Home Once More

' Seen daisies, primroses, hawthorns and robin red-breasts! It was so pleasant.”

(Livingstone to Sir T. Maclear, 1856.)

I

T was a real relief to be back amongst his

fellow - countrymen once more. Livingstone confessed he preferred the first British questions he was asked, “ Have you breakfasted? What will you take? ” to the typical official inquiries at foreign ports: “ Where do you come from? Are you married? If not, why not? ” The next problem before him was how to dispose of the Lady Nyassa. The Portuguese offered him a tempting sum for her if he would sell his ship—-as a slaver. But, as he wrote to his daughter, “ I would rather see her go down to the depth of the Indian Ocean than that! ”

Here he was at Zanzibar with his own little ship; why not sail her to Bombay, try and sell her there, and then take his passage home to England? It was a mad plan, but Livingstone took it. The very risk enticed him. Two thousand five hundred miles across the Indian Ocean in a tiny river steamer, with a crew of four Europeans, and seven native Zambesians to work her—engineer and skipper, Dr Livingstone: it was too sporting a venture to refuse! So he shipped fourteen tons of coal and set out for Bombay at the end of April.

The wonder is he ever got there. On the very first day one of the crew was down with fever. Then they lay becalmed for days on an oily sea, while the sharks swam round the vessel and waited for things to happen. “ All ill-natured,” Livingstone jotted down in his log-book, “and in this I am sorry to feel compelled to join.”

Then at the end of May came a taste of what the breaking of the monsoon would mean for them. A furious gale tore the sails to ribbons, and the Lady Nyassa nearly rolled quite over. But at last, after a month and a half, they sighted land. The worst part was to make Bombay in face of the furious squalls blowing off the shore; but so correctly had he skippered his little ship that he actually was only a few miles out in his reckoning. They reached Bombay in safety, and the vessel was so small that she crept into the harbour unobserved. There Sir Bartle Frere made him very welcome, and introduced him to the Sultan. After being in the wilds of Africa for the past eight years, Livingstone said he never came round a corner in Bombay and met an elephant or a domestic buffalo without instinctively feeling for his gun. The Sultan offered him an appointment as Consul, but Livingstone very modestly refused.

As he could find no one to buy the Lady Nyassa, he made up his mind to leave her at Bombay, and then was just able to scrape together enough money for his passage home.

The homeward vessel touched at Aden and Alexandria; then he travelled to Paris; and on 23rd July 1864 he emerged from Charing Cross Station into the London streets once more.

Livingstone hardly gave himself time to swallow his dinner at the Tavistock Hotel before rushing off to his friend, Sir Roderick Murchison. Sir Roderick was going to Lady Palmerston’s reception, and insisted on bringing the explorer with him, just as he was. Lord Palmerston and he had a long conversation on the slave trade, and then Livingstone had to submit to being the hero of the evening. A long series of dinners and At Homes followed, including an interview with Lord Russell himself, whom Livingstone described as “ very cold.” Then he was invited by the Lord Mayor to dine with her Majesty’s ministers. Mr Gladstone gave him an affable interview, but all the Government officials were decidedly cautious in their welcome. The truth was that they were dreadfully afraid that the great traveller might bring about awkward complications with Portugal if he insisted too strongly on the horrors of the slave trade in Portuguese Africa. From all unofficial Britons Livingstone had an enthusiastic welcome. The Duke of Argyll invited him to Inveraray, and Livingstone publicly planted two trees in the park. Then Captain Greenhill took him for a cruise in his yacht in the West Highlands, and he visited rocky Ulv&, the home of his Highland ancestors. “ The Highlanders cheered me,” said Livingstone, “ as a man and a brother.”

His mother was living at Hamilton, and when David first came to see her after so many long years she did not recognise her son. His own boys and girls joined them there, and it was a great joy to see them again. His little daughter Anna Mary was the only fair member of the family. She had blue eyes and fair hair, and was a great contrast to Agnes and Tom, who were both very dark and almost foreign in appearance. She was born at Kuruman after her father had left for his second Zambesi expedition, and had come home to Scotland with her mother. So Livingstone had actually never seen his little girl until they met at Hamilton. In his diary he described her as “a nice, sprightly child.” It is rather pathetic to read between the lines of his journals how much Livingstone felt he had lost of home life by obeying the call to be a wanderer. In one of his letters to his friend Oswell he said:

“ Looking back to Koloben, I have one regret, and that is, I did not feel it my duty to play with my children as much as to teach the Bakwains. Now I have none to play with. So, my good friend, play while you may. They will soon be no longer bairns.”

Anna Mary afterwards went to a Quaker school near Kendal, where her two old Scotch aunties were living; and there long afterwards she married Frank Wilson, the nephew of an old friend of her father’s. She and her husband for some time worked as missionaries amongst the deep-sea fishermen, and then he became a C.M.S. missionary in Sierra Leone, afterwards acting as chaplain to the troops at Freetown.

Tom, the second boy, had never been strong. He had been born in the wilds, and never really recovered from the hardships he endured as a very young child. In face he was exceedingly like his father, and had something of Livingstone’s attractive personality; but ill health always handicapped poor Tom.

