2o6 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. x. 



entire continent, along Livingstone's track, and feel certain of your 

 position." 1 



Following this unrivalled eulogium on the scientific 

 powers of Livingstone, came the testimony of Mr. Thomp- 

 son to his missionary ardour : — 



" I am in a position to express my earnest conviction, formed in 

 long, intimate, unreserved communications with him, personally and by 

 letter, that in the privations, sufferings, and dangers he has passed 

 through, during the last eight years, he has not been actuated by mere 

 curiosity, or the love of adventure, or the thirst for applause, or by any 

 other object, however laudable in itself, less than his avowed one as a 

 messenger of Christian love from the Churches. If ever there was a 

 man who, by realising the obligations of his sacred calling as a Chris- 

 tian missionary, and intelligently comprehending its object, sought to 

 pursue it to a successful issue, such a man is Dr. Livingstone. The 

 spirit in which he engages in his work may be seen in the following 

 extract from one of his letters : ' You kindly say you fear for the result 

 of my going in alone. I hope I am in the way of duty ; my own con- 

 viction that such is the case has never wavered. I am doing something 

 for God. I have preached the gospel in many a spot where the name 

 of Christ has never been heard, and I would wish to do still more in the 

 way of reducing the Barotse language, if I had not suffered so severely 

 from fever. Exhaustion produced vertigo, causing me, if I looked sud- 

 denly up, almost to lose consciousness; this made me give up sedentary 

 work; but I hope God will accept of what I can do.' " 



A third gentleman at this meeting, Mr. Rutherfoord, 

 who had known Livingstone for many years, besides 

 describing him as " one of the most honourable, 

 benevolent, conscientious men I ever met with," bore 

 testimony to his capacity in mercantile affairs ; not 

 exercised in his own interest, but in that of others. It 

 was Mr. Rutherfoord who when Livingstone was at the 

 Cape in 1852, entered into his plans for supplanting the 



1 It seems unaccountable that in the face of such unrivalled testimonies, re- 

 flections should continue to be cast on Livingstone's scientific accuracy, even so late 

 as the meeting of the British Association at Sheffield in 1879. The family of the 

 late Sir Thomas Maclear have sent home his collection of Livingstone's papers. 

 They fill a box which one man could with difficulty carry. And their mass is far 

 from their most striking quality. The evidence of laborious, painstaking care to 

 be accurate is almost unprecedented. Folio volumes of pages covered with figures 

 show how much time and labour must have been spent in these computations. 

 Explanatory remarks often indicate the particulars of the observation. 



