'mm^fmmmimmm. '^oc ^ iX.^x^ -M^a^mM S^i¥M ^f^^^^i-.-! w^m'' a^^^^AaaAi i^^^a^*^, Ex Libris Cat and Henry H. Bucher ,«^^f^^W' ,--rl/^r^/^'^'^' iA^^/^^^^'^..?..,...a^a^^.^*«.^WllAs*,.A*A*, '^^^:^^-^M/^'^n ^m^m ^^^^*««**.^, ^i^f^Aii, ^m,,......^^m^?^m^^?m. )nmrAf,^^HH ^^m^k "^mmf^. mfmm0mB00^m^^f^ ^^i^m^] 'AAAii -'^'^^^Ak., 1>AV1T> LIVINGSTONE.— Frow a Phofof/raph. COVERING HIS ENTIRE CAREER IN THE LIFE AND LABORS km iira(;sioiuL«.J.c.L, SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA/ CAREFULLY PREPARED / From tbf most authentic sources, m. : his own two large roliimes, " South Africa," and " The Zambesi Eipcdition," his "Last Journals" (edited by Horace Waller), the Reports of the London Ceograpbicai Society, the works of his coteraporaries, and various other writings bearing upon the subject, " A THRILLING NARRATIVE OK THE ADVENTUBES, DISCOVERIES, EXPERIENCES AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE GREATEST EXPLORER OF MODERN TIMESy IN A WILD AND WONDERFUL COUNTRY, ■ INCLUBINO / Bis early Life, Preparation for his Life-work, a Sketch of Africa as known before his going there, th« eHtire Record of his heroic Dndertakings, Hanrds. Hardships, Tiiumphs, bis Discovery by H. M. Stanley, hie lonely Death, faithful Self-devotion of his native Servants, Return of the Remains, Burial, etc.; concluding with a clear and conehe survey of the coutinent touching its Agricultural, Com- mercial and Missionary promise, the Nile Mystery, etc., as gathered from the works of Livingstone, Baker. Speke, Grant, Barih, Sweinfurth, etc., etc. The whole rendered clear aud plain by a most accurate I/E.A.I' OF THE -W-HOLE ItEC3-I03Sr EXI'LOU-ED AND THE ROUTES CLEARLY INOICaTEO. By Rev. J. E. Chambliss. RICHLY ILLUSTRATED PUBLISHED BY HUBBARD BROS., PHILADKLPHIA, BOSTON AND CINCINNATI; A. L. Uanc-rjft & Co., San Fba.ncisco, Cal.; M. M. Bur.nham, SyKAcu.sK, N. Y. ; N. D. Thompson A Co., St. I..ouis, Mo.; II. A. W. Blackbuh.n, Detkoit, Mich.; Sciiuvi.ER, Smith 4 Co., London, Ont, ; 0. L Benjamin, Fond i>u Lac, Wis.; Fra.nk W. Oliver, Davkni-out, Iowa ; John Killau, Sen., Yarmouth, N. S. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by IIUBBAKD BROS., In the Office of the Librarian of CongresB, at Washington, D. C. PREFACE. My task has been to write a book setting forth as clearly as possible the life-work of Dr. Livingstone, in its connection with the history of the African continent, and its bearing on those great issues involved in the redemption of that continent from gloom and barbarism. I have followed, as closely as the subject demanded, the books and journals of Dr. Livingstone himself, for his personal observations and adventures, and have availed myself freely of whatever I have found, in a wide range of works, in illustration of the character and customs of the people, the appearance and condition of the country, the habits of ani- mals, and have freely seized such facts of science and of general history as have seemed to have a bearing on my subject. Where I have drawn on the works of others, I have done so more for facts than for the form of putting them, and I have not been particularly careful in making quotations, that they should be literal, nor has it seemed important in a work designed for popular patronage to make frequent mention of authorities. I have had at my command the most reliable sources of informa- tion concerning the things of which I have written, and while I am conscious that there are imperfections in the book, I have tried to make it a faithful record, a clear delineation of character, and a reliable witness in connection with the great interests in- 6 PREFACE. volved in the question of African civilization, as far as these matters could be considered under the circumstances. If the reader gets a true and full conception of the work of Dr. Livingstone, catches anything of his manliness, love for men, and zeal for Christ, and becomes more deeply interested in the great enterprises on which the deliverance of the millions of that unhappy continent from the dominion of ignorance and superstition and vice depends, if he becomes only a little Aviser, and stronger, and better, and nobler, through reading the book, I will be satisfied. J. E. C. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION, Early Civilization in Northern Africa— The Limit of the Ancient Civiliza- tion— Theatre of Mythology — Saracen Conquest — Settlement of Soudan — Mohammedan Failure— The Fifteenth Century— Gilianez Passed Cape Bo- jador— Portuguese Efforts on the West Coast — Roman Catholicism — The Failure — England and France— Richard Jobson — Mungo Park — Denham and Clapperton — Richard Lander Dispels the Niger Mystery — Kingdoms on the West — Dahomey, Ashantee, etc. — The Cape Settlement — Vasco de Gama— The Settlement of Natal by the English— Lieutenant Christopher — Abyssinia and the Nile — Bruce and Dr. Beke— The Nile Mystery as it Stands — The Unknown — Livingstone 2-3 CHAPTER I. BLANTYRE TO THE BAKWAINS. Noble Names — David Livingstone — Blantyre— Home Traditions — The Fac- tory—Common School — Latin — Love of Books— Be Honest— His Father — Mother— Scottish Poor— Both well — Conversion — Missionary Spirit— China — Medicine — Astrology — Greek— Theology — Africa — Thorough Prepara- tion— 1 840 — Leaves England — Goes to South Africa— Condition of Country — Cape Colony— Cape Town— Algoa Bay— Port Elizabeth— Kuruman or Lat- takoo— Dr. Moffat— Northward — Studying Language, etc. — Selects Mata- bosa — Settles — Kindness to the Natives — A Lion Encounter — Joins the Bakwains • 45 CHAPTER II. 1843—1850. The Bechuanas— The Bakwains— Sechele— His Conversion— His Difficulties —The Government— Baptism of Sechele— Cross and Crown— Difficulties of the Wcrk— Belief in Rain-Making— Drought— Noble Conduct— The Hopo —Kindness to Livingstone— Livingstone's Spirit— The Boers— Slavery- Antagonistic Principles — Boers Hate Livingstone— Sechele's Resistance — Livingstone Accused— His Effects Destroyed — Going Northward— Desire to find the Lake — Desire to see Sebituane— Sekomi — The Desert — Bush- men— Bakalahari — Water Sucking — Across the Desert — Difficulties— Salt Pans — The Zouga — Quakers of Africa — Lake Ngami Discovered — The Lake^ebituane — Guides Refused — Sketch of the Zouga — Elephants — Trees — Fish— Bayieye— Kolobeng Again — Home-life in Kolobeng 58 7 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. DESERTS AND FORESTS. Livingstone's Second Journey to tlie Lake— Pass the Zouga— Forests— Tsetse —Recross the Zoiigar— Lake Ngami Again— Hopes of seeing Sebituane— Guides Secured— Sickness of Children— Return to Kolobeng— Opposition of Chiefs— Sebituane's Messengersf— Third Start— The Old Path— Desert- Guide Wonders — Five Terrible Days — Water Found — Banajoa — Guide to the Chobe—Makololo— Meets Sebituane— Death of Sebituane— Discovery of the Zambesi — Returns to Cape — Sends his Family to England — A New- Tour Undertaken— Party — General Idea — Former Occupants of the Cape — Boers of the Cape — Griquas' Territory — Eifects of Mission Work — Kuru- nian — Dr. Moffat — Bible Translation— Language — War of Boers — Ditficul- ties — Servants Secured — Starts North — Lion — Buffalo — Sechele's Tour — Serpents— The Ostrich— Motlasta— Belief in God— Salt Pans— Koobe— Famished Beasts — Livingstone's Kindness — Tremendous Trees — Singular Vitality — Civilized vs. Native Hunters — Unku and Sunday — Difficult Ad- vance—The Way to Cut with the Axe — Wild Animals — The Sanshureh — Linyanti — May 23, 1853 — Circumcision — Appearance of Country. 78 CHAPTER IV. NINE WEEKS WITH SEKELETU, Arrival at Linyanti — Makololo — Their Policy — Welcome to Livingstone — Sekeletu — African Hospitality — Ma-mochisane's Difficulty — Livingstone refuses to Trade — His Labors — Makololo Ideas of Beauty — Manliness — Justice — Livingstone's Journey to the Barotse — The Soil along the Chobe — The Party — Receptions — Sekeletu loves Coffee — Huts and Hats— The Leeambye — Animals about Katonga — The Splendid River — The Makalaka — The Contrast — Cattle and War — Rapids— Cataracts— Falls — No Monu- ments in Africa — The Barotse Valley — Fertility — Mounds — Punishment — ■ War Averted— The First White Man— To the Leeba— No Place for a Mis- sion— The Wildest of all — Linyanti again— For Loando — Serious Thoughts — Resolution — Outfit for Journey — November 11th, 1853 — Escape from an Elephaut — The Hippopotamus — Arrival at Sesheke 102 CHAPTER V. TO BALONDA. Sesheke— Sekeletu's Policy — Missionary Work— Wanting in Religious Ideas — Duties of Missionary— The Leeambye— IIip]K>])otami— Mr. Cumming's Adventure- Livingstone's Idea of Lions— Andersson-Lion Confused — Fevers Protracted— Unwelcome News — Livingstone's Wise Plan— Libonta — Death by a Lion — The Camp — Cook and Laundry Work — Humanity of Livingstone— Beyond Libonta— Courage— First Act in Balonda— The Leeba — Want of Game— Buffalo Hunt— Buffalo and three Lions — Mambari Merchants— Manenko — Town of Sliinte— Fashions of Ankle Rings— A Black Scold — Manenko's Dress — Fever, Rain, Hunger — Dark Forests — Delays— Invitation at last — Medicine Charms— A Soldier — Balonda Fash- ions-Full UndrcHH of Balonda Lady — Balonda Gentlemen — Head-dress — Salutations — Manenko's Kindness 119 CONTENTS, 9 CHAPTER VI. THROUGH LONDA. Reception at Shinte's Town — The Introduction — Private Interviews — Eti- quette of the Balonda — Love for Mothers — Slavery — Theft — Magic Lantern — Rains — Iron-works — Flooded Plains — A Charming Home— Death and Desolate Villages — Balonda Ideas of a Future State — What to Preach to Heathen — Troublesome Guide — Burial of the Dead — Mandans — Sioux — Patagonians — Bechuanas— Balonda — Sunday with Quendende — Beautiful Country — The liotembwa — Katenia — Reception — Provisions Presented — Wisdom of Katema — Cattle — Birds in Cages — Birds and Be.asts — Birds and Spiders — Human Spiders — Fevers Again — Not much Inii)ression — Hero- ism of Livingstone — La Ice Dilolo— Rivers Run Northward— Manibari Trad- ers— Influence on Border Tribes — Demands of Pay for Passing Through Country — Expected to Fight — An Ox Given — A Man Demanded — Sickness of Livingstone — Mutiny in his Camp — Its Cure — Men Repent — The Quango at Last — Bashange's Tax — Cypriano di Abrue's Kindness — Portu- guese Possessions- Sweet Sleep — Angels 145 CHAPTER VII. ANGOLA. Anxiety — A Single Englishman — Sickness — Mr. Gabriel's Kindness — Settle- ment of Loanda — Portuguese Failure — Two Things Unfortunate — Mako- lolo at Work — The Ship " a Town " — Livingstone's Relapse — Long Illness — What Might have Been — Slave Trade — Slavery in Africa — Grounds of Livingstone's Opposition — Negligent Cultivation of the Soil — Two Shil- lings a Month — Fetich Worship — Portuguese Policy — Ivory Trade — Un- ])aid Labor — Mania for Litigation — " Big Funer.als " — The Poison Ordeal — Wild Animals — The Self-denial — Looking E.astward — Departure from Loanda — Makololo Boastings — The "True Ancients" — .\ Remarkable Insect — Ambaca — Church or .Tail — Catholic Mistake — Pungo Andongo — On the Road — Difficulties of Ox-Riding — Traders — Beeswax and Elpphant Tusks — Lilii>utian Monster — Descending from "Tola Mungongo " — Cas- eauge — Drunkenness — The Quango Again 170 CHAPTER VIII. LONDA OU LINDA. Lessons of Experience — Sansawe's Demands — His Refusal — A Blow on the Beard — Revenge — Changing the Tune — Dandies and Belles— Lizards and Snakes— Seven Thousand Fowls for Ten Dollars— Many Village JIania— The Seasons— Sister of Matiamoo— An Ox or a Man— Strategy— Trial for Murder— Street Fight— Dish of White Ants— Lovely Bed of Flowers— God in Nature— A Noble Chief— Shinte's Again— The Leeba— Life Once More — Buffalo Hunt — Libonta Welcome — Thanksgiving Service — .V ALatrimo- nial Drawback— Cajisized in the Leeambye— Sekeletu in Full Dress- The True Ancients in AVhite— Promising Opening— Preparation for the Jour- ney—Going Eastward— Parting Words of Mamire— The Tribute of Faith- fulness 105 10 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. THE NEW EXPEDITION. Sckelctu's Kindness— Explanation of it — Providence in his Work — Novem- ber 3, 1855 — Terrible 8torra — Two Hundred Men in Line — The Niagara of Africa — Victoria Falls — Kainbow and 8ui)erstition — The Baloka — A Net- work of Rivers — The Explanation — Traditions — The First White Man — Batoka Chiefs — Batoka Rebels — The Eastern Ridge — Longing for Quiet — Batoka Generosity — A Reception — Livingstone's Courage — Power of the Gospel— Awe of White Men — An Incident — Missionary Influence— Ani- mals— Buffalo Bird — Rhinoceros Bird — Soldier Ants — White Ants — An Ele})hant Hunt — Elephant's Character — Indian and African Compared — Down the Losito 214 CHAPTER X. BORDER TRIBES. The Kafue — Longing for Peace — Negro Worship — Foreign Goods — Barbisa Traders — Five Ranges— Geological Features — Health of Livingstone — The Zambesi again — Elephant-Hunting — Suffering from Heat — The Native Peculiarities — Absence of Deformed Persons — Continued Friendliness — Adventure with an Elephant — Native Suspicions— Doubtful Conduct — Peace and Kindness — Portuguese Enterprise — Situation of Zumbo — Abun- dance of Game — Wonderful Liberality — Dancing for Corn — Livingstone's Example — Providence in the Council — ^Mpende's Favor — Slave Trade Ab- horred— Across the Zambesi — Sand River— Game Laws — Elevated Huts — Hyena Scourge — Overflow of the Zambesi— Appreciation of Gifts 238 CHAPTER XI. CniCOVA TO TKTE. District of Chicova — Agriculture— Game Laws — Banyai Prayers — Makololo Faith — Insect Life — Birds — Their Songs— Squirrel — Geological Features — Grapes — Plums — Animal liife— Superstition about Lions — The Korwe — A Model Husband — Helpful Facts— Government of the Banyai— Selecting Chiefs — Monina's Opposition — Fight Tiircatcned— Sudden Derangement — Con.science at Work— " A Guilt"— An Ordeal— Woman's Rights— The Son-in-Law — Dignity of Woman — Good Husbands, Bad Hunters— The Pkhinoceros — Andersson's Adventure— Terrible P^ncounter — Rhinoceros Among Beasts — Villages Avoided— Nearing Tcte — Livingstone Emaciated — Eii,'ht Allies Only — A Retrospect — A Prospect — Noble Picture — Arrival of Messengers— Civilizwl Breakfixst — Reception at Tete— The Source of the Zambesi Unknown — The Value of the Discovery 258 CHAPTER XII. THE PORTUGUESE POSSESSIONS. Tlie Village of Tete— Inhabitants— Gold Washings— Slave Trade, Evil Ef- fects of — Decadence of Portuguese Power — Superstitions of Tete — English Calico — Articles of Exi)ort — Gold — Coal — Value of Gold Dust— Appearance of Country — Method of (Cultivating the Soil— Agriculture Neglected — Hot Springs — Peox>le Favorable to Euglishoien — Cause of Portuguese Failure — CONTENTS. 