iver and its
banks, all carefully noted in his journal. One extract must suffice
here: "Whenever we step on shore a species of plover, a plaguy sort of
public-spirited individual, follows, flying overhead, and is most
persevering in its attempts to give warning to all animals to flee from
the approaching danger."

But he was already weak with fever; was seized with giddiness whenever
he looked up quickly, and, if he could not catch hold of some support,
fell heavily--a bad omen for his chance of passing through the unknown
country ahead--but his purpose never faltered for a moment. On January
1, 1854, he was still on the river, but getting beyond Sekeletu's
territory and allies, to a region of dense forest, in the open glades of
which dwelt the Balonda, a powerful tribe, whose relations with the
Makololo were precarious. Each was inclined to raid on the other since
the Mambari and Portuguese half-castes had appeared with Manchester
goods. These excited the intense wonder and cupidity of both nations.
They listened to the story of cotton-mills as fairy dreams, exclaiming:
"How can iron spin, weave, and print? Truly ye are gods!" and were
already inclined to steal their neighbors' children--those of their own
tribe they never sold at this time--to obtain these wonders out of the
sea.

Happily Livingstone had brought back with him several Balonda children
who had been carried off by the Makololo. This, and his speeches to
Manenko, the chieftainess of the district and niece of Shinte, the head
chief of the Balonda, gained them a welcome. This Amazon was a strapping
young woman of twenty, who led their party through the forest at a pace
which tried the best walkers. She seems to have been the only native
whose will ever prevailed against Livingstone's.

He intended to proceed up to her uncle Shinte's town in canoes: she
insisted that they should march by land, and ordered her people to
shoulder his baggage in spite of him. "My men succumbed, and left me
powerless. I was moving off in high dudgeon to the canoes, when she
kindly placed her hand on my shoulder, and with a motherly look said,
'Now, my little man, just do as the rest have done.' My feeling of
annoyance of course vanished, and I went out to try for some meat. My
men, in admiration of her pedestrian powers, kept remarking, 'Manenko is
a soldier,' and we were all glad when she proposed a halt for the
night."

Shinte received them in his town, the largest and be