When the work of "wooding up" was completed the steamer continued her voyage. An effort was made to visit the western shore; but at every halting place the natives came down in considerable numbers, and their movements were so threatening that Doctor Bronson did not consider it judicious to attempt to land. As he was under obligation to the Egyptian authorities for the use of the steamboat he did not wish to do anything, however slight, that might lead to hostilities. For this reason he declined to go on shore where there was the slightest possibility of trouble with the natives, and contented himself with looking at it from the deck of the steamer.

While they were sitting under the sheltering awning and studying the landscape before them Fred asked about the travels and explorations of Dr. Livingstone.

"He was the son of a poor weaver in Glasgow," was the reply, "and gained the most of his early education at an evening school while working in a cotton mill. Afterward he managed to devote his winters to study, and supported himself by working for the rest of the year. He was born March 19, 1813, and died May 1, 1873.

"His family were earnest Presbyterians, and his early training led him to the study of theology; he combined with it the study of medicine, and, after devoting himself to these matters for several years, he offered his services to the London Missionary Society, and was sent to Africa. He arrived at Natal in 1840, and from that time until his death, thirty-three years later, his life was devoted to the work of civilizing and Christianizing the African continent.

"The record of his travels and explorations is in his published volumes, and in a book entitled 'Livingstone's Last Journals,' which contains the history of the final years of his life and the melancholy account of his death."

Fred asked the names of Dr. Livingstone's books.

"During the early years of his missionary work," the Doctor continued, "he sent a great many documents to England, containing valuable information of a geographical and scientific character; they were printed by the London Missionary Society in its journal. But nothing appeared in book form until 1857, when he published 'Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.' He visited England to superintend the publication of the volume, and returned to Africa in 1858.

"Down to that time he had devoted himself to missionary work, and all his travels and explorations were directly in connection with the effort to Christianize Africa. In 1858 he went, on behalf of the English government, and aided by private subscriptions, to explore the southern part of the great continent.

"On this journey he started from Quilimane, at the mouth of the Zambesi River, and travelled in a northwesterly direction. For a part of the route he followed the course of the river, and then turned away from it to the north, in search of a lake of which he had been told by the natives. He discovered the lake (Nyassa) in 1859, and explored the country to the west and northwest of it, and the whole region around the headwaters of the northeast branch of the Zambesi and its tributaries.

"The work occupied him until 1863. His wife accompanied him on the journey, and died in the interior of Africa, in April, 1862. In 1864 he returned to England, and published 'A Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries.' Then, as soon as the book was issued, he made preparations for another expedition, and left England in 1865.

"Nothing was heard from him for more than a year, and in March, 1867, a report came to England that he had been killed in a skirmish with the natives on the banks of Lake Nyassa. It was not generally believed, and in June of the same year an expedition was sent to look for him. It was under the command of Mr. E. D. Young, and although it did not succeed in finding him, it obtained information that convinced Mr. Young of the incorrectness of the report.

"Letters were received in 1869 (more than a year old) from Dr. Livingstone, so that there was no farther doubt that the story of his death in the skirmish was incorrect. Another letter came a year later, and then there was no news for more than twenty months, so that his friends feared he was no longer alive.

"The New York Herald sent one of its correspondents, Mr. Henry M. Stanley, to look for Livingstone and to find him, if still alive. Stanley started from Zanzibar and went to Ujiji, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, where he found Dr. Livingstone alive and well, but unable to travel, for the reason that he had no goods with which to pay his way. Stanley remained with him from the autumn of 1871 until March, 1872. They went together to explore the northern part of Lake Tanganyika, to determine whether it flowed into the Nile. They satisfied themselves that it was not a tributary of the great river of Egypt, and that the source of the Nile lay farther to the north.

"On his return to Zanzibar, Stanley sent fresh supplies to Doctor Livingstone, to enable the latter to complete his explorations. It was the Doctor's intention to devote a year or more to this work, and then return to England, to publish his account and reside there permanently.

