“My last work, in which I have been greatly hindered from want of suitable attendants, was following the central line of drainage down through the country of the cannibals, called Manyuema, or, shortly, Manyema. This line of drainage has four large lakes in it. The fourth I was near when obliged to turn. It is from one to three miles broad, and never can be reached at any point or at any time of the year. Two western drains, the Lupira, or Bartle Frere’s River, flow into it at Lake Kamolondo. Then the great River Lomaine flows through Lake Lincoln into it, too, and seems to form the western arm of the Nile, on which Petherick traded.
“Now, I knew about six hundred miles of the watershed, and unfortunately the seventh hundred is the most interesting of the whole; for in it, if I am not mistaken, four fountains arise from an earthen mound, and the last of the four becomes, at no great distance off, a large river. Two of these run north to Egypt, Lupira and Louraine, and two run south into inner Ethiopia, as the Liambai, or upper Zambezi, and the Kafneare, but these are but the sources of the Nile mentioned by the Secretary of Minerva, in the city of Sais to Herodotus. I have heard of them so often, and at great distances off, that I cannot doubt their existence, and in spite of the sore longing for home that seizes me every time I think of my family I wish to finish up by their rediscovery.
“Five hundred pounds sterling worth of goods have again unaccountably been entrusted to slaves, and have been over a year on the way, instead of four months. I must go where they lie at your expense, ere I can put the natural completion to my work.
“And if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should lead to the suppression of the east coast slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile sources together. Now that you have done with domestic slavery forever, lend us your powerful aid toward this great object. This fine country is blighted, as with a curse from above, in order that the slavery privileges of the petty Sultan of Zanzibar may not be infringed, and the rights of the Crown of Portugal, which are mythical, should be kept in abeyance till some future time when Africa will become another India to Portuguese slave traders.
“I conclude by again thanking you most cordially for your great generosity, and am,
“Gratefully yours,
“David Livingstone.”
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SLAVE TRADE OF EAST AFRICA.
Dr. Livingstone’s Letter upon the Subject to Mr. Bennett — Compares the Slave Trade with Piracy on the High Seas — Natives of Interior Africa Average Specimens of Humanity — Slave Trade Cruelties — Deaths from Broken Hearts — The Need of Christian Civilization — British Culpability.