Part 27 (1/2)
His dress, when first I saw him, exhibited traces of patching and repairing, but was scrupulously clean.
I was led to believe that Livingstone possessed a splenetic, misanthropic temper; some have said that he is garrulous, that he is demented; that he has utterly changed from the David Livingstone whom people knew as the reverend missionary; that he takes no notes or observations but such as those which no other person could read but himself; and it was reported, before I proceeded to Central Africa, that he was married to an African princess.
I respectfully beg to differ with all and each of the above statements.
I grant he is not an angel, but he approaches to that being as near as the nature of a living man will allow. I never saw any spleen or misanthropy in him--as for being garrulous, Dr. Livingstone is quite the reverse: he is reserved, if anything; and to the man who says Dr.
Livingstone is changed, all I can say is, that he never could have known him, for it is notorious that the Doctor has a fund of quiet humour, which he exhibits at all times whenever he is among friends. I must also beg leave to correct the gentleman who informed me that Livingstone takes no notes or observations. The huge Letts's Diary which I carried home to his daughter is full of notes, and there are no less than a score of sheets within it filled with observations which he took during the last trip he made to Manyuema alone; and in the middle of the book there is sheet after sheet, column after column, carefully written, of figures alone. A large letter which I received from him has been sent to Sir Thomas MacLear, and this contains nothing but observations. During the four months I was with him, I noticed him every evening making most careful notes; and a large tin box that he has with him contains numbers of field note-books, the contents of which I dare say will see the light some time. His maps also evince great care and industry. As to the report of his African marriage, it is unnecessary to say more than that it is untrue, and it is utterly beneath a gentleman to hint at such a thing in connection with the name of David Livingstone.
There is a good-natured abandon about Livingstone which was not lost on me. Whenever he began to laugh, there was a contagion about it, that compelled me to imitate him. It was such a laugh as Herr Teufelsdrockh's--a laugh of the whole man from head to heel. If he told a story, he related it in such a way as to convince one of its truthfulness; his face was so lit up by the sly fun it contained, that I was sure the story was worth relating, and worth listening to.
The wan features which had shocked me at first meeting, the heavy step which told of age and hard travel, the grey beard and bowed shoulders, belied the man. Underneath that well-worn exterior lay an endless fund of high spirits and inexhaustible humour; that rugged frame of his enclosed a young and most exuberant soul. Every day I heard innumerable jokes and pleasant anecdotes; interesting hunting stories, in which his friends Oswell, Webb, Vardon, and Gorden c.u.mming were almost always the chief actors. I was not sure, at first, but this joviality, humour, and abundant animal spirits were the result of a joyous hysteria; but as I found they continued while I was with him, I am obliged to think them natural.
Another thing which specially attracted my attention was his wonderfully retentive memory. If we remember the many years he has spent in Africa, deprived of books, we may well think it an uncommon memory that can recite whole poems from Byron, Burns, Tennyson, Longfellow, Whittier, and Lowell. The reason of this may be found, perhaps, in the fact, that he has lived all his life almost, we may say, within himself. Zimmerman, a great student of human nature, says on this subject ”The unenc.u.mbered mind recalls all that it has read, all that pleased the eye, and delighted the ear; and reflecting on every idea which either observation, or experience, or discourse has produced, gains new information by every reflection. The intellect contemplates all the former scenes of life; views by antic.i.p.ation those that are yet to come; and blends all ideas of past and future in the actual enjoyment of the present moment.” He has lived in a world which revolved inwardly, out of which he seldom awoke except to attend to the immediate practical necessities of himself and people; then relapsed again into the same happy inner world, which he must have peopled with his own friends, relations, acquaintances, familiar readings, ideas, and a.s.sociations; so that wherever he might be, or by whatsoever he was surrounded, his own world always possessed more attractions to his cultured mind than were yielded by external circ.u.mstances.
The study of Dr. Livingstone would not be complete if we did not take the religious side of his character into consideration. His religion is not of the theoretical kind, but it is a constant, earnest, sincere practice. It is neither demonstrative nor loud, but manifests itself in a quiet, practical way, and is always at work. It is not aggressive, which sometimes is troublesome, if not impertinent. In him, religion exhibits its loveliest features; it governs his conduct not only towards his servants, but towards the natives, the bigoted Mohammedans, and all who come in contact with him. Without it, Livingstone, with his ardent temperament, his enthusiasm, his high spirit and courage, must have become uncompanionable, and a hard master. Religion has tamed him, and made him a Christian gentleman: the crude and wilful have been refined and subdued; religion has made him the most companionable of men and indulgent of masters--a man whose society is pleasurable.
