Into Africa Read online

  The village of Bambarre was arranged like a European city, with long boulevards and bright red, square houses made of clay. Palm trees sprouted in the village center. Communal granaries protected food supplies from birds and animals. “The houses are all well filled with firewood on shelves, and each has a bed on a raised platform in an inner room,” he wrote. “Very many people come running to see the strangers. Gigantic trees all about the villages.”

  Bambarre was the sort of place a man could call home—and Livingstone did. He was so weary from traveling, and enjoyed the abundance of peoples and food in Bambarre so greatly, that he immediately postponed his march to the Lualaba River. On September 22, having decided to take a sabbatical from exploration, he had his men build a house for him in the village. Mohamed Bogharib and the other Arabs left Livingstone behind and moved quickly to find slaves. Livingstone had just enough cloth and copper wire to pay his way, and the people took to him. Bambarre was a little jungle village just a few degrees south of the equator, where the chief was polite, and the people were interested in the location of England and the words of the Bible. The men all dressed in aprons made of deerskin, and carried a single spear and a cutting knife. Using clay, they molded their hair into elaborate animal shapes—horns, gills, scales—and decorated the design with rings of iron and copper. The fact that they sometimes practiced cannibalism didn't scare Livingstone in the slightest.

  Meanwhile, back in Zanzibar, a cholera epic was sweeping through the island. Vice-Consul Kirk's five-year-old daughter, Marion, was among those suffering the intestinal spasms and vomiting. She was lucky to be among the few survivors. Kirk and his wife never got sick, thanks to the new technique of separating the ill from the well, known as quarantine, developed by Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War. Almost seventy thousand slaves, however, did not survive. The island's plantations depended upon their labor, and owners frantically sought replacements. The result was a mad dash toward the interior by slavers eager to quench the market's demand.

  The impact on Livingstone was great. More than ever, the traders feared his letters would incite antislavery passion once they reached London, thus shutting down their line of work at a most lucrative time. So though Livingstone would write letters and pass them to caravans marching east, the letters disappeared as if they had never been written at all. Livingstone was cut off in Africa.

  As a result, the relative safety of Bambarre was misleading. Livingstone was not only trapped, but his health also continued to fail. Almost all his back and bottom teeth had fallen out. Eating was a chore. He was too weak to travel great distances. The ulcers on his feet had returned. So instead of wandering and seeing the world from a broad perspective, his explorations turned to minute details. He wrote about white ants, for instance, while resting in Bambarre, and how easy it was to catch them for frying after they had done battle with the larger and more deadly driver ants. Most of all, he pondered his Nile theories, and came to the conclusion that the Lualaba was definitely the source. “I have to go down and see where the headwaters join, then finish up by going round outside or south of all the sources. I don't like to leave my work so that another may cut me out and say he has found sources south of mine. I am dreaming of finding the lost city of Meroe, but reality reveals that I have lost nearly all my teeth. That is what the sources have done for me,” Livingstone wrote.

  Once able to wander hundreds of miles a month, Livingstone was now barely making that many a year. Taking assistance was one thing. Being carried, however, was averse to Livingstone's identity as one of history's great wanderers. The stroll, the saunter, the march, the gambol—all held a place in his repertoire. Like a leaf swept through the sky by a gentle breeze, Livingstone wafted through life, landing where the wind decided, then lifting again with a fresh gust. “No one,” he once wrote, “can truly appreciate the charm of repose unless he has undergone severe exertion.” Now, his health and fortitude were flagging. Livingstone's days of extreme exertion seemed to be over.

  In 1841, when Livingstone first came to Africa, the natives laughed when he offered to accompany them on walks in the bush. They pointed to his baggy pants and untanned skin and said he would never last. Every word of their ridicule was spoken in their native Setswana, not knowing Livingstone was fluent. He wandered with them, however, earning their respect as he kept the pace with ease. Not only was he undeterred by Africa's extreme temperatures, Livingstone embraced it. “A merry heat doeth like a good medicine,” he wrote. His travels taught him about the topography and climate and soil quality and dangers of Africa—the aspects that interested Europe—and also about its great, underappreciated history.

