836 LIFE OF DA VID LI V1NGST0NE, LL.D. 



part at once gave them a settlement, and virtually promised to give up the 

 slave trade. 



" Those who have read Livingstone's books will remember that the same 

 thing has occurred in the case of other chiefs, who promised to have nothing 

 to do with the Arabs, and to side with the Scotch and English in any quarrel 

 that might arise. These were missionaries. They said to the people ,' Now, 

 don't have anything to do with the Arabs.' Well, it was good advice ; but 

 those natives are but human beings, very covetous of European goods, of 

 which those missionaries had none or very little to offer them. Therefore it 

 is not surprising to find those missionaries writing home to say, ' We must 

 have trade here, we must be able to out-bid the Arabs, or we shall be ejected 

 from the country.' For some years perhaps those natives might be staunch 

 and true, but in course of time these Arabs come with their beads and calico 

 and say, ' What do these foreigners want? They give you very good advice, 

 but they have no beads and calico.' That is a great temptation, and should 

 not be allowed to exist when England has it in her power with little trouble 

 to take it out of their way. Surely it is not hard to see that some good 

 honest trade in conjunction with the missionary efforts might be carried on. 

 As soon as the basis is once formed in the centre, it will be of the greatest im- 

 portance in keeping our hold on the country, and securing the confidence 

 and friendship of the natives. 



"It was when Lieutenant Cameron was still in the heart of Africa that 

 this idea first struck me, after reading some of Livingstone's books, and I was 

 rejoiced when his first letters came home to find it was exactly the same thing 

 he wished — that he believed the introduction of trade into Central Africa 

 was the surest, if not the only way of eradicating the slave trade. And it is 

 not only laymen like ourselves that hold this opinion. In that pamphlet by 

 Bishop Steere, to which I have alluded, he says — ' I find the surest way to 

 exterminate this traffic in man is to introduce some honest trade.' I have 

 thought for some time of going out to Africa, being determined to do what I 

 can either there or here. And this idea was a new light to me. For the past 

 year I have been working steadily at it — writing, and, what I most prefer, 

 speaking, for I find that when one can speak to a great number of people, it 

 is far easier than writing. I began by going to merchants, and asking them 

 if they did not think the time had come for the opening up of Africa, looking 

 at it as a business matter. They said they did not see their way to do it ; it 

 was too hazardous. I said, ' Well, don't you think now that Livingstonia is 

 founded, that at all events some pioneering expedition might be sent to see if 

 there is anything worth getting in the country, and whether there are any 

 accessible routes by which to transport it?' Some of the larger-hearted 

 of them saw it, and from philanthropic as well as other motives, they have put 

 it in my power to get together a certain amount of goods. Now, the question 



