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commodities they brought with them for slaves, assuring the people they were only to be employed by them to cultivate the land, and that they would take care of them as their own children. The notion that they were taken, and sold across the sea, was new to these simple people; and the lesson taught by Livingstone could not fail to be useful in circumscribing the abominable traffic among them and the other tribes he visited on his way to the west coast. Santuru was once visited by the Mambari ; but he and his head men refused them permission to buy any of his people. The Makololo, in expelling them from the country, quote this as a precedent.

Finding that Katonga, as the high ground beyond Naliele was called, was extensive, and free from the annual inundations, Livingstone visited it; but although exceedingly beautiful, and abounding in gardens of great fertility, cultivated with much care by the Barotse, it was found to be equally unhealthy with the low ground. The view from Katonga is thus described: "We could see the great river glancing out at several points, and fine, large herds of cattle quietly grazing on the green, succulent herbage, among numbers of cattle-stations and villages which are dotted over the landscape. Leches (a kind of antelope) in hundreds fed securely beside them; for they have learned only to keep out of bow-shot, or two hundred yards. When guns come into a country, the animals soon learn their longer range, and begin to run at a distance of five hundred yards." As the current of the river was here about four miles and a half an hour, a sure sign of a rapidly increasing rise in the country, Livingstone determined on pushing still farther up the stream, in search of a healthy location which he might make his headquarters,

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Leaving Sekeletu at Naliele, he proceeded up stream ; the chief having presented him with men and rowers, and also a herald to announce his arrival at the villages with proper effect, by shouting at the top of his voice, "Here comes the lord, the great lion,' the latter phrase being tau e tona; which in his imperfect way of pronunciation became saw e tôna, and so like the great sow, that I could not have the honor with becoming gravity, and had to entreat him, much to the annoyance of my party, to be silent." At all the villages, the party met with a hearty welcome, as being to them messengers of peace, which they term "sleep." After pushing his way to the junction of the Leeba with the Leeambye, and failing to find a suitable spot for a mission settlement, the party descended to Naliele, but not before Livingstone had made a guess that there lay the high road to the west coast, and that its head waters must be within a hundred and twenty miles of the Coanza, which would lead them down to the coast near Loanda. The Coanza, as he afterwards found, does not come from anywhere near the route to Loanda.

The following extract from "The Missionary Travels" will give some idea of the abundance of large game in this region, and their want of fear of man: "Eighty-one buffaloes defiled in slow procession before our fire one evening, within gunshot; and herds of splendid elands stood by day without fear at two hundred yards distance. They were all of the striped variety, and with their forearm markings, large dewlaps, and sleek skins, were a beautiful sight to see. The lions here roar much more than in the country farther south. One evening we had a good opportunity of hearing the utmost exertions the animal can make in that line. We had made our beds

on a large sandbank, and could be easily seen from alı sides. A lion on the opposite shore amused himself for hours by roaring as loudly as he could; putting, as is usual in such cases, his mouth near the ground, to make the sound reverberate. . . . Wherever the game abounds, these animals exist in proportionate numbers. Here they were frequently seen; and two of the largest I ever saw seemed about as tall as common donkeys; but the mane made their bodies appear rather larger."

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Coming down the river to the town of Ma Sekeletu (the mother of Sekeletu), they found Sekeletu with his mother. After a short stay, the party started on their voyage down the river, and reached Linyanti after an absence of nine weeks. This being the first visit paid by Sekeletu to this portion of his dominions, the travellers were received with the utmost enthusiasm everywhere; the head men of the villages presenting him with more eatables and drinkables than even his numerous followers could devour, notwithstanding their wonderful powers in that way. The enthusiasm of the people usually wound up with an extraordinary dance, which Livingstone describes: "It consists of the men standing, nearly naked, in a circle, with clubs or small battle-axes in their hands, and each roaring at the loudest pitch of his voice, while they simultaneously lift one leg, stamp heavily twice with it, then lift the other, and give one stamp with that; this is the only movement in common. The arms and head are thrown about also in every direction; and all this time the roaring is kept up with the utmost possible vigor. The continued stamping makes a cloud of dust around, and they leave a deep ring in the ground where they have stood. If the scene were witnessed in a lunatic asylum, it would be nothing out of the way, and quite

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appropriate, even, as a means of letting off the excessive excitement of the brain; but the gray-headed men joined in the performance with as much zest as others whose youth might be an excuse for making the perspiration stream off their bodies with the exertion. . . . The women stand by clapping their hands; and occasionally one advances into the circle composed of a hundred men, makes a few movements, and then retires."

The effect the experience gained in this journey had apon him, and the reflections induced thereby, are indicated in the following extract: "I had been," he says, "during a nine-weeks' tour, in closer contact with heathenism than I had ever been before; and though all, including the chief, were as kind and attentive to me as possible, and there was no want of food, yet to endure the dancing, roaring, and singing, the jesting, anecdotes, grumbling, quarrelling, and murdering, of these children of nature, seemed more like a severe penance than any thing I had before met with in the course of my missionary duties. I took thence a more intense disgust at heathenism than I had before, and formed a greatly elevated opinion of the latent effect of missions in the south, among tribes which are reported to have been as savage as the Makololo. The indirect benefits, which, to a casual observer, lie beneath the surface, and are inappreciable, in reference to the probable wide diffusion of Christianity, at some future time, are worth all the money and labor that have been expended to produce them."

CHAPTER V.

PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE.

ASCENDS THE LEEAMBYK

AND THE LEEBA. — ABUNDANCE OF ANIMAL LIFE.

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As Sekeletu and the head men of the Makololo were as alive to the advantages which would accrue to them from the opening-out of trade with the west coast as Livingstone was for these and higher purposes which they could not comprehend, every assistance was rendered which could help the traveller in carrying out his bold and daring attempt to make his way across the country. A picho, or conference, of the head men of the tribe, presided over by the chief, was held to discuss the adventure, and the best way of assisting in it. One of the old men, who was famed as a croaker, said, "Where is he taking you to? This white man is throwing you away. Your garments already smell of blood." This foreboding had no influence over Sekeletu, or any of his men: they were too much accustomed to hearing his prognostications of evil from every enterprise; and it was decided that a band of twenty-seven picked men, principally Barotse, they being best acquainted with the tribes to the west, should accompany Livingstone, as the contribution of the chief and his people towards the accomplishment of an object so desirable to all.

In answer to the question whether, "In the event of your death, will not the white people blame us for having

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