LIVINGSTONE'S EXPEDITION TO THE
ZAMBESI AND ITS TRIBUTARIES AND THE DISCOVERY OF LAKES
SHIRWA AND NYASSA 1858-1864
By David Livingston
TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD PALMERSTON,
K.G., G.C.B.
My Lord,
I beg leave to dedicate this Volume to your Lordship, as a tribute
justly due to the great Statesman who has ever had at heart the
amelioration of the African race; and as a token of admiration of the
beneficial effects of that policy which he has so long laboured to
establish on the West Coast of Africa; and which, in improving that
region, has most forcibly shown the need of some similar system on
the opposite side of the Continent.
DAVID LIVINGSTONE.
NOTICE TO THIS WORK.
The name of the late Mr. Charles Livingstone takes a prominent place
amongst those who acted under the leadership of Dr. Livingstone
during the adventurous sojourn of the "Zambesi Expedition" in East
Africa. In laying the result of their discoveries before the public,
it was arranged that Mr. Charles Livingstone should place his
voluminous notes at the disposal of his brother: they are
incorporated in the present work, but in a necessarily abridged form.
PREFACE.
It has been my object in this work to give as clear an account as I
was able of tracts of country previously unexplored, with their river
systems, natural productions, and capabilities; and to bring before
my countrymen, and all others interested in the cause of humanity,
the misery entailed by the slave-trade in its inland phases; a
subject on which I and my companions are the first who have had any
opportunities of forming a judgment. The eight years spent in
Africa, since my last work was published, have not, I fear, improved
my power of writing English; but I hope that, whatever my
descriptions want in clearness, or literary skill, may in a measure
be compensated by the novelty of the scenes described, and the
additional information afforded on that curse of Africa, and that
shame, even now, in the 19th century, of an European nation, - the
slave-trade.
I took the "Lady Nyassa" to Bombay for the express purpose of selling
her, and might without any difficulty have done so; but with the
thought of parting with her arose, more strongly than ever, the
feeling of disinclination to abandon the East Coast of Africa to the
Portuguese and slave-trading, and I determined to run home and
consult my friends before I allowed the little vessel to pass from my
hands. After, therefore, having put two Ajawa lads, Chuma and
Wakatani, to school under the eminent missionary the Rev. Dr. Wilson,
and having provided satisfactorily for the native crew, I started
homewards with the three white sailors, and reached London July 20th,
1864. Mr. and Mrs. Webb, my much-loved friends, wrote to Bombay
inviting me, in the event of my coming to England, to make Newstead
Abbey my headquarters, and on my arrival renewed their invitation:
and though, when I accepted it, I had no intention of remaining so
long with my kind-hearted generous friends, I stayed with them until
April, 1865, and under their roof transcribed from my own and my
brother's journal the whole of this present book.
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