412 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. xx. 



set for him and his company in the forest. On the 

 8th August they came to an ambushment all prepared, 

 but it had been abandoned for some unknown reason. 

 By and by, on the same day, a large spear flew past 

 Livingstone, grazing his neck ; the native who flung 

 it was but ten yards off; the hand of God alone saved 

 his life. 1 Farther on, another spear was thrown, which 

 missed him by a foot. On the same day, a large tree, to 

 which fire had been applied to fell it, came down within 

 a yard of him. Thus on one day he was delivered three 

 times from impending death. He went on through the 

 forest, expecting every minute to be attacked, having no 

 fear, but perfectly indifferent whether he should be killed 

 or not. He lost all his remaining calico that day, a tele- 

 scope, umbrella, and five spears. By and by he was 

 prostrated with grievous illness. As soon as he could 

 move he went onwards, but he felt as if dying on his feet. 

 And he was ill-rigged for the road, for the light French 

 shoes to which he was reduced, and which had been cut 

 to ease his feet till they would hardly hang together, 

 failed to protect him from the sharp fragments of quartz 

 with which the road was strewed. He was getting near 

 to Ujiji, however, where abundance of goods and comforts 

 were no doubt safely stowed away for him, and the hope 

 of relief sustained him under all his trials. 



At last, on the 23d October, reduced to a living 

 skeleton, he reached Ujiji. What was his misery, instead 

 of finding the abundance of goods he had expected, to 

 learn that the wretch Shereef, to whom they had been 

 consigned, had sold off the whole, not leaving one yard of 

 calico out of 3000, or one string of beads out of 700 

 pounds ! The scoundrel had divined on the Koran, found 

 that Livingstone was dead, and would need the goods no 

 more. Livingstone had intended, if he could not get men 

 at Ujiji to go with him to the Lualaba, to wait there till 



1 The head of this spear is among the Livingstone relics at Newstead Abbey. 



