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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78151 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Cover art]
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: DAVID LIVINGSTONE]
+
+
+
+ THE STORY OF
+ DAVID
+ LIVINGSTONE
+
+
+ BY
+
+ VAUTIER GOLDING
+
+
+
+ LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
+ TORONTO: THE COPP, CLARK CO. LTD.
+
+
+
+
+ PROEM
+
+ _To little Ardale and all his merry kind_
+
+
+ LIGHTS OF LIFE
+
+ The dew stands on the dormer panes,
+ The cross November sun
+ Has sent the daylight off to bed
+ Before the night's begun;
+
+ The dull red embers, half aglow,
+ Are sulking in the grate,
+ And let the lonely shadows grow
+ All dark and desolate;
+
+ Shadows of things that go awry,
+ Or waver to and fro;
+ Shadows of playthings bought so dear
+ And broken long ago;
+
+ Shadows of friends who played till mirth
+ Grew sad and went in pain:--
+ Where is the merry light that makes
+ Old shadows smile again?
+
+ Hark! little sandals softly beat
+ Upon the attic stair,
+ And truant mischief breathless creeps
+ With whispered, "Is he there?"
+
+ A story? 'Tis a fateful task
+ To fill the open brow:
+ Who knows what plans of God depend
+ On all it garners now?
+
+ Where shall we lead the clambering limbs,
+ The big blue fearless eyes?
+ Down to the gold mine's narrowing drift,
+ Or to the widening skies
+
+ Where, in the space around the stars,
+ Are countless worlds astray,
+ Whose peoples call for pioneers
+ To find the safer way?
+
+ Ay, let us tell the generous tale
+ Of giants real and bold,
+ Who grew so great they would not stoop
+ To gather fame and gold;
+
+ But hurled the mountains from our path,
+ And drained our quagmires dry,
+ And held our foes at bay the while
+ They bore our weaklings by;
+
+ Giants by whose unselfish toil
+ Our land was first begun,
+ Where good and useful men and maids
+ Make merry as they run.
+
+ Ah, may you miss the dismal tracks
+ That aimless feet have trod,
+ And follow where our pioneers
+ Make open ways to God.
+
+ VAUTIER GOLDING.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+Chapter
+
+I. Early Life
+
+II. First Years in Africa
+
+III. Beyond the Kalahari Desert
+
+IV. From Coast to Coast
+
+V. The Zambesi Expedition
+
+VI. The Upper Shiré and Lake Nyassa
+
+VII. Foiled by the Slavers
+
+VIII. In the Heart of Africa
+
+IX. A Death-blow to Slavery
+
+X. The Last Journey
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF PICTURES
+
+Portrait of Livingstone .... Frontispiece
+
+The brute charged full tilt at his waggon
+
+The lion began to crunch the bone of his arm
+
+The Victoria Falls
+
+A long file of slaves
+
+They burnt the village
+
+Often he had to wade through marshes up to the waist
+
+They saw him dead on his knees
+
+
+
+[Illustration: (map of Central Africa and Cape Colony)]
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+EARLY LIFE
+
+The story of this brave and gentle hero, and of his noble toil for
+the sake of other men, is truly a tale of more than ordinary wonder.
+
+Few men's lives can better show how even the poorest and weakest can
+gain for themselves the power to do great things, and to make the
+harder paths of life more easy for those who follow. For David
+Livingstone began life in a workman's cottage, without knowledge or
+skill, and without money to obtain them. Yet, when he died, the
+world was so full of praise and wonder at his work that his body was
+brought from Africa to rest in Westminster Abbey among the graves of
+his country's greatest men. He had grown to be a great pioneer, an
+explorer, a scientist, a doctor, a missioner, and a freer of slaves.
+
+In thirty years he travelled 29,000 miles, through the wild and
+unknown parts of Africa, exploring rivers, lakes, plains, forests,
+and mountains. He found out places where white settlers might make
+farms and plantations in health and safety. He sought for paths and
+waterways by which they might bring their cotton, grain, coffee,
+sugar, ivory, and skins to the seaports for sale. Among the black
+tribes he made many friends, doctored their sick, and lost no chance
+of showing them how to do their duty to God and make better use of
+their lives.
+
+But his last and greatest work was to follow up the slave-hunters,
+and make known in England all the brutal and wicked horrors of the
+slave-trade. This was the work that wore him to death, but his noble
+self-sacrifice roused his countrymen to take possession of Central
+Africa and put an end to slavery. And if we look into his life, we
+shall find that the power to do all this came little by little, and
+day by day, from one simple source, namely, his earnest and unselfish
+desire to show his love for God by doing good to men. He was always
+trying to help and befriend others, and this made other men befriend
+him and give him the means of carrying on his work.
+
+Livingstone's forefathers were Highlanders, and lived in the wild and
+lonely island of Ulva, till hard times drove the family to settle in
+the village of Blantyre, among the Lanarkshire cotton-mills, where
+work was more plentiful.
+
+Here David was born in the year 1813. His father, Neil Livingstone,
+an honest, steady, and hard-working man, took a great interest in all
+that was going on in the world. He was a great reader in many
+subjects, but was especially fond of books on missionary work. From
+him David inherited his Highland pluck and hardihood, and also his
+thirst for every kind of knowledge.
+
+His mother, Agnes Hunter, came of an old family which, in the days of
+the Covenanter persecution, had been driven from home to the hills,
+and had risked torture and death rather than do what they believed to
+be wrong. She gave him her gentle and kindly nature, and taught him
+to be neat, orderly, and exact. From her tender but firm upbringing
+also, he gained the brave grip of truth, honour, and justice that
+makes men do and dare all things for duty's sake.
+
+This was his heritage from his parents, and it proved of more value
+to him than all the money on earth.
+
+At the village school of Blantyre David soon learnt to read and
+write. So poor, however, were his parents, that they had to take him
+away from his lessons at the early age of ten, and set him to work in
+a cotton-mill. Summer and winter, wet or fine, he had to appear at
+the factory at six in the morning, and stay there till eight at
+night, with short spaces allowed him for meals. Fourteen hours a day
+at the mill might well have broken his pluck and ruined his health,
+as, indeed, happened to many poor children, but David was made of
+harder stuff. He was bent on getting knowledge by some means or
+other. Very quickly he learnt to work the machine called the
+"spinning jenny," and was then raised to be a spinner with a small
+wage.
+
+The first half-crown of his earning he took home, and slipped it into
+his mother's lap. To him it was a small fortune, and would have
+bought him many coveted things, but he thought of his mother's wants
+before his own. Later on, as he earned more wage, he bought himself
+books, and these he used to fix on the "jenny," snatching a few lines
+from them whenever he could spare an eye from his work. His hard and
+tiring day at the mill was long enough for any one, but in spite of
+this he joined night classes and sat up reading till sometimes his
+mother took away his books and drove him to bed.
+
+His holidays were spent in ranging over the countryside with his
+brothers and sisters, and here too nothing escaped his keen eye and
+love of knowledge. Every animal, bird, insect, and plant was an
+interest to him, and he studied them closely, trying to find out all
+he could about their forms and habits. And while he thus began to
+learn the wonderful science of nature, he never dreamt that one day
+in the wilds of Africa he would use his knowledge in digging roots
+for his supper, or in avoiding vicious beasts and poisonous snakes.
+
+As the years went on he grew restless, and was sometimes not very
+happy, without quite knowing why. In reality his mind was growing
+very fast, and wanted bigger and better work than watching the
+mill-wheels. Spinning cotton was useful enough in its way, but he
+wanted to do for mankind something greater and more lasting than that.
+
+His father had many books and papers on mission work in China and
+India, and as David read of the wonderful beauty of these countries,
+and the ignorance and cruelty of their peoples, he sometimes thought
+he would like to be a missionary. The idea returned to him again and
+again, but he kept doubting whether he was the right person for the
+work. One day, however, when he was twenty years old, he happened to
+read a booklet that told such sad tales about the poor of China that
+his mind was troubled and stirred. So heavily did the story of human
+suffering and wrong weigh upon him that he began to take his country
+walks alone, in order to think the matter over undisturbed. Every
+morning he asked himself if he could do nothing to help, and every
+night he went to bed with the question still unanswered.
+
+But at last there came an evening when he found an answer that made
+his way quite clear. He watched the sunset lights creep off the
+hills and clouds and die away in the growing: starlight. He heard
+the thrush, all grateful for the joy of life, sing out its evensong
+till the calm hush of night stole over the tired world. The peace
+and beauty of it all seemed to make him sadder than ever. In such a
+lovely world, where there was room for all, food for all, and joy
+enough for all, it seemed to him so utterly strange that men could
+ever even want to cheat, rob, bully, and kill each other, and grab
+for themselves more than they could possibly use. The depth of his
+own sadness made him remember how once, in the stillness of the
+sunset hour, Jesus of Nazareth had wandered into an olive grove, and
+there had wept in bitter grief over the troubles of men.
+
+Then suddenly the idea flashed into his mind that at least he could
+try and imitate the life of Christ as far as lay in his power. In a
+moment his mind was made up. He walked home with a brisk step and
+light heart, and told his parents that he was going to college at
+Glasgow to learn to be a doctor; and then he would go out to the far
+East to help the sick, and to tell men how they could make the world
+better and happier by imitating the life of Christ.
+
+David lost no time in carrying out his plan, and at once began to put
+by all he could from his earnings at the cotton-mill. Want of money
+was his chief difficulty. Indeed, when at last he went up to
+Glasgow, he and his father walked all the way, and then had to trudge
+the streets till they found a lodging for David that cost no more
+than two shillings a week.
+
+It was a hard struggle for young Livingstone, but still, by spending
+his savings very carefully, he managed to keep at his studies for a
+whole winter. Then he was forced to go back to the cotton-mills in
+order to save more money to pay for another winter's training. He
+was a quick and thorough learner, and at once it became quite clear
+to those who taught him that he would soon be fit for the life he had
+chosen.
+
+Livingstone did not want to be ordained a regular missionary and take
+the title of "Reverend" before his name, for he did not wish to teach
+the special creed and services of any one particular set of
+Christians. His own idea was to go among the natives as a plain and
+simple man, trying every hour and minute of his daily life to do as
+Christ had done; and in this way he hoped to win their love and
+respect, and to lead them towards a nobler life of duty to God and
+man. But his family and friends so strongly advised him to be made a
+missionary in the usual way that he yielded to their wishes, and
+offered himself to the London Missionary Society. His offer was
+accepted, and after a short examination in London before the
+governors of the Society, he was sent to Ongar, in Essex, for a three
+months' training among the other missionary students.
+
+Here, with his usual care and thoroughness, he quickly learnt all
+that was set before him, but there was one thing he never could
+master: do what he would, he never could learn to preach. Once he
+was sent to a neighbouring parish with a most carefully prepared
+sermon; but he could get no further than the text, and so with a
+hasty apology he fled from the pulpit. Probably that was the only
+time in his life that he ran away from anything, but the event nearly
+ended his career.
+
+His failure in preaching vexed the soul of his pastor so much, that
+Livingstone was sent back to the governors at the end of the three
+months with a bad report of his powers as a missionary. On the
+strength of this report he was nearly sent away as useless. One of
+the governors, however, who was wiser than his fellows, saw that
+Livingstone could both think well and do well, although he could not
+talk well. He accordingly took the young student's part, and
+insisted that he should have a further trial at Ongar. The result of
+this timely aid was that, after three more months of study, no one
+doubted Livingstone's fitness, and so in the year 1840 he was
+formally ordained a missionary.
+
+Meanwhile, war had broken out in China, and no one could go there in
+safety. This was a disappointment to Livingstone, but while waiting
+for peace he would not be idle, so he went on with his medical
+studies at London, and also took his degree as a physician and
+surgeon at Glasgow. But the war still dragged on, and rather than
+waste any time, he decided to go to Africa; and accordingly, on 8th
+December 1840, he set sail for that vast and unknown continent, into
+which he was one day to bring new light, new hope, and new freedom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+FIRST YEARS IN AFRICA
+
+The sea voyage out to the Cape was a new life to Livingstone, and he
+made the most of it. With his usual determination to know all about
+everything, he made friends with the ship's captain, and soon began
+to learn how to manage the ship.
+
+The captain taught him how to use a sextant and chronometer, two most
+important instruments, by whose help voyagers can tell exactly how
+far they are to the north or south, to the east or west. To "take an
+observation," as it is called, is no easy matter; but by hard and
+steady practice Livingstone in time became able to find out the
+ship's exact position and to mark it down neatly on the chart. And
+often in after life the captain's kindly teaching came to his aid
+when he lost his way in the wilds, or when he marked some new
+discovery on the map.
+
+In his spare half-hours Livingstone would enjoy the many delights and
+wonders of the southern sea. He watched the dazzling little
+flying-fish dart like tiny rainbows from beneath the bows, glimmer
+over the water, and flash into the white comb of a wave. The
+dolphins, too, like clowns of the sea, amused him with their antics
+as they leapt and turned somersaults over the waves or sportively
+raced, two or three abreast, close ahead of the cut-water.
+Occasionally a monster sperm-whale would rise to the surface like a
+floating islet, spout his double fountain into the air, and plunge
+down again into his home. Sometimes, also, a grim and wicked-looking
+shark would prowl about the ship's wake in the greedy hope of human
+prey.
+
+When at last the long voyage was over and Livingstone landed at Cape
+Town, he found more sights and wonders awaiting him; but he had not
+been very long ashore before he also found a very great
+disappointment. He had quite supposed that all missionaries were of
+course doing their best to help forward the work among the natives,
+and it was an unpleasant surprise to him when he saw that, in spite
+of the noble efforts of many good men, mission work in South Africa
+was almost at a standstill.
+
+From want of more careful planning, the mission stations were mostly
+clustered around the Cape instead of being dotted about far into the
+continent, where black men were much more numerous. This was a great
+waste of strength and time, for hard-working missionaries had not
+enough to do, while the idlers could so easily neglect their duty for
+the pleasures and amusements of white society.
+
+Amongst the missionaries there was much disagreement and petty
+jealousy over their work, and many were full of complaint about
+trifling matters, while a few, but only a few, led such unworthy and
+contemptible lives that they often brought the good fame of mission
+work into bad report.
+
+Livingstone soon made up his mind that the only remedy lay in two new
+plans: first, to make mission stations far up in the thickly-peopled
+native districts and win over the most powerful chiefs; next, to make
+a training college whence native teachers could afterwards be sent to
+educate the many tribes. It was the first of these plans that
+decided the course of his after life, for he now saw that he might do
+better service to his cause by pioneering Central Africa than by
+settling down in comfort to preach.
+
+After a short stay at the Cape, Livingstone was sent into
+Bechuanaland to Kuruman, the most northern of all the mission
+settlements in South Africa. This station was worked by a good and
+capable missionary, Dr. Moffat, who was then away in England, and
+Livingstone had been ordered to await his return. Livingstone,
+however, did not mean to be idle, so he decided to spend the time in
+exploring the almost unknown country to the north of the station.
+
+Accordingly he made a number of journeys in many directions,
+travelling about from tribe to tribe until he had thoroughly learnt
+the nature and resources of the country, and also the language and
+character of the natives.
+
+On the first of these journeys Livingstone had an object-lesson in
+slavery that set his noble heart aching for the freedom of Africa.
+One day when he had outspanned his oxen for rest and food, he
+suddenly noticed that a young native girl had crept into camp, and
+was hiding under his waggon. He gave her some food, and in answer to
+his questions she told him her story. She and her sister had been
+left orphans, and they had lived happily together till the latter
+died. Then she was taken by another family, who kept her, not out of
+kindness, but with the cruel intention of selling her to some chief
+as a slave wife. On learning what was in store for her she ran away,
+meaning to trudge behind the waggon all the way to Kuruman, where she
+had friends.
+
+While thus telling her tale, her face suddenly fell with fear, and
+she burst into tears. Livingstone looked up and saw that a native,
+armed with a rifle, had come to claim the poor child and take her
+back to slavery.
+
+Livingstone could not bear the thought of giving her up, but he was
+at his wits' end to know the best way of saving her, till one of his
+native teachers, named Pomari, came to the rescue. The girl was
+attractive enough, with her bright eyes, white teeth, and soft,
+healthy skin, and her captors had loaded her in savage fashion with
+strings of beads. Pomari stripped the beads off the girl, and gave
+them to the man, who, after a little persuasion, took the bribe and
+went his way. Livingstone took care to keep the girl out of sight
+till they were safe out of the district.
+
+Many other adventures befell the missionary on his travels; for wild
+animals, drought, fever, cattle-sickness, and the deadly tsetse-fly,
+whose bite kills oxen and horses in a few hours, always bring risk
+and excitement to an African journey. Once, when he was "trekking"
+several hundred miles through Bechuanaland in an ox-waggon, the fatal
+cattle-sickness fell like a plague upon his oxen and killed them all.
+
+There was nothing to be done but to desert the waggon and tramp home.
+Livingstone's native servants were afraid that their master would
+never be able to do it. One of them pointed to his trousers and
+said, half in anxiety, half in scorn, that he was not really strong
+enough, and only put his legs into those bags to make them look
+stout. Livingstone, however, proved their fears groundless, and won
+their respect by walking them nearly to a standstill.
+
+Once, too, he travelled 400 miles on ox-back, and found it awkward
+and uneasy work to keep his seat and avoid the sweep of the poor
+beast's horns as it shook off the flies that clustered round its eyes
+and nostrils. During this journey he fell down and broke his finger,
+and set the bone with his other hand. Not long after, a lion sprang
+out of the bush and raided their camp. Livingstone frightened the
+animal away by firing his revolver, but the kick of the weapon broke
+his finger anew.
+
+Another time he had to fly for his life and hide from an angry
+rhinoceros which he had disturbed while she was feeding her calf.
+Upon missing him, the vicious brute charged full tilt at his waggon,
+and with the deadly upward stroke of her horn (a stroke which has
+been known to kill an elephant), splintered the wheel like matchwood.
+
+[Illustration: The brute charged full tilt at his waggon]
+
+All this while Livingstone was making friends of the tribes along his
+track. His manly fearlessness, his good humour and keen sympathy,
+his kindly eyes full of honesty and truth, soon showed the natives
+that there was nothing to fear from him. His medical skill got him
+the fame of a wizard, and black patients from far and near thronged
+his waggon to be cured of their ills, while some spread the report
+that he had brought dead men back to life.
+
+Apart from this, he had a most wonderful gift of finding his way into
+the hearts of men; and though the natives could not understand the
+reason of his coming, yet they soon saw that he had not come, like
+some of the Transvaal Boers, to shoot them down, plunder their
+cattle, and carry off their children to a life of unpaid labour.
+
+One chief, Bubé, was in difficulty for want of water for his crops.
+Every tribe had a sorcerer, who was supposed to have the power of
+bringing down rain when required; but Bubé's rainmaker had failed to
+supply him. Livingstone, however, taught them a surer way than
+sorcery, for he induced the whole tribe to turn out and dig a ditch
+from the river to their village, and by thus saving them from famine
+he won their love and respect. Bubé's faith in witchcraft afterwards
+cost him his life. His sorcerer vowed he could take the devil out of
+some gunpowder by the use of certain burning roots. Poor Bubé
+innocently went to watch the performance, and both were blown out of
+existence.
+
+At last, after long waiting, Livingstone got leave from the governors
+to start a new mission-station, and this he did with the help of a
+brother missionary at Mabotsa, a place 250 miles north of Kuruman.
+Here Livingstone had to build a house for himself at his own expense,
+and as his income was only £100 a year, he built it with his own
+hands.
+
+His work, however, was delayed by a misadventure that left him with a
+weak arm for all his days. A lion one day fell upon a flock of sheep
+near the village and began to kill them right and left. Livingstone
+went out for a little while to encourage the natives to surround it.
+The lion, however, broke away from its pursuers, and suddenly sprang
+out of the bush upon Livingstone: then, pinning him down with a paw
+on his head, it began to crunch the bone of his arm. A faithful
+follower, Mebalwé, diverted the beast from his master, and was
+himself attacked, but was saved by the lion falling dead of its
+wounds.
+
+[Illustration: The lion began to crunch the bone of his arm]
+
+As soon as his arm was well enough, Livingstone finished his house,
+and then he brought home Mary Moffat from Kuruman to be his wife.
+The two were together so successful in their work that the jealousy
+of some of their fellow-missionaries was aroused, and Livingstone was
+accused of taking more than his share of credit so as to gain the
+favour of the governors in London.
+
+Rather than live as a source of envy to a fellow-worker, Livingstone
+left Mabotsa, and went to all the labour and expense of building a
+new mission-house at Chonuane, 40 miles farther north, in the country
+of a chief called Sechélé. Water, however, was so scarce at Chonuane
+that Livingstone persuaded Sechélé's people to move with him still
+farther north, to Kolobeng. Here, for the third time, he built
+himself a house, but he did not dwell there for many years. His
+great mind ran continually upon the welfare of Africa, and he was
+losing faith in the missionary methods that were then practised.
+
+He now believed the best plan would be for Christian emigrants to
+come and teach the natives useful arts and industries, and to show
+them by example how to lead better lives.
+
+But where was he to make his first little colony? East of Kolobeng
+lay the Transvaal, and the Boers, who hated him for his efforts
+against slavery, kept sending him threatening messages. North and
+west of him was the dry and trackless Kalahari Desert. He had heard
+native rumours about a large lake beyond the desert. There he might
+find a place suitable for his purpose; but he could not afford to pay
+for the waggons, cattle, native servants, and stores necessary for
+the journey across the desert. House-building had already cost him
+beyond his means. What was he to do?
+
+The matter was settled for him by the generosity of an English
+gentleman, William Cotton Oswell, who had made several hunting trips
+in South Africa after big game, and had often been helped by
+Livingstone's knowledge of the country and language. Noble,
+fearless, and unselfish himself, Oswell had been from the first drawn
+into fast friendship with Livingstone; and now he offered to pay the
+cost of the expedition. Livingstone was overjoyed at his goodness,
+and on May 27, 1849, the expedition left Kolobeng. They had with
+them eighty oxen, twenty horses, and about twenty-five natives, and
+the fact that a waggon and span of oxen costs about £125 will give
+some idea of Oswell's generosity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BEYOND THE KALAHARI DESERT
+
+A glance at the maps of Africa published before the year 1850 will
+show how little was known about the middle of the continent. All
+round the coast and a few hundred miles up the rivers there were
+plenty of names, but the centre was left almost blank. Most people
+supposed that the Great Sahara Desert in the north stretched down to
+the Kalahari Desert in the south. Cleverer men, however, thought of
+the enormous flow of water in the Nile, Congo, and Zambesi, and felt
+sure that somewhere there must be a land of streams, forests, and
+hills, vast enough to feed such mighty rivers.
+
+In the exciting hope of pioneering this new land, and in the noble
+desire of bringing a better way of life to its peoples, Oswell and
+Livingstone dared the hardship and danger of the Kalahari. Oswell
+was to manage the trek, and the hard and tiring task of shooting
+enough game for the camp pot depended upon his quick eye, cool head,
+and steady hand. Livingstone was to be interpreter and scientific
+observer, while the party relied upon his wonderful power of gaining
+the goodwill of the natives.
+
+They started from Kolobeng in a north-easterly direction, and for the
+first 120 miles their track lay through country they had passed
+before. Then they struck north towards the desert, and from this
+point they knew nothing of the country before them. One of the
+natives with them had crossed many years ago, and _thought_ he could
+remember his route, but his memory proved very hazy.
+
+With this man as guide, they came to the wells of Serotli, on the
+edge of the desert, and found that the place was just a dip in the
+sand, surrounded by low scrub and a few stunted trees. In the dip,
+however, were several little hollows, as though a rhinoceros had been
+rolling in the sand; and in one of these hollows lay about a quart of
+water.
+
+Oswell at once set the party to work with spades and land
+turtle-shells to deepen the holes, but hard toil till nightfall only
+brought enough water to give the horses a mouthful or two each.
+Their guide told them that this was their last chance of water for 70
+miles, so Oswell sent the oxen back to their last watering-place.
+Bellowing and moaning with disappointment and distress, the poor
+beasts crawled back 25 miles, and at last found relief from the
+terrible thirst they had suffered for ninety-six hours.
