It was on the first of August, 1849, that Livingstone first saw Lake Ngami. Mention was made in the last article of how his mind was not so much uplifted by the greatness of the discovery as weighed down by the thought of the Christless millions who must lie beyond. For the present, however, he returned to Kolobeng with his wife and children. When April of the next year came round he was on trek to the North again, but fever laid most of the party low and he had to make for home. On his third trip northwards from Kolobeng he met at last the great Sebituane, chief of the Makololo. Livingstone had hardly arrived, however, when Sebituane died of pneumonia and “with mingled feelings of sorrow and satisfaction” the missionary looked back on the only two services his new friend had been able to attend.
In these travels to Lake Ngami and to Sebituane’s country, Livingstone had been searching for a healthy habitat where a mission station might be established to do for this area what Kuruman had done for the South. He had so far failed to find any suitable spot, and now resolved to make a longer trek to the North in search of one. In fact he was not only going to travel north; he was going west as well, so that if possible he would open up a route from the centre of Southern Africa to the coast. Naturally enough, he had a very solid motive for such a serious undertaking. He had heard of slavetraders making appearance among the Makololo, and he wished to open up a route by which legitimate commerce could be carried on with the coast. He believed that the only way to thrash out the slave trade was to provide for the establishment of honest trade; he therefore wished to open up a route for this with all haste.
It was not an easy decision. He would have to give up the home at Kolobeng, with the semblance of settled life which it afforded. He would have to send his wife and children home to England, she for health reasons, and they for educational purposes. He would have to weather the storm of criticism, already brewing even from the direction of Kuruman. However, his mind was made up: “So powerfully convinced I am that it is the will of the Lord I should, I will go, no matter who opposes.” Full well he knew that he might never reach his destination, but that did not seem to daunt him: “I think we are immortal till our work is done, not on the platform only, but on the pestilential plains of the glorious Leeambye.”
Before setting out, he travelled down to Cape Town with Mrs Livingstone and the children and saw them off on a ship to England. The parting was a real heart-break; he knew that if he did survive his trip to be reunited with them, his children would not know him when they met again.
While in Cape Town Livingstone was asked to preach, and his comments on this exercise are interesting: “I felt dreadfully at a loss for words in English, while ideas came up in barrowfulls”. It is by these incidental references that we now and then glimpse the dedication which Livingstone brought to his work as a missionary: in ten years he found himself much more fluent in Sichuana than in English, and he had by this time a working knowledge of other dialects as well.
There were several vexing delays in Livingstone’s return to Kolobeng, but when he arrived he understood the reason in the providence of God. The Boers had attacked the mission station, with the intention of dispersing Sechele’s tribe. They hated Sechele because he would not submit to their demand that no Englishman be allowed to pass into the interior. Normally the tribes scattered at the first sign of Boer attack, but Sechele was made of sterner stuff. He organised the defence of Kolobeng as best he could, and in the course of the day’s fighting a few Boers were killed and several wounded. This brought the attackers to the conclusion that “that horrid doctor must have taught them to fight”, and if he had been present he might well have lost his life himself. As it was, his house was utterly ruined, his furniture smashed and his valued medical text books wantonly destroyed. Livingstone was deeply grieved, and especially mourned the loss of his treasured books. However, his typical remark was that the Boers had relieved him of the trouble of making a will.
Sekeletu, a teenage son of Sebituane, was by now ruling over the Makololo. When Livingstone eventually got up to Linyanti, Sekeletu’s capital, he found the chief eager to accompany him on the first part of his journey north. So it was a large company that made its way to the upper reaches of the Zambesi, and no less than thirty three canoes were required when they took to the water. As they made their way against the stream up the Barotse valley, Livingstone “felt the pleasure of looking on lands which had never been seen by a European before.” It was not long before Seshake came in sight — a considerable town built on the banks of the river. Here the party was delayed because of fever and Livingstone speaks of preaching many times “under the overspreading camel-thorn tree, which serves as a shade” to congregations of five or six hundred. By the time he had partially recovered and was able to move on, the rain had begun to fall.
As Livingstone now proceeded without Sekeletu to the North and West, many factors made for frequent delays. Fever has already been mentioned — he suffered twenty-seven severe attacks in two and a half years. In certain parts of the country the tsetse fly was prevalent, and if even were bitten, their days as carriers to the party were numbered. Also there had to be frequent negotiations with strange tribes for food and guides. However, these trying delays occurred more in the latter part of his great journey, and for the present Livingstone’s life on the river seems to have gone pretty much like clock-work. He was up before 5 a.m. and after coffee the party loaded up and embarked. The cool of the morning was not to be wasted in taking food, so vigorous paddling was the order of the day until about 11. Then they stopped to have a light meal and a rest. About midday the canoes were again nosing up the river, and for this period Livingstone shaded himself under an umbrella while his men sweated profusely and paddled with decreasing energy. At last they pulled to the bank again, not long before night-fall, and dined on coffee and biscuit, unless something more substantial had been bagged in the course of the day.
Many hundreds of miles passed, and at last Livingstone felt he was nearing his destination. He had not yet reached the border of Portuguese West Africa, but at least it was good to be somewhere near it after the trials of the interior. But here another trial, besides that of fever, tsetse, floods, etc., was awaiting him. The inland tribes he had found easy to get on with, but as he approached those which lay beside the white colony he found them next to impossible. They exhibited to the full the degrading and corrupting effects of the slavetrade, and the missionary was not allowed to pass without the most exorbitant fees being demanded. Especially he found the Chiboque tribe exasperating in the high fees they exacted. At one point the Makololo handed over all their ornaments, and Livingstone gave all his beads and shirts. Still the demand was for an ox and an elephant tusk and to these outrageous demands Livingstone had at length to accede. But the incident had an upsetting effect on the Makololo, and some now suggested going home. Such a thought Livingstone could not face, so he told his followers that if they went home he would still go on alone. In utter dejection he retired to his tent to pray. It was not long, however, before heads peered in at the door of the gypsy tent, and subdued voices said: “We will never leave you . . . Do not be disheartened . . . Wherever you lead we will follow . . . We are all your children; we know none but Sekeletu and you; we will die for you.”
