade goods left which had been taken care of by an old 
 Arab friend, Muhammad bin Saleh. 
 
 Just as he was in the sorest need and deepest mental 
 depression, his faithful Susi came running up to him one 
 morning and gasped out that he could see an English- 
 man coming. Livingstone looked out and beheld a big 
 caravan filing into the Arab settlement at Ujiji, loaded 
 with all the elaborate paraphernalia of a well-equipped 
 European expedition, but with a man in front carrying 
 high the flag of the United States of America. The 
 sole white man who was leading the caravan was Henry 
 Moreton Stanley, who had been sent by the New York 
 Herald " to find Dr. Livingstone, living or dead."
 
 
 id'-'/ 3l 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE MANY EM A AND THEIR LAND. 
 
 BEFORE continuing a review of Livingstone's further 
 journeys, I will do here as I have done before pause 
 and describe the character of the country of Manyema, 
 which was the scene of Livingstone's explorations in 
 1869-70 and 1871. 
 
 The Manyema country * is practically West Africa. 
 Indeed, as I have already pointed out, the West African 
 fora and fauna extend to the west shores of Tangan- 
 yika, but partly owing to the action of man in provoking 
 forest fires and clearing the ground for plantations, and 
 also owing in part to the more rocky nature of the soil, 
 the luxuriant forests of West Africa do not show them- 
 selves until the versant of the western shores of Tan- 
 ganyika is crossed and the traveller begins to descend 
 towards the basin of the Lualaba-Congo. Then he 
 enters upon a densely- wooded country similar in char- 
 acter to all the great forests of the Congo which stretch 
 away to the Niger Delta with scarcely a break. In 
 Manyema, however, even as far back as Livingstone's 
 day, when the opening-up of the country by Arabs was 
 of quite a recent date, the forest no longer usurped the 
 
 i Livingstone spells this word constantly Manruema. but most other 
 authorities, Manyema. I have questioned not a few of its people who 
 are brought to Zanzibar as slaves, and they all pronounce it in the 
 
 same way Manyema. 
 
 826
 
 THE MANYEMA AND THEIR LAND. 327 
 
 whole surface of the land. The Manyema seem to have 
 already made much more progress towards laying bare 
 the country to the sky and thinning the woods than the 
 more scattered Bantu tribes to the north. The forest is 
 cleared by them partly by burning, but still more by 
 cutting down the trees with their small iron axes. The 
 white-ants in time consume the fallen trunks and reduce 
 them to the most fertile vegetable soiL These clearings 
 therefore form plantations of splendid fertility. Where- 
 ever the forest has been cleared away in a wholesale 
 manner, it never seems to grow up again in the same 
 way or composed of 'he same ingredients as the primeval 
 woodland. Gigantic grasses immediately replace the 
 fallen trees as the occupants of the soil, unless man has 
 already set to work to plant his crops ; and if the clearing 
 is still further neglected and unutilised, there grows np 
 among the grass a stunted Oopaifera tree, or else a 
 closely allied shrub of the genus Bauhinia. This style 
 of debased forest long grass and Copaifera trees is 
 characteristic of enormous tracts of Africa. The dense 
 forest, however, is seldom wholly expelled from the river- 
 valleys, and no doubt extent of moisture has much to do 
 with the extinction or maintenance of the old forests, 
 with their gigantic trees and luxuriant undergrowth ; for 
 the clearing away of the woods and the laying bare of 
 the ground not only drives away the rain to a consider- 
 able degree, but what rain does fall is rapidly drained 
 off or evaporates u^der the action of the sun; whereas 
 where the rain-drops percolate through a donse forest, 
 the soil remains full of moisture. In some parts of the 
 Manyema country an occasional big tree resists the sharp, 
 short blaze of the annual grass-burnings, or if seared 
 with the names up lo a certain point, nevertheless sends
 
 328 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 out new shoots and suckers from its roots, so that a 
 number of nearly straight but more slender masts grow 
 with great rapidity alongside their parent trunk. Many 
 trees growing like this are protected by the natives from 
 the further action of the fire by cutting a bare space 
 of sufficient circumference around them, so that in the 
 grass-fires they may not be further scorched. The 
 natives (the Manyema) interlace this natural scaffolding 
 with rope ladders made of creepers, and so can ascend 
 to a considerable height. In other parts of the forest 
 country it is even said that they construct houses or 
 shelters high up the tree, assisting themselves by these 
 supplementary and parallel stems. 
 
 In the Manyema country the natives are in the habit 
 of making elephant-traps, which Livingstone describes 
 as follows : " A log of heavy wood, about twenty feet 
 long, has a hole at one end for a climbing plant to be 
 passed through to suspend it ; at the lower end a mortice 
 is cut out of the side, and a wooden lance about two 
 inches broad by one and a half inches thick, and about 
 four feet long, is inserted firmly in the mortice ; a latch 
 down on the ground, when touched by the animal's foot, 
 lets the beam run down on to his body, and the great 
 weight of the wood drives in the lance and kills the 
 animal. I saw one lance which had accidentally fallen, 
 and it had gone into the stiff clay soil two feet." 
 
 As I have already reminded my readers, all this 
 country is thoroughly within the West African sub- 
 region as regards its flora and fauna. The big-game 
 animals of East Africa are absent, with the exception 
 of jbho elephant and one or two tragelaphine antelopes. 
 There is no lion, but the leopard is abundant. The 
 grey parrot one of the most distinctly West African
 
 A MANYBMA CANNIBAL. 
 (From an original Drawing by Sir H. H. Johnston, K.C.B.)
 
 THE MANYEMA AND THEIR LAND. 331 
 
 types is exceedingly common, and is a great pet among 
 the Manyema people, who obtain them young from the 
 nest and train them up to be perfectly tame and to 
 become household pets. There is also present in these 
 forests an anthropoid ape, which Livingstone describes 
 under its Mauyema name of Soko. From all we know 
 about this interesting beast, it would seem to be either 
 a somewhat larger variety of the common chimpanzee or 
 
 a very closely allied species. 1 
 
 i-.ai ot -jtf.'t h-acme^awisl fuii: 
 
 1 The colour of the skin is a pale yellow, as in the common chim- 
 panzee, and not black, as it is among the other species of anthropoid 
 ape in West Africa. The Soko, which is probably identical with that 
 form of chimpanzee found by Emin Pacha farther north in the Mom- 
 butu country, is also said to extend its range southwards to the 
 vicinity of Lake Moero and along the banks of the Upper Congo. 
 According to Livingstone, these creatures often walk in an erect posi- 
 tion, but steadying their bodies by placing the hands on the back of 
 the head. He represents this beast as being of great intelligence, aud 
 so cunning that it is difficult to stalk him in front without being seen, 
 and therefore when he is killed it is usually from behind. The Man- 
 yema people frequently string a number of nets round some enclosure 
 in the forest and drive the Soicos into them and spear them. Brought 
 to bay like this, they will frequently turn on their assailants, and will 
 snatch their spears from them and break them, and perhaps also bite 
 off the ends of the men's fingers. As a general rule, however, they 
 seem to be far from ferocious ; indeed, there is a strong element 
 of playfulness in their nature. They will stalk the men and women 
 who are at work in the forest or in the plantations, and occasionally 
 seize them, but after grinning and giving vent to a shrieking kind of 
 laugh, will leave them unharmed. They will also kidnap children 
 and ran up the trees with them, but can be lured down, however, 
 by being tempted with bananas. The ape scrambles down the tree 
 to seize the bananas, and in doing so looses its hold on the child, 
 who i* then recovered. Occasionally the children they catch are 
 pinched and scratched, and swung backwards and forwards by one 
 arm, but not seriously hurt. If a Soko encounters a man who is un- 
 armed, he grabs hold of him possibly, but does him no injury. Should 
 the man fight with him, however, or wound him, he will seize his 
 wrists and bite off his fingers (which he spits out), buffet his cheeks 
 with back-handed slaps, and scratch him. If the Soko has been 
 wounded in his encounter with the man, he undc,;vourB to stuif leaves
 
 332 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 A young Soko which was given to Livingstone as a 
 pet seemed instinctively to take to him as a friend, and 
 would sit quietly on the mat beside him. If he went 
 for a walk she insisted on coming too, and would hold 
 up her hand to him that he might take her with him. 
 If refused, she hung down her head and made grimaces 
 of the most pathetic human-like sorrow. She would not 
 only wring her hands, but sometimes her feet too, to 
 make it appear more touching. She would gather grass 
 and leaves around her to make a nest, and resented any 
 one meddling with her property. She would endeavour 
 to untie a knot in the cord which bound her to a post, and 
 when interfered with by a man, raged at him, and tried 
 to beat him with her hands. In attacking him, she put 
 her back against Livingstone's legs, looking upon him 
 instinctively as a friend. She covered herself with a 
 mat on going to sleep, and would wipe her hands, when 
 dirty, with a leaf. 
 
 The Manyema people appear to belong to the same 
 Bantu group as the Ba-kusu on the Lomami, the Ba- 
 songo on the west bank of the Lualaba, and all the 
 tribes along the Lualaba-Congo arid the Lomami up to 
 the Aruwimi ; and judging by an interesting vocabulary 
 
 into the wound to stanch the blood. These chimpanzees live in com- 
 munities of about ten, and are monogamous. If one male Soko 
 attempts to seize the female of another, the rest of the community 
 all unite in punishing him with buffets and bites. The female Soko 
 occasionally brings forth twins. Both father and mother show great 
 affection for their offspring, and if the parents are crossing a bit of 
 dangerous open country with their child, the father carries it until 
 they have arrived at a safe place, and then hands it over to the 
 mother. Their food is principally wild fruits, and they are peculiarly 
 fond of bananas. At times the Sokus collect together and drum with 
 their fists on the trunks of hollow trees, and accompany this perform- 
 ance with loud yells and screams, which seemed to Livingstone to offer 
 some resemblance to the singing of the Mfinvuna.
 
 THE MANYEMA AND THEIR LAND. 333 
 
 of the language of the Aruwimi people published by Dr. 
 Sims, it would seem as though they too belong to the 
 same racial and linguistic group. In fact, the peoples of 
 the Congo Basin may be summarised into the following 
 groups, according to the affinities of their dialects. 
 Starting from the upper waters of the Congo where it 
 leaves the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau and flows through 
 Lake Baugweolo, there is the Bisa-bemba group ; then 
 the Rua or Lunda people, who extend northwards from 
 the southern limits of the Congo watershed to about the 
 fifth degree of north latitude, and westward from the 
 shores of Tanganyika to the Upper Kwango. North of 
 the A-rua comes the Manyema group, which apparently 
 extends right down the course of the Lualaba-Congo as 
 far as its confluence with the River Loika to the north 
 of the Aruwimi. Westwards of Manyema, in that great 
 bend of the Congo you have the far-stretching Balolo- 
 Bateke group, which extends from the Lomami River 
 westwards right across the Lower Congo to the Ogowe 
 watershed. Along the Congo in its most northern 
 reaches, and in the valley of its great affluent, the 
 Mubangi River, there is the Babangi-Bangala group ; 
 and, finally, along the course of the extreme Lower 
 Congo, from Stanley Pool to the sea, and inland from 
 Stanley Pool to the River Kwango, there is the Kongo 
 group, which is the best studied of all. 
 
