Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone by Martin Dugard Read Free Book Online

hours as he distilled his journals into publishable form, but considered it a necessary task. If the Zambezi book sold as well as his first book, Missionary Travels , Livingstone would achieve a measure of financial serenity.
    ‘Why cannot you go?’ Murchison implored upon arriving at Newstead. ‘Come, let me persuade you. I am so sure that you will not refuse an old friend.’
    Livingstone’s defences were wavering. Despite their deep friendship, it was an extraordinary breach of Victorian social protocol for a man of Murchison’s wealth to make such a vulnerable appeal to a man of lesser social standing. With Murchison and Livingstone both getting on in years, finding the Source would likely be the last expedition on which they would cooperate — and their greatest triumph if it succeeded. ‘Never mind about the pecuniary matters. It shall be my task to look after that,’ Murchison reassured him. ‘You may rest assured your interest will not be forgotten.’
    Livingstone, the man who walked through Africawithout fear, cared so deeply for Murchison that he felt powerless to say no.
    ‘You’, Murchison enthusiastically reminded his friend, ‘will be the real discoverer of the Source of the Nile.’
    Four months later, on 16 April 1865, Livingstone made a public statement of his intentions. ‘I have no wish’, he wrote, with sentiments that would change as the Source became a fixation, ‘to unsettle what with so much toil and danger was accomplished by Speke and Grant, but rather to confirm their illustrious discoveries.’
    On 14 August 1865, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambezi and Its Tributaries safely delivered to the publisher, Livingstone sailed for Africa.

TWO

INTO AFRICA
19 JUNE 1866
Along the Rovuma River, Africa
    ‘ WE PASSED A woman tied by the neck to a tree and dead,’ Livingstone wrote in his journal exactly three months after leaving Zanzibar. ‘The people of the country explained that she had been unable to keep up with the other slaves in a gang, and her master had determined that she should not become the property of anyone else if she recovered after resting for a time. I may mention here that we saw others tied up in a similar manner and one lying in the path was shot or stabbed, for she was in a pool of blood.’
    It had been two and a half months since Livingstone’s journey inland had begun. He was marching along the Rovuma River delta, through a towering, omnipresent wall of bamboo forest, creeping vines and mangrove trees. The air was heavy and humid, and smelled of genesis and rot. His physical health was robust, but the combination of insubordinate porters, gruesome daily evidence of the slave trade and painfully sluggish pace had him battling bouts of depression. He had averaged just three miles of travel per day since leaving the coast. It certainly wasn’tthe quickest way to verify Speke and Burton’s theories about the Source, but marching inland via the Rovuma was the only possible way for Livingstone to ascertain facts about his own, wildly improbable, Source theories. He believed the Nile and Zambezi were connected by a chain of lakes — from south to north: Nyassa, Tanganyika, Victoria. The Source, in Livingstone’s estimation, lay much further south than Speke or Burton theorized.
    The obvious, and quickest, way to Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika was by travelling from the Indian Ocean to Lake Tanganyika via the Arab caravan route followed by Burton and Speke. Livingstone, however, was taking the long way. His march had begun three hundred miles south of Burton and Speke’s point of departure. He planned to march due west along the banks of the Rovuma River until reaching Lake Nyassa, which he had first explored during the Zambezi trip. From there he would travel north towards Lake Tanganyika and the likely location of the Source. He was undaunted that a German geologist, Dr Albert Roscher, had been butchered by hostile tribes six years earlier while following