Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/401

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Livingstone
395
Livingstone

20 July he started for Ujiji. On the way back through the Manyema country many Arabs joined his party for protection, and he was in consequence attacked in the forest, and for five hours ran the gauntlet of the spears of his invisible enemies. He was constantly ill on the way from fatigue, frequent wettings, and the horrors of the slave-raiding and cannibalism around him. He writes: 'I felt as if dying on my feet, almost every step was in pain, the appetite failed, and a little bit of meat caused violent diarrhœa, whilst the mind, sorely depressed, reacted on the body.' He reached Ujiji on 23 Oct. 1871, a living skeleton, to find all the stores that had been sent to him had been sold off by the leading Arab of Ujiji, known as the Shereef. At this desperate moment Mr. H. M. Stanley, who had been sent by Mr. James Gordon Bennett, proprietor of the 'New York Herald,' to find Livingstone alive or dead, arrived with a well-equipped caravan. Stanley had reached Zanzibar on 6 Jan. 1871, and made at once for Ujiji, but on his way became involved in the war between the Arabs of Tabora and the Nyamwezi chief, Mirambo, and only after much difficulty arrived at Tanganyika on 28 Oct. 1871. Medicines, food, hope, and cheerful society soon worked a change in Livingstone, and he set out with Stanley to make a tour of the northern end of the lake. They soon ascertained that the Rusizi river, which enters the lake in a small delta at the north end, flowed into and not out of the lake. They returned to Ujiji, and after delays consequent on Stanley's illness, through which Livingstone nursed him with assiduity, they journeyed, on 27 Dec. 1871, together to Unyanyembe, where they arrived on 18 Feb. 1872. Stanley in vain urged Livingstone to return to England with him. Livingstone was possessed with the idea of finding the source of the Nile, and as it had become his conviction that the Lualaba must be the Upper Nile, he did not deem it, necessary to prove it by descending the stream into the Albert Nyanza, but directed his attention to the discovery and mapping of its sources in Lake Bangweolo and on the Katanga highlands. On 14 March 1872 Stanley, having furnished Livingstone with medicine and all necessaries, reluctantly left for Zanzibar. Stanley wrote that for the four months he had lived with Livingstone he never found a fault in him, and that though himself a man of a quick temper, with Livingstone he never had cause for resentment, but each day's life with him added to his admiration of him. A search expedition under Commander Dawson, R.N., and Lieutenant Henn, and including the Rev. Charles New and Oswell Livingstone, youngest son of the doctor, had been sent by the Royal Geographical Society and others to look for Livingstone, but meeting Stanley at Bagamoio, returned to England with him.

Livingstone remained at Unyanyembe awaiting the men to be sent to him by Stanley. They arrived on 9 Aug. 1872, and on the 25th he started with all his old eagerness for Tanganyika, but he was unfit for more travel; he suffered acutely from dysentery and loss of blood from hæmorrhoids, but managed to ride his donkey, and reached the lake on 14 Oct. He skirted the south-east coast through the Fipa and Ulungu countries, and then turned south and west until he reached the Kalongosi river, which flows into Lake Moero. Crossing the river and high range of mountains beyond, he descended into the district north of Lake Bangweolo, which is one vast sponge. Here the situation was terrible. Starvation was constantly menacing the party, canoes could not be got, and Livingstone was gradually dying. He crossed the Tshambezi river on 4 April 1873, and proceeded along the swampy shores of Bangweolo, tormented with swarms of mosquitoes, poisonous spiders, and stinging ants. On 15 March Livingstone had addressed his last despatch to Lord Granville. On 9 April he took his last observation for latitude. From the middle of April he was so ill that he had to be carried in a litter. On 27 April he made the last entry in his note-book. On 30 April he arrived at Tshitambo's village, in the country of Ilala. He asked, 'How many days to go to the Luapula?' and on being told three, he only answered, 'Oh dear! dear!' Having got his man Susi to give him some calomel, he said, 'All right; you can go out now,' and these were his last words. At four o'clock next morning Susi found him dead, kneeling by the side of his bed, his body stretched forward and his head buried in his hands upon the pillow. Livingstone's men behaved admirably. They made an inventory of his effects, and packed them in tin boxes. They made a handsome present to Tshitambo, that he might help in paying honours to the dead. There was a general mourning, and volleys were fired by the servants. They roughly embalmed the body, burying the heart and viscera. Jacob Wainwright, a Nassick boy, read the burial service. The body was then enclosed, in a cylinder of bark, and enveloped in sailcloth and lashed to a pole, to be carried by two men, and they started for the coast. At Kwihara, near Tabora, they met the second Livingstone relief expedition, sent out by the Royal Geographical Society, under Lieu-