+
+Meanwhile four of the Serotli pits were dug out to the depth of 8
+feet, and water trickled into them so plentifully that Oswell sent
+for the oxen. On their arrival they were at once watered, inspanned,
+and headed across the desert. The heat was very great, and the
+wheels sank so deep into the loose sand that their utmost efforts
+only dragged the waggons 6 miles before sundown. On the following
+day they covered 19 miles without water. On the third day again
+these gallant beasts struggled 19 miles through the heavy sand in the
+smiting heat without a drop to drink.
+
+That night was a bad one for the leaders of the expedition. They had
+now come 44 miles from Serotli at a rate of only 2 miles an hour, and
+the guide told them they were still 30 miles from the next water,
+which was at a place called Mokokonyani by the bushmen of the desert.
+
+The oxen were spent with toil and thirst, and all night lay moaning
+out to their masters a piteous appeal for drink. No one knew for
+certain what lay before them, or whether they were in the right
+direction. Failure seemed more than likely, but Oswell and
+Livingstone were not the men to know despair. At the first sign of
+daybreak they sent the horses forward with the guide to try and find
+Mokokonyani. With the horses safe, the men could cover the ground in
+safety, and hunt for food on the way.
+
+Oswell and Livingstone intended to follow with the waggons as long as
+the oxen could hold out; then they would loose the oxen on the trail
+of the horses in the hope that, without their burdens, they would
+mostly reach water alive. Half an hour after starting, the waggons
+passed through a belt of scrub, and came suddenly upon the horses at
+a dead halt. "Is it water?" was on every lip. No such luck was in
+store for them: the guide had lost his way.
+
+Soon the weary oxen staggered in distress, and were outspanned to
+rest while the leaders took counsel for the future. Meanwhile the
+natives scattered through the scrub in a forlorn hope of finding
+water. Presently one of them heard the harsh croaking of a frog. No
+sweet music could fall softer on his ear, for where there is a frog
+there is always water close by. He ran back, and reported the
+discovery of a patch of marsh. Once more the jaded oxen were
+inspanned. The sense of water in the air seemed to revive them, and
+in two brisk miles they reached relief.
+
+For the present, at all events, the expedition was saved. And it was
+well for them that they came upon the marsh, for it took them four
+more days to reach Mokokonyani, though on the first and third days
+they were luckily able to find water by digging. It turned out that
+they were in the bed of a "sand river" called the Mokokoong by the
+bushmen. Deep down below their feet a constant flow of water crept
+at a snail's pace through the sand. The course of the stream could
+be roughly traced like the long-dried bed of an ancient river.
+Sometimes it lay tween ridges of naked limestone or banks of sand;
+sometimes it was lost in the level plain. In a very few places there
+were sand-holes deep enough to reach the stream, and here patches of
+marsh formed, or water showed in plenty, as at Mokokonyani.
+Otherwise there was no sign of water, though the bushmen get enough
+to quench their thirst by sucking through a long reed thrust down
+into the sand.
+
+The party now tried to follow the sand river, but soon lost it for
+two waterless days. Then they found and followed it once more, until
+the underground stream disappeared in a marsh. At this point their
+guide again failed them, and they went many miles out of their course
+without water for three days. Here again fortune favoured them, for
+Oswell's eagle eye spied a bushwoman lurking in the thick scrub. He
+gave chase and captured her, and for a few beads she led them to a
+water-hole.
+
+And now from a hillock they could see new and fertile country in the
+distance, with thick smoke rising beyond. It must be reeds burning
+on the shore of the great lake, they thought, and so pushed onward.
+
+In a few more days they suddenly burst through the thick bush upon a
+wide and deep river, and from the natives on its banks they learnt
+that this was the Zouga, flowing from the great Lake Ngami, 250 miles
+up stream. It was now 4th July and late in the season, but for
+twelve more days they forced and jolted their waggons along the river
+bank until the oxen were nearly spent. Then Oswell and Livingstone
+picked out a span of the fittest, and pressed forward with a light
+waggon. As they neared the lake the bush grew denser, and in the
+space of 5 miles they cut down more than one hundred small trees to
+let the waggon pass. At last, on 28th July, they reached Lake Ngami,
+having taken nine weeks to cover the 600 miles between them and
+Kolobeng.
+
+Beyond the Zouga lay a fertile land of forest and plains, but the
+failure to reach it took away half the joy of their discovery. They
+could not get the waggons across, though Livingstone, at the risk of
+his life from alligators, spent many hours in the water vainly trying
+to make a raft. They were forced to return--Livingstone to Kolobeng,
+and Oswell to England; but they made plans to come again the next
+year, and Oswell promised to bring up a boat.
+
+Next year, however, their plans failed, for Oswell was delayed, and
+Livingstone started without him. He took with him his wife and
+children, and, in spite of the hardships of the desert, they reached
+the Zouga and Lake Ngami in safety. Here fever fell upon the
+children, and he was forced to return. On the way back he met
+Oswell, who had followed only a few weeks' march behind.
+
+Nothing could be done that year, but in 1851 these two great men
+again crossed the Kalahari Desert, taking with them Mrs. Livingstone
+and the children. This time Oswell, with his usual unselfish care
+for others, went a day in advance and dug out the wells, and thus the
+rest of the party were saved from delay and thirst.
+
+They passed the Zouga in safety, and then, in a lovely land of
+fruits, flowers, and herds, they crossed stream after stream until
+they came to a point on the River Chobi 400 miles from Linyanté.
+Linyanté was the headquarters of the Makololo tribe, and their wise
+and powerful chief hurried to meet the travellers. He was quite
+overcome by his first sight of white men, but Livingstone's genial
+kindness soon set him at his ease, and then no one could have done
+more to help them. Sebituani told them all he knew about the country
+in and around his borders. Far to the north-west, he said, there
+lived a tribe who once sent back to him his present of an ox, and
+asked for a man to eat instead. From the east there came black
+messengers from the Portuguese with calico and beads and guns in
+exchange for slaves.
+
+He promised to take his white friends ten days north of Linyanté to
+the mighty River Seshéké, which fell, men said, over a cliff into a
+chasm with a smoke and thunder that sounded many miles.
+Unfortunately this noble chief, whom Oswell described as a "gentleman
+in thought and manner," died of pneumonia a few days after; but his
+tribe kept all his promises to the explorers.
+
+Leaving Mrs. Livingstone with the waggons in camp at the Chobi, the
+two friends went by canoe to Linyanté, and thence on horseback to the
+Seshéké. Here they indeed saw a mighty river, which proved to be the
+great Zambesi; but the waterfall was said to be far off, and the
+season was so late that once more they turned homewards.
+
+On the way back many new plans were made. They had just been on the
+southern border of a country whence vile and brutal white men were
+getting slaves at the rate of eighteenpence apiece. If only they
+could find a good road into this country, honest trade might put an
+end to this wicked robbery of human lives. The road they had already
+found was too long and difficult, so Livingstone determined to
+revisit Linyanté the next year, and then seek a possible path to the
+sea-coast. It would be impossible for his family to go with him, and
+the thought of leaving them to the risks and dangers of Kolobeng was
+a great trouble to his mind.
+
+Once more the goodness of his companion came to his aid. For Oswell
+persuaded Livingstone to send his wife and children to England, and
+also gave him the money for their outfit and expenses. He sold the
+ivory that had fallen to his rifle, and handed the price of it to his
+friend as a share of the game on their new preserves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+FROM COAST TO COAST
+
+Livingstone took his family to Capetown, and saw them safely on board
+a ship bound for England. War was going on at the time with the
+Kaffirs, and he soon found that the white folk at the Cape looked on
+him with mistrust and dislike. They accused him and other
+missionaries of stirring up and helping the natives to rebel, and
+they even tried to prevent him from buying gunpowder for use on his
+journeys.
+
+There were many, however, who believed in him, and amongst these was
+Maclear, the Astronomer-Royal. From him Livingstone had more lessons
+on "taking his bearings," and also learnt the use of an instrument
+for telling exactly how many feet any place stood above the level of
+the sea.
+
+On his return northwards Livingstone was delayed by feeble oxen and a
+broken wheel, and thus he reached Kuruman only in time to learn that
+his home, the last he ever had, was in hopeless ruin.
+
+Six hundred Boers under Pretorius came to Kolobeng, carried off
+everything of value in his house, and wrecked the rest. Even the
+leaves of his precious diaries and notebooks were torn and scattered
+to the winds. Moving onward to the native village, the Boers went
+morning and afternoon to the mission service and heard Mebalwé
+preach. After service they told Sechélé, the chief, that they had
+come to fight because he let Englishmen pass through his country.
+Surrounding the village, they fired the huts, and with long-range
+swivel-guns shot down sixty of the men, women, and children, who were
+huddled together on a hillock in the blinding smoke.
+
+When the flames were spent the Boers closed in to finish their brutal
+work; but Sechélé held them at bay till nightfall, and sent them back
+to count their dead. Thirty-five Boers paid the price of this
+needless cruelty, while Sechélé and his remnant escaped under cover
+of the night.
+
+To avoid the Boers, Livingstone passed well to the west of Kolobeng,
+and reached Linyanté after much hardship. The rainy season had
+flooded the land between the rivers, and his hands and knees were cut
+and torn from wading through reeds and pushing his way through the
+thorny bush. Sekelétu, the son of Sebituani, was now chief of the
+Makololo, and he soon grew fond enough of Livingstone to say "he had
+found a new father." With an escort and supplies from his "new son,"
+the missionary made a tour through the Barotsi country, but could
+find no place fit for a settlement. The whole district was too
+unhealthy for white men, and the natives were unpromising.
+
+Plunder and tyranny seemed the custom of the country. Here, for the
+first time in his life, Livingstone saw a string of slaves trudging
+along in hopeless misery beneath their chains. Once a mother was
+leading her little boy by the hand along the track, when suddenly a
+man pounced upon the child, and dragged him away shrieking to
+lifelong slavery.
+
+Accordingly, in November 1853, Livingstone left Linyanté to carry out
+his plan of finding a way to the west coast. He set out with an
+escort of twenty-seven Makololo, and went by canoe up the Zambesi and
+Leeba, till some falls in the latter stopped him. From this point he
+went forward on ox-back, and, steering by compass as best he could,
+reached Loanda, in Portuguese country, in May 1854.
+
+The troubles and difficulties of the journey were great. His
+medicine-chest was plundered, and his portable boat was lost. He was
+twice thrown from his ox, once on his head upon the hard ground, and
+once in the middle of a ford. He had thirty-one attacks of fever,
+and had to be his own doctor and nurse. His Makololo were cowards,
+and often wanted to go back, but Livingstone's patient courage turned
+them into men. Many of the tribes were very troublesome when he
+asked leave to pass their borders. One chief refused to let him go
+by unless he gave up a riding-ox, a gun, or a male slave; but
+Livingstone's wonderful force of character overcame his demand. At
+Chiboqué the natives refused to sell him food, and threatened to kill
+him if he did not give them an ox. They crowded round him, yelling
+and waving their spears and clubs over his head. Livingstone stood
+his ground with unflinching eye, and his fearless spirit utterly
+quelled them.
+
+Another chief demanded his riding-ox or his life, and got the reply
+that he might kill him if he liked, but God would judge. The savage
+felt that he was in the presence of a greater chief than himself, and
+quailed before him. So great, indeed, was the power of Livingstone's
+presence that he once released a string of slaves by merely ordering
+their captors to let them go. A magic-lantern, with pictures from
+the Bible, helped him much in the management of the natives. They
+flocked to see it, though many were in terror lest the figures moving
+off the screen should enter into them as evil spirits. Livingstone
+humorously said that this was the only service they ever asked him to
+repeat.
+
+When almost at his journey's end a party of natives stopped him at a
+ford on the Quango, in Portuguese country. Livingstone had little
+left to give away, so he handed over his razors and then his shirts,
+while the Makololo parted with their copper ornaments. This,
+however, was not enough; and Livingstone was just giving up his
+blanket and coat when a Portuguese sergeant came up and drove the
+natives away.
+
+On his reaching Loanda, the Portuguese treated him with the utmost
+kindness, and gave him all he could possibly want, but he afterwards
+found to his cost that some of this kindness was humbug. Here he had
+the chance of returning to England; but, knowing that the Makololo
+could never reach home alone, he sent off his letters and scientific
+notes in the _Forerunner_, and then started for Linyanté. The
+Portuguese gave him supplies for his party, and presents for the
+chiefs on his track. His Makololo bearers were given suits of red
+and blue cloth, while the Bishop of Loanda sent a colonel's uniform
+for Sekelétu.
+
+He had not gone very far when he was overtaken by the news that all
+his letters and scientific notes had been lost in the wreck of the
+_Forerunner_. There was nothing to be done but write them all over
+again; and this delay, together with an attack of rheumatic fever,
+kept him from reaching Linyanté till September 1855. On their
+arrival, Sekelétu and his whole tribe turned out to meet them, and
+the party entered the town in triumphal procession, with the red and
+blue uniforms of the Makololo bearers in the van. Livingstone then
+held a service of thanksgiving, but the attention of his congregation
+was hopelessly upset by the glory of Sekelétu in the dress of a
+Portuguese colonel.
+
+Livingstone did not remain long at Linyanté. The route to Loanda was
+too difficult and unhealthy for general trade, so he decided to
+follow the Zambesi down to the east coast, in the hope of finding a
+better. Sekelétu gave him a new escort of one hundred and twenty
+Makololo, and also supplied him with three riding-oxen, and ten more
+to be used for food.
+
+In November 1855 he found the waterfall that Oswell and he had marked
+on their charts from hearsay, but had never seen. Here the great
+Zambesi, more than a mile wide, plunged "like a downward smoke" 300
+sheer feet into a chasm, and then went seething and swirling away
+through a narrow zigzag rift. Twice as large as the Canadian
+Niagara, its spray darkened the sun above it, and its thunder boomed
+for miles. And, as in reverent silence he watched this mighty force
+flow on, Livingstone felt--
+
+ "These are Thy wondrous works, Parent of good,"
+
+and he longed more than ever to see this lovely land in freedom and
+at peace.
+
+Before leaving the "Mosi-oa-tunya," or the "Sounding Smoke,"
+Livingstone changed its name to the Victoria Falls; but he little
+thought that in less than fifty years a railway bridge would span the
+gorge down which its waters swept.
+
+[Illustration: The Victoria Falls]
+
+Keeping mainly to the north bank of the Zambesi, he made his way to
+Teté, with much the same experience as usual. While his men and
+stores were crossing the Loangwé he kept some unfriendly natives
+quiet by amusing them with his watch and burning-glass till all were
+safe. Once he was mistaken for a half-caste Portuguese slaver, and
+only saved his life by showing the colour of his breast and arms.
+His riding-ox took a determined dislike to his umbrella, and would
+not permit him to use it; so he suffered much from the rain, and even
+had to carry his watch in his arm-pit to keep it dry. At Teté he
+left his Makololo bearers, and, promising to return to them some day,
+made his way on to Quilimane.
+
+In one respect his great journey was a failure: he had not found a
+really good route to the sea. Nevertheless he had found out two
+facts unknown to the world before. First, Central Africa was not a
+desert, but could produce metals, coffee, cotton, oil, sugar, corn,
+and many other things needed for the world's use. Second, the
+natives were capable of being taught by gentleness and justice to
+make good use of their lives.
+
+These facts he wrote to the King of Portugal, telling him also that
+canals and roads could be easily made by the natives under good white
+leaders: then he set out for England to publish his knowledge in a
+book which he called "Missionary Travels."
+
+He reached London in December 1856, and was at once lionised all over
+the kingdom. People were so full of encouragement that he felt it
+his duty to go on with the career he had begun. Even Queen Victoria,
+the Prince Consort, and Lord Palmerston sent for him to praise his
+work, while the Royal Geographical Society and other public bodies
+held meetings in his honour.
+
+But every great-minded man has to suffer from little-minded critics;
+and Livingstone was accused by a few of not being enough of a
+missionary. Moreover, at Quilimane he had received a letter from the
+London Missionary Society, saying that they could not "aid plans only
+remotely connected with the spread of the Gospel." Livingstone took
+this to mean that they thought he had not preached enough for his
+pay. His own way was quite clear to him. He believed that his first
+duty to God was to help in their need the men, women, and children
+whom God had caused to live. So, for the sake of the black millions
+of Africa, Livingstone gently and courteously withdrew himself from
+the Society, and started for Quilimane as Her Majesty's Consul, and
+as the leader of a British expedition to explore the valley of the
+Zambesi.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE ZAMBESI EXPEDITION
+
+In 1858 Livingstone once more set sail for the Cape, taking his wife
+with him, but leaving his children behind. At Cape Town the people
+were anxious to make amends for their former unkindness to him, and
+now did all they could to give him a happy welcome.
+
+Continuing his voyage in the _Pearl_, up the east coast of Africa, he
+reached the mouth of the Zambesi, which enters the sea through many
+channels between low and swampy islands covered with thick jungle.
+The first thing to be done was to find out the deepest and safest of
+these channels, and many days were spent in sounding the depths of
+the water by sinking a lump of lead on the end of a line. An outlet
+called the Kongoné proved to be the best, and up this channel they
+took the _Pearl_.
+
+Left and right the banks lay dark under the dense mangrove thicket,
+or shone bright with shrubs and flowers beneath tall palms and
+fern-trees, and forest timber laden and twined with creepers.
+Strange birds wheeled in bright flocks above them, or flashed in
+single brilliance across the stream. Here and there were open
+stretches where startled buffalo and zebra made off into the long
+grass, or a lazy rhinoceros could be heard wallowing and grunting out
+of sight among the giant reeds.
+
+To those who had not seen this country before, it was indeed a new
+fairyland of wonders. The native huts were built high in the air
+upon long stakes, with ladders reaching from their doorways to the
+ground. Down these the natives came scrambling in eager haste to see
+the _Pearl_. Some of them took her for a floating village, and
+others asked if she was hollowed out of a single tree-trunk like
+their own canoes.
+
+When the river became too shallow for so large a ship, Livingstone
+landed his stores on an island, and then went forward in a small
+steamer sent out by the Government for use on the Zambesi. The
+steamer proved to be a failure. She had been built to burn wood
+instead of coal; but it took all her crew three days to cut enough
+fuel to drive her for two days. She was so slow that native canoes
+easily outstripped her; and she snorted, and creaked, and wheezed to
+such an extent that she was nicknamed the _Asthmatic_.
+
+This was a most grievous drawback to the expedition, but Livingstone,
+as usual, made the best of it. He took his stores to Shupanga, a
+Portuguese village near the point where the Zambesi is joined by
+another fine river called the Shiré. Then by slow degrees he made
+his way up stream to Teté, where he had left his Makololo bearers on
+his former visit. They were overjoyed to see him again: some of them
+rushed to embrace him, but others cried out, "Don't touch
+him,--you'll spoil his new clothes." People had told them that
+Livingstone would never return, but the Makololo knew he would never
+break his word. "We trusted you," they told him, "and now we shall
+sleep."
+
+Twenty miles above Teté the river broke through a chain of hills, and
+at this point the _Asthmatic_ was stopped by the Kebrabasa Rapids.
+The river ran swiftly down a narrow valley, with the current broken
+here and there by jagged rocks or smooth water-worn boulders. At
+this season the river was at its lowest, and Livingstone decided to
+explore the rapids on foot; for he thought it might yet be possible
+for small steamers to pass them when the river was full.
+
+Accordingly, he and his fellow-explorer, Dr. Kirk, set out with a
+native guide and some of the Makololo to make the matter sure. They
+followed up the bed of the river as best they could, taking
+measurements and notes as they went. Sometimes their way was over
+smooth terraces of rock, sometimes they scrambled over boulders, and
+once they had to wade up to their waists in spite of the risk of
+crocodiles. At night they slept under trees, and were lucky enough
+to be left alone by wild beasts, though a native across the river was
+killed one evening by a leopard.
+
+When at last they reached the head of the rapids, their guide
+declared that now there was nothing but smooth water before them.
+Thinking their difficult task was at an end, they began to return,
+but that night two natives came into camp, and said there was another
+rapid a few miles up stream.
+
+Taking three of the Makololo with them, Livingstone and Kirk went
+back again to settle the question. They found a narrow gorge, whose
+sides rose steeper than a gable roof from the river to the skyline,
+2000 feet above them. Up this they scrambled, cutting their way
+through the prickly scrub, and crawling over the face of the sloping
+cliff. The sun struck into the gorge with such force, that the rocks
+reeked like heated steel; and the climbers' hands could hardly bear
+their grip long enough to gain firm foothold. Even the Makololo,
+whose naked soles were hard and tough as shoe-leather, limped with
+the pain of their burnt and blistered feet. They turned to Kirk, and
+said that Livingstone no longer had a heart, and must be stark mad to
+try and climb where no wild animal would go. Losing all heart, they
+wanted to lie down and sleep in the hollows, but Livingstone's pluck
+and spirit carried them through.
+
+At last, after a scramble so steep and dangerous that they took three
+hours to climb one mile, the party reached a spot overhanging the
+rapid. Here the cliff dropped a hundred feet sheer into the stream,
+and rose like a wall just a short stone's-throw across it. Into this
+narrow pass the whole wide river was crowded, and the current sped
+swiftly down, broken here and there into a white fleece by a ridge of
+jutting rock. They saw the flood-mark eighty feet up the opposite
+cliff. But Livingstone turned away in keen disappointment; for
+though a powerful steamer might stem the rapid at high flood, the
+river was useless as a waterway for most of the year.
+
+In 1859 Livingstone turned his attention to a branch of the Zambesi,
+called the Shiré. This river came slowly winding down a broad and
+fertile valley of forest and of plains, which stretched on either
+hand towards wooded hills with bare mountain-peaks beyond. Its banks
+were thick with leaf and blossom, and the air was filled with the
+scent of flowers, the song of birds, and the endless murmur of bees.
+Yet, as they passed up stream in the midst of all this beauty, the
+explorers could see the savage Manganja natives lurking behind trees,
+with bent bows, ready to shoot them down with barbed and poisoned
+arrows. Nothing happened, however, till the steamer came opposite
+the village of a chief named Tingané, who was a terror to the
+Portuguese, and had never yet allowed any man to pass his borders.
+
+Here a crowd of five hundred Manganja lined the bank and ordered them
+to stop. Some of the savages even began to take aim with their fatal
+arrows, and it looked as though a terrible death would fall upon the
+explorers whether they obeyed or not. Livingstone at once went
+fearlessly on shore. He knew that he came for love of God, and he
+believed that he would not die till God no longer needed him to work
+on earth.
+
+Calm and smiling, as if in a playground full of children, he walked
+through the bloodthirsty mob to their chief, and told him that the
+steamer was English and not Portuguese. Then he explained that the
+English wished to put down the cruel slave trade, and make it easier
+for black men to sell their cotton and ivory for cloth and beads.
+
+Tingané liked the idea of this, and wished to hear more. Livingstone
+told him how the white man's book said that all men and women were
+sons and daughters of God, and therefore must not be treated with
+cruelty and unkindness. Thus Tingané was completely won over to
+friendship. He called his people together, and told them that the
+great white chief and healer of men had come with a good message, and
+might pass his borders in peace.
+
+After this there was no more trouble with the Manganja, and the leaky
+_Asthmatic_ puffed and panted safely up the river, scaring out of
+their wits the wild animals upon its banks. Now and then a clumsy
+hippopotamus, startled out of its sleep, would splash out of the
+water and tear into the jungle. Antelopes and zebras fled over the
+plains, and once the explorers disturbed a herd of more than eight
+hundred elephants. Wicked-looking crocodiles would sometimes dash
+for the steamer with open jaws; but, on finding that it was not good
+to eat, they would dive to the bottom like stones. The river was
+deep and free from sandbanks for 200 miles, but here the steamer was
+once more stopped by a chain of rapids stretching over 40 miles.
+These Livingstone named the Murchison Cataracts, and from this point
+he made two journeys on foot.
+
+On the first trip he climbed over the mountains to the eastward, and
+found Lake Shirwa, whose waters were stagnant and bitter. His native
+guide told him there was a much larger lake to the northward; so
+Livingstone, after returning for supplies, once more started from the
+Murchison Cataracts in search of it.