  It was his wondrous ability to wander that led the Royal Geographical Society to embrace Livingstone as one of their own. They awarded him a gold chronometer in absentia for his Kalahari crossing in 1850, followed by their prestigious Gold Founder's Medal for the four-year journey across Africa. On that expedition Livingstone named a geographical landmark for a member of royalty, the only time he did so in his career. The story of Livingstone measuring Victoria Falls soon made its way around London, and added to his growing legend. The feat happened in November 1855. Livingstone was following the Zambezi's course from its source in the Central African highlands. He was puzzled that the Zambezi lost almost no elevation for hundreds of miles after its origin. The river sprawled a mile-wide across the landscape, languorous and imposing. The shores were lined with rat holes and vegetation. Hippos, otters, and tiger fish were predominant in the river.

  Livingstone knew the Zambezi had to narrow and begin descending toward the sea at some point, but the miles passed without a drop in elevation. He was exhausted, suffering from insect bites, infectious running sores, and debilitating bouts of dysentery. His journey began to take on a Sisyphian quality. After following the river for five hundred miles, Livingstone seemed no nearer the secret than when he started.

  Finally, he heard the sound of distant thunder. As he gazed down the river to the sound, the entire massive watershed disappeared into a fissure in the earth. Approaching the edge carefully, he was shocked to see the Zambezi spilling 360 feet off a cliff into the merest sliver of a gorge. Compressed into the narrow space, it became a frothing, roiling juggernaut, racing to the sea.

  Livingstone was determined to measure the falls' depth exactly. Slipping into a borrowed canoe, he paddled alone to an island in the center of the river. The island jutted out over the edge of the falls. On hands and knees, Livingstone crept to the lip. Dropping flat on his chest he peered into the chasm, and carefully lowered a weighted rope into the thundering abyss. Great plumes of mist made it hard to judge where the falls ended and the river began. The roar reverberating off the gorge's wall deafened him and made the ground tremble. Livingstone carefully recoiled his rope and backed away from the edge. He was normally calm about his discoveries, but the enormous waterfall awed him. It was, he later wrote, “the most wonderful sight I have seen in Africa.”

  When David Livingstone returned to London in December 1856 he was at the zenith of his fame and popularity. He was forty-four. He had money and prestige for the first time in his life. In between his explorations he'd managed to marry and father four children. Africa hadn't yet ravaged him physically, and the tragedies that would mar his final years had not yet begun.

  Livingstone's fame was so great that when Murchison threw a “Farewell Livingstone Festival” on February 13, 1858, just before the explorer's departure for a second Zambezi expedition, 350 of England's most prominent citizens filled the Freemason's Tavern. Notably absent was Lord Clarendon, head of the Foreign Office. Having a commoner gain so much attention irritated him. British explorers were supposed to be gentlemen of money and pedigree. “For some past,” Clarendon wrote to Murchison by way of excuse, “I thought Dr. L. was being too much honored for his own good, and that the public was being led to expect more from his future labors than will probably be realized.”

  Clarendon's prescience proved
tragically accurate. Livingstone's aim for the grand new expedition was to explore the entire Zambezi watershed, a massive undertaking that involved journeys on water and foot to the source of several major rivers. If anyone but Livingstone had announced such a plan he would have been mocked. But Livingstone had already done the impossible by walking across Africa. The public expected phenomenal things from the second Zambezi journey—Murchison alone foresaw the seeds of a British colony and breakthrough discoveries of coal deposits on the upper Zambezi.

  The journey was a highly publicized bust.

  The Zambezi was too shallow and laden with sandbars and waterfalls for easy navigation. Slavery had decimated the region. The expedition was caught in intertribal war and slave raids. Dead bodies floated on the water, and children starved in the ruins of once-thriving villages. It was no place for a colony.

