From Pole to Pole

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Before the dawn of day the workmen came out with trumpets and drums,
and, with shouts of rejoicing, carried the lion-killer round the dead
animal. The other lion continued his visits, and when he too bit the
dust a short time after, the men could quietly resume their work on the
railway, and the Colonel, who had freed the neighbourhood from a scourge
that had troubled it for nine months, became a general hero. The foreman
composed a grand song in his honour, and presented a valuable
testimonial from all the men.

One day he dined with the postmaster Ryall in a railway carriage, little
suspecting the fate that was to befall the latter in the same carriage a
few months later. A man-eating lion had chosen a small station for his
hunting-ground, and had carried off one man after another without
distinction of rank and worth. Ryall travelled with two other Europeans
up to the place to try and rid it of the lion. On their arrival they
were told that the animal could not be far away, for it had been quite
recently in the neighbourhood of the station. The three Europeans
resolved to watch all night. Ryall's carriage was taken off the train
and drawn on to a siding. Here the ground had not been levelled, so the
carriage was tilted a little to one side. After dinner they were to keep
watch in turns, and Ryall took the first watch. There was a sofa on
either side of the carriage, one of them higher above the floor than the
other. Ryall offered these to his guests, but one of them preferred to
lie on the floor between the sofas. And when Ryall thought he had
watched long enough without seeing the lion, he lay down to rest on the
lower sofa.

The carriage had a sliding door which slipped easily in its grooves, and
was unfastened. When all was quiet the lion crept out of the bush,
jumped on to the rear platform of the carriage, opened the door with his
paws, and slipped in. But scarcely had he entered, when the door, in
consequence of the slope of the carriage, slid to again and latched
itself. And thus the man-eater was shut in with the three sleeping men.

The sleeper on the higher sofa, awakened by a sharp cry of distress, saw
the lion, which filled up most of the small space, standing with his
hind legs on the man lying on the floor, and his forepaws on Ryall, on
the lower sofa on the opposite side. He jumped down in a fright to try
and reach the opposite door, but could not get past without putting his
foot on the back of the lion. To his horror, he found that the servant,
who had been alarmed by the noise, was leaning against the door outside;
but, putting forth all his strength, he burst open the door and slipped
out, whereupon it banged to again. At the same moment a loud crash was
heard. The lion had sprung through the window with Ryall in his mouth,
and as the aperture was too small, he had splintered the woodwork like
paper. The remains of the man were found next day and buried. Shortly
after the lion was caught in a trap, and was exhibited for several days
before being shot.

DAVID LIVINGSTONE

In a poor but respectable workman's home in Blantyre, near Glasgow, was
born a hundred years ago a little lad named David Livingstone, who was
to make himself a great and famous name, not only as the discoverer of
lakes and rivers, but also as one of the noblest men who ever offered
their lives for the welfare of mankind.

[Illustration: LIVINGSTONE'S JOURNEYS IN AFRICA.]

In the national school of the town he quickly learned to read and
write. His parents could not afford to let him continue his studies, but
sent him at ten years of age to a cotton mill, where he had to work from
six o'clock in the morning till eight in the evening. The hard work did
not break his spirit, but while the machines hummed around him and the
thread jumped on the bobbins, his thoughts and his desires flew far
beyond the close walls of the factory to life and nature outside. He did
his work so well that his wages were raised, and he spent his gains in
buying books, which kept him awake far into the night. To add to his
knowledge he attended a night-school, and on holidays he made long
excursions with his brothers.

Years fled and the boy David grew up to manhood. One day he told his
parents that he wished to be a medical missionary, and go to the people
in the east and south, tend the sick, and preach to any who would
listen. In order to procure means for his studies he had to save up his
earnings at the factory, and when the time was come he went with his
father to Glasgow, hired a room for half-a-crown a week, and read
medicine. At the end of the session he went back to the factory to
obtain money for the next winter course. Finally he passed his
examination with distinction, and then came the last evening in the old
home and the last morning dawned. His father went with him to Glasgow,
took a long farewell of his son, and returned home sad and lonely.

Livingstone sailed from England to the Cape, and betook himself to the
northernmost mission-station, Kuruman in Bechuanaland. Even at this time
he heard of a fresh-water lake far to the north. It was called Ngami,
and he hoped to see it one day.

