CHAPTER XXXIII 



Livingstone's Journey Across Africa 



THE journey which had ended successfully at Loanda, in spite 

 of numerous physical difficulties and the extortion and hos- 

 tility of certain chiefs, had not fulfilled all Livingstone had 

 hoped. The country he had discovered was highly injurious to the 

 health of Europeans, and could not therefore be regarded as suitable 

 for the great mission center ever before his eyes; and the difficulties 

 of the route precluded its proving an easy and safe highroad from the 

 interior of the continent to the sea. He had still before him the dis- 

 covery of these two necessities for the development and evangelization 

 of the natives, and to a man of Livingstone's intense conscientiousness 

 this discovery appeared in the light of an immediate duty. Moreover, 

 his faithful ]\Likololo, who had accom])anicd him for so many hundreds 

 of miles to the shores of the great sea, and who had looked upon the 

 white man's "canoe" in the shajie of a British war-vessel, and had 

 declared it to be *'no canoe, but a town" — these men could not be 

 allowed to find their way back to Linyanti. Their leader must takf 

 them himself. 



In the meanwhile, however, that leader was prostrated by a severe 

 attack of fever, lying for long weeks on a bed of sickness, though 

 carefully tended by his fellow-countryman, Mr. Gabriel. On hi"^ 

 recovery, Livingstone set about acknowledging the many kindnesses 

 that had been shown him by the Portuguese authorities, and investi- 

 gating the state of aflfairs in Loanda and Angola, and the real policy 

 of the government. 



The trade in slaves, of which, as he had drawn nearer and nearer 

 to the coast, he had met increasing traces as well as proofs, was the 

 uppermost idea in his mind. Despite the hospitality and personal 

 courtesy of the Portuguese he encountered at Loanda, he could not 

 but see that the a ttitude of hostility to the slave trade which they had 



(JM) 



