236 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



stone, on returning from Southern Africa to his native country after an 

 absence of sixteen years, during which, while endeavouring to spread the 

 blessings of Christianity through lands never before trodden by the foot of a 

 British subject, he has made discoveries of incalculable importance, which 

 have justly won for him, our Victoria or Patron's Medal. 



When that honour was conferred in May, 1855, for traversing South 

 Africa from the Cape of Good Hope, by Lake Ngami and Linyanti to Loanda 

 on the west coast, the Earl of Ellesmere, then our president, spoke with 

 eloquence of the " scientific precision, with which the unarmed and unassisted 

 English missionary had left his mark on so many important stations of 

 regions hitherto blank." 



If for that wonderful journey, Dr. Livingstone was justly recompensed 

 with the highest distinction we could bestow, what must be our estimate of 

 his prowess, now that he has re-traversed the vast regions, which he first 

 opened out to our knowledge ? Nay, more ; that, after reaching his old 

 starting point at Linyanti in the interior, he has followed the Zambesi, or 

 continuation of the Leeambye river, to its mouths on the shores of the Indian 

 Ocean, passing through the eastern Portuguese settlements to Kilimane — 

 thus completing the entire journey across South Africa. In short, it has been 

 calculated that, putting together his various journeys, Dr. Livingstone has not 

 travelled over less than eleven thousand miles of African ground. 



Then, how does he come back to us ? Not merely like the far-roaming 

 and enterprising French missionaries, Hue and Gabet, who, though threading 

 through China with marvellous skill, and contributing much to our knowledge 

 of the habits of the people, have scarcely made any addition to the science of 

 physical geography ; but as the pioneer of sound knowledge, who, by astro- 

 nomical observations, has determined the site of numerous places, hills, rivers, 

 and lakes, nearly all hitherto unknown to us. 



In obtaining these results, Dr. Livingstone has farther seized upon every 

 opportunity of describing to us the physical features, climatology, and 

 geological structure of the countries he has explored, and has made known 

 their natural productions, including vast breadths of sugar-cane and vine- 

 producing lands. Pointing out many new sources of commerce, as yet 

 unknown to the enterprise of the British merchant, he gives us a clear insight 

 into the language, manners, and habits of numerous tribes, and explains to us 

 the different diseases of the people, demonstrating how their maladies vary 

 with different conditions of physical geography and atmospheric causes. 



Let me also say that he has realised, by positive research, that which was 

 necessarily a bare hypothesis, and has proved the interior of Southern Africa 

 to be a plateau traversed by a network of lakes and rivers, the waters of 

 which, deflected in various directions by slight elevations, escape to the 

 eastern and western oceans, by passing through deep rents in the hilly, 



