"First of all, supposing Mr. Skead should take this back by the 'Hermes' in time to catch you at the Cape, would you be kind enough to get a form of prayer printed for me? We have twelve Kroomen, who seem docile and willing to be taught; when we are parted from the 'Pearl' we shall have prayers with them every morning.... I think it will be an advantage to have the prayers in Sichuana when my men join us, and if we have a selection from the English Litany, with the Lord's Prayer in Sichuana, all may join. Will you translate it, beginning at 'Remember not, Lord, our offenses,' up to 'the right way'? Thence, petition for chiefs, and on to the end.... The Litany need not be literal. I suppose you are not a rabid nonconformist, or else I would not venture to ask this...." By the time they reached the mouth of the Zambesi, Livingstone was suffering from a severe attack of diarrhoea. On the 16th of May, being Sunday, while still suffering, he deemed it a work of necessity, in order to get as soon as possible out of the fever-breeding region of mangrove swamps where they had anchored, that they should at remove the sections of the "Ma-Robert" from the "Pearl"; accordingly, with the exception of the time occupied in the usual prayers, that day was spent in labor. His constant regard for the day of rest and great unwillingness to engage in labor then, is the best proof that on this occasion the necessity for working was to his mind absolutely irresistible. He had found that active exercise every day was one of the best preventives of fever; certainly it is very remarkable how thoroughly the men of the Expedition escaped it at this time. In his Journal he says: "After the experience gained by Dr. M'William, and communicated to the world in his admirable _Medical History of the Niger Expedition_, I should have considered myself personally guilty had any of the crew of the 'Pearl' or of the Expedition been cut off through delay in the mangrove swamps." Afterward, when Mrs. Livingstone died during a long but unavoidable delay at Shupanga, a little farther up, he was more than ever convinced that he had acted rightly. But some of his friends were troubled, and many reflections were thrown on him, especially by those who bore him no good-will.