[A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone’s Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries by David Livingstone]@TWC D-Link bookA Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone’s Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries CHAPTER XIV 23/44
The different cases of slave- trading observed by us are mentioned, in order to give a fair idea of its details. We spent the first night, after leaving the slave route, at the village of Nkoma, among a section of Manganja, called Machewa, or Macheba, whose district extends to the Bua. The next village at which we slept was also that of a Manganja smith.
It was a beautiful spot, shaded with tall euphorbia-trees.
The people at first fled, but after a short time returned, and ordered us off to a stockade of Babisa, about a mile distant.
We preferred to remain in the smooth shady spot outside the hamlet, to being pent up in a treeless stockade.
Twenty or thirty men came dropping in, all fully armed with bows and arrows, some of them were at least six feet four in height, yet these giants were not ashamed to say, "We thought that you were Mazitu, and, being afraid, ran away." Their orders to us were evidently inspired by terror, and so must the refusal of the headman to receive a cloth, or lend us a hut have been; but as we never had the opportunity of realizing what feelings a successful invasion would produce, we did not know whether to blame them or not.
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