The only real obstacle to a descent of the Zambesi by steamer between Victoria Falls and the sea, is what are called Kebrabesa Rapids, and even the navigation of these is believed to be possible in time of flood, when the rocky bed is smoothed over by deep water. In the ordinary state of the river these rapids cannot be passed, although the inhuman experiment has been tried of fastening slaves to a canoe and flinging them into the river above the rapids. Dr. Kirk had here an accident which nearly cost him his life. The canoe in which he was seated was caught in one of the many whirlpools formed by the cataract, and driven broadside toward the vortex. Suddenly a great upward boiling of the water, here nearly one hundred feet deep, caught the frail craft, and dashed it against a ledge of rock, which the doctor was fortunately able to grasp, and thus save himself, though he lost all his scientific instruments. When Livingstone’s boat, which was immediately behind the doctor’s reached the spot, the yawning cavity of the whirlpool had momentarily closed up and he passed over it in safety. All along the line of the Lower Zambesi we find traces of Portuguese colonies, and also of the slave trade. Nowhere in all Africa has this traffic been more flourishing or ruinous in its effects, than in the colony of Mozambique. Here too, Livingstone was the champion who, almost single handed, marched out and gave battle to this many headed monster. Like Baker in the north, he inflicted upon it what we must hope is a fatal wound. As with the Egyptian authorities in the north, so the Portuguese authorities in the south, seem to have been actively concerned with the slave dealers. They not only connived at it, but profited by it. At one time, before slave trading became a business, European influence and Christian civilization under the auspices of the Jesuit missionaries extended far into the interior. At the confluence of the Loangwa and Zambesi is still to be seen a ruined church of one of the furthest outposts of the Jesuit fathers, its bell half buried in the rank weeds. The spot is the scene of desolation now. Livingstone bears generous testimony to the zeal, piety and self abnegation of these Jesuit priests. Their plans and labors hindered the slave-gatherers’ success, and it became necessary to get rid of them by calumny and often worse weapons. With the failure of their mission perished all true progress and discovery, and when Livingstone visited the Portuguese colonies on the Zambesi, he found complete ignorance of the existence of the Victoria Falls and only vague rumors of the existence of Lake Nyassa from which the Shiré, the last of the great affluents of the Zambesi, was supposed to flow.