308 THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 



loss. Livingstone says he never could avoid shuddering on seeing 

 his men swimming across these branches, after one of them had 

 been caught by the thigh and taken below. He, however, retained, 

 as nearly all of them in the most trying circumstances do, his 

 full presence of mind, and having a small, square, ragged-edged 

 javelin with him, when dragged to the bottom gave the alligator 

 a stab behind the shoulder. The alligator, writhing in pain, left 

 him, and he came out with the deep marks of the reptile's teeth 

 on his thigh. 



The great abundance of game which was constantly met with 

 was consoling to the invariably hungry natives, but on account of 

 certain difficulties it had its unpleasant features to Livingstone. 

 He tried in vain to instruct certain men in his company how to 

 shoot, but with all his care they fired so wildly that if they had 

 been his sole reliance all the ammunition must have been expended 

 without any game to show for it ; thus the shooting all devolved 

 on Livingstone, His arm had never recovered fully from the 

 lion's bite, which he received nearLabotse, as, owing to the lack 

 of proper surgical attention, the broken and crushed bone had 

 not united well. Continual hard manual labor, and several falls 

 from oxen had lengthened the ligament by which the ends of the 

 bones were united, and a false joint was the consequence. On 

 this account he could not himself shoot well, and a great part 

 of his time had to be spent hunting in order to supply his men 

 with meat. 



AMONG FEMALE CHIEFS. 



PASSING out of the Leeambye river, which in some places 

 further east is called the Zambesi, Livingstone's party came to 

 another river called the Luba. He was now among the Balonda 

 people, a tribe that has a vague idea of spirit life, which we may 

 possibly call religion, but instead of this idea benefiting them, it 

 has a contrary effect, for their superstitions only seem to degrade 

 them the more. They file their teeth to a point and tattoo them- 

 selves in various parts, but chiefly on the abdomen : the skin is 

 raised in small elevated cicatrices, each nearly a half an inch long 

 and a quarter of an inch in diameter, so that a number of them 



