This perpetual reference to food and drink is natural, inasmuch as it is the most important point in our intercourse.

While the chief was absent we got nothing; the queen even begged a little meat for her child, who was recovering from an attack of small-pox.

There being no shops we had to sit still without food.

I took observations for longitude, and whiled away the time by calculating the lunars.

Next day the chief gave us a goat cooked whole and plenty of porridge: I noticed that he too had the Assyrian type of face.
FOOTNOTES: [25] Dr.Livingstone's description of the "Sponge" will stand the reader in good stead when he comes to the constant mention of these obstructions in the later travels towards the north .-- ED.
[26] So named when Dr.Livingstone, Dr.Kirk, and Mr.Charles Livingstone, discovered Lake Nyassa together.
[27] The sheep are of the black-haired variety: their tails grow to an enormous size.