2-NRLF 
 
 SB IbS 43E 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE HON. RODEN NOEL. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SAMPSON LOW, MAKSTON, LOW AND SEAKLE, 
 CROWN BUILDINGS, FLEET STEEET. 
 
 1874 
 
 (All rights reserved.) 
 
LOAN STACJC 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS : PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILK1NS, 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. 
 
PRsiu 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 HERE is a disposition among some 
 contemporary critics to debar the 
 Poet from contemporary subjects. 
 One critic alleges these to be essen- 
 tially unpoetical. Another more skilled in delicate 
 distinctions, and priding himself on the adroitness 
 with which, as it were, by a dexterous turn of 
 the wrist, he can cause the fine edge of them to 
 wound, without vulgarly and directly thrusting 
 might prefer to say, apropos of each writer in 
 turn who chooses such themes, that " at any rate 
 this writer has not shown how contemporary 
 subjects may be made poetical " which remark, 
 however, the poet, if he be a poet, can afford to 
 
 534 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 treat simply as a piece of impertinence. He will 
 have adapted his workmanship, arrangement, and 
 mode of expression to the nature of his subject- 
 matter. Perchance the problem of conciliating 
 superfine collegians, or light skirmishers detached 
 from their main body in the shape of certain " ir- 
 responsible reviewers," and at the same time satis- 
 fying intelligent readers of poetry in general 
 unephemeral critics, who are beyond the passing 
 fashion of a clique may be a problem well-nigh 
 as insoluble as that of perpetual motion. But if 
 so, a poet should be prepared with contempt and 
 defiance only for the former. To me I confess it 
 appears that Past and Present are equally poetical, 
 when regarded and treated by a poet equally 
 unpoetical when regarded and treated by a mere 
 versifier though I am far from saying that every 
 particular time is fully as poetical as any other. 
 But the present time seems by no means deficient 
 in that respect. No age is heroic to its valet- de- 
 chambre ; and every age has many valets-de-cham- 
 bre. If there is danger from vulgar and debasing 
 
PREFACE. T ii 
 
 associations, and from fragmentary nearness, in 
 the Present, which has not yet " orbed into the 
 perfect star," there is equal danger from remote- 
 ness in the Past few imaginations being indeed 
 adequate satisfactorily to realize very different 
 conditions of life and thought. The name of little 
 flutterers, whose inanimate remains are strewn 
 along the avenue that leads to the Temple of 
 Fame, is Legion ; but pseudo-classical and pseudo- 
 mediseval versifiers are surely not inadequately re- 
 presented among them. Some indeed have failed 
 in poetically representing what passed under their 
 eyes, because the eyes of the soul were wanting 
 the Poet's second sight. Moreover, the genius of 
 some true poets has proved more at home in 
 those rarer, yet still to them living, regions of 
 the Past. I do not think the age of Chaucer was 
 much more poetical than the age of Victor Hugo 
 and Tennyson : but Chaucer contrived to see and 
 represent his age poetically : and though, per- 
 haps, Tennyson's greatest works have dealt with 
 ideal, romantic, or classical themes, he has shown 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 himself master also in setting contemporary life 
 to music. If Shakspeare wrote Julius Caesar, he 
 also wrote Henry VIII. ; and Hamlet is essentially 
 modern. Dante does not appear to have thought 
 his own age unpoetic, though himself the master 
 of ideal or spiritual creations. Dante, and Milton, 
 set the dominant theologies of their own day 
 to music; while Dante is full of allusions to 
 passing events. Homer did not endeavour to 
 reproduce classically correct imitations of the 
 poems he may have read in Egyptian papyri. 
 Gama, the hero of Camoens's epic, was still 
 alive when the poet was a boy; and Camoens 
 himself took part in adventures similar to those 
 which he relates indeed he contrives to relate 
 what was actually happening in the Lusiad itself. 
 Dryden wrote of Contemporary Politics ; Pope 
 sang the Rape of the Lock ; Byron sang contem- 
 porary life in Childe Harold and Don Juan; 
 Wordsworth also in some of his greatest poems. 
 So did Campbell, Gray, and Goldsmith at their 
 best while Scott, if he sang of chivalry, sang at 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 least of Scotland. The greatest work of Goethe is 
 distinctly modern ; so are the works of Hugo and 
 De Musset. Spenser, Chatterton, Landor, and 
 Keats, on the other hand may one not add Mr. 
 Browning ? breathe more freely in alien, or ideal, 
 atmospheres ; but then they do themselves breathe 
 there ; they do not merely simulate the accents of 
 those who once did so. 
 
 That events of our own time may be treated 
 poetically has been proved by our greatest poetess, 
 Mrs. Browning ; although, partly from the fact 
 that England as a nation has withdrawn herself 
 more and more from active participation in events 
 of cosmopolitan interest, our writers of verse have 
 not recently invited attention to contemporary 
 themes ; while studious readers have seemed dis- 
 posed to discourage such attempts. But two or 
 three genuine poets have quite lately made suc- 
 cessful efforts to break through a somewhat vulgar, 
 prosaic, and discreditable apathy though it is 
 one no doubt on which our fashionable petite 
 culture very much plumes itself. In America we 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 have, for instance, Longfellow and Walt Whit- 
 man ; while in England we have not only Arthur 
 Clough, and R. Buchanan, but also Mr. Swinburne, 
 who wrote recently the " Songs before Sunrise." 
 These poets at all events have proved that they 
 do not, from feeling their own impotence, desire 
 to insult their Mother-Age, and charge her with 
 all the responsibility of a defect, which after all 
 may not be of quite cosmical urgency. More 
 recently still, Mr. Alfred Austin seems to have 
 comically disproved his own somewhat juvenile 
 criticism on the futility of the age, and the con- 
 sequent inevitable futility of its poets, by himself 
 writing a really fine poem on contemporary events, 
 " Home or Death." 
 
 However, in the following work I have the so 
 much desiderated advantage of remoteness re- 
 moteness, if not in time, at least in place. Africa 
 is a long way off; Cook's tourists do not go to 
 Ujiji ; and both men and nature in Africa are very 
 different from what they are immediately around 
 us if that be an advantage. My object has been 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 to sing the modern Explorer suggesting, dimly 
 it may be, the Explorer, or Seeker, in a wider 
 sense. In an oasis of the Sahara, and other re- 
 mote regions, a poem on this subject dawned on 
 me. It is a subject peculiarly modern, peculiarly 
 English, and as I believe peculiarly poetical ; one 
 destined, moreover, to be always interesting. Even 
 the most jaded student, to whom life and nature 
 as he sees them are " flat, stale and unprofitable," 
 must (one would fancy) be interested in the records 
 of exploration that are published from time to time 
 by great travellers. At any rate young persons, 
 and persons young- hear ted, though no longer 
 young in years, are appealed to in my poem. I 
 have done my best : for its shortcomings, I must 
 appeal to the indulgence of such sympathetic 
 readers as these. If I shall have been enabled to 
 impart to them any measure of elevated enjoyment, 
 I shall be satisfied. The Explorer in Africa, a 
 most ancient, till yesterday almost unknown land ; 
 North of which lies Egypt ; South of which lies 
 Ethiopia, and all her still half-hidden marvels I 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 the very regions of earthly mystery; yet how pro- 
 foundly and pathetically human after all in their 
 strange disclosures ! 
 
 Poets used to sing of heroes, and great actions. 
 I do not know why they should now only spin 
 subtle cobwebs out of their own insides. Nor, 
 however, do I know how long a period must elapse, 
 according to the dogmas of " culture," before a 
 mere dead man may, (by virtue of mischievous 
 worshipping and myth-making propensities un- 
 fortunately inherent in our race,) be considered 
 as fairly canonized elevated to the dignity of 
 " a hero." But for my part, I used to think 
 Livingstone a true hero while he was alive ; and 
 my opinion of him is only not changed now 
 that he is dead. Our two Florences, Florence 
 Nightingale, and Florence Lady Baker, moreover, 
 appear to me to be heroines though both of 
 them (one is glad to know) are still alive. Nor 
 should those brave exploring ladies, the Dutch 
 Miss Tinnes, be forgotten here. At any rate, the 
 figure of David Livingstone admirably fills the 
 shadowy, but colossal outlines of the Explorer. 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 I have endeavoured to represent his life, ad- 
 ventures, character and aims, with the accuracy 
 of fact ; though in one instance I have imagined 
 a scene characteristic of a phase of African ex- 
 perience, which would otherwise have remained 
 unillustrated ; but this is a kind of experience 
 which Livingstone might easily have passed 
 through personally; and of course I have exercised 
 a privilege of selection. The scene of the first 
 Cantos is laid at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika ; where 
 Livingstone has been driven back by the malice 
 or cowardice of some who followed him, when on 
 the eve, as he believed, of solving for ever those 
 grand problems of geography, which have en- 
 gaged the world's attention from earliest ages. 
 
 He has arrived ill, worn-out, aged, destitute ; 
 to find the goods on which he depended dissi- 
 pated by the rascal to whom they had unfortu- 
 nately been entrusted ; and he could, (suffering 
 as he was from his old disease, dysentery,) hardly 
 have held out much longer, had not Mr. Stanley 
 so gallantly and unexpectedly relieved him. 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 (1871). I imagine him sitting on the open veran- 
 dah of his tembe, looking eastward, as Stanley 
 describes him ; while evening deepens, and then 
 night the night preceding Stanley's arrival. I 
 suppose that like those constellations, with 
 which he is so familiar the salient features of 
 his whole life pass successively before him in his 
 solitude ; while he meditates at leisure upon the 
 people and scenes he has witnessed ; wonders 
 what people and scenes are yet to be divulged 
 for him ; speculating, moreover, on those long- 
 vexed, fascinating problems, suggested by history, 
 geography, and science, in connection with his 
 beloved continent. But his chief concern though 
 he takes a very humane and broad interest in all 
 is the future of the people, among whom he has 
 so long lived : he is a profoundly sincere Chris- 
 tian missionary a philanthropist in the best and 
 widest sense with heart bleeding for all the 
 ignorance, darkness, and misery, which he sees 
 around him ; thirsting to devise the best possible 
 means for the salvation, enlightenment, and civili- 
 
PREFACE. xv 
 
 zation of the races. ISTot Wilberforce, Clarkson, 
 Buxton, Lincoln, or " Uncle Tom's Cabin," have 
 done more for the slave than David Livingstone. 
 He seems to have possessed also an extraordinary 
 power of sympathizing with and personally in- 
 fluencing the natives, with whom he came in con- 
 tact. 
 
