Livingstone by Tim Jeal

Livingstone by Tim Jeal

Author:Tim Jeal
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 978-0-300-19100-4
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2018-01-16T05:00:00+00:00


From the time of this incident all order and discipline broke down and it was with the greatest difficulty that Livingstone prevented the whole party disbanding en route. That evening Livingstone wrote down sadly some of the insults his brother had thrown at him: ‘Manners of a cotton spinner, of the Boers’, ‘that I had cursed him, that I had set the devil into him … and repeated again and again that I had cursed him’, ‘seemed intent on a row. Would be but a short time in the Expedition: regretted that he was on this journey. Would rejoice when he could leave it.’52 At last, too late to remedy things, Livingstone realized that Charles had probably slandered other members of the party without grounds. In the meantime, Livingstone knew that he could not dismiss Charles without appearing a fool. From July 1860 till the middle of 1863, when Charles returned to England, Livingstone saw him and talked to him only when he could not avoid doing so. From now on Livingstone felt entirely alone.

The trouble with his brother evidently did little for Livingstone's judgement, for on the way back to Tete he decided to try and shoot the first rapids at Kebrabasa. Charles and Kirk were too tired and disenchanted to argue. During the attempt Kirk's canoe was upset and he himself nearly drowned. Livingstone emerged on the other side of this first section of the Kebrabasa Rapids wet but unharmed. In his journal Livingstone dismissed in a few sentences this incident, which had nearly cost his botanist's life.

The three men were back at Tete by the end of November, and there Livingstone was handed a mail-bag containing the Foreign Secretary's answer to his suggestions for the development of the Shire Highlands. While Livingstone was dismayed that his colonial plans had been rejected out of hand, he could comfort himself with the news that Lord Russell had agreed to prolong the expedition for a further three years. The steamer to replace the Ma-Robert, he was told, had started from England earlier the same year, which meant that she should already be at the mouth of the Zambesi. The Foreign Secretary had refused an additional vessel for Lake Nyassa, and so Livingstone realized that the ship Rae had gone to order would have to be paid for with the remains of his book money. He had known that this was a distinct possibility from the beginning.

The most important news Livingstone received was from the organizers of the Universities Mission, who wrote telling him that the first members of the mission could be expected at the Zambesi mouth during January of the New Year. After the Foreign Secretary's flat rejection of plans for a colony in the Shire Highlands, Livingstone could not help being alarmed about the prospects of the new mission; none of its members had been prepared in any way for the problems they would shortly have to face. Livingstone had recommended the mission to come to the Shire



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