From the Sunday Magazine. AN EVENING WITH DR. LIVINGSTONE. commercial undertakings. It is owing to the slave-trade that Dr. Livingstone has failed to establish any centres of missionary and commercial operations on the banks of the Zambesi or its tributaries; and there is little reason to hope for anything better, until measures be taken to repress the infamous traffic on the East, similar to those that have proved so successful on the West Coast of Africa. WHO does not enjoy an evening with a traveller- a genial, kindly, Christian man, who has been among the strangest people, seen sights that no one else has ever seen, and, full of interest himself in distant and neglected races, strives to communicate that interest to the party that haye come together to hear about them? To meet for an For, according to Dr. Livingstone, - and hour or two with such a man as Dr. Living- he is so shrewd and careful a man that we stone, and hear him give a plain, familiar can hardly fancy him wrong in this, the account of some of his African journeys, English squadron on the West Coast of and of the means best fitted, with God's Africa has been an extraordinary blessing to blessing, to benefit the African race, would that part of the world. Many persons have probably be one of the first wishes and an opposite impression, and think that Enggreatest pleasures of a majority of the read- land has spent her treasure and the lives ers of the SUNDAY MAGAZINE. Every of her seamen in vain, in watching those inone, we suppose, knows that Dr. Living- famous slavers, with which we associate such stone himself has again left England, and accursed scenes. Dr. Livingstone is of a is engaged once more in his noble endeav- very different opinion. There, at the disour to establish the means of missionary tance of hundreds of miles from the ocean, labour and of commercial enterprise among he found the very decided influence of our some of the populous tribes of Eastern and national policy: the slave-trade so far supCentral Africa. We cannot, therefore, have pressed that even the Portuguese spoke of him personally to chat with us of an even- it as a thing of the past; lawful commerce ing; but we can have what is second best: immensely increased; more than twenty we may take the large volume which he has Christian missions established; and comjust published, and cull from it what we may parative peace enjoyed by millions of insuppose he would have told us, if it had habitants. And as regards those missons been our good fortune to spend a Sunday in Western Africa, of which Captain Burevening in his company. Unhappily, there ton spoke so disparagingly, Dr. Livingstone is little or nothing to tell of the results of entertains a most favourable opinion. At missionary labour. Dr. Livingstone is a Sierra Leone and elsewhere, Christian napioneer, a forerunner of missionaries, rather tives can be numbered by thousands, who, than himself an acting missionary. He whatever defects they may have, at least goes to see what can be done, and to possess the qualification of being trustarrange for others coming to do it, rather worthy trade-agents among their countrythan to do it himself. His idea of his men. Making allowance for the fact that own mission seems to be that he is to many of the native Christians have been conciliate the natives, to disarm their the lowest of the low- liberated African prejudices, to give them a favourable slaves, and also for the strong language opinion of the British people, to work upon of traders annoyed at being prevented from them by kindness and disinterestedness, and using the people as brutes, Dr. Livingstone thus dispose them to trade with the mer- thinks that the conduct of England of late chant, and listen to the missionary. But if years on the West Coast deserves the there be little to say of the results of Chris- world's admiration, and that her generosity tian missions, except that they have hither-will appear grand in the eyes of posterity. to done nothing in those parts, there is, unhappily, far too much to tell of a devil's mission that has been frightfully active and successful the slave-trade, partly as pursued by the natives, but chiefly by the atrocious Portuguese settlers and adventurers. In fact, the slave-trade has in every way been the ruin of Africa; and, besides making the poor negroes ten times more miserable and degraded than they would otherwise have been, it has proved a most effectual barrier to all missionary and to all Neither is it true, as Captain Burton has maintained, that Mahometanism is the only religion that is making proselytes in Africa. The native Christians of Africa contribute no less a sum than £15,000 yearly for the spread of the Gospel. The Mahometans are even beneath the native Africans in their ordinary moral tone. Dr. Livingstone gives an anecdote in illustration of this. He has seen a party of natives plunge into the water to rescue a woman from a crocodile. On the other hand, when