442 CURRENCY FOR AFRICA. 



market; it was impossible to get food for it. Mtarika's old 

 place was reached first. The Rovuma was there about one 

 hundred yards wide. The rest which was indulged in at this 

 point was refreshing, as rest must ever be to honest workers who 

 take it with clear consciences ; but it was obtained at a cost 

 which almost turned the edge of it. The accommodations were 

 paid for dearly with the best table clothes. The reader has 

 surely come to understand long ago that, in Africa, the only 

 bank notes are pieces of cloth, and the only hard money, beads 

 and the like. When Mr. Stanley entered Africa in search of 

 Dr. Livingstone, he carried several tons of currency, and then 

 was sometimes in danger of running short. With the uncom- 

 mon outlay at the resting-place he obtained only one meal a day. 

 The people were Waiyau, as were all the people from there on 

 to the lake. They are as deeply interested in the slave-trade as 

 any people in East Africa, and copy the Arabs in various 

 matters — dress, chewing tobacco, etc. The list of animals had 

 now dwindled down to a poodle-dog, known in the camp as 

 Chitaue, a buffalo calf, and a single donkey. These were nearly 

 as great curiosities in the land as the white man himself. 

 Nothing which Livingstone could find out indicated that the 

 people had ever seen a white man before. 



At the new town of Mtarika, which was entered, after a short • 

 march, on the 3d of July, they came on an interesting scene. 

 This chief had gathered about him an. immense population, and 

 the new town had been laid out quite regularly over an area 

 miles in extent. Mtarika was a " big ugly man," full of caution 

 and curiosity. 



It seemed unadvisable to attempt to follow the Rovuma 

 farther. Livingstone had now no doubt about its flowing from 

 Lake Nyassa, which was oniy about sixty miles away ; and to 

 continue on that route he wouid be subjected to great incon- 

 venience because of the unsalableness of his goods, as the 

 markets in that direction were clearly overstocked already by 

 the Arabs ; besides they would be compelled, as he ascertained, 

 to cross several rivers flowing into the Rovuma from the south, 

 and then in passing around the northern end of the lake would 

 be among the Nindi, who are only surpassed in their thieving 

 propensities by the Mozitu, whom they have succeeded as occu- 



