330 LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNEY 



earnest desire was to explore the course of the Lualaba and ascertain 

 if it could be identified with the Nile. Reaching this stream he made 

 an attempt to navigate it for some distance, but ill-health and the 

 sullen obstinacy of the natives sent him back to Bambarre. In June, 

 1870, he started again, accompanied only by three '"faithfuls" — Susi, 

 Chuma, and Gardner ; but again failing health drove him back. For 

 nearly three months he was laid up with ulcers on the feet, and this 

 may help to explain the following remark in his journal : "I read the 

 whole Bible through four times whilst I was in Manyuema." 



The first of January, 1871, found him still weak and waiting at 

 Bambarre. Then ten men out of a much larger number arrived, sent 

 from Zanzibar by Dr. Kirk, the consul, and Livingstone's old friend. 

 They left Zanzibar with over forty letters for the doctor ; they arrived 

 with one ! They were worthless scoundrels, who mutinied as soon as 

 he started westward, and threatened to return to their comrades, 

 whom they had left at Ujiji with the stores for the doctor, and who 

 were meanwhile living on them. By dint of great persistence, how- 

 ever, Livingstone managed to reach the Lualaba by tlic end of March, 

 and to his deep disappointment he found that the river had a some- 

 what westerly course, and was more probably the Congo than the Nile. 



Five years had now passed since he left Zanzibar, years of con- 

 tinual disappointment and ill-health. His efforts to continue his work 

 were now prevented by the mutinous behavior of his escort, who- said 

 that they had orders to return to Ujiji after finding him. He was 

 obliged to accompany them and on reaching this place, 600 miles away, 

 he found that the rascal who had charge of his stores had stolen the 

 whole of them. 



His body racked by pain and disease, his mind tormented by a 

 series of bitter disappointments, his efforts thwarted and hopes blasted 

 by the conduct of his very servants, and then on returning at last to 

 Ujiji only to find that the means he required to buy even his daily bread 

 had been dissipated by a scoundrel who had added to the crime of theft 

 the vice of hypocrisy (the fellow had divined on the Koran, and found 

 that the doctor was dead), — surely at this hour Livingstone was 

 passing through a trial fiery enough to have consumed all his patience 

 and resignation! But just at this moment, when his spirits were at 

 their lowest ebb, help of the most unexpected kind was at hand. 



