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



CHAPTER XIV.

ROVUMA AND NYASSA—UNIVERSITIES MISSION.

A.D. 1861-1862.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XV.

LAST TWO YEARS OF THE EXPEDITION.

A.D. 1862-1863.

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile, Dr. Livingstone was busy with his pen. A new energy had been imparted to him by the appalling facts now fully apparent, that his discoveries had only stimulated the activity of the slave-traders, that the Portuguese local authorities really promoted slave-trading, with its inevitable concomitant slave-hunting, and that the horror and desolation to which the country bore such frightful testimony was the result. It seemed as if the duel he had fought with the Boers when they determined to close Africa, and he determined to open it, had now to be repeated with the Portuguese. The attention of Dr. Livingstone is more and more concentrated on this terrible topic. Dr. Kirk writes to him that when at Tette he had heard that the Portuguese Governor-General at Mozambique had instructed his brother, the Governor of that town, to act on the principle that the slave-trade, though prohibited on the ocean, was still lawful on the land, and that any persons interfering with slave-traders, by liberating their slaves, would be counted robbers. An energetic despatch to Earl Russell, then Foreign Secretary, calls attention to this outrage.

A few days after, a strong but polite letter is sent to the Governor of Tette, calling attention to the forays of a man named Belshore, in the Chibisa country, and entreating him to stop them. About the same time he writes to the Governor-General of Mozambique in reply to a paper by the Viscount de Sa da Bandeira, published in the Almanac by the Government press, in which the common charge was made against him of arrogating to himself the glory of discoveries which belonged to Senhor Candido and other Portuguese. He affirms that before publishing his book he examined all Portuguese books of travels he could find; that he had actually shown Senhor Candido to have been a discoverer before any Portuguese hinted that he was such; that the lake which Candido spoke of as northwest of Tette could not be Nyassa, which was northeast of it; that he did full justice to all the Portuguese explorers, and that what he claimed as own discoveries were certainly not the discoveries of the Portuguese. A few days after, he writes to Mr. Layard, then our Portuguese Minister, and comments on the map published by the Viscount as representing Portuguese geography,—pointing out such blunders as that which made the Zambesi enter the sea at Quilimane, proving that by their map the Portuguese claimed territory that was certainly not theirs; adverting to their utter ignorance of the Victoria Falls, the most remarkable phenomenon in Africa; affirming that many so-called discoveries were mere vague rumors, heard by travelers; and showing the use that had been made of his own maps, the names being changed to suit the Portuguese orthography.

Livingstone had the satisfaction of knowing that his account of the trip to Lake Nyassa had excited much interest in the Cabinet at home, and that a strong remonstrance had been addressed to the Portuguese Government against slave-hunting. But it does not appear that this led to any improvement at the time.

While stung into more than ordinary energy by the atrocious deeds he witnessed around him, Livingstone was living near the borders of the unseen world. He writes to Sir Thomas Maclear on the 27th October, 1862:

"I suppose that I shall die in these uplands, and somebody will carry, out the plan I have longed to put into practice. I have been thinking a great deal since the departure of my beloved one about the regions whither she has gone, and imagine from the manner the Bible describes it we have got too much monkery in our ideas. There will be work there as well as here, and possibly not such a vast difference in our being as is expected. But a short time there will give more insight than a thousand musings. We shall see Him by whose inexpressible love and mercy we get there, and all whom we loved, and all the lovable. I can sympathize with you now more fully than I did before. I work with as much vigor as I can; and mean to do so till the change comes; but his prospect of a home is all dispelled."

In one of his despatches to Lord Russell, Livingstone reports an offer that had been made by a party consisting of an Englishman and five Scotch working men at the Cape, which must have been extremely gratifying to him, and served to deepen his conviction that sooner or later his plan of colonization would certainly be carried into effect. The leader of the party, John Jehan, formerly of the London City Mission, in reading Dr. Livingstone's book, became convinced that if a few mechanics could be induced to take a journey of exploration it would prove very useful. His views being communicated to five other young men (two masons, two carpenters, one smith), they formed themselves into a company in July, 1861, and had been working together, throwing their earnings into a common fund, and now they had arms, two wagons, two spans of oxen, and means of procuring outfits. In September, 1862, they were ready to start from Aliwal in South Africa[66].

