ROVUMA AND NYASSA--UNIVERSITIES MISSION.
A.D. 1861-1862.
Beginning of 1861--Arrival of the "Pioneer"--and of the agents of
Universities Mission--Cordial welcome--Livingstone's catholic
feelings--Ordered to explore the Rovuma--Bishop Mackenzie goes with
him--Returns to the Shiré--Turning-point of prosperity past--Difficult
navigation--The slave-sticks--Bishop settles at Magomero--Hostilities
between Manganja and Ajawa--Attack of Mission party by
Ajawa--Livingstone's advice to Bishop regarding them--Letter to his son
Robert--Livingstone, Kirk, and Charles start for Lake Nyassa--Party
robbed at north of Lake--Dismal activity of the slave-trade--Awful
mortality in the process--Livingstone's fondness for _Punch_--Letter to
Mr. Young--Joy at departure of new steamer "Lady Nyassa"--Colonization
project--Letter against it from Sir R. Murchison--Hears of Dr. Stewart
coming out from Free Church of Scotland--Visit at the ship from Bishop
Mackenzie--News of defeat of Ajawa by missionaries--Anxiety of
Livingstone--Arrangements for "Pioneer" to go to Kongone for new steamer
and friends from home, then go to Ruo to meet Bishop--"Pioneer"
detained--Dr. Livingstone's anxieties and depressions at New
Year--"Pioneer" misses man-of-war "Gorgon"--At length "Gorgon" appears
with brig from England and "Lady Nyassa"--Mrs. Livingstone and other
ladies on board--Livingstone's meeting with his wife, and with Dr.
Stewart--Stewart's recollections--Difficulties of navigation--Captain
Wilson of "Gorgon" goes up river and hears of death of Bishop Mackenzie
and Mr. Burrup--Great distress--Misrepresentations about Universities
Mission--Miss Mackenzie and Mr. Burrup taken to "Gorgon"--Dr. and Mrs.
Livingstone return to Shupanga--Illness and death of Mrs.
Livingstone--Extracts from Livingstone's Journal and letters to the
Moffats, Agnes, and the Murchisons.
The beginning of 1861 brought some new features on the scene. The new
steamer, the "Pioneer," at last arrived, and was a great improvement on
the "Ma-Robert," though unfortunately she had too great draught of
water. The agents of the Universities Missions also arrived, the first,
detachment consisting of Bishop Mackenzie and five other Englishmen,
and five colored men from the Cape. Writing familiarly to his friend
Moore, _àpropos_ of his new comrades of the Church Mission, Livingstone
says: "I have never felt anyway inclined to turn Churchman or dissenter
either since I came out here. The feelings which we have toward
different sects alter out here quite insensibly, till one looks upon all
godly men as good and true brethren. I rejoiced when I heard that so
many good and great men in the Universities had turned their thoughts
toward Africa, and feeling sure that He who had touched their hearts
would lead them to promote his own glory, I welcomed the men they sent
with a hearty, unfeigned welcome."
To his friend Mr. Maclear he wrote that he was very glad the Mission was
to be under a bishop. He had seen so much idleness and folly result from
missionaries being left to themselves, that it was a very great
satisfaction to find that the new mission was to be superintended by one
authorized and qualified to take the charge. Afterward when he came to
know Bishop Mackenzie, he wrote of him to Mr. Maclear in the highest
terms: "The Bishop is A 1, and in his readiness to put his hand to
anything resembles much my good father-in-law Moffat."
It is not often that missions are over-manned, but in the first stage of
such an undertaking as this, so large a body of men was an incumbrance,
none of them knowing a word of the language or a bit of the way. It was
Bishop Mackenzie's desire that Dr. Livingstone should accompany him at
once to the scene of his future labors and help him to settle. But
besides other reasons, the "Pioneer," as already stated, was under
orders to explore the Rovuma, and, as the Portuguese put so many
obstacles in the way on the Zambesi, to ascertain whether that river
might not afford access to the Nyassa district. It was at last arranged
that the Bishop should first go with the Doctor to the Rovuma, and
thereafter they should all go together to the Shiré. In waiting for
Bishop Mackenzie to accompany him, Dr. Livingstone lost the most
favorable part of the season, and found that he could not get with the
"Pioneer" to the top of the Rovuma. He might have left the ship and
pushed forward on foot; but, not to delay Bishop Mackenzie, he left the
Rovuma in the meantime, intending, after making arrangements with the
Bishop, to go to Nyassa, to find the point where the Rovuma left the
lake, if there were such a point, or, if not, get into its headwaters
and explore it downward.
Dr. Livingstone, as we have seen, welcomed the Mission right cordially,
for indeed it was what he had been most eagerly praying for, and he
believed that it would be the beginning of all blessing to Eastern and
Central Africa, and help to assimilate the condition of the East Coast
to that of the West The field for the cultivation of cotton which he had
discovered along the Shiré and Lake Nyassa was immense, above 400 miles
in length, and now it seemed as if commerce and Christianity were going
to take possession of it. But it was found that the turning-point of
prosperity had been reached, and it was his lot to encounter dark
reverses. The navigation of the Shiré was difficult, for the "Pioneer"
being deep in the water would often run aground. On these occasions the
Bishop, Mr. Scudamore, and Mr. Waller, the best and the bravest of the
missionary party, were ever ready with their help in hauling.
