It was at Livingstone’s instigation I purchased milch goats, by which, since leaving Ujiji, we have had a supply of fresh milk for our tea and coffee three times a day.  Apropos of this, we are great drinkers of these welcome stimulants; we seldom halt drinking until we have each had six or seven cups.  We have also been able to provide ourselves with music, which, though harsh, is better than none.  I mean the musical screech of parrots from Manyuema.

Half-way between Mwaru—­Kamirambo’s village—­and the deserted Tongoni of Ukamba, I carved the Doctor’s initials and my own on a large tree, with the date February 2nd.  I have been twice guilty of this in Africa once when we were famishing in Southern Uvinza I inscribed the date, my initials, and the word “Starving,” in large letters on the trunk of a sycamore.

In passing through the forest of Ukamba, we saw the bleached skull of an unfortunate victim to the privations of travel.  Referring to it, the Doctor remarked that he could never pass through an African forest, with its solemn stillness and serenity, without wishing to be buried quietly under the dead leaves, where he would be sure to rest undisturbed.  In England there was no elbow-room, the graves were often desecrated; and ever since he had buried his wife in the woods of Shupanga he had sighed for just such a spot, where his weary bones would receive the eternal rest they coveted.

The same evening, when the tent door was down, and the interior was made cheerful by the light of a paraffin candle, the Doctor related to me some incidents respecting the career and the death of his eldest son, Robert.  Readers of Livingstone’s first book, `South Africa,’ without which no boy should be, will probably recollect the dying Sebituane’s regard for the little boy “Robert.”  Mrs. Livingstone and family were taken to the Cape of Good Hope, and thence sent to England, where Robert was put in the charge of a tutor; but wearied of inactivity, when he was about eighteen, he left Scotland and came to Natal, whence he endeavoured to reach his father.  Unsuccessful in his attempt, he took ship and sailed for New York, and enlisted in the Northern Army, in a New Hampshire regiment of Volunteers, discarding his own name of Robert Moffatt Livingstone, and taking that of Rupert Vincent that his tutor, who seems to have been ignorant of his duties to the youth, might not find him.  From one of the battles before Richmond, he was conveyed to a North Carolina hospital, where he died from his wounds.

On the 7th of February we arrived at the Gombe, and camped near one of its largest lakes.  This lake is probably several miles in length, and swarms with hippopotami and crocodiles.