but after examining the rapids on the left, and
discovering that the main force of the stream
was on the other side, we raced down the waters
with all hands-on board without accident.
On the 28th we began our journey early, and
discovered that the river was still much obstruct- i
ed, rapids roaring at every short distance, and
requiring caution and vigilance. By noon however
we had passed four series without trouble
Above the islet line above Kilolo I found we
had reached south latitude 50 19'.
There are but few natures among my own
race, either in Europe or America, who would
not feel a curious pleasure in, and envy me the
opportunity of, exploring the beautiful and endless
solitudes of this region, were they but certain
that they would be sustained the while by
nourishing food, and be secure from fatal harm.
For in all civilized countries that I have travelled
in, I have observed. how very large a number
of people indulge this penchant for travel in
such unfrequented corners and nooks of wild
woodland, glen, or heath as present themselves
near home. I myself was conscious that the
table-land on both sides of the Livingstone, with
its lofty ridges, which ran away north or south
to some complicated watershed, enclosing, no
doubt, some awesome glens and solemn ravines,
or from whose tops I might gaze upon a world
of wild beauty never seen before, presented to
r1uiy 28, 1877-1 WEARY AND DEBILITATED. 1 9 1
Kilolo. J
me opportunities of exploring such as few had
ever possessed; but, alas! all things were adverse
t0 such pleasure; we were,, to use a Miltonian
phrase, subject to the “ hateful siege of . contraries.”
The freshness and ardour of feeling
with which I had set out from the Indian Ocean
had, by this time, been quite worn away. Fevers
had sapped the frame; over-much trouble had
strained the spirit; hunger had debilitated the
body, anxiety preyed upon the mind. My people
were groaning aloud; their sunken eyes and
unfleshed bodies were a living reproach to me;
their vigour was now gone, though their fidelity
was unquestionable; their knees were bent with
weakness, and their backs were no longer rigid
with the vigour of youth, and life, and strength,
and fire of devotion. Hollow-eyed, sallow, and
gaunt, unspeakably miserable in aspect, we yielded
at length to imperious nature, and had but one
thought only— to trudge on for one look more
at the blue ocean.
Rounding, after a long stretch of tolerably
calm water, a picturesque point, we view another
long reach, and half-way on the left bank we
camp. Maddened by sharp pangs of hunger,
the people soon scatter about the district of
Kilolo. What occurs I know not. Likely enough
the wretched creatures, tormented by the insufferable
insolence of the aborigines, and goaded
by a gnawing emptiness, assisted themselves with