676 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



An address having been delivered by Past Master Jones, 

 Lieutenant Cameron rose, and met with a warm reception. He said — 

 " I beg to return you my most sincere and hearty thanks for the honour 

 which you have done me this day. In all my journeys, when alone for up- 

 wards of two years, without seeing any Englishman, I was sustained by the 

 thought that, when I returned to England, the work I was about would be 

 appreciated by my countrymen. I am proud to think that my hope and 

 thought has been verified as it has been to-day by the honour which has 

 been done me. The eloquent speech which you have heard leaves me little 

 to say. A sailor's trade is not to talk, but to try to do what he is directed 

 to do. The country of Africa which I have traversed, and especially to the 

 west of the Tanganyika, is one of the richest portions of the world; and 

 if one was only in a position to give the climate a fair chance, it would be 

 found to be far more healthy than that noble dependency of the British 

 Empire, India. Ivory, which has been mentioned as one of the materials of 

 the Turners' art and mystery, is there found in greater abundance than any- 

 where else. At Nyangwe, the Arabs, trading amongst themselves, give 

 thirty-five pounds of ivory for seven and a half pounds of beads, or five and 

 a half pounds of cowries, and very often they are able to buy a tusk, irre- 

 spective of size, which may weigh from one hundred to one hundred and 

 fifty pounds, by the present of an old copper bracelet, or any worn-out use- 

 less thing, which may take the fancy of the natives. 



" This country of Nyangwe, I firmly believe — in fact, I am sure, may 

 be reached by the Congo ; and hereafter I hope that, where my steps have 

 been, we shall see a system of English trading-stations for the purchase, not 

 only of ivory, but for other merchandise, for the richness of the vegetable 

 products of the country is something beyond description. I have walked 

 along for fifty or sixty yards under a grove of nutmeg trees, with the whole 

 ground covered with nutmegs, and no one knew what they were worth. 

 Besides that, there are many other valuable products in abundance, many 

 different species of cotton and oil-producing palms. Up the valley of the 

 Congo, to a height of two thousand six hundred feet above the level of the 

 sea, the country is crowded with oil-palm, and hereafter that trade alone — 

 leaving the question of ivory altogether on one side — will well be sufficient 

 to repay any enterprising merchants of England who embark in it. The 

 people, in many of the countries I passed through, are very clever smiths. 

 They have not yet advanced to the art and mystery of turning, but some of 

 their work, executed simply with a rough hand hammer without a handle, 

 and with no file to finish off with, might favourably compare with a great 

 deal which is shown in this advanced country of England, where we have 

 all the appliances of modern machinery and workmanship to help us. Now, 

 the land which furnishes all the articles I have mentioned, is also opened 



