gone.  No Portuguese dared, for instance, to come up this Shire Valley; but after our dispelling the fear of the natives by fair treatment, they came in calling themselves our ‘children.’  The whole thing culminated when this quarter was inundated with Tette slavers, whose operations, with a marauding tribe of Ajawas, and a drought, completely depopulated the country.  The sight of this made me conclude that unless something could be done to prevent these raids, and take off their foolish obstructions on the rivers, which they never use, our work in this region was at an end....  Please the Supreme, I shall work some other point yet.  In leaving, it is bitter to see some 900 miles of coast abandoned to those who were the first to begin the slave-trade, and seem determined to be the last to abandon it.”

Writing to Mr. Waller at this time he said:  “I don’t know whether I am to go on the shelf or not.  If I do, I make Africa the shelf.  If the ‘Lady Nyassa’ is well sold, I shall manage.  There is a Ruler above, and his providence guides all things.  He is our Friend, and has plenty of work for all his people to do.  Don’t fear of being left idle, if willing to work for Him.  I am glad to her of Alington.  If the work is of God it will came out all right at last.  To Him shall be given of the gold of Sheba, and daily shall He be praised.  I always think it was such a blessing and privilege to be led into his work instead of into the service of the hard taskmasters—­the Devil and Sin.”

The reason assigned by Earl Russell for the recall of the Expedition were, that, not through any fault of Dr. Livingstone’s, it had not accomplished the objects for which it had been designed, and that it had proved much more costly than was originally expected.  Probably the Government felt likewise that their remonstrances with the Portuguese Government were unavailing, and that their relations were becoming too uncomfortable.  Even among those most friendly to Dr. Livingstone’s great aim, and most opposed to the slave-trade, and to the Portuguese policy in Africa, there were some who doubted whether his proposed methods of procedure were quite consistent with the rights of the Portuguese Government.  His Royal Highness the Prince-Consort indicated some feeling of this kind in his interview with Livingstone in 1857.  He expressed the feeling more strongly when he declined the request, made to him through Professor Sedgwick of Cambridge, that he would allow himself to be Patron of the Universities Mission.  Dr. Livingstone knew well that from that exalted quarter his plans would receive no active support.  That he should have obtained the support he did from successive Governments and successive Foreign Secretaries, Liberal and Conservative, was a great gratification, if not something of a surprise.  Hence the calmness with which he received the intelligence of the recall.  Toward the Portuguese Government his feelings were not very sweet.  On them lay the guilt of arresting a work that would have conferred untold blessing on Africa.  He determined to make this known very clearly when he should return to England.  At a future period of his life, he purposed, if spared, to go more fully into the reasons of his recall.  Meanwhile, his course was simply to acquiesce in the resolution of the British Government.