Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and StanleyKingston, William Henry Giles
History
Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley
Kingston, William Henry Giles
Africa -- Description and travel; Africa -- Discovery and exploration; Explorers
In another place Stanley says: "Livingstone followed the dictates of
duty. Never was such a willing slave to that abstract virtue. His
inclinations impel him home, the fascinations of which it requires the
sternest resolution to resist. With every foot of new ground he
travelled over he forged a chain of sympathy which should hereafter bind
the Christian nations in bonds of love and charity to the heathen of the
African tropics. If he were able to complete this chain of love by
actual discovery, and, by a description of them, to embody such people
and nations as still live in darkness, so as to attract the good and
charitable of his own land to bestir themselves for their redemption and
salvation, this Livingstone would consider an ample reward.
"Surely, as the sun shines on both Christian and infidel, civilised and
pagan, the day of enlightenment will come; and though the apostle of
Africa may not behold it himself, nor we younger men, nor yet our
children, the hereafter will see it, and posterity will recognise the
daring pioneer of its civilisation."
Yes, and Stanley might have added: with his enlarged and far-seeing
mind, this it is what encourages Livingstone to persevere in his task to
do what he knows no other man can do as well. It might be far
pleasanter to tell crowded congregations at home about the wrongs of the
sons and daughters of Africa, but, with the spirit of a true apostle, he
remains among those whose wrongs it is the ardent desire of his soul to
right, that he may win their love and confidence, and open up the way by
which others may with greater ease continue the task he has commenced.
After they had been some weeks together at Ujiji, Stanley and
Livingstone agreed to make a voyage on Lake Tanganyika, one of the chief
objects of which was to settle the long mooted point as to whether the
Rusizi river is an effluent or an influent. They embarked in a somewhat
cranky canoe, hollowed-out of a mvule-tree, which carried sixteen
rowers, Selim, Ferajji, the cook, and two guides, besides themselves.
The lake was calm, its waters of a dark green colour, reflecting the
serene blue sky above. The hippopotami came up to breathe in close
proximity to the canoe, and then plunged down again, as if playing at
hide and seek with them.
At one place where they sounded, the depth was found to be thirty-five
fathoms near the shore, and further out a hundred and fifteen fathoms of
line was let down without finding bottom, and the doctor stated that he
had sounded opposite the lofty Kabogo, and attained the depth of three
hundred fathoms.
A range of hills, beautifully wooded and clothed with green grass,
sloping abruptly--almost precipitately--into the depth of the
fresh-water, towered above them, and as they rounded the several capes
or points, high expectations of some new wonder or some exquisite
picture being revealed to them were aroused: nor were they disappointed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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