The Personal Life of David Livingstone Part 13

But I do not wonder at your anxiety for my speedy return. I am sorry you have been disappointed, but you know no mortal can control disease. The Makololo are wonderfully well pleased with the path we have already made, and if I am successful in going down to Quilimane, that will be still better. I have written you by every opportunity, and am very sorry your letters have been miscarried."

To his father-in-law he expresses his warm grat.i.tude for the stores. It was feared by the natives that the goods were bewitched, so they were placed on an island, a hut was built over them, and there Livingstone found them on his arrival, a year after! A letter of twelve quarto pages to Mr. Moffat gives his impressions of his journey, while another of sixteen pages to Mrs. Moffat explains his "plans," about which she had asked more full information. He quiets her fears by his favorite texts for the present--"Commit thy way to the Lord," and "Lo, I am with you alway"; and his favorite vision of the future--the earth full of the knowledge of the Lord. He is somewhat cutting at the expense of so-called "missionaries to the heathen, who never march into real heathen territory, and quiet their consciences by opposing their do-nothingism to my blundering do-somethingism!" He is indignant at the charge made by some of his enemies that no good was done among the Bakwains. They were, in many respects, a different people from before.

Any one who should be among the Makololo as he had been, would be thankful for the state of the Bakwains. The seed would always bear fruit, but the husbandman had need of great patience, and the end was sure.

Sekeletu had not been behaving well in Livingstone's absence. He had been conducting marauding parties against his neighbors, which even Livingstone's men, when they heard of it, p.r.o.nounced to be "bad, bad."

Livingstone was obliged to reprove him. A new uniform had been sent to the chief from Loanda, with which he appeared at church, "attracting more attention than the sermon." He continued, however, to 'show the same friendship for Livingstone, and did all he could for him when he set out eastward. A new escort of men was provided, above a hundred and twenty strong, with ten slaughter cattle, and three of his best riding oxen; stores of food were given, and a right to levy tribute over the tribes that were subject to Sekeletu as he pa.s.sed through their borders.

If Livingstone had performed these journeys with some long-pursed society or individual at his back, his feat even then would have been wonderful; but it becomes quite amazing when we think that he went without stores, and owed everything to the influence he acquired with men like Sekeletu and the natives generally. His heart was much touched on one occasion by the disinterested kindness of Sekeletu. Having lost their way on a dark night in the forest, in a storm of rain and lightning, and the luggage having been carried on, they had to pa.s.s the night under a tree. The chief's blanket had not been carried on, and Sekeletu placed Livingstone under it, and lay down himself on the wet ground. "If such men must perish before the white by an immutable law of heaven," he wrote to the Geographical Society (25th January, 1856), "we must seem to be under the same sort of terrible necessity in our Caffre wars as the American Professor of Chemistry said he was under, when he dismembered the man whom he had murdered."

Again Livingstone sets out on his weary way, untrodden by white man's foot, to pa.s.s through unknown tribes, whose savage temper might give him his quietus at any turn of the road. There were various routes to the sea open to him. He chose the route along the Zambesi--though the the most difficult, and through hostile tribes--because it seemed the most likely to answer his desire to find a commercial highway to the coast.

Not far to the east of Linyanti, he beheld for the first time those wonderful falls of which he had only heard before, giving an English name to them,--the first he had ever given in all his African journeys,--the Victoria Falls. We have seen how genuine his respect was for his Sovereign, and it was doubtless a real though quiet pleasure to connect her name with the grandest natural phenomenon in Africa, This is one of the discoveries[43] that have taken most hold on the popular imagination, for the Victoria Falls are like a second Niagara, but grander and more astonishing; but except as ill.u.s.trating his views of the structure of Africa, and the distribution of its waters, it had not much influence, and led to no very remarkable results. Right across the channel of the river was a deep fissure only eighty feet wide, into which the whole volume of the river, a thousand yards broad, tumbled to the depth of a hundred feet[44], the fissure being continued in zigzag form for thirty miles, so that the stream had to change its course from right to left and left to right, and went through the hills boiling and roaring, sending up columns of steam, formed by the compression of the water falling into its narrow wedge-shaped receptacle.

[Footnote 43: Virtually a discovery, though marked in an old map.]

[Footnote 44: Afterward ascertained by him to be 1800 yards and 820 feet respectively.]

A discovery as to the structure of the country, long believed in by him, but now fully verified, was of much more practical importance. It had been ascertained by him that skirting the central hollow there were two longitudinal ridges extremely favorable for settlements, both for missions and merchandise. We shall hear much of this soon.

