484 LIFE OF DA VI D LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



11 More time has been spent in the exploration than I ever anticipated. 

 My bare expenses were paid for two years ; but had I left when the money 

 was expended, I could have given little more information about the country 

 than the Portuguese, who, in their three slave-trading expeditions to Cazembe, 

 asked for slaves and ivory alone, and heard of nothing else. From one of the 

 subordinates of their last so-called expedition, I learnt that it was believed 

 that the Luapula went to Angola I ' I asked about the waters till I was 

 ashamed, and almost afraid of being set down as afflicted with hydrocephalus. 

 I had to feel my way, and every step of the way, and was generally groping 

 in the dark ; for who cared where the rivers ran ? Many a weary foot I trod 

 ere I got a clear idea of the drainage of the great Nile valley. The most intel- 

 ligent natives and traders thought that all the rivers of the upper part of that 

 valley flowed into Tanganyika. But the barometers told me that to do so 

 the water must flow up-hill. The great rivers and the great lakes all make 

 their waters converge into the deep trough of the valley, which is a full inch 

 of the barometer lower than the Upper Tanganyika. It is only a sense of 

 duty, which I trust your Lordship will approve, that makes me remain, and, 

 if possible, finish the geographical question of my mission. After being 

 thwarted, baffled, robbed, worried almost to death in following the central 

 line of drainage down, I have a sore longing for home ; I have had a perfect 

 surfeit of seeing strange new lands and people, grand mountains, lovely val- 

 leys, the glorious vegetation of primeval forests, wild beasts, and an endless 

 succession of beautiful mankind ; besides great rivers and vast lakes — the last 

 most interesting from their huge overflowings, which explain some of the 

 phenomena of the grand old Nile. 



" Let me explain, but in no boastful style, the mistakes of others who 

 have bravely striven to solve the ancient problem, and it will be seen that I 



mountains situate between Syene and Elephantis, the names of which, mountains are Krophis and 

 Memphis, and that accordingly the sources of the Nile, which are bottomless, come from between 

 these two mountains — that one-half of the water flows into Egypt, and towards the north, while the 

 other half flows into Ethiopia. That the sources are bottomless Bammetticus, the king of Egypt,' 

 he said, ' proved, for having caused a cable to be twisted, many thousand ogyae in length, he cast it 

 in, but could not reach the bottom.' " 



A recent writer compares Livingstone's story with that of Herodotus. He says : — " Herodotus 

 speaks of the peaked mountains, between which he the sources of the river — Livingstone of an earthen 

 mound and four fountains, as the sources of the river. Herodotus writes that one-half of the water 

 flows north into Egypt — Livingstone, two of these run north to Egypt, Lufira and Lomame. Hero- 

 dotus again — the other flows into Ethiopia : Livingstone — and two run south into Inner Ethiopia, as 

 the Leeambye, or Upper Zambesi, and the Kafue. Again the father of history is confirmed by modern 

 research, and the information which the Doctor has obtained, almost in the immediate neighbourhood 

 of the object of his ambition, shows how carefully the curious old traveller of two or three hundred 

 years ago must have pursued his inquiries and recorded the results, although he puts it upon record 

 that he thought the man of letters, or notary, was joking with him. 