From Kuruman he made several journeys in different directions to gain a
knowledge of the tribes and their languages, to minister to their sick
and win their confidence. Once when he was returning home from a journey
and had still 150 miles to trek, a little black girl was found crouching
under his waggon. She had run away from her owner because she knew that
he intended to sell her as a slave as soon as she was full-grown, and as
she did not wish to be sold she determined to follow the missionary's
waggon on foot to Kuruman. The good doctor took up the frightened little
creature and provided her with food and drink. Suddenly he heard her cry
out. She had caught sight of a man with a gun who had been sent out to
fetch her and who now came angrily to the waggon. It never occurred to
Livingstone to leave the defenceless child in the hands of the wretch.
He took the girl under his protection and told her that no danger would
befall her henceforth. She was a symbol of Africa, the home of the
slave-trade. And Africa's slaves needed the help of a great and strong
man. Livingstone understood the call and worked to his last hour for the
liberation of the slaves, as Gordon did many years later. He strove
against the cruel and barbarous customs of the natives and their dark
superstitions, and hoped in time to be able to train pupils who would
be sent out to preach all over the country. In one tribe the
medicine-men were also rainmakers. Livingstone pointed out to the people
of the tribe that the rainmakers' jugglery was only a fraud and of no
use, but offered, if they liked, himself to procure water for the
irrigation of their fields, not by witchcraft but by conducting it along
a canal from the neighbouring river. Some rough tools were first hewn
out, and he had soon the whole tribe at work, and the canal and conduits
were laid out among the crops. And there stood the witch-doctors put to
shame, as they heard the water purling and filtering into the soil.

In 1843 Livingstone started off to found a new mission-station, named
Mabotsa. The chief of the place was quite willing to sell land, and he
received glass beads and other choice wares in payment. Mabotsa lay not
far from the present Mafeking, but seventy years ago the whole region
was a wild. On one occasion a lion broke into the village and worried
the sheep. The natives turned out with their weapons, and Livingstone
took the lead. The disturber of the peace was badly wounded and retired
to the bush. But suddenly he rushed out again, threw himself on
Livingstone, buried his teeth in his shoulder, and crushed his left arm.
The lion had his paw already on the missionary's head, when a Christian
native ran up and struck and slashed at the brute. The lion loosed his
hold in order to fly at his new assailant, who was badly hurt.
Fortunately the animal was so sorely wounded that its strength was now
exhausted, and it fell dead on the ground. Livingstone felt the effects
of the lion's bite for thirty years after, and could never lift his arm
higher than the shoulder; and when his course was run his body was
identified by the broken and reunited arm bone. He had to keep quiet for
a long time until his wound was healed. Then he built the new
station-house with his own hands, and when all was ready he brought to
it his young bride, the daughter of a missionary at Kuruman.

Another missionary lived at Mabotsa and did all he could to render
Livingstone's life miserable. The good doctor hated all quarrelling, and
did not wish that white men should set a bad example to the blacks, so
he gladly gave way and moved with his wife forty miles northwards. The
house in Mabotsa had been built with his own savings, and as the London
Missionary Society gave him a salary of only a hundred pounds a year,
there could not be much over to build a house. When he left, the
natives round Mabotsa were in despair. Even when the oxen were yoked to
the waggon, they begged him to remain and promised to build him another
house. It was in vain, however; they lost their friend and saw him drive
off to the village of Chonuane, which was subject to the chief Sechele.

From the new station Livingstone made a missionary journey eastwards to
the country whither the Dutch Boers had trekked from the Cape. They had
left the Cape because they were dissatisfied with the English
administration of the country, for the English would not allow slavery
and proclaimed the freedom of the Hottentots. The Boers, then, founded a
republic of their own, the Transvaal, so named because it lay on the
other side of the Vaal, a tributary of the Orange River. Here they
thought they could compel the blacks to work as bondmen in their service
without being interfered with. They took possession of all the springs,
and the natives lived on sufferance in their own country. The Boers
hated Livingstone because they knew that he was an enemy to the slave
trade and a friend to the natives.

