On the 4th of December they had a foretaste of coming peril, in the person of a howling dervish, who came at Livingstone with his lips covered with foam, and with a small battle-axe in his hand. “I felt it would be a sorry way to leave the world, to get my head chopped by a mad savage”--but he would show no fear, and by and by the paroxysm of frenzy passed away. Later on, they heard the tribesmen exulting over them. “God has apportioned them to us,” they cried. Still there was no outbreak, and the expedition moved on unmolested. The country was now seen to be swarming with inhabitants. They had no notion of any invasion of their territory that did not mean conquest and plunder; but when the villagers listened to Christ’s promise of “Peace on earth, goodwill to men,” they expressed satisfaction. “Give us rest and sleep,” they pleaded. The chief Monze, further on, was urgent that a white man should come and live among his people, and his sister seconded him, exclaiming that it would be joy “to sleep without dreaming of anyone pursuing one with a spear.” Livingstone must have felt like Dante with the vision of the Inferno before his eyes. They travelled on through a healthy and beautiful region, where Livingstone could indulge to the full his love of natural beauties, and study the habits of the wonderful beasts and birds. They kept well to the north of the Zambesi; and the first organised hostility awaited them at the confluence of the Zambesi and the Loangwa. There is no more striking or characteristic story than this in the whole of Livingstones biography. The chief Mburuma had shown many signs of treachery, and had roused the countryside against the expedition. It seemed almost certain that the passage of the Loangwa would be contested. The people were collecting in large numbers, and remained in obstinate suspicion at a distance from the camp. Livingstone’s own reflections are to be gathered from the entries in his Journal. On January 14th--for 1856 has come--he writes, “Thank God for His great mercies this far. How soon I may be called before Him, my righteous Judge, I know not.... On Thy word I lean. The cause is Thine. See, O Lord, how the heathens rise up against me as they did against Thy Son.” Then comes a very characteristic sentence: “It seems a pity that the facts about the two healthy longitudinal regions should not be known in Christendom. Thy will be done.”