:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The huge beast sprang from
the rock above him.
“I saw the lion’s tail erect
in anger,” Livingstone later wrote. He
was reloading his double-barreled shotgun, having already wounded his quarry,
when he was suddenly knocked to the ground. “He … (the lion) … caught me by the
shoulder and we both came to the ground together. Growling horribly he shook me like a terrier dog does a rat. It caused a sort of dreaminess in which
there was no sense of pain or feeling of terror, though I was conscious of all
that happened.”
…………………………….
It was the year 1843, and
the 30-year-old missionary had been in Africa less than three years.
The natives of Mabotsa had
long been cursed by the lions that abounded in their territory, continually
attacking both cattle and humans. Lion
hunts by the men of the tribe armed only with spears had proven unsuccessful.
David Livingstone decided to
show some practical Christianity. He
and Mebalwe, a Christian school-teacher from the village, were both armed with
guns. When Livingstone was in the
lion’s jaws Mebalwe fired, and the noise caused the lion to leave the
missionary and attack him. Eventually
the bullets began to take effect and a spear from another African finally
caused the beast’s death.
It is remarkable to read
that Livingstone was never able to use his right arm properly again. But this
did not stop him from opening up the Dark Continent to future commerce and in
clashing head-on with the devilish slave trade.
He would confront hostile
native tribes, be plagued with sickness … bouts of malaria and fevers and
rotting teeth. He will cross blazing hot deserts and find his way through
uncharted jungles, cutting his way through razor-sharp grass. He will render over 30 years of incredible
service to his God.
At the time of his burial in
Westminster Abbey, London … about a year after his death in Chitambo’s village
… a 21-gun salute was given. The
tombstone set in the centre aisle of that majestic building reads in part:
“David Livingstone: Missionary, Traveller, Philanthropist. For 30 years his life was spent in an
unwearied effort to evangelize the native races, to explore the undiscovered
secrets, and abolish the slave trade.”
It was in Blantyre,
Scotland, on 19 March, 1813, David Livingstone had been born.
There were already four
other children in the family and all of them, parents and children, shared a
one-room tenement.
By the age of 10 he was off
to work 12 hours a day in a cotton mill.
This sometimes necessitated clambering dangerously under steam-powered
machines to repair broken threads. On
reaching home, young David would often study until midnight.
It was at the age of 20 he
decided to become a Christian. “This
change was like what may be supposed would take place were it possible to cure
a case of colour-blindness,” he wrote.
Curiously, it was the
reading of a book by a most eccentric clergyman, Dr Thomas Dick, that led to
this experience. Rev. Dick was an
amateur astronomer and had 8,000 barrow-loads of soil emptied into his yard. From this home-made hill he was able to scan
the starry heavens, from a closer vantage point!
Nevertheless, Dick’s Philosophy
of a Future State turned young Livingstone’s life around. Although his family had regularly attended
chapel services, life now took on for him a purpose hitherto unknown. He would study medicine … and then devote
himself to missionary service!
Acceptance by the London
Missionary Society included the preaching of a “trial sermon” before the board
of selectors. But as he stood in the
pulpit “midnight darkness fell upon him.
“Friends, I have forgotten all I had to say,” he muttered and fled the
chapel. (McNair, page 47).
But the wise board members decided to give him a second chance.
Two years later, at the age
of 27, he meets Robert Moffat, pioneer missionary to Africa, who told him, “I
have seen the smoke of 1000 villages and no missionary has ever been to them.”
Influenced by this encounter, Livingstone sets his sights on that same mission
field.
By 8 December, 1840, he is
aboard the S.S. George on a three- month journey to his place of
ministry. From Cape Town to Kuruman
necessitated a 600-mile trip further north - via ox-cart. Kuruman, 3,000 feet above sea level, was the
site of Robert Moffat’s mission station.
But Livingstone was not content to remain here. He would push further north and preach to
tribes previously unreached. It was
during this time the attack by the lion took place.
This meant returning to
Kuruman where Robert Moffat’s daughter, Mary, nursed him back to health. Livingstone describes her as “not romantic
but a matter-of-fact lady, a little thick, black-haired girl, sturdy and all I
want” (McNair, p. 81).
They were married on 2
January, 1845, although historians note that Livingstone recorded the date
incorrectly in his journal!!
1851 … and Livingstone
embarks upon his great adventure. He
will lead a caravan of 20 natives, 80 cattle and 20 horses across the great
Kalahari Desert to reach the Makololo tribe. And his wife and two small children
will make the journey also.
The travelling is done
mainly at night … during the day ground temperatures soar to 125 degrees. Other problems arise. Medical supplies are lost. A hyena stampedes the cattle. Shobo, the
guide, loses his way. “Through the carelessness
of one of the servants, the water tank leaked and only a little remained. Two days, three, and then a fourth and still
no water. The poor children, their tongues parched and their lips cracked,
whimpered all day” (McNair, p. 124).
Add to this the constant irritation of the mosquitoes whose bites were
“unusually painful.”
And, during this dreadful
journey, Mary gives birth to her third child!!
Livingstone decides to
return to Cape Town, now over 1,000 miles south, and send his family home to England.
Having accomplished this,
Livingstone once more ventures north into the heart of Africa. Sometimes, we
read, he rides upon an ox which he names “Sinbad” .
One of his men was gored by
a rampaging buffalo that “dashed through our line”. On another occasion a hippopotamus upset the canoe in which he
was travelling. One of his native
porters dies, and Livingstone’s pen reveals something of his missionary
calling.
“Poor Selami,” he writes,
“where art thou now? I could weep for
thy soul. But now nothing can be
done. Oh! am I guilty of the blood of thy soul, my poor dear Selami? If so, how shall I look upon thee in the
judgment? But I told thee of a
Saviour: didst thou think of Him and
did He lead thee through the dark valley?
Did he comfort thee as only He can?
Help me, O Lord Jesus, to be faithful to everyone. Remember me and let me not be guilty of the
blood of souls.”
On 23 May, 1852, Livingstone
was greeted by King Sebituane of the Makalolo tribe. Hopes rose within his breast for a successful missionary work
among this people.
Alas! King Sebituane “sickened and died a few days later” and the new king displayed
no favourable attitude towards the white man’s religion. Seven attacks of malaria “in nine weeks” did
nothing to lift Livingstone’s spirit.
And the scenes he beheld sickened him.
He wrote in his journal of the two villagers who were hacked to pieces
before his eyes. And of the “noisy,
obscene and pointless dances that go on almost without end. The more intimately I become acquainted with
barbarism, the more disgusting heathenism becomes. It is inconceivably vile.”
Such he recorded in his ever-present journal, but was quick to add,
“They need a healer. May God enable me
to be such to them.”
His reason for travelling to
central Africa had been to open up a new mission station, but it had also
brought him into contact with the terrible slave trade.
Thousands of natives were
captured by Arab traders who marched their unfortunate captives, cruelly fastened “by a sort of wooden handcuff”, and whipped as they travelled, to the coast where they
would be sold.
“Nineteen thousand slaves
from the Nyassa country pass annually through the custom house at
Zanzibar. Besides those actually
captured, thousands are killed or die of wounds or starvation. Thousands perish in the war waged for
slaves. It is our deliberate opinion
that not even one-tenth of those captured arrive at their destination” (The
Zambesi & Its Tributaries, ch. xix).
Slaves were also used to
carry heavy ivory. Maybe, he reasoned,
if he could find a river highway to the coast the use of slaves would
decrease.
So for seven months he
journeys over uncharted territory, “heavy spongy ground shadowed by dense
dripping forest” to Africa’s west coast.
On the way Livingstone suffered “a severe attack of rheumatic fever
accompanied by heavy loss of blood.” He
was treated by “the application of leeches.”
Hostile villagers attacked
his party and “began knocking down the burdens (carried by) my men. I, fortunately, had a six-barrelled revolver
and with this in my hand I staggered along the path with two or three of my men
and encountered their Chief. The sight
of my six barrels gaping into his stomach and my own ghastly visage looking
daggers at his face seemed to produce a revolution (a turn-around) of his
warlike feelings, and he said, “Oh, I
have only come to wish you peace”.
On arrival at the west coast
Livingstone and his men rested for six months and then returned to central
Africa. The route they had travelled,
some 1200 miles, was not suitable. He
decided to try for the east coast!!
It was November, 1855, when
this dare-devil expedition commenced.
It was but a few weeks later
that they came across “The Smoke that Thunders”, as it was called by the local
natives. Livingstone renamed it
“Victoria Falls” in honour of his Queen.
This great waterfall is a mile wide and drops 300 feet. And today, overlooking this masterpiece of
nature, is erected a statue of David Livingstone.
On 4 January, 1856, the
village of Chief Mburumba, on the shore of the Loangwa river, is reached. Livingstone notes the hostility of the
tribesmen and “that no women were to be seen.
Their purpose was clearly to attack (us) next morning.” To add to the
peril, Livingstone’s party must cross the river before proceeding upon their journey.
His journal entry for that
evening reads in part: “Felt much
turmoil of spirit in view of having all my plans for the welfare of this region
knocked on the head by savages tomorrow.
But I read that Jesus came and said, ‘All power is given unto Me in
heaven and on earth. Go ye, therefore.
and teach all nations … and (heavily underlined) lo, I am with you
always, even to the end of the world.’
It is the word of a gentleman on the most sacred and strictest honour
and there’s an end on it. I will not
cross furtively by night as intended.
It would appear as flight and should such a man as I flee? I am quite calm now. Thank God!”
The morning dawned. Warriors from neighbouring villagers had
also gathered. It was an ominous
moment. But Livingstone amuses them
with his watch, mirror and magnifying glass whilst his men safely cross the
river. And then he is last to leave.
On 20 May, 1856, the town of
Quilimane on the east coast is reached.
It is now 16 years since Livingstone had arrived in Africa; four years since Mary and the children had
retuned to England.
During those years he had
travelled 11,000 miles from Cape Town to central Africa, to the west coast,
back again, and then to the east coast.
Now, “weary and ill”, he is awaiting a boat to re-unite him with his
family.
Home! He romps with his four young children, the
youngest of which he had never seen.
And son Robert wants to see the teeth marks the lion had left in his
father’s arm!
Time is spent putting pen to
paper, the result being Missionary Travels in South Africa. There are numerous speaking engagements
during which he tells the students of Cambridge University, “People talk
of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my time in Africa. Can that be called sacrifice which is simply
paid back as a small part of a great debt owing our God, which we can never
repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings
its own blest reward in heartful activity, the consciousness of doing good,
peace of mind and bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with
such a thought!! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a
privilege…” (Abdy, p. 34).
He resigns from the London
Missionary Society and accepts a position with the British Government as
British Consul at Quilimane, the town on Africa’s east coast. Although criticized by some Christians for
doing so, Livingstone replies that now he will no longer be drawing on the
financial resources of the mission and that his idea of being a missionary “is
not so contracted as those whose idea is a dumpy sort of man with a Bible under
his arm. Nowhere have I appeared as
anything else but a servant of God”
(Abdy, p. 33).
So back to Africa he goes …
with wife, Mary, and 6 year-old Oswald.
And Ma-Robert.
Ma-Robert is a steamboat,
the first to be seen on the Zambesi River, and which, it is hoped, will enable
Livingstone to discover the source of the Nile.
Built in England and
transported to Africa in crates, Ma-Robert was an unmitigated
disaster. The water of the Zambesi had
`some chemical reaction upon the 16th-of-an-inch-thick plates, and
before long Ma-Robert was leaking like a sieve. The holes were plugged up with clay! And it
took three days of wood chopping to provide enough fuel for one day’s
sailing. “Native canoes passed her easily.”
Livingstone nicknamed her Old Asthmatic, adding that her engines
were only fit “to grind coffee in a shop window.” Most days she would be stuck on a sand bank … and eventually, on
21 December, 1860, Livingstone just left her on one .
Again his inland travels
brought him face-to-face with the wretched slave trade.
On one occasion he was
confronted by a burning village, women fleeing in terror as they were pursued
by their would-be captors. Livingstone
and his men found themselves all but surrounded by these “frenzied fighters
armed with bows and poisoned arrows.”
Death seemed inevitable for the missionary and his porters. But “very reluctantly, and for the first
time in his life, Livingstone gave the word to fire! Six of the slave traders fell”.
The rest fled.
Whilst on this expedition
news reaches him of Mary’s death. It
was 27 April, 1862. She was only 41
years of age. Oswald returned to
England.
The use of a paddle steamer
was obviously of tremendous advantage for travelling into the interior … unless
it was comparable to Ma-Robert.
So from the royalties provided by the sale of his book, Livingstone
purchased the Lady Nyassa.
One major problem was the
waterfalls, where Lady Nyassa would have to be disassembled, carried up
hill by porters, and then re-assembled to further the journey. Added to this inconvenience was the horror
caused by the slave trade.
“The waters are ghastly with
corpses,” Livingstone wrote. “The
paddles had to be cleared of bodies caught in the floats at night” (Horne, p.
127). And the final blow to the
expedition came on 2 July, 1863, when the British Government “having no desire
to provoke international complications” with the Portuguese (who profited from
the slave trade!) withdrew their backing.
The Portuguese actually
offered to purchase the Lady Nyassa from Livingstone but he well knew
the purpose for which it would be used.
Instead, he would embark on another seemingly foolhardy venture … he
would sail this fragile paddle steamer 2,500 miles across the Indian Ocean and
sell it in Bombay, India.
They sailed on 30 April,
1865. The inexperienced crew consisted
of three white men, including Livingstone, and nine Zambezi lads. The calculation that the journey would only
take 18 days was soon seen to be far off the mark. Especially when more than twice that period had elapsed!
Problems with the steam
engines reduced Lady Nyassa to a crawl.
Two of the white men fell sick.
Drinking water began to give out.
The monsoon season was about to break and India was still 1,000 miles
away!
Livingstone writes of the
“dangerous squalls” and his dependence upon “an All-powerful Arm.”
But 45 days after leaving
Africa, on 13 June, 1865, the Lady Nyassa arrives at her
destination. Well, not exactly. They are 115 miles from Bombay!
This steamer that had
personally cost him $6,000 is now sold
for $2,600 … “he deposited the money in an Indian bank which in a few weeks
failed miserably and Livingstone’s money was seen no more!” (Horne).
A month later he returned to
England. But after a year of meetings
and the writing of another book, Livingstone returns to his mission field. It is 1865, and he is now 53 years of age.
See him … with 30 native
porters, 6 camels, 3 buffaloes, a calf, 4 donkeys, 2 mules and his pet dog
trekking inland to try and find the source of the Nile! Halfway to Lake Tanganyika he develops pneumonia
and is carried “in a kind of litter. At
Nyangwe an Arab trader, Duumbe, had killed several hundred people, set fire to
their houses, and made many slaves. Livingstone was powerless to stop this
massacre and for days he had to dodge spears of people who mistook him for a
slaver” (Huxley pp. 46-7).
Back to his base at Ujiji,
only to discover his stores had been looted.
He is “a very tired, sick man.”
In England, and even in the
United States of America, the world wondered what had become of their
missionary hero. It had been nearly
four years since any news had filtered through of his whereabouts. Rumours circulated that he was dead.
The editor of the New
York Herald decided to send Henry Morton Stanley, a ‘hard-nosed’ reporter,
to uncover the mystery. After 10 months
in Africa the famous meeting took place. Stanley describes it in his book, How
I Found Livingstone in Central Africa. It was 3 November, 1871.
