lie,
as there are no striped tigers in Africa.

On 11th August, Livingstone once more reached Lake Nyassa. "It was
as if I had come back to an old home I never expected again to see,
and pleasant it was to bathe in the delicious waters again. I feel
quite exhilarated."

Having sent word to the Arab chief of Kota-Kota on the opposite coast,
and having received no reply to his request to be ferried across the
lake, he started off and marched by land round the southern end,
crossing the Shire River at its entrance. He continued his journey
round the south-western gulf of Lake Nyassa, till rumours of Zulu raids
frightened his men. They refused to go any farther, but just threw
down their loads and walked away. He was now left with Susi and Chuma
and a few boys with whom he crossed the end of a long range of mountains
over four thousand feet in height, and, pursuing a zigzag track,
reached the Loangwa River on 16th December 1866, while his unfaithful
followers returned to the coast to spread the story that Livingstone
had been killed by the Zulus!

Meanwhile the explorer was plodding on towards Lake Tanganyika. The
beauty of the way strikes the lonely explorer. The rainy season had
come on in all its force, and the land was wonderful in its early green.
"Many gay flowers peep out. Here and there the scarlet lily, red, yellow,
and pure white orchids, and pale lobelias. As we ascended higher on
the plateau, grasses which have pink and reddish brown seed-vessels
were grateful to the eye."

Two disasters clouded this month of travel. His poor poodle was drowned
in a marsh and his medicine-chest was stolen. The land was famine-bound
too; the people were living on mushrooms and leaves. "We get some
elephants' meat, but it is very bitter, and the appetite in this country
is always very keen and makes hunger worse to bear, the want of salt
probably making the gnawing sensation worse."

On 28th January, Livingstone crossed the Tshambezi, "which may almost
be regarded as the upper waters of the Congo," says Johnstone, though
the explorer of 1867 knew it not.

"Northwards," says Livingstone, "through almost trackless forest and
across oozing bogs"; and then he adds the significant words, "I am
frightened at my own emaciation." March finds him worse. "I have been
ill of fever; every step I take jars in my chest, and I am very weak;
I can scarcely keep up the march." At last, on 1st April, "blue water
loomed through the trees." I