Livingston's Last Journals [pp. 342-347]

THE LADIES' REPOSITORY.
geography has been favored from time
to time.
After Stanley left, Livingstone, now
fully ready, by Stanley's generosity, and
supplies expected from Zanzibar for another great undertaking, returns to Lake
Tanganyika, and, on the 25th of August,
started for his fifth and final tour of exploration. For two months they toil
along the mountains and hilly regions of
the east side of Tanganyika, moving
southwardly, thence westwardly, and December 20th, turned south toward Lake
Bangweolo. The last of January he became entangled in the marshes on the
east borders of Lake Bangweolo; and
thence, what with rains and rivers and
rivulets and bogs, called sponges, he and
his followers had a desperate struggle.
The ioth of April he writes, "I am pale,
bloodless, and weak from bleeding profusely [with dysentery] ever since the
3Ist of March last." "0 how I long to
be permitted by the Over Power to finish
my work!" In chapter twenty-five of
the" Last Journals," we find Livingstone
"rapidly sinking." From the 22d to the
27th of April, had not strength to write
down anything but the dates. April 2I st,
the dying explorer writes, "Tried to ride
[his donkey], but was forced to lie down,
and the men carried me back to the village, exhausted." The 27th he writes,
"knocked up quite and remain —recover —
sent to buy milch-goats. We are on the
banks of the river Molilamo." These
were the last words David Livingstone
ever wrote. Readers of the " Last Journals" will be gratified to find, on page
506, a fac-simiile, taken by the aid of
photography, of the last pages of his
diary. His faithful servants, Susi and
Chuma, who had stuck to him during
the last eight years of his wanderings,
and who piloted his remains to the coast,
and then accompanied them to England,
supply the remainder of the information
recorded in the "Last Journals" of the
closing scenes in the life of the great
African traveler.
At Chitambo's village, on the southern
shore of Lake Bemba, or Bangweolo, on
the morning of May Ist, I873, on his
knees, as if in prayer, the missionary
traveler and scientific explorer peacefully
resigned his soul to the God who gave it.
We can not give a detailed account of
the last days of this illustrious life. The
story will not bear abbreviating, and
would be too long for our pages.
One knows not how sufficiently to admire the conduct of his servants, unlettered Africans, of whom only one could
read; their solemn witness to their master's
decease; the careful inventory of his remaining effects; their ingenuity in embalming the attenuated body, reduced by
disease to skin and bones, by preserving it
with brandy and salt, and drying it, African fashion, in the sun; their careful concealment, in a bark package, of their
precious burden; at one point in their
route, pretending to bury it, to throw curiosity and superstitious tribute-hunters
off the track; the unwearied faithfulness,
care, and watchfulness, with which they
bore their precious burden, the remains
of their beloved master, over hundreds
of miles in the far interior to Zanzibar,
excites admiration,and enforces the tribute of tears. Of the large train that
started from Zanzibar with Livingstone,
in I866, only five could answer the rollcall as they handed over the body
of their dead leader to his countrymen,
after eight years' desperate service. The
remains reached England in safety, and,
on the i8th of April, I874, followed by
a large concourse of friends, were deposited in Westminster Abbey. In view
of his life-long opposition to slavery, as
developed in Africa by Portuguese and
Arabs, no inscription could have been
placed upon the tablet erected to his
memory in Westminster Abbey, more appropriate than the one selected; namely,
the concluding words of a letter to the
New York Herald, trying to enlist Americans to stop the East Coast slave-trade:
"All I can add, in my loneliness, is, may
heaven's rich blessing come down on
every one, American, English, or Turk,
who will help to heal the open sore of the,
world!"
346
[April,