The Personal Life Of David Livingstone
by
William Garden Blaikie

Part 6 out of 10



had to be lighted hours before the steam was serviceable; she snorted so
horribly that they called her "The Asthmatic," and after all she made
so little progress that canoes could easily pass her. Having taken much
interest in the purchase of the vessel, and thought he was getting a
great bargain because its owner professed to do so much through "love of
the cause," Livingstone was greatly mortified when he found he had got
an inferior and unworthy article; and many a joke he made, as well as
remarks of a more serious kind, in connection with the manner which the
"eminent shipbuilder" had taken to show his love.

Early in 1859 the exploration of the Shire was begun--a river hitherto
absolutely unknown. The country around was rich and fertile, the natives
not unfriendly, but suspicious. They had probably never been visited
before but by man-stealers, and had never seen Europeans. The Shire
Valley was inhabited by the Manganja, a very warlike race. Some days'
journey above the junction with the Zambesi, where the Shire issues from
the mountains, the progress of the party was stopped by rapids, to which
they gave the name of the "Murchison Cataracts." It seemed in vain to
penetrate among the people at that time without supplies, considering
how suspicious they were. Crowds went along the banks watching them by
day; they had guards over them all night, and these were always ready
with their bows and poisoned arrows. Nevertheless, some progress was
made in civilizing them, and at a future time it was hoped that further
exploration might take place.

Some passages in Livingstone's private Journal give us a glimpse of the
more serious thoughts that were passing through his mind at this time:

"_March_ 3, 1859.--If we dedicate ourselves to God
unreservedly He will make use of whatever peculiarities of
constitution He has imparted for his own glory, and He will
in answer to prayer give wisdom to guide. He will so guide as
to make useful. O how far am I from that hearty devotion to
God I read of in others! The Lord have mercy on me a sinner!"

"_March 5th_.--A woman left Tette yesterday with a cargo of
slaves (20 men and 40 women) in irons to sell to St. Cruz [a
trader], for exportation at Bourbon. Francisco at Shupanga is
the great receiver for Cruz. This is carnival, and it is
observed chiefly as a drinking feast."

"_March 6th_.--Teaching Makololo Lord's Prayer and Creed.
Prayers as usual at 9-1/2 A.M. When employed in active
travel, my mind becomes inactive, and the heart cold and
dead, but after remaining some time quiet, the heart revives
and I become more spiritually-minded. This is a mercy which I
have experienced before, and when I see a matter to be duty I
go on regardless of my feelings. I do trust that the Lord is
with me, though the mind is engaged in other matters than the
spiritual. I want my whole life to be out and out for the
Divine glory, and my earnest prayer is that God may accept
what his own Spirit must have implanted--the desire to
glorify Him. I have been more than usually drawn out in
earnest prayer of late--for the Expedition--for my
family--the fear lest ----'s misrepresentation may injure the
cause of Christ--the hope that I may be permitted to open
this dark land to the blessed gospel. I have cast all before
my God. Good Lord, have mercy upon me. Leave me not, nor
forsake me. He has guided well in time past. I commit my way
to Him for the future. All I have received has come from Him.
Will He be pleased in mercy to use me for his glory? I have
prayed for this, and Jesus himself said, 'Ask, and ye shall
receive, and a host of statements to the same effect. There
is a great deal of trifling frivolousness in not trusting in
God. Not trusting in Him who is truth itself, faithfulness,
the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever! It is presumption
not to trust in Him implicitly, and yet this heart is
sometimes fearfully guilty of distrust. I am ashamed to think
of it. Ay; but He must put the trusting, loving, childlike
spirit in by his grace. O Lord, I am Thine, truly I am
Thine--take me--do what seemeth good in Thy sight with me,
and give me complete resignation to Thy will in all things."

Two months later (May, 1859), a second ascent of the Shire was
performed, and friendly relations were established with a clever chief
named Chibisa, "a jolly person, who laughs easily--which is always a
good sign." Chibisa believed firmly in two things--the divine right of
kings, and the impossibility that Chibisa should ever be in the wrong.
He told them that his father had imparted an influence to him, which had
come in by his head, whereby every person that had heard him speak
respected him greatly. Livingstone evidently made a great impression on
Chibisa; like other chiefs, he began to fall under the spell of his
influence.

Making a detour to the east, the travelers now discovered Lake Shirwa,
"a magnificent inland lake." This lake was absolutely unknown to the
Portuguese, who, indeed, were never allowed by the natives to enter the
Shire. Livingstone had often to explain that he and his party were not
Portuguese but British. After discovering this lake, the party returned
to the ship, and then sailed to the Kongone harbor, in hopes of meeting
a man-of-war and obtaining provisions. In this, however, they were
disappointed.

Some idea of the voluminous correspondence carried on by Dr. Livingstone
may be formed from the following enumeration of the friends to whom he
addressed letters in May of this year: Lords Clarendon and Palmerston,
Bishop of Oxford, Miss Burdett Coutts, Mr. Venn, Lord Kinnaird, Mr.
James Wilson, Mr. Oswell, Colonel Steele, Dr. Newton of Philadelphia,
his brother John in Canada, J.B. and C. Braithwaite, Dr. Andrew Smith,
Admiral F. Grey, Sir R. Murchison, Captain Washington, Mr. Maclear,
Professor Owen, Major Vardon, Mrs. Livingstone, Viscount Goderich.

Here is the account he gave of his proceedings to his little daughter
Agnes:

"_River Shire, 1st June_ 1859.--We have been down to the
mouth of the river Zambesi in expectation of meeting a
man-of-war with salt provisions, but, none appearing on the
day appointed, we conclude that the Admiral has not received
my letters in time to send her. We have no post-office here,
so we buried a bottle containing a letter on an island in the
entrance to Kongone harbor. This we told the Admiral we
should do in case of not meeting the cruiser, and whoever
comes will search for our bottle and see another appointment
for 30th of July. This goes with despatches by way of
Quilimane, and I hope some day to get from you a letter by
the same route. We have got no news from home since we left
Liverpool, and we long now to hear how all goes on in Europe
and in India. I am now on my way to Tette, but we ran up the
Shire some forty miles to buy rice for our company. Uncle
Charles is there, He has had some fever, but is better. We
left him there about two months ago, and Dr. Kirk and I,
with some fifteen Makololo, ascended this river one hundred
miles in the 'Ma-Robert,' then left the vessel and proceeded
beyond that on foot till we had discovered a magnificent lake
called Shirwa (pronounced Shurwah). It was very grand, for we
could not see the end of it, though some way up a mountain;
and all around it are mountains much higher than any you see
in Scotland. One mountain stands in the lake, and people live
on it. Another, called Zomba, is more than six thousand feet
high, and people live on it too, for we could see their
gardens on its top, which is larger than from Glasgow to
Hamilton, or about from fifteen to eighteen miles. The
country is quite a Highland region, and many people live in
it. Most of them were afraid of us. The women ran into their
huts and shut the doors. The children screamed in terror, and
even the hens would fly away and leave their chickens. I
suppose you would be frightened, too, if you saw strange
creatures, say a lot of Trundlemen, like those on the Isle of
Man pennies, come whirling up the street. No one was impudent
to us except some slave-traders, but they became civil as
soon as they learned we were English and not Portuguese. We
saw the sticks they employ for training any one whom they
have just bought. One is is about eight feet long, the head,
or neck rather, is put into the space between the dotted
lines and shaft, and another slave carries the end. When they
are considered tame they are allowed to go in chains.

[Illustration]

"I am working in the hope that in the course of time this
horrid system may cease. All the country we traveled through
is capable of growing cotton and sugar, and the people now
cultivate a good deal. They would grow much more if they
could only sell it. At present we in England are the mainstay
of slavery in America and elsewhere by buying slave-grown
produce. Here there are hundreds of miles of land lying
waste, and so rich that the grass towers far over one's head
in walking. You cannot see where the narrow paths end, the
grass is so tall and overhangs them so. If our countrymen
were here they would soon render slave-buying unprofitable.
Perhaps God may honor us to open up the way for this. My
heart is sore when I think of so many of our countrymen in
poverty and misery, while they might be doing so much good to
themselves and others where our Heavenly Father has so
abundantly provided fruitful hills and fertile valleys. If
our people were out here they would not need to cultivate
little snatches by the side of railways as they do. But all
is in the hands of the all-wise Father We must trust that He
will bring all out right at last.

"My dear Agnes, you must take Him to be your Father and
Guide. Tell Him all that is in your heart, and make Him your
confidant. His ear is ever open, and He despiseth not the
humblest sigh. He is your best friend and loves at all times.
It is not enough to be a servant, you must be a friend of
Jesus. Love Him and surrender your entire being to Him. The
more you trust Him, casting all your care upon Him, the more
He is pleased, and He will so guide you that your life will
be for his own glory. The Lord be with you. My kind love to
Grandma and to all your friends. I hope your eyes are better,
and that you are able to read books for yourself. Tell Tom
that we caught a young elephant in coming down the Shire,
about the size of the largest dog he ever saw, but one of the
Makololo, in a state of excitement, cut its trunk, so that it
bled very much, and died in two days. Had it lived we should
have sent it to the Queen, as no African elephant was ever
seen in England. No news from mamma and Oswell.

Another evidence of the place of his children in his thoughts is found
in the following lines in his Journal:

"_20th June_, 1859.--I cannot and will not attribute any of
the public attention which has been awakened to my own wisdom
or ability. The great Power being my Helper, I shall always
say that my success is all owing to his favor. I have been
the channel of the Divine Power, and I pray that his gracious
influence may penetrate me so that all may turn to the
advancement of his gracious reign in this fallen world.

"Oh, may the mild influence of the Eternal Spirit enter the
bosoms of my children, penetrate their souls, and diffuse
through their whole natures the everlasting love of God in
Jesus Christ! Holy, gracious, almighty Power, I hide myself
in Thee through Thy almighty Son. Take my children under Thy
care. Purify them and fit them for Thy service. Let the beams
of the Sun of Righteousness produce spring, summer, and
harvest in them for Thee."

The short trip from Kongone to Tette and back was marked by some changes
in the composition of the party. The Kroomen being found to be useless,
were shipped on board a man-of-war. The services of two members of the
Expedition were also dispensed with, as they were not found to be
promoting its ends. Livingstone would not pay the public money to men
who, he believed, were not thoroughly earning it. To these troubles was
added the constantly increasing mortification arising from the state
of the ship.

It has sometimes been represented, in view of such facts as have just
been recorded, that Livingstone was imperious and despotic in the
management of other men, otherwise he and his comrades would have got on
better together. The accusation, even at first sight, has an air of
improbability, for Livingstone's nature was most kindly, and it was the
aim of his life to increase enjoyment. In explanation of the friction on
board his ship it must be remembered that his party were a sort of
scratch crew brought together without previous acquaintance or knowledge
of each other's ways; that the heat and the mosquitoes, the delays, the
stoppages on sandbanks, the perpetual struggle for fuel[59], the
monotony of existence, with so little to break it, and the irritating
influence of the climate, did not tend to smooth their tempers or
increase the amenities of life. The malarious climate had a most
disturbing effect. No one, it is said, who has not experienced it, could
imagine the sensation of misery connected with the feverish attacks so
common in the low districts. And Livingstone had difficulties in
managing his countrymen he had not in managing the natives. He was so
conscientious, so deeply in earnest, so hard a worker himself, that he
could endure nothing that seemed like playing or trifling with duty.
Sometimes, too, things were harshly represented to him, on which a
milder construction might have been put. One of those with whom he
parted at this time afterward rejoined the Expedition, his pay being
restored on Livingstone's intercession. Those who continued to enjoy his
friendship were never weary of speaking of his delightful qualities as a
companion in travel, and the warm sunshine which he had the knack of
spreading around.

[Footnote 59: This was incredible. Livingstone wrote to his friend Jose
Nunes that it took all hands a day and a half to cut one day's fuel.]

