Some slight reminiscences of Livingstone at Bombay, derived from admiring countrymen of his own, will not be out of place, considering that the three or four months spent there was the last period of his life passed in any part of the dominions of Great Britain.
The Rev. Dugald C. Boyd, of Bombay (now of Portsoy, Banffshire), an intimate friend of Dr. Stewart, of Lovedale, writing to a correspondent on 10th October, 1865, says:
"Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of meeting Livingstone at dinner in a very quiet way.... It was an exceedingly pleasant evening. Dr. Wilson was in great 'fig,' and Livingstone was, though quiet, very communicative, and greatly disposed to talk about Africa.... I had known Mrs. Livingstone, and I had known Robert and Agnes, his son and daughter, and I had known Stewart. He spoke very kindly of Stewart, and seems to hope that he may yet join him in Central Africa.... He is much stouter, better, and healthier-looking than he was last year....
"12th October.--Livingstone was at the tamasha yesterday. He was dressed very unlike a minister--more like a post-captain or admiral. He wore a blue dress-coat, trimmed with lace, and bearing a Government gilt button. In his hand he carried a cocked hat. At the Communion on Sunday (he sat on Dr. Wilson's right hand, who sat on my right) he wore a blue surtout, with Government gilt buttons, and shepherd-tartan trousers; and he had a gold band round his cap [67]. I spent two hours In his society last evening at Dr. Wilson's. He was not very complimentary to Burton. He is to lecture in public this evening."
[67] Dr, Livingstone's habit of dressing as a layman, and accepting the designation of David Livingstone, Esquire, as readily as that of the Rev. Dr. Livingstone, probably helped to propagate the idea that he had sunk the missionary in the explorer. The truth, however, is, that from the first he wished to be a lay missionary, not under any Society, and it was only at the instigation of his friends that he accepted ordination. He had an intense dislike of what was merely professional and conventional, and he thought that as a free-lance he would have more influence. Whether in this he sufficiently appreciated the position and office of one set aside by the Church for the service of the gospel may be a question: but there can be no question that he had the same view of the matter from first to last. He would have worn a blue dress and gilt buttons, if it had been suitable, as readily as any other, at the most ardent period of his missionary life. His heart was as truly that of a missionary under the Consul's dress as it had ever been when he wore black, or whatever else he could get, in the wilds of Africa. At the time of his encounter with the lion he wore a coat of tartan, and he thought that that material might have had some effect in preventing the usual irritating results of a lion's bite.
Another friend, Mr. Alexander Brown, now of Liverpool, sends a brief note of a very delightful excursion given by him, in honor of Livingstone, to the caves of Kennery or Kenhari, in the island of Salsette. There was a pretty large party. After leaving the railway station, they rode on ponies to the caves.
"We spent a most charming day in the caves, and the wild jungle around them. Dr. Wilson, you may believe, was in his element, pouring forth volumes of Oriental lore in connection with the Buddhist faith and the Kenhari caves, which are among the most striking and interesting monuments of it in India. They are of great extent, and the main temple is in good preservation. Doctor Livingstone's almost boyish enjoyment of the whole thing impressed me greatly. The stern, almost impassive, man seemed to unbend, and enter most thoroughly into the spirit of a day in which pleasure and instruction, under circumstances of no little interest, were so delightfully combined."
At Bombay he heard disquieting tidings of the Hanoverian traveler, Baron van der Decken. In his Journal he says:
"29th December, 1865.--The expedition of the Baron van der Decken has met with a disaster up the Juba. He had gone up 300 miles, and met only with the loss of his steam launch. He then ran his steamer on two rocks and made two large holes in her bottom. The Baron and Dr. Link got out in order to go to the chief to conciliate him. He had been led to suspect war. Then a large party came and attacked them, killing the artist Trenn and the chief engineer. They were beaten off, and Lieutenant von Schift with four survivors left in the boat, and in four days came down the stream. Thence they came in a dhow to Zanzibar. It is feared that the Baron may be murdered, but possibly not. It looks ill that the attack was made after he landed.
"My times are in thy hand, O Lord! Go Thou with me and I am safe. And above all, make me useful in promoting Thy cause of peace and good-will among men."
The rumor of the Baron's death was subsequently confirmed. His mode of treating the natives was the very opposite of Livingstone's, who regarded the manner of his death as another proof that it was not safe to disregard the manhood of the African people.
The Bombay lecture was a great success. Dr. Wilson, Free Church Missionary, was in the chair, and after the lecture tried to rouse the Bombay merchants, and especially the Scotch ones, to help the enterprise. Referring to the driblets that had been contributed by Government and the Geographical Society, he proposed that in Bombay they should raise as much as both. In his next letter to his daughter, Livingstone tells of the success of the lecture, of the subscription, which promised to amount to £1000 (it did not quite do so), and of his wish that the Bombay merchants should use the money for setting up a trading establishment in Africa. "I must first of all find a suitable spot; then send back here to let it be known. I shall then be off in my work for the Geographical Society, and when that is done, if I am well, I shall come back to the first station." He goes on to speak of the facilities he had received for transporting Indian buffaloes and other animals to Africa, and of the extraordinary kindness and interest of Sir Bartle Frere, and the pains he had taken to commend him to the good graces of the Sultan of Zanzibar, then in Bombay. He speaks pleasantly of his sojourn with Dr. Wilson and other friends. He is particularly pleased with the management and menu of a house kept by four bachelors--and then he adds: "Your mamma was an excellent manager of the house, and made everything comfortable. I suppose it is the habit of attending to little things that makes such a difference in different houses. As I am to be away from all luxuries soon, I may as well live comfortably with the bachelors while I can."