Livingstone was sometimes scandalized to see the Bishop toiling in the
hot sun, while some of his subordinates were reading or writing in the
cabin. As they proceeded up the Shiré it was seen that the promises of
assistance from the Portuguese Government were worse than fruitless.
Evidently the Portuguese traders were pushing the slave-trade with
greater eagerness than ever. Slave-hunting chiefs were marauding the
country, driving peaceful inhabitants before them, destroying their
crops, seizing on all the people they could lay hands on, and selling
them as slaves. The contrast to what Livingstone had seen on his last
journey was lamentable. All their prospects were overcast. How could
commerce or Christianity flourish in countries desolated by war?
Every reader of _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_ remembers the
frightful picture of the slave-sticks, and the row of men, women, and
children whom Livingstone and his companions set free. Nothing helped
more than this picture to rouse in English bosoms an intense horror of
the trade, and a burning sympathy with Livingstone and his friends.
Livingstone and the Bishop, with his party, had gone up the Shiré to
Chibisa's, and were halting at the village of Mbame, when a slave party
came along. The flight of the drivers, the liberation of eighty-four men
and women, and their reception by the good Bishop under his charge,
speedily followed. The aggressors were the neighboring warlike tribe of
Ajawa, and their victims were the Manganja, the inhabitants of the Shiré
Valley. The Bishop accepted the invitation of Chigunda, a Manganja
chief, to settle at Magomero. It was thought, however, desirable for the
Bishop and Livingstone first to visit the Ajawa chief, and try to turn
him from his murderous ways. The road was frightful--through burning
villages resounding with the wailings of women and the shouts of the
warriors. The Ajawa received the offered visit in a hostile spirit, and
the shout being raised that Chibisa had come--powerful chief with the
reputation of being a sorcerer--they fired on the Bishop's party and
compelled them, in self-defense, to fire in return. It was the first
time that Livingstone had ever been so attacked by natives, often though
they had threatened him. It was the first time he had had to repel an
attack with violence; so little was he thinking of such a thing that he
had not his rifle with him, and was obliged to borrow a revolver. The
encounter was hot and serious, but it ended in the Ajawa being driven
off without loss on the other side.
It now became a question for the Bishop in what relation he and his
party were to stand to these murderous and marauding Ajawa--whether they
should quietly witness their onslaughts or drive them from the country
and rescue the captive Manganja. Livingstone's advice to them was to be
patient, and to avoid taking part in the quarrels of the natives. He
then left them at Magomero, and returned to his companions on the Shiré.
For a time the Bishop's party followed Livingstone's advice, but
circumstances afterward occurred which constrained them to take a
different course, and led to very serious results in the history of
the Mission.
Writing to his son Robert, Livingstone thus describes the attack made by
the Ajawa on him, the Bishop, and the missionaries:
"The slave-hunters had induced a number of another tribe to
capture people for them. We came to this tribe while burning
three villages, and though we told them that we came
peaceably, and to talk with them, they saw that we were a
small party, and might easily be overcome, rushed at us and
shot their poisoned arrows. One fell between the Bishop and
me, and another whizzed between another man and me. We had to
drive them off, and they left that part of the country.
Before going near them the Bishop engaged in prayer, and
during the prayer we could hear the wail for the dead by some
Manganja probably thought not worth killing, and the shouts
of welcome home to these bloody murderers. It turned out that
they were only some sixty or seventy robbers, and not the
Ajawa tribe; so we had a narrow escape from being murdered.
"How are you doing? I fear from what I have observed of your
temperament that you will have to strive against fickleness.
Every one has his besetting fault--that is no disgrace to
him, but it is a disgrace if he do not find it out, and by
God's grace overcome it. I am not near to advise you what to
do, but whatever line of life you choose, resolve to stick to
it, and serve God therein to the last. Whatever failings you
are conscious of, tell them to your heavenly Father; strive
daily to master them and confess all to Him when conscious of
having gone astray. And may the good Lord of all impart all
the strength you need. Commit your way unto the Lord; trust
also in Him. Acknowledge Him in all your ways, and He will
bless you."
Leaving the "Pioneer" at Chibisa's, on 6th August, 1861, Livingstone,
accompanied by his brother and Dr. Kirk, started for Nyassa with a
four-oared boat, which was carried by porters past the Murchison
Cataracts. On 23d September they sailed into Lake Nyassa, naming the
grand mountainous promontory at the end Cape Maclear, after
Livingstone's great friend the Astronomer-Royal at the Cape.
All about the lake was now examined with earnest eyes. The population
was denser than he had seen anywhere else. The people were civil, and
even friendly, but undoubtedly they were not handsome. At the north of
the lake they were lawless, and at one point the party were robbed in
the night--the first time such a thing had occurred in Livingstone's
African life[61]. Of elephants there was a great abundance,--indeed of
all animal and vegetable life.
