1854-56.] FROM LOANDA TO QUILIMANE. 171 



Livingstone and his men, the heavy rains, and in one case, 

 at Pungo Andongo, the necessity of reproducing a large 

 packet of letters, journals, maps and despatches, which 

 he had sent off from Loanda. These were despatched by 

 the mail-packet " Forerunner," which unhappily went 

 down off Madeira, all the passengers but one being lost. 

 But for his promise to the Makololo to return with them 

 to their country, Dr. Livingstone would have been him- 

 self a passenger in the ship. Hearing of the disaster 

 while paying a visit to a very kind and hospitable Portu- 

 guese gentleman at Pungo Andongo, on his way back, 

 Livingstone remained there some time to reproduce his 

 lost papers. The labour thus entailed must have been 

 very great, for his ordinary letters covered sheets almost 

 as large as a newspaper, and his maps and despatches 

 were produced with extraordinary care. 



He found renewed occasion to acknowledge in the 

 warmest terms the kindness he received from the Portu- 

 guese ; and his prayers that God would reward and bless 

 them were not the less sincere that in many important 

 matters he could not approve of their ways. 



In traversing the road backwards along which he had 

 already come, not many things happened that demand 

 special notice in this brief sketch. We find him both in 

 his published book and still more in his private Journal 

 repeating his admiration of the country, and its glorious 

 scenery. This revelation of the marvellous beauty of a 

 country hitherto deemed a sandy desert was one 'of the 

 most astounding effects of Livingstone's travels on the 

 public mind. But the more he sees of the people the 

 more profound does their degradation appear, although 

 the many instances of remarkable kindness to himself, and 

 occasional cases of genuine feeling one towards another 



days of travelling and ten of rest, and his rate per day was about ten geographical 

 miles or two hundred per month. As he often zigzagged, the geographical mile 

 represented considerably more. See letter to Royal Geographical Society, October 

 16, 1855. 