Livingstone had plenty of work at the station. He built his house, he
cultivated his garden, visited the sick, looked after his guns and
waggons, made mats and shoes, preached, taught in his children's school,
lectured on medicine, and instructed the natives who wished to become
missionaries. In his leisure hours he collected natural history
specimens, which he sent home, studied the poisonous tsetse fly and the
deadly fever, and was always searching for remedies. He was never idle.

His new place of abode had one serious defect--it was badly situated as
regarded rain and irrigation, and therefore Livingstone decided to move
again forty miles farther to the north, to Kolobeng, where for the third
time he built himself a house. As before, his black friends were much
disturbed at his departure, and when they could not induce him to
remain, the whole tribe packed up their belongings and went with him.
Then clearing, building, and planting went on again. At Kolobeng
Livingstone had a fixed abode for quite five years, but this was his
longest and last sojourn in one place, for his after-life was a
continuous pilgrimage without rest and repose. As usual, he gained the
confidence and friendship of the natives.

The worst trouble was the vicinity of the Boers. They accused him of
providing Sechele's tribe with weapons and exciting them against the
Boers. They threatened to kill all black missionaries who ventured into
the Transvaal, and devised plans for getting rid of Livingstone. Under
such conditions his work could not be successful, and he longed to go
farther north to countries where he could labour in peace without
hindrance from white men who were nominally Christians, but treated the
natives like beasts. Besides, hard times and famine now came to
Kolobeng. The crops suffered from severe drought, and even the river
failed. The natives went off to hunt, and the women gathered locusts for
food. No child came to school, and the church was empty on Sunday.

Then Livingstone resolved to move still farther northwards, and on June
1, 1849, the party set out. An Englishman named Oswell, who was
Livingstone's friend, went with them and bore all the expenses of the
journey. He was a man of means, and so several waggons, eighty oxen,
twenty horses, and twenty-five servants were provided.

After two months' march they came to the shore of Lake Ngami, which was
now seen for the first time by Europeans. The king, Lechulatebe, proved
less friendly than was expected. When he heard that Livingstone intended
to continue his journey northwards to the great chief Sebituane, he
feared that the latter would obtain firearms from the white men and
would come down slaying and pillaging to the country round the lake.
Finally the expedition was obliged to turn back to Kolobeng.
Livingstone, however, was not the man to give in, and he went twice more
to the lake, taking his wife and children with him.

On one of these journeys he came to the kingdom of the great and
powerful Sebituane, and was received with the most generous hospitality.
The chief gave him all the information he wished, and promised to help
him in every way. A few days later, however, Sebituane fell ill of
inflammation of the lungs and died.

Livingstone then continued his journey north-eastward with Oswell to the
large village of Linyanti, and shortly after discovered a river so large
and mighty that it resembled one of the firths of Scotland. The river
was called the Zambesi. Its lower course had long been known to
Europeans, but no one knew whence it came. The climate was unhealthy,
and was not suitable for the new mission-station that Livingstone
intended to establish. The Makololo people, the tribe of the deceased
chief, promised to give him land, huts, and oxen if he would stay with
them, but his mind was now occupied with great schemes and he gave up
all thoughts of a station. Honest, legitimate trade must first be made
to flourish. The Makololo had begun to sell slaves simply to be able to
buy firearms and other coveted wares from Europe. If they could be
induced to sell ivory and ostrich feathers instead, they would be able
to procure by barter all they wanted from European traders and need not
sell any more human beings. But to start such a trade a convenient route
must first be found to the coast of either the Atlantic or Indian Ocean.
A country in which the black tribes were in continual war with one
another simply for the purpose of obtaining slaves was not ripe for
Christianity. Accordingly Livingstone's plan was clear: first to find a
way to the coast, and then to foster an honest trade which would make
the slave-trade unnecessary.

Having sent his wife and children to England, Livingstone made his
preparations, and in the year 1853 he was at Linyanti, in the country of
the Makololo. Here began his remarkable journey to Loanda on the west
coast, not far south of the mouth of the Congo. No European had ever
travelled this way. His companions were twenty-seven Makololos, and his
baggage was as light as possible, chiefly cloth and glass beads, which
serve as currency in Africa. He took no provisions, as he thought he
could live on what the country afforded.

