Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-07-27
DR.. Livingstone's Letter,
The Curse of SIaVcry-A superior RRce
ON the High Lands of tbc IntcriOr-The
Great Watershed.

The Curse of SIavCry-A superior Rnce
ON the High LANDS of the InIcriOr-The
Great Watershed.
New YORK, July 26-Extract from the ca
bled letter from Livingstone to Mr.. Bennett:
In trying to make the eastern African slave
trade better known to Americans, indulge the
hope that am aiding, though in a small degree
the good time coming-when slavery, as well as
piracy, will be chased from the world Many
have but faint idea of the evils that trading in
slaves infiicts on the victims and authors of its
atrocities. Most people imagine that negroes
after being brutalized by long course of servi
tude, with but few of the ameliorating influences
that elevate favored races, are fair average
specimens of the African man. 0urideas are de-
rived from the slaves of the west coast, who, for
ages have been subject to domestic bondage and
all the depressing agencies Of a most unhealthy
climate This has told most injuriously on
their frames, while fraud and the rum trade
have ruined their moral natures so as not to
discriminate the difference Of the monStrouS in
Justice
The slaves generally, and especially those on
the west coast, at Zanzibar and elsewhere are OK
tremely ugly. l have no prejudice against their
color; indeed, any one who lives long among
them forgets they are black, and feels they are
just fellow men, but the low retreating forehead
prOgnath0uS Jaws, lank heels, and other phYsi-
cal peculiarities common among slaves and
West African negroes, always awaken some feel
ings OF aversion. would not write syllable cal
culated to press down either class more deeply
in the mre in which it is already sunk
but wish TO point out that these are not typ-
cal Africans, any more than typical English
men; and that the natives on nearly all the
high lands of the interior of the continent are
as rule fair average specimens of humanity.
| happened to be present when all the head
men of the great chief WsamG, who lives west
of the south end of Tanganyiki, had come to-
gcther to make peace with certain Arabs VII 0
had burned their chief town, and | am eertai in
one could not sec more finely formed intellect
ual heads in any assembly in London or PARIS,
and the faces and forms correspond finely with
the shaped heads. Wsama himself had been a
sort of 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 charming black eyes,
beautiful fOrcheads, nicely rounded limbs, well
shaped forms and small hands and feet but
must adorn themselves, and this they do by
filing splendid teeth to points like cats teeth.
But these specimens Of the fair sex make shift
by adjoining fine warm brown skins, tattooing
various pretty devices without coors They are
not black, but of a light warm brown color.
Cazembe's queen would be esteemed real
beauty, either in London, Paris or New York
and yet she had a small hole through the CART.
age near the tip of her fine, slightly acQune
nose. But she had only filed one side of Two of
the front superb, snow white teeth. And then,
what laugh she had.
Large sections of the country northwest of
Cazembe, but still in the same inland region, is
peopled with men very like those of Wsama and
Cazembe Let ii not he supposed that any of
these people are like American Indians, insatia-
BILE, blood thirsty sayages, who will not be re-
| claimed or entertain terms of lasting friendship
with fair dealing strangers | know nothing
distinguishes the uncontaminated African from
other degraded peoples more than their entire
reasonabeness and good sense But slavery
hardGns within, petrifes the feelings is bad for
the victims and ill for the ylctimizers. Once,
ii is said, party of twelve, who had
been slaves in their own country (Cunda
or Conda) of which Cazembe is chief
or general, were loaded with large, heavy
yokes, which were tOrked thus about three
inches in diameter and seven or eight feet long
the neck inserted in the fork and an iron bar
driven across from one end of the fork to the
other end, and tied at right angles to the ceiling
of the hut. When marching two Jokes were
tied together by the tree ends and loads put on
the slaves heads beside.
The watershed, says Livingstone, is a broad
belt of tree covered upland, somei sevcn hundred
miles in length from west to east. The general
altitude is between 1000 and 5000 feet above the
sea, and mountains start on it at various points
which are between 5000 and 1000 feet above the
ocean lever. On this watershed springs arise
which are well nigh innumerable. These
springs join each other and form brooks which
again converge and become rivers, or say
streams of twenty, forty, or eighty yards, that
never dry. All flow towards the centre of an
immense valley, which believe to be the valley
OF the Nile. In this trough we have three large
rivers, then all unite into one enormous lacus
trlne river, the central line Of drainage, which
name Webb's Lualaba. In this great valley are
i've great lakes The one near the upper end is
called Lake Bemba, or more properly Bangwe-
oo, but it is not a source of the Nile, for no
large river begins i'll lake. 1t is supplied by a
river called Chambezi aud several Others. which
may be considered sources, and out of it
flows the large river Luaqula, which
enters Lake MOera and comes out as the great
lake river Lualaba, to form lake KomOondo
West of komoondO, but still in the great valley,
lies lake Lincoln, which | name as by tribute of
love to the great and good man America en-
joyed for some time and lost. One of the three
great rivers mentioned as the Freres, or Lufra,
falls into KOmolOndO, and lake Lincoln becomes
acustrine river, and it too joins the central
line of drainage. but lower down; and all these
united form the 9th lake, which, the slaves
sent TO me instead 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 longitude west of Speke's
position at Ujiji. This makes it probable that
the great lacustrine river in the valley is the
western branch of Pethhrick's Nile, the Bahar
Ghazal, and not the eastern branch, which
Spoke, Grant and Baker believed the river of
Egypt. If correct, this would make it the Nile
only, after all, the Bahar Ghazal enters the cast
ern arm.
But though found watershed between
ten and twelve degrees SOUTH that is a long way
further up the valley than any one had dreamed
and saw the streams of some six hundred miles
of it convergng into the centre of the great val
ley, no one knew where il went after the depart
ure of Lake Mocra. Some coniectured that il
went into the Yanganyik, but saw that to do SO
II must run up hill. Others imagined it might
flow into the Atlantic. 1t was TO find out
where it actually did go that took me into Man
yema. stuck to ii like a Briton, and at last
found that the mighty river left its washing aud
flowed right away to the north the two great
western drains, the Lufra and Tomaine, run
ming northeast before giving the central line or
main Webbs Lualaba. was told that the west
cru side of the great valley was high, like the
eastern, and as this main is reported to 70 into
large, reedy lakes. il can scarcely be aught else
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 probably
the 7th hundred miles lthe watershed ,andg giving
rise to the two rivers, the Lambai or upper
Iambczi and the kaine, which flows into inner
Ethiopia. Aud two fountains are reported to
rise in the same quarter, aud, forming the Luz
fra and Tomaine, flow, as we have seen, to the
north. These, from full grown, gushing fouu-
tains, rising SO near each other aud giving ORR
gin TO four large rivers, answer in n certain de-
gree to the description given Of the unlathoma-
bic fountains of the Nile by the secretary Of the
Minerva, in the city Of Sais, in Egypt, to the
father of all travellers, llerodotus.
The Manyema country abounds in food Of all
kinds, and rich soil raises everything planted in
great luxurance. A friend of mine tried rice,
and in between three aud four months the crop
increased one hundred and twenty fold. Three
measures of seed yielded three hundred and
sixty measures. Maize is so abundant that
have seen iorty.fve loads, each about sixty
pounds weight, given for a single goat. The
Manyema women, especially far down the Lua-
lnhn Very nrntIy and Ynru in1lns lrintir