 This is a man of the old heroic type : a grand 
 personality, like those of Xavier, Mazzini, Garibaldi, 
 Bellot, Ross, Parry, Franklin, Stephenson, Watt, 
 Mungo Park ; who exhibits, in a peculiarly fasci- 
 nating phase of modern life, the heroic energy, 
 and skilful perseverance in combating gigantic 
 difficulties ; partly from ideal and humane ends 
 to serve God and Man partly for the mere sake 
 of combating those difficulties themselves. God is 
 not tired of choosing and providing such natures, 
 when He has a great work for them to do : indeed 
 He provides also many obscurer workers, with 
 natures as noble, whom He in His own way 
 rewards. Are not men like Henry Martyn, and 
 Bishop Patteson; with other men and women, 
 
xvi PREFACE. 
 
 whose names remain hidden from the world ; 
 members of this heroic army ? Do we indeed lack 
 heroes ? 
 
 In Canto VI. I relate the relief of Livingstone by 
 Stanley ; in Canto VII. Livingstone's death ; and 
 the wonderful transport of his remains by faithful 
 followers, to the everlasting honour of a despised 
 race ; finally, his honoured funeral in the grand 
 cathedral of his own land. It remains that I 
 express my obligations to the works of great 
 African travellers Speke and Grant, Baker, 
 Burton, Schweinfurth, Du Chaillu, Winwood 
 Reade, Moffatt, Stanley, Bowdich, Petherick 
 and to the correspondents of daily papers, who 
 described the funeral. 
 
UE tuneful students, with dull downward 
 
 eyes, 
 
 Measuring one another in a dream, 
 Lisp, " how the pigmy time degenerates ! 
 " Where are your 'heroes ? ' we distinguish none : 
 " Your ' heroes ' have no literary style ! 
 " Lo ! we discern some dust upon their feet." 
 They, poring on impalpable pale shades 
 Of vanished years, fantastically warble, 
 Singing sweet songs of phantoms in a cloud ! 
 Delicate warblers, fleeting as a cloud ! 
 
 I lay my wreath upon a hero's grave. 
 There let it bloom ; or let it wither there ! 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 HE sun is sinking over Africa ; 
 And nnder shadowy native eaves 
 
 reclines 
 
 A traveller upon a fur-strewn floor ; 
 One whom no years' ignoble rust, but high 
 And holy toil have wasted ; bearded grey, 
 In wayworn English garb he seems array'd ; 
 His shoulders bow'd as from a life's long burden ; 
 His rude wan countenance profoundly scarr'd 
 With noble ruin wrought by Love and Sorrow. 
 Reclined against the dwelling's claybuilt wall, 
 His falcon eyes explore the mooned East. 
 B 
 
i LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Athwart a wondrous land that lies before 
 Slow shadow steals ; o'er all the fervid palms, 
 Broadleaved banana, leaf- seas infinite, 
 Hoar unfamiliar stupendous forms 
 Of that primaeval forest African : 
 Slowly the shadow with declining day 
 Fades rainbow splendour of the forest far, 
 And drowns imperial purple of the hills 
 In one phantasmal all-confounding gloom. 
 
 Ye mountains, 1 hiding un disco ver'd worlds, 
 So mused in spirit the lone wanderer, 
 I hunger till I pass your mighty doors, 
 And lay my hand upon the Mystery ! 
 African Andes, vast, inviolate, 
 Crown' d with the cloud, robed round with sombre 
 
 forest, 
 
 Whose virgin snow no human feet profane 
 Have swept, but only the wild eagle's wing, 
 Of old your ghost on Rumour's shadowy breath 
 Wander'd abroad, Mountains of the Moon ! 
 And still ye are no more than a dim name : 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 3 
 
 Of old the Egyptian from jour loins, that loom 
 Large in far realms of Rumour, drew the Nile. 
 Ye, couchant o'er the sultry continent, 
 Seem the great guardian Lion of Africa, 
 Who, from primaeval ages all alone, 
 Silently stern, confronts a crimson dawn 
 Over fair Indian seas, with face that towers 
 Sunward, supreme ; feeling a warm moist breath, 
 Faint with perfume, turn crystals of soft snow 
 Among the terrors of his icy mane ; 
 Or, where the stature of his giant frame 
 Declines to westward, feeling the breath change 
 To rain within the hollows of his heart. 
 All, thundering down abrupt convulsed ravines, 
 Scarr'd in precipitous rugged flanks of stone, 
 Feed wide JSTyanzas ; whether there be twain, 
 Or many waters, these engender thee, 
 Wonderful Nile ! 
 
 And yet I deem that I 
 Shall find thy parent springs remoter still. 
 Lualaba, with his tributary rivers, 
 And lilied lakes his loving bounty fills ! 
 
4 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Yea, some have told me, and I well believe, 
 There are four fountains clear and deep as 
 
 day, 
 
 Welling unfathomable, perennial 
 Among low hills as jet unseen, the last 
 Subsiding roll, it may be, of one range 
 Named of old Rumour, Mountains of the Moon. 
 Behold the shrine of living waters ! Here 
 From one immense rock-temple stream the Souls 
 Of many lands and nations, whispering 
 In dim enchanted caverns ; East and North, 
 And West emerging, sunny wings unfold : 
 Shouting they plunge in joyous waterfalls, 
 To roll a priceless silver all abroad, 
 Each to his Ocean, whose illustrious names 
 Are Congo, Nile, and long Leeambayee ! 
 Whom Mother Ocean, in her awful arms 
 Absorbing, ever engendereth anew, 
 Gendering a holy Cycle evermore. 
 
 When royal Sun his Oriental bride, 
 India's Ocean, fiercely fervent woos, 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 5 
 
 While She dissolves in his delightful love, 
 What time He fronts earth's equatorial zone 
 On his way North to Cancer, then the waters 
 Rise in a tide of life upon the lands, 
 Lying athirst and barren in his blaze. 
 
 My soul, unbow'd in face of failing years, 
 
 Though Hope may falter from unwearying 
 Hindrance of blind baseborn vicissitude, 
 Swears to resolve the alluring Mystery, 
 At whose cold feet our mightiest have fallen, 
 Yearning to find the sacred Source, and die ; 
 Nor have prevailed ; but if the Lord allow, 
 I and my fellow-labourers will prevail ! 
 
 I seek the birth of that immortal River, 
 Who bears great Egypt in her watery womb, 
 Who nursed the world's prime empire on her 
 
 bosom ; 
 
 And Moses, more illustrious than all 
 Pharoahs, her earth- enthralling conquerors, 
 Throned in their golden hundred-gated Thebes, 
 
6 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Tomb'd in hoar wonder of the pyramids. 
 
 At thy most holy source, primeval Nile ! 
 
 The Greek drank wisdom ; yea, in solemn halls 
 
 Of Memphis, in columnar stone forests 
 
 Of mighty Karnac, rich with hieroglyph, 
 
 And pictured symbol and weird shapes of Gods. 
 
 Only the solar beam, the Obelisk, 
 
 Now from green palms and verdure and pure rills, 
 
 As then from sacred fountains of the Sun, 
 
 In olden time, in Heliopolis, 
 
 Still points with mystic granite flame to Heaven ! 
 
 This mighty gnomon of a sun-dial 
 
 Moved then a shadow, lengthening among signs 
 
 Upon a porphyry or a brazen floor, 
 
 Among blithe forms of Pharaonic time ; 
 
 Now o'er young corn and red anemone ! 
 
 There came Pythagoras to learn the lore 
 
 Of stars, and suns, and gods, and human souls ; 
 
 There Moses mused, well-nourish 'd on rich stores 
 
 Of priests and sages ; communing with truth, 
 
 And in his spirit sifting dust from gold. 
 
 Only this one most ancient monument 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 7 
 
 Stands of thy glory, Heliopolis ! 
 
 Earliest seat of learning, where the seer, 
 
 Illustrious Plato, came from Academe, 
 
 And sweet Ilissus ; fairest star of all 
 
 The fair young band who follow' d one wise 
 
 master. 
 
 Here a stone astrolabe explored the night, 
 Measuring solemn wanderings of stars. 
 Here laboratory furnaces were glowing ; 
 While some astrologer with mystic rites 
 Drew horoscopes, or cast nativities : 
 But then our Earth, who in her equable 
 And proud obeisant motion round the sun 
 Hath in twice ten millennial periods 
 Her inclined axle measurably perturb'd, 
 Lean'd otherwise her pole among the skies ; 
 Another Polestar ruled the mariner ; 
 Another Ocean shrined thy radiance, 
 O Christian constellation of the Cross ! 
 While otherwhere in every tranquil night, 
 Among cool calm abysses of pure space, 
 Shone Sirius, Arcturus, and Orion. 
 
8 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Here too the holiest Child of mortal race 
 Rested in humble guise with a pure Mother. 
 
 At thy most holy source, primaeval Nile ! 
 The Greek drank wisdom ; learn'd a Daedal art, 
 That in his pure white light of genius, 
 In that pellucid aether of his clime, 
 Among pure breezes of Castalian hills, 
 And delicate unrobed consummate forms 
 Of radiant heroes, bloom 'd in glorious 
 Marble immortal gods for all the world. 
 
 Here he beheld the blazon'd Zodiac 
 On loftiest firmaments of broad hewn stone 
 Within dim fanes, or solemn tombs of kings ; 
 Stupendous vaulted chambers in the heart 
 Of flame-hued mountain, silently aware 
 With populous imagery of men and gods, 
 Hawk or ram-headed ; on wide wall and ceiling 
 Beheld a constellate celestial river 
 Meandering around a crystal sphere, 
 And navigated in twelve lives of Moons 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 9 
 
 By that resplendent Father of the Kings ; 
 Kings lying here in glory, all embalm' d, 
 And je well'd o'er with slumbering talismans, 
 Asleep in their immense sarcophagi. 
 
 Yonder, on burning sands of Libya, 
 Unmoved the tranquil-featured Sphinx beheld 
 Abraham, Homer, Solon, all the wise 
 Of every clime, who came, and saw, and wonder'd ; 
 Who pass'd, leaving a heritage to man ; 
 Beheld dissolving dynasties of Kings, 
 And all their people, pageant-like unroll' d 
 Before His face ; they, with o'erwhelming pillars 
 Of desert sand before the whirlwind's breath, 
 Pass'd in loud pomp, and were not any more ; 
 The silent Sphinx regarding, as to-day, 
 Beyond them all, serene Eternity ! 
 
 There that colossal Memnon, while the Nile 
 Pour'd like another morning all around 
 Sweet life- engendering waters musical, 
 Murmur'd melodious salutation, 
 
10 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 When first Aurora, his celestial mother, 
 Smiled sweet upon him from the Orient. 
 
 Fresh from fierce thunder of the cataracts, 
 Tortured among dark demon-blocks of stone 
 Fireborn, divine Mle smoothes his ruffled flow ; 
 Lingers a tranquil, a celestial lake 
 To embrace fair PhilaB, PhilaD, fairest isle 
 Of all earth's islands ! fringed with mirror' d palm, 
 And lotos blossom on the crystalline 
 Laving her bosom ; she hath lotos blossom 
 For capitals of her hypgethral fane, 
 Quiet in heaven, tremulous in the river : 
 Where, sundering flowing phantoms of the stars, 
 Boats glide by night, aslant on broider'd sail, 
 Freighted with youth, and love and loveliness : 
 Balmy night breezes, all alive with song, 
 Laughter, and rhythmic plashing of light oars, 
 (While coloured lamp-lights lambent on the ripple 
 Stream from fair vessel, or embower'd shore) ; 
 Rustle tall fountain'd palms among the stars ; 
 As strange slim forms of a most ancient age 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. u 
 
 Land on pale quays of that so stately temple, 
 
 Sonorous with a gorgeous ritual. 
 
 Now on a roofless column builds the stork ! 
 
 Here, they believe, slumbers a mighty god, 
 
 Osiris, Love incarnate, and the Judge ; 
 
 Also the Solar orb, and sacred Nile ; 
 
 Who, with moon'd Isis and her little child, 
 
 Shadoweth forth a triune Deity. 
 
 His awful name none dare to breathe aloud : 
 
 An oath avails to bind for evermore 
 
 One who hath sworn "by Him that sleeps in Philae." 
 
 Most ancient realm of all this ancient earth, 2 
 Thought faints to sound thine hoar antiquity ! 
 Europe and Asia were not when thy form 
 Brooded in solemn grandeur, as to-day, 
 Over dark ocean ! when Dicynodon, 
 Ancestor of thy huge Leviathan, 
 Ruled over mightier seas and estuaries ; 
 When melancholy vapours veil'd strange stars, 
 Ere man's wan yearning unavailing eyes 
 Awoke to wonder ! ere the cataclysm 
 
12 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Rent all thy rocks, and snmmon'd forth the 
 
 rivers . . 
 . . When came the Negro ? and the dwindling 
 
 Dwarf? 
 
 I have found bones of immemorial age : 
 Their living families surround me now ! 
 
 Wilds more unknown than yonder ghostly Moon, 
 Beyond the bounds of Earth ! whose ruin huge 
 Of awful mountain, Albategnius, 
 Or Doerfel, whose abysses of dead gloom 
 Herschel in his enchanter's glass reveal'd ! 
 
 Africa ! vast immeasurable Void, 
 Where no imperial march of History 
 Solemn resounds from echoing age to age ! 
 Haunt of light-headed fable and dim dream ! 
 To whose fierce strand the Heaven-shadowing 
 
 bird, 
 
 Enormous Roc, long deemed a wild romance, 
 Was wont to fly of old from Madagascar ! 
 In whose blue seas floats fragrant ambergris ; 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. i 
 
 Whose shores are blushing corallines most rare, 
 
 Where ocean-fairies wander mailed in gems, 
 
 Silently gliding through the branching bowers 
 
 While far inland strange palaces are piled 
 
 Profusely with pure ivory and gold 3 
 
 No lynx-eyed peril-affronting pioneer, 
 
 Since the beginning, until yesterday, 
 
 Dared violate thy sultry somnolence, 
 
 Couch' d, a grim lion in thine ancient lair ; 
 
 Sullenly self-involved, impenetrable ! 
 
 Or if one ever bearded and aroused, 
 
 Thy winds have spurn'd his unrevealing dust ! 
 
 Yea, in thy fiery deserts, in the pomp 
 
 Of lurid evenings, crimson, warm, like blood, 
 
 Thou dost devour thine own dark children, 
 
 crouch'd 
 About thy cruel knees, dark Africa ! 
 
14 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 ET mine are Higher, holier purposes ; 
 
 For I will cleave this darkling 
 continent, 
 
 As with a sword of intellectual light; 
 Lead these lost children to a living Father, 
 And tell them of a Brother who has died. 
 Yea, if my nature's weakness have rebell'd 
 Against what seems the world's indifference ; 
 Men treading their unarduous wonted round 
 Of common care, oblivious of mine, 
 Who battle alone, afar from all ; who waste, 
 Ignobly sinking here in sight of goal, 
 For bitter need of help I hoped from men, 
 At leisure in their calm abounding homes ; 
 Bales for exchange or tribute ; healing herbs ; 
 Wherewith to calm this fire within my veins, 
 And tame the ravening hungry heathendom 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 15 
 
 Thou knowest, O Lord, mj prime solicitude 
 Was for the work Thou hast to me unworthy 
 Confided in Thy Providence unachieved, 
 And yet I know the Holiest never fails 
 For lack of service ; but allows to each 
 The measure He in wisdom hath ordain' d. 
 
 For all the land is foul with monstrous wrong, 
 And desolation of the sons of Hell. 
 Surely the long long wail of human woe 
 Ever ascends from all our earth to heaven ! 
 But here the mist of blind unending tears 
 Hangs undissolving, and abolishes 
 Yon very Life-Light from His shining halls, 
 And hides the Father from his orphan'd sons. 
 Hell is let loose ; and jubilant cruelty 
 Tortures a feeble lowly-witted race, 
 Poor fallen outcast of humanity ; 
 Inflames the lurking salvage brute that haunts 
 A wilding blood to fratricidal war, 
 To thrall its very kindred, for the sport 
 Of paler large-brain'd fiends, the common foe, 
 
1 6 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 And glut their markets with the flesh of men. 
 Shoot them and drown them ! from convulsive arms 
 Tear small sweet clinging babes, and fainting brides 
 From lovers, who with unavailing life 
 Stain them in falling, or themselves enslaved, 
 Yoked, goaded, pinioned, tramp the burning wilds, 
 To bleach with beast-gnawn bones the wilderness ; 
 Or huddled in a slaver's pestilent hold, 
 Writhing and raving, rotting while alive, 
 Are flung to gorge sleek monsters of the sea ! 
 Lo ! in dusk offings of ensanguined seas, 
 At sunset doth the torpid slaver droop 
 Her guilty sail ; while evil strangers brand 
 Dark women on a golden strand with fire ; 
 Who are mute with endless woes unutterable ! 
 
 Nay ! the long wail of wounded innocence 
 Hath ne'er been squander'd on a voiceless Void ! 
 But every tear of every helpless child 
 Sinks in a warm unfathomable Love : 
 And armed Righteousness awaits her hour, 
 Albeit Her lightning slumber in the cloud. 
 These human shambles shall be purged from blood : 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 17 
 
 This charnel of the world shall reek no more, 
 Plague-spot of all the starry universe ! 
 For I will flash the light of Europe's eyes 
 Full on the tyrant, till he quail and cower, 
 And vanish, a mere snowflake in the sun. 
 England, inviolate Ark of Freedom, launch 
 Thy thunder as of old ; and hurl them low ! 
 Fulfil thy mission ! fallen heroes want 
 Yonder in heaven their crown of blessedness, 
 Till the last bondsman clasp unfetter'd hands 
 O'er the last slaver, whelm'd beneath the wave ! 
 
 But I abide until my task be done. 
 And if they slay their mortal enemy, 
 It is the Lord who calls, and it is well 
 When they had thought to murder ; reft from me 
 All I most cherish' d on a former day ; 
 Killing my converts, even the little ones, 
 Or sweeping them into captivity ; 
 I said, " I am not less resolved than they : 
 They do but save me wills and codicils ! " 
 I turn my face indeed, as they intend, 
 C 
 
1 8 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 From this my labour of long years o'erthrown ; 
 
 And yet not homeward, baffled as they deem 
 
 For lo ! my face is toward the world unknown, 
 
 That seem'd almost the very world in sooth, 
 
 " From whose dark bonrne no traveller returns." 
 
 I take the plunge, and I am lost in night ! 
 
 Lost to the life and tumult of mankind : 
 
 No voice may reach me from the homes of men ; 
 
 No voice of mine may penetrate to them. 
 
 Five times twelve moons have filled their horns 
 
 and waned ; 
 
 My memory is failing from the world ; 
 Only a ghostly rumour murmurs low 
 How one has seen a strange white wanderer, 
 Somewhere inland ; none certainly knows where ; 
 And one more rumour whispers, he is dead. 
 Empires may rise and fall ; great wars may 
 
 thunder ; 
 
 And peace may follow war ; and I not know, 
 More than the drown' d who slumber in the sea 
 Yea, have they ruin'd me at Kolobeng ? 
 Behold I wrest from them all Africa ! 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 19 
 
 For I will never cease from journeying, 
 Until the length and breadth of all the land 
 Shine forth illuminate from shore to shore ! 
 My life is one long journey ; and I love 
 Peril, and toil, and strange vicissitude ; 
 Exploring all the wonder of the world 
 On sea and land ; wonder for evermore ; 
 And all the marvellous miracle of man. 
 I am urged ever by a restless ghost, 
 And may not fold my hands in tranquil sleep. 
 Yet when we have grown old, we want the glow 
 Of our own generous children in their prime, 
 Warming our twilight ; they love thought for us, 
 As we of old for them ; their little ones 
 Play, like a dear last dawn, around our age ; 
 And I too long to be at home again 
 By the sweet firelight of my northern land ! 
 At Christmas-time, the room is bright with green, 
 And far bells faintly peal athwart the snow : 
 Then quiet firelight, wavering with soft sound > 
 Pleasantly ruddies gold and silver hair : 
 But in the summer, little children sing 
 
20 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 A near a shimmer of slim aspen leaves, 
 Fluttering with sound of summer rain. 
 Ah ! shall I never cease from journeying ? 
 Urged ever onward by a restless ghost, 
 I may not fold my hands in pleasant sleep ! 
 