 The language of the Manyema is a very degraded 
 type of Bantu tongue with several of the prefixes miss- 
 ing, and others reduced to a vowel The vocabularies 
 I have been able to collec'- show how lopped and abbre- 
 viated most of the words are from the original Bantu 
 type. 
 
 The Manyema are a decidedly laml.some people ; in
 
 334 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 fact, one of the few tribes of pure negro race who can 
 be called really good-looking, with delicate features, and 
 bodies and limbs proportioned according to our European 
 canons of beauty. 1 Nor, in spite of their cannibalism, can 
 they be looked upon as savages. They are much less 
 given to nudity than the tribes farther south. 2 The men 
 usually wear long kilts of many folds or flounces, either 
 made of cloth procured from the Arabs, or else of the 
 bark-cloth which they beat out themselves. Until the 
 advent of the Arabs they possessed no cattle, but hud 
 the usual domestic sheep of Africa that kind with the 
 long mane and thin tail goats, dogs, pigs, and fowls. 
 They cultivate tobacco, maize, ground-nuts, bananas, 
 Pennisetum or millet, and Holcus sorghum or Durha 
 grain ; and Livingstone mentions that in the Ba-kusu 
 country pine-apples are cultivated, and coffee also, and 
 that, still more remarkable, they make an infusion of 
 its berries and drink it flavoured with some species of 
 vanilla orchid ! This, if true, is very remarkable, because 
 no African race yet has been known to use coffee for 
 making a beverage until taught by Arabs or Portuguese, 
 or other Europeans ; and, according to Livingstone's 
 account, the Ba-kusu must have known the use of coffee 
 before the Arabs came amongst them. The same people 
 are said to bathe regularly twice a day, and to build 
 houses of two storeys, and to smelt copper from the ore. 
 The houses built by the Manyema are of the rect- 
 
 1 The accompanying engraving is from a drawing of mine made from 
 a Manyema slave belonging to a Tanganyika Arab. 
 
 2 The women, however, among the Manyema (according to Living 
 stone) are less particular about clothing than is the other sex. As a 
 rule (to which, however, there are several marked exceptions), the 
 men among African savages have no regard for Joconcy, while the 
 
 n aro modest and sufficiently clothed.
 
 THE MANYEMA AND THEIR LAND. 335 
 
 angular Congo style. They are fairly large, the walls are 
 of well-beaten clay, and the leaf -stalks of palms l split 
 in two make capital rafters for the sloping roofs, which 
 are thatched usually with the dried fronds of the banana 
 or an allied zingiberaceous plant. The inside of their 
 dwellings is clean and comfortable. Before the Arabs 
 came bugs were utterly unknown, though now they are 
 beginning to infest the native villages. The houses 
 are generally in a line ; the streets are broad, and run 
 east and west in order that the sun may rapidly dry 
 them. There is generally a large public meeting-house 
 at each end of the broad street, and here guests arriving 
 are usually required to take up their residence. The 
 people form hedges round their gardens, often eighteen 
 feet in height, by cutting off portions of the stems of a 
 species of Dracaena or Hibiscus, and planting them in 
 the ground, like a lot of stout staves close together. 
 These rapidly sprout, and soon form an almost impene- 
 trable fence. At some height from the ground lianas 
 or " bush-ropes " are tied along the poles horizontally, 
 and from these are suspended maize cobs of a variety 
 that bends its fruit-stalk round into a hook. These 
 hedges thus become a regular upright open-air granary 
 surrounding the villages and the gardens. 
 
 The Manyema, in spite of their being far removed 
 from savagery by their skill as potters and smiths and 
 cultivators, are yet much given to bloodshed, and are 
 undoubtedly outrageous cannibals. Their rage for eat- 
 ing human flesh is utterly inexcusable, because it would 
 appear to be simply a matter of gourmandize. Their 
 soil is singularly fertile, and foods of all kinds abound. 
 Livingstone thinks that their love of man's flesh arose 
 
 1 Chiefly got from the immense fronds of the Raphia, vinifera.
 
 836 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 from their practice of eating chimpanzees, for the Man- 
 yema are as fond of the flesh of these apes as they are 
 of that of their own species ; but I doubt whether he is 
 right in this deduction. I should think it likely that 
 the Manyema have been anthropophagic from time im- 
 memorial, and quite independently of a local taste for 
 the flesh of apes or monkeys. As in other parts of 
 Western -Equatorial Africa, and indeed of other por- 
 tions of the globe, two kinds of cannibalism seem to 
 exist, one which is merely the eating of man's flesh 
 because its taste is liked, and the other springing from 
 a religious custom. Thus, Livingstone ascertained that 
 in the case of chiefs, or the head-men of villages, their 
 bodies were eaten after death, and all the flesh removed 
 from the head and eaten too, the skull being preserved 
 as a kind of fetish, a relic of the dead person which in 
 some sense enshrouds the spirit. But there are other 
 causes and excuses for cannibalism; thus, Livingstone 
 relates " that a quarrel with a wife often ends in the 
 husband killing her and eating her heart mixed up in a 
 huge mess of goat's flesh." 
 
 In conversation with Livingstone the Manyema re- 
 ferred to their acts of cannibalism with but little reserve. 
 His guides conducting him through the forest would 
 casually remark at some camping- place, " Here we killed 
 a man and ate his body." At one place, after a great 
 fight amongst the Manyema, the Arabs saw the meat of 
 the slain being cut up to be cooked with bananas. " The 
 Manyema were annoyed at having these proceedings 
 watched " (writes Livingstone), " and said, ' Go on, and 
 let our feast alone.' They did not want to be sneered 
 at. They seem to eat their foes to inspire courage, or 
 in revenge. One point is very remarkable ; it is not
 
 THE MANYEMA AND THEIR LAND. 337 
 
 want that has led to the custom, for the country is full 
 of food ; they have maize, durha, Pennisetum, cassava, 
 and sweet potatoes ; and for fatty ingredients of diet, 
 the palm-oil, ground-nuts, sessamum, and a tree whose 
 fruit yields a fine sweet oil : the saccharine materials 
 needed are found in the sugar-cane, bananas, and 
 plantains. . . . Goats, sheep, fowls, dogs, pigs, abound in 
 the villages ; whilst the forest affords elephants, zebras, 
 buffaloes, antelopes, and in the streams there are many 
 varieties of fish. The nitrogenous ingredients are abun- 
 dant, and they have dainties in palm-toddy, tobacco, 
 or Bange (hemp) : the soil is so fruitful that mere scrap- 
 ing off the weeds is as good as ploughing, so that the 
 reason for cannibalism does not lie in starvation or 
 in want of animal matter, as was said to be the case 
 with the New Zealanders. The only plausible reason I 
 can discover is a depraved appetite, giving an extra- 
 ordinary craving for meat which we call ' high. ' They 
 are said to bury a dead body for a couple of days in 
 the soil in a forest, and in that time, owing to the 
 climate, it soon becomes putrid enough for the strongest 
 stomachs." 
 
 In a market-place one day, when Livingstone went to 
 buy provisions, a Manyema man came up to him with 
 ten human under-jaw bones hung by a string over his 
 shoulder. On Livingstone questioning him as to how 
 he obtained these horrible ornaments, " he professed to 
 have killed and eaten the owners, and showed with his 
 knife how he had cut up the victims." When Living- 
 stone expressed disgust at this, the man and those 
 around him laughed. Livingstone also comments much 
 on their strange alternations of heartlessness, ferocity, 
 and loving-kindness. " They are the lowest of the low,"
 
 338 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTEAL AFRICA. 
 
 he writes, " and especially in bloodiness : when a man 
 had killed a woman without cause he was going about 
 free, but he offered his grandmother to be killed in his 
 stead ! After a good deal of talk, nothing was done to 
 him." Yet he frequently observes the affection between 
 husband and wife, father and son (which is rare in 
 Africa), mother and child, and even between the hunted, 
 harassed Manyema and a friendly stranger like himself 
 how the women would bid him eat and rest in their 
 huts as he dragged himself wearily along the road, and 
 how they would rush out with presents of bananas, and 
 on occasions make him the most beautiful, touching, and 
 tender remarks about death and heaven and brotherly 
 kindness one toward another. They were also exceed- 
 ingly honest, though very untruthful. 
 
 Since Livingstone's day the Manyema have become 
 almost as much Arabised as the Wa-nyamwezi and the 
 Wa-yao. They are now entirely identified with the rule 
 of Tipu-Tipu and the Arabs who exercise sway over the 
 Upper Congo; and from among the Manyema (as the 
 Stanley expedition showed) the bulk of the Arabs' fight- 
 ing forces is recruited. The Arabs have turned their 
 ferocity to terrible account in raiding the Aruwimi and 
 Lomami countries. It is to be hoped that in course of 
 time a civilised government in the Congo territories may 
 wean them from Arab influences and bring out their 
 better qualities. There would seem (from the accounts 
 of those that know them) to be a strange charm about 
 the handsome faces and bright, vivacious manners of the 
 Manyema, a charm which cannot even be wholly effaced 
 by a contemplation of the scenes of frantic ferocity and 
 ghoul-like cannibalism in which they indulge.
 
 ti. tH .ss 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 STANLEY RELIEVES LIVINGSTONE. 
 
 THE long absence from civilisation of Dr. Livingstone, 
 the scarcity of news about his movements, owing to the 
 loss and interception of his letters on their way to the 
 coast, caused many people in England and in America 
 to be anxious as to his fate. The expedition of Mr. 
 Edward Young in 1868 had proved with tolerable cer- 
 tainty that Livingstone had not perished at the hands 
 of the Angoni-Zulus ; news also had been received about 
 Livingstone's arrival on Tanganyika and discovery of 
 Lake Bangweolo; but the long, long pause which en- 
 sued owing to his three years' wanderings in Manyema 
 had been quite sufficient for those croakers in our society 
 who like to predict bad news to declare Dr. Livingstone 
 dead. The bon gros public, however, refused to give up 
 their hero so easily, and there began to be vague sug- 
 gestions set afloat of search and relief expeditions. But 
 whilst people in England were merely talking and writ- 
 ing letters to the Times and making philanthropic 
 speeches at the fag-end of Royal Geographical Society's 
 meetings and Lord Mayor's dinners, an American news- 
 paper proprietor resolved to do something towards find- 
 ing Livingstone, and did it. No doubt the owner of the 
 New York Herald was not actuated, or did not profess 
 
 to be actuated, by high-flown philanthropy ; he wantul 
 
 MB
 
 310 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 a new sensation and startling copy for his journal. But 
 that little matters. He had, at any rate, the sense to 
 do the thing well, and the immediate outcome of his 
 journalistic inspiration was probably the addition of two 
 more years to Livingstone's life ; while the far-reaching 
 effect of the resolution taken by Mr. James Gordon 
 Bennett in some tawdry chamber of that tawdriest of 
 hotels the Grand in Paris has been the discovery of 
 the whole Congo Basin, the founding of the Congo Free 
 State, the intervention of all the European Powers in 
 Africa in place of the monopoly enjoyed by England, 
 France, and Portugal, and a host of other things, good 
 and bad, but all attendant on the advance of civilisation. 
 
