354 SUCCESS OF THE EXPEDITION. Chap. XVIII. 



in being prevented from using the people as brutes, we must 

 say that the conduct of England on the West Coast of late 

 years deserves the world's admiration. Her generosity will 

 appear grand in the eyes of posterity. Here, on the East 

 Coast, we have the contrast. No trustworthy agents can be 

 employed; no education has been imparted; and not even 

 slave ageDts can be sent to a distance except on the promise 

 of plunder and rapine. In the Mission we had now with us, 

 we trusted that we saw the dawn of a better system for both 

 Portuguese and natives, than that which has been the bane 

 of all progress for ages past. 



The Expedition, in spite of several adverse circumstances, 

 was up to this point eminently successful in its objects. 

 As will be afterwards seen, we had opened a cotton-field, 

 which, taking in the Shire and Lake Nyassa, was 400 miles 

 in length. We had gained the confidence of the people 

 wherever we had gone ; and, supposing the Mission of the 

 Universities to be only moderately successful, as all we had 

 previously known of the desire of the natives to trade had 

 been amply confirmed, a perfectly new era had commenced 

 in a region much larger than the cotton-fields of the Southern 

 States of America. 



We had, however, as will afterwards be seen, arrived at 

 the turning-point of our prosperous career, and soon came 

 into contact with the Portuguese slave-trade ; and let any 

 one reflect on the injury that any country sustains, even by 

 laws which only hamper trade and free commercial inter- 

 course, and he may judge how utterly destructive to all 

 prosperity that system must be, which not only fosters 

 internecine wars, but renders the pursuit of agriculture 

 perilous in times of peace. 



On at last reaching Chibisa's, we heard that there was 

 war in the Manganja country, and the slave-trade was going 



