CHARACTERISTICS
The life of Livingstone has been indifferently told if the personality
of the man has not appeared in these pages. But the reader will welcome
a few personal details that could not well find a place in previous
chapters. The portrait of Livingstone is well known. It is a strong,
rugged face, rather heavy and severe in its general effect, with a thick
dark moustache, a broad mouth and full chin--the whole lightened,
however, by the honest kindly eyes and the suggestion of humour about
the lips. When he was a young man it would appear that his hair was
almost black, but it became lighter in colour later, and the lock of it
in possession of one of his relatives is distinctly brown. He is himself
our authority for saying that his beard was reddish in colour; and it
must be remembered that in this respect all our pictures are at fault.
Not one of them shows us a bearded African traveller; yet, except on his
visits to England, he always wore a beard. Stanley’s first impression
was of the grey-bearded man whom he found at Ujiji. Later on he noted
that his hair had still a “brownish colour,” but that his beard and
moustache were “very grey.” Stanley also paid a tribute to the
brightness of his eyes, which he says were hazel. They appear to have
been grey with a bluish tinge. Livingstone himself comments on the
astonishment of the natives at his red beard and blue eyes. From that
reference one might imagine that he had the appearance of a Viking or
Scandinavian; but the fact is that his eyes were really more grey than
blue, and that his hair was a very dark brown, while his beard was more
distinctively Scotch and “sandy.”
In height he always appeared quite short when in contact with tall
companions. But he was about average height, say five feet six inches;
certainly not more. He had the broad chest and shoulders of a man
specially built to endure exceptional fatigue; but otherwise he always
created the impression of a short and spare man. That he inherited an
iron constitution is evident from the mere narrative of his travels and
privations. One of the things that most vividly impressed Stanley was
how swiftly the man he found so worn and thin and haggard threw off the
burden of the years, recovered his old buoyancy of spirit and physical
efficiency, and took upon him the appearance of one who was ten years
younger than his actual age.
He was in some ways a fastidious person. He was scrupulously neat in his
manner of dress. Even on his travels, when making his way through swamp
and jungle, the one luxury he most prized was a change of raiment; and
his torn clothes would be mended to the best of his ability. Stanley
found him “dressed in a red shirt, with a crimson joho, with a gold band
round his cap, an old tweed pair of pants, and shoes looking the worse
for wear.” The wonder is he had anything left that was fit to be seen,
and the new apparel that came to him was hailed with genuine
exclamations of delight. He set great store on an example to the natives
of simplicity and neatness. This characteristic also comes out in other
ways. His diaries are done with wonderful care and precision. His
handwriting was not naturally good, but it is admirably legible.
Every entry in his diary bears upon it the marks of method and neatness,
while the scientific observations are set forth with a clearness which
won the highest praise from those best competent to give it. Nothing was
slurred over. There is no sign of hurry or of the exhaustion of
patience. Similarly, there is a notable absence of all embroidery. The
language is throughout austerely plain and truthful. Everything is in
keeping with his essential character of a man who hated the vulgarity of
useless or tawdry rhetoric, and held always by the refinement of
simplicity. From many anecdotes related of him it is clear that not only
his writing but his private and public speech were affected by his
taste in this respect. A letter is extant in which he counselled his
children to speak English because it was “prettier” than Scotch. He was
doubtless thinking of the somewhat coarse Scotch accent prevalent in
Glasgow and the neighbourhood, where his youth was spent. Strangers who
met him were uniformly impressed by the softness and gentleness of his
speech. His voice was deep; and if sometimes in public it took on a
harsh sound, this was undoubtedly due to the difficulty of public
utterance, which he never mastered. His addresses to great audiences in
England were always delivered in a slow, hesitating, and rather laboured
fashion. For one thing, he grew so accustomed to thinking and speaking
in the native languages of Africa that his own tongue became strange to
him. But, apart from that, he was never a fluent speaker; public address
was an ordeal to him, and he had a Puritan disposition towards restraint
and reserve, combined with a scientific predilection for exact
statement. The impression he left upon his audience, however, was
always powerful. Every one who heard him testifies that the man
triumphed where the orator was most to seek.
