Eastern conquest from the West, and so guided the
course of events that light and liberty and gospel truth spread to
our distant isle, and emancipating our race freed them from the fear
of ever again having to climb fatiguing heights and descend wearisome
hollows in a slave-gang, as we suppose they did when the fair English
youths were exposed for sale at Rome.
Looking westwards we perceived that, what from below had the
appearance of mountains, was only the edge of a table-land which,
though at first undulating, soon became smooth, and sloped towards
the centre of the country. To the south a prominent mountain called
Chipata, and to the south-west another named Ngalla, by which the Bua
is said to rise, gave character to the landscape. In the north,
masses of hills prevented our seeing more than eight or ten miles.
The air which was so exhilarating to Europeans had an opposite effect
on five men who had been born and reared in the malaria of the Delta
of the Zambesi. No sooner did they reach the edge of the plateau at
Ndonda, than they lay down prostrate, and complained of pains all
over them.
