Dr. Livingstones Account, 
265 
have to be waded through, perhaps neck deep, and not a few 
rivers have to be crossed in canoes. Add to this the absence of high 
ground for cooking and camping on, the fear on the part of the 
natives, their hiding of canoes, their unwilHngness to barter poor 
provisions for cloth or beads, and we may conceive what Livingstone 
and his party had to endure. 
Nowadays a traveller in distress might strike for some friendly 
mission station, but then Livingstone was the solitary European in 
Central Africa, and his health and strength were gradually failing, 
so that he had first to ride on a donkey, then to be carried by his 
men, and at last was borne in a kind of litter ; and the entries 
in his journal became fewer and fewer. We need not attempt to 
^ive many details, as the foregoing general remarks may suffice to 
convey some idea of how matters stood with him. 
Livingstone doubtless hoped to reach Bangweolo at a better season, 
but in journeying over any ground in Africa for the first time, it 
is almost impossible to allow duly for obstacles and delays. As 1873 
was entered on, he began descending towards the lake, and the rains 
had already fallen heavily for some weeks. '■^ Jan. 6th" he writes, 
^^Cold, cloudy, and drizzling. . . . The sponges are now full and 
overflowing; crops are growing freely." Jan. 7 th. — A cold rainy 
day keeps us in a poor village very unwillingly." " Jan. Zth. — Detained 
by heavy, continuous rains ; got off in the afternoon in a drizzle, 
crossed a rill six feet wide, but now very deep, with large running 
sponges on each side." Next day he crossed two rivulets, two rills, 
four wide sponges, besides many hundred yards of flooded ground. 
Jan. 11//^.— Cold and rainy weather ; never saw the like." 
Thus the journal goes on. On March 26th the Chambeze was 
crossed; about 400 yards wide and 18 feet deep. This would be 
at a point near Lake Bangweolo, but it was impossible to say 
where the lake ended and the flooded plains, extending for thirty 
or forty miles, began. On the north side of the river, Matipa was the 
ruling chief ; on the south side, his brother Kabinga, who was in 
great grief because his son had been killed by an elephant. 
Those who have read Mr. Arnot's First Year ajnong the Barotse 
will understand the mode of life of the natives here. In the wet 
season they remove with their cattle to some islets, and move about 
in their small canoes over the flooded ground ; in the dry season 
the waters subside, and the plains become covered with the richest 
pastures, on which the cattle fatten. 
Livingstone's story would have been a very different one had he but 
arrived at Lake Bangweolo six months earlier. The canoes of the 
natives were very small ones, used for punting. If large ones had 
been available, such as the one in which, in 1868, Livingstone was 
taken to some of the islands, he and his men might have crossed the 
lake. Rushes abound, rising one to two feet above the water, and 
s 3 
