198 WORTH OF TEN DOLLARS. 



The nearest approach to beasts of prey the party found, before 

 reaching the river Moamba, which they crossed on the 7th of 

 May (lat. 9° 38' S., long. 20° 13' 34" E.), were the lizards, 

 mice and serpents, whose peace they occasionally disturbed as 

 they struggled through the grass and vines which lay along the 

 route, and seemed to conspire with the zigzag paths to make the 

 traveller's progress as slow and wearying as possible. 



There was one consolation, though, in the delays and toilsome 

 progress : food was cheaper and cheaper the farther they left the 

 borders of the white settlers. For the value of a penny a day 

 four persons could live on the fat of the land. Livingstone 

 mentions a purchase of tobacco which Captain Neves made — 

 three hundred and eighty pounds for two pounds sterling, in 

 Angola. The same tobacco, in central Londa, would suffice to 

 feed seven thousand persons one day, giving each person a jowl 

 and jive pounds oj meal. Seven thousand fowls and thirty-five 

 thousand pounds of meal for about ten dollars' worth of tobacco ! 



One of the most common annoyances they suffered in this 

 journey was the disposition of the people in every trifling village 

 to detain them. This was a modest way of imposing a tax, as, 

 of course, the delay would involve a certain amount of expendi- 

 ture. But even where the desire was in pure hospitality it was 

 quite as positive and persevering, and was generally pressed 

 effectually, because the furnishing of guides was conditioned on 

 submission. Once Livingstone became thoroughly provoked, 

 and attempted to advance without the guide. It might have 

 been well enough in some sections, but the particular locality in 

 which he chanced to be restored his patience thoroughly, for 

 after striking out in various directions, and every time coming 

 to a dead halt in impassable thickets, he gave it up. 



There was no counting the villages. The African has a re- 

 markable eagerness for many villages : there are no large towns. 

 Everybody seems to have only one ambition, and that is to have 

 a village. If only a man may have a few huts he is a chief, in 

 his own eyes at least. There was one thing which made the 

 present tour more unpleasant than those in which he was pre- 

 ceded by messengers of the chiefs, who had formerly been sent 

 to notify the villages of the approach of " the white man." The 

 sight of a white man always infuses a tremor into their dark 



