870 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



varying from five thousand feet to six thousand feet above the level of the sea, 

 perfectly healthy, where any European might live, and cultivate all the pro- 

 ductions of Southern Europe. But instead of this beautiful country being a 

 centre from which to spread Christianity and civilisation, it was now one of 

 the strongholds of the slave trade. Slaves could not be exported to the 

 East Coast in such numbers as they used to be ; yet they were still exported 

 to the West Coast. People did not know exactly where they were sent to, 

 but he had no doubt that many of them found their way to the Brazils. He 

 saw recently in the "Times" that there had been a row about the Royal 

 mails taking slaves from port to port ; and as he had said, he had no doubt 

 that many were carried at the present day from the West Coast of Africa to 

 the Brazils. A Portuguese caravan, in which he came down from the interior, 

 collected in eighteen months about fifteen hundred slaves, and these he sup- 

 posed, did not represent more than twenty per cent, of the population de- 

 stroyed. 



The slave trade was, therefore, going on now as it was when slaves were 

 carried over across the Atlantic — still carried on in the interior of Africa, 

 chiefly in the Portuguese capital. England had put herself in the forefront 

 in relation to this great question, and she must not be satisfied until the time 

 had arrived when a slave was not to be sold in any part of the world. They 

 should stop the slave trade by sea and by land. A scheme had been mooted 

 for forming stations between Lake Nyassa (on which there were steamers 

 already running) and the south end of an adjoining lake and other parts. By 

 this means a great cordon could be formed across the lake, so that slaves 

 should not be taken to the east coast. In the interior of the Portuguese 

 territory the traffic was still carried on, and it was not easy to see how to 

 stop it, but he thought that if steamers were set running upon the upper 

 waters of the Zambesi, with stations on the different rapids, it might act as 

 a means of preventing the further carrying on of the traffic. 



On the Congo river they might place steamers which could carry cargoes, 

 and also act as a water police, and might possibly cut off all the country to 

 the north of the Congo from communication with the trade districts, and they 

 might also reach other lakes by the construction of a canal of thirty miles to 

 the head of the Zambesi. In fact, with complete water communication, the 

 means of getting from one lake to another, and with an active river police and 

 steam launches, they might stop the whole of the trade there. But if they 

 opened a country to traders there must be some consular authority, to check 

 and govern them. These river steamers would afford the consuls the power 

 of enforcing their authority, and would also aid in furthering the purely 

 philanthropic efforts made by individuals. Africa in its heart had a system 

 of water communication, which if utilised would be little, if at all, inferior to 

 the system of water communication with North America, which at one time 



