tribes of the Shire and Lake Nyassa. The steamer was found to be unsuitable for river traffic, as she drew five feet of water; the captain and crew were stricken with fever, so that the management of the vessel devolved upon Livingstone, who, as he said, was Jackof-all-trades; and after proceeding for about thirty miles the water of the river suddenly fell, and as there was danger of stranding he put back to sea, determining first to establish the mission party.

The story of that mission and the disasters which befell it will be told in another chapter. It will be enough to say here that the mission was established at Magomero, and Livingstone set out for a full exploration of the Lake Nyassa, which, it will be remembered, he had discovered in September, 1859, but had not explored. Many were the perils that he, his brother, Dr. Kirk, and one seaman encountered in this undertaking. Once they were nearly drowned in a furious gale which suddenly arose and lashed the waters of the lake into Atlantic waves; at another time they were robbed of the greater part of their clothes and merchandise; and as they passed through the country of the Mazitu, a ferocious tribe descended from the Zulus, they were in daily peril of their lives.

However, they all got back safely to the coast, and on the 30th January, 1862, Livingstone had the joy of seeing H.M.S. Gorgon towing in a brig, with his wife and the ladies who were to join the Universities' Mission on board, as well as the sections of a new iron steamer intended for the navigation of the Lake Nyassa. Joyful was the meeting of the missionary and the partner of his life, from whom, for the Gospel's sake, he had been so long separated. But, alas! the joy was soon to be turned into the most poignant grief. She had scarcely been three months in the country when she was violently attacked by fever. Dr. Kirk was unremitting in his attention, and everything that human skill could do was done to mitigate the virulence of the disease. But the case was hopeless; and one Sunday night in April, as the sun was setting, she closed her eyes in the long sleep of death. It is difficult to conceive a sorrow more keen than that which fell to the lot of that Hero of the Cross. He had so yearned for his helpmate in that lonely land; he had so needed her strong Christian faith to help and inspire his; he had so earnestly wished for "Ma-Robert" to labour with her winning words among his beloved Makololo. But He in whose wisdom the missionary trusted had ordered otherwise, and on the day after her death she was laid to rest under the shadow of a spreading baobab-tree at Shupanga, where a white cross on her grave stands out amid the green slope that margins the Zambesi river. And this is the epitaph, written by her brave and noble husband :

"Those who are not aware how this brave, good English wife made a delightful home at Kolobeng, a thousand miles inland from the Cape, and as the daughter of Moffat, and a Christian lady, exercised a most beneficial influence over the rude tribes of the interior, may wonder that she should have braved the dangers and toils of this down-trodden land. She knew them all, and in the disinterested and dutiful attempt to renew her labours was called to her rest instead. Fiat, Domine, voluntas tua!"

Broken-hearted as Livingstone was with the light of his home-life gone, he did not succumb to sorrow. The uncertainty of life inspired him with fresh energy to labour. The

Lady Nyassa was put together, important explorations were projected and undertaken, but by the Doctor alone, for his associates, Dr. Kirk and Charles Livingstone, had suffered so severely from dysentery that they had been ordered home. But while he was in the midst of his labours a despatch was received from the Home Government, Lord John Russell being then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, ordering the recall of the expedition. The Lady Nyassa was a capital sea-boat, and in her Livingstone steamed to Bombay, from whence he proceeded to England, having been absent for six years and some months.

Livingstone did not remain long in England, and when, in 1865, he started upon his third and last great journey it was with the intention of solving the Nile problem, upon which much light had been thrown by Speke and Grant and Baker. His object was to proceed as nearly parallel as possible to the course of the Rovuma, to reach the northern end of Lake Nyassa, and ascertain whether this and Lake Tanganyika (known to exist in a north-westerly direction) joined waters. From thence he would endeavour to extend his explorations northwards on the chain of lakes working upward towards the Nile

sources.

The party consisted this time of Livingstone, who was now a British consul and invested with some governmental authority, eleven Christianised Africans from a Church Mission in that country, eleven Sepoys of the Bengal Native Infantry, and some Johanna men, the chief of whom, Ali Moosa, had accompanied Livingstone during two years of his last exploration of the Zambesi and Lake Nyassa.

