The New Zambesi Trail. By C. W. Mackintosh. (T. Fisher
Unwin. 10s. 6d. net.)—Miss Mackintosh is the niece and biographer of the distinguished French Protestant missionary, M. Francois Coillard, who did much good work, first among the Basutos and then in Barotseland, in North-West Rhodesia. She describes in this interesting book, first, her visit to the Zambesi in 1903, when her uncle was living, and secondly, at greater length, her second visit in 1920, when she travelled through Barotseland and saw for herself how much that self- governing native kingdom had progressed in the interval. The Barotse are a manly and hardworking race of farmers, and under their king, Yetta, the successor of the famous Lewanika, they enjoy peace and prosperity. Miss Mackenzie met a very old woman who was a daughter of Livingstone's friend, the chief Sebituane, who died in 1851 while Livingstone was in his country. The old woman hinted that her father had been poisoned by the natives, who intended afterwards to make away with Livingstone, as they did with Livingstone's successors of the Helmore and Price expedition. Miss Mackenzie does no more than justice to the beneficent work of the Protestant mission- aries and their wives in Barotseland. She describes the Victoria Falls as they were before tourists could reach them by railway and as they are now. We are sorry to find that there is no index to a book which needs one.
Previous page
