PREFACE. It has been my object in this work to give as clear an account as I was able of tracts of country previously unexplored, with their river systems, natural productions, and-capabilities; and to bring before my countrymen, and all others interested in the cause of humanity, the misery entailed by the slave-trade in its inland phases-a subject on which I and my companions are the first who have had any opportunities of forming a judgment. The eight years spent in Africa since my last work was published have not, I fear, improved my power of writing English; but I hope that whatever my descriptions want in clearness or literary skill may in a measure be compensated by the novelty of the scenes described, and the additional information afforded on that curse of Africa, and that shame, even now, in the nineteenth century, of a European nation—the slave-trade. I took the "Lady Nyassa" to Bombay for the express purpose of selling her, and might, without any difficulty, have done so; but with the thought of parting with her arose, more strongly than ever, the feeling of disinclination to abandon the East Coast of Africa to the Portuguese and slavetrading, and I determined to run home and consult my friends before I allowed the little vessel to pass from my hands. After, therefore, having put two Ajawa lads to school under the eminent missionary, the Rev. Dr. Wilson, and having pro vided satisfactorily for the native crew, I started homeward with the three white sailors, and reached London July 20th, 1864. Mr. and Mrs. Webb, my much-loved friends, wrote to Bombay inviting me, in the event of my coming to England, to make Newstead Abbey my head-quarters, and on my arrival renewed their invitation; and though, when I accepted it, I had no intention of remaining so long with my kindhearted, generous friends, I staid with them until April, 1865, and under their roof transcribed from my own and my brother's journal the whole of this present book. It is with heartfelt gratitude I would record their unwearied kindness. My acquaintance with Mr. Webb began in Africa, where he was a daring and successful hunter, and his continued friendship is most valuable, because he has seen missionary work, and he would not accord his respect and esteem to me had he not believed that I, and my brethren also, were to be looked on as honest men earnestly trying to do our duty. The government have supported the proposal of the Royal Geographical Society made by my friend Sir Roderick Murchison, and have united with that body to aid me in another attempt to open Africa to civilizing influences, and a valued private friend has given a thousand pounds for the same object. I propose to go inland, north of the territory which the Portuguese in Europe claim, and endeavor to commence that system on the East which has been so eminently successful on the West Coast-a system combining the repressive efforts of H. M. cruisers with lawful trade and Christian Missions, the moral and material results of which have been so gratifying. I hope to ascend the Rovuma, or some other river north of Cape Delgado, and, in addition to my other work, shall strive, by passing along the northern end of Lake Nyassa, and round the southern end of Lake Tanganyika, to as POSTSCRIPT TO PREFACE. vii certain the watershed of that part of Africa. In so doing, I have no wish to unsettle what with so much toil and danger was accomplished by Speke and Grant, but rather to confirm their illustrious discoveries. I have to acknowledge the obliging readiness of Lord Russell in lending me the drawings taken by the artist who was in the first instance attached to the Expedition. These sketches, with photographs by Charles Livingstone and Dr. Kirk, have materially assisted in the illustrations. I would also very sincerely thank my friends Professor Owen and Mr. Oswell for many valuable hints and other aid in the preparation of this volume. Newstead Abbey, April 16, 1865. POSTSCRIPT TO PREFACE. The credit which I was fain to award to the Lisbon statesmen for a sincere desire to put an end to the slave-trade is, I regret to find, totally undeserved. They have employed one Mons. Lacerda to try to extinguish the facts adduced by me before the meeting of the "British Association for the Advancement of Science" at Bath by a series of papers in the Portuguese Official Journal, and their Minister for Foreign Affairs has since devoted some of the funds of his government to the translation and circulation of Mons. Lacerda's articles in the form of an English tract. Nothing is more conspicuous in this official document than the extreme ignorance displayed of the geography of the country of which they pretend that they possess not only the knowledge, but also the dominion. A vague rumor, cited by some old author, about two marshes below Murchison's Cataracts, is considered con viii POSTSCRIPT TO PREFACE. clusive evidence that the ancient inhabitants of Senna, a village on the Zambesi, found no difficulty in navigating the Shire to Lake Nyassa up what modern travelers find to be an ascent of 1200 feet in 35 miles of latitude. A broad, shallow lake, with a strong current, which Senhor Candido declared he had visited N.W. of Tette, is assumed to be the narrow, deep Lake Nyassa, without current, and about N.N.E. of the same point. Great offense is also taken because the discovery of the main sources of the Nile has been ascribed to Speke and Grant instead of to Ptolemy and F. Lobo. But the main object of the Portuguese government is not geographical. It is to bolster up that pretense to power which has been the only obstacle to the establishment of lawful commerce and friendly relations with the native inhabitants of Eastern Africa. The following work contains abundant confirmation of all that was advanced by me at the Bath meeting of the British Association; and I may here add that it is this unwarranted assumption of power over 1360 miles of coast-from English River to Cape Delgado, where the Portuguese have, in fact, little real authority—which perpetuates the barbarism of the inhabitants. The Portuguese interdict all foreign commerce except at a very few points where they have established custom-houses, and even at these, by an exaggerated and obstructive tariff and differential duties, they completely shut out the natives from any trade except that in slaves. Looking from south to north, let us glance at the enor mous sea-board which the Portuguese in Europe endeavor to make us believe belongs to them. Delagoa Bay has a small fort called Lorenzo Marques, but nothing beyond the walls. At Inhambane they hold a small strip of land by sufferance of the natives. Sofala is in ruins, and from Quillimane north POSTSCRIPT TO PREFACE. ix ward for 690 miles they have only one small stockade, protected by an armed launch in the mouth of the River Angoza to prevent foreign vessels from trading there. Then at Mozambique they have the little island on which the fort stands, and a strip about three miles long on the main land, on which they have a few farms, which are protected from hostility only by paying the natives an annual tribute, which they call "having the blacks in their pay." The settlement has long been declining in trade and importance. It is garrisoned by a few hundred sickly soldiers shut up in the fort, and even with a small coral island near can hardly be called On the island of Oibo, or Iboe, an immense number of slaves are collected, but there is little trade of any kind. At Pomba Bay a small fort was made, but it is very doubtful. whether it still exists, the attempt to form a settlement there having entirely failed. They pay tribute to the Zulus for the lands they cultivate on the right bank of the Zambesi, and the general effect of the pretense to power and obstruction to commerce is to drive the independent native chiefs to the Arab dhow slave-trade as the only one open to them. secure. It is well known to the English government, from reliable documents at the Admiralty and Foreign Office, that no lon ger ago than November, 1864, two months after my speech was delivered at Bath, when the punishment of the perpetrators of an outrage on the crew of the cutter of H. M. S. "Lyra," near a river 45 miles S.W. of Mozambique, was de manded by H. M.S. "Wasp" at Mozambique, the present governor general declared that he had no power over the natives there. They have never been subdued, and, being a fine, energetic race, would readily enter into commercial treaties with foreigners, were it not for the false assertion of power by which the Portuguese, with the tacit consent of European |