[Footnote 61: In _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_, Livingstone gives a
grave account of the robbery. In his letters to his friends he makes fun
of it, as he did of the raid of the Boers. To Mr. F. Fitch he writes:
"You think I cannot get into a scrape.... For the first time in Africa
we were robbed. Expert thieves crept into our sleeping-places, about
four o'clock in the morning, and made off with what they could lay their
hands on. Sheer over-modesty ruined me. It was Sunday, and such a black
mass swarmed around our sail, which we used as a hut, that we could not
hear prayers. I had before slipped away a quarter of a mile to dress for
church, but seeing a crowd of women watching me through the reeds, I did
not change my old 'unmentionables,'--they were so old, I had serious
thoughts of converting them into--charity! Next morning nearly all our
spare clothing was walked off with, and there I was left by my modesty
nearly through at the knees, and no change of shirt, flannel, or
stockings. After that, don't say that I can't get into a scrape!" The
same letter thanks Mr. Fitch for sending him _Punch_, whom he deemed a
sound divine! On the same subject he wrote at another time, regretting
that _Punch_ did not reach him, especially a number in which notice was
taken of himself. "It never came. Who the miscreants are that steal them
I cannot divine, I would not grudge them a reading if they would only
send them on afterward. Perhaps binding the whole year's _Punches_ would
be the best plan; and then we need not label it 'Sermons in Lent,' or
'Tracts on Homoeopathy,' but you may write inside, as Dr. Buckland did
on his umbrella, 'Stolen from Dr. Livingstone.' We really enjoy them
very much. They are good against fever. The 'Essence of Parliament,' for
instance, is capital. One has to wade through an ocean of paper to get
the same information, without any of the fun. And by the time the
newspapers have reached us, most of the interest in public matters has
evaporated."]
But the lake slave-trade was going on at a dismal rate. An Arab dhow was
seen on the lake, but it kept well out of the way. Dr. Livingstone was
informed by Colonel Rigdy, late British Consul at Zanzibar, that 19,000
slaves from this Nyassa region alone passed annually through the
custom-house there. This was besides those landed at Portuguese slave
ports. In addition to those captured, thousands were killed or died of
their wounds or of famine, or perished in other ways, so that not
one-fifth of the victims became slaves--in the Nyassa district probably
not one-tenth. A small armed steamer on the lake might stop nearly the
whole of this wholesale robbery and murder.
Their stock of goods being exhausted, and no provisions being
procurable, the party had to return at the end of October. They had to
abandon the project of getting from the lake to the Rovuma, and
exploring eastward. They reached the ship on 8th November, 1861, having
suffered more from hunger than on any previous trip.
In writing to his friend Young, 28th November, 1861, Livingstone
expresses his joy at the news of the departure of the "Lady Nyassa;"
gives him an account of the lake, and of a terrific storm in which they
were nearly lost; describes the inhabitants, and the terrible
slave-trade--the only trade that was carried on in the district. It will
take them the best part of a year to put the ship on the lake, but it
will be such a blessing! He hopes the Government will pay for it, once
it is there.
The colonization project had not commended itself to Sir R. Murchison.
He had written of it sometime before: "Your colonization scheme does not
meet with supporters, it being thought that you must have much more hold
on the country before you attract Scotch families to emigrate and settle
there, and then die off, or become a burden to you and all concerned,
like the settlers of old at Darien." It was with much satisfaction that
Livingstone now wrote to his friend (25th November, 1861): "A Dr.
Stewart is sent out by the Free Church of Scotland to confer with me
about a Scotch Colony. You will guess my answer. Dr. Kirk is with me in
opinion, and if I could only get you out to take a trip up to the
plateau of Zomba, and over the uplands which surround Lake Nyassa, you
would give in too."
When the party returned to the ship they had a visit from Bishop
Mackenzie, who was in good spirits and had excellent hopes of the
Mission. The Ajawa had been defeated, and had professed a desire to be
at peace with the English. But Dr. Livingstone was not without
misgivings on this point. The details of the defeat of the Ajawa, in
which the missionaries had taken an active part, troubled him, as we
find from his private Journal. "The Bishop," he says (14th of November),
"takes a totally different view of the affair from what I do." There
were other points on which the utter inexperience of the missionaries,
and want of skill in dealing with the natives, gave him serious anxiety.
It is impossible not to see that even thus early, the Mission, in
Livingstone's eyes, had lost something of its bloom.
It was arranged that the "Pioneer" should go down to the mouth of the
Zambesi, to meet a man-of-war with provisions, and bring up the pieces
of the new lake vessel, the "Lady Nyassa," which was eagerly expected,
along with Mrs. Livingstone, Miss Mackenzie, the Bishop's sister, and
other members of the Mission party. An appointment was made for January
at the mouth of the river Ruo, a tributary of the Shiré, where the
Bishop was to meet them. He and Mr. Burrup, who had just arrived, were
meanwhile to explore the neighboring country.
The "Pioneer" was detained for five weeks on a shoal twenty miles below
Chibisa's, and here the first death occurred--the carpenter's mate
succumbed to fever. It was extremely irksome to suffer this long
detention, to think of fuel and provisions wasting, and salaries running
on, without one particle of progress. Livingstone was sensitive and
anxious. He speaks in his Journal of the difficulty of feeling resigned
to the Divine will in all things, and of believing that all things work
together for good to those that love God, He seems to have been troubled
at what had been said in some quarters of his treatment of members of
the Expedition. In private letters, in the Cape papers, in the home
papers, unfavorable representations of his conduct had been made. In one
case, a prosecution at law had been threatened. On New Year's Day, 1862,
he entered in his Journal an elaborate minute, as if for future use,
bearing on the conduct of the Expedition. He refers to the difficulty to
which civil expeditions are exposed, as compared with naval and
military, in the matter of discipline, owing to the inferior authority
and power of the chief. In the countries visited there is no enlightened
public opinion to support the commander, and newspapers at home are but
too ready to believe in his tyranny, and make themselves the champions
of any dawdling fellow who would fain be counted a victim of his
despotism. He enumerates the chief troubles to which his Expedition had
been exposed from such causes. Then he explains how, at the beginning,
to prevent collision, he had made every man independent in his own
department, wishing only, for himself, to be the means of making known
to the world what each man had done. His conclusion is a sad one, but it
explains why in his last journeys he went alone: he is convinced that if
he had been by himself he would have accomplished more, and undoubtedly
he would have received more of the approbation of his countrymen[62].
