"The record of his travels and explorations is in his published volumes, and in a book entitled 'Livingstone's Last Journals,' which contains the history of the final years of his life and the melancholy account of his death."
Fred asked the names of Dr. Livingstone's books.
"During the early years of his missionary work," the Doctor continued, "he sent a great many documents to England, containing valuable information of a geographical and scientific character; they were printed by the London Missionary Society in its journal. But nothing appeared in book-form till 1857, when he published 'Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.' He visited England to superintend the publication of the volume, and returned to Africa in 1858.
"Down to that time he had devoted himself to missionary work, and all his travels and explorations were directly in connection with the effort to Christianize Africa. In 1858 he went, on behalf of the English government, and aided by private subscriptions, to explore the southern part of the great continent.
"On this journey he started from Quilimane, at the mouth of the Zambesi River, and travelled in a north-westerly direction. For a part of the route he followed the course of the river, and then turned away from it to the north, in search of a lake of which he had been told by the natives. He discovered the lake (Nyassa) in 1859, and explored the country to the west and north-west of it, and the whole region around the head-waters of the north-east branch of the Zambesi and its tributaries.
"The work occupied him till 1863. His wife accompanied him on the journey, and died in the interior of Africa, in April, 1862. In 1864 he returned to England, and published 'A Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries.' Then, as soon as the book was issued, he made preparations for another expedition, and left England in 1865.
"Nothing was heard from him for more than a year, and in March, 1867, a report came to England that he had been killed in a skirmish with the natives on the banks of Lake Nyassa. It was not generally believed, and in June of the same year an expedition was sent to look for him. It was under the command of Mr. E. D. Young, and although it did not succeed in finding him, it obtained information that convinced Mr. Young of the incorrectness of the report.
"Letters were received in 1869 (more than a year old) from Dr. Livingstone, so that there was no farther doubt that the story of his death in the skirmish was incorrect. Another letter came a year later, and then there was no news for more than twenty months, so that his friends feared he was no longer alive.
"The New York Herald sent one of its correspondents, Mr. Henry M. Stanley, to look for Livingstone and to find him, if still alive. Stanley started from Zanzibar and went to Ujiji, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, where he found Dr. Livingstone alive and well, but unable to travel, for the reason that he had no goods with which to pay his way. Stanley remained with him from the autumn of 1871 till March, 1872. They went together to explore the northern part of Lake Tanganyika, to determine whether it flowed into the Nile. They satisfied themselves that it was not a tributary of the great river of Egypt, and that the source of the Nile lay farther to the north.