 When I surmount some unfamiliar height, 
 Behold ! an alien realm mysterious 
 Unroll'd in twilight ! ghostly, drear, and wan ; 
 Stain'd with what seem huge bombs of shatter 'd 
 
 iron, 
 
 Hurl'd from a weird infernal enginery. 
 And then I muse what eerie living things 
 Dwell far beyond among the mists of night 
 Whether the wanderer may wander on 
 For ever in the waste, hearing no sound, 
 Save of his own footfall ; or yonder dwell. 
 Dark unimaginable human lives ; 
 Wearing what uncouth forms, allied to some 
 Misshapen horrors of the forest wild 
 Weird startling mockery of immortal man ; 
 Shocking the soul with chill mistrustful fear, 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. zi 
 
 And doubt of her pre-eminent destiny 
 Brutebrow'd, brutemaw'd, huge hirsute prodigies, 
 Challenging with a vast appalling roar 
 Whoso disturbs their monstrous monarchy ! 
 Dark unimaginable human lives, 
 Ever alone in this most ancient realm, 
 Immured in a stupendous sepulchre, 
 Afar from man's tumultuous chariot-race 
 Of sounding splendour ; somnolent aware 
 How the dull tide of dim inglorious years 
 Moves ever foul and lurid with the scurf 
 Of ruin'd blood, and gold, and scalding tears ! 
 
 Some veer small restless, rambling, apelike eyes ; 
 Their clicking gibber mimics flittermice ; 
 A skeleton people plucking roots and berries 
 For starved subsistence, grubbing shallow holes, 
 Or sheltering in borrow'd dens disused. 
 What people lies before me ? some affirm 
 That there be men sepulchred verily 
 In subterranean chambers like the dead ; 
 Burrowing human moles, fleeing from light, 
 
22 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 By their free choice, and immemorial 
 
 Usage ; though Humour murmurs her wild tale 
 
 Ever with a light head confusedly. 
 
 Shall I behold some dark terrific cave, 
 Reeking with bats, and owls, and doleful things, 
 High among crags of a precipitous mountain, 
 Strewn with fresh bones of men, that hideous ghouls 
 In human form, foul anthropophagi, 
 Have gnawn for food ; a loathsome den defiled 
 With dripping human members, torn for meat ? 
 A desolate wind howls ever dolefully 
 Around the dismal open mouth of hell, 
 Howls like a murdered man's avenging soul ! 
 While among boulder-ruins of the mountain 
 Climb beasts obscene, scenting a horrid feast ! 
 At night a thunder of great lions rolls, 
 Rebellowing from basalt precipices : 
 At night a fervour of infernal flame, 
 With cruel yells of hellish revelry, 
 Affronts pale stars ; what time the unearthly fiends 
 Grimy, and gash'd with knives, and foul with earth, 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 23 
 
 Squat mumbling bodies of lost travellers, 
 Whom they decoying fell'd with monstrous 
 
 clubs. 
 
 But underneath the floor of their black vault 
 Deepens a hollow murmur, far withdrawn 
 Within the haunted heart of the dread mountain. 
 It may be mutter 'd wrath of slumbering fires ; 
 It may be secret waters wandering; 
 But they believe it of another world ; 
 And shuddering pour libation to the god. 
 
 Sometimes by night a mightier thunder even 
 Than thunder of roaring lions, like an ocean, 
 Bursts all the boundaries of ruinous heaven 
 In one wild flood of universal flame, 
 With sound as of upheaval of adamant ; 
 Towering wrath of Powers immeasurable, 
 And roll'd war-chariots of tremendous cloud : 
 Sound the great mountains in their chasms and 
 
 craters, 
 
 Bastions, and inviolable towers, 
 Rebellow; hurl abroad; mutter in gloom ; 
 
24 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Brood over in their dim and sullen souls. 
 Perpetual seas of broad purpureal flame, 
 With intervals of momentary night, 
 Dark as the darkness of a man born blind, 
 Possess the sky's unfathomable concave ; 
 Wherein appalling growths of more intense 
 Fire with seven branches, like gigantic trees, 
 Spring up and vanish ! 
 
 Behold yon perpendicular crags, like flame, 
 Whose melaphyre and porphyry condor crests 
 Threaten the valleys ! whose profound ravines 
 Of deadly twilight ne'er a sun may see, 
 Unsoften'd of a tiniest herb or flower ! 
 Now furious torrents toss white manes of foam 
 Down their long solitudes ; the firmament 
 Sunders, and pours dense watery deluges, 
 Illuminate with deluges of light ; 
 Howls the tornado ; 'tis the reign of chaos ! 
 Great lions lashing tails in grim despair, 
 Mingling their roar with elemental thunder, 
 Climb from the floods, or struggling drown 
 therein ! 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 25 
 
 All ! would the blinding falchion of swift light- 
 ning, 
 
 That crimson wounds the mountain flank, but hurl 
 One of those loosen'd bounding blocks of rock, 
 So as to stop for ever the black mouth 
 Of that infernal cavern of the fiends, 
 Where still a madden'd laughter peals among 
 Commotions of Divine wrath flying abroad, 
 Eeiterate from all their haunted halls ! 
 Lo ! the tornado, and the levinbolt 
 Have fallen upon yon tree's enormous bulk, 
 Hard by the cave ; blasting, and wrenching it 
 Loose from a cleft it grappled for centuries 
 With serpentine huge roots ! it creaks and crashes ! 
 Headlong it topples to the gulf that boils ! 
 
 Some even tell a marvellous dim tale 
 Of a tribe buried somewhere in the wild ; 
 A satyr-race of clovenfooted men, 
 Hairy and tail'd, with cloven feet like swine ! 
 Where are the Pigmies ? Homer sang of old 
 Their yearly war with southward-flying cranes ! 
 
26 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 They wear enormous heads upon their shoulders 
 They build their pigmy booths in dim recesses 
 Of some impenetrable forest world ! 
 Two travellers 4 lately came upon their traces. 
 
 Here are no mouldering monuments of glory, 
 Confused dim ruin of long centuries ; 
 As though, ashamed of human purposes, 
 Suffering slow conversion to the ways 
 Of soft- outlined harmonious natural things, 
 Flower and herb, and weatherhued worn stone. 
 Yet here Napoleons and Tamerlanes 
 Have temper' d to a life -devouring sword 
 The drossy coarseness of humanity : 
 Only their mighty Mother in more scorn 
 Spurns in an hour the poor fantastic toil ! 
 A millstone, lost in verdure or black ooze ; 
 Cairns upon hillsides ; fragments of rude jars ; 
 Obsidian implements with fossil bones, 
 Buried in bowels of unquarried rock ; 
 These are the memories Earth retains of man. 
 And yet the dead are in the forest mould, 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 27 
 
 In branching wildernesses of rich gloom, 
 
 In beast, and bird, and every living thing ; 
 
 Yea, noble thoughts and deeds and souls for ever 
 
 Live in the deep eternal heart of God : 
 
 They are reverberate in the lives of all ; 
 
 Nor fail of full fruition and reward. 5 
 
 Or shall I light on some barbarian 
 Court, where high lords, like reptiles in the dust, 
 Grovel before a swarthy emperor, 
 Throned all in gold ? who from the burning day 
 Shielded beneath a slave-supported silk 
 Pavilion crown'd with some griffonian beast, 
 That courts the sunlight clothed in musky fur 
 Of tawny spotted pard, cruel as he, 
 And fig-bark beaten ; wrists with ivory bound, 
 And slung with genets' tails ; a scimitar 
 In his right hand ; red plumes of touraco 6 
 Among his oil'd elaborated curls 
 Glowers where the panther-supple guards advance, 
 Gory, dusk, jewell'd stalwart Amazons, 
 At his feet rolling four distorted heads. 
 
2g LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Three skulls of kings, late mighty mortal foes, 
 The monarch tramples ; a white ivory trump 
 Of elephant tusk one blows, while others clang 
 Dissonant gongs but ah ! delicious groves 
 Of fanlike palm, with waxen clusters fair, 
 Cassia, myrrh, aloe, or ananas ! 
 Sweet amber-weeping mists of sensitive leaf, 
 Wooing young sunlight to a delicate 
 Dream in your soft warm zephyr-haunted hearts, 
 Empetall'd all with rosy peach blossom ! 
 Alas ! your mellow meeklived innocence 
 Blazes A fierce intolerable gold 
 Breaks from breastplates of yelling murderers, 
 Dragging men, women, children, cowering slaves, 
 From hence, and shelter of dank cane jungles, 
 Or wounding chaos of floral parasite ; 
 Convolved wing' d serpents hung in gorgeous gloom 
 Of tower-pillar'd forest high and hoar. 
 Rather they brave grim Terrors of the wild, 
 Stealthily prowling in moonlighted glades, 
 Where bubble sweet live waters musical ; 
 Huge grisly rivals crushing the stunn'd prey ; 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 29 
 
 Than surerfooted more unerring doom 
 
 Of hate fraternal, or implacable 
 
 Unholy violence of holy men, 
 
 Who, glutting a false god's bloodthirstiness, 
 
 Hale them, poor innocents, to sacrifice ! 
 
 A king hath died ; and all dead emperors 
 
 They worship with lewd rites of cruelty, 
 
 By " watering " malignant evil dust 
 
 With what in its malignant vampire life 
 
 A vain, unstable, sanguinary soul 
 
 Relish'd to quaff from a foe's hollow skull, 
 
 More than all nectar crimson human blood. 
 
 Yea, all the forest is one Golgotha ; 
 
 Skeletons, skulls, and cumbering carcases, 
 
 Confused in one delirious dread dream ! 
 
 Behold ! under yon ancient fetish tree, 
 
 Denied with slaughter of five centuries, 
 
 Near an uncouth hewn stone (a phallic idol, 
 
 Begrimed, and hung with ghastly offerings) 
 
 A human victim horribly tormented ! 
 
 One blade thrust like a bit between his jaws 
 
 Is strain'd and fasten'd there ; while many knives 
 
30 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Lacerate all his gory frame ; lie writhes 
 In agony ; for every living wound 
 Men have inflamed with diabolic art ! 
 
 A pomp barbarian reigneth everywhere. 
 Nobles are slung in hammocks of rich silk, 
 Turban' d, and motley'd with quaint ornament ; 
 Or rest their gold-encumber 'd arms on heads 
 Of young lithe favourites, wearing cloth of gold ; 
 Velvety smooth boys, eyed with slumbrous fire ; 
 While others flirt long gold-bound elephant- tails. 
 Nigh to the monarch squats a hideous dwarf ; 
 And a white negro with two small pink eyes. 
 There is a trampling of arm'd cavalry ; 
 Barbs in rich mail, brightly caparison'd, 
 Mounted by swarthy horsemen, champ the bit, 
 Their riders quivering bronze assegais. 
 Hearken ! lewd revelry of dancing slaves, 
 Clashing with cymbal, tabor, Castanet. . . 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA, 31 
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 OW in my far enchanted solitude, 
 Mj long life moves before me like a 
 dream . . . 
 