[Footnote 62: Notwithstanding this expression of feeling, Dr.
Livingstone was very sincere in his handsome acknowledgments, in the
Introduction to _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_, of valuable services,
especially from the members of the Expedition there named.]
At length the "Pioneer" was got off the bank, and on the 11th January,
1862, they entered the Zambesi. They prided to the great Luabo mouth, as
being more advantageous than the Kongone for a supply of wood. They were
a month behind their appointment, and no ship was to be seen. The ship
had been there, it turned out, on the 8th January, had looked eagerly
for the "Pioneer," had fancied it saw the black funnel and its smoke in
the river, and being disappointed had made for Mozambique, been caught
in a gale, and was unable to return for three weeks. Livingstone's
letters show him a little out of sorts at the manifold obstructions that
had always been making him "too late"--"too late for Rovuma below, too
late for Rovuma above, and now too late for our own appointment," but in
greater trouble because the "Lady Nyassa" had not been sent by sea, as
he had strongly urged, and as it afterward appeared might have been done
quite well. To take out the pieces and fit them up would involve heavy
expense and long delay, and perhaps the season would be lost again. But
Livingstone had always a saving clause, in all his lamentations, and
here it is: "I know that all was done for the best."
At length, on the last day of January, H.M.S. "Gorgon," with a brig in
tow, hove in sight. When the "Pioneer" was seen, up went the signal from
the "Gorgon"--"I have steamboat in the brig"; to which Livingstone
replied--"Welcome news." Then "Wife aboard" was signaled from the ship.
"Accept my best thanks" concluded what Livingstone called "the most
interesting conversation he had engaged in for many a day." Next morning
the "Pioneer" steamed out, and Dr. Livingstone found his wife "all
right." In the same ship with Mrs. Livingstone, besides Miss Mackenzie
and Mrs. Burrup, the Rev. E. Hawkins and others of the Universities
Mission, had come the Rev. James Stewart, of the Free Church of Scotland
(now Dr. Stewart, of Lovedale, South Africa), who had been sent out by
a committee of that Church, "to meet with Dr. Livingstone, and obtain,
by personal observation and otherwise, the information that might be
necessary to enable a committee at home to form a correct judgment as to
the possibility of founding a mission in that part of Africa." It
happened that some time before Mr. Stewart had been tutor to Thomas
Livingstone, while studying in Glasgow; this drew his sympathies to
Livingstone and Africa, and was another link in that wonderful chain
which Providence was making for the good of Africa. From Dr. Stewart's
"Recollections of Dr. Livingstone and the Zambesi" in the _Sunday
Magazine_ (November, 1874), we get the picture from the other side.
First, the sad disappointment of Mrs. Livingstone on the 8th January,
when no "Pioneer" was to be found, with the anxious speculations raised
in its absence as to the cause. Then a frightful tornado on the way to
Mozambique, and the all but miraculous escape of the brig. Then the
return to the Zambesi in company with H.M.S. "Gorgon," and on the 1st of
February, in a lovely morning, the little cloud of smoke rising close to
land, and afterward the white hull of a small paddle steamer making
straight for the two ships outside.
"As the vessel approached," says Dr. Stewart, "I could make
out with a glass a firmly built man of about the middle
height, standing on the port paddle-box, and directing the
ship's course. He was not exactly dressed as a naval officer,
but he wore that gold-laced cap which has since become so
well known both at home and in Africa. This was Dr.
Livingstone, and I said to his wife, 'There he is at last.'
She looked brighter at this announcement than I had seen her
do any day for seven months before."
Through the help of the men of the "Gorgon," the sections of the "Lady
Nyassa" were speedily put on board the "Pioneer," and on the 10th
February the vessel steamed off for the mouth of the Ruo, to meet the
Bishop. But its progress through the river was miserable. Says
Dr. Stewart:
"For ten days we were chiefly occupied in sailing or hauling
the ship through sand-banks. The steamer was drawing between
five and six feet of water, and though there were long
reaches in the river with depth sufficient for a ship of
larger draught, yet every now and then we found ourselves in
shoal water of about three feet. No sooner was the boat got
off one bank by might and main, and steady hauling on capstan
and anchor laid out ahead, almost never astern, and we got a
few miles of fair steering, than again we heard that sound,
abhorred by all of us--a slight bump of the bow, and rush of
sand along the ship's side, and we were again fast for a few
hours, or a day or two, as the case might be."
The "Pioneer" was overladen, and the plan had to be changed. It was
resolved to put the "Lady Nyassa" together at Shupanga, and tow her up
to the Rapids.
