LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNEY
In the year 1865 "the greatest of all African travellers" started on
his last journey to central Africa.
"I hope," he said, "to ascend the Rovuma, and shall strive, by passing
along the northern end of Lake Nyassa and round the southern end of
Lake Tanganyika, to ascertain the watershed of that part of Africa."
Arrived at Zanzibar in January 1866, he reached the mouth of the Rovuma
River some two months later, and, passing through dense thickets of
trees, he started on his march along the northern bank. The expedition
consisted of thirteen sepoys from Bombay, nine negroes from one of
the missions, two men from the Zambesi, Susi, Amoda, and others
originally slaves freed by Livingstone. As beasts of burden, they had
six camels, three Indian buffaloes, two mules, four donkeys, while
a poodle took charge of the whole line of march, running to see the
first man in the line and then back to the last, and barking to hasten
him up.
"Now that I am on the point of starting on another trip into Africa,"
wrote Livingstone from Rovuma Bay, "I feel quite exhilarated. The mere
animal pleasure of travelling in a wild, unexplored country is very
great. Brisk exercise imparts elasticity to the muscles, fresh and
healthy blood circulates through the brain, the mind works well, the
eye is clear, the step firm, and a day's exertion makes the evening's
repose thoroughly enjoyable."
But misfortunes soon began. As they marched along the banks of the
Rovuma the buffaloes and camels were badly bitten by the tsetse fly,
and one after another died. The cruelty of the followers to the animals
was terrible. Indeed, they were thoroughly unsatisfactory.
One day a party of them lagged behind, killed the last young buffalo,
and ate it. They told Livingstone that it had died and tigers had come
and devoured it.
"Did you see the stripes of the tiger?" asked Livingstone.
Yes; all declared that they had seen them distinctly--an obvious lie,
as there are no striped tigers in Africa.
On 11th August, Livingstone once more reached Lake Nyassa. "It was
as if I had come back to an old home I never expected again to see,
and pleasant it was to bathe in the delicious waters again. I feel
quite exhilarated."
Having sent word to the Arab chief of Kota-Kota on the opposite coast,
and having received no reply to his request to be ferried across the
lake, he started off and marched by land round the southern end,
crossing the Shire River at its entrance. He continued his journey
round the south-western gulf of Lake Nyassa, till rumours of Zulu raids
frightened his men. They refused to go any farther, but just threw
down their loads and walked away. He was now left with Susi and Chuma
and a few boys with whom he crossed the end of a long range of mountains
over four thousand feet in height, and, pursuing a zigzag track,
reached the Loangwa River on 16th December 1866, while his unfaithful
followers returned to the coast to spread the story that Livingstone
had been killed by the Zulus!
Meanwhile the explorer was plodding on towards Lake Tanganyika. The
beauty of the way strikes the lonely explorer. The rainy season had
come on in all its force, and the land was wonderful in its early green.
"Many gay flowers peep out. Here and there the scarlet lily, red, yellow,
and pure white orchids, and pale lobelias. As we ascended higher on
the plateau, grasses which have pink and reddish brown seed-vessels
were grateful to the eye."
Two disasters clouded this month of travel. His poor poodle was drowned
in a marsh and his medicine-chest was stolen. The land was famine-bound
too; the people were living on mushrooms and leaves. "We get some
elephants' meat, but it is very bitter, and the appetite in this country
is always very keen and makes hunger worse to bear, the want of salt
probably making the gnawing sensation worse."
On 28th January, Livingstone crossed the Tshambezi, "which may almost
be regarded as the upper waters of the Congo," says Johnstone, though
the explorer of 1867 knew it not.
"Northwards," says Livingstone, "through almost trackless forest and
across oozing bogs"; and then he adds the significant words, "I am
frightened at my own emaciation." March finds him worse. "I have been
ill of fever; every step I take jars in my chest, and I am very weak;
I can scarcely keep up the march." At last, on 1st April, "blue water
loomed through the trees." It was Lake Tanganyika lying some two
thousand feet below them. Its "surpassing loveliness" struck
Livingstone. "It lies in a deep basin," he says, "whose sides are nearly
perpendicular, but covered well with trees, at present all green; down
some of these rocks come beautiful cascades, while buffaloes,
elephants, and antelopes wander and graze on the more level spots,
and lions roar by night. In the morning and evening huge crocodiles
may be observed quietly making their way to their feeding-grounds,
and hippopotami snort by night."
