In other respects the region opened up was remarkable.  There was a great amount of fertile land, and the products were almost endless.  The people were industrious; in the Upper Shire, notwithstanding a great love of beer, they lived usually to a great age.  Cleanliness was not a universal virtue; the only way in which the Expedition could get rid of a troublesome follower was by threatening to wash him.  The most disagreeable thing in the appearance of the women was their lip-ornament, consisting of a ring of ivory or tin, either hollow or made into a cup, inserted in the upper lip.  Dr. Livingstone used to give full particulars of this fearful practice, having the idea that the taste of ladies at home in dress and ornament was not free from similar absurdity; or, as he wrote at this time to the Royal Geographical Society of Vienna, in acknowledging the honor of being made a corresponding member, “because our own ladies, who show so much virtuous perseverance with their waists, may wish to try lip-ornament too.”  In regard to the other sex, he informed the same Society:  “I could see nothing encouraging for the gentlemen who are anxious to prove that we are all descended from a race that wore tails.”

In the highland regions of the Shire Valley, the party were distinctly conscious of an increase of energy, from the more bracing climate.  Dr. Livingstone was thoroughly convinced that these highlands of the Shire Valley were the proper locality for commercial and missionary stations.  Thus one great object of the Expedition was accomplished.  In another point of view, this locality would be highly serviceable for stations.  It was the great pathway for conveying slaves from the north and northwest to Zanzibar.  Of this he had only too clear evidence in the gangs of slaves whom he saw marched along from time to time, and whom he would have been most eager to release had he known of any way of preventing them from falling again into the hands of the slave-sellers.  In this region Englishmen “might enjoy good health, and also be of signal benefit, by leading the multitude of industrious inhabitants to cultivate cotton, maize, sugar, and other valuable produce, to exchange for goods of European manufacture, at the same time teaching them, by precept and example, the great truths of our holy religion.”  Water-carriage existed all the way from England, with the exception of the Murchison Cataracts, along which a road of forty miles might easily be made.  A small steamer on the lake would do more good in suppressing the slave-trade than half-a-dozen men-of-war in the ocean.  If the Zambesi could be opened to commerce the bright vision of the last ten years would be realized, and the Shire Valley and banks of the Nyassa transformed into the garden of the Lord.

From the very first Livingstone saw the importance of the Shire Valley and Lake Nyassa as the key to Central Africa.  Ever since, it has become more and more evident that his surmise was correct.  To make the occupation thoroughly effective, he thought much of the desirableness of a British colony, and was prepared to expend a great part of the remainder of his private means to carry it into effect.  On August 4th, he says in his Journal: