Bidding farewell to Sekeletu, who left 114 men to continue the journey, Livingstone struck out through dense forests and over vast plains, beside mighty rivers and amongst savage tribes, to Tette, a Portuguese settlement. Frequently upon the journey he was surrounded by the people, greeting him with wild cries and gesticulations, fearing that he was one of the Portuguese slave-dealers; but when he disclaimed being a Portuguese, or having anything to do with the slave trade, they said, "Then you must be one of the tribe that loves the black man." And when at length he reached Tette, the slaves themselves hailed him with rejoicing, crying, "This is our brother who has come amongst us." Surely the heart of that brave messenger of the Gospel of goodwill towards men must have leapt with joy when he heard this greeting.

On the 26th May, 1856, just four years after he set out from the Cape, Livingstone arrived at Quilimane (or Kilimane), and after waiting here for six weeks, embarked in H.M. brig Frolic for the Mauritius. It was painful to part with the faithful Makololo, some of whom he left at Tette, while the rest came on to Quilimane, but all, by order of their chief, were to remain where they were until the traveller should return, bringing MaRobert with him. Sekwelu and one other native attendant pleaded so hard to accompany the traveller across the sea that he consented to take them, but not until he had fully represented what lay before them. "You will die if you go to so cold a country as mine," said Livingstone. "That is nothing," replied the faithful Sekwelu, "let me die at your feet." It would have been better if he had been left behind, for it was not long before his loss was mourned. Everything was so new and strange the poor fellow got crazed and bewildered, and one day, in a fit of insanity, he leapt into the sea and perished.

Thus terminated Livingstone's first great journey, and the hardships he endured are but a sample of those he suffered on each succeeding expedition. A glance at a map will show the relative positions of Linyanti, Loanda, and the mouths of the Zambesi, but the cost of labour and energy necessary to the laying down of those few lines on the map is incalculable. Difficulties attended almost every step of the way: rivers had to be crossed, waterless deserts to be traversed, districts infested with malaria to be passed; scenes of cruelty in connection with the slave trade, which the noble-hearted traveller was impotent to check, had to be witnessed; the cattle died from the fatal bite of the tsetse fly; food ran short, so that they were obliged to subsist at times on frogs, moles, or locusts; and in addition there was the frequently recurring plague of fever, which affected the traveller not only bodily but mentally.

Livingstone's return to England was hailed with delight by his family and friends. and the country at large; for four years no word had come from him, and many had given him up as lost for ever. To such he came as from the dead; while to the large majority of people whose knowledge of geography was meagre, his long sojourn in the wilds of Africa was altogether inexplicable. His friend, Sir Roderick Murchison, the President of the Royal Geographical Society, invited him to lay before the public an account of his travels at one of the meetings of the society. Livingstone was no boaster, no self-sufficient egotist, but he felt it as a part of his mission to tell the simple facts connected with his explorations, as by so doing he could advance the cause to which he had devoted his life, otherwise he would gladly have held his peace. The narrative of

this wonderful journey was received with intense interest, and so persistent was the craving for further information that the publication of his journal was demanded, and to this fresh labour he devoted himself with untiring zeal, producing a book which, if not perfect in literary excellence, was at least perfect in this respect, that it bore on every page the mark of an honest, zealous, modest, and truth-speaking traveller.

A strange contrast was the life of the present with the life of the past. He came out from the wilds of uncivilised Africa to be hailed by the highest and noblest in the land as the great discoverer and philanthropist of the age. The Geographical Societies of London and Paris awarded him their gold medals; our great national universities conferred upon him the honorary degrees of LL.D. and D.C.L., and the people everywhere delighted to do him honour. But amid all the laudation of his heroic exploits in the field of discovery, Livingstone never forgot that his great mission was to open up a pathway which should be made bright by the light of the Gospel, and to use every effort in his power to break the fetters which enthralled the slave. To this end he obtained the assistance of Lord Palmerston, at that time at the head of the Administration, who caused a mission to be organised, having for its object the introduction of British manufactures and the development of the resources of the country. Under the immediate auspices of Lord Clarendon the mission was formed and an equipment provided, including a small steamer, constructed of steel, for river navigation, called the Ma-Robert.

Only two years did Livingstone tarry in England, and during that time his labours were not less herculean than those he had performed in Africa, although in a widely different sphere. Bidding farewell to kindred and friends, he left England in March, 1858, in H.M.S. Pearl, accompanied by his brother, Charles Livingstone, Dr. Kirk, and Mr. R. Thornton, as assistants in taking scientific observations, collecting objects of natural history, and otherwise aiding in the conduct of the expedition. At Cape Town, Mr. F. Skead, R.N., joined them as surveyor, and they proceeded round to the east coast, which was reached in May.

