12 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. i. 



he passed at his work. The labour of attending to the 

 wheels was great, for the improvements in spinning 

 machinery that have made it self-acting had not then 

 been introduced. The utmost interval that Livingstone 

 could have for reading at one time was less than a minute. 



The thirst for reading so early shown was greatly 

 stimulated by his father's example. Neil Livingstone, 

 while fond of the old Scottish theology, was deeply 

 interested in the enterprise of the nineteenth century, or, 

 as he called it, "the progress of the world," and endea- 

 voured to interest his family in it too. Any books of 

 travel, and especially of missionary enterprise, that he 

 could lay his hands on, he eagerly read. Some publications 

 of the Tract Society, called the Weekly Visitor, the Child's 

 Companion and Teacher's Offering, were taken in, and 

 were much enjoyed by his son David, especially the 

 papers of " Old Humphrey." Novels were not admitted 

 into the house, in accordance with the feeling prevalent 

 in religious circles. Neil Livingstone had also a fear of 

 books of science, deeming them unfriendly to Chris- 

 tianity ; his son instinctively repudiated that feeling, 

 though it was some time before the works of Thomas 

 Dick of Broughty-Ferry enabled him to see clearly, what 

 to him was of vital significance, that religion and science 

 were not necessarily hostile, but rather friendly to each 

 other. 



The many-sidedness of his character showed itself 

 early ; for not content with reading, he used to scour 

 the country, accompanied by his brothers, in search of 

 botanical, geological, and zoological specimens. Culpepper's 

 Herbal was a favourite book, and it set him to look in 

 every direction for as many of the plants described in it 

 as the country-side could supply. A story has been 

 circulated that on these occasions he did not always 

 confine his researches in zoology to fossil animals. That 

 Livingstone was a poacher in the grosser sense of the 



