232 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D 



indomitable energy, rendered the traffic much more perilous than any other 

 form of gambling for money, they conferred a double benefit. The slave was 

 prevented from being torn from his home and country, and the master was 

 compelled to turn to more stable sources of income and wealth. But when 

 this took place it was found that the strong arms which washed for gold and 

 cultivated coffee, cotton, wheat, indigo, sugar, earthnuts for oil, &c, were 

 across the Atlantic, and a civil war breaking out completed the disorder. 



" Our explanations were, however, considered satisfactory ; indeed, when 

 we could get a palaver, they were never unreasonable until we came close to 

 Tete ; but it was unpleasant to be everywhere suspected. The men belonging 

 to some chiefs on the Zambesi never came near us unless fully armed ; others 

 would not sit down, nor enter into any conversation, but after gazing at us 

 for some time with a sort of horror they went off to tell the chief and great 

 men what they had seen. We appeared an uncouth band, for the bits of 

 skins, alias fig-leaves, had in many cases disappeared, and my poor fellows 

 could not move about without shocking the feelings of the well-clothed Zam. 

 besians. The Babisa traders (Muizas) bring large quantities of cotton cloth 

 from the coast to the tribes beyond Zumbo. Both Moors and Babisa had 

 lately been plundered too. They could not have taken much from us, for the 

 reason contained in the native proverb, ' You cannot catch a humble cow by 

 the horns.' We often expected bad treatment, but various circumstances 

 ccnspired to turn them from their purposes. 



"It is impossible to enumerate all the incidents which, through the 

 influence of our Divine protector on the hearts of the heathen, led to our 

 parting in friendship with those whom we met with very different sentiments ; 

 but I must not omit the fact that, if our cruisers had accomplished nothing 

 else, they have managed to confer a good name on our country. I was quite 

 astonished to find how far the prestige had spread into the continent ; and in 

 my case they had ocular demonstration of more than a hundred evidently 

 very poor men going with one of 'that white tribe' without either whip or 

 chain. My headman speaks the language perfectly, and being an intelligent 

 person, he contributed much by sensible explanations to lull suspicion. We 

 had besides no shields with us ; this was often spoken of, and taken as 

 evidence of friendly intentions ; and for those who perversely insisted that we 

 were spies, we had forty or fifty gallant young elephant-hunters, and the 

 extraordinary bravery they sometimes exhibited seemed to say it would 

 scarcely be wholesome to meddle with such fellows. The personal character 

 of some chiefs led at once to terms of friendship. With others we spent 

 much time in labouring in vain to convince them we were not rogues and 

 vagabonds: they were in the minority, as the utterly bad are everywhere 

 else. With fair treatment the inhabitants on the Zambesi would, I believe, 

 act justly ; they are not powerful as compared with our Kaffres of the Cape." 



