His last day in Natal was spent in a service with a confirmation at Claremont, and an evening service at Durban. "As we were returning," wrote his sister Alice, "we saw a rocket from the sea; a gun fired, the mail was in; and the captain, who was with us, said he would let us know the first thing in the morning the hour he would sail. Well, after this, there was little peace or quiet. We were too tired to sit up that night, and next morning there was much to arrange, and everybody was coming and going, and we heard we were to go by the half-past two train. A great many friends were with us, but on the shore we slipped away, and, leaning together on a heap of bricks, had a few sweet, quiet collects together, till we were warned we must go to the boat. We went on board the tug, and stood together high up on the captain's place; we were washed again and again by the great waves. When he went, and I had his last kiss and blessing, his own bright, beautiful spirit infected mine, and I could return his parting words without flinching; I saw him go without even a tear dimming my eye: so that I could watch him to the last, looking after our little boat again crossing the bar, till we could distinguish each other no more.
"In speaking one day of happiness, he said, 'I have given up looking for that altogether. Now, till death, my post is one of unrest and care. To be the sharer of everyone's sorrow, the comforter of everyone's grief, the strengthener of everyone's weakness: to do this as much as in me lies is now my aim and object; for, you know, when the members suffer, the pain must always fly to the head.' He said this with a smile, and oh! the peace in his face; it seemed as if nothing could shake it."
The last photograph, taken during this visit to Durban, with the high calm brow, and the quiet contemplative eye, bears out this beautiful, sisterly description of that last look.
The Lyra next proceeded to the Kongone mouth of the Zambesi, where the two parties who had gone forward, including Dr. Livingstone himself, were met, and a consultation took place. The Bishop was anxious to go forward, arrange his settlement, and commence his work at once; but Dr. Livingstone thought the season a bad one, and was anxious to explore the River Rovuma, to see whether its banks afforded a better opening; and it ended in the Bishop feeling obliged to give way to his experience, although against his own judgment.
He therefore, with Mr. Rowley, who had joined him at Durban, accompanied Livingstone in the Pioneer, leaving the others at Johanna, a little island used as a depot for coal.
The expedition was not successful; there was only water enough in the channel to enable the Pioneer to go thirty miles up in five days, and it failed more and more in the descent. The steamer, too, though built for the purpose of navigating the shallows of rivers, drew more water than had been expected; the current when among shoals made the descent worse than the ascent; there was a continual necessity for landing to cut wood to feed the engine; and, in five days, the Pioneer had not made ten miles. The Bishop worked as hard as any of the crew, once narrowly escaped the jaws of a crocodile, and had a slight touch of fever, so trifling that it perhaps disposed him to think lightly of the danger; but he was still weak when he came back to Johanna, and, by way of remedy, set out before breakfast for a mountain walk, and came back exhausted, and obliged to lie still, thoroughly depressed in mind as well as body for two days. The expedition proved the more unfortunate, that it delayed the start for the Zambesi from February, when the stream was full, till May, when the water was so low that a great quantity of the stores had to be left behind, in order that the Pioneer might not draw too much water. The chief assistants were the Malokolo, a portion of a tribe who had attached themselves to Dr. Livingstone, and had been awaiting his return on the banks of the river. The Bishop would fain have gone without weapons of any sort, but Dr. Livingstone decided that this was impracticable. He said, by all means take guns, and use them, if needed, and they would prove the best pacificators; and Mackenzie, as usual, yielded his own judgment, and heartily accepted what was decided on for him.
All those left at Johanna had suffered from fever, and were relieved that the time of inaction was over when they embarked in the Pioneer on the 1st of May, and in due time ascended the Zambesi, and again the Shire, but very slowly, for much time was consumed in cutting wood for the engines, every stick in the mud costing three days' labour, and in three weeks going only six or seven miles, seeing numerous crocodiles and hippopotami by the way.
It was not till the middle of July that they reached the landing-place. As soon as the goods had been landed the whole party set out on an exploration, intending to seek for a place, high enough on the hills to be healthy, on which to form their settlement.
Their goods were carried by negroes, and a good many by themselves, the Bishop's share being in one hand a loaded gun, in the other a crozier, in front a can of oil, behind, a bag of seeds. "I thought," he writes, "of the contrast between my weapon and my staff, the one like Jacob, the other like Abraham, who armed all his trained servants to rescue Lot. I thought also of the seed which we must sow in the hearts of the people, and of the oil of the Spirit that must strengthen us in all we do."
The example of Abraham going forth to rescue Lot was brought suddenly before the mission party. While halting at a negro village, a sound was heard like the blowing of penny trumpets, and six men, with muskets, came into the village, driving with them eighty-four slaves, men, women, and children, whom they had collected for Portuguese slave-dealers at Tette.
The Bishop and Mr. Scudamore had gone out of the village to bathe just before they arrived; but Dr. Livingstone, recognizing one of the drivers, whom he had seen at Tette, took him by the wrist, saying, "What are you doing here, killing people? I shall kill you to-day."
The man answered: "I do not kill; I am not making war. I bought these people."
