GEOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 387 



been exhibited in the ulterior of Africa a worthy sequel to the stories of 

 Mungo Park, Burckhardt, Denham, Clapperton, and Lander. 



Dr. Livingston reached St. Paul de Loando, hi May, 1854, after a foot 

 journey of a thousand miles from his mission among the Bechuanas. He 

 remained at St. Loando until the close of the year, when he set out for the 

 unknown East. In March he arrived at Quillimane, where he was taken up 

 by a British man of war. On the way he traced the Lecambye down to the 

 Zambeze, thus demonstrating the existence in the centre of this unknown land 

 of a river some two thousand miles long. 



This immense stream, whose discovery is the great fruit of the journey, is 

 in itself an enigma without parallel. But a small portion of its waters reach the 

 seacoast. Like the Abyssinian Nile, it falls through a basaltic cleft, near the 

 middle of its course, which reduces its breadth from 1,000 to 20 yards. About 

 these falls it spreads out periodically into a great sea, filling hundreds of lateral 

 channels ; below it is a tranquil stream of a totally different character. Its 

 mouths seem to be closing. The southernmost was navigable when the Por- 

 tuguese first arrived in the country, 300 years ago, but it has long since ceased 

 to be practicable. The Quillimane mouth has of late years been impassable, 

 even for a canoe, from July to February, and for 200 or 300 miles up the river 

 navigation is never attempted in the dry season. And hi this very month of 

 July, when the lower portion of the river, after its April freshets, has shrunk 

 to a mere driblet, above the falls the river spreads out like a sea over hundreds 

 of square miles. This, with frequent cataracts, and the hostility of the natives, 

 would seem to be an effectual bar to all hopes of future trade and commerce. 



During this unprecedented march, alone and among savages, to whom a 

 white face was a miracle, Dr. Livingston was compelled to struggle through 

 indescribable hardships. The hostility of the natives he conquered by his 

 intimate knowledge of their character and the Bechuana tongue to which 

 theirs is related. He waded rivers and slept in the sponge and ooze of 

 marshes, being often so drenched as to be compelled to turn his armpit into a 

 watch pocket. His cattle were destroyed by the terrible tse-tse fly, and he 

 was too poor to purchase a canoe. Lions were numerous, being worshipped 

 by many of the tribes as the receptacles of the departed souls of their chiefs ; 

 dangerous too, as his crushed arm testifies. However he thinks the fear of 

 African wild beasts greater in England than in Africa. Many of his docu- 

 ments were lost while crossing a river in which he came near losing his life 

 also, but he has memoranda of the latitudes and longitudes of a multitude of 

 cities, towns, rivers, and mountains, which will go far to fill up the " unknown 

 region" hi our atlases. 



Toward the interior he found the country more fertile and more populous. 

 The natives worshipped idols, believed in transmigrated existence after death, 

 and performed religious ceremonies in groves and woods. They were less 

 ferocious and suspicious than the seaboard tribes, had a tradition of the deluge 

 and more settled governments. Some of them practised inoculation, and used 

 quinine, and all were eager for trade, being entirely dependent on English 

 calico for clothing, a small piece of which would purchase a slave. Their laii- 

 o-uage was sweet and expressive. Although their women, on the whole, were 



