e which occurred frequently on its banks. The spongy places
were slightly depressed valleys, without trees or bushes, with grass a
foot or fifteen inches high; they were usually from two to ten miles
long, and from a quarter of a mile to a mile broad. In the course of
thirty geographical miles, he crossed twenty-nine, and that, too, at the
end of the fourth month of the dry season. It was necessary for him to
strip the lower part of his person before fording them, and then the
leeches pounced on him, and in a moment had secured such a grip, that
even twisting them round the fingers failed to tear them off.

It was Dr. Livingstone's impression at this time that in discovering
Lake Bangweolo, with the sponges that fed it, he had made another
discovery--that these marshy places might be the real sources of the
three great rivers, the Nile, the Congo, and the Zambesi. A link,
however, was yet wanting to prove his theory. It had yet to be shown
that the waters that flowed from Lake Bangweolo into Lake Moero, and
thence northward by the river Lualaba, were connected with the Nile
system. Dr. Livingstone was strongly inclined to believe that this
connection existed; but toward the close of his life he had more doubts
of it, although it was left to others to establish conclusively that the
Lualaba was the Congo, and sent no branch to the Nile.

On leaving Lake Bangweolo, detention occurred again as it had occurred
before. The country was very disturbed and very miserable, and Dr.
Livingstone was in great straits and want. Yet with a grim humor he
tells how, when lying in an open shed, with all his men around him, he
dreamed of having apartments at Mivart's Hotel. It was after much delay
that he found himself at last, under the escort of a slave-party, on the
way to Ujiji. Mr. Waller has graphically described the situation. "At
last he makes a start on the 11th of December, 1868, with the Arabs, who
are bound eastward for Ujiji. It is a motley group, composed of Mohamad
and his friends, a gang of Unyamwezi hangers-on, and strings of wretched
slaves yoked together in their heavy slave-sticks. Some carry ivory,
others copper, or food for the march, while hope and fear, misery and
villainy, may be read off on the various faces that pass in line out of
this country, like a serpent dragging its accursed folds away from the
victim it has paralyzed with its fangs."

New Year's Day, 1869, found Livingstone laboring under a worse attack