 A child in Ulva, by the Northern sea, 
 
 I hear my father at our evening prayer, 
 
 And wild Gael singing of my grandmother, 
 
 A factory boy upon the banks of Clyde ; 
 
 For all the dissonant whirl of enginery, 
 
 I seize the food of learning, swiftly glancing 
 
 On some dear volume, laid upon a marge 
 
 Of the great spinning-jenny, as I pass, 
 
 Repassing ever in monotonous toil. 
 
 Fired with the splendour of the Lord of Love, 
 
 I long to unfurl His standard in the world : 
 
 For this I conquer arts laborious 
 
 Of serviceable healing ; and I grow 
 
 Adept in many a helpful handicraft ; 
 
32 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 So full equipp'd, with arduous effort arm'd, 
 Living a temperate, reasonable life, 
 I bear a stout heart in a season'd frame ; 
 And emulous of illustrious pioneers, 
 Nor all unmindful of my sires austere, 
 I find myself i' the heart of Africa, 
 Helping the father of my bride to be. 
 
 My long life moves before me like a dream. 
 Behold ! our mission-house at Kolobeng : 
 These labour-roughen' d hands have builded it. 
 N"or for myself alone, but for the dark 
 Children of whom I am the father here, 
 I labour with strong hand, and heart, and soul. 
 I smelt rude ores ; and, fervid as large eyes 
 Of wrathful tigers, ringing iron yields 
 Upon mine anvil, hammer' d heartily ; 
 While a bow'd native plies the goatskin bellows. 
 Lusty and hale, in manhood's vigorous prime, 
 I startle the lone woods with stalwart blows ; 
 While cream- white splinters fly from stubborn 
 trunks, 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 33 
 
 Whose leafy pride falls headlong shattering ; 
 My wife with finger nimble, dexterous, 
 Moulding the while a hundred things at home. 
 
 There is a power enthralling human souls 
 In equal dealings, in a lofty life, 
 And lowly Love's unwearying ministry. 
 One who inherits wisdom's treasure-house, 
 And lives endow' d with more than wonted grace 
 Of human faculty, may forge the gold 
 Thereof to ignominious chains for men ; 
 Or twine the spiritual wealth, for their 
 Deliverance, to cords of fair persuasion, 
 Wooing their own endeavours after God. 
 I wielding for the common use, not mine, 
 A wider knowledge and a riper skill, 
 Bestow'd free counsel or sincere reproof; 
 Tended my children when their bodies ail'd ; 
 Lent a large heart to small perplexities, 
 And simple tales of hourly human woe. . . . 
 . . . Have these a lowlier 'place allotted them ? 
 Yet they full surely have their post prepared 
 
34 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 In God's world-army : I will help them there. 
 
 And I believe Jesus, the Man of men, 
 
 Who is God's personal Love and Righteousness, 
 
 To be the one and only living Lord, 
 
 Ruler alike of loftiest and least, 
 
 Who, being reveal'd, will draw men unto Him, 
 
 Each in his order and foreknown degree. 
 
 Sun of the living ! Hesper of the gloom ! 
 Surely Thy dusky children call for Thee, 
 Unknowing whom they call the wail resounds 
 Yet in mine ears of some funereal dirge 
 For one beloved and vanish'd ; when the moon 
 Wavers, as if in water, among leaves 
 Of air-moved umbrage ; and a bark-built village 
 Lies in pale elf-light, with embowering palm 
 And silvern plantain ; lonely forest shades 
 Of over-frowning mountain-presences 
 With stealthily mysterious forms aware. 
 A bitter, long, monotonous human wail ! 
 More poignant than the cries of animal lives 
 In unreverberate torture ; 'tis a wail 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 35 
 
 Of one that's cloven to the depths of being, 
 
 Maim'd in the vitals of an immortal soul. 
 
 To me it seems alive with the wild prayer, 
 
 This poor blind people hath so oft preferr'd, 
 
 Crying with dumb yet infinite eloquence, 
 
 " wise white man ! we pray thee give us sleep ! "" 
 
 So moans a hollow voice reverberate 
 
 In long-drawn aisles of some sepulchral vault ; 
 
 So moans the mystic growth Man dr agora, 
 
 Feeding on human ravage in a ruin 
 
 Under a gibbet, when one pulls the root. 
 
 How long have these then cower'd here in night r 
 
 Mouthpieces of creation's misery, 
 
 Wailing the world's wail in closed ears of God ? 
 
 Whom now lament they ? some beloved friend, 
 
 Chief, mother, bride, or child, who turn'd so 
 
 cold 
 
 And strange and silent ; who may not abide 
 Any more here in sweet sunlight with them, 
 Or pleasant interchange of word and smile ; 
 Gone forth for ever from them to the chill 
 And cheerless realm of dreams impalpable 
 
36 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Nevermore I wails the burden of the strain, 
 Burdening, as it seems, the very sleep 
 Of a serene, fair incense-breathing earth ! 
 Ever it wails, low, dreary, and desolate, 
 Oppress'd and muffled in a solemn sorrow ; 
 A dirge world-weary, an old-world requiem, 
 Trailing a slow wan length along the dust, 
 Faint from the fount of immemorial tears ; 
 A shadow, whose maim'd wings are plumed with 
 
 awe ; 
 
 Sunken so deep from ghostly woes and fears, 
 And broken hearts of all ancestral lives ; 
 Phantoms aroused by a fresh living pain 
 To haunt the labyrinths of a living soul, 
 And all the dark slow movement of the dirge ! 
 
 One cabin stands a little way apart 
 From all the rest upon a higher ground. 
 Hence flows the wail ! A man laments his son. 
 It is an aged warrior of the tribe, 
 Who cowers, and sways himself upon the floor, 
 Before an ember glow, that he beholds 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 37 
 
 Only in dreaming ; while a warm, red gleam 
 Falls on the brown of rude encircling wall, 
 Leaving a smoke-beclouded roof in gloom ; 
 Falls on barb'd javelins, and bows and arrows, 
 And many hunting spoils of him who lies 
 Near to his father, silent, stark, and cold ; 
 Ruddies the dark bare limbs of life and death. 
 Rich furs are under and over the young form ; 
 Furs golden, furs of lynx, and ocelot : 
 A small uncomely dog, with pointed ears, 
 Presses his faithful body to the corpse. 
 He was a comely boy, a mighty hunter, 
 A bold young warrior, hope of all the tribe, 
 And his infirm old father's only stay. 
 When humid morning, chill, and pale, and wan, 
 Peers at those intervals between the boughs 
 Of wattled wall, yon ashes will be grey, 
 And still the old man be cowering by the dead ! 
 Then the fond faltering sire must wander forth 
 Alone ; away from this unpitying herd 
 Of yet unwounded men into the wild ; 
 There to fade slowly ; with a feeble hand 
 
3 8 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Plucking the berries, pulling up the roots ; 
 A living skeleton, grim woe and want 
 In dim, scared eyes ; until the wolf and raven 
 Find him low laid, their unresisting prey ! 
 
 The father's wail, like mournful waves unseen, 
 Dies on the ear, and moans alternately ; 
 But later, figures gather in the open, 
 Lamenting by a fire new-made the dead. . . . 
 What wizard, with his incantation curst, 
 Blasted the living ; changing to a foe, 
 And chilling fear, what was so amiable ? 7 
 Over the shoulder timorously glance 
 They, at the very rustling of a leaf, 
 To where the dead lie yonder in the forest, 
 Strewn with some humble offerings they need : 
 Food, bowls, or ivory, arms, and hunting gear. 
 Now beat loud tamtams ; rattle hollow drums ! 
 So scare away the dim unhomely ghost 
 With yells, and shouts, and drunken revelry. . . . 
 " Ah ! shadow-muffled panther, with fierce eyes, 
 Prowling and mumbling yonder, art thou he ? 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 39 
 
 Ah ! whispering leaves of darkling forest trees ! 
 Ye are ill whispers of infernal fiends ! 
 But we will drown the bitterness of woe, 
 Frowning, foreboding, and bewildering fear ! " 
 
 8 Behold ! one stalks emergent from a cave 
 In yon far-off enfoldings of the hills, 
 Where he has lain in some enchanted swoon, 
 From when the moon her slender silver bow 
 Lifted in blue night, till she rose an orb, 
 Fully resplendent argent, even now. 
 And he is haggard, worn, emaciate 
 With vigil and with fast ; a tawny hide 
 Of some wild beast about his grimy frame, 
 Charms of link'd leopard's teeth upon his breast, 
 And leopard's liver for an amulet. 
 With stained, hideous face, and jingling bells, 
 And for a head-gear feathers of a bird, 
 He sits among the mourners by the fire. 
 Then all gesticulating chaunt a prayer ; 
 Till he, the prophet, fearfully convulsed, 
 Falls like a corpse ; but all the people cry : 
 
4 o LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 " Oh moon ! Ilogo ! spirit of the moon ! 
 Thine are the livers, 
 
 Thine, Ilogo ! 
 And the wilds and mountains, 
 
 Thine, Ilogo ! 
 
 Reveal who hath enchanted our beloved ! 
 Oh moon ! Ilogo ! spirit of the moon ! 
 
 Hear us, Ilogo ! " 
 
 And then the prophet from his death-like swoon 
 Arouses ; from communion with the Moon. 
 His dusky tribe are gathering around ; 
 Silence falls ominous on all intent ; 
 Till with harsh, croaking tones the devil proclaims : 
 " Lamoli ! it was she bewitch'd the dead !" 
 Then all the naked savages roll ejes 
 Of fanatic fury, and, yelling horribly, 
 Rush toward a leaf-thatched cabin, shouting 
 
 hoarse : 
 
 " Let the Muave draught convict the witch ! " 
 They drag from thence a shrieking, innocent maid, 
 Who shivers with the pang of mortal fear : 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 41 
 
 Hustled she drains among the cursing crew- 
 Ordeal poison from a gourden bowl, 
 And, struggling piteous to reverse the doom 
 Of her young murder, reels, and sinks, and falls ; 
 
 A hundred daggers mangling her fair life 
 
 Do these not need the Gospel of the Lord ? 
 
 Therefore I press right onward to my goal : 
 Nor only for an hour, a month, a year ; 
 But while life lasts, a warrior to the end, 
 I wrest from Fortune all she would withhold. 
 Even as a lion in his sultry lair 
 Shakes off a myriad dew-drops from his mane, 
 So have I spurn'd all hampering obstacle, 
 Regarding danger with a quiet smile. 
 civilizer, shrink from Violence ! 
 Use Righteousness, and broad Humanity, 
 With temperate firmness ; govern your own 
 
 selves, 
 
 And so the people : yet never seem to fear ; 
 Nor be ye loth to call auxiliar might 
 Of muscular right arm, or deadly rifle, 
 
42 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 If these prove helpful in extremity. 
 