"The detention," says Dr. Stewart, "was very trying to Dr.
Livingstone, as it meant not a few weeks, but the loss of a
year, inasmuch as by the time the ship was ready to be
launched the river would be nearly at its lowest, and there
would be no resource but to wait for the next rainy season.
Yet, in the face of discouragement, he maintained his
cheerfulness, and, after sunset, still enjoyed many an hour
of prolonged talk about current events at home, about his old
College days in Glasgow, and about many of those who were
unknown men then, but have since made their mark in life in
the different paths they have taken. Amongst others his old
friend Mr. Young, of Kelly, or Sir Paraffin, as he used
subsequently to call him, came in for a large share of the
conversation."
Meanwhile Captain Wilson (of the "Gorgon"), accompanied by Dr. Kirk and
others, had gone on in boats with Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup, and
learned the sad fate of the Bishop and Mr. Burrup. It appeared that the
Bishop, accompanied by the Makololo, had gone forth on an expedition to
rescue the captive husbands of some of the Manganja women, and had been
successful. But as the Bishop was trying to get to the mouth of the Ruo,
his canoe was upset, his medicines and cordials were lost, and, being
seized with fever, after languishing for some time, he died in
distressing circumstances, on the 31st January, Mr. Burrup, who was with
him, and who was also stricken, was carried back to Magomero, and died
in a few days.
Captain Wilson, who had himself been prostrated by fever, and made a
narrow escape, returned with this sad news, three weeks after he had
left Shupanga, bringing the two broken-hearted ladies, who had expected
to be welcomed, the one by her brother, the other by her husband. It was
a great blow to Livingstone.
"It was difficult to say," writes Dr. Stewart, "whether he or
the unhappy ladies, on whom the blow fell with the most
personal weight, were most to be pitied. He felt the
responsibility, and saw the wide-spread dismay which the news
would occasion when it reached England, and at the very time
when the Mission most needed support. 'This will hurt us
all,' he said, as he sat resting his head on his hand, on the
table of the dimly-lighted little cabin of the 'Pioneer,' His
esteem for Bishop Mackenzie was afterward expressed in this
way: 'For unselfish goodness of heart and earnest devotion to
the work he had undertaken, it can safely be said that none
of the commendations of his friends can exceed the reality,'
He did what he could, I believe, to comfort those who were so
unexpectedly bereaved; but the night he spent must have been
an uneasy one."
Livingstone says in his book that the unfavorable judgment which he had
formed of the Bishop's conduct in fighting with the Ajawa was somewhat
modified by a natural instinct, when he saw how keenly the Bishop was
run down for it in England, and reflected more on the circumstances, and
thought how excellent a man he was. Sometimes he even said that, had he
been there, he would probably have done what the Bishop did[63]. Why,
then, it may be asked, was Livingstone so ill-pleased when it was said
that all that the Bishop had done was done by his advice? No one will
ask this question who reads the terms of a letter by Mr. Rowley, one of
the Mission party, first published in the Cape papers, and copied into
the _Times_ in November, 1862. It was said there that "from the moment
when Livingstone commenced the release of slaves, his course was one of
aggression. He hunted for slaving parties in every direction, and when
he heard of the Ajawa making slaves in order to sell to the slavers, he
went designedly in search of them, and intended to take their captives
from them by force if needful. It is true that when he came upon them he
found them to be a more powerful body than he expected, and had they not
fired first, he might have withdrawn.... His parting words to the chiefs
just before he left ... were to this effect: 'You have hitherto seen us
only as fighting men but it is not in such a character we wish you to
know us[64].'" How could Livingstone be otherwise than indignant to be
spoken of as if the use of force had been his habit, while the whole
tenor of his life had gone most wonderfully to show the efficacy of
gentle and brotherly treatment? How could he but be vexed at having the
odium of the whole proceedings thrown on him, when his last advice to
the missionaries had been disregarded by them? Or how could he fail to
be concerned at the discredit which the course ascribed to him must
bring upon the Expedition under his command, which was entirely separate
from the Mission? It was the unhandsome treatment of himself and
reckless periling of the character and interests of his Expedition in
order to shield others, that raised his indignation. "Good Bishop
Mackenzie," he wrote to his friend Mr. Fitch, "would never have tried to
screen himself by accusing me." In point of fact, a few years afterward
the Portuguese Government, through Mr. Lacerda, when complaining
bitterly of the statements of Livingstone in a speech at Bath, in 1865,
referred to Mr. Rowley's letter as bearing out their complaint. It
served admirably to give an unfavorable view of his aims and methods,
_as from one of his own allies_. Dr. Livingstone never allowed himself
to cherish any other feeling but that of high regard for the self-denial
and Christian heroism of the Bishop, and many of his coadjutors; but he
did feel that most of them were ill-adapted for their work and had a
great deal to learn, and that the manner in which he had been turned
aside from the direct objects of his own enterprise by having to look
after so many inexperienced men, and then blamed for what he deprecated,
and what was done in his absence, was rather more than it was reasonable
for him to bear[65].
[Footnote 63: Writing to Mr. Waller, 12th February, 1863, Dr.
Livingstone said: "I thought you wrong in attacking the Ajawa, till I
looked on it as defense of your orphans. I thought that you had shut
yourselves up to one tribe, and that, the Manganja; but I think
differently now, and only wish they would send out Dr. Pusey here. He
would learn a little sense, of which I suppose I have need myself."]
