76 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



flows into the Zouga from the north came from, Livingstone was told that it 

 came " from a country full of rivers — so many that no one can tell their 

 number." This was the first confirmation of the reports he had previously 

 received from travelled Bakwains, and satisfied him that Central Africa was 

 not a "large sandy plateau," but a land teeming with life and traversed by 

 watery highways, along which Christianity and commerce and the arts of 

 peace would in the future be conveyed to vast regions never as yet visited by 

 civilized man. From that moment the desire to penetrate into that unknown 

 region became more firmly rooted in his mind; and his enthusiastic hopes 

 found vent in his letters to England, to his friends and correspondents. 



On the 1st of August, 1849, Livingstone and his companions stood on the 

 shore of Lake Ngami, and the existence of that fine sheet of water was estab- 

 lished. It is almost a hundred miles in circumference, and at one time must 

 have been of far greater extent, and it was found to be about two thousand 

 feet above the level of the sea from which it is eight hundred miles distant. 

 They found flocks of water-birds in and about the lake and the country in 

 the neighbourhood of it, and the river running into it abounded in animal 

 fife. This was the first successful exploration of Livingstone, which drew the 

 attention of the general public towards him, and for a period of twenty-five 

 years, he was destined to engage the public attention to an extent unprece- 

 dented in the annals of modern travel and adventure. Finding it impossible, 

 from the unfriendliness of Lechulatebe, chief of the Batauana tribe, to visit 

 Sebituane, as he had intended, the travellers passed up the course of the 

 Zouga, the banks of which they found to be plentifully covered with vegeta- 

 tion and splendid trees, some of them bearing edible fruits. Wild indigo and 

 two kinds of cotton they found to be abundant. The natives make cloth of 

 the latter, which they dye with the indigo. Elephants, hipoppotami, zebras, 

 giraffes, and several varieties of antelopes were found in great abundance. A 

 species of the latter, which is never found at any distance from watery or 

 marshy ground, hitherto unknown to naturalists, was met with in considerable 

 numbers. Several varieties of fish abound in the river, which are caught by 

 the natives in nets, or killed with spears. Some of these attain to a great 

 size, weighing as much as a hundred-weight. 



The following letter was addressed by Dr. Livingstone to Mr. Tidman, 

 Foreign Secretary, London Missionary Society : — 



" Banks of the River Zouga, 3rd September, 1849. 



" Dear Sir, — I left my station, Kolobeng (situate 25° South lat., 26° East 

 long.) on the 1st of June last, in order to carry into effect the intention of 

 which I had previously informed you — viz., to open a new field in the North, 

 by penetrating the great obstacle to our progress, called the Desert, which, 

 stretching away on our west, north-west, and north, has hitherto presented an 

 insurmountable barrier to Europeans. 



