When Livingstone arrived in Bombay in September, Sir Bartle Frere was Governor. They were old friends, and the Governor became his very sympathetic host. His immediate purpose was to dispose of the “Lake Nyassa” for what she would fetch. This proved to be ￡2,600, for a steamer that had cost him ￡6,000. It was a poor bargain, but he was not in a position to refuse it, and as things turned out he got no good out of it. He deposited the money in an Indian bank which in a few weeks failed miserably, and Livingstone’s money was seen no more. As he cared for money less than any man, he did not allow himself to be unduly depressed by this misfortune. “The whole of the money she cost,” he wrote, “was dedicated to the great cause for which{139} she was built: we are not responsible for results.” His preparations in Bombay for the forthcoming expedition were, for him, quite elaborate; and we may add at once gave little satisfaction in the sequel. There is a training school under Government for Africans at Nassick. Nine of the men volunteered to go with him. Besides these, he was supplied with sepoys from the “Marine Battalion.” He was assured that they had been accustomed to rough it in various ways. In practice they would only march five miles a day, were “notorious skulkers,” and disgusted Livingstone by their cruelty to the brute beasts. It was not long before he dismissed them to their homes. The Nassick “boys” were not much more manageable. The expedition included ten Johanna men who were only a moderate success, two Shupanga men—including Susi—and two Wayaus—including Chumah. Susi and Chumah, it will be remembered, were with him at the last. Chumah was a liberated slave who owed his freedom to Livingstone and Bishop Mackenzie in 1861. The expe{140}dition was further distinguished by a number of animals imported by Livingstone from India: six camels, three buffaloes and a calf, two mules and four donkeys. He was anxious to prove that camels were immune from the bites of the tsetse flies, and he expected to acclimatise the other beasts, and teach some native chief to breed them. The Sultan of Zanzibar was cordial, and armed Livingstone with a letter to be used as a passport. Then he took his leave, and on the 22nd of March he is at the mouth of the Rovuma with all his caravan complete. The navigation of the shallow river proved unexpectedly difficult, and occasioned tedious delay and some anxiety; so at last he sails north again and gets all his animals landed in Mikindany Bay. He is too old a traveller not to realise that his troubles are all in front of him; but he does not anticipate them; and writes in high spirits of the joy of setting out once more into wild and unexplored country.
As David Livingstone is now starting on his last and greatest march, which was to be{141} lengthened out year after year, and to be signalised by unparalleled sufferings and heroic endurance, it will be well to acquaint ourselves with such plans as he had somewhat vaguely laid down. He realised that there are three great main waterways into the African interior: the Congo, the Zambesi, and the Nile. He was satisfied that no future exploration could do other than confirm his conclusions as to the watershed which he had traversed, from which certain rivers flowed north to the Congo, and certain others south to the Zambesi. But from earliest times the scientific imagination had been captured by the problem of the sources of the Nile. This was the greatest of all unsolved geographical problems; and to it Livingstone was attracted irresistibly, not only by his own native curiosity, but by that interest in classical questions which was a very marked characteristic of his mind. To this problem he knew that the system of inland lakes was the clue, and that whoever could completely explore them would settle the question for all time and “make himself{142} an everlasting name.” That he would have numberless opportunities of proclaiming Christ to the scattered peoples of the interior, and would cut across the slave routes and perhaps be able to scheme out how to defeat the devilish purposes of the slavers, were motives with him even more powerful. So he got his caravan under way, marched south to Rovuma, and then south-west across the four hundred miles of country that lay between the coast and Lake Nyassa.
The first stages were made miserable to Livingstone by the brutality of the sepoys to the dumb beasts. They were overloaded and overstrained and cruelly maltreated. Some of them die of sores, which the sepoys insist are caused by tsetse or by accidents. Meanwhile progress is depressingly slow; the district through which the expedition passes is famine-stricken, and food is most difficult to obtain. The sepoys go from bad to worse, and in two months are openly mutinous. They kill one camel, beating it over the head; and set themselves to corrupt{143} the Nassick boys so as to tire Livingstone out. For weeks together it is nothing but one endless struggle on the part of the leader against this conspiracy to defeat his plans. Sometimes he tries the offer of increased wages; sometimes the threat of corporal punishment, but the indolence, cruelty, and illwill of the sepoys threaten the success of the expedition, and the spirit of disaffection spreads to the Nassick boys.
It is the 19th of June: “We passed a woman tied by the neck to a tree and dead. The people of the country explained that she had been unable to keep up with the other slaves in a gang.... I may mention here that we saw others tied up in a similar manner, and one lying in the path, shot or stabbed, for she was in a pool of blood.” They were on the red trail now, and Livingstone’s feet never left it till death brought him release.
On the 27th of June they found “a number of slaves with slave-sticks on, abandoned by their masters from want of food; they were too weak to be able to{144} speak or to say where they had come from; some were quite young.”
The middle of July found them in Mataka’s country, with whom Livingstone made fast friends. The town lay in an elevated valley surrounded by mountains; and food was plentiful, so that they were able to make up for many privations. It was here that Livingstone resolved to send the sepoys back. They had become quite intolerable—shirking work, stealing, and infecting all the company with their ill-nature. One of the incidents that most pleased Livingstone during his stay with Mataka was the release by the chief of a large company of slaves. The expedition left for Lake Nyassa on July 28th. It was mountainous travelling now, but the country between them and the lake was under Mataka, and his guides were sworn to take them safely. Progress was still slow, though decidedly more pleasant in the absence of the sepoys. Sometimes they came on Arab encampments, where the slaves were herded in great pens—from 300 to 800 form a gang, according to Livingston{145}e’s estimate. As they drew near the lake, food was plentiful and game abundant. On August 8th, “we came to the lake at the confluence of the Misinjé, and felt grateful to that Hand which had protected us thus far on our journey. It was as if I had come back to an old home I never expected again to see; and pleasant to bathe in the delicious waters again, hear the roar of the sea, and dash in the rollers ... I feel quite exhilarated.” It had taken four months to reach Lake Nyassa from the coast.
