Threats of war between England and Portugal bring into prominence that portion of Central Africa which is embraced in the title “Nyassaland.” While ordinarily it might be embraced in the Zambesi system, it is a land quite by itself, especially as to its topography and the position it occupies in the commercial and political world, and is in many respects the most interesting part of East Central Africa. It is a back-ground to Portugal’s Mozambique possessions, but at the same time the very heart of the British effort to cut a magnificent water way inland from the mouths of the Zambesi to the mouths of the Nile. Hence the conflict of interest there, a conflict which must go on by arbitration or by war, till Great Britain secures what she wants—control of the ShirÉ river and Lake Nyassa. The navigation of the Lower Zambesi is already open to all nations.

The river ShirÉ, which we are now about to ascend, falls into the Zambesi from the left, only some ninety miles from its mouth. Twenty years ago its course was unknown, and its banks were wildernesses untrodden by the foot of a white man. Now the stream is one of the best-known and most frequented of the highways to the Lake Regions. The ShirÉ is much narrower than the Zambesi, but of deeper channel, and in the upper and lower portions more easily ascended by steamers. Midway in its course, however, we meet a great impediment to the navigation of the river, and consequently to the civilization and commercial development of the regions beyond. In thirty-five miles the stream descends twelve hundred feet in a series of rapids and cataracts over a rock-encumbered bed and between sheer walls of cliff.

Beauty and use are badly adjusted on the ShirÉ. The scenery of the unnavigable portion of the river is full of singular and romantic beauty. In the picturesque diversity of its charms of crag and forest and rushing water it is scarcely equalled by any other part of Africa. Monotony, on the other hand, has set its stamp on the banks of the useful, slow-flowing river beneath and above. Yet the ascent of one hundred and fifty miles from the Zambesi to the cataracts is not without its attractions. The landscape is intensely and characteristically African. If the river is fringed on either shore by tall and sombre reeds, the majestic mountains that bound the ShirÉ valley are always in sight. A dense tropical vegetation covers these hills to the very tops, except that patches of lighter tint show where the hands of the natives have cleared the ground for the cultivation of crops of cotton, sorghum, or maize; for these healthy uplands, above the reach of the mosquito and the deadly marsh fog, and safe also, in some degree, from the ravages of the kidnapper, are inhabited by an industrious race, the Manganjas, who have made no small progress in agriculture and native iron and metal manufactures.

This whole country is favorable for the raising of cotton, which here grows a larger and finer staple, it is said, even than in Egypt. Every Manganja village has its cotton patch, where sufficient is grown for the use riot only of the community but of neighboring tribes. The demand certainly is not large, the requirements of Africans in the matter of clothing being modest—or immodest, if you will. There is a tribe, for instance, on the Lower Zambesi, whose name, being interpreted, means the “Go-Nakeds.” The full costume of a “Go-Naked” is a coat—of red ochre. Livingstone met one of their men of rank once, and found his court suit represented by a few beads and a pipe two feet long. Unfortunately the Manganja, along with their ingenuity and industry as weavers, blacksmiths, and farmers, are inordinately fond of beer and smoking, and are great in the arts of brewing and tobacco-manufacturing. With all these disadvantages, however, it is pleasant to find, in one corner at least of Africa, a race with both the skill and the inclination to work, and a native industry ready to spring up into large proportions so soon as it receives a little encouragement.

After the Zambesi has been left behind, a great mountain called Morumbala, four thousand feet in height, bounds for many miles the view on the right as we ascend the ShirÉ. Beyond it we reach one of the marshes or old lake-beds which form one of the features of this valley. The bounding lines of hills make each a semicircular curve, and inclose a vast morass, through the centre of which the river drains slowly between dripping walls of sedge and mud. No human inhabitant can dwell in these impenetrable swamps; but they are far from empty of life. Great flights of wild geese, ducks, waders, and other water-fowl abound here in prodigious numbers, and rise from the brake at the noise of the passing boat or steamer—for already steamers now ply on the waters of the river below and the great lake above.

