The Personal Life of David Livingstone / Chiefly from his Unpublished Journals and Correspondence in the Possession of His Family

by William Garden Blaikie

Dugumbé had not been the active perpetrator of the massacre, but, he was mixed up with the atrocities that had been committed, and Livingstone could have nothing to do with him. It was a great trial, for, as the Banian men were impracticable, there was nothing for it now but to go back to Ujiji, and try to get other men there with whom he would repeat the attempt to explore the river. For twenty-one months, counting from the period of their engagement, he had fed and clothed these men, all in vain, and now he had to trudge back forty-five days, a journey equal, with all its turnings and windings, to six hundred miles. Livingstone was ill, and after such an exciting time he would probably have had an attack of fever, but for another ailment to which he had become more especially subject. The intestinal canal had given way, and he was subject to attacks of severe internal hæmorrhage, one of which came on him now [71]. It appeared afterward that had he gone with Dugumbé, he would have been exposed to an assault in force by the Bakuss, as they made an attack on the party and routed them, killing two hundred. If Livingstone had been among them, he might have fallen in this engagement. So again, he saw how present disappointments work for good.

[71] His friends say that for a considerable time before he had been subject to the most grievous pain from hæmorrhoids. His sufferings were often excruciating.

The journey back to Ujiji, begun 20th July, 1871, was a very wretched one. Amid the universal desolation caused by the very wantonness of the marauders, it was impossible for Livingstone to persuade the natives that he did not belong to the same-set. Ambushes were set for him and his company in the forest. On the 8th August they came to an ambushment all prepared, but it had been abandoned for some unknown reason. By and by, on the same day, a large spear flew past Livingstone, grazing his neck; the native who flung it was but ten yards off; the hand of God alone saved his life [72]. Farther on, another spear was thrown, which missed him by a foot. On the same day a large tree, to which fire had been applied to fell it, came down within a yard of him. Thus on one day he was delivered three times from impending death. He went on through the forest, expecting every minute to be attacked, having no fear, but perfectly indifferent whether he should be killed or not. He lost all his remaining calico that day, a telescope, umbrella, and five spears. By and Thy he was prostrated with grievous illness. As soon as he could move he went onward, but he felt as if dying on his feet. And he was ill-rigged for the road, for the light French shoes to which he was reduced, and which had been cut to ease his feet till they would hardly hang together, failed to protect him from the sharp fragments of quartz with which the road was strewed. He was getting near to Ujiji, however, where abundant of goods and comforts were no doubt safely stowed away for him, and the hope of relief sustained him under all his trials.

[72] The head of this spear is among the Livingstone relics at Newstead Abbey.

At last, on the 23d October, reduced to a living skeleton, he reached Ujiji. What was his misery, instead of finding the abundance of goods he had expected, to learn that the wretch Shereef, to whom they had been consigned, had sold off the whole, not leaving one yard of calico out of 3000, or one string of beads out of 700 pounds! The scoundrel had divined on the Koran, found that Livingstone was dead, and would need the goods no more. Livingstone had intended, if he could not get men at Ujiji to go with him to the Lualaba, to wait there till suitable men should be sent up from the coast; but he had never thought of having to wait in beggary. If anything could have aggravated the annoyance, it was to see Shereef come, without shame, to salute him, and tell him on leaving, that he was going to pray; or to see his slaves passing from the market with all the good things his property had bought! Livingstone applied a term to him which he reserved for men--black or white--whose wickedness made them alike shameless and stupid--he was a "moral idiot."

It was the old story of the traveler who fell among thieves that robbed him of all he had; but where was the good Samaritan? The Government and the Geographical Society appeared to have passed by on the other side. But the good Samaritan was not as far off as might have been thought. One morning Syed bin Majid, an Arab trader, came to him with a generous offer to sell some ivory and get goods for him; but Livingstone had the old feeling of independence, and having still a few barter goods left, which he had deposited with Mohamad bin Saleh before going to Manyuema, he declined for the present Syed's generous offer. But the kindness of Syed was not the only proof that he was not forsaken. Five days after he reached Ujiji the good Samaritan appeared from another quarter. As Livingstone had been approaching Ujiji from the southwest, another white man had been approaching it from the east. On 28th October, 1871, Henry Moreland Stanley, who had been sent to look for him by Mr. James Gordon Bennett, Jr., of the New York Herald newspaper, grasped the hand of David Livingstone. An angel from heaven could hardly have been more welcome. In a moment the sky brightened. Stanley was provided with ample stores, and was delighted to supply the wants of the traveler. The sense of sympathy, the feeling of brotherhood, the blessing of fellowship, acted like a charm. Four good meals a day, instead of the spare and tasteless food of the country, made a wonderful change on the outer man; and in a few days Livingstone was himself again--hearty and happy and hopeful as before.

