Leaving the "Pioneer" at Chibisa's, on 6th August, 1861, Livingstone, accompanied by his brother and Dr. Kirk, started for Nyassa with a four-oared boat, which was carried by porters past the Murchison Cataracts. On 23d September they sailed into Lake Nyassa, naming the grand mountainous promontory at the end Cape Maclear, after Livingstone's great friend the Astronomer-Royal at the Cape.
All about the lake was now examined with earnest eyes. The population was denser than he had seen anywhere else. The people were civil, and even friendly, but undoubtedly they were not handsome. At the north of the lake they were lawless, and at one point the party were robbed in the night--the first time such a thing had occurred in Livingstone's African life [61]. Of elephants there was a great abundance,--indeed of all animal and vegetable life.
[61] In The Zambesi and its Tributaries, Livingstone gives a grave account of the robbery. In his letters to his friends he makes fun of it, as he did of the raid of the Boers. To Mr. F. Fitch he writes: "You think I cannot get into a scrape.... For the first time in Africa we were robbed. Expert thieves crept into our sleeping-places, about four o'clock in the morning, and made off with what they could lay their hands on. Sheer over-modesty ruined me. It was Sunday, and such a black mass swarmed around our sail, which we used as a hut, that we could not hear prayers. I had before slipped away a quarter of a mile to dress for church, but seeing a crowd of women watching me through the reeds, I did not change my old 'unmentionables,'--they were so old, I had serious thoughts of converting them into--charity! Next morning nearly all our spare clothing was walked off with, and there I was left by my modesty nearly through at the knees, and no change of shirt, flannel, or stockings. After that, don't say that I can't get into a scrape!" The same letter thanks Mr. Fitch for sending him Punch, whom he deemed a sound divine! On the same subject he wrote at another time, regretting that Punch did not reach him, especially a number in which notice was taken of himself. "It never came. Who the miscreants are that steal them I cannot divine, I would not grudge them a reading if they would only send them on afterward. Perhaps binding the whole year's Punches would be the best plan; and then we need not label it 'Sermons in Lent,' or 'Tracts on Homoeopathy,' but you may write inside, as Dr. Buckland did on his umbrella, 'Stolen from Dr. Livingstone.' We really enjoy them very much. They are good against fever. The 'Essence of Parliament,' for instance, is capital. One has to wade through an ocean of paper to get the same information, without any of the fun. And by the time the newspapers have reached us, most of the interest in public matters has evaporated."
But the lake slave-trade was going on at a dismal rate. An Arab dhow was seen on the lake, but it kept well out of the way. Dr. Livingstone was informed by Colonel Rigdy, late British Consul at Zanzibar, that 19,000 slaves from this Nyassa region alone passed annually through the custom-house there. This was besides those landed at Portuguese slave ports. In addition to those captured, thousands were killed or died of their wounds or of famine, or perished in other ways, so that not one-fifth of the victims became slaves--in the Nyassa district probably not one-tenth. A small armed steamer on the lake might stop nearly the whole of this wholesale robbery and murder.
Their stock of goods being exhausted, and no provisions being procurable, the party had to return at the end of October. They had to abandon the project of getting from the lake to the Rovuma, and exploring eastward. They reached the ship on 8th November, 1861, having suffered more from hunger than on any previous trip.
In writing to his friend Young, 28th November, 1861, Livingstone expresses his joy at the news of the departure of the "Lady Nyassa;" gives him an account of the lake, and of a terrific storm in which they were nearly lost; describes the inhabitants, and the terrible slave-trade--the only trade that was carried on in the district. It will take them the best part of a year to put the ship on the lake, but it will be such a blessing! He hopes the Government will pay for it, once it is there.
The colonization project had not commended itself to Sir R. Murchison. He had written of it sometime before: "Your colonization scheme does not meet with supporters, it being thought that you must have much more hold on the country before you attract Scotch families to emigrate and settle there, and then die off, or become a burden to you and all concerned, like the settlers of old at Darien." It was with much satisfaction that Livingstone now wrote to his friend (25th November, 1861): "A Dr. Stewart is sent out by the Free Church of Scotland to confer with me about a Scotch Colony. You will guess my answer. Dr. Kirk is with me in opinion, and if I could only get you out to take a trip up to the plateau of Zomba, and over the uplands which surround Lake Nyassa, you would give in too."
When the party returned to the ship they had a visit from Bishop Mackenzie, who was in good spirits and had excellent hopes of the Mission. The Ajawa had been defeated, and had professed a desire to be at peace with the English. But Dr. Livingstone was not without misgivings on this point. The details of the defeat of the Ajawa, in which the missionaries had taken an active part, troubled him, as we find from his private Journal. "The Bishop," he says (14th of November), "takes a totally different view of the affair from what I do." There were other points on which the utter inexperience of the missionaries, and want of skill in dealing with the natives, gave him serious anxiety. It is impossible not to see that even thus early, the Mission, in Livingstone's eyes, had lost something of its bloom.
It was arranged that the "Pioneer" should go down to the mouth of the Zambesi, to meet a man-of-war with provisions, and bring up the pieces of the new lake vessel, the "Lady Nyassa," which was eagerly expected, along with Mrs. Livingstone, Miss Mackenzie, the Bishop's sister, and other members of the Mission party. An appointment was made for January at the mouth of the river Ruo, a tributary of the Shiré, where the Bishop was to meet them. He and Mr. Burrup, who had just arrived, were meanwhile to explore the neighboring country.
The "Pioneer" was detained for five weeks on a shoal twenty miles below Chibisa's, and here the first death occurred--the carpenter's mate succumbed to fever. It was extremely irksome to suffer this long detention, to think of fuel and provisions wasting, and salaries running on, without one particle of progress. Livingstone was sensitive and anxious. He speaks in his Journal of the difficulty of feeling resigned to the Divine will in all things, and of believing that all things work together for good to those that love God, He seems to have been troubled at what had been said in some quarters of his treatment of members of the Expedition. In private letters, in the Cape papers, in the home papers, unfavorable representations of his conduct had been made. In one case, a prosecution at law had been threatened. On New Year's Day, 1862, he entered in his Journal an elaborate minute, as if for future use, bearing on the conduct of the Expedition. He refers to the difficulty to which civil expeditions are exposed, as compared with naval and military, in the matter of discipline, owing to the inferior authority and power of the chief. In the countries visited there is no enlightened public opinion to support the commander, and newspapers at home are but too ready to believe in his tyranny, and make themselves the champions of any dawdling fellow who would fain be counted a victim of his despotism. He enumerates the chief troubles to which his Expedition had been exposed from such causes. Then he explains how, at the beginning, to prevent collision, he had made every man independent in his own department, wishing only, for himself, to be the means of making known to the world what each man had done. His conclusion is a sad one, but it explains why in his last journeys he went alone: he is convinced that if he had been by himself he would have accomplished more, and undoubtedly he would have received more of the approbation of his countrymen [62].