 Mr. Bennett had been much struck by the ability and 
 daring of a young man named Stanley who had been 
 connected as a travelling correspondent with the New 
 York Herald ever since the American Civil War, in 
 which he had served, first on the Southern and then 
 on the Northern side. He had been through our 
 Abyssinian war as correspondent for the same paper, 
 and was following the Carlist struggle in Spain when 
 he received a telegram from Mr. Bennett telling him to 
 come to Paris. There, in the course of a conversation 
 in Mr. Bennett's bedroom at the Grand Hotel, he was 
 asked if he had any idea of Livingstone's whereabouts, 
 and whether he could discover him. Stanley did not 
 know, but was quite willing to try. He was accordingly 
 despatched by Mr. Bennett to do this as well as and 
 after a number of other commissions, which were to 
 include visits to Constantinople, the Levant, Persia, and 
 India. 
 
 Stanley arrived at Zanzibar on the 6th of January 
 1871, and made preparations for an expedition to Ujiji,
 
 STANLEY RELIEVES LIVINGSTONE. 34] 
 
 on Lake Tanganyika, where it was thought probable he 
 would encounter Livingstone or get reliable news of him 
 He kept up, however, a considerable amount of mystery 
 about his object in undertaking this journey. He feared 
 that if he announced it was for the relief of Dr. Living- 
 stone a hundred jealousies would be aroused and fifty 
 rivalries spring up. In this motive for veiling his plans 
 he may have been right, but I think he would have acted 
 with greater wisdom had he made a confidant of Sir John 
 (then Dr.) Kirk, the British representative at the court 
 of Zanzibar. In the face of the political rivalries and 
 intrigues which were already beginning to spring up in 
 connection with the Zanzibar dominions, it is hardly to 
 be wondered at that Dr. Kirk the jealous guardian of 
 British interests in East Africa should have viewed 
 with some coldness and distrust the mysterious expedi- 
 tion of an unknown American. 
 
 Worried with refractory porters and hindered rather 
 than helped by his two demoralised and useless European 
 companions (Farquhar and Shaw, two British seamen), 
 Stanley soon began to experience to the full the diffi- 
 culties of African exploration. Shaw and Farquhar 
 both died eventually, and neither got any farther than 
 Unyanyembe. Stanley became involved in the war 
 between the Arabs of Tabora and the Nyamwezi chief, 
 Mi ram bo (who afterwards swelled into a powerful Afri- 
 can monarch, able to close the road to Tanganyika at 
 his will) ; and sharing in the severe defeat of the Arabs, 
 was delayed some time in Unyanyembe, only getting 
 away by taking a circuitous southern route through 
 trackless thorn forests, and then, when at a safe dis- 
 tance from Mirambo, turning his steps once more 
 toward UjijL After much difficulty in the Uha coun-
 
 342 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 try, he finally reached Tanganyika on October 28, 1871, 
 and found himself face to face with Dr. Livingstone. 
 
 The juncture at which he arrived was a crisis in 
 Livingstone's life. Robbed of nearly all his goods by 
 the rascally slave porters sent him from Zanzibar, with- 
 out stores, medicines, news from the outside world, 
 letters fiom his children, or any assurance that the 
 world had not forgotten him, Livingstone was as near 
 despair as his nature and religion permitted. Stanley 
 appeared to him in the light of a saviour. He had 
 found Livingstone's letter- bags lying about at Bagaruoio, 
 while the idle slaves who were to have transported them 
 to Ujiji were living in that African Capua. Stanley 
 had brought on the letters with him, and he was, more- 
 over, himself a living newspaper in the full stock of 
 universal information he had been trained to carry in 
 his head of the current history of the world's doings. 
 Owing to the troubles in Unyanyembe, he had been 
 obliged to leave Livingstone's stores behind at that 
 place, but that was a small matter compared to the poor 
 old man being without stores at all, for his immediate 
 needs were satisfied, and the mere contact with a bright, 
 intelligent man, full of admiration and appreciation of 
 his deeds, revived Livingstone's spirits, and this revival 
 imparted a stimulus to his worn-out body. 
 
 The Royal Geographical Society, in the letters which 
 Stanley conveyed to Livingstone, had suggested that the 
 great traveller might profitably explore the north end 
 of Lake Tanganyika to satisfy himself by ocular testi- 
 mony that there was no outlet to the lake in that 
 direction. Accordingly, Livingstone and Stanley made 
 a boat-journey rou:id the north end of Tanganyika, 
 which settled ihe question once and tor all The llubJzi
 
 STANLEY RELIEVES LIVINGSTONE. 343 
 
 River, which enters the lake in a small delta at the north 
 end, was proved conclusively to be flowing into and not 
 out of Tanganyika. Thence they returned to Ujiji, and 
 after delays, consequent on severe fevers which attacked 
 Stanley, and through which Livingstone nursed him 
 with assiduity, they journeyed together to Unyanyembe, 
 where they finally parted. 
 
 Once more in Unyanyembe, as on the shores of 
 Tanganyika, Stanley urged Livingstone to return with 
 him to Europe ; and posterity can only heave a sigh of 
 vain regret over Livingstone's obstinacy in rejecting 
 Stanley's advice. He was, however, mad with the idea 
 of finding the Nile sources. It had indeed almost 
 become a monomania with him that the Lualaba must 
 be the Upper Nile. He was so absolutely sure in his 
 own mind the wish being father to the thought 
 that he scarcely contemplated the necessity of prov- 
 ing it by descending the stream until he reached 
 the Albert Nyanza ; he thought, on the contrary, that 
 his task ought to be the discovery and mapping of 
 its actual sources in Lake Bangweolo and on the Kat- 
 anga Highlands. That having been done, he was ready 
 to return to Europe. About the Congo he cared 
 little. The reports of the Arabs, that the Lualaba 
 flowed considerably to the west, of course raised the 
 fear in his mind that it might be the Congo after all, 
 but he would not allow himself to believe this; he 
 repeatedly assured himself that it must be the Nile. 
 But the monomaniac obstinacy which Africa creates in 
 every one, the extraordinary fascination she exerts over 
 all Europeans who fall into her meshes (as if she 
 hypnotised them), acted on Livingstone as it did on 
 Gordon, and as it has done on Eirtin in inducing them
 
 344 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTKAL AFK1UA. 
 
 to remain or return against their better judgment, 
 against menace of death and the snapping of family ties. 
 Had Livingstone returned to Europe with Stanley, we 
 should have been no less rich in geographical informa- 
 tion, for his after-journeys were unproductive ; and he 
 would have received that full reward of appreciatory 
 praise which was never his in his lifetime. Skilful 
 dentists would have replaced his loosened, decaying teeth 
 with an artificial set which would have enabled him to 
 masticate his food, and thus improve his digestion. Com- 
 fort and kindness would have restored his health and 
 cured his despondency. He might have lived many years 
 longer, even to the present day of writing, have died a 
 baronet and president of the Royal Geographical Society. 
 But no; he would listen to none of these reasonings, 
 none of these tempting prospects baited with common 
 sense. He would go back to the west, finish his work, 
 and then return. Stanley was forced to let the wilful 
 man have his way, but resolving that that way should 
 be made as easy for him as possible, he agreed with 
 Dr. Livingstone to organise for him a body of reliable 
 carriers, and send them back from Zanzibar to Unyan- 
 yembe with a further complement of stores. Accord- 
 ingly the two friends parted, not without emotion, for 
 Livingstone felt grateful to Stanley from the bottom of 
 his heart, and Stanley seems to have been led captive 
 by the nobility of Livingstone's disposition. 
 
 Stanley reached Zanzibar on the yth of May 1872, 
 but before he had crossed over to the island he had met 
 on the mainland the vanguard of an imposing expedition 
 got up by the Royal Geographical Society, and subscribed 
 to by Her Majesty's Government, for the relief of Living- 
 stone. This expedition was officered by Lieutenants
 
 STANLEY RELIEVES LIVINGSTONK. 34& 
 
 Dawson and Henn, and Livingstone's son Oswell; and 
 there was attached to it, as interpreter and general 
 adviser, the Rev. Charles New, of Kilima-njaio fame. 1 
 All these gentlemen, as soon as the result of Stanley's 
 journey was made known, promptly resigned. All the 
 carefully prepared equipment of the expedition was sold, 
 or some portion of it handed over to Stanley to trans- 
 mit to Livingstone. 2 
 
 Finding that none of the gentlemen who had come 
 out with this relief expedition were willing to conduct 
 the porters back to Livingstone at Unyanyembe, Stanley 
 was forced to make the best arrangements possible for 
 forwarding the goods and men, under the charge of a 
 young Arab, who did not turn out remarkably well, but 
 who, nevertheless, led the fifty-seven porters in safety 
 
 i Mr. New was the first to ascend Kilima-njaro to the snow-line. 
 He afterwards returned to the mountain, was robbed by the chief 
 Mandara of all his goods, and died of a broken heart. 
 
 1 The Royal Geographical Society sent round a circular in 1872 
 inviting subscriptions from the British public towards a fund for de- 
 spatching an expedition to find and relieve Livingstone. To this fund 
 the Geographical Society itself subscribed .500. In 1870 Her Majesty's 
 Government, through Lord Clarendon, had granted a sum of 1000 
 to be expended on behalf of Livingstone, the balance of which, in 
 1872, was .557, 73. idd. This also was transferred to the Relief Fund, 
 together with another small amount of about 30, the interest on 
 some Exchequer Bills. This made a total, therefore, of about ^1088, 
 which the public subscription increased to 5770, 33. id. So soon 
 as this amount had been collected, the Royal Geographical Society 
 despatched an expedition on the 7th February 1872, under the com- 
 mand of Lieutenants Llewellyn, Dawson, and William Heun, and of 
 Mr. Oswell Livingstone. The final cost of this abortive expedition 
 amounted to ^2359, 6s. 6d., but a portion of this sum was expended 
 in providing stores to be sent up to Livingstone by the porters whom 
 Stanley had engaged. However, it reduced the Livingstone Relief 
 Fund to about .3175, i6s. 6d., an amount which was afterwards 
 spent in fitting out an expedition under Lieutenant (now Commander) 
 Cameron.
 
