Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-07-27
FOREIGN
DIR. LIVINGSTONE.
what He Knows about Negroes
beautiful Bruueffes. 81 4


another lette1 from DR.. Livingstone, re-
ceived by cable from London and addressed
to Mr., Bennett. The following is an ex-
tract: F.
In trying to make the Eastern African
slave trade better known to Americans
indulge the hope am aiding on, though in
small degree, the good time coming yet,
when slavery as well as piracy will be chased
from the world. Many have but faint
idea of the evils that trading in slaves in
hicts on the victims and authors of its
atrocities. The 7 slaves generally,
and especially those ON the
western coast at Zanzibar and elsewhere,
are extremely ugly. / have no prejudice
against their color Indeed any one who
lives among them forget they are black and
feels they are just fellow-men. But the
low retreating forehead, prognatious jaws,
lark heels and other physical peculiarities
common among slaves and West African
negroes always awaken some feelings of
aversion. j would not utter syllable cal
culateG to press down either class more
deeply il the mire in which it is already
sunk; but wish to point out that these
are not typical Africans any more than ty-
pical Englishmen, and that the nations of
nearly ali the high land of the interior of
the Continent are as rule average speei-
mems of humanity. happened to be pre-
sent when all the head men of the great
chief Msawa who lives West
of the South end of Taugyanyika
had come together to make peace with GER
tain Arabs who had burned their chief town,
and | am certain one could not see more
finely formed intellectual heads in any
assembly in London or Paris, and the faces
and forms correspond finely with the shaped
heads. Msawa himself had been sort Of
a Napoleon for fighting and conquering in
his younger days. Many of the women
are very pretty, and like all ladies would
have been much prettier if they had only
let themselves alone. Fortunately the
dears could not change their charming
black eyes, beautiful foreheads, nicely
rounded limbs, well shaped foIms
and small hands and feet, but must
adorn themselves; and this they do, oh the
hussies, by filing splendid teeth TO points
like cats teeth. They are not black, but
of a light warm brown color. Casembes,
the Queen of Morianyombe by name, would
be esteemed a real beauty either in London,
Paris or New Y ork, and yet she had small
hole through the cartilage of the near tip of
her fine, slightly aquiline nose.
The Doctor details the peculiaritles of a
people called the Rua, and tells of num-
Der of them who were captives dying of a
broken heart. They had no complaint but
pain in the heart, and they pointed out its
seat correctly, though many believe the
heart is situated underneath the top of the
sternum or breastbone. This to me W.
the most startling death ever saw.
2 he Observation-Disclosures of the Nile
Fountains Innumerable.
The watershed is broad belt of tree
covered upland, some seven hundred miles
in length from west to east. Is general
altitude is between four and five thousand
feet above the sea and mountains stand on
it at various points which are between six
and seven thousand feet above the ocean
level. On this watershed springs arise
which are well nigh innumerable. The
springs join each other and form brooks
which again converge and become rivers, or
say streams of twenty, forty or eighty
yards. Nearly all flow towards the center
of an immense valley which l believe to be
the valley ofthe Nile. In this trough we have
at first three large rivers; then all unite
central line or drainage, which / name
Webb's Lullaba. In this great valley there
are five great lakes: one near the upper end
called Lake Bemba or more properly Bang
weola, but it is not a source of the Nila;'
for no large river begins in lake. 1t is
supplied by river called the Chambezi and
several others which may be considered
sources and out of it flows the larger river
,,r,ia xr-hfah ol~ a.o1
comes out as the great lake rive Lualuba to
form Lake Kamalondo. West of Kamalondo
but still in Great Valley lies lake Lincoln,
which ! name as my tribute of love to the
great and good man whom America enjoyed
for some time and lost. One of the three
great rivers l mentioned, the Bartle, Tree
res or Lufra falls into the Romonlondo, and
lake Lincoln becomes a locustrine river,
and it too, joins the central line of drainage,
but lower down, and all these united form
a fifth lake, which the slaves sent to mein-
stead OF men, forced me to my great
grief to leave as the unknown
lake. BY my reckoning, the chronometers
being all dead, it is five degrees Of longi
tude west of Speke's position at Vi il. This
makes it probable that the Great Locus
trine river in the valley is the western
branch of Petterick's Nile, the Bahar Ghn-
zale, and not the eastern branch wi ich
Speke, Grant and Baker believed to be the
River of Egypt. If correct, this would make
it the Nile, only after all the Bahar Ghozal
enters the eastern arm. found that mighty
river left its washing and flowed right away
north. The two great western drains, the
Lutira and Lomaine, running northeast be-
fore joining the central line at the main
Webb's Lualaba, told that the west side of
the Great Valley was high like the eastern,
and as this main is reported to get into large
reedy lakes, it can scarcely be aught less
than the western arm of the Nile. But
besides all this, in which it is quite possible
may be mistaken, we have two fountains
on the seventh hundred mile of watershed,
and giving rise to two rivers, the Leambai,
or upper Zambesi, and the Kaffre, which
flow into inner Ethiopia; and two fountains
are reported to rise in the same quarter,
and forming the Lufra and Lomaine, flow,
as we have seen, to the north. The cOun-
try abounds in food of all kinds, and the
rich soil raises everything planted in great
luxuriance. A friend of mine tried rice,
and in between three and five
months his crop increased one hundred and
twenty fold. Three measures of seed
yielded three hundred and sixty measures.
Maize is 80 abundant that have seen forty
five loads, each about sixty pounds weight,
given for single goat. Maize, duna or
holcus, sorghum, hennestum, cassava, sweet
potatoes and yams furnish
in no stinted measure farinaceous iDgre-
dients for diet. Palm oil, ground
nuts and forest trees afford fatty material
for food. Bananas and plaintains in great
p ofusion, and the sugar cane, the ,cthas
rine, the palm toddy, beer of bananas,
tobacco, and vange canabis salina are the
luxuries of life. The villages swarm with
goats, sheep, hogs, pigs, and fowls, while
elephants, bufaloes, zebras, and gokes or
gorillas yield to expert hunters plenty OF
nitrogenous ingredients of human food.
SPAIN