When he once became sufficiently at home with any one to conquer his
natural reserve, he was excellent company, for he had a large fund of
humour, and the gift of Teufelsdröckian laughter--“a laugh of the whole
man from heel to head.” He was especially devoted to children. One of my
correspondents remembers him most vividly with a child on each knee
telling them lion stories; and another recalls his own boyhood, and days
of sickness in bed brightened by a visit from Livingstone, who showed
him the marks of the lion’s teeth in his arm, and entertained him with
some of his adventures. The atmosphere that he most detested was the
atmosphere of flattery. There is a fine story about him which
illustrates this. He had been invited out to dinner, and had fallen to
the lot of a society lady who was injudicious enough to indulge in some
very highly coloured compliments on his achievements. Suddenly
Livingstone left the table, and was afterwards discovered sitting in a
room in the dark. He explained that he could not endure to be praised to
his face, and that he would not sit and listen to it. One who knew him
intimately told me of a lecture delivered in one of our great northern
towns. Two local orators introduced the proceedings with speeches
magnifying Livingstone’s achievements. When he rose to his feet he had
an overwhelming reception, but, turning straight to a large map, he said
in a singularly cold, hard voice: “If you want to know the truth about
the river system of Central Africa, be good enough to look at this map,”
and plunged into his subject without a word of reference to anything
that had been said about himself. He was the least vain and most
unspoiled of any man who was ever lionised by the British public; the
secret of which was undoubtedly to be found in the humility and
sincerity of his Christian faith and character.
Of that faith something ought to be said. In his earliest letters which
have been preserved, we can see how strongly he was influenced by forms
of theology that have long since ceased to be regarded as Scriptural.
That the heathen who had never heard of Christ were perishing eternally
was a doctrine that inspired much missionary devotion. These dogmas, it
is clear, very gradually became impossible to him in view of the actual
facts of the vast heathen world. But the supreme motive never changed.
In a letter written just at the time of his ordination, he expresses his
sense of the honour done to him in being accepted by Christ Jesus as one
of His witnesses. The absolute surrender of his own will and mind to
“his fair Captain Christ” was the fact most fundamental to Livingstone’s
whole career. To the last, he never felt that he was really in the way
of duty unless he was doing missionary work and bearing witness to the
lordship of Christ. Stanley bore his testimony to the practical
character of Livingstone’s religion. “In him religion exhibits its
loveliest features; it governs his conduct not only towards his
servants, but towards the natives, the bigoted Mohammedans, and all who
come in contact with him.” In another striking phrase, he says:
“Religion has tamed him and made him a Christian gentleman.” Until his
physical powers utterly failed, he never omitted to gather his men
around him for evening service, read and pray with them, and add some
simple exhortation.
He was a man of deep convictions. Once thoroughly alive to some fact, he
took a tenacious grip of it, and gave it a place in all his thinking.
That was how it came to pass that neither the politicians nor the men of
science could prevail upon him to leave the social sore of Africa to
others and devote himself to exploration and discovery. Livingstone’s
Puritan soul, that knew how to put first things in the first place,
realised that the fact of most moment in Africa was not the sources of
the Nile, but the sources of the slave trade. This great social problem
had to be attacked if religious and spiritual work was not to be
negatived. Much might be written about his courage in alienating those
who sympathised with his work as an explorer and those who might have
assisted him financially. He knew quite well that a price must be paid
by any one who was really in earnest to destroy the slave trade. But
nothing moved him. Henceforth it was a case of “this one thing I do.”
Perhaps the most remarkable fact of all is, how early in his life he
perceived that here lay the path he was to tread. There lies before me
as I write an old brown and much torn letter which must have been the
first he wrote from the Cape on his arrival there, and is dated March
10, 1841. Every inch of the large sheet is covered with writing, and
among the last words is a reference to the resistance of certain of the
Boers to the policy of emancipation. Then follows this sentence: “Oh!
when shall the time come in which every man that feels the heat of the
sun shall be freed from all other fetters but bonds of love to our
Saviour!” So the young missionary wrote in his first letter from
Africa; so he prayed and strove for thirty laborious and weary years;
and so he prays still from his grave in the Abbey, and few will claim
that that prayer has been vainly uttered in the ear of God and man.
His unique influence over the natives of Africa is admitted. It may not
be possible wholly to analyse his secret, for such words as
“personality” and “magnetism” are easily written, and do not help us
very much. Two things we may say on this subject, and leave it. Firstly,
he believed in them; and secondly, he did not expect too much of them.
