MR. PRICE'S JOURNEY TO THE INTERIOR. 859 



mediate. The Tsetse fly had hitherto been one great obstacle to the use of 

 wheeled carriages or even pack cattle in Eastern Africa, but Dr Kirk, the 

 Consul- General of Zanzibar, had since showed that this fly was extremely 

 local, and that vast tracts were to be found which were generally free from 

 it; that the places most infected by it could often be avoided by experienced 

 guides ; that the fly disappeared when the country was cleared and forsaken 

 by the great game, and that altogether the Tsetse was not such a formidable 

 hindrance to the use of pack or draught cattle as was once supposed. Mr. 

 Price had already trained cattle to draw a rough cart, with which he had 

 made an experimental journey of nearly one hundred miles on the main- 

 land. Bishop Steere, an experienced authority, had expressed an opinion 

 that Mr. Price had already achieved an important success. 



The Free Wesleyan Church had for several years had a mission esta- 

 blished at Ribe, sixteen miles north-west of Mombassa, and the mission was 

 well placed for extension to the lake region. It would be seen from these 

 details, first, that in the past three years a great impulse had been given 

 to the missionary effort on this coast, and there was evidently in many 

 branches of Christ's Church a warm and apparently abiding interest in the 

 work of evangelising those long-neglected regions. Secondly, that all socie- 

 ti s at work recognised more or less the importance of industrial, civilising, 

 as well as pure missionary influences. Thirdly, it was clear that every one 

 of those societies might derive most important aid from such a plan as the 

 King of the Belgians had recently devised for an international organisation 

 for exploring and civilising Central Africa. Indeed, some of the societies 

 had in part anticipated the king's plan, and more than one traveller had 

 already found a base for his explorations at the hospitable missionary esta- 

 blishments on the coast. 



Such travellers, as well as the missionaries, might benefit enormously 

 by the establishment of international stations at intervals of two or three 

 days' journey inland from the coast. From the speech of Mr. Stevenson 

 at the meeting of the British Association held in Glasgow some time pre- 

 viously there was every hope that a part at least of the scheme indicated by 

 Mr. Mackinuon at the Brussels Conference might be executed by the enter- 

 prising countrymen and townsmen of Livingstone. The scheme comprised 

 a chain of posts from some port south of Kilwa to the northern end of Lake 

 Nyassa, and thence to the southern extremity of Lake Tanganyika. A se- 

 cond would connect Ujiji with Bagamoyo or some neighbouring port. These 

 lines would be most valuable and helpful to four of the six missions already 

 established on the coast, and at the same time they were among the most 

 important routes for commerce with the lake country. They would be sup- 

 ported by Dr. Kirk as important checks on the land-borne slave trade, and 

 they were selected by Commander Cameron as most promising for aiding 



