David Livingstone by Stephen Tomkins

Author:Stephen Tomkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lion Hudson
Published: 2012-12-20T05:00:00+00:00

… scientific societies, learned and venerable universities, civic corporations, mercantile leagues, ecclesiastical assemblies have vied with one another in declaring in the manner appropriate to each their appreciation of the services he has rendered to the interests they severally represent. Nobles of highest degree, philosophers of world-wide reputation, princes and prelates… have crowded the reunions at which Dr Livingstone was expected to be present and have sought to be made known to him.14

The directors of the LMS realized that their letter to Livingstone suggesting a parting of the ways had been rather ill timed. They hastily assured him that all they had meant by it was that money was too tight at that moment for expensive speculation, but if it could be found, they would support his plans as ardently as ever. Livingstone was not a man to forgive that easily though.

They were still useful to each other, however, and while Livingstone refused to go on a fundraising tour for them, claiming his throat condition had debarred him from public speaking for five years, he put to them a scheme for a major extension of African mission. Livingstone, assisted by another missionary, would establish a permanent station with Sekeletu’s Makololo, while Moffat would be asked to go to Mzilikazi’s Matabele, the Zulus who were their enemies, and promote peace. Livingstone and the directors debated the details and in February came to a formal agreement.

Livingstone visited Blantyre in January 1857 and cried to see his father’s empty chair. On 21 January, he took lodgings at 21 Sloane Street, Chelsea, and started work on his book, announcing that it would be ready by Easter. It turned out to be a bigger job than he imagined and was eventually published in November.

For a 687-page Victorian memoir, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa is plain, to the point and readable. Some readers found it rather shapeless, simply relating one incident after another and throwing in discourses on Batoka geography and Tswana religion as the matters arose – and indeed much of it was simply edited extracts from his journal – but others found this only added to the sense of immediacy and authenticity. As one enthusiast answered those who felt he lacked “arrangement”, “I thought one just mounted his ox and went on behind him.”

Considering that it is a book about his own extraordinarily bold adventures, it is, in style at least, singularly unassuming, which again only made him a greater hero in readers’ eyes. Understatement was in Livingstone’s personality, but also in his interests, as he would not persuade traders and missionaries to follow in his footsteps if he made them sound suicidal. The result was the archetype the age was waiting for – the man who conquers a vast inhospitable wilderness for civilization in the face of countless afflictions and impossible odds, but doesn’t make too much of a fuss about it. As the Westminster Review said, the author was revealed as a man of “unaffected modesty, energy, courage, and sweet unobtrusive piety”.

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