Chapter IV: From Coast to Coast

Livingstone took his family to Capetown, and saw them safely on board a ship bound for England. War was going on at the time with the Kaffirs, and he soon found that the white folk at the Cape looked on him with mistrust and dislike. They accused him and other missionaries of stirring up and helping the natives to rebel, and they even tried to prevent him from buying gunpowder for use on his journeys.

There were many, however, who believed in him, and amongst these was Maclear, the Astronomer-Royal. From him Livingstone had more lessons on "taking his bearings," and also learnt the use of an instrument for telling exactly how many feet any place stood above the level of the sea.

On his return northwards Livingstone was delayed by feeble oxen and a broken wheel, and thus he reached Kuruman only in time to learn that his home, the last he ever had, was in hopeless ruin.

Six hundred Boers under Pretorius came to Kolobeng, carried off everything of value in his house, and wrecked the rest. Even the leaves of his precious diaries and notebooks were torn and scattered to the winds. Moving onward to the native village, the Boers went morning and afternoon to the mission service and heard Mebalwé preach. After service they told Sechélé, the chief, that they had come to fight because he let Englishmen pass through his country. Surrounding the village, they fired the huts, and with long-range swivel-guns shot down sixty of the men, women, and children, who were huddled together on a hillock in the blinding smoke.

When the flames were spent the Boers closed in to finish their brutal work; but Sechélé held them at bay till nightfall, and sent them back to count their dead. Thirty-five Boers paid the price of this needless cruelty, while Sechélé and his remnant escaped under cover of the night.

To avoid the Boers, Livingstone passed well to the west of Kolobeng, and reached Linyanté after much hardship. The rainy season had flooded the land between the rivers, and his hands and knees were cut and torn from wading through reeds and pushing his way through the thorny bush. Sekelétu, the son of Sebituani, was now chief of the Makololo, and he soon grew fond enough of Livingstone to say "he had found a new father." With an escort and supplies from his "new son," the missionary made a tour through the Barotsi country, but could find no place fit for a settlement. The whole district was too unhealthy for white men, and the natives were unpromising.

Plunder and tyranny seemed the custom of the country. Here, for the first time in his life, Livingstone saw a string of slaves trudging along in hopeless misery beneath their chains. Once a mother was leading her little boy by the hand along the track, when suddenly a man pounced upon the child, and dragged him away shrieking to lifelong slavery.

Accordingly, in November 1853, Livingstone left Linyanté to carry out his plan of finding a way to the west coast. He set out with an escort of twenty-seven Makololo, and went by canoe up the Zambesi and Leeba, till some falls in the latter stopped him. From this point he went forward on ox-back, and, steering by compass as best he could, reached Loanda, in Portuguese country, in May 1854.

The troubles and difficulties of the journey were great. His medicine-chest was plundered, and his portable boat was lost. He was twice thrown from his ox, once on his head upon the hard ground, and once in the middle of a ford. He had thirty-one attacks of fever, and had to be his own doctor and nurse. His Makololo were cowards, and often wanted to go back, but Livingstone's patient courage turned them into men. Many of the tribes were very troublesome when he asked leave to pass their borders. One chief refused to let him go by unless he gave up a riding-ox, a gun, or a male slave; but Livingstone's wonderful force of character overcame his demand. At Chiboqué the natives refused to sell him food, and threatened to kill him if he did not give them an ox. They crowded round him, yelling and waving their spears and clubs over his head. Livingstone stood his ground with unflinching eye, and his fearless spirit utterly quelled them.

Another chief demanded his riding-ox or his life, and got the reply that he might kill him if he liked, but God would judge. The savage felt that he was in the presence of a greater chief than himself, and quailed before him. So great, indeed, was the power of Livingstone's presence that he once released a string of slaves by merely ordering their captors to let them go. A magic-lantern, with pictures from the Bible, helped him much in the management of the natives. They flocked to see it, though many were in terror lest the figures moving off the screen should enter into them as evil spirits. Livingstone humorously said that this was the only service they ever asked him to repeat.

When almost at his journey's end a party of natives stopped him at a ford on the Quango, in Portuguese country. Livingstone had little left to give away, so he handed over his razors and then his shirts, while the Makololo parted with their copper ornaments. This, however, was not enough; and Livingstone was just giving up his blanket and coat when a Portuguese sergeant came up and drove the natives away.

On his reaching Loanda, the Portuguese treated him with the utmost kindness, and gave him all he could possibly want, but he afterwards found to his cost that some of this kindness was humbug. Here he had the chance of returning to England; but, knowing that the Makololo could never reach home alone, he sent off his letters and scientific notes in the _Forerunner_, and then started for Linyanté. The Portuguese gave him supplies for his party, and presents for the chiefs on his track. His Makololo bearers were given suits of red and blue cloth, while the Bishop of Loanda sent a colonel's uniform for Sekelétu.

He had not gone very far when he was overtaken by the news that all his letters and scientific notes had been lost in the wreck of the _Forerunner_. There was nothing to be done but write them all over again; and this delay, together with an attack of rheumatic fever, kept him from reaching Linyanté till September 1855. On their arrival, Sekelétu and his whole tribe turned out to meet them, and the party entered the town in triumphal procession, with the red and blue uniforms of the Makololo bearers in the van. Livingstone then held a service of thanksgiving, but the attention of his congregation was hopelessly upset by the glory of Sekelétu in the dress of a Portuguese colonel.

Livingstone did not remain long at Linyanté. The route to Loanda was too difficult and unhealthy for general trade, so he decided to follow the Zambesi down to the east coast, in the hope of finding a better. Sekelétu gave him a new escort of one hundred and twenty Makololo, and also supplied him with three riding-oxen, and ten more to be used for food.

In November 1855 he found the waterfall that Oswell and he had marked on their charts from hearsay, but had never seen. Here the great Zambesi, more than a mile wide, plunged "like a downward smoke" 300 sheer feet into a chasm, and then went seething and swirling away through a narrow zigzag rift. Twice as large as the Canadian Niagara, its spray darkened the sun above it, and its thunder boomed for miles. And, as in reverent silence he watched this mighty force flow on, Livingstone felt--

"These are Thy wondrous works, Parent of good,"

and he longed more than ever to see this lovely land in freedom and at peace.

Before leaving the "Mosi-oa-tunya," or the "Sounding Smoke," Livingstone changed its name to the Victoria Falls; but he little thought that in less than fifty years a railway bridge would span the gorge down which its waters swept.

Keeping mainly to the north bank of the Zambesi, he made his way to Teté, with much the same experience as usual. While his men and stores were crossing the Loangwé he kept some unfriendly natives quiet by amusing them with his watch and burning-glass till all were safe. Once he was mistaken for a half-caste Portuguese slaver, and only saved his life by showing the colour of his breast and arms. His riding-ox took a determined dislike to his umbrella, and would not permit him to use it; so he suffered much from the rain, and even had to carry his watch in his arm-pit to keep it dry. At Teté he left his Makololo bearers, and, promising to return to them some day, made his way on to Quilimane.

In one respect his great journey was a failure: he had not found a really good route to the sea. Nevertheless he had found out two facts unknown to the world before. First, Central Africa was not a desert, but could produce metals, coffee, cotton, oil, sugar, corn, and many other things needed for the world's use. Second, the natives were capable of being taught by gentleness and justice to make good use of their lives.

These facts he wrote to the King of Portugal, telling him also that canals and roads could be easily made by the natives under good white leaders: then he set out for England to publish his knowledge in a book which he called "Missionary Travels."

He reached London in December 1856, and was at once lionised all over the kingdom. People were so full of encouragement that he felt it his duty to go on with the career he had begun. Even Queen Victoria, the Prince Consort, and Lord Palmerston sent for him to praise his work, while the Royal Geographical Society and other public bodies held meetings in his honour.

But every great-minded man has to suffer from little-minded critics; and Livingstone was accused by a few of not being enough of a missionary. Moreover, at Quilimane he had received a letter from the London Missionary Society, saying that they could not "aid plans only remotely connected with the spread of the Gospel." Livingstone took this to mean that they thought he had not preached enough for his pay. His own way was quite clear to him. He believed that his first duty to God was to help in their need the men, women, and children whom God had caused to live. So, for the sake of the black millions of Africa, Livingstone gently and courteously withdrew himself from the Society, and started for Quilimane as Her Majesty's Consul, and as the leader of a British expedition to explore the valley of the Zambesi.