During his two years at home, Livingstone wrote his “Missionary Travels.”  He returned to England once more (1864-65), when he published “A Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi,” and in 1866 went back to Africa to resume the explorations which ended only with his death.  Between 1849 and 1873 he was four years in Europe and twenty years in the field, eating native food, sleeping in straw huts (in one of which he died), lost to view for many years at a time because he had no means of communication with the coasts.  It was this fact that led to Stanley’s successful search for Livingstone in 1871.  Perhaps no other explorer ever gave so many years to continuous field-work.  In this respect he far surpassed the record of any other of the African pioneers.

The discoveries in his last journeys, covering the periods from 1858 to 1864, and from 1866 to 1873, were as brilliant and fruitful as his earlier work, but not so astonishing, because his first years were given to revealing the broader aspects of Africa and its tribes, while his later labors were devoted to more detailed research in a smaller field.  This region, about as large as Mexico and Central America, extends north and south, from Tanganyika to the Zambesi, and covers the wide region of the Congo sources between Nyassa and Lake Bangweolo.  The greatest results were the discovery of Lake Nyassa and the Shire River, now the water route into East Central Africa; Lakes Bangweolo and Mwero; and the mapping of the eastern part of the sources of the Upper Congo, which Livingstone believed to the day of his death were the ultimate fountains of the Nile.  Livingstone’s “Last Journeys” was published from the manuscript which his faithful servants brought to the seacoast with the mortal remains of their gentle master.

Not far from the south coast of Bangweolo stands a wooden construction to which is affixed a bronze tablet bearing the simple inscription, “Livingstone died here.  Ilala, May 1, 1873.”  It has taken the place of the tree under which he died, and where his heart, which had been so true to Africa, was buried.  As the tree was nearly dead, the section bearing the rude inscription cut by one of his servants was carefully removed and is now in London.

Livingstone’s geographical delineations were remarkably accurate, considering the inadequate surveying instruments with which he worked.  Dr. Ravenstein, one of the greatest authorities on African cartography, has said:  “I should be loath to reject Livingstone’s work simply because the ground which he was the first to explore has since his death been gone over by another explorer.”  It would be marvellous, however, if in the course of twenty years of exploration he had not made some blunders.  His map of Lake Bangweolo, for example, was very inaccurate.  The Lokinga Mountains, which he mapped to the south of the lake, have not been found by later explorers.  These imperfections resulted from the fact that his map