LIVINGSTONE'S INSTRUMENTS. 21$ 



and intended to be still more so when we should come 

 to leave the canoes. Some would consider it injudicious 

 to adopt this plan, but I had a secret conviction that if 

 I did not succeed it would not be for lack of the " nick- 

 nacks " advertised as indispensable for travellers, but 

 from want of " pluck," or because a large array of baggage 

 excited the cupidity of the tribes through whose country 

 we wished to pass. 



The instruments I carried, though few, were the best 

 of their kind. A sextant, by the famed makers Troughton 

 and Sims, of Fleet Street ; a chronometer watch, with a 

 stop to the seconds hand — an admirable contrivance for 

 enabling a person to take the exact time of observations : 

 it was constructed by Dent, of the Strand (61) for the 

 Royal Geographical Society, and selected for the service 

 by the President, Admiral Smythe, to whose judgment 

 and kindness I am in this and other matters deeply in- 

 debted. It was pronounced by Mr. Maclear to equal 

 most chronometers in performance. For these excellent 

 instruments I have much pleasure in recording my obliga- 

 tions to my good friend Colonel Steele, and at the same 

 time to Mr. Maclear for much of my ability to use them. 

 Besides these, I had a thermometer by Dollond ; a compass 

 from the Cape Observatory, and a small pocket one in 

 addition ; a good small telescope with a stand capable 

 of being screwed into a tree. 



1 1 /A of November, 1853. — I v eft the town of T^inyanti, 

 accompanied by Sekeletu and his principal men, to embark 

 on the Chobe. The chief came to the river in order to 

 see that all was right at parting. We crossed five branches 

 of the Chobe before reaching the main stream ; this 

 ramification must be the reason why it appeared so small 

 to Mr. Oswell and myself in 185 1. When all the departing 

 branches re-enter, it is a large deep river. The spot of 

 embarkation was the identical island where we met 

 Sebituane, first known as the island of Maunku, one of his 

 wives. The chief lent me his own canoe, and, as it was 

 broader than usual, I could turn about in it with ease. 



The Chobe is much infested by hippopotami, and, as 

 certain elderly males are expelled the herd, they become 

 soured in their temper, and so misanthropic as to attack 

 every canoe that passes near them. The herd is never 

 dangerous, except when a canoe passes into the midst 

 of it when all are asleep, and some of them may strike 