Of all his children Agnes was her father’s closest friend and companion. She was now old enough to leave off lessons for a time and to be a great deal with him. Tall and slim, with black hair and almost Spanish colouring, Agnes had her father’s quietness and courage, and a great deal of the same simplicity and directness of character. During his visit to England Agnes went everywhere with her father; and when they were apart he wrote to her almost as he would have written to her mother, so closely were they in each other’s confidence.

Newstead Abbey was always like a second home to Agnes Livingstone, and she grew up amongst the Webbs almost as if she had been one of their own family. But her father was anxious for her to have a year or two in a French school; so she was sent to Madame Hocede at Paris. Madame Hocede had been governess to Queen Victoria’s children at Windsor Castle and had an excellent school in Paris. But amongst some of Livingstone’s friends of those days this plan of sending his girl to a French school was thought rather unusual. Paris they looked upon askance, as being “ everything that it shouldn’t be.” In this, as in so many other things, he followed his own convictions. He had a great admiration for the French, and Agnes gained much from her schooldays in Paris. She afterwards married Alexander Low Bruce of Edinburgh —the man to whom Scotland chiefly owes its Royal Geographical Society. Mr and Mrs Livingstone-Bruce had much to do with the suppression of the slave trade in Africa, for they had large estates in East Africa, and he was chairman of the African Lakes Company. Mrs Livingstone-Bruce endowed the “ Livingstone Gold Medal ” of the Scottish Geographical Society in memory of her father. It has been given to many notable travellers, and amongst the wearers of the Livingstone Medal was Lord Kitchener himself.

Little Oswell Livingstone was two years younger than Tom, and was at school at Hamilton. His master wrote to Dr Livingstone telling him that Oswell was going to receive several prizes on breaking-up day, and asking him to come and pay the school a visit. Accordingly Livingstone and Anna Mary went down to the school, and Oswell heard his father address the boys after the prize-giving. It was a very short speech as speeches go; for Livingstone told the boys he had just two things to say to them all: “ Fear God, and work hard.”

The one thing that worried Livingstone was having to make public speeches. He never got over his dislike of hearing his own voice on a platform. The speech before the British Association at Bath was the worst of all; preparing it was a dreadful thought to him. In his Journal he has the following entry Worked at my Bath speech. A cold shiver comes over me when I think of it. Ugh! ”

When the “Bath speech” was finally delivered he gave “ desperate offence,” as Dr Blaikie says, to the Portuguese. Livingstone denounced their attitude towards slavery so warmly that, as he described it to his friend Webb, “ they were cussin’ and swearin’ dreadful.” Livingstone had good reason for what he said. He liked the Portuguese personally, as nearly all travellers do; and he did not believe their home Government approved of slavery; but he thoroughly exposed the way in which individual Portuguese took part in the slave traffic in East Africa. Nowadays the Portuguese republic are doing their best to reform bad conditions in their colonies, and the latest reports from Africa show us that they are improving the conditions of native labour.

Livingstone kept a most marvellous log of all his doings in Africa. He never found an insect or a flower but he noted it down. He now thought of writing another book of his travels, and his good friends the Webbs of Newstead Abbey, near Nottingham, offered him a room in the tower of their wonderful old house if he would come and stay with them and there write his book on the Zambesi. His daughter Agnes (afterwards Mts Livingstone- Bruce) came with him to Newstead, and while there was confirmed by the Bishop of Lincoln, her father preparing her himself for her confirmation.

No one who had seen Livingstone at Newstead could ever have described him as “ dour ” or grim. It was one of the happiest times of his life; and he enjoyed every moment of his stay in that delightful old English house, in thoroughly congenial society. The house was always full of young people, and Livingstone loved children. The Marquise de Lasteyrie, then a little girl at Newstead, used to remind her sister, now Mrs Fraser, of absurd questions which Livingstone would ask her: “ What’s the capital of Timbuctoo? ” adding in a whisper “ Say capital T, of course.”

The Christmas of 1864 was kept in true oldfashioned style; and Livingstone was not at all content to be a mere spectator in the charades and dances which were held in the old Abbey hall. One night while playing blindman’s-buff with the children Livingstone chased his tormentors about with such vigour that he dashed himself against a sharp corner of the huge stone fireplace and had to be given first aid.

Another delightful Newstead picture is that of Mr Webb, the squire, getting up early one grey morning to shoot duck on one of the big private lakes and catching a poacher in the act of bagging “ the early birds ” himself. The poacher was, in fact, one David Livingstone clothed in most disreputable garments and wet to the skin, but thoroughly happy and unrepentant.

There were a number of ponds at Newstead, and in one of them was a wire fish-trap. In this trap Livingstone took a great interest, and Mrs Fraser of Newstead once told the present writer a very characteristic story of him which gives us an amusing little picture of the Doctor as he was. There were few points on which he was more particular than in keeping Sunday as a day of rest. In Africa Livingstone always spared his men on Sunday, and saw that his beasts, too, had the whole day “ off.” On one occasion, it is true, he was obliged to break that rule, in order to secure the safety of his ship; but that exception “ proved the rule.” His views on this point were so well known that he generally influenced those hunters and travellers who happened to be with him, and made them careful to do the same. His friends at Newstead never thought of having a carriage out on Sunday, and were most careful not to give their servants any unnecessary work to do on that day.

