Probably no human being was ever in circumstances parallel to those in which Livingstone now stood. Years had passed since he had heard from home. The sound of his mother-tongue came to him only in the broken sentences of Chuma or Susi or his other attendants, or in the echoes of his own voice as he poured it out in prayer, or in some cry of home-sickness that could not be kept in. In long pain and sickness there had been neither wife nor child nor brother to cheer him with sympathy, or lighten his dull hut with a smile. He had been baffled and tantalized beyond description in his efforts to complete the little bit of exploration which was yet necessary to finish his task. His soul was vexed for the frightful exhibitions of wickedness around him, where "man to man," instead of brothers, were worse than wolves and tigers to each other. During all his past life he had been sowing his seed weeping, but so far was he from bringing back his sheaves rejoicing, that the longer he lived the more cause there seemed for his tears. He had not yet seen of the travail of his soul. In opening Africa he had seemed to open it for brutal slave-traders, and in the only instance in which he had yet brought to it the feet of men "beautiful upon the mountains, publishing peace," disaster had befallen, and an incompetent leader had broken up the enterprise. Yet, apart from his sense of duty, there was no necessity for his remaining there. He was offering himself a freewill-offering, a living sacrifice. What could have sustained his heart and kept him firm to his purpose in such a wilderness of desolation?
"I read the whole Bible through four times whilst I was in Manyuema."
So he wrote in his Diary, not at the time, but the year after, on the 3d October, 1871 [70]. The Bible gathers wonderful interest from the circumstances in which it is read. In Livingstone's circumstances it was more the Bible to him than ever. All his loneliness and sorrow, the sickness of hope deferred, the yearnings for home that could neither be repressed nor gratified, threw a new light on the Word. How clearly it was intended for such as him, and how sweetly it came home to him! How faithful, too, were its pictures of human sin and sorrow! How true its testimony against man, who will not retain God in his knowledge, but, leaving Him, becomes vain in his imaginations and hard in his heart, till the bloom of Eden is gone, and a waste, howling wilderness spreads around! How glorious the out-beaming of Divine Love, drawing near to this guilty race, winning and cherishing them with every endearing act, and at last dying on the cross to redeem them! And how bright the closing scene of Revelation--the new heaven and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness--yes, he can appreciate that attribute--the curse gone, death abolished, and all tears wiped from the mourner's eye!
[70] See Last Journals, vol. ii. p. 154.
So the lonely man in his dull hut is riveted to the well-worn book; ever finding it a greater treasure as he goes along; and fain, when he has reached its last page, to turn back to the beginning, and gather up more of the riches which he has left upon the road.
To Sir Thomas Maclear and Mr. Mann he writes during his detention (September, 1870) on a leaf of his cheque-book, his paper being done. He gives his theory of the rivers, enlarges on the fertility of the country, bewails his difficulty in getting men, as the Manyuema never go beyond their own country, and the traders, who have only begun to come there, are too busy collecting ivory to be able to spare men. "The tusks were left in the terrible forests, where the animals were killed; the people, if treated civilly, readily go and bring the precious teeth, some half rotten, or gnawed by the teeth of a rodent called dezi. I think that mad naturalists name it Aulocaudatus Swindermanus, or some equally wise agglutination of syllables.... My chronometers are all dead; I hope my old watch was sent to Zanzibar; but I have got no letters for years, save some, three years old, at Ujiji. I have an intense and sore longing to finish and retire, and trust that the Almighty may permit me to go home."
In one of his letters to Agnes from Manyuema he quotes some words from a letter of hers that he ever after cherished as a most refreshing cordial:
"I commit myself to the Almighty Disposer of events, and if I fall, will do so doing my duty, like one of his stout-hearted servants. I am delighted to hear you say that, much as you wish me home, you would rather hear of my finishing my work to my own satisfaction than come merely to gratify you. That is a noble sentence, and I felt all along sure that all my friends would wish me to make a complete work of it, and in that wish, in spite of every difficulty, I cordially joined. I hope to present to my young countrymen an example of manly perseverance. I shall not hide from you that I am made by it very old and shaky, my cheeks fallen in, space round the eyes ditto; mouth almost toothless,--a few teeth that remain, out of their line, so that a smile is that of a he-hippopotamus,--a dreadful old fogie, and you must tell Sir Roderick that it is an utter impossibility for me to appear in public till I get new teeth, and even then the less I am seen the better."
