THE PERSONAL LIFE

OF

DAVID LIVINGSTONE

LL.D., D.C.L.

CHIEFLY FROM HIS UNPUBLISHED
JOURNALS AND CORRESPONDENCE
IN THE POSSESSION OF HIS FAMILY

BY

W. GARDEN BLAIKIE, D.D., LLD.

Author of "Heroes of Israel," etc.

PREFACE.

The purpose of this work is to make the world better acquainted with the character of Livingstone. His discoveries and researches have been given to the public in his own books, but his modesty led him to say little in these of himself, and those who knew him best feel that little is known of the strength of his affections, the depth and purity of his devotion, or the intensity of his aspirations as a Christian missionary. The growth of his character and the providential shaping of his career are also matters of remarkable interest, of which not much has yet been made known.

An attempt has been made in this volume, likewise, to present a more complete history of his life than has yet appeared. Many chapters of it are opened up of which the public have hitherto known little or nothing. It has not been deemed necessary to dwell on events recorded in his published Travels, except for the purpose of connecting the narrative and making it complete. Even on these, however, it has been found that not a little new light and color may be thrown from his correspondence with his friends and his unpublished Journals.

Much pains has been taken to show the unity and symmetry of his character. As a man, a Christian, a missionary, a philanthropist, and a scientist, Livingstone ranks with the greatest of our race, and shows the minimum of infirmity in connection with the maximum of goodness. Nothing can be more telling than his life as an evidence of the truth and power of Christianity, as a plea for Christian Missions and civilization, or as a demonstration of the true connection between religion and science.

So many friends have helped in this book that it is impossible to thank all in a preface. Most of them are named in the body of the work. Special acknowledgments, however, are due to the more immediate members of Dr. Livingstone's family, at whose request the work was undertaken; also to his sisters, the Misses Livingstone, of Hamilton, to Mr. Young, of Kelley, to the venerable Dr. Moffat, and Mrs. Vavasseur, his daughter. The use of valuable collections of letters has been given by the following (in addition to the friends already named): The Directors of the London Missionary Society; Dr. Risdon Bennett; Rev. G.D. Watt; Rev. Joseph Moore; Rev. W. Thompson, Cape Town; J.B. Braithwaite, Esq.; representatives of the late Sir R.I. Murchison, Bart., and of the late Sir Thomas Maclear; Rev. Horace Waller, Mr. and Mrs. Webb, of Newstead Abbey, Mr. P. Fitch, of London, Rev. Dr. Stewart, of Lovedale, and Senhor Nunes, of Quilimane. Other friends have forwarded letters of less importance. Some of the letters have reached the hands of the writer after the completion of the book, and have therefore been used but sparingly.

The recovery of an important private journal of Dr. Livingstone, which had been lost at the time when the Missionary Travels was published, has thrown much new light on the part of his life immediately preceding his first great journey.

In the spelling of African proper names, Dr. Moffat has given valuable help. Usually Livingstone's own spelling has been followed.

A Map has been specially prepared, in which the geographical references in the volume are shown, which will enable the reader to follow Livingstone's movements from place to place.

With so much material, it would have been easier to write a life in two volumes than in one; but for obvious reasons it has been deemed desirable to restrict it to the present limits. The author could wish for no higher honor than to have his name associated with that of Livingstone, and can desire no greater pleasure than that of conveying to other minds the impressions that have been left on his own.

W.G. BLAIKIE.

EDINBUBGH, 9 PALMERSTON BOAD.

1880

CONTENTS.

[CHAPTER I.]

EARLY YEARS.

A.D. 1813-1836.

Ulva--The Livingstones--Traditions of Ulva life--The "Baughting-time"--"Kirsty's Rock"--Removal of Livingstone's grandfather to Blantyre--Highland blood--Neil Livingstone--His marriage to Agnes Hunter--Her grandfather and father--Monument to Neil and Agnes Livingstone in Hamilton Cemetery--David Livingstone born 19th March, 1813--Boyhood--At home--In school--David goes into Blantyre Mill--First earnings--Night-school--His habits of reading--Natural-history expeditions--Great spiritual changes in his twentieth year--Dick's Philosophy of a Future State--He resolves to be a missionary--Influence of occupation of Blantyre--Sympathy with People--Thomas Burke and David Hogg--Practical character of his religion.

[CHAPTER II.]

MISSIONARY PREPARATION.

A.D. 1836-1840.

His desire to be a missionary to China--Medical missions--He studies at Glasgow--Classmates and teachers--He applies to London Missionary Society--His ideas of mission-work--He is accepted provisionally--He goes to London--to Ongar--Reminiscences by Rev. Joseph Moore--by Mrs. Gilbert--by Rev. Isaac Taylor--Nearly rejected by the Directors--Returns to Ongar--to London--Letter to his sister--Reminiscences by Dr. Risdon Bennett--Promise to Professor Owen--Impression of his character on his friends and fellow-students--Rev R. Moffat in England--Livingstone interested--Could not be sent to China--Is appointed to Africa--Providential links in his history--Illness--Last visits to his home--Receives Medical diploma--Parts from his family.

[CHAPTER III.]

FIRST TWO YEARS IN AFRICA.

A.D. 1842-1843.

His ordination--Voyage out--At Rio de Janeiro--At the Cape--He proceeds to Kuruman--Letters--Journey of 700 miles to Bechuana country--Selection of site for new station--Second excursion to Bechuana country--Letter to his sister--Influence with chiefs--Bubi--Construction of a water-dam--Sekomi--Woman seized by a lion--The Bakaa--Sebehwe--Letter to Dr. Risdon Bennett--Detention at Kuruman--He visits Sebehwe's village--Bakhatlas--Sechéle, chief of Bakwains--Livingstone translates hymns--Travels 400 miles on oxback--Returns to Kuruman--Is authorized to form new station--Receives contributions for native missionary--Letters to Directors on their Mission policy--He goes to new station--Fellow-travelers--Purchase of site--Letter to Dr. Bennett--Desiccation of South Africa--Death of a servant, Sehamy--Letter to his parents.

[CHAPTER IV.]

FIRST TWO STATIONS--MABOTSA AND CHONUANE.

A.D. 1843-1847.

Description of Mabotsa--A favorite hymn--General reading--Mabotsa infested with lions--Livingstone's encounter--The native deacon who saved him--His Sunday-school--Marriage to Mary Moffat--Work at Mabotsa--Proposed institution for training native agents--Letter to his mother--Trouble at Mabotsa--Noble sacrifice of Livingstone--Goes to Sechéle and the Bakwains--New station at Chonuane--Interest shown by Sechéle--Journeys eastward--The Boers and the Transvaal--Their occupation of the country, and treatment of the natives--Work among the Bakwains--Livingstone's desire to move on--Theological conflict at home--His view of it--His scientific labors and miscellaneous employments.

[CHAPTER V.]

THIRD STATION--KOLOBENG.

A.D. 1847-1852.

Want of rain at Chonuane--Removal to Kolobeng--House-building and public works--Hopeful prospects--Letters to Mr. Watt, his sister, and Dr. Bennett--The church at Kolobeng--Pure communion--Conversion of Sechéle--Letter from his brother Charles--His history--Livingstone's relations with the Boers--He cannot get native teachers planted in the east--Resolves to explore northward--Extracts from Journal--Scarcity of water--Wild animals, and other risks--Custom-house robberies and annoyances--Visit from Secretary of London Missionary Society--Manifold employments of Livingstone--Studies in Sichuana--His reflection on this period of his life while detained at Manyuema in 1870.

[CHAPTER VI.]

KOLOBENG continued--LAKE 'NGAMI.

A.D. 1849-1852.

Koboleng failing through drought--Sebituane's country and the Lake 'Ngami--Livingstone sets out with Messrs. Oswell and Murray--Rivers Zouga and Tamanak'le--Old ideas of the interior revolutionized--Enthusiasm of Livingstone--Discovers Lake 'Ngami--Obliged to return--Prize from Royal Geographical Society--Second expedition to the lake, with wife and children--Children attacked by fever--Again obliged to return--Conviction as to healthier spot beyond--Idea of finding passage to sea either west or east--Birth and death of a child--Family visits Kuruman--Third expedition, again with family--He hopes to find a new locality--Perils of the journey--He reaches Sebituane--The Chief's illness and death--Distress of Livingstone--Mr. Oswell and he go on to Linyanti--Discovery of the Upper Zambesi--No locality found for settlement--More extended journey necessary--He returns--Birth of Oswell Livingstone--Crisis in Livingstone's life--His guiding principles--New plans--The Makololo begin to practice slave-trade--New thoughts about commerce--Letters to Directors--The Bakwains--Pros and cons of his new plan--His unabated missionary zeal--He goes with his family to the Cape--His literary activity.

[CHAPTER VII.]

FROM THE CAPE TO LINYANTI.

A.D. 1852-1853.

Unfavorable feeling at Cape Town--Departure of Mrs. Livingstone and children--Livingstone's detention and difficulties--Letter to his wife--to Agnes--Occupations at Cape Town--The Astronomer-Royal--Livingstone leaves the Cape and reaches Kuruman--Destruction of Kolobeng by the Boers--Letters to his wife and Rev. J. Moore--His resolution to open up Africa or perish--Arrival at Linyanti--Unhealthiness of the country--Thoughts on setting out for coast--Sekelétu's kindness--Livingstone's missionary activity--Death of Mpepe, and of his father--Meeting with Ma-mochisane--Barotse country--Determines to go to Loanda--Heathenism unadulterated--Taste for the beautiful--Letter to his children--to his father--Last Sunday at Linyanti--Prospect of his failing.

[CHAPTER VIII.]

FROM LINYANTI TO LOANDA.

A.D. 1853-1854.

Difficulties and hardships of journey--His traveling kit--Four books--His Journal--Mode of traveling--Beauty of country--Repulsiveness of the people--Their religious belief--The negro--Preaching--The magic-lantern--Loneliness of feeling--Slave-trade--Management of the natives--Danger from Chiboque--from another chief--Livingstone ill of fever--At the Quango--Attachment of followers--"The good time coming"--Portuguese settlements--Great kindness of the Portuguese--Arrives at Loanda--Received by Mr. Gabriel--His great friendship--No letters--News through Mr. Gabriel--Livingstone becomes acquainted with naval officers--Resolves to go back to Linyanti and make for East Coast--Letter to his wife--Correspondence with Mr. Maclear--Accuracy of his observations--Sir John Herschel--Geographical Society award their gold medal--Remarks of Lord Ellesmere.

[CHAPTER IX.]

FROM LOANDA TO QUILIMANE.

A.D. 1854-1856.

Livingstone sets out from Loanda--Journey back--Effects of slavery--Letter to his wife--Severe attack of fever--He reaches the Barotse country--Day of thanksgiving--His efforts for the good of his men--Anxieties of the Moffats--Mr. Moffat's journey to Mosilikatse--Box at Linyanti--Letter from Mrs. Moffat--Letters to Mrs. Livingstone, Mr. Moffat, and Mrs. Moffat--Kindness of Sekelétu--New escort--He sets out for the East Coast--Discovers the Victoria Falls--The healthy longitudinal ridges--Pedestrianism--Great dangers--Narrow escapes--Triumph of the spirit of trust in God--Favorite texts--Reference to Captain McClure's experience--Chief subjects of thought--Structure of the continent--Sir Roderick Murchison anticipates his discovery--Letters to Geographical Society--First letter from Sir Roderick Murchison--Missionary labor--Monasteries--Protestant mission-stations wanting in self-support--Letter to Directors--Fever not so serious an obstruction as it seemed--His own hardships--Theories of mission-work--Expansion v. Concentration--Views of a missionary statesman--He reaches Tette--Letter to King of Portugal--to Sir Roderick Murchison--Reaches Senna--Quilimane--Retrospect--Letter from Directors--Goes to Mauritius--Voyage home--Narrow escape from shipwreck in Bay of Tunis--He reaches England, Dec. 1856--News of his father's death.

[CHAPTER X.]

FIRST VISIT HOME.

A.D. 1856-1857.

Mrs. Livingstone--Her intense anxieties--Her poetical welcome--Congratulatory letters from Mrs. and Dr. Moffat--Meeting of welcome of Royal Geographical Society--of London Missionary Society--Meeting in Mansion House--Enthusiastic public meeting at Cape Town--Livingstone visits Hamilton--Returns to London to write his book--Letter to Mr. Maclear--Dr. Risdon Bennett's reminiscences of this period--Mr. Frederick Fitch's--Interview with Prince Consort--Honors--Publication and great success of Missionary Travels--Character and design of the book--Why it was not more of a missionary record--Handsome conduct of publisher--Generous use of the profits--Letter to a lady in Carlisle vindicating the-character of his speeches.

[CHAPTER XI.]

FIEST VISIT HOME--continued.

A.D. 1857-1858.

Livingstone at Dublin, at British Association--Letter to his wife--He meets the chamber of commerce at Manchester--At Glasgow, receives honors from Corporation, University, Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, United Presbyterians, Cotton-spinners--His speeches in reply--His brother Charles joins him--Interesting meeting and speech at Hamilton--Reception from "Literary and Scientific Institute of Blantyre"--Sympathy with operatives--Quick apprehension of all public questions--His social views in advance of the age--He plans a People's Café--Visit to Edinburgh--More honors--Letter to Mr. Maclear--Interesting visit to Cambridge--Lectures there--Professor Sedgwick's remarks on his visit--Livingstone's great satisfaction--Relations to London Missionary Society--He severs his connection--Proposal of Government expedition--He accepts consulship and command of Expedition--Kindness of Lords Palmerston and Clarendon--The Portuguese Ambassador--Livingstone proposes to go to Portugal--Is dissuaded--Lord Clarendon's letter to Sekelétu--Results of Livingstone's visit to England--Farewell banquet, February, 1858--Interview with the Queen--Veledictory letters--Professor Sedgwick and Sir Roderick Murchison--Arrangements for Expedition--Dr., Mrs., and Oswald Livingstone set sail from Liverpool--Letters to children.

[CHAPTER XII.]

THE ZAMBESI, AND FIRST EXPLORATIONS OF THE SHIRÉ.

A.D. 1858-1859.

Dr. and Mrs. Livingstone sail in the "Pearl"--Characteristic instructions to members of Expedition--Dr. Livingstone conscious of difficult position--Letter to Robert--Sierra Leone--Effects of British Squadron and of Christian Missions--Dr. and Mrs. Moffat at Cape Town--Splendid reception there--Illness of Mrs. Livingstone--She remains behind--The five years of the Expedition--Letter to Mr. James Young--to Dr. Moffat--Kongone entrance to Zambesi--Collision with Naval Officer--Disturbed state of the country--Trip to Kebrabasa Rapids--Dr. Livingstone applies for new steamer--Willing to pay for one himself--Exploration of the Shiré--Murchison Cataracts--Extracts from private Journal--Discovery of Lake Shirwa--Correspondence--Letter to Agnes Livingstone--Trip to Tette--Kroomen and two members of Expedition dismissed--Livingstone's vindication--Discovery of Lake Nyassa--Bright hopes for the future--Idea of a colony--Generosity of Livingstone--Letters to Mr. Maclear, Mr. Young, and Sir Roderick Murchison--His sympathy with the "honest poor"--He hears of the birth of his youngest daughter.

[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--Reappearance 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--Sekelétu 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.

[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 Shiré--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 regardin 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 depression 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 Mrs. Burrup taken to "Gorgon"--Dr. and Mrs. Livingstone return to Shupanga--Illness and death of Mrs. Livingstone there--Extracts from Livingstone's Journal, and letters to the Moffats, Agnes, and the Murchisons.

[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 Marianno--Tidings of the Mission--Death of Scudamore--of Dickenson--of Thorton--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.

[CHAPTER XVI.]

QUILIMANE TO BOMBAY AND ENGLAND.

A.D. 1864.

Livingstone returns the "Pioneer" to the Navy, and is to sail in the "Nyassa" to Bombay--Terrific circular storm--Imminent peril of the "Nyassa"--He reaches Mozambique--Letter to his daughter--Proceeds to Zanzibar--His engineer leaves him--Scanty crew of "Nyassa"--Livingstone captain and engineer--Peril of the voyage of 2500 miles--Risk of the monsoons--The "Nyassa" becalmed--Illness of the men--Remarks on African travel--Flying-fish--Dolphins--Curiosities of his Journal--Idea of a colony--Furious squall--Two sea-serpents seen--More squalls--The "Nyassa" enters Bombay harbor--Is unnoticed--First visit from officer with Custom-house schedules--How filled up--Attention of Sir Bartle Frere and others--Livingstone goes with the Governor to Dapuri--His feelings on landing in India--Letter to Sir Thomas Maclear--He visits mission-schools, etc., at Poonah--Slaving in Persian Gulf--Returns to Bombay--Leaves two boys with Dr. Wilson--Borrows passage-money and sails for England--At Aden--At Alexandria--Reaches Charing Cross--Encouragement derived from his Bombay visit--Two projects contemplated on his way home.

