I 4 2 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



CHAPTER V 



WITH LIVINGSTONE IN SOUTH AFRICA 



BY W. COTTON OSWELL 



[The Editors are fully aware that the following cannot be con- 

 sidered as coming strictly under the head of Big Game Shooting. 

 It is, however, the special wish of the late Mr. OswelPs family that 

 the whole MS. should appear as he left it, and the Editors willingly 

 comply with the request. ED.] 



A FEW lines about my companion in my Zambesi journey. 

 The description of the route taken may be found in his book, 

 and of the man himself two Lives have been written. But I 

 knew him well personally, and there was one trait in his cha- 

 racter which, me judice, has never been made enough of a 

 kind of firm persistence to do whatever he had set his mind 

 on. In an Englishman we might, I think, have called the 

 phase obstinacy, but with Livingstone it was 'Scottishness.' 

 It was not the sic volo sic jubeo style of imperiousness, but a 

 quiet determination to carry out his own views in his own way, 

 without feeling himself bound to give any reason or expla- 

 nation further than that he intended doing so and so. This 

 was an immense help to him, for it made him supremely 

 self-reliant, and if he had not been, he could never have done 

 half that he did. He was the Fabius of African travel. 

 Vicit cunctando might well be his epitaph. He believed, as 

 I do, that the way was to be won, not forced, if any good 

 results were to follow. I have sat seven weeks with him on 

 the bank of a swamp because he was unwilling to run counter 