[Footnote 66: The recall of Livingstone's Expedition and the removal of the Universities Mission seem to have knocked this most promising scheme on the head. Writing of it to Sir Roderick Murchison on the 14th December, 1862, he says: "I like the Scotchmen, and think them much better adapted for our plans than those on whom the Universities Mission has lighted. If employed as I shall wish them to be in trade, and setting an example of industry in cotton or coffee planting, I think they are just the men I need brought to my band. Don't you think this sensible?"]

After going to Johanna for provisions, and to discharge the crew of Johanna men whose term of service had expired, the Expedition returned to Tette. On the 10th January, 1863, they steamed off with the "Lady Nyassa" in tow. The desolation that had been caused by Marianno, the Portuguese slave-agent, was heart-breaking. Corpses floated past them. In the morning the paddles had to be cleared of corpses caught by the floats during the night. Livingstone summed up his impressions in one terrible sentence:

"Wherever we took a walk, human skeletons were seen in every direction, and it was painfully interesting to observe the different postures in which the poor wretches had breathed their last. A whole heap had been thrown down a slope behind a village, where the fugitives often crossed the river from the east; and in one hut of the same village no fewer than twenty drums had been collected, probably the ferryman's fees. Many had ended their misery under shady trees, others under projecting crags in the hills, while others lay in their huts with closed doors, which when opened disclosed the mouldering corpse with the poor rags round the loins, the skull fallen off the pillow, the little skeleton of the child, that had perished first, rolled up in a mat between two large skeletons. The sight of this desert, but eighteen months ago a well-peopled valley, now literally strewn with human bones, forced the conviction upon us that the destruction of human life in the middle passage, however great, constitutes but a small portion of the waste, and made us feel that unless the slave-trade—that monster iniquity which has so long brooded over Africa—is put down, lawful commerce cannot be established."

In passing up, Livingstone's heart was saddened as he visited the Bishop's grave, and still more by the tidings which he got of the Mission, which had now removed from Magomero to the low lands of Chibisa. Some time before, Mr. Scudamore, a man greatly beloved, had succumbed, and now Mr. Dickenson was added to the number of victims. Mr. Thornton, too, who left the Expedition in 1859, but returned to it, died under an attack of fever, consequent on too violent exertion undertaken in order to be of service to the Mission party. Dr. Kirk and Mr. C. Livingstone were so much reduced by illness that it was deemed necessary for them to return to England. Livingstone himself had a most serious attack of fever, which lasted all the month of May, Dr. Kirk remaining with him till he got over it. When his brother and Dr. Kirk left, the only Europeans remaining with him were Mr. Rae, the ship's engineer, and Mr. Edward D. Young, formerly of the "Gorgon," who had volunteered to join the Expedition, and whose after services, both in the search for Livingstone and in establishing the mission of Livingstonia, were so valuable. On the noble spirit shown by Livingstone in remaining in the country after all his early companions had left, and amid such appalling scenes as everywhere met him, we do not need to dwell.

Here are glimpses of the inner heart of Livingstone about this time:

"1st March, 1863.—I feel very often that I have not long to live, and say, 'My dear children, I leave you. Be manly Christians, and never do a mean thing. Be honest to men, and to the Almighty One.'"

"10th April.—Reached the Cataracts. Very thankful indeed after our three months' toil from Shupanga."

"27th April.—On this day twelvemonths my beloved Mary Moffat was removed from me by death.

"'If I can, I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place; Though you'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face; Though I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what you say, And be often, often with you when you think I'm far away.'

"TENNYSON."

