and friendship which ever marked his relation with Murchison.  One important bearing of the geographical fact was this; it was evident that while the low districts were unhealthy, the longitudinal ridges by which they were fringed were salubrious.  Another of its bearings was, that it would help them to find the course and perhaps the sources of the great rivers, and thus facilitate commercial and missionary operations.  The discovery of the two healthy ridges, which made him so unwilling to die at the mouth of the Loangwa, gave him new hopes for missions and commerce.

These and other matters connected with the state of the country formed the subject of regular communications to the Geographical Society.  Between Loanda and Quilimane, six despatches were written at different points[45].  Formerly, as we have seen, he had written through a Fellow of the Society, his friend and former fellow-traveler, Captain, now Colonel Steele; but as the Colonel had been called on duty to the Crimea, he now addressed his letters to his countryman, Sir Roderick Murchison.  Sir Roderick was charmed with the compliment, and was not slow to turn it to account, as appears from the following letter, the first of very many communications which he addressed to Livingstone: 

[Footnote 45:  The dates were Pungo Andongo, 24th December, 1864; Cabango, 17th May, 1855; Linyanti, October 16, 1855; Chanyuni, 25th January, 1856; Tette, 4th March, 1856; Quilimane, 23d May, 1856.]

     “16 BELGRAVE SQUARE, October 2, 1855.

“MY DEAR SIR,—­Your most welcome letter reached me after I had made a tour in the Highlands, and just as the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science commenced.

“I naturally communicated your despatch to the Geographical section of that body, and the reading of it called forth an unanimous expression of admiration of your labors and researches.

“In truth, you will long ago, I trust, have received the cordial thanks of all British geographers for your unparalleled exertions, and your successful accomplishment of the greatest triumph in geographical research which has been effected in our times.

“I rejoice that I was the individual in the Council of the British Geographical Society who proposed that you should receive our first gold medal of the past session, and I need not say that the award was made by an unanimous and cordial vote.

“Permit me to thank you sincerely for having selected me as your correspondent in the absence of Colonel Steele, and to assure you that I shall consider myself as much honored, as I shall certainly be gratified, by every fresh line which you may have leisure to write to me.

“Anxiously hoping that I may make your personal acquaintance, and that you may return to us in health to receive the homage of all geographers,—­I remain, my dear Sir, yours most faithfully,

     “RODCK* I. MURCHISON,”