This is no more than to say that he entered into his inheritance by
means of the two ancient and Scriptural keys--faith and patience. He was
abundantly rewarded for his faith. “Any one,” he said once, “who lives
long among them (_i.e._, the natives) forgets that they are black and
remembers only that they are fellow-men.” That was certainly all that he
remembered. The stories of Sechele, Sebituane, Sekeletu, and others
would have set the crown on his reputation were it not that that was
reserved for the heroic band who attended him on the last of his
journeys, and made themselves an everlasting name by their final and
supreme act of devotion. But, if he saw their splendid possibilities
underneath all their degradation, he never expected too much of them.
His scientific mind appreciated all that they owed to centuries of
savagery and superstition. He was infinitely patient with them. He
forgave them until seventy times seven. He quietly and gently reasoned
with them when any other white man would have lost his temper and
resorted to force. He could hardly be persuaded even to punish the
recreant with any severity. “I have faults myself,” he would say simply.
The last word should concern his single-mindedness and
disinterestedness. Neither as missionary nor as Government official is
there any trail of commercialism over his life. When the bank in Bombay
failed, with the money he had lodged in its keeping, it hardly cost him
a pang. All his money was dedicated to the cause in which he gave his
life, and his personal serenity was quite independent of possessions. He
refused to bargain with the Government as to terms; and when Lord
Palmerston sent a friend to ask what he could do for him, Livingstone’s
whole ambitions were centred on an international arrangement that would
sanction the creation of settlements which could stand between the
natives and the slavers. At no single period in his life is there any
tittle of evidence that he cared for money save as it might advance the
cause that was dearer to him than life itself.
The world still argues and disputes as to what it is that constitutes
the highest form of greatness. In the common acceptation of the term
Livingstone was not a man of genius. He was not brilliant; he was not
strikingly original. What he achieved was done by the genius, falsely so
called, of taking pains. But this we may surely say: If human greatness
consists not in any natural endowment alone, whether of the genius of
those
“Who seem not to compete nor strive,
Yet with the foremost aye arrive”;
or the genius of industry in those who believe that “it is dogged as
does it”; but rather in all the powers and faculties of a man’s nature
brought into subjection to one supreme disinterested ambition for the
glory of God and the good of man, then few greater men have ever walked
this earth than David Livingstone.
[Illustration: Map of LIVINGSTONE’S JOURNEYS IN AFRICA]
INDEX
Ajawa tribe, 123, 124
Algoa Bay, arrival at, 21
Amoda, 199, 205
Arab slave encampments, 144
Ascendancy over followers, 218
Bakatlas, work among, 29
Bakwains, 54
Baldwin, Mr., 121
Bambarré, 166, 168, 179
Bangweolo, Lake, 129, 155-8, 209, 221
Barotse Valley, 73;
orations at, 91
Batoka tribe, 99
Bechuanaland, 42
Bemba, Lake, 129, 155
Bennett, Mr. J. G., jnr., telegram to Stanley, 179
Blantyre, 3;
old mill ruins at, 13
Boers, complicity of, with slave trade, 35
Bombay, 130, 137, 138
Breakdown on journey to coast, 222
British Association, lecture to, on slavery, 133, 134
Buga, 210
Burrup, Mr., 125
Burrup, Mrs., 124
Bushmen, 44
Caffre war, 51
Cambridge University, address to, 109
Cameron, Lt., favours burying in African soil; followers object, 224
Cape Town, 66
Carras, 220
Carrying the body to the sea, 223
Casembe, 154, 158
