The Press.
London, England, 1856-12-20 00:00:00

rttrogolitait.

DR. LIVINCxSrONE'S AFRICAN
DISCOVERIES.

DR. LIVINGSTONE, the great African traveller, who
for sixteen years has been wandering over Central
Africa, has at length arrival in London. On Mon-
day night a special meeting of the Geographical
Society was held for the purpose of presenting Dr.
Livingstone with the gold medal on his return home
from his African travels. The society's rooms were
crowded to excess with persons both anxious to see
the distinguished traveller and to hear some account
of the strange lands and peoples amidst which he
spent the last sixteen years of his life.
Dr. Livingstone, on his entering the place of
meeting, was loudly cheered. As might be ex-
pected, his face is considerably tanned, but is not
quite so darkened as one would expect from so long
a residence and so constant an exposure under a
tropical sun. His countenance is placid, but de-
termined ; and his eye at times betokens great
vivacity. His accent is very much that of a
foreigner, but he speaks with considerable ease,
is never at a loss for a word, and his choice
of expression, though sometimes rough, is ge-
nerally picturesque, and full of meaning. The
ceremony of presentation was then gone through,
and Dr. LIVINOSTONE in a few words acknowledged
the honour. He said that south of the twentieth
degree of south latitude the country was arid and
contained very few rivers, but to the north of that
line tho country was well watered, and very unlike
what the centre of Africa was popularly represented
to be. The country which he had traversed, indeed,
was covered with a network of waters, many of which
were large and deep, and never dried up. The
natives belonged to the true negro family, having a
good deal of very woolly hair, and being darker than
the Bechuanas. They held their women in high
estimation, and many of them became chiefs. If a
man were asked to go anywhere or to agree to any
arrangement he said, "I must go home and ask my
wife." If she said " No," there was no possibility of
getting him to move. Women sat in their councils,
and while a Bechuana swore by his tether, these
negroes swore by their mother. Dr. Livingstone
related several amusing instances to show the high
estimation in which these tribes held their women.
He believed they deserved it, and he and his men
had always been kindly treated by the " fair " sex.
The country in most parts abounded with elephants,
biiffaloes, zebras, giraffes, and other game, and he
had shot three new antelopes not yet known in
England. He had found it unnecessary to burden
himself with provisions in travelling, for the animals
did not seem to knew a gun, and would stand within
how-shot of his weapon. In the interior the people
were very kind to him, but he could not say they
improved as he approached the confines of civilisa-
tion. The English name had penetrated a long way
into the interior, and the English were known as
" the tribe that likes the blank man..' Domestic
slavery existed, but the exportation of slaves was
very effectually repressed. Ngami was not a deep
lake, but was what was left of a large lake which
existed before the fissure was made near the Lakai
falls, which allowed a free course to the Zambesi.

DECEMBER 20, 1856.

The PRESIDENT asked what articles of commerce
not hitherto known to British merchants were likely
to be opened up to the British trader?
Dr. LIVINGSTONE said the new articles of commerce
he had found in the course of his travels were chiefly
fibrous substances, some of them excessively strong,
and one resembling flax, which were found in large
quantities on the north bank of the Zambesi. The
sugar-cane also grew abundantly, though the natives
had no idea of the use of sugar ; and indigo grew
wild all over the country. There were acres of it
near the village of Tete ; it was, in fact, quite a weed.
Wax and honey, quinine and senna, were also
among the natural products of the country. Then
there were different metals, including very fine iron
ore, and malachite, from which copper was extracted.
There were also coal-fields, in working which gold
was occasionally found. The people, indeed, had
been washing for gold from time immemorial, and
were doing so still. Near to Tete there were no
fewer than eleven seams of coal, one of which was
fifty-seven inches thick. The country was so fertile
that in the gardens cultivated by the natives a
constant process of sowing and reaping went on all
the year round. It likewise grew immense quantities
of grain.
Mr. Galion, Mr. 11.1‘Queen, Colonel Steele, Captain
Vardon, Mr. Brande, and Mr. Gordon Cumming—all
of them travellers in Africa—bore testimony to the
value of Dr. Livingstone's discoveries, and to the
tact, courage, and unwearied ardour with which he
had pursued them.
Professor OWEN also adverted to the interesting
acquisitions to zoological science likely to accrue
from the labours of the distinguished traveller; when
the proceedings shortly terminated.
On Tuesday evening the London Missionary
Society gave Dr. Livingstone a public reception.
The Earl of Shaftesbury presided, and in an eloquent
address introduced Dr. Livingstone to the meeting.
The distinguished traveller then related several
anecdotes of African adventure :

The African race were very• slow in the motians of their
minds, and were in this respect very unlike the South
Sea Islanders. You could not meet a single tribe in
Africa which had embraced the Gospel at once, as had
been the case in the South Sea Islands. An African chief
asked him whether he believed his tribe would ever believe
without beating them, and entreated his permission to let
him beat the Gospel into them. He replied that beating
them was not the way to make them believe, but the chief
rejoined, " Oh, you don't know them so well as I do. I
am sure we could beat belief into them if we tried." They
had great c )nfidence in Englishmen, and one chief,
Secheli, told him he was going to Queen Victoria. He
endeavoured to dissuade him from going, telling him he
would have no one to interpret for him. But Secheli
would not listen to him, and went to the Cape, a distance
of 1,000 miles from his own torn. He was obliged to
return, because he could not find the means of getting to
England, but he had great confidence in Queen Victoria's
wish to see justice done to him.

To the north of the Makololo country the Bechuanas
were situated :

The Boers at the outskirts of civilisation were desirous
that the trade with the interior should remain in their
hands, and they were determined that no Europeans
should open up a communication with the natives He,
on the other hand, was determined that the country should
be opened up, and he had accordingly opened up two paths
into the interior.

The vulgar notion that the interior of Africa was a
"Great Sahara" was incorrect:—

We used to speak of Afric's burning sands, and that was
trite of the country south of 20 degrees of latitude. In
this dry country the population was small, but further
north a very different country and people were found The
traveller here came upon the true negro family. This was
the country from which we used to derive our slaves in
bygone years, and from whicn Cuba and the Brazils drew
what slaves were landed upon their shores. In the centre
the tribes were civil and kind to him, but hitherto there
had always been a fringe of population about them which
hal prevented commerce from entering into the interior.
They were now delighted to have a path to the sea by
which they could trade with the white man.

The natives—not like Sydney Smith's South Sea
T _ . .
upon a missionary as " a thing not

to be killed " :

He was respected, not because they loved the Gospel,
for that came afterwards, but because they saw he laboured
for their welfare. He took some natives from the interior
to °suds, and persuaded them, not without some mitt.
gorings, to go and see the British ships of war there.
They had been told by the villagers as they came along
that the white wen on board the ships would fatten and
eat them ; but when they went on board they were treated
most kindly by the sailors, who gave them bread and meat.
Afterwards they almost worshipped him, and used to fall
at his knees when he spoke to them, until he made them
desist. This arose from having seen these proofs of the
power of England, and the idea in their unlettered minds
seemed to be that if the English were so wise as to make
these shins their religion must be true.
With respect to the present condition of the slave
trade, Dr. Livingstone thought it languishing :
The English Government had for a series of years spent
large sums of money in the repression of the slave trade.
A falsehood had been promulgated by the slave dealers
that the exertions of our cruisers only aggravated the hots