SOUTH AFRICA.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVII, Issue 1760, 30 August 1862, Page 5

SOUTH AFRICA.

By way of Melbourne we have eigbt (lays' later from the Cape of Good Hope, viz., to the 21st of May. The Melbourne Herald of the 23rd, says : — We give, underneath, interesting particulars concerning the disasters which had befallen the Central African Mission. The repor.t that Dr. Livingstone was dead is untrue, the great African explorer being, at the date of the last news, in excellent health. The Herald then quotes as follows from the Cape Toivn Advertiser of 21st May : — The Zambezi Mission. — Death op Bishop Mackenzie and Dr. Bctrrup.- --" The copious correspondence which we reprint to-day, in a supplement, will convey a mournful tale to the English public and to the suppoiters und friends of missionary enterprise throughout the world. The Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, and Dublin Mission to Central Africa has, since the commencement of its history, excited deep and widespread interest. The eclat with which it was originated, on the recommendation of Dr. Livingstone; the high zeal *and energy with which its promoters started it; the attractiveness of the new and mysterious field it was to ocnupy ; and the distinguished character and position of its leader, Bishop McKenzie — the first Missianary Bishop ever consecrated by the English Church — all these circumstances combined to direct to it an amount of attention and of sympathy which seldom is attained by any enterprise whatever. And just proportionate to that must be now the sorrow, when we have to report the death of the two foremost and bravest members of the devoted corps. Bishop Mackenzie died ou the 31st of January, and the Rev. Mr. Burrup on the 22nd of February following. When the news first reached the Cape, it was feared that the whole mission had beea involved in one common and fatal disaster. This has happily not been the case. As the correspondence elsewhere will show in detail, the party, as a body, have beeu eminently successful Under the direction of Dr. Livingstone, they settled down in an admirable station high up the river where the country is an elevated plateau, where the climate is tolerably salubrious, and where a dense population are immediately available for evangelising work. A. church was speedily erected there, schools were established, the missiou was organised in a business like fashion, which still secures its prosperity and success ; and it was only after all this had been accomplished, and the first fruits were already beginning to appear, that

the Bishop and his right-hand man were both stricken down with fever and removed to their reward. Expecting the arrival of a sister and wife, the Bishop and Burrup set out on their journey down the Shire, intending to reach the Zambesi mouth. While drifting along the river in a Dative canoe, iheir frail craft was caught in an eddy, they themselves were upset into the stream, ami, worst of all, their medicines — an indispensable requisite to travel there — went to the bottom. Drenched as they were, they passed the first night as they best could on the bank ; fever seized them without any means being available to check its progress; they still continued their journey onwards, and in about twenty days more the Bishop was dead. His companion, Mr. Burrop, enfeebled himself was barely able to direct the burial; and his faithful' Makololo — bearing them on their shoulders, in a litter made of branches of trees, retraced their course to the mission station, arriving there only in time to let the exhausted missionary breathe his last in the affectionate society of brethren and friends. Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrop soon afterwards arrived at their destination, in company with Captain Wilson, the gallant commander of the Gorgon, who, at great risk to himself and the men who followed him, determined to see them at their long and perilous journey's end. Their anguish at the news awaiting them may perhaps be imagined it certainly cannot be described. This intelligence is mournful, but it is not such as should cast any discouragement whatever upon the mission. The death of these two brave and godly men was, as far as we may apply the term at all to such events as these, purely accidental. The surviving missionaries are still at their post, working with spirit, devotion, and success ; and by the present mail, Dr. Gray, the Metropolitan Bishop of Cape Town, proceeds to England, to aid with his counsel and practical experience in the immediate selection of a successor to the departed and lamented leader of the enterprise. And the Church of England will not be the only body who will enter the field thus laid open to Christian zeal and energy. The Rev. Mr. Stewart is now exploring the country in behalf of the Free Church of Scotland, with the intention of selecting the most fitting spot fop a Scottish mission. Other communities, we are confident, will speedily follow; and assuredly there is ample room and verge enough for all of them. Continued Success of Db. Livingstones Explobations. Dr Livingstone seems to bear a charmed life, and defies the worst contingencies of travel with a perfectly fever- proof constitution. The intelligence received from him and from his expedition this month, is gratifying in the extreme. From his own letters it will be seen that his spuits are as buoyant, his energy as great, his style as graphic, and bis success as distinguished as ever. When the Gorgon left in April, Mrs. Livingstone had joiaed him a month or two before, and be and his assistants' with the Pioneer, were well up the Shire bringing along with them the new steamer Lady Nyassa, intended to navigate the Nyassa Lake. Since we had previously heard from him Le had been eminently successful in his exploration of that lake, and of the country all around it. The sheet of water thus added to the geography of Africa is some 200 miles in length, with a varying breadth of from tweuty-fit-e to fifty miles, and forms one of the related chain of lakes of which the Tanganezika and Nyanza of Burton and speak are the two Northennost—connecting the whole of this plateau with the watershed that supplies the fountains of ancient Nile. We have no space here to enter upon any detailed description, of which quite sufficient is given in the admirable letters of the doctor himself; and can only briefly refer to another important gain which has been derived from the Zambezi expedition, namely, the kuowledge that the systematic slave-trade of the whole East African Coast centres iv and round Nyassa. The presence of Livingstone himself as Cousul of her Brittanio Majesty, has already done something to check the nefarious - traffic there, and more will yet be accomplished bytbe operations of the mission in the neighhood.