294 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. xiv. 



Captain Wilson, who had himself been prostrated by- 

 fever, and made a narrow escape, returned with this sad 

 news, three weeks after he had left Shupanga, bringing 

 the two broken-hearted ladies, who had expected to be 

 welcomed, the one by her brother, the other by her 

 husband. It was a great blow to Livingstone. 



" It was difficult to say," writes Dr. Stewart, " whether he or the 

 unhappy ladies, on whom the blow fell with the most personal weight, 

 were most to be pitied. He felt the responsibility, and saw the wide- 

 spread dismay which the news would occasion when it reached England, 

 and at the very time when the Mission most needed support. ' This 

 will hurt us all,' he said, as he sat resting his head on his hand, on the 

 table of the dimly-lighted little cabin of the ' Pioneer.' His esteem for 

 Bishop Mackenzie was afterwards expressed in this way : ' For un- 

 selfish goodness of heart and earnest devotion to the work he had 

 undertaken, it can safely be said that none of the commendations of 

 his friends can exceed the reality.' He did what he could, I believe, 

 to comfort those who were so unexpectedly bereaved; but the night 

 he spent must have been an uneasy one." 



Livingstone says in his book that the unfavourable 

 judgment which he had formed of the Bishop's conduct 

 in fighting with the Ajawa was somewhat modified by a 

 natural instinct, when he saw how keenly the Bishop was 

 run down for it in England, and reflected more on 

 the circumstances, and thought how excellent a man he 

 was. Sometimes he even said that, had he been there, 

 he would probably have done what the Bishop did. 1 

 Why, then, it may be asked, was Livingstone so ill- 

 pleased when it was said that all that the Bishop had 

 done was done by his advice? No one will ask this 

 question who reads the terms of a letter by Mr. Rowley, 

 one of the Mission party, first published in the Cape 

 papers, and copied into the Times in November 1862. 



1 Writing to Mr. Waller, 12th February 1863, Dr. Livingstone said : "I 

 thought you wrong in attacking the Ajawa, till I looked on it as defence of your 

 orphans. I thought that you had shut yourselves up to one tribe, and that, the 

 Manganja ; but I think differently now, and only wish they would send out Dr. 

 Pusey here. He would learn a little sense, of which I suppose I have need 

 myself." 



