"Freedom for the slaves in Kazonndé!" These were the words which in connexion with Dr. Livingstone's name had arrested Mrs. Weldon's attention, and who can wonder that she pondered them over and over again, and ventured to associate them with her own prospects?
Here was a ray of hope!
The mere mention of Livingstone's name in association with this story seems to demand a brief survey of his career.
Born on the 19th of March, 1813, David Livingstone was the second of six children of a tradesman in the village of Blantyre, in Lanarkshire. After two years' training in medicine and theology, he was sent out by the London Missionary Society, and landed at the Cape of Good Hope in 1840, with the intention of joining Moffat in South Africa. After exploring the country of the Bechuanas, he returned to Kuruman, and, having married Moffat's daughter, proceeded in 1843 to found a mission in the Mabotsa valley.
After four years he removed to Kolobeng in the Bechuana district, 225 miles north of Kuruman, whence, in 1849, starting off with his wife, three children, and two friends, Mr. Oswell and Mr. Murray, he discovered Lake Ngami, and returned by descending the course of the Zouga.
The opposition of the natives had prevented his proceeding beyond Lake Ngami at his first visit, and he made
[Illustration: Dr. Livingstone. Page 408.]
a second with no better success. In a third attempt, however, he wended his way northwards with his family and Mr. Oswell along the Chobé, an affluent of the Zambesi, and after a difficult journey at length reached the district of the Makalolos, of whom the chief, named Sebituané, joined him at Linyanté. The Zambesi itself was discovered at the end of June, 1851, and the doctor returned to the Cape for the purpose of sending his family to England.
His next project was to cross the continent obliquely from south to west, but in this expedition he had resolved that he would risk no life but his own. Accompanied, therefore, by only a few natives, he started in the following June, and skirting the Kalahari desert entered Litoubarouba on the last day of the year; here he found the Bechuana district much ravaged by the Boers, the original Dutch colonists, who had formed the population of the Cape before it came into the possession of the English. After a fortnight's stay, he proceeded into the heart of the district of the Bamangonatos, and travelled continuously until the 23rd of May, when he arrived at Linyanté, and was received with much honour by Sekeletoo, who had recently become sovereign of the Makalolos. A severe attack of fever detained the traveller here for a period, but he made good use of the enforced rest by studying the manners of the country, and became for the first time sensible of its terrible sufferings in consequence of the slave-trade.
Descending the course of the Chobé to the Zambesi, he next entered Naniele, and after visiting Katonga and Libonta, advanced to the point of confluence of the Leeba with the Zambesi, where he determined upon ascending the former as far as the Portuguese possessions in the west; it was an undertaking, however, that required considerable preparation, so that it was necessary for him to return to Linyanté.