PREFATORY LETTER. xiii 



hopeful temper; of ample love towards his fellow-creatures, 

 and a hatred of that brutalizing policy by which millions of 

 the human family are made the hopeless bond -slaves of their 

 brethren, and shut out from the blessings which God has in 

 ample store for all his children; of a keen relish for natural 

 beauty, and a love of natural knowledge which kept him 

 alive in all his wanderings, and helped to drive away any 

 sinking of spirit that might have been his death; of a firm 

 trust in Providence; of a firm belief that, with a good 

 conscience, he was doing a work of solemn obligation, and 

 carrying out, as best he could, a commission which, through 

 God's will, had been intrusted to his hands. Personally, then, 

 he had no ground of fear; and he had the best ground of hope, 

 whatever might be the issue of his labour. 



Qualities like these might, perhaps, have been found in 

 some other men. But where are we to find another who 

 combined these gifts with twelve years of familiar intercourse 

 with the children of South Africa; who could speak their 

 prevailing dialect like one of themselves; who was inured to 

 their climate; who knew their manners, superstitions and 

 affections; who knew how to control their savage passions, in 

 times of perilous excitement, by reasons they could compre- 

 hend; who by long acts of kindness had been training them 

 from evil to good; who passed among them as a Father; 

 wdiom they had learnt to trust as a friend and benefactor? 

 Every good practical work must have a firm basis to rest 

 upon. Livingstone's operations were based upon his long- 

 labours of love, on the good- will and trust he had gained 

 among the Natives, and on the power of persuasion he had, 

 by long experience, gained over their Chiefs. In this power 

 he trusted, and in the time of need it did not disappoint him. 



After a journey from Cape Town of eleven months, in the 

 well-known carriage (the ponderous bullock- waggon of South 

 Africa), he reached Linyanti, the capital of Makololo, in May 

 1853. The Chapters in which he describes this long journey 



