"It was difficult to say," writes Dr. Stewart, "whether he or the unhappy ladies, on whom the blow fell with the most personal weight, were most to be pitied. He felt the responsibility, and saw the wide-spread dismay which the news would occasion when it reached England, and at the very time when the Mission most needed support. 'This will hurt us all,' he said, as he sat resting his head on his hand, on the table of the dimly-lighted little cabin of the 'Pioneer,' His esteem for Bishop Mackenzie was afterward expressed in this way: 'For unselfish goodness of heart and earnest devotion to the work he had undertaken, it can safely be said that none of the commendations of his friends can exceed the reality,' He did what he could, I believe, to comfort those who were so unexpectedly bereaved; but the night he spent must have been an uneasy one."
Livingstone says in his book that the unfavorable judgment which he had formed of the Bishop's conduct in fighting with the Ajawa was somewhat modified by a natural instinct, when he saw how keenly the Bishop was run down for it in England, and reflected more on the circumstances, and thought how excellent a man he was. Sometimes he even said that, had he been there, he would probably have done what the Bishop did [63]. Why, then, it may be asked, was Livingstone so ill-pleased when it was said that all that the Bishop had done was done by his advice? No one will ask this question who reads the terms of a letter by Mr. Rowley, one of the Mission party, first published in the Cape papers, and copied into the Times in November, 1862. It was said there that "from the moment when Livingstone commenced the release of slaves, his course was one of aggression. He hunted for slaving parties in every direction, and when he heard of the Ajawa making slaves in order to sell to the slavers, he went designedly in search of them, and intended to take their captives from them by force if needful. It is true that when he came upon them he found them to be a more powerful body than he expected, and had they not fired first, he might have withdrawn.... His parting words to the chiefs just before he left ... were to this effect: 'You have hitherto seen us only as fighting men but it is not in such a character we wish you to know us [64].'" How could Livingstone be otherwise than indignant to be spoken of as if the use of force had been his habit, while the whole tenor of his life had gone most wonderfully to show the efficacy of gentle and brotherly treatment? How could he but be vexed at having the odium of the whole proceedings thrown on him, when his last advice to the missionaries had been disregarded by them? Or how could he fail to be concerned at the discredit which the course ascribed to him must bring upon the Expedition under his command, which was entirely separate from the Mission? It was the unhandsome treatment of himself and reckless periling of the character and interests of his Expedition in order to shield others, that raised his indignation. "Good Bishop Mackenzie," he wrote to his friend Mr. Fitch, "would never have tried to screen himself by accusing me." In point of fact, a few years afterward the Portuguese Government, through Mr. Lacerda, when complaining bitterly of the statements of Livingstone in a speech at Bath, in 1865, referred to Mr. Rowley's letter as bearing out their complaint. It served admirably to give an unfavorable view of his aims and methods, as from one of his own allies. Dr. Livingstone never allowed himself to cherish any other feeling but that of high regard for the self-denial and Christian heroism of the Bishop, and many of his coadjutors; but he did feel that most of them were ill-adapted for their work and had a great deal to learn, and that the manner in which he had been turned aside from the direct objects of his own enterprise by having to look after so many inexperienced men, and then blamed for what he deprecated, and what was done in his absence, was rather more than it was reasonable for him to bear [65].
[63] Writing to Mr. Waller, 12th February, 1863, Dr. Livingstone said: "I thought you wrong in attacking the Ajawa, till I looked on it as defense of your orphans. I thought that you had shut yourselves up to one tribe, and that, the Manganja; but I think differently now, and only wish they would send out Dr. Pusey here. He would learn a little sense, of which I suppose I have need myself."
[64] Mr. Rowley afterward (February 22, 1865) expressed his regret that this letter was ever written, as it had produced an ill-effect. See The Zambesi and its Tributaries, p. 475 note.
[65] It must not be supposed that the letter of Mr. Rowley expressed the mind of his brethren. Some of them were greatly annoyed at it, and used their influence to induce its author to write to the Cape papers that he had conveyed a wrong impression. In writing to Sir Thomas Maclear (20th November, 1862), after seeing Rowley's letter in the Cape papers, Dr. Livingstone said: "It is untrue that I ever on anyone occasion adopted an aggressive policy against the Ajawa, or took slaves from them. Slaves were taken from Portuguese alone. I never hunted the Ajawa, or took the part of Manganja against Ajawa. In this I believe every member of the Mission will support my assertion." Livingstone declined to write a contradiction to the public prints, because he knew the harm that would be done by a charge against a clergyman. In this he showed the same magnanimity and high Christian self-denial which he had shown when he left Mabotsa. It was only when the Portuguese claimed the benefit of Rowley's testimony that he let the public see what its value was.
Writing of the terrible loss of Mackenzie and Burrup to the Bishop of Cape Town, Livingstone says: "The blow is quite bewildering; the two strongest men so quickly cut down, and one of them, humanly speaking, indispensable to the success of the enterprise. We must bow to the will of Him who doeth all things well; but I cannot help feeling sadly disturbed in view of the effect the news may have at home. I shall not swerve a hairbreadth from my work while life is spared, and I trust the supporters of the Mission may not shrink back from all that they have set their hearts to."
The next few weeks were employed in taking Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup to the "Gorgon" on their way home. It was a painful voyage to all--to Dr. and Mrs. Livingstone, to Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup, and last, not least, to Captain Wilson, who had been separated so long from his ship, and had risked life, position, and everything, to do service to a cause which in spite of all he left at a much lower ebb.
When the "Pioneer" arrived at the bar, it found that owing to the weather the ship had been forced to leave the coast, and she did not return for a fortnight. There was thus another long waiting from 17th March to 2d April. Dr. and Mrs. Livingstone then returned to Shupanga. The long detention in the most unhealthy season of the year, and when fever was at its height, was a sad, sad calamity.
We are now arrived at the last illness and the death of Mrs. Livingstone. After she had parted from her husband at the Cape in the spring of 1858, she returned with her parents to Kuruman, and in November gave birth there to her youngest child, Anna Mary. Thereafter she returned to Scotland to be near her other children. Some of them were at school. No comfortable home for them all could be formed, and though many friends were kind, the time was not a happy one. Mrs. Livingstone's desire to be with her husband was intense; not only the longings of an affectionate heart, and the necessity of taking counsel with him about the family, but the feeling that when over-shadowed by one whose faith was so strong her fluttering heart would regain, its steady tone, and she would be better able to help both him and the children, gave vehemence to this desire. Her letters to her husband tell of much spiritual darkness; his replies were the very soul of tenderness and Christian earnestness. Providence seemed to favor her wish; the vessel in which she sailed was preserved from imminent destruction, and she had the great happiness of finding her husband alive and well.
On the 21st of April Mrs. Livingstone became ill. On the 25th the symptoms were alarming--vomitings every quarter of an hour, which prevented any medicine from remaining on her stomach. On the 26th she was worse and delirious. On the evening of Sunday the 27th Dr. Stewart got a message from her husband that the end was drawing near. "He was sitting by the side of a rude bed formed of boxes, but covered with a soft mattress, on which lay his dying wife. All consciousness had now departed, as she was in a state of deep coma, from which all efforts to rouse her had been unavailing. The strongest medical remedies and her husband's voice were both alike powerless to reach the spirit which was still there, but was now so rapidly sinking into the depths of slumber, and darkness and death. The fixedness of feature and the oppressed and heavy breathing only made it too plain that the end was near. And the man who had faced so many deaths, and braved so many dangers, was now utterly broken down and weeping like a child."