A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries: And of the Discovery of Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864Livingstone, David
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A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries: And of the Discovery of Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864
Livingstone, David
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Africa, Central -- Discovery and exploration
Wherever we took a walk, human skeletons were seen in every direction,
and it was painfully interesting to observe the different postures in
which the poor wretches had breathed their last. A whole heap had been
thrown down a slope behind a village, where the fugitives often crossed
the river from the east; and in one hut of the same village no fewer than
twenty drums had been collected, probably the ferryman's fees. Many had
ended their misery under shady trees--others under projecting crags in
the hills--while others lay in their huts, with closed doors, which when
opened disclosed the mouldering corpse with the poor rags round the
loins--the skull fallen off the pillow--the little skeleton of the child,
that had perished first, rolled up in a mat between two large skeletons.
The sight of this desert, but eighteen months ago a well peopled valley,
now literally strewn with human bones, forced the conviction upon us,
that the destruction of human life in the middle passage, however great,
constitutes but a small portion of the waste, and made us feel that
unless the slave-trade--that monster iniquity, which has so long brooded
over Africa--is put down, lawful commerce cannot be established.
We believed that, if it were possible to get a steamer upon the Lake, we
could by her means put a check on the slavers from the East Coast; and
aid more effectually still in the suppression of the slave-trade, by
introducing, by way of the Rovuma, a lawful traffic in ivory. We
therefore unscrewed the "Lady Nyassa" at a rivulet about five hundred
yards below the first cataract, and began to make a road over the thirty-
five or forty miles of land portage, by which to carry her up piecemeal.
After mature consideration, we could not imagine a more noble work of
benevolence, than thus to introduce light and liberty into a quarter of
this fair earth, which human lust has converted into the nearest possible
resemblance of what we conceive the infernal regions to be--and we
sacrificed much of our private resources as an offering for the promotion
of so good a cause.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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