LIVINGSTONE. 
225 
and fruitful journeys on record. The results in geography 
and in natural science in all its departments were abun¬ 
dant and accurate; his observations necessitated a 
reconstruction of the map of central Africa. Men of the 
highest eminence in all departments of science testified 
to the high value of Livingstone’s work. In later years, 
it is true, the Portuguese, embittered by his unsparing 
denunciations of their traffic in slaves, attempted to de¬ 
preciate his work, and to maintain that much of it had 
already been done by Portuguese explorers. We know 
that native Portuguese traders had early in the century 
crossed the continent, but their observations were of 
little more value than those of the natives themselves. 
Livingstone himself testified to the value of Lacerda’s 
work, but as for the rivers and lakes which one finds laid 
down in some maps of Africa of the sixteenth century, 
they were little better than guesses, and were probably 
the result of mere hearsay. As well might Baker and 
Speke be deprived of the merit of discovering Albert 
and Victoria Nyanza, because in Ptolemaic maps the 
Nile is shown to issue from two lakes. When Living¬ 
stone began his work in Africa it was virtually a blank 
from Kuruman to Timbuctoo, and nothing but bitter 
envy or pedantic ignorance can throw any doubt on the 
originality of his discoveries. 
On July 12, 1856, H.M.S. Frolic called at Kilimane 
for Livingstone, and conveyed him to Mauritius, where 
he stayed six weeks to recover his greatly shattered 
health. On December 12 he arrived in England, after 
an absence of sixteen years, and met everywhere 
with the welcome of a hero. The honours that were 
showered upon him he bore with modesty, and indeed 
shrank from public demonstrations, delighting in the 
companionship of his wife and children, and to tell his 
mother of his adventures. He told his story in his 
{ Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa ’ 
(1857) with straightforward simplicity, and with no effort 
after literary style, and no apparent consciousness that he 
had done anything extraordinary; the undoubted interest 
of the narrative was testified to by its immense circulation. 
Q 
