PREFATORY LETTER. xxvii 



the effects of climate and the rank luxuriance of vegetable 

 life. All the cultivation they saw was the result of slave- 

 labour : and the slaves told the Makololo, in passing, that 

 they were going to Loanda to be sold by Dr Livingstone ; 

 for no white man had ever led black men from the interior 

 country to the coast without selling them. Still the Mako- 

 lolo followed their master with a loyal obedience., spite of 

 some natural misgivings as to their own fate. 



On the 31st of May, 1854, when they crossed the plains 

 above Loanda and first came in sight of the sea, they looked 

 with awe upon the boundless waters. " We marched along 

 with our Father (they said) believing—what the Ancients 

 had always told us — that the world has no end ; but all at 

 once the world says to us — I am finished — there is no more 

 of me !" They then descended the declivity above the city of 

 Loanda, while their leader was sick from chronic dysentery, 

 exhausted by long fatigue, and under a great depression of 

 spirits : for he felt doubtful about his reception in a city of 

 12,000 souls, among whom there was but one English gen- 

 tleman. Mr Gabriel, the Commissioner for the suppression 

 of the slave-trade, was, however (he tells us), " a real 

 whole-hearted Englishman. Seeing me so ill he benevo- 

 lently offered me his bed : and never shall I forget the 

 luxuriant pleasure I enjoyed in feeling myself again on a 

 good English couch, after six months sleeping on the 

 ground." 



The arrival from central Africa of twenty-seven free 

 men, headed by a native of North Britain, was a joyful 

 event, unexampled in the history of the province of An- 

 gola; and the whole party received most substantial proofs 

 of good-will, not only from Mr Gabriel, but also from 

 the Bishop (then acting Governor of the Province), and 

 from the Portuguese gentlemen resident at Loanda. Dr 

 Livingstone's illness was of a nature that did not admit of 

 a speedy cure ; and while he remained at the house of his 



