He spoke also of the
help which Livingstone had derived as an explorer from his influence as
a missionary. The journey he had performed successfully had hitherto
baffled the best-furnished travelers. In 1834, an expedition under Dr.
Andrew Smith, the largest and best-appointed that ever left Cape Town,
had gone as far as 23 deg. south latitude; but that proved to be the utmost
distance they could reach, and they were compelled to return. Captain
Sir James E. Alexander, the only scientific traveler subsequently sent
out from England by the Geographical Society, in despair of the lake,
and of discovery by the oft-tried eastern route, explored the
neighborhood of the western coast instead[30]. The President frankly
ascribed Livingstone's success to the influence he had acquired as a
missionary among the natives, and Livingstone thoroughly believed this.
"The lake," he wrote to his friend Watt, "belongs to missionary
enterprise." "Only last year," he subsequently wrote to the Geographical
Society, "a party of engineers, in about thirty wagons, made many and
persevering efforts to cross the desert at different points, but though
inured to the climate, and stimulated by the prospect of gain from the
ivory they expected to procure, they were compelled, for want of water,
to give up the undertaking.
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