1872-73] FROM UNYANYEMBE TO BANGWEOLO. 435 



crimes, and it never occurred to him to say to Kirk, " I 

 don't believe you to be the traitor they imply ; " but Kirk 

 took his complaint in high dudgeon as a covert attack 

 upon himself, and did not act toward him as he ought to 

 have done, considering what he owed him. His cordial 

 and uniform testimony of Stanley was — "altogether he 

 has behaved right nobly." 



On the 1st May he finished a letter for the New York 

 Herald, and asked God's blessing on it. It contained 

 the memorable words afterwards inscribed on the stone 

 to his memory in Westminster Abbey : " All I can add 

 in my loneliness is, may Heaven's rich blessing come down 

 on every one — American, English, or Turk — who will help 

 to heal the open sore of the world." It happened that 

 the words were written precisely a year before his death. 



Amid the universal darkness around him, the universal 

 ignorance of God and of the grace and love of Jesus 

 Christ, it was hard to believe that Africa should ever 

 be won. He had to strengthen his faith amid this uni- 

 versal desolation. We read in his Journal : — 



"13th May. — He will keep His word — the gracious One, full of 

 grace and truth ; no doubt of it. He said : ' Him that cometh unto 

 me, I will in no wise cast out;' and, 'Whatsoever ye shall ask in my 

 name, I will give it.' He will keep His word : then I can come and 

 humbly present my petition, and it will be all right. Doubt is here 

 inadmissible, surely. D. L." 



His mind ruminates on the river system of the country 

 and the probability of his being in error : — 



"21st May. — I wish I had some of the assurance possessed by 

 others, but I am oppressed with the apprehension that, after all, it may 

 turn out that I have been following the Congo ; and who would risk 

 being put into a cannibal pot, and converted into black man for it ?" 



" olst May. — In reference to this Nile source I have been kept in 

 perpetual doubt and perplexity. I know too much to be positive. 

 Great Lualaba, or Lualubba, as Manyuema say, may turn out to be 

 the Congo, and Nile a shorter river after all. 1 The fountains flowing 



1 From false punctuation, this passage is unintelligible in the Last Journals. 

 vol. ii. p. 193. 



