A. CHARACTERISTIC REPLY. 319 



expedition, and I believe will be most useful to me. She is 

 familiar with the languages of South Africa, she is able to work, 

 she is willing to endure, and she well knows that in that coun- 

 try one must put one's hand to everything. In the country to 

 which I am about to proceed she knows that the wife must be 

 the maid-of-all-work within, while the husband must be the 

 jack-of-all-trades without, and glad am I indeed that I am to 

 be accompanied by my guardian angel. Allow me now to say 

 just one word in reference to our chairman ; let me just tell you 

 that I found a few days back an abstract from an address which 

 he delivered to the Geographical Society in 1852, and which he 

 had the assurance to send to me. In that address my distin- 

 guished friend foreshadowed a great portion of those discoveries 

 which I subsequently made, and all I can now say is that I 

 hope he will not do the same thing again." 



All things were now ready. Some time before Lord Pal- 

 merston, then Prime Minister, had sent a distinguished member 

 of the bar to Dr. Livingstone, to ask him what he could do for 

 him, and his reply had been : " Open the Portuguese ports of 

 East Africa." Now he began to anticipate the realization of 

 his request. He was about starting to those coasts, protected 

 by English authority and clothed with the dignity of an 

 English official, to search out in the name of England the hid- 

 den land. The members of the expedition had been selected 

 by himself. They were Captain Bedingfield, R. N., well known 

 for his exploration of the Congo and other African rivers ; Dr. 

 Kirk, M. D., of Edinburgh, as botanist ; Mr. R. Thornton, of 

 the School of Mines, as mining geologist ; Mr. T. Bains as 

 artist; Mr. Rae as engineer of the launch, and Dr. Living- 

 stone's brother, who was expected to take charge of an estab- 

 lishment proposed to be fixed at the confluence of one of the 

 tributaries of the Zambesi." A beautiful iron steam launch 

 had been constructed by order of the government for the pur- 

 poses of the expedition — -a vessel seventy-five feet long, eight 

 feet broad and three feet deep, in the shape of a large flat- 

 bottomed boat, with both ends alike and covered with awnings 

 — a precious piece of invention and workmanship, which, as we 

 shall find, was better suited to dry land than such a river as the 

 Zambesi. 



