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Notwithstanding the dangers and hardships he had endured during the many years spent in penetrating into the interior of Africa and exploring the Zambesi, Dr Livingstone, unwearied and undaunted, felt an ardent desire to make further discoveries, to open up a road for commerce, and, more than all, to prepare the way for the the spread of the Gospel among the benighted inhabitants of the mighty continent.
They had crossed the Zambesi in the fourteenth or fifteenth century; their government was a sort of feudal system with hereditary chiefs and vassals; they were careful agriculturists, laid out large towns with great regularity, and were the most skilled of smiths. They used stone in building, carved on wood, and many of them, too, were keen traders.
Pursuing our exploration, we found that the northern part of the lake was the abode of lawlessness and bloodshed. The Mazite, or Mazitu, live on the highlands, and make sudden swoops on the villages of the plains. They are Zulus who came originally from the south, inland of Sofalla and Inhambane; and are of the same family as those who levy annual tribute from the Portuguese on the Zambesi.
The inhabitants of the north side of the Zambesi are the Batonga; those on the south bank the Banyai. Both buffalo and elephants are numerous. To kill them the natives form stages on high trees overhanging the paths by which they come to the water.
She even dared to climb the stairs which ran up the mighty cone of granite, and seated herself in the cup-like depression on its crest, whence Jacob Meyer had called to her to come and share his throne. It was a dizzy place, for the pillar leaning outwards, its point stood almost clear of the water-scarped rock, so that beneath her was a sheer drop of about four hundred feet to the Zambesi bed.
She arrived at its mouth, towed by HMS "Orestes." Captain Gardner and several of his officers accompanied them two days in the the gig and cutter. The water was now low; but when filled by the rains, in many respects the Rovuma appears superior to the Zambesi. It would probably be valuable as a highway for commerce during three-fourths of each year.
The first crack is, in length, a few yards more than the breadth of the Zambesi, which by measurement we found to be a little over 1860 yards, but this number we resolved to retain as indicating the year in which the Fall was for the first time carefully examined. The main stream here runs nearly north and south, and the cleft across it is nearly east and west.
But he has his own theory as well that the true lovers were both of African blood, that she came from the Ophir-land south of the Zambesi, and thither returned in peace at last from the foam of perilous seas. Perhaps his argument is slender; but it is good for him to believe in it himself, I think, for surely it helps his work among those that he deems her descendants.
"It was," he says, "the most refreshing breakfast of which I ever partook." Tete stands on the Zambesi, three hundred miles from its mouth. The commandant received Livingstone kindly, supplied his men with provisions for immediate use, gave them land upon which to raise future supplies, and granted them permission to hunt elephants in the neighborhood on their own account.
He found the little Lake Dilolo so exactly balanced on a flat plain between two great river systems that one stream from the lake flowed north to the Congo and another south to the Zambesi; but for years past there has been no connection between the lake and the Congo. He sought in vain, like many explorers after him, for the outlet to Lake Tanganyika.
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