The "Lady Nyassa" being taken to pieces, the party began to construct a road over the thirty-five or forty miles of the rapids, in order to convey the steamer to the lake. After a few miles of the road had been completed, it was thought desirable to ascertain whether the boat left near the lake two years before was fit for service, so as to avoid the necessity of carrying another boat past the rapids. On reaching it the boat was found to have been burnt. The party therefore returned to carry up another. They had got to the very last rapid, and had placed the boat for a short space in the water, when, through the carelessness of five Zambesi men, she was overturned, and away she went like an arrow down the rapids. To keep calm under such a crowning disappointment must have I taxed Livingstone's self-control to the very utmost.

It was now that he received a despatch from Earl Russell intimating that the Expedition was recalled. This, though a great disappointment, was not altogether a surprise. On the 24th April he had written to Mr. Waller "I should not wonder in the least to be recalled, for should the Portuguese persist in keeping the rivers shut, there would be no use in trying to develop trade," He states his views on the recall calmly in a letter to Mr. James Young:

"Murchison Cataracts, 3d July, 1863.—... Got instructions for our recall yesterday, at which I do not wonder. The Government has behaved well to us throughout, and I feel abundantly thankful to H.M.'s ministers for enabling me so far to carry on the experiment of turning the industrial and trading propensities of the natives to good account, with a view of thereby eradicating the trade in slaves. But the Portuguese dogged our footsteps, and, as is generally understood, with the approbation of their Home Government, neutralized our labors. Not that the Portuguese statesmen approved of slaving, but being enormously jealous lest their pretended dominion from sea to sea and elsewhere should in the least degree, now or any future time, become aught else than a slave 'preserve,' the Governors have been instructed, and have carried out their instructions further than their employers intended. Major Sicard was removed from Tette as too friendly, and his successor had emmissaries in the Ajawa camp. Well, he saw their policy, and regretted that they should be allowed to follow us into perfectly new regions. The regret was the more poignant, inasmuch as but for our entering in by gentleness, they durst not have gone. No Portuguese dared, for instance, to come up this Shire Valley; but after our dispelling the fear of the natives by fair treatment, they came in calling themselves our 'children.' The whole thing culminated when this quarter was inundated with Tette slavers, whose operations, with a marauding tribe of Ajawas, and a drought, completely depopulated the country. The sight of this made me conclude that unless something could be done to prevent these raids, and take off their foolish obstructions on the rivers, which they never use, our work in this region was at an end.... Please the Supreme, I shall work some other point yet. In leaving, it is bitter to see some 900 miles of coast abandoned to those who were the first to begin the slave-trade, and seem determined to be the last to abandon it."

Writing to Mr. Waller at this time he said: "I don't know whether I am to go on the shelf or not. If I do, I make Africa the shelf. If the 'Lady Nyassa' is well sold, I shall manage. There is a Ruler above, and his providence guides all things. He is our Friend, and has plenty of work for all his people to do. Don't fear of being left idle, if willing to work for Him. I am glad to her of Alington. If the work is of God it will came out all right at last. To Him shall be given of the gold of Sheba, and daily shall He be praised. I always think it was such a blessing and privilege to be led into his work instead of into the service of the hard taskmasters—the Devil and Sin."

The reason assigned by Earl Russell for the recall of the Expedition were, that, not through any fault of Dr. Livingstone's, it had not accomplished the objects for which it had been designed, and that it had proved much more costly than was originally expected. Probably the Government felt likewise that their remonstrances with the Portuguese Government were unavailing, and that their relations were becoming too uncomfortable. Even among those most friendly to Dr. Livingstone's great aim, and most opposed to the slave-trade, and to the Portuguese policy in Africa, there were some who doubted whether his proposed methods of procedure were quite consistent with the rights of the Portuguese Government. His Royal Highness the Prince-Consort indicated some feeling of this kind in his interview with Livingstone in 1857. He expressed the feeling more strongly when he declined the request, made to him through Professor Sedgwick of Cambridge, that he would allow himself to be Patron of the Universities Mission. Dr. Livingstone knew well that from that exalted quarter his plans would receive no active support. That he should have obtained the support he did from successive Governments and successive Foreign Secretaries, Liberal and Conservative, was a great gratification, if not something of a surprise. Hence the calmness with which he received the intelligence of the recall. Toward the Portuguese Government his feelings were not very sweet. On them lay the guilt of arresting a work that would have conferred untold blessing on Africa. He determined to make this known very clearly when he should return to England. At a future period of his life, he purposed, if spared, to go more fully into the reasons of his recall. Meanwhile, his course was simply to acquiesce in the resolution of the British Government.