"But his plans were never carried out, as he died in the field of his work. After Stanley's return to England another expedition was sent out, under command of Lieutenant Cameron, to carry supplies to the great explorer and render him any assistance in its power. Cameron left Zanzibar in March, 1873, and reached Unyanyembe in the following August. While he was making preparations for proceeding farther the news of Livingstone's death reached him in the shape of a letter from Jacob Wainwright, the doctor's African servant."

Doctor Bronson paused a few moments before continuing the story.

"There are few men in the world," said the Doctor, "who can surpass, or even equal, Livingstone in securing the affection and devotion of their followers. In his last expedition, starting from Unyanyembe in August, 1872, he was accompanied by about eighty men, most of them having been sent from Zanzibar by Stanley. Three of his men had been with him for eight years, and two others for six years; but the rest were comparatively new in his service. The three first mentioned were Susi, Chuma, and Amoda, who joined Livingstone on the Zambesi River in 1864, and the other two were Mabruki and Gardner, who were hired at Zanzibar in 1866. The newcomers soon became as zealous as the older ones in looking out for the welfare of their leader, and during his last illness, and down to the day of his death, they did all in their power to make him comfortable.

"Remember that he was a stranger in the country. Dr. Livingstone was frequently deceived by guides and scouts during his journeys, and he was plundered by the chiefs, who demanded heavy tributes for the permission to pass through their country. I have already told you of the constant difficulties in the way of obtaining porters before starting on a journey, and of the large number of desertions on the road.

"In his last journey, Dr. Livingstone's men remained faithful to the end of his days, and when he died they embalmed his body and brought it, with all his journals and every article of his personal property, safe to the coast. In addition to the difficulty of transporting it for hundreds of miles through the country, where there were no roads, they had to meet the superstition of the African tribes on their way, who have the greatest horror of a dead body, and would have killed every man of the party if they had known the burden they were carrying. Knowing what we do of the difficulties and dangers that confronted these faithful but ignorant men, it is a wonder that they undertook what they did, and still more wonderful that they succeeded.

"Every scrap of his journals, from the day of his departure from Zanzibar down to the last line he was able to write, a week before his death, was preserved and brought home. They show to what straits he was sometimes reduced for writing materials, as many of his notes are written on old newspapers sewn together into the shape of books, and he was often obliged to make his own pencils and ink. His rough notes were taken in this way, and when he had time for writing in full he copied them into a larger journal. One of these journals was sent to England, in care of Mr. Stanley, and delivered to the missionary's family.

"While we are on this topic I may as well tell you of the closing days of Dr. Livingstone's life.

"There are comparatively few entries in his journal. His men say that his health was never good from the first day of the journey, and when they halted at night he was too weak to make many notes. The word 'ill' occurs frequently on the pages of his diary, and on several occasions it is the only record of an entire day. For the last few days of his travels he was unable to walk, and was carried on a 'kitanda,' or litter, made by his men. It was rudely formed, but strong. It consisted of a framework seven feet long, with several crosspieces, and a bed of grass, on which the sufferer could recline comfortably. It was slung from a pole, and carried on the shoulders of two men, and in general appearance was not unlike the palanquin which you saw in India, and was better for an invalid than the sedan chair of China.

"In the facsimile of the last page but one of Livingstone's journal, you see that his writing is cramped and evidently made with great difficulty, and the last line refers to his being carried on the kitanda. The entry on the 21st (of April) mentions his trying to ride, but he says he was forced to lie down, and they carried him back to the village, much exhausted.

"His men say that on this morning he mounted his donkey as usual, but his strength was so far gone that he could not retain his place in the saddle, and fell fainting to the ground after riding only a short distance. In this condition he was carried by Chuma, one of his men, back to the village, and rested during the day. The chief of the village was very kind to him, and said he could rest there as long as he pleased, and, when ready to move on, the guides for the road should be ready.

"It was during this day of resting that his men constructed the kitanda, and from that time until the 30th of April he was carried upon it. He died in the village of Ilala, which belonged to a chief named Chitambo. The Doctor's men say they were kindly treated by Chitambo during all their stay, and when they left he gave them all the guides and provisions that they needed."