“I did not know how he would
receive me: so I did what moral cowardice and false pride suggested was the
best thing – walked deliberately up to him, took off my hat, and said, ‘Dr
Livingstone, I presume.’” (p. 331).
For the next four months
they are constant companions. “They
left on a journey to Unyanyembe. On the
march they were slowed down by Stanley’s attacks of malaria. Also, Livingstone’s feet were cut and
blistered and once he was stung all over his head by a swarm of wild bees…”
(Huxley, p. 48).
The time came, however, for
Stanley to return to civilization with his story. Livingstone refused to go with him. Back in London the reporter became famous overnight … and Queen
Victoria presented him with a “diamond-studded snuff box.”
His hastily written book
became a best seller in spite of the fact that Florence Nightingale described
it as “ the worst possible book on the best possible subject!”
Speaking of Livingstone,
this hard-bitten, man of the world gave this delightful testimony to the man
with whom he had lived, side by side, during his African sojourn. “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. In him religion exhibits its
loveliest features, it governs his
conduct not only toward his servants but toward the natives, the bigoted
Mohammedans, and all who come in contact with him. Religion has made him a Christian gentleman.” (p. 351).
Meanwhile, in Africa,
Livingstone continues his quest for the origin of the Nile. “He travels in blistering heat, ill with
dysentery, going without food for days on end.
He also suffered internal bleeding.
He wades through water day after day and sleeps in wet clothes.” By January, 1873, he is carried back to
Ullala on the shoulders of his native friends.
Two months later, on his 60th
birthday, he writes “My birthday – My
Jesus, My King, My Life, My All, again I dedicate my whole self to Thee. Accept me and grant, gracious Father, that
ere this year is gone I may finish my work.
In Jesus name I ask it. Amen.”
It is prophetic. The body is worn out.
On 1May, 1873, David
Livingstone is found in his hut, dead, upon his knees beside his bed in an
attitude of prayer.
His heart is removed from
his body and buried “in a tin box underneath a tree in Chitambo’s village” …
for in Africa is where his heart belonged.
The rest of his body is wrapped in sail-cloth and carried 1300 miles to
the coast by his two loyal African companions, Susi and Chuma. From thence it is taken to England, and
eleven months after his death, on 18 April,
1874, a Day of National Mourning is proclaimed in England and the
remains of this great man are entombed at Westminster Abbey.
Although he did not live to
see the end of the slave trade, his letters and his books played a major part
in stirring the conscience of the Western world. A naval patrol boat whose special task was to prevent the export
of slaves commenced its duties the very day after his death. And had he lived for another few years he
would have rejoiced to see the trade almost stamped out.
His motivation, first and
foremost, was his strong, unswerving Christian faith. He was not a mighty evangelist seeing thousands of Africans
converted … such was not the gift with which God had endowed him. But he was faithful in his God-given task.
As Elspeth Huxley writes,
“he had an unwavering belief that God would aid (him) in achieving whatever he
set out to do.” (p. 7).
And Henry Morton Stanley
would be quick to agree. “He is the
most companionable of men and indulgent of masters – a man whose society is
pleasurable. His gentleness never forsakes
him, his hopefulness never deserts him. No harassing anxieties, distraction of
mind, long separation from home and kindred, can make him complain. He has such
faith in the goodness of Providence.” (p. 351).
It seems to me that
Livingstone would not have used the word, ‘Providence’ … he would have said
‘God’! And therein was the secret of
his success.
D.P.
=================================================================
Biographies of Livingstone by James McNair;
C. Sylvester Horne; Elspeth Huxley and Dora Abdy.
Unfortunately these volumes
are no longer in my possession, but photo-copies of various pages were retained
before the books were sold. These photo-copies did not always include page
numbers.
Livingstone’s own writings
have been reprinted by Heron Books, no date given, edited by Dr James
McNair. Cloth bound. 429 pp.
………………………………………………………………………..………………………