The discovery of the lake was due to Livingstone who had heard of the “Great Water” somewhere to the north of the Zambesi and far amid the mountains of the ShirÉ. His first attempt to reach it was a failure, through reticence of the people respecting it and the natural difficulties he encountered. But his worst enemy was his guide who misled him until all were completely lost. The party were in a desperate strait. Suspicion of treachery filled every bosom except Livingstone’s. One of his faithful Makololos came up to him, and remarked, in a matter-of-fact way, “That fellow is taking us into mischief. My spear is sharp. There is no one here. Shall I cast him into the long grass?” A gesture of assent, or even silence, and the unlucky guide would have been run through the body; but Livingstone was not the man to permit blood to be spilt, even on an apparently well-grounded suspicion of treachery. After all, it turned out to be merely a blunder, and no treachery. The party were led safely to the margin of the “great lake” of the district—the elephant marsh that they had passed some time before while ascending the river!

The second trip resulted in a discovery of an inland sea, though not the one they were in search of. Climbing over the shoulder of the high mountains east of the ShirÉ, the party came in sight of Lake Shirwa, lying in an isolated, pear-shaped basin, nearly two thousand feet above sea-level. Magnificent mountain scenery surrounds the lake, the waters of which, contrary to the rule in Central Africa, are salt, or rather brackish. Although the area of Shirwa is large, it is but a mill-pond compared with Nyassa and some of the other African lakes. Yet, girt in though it is with hills, it shows to one standing near its southern end a boundless sea-horizon towards the north. Opposite on the eastern shore a lofty range rises to a height of eight thousand feet above sea-level, while behind, the table-topped Mount Zomba, only one thousand feet lower, dominates the ShirÉ valley.

All this mountainous mass seems habitable, and, in fact, is inhabited to its very summits; and its temperate climate, healthful breezes, and freedom from malaria and mosquitoes, have led to its being chosen as the site of the Church of Scotland mission to the Nyassa country—their station, Blantyre, being named after the Scottish village where Livingstone first saw the light.

In ascending to the Nyassa, the opposite or western side of the ShirÉ is generally chosen, and travellers prefer to make a wide dÉtour into the healthy Manganja uplands to struggling through the rocky, broken, and wooded country through which the river tears its impetuous way. It is delightful to breathe the bracing air of these high plains after escaping from the humid, stifling atmosphere of the valley. The change of scenery and climate puts a new life into the veins of the traveller. Many novel views of African life come under his notice among the Manganja highlands. The path up the long ascent is toilsome, but the eye is cheered by the glorious views of the deep valley lying below and the blue domes and peaks that rise ahead. The country is open and park-like, full of grand forest trees and flowing streams.

In the evening we halt at a Manganja village and receive a hearty—perhaps an uproarious—welcome. The villages are surrounded by thick-set hedges of the poisonous euphorbia; and however busy at work or at feasting the inhabitants are inside, a guard is always kept on vigilant watch at the entrance, to give warning if a foraging band of Mazitu heave in sight in the mountains, or the white robes of a party of Arab slave-hunters are seen ascending the valley. When it is known that it is friends who are approaching, the villagers are not long in making amends for the shyness of their first greetings. Mats of reeds and bamboo are spread for the wayfarers under the shade of the banian tree at the “boalo,” an open space for the public entertainment of strangers at one end of the village, the favorite spot for lounging and smoking, and where on moonlight nights the young people indulge in singing and dancing and their elders in hard drinking bouts. The whole community troop out to see the white visitors, who are regarded with just such a mixture of curiosity and fear as a company of Red Indians would be looked upon by English rustics. Presents are exchanged with the chief, and then a brisk trade sets in, the villagers bartering food and articles of native manufacture for beads, looking-glasses, cloth, and other surprising products of Europe. Generally there follow dancing, pombe-drinking, and serenading in honor of the visitor, a homage which the latter is often glad to escape from by strolling out for a night-hunt for elephant or other game, or to note down by the clear light of the moon his observations for the day.

