Doctor Livingstone had sent his wife to England for the benefit of her health and to educate their children. The people there were greatly pleased with the results of Livingstone’s labors in Africa, for all of the country discovered by him would belong to Great Britain. So the British government gave him its support and paid him a small salary for the work he was doing for science and for the world. By this time other missionaries had come to help save the Dark Continent. The wives of two of these were coming out from England with Mrs. Livingstone when she returned. There was great joy on both sides—that of the three husbands in the heart of Africa, and that of the three wives on their way to join them. But Livingstone and both his friends were seized with African fever, and, when their wives came, the two men missionaries had just died. Even Mrs. Livingstone, although she had been brought up in Africa, took the disease and died. The two missionaries’ wives soon returned to England, but Doctor Livingstone could not even then be persuaded to leave the needy people to go to England to rest awhile and see his now motherless children.
Besides all these labors, and besides the exact reports he made on the animal life, flowers, trees, rocks, and geography of that new land, he wrote books about his adventures and experiences which had an immense sale. This made him a man of considerable wealth; but, after providing well for his family and for the education of his children, he spent the greater part of his fortune—ten to thirty thousand dollars at a time—for the benefit of his black “children.”
When Livingstone did go to England, it was only for a short visit. While absent from Africa he seemed always to hear those millions of poor, ignorant people calling him. Once he purchased the parts of a little steamer and brought it back to Africa. The boat was put together and was run on some of the lakes and rivers he had discovered. The vessel proved to be a poor affair, which ran very slowly and was always breaking down. But the natives were astonished, and would have worshipped it if he had let them. As time went on, larger and better boats were sent out to him. Once he had to discharge his engineer, but he ran the steamboat himself. He found it easier, of course, to make his journeys with the help of steam, though he had to go to many places where the boats could not be taken. A writer has described a trip Livingstone and his friends made in July:
“It was now the African mid winter and the nights were very cold. The tsetse flies were more troublesome than ever. Wild beasts became more numerous every day in this uninhabited region. Herds of elephants, buffaloes, zebras, and many kinds of antelopes were frequently seen, which allowed the head of the caravan to approach within two hundred feet of them. The wild boars, of which many were seen, were very shy; while, on the contrary, troops of monkeys hastily retreated into the jungle at the sight of the travelers, chattering angrily about the coming of the white man. Guinea fowl, doves, ducks, and geese were also plentiful.
“With the darkness a new and even more numerous world of living creatures awoke. Lions and hyenas roared and howled about the camp. Unknown birds sang sweetly or screeched as if in fear, and all sorts of strange insect noises were heard.
“One day Livingstone narrowly escaped losing his life from the attack of a two-horned rhinoceros. This beast was strangely quick, in spite of its great bulk, and very savage, being one of the few animals which will attack a man without being first attacked.
“While making their way through a dense thicket Livingstone had become separated from the others, and was stooping to gather some specimen, when a black rhinoceros made a furious charge at him; but, strange to say, it suddenly stopped short, giving him time to escape. In his flight, his watch and chain became entangled in a branch and, stopping to loosen it, he saw the beast still standing in the same spot, as if held back by an unseen hand. On reaching a safe distance he uttered a shout of warning, thinking some of the party might be near; at this the rhinoceros rushed away, grunting loudly.”
While Dr. Livingstone was in England he was welcomed with highest honors. He was invited to visit Queen Victoria and her husband, the Prince Consort. But so strong was the missionary spirit in him that he preferred talking to cotton spinners and the people in the slums of the East End of London. He was quite glad to go back to Africa and escape from the medals, degrees, and other great honors showered upon him.
After his return to the Dark Continent for the last time, he went farther than ever into the interior in an attempt to discover, or at least to prove, where the great river Nile begins. When he had nearly reached the goal, he was driven back by hostile tribes which had recently suffered from attacks of slave traders. At this time the Arabs who carried Livingstone’s letters down to the coast to be sent to England destroyed them all, for fear he had written to England about the slave outrages they had committed. For this reason nothing was heard of him for years. It was thought that he had been murdered by savages or had died of African fever.
At last the publisher of The New York Herald sent Henry M. Stanley, the newspaper’s foreign correspondent, with all the money he needed, to find Dr. Livingstone; or, if he were no longer living, to get any records that could be found. After a long search the American newspaper man heard of a white man hundreds of miles farther in the interior. Trace and trail grew more and more distinct and at last the American company, with the American flag flying, marched up to Livingstone’s camp on the shore of one of the great lakes he had discovered. Of this meeting Stanley wrote: