1S54-56.] FROM LOANDA TO QUILIMANE. 189 



the world as fitted to be useful. The Africans were all 

 deeply imbued with the spirit of trade. Commerce was 

 so far good that it taught the people their mutual de- 

 pendence ; but Christianity alone reached the centre of 

 African wants. " Theoretically," he concludes, " I would 

 pronounce the country about the junction of the Leeba 

 and Leeambye or Kabompo, and river of the Bashuku- 

 lompo, as a most desirable centre-point for the spread of 

 civilisation and Christianity ; but unfortunately I must 

 mar my report by saying I feel a difficulty as to taking 

 my children there without their intelligent self-dedication. 

 I can speak for my wife and myself only. We will go, 



WHOEVER REMAINS BEHIND." 



Resuming the subject some months later, after he had 

 got to the sea-shore, he dwells on the belt of elevated land 

 eastward from the country of the Makololo, two degrees 

 of longitude broad, and of unknown length, as remarkably 

 suitable for the residence of European missionaries. It 

 was formerly occupied by the Makololo, and they had a 

 great desire to resume the occupation. One great ad- 

 vantage of such a locality was that it was on the border 

 of the regions occupied by the true negroes, the real 

 nucleus of the African population, to whom they owed a 

 great debt, and who had shown themselves friendly and 

 disposed to learn. It was his earnest hope that the 

 Directors would plant a mission here, and his belief that 

 they would thereby confer unlimited blessing on the 

 regions beyond. 



Some of the remarks in these passages, and also in 

 the extracts which we have given from his Journals, are 

 of profound interest, as indicating an important transition 

 from the ideas of a mere missionary labourer to those of 

 a missionary general or statesman. In the early part of 

 his life he deemed it his joy and his honour to aim at 

 the conversion of individual souls, and earnestly did he 

 labour and pray for that, although his visible success was 



