savages must die out, because
they could devise no means of living through disease. By and by he would
examine the Arab character, and find Mahometanism as it now is in Africa
worse than African heathenism, and remark on the callousness of the
Mahometans to the welfare of one another, and on the especial glory of
Christianity, the only religion that seeks to propagate itself, and
through the influence of love share its blessings with others. Anon he
would dwell on the primitive African faith; its recognition of one
Almighty Creator, its moral code, so like our own, save in the one
article of polygamy; its pious recognition of a future life, though the
element of punishment is not very conspicuous; its mild character
generally, notwithstanding the bloodthirstiness sometimes ascribed to
it, which, however, Livingstone held to be, at Dahomey for example,
purely exceptional.

Another subject that occupied him was the natural history of the
country. He would account for desert tracts like Kalahari by the fact
that the east and southeast winds, laden with moisture from the Indian
Ocean, get cooled over the coast ranges of mountains, and having
discharged their vapor there had no spare moisture to deposit over the
regions that for want of it became deserts. The geology of Southern
Africa was peculiar; the geographical series described in books was not
to be found here, for, as Sir Roderick Murchison had shown, the great
submarine depressions and elevations that had so greatly affected the
other continents during the secondary, tertiary, and more recent
periods, had not affected Africa. It had preserved its terrestrial
conditions during a long period, unaffected by any changes save those
dependent on atmospheric influences. There was also a peculiarity in
prehistoric Africa--it had no stone period; at least no flint weapons
had been found, and the familiarity and skill of the natives with the
manufacture of iron seemed to indicate that they had used iron weapons
from the first.

The travelers had got as far as the river Loangwa (of Nyassa), when a
halt had to be called. Some of the natives had been ill, and indeed one
had died in the comparatively cold climate of the highlands. But nothing
would have hindered Livingstone from working his way round the head of
the lake if only time had been on his side. But time was inexorably
against him; the orders from Government were strict. He must get the
"Pioneer" down to the sea while