In Livingstone I have seen many amiable traits. His gentleness never forsakes him; his hopefulness never deserts him. No hara.s.sing anxieties, distraction of mind, long separation from home and kindred, can make him complain. He thinks ”all will come out right at last;” he has such faith in the goodness of Providence. The sport of adverse circ.u.mstances, the plaything of the miserable beings sent to him from Zanzibar--he has been baffled and worried, even almost to the grave, yet he will not desert the charge imposed upon him by his friend, Sir Roderick Murchison. To the stern dictates of duty, alone, has he sacrificed his home and ease, the pleasures, refinements, and luxuries of civilized life. His is the Spartan heroism, the inflexibility of the Roman, the enduring resolution of the Anglo-Saxon--never to relinquish his work, though his heart yearns for home; never to surrender his obligations until he can write Finis to his work.
But you may take any point in Dr. Livingstone's character, and a.n.a.lyse it carefully, and I would challenge any man to find a fault in it. He is sensitive, I know; but so is any man of a high mind and generous nature.
He is sensitive on the point of being doubted or being criticised. An extreme love of truth is one of his strongest characteristics, which proves him to be a man of strictest principles, and conscientious scruples; being such, he is naturally sensitive, and shrinks from any attacks on the integrity of his observations, and the accuracy of his reports. He is conscious of having laboured in the course of geography and science with zeal and industry, to have been painstaking, and as exact as circ.u.mstances would allow. Ordinary critics seldom take into consideration circ.u.mstances, but, utterly regardless of the labor expended in obtaining the least amount of geographical information in a new land, environed by inconceivable dangers and difficulties, such as Central Africa presents, they seem to take delight in rending to tatters, and reducing to nil, the fruits of long years of labor, by sharply-pointed shafts of ridicule and sneers.
Livingstone no doubt may be mistaken in some of his conclusions about certain points in the geography of Central Africa, but he is not so dogmatic and positive a man as to refuse conviction. He certainly demands, when arguments in contra are used in opposition to him, higher authority than abstract theory. His whole life is a testimony against its unreliability, and his entire labor of years were in vain if theory can be taken in evidence against personal observation and patient investigation.
The reluctance he manifests to entertain suppositions, possibilities regarding the nature, form, configuration of concrete immutable matter like the earth, arises from the fact, that a man who commits himself to theories about such an untheoretical subject as Central Africa is deterred from bestirring himself to prove them by the test of exploration. His opinion of such a man is, that he unfits himself for his duty, that he is very likely to become a slave to theory--a voluptuous fancy, which would master him.
It is his firm belief, that a man who rests his sole knowledge of the geography of Africa on theory, deserves to be discredited. It has been the fear of being discredited and criticised and so made to appear before the world as a man who spent so many valuable years in Africa for the sake of burdening the geographical mind with theory that has detained him so long in Africa, doing his utmost to test the value of the main theory which clung to him, and would cling to him until he proved or disproved it.
This main theory is his belief that in the broad and mighty Lualaba he has discovered the head waters of the Nile. His grounds for believing this are of such nature and weight as to compel him to despise the warning that years are advancing on him, and his former iron const.i.tution is failing. He believes his speculations on this point will be verified; he believes he is strong enough to pursue his explorations until he can return to his country, with the announcement that the Lualaba is none other than the Nile.
On discovering that the insignificant stream called the Chambezi, which rises between 10 degrees S. and 12 degrees S., flowed westerly, and then northerly through several lakes, now under the names of the Chambezi, then as the Luapula, and then as the Lualaba, and that it still continued its flow towards the north for over 7 degrees, Livingstone became firmly of the opinion that the river whose current he followed was the Egyptian Nile. Failing at lat. 4 degrees S. to pursue his explorations further without additional supplies, he determined to return to Ujiji to obtain them.
