34 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. n. 



expressed by Sir Bartle Frere, after much personal 

 intercourse, many years afterwards. " Of his intellectual 

 force and energy," wrote Sir Bartle, " he has given such 

 proof as few men could afford. Any five years of his life 

 might in any other occupation have established a character 

 and raised for him a fortune such as none but the most 

 energetic of our race can realise." 1 



But his early friends were not so much at fault. 

 Livingstone was somewhat slow of maturing. If we may 

 say so, his intellect hung fire up to this very time, and it 

 was only during his last year in England that he came to 

 his intellectual manhood, and showed his real power. 

 His very handwriting shows the change ; from being 

 cramped and feeble it suddenly becomes clear, firm, and 

 upright, very neat, but quite the hand of a vigorous 

 independent man. 



Livingstone's prospects of getting to China had been 

 damaged by the Opium War ; while it continued, no new 

 appointments could be made, even had the Directors 

 wished to send him there. It was in these circumstances 

 that he came into contact with his countryman, Mr. (now 

 Dr.) Moffat, who was then in England, creating much 

 interest in his South African mission. The idea of his 

 going to Africa became a settled thing, and was soon 

 carried into effect. 



" I had occasion " (Dr. Moffat has informed us) " to call for some 

 one at Mrs. Sewell's, a boarding-house for young missionaries in 

 Aldersgate Street, where Livingstone lived. I observed soon that this 

 young man was interested in my story, that he would sometimes come 

 quietly and ask me a question or two, and that he was always desirous 

 to know where I was to speak in public, and attended on these 

 occasions. By and by he asked me whether I thought he would do 

 for Africa. I said I believed he would, if he would not go to an old 

 station, but would advance to unoccupied ground, specifying the vast 

 plain to the north, where I had sometimes seen, in the morning sun, 

 the smoke of a thousand villages, where no missionary had ever been. 

 At last Livingstone said : ' What is the use of my waiting for the end 



1 Good Words, 1874, p. 285. 



