After all the illness and dangers he had encountered, Livingstone might quite honorably have accepted a berth in one of Her Majesty’s cruisers, and returned to England.  But the men who had come with him from the Barotse country to Loanda had to return, and Livingstone knew that they were quite unable to perform the journey without him.  That consideration determined his course.  All the risks and dangers of that terrible road—­the attacks of fever and dysentery, the protracted absence of those for whom he pined, were not to be thought of when he had a duty to these poor men.  Besides, he had hot yet accomplished his object.  He had, indeed, discovered a way by his friend Sekeletu might sell his tusks to far greater advantage, and which would thus help to introduce a legitimate traffic among the Makololo, and expel the slave-trade; but he had discovered no healthy locality for a mission, nor any unexceptional highway to the sea for the purpose of general traffic.  The east coast seemed to promise better than the west.  That great river, the Zambesi, might be found to be a navigable highway to the sea.  He would return to Linyanti, and set out from it to find a way to the eastern shore.  Loaded with kindness from many quarters, and furnished with presents for Sekeletu, and for the chiefs along the way, Livingstone bade farewell to Loanda on 20th September, 1854.

The following letter to Mrs. Livingstone, written a month afterward, gives his impressions of Loanda and the neighborhood;

“Golungo Alto, 25th October, 1854.—­It occurs to me, my dearest Mary, that if I send you a note from different parts on the way through this colony, some of them will surely reach you; and If they carry any of the affection I bear to you in their composition, they will not fail to comfort you.  I got everything in Loanda I could desire; and were there only a wagon-path for us, this would be as good an opening into the interior as we could wish.  I remained rather a long time in the city in consequence of a very severe attack of fever and dysentery which reduced me very much; and I remained a short time longer than that actually required to set me on my legs, in longing expectation of a letter from you.  None came, but should any come up to the beginning of November, it will come after me by post to Cassange.

“The [Roman Catholic] Bishop, who was then acting-governor, gave a horse, saddle, and bridle, a colonel’s suit of clothes, etc., for Sekeletu, and a dress of blue and red cloth, with a white cotton blanket and cap to each of my companions, who are the best set of men I ever traveled with except Malatzi and Mebalwe.  The merchants of Loanda gave Sekeletu a large present of cloth, beads, etc., and one of them, a Dutch-man, gave me an order for ten oxen as provisions on the way home to the Zambesi.  This is all to encourage the natives to trade freely with the coast, and will have a good effect in increasing