+
+The way led over the highlands of the Manganja country towards the
+head of the Shiré valley. The natives were warlike, but Livingstone
+had no trouble with them, and easily bought all the food he wanted
+with a few yards of calico or a handful of beads. The women wore
+their hair quite short, and disfigured themselves with a large ring
+of ivory or tin through the upper lip. The men kept their hair long,
+and did it in as many fashions as white women. Sometimes they
+stiffened it with strips of bark into the likeness of a buffalo's
+horn or tail; sometimes they shaved off patches in the shape of some
+wild animal, and then thought themselves very beautiful.
+
+At last, on September 16, 1859, Livingstone came upon the magnificent
+Lake Nyassa, stretching away to the skyline like an inland sea. Out
+of its waters the River Shiré ran smooth and deep all down the long
+valley to the Murchison Cataracts. Forty miles of road could easily
+be made past these falls, and then the great Nyassa would be open to
+the sea. The uplands of the Shiré valley were healthy and fertile,
+and here at last was the place where a colony of Christian emigrants
+might teach and show the Africans a life of righteousness and
+industry. Moreover, Livingstone saw that, as all the slave traffic
+had to cross the river or the lake, a single small steamer could soon
+put an end to the trade.
+
+He therefore wrote home, and promised £2000 from the price of his
+book to be spent in sending out suitable emigrants. At the same time
+he asked the Government for a new vessel to replace the dying
+_Asthmatic_, and he also offered £4000 towards a little steamer for
+Lake Nyassa. In the meantime, while waiting their arrival, he kept
+his promise to the Makololo, and started up the Zambesi to take them
+home to Linyanté.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE UPPER SHIRÉ AND LAKE NYASSA
+
+On his return from Linyanté to Teté, Livingstone once more went on
+board the _Asthmatic_, and started to meet his new steamer at the
+mouth of the Zambesi. Some of the Makololo had refused to go back to
+their native country, and Livingstone was thus able to have a few of
+these faithful men with him still.
+
+The poor _Asthmatic_, however, did not reach her journey's end. Her
+steel plates were rotten with rust, and she leaked in all directions.
+Her cabin floor was flooded, her bridge was broken down, and her
+engines groaned aloud. In this water-logged and rickety state she
+touched a sandbank, turned on her side, and sank, after giving her
+crew just enough time to save themselves and their stores in canoes.
+A few weeks later, in June 1861, the new steamer, called the
+_Pioneer_, reached the mouth of the Zambesi. At the same time, there
+came a party of missionaries under the brave Bishop Mackenzie, who
+had been sent out by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge to
+settle in the Shiré valley. Livingstone would have taken the mission
+party up the Shiré at once, but he was ordered by the Government to
+look for another way to Lake Nyassa, along the River Rovuma.
+
+Taking the Bishop with him, he started immediately to carry out his
+orders, but the new steamer upset all his plans. The _Pioneer_ was a
+splendid little vessel, but she lay two feet deeper in the water than
+she ought, and so kept running aground on the sandbanks. After
+struggling a short distance up the Rovuma, Livingstone gave up the
+attempt, and returned with the _Pioneer_ to take the mission party up
+the Shiré. Landing at the Murchison Cataracts, they made their way
+towards the Manganja highlands on foot.
+
+The party had not gone very far before they learnt from the natives
+that gangs of slavers had been seen passing through the country with
+their captives. This was distressing news, and Livingstone now found
+out how false some of his Portuguese friends had been. The
+Portuguese had helped and encouraged Livingstone to make friends of
+the natives; then, as soon as he had gone, they had sent their
+servants on his tracks to make slaves. These brutal ruffians said
+they were "Livingstone's children," and so the natives let them pass
+into the heart of the country in peace. Then the slavers bribed a
+strong tribe to attack a weak tribe, and after the fight they made
+slaves of the captives. Livingstone's unexpected return caught some
+of these villains in the very act.
+
+[Illustration: A long file of slaves]
+
+He had halted his party in a village for rest and food, when suddenly
+a long file of eighty-four slaves came round the hillside towards
+them. The captives, mostly women and children, were roped together
+with thongs of raw hide, but some of the men had their necks fixed in
+a "goree," or forked slave-stick. The back of the neck was thrust
+into the fork, and the two prongs were joined by a bar of iron under
+the chin, while a slaver walked behind, holding the shaft of the
+stick, ready to wring the poor slave's neck at the first sign of
+escape. Worn out with pain, misery, and fatigue, the hapless slaves
+limped and staggered beneath their loads. The slavers, decked out
+with red caps and gaudy finery, marched jauntily along, blowing tin
+horns and shouting as though they had just won a noble victory.
+
+At the first sight of the little English party, these braggarts fled
+headlong into the bush; but one of the Makololo was too quick for
+their leader, and caught him by the wrist. Dragging him by the arm,
+and driving him with the terror of a spear-point, the Makololo
+brought the chief of the slave gang to Livingstone, who at once
+recognised him as a servant of the Portuguese chief officer at Teté.
+
+The inhuman wretch said he had bought the slaves, but his prisoners
+told a different tale. They had been captured in war by the slavers,
+who had burnt their village, murdered their tribesmen, and marched
+them off in bonds towards Teté. On the way two of the women had
+tried to loosen the thongs that cut their flesh, and were instantly
+shot by their captors. One of the men sank down with fatigue, and
+was killed with an axe as a warning to the others. Another woman
+became too exhausted to carry her load as well as her baby. The
+heartless slavers tore the child from her arms and killed it with
+terrible cruelty.
+
+Livingstone and his friends quickly set themselves to the work of
+cutting the thongs and sawing the slave-sticks off the captives, and
+while they were thus busy, the chief of the slavers escaped.
+
+Continuing the journey, the Englishmen set free several parties of
+slaves in the next few days before reaching the village of Magomero.
+Here Chigunda, the chief, invited Bishop Mackenzie to settle; and, as
+the spot seemed a good one, Magomero was thus made the station for
+the Universities' Mission. All the freed slaves were joined to the
+mission, and the work of building was going on quickly, when word
+came that a tribe from the neighbouring Ajawa country were raiding
+slaves from a village close by. Livingstone and the Bishop thought
+that a friendly talk might win the Ajawa over to better ways, and a
+small party at once left the mission station to make the attempt. It
+was not long before they saw the smoke of a burning village, and
+then, hurrying forward over a hillside, they came upon the raiders
+making off with plunder and captives.
+
+The Ajawa leader sprang on an ant-hill to count the missionary band,
+and Livingstone at once shouted that he had come in peace for a
+friendly talk. Unluckily, some Manganja followers called out the
+name of their great warrior, Chibisa, foolishly hoping to frighten
+the raiders away.
+
+At once the Ajawa leaders raised the cry of "Nkondo! Nkondo!--War!
+War!" and all the raiders dashed to the attack. Keeping at a
+distance of about a hundred yards, they began to surround the little
+band. Some of the Ajawa danced like madmen, with hideous grimaces
+meant to strike terror into the white men's hearts. Others played
+clownish antics with their weapons to show how they would treat their
+foes. Others shot poisoned arrows from shelter behind trunks and
+stones, and wounded one man in the arm.
+
+Still Livingstone tried bravely and nobly for peace, but in vain: the
+savages were like wild beasts thirsting for prey. Then some more of
+the raiders came up and began to fire with muskets. Livingstone was
+unarmed, but some of the party had rifles, and fired a few shots in
+reply. As soon as the Ajawa heard the sing of the rifle-bullets,
+they fled in a panic. Some of them shouted back that they would
+track the white men down, and kill them where they slept, but they
+never dared to return.
+
+This was the first time that Livingstone had failed to make peace,
+and it was through no fault of his own. But for the foolish cry of
+the Manganja, he would most probably have succeeded.
+
+He stayed at Magomero till he was obliged to return to the _Pioneer_;
+and his parting advice to the Bishop was never to interfere with the
+quarrels of the natives, and also to keep on the highlands, so as to
+escape the fever near the river.
+
+Livingstone and Kirk now started to explore Lake Nyassa. A
+four-oared boat, fitted with a sail, was slung on poles, and carried
+to the head of the Murchison Cataracts by native bearers. Here they
+launched her, and with oar and sail passed along the smooth waters of
+the Upper Shiré, till they reached the lake. Keeping to the eastern
+coast, they passed bay after bay on a beautiful and fertile shore,
+backed by a grand range of purple hills. Cotton and corn grew well,
+and the explorers often saw men spinning, weaving, and sewing in the
+huts, while the women hoed the corn. The natives were great
+fishermen, and caught all kinds of fish with fine woven nets and
+ivory hooks of their own making.
+
+The lake was subject to heavy storms, and once the explorers were
+caught a mile from shore by a furious squall. They could not land,
+for in a few minutes the billows ran so high, and broke upon the
+beach with such force, their little boat would have been dashed to
+splinters on the stones. All they could do was to hold her bows to
+the wind with their oars and try to outride the fury of the storm.
+Up on the crest, down in the trough, they fought it wave by wave for
+many hours, while every moment a chance of death went speeding by.
+As the white lip of each roller curled over, they held their breath,
+in doubt lest the threatening mass should break over the little boat
+and swamp her. Yet breaker after breaker went hissing and gurgling
+past on either hand, but not a single one struck her. At last, when
+the storm sank down, they were able to land with stiff and aching
+muscles, but with thankful minds.
+
+After following the shore for nearly two hundred miles, the explorers
+were almost at the head of the lake when they had to turn back.
+Livingstone had arranged to go down the Zambesi to meet a ship from
+England which was bringing his wife to join his labours once more,
+and on board the same vessel were supplies for the _Pioneer_, and
+also the little steamer he had bought for use in putting down the
+slave trade on Lake Nyassa.
+
+On their way down the Shiré, the _Pioneer_ struck on a shoal, and
+there she had to stay for five weeks, till the river rose enough to
+float her again. At length Livingstone reached the sea, and found
+his wife on board the cruiser _Gorgon_, but the joy of their meeting
+was not to last long. A few weeks after her arrival, she was seized
+by fever at Shupanga. Day and night Livingstone nursed and tended
+her with his utmost skill and care, but all in vain. In April 1862
+she died, and this was a sorrow that lasted all his days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+FOILED BY THE SLAVERS
+
+Livingstone now made a second attempt to reach Lake Nyassa by the
+River Rovuma. The explorers started in rowing-boats with a party
+from the cruiser _Gorgon_, and made their way up stream for many days
+without much adventure, though twice their right of way was disputed.
+
+Once a tribe of natives crowded both banks, and, while fitting
+poisoned arrows to their bows, began the hideous antics of their war
+dance. Their chief hailed the boats, and ordered the explorers to
+stop and pay toll. After a parley, Livingstone gave him thirty yards
+of calico, and he promised in return that his tribe would be their
+friends. No sooner, however, had the first boat rounded the next
+bend of the river, than a cloud of poisoned arrows and a few
+musket-balls came whizzing and singing over the heads of her crew.
+The sail was cut and torn, but luckily no one was wounded, and a few
+rifle-shots from the second boat sent the natives flying through the
+bush.
+
+Another time a surly hippopotamus tried to stop their way. He seemed
+to think they had no right to cross his favourite bathing-pool, and
+wake him out of his mid-day sleep. Diving under the water, he came
+up just under the boat, and rocked her to and fro as he tried to lay
+hold of her with his clumsy jaws. After grinding away at her planks
+for a while with his teeth, he at last made up his mind that she was
+too big and too tough for him to swallow, and then he plunged off in
+a fit of the sulks.
+
+When Livingstone had taken the boats as far up the Rovuma as
+possible, he found that the river was divided into two branches, and
+the natives told him that neither of them came from the Lake Nyassa.
+Accordingly he returned to Shupanga, and then for the last time
+started up the Shiré in the _Pioneer_ with his own little steamer,
+the _Lady Nyassa_, in tow.
+
+It was not long before he began to see that, even in the short time
+he had been away, the deadly slave trade had come like a blight on
+the land. A half-bred Portuguese, named Mariano, and his brutal gang
+had deceived Tingané by calling themselves "Livingstone's children,"
+and so were treated as friends. Thus, taking him by treachery, they
+killed him and many of his tribe, and dragged off all they could to
+slavery. Not content with this, they burnt the village and the
+stores of corn, destroyed the crops, and drove away the flocks. No
+more corn would grow for many months, and those who escaped were thus
+left to starve. Many of them clung to life by hunting game and
+digging up roots, but far the greater number of them died of famine.
+
+[Illustration: They burnt the village]
+
+When once Tingané was overcome, the work of the slavers was easier;
+for his tribe was the strongest, and had been the frontier guard.
+Village by village this foul and ruthless piracy spread up the river,
+till now Livingstone saw the whole face of the country changed.
+
+The smiling valley he had found four years ago was now a land of
+death, strewn with black ruins and whitened skeletons. Even the
+song-birds were silent around the wasted homes, as though they could
+not bear to sing in the midst of such misery and desolation. Yet the
+inhuman Portuguese were paying Mariano for his slaves, and
+Livingstone had not the power to stop them. All he could do was to
+push on with his work, and publish all he saw, in the hope that the
+British Government would interfere.
+
+But fortune was against him completely. On reaching the Murchison
+Cataracts the explorers unscrewed the _Lady Nyassa_ to pieces, and
+then began to make a road over which they could take her, bit by bit,
+to the head of the rapids. Before the first mile of this road was
+finished, both Kirk and Livingstone fell dangerously ill, and Kirk
+had to return to England.
+
+At the same time a despatch came from the British Government to
+recall the expedition. The Portuguese Government had forbidden all
+ships but their own to enter the Zambesi, and the British did not
+think it worth while to interfere. A bitter disappointment like this
+might well have broken his spirit, but Livingstone was too brave and
+too faithful to his cause for that. The _Pioneer_ must wait several
+months for the floods before she could go down the river, and
+meanwhile he would row round Nyassa in search of a way to the sea
+outside Portuguese country.
+
+Once more his bearers started to carry a boat past the cataracts, and
+all went well till they came to a stretch of smooth but swift water
+below the uppermost rapid. Here, to save labour, the boat was
+launched and towed up stream with a rope from the bank. All their
+stores were put inside her, and also some of the Makololo, who kept
+her off the rocks with poles. After two miles the Makololo, who were
+splendid canoe-men, said the current was too swift and dangerous, and
+they brought the boat to the bank.
+
+Then some conceited Zambesi canoe-men took hold of the poles and
+tow-rope, saying they would teach the Makololo how to take her up the
+rapid. Livingstone had moved on, away from the bank, and knew
+nothing of their intention till he heard loud shouts of distress. He
+rushed to the bank just in time to see his stores and the Zambesi men
+in the water, and his boat shooting keel uppermost down the river
+like a dart.
+
+Some of the party gave chase, but the bank was too difficult for
+speed, and they never saw the boat again. The Zambesi men swam to
+shore and knelt down, with their foreheads touching the earth, at
+Livingstone's feet. He sent them down to the _Pioneer_ for more
+stores, and, nothing daunted by this new disappointment, started off
+to go round Nyassa on foot. But in spite of all his efforts he did
+not reach the end of the lake before it was time to return to the
+_Pioneer_ and make his last voyage down the Shiré.
+
+The Universities' Mission also had come to an end for a while. The
+brave Bishop Mackenzie had lost his life from fever on a journey down
+the Shiré. The rest of the missionaries thought it best to move down
+from the highlands to the river bank, and one by one they died of
+fever. Livingstone now took the remnant of the mission away with him
+on board the _Pioneer_, lest they should again fall into the hands of
+the slavers.
+
+In February 1864 he handed the _Pioneer_ over to H.M.S. _Orestes_, at
+the mouth of the Zambesi, while his own little steamer was taken in
+tow to Zanzibar by the cruiser _Ariel_. Here he learnt that many
+people in England and at the Cape were blaming him for the failure of
+the Zambesi expedition, and also for the fate of the Universities'
+Mission. Livingstone felt this very keenly, for he knew that the
+chief blame lay with the slave trade. If the British Government had
+forced the Portuguese to put an end to slavery, there would have been
+no failure at all.
+
+Defeated and disappointed as he was, Livingstone would not give in,
+for he knew that he was working in God's cause. He also firmly
+believed that, if he could only make his countrymen really understand
+the wicked cruelty and waste in Africa, they would come to the
+rescue. Clearly it was his duty to awaken their understanding and
+show them the way when they came. He determined to visit England,
+and publish all he knew about Africa and the slave trade; then he
+would return to his pioneering, and find out more.
+
+To get money for the voyage he now tried to sell the _Lady Nyassa_,
+but, on hearing that the Portuguese wanted her for a slave-boat, he
+decided to take her to Bombay.
+
+This was one of the boldest feats he ever carried out. Taking with
+him a crew of three white men and nine natives, he started in the
+tiny little steamer to cross 2500 miles of the Indian Ocean with
+fourteen tons of coal. Two of his white sailors fell ill, and so for
+many days he and the third man shared the watch in spells of four
+hours. Then they lost the wind, and lay becalmed for twenty-five
+days, not daring to waste their coal. At last a breeze sprang up,
+and they were able to use their sails again; but they had to pass
+through two furious storms before their journey's end.
+
+The good little _Lady Nyassa_, however, came safely through
+everything, till strands of seaweed and green and yellow sea-serpents
+told them they were near the coast of India. They had then only
+enough coal to last twenty-eight hours, and their supplies were
+nearly done; but still they managed to hold out and reach Bombay
+after a voyage of forty-five days. The _Lady Nyassa_ was so small
+that no one noticed her arrival till Livingstone went on shore and
+made himself known.
+
+In due time Livingstone reached England, and wrote an account of the
+expedition in a book called "The Zambesi and its Tributaries." He
+was sought out everywhere for speeches, lectures, and entertainments;
+but as soon as his work in England was finished he returned to
+Zanzibar to carry out the purpose of his life.
+
+Before leaving England the Prime Minister sent to ask him if there
+was anything he wanted. Many men would have asked for money or a
+title, but Livingstone thought of nothing but his work. His only
+request was that the Government would make a treaty with Portugal to
+put down slavery and open the Zambesi to honest trade. He was then
+called before a committee of the House of Commons, who heard all his
+opinions about Africa and the slave trade. Yet all the Government
+did at the time was to give him £500 towards his expenses, and to
+make him Consul of Central Africa, but without a salary and without a
+pension. His friends in the Royal Geographical Society gave £1500
+towards the new expedition, and Livingstone promised them to try and
+discover the true sources of the Congo and the Nile.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+IN THE HEART OF AFRICA
+
+In March 1866 Livingstone landed near the mouth of the Rovuma, and,
+at the age of fifty-three, began the seven long years of hardship,
+misery, and pain that wore him to his death. Thirty-six bearers came
+with him, of whom thirteen were Sepoys from Bombay, and ten were
+natives of Johanna. Livingstone was very anxious to find some beast
+of burden which could stand the poison of the tsetse-fly; and for
+this experiment he brought with him some camels, Indian buffaloes,
+mules, donkeys, and a calf. Carrying stores was the great difficulty
+in his travels, and a few hardy beasts of burden, instead of a number
+of unruly knaves, would have saved him from the terrible want he
+afterwards had to suffer.
+
+It was not long before his troubles began. The Sepoys had charge of
+the animals, and neglected them so shamefully that one by one the
+poor creatures died. Livingstone found he could not trust one of the
+thirteen out of his sight, and at last they grew so troublesome that
+he sent them back to the sea. His next discovery was that the ten
+natives from Johanna were rascals and thieves; and one of them, Musa,
+who had worked in the _Lady Nyassa_, turned out the worst of the lot.
+Moreover, the country had been ravaged by slavers, and food grew
+scarcer and scarcer, till at length they lived mainly on maize and
+the few pigeons and guinea-fowl shot by the way.
+
+The signs of the slave trade were terrible. Here, as in the valley
+of the Shiré, nothing seemed too brutal to be done. Even women were
+tied to trees and left to starve, because they were too worn out to
+trudge any longer.
+
+Most of the slavers in this district were Arabs, and they did all
+they could to make trouble for Livingstone. He reached Nyassa in
+August, at a point half-way up its eastern shore, and here he wanted
+to cross; but all the boats were in the hands of the slavers, and
+Livingstone could get nothing to take him over.
+
+Determined not to be beaten, he walked round the south end of the
+lake, and, on crossing the Shiré, he came upon ground that he had
+passed before. Old times and old friends came into his mind, and he
+wondered sadly if all their labour had been wasted. He thought also
+of his faithful Makololo, and longed to have them in the place of his
+present bearers.
+
+After passing round the south end of Lake Nyassa, he took a
+north-westerly direction, and came to the village of a chief named
+Marenga. Here they met an Arab slaver, who cunningly invented a
+story in the hope of frightening Livingstone's bearers from going any
+farther. He told Musa that a savage Mazitu chief was in front of
+them, killing all who passed his borders, with great cruelty. Musa
+believed this story, and refused to go onward. Livingstone tried to
+convince the coward that there were no Mazitu in the district, but
+all his efforts were useless. Musa and the other nine Johanna
+natives deserted in a body; but the rest of the bearers, much to the
+Arab's disappointment, remained faithful.
+
+From Marenga's Livingstone pushed on towards Lake Tanganyika, and his
+hardships daily grew greater. Owing to the slave trade, food was
+scarce, and the natives had little to sell. For many days the
+explorer lived on African maize, helped down with milk from some
+goats he had brought for the purpose. The next misfortune was the
+loss of his goats, and this left him to break and loosen his teeth on
+the tough, hard maize, while he dreamed of delicious and savoury
+dinners.
+
+This want of food made him very weak, and, moreover, the toils of the
+march were great. Often he had to wade through marshes up to the
+waist; and after the burning day, with its clouds of flies, there
+came the damp heat of night, with clouds of mosquitoes bringing fever
+in their poisonous bite. All this was trouble enough, but worse
+still happened.
+
+[Illustration: Often he had to wade through marshes up to the waist.]
+
+One day a native bearer, possibly bribed by a slaver, disappeared
+with Livingstone's medicine-chest, and he was now left defenceless
+against fever. Soon he became so ill that he sometimes lay
+insensible on the ground; but still his pluck carried him through,
+and at last, in April 1867, he reached Chitembé's village, on Lake
+Tanganyika, where he found rest and better food.
+
+Meanwhile, Musa and the other Johanna natives had gone back to
+Zanzibar. They knew they would get no pay if their bad conduct was
+found out, so they swore that Livingstone was dead, and therefore
+they were obliged to return. Musa made up a clever story describing
+how Livingstone had been attacked by natives, and had died fighting
+bravely, while the faithful Johanna men, after escaping from the
+fight, had returned at nightfall to bury their beloved master. Musa
+repeated this lie so skilfully that every one believed him; and even
+Dr. Kirk, who was now at Zanzibar, was taken in completely. The tale
+was told at home in the papers, and all his countrymen were grieving
+for his loss, when an Englishman, Edward Young, began to doubt the
+story. Young had been on the _Lady Nyassa_ with Musa, and knew that
+the rascal's word could never be trusted. He laughed at the idea of
+a coward like Musa returning after a fight to bury any one, and he
+found other faults in his story.
+
+At last the Royal Geographical Society sent Young to Africa to find
+out the truth. He went up the Shiré in a steel boat called the
+_Search_, and his bearers carried her in pieces past the Murchison
+Cataracts. Then, launching her again on the Upper Shiré, he made his
+way by Lake Nyassa to Marenga's country. Here he found out the utter
+falsehood of Musa's story, and learnt that Livingstone had been seen
+alive on his way to Tanganyika.
+
+Young now returned to England; and, though his news was mainly good,
+yet many people were still very anxious about the explorer's safety.
+In one way Musa had done his master a good turn without the least
+intention. For so much had been said in the papers about
+Livingstone, that people began to see how great was his work and how
+noble his life.
+
+All this time Livingstone knew nothing either of Musa's lies or of
+Young's gallant search. While at Chitembé's village he heard of a
+chain of lakes joined by a big river, and he started westward to find
+them. Slave-raiding was going on all over the country that lay
+before him; but in spite of this Livingstone discovered Lake Moero,
+in November 1867, after suffering terribly from illness and want of
+food. A beautiful river, called the Luapula, ran into the lake at
+the south, and out again to the north. Down stream, to the
+northward, the natives said the Luapula reached a long lake of many
+islands; while up stream, to the southward, they said it came from a
+large lake, called Bangweolo.
+
+Livingstone decided to look for Bangweolo first. Setting out from
+Moero in a southerly course, he came to the village of Kazembé, a
+chief who punished his people by cutting off their hands and ears.
