ABSTRACT
The handful of British settlers had, as has been said, become involved, during 1888, in a struggle with the Arab slave-traders at the north end of the lake, who were seeking to oppress the native tribes, gradually overrunning the whole country, and spreading devastation in all directions. East of Lakes Mweru and Bangweolo and towards Nyasa the original inhabitants of the country were divided into several large and scattered tribes. As the scene of David Livingstone’s final and most arduous journeys—where, remote from his fellow-countrymen, he succumbed at length to hardship and exposure—the British Protectorate in this region may be regarded as an imperishable monument to one of the greatest explorers of our own or any other age. The basin of the four great lakes—Nyasa, Tanganyika, Mweru and Bangweolo—has a history and a romance peculiarly its own. Unlike other parts of the Chartered Company’s possessions, its development was from the east coast.
