THE DESIRES OF HIS HEAET. 449 



fatigue. They undergo a rite which once distinguished the 

 Jews about the age of puberty, and take a new name on the 

 occasion. This was not introduced by the Arabs, whose advent 

 is a recent event, and they speak of the time before they were 

 inundated with European manufactures in exchange for slaves, 

 as quite within their memory. 



Besides their healthful and productive locality, they are in 

 possession of cattle in considerable numbers. These, however, 

 are of rather a small breed, black and white in patches, and 

 brown, with humps, but they give milk which is duly prized. 

 The sheep are the large-tailed variety, and generally of a black 

 color. Fowls and pigeons are the only other domestic animals, 

 if we except the wretched village dogs, which the doctor's 

 poodle had immense delight in chasing. 



The heart of Dr. Livingstone, always burning with desire to 

 see Africa open to the light of the gospel, could hardly have 

 failed to fix on such a spot : he saw it not only as offering in- 

 ducements to the great gain-loving world, but as proclaiming 

 great encouragement to those who were waiting for a footing for 

 their missionary enterprises within the heart of the continent. 

 As he looked on the fertile gardens and enjoyed the plenty 

 which surrounded him, he thought of the abandoned mission 

 station at Magomero. He was not blind to the difficulties con- 

 fronting and besetting the missionary continually. He did not 

 depreciate the losses incurred — losses of money and precious 

 lives as well — in prosecuting the work of saving the heathen ; 

 but he saw everywhere he went in that land men hazarding as 

 much and sacrificing as much for the enslavement of the people 

 as the Christian world would need to hazard or sacrifice for 

 their conversion, and he reasoned well and rightly when he 

 entered in his journal — 



"It struck me after Sef had numbered up the losses that the 

 Kilwa people sustained by death in their endeavors to enslave 

 people, similar losses on the part of those who go to ( proclaim 

 liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to them that 

 are bound' — to save and elevate, need not be made so very 

 much of as they sometimes are." 



Livingstone was very far from having lost his interest in the 

 missionary work. He had, indeed, been led away from the 



