DR. LIVINGSTONE'S LETTERS. 391 



cooking things, and could make no use of him. He could not divide pro- 

 visions even with partiality, nor measure off cloth to the natives without 

 cheating them. He complained at last of unaccountable pains in his feet, ate 

 a whole fowl for supper, slept soundly till daylight, and then commenced 

 furious groaning. He carried his bed one mile the night before without 

 orders, then gave his belt and musket to a native, to blind me as to his having 

 sold and stolen the cartridges. The native carriers would not follow us 

 through a portion of jungle, and when I sent back for the loads, the gallant 

 Havildar was found sitting by his own baggage, and looking on while the car- 

 riers paid themselves by opening one of the bales. He then turned back to 

 join his fellows at Mataka's ; the country abounded in provisions, and the 

 people were very liberal." 



In a letter to Sir Bartle Frere, he describes the country about Bemba as 

 " chiefly forest and exceedingly leafy: one can see but a little way from an 

 elevation. The gum-copal and another tree abound, with rhododendrons 

 and various evergreen trees — the two first furnish the black-cloth Avhich is the 

 principal clothing of the people. . . We could not for some time find out 

 where the Portuguese route to Cazembe lay, but it has been placed by the 

 map-makers too far east. There they had no mountain chains such as we 

 have met with. 



" Mataka's town and country (to the east of the north end of Lake 

 Nyassa) are the most likely for a permanent settlement to be made. It is 

 elevated and cool. English pears were in full bearing, and bloom in July ; 

 the altitude is over 3,000 feet, and this country is mountainous and abounds 

 in running streams, the sources of the Rovuma. Dr. Norman Macleod pro- 

 mised to try and get me some German Missionaries from Harmsburgh, in 

 Hanover, and salaries for them, if I could indicate a locality. These same 

 men go without salaries, and are artificers of different kinds; but this is a 

 mistake : they ought to have a little, for some of them have, in sheer want, 

 taken to selling brandy even, but at Mataka's they could easily raise wheat, 

 by sowing it at the proper time, and native products, when the rains come, 

 but it would require a leader of some energy, and not a fellow who would 

 wring his hands if he had no sugar to his tea. I have almost forgotten the 

 taste of sugar, and tea is made by roasting a little Joare, and calling the de- 

 coction either tea or coffee. I have written to the Doctor, and given some 

 account of the difficulties to be overcome ; three hundred miles is a long way 

 to go, but I feel more and more convinced that Africa must be Christianised 

 from within." 



After the reading of Dr. Livingstone's letters to the members of the 

 Royal Geographical Society at a meeting held on the 27th of April, 1868, Sir 

 Roderick Murchison said — " That the question on which Europeans and the 

 British public at large were now interested, was the future course of Living- 