[CHAPTER XVII.]

SECOND VISIT HOME.

A.D. 1864-1865.

Dr. Livingstone and Sir R. Murchison--At Lady Palmerston's reception--at other places in London--Sad news of his son Robert--His early death--Dr. Livingstone goes to Scotland--Pays visits--Consultation with Professor Syme as to operation--Visit to Duke Argyll--to Ulva--He meets Dr. Duff--At launch of a Turkish frigate--At Hamilton--Goes to Bath to British Association--Delivers an address--Dr. Colenso--At funeral of Captain Speke--Bath speech offends the Portuguese--Charges of Lacerda--He visits Mr. and Mrs. Webb at Newstead--Their great hospitality--Livingstone room--He spends eight months there writing his book--He regains elasticity and playfulness--His book--Charles Livingstone's share--He uses his influence for Dr. Kirk--Delivers a lecture at Mansfield--Proposal made to him by Sir R. Murchison to return to Africa--Letter from Sir Roderick--His reply--He will not cease to be a missionary--Letter to Mr. James Young--Overtures from Foreign Office--Livingstone displeased--At dinner of Royal Academy--His speech not reported--President Lincoln's assassination--Examination by Committee of House of Commons--His opinion on the capacity of the negro--He goes down to Scotland--Tom Brown's School Days--His mother very ill--She rallies--He goes to Oxford--Hears of his mother's death--Returns--He attends examination of Oswell's school--His speech--Goes to London, preparing to leave--Parts from Mr. and Mrs. Webb--Stays with Dr. and Mrs. Hamilton--Last days in England.

[CHAPTER XVIII.]

FROM ENGLAND TO BOMBAY AND ZANZIBAR.

A.D. 1865-1866.

Object of new journey--Double scheme--He goes to Paris with Agnes--Baron Hausmann--Anecdote at Marseilles--He reaches Bombay--Letter to Agnes--Reminiscences of Dr. Livingstone at Bombay by Rev. D.C. Boyd--by Alex. Brown, Esq.--Livingstone's dress--He visits the caves of Kenhari--Rumors of murder of Baron van der Decken--He delivers a lecture at Bombay--Great success--He sells the "Lady Nyassa"--Letter to Mr. James Young--Letter to Anna Mary--Hears that Dr. Kirk has got an appointment--Sets out for Zanzibar in "Thule"--Letter to Mr. James Young--His experience at sea--Letter to Agnes--He reaches Zanzibar--Calls on Sultan--Presents the "Thule" to him from Bombay Government--Monotony of Zanzibar life--Leaves in "Penguin" for the continent.

[CHAPTER XIX.]

FROM ZANZIBAR TO UJIJI.

A.D. 1866-1869.

Dr. Livingstone goes to mouth of Rovuma--His prayer--His company--His herd of animals--Loss of his buffaloes--Good spirits when setting put--Difficulties at Rovuma--Bad conduct of Johanna men--Dismissal of his Sepoys--Fresh horrors of slave-trade--Uninhabited tract--He reaches Lake Nyassa--Letter to his son Thomas--Disappointed hopes--His double aim, to teach natives and rouse horror of slave-trade--Tenor of religious addresses--Wikatami remains behind--Livingstone finds no altogether satisfactory station for commerce and missions--Question of the watershed--Was it worth the trouble?--Overruled for good to Africa--Opinion of Sir Bartle Frere--At Marenga's--The Johanna men leave in a body--Circulate rumor of his murder--Sir Roderick disbelieves it--Mr. E.D. Young sent out with Search Expedition--Finds proof against rumor--Livingstone half-starved--Loss of his goats--Review of 1866--Reflections on Divine Providence--Letter to Thomas--His dog drowned--Loss of his medicine-chest--He feels sentence of death passed on him--First sight of Lake Tanganyika--Detained at Chitimba's--Discovery of Lake Moero--Occupations during detention of 1867--Great privations and difficulties--Illness--Rebellion among his men--Discovery of Lake Bangweolo--Its oozy banks--Detention--Sufferings--He makes for Ujiji--Very severe illness in beginning of 1869--Reaches Ujiji--Finds his goods have been wasted and stolen--Most bitter disappointment--His medicines, etc., at Unyanyembe--Letter to Sultan of Zanzibar--Letters to Dr. Moffat and his daughter.

[CHAPTER XX.]

MANYUEMA.

A.D. 1869-1871.

He sets out to explore Manyuema and the river Lualaba--Loss of forty-two letters--His feebleness through illness--He arrives at Bambarré--Becomes acquainted with the soko or gorilla--Reaches the Luama River--Magnificence of the country--Repulsiveness of the people--Cannot get a canoe to explore the Lualaba--Has to return to Bambarré--Letter to Thomas, and retrospect of his life--Letter to Sir Thomas Maclear and Mr. Mann--Miss Tinné--He is worse in health than ever, yet resolves to add to his programme and go round Lake Bangweolo--Letter to Agnes--Review of the past--He sets out anew in a more northerly direction--Overpowered by constant wet--Reaches Nyangwe, the farthest point northward in his last Expedition--Long detention--Letter to his brother John--Sense of difficulties and troubles--Nobility of his spirit--He sets off with only three attendants for the Lualaba--Suspicions of the natives--Influence of Arab traders--Frightful difficulties of the way--Lamed by footsores--Has to return to Bambarré--Long and wearisome detention--Occupations--Meditations and reveries--Death no terror--Unparalleled position and trials--He reads his Bible from beginning to end four times--Letter to Sir Thomas Maclear--To Agnes--His delight at her sentiments about his coming home--Account of the soko--Grief to heat of death of Lady Murchison--Wretched character of men sent from Zanzibar--At last sets out with Mohamad--Difficulties--Slave-trade most horrible--Cannot get canoes for Lualaba--Long waiting--New plan--Frustrated by horrible massacre on banks of Lualaba--Frightful scene--He must return to Ujiji--New illness--Perils of journey to Ujiji--Life three times endangered in one day--Reaches Ujiji--Shereef has sold off his goods--He is almost in despair--Meets Henry M. Stanley and is relieved--His contributions to Natural Science during last journeys--Professor Owen in the Quarterly Review.

[CHAPTER XXI.]

LIVINGSTONE AND STANLEY.

A.D. 1871-1872.

Mr. Gordon Bennett sends Stanley in search of Livingstone--Stanley at Zanzibar--Starts for Ujiji--Reaches Unyanyembe--Dangerous illness--War between Arabs and natives--Narrow escape of Stanley--Approach to Ujiji--Meeting with Livingstone--Livingstone's story--Stanley's news--Livingstone's goods and men at Bagamoio--Stanley's account of Livingstone--Refutation of foolish and calumnious charges--They go to the north of the lake--Livingstone resolves not to go home, but to get fresh men and return to the sources--Letter to Agnes--to Sir Thomas Maclear--The travelers go to Unyanyembe--More plundering of stores--Stanley leaves for Zanzibar--Stanley's bitterness of heart at parting--Livingstone's intense gratitude to Stanley--He intrusts his Journal to him, and commissions him to send servants and stores from Zanzibar--Stanley's journey to the coast--Finds Search Expedition at Bagamoio--Proceeds to England--Stanley's reception--Unpleasant feelings--Éclaircissement--England grateful to Stanley.

[CHAPTER XXII.]

FROM UNYANYEMBE TO BANGWEOLO.

A.D. 1872-1873.

Livingstone's long wait at Unyanyembe--His plan of operations--His fifty-ninth birthday--Renewal of self-dedication--Letters to Agnes--to New York Herald--Hardness of the African battle--Waverings of judgment, whether Lualaba was the Nile or the Congo--Extracts from Journal--Gleams of humor--Natural history--His distress on hearing of the death of Sir Roderick Murchison--Thoughts on mission-work--Arrival of his escort--His happiness in his new men--He starts from Unyanyembe--Illness--Great amount of rain--Near Bangweolo--Incessant moisture--Flowers of the forest--Taking of observations regularly prosecuted--Dreadful state of the country from rain--Hunger--Furious attack of ants--Greatness of Livingstone's sufferings--Letters to Sir Thomas Maclear, Mr. Young, his brother, and Agnes--His sixtieth birthday--Great weakness in April--Sunday services and observations continued--Increasing illness--The end approaching--Last written words--Last day of his travels--He reaches Chitambo's village, in Ilala--Is found on his knees dead, on morning of 1st May--Courage and affection of his attendants--His body embalmed--Carried toward shore--Dangers and sufferings during the march--The party meet Lieutenant Cameron at Unyanyembe--Determine to go on--Ruse at Kasekéra--Death of Dr. Dillon--The party reach Bagamoio, and the remains are placed on board a cruiser--The Search Expeditions from England--to East Coast under Cameron--to West Coast under Grandy--Explanation of Expeditions by Sir Henry Rawlinson--Livingstone's remains brought to England--Examined by Sir W. Fergusson and others--Buried in Westminster Abbey--Inscription on slab--Livingstone's wish for a forest grave--Lines from Punch--Tributes to his memory--Sir Bartle Frere--The Lancet--Lord Polwarth--Florence Nightingale.

[CHAPTER XXIII.]

POSTHUMOUS INFLUENCE.

History of his life not completed at his death--Thrilling effect of the tragedy of Ilala--Livingstone's influence on the slave-trade--His letters from Manyuema--Sir Bartle Frere's mission to Zanzibar--Successful efforts of Dr. Kirk with Sultan of Zanzibar--The land route--The sea route--Slave-trade declared illegal--Egypt--The Soudan--Colonel Gordon--Conventions with Turkey--King Mtesa of Uganda--Nyassa district--Introduction of lawful commerce--Various commercial enterprises in progress--Influence of Livingstone on exploration--Enterprise of newspapers--Exploring undertakings of various nations--Livingstone's personal service to science--His hard work in science the cause of respect--His influence on missionary enterprise--Livingstonia--Dr. Stewart--Mr. E.D. Young--Blantyre--The Universities Mission under Bishop Steere--Its return to the mainland and to Nyassa district--Church Missionary Society at Nyanza--London Missionary Society at Tanganyika--French, Inland, Baptist, and American missions--Medical missions--The Fisk Livingstone hall--Livingstone's great legacy to Africa, a spotless Christian name and character--Honors of the future.

[APPENDIX.]

[I. Extracts from paper on "Missionary Sacrifices".]
[II. Treatment of African Fever.]
[III. Letter to Dr. Tidman, as to future operations.]
[IV. Lord Clarendon's Letter to Sekelétu.]
[V. Public Honors awarded to Dr. Livingstone.]

DAYID LIVINGSTONE.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY YEARS.

A.D. 1813-1836.

Ulva--The Livingstones--Traditions of Ulva life--The "baughting-time"--"Kirsty's Rock"--Removal of Livingstone's grandfather to Blantyre--Highland blood--Neil Livingstone--His marriage to Agnes Hunter--Her grandfather and father--Monument to Neil and Agnes Livingstone in Hamilton Cemetery--David Livingstone, born 19th March, 1813--Boyhood--At home--In school--David goes into Blantyre Mill--First Earnings--Night-school--His habits of reading--Natural-history expeditions--Great spiritual change in his twentieth year--Dick's Philosophy of a Future State--He resolves to be a missionary--Influence of occupation at Blantyre--Sympathy with the people--Thomas Burk and David Hogg--Practical character of his religion.

The family of David Livingstone sprang, as he has himself recorded, from the island of Ulva, on the west coast of Mull, in Argyllshire. Ulva, "the island of wolves," is of the same group as Staffa, and, like it, remarkable for its basaltic columns, which, according to MacCulloch, are more deserving of admiration than those of the Giant's Causeway, and have missed being famous only from being eclipsed by the greater glory of Staffa. The island belonged for many generations to the Macquaires, a name distinguished in our home annals, as well as in those of Australia. The Celtic name of the Livingstones was M'Leay, which, according to Dr. Livingstone's own idea, means "son of the gray-headed," but according to another derivation, "son of the physician." It has been surmised that the name may have been given to some son of the famous Beatoun, who held the post of physician to the Lord of the Isles. Probably Dr. Livingstone never heard of this derivation; if he had, he would have shown it some favor, for he had a singularly high opinion of the physician's office.

The Saxon name of the family was originally spelt Livingstone, but the Doctor's father had shortened it by the omission of the final "e." David wrote it for many years in the abbreviated form, but about 1857, at his father's request, he restored the original spelling [1]. The significance of the original form of the name was not without its influence on him. He used to refer with great pleasure to a note from an old friend and fellow-student, the late Professor George Wilson, of Edinburgh, acknowledging a copy of his book in 1857: "Meanwhile, may your name be propitious; in all your long and weary journeys may the Living half of your title outweigh the other; till after long and blessed labors, the white stone is given you in the happy land."

[1] See Journal of Geographical Society, 1857, p. clxviii.

Livingstone has told us most that is known of his forefathers; how his great-grandfather fell at Culloden, fighting for the old line of kings; how his grandfather could go back for six generations of his family before him, giving the particulars of each; and how the only tradition he himself felt proud of was that of the old man who had never heard of any person in the family being guilty of dishonesty, and who charged his children never to introduce the vice. He used also to tell his children, when spurring them to diligence at school, that neither had he ever heard of a Livingstone who was a donkey. He has also recorded a tradition that the people of the island were converted from being Roman Catholics "by the laird coming round with a man having a yellow staff, which would seem to have attracted more attention than his teaching, for the new religion went long afterward--perhaps it does so still--by the name of the religion of the yellow stick." The same story is told of perhaps a dozen other places in the Highlands; the "yellow stick" seems to have done duty on a considerable scale.

There were traditions of Ulva life that must have been very congenial to the temperament of David Livingstone. In the "Statistical Account" of the parish to which it belongs [2] we read of an old custom among the inhabitants, to remove with their flocks in the beginning of each summer to the upland pastures, and bivouac there till they were obliged to descend in the month of August. The open-air life, the free intercourse of families, the roaming frolics of the young men, the songs and merriment of young and old, seem to have made this a singularly happy time. The writer of the account (Mr. Clark, of Ulva) says that he had frequently listened with delight to the tales of pastoral life led by the people on these occasions; it was indeed a relic of Arcadia. There were tragic traditions, too, of Ulva; notably that of Kirsty's Rock, an awful place where the islanders are said to have administered Lynch law to a woman who had unwittingly killed a girl she meant only to frighten, for the alleged crime--denied by the girl--of stealing a cheese. The poor woman was broken-hearted when she saw what she had done; but the neighbors, filled with horror, and deaf to her remonstrances, placed her in a sack, which they laid upon a rock covered by the sea at high water, where the rising tide slowly terminated her existence. Livingstone quotes Macaulay's remark on the extreme savagery of the Highlanders of those days, like the Cape Caffres, as he says; and the tradition of Kirsty's Rock would seem to confirm it. But the stories of the "baughting-time" presented a fairer aspect of Ulva life, and no doubt left happier impressions on his mind. His grandfather, as he tells us, had an almost unlimited stock of such stories, which he was wont to rehearse to his grandchildren and other rapt listeners.

[2] Kilninian and Kilmore. See New Statistical Account of Scotland, Argyllshire, p. 345

When, for the first and last time in his life, David Livingstone visited Ulva, in 1864, in a friend's yacht, he could hear little or nothing of his relatives. In 1792, his grandfather, as he tells us, left it for Blantyre, in Lanarkshire, about seven miles from Glasgow, on the banks of the Clyde, where he found employment in a cotton factory. The dying charge of the unnamed ancestor must have sunk into the heart of his descendant, for, being a God-fearing man and of sterling honesty, he was employed in the conveyance of large sums of money from Glasgow to the works, and in his old age was pensioned off, so as to spend his declining years in ease and comfort. There is a tradition in the family, showing his sense of the value of education, that he was complimented by the Blantyre school-master for never grudging the price of a school-book for any of his children--a compliment, we fear, not often won at the present day. The other near relations of Livingstone seem to have left the island at the same time, and settled in Canada, Prince Edward's Isle, and the United States.

