The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death Volume Ii Part 29

_26th April, 1873._--(No entry except the date.)

[They proceeded as far as Kalunganjovu's town, the chief himself coming to meet them on the way dressed in Arab costume and wearing a red fez.

Whilst waiting here Susi was instructed to count over the bags of beads, and, on reporting that twelve still remained in stock, Dr. Livingstone told him to buy two large tusks if an opportunity occurred, as he might run short of goods by the time they got to Ujiji, and could then exchange them with the Arabs there for cloth, to spend on their way to Zanzibar.]

To-day, the _27th April, 1873,_ he seems to have been almost dying. No entry at all was made in his diary after that which follows, and it must have taxed him to the utmost to write:--

"Knocked up quite, and remain--recover--sent to buy milch goats. We are on the banks of the Molilamo."

They are the last words that David Livingstone wrote.

From this point we have to trust entirely to the narrative of the men.

They explain the above sentence as follows: Salimane, Amisi, Hamsani, and Laede, accompanied by a guide, were sent off to endeavour if possible to buy some milch goats on the upper part of the Molilamo.[34]

They could not, however, succeed; it was always the same story--the Mazitu had taken everything. The chief, nevertheless, sent a substantial present of a kid and three baskets of ground-nuts, and the people were willing enough to exchange food for beads. Thinking he could eat some Mapira corn pounded up with ground-nuts, the Doctor gave instructions to the two women M'sozi and M'toweka, to prepare it for him, but he was not able to take it when they brought it to him.

_28th April, 1873._--Men were now despatched in an opposite direction, that is to visit the villages on the right bank of the Molilamo as it flows to the Lake; unfortunately they met with no better result, and returned empty handed.

On the _29th April_, Kalunganjovu and most of his people came early to the village. The chief wished to a.s.sist his guest to the utmost, and stated that as he could not be sure that a sufficient number of canoes would be forthcoming unless he took charge of matters himself, he should accompany the caravan to the crossing place, which was about an hour's march from the spot. "Everything should be done for his friend," he said.

They were ready to set out. On Susi's going to the hut, Dr. Livingstone told him that he was quite unable to walk to the door to reach the kitanda, and he wished the men to break down one side of the little house, as the entrance was too narrow to admit it, and in this manner to bring it to him where he was: this was done, and he was gently placed upon it, and borne out of the village.

Their course was in the direction of the stream, and they followed it till they came to a reach where the current was uninterrupted by the numerous little islands which stood partly in the river and partly in the flood on the upper waters. Kalunganjovu was seated on a knoll, and actively superintended the embarkation, whilst Dr. Livingstone told his bearers to take him to a tree at a little distance off, that he might rest in the shade till most of the men were on the other side. A good deal of care was required, for the river, by no means a large one in ordinary times, spread its waters in all directions, so that a false step, or a stumble in any unseen hole, would have drenched the invalid and the bed also on which he was carried.

The pa.s.sage occupied some time, and then came the difficult task of conveying the Doctor across, for the canoes were not wide enough to allow the kitanda to be deposited in the bottom of either of them.

Hitherto, no matter how weak, Livingstone had always been able to sit in the various canoes they had used on like occasions, but now he had no power to do so. Taking his bed off the kitanda, they laid it in the bottom of the strongest canoe, and tried to lift him; but he could not bear the pain of a hand being pa.s.sed under his back. Beckoning to Chumah, in a faint voice he asked him to stoop down over him as low as possible, so that he might clasp his hands together behind his head, directing him at the same how to avoid putting any pressure on the lumbar region of the back; in this way he was deposited in the bottom of the canoe, and quickly ferried across the Mulilamo by Chowpere, Susi, Farijala, and Chumah. The same precautions were used on the other side: the kitanda was brought close to the canoe, so as to prevent any unnecessary pain in disembarking.

Susi now hurried on ahead to reach Chitambo's village, and superintend the building of another house. For the first mile or two they had to carry the Doctor through swamps and plashes, glad to reach something like a dry plain at last.

It would seem that his strength was here at its very lowest ebb. Chumah, one of his bearers on these the last weary miles the great traveller was destined to accomplish, says that they were every now and then implored to stop and place their burden on the ground. So great were the pangs of his disease during this day that he could make no attempt to stand, and if lifted for a few yards a drowsiness came over him, which alarmed them all excessively. This was specially the case at one spot where a tree stood in the path. Here one of his attendants was called to him, and, on stooping down, he found him unable to speak from faintness. They replaced him in the kitanda, and made the best of their way on the journey. Some distance further on great thirst oppressed him; he asked them if they had any water, but, unfortunately for once, not a drop was to be procured. Hastening on for fear of getting too far separated from the party in advance, to their great comfort they now saw Farijala approaching with some which Susi had thoughtfully sent off from Chitambo's village.

Still wending their way on, it seemed as if they would not complete their task, for again at a clearing the sick man entreated them to place him on the ground, and to let him stay where he was. Fortunately at this moment some of the outlying huts of the village came in sight, and they tried to rally him by telling him that he would quickly be in the house that the others had gone on to build, but they were obliged as it was to allow him to remain for an hour in the native gardens outside the town.

