I have just said that my admiration for Livingstone has been growing. This is true. The man that I was about to interview so calmly and complacently, as I would interview any prominent man with the view of specially delineating his nature, or detailing his opinions, has conquered me. I had intended to interview him, report in detail what he said, picture his life and his figure, then bow him my “au revoir,” and march back. That he was specially disagreeable and brusque in his manner, which would make me quarrel with him immediately, was firmly fixed in my mind.
But Livingstone—true, noble Christian, generous-hearted, frank man—acted like a hero, invited me to his house, said he was glad to see me, and got well on purpose to prove the truth of his statement, “You have brought new life unto me;” and when I fell sick with the remittent fever, hovering between life and death, he attended me like a father, and we have now been together for more than a month.
Can you wonder, then, that I like this man, whose face is the reflex of his nature, whose heart is essentially all goodness, whose aims are so high, that I break out impetuously sometimes: “But your family, Doctor, they would like to see you, oh! so much. Let me tempt you to come home with me. I promise to carry you every foot of the way to the coast. You shall have the finest donkey to ride that is in Unyanyembe. Your wants—you have but to hint them, and they shall be satisfied. Let the sources of the Nile go—do you come home and rest; then, after a year’s rest, and restored health, you can return and finish what you have to do.”
But ever the answer was, “No, I should like to see my family very much indeed. My children’s letters affect me intensely; but I must not go home; I must finish my task. It is only the want of supplies that has detained me. I should have finished the discovery of the Nile by this, by tracing it to its connection with either Baker’s Lake, or Petherick’s branch of the Nile. If I had only gone one month further, I could have said, ’the work is done."’