374 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



himself. He had been so long lost in unknown and untrodden regions, that 

 they looked forward to a stirring narrative of new countries, new peoples, 

 and strange adventures, equal to that with which he had treated them after 

 his famous march across Africa in company with the Makololo men. A higher 

 feeling than mere curiosity was at work in the public mind. The series of 

 remarkable explorations in Africa, commencing with that of Livingstone in 

 the south, in 1849, and ending with the discovery of the Albert Nyanza Lake 

 by Samuel Baker, had kept that vast continent constantly in the foreground 

 as a scene of discovery, and the great explorer was known to be approaching 

 the ground so recently travelled by Speke, Grant, Burton, and Baker, the 

 great explorers of the north and east. The mysterious heart of Africa was 

 fast giving up its secrets, and few doubted but that the indefatigable Living- 

 stone would pass through the as yet unknown lands that lay between the 

 country of Cazembe, and the great lake region of Speke and Baker The Nile, 

 which had been a mystery since the earliest dawn of civilization, had been 

 traced further and further to the south, and Livingstone, who had passed far 

 to the north of the watershed of the Zambesi, was in the line of march which, 

 if successfully prosecuted, must solve the mystery of its source and its annual 

 floods. How he was to be thwarted and turned aside through the bungling 

 carelessness of those responsible for the sending of his supplies, and how death 

 at last was to intervene between him and the full accomplishment of his work, 

 were unthought of possibilities in the joy at finding that he was alive and well; 

 but they were doomed within a few short years to be the subject of bitter re- 

 flection to millions throughout the globe. 



