The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-04 00:00:00

Dr. Livingstone's African Expedition.

Dr. Livingstone has addressed the following
letter to the editor of the Medical Times and
Circular:—" Sir,—ln a leading article in your
journal of July 5, 1862, headed English Sacrifices
in Central Africa,' after remarking on the general
sickness that prevailed at the mission station Mago-
mere, yen very naturally ask, ' How then can we
reconcile these sad facts with the statement that
" the mission under the direction of Dr. Livingstone
settled down in an admirable station high up the
river, where the country is an elevated plateau,
where the climate is tolerably salubrious, and where
a dense population is immediately available for mis-
sionary work ?" ' The quotation is from the bishop,
and expresses the opinion which I formed, and still
hold, as to the general healthiness of the plateau
referred to. The spot, taken as a temporary resi-
dence until extensive acquaintance with the whole
region should enable the head of the mission to
select a suitable locality for a permanent abode, was
40 or 50 miles distant from the Elephant Marsh,'
and at an altitude of between 3,000 and 4,000 feet
above it. We shall therefore try to think of the
marsh and mission station as distinct as Oxford
and London. The plateau is ten or twelve miles
broad, and probably 100 in length. We happened
to travel along it at the hottest season of the year,
and even then found the climate deliciously cool.
When previously in the Upper Shire Valley, at an
altitude of 1,200 feet above the sea, we were drink-
ing water at 84 degs., and in one day, mounting to
an altitude of between 3,000 and 4,000 feet; we had
every few miles a gushing stream, with the water
at 65 dege. The air had that bracing effect which
the mountain breezes have at home, and we were all
struck by observing far more very old people than
we had seen anywhere else. Our stay was too
short for oar own experience to be worth anything;
and the experience of the missionaries amounts only
o this, that without ordinary sanitary precautions
the health is endangered here as is every where

else.
" The missionaries were placed in very peculiar
circumstances, and such as probably they never an-
and felt its refreshing breezes, we met partis of
ticipated. As we climbed up the plateau togeteher,
t
Portuguese, with long lines of bound captives in
possession. These were soon made free, and
the bishop, trusting to the support of those who
had sent him, bravely took charge of th em. These
re-captives soon amounted to 200 ; but in what fol-
lows I have only the testimony of the missionaries
themselves, for I then left, and pursued the explo-
ration of Lake Nyassa for some 225 miles. Mago-
mero was situated on the bend of a small river of
exactly the same shape as that into which General
M'Clellag, for strategetic reasons,' ran. It was
shaded by lofty trees, which the poor bishop ad-
mired exceedingly, and resolved to preserve. The
efforts of theimissionaries failed to prevent these
200 people from depositing their droppings all over
a space of less than one hundred yards by fifty, and
it was then fitly described as a ' pest hole.' For
some months the people adjacent and around them
brought abundance of provisions for sale, and no one
imagined that these were all their sur plus stores ;
but after the expenditure of the surplus came
famine. The missionaries nobly shared their own
isnatnhdatdyfosuenl
provisions with the poor wretches wham they had
that eer
adopted, and were reduced to the same hard and
scantyl fare. About fifty of the natives perished by
utdeerny, ,t
hand tom
whitese
presentedthe wonder
the
figure you have
drawn, but that they were not all
cut off together. Now
, don't blame them ; they
felt the necessity of removing is
sorry not
out of the pest hole,
but the grass had all been burned off, and new huts
could not be built; slave-hun
ting, at the instigation
of the Portuguese of Tet
te, was going on all around
them ; they were in new and untried circum-
stances ; had to retire to the
lowlands ; but still all
think that the plateau is
the healthiest abode, and
will return as soon as possible.
" The bishop, whose untim
ely fate every one who
knew him must deeply deplore, never spared him-
self, and was foremost in depriving of the
comforts himself
e
comforts which you rightly conclude
areindispen-
sable to Europeans, in order to save his orphan
children. He and Burrup were the strongest of
the party, and were proportionately disregardful
of their health. Exposed for more
previously to hard, fast marches, worse fare, and
drenching showers, he set out from M ill
agomero,
with diarrhoea, on his last fatal trip, and began by
walking through the stream, remarking that he would
soon be wet at any rate. After two days walking in
a plight which you may imagine, he reached the
Shire, embarked in a miserable small canoe, and
after dropping down the stream one day was upset,
lost clothes and medicines, and went on, of course,
still wet—coffee, tea, and sugar all gone ; it is
scarcely possible to conceive a more miserable