The journey was difficult and troublesome, through a multitude of savage
tribes. First the Zambesi was followed upwards, and then the route ran
along other rivers. In consequence of heavy rain, swollen watercourses
and treacherous swamps had to be crossed continually. Livingstone rode
an ox which carried him through the water after a small portable boat
had been wrecked and abandoned. Swarms of mosquitoes buzzed over the
moist ground, and Livingstone repeatedly caught fever from the damp,
close exhalations, and was often so ill that he could not even sit on
his ox. But amidst all these difficulties and hardships he never omitted
to observe the natural objects around him and to work at his map of the
route. His diary was a big volume in stout boards with lock and key, and
he wrote as small and as neatly as print.

Step by step he came nearer the sea. Most opportunely they met a
Portuguese, and in his company the small troop entered the Portuguese
territory on the west coast. The Portuguese received Livingstone with
great hospitality, supplied him with everything he wanted, and rigged
him out from top to toe.

Some English cruisers were lying off Loanda, having come to try to put
down the slave-trade, and Livingstone enjoyed a delightful rest with his
countrymen and slept in a proper bed after having lain for half a year
on wet ground. It would have been pleasant to have had a thorough
holiday on a comfortable vessel on the voyage to England after so many
years' wanderings in Africa, but Livingstone resisted the temptation. He
could not send his faithful Makololos adrift; besides, he had found that
the route to the west coast was not suitable for trade, and was now
wondering whether the Zambesi might serve as a channel of communication
between the interior and the east coast. So he decided to turn back in
spite of fever and danger, bade good-bye to the English and Portuguese,
and again entered the great solitude.

Before Livingstone left Loanda he put together a large mass of
correspondence, notes, maps, and descriptions of the newly discovered
countries, but the English vessel which carried his letters sank at
Madeira with all on board, and only one passenger was saved. News of the
misfortune reached Livingstone when he was still near the coast, and he
had to write and draw all his work again, a task that took him months.
If he had left the Makololo men to their fate he would have travelled in
the unfortunate vessel.

Rain and sickness often delayed him, but on the whole his return journey
was easier. He took with him from Loanda a large stock of presents for
the chiefs, and they were no longer strangers. And when he came among
the villages of the Makololo, the whole tribe turned out to welcome him,
and the good missionary held a thanksgiving service in the presence of
all the people. Oxen were killed round the fires at night, drums were
beaten, and with dance and song the people filled the air far above the
crowns of the bread-fruit trees with sounds of gladness. Sekeletu was
still friendly, and was given a discarded colonel's uniform from Loanda.
In this he appeared at church on Sunday, and attracted more attention
than the preacher and the service. His gratitude was so great that when
Livingstone set out to the east coast he presented his white friend with
ten slaughter oxen, three of his best riding oxen, and provisions for
the way. And more than that, he ordered a hundred and twenty warriors to
escort him, and gave directions that, as far as his power extended over
the forests and fields, all hunters and tillers of the ground should
provide the white man and his retinue with everything they wanted. Not
the least remarkable circumstance connected with Livingstone's travels
was that he was able to carry them out without any material help from
home. He was the friend of the natives, and travelled for long distances
as their guest.

Now his route ran along the bank of the Zambesi, an unknown road. During
his earlier visit to Linyanti he had heard of a mighty waterfall on the
river, and now he discovered this African Niagara, which he named the
Victoria Falls. Above the falls the river is 1800 yards broad, and the
huge volumes of water dash down foaming and roaring over a barrier of
basalt 390 feet high to the depth beneath. The water boils and bubbles
as in a kettle, and is confined in a rocky chasm in some places barely
50 yards broad. Clouds of spray and vapour hover constantly above the
fall, and the natives call it "the smoking water." Among the general
public in Europe, Livingstone's description of the Victoria Falls made a
deeper impression than any of his other discoveries, so thoroughly
unexpected was the discovery in Africa of a waterfall which could match,
nay in many respects surpass, Niagara in wild beauty and imposing power.
Now a railway passes over the Falls, and a place has grown up which
bears the name of Livingstone.

The deafening roar of the water died away in the distance, and the party
followed the forest paths from the territory of one tribe to that of the
next. Steadfast as always, Livingstone met all danger and treachery with
courage and contempt of death, a Titan among geographical explorers as
well as among Christian missionaries. He drew the main outlines of this
southern part of Darkest Africa and laid down the course of the Zambesi
on his map. For a year he had been an explorer rather than a missionary.
But the dominating thought in his dream of the future was always that
the end of geographical exploration was only the beginning of missionary
enterprise.