On reaching their companions it was found that the work was not quite finished, and it became necessary therefore to lay him under the broad eaves of a native hut till things were ready.

Chitambo's village at this time was almost empty. When the crops are growing it is the custom to erect little temporary houses in the fields, and the inhabitants, leaving their more substantial huts, pa.s.s the time in watching their crops, which are scarcely more safe by day than by night; thus it was that the men found plenty of room and shelter ready to their hand. Many of the people approached the spot where he lay whose praises had reached them in previous years, and in silent wonder they stood round him resting on their bows. Slight drizzling showers were falling, and as soon as possible his house was made ready and banked round with earth.

Inside it, the bed was raised from the floor by sticks and gra.s.s, occuping a position across and near to the bay-shaped end of the hut: in the bay itself bales and boxes were deposited, one of the latter doing duty for a table, on which the medicine chest and sundry other things were placed. A fire was lighted outside, nearly opposite the door, whilst the boy Majwara slept just within to attend to his master's wants in the night.

On the _30th April, 1873,_ Chitambo came early to pay a visit of courtesy, and was shown into the Doctor's presence, but he was obliged to send him away, telling him to come again on the morrow, when he hoped to have more strength to talk to him, and he was not again disturbed. In the afternoon he asked Susi to bring his watch to the bedside, and explained to him the position in which to hold his hand, that it might lie in the palm whilst he slowly turned the key.

So the hours stole on till nightfall. The men silently took to their huts, whilst others, whose duty it was to keep watch, sat round the fires, all feeling that the end could not be far off. About 11 P.M.

Susi, whose hut was close by, was told to go to his master. At the time there were loud shouts in the distance, and, on entering, Dr.

Livingstone said, "Are our men making that noise?" "No," replied Susi; "I can hear from the cries that the people are scaring away a buffalo from their dura fields." A few minutes afterwards he said slowly, and evidently wandering, "Is this the Luapula?" Susi told him they were in Chitambo's village, near the Mulilamo, when he was silent for a while.

Again, speaking to Susi, in Suaheli this time, he said, "Sikun'gapi kuenda Luapula?" (How many days is it to the Luapula?)

"Na zani zikutatu, Bwana" (I think it is three days, master), replied Susi.

A few seconds after, as if in great pain, he half sighed, half said, "Oh dear, dear!" and then dozed off again.

It was about an hour later that Susi heard Majwara again outside the door, "Bwana wants you, Susi." On reaching the bed the Doctor told him he wished him to boil some water, and for this purpose he went to the fire outside, and soon returned with the copper kettle full. Calling him close, he asked him to bring his medicine-chest and to hold the candle near him, for the man noticed he could hardly see. With great difficulty Dr. Livingstone selected the calomel, which he told him to place by his side; then, directing him to pour a little water into a cup, and to put another empty one by it, he said in a low feeble voice, "All right; you can go out now." These were the last words he was ever heard to speak.

It must have been about 4 A.M. when Susi heard Majwara's step once more. "Come to Bwana, I am afraid; I don't know if he is alive." The lad's evident alarm made Susi run to arouse Chumah, Chowpere, Matthew, and Muanyasere, and the six men went immediately to the hut.

Pa.s.sing inside they looked towards the bed. Dr. Livingstone was not lying on it, but appeared to be engaged in prayer, and they instinctively drew backwards for the instant. Pointing to him, Majwara said, "When I lay down he was just as he is now, and it is because I find that he does not move that I fear he is dead." They asked the lad how long he had slept? Majwara said he could not tell, but he was sure that it was some considerable time: the men drew nearer.

A candle stuck by its own wax to the top of the box, shed a light sufficient for them to see his form. Dr. Livingstone was kneeling by the side of his bed, his body stretched forward, his head buried in his hands upon the pillow. For a minute they watched him: he did not stir, there was no sign of breathing; then one of them, Matthew, advanced softly to him and placed his hands to his cheeks. It was sufficient; life had been extinct some time, and the body was almost cold: Livingstone was dead.

His sad-hearted servants raised him tenderly up, and laid him full length on the bed, then, carefully covering him, they went out into the damp night air to consult together. It was not long before the c.o.c.ks crew, and it is from this circ.u.mstance--coupled with the fact that Susi spoke to him some time shortly before midnight--that we are able to state with tolerable certainty that he expired early on the 1st of May.

It has been thought best to give the narrative of these closing hours as nearly as possible in the words of the two men who attended him constantly, both here and in the many illnesses of like character which he endured in his last six years' wanderings; in fact from the first moment of the news arriving in England, it was felt to be indispensable that they should come home to state what occurred.

The men have much to consider as they cower around the watch-fire, and little time for deliberation. They are at their furthest point from home and their leader has fallen at their head; we shall see presently how they faced their difficulties.

Several inquiries will naturally arise on reading this distressing history; the foremost, perhaps, will be with regard to the entire absence of everything like a parting word to those immediately about him, or a farewell line to his family and friends at home. It must be very evident to the reader that Livingstone entertained very grave forebodings about his health during the last two years of his life, but it is not clear that he realized the near approach of death when his malady suddenly pa.s.sed into a more dangerous stage.