The influence of his Highland blood was apparent in many ways in David Livingstone's character. It modified the democratic influences of his earlier years, when he lived among the cotton spinners of Lanarkshire. It enabled him to enter more readily into the relation of the African tribes to their chiefs, which, unlike some other missionaries, he sought to conserve, while purifying it by Christian influence. It showed itself in the dash and daring which were so remarkbly combined in him with Saxon forethought and perseverance. We are not sure but it gave a tinge to his affections, intensifying his likes, and some of his dislikes too. His attachment to Sir Roderick Murchison was quite that of a Highlander, and hardly less so was his feeling toward the Duke of Argyll,--a man whom he had no doubt many grounds for esteeming highly, but of whom, after visiting him at Inveraray, he spoke with all the enthusiasm of a Highlander for his chief.

The Ulva emigrant had several sons, all of whom but one eventually entered the King's service during the French war, either as soldiers or sailors. The old man was somewhat disheartened by this circumstance, and especially by the fate of Charles, head-clerk in the office of Mr. Henry Monteith, in Glasgow, who was pressed on board a man-of-war, and died soon after in the Mediterranean. Only one son remained at home, Neil, the father of David, who eventually became a tea-dealer, and spent his life at Blantyre and Hamilton. David Livingstone has told us that his father was of the high type of character portrayed in the Cottar's Saturday Night. There are friends still alive who remember him well, and on whom he made a deep impression. He was a great reader from his youth upward, especially of religious works. His reading and his religion refined his character, and made him a most pleasant and instructive companion. His conversational powers were remarkable, and he could pour out in a most interesting way the stores of his reading and observation.

Neil Livingstone was a man of great spiritual earnestness, and his whole life was consecrated to duty and the fear of God, In many ways he was remarkable, being in some things before his time. In his boyhood he had seen the evil effects of convivial habits in his immediate circle, and in order to fortify others by his example he became a strict teetotaler, suffering not a little ridicule and opposition from the firmness with which he carried out his resolution. He was a Sunday-school teacher, an ardent member of a missionary society, and a promoter of meetings for prayer and fellowship, before such things had ceased to be regarded as badges of fanaticism. While traveling through the neighboring parishes in his vocation of tea-merchant, he acted also as colporteur, distributing tracts and encouraging the reading of useful books. He took suitable opportunities when they came to him of speaking to young men and others on the most important of all subjects, and not without effect. He learned Gaelic that he might be able to read the Bible to his mother, who knew that language best. He had indeed the very soul of a missionary. Withal he was kindly and affable, though very particular in enforcing what he believed to be right. He was quick of temper, but of tender heart and gentle ways; anything that had the look of sternness was the result not of harshness but of high principle. By this means he commanded the affection as well as the respect of his family. It was a great blow to his distinguished son, to whom in his character and ways he bore a great resemblance, to get news of his death, on his way home after his great journey, dissipating the cherished pleasure of sitting at the fireside and telling him all his adventures in Africa.

The wife of Neil Livingstone was Agnes Hunter, a member of a family of the same humble rank and the same estimable character as his own. Her grandfather, Gavin Hunter, of the parish of Shotts, was a doughty Covenanter, who might have sat for the portrait of David Deans. His son David (after whom the traveler was named) was a man of the same type, who got his first religious impressions in his eighteenth year, at an open-air service conducted by one of the Secession Erskines. Snow was falling at the time, and before the end of the sermon the people were standing in snow up to the ankles; but David Hunter used to say he had no feeling of cold that day. He married Janet Moffat, and lived at first in comfortable circumstances at Airdrie, where he owned a cottage and a croft. Mrs. Hunter died, when her daughter Agnes, afterward Mrs. Neil Livingstone, was but fifteen. Agnes was her mother's only nurse during a long illness, and attended so carefully to her wants that the minister of the family laid his hand on her head, and said, "A blessing will follow you, my lassie, for your duty to your mother." Soon after Mrs. Hunter's death a reverse of fortune overtook her husband, who had been too good-natured in accommodating his neighbors. He removed to Blantyre, where he worked as a tailor. Neil Livingstone was apprenticed to him by his father, much against his will; but it was by this means that he became acquainted with Agnes Hunter, his future wife. David Hunter, whose devout and intelligent character procured for him great respect, died at Blantyre in 1834, at the age of eighty-seven. He was a great favorite with his grandchildren, to whom he was always kind, and whom he allowed to rummage freely among his books, of which he had a considerable collection, chiefly theological.

Neil Livingstone and Agnes Hunter were married in 1810, and took up house at first in Glasgow. The furnishing of their house indicated the frugal character and self-respect of the occupants; it included a handsome chest of drawers, and other traditional marks of respectability. Not liking Glasgow, they returned to Blantyre. In a humble home there, five sons and two daughters were born. Two of the sons died in infancy, to the great sorrow of the parents. Mrs. Livingstone's family spoke and speak of her as a very loving mother, one who contributed to their home a remarkable element of brightness and serenity. Active, orderly, and of thorough cleanliness, she trained her family in the same virtues, exemplifying their value in their own home. She was a delicate little woman, with a wonderful flow of good spirits, and remarkable for the beauty of her eyes, to which those of her son David bore a strong resemblance. She was most careful of household duties, and attentive to her children. Her love had no crust to penetrate, but came beaming out freely like the light of the sun. Her son loved her, and in many ways followed her. It was the genial, gentle influences that had moved him under his mother's training that enabled him to move the savages of Africa.

She, too, had a great store of family traditions, and, like the mother of Sir Walter Scott, she retained the power of telling them with the utmost accuracy to a very old age. In one of Livingstone's private journals, written in 1864, during his second visit home, he gives at full length one of his mother's stories, which some future Macaulay may find useful as an illustration of the social condition of Scotland in the early part of the eighteenth century:

"Mother told me stories of her youth: they seem to come back to her in her eighty-second year very vividly. Her grandfather, Gavin Hunter, could write, while most common people were ignorant of the art. A poor woman got him to write a petition to the minister of Shotts parish to augment her monthly allowance of sixpence, as she could not live on it. He was taken to Hamilton jail for this, and having a wife and three children at home, who without him would certainly starve, he thought of David's feigning madness before the Philistines, and beslabbered his beard with saliva. All who were found guilty were sent to the army in America, or the plantations. A sergeant had compassion on him, and said, 'Tell me, gudeman, if you are really out of your mind. I'll befriend you.' He confessed that he only feigned insanity, because he had a wife and three bairns at home who would starve if he were sent to the army. 'Dinna say onything mair to ony body,' said the kind-hearted sergeant. He then said to the commanding officer, 'They have given us a man clean out of his mind: I can do nothing with the like o' him,' The officer went to him and gave him three shillings, saying, 'Tak' that, gudeman, and gang awa' hame to your wife and weans, 'Ay,' said mother, 'mony a prayer went up for that sergeant, for my grandfather was an unco godly man. He had never had so much money in his life before, for his wages were only threepence a day."

Mrs. Livingstone, to whom David had always been a most dutiful son, died on the 18th June, 1865, after a lingering illness which had confined her to bed for several years. A telegram received by him at Oxford announced her death; that telegram had been stowed away in one of his traveling cases, for a year after (19th June, 1866), in his Last Journals, he wrote this entry: "I lighted on a telegram to-day:

'Your mother died at noon on the 18th June.

This was in 1865; it affected me not a little [3]."

[3] Last Journals vol. i. p. 55

The home in which David Livingstone grew up was bright and happy, and presented a remarkable example of all the domestic virtues. It was ruled by an industry that never lost an hour of the six days, and that welcomed and honored the day of rest; a thrift that made the most of everything, though it never got far beyond the bare necessaries of life; a self-restraint that admitted no stimulant within the door, and that faced bravely and steadily all the burdens of life; a love of books that showed the presence of a cultivated taste, with a fear of God that dignified the life which it moulded and controlled. To the last David Livingstone was proud of the class from which he sprang. When the highest in the land were showering compliments on him, he was writing to his old friends of "my own order, the honest poor," and trying, by schemes of colonization and otherwise, to promote their benefit. He never had the least hankering for any title or distinction that would have seemed to lift him out of his own class; and it was with perfect sincerity that on the tombstone which he placed over the resting-place of his parents in the cemetery of Hamilton, he expressed his feelings in these words, deliberately refusing to change the "and" of the last line into "but":

TO SHOW THE RESTING-PLACE OF
NEIL LIVINGSTONE,
AND AGNES HUNTER, HIS WIFE,
AND TO EXPEESS THE THANKFULNESS TO GOD
OF THEIR CHILDREN,
JOHN, DAVID, JANET, CHARLES, AND AGNES,
FOR POOR AND PIOUS PARENTS.

David Livingstone's birthday was the 19th March, 1813. Of his early boyhood there is little to say, except that he was a favorite at home. The children's games were merrier when he was among them, and the fireside brighter. He contributed constantly to the happiness of the family. Anything of interest that happened to him he was always ready to tell them. The habit was kept up in after-years. When he went to study in Glasgow, returning on the Saturday evenings, he would take his place by the fireside and tell them all that had occurred during the week, thus sharing his life with them. His sisters still remember how they longed for these Saturday evenings. At the village school he received his early education. He seems from his earliest childhood to have been of a calm, self-reliant nature. It was his father's habit to lock the door at dusk, by which time all the children were expected to be in the house. One evening David had infringed this rule, and when he reached the door it was barred. He made no cry nor disturbance, but having procured a piece of bread, sat down contentedly to pass the night on the doorstep. There, on looking out, his mother found him. It was an early application of the rule which did him such service in later days, to make the best of the least pleasant situations. But no one could yet have thought how the rule was to be afterward applied. Looking back to this period, Livingstone might have said, in the words of the old Scotch ballad:

"O little knew my mother,
The day she cradled me,
The lands that I should wander o'er,
The death that I should dee."

At the age of nine he got a New Testament from his Sunday-school teacher for repeating the 119th Psalm on two successive evenings with only five errors, a proof that perseverance was bred in his very bone.

His parents were poor, and at the age of ten he was put to work in the factory as a piecer, that his earnings might aid his mother in the struggle with the wolf which had followed the family from the island that bore its name. After serving a number of years as a piecer, he was promoted to be a spinner. Greatly to his mother's delight, the first half crown he ever earned was laid by him in her lap. Livingstone has told us that with a part of his first week's wages he purchased Ruddiman's Rudiments of Latin, and pursued the study of that language with unabated ardor for many years afterward at an evening class which had been opened between the hours of eight and ten. "The dictionary part of my labors was followed up till twelve o'clock, or later, if my mother did not interfere by jumping up and snatching the books out of my hands. I had to be back in the factory by six in the morning, and continue my work, with intervals for breakfast and dinner, till eight o'clock at night. I read in this way many of the classical authors, and knew Virgil and Horace better at sixteen than I do now [4]."

[4] Missionary Travels, p. 8.

In his reading, he tells us that he devoured all the books that came into his hands but novels, and that his plan was to place the book on a portion of the spinning-jenny, so that he could catch sentence after sentence as he passed at his work. The labor of attending to the wheels was great, for the improvements in spinning machinery that have made it self-acting had not then been introduced. The utmost interval that Livingstone could have for reading at one time was less than a minute.

The thirst for reading so early shown was greatly stimulated by his father's example. Neil Livingstone, while fond of the old Scottish theology, was deeply interested in the enterprise of the nineteenth century, or, as he called it, "the progress of the world," and endeavored to interest his family in it too. Any books of travel, and especially of missionary enterprise, that he could lay his hands on, he eagerly read. Some publications of the Tract Society, called the Weekly Visitor, the Child's Companion and Teacher's Offering, were taken in, and were much enjoyed by his son David, especially the papers of "Old Humphrey." Novels were not admitted into the house, in accordance with the feeling prevalent in religious circles. Neil Livingstone had also a fear of books of science, deeming them unfriendly to Christianity; his son instinctively repudiated that feeling, though it was some time before the works of Thomas Dick, of Broughty-Ferry, enabled him to see clearly, what to him was of vital significance, that religion and science were not necessarily hostile, but rather friendly to each other.

The many-sidedness of his character showed itself early; for not content with reading, he used to scour the country, accompanied by his brothers, in search of botanical, geological, and zoological specimens. Culpepper's Herbal was a favorite book, and it set him to look in every direction for as many of the plants described in it as the countryside could supply. A story has been circulated that on these occasions he did not always confine his researches in zoology to fossil animals. That Livingstone was a poacher in the grosser sense of the term seems hardly credible, though with the Radical opinions which he held at the time it may readily be believed that he had no respect for the sanctity of game. If a salmon came in his way while he was fishing for trout, he made no scruple of bagging it. The bag on such occasions was not always made for the purpose, for there is a story that once when he had captured a fish in the "salmon pool," and was not prepared to transport such a prize, he deposited it in the leg of his brother Charles's trousers, creating no little sympathy for the boy as he passed through the village with his sadly swollen leg!

It was about his twentieth year that the great spiritual change took place which determined the course of Livingstone's future life. But before this time he had earnest thoughts on religion. "Great pains," he says in his first book, "had been taken by my parents to instill the doctrines of Christianity into my mind, and I had no difficulty in understanding the theory of a free salvation by the atonement of our Saviour; but it was only about this time that I began to feel the necessity and value of a personal application of the provisions of that atonement to my own case [5]." Some light is thrown on this brief account in a paper submitted by him to the Directors of the London Missionary Society in 1838, in answer to a schedule of queries sent down by them when he offered himself as a missionary for their service. He says that about his twelfth year he began to reflect on his state as a sinner, and became anxious to realize the state of mind that flows from the reception of the truth into the heart. He was deterred, however, from embracing the free offer of mercy in the gospel, by a sense of unworthiness to receive so great a blessing, till a supernatural change should be effected in him by the Holy Spirit. Conceiving it to be his duty to wait for this, he continued expecting a ground of hope within, rejecting meanwhile the only true hope of the sinner, the finished work of Christ, till at length his convictions were effaced, and his feelings blunted. Still his heart was not at rest; an unappeased hunger remained, which no other pursuit could satisfy.

[5] Missionary Travels, p.4

In these circumstances he fell in with Dick's Philosophy of a Future State. The book corrected his error, and showed him the truth. "I saw the duty and inestimable privilege immediately to accept salvation by Christ. Humbly believing that through sovereign mercy and grace I have been enabled so to do, and having felt in some measure its effects on my still depraved and deceitful heart, it is my desire to show my attachment to the cause of Him who died for me by devoting my life to his service."

There can be no doubt that David Livingstone's heart was very thoroughly penetrated by the new life that now flowed into it. He did not merely apprehend the truth--the truth laid hold of him. The divine blessing flowed into him as it flowed into the heart of St. Paul, St. Augustine, and others of that type, subduing all earthly desires and wishes. What he says in his book about the freeness of God's grace drawing forth feelings of affectionate love to Him who bought him with his blood, and the sense of deep obligation to Him for his mercy, that had influenced, in some small measure, his conduct ever since, is from him most significant. Accustomed to suppress all spiritual emotion in his public writings, he would not have used these words if they had not been very real. They give us the secret of his life. Acts of self-denial that are very hard to do under the iron law of conscience, become a willing service under the glow of divine love. It was the glow of divine love as well as the power of conscience that moved Livingstone. Though he seldom revealed his inner feelings, and hardly ever in the language of ecstasy, it is plain that he was moved by a calm but mighty inward power to the very end of his life. The love that began to stir his heart in his father's house continued to move him all through his dreary African journeys, and was still in full play on that lonely midnight when he knelt at his bedside in the hut in Ilala, and his spirit returned to his God and Saviour.

At first he had no thought of being himself a missionary. Feeling "that the salvation of men ought to be the chief desire and aim of every Christian," he had made a resolution "that he would give to the cause of missions all that he might earn beyond what was required for his subsistence [6]." The resolution to give himself came from his reading an Appeal by Mr. Gutzlaff to the Churches of Britain and America on behalf of China. It was "the claims of so many millions of his fellow-creatures, and the complaints of the scarcity, of the want of qualified missionaries," that led him to aspire to the office. From that time--apparently his twenty-first year--his "efforts were constantly directed toward that object without any fluctuation."

[6] Statement to Directors of London Missionary Society.

The years of monotonous toil spent in the factory were never regretted by Livingstone. On the contrary, he regarded his experience there as an important part of his education, and had it been possible, he would have liked "to begin life over again in the same lowly style, and to pass through the same hardy training [7]." The fellow-feeling he acquired for the children of labor was invaluable for enabling him to gain influence with the same class, whether in Scotland or in Africa. As we have already seen, he was essentially a man of the people. Not that he looked unkindly on the richer classes,--he used to say in his later years, that he liked to see people in comfort and at leisure, enjoying the good things of life,--but he felt that the burden-bearing multitude claimed his sympathy most. How quick the people are, whether in England or in Africa, to find out this sympathetic spirit, and how powerful is the hold of their hearts which those who have it gain! In poetic feeling, or at least in the power of expressing it, as in many other things, David Livingstone and Robert Burns were a great contrast; but in sympathy with the people they were alike, and in both cases the people felt it. Away and alone, in the heart of Africa, when mourning "the pride and avarice that make man a wolf to man," Livingstone would welcome the "good time coming," humming the words of Burns:

[7] Missionary Travels, p. 6.

