November 1853 when Livingstone left the town of Linyanti
in the very heart of central Africa for his great journey to the west
coast to trace the course of the Zambesi.

"The Zambesi. Nobody knows
Whence it comes and whither it goes."

So ran an old canoe-song of the natives.

With twenty-seven faithful black Makololos, with "only a few biscuits,
a little tea and sugar, twenty pounds of coffee and three books," with
a horse rug and sheepskin for bedding and a small gipsy tent and a
tin canister, fifteen inches square, filled with a spare shirt,
trousers, and shoes for civilised life, and a few scientific
instruments, the English explorer started for a six months' journey.
Soon his black guides had embarked in their canoes and were making
their way up the Zambesi. "No rain has fallen here," he writes on 30th
November, "so it is excessively hot. The atmosphere is oppressive both
in cloud and sunshine." Livingstone suffered badly from fever during
the entire journey. But the blacks took fatherly care of him. "As soon
as we land," he says, "the men cut a little grass for my bed, while
the poles of my little tent are planted. The bed is made and boxes
ranged on each side of it, and then the tent pitched over all. Two
Makololos occupy my right and left both in eating and sleeping as long
as the journey lasts, but my head boatman makes his bed at the door
of the tent as soon as I retire."

As they advanced up the Barotse valley, rains had fallen and the woods
had put on their gayest hue. Flowers of great beauty grew everywhere.
"The ground begins to swarm with insect life, and in the cool, pleasant
mornings the place rings with the singing of birds."

On 6th January 1854 they left the river and rode oxen through the dense
parts of the country through which they had now to pass. Through heavy
rains and with very little food, they toiled on westward through miles
and miles of swamp intersected by streams flowing southward to the
Zambesi basin. One day Livingstone's ox, Sindbad, threw him, and he
had to struggle wearily forward on foot. His strength was failing.
His meagre fare varied by boiled zebra and dried elephant, frequent
wettings and constant fever, were reducing him to a mere skeleton.
At last on 26th March he arrived at the edge of the high land over
which he had so long been travelling. "It is so steep," he tells us,
"that I was obliged to dismount, and I was so weak that I had to be
led by my companions