Livingstone reached the Portuguese settlement of Tette on the 3d March, 1856, and the "civilized breakfast" which the commandant, Major Sicard, sent forward to him, on his way, was a luxury like Mr. Gabriel's bed at Loanda, and made him walk the last eight miles without the least sensation of fatigue, although the road was so rough that, as a Portuguese soldier remarked, it was like "to tear a man's life out of him." At Loanda he had heard of the battle of the Alma; after being in Tette a short time he heard of the fall of Sebastopol and the end of the Crimean War. He remained in Tette till the 23d April, detained by an attack of fever, receiving extraordinary kindness from the Governor, and, among other tokens of affection, a gold chain for his daughter Agnes, the work of an inhabitant of the town. These gifts were duly acknowledged. It was at this place that Dr. Livingstone left his Makololo followers, with instructions to wait for him till he should return from England. Well entitled though he was to a long rest, he deliberately gave up the possibility of it, by engaging to return for his black companions.
In the case of Dr. Livingstone, rest meant merely change of employment, and while resting and recovering from fever, he wrote a large budget of long and interesting letters. One of these was addressed to the King of Portugal: it affords clear evidence that, however much Livingstone felt called to reprobate the deeds of some of his subordinates, he had a respectful feeling for the King himself, a grateful sense of the kindness received from his African subjects, and an honest desire to aid the wholesome development of the Portuguese colonies. It refutes, by anticipation, calumnies afterward circulated to the effect that Livingstone's real design was to wrest the Portuguese settlements in Africa from Portugal, and to annex them to the British Crown. He refers most gratefully to the great kindness and substantial aid he had received from His Majesty's subjects, and is emboldened thereby to address him on behalf of Africa. He suggests certain agricultural products--especially wheat and a species of wax--that might be cultivated with enormous profit. A great stimulus might be given to the cultivation of other products--coffee, cotton, sugar, and oil. Much had been done for Angola, but with little result, because the colonists' leant on Government instead of trusting to themselves. Illegitimate traffic (the slave-trade) was not at present remunerative, and now was the time to make a great effort to revive wholesome enterprise. A good road into the interior would be a great boon. Efforts to provide roads and canals had failed for want of superintendents. Dr. Livingstone named a Portuguese engineer who would superintend admirably. The fruits of the Portuguese missions were still apparent, but there was a great want of literature, of books.
"It will not be denied," concludes the letter, "that those who, like your Majesty, have been placed over so many human souls, have a serious responsibility resting upon them in reference to their future welfare. The absence also of Portuguese women In the colony is a circumstance which seems to merit the attention of Government for obvious reasons. And if any of these suggestions should lead to the formation of a middle class of free laborers, I feel sure that Angola would have cause to bless your Majesty to the remotest time."
Dr. Livingstone has often been accused of claiming for himself the credit of discoveries made by others, of writing as if he had been the first to traverse routes in which he had really been preceded by the Portuguese. Even were it true that now and then an obscure Portuguese trader or traveler reached spots that lay in Dr. Livingstone's subsequent route, the fact would detract nothing from his merit, because he derived not a tittle of benefit from their experience, and what he was concerned about was, not the mere honor of being first at a place, as if he had been running a race, but to make it known to the world, to bring it into the circuit of commerce and Christianity, and thus place it under the influence of the greatest blessings. But even as to being first, Livingstone was careful not to claim anything that was really due to others. Writing from Tette to Sir Roderick in March, 1856, he says: "It seems proper to mention what has been done in former times in the way of traversing the continent, and the result of my inquiries leads to the belief that the honor belongs to our country." He refers to the brave attempt of Captain José da Roga, in 1678, to penetrate from Benguela to the Rio da Senna, in which attempt, however, so much opposition was encountered that he was compelled to return. In 1800, Lacerda revived the project by proposing a chain of forts along the banks of the Coanza. In 1815, two black traders showed the possibility of communication from east to west, by bringing to Loanda communications from the Governor of Mozambique. Some Arabs and Moors went from the East Coast to Benguela, and with a view to improve the event, "a million of Reis (£142) and an honorary captaincy in the Portuguese army was offered to any one who would accompany them back--but none went." The journey had several times been performed by Arabs.
