LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNEY. 217 



on the banks of the Kalongosi river, a httle to the east of the point 

 at which he had sighted it on his flight northwards with the Arabs. 



In December what may be called the direct march to Lake 

 Bangweolo was commenced, the difticulties of traveling now 

 greatly aggravated by the continuous rain which had filled to over- 

 flowing the sponges, as Livingstone calls the damp and porous 

 districts through which he had to pass. To quote from Dr. Waller's 

 notes, "our hero's men speak of the march from this point" (the 

 village of Moenje, left on the 9th of January, 1873) "as one con- 

 tinued plunge in and out of morass, and through rivers which were 

 only distinguishable from the surrounding waters by their deep 

 currents and the necessity of using canoes. 



To a man reduced in strength, and chronically afifected with 

 dysenteric symptoms," adds Dr. Waller, "the effect may well be 

 conceived. It is probable that, had Dr. Livingstone been at the 

 head of a hundred picked Europeans, every man of them would 

 have been down in a fortnight." 



A JOURNEY UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 



Under these circumstances we cannot too greatly admire the 

 pluck of Livingstone's little body of men, for it must not be for- 

 gotten that Africans have an intense horror of wet, and that those 

 from the coast suffer almost as much as white men from the climate 

 of the interior. 



Following the route, we find that he crossed no less than 

 thirteen rivulets in rapid succession — more, in fact, than one a day. 

 In January he notes that he is troubled for want of canoes, they 

 being now indispensable to further progress, and that he is once 

 more near the Chambeze, the river which he had crossed far away 

 on the north-east just before the loss of his medicine-chest and the 

 beginning of his serious troubles. 



No canoes were, however, forthcoming; the natives were afraid 

 of the white man, and would give him no help either with guides 

 or boats. Nothing daunted even then, though his illness was grow- 

 ing upon him to such an extent that the entries in his journal are 