+At Kazembé's he fell in with an Arab trader, Mohammed Bogharib, who
+at once took a great liking to the explorer. Mohammed asked him to
+dine, and Livingstone sat down on a mat to a feast of vermicelli and
+oil, meal cakes and honey; and then, the first time for many months,
+he warmed his heart with a bowl of good coffee and sugar.
+
+From the accounts of the natives, Bangweolo was only ten days' march
+from Kazembé's, but now Livingstone's bearers refused to go onward.
+Five only remained faithful to the kindest master they ever had, and
+with these the journey was begun. It was the same tale of hardship
+and toil, want and suffering; and, since the theft of his
+medicine-chest, there was nothing to soothe the fever or ease the
+pain. Yet through all this his patient faith and quiet valour
+carried him on, and, in July 1868, he came upon the beautiful Lake
+Bangweolo. There were islands dotted about in it, and Livingstone
+visited some of them in a native canoe; but, when he wanted to paddle
+across the lake, his canoe-men refused. They were afraid of being
+made slaves.
+
+Indeed, the curse of slavery seemed everywhere in the land. On his
+way to Bangweolo, Livingstone had passed some slaves trudging along
+in their slave-sticks, yet singing as they went. Their only hope was
+death; and they were looking forward with revengeful joy, because
+they ignorantly believed their spirits could return and kill their
+captors. The meaning of their chant was, "Oh, you send me to the
+sea-coast, but my yoke is off in death; back I'll come to haunt and
+kill you." Then, as a chorus, they hissed between their teeth in
+bitter hatred the names of those who had robbed them of their freedom.
+
+Livingstone now struggled back to Kazembé's, utterly worn out with
+toil, hunger, and fever. Here he found Mohammed Bogharib on the
+point of returning to Ujiji, and he gladly accepted the Arab's kind
+offer of an escort thither. Ujiji stood upon the eastern shore of
+Tanganyika, and also was on the main slave-route to Zanzibar. Before
+leaving Zanzibar, in the February of 1866, Livingstone had arranged
+with Dr. Kirk to send stores, medicine, letters, and newspapers to
+await him at Ujiji, and now he looked forward to news of his
+children, and relief from sickness and pain.
+
+The journey was a terrible one; for Livingstone grew worse and worse,
+till at last he grew dazed with fever and pain, and lost count of the
+days. Mohammed saved his life by having him carried in a hammock
+till they reached the west shore of Tanganyika, and took canoe to
+Ujiji. The voyage of eighteen days, and the hope of his letters and
+medicine, revived him greatly, and he landed at Ujiji with joy. But
+the two men in charge of his stores had sold nearly all of them for
+ivory and slaves, and his medicines and mails had been left at
+Unyanyembé, thirteen days distant, while the road there was blocked
+by a slave war.
+
+It was now March 1869, and he had not seen a white man's face, or
+heard of his children, for three years.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A DEATHBLOW TO SLAVERY
+
+Livingstone at once wrote to Kirk at Zanzibar for more stores to be
+sent to Ujiji. At the same time he sent a letter to the Sultan of
+Zanzibar, asking him for fifteen trustworthy bearers to carry the new
+supplies. Then, as soon as could be, he collected the remnant of his
+plundered things, and wrote his letters and accounts of his doings.
+One or two letters reached him here, but these were nearly three
+years old; and very many of his own to his friends never got even as
+far as the sea-coast. At a single time he sent off a budget of
+forty-two letters and scientific records, but none were heard of
+again.
+
+The reason of this was only too plain. Ujiji was like a den of
+villains and thieves. All the worst of the slave-trading Arabs
+gathered there on their way to and from the coast. They knew that
+Livingstone was against their trade, and they hated him accordingly.
+Some, like Mohammed Bogharib, had sense enough to see his greatness,
+and to help him; but others, though they dared nothing to his face,
+did all they could behind his back to ruin his work and thwart his
+plans. Wherever they met him on his journeys, they would frighten,
+bully, or bribe his bearers to make them rebel. By telling the
+natives that Livingstone was really a slaver and a spy, they tried to
+make them refuse him food, guides, and canoes. There can be little
+doubt that they got hold of his messengers and destroyed his letters.
+
+After a three months' rest at Ujiji, Livingstone felt well enough to
+set out again. Leaving orders for the new bearers from Zanzibar to
+come after him, he started with his old followers, and with the few
+stores he had been able to get together. In July 1869 he crossed
+Lake Tanganyika by canoe; then, striking to the north-west, he made
+his way on foot to Kabambaré, in the Manyema country. Here the River
+Luapula, flowing from Lakes Bangweolo and Moero, was known by the
+name of the Lualaba, and Livingstone hoped to explore it. Would the
+Lualaba prove to be the Nile or the Congo? That was the question he
+wanted to settle.
+
+At Kabambaré the chief was called Moenékoos, a name meaning "Lord of
+the light-grey, red-tailed parrot": and he proved so friendly, that
+Livingstone rested in his village for ten days. Then, starting again
+in November, the explorer went westward, through Manyema, till he
+reached the River Luama, at a point ten miles from its junction with
+the great Lualaba.
+
+The country through which they passed was wonderful in its beauty.
+Tall palms and forest timber crowded the valleys and clothed the
+hillsides to the skyline. Giant creepers, as thick as cables, were
+twisted round the massive trunks, or hung from limb to limb, and tree
+to tree, like the rigging of a ship. Lilies, orchids, clematis, and
+marigolds opened their rich colours to the light and poured their
+scent into the air; while all kinds of fruit clustered among the
+leaves. Gaudy parrots and other gay-feathered birds flashed about in
+the brilliant heat, while tribes of monkeys ran up the trunks,
+scampered along the branches, or swung themselves on the rope-like
+creepers. Sometimes a group of these would get together in a
+tree-top, and there they would chatter and grin about the news of the
+day, and the latest fashions of the monkey world. Sometimes they
+would jabber and grimace more earnestly, as though about monkey
+politics; and at times they lost their tempers and pelted each other
+with nuts and husks. Now and then one of them, either from annoyance
+or for sheer mischief, would take a shot at the travellers.
+
+Villages were very frequent; and many of the natives kept goats,
+sheep, and fowls, and also had gardens of maize, bananas, and
+sugar-cane. Others were helpless and ignorant, even not knowing how
+to light a fire by twirling a pointed stick round and round inside a
+hole in a slab of wood.
+
+The natives were not very friendly, for they believed that
+Livingstone was a slaver. Some of them said they were cannibals, and
+in order to frighten his bearers, showed them the skull of a "soko"
+or gorilla, which they had eaten. Livingstone found, however, that
+they never ate men; but often enticed a soko with a clump of bananas,
+and then speared him for food.
+
+At the Luama, nothing could induce the natives to let Livingstone
+have a canoe with which to explore the Lualaba. He found out
+afterwards that even his own bearers tried to set the natives against
+him; for this, they thought, would force him to give up his journey
+and take them home. Indeed, the ceaseless worry of these worthless
+rascals did more to wear him out than all the toils of the journey.
+
+Disappointed, but not beaten, Livingstone returned to Kabambaré, and
+stayed there for many months till the rainy season was over. Then,
+in June 1870, he started with only his three faithful followers,
+Susi, Chuma, and Gardner, and again made the attempt to explore the
+great river. But the natives, made unfriendly by the Arabs, refused
+to sell them food, and they soon grew ill and exhausted. Tramping
+through thorns on land, wading among sharp reeds and biting leeches
+in the swamps, their feet were cut and torn, and their wounds refused
+to heal. There was nothing to be done but to return to Kabambaré:
+and this they did, reaching it so worn out and lamed, that they took
+three months to recover.
+
+Livingstone was on the point of setting out a third time for the
+Lualaba, when he heard that his new bearers from Zanzibar were on
+their way towards him. He waited for them a long while, in the hope
+of letters, medicines, and stores, but his time and his hope were
+wasted. On 4th February 1871, ten worthless slaves came up with only
+one letter. Dozens of Livingstone's letters had been lost or
+destroyed, and their headman, Shereef, had stayed behind at Ujiji,
+spending all Livingstone's stores.
+
+In less than a week the new bearers rebelled, and it took all
+Livingstone's powers to make them go forward. But in the end
+patience and extra wages persuaded them to go on, and at last
+Livingstone reached Nyangwé, on the Lualaba, on 29th March 1871.
+Here again the Arab slavers prevented him from getting canoes, so he
+could go no farther down the stream. But he heard that the Lualaba
+bore round so much to the westward, that he now thought it might
+prove to be the Congo.
+
+While Livingstone was thinking what next he should do, there happened
+before his eyes a thing so utterly cruel, that it swept all else from
+his mind. He was walking in the native market, on the river bank at
+Nyangwé, watching the people exchanging their wares. The natives
+from the other shore came over in canoes every day to join in the
+marketing, and that morning about 1500 of them, mostly women, were
+present.
+
+As Livingstone was moving away to his hut, he noticed that many of
+the Arabs were about with their rifles; and presently he heard shots
+in the market behind him. Turning sharply round, he saw that the
+Arabs were firing into the middle of the helpless crowd, who fled
+shrieking to their canoes. These were all jammed together in a small
+creek, and the natives struggled and fell over each other in the
+effort to get them out.
+
+Then a large party of Arabs, concealed near the creek, shot into the
+huddled mass, and the slaughter became terrible. Hundreds plunged
+into the river, and struck out for the other bank, while the
+murderers fired at them in the water. Some of the canoes were
+launched, and their crews escaped; others were overloaded and upset.
+Many of the swimmers were picked up by their friends, but a large
+number were overcome by the strong current and sank. In all, about
+three or four hundred perished. One Arab took a canoe, and picked up
+some of the survivors, but the sight of Livingstone made him ashamed,
+and he gave them up to his care. Livingstone managed to save more
+than thirty, and he kept them safe till he was able to return them to
+their people. While the massacre was going on, the slaves from the
+Arab camp carried off all that had been left by the natives in the
+terror and tumult of their flight.
+
+Livingstone at once made up his mind to return to Ujiji, and to send
+a report of this wicked outrage to England. He felt sure that his
+countrymen would now come to the rescue of this unhappy land, and he
+was right. His report of the massacre on the Lualaba was the
+deathblow to slavery in Central Africa, for it roused the whole
+English people. The British Government at once set to work, and,
+with the help of other nations, the slave trade was slowly but surely
+ended.
+
+The tramp to Ujiji was full of hardship and danger. Livingstone was
+very ill, and in pain every step of the way, but the love of his duty
+carried him on. The cowardly Arab slavers knew his intention; and,
+though they dared not touch him themselves, they tried to persuade
+the tribes on his path to murder him. But most of the natives had
+now seen for themselves that Livingstone was not a slaver, and they
+answered that he was "the good one," and they would not kill him.
+Some of them, however, laid in ambush, and threw spears at him as he
+passed. He had several narrow escapes, and in one day a spear grazed
+his neck and another missed him by only a few inches.
+
+At last, after trudging more than 500 miles in three months of daily
+suffering and risk, he crossed Tanganyika, and reached Ujiji at the
+end of October. He was worn out and at death's door, and now he
+found he was beggared. Shereef had made away with all his stores,
+and not an atom was left.
+
+In this terrible need a friend came to him as suddenly as though
+dropped from the clouds. One day his followers heard that a white
+man was coming into Ujiji, and they rushed at once to tell their
+master. Livingstone went out to meet the stranger, and found, to his
+surprise, that a young journalist, H. M. Stanley, was coming to his
+relief, with a large caravan of stores.
+
+Livingstone's work against the slave trade had made him so much liked
+in America, that an American, J. Gordon Bennet, had sent Stanley to
+find the great explorer, whom everybody thought to be lost.
+
+This kind and generous act from another nation than his own, touched
+Livingstone very much, and he and Stanley became fast friends.
+Livingstone in return told all he knew about Africa, and Stanley was
+always grateful for this help when it became his turn to be a great
+explorer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE LAST JOURNEY
+
+While Livingstone and Stanley were together, they made a short
+journey to the north end of Tanganyika. They wanted to see if any
+river ran out of the lake towards the Nile; they found that a river,
+the Rusizi, flowed into the lake instead. Had they now crossed the
+Rusizi, and gone northwards, they would probably have settled the
+question of the Nile in a few months. But Stanley had to return, and
+Livingstone went with him.
+
+Four months with Livingstone made Stanley as keen an explorer as his
+new friend. On their way back they talked much about the sources of
+the great rivers, and they both thought that the Lualaba might still
+run into the Nile. Had they only known it, Livingstone had already
+discovered enough to prove this quite impossible. At Nyangwé he had
+measured the height of the Lualaba above the sea-level, and had sent
+the measurements to England. Other people had sent measurements of
+the Nile as far as its course was known. Geographers at once saw
+from these that the Lualaba could never reach the Nile without
+running uphill. The Royal Geographical Society at once wrote this to
+Livingstone, and told him the Lualaba must be the Congo. But he
+never received the letter.
+
+Stanley now tried to persuade his companion to go with him to
+England, but in vain. Livingstone had promised his friends at home
+to find the sources of the Nile, and he would not give up his
+promise. However, he returned with Stanley as far as Unyanyembé; for
+here he expected to find some stores from the British Government, who
+now also promised him a salary and a pension.
+
+On their arrival they found that, as usual, the stores had been
+plundered and sold. Then Stanley, like a true comrade, shared all
+his supplies and spare clothes with Livingstone; and he also promised
+to try and find him fifty honest bearers in Zanzibar. On 14th March
+1872 they parted in much sorrow, for they had grown to like each
+other greatly.
+
+Livingstone waited at Unyanyembé till the end of August, when
+fifty-seven new bearers, chosen by Stanley, came up with supplies
+from Zanzibar. They were honest and faithful men; and, with them to
+help him, Livingstone started in good spirits for his last journey.
+He hoped to pass round the south of Lake Bangweolo, then westward of
+Lake Moero to the Lualaba; and then he would try and reach the Nile.
+
+In six weeks they were at the south end of Tanganyika; and before
+January 1873 they had crossed the valley of the Chambezé, a river
+which runs into Bangweolo. They then worked round the south of that
+lake; but the rainy season broke early that year, and brought with it
+the usual floods and fever.
+
+Livingstone was sixty years old, and the toil and suffering of the
+last seven years now told upon him terribly. He again fell very ill,
+and daily grew weaker. His faithful bearers, who loved him like a
+father, did all they could to take care of him, and carried him
+through mile after mile of marsh and flood. If these fine fellows
+had been with him six years ago, his work would long have been done.
+At times he began to think that he would not finish his task. "I
+shall never be able to play," he wrote to a friend who was resting
+after a life of hard work.
+
+Day after day, in the pitiless rain, they toiled over the swamp-land,
+splashed through the flood, and forded swollen streams, sometimes up
+to the neck, with their burdens on their heads. A stretch of hard
+ground was a rarity, while food grew scarcer and scarcer, and fever
+got worse and worse. The bearers made a kitanda, or stretcher slung
+on a pole, for they saw that their Bwana (their master) was no longer
+able to sit up. There was no proper food for a sick man--for milk,
+the one thing most needed, was not to be had.
+
+For four days Livingstone was too weak to write in his diary anything
+but the date. Then, on April 27th, he feebly scrawled, "Knocked up
+quite, and remain ... recover..... Sent to buy milch goats." He
+still had pluck and hope of recovery, but his men had only grief.
+They scoured the country for miles around, but they could not get a
+single goat.
+
+They saw the end must now come, and they pushed onward to higher
+ground, reaching the village of a chief called Chitambo on April
+29th. Here their quick and skilful hands in a few hours built him a
+hut, and they laid him, in great pain, on a bed made of boughs and
+dried grass, covered with blankets. Susi tended him all next day,
+and at nightfall Majwara kept watch outside his master's door. In
+the dead of night Majwara came calling, "Come to Bwana, Susi, I am
+afraid."
+
+Susi and some others crept reverently into the hut; and, by the
+flickering light of a candle, they saw the saviour of Central Africa
+dead on his knees at the bedside, with his hands to his face on the
+pillow.
+
+[Illustration: They saw him dead on his knees]
+
+It is a brave thing to die for one's fellow-men; it is also brave,
+and often far harder, to live for them. Livingstone did both.
+Indeed, the humble Blantyre mill-boy had done the noblest and highest
+thing that man can do; he had given his whole life to help God's less
+happy creatures. And this he had done, not for money nor for fame,
+but out of love for God and man.
+
+In the grey dawn of May 1st, his faithful followers clustered round
+the camp fire to take counsel. They talked of their beloved Bwana,
+the master who never struck his bearers, and who nursed them like his
+own children when they fell sick. Had he not come from the far land
+of the great Queen, not to make slaves, like the Portuguese, but to
+set men free? Yes, he was a great white chief, and he must go home
+to the tombs of his fathers: that was certain, and they would see to
+it, or die. He had given some of his wisdom to Susi and Chuma, and
+they would be head-men.
+
+Then Susi and Chuma made their plans. With reverent care they
+counted and packed all their master's things, and carried his body to
+an open spot near the village. Here some of them built a new hut,
+open to the sun, and began to embalm the body; while others made a
+stout wooden stockade around it. Outside all they built a circle of
+huts for themselves, and, night and day, they kept watch till the
+embalming was done.
+
+They buried his heart beneath a large mvula-tree, and put up two
+posts and a cross-bar to mark the spot. A day of mourning was held,
+and all Chitambo's people, as is their custom, came with bows and
+spears; while the bearers fired volleys with their rifles. At last
+the body was wrapped, like a mummy, in bark and sailcloth, and lashed
+to a pole; and so the return journey was begun.
+
+No praise is too high for the pluck and hardihood of this little band
+of faithful men. Once more they faced all the old risks and
+hardships of floods, fever, and want of food. They crossed the
+Luapula, and made for the south end of Tanganyika. Their great fear
+was about the ignorant fancies of the natives, who dislike a dead
+body passing through their villages. Often they had to pay toll, and
+once they were forced to fight. They came to a tribe of natives who
+had a large stockade, and also two villages close at hand. The
+people in the stockade had been drinking palm-wine, and the son of
+their chief was drunk. The chief might have proved friendly, but his
+son refused to let the travellers pass. He quickly forced on a
+quarrel, and his men began to shoot arrows.
+
+Then Susi's party cleared the stockade of natives, and put their
+precious burden in one of the huts inside. Then, rifles in hand,
+they stormed the two villages, burning the huts and driving the
+people to their canoes. After this they lived on their spoil for a
+week in the stockade, till its owners came to make peace.
+
+When they reached Unyanyembé, they met an expedition sent from
+England to search for Livingstone; and they learnt that another
+relief party had started up the Congo from the west coast. The
+officer at Unyanyembé wanted to bury the body at once. Susi and his
+men, however, stoutly refused to give up their purpose.
+
+So the faithful band went on their work of love; and, after nine
+months on foot, reached the sea-coast at Bagamoyo, in February 1874.
+Here these black men of honour and ability handed over their master's
+body to the British Consul. All his property, too, was there, down
+to the last button.
+
+Their task was done, and, with sad faces and heavy hearts, they were
+sent away.
+
+Livingstone's body was carried to its grave in Westminster Abbey on
+18th April 1874, by Oswell, Kirk, Young, Stanley, and others of his
+old friends. But the work of his noble spirit was not ended. All
+men hastened to do him honour, and many now began to do his bidding.
+He had once said that, if he could only bring about the end of the
+slave trade, he would count it "a far greater feat than the discovery
+of all the sources together."
+
+The dirge over his grave acted on his country like a bugle-call to
+Africa. Other brave men pressed forward to carry on the work that
+the unselfish Scotch peasant lad had begun; and now slavery in Africa
+is all but ended. Livingstone sawed through the first slave-stick in
+the Shiré Valley: Gordon, Kitchener, Macdonald, and Wingate broke up
+the last strongholds of slavery on the Nile.
+
+Livingstone just missed the Nile, but he found the source of the
+Congo, the third great river of the world. Stanley finished most of
+the pioneering that was left.
+
+There is now a good road past the Murchison Cataracts, while Lake
+Nyassa floats two British gunboats and a fleet of trading steamers.
+The Universities' Mission, too, have their own steamer on the lake;
+and others missions also are hard at work on Livingstone's plans.
+Lake Tanganyika is joined by a road to Nyassa, and will soon be
+reached by railway from the Victoria Falls.
+
+Besides this, the nations of Europe have divided Africa amongst
+themselves. We English have taken the land of about thirty million
+blacks into our charge, and we are trying to govern them justly.
+Livingstone also wanted us to teach them how to make the best use of
+their lives; and he proved that gentleness and justice could make
+noble men, like Susi and his faithful band. If we do this duty to
+the Africans, they will stand by us when we need them; and children
+who want to have a British Empire in their old age will do well to
+think about this.
+
+There are black men still in Africa whose faces light up with joy at
+Livingstone's name. They will answer and ask questions, in their
+quaint way, about the great man whom they called the Wise Heart and
+Healer of Men. "Yes, we loved him, and we served him too. Was he
+not our Bwana, who never struck his bearers? Of course we sent him
+back to the great White Queen. Did she not send him to Africa, not
+to get ivory and gold and slaves, like the Arabs and Portuguese, but
+to give a good message of wisdom, and to set men free? Have you many
+like him in your land? Ah, but his heart is still in Africa, under
+the mvula-tree at Chitambo's."
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+ Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co.
+ Edinburgh & London
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78151 ***
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Story of David Livingstone,
+by Vautier Golding
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+</head>
+
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78151 ***</div>
+
+<p><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="capcenter">
+<a id="img-cover"></a>
+<br>
+<img class="imgcenter" src="images/img-cover.jpg" alt="Cover art">
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="capcenter">
+<a id="img-front"></a>
+<br>
+<img class="imgcenter" src="images/img-front.jpg" alt="DAVID LIVINGSTONE">
+<br>
+DAVID LIVINGSTONE
+</p>
+
+<h1>
+<br><br>
+ THE STORY OF<br>
+ DAVID<br>
+ LIVINGSTONE<br>
+</h1>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3b">
+ BY<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="t2">
+ VAUTIER GOLDING<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+ LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK<br>
+ TORONTO: THE COPP, CLARK CO. LTD.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+ PROEM<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+ <i>To little Ardale and all his merry kind</i><br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+ LIGHTS OF LIFE<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+ The dew stands on the dormer panes,<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The cross November sun<br>
+ Has sent the daylight off to bed<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Before the night's begun;<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+ The dull red embers, half aglow,<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Are sulking in the grate,<br>
+ And let the lonely shadows grow<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;All dark and desolate;<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+ Shadows of things that go awry,<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Or waver to and fro;<br>
+ Shadows of playthings bought so dear<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And broken long ago;<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+ Shadows of friends who played till mirth<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Grew sad and went in pain:&mdash;<br>
+ Where is the merry light that makes<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Old shadows smile again?<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+ Hark! little sandals softly beat<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Upon the attic stair,<br>
+ And truant mischief breathless creeps<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;With whispered, "Is he there?"<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+ A story? 'Tis a fateful task<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To fill the open brow:<br>
+ Who knows what plans of God depend<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;On all it garners now?<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+ Where shall we lead the clambering limbs,<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The big blue fearless eyes?<br>
+ Down to the gold mine's narrowing drift,<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Or to the widening skies<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+ Where, in the space around the stars,<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Are countless worlds astray,<br>
+ Whose peoples call for pioneers<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To find the safer way?<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+ Ay, let us tell the generous tale<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Of giants real and bold,<br>
+ Who grew so great they would not stoop<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To gather fame and gold;<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+ But hurled the mountains from our path,<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And drained our quagmires dry,<br>
+ And held our foes at bay the while<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;They bore our weaklings by;<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+ Giants by whose unselfish toil<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Our land was first begun,<br>
+ Where good and useful men and maids<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Make merry as they run.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+ Ah, may you miss the dismal tracks<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That aimless feet have trod,<br>
+ And follow where our pioneers<br>
+ &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Make open ways to God.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+ VAUTIER GOLDING.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3b">
+CONTENTS
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Chapter
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+I. <a href="#chap01">Early Life</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+II. <a href="#chap02">First Years in Africa</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+III. <a href="#chap03">Beyond the Kalahari Desert</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+IV. <a href="#chap04">From Coast to Coast</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+V. <a href="#chap05">The Zambesi Expedition</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+VI. <a href="#chap06">The Upper Shiré and Lake Nyassa</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+VII. <a href="#chap07">Foiled by the Slavers</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+VIII. <a href="#chap08">In the Heart of Africa</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+IX. <a href="#chap09">A Death-blow to Slavery</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+X. <a href="#chap10">The Last Journey</a>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3b">
+LIST OF PICTURES
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a href="#img-front">Portrait of Livingstone</a> .... Frontispiece
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a href="#img-020">The brute charged full tilt at his waggon</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a href="#img-024">The lion began to crunch the bone of his arm</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a href="#img-046">The Victoria Falls</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a href="#img-064">A long file of slaves</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a href="#img-076">They burnt the village</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a href="#img-088">Often he had to wade through marshes up to the waist</a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a href="#img-112">They saw him dead on his knees</a>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="capcenter">
+<a id="img-map"></a>
+<br>
+<img class="imgcenter" src="images/img-map.jpg" alt="(map of Central Africa and Cape Colony)">
+<br>
+(map of Central Africa and Cape Colony)
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p><a id="chap01"></a></p>
+
+<p class="t2">
+THE STORY OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br></p>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER I
+<br><br>
+EARLY LIFE
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+The story of this brave and gentle hero,
+and of his noble toil for the sake of
+other men, is truly a tale of more than
+ordinary wonder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Few men's lives can better show how
+even the poorest and weakest can gain for
+themselves the power to do great things,
+and to make the harder paths of life more
+easy for those who follow. For David
+Livingstone began life in a workman's
+cottage, without knowledge or skill, and
+without money to obtain them. Yet, when
+he died, the world was so full of praise
+and wonder at his work that his body was
+brought from Africa to rest in Westminster
+Abbey among the graves of his country's
+greatest men. He had grown to be a
+great pioneer, an explorer, a scientist, a
+doctor, a missioner, and a freer of slaves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In thirty years he travelled 29,000 miles,
+through the wild and unknown parts of
+Africa, exploring rivers, lakes, plains,
+forests, and mountains. He found out
+places where white settlers might make
+farms and plantations in health and safety.