 346 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 to TJnyanyembe, and only lost three donkeys, two loads 
 of cloth, and some tins of cocoa on the way. 
 
 Meanwhile, as soon as he had despatched these supplies 
 and men to Dr. Livingstone, Stanley took a passage in 
 a German steamer for Seychelles, together with the ex- 
 members of the relief expedition. At the Seychelles 
 he was compelled to remain a month, till the French 
 mail came from Mauritius, and thus he proceeded to 
 England vid Aden and Marseilles, calling at Paris on the 
 way, and entrusting Livingstone's Journal and despatches 
 to Her Majesty's Ambassador at that place, to be trans- 
 mitted to the Foreign Office. His reception in England, 
 however, was somewhat disappointing. It is a well-worn 
 subject, and has been much commented on. There were 
 perhaps faults of manner on both sides ; but, at the same 
 time, there is no doubt that Stanley was unkindly dealt 
 with by those who, in their bitterness of disappointment 
 that Dr. Livingstone had been relieved by one who was 
 not a British subject, attempted at first to dispute the 
 authenticity of the discovery, and, secondly, to minimise 
 its value, in asserting that " Dr. Livingstone had dis- 
 covered Stanley, rather than that Stanley had relieved 
 Livingstone." This hasty judgment has long, long since 
 been rescinded, and the amplest amends made by such 
 geographical authorities as may have wounded Mr. Stan- 
 ley's feelings by their hypercritical remarks. Perhaps, 
 I dare say, too, if the Stanley of to-day looks back on 
 his early manner of 1873, and the way in which he 
 spoke of, and to, certain persons whom he too rashly 
 and sweepingly condemned, he will acknowledge that the 
 injustice and the faults of temper were not wholly on 
 the other side. But it is really unnecessary to rake up 
 these old ashes of a quarrel long since grown cold. The
 
 STANLEY RELIEVED LIVINGSTONE. 347 
 
 British nation, from their ruler downwards, as soon as 
 they realised the greatness and importance of Stanley's 
 exploit, afforded him ample reward and recognition. 
 When it came out that Stanley was a Britisher born, 
 and merely one of our errant children, who had placed 
 himself for a while under the protection of a scarcely 
 foreign flag, public satisfaction at his great deeds in- 
 creased continually, until it culminated in that almost 
 regal triumph accorded him in the summer of 1890
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTONE. 
 
 DR. LIVINGSTONE left Unyanyembe on the 25th August 
 1872 to resume his exploration of what he imagined to 
 be the Nile sources. He started with probably the 
 best-equipped expedition that had ever yet accompanied 
 him in his African journeys. He had nearly sixty 
 good men, several riding-donkeys, and some cows. A 
 reserve of stores was left behind in charge of an Arab 
 at Tabora, and by the usual unfortunate accidents which 
 seemed always to attend Livingstone, among the things 
 left behind by mistake was a case of desiccated milk, 
 which would have been of the greatest service to him 
 as nourishment during his attacks of dysentery. 
 
 He embarked on this fresh journey with his old 
 eagerness, and with renewed hopes, greatly cheered by 
 the unusual comfort which attended his journeys and 
 the excellent character of the men whom Stanley had 
 sent him. But a few days' travel on the road showed 
 him that he was unfit for any more African journeys. 
 He suffered acutely, not only from his old complaint of 
 haemorrhoids, but with a renewal of that dysenteric affec- 
 tion that had become rooted in his sytem by his awful 
 trials in Manyema. After a severe bout which occurred 
 on the i8th September there are constant entries in 
 his Journal noting the loss of blood through both these 
 
 348
 
 THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTONE. 349 
 
 maladies combined, while the pain he suffered at times 
 was frightful. Nevertheless he managed somehow to 
 ride his donkey, and reached the shores of Tanganyika 
 on the 1 4th October. He skirted the south-east coast 
 of the lake through the Fipa and Ulungu countries, and 
 then turned south and west till he reached the Kalon- 
 gosi River, which flows into Lake Moero. Crossing 
 this stream and the high range of mountains beyond, 
 he descended into the terribly marshy region north of 
 Lake Bangweolo, which is intersected by innumerable 
 streams and is one vast sponge. 
 
 Thenceforward the journey became terrible. One 
 looking on would have seen Livingstone literally dying 
 by degrees day by day. The rainy season was at its 
 height, the land was an endless swamp, the inhabitants 
 were scattered and suspicious from the remembrance of 
 old Arab raids, starvation was constantly menacing the 
 expedition, chiefs promised canoes, but did not send 
 them, and one reads in the diary which Livingstone 
 kept accounts of the dull grey skies, the incessant down- 
 pour of rain, the oozy, spongy soil of the villages in 
 which they stayed (a soil which stank with the rotten- 
 ness of a soaked manure-heap), of the filthy huts, and 
 the attacks of that dreadful species of bug (which 
 Livingstone misnames tick) that is so prevalent in parts 
 of East-Central Africa. 
 
 He crossed the Tshambezi River on the 4th April 
 1873, and continued his course along the east shores 
 of Bangweolo, if shores they could be called, for it was 
 difficult to say where the solid land ended and the lake 
 began. All this country through which they had been 
 passing since crossing the Liposhosi River, which flows 
 into the north end of Bangweolo, was a vast swamp of
 
 350 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFK1CA. 
 
 shallow water overgrown with giant reeds with great 
 white heads of blossom, and luxuriant papyrus eight feet 
 high and sometimes as much as three feet across its 
 crowns of filaments. The marsh was further covered 
 with four varieties of rushes, the two species of African 
 water-lily, and various arums. The water in these, 
 swamps was about four to six feet deep. Here and 
 there small islands of firm soil rose above that sea of 
 rustling reeds which extended illimitably all round 
 them. On these mounds villages were established, but- 
 owing to the incessant rains their sites could scarcely 
 be called dry land, and the accumulation of refuse round 
 the habitations, rotting in the wet, gave out a fearful 
 stench. Millions of mosquitoes swarmed ; there were 
 poisonous spiders and stinging ants. Yet, amid all his 
 misery and the attacks of sickening pain which his 
 dysentery brought on, Livingstone could record flashes 
 of humour and delicious little bits of natural-history 
 observation in his Journal. He describes the natives 
 hunting the water-antelopes, 1 and the sound of these 
 beasts plunging through the reeds and dashing and 
 splashing through the shallow water; and farther on 
 writes about a lion " which had wandered into this 
 world of water and ant-hills, and roared night and 
 morning as if very much disgusted : we could sympa- 
 thise with him ! " 
 
 On the i5th March 1873 Livingstone had addressed 
 his last despatch to Lord Granville. On the gth April 
 he took his last observations for latitude. From the 
 middle of that month he was so ill through loss of blood 
 that he was obliged to be carried by his men in a litter 
 made of boughs. On the 2yth April he made the last
 
 THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTONE. 351 
 
 entry in his note-book. This runs : " Knocked up quite, 
 and remain = recover. Sent to buy inilch-goats. We 
 are on the banks of the River Molilamo." A few days 
 before that he writes : " Tried to write, but was forced 
 to lie down, and they carried me back to viL (village) 
 exhausted." 
 
 The milch-goats, however, that might have provided 
 the sustenance of which Livingstone stood so sorely in 
 need, were not procurable. The hateful Zulu raiders 
 had swept the country of nearly all its flocks. Poor 
 Livingstone, as he lay sick, thought that he could eat 
 some millet-seed pounded up with ground-nuts, 1 and he 
 gave instructions that it should be prepared for him, 
 but he was not able to take it when it was brought to 
 him. 
 
 Still he would not stop. As he was too weak to move 
 from his bed to the door of his tiny little hut to reach 
 the litter in which he was carried, he asked the men to 
 break down one side of the little house, and so bring the 
 litter to his bed-side. This was done ; he was gently 
 placed on it and borne out of the village. On their 
 route to Tshitambo's town, on the southern end of Bang- 
 weolo, another river had to be crossed, the one which he 
 speaks of as the Molilamo, but the name of which is 
 Lulimalo. Livingstone was too weak to sit in the canoe, 
 as he had hitherto done. His men, therefore, laid his 
 mattress along the bottom of the biggest canoe, and 
 tried to lift him on to it, but he could not bear the pain 
 of a hand being passed under his back. Beckoning to 
 his faithful Chuma, he asked him in a faint voice to 
 bend his head over him as low as possible, so that he 
 might clasp his hands round his neck, and thus the 
 1 A ghastly diet for a dysenteric man !
 
 .552 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 greatest leverage would be exerted without hurting his 
 loins. At the same time the other men gently lifted 
 him by the legs, and in this way he was laid in the 
 bottom of the canoe, and with the utmost care lifted out 
 of it on the other side of the river and conveyed to 
 Tshitambo's village, where he arrived in a dying con- 
 dition. Even during the short distance from the marshy 
 borders of the Lulimalo to Tshitambo's, Livingstone's 
 sufferings were so great that his men were every now 
 and then implored to stop and lay his litter on the 
 ground. The pain and weakness which he endured on 
 this last day of his travels rendered him unable to stand, 
 and if he were lifted bodily for a few yards, he fell into 
 a state of faintness which came dangerously near death. 
 Then at times he would become conscious, and complain 
 of terrible thirst and ask for water, but by a cruel irony 
 of fate they had just left the leagues and leagues of 
 water behind them, and nothing could be given him to 
 drink until he arrived at the village. With pathetic 
 assiduity and thoughtfulness, the bulk of his men had 
 rushed on in front, and had prepared and built that is 
 to say, modified an existing hut a suitable house for 
 him, had constructed a bed of poles covered with dry 
 grass and raised above the ground, and had lit a bright 
 fire in the centre of the hut. As soon as might be he 
 was placed within, and with the relative comfort and 
 the blessed rest he regained full consciousness. On the 
 next day, which was, as far as can be reckoned, the 3oth 
 April, the chief Tshitambo came early to pay a visit of 
 courtesy, but Livingstone was obliged to feebly waive the 
 greeting and beg him to come on the morrow instead, 
 when he hoped to have more strength to talk with him. 
 In the afternoon of that day he explained to his man
 
 THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTOJSE. 303 
 
 Susi how to hold his watch and wind it up. In the 
 middle of ensuing night Susi went to his master, who 
 had inquired for him, having heard loud shouts in the 
 distance. Livingstone asked whether it was his men 
 that were making that noise, but Susi told him it was 
 the cries of the natives scaring away a buffalo from their 
 corn-fields. A few minutes afterwards, as though half 
 delirious, he asked, " Is this the Luapula ? " Susi replied, 
 " No ; we are in Tshitambo's village, near the Lulimalo." 
 After another silence, Livingstone, who had apparently 
 spoken in English before, now asked Susi in Ki-swahili, 
 " Siku ngapi Itwenda, Luapula ? " (" How many days to 
 go to the Luapula 1 ") Susi replied, " Nathani siku tatu, 
 Bwana " (" I think three days, master "). Livingstone 
 to this only answered, with a sigh of pain, " Oh dear, 
 dear ! " Then he dozed off a while, but afterwards called 
 for Susi again, and asked him to boil some water and 
 bring him his medicine-chest. With great difficulty, 
 from this Livingstone took out the calomel and placed 
 it by his side ; then directing his man to pour a little 
 water into a cup, and to put another empty one by it, 
 he said in a feeble voice, "All right; you can go out 
 now." These were the last words which Livingstone 
 was heard to speak. 
 
