614 A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 



the British crown ; but they came with a lie in their mouths. 

 They swore that they had been instructed not to go with the 

 doctor, but to compel him to return to Zanzibar. And but for 

 the fear of pistol-shot and the interference of Mohamad Bogha- 

 rib, they would have succeeded in their nefarious scheme. 

 After a great deal of worrying, the 16th of February saw this 

 singularly patient and persevering man again on the road. The 

 villagers, as we have said, had already observed the difference 

 between Dr. Livingstone and the other strangers, and they were 

 particularly gratified and as much astonished that he always 

 dealt so fairly with them, and they were really much more 

 obliging than he had any hope of finding them. It was the 

 same beautiful and luxuriant country which he had traversed 

 before, and the same neat, secluded villages. His heart was 

 very much drawn out to the people. He sought to do them 

 good ; there is an accent of sadness about it, but it breathes a 

 spirit so exalted that we feel like inserting a paragraph here, 

 which refers particularly to the feelings with which he had 

 prosecuted his work. 



" In this journey," he writes, " I have endeavored to follow 

 with unswerving fidelity the line of duty. My course has been 

 an even one, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, 

 though my route has been tortuous enough. All the hardship, 

 hunger, and toil were met with the full conviction that I was 

 right in persevering to make a complete work of the exploration 

 of the sources of the Nile. Mine has been a calm, hopeful en- 

 deavor to do the work that has been given me to do, whether I 

 succeed or whether I fail. The prospect of death in pursuing 

 what I knew to be right did not make me veer to one side or 

 the other. I had a strong presentiment during the first three 

 years that I should never live through the enterprise, but it 

 weakened as I came near to the end of the journey, and an eager 

 desire to discover any evidence of the great Moses having vis- 

 ited these parts bound me, spell-bound me, I may say, for if I 

 could bring to light anything to confirm the sacred oracles, I 

 should not grudge one whit all the labor expended. I have to 

 go down the Central Lualaba or Webb's Lake river, then up 

 the Western or Young's Lake river to Katanga head-waters, 

 and then retire. I pray that it may be to my native land." 



