was clothed in a coarse blue and white Manchester print edged with red baize, and arranged in large folds so as to look like a crinoline put on wrong side foremost. His arms, legs and head were covered with sleeves, leggings and cap made of various coloured beads in neat patterns: a crown of yellow feathers surmounted his cap ... He then assured me that I was welcome to his country, to go where I liked, and do what I chose. We then went (two boys carrying his train behind him) to an inner apartment, where the articles of my present were exhibited in detail —extract from The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa from 1865 To His Death. Livingstone noted that Mwata Kazembe VII's administration was harsh: A common punishment for court officials was to have the ears cropped by shears. Owing to such tyranny, he would have difficulty raising a thousand men. He observed that the kingdom was not now as prosperous as the Portuguese had reported. The next year he again visited Mwata, who was the first to tell him that the Chambeshi, Lake Bangweulu, the Luapula, Lake Mweru and the Luvua-Lualaba were all one system. This sent Livingstone exploring Bangweulu, then the Lualaba which he thought may flow into the Nile, and Tanganyika, then back to Bangweulu and his death five years later, still trying to discover how its rivers link up and for any evidence that it was part of the Nile rather than the Congo Basin. Arab and Swahili traders In the 18th and 19th centuries Arab and Swahili traders visited Mwata Kazembe to trade in copper, ivory and slaves. Trade routes such as that from Zanzibar via Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika were well established, and the Sultan of Zanzibar's name carried weight. Livingstone was held up southeast of Lake Tanganyika by a conflict between Tippu Tip (Ahmed bin Mohamed, whom Livingstone called Tipo Tipo) and a local chief. When he reached Mwata Kazembe's he found a trader named Mohamad Bogharib had arrived a few days before seeking ivory, and Mohamad bin Saleh (also known as Mpamari), a trader who had been there for ten years, as Mwata had refused to let him leave. Despite their involvement in the slave trade, Livingstone travelled with and was helped by them; he claimed to have used his influence to get Mohamed bin Saleh released.