Cecil, Rev. Richard, 17, 18, 28
Chambezé River, 150, 155, 208, 209
Chanda, 205
Chanya Range, discovery of, 167
Chawendes Village, 222
Chiboque, 79-81, 88
Chisera, the, 153
Chitambo, 215, 221;
last arrival at, 219, 220
Chitapangwa, chief, 150
Chitimba, chief, 153
Chobe River, 57
Choma, the, 153
Chonuane, 37, 38, 40
Chowperé, 217
Christmas Day, Livingstone’s last, 203
Chumah, 129, 139, 168, 207, 210, 219
Chungu, chief, causes delay in last journey, 204
Clarendon, Lord, despatch to, 155
Congo, 90, 141
Damara Land, 42
Davis, Jeff, 133
Delagoa Bay, 42
Dillon, Dr., 224;
suicide of, 225
Dilolo, Lake, 90
Dugumbé, 172-4
East Coast under Portuguese authority, 132
England, _en route_ to, 130
Farijala, 205;
makes post-mortem, 220
Fastings and Vigils, Livingstone on, 197
Fergusson, Sir W., examines body, 226
Final illness begun, 209
_Forerunner_, loss of, with despatches, 87
Freedom of Cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, 106
Frere, Sir Bartle, 138
Gabriel, Mr., kindness of, 85
Gardner, Mr., 199
“Goat Island,” 97
Government officials, limitations of, 131
Gutzlaff, C., calls for medical missionaries, 10
Hamaydah, 190
Helmore, Mr., 121
Hogg, David, 19
Hughes, Thomas, 17, 132
Hunter, David, 3, 6
Ilala, 129
Inscription on grave, 227-8
Johanna men, 146
Journey to coast, 222
Kalahari Desert, 27, 40, 42
Kalongosi River, 159, 203
Kasai, 90
Kasekera, 225
Katema, chief, 78
Kirk, Dr., 120, 227
Kizinga, 159
Kolobeng, 38, 40, 45, 46
Kuruman, 47, 113
Kwihaha, 189
Lacerda, Senhor, accuses Livingstone of robbing Portugal of her rights, 134
_Lake Nyassa_, 116, 129, 138
Last birthday, 207
Last journey begun, 200
Last march, start of the, 140
Leeambye, 61
Letters that never reached the coast, 164
Libonta, 91
Liemba, Lake, 151, 155
Limpopo River, 42
Line of march of body to coast, 221
Lintipé, the, 147
Linyanti, 59, 60, 66, 69, 72, 88, 91, 96, 115
Livingstone, Charles, 111
Livingstone, David, birth of, 2, 3;
Blantyre home, 3;
mother, 3-6;
father, 3-4,
death of, 5;
religious difficulties, 7;
boyhood, 9;
as naturalist, 10;
endurance and fearlessness, 11, 80, 89;
employed in factory, 12-14;
at Ongar, 13;
at Glasgow University, 14;
Licentiate of Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, 19;
ordination, 19;
departure for S. Africa, 19;
at Kuruman, 23-4, 33;
contest with rainmakers, 26;
at Mabotsa, 29;
attacked by lion, 30;
marriage, 33;
children of, 33;
wife and children return to England, 39;
astronomy student, 55;
Dutch marauders seek vengeance on, 56-8;
object of suspicion at the Cape, 51;
farewell to wife and children, 52;
vows prevention of slave traffic, 55;
researches into flora and fauna, 54-5;
first taste of malaria, 60;
medicine stolen, 71;
preaches on journey up-country, 77;
attacked by fever, 81;
rewrites lost papers, 87;
names the Victoria Falls, 97;
carves initials on tree at Victoria Falls, 98;
escapes shipwreck, 104;
reaches Dover, 104;
back home, 106;
Oxford and Cambridge degrees, 106;
father’s death, 106;
receives medal of Roy. Geogr. Soc., 106;
entertained by distinguished people, 107;
second illness, 162;
eighty days prisoner in a hut, 168;
narrow escapes from death, 176;
down with dysentery, 204;
his unconquerable hope, 212;
last written words, 213;
devotion of his followers, 213;
last words, 216;
found dead on his knees, 217;
body dried in the sun, 221;
body handed over to the Consul at Bagamoio, 226;
arrival of in England, 226;
personal details, 229 _et seq._;
clearness of scientific observations, 232;
devotion to children, 234;
dislike of compliments, 234-5;
humility and sincerity, 235;
first letter from Africa, 238;
single-mindedness, 240
Livingstone, Mrs., anxiety of, 106;
left behind at Cape Town, 113;
death of, 126
Loanda, 72, 73, 87-8, 101, 131
Loangwa River, 147-8
