A small armed steamer on the lake might stop nearly the
whole of this wholesale robbery and murder.
Their stock of goods being exhausted, and no provisions being
procurable, the party had to return at the end of October. They had to
abandon the project of getting from the lake to the Rovuma, and
exploring eastward. They reached the ship on 8th November, 1861, having
suffered more from hunger than on any previous trip.
In writing to his friend Young, 28th November, 1861, Livingstone
expresses his joy at the news of the departure of the "Lady Nyassa;"
gives him an account of the lake, and of a terrific storm in which they
were nearly lost; describes the inhabitants, and the terrible
slave-trade--the only trade that was carried on in the district. It will
take them the best part of a year to put the ship on the lake, but it
will be such a blessing! He hopes the Government will pay for it, once
it is there.
The colonization project had not commended itself to Sir R. Murchison.
He had written of it sometime before: "Your colonization scheme does not
meet with supporters, it being thought that you must have much more hold
on the country before you attract Scotch families to emigrate and settle
there, and then die off, or become a burden to you and all concerned,
like the settlers of old at Darien.
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