Going westwards, Livingstone met a party of Arabs amongst whom he
remained for over three months, till he could make his way on to Lake
Meoro, reported to be only three days' journey. It took him sixteen
days to reach it. "Lake Meoro seems of goodly size," he says, "and
is flanked by ranges of mountains on the east and west. Its banks are
of coarse sand and slope gradually down to the water. We slept in a
fisherman's cottage on the north shore."
After a stay of six weeks in the neighbourhood, Livingstone returned
to the Arabs, until the spring of 1868, when he decided to explore
the Lake Bangweolo. In spite of opposition and the desertion of more
men, he started with five attendants and reached this--one of the
largest of the central African lakes--in July. Modestly enough he
asserts the fact. "On the 18th I saw the shores of the lake for the
first time. The name Bangweolo is applied to the great mass of water,
though I fear that our English folks will bogle at it or call it
Bungyhollow. The water is of a deep sea-green colour. It was bitterly
cold from the amount of moisture in the air."
This moisture converted the surrounding country into one huge bog or
sponge, twenty-nine of which Livingstone had to cross in thirty miles,
each taking about half an hour to cross.
[Illustration: THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE BANGWEOLO, 1868: LIVINGSTONE ON
THE LAKE WITH HIS MEN. From Livingstone's _Last Journals_, by
permission of Mr. John Murray.]
The explorer was still greatly occupied on the problem of the Nile.
"The discovery of the sources of the Nile," he says, "is somewhat akin
in importance to the discovery of the North-West Passage." It seemed
to him not impossible that the great river he found flowing through
these two great lakes to the west of Tanganyika might prove to be the
Upper Nile.
It was December before he started for Tanganyika. The new year of 1868
opened badly. Half-way, he became very ill. He was constantly wet
through; he persistently crossed brooks and rivers, wading through
cold water up to his waist. "Very ill all over," he enters in his diary;
"cannot walk. Pneumonia of right lung, and I cough all day and all
night. I am carried several hours a day on a frame. The sun is vertical,
blistering any part of the skin exposed, and I try to shelter my face
and head as well as I can with a bunch of leaves."
On 14th February 1869 he arrived on the western shores of the lake,
and after the usual delay he was put into it canoe for Ujiji. Though
better, he was still very ill, and we get the pathetic entry, "Hope
to hold out to Ujiji."
At last he reached the Arab settlement on the eastern shores, where
he found the goods sent to him overland from Zanzibar, and though much
had been stolen, yet warm clothes, tea, and coffee soon revived him.
After a stay of three months he grew better, and turned westwards for
the land of the Manyuema and the great rivers reported to be flowing
there.
He was guided by Arabs whose trade-route extended to the great Lualaba
River in the very heart of Africa some thousand miles west of Zanzibar.
It was an unknown land, unvisited by Europeans when Livingstone
arrived with his Arab escort at Bambarra in September 1869.
"Being now well rested," he enters in his diary, "I resolved to go
west to Lualaba and buy a canoe for its exploration. The Manyuema
country is all surpassingly beautiful. Palms crown the highest heights
of the mountains, and the forests about five miles broad are
indescribable. Climbers of cable size in great numbers are hung among
the gigantic trees, many unknown wild fruits abound, some the size
of a child's head, and strange birds and monkeys are everywhere."
With the Arab caravan he travelled almost incessantly zigzagging
through the wonderful Manyuema country until, after a year's wandering,
he finally reached the banks of the Lualaba (Congo) on 31st March 1871.
It was a red-letter day in his life. "I went down," he says, "to take
a good look at the Lualaba here. It is a mighty river at least three
thousand yards broad and always deep. The banks are steep; the current
is about two miles an hour away to the north." Livingstone was gazing
at the second-largest river in the world--the Congo. But he thought
it was the Nile, and confidently relates how it overflows all its banks
annually as the Nile does.
At Nyangwe, a Manyuema village, Livingstone stayed for four months.
The natives were dreadful cannibals. He saw one day a man with ten
human jaw-bones hung by a string over his shoulder, the owners of which
he had killed and eaten. Another day a terrible massacre took place,
arising from a squabble over a fowl, in which some four hundred perished.
The Arabs too disgusted him with their slave-raiding, and he decided
that he could no longer travel under their protection. So on 20th July
1871 he started back for Ujiji, and after a journey of seven hundred
miles, accomplished in three months, he arrived, reduced to a skeleton,
only to find that the rascal who had charge of his stores had stolen
the whole and made away.
