1864.] LECTURE BY DR. LIVINGSTONE. 387 



tains, and from these furious storms come suddenly down and raise 

 high seas, -which are dangerous for a boat, but the native canoes are 

 formed so as to go easily along the surface. The apparent mountains 

 on the west were ascended last year, and found to be only the 

 edges of a great plateau, 3,000 feet above the sea. This is cool, 

 well watered, and well peopled with the Manganja and the Maori, 

 some of whom possess cattle ; and I have no doubt but that, the first 

 hardships over, ahd properly housed and fed, Europeans would enjoy 

 life and comfort. This part of Africa has exactly the same form 

 as Western India at Bombay, only this is a little higher and 

 cooler. Well, having now a fair way into the highlands by means of 

 the Zambesi and Shire, and a navigable course of river and lake, 

 of two miles across, which all the slaves from the Red Sea and the 

 Persian Gulf, as well as some for Cuba took, and nearly all the 

 inhabitants of this densely-peopled country actually knowing how 

 to cultivate cotton, it seemed likely that their strong propensity to 

 trade might be easily turned to the advantage of our own country 

 as well as theirs. And here I beg to remark that on my first jour- 

 ney, my attention not having then been turned to the subject, I 

 noticed only a few cases of its cultivation, but on this I saw much 

 more than I had previously any idea of. The cotton is short in 

 the staple, strong, and like wool in the hand — as good as upland 

 American. A second variety has been introduced, as is seen in the 

 name, being foreign cotton, and a third of very superior quality, 

 very long in the fibre, though usually believed to belong to South 

 America, was found right in the middle of the continent in the 

 country of the Makololo. A tree of it was eight inches in diameter, 

 or like an ordinary apple-tree. And all these require planting not 

 oftener than once in three years. There is no danger of frosts, 

 either, to injure the crops. No sooner, however, had we begun 

 our labors among the Manganja than the African Portuguese, by 

 instigating the Ajawa, with arms and ammunition, to be paid for in 

 slaves, produced the utmost confusion. Village after village was 

 attacked and burnt ; for the Manganja, armed only with bows and ar- 

 rows, could not stand before firearms. The bowman's way of fight- 

 ing is to be in ambush, and to shoot his arrows unawares, while 

 those with guns, making a great noise, cause the bowmen to run 

 away. The women and children become captives. This process 

 of slave-hunting went on for some months, and then a panic seized 

 the Manganja nation. All fled down to the river, only anxious to 

 get that between them and their enemies ; but they had left all 