Slowly but steadily the eastward tramp is continued, often over ground which was far from favorable for walking exercise. "Pedestrianism," said Livingstone, "may be all very well for those whose obesity requires much exercise; but for one who was becoming as thin as a lath through the constant perspiration caused by marching day after day in the hot sun, the only good I saw in it was that it gave an honest sort of a man a vivid idea of the tread-mill."

When Livingstone came to England, and was writing books, his tendency was rather to get stout than thin; and the disgust with which he spoke then of the "beastly fat" seemed to show that if for nothing else than to get rid of it he would have been glad to be on the tread-mill again.

In one of his letters to Mr. Maclear he thus speaks of a part of this journey: "It was not likely that I should know our course well, for the country there is covered with shingle and gravel, bushes, trees, and gra.s.s, and we were without path. Skulking out of the way of villages where we were expected to pay after the purse was empty, it was excessively hot and steamy; the eyes had to be always fixed on the ground to avoid being tripped."

In the course of this journey he had even more exciting escapades among hostile tribes than those which he had encountered on the way to Loanda.

His serious anxieties began when he pa.s.sed beyond the tribes that owned the sovereignty of Sekeletu. At the union of the rivers Loangwa and Zambesi, the suspicious feeling regarding him reached a climax, and he could only avoid the threatened doom of the Bazimka (_i.e._ b.a.s.t.a.r.d Portuguese) who had formerly incurred the wrath of the chief, by showing his bosom, arms, and hair, and asking if the Bazimka were like that.

Livingstone felt that there was danger in the air. In fact, he never seemed in more imminent peril:

_14th January_, 1856.--At the confluence of the Loangwa and Zambesi. Thank G.o.d for his great mercies thus far. How soon I may be called to stand before Him, my righteous Judge, I know not. All hearts are in his hands, and merciful and gracious is the Lord our G.o.d. O Jesus, grant me resignation to Thy will, and entire reliance on Thy powerful hand. On Thy Word alone I lean. But wilt Thou permit me to plead for Africa?

The cause is Thine. What an impulse will be given to the idea that Africa is not open if I perish now! See, O Lord, how the heathen rise up against me, as they did to Thy Son. I commit my way unto Thee. I trust also in Thee that Thou wilt direct my steps. Thou givest wisdom liberally to all who ask Thee--give it to me, my Father. My family is Thine. They are in the best hands. Oh! be gracious, and all our sins do Thou blot out.

'A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, On Thy kind arms I fall.'

Leave me not, forsake me not. I cast myself and all my cares down at Thy feet. Thou knowest all I need, for time and for eternity.

"It seems a pity that the important facts about the two healthy longitudinal ridges should not become known in Christendom. Thy will be done!... They will not furnish us with more canoes than two. I leave my cause and all my concerns in the hands of G.o.d, my gracious Saviour, the Friend of sinners.

"_Evening_.--Felt much turmoil of spirit in view of having all my plans for the welfare of this great region and teeming population knocked on the head by savages to-morrow. But I read that Jesus came and said, 'All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations--and lo, _I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world_' It is the word of a gentleman of the most sacred and strictest honor, and there is an end on't. I will not cross furtively by night as I intended. It would appear as flight, and should such a man as I flee? Nay, verily, I shall take observations for lat.i.tude and longitude to-night, though they may be the last. I feel quite calm now, thank G.o.d.

"15th _January_, 1856.--Left bank of Loangwa. The natives of the surrounding country collected round us this morning all armed. Children and women were sent away, and Mburuma's wife who lives here was not allowed to approach, though she came some way from her village in order to pay me a visit. Only one canoe was lent, though we saw two tied to the bank. And the part of the river we crossed at, about a mile from the confluence, is a good mile broad. We pa.s.sed all our goods first, to an island in the middle, then the cattle and men, I occupying the post of honor, being the last to enter the canoe. We had, by this means, an opportunity of helping each other in case of attack. They stood armed at my back for some time. I then showed them my watch, burning-gla.s.s, etc., etc., and kept them amused till all were over, except those who could go into the canoe with me. I thanked them all for their kindness and wished them peace."

Nine days later they were again threatened by Mpende:

_"23d January_, 1856.--At Mpende's this morning at sunrise, a party of his people came close to our encampment, using strange cries, and waving some red substance toward us. They then lighted a fire with charms in it, and departed uttering the same hideous screams as before. This is intended to render us powerless, and probably also to frighten us. No message has yet come from him, though several parties have arrived, and profess to have come simply to see the white man. Parties of his people have been collecting from all quarters long before daybreak. It would be considered a challenge--for us to move down the river, and an indication of fear and invitation to attack if we went back. So we must wait in patience, and trust in Him who has the hearts of all men in his hands. To Thee, O G.o.d, we look. And, oh! Thou who wast the man of sorrows for the sake of poor vile sinners, and didst not disdain the thief's pet.i.tion, remember me and Thy cause in Africa. Soul and body, my family, and Thy cause, I commit all to Thee. Hear, Lord, for Jesus' sake."

In the entire records of Christian heroism, there are few more remarkable occasions of the triumph of the spirit of holy trust than those which are recorded here so quietly and modestly. We are carried back to the days of the Psalmist: "I will not be afraid of ten thousand of the people that have set themselves against me round about." In the case of David Livingstone as of the other David, the triumph of confidence was not the less wonderful that it was preceded by no small inward tumult. Both were human creatures. But in both the flutter lasted only till the soul had time to rally its trust--to think of G.o.d as a living friend, sure to help in time of need. And how real is the sense of G.o.d's presence! The mention of the two longitudinal ridges, and of the refusal of the people to give more than two canoes, side by side with the most solemn appeals, would have been incongruous, or even irreverent, if Livingstone had not felt that he was dealing with the living G.o.d, by whom every step of his own career and every movement of his enemies were absolutely controlled.

A single text often gave him all the help he needed:

"It is singular," he says, "that the very same text which recurred to my mind at every turn of my course in life in this country and even in England, should be the same as Captain Maclure, the discoverer of the Northwest Pa.s.sage, mentions in a letter to his sister as familiar in his experience: 'Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy steps. Commit thy way unto thy Lord; trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pa.s.s.' Many more, I have no doubt, of our gallant seamen feel that it is graceful to acknowledge the gracious Lord in whom we live and move and have our being. It is an advance surely in humanity from that devilry which gloried in fearing neither G.o.d, nor man, nor Devil, and made our wooden walls floating h.e.l.ls."

His being enabled to reach the sanctuary of perfect peace in the presence of his enemies was all the more striking if we consider--what he felt keenly--that to live among the heathen is in itself very far from favorable to the vigor or the prosperity of the spiritual life.

"Traveling from day to day among barbarians," he says in his Journal, "exerts a most benumbing effect on the religious feelings of the soul."

Among the subjects that occupied a large share of his thoughts in these long and laborious journeys, two appear to have been especially prominent: first, the configuration of the country; and second, the best way of conducting missions, and bringing the people of Africa to Christ.

The configuration of intertropical South Africa had long been with him a subject of earnest study, and now he had come clearly to the conclusion that the middle part was a table-land, depressed, however, in the centre, and flanked by longitudinal ridges on the east and west; that originally the depressed centre had contained a vast acc.u.mulation of water, which had found ways of escape through fissures in the encircling fringe of mountains, the result of volcanic action or of earthquakes.

The Victoria Falls presented the most remarkable of these fissures, and thus served to verify and complete his theory. The great lakes in the great heart of South Africa were the remains of the earlier acc.u.mulation before the fissures were formed. Lake 'Ngami, large though it was, was but a little fraction of the vast lake that had once spread itself over the south. This view of the structure of South Africa he now found, from a communication which reached him at Linyanti, had been antic.i.p.ated by Sir Roderick Murchison, who in 1852 had propounded it to the Geographical Society. Livingstone was only amused at thus losing the credit of his discovery; he contented himself with a playful remark on his being "cut out" by Sir Roderick. But the coincidence of views was very remarkable, and it lay at the foundation of that brotherlike intimacy and friendship which ever marked his relation with Murchison.

One important bearing of the geographical fact was this; it was evident that while the low districts were unhealthy, the longitudinal ridges by which they were fringed were salubrious. Another of its bearings was, that it would help them to find the course and perhaps the sources of the great rivers, and thus facilitate commercial and missionary operations. The discovery of the two healthy ridges, which made him so unwilling to die at the mouth of the Loangwa, gave him new hopes for missions and commerce.

These and other matters connected with the state of the country formed the subject of regular communications to the Geographical Society.

