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On this Tingane at once became friendly. Their progress was arrested, after steaming up a hundred miles in a straight line, although, counting the windings of the river, double that distance, by magnificent cataracts known to the natives as those of the Mamvira, but called by the expedition the Murchison Falls.
Livingstone went ashore; and on his explaining that we were English and had come neither to take slaves nor to fight, but only to open a path by which our countrymen might follow to purchase cotton, or whatever else they might have to sell, except slaves, Tingane became at once quite friendly.
The river banks, once so populous, were all now silent. The remains of burnt villages were everywhere seen, and oppressive silence reigned where once crowds of eager sellers had before come off with the produce of their industry. Their friend Tingane had been defeated, and his people killed, kidnapped, or forced to fly. In every direction they encountered the sight and smell of dead bodies.
Here and there might be seen on the bank a small dreary deserted shed, where had sat, day after day, a starving fisherman, until the rising waters drove the fish from their wonted haunts, and left him to die. Tingane had been defeated; his people had been killed, kidnapped, and forced to flee from their villages.
The natives, as they passed them, collected at their villages in large numbers, armed with bows and poisoned arrows, threatening to attack them. Dr Livingstone, however, went on shore, and explained to the chief, Tingane, that they had come neither to take slaves nor to fight, but wished to open up a path by which his countrymen could ascend to purchase their cotton.
The presence of the steamer, which showed that they had an entirely new people to deal with, probably contributed to this result; for Tingane was notorious for being the barrier to all intercourse between the Portuguese black traders and the natives further inland; none were allowed to pass him either way. He was an elderly, well-made man, grey-headed, and over six feet high.
At the village of a chief named Tingane, at least five hundred natives collected and ordered us to stop. Dr.
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