Soon it is time to descend into the valley, where the ShirÉ is found again flowing deep and slow, as below the falls, and opening up into a marshy lakelet, Pamalombe, with a strong family resemblance to the swamps of the lower river. It ought to be recorded, in justice to African honesty, that when the Ilala, the first steamer that floated on the Nyassa, was conveyed in pieces from the Lower to the Upper ShirÉ by a band of some hundreds of porters, under Captain Young’s leadership, it was found, on putting the little craft together, that not a single bolt or screw had been mislaid or stolen, though the temptation to fling away or decamp with their burdens must have sorely tried the carriers.

Even when almost within sight of the Nyassa. Livingstone could hear nothing of the goal of which he was in search. The chief of the “Great Lake” village on the ShirÉ told him that the river stretched on for “two months’ journey,” and then emerged from two rocks that towered perpendicularly to the skies. “We shall go and see these wonderful rocks,” said the doctor. “And when you see them,” objected his Makololo companions, “you will just want to see something else.” Next day they continued their march, and before noon came in sight of the lake.

Like the Tanganyika and Albert Lakes, Nyassa is a long and comparatively narrow body of water lying in a deep depression of the plateau of Central Africa. From the outlet of the ShirÉ one can sail on its waters for more than three hundred miles towards the equator; but it is nowhere more than sixty miles in width, and in some places less than half that distance across. It resembles the more northerly lakes, the Albert Nyanza and the Tanganyika, but especially the latter, in its general shape and direction; and it was for many years a favorite theory with “closet geographers” that the three lakes formed one continuous sheet of water. Such an attenuated “river-sea,” fifteen hundred miles in length and with no breadth to speak of, would have been a new thing in nature, and would, besides, have been an extremely useful factor in opening up Africa. Unfortunately, like other pretty theories, it did not stand the test of actual examination; and we have seen that the three lakes form parts of three different though not disconnected systems.

The shores of Nyassa seem to be overhung on all sides by tall mountains, although near the southern end there is generally a margin of more level country between the bases of the hills and the lake. As we proceed northwards, the distinctive features of the lake shores become more pronounced and majestic. The strip of plain narrows until it disappears. The range increases in altitude and approaches nearer, the rocky buttresses spring directly from the water, and the torrents that rush down their sides plunge in cascades into the lake; and the extreme northern end is encircled by dark mountains, whose frowning tops are ten thousand feet or more above sea-level. But when we ascend from the sweltering western margin of the lake to the cool and breezy heights that look down on it, we find that instead of being on the summit of a range of mountains we are only on the edge of a wide table-land. There is no steep slope corresponding to that which we have ascended so toilsomely, only a gentle incline towards the Zambesi.

On his last great expedition to Africa, Dr. Livingstone passed round the southern end of the lake, and, ascending the table-land, traced the water-shed between the lake and the streams flowing to the westward, until he descended into the valley of the Chambesi, and began that investigation of the Congo which is hereafter more fully described. The contour of the country reminded him strongly of that of Southern India. There was the flat country covered with thick jungle and tiger-grass, succeeded by dense forest, gradually thinning away to clumps of evergreens as the higher levels are reached, the scattered masses of boulders, the deeply-trenched “nullahs” or water-courses, and all the other familiar features of the fine scenery of the Ghauts, while the tableland above resembled closely the high plains of the Deccan. But what a contrast in the social and industrial condition of the two countries! Instead of seeing at every step, as in India, the traces of a long-founded civilization and a race of industrious tillers of the soil dwelling in peace and security under the strong arm of the law, we meet only with anarchy, misery, and barbarism.