11 Leaves Tete — Nyaiule's Stockade — The Gorge of Lupata — Senna— The Landeens or Zulus— Misery of Senna— Surrounding Country — The Shire ^Kiliinane — Livingstone's Object — His Theory of Mission Work — His Hopes for Africa — Arrival of the " Frolic "—Disposition of Ivory — Parts with his Followers — Sekwebu — In the Boats — On Board the Ship — Insanity and Death of Sekwebu — Arrival at Mauritius — Dear Old England — For- bidden Scenes — Public Honors — The Single Desire 277 CHAPTER Xlil. AT HOME. Meeting on January 5th — Egyptian Hall — Splendid Assembly — Speech of Lord Mayor — Speech of Bishop of London — Speech of Sir Roderick Mur- chison — Livingstone's Response — Resolutions — Subscription — Travels in IZngland — Public Enthusiasm — Public Meeting in Manchester — Resolu- tions— Public Meeting at Leeds — Addresses and Resolutions — Generous Rivalry of Cities and Institutions — ^Presentation of the Freedom of London to Livingstone — Distinguished Personages — Complimentary Addresses — Tremendous Applause — A Beautiful Casket — Imposing Ceremony — Book- Writing — Difficulties — Surprised by the Appearance of a Bogus Book — Explanation — Announcement of Dr. Livingstone's Book — Twentieth Thou- sand in Six Weeks — Press Comments — Extract from the London Leader of that Date — Effects of the Book— Interest in Commercial Prospects of Africa — Interest in Missions — Action of Missionary Societies — Invitations to Oxford and Cambridge — Grand Assembly at Cambridge — The Reception of Livingstone, According to Professor Sedgwick — Reception of War Veterans— Of Chancellors — Of the Queen — None More Hearty than that of Livingstone 292 CHAPTER XIV. LECTURE BEFORE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY. [Delivered before the University of Cambridge, in the Senate-House, on Friday, December 4, 1857. Dr. Philpott, Master of St, Catharine's Col- lege, Vice-Chancellor, in the chair. The building was crowded to excess with all ranks of the University and their friends. The reception was so enthusiastic that literally there were volley after volley of cheers] 30? CHAPTER XV. AGAIN IN AFRICA. Results of Efforts at Universities — Univei'sities' Mission — Livingstone Ap- pointed British Consul— Interview with the Queen— Reasons for Accent- ing the Governmental Appointment — Love for his Mother — Care of her — Government Appropriation — The Farewell Banquet — Distinguished As- sembly— Speeches — Sir Roderick Murchison — Livingstone's Address — Arrangements Completed — Members of the Expedition — The Steam Launch— Ihe "Pearl"— The Departure from England— Livingstone's Responsibility — What the Government Expected — Letters by the Way — Arrival at the Mouth of the Zambesi 315 12 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVI. AKRIVAL AT TETE. Portuguese and the Zambesi — Posterity's Ai)i)lause— The Explanation of the Outlet — The Kongone— The Bar — The L'ouutry— Timidity of Natives— The Fertility of Soil — The Natives' Curiosity— Their Cupidity — The Chan- nel— The Departure of the " Pearl " — The First Work — Mazaro — Excite- Hieat — Livingstone's Courage — Jlariano's Cruelty — The Zulus — Their Tax — Their (Character, Hospitality, etc. — Zulu Lawyer— Shupanga — The Grave Under the Baobab — Reception at Seuua — Seuhor Ferraro — Arrival at Tete —"We will Sleep To-night." 32'^ CHAPTER XVII. THE KEBRABASA RAPIDS. The Journey to the Kebrabasa — Kebrabasa Range — General Appearance — Breadth — Pressure of Water — Portuguese Ignorance — Bauyai impositions — "Dreadful Rough " Night — Camp Scenes — A Camp Story — The ilorn- ing — Climbing Still — Sleep of Exhaustion — Makololo Distrust — Mount Morumbwa— A Perpetual Barrier — Return to Tete— Scenes in Tete — Superstition — The Teaching of Nature— Holiness — Christmas in Africa — The Climax of Absurdities — The Rainy Season — The Portuguese Recourse —A Serious Matter— The Help for Fever— The Shire 341 CHAPTER XVIII. THE SHIRE. Hoath of the Shire — Difficulties Vanish— " Englishman"— Shire Valley — African Swamp — Livingstone's Art— Mount Jlorambala— Mountain Vil- lage—Chikanda — Two Pythons — Pursued by a Buli'alo — The Steamer — A Sinking Ship — No Note of Time— The Musician — IIippoj)otamus Traps — Sliire Marshes— Water-fowl — Kites and Vultures — Forest of Palm Trees — Islands of the Shire — An Unhapj)y Chief — Village of Chibisa — Chibisa — — Lake Shirwa — Sympathy of Fools — Discovery of Lake Shirwa— Return to the Shi|i — Ex^jedition to Lake Nyassa— Manganja Hills — Village of Chilimba— The Manganja People — Agriculture— Cotton — Manufactures- Iron Ore— Native Trade— The Upper Lip Ring— Beer Drinking— Drunken Villages— The Muave Again— Faith— Nyassa Discovered— Return to Tete.. 3GI CHAPTER XIX. JOURNEYS OF HONOR. Regard for Obligations— Busy Preparations— ^Market Prices at Tete— Singu- lar Measures— Social Turn— Evening Gatherings— Peculiar '' Tea-Pariies" — Makololo Objections to Leaving Tete — Their Gains and Losses— The Outfit— Journey Begun— Linyanti—Sekeletu— The Mission— Graves~Ex- ])lanation of Failure— Livingstone's Confidence- Hope Unshaken— Mako- lolo Faithfulness — .\ttent ions— Growing Disalfection — Seaward Again — Tete— The Kongone— The " Pioneer " Arrives— The Rovuma— Return to tlie Shire— The "University's Mission "—Their Misfortunes— War Pre- vailing—The Slave-Trad"— Lake Nyassa— The Lake Tribes— Shupanga — Death of Mrs. Livingstone 392 CONTENTS. 1^ CHAPTER XX. THE BEGINNING OF THE END. Zambesi Expedition Unsatisfactory— Zanzibar— Trade from Zanzibar— The Outfit- Rovuraa Bay — Kinduny — The Makonde — Remarkable Vefjetatioa — Cutting Right Valiantly — Rage for Doctorship— Mohannnedan Intlnenoe — Lying Guides — Along the Rovuma — Troubles with Followers — Gum- Copal Tree — Extravagant Tattooing — Top of the Fashion — At Nyoniano — The Slave-Trade — The Makoa — A Woman Rescued — Horrors of the Trade in Slaves — Currency for Africa— Extracts from Journal— A Deserted' Village — A Model Town of Africa 415 CHAPTER XXI. ' APPROACHING NYASSA. A Guest of ifataka — The Waiyau— Livingstone and the Arabs— The Town of Moembe — Iron Snielting— Causes of Desolation — Waiyau Described — Livingstone's Desires— Slave-Trade : Does it Pay ? — Sepoys sent back — Mountains — Springs — Iron — Approaching Nyassa — Livingstone's Review of his Route— The Watershed— Geological Formations— Kindness of the People — Tli€ Single Curse — An Examjde of Christians — Inconvenience of being English — Arabs as Settlers — A Doubtful Question Settled— Pota Mimba— Around the Foot of the Lake— No Earthquake Known — Sites of Old Villages — Brooks — The First Euroj)ean Seen — "God Took Him" — Wikatani Finds Relatives — Salt-Making — Eighty-five Slaves in a Pen — Work Honorable 445 CHAPTER XXII. ABOUT NYASSA. Geological Notes— The JIarenga— Livingstone Preaehing—Sniall-Pox — In- veterate Thieves — Kirk's Range — Love Token — Black-haired Sheep — Earthquakes— .\ Toper Chief— A Royal Escort — Whooping-Cough-The Hottest Month — Methods of Fertilization— No Animals — Bows and Ar- rows— Lip-Ring — A Prophetic Cow — Iron Works — Village of Smiths — Alarm of Mazitu — Native Furnaces — Livingstone's Patience — A Disagree- able Head Man — Level Country — Portuguese Travellers — A Herd of Buf- faloes—Industry— Wild Figs— A Formidable Stockade— Trying News — A Steady Faith 463 CHAPTER XXIII. A JIONTH OF WANT. Days of Anxiety — Manganja Blood — Manganja and Waiyau — Artisans — Na- tive Agriculture— Beautiful Scenery— Iron Trade— An Elephant Hunter — Difficulties — Carriers — Livingstone's Love for Nature— Memories— No Food— A Sjilendid Valley of Lilies— Stockades — Sunday at Zeore — Rain- Making— The Slave Idea in East Africa — Hedges of Bamboo — Bark Cloth — Huts for the Spirits of the Dead— Contrasts in Character — Forests and Rains— Beautiful Animals — The Zebra very Beautiful — The Loangwa — Bad for Worse— The Babisa— A Miserable Set— Sorrows Multiplied— A 14 CONTENTS. Mopane Forest— Nyarmazi— Trading with a Woman— Loss of Goats— Ex- perience with a Guide— The Hills Again— Bee Hunters— Want, Want, Want!— Noble Utterances— " Always Hungry "-Elephant Hunting— Sivw'd ifwrtan^- Desolate Land— No Bread— Hunger— Escape from a Cobra The Loss of the Dog — Mushrooms — All the Medicine Lost — The Worst of All— Livingstone's Gentleness—" Real Biting Hunger "—Beads as Currency — The Chambeseat Last 482 CHAPTER XXIV. FROM LAKE TO LAKE. Chitapanga's Stockade— An Offering Required— Audience with the Chief- Ceremony of Introduction— Chitapanga as he was— Some Trouble— Lying Interpreters— Arab Trad'ers— Letters Sent Home— Quits Chitapanga's— The Chiefs Parting Oath— Appearance of Country-Troublesome Customs —Suspicion of the Chiefs— A Familiar Trick -Eagerness for Trade— Bloamba at Home— Chief and Judge— The Moemba— The Hopo— Bows and Arrows— ///ness — Kasonso's Reception— Assaulted by Ants— Cotton — Lake Liemba — Palm Oil — The Balungu — Severe Illness— Arabs— Cliitbnba's Village — A Long Delay— Nsama— The Baulungu — Industries —Cupping— Charms— Dull Life— Slave-Trade— Little Things— A Large Spider— At Hara— Reception at Nsama's— A Bride in Style—" Tipo Tipo " — " Kumba Kumba "—/towa— Desertion— Slavery Question— Different Motives — Arabs on the March — Arab Traders^— A Fantastic Party — Potency of Sneers in Africa — Delays — Lake Moero at Last 507 CHAPTER XXV. A MONTH WITH CASEMBE. Moero — Bound for Caserabe — Kalongosi — Abundance of Fish — Dr. Lacerda — The Balonda — Enter Casembe's Village — Graciously Received — Mo- hamad bin Saleh — Notes from Journal — Zofu, King's Fool—" Casembe," General — Plis Character — Customs — Land Claims — Hand-Shaking — Letter to Lord Clarendon — Descriptive Resume — Sickness — Leaves Casembe — Bound for Ujiji — Mohamad bin Saleh his Companion — Hunger — Illness —Last Day of 18C7— A Touching Record 5.3r CHAPTER XXVI. 1868. " Only Water "—Native Indifference— Charms of Moero — Lake Scenery- Indifference of Arabs — Covetousness — The Only Lesson Learned — Kab- wabwati — Dreadful March— Evils of being with Arabs — Livingstone's In- fluence— Thieving Slaves — A Dead Halt — Long Delay — Yankees of Africa — Duplicity of Mohamad— Desertion of Followers— Livingstone's Charity — Questionable Charity— .Justice as well as Mercy— Arab Troublq-makcrs — Mohammedanism Not Taught — Not Adapted to Elevate Heathen — C'hri^lianity a Missionary Creed — Powerlessness of Ceremonies — Power of the Word— Africans Curious and Cautions— They Need the Gospel— Obli- gation of Christians — Dulness of Kabwabwati — Livingstone turns South — Arrives at Casembe's— Cordial Reception — Pleasing Recollections— Dc- iiverancea— Leopard Huut— ^ Dincovcry — Cropped- L'arcd Feat — Casembe's CONTENTS. 15 Kindness— Mohamad Bogharib— Starting for Lake Bemba— Discovery of the Great Lake— DeBcrii)tioii of it— Lake Surroundings— Wanyamwezi— Kortliward Again — Commotions — War — Delays— Reach Kabwabwati— Abominations of Slave-Trade— Battle— Evils in Camp — Wanyamwezi Women During a Battle — Weariness— Christmas, January 31st, 1868 oj7 CHAPTER XXVIl. UJIJI. Severe Illness— Thoughts and Memories— Some Good in All— Mohamad Bog- luirib's Kindness- Dr. Livingstone too 111 to Walk— Sufferings in being Carried— Arrival at Ujiji — Hardships Endured — Disapirointment- Goods Stoleu—Ujiji— Products of the District— Market-Place—Wajiji's Saluta- tions—Head Ornamentation— Formal Introductions— Tattooing— A Repre- sentative Wajiji — Ornaments — Superstition— Superstitious Customs — Re- fusal to Carry Letters— A Den of Thieves— Thani bin Suellim— Manyuema Country — Religiously Villanous ? — Bambarre — Expert Hunters — The Great Chief— The Covenant of Peace— How Arabs keep Covenants- Mockery of Superstition— '* Liliputian Monsters"— A Pygmean Battle- Amazed* at Guns- An Elephant Hunt.— Unsatisfactory 479 CHAPTER XXVIll. MANYUEMA. Manyuema Country— The ParamountChief— Independent Villages— Living- stone's Object— Leaves Bambarre-Westward— Splendid Scenery— Vil- lages Architecture of Manyuema— Character of the People — Hidden Villages— Curiosity of Villagers— Evil Influence of Traders— Prejudices Aroused— Return to Bambarre— Ujiji Hood— Five Hundred Gitn«— Liv- ingstone's Companion— Sets out from Bambarre Second Time— Appearance of Country— Huts in Trees— Elephant Traps— Bloody Feuds— Omnipresent Love— Newly Married Couple— Dreadful Swamps— Timely Hospitality- Promise of Letter— Hindered Again— Slave-Traders' Barbarities— Dreadful Murders— Katoma's Camp— Deserted by Followers— Three only Faithful —Singing Frog— A Nursing Fish— Musicians— Livingstone's Resolution— Chuma, Susi and Gardner— A Man Killed— Meets Mohamad Bogharib— A New Affliction— Disappointment^Return to Bambarre— Long Sickness —Manyuema Dreadful Cannibals-Bloodthirsty— Delight in Murder— The ate Afiair"— The Fight— The Results— The Excuse— Objection to Flags —The Kalongosi— In the Old Path— The Lake— New Scenes— Easier Route to Unyanyembe— The News Received— Resolution of the Men— Justifiable Deception— A Dreadful Snake— Arrival at gagamoio- The Precious Freight— The Kilwa— Reception in England— Identification- Burial APPENDIX. Discouragements— Recent Successes of Explorers— Revival of Interest- Commercial Importance— Familiar Trees of North and West Africa— Trop- ical Africa— General Appearance — South African Forests— Lumber Ex- ports—Excellence of Soil— Cotton, Coffee, etc.— Mineral Resources— Gold Mines— Coi>per Mines— Diamond Fields— The Ivory Trade— Commerce of West Coast— The Slave Trade— Baker's Work— Slave Traders Classified- Slaves Classified— Sources of the Trade Classified— Total Annual Traffic in Slaves— Theories for Suppression— The Tendency of Events— Not an Ab- stract Question— Slavery has had its Mission— The Nations Against It — Providence in the Revolution— The Nile— Baker— Speke— Livingstone— Missions— The Former Successes— General Influence- The Prospect 787 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 1. Portrait of Dr. Livingstone. (From a.T[)hotograi->\\)...F-rontispicce 2 2. Egyptian Akchway 25 3. Amazon WARraoRS 35 4. Rivals 39 5. Abyssinian Horseman 41 6. Farm Scene in the Cape Country 49 7. Encounter with the Lion 5-5 8. Driving Game 61 9. The Pit 6.5 10. Bushman's Camp 69 11. Mission Station, Kolobeng 73 12. Houses 77 13. Sebituane SI 14. Shooting Ostrich 89 15. Land of Cummings' Famous Hunts 93 16. Bakalahabi Feast 93 17. The Giraffe 99 18. Scene on the Leeambye 109 19. War-Dance by Torchlight 113 20. Hippopotami at Home 123 21. Lion Encounter 127 22. African Lion 131 23. African Buffaloes 137 24. Burial Place 151 2 19 20 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIO^^S. 25. A Village of Angola 163 26. Home Sckne in Angola. 1G7 27. St. Paul de Loanda 171 28. Fishing Scene in Angola 181 29. Compulsory Service in Angola ISl 30. Mole Cricket 194 31. Katema 205 32. Victoria Falls 219 33. Head of Black Rhinoceros 229 34. Gnu 229 35. "White Ant's Nest 233 .30. Stag Beetle 237 37. Taking Hippopotamus from the Water 243 38. Hippopotamus Trap 243 39. Surprised by Buffaloes 251 40. Rhinoceros Charge 2G9 41. Shooting Rhinoceros 273 42. Ant Bear 285 43. Chifura and Kangomba 285 44. Cricket 321 45. Denizens of the Shiee 327 46. Zulu Traders 333 47. Zulu Lawyer 337 48. A Jungle Scene— Leopard and Ant-Eater 345 49. The Great Baobab 355 50. Monkeys in Their Element 3C5 51. Caracal 371 52. Flamingoes on Their Nests 371 53. Zulu Women 375 .04. Palm Tree 375 55, Manganja Belle 385 66. A Caffre Bride 3S5 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 21 57. Crocodile of Nyassa 40ci 58. Gkave of Mks. Livingstone 409 59. Mission Chapel on the Shire 414 60. Afkican Jungle 423 61. Slavees Revenging Theie Losses 43.5 62. Left to Theie Fate 439 63. Axe, etc 445 64. Adze, etc 4G2 65. Knife and Assagai Heads 4G7 60. Bechuana Knives 467 67. Apron 4(i7 68. Ornaments made of Monkeys' Teeth 4G7 69. Ant Hills 477 70. Zebras 491 71. Sword Hunting 499 72. Chitapanga Eeceiving Dr. Livingstone 509 73. Scenery neab Lake Liemba 517 74. Arrival of Hamee's Bride 529 75. Cascades of the Aeasy 511 76. Casembe in State Dress 549 77. A Forest Grave ouQ 78. Scene on Lake Moero 559 79. Caffre Leopard Hunt 509 80. Surprised by Elephants 509 81. Mountain of Monkeys 583 82. Flight of Locusts 583 83. Chuma and Susi 003 84. Manyuema Hunters Killing Sokos (from a sketch by Dr. Living- stone) 611 85. Necklace made of Human Finger-Bones 617 86. Portion of Livingstone's Journal, when AVriting-Paper and Ink had failed 621 22 IJST OF ILLUSTRATIOXS. 