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which have arisen from time to time concerning Central Africa. The noblest heroes of geography have been of that land. She reckons Bruce, Clapperton, Lander, Ritchie, Mungo Park, Laing, Baikie, Speke, Burton, Grant, Baker, and Livingstone as her sons. Many of these have fallen, stricken to death by the poisonous malaria of the lands through which they travelled. Who has recorded their last words their last sighs? Who has related the agonies they must have suffered their sufferings while they lived? What monuments marked their last lonely resting-places? Where is he who can point out the exact localities where they died? Look at that skeleton of a continent! We can only say they died in that unknown centre of Africathat great broad blank between the eastern and the western coasts.

"Before I brought with me producible proofs in the shape of letters, his journal, his broken chronometers, his useless watches, his box of curiosities, it was believed by all, with the exception of a few, that the most glorious name among these geographical heroes- the most glorious name among fearless missionaries—had been added to the martyrology list; it was believed that the illustrious Livingstone had at last succumbed to the many fatal influences that are ever at work in that awful heart of Africa.

"It was in my search for this illustrious explorer which has now ended so happily-far more successfully than I could have anticipated—that I came to the shores of the great lake, the Tanganyika. At a little port or bunder, called Ujiji, in the district of Ujiji, my efforts were crowned with success. If you will glance at the south-eastern shore of the Tanganyika you will find it a blank; but I must now be permitted to fill it with rivers, and streams, and marshes, and mountain ranges. I must people it with powerful tribes-with Wafipa, Wakawendi, Wakonongo, More to the south, ferocious Watuta,

and Wanyamwezi.

and predatory Warori, and to the north, Mana Msengi, Wangondo, and Waluriba. Before coming to the Malagarazi I had to pass through southern Wavinza. Crossing that river, and after a day's march, I entered Ubha, a broad, plain country extending from Uvinza north to Urundi, and the lands inhabited by the northern Watuta. Three long marches through Ubha brought me to the beautiful country of Ukaranga and Ujiji, the Liuche valley, or Ruche, as Burton has it. Five miles further westwards brought me to the summit of a smooth, hilly ridge, and the town of Ujiji, embowered in palms, lay at our feet, and beyond was the silver lake, the Tanganyika, and beyond the broad belt of water towered the darkly purple mountains of Ugoma and Ukaramba.

"To very many here, perhaps, African names have no interest, but to those who have travelled in Africa each name brings a recollection-each word has a distinct meaning; sometimes the recollections are pleasing, sometimes bitter. If I mention Ujiji, that little port in the Tanganyika almost hidden by palm groves, with the restless plangent surf rolling over the sandy beach, it recalled as vividly to my mind as if I stood on that hill-top looking down upon it, and where, after a few minutes later, I met the illustrious Livingstone. If I think of Unyanyembe, naturally I recollect the fretful, peevish, and impatient life I led there, until I summoned courage, collected my men, and marched to the south to see Livingstone or to die. If I think of Ukonongo, recollections of our rapid marches, of famine, of hot suns, of surprises of enemies, and mutiny among my men, of feeding upon wild fruit, and of a desperate rush into a jungle. If I think of Ukawendi, I see a glorious land of lovely valleys, and green mountains, and forests of tall trees; the march under their twilight shades, and the exuberant chant of my people as we gaily tramped towards the north. If I think of southern Uvinza,

I see mountains of hematite of iron-I see enormous masses of disintegrated rock, great chasms, deep ravines, a bleakness and desolation as of death. If I think of the Malagarazi, I can see the river, with its fatal reptiles and snorting hippopotami; I can see the salt plains stretching on either side; and if I think of Ubha, recollections of the many trials we underwent, of the turbulent, contumacious crowds, the stealthy march at midnight through their villages, the preparations for battle, the alarm, and the happy escape, culminating in the happy meeting with Livingstone. There, in that open square, surrounded by hundreds of curious natives, stands the worn-out, pale-faced, grey-bearded, and bent form of my great companion. There stands the sullen-eyed Arabs, in their snowy dresses, girdled, stroking their long beards, wondering why I came. There stands the Wajiji, children of the Tanganyika, side by side with the Wanyamwezi, with the fierce and turbulent Warundi, with Livingstone and myself in the centre. Yes, I note it all, with the sunlight falling softly on the picturesque I hear the low murmur of the surf, the rustling of the palm branches. I note the hush that has crept over the multitude as we clasp hands."

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CHAPTER XIV.

LIVINGSTONE'S ACCOUNT OF HIS EXPLORATIONS-HIS THEORY OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE LUALABA AND THE NILE HORRORS OF SLAVE TRADE.

HE story of Dr. Livingstone's wanderings to-andfro over the vast extent of country, the watershed of which, according to his belief, goes to

form the Nile and the Congo, cannot be better told than in his own words. Letters to Mr. James Gordon Bennet, and to Lords Clarendon and Granville, successively Foreign Ministers in the English Government, supply ample materials, and tell the story of his trials and difficulties, and the geographical conclusions he had arrived at up to the period of Mr. Stanley's meeting with him in a far more graphic and telling manner than any paraphrase of ours could pretend to. In his first letter to Mr. Gordon Bennet he records his thanks for the great service rendered to him by that gentleman :—

"It is in general somewhat difficult to write to one we have never seen. It feels so much like addressing an abstract idea; but the presence of your representative, Mr. H. M. Stanley, in this distant region takes away the strangeness I should otherwise have felt, and in writing to thank you for the extreme kindness that prompted you to send him I feel quite at home.

"If I explain the forlorn condition in which he found me, you will easily perceive that I have good reason to use very strong expressions of gratitude. I came to Ujiji off a tramp of between four hundred and five hundred miles beneath a blazing vertical sun, having been baffled, worried,

defeated, and forced to return when almost in sight of the end of the geographical part of my mission, by a number of half-caste Moslem slaves sent to me from Zanzibar instead

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of men. The sore heart, made still sorer by the truly woeful sights I had seen of 'man's inhumanity to man,' reacted on the bodily frame, and depressed it beyond measure. I thought that I was dying on my feet. It is not too much to say that almost every step of the weary sultry way I in pain, and I reached Ujiji a mere ruckle of bones. I found that some £500 worth of goods I had ordered from Zanzibar had unaccountably been entrusted to a drunken half-caste Moslem tailor, who, after squandering them for sixteen months on the way to Ujiji, finished up by selling off all that remained for slaves and ivory for himself. He had divined on the Koran, and found that I was dead. He had also written to the governor of Unyanyembe that he had sent slaves after me to Manyema, who returned and reported my decease, and begged permission to sell off the few goods that his drunken appetite had spared. He however knew perfectly well from men who had seen me that I was alive, and waiting for the goods and men; but as for morality, he is evidently an idiot; and there being no law here except that of the dagger or musket, I had to sit down in great weakness, destitute of everything save a few barter cloths and beads I had taken the precaution to leave here in case of extreme need. The near prospect of beggary among Ujijians made me miserable. I could not despair,

because I laughed so much at a friend who, on reaching the mouth of the Zambesi, said 'that he was tempted to despair on breaking the photograph of his wife: we could have no success after that.' After that the idea of despair has to me such a strong smack of the ludicrous it is out of the question.

"Well, when I had got about the lowest verge, vague rumours of an English visitor reached me. I thought of

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