We cannot obtain canoes at Nyangwe. Livingstone
could not. Cameron failed. No doubt I
shall fail. I shall not try to obtain any. But we
might buy up all the axes that we can see
between here and Nyangwe, and, travelling
overland on this side the Lualaba, we might,
before Tippu-Tib’s contract is at an end, come
across a tribe which would sell their canoes.
We have sufficient stores to last a long time,
and I shall purchase more at Nyangwe. If the
natives will not sell, we can make our own
conoes, if we possess a sufficient number of
axes to set all hands at work.
“ Now, what I wish you to tell me, Frank, is
your opinion as to what we ought to do."
Frank’s answer was ready.
“ I say, ‘ Go on, sir.” ’
“ Think well, my dear fellow; don’t be hasty,
life and death hang on our decision. Don’t you
think we could explore to the east of Cameron’s
road?”
“ But there is nothing like this great river, sir.”
“What do you say to Lake Lincoln, Lake
Kamolondo, Lake Bemba, and all that part,
down to the Zambezi?”
“ Ah! that is a fine field, sir, and perhaps
the natives would not be so ferocious. Would
they? ”
“ Yet, as you said just now, it would be
nothing to the great river, which for all these
f °ct.21, 1876.-1 “ y e s ” a n d “ n o .”
i. T ubanda. J
thousands of years has been flowing steadily to
the north through hundreds, perhaps thousands,
of miles, of which no one has ever heard a
word!”
“ Let us follow the river, sir.”
“ Yet, my friend, think yet again. Look at
all these faithful fellows whose lives depend on
our word; think of our own, for we are yet
young, and strong, and active. Why should we
throw them away for a barren honour, or if we
succeed have every word we said doubted, and
carped at, and our motives misconstrued by
malicious minds, who distort everything to our
injury?”
“ Ah, true, sir. I was one of those who
doubted that you had ever found Livingstone.
I don’t mind telling you now. Until I came to
Zanzibar, and saw your people, I did not believe
it, and there are hundreds in Rochester who
"shared my opinion.”
“And do you believe, Frank, that you are in
Manyema now?”
“ I am obliged to, sir.”
“ Are you not afraid, should you return to
England, that when men say you have never
been to Africa, as no doubt they will, you will
come to disbelieve it yourself?”
“Ah no, sir,” he replied. “ I can never forget
Ituru; the death of my brother in that wild land;
the deaths of so many Wangwana there; the