370 LIFE OF DA VI D LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



men so competent to judge as to the value of their evidence, communicated 

 itself to the public, and within a very short space of time the hope was 

 generally current that their statements were unworthy of credence. On the 

 8th of April Sir Roderick Murchison intimated to a meeting of the Royal 

 Geographical Society that the Council had drawn up the following resolution 

 with regard to Dr. Livingstone : — 



" The Council are of opinion that it is highly desirable that a tentative 

 expedition or expeditions should proceed, whether from Zanzibar to the head 

 of Lake Nyassa, or from the Zambesi to that point, with a view to ascertain 

 the fate of Dr. Livingstone ; and that the expedition committee be requested 

 to report upon the measures advisable to be adopted." 



It was then resolved — 



" That the President be requested to communicate this resolution to 

 Lord Stanley (then Minister for Foreign Affairs), with the expression of a 

 hope that Her Majesty's Government will see fit to adopt such measures as 

 may appear to them most conducive to the end in view, in which not only 

 geographers, but the public at large, take so deep an interest." 



On the 27th of May Sir Roderick Murchison was in a position to intimate 

 that Her Majesty's Government had agreed to co-operate with the Royal 

 Geographical Society, and that an expedition was about to start for the 

 neighbourhood of Lake Nyassa, by way of the Zambesi, which would set at rest 

 all doubts as to the truth or falsehood of the Johanna men. 



" In the meantime," he said, " not believing in the death of Livingstone, 

 on the sole testimony of one of the baggage-bearers who fled, and who has 

 already given different versions of the catastrophe, I am sure the Society and 

 the public will approve of the course I recommended, and in which I was 

 cordially supported by the Council, and, to their great credit, by Her 

 Majesty's Government — viz., to send out a boat expedition to the head of 

 Lake Nyassa, and thus ascertain the truth. If by this exhaustive search we 

 ascertain that, sceptical as we are, the noble fellow did fall at that spot where 

 the Johanna men said he was killed, why, then, alas ! at our next anniver- 

 sary it will be the sad duty of your President, in mourning for his loss, to 

 dwell upon the wondrous achievements of his life. If, on the contrary, we 

 should learn from our own envoys, and not merely from Arab traders, that 

 he has passed on into the interior (and this we shall ascertain in six or seven 

 months), why then, trusting to the skill and undaunted pluck of Livingstone, 

 we may feel assured that, among friendly negro tribes, who know that he is 

 their steadfast friend, he may still realise one of the grandest geographic 

 triumphs of our era, the connection of the great Tanganyika with the Nile 

 system. 



"But even here I would have my countrymen, who are accustomed to 

 obtain rapid intelligence of distant travellers, not to despair, if they should 



