It is difficult to summarise Livingstone’s achievements during the
eleven years he had spent in Africa. He had penetrated furthest north
from the Cape of any white man. He had discovered Lake Ngami, and the
upper reaches of the Zambesi. He had given Christianity a foothold among
the Bakwains and the Makololo. He had converted one of the most
remarkable chiefs in Central Africa. He had built three houses with his
own hands, and had taught many hundreds to read. He had exercised the
healing art to the relief and benefit of thousands. He had made some
progress in reducing Sechuana to a grammatical language; and had even
composed hymns in it. He had made invaluable scientific researches, and
had enriched our knowledge of the animalia, flora, and fauna of Central
Africa. Above all, he had seen at first hand the horrors of the slave
traffic, and had vowed himself to the ultimate prevention of this form
of “man’s inhumanity to man.” Eleven busy, arduous, and perilous years
had brought him to midlife. He was now about to dedicate all his ripe
experience and unique powers of head and heart to the religious and
social redemption of the dark interior of the continent to which he had
consecrated his life. Even during his brief sojourn at the Cape he had
been perfecting himself for the work that lay before him. He had studied
astronomy, and had learned to take observations under Sir T. Maclear,
the Astronomer Royal, who wrote of him afterwards: “What that man has
done is unprecedented. You could go to any point across the entire
continent along Livingstone’s track, and feel certain of your position.”
In David Livingstone’s judgment it was impossible for a man to be too
thoroughly equipped for the great business of a missionary.
In one respect his equipment was necessarily poor. His financial
resources were so meagre that he had to fall back on very lean kine to
draw his waggon, which is why the journey to Kuruman took a full three
months. There a broken wheel detained him, and possibly saved his life;
for this was the time selected by the band of Dutch marauders to wreak
their vengeance on him, and on the hapless tribe of Sechele. It is a
shocking story, and in his sympathy with Sechele, sixty of whose people
had been massacred, Livingstone could almost forget his own personal
loss, though he grieved sorely over the wanton destruction of his books.
Amid all his sorrow and heartbreak, he can yet smile at the humorous
side. “We shall move more easily now that we are lightened of our
furniture. They have taken away our sofa. I never had a good rest on it.
We had only got it ready when we left. Well, they can’t have taken away
all the stones. We shall have a seat in spite of them, and that, too,
with a merry heart which doeth good like a medicine.” Never in this
world was anyone who had so stout a philosophy for times of misfortune.
He could jest that “the Boers had saved him the trouble of making a
will.”
Poor Sechele in his despair resolved on a personal appeal for justice to
the great White Queen, and actually travelled to the Cape to take ship
to England. He was shown much kindness there, and eventually returned,
gathered the people around him, and became a stronger chief than before,
while he continued to instruct his tribe in the Bible, without any
assistance from a missionary. There are few more striking proofs of the
enduring power of Livingstone’s personal influence and Christian faith.
The journey through our old friend the desert to the Chobe river, and
across it to where Sekeletu, the son of Sebituane, was now reigning, was
more arduous and perilous than it had been previously. The floods from
the annual inundation of the Chobe were an almost invincible obstacle;
yet where the waters did not lie the heat was torrid. “At the surface of
the ground in the sun the thermometer registered 125°. The hand cannot
be held on the earth, and even the horny feet of the natives must be
protected by sandals of hide.” The battle with the waters of the Chobe
and its tributaries would have ended in the defeat of anyone less
lion-hearted than this traveller. Many of the natives retired from the
encounter on the easy pretext of throwing dice and declaring that the
gods willed their return. Some of them feigned sickness, to ride in the
waggons; and it required infinite patience and humouring to get them
forward. Part of the journey lay through dense forest, and laborious
days were spent swinging the axe to make a waggon track. The rivers
effectually stopped the waggons; and Livingstone took to a pontoon, and
afterwards to canoes. But there was much wading to do under a blistering
sun, and through reeds that “made our hands all raw and bloody,” and
thorns that tore even leather trousers. They were glad to sleep in a
filthy deserted hut; and at night the cold dews descended, and the
mosquitoes gathered in clouds. They were disturbed by the hippopotami,
and the eerie waters were alive with water-snakes. But no combination of
perils had any terror for one the alphabet of whose creed was that “man
is immortal till his work is done.” At twilight of one day, a village
was descried on the river bank. It was Morémi, and Livingstone had
reached his beloved Makololo at last. “The inhabitants looked like
people who had seen a ghost,” he says; but what he himself really looked
like he forbears to add. “He has dropped among us from the clouds, yet
came riding on the back of a hippopotamus,”--this was their appropriate
description of the pontoon. “We Makololo thought no one could cross the
Chobe without our knowledge, but here he drops among us like a bird.”
