EXTRACTS FROM DR. LIVINGSTONE'S SECOND LETTER.

Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 75, 22 October 1872, Page 2

EXTRACTS FROM DR. LIVINGSTONE'S SECOND LETTER.

(From tho Public Oimnion\) Du. Livingstone's second letter to Mr J. G- Bfcnuott appeared in the New York Harold of the 27th ult., and a copy of it was courteously sent to tho London papers. As the letter is of great impoitanee wo select tho most interesting passages from it. TUB BLAVI! TRADK. Speaking of this horriblo trade tlie Doctor says: — " M any have but a faint idea of the evils that trading in slaves inflicts on the victims and on tho authors of tho atrocities. Most people imagino that negroes, brutalized by a long course of service, with but few of the ame'lio rati jag. influences that elevate morofavoured races, am fair average specimens of tho African man. Our ideas are derived from tho slaves of the West Coast, who have for ages been subjected to domestic bondage and all the depressing agencies of a most unhealthy climate. These have told most •injuriously on their physical frames, while fraud ami trade nun have ruined their moral natures. Not to discriminate the difference is monstrous injustice to the main body of the population living free in tho interior under their own chief and laws—cultivating their own farms, catching the fish of their own rivers, or fighting bravely with tho grand old denizens of the forests, which in more recent continents can only be reached in rocky strata or under perennial ice. Winwoodo Eeade hit tho truth when ho said tho ancient Egyptian, with his large round black eyes, full luscious lips, and somewhat depressed nose, is far nearer tho typical negro than the West Const. African who has been debased by tho unhealthy climate ho lives in. Slaves generally —and especially those on the West Coast, at Zanzibar, imd elsewhere —are extremely ugly. I have no prejudice against their colour"; indeed, anyono who lives long among them forgets that they arc black, and feels that they aro just fellow-men. But tho low retreating foreheads, prognathous jaws, lark heels, and other physical peculiarities common among slaves and West Coast negroes, always awakens the same feelings of aversion as those with which we view specimens of tho 'Bill Hikes'and 'bruiser' class in England. I would not; utter a syllable calculated to press down either class more deeply in tho mire in which they are already sunk. But I wish to point out that these are not typical Africans any more than typical Englishmen, and that the natives'of nearly all the high lands of tho interior of the Continent, are, as a rule, fair average specimens of humanity. I happened to be present* when all the head men of the great chief Insama, who lives west of tlio south end of Tanganyika, had conio together to make peace with certain Arabs who had burned their chief t own, and I am certain one could not see more finely-formed intellectual heads in any assembly in London or Paris, and the faces and forma correspond with the finely-shaped heads." NII1? TREATMENT 01' SLAVISH. " I onco saw a party of twelve who had been slaves in their own country—Lunda or Londa—of which Cazembo is chief or general. They were loaded with large heavy wooden yokes, which are forked trees about three inches in diamnter and seven or eight feet long. The neck is inserted in tlio fork, and an iron bar driven in across from one end of the fork to the other, and riveted; tho other end is tied at night to a tree or to the ceiling of a hut, and tho neck being firm in a fork, the slave is held oil' from unloosing it. It is excessively troublesome to tlio wearer, and when inarching two yoVes are tied together by their free ends, and loads put on the slaves' head besides. Women, having in addition to tho yoke and load a child on the back, have said to mo on passing, "Thcv are killing me; if they would take off the yoke I could manage the load and child, but I shall die with three loads.' One who spoke thus did die, and the poor little girl, her child, perished of starvation. I interceded for some, but when unyoked off tliey bounded into tho long grass, and I was gently blamed for not caring to preserve the owner's property. After a day's march under a broiling vertical sun, with yokes and heavy loads tho strongest are exhausted. Tho party of twelve above ment ioned are sitting singing and laughing. ' Hallo !' said I, ' these fellows take to it kindly ; this must be tho class for whom philosophers say slavery is the natural state and I went aud asked the cause of their mirth. I had to ask the aid of their owner as to the meaning of the word rukha. which usually means to fly or to leap. They were using it to express the idea of haunting, as a ghost, and inflicting disease and death ; arid the song was ' Yes, we are going away to Mauga (a broad or white man's land) with yokes on our necks; but we shall have no yokes in death, and we shall return and haunt and kill you." The chorus then struck in was the name of the man who had sold each of them, and then followed tho general laugh, in which at first I saw no bitterness. Perembe, an old man of at least 104 years, had been one of the sellers. In accordance with African belief they had no doubt of being soon able, by ghost power, to kill even him. They refrain as if,