[Footnote 64: Mr. Rowley afterward (February 22, 1865) expressed his
regret that this letter was ever written, as it had produced an
ill-effect. See _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_, p. 475 _note_.]
[Footnote 65: It must not be supposed that the letter of Mr. Rowley
expressed the mind of his brethren. Some of them were greatly annoyed at
it, and used their influence to induce its author to write to the Cape
papers that he had conveyed a wrong impression. In writing to Sir Thomas
Maclear (20th November, 1862), after seeing Rowley's letter in the Cape
papers, Dr. Livingstone said: "It is untrue that I ever on anyone
occasion adopted an aggressive policy against the Ajawa, or took slaves
from them. Slaves were taken from Portuguese alone. I never hunted the
Ajawa, or took the part of Manganja against Ajawa. In this I believe
every member of the Mission will support my assertion." Livingstone
declined to write a contradiction _to the public prints_, because he
knew the harm that would be done by a charge against a clergyman. In
this he showed the same magnanimity and high Christian self-denial which
he had shown when he left Mabotsa. It was only when the Portuguese
claimed the benefit of Rowley's testimony that he let the public see
what its value was.]
Writing of the terrible loss of Mackenzie and Burrup to the Bishop of
Cape Town, Livingstone says: "The blow is quite bewildering; the two
strongest men so quickly cut down, and one of them, humanly speaking,
indispensable to the success of the enterprise. We must bow to the will
of Him who doeth all things well; but I cannot help feeling sadly
disturbed in view of the effect the news may have at home. _I shall not
swerve a hairbreadth from my work while life is spared_, and I trust
the supporters of the Mission may not shrink back from all that they
have set their hearts to."
The next few weeks were employed in taking Miss Mackenzie and Mrs.
Burrup to the "Gorgon" on their way home. It was a painful voyage to
all--to Dr. and Mrs. Livingstone, to Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup, and
last, not least, to Captain Wilson, who had been separated so long from
his ship, and had risked life, position, and everything, to do service
to a cause which in spite of all he left at a much lower ebb.
When the "Pioneer" arrived at the bar, it found that owing to the
weather the ship had been forced to leave the coast, and she did not
return for a fortnight. There was thus another long waiting from 17th
March to 2d April. Dr. and Mrs. Livingstone then returned to Shupanga.
The long detention in the most unhealthy season of the year, and when
fever was at its height, was a sad, sad calamity.
We are now arrived at the last illness and the death of Mrs.
Livingstone. After she had parted from her husband at the Cape in the
spring of 1858, she returned with her parents to Kuruman, and in
November gave birth there to her youngest child, Anna Mary. Thereafter
she returned to Scotland to be near her other children. Some of them
were at school. No comfortable home for them all could be formed, and
though many friends were kind, the time was not a happy one. Mrs.
Livingstone's desire to be with her husband was intense; not only the
longings of an affectionate heart, and the necessity of taking counsel
with him about the family, but the feeling that when over-shadowed by
one whose faith was so strong her fluttering heart would regain, its
steady tone, and she would be better able to help both him and the
children, gave vehemence to this desire. Her letters to her husband tell
of much spiritual darkness; his replies were the very soul of tenderness
and Christian earnestness. Providence seemed to favor her wish; the
vessel in which she sailed was preserved from imminent destruction, and
she had the great happiness of finding her husband alive and well.
On the 21st of April Mrs. Livingstone became ill. On the 25th the
symptoms were alarming--vomitings every quarter of an hour, which
prevented any medicine from remaining on her stomach. On the 26th she
was worse and delirious. On the evening of Sunday the 27th Dr. Stewart
got a message from her husband that the end was drawing near. "He was
sitting by the side of a rude bed formed of boxes, but covered with a
soft mattress, on which lay his dying wife. All consciousness had now
departed, as she was in a state of deep coma, from which all efforts to
rouse her had been unavailing. The strongest medical remedies and her
husband's voice were both alike powerless to reach the spirit which was
still there, but was now so rapidly sinking into the depths of slumber,
and darkness and death. The fixedness of feature and the oppressed and
heavy breathing only made it too plain that the end was near. And the
man who had faced so many deaths, and braved so many dangers, was now
utterly broken down and weeping like a child."
Dr. Livingstone asked Dr. Stewart to commend her spirit to God, and
along with Dr. Kirk they kneeled in prayer beside her. In less than an
hour, her spirit had returned to God. Half an hour after, Dr. Stewart
was struck with her likeness to her father, Dr. Moffat. He was afraid to
utter what struck him so much, but at last he said to Livingstone, "Do
you notice any change?" "Yes," he replied, without raising his eyes from
her face,--"the very features and expression of her father."
Every one is struck with the calmness of Dr. Livingstone's notice of his
wife's death in _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_. Its matter-of-fact
tone only shows that he regarded that book as a sort of official report
to the nation, in which it would not be becoming for him to introduce
personal feelings. A few extracts from his Journal and letters will show
better the state of his heart.