It was unfortunate that the recall took place before he had been able to carry into effect his favorite scheme of placing a steamer on Lake Nyassa; nor could he do this now, although the vessel on which he had spent half his fortune lay at the Murchison Cataracts. He had always cherished the hope that the Government would repay him at least a part of the outlay, which, instead of L3000, as he had intended, had mounted up to L6000. He had very generously told Dr. Stewart that if this should be done, and if he should be willing to return from Scotland to labor on the shores of Nyassa, he would pay him his expenses out, and L150 yearly, so anxious was he that he should begin the work. On the recall of the Expedition, without any allowance for the ship, or even mention of it, all these expectations and intentions came abruptly to an end.

At no previous time had Dr. Livingstone been under greater discouragements than now. The Expedition had been recalled; his heart had not recovered from the desolation caused by the death of the Bishop and his brethren, as well as the Helmores in the Makololo country, and still more by the removal of Mrs. Livingstone, and the thought of his motherless children; the most heart-rending scenes had been witnessed everywhere in regions that a short time ago had been so bright; all his efforts to do good had been turned to evil, every new path he had opened having been seized as it were by the devil and turned to the most diabolical ends; his countrymen were nearly all away from him; the most depressing of diseases had produced its natural effect; he had had worries, delays, and disappointments about ships and boats of the most harrassing kind; and now the "Lady Nyassa" could not be floated in the waters of which he had fondly hoped to see her the angel and the queen. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the noble quality of the heart that, undeterred by all these troubles, resolved to take this last chance of exploring the banks of Nyassa, although it could only be by the weary process of trudge, trudge, trudging; although hunger, if not starvation, blocked the path, and fever and dysentery flitted around it like imps of darkness; although tribes, demoralized by the slave-trade, might at any moment put an end to him and his enterprise;—not to speak of the ordinary risks of travel, the difficulty of finding guides, the liability to bodily hurt, the scarcity of food, the perils from wild beasts by night Und by day,—risks which no ordinary traveler could think of lightly, but which in Livingstone's journeys drop out of sight, because they are so overtopped and dwarfed by risks that ordinary travelers never know.

Why did not Livingstone go home? A single sentence in a letter to Mr. Waller, while the recall was only in contemplation, explains: "In my case, duty would not lead me home, and home therefore I would not go." Away then goes Livingstone, accompanied by the steward of the "Pioneer" and a handful of native servants (Mr. Young being left in charge of the vessel), to get to the northern end of the lake, and ascertain whether any large river flowed into it from the west, and if possible to visit Lake Moero, of which he had heard, lying a considerable way to the west. For the first time in his travels he carried some bottles of wine,—a present from the missionaries Waller and Alington; for water had hitherto been his only drink, with a little hot coffee in the mornings to warm the stomach and ward off the feeling of sinking. At one time the two white men are lost three days in the woods, without food or the means of purchasing it; but some poor natives out of their poverty show them kindness. At another they can procure no guides, though the country is difficult and the way intersected by deep gullies that can only be scaled at certain known parts; anon they are taken for slave-dealers, and make a narrow escape of a night attack. Another time, the cries of children remind Livingstone of his own home and family, where the very same tones of sorrow had often been heard; the thought brought its own pang, only he could feel thankful that in the case of his children the woes of the slave-trade would never be added to the ordinary sorrows of childhood. Then he would enjoy the joyous laugh of some Manganja women, and think of the good influence of a merry heart, and remember that whenever he had observed a chief with a joyous twinkle of the eye accompanying his laugh, he had always set him down as a good fellow, and had never been disappointed in him afterward. Then he would cheer his monotony by making some researches into the origin of civilization, coming to the clear conclusion that born savages must die out, because they could devise no means of living through disease. By and by he would examine the Arab character, and find Mahometanism as it now is in Africa worse than African heathenism, and remark on the callousness of the Mahometans to the welfare of one another, and on the especial glory of Christianity, the only religion that seeks to propagate itself, and through the influence of love share its blessings with others. Anon he would dwell on the primitive African faith; its recognition of one Almighty Creator, its moral code, so like our own, save in the one article of polygamy; its pious recognition of a future life, though the element of punishment is not very conspicuous; its mild character generally, notwithstanding the bloodthirstiness sometimes ascribed to it, which, however, Livingstone held to be, at Dahomey for example, purely exceptional.

