When Livingstone arrived in Bombay in September, Sir Bartle Frere was
Governor. They were old friends, and the Governor became his very
sympathetic host. His immediate purpose was to dispose of the “Lake
Nyassa” for what she would fetch. This proved to be £2,600, for a
steamer that had cost him £6,000. It was a poor bargain, but he was not
in a position to refuse it, and as things turned out he got no good out
of it. He deposited the money in an Indian bank which in a few weeks
failed miserably, and Livingstone’s money was seen no more. As he cared
for money less than any man, he did not allow himself to be unduly
depressed by this misfortune. “The whole of the money she cost,” he
wrote, “was dedicated to the great cause for which she was built: we
are not responsible for results.” His preparations in Bombay for the
forthcoming expedition were, for him, quite elaborate; and we may add at
once gave little satisfaction in the sequel. There is a training school
under Government for Africans at Nassick. Nine of the men volunteered to
go with him. Besides these, he was supplied with sepoys from the “Marine
Battalion.” He was assured that they had been accustomed to rough it in
various ways. In practice they would only march five miles a day, were
“notorious skulkers,” and disgusted Livingstone by their cruelty to the
brute beasts. It was not long before he dismissed them to their homes.
The Nassick “boys” were not much more manageable. The expedition
included ten Johanna men who were only a moderate success, two Shupanga
men--including Susi--and two Wayaus--including Chumah. Susi and Chumah,
it will be remembered, were with him at the last. Chumah was a liberated
slave who owed his freedom to Livingstone and Bishop Mackenzie in 1861.
The expedition was further distinguished by a number of animals
imported by Livingstone from India: six camels, three buffaloes and a
calf, two mules and four donkeys. He was anxious to prove that camels
were immune from the bites of the tsetse flies, and he expected to
acclimatise the other beasts, and teach some native chief to breed them.
The Sultan of Zanzibar was cordial, and armed Livingstone with a letter
to be used as a passport. Then he took his leave, and on the 22nd of
March he is at the mouth of the Rovuma with all his caravan complete.
The navigation of the shallow river proved unexpectedly difficult, and
occasioned tedious delay and some anxiety; so at last he sails north
again and gets all his animals landed in Mikindany Bay. He is too old a
traveller not to realise that his troubles are all in front of him; but
he does not anticipate them; and writes in high spirits of the joy of
setting out once more into wild and unexplored country.
As David Livingstone is now starting on his last and greatest march,
which was to be lengthened out year after year, and to be signalised by
unparalleled sufferings and heroic endurance, it will be well to
acquaint ourselves with such plans as he had somewhat vaguely laid down.
He realised that there are three great main waterways into the African
interior: the Congo, the Zambesi, and the Nile. He was satisfied that no
future exploration could do other than confirm his conclusions as to the
watershed which he had traversed, from which certain rivers flowed north
to the Congo, and certain others south to the Zambesi. But from earliest
times the scientific imagination had been captured by the problem of the
sources of the Nile. This was the greatest of all unsolved geographical
problems; and to it Livingstone was attracted irresistibly, not only by
his own native curiosity, but by that interest in classical questions
which was a very marked characteristic of his mind. To this problem he
knew that the system of inland lakes was the clue, and that whoever
could completely explore them would settle the question for all time and
“make himself an everlasting name.” That he would have numberless
opportunities of proclaiming Christ to the scattered peoples of the
interior, and would cut across the slave routes and perhaps be able to
scheme out how to defeat the devilish purposes of the slavers, were
motives with him even more powerful. So he got his caravan under way,
marched south to Rovuma, and then south-west across the four hundred
miles of country that lay between the coast and Lake Nyassa.
The first stages were made miserable to Livingstone by the brutality of
the sepoys to the dumb beasts. They were overloaded and overstrained and
cruelly maltreated. Some of them die of sores, which the sepoys insist
are caused by tsetse or by accidents. Meanwhile progress is depressingly
slow; the district through which the expedition passes is
famine-stricken, and food is most difficult to obtain. The sepoys go
from bad to worse, and in two months are openly mutinous. They kill one
camel, beating it over the head; and set themselves to corrupt the
Nassick boys so as to tire Livingstone out. For weeks together it is
nothing but one endless struggle on the part of the leader against this
conspiracy to defeat his plans. Sometimes he tries the offer of
increased wages; sometimes the threat of corporal punishment, but the
indolence, cruelty, and illwill of the sepoys threaten the success of
the expedition, and the spirit of disaffection spreads to the Nassick
boys.
