“Early in August, 1866, the Doctor came to Mponda’s country, a chief who dwelt near the Lake Nyassa. On the road thither two of the liberated slaves deserted him. Here, also, Wakotani (not Wikotani) a _protege_ of the Doctor, insisted upon his discharge, alleging as an excuse, which the Doctor subsequently found to be untrue, that he had found his brother.”
Hence the explorer proceeded to the heel of Lake Nyassa where there is a village of a Babisa chief. The chief was ill, and Doctor Livingstone remained there for some time to give him medical aid. It was here that he was deserted by his Johanna men, the chief of whom, Ali Moosa (or Musa), pretended to give credence to a mournful story of plunder perpetrated upon a certain half-caste Arab who had been along the western shore of the lake. Though the explorer gave no faith to the Arab story, he determined not to go among the Ma-zitu, reported so hostile, and proceeded in a southwestern course for a considerable distance. The correspondent’s letter goes on to say:
“As soon as he turned his face westward Musa and the Johanna men ran away in a body. The Doctor says, in commenting upon Musa’s conduct, that he felt strongly tempted to shoot Musa and another ringleader, but was nevertheless glad that he did not soil his hands with their vile blood. A day or two afterwards another of his men--Simon Price by name--came to the Doctor with the same tale about the Ma-Zitu, but, compelled by the scant number of his people to repress all such tendencies to desertion and faint-heartedness, the Doctor ‘shut him up’ at once and forbade him to utter the name of the Ma-Zitu any more. Had the natives not assisted him he must have despaired of ever being able to penetrate the wild and unexplored interior which he was now about to tread.
“‘Fortunately,’ as the Doctor says with unction, ‘I was in a country now, after leaving the shores of the Nyassa, where the feet of the slave trader had not trodden. It was a new and virgin land, and of course, as I have always found it in such cases, the natives were really good and hospitable, and for very small portions of cloth my baggage was conveyed from village to village by them.’ In many other ways the traveller in his extremity was kindly treated by the undefiled and unspoiled natives. On leaving this hospitable region in the early part of December, 1866, the Doctor entered a country where the Mazitu had exercised their customary spoliating propensities. The land was swept clean of all provisions and cattle, and the people had emigrated to other countries beyond the bounds of these ferocious plunderers. Again the expedition was besieged by famine, and was reduced to great extremity. To satisfy the pinching hunger it suffered it had recourse to the wild fruits which some parts of the country furnished. At intervals the condition of the hard-pressed band was made worse by the heartless desertion of some of its members, who more than once departed with the Doctor’s personal kit--changes of clothes and linen, etc. With more or less misfortunes constantly dogging his footsteps, he traversed in safety the countries of the Babisa, Bobemba, Barungu, Baulungu, and Londa.