Another subject that occupied him was the natural history of the country. He would account for desert tracts like Kalahari by the fact that the east and southeast winds, laden with moisture from the Indian Ocean, get cooled over the coast ranges of mountains, and having discharged their vapor there had no spare moisture to deposit over the regions that for want of it became deserts. The geology of Southern Africa was peculiar; the geographical series described in books was not to be found here, for, as Sir Roderick Murchison had shown, the great submarine depressions and elevations that had so greatly affected the other continents during the secondary, tertiary, and more recent periods, had not affected Africa. It had preserved its terrestrial conditions during a long period, unaffected by any changes save those dependent on atmospheric influences. There was also a peculiarity in prehistoric Africa—it had no stone period; at least no flint weapons had been found, and the familiarity and skill of the natives with the manufacture of iron seemed to indicate that they had used iron weapons from the first.

The travelers had got as far as the river Loangwa (of Nyassa), when a halt had to be called. Some of the natives had been ill, and indeed one had died in the comparatively cold climate of the highlands. But nothing would have hindered Livingstone from working his way round the head of the lake if only time had been on his side. But time was inexorably against him; the orders from Government were strict. He must get the "Pioneer" down to the sea while the river was in flood. A month or six weeks would have enabled him to finish his researches, but he could not run the risk. It would have been otherwise had he foreseen that when he got to the ship he would be detained two months waiting for the rising of the river. On their way back, they took a nearer cut, but found the villages all deserted. The reeds along the banks of the lake were crowded with fugitives. "In passing mile after mile, marked with the sad proofs that 'man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn,' one experiences an overpowering sense of helplessness to alleviate human woe, and breathes a silent prayer to the Almighty to hasten the good time coming when 'man to man, the world o'er, shall brothers be for all that.'" Near a village called Bangwe they were pursued by a body of Mazitu, who retired when they came within ear-shot. This little adventure seemed to give rise to the report that Dr. Livingstone had been murdered by the Makololo, which reached England, and created no small alarm. Referring to the report in his jocular way, in a letter to his friend Mr. Fitch, he says, "A report of my having been murdered at the lake has been very industriously circulated by the Portuguese. Don't become so pale on getting a letter from a dead man."

Reaching the stockade of Chinsamba in Mosapo, they were much pleased with that chief's kindness. Dr. Livingstone followed his usual method, and gained his usual influence. "When a chief has made any inquiries of us, we have found that we gave most satisfaction in our answers when we tried to fancy ourselves in the position of the interrogator, and him that of a poor uneducated fellow-countryman in England. The polite, respectful way of speaking, and behavior of what we call 'a thorough gentleman,' almost always secures the friendship and good-will of the Africans."

On 1st November, 1863, the party reached the ship, and found all well. Here, as has been said, two months had to be spent waiting for the flood, to Dr. Livingstone's intense chagrin.

