THE LIFE AND EXPLORATIONS 



OF 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



CHAPTER I. 



Early Years. — Education. — Arrival at Cape Town as a 



Missionary. 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE was born at Blantyre near Glasgow, in 1813. He 

 was the son of humble but respectable parents, whose simple piety and 

 worth were noticeable even in a community which, in those days, ranked 

 above the average for all those manly and self-denying virtues which, a 

 few generations ago, were so characteristic of the lower classes of Scotland. 

 Humble and even trying circumstances did not make them discontented 

 with their lot, nor tend to make them forget the stainless name which 

 had descended to them from a line of predecessors whose worldly circum- 

 stances were hardly better than their own. 



In the introduction to his " Missionary Travels and Researches in 

 South Africa," published in 1857, Dr. Livingstone gave a brief and modest 

 sketch of his early years, together with some account of the humble, 

 although notable family from which he could trace his descent. " One 

 great-grandfather," he tells us, " fell at the battle of Culloden, fighting 

 for the old line of kings, and one grandfather was a small farmer in Ulva, 

 where my father was born. It is one of that cluster of the Hebrides thus 

 spoken of by Sir Walter Scott : — 



'And Ulva dark, and Colonsay, 

 And all the group of islets gay 

 That guard famed Staffa round.' 



" Our grandfather was intimately acquainted with all the traditionary 

 legends which that great writer has since made use of in ' The Tales of 

 a Grandfather,' and other works. As a boy I remember listening with 



B 



