Yes, a very great deal is owing to these five men, and we say it emphatically. If the nation has gratified a reasonable wish in learning all that concerns the last days on earth of a truly noble countryman and his wonderful enterprise, the means of doing so could never have been placed at our disposal but for the ready willingness which made Susi and Chuma determine, if possible, to render an account to some of those whom they had known as their master's old companions. If the Geographer finds before him new facts, new discoveries, new theories, as Livingstone alone could record them, it is right and proper that he should feel the part these men have played in furnishing him with such valuable matter. For we repeat that nothing but such leadership and staunchness as that which organized the march home from Ilala, and distinguished it throughout, could have brought Livingstone's bones to our land or his last notes and maps to the outer world. To none does the feat seem so marvellous as to those who know Africa and the difficulties which must have beset both the first and the last in the enterprise. Thus in his death, not less than in his life, David Livingstone bore testimony to that goodwill and kindliness which exists in the heart of the African.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] The men consider it five days' march "only carrying a gun" from the Molilamo to the bank of the Luapula—this in rough reckoning, at the rate of native travelling, would give a distance of say 120 to 150 miles.—ED.

[38] This comparison was got at from the remarks made by Susi and Chuma at an agricultural show; they pointed out the resemblance borne by the shorthorns and by the Alderney bulls to several breeds near Lake Bemba.—ED.

THE END.

A Map of the Forest Plateau of Africa
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