Then Livingstone turned to the slaves. Two men said, "We were bought." Six said, "We were captured." And several of the women, "Our husbands and relatives were killed, and here we are."
Whereupon Livingstone began to cut the bonds of cord that fastened them together, while the slave-catchers ran away. All this was over before the Bishop returned; and Livingstone was explaining to the rescued negroes that they might either return to their homes, go to Tette, or remain under English protection, while they expressed their joy and gratitude by a slow clapping of the hands. They told a terrible story, of women shot for trying to escape, and of a babe whose brains were dashed out, because its mother could not carry it and her brothers together.
If asked by what authority he did these things, Livingstone would have answered, by the right of a Christian man to protect the weak from devilish cruelty. There was no doubt in his mind that these slaves, even though purchased, were deprived of their liberty so unjustly, that their deliverance was only a sacred duty, and that their owners had no right of property in them. If a British cruiser descended on a slave-ship, and released her freight, should he not also deliver the captive wherever he met him?
And, with this, another question was raised, namely, that of the use of weapons. The party were in the country of the Man-gnaja, a tribe of negroes who were continually harried by the fiercer and more powerful neighbour-tribe of Ajawa, great slave-catchers, who supplied the slave-hunters who came out from Tette to collect their human droves. These were mostly Arabs, with some Portuguese admixture; and the blacks, after being disposed of in the market at Tette, were usually shipped off to supply the demand in Arabia and Egypt, where, to tell the truth, their lot was a far easier one than befell the slaves of the West, the toilers among sugar and cotton.
A crusade against slave-catching could not be carried on without, at least, a show of force; and, this granted, a further difficulty presented itself, in the fact that, out of the scanty number of white men, one was a bishop and two were priests of the English Church, and one a Presbyterian minister. In all former cases, the missionaries had freely ventured themselves, using no means of self-defence, and marking the difference between themselves and others by the absence of all weapons. But, in those places, it was s
elf-defence that was given up; here the point was, whether to deliver the captive, or, by silence, to acquiesce in the wrong done to him; and if his rescue were attempted, it was in vain, unless the clergy assisted; and thus it was that the mission party did not march so much as men of peace as deliverers of the captive and breakers of the yoke. The captives had no power of returning home, and chose to remain with their deliverers; and the next day the party reached a negro village, called Chibisa's, after the chief who had ruled it at the time of Dr. Livingstone's first visit. He was now dead, but his successor, Chigunda, begged the white men to remain, to protect him from the Ajawa, who were only five or ten miles off, and from whom an attack was expected.
It was decided to forestall it by marching towards them. On the way another great convoy of slaves was encountered, and with the merest show of force, no bloodshed at all, more than forty were liberated-the men from forked clogs to their necks, consisting of a pole as thick as a man's thigh, branched at the top like the letter Y, so that the neck of the prisoner could be inserted, and fastened with an iron pin.
The large number of these liberated captives made it necessary to choose a home, but Chibisa's was not the place selected, but a spot some sixty miles further on, called Magomero. It was on a plain 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, or rather in a hole on the plain; for it was chosen because the bend of a river encircled it on three sides, so that a stockade on the fourth would serve for defence, in case of an attack from the Ajawa; and this consideration made Livingstone enforce the choice upon the Bishop, who again yielded to his opinion. The higher ground around was not unhealthy; the air was pure, the heat never excessive; but the river was too near, and brought fever to a spot soon overcrowded. It was occupied, however, with high hope and cheerfulness; huts, formed of poles and roofed with piles of grass, were erected, a larger one set apart for a church, and a system established of regular training for the numerous troop of clients, now amounting to above a hundred. To give them regular religious instruction, without being secure of the language, was thought by the Bishop inexpedient, and he therefore desired, at first, to prepare the way by the effects of physical training and discipline. This was a Magomero day:-English matins at early morning; breakfast on fowls or goats'-flesh, yam, beans, and porridge; then a visit to the sick; for, alas! already the whole thirteen of the mission staff were never well at the same time. After this, the negroes were collected, answered to their names, and had breakfast served out to them; two women being found to receive and apportion the shares of the lesser children, and this they did carefully and kindly.
The tender sweetness of Mackenzie told greatly in dealing with these poor creatures. He did not think it waste of time to spend an hour a day trying to teach the little ones their letters; and Mr. Rowley draws a beautiful picture of him feeding, with a bottle, a black babe, whose mother had not nutriment enough to sustain it,-the little naked thing nestling up to his big beard, and going to sleep against his broad chest.
Work followed. One whith man drilled the boys, one command being for them all to leap into the river at the same moment to bathe; one bargained with the vendors of mealies, beer, goats, fowls, yams, &c., who came in numbers from the villages round, and received payment in beads, and a blue cotton manufacture, called selampore, which is the current coin of Central Africa. Others worked, and showed how to work, at the buildings till one o'clock, when the dinner was served, only differing from breakfast in the drink being native beer instead of coffee. Rest followed till five, when there were two hours' more work, nearly till sunset, which, even on the longest day, was before half-past six; then tea, evensong, and bed.