87. Midnight Conflict with a Leopard 631 SS. Massacke of the Manyuema Women at Nyangwe 635 89. Hunting Hippopotami 649 90. The Manyuema Ambuscade 681 91. A Dangerous Prize 685 92. Forest Scene 689 93. Stanley meeting Livingstone 695 94. Ehinoceros Hunt 705 95. Wanyamwezi Farewell Dance 711 96. An Encampment 711 97. "The Main Stream came up to Susi's Mouth." /33 98. Fac simile of Last Journal Entry 739 99. The Last Mile 745 100. Evening— Ilala 749 101. Temporary Village in which Dr. Livingstone's Body was prepared 755 102. An old Servant destroyed 761 103. Livingstone's Mosquito CurTxIin 761 104. Kawende Surgery 765 105. Catching Ants 765 106. Jacob Wainwright with Livingstone's Body at Aden 779 107. Egyptian Lady 799 108. Heads 57 100. Heads 786 INTRODUCTION. Early Civilization in Northern Africa — The Limit of the Ancient Civilization- Theatre of Mythology — Saracen Conquest — Settlement of Soudan — Mohamme- dan Failure— The Fifteenth Century— Gilianez Passed Cape Bojador— Portu- guese Eflbrts on the West Coast — Roman Catholicism — The Failure — England and France — Pwiehard Jobson — Mungo Park — Denham and Clapperton — Richard Lander Dispels the Niger Mystery — Kingdoms on the West — Da- homey, Ashantee, etc. — The Cape Settlement — Vasco de Gama — The Settle- ment of Natal by the English — Lieutenant Christopher — Abyssinia and the Nile — Bruce and Dr. Beke— The Nile Mystery as it Stands — The Unknown — Livingstone. In those remote ages, when the Mesopotamiau plain is repre- sented in Scripture history as little more than a wide and open common, the northern shores of Africa sustained a powerful and splendid civilization. " When Greece was under the tumultuary sway of a number of petty chieftains. Homer already celebrates the hundred gates of Thebes and the mighty hosts which in warlike array issued from them to battle." Before the faintest dawn of science had illumined the regions of Euro[>e, the valley of the Nile was the abode of learning and distinguished for its incomparable works in sculpture, painting and architecture. "And while Egypt was thus preeminent in knowledge and art, Carthage equally excelled in commerce and in the wealth pro- duced by it, and rose to a degree of power that enabled her to hold long suspended between herself and Rome the scales of universal empire." Carthage sunk amid a blaze of glory in her grand struggle with Eome, toward which falling kingdoms of all later time have looked with envy. And the land of the Pharaohs, whose alter- nate splendor and slavery had been the admiration and astonish- ment of the ages, came also at length under the hand of the Ctesars. The fostering republic soon rekindled the fires which the tide of war had extinguished, and Northern Africa was still opulent and enlightened, "boasting its sages, its saints, its heads 23 2i AXCIEXT MYTHOLOGY. and flitlicrs of the church, and exhibiting Alexandria and Car- thage oil a footing with the greatest cities which owned the imperial sway." But while the banks of the Xile and the shores of the Medi- terranean were conspicuous in ancient civilization, the poMer and glory did not penetrate the continent ; there was only a nar- row strip of light fringing the sea and the river, back of it there was the mysterious and the unknown. The traveller who ventured into that background found him- self among wild and wandering tribes, who exhibited human nature under its rudest and most repulsive forms. If he journeyed far, there confronted him "a barrier vast and appalling — endless plains of moving sand, waste and wild, without a shrub, a blade of grass, a single cheering or life-sustaining object." Victorious armies turned back from the borders of the desert as the limit of the possible, and the intervening tract of alternate rock and valley and plain furnished many of those fabulous stories wdiich have come down to us in classic measure and become a grand theatre of ancient mythology. Thither, according to Diodorus, the "ancients referred the early reign of Saturn under the appellation of Ouranus or Heaven; the birth of Jupiter and his nursing by Amalthsea; the impious race of Titans and their wars with the gods ; Cybele with her doting love for Atys and frantic grief for his fate." And there were placed the hideous Gorgons, and the serpents hissing in the hair of Medusa. And thence came the stories of those dreadful Amazons, "gallant viragoes," who ravaged all the region and carried victorious arms, according to the historian, into Syria and Asia IMinor. But mingled with so much fable the ancient writers had also some just conceptions of this region, and many things mentioned by Herodotus, Diodorus, and particularly by Strabo, who wrote after tlie Roman sway w^as fully established over Africa, indicate that greatest care was used in treasuring the scraps of knowledge which floated up out of the deeper wilderness beyond. Yet that wilderness kept its secrets so jealously that the diligence of historians and tiic eagerness of explorers and the power of armies were equally ineffectual in extending the range of precise knowl- edge beyond the narrow confines on the north and a limited EGYPTIAN ARCHWAY. SARACEN CONQUEST. 27 extent of western coast. The light straggled to penetrate the gloom, its bhintcd rays rested against an opacity, and rose in towering brilliancy, and stood a while flashing like a resisted sun, then paled and quivered and fell, and left the continent a heritage of darkness to the future. When the Saracen sway swept across from Asia, in whoso social system such marvellous changes had been wrought, and established itself among the splendid relics and smoldering fires so readily surrendered by the effeminate descendants of th.e Greeks and Romans, an auspicious day seemed to be dawning on the continent, the arts and sciences were revived on that con- secrated soil. " Even remote Mauritania, which seemed doomed to be forever the inheritance of a barbarous and nomadic race, was converted into a civilized empire, and its capital, Fez, be- came a distinguished school of learning." They introduced the camel from the sandy wastes of Arabia. Paths were opened through wilds which had hitherto defied all human effort, and a trade in gold and slaves was formed with countries which had been unknown. By successive migrations these descendants of the prophet multiplied in Africa. Sanguinary disputes arose, and the ill-fortuned sought refuge on the southern side of that scorching sea of sand which had arrested the ambition of Cambyses and Alexander. There, in the territory distinguished on our maps as Soudan, these enterprising travellers founded several flourishing kingdoms, which Europeans vainly sought to reach until within a comparatively recent date. They founded Ghana, boasting unrivalled splendor, whose royal master rode out attended by obedient elephants and cainelopards — a king- dom which, after various fortunes as subject to Timbuctoo, Kashna, and Sackatoo, cam^to be identified in the present Kano. And there was Tocrur, the Takror of Major Denman, the Sacka- too of our maps — in that early day enjoying an extensive traffic M-ith the people of the west, who brought shells and brass to bar- ter for foreign trinkets. Then came Kuku, the Bornou of to- day. Farther south v/as the ancient city of Kangha, famous for its industries and arts, which modern historians have recognized in the city of Loggun, celebrated, by Major Denham, for its ingenuities, its manufactures, and its witty women. Alone: tlie southern borders of Soudan there were districts 28 MOHAMMEDAN FAILURE. known as Wangara and Ungara, mentioned confusedly by the early writers, -whence the merchants are reputed to have derived vast quantities of gold. The progress rested against the Alpine range on the south, which divides Soudan from Guinea, and the dwellers in those wild regions were branded as infidels, and the darkness which repelled the light of Islam was made to cover deeds of violence and blood, and treasures for the final day stories of wrong for which there is no adequate condemnation in human censure. West of the Niger there was an extensive re- gion, hardly known to exist by the Arabians. On the east the regions of Nubia and Abyssinia, which Grecian enterprise had reached with ships, had received the name of Christ, and hostile creeds can no more touch than light and darkness ; and there Avas an unknown wilderness on the west, there were despised infidels on the south, and a hated creed in Nubia and Abyssinia — Mohammedan altars in the midst. The splendors of this foreign presence contrasted strangely with the native wildness for a time, but it was not a corrective, assimilating light. It was modifying, but aggravating. The cities were bright spots unquestionably ; so penal fires are bright, but earth Is darker for their glare. Fitful efforts were made to explore the west from the inland cities. Settlements were effected from southern Arabia at various points along the eastern coast as far down as Mozambique. But Mohammedanism was the inspiration of Arab energy; Moham- medanism possessed no inherent vitality. The inspiration gradually failed ; barbarism gradually reclaimed its dominion by the degeneracy of its invaders, and became Intenser because It was a little more intelligent. The life Avhich is not nourished by the fruits of nature must grad^ially Avaste away and give itself to feed that whereon it should have fed. The civilization which does not assimilate the surrounding barbarism must itself degenerate into its stimulant. The sun itself would be but half a sun amid the whirling realms if it did not clothe them all with its own brightness and make them helpers, giving as they re- ceive. Aggression is the law of existence. The inefficiency of Mohammedan civilization in Africa was the prophecy of its decadence. The pro})hccy was only too true. The glory de- parted, and that which promised to elevate Africa became its THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 29 incubus : that which promised healing became a poison inflaming and agonizing wherever it touched. The continent was involved in deeper darkness — a festering barbarism — which gave off to the world a tribute that cursed the giver and the receiver. While the Crescent was resting with dazzling splendor over Africa, Europe was in that profound apathy which attended the " decline of the Roman empire, the irruption of the barbarous nations, and the rude systems of feudal polity which were inau- gurated. There was absolute indifference to all matters pertain- ing to science, discovery and distant commerce." Even the naval efforts of Venice and Genoa extended little farther than Alexandria and the Black Sea. Satisfied by the wealth and power to which they had been raised by this limited commerce, these celebrated commonwealths made no attempt to open a more extended path over the ocean. "About the end of the fifteenth century, the human mind began to make a grand movement in every direction, especially in religion, science, industry, and freedom. It eagerly sought not only to break loose from that thraldom in which it had been bound for so many ages, but to rival and even surpass all that had been achieved during the most brilliant eras of an- tiquity. These high aims wer peculiarly directed to the de- partment of maritime discovery. The invention of the compass, the skill of the Venetian and Genoese pilots, and the knowledge transmitted from former times, inspired all, classes with the hope of being able to pass the ancient barriers and to throw light upon regions hitherto unknown." Portugal, whose kings were preeminent in intelligence and enterprise, was the first to obey this new inspiration. Various circumstances conspired to fix the eye of Portugal on the western border of Africa as the choice field for research. The ancient expeditions had furnished very limited and indefinite information of this coast, and even the wonderful discoveries of Columbus in later years hardly excited greater surprise and admiration than the voyages which so rapidly scattered the mists which had hung through all the past about the shores of Sahara, Senegambia, Guinea, and Lower Guinea. In 1433 Gilianez passed the Cape Bojador, and Portuguese navigators Avere not long in reaching the fertile regions watered 30 Portugal's effort. by the Senegal and the Gambia; within forty years Portugal had made settlements as far down as the Congo, and according to the ancient maxim which gives to the victors all countries conquered from infidel nations, had received from the Pope a grant of full dominion in all lands which should be discovered beyond Cape Bojador and in their farther progress eastward. The capital of Portuguese possessions on the continent was fixed at Elmina, and the king hesitated not to assume the pompous title of Lord of Guinea. The new-comers, true children of Rome, appealed chiefly to their religion, in establishing their sway. Baptisms were made by wholesale, which was the easier done because the ceremony included the putting of salt on the tongue of the converts, and this was a commodity for a taste of w^hich many of the poor creatures would have faced any sort of formula. The Congo princes were particularly favorable for a time to the new system ; various courtesies were exchanged, whole nations were Christianized by contract, the freest scope was given to the missionaries, and these woi'thies seemed to have been really animated by a very devoted and persevering zeal. But they unfortunately put the presentation of beads, Agni Dei, images of the Madonna, and saints, splendid pro- cessions, rich furniture, and solemn festivals of the church be- fore the doctrines of the Bible. They sought to dazzle the eye rather than instruct the mind, to secure an outward allegiance rather than an inward renewal. The new converts viewed the gospel only as a gay and pompous pageant ; they had no idea of the duties and obligations which were enjoined by the sacred name which was pronounced over them. And naturally enough, there was a tremendous reversion of feeling when the authori- ties began to interfere with some of those barbarous customs, whicii were with them time-honored and sacred, though con- demned by the church. The inquisition was brought to aid in the promotion of that practical piety which ought to have been sought by the. faithful presentation of truth and the conversion of souls; wars arose, complications multiplied. The mission- aries toiled and endured with a heroism worthy of truer princi- ples, but they failed. And the banks of the Congo, especially, where their greatest exertion was put forth, retain no trace or tradition of them. ENGLAND AND FRANCE. SI "Portugal passed under the yoke of Philip II. of Spain, and under that influence became involved in war with the Dutcii, who had risen to the first rank as a naval people, and whose splendid armaments successively stripped them of their most important possessions on the African continent as well as in the East Indies." In 1632, Elraina, their capital, the key to the gold coast, fell into the hands of these successful rivals. But the splendid results which had followed so rapidly the revival of interest in maritime matters had attracted uni- versal attention to the ocean, and that vast trackless realm became the theatre where unrivalled wealth and glory seemed to await the seeking. The gallant Hollanders soon found their proud mastership of the seas disputed by powerful rivals. England and France had come to the front in European affairs, and were already pressing forward in a jealous race to surpass each other and all the past. For a while their settlements on the African coast were made with a view only to obtaining slaves for their new possessions in the West Indies. Soon there came wonderful reports of the gold-trade carried on at Timbuctoo. . There was no hope of establishing a highway across the desert from the north, and a company was formed in England for the purpose of exploring the Gambia, by Mdnch the geographical systems of the age warranted them in hoping to reach the glittering treasures. Richard Thompson, the first representative of this company, after desperate engagements with the Portuguese, who still boasted their lordship over the region, fell by the hands of his own men. But a better star guided his successor, Richard Jobson, who, while falling far short of reaching the far-famed Timbuctoo, won, perhaps, the glory of being the first Englishman who had an o})portunity to observe the manners and superstitions peculiar to native Africa. As he advanced, a new world seemed to dawn on him. All about him land and water were inhabited by multitudes of savage animals. The enormous sea-horses sported in every pool, herds of enormous elephants crowded to the shore, lions and leopards moved about among the trees in full view, and everywhere there were myriads of monkeys going through their eccentric evolutions. Armies of baboons marched along occasionally, and displayed their surly tempers by horrid grimaces and angry gesticulations, as they 32 JOBSOX xVXD MUXGO PARK. M-atchcd the progress of the intruders. The appearance and customs of the human dwellers in the region were in keeping with the utter wildness, and many were the wonderful stories he had to tell his countrymen of the kindnesses and cruelties, the fashions and follies, the graces and hideousness which he saw, and the strange things he heard. But the goal was not reached. Then, for a long time, the spirit of discovery, so far as pertained to Africa, was dormant in England. And when it revived a little in 1720, it was only to be assured, by the ex- pedition of Captain Stibbs, that the theories of reaching the interior by the Gambia had been only a delusion. "While the English sought to ascend the Gambia, Senegal was the Niger to the French, the stream by which they hoped to reach tiie regions of gold. They founded the settlement of St. Louis in 1626, but little was accomplished until 1697, when Sieur Brue was appointed director of the company's affairs, who made various journeys into the interior, penetrating as far as Bambouk, distinguished still for its mines of gold. But still there remained the vast blank on the map of Africa, and the fabulous stories of wonderful wealth came floating up out of the unknown, while the remotest extremities of land in other quarters of the globe were being brought under contribution to the general fund of knowledge and wealth. At length the African Association was formed in England, and introduced a new era in African discoveries. First, Mr. Ledyard, a born traveller, who had sailed around the world with Captain Cook, had lived in North America, and journeyed to the remotest parts of Asia, was sent out, and died in Egypt be- fore even beginning the proposed journey along the Nile. Then Lucas attempted to cross the desert from Tripoli ; tlie daring INIajor Houghton fell the victim of Moorish perfidy, while boldly penetrating the continent from the mouth of the Gambia. Then came the celebrated Mungo Park, who was destined to take the front rank of all the travellers of his day, whose dreadful sufferings, and unrivalled heroism, and unconquerable perse- verance were as much matter of astonishment and admiration as the discoveries he made, and the exploits he performed. While Mr. Park was making his discoveries in Senegambia, Guinea, and western Soudan, Frederic Horneman was sent out MYSTERY OF THE NIGER DISPELLED. 