"It is the first heavy stroke I have suffered, and quite takes away my
strength. I wept over her who well deserved many tears. I loved her when
I married her, and the longer I lived with her I loved her the more. God
pity the poor children, who were all tenderly attached to her, and I am
left alone in the world by one whom I felt to be a part of myself. I
hope it may, by divine grace, lead me to realize heaven as my home, and
that she has but preceded me in the journey. Oh my Mary, my Mary! how
often we have longed for a quiet home, since you and I were cast adrift
at Kolobeng; surely the removal by a kind Father who knoweth our frame
means that He rewarded you by taking you to the best home, the eternal
one in the heavens. The prayer was found in her papers--'Accept me,
Lord, as I am, and make me such as Thou wouldst have me to be.' He who
taught her to value this prayer would not leave his own work unfinished.
On a letter she had written, 'Let others plead for pensions, I wrote to
a friend I can be rich without money; I would give my services in the
world from uninterested motives; I have motives for my own conduct I
would not exchange for a hundred pensions.'
"She rests by the large baobab-tree at Shupanga, which is sixty feet in
circumference, and is mentioned in the work of Commodore Owen. The men
asked to be _allowed_ to mount guard till we had got the grave built up,
and we had it built with bricks dug from an old house.
"From her boxes we find evidence that she intended to make us all
comfortable at Nyassa, though she seemed to have a presentiment of an
early death,--she purposed to do more for me than ever.
"11_th May, Kongone_.--My dear, dear Mary has been this evening a
fortnight in heaven,--absent from the body, present with the Lord.
To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise. Angels carried her to
Abraham's bosom--to be with Christ is far better. Enoch, the seventh
from Adam, prophesied, 'Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his
saints'; ye also shall appear with Him in glory. He comes with them;
then they are now with Him. I go to prepare a place for you; that where
I am there ye may be also, to behold his glory. Moses and Elias talked
of the decease He should accomplish at Jerusalem; then they know what is
going on here on certain occasions. They had bodily organs to hear and
speak. For the first time in my life I feel willing to die.--D.L."
"_May_ 19, 1862.--Vividly do I remember my first passage down in 1856,
passing Shupanga house without landing, and looking at its red hills and
white vales with the impression that it was a beautiful spot. No
suspicion glanced across my mind that there my loving wife would be
called to give up the ghost six years afterward. In some other spot I
may have looked at, my own resting-place may be allotted. I have often
wished that it might be in some far-off still deep forest, where I may
sleep sweetly till the resurrection morn, when the trump of God will
make all start up into the glorious and active second existence.
"25_th May_.--Some of the histories of pious people in the last century
and previously tell of clouds of religious gloom, or of paroxysms of
opposition and fierce rebellion against God, which found vent in
terrible expressions. These were followed by great elevations of faith,
and reactions of confiding love, the results of divine influence which
carried the soul far above the region of the intellect into that of
direct spiritual intuition. This seems to have been the experience of my
dear Mary. She had a strong presentiment of death being near. She said
that she would never have a house in this country. Taking it to be
despondency alone, I only joked, and now my heart smites me that I did
not talk seriously on that and many things besides.
"31_st May_, 1862.--The loss of my ever dear Mary lies like a heavy
weight on my heart. In our intercourse in private there was more than
what would be thought by some a decorous amount of merriment and play. I
said to her a few days before her fatal illness: 'We old bodies ought
now to be more sober, and not play so much.' 'Oh, no,' said she,' you
must always be as playful as you have always been; I would not like you
to be as grave as some folks I have seen.' This, when I know her prayer
was that she might be spared to be a help and comfort to me in my great
work, led me to feel what I have always believed to be the true way, to
let the head grow wise, but keep the heart always young and playful. She
was ready and anxious to work, but has been called away to serve God in
a higher sphere."
Livingstone could not be idle, even when his heart was broken; he
occupied the days after the death in writing to her father and mother,
to his children, and to many of the friends who would be interested in
the sad news. Among these letters, that to Mrs. Moffat and her reply
from Kuruman have a special interest. His letters went round by Europe,
and the first news reached Kuruman by traders and newspapers. For a full
month after her daughters death, Mrs. Moffat was giving thanks for the
mercy that had spared her to meet with her husband, and had made her lot
so different from that of Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup. In a letter,
dated 26th May, she writes to Mary a graphic account of the electrical
thrill that passed through her when she saw David's handwriting--of the
beating heart with which she tried to get the essence of his letter
before she read the lines--of the overwhelming joy and gratitude with
which she learned that they had met--and then the horror of great
darkness that came over her when she read of the tragic death of the
Bishop, to whom she had learned to feel as to a friend and brother. Then
she pours out her tears over the "poor dear ladies, Miss Mackenzie and
Mrs. Burrup," and remembers the similar fate of the Helmores, who, like
the Bishop and his friends, had had it in their hearts to build a temple
to the Lord in Africa, but had not been permitted. Then comes some
family news, especially about her son Robert, whose sudden death
occurred a few days after, and was another bitter drop in the family
cup. And then some motherly forecastings of her daughter's future,
kindly counsel where she could offer any, and affectionate prayers for
the guidance of God where the future was too dark for her to penetrate.
For a whole month before this letter was written, poor Mary had been
sleeping under the baobab-tree at Shupanga!
