THE CORPSE BORNE TO ENGLAND AND LAID IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
The Body of Dr. Livingstone Borne to Unyanyembe by his Attendants, and
thence to Zanzibar -- The British Consul-General sends it, with the
Doctor’s Papers, Books, etc., to England -- Arrival at Southampton,
and at London -- The People Vie in Tributes of Respect -- The Funeral
-- The Grave in Westminster Abbey.
[Illustration: LIVINGSTONE ENDING HIS LAST MARCH AT ILALA.]
From the point where Dr. Livingstone died to Unyanyembe was a distance
of upward of one thousand miles; this the Doctor’s faithful attendants
traversed with his remains, frequently having to diverge materially from
the road to circumvent hostile demonstrations of parties of natives. Six
toilsome months were consumed in the journey, and the month of November
had opened ere they reached Unyanyembe. Thence, after a pause, they bore
their precious burden to Zanzibar, where they arrived in February, 1874,
and delivered the corpse and the Doctor’s personal effects (including
his Diary, papers, etc.) into the custody of the British Consul-General,
who immediately shipped them, in care of Mr. Arthur Laing, for England.
Among those who accompanied the body was Jacob Wainwright, Dr.
Livingstone’s body-servant. At Aden, the steamer _Malwa_, which had been
sent out by the British Government, met them, and the party were
transferred to her.
On the 15th of April, the _Malwa_ arrived at Southampton, and at eleven
o’clock landed the party, with the corpse, at the Royal Pier, in the
presence of a vast concourse of people, estimated at upward of fifty
thousand, business having been suspended, and all classes of the people
having come to testify their respect for the illustrious dead. The Mayor
formally received the remains, and they were borne to the railway
station, accompanied by the assembled thousands, while minute guns were
fired and the bells tolled. The scene was very impressive. The remains
were thence carried to London by rail, and, arriving there at three
o’clock, P. M., were taken in charge by the Royal Geographical Society,
who had the coffin transferred to a hearse, and taken to their rooms,
followed by a numerous line of carriages and a large number of persons
afoot. Here the corpse was viewed by Sir William Ferguson in the
presence of Drs. Kirk and Loudon, Rev. Dr. Moffat and others, the object
being to identify the remains and to remove all possibility of cavil as
to their being those of Dr. Livingstone. The result can best be told in
Sir William Ferguson’s own words, and hence we insert his letter to _The
London Lancet_:
[Illustration: JACOB WAINWRIGHT WITH DR. LIVINGSTONE’S REMAINS AT ADEN.]
“Within the last few months, many have hesitated to believe that
Livingstone was dead. Above all, it seemed beyond ordinary probability
that his remains would have been brought from Central Africa to the
heart of London. That a body was on its way from this all but mythical
region could hardly be doubted after the examination at Zanzibar of the
remains, but many were skeptical as to this dead frame being that of
Livingstone. Happily it was borne in mind by many old friends that he
had one condition of body which would mark the identification of his
remains, even if years and years had elapsed. If it should be proved on
anatomical examination that the remains of an old ununited fracture in
his left humerus (arm bone) could be recognized, all doubt on the
subject would be settled at once and for ever. It has fallen to my lot
to have the honor of being selected to make the crucial examination to
this end, and I have accordingly performed that duty. From what I have
seen I am much impressed with the ingenious manner in which those who
have contrived to secure that the body should be carried through the
long distance from where Livingstone died, until it could reach a place
where transit was comparatively easy, accomplished their task. The lower
limbs were so severed from the trunk that the length of the bulk of
package was reduced to a little over four feet. The soft tissues seem to
have been removed to a great extent from the bones, and these latter
were so disposed that, by doubling and otherwise, the shortening was
accomplished. The abdominal viscera were absent, and so were those of
the chest, including, of course, heart and lungs. There had been made a
large opening in front of the abdomen, and through that the native
operators had ingeniously contrived to remove the contents of the chest
as well as of the abdomen. The skin over the chest, sternum and ribs had
been untouched. Before these points were clearly ascertained some coarse
tapes had to be loosened, which set free some rough linen material--a
striped colored bit of cotton cloth, such as might have been an
attractive material for the natives among whom Livingstone traveled--a
coarse cotton shirt which doubtless belonged to the traveler’s scanty
wardrobe, and in particular a large portion of the bark of a tree, which
had formed the principal part of the package--the case thereof no doubt.