The first result of this expedition was the discovery of a serious geographical error respecting the mouth of the Zambesi. What had hitherto been considered the main outlet proved to be a different river altogether, and unnavigable, so that the British cruisers for the suppression of slave traffic had been watching and waiting in vain, while the trade was in full vigour at the real mouth of the river, sixty miles off, its existence having been purposely concealed by the Portuguese Government. As the cost to our country for these cruisers amounted to £70,000 a year, the expedition, if it had made no further discoveries, would have been eminently successful; but in addition to this it brought forth from Livingstone the manliest and most noble protest against the inhuman trade, and its prosecution by a so-called Christian people, which led to splendid results in the future. The Ma-Robert then commenced her voyage to Tette, where, it will be remembered, Livingstone had left his Makololo attendants. These faithful fellows, as soon as they recognised their "white father," rushed into the water, each eager to be first to embrace him, and manifesting intense joy at his return. But they had to learn with regret that Livingstone's wife was not with him, and that their chief, Sekwelu, was no more. They, too, had doleful news to tell, for of the company Livingstone had left behind, thirty had died of small-pox, and six had been killed by a wanton chief named Bonga.

Nevertheless, they sang a song of welcome to the travellers, and buried their sorrows in the saying, "It is the common lot to die."

The explorers then proceeded to Kebrabasa, and there, as elsewhere, they discovered that the little steamer Ma-Robert was a very pretty toy, but not at all suitable to their requirements; her furnaces being badly constructed, and other causes combining to make her unsuitable. From the manner in which she laboured over her work she obtained the

name of the Asthmatical. After visiting the falls of Kebrabasa, the expedition descended the Zambesi, and then proceeded up the Shire, a northern tributary, whose surface was so covered with duckweed and other aquatic plants that the Portuguese, who were masters of all that region round about, had given up its navigation as hopeless. But not so Livingstone; he turned the head of his little steamer into those waters which no European had ever navigated, defying alike the poisoned arrows of the Maganja and other deadly perils. A conflict with these natives would at one time have been inevitable but for the consummate presence of mind of the missionary.

A chief named Tingane, with 500 men, assembled on the bank of the river, and

LIVINGSTONE'S PARTY THREATENED.

85

called upon the party to stop; at the same time the men behind the trees covered the explorers with their arrows. Tingane was under the impression that they were Portuguese

in search of slaves, and in order to dissipate this notion, Livingstone, without showing the least sign of alarm, stepped ashore, and walking through the midst of the savages, who were yelling with excitement and frantically gesticulating, he calmly explained to the chief that he was English, and had come, not to take slaves or to fight, but to open

up a peaceful pathway for commerce in cotton or anything else they might have to sell, except their fellow-creatures. The open-heartedness of Livingstone, together with his fearlessness, soon had the desired effect, and chieftain and people were pacified.

After ascending for 200 miles, the further progress of the steamer was stopped by a series of magnificent cataracts, to which the name of Murchison, after the distinguished President of the Royal Geographical Society, was given. Livingstone returned to these cataracts a few months later on, and then, leaving the vessel at a village under the rule of a chief named Chibisa, who was friendly, proceeded on foot to the Lake Shirwa, which they found to be a fine sheet of water, averaging twenty miles wide, with high mountains on the eastern shore.

It was while they were here that Livingstone heard of a sheet of water away to the north, in comparison with which Lake Shirwa was as nothing. He determined, of course, to find out what this was; and a party of forty-two, including the Doctor and his three assistants, two guides, and thirty-six Makololo, all armed with muskets, traversed the Maganja Mountains without meeting with any serious opposition from the much dreaded natives, until, a little before noon on the 16th September, 1859, they were rewarded, and more than rewarded, for all their toil by discovering the Lake Nyassa. Undoubtedly they were the first Europeans who had ever gazed upon that magnificent sheet of water, now familiar to us by the extended explorations of other travellers. Curiously enough, two months after the day when Livingstone gazed upon the lake it was Roscher, the enterprising German, who on his way back to Rovuma was murdered by the natives.

seen by Dr.

Livingstone did not tarry to make an exploration of the lake, but remembering his promise to take the Makololo back to their own country, and to take to Sekeletu the merchandise he promised to bring him from England, he set off for that purpose, and on his arrival at Sesheke found his old friend afflicted with leprosy, and weak in body and mind-ashamed to show himself among his people, and unable to restrain them by precept or example. Sekeletu's joy at once more greeting the white father knew no bounds; the presents bewildered him with delight, and the medicines which the worthy doctor administered assisted materially in alleviating his bodily sufferings.

To be up and doing was the mission of the great missionary, and therefore, after a short stay at Sesheke, he took his departure for the coast. During the canoe journey on the Zambesi a rapid was entered without previous survey, when the large waves of the mid-current dashed over the gunwale of the boat in which the great explorer sat, which would have capsized with him and the baggage but for the faithfulness and fearlessness of two of the natives, who jumped overboard, and holding on to either gunwale, succeeded in guiding the canoe to safety. At a later date a similar danger befell Dr. Kirk, but with more disastrous results, for in his case the boat was capsized, and all his drawings, MSS., and instruments lost for ever.

At the Kongone mouth of the Zambesi, on the 31st January, 1861, our indefatigable explorer met with the Pioneer, which had been sent by the British Government to replace the Asthmatical in an exploration of the Rovuma river. At the same time came two of H.M. cruisers, bringing Bishop Mackenzie at the head of the Universities' Mission to the