266 DA VID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. xiii. 



crippled us, and, indeed, ruined us as a scientific ex- 

 pedition." 



Another delay was caused before they went inwards, 

 from their having to wait for a season suitable for hunt- 

 ing, as the party had to be kept in food. The mail from 

 England had been lost, and they had the bitter disappoint- 

 ment of losing a year's correspondence from home. The 

 following portions of a letter to the Secretary of the 

 Committee for a Universities Mission gives a view of the 

 situation at this time : — 



"River Zambesi, 26<A Jan. 1860. 



" The defects we have unfortunately experienced in the 'Ma-Robert/ 

 or rather the 'Asthmatic,' are so numerous that it would require a 

 treatise as long as a lawyer's specification of any simple subject to 

 give you any idea of them, and they have inflicted so much toil that 

 a feeling of sickness comes over me when I advert to them. 



" No one will ever believe the toil we have been put to in wood- 

 cutting. The quantity consumed is enormous, and we cannot get 

 sufficient for speed into the furnace. It was only a dogged determina- 

 tion not to be beaten that carried me through. . . . But all will come 

 out right at last. We are not alone, though truly we deserve not His 

 presence. He encourages the trust that is granted by the word, ' I 

 am with you, even unto the end of the world.' . . . 



" It is impossible for you to conceive how backward everything is 

 here, and the Portuguese are not to be depended upon ; their establish- 

 ments are only small penal settlements, and as no women are sent out, 

 the state of morals is frightful. The only chance of success is away 

 from them ; nothing would prosper in their vicinity. After all, I am 

 convinced that were Christianity not divine, it would be trampled out 

 by its professors. Dr. Kirk, Mr. C. Livingstone, and Mr. Rae, with 

 two English seamen, do well. We are now on our way up the river 

 to the Makololo country, but must go overland from Kebrabasa, or in 

 a whaler. We should be better able to plan our course if our letters 

 had not been lost. We have never been idle, and do not mean to be. 

 We have been trying to get the Portuguese Government to acknow- 

 ledge free-trade on this river, and but for long delay in our letters 

 the negotiation might have been far advanced. I hope Lord John 

 Russell will help in this matter, and then we must have a small colony 

 or missionary and mercantile settlement. If this our desire is granted, 

 it is probable we shall have no cause to lament our long toil and 

 detention here. My wife's letters too, were lost, so I don't know how 

 or where she is. Our separation, and the work I have been engaged 

 in, were not contemplated, but they have led to our opening a path 