Another letter to Agnes from Manyuema gives a curious account of the young soko or gorilla a chief had lately presented to him:
"She sits crouching eighteen inches high, and is the most intelligent and least mischievous of all the monkeys I have seen. She holds out her hand to be lifted and carried, and if refused makes her face as in a bitter human weeping, and wrings her hands quite humanly, sometimes adding a foot or third hand to make the appeal more touching.... She knew me at once as a friend, and when plagued by any one always placed her back to me for safety, came and sat down on my mat, decently made a nest of grass and leaves, and covered herself with the mat to sleep. I cannot take her with me, though I fear that she will die before I return, from people plaguing her. Her fine long black hair was beautiful when tended by her mother, who was killed. I am mobbed enough alone; two sokos--she and I--would not have got breath.
"I have to submit to be a gazing-stock. I don't altogether relish it, here or elsewhere, but try to get over it good-naturedly, get into the most shady spot of the village, and leisurely look at all my admirers. When the first crowd begins to go away, I go into my lodgings to take what food may be prepared, as coffee, when I have it, or roasted maize infusion when I have none. The door is shut, all save a space to admit light. It is made of the inner bark of a gigantic tree, not a quarter of an inch thick, and slides in a groove behind a post on each side of the doorway. When partially open it is supported by only one of the posts. Eager heads sometimes crowd the open space, and crash goes the thin door, landing a Manyuema beauty on the floor. 'It was not I,' she gasps out, 'it was Bessie Bell and Jeanie Gray that shoved me in, and--' as she scrambles out of the lion's den, 'see they're laughing'; and; fairly out, she joins in the merry giggle too. To avoid darkness or being half-smothered, I often eat in public, draw a line on the ground, then 'toe the line,' and keep them out of the circle. To see me eating with knife, fork, and spoon is wonderful. 'See!--they don't touch their food!--what oddities, to be sure.'...
"Many of the Manyuema women are very pretty; their hands, feet, limbs, and form are perfect. The men are handsome. Compared with them the Zanzibar slaves are like London door-knockers, which some atrocious iron-founder thought were like lions' faces. The way in which these same Zanzibar Mohammedans murder the men and seize the women and children makes me sick at heart. It is not slave-trade. It is murdering free people to make slaves. It is perfectly indescribable. Kirk has been working hard to get this murdersome system put a stop to. Heaven prosper his noble efforts! He says in one of his letters to me, 'It is monstrous injustice to compare the free people in the interior, living under their own chiefs and laws, with what slaves at Zanzibar afterward become by the abominable system which robs them of their manhood. I think it is like comparing the anthropologists with their ancestral sokos.'...
"I am grieved to hear of the departure of good Lady Murchison. Had I known that she kindly remembered me in her prayers, it would have been great encouragement....
"The men sent by Dr. Kirk are Mohammedans, that is, unmitigated liars. Musa and his companions are fair specimens of the lower class of Moslems. The two head-men remained at Ujiji, to feast on my goods, and get pay without work. Seven came to Bambarré, and in true Moslem style swore that they were sent by Dr. Kirk to bring me back, not to go with me, if the country were bad or dangerous. Forward they would not go. I read Dr. Kirk's words to them to follow wheresoever I led. 'No, by the old liar Mohamed, they were to force me back to Zanzibar.' After a superabundance of falsehood, it turned out that it all meant only an advance of pay, though they had double the Zanzibar wages. I gave it, but had to threaten on the word of an Englishman to shoot the ringleaders before I got them to go. They all speak of English as men who do not lie.... I have traveled more than most people, and with all sorts of followers. The Christians of Kuruman and Kolobeng were out of sight the best I ever had. The Makololo, who were very partially Christianized, were next best--honest, truthful, and brave. Heathen Africans are much superior to the Mohammedans, who are the most worthless one can have."