Before closing this chapter and entering on the last two years of Livingstone's life, which have so lively an interest of their own, it will be convenient to glance at the contributions to natural science which he continued to make to the very end. In doing this, we avail ourselves of a very tender and Christian tribute to the memory of his early friend, which Professor Owen contributed to the Quarterly Review, April, 1875, after the publication of Livingstone's Last Journals.

Mr. Owen appears to have been convinced by Livingstone's reasoning and observations, that the Nile sources were in the Bangweolo watershed--a supposition now ascertained to have been erroneous. But what chiefly attracted and delighted the great naturalist was the many interesting notices of plants and animals scattered over the Last Journals. These Journals contain important contributions both to economic and physiological botany. In the former department, Livingstone makes valuable observations on plants useful in the arts, such as gum-copal, papyrus, cotton, india-rubber, and the palm-oil tree; while in the latter, his notices of "carnivorous plants," which catch insects that probably yield nourishment to the plant, of silicified wood and the like, show how carefully he watched all that throws light on the life and changes of plants. In zoölogy he was never weary of observing, especially when he found a strange-looking animal with strange habits. Spiders, ants, and bees of unknown varieties were brought to light, but the strangest of his new acquaintances were among the fishy tribes. He found fish that made long excursions on land, thanks to the wet grass through which they would wander for miles, thus proving that "a fish out of water" is not always the best symbol for a man out of his element. There were fish, too, that burrowed in the earth; but most remarkable at first sight were the fish that appeared to bring forth their young by ejecting them from their mouths. If Bruce or Du Chaillu had made such a statement, remarks Professor Owen, what ridicule would they not have encountered! But Livingstone was not the man to make a statement of what he had not ascertained, or to be content until he had found a scientific explanation of it. He found that in the branchial openings of the fish, there occur bags or pouches, on the same principle as the pouch of the opossum, where the young may be lodged for a time for protection or nourishment, and that when the creatures are discharged through the mouth into the water, it is only from a temporary cradle where they were probably enjoying repose, beyond the reach of enemies.

Perhaps the greatest of Livingstone's scientific discoveries during this journey was that "of a physical condition of the earth's surface in elevated tracts of the great continent, unknown before." The bogs or earth-sponges, that from his first acquaintance with them gave him so much trouble, and at last proved the occasion of his death, were not only remarkable in themselves, but-interesting as probably explaining the annual inundations of most of the rivers. Wherever there was a plain sloping toward a narrow opening in hills or higher ground, there were the conditions for an African sponge. The vegetation falls down and rots, and forms a rich black loam, resting often, two or three feet thick, on a bed of pure river sand. The early rains turn the vegetation into slush, and fill the, pools. The later rains, finding the pools already full, run off to the rivers, and form the inundation. The first rains occur south of the equator when the sun goes vertically over any spot, and the second or greater rains happen in his course north again. This, certainly, was the case as observed on the Zambesi and Shiré, and taking the different times for the sun's passage north of the equator, it explained the inundations of the Nile.

Such notices show that in his love of nature, and in his careful observation of all her agencies and processes, Livingstone, in his last journeys, was the same as ever. He looked reverently on all plants and animals, and on the solid earth in all its aspects and forms, as the creatures of that same God whose love in Christ it was his heart's delight to proclaim. His whole life, so varied in its outward employments, yet so simple and transparent in its one great object, was ruled by the conviction that the God of nature and the God of revelation were one. While thoroughly enjoying his work as a naturalist, Professor Owen frankly admits that it was but a secondary object of his life. "Of his primary work the record is on high, and its imperishable fruits remain on earth. The seeds of the Word of Life implanted lovingly, with pains and labor, and above-all with faith; the out-door scenes of the simple Sabbath service; the testimony of Him to whom the worship was paid, given in terms of such simplicity as were fitted to the comprehension of the dark-skinned listeners,--these seeds will not have been scattered by him in vain. Nor have they been sown in words alone, but in deeds, of which some part of the honor will redound to his successors. The teaching by forgiveness of injuries,--by trust, however unworthy the trusted,--by that confidence which imputed his own noble nature to those whom he would win,--by the practical enforcement of the fact that a man might promise and perform--might say the thing he meant,--of this teaching by good deeds, as well as by the words of truth and love, the successor who treads in the steps of LIVINGSTONE, and accomplishes the discovery he aimed at, and pointed the way to, will assuredly the benefit [73]."