The Personal Life of David Livingstone Part 22

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

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

"11_th May, Kongone_.--My dear, dear Mary has been this evening a fortnight in heaven,--absent from the body, present with the Lord.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I look," he says, "to her previous experience and life for comfort, and thank G.o.d for his mercy that we have it.... A good wife and mother was she. G.o.d have pity on the children--she was so much beloved by them....

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

To his daughter Agnes he writes, after the account of her death: "...

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

Letters of the like tenor were written to every intimate friend. It was a relief to his heart to pour itself out in praise of her who was gone, and in some cases, when he had told all about the death, he returns to speak of her life. A letter to Sir Roderick Murchison gives all the particulars of the illness and its termination. Then he thinks of the good and gentle Lady Murchison,--"la spirituelle Lady Murchison," as Humboldt called her,--and writes to her: "It will somewhat ease my aching heart to tell you about my dear departed Mary Moffat, the faithful companion of eighteen years." He tells of her birth at Griqua Town in 1821, her education in England, their marriage and their love.

"At Kolobeng, she managed all the household affairs by native servants of her own training, made bread, b.u.t.ter, and all the clothes of the family; taught her children most carefully; kept also an infant and sewing school--by far the most popular and best attended we had. It was a fine sight to see her day by day walking a quarter of a mile to the town, no matter how broiling hot the sun, to impart instruction to the heathen Bakwains. Ma-Robert's name is known through all that country, and 1800 miles beyond.... A brave, good woman was she. All my hopes of giving her one day a quiet home, for which we both had many a sore longing, are now dashed to the ground. She is, I trust, through divine mercy, in peace in the home of the blest.... She spoke feelingly of your kindness to her, and also of the kind reception she received from Miss Burdett Coutts. Please give that lady and Mrs. Brown the sad intelligence of her death."

The reply of Mrs. Moffat to her son-in-law's letter was touching and beautiful. "I do thank you for the detail you have given us of the circ.u.mstances of the last days and hours of our lamented and beloved Mary, our first-born, over whom our fond hearts first beat with parental affection!" She recounts the mercies that were mingled with the trial--though Mary could not be called _eminently_ pious, she had the root of the matter in her, and though the voyage of her life had been a trying and stormy one, she had not become a wreck. G.o.d had remembered her; had given her during her last year the counsels of faithful men--referring to her kind friend and valued counselor, the Rev.

Professor Kirk, of Edinburgh, and the Rev. Dr. Stewart, of Lovedale--and, at last, the great privilege of dying in the arms of her husband. "As for the cruel scandal that seems to have hurt you both so much, those who said it did not know you _as a couple_. In all _our_ intercourse with you, we never had a doubt as to your being comfortable together. I know there are some maudlin ladies who insinuate, when a man leaves his family frequently, no matter how n.o.ble is his object, that he is not _comfortable_ at home. But we can afford to smile at this, and say, 'The Day will declare it.'...

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

CHAPTER XV.

LAST TWO YEARS OF THE EXPEDITION.

A.D. 1862-1863.

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

It could not have been easy for Livingstone to buckle on his armor anew.

How he was able to do it at all may be inferred from some words of cheer written by him at the time to his friend Mr. Waller: "Thanks for your kind sympathy. In return, I say, Cherish exalted thoughts of the great work you have undertaken. It is a work which, if faithful, you will look back on with satisfaction while the eternal ages roll on their everlasting course. The devil will do all he can to hinder you by efforts from without and from within; but remember Him who is with you, and will be with you alway."

As soon as he was able to brace himself, he was again at his post, helping to put the "Lady Nya.s.sa" together and launch her. This was achieved by the end of June, greatly to the wonder of the natives, who could not understand how iron should swim. The "Nya.s.sa" was an excellent steamboat, and could she have been got to the lake would have done well.

But, alas! the rainy season had pa.s.sed, and until December this could not be done. Here was another great disappointment. Meanwhile, Dr.

Livingstone resolved to renew the exploration of the Rovuma, in the hope of finding a way to Nya.s.sa beyond the dominion of the Portuguese. This was the work in which he had been engaged at the time when he went with Bishop Mackenzie to help him to settle.

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

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

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

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

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

"I suppose that I shall die in these uplands, and somebody will carry, out the plan I have longed to put into practice.

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

In one of his despatches to Lord Russell, Livingstone reports an offer that had been made by a party consisting of an Englishman and five Scotch working men at the Cape, which must have been extremely gratifying to him, and served to deepen his conviction that sooner or later his plan of colonization would certainly be carried into effect.

