EASTWARDS DOWN THE ZAMBEZI

At Algoa Bay in 1841 a young man disembarked unnoticed among the traders and immigrants. He had recently qualified as a doctor and held a diploma in divinity. He loaded an ox wagon with the few provisions his meagre missionary salary would allow and set off, walking beside the jolting vehicle for 1 000 kilometres into the African interior. Thirty-three years later he would be buried in Westminster Abbey, a national hero. Since then, no missionary or explorer has been more reconstructed, deconstructed, psychoanalysed or turned into a stained-glass saint. In 1854 he decided to walk clear across Africa from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. This is his journey eastwards down the Zambezi