PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE.

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try near Tete, and was intimately acquainted with the country on both sides of the Zambesi, and the dialect spoken, was appointed head of the expedition. Mamire, a chief who had married the mother of Sekeletu since Livingstone's departure for the west coast, a man of great wisdom and prudence, on bidding him farewell, said, “You are now going among a people who cannot be trusted, because we have used them badly; but you go with a different message from any they have ever heard before; and Jesus will be with you, and help you, though among enemies; and if he carries you safely, and brings you and Ma-Robert back again, I shall say he has bestowed a great favor upon me. May we obtain a path whereby we may visit, and be visited by, other tribes, and by white men!" Mentioning his inability to pay the men who would accompany him, this good and sagacious man replied, "A man wishes, of course, to appear among his friends, after a long absence, with something of his own to show. The whole of the ivory in the country is yours: so you must take as much as you can, and Sekeletu will furnish men to carry it."

As the wives of many of his attendants had given their husbands up as lost, and taken to themselves other husbands, Livingstone had some difficult questions, as to possession, to decide. In cases where the man had only one wife, he decided without hesitation that she should go back to the original husband; but, when a man had more than one, he declined to decide what should be done, in case it should be thought that he favored polygamy. Some of the men consoled themselves for the loss of their wives by taking others.

Soon after his arrival, a picho was held to consider the propriety of settling in the Barotse valley, to be nearer

the west coast for the purposes of trade with the new market the expedition had opened up to them. At this "picho," Sekeletu said, addressing Livingstone, "I am perfectly satisfied as to the great advantages for trade of the path which you have opened, and think that we ought to go to the Barotse, in order to make the way for us to Loanda shorter; but with whom am I to live there? If you were coming with us, I would remove to-morrow; but now you are going to the white man's country to bring Ma-Robert (Mrs. Livingstone); and, when you return, you will find me near to the spot on which you wish to dwell."

CHAPTER VIII.

START FOR THE EAST COAST.

BATOKA TRIBES.
GUESE SETTLEMENT.

THE VICTORIA FALLS. --THR REACHES ZUMBO, A DESERTED PORTU◄

ON the 3d of November, 1855, Livingstone and his fellow-adventurers, accompanied by Sekeletu with two hundred of his followers, who were to accompany them as far as Kalai on the Leeambye, started from Linyanti. The whole party were fed at Sekeletu's expense, — the cattle for the purpose being taken from his cattle-stations, which are spread over the whole territory owing him allegiance. Passing through a "tsetse" district when dark, to escape its attacks, they were overtaken by a tremendous storm of thunder, lightning, and rain, which thoroughly drenched the party. Livingstone's extra clothing having gone on, he was looking forward ruefully to the prospect of passing the night on the wet ground, when Sekeletu gave him his blanket, lying uncovered himself He says, "I was much touched by this little act of genuine kindness. If such men must perish by the advance of civilization, as certain races of animals do before others, it is a pity. God grant that, ere this time comes, they may receive that gospel which is a solace for the soul in death!"

On the island of Kalai, they found the grave of Sekote, a Batoka chief, who had been conquered by Sebituane, and had retreated to this place, where he died. The

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ground near the grave was garnished by human skulls, mounted on poles, and a large heap of the crania of hippopotami, the tusks being placed on one side. The grave was ornamented with seventy large elephants' tusks, planted round it with the points inwards, forming an ivory canopy; and thirty more were placed over the graves of his relatives. As they neared the point from which the party intended to strike off to the north-east from the river, Livingstone determined to visit the falls of Mosioatunya, known as the Falls of Victoria since his visit. He had often heard of these falls from the Makololo. None of them had visited them; but many of them had been near enough to hear the roar of the waters, and see the cloud of spray which hangs over them. The literal meaning of the Makololo name for them is "smoke does sound there."

He visited them twice on this occasion, the last time along with Sekeletu, whose curiosity had been aroused by his description of their magnificence. Just where the sounding smoke, of which Sebituane and the Makololo had told him, rises up for several hundred feet into the sky, and is visible for over twenty miles, a spectacle of ever-changing form and color, the mighty stream, about a mile in width, plunges, in a clear and unbroken mass, into a rent in the basaltic rock which forms the bed of the river, and the low hills which bound the river in front, and on either side, for a considerable distance of its course. This chasm is from eighty to a hundred feet in width, and of unknown depth; the thundering roar of the falling waters being heard for a distance of many miles. The throbbing of the solid ground, caused by the immense weight and force of the falling water, is felt at a great distance from the tremendous chasm in which the great river is ingulfed.

THE VICTORIA FALLS.

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After a descent of several yards, the hitherto unbroken mass of water presents the appearance of drifted snow, from which jets of every form leap out upon the opposite side of the chasm. For about a hundred feet, its descent can be traced, when it reaches the seething surface of the water below; from which arises, in jets of water like steam, a dense smoke-cloud of spray, which, descending on all sides like rain, wets the on-looker to the skin, and maintains a constant green verdure within the reach of its influence. The depth of the narrow chasm, which draws off such a vast volume of water, must be very great. At one place it has been plumbed to a depth more than twice that of the pool into which the St. Lawrence falls at Niagara. The great smoke-clouds are formed by five distinct columns of spray which ascend from the gulf, to a height of from two to three hundred feet. Three of these columns - two on the right, and one on the left, of Garden Island, which overlooks the falls appeared to Livingstone to contain as much water, in each, as there is in the Clyde at the fall of Stonebyres during a flood. The waters are drained off, at the eastern end of the falls, by a prolongation of the rocky chasm, which pursues its way, with little variation as to breadth, in a zigzag course through the mass of low hills, for over thirty miles; when the tormented waters break into the plains, and spread out to their former width, to be here and there narrowed by the several rapids which interrupt its navigation, in some cases even to the light canoes of the bold and skilful Makololo and Batoka men.

The scene round the falls is exceedingly beautiful. The banks and islands are covered with vegetation, through which the giants of the African forest rear their lofty crests. The baobab, each of whose arms would