a party of his own sailors, who were Mahometans, were scour off in dismay; and hens, abandoning coming to the ship after sleeping ashore, their chickens, fly screaming to the tops of one of them walked into the water with the the houses. Unfamiliar sights everywhere intention of swimming off to the boat; and present themselves. Here and there may while yet hardly up to his knees was seized be seen rows of elephants two miles long; by a crocodile and dragged under; the poor in the rivers, crocodiles and hippopotamuses, fellow gave a shriek, and held up his hand by no means pleasant to bathe with; and for aid; but none of his countrymen stirred even on board ship, one may be aroused, as to his assistance, and he was never seen Dr. Livingstone was in his steamer, by five again. On asking his brother-in-law why feet of cold green snake gliding over one's he did not help him, he replied, "Well, no face. But however peculiar the country, one told him to go into the water. It was and however different the people, Dr. his own fault that he was killed." This was Livingstone has no patience with what has the part of the priest and the Levite in the often been said of the negro race. The noparable of the Good Samaritan re-enacted tions commonly entertained of their lanwith additional hard-heartedness; for neith-guage he regards as absurd; their answers er the priest nor the Levite was brother-in- to questions on ordinary topics are about as law of the man who fell among thieves. intelligent as are usually got from the comThe aspect of intertropical Africa - mon people at home; and if they are adEastern, Western and Central-must, by dicted to low motives and mean actions, so this time of day, be as familiar as his own likewise unhappily are many of those among country to Dr Livingstone; but the feelings ourselves who are not under the influence of a stranger setting foot in it for the first of Christian principles and civilized habits. time "resemble in some respects those Dr. Livingstone is full of hope for the negro which the First Man may have had on his race; his life of single-hearted devotion to entrance into the Garden of Eden. He them is a proof of his confidence in what has set foot in a new world; another state they may become, if Christianity, and her of existence is before him; everything he daughter Civilization, should find a home sees, every sound that falls upon his ear, has among them. Even the unwholesomeness all the freshness and charm of novelty. The of the climate would in that case be greatly trees and the plants are new; the flowers overcome. It is the very richness of the and the fruits, the beasts, the birds, and the country, in connection with the neglect of insects, are curious and strange; the very its inhabitants, that makes it so nnhealthy. sky itself is new, glowing with colours, or The luxuriance of the vegetation is such sparkling with constellations, never seen in that when it decays an extraordinary northern climes." Everything in Africa, it amount of putridity is generated; the very was long ago remarked, is contrary: "Wool rivers are poisoned by it, and fever hovers grows on the heads of men and hair on the on every side. Were the plains cultivated, backs of sheep." The men often wear their drained, and reaped, not only would the hair long, the women wear it short. Where most splendid harvests be obtained, but the there are cattle, the women till the ground, cause of fever would be to a large explant the land, and build huts. The men tent removed. The beautiful fulfillment of stay at home to sew, spin, weave, and talk, the sixty-seventh Psalm, which would result and milk the cows. The nursery hobgoblin from missionary enterprise in such a counwith us is black, but in Africa he is white. try, will strike every reader:-"God be Foolish mothers bil their children be quiet, merciful to us and bless us, and cause His or they will call the white man to bite face to shine on us. That Thy way may be them. To the unsophisticated natives of known on earth, Thy saving health among Africa there is something frightfully repul- the nations. Let the people sive in the appearance of white men. On entering villages previously unvisited by Europeans, if a child should be met coming quietly and unsuspectingly along, the moment he raised his eyes and saw the whites, he would take to his heels in an agony of terror, such as we might feel if we met a live Egyptian mummy at the door of the British Muscum. Alarmed by the child's wild cries, the mother rushes out of her hut, but darts back again at the sight of the same frightful apparation. Dogs turn tail and praise thee, O God, let all the people praise thee. Then shall the earth yield her increase, and God, even our own God, shall bless us." No wonder though Dr. Livingstone sighs when he sees regions of such capabilities turned, literally and figuratively, into the valley of the shadow of death. No wonder though it cuts him to the heart to come on masses