Initial commit of ebook 78151 filesHEADmain

1 files changed, 2131 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/78151-0.txt b/78151-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6f42bda
--- /dev/null
+++ b/78151-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2131 @@
+*** 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 ***