2io DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. x. 



of his beginning his book (21st January 1857) will show 

 how his thoughts were running : — 



" I begin to-morrow to write my book, and as I have a large party 

 of men (110) waiting for me at Tette, and I promised to join them in 

 April next, you will see I shall have enough to do to get over my 

 work here before the end of the month. . . . Many thanks for all the 

 kind things you said at the Cape Town meeting. Here they laud me 

 till I shut my eyes, for only trying to do my duty. They ought to 

 vote thanks to the Boers who set mo free to discover the fine new 

 country. They were determined to shut the country, and I was 

 determined to open it. They boasted to the Portuguese that they 

 had expelled two missionaries, and outwitted themselves rather. I 

 got the gold medal, as you predicted, and the freedom of the town of 

 Hamilton, which insures me protection from the payment of jail fees 

 if put in prison ! " 



In writing his book, he sometimes worked in the 

 house of a friend, but generally in a London or suburban 

 lodging, often with his children about him, and all their 

 noise ; for, as in the Blantyre mill, he could abstract his 

 attention from sounds of whatever kind, and go on calmly 

 with his work. Busy though he was, this must have 

 been one of the happiest times in his life. Some of his 

 children still remember his walks and romps with them 

 in the Barnet woods, near which they lived part of the 

 time — how he would suddenly plunge into the ferny 

 thicket, and set them looking for him, as people looked 

 for him afterwards when he disappeared in Africa, coming 

 out all at once at some unexpected corner of the thicket. 

 One of his greatest troubles was the penny post. People 

 used to ask him the most frivolous questions. At first 

 he struggled to answer them, but in a few weeks he had 

 to give this up in despair. The simplicity of his heart 

 is seen in the childlike joy with which he welcomes the 

 early products of the spring. He writes to Mr. Maclear 

 that, one day at Professor Owen's, they had " seen daisies, 

 primroses, hawthorns, and robin-redbreasts. Does not 

 Mrs. Maclear envy us ? It was so pleasant." 



But a better idea of his mode of life at home will be 



