# The Personal Life of David Livingstone/CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XIV.
ROVUMA AND NYASSA--UNIVERSITIES MISSION.
A.D. 1861-1862.
Beginning of 1861--Arrival of the "Pioneer"--and of the agents of Universities Mission--Cordial welcome--Livingstone's catholic feelings--Ordered to explore the Rovuma--Bishop Mackenzie goes with him--Returns to the Shiré--Turning-point of prosperity past--Difficult navigation--The slave-sticks--Bishop settles at Magomero--Hostilities between Manganja and Ajawa--Attack of Mission party by Ajawa--Livingstone's advice to Bishop regarding them--Letter to his son Robert--Livingstone, Kirk, and Charles start for Lake Nyassa--Party robbed at north of Lake--Dismal activity of the slave-trade--Awful mortality in the process--Livingstone's fondness for _Punch_--Letter to Mr. Young--Joy at departure of new steamer "Lady Nyassa"--Colonization project--Letter against it from Sir R. Murchison--Hears of Dr. 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. Stewart--Stewart's recollections--Difficulties of navigation--Captain Wilson of "Gorgon" goes up river and hears of death of Bishop Mackenzie and Mr. Burrup--Great distress--Misrepresentations about Universities Mission--Miss Mackenzie and Mr. Burrup taken to "Gorgon"--Dr. and Mrs. Livingstone return to Shupanga--Illness and death of Mrs. Livingstone--Extracts from Livingstone's Journal and letters to the Moffats, Agnes, and the Murchisons.
The beginning of 1861 brought some new features on the scene. The new steamer, the "Pioneer," at last arrived, and was a great improvement on the "Ma-Robert," though unfortunately she had too great draught of water. 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. I rejoiced when I heard that so many good and great men in the Universities had turned their thoughts toward Africa, and feeling sure that He who had touched their hearts would lead them to promote his own glory, I welcomed the men they sent with a hearty, unfeigned welcome."
To his friend Mr. Maclear he wrote that he was very glad the Mission was to be under a bishop. 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. 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. But besides other reasons, the "Pioneer," as already stated, was under orders to explore the Rovuma, and, as the Portuguese put so many obstacles in the way on the Zambesi, to ascertain whether that river might not afford access to the Nyassa district. It was at last arranged that the Bishop should first go with the Doctor to the Rovuma, and thereafter they should all go together to the Shiré. 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.
Dr. Livingstone, as we have seen, welcomed the Mission right cordially, for indeed it was what he had been most eagerly praying for, and he believed that it would be the beginning of all blessing to Eastern and Central Africa, and help to assimilate the condition of the East Coast to that of the West The field for the cultivation of cotton which he had discovered along the Shiré and Lake Nyassa was immense, above 400 miles in length, and now it seemed as if commerce and Christianity were going to take possession of it. But it was found that the turning-point of prosperity had been reached, and it was his lot to encounter dark reverses. The navigation of the Shiré was difficult, for the "Pioneer" being deep in the water would often run aground. On these occasions the Bishop, Mr. Scudamore, and Mr. Waller, the best and the bravest of the missionary party, were ever ready with their help in hauling. Livingstone was sometimes scandalized to see the Bishop toiling in the hot sun, while some of his subordinates were reading or writing in the cabin. As they proceeded up the Shiré it was seen that the promises of assistance from the Portuguese Government were worse than fruitless. Evidently the Portuguese traders were pushing the slave-trade with greater eagerness than ever. Slave-hunting chiefs were marauding the country, driving peaceful inhabitants before them, destroying their crops, seizing on all the people they could lay hands on, and selling them as slaves. The contrast to what Livingstone had seen on his last journey was lamentable. All their prospects were overcast. How could commerce or Christianity flourish in countries desolated by war?
Every reader of _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_ remembers the frightful picture of the slave-sticks, and the row of men, women, and children whom Livingstone and his companions set free. Nothing helped more than this picture to rouse in English bosoms an intense horror of the trade, and a burning sympathy with Livingstone and his friends. Livingstone and the Bishop, with his party, had gone up the Shiré to Chibisa's, and were halting at the village of Mbame, when a slave party came along. The flight of the drivers, the liberation of eighty-four men and women, and their reception by the good Bishop under his charge, speedily followed. 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. 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. It was the first time he had had to repel an attack with violence; so little was he thinking of such a thing that he had not his rifle with him, and was obliged to borrow a revolver. The encounter was hot and serious, but it ended in the Ajawa being driven off without loss on the other side.