The leader of the party, John Jehan, formerly of the London City Mission, in reading Dr. Livingstone's book, became convinced that if a few mechanics could be induced to take a journey of exploration it would prove very useful. His views being communicated to five other young men (two masons, two carpenters, one smith), they formed themselves into a company in July, 1861, and had been working together, throwing their earnings into a common fund, and now they had arms, two wagons, two spans of oxen, and means of procuring outfits. In September, 1862, they were ready to start from Aliwal in South Africa[66].

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

After going to Johanna for provisions, and to discharge the crew of Johanna men whose term of service had expired, the Expedition returned to Tette. On the 10th January, 1863, they steamed off with the "Lady Nya.s.sa" in tow. The desolation that had been caused by Marianno, the Portuguese slave-agent, was heart-breaking. Corpses floated past them.

In the morning the paddles had to be cleared of corpses caught by the floats during the night. Livingstone summed up his impressions in one terrible sentence:

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

In pa.s.sing up, Livingstone's heart was saddened as he visited the Bishop's grave, and still more by the tidings which he got of the Mission, which had now removed from Magomero to the low lands of Chibisa. Some time before, Mr. Scudamore, a man greatly beloved, had succ.u.mbed, and now Mr. d.i.c.kenson was added to the number of victims. Mr.

Thornton, too, who left the Expedition in 1859, but returned to it, died under an attack of fever, consequent on too violent exertion undertaken in order to be of service to the Mission party. Dr. Kirk and Mr. C.

Livingstone were so much reduced by illness that it was deemed necessary for them to return to England. Livingstone himself had a most serious attack of fever, which lasted all the month of May, Dr. Kirk remaining with him till he got over it. When his brother and Dr. Kirk left, the only Europeans remaining with him were Mr. Rae, the ship's engineer, and Mr. Edward D. Young, formerly of the "Gorgon," who had volunteered to join the Expedition, and whose after services, both in the search for Livingstone and in establishing the mission of Livingstonia, were so valuable. On the n.o.ble spirit shown by Livingstone in remaining in the country after all his early companions had left, and amid such appalling scenes as everywhere met him, we do not need to dwell.

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

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

"10_th April_.--Reached the Cataracts. Very thankful indeed after our three months' toil from Shupanga."

"27_th April_.--On this day twelvemonths my beloved Mary Moffat was removed from me by death.

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

"TENNYSON."

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

It was now that he received a despatch from Earl Russell intimating that the Expedition was recalled. This, though a great disappointment, was not altogether a surprise. On the 24th April he had written to Mr.

Waller "I should not wonder in the least to be recalled, for should the Portuguese persist in keeping the rivers shut, there would be no use in trying to develop trade," He states his views on the recall calmly in a letter to Mr. James Young:

"_Murchison Cataracts_, 3_d July_, 1863.--... Got instructions for our recall yesterday, at which I do not wonder. The Government has behaved well to us throughout, and I feel abundantly thankful to H.M.'s ministers for enabling me so far to carry on the experiment of turning the industrial and trading propensities of the natives to good account, with a view of thereby eradicating the trade in slaves. But the Portuguese dogged our footsteps, and, as is generally understood, with the approbation of their Home Government, neutralized our labors. Not that the Portuguese statesmen approved of slaving, but being enormously jealous lest their pretended dominion from sea to sea and elsewhere should in the least degree, now or any future time, become aught else than a slave 'preserve,' the Governors have been instructed, and have carried out their instructions further than their employers intended. Major Sicard was removed from Tette as too friendly, and his successor had emmissaries in the Ajawa camp. Well, he saw their policy, and regretted that they should be allowed to follow us into perfectly new regions. The regret was the more poignant, inasmuch as but for our entering in by gentleness, they durst not have gone.

No Portuguese dared, for instance, to come up this Shire Valley; but after our dispelling the fear of the natives by fair treatment, they came in calling themselves our 'children.' The whole thing culminated when this quarter was inundated with Tette slavers, whose operations, with a marauding tribe of Ajawas, and a drought, completely depopulated the country. The sight of this made me conclude that unless something could be done to prevent these raids, and take off their foolish obstructions on the rivers, which they never use, our work in this region was at an end....

Please the Supreme, I shall work some other point yet. In leaving, it is bitter to see some 900 miles of coast abandoned to those who were the first to begin the slave-trade, and seem determined to be the last to abandon it."