On this particular Sunday, after morning service, the squire, Mrs Webb, Colonel Goodlake, V.C., and Dr Livingstone strolled down to see the fish - trap in the pond; and, quite forgetting for the moment that it was Sunday, they drew up the wire trap and found inside it a remarkably fine perch. They were half-way across the park towards the Abbey, Doctor Livingstone bearing the big perch in triumph, before Mrs Webb realised the scandal that their appearance would probably cause. Doctor Livingstone fishing on Sunday! She and the squire advised the delinquent to do as Charlie had done with the salmon at Blantyre —namely, to stick that fat perch into the most convenient hiding-place. “No,” said Livingstone; “if we did it, let us not conceal it. There was no harm in it.” So they boldly carried their prize up to the front door. Colonel Goodlake, much impressed by the Doctor’s honesty, came rushing indoors, and, meeting one of the family, exclaimed: “ I do respect Livingstone. He is a real good man! ”

One of the rooms at the Abbey had a constant fascination for Livingstone. It had been the orangery in Lord Byron’s days, but was now a sort of workroom and museum in one. All sorts of natural history “ specimens,” fossils and stones were kept in this den, and Livingstone and his friend the squire were always adding to their number. There they would spend hours over a microscope, or in examining sundry glass bottles containing trout ova. Their experiments in trout-breeding certainly gave them plenty of problems to solve, and the microscope suggested all kinds of theories to the Doctor’s ingenious mind in connection with tropical fevers and diseases.

During their stay at Newstead Mrs Webb arranged that Agnes Livingstone should “ come out ” at the Annesley ball. Annesley is one of the most interesting old houses in Nottinghamshire, and that ball of 1865 was a notable one. Livingstone was very proud of his daughter’s beauty and charm, and in his own way, no doubt, he enjoyed the evening as much as she did. Mrs Fraser describes another very amusing scene at Newstead which took place about the time of the ball. There was a most eccentric old lady living near, whose name was Mrs Cottle. She was something of a celebrity, for she had invented a new religion, “ the Cottle Dispensation,” and was constantly “ memorialising ” various unlucky members of Parliament. Unfortunately for Livingstone, his name appealed to Mrs Cottle, and she referred to him freely and frequently, to his great annoyance, as “ The Living Stone.” Soon her pamphlets and “ putty-coloured ” books began to flow in by every post, and poor Livingstone looked forward with absolute terror to the arrival in person of the authoress herself.

One snowy afternoon, just as it was growing dark, the butler announced the advent of an unknown lady to see Doctor Livingstone. His despairing looks were all in vain, and the whole family, convulsed with laughter, watched the poor doctor go to his dreaded interview. The lady appeared to be of uncertain age and rather strange appearance, but she soon relieved his fears by stating she was only a niece of the prophetess, and came merely to arrange for an interview. As “ the niece ” showed no signs of departing, her victim was hard put to it to entertain her; but at last, in desperation, he suggested it was getting very dark, and might it not be better to ring for her carriage. The carriage, it appeared, was some way from the front door, owing to the deep snow, but rather than face his tormentor any longer Livingstone joyfully offered to wade through the drift beside the lady. As they stood in the porch together he was suddenly greeted by a roar of laughter, the disguise of the Cottle niece was torn away, and Livingstone, to his relief and astonishment, beheld the laughing features of Miss A, who was one of the Newstead house-party. No one enjoyed the practical joke more than the Doctor himself, and he never heard Mrs Cottle’s name mentioned without laughter.

Livingstone hated being “ lionised,” but he enjoyed many a delightful party at Newstead, where he was surrounded by so many old and congenial friends, amongst whom at this time were Sir Roderick and Lady Murchison, Sir William Fraser and his brothers, Colonel Gerald Goodlake, Lord Ossington and Sir Henry Rawlinson.

While he was at Newstead Lord Palmerston sent a special messenger asking Livingstone what he could do for him. Livingstone asked nothing whatever for himself; it never even occurred to him to think of decorations or rewards. His answer to the minister was: “ Free access to the Shire Highlands by the Zambesi and Shire rivers, to be made good by a treaty with Portugal.”

In June a sudden telegram came from Scotland, and Livingstone arrived just too late to see his mother alive. He left Hamilton feeling terribly alone in the world. But in London he met the man whom of all others he clung to—the great hunter, William Oswell. In a letter to Mrs Webb at Newstead he wrote: “ I love him with true affection, and I believe he does the same to me; and yet we never show it.” Oswell, who was one of Dr Arnold’s boys at Rugby, gave his friend Tom Brown’s Schooldays to read, and Livingstone read and enjoyed every page of it. He saw Oswell himself between the covers of that book, “ always doing what was brave and true and right.”