Religion & morality > David Livingstone

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Dr. Livingstone.
valuable present in return ; but he gets only, as a token
cf friendship, a pannakin of coarse powder, two iron
spoons, and two yards of printed calico, with a lecture
on the impolicy of levying black mail upon travellers
through his dominions. The Portuguese traders, who
now accompanied Livingstone, had to watch their
native bearers very closely, to see that they did not
make off with the goods ; salt was one of the articles
they carried, and this became lighter as they went
along, being, as they said, very liable to melt; a self-
evident truth. Having to be so much in the water,
often indeed sleeping in it, brought on Livingstone an
attack of rheumatic fever, which forced him to lay by
for eight days, tossing on a sleepless bed, made up
like a grave in a country churchyard, with grass on the
top; here, covered with his little tent, with nothing
but drip and drizzle around him, with aching head
and racked limbs he tossed and turned about, scarcely
conscious of what was going on, until, by the gentle
remedy of a dozen leeches to the nape of the neck and
loins, applied by a kindly Portuguese, he obtained
partial relief; but he was much too weak to move on,
and now arose another difficulty. The head-man of
the village near-by had received a blow on the mouth
from one of the missionary’s followers, and this insult
must be paid for; five pieces of cloth, and a gun was
given as an atonement; but this would not do; help
from all the surrounding villages was called in to
avenge the affront, and the matter really began to look
serious; the more concessions the travellers made, the
more the natives clamoured and demanded, until