"When man to man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that."

In all the toils and trials of his life, he found the good of that early Blantyre discipline, which had forced him to bear irksome toil with patience, until the toil ceased to be irksome, and even became a pleasure.

Livingstone has told us that the village of Blantyre, with its population of two thousand souls, contained some characters of sterling worth and ability, who exerted a most beneficial influence on the children and youth of the place by imparting gratuitous religious instruction. The names of two of the worthiest of these are given, probably because they stood highest in his esteem, and he owed most to them, Thomas Burke and David Hogg. Essentially alike, they seem to have been outwardly very different. Thomas Burke, a somewhat wild youth, had enlisted early in the army. His adventures and hairbreadth escapes in the Forty-second, during the Peninsular and other wars, were marvelous, and used to be told in after-years to crowds of wondering listeners. But most marvelous was the change of heart that brought him back an intense Christian evangelist, who, in season, and out of season, never ceased to beseech the people of Blantyre to yield themselves to God. Early on Sunday mornings he would go through the village ringing a bell to rouse the people that they might attend an early prayer-meeting which he had established. His temperament was far too high for most even of the well-disposed people of Blantyre, but Neil Livingstone appreciated his genuine worth, and so did his son. David says of him that "for about forty years he had been incessant and never weary in good works, and that such men were an honor to their country and their profession." Yet it was not after the model of Thomas Burke that Livingstone's own religious life was fashioned. It had a greater resemblance to that of David Hogg, the other of the two Blantyre patriarchs of whom he makes special mention, under whose instructions he had sat in the Sunday-school, and whose spirit may be gathered from his death-bed advice to him: "Now, lad, make religion the every-day business of your life, and not a thing of fits and starts; for if you do, temptation and other things will get the better of you." It would hardly be possible to give a better account of Livingstone's religion than that he did make it quietly, but very really, the every-day business of his life. From the first he disliked men of much profession and little performance; the aversion grew as he advanced in years; and by the end of his life, in judging of men, he had come to make somewhat light both of profession and of formal creed, retaining and cherishing more and more firmly the one great test of the Saviour--"By their fruits ye shall know them."

CHAPTER II.

MISSIONARY PREPARATION.

A.D. 1836--1840.

His desire to be a missionary to China--Medical missions--He studies at Glasgow--Classmates and teachers--He applies to London Missionary Society--His ideas of mission work--He is accepted provisionally--He goes to London--to Ongar--Reminiscences by Rev. Joseph Moore--by Mrs. Gilbert--by Rev. Isaac Taylor--Nearly rejected by the Directors--Returns to Ongar--to London--Letter to his sister--Reminiscences by Dr. Risdon Bennett--Promise to Professor Owen--Impression of his character on his friends and fellow-students--Rev. R. Moffat in England--Livingstone interested--Could not be sent to China--Is appointed to Africa--Providential links in his history--Illness--Last visits to his home--Receives Medical diploma--Parts from his family.

It was the appeal of Gutzlaff for China, as we have seen, that inspired Livingstone with the desire to be a missionary; and China was the country to which his heart turned. The noble faith and dauntless enterprise of Gutzlaff, pressing into China over obstacles apparently insurmountable, aided by his medical skill and other unusual qualifications, must have served to shape Livingstone's ideal of a missionary, as well as to attract him to the country where Gutzlaff labored. It was so ordered, however, that in consequence of the opium war shutting China, as it seemed, to the English, his lot was not cast there; but throughout his whole life he had a peculiarly lively interest in the country that had been the object of his first love. Afterward, when his brother Charles, then in America, wrote to him that he, too, felt called to the missionary office, China was the sphere which David pointed out to him, in the hope that the door which had been closed to the one brother might be opened to the other.

When he determined to be a missionary, the only persons to whom he communicated his purpose were his minister and his parents, from all of whom he received great encouragement [8]. He hoped that he would be able to go through the necessary preparation without help from any quarter. This was the more commendable, because in addition to the theological qualifications of a missionary, he determined to aquire those of a medical practitioner. The idea of medical missions was at that time comparatively new. It had been started in connection with missions to China, and it was in the prospect of going to that country that Livingstone resolved to obtain a medical education. It would have been comparatively easy for him, in a financial sense, to get the theological training, but the medical education was a costly affair. To a man of ordinary ideas, it would have seemed impossible to make the wages earned during the six months of summer avail not merely for his support then, but for winter too, and for lodgings, fees, and books besides. Scotch students have often done wonders in this way, notably the late Dr. John Henderson, a medical missionary to China, who actually lived on half-a-crown a week, while attending medical classes in Edinburgh. Livingstone followed the same self-denying course. If we had a note of his house-keeping in his Glasgow lodging, we should wonder less at his ability to live on the fare to which he was often reduced in Africa. But the importance of the medical qualification had taken a firm hold of his mind, and he persevered in spite of difficulties. Though it was never his lot to exercise the healing art in China, his medical training was of the highest use in Africa, and it developed wonderfully his strong scientific turn.

[8] Livingstone's minister at this time was the Rev. John Moir, of the Congregational church, Hamilton, who afterward joined the Free Church of Scotland, and is now Presbyterian minister in Wellington, New Zealand. Mr. Moir has furnished us with some recollections of Livingstone, which reached us after the completion of this narrative. He particularly notes that when Livingstone expressed his desire to be a missionary, it was a missionary out and out, a missionary to the heathen, not the minister of a congregation. Mr. Moir kindly lent him some books when he went to London, all of which were conscientiously returned before he left the country. A Greek Lexicon, with only cloth boards when lent, was returned in substantial calf. He was ever careful, conscientious, and honorable in all his dealings, as his father had been before him.

It was in the winter of 1836-37 that he spent his first session in Glasgow. Furnished by a friend with a list of lodgings, Livingstone and his father set out from Blantyre one wintry day, while the snow was on the ground, and walked to Glasgow. The lodgings were all too expensive. All day they searched for a cheaper apartment, and at last in Rotten Row they found a room at two shillings a week. Next evening David wrote to his friends that he had entered in the various classes, and spent twelve pounds in fees; that he felt very lonely after his father left, but would put "a stout heart to a stey brae," and "either mak' a spune or spoil a horn." At Rotten Row he found that his landlady held rather communistic views in regard to his tea and sugar; so another search had to be made, and this time he found a room in the High street, where he was very comfortable, at half-a-crown a week.

At the close of the session in April he returned to Blantyre and resumed work at the mill. He was unable to save quite enough for his second session, and found it necessary to borrow a little from his elder brother [9]. The classes he attended during these two sessions were the Greek class in Anderson's College, the theological classes of Rev. Dr. Wardlaw, who trained students for the Independent Churches, and the medical classes in Anderson's. In the Greek class he seems to have been entered as a private student exciting little notice [10]. In the same capacity he attended the lectures of Dr. Wardlaw. He had a great admiration for that divine, and accepted generally his theological views. But Livingstone was not much of a scientific theologian.

[9] The readiness of elder brothers to advance part of their hard-won earnings, or otherwise encourage a younger brother to attend college, is a pleasant feature of family life in the humbler classes of Scotland. The case of James Beattie, the poet, assisted by his brother David, and that of Sir James Simpson, who owed so much to his brother Alexander, will be remembered in this connection.

[10] A very sensational and foolish reminiscence was once published of a raw country youth coming into the class with his clothes stained with grease and whitened by cotton-wool. This was Livingstone. The fact is, nothing could possibly have been more unlike him. At this time Livingstone was not working at the mill; and, in regard to dress, however plainly he might be clad, he was never careless, far less offensive.

His chief work in Glasgow was the prosecution of medical study. Of his teachers, two attracted him beyond the rest--the late Dr. Thomas Graham, the very distinguished Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Andrew Buchanan, Professor of the Institutes of Medicine, his life-long and much-attached friend. While attending Dr. Graham's class he was brought into frequent contact with the assistant to the Professor, Mr. James Young. Originally bred to a mechanical employment, this young man had attended the evening course of Dr. Graham, and having attracted his attention, and done various pieces of work for him, he became his assistant. The students used to gather round him, and several met in his room, where there was a bench, a turning-lathe, and other conveniences for mechanical work. Livingstone took an interest in the turning-lathe, and increased his knowledge of tools--a knowledge which proved of the highest service to him when--as he used to say all missionaries should be ready to do--he had to become a Jack-of-all-trades in Africa.

Livingstone was not the only man of mark who frequented that room, and got lessons from Mr. Young "how to use his hands." The Right Hon. Lyon Playfair, who has had so distinguished a scientific career, was another of its habitués. A galvanic battery constructed by two young men on a new principle, under Mr. Young's instructions, became an object of great attraction, and among those who came to see it and its effects were two sons of the Professor of Mathematics in the University. Although but boys, both were fired at this interview with enthusiasm for electric science. Both have been for many years Professors in the University of Glasgow. The elder, Professor James Thomson, is well known for his useful inventions and ingenious papers on many branches of science. The younger, Sir William Thomson, ranks over the world as prince of electricians, and second to no living man in scientific reputation.

Dr. Graham's assistant devoted himself to practical chemistry, and made for himself a brilliant name by the purification of petroleum, adapting it for use in private houses, and by the manufacture of paraffin and paraffin-oil. Few men have made the art to which they devoted themselves more subservient to the use of man than he whom Livingstone first knew as Graham's assistant, and afterward used to call playfully "Sir Paraffin." "I have been obliged to knight him," he used to say, "to distinguish him from the other Young." The "other" Young was Mr. E. D. Young, of the Search Expedition, and subsequently the very successful leader of the Scotch Mission at Lake Nyassa. The assistant to Dr. Graham still survives, and is well known as Mr. Young, of Kelly, LL.D. and F.R.S.

When Livingstone returned from his first journey his acquaintance with Mr. Young was resumed, and their friendship continued through life. It is no slight testimony from one who knew him so long and so intimately, that, in his judgment, Livingstone was the best man he ever knew, had more than any other man of true filial trust in God, more of the spirit of Christ, more of integrity, purity, and simplicity of character, and of self-denying love for his fellow-men. Livingstone named after him a river which he supposed might be one of the sources of the Nile, and used ever to speak with great respect of the chief achievement of Mr. Young's life,--filling houses with a clear white light at a fraction of the cost of the smoky article which it displaced.

Beyond their own department, men of science are often as lax and illogical as any; but when scientific training is duly applied, it genders a habit of thorough accuracy, inasmuch as in scientific inquiry the slightest deviation from truth breeds endless mischief. Other influences had already disposed Livingstone to great exactness of statement, but along with these his scientific training may be held to have contributed to that dread of exaggeration and of all inaccuracy which was so marked a feature of his character through life.

It happened that Livingstone did not part company with Professor Graham and Mr. Young when he left Glasgow. The same year, Dr. Graham went to London as Professor in University College, and Livingstone, who also went to London, had the opportunity of paying occasional visits to his class. In this way, too, he became acquainted with the late Dr. George Wilson, afterward Professor of Technology in the University of Edinburgh, who was then acting as unsalaried assistant in Dr. Graham's laboratory. Frank, genial, and chivalrous, Wilson and Livingstone had much in common, and more in after-years, when Wilson, too, became an earnest Christian. In the simplicity and purity of their character, and in their devotion to science, not only for its own sake, but as a department of the kingdom of God, they were brothers indeed. Livingstone showed his friendship in after-years by collecting and transmitting to Wilson whatever he could find in Africa worthy of a place in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, of which his friend was the first Director.

In the course of his second session in Glasgow (1837-38) Livingstone applied to the London Missionary Society, offering his services to them as a missionary. He had learned that that Society had for its sole object to send the gospel to the heathen; that it accepted missionaries from different Churches, and that it did not set up any particular form of Church, but left it to the converts to choose the form they considered most in accordance with the Word of God. This agreed with Livingstone's own notion of what a Missionary Society should do. He had already connected himself with the Independent communion, but this preference for it was founded chiefly on his greater regard for the personnel of the body, and for the spirit in which it was administered, as compared with the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland. He had very strong views of the spirituality of the Church of Christ, and the need of a profound spiritual change as the only true basis of Christian life and character. He thought that the Presbyterian Churches were too lax in their communion, and particularly the Established Church. He was at this time a decided Voluntary, chiefly on the ground maintained by such men as Vinet, that the connection of Church and State was hurtful to the spirituality of the Church; and he had a particular abhorrence of what he called "geographical Christianity,"--which gave every man within a certain area a right to the sacraments. We shall see that in his later years Dr. Livingstone saw reason to modify some of these opinions; surveying the Evangelical Churches from the heart of Africa, he came to think that, established or non-established, they did not differ so very much from each other, and that there was much good and considerable evil in them all.

In his application to the London Missionary Society, Livingstone stated his ideas of missionary work in comprehensive terms: "The missionary's object is to endeavor by every means in his power to make known the gospel by preaching, exhortation, conversation, instruction of the young; improving, so far as in his power, the temporal condition of those among whom he labors, by introducing the arts and sciences of civilization, and doing everything to commend Christianity to their hearts and consciences. He will be exposed to great trials of his faith and patience from the indifference, distrust, and even direct opposition and scorn of those for whose good he is laboring; he may be tempted to despondency from the little apparent fruit of his exertions, and exposed to all the contaminating influence of heathenism." He was not about to undertake this work without counting the cost. "The hardships and dangers of missionary life, so far as I have had the means of ascertaining their nature and extent, have been the subject of serious reflection, and in dependence on the promised assistance of the Holy Spirit, I have no hesitation in saying that I would willingly submit to them, considering my constitution capable of enduring any ordinary share of hardship or fatigue." On one point he was able to give the Directors very explicit information: he was not married, nor under any engagement of marriage, nor had he ever made proposals of marriage, nor indeed been in love! He would prefer to go out unmarried, that he might, like the great apostle, be without family cares, and give himself entirely to the work.

His application to the London Missionary Society was provisionally accepted, and in September, 1838, he was summoned to London to meet the Directors. A young Englishman came to London on the same errand at the same time, and a friendship naturally arose between the two. Livingstone's young friend was the Rev. Joseph Moore, afterwards missionary at Tahiti; now of Congleton, in Cheshire. Nine years later, Livingstone, writing to Mr. Moore from Africa, said: "Of all those I have met since we parted, I have seen no one I can compare to you for sincere, hearty friendship." Livingstone's family used to speak of them as Jonathan and David. Mr. Moore has kindly furnished us with his recollections of Livingstone at this time:--

"I met with Livingstone first in September, 1838, at 57 Aldersgate street, London. On the same day we had received a letter from the Secretary informing us severally that our applications had been received, and that we must appear in London to be examined by the Mission Board there. On the same day, he from Scotland, and I from the south of England, arrived in town. On that night we simply accosted each other, as those who meet at a lodging house might do. After breakfast on the following day we fell into conversation, and finding that the same object had brought us to the metropolis, and that the same trial awaited us, naturally enough we were drawn to each other. Every day, as we had not been in town before, we visited places of renown in the great city, and had many a chat about our prospects.

"On Sunday, in the morning, we heard Dr. Leifchild, who was then in his prime, and in the evening Mr. Sherman, who preached with all his accustomed persuasiveness and mellifluousness. In the afternoon we worshiped at St. Paul's, and heard Prebendary Dale.

"On Monday we passed our first examination. On Tuesday we went to Westminster Abbey. Who that had seen those two young men passing from monument to monument could have divined that one of them would one day be buried with a nation's--rather with the civilized world's--lament, in that sacred shrine? The wildest fancy could not have pictured that such an honor awaited David Livingstone. I grew daily more attached to him. If I were asked why, I should be rather at a loss to reply. There was truly an indescribable charm about him, which, with all his rather ungainly ways, and by no means winning face, attracted almost every one, and which helped him so much in his after-wanderings in Africa.

"He won those who came near him by a kind of spell. There happened to be in the boarding-house at that time a young M.D., a saddler from Hants, and a bookseller from Scotland. To this hour they all speak of him in rapturous terms.

