“If I am permitted,” says Dr. Livingstone in concluding the subject of the slave trade, “in any way to promote its suppression, I shall not grudge the toil and time I have spent. It would be better to lessen this great human woe than to discover the sources of the Nile.” The moral degradation of these people is only to be reached and cured, in the deliberate judgment of the explorer-missionary, through the means of Christian civilization. “The religion of Christ,” he says with emphasis, “is unquestionably the best for man. I refer to it not as the Protestant, the Catholic, the Greek, or any other, but to the comprehensive faith which has spread more widely over the world than most people imagine, and whose votaries, of whatever name, are better than any outside the pale.” The great end of placing the numerous tribes of East and Central Africa under the pure and elevating morality of the Christian religion cannot be successful until the suppression of the inhuman slave trade, which has its headquarters at Zanzibar, shall have been accomplished. It would be unjust to forget that Great Britain has done much, very much, for the suppression of this terrible traffic in other portions of the globe. It would be unjust to charge the government of Great Britain with intentional criminality in this case. But it stands proved, by the failure of English expeditions to find Dr. Livingstone, and by his own positive, earnest testimony, that it is the subjects of the British monarchy who are responsible for the existence of the slave trade of Zanzibar and all the nameless horrors of the interior resulting therefrom. The moral culpability, by reason of neglect--not to put the case too strongly--of the British government is therefore made manifest; and of this great national turpitude that government must stand convicted before the bar of Christendom. CHAPTER XIV. THE ANIMAL KINGDOM OF AFRICA, Some Account of the Beasts, Birds, Reptiles, and Insects of Africa -- Livingstone’s Opinion of the Lion -- Elephants, Hippopotami, Rhinoceroses, etc. -- Wild Animals Subject to Disease -- Remarkable Hunting Explorations -- Cumming Slays more than One Hundred Elephants -- Du Chaillu and the Gorilla -- Thrilling Incidents -- Vast Plains Covered with Game -- Forests Filled with Birds -- Immense Serpents -- The Python of South Africa -- Ants and other Insects.