CHAPTER XVII. 



The Livingstone Search Expedition under Mr. E. D. Young. — Departs for South 

 Africa. — Ascends the Zambesi and the Shire. — Hears of the Safety of Living- 

 stone. — Returns to England. — Letters from Dr. Livingstone. — Death of Dr. 

 Livingstone again reported, etc., etc. 



WE proceed to give a brief account of the " Livingstone Expedition and 

 its results." Mr. Young and his companions reached Table Bay on the 

 12th of July, 1867. The Rev. Mr. Lightfoot, who had taken charge of the 

 forty-two natives brought from the Shire valley by Dr. Livingstone and Mr. 

 Waller in 1864, recommended two of their number to act as interpreters to the 

 expedition, and make themselves otherwise useful. The names of the two 

 were Chinsoro (the friend of Wekotani) and Sinjeri. The former had been 

 befriended by Dr. Dickinson, of the Oxford and Cambridge Mission ; and the 

 latter had been at the same time a servant to Mr. Horace Waller. Both of 

 them had been rescued from slavery. 



H.M.S. Petrel, Captain Gordon, conveyed the expedition to the Kongone 

 mouth of the Zambesi, which they reached on the 25th of July. Speaking of 

 the scene presented to their gaze, Mr. Young says : — 



" There is something very singular about the embouchures of African rivers. 

 At first sight the long dark avenues of mangrove trees, through which the 

 channels discharge their waters, do away with the idea of solitude. It seems 

 as if the hand of man had been at work. The trees appear to have been 

 trimmed to a level at the top, and they overhang the rivers far too methodi- 

 cally to impress the mind with the utter loneliness that really haunts such 

 localities. The first impression is anything but disagreeable, and not a fair 

 introduction to the vastness and grandeur of the interior country. The 

 Zambesi, it must be remembered, enters the sea by a great variety of channels. 

 It has ceased to exist as a river some forty miles above the sea. The waters 

 of one of the grandest streams imaginable find their way as best they can to 

 the ocean, where they become entangled in the swampy delta which lies between 

 its broad channel and the sea. 



" The full desolation of the scene is withheld till one sees a canoe stealing 

 along under the shadow of the overhanging trees. Black in colour, manned 