"After passing two examinations, we were both so far accepted by the Society that we were sent to the Rev. Richard Cecil, who resided at Chipping Ongar, in Essex. Most missionary students were sent to him for three months' probation, and if a favorable opinion was sent to the Board of Directors, they went to one of the Independent colleges. The students did not for the most part live with Mr. Cecil, but took lodgings in the town, and went to his house for meals and instruction in classics and theology. Livingstone and I lodged together. We read Latin and Greek, and began Hebrew together. Every day we took walks, and visited all the spots of interest in the neighborhood, among them the country churchyard which was the burial-place of John Locke. In a place so quiet, and a life so ordinary as that of a student, there did not occur many events worthy of recital. I will, however, mention one or two things, because they give an insight--a kind of prophetic glance--into Livingstone's after-career.

"One foggy November morning, at three o'clock, he set out from Ongar to walk to London to see a relative of his father's [11]. It was about twenty-seven miles to the house he sought. After spending a few hours with his relation, he set out to return on foot to Ongar. Just out of London, near Edmonton, a lady had been thrown out of a gig. She lay stunned on the road. Livingston immediately went to her, helped to carry her into a house close by, and having examined her and found no bones broken, and recommending a doctor to be called, he resumed his weary tramp. Weary and footsore, when he reached Stanford Rivers he missed his way, and finding after some time that he was wrong, he felt so dead-beat that he was inclined to lie down and sleep; but finding a directing-post he climbed it, and by the light of the stars deciphered enough to know his whereabouts. About twelve that Saturday night he reached Ongar, white as a sheet, and so tired he could hardly utter a word. I gave him a basin of bread and milk, and I am not exaggerating when I say I put him to bed. He fell at once asleep, and did not awake till noonday had passed on Sunday.

[11] We learn from the family that the precise object of the visit was to transact some business for his eldest brother, who had begun to deal in lace. In the darkness of the morning Livingstone fell into a ditch, smearing his clothes, and not improving his appearance for smart business purposes. The day was spent in going about in London from shop to shop, greatly increasing Livingstone's fatigue.

"Total abstinence at that time began to be spoken of, and Livingstone and I, and a Mr. Taylor, who went to India, took a pledge together to abstain [12]. Of that trio, two, I am sorry to say (heu me miserum!), enfeebled health, after many years, compelled to take a little wine for our stomachs' sake. Livingstone was one of the two.

[12] Livingstone had always practiced total abstinence, according to the invariable custom of his father's house. The third of the trio was the Rev. Joseph V.S. Taylor, now of the Irish Presbyterian Mission, Gujerat, Bombay.

"One part of our duties was to prepare sermons, which were submitted to Mr. Cecil, and, when corrected, were committed to memory, and then repeated to our village congregations. Livingstone prepared one, and one Sunday the minister of Stamford Rivers; where the celebrated Isaac Taylor resided, having fallen sick after the morning service, Livingstone was sent for to preach in the evening. He took his text, read it out very deliberately, and then--then--his sermon had fled! Midnight darkness came upon him, and he abruptly said: 'Friends, I have forgotten all I had to say,' and hurrying out of the pulpit, he left the chapel.

"He never became a preacher" [we shall see that this does not apply to his preaching in the Sichuana language], "and in the first letter I received from him from Elizabeth Town, in Africa, he says: 'I am a very poor preacher, having a bad delivery, and some of them said if they knew I was to preach again they would not enter the chapel. Whether this was all on account of my manner I don't know; but the truth which I uttered seemed to plague very much the person who supplies the missionaries with wagons and oxen. (They were bad ones.) My subject was the necessity of adopting the benevolent spirit of the Son of God, and abandoning the selfishness of the world.' Each student at Ongar had also to conduct family worship in rotation. I was much impressed by the fact that Livingstone never prayed without the petition that we might imitate Christ in all his imitable perfections [13]."

[13] In connection with this prayer, it is interesting to note the impression made by Livingstone nearly twenty years afterward on one who saw him but twice--once at a public breakfast in Edinburgh, and again at the British Association in Dublin in 1857. We refer to Mrs. Sime, sister of Livingstone's early friend, Professor George Wilson, of Edinburgh. Mrs. Sime writes; "I never knew any one who gave me more the idea of power over other men, such power as our Saviour showed while on earth, the power of love and purity combined."

In the Autobiography of Mrs. Gilbert, an eminent member of the family of the Taylors of Ongar, there occur some reminiscenses of Livingstone, corresponding to those here given by Mr. Moore [14].

[14] Page 886, third edition.

The Rev. Isaac Taylor, LL.D., now rector of Settringham, York, son of the celebrated author of The Natural History of Enthusiasm, and himself author of Words and Places, Etruscan Researches, etc., has kindly furnished us with the following recollection: "I well remember as a boy taking country rambles with Livingstone when he was studying at Ongar. Mr. Cecil had several missionary students, but Livingstone was the only one whose personality made any impression on my boyish imagination. I might sum up my impression of him in two words--simplicity and resolution. Now, after nearly forty years, I remember his step, the characteristic forward tread, firm, simple, resolute, neither fast nor slow, no hurry and no dawdle, but which evidently meant--getting there [15]."

[15] On one occasion, in conversation with his former pastor, the Rev. John Moir, Livingstone spoke of Mr. Isaac Taylor, who had shown him much kindness, and often invited him to dine in his house. He said that though Mr. Taylor was connected with the Independents, he was attached to the principles of the Church of England. Mr. Taylor used to lay very great stress on acquaintance with the writings of the Fathers as necessary for meeting the claims of the Tractarians, and did not think that that study was sufficiently encouraged by the Nonconformists. Any one who has been in Mr. Taylor's study at Stanford Rivers, and who remembers the top-heavy row of patristic folios that crowned his collection of books, and the glance of pride he cast on them as he asked his visitor whether many men in his Church were well read in the Fathers, will be at no loss to verify this reminiscence. Certainly Livingstone had no such qualification, and undoubtedly he never missed it.

We resume Mr. Moore's reminiscences:

"When three months had elapsed, Mr. Cecil sent in his report to the Board. Judging from Livingstone's hesitating manner in conducting family worship, and while praying on the week-days in the chapel, and also from his failure so complete in preaching, an unfavorable report was given in.... Happily, when it was read, and a decision was about to be given against him, some one pleaded hard that his probation should be extended, and so he had several months' additional trial granted. I sailed in the same boat, and was also sent back to Ongar as a naughty boy.... At last we had so improved that both were fully accepted. Livingstone went to London to pursue his medical studies, and I went to Cheshunt College, A day or two after reaching college, I sent to Livingstone, asking him to purchase a second-hand carpet for my room. He was quite scandalized at such an exhibition of effeminacy, and positively refused to gratify my wish.... In the spring of 1840 I met Livingstone at London in Exeter Hall, when Prince Albert delivered his maiden speech in England. I remember how nearly he was brought to silence when the speech, which he had lodged on the brim of his hat, fell into it, as deafening cheers made it vibrate. A day or two after, we heard Binney deliver his masterly missionary sermon, 'Christ seeing of the travail of his soul and being satisfied.'"

The meeting at Exeter Hall was held to inaugurate the Niger Expedition. It was on this occasion that Samuel Wilberforce became known as a great platform orator [16]. It must have been pleasant to Livingstone in after-years to recall the circumstance when he became a friend and correspondent of the Bishop of Oxford.

[16] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, vol. i, p. 160.

Notwithstanding the dear postage of the time, Livingstone wrote regularly to his friends, but few of his letters have survived. One of the few, dated 5th May, 1839, is addressed to his sister, and in it he says that there had been some intention of sending him abroad at once, but that he was very desirous of getting more education. The letter contains very little news, but is full of the most devout aspirations for himself and exhortations to his sister. Alluding to the remark of a friend that they should seek to be "uncommon Christians, that is, eminently holy and devoted servants of the Most High," he urges:

"Let us seek--and with the conviction that we cannot do without it--that all selfishness be extirpated, pride banished, unbelief driven from the mind, every idol dethroned, and everything hostile to holiness and opposed to the divine will crucified; that 'holiness to the Lord' may be engraven on the heart, and evermore characterize our whole conduct. This is what we ought to strive after; this is the way to be happy; this is what our Saviour loves--entire surrender of the heart. May He enable us by his Spirit to persevere till we attain it! All comes from Him, the disposition to ask as well as the blessing itself.

"I hope you improve the talents committed to you whenever there is an opportunity. You have a class with whom you have some influence. It requires prudence in the way of managing it; seek wisdom from above to direct you; persevere--don't be content with once or twice recommending the Saviour to them--again and again, in as kind a manner as possible, familiarly, individually, and privately, exhibit to them the fountain of happiness and joy, never forgetting to implore divine energy to accompany your endeavors, and you need not fear that your labor will be unfruitful. If you have the willing mind, that is accepted; nothing is accepted if that be wanting. God desires that. He can do all the rest. After all, He is the sole agent, for the 'willing mind' comes alone from Him. This is comforting, for when we think of the feebleness and littleness of all we do, we might despair of having our services accepted, were we not assured that it is not these God looks to, except in so far as they are indications of the state of the heart."

Dr. Livingstone's sisters have a distinct recollection that the field to which the Directors intended to send him was the West Indies, and that he remonstrated on the ground that he had spent two years in medical study, but in the West Indies, where there were regular practitioners, his medical knowledge would be of little or no avail. He pleaded with the Directors, therefore, that he might be allowed to complete his medical studies, and it was then that Africa was provisionally fixed on as his destination. It appears, however, that he had not quite abandoned the thought of China. Mr. Moir, his former pastor, writes that being in London in May, 1839, he called at the Mission House to make inquiries about him. He asked whether the Directors did not intend to send him to the East Indies, where the field was so large and the demand so urgent, but he was told that though they esteemed him highly, they did not think that his gifts fitted him for India, and that Africa would be a more suitable field.

On returning to London, Livingstone devoted himself with special ardor to medical and scientific study. The church with which he was connected was that of the late Rev. Dr. Bennett, in Falcon Square. This led to his becoming intimate with Dr. Bennett's son, now the well-known J. Risdon Bennett, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., and President of the Royal College of Physicians, London. The friendship continued during the whole of Dr. Livingstone's life. From some recollections with which Dr. Bennett has kindly furnished us we take the following:

"My acquaintance with David Livingstone was through the London Missionary Society, when, having offered himself to that Society, he came to London to carry on those medical and other studies which he had commenced in Glasgow. From the first, I became deeply interested in his character, and ever after maintained a close friendship with him. I entertained toward him a sincere affection, and had the highest admiration of his endowments, both of mind and heart, and of his pure and noble devotion of all his powers to the highest purposes of life. One could not fail to be impressed with his simple, loving, Christian spirit, and the combined modest, unassuming, and self-reliant character of the man.

"He placed himself under my guidance in reference to his medical studies, and I was struck with the amount of knowledge that he had already acquired of those subjects which constitute the foundation of medical science. He had, however, little or no acquaintance with the practical departments of medicine, and had had no opportunities of studying the nature and aspects of disease. Of these deficiencies he was quite aware, and felt the importance of acquiring as much practical knowledge as possible during his stay in London. I was at that time physician to the Aldersgate Street Dispensary, and was lecturing at the Charing Cross Hospital on the practice of medicine, and thus was able to obtain for him free admission to hospital practice as well as attendance on my lectures and my practice at the dispensary. I think that I also obtained for him admission to the opthalmic hospital in Moorfields. With these sources of information open to him, he obtained a considerable acquaintance with the more ordinary forms of disease, both surgical and medical, and an amount of scientific and practical knowledge that could not fail to be of the greatest advantage to him in the distant regions to which he was going, away from all the resources of civilization. His letters to me, and indeed all the records of his eventful life, demonstrate how great to him was the value of the medical knowledge with which he entered on missionary life. There is abundant evidence that on various occasions his own life was preserved through his courageous and sagacious application of his scientific knowledge to his own needs; and the benefits which he conferred on the natives to whose welfare he devoted himself, and the wonderful influence which he exercised over them, were in no small degree due to the humane and skilled assistance which he was able to render as a healer of bodily disease. The account which he gave me of his perilous encounter with the lion, and the means he adopted for the repair of the serious injuries which he received, excited the astonishment and admiration of all the medical friends to whom I related it, as evincing an amount of courage, sagacity, skill, and endurance that have scarcely been surpassed in the annals of heroism."

Another distinguished man of science with whom Livingstone became acquainted in London, and on whom he made an impression similar to that made on Dr. Bennett, was Professor Owen. Part of the little time at his disposal was devoted to studying the series of comparative anatomy in the Hunterian Museum, under Professor Owen's charge. Mr. Owen was interested to find that the Lanarkshire student was born in the same neighborhood as Hunter [17], but still more interested in the youth himself and his great love of natural history. On taking leave, Livingstone promised to bear his instructor in mind if any curiosity fell in his way. Years passed, and as no communication reached him, Mr. Owen was disposed to class the promise with too many others made in the like circumstances. But on his first return to this country Livingstone presented himself, bearing the tusk of an elephant with a spiral curve. He had found it in the heart of Africa, and it was not easy of transport. "You may recall," said Professor Owen, at the Farewell Festival in 1858, "the difficulties of the progress of the weary sick traveler on the bullock's back. Every pound weight was of moment; but Livingstone said, 'Owen shall have this tusk,' and he placed it in my hands in London." Professor Owen recorded this as a proof of Livingstone's inflexible adherence to his word. With equal justice we may quote it as a proof of his undying gratitude to any one that had shown him kindness.

[17] Not in the same parish, as stated afterward by Professor Owen. Hunter was born in East Kilbride, and Livingstone in Blantyre. The error is repeated in notices of Livingstone in some other quarters.

On all his fellow-students and acquaintances the simplicity, frankness, and kindliness of Livingstone's character made a deep impression. Mr. J.S. Cook, now of London, who spent three months with him at Ongar, writes: "He was so kind and gentle in word and deed to all about him that all loved him. He had always words of sympathy at command, and was ready to perform acts of sympathy for those who were suffering." The Rev. G.D. Watt, a brother Scotchman, who went as a missionary to India, has a vivid remembrance of Livingstone's mode of discussion; he showed great simplicity of view, along with a certain roughness or bluntness of manner; great kindliness, and yet great persistence in holding to his own ideas. But none of his friends seem to have had any foresight of the eminence he was destined to attain. The Directors of the Society did not even rank him among their ablest men. It is interesting to contrast the opinion entertained of him then with that expressed by Sir Bartle Frere, after much personal intercourse, many years afterward. "Of his intellectual force and energy," wrote Sir Bartle, "he has given such proof as few men could afford. Any five years of his life might in any other occupation have established a character and raised for him a fortune such as none but the most energetic of our race can realize [18]."

[18] Good Words, 1874, p. 285.

But his early friends were not so much at fault. Livingstone was somewhat slow of maturing. If we may say so, his intellect hung fire up to this very time, and it was only during his last year in England that he came to his intellectual manhood, and showed his real power. His very handwriting shows the change; from being cramped and feeble it suddenly becomes clear, firm, and upright, very neat, but quite the hand of a vigorous, independent man.

Livingstone's prospects of getting to China had been damaged by the Opium War; while it continued, no new appointments could be made, even had the Directors wished to send him there. It was in these circumstances that he came into contact with his countryman, Mr. (now Dr.) Moffat, who was then in England, creating much interest in his South African mission. The idea of his going to Africa became a settled thing, and was soon carried into effect.

"I had occasion" (Dr. Moffat has informed us) "to call for some one at Mrs. Sewell's, a boarding-house for young missionaries in Aldersgate street, where Livingstone lived. I observed soon that this young man was interested in my story, that he would sometimes come quietly and ask me a question or two, and that he was always desirous to know where I was to speak in public, and attended on these occasions. By and by he asked me whether I thought he would do for Africa. I said I believed he would, if he would not go to an old station, but would advance to unoccupied ground, specifying the vast plain to the north, where I had sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages, where no missionary had ever been. At last Livingstone said: 'What is the use of my waiting for the end of this abominable opium war? I will go at once to Africa.' The Directors concurred, and Africa became his sphere."

It is no wonder that all his life Livingstone had a very strong faith in Providence, for at every turn of his career up to this point, some unlooked-for circumstance had come in to give a new direction to his history. First, his reading Dick's Philosophy of a Future State, which led him to Christ, but did not lead him away from science; then his falling in with Gutzlaff's Appeal, which induced him to become a medical missionary; the Opium War, which closed China against him; the friendly word of the Director who procured for him another trial; Mr. Moffat's visit, which deepened his interest in Africa; and finally, the issue of a dangerous illness that attacked him in London--all indicated the unseen hand that was preparing him for his great work.