 At four o'clock the next morning, Majiwara, Living- 
 stone's personal attendant, rushed out of the hut and 
 summoned Susi to come and look at his master. The 
 boy had suddenly awaked, and had found Livingstone 
 out of bed and no longer living. Susi and Majiwara 
 ran into the hut with four other men, lit a candle, and 
 looked towards the bed. Their master was not lying 
 on it, but was kneeling by the side of the bed, his body 
 stretched forward and his head buried in his hands upon 
 
 M
 
 854 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 the pillow. He had probably got out of bed with the 
 intention of mixing his medicine, or it may have been 
 with the idea of putting up one more agonised prayer 
 for recovery, and the exertion had stopped the feeble 
 action of his heart. At the time the men advanced to 
 him and placed their hands on his cheeks they found 
 him cold. 
 
 From the fact that his servants had spoken with him 
 shortly before midnight, it is probable that he did not 
 die until the turn of the new day. It may, therefore, 
 be concluded that he expired on the ist May 1873. 
 Some of his men have placed the date later, on the 4th 
 May, and have even said that they were obliged to 
 remove him from Tshitambo's village owing to the 
 horror which most Africans feel of a stranger dying 
 in their midst, but this account does not tally with the 
 description of events given by the majority, and it is 
 difficult to reconcile it with the known kindness of 
 Tshitambo. I therefore agree with the Rev. Horace 
 Waller, that the ist May 1873 was the date on which 
 the greatest and best man who ever explored Africa 
 yielded up his life, as much a martyr to a sense of duty 
 as Gordon, but in his sublime obstinacy sacrificing but 
 his own life and not involving the death of thousands. 
 
 From the vague accounts which are given of Living- 
 stone's maladies, owing to the mistaken idea that the 
 details of a hero's sickness should be lightly passed over, 
 lest in some way they detract from the heroic character 
 (though why, I cannot see), it is not easy to decide what 
 Livingstone actually died of. Although no doubt a 
 certain amount of fever ensued on the disorganisation 
 of his system, it was not the ordinary marsh fever or 
 the severe bilious remittent which killed him. From
 
 THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTONE. 35ft 
 
 early middle age he had shown a tendency to suffer from 
 haemorrhoids, and, indeed, on the occasion of his last 
 stay in England, from 1864 to 1865, he was counselled 
 to submit to an operation, but, on reflection, would 
 not do so. In his last African journeys this complaint 
 caused him frightful agony so excruciating, in fact, was 
 the pain, that he seems to have welcomed the severe 
 discharge of blood which for the time relieved it. This 
 constant haemorrhage, however, slowly killed him ; in 
 fact, he bled to death by degrees. Coupled with this 
 malady was a great derangement of the bowels, which 
 apparently was dysenteric. It would seem, therefore, 
 as though he had two causes for the frequent loss of 
 blood. It is probable that he actually died of exhaus- 
 tion, of that sudden syncope failure of the heart's 
 action which is so commonly the way in which African 
 diseases terminate. Few people in Africa die actually 
 of fever or pneumonia or dysentery ; the immediate 
 cause of death is failure of the heart's action through 
 weakness, and this often occurs during early convales- 
 cence, when the patient is thought to be progressing 
 favourably, and the disease from which he has suffered 
 is cured. He sits up in bed suddenly, or attempts to 
 get out of bed, and in the unusual exertion faints away. 
 If consciousness is not immediately restored by strong 
 measures, the syncope rapidly passes into death. 
 
 It has pleased many of Livingstone's commentators 
 and biographers to surmise that he died in prayer, and 
 that the prayer was one offered up for Africa and the 
 woes of the enslaved and wretched continent. It is an 
 idea which is pleasing to the fancy, but with all due 
 tenderness for the wish that is father to the thought, 
 I do not think it is consistent with actuality. The
 
 356 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 approach of death in Africa is preceded by a singular 
 numbing of the mental faculties. Dying people appear 
 to think of nothing but their immediate physical 
 requirements. They drowse and drowse, and express 
 neither fear, joy, anxiety, nor interest. I have leant 
 over the beds of several dying men to catch the sentence 
 that the poor whitened lips were trying to form, but it 
 has been no last words to those they loved at home, and 
 no reference to the death that was creeping over them ; 
 merely some inquiry as to the time or a request for 
 water, or some wandering thought or recollection of a 
 trivial kind, such as " Forgot to tell you that I owe 
 so-and-so half-a-crown." In an interesting address re- 
 cently delivered by Archdeacon Maples of Nyasa, he 
 expresses the same opinion as to the ''gnorance of ap- 
 proaching death and lack of all beautiful "last words" 
 among all those who die in Africa. It therefore seems 
 to me more probable that Livingstone expired in the 
 mere effort to get out of bed and mix his medicine. And 
 why should we wish it otherwise ? Thirty years of his 
 life were one long prayer for Africa. Does it matter 
 whether or not that prayer was continued to the last 
 few hours of consciousness ? 
 
 Livingstone's men behaved admirably in the circum- 
 stances which followed his death. They made a most 
 careful inventory of all his effects, and packed them in 
 tin boxes where they would be safe from the attacks of 
 white ants or from damp. They decided that, come 
 what might, his body must be conveyed to Zanzibar, 
 for they knew with what importance he was regarded 
 among white men, and how necessary it would be to 
 prove his death by the identity of the corpse. Yet this 
 proceeding was attended with the utmost difficulty,
 
 THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTONE. 357 
 
 because of the superstitious horror that all Africans have 
 of a dead body. A council of all the porters was called, 
 and those men who had recently come from Zanzibar volun- 
 tarily placed themselves under the command of Living- 
 stone's two most faithful old followers, Susi and Chuma. 
 At first it was arranged that the body should be 
 prepared secretly for conveyance to the coast, but the 
 news of Livingstone's death having leaked out and 
 reached Tshitambo's ears, he came at once to inquire 
 into the matter. He said to Chuma, " Why did you 
 not tell me the truth ? I know that your master died 
 last night. You were afraid to let me know, but do 
 not fear any longer. I too have travelled, and more 
 than once have been to Pwani (the coast), before the 
 country along the road was destroyed by the Mazitu. 1 
 I know that you have no bad object in coming to our 
 land, and death often happens to travellers in their 
 journeys." Reassured by this speech, the men set to 
 work to carry out their intentions of preparing the 
 corpse for its long journey, and gave Livingstone such 
 obsequies as they, poor souls ! judged fitting. A hand- 
 some present was given to Tshitambo in order that he 
 might help in paying honours to the dead. At the 
 appointed time, the chief, accompanied by his wives and 
 people, came to the little settlement where Livingstone 
 had died. Tshitambo was arrayed in his best raiment, 
 and his followers carried bows, arrows, and spears, but no 
 guns. Two of his people who were " special mourners " 
 raised the loud, wailing lamentations with which death 
 is greeted in Africa. At the same time Livingstone's 
 servants fired volley after volley into the air, after the 
 manner of the Arabs and the half-caste Portuguese. 
 
 1 Zulus.
 
 358 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 One of the native mourners wore anklets composed of 
 hollow seed-vessels filled with tiny pebbles, which rattled 
 as he danced in circles. He sang in a low monotonous 
 chant words which have been translated, " To-day the 
 Englishman is dead, who has different hair from ours : 
 come round to see the Englishman." l Whilst these 
 proceedings were going on one of the native boys, 
 named Jacob Wainwright, read the burial-service from 
 the English Prayer-book. 
 
 Having built a special settlement apart from the 
 village, surrounded by an exceedingly strong stockade, 
 to prevent any attempts of wild beasts to break through, 
 Livingstone's men conveyed his corpse into a hut which 
 was open to the air at the top, and surrounded by their 
 own temporary dwellings, and then they set to work to 
 prepare the body with a rough embalming. They had 
 with them a quantity of salt, and out of their master's 
 stores they obtained some brandy. With these materials 
 they hoped to preserve the body from decay. One of 
 the men, named Farijala, was appointed to remove the 
 viscera, and in their place was inserted a quantity of 
 salt. Brandy was poured down the mouth and over the 
 hair of the head. The poor frame of the long-suffering 
 man was found to be little more than skin and bone. 
 
 The heart and the rest of the viscera were placed in 
 a tin box and buried in a hole dug some four feet deep 
 in the centre of this little settlement. 2 Jacob Wain- 
 
 1 This is Mr. Waller's translation. From the native words he 
 records I make it out to be as follows: "To-day died the English- 
 man, the child of hair (i.e., possessing long hair) and of the coast : let 
 us come forward to see the Englishman." 
 
 2 Tshitambo was charged by the men before they left to keep the 
 place sacred where Livingstone's heart had been buried. He faithfully 
 did so, and to this day Livingstone's grave in Africa remains carefully
 
 THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTONE. 359 
 
 wright then once more read the burial-service in the 
 presence of all the men. The body was placed for 
 fourteen days to dry in the sun, the men watching 
 round it all the time. When thoroughly dry it was 
 wrapped round with calico, the legs being bent inwards 
 at the knees to shorten the package. In order to dis- 
 guise the character of their load as far as possible, they 
 ingeniously constructed a cylinder of bark, which was 
 obtained by stripping a stout tree. In this the body of 
 their master was placed, and the package completely 
 enveloped in a piece of sail-cloth and lashed to a pole, so 
 that it might be carried by two men. A day or two 
 afterwards they further added to their precaution for 
 preserving the remains from the action of moisture by 
 tarring the whole package outside, Livingstone having 
 carried about a small cask of tar with him which had 
 been left behind at Tshitambo's village. 
 
 They then set out on their march to the coast through 
 the country of Ilala (which was the name of the land 
 in which Livingstone died). Remembering keenly the 
 frightful difficulties of their previous march round the 
 eastern shores of Bangweolo, they resolved to take a 
 western route and complete the circuit of the lake. 
 Three days after starting, however, they were all down 
 with some rheumatic affection which completely pros- 
 trated them. It was supposed that this was the ulti- 
 mate result of their terrible experiences in the marshes 
 on the east of Bangweolo. However, the chief in whose 
 village they fell ill was a brother of Tshitambo's, and 
 treated them with great kindness. As soon as they 
 
 guarded from desecration or obliteration by Tshitambo, to whom the 
 Royal Geographical Society recently sent a handsome present as a 
 mark of tho good feeling entertained for him by the British people.
 