If Livingstone had fallen in love with Africa before, he was, so to speak, married to her now. He was near the west coast, and the glories of God’s creation which he witnessed here remained indelibly in his memory: he thought these scenes must be such as angels might enjoy:
“… How often have I beheld, in still mornings, scenes the very essence of beauty, and all bathed in an atmosphere of delicious warmth to which the soft breeze imparts a pleasing sensation of coolness as if from a fan! Green grassy meadows, the cattle feeding, the goats browsing, the kids skipping, the group of herdboys with miniature bows, arrows and spears; the women wending their way to the river with watering-pots poised jauntily on their head; men sewing under the shady banians; and old grey-headed fathers sitting on the ground, with staff in hand, listening to the morning gossip, while others carry branches to repair their hedges. Such scenes, flooded with the bright African sunshine, and enlivened by the songs of the birds before the heat of the day has become intense, form pictures which can never be forgotten.”
Arriving at last at Loanda, the capital of Portuguese West Africa, Livingstone was treated with the utmost kindness by the Portuguese. However he was far from being impressed by their initiative or efficiency. Everywhere he met tokens of decay, and constantly he murmured inwardly against the lethargy which would not stir to construct a proper line of communication with the interior. For a considerable time he was prostrate with fever, but as soon as possible he began the journey back. He had opened up a route for trade, and in time this would help to secure the destruction of slave-dealing. But he had not found a suitable location for a mission, and so there was nothing for it but to return. He got back to Linyanti in September, 1855, having left it in November 1853.
It would take considerable space to enumerate the privations which Livingstone endured while carrying out this trip. Having had reason to mention a few, however, in a letter to the Society Secretary in London, he hastened to add: “These privations, I beg you to observe, are not mentioned as if I considered them in the light of sacrifices. I think the word ought never to be mentioned in reference to anything we can do for Him who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor.”
No, it was not the thought of his own troubles which depressed the mind of the missionary. It was rather the sin and misery which he had witnessed among the tribes in the West: “When I saw their numbers, and thought of the vast multitudes that are in this land, all living without God and without hope, I often sat down with feelings of despair. When will they be supplied with the gospel of Christ?”
It would not be like Livingstone, however, if we dwelt on the misery which he endured, and other sad aspects of the trip. He was a positive thinker, and therefore his mind went to other things: “I have preached in many spots where the name of Christ was never heard before. This is matter for gratitude. I hope the gospel will yet be established in these savage lands.” Again he wrote: “The blessed word of the Living God has been preached, though in much weakness, and the prayers of God’s people are ascending as incense before the throne of the Hope of Israel. And the time is coming, the set time, when all nations shall call him blessed.”
Of course Livingstone had no illusions about the African tribes being Christians just because they had been organised into attending a few services. In fact he goes into detail about how some tribes particularly found the worship of God indescribably strange. They even laughed to begin with when they saw men for the first time bowing to address an unseen being. In one place Livingstone recalls: “I was once present when a missionary attempted to sing among a wild tribe of the Bechuanas, and the effect on the risible faculties of the audience was such that the tears ran down their cheeks.” This was not the laughter of mockery. It was the laughter of honest surprise and amusement, and it was not long until it began to die away. Livingstone’s lack of an overbearing attitude towards the ignorance of the heathen is worthy of note. He says of one place where he preached to between five and seven hundred people: “The associations of the place were unfavourable to solemnity. Half an hour after our devotions were ended a dance would be got up on the very same spot. These habits could not be opposed at first, without appearing to assume too much over the people. Far greater influence is gained by gently leading them to act rightly as if of their own free will.”
Livingstone had hardly returned to Linyanti when he began to make preparations for moving off again. He had not found a suitable mission site towards the West, so he now resolved to search for it towards the East. It was now he came on the great Zambezi falls as he followed the course of the river eastwards. The natives called the falls “Mosioatunya” — sounding smoke — but Livingstone named them the “Victoria Falls”. And this was not the only remembrance of his passing which he left around those scenes which so impressed him with their beauty and grandeur. In an island in mid-stream, just at the brink of the falls, he planted some seeds and carved on a tree “D. L. 1855.”
It was May, 1856, when Livingstone eventually reached the coast of Portuguese East Africa. Writing immediately to Arthur Tidman, the Society Secretary in London, Livingstone plunged at the very start of his letter into something which had frequently been the subject of their correspondence. And no wonder — he had great news.
“My dear Sir, — In coming Eastwards from the country of the Makololo we cross a ridge or broad belt of elevated land which seems well adapted by its salubrity for the residence of European missionaries . . .”
So Livingstone, having dragged his weary feet over thousands of untried miles, had come to the coast with great news for the Society. But he was not long at Quilimane when he found that the Society had no great news for him. In May or June he received a letter from Arthur Tidman, dated August, 1855. Eagerly he opened it and read:
“The Directors . . . are restricted in their power of aiding plans connected only remotely with the spread of the gospel.” Mr Tidman explained that the Directors did not rule out the possibility of overcoming the many difficulties in the way of extending the sphere of the Mission in Central Africa, but continued, “the financial circumstances of the Society are not such as to afford any ground of hope that it would be in a position, within any definite period, to enter upon untried, remote and difficult fields of labour.”
The heart of the great missionary went suddenly numb and cold.
J.T.