Ma-Robert,' or rather the 'Asthmatic,' are so numerous that
it would require a treatise as long as a lawyer's
specification of any simple subject to give you any idea of
them, and they have inflicted so much toil that a feeling of
sickness comes over me when I advert to them.

"No one will ever believe the toil we have been put to in
woodcutting. The quantity consumed is enormous, and we cannot
get sufficient for speed into the furnace. It was only a
dogged determination not to be beaten that carried me
through.... But all will come out right at last. We are not
alone, though truly we deserve not his presence. He
encourages the trust that is granted by the word, 'I am with
you, even unto the end of the world.'...

"It is impossible for you to conceive how backward everything
is here, and the Portuguese are not to be depended upon;
their establishments are only small penal settlements, and as
no women are sent out, the state of morals is frightful. The
only chance of success is away from them; nothing would
prosper in their vicinity. After all, I am convinced that
were Christianity not divine, it would be trampled out by its
professors. Dr. Kirk, Mr. C. Livingstone, and Mr. Rae, with
two English seamen, do well. We are now on our way up the
river to the Makololo country, but must go overland from
Kebrabasa, or in a whaler. We should be better able to plan
our course if our letters had not been lost. We have never
been idle, and do not mean to be. We have been trying to get
the Portuguese Government to acknowledge free-trade on this
river, and but for long delay in our letters the negotiation
might have been far advanced. I hope Lord John Russell will
help in this matter, and then we must have a small colony or
missionary and mercantile settlement. If this our desire is
granted, it is probable we shall have no cause to lament our
long toil and detention here. My wife's letters, too, were
lost, so I don't know how or where she is. Our separation,
and the work I have been engaged in, were not contemplated,
but they have led to our opening a path into the fine
cotton-field in the North. You will see that the discoveries
of Burton and Speke confirm mine respecting the form of the
continent and its fertility. It is an immense field. I cr