 360 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 were sufficiently restored to health they continued their 
 inarch across the Luapula, the cynosure of Livingstone's 
 eyes which he was fated never to see, and journeyed 
 thence to the north, skirting the western shores of 
 swampy Bangweolo. On the other side of the Luapula, 
 Livingstone's pet-donkey was killed by a lion. In the 
 country of the cantankerous Ba-usi people, on the west 
 of Bangweolo, the natives picked a quarrel with them, 
 and the men of the expedition therefore boldly assaulted 
 their town and carried it by storm, resolving to show no 
 sign of weakness in the absence of their white leader, for 
 they felt instinctively that if they gave in to extortion 
 and violence thus early on the road they would none of 
 them reach the coast with their precious burden. At 
 the captured town of Tshatwende they obtained a great 
 quantity of food, which proved most useful to them, as 
 they were able to stay here and recruit and thoroughly 
 prepare themselves for the long journey ahead of them. 
 From Bangweolo they passed with little difficulty to 
 the south shores of Tanganyika, and not wishing to incur 
 the difficulties with extortionate chiefs and the waste of 
 time which would be involved in following Livingstone's 
 old route along its eastern shores, they resolved to strike 
 boldly across the Fipa country, near Lake Rukwa, to 
 Wunyamwezi, which country they entered without any 
 serious mishaps about the 2oth October 1873. At the 
 settlement of Kwihara, near Tabora, they encountered 
 the second Livingstone relief expedition which had been 
 sent out by the Royal Geographical Society, that under 
 the command of Lieutenant Cameron. 1 Here they were 
 all compelled to pause whilst the officers in charge of 
 this expedition considered what further course should be 
 1 Now Commander Cameron, C. B.
 
 THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTONE. 361 
 
 taken in the matter of conveying Livingstone's body to 
 the coast. It appeared to these gentlemen that, in view 
 of the considerable risk attending the transport of the 
 corpse through the Ugogo country, it would almost be 
 better to bury it at Kwihara. But Livingstone's men were 
 obstinate on this point ; they were resolved thab their 
 master's body should be taken to the coast with the view 
 of its being sent to England, and in the face of this reso- 
 lution on their part the English officers wisely deferred 
 to the men's ardent wishes. The boxes of Livingstone's 
 effects which the men had carefully packed at Tshi- 
 tambo's were gone over, and those amongst Livingstone's 
 instruments which were thought likely to be useful to 
 that section of the new expedition which was proceeding 
 westwards were taken charge of by Lieutenant Cameron. 
 The remainder of the things were then packed, and the 
 four bales of cloth that had been left behind as a reserve 
 with the Arabs were handed over to Livingstone's men. 
 Lieutenant Murphy and Dr. Dillon, members of 
 Cameron's party, had been so persistently ill on their 
 journey from Zanzibar to Unyamwezi, that it was de- 
 cided they should return to the coast, whilst Lieutenant 
 Cameron pursued his way to Ujiji with the intention of 
 recovering further papers of Dr. Livingstone's which 
 were said to have been left there, and with the hope of 
 completing some of his discoveries. No doubt Cameron, 
 on his way to Wunyamwezi, had discovered, what most 
 African explorers have found out, that it is best for white 
 men to work singly in Africa; and the remarkable jour- 
 ney which he subsequently made all round Tanganyika 
 and across the lower part of the Congo watershed to the 
 Atlantic Ocean was in striking contrast to the dismal 
 record of his expedition on the march from Bagamoio to
 
 362 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 Tabora, with the unavoidable hindrances caused by the 
 constant sickness, and in one case the sad death, of the 
 white men who accompanied him. 
 
 Accordingly Livingstone's little band of sixty men 
 resumed their journey to the coast, with the additional 
 charge of escorting Lieutenant Murphy and Dr. Dillon. 
 Soon after their start, however, from Tabora they realised 
 that some strategy must be resorted to to disguise the 
 fact that they were carrying Livingstone's dead body ; 
 otherwise the superstitious and greedy natives of the 
 countries that lay before them would oppose their pro- 
 gress at every turn, so as to exact enormous payments as 
 an indemnification for this outrage on their superstitions 
 about dead bodies. The men therefore devised one of 
 those clever ruses which are such a fertile product of the 
 African brain. At Kasekera, a town lying some dis- 
 tance to the south of Tabora, they came to a full stop, and 
 told the villagers that they had given up as a bad job the 
 attempt to carry Livingstone's body any farther, and 
 they had decided it was to be buried at Tabora. What 
 they really did was to take the body out of the bark 
 cylinder in which it had been packed, and repack it in 
 the middle of a bale of cloth. An imitation corpse was 
 then made out of corn-stalks, put into the old bark 
 cylinder, and sent back on the road to Tabora, with a 
 letter in a cleft stick. As soon as the men who carried 
 this fictitious Livingstone had travelled well out of sight 
 and hearing of Kasekera they destroyed their burden 
 and effaced the track of their footsteps, and rejoined the 
 main caravan (which had already started coastwards) 
 some distance farther on the road. Before they left Kase- 
 kera, however, a sad event had occurred in the suicide 
 of Dr. Dillon, who had been suffering from dementia
 
 THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTONE. 383 
 
 consequent upon an exhausting attack of dysentery. A 
 little farther on another tragedy occurred. A child who 
 was travelling with Livingstone's caravan, a daughter of 
 one of the men, was suddenly attacked by an immense 
 snake as she travelled along the path carrying a water- 
 jar upon her head. The snake started out of the jungle, 
 bit her in the thigh, and darted back to its hole. The 
 child died ten minutes after having been bitten. 
 
 No further incident of note affected the expedition until 
 it reached Bagamoio, whither came the acting Consul- 
 General, Captain Prideaux, from Zanzibar, to meet the 
 body of Dr. Livingstone. His faithful men handed over 
 their precious burden, which was coolly taken from them 
 without a word of acknowledgment for their great services, 
 or even a passage offered them across to the island of 
 Zanzibar. How extraordinary it is that so many Eng- 
 lishmen are so utterly failing in tact, especially with black 
 men, and do not know that a few kind words of appre- 
 ciation would gladden the hearts of men who have done 
 splendid work ! Susi and Chuma would probably have 
 remained ignored and forgotten, disappointed and de- 
 ceived as to the character of white men, had it not been 
 for that most generous creature, that true friend of Dr. 
 Livingstone, James Young, who had the men forwarded 
 to Zanzibar and to England at his own expense, in order 
 that they might assist at Livingstone's funeral obse- 
 quies. Had these men not thus been brought over to 
 England and placed at the disposal of Mr. Waller to 
 assist him in his task of editing Livingstone's " Last 
 Journals," we should have lost a considerable amount of 
 elucidatory information which has greatly enabled us to 
 understand obscure references and apparent contradic- 
 tions in the scattered records which Livingstone wrote
 
 364 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 with a trembling hand during his last days. The Royal 
 Geographical Society, I believe, rewarded these men, and 
 they afterwards returned to Zanzibar and did good work 
 there in the service of other European explorers and 
 missionaries. 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten that Susi and Chuma were 
 only two among seven nearly equally faithful servants 
 of Livingstone's. The other five consisted of Amoda 
 (who, together with Susi and Chuma, had been a follower 
 of Livingstone's in the old days of the first Zambezi 
 expedition) ; then Abraham 1 and Mabrnki, the only two 
 among the Nassick boys that started with Livingstone 
 in 1865, who turned out well; and after them must be 
 mentioned Ntoaika and Halima, two native women, ex- 
 slaves, who had married Susi and Amoda in Manyema. 
 Halima was usually Livingstone's cook, and, with one 
 or two occasional outbursts of temper, to which all good 
 cooks are addicted, she bears an excellent record. Of 
 course, directly people in England heard that Livingstone 
 had a female cook, that large section of us which delights 
 to find their own faults and failings in greater men, 
 hinted and whispered and suggested that Halima was 
 to Livingstone what the French would call une servante- 
 maitresse. It is hardly worth while to waste space and 
 words in this book to point out the falseness of this sug- 
 gestion. Livingstone's life is quite beyond reproach. 
 African travellers little realise how completely their 
 reputations in Africa are at the mercy of their negro 
 followers. Every single little thing that a white man 
 does, whether he cleans his teeth with red tooth-paste or 
 white powder, whether he takes a bath once a day or 
 
 1 This man's full name would seem to have been Abraham, or Abram, 
 Gardner.
 
 THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTONE. 36f. 
 
 only once a week, how often he changes his under-shirt, 
 how much alcohol he drinks and what kind of alcohol, 
 whether he is devout in public and loose-mannered in 
 private, whether he is brave in sickness or too ready to 
 despond everything is known to these acute, sharp- 
 eyed observers, who, by a kind of freemasonry, will 
 rapidly impart all this information to the great con- 
 fraternity of Zanzibar porters ; and yet none of this 
 gossip will reach the European who does not mix with 
 the people and understand their language thoroughly. 
 The present writer, being, however, conversant with the 
 Wa-swahili and their tongue, has heard at times, with 
 much detail, what So-and-So used to do in Africa, and 
 the real conduct or misconduct of somebody else ; and no 
 doubt, in the same way, other African travellers who 
 know Ki-swahili have been amused with an account of 
 any little weaknesses of temper, eccentricities of tooth - 
 wash, or fastidiousness of clean sheets and tablecloths in 
 the wilderness which may have been displayed by the 
 author of this book. I have, in fact, at different times 
 and in many African experiences, on the hot, weary 
 midday march, by the brookside, in the quiet grey 
 moonlight round the camp-fire, in the gloomy forest, 
 under the snows of Kilima-njaro, becalmed on the expanse 
 of Tanganyika, or gliding rapidly down the Congo in a 
 canoe, listened half idly, half attentively, to the discus- 
 sions which would arise among the Wa-swahili carriers 
 as to their view of the lives led in Africa by most great 
 travellers. Of one thing, however, these gossips were 
 all convinced (and among all the scandal they were 
 talking there was little reason for them to exempt one 
 man more than another), and that was, that Dr. Living- 
 stone, who, according to their traditions, was sometimes
 
 366 LIVINGSTONE AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 cross and even peevish, who was sometimes in their eyes 
 unreasonable and sometimes inexplicable in his actions, 
 was nevertheless absolutely pure from the least suspicion 
 of immorality. Had he been otherwise, had he been as 
 frail as are ninety-eight African travellers, and, for the 
 matter of that, other men, out of a hundred, I should 
 not have alluded to this subject, because it is one which 
 is better left undiscussed ; but as I have heard this 
 foolish slander half-gleefully hinted at by those who 
 derive some undefined pleasure by belittling great men, 
 I thought it better to refer to the rumour, and state 
 that, judged by the verdict of Livingstone's native fol- 
 lowers, it is absolutely false. 
 