The skin of the trunk, from the pelvis to the crown of the head, had
been untouched. Everywhere was that shriveling which might have been
expected after salting, baking in the sun, and eleven months of time.
The features of the face could not be recognized. The hair on the scalp
was plentiful, and much longer than he wore it when last in England. A
moustache could not be recognized, but whiskers were in abundance. The
forehead was in shape such as we are familiar with from memory, and from
the pictures and busts now extant. The circumference of the cranium,
from the occiput to the brow, was 23⁷⁄₈ inches, which was recognized by
some present to be in accordance with the measurement when alive. In
particular, the arms attracted attention. They lay as if placed in
ordinary fashion, each down by the side. The skin and tissues under were
on each side shrunk almost to skeleton bulk, and at a glance to
practiced eyes--there were five, I may say six, professional men
present--the state of the left arm was such as to convince every one
present who had examined it during life, that the limb was
Livingstone’s. Exactly in the region of the attachment of the deltoid to
the humerus, there were the indications of an oblique fracture. On
moving the arm, there were the indications of the ununited fracture. A
closer investigation and dissection displayed the false joint which had
long ago been so well recognized by those who had examined the arm in
former days. The Rev. Dr. Moffat, and in particular Dr. Kirk, late of
Zanzibar, and Dr. Loudon, of Hamilton, in Scotland, at once recognized
the condition. Having myself been consulted regarding the state of the
limb when Livingstone was last in London, I was convinced that the
remains of the great traveler lay before us. Thousands of heads with a
like large circumference might have been under similar scrutiny; the
skeletons of hundreds of thousands might have been so; the humerus in
each might have been perfect; if one or both had been broken during life
it would have united again in such a manner that a tyro could easily
have detected the peculiarity. The condition of ununited fracture in
this locality is exceedingly rare. I say this from my personal
professional experience, and that such a specimen should have turned up
in London from the centre of Africa, excepting in the body of Dr.
Livingstone, where it was known by competent authorities to have
existed, is beyond human credibility. It must not be supposed by those
who are not professionally acquainted with this kind of lesion--which
often causes so much interest to the practical surgeon--that a fracture
and new joint of the kind now referred to could have been of recent date
or made for a purpose. There were in reality all the indications which
the experienced pathologist recognizes as infallible, such as the
attenuated condition of the two great fragments (common under such
circumstances), and the semblance of a new joint, but actually there
was a small fragment detached from the others which bore out
Livingstone’s own view that the bones had been ‘crushed into splinters.’
Having had ample opportunity of examining the arm during life, and
conversing with Livingstone on the subject, and being one of those who
entertained hopes that the last reports of Livingstone’s death might,
like others, prove false, I approached the examination with an anxious
feeling regarding this great and most peculiar crucial test. The first
glance at the left arm set my mind at rest, and that, with the further
examination, made me as positive as to the identity of these remains as
that there has been among us in modern times one of the greatest men of
the human race--David Livingstone.”
On Saturday, the 18th of April, all that was mortal of the great
missionary-explorer was consigned to its last resting-place in
Westminster Abbey. The funeral procession started at about ten o’clock
from the Rooms of the Royal Geographical Society, and was participated
in by an immense number of people of all ranks in life. The cortege
included the hearse and twelve mourning coaches, and the private
carriages of the Queen, the Prince of Wales, the German Ambassador,
Baroness Burdett-Coutts, Lady Franklin and many others. The pall-bearers
were Mr. Stanley, Jacob Wainwright, Sir Thomas Steele, W. C. Oswell, W.
