102 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. vi. 



shillings. Two years later, after effect had been given to 

 Livingstone's discovery, the price had risen very greatly. 



Writing to his friend Watt, he dwells with delight 

 on the river Zouga : — 



" It is a glorious river ; you never saw anything so grand. The 

 banks are extremely beautiful, lined with gigantic trees, many 

 quite new. One bore a fruit a foot in length and three inches in 

 diameter. Another measured seventy feet in circumference. Apart 

 from the branches it looked like a mass of granite ; and then the 

 Bakoba in their canoes — did I not enjoy sailing in them 1 Eemember 

 how long I have been in a parched-up land, and answer. The Bakoba 

 are a fine frank race of men, and seem to understand the message better 

 than any people to whom I have spoken on Divine subjects for the 

 first time. What think you of a navigable highway into a large 

 section of the interior ] yet that the Tamanak'le is. . . . Who will 

 go into that goodly land 1 Who ] Is it not the Niger of this part of 

 Africa 1 . . . I greatly enjoyed sailing in their canoes, rude enough 

 things, hollowed out of the trunks of single trees, and visiting the 

 villages along the Zouga. I felt but little when I looked on the lake; 

 but the Zouga and Tamanak'le awakened emotions not to be described. 

 I hope to go up the latter next year." 



The discovery of the lake and the river was communi- 

 cated to the Royal Geographical Society in extracts from 

 Livingstone's letters to the London Missionary Society, 

 and to his friend and former fellow-traveller, Captain 

 Steele. In 1849 the Society voted him a sum of twenty- 

 five guineas "for his successful journey, in company with 

 Messrs. Oswell and Murray, across the South African 

 desert, for the discovery of an interesting country, a fine 

 river, and an extensive inland lake." In addressing Dr. 

 Tidman and Alderman Challis, who represented the 

 London Missionary Society, the President (the late Cap- 

 tain, afterwards Rear- Admiral, W. Smyth, R.N., who 

 distinguished himself in early life by his journey across 

 the Andes to Lima, and thence to the Atlantic), adverted 

 to the value of the discoveries in themselves, and in the 

 influence they would have on the regions beyond. He 

 spoke also of the help which Livingstone had derived as 

 an explorer from his influence as a missionary. The 



