1 86 1-62.] UNIVERSITIES MISSION. 285 



could lay hands on, and selling them as slaves. The 

 contrast to what Livingstone had seen on his last journey 

 was lamentable. All their prospects were overcast. How 

 could commerce or Christianity flourish in countries 

 desolated by war ? 



Every reader of The Zambesi and its Tributaries 

 remembers the frightful picture of the slave-sticks, and 

 the row of men, women, and children whom Livingstone 

 and his companions set free. Nothing helped more than 

 this picture to rouse in English bosoms an intense horror 

 of the trade, and a burning sympathy with Livingstone 

 and his friends. Livingstone and the Bishop, with his 

 party, had gone up the Shire to Chibisa's, and were 

 halting at the village of Mbame, when a slave party came 

 along. The flight of the drivers, the liberation of eighty- 

 four men and women, and their reception by the good Bishop 

 under his charge, speedily followed. The aggressors 

 were the neighbouring warlike tribe of Ajawa, and their 

 victims were the Manganja, the inhabitants of the Shire 

 valley. The Bishop accepted the invitation of Chigunda, 

 a Manganja chief, to settle at Magomero. It was 

 thought, however, desirable for the Bishop and Living- 

 stone first to visit the Ajawa chief, and try to turn him 

 from his murderous ways. The road was frightful — 

 through burning villages resounding with the wailings of 

 women and the shouts of the warriors. The Ajawa 

 received the offered visit in a hostile spirit, and the 

 shout being raised that Chibisa had come — a powerful 

 chief with the reputation of being a sorcerer — they fired 

 on the Bishop's party and compelled them, in self-defence, 

 to fire in return. It was the first time that Livingstone 

 had ever been so attacked by natives, often though they 

 had threatened him. It was the first time he had had to 

 repel an attack with violence ; so little was he thinking 

 of such a thing that he had not his rifle with him, and 

 was obliged to borrow a revolver. The encounter was hot 