For six months no letters were received from the party, and in the spring of 1867 a circumstantial account of the death of the intrepid explorer was received in England. It was stated that a party of the warlike Mafiti had rushed upon the exploring party, that Livingstone was murdered by a stroke from an axe at the back of the neck, and that Moosa, the Johanna man, had buried him in the sand. The report was generally believed in England, but Sir Roderick Murchison refused to credit it; and Mr. E. D. Young, one of Livingstone's old friends and companions, fully satisfied that the reports were untrue, went out on a search expedition, and in due course the proof came, for in 1869 letters were received from the Doctor himself.

After this many months again passed away without any news, and great anxiety as to the welfare of the gallant missionary was felt. At length two years elapsed, during which time not a scrap of writing from Livingstone had reached Dr. Kirk at Zanzibar or friends in England. An expedition to search for the missing traveller was then organised by the Royal Geographical Society, to which the public subscribed fully and freely, and in 1872 it started, under the command of Lieutenant Dawson, who was accompanied by Mr. W. O. Livingstone, a son of the great explorer.

While it was being organised, an expedition, sent out at the cost of the late Mr. James Gordon Bennett, the spirited proprietor of the New York Herald, was already in Africa, under the command of Mr. Henry Stanley, and when Lieutenant Dawson arrived in Africa he learned that the work he had come to do was accomplished-Stanley had found Livingstone.

When Livingstone left Zanzibar in March, 1866, he journeyed through the almost

"One of the most imposing pageants Livingstone saw in this expedition was the state procession of the wife

of Cazembe, who came to do him honour, borne upon the shoulders of the choicest of the young warriors, preceded by a band of musicians, and followed by damsels brandishing spears" (p. 90).

impenetrable jungles on the left bank of the Rovuma. From the first he had infinite trouble with his attendants; the Sepoys grew insubordinate, would not work, and did their best to sow disaffection among the negroes; at last they were so unbearable that they were discharged and sent back to the coast. In the neighbourhood of the "heel" of Nyassa-the lake is like Italy in shape-Moosa, the chief of the Johanna men, pretended to have heard from an Arab that the fierce Mazitu were in arms against them, and begged to withdraw from the expedition. Livingstone, to whom fear was an unknown thing, offered to avoid the Mazitu, and for this purpose changed his course; but they had not proceeded far when Moosa and the whole of the Johanna men fled, and to account for their desertion spread the report, which created such excitement throughout the world, of the death of the explorer. "They have been such inveterate thieves," wrote Livingstone in his "Journal," "that I am not sorry to get rid of them; for though my party is now inconveniently small, I could not trust them with flints in their guns, nor allow them to remain behind, for their object was invariably to plunder their loads.”

Still Livingstone persevered, although left with only three or four attendants, and robbed of much of his property and nearly all his clothes, and passed through the country of Lunda, till he came to a river called the Chambesi. From the beginning of 1867 to the end of 1869 he devoted himself to its exploration, and satisfied himself that instead of being a part of the Zambesi, as he had imagined from the similarity in name, it was the head of the Nile! When exploring here he discovered the Lake Liemba, and traced its connection with Lake Tanganyika.

It was here, too, that he formed the acquaintance of the chief Cazembe, an intelligent man, who received him with great ceremony, and afterwards became a firm friend. One of the most imposing pageants Livingstone saw in this expedition was the state procession of the wife of Cazembe, who came to do him honour, borne upon the shoulders of the choicest of the young warriors, preceded by a band of musicians, and followed by damsels brandishing spears.

From thence he made his way to Ujiji, but not long to rest; he felt that the great secret was within his grasp, and there was no time for anything but the accomplishment of the mighty task he had set himself. Plunging into the previously unexplored land, Manynema, he was, as he hoped, on his final journey. But an illness seized him; ulcers formed on his legs, and for six weary months he was detained where he was.

As soon, however, as he was well enough to crawl about he pushed on northwards, until he came to the Lualaba, which he afterwards discovered to be a branch of the Chambesi. Following the course of this river for some hundreds of miles, every mile and every step of each mile being in the face of terrible difficulties, and in more or less of bodily suffering, he reached a point where he was only 180 miles distant from the Nile as already explored. He was almost at the goal for which he had laboured and suffered, almost at the completion of the gigantic task he had set himself to perform, almost, therefore, at the completion of his geographical labours in Africa, when suddenly his hopes were dashed to the ground. The men mutinied and deserted; the forest was so dense and high, pursuit was impossible; and the rascals fled, taking with them all the dishes, powder, flour, tools, guns, and cartridge-pouch. "But the medicine-chest was the sorest loss of