And now, having obtained them, he intends to return to the point where he left off work. He means to follow that great river until it is firmly established what name shall eventually be given the n.o.ble water-way whose course he has followed through so many sick toilings and difficulties. To all entreaties to come home, to all the glowing temptations which home and innumerable friends offer, he returns the determined answer:--
”No; not until my work is ended.”
I have often heard our servants discuss our respective merits. ”Your master,” say my servants to Livingstone's, ”is a good man--a very good man; he does not beat you, for he has a kind heart; but ours--oh! he is sharp--hot as fire”--”mkali sana, kana moto.” From being hated and thwarted in every possible way by the Arabs and half-castes upon first arrival in Ujiji, he has, through his uniform kindness and mild, pleasant temper, won all hearts. I observed that universal respect was paid to him. Even the Mohammedans never pa.s.sed his house without calling to pay their compliments, and to say, ”The blessing of G.o.d rest on you.”
Each Sunday morning he gathers his little flock around him, and reads prayers and a chapter from the Bible, in a natural, unaffected, and sincere tone; and afterwards delivers a short address in the Kisawahili language, about the subject read to them, which is listened to with interest and attention.
There is another point in Livingstone's character about which readers of his books, and students of his travels, would like to know, and that is his ability to withstand the dreadful climate of Central Africa, and the consistent energy with which he follows up his explorations. His consistent energy is native to him and to his race. He is a very fine example of the perseverance, doggedness, and tenacity which characterise the Anglo-Saxon spirit; but his ability to withstand the climate is due not only to the happy const.i.tution with which he was born, but to the strictly temperate life he has ever led. A drunkard and a man of vicious habits could never have withstood the climate of Central Africa.
The second day after my arrival in Ujiji I asked the Doctor if he did not feel a desire, sometimes, to visit his country, and take a little rest after his six years' explorations; and the answer he gave me fully reveals the man. Said he:
”I should like very much to go home and see my children once again, but I cannot bring my heart to abandon the task I have undertaken, when it is so nearly completed. It only requires six or seven months more to trace the true source that I have discovered with Petherick's branch of the White Nile, or with the Albert N'Yanza of Sir Samuel Baker, which is the lake called by the natives 'Chowambe.' Why should I go home before my task is ended, to have to come back again to do what I can very well do now?”
”And why?” I asked, ”did you come so far back without finis.h.i.+ng the task which you say you have got to do?”
”Simply because I was forced. My men would not budge a step forward.
They mutinied, and formed a secret resolution--if I still insisted upon going on--to raise a disturbance in the country, and after they had effected it to abandon me; in which case I should have been killed. It was dangerous to go any further. I had explored six hundred miles of the watershed, had traced all the princ.i.p.al streams which discharge their waters into the central line of drainage, but when about starting to explore the last hundred miles the hearts of my people failed them, and they set about frustrating me in every possible way. Now, having returned seven hundred miles to get a new supply of stores, and another escort, I find myself dest.i.tute of even the means to live but for a few weeks, and sick in mind and body.”
Here I may pause to ask any brave man how he would have comported himself in such a crisis. Many would have been in exceeding hurry to get home to tell the news of the continued explorations and discoveries, and to relieve the anxiety of the sorrowing family and friends awaiting their return. Enough surely had been accomplished towards the solution of the problem that had exercised the minds of his scientific a.s.sociates of the Royal Geograpical Society. It was no negative exploration, it was hard, earnest labor of years, self-abnegation, enduring patience, and exalted fort.i.tude, such as ordinary men fail to exhibit.
Suppose Livingstone had hurried to the coast after he had discovered Lake Bangweolo, to tell the news to the geographical world; then had returned to discover Moero, and run away again; then went back once more only to discover Kamolondo, and to race back again. This would not be in accordance with Livingstone's character. He must not only discover the Chambezi, Lake Bangweolo, Luapula River, Lake Moero, Lualaba River, and Lake Kamolondo, but he must still tirelessly urge his steps forward to put the final completion to the grand lacustrine river system. Had he followed the example of ordinary explorers, he would have been running backwards and forwards to tell the news, instead of exploring; and he might have been able to write a volume upon the discovery of each lake, and earn much money thereby. They are no few months' explorations that form the contents of his books. His 'Missionary Travels' embraces a period of sixteen years; his book on the Zambezi, five years; and if the great traveller lives to come home, his third book, the grandest of all, must contain the records of eight or nine years.