Livingstone’s plan had been to cross the lake by means of Arab dhows, and resume explorations on the west side. But the Arabs fled from him as from the plague, and took every care that no dhows were at his disposal; so he was driven to march round to the foot of the lake, where he was again on familiar ground, and utters anew his lamentations over the untimely end of the Universities’ Mission, which he had always seen in his mind’s eye standing sentinel over this great inland sea, and holding the country for Christ and freedom.{146}
The end of September finds the expedition on the Shiré; and now rumour reaches them of wars and troubles ahead, which causes the Johanna men to desert in a body, and Livingstone does not indulge in many regrets. They were “inveterate thieves;” but he is left with a party inconveniently small. The sequel to this treachery on the part of the Johanna men was that, to justify themselves, they invented and circulated a most plausible and circumstantial story of Livingstone’s murder—a story which imposed upon many of his friends and produced a crop of laudatory obituary notices in the papers. The story was as thoroughly disbelieved by Livingstone’s old friend, Mr. E. D. Young, who well knew how the leader of these men could lie. Mr. Young came out to Africa at once, bringing with him a steel boat, the “Search,” which, by the aid of some Makololo men, was successfully transported to Lake Nyassa and floated there. Mr. Young effectually disproved the Johanna legend, and in eight months was back{147} again in England, having discovered that Livingstone had passed safely on toward the north-west.
The depleted expedition found itself now in very mountainous regions, and enjoyed the noble prospects afforded from many of the high plateaux which they reached. Their faces were to the north, towards the Loangwa River and the distant Lake Tanganyika. No opportunity is lost by the way of preaching to all the tribes “our relationship to our Father; His love for all His children; the guilt of selling any of His children—the consequence: e.g., it begets war, for they don’t like to sell their own, and steal from other villages, who retaliate.” Going west from the lake they followed a very zigzag course, crossing many rivers which flow into the Lintipé, which is one of the main supplies of Lake Nyassa. They kept to the north of the fine Zalanyama range, and pushed on in a north-westerly direction. All the while a state of fear existed in regard to the dreaded Mazitu, who were reported to be{148} making forays, and whom Livingstone compared to the Highland Celts in the twelfth century in the Border country. By the middle of December they had reached the Loangwa, and crossed it in search of food. Christmas Day was spent wretchedly, the goats having been stolen, and Livingstone’s favourite milk-diet being at an end. A ridge of mountain country has to be crossed, after which they are compelled to bear to the east in search of food, which has become very scarce again, and all the party are suffering. The last day of 1866 is sacred to some new resolutions: “Will try to do better in 1867, and be better—more gentle and loving; and may the Almighty, to Whom I commit my way, bring my desires to pass and prosper me. Let all the sin of ’66 be blotted out for Jesus’ sake.”
January 1st, 1867.—“May He who was full of grace and truth impress His character on mine. Grace—eagerness to show favour; truth—truthfulness, sincerity, honour—for His mercy’s sake.{149}”
The year opens with “a set-in rain.” He records that he feels always hungry, and is constantly dreaming of better food when he should be sleeping. On the 10th he takes his belt up three holes to relieve hunger. On the 15th he suffers the loss of his “poor little dog, Chitané,” to which he was greatly attached. Everywhere it is famine, and famine prices for wretched food. They boil grain and pretend it is coffee. The ground is all sloppy—feet constantly wet. The natives are living on mushrooms and leaves. Then comes the crowning disaster. Two men who had joined the expedition deserted, and absconded with the medicine chest. It was in the midst of the forest and there was not the shadow of a chance of recovering it. There is little doubt that the lack of any proper medicines to counteract the fever poison was a main contributory cause to Livingstone’s serious loss of health. “I felt as if I had now received sentence of death, like poor Bishop Mackenzie,” he writes. Yet even in the hour of despair he searches for some support for optimism, and the Pro{150}vidential order which he knows to exist. “This may turn out for the best by taking away a source of suspicion among more superstitious, charm-dreading people further north.” On January 23rd he remarks that “an incessant hunger teases us ... real, lasting hunger and faintness.” Yet next day it was a case of “four hours through unbroken, dark forest.” But they have reached the Chambezé now, lean and starved and desperate, and there is prospect of food on the other side. They found the food a little later, but “in changing my dress this morning I was frightened at my own emaciation.”
The expedition made a lengthy stay with the chief, Chitapangwa, who on the whole treated them well, and sent men to set them on their way to Lake Tanganyika. The same steady tramp, tramp continues. Always we seem to hear what Dr. Isaac Taylor described as “the forward tread ... which means getting there”; but it is terrible work. He has had rheumatic fever again; and no medicine! On March 10th he writes: “I {151}have been ill of fever ... every step I take jars in the chest, and I am very weak; I can scarcely keep in the march though formerly I was always first.... I have a constant singing in the ears, and can scarcely hear the loud tick of the chronometers.” Still he will go on wit............