It may be said, "Why did he not take some precautions or give some strict injunctions to his men to preserve his note-books and maps, at all hazards, in the event of his decease? Did not his great ruling pa.s.sion suggest some such precaution?"

Fair questions, but, reader, you have all--every word written, spoken, or implied.

Is there, then, no explanation? Yes; we think past experience affords it, and it is offered to you by one who remembers moreover how Livingstone himself used to point out to him in Africa the peculiar features of death by malarial poisoning.

In full recollection of eight deaths in the Zambesi and Shire districts, not a single parting word or direction in any instance can be recalled.

Neither hope nor courage give way as death approaches. In most cases a comatose state of exhaustion supervenes, which, if it be not quickly arrested by active measures, pa.s.ses into complete insensibility: this is almost invariably the closing scene.

In Dr. Livingstone's case we find some departure from the ordinary symptoms.[35] He, as we have seen by the entry of the 18th April was alive to the conviction that malarial poison is the basis of every disorder in Tropical Africa, and he did not doubt but that he was fully under its influence whilst suffering so severely. As we have said, a man of less endurance in all probability would have perished in the first week of the terrible approach to the Lake, through the flooded country and under the continual downpour that he describes. It tried every const.i.tution, saturated every man with fever poison, and destroyed several, as we shall see a little further on. The greater vitality in his iron system very likely staved off for a few days the last state of coma to which we refer, but there is quite sufficient to show us that only a thin margin lay between the heavy drowsiness of the last few days before reaching Chitambo's and the final and usual symptom that brings on unconsciousness and inability to speak.

On more closely questioning the men one only elicits that they imagine he hoped to recover as he had so often done before, and if this really was the case it will in a measure account for the absence of anything like a dying statement, but still they speak again and again of his drowsiness, which in itself would take away all ability to realize vividly the seriousness of the situation. It may be that at the last a flash of conviction for a moment lit up the mind--if so, what greater consolation can those have who mourn his loss, than the account that the men give of what they saw when they entered the hut?

Livingstone had not merely turned himself, he had risento pray; he still rested on his knees, his hands were clasped under his head: when they approached him he seemed to live. He had not fallen to right or left when he rendered up his spirit to G.o.d. Death required no change of limb or position; there was merely the gentle settling forwards of the frame unstrung by pain, for the Traveller's perfect rest had come. Will not time show that the men were scarcely wrong when they thought "he yet speaketh"--aye, perhaps far more clearly to us than he could have done by word or pen or any other means!

Is it, then, presumptuous to think that the long-used fervent prayer of the wanderer sped forth once more--that the constant supplication became more perfect in weakness, and that from his "loneliness" David Livingstone, with a dying effort, yet again besought Him for whom He laboured to break down the oppression and woe of the land?

Before daylight the men were quietly told in each hut what had happened, and that they were to a.s.semble. Coming together as soon as it was light enough to see, Susi and Chumah said that they wished everybody to be present whilst the boxes were opened, so that in case money or valuables were in them, all might be responsible. Jacob Wainwright (who could write, they knew) was asked to make some notes which should serve as an inventory, and then the boxes were brought out from the hut.

Before he left England in 1865, Dr. Livingstone arranged that his travelling equipment should be as compact as possible. An old friend gave him some exceedingly well-made tin-boxes, two of which lasted out the whole of his travels. In these his papers and instruments were safe from wet and from white ants, which have to be guarded against more than anything else. Besides the articles mentioned below, a number of letters and despatches in various stages were likewise enclosed, and one can never sufficiently extol the good feeling which after his death invested all these writings with something like a sacred care in the estimation of his men. It was the Doctor's custom to carry a small metallic note-book in his pocket: a quant.i.ty of these have come to hand filled from end to end, and as the men preserved every one that they found, we have a daily entry to fall back upon. Nor was less care shown for his rifles, s.e.xtants, his Bible and Church-service, and the medicine chest.

Jacob's entry is as follows, and it was thoughtfully made at the back end of the same note-book that was in use by the Doctor when he died. It runs as follows:--

"11 o'clock night, 28th April.

"In the chest was found about a shilling and half, and in other chest his hat, 1 watch, and 2 small boxes of measuring instrument, and in each box there was one. 1 compa.s.s, 3 other kind of measuring instrument. 4 other kind of measuring instrument. And in other chest 3 drachmas and half half scrople."

A word is necessary concerning the first part of this. It will be observed that Dr. Livingstone made his last note on the 27th April.

Jacob, referring to it as the only indication of the day of the month, and fancying, moreover, that it was written on the _preceding day,_ wrote down "28th April." Had he observed that the few words opposite the 27th in the pocket-book related to the stay at Kalunganjovu's village, and not to any portion of the time at Chitambo's, the error would have been avoided. Again, with respect to the time. It was about 11 o'clock P.M. when Susi last saw his master alive, and therefore this time is noted, but both he and Chumah feel quite sure, from what Majwara said, that death did not take place till some hours after.