The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-23 00:00:00

DR. LIVINGSTON AT EDINBURGH.

The freedom of the city of Edinburgh was con-
ferred on Dr. Livingston, the African traveller, on
Monday afternoon, in the Queen-street Hall. The
civic corporation attended in their robes, and the
hall was crowded with from 1,000 to 1,200 persons.
The burgess ticket purported to be conferred by the
Town-council on Dr. Livingston in testimony of
their admiration of the courage and undaunted per-
severance displayed by him during his journey
through South Africa, and their sense of the valu-
able services rendered by humin opening a way for
the diffusion of the blessings of Christianity and
civilisation among the inhabitants of that hitherto
unknown land.
The LORD PROVOST, in presenting the burgess
ticket, said—l have now the honour of placing in
your 'hands this burgess ticket, which contains the
resolution unanimously adopted by the members of
this Town-council, to mark the grateful sense enter-
tamed by U 3 of your heroic efforts in the cause of
religion and civilisation. The exertions made by you
to open a way for diffusing the blessings of Christi-
anity and science in central Africa have been con-
templated by us with feelings of admiration and
gratitude. The country which you have chosen
as the sphere of your philanthropic labours has
long been regarded with solicitude by the inhabi-
tants of Great Britain. Many have gone before
you and have trodden the path of scientific dis-
covery. Like you, they have made vast sacrifices
in order to explore its hidden and unapproached
recesses. To you belongs the especial honour of
being the herald of the Gospel of Peace to thein-
habitants of that dark and desolate region, and at '
the same time the instrument of conveying to them
a knowledge of the advantages of commerce and
civilisation. . The all-important object of diffus-
ing the Gospel light is that to which your energies
have been first and chiefly devoted. You have
practically recognised the important truth that the
advantages of science are as nothing unless united
to the benign influence of our holy faith. (Loud
applause.) The example which you have thus
given. will, we trust, be followed by many who
will be encouraged by what you have been enabled
to achieve. For your success in the Christian and
philanthropic work to which you are again about
to devote yourself, let me assure you that our best
wishes and most fervent prayers go along with you.
(Applause.) That your past and future efforts to
accomplish this important object may be crownel
with signal success is .the fervent prayer, not only
of us who are here met to do you honour, but of
many not now present, whose grateful attention
excited by your past exertions will be anxiously
directed to your future efforts—efforts on which
blcssings will be invoked by your countrymen of your
own day, and which we trust and believe will be
the means of calling forth blessings oa your memory
from generations yet unborn. (Loud applause.)
Happily throughout the vast extent of our country's
dominions the blight of slavery has ceased to
' exist. (Applause.) It is far otherwise in the
country to which you are about to return. The
cry of injured justice may well be raised from
Africa to Europe, for we owe to her a large debt
of reparation. May it be yours to loosen the
bands of the oppressed, and may you live to wit-
ness the approach of the time when the soil of
Africa shall be as free as that of the land which
gave you birth, and is proud to claim you as one
of her sons. (Loud and prolonged applause.)
Dr. LIVINGSTON, after thanking his lordship and
the audience for his reception, and premising that
perhaps the most suitable acknowledgment he
could make would be to communicate to them a
little information about Africa, said,—Thera is a
good deal of ignorance about Africa in England,
just as we have in Africa about England. (A
laugh.) In fact, in that respect we are very much
alike. I have been quite astonished at some of the
questions put to me since my return to this country.
One of the most common is this—would the people
of Africa be induced to cultivate the soil ? Now,
the fact of the matter is, that all the African tribes
who have it in their power cultivate the soil, ex-
cept the Bushmen, who are an exception in every
respect, and who never cultivate the soil or keep
domestic animals, and neverhave any abiding place.
Their language, too, is exceptional, bat all the
other tribes of Africa show by their language and
customs that they are one family of people. The
Africans look upon us white people as only another
tribe of men, and when I attempt to toll what their
numbers may be, they put tc me the question,
"Are they as many as a cloud of locusts I" If I
say yes, they ask further whether, if each of the
white people were to take a locust into his hand,
they would finish the whole cloud. Of course I
say I think they would. Then they will add,
" Your Queen must be very rich indeed when she
has so many people." "Oh yes," I reply, " ahe ia
exceedingly rich ;" and I am asked, " Has she
many cows I"—a question I really could never an-
swer (laughter) ; and then when I mention the fact
that I have never seen the Queen they say, " Wbat
sort of people must you be never to have seen your
chief ?" A great many other questions show the
same kind of ignorance respecting us. Many Elite-
peen gentlemen have gone to that country to hunt,
but, as the Africans have no idea of sport, they
wonder to see gentlemen working so hard for a lit-
tle dry antelope meat, and they put the question to
me, " Have ycur friends no meat at home ?" (A
laugh.) Not wishing my friends to appear in such
a light, I say, " These gentlemen could have beef
every day of their lives if they liked ;" but they
reply to me, "Aga, you know better." (Laughter.)
In reference to the cultivation of the soil, we find
that they labour most industriously, and that the
grain they raise requires more labour than the crop
would do in this country. it is true that in the
south part of the country most labour falls to the
share of the women, but they do labour most in-
dustrious!y in the north, and it tikes them aboui,
eight months of the year to get their crop. In the
central parts of the country we find that they are
all anxious to trade, and knowing this, I have not
the smallest hesitation in saying that it encouraged
to cultivate the raw material for our manufactures

