THE LIYINGSTONIA MISSION. 



93 



on them. There is one thing they are very fond of 

 doing, and that is, gathering themselves together 

 to one place, talking and drinking pombe, i. e., 

 native beer — of course, men only ; the women do 

 not take part in these proceedings. Smoking is 

 a common habit among them ; even women and 

 very little boys smoke, and if they would confine 

 themselves to tobacco it would not matter much ; 

 but they have a very pernicious habit of smoking 

 hemp and bangue, which produces a kind of intox- 

 ication — an hysterical fit I should be inclined to 

 call it ; but the effect it produces, be it what it 

 may, seems to be very pleasant, for they practise 

 the habit most pertinaciously, though it produces 

 a severe fit of coughing, which is most painful 

 to hear, if not to experience. The women, like 

 the men, are well formed, and of a good height. 

 They seem quite contented and happy, though 

 undoubtedly they do the most work ; "till, they 

 are not in any way ill-used by the men. The 

 features of most of the elderly women are disfig- 

 ured by tattoo-marks, and the hideous lip-ring, 

 or pilele ; I say the elder women, for I am happy 

 to say that the younger women are not adopting 

 the foolish fashion of wearing the pilele, though 

 most undergo the tattooing operation. 



" Industries. — These are chiefly iron manu- 

 factured into various stages, in which they have 

 reached a considerable degree of perfection. 

 Basket-making. — In this I would say they have 

 reached perfection, but then I am not a compe- 

 tent judge. Cloth-Manufacture. — In this trade 

 their attainments are of no mean order, both as 

 regards cloth manufactured from the bark of 

 trees or that from cotton. Of these I will give 

 you more details in a future letter, when I will 

 also speak of their habits, houses, food, and other 

 matters that may prove of interest." 



The following letter is from the leader of the 

 expedition, Dr. Stewart, to Mr. Dunn : 



"Livingstoxia, Lake Nyassa, 



"■February 27, 1877. 

 " Since I wrote you in December, I am glad 

 to be able to say that things here have been 

 going on well, nothing of any consequence of an 

 untoward kind having occurred, while there is 

 much to be thankful for. There have been a few 

 cases of fever, mostly slight, and lasting only a 

 day or two. With this exception, and that of 

 a chronic case which improves but slowly, the 

 health of the party is fairly good ; we cannot ex- 

 pect, in latitude 14° in Central Africa, the robust 

 vigor and energy we enjoy in latitude 80° or 50°. 



" During the last few weeks, or since the be- 

 ginning of this year, Livingstonia seems to have 

 taken a start, and begun to grow in one of the 

 directions we specially wish it to grow — as an 

 antislavery centre. There were very few people 

 actually settled here in 1876: up to October, at 

 least, not a dozen. Since then, some five or six 

 parties, the smallest numbering from one or two 

 up to twenty-two, have come seeking the pro- 

 tection of the English. The story of these twen- 

 ty-two is this : A man arrived here in the middle 

 of the night, in the fragments of a large canoe, in 

 which I feel certain no white man would venture 

 one hundred yards from the shore, yet it appears 

 that he had been part of the two days and Dights 

 in this crazy affair. He had slept on the sand all 

 night, and made his appearance in the station 

 about six in the morning. He was in a woful 

 condition, but told his story with directness, and 

 said he and twenty-one others were about to be 

 sold by Inpemba, a notorious slaver on the west- 

 ern shore of the lake ; that they saw the dhow 

 which had come, and having got information 

 from a friend, they fled in the night, in a large 

 canoe, and made for an island to the north ; that 

 their canoe had got broken on the rocks as they 

 landed, and he had come in the patched-up frag- 

 ments to ask the assistance and protection of the 

 English ; that there were twenty-one men, wom- 

 en, and children, on the island. There was not 

 much time for delay or consideration — they had 

 nothing to eat, and no means of getting away. 

 We accordingly got up steam in the Ilala, and, 

 taking the fugitive for our guide, made for the 

 island, which we reached about one o'clock. We 

 approached it cautiously, partly on account of the 

 rocks, and partly because I was not sure whether 

 he might not be leading us into some trap, 

 though I have never uttered that opinion till 

 now; but a little doubt in such circumstances, 

 and with new men, is wholesome. The natives 

 saw us, though we did not first see them, as the 

 trees come down to the water's edge. He shout- 

 ed, and they replied. We sent off the boat, and 

 shortly had all of them on board. There they 

 certainly were — twenty-two men, women, and 

 children. They had only a few hoes, the bows 

 and arrows usually carried by the natives, a little 

 maize in a calabash, and a few wild roots gath- 

 ered on the island. We got up the anchor and 

 steamed off, arriving at the station at sunset ; 

 and the Fugitive-Slave Circular never crossed my 

 mind till I sat down to write this. On the con- 

 trary, as we made rapid way homeward over the 

 glassy lake, on a very fine afternoon, I thought the 



