and wonderful way of managing the natives, laid not only the founders of Livingstonia, but the friends of Africa, under obligations that have never been sufficiently acknowledged[81].  In concert with the “Livingstone Central African Company,” considerable progress has been made in exploring the neighboring regions, and the recent exploit of Mr. James Stewart, C.E., one of the lay helpers of the Mission, in traversing the country between Nyassa and Tanganyika, is an important contribution to geography[82].  It would have gratified Livingstone to think that in conducting this settlement several of the Scotch Churches were practically at one—­Free, Reformed, and United Presbyterian; while at Blantyre, on the Shire, the Established Church of Scotland, with a mission and a colony of mechanics, has taken its share in the work.

[Footnote 80:  Lakes and Mountains of Africa, pp. 277, 280.]

[Footnote 81:  See his work. Nyassa:  London, 1877.]

[Footnote 82:  See Transactions of Royal Geographical Society, 1880.]

Under Bishop Steere, the successor of Bishop Tozer, the Universities Mission has re-occupied part of the mainland, and the freed-slave village of Masasi, situated between the sea and Nyassa, to the north of the Rovuma, enjoys a measure of prosperity which has never been interrupted during the three or four years of its existence.  Other stations have been formed, or are projected, one of them on the eastern margin of the lake.  The Church Missionary Society has occupied the shores of Victoria Nyanza, achieving great results amid many trials and sacrifices, at first wonderfully aided and encouraged by King Mtesa, though, as we write, we hear accounts of a change of policy which is grievously disappointing.  Lake Tanganyika has been occupied by the London Missionary Society.

The “Societe des Missions Evangeliques,” of Paris, has made preparations for occupying the Barotse Valley, near the head-waters of the Zambesi.  The Livingstone Inland Mission has some missionaries on the Atlantic Coast at the mouth of the Congo, and others who are working inward, while a monthly journal is edited by Mrs. Grattan Guinness, entitled The Regions Beyond.  The Baptist Missionary Society has a mission in the same district, toward the elucidation of which the Rev. J. T. Comber’s Explorations Inland from Mount Cameroons and through Congo to Mkouta have thrown considerable light.

More recently still, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, having resolved to devote to Africa Mr. Otis’s munificent bequest of a million dollars, appointed the Rev. Dr. Means to collect information as to the most suitable openings for missions in Central Africa; and on his recommendation, after considering the claims of seven other localities, have decided to adopt as their field the region of Bihe and the Coanza, an upland tract to the east of Benguela, healthy and suitable for European colonization, and as yet not occupied by any missionary body.  Thus the Old World and the New are joining their forces for the evangelization of Africa.  And they are not only occupying regions which Livingstone recommended, but are trying to work his principle of combining colonization with missions, so as to give their people an actual picture of Christianity as it is exemplified in the ordinary affairs of life.