DR. LIVINGSTONE.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 355, 19 March 1861, Page 4

DR. LIVINGSTONE.

The following has been received by the Bishop of Oxford from Dr. Livingstone:—

" Senna, April 7.

"My Lord Bishop,—By a letter from the Bishop of South Africa I lately learned with great satisfaction that a beginning had been made of a great work for the iuterior of this country. I am extremely glad aud thankful to hear that the Universities intend to send forth, as in the olden time, missionaries to seek to win to the faith of Christ the heathen of Africa. The Bishop's letter was found among some fragments of a IOBt mailbag which floated some seven miles west of tbe spot where they were launched, and I presume to think th.-t a letter from your Loidship on a subject in which you take such a special interest may be among the things wbich have perished.

"By my letter respecting the opening made into the Highland Lake region from the Shire you will have seen that simu taneously with your prayerful movement at home our steps have been directed to a field which presents a really glorious prospeot for the mission. By the Shire you get easily past the unfriendly border tribe 3, and then the ridge which rises on the east to a height of 8000 feet affords variations of climate within a few miles of each other. The region bathtd by the lakes is pre-emiuently a cotton-producing one, and, as far as we can learn from Burton and Speke, the people possess the same comparative mildness of disposition as I observed generally prevailing away from the seacoast. There are diffi. culties, no doubt —an unreduced language, and people quite ignorant of the motives of mis sionaries, with all the evils of its being the slavemarket. But your University men are believed to possess genuiue English pluck, and will, no doubt, rejoice to preach Christ's Gospel beyond other men's line of things. Viewing the field in all its bearings, it seems worthy of the Universities and of the English Church,and bearing in mind and heart Him who promised, " Lo! 1 am with you alway, even unto the end of the world," there is not the shadow of a doubt but that her mission will become a double blessing —to oar own overcrowded home population and to the victims of slavery and the slave trade throughout the world. Let the Church of England only enter upon this great work with a will, and nations and tribes will bless her to the latest generations. The late Dr. Phillips, of the Cape, told me that missionaries always did most good by doing things in their own way. lam fully convinced that your way of sending a Bishop with your missioa is an admirable oae. Tbe field is all your own. I think that the Church is called upon to put forth her best energies, aud eudeavor to repay somewhat the wrongs we have done to Africa.

" The French have a strong desire to enter before us. A Senor Cruz, the great agent of French emigration from this coast, late'y returned from Bourbon with a sugar-mill aucl coffee-cleaning machine, sugar canos of superior quality, and coffee-seed, and two Frenchmen to work the machines. Buih, however, soon perished of fever. The Portugese hate us and our objects, partly because of our religion, but chiefly because we suppress the slavo trade. They desire the French to-come and establish their authority over th» slave?. At present the Portuguese slave rule is mild, becrune the slave can so easily flee to independent tribes. If the French slave system were established here, slave-huating would go on till the country was depopulated. Even for the incipient plau-

tation of Cruz there is slave-hunting among the very we lately visited at Sheiba and Negassa. The mission will require a steamer drawing about 8 feet to serve as a home till preparations are made. Having lost my despatches, I do not know whether government will give me another; it would be at the service of the mission. I send home Mr. Rae, our engineer, to superintend a second for the lakes. This we shall build whether we get one from the GovernmenLpr not. It is to be made capable of being uifrerewed and carried past the oataracts. It will give security to settlors, without firing a shot, and will promote the extinction of the slave trade by lawful commerce more than several ships on the ocean. My brother Mr. Charles Livingstone, will tike charge of trade for a time. "I rejoice that Miss Cmtts has come nobly forward and aided the Bishop to establish an institution for the sons of chiefs—sorry it was not in existence when I was with Sechele. I am going up to the Makolojo country to return my native friends home. " Affectionately yours, " D. Livingstone."