“P. S.--November 16, 1871.--I regret the necessity of bringing the foregoing very unpleasant subject before you, but I have just received letters and information which make the matter doubly serious. Mr. Churchill informed me by a letter of September 19, 1870, that Her Majesty’s government had most kindly sent £1,000 for supplies, to be forwarded to me. Some difficulties had occurred to prevent £500 worth from starting, but in the beginning of November all were removed. But it appears that you had recourse to slaves again, and one of these slaves informs me that goods and slaves all remained at Bagamoio four months, or till near the end of February, 1871. No one looked near them during that time, but a rumor reached them that the Consul was coming, and off they started, two days before your arrival, not on their business, but on some private trip of your own. These slaves came to Unyanyembe in May last, and there they lay till war broke out and gave them, in July, a good excuse to lie there still.
“A whole year has thus been spent in feasting slaves on £500 sent by government to me. Like the man who was tempted to despair when he broke the photograph of his wife, I feel inclined to relinquish hope of ever getting help from Zanzibar to finish the little work I have still to do. I wanted men, not slaves, and free men are abundant at Zanzibar; but if the matter is committed to Ludha instead of an energetic Arab, with some little superintendence by your dragoman or others, I may wait twenty years and your slaves feast and fail.
“I will just add that the second batch of slaves had, like the first, two freemen as the leaders, and one died of smallpox. The freemen in the first party of slaves were Shereef and Awathe. I enclose also a shameless overcharge in Ludha’s bill. $364 06¹⁄₂.--D. L.”
This should appear to be a complete justification of Mr. Stanley’s energetic animadversions upon the general maladministration of affairs at Zanzibar by the British Consulate there so far as they were related to Dr. Livingstone. It should be a source of honest congratulation to every American that a citizen of the United States, representing one of the most widely circulated public journals of the nation, energetically sent forward “men, not slaves,” and furnished supplies by means of which, it may reasonably be expected, the explorer may proceed with his great work and accomplish the object so dear to his admirable ambition.