33 by the association, penetrating the continent from the north. Travelling as a jNIohaminedan, with various caravans he crossed the dreary wastes to Mourzouk and thence southward, and never returned. Various unauthenticated reports were made by individuals claiming to have been shipwrecked and to have wandered great distances inland, and seen wonderful things and made wonderful discoveries. Several expeditions sent out M'ith high hopes and great expense were comparatively fruit- less. The patience and zeal of those who had devoted themselves to this great work w^as at length rewarded by the very re- markable and successful journeys of Denham and Clapperton, wdio crossed the desert from Tripoli and traversed the whole region which so many centuries before had furnished a home to the wandering'sons of the prophet. Timbuctoo, Kano and Sackatoo were all called on to reveal their secrets. Kingdoms, before unknown, took their place in history. New mountains, lakes, and rivers, came out under the indefatigable labors of these heroic men, as at the bidding of a magician. But the course of the Niger, the mighty river which was found watering those distant inland regions, was still unknown. Park had traced it only a little lower down than Boussa, when his splen- did career was brought to its fatal close. It was to be the glory of Kichard Lander to dispel this mystery. The grand problem which had perplexed Europe for so many ages, on which, during a period of nearly forty years, so many efforts and sacrifices had been expended in vain, was completely re- solved. Park in his first journey reached the banks of the Niger, saw it roiling its waters toward the interior of the conti- nent, and theorists readily leaped to the conclusion, " This must be the Nile." The same traveller proved its continuous pro- gress for more than one thousand miles. Lander followed all its windings until it emptied itself into the Atlantic Ocean — a discovery which was hailed with rejoicing in all Europe as opening a highway to the most fertile and improved and healthful portions of the interior. From these settlements along the western coast various expe- ditions were sent into the country for purposes of discovery and trade, and missionary enterprises found footing at various points. 34 BARBAROUS KINGDOMS. A chain of European forts were erected along nearly the entire coast, but with the abandonment of the slave-trade by Great Britain, and the vigorous measures against it, the territory passed into the passession of a number of petty states, many of Avhich compose aristocratic republics, turbulent, restless, licen- tious, and rendered more depraved by their intercourse with Europeans. But a little inland there are found in this tract several powerful and well-organized kingdoms. Conspicuous among them is Dahomey, one of the strangest kingdoms on the face of the earth. A kingdom which w^as begun in blood and cruelty, and which has maintained its existence for more than two centuries in spite of the terrible scenes continually enacted — scenes which would drive almost any other nation to revolt — there, almost under the shadow of Christian mission stations, are still enacted the bloody dramas of human sacrifices. Human skulls are drinking-cups. And the horrid brutalities of the king at home and the fiendish invasions of neighboring states are sus- tained by a dreadful army of Amazons, finding a Satanic solace for the enforced sacrifices of their celibate state in bloodiest deeds. There, too, are the Ashantees. hardly better than the Dahomey. South of Dahomey, just above the equator, in Lower Guinea, are the Fans — the cannibals of Du Chaillu and Mr. Rcade, whose horrid barbarism shocks the bluntest sensi- bilities in civilized lands. A land where even the grave affords no security from the unnatural gluttony. A peo2)le " who bar- ter their dead among themselves ; ^' the rivals of the Niam- Niam in those orgies and wild dances on which Dr. Schwein- furth- has cast such vivid light. Along the same tract, a little back from the coast, are the Ashira, the Cam ma, and various other tribes, whose strange customs enrich the volumes of Du Chaillu. There, too, is the famous "Ashango Land." Brighter spots are seen in the midst of the darkness : the light of Christianity is established at various points along the coast; and colonization enterprises have taken a hold which promise grand results in time. Leaving the western coast, we approach the Cape of Good ITop'^, about which the contending oceans meet with a rage which appalled the stout heart of Diaz ; whose peaceful name is ;i memento of the bold spirit of the king Avho could foresee in its (lis( uverv (he grander attainments of the future. AMAZON WARRIORS. CAPa COLONY. 37 The Dutch, ever wide awake to the best cliancos, soon seized on the Cape and began the settlement which has gradually ex- tended over the Cape country, and made its impression on many of the tribes of southern Africa, furnishing, besides a foot- hold for the missionary, splendid opportunities to the sports- men, and a starting-point for many of the most important ex- plorations. Associated with this point we find the names of Hope, and Barrow, and Lichtenstein, who shed the earliest light on the habits and homes of the Hottentots and various Catfre tribes. Hither came Campbell, and Trutter, and Somerville, and Moffat, to deeds of love and heroism which have enriched the literature of missions. And hither, too, in later days came Livingstone, purposing in his heart to do only as other men had done; chosen of God to do a peculiar and unrivalled work, and lift the curtain on all the hidden region. While so much attention -was being bestowed by European nations on the western coast, the eastern had remained either unknown or in the undisputed possession of the Arabs. In 1489, when Vasco de Gama had rounded the Cape of Good Hope, he touched at Mozambique, Mozamba, and Milinda, where he found the Arabs ruling in all their Mohammedan bigotry. Cabrial visited Quiloa, and very soon the power of Portugal had swept the ancient settlers from the delta of the Zambezi. They quickly found their way up the river and established the forts of Sena and Tete, and ultimately the city of Zurabo, with whose ruins we will become familiar. From these settlements several journeys seem to have been made into the interior, extending some of them quite into the heart of the region which came down to our time an unsightly blank. But only the dusty unexplored archives of the Portuguese govern- ment can reveal the now useless facts which were so jealously concealed when they would have been welcomed by the world. The same fatal policy which distinguished their efforts in the west brought speedy decay of power here likewise. A govern- ment, over anxious for gain and unscrupulous as to measures, and a church \vith nothing better to give than beads and cruci- fixes, and images, and solemn mummeries, can have no lasting glory. 38 THE EAST COAST. The regions south of jMozainbique remained ahnost unknown until the establishment of the English colony at Natal. At a comparatively recent date the earlier history of this settlement ^yas attended with most distressing coraplieations with the natives, but at length Xatal rose so far above adversity as to be- come perhaps the most desirable field of emigration on the con- tinent. The remarkable natural advantages have greatly assisted the labor of industry and art in making this district the " Ely- sium " of South Africa. The tribes who surround the beautiful homes and carefully cultivated fields and blooming gardens of the foreigners retain none of their early hostility; cultivating more the peaceful habits so well and wisely recommended to them, they are rather pleasant neighbors, affording in their ig- norance an ample field for the philanthropist and Christian, and in their strange sports and rivalries entertainment unsurpassed. But after Natal had been made to blossom as a rose, there still remained a considerable extent of the African coast vailed in almost absolute darkness. All that vast region between Abys- sinia and the equator was still the land of fable. This " tei-ra incor/nlta" was believed to be the ancient Regio Cinnamonlfera, to have undergone great revolutions, to be possessed by inde- pendent tribes of Gallas and Soumalis, and to teem with aroma- tics, spices, myrrh, aloes, ivory, ostrich feathers, indigo, cotton, and other valuable articles of commerce, yet it was still unex- plored. About the time that David Livingstone was taking his first lessons in African life, Lieutenant Christopher, in command of the Honorable East India Company's war-brig " Tigris," touched at several points on this coast, and made a few short journeys into the country. But the grandest realms of wonder here were just beginning to absorb modern attention. The inquiry of the ancients M'as being taken up with new enthusiasm. The tiieories of Pacy and the Abyssinians and of Bruce had been set aside. A search for the true source of the Nile had succeeded that for the outlet of the Niger as the grand problem. And rivalling this more nearly than any otlier question was the eagerness to know what lay be- neath that vast blank which extended from the Cape Colony to Soudan and from Lower Guinea to Zanguebar. ABYSSINIAN HORSEMAN. ABYSSINIA AND THE NILE. 43 The ponderous voluraas of Bruce won highest praise for the light which they shed on Abyssinia, that land of long-prevailing mystery, where ancient eretlulity asserted that unicorns and lions held their deadly combats, and dragons flapjxxl their scaly wings through air; that golden mountains towered toward the sky, and river beds were paved with diamonds; and, most of all, where Presto John, the priest and king, was said to hold his court, a Christian Solomon of the middle ages; a land which in the full light of history still engages peculiar attention ; where beautiful women and splendid horsemen bewilder the astonisheetwcen and divide or unite these various waters. While all these efforts were being put forth east, west, and south, various adventurers were traversing the northern shores among the relics of ancient greatness, and visiting the sand-girt cities of the desert ; and from a thousand sources information was being derived about this vast continent so long wrapt in gloom. Only absolute darkness prevailed over the vast region marked on the map, Unknown ! Not only the curiosity of the 3 44 THE UNKNOWN. world called for its explanation, commerce called for it ; there might be vast treasures concealed there ; there might be nations easily advanced in industrial interests. Philanthropy called for it: there were undoubtedly untold wrongs crying to the world for redress : there Avcre evils of ignorance and superstition which miglit be mitigated. Science called for it : her commission embraces the whole world, and while there is a rock unbroken or a star without a name she must not rest. But, most of all, religion called for it — Christianity — there were in that region souls to be saved. The time had come, and a man came for- ward, little thinking of the future that lay before him ; a man whose joy it was to do what his hands might find to do, only doing all for Christ; a man not sent but led, step by step. It is this man whom we will follow up and down in the deep shadows of that vast unknown ; whose adventures we will ob- serve; whose toils and sacrifices we will note; whose character we will study ; and by whose wonderful guidance we will find out all the strange, astonishing, distressing, animating, pleasing and important things the land can reveal. The wonderful journeys of which we will read covered many thousand miles; generally they will be found to lie, in regions where not the shadow of a tmdition exists of a white man's presence before. We will find tribes presenting every phase of uncivilir-ed life. We will find every wild animal which be- longs to the continent represented. We will find strange and wonderful insects, and dreadful reptiles. We will read of ewamps reeking with pestilence, deserts and trackless forests, rivers and mountains. Everywhere we \vill see a man alone, often without supplies, with no adequate means of self-protection, practising no deception ; everywhere appearing in his true char- acter; everywhere condemning vic<} and commending virtue; espousing the cause of the oppressed against the strong ; com- ))ating long-established customs, and proposing great reforma- tions. This man we will see passing unharmeaid twenty-five pounds a year. The schools were fi'ee to the children of the working people. David had EARLY STUDIES AND TASTES. 