A very valuable testimony was borne by Sir Bartle Frere to the real aims of Livingstone, and the value of his work, especially in this last journey, in a speech delivered in the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, 10th November, 1876: 

“The object,” he said, “of Dr. Livingstone’s geographical and scientific explorations was to lead his countrymen to the great work of Christianizing and civilizing the millions of Central Africa.  You will recollect how, when first he came back from his wonderful journey, though we were all greatly startled by his achievements and by what he told us, people really did not lay what he said much to heart.  They were stimulated to take up the cause of African discovery again, and other travelers went out and did excellent service; but the great fact which was from the very first upon Livingstone’s mind, and which he used to impress upon you, did not make the impression he wished, and although a good many people took more and more interest in the Civilization of Africa and in the abolition of the slave-trade, which he pointed out was the great obstacle to all progress, still it did not come home to the people generally.  It was not until his third and last journey, when he was no more to return among us, that the descriptions which he gave of the horrors of the slave-trade in the interior really took hold upon the mind of the people of this country, and made them determine that what used to be considered the crotchet of a few religious minds and humanitarian sort of persons, should be a phase of the great work which this country had undertaken, to free the African races, and to abolish, in the first place, the slave-trade by sea, and then, as we hope, the slaving by land.”

In September an Arab slaver was met at Marenga’s, who told Musa, one of the Johanna men, that all the country in front was full of Mazitu, a warlike tribe; that forty-four Arabs and their followers had been killed by them at Kasunga, and that he only had escaped.  Musa’s heart was filled with consternation.  It was in vain that Marenga assured him that there were no Mazitu in the direction in which he was going, and that Livingstone protested to him that he would give them a wide berth.  The Johanna men wanted an excuse for going back, but in such a way that, when they reached Zanzibar, they should get their pay.  They left him in a body, and when they got to Zanzibar, circulated a circumstantial report that he had been murdered.  In December, 1866, Musa appeared at Zanzibar, and told how Livingstone had crossed Lake Nyassa to its western or northwestern shore, and was pushing on west or northwest, when, between Marenga and Maklisoora, a band of savages stopped their way, and rushed on him and his small band of followers, now reduced to twenty.  Livingstone fired twice, and killed two; but, in the act of reloading, three Mafite leaped upon him through the smoke, one of them felled him with an axe-cut from behind, and the blow