THE ZAMBESI AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.


INTRODUCTION.


Objects of the Expedition--Personal Interest shown by Naval
Authorities--Members of the Zambesi Expedition.

When first I determined on publishing the narrative of my "Missionary
Travels," I had a great misgiving as to whether the criticism my
endeavours might provoke would be friendly or the reverse, more
particularly as I felt that I had then been so long a sojourner in the
wilderness, as to be quite a stranger to the British public. But I am
now in this, my second essay at authorship, cheered by the conviction
that very many readers, who are personally unknown to me, will receive
this narrative with the kindly consideration and allowances of friends;
and that many more, under the genial influences of an innate love of
liberty, and of a desire to see the same social and religious blessings
they themselves enjoy, disseminated throughout the world, will sympathize
with me in the efforts by which I have striven, however imperfectly, to
elevate the position and character of our fellow-men in Africa. This
knowledge makes me doubly anxious to render my narrative acceptable to
all my readers; but, in the absence of any excellence in literary
composition, the natural consequence of my pursuits, I have to offer only
a simple account of a mission which, with respect to the objects proposed