The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-03 00:00:00

DR. LIVINGSTONE.

The general weight of opinion is against the truth of.
the rumour that Dr. Livingstone has been murdered
Many reasons make it an improbable story. These are all
summed up in a letter to the Times by Sir Roderick Mur-
chison—the highest authority certainly upon the subject
The veteran savant writes :—" Having been successful
hitherto in disproving the various accounts of the death of
of my friend Dr. Livingstone, I beg to send you
a few lines expressing the grounds of my disbelief of the
last of these stories, as given in the Times of this day.
In his letter to Mr. Doherty from the West Coast
of Africa, of the 9th of January, 1870, Captain Cochrane
states that a Portuguese trader had brought (to what
place is not said) the.information that when Livingstone
was on the lakes at the head of the Congo, 90 days' journey
from (the mouth of ?) that river, he was killed and burnt
by the natives. Now, let us compare this statement with
the facts and dates in our possession regarding the move-
ments of our great traveller. Livingstone wrote from
Ujiji on the 20th of May, 1869, to Zanzibar, expecting to
be supplied with a number of boatmen and goods to
enable him to proceed to the north of Lake Tanganyika,
and, as he expressed it, " to connect the soures I have dis-
oovere'd with the Nile of Speke and Baker." Dr. Kirk, in
his dispatch to Lord Clarendon of the 2nd of October,
1869, states that he would lose no time in procuring and
sending the supplies demanded. Granted that these
requirements were forwarded in a week or two
from that date, they could not have reached Livingstone
before the middle of December, as it takes two months to
communicate between Zanzibar and Ujiji. How, then, can
Livingstone have had time to organise his expedition to
proceed to the northern end of Tanganyika, and then
round it to the as yet unknown lakes at the head off the
Congo, by the date required to verify this new rumour of
his death ? For the death, as will be perceived, must have
happened 90 days before the news reached the Portuguese
settlements on the West Coast. Even with the incredible
supposition that Livingstone started alone and destitute as
he then was at Ujiji, without waiting for the men and
supplies he had written for, there would not have been
time for him to have penetrated the totally unexplored
and extensive region lying between Ujiji and the head
waters of the Congo. Not but that I think it quite pos-
sible, as I have already expressed it to the Geographical
Society, that if foiled in connecting Tanganyika with the
Nile, he might eventually return by way of the Congo
and the West Coast of Africa. I may be permitted to
refer to the report of a meeting of the society contained
in the Times of the 14th of December 1869, where it will
be seen that I stated that in this case we should have
before us a long and anxious period of suspense regarding
our traveller. I will conclude by hoping that your readers
will agree with me that this last rumour may vanish,
like all the previous accounts of the great traveller's
death."

This confidence of Sir Roderick will be all the more
buoyed up by a letter from " Grant, Brodie, and Co."
They give details of the " Portuguese trader's " story,
and shew that it is improbable. Captain Cochrane must
have had the same information as the friends of " Grant,
Brodie, and C 0.," at Loanda. They have the very letter
on which the rumour is founded. The epistle is in
Portuguese, and runs as follows ;—" After a tedious jour-
ney I crossed the Congo near the town of the
Chic f Katende, on a bridge of trees, and three days after-
wards I took the direction S.S.E., calculating by
the sun, until I reached the town of the Chief Manguan-
gua, in 12 days' march from the Congo, and 95 days' from
Malange (in Angola). Two months after my arrival--
the 15th of June, 1863—1 received intelligence of the
arrival at the town of the Chief Chinde on the other
side of the Zambesi of a great embassy from Muata-

Cazembe, who were going with tribute to Muata-Janso.
Curiosity impelled me to send for the ambassador,
who came with all his following about 500
persons. Entering into conversation with him as to the
routes to Mozambique, the idea occurred to me to inquire
about Dr. Livingstone. He replied that it was not right to
speak about such a "fetish man.' I feigned alarm at his
answer, and allowed some days topass without touching ou
the subject again. As we daily became more friendly, I
decided one night on inviting him to my tent, and there
I had ready for him two jars of cacollo—a drink made from
honey—and then after causing the servant to retire, he told
me with every appearance of secresy the fallowing story.
The Calunga,' or Dr. Livingstone, was a great fetish man
—he spoke every day with the sun—he never slept in a
house—he did not fear the wild beasts—he always tra-
velled with an animal in a box which never ate anything,
and he was always talking with it, and asking the way from
it, as he never asked it from any person. Occasionally he
opened papers and talked aloud to them ; he passed
rivers without a canoe, and did many other wonderful
things. On his return from Loanda he had already
the reputation of being a -wizard, and no one cared to
meet him. Some days after he passed on that journey
there died a son of a chief residing at twenty days' march

from the place whey: they were then conversing. Believ-
ing that Livingstone had bewitched his son the chief pur-

sued him, but failed to overtake him. After some time had
elapsed, learning that Livingstone was approaching his ter-
ritory, he sent out to meet him, and gave him muange, or
drink for testing fetish workers, and as soon as its deadly
effects manifested themselves they quartered and burnt his
body. Such is the information which Fumo Aimee., ambas-
sador of the Chief of Cazembe, communicated to me when
I met him on the banks of the Zambeza from the 15th to
the 25th of June, 1868."—" We think {says the writers),
there can be no question that the foregoing story is the
same as Captain Cochrane has picked up, and seeing that
Dr. Livingstone was at Cazembe's town in July, 1863, and
at Ujiji in May, 1869, cr, if the Arab reports are correct, as
late as July, 1869, there need be no alarm felt about the
present rumours."

THE EARL OF CLARENDON.—The Earl of Claren-
don, almost by inherent right, holds the portfolio of the
Foreign Office, and most naturally so, in the eternal fitness
of things. He commenced his diplomatic career half a
century ago, and still his eye is not dim nor his natural
force abated. He was only twenty when he went out as
attach 6 to St. Petersburg, and he is now, for the fourth
time, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The singu-
larity is that it is not for the fifth time; but Lord Pal-
merston passed him over in his last Ministry, and he had
an interregnum of four years before ho reposed on the soft
inglorious cushion of the Duchy of Lancaster. Lord Gran-
ville, indeed, made an admirable Foreign Secretary. Save
for one recalcitrant peer, he might, in 1859, have been
Premier and formed a Ministry. It is well understood
that there is considerably loss competition for the seals of
the Foreign Office than for any other great office; but in
their party Lords Clarendon and Granville would be far
away the best men, Earl Russell making a bad third, or,
rather, being incompetent. Lord Granville had an advan-
tage which Earl Russell certainly never possessed, of being
able to speak French with a perfection which has visibly
astonished and delighted Frenchmen. Never was foreign
statesmanship turned to a better account than when Lord
Granville gave such vigorous and important aid to the first
Great Exhibition of 1851. But in the accumulated experience
of the Foreign Office, at least since Palmerston has left us,
Lord Clarendon is hardly rivalled. And yet he had to
stand the fearful ordeal of the Crimean war. It was under
his guidance that we "drifted" into war, and it was Lord
Clarendon himself who employed and gave currency to
the phrase. But it was well understood that he had
wisely, manfully, and patriotically done his duty; and the
late Lord Derby, in endeavouring to form a ministry,
desired nothing better than that he should be able to
retain the services of Lord Clarendon as Foreign Secretary.
Lord Clarendon had the happiness of concluding the
Crimean war in 1856, although in the following Conference
at Paris he showed almost to as much disadvantage as
Lord Russell at the Conference at Vienna. Among the
great services which Lord Clarendon has done for the
country, it will be remembered that he was Lord Lieute-
nant of Ireland in those doleful years after the failure of
the potato crop had forced Free Trade on Sir Robert, and
the gaunt shapes of famine and fever forced emigration on
the Irish Colts. It was an ungracious, anxious, bitter
time; and after he had done the work, the reputation of
it was eclipsed by the brilliant reign of the chivalrous,
magnificent, and gay-hearted Eglinton, who won Irish
hearts as they were never won again, except, perhaps, by
the Duke of Abercorn.—Landon Society.

The men on strike at the Tinsley Park colliery,
South Yorkshire, have agreed to submit their case to arbi-
tration. The proprietor of the collieries (Mr. Huntsman)
is to be waited on to obtain his acquiescence.

The new Bishop of Manchester (Dr. Fraser) will
in all probability be consecrated in York Minster on Thurs-
day, the 24th inst., being the Feast of St. Matthew. He
will be enthroned iu Manchester Cathedral immediately
afterwards.

The BiE:hoprie of the Ozaoge River Free State will
be forthwith (leclured vacant, in consequence of the refusal
of Dr. T wells to appear Lefore the coot of Bishop Gray, the
Metropolitan of South Africa, to answer grave charges
which have been alleged against him. It is expected that
Archdeacon Merliman will be the new bishop.
The DlNuke Adverister says that the Rev. James
Daily, of t: at city, -who is •spoken of as "an able and
e'equent CougrtgaticnaliA minister," has resigned his
charge in consequence of feeling himself unable to teach,
without conscious hypocrisy, the doctrines believed by big
flock.

The greater part of the workmen on strike at the
cotton spinning and weaving mills of Messrs. Thomas
Taylor and Brother, at Wigan, have roturncd to their work
the masters having omised that they will return the 10
per cent. taken away a short time age, as soon as an Ina'
proved atat©_of 4040 warrants it. "