4 o6 DA VID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. xx. 



on my mat, decently made a nest of grass and leaves, and covered 

 herself with the mat to sleep. I cannot take her with me, though I 

 fear that she will die before I return, from people plaguing her. Her 

 fine long black hair was beautiful when tended by her mother, who 

 was killed. I am mobbed enough alone ; two sokos — she and I — 

 would not have got breath. 



" I have to submit to be a gazing-stock. I don't altogether relish 

 it, here or elsewhere, but try to get over it good-naturedly, get into 

 the most shady spot of the village, and leisurely look at all my 

 admirers. When the first crowd begins to go away, I go into my 

 lodgings to take what food may be prepared, as coffee, when I have it, 

 or roasted maize infusion when I have none. The door is shut, all 

 save a space to admit light. It is made of the inner bark of a gigantic 

 tree, not a quarter of an inch thick, and slides in a groove behind a 

 post on each side of the doorway. When partially open it is supported 

 by only one of the posts. Eager heads sometimes crowd the open 

 space, and crash goes the thin door, landing a Manyuema beauty on 

 the floor. ' It was not I,' she gasps out, ' it was Bessie Bell and 

 Jeanie Gray that shoved me in, and — ' as she scrambles out of the 

 lion's den, ' see they 're laughing ; ' and, fairly out, she joins in the 

 merry giggle too. To avoid darkness or being half-smothered, I often 

 eat in public, draw a line on the ground, then ' toe the line,' and keep 

 them out of the circle. To see me eating with knife, fork, and spoon 

 is wonderful. 'See ! — they don't touch their food ! — what oddities, to 

 be sure.' . . . 



" Many of the Manyuema women are very pretty ; their hands, 

 feet, limbs, and form are perfect. The men are handsome. Compared 

 with them the Zanzibar slaves are like London door-knockers, which 

 some atrocious iron-founder thought were like lions' faces. The way 

 in which these same Zanzibar Mohammedans murder the men and seize 

 the women and children makes me sick at heart. It is not slave-trade. 

 It is murdering free people to make slaves. It is perfectly indescrib- 

 able. Kirk has been working hard to get this murdersome system 

 put a stop to. Heaven j^rosper his noble efforts ! He says in one of 

 his letters to me, — ' It is monstrous injustice to compare the free 

 people in the interior, living under their own chiefs and laws, with 

 what slaves at Zanzibar afterwards become by the abominable system 

 which robs them of their manhood. I think it is like comparing the 

 anthropologists with their ancestral sokos.' . . . 



" I am grieved to hear of the departure of good Lady Murchison. 

 Had I known that she kindly remembered me in her prayers, it would 

 have been great encouragement. . . . 



" The men sent by Dr. Kirk are Mohammedans, that is, unmitigated 

 liars. Musa and his companions are fair specimens of the lower class 

 of Moslems. The two head-men remained at Ujiji, to feast on my 

 goods, and get pay without work. Seven came to Bambarre, and in 

 true Moslem style swore that they were sent by Dr. Kirk to bring me 



