FROM COAST TO COAST
Livingstone took his family to Capetown, and saw them safely on board
a ship bound for England. War was going on at the time with the
Kaffirs, and he soon found that the white folk at the Cape looked on
him with mistrust and dislike. They accused him and other
missionaries of stirring up and helping the natives to rebel, and
they even tried to prevent him from buying gunpowder for use on his
journeys.
There were many, however, who believed in him, and amongst these was
Maclear, the Astronomer-Royal. From him Livingstone had more lessons
on "taking his bearings," and also learnt the use of an instrument
for telling exactly how many feet any place stood above the level of
the sea.
On his return northwards Livingstone was delayed by feeble oxen and a
broken wheel, and thus he reached Kuruman only in time to learn that
his home, the last he ever had, was in hopeless ruin.
Six hundred Boers under Pretorius came to Kolobeng, carried off
everything of value in his house, and wrecked the rest. Even the
leaves of his precious diaries and notebooks were torn and scattered
to the winds. Moving onward to the native village, the Boers went
morning and afternoon to the mission service and heard Mebalwé
preach. After service they told Sechélé, the chief, that they had
come to fight because he let Englishmen pass through his country.
Surrounding the village, they fired the huts, and with long-range
swivel-guns shot down sixty of the men, women, and children, who were
huddled together on a hillock in the blinding smoke.
When the flames were spent the Boers closed in to finish their brutal
work; but Sechélé held them at bay till nightfall, and sent them back
to count their dead. Thirty-five Boers paid the price of this
needless cruelty, while Sechélé and his remnant escaped under cover
of the night.
To avoid the Boers, Livingstone passed well to the west of Kolobeng,
and reached Linyanté after much hardship. The rainy season had
flooded the land between the rivers, and his hands and knees were cut
and torn from wading through reeds and pushing his way through the
thorny bush. Sekelétu, the son of Sebituani, was now chief of the
Makololo, and he soon grew fond enough of Livingstone to say "he had
found a new father." With an escort and supplies from his "new son,"
the missionary made a tour through the Barotsi country, but could
find no place fit for a settlement. The whole district was too
unhealthy for white men, and the natives were unpromising.
Plunder and tyranny seemed the custom of the country. Here, for the
first time in his life, Livingstone saw a string of slaves trudging
along in hopeless misery beneath their chains. Once a mother was
leading her little boy by the hand along the track, when suddenly a
man pounced upon the child, and dragged him away shrieking to
lifelong slavery.
Accordingly, in November 1853, Livingstone left Linyanté to carry out
his plan of finding a way to the west coast. He set out with an
escort of twenty-seven Makololo, and went by canoe up the Zambesi and
Leeba, till some falls in the latter stopped him. From this point he
went forward on ox-back, and, steering by compass as best he could,
reached Loanda, in Portuguese country, in May 1854.
The troubles and difficulties of the journey were great. His
medicine-chest was plundered, and his portable boat was lost. He was
twice thrown from his ox, once on his head upon the hard ground, and
once in the middle of a ford. He had thirty-one attacks of fever,
and had to be his own doctor and nurse. His Makololo were cowards,
and often wanted to go back, but Livingstone's patient courage turned
them into men. Many of the tribes were very troublesome when he
asked leave to pass their borders. One chief refused to let him go
by unless he gave up a riding-ox, a gun, or a male slave; but
Livingstone's wonderful force of character overcame his demand. At
Chiboqué the natives refused to sell him food, and threatened to kill
him if he did not give them an ox. They crowded round him, yelling
and waving their spears and clubs over his head. Livingstone stood
his ground with unflinching eye, and his fearless spirit utterly
quelled them.
Another chief demanded his riding-ox or his life, and got the reply
that he might kill him if he liked, but God would judge. The savage
felt that he was in the presence of a greater chief than himself, and
quailed before him. So great, indeed, was the power of Livingstone's
presence that he once released a string of slaves by merely ordering
their captors to let them go. A magic-lantern, with pictures from
the Bible, helped him much in the management of the natives. They
flocked to see it, though many were in terror lest the figures moving
off the screen should enter into them as evil spirits. Livingstone
humorously said that this was the only service they ever asked him to
repeat.
When almost at his journey's end a party of natives stopped him at a
ford on the Quango, in Portuguese country. Livingstone had little
left to give away, so he handed over his razors and then his shirts,
while the Makololo parted with their copper ornaments. This,
however, was not enough; and Livingstone was just giving up his
blanket and coat when a Portuguese sergeant came up and drove the
natives away.
