"Most of the marine Sepoys were sick. You would have been a victim unless you had tried the new remedy of a bag of pounded ice along the spine, which sounds as hopeful as the old cure for toothache: take a mouthful of cold water, and sit on the fire till it boils, you will suffer no more from toothache.... A shark took a bite at the revolving vane of the patent log to-day. He left some pieces of the enamel of his teeth in the brass, and probably has the toothache. You will sympathize with him.... If you ask Mr. Murray to send, by Mr. Conyngham, Buckland's Curiosities of Natural History, and Mr. Gladstone's Address to the Edinburgh Students, it will save me writing to him. When you return home you will be scrutinized to see if you are spoiled. You have only to act naturally and kindly to all your old friends to disarm them of their prejudices. I think you will find the Youngs true friends. Mrs. Williamson, of Widdieombe Hill, near Bath, writes to me that she would like to show you her plans for the benefit of poor orphans. If you thought of going to Bath it might be well to get all the insight you could into that and every other good work. It is well to be able to take a comprehensive view of all benevolent enterprises, and resolve to do our duty in life in some way or other, for we cannot live for ourselves alone. A life of selfishness is one of misery, and it is unlike that of our blessed Saviour, who pleased not Himself. He followed not his own will even, but the will of his Father in heaven. I have read with much pleasure a book called Rose Douglas. It is the life of a minister's daughter--with fictitious names, but all true. She was near Lanark, and came through Hamilton. You had better read it if you come in contact with it."
Referring to an alarm, arising from the next house having taken fire, of which she had written him, he adds playfully:
"You did not mention what you considered most precious on the night of the fire; so I dreamed that I saw one young lady hugging a German grammar to her bosom; another with a pair of curling tongs, a tooth-pick, and a pinafore; another with a bunch of used-up postage stamps and autographs in a crinoline turned upside down, and a fourth lifted up Madame Hocédé and insisted on carrying her as her most precious baggage. Her name, which I did not catch, will go down to posterity alongside of the ladies who each carried out her husband from the besieged city, and took care never to let him hear the last on't afterward. I am so penetrated with admiration of her that I enclose the wing of a flying-fish for her. It lighted among us last night, while we were at dinner, coming right through the skylight. You will make use of this fact in the high-flying speech which you will deliver to her in French."
Zanzibar is at length reached on the 28th January, after a voyage of twenty-three days, tedious enough, though but half the length of the cruise in the "Nyassa" two years before. To Agnes:
"29th Jan.--We went to call to-day on the Sultan. His Highness met us at the bottom of the stair, and as he shook hands a brass band, which he got at Bombay, blared forth 'God save the Queen'! This was excessively ridiculous, but I maintained sufficient official gravity. After coffee and sherbet we came away, and the wretched band now struck up 'The British Grenadier,' as if the fact of my being only 5 feet 8, and Brebner about 2 inches lower, ought not to have suggested 'Wee Willie Winkie' as more appropriate. I was ready to explode, but got out of sight before giving way."
Dr. Livingstone brought a very cordial recommendation to the Sultan from Sir Bartle Frere, and experienced much kindness at his hand. Being ill with toothache, the Sultan could not receive the gift of the "Thule" in person, and it was presented through his commodore.
Livingstone was detained in Zanzibar nearly two months waiting for H.M.S. "Penguin," which was to convey him to the mouth of the Rovuma. Zanzibar life was very monotonous--"It is the old, old way of living--eating, drinking, sleeping; sleeping, drinking, eating. Getting fat; slaving-dhows coming and slaving-dhows going away; bad smells; and kindly looks from English folks to each other." The sight of slaves in the Zanzibar market, and the recognition of some who had been brought from Nyassa, did not enliven his visit, though it undoubtedly confirmed his purpose and quickened his efforts to aim another blow at the accursed trade. Always thinking of what would benefit Africa, he writes to Sir Thomas Maclear urging very strongly the starting of a line of steamers between the Cape, Zanzibar, and Bombay: "It would be a most profitable one, and would do great good, besides, in eating out the trade in slaves."
At last the "Penguin" came for him, and once more, and for the last time, Livingstone left for the Dark Continent.