who is with you,
and will be with you alway."

As soon as he was able to brace himself, he was again at his post,
helping to put the "Lady Nyassa" together and launch her. This was
achieved by the end of June, greatly to the wonder of the natives, who
could not understand how iron should swim. The "Nyassa" was an excellent
steamboat, and could she have been got to the lake would have done well.
But, alas! the rainy season had passed, and until December this could
not be done. Here was another great disappointment. Meanwhile, Dr.
Livingstone resolved to renew the exploration of the Rovuma, in the hope
of finding a way to Nyassa beyond the dominion of the Portuguese. This
was the work in which he had been engaged at the time when he went with
Bishop Mackenzie to help him to settle.

The voyage up the Rovuma did not lead to much. On one occasion they were
attacked, fiercely and treacherously, by the natives. Cataracts occurred
about 156 miles from the mouth, and the report was that farther up they
were worse. The explorers did not venture beyond the banks of the
rivers, but so far as they saw, the people were industrious, and the
country fertile, and a steamer of light draft might carry on a very
profitable trade among them. But there was no water-way to Nyassa. The
Rovuma came from mountains to the west, having only a very minute
connection with Nyassa. It seemed that it would be better in the
meantime to reach the lake by the Zambesi and the Shire, so the party
returned. It was not till the beginning of 1863 that they were able to
renew the ascent of these rivers. Livingstone writes touchingly to Sir
Roderick, in reference to his returning to the Zambesi: "It may seem to
some persons weak to feel a chord vibrating to the dust of her who rests
on the banks of the Zambesi, and think that the path by that river is
consecrated by her remains."

Meanwhile, Dr. Livingstone was busy with his pen. A new energy had been
imparted to him by the appalling facts now fully apparent, that his
discoveries had only stimulated the activity of the slave-traders, that
the Portuguese local authorities really promoted slave-trading, with its
inevitable concomitant slave-hunting, and that the horror and desolation
to which the country bore such frightful testimony was the result. It
seemed as if the duel he had fought with the Boers when they determined
to close Africa, and he determined to open it, had now to be repeated
with the Portugues