The sepoys had now made themselves such an utter nuisance that I felt that I must take the upper hand with them, so I called them up this morning, and asked if they knew the punishment they had incurred by disobeying orders, and attempting to tamper with the Nassick boys to turn them back.  I told them they not only remained in the way when ordered to march, but offered eight rupees to Ali to lead them to the coast, and that the excuse of sickness was nought, for they had eaten heartily three meals a day while pretending illness.  They had no excuse to offer, so I disrated the naik or corporal, and sentenced the others to carry loads; if they behave well, then they will get fatigue pay for doing fatigue duty, if ill, nothing but their pay.  Their limbs are becoming contracted from sheer idleness; while all the other men are well and getting stronger they alone are disreputably slovenly and useless-looking.  Their filthy habits are to be reformed, and if found at their habit of sitting down and sleeping for hours on the march, or without their muskets and pouches, they are to be flogged.  I sent two of them back to bring up two comrades, left behind yesterday.  All who have done work are comparatively strong.

[We may venture a word in passing on the subject of native recruits, enlisted for service in Africa, and who return thither after a long absence.  All the Nassick boys were native-born Africans, and yet we see one of them succumb immediately.  The truth is that natives; under these circumstances, are just as liable to the effects of malaria on landing as Europeans, although it is not often that fever assumes a dangerous form in such cases.  The natives of the interior have the greatest dread of the illnesses which they say are sure to be in store for them if they visit the coast.]

19th June, 1866.—­I gave the sepoys light loads in order to inure them to exercise and strengthen them, and they carried willingly so long as the fright was on them, but when the fear of immediate punishment wore off they began their skulking again.  One, Perim, reduced his load of about 20 lbs. of tea by throwing away the lead in which it was rolled, and afterwards about 15 lbs. of the tea, thereby diminishing our stock to 5 lbs.

[Dr. Livingstone’s short stay in England in 1864-5 was mainly taken up with compiling an account of his travels on the Zambesi and Shire:  during this time his mother expired in Scotland at a good old age.  When he went back to Africa he took with him, as part of his very scanty travelling equipment, a number of letters which he received from friends at different times in England, and he very often quoted them when he had an opportunity of sending letters home.  We come to an entry at this time which shows that in these reminiscences he had not thus preserved an unmixed pleasure.  He says:—­]

I lighted on a telegram to-day:—­“Your mother died at noon on the 18th June.”

This was in 1865:  it affected me not a little.