HISTORY 6 7 
on the slave trade. He was accompanied by Mr. H. B. Cotterill, Mr. Herbert 
Rhodes, 1 and Captain Hoste. 
With the aid of the little Mission steamer Ilala Consul Elton explored the 
north end of Lake Nyasa, which he was able to show extended much farther 
northwards than had been supposed by Livingstone and Kirk. This northward 
extension of the Lake was further verified a few years afterwards by numerous 
observations for Latitude taken by Mr. James Stewart, an engineer in the 
employ of the African Lakes Company. Consul Elton first made known to us 
the remarkable Livingstone or Ukinga Mountains, at the end of Lake Nyasa, 
which attain an altitude, in parts, of nearly 10,000 feet. Unhappily Consul 
Elton died in Wunyamwezi on his way to Zanzibar. 
The Missions had not been long established when they found it impossible 
MANDALA HOUSE, NEAR BLANTYRE 
to conduct the necessary trade with the natives (for provisions could only 
be obtained by barter) and the transport service between the coast and Lake 
Nyasa, in addition to the ordinary Missionary work ; so it was resolved, in 
Scotland, to found a small Company for trade and transport, subsequently 
styled “ The African Lakes Company,” which would be affiliated to the 
Missions (in so far that its employes should be required to do a certain amount 
of missionary work), but be conducted independently and on a commercial 
basis. Two brothers, John William Moir and Frederick Maitland Moir, were 
sent to Nyasaland as- joint managers. They had been previously at work in 
the employ of the late Sir William Mackinnon, on a road to Lake Tanganyika 
which that philanthropist intended to construct inland from Dar-es-Salam, 
opposite Zanzibar. The headquarters of the Lakes Company were fixed at 
1 Mr. Herbert Rhodes was a brother of Mr. (now the Right Honourable) Cecil J. Rhodes, and had 
come to Nyasaland to shoot big game. He accompanied Consul hi ton as far as the north end of Lake 
Nyasa, and then returned to the Upper Shire, where he established himself for some time shooting 
elephants. He gained a great reputation amongst the natives for bravery and fair dealing, and is 
still spoken of by the older men at the present day under the name of “ Roza.” He was burned to death 
in 1880 by the accidental setting on fire of his hut. 