+He sought for paths and waterways by
+which they might bring their cotton, grain,
+coffee, sugar, ivory, and skins to the
+seaports for sale. Among the black tribes
+he made many friends, doctored their sick,
+and lost no chance of showing them how
+to do their duty to God and make better
+use of their lives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But his last and greatest work was to
+follow up the slave-hunters, and make
+known in England all the brutal and wicked
+horrors of the slave-trade. This was the
+work that wore him to death, but his noble
+self-sacrifice roused his countrymen to take
+possession of Central Africa and put an end
+to slavery. And if we look into his life, we
+shall find that the power to do all this
+came little by little, and day by day, from
+one simple source, namely, his earnest and
+unselfish desire to show his love for God
+by doing good to men. He was always
+trying to help and befriend others, and this
+made other men befriend him and give him
+the means of carrying on his work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone's forefathers were Highlanders,
+and lived in the wild and lonely
+island of Ulva, till hard times drove the
+family to settle in the village of Blantyre,
+among the Lanarkshire cotton-mills, where
+work was more plentiful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here David was born in the year 1813.
+His father, Neil Livingstone, an honest,
+steady, and hard-working man, took a
+great interest in all that was going on in
+the world. He was a great reader in
+many subjects, but was especially fond of
+books on missionary work. From him
+David inherited his Highland pluck and
+hardihood, and also his thirst for every
+kind of knowledge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His mother, Agnes Hunter, came of an
+old family which, in the days of the
+Covenanter persecution, had been driven from
+home to the hills, and had risked torture
+and death rather than do what they believed
+to be wrong. She gave him her gentle
+and kindly nature, and taught him to be
+neat, orderly, and exact. From her tender
+but firm upbringing also, he gained the
+brave grip of truth, honour, and justice
+that makes men do and dare all things
+for duty's sake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was his heritage from his parents,
+and it proved of more value to him than all
+the money on earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the village school of Blantyre David
+soon learnt to read and write. So poor,
+however, were his parents, that they had to
+take him away from his lessons at the early
+age of ten, and set him to work in a
+cotton-mill. Summer and winter, wet or fine, he
+had to appear at the factory at six in the
+morning, and stay there till eight at night,
+with short spaces allowed him for meals.
+Fourteen hours a day at the mill might
+well have broken his pluck and ruined his
+health, as, indeed, happened to many poor
+children, but David was made of harder
+stuff. He was bent on getting knowledge
+by some means or other. Very quickly he
+learnt to work the machine called the
+"spinning jenny," and was then raised to
+be a spinner with a small wage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first half-crown of his earning he
+took home, and slipped it into his mother's
+lap. To him it was a small fortune, and
+would have bought him many coveted
+things, but he thought of his mother's
+wants before his own. Later on, as he
+earned more wage, he bought himself books,
+and these he used to fix on the "jenny,"
+snatching a few lines from them whenever
+he could spare an eye from his work. His
+hard and tiring day at the mill was long
+enough for any one, but in spite of this he
+joined night classes and sat up reading till
+sometimes his mother took away his books
+and drove him to bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His holidays were spent in ranging over
+the countryside with his brothers and sisters,
+and here too nothing escaped his keen eye
+and love of knowledge. Every animal, bird,
+insect, and plant was an interest to him,
+and he studied them closely, trying to find
+out all he could about their forms and
+habits. And while he thus began to learn
+the wonderful science of nature, he never
+dreamt that one day in the wilds of Africa
+he would use his knowledge in digging
+roots for his supper, or in avoiding vicious
+beasts and poisonous snakes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the years went on he grew restless,
+and was sometimes not very happy, without
+quite knowing why. In reality his mind
+was growing very fast, and wanted bigger
+and better work than watching the
+mill-wheels. Spinning cotton was useful enough
+in its way, but he wanted to do for
+mankind something greater and more lasting
+than that.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His father had many books and papers
+on mission work in China and India, and
+as David read of the wonderful beauty
+of these countries, and the ignorance and
+cruelty of their peoples, he sometimes
+thought he would like to be a missionary.
+The idea returned to him again and again,
+but he kept doubting whether he was the
+right person for the work. One day,
+however, when he was twenty years old, he
+happened to read a booklet that told such
+sad tales about the poor of China that his
+mind was troubled and stirred. So heavily
+did the story of human suffering and wrong
+weigh upon him that he began to take his
+country walks alone, in order to think the
+matter over undisturbed. Every morning
+he asked himself if he could do nothing
+to help, and every night he went to bed
+with the question still unanswered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But at last there came an evening when
+he found an answer that made his way
+quite clear. He watched the sunset lights
+creep off the hills and clouds and die away
+in the growing: starlight. He heard the
+thrush, all grateful for the joy of life, sing
+out its evensong till the calm hush of night
+stole over the tired world. The peace and
+beauty of it all seemed to make him sadder
+than ever. In such a lovely world, where
+there was room for all, food for all, and
+joy enough for all, it seemed to him so
+utterly strange that men could ever even
+want to cheat, rob, bully, and kill each
+other, and grab for themselves more than
+they could possibly use. The depth of his
+own sadness made him remember how once,
+in the stillness of the sunset hour, Jesus
+of Nazareth had wandered into an olive
+grove, and there had wept in bitter grief
+over the troubles of men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then suddenly the idea flashed into his
+mind that at least he could try and imitate
+the life of Christ as far as lay in his power.
+In a moment his mind was made up. He
+walked home with a brisk step and light
+heart, and told his parents that he was
+going to college at Glasgow to learn to be
+a doctor; and then he would go out to
+the far East to help the sick, and to tell
+men how they could make the world better
+and happier by imitating the life of Christ.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+David lost no time in carrying out his
+plan, and at once began to put by all he
+could from his earnings at the cotton-mill.
+Want of money was his chief difficulty.
+Indeed, when at last he went up to Glasgow,
+he and his father walked all the way,
+and then had to trudge the streets till
+they found a lodging for David that cost
+no more than two shillings a week.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a hard struggle for young Livingstone,
+but still, by spending his savings very
+carefully, he managed to keep at his studies
+for a whole winter. Then he was forced
+to go back to the cotton-mills in order to
+save more money to pay for another winter's
+training. He was a quick and thorough
+learner, and at once it became quite clear
+to those who taught him that he would
+soon be fit for the life he had chosen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone did not want to be ordained
+a regular missionary and take the title of
+"Reverend" before his name, for he did
+not wish to teach the special creed and
+services of any one particular set of
+Christians. His own idea was to go among
+the natives as a plain and simple man,
+trying every hour and minute of his daily
+life to do as Christ had done; and in this
+way he hoped to win their love and
+respect, and to lead them towards a nobler
+life of duty to God and man. But his
+family and friends so strongly advised him
+to be made a missionary in the usual way
+that he yielded to their wishes, and offered
+himself to the London Missionary Society.
+His offer was accepted, and after a short
+examination in London before the governors
+of the Society, he was sent to Ongar,
+in Essex, for a three months' training
+among the other missionary students.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here, with his usual care and thoroughness,
+he quickly learnt all that was set
+before him, but there was one thing he
+never could master: do what he would, he
+never could learn to preach. Once he was
+sent to a neighbouring parish with a most
+carefully prepared sermon; but he could
+get no further than the text, and so with
+a hasty apology he fled from the pulpit.
+Probably that was the only time in his life
+that he ran away from anything, but the
+event nearly ended his career.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His failure in preaching vexed the soul of
+his pastor so much, that Livingstone was
+sent back to the governors at the end of
+the three months with a bad report of his
+powers as a missionary. On the strength of
+this report he was nearly sent away as
+useless. One of the governors, however, who
+was wiser than his fellows, saw that
+Livingstone could both think well and do well,
+although he could not talk well. He
+accordingly took the young student's part,
+and insisted that he should have a further
+trial at Ongar. The result of this timely
+aid was that, after three more months of
+study, no one doubted Livingstone's
+fitness, and so in the year 1840 he was
+formally ordained a missionary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, war had broken out in
+China, and no one could go there in
+safety. This was a disappointment to
+Livingstone, but while waiting for peace
+he would not be idle, so he went on with
+his medical studies at London, and also
+took his degree as a physician and
+surgeon at Glasgow. But the war still
+dragged on, and rather than waste any
+time, he decided to go to Africa; and
+accordingly, on 8th December 1840, he set
+sail for that vast and unknown continent,
+into which he was one day to bring new
+light, new hope, and new freedom.
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p><a id="chap02"></a></p>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER II
+<br><br>
+FIRST YEARS IN AFRICA
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+The sea voyage out to the Cape was
+a new life to Livingstone, and he
+made the most of it. With his usual
+determination to know all about everything,
+he made friends with the ship's
+captain, and soon began to learn how to
+manage the ship.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The captain taught him how to use a sextant
+and chronometer, two most important
+instruments, by whose help voyagers can tell
+exactly how far they are to the north or
+south, to the east or west. To "take an
+observation," as it is called, is no easy
+matter; but by hard and steady practice
+Livingstone in time became able to find out
+the ship's exact position and to mark it down
+neatly on the chart. And often in after life
+the captain's kindly teaching came to his
+aid when he lost his way in the wilds, or
+when he marked some new discovery on
+the map.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In his spare half-hours Livingstone
+would enjoy the many delights and wonders
+of the southern sea. He watched
+the dazzling little flying-fish dart like tiny
+rainbows from beneath the bows, glimmer
+over the water, and flash into the white
+comb of a wave. The dolphins, too, like
+clowns of the sea, amused him with their
+antics as they leapt and turned somersaults
+over the waves or sportively raced, two
+or three abreast, close ahead of the
+cut-water. Occasionally a monster
+sperm-whale would rise to the surface like a
+floating islet, spout his double fountain
+into the air, and plunge down again into
+his home. Sometimes, also, a grim and
+wicked-looking shark would prowl about
+the ship's wake in the greedy hope of
+human prey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When at last the long voyage was over
+and Livingstone landed at Cape Town, he
+found more sights and wonders awaiting
+him; but he had not been very long
+ashore before he also found a very great
+disappointment. He had quite supposed
+that all missionaries were of course doing
+their best to help forward the work
+among the natives, and it was an
+unpleasant surprise to him when he saw
+that, in spite of the noble efforts of many
+good men, mission work in South Africa
+was almost at a standstill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From want of more careful planning,
+the mission stations were mostly clustered
+around the Cape instead of being dotted
+about far into the continent, where black
+men were much more numerous. This
+was a great waste of strength and time,
+for hard-working missionaries had not
+enough to do, while the idlers could so
+easily neglect their duty for the
+pleasures and amusements of white society.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amongst the missionaries there was much
+disagreement and petty jealousy over their
+work, and many were full of complaint
+about trifling matters, while a few, but
+only a few, led such unworthy and
+contemptible lives that they often brought
+the good fame of mission work into bad
+report.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone soon made up his mind that
+the only remedy lay in two new plans: first,
+to make mission stations far up in the
+thickly-peopled native districts and win
+over the most powerful chiefs; next, to
+make a training college whence native
+teachers could afterwards be sent to
+educate the many tribes. It was the first of
+these plans that decided the course of his
+after life, for he now saw that he might do
+better service to his cause by pioneering
+Central Africa than by settling down in
+comfort to preach.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a short stay at the Cape, Livingstone
+was sent into Bechuanaland to Kuruman,
+the most northern of all the mission
+settlements in South Africa. This station
+was worked by a good and capable missionary,
+Dr. Moffat, who was then away in
+England, and Livingstone had been ordered
+to await his return. Livingstone, however,
+did not mean to be idle, so he decided to
+spend the time in exploring the almost
+unknown country to the north of the station.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Accordingly he made a number of journeys
+in many directions, travelling about from
+tribe to tribe until he had thoroughly learnt
+the nature and resources of the country,
+and also the language and character of the
+natives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the first of these journeys Livingstone
+had an object-lesson in slavery that set his
+noble heart aching for the freedom of Africa.
+One day when he had outspanned his oxen
+for rest and food, he suddenly noticed that
+a young native girl had crept into camp,
+and was hiding under his waggon. He
+gave her some food, and in answer to his
+questions she told him her story. She and
+her sister had been left orphans, and they
+had lived happily together till the latter
+died. Then she was taken by another
+family, who kept her, not out of kindness,
+but with the cruel intention of selling her
+to some chief as a slave wife. On learning
+what was in store for her she ran away,
+meaning to trudge behind the waggon all
+the way to Kuruman, where she had friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While thus telling her tale, her face
+suddenly fell with fear, and she burst into tears.
+Livingstone looked up and saw that a
+native, armed with a rifle, had come to
+claim the poor child and take her back to
+slavery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone could not bear the thought
+of giving her up, but he was at his wits'
+end to know the best way of saving her,
+till one of his native teachers, named
+Pomari, came to the rescue. The girl was
+attractive enough, with her bright eyes,
+white teeth, and soft, healthy skin, and her
+captors had loaded her in savage fashion
+with strings of beads. Pomari stripped the
+beads off the girl, and gave them to the
+man, who, after a little persuasion, took
+the bribe and went his way. Livingstone
+took care to keep the girl out of sight till
+they were safe out of the district.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Many other adventures befell the
+missionary on his travels; for wild animals,
+drought, fever, cattle-sickness, and the
+deadly tsetse-fly, whose bite kills oxen and
+horses in a few hours, always bring risk
+and excitement to an African journey. Once,
+when he was "trekking" several hundred
+miles through Bechuanaland in an ox-waggon,
+the fatal cattle-sickness fell like a
+plague upon his oxen and killed them all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was nothing to be done but to
+desert the waggon and tramp home.
+Livingstone's native servants were afraid that
+their master would never be able to do it.
+One of them pointed to his trousers and
+said, half in anxiety, half in scorn, that he
+was not really strong enough, and only put
+his legs into those bags to make them look
+stout. Livingstone, however, proved their
+fears groundless, and won their respect by
+walking them nearly to a standstill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once, too, he travelled 400 miles on
+ox-back, and found it awkward and uneasy
+work to keep his seat and avoid the sweep
+of the poor beast's horns as it shook off
+the flies that clustered round its eyes and
+nostrils. During this journey he fell down
+and broke his finger, and set the bone with
+his other hand. Not long after, a lion sprang
+out of the bush and raided their camp.
+Livingstone frightened the animal away by
+firing his revolver, but the kick of the weapon
+broke his finger anew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another time he had to fly for his life
+and hide from an angry rhinoceros which
+he had disturbed while she was feeding her
+calf. Upon missing him, the vicious brute
+charged full tilt at his waggon, and with
+the deadly upward stroke of her horn (a
+stroke which has been known to kill an
+elephant), splintered the wheel like matchwood.
+</p>
+
+<p class="capcenter">
+<a id="img-020"></a>
+<br>
+<img class="imgcenter" src="images/img-020.jpg" alt="The brute charged full tilt at his waggon">
+<br>
+The brute charged full tilt at his waggon
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this while Livingstone was making
+friends of the tribes along his track. His
+manly fearlessness, his good humour and
+keen sympathy, his kindly eyes full of
+honesty and truth, soon showed the natives
+that there was nothing to fear from him.
+His medical skill got him the fame of a
+wizard, and black patients from far and near
+thronged his waggon to be cured of their
+ills, while some spread the report that he
+had brought dead men back to life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Apart from this, he had a most wonderful
+gift of finding his way into the hearts
+of men; and though the natives could not
+understand the reason of his coming, yet
+they soon saw that he had not come, like
+some of the Transvaal Boers, to shoot
+them down, plunder their cattle, and carry
+off their children to a life of unpaid labour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One chief, Bubé, was in difficulty for
+want of water for his crops. Every tribe
+had a sorcerer, who was supposed to have
+the power of bringing down rain when
+required; but Bubé's rainmaker had failed
+to supply him. Livingstone, however, taught
+them a surer way than sorcery, for he
+induced the whole tribe to turn out and dig
+a ditch from the river to their village, and
+by thus saving them from famine he won
+their love and respect. Bubé's faith in
+witchcraft afterwards cost him his life. His
+sorcerer vowed he could take the devil out
+of some gunpowder by the use of certain
+burning roots. Poor Bubé innocently went
+to watch the performance, and both were
+blown out of existence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, after long waiting, Livingstone
+got leave from the governors to start a
+new mission-station, and this he did with
+the help of a brother missionary at
+Mabotsa, a place 250 miles north of Kuruman.
+Here Livingstone had to build a house for
+himself at his own expense, and as his
+income was only £100 a year, he built it
+with his own hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His work, however, was delayed by a
+misadventure that left him with a weak
+arm for all his days. A lion one day fell
+upon a flock of sheep near the village and
+began to kill them right and left.
+Livingstone went out for a little while to
+encourage the natives to surround it. The
+lion, however, broke away from its
+pursuers, and suddenly sprang out of the bush
+upon Livingstone: then, pinning him down
+with a paw on his head, it began to crunch
+the bone of his arm. A faithful follower,
+Mebalwé, diverted the beast from his
+master, and was himself attacked, but was
+saved by the lion falling dead of its
+wounds.
+</p>
+
+<p class="capcenter">
+<a id="img-024"></a>
+<br>
+<img class="imgcenter" src="images/img-024.jpg" alt="The lion began to crunch the bone of his arm">
+<br>
+The lion began to crunch the bone of his arm
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as his arm was well enough,
+Livingstone finished his house, and then he
+brought home Mary Moffat from Kuruman
+to be his wife. The two were together so
+successful in their work that the jealousy
+of some of their fellow-missionaries was
+aroused, and Livingstone was accused of
+taking more than his share of credit so
+as to gain the favour of the governors in
+London.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rather than live as a source of envy to
+a fellow-worker, Livingstone left Mabotsa,
+and went to all the labour and expense of
+building a new mission-house at Chonuane,
+40 miles farther north, in the country of a
+chief called Sechélé. Water, however, was
+so scarce at Chonuane that Livingstone
+persuaded Sechélé's people to move with him
+still farther north, to Kolobeng. Here, for
+the third time, he built himself a house,
+but he did not dwell there for many years.
+His great mind ran continually upon the
+welfare of Africa, and he was losing faith
+in the missionary methods that were then
+practised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He now believed the best plan would be
+for Christian emigrants to come and teach
+the natives useful arts and industries, and
+to show them by example how to lead
+better lives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But where was he to make his first little
+colony? East of Kolobeng lay the
+Transvaal, and the Boers, who hated him for
+his efforts against slavery, kept sending
+him threatening messages. North and west
+of him was the dry and trackless Kalahari
+Desert. He had heard native rumours
+about a large lake beyond the desert.
+There he might find a place suitable for
+his purpose; but he could not afford to pay
+for the waggons, cattle, native servants, and
+stores necessary for the journey across the
+desert. House-building had already cost
+him beyond his means. What was he to do?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The matter was settled for him by
+the generosity of an English gentleman,
+William Cotton Oswell, who had made
+several hunting trips in South Africa after
+big game, and had often been helped by
+Livingstone's knowledge of the country and
+language. Noble, fearless, and unselfish
+himself, Oswell had been from the first
+drawn into fast friendship with
+Livingstone; and now he offered to pay the
+cost of the expedition. Livingstone was
+overjoyed at his goodness, and on May
+27, 1849, the expedition left Kolobeng.
+They had with them eighty oxen, twenty
+horses, and about twenty-five natives, and
+the fact that a waggon and span of oxen
+costs about £125 will give some idea of
+Oswell's generosity.
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p><a id="chap03"></a></p>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER III
+<br><br>
+BEYOND THE KALAHARI DESERT
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+A glance at the maps of Africa
+published before the year 1850 will show
+how little was known about the middle of
+the continent. All round the coast and a
+few hundred miles up the rivers there
+were plenty of names, but the centre was
+left almost blank. Most people supposed
+that the Great Sahara Desert in the north
+stretched down to the Kalahari Desert in
+the south. Cleverer men, however, thought
+of the enormous flow of water in the Nile,
+Congo, and Zambesi, and felt sure that
+somewhere there must be a land of streams,
+forests, and hills, vast enough to feed such
+mighty rivers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the exciting hope of pioneering this
+new land, and in the noble desire of
+bringing a better way of life to its peoples,
+Oswell and Livingstone dared the hardship
+and danger of the Kalahari. Oswell was to
+manage the trek, and the hard and tiring
+task of shooting enough game for the
+camp pot depended upon his quick eye,
+cool head, and steady hand. Livingstone
+was to be interpreter and scientific
+observer, while the party relied upon his
+wonderful power of gaining the goodwill of
+the natives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They started from Kolobeng in a
+north-easterly direction, and for the first 120
+miles their track lay through country they
+had passed before. Then they struck north
+towards the desert, and from this point
+they knew nothing of the country before
+them. One of the natives with them had
+crossed many years ago, and <i>thought</i> he
+could remember his route, but his memory
+proved very hazy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With this man as guide, they came to
+the wells of Serotli, on the edge of the
+desert, and found that the place was just
+a dip in the sand, surrounded by low scrub
+and a few stunted trees. In the dip, however,
+were several little hollows, as though
+a rhinoceros had been rolling in the
+sand; and in one of these hollows lay
+about a quart of water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oswell at once set the party to work
+with spades and land turtle-shells to
+deepen the holes, but hard toil till nightfall
+only brought enough water to give the
+horses a mouthful or two each. Their
+guide told them that this was their last
+chance of water for 70 miles, so Oswell sent
+the oxen back to their last watering-place.
+Bellowing and moaning with disappointment
+and distress, the poor beasts crawled
+back 25 miles, and at last found relief from
+the terrible thirst they had suffered for
+ninety-six hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile four of the Serotli pits were
+dug out to the depth of 8 feet, and water
+trickled into them so plentifully that
+Oswell sent for the oxen. On their
+arrival they were at once watered,
+inspanned, and headed across the desert.
+The heat was very great, and the wheels
+sank so deep into the loose sand that
+their utmost efforts only dragged the
+waggons 6 miles before sundown. On the
+following day they covered 19 miles
+without water. On the third day again these
+gallant beasts struggled 19 miles through
+the heavy sand in the smiting heat
+without a drop to drink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night was a bad one for the
+leaders of the expedition. They had now
+come 44 miles from Serotli at a rate of
+only 2 miles an hour, and the guide told
+them they were still 30 miles from the next
+water, which was at a place called
+Mokokonyani by the bushmen of the desert.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The oxen were spent with toil and
+thirst, and all night lay moaning out to
+their masters a piteous appeal for drink.