A third trip up the Shire was made in August, and on the 16th of
September Lake Nyassa was discovered. Livingstone had no doubt that he
and his party were the discoverers; Dr. Roscher, on whose behalf a claim
was subsequently made, was two months later, and his unfortunate murder
by the natives made it doubtful at what point he reached the lake. The
discovery of Lake Nyassa, as well as Lake Shirwa, was of immense
importance, because they were both parallel to the ocean, and the whole
traffic of the regions beyond must pass by this line. The configuration
of the Shire Valley, too, was favorable to colonization. The valley
occupied three different levels. First there was a plain on the level of
the river, like that of the Nile, close and hot. Rising above this to
the east there was another plain, 2000 feet high, three or four miles
broad, salubrious and pleasant. Lastly, there was a third plain 3000
feet above the second, positively cold. To find such varieties of
climate within a few miles of each other was most interesting.

In other respects the region opened up was remarkable. There was a great
amount of fertile land, and the products were almost endless. The people
were industrious; in the Upper Shire, notwithstanding a great love of
beer, they lived usually to a great age. Cleanliness was not a universal
virtue; the only way in which the Expedition could get rid of a
troublesome follower was by threatening to wash him. The most
disagreeable thing in the appearance of the women was their
lip-ornament, consisting of a ring of ivory or tin, either hollow or
made into a cup, inserted in the upper lip. Dr. Livingstone used to give
full particulars of this fearful practice, having the idea that the
taste of ladies at home in dress and ornament was not free from similar
absurdity; or, as he wrote at this time to the Royal Geographical
Society of Vienna, in acknowledging the honor of being made a
corresponding member, "because our own ladies, who show so much virtuous
perseverance with their waists, may wish to try lip-ornament too." In
regard to the other sex, he informed the same Society: "I could see
nothing encouraging for the gentlemen who are anxious to prove that we
are all descended from a race that wore tails."

In the highland regions of the Shire Valley, the party were distinctly
conscious of an increase of energy, from the more bracing climate. Dr.
Livingstone was thoroughly convinced that these highlands of the Shire
Valley were the proper locality for commercial and missionary stations.
Thus one great object of the Expedition was accomplished. In another
point of view, this locality would be highly serviceable for stations.
It was the great pathway for conveying slaves from the north and
northwest to Zanzibar. Of this he had only too clear evidence in the
gangs of slaves whom he saw marched along from time to time, and whom he
would have been most eager to release had he known of any way of
preventing them from falling again into the hands of the slave-sellers.
In this region Englishmen "might enjoy good health, and also be of
signal benefit, by leading the multitude of industrious inhabitants to
cultivate cotton, maize, sugar, and other valuable produce, to exchange
for goods of European manufacture, at the same time teaching them, by
precept and example, the great truths of our holy religion."
Water-carriage existed all the way from England, with the exception of
the Murchison Cataracts, along which a road of forty miles might easily
be made. A small steamer on the lake would do more good in suppressing
the slave-trade than half-a-dozen men-of-war in the ocean. If the
Zambesi could be opened to commerce the bright vision of the last ten
years would be realized, and the Shire Valley and banks of the Nyassa
transformed into the garden of the Lord.

From the very first Livingstone saw the importance of the Shire Valley
and Lake Nyassa as the key to Central Africa. Ever since, it has become
more and more evident that his surmise was correct. To make the
occupation thoroughly effective, he thought much of the desirableness
of a British colony, and was prepared to expend a great part of the
remainder of his private means to carry it into effect. On August 4th,
he says in his Journal:

"I have a very strong desire to commence a system of
colonization of the honest poor; I would give L2000 or L3000
for the purpose. Intend to write my friend Young about it,
and authorize him to draw if the project seems feasible. The
Lord remember my desire, sanctify my motives, and purify all
my desires. Wrote him.

"Colonization from a country such as ours ought to be one of
hope, and not of despair. It ought not to be looked upon as
the last and worst shift that a family can come to, but the
performance of an imperative duty to our blood, our country,
our religion, and to humankind. As soon as children begin to
be felt an incumbrance, and what was properly in ancient
times Old Testament blessings are no longer welcomed, parents
ought to provide for removal to parts of this wide world
where every accession is an addition of strength, and every
member of the household feels in his inmost heart, 'the more
the merrier.' It is a monstrous evil that all our healthy,
handy, blooming daughters of England have not a fair chance
at least to become the centres of domestic affections. The
state of society, which precludes so many of them from
occupying the position which Englishwomen are so well
calculated to adorn, gives rise to enormous evils in the
opposite sex,--evils and wrongs which we dare not even
name,--and national colonization is almost the only remedy.
Englishwomen are, in general, the most beautiful in the
world, and yet our national emigration has often, by
selecting the female emigrants from workhouses, sent forth
the ugliest huzzies in creation to be the mothers--the model
mothers--of new empires. Here, as in other cases, State
necessities have led to the ill-formed and ill-informed being
preferred to the well-formed and well-inclined honest poor,
as if the worst as well as better qualities of mankind did
not often run in the blood."

The idea of the colony quite fascinated Livingstone, and we find him
writing on it fully to three of his most confidential business
friends--Mr. Maclear, Mr. Young, and Sir Roderick Murchison. In all
Livingstone's correspondence we find the tone of his letters modified by
the character of his correspondents. While to Mr. Young and Sir Roderick
he is somewhat cautious on the subject of the colony, knowing the keen
practical eye they would direct on the proposal, to Mr. Maclear he is
more gushing. He writes to him:

"I feel such a gush of emotion on thinking of the great work
before us that I must unburden my mind. I am becoming every
day more decidedly convinced that English colonization is an
essential ingredient for our large success.... In this new
region of Highlands no end of good could be effected in
developing the trade in cotton and in discouraging that in
slaves.... You know how I have been led on from one step to
another by the overruling Providence of the great Parent, as
I believe, in order to a great good for Africa. 'Commit thy
way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will bring it to
pass.' I have tried to do this, and now see the prospect in
front spreading out grandly.... But how is the land so
promising to be occupied?... How many of our home poor are
fighting hard to keep body and soul together! My heart yearns
over our own poor when I see so much of God's fair earth
unoccupied. Here it is really so; for the people have only a
few sheep and goats, and no cattle. I wonder why we cannot
have the old monastery system without the celibacy. In no
other part where I have been does the prospect of
self-support seem so inviting, and promising so much
influence. Most of what is done for the poor has especial
reference to the blackguard poor."

In his letter to Mr. Young he expressed his conviction that a great
desideratum in mission agency was missionary emigration by honest
Christian poor to give living examples of Christian life that would
insure permanency to the gospel once planted. He had always had a warm
side to the English and Scottish poor--his own order, indeed. If twenty
or thirty families would come out as an experiment, he was ready to give
L2000 without saying from whom. He bids Mr. Young speak about the plan
to Thorn of Chorley, Turner of Manchester, Lord Shaftesbury, and the
Duke of Argyll. "Now, my friend," he adds, "do your best, and God's
blessing be with you. Much is done for the blackguard poor. Let us
remember our own class, and do good while we have opportunity. I hereby
authorize you to act in my behalf, and do whatever is to be done without
hesitancy."

These letters, and their references to the honest poor, are
characteristic. We have seen that among Dr. Livingstone's forefathers
and connections were some very noble specimens of the honest poor. It
touched him to think that, with all their worth, their life had been one
protracted struggle. His sympathies were cordially with the class. He
desired with all his heart to see them with a little less of the burden
and more of the comfort of life. And he believed very thoroughly that,
as Christian settlers in a heathen country, they might do more to
promote Christianity among the natives than solitary missionaries could
accomplish.

His parents and sisters were not forgotten. His letters to home are
again somewhat in the apologetic vein. He feels that some explanation
must be given of his own work, and some vindication of his coadjutors:

"We are working hard," he writes to his mother, "at what some
can see at a glance the importance of, while to others we
appear following after the glory of discovering lakes,
mountains, jenny-nettles, and puddock-stools. In reference to
these people I always remember a story told me by the late
Dr. Philip with great glee. When a young minister in
Aberdeen, he visited an old woman in affliction, and began to
talk very fair to her on the duty of resignation, trusting,
hoping, and all the rest of it, when the old woman looked up
into his face, and said, 'Peer thing, ye ken naething aboot
it.' This is what I say to those who set themselves up to
judge another man's servant. We hope our good Master may
permit us to do some good to our fellow-men."

His correspondence with Sir Roderick Murchison is likewise full of the
idea of the colony. He is thoroughly persuaded that no good will ever be
done by the Portuguese. They are a worn-out people--utterly worn out by
disease--their stamina consumed. Fresh European blood must be poured
into Africa. In consequence of recent discoveries, he now sees his way
open, and all his hopes of benefit to England and Africa about to be
realized. This must have been one of Livingstone's happiest times.
Visions of Christian colonies, of the spread of arts and civilization,
of the progress of Christianity and the Christian graces, of the
cultivation of cotton and the disappearance of the slave-trade, floated
before him. Already the wilderness seemed to be blossoming. But the
bright consummation was not so near as it seemed. One source of mischief
was yet unchecked, and from it disastrous storms were preparing to break
on the enterprise.

On his way home, Dr. Livingstone's health was not satisfactory, but this
did not keep him from duty. "14_th October>_.--Went on 17th part way up
to Murchison's Cataracts, and yesterday reached it. Very ill with
bleeding from the bowels and purging. Bled all night. Got up at one A.M.
to take latitude."

At length, on 4th November, 1859, letters reached him from his family.
"A letter from Mrs. L. says we were blessed with a little daughter on
16th November, 1858, at Kuruman. A fine healthy child. The Lord bless
and make her his own child in heart and life!" She had been nearly a
year in the world before he heard of her existence.




CHAPTER XIII.

GOING HOME WITH THE MAKOLOLO.

A.D. 1860.

Down to Kongone--State of the ship--Further delay--Letter to Secretary
of Universities Mission--Letter to Mr. Braithwaite--At Tette--Miss
Whately's sugar-mill--With his brother and Kirk at Kebrabasa--Mode of
traveling--Reappearence of old friends--African warfare and its
effects--Desolation--A European colony desirable--Escape from
rhinoceros--Rumors of Moffat--The Portuguese local Governors oppose
Livingstone--He becomes unpopular with them--Letter to Mr. Young--Wants
of the country--The Makololo--Approach home--Some are disappointed--News
of the death of the London missionaries, the Helmores and others--Letter
to Dr. Moffat--The Victoria Falls re-examined--Sekeletu ill of
leprosy--Treatment and recovery--His disappointment at not seeing Mrs.
Livingstone--Efforts for the spiritual good of the Makololo--Careful
observations in Natural History--The last of the "Ma-Robert"--Cheering
prospect of the Universities Mission--Letter to Mr. Moore--to Mr.
Young--He wishes another ship--Letter to Sir Roderick Murchison on the
rumored journey of Silva Porto.


It was necessary to go down to Kongone for the repair of the ship.
Livingstone was greatly disappointed with it, and thought the greed of
the vendor had supplied him with a very inferior article for the price
of a good one. He thus pours forth his vexation in writing to a friend:
"Very grievous it is to be standing here tinkering when we might be
doing good service to the cause of African civilization, and that on
account of insatiable greediness. Burton may thank L. and B. that we are
not at the other lakes before him. The loss of time greediness has
inflicted on us has been frightful. My plan in this Expedition was
excellent, but it did not include provisions against hypocrisy and
fraud, which have sorely crippled us, and, indeed, ruined us, as a
scientific Expedition."

Another delay was caused before they went inward, from their having to
wait for a season suitable for hunting, as the party had to be kept in
food. The mail from England had been lost, and they had the bitter
disappointment of losing a year's correspondence from home. The
following portions of a letter to the Secretary of the Committee for a
Universities Mission gives a view of the situation at this time:

"RIVER ZAMBESI, 26_th Jan._, 1860.

"The defects we have unfortunately experienced in the
'Ma-Robert,' or rather the 'Asthmatic,' are so numerous that
it would require a treatise as long as a lawyer's
specification of any simple subject to give you any idea of
them, and they have inflicted so much toil that a feeling of
sickness comes over me when I advert to them.

"No one will ever believe the toil we have been put to in
woodcutting. The quantity consumed is enormous, and we cannot
get sufficient for speed into the furnace. It was only a
dogged determination not to be beaten that carried me
through.... But all will come out right at last. We are not
alone, though truly we deserve not his presence. He
encourages the trust that is granted by the word, 'I am with
you, even unto the end of the world.'...

