David Livingstone (1950)

GB instructional presents David Livingston. David Livingington was a great missionary and explorer. He was born in 1813 at Blantar, a village just north of Glasgow. Here in this house, which you can still see, Livingston lived until he was over 20. He was poor and during the day he worked in a cotton factory but his spare time was spent in study for he had set his heart on becoming a doctor and a missionary. In 1840 he received his medical degree and soon after was sent by the London Missionary Society to a mission station in Africa. That was just over a 100 years ago when people called Africa the dark continent. Only the land around the coast was known. No man knew what lay inland, what great rivers, or what great lakes. Even the missionaries had only reached as far as Kuraman near the dreadful Kalahari Desert. Livingston went by sea to Port Elizabeth and then by ox wagon to the mission station at Kuraman. If you could go to Kuraman today, you would find the mission station much the same as it was then. Some of the buildings are new, but the school where Livingston taught is still used. and people still worship in the church where he preached. As we watch these scenes, it is not very hard to imagine that we have gone back to those days when Dr. Livingston, the new missionary, went about among the natives in their villages, learning to know them and their ways. He studied their customs and watched the dances which mean so much in their lives. He went to their homes and found out how they lived and how to approach them. He worked as a doctor among those stricken by Africa's many diseases. And above all, he taught them about Jesus Christ. For 11 years, he lived this life at Kuraman and other stations. He grew to know and love the people whom he taught. But in the midst of his work, his thoughts turned often to those unknown Africans who had never heard of Jesus. He felt that it was his duty to carry his message far in land to places where no white man had ever been. So one day he said farewell to his friends and with only a few natives and an ox wagon he set off into the unknown. One of the first places he came to was the great Kalahari Desert. A dreadful place with hardly any trees and sparse toughs of grass struggling through the sand. Day after day they marched on, the hot sun beating down on them. Both men and oxmen were parched, for water was scarce, and the going was hard. The soft sand dragged at the wheels of the heavy wagon, and it was a constant struggle to keep it moving. But at last, they reached the other side. As they journeyed on, vultures were often to be seen feeding on dead animals. There were still uglier scenes to come. For some little while after, Livingston came across long lines of natives being driven like cattle to the coast. These natives had been sold as slaves to the Portuguese and Arabs in exchange for guns. Livingston was horrified and there and then made up his mind to find a way to stop this trade. A way of driving out the slavers occurred to him when he reached the upper Zambesi River. If he could find a way into central Africa from the coast, honest merchants might come to take the place of the slave traders. At Linanti, he left his ox wagon and set out on foot to the west to find a way to the coast. The way was hard and full of dangers, but Livingston was brave, and his native carriers, who loved him well, would follow wherever he led. There were few roads, and often with only a compass to guide them, they had to hack away through the jungle. In such country they had to keep a keen lookout for snakes. There were swamps which had to be crossed. Here lived mosquitoes carrying malaria. Livingston and many of his natives caught the fever and were sometimes so ill that they had to be carried in litters or be helped along by their comrades. When they came to rivers, there were crocodiles to add to the difficulty and danger of every river crossing. In some parts the country teamed with lions. Once Livingston was attacked by them, and his left arm was so badly mauled that he was never properly able to use it again. But the most serious of all Livingston's problems was the state of the tribes. The further west he went, the more savage they became. And the reason was that there were more slave traders. Livingston found that wherever the slave trade flourished, the tribes were wild and savage. Livingston struggled on until he reached Lowender, ill and exhausted. But the way west had been too difficult to be of use to traders, so he returned almost at once to Linanti and tried the way east. On the way he made one of his greatest discoveries. As he followed the course of the Zambesi, he came to a huge waterfall. The river here nearly a mile broad suddenly seemed to disappear and plunged out of sight with a roar into a gorge hundreds of feet below. This great waterfall he called the Victoria Falls after Queen Victoria. While he was exploring the country around the falls, he went in a canoe to an island called Cataract Island. This was a daring venture, for the island lay on the brink of the falls, and in his diary, Livingston wrote, "At one time we seem to be going right into the Gulf." However, he and his men reached the island and landed safely. To mark the occasion, Livingston did an unusual thing. He carved his name and the date, 1856, upon a tree. A few months later, he reached the sea again at the town of Kilamani. the first white man to have crossed the whole of Africa. But the Zambesi had proved no use as a way into Africa. It was full of dangerous rapids which made travel by boat impossible. In 1858, after a short rest in England, Livingston did try to reach the Victoria Falls by boat, but without success. But he would not be defeated. There still remained a great unknown area in which he felt sure the great rivers of Central Africa began. If he was right, the Congo or the Nile might provide highways into the center of Africa. So in 1866, after another visit to England, he returned to Africa to explore the region where the great rivers of the continent seemed to rise. From Zanzibar, he went first to Lake Niata through land more wild and hostile than any he had yet known. Then on to Lake Tangana. But he was a sick man now. The strain of 15 years of exploring and of untiring efforts to help the African peoples were telling on him. But still he kept on. Though he was often too weak to walk, he was out of touch with the world outside and unaware that some native carriers who had deserted him spread rumors of his death. In February 1870, the Times published a letter stating that Dr. Livingston has been killed and burnt by natives. In Britain and in America, too, where Livingston was equally famous, plans were made to send out expeditions to find out the truth. An American newspaper sent a man as undaunted as Livingston himself. This was Henry M. Stanley, a famous traveler and journalist who marched for months through the jungle in search of the great missionary. But Livingston, unaware of the hunt for him, kept on the move, discovering fresh lakes and rivers, still seeking for the headwaters of the Nile. At last, hostile natives and increasing weakness forced him to retire to Eugi on Lake Tangana. Some days later, on November the 10th, 1871, Stanley reached Eugi, led there by reports that a white man was in those parts. Excitement swept the little town as his welle equipped party marched in, bringing help in the nick of time, for Livingston was at the end of his supplies and of his strength. It must have been a moving experience for both of them when they met, especially for Livingston, who had gone 5 years without seeing a white man. For a few seconds, neither could speak. Then Stanley stepped forward, saying simply, "Dr. Livingston, I presume." Many, many days later, the good news of Livingston's safety reached England to the great relief of his family. Stanley's reports and Livingston's own dispatches soon followed. Livingston wrote, "The kindness was extreme and made my whole frame thrill with excitement and gratitude." He was soon strong enough to make a trip with Stanley by canoe to the northern end of Lake Tangana. He called this a pleasure trip, compared to the weary trampling of all the rest of my work. At last the time came to say goodbye, for Livingston refused to return to England with Stanley, saying he must finish his work, must find the source of the Nile, must work to free Africa of the slave trade. We shall never know how great must have been the temptation to return. But the work remained unfinished. On May the 1st, 1873, his servants found him dead on his knees in an attitude of prayer. They buried his heart in the country to which he had given his life and carried his body faithfully for hundreds of miles to the coast, risking death upon the way. And so at last, David Livingston of Blantire came back from his travels to be laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, one of the greatest men ever to work for Africa and her people. The good he did lived on and is a constant inspiration to the men who have come after him.