Missionary Travels and Researches in South AfricaLivingstone, David
Religion
Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa
Livingstone, David
Missions -- South Africa; South Africa -- Description and travel
The instruments I carried, though few, were the best of their kind.
A sextant, by the famed makers Troughton and Sims, of Fleet Street;
a chronometer watch, with a stop to the seconds hand--an admirable
contrivance for enabling a person to take the exact time of
observations: it was constructed by Dent, of the Strand (61), for
the Royal Geographical Society, and selected for the service by the
President, Admiral Smythe, to whose judgment and kindness I am in this
and other matters deeply indebted. It was pronounced by Mr. Maclear to
equal most chronometers in performance. For these excellent instruments
I have much pleasure in recording my obligations to my good friend
Colonel Steele, and at the same time to Mr. Maclear for much of my
ability to use them. Besides these, I had a thermometer by Dollond; a
compass from the Cape Observatory, and a small pocket one in addition; a
good small telescope with a stand capable of being screwed into a tree.
11TH OF NOVEMBER, 1853. Left the town of Linyanti, accompanied by
Sekeletu and his principal men, to embark on the Chobe. The chief came
to the river in order to see that all was right at parting. We crossed
five branches of the Chobe before reaching the main stream: this
ramification must be the reason why it appeared so small to Mr. Oswell
and myself in 1851. When all the departing branches re-enter, it is
a large, deep river. The spot of embarkation was the identical island
where we met Sebituane, first known as the island of Maunku, one of
his wives. The chief lent me his own canoe, and, as it was broader than
usual, I could turn about in it with ease.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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