"It is impossible for you to conceive how backward everything
is here, and the Portuguese are not to be depended upon;
their establishments are only small penal settlements, and as
no women are sent out, the state of morals is frightful. The
only chance of success is away from them; nothing would
prosper in their vicinity. After all, I am convinced that
were Christianity not divine, it would be trampled out by its
professors. Dr. Kirk, Mr. C. Livingstone, and Mr. Rae, with
two English seamen, do well. We are now on our way up the
river to the Makololo country, but must go overland from
Kebrabasa, or in a whaler. We should be better able to plan
our course if our letters had not been lost. We have never
been idle, and do not mean to be. We have been trying to get
the Portuguese Government to acknowledge free-trade on this
river, and but for long delay in our letters the negotiation
might have been far advanced. I hope Lord John Russell will
help in this matter, and then we must have a small colony or
missionary and mercantile settlement. If this our desire is
granted, it is probable we shall have no cause to lament our
long toil and detention here. My wife's letters, too, were
lost, so I don't know how or where she is. Our separation,
and the work I have been engaged in, were not contemplated,
but they have led to our opening a path into the fine
cotton-field in the North. You will see that the discoveries
of Burton and Speke confirm mine respecting the form of the
continent and its fertility. It is an immense field. I crave
the honor of establishing a focus of Christianity in it, but
should it not be granted, I will submit as most unworthy. I
have written Mr. Venn twice, and from yours I see something
is contemplated in Cambridge.... If young men come to this
country, they must lay their account with doing everything
for themselves. They must not expect to find influence at
once, and all the countries near to the Portuguese have been
greatly depopulated. We are now ascending this river without
vegetables, and living on salt beef and pork. The slave-trade
has done its work, for formerly all kinds of provisions could
be procured at every point, and at the cheapest rate. We
cannot get anything for either love or money, in a country
the fertility of which is truly astonishing.

A few more general topics are touched on in a letter to Mr. Braithwaite:

"I am sorry to hear of the death of Mr. Sturge. He wrote me a
long letter on the 'Peace principle,' and before I could
study it carefully, it was mislaid. I wrote him from Tette,
as I did not wish him to suppose I neglected him, and
mentioned the murder of the six Makololo and other things, as
difficulties in the way of adopting his views, as they were
perfectly unarmed, and there was no feud between the tribes.
I fear that my letter may not have reached him alive. The
departure of Sir Fowell Buxton and others is very unexpected.
Sorry to see the loss of Dr. Bowen, of Sierra Leone--a good
man and a true. But there is One who ever liveth to make
intercession for us, and to carry on his own work. A terrible
war that was in Italy, and the peace engenders more uneasy
forebodings than any peace ever heard of. It is well that God
and not the devil reigns, and will bring his own purposes to
pass, right through the midst of the wars and passions of
men. Have you any knowledge of a famous despatch written by
Sir George Grey (late of the Cape), on the proper treatment
of native tribes? I wish to study it.

"Tell your children that if I could get hold of a
hippopotamus I would eat it rather than allow it to eat me.
We see them often, but before we get near enough to get a
shot they dive down, and remain hidden till we are past. As
for lions, we never see them, sometimes hear a roar or two,
but that is all, and I go on the plan put forth by a little
girl in Scotland who saw a cow coming to her in a meadow, 'O
boo! boo! you no hurt me, I no hurt you.'"

At Tette one of his occupations was to fit up a sugar-mill, the gift of
Miss Whately, of Dublin, and some friends. To that lady he writes a
long letter of nineteen pages. He tells her he had just put up her
beautiful sugar-mill, to show the natives what could be done by
machinery. Then he adverts to the wonderful freedom from sickness that
his party had enjoyed in the delta of the Zambesi, and proceeds to give
an account of the Shire Valley and its people. He finds ground for a
favorable contrast between the Shire natives and the Tette Portuguese:

"They (the natives) have fences made to guard the women from
the alligators, all along the Shire: at Tette they have none,
and two women were taken past our vessel in the mouths of
these horrid brutes. The number of women taken is so great as
to make the Portuguese swear every time they speak of them,
and yet, when I proposed to the priest to make a collection
for a fence, and offered twenty dollars, he only smiled. You
Protestants don't know all the good you do by keeping our
friends of the only true and infallible Church up to their
duty. Here, and in Angola, we see how it is, when they are
not provoked--if not to love, to good works....

"On telling the Makololo that the sugar-mill had been sent to
Sekeletu by a lady, who collected a sum among other ladies to
buy it, they replied, 'O na le pelu'--she has a heart. I was
very proud of it, and so were they.

"... With reference to the future, I am trying to do what I
did before--obey the injunction, 'Commit thy way to the Lord,
trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.' And I hope
that He will make some use of me. My attention is now
directed specially to the fact that there is no country
better adapted for producing the raw materials of English
manufactures than this....

"See to what a length I have run. I have become palaverist. I
beg you to present my respectful salutation to the Archbishop
and Mrs. Whately, and should you meet any of the kind
contributors, say how thankful I am to them all."

From Tette he writes to Sir Roderick Murchison, 7th February, 1860,
urging his plan for a steamer on Lake Nyassa: "If Government furnishes
the means, all right; if not, I shall spend my book-money on it. I don't
need to touch the children's fund, and mine could not be better spent.
People who are born rich sometimes become miserable from a fear of
becoming poor; but I have the advantage, you see, in not being afraid
to die poor. If I live, I must succeed in what I have undertaken; death
alone will put a stop to my efforts."

A month after he writes to the same friend, from Kongone, 10th March,
1860, that he is sending Rae home for a vessel:

"I tell Lord John Russell that he (Rae) may thereby do us
more service than he can now do in a worn-out steamer, with
35 patches, covering at least 100 holes. I say to his
Lordship, that after we have, by patient investigation and
experiment, at the risk of life, rendered the fever not more
formidable than a common cold; found access, from a good
harbor on the coast, to the main stream; and discovered a
pathway into the magnificent Highland lake region, which
promises so fairly for our commerce in cotton, and for our
policy in suppressing the trade in slaves, I earnestly hope
that he will crown our efforts by securing our free passage
through those parts of the Zambesi and Shire of which the
Portuguese make no use, and by enabling us to introduce
civilization in a manner which will extend the honor and
influence of the English name."

In his communications with the Government at home, Livingstone never
failed to urge the importance of their securing the free navigation of
the Zambesi. The Portuguese on the river were now beginning to get an
inkling of his drift, and to feel indignant at any countenance he was
receiving from their own Government.

Passing up the Zambesi with Charles Livingstone, Dr. Kirk, and such of
the Makololo as were willing to go home, Dr. Livingstone took a new look
at Kebrabasa, from a different point, still believing that in flood it
would allow a steamer to pass. Of his mode of traveling we have some
pleasant glimpses. He always tried to make progress more a pleasure than
a toil, and found that kindly consideration for the feelings even of
blacks, the pleasure of observing scenery and everything new, as one
moves on at an ordinary pace, and the participation in the most
delightful rest with his fellows, made traveling delightful. He was
gratified to find that he was as able for the fatigue as the natives.
Even the headman, who carried little more than he did himself, and
never, like him, hunted in the afternoon, was not equal to him. The
hunting was no small addition to the toil; the tired hunter was often
tempted to give it up, after bringing what would have been only
sufficient for the three whites, and leave the rest, thus sending "the
idle, ungrateful poor" supperless to bed. But this was not his way. The
blacks were thought of in hunting as well as the whites. "It is only by
continuance in well-doing," he says, "even to the length of what the
worldly-wise call weakness, that the conviction is produced anywhere,
that our motives are high enough to secure sincere respect."

As they proceeded, some of his old acquaintances reappeared, notably
Mpende, who had given him such a threatening reception, but had now
learned that he belonged to a tribe "that loved the black man and did
not make slaves." A chief named Pangola appeared, at first tipsy and
talkative, demanding a rifle, and next morning, just as they were
beginning divine service, reappeared sober to press his request. Among
the Baenda-Pezi, or Go-Nakeds, whose only clothing is a coat of red
ochre, a noble specimen of the race appeared in full dress, consisting
of a long tobacco-pipe, and brought a handsome present.

The country bore the usual traces of the results of African warfare. At
times a clever chief stands up, who brings large tracts under his
dominion; at his death his empire dissolves, and a fresh series of
desolating wars ensues. In one region which was once studded with
villages, they walked a whole week without meeting any one. A European
colony, he was sure, would be invaluable for constraining the tribes to
live in peace. "Thousands of industrious natives would gladly settle
round it, and engage in that peaceful pursuit of agriculture and trade
of which they are so fond, and, undistracted by wars and rumors of
wars, might listen to the purifying and ennobling truths of the gospel
of Jesus Christ." At Zumbo, the most picturesque site in the country,
they saw the ruins of Jesuit missions, reminding them that there men
once met to utter the magnificent words, "Thou art the King of Glory, O
Christ!" but without leaving one permanent trace of their labors in the
belief and worship of the people.

Wherever they go, Dr. Livingstone has his eye on the trees and plants
and fruits of the region, with a view to commerce; while he is no less
interested to watch the treatment of fever, when cases occur, and
greatly gratified that Dr. Kirk, who had been trying a variety of
medicines on himself, made rapid recovery when he took Dr. Livingstone's
pills. He used to say if he had followed Morison, and set up as
pill-maker, he might have made his fortune. Passing through the Bazizulu
he had an escape from a rhinoceros, as remarkable though not quite as
romantic as his escape from the lion; the animal came dashing at him,
and suddenly, for some unknown reason, stopped when close to him, and
gave him time to escape, as if it had been struck by his color, and
doubtful if hunting a white man would be good sport.

At a month's distance from Mosilikatse, they heard a report that the
missionaries had been there, that they had told the chief that it was
wrong to kill men, and that the chief had said he was born to kill
people, but would drop the practice--an interesting testimony to the
power of Mr. Moffat's words. Everywhere the Makololo proclaimed that
they were the friends of peace, and their course was like a triumphal
procession, the people of the villages loading them with presents.

But a new revelation came to Dr. Livingstone. Though the Portuguese
Government had given public orders that he was to be aided in every
possible way, it was evident that private instructions had come, which,
unintentionally perhaps, certainly produced the opposite effects. The
Portuguese who were engaged in the slave-trade were far too much devoted
to it ever to encourage an enterprise that aimed at extirpating it.
Indeed, it became painfully apparent to Dr. Livingstone that the effect
of his opening up the Zambesi had been to afford the Portuguese traders
new facilities for conducting their unhallowed traffic; and had it not
been for his promise to bring back the Makololo, he would now have
abandoned the Zambesi and tried the Rovuma, as a way of reaching Nyassa.
His future endeavors in connection with the Rovuma receive their
explanation from this unwelcome discovery. The significance of the
discovery in other respects cannot fail to be seen. Hitherto Livingstone
had been on friendly terms with the Portuguese Government; he could be
so no longer. The remarkable kindness he had so often received from
Portuguese officers and traders made it a most painful trial to break
with the authorities. But there was no alternative. Livingstone's
courage was equal to the occasion, though he could not but see that his
new attitude to the Portuguese must give an altered aspect to his
Expedition, and create difficulties that might bring it to an end.

A letter to Mr. James Young, dated 22d July, near Kalosi, gives a free
and familiar account of "what he was about":

"This is July, 1860, and no letter from you except one
written a few months after we sailed in the year of grace
1858. What you are doing I cannot divine. I am ready to
believe any mortal thing except that Louis Napoleon has taken
you away to make paraffin oil for the Tuileries. I don't
believe that he is supreme ruler, or that he can go an inch
beyond his tether. Well, as I cannot conceive what you are
about, I must tell you what we are doing, and we are just
trudging up the Zambesi as if there were no steam and no
locomotive but shank's nag yet discovered....