47 been in one of those schools. He must have been well advanced for his age. The impulse that his mind received in the common school was aided by the attractions of the great University at Glasgow. Boys in the neighborhood of great colleges have earlier and loftier aspirations perhaps. Anyhow we are informed that a part of David Livingstone's first week's Avages went for " E,uddiman's lludiments of Latin," and that he pressed the study of that language with peculiar ardor, in an evening school, from eight to ten o'clock, during a number of years. There are many grown men who mourn over their ignorance whose work does not fill fourteen hours a day. In those evening hours, with a little tired child-body, Livingstone mastered the Latin language, and accomplished much in general reading. When he was sixteen years old, he was quite in advance of his age. The diligence and self- control of the boy was the prophecy of the man. At this early age, too, the peculiar tastes and talents which rendered his subsequent life singularly successful and vested his work with singular interest began to appear. He did not love novels : he loved facts. He was not charmed with the woven fancies of quiet effeminacy. He delighted in stories of adven- ture; he was always glad to put his hand in the hand of the historian, and be led away from familiar scenes to the new and the strange and the difficult. The hero spirit was in him. This love of the new and eagerness for travel were tempered and sanctified by an appreciation of the real and the useful. He had delight in scientific books and experiments. The home of his childhood was admirably adapted for the development ot noble character. There was a population of nearly three thousand. The people were " good specimens of tlie Scottish poor," as he tells us himself, "in honesty, morality and intelligence." There were all sorts of people, of course ; they were generally awake to all public questions ; their inter- est was intelligent; there were some characters of uncommon worth ; these persons felt peculiar interest in the thouglitful, studious lad. There were near at hand many sj)ots hallowed in Scottish history — spots with venerable associations. The Scottish people love old associations; they treasure the dear 48 CONVERSION AND MISSIONARY SPIRIT. memorials of the past. The ancient domains of Bothwell stood with open door to these respected villagers. David Livingstone ■was one of the people, and loved these scenes ; he knew their liistorv, all their old traditions were in his heart. A youth, with the spirit of these associations and surround- ings, fond of study, with abundant capacity, wanted only the touch of divine grace, and his heart would bound to noble sacri- fice for Christ ; he would not think of himself. The time came. " The change," he says, "was like what may be supposed would take place, were it possible to cure a case of color-blindness." The appreciation of God's love was humiliating and controlling. The frceness of grace engaged his gratitude and aifection ; the fullness and magnitude of it was unanswerable, and constrained him. There was no expression left him but that of a life given in return. He gave liimself to God immediately. He deter- mined to give himself to the heathen. But it was not Africa which he thought of. He was not like Park— he did not make special preparation for Africa. He looked toward China ; that immense empire seemed to beckon him. He studied for China and went to Africa. It is so in God's providence. Sometimes the highest fitnass for a place is attained indirectly. God orders the preparation of his chosen. His ways are not like ours. ^ The practical man shows himself in the boy. Young Living- stone felt that whoever ministers to the souls of the people must reach them through their bodies. He reasoned that tlie confidence to be desired, as a spiritual teacher and helper, would be most easily secured by attention to the humbler interests. It is like seeking interview with a lord: it is easier if the attendants arc first won. Christ paid much attention to the bodily necessities of people. So have all the best and wisest of his servants. Livingstone studied medicine in preparation for his missionary work. His first book led him "deeply and anxiously into the perplexing profundities of astrology ; and he only paused in his investigations when, to his youthlul mind, the ground seemed to be perilous, and, in his own words " when the dark hint seemed to loom toward selling soul and body to the devil, as the price of the unfathomable knowledge of the st.irs." He would wander, delighted and wondering, through y „, , , AFRICA AND PPvEPAEATION. 51 Blautyrc and Cambuskng, collecting shells and stones long before geology was as popular as it is now. As a specimen of the help and encouragement he received^ when the curioua child one day asked a quarryman, " How did ever these shells get into these rocks ? " he was told, " When God made the rocks, He made the shells in them." And when his honored iuther found his preference for such study, he insisted on ci-eating a fondness for such books as " Fourfold State," by Baston, " Practical Christianity," etc. It is almost incredible that such varied and profound reading as fdled these early years of Livingstone could have been done in the midst of such daily work in a factory. He really accom- plished all of his reading by placing his book where he could catch a sentence, as he passed backward and forward at his work. Working continually in his factory, he studied Gi'eek at Glasgow, and Divinity with Dr. Wardlaw, by his own manual labor providing for his own education. It was a wonderful love of knowledge and wonderful love of Christ which strengthened his heart for such a work. What wonder that he expressed his delight, when at last he was admitted a member of a j)rofessioa devoted to benevolence ! How naturally he treasured most fondly the recollections of Blantyrc by the Clyde, through all of his wanderings ! It was a sacrifice for such a man. Africa offered nothing. It asked for everything. There could never be a home there for him ; there could never be one anywhere on earth. It is a serious thing to become a missionary. Christ had no home. The missionary comes nearest to Christ in his service, and he must come nearest to Christ in his sacrifice. Livingstone did not go to Africa to find out Africa. He went there to carry Christ to the ignorant and lost. The gospel being his mission, he remained long enough in England to make special preparation in the study of theology. It is a mistake that the intelligence of the teacher should be graded by the advancement of the learner. The very best preparation is desirable for the teacher of the very ignorant. Little children should have the most accom])li6hed teachers. Don't send a novice in Bible truth to the heathen. God is not in need of such haste on the part of his servants that the man he calls for a Bpecial work nuiy not go about it deliberately. No tinie ia 52 ENGLAND FOR AFRICA. saved by rushing to the battle without one's armor and weapons. Livingstone was right. He knew there would be all to give, and but little to receive. There is great waste in missionary life. A man does wisely to seek thorough development before lie sets out on such work. Livingstone was a man with a reasonable scientific knowledge, good medical education, a student of theology — all pervaded by the love of Christ and devotion to humanity, with a deep-felt call to the heathen. This is the man who left England for Africa in 1840. He was born in 1815. He was twenty-five years old when he began his great work there. It was a life in the fullnass and elasticity of its vigor which he laid on God's altar in the service of humanity, Tlie i3ortion of the benighted continent which he selected was full of interest and mystery. Stories of M'onderful fertility and tempting reservoirs of wealth had for a long time been fl.)ating in the popular mind. Civilization looked eagerly toward the heathen wilderness. Accounts, all indefinite, but promising, of nations Morthy of their sympathy, had moved the hearts of Christians. The missionaries, who had gone before, had but little more than built their fires over against the gloom. Now and then a man Avould come out of the deeper shadows, attracted by their briglitness. These men revealed the hidden want. It was that hidden want which cried so loudly to the heart of Livingstone, His Highland blood was consecrated to Christ. He could not accept a service which was less than heroic. He could not measure his obliga- tions by apparent expediency and personal safety. The English power on the Cape had, in God's providence, provided a footing for Christianity on the unreclaimed territory. Light had stepped on the coast of darkness; that was all. The radiance must be guide through the gloom, Livingstone rejoiced in the undertaking. We will find that his work assumes the char- acter of exploration. It was the work of Christian zeal. It was tl^e gospel in ct^ntrol of a man penetrating the '"regions beyond." Tiie same gosjx-l has been the unnn^ognized ]K)wer in all the histories, wrapping the world with the joys and beauties of true civilization. The Cape Colony is divided. The divisions are the Eastern CAPE TOWN AND KUEUMAK 63 and Western. Cape Town, where the missionary landed, is a city. It occupies a splendid amphitheatre; three lofty mountains describe an are about it. There is Table Mountain, rising nearly 4000 feet above the sea. Lion's Head and Devil's Peak. The city nestles in their friendly shadows, and looks at itself in the sea. There are 30,000 inhabitants, all sorts of people, Dutch, English, Negroes, Malays, Hottentots, everything and nothing. The streets are straight ; they cross at right angles ; they are tlireadcd by canals, along whose banks there are rows of stately trees. The houses are flat on top ; they have great block stoops in front, where the inmates lounge in the evening. There are fifteen churches. Mohammedanism is there, watching most jealously the intrusion of Christianity, There is a good government, and the sects may quarrel securely. They do it. It is a pity. All hearts ought to be united in saving the heathen. After a little while spent resting, Livingstone sailed from Cape Town around to Algoa Bay, and entered the countiy. It is well to look at it on the map; it will fix matters in the mind. On Algoa Bay you will see Port Elizabeth. This is a town of 3000 inhabitants, an English settlement, and the principal shipping-point for the eastern division of the colony. It is a door. Civilization goes in and out with its blessings and the returns. There is a return for all service. Civiliza- tion has adventured its wealth in the service of barbarism; enlightened barbarism has always reimbursed civilization. The Church carries the gospel to the heatlien at great cost ; the hftathen receive it, and strengthen the Church. The sun loses nothing by lengthening its rays. Leaving the bay and the easy sailing, Livingstone pressed on to the farthest inland station of the Society. This station is called Kuruman or Lattakoo. It was the headquarters of Dr. Mofilit, who had spent many years in that region ; whose book, issued thirty years ago, is full of interest. This haspita- ble home gave a noble daughter to be the companion of tlie missionary explorer. Now fully on the ground, Livingstone cast about him with characteristic deliberation and courage and zeah It is when zeal is courageous and courage deliberate tliat great things are 54 STUDYIXO THE LANGUAGE, accomplislicJ. Quitting Kiiruman, and the pleasures and encouragements of home- faces and home-words, lie sought an abode northward. There he denied himself all European society six months, that he might identify himself with the natives and learn their language, their customs, their habits of mind, their laws and way of thinking. The tribe which he had chosen was that section of the Bechuanas known as Bak- wains. The future rewarded the sacrifice he made and the labor he performed in those first six montlis. He bought, by those months of toil, the key which unlocked for him door after door in his sul)sequent M-anderings. His home in these months was at Litubaraba; it was called then Lepelole. He proposed to make a settlement there ; but while he was at Kururaan on one occasion, the friendly Bakwains were dispos- sessed of the territory by one of those native wars which arise almost as frequently and unexpectedly and terribly in barbar- ous countries as the wild winds. So after some journeyings hither and thither, he selected the " beautiful valley of Matabosa," and removed to it in 1843. He imme<^liately identified himself thoroughly with the people. It ■was his nature and his theory to do so. The real interest which he allowed himself to cherish in everything which concerned them is the truest explanation of their regard for him and his jieculiar influence over them. If they were in want, he would help to provide for them ; if they were in danger, he would liclp to delis-cr them. If we would give medicine to a child, we give it a toy first. He felt that those people must receive the truth like a child receives medicine. He made them like liim by the love he bore them, manifested according to their comprehension ; then they would hear him in matters which vere strange and disagreeable. This spirit led to a very serious affair only a short time after the settlement at Matabosa — an incident which has gained ])eculiar interest latterly. The lions had become singularly troublesome, venturing on most daring depredations in broad daylight. The cowardly natives had surrendered to their superstitions, and bemoaned the misery of their sitDation helplessly enough, when the killing of a single one of tlicir impudent neighbors would have relieved them cffectuallv. Under the circumstances, the missionary headed a A 'LINO'S ENCOUNTER. 57 party which he gathered and went out to make a victim which should be a hint to the presumptuous marauders. After several failures, they at length discovered a lion sitting behind a small bush on a rock. The deliberate aim of Livingstone reached its mark, but had the effect of bringing the lion bounding ujwn him. Quicker than it can be told, they fell together to the ground, and growling horribly the monster shook him furiously, inflicting eleven wounds on the upper part of the arm, and crushing the bone into splinters. That wound was God's mark placed on the man ; it was that which thirty years later served to identify the human remains which M'ero carried to England as the body of Dr. Livingstone. The affair was one of a moment; the death-shot had been received; the rage of death was in the spring and first grasp of the beast; then he fell over his victim, dead. Livingstone had learned the language,, Iiad learned to ride an ox, had acquired some skill as a pedes- trian, and had learned the delights of lion-hunting. He was prepared for his woi*k, which was opening. The spirit was in him, and the mark was on him: now he might go into the. wilderness. He attached himself to the Bakwain tribe. CHAPTER II. 1843—1850. The Eecht>anas — The Bakwains — Sechele — His Conversion — His DifSculties— Tlie Government — Baptism of Sechele— Cross and CroM'n — Difficulties of tlie Work — Belief in Kain-Making — Drought — Noble Conduct— The Hopo — Kindness to Livingstone — Livingstone's Spirit — The Boers— Slavery— An- tagonistic Principles — Boers Hate Livingstone — Sechele's Resistance — Living- stone Accused — His EtTects Destroyed — Going Northward — Desire to find the Lake — Desire to see Sebituane — Sekomi — The Desert— Bushmen— Bakalahari —AVater-Sucking— Across the Desert — Difficulties— Salt Pans— The Zouga — Quakers of Africa — Lake Ngami Discovered — The Lake — Sebituane — Guicks Befused— Sketch of the Zouga — Elephants — Trees — Fish— Bayieye — Kolobeng tigain — Home-life :.n Kolobeng. The Bcchuanas live in a country remarkable for its beauty and fertility, a country abounding in herds. They are sepa- rated from the Cape Colony by the Sneuwberg Mountains, and beyond the mountains a pastoml district, where Bush- men and Hottentots have their wandering sway, and after these the Orange river; just over the Orange are the Bechuanas. On the left hand, which is west, is the Kalahari Desert; on the right hand, which is the east, lies the Caffre territory and the mountains. The Bechuanas comprise a number of tribes, whose chiefs have independent patriarchal authority. These tribes are generally rather in advance of their neighbors in natural intelligence; they dwell more in cities, and pay jnorc attention to agriculture ; they are more advanced in the arts. The names of Trutter and Sumerville are associated with the earliest knowledge we have of this people. Tiiese gen- tlemen reported the discovery of Lattakoo as late as 1801. It was among these tribes that Mr. Campbell did his work of love. Rev. Robert Moffat had been there many years before 1840; Ijattakoo, or Kuruman, was his station. The Bak wains are a Bechuana tribe; their territory is north of Kuruman. Shokuane, the city of the cliief, when Dr. Living- Si sechele's conversion. 