David Livingstone: Explorer and Missionary by Sam Wellman

Author:Sam Wellman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Religious
ISBN: 9781620296523
Publisher: Barbour Books
Published: 2012-11-30T22:00:00+00:00

“MARY, YOU MUST TAKE THE CHILDREN AND GO LIVE WITH MY PARENTS IN SCOTLAND.”

He didn’t have to explain to Mary he would rarely be at Kolobeng anymore, either. Mary knew exactly what he had in mind. She told him, “I know you intend to explore central Africa. And I approve. But it is still very difficult. Yet, I am a missionary’s daughter. I know a great deal about separations.”

Mary didn’t have to reveal all her thoughts to David. By now he knew what she was thinking. She had lived six active years with him; she had four healthy children. She and David would resume their life after he explored awhile. And like every young married woman of her day, she knew togetherness meant constant pregnancies followed by ever-increasing toil. Being separated had its blessings, too. David knew she was thinking of that, as well.

They stayed in Kuruman for three weeks. Mary’s brother Robert was there now, newly married. In January of 1852, the Livingstones went southwest. Traveling that civilized route by ox wagon was always pleasant, like a succession of picnics. They reached Cape Town March 16th. But David could not get his family on a ship that sailed any sooner than the middle of April.

He was not one to be idle. His throat was so bad now he could not speak in public. So he had his uvula removed. Then to make sure information gathered on his trip was not in vain, he wrote a paper about the “region north of Lake Ngami” and sent it to the Royal Geographic Society. He was sorely tempted to call the Sesheke River the Zambesi River but resisted. Cape Town astronomer Thomas Maclear taught him how to make very sophisticated measurements of latitude and longitude in the field with a chronometer and sextant.

He even had his first photographs taken. Studying two proofs, he said, “Unfortunately, the ugliest of the two is most like the original.” And he marveled at his own smug look in the photographs.

He soon discovered it was a good thing he could not speak in public. He was well known enough to be hated by whites in Cape Town, especially Dutch Boers. He was known as the trouble-making missionary who opposed slavery and treated black Africans like equals. He was said to be an exceedingly dangerous man, poking about in the wilds, probably wanting to sell guns to the heathen next. The entire London Missionary Society was hated. But David was by far the most aggressive, by far the most dangerous, and by far the worst.

The atmosphere of hatred made watching his family sail away from Cape Town easier. As much as he was now hated by the Boers and many others, too, how safe were Mary and the children on the frontier of South Africa? And did he want them to grow up in an area where their father was hated by whites?

“Praise the Lord and friend Oswell, they won’t go back to Scotland looking like shabby paupers,” muttered David as he watched the ship sail.

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