 Whose guiltless blood weighs on my soul to-day ? 
 I have not injured, mock'd, insulted any : 
 I have been wanting in an English pride ; 
 Nor feel the grand immeasurable gulf, 
 Which every drunken subaltern may feel 
 Between the veriest scum of England's isle, 
 And of all infusorial " foreigners " 
 The least unworthy nay ; for even him, 
 Whom, with all colour'd races of the world, 
 We from superior panoramic heights, 
 With one judicial and exhaustive wave 
 Of hand, may name and sweep from sympathy, 
 Even the " damn'd nigger " I have not contemn'd ; 
 Knowing that if the Lord regarded us 
 Proud English from "damn'd nigger" points of 
 
 view, 
 All would be damn'd indeed without reprieve. 
 
 9 A lion once, a mightiest male lion, 
 Whom my good rifle's bullet had but maim'd, 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 43 
 
 Sprang in his wrath ; one huge and ponderous paw, 
 Striking my shoulder, hurl'd me under him. 
 Over me stood the vast dilated beast 
 Growling; his paw weigh'd on my shatter'd 
 
 shoulder ; 
 
 His great eyes glower'd ; his fangs gleam' d terrible ; 
 Like a simoom, his breathing scorch'd my face ; 
 With tawny wilderness of mane aroused, 
 Frowning, aloft he swung his tufted tail. 
 But God removed all terrors and all pain : 
 When the brute shook me, numb indifference 
 Stole over all my being, while I watch 'd ; 
 Yea, look'd into the formidable eyes ! 
 (So Love tempers inevitable blows 
 Of Fate for all the sons of suffering :) 
 A comrade fires ; the lion springs on him ; 
 Thenfainting staggers, ponderous falls anddies. 
 
 My long life moves before me like a dream. 
 
 We fell'd our way through groves impervious 
 To healthful daylight ; realms of ravenous beast, 
 
44 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 And venom'd snake secreted in the gloom ; 
 
 Dismal dead trees enshrouded with the pale 
 
 Dense life of lichen that hath stifled them ; 
 
 Where lurks foul carrion, and agarics 
 
 Fouler than carrion infect the air, 
 
 Mid noisome immemorial forest mould. 
 
 We crushed through deadlier thickets of rank 
 
 growth, 
 
 Whose blades colossal, notch' d with tearing teeth, 
 Rise in dense walls above the ox-rider : 
 These wound, entangle : while his lower limbs 
 Are chill'd by shadowy dews that ne'er exhale 
 From labyrinths of marshlight-haunted fen, 
 Dismal in dull death-gendering decay, 
 His head and shoulders burn with torrid fire, 
 Unshelter'd from a humid sultry sky. 
 My body and my raiment rent with thorns, 
 These lacerated feet refuse to bear 
 Me any further ; and I linger long, 
 A prisoner, waiting for my wounds to heal. 
 I have waded waist-deep in stagnating water 
 Of inundated equatorial plains, 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 45 
 
 And, swathed in saturated raiment, march'd 
 
 On, till hot air hath drained their moisture dry ; 
 
 Then, for how many torturing nights and days 
 
 Have I lain in the gripe of dire disease, 
 
 Clinging inveterate to devour my life ; 
 
 Evil inharmonious monsters ravening 
 
 Around these hells of my delirium ! 
 
 When poor dark savage brothers tended me 
 
 With a white wife's untiring tenderness. 
 
 Some hearts, in sooth, of those my followers, 
 
 Quailing before long toil herculean, 
 
 Weary of peril in the very air 
 
 We breathe, a Protean never-sleeping peril, 
 
 Often immeasurable, unforeknown, 
 
 Shrank from my side ; yea, even some of whom 
 
 I had hoped better things but some, alas ! 
 
 Were vveak and worthless instruments, that break 
 
 Tn hands of whoso trusts in a fair show : 
 
 And some were agents of the slave-trader, 
 
 Sworn to oppose, and drive me to despair. 
 
 Anon we travel 
 
46 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Over immense brown regions, no sweet rain 
 
 Rendereth mild with gracious influence : 
 
 A harsh rude waste, hated by man and beast ; 
 
 Where the foot sinks in scorching loose brown sand 
 
 At every toilsome footfall ; while the sun 
 
 Strikes upward from a powdery parch'd earth, 
 
 Tanning and blistering : fiercely from on high 
 
 He smites upon bow'd heads of travellers, 
 
 Under arch'd awning of a labouring wain, 
 
 Or swaying slowly on a lean worn ox. 
 
 Poor oxen ! how they pant, and loll the tongue, 
 
 Beaten of urgent teamsters with loud whips, 
 
 Pulling at wheels, that settle clogg'd with sand. 
 
 Shadows are sharply blotted on the ground : 
 
 Blue blazing daylight glares intolerable : 
 
 In a half- dreaming doze we journey on, 
 
 Still for our sole horizon the wan waste. 
 
 But when some watermelon lolPd before us, 
 
 How all rush'd eager on the" priceless prize, 
 
 A large green ball upon an arid soil ! 
 
 Slashing the cool pink pulp, that wells with life, 
 
 And burying mouths in fair fresh nectar-springs. 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 47 
 
 How terrible is thirst ! 
 Days without water ! ne'er a watermelon 
 Even, to slake a moment hell's own drought ! . . . 
 Hark ! shouts of joy break in upon the drear 
 Faint slumbrous silence of our fiery way : 
 All startled raise dim half-closed aching eyes 
 Behold the lake ! our goal in sight ! Hurrah ! 
 Lofty palmyras, palm, acacia, 
 O'er hazy waters purple in the sun, 
 Who sets below in solitary glory 
 And surely on a pale horizon line 
 Tall sable horsemen galloping furiously ! 
 See the slow oxen gaze aroused, and lowing 
 Hasten behold black bulks of elephant, 
 And slim giraffes, show water to be near ! 
 Shall we pursue? 
 
 . . . They dwindle, waver, and change ; 
 All blows like slanting flame ; drifting divides. 
 It was the Satan's simulated water ! 
 And only mist roll'd over a salt plain. 
 Yet the same region hath its wither'd herb ; 
 
48 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Wells that fill slowly when one deftly digs ; 
 Stunted green bushes, pools of rainwater, 
 Where skeleton women drink from ostrich eggs ; 
 
 oo ' 
 
 And even springs where tall lush grasses grow. 
 Here the light zebra, and the swift wild ass, 
 Bound by elastic, and the shaggy gnu 
 Glares with red eye ; here bristle porcupines ; 
 Fussy ichneumon scuttles ; ratels tumble ; 
 Ash-hued coarse-haired anteaters with long snout 
 Lurk, like distortions of a curious dream. 
 
 My long life moves before me like a dream ! 
 
 The cheerful bustle of the morning march ! 
 Shouts of the driver ; scuffling of loud beasts ! 
 Delicious swims and baths in some lone pool, 
 With chestnut-colour' d leaves in the blue glass, 
 And gorgeous birds reflected as they fly ! 
 
 Appears the dear wild nightly bivouac 
 In some dim forest, I upon a couch 
 Of woven rushes, under a furr'd hide, 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 49 
 
 Shelter 'd, it may be, by a roof of boughs. 
 A grimy cauldron slung athwart the blaze 
 Held our repast of savoury buffalo-meat : 
 (Ere sunset had my rifle slain the beast) 
 But now my dusky troop surround the fire, 
 That ruddies their swart forms and visages, 
 Leaping to flame, with crackling faggot piled ; 
 Subsiding soon to embers deeply glowing. 
 Illumined smoke drifts fragrant, wavering 
 Among mazes of long involved llianas, 
 That seem in the red, hesitating light, 
 To move alive, like pythons watching prey. 
 There breathes a strange, delicious woodland smell ; 
 Resinous amber glimmers to the stars ; 
 Richly-dim blossoms, many-hued, immense, 
 Droop fragrant heaven, a milky way of flowers, 
 Wherein by day the nimble monkey hurries, 
 And gorgeous parrot screams now all is hush'd. 
 
 Yet there are weird, wild songs about the fire 
 Peals of a reckless, frolic merriment, 
 Immoderate jests of nature's shameless child 
 
50 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Dazed with the wassail-bowl, and fames that rise 
 From gurgling gourds, to steal bewilder'd sense, 
 Sense light as thistle-down ; gay young buffoons, 
 And elder fools allowing allusions free, 
 With frantic, half-lewd gestures, bounden only 
 By salutary fear of me, the Master .... 
 
 One tells a tale of perilous hunts with spear, 
 En venom' d arrows, shields of rugged hide ; 
 Relates the infuriate, unwieldy charge 
 Of rough, one-horn'd, uncouth rhinoceros ; 
 Or elephant snapping crush'd dishevell'd trees, 
 With horrible, ear-bursting trumpet-bray. 
 They tell of graceful, lithe, long-neck'd giraffes, 
 Beating the plain with undulating flight ; 
 Strong striding ostrich, spurning the burnt sand ; 
 Of crawling dumb to leeward of a herd 
 Kudu, or eland wearing wreathen horns. 
 
 Or they relate some wonderful weird tale 
 Of sorcery and superstition strange ; 
 For one affirms he knew in such a village 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 51 
 
 A man who turn'd at intervals to leopard, 
 Lurking in dens to feed upon mankind ; 
 Anon the beast's heart gathered strong within him ; 
 Burn'd to devour, to lap the blood of men ; 
 Until the lust of death beyond control 
 Drove him from home into the awful wild 
 Where, horror ! transformation swiftly grew 
 From the inhuman heart to the man's mind, 
 And human limbs behold ! he crouches low, 
 Fire-eyed, in act to spring sleek, supple beast, 
 His body of flame starr'd over with black night : 
 Large-brain' d, blood- thirstiest of the infernal crew, 
 Six human victims hath the wizard slain, 
 Ere, man once more, the avengers torture him, 
 
 Avowing with bitter tears the sorcery 
 
 Then many a negro, shivering, glances round, 
 Timidly peering into forest gloom ; 
 They pile more wood ; sitting in silence, till 
 Another adds his marvel to the store. 
 