  Public response was best summed up by the Times assessment on January 20, 1863. “Livingstone,” the paper wrote, was “unquestionably a traveler of talents, enterprise, and excellent constitution, but it is plain that his zeal must outweigh his judgment.”

  Within the expedition, the problem was Livingstone's traveling companions. Livingstone was a reluctant leader, expecting the men to be self-motivated, like him. He disliked traveling with white men, finding them impatient and argumentative. “Constantly,” remembered expedition member E. D. Young, “has he asserted his belief that for a man to succeed as a traveler in Africa he should go unaccompanied by other white men.” Parliament, however, had approved thousands of pounds in funding. The mission needed commensurate grandeur. So instead of traveling alone, with only porters, a contingent of British scientists and artists were assigned to accompany Livingstone. Livingstone issued strict orders that the locals were to be to be treated with kindness at all times. Guns were only for obtaining food and scientific specimens. “The best security from attack consists in upright conduct,” he warned the Africa newcomers.

  As Livingstone expected, the six men proved whiny and timid. With the exception of botanist John Kirk, also a Scot, they weren't fit enough to keep up when the journey switched from the river to overland. Livingstone's brother, Charles, whom he'd invited as morale officer out of misplaced loyalty, was the worst of all. Charles was a self-centered martinet whose behavior made his older brother furious. The only times Livingstone lost his temper were to rebuke Charles. With Kirk, on the other hand, he was a warm father figure.

  Most of the men mocked Livingstone behind his back. They thought he was crazy for taking too many chances—and asking the same of them. His stubbornness prevented Livingstone from backing down in favor of caution once a difficult course had been set. His motto was “never give up,” and so he pushed forward, always forward, the picture of British exploration in his blue serge pants and jacket, billed consular cap perched atop his narrow head. “If I risk nothing I gain nothing,” he groused.

  The risks and resolution took their toll. The Zambezi expedition began the erosion of Livingstone's health. Despite his diligence about taking proper medication, several attacks of malaria, eczema, and dysentery wore him down. It took longer and longer for the tireless energy to rebound. C. F. Mackenzie, a balding young missionary bishop traveling with the group, wrote of a typical day on the trail: “Livingstone tramping along with a steady, heavy tread, which kept one in mind that he had walked across Africa.” Tragically, Mackenzie lost a vital cache of supplies inadvertently in 1862, letting them tumble from his canoe into the Zambezi's chaotic waters. The supplies he lost were not food or plates or beads, but medicines. And in a river delta infested with mosquitoes, where anti-malarial quinine was all-important, the missionary had effectively signed his death warrant. Malaria killed him soon after. Mackenzie's demise spelled the end to an endeavor known as the Universities Mission project, whose charge was to establish Christian missions deep in Africa. The idealistic venture was enthusiastically backed by the British evangelical movement. And though Livingstone could not be blamed for Mackenzie's fumbling or his unnecessary death, he would be—with still more tragic results.

  As for Livingstone and Kirk, it was Charles Livingstone who drove the wedge between them. As the expedition wore on, and Kirk grew more and more homesick, Charles disparaged the sensitive botanist's skills. In a momentary lapse of judgment, David Livingstone joined in. He apologized soon after, but the damage was done. Combined with the loss of his journals to the Zambezi and his desperate need to return home, a rift was effected between Kirk and the explorer. The rift grew slowly, but it never stopped widening. “I can come to no other conclusion,” Kirk wrote in his journal on September 18, 1862, “than that Dr. Livingstone is out of his mind.”