The whole of this region is a hunting-ground of the Mazitu or Mavitu Zulus, whose only business is war and pillage. The wretched inhabitants of these hills dwell in constant apprehension of their raids. On no night can they sleep even within the shelter of their well-guarded stockades with the assurance that the Mavitu will not be upon them ere morning. Originally weak in numbers, this tribe has gathered strength by amalgamating with themselves the clans they have conquered. The terror which their deeds have inspired has been heightened by their wild and fantastic dress and gestures as they advance to battle, and by their formidable weapons. They carry the long Zulu shield and both the flinging and the stabbing assegai. Their hair is plumed with feathers, and their bodies painted in fiendish devices with red and white clay. So abject is the fear entertained for these redoubtable champions among the surrounding tribes, that the mere mention of their name is enough to make a travelling party take to their heels. Livingstone found this a constant source of annoyance and delay. Twice it was the cause of reports of his death being brought home. On the last occasion, the Johanna men—natives of the Comoro Isles—who formed his escort, were seized with the infectious panic, and, abandoning him in a body, brought down to the coast the story of the explorer having been murdered in the interior. The falsity of their report was only ascertained after Mr. Edward Young had made a special expedition to the Nyassa, and learned on the spot that the intrepid missionary, in spite of the cowardly desertion of his followers, was safe and well, and still pushing forward towards his goal.

In one respect, if in no other, the Zulu “Rob Roys” of these hills have a feeling in common with the travellers and missionaries who have found their way to the Nyassa countries—they are the inveterate enemies of the slave-hunters, and will not permit these gentry to practice the arts of kidnapping and murder within reach of their spears. The eastern side of the Nyassa basin, on the other hand, is one of the principal scenes of the slave-traders’ operations. In conjunction with predatory negro tribes, such as the Ajawa on the left bank of the ShirÉ, they have made a wilderness of all the country between the Nyassa and the Indian Ocean. Nothing can exceed the waste and havoc they have wrought in this beautiful and fruitful land. The books of the explorers are full of details of almost incredible atrocities committed under their eyes, and which they were powerless to prevent. Whole populations have been swept into the slave-gangs and hurried down to the coast, leaving the country behind them a desert, and their path marked by the skeletons of those who have succumbed to exhaustion or the cruelty of their brutal drivers. The miserable remnant of the population roost in trees, or seek shelter in the deepest recesses of the forest: while the jungle overruns the fields of maize, cotton, manioc, and sorghum and the charred ruins of their villages.

In Livingstone’s Journals we come upon such entries as: “Passed a slave woman shot or stabbed through the body; a group, looking on, said an Arab had done it that morning in anger at losing the price he had given for her, because she was unable to walk.” “Found a number of slaves with slave sticks (logs six feet long with a cleft at one end in which the head of the unfortunate is fastened) abandoned by their master from want of food; they were too weak to speak or say where they had come from.” “It was wearisome to see the skulls and bones scattered about everywhere; one would fain not notice them, but they are so striking as one trudges along the sultry path that it cannot be avoided.” This evidence is abundantly supported by the statements of other observers. Consul Elton describes passing a caravan of three hundred slaves from the Nyassa, while travelling through the clove and gum-copal forests on the Mozambique coast. “All,” he says, “were in wretched condition. One gang of lads and women, chained together with iron neck-rings, was in a horrible state, their lower extremities coated with dry mud and torn with thorns, their bodies mere frameworks, and their skeleton limbs slightly stretched-over with parchment-like skin. One wretched woman had been flung against a tree for slipping her rope, and came screaming to us for protection, with one eye half out, and her face and bosom streaming with blood. We washed her wounds, and that was the only piece of interference on our part with the caravan, although the temptation was strong to cast all adrift, and give them at any rate a chance of starving to death peaceably in the woods.” Can it be wondered at that the pioneers of civilization and Christianity in these regions have sometimes been carried away by their feelings, and at the risk of ruining their whole plans have forcibly interfered between these Arab miscreants and their victims?

During the period to which Consul Elton’s accounts apply, it was computed that the Lake Nyassa region supplied some fifteen thousand slaves annually to the markets of Kilwa and other coast towns. Dr. Livingstone is convinced from his own observations, that, so far as regards the ShirÉ country, not a tenth of those who are captured survive the horrors of the land journey. It may be wondered how this waste of human life can go on and the country not to be completely depopulated. In spite, however, of their terrible losses, there is still a large population settled on the Nyassa. They have been chased down from the hills by the Mavitu and the slaver, and are huddled together on the lake margin, where their enemies can swoop down and make them an easy prey.