"We have heard of a mission for the Interior from the English
Universities, and this is the best news we have got since we
came to Africa. I have recommended up Shire as a proper
sphere, and hasten back so as to be in the way if any
assistance can be rendered. I rejoice at the prospect with
all my heart, and am glad, too, that it is to be a Church of
England Mission, for that Church has never put forth its
strength, and I trust this may draw it forth. I am tired of
discovery when no fruit follows. It was refreshing to be able
to sit down every evening with the Makololo again, and tell
them of Him who came down from heaven to save sinners. The
unmerciful toil of the steamer prevented me from following my
bent as I should have done. Poor fellows! they have learnt no
good from their contact with slavery; many have imbibed the
slave spirit; many had married slave-women and got children.
These I did not expect to return, as they were captives of
Sekeletu, and were not his own proper people. All professed a
strong desire to return. To test them I proposed to burn
their village, but to this they would not assent. We then
went out a few miles and told them that any one wishing to
remain might do so without guilt. A few returned, but though
this was stated to them repeatedly afterward they preferred
running away like slaves. I never saw any of the interior
people so devoid of honor. Some complained of sickness, and
all these I sent back, intrusting them with their burdens.
About twenty-five returned in all to live at Tette. Some were
drawn away by promises made to them as elephant-hunters. I
had no objection to their trying to better their condition,
but was annoyed at finding that they would not tell their
intentions, but ran away as if I were using compulsion. I
have learned more of the degrading nature of slavery of late
than I ever conceived before. Our 20 millions were well spent
in ridding ourselves of the incubus, and I think we ought to
assist our countrymen in the West Indies to import free labor
from India.... I cannot tell you how glad I am at a prospect
of a better system being introduced into Eastern Africa than
that which has prevailed for ages, the evils of which have
only been intensified by Portuguese colonization, as it is
called. Here we are passing through a well-peopled, fruitful
region--a prolonged valley, for we have the highlands far on
our right. I did not observe before that all the banks of the
Zambesi are cotton-fields. I never intended to write a book
and take no note of cotton, which I now see everywhere. On
the Chongwe we found a species which is cultivated south of
the Zambesi, which resembles some kinds from South America.

"All that is needed is religious and mercantile
establishments to begin a better system and promote peaceful
intercourse. Here we are among a people who go stark naked
with no more sense of shame than we have with our clothes on.
The women have more sense and go decently. You see great
he-animals all about your camp carrying their indispensable
tobacco-pipes and iron tongs to lift fire with, but the idea
of a fig-leaf has never entered the mind. They cultivate
largely have had enormous crops of grain, work well in iron,
and show taste in their dwellings, stools, baskets, and
musical instruments. They are very hospitable, too, and
appreciate our motives; but shame has been unaccountably left
out of the question. They can give no reason for it except
that all their ancestors went exactly as they do. Can you
explain why Adam's first feeling has no trace of existence in
his offspring?"

When the party reached the outskirts of Sekeletu's territory the news
they heard was not encouraging. Some of the men heard that in their
absence some of their wives had been variously disposed of. One had been
killed for witchcraft, another had married again, while Masakasa was
told that two years ago a kind of wild Irish wake had been celebrated in
honor of his memory; the news made him resolve, when he presented
himself among them, to declare himself an inhabitant from another world!
One poor fellow's wail of anguish for his wife was most distressing
to hear.

But far more tragical was the news of the missionaries who had gone from
the London Missionary Society to Linyanti, to labor among Sekeletu's
people. Mr. and Mrs. Helmore and several of his party had succumbed to
fever, and the survivors had retired. Dr. Livingstone was greatly
distressed, and not a little hurt, because he had not heard a word about
the mission, nor been asked advice about any of the arrangements. If
only the Helmores and their comrades had followed the treatment
practiced by him so often, and in this very valley at this time by his
brother Charles, they would probably have recovered. All spoke kindly of
Mr. Helmore, who had quite won the hearts of the people. Knowing their
language, he had at once begun to preach, and some of the young men at
Sesheke were singing the hymns he had taught them. Rumors had gone
abroad that some of the missionaries had been poisoned. In some quarters
blame was cast on Livingstone for having misled the Society as to the
character of Sekeletu and his disposition toward missionaries; but
Livingstone satisfied himself that, though the missionaries had been
neglected no foul play had taken place; fever alone had caused the
deaths, and want of skill in managing the people had brought the
remainder of the troubles. One piece of good news which he heard at
Linyanti was that his old friend Sechele was doing well. He had a
Hanoverian missionary, nine tribes were under him, and the schools were
numerously attended.

Writing to Dr. Moffat, 10th August, 1860, from Zambesi Falls, he says:

"With great sorrow we learned the death of our much-esteemed
friends, Mr. and Mrs. Helmore, two days ago. We were too late
to be of any service, for the younger missionaries had
retired, probably dispirited by the loss of their leader. It
is evident that the fever when untreated is as fatal now as
it proved in the case of Commodore Owen's officers in this
river, or in the great Niger Expedition. And yet what poor
drivel was poured forth when I adopted energetic measures for
speedily removing any Europeans out of the Delta. We were not
then aware that the remedy which was first found efficacious
in our own little Thomas on Lake 'Ngami, in 1850, and that
cured myself and attendants during my solitary journeyings,
was a certain cure for the disease, without loss of strength
in Europeans generally. This we now know by ample experience
to be the case. Warburg's drops, which have a great
reputation in India, here cause profuse perspiration only,
and the fever remains uncured. With our remedy, of which we
make no secret, a man utterly prostrated is roused to resume
his march next day. I have sent the prescription to John, as
I doubt being able to go so far South as Mosilikatse's.

Again the grand Victoria Falls are reached, and Charles Livingstone, who
has seen Niagara, gives the preference to Mosi-oa-tunya. By the route
which they took, they would have passed the Falls at twenty miles'
distance, but Dr. Livingstone could not resist the temptation to show
them to his companions. All his former computations as to their size
were found to be considerably within the mark; instead of a thousand
yards broad they were more than eighteen hundred, and whereas he had
said that the height of fall was about 100 feet, it turned out to be
310. His habit of keeping within the mark in all his statements of
remarkable things was thus exemplified.

On coming among his old friends the Makololo, he found them in low
spirits owing to protracted drought, and Sekeletu was ill of leprosy. He
was in the hands of a native doctress, who was persuaded to suspend her
treatment, and the lunar caustic applied by Drs. Livingstone and Kirk
had excellent effects[60]. On going to Linyanti, Dr. Livingstone found
the wagon and other articles which he had left there in 1853, safe and
sound, except from the effects of weather and the white ants. The
expressions of kindness and confidence toward him on the part of the
natives greatly touched him. The people were much disappointed at not
seeing Mrs. Livingstone and the children. But this confidence was the
result of his way of dealing with them. "It ought never to be forgotten
that influence among the heathen can be acquired only by patient
continuance in well-doing, and that good manners are as necessary among
barbarians as among the civilized." The Makololo were the most
interesting tribe that Dr. Livingstone had ever seen. While now with
them he was unwearied in his efforts for their spiritual good. In his
Journal we find these entries:

[Footnote 60: In 1864, while residing at Newstead Abbey, and writing his
book, _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_, Dr. Livingstone heard of the
death of Sekeletu.]

"_September_ 2, 1860.--On Sunday evening went over to the
people, giving a general summary of Christian faith by the
life of Christ. Asked them to speak about it afterward.
Replied that these things were above them--they could not
answer me. I said if I spoke of camels and buffaloes tamed,
they understood, though they had never seen them; why not
perceive the story of Christ, the witnesses to which refused
to deny it, though killed for maintaining it? Went on to
speak of the resurrection. All were listening eagerly to the
statements about this, especially when they heard that they,
too, must rise and be judged. Lerimo said, 'This I won't
believe.' 'Well, the guilt lies between you and Jesus,' This
always arrests attention. Spoke of blood shed by them; the
conversation continued till they said, 'It was time for me to
cross, for the river was dangerous at night.'"

"_September_ 9.--Spoke to the people on the north side of
the river--wind prevented evening service on the south."

The last subject on which he preached before leaving them on this
occasion was the great resurrection. They told him they could not
believe a reunion of the particles of the body possible. Dr. Livingstone
gave them in reply a chemical illustration, and then referred to the
authority of the Book that taught them the doctrine. And the poor people
were more willing to give in to the authority of the Book than to the
chemical illustration!

In _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_ this journey to the Makololo
country and back occupies one-third of the volume, though it did not
lead to any very special results. But it enabled Dr. Livingstone to make
great additions to his knowledge both of the people and the country. His
observations are recorded with the utmost care, for though he might not
be able to turn them to immediate use, it was likely, and even certain,
that they would be useful some day. Indeed, the spirit of faith is
apparent in the whole narrative, as if he could not pass over even the
most insignificant details. The fish in the rivers, the wild animals in
the woods, the fissures in the rocks, the course of the streams, the
composition of the minerals and gravels, and a thousand other phenomena,
are carefully observed and chronicled. The crowned cranes beginning to
pair, the flocks of spurwinged geese, the habits of the ostrich, the
nests of bee-eaters, pass under review in rapid succession. His sphere
of observation ranges from the structure of the great continent itself
to the serrated bone of the konokono, or the mandible of the ant.

Leaving Sesheke on the 17th September, they reached Tette on the 23d
November, 1860, whence they started for Kongone with the unfortunate
"Ma-Robert." But the days of that asthmatic old lady were numbered. On
the 21st December she grounded on a sand-bank, and could not get off. A
few days before this catastrophe Livingstone writes to Mr. Young:

"_Lupata, 4th Dec_., 1860.--Many thanks for all you have been
doing about the steamer and everything else. You seem to have
gone about matters in a most business-like manner, and once
for all I assure you I am deeply grateful.

"We are now on our way down to the sea, in hopes of meeting
the new steamer for which you and other friends exerted
yourselves so zealously. We are in the old 'Asthmatic,'
though we gave her up before leaving in May last. Our
engineer has been doctoring her bottom with fat and patches,
and pronounced it safe to go down the river by dropping
slowly. Every day a new leak bursts out, and he is in
plastering and scoring, the pump going constantly. I would
not have ventured again, but our whaler is as bad,--all eaten
by the teredo,--so I thought it as well to take both, and
stick to that which swims longest. You can put your thumb
through either of them; they never can move again; I never
expected to find either afloat, but the engineer had nothing
else to do, and it saves us from buying dear canoes from the
Portuguese.

"_20th Dec._--One day, above Senna, the 'Ma-Robert' stuck on
a sand-bank and filled, so we had to go ashore and leave
her."

The correspondence of this year indicates a growing delight at the
prospect of the Universities Mission. It was this, indeed, mainly that
kept up his spirits under the depression caused by the failure of the
"Ma-Robert," and other mishaps of the Expedition, the endless delays and
worries that had resulted from that cause, and the manner in which both
the Portuguese and the French were counter-working him by encouraging
the slave-trade. While professedly encouraging emigration, the French
were really extending slavery.

Here is his lively account of himself to his friend Mr. Moore:

"TETTE, _28th November_, 1860.

"MY DEAR MOORE,--And why didn't you begin when you were so
often on the point of writing, but didn't? This that you have
accomplished is so far good, but very short. Hope you are not
too old to learn. You have heard of our hindrances and
annoyances, and, possibly, that we have done some work
notwithstanding. Thanks to Providence, we have made some
progress, and it is likely our operations will yet have a
decided effect on slave-trading in Eastern Africa. I am
greatly delighted with the prospect of a Church of England
mission to Central Africa. That is a good omen for those who
are sitting in darkness, and I trust that in process of time
great benefits will be conferred on our own overcrowded
population at home. There is room enough and to spare in the
fair world our Father has prepared for all his progeny. I
pray to be made a harbinger of good to many, both white
and black.

"I like to hear that some abuse me now, and say that I am *no
Christian. Many good things were said of me which I did not
deserve, and I feared to read them. I shall read every word I
can on the other side, and that will prove a sedative to what
I was forced to hear of an opposite tendency. I pray that He
who has lifted me up and guided me thus far, will not desert
me now, but make me useful in my day and generation. 'I will
never leave thee nor forsake thee.' So let it be.

"I saw poor Helmore's grave lately. Had my book been searched
for excellencies, they might have seen a certain cure for
African fever. We were curing it at a lower and worse part of
the river at the very time that they were helplessly
perishing, and so quickly, that more than a day was never
lost after the operation of the remedy, though we were
marching on foot. Our tramp was over 600 miles. We dropped
down stream again in canoes from Sinamanero to
Chicova--thence to this on shank's nag. We go down to the sea
immediately, to meet our new steamer. Our punt was a sham
and a snare.

"My love to Mary and all the children, with all our friends
at Congleton."