It is the 19th of June: “We passed a woman tied by the neck to a tree
and dead. The people of the country explained that she had been unable
to keep up with the other slaves in a gang.... I may mention here that
we saw others tied up in a similar manner, and one lying in the path,
shot or stabbed, for she was in a pool of blood.” They were on the red
trail now, and Livingstone’s feet never left it till death brought him
release.
On the 27th of June they found “a number of slaves with slave-sticks on,
abandoned by their masters from want of food; they were too weak to be
able to speak or to say where they had come from; some were quite
young.”
The middle of July found them in Mataka’s country, with whom Livingstone
made fast friends. The town lay in an elevated valley surrounded by
mountains; and food was plentiful, so that they were able to make up for
many privations. It was here that Livingstone resolved to send the
sepoys back. They had become quite intolerable--shirking work, stealing,
and infecting all the company with their ill-nature. One of the
incidents that most pleased Livingstone during his stay with Mataka was
the release by the chief of a large company of slaves. The expedition
left for Lake Nyassa on July 28th. It was mountainous travelling now,
but the country between them and the lake was under Mataka, and his
guides were sworn to take them safely. Progress was still slow, though
decidedly more pleasant in the absence of the sepoys. Sometimes they
came on Arab encampments, where the slaves were herded in great
pens--from 300 to 800 form a gang, according to Livingstone’s estimate.
As they drew near the lake, food was plentiful and game abundant. On
August 8th, “we came to the lake at the confluence of the Misinjé, and
felt grateful to that Hand which had protected us thus far on our
journey. It was as if I had come back to an old home I never expected
again to see; and pleasant to bathe in the delicious waters again, hear
the roar of the sea, and dash in the rollers ... I feel quite
exhilarated.” It had taken four months to reach Lake Nyassa from the
coast.
Livingstone’s plan had been to cross the lake by means of Arab dhows,
and resume explorations on the west side. But the Arabs fled from him as
from the plague, and took every care that no dhows were at his disposal;
so he was driven to march round to the foot of the lake, where he was
again on familiar ground, and utters anew his lamentations over the
untimely end of the Universities’ Mission, which he had always seen in
his mind’s eye standing sentinel over this great inland sea, and holding
the country for Christ and freedom.
The end of September finds the expedition on the Shiré; and now rumour
reaches them of wars and troubles ahead, which causes the Johanna men to
desert in a body, and Livingstone does not indulge in many regrets. They
were “inveterate thieves;” but he is left with a party inconveniently
small. The sequel to this treachery on the part of the Johanna men was
that, to justify themselves, they invented and circulated a most
plausible and circumstantial story of Livingstone’s murder--a story
which imposed upon many of his friends and produced a crop of laudatory
obituary notices in the papers. The story was as thoroughly disbelieved
by Livingstone’s old friend, Mr. E. D. Young, who well knew how the
leader of these men could lie. Mr. Young came out to Africa at once,
bringing with him a steel boat, the “Search,” which, by the aid of some
Makololo men, was successfully transported to Lake Nyassa and floated
there. Mr. Young effectually disproved the Johanna legend, and in eight
months was back again in England, having discovered that Livingstone
had passed safely on toward the north-west.
The depleted expedition found itself now in very mountainous regions,
and enjoyed the noble prospects afforded from many of the high plateaux
which they reached. Their faces were to the north, towards the Loangwa
River and the distant Lake Tanganyika. No opportunity is lost by the way
of preaching to all the tribes “our relationship to our Father; His love
for all His children; the guilt of selling any of His children--the
consequence: _e.g._, it begets war, for they don’t like to sell their
own, and steal from other villages, who retaliate.” Going west from the
lake they followed a very zigzag course, crossing many rivers which flow
into the Lintipé, which is one of the main supplies of Lake Nyassa. They
kept to the north of the fine Zalanyama range, and pushed on in a
north-westerly direction. All the while a state of fear existed in
regard to the dreaded Mazitu, who were reported to be making forays,
and whom Livingstone compared to the Highland Celts in the twelfth
century in the Border country. By the middle of December they had
reached the Loangwa, and crossed it in search of food. Christmas Day was
spent wretchedly, the goats having been stolen, and Livingstone’s
favourite milk-diet being at an end. A ridge of mountain country has to
be crossed, after which they are compelled to bear to the east in search
of food, which has become very scarce again, and all the party are
suffering. The last day of 1866 is sacred to some new resolutions: “Will
try to do better in 1867, and be better--more gentle and loving; and may
the Almighty, to Whom I commit my way, bring my desires to pass and
prosper me. Let all the sin of ’66 be blotted out for Jesus’ sake.”
_January 1st, 1867._--“May He who was full of grace and truth impress
His character on mine. Grace--eagerness to show favour;
truth--truthfulness, sincerity, honour--for His mercy’s sake.”
The year opens with “a _set-in_ rain.” He records that he feels always
hungry, and is constantly dreaming of better food when he should be
sleeping. On the 10th he takes his belt up three holes to relieve
hunger. On the 15th he suffers the loss of his “poor little dog,
Chitané,” to which he was greatly attached. Everywhere it is famine, and
famine prices for wretched food. They boil grain and pretend it is
coffee. The ground is all sloppy--feet constantly wet. The natives are
living on mushrooms and leaves. Then comes the crowning disaster. Two
men who had joined the expedition deserted, and absconded with the
medicine chest. It was in the midst of the forest and there was not the
shadow of a chance of recovering it. There is little doubt that the lack
of any proper medicines to counteract the fever poison was a main
contributory cause to Livingstone’s serious loss of health. “I felt as
if I had now received sentence of death, like poor Bishop Mackenzie,” he
writes. Yet even in the hour of despair he searches for some support for
optimism, and the Providential order which he knows to exist. “This may
turn out for the best by taking away a source of suspicion among more
superstitious, charm-dreading people further north.” On January 23rd he
remarks that “an incessant hunger teases us ... real, lasting hunger and
faintness.” Yet next day it was a case of “four hours through unbroken,
dark forest.” But they have reached the Chambezé now, lean and starved
and desperate, and there is prospect of food on the other side. They
found the food a little later, but “in changing my dress this morning I
was frightened at my own emaciation.”
The expedition made a lengthy stay with the chief, Chitapangwa, who on
the whole treated them well, and sent men to set them on their way to
Lake Tanganyika. The same steady tramp, tramp continues. Always we seem
to hear what Dr. Isaac Taylor described as “the forward tread ... which
means getting there”; but it is terrible work. He has had rheumatic
fever again; and no medicine! On March 10th he writes: “I have been ill
of fever ... every step I take jars in the chest, and I am very weak; I
can scarcely keep in the march though formerly I was always first.... I
have a constant singing in the ears, and can scarcely hear the loud tick
of the chronometers.” Still he will go on with the rest; and at last, on
the first day of April, they are at Tanganyika, or, as it is called at
the southern end, Lake Liemba. It has been good marching under the most
trying conditions. The veteran traveller has gone from the south of Lake
Nyassa to the south of Lake Tanganyika in six months. Ill as he is, he
is deeply impressed by the loveliness of the scenery. Mountains running
up to 2,000 feet surround the southern portion, “and there, embosomed in
tree-covered rocks, reposes the lake peacefully in the huge cup-shaped
cavity.” Again he writes: “It lies in a deep basin whose sides are
nearly perpendicular, but covered well with trees: the rocks which
appear are bright red argillaceous schist: the trees at present all
green: down some of these rocks come beautiful cascades, and buffaloes,
elephants, and antelopes wander and graze on the more level spots.” It
is an enchanted country; but the getting there has, in the absence of
medicines, nearly killed him. “I feel deeply thankful at having got so
far. I am excessively weak and cannot walk without tottering, and have
constant singing in the head. _But the Highest will lead me further._”
After a few days spent at the lake, Livingstone’s illness assumes a most
alarming form. He has “a fit of insensibility,” finds himself
“floundering outside the hut and unable to get in,” and finally falls
back heavily on his head. The boys carried him in, but hours passed
before he could recognise where he was.
He is a little better a fortnight later, and anxious to move on. But
whither? He had intended to follow the lake to the north-west; but the
road seems barred by the Mazitu, who are out for plunder. He has heard
of Lake Moero, which lies to the west some two hundred, or two hundred
and fifty miles. Is it not possible that this lake may be the common
source of the Congo and the Nile? The geographical problem is most
persistent, and he cannot be satisfied to leave Lake Moero unexplored.
On the first day’s march he has another fit of insensibility, but this
does not constitute an argument for delay. He reached the village of a
chief Chitimba, only to find that the country between him and Lake Moero
is the scene of a small war, which would involve “a long détour round
the disturbed district.” He decides to wait events, which turns out to
be a tedious business; but the Arabs are kind to him, and the enforced
leisure is probably beneficial. His diary is full of descriptions of the
cruelties inflicted by the slave-trade. In all, he was detained at
Chitimba’s village nearly three months and a half. In his onward march
he visits the famous Nsama, with whom the war has been waged, and is
again laid up with illness in that neighbourhood. After this, he crosses
the Chisera and the Choma, and then ascends the high lands between the
rivers and the northern part of the lake. It is exhilarating travelling
here, for Livingstone is always pleasantly excited by beautiful and
hilly scenery which brings back memories of Scotland. But, alas! “the
long line of slaves and carriers” is a frequent incident in the march.