"I do not feel so much elated," continued Dr. Livingstone, "by the prospect of accomplishing this feat. I feel most thankful to God for preserving my life, where so many, who by superior intelligence would have done more good, have been cut off. But it does not look as if I had reached the goal. Viewed in relation to my calling, the end of the geographical feat is only the beginning of the enterprise. Apart from family longings, I have a most intense longing to hear how it has fared with our brave men at Sebastopol. My last scrap of intelligence was the Times, 17th November, 1855, after the terrible affair of the Light Cavalry. The news was not certain about a most determined attack to force the way to Balaclava, and Sebastopol expected every day to fall, and I have had to repress all my longings since, except in a poor prayer to prosper the cause of justice and right, and cover the heads of our soldiers in the day of battle." [A few days later he heard the news.] "We are all engaged in very much the same cause. Geographers, astronomers, and mechanicians, laboring to make men better acquainted with each other; sanitary reformers, prison reformers, promoters of ragged schools and Niger Expeditions; soldiers fighting for right against oppression, and sailors rescuing captives in deadly climes, as well as missionaries, are all aiding in hastening on a glorious consummation to all God's dealings with our race. In the hope that I may yet be honored to do some good to this poor long downtrodden Africa, the gentlemen over whom you have the honor to preside will, I believe, cordially join."
From Tette he went on to Senna. Again he is treated with extraordinary kindness by Lieutenant Miranda, and others, and again he is prostrated by an attack of fever. Provided with a comfortable boat, he at last reaches Quilimane on the 20th May, and is most kindly received by Colonel Nunes, "one of the best men in the country." Dr. Livingstone has told us in his book how his joy in reaching Quilimane was embittered on his learning that Captain Maclure, Lieutenant Woodruffe, and five men of H.M.S. "Dart," had been drowned off the bar in coming to Quilimane to pick him up, and how he felt as if he would rather have died for them [46].
[46] Among Livingstone's papers we have found draft letter to the Admiralty, earnestly commending to their Lordship's favorable consideration a petition from the widow of one of the men. He had never seen her, he said, but he had been the unconscious cause of her husband's death, and all the joy he felt in crossing the continent was embittered when the news of the sad catastrophe reached him.
News from across the Atlantic likewise informed him that his nephew and namesake, David Livingston, a fine lad eleven years of age, had been drowned in Canada. All the deeper was his gratitude for the goodness and mercy that had followed him and preserved him, as he says in his private Journal, from "many dangers not recorded in this book."
The retrospect in his Missionary Travels of the manner in which his life had been ordered up to this point, is so striking that our narrative would be deficient if it did not contain it:
"If the reader remembers the way in which I was led, while teaching the Bakwains, to commence exploration, he will, I think, recognize the hand of Providence. Anterior to that, when Mr. Moffat began to give the Bible--the Magna Charta of all the rights and privileges of modern civilization--to the Bechuanas, Sebituane went north, and spread the language into which he was translating the sacred oracles, in a new region larger than France. Sebituane, at the same time, rooted out hordes of bloody savages, among whom no white man could have gone without leaving his skull to ornament some village. He opened up the way for me--let us hope also for the Bible. Then, again, while I was laboring at Kolobeng, seeing only a small arc of the cycle of Providence, I could not understand it, and felt inclined to ascribe our successive and prolonged droughts to the wicked one. But when forced by these, and the Boers, to become explorer, and open a new country in the north rather than set my face southward, where missionaries are not needed, the gracious Spirit of God influenced the minds of the heathen to regard me with favor, the Divine hand is again perceived. Then I turned away westward, rather than in the opposite direction, chiefly from observing that some native Portuguese, though influenced by the hope of a reward from their Government to cross the continent, had been obliged to return from the east without accomplishing their object. Had I gone at first in the eastern direction, which the course of the great Leeambye seemed to invite, I should have come among the belligerents near Tette when the war was raging at its height, instead of, as it happened, when all was over. And again, when enabled to reach Loanda, the resolution to do my duty by going back to Linyanti probably saved me from the fate of my papers in the 'Forerunner.' And then, last of all, this new country is partially opened to the sympathies of Christendom, and I find that Sechéle himself has, though unbidden by man, been teaching his own people. In fact, he has been doing all that I was prevented from doing, and I have been employed in exploring--a work I had no previous intention of performing. I think that I see the operation of the Unseen Hand in all this, and I humbly hope that it will still guide me to do good in my day and generation in Africa."