850 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



are, however, sent across the lake by Mataka and the other chiefs to buy ivory, 

 which is afterwards sent down to Kilwa, or indirectly through the Makuas, 

 to Ibo. This want of other trade is of course the chief reason why the Yao 

 chiefs cling so firmly to their slave traffic; the opening of some new com- 

 merce would be the surest way of destroying the trade in men. 



"We made our final start from Mataka's villages on December 22, taking 

 with us abundant provisions, and some Yaos who were skilled in making bark 

 canoes, in case we found the rivers unfordable. In going up we had met few 

 caravans, partly because they avoided us when possible, and I think our guide 

 avoided them. One caravan near Makoehero's made a night march to pass 

 us unseen, and two slaves escaped from them that night ; when they got down 

 to Kilwa they spread a report that we had been dispersed by the Grwangwaras 

 and many of us killed, and they were believed till Mataka's caravan arrived, 

 and reported meeting us at the Luatize. Now we were in the midst of a rush 

 of caravans, trying like ourselves to escape the worst of the rains. 



" We were very fortunate in finding both the great rivers bridged by 

 previous caravans ; indeed, we met one in the act of crossing the second. We 

 made a slightly quicker march down through the Yao forest than we had made 

 going up. Now we found all the low land full of Rovuma water. We were 

 told that the river was unusually high, and it rose two feet while we stayed 

 on its banks for a day to buy food. 



" I had thus an opportunity of seeing under a different aspect a district 

 of high land near the river which I had thought in going up would make an 

 admirable site for a city of refuge, or for an intermediate station and rest- 

 ing place. It looked even more promising now. Just by it we met a large 

 caravan, the largest I think which we saw ; it consisted of one hundred and 

 thirty- four people carrying sixty-one bales of cloths. The number of these is 

 always the standard by which the importance of a caravan is measured. A 

 few days before we had met another with thirty -five people and seventeen 

 bales, which was, I think, the smallest. In all we met nine, five belonging to 

 Yao chiefs and four to coast Arabs, most of them having been from two to 

 three months on the way, and all exclaiming at the scarcity and dearness 

 of provisions. We found afterwards at Makoehero's, where we had bought 

 most of our provisions in going up, and amongst us had eaten some hundreds 

 o"f fowls, that nothing was now to be had, and everything about the place 

 looked hungry ; the caravans seen would represent from one thousand 

 five hundred to two thousand slaves, and possibly some ten thousand for the 

 whole year. 



" The Rovuma was crossed on January 7, at a place where the river 

 flows in one channel, reminding one in breadth and current of the Thames 

 at Westminster when the tide has begun to run out strongly. I think, how- 

 ever, that it is wider, and the water, instead of being black, was a muddy 



