254 " THINGS, NOT MEN." 



and so relieve the others of the burden of carrying him. Before 

 Sekwebu could finish, Mpende remarked, "That white man is 

 truly one of our friends. See how he lets me know his afflic- 

 tions ! " Sekwebu adroitly took advantage of this turn in the 

 conversation, and said, "Ah ! if you only knew him as well as 

 we do who have lived with him, you would understand that he 

 highly values your friendship and that of Mburuma, and, as he 

 is a stranger, he trusts in you to direct him." He replied, 

 " Well, he ought to cross to the other side of the river, for this 

 bank is hilly and rough, and the way to Tete is longer on this 

 than on the opposite bank." " But who will take us across, if 

 you do not?" "Truly!" replied Mpende; "I only wish you 

 had come sooner to tell me about him ; but he shall cross." 



The Zambesi at this point was twelve hundred yards wide, 

 but the passage was made safely, and Livingstone congratulated 

 himself on being on the side less exposed to petty annoyances, 

 and offering at the same time an easier path to the sea. 



It was gratifying to Livingstone to find all the people occupy- 

 ing the country cursed by the slave trade of the Portuguese at 

 least conscious of its meanness ; they excuse themselves quite 

 after the manner of more enlightened sinners for their engaging 

 in barter which requires the giving of human beings into bondage 

 by putting greater guilt on the tempter. This is the old dodge, 

 which was not quite equal to the emergency of our too yielding 

 mother in Eden, and it cannot deliver even the heathen from 

 our condemnation ; yet certainly it can hardly be a pleasing re- 

 flection to those who would take the responsibility of encourag- 

 ing such a trade that their victims, too weak to resist them, are 

 good enough to curse them, and too degraded to be pitied by 

 them, are yet noble enough to despise them. These people speak 

 of the English as men, but of the slave-traders they say, " they 

 are not men, they are only things." The idea is quite prevalent 

 that those who have purchased slaves of them have done them 

 an injury. "All the slaves of Nyungwe," said one, " are our 

 children ; the Bozunga (Portuguese) have built the town at our 

 expense." 



The presence of traders enabled Livingstone to replenish the 

 wardrobes of his men, which they had been denied attending to 

 for themselves in the village of Mpende, and they were happier. 



