Shortly after his introduction to the King, the Queen entered the large house, surrounded by a body-guard of Amazons with spears.  She was a fine, tall, handsome young woman, and evidently thought she was about to make an impression upon the rustic white man, for she had clothed herself after a most royal fashion, and was armed with a ponderous spear.  But her appearance—­so different from what the Doctor had imagined—­caused him to laugh, which entirely spoiled the effect intended; for the laugh of the Doctor was so contagious, that she herself was the first to imitate it, and the Amazons, courtier-like, followed suit.  Much disconcerted by this, the Queen ran back, followed by her obedient damsels—­a retreat most undignified and unqueenlike, compared with her majestic advent into the Doctor’s presence.  But Livingstone will have much to say about his reception at this court, and about this interesting King and Queen; and who can so well relate the scenes he witnessed, and which belong exclusively to him, as he himself?

Soon after his arrival in the country of Lunda, or Londa, and before he had entered the district ruled over by Cazembe, he had crossed a river called the Chambezi, which was quite an important stream.  The similarity of the name with that large and noble river south, which will be for ever connected with his name, misled Livingstone at that time, and he, accordingly, did not pay to it the attention it deserved, believing that the Chambezi was but the head-waters of the Zambezi, and consequently had no bearing or connection with the sources of the river of Egypt, of which he was in search.  His fault was in relying too implicitly upon the correctness of Portuguese information.  This error it cost him many months of tedious labour and travel to rectify.

From the beginning of 1867—­the time of his arrival at Cazembe’s—­ till the middle of March, 1869—­the time of his arrival at Ujiji—­ he was mostly engaged in correcting the errors and misrepresentations of the Portuguese travellers.  The Portuguese, in speaking of the River Chambezi, invariably spoke of it as “our own Zambezi,”—­ that is, the Zambezi which flows through the Portuguese possessions of the Mozambique.  “In going to Cazembe from Nyassa,” said they, “you will cross our own Zambezi.”  Such positive and reiterated information—­given not only orally, but in their books and maps—­was naturally confusing.  When the Doctor perceived that what he saw and what they described were at variance, out of a sincere wish to be correct, and lest he might have been mistaken himself, he started to retravel the ground he had travelled before.  Over and over again he traversed the several countries watered by the several rivers of the complicated water system, like an uneasy spirit.  Over and over again he asked the same questions from the different peoples he met, until he was obliged to desist, lest they might say, “The man is mad; he has got water on the brain!”