402 LIFE OF DA YID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



In this letter we have the first indications of dissatisfaction with the way- 

 assistance was being sent to him by Dr. Kirk at Zanzibar, of which we have 

 heard more from Mr. Stanley and from the traveller himself. It was natural 

 that the lonely man who had not had any communication with the world for 

 so long a period, and who had been travelling in unknown regions dependent 

 upon chance for the necessities of living, should feel a bitterness at the want 

 of success in relieving him. It is to be feared that he had good reason for his 

 discontent. To the unsettled state of the country and the dishonesty and 

 carelessness of the people he employed to succour Dr. Livingstone, were due 

 the failure of these efforts, and, as we shall see further on, he failed to take 

 the most ordinary precautions to guard against such failure. Dr. Kirk men- 

 tions in a note published along with this letter, that stores and letters had been 

 sent on the 7th of October, and that no time would be lost in sending the 

 articles now required by the explorer. 



Once more the cloud of mystery and darkness enveloped the fate of the 

 great traveller, and surmises and reports as to his probable fate tended towards 

 a general belief that in some unknown region in the far interior, the greatest 

 traveller and discoverer the world has ever seen, had become the most distin- 

 guished of that long roll of martyrs who had perished in their dauntless 

 endeavour to penetrate the secret recesses of a country all but impregnably 

 guarded by disease, pestilence, and the cruel jealousy of savage tribes. The 

 anxiety of the public regarding the fate of the traveller was shared in by the 

 Government. In May, 1870, £1,000 was sent to the consul at Zanzibar, to be 

 expended in efforts to discover and relieve him. On the 25th of January, 

 1871, hope was again excited that we might soon hear tidings from himself of 

 a much later date than the last received, by the arrival of a letter to Sir 

 Roderick Murchison from Dr. Kirk giving extracts from a letter received from 

 an Arab chief, Sheik Said, of Unyanyembe, dated 16th of July, 1870. The chief 

 says, "Your honoured letter has reached, and your friend (Livingstone) has 

 understood it. The people (a party with a caravan from Zanzibar) arrived in 

 good health, and are going on to Ujiji to our friend the Doctor. The news of 

 him is that he has not yet returned from Manemis (Menama, or Manyema, the 

 Arabic word is spelt in three different ways), but we expect him soon, and 

 probably he and the people with supplies will reach Ujiji at the same time." 

 As Sir Roderick pointed out, this was the first indication we had received that 

 the explorer had made a lengthened journey to the west of Tanganyika, which 

 taken together with the probability that letters sent by him had been destroyed 

 by jealous Arabs, accounted for his long silence. 



Early in May this intelligence was corroborated by the arrival of news from 

 Shirif Bassheikh bin Ahmed, the Arab sent from Zanzibar and Ujiji in charge 

 of stores for Dr. Livingstone, dated November 15th, 1870, that he had been 

 visited a few days previously by a messenger from the people of Menama (or 