On the 8th of November, he reaches Lake Moero, “which seems of goodly
size, and is flanked by ranges of mountains on the east and west.” There
he sleeps in a fisherman’s hut, for the lake abounds in fish, the
fishermen enumerating thirty-nine varieties. The end of November finds
him at the town of Casembe, where he meets an Arab trader, Mohamad
Bogharib, “with an immense number of slaves,” who gives him a meal--the
first honey and sugar he had tasted for fourteen months--and is useful
to him in many ways. The chief also is civil to Livingstone; but has
been guilty of hateful barbarities, as the mutilated arms and ears of
many of his people bear witness. Livingstone looks with disgust on the
executioner who carries sword and scissors for his horrible work. The
people generally are more savage than any he has seen.
The results of extended explorations of Lake Moero, lasting for some
months, are set forth in a despatch to Lord Clarendon, dated the 10th
of December, 1867. From this despatch we can see that Livingstone had
been misled by a similarity of name to imagine that Lake Bemba, of which
he had heard years before, was the same as Lake Liemba. He now knows
that Lake Liemba is only the southern portion of Lake Tanganyika; and
that Lake Bemba is the lake otherwise called Lake Bangweolo; and that on
his northern travels from Lake Nyassa, when he crossed the River
Chambezé, he had been less than a hundred miles from this latter lake,
and might have saved himself many a hundred miles of trudging had he
explored it first of all. He had discovered also, that a great river,
the Luapula, flows from Lake Bangweolo into the south of Lake Moero, and
that at the north the waters flow out in what is called the River
Lualaba. He is uncertain in his own mind what this great river Lualaba
is, and whither it goes. It may be the Nile; it seems more probable that
it is the Congo. It may flow into the northern portion of Lake
Tanganyika, or it may flow away to the north-west. Livingstone is
assured by the natives that Lake Bangweolo is only ten days distant. But
he adds, “I am so tired of exploration without a word from home or
anywhere else for two years, that I must go to Ujiji on Tanganyika for
letters before doing anything else. Besides, there is another reason--I
have no medicine.” He is satirical on the subject of the published maps,
one of which tacks on 200 miles to Lake Nyassa, and another makes a
river--“the new Zambesi”--flow 4,000 feet up hill! “I have walked over
both these mental abortions and did not know that I was walking on water
till I saw them in the maps.”
The year 1868 finds him still interested in Lake Moero. His New Year’s
prayer is: “If I am to die this year, prepare me for it.”
It was towards the end of March that the idea of going south and
exploring Lake Bangweolo took hold on him. His reason was that at least
two more months must be passed at Lake Moero before a passage could be
made to Ujiji. There were many difficulties in the way, notably that his
stores were nearly done and he could not give presents to chiefs on the
way. What was more serious was that those on whose help he counted were
in open revolt against his plan. Mohamad Bogharib, who intended to
accompany him to Ujiji, was incensed at Livingstone for making a
proposal so mad; and the latter expresses the fear that he must give up
Lake Bangweolo for the present. Next day, however, he is bent on going,
but his own carriers have been corrupted by the Arabs, and refuse to
accompany him. Only five of his men remain loyal; but Livingstone’s
blood is up now, and he starts out at the head of this meagre escort to
find Lake Bemba or Bangweolo. “I did not blame them very severely in my
own mind for absconding,” he writes; “they were tired of tramping, and
so verily am I.” They might well resent Livingstone’s decision, for at
the time it was taken they were at the north end of Lake Moero, where
Livingstone had gone to look at Lualaba, examine the country, and draw
his conclusions as to whether this great river was the Congo or the
Nile. The way to Tanganyika and Ujiji was now open, and this sudden turn
south was almost more than flesh and blood could stand. However, the
leader was obdurate, and early in May, with his faithful few, he is back
at Casembe’s, to the south of Moero, with his mind fully made up for
Bangweolo. Again there were tedious delays, and it is the second week in
June before he is definitely off for the south. A month’s travelling
brings him to Lake Bangweolo. A Babisa traveller asked him why he had
come so far, and he answered that he wished to make the country and
people better known to the rest of the world; that we were all children
of one Father, and that he was anxious that we should know each other
better, and that friendly visits should be made in safety. He began
exploring the islands of the lake. It was bitterly cold on one of them,
and the shed where he slept was decidedly airy, but he tells us that he
was soon asleep and dreamed that he had apartments in Mivart’s Hotel!
