PREFATORY LETTER. xxiii 



"and my men remarked, in thankfulness, 'We are the children 

 of Jesus.' " Whether they fully understood these words may 

 well admit of doubt. They had heard their Master use these 

 words, and he had done his best to make his hearers compre- 

 hend their meaning. Whatever may have been the speculative 

 faith of these humble Africans, we may say of them with 

 truth, that a more true-hearted and gallant crew has seldom 

 followed a Christian leader through toil and danger. 



In this long journey from the lake Dilolo to the west- 

 ern bank of the Quango, they had to pass the country of 

 the Chiboques ; men thoroughly brutalized by their inter- 

 course with the Mambari slave-dealers. They no longer 

 met with truth and kindness and friendly help ; but with 

 falsehood, treachery, shameless extortion, and murderous 

 intent. When Livingstone asked for food, though of the 

 simplest kind and which they had in abundance, he was 

 told to pay the price in a slave, a gun, a tusk, or in one 

 of his oxen. Whatever were his straits, he was not the 

 man to sell one of his loyal companions; nor did he commit 

 the suicidal folly of parting with a gun to those who were 

 ready to murder him and make a slave-gang of his fol- 

 lowers; and the tusks were not his own. Through hard 

 necessity, some time before he crossed the Quango, all his 

 oxen were killed excepting four; these he saved from fur- 

 ther importunity by lopping off a portion of their tails; 

 for the fierce savages were cowed at the sight of a stump- 

 tailed bullock ; thinking it must have some charmed drug 

 within it that might work them mischief. 



Though worn down by hard labour, bad food, and 

 many obstinate attacks of fever "which reduced him almost 

 to a skeleton," hope never left him ; and he trusted that 

 God would give them a deliverance from danger. It was 

 this sentiment that kept up the courage of a brave heart, 

 and made him calm and prudent in the hour of utmost 

 peril. At one halting-place some of the Chiboque remarked, 