69 stone was there, is about 250 miles from Ivuruman. One hundred miles maj not be despised, in a country where all journeys must be undertaken with one's eyes open to the difficulties of forests and wild beasts and unfriendly people, and where oxen convey you. The first settlement, 250 miles in advance of the hardiest missionary efibrt, was no insig- nificant matter. Matabosa, the mission station selected by Dr. Livingstone, is only a few miles south of the city of the chief. Sechele was chief. There is frequent mention of this man in the books of travellers in South Africa about that time. He stands out distinctly, in the meagre African history whicli we possess, a noble specimen. He was a man of singular intelligence and liberality, and grasped with avidity the rudi- ments of reading and mathematics, and handled these keys with a masterly skill, opening readily the avenues of knowl- edge. He received the Christian teacher with all cordiality, and was greatly delighted with the beauties of the Bible. Isaiah charmed him; over and over he would exclaim, "He was a fine man that Isaiah ; he knew how to speak." No wonder that such a man, coming to know the truth, was full of amazement that Christian people had been so long a time delaying to send his people the gospel. "My fore- fathers ! " he would exclaim, " why did they not send them this word ■? They all passed away in darkness." O that the reproach of inactivity may be against us no longer ! The " fathers have passed away in darkness ! " The children ! the Christian world must vindicate the name it bears, by arising in the spirit of the Master, giving wings to the word. This noble man was greatly embarrassed by the incompati- bility of the demands of Christianity with the customs of his country, and particularly with the relations of a chief There he sat, in the centre; ranged around him, circle after circle, were his subjects, in the order of their dignity or family strength. The one bond which pervades the whole tribe is tiiat of marriage. The chief binds the stronger of the under chiefs to himself by taking wnves of their fiimilies; these under chiefs in turn fasten yet humbler families to them in the same way, and so on. The whole tribe is a family ; the chief is the head of the 60 CROSS AND CROWN. family. The missionary did not need instruct Sechele concern- ing the impropriety or sinfulness of some of his customs. His own intelligence discovered his duty, and in the bitterness of his struggle he cried : " Oh ! I wish you had come to this country before I became entangled in the meshes of our customs." Here was a heathen chief. The chiefs under him were identi- fied with him and bound to him by the wives whom he had taken. If he abandons polygamy he offends the under chiefs ; he shakes the whole tribe to its circumference. Two years and a half he battled with these difficulties; the convictions of duty were permanent ; the sacrifice stood facing the service. It was the old and ever-new Cross against the Crown. . During those two years and a half Sechele co-oi^erated with Dr. Livingstone heartily, and manifested much concern that the gospel might be accepted by his people. Indeed, he proposed to introduce it in true African style, by the lash of his whip. T'hen, when discouraged from that method, he wondered and grieved that only in this, where of all things he would have them imitate him, his people despised his example. At length the hour came ; the decision was strong. Sechele asked for bap- tism, and, influenced entirely by his own convictions of right, broke away from all those customs which he perceived to be improper. He sent home all of the wives except his first, and gave to her his heart anew in Christian purity. This interfer- ence of Christianity with polygamy is one of its most unpopular features in Africa. But the directness and nearness of Christian approach to God, the setting aside not only of their customs, but of their superstitions, is a still greater difficulty. Most conspicuously among the Bakwains was their faith in the art or power of the rain-maker. Their country borders on the desert ; frecpieutly they need water ; the rains are withholden ; there are men who profess to bring rain ; they administer medi- cine to the elements ; they claim the rain, if it comes, as brought by them ; if it doas not come, then they argue, ** No man is expected to succeed in every particular matter." Now, Religion says. Ask God for rain ; they prefer to ask the rain-doctor ; they cannot see God ; they see the rain-doctor ; they see his medicine bag; they are in trouble; they think their ancestors got rain so. It is hard for them to decide ; they cling to the superstition. TnE DEOUGUT AND HOPO. 63 During the three years — the earlier years of Livingstone's settlement — there was almost a continuous drought. Sechele had been a noted rain-doctor; now he would not do anything. They felt that Christianity was to account for their parched fields and famished herds and their own great suffering. They were slow to embrace Christianity. To Dr. Livingstone they would say, " We like you as well as if you had been born among us, but we wish you to give up that everlasting preach- ing and praying. You see we never get rain, whilst those tribes who never preach and pray have plenty." Indeed, with such impressions, there is no difficulty in comprehending their feelings, if we can only realize their distress during those three years — the rivers running dry, the leaves dying on the trees, needles retaining their polish perfectly lying in the street, the mercury standing at 134° three inches under ground. Only the long-legged black ants seemed to prosper ; they only deserve to be said to live ; eveiything else seemed ready to give up. They toiled on, under the cover of recurring darkness, year in and year out; somehow or other finding moisture for their mortar, and rearing their singular mansions. It was a mockery. Birds Buffered, beasts suffered, reptiles suffered, fish suffered, beetles placed on the surface died in half an hour, man suffered ; only the chambers of these strange creatures were surprisingly humid. It was a question for the curious. Secliele's people did nobly. They sold ornaments; the women did that. There are women in Africa. It is woman's mission to arise to her noblest M'ork in times which crush men. It is the mission of African women. They sold ornaments — for corn — to other tribes. The men resorted to the Hopo ; this is a mammoth trap, which is set for the giants of the wilderness. If you look at the picture, it is easily understood. It is made of huge piles driven firmly in the ground, and boughs of trees closely interwoven with the piles. There is a strong barricade formed in this way ; it extends about a mile. At the point of the V formed by these hedges there is a lane ; at the end of the lane a pit. The men easily enclose within these hedges a large number of animals, which, terrified by the furious yells of the hunters and their sharp javelins, rush madly along the converg- ing hedges and the narrow lane until the treacherous pit re- 64 WANT AND BOERS. celves them. It is a wild, cruel scene. It is the law of extrem- ity to be cruel. The Bakwains arc kind until they sufl'cr ; so are people generally. Want is lawless. Through all of their extremity Dr. Livingstone was treated kindly and wrought diligently for their enlightenment and salvation. The work of saving men is independent of their condition ; men need the gospel all the time. Dr. Livingstone recognized the difiicul- ties. He knew that the uncertainty, the anxiety about the things that perish, the lawful solicitude about food, was indeed a mighty hindrance to his success. He did not suspend his work, but he gave the suiferers his sympathies. It will, indeed, be well when the Christian churches awake thoroughly to the importance of seeking directly the improvement of the heathen, not only in knowledge and in their social life, but in the condi* tions of bodily comfort and happiness. The life of Livingstone is a lesson. He was a Christian. He was a missionary. He determined to open a way that the world might enter Africa ; that the enlightened might lift up the benighted ; that the Church might address the people wlio have been aided, who arc stronger and happier for the coming of the Church. But there was an obstacle to be confronted by our missionaries among these tribes harder to overcome than prejudices, than customs, than wants. That obstacle was living. It called itself civilized; it called itself human. It was in human shape ; it was encouraged by outside civilization. The Cashan Mountains, just north of the Bcchuanas, Avere occupied by the Boers. There are people known as Boers in Cape Colony; they are a very industrious, honorable class. These are not like them. The mountains Avere formerly occupied by a cruel Caffre chief; he had been expelled. The Bechuanas re- joiced too soon when the Boers came in his place. They had too much confidence in white skin. The Caffre had been "cruel to his enemies and kind to the conquered. The Boers killed their enemies and enslaved their friends." They had settlcKl in Africa out of antipathy to the African. They culti- vated their farms with unpaid labor. It was compulsory labor; tlicy were heartless in their metho?^iiK -iW«*»>*V it^:^-Mim^ 'i» / ;v'r*r„v,''- 'r ii^^'; y PEESECUTION AND PJROVIDENCE. 67 yoke. The tribes hated slavery, but were degraded by it. It seemed inevitable. Sometimes people would sell their chil- dren. The inevitable becomes tolerable. Besides the degrada- tion, there was the constant trepidation and absolute insecurity. The shadow of those mountains became a decree of instability. This hindered the missionary work ; that was Livingstone's work. Christianity and the Boers were enemies. The Boers were the enemies of Livingstone ; they did everything in their power to prevent him in every undertaking. The missionary would educate the people ; he emancipated their minds ; they would become free and strong. Trade is the comjianion of Christianity in heathen countries. Traders follow missionaries ; they followed Dr. Livingstone. These traders sold guns and powder. The Boers were cruel to the weak, therefore they were cowardly. They dreaded the trader because they dreaded jjowder and guns. They dreaded Livingstone because they dreaded the trader. There could be no peace. And when, at last, Sechele arose in self-defence and killed the first Boers ever slain by Bechuanas, Livingstone was denounced as the instiga- tor of their action. It was then that the Boers destroyed his house, his books, his papers, his all. They were determined that he should not open the country. They set him free to do it, and forced him to do so by tearing up his nest. They were cruel to Livingstone, but God was kind to Africa. The mis- sionary could do nothing under the Boers ; he must go north- ward. If he went northward or eastward or westward, the way he went would become a road, and the light would stream in stronger and stronger. God's Spirit had made the missionary ; God's Providence was making the explorer. Several years had been spent battling Avith these difficulties. The labors of Dr. Livingstone had extended several hundred miles eastward from Kolobeng. He had established an inti- mate friendship with Sechele, and other Bechuana chiefs, besides gathering considerable information about the regions beyond. But the beyond was across the desert. The desert was a diffi- culty. It was a heartless difficulty, but it was not human ; it was limited. There were no Boers on the other side ; there were only heathen, and the Lake Ngami. This lake had long been an object of anxious curiosity to people interested in African 4 G8 THE DESERT MUST BE CROSSED. matters ; and beyond Ngami, the home of a far-famed chief and an intelligent tribe promised a most desirable footing for Christianity. Sebituane was the chief of the Makololo. Se- bituane was a really great man ; his praise was on the lips of other chiefs; he was a generous man. Dr. Livingstone longed to know him and teach him of Christ. He desired to gain his great influence and the strength of his tribe to the gospel. The chief of the Bamangwato, the tribe just above the Bak wains, almost between Sechele and the lake, knew a route to it, but he would not tell it, because he did not wish the ivory of the lake region to become accessible to the outside world. There was only one thing to do. The desert must be crossed. In this undertaking Livingstone was joined by Mr. Oswell and Mr. Murray, both of them noted travellers. The formida- ble region before them was one of peculiar interest, though peculiarly inhospitable. It was a desert that was not a desert. There was only one want. That want was w'atcr. There are trees and vines and grasses, and animals and reptiles and people; but everything, from the men to the creeping vine, is searching for water. The plants search downward, and send their roots far beneath the parched surface ; they must find moisture, be- cause they seem to laugh at the sun. The animals are such as can go long periods without water. Their sagacity discovers the few fountains and pools which are here and there. The human inhabitants are Bushmen and Bakalahari. The Bush- men love the desert. The Bakalahari love freedom. They find the freedom in the desert which they lost elsewhere ; there- fore, they are in the desert. There are plants in this wilderness which take the place of fountains. They bear quite a number of tubers, which are filled with a cool, refreshing liquid ; these tubers are deeply buried far below the crust. They are betrayed only by a stalk as large as a crow's quill. There are vast quantities of watermelons in some years. Every living thing in the desert rejoices when these abound. But there Averc none when I^ivingstone's party was there. The human dwellers of the desert use all care in concealing the few watering-places which exist. Art helps the desolation. The women have a singular method of obtaining water from these hidden pools. They gather about the spot with their vessels, which are only BUSHMAN S CAMP FOR THE LAKE NOAMI. 71 .ostrich egg-shells, Avlth a small hole in them. They thrust one end of a small reed down to the water, and applying the lips to the other end, suck up the precious fluid, which passes from the mouth, through another reed or large straw, into the shell. Thus they improvise a pump. When they have filled a num- ber of shells, they are borne far away from the spot to their homes. Nobody finds water by finding the Bakalahari. Its existence is accounted their sacred secret. It is because the tribes outside can find no water that they are secure. The Bushman's security is in his poisoned arrows, which he uses with great cordiality when occasion demands it. The Bushmen are manly-looking and brave; the Bakalahari are mean-looking and timid. The weak and the strong, the brave and the timid, have each their reason for chosing this home ; they find their interests identical, so they live together. The Bushmen are hunters ; the others live on roots and fruits, and trade between the Bushmen and the world, with skins and tobacco. It was the 1st of June, 1849, when Messrs. Livingstone, Oswell and Murray left Kolobeng for the Lake Ngami. Mes- sengers had come from the chief of the lake country, whose name was Lechulatebe, inviting Dr. Livingstone to visit him. These messengers had brought wonderful accounts of the ivory to be had there. Their accounts stimulated the Bakwaiu guides, though th-cy did not lessen the difficulty of the journey, because wagons could not proceed by the route which they came. The party was furnished with oxen and wagons and guides and servants. AVe can hardly convey an impression of the picture. They slowly skirted along the desert, from pool to pool. There were a score of men, twenty horses, and about eighty oxen. They passed Boatlonaraa and Lopepe. At Mashue, they left the road which they had followed, and struck out northward, upon the desert. They pressed on to Serotli. It was toilsome progress — the deep sand conspired with the scorching sun. Serotli was only a sucking-place, and there was the delay of several days before the party was refreshed by its slow stream. There was nothing more remarkable than the impatience of a guide, the herds of wild animals, and dissuasions of Sekomi, who sent messengers expressing the greatest anxiety 72 KCHOKOTSA AND THE ZOUGA. about them. Cupidity is a liypocrite in Africa and everywhere. Sekomi feared Livingstone would find the ivory : he pretended to be afraid he would be lost in the desert. At Nchokotsa our travellers were entertained with a wonder- ful and charming illusion. Passing out of a thick belt of trees there burst upon their view what seemed to be a beautiful lake. The setting sun was casting a lovely haze over the surface ; the waves were seen as if dancing and rippling; the shadows of the trees were true as life. The reward of their toil seemed at hand. They were disappointed on finding that there was no lake, no water — only a great salt-pan. The wonderful mirage had deceived them. Over and over as they passed northward were they deceived in the same manner. The object of their quest was still far away. At length they struck the river Zouga, flowing by the village of Bakarutse. The people of the village informed them that this noble river flowed from the lake. Now, then, they had the thread — an unerring guide. They had water; success was a matter only of days and life. When they had passed along this river nearly a hundred miles, they met the hospitality of the lake chief. The tribes had received orders to give to the travellers all desired aid, and expedite his advance with all readiness. The Bakoba was found to be one of the most inter- esting of these tribes. They are the men of peace, tho '^ Quakers of Africa." Their pride is in their canoes. All day they de- light to strike their supple oars into the beautiful water of their river ; at night they love to sleep in their boats, safely fastened in the stream. The river Tamunak'le flows into the Zouga. The party passed its mouth; it flows down from "a country full of rivers." It was the 1st day of August, 1849, when our travellers went down together and looked on the broad Lake Ngami. The discovery of this lake was pronounced to eclipse all precc>^-iiV SEBITIANE THE DESERT AND THE CIIOBE, 83 ened the view." Two days passed, then Shobo began to wander; eveiy now and then he wonld throw himself down, crying : " No water, all country only ; Shobo sleeps ; he breaks down ; only country." IIow shall we picture the agonies of those days to the husband and father? Such a waste; a guide whose mind wanders ; the water in the wagons nearly exhausted ; the children crying for thirst ; the silent emblems of inexpressi- ble anguish hanging on the eyelids of their mother. Four days passed. They laid down in absolute helplessness, only praying for the morning which they trembled to see. The fifth day, toward evening, some of the men returned to the wagons with a little of the precious liquid. No wonder it was esteemed God's best gift. When the party reached the Mahabe they found Shobo, who, with inimitable acting, assumed the dignity of fathering the whole exploit, in the presence of the Bayeiye. At Banajoa, the son of the head man volunteered to guide them to the Chobe, in the country of Sebituane. They had exchanged the dreary desolation for rivers and swamps and the fatal tsetse. To the oxen it was escaping famishing, but death by a slow and terrible poison. Singularly enough the bite of this fly does not harm human beings. The wild animals of the country feed in their midst unharmed; so does the ass, the mule and the goat. The horse dies in a few days after being bitten, and cattle are its hopeless victims. At the Chobe Livingstone was met by delighted Makololo, who conducted them joyfully to their chief. It is remarkable indeed to find such a man in the heart of this long-neglected continent as Sebituane. He Avas a speciman of the possible African man which fully repaid the toil and dangers of this long journey. Through varied fortunes, almost incessant Avars, he had reached the dignity of being perhaps the greatest chief in the country. With the loftiest courage he blended a singular depth of sympa- thy and capacity for winning the hearts of his subjects. His praises Avere sounded far and near. The people would say, " He has a heart. He is wise." He Avas delighted by the visit of the missionary, and felt himself honored by the confidence which Avas manifested in bringing his family. But in the midst of his realization of his long-cherished desire this great chief fell sick. Livingstone desired to treat him himself, but being cau- 84 SEBiTu axe's death. tioned that, in the event of his death in that case, the tribe would blame him, was induced to do nothing. Sebituane had become greatly interested in the children of his visitor. When he was dying, he raised himself and said to a servant, "Take Robert to ]\Innku [one of his wives] and tell her to give him some milk." These were his last words. The death of Sebituane again disarranged the plans of Living- stone. The chief had promised to go with him through Iiis country and select a suitable spot for a station. Kow it would be necessary to put up with considerable delay while a message might be had from his daughter, who inherited the chieftainship. This time was filled up by Messrs. Livingstone and Oswell, by a tour to the nortlieast, where, after travelling some time, and going, perhaps, three hundred miles across a flat country, varied in its surface only by enormous ant-hills, clothed at intervals with forests of mimosse and mopane, bearing the marks of occa- jHOual floods, they found the Zambesi in the centre of the conti- nent— a broad and noble-looking river. Among the swamps of the Zambesi and the Chobe were the homes of the Makololo. Here too had the wretched trade in human flesh left its degrad- ing slime. The garments of baize and printed cotton told the story of the horrid traffic. While the heart of Livingstone was yearning for this people, the demon was approaching. Had he I ecu able to complete his first journey, he would have been on the ground to resist the first approaches of this destroyer. The Makololo, like their noble chief, despised the trade, and declared they had never until then heard of people being bought and sold. Indeed, in all Africa, it is the testimony of Livingstone and others that the persons sold are only the captives which a tribe may hold. It is a thing unheard of that a man sells his own ciiildren. The death of Sebituane and the unhealthiness of the Makololo region made the desired settlement there impracticable. The animosity of the Boers left no hope of peaceable labors among the Bakv/ains. There was no home. The hcr()i(! man deter- mined to send his wife and children to England, and return alone " in search of a district which might prove a centre of civilization." In the execution of this resolution he bent his 6t«ps toward the Cape. About April, 1852, he placed his family LOOKING FOR A HOME. 85 on board a homeward-bound ship, and bade them a farewell, which proved to be for five long years. The distinct object in view Avas a central station in tlie continent, where a mission might be planted, from which Christian influence could radiate the entire land. For such an end, he gladly braved the fore- seen hardships and perils and endured a long forfeiture of the sweet society of the dearest friends of earth. He left the Cape in the lumbering wagon drawn by ten oxen. The companions were "two Christian Bechuanas from Kuruman, two Bakwain men, and two young girls who had come from Kolobeng as nurses for the children, and were now returning." The party in such stylo would be a novel sight indeed for many who read these pages. Think of starting in such fashion from New York to St. Louis ; imagine the strange forests ; see ever and anon the animals which we look on with wonder through grated bars walking freely across the plains, or bound- ing through thick jungles. Where our towns and cities are, let there be only larger or smaller clusters of queer-looking huts of mud and straw ; for the fashionable belles and gallants of our communities think of nude and dusky beings, adorned only wuth odd-looking ornaments of rude metals. But we cannot imagine the thing. This journey of Livingstone, destined to stretch across the whole continent, lay first along the centre of the promontory, inclining a little eastward. Nearer the capital the inhabitanits are mainly of Dutch and French descent. Africa too has been an asylum from religions persecution. God has allowed his people to be driven forth "into all the world." After two hundred years on this shore the people are hardly changed; they are honest, industrious farmers, who have made a sterile region moderately fruitful, though to the eye of our traveller it was uninviting. There were no trees crowning the dark brown hills, and the plains looked like the promises of a desert. The names of the places which the party passed indicated that in some other time there were buifalo and elands and elephants roaming over this region. They have fled from the approach of civilization. These farmers devote most of their attention to herds and flocks, and the climate is peculiarly favorable to their choice ; though, after you leave the Cape some distance, SQ EFFECTS OF TEACHING. there is a wide belt of country which opposes an almost unsur- mouiitable barrier to the introduction of horses into the remoter or central districts. Just before the party reached the Orange river, which crossed their route some three hundred miles from Cape Town, the monotony of the journey was relieved by a vast herd of spring- bucks, which seemed to be moving away from the Kalahari desert. These animals are said to feed sometimes in herds which exceed forty thousand head. Spreading over vast ex- panses, their quivering motion and tossing antlers present a view of singular beauty. Across the Orange, they passed through the territory of the Griquas — a mixed race, sprung of Dutch and Hottentot parents. That famous chieftain who behaved so nobly toward the colony, a Christian man of whom much is said in " Moffat's Scenes and I/abors in South Africa," ruled these people. Among these Griquas there are many Bechuanas living, and both the races have received much benefit from Christian teaching. Dr. Livingstone was a little disappointed in their lives. It is diffi- cult for even those who spend many years among the heathen to judge them fairly. It is hardly to be expected that persons brought out of such degradation to Christ should immediately assume the proportions and symmetry which we expect of Christian character in our land. Christianity has done much for them. The Bechuana mission has thrown over the whole section the air of civilization, and made Kuruman a retreat from the heathenism beyond. It found the Griqua woman clothed only with a bunch of leather strings hanging from her waist, and the skin of an antelope thrown over her shoulders ; the men were smeared over with a mixture of fat and ochre, with only a few square inches of leather for an apron * that \vas their wardrobe. Christianity has clothed these people and induced them to attend religious meetings regularly. It has given a Sabbath to the people which they respect. Surely, though we may not compare them with the societies at home, we may not despise the results which missionary efforts have accomplished. At Kuruman Dr. Livingstone spent some time with his venerable father-in-law, who had been at that time thirty-five THE BECIIUAXA LANGUAGE. 87 years in Africa. lie had at last completed the translation of the Bible into the language of the Bechuanas, and was carrying it through the press. He found no written language to begin his undertaking with ; he had first to produce that, then accomplish the translation. The work reveals something. of uncommon interest. This language possesses wonderful copi- ousness, and yet provides for the expression of the Pentateuch in fewer words than the Greek Septuagint, and makes a much smaller volume than our English version. During the delay at Kuruman they were surprised and grieved by the coming of the wife of Sechele, reporting an attack of the Boers on the Bakwains, in which they fully gratified their cruelty and eagerness for plunder, and vented a little of their rage against the missionary work by robbing the house of Dr. Livingstone. This outrage of the Boers raised a new barrier. It had so terrified the Bakwains that not one could be found who would risk himself in the company of Livingstone; for besides their cruelties, the Boers had made furious threats against the man whom they charged with having taught the Bakwains to kill them. Only after considerable loss of time and much searching he succeeded in finding three servants, who he describes as being '' the worst possible specimens of those who imbibe the vices without the virtues of the Europeans." These, with a colored man named George Fleming, who was induced to go with him, made it possible to advance, and he left Kuruman on. the 20th of November, and skirted along the Kalahari as be- fore. This time there was an abundant crop of watermelons. This being the season just preceding the winter rains, the travellers were subjected to the peculiarly hot winds of the desert, which they escaped in former travels. The party reached the afflicted town of Sechele on the last day of 1852. No wonder that the heart of Livingstone was grieved with the spectacle. Never had he witnessed one so pitiable. The people were plunged in absolute misery. Little more could be done than to give them the sympathy of his full heart. These were the people among whom he had labored first. He had Kved in their midst. He had left them only when the inter- ference of the Boers rendered his work there entirely impracti- 88 LIOXS AND SERPENTS. cable. Sorrowfully enough he left them to follow the duty which called him again into the wilderness! He found the wells at Boatlanama and Lopepe all dry, and pressed on to Mashue, where there was delicious water. There is little which can interest a traveller when every step he takes is taken so anxiously ; but the country from Kuruman is thronging with all those forest monsters which have made the continent one of wonderful interest. By the very fountain of Lopepe a lioness once sprang upon the horse of Mr. Oswell, who, falling to the ground, was only saved by his faithful dogs. The hyena prowls among the forests ; the buffalo, the elephant, the giraffe, the zebra, the tiger, all are here. All about Mashue great numbers of mice trace their subterranean homes, or raise the odd-looking little haycocks, against the inclement season. Occasionally as they went they found a beautiful tortoise, whose hard shell is its secure castle even under the teeth of the lion, and a bid for covetousness to all who love the beautifu] ornaments which they afford. All about Mashue there are great numbers of serpents. These are associated in every mind with the very word Africa. The saying, " Familiarity breeds contempt," applies to them. A residence in this country overcomes that terror which these gliding, coiling enemies inspire in regions where they are seldom seen. They are death on rats. To kill tlie rats is to be free of snakes. There a cat is a household trea^ire. Some of these reptiles are fearfully venomous. The pecakliolu is a species peculiarly so. They are sometimes eight or ten feet long ; and even when its head has been cut off, the fangs have been known to 'distil clear poison for hours. The nogo-put-sone, or serpent of a kid, is a sort of puff-adder which imitates with wonderful exactness the bleating of that animal ; and, unquestionably, the uplifted head, the wicked, glassy eyes, the darting tongue of the cobra, is calculated to suggest very serious reflections on death and antidotes. Livingstone in this journey found the Bamangwato chief Sekomi particularly friendly. All of these Bechuana tribes south of the Zambesi practice circumcision, and the ceremony is attended witii singular severities. The young gentlemen are subjected to severe whippings, which leave their backs scarred MR. GORDON CUMMINGS. 