Fred asked what was the disease which caused the death of the great explorer.

"He died from malarial poisoning," replied the Doctor, "as many other Europeans have died in Africa. He had suffered from it for several years, and realized that unless he returned to England, to reside there permanently, he could not hope to recover. As I told you before, he was intending to do so in the very year in which he died.

"In one of his journeys Dr. Livingstone travelled an estimated distance of eleven thousand miles, and the sum of his travels in Africa has been placed as high as sixty thousand miles. A great part of this was performed on foot. There were many journeys by river and lake, nearly always in native canoes, and comparatively few in boats of European construction, owing to the difficulty of carrying them around cataracts or other obstructions on the rivers, or making long traverses from one lake to another. In South Africa, and in some parts of Central Africa, horses or donkeys may be used for riding purposes; but these animals are scarce, and quite as liable as their masters to fall victims to the pestilential fevers of Africa.

"The climate is not by any means the worst enemy of the animals that accompany the African traveler. Lions prowl around the camps, and when their presence is quite unexpected they spring from the bushes and kill the horse or other animal they have marked for their prey with a single stroke of their powerful paw. Many travelers have lost their favorite steeds in this way, and in South Africa thousands upon thousands of oxen have been killed by lions. On the return of Dr. Livingstone's party to the coast they undertook to bring his riding donkey, but the poor beast was killed by a lion only a few days' journey from the spot where the doctor died.

"According to custom the men had built a stable for him, where they thought he would be secure, as it was close to their quarters. In the middle of the night there was a loud crash that roused everybody: the men ran out, and found the stable broken and the donkey gone. They set fire to the grass to make a light, as the night was very dark, and as soon as the blaze rose up they saw a lion close to the body of the donkey. They fired at the intruder, and wounded him. He retreated growling, and the men did not think it prudent to follow. The donkey was quite dead, and there is no doubt that he was instantly killed when the lion sprung upon him. The next morning they found a broad track of blood where the lion had dragged himself along; but as there was the track of another lion close by it they did not follow the trail far into the bushes.

"Dr. Livingstone was early impressed with the horrors of the slave trade in the interior of Africa, and in all his writings he frequently referred to the infamous business. In one part of his journal he describes how he found the dead body of a woman tied by the neck to a tree. The people of the country told him that she had been unable to keep up with the caravan, and her master, finding that he must abandon her, determined to make an example that would frighten the rest. So he tied her to the tree and left her to die, and whenever any others of his caravan broke down they met a similar fate or were killed on the spot. One day some of the doctor's men went a little way from the path and found a number of slaves yoked together with sticks, and so near death from starvation that none of them were able to speak.

"The 'goree,' or slave stick, is made from the fork of a small tree. It is placed on the neck of a slave, and the ends of the fork are fastened together by an iron rod, riveted at each end; and as the man's hands are generally tied behind him he has no way of escaping from his bonds.

"Whenever Dr. Livingstone encountered one of these traveling gangs of slaves he released them, if the circumstances permitted, and they generally did. By so doing he roused the hostility of the slave traders, who revenged themselves by spreading unfavorable reports concerning him, and inciting the natives to attack him. Most of his troubles with the natives were from this cause, and several times his escape from death at their hands was exceedingly narrow. The slave traders were too cowardly to make any open fight with him, and when he met them on the road with their slaves they generally ran away, and left him to deal with their human merchandise as he liked.

"One of his stories of an encounter with a slave caravan is quite fascinating.

"One day he heard from a native that a gang of slaves on its way to the coast was coming along the road, and would shortly appear in sight. He was in a little village where the party was to pass, and so he sat down and waited for them.

"In a little while the slave party, a long line of manacled men, women, and children, came wending their way round the hill into the valley, on the side of which the village stood. The black drivers, armed with muskets and bedecked with various articles of finery, marched jauntily in the front, middle, and rear of the line, some of them blowing exultant notes out of long tin horns. 'They seemed to think,' says the doctor, 'that they were doing a very noble thing, and might proudly march with an air of triumph; but the instant the fellows caught a glimpse of the English they darted off like mad into the forest—so fast, indeed, that we caught but a glimpse of their red caps and the soles of their feet. The chief of the party alone remained; and he, being in front, had his hand tightly grasped by a Makololo. He proved to be a well-known slave of the late commandant at Tette, and for some time our own attendant while there.