  The most devastating aspect of the trip, however, was the death of Livingstone's wife, Mary. Theirs was an enigmatic marriage, with moments of great intimacy and adventure—at her insistence, she and the children traveled by ox cart with Livingstone during an early crossing of the Kalahari—interspersed with monumental separations. He had married the sturdy, brown-eyed woman who wore her straight hair pulled back in a bun in 1845. They had five children together, and suffered the loss of Elizabeth Mary in infancy. It was common in Victorian England for women to handle all childrearing while the husbands busied themselves with making a living, so it wasn't unusual that Livingstone spent so much time away from home. But Mary, the daughter of famous missionary Robert Moffatt—Livingstone's supervisor at Kuruman, during the explorer's initial days in Africa—had begun a downward mental spiral when she returned to England with the children during Livingstone's walk across Africa. That spiral continued when Livingstone left for the Zambezi expedition. She became fond of brandy and threw herself at other men. With her husband off for yet another long expedition, Mary could stand it no more. In 1858, Mary placed the children in the care of family friends and sailed to Africa to be with him. She briefly joined the expedition but was forced to return to Britain in April 1858, when she found that she was pregnant. By 1861, Mary was leaving young Anna Mary with Livingstone's mother in Scotland and returning to Africa. She met up with him at Shupanga, a small mosquito-choked port on the lower Zambezi. Within months she was dead from a devastating combination of malaria and continual vomiting, breathing her last with Livingstone at her side. The loss shattered him, and the health problems that would dog him for the rest of his life began in earnest with Mary's death on April 27, 1862. “I cannot tell you how greatly I feel the loss,” Livingstone wrote a friend a week later. “It feels as if heart and strength were taken out of me—my horizon is all dark. I am distressed for the children.”

  The expedition was recalled in 1863, five years after it sailed. Livingstone emerged from the interior and discharged his men. Still not ready to go home, however, he piloted his steel steamship Lady Nyassa twenty-five hundred miles from Africa to India to sell it. She was forty feet long, with a steam engine and an awning over the stern. Livingstone had barely taken the helm traveling up the Zambezi, let alone piloted her on the open ocean, but somehow he managed the forty-five-day crossing. The maneuver was audacious. There was a swashbuckling tempo to the casual manner in which it was attempted and achieved—like an afterthought, as if the ocean was a minor obstacle after five years fending off the dangers of Africa.

  Now, six years and thousands of miles of world travel later, David Livingstone was a radically changed man. As he rested in Bambarre in October of 1869, he was no longer an explorer. Livingstone was a lost old man, looking for a set of fountains that might not exist, repeating the worst mistakes of his Zambezi expedition.

  As bad as things had been during the first three and a half years of this most recent expedition, Livingstone had always been capable of doing the unthinkable: giving up. He could have walked east to the African coast and found a ship to take him to Zanzibar or Cape Town, where the British Consulate would have seen to it that he received medical assistance and a cruise back to London.

  But David Livingstone, in the waning months of 1869, was no longer physically
capable of such a feat. Unable to press onward, and equally unable to make a retreat, he was helpless. If he were going to live to see London again—see the people who loved him and cared for him, whether or not he found the source—David Livingstone would need to be rescued.

  • CHAPTER 11 •

  The Great Commission

  October 1869

  Paris

  4,000 Miles to Livingstone

  At the same moment, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., was holed up in his Paris hotel suite trying to conjure brilliant thoughts. The twenty-eight-year-old newspaper tycoon was seeking to counteract yet another in the continuum of crises unfolding in New York over the past two months, this one having to do with a gold market scandal he'd stumbled into. With the reputation—indeed, the very future—of his New York Herald at stake, Bennett had fled to Paris aboard a Cunard liner. He took a salon at the luxurious Grand Hotel, the city's finest accommodations, to plot his next move. It was a situation calling for a bold gambit, a compelling distraction. He would publish an epic newspaper story or series of newspaper stories to distance the Herald and Bennett from the scandal. The question was: stories about what?

  Bennett had spent his youth in France because New York had been unsafe for his family then. His father, a penniless Scottish immigrant who made his fortune publishing the Herald, was in constant physical danger because of his uncompromising editorials. The family was new-money wealthy and shunned by New York society. Bennett, Sr., was once beaten by thugs as the police stood by; on another occasion he received a bomb in the mail—both on account of his editorial perspectives. Out of fear for the children's safety, Bennett's mother relocated the brood to France while the elder Bennett stayed behind to run the Herald.