The Sun. — 1859-11-11 (London, England)

LIVINGSTOIVER *EXPEDITION.  The following is one of the letters from the distinguished missionary traveller referred to at the Cambridge meeting last week, but not published at the time :  " Tette, March 3.  "My dear Sir,—You may have supposed that I had forgotten the young men of the Missionary Union altogether, but I have been employed so differently from what I expected, that I am not greatly to blame for my silence. lam become sailing master myself—in this capacity I have guided the steamer more than 1,600 miles. To a Cambridge man this would be nothing—Bishop Selwyn, I dare say, would feel it only a pastime ; but Idoit as a matter of duty, though, as far as liking goes, I would as soon drive a cab in London during cold November, as be fried on a paddle-box in an African sun. This new employment has interfered much with my correspondence. You are, of course, aware of the great object in view in my coming here at all. My heart's desire has all along been to open Africa to the benign influences of our holy religion. She has the elements in herself of extinguishing the slave trade. I am working towards that; and though forced to move more slowly than I like, I think we are proceeding surely. The first point we had to attend to was health. You may remember the sad fate of the Niger expedition and the outcry that followed thereupon. The recollection of it made me choose the best time of year for health, but not the best for showing off the great river to the best advantage. As soon as we entered the mangrove swamp, the hotbed of fever, we began the daily use of quinine, and we maintained constant activity—the latter is of more importance than the former. Thanks to our Almighty Protector no case of fever occurred either among us or the crews that accompanied us. The present is the most unhealthy season of the year ; but we are now on the edge of the interior healthy high lands, and though we have lately had three cases of mild fever, it is seldom or never so fatal as on the coast. We have thus proved that Europeans can come up here at certain seasons in perfect safety. We have proved also that the river is navigable during most of the year in flat-bottomed vessels. I came up from the sea to this in a vessel drawing 21 feet water in November, when the river is at its lowest, and this year it was unusually low. Now the water stands 9 to 12 feet above what it was then, and it will continue so many months. We have found also that the Shire, a branch of the Zambesi, is navigable for a steamer at least 100 miles from the confluence, and that it flows along a fertile valley of that length, and from 20 to 30 miles wide. We went up lately, until stopped by a cataract, and we were informed by the people that the river comes out of Lake Nyanja for five days ; beyond the cataract the river again becomes smooth, and Arabs come down in courses from that lake. The people had never been visited before by Europeans, and were very suspicious, but we hope to overcome that by a second visit. At the lower part of the Shire there is a mountain 4,000 feet high ; the top large, with hills and dales, and flowing fountains. It is well cultivated, the people growing cotton, sugar-cane, maize, and even pine-apples, lemons, and oranges. Being so high, it possesses a different climate and vegetation from the plains below, but no attempt has been made by the Portuguese to reap the benefit of those advantages ; had it been England we should have had a sanatorium, and possibly a college, on Merambula. The people were hospitable, and are independent of the Portuguese. I despair of doing anything-among the latter. We have a rapid in front of this, and until we get a more powerful steamer we work on the river Zambesi. The Makololo are still here, though anxious to return to their own country-36 are dead ; 30 from small pox, and the rest murdered by a neighbouring chief. I agreed to their going home with my brother, but most of them refused to leave, lest doing so should be construed into disobedience when they got home. Kind Christian salutations to all the young men ; to Drs. Whewell and Sedgwick. I shall write to them both soon, if I have anything worth telling.  "