"'On asking him,' says Dr. Livingstone, 'how he obtained these captives he replied that he had bought them; but on inquiring of the people themselves, all, save four, said they had been captured in war. While this inquiry was going on he bolted too.

"'The captives were thus left entirely in our hands, and knives were soon busy cutting the women and children loose. It was more difficult to cut the men adrift, as each had his neck in the fork of a stout stick, six or seven feet long, and kept in by an iron rod, which was riveted at both ends, across the throat. With a saw luckily in our baggage, one by one the men were sawn out into freedom. The women, on being told to take the meal they were carrying and cook breakfast for themselves and the children, seemed to consider the news too good to be true; but, after a little coaxing, went to work with a will, using the old slave sticks for making a fire. Some of the captives were mere children. Two women had been shot the day before for attempting to untie their thongs, and a man was killed with an axe because he had broken down with fatigue.'"

In continuing his account of the work of Livingstone, Doctor Bronson said that the explorer's habit of making on the spot notes of everything he saw that would be of interest to the English reader had rendered his books very valuable. Some of his statements were at first received with a grain of doubt, but his reputation for veracity was soon established. It was found that wherever there was any inaccuracy of statement in his reports it was due to his having received the story from someone else. Truth does not prevail among the people of Africa any more than in other lands; and the facetious American who enjoys "fooling a reporter," by gravely telling a lot of falsehoods, which there is no time to investigate, has his counterpart in the wilds of the African continent.

"We must," resumed Doctor Bronson, "read his works in order to appreciate Dr. Livingstone's labors in Central and Southern Africa. There are notes on natural history, botany, and kindred studies, together with descriptions of all the people and tribes among whom he travelled. One day he met a party of honey hunters, and sat down for a chat with them. They pointed to a small bird that was quietly resting on the limbs of a tree near them, and said it was their honey guide. The bird attracts the attention of the native by hopping from twig to twig and calling in the sharpest notes of his voice; when he finds he is followed he leads the way to a hollow tree or other spot where a swarm of bees has its home, and as soon as the honey has been taken he regales himself on the fragments of comb that lie scattered on the ground. This bird is described in books on natural history, and is said to belong to the cuckoo family. The natives follow it, in full confidence that it will lead them to a deposit of honey; but it sometimes happens that they are conducted to the lair of a lion or other ferocious beast.

"Livingstone's memory will always be preserved in connection with the exploration of the Zambesi, and the discovery of the great cataract of Mosi-oa-tunya, better known as the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi, though the former name is to be preferred.

"He discovered the falls in 1855, on his first ascent of the valley of the Zambesi, and the account he gave was so startling that he was thought to be wandering from the truth. In his second journey, five years later, he made a detailed examination of the cataract, making careful measurements of the heights and distances, so that there could be no mistake. If you look at his book and compare the measurements with those of Niagara, you can hardly fail to be astonished."

Fred went below to find the volume in question, and soon returned with it. From Dr. Livingstone's description of the great Falls of the Zambesi he read the following:

"On the 9th of August, 1860, we proceeded to see the Victoria Falls. Mosi-oa-tunya is the native name, and means smoke-sounding. Seongo, or Chongwe, meaning the rainbow, or the place of the rainbow, was the more ancient term they bore. We embarked in canoes belonging to Tuba Mokoro (smasher of canoes)—an ominous name; but he alone, it seems, knew the medicine which insures one against shipwreck in the rapids above the falls. For some miles the river was smooth and tranquil, and we glided pleasantly over water as clear as crystal, and past lovely islands, densely covered with a tropical vegetation. But our attention was quickly called from the charming islands to the dangerous rapids, down which Tuba might unintentionally shoot us. To confess the truth, the very ugly aspect of these roaring rapids could scarcely fail to cause some uneasiness in the minds of newcomers. It is only when the river is very low, as it was now, that anyone dared venture to the island to which we were bound. If one went during the period of flood, and fortunately hit the island, he would be compelled to remain there until the water subsided again, if he lived so long. Both hippopotami and elephants have been known to be swept over the falls, and of course smashed to pulp.