The meeting of Livingstone with Moffat is far too important an event to be passed over without remark. Both directly and indirectly Mr. Moffat's influence on his young brother, afterward to become his son-in-law, was remarkable. In after-life they had a thorough appreciation of each other. No family on the face of the globe could have been so helpful to Livingstone in connection with the great work to which he gave himself. If the old Roman fashion of surnames still prevailed, there is no household of which all the members would have been better entitled to put AFRICANUS after their name. The interests of the great continent were dear to them all. In 1872, when one of the Search Expeditions for Livingstone was fitted out, a grandson of Dr. Moffat, another Robert Moffat, was among those who set out in the hope of relieving him; cut off at the very beginning, in the flower of his youth, he left his bones to moulder in African soil.

The illness to which we have alluded was an attack of congestion of the liver, with an affection of the lungs. It seemed likely to prove fatal, and the only chance of recovery appeared to be a visit to his home, and return to his native air. In accompanying him to the steamer, Mr. Moore found him so weak that he could scarcely walk on board. He parted from him in tears, fearing that he had but a few days to live. But the voyage and the visit had a wonderful effect, and very soon Livingstone was in his usual health. The parting with his father and mother, as they afterward told Mr. Moore, was very affecting. It happened, however, that they met once more. It was felt that the possession of a medical diploma would be of service, and Livingstone returned to Scotland in November, 1840, and passed at Glasgow as Licentiate of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons. It was on this occasion he found it so inconvenient to have opinions of his own and the knack of sticking to them. It seemed as if he was going to be rejected for obstinately maintaining his views in regard to the stethoscope; but he pulled through. A single night was all that he could spend with his family, and they had so much to speak of that David proposed they should sit up all night. This, however, his mother would not hear of. "I remember my father and him," writes his sister, "talking over the prospects of Christian missions. They agreed that the time would come when rich men and great men would think it an honor to support whole stations of missionaries, instead of spending their money on hounds and horses. On the morning of 17th November we got up at five o'clock. My mother made coffee. David read the 121st and 135th Psalms, and prayed. My father and he walked to Glasgow to catch the Liverpool steamer." On the Broomielaw, father and son looked for the last time on earth on each other's faces. The old man walked back slowly to Blantyre, with a lonely heart no doubt, yet praising God. David's face was now set in earnest toward the Dark Continent.

CHAPTER III.

FIRST TWO YEARS IN AFRICA.

A.D. 1841-1843.

His ordination--Voyage out--At Rio de Janeiro--At the Cape--He proceeds to Kuruman--Letters--Journey of 700 miles to Bechuana country--Selection of site for new station--Second excursion to Bechuana country--Letter to his sister--Influence with chiefs--Bubi--Construction of a water-dam--Sekomi--Woman seized by a lion--The Bakaa--Sebehwe--Letter to Dr. Risdon Bennett--Detention at Kuruman--He visits Sebehwe's village--Bakhatlas--Sechéle, chief of Bakwains--Livingstone translates hymns--Travels 400 miles on oxback--Returns to Kuruman--Is authorized to form new station--Receives contributions for native missionary--Letters to Directors on their Mission policy--He goes to new station--Fellow-travelers--Purchase of site--Letter to Dr. Bennett--Desiccation of South Africa--Death of a servant, Sehamy--Letter to his parents.

On the 20th November, 1840, Livingstone was ordained a missionary in Albion Street Chapel, along with the Rev. William Ross, the service being conducted by the Rev. J.J. Freeman and the Rev. R. Cecil. On the 8th of December he embarked on board the ship "George," under Captain Donaldson, and proceeded to the Cape, and thence to Algoa Bay. On the way the ship had to put in at Rio de Janeiro, and he had a glance at Brazil, with which he was greatly charmed. It was the only glimpse he ever got of any part of the great continent of America. Writing to the Rev. G.D. Watt, with whom he had become intimate in London, and who was preparing to go as a missionary to India, he says:

"It is certainly the finest place I ever saw; everything delighted me except man.... We lived in the home of an American Episcopal Methodist minister--the only Protestant missionary in Brazil.... Tracts and Bibles are circulated, and some effects might be expected, were a most injurious influence not exerted by European visitors. These alike disgrace themselves and the religion they profess by drunkenness. All other vices are common in Rio. When will the rays of Divine light dispel the darkness in this beautiful empire? The climate is delightful. I wonder if disabled Indian missionaries could not make themselves useful there."

During the voyage his chief friend was the captain of the ship. "He was very obliging to me," says Livingstone, "and gave me all the information respecting the use of the quadrant in his power, frequently sitting up till twelve o'clock at night for the purpose of taking lunar observations with me." Thus another qualification was acquired for his very peculiar life-work. Sundays were not times of refreshing, at least not beyond his closet. "The captain rigged out the church on Sundays, and we had service; but I being a poor preacher, and the chaplain addressing them all as Christians already, no moral influence was exerted, and even had there been on Sabbath, it would have been neutralized by the week-day conduct. In fact, no good was done." Neither at Rio, nor on board ship, nor anywhere, could good be done without the element of personal character. This was Livingstone's strong conviction to the end of his life.

In his first letter to the Directors of the London Missionary Society he tells them that he had spent most of his time at sea in the study of theology, and that he was deeply grieved to say that he knew of no spiritual good having been done in the case of any one on board the ship. His characteristic honesty thus showed itself in his very first dispatch.

Arriving at the Cape, where the ship was detained a month, he spent some time with Dr. Philip, then acting as agent for the Society, with informal powers as superintendent. Dr. Philip was desirous of returning home for a time, and very anxious to find some one to take his place as minister of the congregation of Cape Town, in his absence. This office was offered to Livingstone, who rejected it with no little emphasis--not for a moment would he think of it, nor would he preach the gospel within any other man's line. He had not been long at the Cape when he found to his surprise and sorrow that the missionaries were not all at one, either as to the general policy of the mission, or in the matter of social intercourse and confidence. The shock was a severe one; it was not lessened by what he came to know of the spirit and life of a few--happily only a few--of his brethren afterward; and undoubtedly it had an influence on his future life. It showed him that there were missionaries whose profession was not supported by a life of consistent well-doing, although it did not shake his confidence in the character and the work of missionaries on the whole. He saw that in the mission there was what might be called a colonial side and a native side; some sympathizing with the colonists and some with the natives. He had no difficulty in making up his mind between them; he drew instinctively to the party that were for protecting the natives against the unrighteous encroachments of the settlers.

On leaving the ship at Algoa Bay, he proceeded by land to Kuruman or Lattakoo, in the Bechuana country, the most northerly station of the Society in South Africa, and the usual residence of Mr. Moffat, who was still absent in England. In this his first African journey the germ of the future traveler was apparent. "Crossing the Orange River," he says, "I got my vehicle aground, and my oxen got out of order, some with their heads where their tails should be, and others with their heads twisted round in the yoke so far that they appeared bent on committing suicide, or overturning the wagon.... I like travelling very much indeed. There is so much freedom connected with our African manners. We pitch our tent, make our fire, etc., wherever we choose, walk, ride, or shoot at abundance of all sorts of game as our inclination leads us; but there is a great drawback: we can't study or read when we please. I feel this very much. I have made but very little progress in the language (can speak a little Dutch), but I long for the time when I shall give my undivided attention to it, and then be furnished with the means of making known the truth of the gospel." While at the Cape, Livingstone had heard something of a fresh-water lake ('Ngami) which all the missionaries were eager to see. If only they would give him a month or two to learn the colloquial language, he said they might spare themselves the pains of being "the first in at the death." It is interesting to remark further that, in this first journey, science had begun to receive its share of attention. He is already bent on making a collection for the use of Professor Owen [19], and is enthusiastic in describing some agatized trees and other curiosities which he met with.

[19] This collection never reached its destination.

Writing to his parents from Port Elizabeth, 19th May, 1841, he gives his first impressions of Africa. He had been at a station called Hankey:

"The scenery was very fine. The white sand in some places near the beach drifted up in large wreaths exactly like snow. One might imagine himself in Scotland were there not a hot sun overhead. The woods present an aspect of strangeness, for everywhere the eye meets the foreign-looking tree from which the bitter aloes is extracted, popping up its head among the mimosa bushes and stunted acacias. Beautiful humming-birds fly about in great numbers, sucking the nectar from the flowers, which are in great abundance and very beautiful. I was much pleased with my visit to Hankey.... The state of the people presents so many features of interest, that one may talk about it and convey some idea of what the Gospel has done. The full extent of the benefit received can, however, be understood only by those who witness it in contrast with other places that have not been so highly favored. My expectations have been far exceeded. Everything I witnessed surpassed my hopes, and if this one station is a fair sample of the whole, the statements of the missionaries with regard to their success are far within the mark. The Hottentots of Hankey appear to be in a state similar to that of our forefathers in the days immediately preceding the times of the Covenanters. They have a prayer-meeting every morning at four o'clock, and well attended. They began it during a visitation of measles among them, and liked it so much that they still continue."

He goes on to say that as the natives had no clocks or watches, mistakes sometimes occurred about ringing the bell for this meeting, and sometimes the people found themselves assembled at twelve or one o'clock instead of four. The welcome to the missionaries (their own missionary was returning from the Cape with Livingstone) was wonderful. Muskets were fired at their approach, then big guns; and then men, women, and children rushed at the top of their speed to shake hands and welcome them. The missionary had lost a little boy, and out of respect each of the people had something black on his head. Both public worship and family worship were very interesting, the singing of hymns being very beautiful. The bearing of these Christianized Hottentots was in complete contrast to that of a Dutch family whom he visited as a medical man one Sunday. There was no Sunday; the man's wife and daughters were dancing before the house, while a black played the fiddle.

His instructions from the Directors were to go to Kuruman, remain there till Mr. Moffat should return from England, and turn his attention to the formation of a new station farther north, awaiting more specific instructions, He arrived at Kuruman on the 31st July, 1841, but no instructions had come from the Directors; his sphere of work was quite undetermined, and he began to entertain the idea of going to Abyssinia. There could be no doubt that a Christian missionary was needed there, for the country had none; but if he should go, he felt that probably he would never return. In writing of this to his friend Watt, he used words almost prophetic: "Whatever way my life may be spent so as but to promote the glory of our gracious God, I feel anxious to do it.... My life, may be spent as profitably as a pioneer as in any other way."

In his next letter to the London Missionary Society, dated Kuruman, 23d September, 1841, he gives his impressions of the field, and unfolds an idea which took hold of him at the very beginning, and never lost its grip. It was, that there was not population enough about the South to justify a concentration of missionary labor there, and that the policy of the Society ought to be one of expansion, moving out far and wide wherever there was an opening, and making the utmost possible use of native agency, in order to cultivate so wide a field. In England he had thought that Kuruman might be made a great missionary institute, whence the beams of divine truth might diverge in every direction, through native agents supplied from among the converts; but since he came to the spot he had been obliged to abandon that notion; not that the Kuruman mission had not been successful, or that the attendance at public worship was small, but simply because the population was meagre, and seemed more likely to become smaller than larger. The field from which native agents might be drawn was thus too small. Farther north there was a denser population. It was therefore his purpose, along with a brother missionary, to make an early journey to the interior, and bury himself among the natives, to learn their language, and slip into their modes of thinking and feeling. He purposed to take with him two of the best qualified native Christians of Kuruman, to plant them as teachers in some promising locality; and in case any difficulty should arise about their maintenance, he offered, with characteristic generosity, to defray the cost of one of them from his own resources.

Accordingly, in company with a brother missionary from Kuruman, a journey of seven hundred miles was performed before the end of the year, leading chiefly to two results: in the first place, a strong confirmation of his views on the subject of native agency; and in the second place, the selection of a station, two hundred and fifty miles north of Kuruman, as the most suitable for missionary operations. Seven hundred miles traveled over more Africano seemed to indicate a vast territory; but on looking at it on the map, it was a mere speck on the continent of heathenism. How was that continent ever to be evangelized? He could think of no method except an extensive method of native agency. And the natives, when qualified, were admirably qualified. Their warm, affectionate manner of dealing with their fellow-men, their ability to present the truth to their minds freed from the strangeness of which foreigners could not divest it, and the eminent success of those employed by the brethren of Griqua Town, were greatly in their favor. Two natives had likewise been employed recently by the Kuruman Mission, and these had been highly efficient and successful. If the Directors would allow him to employ more of these, conversions would increase in a compound ratio, and regions not yet explored by Europeans would soon be supplied with the bread of life.

In regard to the spot selected for a mission, there were many considerations in its favor. In the immediate neighborhood of Kuruman the chiefs hated the gospel, because it deprived them of their supernumerary wives. In the region farther north, this feeling had not yet established itself; on the contrary, there was an impression favorable to Europeans, and a desire for their alliance. These Bechuana tribes had suffered much from the marauding invasions of their neighbors; and recently, the most terrible marauder of the country, Mosilikatse, after being driven westward by the Dutch Boers, had taken up his abode on the banks of a central lake, and resumed his raids, which were keeping the whole country in alarm. The more peaceful tribes had heard of the value of the white man, and of the weapons by which a mere handful of whites had repulsed hordes of marauders. They were therefore disposed to welcome the stranger, although this state of feeling could not be relied on as sure to continue, for Griqua hunters and individuals from tribes hostile to the gospel were moving northward, and not only circulating rumors unfavorable to missionaries, but by their wicked lives introducing diseases previously unknown. If these regions, therefore, were to be taken possession of by the gospel, no time was to be lost. For himself, Livingstone had no hesitation in going to reside in the midst of these savages, hundreds of miles away from civilization, not merely for a visit, but, if necessary, for the whole of his life.

In writing to his sisters after this journey (8th December, 1841), he gives a graphic account of the country, and some interesting notices of the people:

"Janet, I suppose, will feel anxious to know what our dinner was. We boiled a piece of the flesh of a rhinoceros which was toughness itself, the night before. The meat was our supper, and porridge made of Indian corn-meal and gravy of the meat made a very good dinner next day. When about 150 miles from home we came to a large village. The chief had sore eyes; I doctored them, and he fed us pretty well with milk and beans, and sent a fine buck after me as a present. When we had got about ten or twelve miles on the way, a little girl about eleven or twelve years of age came up and sat down under my wagon, having run away for the purpose of coming with us to Kuruman. She had lived with a sister whom she had lately lost by death. Another family took possession of her for the purpose of selling her as soon as she was old enough for a wife. But not liking this, she determined to run away from them and come to some friends near Kuruman. With this intention she came, and thought of walking all the way behind my wagon. I was pleased with the determination of the little creature, and gave her some food. But before we had remained long there, I heard her sobbing violently, as if her heart would break. On looking round, I observed the cause. A man with a gun had been sent after her, and he had just arrived. I did not know well what to do now, but I was not in perplexity long, for Pomare, a native convert who accompanied us, started up and defended her cause. He being the son of a chief, and possessed of some little authority, managed the matter nicely. She had been loaded with beads to render her more attractive, and fetch a higher price. These she stripped off and gave to the man, and desired him to go away. I afterward took measures for hiding her, and though fifty men had come for her, they would not have got her."

The story reads like an allegory or a prophecy. In the person of the little maid, oppressed and enslaved Africa comes to the good Doctor for protection; instinctively she knows she may trust him; his heart opens at once, his ingenuity contrives a way of protection and deliverance, and he will never give her up. It is a little picture of Livingstone's life.

In fulfillment of a promise made to the natives in the interior that he would return to them, Livingstone set out on a second tour into the interior of the Bechuana country on 10th February, 1842. His objects were, first, to acquire the native language more perfectly, and second, by suspending his medical practice, which had become inconveniently large at Kuruman, to give his undivided attention to the subject of native agents. He took with him two native members of the Kuruman church, and two other natives for the management of the wagon.

The first person that specially engaged his interest in this journey was a chief of the name of Bubi, whose people were Bakwains. With him he stationed one of the native agents as a teacher, the chief himself collecting the children and supplying them with food. The honesty of the people was shown in their leaving untouched all the contents of his wagon, though crowds of them visited it. Livingstone was already acquiring a powerful influence, both with chiefs and people, the result of his considerate and conciliatory treatment of both. He had already observed the failure of some of his brethren to influence them, and his sagacity had discerned the cause. His success in inducing Bubi's people to dig a canal was contrasted in a characteristic passage of a private letter, with the experience of others.

