File:The Screw-Steamer Abydos, for the Livingstone Search Expedition ILN-1872-0217-0015.jpg

English: The Screw-Steamer Abydos, for the Livingstone Search Expedition of 1872. Illustration for The Illustrated London News, 17 February 1872.

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THE LIVINGSTONE SEARCH EXPEDITION. The expedition sent to Zanzibar, on the east coast of Africa, to make its way thence inland to Lake Ujiji or Tanganyika, beyond which, in the interior of that vast continent, it will look for Dr. Livingstone, has started from England. It is under the command of Lieutenant Llewellyn Styles Dawson, R.N., a young officer, scarcely twenty-five years of age, but who has seen service, having been employed in the Upper Yang-Tse River surveying expedition of Consul Swinhoe, in 1869, and in the survey of the River Plate, in 1870. His second in command is Lieutenant William Henn, R.N., who first served in the West Indies, but since then in H.M.S. Daphne and H.M.S. Dryad, in the Red Sea and on the east coast of Africa, where his experience in the pursuit and capture of slavers must have peculiarly qualified him for the task he has now on hand. Mr. William Oswell Livingstone, second son of Dr. Livingstone, accompanies the expedition. He was born, in September, 1851, on the banks of the Zonga, near Lake Ngami, but has, during the last three years, been a student of medicine at the University of Glasgow. Mr. New, who was engaged in the Mombas mission, is to act as interpreter. The party will consist of fifty picked men, besides native porters. They have sailed for Zanzibar, to pass through the Suez Canal, in the new screw-steamer Abydos. This vessel, of 1118 tons burden, with compound engines of 150-horse power, was built, last year, on the Clyde, by the London and Glasgow Company. She belongs to the Globe Company, but has been chartered on this occasion by Messrs. J. Wiseman and Co. They intend her to be the pioneer of a new line of direct traffic from London to Zanzibar. It is expected that the trade of Zanzibar in ivory, cloves, and gum will prove worth attention.