ely yours,

"DAVID LIVINGSTONE."

Another letter is addressed to Sir Thomas Maclear and Mr. Mann,
September, 1869. He enters at considerable length into his reasons for
the supposition that he had discovered, on the watershed, the true
sources of the Nile. He refers in a generous spirit to the discoveries
of other travelers, mistaken though he regarded their views on the
sources, and is particularly complimentary to Miss Tinne:

"A Dutch lady whom I never saw, and of whom I know nothing
save from scraps in the newspapers, moves my sympathy more
than any other. By her wise foresight in providing a steamer,
and pushing on up the river after the severest domestic
affliction--the loss by fever of her two aunts--till after
she was assured by Speke and Grant that they had already
discovered in Victoria Nyanza the sources she sought, she
proved herself a genuine explorer, and then by trying to go
S.W. on land. Had they not, honestly enough of course, given
her their mistaken views, she must inevitably, by boat or on
land, have reached the head-waters of the Nile. I cannot
conceive of her stopping short of Bangweolo. She showed such
indomitable pluck she must be a descendant of Van Tromp, who
swept the English Channel till killed by our Blake, and whose
tomb every Englishman who goes to Holland is sure to visit.

"We great he-beasts say, 'Exploration was not becoming her
sex.' Well, considering that at least 1600 years have elapsed
since Ptolemy's informants reached this region, and kings,
emperors, and all the great men of antiquity longed in vain
to know the fountains, exploration does not seem to have
become the other sex either. She came much further up than
the two centurions sent by Nero Caesar.

"I have to go down and see where the two arms unite,--the
lost city Meroe ought to be there,--then get back to Ujiji to
get a supply of goods which I have ordered from Zanzibar,
turn bankrupt after I secure them, and let my creditors catch
me if they can, as I finish up by going round outside and
south of all the sources, so that I may be sure no one will
cut me out and say he found other sources south of mine.
This is one reason for my concluding trip; another is to
visit the underground houses in stone, and the copper mines
of Katanga which have been worked f