424 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
Do not let me hear people say, “ Oh, that is an old 
story ! ” It is emphatically a sign of the times. We have 
half-tilled soil at our own doors, and neglect to cultivate 
it. Religious labourers of our day are becoming lazy : 
they do not keep themselves abreast of the age, either 
in action, in thought, or in sympathy. There is too 
much shouting about easy charity, and too little heard 
of the doctrine of self-reliance. 
The sadness of the scene at Livingstonia must have a 
cause. Where was it to be found ? Could it be attri¬ 
buted to the empty houses, the desertion or the absence 
of whites ? No ! again we must go to the threshold of 
the unknown, to the great impenetrable mystery, 
Death ! 
“ Life is vainly short, 
A very dream of being; and when death 
Has quenched this liner flame that moves the heart 
Beyond is all oblivion, as waste night 
That knows no following dawn, where we shall be 
As we had never been: the present then is only ours.” 
Livingstonia had its skeleton in every house. Men 
had lived there in love, and died in faith. Often, 
indeed, must the piteous cry have ascended heaven¬ 
wards : “ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
me ( 
Awaking to the realities of my harshly solitaTy 
position, 1 heard the hawk’s high call and the strange 
long notes of the fish-eagle dying upon the wind as 
they left their watery fields of food, and sought their 
roosts high in the trees amidst the rocks. The native 
fishing canoes had been beached. The sound of the 
drums which had echoed over the still waters gradually 
lessened and ceased. 
A few people passed to and fro over the gravelled 
paths, the soft tread of their naked feet being scarcely 
perceptible as they hurried rapidly along; the Ajawa 
being far from home when he is outside his hut at 
night. They think that the evil spirits of the departed 
are out and about seeking for whom they may devour .* 
* The Ajawa believe in the existence of all manner of hidden influences 
wishing to eat their dead. 
