He rested at Bambarre till the 1st of November, and then went westward till he reached the Luamo River, and was within ten miles of its confluence with the Lualaba.  He found the country surpassingly beautiful:  “Palms crown the highest heights of the mountains, and their gracefully-bent fronds wave beautifully in the wind.  Climbers of cable size in great numbers are hung among the gigantic trees; many unknown wild fruits abound, some the size of a child’s head, and strange birds and monkeys are everywhere.  The soil is excessively rich, and the people, though isolated by old feuds that are never settled, cultivate largely.”

The country was very populous, and Livingstone so excited the curiosity of the people that he could hardly get quit of the crowds.  It was not so uninteresting to be stared at by the women, but he was wearied with the ugliness of the men.  Palm-toddy did not inspire them with any social qualities, but made them low and disagreeable.  They had no friendly feeling for him, and could not be inspired with any.  They thought that he and his people were like the Arab traders, and they would not do anything for them.  It was impossible to procure a canoe for navigating the Lualaba, so that there was nothing for it but to return to Bambarre, which was reached on the 19th December, 1869.

A long letter to his son Thomas (Town of Moenekuss, Manyuema Country, 24th September, 1869) gives a retrospect of this period, and indeed, in a sense, of his life: 

“My dear Tom,—­I begin a letter, though I have no prospect of being able to send it off for many months to come.  It is to have something in readiness when the hurry usual in preparing a mail does arrive.  I am in the Manyuema Country, about 150 miles west of Ujiji, and at the town of Moenekoos or Moenekuss, a principal chief among the reputed cannibals.  His name means ‘Lord of the light-gray parrot with a red tail,’ which abounds here, and he points away still further west to the country of the real cannibals.  His people laugh, and say, ‘Yes, we eat the flesh of men,’ and should they see the inquirer to be credulous, enter into particulars.  A black stuff smeared on the cheeks is the sign of mourning, and they told one of my people who believes all they say that it is animal charcoal made of the bones of the relatives they have eaten.  They showed him the skull of one recently devoured, and he pointed it out to me in triumph.  It was the skull of a gorilla, here called ‘soko,’ and this they do eat.  They put a bunch of bananas in his way, and hide till he comes to take them, and spear him.  Many of the Arabs believe firmly in the cannibal propensity of the Manyuema.  Others who have lived long among them, and are themselves three-fourths African blood, deny it.  I suspect that this idea must go into oblivion with those of people who have no knowledge of fire, of the Supreme Being, or of language.  The country abounds in food,—­goats, sheep, fowls, buffaloes,