This dense population is, however, only found towards the southern end of Nyassa. Further north, the Mavitu have taken possession of the shore as well as the hills, and practice with equal success the vocation of pirates on the water and of robbers on land. An expedition in this direction was, till lately, certain to be attended with no small excitement and clanger. If the journey were made by land, the travellers were liable to be surprised at some point where the road was more rocky and difficult than usual, by the apparition of a wild-looking crew starting up from behind boulder or tree, and advancing with brandished spears and unearthly yells. White explorers are not accustomed to turn and flee at the first alarm. They stand, quietly awaiting the attack; and the Mavitu disconcerted at conduct so utterly unlike what they had calculated upon, run away themselves instead. If the excursion is made by water, a crowd of boats, pulled by swift rowers, will perhaps be seen putting out from a secluded bight, or from behind a wooded promontory, and giving chase to the strangers, with loud outcries to stop. The navigators of this inland sea, however, are missionaries, merchants and men of peace. They have no desire to do harm to their savage pursuers, and, secure in the speed of their little steamer and the superior range of their guns, they can afford to laugh at the attempts to capture them.

Much more serious is the danger arising from the sudden and furious storms that sweep down upon the lake from the gullies of its encircling hills. Livingstone narrowly escaped shipwreck on its waters, and from his experiences of it proposed to have Nyassa named the “Lake of Storms.” An old seaman of his party, who had been over the world, and at home had spent many a squally night off the wild coasts of Connaught and Donegal, said he had never encountered such waves as were raised in a few minutes by the tornadoes on the Nyassa. Succeeding voyagers—Young, Elton, Cotterill, Drs. Laws and Stewart, of the Scottish missions—report similar experiences. Mr. Cotterill’s little craft, the Herya, a present from the Harrow boys, was driven ashore on the western coast, June 1877, and he lost his journals, goods, and medical stores, saving only one bottle of quinine, which, remembering the fate of Livingstone and Mackenzie, he threw ashore as he neared the breakers in the darkness. The most dreaded waves on the Nyassa come rolling on in threes, “with their crests,” says Livingstone, “streaming in spray behind them.” A short lull follows each charge; and then another white-maned trio come rushing on and threaten to ingulf the voyagers and their frail bark.

A curious natural phenomenon has been noticed by most observers on the Nyassa. A light blue cloud will be observed floating for many miles over the surface of the lake, like the trailing smoke of some distant fire. When it is reached, we discover that it consists of nothing else but myriads of insects, of a species peculiar to the region, and known as the “kungo fly.” So dense is the mass that immense quantities of them are caught by the natives and pounded into cakes, resembling in size and shape a “Tam o’Shanter” bonnet. They are not particular as to what they eat, these hunger-bitten natives of the Nyassa shores. Neither are they unreasonably extravagant in the matter of dress, some of the tribes absolutely dispensing with clothes. Their notion of making up for their scanty attire by liberally anointing their bodies with rancid fish oil and hippopotamus fat, and smearing themselves with fancy designs in red and white clay, does not recommend them to the European eye and nostril. From our point of view, too, their attempts at decoration by means of tattooing are in nowise improvements, the result being to give their faces and limbs the appearance of being thickly studded with pimples. The most hideous device of all, however, is the “pelele,” or lip ring, an ornament without which no Nyassa belle would dream of appearing in public. This consists of a broad ring of tin or stone, an inch or more in diameter, inserted by slow degrees into the upper lip, causing it to stand out at right angles to its natural direction, and revealing beneath the rows of teeth sharpened to fine points like those of a saw. The native ladies of rank sometimes have a corresponding ring in the under lip, with the result that while the wearers of the single “pelele” can only lisp, the ladies of fashion are scarcely able to speak at all. Considering that these poor people have not been lavishly endowed with natural charms, the effect of their duck-like mouths may be imagined. Some handsome faces may, however, be seen among the natives of the Nyassa, and many of them, it has been observed, have regular Jewish or Assyrian features. Dr. Livingstone saw one man who bore a striking resemblance to a distinguished London actor in the part of the “Moor of Venice,” while another was the exact counterpart, in black, of the late Lord Clyde.