"After many narrow escapes from being dashed on the rocks we landed at the head of Garden Island, which is situated near the middle of the river, and on the lip of the falls.

"On reaching that lip, and peering over the giddy height, the wondrous and unique character of the magnificent cascade at once burst upon us. It is rather a hopeless task to endeavor to convey an idea of it in words, since, as was remarked on the spot, an accomplished painter, even by a number of views, could but impart a faint impression of the glorious scene. The probable mode of its formation may perhaps help to the conception of its peculiar shape. Niagara has been formed by a wearing back of the rock over which the river falls; and, during a long course of ages, it has gradually receded, and left a broad, deep, and pretty straight trough in front. It goes on wearing back daily, and may yet discharge the lakes from which its river flows. But the Victoria Falls have been formed by a crack right across the river in the hard, black, basaltic rock which there formed the bed of the Zambesi. The lips of the crack are still quite sharp, save about three feet of the edge over which the river rolls. The walls go sheer down from the lips without any projecting crag, or symptom of stratification or dislocation. When the mighty rift occurred no change of level took place in the two parts of the bed of the river thus rent asunder; consequently, in coming down the river to Garden Island the water suddenly disappears, and we see the opposite side of the cleft, with grass and trees growing where once the river ran, on the same level as that part of its bed on which we sail.

"The first crack is, in length, a few yards more than the breadth of the Zambesi, which by measurement we found to be a little over eighteen hundred and sixty yards, but this number we resolved to retain, as indicating the year in which the fall was for the first time carefully examined. The main stream here runs nearly north and south, and the cleft across it is nearly east and west. The depth of the rift was measured by lowering a line, to the end of which a few bullets and a foot of white cotton cloth were tied. One of us lay with his head over a projecting crag, and watched the descending calico, till, after his companions had paid out three hundred and ten feet, the weight rested on a sloping projection, probably fifty feet from the water below, the actual bottom being still farther down. The white cloth now appeared the size of a crown piece. On measuring the width of this deep cleft by sextant it was found, at Garden Island, its narrowest part, to be eighty yards, and at its broadest somewhat more. Into this chasm, of twice the depth of Niagara Falls, the river, a full mile wide, rolls with a deafening roar; and this is Mosi-oa-tunya, or the Victoria Falls.

"Looking from Garden Island down to the bottom of the abyss, nearly half a mile of water, which has fallen over that portion of the falls to our right, or west of our point of view, is seen collected in a narrow channel twenty or thirty yards wide, and flowing at exactly right angles to its previous course, to our left; while the other half, or that which fell over the eastern portion of the falls, is seen in the left of the narrow channel below, coming toward our right. Both waters unite midway, in a fearful boiling whirlpool, and find an outlet by a crack situated at right angles to the fissure of the falls. This outlet is about eleven hundred and seventy yards from the western end of the chasm, and some six hundred from its eastern end; the whirlpool is at its commencement. The Zambesi, now apparently not more than twenty or thirty yards wide, rushes and surges south through the narrow escape channel for one hundred and thirty yards; then enters a second chasm, somewhat deeper, and nearly parallel with the first. Abandoning the bottom of the eastern half of this second chasm to the growth of large trees, it turns sharply off to the west, and forms a promontory, with the escape channel at its point, of eleven hundred and seventy yards long, and four hundred and sixteen yards broad at the base. After reaching this base the river runs abruptly round the head of another promontory, and flows away to the east, in a third chasm; then glides round a third promontory, much narrower than the rest, and away back to the west, in a fourth chasm; and we could see in the distance that it appeared to round still another promontory, and bend once more in another chasm toward the east. In this gigantic zigzag, yet narrow, trough the rocks are all so sharply cut and angular, that the idea at once arises that the hard basaltic trap must have been riven into its present shape by a force acting from beneath, and that this probably took place when the ancient inland seas were let off by similar fissures nearer the ocean.