they would be delighted to do it. The interior
Las been hitherto shut up to us, for many of
' the tribes around the borders have been most
unwilling to allow the central tribes to get in-
tercourse with the white man ; aad I am told that in
the centre of thecountrymany expeditions have gone
towards the sea coast, and were unable to get there
owing to there birder tribes always wishing to get
the trade in+o their own hands. Now the °ldea I
have in going back again is to try to make a path
from the sea to that central country. (Applause.)
On the east side of the country we have a large
river—the Zambese. This river does not rise where
it has been always pointed out to do in the Portu-
guese maps. Inst ead of that, it rises from near the
sources of the Nile, and flows from north to south
in the centre of the country. Nearly all the river,
in that central part flow from the sides to the centre,
and there they form that large river the Zalibt Si,
which finds its way from the central valley by
means of a large fissere through a high ridge of
country, and then appears at that part which the
Portuguese maps have always pointed out as its
source. It rises many hundred miles bed and that,
and the Zambese is, I believe, really and truly an
English discovery. fly object in returning to that
couutry is to try to get a permanent path to that
centralregion from which most of the slaves have
always been drawn. The native slave traders go
into the central country and carry our manufactures
there, and with a few yards of cloth they purchase
slaves, and then take them down to the sea coast.
The people are so anxious to get our manufactures
that they part, not with their own children, but
with children kidnapped from other tribes. Now
hope to be able to make a path up the Zambese to
the central Country, and then, if we can suply the
people with our goods for lawful commerce, we
have a fair prospect of putting a stop to the slave
trade in a very large tract of country. (Applause.)
The people in the central part appear to be
rather of a higher grade than those near the
coast, When English people think about Africa,
they truagino that all the Africans are like the
specimens
we have in front of the tobacconists'
shops. (Laughter.) This is not the case at all.
That is the realne
grotyle that is only to be found
in the lowest part of the
)population. The people
generally are not altogether black. Many of them
are of olive colour—.0,
of the colour of coffee and
milk, and usually the higher gr,des
of sorest are of
this lighter colour. I imagine that the typeywe see
on the eminent
Egyptian monuments is more near
of the central population than the typeulati the toba-eo
I A laugh.) These
ipa ayeref°prlotyhiElier
shop variety.people are will-
ingathreatwer
in
oat
to labour if You
labour;. and I believe
labour and paying for t Africa would fin
1
manufactures, The
reason scope for our own
When
t. • he
. T left Africa
reason why I think so is this
I saw the people busily engaged in their gardens,
both men and women, all down the Zambese--for
in the centre country every man has his own gar-
den, and cultivates enough for his own consump
tion. When we came among the Portuguese
settlements my men were delighted with the fine
gardens and the soil, and they were very much
astonished the Portuguese did not cultivate more.
Well, I believe, from having seen them labour,
and from the great anxiety manifested to collect
any little thing they can sell, they would cultivate
cotton and other produce for our markets. When
I reached the Mauritius I found there a similar
spectacle. I found thislittle Island of 35 miles by
25, which is only a mass of 'Volcanic rock, and with
a soil not at all equal to the African soil, because
there they could not raise sugar without guano, pro-
ducing by means of improved machinery sugar
equal to one-quarter the entire consumption of
Great Brita.in. There they bring their labour from