On 23 August 1885, the second expedition led by François Coillard (1834-1904) from Lesotho finally crossed the Zambezi River to found a Protestant mission in the heart of the Lozi kingdom. The sovereign Lewanika (1842-1916) authorized the establishment of a station near his capital Lealui. For more than twenty years, the Paris Mission and the Churches of Lesotho had been trying in vain to extend their influence to the Zimbabwean and Zambians territories, in an attempt to reach sotho speakers. The 1877-1879 expedition, illustrated by this photograph, had failed. F. Morin/MEG