In a letter to Mr. James Young, Dr. Livingstone gives good reasons for
not wishing to push the colonization scheme at present, as he had
recommended to the Universities Mission to add a similar enterprise to
their undertaking:

"If you read all I have written you by this mail, you will
deserve to be called a literary character. I find that I did
not touch on the colonization scheme. I have not changed in
respect to it, but the Oxford and Cambridge mission have
taken the matter up, and as I shall do all I can to aid them,
a little delay will, perhaps, be advisable.

"We are waiting for our steamer, and expect her every day;
our first trip is a secret, and you will keep it so. We go to
the Rovuma, a river exterior to the Portuguese claims, as
soon as the vessel arrives. Captain Oldfield of the 'Lyra' is
sent already, to explore, as far as he can, in that ship. The
entrance is fine, and forty-five miles are known, but we keep
our movements secret from the Portuguese--and so must you;
they seize everything they see in the newspapers. Who are my
imprudent friends that publish everything? I suspect Mr.
----, of ----, but no one gives me a name or a clue. Some
expected me to feel sweet at being jewed by a false
philanthropist, and bamboozled by a silly R. N. I did not,
and could not, seem so; but I shall be more careful
in future.

"Again back to the colony. It is not to sleep, but
preparation must be made by collecting information, and
maturing our plans. I shall be able to give definite
instructions as soon as I see how the other mission works--at
its beginning--and when we see if the new route we may
discover has a better path to Nyassa than by Shire--we shall
choose the best, of course, and let you know as soon as
possible. I think the Government will not hold back if we
have a feasible plan to offer. I have recommended to the
Universities Mission a little delay till we explore,--and for
a working staff, two gardeners acquainted with farming; two
country carpenters, capable of erecting sheds and any rough
work; two traders to purchase and prepare cotton for
exportation; one general steward of mission goods, his wife
to be a good plain cook; one medical man, having knowledge of
chemistry enough to regulate _indigo_ and sugar-making. All
the attendants to be married, and their wives to be employed
in sewing, washing, attending the sick, etc., as need
requires. The missionaries not to think themselves deserving
a good English wife till they have erected a comfortable
abode for her."

In the Royal Geographical Society this year (1860), certain
communications were read which tended to call in question Livingstone's
right to some of the discoveries he had claimed as his own. Mr.
Macqueen, through whom these communications came, must have had peculiar
notions of discovery, for some time before, there had appeared in the
Cape papers a statement of his, that Lake 'Ngami of 1859 was no new
discovery, as Dr. Livingstone had visited it seven years before; and
Livingstone had to write to the papers in favor of the claims of Murray,
Oswell, and Livingstone, against himself! It had been asserted to the
Society by Mr. Macqueen, that Silva Porto, a Portuguese trader, had
shown him a journal describing a journey of his from Benguela on the
west to Ibo and Mozambique on the east, beginning November 26, 1852, and
terminating August, 1854. Of that journal Mr. Macqueen read a copious
abstract to the Society (June 27, 1859), which is published in the
Journal for 1860.

In a letter to Sir Roderick Murchison (20th February, 1861),
Livingstone, while exonerating Mr. Macqueen of all intention of
misleading, gives his reasons for doubting whether the journey to the
East Coast ever took place. He had met Porto at Linyanti in 1853, and
subsequently at Naliele, the Barotse capital, and had been told by him
that he had tried to go eastward, but had been obliged to turn, and was
then going westward, and wished him to accompany him, which he declined,
as he was a slave-trader; he had read his journal as it appeared in the
Loanda "Boletim," but there was not a word in it of a journey to the
East Coast; when the Portuguese minister had wished to find a rival to
Dr. Livingstone, he had brought forward, not Porto, as he would
naturally have done if this had been a genuine journey, but two black
men who came to Tette in 1815; in the Boletim of Mozambique there was no
word of the arrival of Porto there; in short, the part of the journal
founded on could not have been authentic. Livingstone felt keenly on the
subject of these rumors, not on his own account, but on account of the
Geographical Society and of Sir Roderick who had introduced him to it;
for nothing could have given him more pain than that either of these
should have had any slur thrown on them through him, or even been placed
for a time in an uncomfortable position.




CHAPTER XIV.

ROVUMA AND NYASSA--UNIVERSITIES MISSION.

A.D. 1861-1862.

Beginning of 1861--Arrival of the "Pioneer"--and of the agents of
Universities Mission--Cordial welcome--Livingstone's catholic
feelings--Ordered to explore the Rovuma--Bishop Mackenzie goes with
him--Returns to the Shire--Turning-point of prosperity past--Difficult
navigation--The slave-sticks--Bishop settles at Magomero--Hostilities
between Manganja and Ajawa--Attack of Mission party by
Ajawa--Livingstone's advice to Bishop regarding them--Letter to his son
Robert--Livingstone, Kirk, and Charles start for Lake Nyassa--Party
robbed at north of Lake--Dismal activity of the slave-trade--Awful
mortality in the process--Livingstone's fondness for _Punch_--Letter to
Mr. Young--Joy at departure of new steamer "Lady Nyassa"--Colonization
project--Letter against it from Sir R. Murchison--Hears of Dr. Stewart
coming out from Free Church of Scotland--Visit at the ship from Bishop
Mackenzie--News of defeat of Ajawa by missionaries--Anxiety of
Livingstone--Arrangements for "Pioneer" to go to Kongone for new steamer
and friends from home, then go to Ruo to meet Bishop--"Pioneer"
detained--Dr. Livingstone's anxieties and depressions at New
Year--"Pioneer" misses man-of-war "Gorgon"--At length "Gorgon" appears
with brig from England and "Lady Nyassa"--Mrs. Livingstone and other
ladies on board--Livingstone's meeting with his wife, and with Dr.
Stewart--Stewart's recollections--Difficulties of navigation--Captain
Wilson of "Gorgon" goes up river and hears of death of Bishop Mackenzie
and Mr. Burrup--Great distress--Misrepresentations about Universities
Mission--Miss Mackenzie and Mr. Burrup taken to "Gorgon"--Dr. and Mrs.
Livingstone return to Shupanga--Illness and death of Mrs.
Livingstone--Extracts from Livingstone's Journal and letters to the
Moffats, Agnes, and the Murchisons.


The beginning of 1861 brought some new features on the scene. The new
steamer, the "Pioneer," at last arrived, and was a great improvement on
the "Ma-Robert," though unfortunately she had too great draught of
water. The agents of the Universities Missions also arrived, the first,
detachment consisting of Bishop Mackenzie and five other Englishmen,
and five colored men from the Cape. Writing familiarly to his friend
Moore, _apropos_ of his new comrades of the Church Mission, Livingstone
says: "I have never felt anyway inclined to turn Churchman or dissenter
either since I came out here. The feelings which we have toward
different sects alter out here quite insensibly, till one looks upon all
godly men as good and true brethren. I rejoiced when I heard that so
many good and great men in the Universities had turned their thoughts
toward Africa, and feeling sure that He who had touched their hearts
would lead them to promote his own glory, I welcomed the men they sent
with a hearty, unfeigned welcome."

To his friend Mr. Maclear he wrote that he was very glad the Mission was
to be under a bishop. He had seen so much idleness and folly result from
missionaries being left to themselves, that it was a very great
satisfaction to find that the new mission was to be superintended by one
authorized and qualified to take the charge. Afterward when he came to
know Bishop Mackenzie, he wrote of him to Mr. Maclear in the highest
terms: "The Bishop is A 1, and in his readiness to put his hand to
anything resembles much my good father-in-law Moffat."

It is not often that missions are over-manned, but in the first stage of
such an undertaking as this, so large a body of men was an incumbrance,
none of them knowing a word of the language or a bit of the way. It was
Bishop Mackenzie's desire that Dr. Livingstone should accompany him at
once to the scene of his future labors and help him to settle. But
besides other reasons, the "Pioneer," as already stated, was under
orders to explore the Rovuma, and, as the Portuguese put so many
obstacles in the way on the Zambesi, to ascertain whether that river
might not afford access to the Nyassa district. It was at last arranged
that the Bishop should first go with the Doctor to the Rovuma, and
thereafter they should all go together to the Shire. In waiting for
Bishop Mackenzie to accompany him, Dr. Livingstone lost the most
favorable part of the season, and found that he could not get with the
"Pioneer" to the top of the Rovuma. He might have left the ship and
pushed forward on foot; but, not to delay Bishop Mackenzie, he left the
Rovuma in the meantime, intending, after making arrangements with the
Bishop, to go to Nyassa, to find the point where the Rovuma left the
lake, if there were such a point, or, if not, get into its headwaters
and explore it downward.

Dr. Livingstone, as we have seen, welcomed the Mission right cordially,
for indeed it was what he had been most eagerly praying for, and he
believed that it would be the beginning of all blessing to Eastern and
Central Africa, and help to assimilate the condition of the East Coast
to that of the West The field for the cultivation of cotton which he had
discovered along the Shire and Lake Nyassa was immense, above 400 miles
in length, and now it seemed as if commerce and Christianity were going
to take possession of it. But it was found that the turning-point of
prosperity had been reached, and it was his lot to encounter dark
reverses. The navigation of the Shire was difficult, for the "Pioneer"
being deep in the water would often run aground. On these occasions the
Bishop, Mr. Scudamore, and Mr. Waller, the best and the bravest of the
missionary party, were ever ready with their help in hauling.
Livingstone was sometimes scandalized to see the Bishop toiling in the
hot sun, while some of his subordinates were reading or writing in the
cabin. As they proceeded up the Shire it was seen that the promises of
assistance from the Portuguese Government were worse than fruitless.
Evidently the Portuguese traders were pushing the slave-trade with
greater eagerness than ever. Slave-hunting chiefs were marauding the
country, driving peaceful inhabitants before them, destroying their
crops, seizing on all the people they could lay hands on, and selling
them as slaves. The contrast to what Livingstone had seen on his last
journey was lamentable. All their prospects were overcast. How could
commerce or Christianity flourish in countries desolated by war?

Every reader of _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_ remembers the
frightful picture of the slave-sticks, and the row of men, women, and
children whom Livingstone and his companions set free. Nothing helped
more than this picture to rouse in English bosoms an intense horror of
the trade, and a burning sympathy with Livingstone and his friends.
Livingstone and the Bishop, with his party, had gone up the Shire to
Chibisa's, and were halting at the village of Mbame, when a slave party
came along. The flight of the drivers, the liberation of eighty-four men
and women, and their reception by the good Bishop under his charge,
speedily followed. The aggressors were the neighboring warlike tribe of
Ajawa, and their victims were the Manganja, the inhabitants of the Shire
Valley. The Bishop accepted the invitation of Chigunda, a Manganja
chief, to settle at Magomero. It was thought, however, desirable for the
Bishop and Livingstone first to visit the Ajawa chief, and try to turn
him from his murderous ways. The road was frightful--through burning
villages resounding with the wailings of women and the shouts of the
warriors. The Ajawa received the offered visit in a hostile spirit, and
the shout being raised that Chibisa had come--powerful chief with the
reputation of being a sorcerer--they fired on the Bishop's party and
compelled them, in self-defense, to fire in return. It was the first
time that Livingstone had ever been so attacked by natives, often though
they had threatened him. It was the first time he had had to repel an
attack with violence; so little was he thinking of such a thing that he
had not his rifle with him, and was obliged to borrow a revolver. The
encounter was hot and serious, but it ended in the Ajawa being driven
off without loss on the other side.

It now became a question for the Bishop in what relation he and his
party were to stand to these murderous and marauding Ajawa--whether they
should quietly witness their onslaughts or drive them from the country
and rescue the captive Manganja. Livingstone's advice to them was to be
patient, and to avoid taking part in the quarrels of the natives. He
then left them at Magomero, and returned to his companions on the Shire.
For a time the Bishop's party followed Livingstone's advice, but
circumstances afterward occurred which constrained them to take a
different course, and led to very serious results in the history of
the Mission.

Writing to his son Robert, Livingstone thus describes the attack made by
the Ajawa on him, the Bishop, and the missionaries:

"The slave-hunters had induced a number of another tribe to
capture people for them. We came to this tribe while burning
three villages, and though we told them that we came
peaceably, and to talk with them, they saw that we were a
small party, and might easily be overcome, rushed at us and
shot their poisoned arrows. One fell between the Bishop and
me, and another whizzed between another man and me. We had to
drive them off, and they left that part of the country.
Before going near them the Bishop engaged in prayer, and
during the prayer we could hear the wail for the dead by some
Manganja probably thought not worth killing, and the shouts
of welcome home to these bloody murderers. It turned out that
they were only some sixty or seventy robbers, and not the
Ajawa tribe; so we had a narrow escape from being murdered.