+No one knew for certain what lay before
+them, or whether they were in the right
+direction. Failure seemed more than likely,
+but Oswell and Livingstone were not the
+men to know despair. At the first sign of
+daybreak they sent the horses forward with
+the guide to try and find Mokokonyani.
+With the horses safe, the men could cover
+the ground in safety, and hunt for food on
+the way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oswell and Livingstone intended to
+follow with the waggons as long as the
+oxen could hold out; then they would
+loose the oxen on the trail of the horses
+in the hope that, without their burdens,
+they would mostly reach water alive. Half
+an hour after starting, the waggons passed
+through a belt of scrub, and came suddenly
+upon the horses at a dead halt. "Is it
+water?" was on every lip. No such luck
+was in store for them: the guide had lost
+his way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon the weary oxen staggered in distress,
+and were outspanned to rest while
+the leaders took counsel for the future.
+Meanwhile the natives scattered through
+the scrub in a forlorn hope of finding
+water. Presently one of them heard the
+harsh croaking of a frog. No sweet
+music could fall softer on his ear, for
+where there is a frog there is always
+water close by. He ran back, and reported
+the discovery of a patch of marsh. Once
+more the jaded oxen were inspanned. The
+sense of water in the air seemed to revive
+them, and in two brisk miles they reached
+relief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the present, at all events, the
+expedition was saved. And it was well for
+them that they came upon the marsh,
+for it took them four more days to reach
+Mokokonyani, though on the first and
+third days they were luckily able to find
+water by digging. It turned out that they
+were in the bed of a "sand river" called
+the Mokokoong by the bushmen. Deep
+down below their feet a constant flow of
+water crept at a snail's pace through the
+sand. The course of the stream could be
+roughly traced like the long-dried bed of
+an ancient river. Sometimes it lay
+tween ridges of naked limestone or banks
+of sand; sometimes it was lost in the
+level plain. In a very few places there
+were sand-holes deep enough to reach
+the stream, and here patches of marsh
+formed, or water showed in plenty, as at
+Mokokonyani. Otherwise there was no
+sign of water, though the bushmen get
+enough to quench their thirst by sucking
+through a long reed thrust down into the
+sand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The party now tried to follow the sand
+river, but soon lost it for two waterless
+days. Then they found and followed it
+once more, until the underground stream
+disappeared in a marsh. At this point
+their guide again failed them, and they
+went many miles out of their course
+without water for three days. Here again
+fortune favoured them, for Oswell's eagle
+eye spied a bushwoman lurking in the
+thick scrub. He gave chase and captured
+her, and for a few beads she led them to
+a water-hole.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now from a hillock they could see
+new and fertile country in the distance,
+with thick smoke rising beyond. It must
+be reeds burning on the shore of the great
+lake, they thought, and so pushed onward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a few more days they suddenly burst
+through the thick bush upon a wide and
+deep river, and from the natives on its
+banks they learnt that this was the Zouga,
+flowing from the great Lake Ngami, 250
+miles up stream. It was now 4th July and
+late in the season, but for twelve more
+days they forced and jolted their waggons
+along the river bank until the oxen were
+nearly spent. Then Oswell and Livingstone
+picked out a span of the fittest, and
+pressed forward with a light waggon. As
+they neared the lake the bush grew denser,
+and in the space of 5 miles they cut down
+more than one hundred small trees to let
+the waggon pass. At last, on 28th July,
+they reached Lake Ngami, having taken
+nine weeks to cover the 600 miles between
+them and Kolobeng.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beyond the Zouga lay a fertile land of
+forest and plains, but the failure to reach
+it took away half the joy of their
+discovery. They could not get the waggons
+across, though Livingstone, at the risk of
+his life from alligators, spent many hours
+in the water vainly trying to make a raft.
+They were forced to return&mdash;Livingstone
+to Kolobeng, and Oswell to England; but
+they made plans to come again the next
+year, and Oswell promised to bring up a
+boat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next year, however, their plans failed,
+for Oswell was delayed, and Livingstone
+started without him. He took with him
+his wife and children, and, in spite of the
+hardships of the desert, they reached the
+Zouga and Lake Ngami in safety. Here
+fever fell upon the children, and he was
+forced to return. On the way back he
+met Oswell, who had followed only a few
+weeks' march behind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nothing could be done that year, but in
+1851 these two great men again crossed
+the Kalahari Desert, taking with them
+Mrs. Livingstone and the children. This
+time Oswell, with his usual unselfish care
+for others, went a day in advance and dug
+out the wells, and thus the rest of the
+party were saved from delay and thirst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They passed the Zouga in safety, and
+then, in a lovely land of fruits, flowers, and
+herds, they crossed stream after stream
+until they came to a point on the River
+Chobi 400 miles from Linyanté. Linyanté
+was the headquarters of the Makololo
+tribe, and their wise and powerful chief
+hurried to meet the travellers. He was
+quite overcome by his first sight of white
+men, but Livingstone's genial kindness
+soon set him at his ease, and then no
+one could have done more to help them.
+Sebituani told them all he knew about
+the country in and around his borders.
+Far to the north-west, he said, there lived
+a tribe who once sent back to him his
+present of an ox, and asked for a man to
+eat instead. From the east there came
+black messengers from the Portuguese
+with calico and beads and guns in
+exchange for slaves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He promised to take his white friends
+ten days north of Linyanté to the mighty
+River Seshéké, which fell, men said, over
+a cliff into a chasm with a smoke and
+thunder that sounded many miles.
+Unfortunately this noble chief, whom Oswell
+described as a "gentleman in thought and
+manner," died of pneumonia a few days
+after; but his tribe kept all his promises
+to the explorers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Leaving Mrs. Livingstone with the
+waggons in camp at the Chobi, the two
+friends went by canoe to Linyanté, and
+thence on horseback to the Seshéké.
+Here they indeed saw a mighty river,
+which proved to be the great Zambesi;
+but the waterfall was said to be far off,
+and the season was so late that once
+more they turned homewards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the way back many new plans
+were made. They had just been on the
+southern border of a country whence vile
+and brutal white men were getting slaves
+at the rate of eighteenpence apiece. If
+only they could find a good road into this
+country, honest trade might put an end
+to this wicked robbery of human lives.
+The road they had already found was
+too long and difficult, so Livingstone
+determined to revisit Linyanté the next year,
+and then seek a possible path to the
+sea-coast. It would be impossible for his
+family to go with him, and the thought
+of leaving them to the risks and dangers
+of Kolobeng was a great trouble to his
+mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once more the goodness of his companion
+came to his aid. For Oswell persuaded
+Livingstone to send his wife and
+children to England, and also gave him
+the money for their outfit and expenses.
+He sold the ivory that had fallen to his
+rifle, and handed the price of it to his
+friend as a share of the game on their
+new preserves.
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p><a id="chap04"></a></p>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER IV
+<br><br>
+FROM COAST TO COAST
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone took his family to Capetown,
+and saw them safely on board a
+ship bound for England. War was going
+on at the time with the Kaffirs, and he
+soon found that the white folk at the Cape
+looked on him with mistrust and dislike.
+They accused him and other missionaries
+of stirring up and helping the natives to
+rebel, and they even tried to prevent him
+from buying gunpowder for use on his
+journeys.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were many, however, who believed
+in him, and amongst these was Maclear,
+the Astronomer-Royal. From him
+Livingstone had more lessons on "taking his
+bearings," and also learnt the use of an
+instrument for telling exactly how many feet
+any place stood above the level of the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On his return northwards Livingstone
+was delayed by feeble oxen and a broken
+wheel, and thus he reached Kuruman only
+in time to learn that his home, the last
+he ever had, was in hopeless ruin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Six hundred Boers under Pretorius came
+to Kolobeng, carried off everything of value
+in his house, and wrecked the rest. Even
+the leaves of his precious diaries and
+notebooks were torn and scattered to the winds.
+Moving onward to the native village, the
+Boers went morning and afternoon to the
+mission service and heard Mebalwé preach.
+After service they told Sechélé, the chief,
+that they had come to fight because he
+let Englishmen pass through his country.
+Surrounding the village, they fired the huts,
+and with long-range swivel-guns shot down
+sixty of the men, women, and children, who
+were huddled together on a hillock in the
+blinding smoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the flames were spent the Boers
+closed in to finish their brutal work; but
+Sechélé held them at bay till nightfall, and
+sent them back to count their dead. Thirty-five
+Boers paid the price of this needless
+cruelty, while Sechélé and his remnant
+escaped under cover of the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To avoid the Boers, Livingstone passed
+well to the west of Kolobeng, and reached
+Linyanté after much hardship. The rainy
+season had flooded the land between the
+rivers, and his hands and knees were cut
+and torn from wading through reeds and
+pushing his way through the thorny bush.
+Sekelétu, the son of Sebituani, was now
+chief of the Makololo, and he soon grew
+fond enough of Livingstone to say "he had
+found a new father." With an escort and
+supplies from his "new son," the missionary
+made a tour through the Barotsi country,
+but could find no place fit for a settlement.
+The whole district was too unhealthy for
+white men, and the natives were unpromising.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Plunder and tyranny seemed the custom
+of the country. Here, for the first time in
+his life, Livingstone saw a string of slaves
+trudging along in hopeless misery beneath
+their chains. Once a mother was leading
+her little boy by the hand along the track,
+when suddenly a man pounced upon the
+child, and dragged him away shrieking to
+lifelong slavery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Accordingly, in November 1853, Livingstone
+left Linyanté to carry out his plan
+of finding a way to the west coast. He
+set out with an escort of twenty-seven
+Makololo, and went by canoe up the
+Zambesi and Leeba, till some falls in the
+latter stopped him. From this point he
+went forward on ox-back, and, steering by
+compass as best he could, reached Loanda,
+in Portuguese country, in May 1854.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The troubles and difficulties of the
+journey were great. His medicine-chest was
+plundered, and his portable boat was lost.
+He was twice thrown from his ox, once on
+his head upon the hard ground, and once
+in the middle of a ford. He had thirty-one
+attacks of fever, and had to be his own
+doctor and nurse. His Makololo were
+cowards, and often wanted to go back, but
+Livingstone's patient courage turned them
+into men. Many of the tribes were very
+troublesome when he asked leave to pass
+their borders. One chief refused to let him
+go by unless he gave up a riding-ox, a gun,
+or a male slave; but Livingstone's wonderful
+force of character overcame his demand.
+At Chiboqué the natives refused to sell him
+food, and threatened to kill him if he did
+not give them an ox. They crowded round
+him, yelling and waving their spears and
+clubs over his head. Livingstone stood his
+ground with unflinching eye, and his
+fearless spirit utterly quelled them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another chief demanded his riding-ox or
+his life, and got the reply that he might
+kill him if he liked, but God would judge.
+The savage felt that he was in the presence
+of a greater chief than himself, and quailed
+before him. So great, indeed, was the power
+of Livingstone's presence that he once
+released a string of slaves by merely ordering
+their captors to let them go. A magic-lantern,
+with pictures from the Bible, helped
+him much in the management of the natives.
+They flocked to see it, though many were
+in terror lest the figures moving off the
+screen should enter into them as evil
+spirits. Livingstone humorously said that
+this was the only service they ever asked
+him to repeat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When almost at his journey's end a party
+of natives stopped him at a ford on the
+Quango, in Portuguese country. Livingstone
+had little left to give away, so he
+handed over his razors and then his shirts,
+while the Makololo parted with their
+copper ornaments. This, however, was not
+enough; and Livingstone was just giving
+up his blanket and coat when a
+Portuguese sergeant came up and drove the
+natives away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On his reaching Loanda, the Portuguese
+treated him with the utmost kindness, and
+gave him all he could possibly want, but
+he afterwards found to his cost that some
+of this kindness was humbug. Here he
+had the chance of returning to England;
+but, knowing that the Makololo could
+never reach home alone, he sent off his
+letters and scientific notes in the
+<i>Forerunner</i>, and then started for Linyanté.
+The Portuguese gave him supplies for his
+party, and presents for the chiefs on his
+track. His Makololo bearers were given
+suits of red and blue cloth, while the
+Bishop of Loanda sent a colonel's
+uniform for Sekelétu.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had not gone very far when he was
+overtaken by the news that all his letters
+and scientific notes had been lost in the
+wreck of the <i>Forerunner</i>. There was
+nothing to be done but write them all over
+again; and this delay, together with an
+attack of rheumatic fever, kept him from
+reaching Linyanté till September 1855. On
+their arrival, Sekelétu and his whole tribe
+turned out to meet them, and the party
+entered the town in triumphal procession,
+with the red and blue uniforms of the
+Makololo bearers in the van. Livingstone
+then held a service of thanksgiving, but
+the attention of his congregation was
+hopelessly upset by the glory of Sekelétu
+in the dress of a Portuguese colonel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone did not remain long at
+Linyanté. The route to Loanda was too
+difficult and unhealthy for general trade, so
+he decided to follow the Zambesi down to
+the east coast, in the hope of finding a
+better. Sekelétu gave him a new escort
+of one hundred and twenty Makololo, and
+also supplied him with three riding-oxen,
+and ten more to be used for food.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In November 1855 he found the waterfall
+that Oswell and he had marked on
+their charts from hearsay, but had never
+seen. Here the great Zambesi, more than
+a mile wide, plunged "like a downward
+smoke" 300 sheer feet into a chasm, and
+then went seething and swirling away
+through a narrow zigzag rift. Twice as
+large as the Canadian Niagara, its spray
+darkened the sun above it, and its thunder
+boomed for miles. And, as in reverent
+silence he watched this mighty force flow
+on, Livingstone felt&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+ "These are Thy wondrous works, Parent of good,"<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+and he longed more than ever to see this
+lovely land in freedom and at peace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before leaving the "Mosi-oa-tunya," or the
+"Sounding Smoke," Livingstone changed
+its name to the Victoria Falls; but he little
+thought that in less than fifty years a
+railway bridge would span the gorge down
+which its waters swept.
+</p>
+
+<p class="capcenter">
+<a id="img-046"></a>
+<br>
+<img class="imgcenter" src="images/img-046.jpg" alt="The Victoria Falls">
+<br>
+The Victoria Falls
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Keeping mainly to the north bank of
+the Zambesi, he made his way to Teté,
+with much the same experience as
+usual. While his men and stores were
+crossing the Loangwé he kept some
+unfriendly natives quiet by amusing them
+with his watch and burning-glass till all
+were safe. Once he was mistaken for
+a half-caste Portuguese slaver, and only
+saved his life by showing the colour of
+his breast and arms. His riding-ox took
+a determined dislike to his umbrella, and
+would not permit him to use it; so he
+suffered much from the rain, and even
+had to carry his watch in his arm-pit to
+keep it dry. At Teté he left his Makololo
+bearers, and, promising to return to them
+some day, made his way on to Quilimane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In one respect his great journey was a
+failure: he had not found a really good
+route to the sea. Nevertheless he had
+found out two facts unknown to the
+world before. First, Central Africa was
+not a desert, but could produce metals,
+coffee, cotton, oil, sugar, corn, and many
+other things needed for the world's use.
+Second, the natives were capable of being
+taught by gentleness and justice to make
+good use of their lives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These facts he wrote to the King of
+Portugal, telling him also that canals and
+roads could be easily made by the natives
+under good white leaders: then he set out
+for England to publish his knowledge in
+a book which he called "Missionary
+Travels."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He reached London in December 1856,
+and was at once lionised all over the
+kingdom. People were so full of
+encouragement that he felt it his duty to go
+on with the career he had begun. Even
+Queen Victoria, the Prince Consort, and
+Lord Palmerston sent for him to praise
+his work, while the Royal Geographical
+Society and other public bodies held
+meetings in his honour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But every great-minded man has to
+suffer from little-minded critics; and
+Livingstone was accused by a few of not
+being enough of a missionary. Moreover,
+at Quilimane he had received a letter
+from the London Missionary Society,
+saying that they could not "aid plans only
+remotely connected with the spread of the
+Gospel." Livingstone took this to mean
+that they thought he had not preached
+enough for his pay. His own way was
+quite clear to him. He believed that his
+first duty to God was to help in their need
+the men, women, and children whom God
+had caused to live. So, for the sake of
+the black millions of Africa, Livingstone
+gently and courteously withdrew himself
+from the Society, and started for Quilimane
+as Her Majesty's Consul, and as
+the leader of a British expedition to
+explore the valley of the Zambesi.
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p><a id="chap05"></a></p>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER V
+<br><br>
+THE ZAMBESI EXPEDITION
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+In 1858 Livingstone once more set sail for
+the Cape, taking his wife with him, but
+leaving his children behind. At Cape Town
+the people were anxious to make amends for
+their former unkindness to him, and now did
+all they could to give him a happy welcome.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Continuing his voyage in the <i>Pearl</i>, up the
+east coast of Africa, he reached the mouth
+of the Zambesi, which enters the sea through
+many channels between low and swampy
+islands covered with thick jungle. The
+first thing to be done was to find out the
+deepest and safest of these channels, and
+many days were spent in sounding the
+depths of the water by sinking a lump of
+lead on the end of a line. An outlet called
+the Kongoné proved to be the best, and up
+this channel they took the <i>Pearl</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Left and right the banks lay dark under
+the dense mangrove thicket, or shone bright
+with shrubs and flowers beneath tall palms
+and fern-trees, and forest timber laden
+and twined with creepers. Strange birds
+wheeled in bright flocks above them, or
+flashed in single brilliance across the stream.
+Here and there were open stretches where
+startled buffalo and zebra made off into
+the long grass, or a lazy rhinoceros could
+be heard wallowing and grunting out of
+sight among the giant reeds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To those who had not seen this country
+before, it was indeed a new fairyland of
+wonders. The native huts were built high
+in the air upon long stakes, with ladders
+reaching from their doorways to the ground.
+Down these the natives came scrambling in
+eager haste to see the <i>Pearl</i>. Some of
+them took her for a floating village, and
+others asked if she was hollowed out of a
+single tree-trunk like their own canoes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the river became too shallow for
+so large a ship, Livingstone landed his
+stores on an island, and then went forward
+in a small steamer sent out by the Government
+for use on the Zambesi. The steamer
+proved to be a failure. She had been built
+to burn wood instead of coal; but it took
+all her crew three days to cut enough fuel
+to drive her for two days. She was so slow
+that native canoes easily outstripped her;
+and she snorted, and creaked, and wheezed
+to such an extent that she was nicknamed
+the <i>Asthmatic</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was a most grievous drawback to
+the expedition, but Livingstone, as usual,
+made the best of it. He took his stores to
+Shupanga, a Portuguese village near the
+point where the Zambesi is joined by another
+fine river called the Shiré. Then by slow
+degrees he made his way up stream to Teté,
+where he had left his Makololo bearers on
+his former visit. They were overjoyed to
+see him again: some of them rushed to
+embrace him, but others cried out, "Don't
+touch him,&mdash;you'll spoil his new
+clothes." People had told them that Livingstone
+would never return, but the Makololo knew
+he would never break his word. "We
+trusted you," they told him, "and now we
+shall sleep."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twenty miles above Teté the river broke
+through a chain of hills, and at this point
+the <i>Asthmatic</i> was stopped by the Kebrabasa
+Rapids. The river ran swiftly down a
+narrow valley, with the current broken here
+and there by jagged rocks or smooth water-worn
+boulders. At this season the river
+was at its lowest, and Livingstone decided
+to explore the rapids on foot; for he thought
+it might yet be possible for small steamers
+to pass them when the river was full.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Accordingly, he and his fellow-explorer,
+Dr. Kirk, set out with a native guide and
+some of the Makololo to make the matter
+sure. They followed up the bed of the river
+as best they could, taking measurements
+and notes as they went. Sometimes their
+way was over smooth terraces of rock,
+sometimes they scrambled over boulders,
+and once they had to wade up to their
+waists in spite of the risk of crocodiles. At
+night they slept under trees, and were
+lucky enough to be left alone by wild beasts,
+though a native across the river was killed
+one evening by a leopard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When at last they reached the head of
+the rapids, their guide declared that now
+there was nothing but smooth water before
+them. Thinking their difficult task was at
+an end, they began to return, but that night
+two natives came into camp, and said there
+was another rapid a few miles up stream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Taking three of the Makololo with them,
+Livingstone and Kirk went back again to
+settle the question. They found a narrow
+gorge, whose sides rose steeper than a
+gable roof from the river to the skyline, 2000
+feet above them. Up this they scrambled,
+cutting their way through the prickly scrub,
+and crawling over the face of the sloping
+cliff. The sun struck into the gorge with
+such force, that the rocks reeked like heated
+steel; and the climbers' hands could hardly
+bear their grip long enough to gain firm
+foothold. Even the Makololo, whose naked
+soles were hard and tough as shoe-leather,
+limped with the pain of their burnt and
+blistered feet. They turned to Kirk, and
+said that Livingstone no longer had a heart,
+and must be stark mad to try and climb
+where no wild animal would go. Losing
+all heart, they wanted to lie down and sleep
+in the hollows, but Livingstone's pluck and
+spirit carried them through.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, after a scramble so steep and
+dangerous that they took three hours to
+climb one mile, the party reached a spot
+overhanging the rapid. Here the cliff
+dropped a hundred feet sheer into the
+stream, and rose like a wall just a short
+stone's-throw across it. Into this narrow
+pass the whole wide river was crowded,
+and the current sped swiftly down, broken
+here and there into a white fleece by a ridge
+of jutting rock. They saw the flood-mark
+eighty feet up the opposite cliff. But
+Livingstone turned away in keen disappointment;
+for though a powerful steamer might stem
+the rapid at high flood, the river was
+useless as a waterway for most of the year.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 1859 Livingstone turned his attention
+to a branch of the Zambesi, called the
+Shiré. This river came slowly winding
+down a broad and fertile valley of forest
+and of plains, which stretched on either
+hand towards wooded hills with bare
+mountain-peaks beyond. Its banks were thick
+with leaf and blossom, and the air was
+filled with the scent of flowers, the song of
+birds, and the endless murmur of bees.
+Yet, as they passed up stream in the midst
+of all this beauty, the explorers could see
+the savage Manganja natives lurking behind
+trees, with bent bows, ready to shoot
+them down with barbed and poisoned arrows.
+Nothing happened, however, till the steamer
+came opposite the village of a chief named
+Tingané, who was a terror to the
+Portuguese, and had never yet allowed any man
+to pass his borders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here a crowd of five hundred Manganja
+lined the bank and ordered them to stop.
+Some of the savages even began to take
+aim with their fatal arrows, and it looked
+as though a terrible death would fall upon
+the explorers whether they obeyed or not.
+Livingstone at once went fearlessly on
+shore. He knew that he came for love of
+God, and he believed that he would not
+die till God no longer needed him to work
+on earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Calm and smiling, as if in a playground
+full of children, he walked through the
+bloodthirsty mob to their chief, and told
+him that the steamer was English and not
+Portuguese. Then he explained that the
+English wished to put down the cruel slave
+trade, and make it easier for black men
+to sell their cotton and ivory for cloth and
+beads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tingané liked the idea of this, and wished
+to hear more. Livingstone told him how
+the white man's book said that all men
+and women were sons and daughters of
+God, and therefore must not be treated
+with cruelty and unkindness. Thus Tingané
+was completely won over to friendship.
+He called his people together, and
+told them that the great white chief and
+healer of men had come with a good
+message, and might pass his borders in
+peace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After this there was no more trouble with
+the Manganja, and the leaky <i>Asthmatic</i>
+puffed and panted safely up the river,
+scaring out of their wits the wild animals upon
+its banks. Now and then a clumsy hippopotamus,
+startled out of its sleep, would
+splash out of the water and tear into the
+jungle. Antelopes and zebras fled over the
+plains, and once the explorers disturbed a
+herd of more than eight hundred elephants.
