"'The captives were thus left entirely in our hands, and knives were soon busy cutting the women and children loose. It was more difficult to cut the men adrift, as each had his neck in the fork of a stout stick, six or seven feet long, and kept in by an iron rod, which was riveted at both ends, across the throat. With a saw luckily in our baggage, one by one the men were sawn out into freedom. The women, on being told to take the meal they were carrying and cook breakfast for themselves and the children, seemed to consider the news too good to be true; but, after a little coaxing, went to work with a will, using the old slave-sticks for making a fire. Some of the captives were mere children. Two women had been shot the day before for attempting to untie their thongs, and a man was killed with an axe because he had broken down with fatigue.'" In continuing his account of the work of Livingstone, Doctor Bronson said that the explorer's habit of making on the spot notes of everything he saw that would be of interest to the English reader had rendered his books very valuable. Some of his statements were at first received with a grain of doubt, but his reputation for veracity was soon established. It was found that wherever there was any inaccuracy of statement in his reports it was due to his having received the story from some one else. Truth does not prevail among the people of Africa any more than in other lands; and the facetious American who enjoys "fooling a reporter," by gravely telling a lot of falsehoods, which there is no time to investigate, has his prototype in the wilds of the "Dark Continent." [Illustration: QUILIMANE, AT THE MOUTH OF THE ZAMBESI.] "We must," resumed Doctor Bronson, "read his works in order to appreciate Dr. Livingstone's labors in Central and Southern Africa. There are notes on natural history, botany, and kindred studies, together with descriptions of all the people and tribes among whom he travelled. One day he met a party of honey-hunters, and sat down for a chat with them. They pointed to a small bird that was quietly resting on the limbs of a tree near them, and said it was their honey-guide. The bird attracts the attention of the native by hopping from twig to twig and calling in the sharpest notes of his voice; when he finds he is followed he leads the way to a hollow tree or other spot where a swarm of bees has its home, and as soon as the honey has been taken he regales himself on the fragments of comb that lie scattered on the ground. This bird is described in books on natural history, and is said to belong to the cuckoo family. The natives follow it, in full confidence that it will lead them to a deposit of honey; but it sometimes happens that they are conducted to the lair of a lion or other ferocious beast. [Illustration: VIEW ON THE NAVIGABLE PART OF THE ZAMBESI.]