The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-04 00:00:00

DR. LIVIN G S TONE.

The following letter has just been received by
the liishop of Oxford from Dr. Livingstone :
" Senna, April 7..
"My Lea.d. Bishop.—By a letter from the Bishop
of South Africa lately learned with great satis-
faction that a ,beginning had been made of a great
work for the interior of this country. I am
extremely glad and thankful to hear that the
Universities intend to send forth, as in the olden
time, missionaries to seek to win to the faith of
Christ the heathen of Africa. The Bishop's letter
was found among some fragments of a lost mail-
bag- which floated some seven miles west of the
spot where they were launched, and I presume to
think that a letter from your lordship on a subject
in which you take such a special interest may be
among the things which have perished.
" By my letter respecting the opening made into
the Highland Lake region from the Shire you will
have seen that simultaneously with your prayerful.
movement at home our steps have been directed to
a field which presents a really glorious prospect.
for the mission. By the Shire you get easily past.
the unfriendly border tribes, and then the ridge
which rises on the east to a height of 8,000 feet
affords variations of climate within a few miles of
each other. The region bathed by the lakes is
pre eminently a cotton-producing one, and, as far
as we can learn from Burton and Speke, the people
possess the same comparative mildness of disposi-
tion as I observed generally prevailing away from
the seacoast. Thvre are difficulties no doubt,—an
unreduced language, and people quite ignorant of
the motives of missionaries, with all the evils of
its being the slave market. But your University
men are believed to possess genuine English pluck
and will, no dotibt, rejoice to preach Christ's
Gospel beyond other men's line of thhigs. View-
ing the field in all its bearings, it seems worthy of
the universities and of the English Church, and.
• •
bearing in mind and heart Him who promised,
" Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of
the world," there is not the shadow of a doubt but
that her mission will become a double blessing—
to our own over-crowded home population and to
the victims of slavery and the slave trade through-
out the world. Let the Church of England only
enter upon this great work with a will, and nations
and tribes will bless her to the latest generations.
The late Dr. Phillips, of the Cape, told me that
missionaries always did most good by doing things
in their own way. lam fully convinced that your
way of sending a Bishop with your mission is an
admirable one. The field is all your own. I think
that the Church is called upon to put forth her best
energies, and endeavour to repay somewhat the
wrongs we have done to Africa.
" The French have a strong desire to enter before
us. A Senor Cruz, the great agent of the French
emigration from this coast, lately returned from
Bourbon with a sugar-mill and coffee-cleaning
machine, sugar canes of superior quality and coffee
seed, and two Frenchmen to work the machines.
Both, however, soon perished of fever. The Por-
tuguese hate us and our objects, partly because of
our religion, but chiefly because we suppress the,
slave trade. They desire the French to come and
establish their authority over the slaves. At present
Portuguese slave rule is mild, because the slave can
so easily flee to independent tribes. If the French
slave system were established here, slave-hunting
would go on until the country was deeopulated.
Even for the incipient plantation of Cruz there is
slave-hunting among the very people we lately
visited at Sheba and Negassa. The mission will
require a steamer drawing about 8 feet to serve as
a home till preparations are made. Having lost
my despatches, I do not know whether Govern-
ment will give me another ; it would be at the ser-
vice of the mission. I send home Mr. Rae, our
engineer, to superintend a second for the lakes.
This we shall build whether we get one from the
Government or not. It is to be made capable of
being unscrewed and carried past the cataracts. It
will give security to settlers, without firing a shot,
and will promote the extinction of the slave trade
by lawful commerce more than several ships on the
ocean. My brother, Mr. Charles Livingstone, will
take charge of trade for a time.
I rejoice that Miss Coutts has come nobly for-
ward and aided the Bishop to establish an institu-
tion for the sons of the chief—sorry it was not in
existence when I was with Seehle. lam going up
to the Makololo country to return my native friends
home.

" Affectionately yours,
"D. LIVIN GSTONE,"