of skeletons where he might have looked for living men. His soul is fired with the purpose to dispossess Fever, Famine, War, and the Slave-Trade from those fertile regions, and to see the Angel of Peace and Love spreading his wings over them. When he thinks of his father's native Hebrides, Of Ulva dark and Colonsay, That guard famed Staffa round, inhabited by a comparatively happy and peaceful people, why, he asks, should not those regions of Africa — not by any means the sandy deserts that used to be thought, but as rich and fair as any country on the globebe peopled by industrious and peaceful tribes, worshipping the God of love, trusting in the work of Christ, and adorning the doctrine of God their Saviour? The primitive faith of the African people, he conceives to be, that there is one Almighty Maker of heaven and earth; that He has given the various plants of earth to men to be employed as mediators between Him and the spirit-world, where all who have ever been born and died continue to live; that sin consists in offences against their fellow-men, either here or among the departed; and that death is often a punishment of guilt, such as witchcraft. The Great Spirit lives above the stars; but they never pray to him, and know nothing of their relation to him or of his interest in them. As might be expected, they are great believers in spells and nostrums. In one district, the medical profession is subdivided to an extent unknown even in London or Paris. There is the elephant-doctor, who prepares a medicine indispensable to hunters when attacking that animal; the crocodile-doctor, who sells a charm that protects its owner from crocodiles; the dicedoctor, a combination of the detective officer and the physician, part of whose duty is to discover thieves by means of dice; the gun-doctor, the rain-doctor, and numberless others. The various schools deal in little charms, which are hung round the purchaser's neck to avert evil; some of them contain the medicine, others increase its power. On one occasion, near the Victoria Falls, Dr. Livingstone put himself under the guidance of one Tuba Makoro, "smasher of canoes," —an ominous name; but he alone was believed to know the medicine that insured against shipwreck in the rapids above the Falls. In spite of this, one of the canoes struck a rock and was nearly destroyed. But Dr. Livingstone was assured it was not the medicine that was at fault: the accident was owing entirely to Tuba having started without his breakfast. In the country of the Makololos a man was met with who pretended to be able to change himself into a lion. Dr. Livingstone bid his native attendants ask him to perform this feat at once, and they would give him for his performance a piece of cotton cloth-the article most valued by the natives. "Oh, no," was their reply; "he may come when we are asleep and kill us." This man-lion would sometimes go forth to the forest to kill game, and then, graciously returning to the human form, would tell his neighbours where to find the buffalo or antelope which he pretended to have killed, but had probably found dead. It is believed also that the souls of departed chiefs enter into lions and render them sacred. Dr. Livingstone tells how a lion came near to his encampment one night, which his native followers believed to be tenanted by the spirit of a chief, and how one of them bullied him, and another coaxed him, while the Doctor himself, a terrible unbeliever, supplied him with a piece of meat prepared with strychnine. In another region the monkey is a sacred animal, and is never killed, because the people believe devoutly that the souls of their ancestors occupy these degraded forms, and anticipate that they themselves must, sooner or later, be transformed in the same manner. Many of their superstitious notions are very grotesque. When a man has his hair cut, he is careful to burn it or bury it secretly, lest, falling into the hands of one who has an evil eye or is a witch, it should be used as a charm to afflict him with headache. In certain parts there is a widespread belief that if one plants the mangostone he will die. Even among the native Portuguese of Tette there is a superstition, that if a man plants coffee he will never be happy afterwards. There are also superstitions among the people that have a more tragical aspect. The ordeal of the muave is often resorted to. If a person is accused of crime he has to drink the muave, a deadly poison. If the stomach rejects the poison, he is declared innocent; if it is retained, his guilt is proved. Even chiefs are not exempted, and in some cases seem rather to enjoy the thing. A chief, making some assertion that could hardly be received, said, "If you doubt my word, give me the muave to drink." The people of a chief who had successfully gone through the ordeal the day before Dr. Livingstone reached his villiage, manifested their joy by drinking, dancing, and drumming two days and nights. It is surmised that the