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LS$S 



PREFACE 



It has been my object in this work to give as clear an 

 account as I was able of tracts of country previously 

 unexplored, with their river systems, natural pro- 

 ductions, and capabilities ; and to bring before my 

 countrymen, and all others interested in the cause of 

 humanity, the misery entailed by the slave-trade in its 

 inland phases; a subject on which I and my com- 

 panions are the first who have had any opportunities 

 of forming a judgment. The eight years spent in 

 Africa, since my last work was published, have not, I 

 fear, improved my power of writing English; but I 

 hope that, whatever my descriptions want in clearness, 

 or literary skill, may in a measure be compensated by 

 the novelty of the scenes described, and the additional 

 information afforded on that curse of Africa, and that 

 shame, even now, in the 19th century, of an European 

 nation, — the slave-trade. 



I took the "Lady Nyassa" to Bombay for the 

 express purpose of selling her, and might without any 

 difficulty have done so ; but with the thought of 

 parting with her arose, more strongly than ever, the 



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