Xxii LIVINGSTONE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



of Kuruman, who has been an. energetic and devoted 

 actor in the scene for upwards of forty years. A slight 

 sketch only is given of my own attempts, and the chief 

 part of the book is taken up with a detail of the efforts 

 made to open up a new field north of the Bechuana 

 country to the sympathies of Christendom. The prospects 

 there disclosed are fairer than I anticipated, and the 

 capabilities of the new region lead me to hope that, by 

 the production of the raw materials of our manufactures, 

 African and English interests will become more closely 

 linked than heretofore — that both countries will be event- 

 ually benefited — and that the cause of freedom throughout 

 the world will in some measure be promoted. 



When honoured with a special meeting of welcome by 

 the Royal Geographical Society, a few days after my 

 arrival in London in December last, Sir Roderick Murchison 

 the President, invited me to give to the world a narrative 

 of my travels ; and at a similar meeting of the Directors 

 of the London Missionary Society I publicly stated my 

 intention of sending a book to the press, instead of making 

 many of those public appearances which were urged upon 

 me. The preparation of this narrative * has taken much 

 longer time than, from my inexperience in authorship, I 

 had anticipated. 



Greater smoothness of diction, and a saving of time, 

 might have been secured by the employment of a person 

 accustomed to compilation ; but my journals having 

 been kept for my own private purposes, no one else could 

 have made use of them, or have entered with intelligence 

 into the circumstances in which I was placed in Africa, 

 far from any European companion. Those who have 

 never carried a book through the press can form no idea 

 of the amount of toil it involves. The process has 

 increased my respect for authors and authoresses a 

 thousand-fold. 



As to those literary qualifications which are acquired by 

 habits of writing, and which are so important to an author, 

 my African life has not only not been favourable to the 

 growth of such accomplishments, but quite the reverse : 



* Several attempts having been made to impose upon the public, as 

 mine, spurious narratives of my travels, I beg to tender my thanks to 

 the Editors of the Times and of the Athenczum for aiding to expose 

 them, and to the booksellers of London for refusing to subscribe for 

 any copies. 