native doctor who prepares the poison may be able to save those whom he considers innocent. The practice of polygamy, the sign of so low a civilization and the source of so many evils, prevails everywhere. Singularly enough, it is approved of even by the Women. On hearing that a man in England could marry but one wife, several Makololo ladies exclaimed that they would not like to live in such a country. They could not imagine how English ladies could relish such a custom; for- as they thought, every man of respectability should have a number of wives as a proof of his wealth. Along the whole of the Zambesi, no man is respected by his neighbours who has not several wives. The reason for this is doubtless because, having the produce of each wife's garden, he is wealthy in proportion to their number. One of the greatest battles of Christianity will have to be fought on this ground. Till this notion is dislodged, the position of woman must be degraded; and what that implies we need not say. The usual vices of a wild and irregular life the outbursts of sensuality and passion, and the deeds of cruelty which are found in all barbarous nations exist among the Africans, but not to the same extent as in some other communities. By far the worst vices that prevail amongst them, Dr. Livingstone ascribes, as we shall see presently, to the slave-trade, the most fearful parent of vice and deviltry the world has ever seen, Some interesting features of character are often shown by the natives. They are very susceptible to the influence of kindly treatvent, and do not readily forget it. When Charles Livingstone, the brother of Dr. Livingstone, was at Kebrabasa, during the rainy season, he gave some food and a small piece of cloth to a hungry, shivering native traveller. Eighteen months after, while the party were on their journey into the interior, a man came into the camp, bringing a liberal present of rice, meal, beer, and a fowl, reminding them of what had been done for him (which Charles Livingstone had forgot), and saying he did not like to see them travelling hungry and thirsty. Ready though they are to quarrel, they often try to make peace among themselves. An illustration of Dr. Waits's song, "Let dogs delight to bark and bite,” occurred one day when two men were wrangling and cursing each other. A Makololo man rose, and, to prevent mischief, quietly took their spears from the corner in which they stood, and sitting down beside Dr. Livingstone remarked, "It is the nature of bulls to gore each other." The Makololo race are regarded by Dr. Livingstone as by far the most intelligent and enterprising of the tribes he has met. They are, in his judgment, fine subjects for a Christian mission. When talked to about their lawless forays and expeditions for killing their neighbours and stealing their cattle, they seemed impressed with the crime of killing, but not of seizing cattle. They confessed that they needed the Book of God. If that was guilt which custom led them to do, it lay between the white man and Jesus, who had not given them the Book. They were impressed by the thought that there was a Book of God, and that they did not possess it. They are interested in hearing that God's Son appeared among men and died for them, but they do not feel that He has any interest in them. On the last occasion of holding Divine service at Seshake, the English invited them to speak about the future state. The speaker had made some remarks on the resurrection. They said they did not wish to offend the speaker, but they could not believe that all the dead would rise again. " Can those who have been killed in the field and devoured by vultures, or those who have been eaten by the hyænas or lions, or those who have been tossed into the river and eaten by more than one crocodile- can they all be raised again to life?" They were told that men could take a leaden bullet, change it into a salt (acetate of lead) which could be dissolved as completely in water as our bodies in the stomachs of animals, and then reconvert it into lead; or that the bullet could be transformed into the red and white paint of our wagons, and again could be reconverted into the original lead; and that if men, exactly like themselves, could do so much, how much more could He do who had made the eye to see, and the ear to hear? "We added, however," continues Dr. Livingstone, "that we believed in a resurrection, not because we understood how it would be brought about, but because our Heavenly Father assured us of it in His book." The history of endeavours to plant Christianity in the countries adjoining the Zambesi and its tributaries has hitherto been a history of failures. Ruins of Roman Catholic mission-stations remain, but no trace that their teaching took hold on the people. An anecdote told by Dr. Livingstone of the Roman Catholic priest at Tette will probably account for this. During the drought of 1858, a neighbouring chief got up a performance, with divers ceremonies