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LIVINGSTONE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Xxiii 



It has made composition irksome and laborious. I think 

 I would rather cross the African continent again than 

 undertake to write another book. It is far easier to 

 travel than to write about it. I intended on going to 

 Africa to continue my studies ; but as I could not brook 

 the idea of simply entering into other men's labours made 

 ready to my hands, I entailed on myself, in addition to 

 teaching, manual labour in building and other handicraft 

 work, which made me generally as much exhausted and 

 unfit for study in the evenings as ever I had been when a 

 cotton-spinner. The want of time for self-improvement 

 was the only source of regret that I experienced during my 

 African career. The reader remembering this will make 

 allowances for the mere gropings for light of a student 

 who has the vanity to think himself " not yet too old to 

 learn." 



October, 1857. David Livingstone. 



After writing this book Livingstone returned to Africa 

 in 1859 as head of a Government expedition to explcre 

 the Zambesi. He discovered Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa. 

 His wife died in 1862. Recalled in 1863, Livingstone 

 went to India, and thence home in 1864. In this year he 

 published a second book, " The Zambesi and its Tribu- 

 taries." 



In 1 866 he was back again in the Dark Continent, under 

 arrangement with the Royal Geographical Society, seeking 

 to settle the watershed of Central Africa and the sources 

 of the Nile. From this journey he never returned to 

 England. " His arrangements with the Government and 

 the Geographical Society were that each of them gave 

 him £500, to which a private friend added £1000. He was 

 continued as consul, but without salary. Shabby terms 

 enough," says Thomas Hughes, "as he knew well himself, 

 for £2000 would be quite insufficient to pay his necessary 

 expenses. But he was too proud to remonstrate, and 

 meant to provide the deficiency by selling the Lady 

 Nyassa at Bombay." He sold it for £2600. 



From the beginning this journey was full of disaster 

 Many of his men deserted him. In December, 1866, he 

 wrote : " Took my belt up three holes to relieve hunger." 

 But he discovered Lakes Moero and Bangweolo. At the 

 beginning of 1869 he was so ill that he had to be carried 

 in a litter. But he was eager to know whether the 



