On the 11th of November he again started. He was accompanied by twenty-seven Makalolos, and ascended the Leeba till, in the territory of the Balonda, he reached a spot where it received the waters of its tributary the Makondo.
It was the first time a white man had ever penetrated so far.
Proceeding on their way, they arrived at the residence of Shinté, the most powerful of the chieftains of the Balonda, by whom they were well received, and having met with equal kindness from Kateema, a ruler on the other side of the Leeba, they encamped, on the 20th of February, 1853, on the banks of Lake Dilolo.
Here it was that the real difficulty commenced; the arduous travelling, the attacks of the natives, and their exorbitant demands, the conspiracies of his own attendants and their desertions, would soon have caused any one of less energy to abandon his enterprise; but David Livingstone was not a man to be daunted; resolutely he persevered, and on the 4th of April reached the banks of the Coango, the stream that forms the frontier of the Portuguese possessions, and joins the Zaire on the north.
Six days later he passed through Cassangé. Here it was that Alvez had seen him. On the 31st of May he arrived at St. Paul de Loanda, having traversed the continent in about two years.
It was not long, however, before he was off again. Following the banks of the Coanza, the river which was to bring such trying experiences to Dick Sands and his party, he reached the Lombé, and having met numbers of slave-caravans on his way, again passed through Cassange, crossed the Coango, and reached the Zambesi at Kewawa. By the 8th of the following June he was again at Lake Dilolo, and descending the river, he re-entered Linyanté. Here he stayed till the 3rd of November, when he commenced his second great journey, which was to carry him completely across Africa from west to east.
After visiting the famed Victoria Falls, the intrepid explorer quitted the Zambesi, and took a north-easterly route. The transit of the territory of the Batokas, a people brutalized by the inhalation of hemp; a visit to Semalemboni the powerful chief of the district; the passage of the Kafoni; a visit to king Mbourouma; an inspection of the ruins of Zumbo, an old Portuguese town; a meeting with
[Illustration: With none to guide him except a few natives.]
the chief Mpendé, at that time at war with the Portuguese, these were the principal events of this journey, and on the 22nd of April, Livingstone left Teté, and having descended the river as far as its delta, reached Quilimané, just four years after his last departure from the Cape. On the 12th of July he embarked for the Mauritius, and on the 22nd of December, 1856, he landed in England after an absence of sixteen years.
Loaded with honours by the Geographical Societies of London and Paris, brilliantly entertained by all ranks, it would have been no matter of surprise if he had surrendered himself to a well-earned repose; but no thought of permanent rest occurred to him, and on the 1st of March, 1858, accompanied by his brother Charles, Captain Bedingfield, Dr. Kirk, Dr. Miller, Mr. Thornton, and Mr. Baines, he started again, with the intention of exploring the basin of the Zambesi, and arrived in due time at the coast of Mozambique.