At the first Portuguese station he left his Makololo men, promising to
return and lead them back to their own villages. Then he travelled down
the Zambesi to Quilimane on the sea. He had, therefore, crossed Africa
from coast to coast, and was the first scientifically educated European
to do so.

After fifteen years in Africa he had earned a right to go home. An
English ship carried him to Mauritius, and at the end of 1856 he
reached England. He was received everywhere with boundless enthusiasm,
and never was an explorer feted as he was. He travelled from town to
town, always welcomed as a hero. He always spoke of the slave-trade and
the responsibility that rested on the white men to rescue the blacks.
Africa, lying forgotten and misty beneath its moving rain-belts, became
at once the object of attention of all the educated world.

Detraction was not silent at the home-coming of the victor. The
Missionary Society gave him to understand that he had not laboured
sufficiently for the spread of the Gospel, and that he had been too much
of an explorer and too little of a missionary. He therefore left the
Society; and when, after a sojourn of more than a year at home, he
returned to Africa, it was in the capacity of English Consul in
Quilimane, and leader of an expedition for the exploration of the
interior of Africa.

We have no time to accompany Livingstone on his six years' journeys in
East Africa. Among the most important discoveries he made was that of
the great Lake Nyassa, from the neighbourhood of which 19,000 slaves
were carried annually to Zanzibar, to say nothing of the far greater
numbers who died on the way to the coast. One day Livingstone went down
to the mouth of the Zambesi to meet an English ship. On board were his
wife and a small specially built steamer called the _Lady Nyassa_,
designed for voyages on rivers and lakes. Shortly afterwards his wife
fell ill and died, and was buried under the leafy branches of a
bread-fruit tree. In spite of his grief he went on with his work as
diligently as before, and when the time came for him to sail home, he
thought of selling the _Lady Nyassa_ to the Portuguese. But when he
heard that the boat was to be used to transport slaves, he kept it,
steered a course for Zanzibar, and then resolved to cross the Indian
Ocean in the small open boat by the use of both sails and steam. This
was one of Livingstone's most daring exploits, for the distance to
Bombay was 2500 miles across the open sea, and in the beginning of
January the south-west monsoon might be expected with its rough, stormy
seas. He hoped, however, to reach Bombay before the monsoon broke, so
with three white sailors and nine Africans, and only fourteen tons of
coal, he steamed out of the harbour of Zanzibar, saw the coast of Africa
fade away and the dreary waste of water close round him on all sides.

Two of the white sailors fell ill and were unfit for work, and the bold
missionary had to depend almost entirely on himself. Ocean currents
hindered the progress of the _Lady Nyassa_, and for twenty-five days she
was becalmed, for the coal had to be used sparingly, and when the sails
hung limp from the mast there was nothing to be done but to exercise
patience. Fortunately there was sufficient food and drinking water, and
Livingstone was accustomed to opposition and useless waiting. He had to
ride out two violent storms, and the _Lady Nyassa_ was within a hair's
breadth of turning broadside to the high seas. In view of the immense
watery waste that still lay before him he meditated making for the
Arabian coast, but as a favourable wind got up and the sailing was good
he kept on his course. At length the coast of India rose up out of the
sea, and after a voyage of six weeks the _Lady Nyassa_ glided into the
grand harbour of Bombay. The air was hazy and no one noticed the small
boat, but when it was known that Livingstone was in the city, every one
made haste to pay him homage.

In the year 1866 Livingstone was again in Africa. We find him at the
mouth of the Rovuma, a river which enters the sea to the east of Lake
Nyassa. He had thirty-seven servants, many of them from India, and one
of his men, Musa, had been with him before. He crossed the country to
Lake Nyassa, but when he wished to pass over to the eastern shore in
native boats, he was stopped by the Arabs, who knew that he was the most
formidable opponent of the slave-trade. He had no choice but to go round
the lake on foot, and little by little he made contributions to human
knowledge, drew maps, and made notes and collections. He came to
districts he already knew, where black women were carried off by
crocodiles on the bank of the Shire River, where he had lost his wife,
and where all the missionaries sent out on his recommendation had died
of fever.

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