An agreeable surprise is not only interesting to the recipient¹, but sometimes to his friends. I received one at Capetown, which is worthy³ of record on several grounds.

For the proper explanation of that surprise I must turn aside for a little.

A mission started in the year 1860 for the Zambesi, where it was met, and for a time joined, by the great Dr Livingstone. Its leader, Bishop⁴ Mackenzie, who laid down his life in the cause, was a man as well as a missionary⁵. By that I mean that he was manly,—a quality which is not sufficiently⁶ appreciated, in some quarters, as being a most important element in the missionary character.

While on his way up to the selected sphere of labour in Central Africa, the Bishop and his party, with Dr Livingstone, got into the region of the accursed slave-trade, and one day came unexpectedly on a band of slaves. They were chiefly women and children, bound together with sticks and chains, and herded⁷ by a few armed slave-dealers, who, having murdered their male defenders⁸ and burned their villages, were driving them to the coast for shipment to eastern lands—largely, it is said, to the land of the amiable⁹ Turk.

With characteristic zeal¹⁰ and energy Dr Livingstone advanced with a few men to set these poor wretches¹¹ free. The slave-catchers did not await the onset¹²: they bravely fired a shot or two and fled. To set the slaves free was naturally a most congenial work for the good Bishop who had gone there to free the black man from the slavery of sin. The sticks were cut, the bonds were unloosed, and the people were told that they were free to go back to their homes. Homes! Their homes were in ashes, and the brave hearts and

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