It now became a question for the Bishop in what relation he and his party were to stand to these murderous and marauding Ajawa--whether they should quietly witness their onslaughts or drive them from the country and rescue the captive Manganja. Livingstone's advice to them was to be patient, and to avoid taking part in the quarrels of the natives. He then left them at Magomero, and returned to his companions on the Shiré. For a time the Bishop's party followed Livingstone's advice, but circumstances afterward occurred which constrained them to take a different course, and led to very serious results in the history of the Mission.
Writing to his son Robert, Livingstone thus describes the attack made by the Ajawa on him, the Bishop, and the missionaries:
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.
All about the lake was now examined with earnest eyes. The population was denser than he had seen anywhere else. The people were civil, and even friendly, but undoubtedly they were not handsome. At the north of the lake they were lawless, and at one point the party were robbed in the night--the first time such a thing had occurred in Livingstone's African life[61]. Of elephants there was a great abundance,--indeed of all animal and vegetable life.
[Footnote 61: In _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_, Livingstone gives a grave account of the robbery. In his letters to his friends he makes fun of it, as he did of the raid of the Boers. To Mr. F. Fitch he writes: "You think I cannot get into a scrape.... For the first time in Africa we were robbed. Expert thieves crept into our sleeping-places, about four o'clock in the morning, and made off with what they could lay their hands on. Sheer over-modesty ruined me. It was Sunday, and such a black mass swarmed around our sail, which we used as a hut, that we could not hear prayers. I had before slipped away a quarter of a mile to dress for church, but seeing a crowd of women watching me through the reeds, I did not change my old 'unmentionables,'--they were so old, I had serious thoughts of converting them into--charity! Next morning nearly all our spare clothing was walked off with, and there I was left by my modesty nearly through at the knees, and no change of shirt, flannel, or stockings. After that, don't say that I can't get into a scrape!" The same letter thanks Mr. Fitch for sending him _Punch_, whom he deemed a sound divine! On the same subject he wrote at another time, regretting that _Punch_ did not reach him, especially a number in which notice was taken of himself. "It never came. Who the miscreants are that steal them I cannot divine, I would not grudge them a reading if they would only send them on afterward. Perhaps binding the whole year's _Punches_ would be the best plan; and then we need not label it 'Sermons in Lent,' or 'Tracts on Homoeopathy,' but you may write inside, as Dr. Buckland did on his umbrella, 'Stolen from Dr. 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. And by the time the newspapers have reached us, most of the interest in public matters has evaporated."]
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. A small armed steamer on the lake might stop nearly the whole of this wholesale robbery and murder.
Their stock of goods being exhausted, and no provisions being procurable, the party had to return at the end of October. They had to abandon the project of getting from the lake to the Rovuma, and exploring eastward. They reached the ship on 8th November, 1861, having suffered more from hunger than on any previous trip.
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.
The colonization project had not commended itself to Sir R. Murchison. He had written of it sometime before: "Your colonization scheme does not meet with supporters, it being thought that you must have much more hold on the country before you attract Scotch families to emigrate and settle there, and then die off, or become a burden to you and all concerned, like the settlers of old at Darien." It was with much satisfaction that Livingstone now wrote to his friend (25th November, 1861): "A Dr. Stewart is sent out by the Free Church of Scotland to confer with me about a Scotch Colony. You will guess my answer. Dr. Kirk is with me in opinion, and if I could only get you out to take a trip up to the plateau of Zomba, and over the uplands which surround Lake Nyassa, you would give in too."
When the party returned to the ship they had a visit from Bishop Mackenzie, who was in good spirits and had excellent hopes of the Mission. The Ajawa had been defeated, and had professed a desire to be at peace with the English. But Dr. Livingstone was not without misgivings on this point. The details of the defeat of the Ajawa, in which the missionaries had taken an active part, troubled him, as we find from his private Journal. "The Bishop," he says (14th of November), "takes a totally different view of the affair from what I do." There were other points on which the utter inexperience of the missionaries, and want of skill in dealing with the natives, gave him serious anxiety. It is impossible not to see that even thus early, the Mission, in Livingstone's eyes, had lost something of its bloom.