+Wicked-looking crocodiles would
+sometimes dash for the steamer with open
+jaws; but, on finding that it was not
+good to eat, they would dive to the bottom
+like stones. The river was deep and free
+from sandbanks for 200 miles, but here the
+steamer was once more stopped by a chain
+of rapids stretching over 40 miles. These
+Livingstone named the Murchison Cataracts,
+and from this point he made two
+journeys on foot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the first trip he climbed over the
+mountains to the eastward, and found
+Lake Shirwa, whose waters were stagnant
+and bitter. His native guide told him there
+was a much larger lake to the northward;
+so Livingstone, after returning for supplies,
+once more started from the Murchison
+Cataracts in search of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The way led over the highlands of the
+Manganja country towards the head of the
+Shiré valley. The natives were warlike,
+but Livingstone had no trouble with them,
+and easily bought all the food he wanted
+with a few yards of calico or a handful of
+beads. The women wore their hair quite
+short, and disfigured themselves with a
+large ring of ivory or tin through the
+upper lip. The men kept their hair long,
+and did it in as many fashions as white
+women. Sometimes they stiffened it with
+strips of bark into the likeness of a
+buffalo's horn or tail; sometimes they
+shaved off patches in the shape of some
+wild animal, and then thought themselves
+very beautiful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, on September 16, 1859,
+Livingstone came upon the magnificent Lake
+Nyassa, stretching away to the skyline
+like an inland sea. Out of its waters the
+River Shiré ran smooth and deep all down
+the long valley to the Murchison
+Cataracts. Forty miles of road could easily be
+made past these falls, and then the great
+Nyassa would be open to the sea. The
+uplands of the Shiré valley were healthy
+and fertile, and here at last was the place
+where a colony of Christian emigrants
+might teach and show the Africans a life
+of righteousness and industry. Moreover,
+Livingstone saw that, as all the slave traffic
+had to cross the river or the lake, a single
+small steamer could soon put an end to
+the trade.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He therefore wrote home, and promised
+£2000 from the price of his book to be
+spent in sending out suitable emigrants.
+At the same time he asked the Government
+for a new vessel to replace the dying
+<i>Asthmatic</i>, and he also offered £4000
+towards a little steamer for Lake Nyassa.
+In the meantime, while waiting their
+arrival, he kept his promise to the
+Makololo, and started up the Zambesi to take
+them home to Linyanté.
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p><a id="chap06"></a></p>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER VI
+<br><br>
+THE UPPER SHIRÉ AND LAKE NYASSA
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+On his return from Linyanté to Teté,
+Livingstone once more went on board
+the <i>Asthmatic</i>, and started to meet his new
+steamer at the mouth of the Zambesi. Some
+of the Makololo had refused to go back to
+their native country, and Livingstone was
+thus able to have a few of these faithful
+men with him still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poor <i>Asthmatic</i>, however, did not
+reach her journey's end. Her steel plates
+were rotten with rust, and she leaked in
+all directions. Her cabin floor was flooded,
+her bridge was broken down, and her
+engines groaned aloud. In this
+water-logged and rickety state she touched a
+sandbank, turned on her side, and sank,
+after giving her crew just enough time to
+save themselves and their stores in canoes.
+A few weeks later, in June 1861, the new
+steamer, called the <i>Pioneer</i>, reached the
+mouth of the Zambesi. At the same time,
+there came a party of missionaries under
+the brave Bishop Mackenzie, who had been
+sent out by the Universities of Oxford and
+Cambridge to settle in the Shiré valley.
+Livingstone would have taken the mission
+party up the Shiré at once, but he was
+ordered by the Government to look for
+another way to Lake Nyassa, along the
+River Rovuma.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Taking the Bishop with him, he started
+immediately to carry out his orders, but
+the new steamer upset all his plans.
+The <i>Pioneer</i> was a splendid little vessel,
+but she lay two feet deeper in the water
+than she ought, and so kept running
+aground on the sandbanks. After
+struggling a short distance up the Rovuma,
+Livingstone gave up the attempt, and
+returned with the <i>Pioneer</i> to take the mission
+party up the Shiré. Landing at the Murchison
+Cataracts, they made their way towards
+the Manganja highlands on foot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The party had not gone very far before
+they learnt from the natives that gangs of
+slavers had been seen passing through the
+country with their captives. This was
+distressing news, and Livingstone now found
+out how false some of his Portuguese friends
+had been. The Portuguese had helped and
+encouraged Livingstone to make friends of
+the natives; then, as soon as he had gone,
+they had sent their servants on his tracks
+to make slaves. These brutal ruffians said
+they were "Livingstone's children," and so
+the natives let them pass into the heart
+of the country in peace. Then the slavers
+bribed a strong tribe to attack a weak tribe,
+and after the fight they made slaves of the
+captives. Livingstone's unexpected return
+caught some of these villains in the very
+act.
+</p>
+
+<p class="capcenter">
+<a id="img-064"></a>
+<br>
+<img class="imgcenter" src="images/img-064.jpg" alt="A long file of slaves">
+<br>
+A long file of slaves
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had halted his party in a village for
+rest and food, when suddenly a long file of
+eighty-four slaves came round the hillside
+towards them. The captives, mostly women
+and children, were roped together with
+thongs of raw hide, but some of the men
+had their necks fixed in a "goree," or forked
+slave-stick. The back of the neck was
+thrust into the fork, and the two prongs
+were joined by a bar of iron under the chin,
+while a slaver walked behind, holding the
+shaft of the stick, ready to wring the poor
+slave's neck at the first sign of escape.
+Worn out with pain, misery, and fatigue,
+the hapless slaves limped and staggered
+beneath their loads. The slavers, decked
+out with red caps and gaudy finery, marched
+jauntily along, blowing tin horns and
+shouting as though they had just won a noble
+victory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the first sight of the little English
+party, these braggarts fled headlong into
+the bush; but one of the Makololo was too
+quick for their leader, and caught him by
+the wrist. Dragging him by the arm, and
+driving him with the terror of a spear-point,
+the Makololo brought the chief of the slave
+gang to Livingstone, who at once recognised
+him as a servant of the Portuguese
+chief officer at Teté.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The inhuman wretch said he had bought
+the slaves, but his prisoners told a different
+tale. They had been captured in war by
+the slavers, who had burnt their village,
+murdered their tribesmen, and marched
+them off in bonds towards Teté. On the
+way two of the women had tried to loosen
+the thongs that cut their flesh, and were
+instantly shot by their captors. One of the
+men sank down with fatigue, and was killed
+with an axe as a warning to the others.
+Another woman became too exhausted to
+carry her load as well as her baby. The
+heartless slavers tore the child from her
+arms and killed it with terrible cruelty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone and his friends quickly set
+themselves to the work of cutting the thongs
+and sawing the slave-sticks off the captives,
+and while they were thus busy, the chief of
+the slavers escaped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Continuing the journey, the Englishmen
+set free several parties of slaves in the
+next few days before reaching the village
+of Magomero. Here Chigunda, the chief,
+invited Bishop Mackenzie to settle; and,
+as the spot seemed a good one, Magomero
+was thus made the station for the
+Universities' Mission. All the freed slaves
+were joined to the mission, and the work
+of building was going on quickly, when
+word came that a tribe from the neighbouring
+Ajawa country were raiding slaves
+from a village close by. Livingstone and
+the Bishop thought that a friendly talk
+might win the Ajawa over to better ways,
+and a small party at once left the mission
+station to make the attempt. It was not
+long before they saw the smoke of a burning
+village, and then, hurrying forward over
+a hillside, they came upon the raiders making
+off with plunder and captives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Ajawa leader sprang on an ant-hill
+to count the missionary band, and
+Livingstone at once shouted that he had
+come in peace for a friendly talk.
+Unluckily, some Manganja followers called
+out the name of their great warrior,
+Chibisa, foolishly hoping to frighten the
+raiders away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At once the Ajawa leaders raised the cry
+of "Nkondo! Nkondo!&mdash;War! War!" and
+all the raiders dashed to the attack.
+Keeping at a distance of about a hundred yards,
+they began to surround the little band.
+Some of the Ajawa danced like madmen,
+with hideous grimaces meant to strike
+terror into the white men's hearts. Others
+played clownish antics with their weapons
+to show how they would treat their foes.
+Others shot poisoned arrows from shelter
+behind trunks and stones, and wounded one
+man in the arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still Livingstone tried bravely and nobly
+for peace, but in vain: the savages were
+like wild beasts thirsting for prey. Then
+some more of the raiders came up and
+began to fire with muskets. Livingstone
+was unarmed, but some of the party had
+rifles, and fired a few shots in reply. As
+soon as the Ajawa heard the sing of the
+rifle-bullets, they fled in a panic. Some of
+them shouted back that they would track
+the white men down, and kill them where
+they slept, but they never dared to return.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the first time that Livingstone
+had failed to make peace, and it was through
+no fault of his own. But for the foolish
+cry of the Manganja, he would most probably
+have succeeded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stayed at Magomero till he was obliged
+to return to the <i>Pioneer</i>; and his
+parting advice to the Bishop was never to
+interfere with the quarrels of the natives,
+and also to keep on the highlands, so as to
+escape the fever near the river.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone and Kirk now started to
+explore Lake Nyassa. A four-oared boat,
+fitted with a sail, was slung on poles, and
+carried to the head of the Murchison Cataracts
+by native bearers. Here they launched
+her, and with oar and sail passed along the
+smooth waters of the Upper Shiré, till they
+reached the lake. Keeping to the eastern
+coast, they passed bay after bay on a
+beautiful and fertile shore, backed by a
+grand range of purple hills. Cotton and
+corn grew well, and the explorers often saw
+men spinning, weaving, and sewing in the
+huts, while the women hoed the corn. The
+natives were great fishermen, and caught
+all kinds of fish with fine woven nets and
+ivory hooks of their own making.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lake was subject to heavy storms,
+and once the explorers were caught a mile
+from shore by a furious squall. They could
+not land, for in a few minutes the billows
+ran so high, and broke upon the beach with
+such force, their little boat would have been
+dashed to splinters on the stones. All they
+could do was to hold her bows to the wind
+with their oars and try to outride the fury
+of the storm. Up on the crest, down in
+the trough, they fought it wave by wave
+for many hours, while every moment a
+chance of death went speeding by. As the
+white lip of each roller curled over, they
+held their breath, in doubt lest the threatening
+mass should break over the little boat
+and swamp her. Yet breaker after breaker
+went hissing and gurgling past on either
+hand, but not a single one struck her. At
+last, when the storm sank down, they were
+able to land with stiff and aching muscles,
+but with thankful minds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After following the shore for nearly two
+hundred miles, the explorers were almost
+at the head of the lake when they had to
+turn back. Livingstone had arranged to
+go down the Zambesi to meet a ship from
+England which was bringing his wife to
+join his labours once more, and on board
+the same vessel were supplies for the
+<i>Pioneer</i>, and also the little steamer he had
+bought for use in putting down the slave
+trade on Lake Nyassa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On their way down the Shiré, the <i>Pioneer</i>
+struck on a shoal, and there she had to
+stay for five weeks, till the river rose
+enough to float her again. At length
+Livingstone reached the sea, and found his
+wife on board the cruiser <i>Gorgon</i>, but the
+joy of their meeting was not to last long.
+A few weeks after her arrival, she was
+seized by fever at Shupanga. Day and
+night Livingstone nursed and tended her
+with his utmost skill and care, but all in
+vain. In April 1862 she died, and this was
+a sorrow that lasted all his days.
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p><a id="chap07"></a></p>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER VII
+<br><br>
+FOILED BY THE SLAVERS
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone now made a second
+attempt to reach Lake Nyassa by
+the River Rovuma. The explorers started
+in rowing-boats with a party from the
+cruiser <i>Gorgon</i>, and made their way up
+stream for many days without much
+adventure, though twice their right of way
+was disputed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once a tribe of natives crowded both
+banks, and, while fitting poisoned arrows
+to their bows, began the hideous antics of
+their war dance. Their chief hailed the
+boats, and ordered the explorers to stop
+and pay toll. After a parley, Livingstone
+gave him thirty yards of calico, and he
+promised in return that his tribe would be
+their friends. No sooner, however, had
+the first boat rounded the next bend of the
+river, than a cloud of poisoned arrows and
+a few musket-balls came whizzing and
+singing over the heads of her crew. The
+sail was cut and torn, but luckily no one
+was wounded, and a few rifle-shots from
+the second boat sent the natives flying
+through the bush.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another time a surly hippopotamus tried
+to stop their way. He seemed to think
+they had no right to cross his favourite
+bathing-pool, and wake him out of his
+mid-day sleep. Diving under the water, he came
+up just under the boat, and rocked her to
+and fro as he tried to lay hold of her with
+his clumsy jaws. After grinding away at
+her planks for a while with his teeth, he
+at last made up his mind that she was too
+big and too tough for him to swallow, and
+then he plunged off in a fit of the sulks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Livingstone had taken the boats
+as far up the Rovuma as possible, he found
+that the river was divided into two branches,
+and the natives told him that neither of
+them came from the Lake Nyassa. Accordingly
+he returned to Shupanga, and then
+for the last time started up the Shiré in
+the <i>Pioneer</i> with his own little steamer,
+the <i>Lady Nyassa</i>, in tow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was not long before he began to see
+that, even in the short time he had been
+away, the deadly slave trade had come like
+a blight on the land. A half-bred
+Portuguese, named Mariano, and his brutal
+gang had deceived Tingané by calling
+themselves "Livingstone's children," and so were
+treated as friends. Thus, taking him by
+treachery, they killed him and many of his
+tribe, and dragged off all they could to
+slavery. Not content with this, they burnt
+the village and the stores of corn, destroyed
+the crops, and drove away the flocks. No
+more corn would grow for many months,
+and those who escaped were thus left to
+starve. Many of them clung to life by
+hunting game and digging up roots, but far the
+greater number of them died of famine.
+</p>
+
+<p class="capcenter">
+<a id="img-076"></a>
+<br>
+<img class="imgcenter" src="images/img-076.jpg" alt="They burnt the village">
+<br>
+They burnt the village
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When once Tingané was overcome, the
+work of the slavers was easier; for his
+tribe was the strongest, and had been the
+frontier guard. Village by village this foul
+and ruthless piracy spread up the river, till
+now Livingstone saw the whole face of the
+country changed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The smiling valley he had found four
+years ago was now a land of death, strewn
+with black ruins and whitened skeletons.
+Even the song-birds were silent around
+the wasted homes, as though they could
+not bear to sing in the midst of such misery
+and desolation. Yet the inhuman Portuguese
+were paying Mariano for his slaves,
+and Livingstone had not the power to stop
+them. All he could do was to push on
+with his work, and publish all he saw, in
+the hope that the British Government
+would interfere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But fortune was against him completely.
+On reaching the Murchison Cataracts the
+explorers unscrewed the <i>Lady Nyassa</i> to
+pieces, and then began to make a road
+over which they could take her, bit by bit,
+to the head of the rapids. Before the first
+mile of this road was finished, both Kirk
+and Livingstone fell dangerously ill, and
+Kirk had to return to England.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time a despatch came from
+the British Government to recall the
+expedition. The Portuguese Government had
+forbidden all ships but their own to enter
+the Zambesi, and the British did not think
+it worth while to interfere. A bitter
+disappointment like this might well have
+broken his spirit, but Livingstone was too
+brave and too faithful to his cause for that.
+The <i>Pioneer</i> must wait several months for
+the floods before she could go down the
+river, and meanwhile he would row round
+Nyassa in search of a way to the sea
+outside Portuguese country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once more his bearers started to carry a
+boat past the cataracts, and all went well
+till they came to a stretch of smooth but
+swift water below the uppermost rapid.
+Here, to save labour, the boat was launched
+and towed up stream with a rope from the
+bank. All their stores were put inside her,
+and also some of the Makololo, who kept
+her off the rocks with poles. After two
+miles the Makololo, who were splendid
+canoe-men, said the current was too swift
+and dangerous, and they brought the boat
+to the bank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then some conceited Zambesi canoe-men
+took hold of the poles and tow-rope, saying
+they would teach the Makololo how to
+take her up the rapid. Livingstone had
+moved on, away from the bank, and knew
+nothing of their intention till he heard loud
+shouts of distress. He rushed to the bank
+just in time to see his stores and the
+Zambesi men in the water, and his boat
+shooting keel uppermost down the river
+like a dart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some of the party gave chase, but the
+bank was too difficult for speed, and they
+never saw the boat again. The Zambesi
+men swam to shore and knelt down, with
+their foreheads touching the earth, at
+Livingstone's feet. He sent them down to
+the <i>Pioneer</i> for more stores, and, nothing
+daunted by this new disappointment, started
+off to go round Nyassa on foot. But in
+spite of all his efforts he did not reach the
+end of the lake before it was time to return
+to the <i>Pioneer</i> and make his last voyage
+down the Shiré.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Universities' Mission also had come
+to an end for a while. The brave Bishop
+Mackenzie had lost his life from fever on
+a journey down the Shiré. The rest of the
+missionaries thought it best to move down
+from the highlands to the river bank, and
+one by one they died of fever. Livingstone
+now took the remnant of the mission away
+with him on board the <i>Pioneer</i>, lest they
+should again fall into the hands of the
+slavers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In February 1864 he handed the <i>Pioneer</i>
+over to H.M.S. <i>Orestes</i>, at the mouth of the
+Zambesi, while his own little steamer was
+taken in tow to Zanzibar by the cruiser
+<i>Ariel</i>. Here he learnt that many people in
+England and at the Cape were blaming
+him for the failure of the Zambesi expedition,
+and also for the fate of the Universities'
+Mission. Livingstone felt this very
+keenly, for he knew that the chief blame
+lay with the slave trade. If the British
+Government had forced the Portuguese to
+put an end to slavery, there would have
+been no failure at all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Defeated and disappointed as he was,
+Livingstone would not give in, for he knew
+that he was working in God's cause. He
+also firmly believed that, if he could only
+make his countrymen really understand the
+wicked cruelty and waste in Africa, they
+would come to the rescue. Clearly it was
+his duty to awaken their understanding
+and show them the way when they came.
+He determined to visit England, and publish
+all he knew about Africa and the slave
+trade; then he would return to his
+pioneering, and find out more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To get money for the voyage he now
+tried to sell the <i>Lady Nyassa</i>, but, on
+hearing that the Portuguese wanted her for
+a slave-boat, he decided to take her to
+Bombay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was one of the boldest feats he
+ever carried out. Taking with him a crew
+of three white men and nine natives, he
+started in the tiny little steamer to cross
+2500 miles of the Indian Ocean with fourteen
+tons of coal. Two of his white sailors fell
+ill, and so for many days he and the third
+man shared the watch in spells of four
+hours. Then they lost the wind, and lay
+becalmed for twenty-five days, not daring
+to waste their coal. At last a breeze sprang
+up, and they were able to use their sails
+again; but they had to pass through two
+furious storms before their journey's end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The good little <i>Lady Nyassa</i>, however,
+came safely through everything, till strands
+of seaweed and green and yellow
+sea-serpents told them they were near the
+coast of India. They had then only enough
+coal to last twenty-eight hours, and their
+supplies were nearly done; but still they
+managed to hold out and reach Bombay
+after a voyage of forty-five days. The <i>Lady
+Nyassa</i> was so small that no one noticed
+her arrival till Livingstone went on shore
+and made himself known.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In due time Livingstone reached England,
+and wrote an account of the expedition in a
+book called "The Zambesi and its
+Tributaries." He was sought out everywhere
+for speeches, lectures, and entertainments;
+but as soon as his work in England was
+finished he returned to Zanzibar to carry
+out the purpose of his life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before leaving England the Prime Minister
+sent to ask him if there was anything
+he wanted. Many men would have asked
+for money or a title, but Livingstone
+thought of nothing but his work. His only
+request was that the Government would
+make a treaty with Portugal to put down
+slavery and open the Zambesi to honest
+trade. He was then called before a
+committee of the House of Commons, who
+heard all his opinions about Africa and the
+slave trade. Yet all the Government did at
+the time was to give him £500 towards his
+expenses, and to make him Consul of Central
+Africa, but without a salary and without
+a pension. His friends in the Royal
+Geographical Society gave £1500 towards the
+new expedition, and Livingstone promised
+them to try and discover the true sources
+of the Congo and the Nile.
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p><a id="chap08"></a></p>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER VIII
+<br><br>
+IN THE HEART OF AFRICA
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+In March 1866 Livingstone landed near
+the mouth of the Rovuma, and, at the
+age of fifty-three, began the seven long
+years of hardship, misery, and pain that
+wore him to his death. Thirty-six bearers
+came with him, of whom thirteen were
+Sepoys from Bombay, and ten were natives
+of Johanna. Livingstone was very anxious
+to find some beast of burden which could
+stand the poison of the tsetse-fly; and for
+this experiment he brought with him some
+camels, Indian buffaloes, mules, donkeys,
+and a calf. Carrying stores was the great
+difficulty in his travels, and a few hardy
+beasts of burden, instead of a number of
+unruly knaves, would have saved him from
+the terrible want he afterwards had to
+suffer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was not long before his troubles
+began. The Sepoys had charge of the
+animals, and neglected them so shamefully
+that one by one the poor creatures died.
+Livingstone found he could not trust one
+of the thirteen out of his sight, and at
+last they grew so troublesome that he
+sent them back to the sea. His next
+discovery was that the ten natives from
+Johanna were rascals and thieves; and
+one of them, Musa, who had worked in
+the <i>Lady Nyassa</i>, turned out the worst of
+the lot. Moreover, the country had been
+ravaged by slavers, and food grew scarcer
+and scarcer, till at length they lived mainly
+on maize and the few pigeons and guinea-fowl
+shot by the way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The signs of the slave trade were terrible.
+Here, as in the valley of the Shiré,
+nothing seemed too brutal to be done.
+Even women were tied to trees and left
+to starve, because they were too worn out
+to trudge any longer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Most of the slavers in this district were
+Arabs, and they did all they could to make
+trouble for Livingstone. He reached Nyassa
+in August, at a point half-way up its
+eastern shore, and here he wanted to
+cross; but all the boats were in the hands
+of the slavers, and Livingstone could get
+nothing to take him over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Determined not to be beaten, he walked
+round the south end of the lake, and, on
+crossing the Shiré, he came upon ground
+that he had passed before. Old times and
+old friends came into his mind, and he
+wondered sadly if all their labour had been
+wasted. He thought also of his faithful
+Makololo, and longed to have them in the
+place of his present bearers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After passing round the south end of
+Lake Nyassa, he took a north-westerly
+direction, and came to the village of a
+chief named Marenga. Here they met an
+Arab slaver, who cunningly invented a
+story in the hope of frightening
+Livingstone's bearers from going any farther.
+He told Musa that a savage Mazitu chief
+was in front of them, killing all who
+passed his borders, with great cruelty.
+Musa believed this story, and refused to
+go onward. Livingstone tried to convince
+the coward that there were no Mazitu in
+the district, but all his efforts were
+useless. Musa and the other nine Johanna
+natives deserted in a body; but the rest
+of the bearers, much to the Arab's
+disappointment, remained faithful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Marenga's Livingstone pushed on
+towards Lake Tanganyika, and his hardships
+daily grew greater. Owing to the
+slave trade, food was scarce, and the
+natives had little to sell. For many
+days the explorer lived on African maize,
+helped down with milk from some goats
+he had brought for the purpose. The
+next misfortune was the loss of his
+goats, and this left him to break and
+loosen his teeth on the tough, hard maize,
+while he dreamed of delicious and savoury
+dinners.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This want of food made him very weak,
+and, moreover, the toils of the march were
+great. Often he had to wade through
+marshes up to the waist; and after the
+burning day, with its clouds of flies, there
+came the damp heat of night, with clouds
+of mosquitoes bringing fever in their poisonous
+bite. All this was trouble enough, but
+worse still happened.
+</p>
+
+<p class="capcenter">
+<a id="img-088"></a>
+<br>
+<img class="imgcenter" src="images/img-088.jpg" alt="Often he had to wade through marshes up to the waist.">
+<br>
+Often he had to wade through marshes up to the waist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day a native bearer, possibly bribed
+by a slaver, disappeared with Livingstone's
+medicine-chest, and he was now left
+defenceless against fever. Soon he became
+so ill that he sometimes lay insensible on
+the ground; but still his pluck carried him
+through, and at last, in April 1867, he
+reached Chitembé's village, on Lake
+Tanganyika, where he found rest and better
+food.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, Musa and the other Johanna
+natives had gone back to Zanzibar. They
+knew they would get no pay if their bad
+conduct was found out, so they swore that
+Livingstone was dead, and therefore they
+were obliged to return. Musa made up a
+clever story describing how Livingstone
+had been attacked by natives, and had
+died fighting bravely, while the faithful
+Johanna men, after escaping from the fight,
+had returned at nightfall to bury their
+beloved master. Musa repeated this lie
+so skilfully that every one believed him;
+and even Dr. Kirk, who was now at
+Zanzibar, was taken in completely. The tale
+was told at home in the papers, and all
+his countrymen were grieving for his loss,
+when an Englishman, Edward Young, began
+to doubt the story. Young had been on
+the <i>Lady Nyassa</i> with Musa, and knew
+that the rascal's word could never be
+trusted. He laughed at the idea of a
+coward like Musa returning after a fight
+to bury any one, and he found other faults
+in his story.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last the Royal Geographical Society
+sent Young to Africa to find out the truth.
