Makololo tribe some distance above the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi. Sekelétu was anxious that some of his men should accompany the members of the expedition to the East Coast of Africa, for he suffered from leprosy, and wished for medicine which it was not possible for Dr. Livingstone or Dr. Kirk to prescribe at the time. But when the envoys reached Tette there was a difficulty in carrying out the arrangement. The men did not like to return by themselves, and for the most part they desired to remain during the stay of the "Zambesi Expedition," in Dr. Livingstone's service. Similar to the Ma Viti in some things, the originally small tribe of the Makololo swelled its ranks in Sebituané's time by drafting in children of the surrounding tribes. The pur sang was as a drop in a vast flood of captives and aliens, and Livingstone found some of the evils quickly arise in his present following. Amongst his attendants were only two men who could claim the legitimate descent: the rest, some twenty in number, had neither love of country nor loyalty to bind them to their promise of returning. As time went on they soon found that the natives of the Shiré Valley were a shy and

timid race, that the country was in a panicstricken condition from the slave-trade, and that they were sufficiently masters of the situation to do pretty much what they pleased. Quitting Dr. Livingstone, and forming a settlement at Chibisa's, on the right bank of the Shiré, they drew around them all the waifs and strays from the surrounding country, and when Dr. Livingstone quitted the country in 1864 they were well-established and perfectly independent.

I have always considered that the strong tendency on the part of the natives to place themselves willingly under any new comer who is capable of leading them, is a most hopeful feature. When enterprise develops in East Africa, it will be found that great settlements will spring up around trading stations and mission villages. In the present instance, so rapid has been the aggregation of refugees on the Shiré, that the Makololos can number their dependents by thousands, and there is not an important point on the river between the Ruo and the Cataracts that is not held by them. Nothing could exceed the delight which they now felt at our return. Presents of all kinds came down in canoes from the

large village which Raniyou, the youngest of the Makololos, makes his head-quarters. Remembering the old days when he had to cut fuel for the Pioneer, and learning from his spies that a similar vessel was on her way, he despatched a large present of ebony logs, together with sheep, goats, milk, and eggs. The labour of ascending the last fifty miles was prodigious. Once more we had to take everything out of our little steamer before we could get her over some of the shallows. I fear my companions must have thought me a cruel taskmaster in setting them such a problem to work out as this, but there was nothing else for it if we wished to see Nyassa, and so sandbanks had to be ploughed through or got over as best one could.

On the 5th of September we reached Chibisa's. The spot occupied by the Universities Mission between the years 1862-4 we found all but deserted. The little colony of captives whom Dr. Livingstone, Bishop Mackenzie and his staff liberated from the slave-hunters had planted themselves out in all directions, and both banks of the river literally swarmed with villages. "Peace and plenty" was the order of the day. We paid a visit to the graves of the Rev. H.

Scudamore and Dr. Dickinson, only to find the same deep respect evinced in their preservation. There is a young generation growing up which will yet hand down to others the tale told by their fathers of the men who wrenched the slave-sticks from their necks, who set their mothers free from the cruel thongs of the Portuguese slave-drivers, who stood out the hard days of famine and destruction with them, and who, when the time came, laid down their lives amongst them. No wonder that my companions found a hearty welcome, a host of willing allies, and, if needs be, ten thousand to rally round them; but may they ever be spared the experiences of those who paved the way for them, and past whose resting-places they were now sailing! To me, who could remember the laying of this foundation, it was indeed a cause of unbounded thankfulness to witness the development of those blessings which alone could come from unity and cohesion amongst the natives, a doctrine which had been so earnestly inculcated by the missionaries, and for lack of which every other tribe in the land had gone down before the terrors of slave wars. This conviction was the more forcibly impressed upon me as I passed on with new missionary recruits

in the same cause, albeit men accustomed to differ in secondary matters; and I could but reflect, in the words of the great missionary of old, "There are differences of administrations, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all."

The Makololos were anxious for intelligence about old friends; the first and saddest news to them was that "Naki," Dr. Livingstone, had died since last I saw them.

Comparing notes, I found that they had lost Maloko and Masého. The former of these was the leading man amongst them from the time of their leaving their native country, and in every respect superior to the rest. Tall, active, and daring, he was nevertheless one of nature's gentlemen. Maloko's word was as good as his bond, and every one who had to deal with him. understood how it came about that a handful of such spirits in Sebituané's time became the nucleus of the Makololo power and prestige in the interior. The account given of his death. was sad enough. It seems that the Portuguese rebel Bonga, hearing that the poor fellow was superintending the hewing-out of some canoes in the forest, some distance from his own village, sent a number of men to waylay him. As in