At the end of July he started back, and at Kizinga he deviated from his
former route and struck out to the north for the Kalongosi River. All
goes well, and by the first of November be is back again at the north of
Moero, preparing to march to Ujiji, and intently preoccupied with the
problem of the Nile. The men who had deserted him when he went south are
now pleading to be taken back. He reflects that “more enlightened people
often take advantage of men in similar circumstances,” and adds
characteristically, “I have faults myself.” So all the runaways are
reinstated.
The expedition would have got away now without further delay but that
the slave raids of Mohamad Bogharib’s men roused the countryside against
him, and Livingstone found himself at the very centre of a small war,
and literally in the zone of fire. Stockades were hastily erected, and
the perpetrators of the outrage had to stand a siege. Horrible scenes
were witnessed, and Livingstone comments on the miseries which this
devilish traffic entails. The country is now very disturbed and unsafe,
and it is not till December 11th that a start can be made. Mr. Waller
describes the “motley group” that now set out for Tanganyika: “Mohamad
and his friends, a gang of Unyamwezi hangers-on, and strings of wretched
slaves yolked together in their heavy slave-sticks. Some carry ivory,
others copper or food for the march, whilst hope, and fear, misery and
villainy may be read off the various faces.” Livingstone is now an
actual eye-witness of a slave march. The slaves constantly escape.
Sickness and accidents pursue the miserable cavalcade, and make progress
slow. Food for so many mouths is difficult to obtain. Christmas Day
passes in a land of scarcity. The weather is very damp and cheerless;
and on New Year’s Day Livingstone, as he says, got wet through once too
often. Yet he is so anxious to be on the far side of the Lofuko that he
wades through, though it is waist deep and very cold. This is the last
straw. He breaks down utterly, is “very ill all over; cannot walk;
pneumonia of right lung, and I cough all day
[Illustration: THE TRAGEDY OF CENTRAL AFRICA.]
and all night; sputa rust of iron, and bloody; distressing weakness.” He
chronicles the illusions that come and go; sees himself lying dead on
the way to Ujiji, and all the letters waiting for him useless. It seems
as if he is near the end. Mohamad Bogharib constructs a kind of litter
for the helpless veteran, and in this litter he is carried forward four
hours a day. It is the best that can be done; but Livingstone tells of
the pain he endured as he was jolted along, sometimes through steep
ravines and sometimes over volcanic tufa, the feet of the carriers being
at times hurt with thorns, and the sun beating down on Livingstone’s
face and head, which in his weakness he could not even shelter with a
bunch of leaves. For six endless weeks the sufferer was borne onward
thus, and on February 14th all that is left of him is deposited on the
shore of Lake Tanganyika, and canoes are sought to transport the party
up the lake to Ujiji. It was stormy weather on the lake, and the canoes
had to creep along the western shore from village to village--“Patience
was never needed more than now,” writes the sick man in his
extremity--then across the lake to the east, and at last, March 14th,
the heroic traveller reaches his goal, and does actually stand for the
first time in the streets of Ujiji. He had fixed so many hopes on this
Arab settlement, and had lived for so long on the anticipation of
letters and journals, stores and medicines, that the disappointment
awaiting him was heartrending. He had reached a den of thieves, the
vilest he had ever known. His stores were plundered--only eighteen
pieces of cloth out of eighty remained, and what was harder to bear,
only one old letter out of all that had been sent to him. As for the
medicines, he is told they are at Unyanyembe, thirteen days to the east.
He knew quite well that there was a conspiracy to thwart him, and if
possible to drive him out of the country or compass his death. He was
fighting the slave trade single-handed, and was ringed around by cruel
and unscrupulous enemies, whose dark deeds had only him to fear. He is
almost beaten in the unequal strife; almost, but never quite. No man was
ever yet quite beaten who is as sure of Christ as he was. He has one
thing to rely on, as he said before--“the word of a Gentleman of the
strictest honour”--and it is enough. So he will remain and outwit the
slave-traders if he can. And yet it is a misnomer to call it a “trade”;
“it is not a trade, but a system of consecutive murders.”
He did not know, though he suspected, how helpless he was in the hands
of the Arabs. His bitter cry could not reach England. Forty letters he
wrote, and paid handsomely for their delivery, but the Arabs took care
they should never reach the coast. He was literally “cut off” in the
interior. He heard nothing from Europe, and Europe heard nothing of him.
A few weeks at Ujiji were enough. Then, all unfit as he was, he starts
out again for the country in the north-west, the land of the Manyuema,
and the great river Lualaba, the direction of which it is his main
purpose now to determine. He still believes it is the Nile.