292 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



large game abound among the Maravi, West of the Shire. Their weapons 

 are large bows and poisoned arrows with iron heads. Every one carries a 

 knife, and almost every village has a furnace for smelting black magnetic 

 iron-ore. Spears are rarely seen, but are very well made and of excellent 

 iron. Firearms have not been introduced ; but a rude imitation of a pistol 

 has been made by a people N.N.W. of them in a country called Siria, and it 

 is used with powder only on occasions of mourning. They were not aware 

 that it could propel a ball. It cannot be classed with arms, but with the 

 apparatus of the undertaker. They think that making a noise at funerals is 

 the proper way of expressing grief." 



Lake Nyassa was discovered a little before noon on the 16th of September, 

 1859, with the river Shire running out at its southern end in 14" 25 S. latitude. 

 The chief of the village near the outlet of the Shire, called Mosauka, invited 

 the party to visit his village, and entertained them under a magnificent ban- 

 yan-tree, giving them as a gift, a goat and a basket of meal. A party of Arab 

 slave-hunters were encamped close by. They were armed with long muskets 

 and were a villainous looking set of fellows. Mistaking the country of the 

 white men they had met so unexpectedly, they offered them young children 

 for sale ; but on hearing that they were English, they showed signs of fear, 

 and decamped during the night. Curiously enough, one of the slaves they 

 had with them recognised the party ; she had been rescued by Her Majesty's 

 ship Lynx at Kongone along with several others. She said, " that the Arabs 

 had fled for fear of an uncanny sort of Basunga" (white men or Portuguese). 



Several great slave-paths from the interior cross the upper valley of the 

 Shire. The chiefs are ashamed of the traffic, and excuse themselves by saying 

 that they " do not sell many, and only those that have committed crimes." 

 The great inducement to sell each other is, that they have no ivory and no- 

 thing else with which to buy foreign goods : a state of matters which the 

 Arab traders know how to take advantage of, as they want nothing but slaves 

 and the food they may require when on the hunt. Nothing but the establish- 

 ment of legitimate commerce can be expected to put a stop to the slave traffic 

 in such circumstances as these. The sight of slaves being led in forked sticks 

 excited the indignation of the Makololo, and they could not understand why 

 Livingstone did not allow them to set them free, by force if necessary. They 

 said, " Ay, you call us bad, but are we yellow-hearted like these fellows ? 

 why don't you let us choke them ? " These slave-sticks were about three 

 feet in length, with a fork at one end into which the neck is thrust. The 

 stick is retained in its position by putting a piece of stout wire through the 

 ends of the fork, which is turned down at either end. The price of slaves 

 near Lake Nyassa was four yards of cotton cloth for a man, three for a woman, 

 and two for a boy or girl. When flesh and blood cost so little as an absolute 

 purchase, free labour could be bought at a price which would make the 