It was arranged that the "Pioneer" should go down to the mouth of the Zambesi, to meet a man-of-war with provisions, and bring up the pieces of the new lake vessel, the "Lady Nyassa," which was eagerly expected, along with Mrs. Livingstone, Miss Mackenzie, the Bishop's sister, and other members of the Mission party. An appointment was made for January at the mouth of the river Ruo, a tributary of the Shiré, where the Bishop was to meet them. He and Mr. Burrup, who had just arrived, were meanwhile to explore the neighboring country.
The "Pioneer" was detained for five weeks on a shoal twenty miles below Chibisa's, and here the first death occurred--the carpenter's mate succumbed to fever. It was extremely irksome to suffer this long detention, to think of fuel and provisions wasting, and salaries running on, without one particle of progress. Livingstone was sensitive and anxious. He speaks in his Journal of the difficulty of feeling resigned to the Divine will in all things, and of believing that all things work together for good to those that love God, He seems to have been troubled at what had been said in some quarters of his treatment of members of the Expedition. In private letters, in the Cape papers, in the home papers, unfavorable representations of his conduct had been made. In one case, a prosecution at law had been threatened. On New Year's Day, 1862, he entered in his Journal an elaborate minute, as if for future use, bearing on the conduct of the Expedition. He refers to the difficulty to which civil expeditions are exposed, as compared with naval and military, in the matter of discipline, owing to the inferior authority and power of the chief. 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. His conclusion is a sad one, but it explains why in his last journeys he went alone: he is convinced that if he had been by himself he would have accomplished more, and undoubtedly he would have received more of the approbation of his countrymen[62].
[Footnote 62: Notwithstanding this expression of feeling, Dr. Livingstone was very sincere in his handsome acknowledgments, in the Introduction to _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_, of valuable services, especially from the members of the Expedition there named.]
At length the "Pioneer" was got off the bank, and on the 11th January, 1862, they entered the Zambesi. They prided to the great Luabo mouth, as being more advantageous than the Kongone for a supply of wood. They were a month behind their appointment, and no ship was to be seen. The ship had been there, it turned out, on the 8th January, had looked eagerly for the "Pioneer," had fancied it saw the black funnel and its smoke in the river, and being disappointed had made for Mozambique, been caught in a gale, and was unable to return for three weeks. Livingstone's letters show him a little out of sorts at the manifold obstructions that had always been making him "too late"--"too late for Rovuma below, too late for Rovuma above, and now too late for our own appointment," but in greater trouble because the "Lady Nyassa" had not been sent by sea, as he had strongly urged, and as it afterward appeared might have been done quite well. To take out the pieces and fit them up would involve heavy expense and long delay, and perhaps the season would be lost again. But Livingstone had always a saving clause, in all his lamentations, and here it is: "I know that all was done for the best."
At length, on the last day of January, H.M.S. "Gorgon," with a brig in tow, hove in sight. When the "Pioneer" was seen, up went the signal from the "Gorgon"--"I have steamboat in the brig"; to which Livingstone replied--"Welcome news." Then "Wife aboard" was signaled from the ship. "Accept my best thanks" concluded what Livingstone called "the most interesting conversation he had engaged in for many a day." Next morning the "Pioneer" steamed out, and Dr. Livingstone found his wife "all right." In the same ship with Mrs. Livingstone, besides Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup, the Rev. E. Hawkins and others of the Universities Mission, had come the Rev. James Stewart, of the Free Church of Scotland (now Dr. Stewart, of Lovedale, South Africa), who had been sent out by a committee of that Church, "to meet with Dr. Livingstone, and obtain, by personal observation and otherwise, the information that might be necessary to enable a committee at home to form a correct judgment as to the possibility of founding a mission in that part of Africa." It happened that some time before Mr. Stewart had been tutor to Thomas Livingstone, while studying in Glasgow; this drew his sympathies to Livingstone and Africa, and was another link in that wonderful chain which Providence was making for the good of Africa. From Dr. Stewart's "Recollections of Dr. Livingstone and the Zambesi" in the _Sunday Magazine_ (November, 1874), we get the picture from the other side. First, the sad disappointment of Mrs. Livingstone on the 8th January, when no "Pioneer" was to be found, with the anxious speculations raised in its absence as to the cause. Then a frightful tornado on the way to Mozambique, and the all but miraculous escape of the brig. 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.
Through the help of the men of the "Gorgon," the sections of the "Lady Nyassa" were speedily put on board the "Pioneer," and on the 10th February the vessel steamed off for the mouth of the Ruo, to meet the Bishop. But its progress through the river was miserable. Says Dr. Stewart:
The "Pioneer" was overladen, and the plan had to be changed. It was resolved to put the "Lady Nyassa" together at Shupanga, and tow her up to the Rapids.
Meanwhile Captain Wilson (of the "Gorgon"), accompanied by Dr. Kirk and others, had gone on in boats with Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup, and learned the sad fate of the Bishop and Mr. Burrup. It appeared that the Bishop, accompanied by the Makololo, had gone forth on an expedition to rescue the captive husbands of some of the Manganja women, and had been successful. But as the Bishop was trying to get to the mouth of the Ruo, his canoe was upset, his medicines and cordials were lost, and, being seized with fever, after languishing for some time, he died in distressing circumstances, on the 31st January, Mr. Burrup, who was with him, and who was also stricken, was carried back to Magomero, and died in a few days.
Captain Wilson, who had himself been prostrated by fever, and made a narrow escape, returned with this sad news, three weeks after he had left Shupanga, bringing the two broken-hearted ladies, who had expected to be welcomed, the one by her brother, the other by her husband. It was a great blow to Livingstone.
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. Sometimes he even said that, had he been there, he would probably have done what the Bishop did[63]. Why, then, it may be asked, was Livingstone so ill-pleased when it was said that all that the Bishop had done was done by his advice? No one will ask this question who reads the terms of a letter by Mr. Rowley, one of the Mission party, first published in the Cape papers, and copied into the _Times_ in November, 1862. It was said there that "from the moment when Livingstone commenced the release of slaves, his course was one of aggression. He hunted for slaving parties in every direction, and when he heard of the Ajawa making slaves in order to sell to the slavers, he went designedly in search of them, and intended to take their captives from them by force if needful. It is true that when he came upon them he found them to be a more powerful body than he expected, and had they not fired first, he might have withdrawn.... His parting words to the chiefs just before he left ... were to this effect: 'You have hitherto seen us only as fighting men but it is not in such a character we wish you to know us[64].'" How could Livingstone be otherwise than indignant to be spoken of as if the use of force had been his habit, while the whole tenor of his life had gone most wonderfully to show the efficacy of gentle and brotherly treatment? How could he but be vexed at having the odium of the whole proceedings thrown on him, when his last advice to the missionaries had been disregarded by them? Or how could he fail to be concerned at the discredit which the course ascribed to him must bring upon the Expedition under his command, which was entirely separate from the Mission? It was the unhandsome treatment of himself and reckless periling of the character and interests of his Expedition in order to shield others, that raised his indignation. "Good Bishop Mackenzie," he wrote to his friend Mr. Fitch, "would never have tried to screen himself by accusing me." In point of fact, a few years afterward the Portuguese Government, through Mr. Lacerda, when complaining bitterly of the statements of Livingstone in a speech at Bath, in 1865, referred to Mr. Rowley's letter as bearing out their complaint. It served admirably to give an unfavorable view of his aims and methods, _as from one of his own allies_. Dr. Livingstone never allowed himself to cherish any other feeling but that of high regard for the self-denial and Christian heroism of the Bishop, and many of his coadjutors; but he did feel that most of them were ill-adapted for their work and had a great deal to learn, and that the manner in which he had been turned aside from the direct objects of his own enterprise by having to look after so many inexperienced men, and then blamed for what he deprecated, and what was done in his absence, was rather more than it was reasonable for him to bear[65].
[Footnote 63: Writing to Mr. Waller, 12th February, 1863, Dr. Livingstone said: "I thought you wrong in attacking the Ajawa, till I looked on it as defense of your orphans. I thought that you had shut yourselves up to one tribe, and that, the Manganja; but I think differently now, and only wish they would send out Dr. Pusey here. He would learn a little sense, of which I suppose I have need myself."]
[Footnote 64: Mr. Rowley afterward (February 22, 1865) expressed his regret that this letter was ever written, as it had produced an ill-effect. See _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_, p. 475 _note_.]
[Footnote 65: It must not be supposed that the letter of Mr. Rowley expressed the mind of his brethren. Some of them were greatly annoyed at it, and used their influence to induce its author to write to the Cape papers that he had conveyed a wrong impression. In writing to Sir Thomas Maclear (20th November, 1862), after seeing Rowley's letter in the Cape papers, Dr. Livingstone said: "It is untrue that I ever on anyone occasion adopted an aggressive policy against the Ajawa, or took slaves from them. Slaves were taken from Portuguese alone. I never hunted the Ajawa, or took the part of Manganja against Ajawa. In this I believe every member of the Mission will support my assertion." Livingstone declined to write a contradiction _to the public prints_, because he knew the harm that would be done by a charge against a clergyman. In this he showed the same magnanimity and high Christian self-denial which he had shown when he left Mabotsa. It was only when the Portuguese claimed the benefit of Rowley's testimony that he let the public see what its value was.]
Writing of the terrible loss of Mackenzie and Burrup to the Bishop of Cape Town, Livingstone says: "The blow is quite bewildering; the two strongest men so quickly cut down, and one of them, humanly speaking, indispensable to the success of the enterprise. We must bow to the will of Him who doeth all things well; but I cannot help feeling sadly disturbed in view of the effect the news may have at home. _I shall not swerve a hairbreadth from my work while life is spared_, and I trust the supporters of the Mission may not shrink back from all that they have set their hearts to."
The next few weeks were employed in taking Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup to the "Gorgon" on their way home. It was a painful voyage to all--to Dr. and Mrs. Livingstone, to Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup, and last, not least, to Captain Wilson, who had been separated so long from his ship, and had risked life, position, and everything, to do service to a cause which in spite of all he left at a much lower ebb.
When the "Pioneer" arrived at the bar, it found that owing to the weather the ship had been forced to leave the coast, and she did not return for a fortnight. There was thus another long waiting from 17th March to 2d April. Dr. and Mrs. Livingstone then returned to Shupanga. The long detention in the most unhealthy season of the year, and when fever was at its height, was a sad, sad calamity.
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; not only the longings of an affectionate heart, and the necessity of taking counsel with him about the family, but the feeling that when over-shadowed by one whose faith was so strong her fluttering heart would regain, its steady tone, and she would be better able to help both him and the children, gave vehemence to this desire. Her letters to her husband tell of much spiritual darkness; his replies were the very soul of tenderness and Christian earnestness. Providence seemed to favor her wish; the vessel in which she sailed was preserved from imminent destruction, and she had the great happiness of finding her husband alive and well.
On the 21st of April Mrs. Livingstone became ill. On the 25th the symptoms were alarming--vomitings every quarter of an hour, which prevented any medicine from remaining on her stomach. On the 26th she was worse and delirious. On the evening of Sunday the 27th Dr. Stewart got a message from her husband that the end was drawing near. "He was sitting by the side of a rude bed formed of boxes, but covered with a soft mattress, on which lay his dying wife. All consciousness had now departed, as she was in a state of deep coma, from which all efforts to rouse her had been unavailing. The strongest medical remedies and her husband's voice were both alike powerless to reach the spirit which was still there, but was now so rapidly sinking into the depths of slumber, and darkness and death. The fixedness of feature and the oppressed and heavy breathing only made it too plain that the end was near. And the man who had faced so many deaths, and braved so many dangers, was now utterly broken down and weeping like a child."
Dr. Livingstone asked Dr. Stewart to commend her spirit to God, and along with Dr. Kirk they kneeled in prayer beside her. In less than an hour, her spirit had returned to God. Half an hour after, Dr. 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_. Its matter-of-fact tone only shows that he regarded that book as a sort of official report to the nation, in which it would not be becoming for him to introduce personal feelings. A few extracts from his Journal and letters will show better the state of his heart.
"It is the first heavy stroke I have suffered, and quite takes away my strength. I wept over her who well deserved many tears. I loved her when I married her, and the longer I lived with her I loved her the more. God pity the poor children, who were all tenderly attached to her, and I am left alone in the world by one whom I felt to be a part of myself. I hope it may, by divine grace, lead me to realize heaven as my home, and that she has but preceded me in the journey. Oh my Mary, my Mary! how often we have longed for a quiet home, since you and I were cast adrift at Kolobeng; surely the removal by a kind Father who knoweth our frame means that He rewarded you by taking you to the best home, the eternal one in the heavens. 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. The men asked to be _allowed_ to mount guard till we had got the grave built up, and we had it built with bricks dug from an old house.
"From her boxes we find evidence that she intended to make us all comfortable at Nyassa, though she seemed to have a presentiment of an early death,--she purposed to do more for me than ever.
"11_th May, Kongone_.--My dear, dear Mary has been this evening a fortnight in heaven,--absent from the body, present with the Lord. To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise. Angels carried her to Abraham's bosom--to be with Christ is far better. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, 'Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints'; ye also shall appear with Him in glory. He comes with them; then they are now with Him. I go to prepare a place for you; that where I am there ye may be also, to behold his glory. Moses and Elias talked of the decease He should accomplish at Jerusalem; then they know what is going on here on certain occasions. They had bodily organs to hear and speak. For the first time in my life I feel willing to die.--D.L."
"_May_ 19, 1862.--Vividly do I remember my first passage down in 1856, passing Shupanga house without landing, and looking at its red hills and white vales with the impression that it was a beautiful spot. No suspicion glanced across my mind that there my loving wife would be called to give up the ghost six years afterward. In some other spot I may have looked at, my own resting-place may be allotted. I have often wished that it might be in some far-off still deep forest, where I may sleep sweetly till the resurrection morn, when the trump of God will make all start up into the glorious and active second existence.
"25_th May_.--Some of the histories of pious people in the last century and previously tell of clouds of religious gloom, or of paroxysms of opposition and fierce rebellion against God, which found vent in terrible expressions. These were followed by great elevations of faith, and reactions of confiding love, the results of divine influence which carried the soul far above the region of the intellect into that of direct spiritual intuition. This seems to have been the experience of my dear Mary. She had a strong presentiment of death being near. 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; I would not like you to be as grave as some folks I have seen.' This, when I know her prayer was that she might be spared to be a help and comfort to me in my great work, led me to feel what I have always believed to be the true way, to let the head grow wise, but keep the heart always young and playful. She was ready and anxious to work, but has been called away to serve God in a higher sphere."
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. For a full month after her daughters death, Mrs. Moffat was giving thanks for the mercy that had spared her to meet with her husband, and had made her lot so different from that of Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup. In a letter, dated 26th May, she writes to Mary a graphic account of the electrical thrill that passed through her when she saw David's handwriting--of the beating heart with which she tried to get the essence of his letter before she read the lines--of the overwhelming joy and gratitude with which she learned that they had met--and then the horror of great darkness that came over her when she read of the tragic death of the Bishop, to whom she had learned to feel as to a friend and brother. Then she pours out her tears over the "poor dear ladies, Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup," and remembers the similar fate of the Helmores, who, like the Bishop and his friends, had had it in their hearts to build a temple to the Lord in Africa, but had not been permitted. Then comes some family news, especially about her son Robert, whose sudden death occurred a few days after, and was another bitter drop in the family cup. And then some motherly forecastings of her daughter's future, kindly counsel where she could offer any, and affectionate prayers for the guidance of God where the future was too dark for her to penetrate.
For a whole month before this letter was written, poor Mary had been sleeping under the baobab-tree at Shupanga!
In Livingstone's letter to Mrs. Moffat he gives the details of her illness, and pours his heart out in the same affectionate terms as in his Journal. He dwells on the many unhappy causes of delay which had detained them near the mouth of the river, contrary to all his wishes and arrangements. He is concerned that her deafness (through quinine) and comatose condition before her death prevented her from giving him the indications he would have desired respecting her state of mind in the view of eternity.
"I look," he says, "to her previous experience and life for comfort, and thank God for his mercy that we have it.... A good wife and mother was she. God have pity on the children--she was so much beloved by them.... She was much respected by all the officers of the 'Gorgon,'--they would do anything for her. When they met this vessel at Mozambique, Captain Wilson offered his cabin in that fine large vessel, but she insisted rather that Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup should go.... I enjoyed her society during the three months we were together. It was the Lord who gave and He has taken away. I wish to say--Blessed be his name. I regret, as there always are regrets after our loved ones are gone, that the slander which, unfortunately, reached her ears from missionary gossips and others had an influence on me in allowing her to come, before we were fairly on Lake Nyassa. A doctor of divinity said, when her devotion to her family was praised: 'Oh, she is no good, she is here because her husband cannot live with her,' The last day will tell another tale."
To his daughter Agnes he writes, after the account of her death: "... Dear Nannie, she often thought of you, and when once, from the violence of the disease, she was delirious, she called out, 'See! Agnes is falling down a precipice,' May our Heavenly Saviour, who must be your Father and Guide, preserve you from falling into the gulf of sin over the precipice of temptation.... Dear Agnes, I feel alone in the world now, and what will the poor dear baby do without her mamma? She often spoke of her, and sometimes burst into a flood of tears, just as I now do in taking up and arranging the things left by my beloved partner of eighteen years.... I bow to the Divine hand that chastens me. God grant that I may learn the lesson He means to teach! All she told you to do she now enforces, as if beckoning from heaven. Nannie, dear, meet her there. Don't lose the crown of joy she now wears, and the Lord be gracious to you in all things. You will now need to act more and more from a feeling of responsibility to Jesus, seeing He has taken away one of your guardians. A right straightforward woman was she. No crooked way ever hers, and she could act with decision and energy when required. I pity you on receiving this, but it is the Lord.--Your sorrowing and lonely father."
Letters of the like tenor were written to every intimate friend. It was a relief to his heart to pour itself out in praise of her who was gone, and in some cases, when he had told all about the death, he returns to speak of her life. A letter to Sir Roderick Murchison gives all the particulars of the illness and its termination. Then he thinks of the good and gentle Lady Murchison,--"la spirituelle Lady Murchison," as Humboldt called her,--and writes to her: "It will somewhat ease my aching heart to tell you about my dear departed Mary Moffat, the faithful companion of eighteen years." He tells of her birth at Griqua Town in 1821, her education in England, their marriage and their love. "At Kolobeng, she managed all the household affairs by native servants of her own training, made bread, butter, and all the clothes of the family; taught her children most carefully; kept also an infant and sewing school--by far the most popular and best attended we had. It was a fine sight to see her day by day walking a quarter of a mile to the town, no matter how broiling hot the sun, to impart instruction to the heathen Bakwains. Ma-Robert's name is known through all that country, and 1800 miles beyond.... A brave, good woman was she. All my hopes of giving her one day a quiet home, for which we both had many a sore longing, are now dashed to the ground. She is, I trust, through divine mercy, in peace in the home of the blest.... She spoke feelingly of your kindness to her, and also of the kind reception she received from Miss Burdett Coutts. Please give that lady and Mrs. Brown the sad intelligence of her death."
The reply of Mrs. Moffat to her son-in-law's letter was touching and beautiful. "I do thank you for the detail you have given us of the circumstances of the last days and hours of our lamented and beloved Mary, our first-born, over whom our fond hearts first beat with parental affection!" She recounts the mercies that were mingled with the trial--though Mary could not be called _eminently_ pious, she had the root of the matter in her, and though the voyage of her life had been a trying and stormy one, she had not become a wreck. God had remembered her; had given her during her last year the counsels of faithful men--referring to her kind friend and valued counselor, the Rev. Professor Kirk, of Edinburgh, and the Rev. Dr. 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. But we can afford to smile at this, and say, 'The Day will declare it.'...
"Now my dear Livingstone, I must conclude by assuring you of the tender interest we shall ever feel in your operations. It is not only as the husband of our departed Mary and the father of her children, but as one who has laid himself out for the emancipation of this poor wretched continent, and for opening new doors of entrance for the heralds of salvation (not that I would not have preferred your remaining in your former capacity). I nevertheless rejoice in what you are allowed to accomplish. We look anxiously for more news of you, and my heart bounded when I saw your letters the other day, thinking they were new. May our gracious God and Father comfort your sorrowful heart.--Believe me ever your affectionate mother, "MARY MOFFAT."