stone had yet performed, and it drew out in a very
wonderful manner the rare combination of qualities that fitted him for
his work. The route had never been traversed, so far as any trustworthy
tradition went, by any European. With the exception of a few of
Sekeletu's tusks, the oxen needed for carrying, and a trifling amount of
coffee, cloth, beads, etc., Livingstone had neither stores of food for
his party, nor presents with which to propitiate the countless tribes of
rapacious and suspicious savages that lined his path. The Barotse men
who accompanied him, usually called the "Makololo," though on the whole
faithful and patient, "the best that ever accompanied me," were a burden
in one sense, as much as a help in another; chicken-hearted, ready to
succumb to every trouble, and to be cowed by any chief that wore a
threatening face. Worse if possible, Livingstone himself was in wretched
health. During this part of the journey he had constant attacks of
intermittent fever[40], accompanied in the latter stages of the road
with dysentery of the most distressing kind. In the intervals of fever
he was often depressed alike in body and in mind. Often the party were
destitute of food of any sort, and never had they food suitable for a
fever-stricken invalid. The vexations he encountered were of no common
kind: at starting, the greater part of his medicines was stolen, much
though he needed them; in the course of the journey, his pontoon was
left behind; at one time, while he was under the influence of fever, his
riding-ox threw him, and he fell heavily on his head; at another, while
crossing a river, the ox tossed him into the water; the heavy rains, and
the necessity of wading through streams three or four times a day, kept
him almost constantly wet; and occasionally, to vary the annoyance,
mosquitos would assail him as fiercely as if they had been waging a war
of extermination. The most critical moments of peril, demanding the
utmost coolness and most dauntless courage, would sometimes occur during
the stage of depression after fever; it was then he had to extricate
himself from savage warriors, who vowed that he must go back, unless he
gave them an ox, a gun, or a man. The ox he could ill spare, the gun not
at all, and as for giving the last--a man--to make a slave of, he would
sooner die. At the best, he was a poor ragged skeleton when he reached
those who had hearts to feel for him and hands to help him. Had he not
been a p