91 and seamed with fearful wounds ; to which ordeal they must add the exploit of killing an hippopotamus before they are called men and permitted to marry a wife. There may be a worthy lesson in this for more enlightened people ; for truly there can hardly be fitness for tlie responsibilities of life before one is in gome way trained to endure, or dares to do. Among these tribes another singular fact is, that no one knows his age, but measures his life only by the initiations into the national rites which he has witnessed. The Bamangvvato hills, in whose shadow the party passed along, rising nearly a thousand feet above the plain — vast masses of black basalt — are scarred and split and everywhere present the traces of volcanic action. The soil lying in the in- terstices relieves the barrenness of the lava marks with pleasant foliage. All along were seen the chinks and cavities formed by the broken masses, which, slipping down, have caught and hang piled against each other, forming wild refuges for the natives in time of war. Twenty miles beyond the Baraangwato the party reached Mr. Cummiugs' farthest station north. This gentleman outranked, by far, all hunters in Africa, and many a wild and thrilling story is in his book, which has aroused the Nimrod spirit in tlie breast of youth. But the chase along our meadows and river banks of the bounding buck or cunning fox is a poor prepara- tion for the terrific charge of an infuriated elephant: shrieking like a steam-whistle, his proboscis high in air, his dread-in- spiring tusks gleaming awfully, his enormous tread shaking the earth, he rushes on, trampling under foot every opposing thing; he must have nerve who stands, and skill who escapes. Beyond Letlachi they entered on a plain, where, for sixty miles, there was no water. Feeding here and there were seen vast herds of elands, and frequently they saw the silly ostrich. Hardly any occupant of these wilds engages a deeper interest. Its very folly is entertaining; the traveller pities and laughs, to see the creature, though fully a mile away, in extreme alarm rushing straight toward him. The poor bird seems to suspect that every passer-by is trying to circumvent him, and so invariably seeks safety by rushing across the path, frequently only a few yards or rods before the oxen. "With enormous 5 92 WRETCHED lG^'ORA^•CE. strides and astonishing rapidity of motion, it rivals the fleetest horses in its race for life, while its feet are used with remarkable dexterity in warding off the dogs. Its splendid coat of glossy black, and white-tipped wings, flash in the sunshine, as it runs, with peculiar beauty. Its quick and far-reaching vision consti- tutes this singular individual the sentinel of the plains, and its timely alarm is the signal for a general stampede of all the game in sight. About the wells of Motlatsa are clustered the homes of numerous Bakalahari, who, though kindly disposed, and willing enough to hear the missionar}', were yet so wretchedly ignorant and dcifraded, so driven by the wants of their poor bodies, that Livingstone was compelled to fall back only on the great de- signs of infinite compassion and sovereign grace for support in his labors among them ; repeatedly, as he was in their midit, hardly an appreciable effect was observed. It was almost impossible for these poor creatures to restrain their amusement when he would kneel down to pray. They saw no God, and the idea of talking to an unseen being was ridiculous to them. Some of these tribes are absolutely wanting in the remotest approaches to music, and are wild with laughter if singing is begun in their presence. Yet these lacings believe in a God. Is it instinct, or the tuition of the Spirit of the Highest, which instructs them to refer every inexplicable occurrence to a Supreme Being? They believe that there is a God ; they do not understand that they may approach him. The missionaries among the Bechuana tribes and the Caffres have found no idols, no places of worship, no prayer of any sort. The idea of an altar must be given them ; feeling that an Unseen has to do with them, they have no sort of conception of that Unseen which justifies their acting with the slightest regard for it. From these wells the journey of Livingstone lay toward Nchokotsa, along the dry bed of the Mokoko. This is the region of the salt pans again, and every fountain reminds the traveller of the fact. Ijivingstone records that on one of the Halt i)ans passed in this trip there was a cake of salt an inch and a half in thickness. All along, just in the edge of this desert, are large flocks of bheep and goats, the treasures of the Bamangwato. The rich LAND OP CUMMINGS' FAMOUS HUNTS T5AKALAHARI FKAST WANT AND TENDERNESS. 95 or, a curd produced from the milk of goats is held in high fov,.x, « fit dish for kings indeed; for even among these poor heathen on this dead level, as we may think, of human nabure, there are distinctions, marked hy matters as trifling as ever serve to define the borders of classes in civilized societj. The rich master of a flock of these goats, rejoicing in his palatable dish of curd-porridgo, is heard to say scornfully of his poor neighbor, *' he is a water-porridge man." They are no better than civil- izecl people in this matter; and with all our gifts, we can never claim to have planted the spirit of aristocracy even in Africa. It is there now, heathendom though it be, as night. At Nchokotsa the party found worse for bad. They left salt and purgative waters at Orapa; to turn again from a filthier draught, to j^ause ?t Nchokotsa wells, was to mock the thirst their bitter, nitrate waters could not quench. At Koobe mat- ters were hardly more promising; but it was only a promise, and might prove worthy. It was a dreary picture. There is romance in it viewed from our easy chairs ; but a wide flat country, over which a white sultry glare spreads, relieved only by herds of scorched zebras and gnus, with here a.id there a thirsty buffalo standing with famished gaze bent toward the wells, which offer to them only mud— the recent wallow of a huge rhinoceros— it is hardly a landscape to charm an eye- witness whose supply of water is spent. The well at Koobe was that rhinoceros wallow. Livingstone paused there for water for men and oxen, and looked about on that withered sweltering scene. They could hardly clear a space in the dirty mortar m which the oozing beverage might be collected. And there were some days lost from their progress in waitinc^ on this slow fountain, before the oxen could be satiated. ** Some men would have what they might have called fine sport shooting the animals, whose thirst— greater than their timidity —held them close about the fascinating sjwt. But Livingstone was no hunter. He wa-s a nobler type of man. There wts too much of the spirit of Him who guideth the sparrow's wing and feedeth the ravens to have pleasure in killing anything. He did not scruple to shoot an animal for food, but to kill them for the sport-he would not. The kindness of his heart w:« manifested in the tender sympathy which refused even to pro- 96 MOWANA THEES. vide needed food by taking advantage of the desperate tameness of the herds which gathered in easj range of the well. It ought to be so always. Whoever goes forth in civilized or heathen lands to represent Christ in presenting his gospel ought to be animated with his wonderful spirit of tenderness. It is not mean to bo touched by the woes of a dog. It is mag- nanimous to respect the helplessness of a worm. Quitting this scene, the party pressed northward across the great Ntwetwe pan, and rested under the shade of one of the magnificent mowana trees which rise loftily all over this broad area of calcareous tufa, with its slight carpet of soil. The tree under whose branches they rested, three feet from the ground, was eighty-five feet in circumference. In all the forests and plains of the continent nothing equals the wonderful vitality of these mowana trees. Livingstone declared that lie "would back one of them against a dozen floods." It does not yield its life to the decay within or the injuries without. It grows on and wears its crown of foliage as proudly when the capacious cavities within offer shelter to men and beasts as when its heart was firm and healthful. It may have its coat of bark stripped off year by year, and year by year it somehow weaves another coat and wraps itself anew. The flames may twine about it and sear and blacken it: it will not die. Dr. Livingstone testifies that he saw one which continued growing in length, even after it had been cut down, while it lay stretched upon the ground. There is only one thing to be done with them ; that 13, let them alone. The natives say, the " lightning hates it,** and decline even the favor of its shade. From this resting-place, travelling a few miles, the party reached Rapesh, where the inevitable Bushmen were found again. Their chief was Horoye, and he headed a nobler class of men, better specimens in every respect than their namesakes of the desert; a jovial set, who love to live, and decline to follow their departed friends "just yet," although they recog- nize a future state. They love the hunting-ground of the present, and their country flows abundantly with water ; that is enough for them. These men stand for courageous, because they kill elephants. But nowhere in Africa do the natives exhibit such courage in hunting as is displayed by their civil- MIDNIGHT VISITOR. 97 ized visitors. The Bushmen are more expert in handling llieir peculiar weapons, because they have had long training; but if it is a question of coolncas, of quietly approaching a iresh strong elephant, the civilized man always astonishes the native by his apparent recklessness. Indeed, it seems to be the testi- mony of history that pure courage is in the ratio of moral culture. Animals lower than man, and savage men, may be ferocious; civilized man presents the noblest models of courage. Spending a Sunday at Maila, our party passed on, to be in- vigorated by the freshness and lifefulness at Unku. YVe may imagine, if we can, the relief. For the dreary barrenness of Koobe, there were now spread all around the tall grass waving in the breezes like fields of golden grain, all the various flowers blooming splendidly, and everywhere the twittering of birds kept memorial of the rain which had revived the scene ; while the game, independent of mean wells, keeping a good distance, despised the harmless guns of the invader. Surely it is almost worth an experience in the desert to have the surprise and de- light of coming again to a world of life and beauty and joy. But it was hot. On the ground the thermometer marked 125"^ ! The water, on the surface, stood at 100° ; dipped from the bot- tom, it was pleasant. This was in March, 1853. Livingstone had left Kuruman in November, and was now some six hundi'ed miles on his journey, though passing mainly through familiar places. Passing on through a dense, bushy tract, cutting their way with axes, the party were suddenly arrested . by an enemy ever lurking on the footsteps of travellers passing through this region: four of the party were down with fever, which, in three days, had seized every one of the party excei)t one Bakwain and Dr. Livingstone. While lying in this place nursing the sick, one night a hyena appeared in the high grass, and frightened the oxen so terribly that every one of them rushed away into the forests. The trusty servant had followed them, and after an absence of several days, with no other guide than his instinct, came driving up the whole herd of forty oxen. The progress now, burdened with the sick and annoyed with the convales- cent, obliged to cut a way through the closely wedged trees, be- came exceedingly laborious; but good health backed the never- flinching spirit of Livingstone. They were in the 18th degree of 98 SPLENDID COUNTRY. latitude. The forests became more and more formidable. The privilege of almost every step must be paid for by valiant ser- vice with the axe. The man Fleming was vanquished, and could go no farther. Livingstone pressed on. The heavy rains had loaded the thick foliage overhead, and the blows of the axe brought a continual shower-bath. Again they were subjected to the annoyance of a stampede of the oxen ; this time a lion did the mischief. The lions in the region through which the party was now passing are held in check by the poisoned arrows of the Bushmen. As this poison is referred to frequently, it may be interesting for the reader to know that it is " the entrails of the caterpillar called N'gwa ; the Bushmen squeeze out these, and place them all around the bottom of the barb, and allow them to dry in the sun. The effect of this poison on men and beasts is alike terrible, driving them to a perfect frenzy. The Bushmen told Dr. Livingstone their way of curing the poison was to give the wounded man the caterpillar itself, mixed with fat, saying, the N'gwa wants fat, and when it does not find it in the body kills the man ; we give it what it wants, and it is content." Possibly these despised Bushmen may dispute the honor yet for the glory of Plomceopathy. At length they came to the first hill they had seen since leaving the Bamangwato. It was N'gwa. They had struggled across quite three hundred miles of distressingly flat country, exchanging only almost insufferable deserts for almost impassa- ble forests, each in turn only two or three times refreshed by anything like beauty. How joyously now the hero looked down on the picturesque valley which wrapped the base of the hill! a beautiful stream was flowing along the glade, across which the shadows of stately trees blended ; gnus and zebras and antelopes stood gazing on the strangers; a splendid white rhinoceros moved across the stage indifferently as a lord, while dark- .visaged buffaloes stood about quietly under the trees. The Sab- bath seemed to be kept by nature, all was so peaceful. They were now literally surrounded with wild beasts; the roar of the lion was continually in their ears; koodoos and the giraffe were frcfincntly in view. The wilderness was real, but as they advanced became more and more beautiful. The green grass, THE giraff: LINVANTI ON THE CHOBE. 101 higher than the wagons ; the splendid vines, hanging richly and gracefully among the trees, as if arranged by — they were arranged by the hand of God ! Small rivers crossed their way continually. When he reached the Sanshureh, he met trouble enough to dishearten any ordinary raan. He was an extraordinary man. This new barrier met them in latitude 18° 4' 27" S., longitude 24° 6' 20" E. In vain they sought a ford ; they sought east and west ; everywhere the same deep flood met them as they reached the terminus of the rank undergrowth through which they were splashing in water from ankk-deep to the arm-pits. Everywhere the river was broad and deep ; everywhere there was a wall of reeds resisting its approach through an inundated swamp. Heartily wearied, the bold explorer, with a single companion, pushed out a small boat upon the stream, and, leaving the wagons, went floating down tiie stream until he dropped among the astonished inhabitants of a Makololo town like one from the clouds. In the boat he had passed the confluence of the river, and was now on the western bank of the Chobe, in the land of friends. By the kindness of these Makololo of Moremi, they were assisted to bring the oxen and wagons across. This brought them almost upon the route of 1851. It was now the 23d of May, 1853. They were at Linyanti, the capital of the Makololo region, among the people of Sebituane. CHAPTER IV. NINE WEEKS WITH SEKELETU. Aruival at Linyanti — Makololo — Their Policy — Welcome to Livingstone — Sekeletu — African Hospitality — Ma-mochisane's Difficulty — Livingstone re- fuses to Trade^His Labors — Makololo Ideas of Beauty — Manliness — Justice — Livingstone's Journey to the Barotse — The Soil along the Chobe — The Party — Receptions — Sekeletu loves Colfee — Huts and Hats — The Leeainbye — Animals about Katonga— The Splendid River — The Makalaka— The Contrast — Cattle and War — Rapids — Cataracts — Falls — No Monuments in Africa — The Barotse Valley — Fertility— Mounds — Punishment — War Averted— The first White Man — To the Leeba — No place for a Mission — The Wildest of all — Lin- yanti again — For Loanda — Serious Thoughts — Resolution — Outfit for Jour- ney— November 11th, 18.53 — Escape from an Elepliant — The Hipjiopotamus — The Scenery on the Chobe — Arrival at Sesheke. That was a great day in Linyanti, that 23(1 day of May. The capital of the Makololo had never witnessed such a sight. The wagons were a phenomenon entirely new. The people remembered Livingstone as the friend of Sebituane ; they asso- ciated his coming with ideas of increasing greatness. It seemed like the hand of the great outside world reaching through the barriers of wilderness and distance, eager in congratulation and warm with brotherly love. They were glad. The nearer tribes had beaten back the light from the dwellers in the Chobe marshes for many years ; now it was breaking through, and found a people ready to rejoice in its blessings. The Makololo are the most northern of the Bechuanas, and, under the wise and warlike Sebituane, had become a powerful nation ; the other chieftains had acknowledged the greatness of this man, and accorded him the respect winch they feared to withhold if they had desired to do so. The Makololo had conquered the whole country to the 14° S. latitude, and were scattered thinly over their broad domain, giving a name and laws to the tribes among whom their individual identity was almost lost. The territory which Sebituane had selecte