William Garden Blaikie

“ The aggressors were the neighboring warlike tribe of Ajawa, and their victims were the Manganja, the inhabitants of the Shiré Valley. The Bishop accepted the invitation of Chigunda, a Manganja chief, to settle at Magomero. It was thought, however, desirable for the Bishop and Livingstone first to visit the Ajawa chief, and try to turn him from his murderous ways. The road was frightful--through burning villages resounding with the wailings of women and the shouts of the warriors. ”

“ Stewart was struck with her likeness to her father, Dr. Moffat. He was afraid to utter what struck him so much, but at last he said to Livingstone, "Do you notice any change?" "Yes," he replied, without raising his eyes from her face,--"the very features and expression of her father."
Every one is struck with the calmness of Dr. Livingstone's notice of his wife's death in _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_. ”

“ The Ajawa received the offered visit in a hostile spirit, and the shout being raised that Chibisa had come--powerful chief with the reputation of being a sorcerer--they fired on the Bishop's party and compelled them, in self-defense, to fire in return. It was the first time that Livingstone had ever been so attacked by natives, often though they had threatened him. ”

“ In writing to his friend Young, 28th November, 1861, Livingstone expresses his joy at the news of the departure of the "Lady Nyassa;" gives him an account of the lake, and of a terrific storm in which they were nearly lost; describes the inhabitants, and the terrible slave-trade--the only trade that was carried on in the district. It will take them the best part of a year to put the ship on the lake, but it will be such a blessing! He hopes the Government will pay for it, once it is there. ”

“ Writing to his son Robert, Livingstone thus describes the attack made by the Ajawa on him, the Bishop, and the missionaries:
"The slave-hunters had induced a number of another tribe to capture people for them. We came to this tribe while burning three villages, and though we told them that we came peaceably, and to talk with them, they saw that we were a small party, and might easily be overcome, rushed at us and shot their poisoned arrows. One fell between the Bishop and me, and another whizzed between another man and me. ”

“ Before going near them the Bishop engaged in prayer, and during the prayer we could hear the wail for the dead by some Manganja probably thought not worth killing, and the shouts of welcome home to these bloody murderers. It turned out that they were only some sixty or seventy robbers, and not the Ajawa tribe; so we had a narrow escape from being murdered. "How are you doing? I fear from what I have observed of your temperament that you will have to strive against fickleness. ”

“ We are now arrived at the last illness and the death of Mrs. Livingstone. After she had parted from her husband at the Cape in the spring of 1858, she returned with her parents to Kuruman, and in November gave birth there to her youngest child, Anna Mary. Thereafter she returned to Scotland to be near her other children. Some of them were at school. No comfortable home for them all could be formed, and though many friends were kind, the time was not a happy one. Mrs. Livingstone's desire to be with her husband was intense ”

“ In the countries visited there is no enlightened public opinion to support the commander, and newspapers at home are but too ready to believe in his tyranny, and make themselves the champions of any dawdling fellow who would fain be counted a victim of his despotism. He enumerates the chief troubles to which his Expedition had been exposed from such causes. Then he explains how, at the beginning, to prevent collision, he had made every man independent in his own department, wishing only, for himself, to be the means of making known to the world what each man had done. ”

“ In waiting for Bishop Mackenzie to accompany him, Dr. Livingstone lost the most favorable part of the season, and found that he could not get with the "Pioneer" to the top of the Rovuma. He might have left the ship and pushed forward on foot; but, not to delay Bishop Mackenzie, he left the Rovuma in the meantime, intending, after making arrangements with the Bishop, to go to Nyassa, to find the point where the Rovuma left the lake, if there were such a point, or, if not, get into its headwaters and explore it downward. ”

“ Afterward when he came to know Bishop Mackenzie, he wrote of him to Mr. Maclear in the highest terms: "The Bishop is A 1, and in his readiness to put his hand to anything resembles much my good father-in-law Moffat."
It is not often that missions are over-manned, but in the first stage of such an undertaking as this, so large a body of men was an incumbrance, none of them knowing a word of the language or a bit of the way. It was Bishop Mackenzie's desire that Dr. Livingstone should accompany him at once to the scene of his future labors and help him to settle. ”

“ Livingstone could not be idle, even when his heart was broken; he occupied the days after the death in writing to her father and mother, to his children, and to many of the friends who would be interested in the sad news. Among these letters, that to Mrs. Moffat and her reply from Kuruman have a special interest. His letters went round by Europe, and the first news reached Kuruman by traders and newspapers. ”

“ But the lake slave-trade was going on at a dismal rate. An Arab dhow was seen on the lake, but it kept well out of the way. Dr. Livingstone was informed by Colonel Rigdy, late British Consul at Zanzibar, that 19,000 slaves from this Nyassa region alone passed annually through the custom-house there. This was besides those landed at Portuguese slave ports. In addition to those captured, thousands were killed or died of their wounds or of famine, or perished in other ways, so that not one-fifth of the victims became slaves--in the Nyassa district probably not one-tenth. ”

“ The agents of the Universities Missions also arrived, the first, detachment consisting of Bishop Mackenzie and five other Englishmen, and five colored men from the Cape. Writing familiarly to his friend Moore, _àpropos_ of his new comrades of the Church Mission, Livingstone says: "I have never felt anyway inclined to turn Churchman or dissenter either since I came out here. The feelings which we have toward different sects alter out here quite insensibly, till one looks upon all godly men as good and true brethren. ”

“ Livingstone says in his book that the unfavorable judgment which he had formed of the Bishop's conduct in fighting with the Ajawa was somewhat modified by a natural instinct, when he saw how keenly the Bishop was run down for it in England, and reflected more on the circumstances, and thought how excellent a man he was. ”

“ And may the good Lord of all impart all the strength you need. Commit your way unto the Lord; trust also in Him. Acknowledge Him in all your ways, and He will bless you." Leaving the "Pioneer" at Chibisa's, on 6th August, 1861, Livingstone, accompanied by his brother and Dr. Kirk, started for Nyassa with a four-oared boat, which was carried by porters past the Murchison Cataracts. On 23d September they sailed into Lake Nyassa, naming the grand mountainous promontory at the end Cape Maclear, after Livingstone's great friend the Astronomer-Royal at the Cape. ”

“ Every one has his besetting fault--that is no disgrace to him, but it is a disgrace if he do not find it out, and by God's grace overcome it. I am not near to advise you what to do, but whatever line of life you choose, resolve to stick to it, and serve God therein to the last. ”

“ The prayer was found in her papers--'Accept me, Lord, as I am, and make me such as Thou wouldst have me to be.' He who taught her to value this prayer would not leave his own work unfinished. On a letter she had written, 'Let others plead for pensions, I wrote to a friend I can be rich without money; I would give my services in the world from uninterested motives; I have motives for my own conduct I would not exchange for a hundred pensions.'
"She rests by the large baobab-tree at Shupanga, which is sixty feet in circumference, and is mentioned in the work of Commodore Owen. ”

“ Livingstone.' We really enjoy them very much. They are good against fever. The 'Essence of Parliament,' for instance, is capital. One has to wade through an ocean of paper to get the same information, without any of the fun. ”

“ He had seen so much idleness and folly result from missionaries being left to themselves, that it was a very great satisfaction to find that the new mission was to be superintended by one authorized and qualified to take the charge. ”

“ Then the return to the Zambesi in company with H.M.S. "Gorgon," and on the 1st of February, in a lovely morning, the little cloud of smoke rising close to land, and afterward the white hull of a small paddle steamer making straight for the two ships outside.
"As the vessel approached," says Dr. Stewart, "I could make out with a glass a firmly built man of about the middle height, standing on the port paddle-box, and directing the ship's course. ”

“ Stewart, of Lovedale--and, at last, the great privilege of dying in the arms of her husband. "As for the cruel scandal that seems to have hurt you both so much, those who said it did not know you _as a couple_. In all _our_ intercourse with you, we never had a doubt as to your being comfortable together. I know there are some maudlin ladies who insinuate, when a man leaves his family frequently, no matter how noble is his object, that he is not _comfortable_ at home. ”

“ She said that she would never have a house in this country. Taking it to be despondency alone, I only joked, and now my heart smites me that I did not talk seriously on that and many things besides.
"31_st May_, 1862.--The loss of my ever dear Mary lies like a heavy weight on my heart. In our intercourse in private there was more than what would be thought by some a decorous amount of merriment and play. I said to her a few days before her fatal illness: 'We old bodies ought now to be more sober, and not play so much.' 'Oh, no,' said she,' you must always be as playful as you have always been ”

“ Stewart coming out from Free Church of Scotland--Visit at the ship from Bishop Mackenzie--News of defeat of Ajawa by missionaries--Anxiety of Livingstone--Arrangements for "Pioneer" to go to Kongone for new steamer and friends from home, then go to Ruo to meet Bishop--"Pioneer" detained--Dr. Livingstone's anxieties and depressions at New Year--"Pioneer" misses man-of-war "Gorgon"--At length "Gorgon" appears with brig from England and "Lady Nyassa"--Mrs. Livingstone and other ladies on board--Livingstone's meeting with his wife, and with Dr. ”