"The doctor and the rainmaker among these people are one and the same person. As I did not like to be behind my professional brethren, I declared I could make rain too, not, however, by enchantments like them, but by leading out their river for irrigation. The idea pleased mightily, and to work we went instanter. Even the chief's own doctor is at it, and works like a good fellow, laughing heartily at the cunning of the 'foreigner' who can make rain so. We have only one spade, and this is without a handle; and yet by means of sticks sharpened to a point we have performed all the digging of a pretty long canal. The earth was lifted out in 'gowpens' and carried to the huge dam we have built in karosses (skin cloaks), tortoise-shells, or wooden bowls. We intended nothing of the ornamental in it, but when we came to a huge stone, we were forced to search for a way round it. The consequence is, it has assumed a beautifully serpentine appearance. This is, I believe, the first instance in which Bechuanas have been got to work without wages. It was with the utmost difficulty the earlier missionaries got them to do anything. The missionaries solicited their permission to do what they did, and this was the very way to make them show off their airs, for they are so disobliging; if they perceive any one in the least dependent upon them, they immediately begin to tyrannize. A more mean and selfish vice certainly does not exist in the world. I am trying a different plan with them. I make my presence with any of them a favor, and when they show any impudence, I threaten to leave them, and if they don't amend, I put my threat into execution. By a bold, free course among them I have had not the least difficulty in managing the most fierce. They are in one sense fierce, and in another the greatest cowards in the world. A kick would, I am persuaded, quell the courage of the bravest of them. Add to this the report which many of them verily believe, that I am a great wizard, and you will understand how I can with ease visit any of them. Those who do not love, fear me, and so truly in their eyes am I possessed of supernatural power, some have not hesitated to affirm I am capable of even raising the dead! The people of a village visited by a French brother actually believed it. Their belief of my powers, I suppose, accounts, too, for the fact that I have not missed a single article either from the house or wagon since I came among them, and this, although all my things lay scattered about the room, while crammed with patients."

It was unfortunate that the teacher whom Livingstone stationed with Bubi's people was seized with a violent fever, so that he was obliged to bring him away. As for Bubi himself, he was afterward burned to death by an explosion of gunpowder, which one of his sorcerers was trying, by means of burnt roots, to un-bewitch.

In advancing, Livingstone had occasion to pass through a part of the great Kalahari desert, and here he met with Sekomi, a chief of the Bamangwato, from whom also he received a most friendly reception. The ignorance of this tribe he found to be exceedingly great:

"Their conceptions of the Deity are of the most vague and contradictory nature, and the name of God conveys no more to their understanding than the idea of superiority. Hence they do not hesitate to apply the name to their chiefs. I was every day shocked by being addressed by that title, and though it as often furnished me with a text from which to tell them of the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent, yet it deeply pained me, and I never felt so fully convinced of the lamentable detoriation of our species. It is indeed a mournful truth that man has become like the beasts that perish."

The place was greatly infested by lions, and during Livingstone's visit an awful occurrence took place that made a great impression on him:

"A woman was actually devoured in her garden during my visit, and that so near the town that I had frequently walked past it. It was most affecting to hear the cries of the orphan children of this woman. During the whole day after her death the surrounding rocks and valleys rang and re-echoed with their bitter cries. I frequently thought as I listened to the loud sobs, painfully indicative of the sorrows of those who have no hope, that if some of our churches could have heard their sad wailings, it would have awakened the firm resolution to do more for the heathen than they have done."

Poor Sekomi advanced a new theory of regeneration which Livingstone was unable to work out:

"On one occasion Sekomi, having sat by me in the hut for some time in deep thought, at length addressing me by a pompous title said, 'I wish you would change my heart. Give me medicine to change it, for it is proud, proud and angry, angry always.' I lifted up the Testament and was about to tell him of the only way in which the heart can be changed, but he interrupted me by saying, 'Nay, I wish to have it changed by medicine, to drink and have it changed at once, for it is always very proud and very uneasy, and continually angry with some one.' He then rose and went away."

A third tribe visited at this time was the Bakaa, and here, too, Livingstone was able to put in force his wonderful powers of management. Shortly before, the Bakaa had murdered a trader and his company. When Livingstone appeared their consciences smote them, and, with the exception of the chief and two attendants, the whole of the people fled from his presence. Nothing could allay their terror, till, a dish of porridge having been prepared, they saw Livingstone partake of it along with themselves without distrust. When they saw him lie down and fall asleep they were quite at their ease. Thereafter he began to speak to them:

"I had more than ordinary pleasure in telling these murderers of the precious blood which cleanseth from all sin. I bless God that He has conferred on one so worthless the distinguished privilege and honor of being the first messenger of mercy that ever trod these regions. Its being also the first occasion on which I had ventured to address a number of Bechuanas in their own tongue without reading it, renders it to myself one of peculiar interest. I felt more freedom than I had anticipated, but I have an immense amount of labor still before me, ere I can call myself a master of Sichuana. This journey discloses to me that when I have acquired the Batlapi, there is another and perhaps more arduous task to be accomplished in the other dialects, but by the Divine assistance I hope I shall be enabled to conquer. When I left the Bakaa, the chief sent his son with a number of his people to see me safe part of the way to the Makalaka."

On his way home, in passing through Bubi's country, he was visited by sixteen of the people of Sebehwe, a chief who had successfully withstood Mosilikatse, but whose cowardly neighbors, under the influence of jealousy, had banded together to deprive him of what they had not had the courage to defend. Consequently he had been driven into the sandy desert, and his object in sending to Livingstone was to solicit his advice and protection, as he wished to come out, in order that his people might grow corn, etc. Sebehwe, like many of the other people of the country, had the notion that if he got a single white man to live with him, he would be quite secure. It was no wonder that Livingstone early acquired the strong conviction that if missions could only be scattered over Africa, their immediate effect in promoting the tranquillity of the continent could hardly be over-estimated.

We have given these details somewhat fully, because they show that before he had been a year in the country Livingstone had learned how to rule the Africans. From the very first, his genial address, simple and fearless manner, and transparent kindliness formed a spell which rarely failed. He had great faith in the power of humor. He was never afraid of a man who had a hearty laugh. By a playful way of dealing with the people, he made them feel at ease with him, and afterward he could be solemn enough when the occasion required. His medical knowledge helped him greatly; but for permanent influence all would have been in vain if he had not uniformly observed the rules of justice, good feeling, and good manners. Often ha would say that the true road to influence was patient continuance in well-doing. It is remarkable that, from the very first, he should have seen the charm of that method which he employed so successfully to the end.

In the course of this journey, Livingstone was within ten days of Lake 'Ngami, the lake of which he had heard at the Cape, and which he actually discovered in 1849; and he might have discovered it now, had discovery alone been his object. Part of his journey was performed on foot, in consequence of the draught oxen having become sick:

"Some of my companions," he says in his first book, "who had recently joined us, and did not know that I understood a little of their speech, were overheard by me discussing my appearance and powers: 'He is not strong, he is quite slim, and only appears stout because he puts himself in those bags (trousers); he will soon knock up.' This caused my Highland blood to rise, and made me despise the fatigue of keeping them all at the top of their speed for days together, and until I heard them expressing proper opinions of my pedestrian powers."

We have seen how full Livingstone's heart was of the missionary spirit; how intent he was on making friends of the natives, and how he could already preach in one dialect, and was learning another. But the activity of his mind enabled him to give attention at the same time to other matters. He was already pondering the structure of the great African Continent, and carefully investigating the process of desiccation that had been going on for a long time, and had left much uncomfortable evidence of its activity in many parts. In the desert, he informs his friend Watt that no fewer than thirty-two edible roots and forty-three fruits grew without cultivation. He had the rare faculty of directing his mind at the full stretch of its power to one great object, and yet, apparently without effort, giving minute and most careful attention to many other matters,--all bearing, however, on the same great end.

A very interesting letter to Dr. Risdon Bennett, dated Kuruman, 18th December, 1841, gives an account of his first year's work from the medical and scientific point of view. First, he gives an amusing picture of the Bechuana chiefs, and then some details of his medical practice:

The people are all under the feudal system of government, the chieftainship is hereditary, and although the chief is usually the greatest ass, and the most insignificant of the tribe in appearance, the people pay a deference to him which is truly astonishing.... I feel the benefit often of your instructions, and of those I got through your kindness. Here I have an immense practice. I have patients now under treatment who have walked 130 miles for my advice; and when these go home, others will come for the same purpose. This is the country for a medical man if he wants a large practice, but he must leave fees out of the question! The Bechuanas have a great deal more disease than I expected to find among a savage nation; but little else can be expected, for they are nearly naked, and endure the scorching heat of the day and the chills of the night in that condition. Add to this that they are absolutely omnivorous. Indigestion, rheumatism, opthalmia are the prevailing diseases.... Many very bad cases were brought to me, sometimes, when traveling, my wagon was quite besieged by their blind and halt and lame. What a mighty effect would be produced if one of the seventy disciples were among them to heal them all by a word! The Bechuanas resort to the Bushmen and the poor people that live in the desert for doctors. The fact of my dealing in that line a little is so strange, and now my fame has spread far and wide. But if one of Christ's apostles were here, I should think he would be very soon known all over the continent to Abyssinia. The great deal of work I have had to do in attending to the sick has proved beneficial to me, for they make me speak the language perpetually, and if I were inclined to be lazy in learning it, they would prevent me indulging the propensity. And they are excellent patients, too, besides. There is no wincing; everything prescribed is done instanter. Their only failing is that they become tired of a long course. But in any operation, even the women sit unmoved. I have been quite astonished again and again at their calmness. In cutting out a tumor, an inch in diameter, they sit and talk as if they felt nothing. 'A man like me never cries,' they say, 'they are children that cry.' And it is a fact that the men never cry. But when the Spirit of God works on their minds they cry most piteously. Sometimes in church they endeavor to screen themselves from the eyes of the preacher by hiding under the forms or covering their heads with their karosses as a remedy against their convictions. And when they find that won't do, they rush out of the church and run with all their might, crying as if the hand of death were behind them. One would think, when they got away, there they would remain; but no, there they are in their places at the very next meeting. It is not to be wondered at that they should exhibit agitations of body when the mind is affected, as they are quite unaccustomed to restrain their feelings. But that the hardened beings should be moved mentally at all is wonderful indeed. If you saw them in their savage state you would feel the force of this more.... N.B.--I have got for Professor Owen specimens of the incubated ostrich in abundance, and am waiting for an opportunity to transmit the box to the college. I tried to keep for you some of the fine birds of the interior, but the weather was so horribly hot they were putrid in a few hours.

When he returned to Kuruman in June, 1842, he found that no instructions had as yet come from the Directors as to his permanent quarters. He was preparing for another journey when news arrived that contrary to his advice, Sebehwe had left the desert where he was encamped, had been treacherously attacked by the chief Mahura, and that many of his people, including women and children, had been savagely murdered. What aggravated the case was that several native Christians from Kuruman had been at the time with Sebehwe, and that these were accused of having acted treacherously by him. But now no native would expose himself to the expected rage of Sebehwe, so that for want of attendants Livingstone could not go to him. He was obliged to remain for some months about Kuruman, itinerating to the neighboring tribes, and taking part in the routine work of the station: that is to say preaching, printing, building a chapel at an out-station, prescribing for the sick, and many things else that would have been intolerable, he said, to a man of "clerical dignity."

He was able to give his father a very encouraging report of the mission work (July 13, 1842): "The work of God goes on here notwithstanding all our infirmities. Souls are gathered in continually, and sometimes from among those you would never have expected to see turning to the Lord. Twenty-four were added to the Church last month, and there are several inquirers. At Motito, a French station about thirty-three miles northeast of this, there has been an awakening, and I hope much good will result. I have good news, too, from Rio de Janeiro. The Bibles that have been distributed are beginning to cause a stir."

The state of the country continued so disturbed that it was not till February, 1843, that he was able to set out for the village where Sebehwe had taken up his residence with the remains of his tribe. This visit he undertook at great personal risk. Though looking at first very ill-pleased, Sebehwe treated him in a short time in a most friendly way, and on the Sunday after his arrival, sent a herald to proclaim that on that day nothing should be done but pray to God and listen to the words of the foreigner. He himself listened with great attention while Livingstone told him of Jesus and the resurrection, and the missionary was often interrupted by the questions of the chief. Here, then, was another chief pacified, and brought under the preaching of the gospel.

Livingstone then passed on to the country of the Bakhatla, where he had purposed to erect his mission-station. The country was fertile, and the people industrious, and among other industries was an iron manufactory, to which as a bachelor he got admission, whereas married men were wont to be excluded, through fear that they would bewitch the iron! When he asked the chief if he would like him to come and be his missionary, he held up his hands and said, "Oh, I shall dance if you do; I shall collect all my people to hoe for you a garden, and you will get more sweet reed and corn than myself." The cautious Directors at home, however, had sent no instructions as to Livingstone's station, and he could only say to the chief that he would tell them of his desire for a missionary.

At a distance of five days' journey beyond the Bakhatla was situated the village of Sechéle, chief of the Bakwains, afterward one of Livingstone's greatest friends. Sechéle had been enraged at him for not visiting him the year before, and threatened him with mischief. It happened that his only child was ill when the missionary arrived, and also the child of one of his principal men. Livingstone's treatment of both was successful, and Sechéle had not an angry word. Some of his questions struck the heart of the missionary:

"'Since it is true that all who die unforgiven are lost forever, why did your nation not come to tell us of it before now? My ancestors are all gone, and none of them knew anything of what you tell me. How is this?' I thought immediately," says Livingstone, "of the guilt of the Church, but did not confess. I told him multitudes in our own country were like himself, so much in love with their sins. My ancestors had spent a great deal of time in trying to persuade them, and yet after all many of them by refusing were lost. We now wish to tell all the world about a Saviour, and if men did not believe, the guilt would be entirely theirs. Sechéle has been driven from another part of his country from that in which he was located last year, and so has Bubi, so that the prospects I had of benefiting them by native teachers are for the present darkened."

Among other things that Livingstone found time for in these wanderings among strange people, was translating hymns into the Sichuana language. Writing to his father (Bakwain Country, 21st March, 1843), he says:

"Janet may be pleased to learn that I am become a poet, or rather a poetaster, in Sichuana. Half a dozen of my hymns were lately printed in a collection of the French brethren. One of them is a translation of 'There is a fountain filled with blood;' another, 'Jesus shall reign where'er the sun;' others are on 'The earth being filled with the glory of the Lord,' 'Self-dedication,' 'Invitation to Sinners,' 'The soul that loves God finds him everywhere.' Janet may try to make English ones on these latter subjects if she can, and Agnes will doubtless set them to music on the same condition. I do not boast of having done this, but only mention it to let you know that I am getting a little better fitted for the great work of a missionary, that your hearts may be drawn out to more prayer for the success of the gospel proclaimed by my feeble lips."

Livingstone was bent on advancing in the direction of the country of the Matebele and their chief Mosilikatse, but the dread of that terrible warrior prevented him from getting Bakwains to accompany him, and being thus unable to rig out a wagon, he was obliged to travel on oxback. In a letter to Dr. Risdon Bennett (30th June, 1843), he gives a lively description of this mode of traveling: "It is rough traveling, as you can conceive. The skin is so loose there is no getting one's great-coat, which has to serve both as saddle and blanket, to stick on; and then the long horns in front, with which he can give one a punch in the abdomen if he likes, make us sit as bolt upright as dragoons. In this manner I traveled more than 400 miles." Visits to some of the villages of the Bakalahari gave him much pleasure. He was listened to with great attention, and while sitting by their fires and listening to their traditionary tales, he intermingled the story of the Cross with their conversation, and it was by far the happiest portion of his journey. The people were a poor, degraded, enslaved race, who hunted for other tribes to procure them skins; they were far from wells, and had their gardens far from their houses, in order to have their produce safe from the chiefs who visited them.

Coming on to his old friends the Bakaa, he found them out of humor with him, accusing him of having given poison to a native who had been seized with fever on occasion of his former visit. Consequently he could get little or nothing to eat, and had to content himself, as he wrote to his friends, with the sumptuous feasts of his imagination. With his usual habit of discovering good in all his troubles, however, he found cause for thankfulness at their stinginess, for in coming down a steep pass, absorbed with the questions which the people were putting to him, he forgot where he was, lost his footing, and, striking his hand between a rock and his Bible which he was carrying, he suffered a compound fracture of his finger. His involuntary low diet saved him from taking fever, and the finger was healing favorably, when a sudden visit in the middle of the night from a lion, that threw them all into consternation, made him, without thinking, discharge his revolver at the visitor, and the recoil hurt him more than the shot did the lion. It rebroke his finger, and the second fracture was worse than the first. "The Bakwains," he says, "who were most attentive to my wants during the whole journey of more than 400 miles, tried to comfort me when they saw the blood again flowing, by saying, 'You have hurt yourself, but you have redeemed us: henceforth we will only swear by you.' Poor creatures," he writes to Dr. Bennett, "I wished they had felt gratitude for the blood that was shed for their precious souls."

