“He laid all he had at my service, divided his clothes into two heaps, and pressed one upon me, then his medicine chest, his goods and everything he had, with true American generosity. To coax my appetite he often cooked dainty dishes for me with his own hands. The tears often started to my eyes at some fresh proof of his kindness.” As Dr. Livingstone was again recovering from a very severe attack of fever Stanley begged him to go home to England with him for a year of rest, but the aged missionary shook his head sadly. Stanley returned to the outside world. About a year after this, David Livingstone was found kneeling beside his bed in a hut built of bamboo poles and coarse grass. He had died while praying. Millions of natives in the heart of the Dark Continent were heartbroken when they heard of the medical missionary’s death. They spent months in wailing and mourning, for they had lost their “White Father.” Two devoted black men carried the body of their beloved master hundreds of miles through the swamps and jungles of Africa, and placed it on shipboard, to be taken back to England. That ship was met at the English seaport by a special train heavily draped in mourning, which carried the honored remains up to London. Great Britain had strong reasons for honoring David Livingstone. He had added a million square miles to the known world, and put great lakes, rivers, mountains, and countries on the map of Africa. There was a magnificent funeral in Westminster Abbey, where the great missionary and explorer was buried beside the sacred ashes of kings, queens, princes, and statesmen. Thus he received the highest honors England can bestow upon her most illustrious dead. On the black marble slab which marks David Livingstone’s final resting place are the last words he is known to have written. They are about the cruel slave trade: “All I can say in my solitude is, may Heaven’s rich blessing come down on every one--American, English, Turk--who will help to heal this open sore of the world.” PEARY, A HERO OF THE GREAT WHITE NORTH For hundreds of years after Columbus, explorers sought the Northwest Passage through the frozen seas of North America. It was not until 1853 that such a channel was actually traced. Even then it was so filled with ice that no sailor, however brave and skilful, could make his way through. Long ago the search for the Northwest Passage gave place to the great desire and purpose to reach the North Pole. Of course, there is no pole standing out of the northern half of the world. The axis, or axle, of the earth is only an unseen line which scientists have thought of as if it ran straight through the center of the earth. The place in the middle of the top of the globe where this line, if there were one, would come out, is named the North Pole, and the same place at the opposite end is called the South Pole.