At no previous time had Dr. Livingstone been under greater
discouragements than now. The Expedition had been recalled; his heart
had not recovered from the desolation caused by the death of the Bishop
and his brethren, as well as the Helmores in the Makololo country, and
still more by the removal of Mrs. Livingstone, and the thought of his
motherless children; the most heart-rending scenes had been witnessed
everywhere in regions that a short time ago had been so bright; all his
efforts to do good had been turned to evil, every new path he had opened
having been seized as it were by the devil and turned to the most
diabolical ends; his countrymen were nearly all away from him; the most
depressing of diseases had produced its natural effect; he had had
worries, delays, and disappointments about ships and boats of the most
harrassing kind; and now the "Lady Nyassa" could not be floated in the
waters of which he had fondly hoped to see her the angel and the queen.
It is hardly possible to exaggerate the noble quality of the heart that,
undeterred by all these troubles, resolved to take this last chance of
exploring the banks of Nyassa, although it could only be by the weary
process of trudge, trudge, trudging; although hunger, if not starvation,
blocked the path, and fever and dysentery flitted around it like imps of
darkness; although tribes, demoralized by the slave-trade, might at any
moment put an end to him and his enterprise;--not to speak of the
ordinary risks of travel, the difficulty of finding guides, the
liability to bodily hurt, the scarcity of food, the perils from wild
beasts by night Und by day,--risks which no ordinary traveler could
think of lightly, but which in Livingstone's journeys drop out of sight,
because they are so overtopped and dwarfed by risks that ordinary
travelers never know.
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