 Is it all fable ? is it all illusion? 
 Nay, doth not our most awful Universe 
 
52 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Lead poor, mad mortals to the wilds alone, 
 Into a barren wilderness of souls ; 
 Mask'd in stern iron, prison'd in adamant, 
 A fiery gulf between them and the world ; 
 Forbidden dear embracings of their kind, 
 And mutually yielding thoughts of all ? 
 Though girt with kindly, once familiar faces, 
 Lonelier they than are the lonely dead ; 
 Or haunted only by fell fiends that scowl 
 Out of the very eyes of sleepless love ! 
 God whirls them forth, and sets them in a cleft 
 Of some ice-armour'd, cloud-robed precipice : 
 It snows, it howls ; the everlasting mountains 
 Reel, crashing downward in the lightning's eye : 
 God murmurs in their ears a Mystery 
 In tongues unknown, of import terrible, 
 That none may hear or comprehend but they ; 
 Nor even they, but in maim'd cadences ; 
 Wind- wilder 7 d murmurs of a music wild. 
 Ah ! we all wander blindly in a dream ! 
 Save for a revelation from the Lord. 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 53 
 
 They tell of our adventures by the road, 
 Wonderful, fearful, laughable or grave ; 
 Gesticulating passionately gay, 
 Grimacing with a monkey-mimicry. 
 One says that white men rise from the salt sea ; 
 Yerily live below the green water ; 
 Whence comes our long, lank compromise for hair : 
 The water we inhabit straightens it ! 
 They mention my rough dog, poor old Chitani, 10 
 Whom they affirm I cherish for his tail, 
 A tail that curls to right and not to left ; 
 A tail by learned men discredited ! 
 
 My trusty followers, my Makololo, 
 Astound the rest, relating how they toil'd 
 Athwart the continent ; n arriving last 
 On a subsiding ridge of table-land ; 
 Whence without warning burst upon their view, 
 Ocean ! 
 
 Vision never dream'd before 
 On Him in His sublime infinitude, 
 Soliloquizing awf ul in the gloom ; 
 
54 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 With one intolerable rift of light 
 Vibrating in the immeasurable waste 
 Of massy, torn, wan water that ascends, 
 To meet confusion of the hurrying cloud, 
 Releasing misty momentary rays ; 
 While in this shifting gulf of utter light, 
 A snowy sail shows black as ebony. 
 
 " Spell-bound we pause : we had followed this 
 
 our Father, 
 
 Him of the honest heart, our wise white friend, 
 Through weal and woe, a weary, weary way, 
 From our own homes ; in face of all the people 
 Spake, while we journey'd through their several 
 
 lands, 
 
 That never white man brought an African 
 Here to the coast, save only to enslave ; 
 But we would trust our father ; we had proved 
 Him well, and he had promised ; yea, we know 
 The English have good hearts for Africa ! 
 And yet we pause at the sublime surprise. 
 For we had faith in what our Ancients told, 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 55 
 
 That the great World continue th evermore ; 
 And now the World Himself saith unto us, 
 * Lo ! I am ended ! there is no more of me !' 
 Moreover, marching on with our sick Leader, 
 Whom we support, astounded we discern 
 Dwellings of white men, mountains of white stone 
 With caves therein ! and, yet more wonderful, 
 Upon the water, rolling near inshore, 
 A painted floating town, with fronting idol ! 
 A giant bird with great white flapping wings, 
 Whose thunderous rebellion men that swarm 
 In windy, reeling heights are conquering 
 By strong enveloping of resolute arms ! 
 Then, trusting to the word of our good Father, 
 Half timidly we climb the floating town, 
 Whose common soldiers, mariners, and chiefs 
 Pay joyful homage to our own dear lord ; 
 And all of them have kindly hearts for us. 
 But round the wooden walls dark, iron mouths 
 Of demons gape ; whence, being touch'd with fire, 
 Leap thunderous lightnings, Genii clothed in 
 smoke ! 
 
5 6 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Pointing to them, our Father said to us, 
 ' With these grim mouths we stop the sale of men !' 
 And then our Father, very near to death, 
 Though his white friends would fain have borne 
 
 him home, 
 
 Would suffer not his children to pursue 
 Alone their arduous perilous return : 
 * My Makololo boys have served me well,' 
 Said he, ' and I will not desert them now !'" 
 
 Well I remember, my splendid Sea, 
 How thy salt breath blew o'er me, as alive ! 
 After interminable deserts drear, 
 And dank hot jungles of the savage race, 
 To come upon thee, Ocean, unaware, 
 Dear native element of all the free ! 
 With British tars, and British hearts of oak, 
 And the old fiery flag upon the wind ! 
 Tears blind my vision yonder England lies ! 
 A grey gull, in his strong deliberate flight 
 Hover'd and slanted, dipp'd his breast in brine, 
 Exulting in the wind and turbulent foam ; 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 57 
 
 While half the mortal languor left my limbs, 
 And I rejoiced with him. From sea to sea ! 
 I traversed all the dark, blank continent ; 
 And proved it not, as timid idle dream 
 Surmised, an evil waste unprofitable, 
 Huge blot on God's most bountiful, fair world ; 
 Rather a promised land of living waters ! 
 Like that king's daughter in the fairy tale, 
 Asleep, awaiting her Deliverer. 
 
 How clearly do mine inner eyes behold 
 The dear, wild nightly bivouac of yore, 
 When I was in my manhood's vigorous prime ! 
 If it were in the prairie, or the desert, 
 Sinbad, my riding ox, with other oxen, 
 Would lie beside the looming bullock-wain, 
 Audibly ruminating, couch'd at ease 
 Upon his shadow, in a luminous moon. 
 If it were in a forest, such as last 
 Appear 'd before my musing memory ; 
 When I have heard awhile my followers' tales, 
 Wearily close mine ears in first faint sleep, 
 
58 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Half hearing only broken words, and names 
 
 Of tribes or places, weird, and all germane 
 
 To the mysterious realm of forest wild. 
 
 But later still, silence inviolate reigns ; 
 
 Save for a low communing of weird wind 
 
 Among high crowns of leafy ebonies, 
 
 Moving and murmuring, while star- worlds pass 
 
 over. 
 
 When I awake, dark forms are lying round : 
 Firelight warms faintly mighty sylvan pillars, 
 Rising from gloom to gloom : they seem to my 
 Drowsed senses ancient phantoms of the night. 
 Thousands of years, some say, the huge Mowana 
 Flourishing lives, while mortal men around 
 Fall with his leaves, and wither at his feet. 
 How could he tell of fleeting hopes and fears, 
 Of myriad passing loves, and woes, and wars ! 
 Emmets and men, teeming and vanishing, 
 In halls of stone, or tunnell'd, chamber'd hills, 
 Or wattled huts, as here ! men's thrilling lives 
 Gleam, firefly-like, a moment wonderful ; 
 Frail, nor so blithe as yon fair living lights, 
 That are and are not in the fragrant shade. 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 59 
 
 
 
 And since she died, 12 rapture of my young 
 
 years, 
 
 Love, and abiding pole-star of my life ! 
 A marble cross, that gleams amid the gloom 
 Shines ever in dim vistas of my soul ; 
 And I desire to lay my toil-worn limbs 
 Under still leaves of some primaeval grove, 
 As she, my well -beloved, resteth hers. 
 She sail'd from England, to divide my care, 
 With brave Mackenzie's and another's wife : 
 Alas ! Mackenzie and his friend had fallen 
 In the stern path of duty when they came ! 
 And these two white-faced women wept alone 
 Over two very silent forest graves. 
 Alas ! how soon I wept beside another ; 
 For very soon my Mary went to rest. 
 (Her venerable father, Moffat, only 
 Is known among the tribes of Africa 
 As my own Mary's father, as Ra-Mary.) 
 The fever seized her, and she pass'd away : 
 She pass'd at sunset on a Sabbath eve, 
 And left my feet to wander in the shade. 
 
60 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 % 
 
 Upon a gentle, green acclivity, 
 Under a venerable Mowana tree, 
 Garlanded with odorous flowers, 
 Tranqnil in the sunny hours, 
 
 She sleeps in glory ! 
 
 Orchards of mango basking in the south ; 
 Northward fair palm, and many a noble growth 
 Of oriental forest tree, 
 Where silvern Liambayee 
 
 Wanders in glory ; 
 
 On his fair bosom many a sunny isle, 
 Calm as herself within the heavenly smile : 
 Upon the marble of her grave 
 Mowana shadows gently wave, 
 Waver in glory. 
 
 Pearly light clouds about his purple form, 
 High in the azure, deep, and wide, and warm, 
 Mount Morambala soareth high, 
 Serene in mountain majesty, 
 Dreaming in glory : 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 61 
 
 Gleam forth, marble, from the wilding gloom I 
 Shine, O white cross, upon the martyr's tomb ! 
 Faithful toil, long-suffering care, 
 Radiate over dark and fair, 
 
 Burst into glory ! 
 
 CANTO IV. 
 
 CANNOT loathe nor scorn the coloured 
 man ; 
 
 Nor deem him far below my Master's 
 
 love. 
 
 I know about the sutures of his skull ; 
 But I have proved him verily my brother. 
 And I have heard of Toussaint L'Ouverture ! 
 (Perchance I am not so fastidious 
 As those who have great genius for words ; 
 Yet we dumb doers crave some standing room, 
 ye, so deft and dazzling with the tongue !) 
 
62 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Well I remember, after all my toil, 
 When within grasp of a momentous prize, 
 Earth seem'd to glide from under ; all was failing, 
 Even as now ! my very faithful friends 
 Who had plunged in drowning floods to rescue me ; 
 Who had interposed their bodies to avert 
 The deadly javelin aim'd against my life ; 
 Who, pressing princely favours on my need, 
 With more than counsel, with material aid, 
 Further 'd my humanizing pilgrimage ; 13 
 When Christian Levites would have pass'd me by, 
 Jingled their gold, and sneer'd " Utopia ! " 
 My welltried Makololo, they desert me ! 
 Shrinking at last from more long sacrifice, 
 Bitter and boundless, it may be unavailing 
 I shall not reach those Lusian settlements 
 Upon the long'd-for coast ! all urge return. 
 
 Return I will not ! 
 
