In the interval of fixing up his arrangements with the Government and the Royal Geographical Society, Livingstone had a personal sorrow in the death of his mother at the age of eighty-two. He was glad, however, to be at home to fulfil her wish that “one of her laddies should lay her head in the grave.” After that, he visited the school which his children attended, and made a short speech. The last words he uttered in public in Scotland were the simple ones, “Fear God and work hard.” The negotiations in regard to his new work were finally completed. The Government gave £500, and the Royal Geographical Society an equal sum. A private friend added a thousand pounds. This was all, except that he was to be the unsalaried Consul with power over the chiefs on the coast between Portuguese territory and Abyssinia. He was also warned to expect no pension. It is useless now to indulge in belated indignation over these very unhandsome terms. Probably if they were put into plain black and white they meant that the great British Government presented David Livingstone with £500 and a sphere of influence to keep him from making mischief with the Portuguese by expressing honest British hatred of the slave trade; while the Geographical Society hoped to tie him up to geographical work, and so prevent him wasting his time and talents on fatuous missionary enterprises. What actually happened we shall see in due course. Meanwhile Livingstone’s own personal plan was to sell his steamer at Bombay in order to make up the deficiency in the cost of his new expedition due to the financial economy of a lukewarm Government. It was for Bombay accordingly that he departed in August, 1865. He never saw these shores again. CHAPTER VII