"The land beyond, or on the south of the falls, retains, as already remarked, the same level as before the rent was made. It is as if the trough below Niagara were bent right and left several times before it reached the railway bridge. The land in the supposed bends, being of the same height as that above the fall, would give standing places, or points of view, of the same nature as that from the railway bridge; but the nearest would be only eighty yards, instead of two miles (the distance to the bridge), from the face of the cascade. The tops of the promontories are in general flat, smooth, and studded with trees. The first, with its base on the east, is at one place so narrow that it would be dangerous to walk to its extremity. On the second, however, we found a broad rhinoceros path and a hut; but, unless the builder were a hermit, with a pet rhinoceros, we cannot conceive what beast or man ever went there for. On reaching the apex of this second eastern promontory we saw the great river, of a deep sea-green color, now sorely compressed, gliding away at least four hundred feet below us.

"Garden Island, when the river is low, commands the best view of the Great Fall chasm, as also of the promontory opposite, with its grove of large evergreen trees, and brilliant rainbows of three-quarters of a circle, two, three, and sometimes even four in number, resting on the face of the vast perpendicular rock, down which tiny streams are always running, to be swept again back by the upward rushing vapor. But, as at Niagara one has to go over to the Canadian shore to see the chief wonder—the great Horseshoe Fall—so here we have to cross over to Moselekatse's side, to the promontory of evergreens, for the best view of the principal falls of Mosi-oa-tunya. Beginning, therefore, at the base of this promontory, and facing the cataract, at the west end of the chasm, there is, first, a fall of thirty-six yards in breadth, and of course, as they all are, upward of three hundred and ten feet in depth. Then Boaruka, a small island, intervenes, and next comes a great fall, with a breadth of five hundred and seventy-three yards; a projecting rock separates this from a second grand fall of three hundred and twenty-five yards broad—in all upward of nine hundred yards of perennial falls. Farther east stands Garden Island; then, as the river was at its lowest, came a good deal of the bare rock of its bed, with a score of narrow falls, which, at the time of flood, constitute one enormous cascade of nearly another half mile. Near the east end of the chasm are two larger falls, but they are nothing, at low water, compared to those between the islands.

"The whole body of water rolls clear over, quite unbroken; but, after a descent of ten or more feet, the entire mass suddenly becomes like a huge sheet of driven snow. Pieces of water leap off it in the form of comets with tails streaming behind, until the whole snowy sheet becomes myriads of rushing, leaping, aqueous comets. This peculiarity was not observed by Charles Livingstone at Niagara, and here it happens possibly from the dryness of the atmosphere, or whatever the cause may be which makes every drop of Zambesi water appear to possess a sort of individuality. It runs off the ends of the paddles, and glides in beads along the smooth surface, like drops of quicksilver on a table. Here we see them in a conglomeration, each with a train of pure white vapor, racing down until lost in clouds of spray. A stone dropped in became less and less to the eye, and at last disappeared in the dense mist below.

"Charles Livingstone had seen Niagara, and gave Mosi-oa-tunya the palm, though now at the end of a drought, and the river at its very lowest. Many feel a disappointment on first seeing the great American falls, but Mosi-oa-tunya is so strange it must ever cause wonder. In the amount of water Niagara probably excels, though not during the months when the Zambesi is in flood. The vast body of water, separating in the comet-like forms described, necessarily encloses in its descent a large volume of air, which, forced into the cleft to an unknown depth, rebounds, and rushes up loaded with vapor, to form the three or even six columns, as if of steam, visible at the Batoka village, Moachemba, twenty-one miles distant. On attaining a height of two hundred, or at most three hundred, feet from the level of the river above the cascade this vapor becomes condensed into a perpetual shower of fine rain. Much of the spray, rising to the west of Garden Island, falls on the grove of evergreen trees opposite; and from their leaves heavy drops are forever falling, to form sundry little rills, which, in running down the steep face of rock, are blown off and turned back, or licked off their perpendicular bed up into the column from which they have just descended."