+He went up the Shiré in a steel boat
+called the <i>Search</i>, and his bearers carried
+her in pieces past the Murchison
+Cataracts. Then, launching her again on the
+Upper Shiré, he made his way by Lake
+Nyassa to Marenga's country. Here he
+found out the utter falsehood of Musa's
+story, and learnt that Livingstone had been
+seen alive on his way to Tanganyika.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Young now returned to England; and,
+though his news was mainly good, yet
+many people were still very anxious about
+the explorer's safety. In one way Musa
+had done his master a good turn without
+the least intention. For so much had
+been said in the papers about Livingstone,
+that people began to see how great was
+his work and how noble his life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this time Livingstone knew nothing
+either of Musa's lies or of Young's gallant
+search. While at Chitembé's village he
+heard of a chain of lakes joined by a big
+river, and he started westward to find
+them. Slave-raiding was going on all over
+the country that lay before him; but in
+spite of this Livingstone discovered Lake
+Moero, in November 1867, after suffering
+terribly from illness and want of food. A
+beautiful river, called the Luapula, ran into
+the lake at the south, and out again to
+the north. Down stream, to the northward,
+the natives said the Luapula reached a
+long lake of many islands; while up
+stream, to the southward, they said it came
+from a large lake, called Bangweolo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone decided to look for Bangweolo
+first. Setting out from Moero in a
+southerly course, he came to the village of
+Kazembé, a chief who punished his people
+by cutting off their hands and ears. At
+Kazembé's he fell in with an Arab trader,
+Mohammed Bogharib, who at once took a
+great liking to the explorer. Mohammed
+asked him to dine, and Livingstone sat
+down on a mat to a feast of vermicelli and
+oil, meal cakes and honey; and then, the
+first time for many months, he warmed his
+heart with a bowl of good coffee and sugar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the accounts of the natives,
+Bangweolo was only ten days' march from
+Kazembé's, but now Livingstone's bearers
+refused to go onward. Five only remained
+faithful to the kindest master they ever
+had, and with these the journey was begun.
+It was the same tale of hardship and toil,
+want and suffering; and, since the theft
+of his medicine-chest, there was nothing
+to soothe the fever or ease the pain. Yet
+through all this his patient faith and quiet
+valour carried him on, and, in July 1868,
+he came upon the beautiful Lake Bangweolo.
+There were islands dotted about in
+it, and Livingstone visited some of them
+in a native canoe; but, when he wanted
+to paddle across the lake, his canoe-men
+refused. They were afraid of being made
+slaves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indeed, the curse of slavery seemed
+everywhere in the land. On his way to
+Bangweolo, Livingstone had passed some slaves
+trudging along in their slave-sticks, yet
+singing as they went. Their only hope was
+death; and they were looking forward with
+revengeful joy, because they ignorantly
+believed their spirits could return and kill
+their captors. The meaning of their chant
+was, "Oh, you send me to the sea-coast,
+but my yoke is off in death; back I'll come
+to haunt and kill you." Then, as a chorus,
+they hissed between their teeth in bitter
+hatred the names of those who had robbed
+them of their freedom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone now struggled back to Kazembé's,
+utterly worn out with toil, hunger,
+and fever. Here he found Mohammed
+Bogharib on the point of returning to Ujiji,
+and he gladly accepted the Arab's kind
+offer of an escort thither. Ujiji stood upon
+the eastern shore of Tanganyika, and also
+was on the main slave-route to Zanzibar.
+Before leaving Zanzibar, in the February
+of 1866, Livingstone had arranged with
+Dr. Kirk to send stores, medicine, letters, and
+newspapers to await him at Ujiji, and now
+he looked forward to news of his children,
+and relief from sickness and pain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The journey was a terrible one; for
+Livingstone grew worse and worse, till at
+last he grew dazed with fever and pain,
+and lost count of the days. Mohammed
+saved his life by having him carried in a
+hammock till they reached the west shore
+of Tanganyika, and took canoe to Ujiji.
+The voyage of eighteen days, and the hope
+of his letters and medicine, revived him
+greatly, and he landed at Ujiji with joy.
+But the two men in charge of his stores
+had sold nearly all of them for ivory and
+slaves, and his medicines and mails had
+been left at Unyanyembé, thirteen days
+distant, while the road there was blocked
+by a slave war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was now March 1869, and he had not
+seen a white man's face, or heard of his
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p><a id="chap09"></a></p>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER IX
+<br><br>
+A DEATHBLOW TO SLAVERY
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone at once wrote to Kirk
+at Zanzibar for more stores to be sent
+to Ujiji. At the same time he sent a letter
+to the Sultan of Zanzibar, asking him for
+fifteen trustworthy bearers to carry the
+new supplies. Then, as soon as could be,
+he collected the remnant of his plundered
+things, and wrote his letters and accounts
+of his doings. One or two letters reached
+him here, but these were nearly three years
+old; and very many of his own to his friends
+never got even as far as the sea-coast. At
+a single time he sent off a budget of forty-two
+letters and scientific records, but none
+were heard of again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reason of this was only too plain.
+Ujiji was like a den of villains and thieves.
+All the worst of the slave-trading Arabs
+gathered there on their way to and from
+the coast. They knew that Livingstone
+was against their trade, and they hated
+him accordingly. Some, like Mohammed
+Bogharib, had sense enough to see his
+greatness, and to help him; but others,
+though they dared nothing to his face, did
+all they could behind his back to ruin his
+work and thwart his plans. Wherever they
+met him on his journeys, they would frighten,
+bully, or bribe his bearers to make them
+rebel. By telling the natives that
+Livingstone was really a slaver and a spy, they
+tried to make them refuse him food, guides,
+and canoes. There can be little doubt that
+they got hold of his messengers and
+destroyed his letters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a three months' rest at Ujiji,
+Livingstone felt well enough to set out again.
+Leaving orders for the new bearers from
+Zanzibar to come after him, he started with
+his old followers, and with the few stores
+he had been able to get together. In July
+1869 he crossed Lake Tanganyika by canoe;
+then, striking to the north-west, he made
+his way on foot to Kabambaré, in the
+Manyema country. Here the River Luapula,
+flowing from Lakes Bangweolo and Moero,
+was known by the name of the Lualaba,
+and Livingstone hoped to explore it. Would
+the Lualaba prove to be the Nile or the
+Congo? That was the question he wanted
+to settle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Kabambaré the chief was called Moenékoos,
+a name meaning "Lord of the light-grey,
+red-tailed parrot": and he proved so
+friendly, that Livingstone rested in his village
+for ten days. Then, starting again in
+November, the explorer went westward, through
+Manyema, till he reached the River Luama,
+at a point ten miles from its junction with
+the great Lualaba.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The country through which they passed
+was wonderful in its beauty. Tall palms
+and forest timber crowded the valleys and
+clothed the hillsides to the skyline. Giant
+creepers, as thick as cables, were twisted
+round the massive trunks, or hung from
+limb to limb, and tree to tree, like the
+rigging of a ship. Lilies, orchids, clematis,
+and marigolds opened their rich colours to
+the light and poured their scent into the
+air; while all kinds of fruit clustered among
+the leaves. Gaudy parrots and other
+gay-feathered birds flashed about in the brilliant
+heat, while tribes of monkeys ran up the
+trunks, scampered along the branches, or
+swung themselves on the rope-like creepers.
+Sometimes a group of these would get
+together in a tree-top, and there they would
+chatter and grin about the news of the
+day, and the latest fashions of the monkey
+world. Sometimes they would jabber and
+grimace more earnestly, as though about
+monkey politics; and at times they lost
+their tempers and pelted each other
+with nuts and husks. Now and then
+one of them, either from annoyance or
+for sheer mischief, would take a shot at
+the travellers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Villages were very frequent; and many of
+the natives kept goats, sheep, and fowls,
+and also had gardens of maize, bananas,
+and sugar-cane. Others were helpless and
+ignorant, even not knowing how to light a
+fire by twirling a pointed stick round and
+round inside a hole in a slab of wood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The natives were not very friendly, for
+they believed that Livingstone was a slaver.
+Some of them said they were cannibals, and
+in order to frighten his bearers, showed
+them the skull of a "soko" or gorilla, which
+they had eaten. Livingstone found, however,
+that they never ate men; but often
+enticed a soko with a clump of bananas,
+and then speared him for food.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the Luama, nothing could induce the
+natives to let Livingstone have a canoe with
+which to explore the Lualaba. He found
+out afterwards that even his own bearers
+tried to set the natives against him; for
+this, they thought, would force him to give
+up his journey and take them home. Indeed,
+the ceaseless worry of these worthless
+rascals did more to wear him out than all
+the toils of the journey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Disappointed, but not beaten, Livingstone
+returned to Kabambaré, and stayed there
+for many months till the rainy season was
+over. Then, in June 1870, he started with
+only his three faithful followers, Susi, Chuma,
+and Gardner, and again made the attempt
+to explore the great river. But the natives,
+made unfriendly by the Arabs, refused to
+sell them food, and they soon grew ill and
+exhausted. Tramping through thorns on
+land, wading among sharp reeds and biting
+leeches in the swamps, their feet were cut
+and torn, and their wounds refused to heal.
+There was nothing to be done but to return
+to Kabambaré: and this they did, reaching
+it so worn out and lamed, that they took
+three months to recover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone was on the point of setting
+out a third time for the Lualaba, when he
+heard that his new bearers from Zanzibar
+were on their way towards him. He waited
+for them a long while, in the hope of letters,
+medicines, and stores, but his time and his
+hope were wasted. On 4th February 1871,
+ten worthless slaves came up with only one
+letter. Dozens of Livingstone's letters had
+been lost or destroyed, and their headman,
+Shereef, had stayed behind at Ujiji, spending
+all Livingstone's stores.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In less than a week the new bearers
+rebelled, and it took all Livingstone's powers
+to make them go forward. But in the end
+patience and extra wages persuaded them
+to go on, and at last Livingstone reached
+Nyangwé, on the Lualaba, on 29th March
+1871. Here again the Arab slavers prevented
+him from getting canoes, so he could go no
+farther down the stream. But he heard
+that the Lualaba bore round so much to
+the westward, that he now thought it might
+prove to be the Congo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While Livingstone was thinking what
+next he should do, there happened before
+his eyes a thing so utterly cruel, that it
+swept all else from his mind. He was
+walking in the native market, on the river
+bank at Nyangwé, watching the people
+exchanging their wares. The natives from
+the other shore came over in canoes every
+day to join in the marketing, and that
+morning about 1500 of them, mostly women,
+were present.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Livingstone was moving away to his
+hut, he noticed that many of the Arabs
+were about with their rifles; and presently
+he heard shots in the market behind him.
+Turning sharply round, he saw that the
+Arabs were firing into the middle of the
+helpless crowd, who fled shrieking to their
+canoes. These were all jammed together
+in a small creek, and the natives struggled
+and fell over each other in the effort to
+get them out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then a large party of Arabs, concealed
+near the creek, shot into the huddled
+mass, and the slaughter became terrible.
+Hundreds plunged into the river, and
+struck out for the other bank, while the
+murderers fired at them in the water.
+Some of the canoes were launched, and
+their crews escaped; others were
+overloaded and upset. Many of the swimmers
+were picked up by their friends, but a
+large number were overcome by the strong
+current and sank. In all, about three or
+four hundred perished. One Arab took
+a canoe, and picked up some of the
+survivors, but the sight of Livingstone made
+him ashamed, and he gave them up to his
+care. Livingstone managed to save more
+than thirty, and he kept them safe till he
+was able to return them to their people.
+While the massacre was going on, the
+slaves from the Arab camp carried off all
+that had been left by the natives in the
+terror and tumult of their flight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone at once made up his mind to
+return to Ujiji, and to send a report of this
+wicked outrage to England. He felt sure
+that his countrymen would now come to
+the rescue of this unhappy land, and he
+was right. His report of the massacre on
+the Lualaba was the deathblow to slavery
+in Central Africa, for it roused the whole
+English people. The British Government
+at once set to work, and, with the help of
+other nations, the slave trade was slowly
+but surely ended.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tramp to Ujiji was full of hardship
+and danger. Livingstone was very ill, and
+in pain every step of the way, but the love
+of his duty carried him on. The cowardly
+Arab slavers knew his intention; and, though
+they dared not touch him themselves, they
+tried to persuade the tribes on his path to
+murder him. But most of the natives had
+now seen for themselves that Livingstone
+was not a slaver, and they answered that
+he was "the good one," and they would not
+kill him. Some of them, however, laid in
+ambush, and threw spears at him as he
+passed. He had several narrow escapes,
+and in one day a spear grazed his neck and
+another missed him by only a few inches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, after trudging more than 500
+miles in three months of daily suffering and
+risk, he crossed Tanganyika, and reached
+Ujiji at the end of October. He was worn
+out and at death's door, and now he found
+he was beggared. Shereef had made away
+with all his stores, and not an atom was left.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this terrible need a friend came to him
+as suddenly as though dropped from the
+clouds. One day his followers heard that
+a white man was coming into Ujiji, and
+they rushed at once to tell their master.
+Livingstone went out to meet the stranger,
+and found, to his surprise, that a young
+journalist, H. M. Stanley, was coming to
+his relief, with a large caravan of stores.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone's work against the slave trade
+had made him so much liked in America,
+that an American, J. Gordon Bennet, had
+sent Stanley to find the great explorer,
+whom everybody thought to be lost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This kind and generous act from another
+nation than his own, touched Livingstone
+very much, and he and Stanley became fast
+friends. Livingstone in return told all he
+knew about Africa, and Stanley was always
+grateful for this help when it became his
+turn to be a great explorer.
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br></p>
+
+<p><a id="chap10"></a></p>
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER X
+<br><br>
+THE LAST JOURNEY
+</h2>
+
+<p>
+While Livingstone and Stanley were
+together, they made a short journey
+to the north end of Tanganyika. They
+wanted to see if any river ran out of
+the lake towards the Nile; they found
+that a river, the Rusizi, flowed into the
+lake instead. Had they now crossed the
+Rusizi, and gone northwards, they would
+probably have settled the question of the
+Nile in a few months. But Stanley had
+to return, and Livingstone went with
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Four months with Livingstone made
+Stanley as keen an explorer as his new
+friend. On their way back they talked
+much about the sources of the great rivers,
+and they both thought that the Lualaba
+might still run into the Nile. Had they
+only known it, Livingstone had already
+discovered enough to prove this quite
+impossible. At Nyangwé he had measured the
+height of the Lualaba above the sea-level,
+and had sent the measurements to
+England. Other people had sent measurements
+of the Nile as far as its course was
+known. Geographers at once saw from
+these that the Lualaba could never reach
+the Nile without running uphill. The
+Royal Geographical Society at once wrote
+this to Livingstone, and told him the
+Lualaba must be the Congo. But he never
+received the letter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stanley now tried to persuade his companion
+to go with him to England, but in
+vain. Livingstone had promised his friends
+at home to find the sources of the Nile,
+and he would not give up his promise.
+However, he returned with Stanley as far
+as Unyanyembé; for here he expected to
+find some stores from the British
+Government, who now also promised him a salary
+and a pension.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On their arrival they found that, as usual,
+the stores had been plundered and sold.
+Then Stanley, like a true comrade, shared
+all his supplies and spare clothes with
+Livingstone; and he also promised to try
+and find him fifty honest bearers in
+Zanzibar. On 14th March 1872 they parted
+in much sorrow, for they had grown to
+like each other greatly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone waited at Unyanyembé till
+the end of August, when fifty-seven new
+bearers, chosen by Stanley, came up with
+supplies from Zanzibar. They were honest
+and faithful men; and, with them to help
+him, Livingstone started in good spirits
+for his last journey. He hoped to pass
+round the south of Lake Bangweolo, then
+westward of Lake Moero to the Lualaba;
+and then he would try and reach the
+Nile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In six weeks they were at the south end
+of Tanganyika; and before January 1873
+they had crossed the valley of the
+Chambezé, a river which runs into Bangweolo.
+They then worked round the south of that
+lake; but the rainy season broke early that
+year, and brought with it the usual floods
+and fever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone was sixty years old, and the
+toil and suffering of the last seven years
+now told upon him terribly. He again fell
+very ill, and daily grew weaker. His faithful
+bearers, who loved him like a father, did all
+they could to take care of him, and carried
+him through mile after mile of marsh
+and flood. If these fine fellows had been
+with him six years ago, his work would
+long have been done. At times he began
+to think that he would not finish his task.
+"I shall never be able to play," he wrote
+to a friend who was resting after a life of
+hard work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Day after day, in the pitiless rain, they
+toiled over the swamp-land, splashed
+through the flood, and forded swollen
+streams, sometimes up to the neck, with
+their burdens on their heads. A stretch of
+hard ground was a rarity, while food grew
+scarcer and scarcer, and fever got worse
+and worse. The bearers made a kitanda,
+or stretcher slung on a pole, for they
+saw that their Bwana (their master) was
+no longer able to sit up. There was no
+proper food for a sick man&mdash;for milk, the
+one thing most needed, was not to be
+had.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For four days Livingstone was too weak
+to write in his diary anything but the date.
+Then, on April 27th, he feebly scrawled,
+"Knocked up quite, and remain
+... recover..... Sent to buy milch goats." He
+still had pluck and hope of recovery,
+but his men had only grief. They scoured
+the country for miles around, but they
+could not get a single goat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They saw the end must now come, and
+they pushed onward to higher ground,
+reaching the village of a chief called
+Chitambo on April 29th. Here their
+quick and skilful hands in a few hours
+built him a hut, and they laid him, in
+great pain, on a bed made of boughs
+and dried grass, covered with blankets.
+Susi tended him all next day, and at
+nightfall Majwara kept watch outside his
+master's door. In the dead of night
+Majwara came calling, "Come to Bwana, Susi,
+I am afraid."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Susi and some others crept reverently
+into the hut; and, by the flickering light
+of a candle, they saw the saviour of
+Central Africa dead on his knees at the
+bedside, with his hands to his face on the
+pillow.
+</p>
+
+<p class="capcenter">
+<a id="img-112"></a>
+<br>
+<img class="imgcenter" src="images/img-112.jpg" alt="They saw him dead on his knees">
+<br>
+They saw him dead on his knees
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is a brave thing to die for one's
+fellow-men; it is also brave, and often far
+harder, to live for them. Livingstone did
+both. Indeed, the humble Blantyre
+mill-boy had done the noblest and highest
+thing that man can do; he had given his
+whole life to help God's less happy creatures.
+And this he had done, not for money nor
+for fame, but out of love for God and
+man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the grey dawn of May 1st, his faithful
+followers clustered round the camp fire
+to take counsel. They talked of their
+beloved Bwana, the master who never struck
+his bearers, and who nursed them like his
+own children when they fell sick. Had he
+not come from the far land of the great
+Queen, not to make slaves, like the
+Portuguese, but to set men free? Yes, he was
+a great white chief, and he must go home
+to the tombs of his fathers: that was
+certain, and they would see to it, or die.
+He had given some of his wisdom to
+Susi and Chuma, and they would be head-men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Susi and Chuma made their plans.
+With reverent care they counted and
+packed all their master's things, and
+carried his body to an open spot near
+the village. Here some of them built a
+new hut, open to the sun, and began to
+embalm the body; while others made a
+stout wooden stockade around it. Outside
+all they built a circle of huts for
+themselves, and, night and day, they kept watch
+till the embalming was done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They buried his heart beneath a large
+mvula-tree, and put up two posts and a
+cross-bar to mark the spot. A day of
+mourning was held, and all Chitambo's
+people, as is their custom, came with bows
+and spears; while the bearers fired volleys
+with their rifles. At last the body was
+wrapped, like a mummy, in bark and
+sailcloth, and lashed to a pole; and so
+the return journey was begun.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No praise is too high for the pluck and
+hardihood of this little band of faithful
+men. Once more they faced all the old
+risks and hardships of floods, fever, and
+want of food. They crossed the Luapula,
+and made for the south end of Tanganyika.
+Their great fear was about the
+ignorant fancies of the natives, who dislike
+a dead body passing through their villages.
+Often they had to pay toll, and once they
+were forced to fight. They came to a tribe
+of natives who had a large stockade, and
+also two villages close at hand. The
+people in the stockade had been drinking
+palm-wine, and the son of their chief was
+drunk. The chief might have proved
+friendly, but his son refused to let the
+travellers pass. He quickly forced on a
+quarrel, and his men began to shoot
+arrows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Susi's party cleared the stockade
+of natives, and put their precious
+burden in one of the huts inside. Then,
+rifles in hand, they stormed the two
+villages, burning the huts and driving the
+people to their canoes. After this they lived
+on their spoil for a week in the stockade,
+till its owners came to make peace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they reached Unyanyembé, they
+met an expedition sent from England to
+search for Livingstone; and they learnt
+that another relief party had started up
+the Congo from the west coast. The
+officer at Unyanyembé wanted to bury the
+body at once. Susi and his men, however,
+stoutly refused to give up their purpose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So the faithful band went on their work
+of love; and, after nine months on foot,
+reached the sea-coast at Bagamoyo, in
+February 1874. Here these black men
+of honour and ability handed over their
+master's body to the British Consul. All
+his property, too, was there, down to the
+last button.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their task was done, and, with sad
+faces and heavy hearts, they were sent
+away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone's body was carried to its
+grave in Westminster Abbey on 18th April
+1874, by Oswell, Kirk, Young, Stanley, and
+others of his old friends. But the work of
+his noble spirit was not ended. All men
+hastened to do him honour, and many now
+began to do his bidding. He had once
+said that, if he could only bring about the
+end of the slave trade, he would count it
+"a far greater feat than the discovery of
+all the sources together."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dirge over his grave acted on his
+country like a bugle-call to Africa. Other
+brave men pressed forward to carry on the
+work that the unselfish Scotch peasant lad
+had begun; and now slavery in Africa is
+all but ended. Livingstone sawed through
+the first slave-stick in the Shiré Valley:
+Gordon, Kitchener, Macdonald, and Wingate
+broke up the last strongholds of
+slavery on the Nile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Livingstone just missed the Nile, but he
+found the source of the Congo, the third
+great river of the world. Stanley finished
+most of the pioneering that was left.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is now a good road past the
+Murchison Cataracts, while Lake Nyassa
+floats two British gunboats and a fleet of
+trading steamers. The Universities'
+Mission, too, have their own steamer on the
+lake; and others missions also are hard
+at work on Livingstone's plans. Lake
+Tanganyika is joined by a road to Nyassa,
+and will soon be reached by railway from
+the Victoria Falls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Besides this, the nations of Europe have
+divided Africa amongst themselves. We
+English have taken the land of about
+thirty million blacks into our charge, and
+we are trying to govern them justly.
+Livingstone also wanted us to teach them
+how to make the best use of their lives;
+and he proved that gentleness and justice
+could make noble men, like Susi and his
+faithful band. If we do this duty to the
+Africans, they will stand by us when we
+need them; and children who want to
+have a British Empire in their old age
+will do well to think about this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are black men still in Africa
+whose faces light up with joy at
+Livingstone's name. They will answer and ask
+questions, in their quaint way, about the
+great man whom they called the Wise
+Heart and Healer of Men. "Yes, we
+loved him, and we served him too. Was
+he not our Bwana, who never struck his
+bearers? Of course we sent him back to
+the great White Queen. Did she not send
+him to Africa, not to get ivory and gold
+and slaves, like the Arabs and
+Portuguese, but to give a good message of
+wisdom, and to set men free? Have you
+many like him in your land? Ah, but his
+heart is still in Africa, under the
+mvula-tree at Chitambo's."
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t3">
+THE END
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br></p>
+
+<p class="t4">
+ Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co.<br>
+ Edinburgh & London<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br><br><br><br></p>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78151 ***</div>
+</body>
+
+</html>
+
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+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78151
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78151)