Lobingela, 209
Lofu River, 202
London Hospitals, Livingstone’s studies at, 197
London Missionary Society, 15, 16, 108;
Livingstone’s letter to, 51;
sends mission to Linyanti, 121
Lotembwa, 90
Lualaba River, 155, 164, 166, 168, 170, 172
Luamo River, 166
Luapula River, 221-2
Mabotsa, 37
Mabruki, 199
Mackenzie, Bishop, 122, 124, 128, 139
Maclear, Sir Thomas, 55, 166
Majwara, 214, 217
Makololo, the, 49, 54, 59, 61, 72, 73, 118, 128
Mamire, 95-6
Manyuema, 164
Matabele, 96
Mataka’s country, 144
Matisa, deceit of, 207-8
Mazitu, the, 152, 213
Mbame village, 123
Mburuma, chief, 101
Meroe, Lake, 152-6, 170
Mikindany Bay, 140
Milk, vain efforts to obtain, in last illness, 213
Misinjé, the, 145
Moffat, Dr., 10, 21-2, 64, 91, 104, 113, 227
Moffat, Mr. J., at Makololo, 108
Moffat, Mrs., 10, 91, 113
Mohamad Bogharib, 154, 157, 159, 162, 168
Molilamo, 213
Monze, chief, 100
Morémi, 59
Mpende, chief, 103
Mtemése, guide, 76, 77
Murchison Falls, 116
Murchison, Sir Roderick, his theory confirmed by Livingstone, 90
Murphy, Lieut., 224-5
Murray, Mr., 43
Nassick, 139
_New York Herald_, 179;
articles for, 187;
letter to, 193
Ngami, Lake, 39, 45, 54;
Mrs. Livingstone first white lady to see, 46
Nsama, chief, 153
Nuanyaséré, 217
Nyangwé, 172
Nyassa, Lake, 118, 142, 147, 151, 155
On the last march, 211
Orange River, 42
Oswell, Mr., 43, 47, 49, 227
Outrages on native tribes, 35
Pall bearers, 227
Palmerston, Lord, offers Consulship, 108;
request from, 135
_Pearl_ at Zambesi, 114;
Livingstone leaves for Africa on, 111
Philip, Dr., 25
_Pioneer_ to be handed back to Government, 128
Portuguese half-caste slave owners, 74
Quilimane, 93, 103, 108
Rhodesia, 96
Robert, Livingstone’s son, fights and dies in Federal ranks, 133
Rovuma, arrival at mouth of the, 140
Royal Geographical Society grants help, 136
Ruse to get Livingstone’s body through to the coast, 225
Russell, Lord, recalls Bishop Mackenzie, 128
St. Paul de Loanda, 66
Sambanza, orator, 75
Sebituane, 45, 47, 48, 57, 60, 97, 239
Sechele, 26, 28, 35, 37, 45, 56, 239;
baptism of, 42
Sekeletu, 57, 59, 60-2, 70, 82, 92, 94, 96, 98, 239;
joy at Livingstone’s return, 121
Sekwebu, 103;
death of, 104
Seshéke, 49, 70
Shinté, 74 _et seq._;
odd wardrobe of, 75
Shiré, 117-9, 123, 135, 146
Shongwe, 97
Shupanga, 126
Slave dealers follow Livingstone, 120
Slavery, fight against, by Livingstone, 127
Slave trade, villainies of, 131
Stanford Rivers, 17-8
Stanley, H. M., meets Livingstone, 178;
arrival at Ujiji, 180;
brings news of £1,000 vote by Government, 182;
Livingstone’s story told to, 182;
pictures Livingstone, 184;
Livingstone’s journal committed to, 187;
precautions in sealing, 187;
departure, 189;
meets English relief expedition, 192;
first impressions, 230 _et seq._;
on Livingstone’s religion, 236-7
Steele, Col., 43
Stewart, Dr., 124, 126
Susi, 139, 168, 171, 177, 190, 199, 205, 207, 215-6, 219, 222, 224
Tanganyika, Lake, 93, 147, 150, 151, 158, 165, 183, 201, 222;
Livingstone’s illness at, 152
Taylor, Dr. Isaac, 19, 23, 150
Tette, 19, 103, 115, 122
Tsetse fly, 67, 93, 140, 142
Ujiji, 156-9, 162-7, 174, 177, 212
Universities’ Mission, 122, 130, 145
Unyanyembe, 180, 186, 191, 221, 224
Victoria Falls, 98, 121
Wadé Salé, 205
Wainwright, Jacob, makes inventory, 219;
reads burial service, 220;
carves Livingstone’s name and date of death, 221;
erects cross at place of death, 221;
pall-bearer, 227
Wardlaw, Dr., 15
Webb, Mr., 134
Webb, Mrs., 134
Westminster Abbey, first visit to, 17;
body laid in, 226
Young, Mr. James, 135
Young, Mr. E. D., starts for Africa in the _Search_, 146
Zalanyama range, 147
Zambesi Falls, 97
Zambesi River, 9, 49, 54, 61, 66, 70, 93, 100, 101, 114, 116-7, 122, 135, 141
Zanzibar, 93, 167
Zouga River, 43-7
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