216 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



at about half a mile distance from their encampment ; spies, who refused to 

 answer any questions, advanced from among the trees which hid the position 

 of the main body came up to the encampment of the party. To two of these 

 Livingstone handed the leg of an ox, desiring them to carry it to Mpende. 

 This brought a visit from two old men, who asked Livingstone who he was. 

 " I am a Lekoa" (Englishman), he replied. " We don't know the tribe," they 

 said ; " we suppose you are Mozunga (Portuguese), with whom we have been 

 fighting. " As the Portuguese they knew were half-castes, Livingstone bared 

 his bosom and asked if they had hair and skin like his. " No," they replied, 

 " we never saw skin so white as that. Ah ! you must be one of that tribe 

 that loves the black man." 



Through the intercession of one of these men, Sindese Oalea, the head 

 man of a neighbouring village, Mpende, after a long discussion with his coun- 

 cillors, was induced to believe Livingstone's account of himself and his inten- 

 tions, and to treat him and his party with great generosity and kindness. 

 Skewebu was sent to the chief with a request that he might be permitted 

 to buy a canoe to convey one of his men who was ill. Mpende said, " That 

 white man is truly one of our friends. See how he lets me know his afflic- 

 tions." " Ah !" said Sekwebu, " if you only knew him as well as we do who 

 have lived with him, you would understand that he highly values your friend- 

 ship, and that of Mburuma, and as he is a stranger, he trusts in you to. direct 

 him." He replied, " Well, he ought to cross to the other side of the river, 

 for this bank is hilly and rough, and the way to Tete is longer on this than 

 on the opposite bank." "But who will take us across if you do not?" 

 " Truly,'" replied Mpende, " I only wish you had come sooner to tell me 

 about him ; but you shall cross." And cross they did, leaving the place in 

 very different spirits from those with which they had approached it. 



The people here and lower down the river he found well-supplied with 

 cotton goods, which they purchased from the Babisa, a tribe farther to the 

 east, who had been doing all the trade with the interior during the two years 

 the war with the Portuguese had lasted. Beyond the range of hills to the 

 north lived a tribe called Basenga, who are great traders in iron ore ; and 

 beyond them again, in a country where the Portuguese had at one time 

 washed for gold, lived a people called Maravi, who are skilful agriculturists, 

 raising in addition to corn and maize, sweet potatoes, which grow to a great 

 size in the fertile soil of the district, and which they have learned to preserve 

 for future use by burying them in the ground, embedded in wood ashes. The 

 ground on the north side of the river appeared to be much more fertile than 

 that in the south. In many places he found evidence that coal was 

 abundant. 



A little way down the river they arrived opposite an island belonging to 

 a chief called Mozinkwa ; here they were detained by heavy rains, and the 