While waiting here he received a letter from Bishop Tozer, the successor of Bishop Mackenzie, informing him that he had resolved to abandon the Mission on the continent and transfer operations to Zanzibar. Dr. Livingstone had very sincerely welcomed the new Bishop, and at first liked him, and thought that his caution would lead to good results. Indeed, when he saw that his own scheme was destroyed by the Portuguese, he had great hopes that what he had been defeated in, the Mission would accomplish. Some time before, his hopes had begun to wane, and now the news conveyed in Bishop Tozer's letter was their death-blow. In his reply he implored the Bishop to reconsider the matter. After urging strongly some considerations bearing on the duty of missionaries, the reputation of Englishmen, and the impression likely to be made on the native mind, he concluded thus: "I hope, dear Bishop, you will not deem me guilty of impertinence in thus writing to you with a sore heart. I see that if you go, the last ray of hope for this wretched, trodden-down people disappears, and I again from the bottom of my heart entreat you to reconsider the matter, and may the All-wise One guide to that decision which will be most for his glory."

And thus, for Livingstone's life-time, ended the Universities Mission to Central Africa, with all the hopes which its bright dawn had inspired, that the great Church of England would bend its strength against the curse of Africa, and sweep it from the face of the earth. Writing to Sir Thomas Maclear, he said that he felt this much more than his own recall. He could hardly write of it; he was more inclined "to sit down and cry." No mission had ever had such bright prospects; notwithstanding all that had been said against it, he stood by the climate as firmly as ever, and if he were only young, he would go himself and plant the gospel there. It would be done one day without fail, though he might not live to see it.

As usual, Livingstone found himself blamed for the removal of the Mission. The Makololo had behaved badly, and they were Livingstone's people. "Isn't it interesting," he writes to Mr. Moore, "to get blamed for everything? But I must be thankful in feeling that I would rather perish than blame another for my misdeeds and deficiencies."

We have lost sight of Dr. Stewart and the projected mission of the Free Church of Scotland. As Dr. Livingstone's arrangements did not admit of his accompanying Dr. Stewart up the Shire, he set out alone, falling in afterward with the Rev. Mr. Scudamore, a member, and as we have already said ultimately a martyr, of the Universities Mission. The report which Dr. Stewart made of the prospects of a mission was that, owing to the disturbed state of the country, no immediate action could be taken. Livingstone seemed to think him hasty in this conclusion. The scheme continued to be ardently cherished, and some ten or twelve years after—in 1874—in the formation of the "Livingstonia" mission and colony, a most promising and practical step was taken toward the fulfillment of Dr. Livingstone's views. Dr. Stewart has proved one of the best friends and noblest workers for African regeneration both at Lovedale and Livingstonia—a strong man on whom other men may lean, with his whole heart in the cause of Africa.

In the breaking up of the Universities Mission, it was necessary that some arrangement should be made on behalf of about thirty boys and a few helpless old persons and others, a portion of the rescued slaves, who had been taken under the charge of the Mission, and could not be abandoned. The fear of the Portuguese seemed likely to lead to their being left behind. But Livingstone could not bear the idea. He thought it would be highly discreditable to the good name of England, and an affront to the memory of Bishop Mackenzie, to "repudiate" his act in taking them under his protection. Therefore, when Bishop Tozer would not accept the charge, he himself took them in hand, giving orders to Mr. E.D. Young (as he says in his Journal), "in the event of any Portuguese interfering with them in his absence, to pitch him over-board!" Through his influence arrangements were made, as we shall see, for conveying them to the Cape. Mr. R.M. Ballantyne, in his Six Months at the Cape, tells us that he found, some years afterward, among the most efficient teachers in St. George's Orphanage, Cape Town, one of these black girls, named Dauma, whom Bishop Mackenzie had personally rescued and carried on his shoulders, and whom Livingstone now rescued a second time.

