xxvi PREFATORY LETTER. 



artless simplicity tried to comfort him in such words as 

 these : " We will never leave you — Do not be disheart- 

 ened — Wherever you lead we will follow — We are all your 

 children — We will die for you — We have not fought be- 

 cause you did not wish it; but if these enemies begin, you 

 will see what we can do." 



Contrary to my express intention when I began this 

 letter, I have been led to touch on details which shew the 

 heroic side of Livingstone's noble character. He may not 

 be a man of high birth, as height is counted in the heraldic 

 symbols of honour ; but his patent of nobility was regis- 

 tered in heaven, and the stamp of true greatness was fixed 

 on his brow by the hand of the King of kings. He stood 

 before us in our Senate-House, as a Christian hero; and as 

 such we gave him the warmest welcome of our hearts. 



Leaving this digression, I will rejoin the little band of 

 tattered travellers while among their kind friends at the house 

 of Cypriano. After enjoying at his hospitable house some 

 very welcome days of rest and refreshment, they moved on 

 to Cassange, the frontier Portuguese station, and there sold 

 their merchandise of tusks at a good price. They then 

 crossed the Tala Mungongo mountains, which form a part 

 of the most western skirt of the great table-land they had 

 left behind, and descended into the valley of the Quize, in 

 the higher lands of which, their eyes were greeted with the 

 sight of wheat-fields, first introduced, it is said, by the 

 Jesuit missionaries. In the country through which they 

 continued to descend, first among the tributaries of the 

 river Coanza and afterwards down the valley of the Bengo, 

 they met everywhere with ample courtesy and kindness. 

 Wide tracts of country, with a soil of almost unbounded 

 fertility, were however left wild and uncultivated. As they 

 journeyed onwards, orchards of fruit-trees, pine-apples and 

 cotton-fields met their eyes. But they were sickly and 

 out of spirits — partly from daily fatigue, and partly from 



