392 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. xx. 



would expose their doings. On one day he despatched 

 no fewer than forty-two — enough, no doubt, to form a 

 large volume ; none of these ever arrived at Zanzibar, so 

 that they must have been purposely destroyed. The 

 slave-traders of Urungu and Itawa, where he had been, 

 were gentlemen compared with those of Ujiji, who 

 resembled the Kilwa and Portuguese, and with whom 

 trading was simply a system of murder. Here lay the 

 cause of Livingstone's unexampled difficulties at this 

 period of his life ; he was dependent on men who were 

 not only knaves of the first magnitude, but who had a 

 special animosity against him, and a special motive to 

 deceive, rob, and obstruct him in every possible way. 



After considerable deliberation he decided to go 

 to Manyuema, in order to examine the river Lualaba, 

 and determine the direction of its flow. This would 

 settle the question of the watershed, and in four or five 

 months, if he should get guides and canoes, his work 

 would be done. On setting out from Ujiji he first 

 crossed the lake, and then proceeded inland on foot. He 

 was still weak from illness, and his lungs were so feeble 

 that to walk up-hill made him pant. He became stronger, 

 however, as he went on, refreshed doubtless by the in- 

 teresting country through which he passed, and the 

 aspect of the people, who were very different from the 

 tribes on the coast. 



On the 21st September he arrived at Bambarre in 

 Manyuema, the village of the Chief Moen^kuss. He 

 found the people in a state of great isolation from the 

 rest of the world, with nothing to trust to but charms 

 and idols, — both being bits of wood. He made the 

 acquaintance of the soko or gorilla, not a very social 

 animal, for it always tries to bite off the ends of its 

 captor's fingers and toes. Neither is it particularly 

 intellectual, for its nest shows no more contrivance than 

 that of a cushat dove. The curiosity of the people was 



