May I be selected to succeed him in opening up Africa to the shining light of Christianity! My methods, however, will not be Livingstone’s. Each man has his own way. His, I think, had its defects, though the old man, personally, has been almost Christ-like for goodness, patience, and self-sacrifice. The selfish and wooden-headed world requires mastering, as well as loving charity; for man is a composite of the spiritual and earthly. May Livingstone’s God be with me, as He was with Livingstone in all his loneliness. May God direct me as He wills. I can only vow to be obedient, and not to slacken. * * * * * CHAPTER XV THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT * * * * * In a camp in the heart of Africa, not far from Lake Bangweolo, David Livingstone, the traveller-evangelist, lay dead. His followers, numbering about three-score negroes of Zanzibar, deliberated upon their future movements. To return to the coast ruled by their Sultan, without their great white master, would provoke grave suspicion. They resolved to prepare the remains so as to be fit for transportation across a breadth of tropical region which extended to the Indian Ocean, fifteen hundred miles. After many weary months of travel, they arrived at the sea-coast with the body. In charge of two of the faithful band, it was placed on board a homeward-bound steamer, to be finally deposited[20] in a vault in Westminster Abbey. At the same period when the steamer coasted along the shores of Eastern Africa, I was returning to England along the coast of Western Africa, from the Ashantee campaign. At St. Vincent, on February 25th, 1874, cable news of the death of Livingstone, substantiated beyond doubt, was put into my hands. ‘At Lake Bangweolo the death occurred,’ said the cablegram. Just one thousand miles south of Nyangwe! The great river remains, then, a mystery still, for poor Livingstone’s work is unfinished! Fatal Africa! One after another, travellers drop away. It is such a huge continent, and each of its secrets is environed by so many difficulties,--the torrid heat, the miasma exhaled from the soil, the noisome vapours enveloping every path, the giant cane-grass suffocating the wayfarer, the rabid fury of the native guarding every entry and exit, the unspeakable misery of the life within the wild continent, the utter absence of every comfort, the bitterness which each day heaps upon the poor white man’s head, in that land of blackness, the sombrous solemnity pervading every feature of it, and the little--too little--promise of success which one feels on entering it. But, never mind, I will try it! Indeed, I have a spur to goad me on. My tale of the discovery of Livingstone has been doubted. What I have already endured in that accursed Africa amounts to nothing, in men’s estimation. Here, then, is an opportunity for me to prove my veracity, and the genuineness of my narrative!