LIVINGSTONE FORESTALLED. 465 



brought some packages of goods for me to the south 

 bank of the river, near the Victoria Falls, and though they 

 declared that they had been sent by Mr. Moffat, the Mako- 

 lolo had refused to credit the statement of their sworn 

 enemies. They imagined that the parcels were directed 

 to me as a mere trick, whereby to place witchcraft-medicine 

 into the hands of the Makololo. When the Matebele on 

 the south bank called to the Makololo on the north to 

 come over in canoes, and receive the goods sent by Moffat 

 to " Nake," the Makololo replied, " Go along with you, 

 we know better than that ; how could he tell Moffat to 

 send his things here, he having gone away to the north ? " 

 The Matebele answered, " Here are the goods ; we place 

 them now before you, and if you leave them to perish, 

 the guilt will be yours." When they had departed, the 

 Makololo thought better of it, and, after much divination, 

 went over with fear and trembling, and carried the pack- 

 ages carefully to an island in the middle of the stream ; 

 then, building a hut over them to protect them from the 

 weather, they left them ; and there I found they had 

 remained from September, 1854, till September, 1855, 

 in perfect safety. Here, as I had often experienced before, 

 I found the news was very old, and had lost much of its 

 interest by keeping, but there were some good eatables 

 from Mrs. Moffat. Amongst other things, I discovered 

 that my friend, Sir Roderick Murchison, while in his 

 study in London, had arrived at the same conclusion 

 respecting the form of the African continent as I had 

 lately come to, on the spot (see note p. 441) ; and that, 

 from the attentive study of the geological map of Mr. 

 Bain and other materials, some of which were furnished 

 by the discoveries of Mr. Oswell and myself, he had not 

 only clearly enunciated the peculiar configuration as an 

 hypothesis in his discourse before the Geographical Society 

 in 1852, but had even the assurance to send me out a 

 copy] for my information ! There was not much use in 

 nursing my chagrin at being thus fairly " cut out," by the 

 man who had foretold the existence of the Australian 

 gold before its discovery, for here it was, in black and 

 white. In his easy-chair he had forestalled me by three 

 years, though I had been working hard through jungle, 

 marsh, and fever, and, since the light dawned on my 

 mind at Dilolo, had been cherishing the pleasing delusion 

 that I should be the first to suggest the idea, that the 



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