1292 A NATURALIST IN MID-AFRICA. 



having given every man his regular day's food the 

 whole time he was with me, and posho when he 

 was sent home, and also of never leaving a sick 

 man behind unless at a Government or missionary 

 station. 



It is not necessary to' say more of my personal 

 experiences in British Central Africa ; but of the 

 place itself something further must be said. 



This little colony has been made by the personal 

 exertions of about nine or ten men, all of whom 

 were Scotch. These are Livingstone, J. and F. 

 W. Moir, J. Buchanan, Kev. D. C. Scott and Dr. 

 Scott, Dr. Laws and J. Monteith Fotheringham. 



These men, with scarcely any capital and by 

 their own dogged perseverance and pluck, have 

 won for Greater Britain a new colony which may 

 be in time as valuable as New South Wales. 



The history of Mr. Buchanan, which is that of 

 coffee planting in British Central Africa, is most 

 interesting. 



He went to Blantyre as gardener to the Estab- 

 lished Church of Scotland Mission, without money 

 or experience in any tropical cultivation. There 

 were at the mission garden three coffee plants 

 sent from the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens. Two 

 of these died, but from the third sprang almost 

 the whole of the enormous number now growing 

 in the country. This celebrated shrub unfortu- 

 nately died and was made into walking-sticks. 

 Buchanan, in introducing the cultivation, had the 