Oh, oh, oh! Bird of freedom, oh.! You sold me, oh, oh, oh! I shall haunt you, oh, oh, oh! The laughter told not of mirth, but of the tears ox such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter. 'He that is higher than the highest regardfcth.'" AFRICAN LADIES. "Many of the women were very pretty, and, like all ladies, would have been much prettier if they had only let themselves alone. Fortunately, the dears could not change their charming black eyes, beautiful foreheads, nicely-rounded limbs, well-shaped forms, and small hands and feet. But they must adorn themselves; and this they do—oh, the hussies!—by filing sheir splendid teeth to points like cat's teeth. It was distressing, for it made their smile, which has so much power over us great he donkeys, like that of the crocodile. Ornaments are scarce. What would our ladies do if tt • had none but pout and lecture us on 'woman's rights ?' But these specimens of the fair sex make shift by adorning their fine, warm brown skins, tatooing various pretty devices without colours, that besides purposes of beauty, serve the heraldic uses of our Highland tartans." THJ3 VALLEY OF THJE NILZ. " But why go among the cannibals at all ? Was it not like joining the Alpine-Club in order to be lauded if you don't break your neck, where your neck ought to'be broken? This makes me turn back to the watershed as I promised. It is a broad belt of treecovered upland, some 700 mile 3 in length from west to east. The general altitude is between 4000 and 5000 feet above the sea, and mountains stand on it at various points which are between 6000 and 7000 feet above the ocean level. On this watershed springs arise which. are well-nigh innumerable —that is it would take half a man's lifetime to count them. These springs join each other and form brooks, which again converge and become rivers,.or say streams, of 20, 40, or 80 yards, that never dry. All flow towards the centre of an immense valley,, which I believ-e to be the Yalley of the Nile. In th.l 3 trough we have at first three large rivers. Then all unite into one enormous lacustrine river, the central line of drainage, which I name Webb's Lualaba. In this great valley there-are five great lakfes. One near the upper end is called Lake Bemba, or more properly Bangweolo, but it is not a source of the Nile-, for no large river begins in a lake. It is. supplied by a river called Chambeze and several' others, which may be considered sources,, and out of it flow's the large river Luapula, which enters Jjake Eamalondo. West of" Kamolondo, but still in the great yalley, lies Lake-

Lincoln, which T named an my little tribute of love to Hie great and good man America enjoyed for some time and lo.st. One of the three great river* 1 men-tioned—-JJartle Frcre's, or Lufira—falln into Kamolondo, and Lake Lincoln becomes a IneuHtrinc river, and it, too, joint) the central line of drainage, but lower down, and all three united form the fifth lake, from which the Hlaven sent to mc, instead of men, forced me, to my great grief, to leave m the ' unknown lake.' By my reckoning —the chronometer* being all dead-—it i« five degrees of longitude west of Hpcke's petition of L'jiji; thi.s rnakcH it probable that the great lacustrine river in the valley i* the western branch— or l.'ef herick'ii Nile- -the JJahar Gha/Jil, and not the eastern branch, which Spekc, Grant, and Baker believed to be the river of Kgppt. If correct, this would make it the Nile only after all the Uahar Ghazal wiiton* the easleni arm." (To bn fonlimtnl.J