and explore it downward.

Dr. Livingstone, as we have seen, welcomed the Mission right cordially,
for indeed it was what he had been most eagerly praying for, and he
believed that it would be the beginning of all blessing to Eastern and
Central Africa, and help to assimilate the condition of the East Coast
to that of the West The field for the cultivation of cotton which he had
discovered along the Shire and Lake Nyassa was immense, above 400 miles
in length, and now it seemed as if commerce and Christianity were going
to take possession of it. But it was found that the turning-point of
prosperity had been reached, and it was his lot to encounter dark
reverses. The navigation of the Shire was difficult, for the "Pioneer"
being deep in the water would often run aground. On these occasions the
Bishop, Mr. Scudamore, and Mr. Waller, the best and the bravest of the
missionary party, were ever ready with their help in hauling.
Livingstone was sometimes scandalized to see the Bishop toiling in the
hot sun, while some of his subordinates were reading or writing in the
cabin. As they proceeded up the Shire it was seen that the promises of
assistance from the Portuguese Government were worse than fruitless.
Evidently the Portuguese traders were pushing the slave-trade with
greater eagerness than ever. Slave-hunting chiefs were marauding the
country, driving peaceful inhabitants before them, destroying their
crops, seizing on all the people they could lay hands on, and selling
them as slaves. The contrast to what Livingstone had seen on his last
journey was lamentable. All their prospects were overcast. How could
commerce or Christianity flourish in countries desolated by war?

Every reader of _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_ remembers the
frightful picture of the slave-sticks, and the row of men, women, and
children whom Livingstone and his companions set free. Nothing helped
more than this picture to rouse in English bosoms an intense horror of
the trade, and a burning sympathy with Livingstone and his friends.
Livingstone and the Bishop, with his party, had gone up the Shire to
Chibisa's, and were halting at the village of Mbame, when a slave party
came along. The flight of the drivers, the liberation of eighty-four men
and women, and their reception by the good Bishop under his charge,
speedily followed. The aggressors were the neighboring warlike tribe of
Ajawa, and their victims were the Manganja, the inhabitants of the S