PREFACE. 



It lias been my object in this work to give as clear an 

 account as I was able of tracts of country previously unex- 

 plored, with their river systems, natural productions, and 

 capabilities ; and to bring before my countrymen, and all 

 others interested in the cause of humanity, the misery entailed 

 by the slave-trade in its inland phases; a subject on which 

 I and my companions are the first who have had any oppor- 

 tunities of forming a judgment. The eight years spent in 

 Africa, since my last work was published, have not, I fear, 

 improved my power of writing English; but I hope that, 

 whatever my descriptions want in clearness, or literary skill, 

 may in a measure be compensated by the novelty of the 

 scenes described, and the additional information afforded on 

 that curse of Africa, and that shame, even now, in the 

 19th century, of an European nation, — the slave-trade. 



I took the " Lady Nyassa" to Bombay for the express pur- 

 pose of selling her, and might without any difficulty have 

 done so ; but with the thought of parting with her arose, more 

 strongly than ever, the feeling of disinclination to abandon 

 the East Coast of Africa to the Portuguese and slave-trading, 

 and I determined to run home and consult my friends before 

 I allowed the little vessel to pass from my hands. After, 

 therefore, having put two Ajawa lads to school under the 

 eminent Missionary the Kev. Dr. Wilson, and having pro- 

 vided satisfactorily for the native crew, I started homewards 

 with the three white sailors, and reached London July 20th, 



b 



