THE PAETING OATH. 511 



of cloth and beads and a small quantity of coffee and sugar, 

 candles, preserved meats, etc., with some medicines, to be sent 

 to Ujiji. 



Little else occurred during the stay with Chitapanga worthy 

 of special mention. The frequent returns of illness were nothing 

 uncommon now. It was sad indeed to be so great a sufferer, 

 and deprived of the relief which he could have found in his 

 medicine box. We cannot imagine a more painfull experience 

 than the consciousness of failing health in a far away heathen 

 land without a single remedy at hand. 



At length, after repeated misunderstandings and compromises 

 with Chitapanga, all growing out of the unpardonable inter- 

 ference of the boys, who presumed to interpret the conversation 

 according to their ideas of what it was best should be said, Dr. 

 Livingstone prepared to leave on the 20th of February, 1867. 

 He says : 



"February 20, 1867. — I told the chief before starting that my 

 heart was sore because he was not sending me away so cordially 

 as I liked. He at once ordered men to start with us, and gave 

 me a brass knife with ivory sheath, which he had long worn as 

 a memorial. He explained that we ought to go north as, if we 

 made easting, we should ultimately be obliged to turn west, and 

 all our cloth would be expended ere we reached the Lake Tan- 

 ganyika; he took a piece of clay off the ground and rubbed it 

 on his tongue as an oath that what he said was true, and came 

 along with us to see that all was right; and so we parted." 



His route lay still almost due north through the countries of 

 the Babema and the Balungu. The whole country, he says, can 

 be no better described than as one vast forest. " Rocks abound 

 of the same domolite kind as on the ridge farther south, between 

 the Loangwa and Zambesi, covered, like them, with lichens, 

 orchids, euphorbias, and upland vegetation, hard-leaved acacias, 

 rhododendrons, masukos. The gum-copal tree, when perforated 

 by a grub, exudes from branches no thicker than one's arm, 

 masses of soft, gluey-looking gum, brownish yellow, and light 

 gray, as much as would fill a soup-plate. It seems to yield this 

 gum only in the rainy season, and now all the trees are full of 

 sap and gum." 



This march was inaugurated in unmistakable fashion. The 