Livingstone's plan for himself was to sail to Bombay in the "Lady Nyassa," and endeavor to sell her there, before returning home. The Portuguese would have liked to get her, to employ her as a slaver—"But," he wrote to his daughter (10th August, 1863), "I would rather see her go down to the depths of the Indian Ocean than that. We have not been able to do all that we intended for this country, owing to the jealousy and slave-hunting of the Portuguese. They have hindered us effectually by sweeping away the population into slavery. Thousands have perished, and wherever we go human skeletons appear. I suppose that our Government could not prevail on the Portuguese to put a stop to this; so we are recalled. I am only sorry that we ever began near these slavers, but the great men of Portugal professed so loudly their eager desire to help us (and in the case of the late King I think there was sincerity), that I believed them, and now find out that it was all for show in Europe.... If missions were established as we hoped, I should still hope for good being done to this land, but the new Bishop had to pay fourpence for every pound weight of calico he bought, and calico is as much currency here as money is in Glasgow. It looks as if they wished to prohibit any one else coming, and, unfortunately, Bishop Tozer, a good man enough, lacks courage.... What a mission it would be if there were no difficulties—nothing but walking about in slippers made by admiring young ladies! Hey! that would not suit me. It would give me the doldrums; but there are many tastes in the world."

Looking back on the work of the last six years, while deeply grieved that the great object of the Expedition had not been achieved, Dr. Livingstone was able to point to some important results:

1. The discovery of the Kongone harbor, and the ascertaining of the condition of the Zambesi River, and its fitness for navigation.

2. The ascertaining of the capacity of the soil. It was found to be admirably adapted for indigo and cotton, as well as tobacco, castor-oil, and sugar. Its great fertility was shown by its gigantic grasses, and abundant crops of corn and maize. The highlands were free from tsetse and mosquitoes. The drawback to all this was the occurrence of periodical droughts, once every few years.

But every fine feature of the country was bathed in gloom by the slave-trade. The image left in Dr. Livingstone's mind was not that of the rich, sunny, luxuriant country, but that of the woe and wretchedness of the people. The real service of the Expedition was, that it had exposed slavery at its fountain-head, and in all its phases. First, there was the internal slave-trade between hostile native tribes. Then, there were the slave-traders from the coast, Arabs, or half-caste Portuguese, for whom natives were encouraged to collect slaves by all the horrible means of marauding and murder. And further, there were the parties sent out from Portuguese and Arab coast towns, with cloth and beads, muskets and ammunition. The destructive and murderous effects of the last were the climax of the system.

Dr. Livingstone had seen nothing to make him regard the African as of a different species from the rest of the human family. Nor was he the lowest of the species. He had a strong frame and a wonderfully persistent vitality, was free from many European diseases, and could withstand privations with wonderful light-heartedness.

He did not deem it necessary formally to answer a question sometimes put, whether the African had enough of intellect to receive Christianity. The reception of Christianity did not depend on intellect. It depended, as Sir James Stephen had remarked, on a spiritual intuition, which was not the fruit of intellectual culture. But, in fact, the success of missions on the West Coast showed that not only could the African be converted to Christianity, but that Christianity might take root and be cordially supported by the African race.

It was the accursed slave-trade, promoted by the Portuguese, that had frustrated everything. For some time to come his efforts and his prayers must be directed to getting influential men to see to this, so that one way or other the trade might be abolished forever. The hope of obtaining access to the heart of Africa by another route than that through the Portuguese settlements was still in Livingstone's heart. He would go home, but only for a few months; at the earliest possible moment he would return to look for a new route to the interior.



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 officers 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.

On reaching the mouth of the Zambesi, Dr. Livingstone was fortunate in falling in, on the 13th February, with H.M.S. "Orestes," which was joined on the 14th by the "Ariel." The "Orestes" took the "Pioneer" in tow, and the "Ariel" the "Lady Nyassa," and brought them to Mozambique. The day after they set out, a circular storm passed over them, raging with the utmost fury, and creating the greatest danger. Often as Dr. Livingstone had been near the gates of death, he was never nearer than now. He had been offered a passage on board the "Ariel," but while there was danger he would not leave the "Lady Nyassa." Had the latter not been an excellent sea-ship she could not have survived the tempest; all the greater was Dr. Livingstone's grief that she had never reached the lake for which she was adapted so well.