except the simplest.  She uttered a piercing cry previous to expiring, and then went away to see the King in his beauty, and the land—­the glorious land, and its inhabitants.  Hers is the first grave in all that country marked as the resting-place of one of whom it is believed and confessed that she shall live again.”

Mrs. Livingstone had an attack of serious illness, accompanied by paralysis of the right side of the face, and rest being essential for her, the family went, for a time, to Kuruman.  Dr. Livingstone had a strong desire to go to the Cape for the excision of his uvula, which had long been troublesome.  But, with characteristic self-denial, he put his own case out of view, staying with his wife, that she might have the rest and attention she needed.  He tried to persuade his father-in-law to perform the operation, and, under his direction, Dr. Moffat went so far as to make a pair of scissors for the purpose; but his courage, so well tried in other fields, was not equal to the performance of such a surgical operation.

Some glimpses of Livingstone’s musings at this time, showing, among other things, how much more he thought of his spiritual than his Highland ancestry, occur in a letter to his parents, written immediately after his return from his second visit to the lake (28th July, 1850).  If they should carry out their project of emigration to America, they would have an interesting family gathering: 

“One, however, will be ‘over the hills and far away’ from your happy meeting.  The meeting which we hope will take place in Heaven will be unlike a happy one, in so far as earthly relationships are concerned.  One will be so much taken up in looking at Jesus, I don’t know when we shall be disposed to sit down and talk about the days of lang syne.  And then there will be so many notables whom we should like to notice and shake hands with—­Luke, for instance, the beloved physician, and Jeremiah, and old Job, and Noah, and Enoch, that if you are wise, you will make the most of your union while you are together, and not fail to write me fully, while you have the opportunity here....

“Charles thinks we are not the descendants of the Puritans.  I don’t know what you are, but I am.  And if you dispute it, I shall stick to the answer of a poor little boy before a magistrate.  M.—­’Who were your parents?’ Boy (rubbing his eyes with his jacket-sleeve)—­’Never had none, sir.’  Dr. Wardlaw says that the Scotch Independents are the descendants of the Puritans, and I suppose the pedigree is through Rowland Hill and Whitefield.  But I was a member of the very church in which John Howe, the chaplain of Oliver Cromwell, preached, and exercised the pastorate.  I was ordained, too, by English Independents.  Moreover, I am a Doctor too.  Agnes and Janet, get up this moment and curtsy to his Reverence!  John and Charles, remember the dream of the sheaves! I descended from kilts and Donald Dhus?  Na,