CHAPTER XX. 



THE AWAKENING OF THE CENTRAL AFRICAN. 



" / go back to Africa to try and make an open 

 path for Christianity and commerce. Do you carry 

 out the work which I have begun. I leave it with 

 you" 



These were Dr. Livingstone's impressive words 

 to a representative assembly from Oxford and 

 Cambridge on December 4th, 1857, which inspired 

 his interested hearers to form the Universities 

 Mission. 



At this time the Shire Highlands were quite 

 unknown to Europeans. There were rumours of a 

 great lake named Marawi, to be called subsequently 

 Nyasa, which is a Yao word meaning water; but 

 the Portuguese, who had been three centuries in 

 Africa, had never ventured so far inland. 



Livingstone, who had been much struck with the 

 beauty of this region, recommended the Universities 

 Mission to settle in these Highlands of Nyasa. 

 Accordingly Magomera was chosen as headquarters. 



The pioneer bishop was Charles Frederick 

 Mackenzie, consecrated in 1861. After only ten 

 months' work amid great hardships he died from 

 fever contracted through the upsetting of a dug-out 

 on the Shire, in which he lost all his stores, medicine, 



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