 Livingstone was buried in Westminster Abbey on 
 the 1 8th April 1874, and his pall-bearers were Henry 
 Moreton Stanley, John Kirk, Horace Waller, Edward 
 Young, William Oswell, Sir Thomas Steele, William 
 Webb, and Jacob Wainwright, the Nassick boy who 
 had read the burial-service over Livingstone in Ilala. 
 Among the mourners were Livingstone's surviving chil- 
 dren, his brother and his sisters, sister-in-law, and 
 father-in-law, the venerable Robert Moffat. Then, fur- 
 ther in attendance, a brilliant company of all who were 
 most distinguished in geographical exploration, or in 
 any way connected with Africa, either by interest, sym- 
 pathy, employment, or experience. A graceful attention 
 on the part of the much-abused Portuguese may be 
 noticed in the presence of an official representative from 
 that Government, the Visconde Duprat. The Italian 
 Minister was there, and many members of Parliament 
 and representatives of the press. 
 
 On the widespread results of African exploration 
 and political development which ensued on Livingstone's
 
 THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTONE. 367 
 
 stately funeral I have already touched in different pas- 
 sages in this book. The opening-up of the Dark Con- 
 tinent has gone on unceasingly in wider and wider 
 ripples of discovery and colonisation as the immediate 
 and continuous result of the stirring manner in which 
 he drew attention to the woes and needs and capabilities 
 of Bantu Africa, In Zambezia and Nyasaland especially 
 in what will soon be called " British Central Africa " 
 Livingstone's work is rapidly nearing the fruition he 
 longed for under the flag he loved. Almost in the 
 centre of this newest addition to the Queen's vast Empire, 
 near the southern shores of Lake Bangweolo, the heart 
 and entrails of Livingstone were buried. To this shrine, 
 it may be unless all sentiment is repressed by a bran- 
 new civilisation tribes of Africans will come to pay 
 a pilgrimage of respect to the memory of their great 
 advocate. Possibly over this spot we may raise a temple 
 or place a statue ; or it may be and more likely that 
 in the gold-rush, in the land-grabbing, in the coffee- 
 planting, sugar-baking, and the prosaic prosperity that 
 will undoubtedly some day fill this land, the local inha- 
 bitants will be too material-minded, too busy, too mean, 
 to spend their money or thought on sentiment or statues 
 or monuments ; but, to quote the last stanza of the fine 
 memorial verses which Punch offered up to the dead 
 Livingstone 
 
 " He needs no epitaph to guard a name 
 
 Which men shall praise while worthy work is done 
 He lived and died for good be that his fame : 
 Let marble crumble : this is LIVING -STOXK."
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ABRAHAM, one of Livingstone's fol- 
 lowers, 304. 
 
 African exploration, 28. 
 
 Amoda, one of Livingstone's followers, 
 364 
 
 Anderson, Mr. W. S., vl. 
 
 Antelopes, 15, 218, 350. 
 
 Ants, soldier, 178. 
 
 Arab exploration, 30 ; geographers, 32. 
 
 Arabs, kindness of, 312 ; in Zambezi- 
 land, 228 ; of Zanzibar, 4. 
 
 BAIXBS, Mr. T., 236, 248; career of, 
 250. 
 
 Bakwena, 72. 
 
 Balunda, 152, 223. 
 
 Bambare, 321, 323. 
 
 Bangweolo, Lake, 283, 308; discovery 
 
 , of, 315 ; shrinkage of, 316 ; marshes 
 of, 349. 
 
 Bantu family of languages, 1 ; origin 
 of, 22. 
 
 Bantu tribes of Zambezia, 223. 
 
 Banyai, 227. 
 
 Barotse. 178, 224. 
 
 Earth, Dr. H., 3. 
 
 Basenga, 227. 
 
 Ba-Shinje, 163, 174. 
 
 Ba-Shukulompo, 183, 226. 
 
 Batoka, 182, 225. 
 
 Bedingfleld, Commander, tA\. 
 
 Bemba Lake, 309 (see Bangweolo). 
 
 Bengo River, 170. 
 
 Bennett, Mr. Gordon. 340. 
 
 Betslmana, 126. 
 
 Betshuanaland, geography of, 113 ; 
 flora of. 118 ; fauna of, 120 ; snakes 
 of, 121; ostriches, 122; natives, 125. 
 
 Binanga Hills, 320. 
 
 Bisa Mountain, 207. 
 
 Boers attack Setshele, 82, 90 ; occupa- 
 ti"ii of Xatal, Orange River, and 
 Transvaal by, 85 ; treatment of na- 
 tives, 87. 
 
 Bruce Mr. Alexander, vi. 
 
 Bruce, Mrs. Livingstone, vl., 293. 
 
 Buffalo-bird, 213. 
 
 Burrup, Mr., 270, 274; death of, 2:7. 
 
 274. 
 Bushmen, 21, 125. 
 
 CAMERON, Commander, 360. 
 Camping, Livingstone's mode of, 150. 
 Camwood, 310. 
 
 Cannibalism of Manyema, 335. 
 Central Africa, birds of, 9, 17; buffa- 
 loes of, 16 ; lakes of, 7. 
 Chitane, 296, 307. 
 Cnuma, 297, 363. 
 Clarendon, Lord, 235, 240, 345. 
 
 Mount, 241. 
 
 Comoro Islands, Arab influence in, 31. 
 
 Johanna Island, 264. 
 
 Congo basin, peoples of, 336. 
 
 DIAZ, discoveries of Bartolomen, 34. 
 Dillon, suicide of Dr., 362. 
 Dilolo, Lake, 157. 
 Dogs, African, 16. 
 Drums, African, 155. 
 
 EDWARDS, Mr., 74. 
 
 Egypt, development of ancient civili- 
 sation of, 27. 
 
 Elephant traps, 328. 
 
 Ethiopian sub-region, 14. 
 
 Exploration of Airica by Arabs, 30; 
 Dutch, 41 ; English, 47 ; French, 44 ; 
 Greeks and Persians, 29; Phoani- 
 cians, 28 ; Portuguese, 33 ; Romans, 
 30. 
 i Exploration of Bantu border-lands, 3. 
 
 | FAUNA of Central Africa, 8, 14. 
 
 I Fever, African, 128. 
 
 i Fleming, George, 111. 
 
 j Flora of Central Africa, 8, 11. 
 
 j Forest region, 7 ; as barrier to migra- 
 tion, 22. 
 
 I Frere, Sir Bartie, 288, 293. 
 
 N
 
 870 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 GABRIEL, Mr., 167, 170. 
 
 Gama, African discoveries of Vasco da. 
 
 34. 
 
 Gele, Van, 3. 
 Geographical Society, Royal, 342 ; 
 
 search expeditions of, 305. 
 Giraffe, distribution of, 217. 
 Gold in Zambeziland, first worked by 
 
 Arabs, 31. 
 
 Grenfell, Rev. Mr., 3. 
 Grikwa, 70. 
 Guinea-fowls, 10. 
 
 H AIJMA, one of Livingstone's servants, 
 
 364 
 
 Hamites, 20, 22. 
 Hopo trap, 76. 
 Horse-sickness, 141. 
 Hottentots, 21, 126. 
 
 JESUITS, 36. 
 
 Johanna Island, 263, 279. 
 
 porters, Livingstone's, 202 ;"return 
 
 to coast, 303 ; report Livingstone's 
 
 death, 303. 
 Jumbe, Sultan of Kota-Kota, 269, 301. 
 
 KABOMPO River, 146. 
 
 Kabwabwata, 314, 317. 
 
 Kalahari Desert, 113 ; increasing desic- 
 cation of, 116. 
 
 Kasai River, 158. 
 
 Kasanji, 39, 40, 164, 172. 
 
 Kasekera, 362. 
 
 Katema's town, 157, 176. 
 
 Katolosa, 188. 
 
 Kazembe, 38, 313, 315 ; disturbances in, 
 316. 
 
 Kebrabasa Rapids, 196. 
 
 Keltic, Mr. J. S., vii. 
 
 Khama, 126. 
 
 Kilwa, former Arab sultanate, 31. 
 
 Kioko, 159, 160, 174. 
 
 Kirk, Dr. /afterwards Sir John, 235, 261, 
 271, 278, 281, 290, 303, 341. 
 
 Mountains, 303. 
 
 Koloben (Molepololo), 71, 77. 
 
 Kolongosi River, 349. 
 
 Kongone, 276. 
 
 Kota-Kota, 269, 283, 301. 
 
 Kuruman, 64, 67, 70. 
 
 Kwango River, 39, 40, 162, 174. 
 
 Kwanza River, 147. 
 
 Kwihara, 360. 
 
 LACERDA, Dr., 37. 
 
 Lady Nyassa, 270, 279, 288, 293. 
 
 Lamu, Persian colony at, 30. 
 
 Lemurs, 8. 
 
 Leopards, 16. 
 
 Lialui, 151. 
 
 Liambai (Zambezi), 146. 
 
 Liba River, 146 
 
 Libonta, 150, 177. 
 
 Liemba Lake (Tanganyika), 311. 
 
 Linyanti, 107, 111, 181. 
 
 Lion, Livingstone's adventure with, 72. 
 
 Lions, Central African, 16. 
 
 Livingstone, Charles, 248, 250, 279, 281, 
 290. 
 
 Livingstone, Dr., birthplace, 50; par- 
 ents, 53 ; life as a cotton-spinner, 57 ; 
 love of reading and nature, 58 ;" con- 
 version," 59 ; acceptance by L.M.S.. 
 61. 
 
 reaches Africa, 64 ; visits Set- 
 
 shele, 71 ; adventure with lion, 72 ; 
 marriage with Miss Moffat, 73 ; 
 settles at Mabotsa, 74 ; later at 
 Tshonuane, 74 ; moves to River 
 Koloben, 77 ; house plundered by 
 Dutch, 81. 
 
 becomes a missionary explorer, 
 
 98 ; discovers Lake ! garni, 102 ; 
 second visit to Lake Xgami, 105 ; 
 first sight of the Zambezi, 107 ; sends 
 wife and children to England, 110 ; 
 second journey to Zambezi, 111 ; 
 leaves Linyanti for West Coast, 148 ; 
 stay at Shinte's Town, 153 ; reaches 
 Loanda, 167 ; starts for Quilimane, 
 169 ; stay at Pungo Andonga, 170 ; 
 triumphal passage through Barotse 
 Valley, 178 ; reaches Zumbo, 183 ; 
 reaches Quilimane, 190 ; arrives in 
 London, 191 ; reception in England, 
 231; severs connection with L.M.S., 
 233. 
 
 preparations for departure, 234 ; 
 
 reaches Zambezi, 242 ; rejoins Mako- 
 lolp servants at Tete, 245 ; visits the 
 Shire, 245 ; discovers Lake Shirwa, 
 247 ; third attempt to discover Lake 
 Nyasa, 252 ; leaves Tete for interior. 
 258 ; returns to coast, 262 ; arrival 
 of the Pioneer, 262; voyage up the 
 Rovuma, 265; third ascent of the 
 Shire, 265 ; Lake Nyasa discovered, 
 267 ; journey to coast, 270 ; disasters 
 to mission on Shire, 275 ; deatli of 
 Mrs. Livingstone, 277; launch of 
 Lady Nyassa, 279; illness, 281; ex- 
 pedition recalled, 282; visits Kota- 
 Kota, 285 ; arrives in London, 288 ; 
 last stay in England, 289. 
 
 starts on last great journey, 296 ; 
 
 death reported by his Johanna por- 
 ters, 303 ; search expedition orga- 
 nised, 305 ; first sight of Lake Tan- 
 ganyika, 311 ; discovery of Lake 
 Moero, 313 ; discovery of Lake Bang- 
 weolo, 315 ; reaches Ujiji, 319 ; mas- 
 sacre of Manyema women at Nyan- 
 gwe, 320 ; returns to Ujiji, 324 ; arrival 
 of Mr. Stanley, 325, 345 ; circunmav- 
 igation of Tanganyika, 343; final
 
 INDEX. 
 