Between Loanda and Quilimane, six despatches were written at different points[45]. Formerly, as we have seen, he had written through a Fellow of the Society, his friend and former fellow-traveler, Captain, now Colonel Steele; but as the Colonel had been called on duty to the Crimea, he now addressed his letters to his countryman, Sir Roderick Murchison. Sir Roderick was charmed with the compliment, and was not slow to turn it to account, as appears from the following letter, the first of very many communications which he addressed to Livingstone:

[Footnote 45: The dates were Pungo Andongo, 24th December, 1864; Cabango, 17th May, 1855; Linyanti, October 16, 1855; Chanyuni, 25th January, 1856; Tette, 4th March, 1856; Quilimane, 23d May, 1856.]

"16 BELGRAVE SQUARE, _October 2_, 1855.

"MY DEAR SIR,--Your most welcome letter reached me after I had made a tour in the Highlands, and just as the meeting of the British a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science commenced.

"I naturally communicated your despatch to the Geographical section of that body, and the reading of it called forth an unanimous expression of admiration of your labors and researches.

"In truth, you will long ago, I trust, have received the cordial thanks of all British geographers for your unparalleled exertions, and your successful accomplishment of the greatest triumph in geographical research which has been effected in our times.

"I rejoice that I was the individual in the Council of the British Geographical Society who proposed that you should receive our first gold medal of the past session, and I need not say that the award was made by an unanimous and cordial vote.

"Permit me to thank you sincerely for having selected me as your correspondent in the absence of Colonel Steele, and to a.s.sure you that I shall consider myself as much honored, as I shall certainly be gratified, by every fresh line which you may have leisure to write to me.

"Anxiously hoping that I may make your personal acquaintance, and that you may return to us in health to receive the homage of all geographers,--I remain, my dear Sir, yours most faithfully,

"RODCK* I. MURCHISON,"

The other subject that chiefly occupied Livingstone's mind at this time was missionary labor. This, like all other labor, required to be organized, on the principle of making the very best use of all the force that was or could be contributed for missionary effort. With his fair, open mind, he weighed the old method of monastic establishments, and, _mutatis mutandis_, he thought something of the kind might be very useful. He thought it unfair to judge of what these monasteries were in their periods of youth and vigor, from the rottenness of their decay.

Modern missionary stations, indeed, with their churches, schools, and hospitals, were like Protestant monasteries, conducted on the more wholesome principle of family life; but they wanted stability; they had not farms like monasteries, and hence they required to depend on the mother country. From infancy to decay they were pauper inst.i.tutions. In Livingstone's judgment they needed to have more of the self-supporting element:

"It would be heresy to mention the idea of purchasing lands, like religious endowments, among the stiff Congregationalists; but an endowment conferred on a man who will risk his life in an unhealthy climate, in order, thereby, to spread Christ's gospel among the heathen, is rather different, I ween, from the same given to a man to act as pastor to a number of professed Christians.... Some may think it creditable to our principles that we have not a single acre of land, the gift of the Colonial Government, in our possession. But it does not argue much for our foresight that we have not farms of our own, equal to those of any colonial farmer."

Dr. Livingstone acknowledged the services of the Jesuit missionaries in the cause of education and literature, and even of commerce. But while conceding to them this meed of praise, he did not praise their worship.

He was slow, indeed, to disparage any form of worship--any form in which men, however unenlightened, gave expression to their religious feelings; but he could not away with the sight of men of intelligence kissing the toe of an image of the Virgin, as he saw them doing in a Portuguese church, and taking part in services in which they did not, and could not, believe. If the missions of the Church of Rome had left good effects on some parts of Africa, how much greater blessing might not come from Protestant missions, with the Bible instead of the Syllabus as their basis, and animated with the spirit of freedom instead of despotism!

With regard to that part of Africa which he had been exploring, he gives his views at great length in a letter to the Directors, dated Linyanti, 12th October, 1855. After fully describing the physical features of the country, he fastens on the one element which, more than any other, was likely to hinder missions--fever. He does not deny that it is a serious obstacle. But he argues at great length that it is not insurmountable.

