68 LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNALS. [Chap. IIL 



and 100 men killed, by Katomba's slaves at Nasangwa's, 

 were all about a string of beads fastened to a powder horn,, 

 which a Manyuema man tried in vain to steal ! 



Katomba gets twenty-five of the fifty tusks brought by 

 his people. We expect letters, and perhaps men by Syde 

 bin Habib. No news from the coast had come to Ujiji, 

 save a rumour that some one was building a large house at 

 Bagamoio, but whether French or English no one can say : 

 possibly the erection of a huge establishment on the main- 

 land may be a way of laboriously proving that it is more 

 healthy than the island. It will take a long time to 

 prove by stone and lime that the higher lands, 200 miles 

 inland, are better still, both for longevity and work.* I 

 am in agony for news from home ; all I feel sure of now 

 is that my friends will all wish me to complete my task. 

 I join in the wish now, as better than doing it in vain 

 afterwards. 



The Manyuema hoeing is little better than scraping the 

 soil, and cutting through the roots of grass and weeds, by 

 a horizontal motion of the hoe or knife; they leave the 

 roots of maize, ground-nuts, sweet potatoes, and dura, to 

 find their way into the rich soft soil, and well they succeed, 

 so there is no need for deep ploughing : the ground-nuts 

 and cassava hold their own against grass for years, and 

 bananas, if cleared of weeds, yield abundantly. Mohamad 

 sowed rice just outside the camp without any advantage 

 being secured by the vicinity of a rivulet, and it yielded for 



* Dr. Livingstone never ceased to impress upon Europeans the utter 

 necessity of living on the high table-lands of the interior, rather than on 

 the sea-board or the banks of the great arterial rivers. Men may escape 

 death in an unhealthy place, but the system is enfeebled and energy re- 

 duced to the lowest ebb. Under such circumstances life becomes a misery,, 

 and important results can hardly be looked for when one's vitality is pre- 

 occupied in wrestling with the unhealthiness of the situation, day and. 

 night. — En. 