 371 
 
 parting with Stanley, 345 ; last jour- 
 ney through Bangweolo swamps, 349 ; 
 death, 353 ; causes of death, 354 ; 
 admirable conduct of his men, 356 ; 
 embalming of body, 358 ; body car- 
 ried to coast, 359 ; burial in West- 
 minster Abbey, 366 ; biographers, vi. 
 
 Livingstone, Mrs., 73, 270; death of ,277. 
 
 birth of Robert, 74. 
 
 Loanda, 167. 
 
 Loangwa River, 195, 303. 
 
 Lofu, 312. 
 
 London Missionary Society, organiza- 
 tion of, 96. 
 
 Lualaba River, 308, 320 ; Livingstone's 
 identification of, with Nile, 343. 
 
 Luapula River, 308, 353, 360. 
 
 Lulimolo (Molilamo), 351. 
 
 Lunda, 152, 156, 223. 
 
 Luvale (Lobale), 155. 
 
 MABOTSA, Livingstone's home at, 74. 
 
 Mabruki, 364. 
 
 Mackenzie, Bishop, 263, 267 ; his death, 
 271. 
 
 Maclear, Cape, 111, 267. 
 
 SirT., 110. 
 
 Madagascar, Arab influence in, 31. 
 
 Magomero, mission established at, 269; 
 disasters to mission at, 272. 
 
 Majiwara, 353. 
 
 Makololo, 109, 111, 245, 259. 
 
 Manenko, 15, 153. 
 
 Manyema, 320 ; cannibalism, 323, 335 ; 
 description of country, 327 ; people, 
 332 ; villages, 335 ; character of na- 
 tives, 337. 
 
 Manyema women, massacre of. 321. 
 
 Marco Polo, 33. 
 
 Marenga, 302. 
 
 Marimba, 155. 
 
 Ma, Robert, 245, 262. 
 
 Mashona, 227. 
 
 Massango's town, 170. 
 
 Matabele, 108. 
 
 Matakas, 301. 
 
 Migration into Africa, 18. 
 
 Mirambo, 341. 
 
 Moamba, 310. 
 
 Mozambique, 286. 
 
 Moenekus, 320. 
 
 Moero, Lake, 308, 313, 314. 
 
 Moffat, Dr., 62, 66; Livingstone's mar- 
 riage with Miss Mary, 73. 
 
 Mohammedan propaganda, 3. 
 
 Molilamo (Lulimalo), 351. 
 
 Monkeys, 8, 17. 
 
 Morambala Marsh, 246. 
 
 Mount, 246. 
 
 Morumbua Rapids, 195. 
 
 Mosilikatse, Lobengula's father, 86. 
 
 Mpenda's town, 185. 
 
 Mpepe, 144. 
 
 Mponda, 301, 306. 
 Mtarika's town, 297. 
 Mubangi River, 3. 
 Mungo Park's explorations, 48. 
 Murray, Mr., 98. 
 Murchison Cataracts, 271. 
 
 Sir R., 288, 290, 304. 
 
 Musa, 302. 
 
 Mwaua-mwezi, 252. 
 
 Mwata-yanvua, chief of Baluuda, 223. 
 
 NACHTIGAL, Dr., 3. 
 
 Nassisk boys, 296; worthles?ness of, 
 315. 
 
 Negroes, true, 21. 
 
 New, Rev. Charles, 345. 
 
 New York Herald, editor of, 339. 
 
 Ngami, Lake, 98 ; first rumours of, 66 ; 
 various explorations to, 99, 100, 105 ; 
 altitude, 102; Livingstone's theory 
 regarding, 99. 
 
 Nigritic stock, 19. 
 
 Nile sources, Livingstone's theory re- 
 garding, 343. 
 
 Nsama, 312. 
 
 Ntoaika, 364. 
 
 Nyamoana, 152. 
 
 Nyangwe on Lualaba, 320. 
 
 Nyasa, Lake, 40 ; discovery of, 253 ; 
 Livingstone's exploration of, 268. 
 
 ffyassa, Lady. See Lady Nyassa. 
 
 OIL palms, 11. 
 
 Ophir, possible identification of, 29. 
 
 Ostrich, distribution of African, 213 
 
 Oswell, Mr., vi., 98, 106. 
 
 Owen, Sir R., 64. 
 
 PAMALOMBWK Lake, 252. 
 
 Pambete, 311. 
 
 Park's explorations, Mungo, 48. 
 
 Pascoal, Senhor, 174, 176. 
 
 Philip, Dr., 64, 65. 
 
 Pioneer, 262. 
 
 Pitso= council of deliberation, 148. 
 
 Portuguese, exploration, 33; hospitality 
 
 to Livingstone, 164, 262 ; rule on 
 
 Zambezi, 228, 239. 
 Prideaux, Captain, 363. 
 Pungo Andonga, 170 ; rocks at, 171. 
 Pygmies, 21. 
 
 QUILIMANE, 190, 280. 
 
 RAE, Mr. George, 237. 
 Rain-doctors, 75. 
 Rayenstein, Mr. E. G., vii., 49. 
 Rhinoceros, distribution of, 216. 
 
 birds, 213. 
 
 Rock coney, 17. 
 
 Royal Geographical Society search 
 expeditious, 305, 344, 360.
 
 372 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Rovuma River," 297 ; as a navigable 
 
 highway, 264. 
 Rowley, Mr. Hugh, 275. 
 Ruo River, 271. 
 Ru.si/i River, 842. 
 Russell, Earl, 282, 288. 
 
 SAHARA, 6, 22, 115. 
 
 "Salted" horses, 14'i. 
 
 Search expeditions, Royal Geographical 
 Society, 305, 344, 360. 
 
 Sebituane, Betshuana chief, 104 ; his 
 career, 108. 
 
 Sekeletu, Sebituane's son, 111, 144, 182, 
 191, 259. 
 
 Sekwebu, death of, 191. 
 
 Semites, 20. 
 
 Sena, 35, 36, 286. 
 
 Sepoy porters, Livingstone's, cruelty 
 to animals, 297 ; bad character, 2!)i). 
 
 Sesheke, 179, 259. 
 
 Setshele, Livingstone'fc first visit to, 71 ; 
 friendship for Livingstone, 79 ; con- 
 version to Christianity, 79; kindly 
 rule, 81 ; attacked by Boers, 82. 
 
 Shinje, Livingstone's troubles with Ba, 
 163, 174. 
 
 Shinte, 153, 155, 176. 
 
 Shire River, 252, 256. 
 
 Highlands, 252, 267. 
 
 Shirwa Lake, 40 ; discovery of, 247. 
 
 Shuknlompo, Ba, 183, 226. 
 
 Shupanga's town, 271. 
 
 Siccard, Major, 189, 249, 257. 
 
 Silva Porto, 39. 
 
 Slave trade, 32, 2C8, 280, 298. 
 
 Slaves freed by Livingstone, 266. 
 
 Snakes of Central Africa, 10. 
 
 Soko ape, 331. 
 
 Speke and Grant, 2. 
 
 Stanley, Mr., 2, 340; finds Livingstone, 
 325, 342 ; arrives in England, 345. 
 
 Steere, Bishop, 285. 
 
 Stewart, Dr., 276. 
 
 Susi, 353, 363. 
 
 Swahili, 285, 320, 321. 
 
 TAMUNAKLE River, 104. 
 Tanganyika, Lake, 40, 319, 349 ; first 
 Bight of, 311. 
 
 Tavelta, flora of, 13. 
 
 Teleki, Count, 3. 
 
 Termites, 182. 
 
 Tete, 189, 258. 
 
 Thomson, Mr. J., 3. 
 
 Thornton, Mr. Richard. 235, 248, 257, 
 
 280 ; death of, 281. 
 Tipu-Tipu, 312. 
 Tozer, Bishop, 284. 
 Traps, elephant, 328. 
 - Hopo, 76. 
 Tsetse-fly, 104, 135, 146. 
 Tshambezi River, 308, 349 
 Tshatwende, 350. 
 Tshibisa's town, 260, 269. 
 Tshimanga, 283. 
 Tshimbwa Marsh, 307. 
 Tshitambo, 351, 357. 
 Tshitapangwa, 309. 
 Tshitimbwa's town, 312. 
 Tshobe River, 106, 150. 
 
 , Livingstone reaches, 319, 324. 
 Universities' Mission, 263, 284. 
 Unyamyembe, 341, 343. 
 
 VICTORIA FALLS, 199 ; Livingstone's 
 discovery of, 181. 
 
 WALLER, Rev. Horace, 275, 288, 363. 
 Webb, Mr, 282. 
 Welle River, 3. 
 Wilson, Captain, 271. 
 Wunyamwezi, 360. 
 
 YOUNG, Edward, 304, 305. 
 - Mr. James, 293, 363. 
 
 ZAMBEZI, 26 ; affluents of, 192, 28!) 
 rapids of, 193, 194 ; delta of, l!) 
 navigability of, 197 ; geology of, 197 
 202 ; fauna of, 211 ; flora of, 2o5 
 rice cultivation on, 207 ; natives of 
 223 ; Bantu tribes of, 223. 
 
 Zanzibar, 204 ; Arabs, 4. 
 
 Zintgraff, 2. 
 
 Zuga River, 101. 
 
 Zumbo, Livingstone's arrival at, 183. 
 
 GRORGE PHILIP AND SON, LTD , LONDON AND LIVERPOOL,
 
 DEC 1 6 1985
 
 A 000 633 443 7