ut a
Portuguese trader whom he had met, and from whom he had received
kindness, was going by that route to St. Philip de Benguela. The trader
was implicated in the slave-trade, and Livingstone knew what a
disadvantage it would be either to accompany or to follow him. He
therefore returned to Linyanti; and there began preparations for the
journey to Loanda on the coast.

During the time thus spent in the Barotse country, Livingstone saw
heathenism in its most unadulterated form. It was a painful, loathsome,
and horrible spectacle. His views of the Fall and of the corruption of
human nature were certainly not lightened by the sight. In his Journal
he is constantly letting fall expressions of weariness at the noise, the
excitement, the wild savage dancing, the heartless cruelty, the utter
disregard of feelings, the destruction of children, the drudgery of the
old people, the atrocious murders with which he was in contact.
Occasionally he would think of other scenes of travel; if a friend, for
example, were going to Palestine, he would say how gladly he would kiss
the dust that had been trod by the Man of Sorrows. One day a poor girl
comes hungry and naked to the wagons, and is relieved from time to time;
then disappears to die in the woods of starvation or be torn in pieces
by the hyenas. Another day, as he is preaching, a boy, walking along
with his mother, is suddenly seized by a man, utters a shriek as if his
heart had burst, and becomes, as Livingstone finds, a hopeless slave.
Another time, the sickening sight is a line of slaves attached by a
chain. That chain haunts and harrows him.

Amid all his difficulties he patiently pursued his work as missionary.
Twice every Sunday he preached, usually to good audiences, the number
rising on occasions so high as a thousand. It was a great work to sow
the good seed so widely, where no Christian man had ever been,
proclaiming every Lord's Day to fresh ears the message of Divine love.
Sometimes he was in great hopes that a true impression had been made.
But usually, whenever the service was over, the wild savage dance with
all its demon noises succeeded, and the missionary could but look on and
sigh. So ready was he for labor that when he could get any willing to
learn, he commenced teaching them the alphabet. But he was continually
met by the notion that his religion was a religion of medicines, and
that all the good it could do was by charms. Intellectual culture seemed
indis