76 LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNALS. [Chap. III. 



out of the way to beg in the most abject manner, or lay 

 down and slept, the only excuse afterwards being, " My 

 legs were sore." Having allowed some of them to sleep 

 at the fire in my house, they began a wholesale plunder of 

 everything they could sell, as cartridges, cloths, and meat, so 

 I had to eject them. One of them then threatened to shoot 

 my interpreter Simon if he got him in a quiet place away 

 from the English power. As this threat had been uttered 

 three times, and I suspect that something of the kind had 

 prevented the havildar exerting his authority, I resolved to 

 get rid of them by sending them back to the coast by the 

 first trader. It is likely that some sympathizers will take 

 their part, but I strove to make them useful. They had but 

 poor and scanty fare in a part of the way, but all of us suf- 

 fered alike. They made themselves thoroughly disliked by 

 their foul talk and abuse, and if anything tended more than 

 another to show me that theirs was a moral unfitness for 

 travel, it was the briskness assumed when they knew they 

 were going back to the coast. I felt inclined to force them 

 on, but it would have been acting from revenge, and to pay 

 them out, so I forbore. I gave Mataka forty-eight yards 

 of calico, and to the sepoys eighteen yards, and arranged 

 that he should give them food till Suleiman, a respectable 

 trader, should arrive. He was expected every day, and we 

 passed him near the town. If they chose to go and get their 

 luggage, it was of course all safe for them behind. The 

 havildar begged still to go on with me, and I consented, 

 though he is a drag on the party, but he will count in any 

 difficulty. 



Abraham recognised his uncle among the crowds who 

 came to see us. On making himself known he found that his 

 mother and two sisters had been sold to the Arabs after he 

 had been enslaved. The uncle pressed him to remain, and 

 Mataka urged, and so did another uncle, but in vain. I 

 added my voice, and could have given him goods to keep 