The magnificent alpine country at the north end of the lake is, as yet, comparatively unknown. The sole spot where there is any level ground is a great elephant marsh. Here Elton and his companions counted no fewer than three hundred of these noble animals standing knee-deep in the swamp, the elders lazily swinging their trunks and fanning themselves with their huge ears; while the juniors of the herd disported themselves in their elephantine way, rolling luxuriously in the mud, or tearing down branches of trees in the riotous enjoyment of their enormous strength.

Elton’s party enjoyed several days of most exciting elephant-stalking in the neighboring hills. Sallying out one morning into a part of the forest where the great brutes were known to abound, the herd was at length sighted; two or three of the elephants dozing under the shade of some trees, others engaged in munching branches, or shaking the boughs and picking up one by one with their trunks the berries that were scattered below. They were soon aroused from this delightful Elysium of rest and enjoyment by the hunters, who had crept up to within ten or fifteen yards unseen. Singling out the biggest elephant, a huge tusker, who stood blinking contemplatively under the shadow of a tree, Elton and his companion, Mr. Rhodes, each planted a bullet behind his shoulder. He trumpeted, staggered forward, tripped over into the rocky bed of a “nullah,” scrambled out on the other side, and there receiving another two shots, crashed down lifeless into a second dry water-course.

Chase was then given up a mountain gorge to the next largest elephant which deliberately charged back at Elton, the nearest of her pursuers. Allowing her to approach to within about three yards, he gave her a forehead shot, which turned her round; and then Rhodes “doubled her over like a rabbit.” The retreating herd were pursued to the top of the pass, where the last of the line, a big bull elephant, receiving a shot, stumbled and fell, while Elton, with “the pace on,” nearly fell on the top of him; “and,” he says, “holding my Henry rifle like a pistol, I shot him again at the root of the tail. The shock was irresistible; over the edge of the ravine he went, head foremost, the blood gushing out of his trunk, and his fall into space only broken by a stout acacia, in which he hung suspended, his fore and hind legs on either side—dead.” Still the hunt was continued, and on a second rocky slope a wounded elephant was found laboring up, supported and helped on by a friend on either side, while a fourth urged him on from behind with his forehead. This last faced round, and stood defiantly at bay, his ears “spread-eagled.” Elton’s last cartridge missed fire; Rhodes shot; a tremendous report followed; the elephant, with a groan, plunged over a cliff, and hung suspended by a thorn-tree in mid-air, like his predecessor; while Mr. Rhodes, casting his gun from him, ran down the declivity to the river, his face streaming with blood; and the survivors of the herd, toiling painfully up the mountain-side, disappeared over the sky-line, “uttering loud grumblings of disapprobation and distress.” The chamber of the rifle had burst, cutting Mr. Rhodes severely in the face; and his companion endeavored to console him by telling him that many a man at home would have given one thousand pounds for such a day’s sport, and suffered the cut in the forehead into the bargain.

Such sport is, however, getting every day more difficult to obtain; for this lordly animal, the true “king of beasts,” is retreating before the march of civilization, and becoming gradually more scarce even in the African solitudes. This is not to be wondered at, considering the vast numbers—probably from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand—that are killed annually for the sake of their ivory.

It may be remarked that Elton’s escape from the elephant’s charge was a remarkably close one. There is only one other instance known of the “forehead shot” being effectual in stopping the course of an African elephant. This adventure happened in the Abyssinian highlands to Sir Samuel Baker. That mighty hunter was at the time new to African sport, and imagining that planting a bullet in the forehead, the favorite method with hunters of the wild elephant of India and Ceylon, would be equally effectual in the case of his big-eared kinsman of Central Africa, he awaited the charge of an elephant until she was within five yards of the muzzle of his rifle. The bullet happened to strike a vulnerable spot in the skull, and dropped the animal dead; but the lookers-on for several moments regarded the hunter as a dead man.