and incantations, to bring rain, but it would not come. The Goanese padre of Tette, to satisfy his compatriots, appointed a procession and prayers in honour of St. Antonio for the same purpose. The first attempt did not answer; but on the second occasion, arranged to come off after the new moon appeared, a grand procession in the saint's honour ended in so much rain that the roof of the Residence gave way. St. Antonio's image was decorated the following week with a golden coronal worth 221. for sending the long-delayed and muchneeded rain. We never looked with disdain on the rites or ceremonies of any Church; but, on witnessing the acts of worship on this occasion, so great was the irreverence manifested, in the kneeling worshippers laughing and joking between the responses, not even ceasing their grins when muttering Ora pro nobis,' that we could not help believing that if, like the natives, they have faith in rain-making, they have faith in nothing else." swers to the question: but in the opinion of Dr. Livingstone the great obstacle is to be found in that odious curse the slavetrade. The most important feature of Dr. Livingstone's present volume is the lurid light it throws on that fearful system. Nothing has made a deeper impression on him than the frightfully demoralizing effects of the traffic. In his view it is the prime agency of the devil in this world for turning human beings into monsters of wickedness. The half-caste Portuguese who are concerned in it are as revolting specimens of humanity as can be found anywhere. The atrocities of Mariano are all but incredible. One of his favourite modes of creating an inpression in the country and making his name dreaded, was to spear his captives with his own hands. On one occasion he is reported to have killed in this way forty poor wretches placed in a row before him. It might have been thought that slaveowners, through self-interest, would treat their slaves with humanity; but the slaveIt is sad to think that nothing has yet trade seems always to engender an unreacome of all the efforts that have been soning ferocity that is often reckless even made, in consequence of Dr. Livingstone's of its own ultimate interests. Dr. Livingformer journey and book, to establish Chris- stone tells of an old slave-trader, worn out tian missions in the neighbourhood of the with disease and nearly blind, who was not Zambesi. When, a few years ago, a party in other respects without humanity, that of missionaries, headed by the Rev. H. Hel- when his wife died, to dull the edge of his more, tried to plant the Gospel at Linyanti, grief, he made a foray amongst the tribes in the neighbourhood of the Victoria Falls, near the mouth of the Shire, and took several of the missionaries and their native many captives. This man had made sevattendants succumbed to fever almost imme- eral fortunes; but he managed to squander diately on their arrival, and the survivors them all in riotous living, and himself acwere obliged to retire. Bishop Mackenzie knowledged that "the money a man made and the other members of the Universi- in the slave-trade was all bad, and soon ties' Mission, it is well known, got into went to the devil." The loss of life caused trouble in consequence of their zeal in be- in these slave-capturing forays is fearful. half of captive-slaves, the bishop died of Colonel Rigby, late British consul at Zanfever, and the Universities' Mission ulti-zibar, told Dr. Livingstone that from the mately left the continent of Africa. The Rev. James Stewart, of the Free Church of Scotland, who came out expressly to select a sphere for a mission in connection with that body, was obliged to return without accomplishing his purpose. And even the expedition of Dr. Livingstone described in the volume before us, though conducted with all the authority which the patronage of the Government of Great Britain could give it, has not been successful, except in so far as it has shown how great need.there is both for mission and commerce, but how difficult in present circumstances it is to obtain either the one or the other. How comes it that the establishment of Christian missions is so extremely difficult in that region? There may be a variety of an Nyassa country, 19,000 slaves passed annually through the custom-house of that island, exclusive of those sent to Portuguese slave ports. But "besides those actually captured, thousands are killed or die of their wounds and famine, driven from their villages by the slave-raid proper. Thousands perish in internecine war waged for slaves with their own clansmen and neighbours, slain by the lust of gain, which is stimulated by the slave-purchasers of Cuba and elsewhere. The many skeletons we have seen amongst rocks and woods, by the little pools, and along the paths of the wilderness, attest the awful sacrifice of human life, which must be attributed, directly or indirectly, to this trade of hell. It is our deliberate opinion that not one fifth of the |