But when health and spirit were failing, help was at hand. The meeting
of Stanley and Livingstone on the shores of the Lake Tanganyika is
one of the most thrilling episodes in the annals of discovery. Let
them tell their own story: "When my spirits were at their lowest ebb,"
says Livingstone, "one morning Susi came running at the top of his
speed and gasped out, 'An Englishman! I see him!' and off he darted
to meet him. The American flag at the head of a caravan told of the
nationality of the stranger. Bales of goods, baths of tin, huge kettles,
and cooking-pots made me think, 'This must be a luxurious traveller
and not one at his wits' end, like me.'"
It was Henry Morton Stanley, the travelling correspondent of the _New
York Herald_, sent at an expense of more than 4000 pounds to obtain
accurate information about Dr. Livingstone if living, and if dead to
bring home his bones.
[Illustration: LIVINGSTONE AT WORK ON HIS JOURNAL. From a sketch by
H. M. Stanley.]
And now Stanley takes up the story. He has entered Ujiji and heard
from the faithful Susi that the explorer yet lives. Pushing back the
crowds of natives, Stanley advanced down "a living avenue of people"
till he came to where "the white man with the long grey beard was
standing."
"As I advanced slowly towards him," says Stanley, "I noticed he was
pale, looked worried, wore a bluish cap with a faded gold band round
it, had on a red-sleeved waistcoat and a pair of grey tweed trousers.
I walked deliberately to him, took off my hat, and said, 'Dr.
Livingstone, I presume?'
"'Yes,' said he, with a kind smile, lifting his cap slightly.
"Then we both grasp hands and I say aloud, 'I thank God, Doctor, I
have been permitted to see you.'
"'You have brought me new life--new life,' murmured the tired
explorer," and for the next few days it was enough for the two
Englishmen to sit on the mud verandah of Livingstone's house, talking.
Livingstone soon grew better, and November found the two explorers
surveying the river flowing from the north of Tanganyika and deciding
that it was not the Nile.
Stanley now did his best to persuade Livingstone to return home with
him to recruit his shattered health before finishing his work of
exploration. But the explorer, tired and out of health though he was,
utterly refused. He must complete the exploration of the sources of
the Nile before he sought that peace and comfort at home for which
he must have yearned.
So the two men parted--Stanley to carry Livingstone's news of the
discovery of the Congo back to Europe, Livingstone to end his days
on the lonely shores of Lake Bangweolo, leaving the long-sought
mystery of the Nile sources yet unsolved.
On 25th August 1872 he started on his last journey. He had a
well-equipped expedition sent up by Stanley from the coast, including
sixty men, donkeys, and cows. He embarked on his fresh journey with
all his old eagerness and enthusiasm, but a few days' travel showed
him how utterly unfit he was for any more hardships. He suffered from
intense and growing weakness, which increased day by day. He managed
somehow to ride his donkey, but in November his donkey died and he
struggled along on foot. Descending into marshy regions north of Lake
Bangweolo, the journey became really terrible. The rainy season was
at its height, the land was an endless swamp, and starvation threatened
the expedition. To add to the misery of the party, there were swarms
of mosquitoes, poisonous spiders, and stinging ants by the way. Still,
amid all the misery and suffering, the explorer made his way on through
the dreary autumn months. Christmas came and went; the new year of
1873 dawned. He could not stop. April found him only just alive, carried
by his faithful servants. Then comes the last entry in his diary, 27th
April: "Knocked up quite. We are on the banks of R. Molilamo."
[Illustration: LIVINGSTONE ENTERING THE HUT AT ILALA ON THE NIGHT THAT
HE DIED. From Livingstone's _Last Journals_, by permission of Mr. John
Murray.]
[Illustration: THE LAST ENTRIES IN LIVINGSTONE'S DIARY.]
They laid him at last in a native hut, and here one night he died alone.
They found him in the early morning, just kneeling by the side of the
rough bed, his body stretched forward, his head buried in his hands
upon the pillow. The negroes buried his heart on the spot where he
died in the village of Ilala on the shores of Lake Bangweolo under
the shadow of a great tree in the still forest. Then they wrapped his
body in a cylinder of bark wound round in a piece of old sailcloth,
lashed it to a pole, and a little band of negroes, including Susi and
Chuma, set out to carry their dead master to the coast. For hundreds
of miles they tramped with their precious burden, till they reached
the sea and could give it safely to his fellow-countrymen, who conveyed
it to England to be laid with other great men in Westminster Abbey.
"He needs no epitaph to guard a name
Which men shall praise while worthy work is done.
He lived and died for good, be that his fame.
Let marble crumble: this is living-stone."
[Illustration: SUSI, LIVINGSTONE'S SERVANT. From a sketch by H. M.
Stanley.]