Returning to Kuruman from this journey, in June, 1843, Livingstone was delighted to find at length a letter from the Directors of the Society authorizing the formation of a settlement in the regions beyond. He found another letter that greatly cheered him, from a Mrs. M'Robert, the wife of art Independent minister at Cambuslang (near Blantyre), who had collected and now sent him £12 for a native agent, and was willing, on the part of some young friends, to send presents of clothing for the converts. In acknowledging this letter, Livingstone poured out his very heart, so full was he of gratitude and delight. He entreated the givers to consider Mebalwe as their own agent, and to concentrate their prayers upon him, for prayer, he thought, was always more efficacious when it could be said, "One thing have I desired of the Lord." As to the present of clothing, he simply entreated his friends to send nothing of the kind; such things demoralized the recipients, and bred endless jealousies. If he were allowed to charge something for the clothes, he would be pleased to have them, but on no other terms.

Writing to the Secretary of the Society, Rev. A. Tidman (24th June, 1843), and referring to the past success of the Mission in the nearer localities, he says: "If you could realize this fact as fully as those on the spot can, you would be able to enter into the feelings of irrepressible delight with which I hail the decision of the Directors that we go forward to the dark interior. May the Lord enable me to consecrate my whole being to the glorious work!"

In this communication to the Directors Livingstone modestly, but frankly and firmly, gives them his mind on some points touched on in their letter to him. In regard to his favorite measure--native agency--he is glad that a friend has remitted money for the employment of one agent, and that others have promised the means of employing other two. On another subject he had a communication to make to them which evidently cost him no ordinary effort. In his more private letters to his friends, from an early period after entering Africa, he had expressed himself very freely, almost contemptuously, on the distribution of the laborers. There was far too much clustering about the Cape Colony, and the district immediately beyond it, and a woeful slowness to strike out with the fearless chivalry that became missionaries of the Cross, and take possession of the vast continent beyond. All his letters reveal the chafing of his spirit with this confinement of evangelistic energy in the face of so vast a field--this huddling together of laborers in sparsely peopled districts, instead of sending them forth over the whole of Africa, India, and China, to preach the gospel to every creature. He felt deeply that both the Church at home, and many of the missionaries on the spot, had a poor conception of missionary duty, out of which came little faith, little effort, little expectation, with a miserable tendency to exaggerate their own evils and grievances, and fall into paltry squabbles which would not have been possible if they had been fired with the ambition to win the world for Christ.

But what it was a positive relief for him to whisper in the ear of an intimate friend, it demanded the courage of a hero to proclaim to the Directors of a great Society. It was like impugning their whole policy and arraigning their wisdom. But Livingstone could not say one thing in private and another in public. Frankly and fearlessly he proclaimed his views:

"The conviction to which I refer is that a much larger share of the benevolence of the Church and of missionary exertion is directed into this country than the amount of population, as compared with other countries, and the success attending those efforts, seem to call for. This conviction has been forced upon me, both by a personal inspection, more extensive than that which has fallen to the lot of any other, either missionary or trader, and by the sentiments of other missionaries who have investigated the subject according to their opportunities. In reference to the population, I may mention that I was led in England to believe that the population of the interior was dense, and now since I have come to this country I have conversed with many, both of our Society and of the French, and none of them would reckon up the number of 30,000 Bechuanas."

He then proceeds to details in a most characteristic way, giving the number of huts in every village, and being careful in every case, as his argument proceeded on there being a small population, rather to overstate than understate the number:

"In view of these facts and the confirmation of them I have received from both French and English brethren, computing the population much below what I have stated, I confess I feel grieved to hear of the arrival of new missionaries. Nor am I the only one who deplores their appointment to this country. Again and again have I been pained at heart to hear the question put, Where will these new brethren find fields of labor in this country? Because I know that in India or China there are fields large enough for all their energies. I am very far from undervaluing the success which has attended the labors of missionaries in this land. No! I gratefully acknowledge the wonders God hath wrought, and I feel that the salvation of one soul is of more value than all the effort that has been expended; but we are to seek the field where there is a possibility that most souls will be converted, and it is this consideration which makes me earnestly call the attention of the Directors to the subject of statistics. If these were actually returned--and there would be very little difficulty in doing so--it might, perhaps, be found that there is not a country better supplied with missionaries in the world, and that in proportion to the number of agents compared to the amount of population, the success may be inferior to most other countries where efforts have been made."

Finding that a brother missionary was willing to accompany him to the station he had fixed on among the Bakhatlas, and enable him to set to work with the necessary arrangements, Livingstone set out with him in the beginning of August, 1843, and arrived at his destination after a fortnight's journey. Writing to his family, "in sight of the hills of Bakhatla," August 21st, 1843, he says: "We are in company with a party of three hunters: one of them from the West Indies, and two from India--Mr. Pringle from Tinnevelly, and Captain Steel of the Coldstream Guards, aide-de-camp to the Governor of Madras.... The Captain is the politest of the whole, well versed in the classics, and possessed of much general knowledge." Captain Steele, now General Sir Thomas Steele, proved one of Livingstone's best and most constant friends. In one respect the society of gentlemen who came to hunt would not have been sought by Livingstone, their aims and pursuits being so different from his; but he got on with them wonderfully. In some instances these strangers were thoroughly sympathetic, but not in all. When they were not sympathetic on religion, he had a strong conviction that his first duty as a servant of Christ was to commend his religion by his life and spirit--by integrity, civility, kindness, and constant readiness to deny himself in obliging others; having thus secured, their esteem and confidence, he would take such quiet opportunities as presented themselves to get near their consciences on his Master's behalf. He took care that there should be no moving about on the day of rest, and that the outward demeanor of all should be befitting a Christian company. For himself, while he abhorred the indiscriminate slaughter of animals for mere slaughter's sake, he thought well of the chase as a means of developing courage, promptness of action in time of danger, protracted endurance of hunger and thirst, determination in the pursuit of an object, and other qualities befitting brave and powerful men. The respect and affection with which he inspired the gentlemen who were thus associated with him was very remarkable. Doubtless, with his quick apprehension, he learned a good deal from their society of the ways and feelings of a class with whom hitherto he had hardly ever been in contact. The large resources with which they were furnished, in contrast to his own, excited no feeling of envy, nor even a desire to possess their ample means, unless he could have used them to extend missionary operations; and the gentlemen themselves would sometimes remark that the missionaries were more comfortable than they. Though they might at times spend thousands of pounds where Livingstone did not spend as many pence, and would be provided with horses, servants, tents, and stores, enough to secure comfort under almost any conditions, they had not that key to the native heart and that power to command the willing services of native attendants which belonged so remarkably to the missionary. "When we arrive at a spot where we intend to spend the night," writes Livingstone to his family, "all hands immediately unyoke the oxen. Then one or two of the company collect wood; one of us strikes up a fire, another gets out the water-bucket and fills the kettle; a piece of meat is thrown on the fire, and if we have biscuits, we are at our coffee in less than half an hour after arriving. Our friends, perhaps, sit or stand shivering at their fire for two or three hours before they get their things ready, and are glad occasionally of a cup of coffee from us."

The first act of the missionaries on arriving at their destination was to have an interview with the chief, and ask whether he desired a missionary. Having an eye to the beads, guns, and other things, of which white men seemed always to have an ample store, the chief and his men gave them a cordial welcome, and Livingstone next proceeded to make a purchase of land. This, like Abraham with the sons of Heth, he insisted should be done in legal form, and for this purpose he drew up a written contract to which, after it was fully explained to them, both parties attached their signatures or marks. They then proceeded to the erection of a hut fifty feet by eighteen, not getting much help from the Bakhatlas, who devolved such labors on the women, but being greatly helped by the native deacon, Mebalwe. All this Livingstone and his companion had done on their own responsibility, and in the hope that the Directors would approve of it. But if they did not, he told them that he was at their disposal "to go anywhere--provided it be FORWARD."

The progress of medical and scientific work during this period is noted in a letter to Dr. Risdon Bennett, dated 30th June, 1843. In addition to full details of the missionary work, this letter enters largely into the state of disease in South Africa, and records some interesting cases, medical and surgical. Still more interesting, perhaps, is the evidence it affords of the place in Livingstone's attention which began to be occupied by three great subjects of which we shall hear much anon--Fever, Tsetse, and "the Lake." Fever he considered the greatest barrier to the evangelization of Africa. Tsetse, an insect like a common fly, destroyed horses and oxen, so that many traders lost literally every ox in their team. As for the Lake, it lay somewhat beyond the outskirts of his new district, and was reported terrible for fever. He heard that Mr. Moffat intended to visit it, but he was somewhat alarmed lest his friend should suffer. It was not Moffat, but Livingstone, however, that first braved the risks of that fever swamp.

A subject of special scientific interest to the missionary during this period was--the desiccation of Africa. On this topic he addressed a long letter to Dr. Buckland in 1843, of which, considerably to his regret, no public notice appears to have been taken, and perhaps the letter never reached him. The substance of this paper may, however, be gathered from a communication subsequently made to the Royal Geographical Society [20] after his first impression had been confirmed by enlarged observation and discovery. Around, and north of Kuruman, he had found many indications of a much larger supply of water in a former age. He ascribed the desiccation to the gradual elevation of the western part of the country. He found traces of a very large ancient river which flowed nearly north and south to a large lake, including the bed of the present Orange River; in fact, he believed that the whole country south of Lake 'Ngami presented in ancient times very much the same appearance as the basin north of that lake does now, and that the southern lake disappeared when a fissure was made in the ridge through which the Orange River now proceeds to the sea. He could even indicate the spot where the river and the lake met, for some hills there had caused an eddy in which was found a mound of calcareous tufa and travertine, full of fossil bones. These fossils he was most eager to examine, in order to determine the time of the change; but on his first visit he had no time, and when he returned, he was suddenly called away to visit a missionary's child, a hundred miles off. It happened that he was never in the same locality again, and had therefore no opportunity to complete his investigation.

[20] See Journal, vol. xxvii. p. 356.

Dr. Livingstone's mind had that wonderful power which belongs to some men of the highest gifts, of passing with the utmost rapidity, not only from subject to subject, but from one mood or key to another entirely different. In a letter to his family, written about this time, we have a characteristic instance. On one side of the sheet is a prolonged outburst of tender Christian love and lamentation over a young attendant who had died of fever suddenly; on the other side, he gives a map of the Bakhatla country with its rivers and mountains, and is quite at home in the geographical details, crowning his description with some sentimental and half-ludicrous lines of poetry. No reasonable man will fancy that in the wailings of his heart there was any levity or want of sincerity. What we are about to copy merits careful consideration: first, as evincing the depth and tenderness of his love for these black savages; next, as showing that it was pre-eminently Christian love, intensified by his vivid view of the eternal world, and belief in Christ as the only Saviour; and, lastly, as revealing the secret of the affection which these poor fellows bore to him in return. The intensity of the scrutiny which he directs on his heart, and the severity of the judgment which he seems to pass on himself, as if he had not done all he might have done for the spiritual good of this young man, show with what intense conscientiousness he tried to discharge his missionary duty:

"Poor Sehamy, where art thou now? Where lodges thy soul to-night? Didst thou think of what I told thee as thou turnedst from side to side in distress? I could now do anything for thee. I could weep for thy soul. But now nothing can be done. Thy fate is fixed. Oh, am I guilty of the blood of thy soul, my poor dear Sehamy? If so, how shall I look upon thee in the judgment? But I told thee of a Saviour; didst thou think of Him, and did He lead thee through the dark valley? Did He comfort as He only can? Help me, O Lord Jesus, to be faithful to every one. Remember me, and let me not be guilty of the blood of souls. This poor young man was the leader of the party. He governed the others, and most attentive he was to me. He anticipated my every want. He kept the water-calabash at his head at night, and if I awoke, he was ready to give me a draught immediately. When the meat was boiled he secured the best portion for me, the best place for sleeping, the best of everything. Oh, where is he now? He became ill after leaving a certain tribe, and believed he had been poisoned. Another of the party and he ate of a certain dish given them by a woman whom they had displeased, and having met this man yesterday he said, 'Sehamy is gone to heaven, and I am almost dead by the poison given us by that woman.' I don't believe they took any poison, but they do, and their imaginations are dreadfully excited when they entertain that belief."

The same letter intimates that in case his family should have arranged to emigrate to America, as he had formerly advised them to do, he had sent home a bill of which £10 was to aid the emigration, and £10 to be spent on clothes for himself. In regard to the latter sum, he now wished them to add it to the other, so that his help might be more substantial; and for himself he would make his old clothes serve for another year. The emigration scheme, which he thought would have added to the comfort of his parents and sisters, was not, however, carried into effect. The advice to his family to emigrate proceeded from deep convictions. In a subsequent letter (4th December, 1850) he writes: "If I could only be with you for a week, you would goon be pushing on in the world. The world is ours. Our Father made it to be inhabited, and many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. It will be increased more by emigration than by missionaries." He held it to be God's wish that the unoccupied parts of the earth should be possessed, and he believed in Christian colonization as a great means of spreading the gospel. We shall see afterward that to plant English and Scotch colonies in Africa became one of his master ideas and favorite schemes.

CHAPTER IV.

FIRST TWO STATIONS--MABOTSA AND CHONUANE.

A.D. 1843-1847.

Description of Mabotsa--A favorite hymn--General reading--Mabotsa infested with lions--Livingstone's encounter--The native deacon who saved him--His Sunday-school--Marriage to Mary Moffat--Work at Mabotsa--Proposed institution for training native agents--Letter to his mother--Trouble at Mabotsa--Noble sacrifice of Livingstone--Goes to Sechéle and the Bakwains--New station at Chonuane--Interest shown by Sechéle--Journeys eastward--The Boers and the Transvaal--Their occupation of the country, and treatment of the natives--Work among the Bakwains--Livingstone's desire to move on--Theological conflict at home--His view of it--His scientific labors and miscellaneous employments.

Describing what was to be his new home to his friend Watt from Kuruman, 27th September, 1843, Livingstone says: "The Bakhatla have cheerfully offered to remove to a more favorable position than they at present occupy. We have fixed upon a most delightful valley, which we hope to make the centre of our sphere of operations in the interior. It is situated in what poetical gents like you would call almost an amphitheatre of mountains. The mountain range immediately in the rear of the spot where we have fixed our residence is called Mabotsa, or a marriage-feast. May the Lord lift upon us the light of his countenance, so that by our feeble instrumentality many may thence be admitted to the marriage-feast of the Lamb. The people are as raw as may well be imagined; they have not the least desire but for the things of the earth, and it must be a long time ere we can gain their attention to the things which are above."

Something led him in his letter to Mr. Watt to talk of the old monks, and the spots they selected for their establishments. He goes on to write lovingly of what was good in some of the old fathers of the mediæval Church, despite the strong feeling of many to the contrary; indicating thus early the working of that catholic spirit which was constantly expanding in later years, which could separate the good in any man from all its evil surroundings, and think of it thankfully and admiringly. In the following extract we get a glimpse of a range of reading much wider than most would probably have supposed likely:

"Who can read the sermons of St. Bernard, the meditations of St. Augustine, etc., without saying, whatever other faults they had: They thirsted, and now they are filled. That hymn: of St. Bernard, on the name of Christ, although in what might he termed dog-Latin, pleases me so; it rings in my ears as I wander across the wide, wide wilderness, and makes me wish I was more like them--

"Jesu, dulcis memoria,		Jesu, spes poenitentibus,
Dans cordi vera gaudia;		Quam pius es petentibus!
Sed super mel et omnia,		Quam bonus es quærentibus!
Ejus dulcis præsentia.		Sed quid invenientibus!
Nil canitur suavius,		Jesu, dulcedo cordium,
Nil auditur jucundius,		Fons, rivus, lumen mentium,
Nil cogitatur dulcius,		Excedens omne gaudium,
Quam Jesus Dei filius.		Et omne desiderium."

"Jesu, dulcis memoria,		Jesu, spes poenitentibus,
Dans cordi vera gaudia;		Quam pius es petentibus!
Sed super mel et omnia,		Quam bonus es quærentibus!
Ejus dulcis præsentia.		Sed quid invenientibus!
Nil canitur suavius,		Jesu, dulcedo cordium,
Nil auditur jucundius,		Fons, rivus, lumen mentium,
Nil cogitatur dulcius,		Excedens omne gaudium,
Quam Jesus Dei filius.		Et omne desiderium."

Livingstone was in the habit of fastening inside the boards of his journals, or writing on the fly-leaf, verses that interested him specially. In one of these volumes this hymn is copied at full length. In another we find a very yellow newspaper clipping of the "Song of the Shirt." In the same volume a clipping containing "The Bridge of Sighs," beginning

"One more unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death."

In another we have Coleridge's lines:

"He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

In another, hardly legible on the marble paper, we find:

"So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry."