The Times Great Victorian Lives. Ian Brunskill

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СКАЧАТЬ he felt, to ascertain for certain that they were the head waters of the Congo; and, in the latter case, he would probably have followed the course of the Congo, and have turned up, sooner or later, on the Western Coast of Africa. But this idea he appears to have abandoned after having penetrated as far west as Bainbarro and Lake Kamolondo, and stopping short at Bagenya about four degrees west from his starting point. At all events, from this point he returned, and which, in the winter of 1870-71, he was found by Mr. Stanley, he was once more in the neighbourhood of his old haunts, still bent on the discovery of certain ‘fountains on the hills,’ which he trusted to be able to prove to be the veritable springs of the Nile, and to gain the glory of being alone their discoverer – to use his own emphatic words, ‘So that no one may come after and cut me out with a fresh batch of sources.’

      During the last two years or so, if we except the sudden light thrown upon his career by the episode of Mr. Stanley’s successful search after him, we have been kept rather in the dark as to the actual movements of Dr. Livingstone. Mr. Stanley’s narrative of his discovery of the Doctor in the neighbourhood of Ujiji is in the hands of every well-informed Englishman, and his journey in company with him round the northern shores of Lake Tanganyika (with some hint of a possible modification of his opinion as to the connexion between that sea and the Nile) was recorded in the address delivered by Sir Henry Rawlinson, the President of the Geographical Society, last summer. On that occasion the President remarked:-

      ‘Our knowledge of Livingstone’s present whereabouts is not very definite. He appears to have been so thoroughly impressed with a belief or the identity of his triple Lunlaba with the Nile that, in spite of earnest longings to revisit his native land, he could not persuade himself to leave Africa until he had fairly traced to their sources in the southern mountains the western branches of the great river that he had explored in Manyema. Awaiting accordingly, at Unyanyembe the arrival of stores and supplies which were partly furnished by Mr. Stanley, and partly by our own First Relief Expedition, no sooner had they arrived than he started in September last (1872) for the further end of Tanganyika, intending from that point to visit a certain mound in about 11 deg. South latitude, from which the Lufira and Lulua were said to flow to the north, and the Leeambye and Kafué to the south. Hence he proposed to return northwards to the copper mines of Katanga, in the Koné mountains, of which he had heard such an extraordinary account. Later still he was bent on visiting Lake Lincoln, and following the river which flowed out of it, and which, under the name of the Loeki or Lomanae, joined the Lualaba a little further down, to the great unexplored lake at the Equator. His expectation seems to have been that this lake communicated with the Bahr-el-Gazal, and that he might thus either return home by the route of the Nile or retrace his steps to Ujiji but if, as we hope will be the case, either the one or the other of the expeditions which are now penetrating into the interior from the East and West Coast respectively should succeed in opening communication with him before he is called on to decide on the line of his return journey from the Equatorial lake, it is far from probable that, with the new light thus afforded him, he will continue his journey along the Congo, and emerge from the interior on the Western Coast.’

      We fear that these forecastings have been falsified by the event, and that we must now add the name of David Livingstone to the roll of those who have fallen in the cause of civilization and progress.

      It is impossible not to mourn the loss of a missionary so liberal in his views, so large-hearted, so enlightened. By his labours it has come to pass that throughout the protected tribes of Southern Africa Queen Victoria is generally acknowledged as ‘the Queen of the people who love the black man.’ Livingstone had his faults and his failings; but the self-will and obstinacy he possibly at times displayed were very near akin to the qualities which secured his triumphant success, and much allowance must be made for a man for whom his early education had done so little, and who was forced, by circumstances around him, to act with a decision which must have sometimes offended his fellow-workers. Above all, his success depended, from first to last, in an eminent degree upon the great power which he possessed of entering into the feelings, wishes, and desires of the African tribes and engaging their hearty sympathy.

      As the best memorial of such a man as Livingstone, we would here place on permanent record his own eloquent words, in which he draws out his idea of the missionary’s work in the spirit, not merely of a Christian, but of a philosopher and statesman:-

      ‘The sending of the Gospel to the heathen must include much more than is implied in the usual picture of a missionary, which is that of a man going about with a bible under his arm. The promotion of commerce ought to be specially attended to, as this more speedily than anything else demolishes that sense of isolation which is engendered by heathenism, and makes the tribes feel themselves to be mutually dependent on each other. Those laws which still prevent free commercial intercourse among civilized nations appear to me to be nothing but the remains of our own heathenism. But by commerce we may not only put a stop to the slave trade, but introduce the negro family into the body corporate of nations, no one member of which can suffer without the others suffering with it. This in both Eastern and Western Africa would lead to much larger diffusion of the blessings of civilization than efforts exclusively spiritual and educational confined to any one tribe. These should, of course, be carried out at the same time where possible – at all events, at large central and healthy stations; but neither civilization nor Christianity can be promoted alone; in fact, they are inseparable.’

      In conclusion, our readers will forgive us for quoting the following testimony to Livingstone’s character from the pen of Mr. E. D. Young, whom we have mentioned above: ‘His extensive travels place him at the head of modern explorers, for no one has dared as yet to penetrate where he has been; no one, through a lengthy series of years, has devoted so much of his life to the work of searching out tribes hitherto unknown and I believe that his equal will rarely, if ever, be found in one particular and essential characteristic of the genuine explorer. He has the most singular faculty of ingratiating himself with natives whithersoever he travels. A frank openhearted generosity combined with a constant jocular way in treating with them carries him through all. True, it is nothing but the most iron bravery which enables a man thus to move among difficulties and dangers with a smile on his face instead of a haggard, careworn, and even a suspicious look. Certain it is, also, that wherever he has passed, the natives are only too anxious to see other Englishmen, and in this way we must crown him “the King of African Pioneers.” ’

      This obituary never doubts the nature and enterprise of Livingstone’s missionary work in Africa. Although it portrays the man as one who early on in his life raised himself above his humble origins by education and a sure sense of vocation, it also seems to rejoice in suggesting that there may be a significance in his distinctive Highland ancestry. This is ‘self help’ with an added degree of genetic determining. Livingstone, a meticulous observer and recorder of the topography of the continent on which he laboured, is honoured as a pioneer explorer of territory unknown to Europeans and as one who earned the respect of the Africans amongst whom he worked. After his death on 1 May 1873 from dysentery in what is now Zambia, his body, accompanied as far as Zanzibar by his two most faithful servants, was brought back to Britain for burial in Westminster Abbey. His posthumous reputation was fostered by Henry Morton Stanley.

       JOHN STUART MILL

       Philosopher and political theorist: ‘the most candid of controversialists.’

      8 MAY 1873

      LIKE MANY OF his most distinguished contemporaries – like Charles Buller, Macaulay, Buckle, Dickens, Thackeray, George Cornewall Lewis, Sydney Herbert, Lytton – John Stuart Mill has died when many years of thought and action might still have been confidently anticipated for him by his friends. He was born in 1806, and may be cited as one of the strongest confirmations of their theory by those who maintain the hereditary nature of genius or capacity; for he was the son of a man eminently endowed with СКАЧАТЬ