ountry afforded.

The journey was difficult and troublesome, through a multitude of savage
tribes. First the Zambesi was followed upwards, and then the route ran
along other rivers. In consequence of heavy rain, swollen watercourses
and treacherous swamps had to be crossed continually. Livingstone rode
an ox which carried him through the water after a small portable boat
had been wrecked and abandoned. Swarms of mosquitoes buzzed over the
moist ground, and Livingstone repeatedly caught fever from the damp,
close exhalations, and was often so ill that he could not even sit on
his ox. But amidst all these difficulties and hardships he never omitted
to observe the natural objects around him and to work at his map of the
route. His diary was a big volume in stout boards with lock and key, and
he wrote as small and as neatly as print.

Step by step he came nearer the sea. Most opportunely they met a
Portuguese, and in his company the small troop entered the Portuguese
territory on the west coast. The Portuguese received Livingstone with
great hospitality, supplied him with everything he wanted, and rigged
him out from top to toe.

Some English cruisers were lying off Loanda, having come to try to put
down the slave-trade, and Livingstone enjoyed a delightful rest with his
countrymen and slept in a proper bed after having lain for half a year
on wet ground. It would have been pleasant to have had a thorough
holiday on a comfortable vessel on the voyage to England after so many
years' wanderings in Africa, but Livingstone resisted the temptation. He
could not send his faithful Makololos adrift; besides, he had found that
the route to the west coast was not suitable for trade, and was now
wondering whether the Zambesi might serve as a channel of communication
between the interior and the east coast. So he decided to turn back in
spite of fever and danger, bade good-bye to the English and Portuguese,
and again entered the great solitude.

Before Livingstone left Loanda he put together a large mass of
correspondence, notes, maps, and descriptions of the newly discovered
countries, but the English vessel which carried his letters sank at
Madeira with all on board, and only one passenger was saved. News of the
misfortune reached Livingstone when he was still near the coast, and he
had to write and draw all his work again, a task that took him months.
If he had left the Makololo men to their fate he would have travelled in
the u