LIVINGSTONE’S LAST JOURNEY. 
217 
on the banks of the Kalongosi river, a little to the east of the point 
at which he had sighted it on his flight northwards with the Arabs. 
In December what may be called the direct march to Lake 
Bangweolo was commenced, the difficulties of traveling now 
greatly aggravated by the continuous rain which had filled to over¬ 
flowing the sponges, as Livingstone calls the damp and porous 
districts through which he had to pass. To quote from Dr. Waller’s 
notes, ''our hero’s men speak of the march from this point” (the 
village of Moenje, left on the 9th of January, 1873) "as one con¬ 
tinued plunge in and out of morass, and through rivers which were 
only distinguishable from the surrounding waters by their deep 
currents and the necessity of using canoes. 
To a man reduced in strength, and chronically affected with 
dysenteric symptoms,” adds Dr. Waller, "the effect may well be 
conceived. It is probable that, had Dr. Livingstone been at the 
head of a hundred picked Europeans, every man of them would 
have been down in a fortnight.” 
A JOURNEY UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 
Under these circumstances we cannot too greatly admire the 
pluck of Livingstone’s little body of men, for it must not be for¬ 
gotten that Africans have an intense horror of wet, and that those 
from the coast suffer almost as much as white men from the climate 
of the interior. 
Following the route, we find that he crossed no less than 
thirteen rivulets in rapid succession—-more, in fact, than one a day. 
In January he notes that he is troubled for want of canoes, they 
being now indispensable to further progress, and that he is once 
more near the Chambeze, the river which he had crossed far away 
on the north-east just before the loss of his medicine-chest and the 
beginning of his serious troubles. 
No canoes were, however, forthcoming; the natives were afraid 
of the white man, and would give him no help either with guides 
or boats. Nothing daunted even then, though his illness was grow¬ 
ing upon him to such an extent that the entries in his journal are 
