ontact with the
Ajawa until the feelings of that tribe should be ascertained.

The members of Bishop Mackenzie's party, on the loss of their head, fell
back from Magomero on the highlands, to Chibisa's, in the low-lying Shire
Valley; and Thornton, finding them suffering from want of animal food,
kindly volunteered to go across thence to Tette, and bring a supply of
goats and sheep. We were not aware of this step, to which the generosity
of his nature prompted him, till two days after he had started. In
addition to securing supplies for the Universities' Mission, he brought
some for the Expedition, and took bearings, by which he hoped to connect
his former work at Tette with the mountains in the Shire district. The
toil of this journey was too much for his strength, as with the addition
of great scarcity of water, it had been for that of Dr. Kirk and Rae, and
he returned in a sadly haggard and exhausted condition; diarrhoea
supervened, and that ended in dysentery and fever, which terminated
fatally on the 21st of April, 1863. He received the unremitting
attentions of Dr. Kirk, and Dr. Meller, surgeon of the "Pioneer," during
the fortnight of his illness; and as he had suffered very little from
fever, or any other disease, in Africa, we had entertained strong hopes
that his youth and unimpaired constitution would have carried him
through. During the night of the 20th his mind wandered so much, that we
could not ascertain his last wishes; and on the morning of the 21st, to
our great sorrow, he died. He was buried on the 22nd, near a large tree
on the right bank of the Shire, about five hundred yards from the lowest
of the Murchison Cataracts--and close to a rivulet, at which the "Lady
Nyassa" and "Pioneer" lay.

No words can convey an adequate idea of the scene of widespread
desolation which the once pleasant Shire Valley now presented. Instead
of smiling villages and crowds of people coming with things for sale,
scarcely a soul was to be seen; and, when by chance one lighted on a
native, his frame bore the impress of hunger, and his countenance the
look of a cringing broken-spiritedness. A drought had visited the land
after the slave-hunting panic swept over it. Had it been possible to
conceive the thorough depopulation which had ensued, we should have
avoided coming up the river. Large masses of the people had fled down to
the Shire, only anxious to get the river between them and their enemies.
Most of the foo