F. Webb, Dr. Kirk, Rev. H. Waller, Mr. Young, Rev. F. Steele and Kalulu
(the African boy brought home by Stanley). Among the mourners, we may
note the Duke of Sutherland, Lord Houghton (the poet), the Duke of
Manchester, the Bishops of Lincoln and Sierra Leone, the Lord Mayor and
Corporation of London, Lord Shaftesbury (the philanthropist), Colonel
Grant (the explorer), Mr. Moran (the American Secretary of Legation),
Sir Bartle Frere, Sir H. Rawlinson, Sir Rutherford Alcock, Rev. Dr.
Moffat, Dr. Lyon Playfair, Lord Lawrence, Sir F. Buxton, Hon. Arthur
Kinnaird, Admiral Sir William Hall, Sherard Osborn, Codrington and
Ommaney, of the British Navy, besides deputations from the various
learned societies, and from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Hamilton, together
with other men of eminence too numerous to recapitulate. The procession
did not enter the Abbey till past one o’clock, and long before that hour
every available space in the vicinity of the grave was occupied, and
there were persons even in the clerestory.
“Five minutes past one, Dean Stanley, in his full robes, with a purple
cap on his head, and the red ribbon of the Order of the Bath, of which
he is chaplain, round his neck, is standing at the door of the west
nave, attended by the Sub-Dean and Canons, waiting for the body. Now we
see the procession slowly filing through the cloisters.
“First come the silver mace-bearers, then the choristers, then the
coffin, of brightly polished oak, in which the metal shells have been
enclosed. On the brass plate is the inscription,
DAVID LIVINGSTONE,
Born at Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland,
19th March, 1813.
Died at Mullala, Central Africa,
4th May, 1873.
and the lid is covered with wreaths of white camellias and branches of
palm.”
The solemn and impressive service of the English Church was effectively
conducted by Dean Stanley, assisted by the Sub-Dean and Canons; it was
choral throughout. The entire effect was grand in its solemn intensity.
The grave is in the centre of the west part of the nave, in close
proximity to those of Telford and Stephenson, the engineers, Sir James
Outram and General Wade, the soldiers, and other men of eminence in
various lines of service. It is in a spot cheered with sunshine, and
during the funeral service it was illumined with a ray of sunlight
which, passing through the superb stained-glass memorial window erected
to the memory of Brunel, the engineer of the Thames Tunnel and the
Saltash Viaduct, had a fine effect. The grave is shallow, owing to the
fact that the soil is too sandy to admit of digging deep.
The words “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes” having been pronounced and the
service closed, the people dispersed slowly and with a solemnity that
seemed to betoken a sense of personal loss.
One fact was evident throughout all the doings of the three days, from
the time of the landing at Southampton, to the close of the ceremonies
in Westminster Abbey--and that was that the deceased explorer-missionary
had won the respect, the esteem, nay, the love, of all classes, from the
Royal household to the humblest of the people.
Nor are these sentiments confined to the people of the British Empire;
all nations and peoples of the Christian world share in them. And in no
part of the world are these feelings warmer and stronger than in the
United States. As a partial evidence of this, we may allude to the
immense meeting in New York on the 23d of April. The spacious Academy of
Music proved far too small to admit the thousands who sought entrance.
The warmly eulogistic addresses of Chief Justice Daly, Rev. Dr. Adams,
Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. I. I. Hayes (the Arctic explorer), the Rev. Dr.
Schenck and others, met with the hearty endorsement of those who were
fortunate enough to gain admittance. And outside of New York and among
those who could not attend the meeting, the feeling is no less sincere.
This universal sentiment is attributable not so much to Dr.
Livingstone’s eminent services as an explorer, great as are their
certain results, as to his unwearied philanthropy and his Christian
spirit of self-consecration to the great work of rescuing the degraded
people of Central Africa and of putting an end to the fearful slave
trade. His heart lies buried in the land to whose interests he devoted
his best years, and his body in an honored grave in Westminster Abbey
amid England’s most distinguished sons--his soul has found its home
among the “blessed of the Father,” with the Lord whom he loved and
served, but he yet lives, a cherished hero, in the memories of the good
and true of all Christian climes.
The British Government and people received more than they conferred of
honor, in their earnest and unsparing tributes to his memory.