Mtemése proved to be by no means an immaculate person. Among other delinquencies he left the pontoon behind, a loss that was keenly felt. He had, too, a prejudice against speedy travel which Livingstone could not be induced to share. He was useful, however, in levying tribute of food throughout Shinté’s dominion, and evidently thought Livingstone a great fool for paying a fair price for what could have been had for nothing. Gradually Shinté’s territory was left behind, and that of Katema was invaded. It seemed to Livingstone that as they moved north the moral conditions darkened. At times the great horror of heathenism laid hold of him. Everywhere was the same unrelieved tragedy of brutality and murder. Sometimes over the camp fires his savage hosts would exult in their customs. They told of the death of chiefs, and the slaughter of enough of their subjects to be an escort to the nether world. The further north Livingstone penetrated the more “bloodily superstitious” did the people become. Yet he must eat with them, chat with them, laugh with them; and the impression of such religious teaching as he could impart was, alas! so superficial. Katema proved peaceable; but his people lived under the perpetual shadow of the slave-trade, and would gladly have been taken away to the Makololo country. The beginning of March found them for the first time in hostile territory. There had been much rain and flood, wading and swimming. Livingstone himself had had an adventure that thoroughly alarmed his men, and served to evoke their real devotion. He was flung from his ox in midstream, and compelled to strike out for the opposite bank. There was a simultaneous rush on the part of all his men to rescue him. Their delight was unbounded when they found he could swim like themselves. “Who carried the white man across the river but himself,” they said afterwards. It was among the Chiboques that the expedition came nearest to having to fight for their lives; and bloodshed was only averted by Livingstone’s wonderful patience and fearlessness. He sat on a campstool with his double-barrelled gun across his knees, and insisted on arguing with the chief who was endeavouring to levy blackmail. It was characteristic of Livingstone that he argued the legitimacy of passing through their country on the ground that the land belonged to God. If their gardens had been damaged compensation would have been paid, but the earth is the Lord’s. “They did not attempt to controvert this,” he comments, “because it is in accordance with their own ideas.” Finally he told them that if there was to be a fight they must begin it, and the guilt be on their heads. Matters looked critical for some hours; but Livingstone’s tact prevailed and the gift of an ox satisfied them for the time being. They had more trouble later before getting quit of the Chiboques, but there was no actual outbreak. There was thieving, however, of their goods, which were getting sadly reduced; and the