168 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



and Angola got a bad name in the mercantile world in consequence. No 

 attempt has ever been made since. Still, with the same difficulties and 

 burdens as the English encountered, the Americans carry on a flourishing trade 

 with Loanda. A very large proportion of the goods imported in other ships 

 are English manufactures, taken in exchange for colonial produce, which has 

 gone by the expensive and circuitous route of Lisbon, i. e. produce on which 

 the expense of port-dues, freight, commission, &c, is paid from Loanda to 

 Lisbon, and again thence to London. As the same round of expenses is 

 incurred on English manufactures, a British merchant carrying merchandise 

 direct to and from England, and dealing in Loanda in a liberal spirit, 

 would almost certainly establish a lucrative trade." 



Several of Dr. Livingstone's letters which we have drawn upon so 

 largely in this chapter were written after his return to Linyanti, but as 

 they refer to the journey, the first part of which he had at this stage 

 of our narrative so successfully completed, we have given them a place 

 here. We must now accompany him and his native party on their way back 

 to Linyanti, where they had been given up as lost. We cannot too much 

 admire the spirit which impelled him to return from whence he had come in 

 redemption of the pledge he had given to Sekeletu and his people. After 

 months of arduous travel, and constant attacks of sickness, we could scarcely 

 have blamed him if he had been tempted to go home to England for a time 

 to recruit. The great secret of his success as a traveller, and the confidence 

 the native tribes reposed in him, was the dependence they felt they could 

 place in his word. With few exceptions, his word was never doubted by a 

 native African. Higher compliment than is conveyed in this fact could not 

 be passed upon him. 