Fever yields to proper treatment. His own experience was no rule to indicate what might be reckoned on by others. His journeys had been made under the worst possible conditions. Bad food, poor nursing, insufficient medicines, continual drenchings, exhausting heat and toil, and wearing anxiety had caused much of his illness. He gives a touching detail of the hardships incident to his peculiar case, from which other missionaries would be exempted, but with characteristic manliness he charges the Directors not to publish that part of his letter, lest he should appear to be making too much of his trials. "Sacrifices" he could never call them, because nothing could be worthy of that name in the service of Him who, though he was rich, for our sakes became poor. Two or three times every day he had been wet up to the waist in crossing streams and marshy ground. The rain was so drenching that he had often to put his watch under his arm-pit to keep it dry. His good ox Sindbad would never let him hold an umbrella. His bed was on gra.s.s, with only a horse-cloth between. His food often consisted of bird-seed, manioc-roots, and meal. No wonder if he suffered much. Others would not have all that to bear. Moreover, if the fever of the district was severe, it was almost the only disease. Consumption, scrofula, madness, cholera, cancer, delirium tremens, and certain contagious diseases of which much was heard in civilized countries, were hardly known. The beauty of some parts of the country could not be surpa.s.sed. Much of it was densely peopled, but in other parts the population was scattered.

Many of the tribes were friendly, and, for reasons of their own, would welcome missionaries. The Makololo, for example, furnished an inviting field. The dangers he had encountered arose from the irritating treatment the tribes had received from half-cast traders and slave-dealers, in consequence of which they had imposed certain taxes on travelers, which, sometimes, he and his brother-chartists had refused to pay. They were mistaken for slave-dealers. But character was a powerful educator. A body of missionaries, maintaining everywhere the character of honest, truthful, kind-hearted Christian gentlemen, would scatter such prejudices to the winds.

In inst.i.tuting a comparison between the direct and indirect results of missions, between conversion-work and the diffusion of better principles, he emphatically a.s.signs the preference to the latter. Not that he undervalued the conversion of the most abject creature that breathed. To the man individually his conversion was of over whelming consequence, but with relation to the final harvest, it was more important to sow the seed broadcast over a wide field than to reap a few heads of grain on a single spot. Concentration was not the true principle of missions. The Society itself had felt this, in sending Morrison and Milne to be lost among the three hundred millions of China; and the Church of England, in looking to the Antipodes, to Patagonia, to East Africa, with the full knowledge that charity began at home. Time was more essential than concentration. Ultimately there would be more conversions, if only the seed were now more widely spread.

He concludes by pointing out the difference between mere worldly enterprises and missionary undertakings for the good of the world. The world thought their mission schemes fanatical; the friends of missions, on the other hand, could welcome the commercial enterprises of the world as fitted to be useful. The Africans were all deeply imbued with the spirit of trade. Commerce was so far good that it taught the people their mutual dependence; but Christianity alone reached the centre of African wants. "Theoretically," he concludes, "I would p.r.o.nounce the country about the junction of the Leeba and Leeambye or Kabompo, and river of the Bashukulompo, as a most desirable centre-point for the spread of civilization and Christianity; but unfortunately I must mar my report by saying I feel a difficulty as to taking my children there without their intelligent self-dedication. I can speak for my wife and myself only. WE WILL GO, WHOEVER REMAINS BEHIND."

Resuming the subject some months later, after he had got to the sea-sh.o.r.e, he dwells on the belt of elevated land eastward from the country of the Makololo, two degrees of longitude broad, and of unknown length, as remarkably suitable for the residence of European missionaries. It was formerly occupied by the Makololo, and they had a great desire to resume the occupation. One great advantage of such a locality was that it was on the border of the regions occupied by the true negroes, the real nucleus of the African population, to whom they owed a great debt, and who had shown themselves friendly and disposed to learn. It was his earnest hope that the Directors would plant a mission here, and his belief that they would thereby confer unlimited blessing on the regions beyond.

Some of the remarks in these pa.s.sages, and also in the extracts which we have given from his Journals, are of profound interest, as indicating air important transition from the ideas of a mere missionary laborer to those of a missionary general or statesman. In the early part of his life he deemed it his joy and his honor to aim at the conversion of individual souls, and earnestly did he labor and pray for that, although his visible success was but small. But as he gets better acquainted with Africa, and reaches a more commanding point of view, he sees the necessity for other work. The continent must be surveyed, healthy localities for mission-stations must be found, the temptations to a cursed traffic in human flesh must be removed, the products of the country must be turned to account; its whole social economy must be changed. "The accomplishment of such objects, even in a limited degree, would be an immense service to the missionary; it would be such a preparing of his way that a hundred years hence the spiritual results would be far greater than if all the effort now were concentrated on single souls. To many persons it appeared as if dealing with individual souls were the only proper work of a missionary, and as if one who had been doing such work would be lowering himself if he accepted any other.

Livingstone never stopped to reason as to which was the higher or the more desirable work; he felt that Providence was calling him to be less of a missionary journeyman and more of a missionary statesman; but the great end was ever the same--