before. Waves
were breaking over the bar at Quilimane and dashing over the boat that
carried Sekwebu out to the brig. He was terribly alarmed, but he lived
to reach Mauritius, where he became insane, hurled himself into the
sea, and was drowned!

On 12th December 1856, Livingstone landed in England after an absence
of sixteen years. He had left home as an obscure missionary; he returned
to find himself famous. The Royal Geographical Society awarded him
its gold medal; France and Scotland hastened to do him honour. Banquets
and receptions were given for him, and finally this "plain,
single-minded man, somewhat attenuated by years of toil, and with his
face tinged by the sun of Africa," was received by the Queen at Windsor.
The enthusiasm aroused by this longest expedition in the history of
African travel was unrivalled, and the name of Livingstone was on every
lip. But meanwhile others were at work in central Africa, and we must
turn from the discoveries of Livingstone for the moment.

CHAPTER LXIII

BURTON AND SPEKE IN CENTRAL AFRICA

Livingstone had just left Loanda and was making his way across Africa
from west to east, when an English expedition set forth to find the
Great Lakes still lying solitary and undiscovered, although they were
known to exist. If we turn to the oldest maps of Africa, we find, rudely
drawn and incorrectly placed, large inland waters, that may
nevertheless be recognised as these lakes just about to be revealed
to a wondering world. Ptolemy knew of them, the Arabs spoke of them,
Portuguese traders had passed them, and a German missionary had caught
sight of the Mountains of the Moon and brought back strange stories
of a great inland lake.

The work of rediscovering the lakes was entrusted to a remarkable man
named Richard Burton, a man whose love of adventure was well known.
He had already shown his metal by entering Mecca disguised as a Persian,
and disguised as an Arab he had entered Harar, a den of slave traders,
the "Timbuktu of Eastern Africa." On his return he was attacked by
the Somalis; one of his companions was killed, another, Speke, escaped
with terrible spear-wounds, and he himself was badly wounded.

Such were the men who in 1856 were dispatched by the Royal Geographical
Society for the exploration of the mysterious lakes in the heart of
central Africa. Speke gives us an idea of the ignorance prevailing
on this subject only fifty-six years ago: "On the walls of the S