"How are you doing? I fear from what I have observed of your
temperament that you will have to strive against fickleness.
Every one has his besetting fault--that is no disgrace to
him, but it is a disgrace if he do not find it out, and by
God's grace overcome it. I am not near to advise you what to
do, but whatever line of life you choose, resolve to stick to
it, and serve God therein to the last. Whatever failings you
are conscious of, tell them to your heavenly Father; strive
daily to master them and confess all to Him when conscious of
having gone astray. And may the good Lord of all impart all
the strength you need. Commit your way unto the Lord; trust
also in Him. Acknowledge Him in all your ways, and He will
bless you."

Leaving the "Pioneer" at Chibisa's, on 6th August, 1861, Livingstone,
accompanied by his brother and Dr. Kirk, started for Nyassa with a
four-oared boat, which was carried by porters past the Murchison
Cataracts. On 23d September they sailed into Lake Nyassa, naming the
grand mountainous promontory at the end Cape Maclear, after
Livingstone's great friend the Astronomer-Royal at the Cape.

All about the lake was now examined with earnest eyes. The population
was denser than he had seen anywhere else. The people were civil, and
even friendly, but undoubtedly they were not handsome. At the north of
the lake they were lawless, and at one point the party were robbed in
the night--the first time such a thing had occurred in Livingstone's
African life[61]. Of elephants there was a great abundance,--indeed of
all animal and vegetable life.

[Footnote 61: In _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_, Livingstone gives a
grave account of the robbery. In his letters to his friends he makes fun
of it, as he did of the raid of the Boers. To Mr. F. Fitch he writes:
"You think I cannot get into a scrape.... For the first time in Africa
we were robbed. Expert thieves crept into our sleeping-places, about
four o'clock in the morning, and made off with what they could lay their
hands on. Sheer over-modesty ruined me. It was Sunday, and such a black
mass swarmed around our sail, which we used as a hut, that we could not
hear prayers. I had before slipped away a quarter of a mile to dress for
church, but seeing a crowd of women watching me through the reeds, I did
not change my old 'unmentionables,'--they were so old, I had serious
thoughts of converting them into--charity! Next morning nearly all our
spare clothing was walked off with, and there I was left by my modesty
nearly through at the knees, and no change of shirt, flannel, or
stockings. After that, don't say that I can't get into a scrape!" The
same letter thanks Mr. Fitch for sending him _Punch_, whom he deemed a
sound divine! On the same subject he wrote at another time, regretting
that _Punch_ did not reach him, especially a number in which notice was
taken of himself. "It never came. Who the miscreants are that steal them
I cannot divine, I would not grudge them a reading if they would only
send them on afterward. Perhaps binding the whole year's _Punches_ would
be the best plan; and then we need not label it 'Sermons in Lent,' or
'Tracts on Homoeopathy,' but you may write inside, as Dr. Buckland did
on his umbrella, 'Stolen from Dr. Livingstone.' We really enjoy them
very much. They are good against fever. The 'Essence of Parliament,' for
instance, is capital. One has to wade through an ocean of paper to get
the same information, without any of the fun. And by the time the
newspapers have reached us, most of the interest in public matters has
evaporated."]

But the lake slave-trade was going on at a dismal rate. An Arab dhow was
seen on the lake, but it kept well out of the way. Dr. Livingstone was
informed by Colonel Rigdy, late British Consul at Zanzibar, that 19,000
slaves from this Nyassa region alone passed annually through the
custom-house there. This was besides those landed at Portuguese slave
ports. In addition to those captured, thousands were killed or died of
their wounds or of famine, or perished in other ways, so that not
one-fifth of the victims became slaves--in the Nyassa district probably
not one-tenth. A small armed steamer on the lake might stop nearly the
whole of this wholesale robbery and murder.

Their stock of goods being exhausted, and no provisions being
procurable, the party had to return at the end of October. They had to
abandon the project of getting from the lake to the Rovuma, and
exploring eastward. They reached the ship on 8th November, 1861, having
suffered more from hunger than on any previous trip.

In writing to his friend Young, 28th November, 1861, Livingstone
expresses his joy at the news of the departure of the "Lady Nyassa;"
gives him an account of the lake, and of a terrific storm in which they
were nearly lost; describes the inhabitants, and the terrible
slave-trade--the only trade that was carried on in the district. It will
take them the best part of a year to put the ship on the lake, but it
will be such a blessing! He hopes the Government will pay for it, once
it is there.

The colonization project had not commended itself to Sir R. Murchison.
He had written of it sometime before: "Your colonization scheme does not
meet with supporters, it being thought that you must have much more hold
on the country before you attract Scotch families to emigrate and settle
there, and then die off, or become a burden to you and all concerned,
like the settlers of old at Darien." It was with much satisfaction that
Livingstone now wrote to his friend (25th November, 1861): "A Dr.
Stewart is sent out by the Free Church of Scotland to confer with me
about a Scotch Colony. You will guess my answer. Dr. Kirk is with me in
opinion, and if I could only get you out to take a trip up to the
plateau of Zomba, and over the uplands which surround Lake Nyassa, you
would give in too."

When the party returned to the ship they had a visit from Bishop
Mackenzie, who was in good spirits and had excellent hopes of the
Mission. The Ajawa had been defeated, and had professed a desire to be
at peace with the English. But Dr. Livingstone was not without
misgivings on this point. The details of the defeat of the Ajawa, in
which the missionaries had taken an active part, troubled him, as we
find from his private Journal. "The Bishop," he says (14th of November),
"takes a totally different view of the affair from what I do." There
were other points on which the utter inexperience of the missionaries,
and want of skill in dealing with the natives, gave him serious anxiety.
It is impossible not to see that even thus early, the Mission, in
Livingstone's eyes, had lost something of its bloom.

It was arranged that the "Pioneer" should go down to the mouth of the
Zambesi, to meet a man-of-war with provisions, and bring up the pieces
of the new lake vessel, the "Lady Nyassa," which was eagerly expected,
along with Mrs. Livingstone, Miss Mackenzie, the Bishop's sister, and
other members of the Mission party. An appointment was made for January
at the mouth of the river Ruo, a tributary of the Shire, where the
Bishop was to meet them. He and Mr. Burrup, who had just arrived, were
meanwhile to explore the neighboring country.

The "Pioneer" was detained for five weeks on a shoal twenty miles below
Chibisa's, and here the first death occurred--the carpenter's mate
succumbed to fever. It was extremely irksome to suffer this long
detention, to think of fuel and provisions wasting, and salaries running
on, without one particle of progress. Livingstone was sensitive and
anxious. He speaks in his Journal of the difficulty of feeling resigned
to the Divine will in all things, and of believing that all things work
together for good to those that love God, He seems to have been troubled
at what had been said in some quarters of his treatment of members of
the Expedition. In private letters, in the Cape papers, in the home
papers, unfavorable representations of his conduct had been made. In one
case, a prosecution at law had been threatened. On New Year's Day, 1862,
he entered in his Journal an elaborate minute, as if for future use,
bearing on the conduct of the Expedition. He refers to the difficulty to
which civil expeditions are exposed, as compared with naval and
military, in the matter of discipline, owing to the inferior authority
and power of the chief. In the countries visited there is no enlightened
public opinion to support the commander, and newspapers at home are but
too ready to believe in his tyranny, and make themselves the champions
of any dawdling fellow who would fain be counted a victim of his
despotism. He enumerates the chief troubles to which his Expedition had
been exposed from such causes. Then he explains how, at the beginning,
to prevent collision, he had made every man independent in his own
department, wishing only, for himself, to be the means of making known
to the world what each man had done. His conclusion is a sad one, but it
explains why in his last journeys he went alone: he is convinced that if
he had been by himself he would have accomplished more, and undoubtedly
he would have received more of the approbation of his countrymen[62].

[Footnote 62: Notwithstanding this expression of feeling, Dr.
Livingstone was very sincere in his handsome acknowledgments, in the
Introduction to _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_, of valuable services,
especially from the members of the Expedition there named.]

At length the "Pioneer" was got off the bank, and on the 11th January,
1862, they entered the Zambesi. They prided to the great Luabo mouth, as
being more advantageous than the Kongone for a supply of wood. They were
a month behind their appointment, and no ship was to be seen. The ship
had been there, it turned out, on the 8th January, had looked eagerly
for the "Pioneer," had fancied it saw the black funnel and its smoke in
the river, and being disappointed had made for Mozambique, been caught
in a gale, and was unable to return for three weeks. Livingstone's
letters show him a little out of sorts at the manifold obstructions that
had always been making him "too late"--"too late for Rovuma below, too
late for Rovuma above, and now too late for our own appointment," but in
greater trouble because the "Lady Nyassa" had not been sent by sea, as
he had strongly urged, and as it afterward appeared might have been done
quite well. To take out the pieces and fit them up would involve heavy
expense and long delay, and perhaps the season would be lost again. But
Livingstone had always a saving clause, in all his lamentations, and
here it is: "I know that all was done for the best."

At length, on the last day of January, H.M.S. "Gorgon," with a brig in
tow, hove in sight. When the "Pioneer" was seen, up went the signal from
the "Gorgon"--"I have steamboat in the brig"; to which Livingstone
replied--"Welcome news." Then "Wife aboard" was signaled from the ship.
"Accept my best thanks" concluded what Livingstone called "the most
interesting conversation he had engaged in for many a day." Next morning
the "Pioneer" steamed out, and Dr. Livingstone found his wife "all
right." In the same ship with Mrs. Livingstone, besides Miss Mackenzie
and Mrs. Burrup, the Rev. E. Hawkins and others of the Universities
Mission, had come the Rev. James Stewart, of the Free Church of Scotland
(now Dr. Stewart, of Lovedale, South Africa), who had been sent out by
a committee of that Church, "to meet with Dr. Livingstone, and obtain,
by personal observation and otherwise, the information that might be
necessary to enable a committee at home to form a correct judgment as to
the possibility of founding a mission in that part of Africa." It
happened that some time before Mr. Stewart had been tutor to Thomas
Livingstone, while studying in Glasgow; this drew his sympathies to
Livingstone and Africa, and was another link in that wonderful chain
which Providence was making for the good of Africa. From Dr. Stewart's
"Recollections of Dr. Livingstone and the Zambesi" in the _Sunday
Magazine_ (November, 1874), we get the picture from the other side.
First, the sad disappointment of Mrs. Livingstone on the 8th January,
when no "Pioneer" was to be found, with the anxious speculations raised
in its absence as to the cause. Then a frightful tornado on the way to
Mozambique, and the all but miraculous escape of the brig. Then the
return to the Zambesi in company with H.M.S. "Gorgon," and on the 1st of
February, in a lovely morning, the little cloud of smoke rising close to
land, and afterward the white hull of a small paddle steamer making
straight for the two ships outside.

"As the vessel approached," says Dr. Stewart, "I could make
out with a glass a firmly built man of about the middle
height, standing on the port paddle-box, and directing the
ship's course. He was not exactly dressed as a naval officer,
but he wore that gold-laced cap which has since become so
well known both at home and in Africa. This was Dr.
Livingstone, and I said to his wife, 'There he is at last.'
She looked brighter at this announcement than I had seen her
do any day for seven months before."

Through the help of the men of the "Gorgon," the sections of the "Lady
Nyassa" were speedily put on board the "Pioneer," and on the 10th
February the vessel steamed off for the mouth of the Ruo, to meet the
Bishop. But its progress through the river was miserable. Says
Dr. Stewart:

"For ten days we were chiefly occupied in sailing or hauling
the ship through sand-banks. The steamer was drawing between
five and six feet of water, and though there were long
reaches in the river with depth sufficient for a ship of
larger draught, yet every now and then we found ourselves in
shoal water of about three feet. No sooner was the boat got
off one bank by might and main, and steady hauling on capstan
and anchor laid out ahead, almost never astern, and we got a
few miles of fair steering, than again we heard that sound,
abhorred by all of us--a slight bump of the bow, and rush of
sand along the ship's side, and we were again fast for a few
hours, or a day or two, as the case might be."