They returned with him, “took the waggons to pieces and carried them
across on a number of canoes lashed together.” On the 23rd of May, 1853,
they reached Linyanti, the capital town of the Makololo, where the new
chief, Sekeletu, received them “in royal style.”
Livingstone’s problem had now definitely to be solved. Sekeletu was not
a whit behind Sebituane in friendliness, and not much inferior in
intelligence. He had no desire for the Bible, fearing that it might
compel him to content himself with one wife. But he set an example to
the tribe in reverent attention to Livingstone’s simple preaching, and
he had absolute faith in the protection afforded to his people by
Livingstone’s presence and skill. But exactly a week after the arrival
at Linyanti, Livingstone had his first taste of malaria, nor did the
well-meant efforts of the native doctors do much to cure him. He
experienced its weakening effect. If he looked up suddenly he was
affected with a strange giddiness. “Everything appeared to rush to the
left, and if I did not catch hold of some support I fell heavily on the
ground.” The same horrible sensations occurred at night, “whenever I
turned suddenly round.” One thing was clear--Linyanti was no place for a
healthy settlement. Some might add that with fever in the system it was
idle to think of a journey of a thousand miles or more. But this was
not Livingstone’s way of looking at things. “There is a good deal in not
giving in to this disease,” he writes; “he who is low-spirited will die
sooner than the man who is not of a melancholic nature.” Ill as he was,
he was resolute to continue his explorations, and with Sekeletu and a
large band of Makololo for companions, he travelled some hundreds of
miles of waterway, ascending the great river to the north-west from
Seshéke. Here the Zambesi is called the Leeambye, and Livingstone
expresses his delight at skimming along in great canoes, gazing on a
wonderful inland river which no white man had hitherto explored. He
finds, as ever, in the wonders and beauties of nature, the splendour of
the wild birds, and the curious fascination of the river-beasts some
relief from the awful spectacle, constantly present, of human cruelty
and degradation. “The sciences,” he writes, “exhibit such wonderful
intelligence and design in all their various ramifications, some time
ought to be devoted to them before engaging in missionary work.... We
may feel that we are leaning on His bosom while living in a world
clothed in beauty, and robed with the glorious perfection of its Maker
and Preserver.... He who stays his mind on his ever-present,
ever-energetic God, will not fret himself because of evil-doers. He that
believeth shall not make haste.” It was indeed well for him that he had
this power to absorb himself in “whatsoever things are lovely,” for the
nightmare of heathenism was always with him. He has to witness
Sekeletu’s revenge on those who had plotted against him. Some of the
scenes are incredibly horrible; and his protests are unavailing. The
miseries of slavery wrung his heart, and as he advances into the dark
interior, the chorus of human agonies is ever in his ears. “I was in
closer contact with heathens than I had ever been before, and though all
were as kind to me as possible, yet to endure the dancing, roaring and
singing, the jesting, the grumbling, quarrellings and murderings of
these children of nature was the severest penance I had yet undergone in
the course of my missionary duties.” Again he exclaims in his Diary,
“the more intimately I become acquainted with barbarians, the more
disgusting does heathenism become. It is inconceivably vile ... they
never visit anywhere but for the purpose of plunder and oppression. They
never go anywhere but with a club or spear in hand.... They need a
healer. May God enable me to be such to them.” Slowly but surely the
whole tragedy of Africa is unveiled before him. The fair landscape of
its rivers and forests, the gay plumage of its birds, and beauty of its
living creatures, is like a gorgeous curtain covering unspeakable depths
of pain and sin. The people gather in hundreds to hear him, and
especially to see the wonders of his magic lantern, but he cannot in a
brief stay undo the superstitions and inhumanities of centuries. His eye
is on the future. “A minister who has not seen so much pioneer service
as I have done would have been shocked to see so little effect
produced.... We can afford to work in faith.... Future missionaries will
be rewarded by conversions for every sermon. We are their pioneers.
They will doubtless have more light than we, but we served our Master
earnestly and proclaimed the Gospel they will do.”
Baffled in the hope of finding a healthy situation for a permanent
mission station near Linyanti, the final determination to make a way to
the coast crystallised in his mind. “I shall open up a path to the
interior or perish,” he writes, in his terse, decisive way to Dr.
Moffat; “I never have had the shadow of a shade of doubt as to the
propriety of my course.” On November 8th he writes home to his father
what he evidently feels may be his last will and testament: ‘May God in
mercy permit me to do something for the cause of Christ in these dark
places of the earth. May He accept my children for His service and
sanctify them for it. My blessing on my wife. May God comfort her! If my
watch comes back after I am cut off, it belongs to Agnes. If my sextant,
it is Robert’s. The Paris medal to Thomas. Double-barrelled gun to
Zouga. Be a father to the fatherless and a husband to the widow for
Jesus’ sake,” That was all. The Boers had relieved him of the necessity
of willing any other belongings. He had none. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer would not have made much out of the death duties on this
property.