The great need was of some female element, to train and deal with the women and girls; and there was an earnest desire for the arrival of the sisters. But, in the meantime, the occupation of Magomero proved far from peaceful. The Ajawa were always coming down upon the Man-gnaja to burn their villages and steal slaves, and the Man-gnaja called upon the whites as invincible allies.
The Bishop and his clergy (Livingstone had now left them, and gone on to Lake Nyassa) thought that to present a resolute front to the Ajawa would drive them back for good and all; and that the Man-gnaja could be bound over henceforth to give up slave-dealing, and, on this condition, they did not refuse their assistance. Subsequent events have led to the belief that this warfare of the Ajawa was really the advance of one of those great tides of nations that take place from time to time, and that they were a much finer people than the cowardly and false Man-gnaja; but, of course, a small company of strangers, almost ignorant of the language, and communicating with the natives through a released and educated negro, could not enter into the state of things, and could only struggle against the immediate acts of oppression that came before them.
There were thus about three expeditions to drive back the Ajawa and deliver the rescued slaves-bloodless expeditions, for the sight of the white men and their guns was quite enough to produce a general flight, and a large colony of the rescued had gathered at Magomero in the course of a few months. Meantime another clergyman, the Rev. H. De Wint Burrup, with his newly-married wife and three lay members of the mission, had arrived at Capetown, and, leaving Mrs. Burrup there with Miss Mackenzie, had come on to join the others. Mr. Burrup and Mr. Dickinson (a surgeon) actually made their way in canoes and river boats from Quillinane up to Chibisa's, where the Pioneer was lying, Dr. Livingstone having just returned from his three months' expedition.
It was an absolute exploit in travelling, but a very perilous one, since these open boats, in the rain and on the low level of the river, exposed them to the greatest danger of fever; and there can be no doubt that their constitutions were injured, although, no serious symptoms appearing, the mission party were still further induced to underrate the necessity of precaution.
The Bishop coming down to visit Livingstone (seventy miles in thirty hours on foot), gladly hailed the new-comers, and returned rapidly with Mr. Burrup, both a good deal over-fatigued; and, indeed, the Bishop never thoroughly recovered this reckless expenditure of strength. He considered that things were now forward enough for a summons to the ladies at Capetown. Communication was very difficult, and the arrangements had therefore to be made somewhat blindly; but his plan was, that his sisters and Mrs. Burrup should try to obtain a passage to Kongone, where the Pioneer should meet them, and bring them up the rivers to the landing-place at Chibisa's. He did not know of his sister Alice's marriage at Natal, though he would have rejoiced at it if he had known. He himself intended to come down to the spot where the rivers Shire and Ruo meet, and there greet the sister and the wife on board the Pioneer, and return with them to Magomero.
The way by the river and by Chibisa's was a great circuit, and it was thought that a more direct way might be found by exploration. Mr. Procter and Mr. Scudamore, with the black interpreter, Charles Thomas, and some of the negroes, started to pioneer a way. After five days Charles appeared at Magomero, exhausted, foot-sore, ragged, and famished, having had no food for forty-eight hours, and just able to say "the Man- gnaja attacked us; I am the only one who has escaped."
When he had had some soup, he told that the party had come to a village where they had been taken for slave-dealers, and the natives, on finding they were not, put on a hostile appearance, and as they pushed on came out in great numbers with bows and arrows, insisting on their return. After consulting they thought it would be better to turn back and conciliate the chief, rather than leave a nest of enemies in their rear, and they therefore turned. Unfortunately the negroes had caught sight of the 140 yards of selampore that they were taking with them as cash for the journey, and though the chief, who had been at Senna and Quillinane, was civil, there was much discontent at their not expending more in purchases of provisions; and Charles told them that their bearers had overheard plans for burning their huts in the night, killing them and taking their goods. They decided to escape; and occupying the chief's attention by a present of a bright scarf, they bade their men g
et under weigh. A cry arose, "They are running away." There was a rush upon them, and Charles managed to break through. He heard two shots fired, and was pursued for some distance, but, as darkness came on, effected his escape.
It seems to have been just one of the cases when a little hesitation and uncertainty on the part of the civilized men did all the mischief by emboldening the savages. Of course it was necessary to rescue them, but as the Ajawa were but twenty miles off, and Magomero must be guarded, there was no choice but to have recourse to the Makololo, and thus let loose one set of savages against another. Just, however, as a message was being despatched to bring them, the two clergymen were seen returning. They too had walked eighty-five miles in forty-eight hours, and had had but one fowl between them. They had in fact got out of the village almost immediately after Charles, but closely beset with natives armed with bows and poisoned arrows. Some tried to wrest Mr. Procter's gun from him, and even got him down, when he defended himself with his heels, until Mr. Scudamore, who was a little in advance, fired on his assailants, when they gave back; but an arrow aimed at him penetrated the stock of his gun so deeply that the head remained embedded in it. Firing both barrels, he produced a panic, under cover of which they made their way into the bush, and contrived with much difficulty to reach home.
Pioneers and Founders Page 38