In both these cases the elephant shot was a female, which possesses in a less marked degree than the male the solid structure of skull that, along with their immense ears, convex foreheads, and greater size, distinguish the African from the Asiatic variety. When not struck in a vital spot, the elephant is remarkably tenacious of life; and Livingstone tells how he fired twelve bullets into one that had fallen into a hole, and had about a hundred native spears sticking in him, and next morning found that the animal had scrambled out and escaped into the forest. Perhaps the most perilous experience that ever befell a white hunter when after elephants occurred to Mr. Oswell, far to the southward, on the banks of the Zouga. Chasing an elephant through a thorny thicket on horseback, he suddenly found the animal had wheeled round and was bearing straight down upon him. Attempting to turn his horse, he was thrown, face downwards, before the elephant. Twisting round, he saw the huge fore foot about to descend on his legs, parted them, and drew in his breath, expecting the other foot to be planted on his body; but saw the whole of the “under-side” of the huge creature pass over him, and rose unhurt to his feet, saved almost by miracle.

But this has carried us far away from the elephant marsh, from the borders of which Messrs. Elton, Cotterill, Rhodes, and Hoste made their ascent of the mountain barrier of Nyassa. The lowest pass over the Konde, or Livingstone range, is eight thousand eight hundred feet above sea-level; and the ascent embraces every variety of climate and scenery, from stifling tropical swamp to breezy moorlands of fern and bracken, carpeted with wild thyme, daisies, dandelions, and buttercups, like our hills at home. From the top a magnificent landscape is viewed. Elton says: “The country we have passed through is without exception the finest tract in Africa I have yet seen. Towards the east we were walled in with mountains rising to a height of from twelve to fourteen thousand feet, inclosing undulating, well-watered valleys, lovely woodland slopes, hedged-in fields, and knolls dotted with native hamlets. There is nothing to equal it either in fertility or in grazing land in Natal, the reputed ‘garden of South Africa.’ It is the most exceptionally favorable country for semi-tropical cultivation I have ever seen.”

A serious obstacle to the development of this beautiful highland region is probably the exceptionally deadly climate of the country through which it must be approached. Already many precious lives have been sacrificed in the attempt to open up the Nyassa. Livingstone got here his “death-sentence.” The German Roscher, who, travelling in the guise of an Arab from the east coast, viewed the lake only two months later than the great missionary, was basely murdered at a little village near its shores. Bishop Mackenzie is buried in the ShirÉ swamps; and near him lie nearly the whole staff of the University Mission to this region, all stricken down with marsh fever. Thornton, the intrepid companion of Livingstone on his first visit to the Nyassa, after having ascended half-way up the snow-capped mountain Kilimandjaro, far to the northward, returned to this quarter, only to die at the foot of the Murchison Rapids. Mrs. Livingstone, the devoted wife of the missionary, rests under a gigantic baobab tree a little way below the ShirÉ mouth; and near her grave is that of Kirkpatrick, of the Zambesi Survey Expedition of 1826. Another baobab, in Ugogo, shades the resting-place of Consul Elton, whom we have just seen full of life and hope, at the head of the pass overhanging the north end of the lake. Only a few marches to the northward of the pass, while toiling across a droughty plain, and weak from hunger and fever, he succumbed to sunstroke, and a most useful and promising career closed at the early age of thirty-seven. Still younger was Mr. Keith Johnston, who died from dysentery, while leading an expedition from Zanzibar territory to Nyassa. Dr. Black is buried on Cape Maclear, the rocky promontory cleaving the southern end of the lake, where the Free Church of Scotland Mission Station of Livingstonia has been planted; and the little cemetery contains many other graves of white persons.

The Scottish mission stations on the ShirÉ and Lake Nyassa are not the only outposts which Christianity has planted in the far interior of the “Dark Continent.” Similar colonies, for the moral improvement and industrial training of the natives of Africa, have been placed on the shores of the Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika by the London and University Missionary Societies. The example is being followed by similar associations in France and America; and the Zambesi country has been mapped out for a renewal of the long-abandoned work of the Jesuit fathers. Science, commerce, and philanthropy have enlisted by the side of religion in the task of opening up Africa. The chief outlets of the slave-trade have at length, it is hoped, been closed, thanks mainly to the efforts of England, and the hearty co-operation of the government of Portugal, Egypt and Zanzibar.