The "Pioneer" was overladen, and the plan had to be changed. It was
resolved to put the "Lady Nyassa" together at Shupanga, and tow her up
to the Rapids.

"The detention," says Dr. Stewart, "was very trying to Dr.
Livingstone, as it meant not a few weeks, but the loss of a
year, inasmuch as by the time the ship was ready to be
launched the river would be nearly at its lowest, and there
would be no resource but to wait for the next rainy season.
Yet, in the face of discouragement, he maintained his
cheerfulness, and, after sunset, still enjoyed many an hour
of prolonged talk about current events at home, about his old
College days in Glasgow, and about many of those who were
unknown men then, but have since made their mark in life in
the different paths they have taken. Amongst others his old
friend Mr. Young, of Kelly, or Sir Paraffin, as he used
subsequently to call him, came in for a large share of the
conversation."

Meanwhile Captain Wilson (of the "Gorgon"), accompanied by Dr. Kirk and
others, had gone on in boats with Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup, and
learned the sad fate of the Bishop and Mr. Burrup. It appeared that the
Bishop, accompanied by the Makololo, had gone forth on an expedition to
rescue the captive husbands of some of the Manganja women, and had been
successful. But as the Bishop was trying to get to the mouth of the Ruo,
his canoe was upset, his medicines and cordials were lost, and, being
seized with fever, after languishing for some time, he died in
distressing circumstances, on the 31st January, Mr. Burrup, who was with
him, and who was also stricken, was carried back to Magomero, and died
in a few days.

Captain Wilson, who had himself been prostrated by fever, and made a
narrow escape, returned with this sad news, three weeks after he had
left Shupanga, bringing the two broken-hearted ladies, who had expected
to be welcomed, the one by her brother, the other by her husband. It was
a great blow to Livingstone.

"It was difficult to say," writes Dr. Stewart, "whether he or
the unhappy ladies, on whom the blow fell with the most
personal weight, were most to be pitied. He felt the
responsibility, and saw the wide-spread dismay which the news
would occasion when it reached England, and at the very time
when the Mission most needed support. 'This will hurt us
all,' he said, as he sat resting his head on his hand, on the
table of the dimly-lighted little cabin of the 'Pioneer,' His
esteem for Bishop Mackenzie was afterward expressed in this
way: 'For unselfish goodness of heart and earnest devotion to
the work he had undertaken, it can safely be said that none
of the commendations of his friends can exceed the reality,'
He did what he could, I believe, to comfort those who were so
unexpectedly bereaved; but the night he spent must have been
an uneasy one."

Livingstone says in his book that the unfavorable judgment which he had
formed of the Bishop's conduct in fighting with the Ajawa was somewhat
modified by a natural instinct, when he saw how keenly the Bishop was
run down for it in England, and reflected more on the circumstances, and
thought how excellent a man he was. Sometimes he even said that, had he
been there, he would probably have done what the Bishop did[63]. Why,
then, it may be asked, was Livingstone so ill-pleased when it was said
that all that the Bishop had done was done by his advice? No one will
ask this question who reads the terms of a letter by Mr. Rowley, one of
the Mission party, first published in the Cape papers, and copied into
the _Times_ in November, 1862. It was said there that "from the moment
when Livingstone commenced the release of slaves, his course was one of
aggression. He hunted for slaving parties in every direction, and when
he heard of the Ajawa making slaves in order to sell to the slavers, he
went designedly in search of them, and intended to take their captives
from them by force if needful. It is true that when he came upon them he
found them to be a more powerful body than he expected, and had they not
fired first, he might have withdrawn.... His parting words to the chiefs
just before he left ... were to this effect: 'You have hitherto seen us
only as fighting men but it is not in such a character we wish you to
know us[64].'" How could Livingstone be otherwise than indignant to be
spoken of as if the use of force had been his habit, while the whole
tenor of his life had gone most wonderfully to show the efficacy of
gentle and brotherly treatment? How could he but be vexed at having the
odium of the whole proceedings thrown on him, when his last advice to
the missionaries had been disregarded by them? Or how could he fail to
be concerned at the discredit which the course ascribed to him must
bring upon the Expedition under his command, which was entirely separate
from the Mission? It was the unhandsome treatment of himself and
reckless periling of the character and interests of his Expedition in
order to shield others, that raised his indignation. "Good Bishop
Mackenzie," he wrote to his friend Mr. Fitch, "would never have tried to
screen himself by accusing me." In point of fact, a few years afterward
the Portuguese Government, through Mr. Lacerda, when complaining
bitterly of the statements of Livingstone in a speech at Bath, in 1865,
referred to Mr. Rowley's letter as bearing out their complaint. It
served admirably to give an unfavorable view of his aims and methods,
_as from one of his own allies_. Dr. Livingstone never allowed himself
to cherish any other feeling but that of high regard for the self-denial
and Christian heroism of the Bishop, and many of his coadjutors; but he
did feel that most of them were ill-adapted for their work and had a
great deal to learn, and that the manner in which he had been turned
aside from the direct objects of his own enterprise by having to look
after so many inexperienced men, and then blamed for what he deprecated,
and what was done in his absence, was rather more than it was reasonable
for him to bear[65].

[Footnote 63: Writing to Mr. Waller, 12th February, 1863, Dr.
Livingstone said: "I thought you wrong in attacking the Ajawa, till I
looked on it as defense of your orphans. I thought that you had shut
yourselves up to one tribe, and that, the Manganja; but I think
differently now, and only wish they would send out Dr. Pusey here. He
would learn a little sense, of which I suppose I have need myself."]

[Footnote 64: Mr. Rowley afterward (February 22, 1865) expressed his
regret that this letter was ever written, as it had produced an
ill-effect. See _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_, p. 475 _note_.]

[Footnote 65: It must not be supposed that the letter of Mr. Rowley
expressed the mind of his brethren. Some of them were greatly annoyed at
it, and used their influence to induce its author to write to the Cape
papers that he had conveyed a wrong impression. In writing to Sir Thomas
Maclear (20th November, 1862), after seeing Rowley's letter in the Cape
papers, Dr. Livingstone said: "It is untrue that I ever on anyone
occasion adopted an aggressive policy against the Ajawa, or took slaves
from them. Slaves were taken from Portuguese alone. I never hunted the
Ajawa, or took the part of Manganja against Ajawa. In this I believe
every member of the Mission will support my assertion." Livingstone
declined to write a contradiction _to the public prints_, because he
knew the harm that would be done by a charge against a clergyman. In
this he showed the same magnanimity and high Christian self-denial which
he had shown when he left Mabotsa. It was only when the Portuguese
claimed the benefit of Rowley's testimony that he let the public see
what its value was.]

Writing of the terrible loss of Mackenzie and Burrup to the Bishop of
Cape Town, Livingstone says: "The blow is quite bewildering; the two
strongest men so quickly cut down, and one of them, humanly speaking,
indispensable to the success of the enterprise. We must bow to the will
of Him who doeth all things well; but I cannot help feeling sadly
disturbed in view of the effect the news may have at home. _I shall not
swerve a hairbreadth from my work while life is spared_, and I trust
the supporters of the Mission may not shrink back from all that they
have set their hearts to."

The next few weeks were employed in taking Miss Mackenzie and Mrs.
Burrup to the "Gorgon" on their way home. It was a painful voyage to
all--to Dr. and Mrs. Livingstone, to Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup, and
last, not least, to Captain Wilson, who had been separated so long from
his ship, and had risked life, position, and everything, to do service
to a cause which in spite of all he left at a much lower ebb.

When the "Pioneer" arrived at the bar, it found that owing to the
weather the ship had been forced to leave the coast, and she did not
return for a fortnight. There was thus another long waiting from 17th
March to 2d April. Dr. and Mrs. Livingstone then returned to Shupanga.
The long detention in the most unhealthy season of the year, and when
fever was at its height, was a sad, sad calamity.

We are now arrived at the last illness and the death of Mrs.
Livingstone. After she had parted from her husband at the Cape in the
spring of 1858, she returned with her parents to Kuruman, and in
November gave birth there to her youngest child, Anna Mary. Thereafter
she returned to Scotland to be near her other children. Some of them
were at school. No comfortable home for them all could be formed, and
though many friends were kind, the time was not a happy one. Mrs.
Livingstone's desire to be with her husband was intense; not only the
longings of an affectionate heart, and the necessity of taking counsel
with him about the family, but the feeling that when over-shadowed by
one whose faith was so strong her fluttering heart would regain, its
steady tone, and she would be better able to help both him and the
children, gave vehemence to this desire. Her letters to her husband tell
of much spiritual darkness; his replies were the very soul of tenderness
and Christian earnestness. Providence seemed to favor her wish; the
vessel in which she sailed was preserved from imminent destruction, and
she had the great happiness of finding her husband alive and well.

On the 21st of April Mrs. Livingstone became ill. On the 25th the
symptoms were alarming--vomitings every quarter of an hour, which
prevented any medicine from remaining on her stomach. On the 26th she
was worse and delirious. On the evening of Sunday the 27th Dr. Stewart
got a message from her husband that the end was drawing near. "He was
sitting by the side of a rude bed formed of boxes, but covered with a
soft mattress, on which lay his dying wife. All consciousness had now
departed, as she was in a state of deep coma, from which all efforts to
rouse her had been unavailing. The strongest medical remedies and her
husband's voice were both alike powerless to reach the spirit which was
still there, but was now so rapidly sinking into the depths of slumber,
and darkness and death. The fixedness of feature and the oppressed and
heavy breathing only made it too plain that the end was near. And the
man who had faced so many deaths, and braved so many dangers, was now
utterly broken down and weeping like a child."

Dr. Livingstone asked Dr. Stewart to commend her spirit to God, and
along with Dr. Kirk they kneeled in prayer beside her. In less than an
hour, her spirit had returned to God. Half an hour after, Dr. Stewart
was struck with her likeness to her father, Dr. Moffat. He was afraid to
utter what struck him so much, but at last he said to Livingstone, "Do
you notice any change?" "Yes," he replied, without raising his eyes from
her face,--"the very features and expression of her father."

Every one is struck with the calmness of Dr. Livingstone's notice of his
wife's death in _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_. Its matter-of-fact
tone only shows that he regarded that book as a sort of official report
to the nation, in which it would not be becoming for him to introduce
personal feelings. A few extracts from his Journal and letters will show
better the state of his heart.

"It is the first heavy stroke I have suffered, and quite takes away my
strength. I wept over her who well deserved many tears. I loved her when
I married her, and the longer I lived with her I loved her the more. God
pity the poor children, who were all tenderly attached to her, and I am
left alone in the world by one whom I felt to be a part of myself. I
hope it may, by divine grace, lead me to realize heaven as my home, and
that she has but preceded me in the journey. Oh my Mary, my Mary! how
often we have longed for a quiet home, since you and I were cast adrift
at Kolobeng; surely the removal by a kind Father who knoweth our frame
means that He rewarded you by taking you to the best home, the eternal
one in the heavens. The prayer was found in her papers--'Accept me,
Lord, as I am, and make me such as Thou wouldst have me to be.' He who
taught her to value this prayer would not leave his own work unfinished.
On a letter she had written, 'Let others plead for pensions, I wrote to
a friend I can be rich without money; I would give my services in the
world from uninterested motives; I have motives for my own conduct I
would not exchange for a hundred pensions.'

"She rests by the large baobab-tree at Shupanga, which is sixty feet in
circumference, and is mentioned in the work of Commodore Owen. The men
asked to be _allowed_ to mount guard till we had got the grave built up,
and we had it built with bricks dug from an old house.

"From her boxes we find evidence that she intended to make us all
comfortable at Nyassa, though she seemed to have a presentiment of an
early death,--she purposed to do more for me than ever.

"11_th May, Kongone_.--My dear, dear Mary has been this evening a
fortnight in heaven,--absent from the body, present with the Lord.
To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise. Angels carried her to
Abraham's bosom--to be with Christ is far better. Enoch, the seventh
from Adam, prophesied, 'Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his
saints'; ye also shall appear with Him in glory. He comes with them;
then they are now with Him. I go to prepare a place for you; that where
I am there ye may be also, to behold his glory. Moses and Elias talked
of the decease He should accomplish at Jerusalem; then they know what is
going on here on certain occasions. They had bodily organs to hear and
speak. For the first time in my life I feel willing to die.--D.L."

