“Of the inner man much more may be said than of the outer. As he reveals himself, bit by bit, to the stranger, a great many favorable points present themselves, any of which taken singly might well dispose you toward him. I had brought him a packet of letters, and though I urged him again and again to defer conversation with me until he had read the news from home and children, he said he would defer reading until night; for the time he would enjoy being astonished by the European and any general world news I could communicate. He had acquired the art of being patient long ago, he said, and he had waited so long for letters that he could well afford to wait a few hours more. So we sat and talked on that humble veranda of one of the poorest houses in Ujiji. Talked quite oblivious of the large concourse of Arabs, Wanguana, and Wajiji, who had crowded around to see the new comer.
“The hours of that afternoon passed most pleasantly—few afternoons of my life more so. It seemed to me as if I had met an old, old friend. There was a friendly or good-natured abandon about Livingstone which was not lost on me. As host, welcoming one who spoke his language, he did his duties with a spirit and style I have never seen elsewhere. He had not much to offer, to be sure, but what he had was mine and his. The wan features which I had thought shocked me at first meeting, the heavy step which told of age and hard travel, the gray beard and stooping shoulders belied the man. Underneath that aged and well spent exterior lay an endless fund of high spirits, which now and then broke out in peals of hearty laughter—the rugged frame enclosed a very young and exuberant soul. The meal—I am not sure but what we ate three meals that afternoon—was seasoned with innumerable jokes and pleasant anecdotes, interesting hunting stories, of which his friends Webb, Oswell, Vardon, and Cumming (Gordon Cumming) were always the chief actors. ‘You have brought me new life,’ he said several times, so that I was not sure but that there was some little hysteria in this joviality and abundant animal spirits, but as I found it continued during several weeks I am now disposed to think it natural.
“Another thing which specially attracted my attention was his wonderfully retentive memory. When we remember the thirty years and more he has spent in Africa, deprived of books, we may well think it an uncommon memory that can recite whole poems of Burns, Byron, Tennyson, and Longfellow. Even the poets Whittier and Lowell were far better known to him than me. He knew an endless number of facts and names of persons connected with America much better than I, though it was my peculiar province as a journalist to have known them.
“Dr. Livingstone is a truly pious man—a man deeply imbued with real religious instincts. The study of the man would not be complete if we did not take the religious side of his character into consideration. His religion, any more than his business, is not of the theoretical kind—simply contenting itself with avowing its peculiar creed and ignoring all other religions as wrong or weak. It is of the true, practical kind, never losing a chance to manifest itself in a quiet, practical way—never demonstrative or loud. It is always at work, if not in deed, by shining example. It is not aggressive, which sometimes is troublesome and often impertinent. In him religion exhibits its loveliest features. It governs his conduct towards his servants, towards the natives and towards the bigoted Mussulmans—all who come in contact with him. Without religion Livingstone, with his ardent temperament, his enthusiastic nature, his high spirit and courage, might have been an uncompanionable man and a hard master. Religion has tamed all these characteristics; nay, if he was ever possessed of them, they have been thoroughly eradicated. Whatever was crude or wilful religion has refined, and made him, to speak the earnest, sober truth, the most agreeable of companions and indulgent of masters. Every Sunday morning he gathers his little flock around him and has prayers read, in the tone recommended by Archbishop Whatley—viz, natural, unaffected, and sincere. Following them he delivers a short address in the Kisawahiti language about what he has been reading from the Bible to them, which is listened to with great attention.
“When I first met the Doctor I asked him if he did not feel a desire to visit his country and take a little rest. He had then been absent about six years, and the answer he gave me freely shows what kind of man he is. Said he:—
“‘I would like very much to go home and see my children once again, but I cannot bring my heart to abandon the task I have undertaken when it is so nearly completed. It only requires six or seven months more to trace the true source that I have discovered with Petherick’s branch of the White Nile, or with the Albert Nyanza of Sir Samuel Baker. Why should I go before my task is ended, to have to come back again to do what I can very well do now?’ ‘And why,’ I asked, ‘did you come so far back without finishing the short task which you say you have yet to do?’ ‘Simply because I was forced; my men would not budge a step forward. They mutinied and formed a secret resolution that if I still insisted on going on to raise a disturbance in the country, and after they had effected it to abandon me, in which case I should be killed. It was dangerous to go any farther. I had explored six hundred miles of the watershed, had traced all the principal streams which discharged their waters into the central line of drainage, and when about starting to explore the last one hundred miles the hearts of my people failed, and they set about frustrating me in every possible way. Now, having returned seven hundred miles to get a new supply of stores and another escort, I find myself destitute of even the means to live but for a few weeks, and sick in mind and body.’
“Again, about a week after I had arrived in Ujiji, I asked Livingstone if he had examined the northern head of the Tanganyika. He answered immediately he had not, and then asked if people expected he had.
“‘I did try before setting out for Manyema,’ he said, ‘to engage canoes and proceed northward, but I soon saw that the people were all confederating to fleece me as they had Burton, and had I gone under such circumstances I should not have been able to proceed to Manyema to explore the central line of drainage, and of course the most important line—far more important than the line of the Tanganyika; for whatever connection there may be between the Tanganyika and the Albert the true sources of the Nile are those emptying into the central line of drainage. In my own mind I have not the least doubt that the Rusizi River flows from this lake into the Albert. For three months steadily I observed a current setting northward. I verified it by means of water plants. When Speke gives the altitude of the Tanganyika at only 1,880 feet above the sea I imagine he must have fallen into the error by frequently writing the Anno Domini, and thus made a slip of the pen; for the altitude is over two thousand eight hundred feet by boiling point, though I make it a little over three thousand feet by barometers. Thus you see that there are no very great natural difficulties on the score of altitude, and nothing to prevent the reasonable supposition that there may be a water connection by means of the Rusizi or some other river between the two lakes. Besides, the Arabs here are divided in their statements. Some swear that the river goes out of the Tanganyika, others that it flows into the Tanganyika.’
“Dr. Livingstone left the island of Zanzibar in March, 1866. On the 7th of the following month he departed from Mikindini Bay for the interior, with an expedition consisting of twelve Sepoys from Bombay, nine men from Johanna, of the Comoro Isles seven liberated slaves and two Zambesi men (taking them as an experiment), six camels, three buffaloes, two mules and three donkeys. He thus had thirty men, twelve of whom—viz., the Sepoys—were to act as guards for the expedition. They were mostly armed with the Enfield rifles presented to the Doctor by the Bombay Government. The baggage of the expedition consisted of ten bales of cloth and two bags of beads, which were to serve as currency by which they would be enabled to purchase the necessaries of life in the countries the Doctor intended to visit. Besides the cumbrous moneys they carried several boxes of instruments, such as chronometers, air thermometers, sextant and artificial horizon, boxes containing clothes, medicines, and personal necessaries.
“The expedition travelled up the left bank of the Rovuma River, a route as full of difficulties as any that could be chosen. For miles Livingstone and his party had to cut their way with their axes through the dense and most impenetrable jungles which lined the river’s banks. The road was a mere footpath, leading in the almost erratic fashion, in and through the dense vegetation, seeking the easiest outlet from it without any regard to the course it ran. The pagazis were able to proceed easily enough, but the camels, on account of their enormous height, could not advance a step without the axes of the party first clearing the way. These tools of foresters were almost always required, but the advance of the expedition was often retarded by the unwillingness of the Sepoys and Johanna men to work. Soon after the departure of the expedition from the coast the murmurings and complaints of these men began, and upon every occasion and at every opportunity they evinced a decided hostility to an advance.