On his reaching Loanda, the Portuguese treated him with the utmost
kindness, and gave him all he could possibly want, but he afterwards
found to his cost that some of this kindness was humbug. Here he had
the chance of returning to England; but, knowing that the Makololo
could never reach home alone, he sent off his letters and scientific
notes in the _Forerunner_, and then started for Linyanté. The
Portuguese gave him supplies for his party, and presents for the
chiefs on his track. His Makololo bearers were given suits of red
and blue cloth, while the Bishop of Loanda sent a colonel's uniform
for Sekelétu.
He had not gone very far when he was overtaken by the news that all
his letters and scientific notes had been lost in the wreck of the
_Forerunner_. There was nothing to be done but write them all over
again; and this delay, together with an attack of rheumatic fever,
kept him from reaching Linyanté till September 1855. On their
arrival, Sekelétu and his whole tribe turned out to meet them, and
the party entered the town in triumphal procession, with the red and
blue uniforms of the Makololo bearers in the van. Livingstone then
held a service of thanksgiving, but the attention of his congregation
was hopelessly upset by the glory of Sekelétu in the dress of a
Portuguese colonel.
Livingstone did not remain long at Linyanté. The route to Loanda was
too difficult and unhealthy for general trade, so he decided to
follow the Zambesi down to the east coast, in the hope of finding a
better. Sekelétu gave him a new escort of one hundred and twenty
Makololo, and also supplied him with three riding-oxen, and ten more
to be used for food.
In November 1855 he found the waterfall that Oswell and he had marked
on their charts from hearsay, but had never seen. Here the great
Zambesi, more than a mile wide, plunged "like a downward smoke" 300
sheer feet into a chasm, and then went seething and swirling away
through a narrow zigzag rift. Twice as large as the Canadian
Niagara, its spray darkened the sun above it, and its thunder boomed
for miles. And, as in reverent silence he watched this mighty force
flow on, Livingstone felt--
"These are Thy wondrous works, Parent of good,"
and he longed more than ever to see this lovely land in freedom and
at peace.
Before leaving the "Mosi-oa-tunya," or the "Sounding Smoke,"
Livingstone changed its name to the Victoria Falls; but he little
thought that in less than fifty years a railway bridge would span the
gorge down which its waters swept.
[Illustration: The Victoria Falls]
Keeping mainly to the north bank of the Zambesi, he made his way to
Teté, with much the same experience as usual. While his men and
stores were crossing the Loangwé he kept some unfriendly natives
quiet by amusing them with his watch and burning-glass till all were
safe. Once he was mistaken for a half-caste Portuguese slaver, and
only saved his life by showing the colour of his breast and arms.
His riding-ox took a determined dislike to his umbrella, and would
not permit him to use it; so he suffered much from the rain, and even
had to carry his watch in his arm-pit to keep it dry. At Teté he
left his Makololo bearers, and, promising to return to them some day,
made his way on to Quilimane.
In one respect his great journey was a failure: he had not found a
really good route to the sea. Nevertheless he had found out two
facts unknown to the world before. First, Central Africa was not a
desert, but could produce metals, coffee, cotton, oil, sugar, corn,
and many other things needed for the world's use. Second, the
natives were capable of being taught by gentleness and justice to
make good use of their lives.
These facts he wrote to the King of Portugal, telling him also that
canals and roads could be easily made by the natives under good white
leaders: then he set out for England to publish his knowledge in a
book which he called "Missionary Travels."
He reached London in December 1856, and was at once lionised all over
the kingdom. People were so full of encouragement that he felt it
his duty to go on with the career he had begun. Even Queen Victoria,
the Prince Consort, and Lord Palmerston sent for him to praise his
work, while the Royal Geographical Society and other public bodies
held meetings in his honour.
But every great-minded man has to suffer from little-minded critics;
and Livingstone was accused by a few of not being enough of a
missionary. Moreover, at Quilimane he had received a letter from the
London Missionary Society, saying that they could not "aid plans only
remotely connected with the spread of the Gospel." Livingstone took
this to mean that they thought he had not preached enough for his
pay. His own way was quite clear to him. He believed that his first
duty to God was to help in their need the men, women, and children
whom God had caused to live. So, for the sake of the black millions
of Africa, Livingstone gently and courteously withdrew himself from
the Society, and started for Quilimane as Her Majesty's Consul, and
as the leader of a British expedition to explore the valley of the
Zambesi.