In Livingstone's letter to Mrs. Moffat he gives the details of her
illness, and pours his heart out in the same affectionate terms as in
his Journal. He dwells on the many unhappy causes of delay which had
detained them near the mouth of the river, contrary to all his wishes
and arrangements. He is concerned that her deafness (through quinine)
and comatose condition before her death prevented her from giving him
the indications he would have desired respecting her state of mind in
the view of eternity.
"I look," he says, "to her previous experience and life for comfort, and
thank God for his mercy that we have it.... A good wife and mother was
she. God have pity on the children--she was so much beloved by them....
She was much respected by all the officers of the 'Gorgon,'--they would
do anything for her. When they met this vessel at Mozambique, Captain
Wilson offered his cabin in that fine large vessel, but she insisted
rather that Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup should go.... I enjoyed her
society during the three months we were together. It was the Lord who
gave and He has taken away. I wish to say--Blessed be his name. I
regret, as there always are regrets after our loved ones are gone, that
the slander which, unfortunately, reached her ears from missionary
gossips and others had an influence on me in allowing her to come,
before we were fairly on Lake Nyassa. A doctor of divinity said, when
her devotion to her family was praised: 'Oh, she is no good, she is here
because her husband cannot live with her,' The last day will tell
another tale."
To his daughter Agnes he writes, after the account of her death: "...
Dear Nannie, she often thought of you, and when once, from the violence
of the disease, she was delirious, she called out, 'See! Agnes is
falling down a precipice,' May our Heavenly Saviour, who must be your
Father and Guide, preserve you from falling into the gulf of sin over
the precipice of temptation.... Dear Agnes, I feel alone in the world
now, and what will the poor dear baby do without her mamma? She often
spoke of her, and sometimes burst into a flood of tears, just as I now
do in taking up and arranging the things left by my beloved partner of
eighteen years.... I bow to the Divine hand that chastens me. God grant
that I may learn the lesson He means to teach! All she told you to do
she now enforces, as if beckoning from heaven. Nannie, dear, meet her
there. Don't lose the crown of joy she now wears, and the Lord be
gracious to you in all things. You will now need to act more and more
from a feeling of responsibility to Jesus, seeing He has taken away one
of your guardians. A right straightforward woman was she. No crooked way
ever hers, and she could act with decision and energy when required. I
pity you on receiving this, but it is the Lord.--Your sorrowing and
lonely father."
Letters of the like tenor were written to every intimate friend. It was
a relief to his heart to pour itself out in praise of her who was gone,
and in some cases, when he had told all about the death, he returns to
speak of her life. A letter to Sir Roderick Murchison gives all the
particulars of the illness and its termination. Then he thinks of the
good and gentle Lady Murchison,--"la spirituelle Lady Murchison," as
Humboldt called her,--and writes to her: "It will somewhat ease my
aching heart to tell you about my dear departed Mary Moffat, the
faithful companion of eighteen years." He tells of her birth at Griqua
Town in 1821, her education in England, their marriage and their love.
"At Kolobeng, she managed all the household affairs by native servants
of her own training, made bread, butter, and all the clothes of the
family; taught her children most carefully; kept also an infant and
sewing school--by far the most popular and best attended we had. It was
a fine sight to see her day by day walking a quarter of a mile to the
town, no matter how broiling hot the sun, to impart instruction to the
heathen Bakwains. Ma-Robert's name is known through all that country,
and 1800 miles beyond.... A brave, good woman was she. All my hopes of
giving her one day a quiet home, for which we both had many a sore
longing, are now dashed to the ground. She is, I trust, through divine
mercy, in peace in the home of the blest.... She spoke feelingly of your
kindness to her, and also of the kind reception she received from Miss
Burdett Coutts. Please give that lady and Mrs. Brown the sad
intelligence of her death."
The reply of Mrs. Moffat to her son-in-law's letter was touching and
beautiful. "I do thank you for the detail you have given us of the
circumstances of the last days and hours of our lamented and beloved
Mary, our first-born, over whom our fond hearts first beat with parental
affection!" She recounts the mercies that were mingled with the
trial--though Mary could not be called _eminently_ pious, she had the
root of the matter in her, and though the voyage of her life had been a
trying and stormy one, she had not become a wreck. God had remembered
her; had given her during her last year the counsels of faithful
men--referring to her kind friend and valued counselor, the Rev.
Professor Kirk, of Edinburgh, and the Rev. Dr. Stewart, of
Lovedale--and, at last, the great privilege of dying in the arms of her
husband. "As for the cruel scandal that seems to have hurt you both so
much, those who said it did not know you _as a couple_. In all _our_
intercourse with you, we never had a doubt as to your being comfortable
together. I know there are some maudlin ladies who insinuate, when a man
leaves his family frequently, no matter how noble is his object, that he
is not _comfortable_ at home. But we can afford to smile at this, and
say, 'The Day will declare it.'...
"Now my dear Livingstone, I must conclude by assuring you of the tender
interest we shall ever feel in your operations. It is not only as the
husband of our departed Mary and the father of her children, but as one
who has laid himself out for the emancipation of this poor wretched
continent, and for opening new doors of entrance for the heralds of
salvation (not that I would not have preferred your remaining in your
former capacity). I nevertheless rejoice in what you are allowed to
accomplish. We look anxiously for more news of you, and my heart bounded
when I saw your letters the other day, thinking they were new. May our
gracious God and Father comfort your sorrowful heart.--Believe me ever
your affectionate mother, "MARY MOFFAT."