dangerous neighbor. He
therefore refused Livingstone guides to Sebituane, and sent men to
prevent him from crossing the river. Livingstone was not to be baulked,
and worked many hours in the river trying to make a raft out of some
rotten wood,--at the imminent risk of his life, as he afterward found,
for the Zouga abounds with alligators. The season was now far advanced,
and as Mr. Oswell volunteered to go down to the Cape and bring up a boat
next year, the expedition was abandoned for the time.

Returning home by the Zouga, they had better opportunity to mark the
extraordinary richness of the country, and the abundance and luxuriance
of its products, both animal and vegetable. Elephants existed in crowds,
and ivory was so abundant that a trader was purchasing it at the rate of
ten tusks for a musket worth fifteen shillings. Two years later, after
effect had been given to Livingstone's discovery, the price had risen
very greatly.

Writing to his friend Watt, he dwells with delight on the river Zouga:

"It is a glorious river; you never saw anything so grand. The
banks are extremely beautiful, lined with gigantic trees,
many quite new. One bore a fruit a foot in length and three
inches in diameter. Another measured seventy feet in
circumference. Apart from the branches it looked like a mass
of granite; and then the Bakoba in their canoes--did I not
enjoy sailing in them? Remember how long I have been in a
parched-up land, and answer. The Bakoba are a fine frank race
of men, and seem to understand the message better than any
people to whom I have spoken on Divine subjects for the first
time. What think you of a navigable highway into a large
section of the interior? yet that the Tamanak'le is.... Who
will go into that goodly land? Who? Is it not the Niger of
this part of Africa?... I greatly enjoyed sailing in their
canoes, rude enough things, hollowed out of the trunks of
single trees, and visiting the villages along the Zouga. I
felt but little when I looked on the lake; but the Zouga and
Tamanak'le awakened emotions not to be described. I hope to
go up the latter next year."

The discovery of the lake and the river was communicated to the Royal
Geographical Society in extracts from Livingstone's letters to the
London Missionary Society, and to his friend and former fellow-traveler,
Captain Steele. In 1849 the Society vo