“No; not until my work is ended.”

I have often heard our servants discuss our respective merits.  “Your master,” say my servants to Livingstone’s, “is a good man—­ a very good man; he does not beat you, for he has a kind heart; but ours—­oh! he is sharp—­hot as fire”—­“mkali sana, kana moto.”  From being hated and thwarted in every possible way by the Arabs and half-castes upon first arrival in Ujiji, he has, through his uniform kindness and mild, pleasant temper, won all hearts.  I observed that universal respect was paid to him.  Even the Mohammedans never passed his house without calling to pay their compliments, and to say, “The blessing of God rest on you.”  Each Sunday morning he gathers his little flock around him, and reads prayers and a chapter from the Bible, in a natural, unaffected, and sincere tone; and afterwards delivers a short address in the Kisawahili language, about the subject read to them, which is listened to with interest and attention.

There is another point in Livingstone’s character about which readers of his books, and students of his travels, would like to know, and that is his ability to withstand the dreadful climate of Central Africa, and the consistent energy with which he follows up his explorations.  His consistent energy is native to him and to his race.  He is a very fine example of the perseverance, doggedness, and tenacity which characterise the Anglo-Saxon spirit; but his ability to withstand the climate is due not only to the happy constitution with which he was born, but to the strictly temperate life he has ever led.  A drunkard and a man of vicious habits could never have withstood the climate of Central Africa.

The second day after my arrival in Ujiji I asked the Doctor if he did not feel a desire, sometimes, to visit his country, and take a little rest after his six years’ explorations; and the answer he gave me fully reveals the man.  Said he: 

“I should like very much to go home and see my children once again, but I cannot bring my heart to abandon the task I have undertaken, when it is so nearly completed.  It only requires six or seven months more to trace the true source that I have discovered with Petherick’s branch of the White Nile, or with the Albert N’Yanza of Sir Samuel Baker, which is the lake called by the natives `Chowambe.’  Why should I go home before my task is ended, to have to come back again to do what I can very well do now?”

“And why?” I asked, “did you come so far back without finishing the task which you say you have got to do?”

“Simply because I was forced.  My men would not budge a step forward.  They mutinied, and formed a secret resolution—­if I still insisted upon going on—­to raise a disturbance in the country, and after they had effected it to abandon me; in which case I should have been killed.  It was dangerous to go any further.  I had explored six hundred miles of the watershed, had traced all