On the 1st May, 1858, the "Pearl" sailed from Simon's Bay, and on the 14th stood in for the entrance to the Zambesi, called the West Luabo, or Hoskins's Branch. Of their progress Dr. Livingstone gives his impressions in the following letter to his friend Mr. James Young:
"'PEARL,'10_th May_, 1858.
"Here we are, off Cape Corrientes ('Whaur's that, I wonner?'), and hope to be off the Luabo four days hence. We have been most remarkably favored in the weather, and it is well, for had our ship been in a gale with all this weight on her deck, it would have been perilous. Mrs. Livingstone was sea-sick all the way from Sierra Leone, and got as thin as a lath. As this was accompanied by fever, I was forced to run into Table Bay, and when I got ashore I found her father and mother down all the way from Kuruman to see us and help the young missionaries, whom the London Missionary Society has not yet sent. Glad, of course, to see the old couple again. We had a grand to-do at the Cape. Eight hundred guineas were presented in a silver box by the hand of the Governor, Sir George Grey, a fine fellow. Sure, no one might be more thankful to the Giver of all than myself. The Lord grant me grace to serve Him with heart and soul--the only return I can make!... It was a bitter parting with my wife, like tearing the heart out of one. It was so unexpected; and now we are screwing away up the coast.... We are all agreeable yet, and all looking forward with ardor to our enterprise. It is likely that I shall come down with the 'Pearl' through the Delta to doctor them if they become ill, and send them on to Ceylon with a blessing. All have behaved well, and I am really thankful to see it, and hope that God will graciously make some better use of us in promoting his glory. I met a Dr. King in Simon's Bay, of the 'Cambrian' frigate, one of our class-mates in the Andersonian. This frigate, by the way, saluted us handsomely when we sailed out. We have a man-of-war to help us (the 'Hermes'), but the lazy muff is far behind. He is, however, to carry our despatches to Quilimane...."
A letter to Dr. Moffat lets us know in what manner he was preparing to teach the twelve Kroomen who were to navigate the "Ma-Robert," and his old Makololo men:
"First of all, supposing Mr. Skead should take this back by the 'Hermes' in time to catch you at the Cape, would you be kind enough to get a form of prayer printed for me? We have twelve Kroomen, who seem docile and willing to be taught; when we are parted from the 'Pearl' we shall have prayers with them every morning.... I think it will be an advantage to have the prayers in Sichuana when my men join us, and if we have a selection from the English Litany, with the Lord's Prayer in Sichuana, all may join. Will you translate it, beginning at 'Remember not, Lord, our offenses,' up to 'the right way'? Thence, petition for chiefs, and on to the end.... The Litany need not be literal. I suppose you are not a rabid nonconformist, or else I would not venture to ask this...."
By the time they reached the mouth of the Zambesi, Livingstone was suffering from a severe attack of diarrhoea. On the 16th of May, being Sunday, while still suffering, he deemed it a work of necessity, in order to get as soon as possible out of the fever-breeding region of mangrove swamps where they had anchored, that they should at remove the sections of the "Ma-Robert" from the "Pearl"; accordingly, with the exception of the time occupied in the usual prayers, that day was spent in labor. His constant regard for the day of rest and great unwillingness to engage in labor then, is the best proof that on this occasion the necessity for working was to his mind absolutely irresistible. He had found that active exercise every day was one of the best preventives of fever; certainly it is very remarkable how thoroughly the men of the Expedition escaped it at this time. In his Journal he says: "After the experience gained by Dr. M'William, and communicated to the world in his admirable _Medical History of the Niger Expedition_, I should have considered myself personally guilty had any of the crew of the 'Pearl' or of the Expedition been cut off through delay in the mangrove swamps." Afterward, when Mrs. Livingstone died during a long but unavoidable delay at Shupanga, a little farther up, he was more than ever convinced that he had acted rightly. But some of his friends were troubled, and many reflections were thrown on him, especially by those who bore him no good-will.