"_May_ 19, 1862.--Vividly do I remember my first passage down in 1856,
passing Shupanga house without landing, and looking at its red hills and
white vales with the impression that it was a beautiful spot. No
suspicion glanced across my mind that there my loving wife would be
called to give up the ghost six years afterward. In some other spot I
may have looked at, my own resting-place may be allotted. I have often
wished that it might be in some far-off still deep forest, where I may
sleep sweetly till the resurrection morn, when the trump of God will
make all start up into the glorious and active second existence.

"25_th May_.--Some of the histories of pious people in the last century
and previously tell of clouds of religious gloom, or of paroxysms of
opposition and fierce rebellion against God, which found vent in
terrible expressions. These were followed by great elevations of faith,
and reactions of confiding love, the results of divine influence which
carried the soul far above the region of the intellect into that of
direct spiritual intuition. This seems to have been the experience of my
dear Mary. She had a strong presentiment of death being near. She said
that she would never have a house in this country. Taking it to be
despondency alone, I only joked, and now my heart smites me that I did
not talk seriously on that and many things besides.

"31_st May_, 1862.--The loss of my ever dear Mary lies like a heavy
weight on my heart. In our intercourse in private there was more than
what would be thought by some a decorous amount of merriment and play. I
said to her a few days before her fatal illness: 'We old bodies ought
now to be more sober, and not play so much.' 'Oh, no,' said she,' you
must always be as playful as you have always been; I would not like you
to be as grave as some folks I have seen.' This, when I know her prayer
was that she might be spared to be a help and comfort to me in my great
work, led me to feel what I have always believed to be the true way, to
let the head grow wise, but keep the heart always young and playful. She
was ready and anxious to work, but has been called away to serve God in
a higher sphere."

Livingstone could not be idle, even when his heart was broken; he
occupied the days after the death in writing to her father and mother,
to his children, and to many of the friends who would be interested in
the sad news. Among these letters, that to Mrs. Moffat and her reply
from Kuruman have a special interest. His letters went round by Europe,
and the first news reached Kuruman by traders and newspapers. For a full
month after her daughters death, Mrs. Moffat was giving thanks for the
mercy that had spared her to meet with her husband, and had made her lot
so different from that of Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup. In a letter,
dated 26th May, she writes to Mary a graphic account of the electrical
thrill that passed through her when she saw David's handwriting--of the
beating heart with which she tried to get the essence of his letter
before she read the lines--of the overwhelming joy and gratitude with
which she learned that they had met--and then the horror of great
darkness that came over her when she read of the tragic death of the
Bishop, to whom she had learned to feel as to a friend and brother. Then
she pours out her tears over the "poor dear ladies, Miss Mackenzie and
Mrs. Burrup," and remembers the similar fate of the Helmores, who, like
the Bishop and his friends, had had it in their hearts to build a temple
to the Lord in Africa, but had not been permitted. Then comes some
family news, especially about her son Robert, whose sudden death
occurred a few days after, and was another bitter drop in the family
cup. And then some motherly forecastings of her daughter's future,
kindly counsel where she could offer any, and affectionate prayers for
the guidance of God where the future was too dark for her to penetrate.

For a whole month before this letter was written, poor Mary had been
sleeping under the baobab-tree at Shupanga!

In Livingstone's letter to Mrs. Moffat he gives the details of her
illness, and pours his heart out in the same affectionate terms as in
his Journal. He dwells on the many unhappy causes of delay which had
detained them near the mouth of the river, contrary to all his wishes
and arrangements. He is concerned that her deafness (through quinine)
and comatose condition before her death prevented her from giving him
the indications he would have desired respecting her state of mind in
the view of eternity.

"I look," he says, "to her previous experience and life for comfort, and
thank God for his mercy that we have it.... A good wife and mother was
she. God have pity on the children--she was so much beloved by them....
She was much respected by all the officers of the 'Gorgon,'--they would
do anything for her. When they met this vessel at Mozambique, Captain
Wilson offered his cabin in that fine large vessel, but she insisted
rather that Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup should go.... I enjoyed her
society during the three months we were together. It was the Lord who
gave and He has taken away. I wish to say--Blessed be his name. I
regret, as there always are regrets after our loved ones are gone, that
the slander which, unfortunately, reached her ears from missionary
gossips and others had an influence on me in allowing her to come,
before we were fairly on Lake Nyassa. A doctor of divinity said, when
her devotion to her family was praised: 'Oh, she is no good, she is here
because her husband cannot live with her,' The last day will tell
another tale."

To his daughter Agnes he writes, after the account of her death: "...
Dear Nannie, she often thought of you, and when once, from the violence
of the disease, she was delirious, she called out, 'See! Agnes is
falling down a precipice,' May our Heavenly Saviour, who must be your
Father and Guide, preserve you from falling into the gulf of sin over
the precipice of temptation.... Dear Agnes, I feel alone in the world
now, and what will the poor dear baby do without her mamma? She often
spoke of her, and sometimes burst into a flood of tears, just as I now
do in taking up and arranging the things left by my beloved partner of
eighteen years.... I bow to the Divine hand that chastens me. God grant
that I may learn the lesson He means to teach! All she told you to do
she now enforces, as if beckoning from heaven. Nannie, dear, meet her
there. Don't lose the crown of joy she now wears, and the Lord be
gracious to you in all things. You will now need to act more and more
from a feeling of responsibility to Jesus, seeing He has taken away one
of your guardians. A right straightforward woman was she. No crooked way
ever hers, and she could act with decision and energy when required. I
pity you on receiving this, but it is the Lord.--Your sorrowing and
lonely father."

Letters of the like tenor were written to every intimate friend. It was
a relief to his heart to pour itself out in praise of her who was gone,
and in some cases, when he had told all about the death, he returns to
speak of her life. A letter to Sir Roderick Murchison gives all the
particulars of the illness and its termination. Then he thinks of the
good and gentle Lady Murchison,--"la spirituelle Lady Murchison," as
Humboldt called her,--and writes to her: "It will somewhat ease my
aching heart to tell you about my dear departed Mary Moffat, the
faithful companion of eighteen years." He tells of her birth at Griqua
Town in 1821, her education in England, their marriage and their love.
"At Kolobeng, she managed all the household affairs by native servants
of her own training, made bread, butter, and all the clothes of the
family; taught her children most carefully; kept also an infant and
sewing school--by far the most popular and best attended we had. It was
a fine sight to see her day by day walking a quarter of a mile to the
town, no matter how broiling hot the sun, to impart instruction to the
heathen Bakwains. Ma-Robert's name is known through all that country,
and 1800 miles beyond.... A brave, good woman was she. All my hopes of
giving her one day a quiet home, for which we both had many a sore
longing, are now dashed to the ground. She is, I trust, through divine
mercy, in peace in the home of the blest.... She spoke feelingly of your
kindness to her, and also of the kind reception she received from Miss
Burdett Coutts. Please give that lady and Mrs. Brown the sad
intelligence of her death."

The reply of Mrs. Moffat to her son-in-law's letter was touching and
beautiful. "I do thank you for the detail you have given us of the
circumstances of the last days and hours of our lamented and beloved
Mary, our first-born, over whom our fond hearts first beat with parental
affection!" She recounts the mercies that were mingled with the
trial--though Mary could not be called _eminently_ pious, she had the
root of the matter in her, and though the voyage of her life had been a
trying and stormy one, she had not become a wreck. God had remembered
her; had given her during her last year the counsels of faithful
men--referring to her kind friend and valued counselor, the Rev.
Professor Kirk, of Edinburgh, and the Rev. Dr. Stewart, of
Lovedale--and, at last, the great privilege of dying in the arms of her
husband. "As for the cruel scandal that seems to have hurt you both so
much, those who said it did not know you _as a couple_. In all _our_
intercourse with you, we never had a doubt as to your being comfortable
together. I know there are some maudlin ladies who insinuate, when a man
leaves his family frequently, no matter how noble is his object, that he
is not _comfortable_ at home. But we can afford to smile at this, and
say, 'The Day will declare it.'...

"Now my dear Livingstone, I must conclude by assuring you of the tender
interest we shall ever feel in your operations. It is not only as the
husband of our departed Mary and the father of her children, but as one
who has laid himself out for the emancipation of this poor wretched
continent, and for opening new doors of entrance for the heralds of
salvation (not that I would not have preferred your remaining in your
former capacity). I nevertheless rejoice in what you are allowed to
accomplish. We look anxiously for more news of you, and my heart bounded
when I saw your letters the other day, thinking they were new. May our
gracious God and Father comfort your sorrowful heart.--Believe me ever
your affectionate mother, "MARY MOFFAT."




CHAPTER XV.

LAST TWO YEARS OF THE EXPEDITION.

A.D. 1862-1863.

Livingstone again buckles on his armor--Letter to Waller--Launch of
"Lady Nyassa"--Too late for season--He explores the Rovuma--Fresh
activity of the slave-trade--Letter to Governor of Mozambique about his
discoveries--Letter to Sir Thomas Maclear--Generous offer of a party of
Scotchmen--The Expedition proceeds up Zambesi with "Lady Nyassa" in
tow--Appalling desolations of Marianne--Tidings of the Mission--Death of
Scudamore--of Dickenson--of Thornton--Illness of Livingstone--Dr. Kirk
and Charles Livingstone go home--He proceeds northward with Mr. Rae and
Mr. E.D. Young of the "Gorgon"--Attempt to carry a boat over the
rapids--Defeated--Recall of the Expedition--Livingstone's views--Letter
to Mr. James Young--to Mr. Waller--Feeling of the Portuguese
Government--Offer to the Rev. Dr. Stewart--Great discouragements--Why
did he not go home?--Proceeds to explore Nyassa--Risks and
sufferings--Occupation of his mind--Natural History--Obliged to turn
back--More desolation--Report of his murder--Kindness of
Chinsamba--Reaches the ship--Letter from Bishop Tozer, abandoning the
Mission--Distress of Livingstone--Letter to Sir Thomas Maclear--Progress
of Dr. Stewart--Livingstonia--Livingstone takes charge of the children
of the Universities Mission--Letter to his daughter--Retrospect--The
work of the Expedition--Livingstone's plans for the future.


It could not have been easy for Livingstone to buckle on his armor anew.
How he was able to do it at all may be inferred from some words of cheer
written by him at the time to his friend Mr. Waller: "Thanks for your
kind sympathy. In return, I say, Cherish exalted thoughts of the great
work you have undertaken. It is a work which, if faithful, you will look
back on with satisfaction while the eternal ages roll on their
everlasting course. The devil will do all he can to hinder you by
efforts from without and from within; but remember Him who is with you,
and will be with you alway."

As soon as he was able to brace himself, he was again at his post,
helping to put the "Lady Nyassa" together and launch her. This was
achieved by the end of June, greatly to the wonder of the natives, who
could not understand how iron should swim. The "Nyassa" was an excellent
steamboat, and could she have been got to the lake would have done well.
But, alas! the rainy season had passed, and until December this could
not be done. Here was another great disappointment. Meanwhile, Dr.
Livingstone resolved to renew the exploration of the Rovuma, in the hope
of finding a way to Nyassa beyond the dominion of the Portuguese. This
was the work in which he had been engaged at the time when he went with
Bishop Mackenzie to help him to settle.

The voyage up the Rovuma did not lead to much. On one occasion they were
attacked, fiercely and treacherously, by the natives. Cataracts occurred
about 156 miles from the mouth, and the report was that farther up they
were worse. The explorers did not venture beyond the banks of the
rivers, but so far as they saw, the people were industrious, and the
country fertile, and a steamer of light draft might carry on a very
profitable trade among them. But there was no water-way to Nyassa. The
Rovuma came from mountains to the west, having only a very minute
connection with Nyassa. It seemed that it would be better in the
meantime to reach the lake by the Zambesi and the Shire, so the party
returned. It was not till the beginning of 1863 that they were able to
renew the ascent of these rivers. Livingstone writes touchingly to Sir
Roderick, in reference to his returning to the Zambesi: "It may seem to


 


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