 " Return ye then, my people ! I will go 
 Alone, if so indeed it needs must be ! " 
 With heavy tread, with heavier heart, I enter, 
 Weary and fever-stricken, my small tent 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 63 
 
 Under a tamarind ; and I lean my head 
 Upon my hand to offer np a prayer. 
 Silence is all around me in the noon 
 Yet only for a little then I hear 
 Footsteps approaching ; timidly one peers, 
 And sees me by the tent-pole ; first the one, 
 Then more, have push'd the canvas fold aside ; 
 Falling npon me like repentant children, 
 Sobbing, with tears they pray to be forgiven : 
 " We never meant it ! We will never leave thee ! 
 " Our own kind Father ! be of better cheer ! 
 " Where'er thou leadest, we will follow thee ! " 
 
 And that poor African, who when I sail'd 
 For England supplicated to be taken ! 
 It was with bleeding heart I said him nay. 
 I told him he would perish of the cold 
 In my bleak country, but he sobb'd with tears : 
 " O let me come, and perish at your feet ! " 
 Sebweku had a stronger claim than he. 
 Alas ! Sebweku ! 
 The sea was rolling mountains high, when all 
 
64 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Embark' d at Kilimane in a boat. 
 Ascending gliding turbid mountain-slopes, 
 Their toppling hissing foamy summits broke 
 Drenching upon us, and submerged our bark : 
 Giddily slid we deep into the trough, 
 Whose seething waterwalls hid all the masts 
 Of that great vessel which awaited us : 
 We struck the massy bottom with a shock, 
 That made our stout planks quiver ; slanting up 
 Another beetling journeying watercliff, 
 Second of three great billows lightning-crowned. 
 Poor Sebweku, so valiant on land, 
 So wise and skill'd in dealing with the many 
 Tribes of his continent, strove strenuously 
 To be as brave in my fierce water world, 
 Ghostly, unknown, terrific unto him : 
 Yet as that awful play of leaping foam 
 Struck us, and nearly swept us all from life, 
 He clutch' d my knees, crying with face of fear, 
 Faintly illumed by a poor phantom smile, 
 Like a wet timid gleam among wan clouds, 
 " Is this the way you go ? is this the way ? " 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 65 
 
 But when we had made a perilous ascent 
 
 Into the British war-brig anchor'd near, 
 
 His fresh fantastic marvelling child-soul, 
 
 So little tutor'd, ponder'd evermore 
 
 On all he saw within the war vessel ; 
 
 Cannon, great coils of cable, ponderous chain, 
 
 Hammocks, and kitchen of the floating town, 
 
 Her sailors, and well-order'd soldiery ; 
 
 On the interminable water world, 
 
 Strewn with dark swimming snakes, and plants ; 
 
 where roll 
 
 Dolphins and whales ; where azure fishes fly, 
 And birds gleam in a momentary ray 
 Out of dull storm that raves among the shrouds. 
 Reeling to starboard and to larboard, he, 
 By swaying lamplight, in the midnight hour, 
 Lies wakeful, hearing labouring timbers groan, 
 Or shouted orders, piercing all the roar ; 
 And clear struck bells, dividing hour from hour. 
 He, creeping up lone glimmering hatchway stairs, 
 Beholds a gleam from that mysterious shrine 
 Where, under lighted crystal, a slim needle 
 F 
 
66 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Trembles for ever toward the hidden pole ; 
 Notes a bronzed mariner's strong vigilance 
 Revolving with both arms the straining wheel, 
 Beyond wet decks, wash'd over by fierce seas ; 
 Beholds tall masts, more tall than forest kings, 
 Robed in broad shadowy windy sails and booms, 
 Circling among wan stars in rifts of clond. 
 
 All made him welcome, and they liked him well ; 
 But the new wonderworld inflamed his brain ; 
 Kept his mind whirling ever night and day ; 
 Until, when we approach'd Mauritius, 
 A steamer steam' d from forth the harbour 
 
 mouth 
 
 Wonder of wonders to poor Sebweku ! 
 Fiery smoke outbursting from her funnel, 
 She churns the water with a rushing wheel ; 
 Slanting and swiftly swims upon the wave : 
 He cries : " It is some fiend of the wild sea ! " 
 Alas ! my friend. . . . . 
 
 . . . . When we are calmly moor'd, 
 In a mad frenzy plunges and is drown' d ! 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 67 
 
 And yet my negroes at a later day 14 
 Proved boldest, skilfullest of mariners. 
 Perilously braving mountainous ocean-waves, 
 And howling winds, our tight but tiny craft, 
 Lady Nyassa, from Mozambique flew, 
 Resolved to harbour in far Asia. 
 Mine own hands ruled the helm, my sleepless eyes 
 Watching the needle : often would we clutch 
 Fast, lest some phantom billow whirl us forth ; 
 Hurrying, swirling, billows playing with us, 
 Whose foam-fangs gleam'd in night's chaotic war L 
 But my blithe monkey-nimble negro boys, 
 While our spars heaving dipp'd in hissing sea, 
 Climb'd undismay'd, and clinging, deftly reeved 
 A rope, at my bawl'd orders, through a block ; 
 With ebony heads and frames immersed in brine, 
 Held their brave breaths ; then with the rope be- 
 tween 
 
 White, shining teeth, return'd triumphantly. 
 When by a miracle we made the port ; 
 Nor founder'd, leaving ne'er a living soul 
 To tell the tale ; among tall mast-forests 
 
68 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 In that great hazy harbour of Bombay, 
 
 None could discover, though they sought for long, 
 
 Where our wee " Lady" had bestow'd herself! 
 
 How glorious and amiable some scenes 
 Of gorgeous loveliness, and human joy, 
 That pass before mine inner eyes to-night ! 
 For there is unsophisticated joy, 
 Yea, hardy virtue in rude nature's child ; 
 And there are sins, with poignant miseries, 
 Our subtler, jaded brains impart to him. 
 Witness, the desolation and despair 15 
 Of guileless peoples, beautiful and kind, 
 Basking in smiles of bounteous mother Earth, 
 Wrought by pale Spaniards; whom they held 
 
 divine, 
 
 Descended from the crystal firmament, 
 In silks and flashing armour, on white wings 
 Of golden galleons ; offering on their knees 
 Flowers and fruits and spices of their isle ! 
 And you, ye murderers of Patteson ! 
 Not poor blind islanders, but English fiends ! 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 69 
 
 Beware, O ye who follow after me, 
 Of how ye deal with this, mine Africa ! 
 
 Methinks I hear some solemn state palaver, 
 Held in the grand unwall'd assembling-place, 
 Thatch ? d with bamboos and branches, when blue 
 
 morn 
 
 Glows golden, while cool shadows at the doors 
 Of a leaf-bower' d village minish fast. 
 Morn lies a lake of light amid the bloom 
 And billowy wealth of forest foliage ; 
 Young Sun, ascending, shines on thatch like snow, 
 Revealing veins of herbs, and draining them ; 
 Glancing among high senatorial boughs 
 Of feathery tamarind, or mahogany ; 
 While dews of slumber rustle rainbow rain 
 In sylvan, solitary silences 
 Of Nature's own cathedral sanctuary. 
 A spear is in the dusky orator's hand, 
 And spears are planted black athwart the day ; 
 Dark bearded elders hearken solemnly, 
 Resting on logs, all polish'd from long use. 
 
7 o LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Perennial founts of eloquent, warm words 
 Are these untutor'd children of the sun ! 
 
 Now reigns the blazing furnace of full noon : 
 And save for little rills that want no sleep, 
 Silence, before the intolerable glory, 
 Falls on a cowering world of beast and man. 
 Bird- song has waned, and even the stridulent 
 Cicala sleeps ; a rare bee drowsily 
 Explores a twilit labyrinth of flowers ; 
 Delicate blossoms dallying in warm airs, 
 Bowing and yielding to the velvet lover ; 
 While heaven-blue elves with pulsing fans alight 
 Over a ruin of red leaves, or sail 
 From light to shadow, like a jubilant 
 Song, failing in a tenderer low minor. 
 Gorgeous insects of metallic gleam 
 Waver, and glance, and glimmer on the fronds. 
 Low, murmurous sound pervades all emerald aisles, 
 As though the floral earth and leaves were 
 
 breathing. 
 Life teems ! a myriad hidden mandibles, 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 71 
 
 Amid lush herbage, under moss and loam, 
 Clear away life superfluous, and death. 
 Gorgeous fungi here and there reveal, 
 "Where sun can pierce, traversing shadows thrown 
 Athwart them from some silken spider's line, 
 To and fro glancing when a zephyr breathes ; 
 Bending long grasses wheresoe'er it hangs. 
 And hark ! the honey-bird invites to steal 
 Delicious honey-combs from hollow boles. 
 
 Hearken again ! 
 
 A sound, how plaintive and melodious, 
 Swells in the green gloom ! it is like one note 
 From a sweet vibrant lyre a hidden bird ! 
 
 Women have gone, with infants slung behind 
 
 them, 
 
 Toward a spring, light pitchers gracefully 
 Poised on their heads by steadying of dark arms 
 Curl'd over ; or they bruise with iron hoes 
 The hopeful soil ; plant yams and manioc ; 
 Pound in wood mortars these, or maize and millet ; 
 
72 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Hem with some thorn, or fish-bone for a needle, 
 
 And fibres of a leaf ; weave grassy cloths 
 
 In looms, or spin with immemorial spindle. 
 
 Some men have gone with quiver, targe, and spear, 
 
 To hunt the beast for food ; some loll at ease, 
 
 Like their own gourds, luxuriously idle ; 
 
 Listless and vacant dumb black animals, 
 
 Who spurn the accursed yoke of thought and toil 
 
 They never roll the stone of Sisyphus ! 
 
 No fool's ambition ever goads their lives 
 
 To rouse a restless rumour, while they roll 
 
 Into fate's mortal darkness, and to leave 
 
 A hollow murmur for a little time 
 
 In some poor space of insignificant earth ! 
 
 Now Sun steals westward; and his fading light 
 Glows golden, while cool shadows at the doors 
 Of leaf-embower 'd villages are long. 
 Burning he falls into the forest sea, 
 Inflames leaf-billows with purpureal fire ; 
 Drawing down souls to caves of the under-world ; 
 Whence in twelve hours he royal will arise 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 73 
 
 From holy nenuphars upon the river ! 
 Fragrance and song, released from royalty 
 Of his fierce presence, timid lift their heads ; 
 Grey parrots crying flutter home to roost. 
 Hunters return, with many a gay halloo, 
 And whoop light-hearted, bearing various game,. 
 About whose way hilarious women throng, 
 Calling them by pet names, and fondling them, 
 Prattling, intent to hear of all the sport. 
 Boys in gourd bowls bring frothy plantain wine 
 From cool leaf-cellars in low boughs of trees, 
 Presenting it with clapping of their hands : 
 Anon there smokes a savoury repast, 
 Viands of venison, nuts, and season'd yams. 
 
 Dancing and singing under tender stars, 
 In serene purple air ! a rising moon 
 Charming all harshness from the fuming flame 
 Of resinous torch, and lowlier village fires, 
 Mild as evanishing fireflies in the shade ! 
 A night of love for lovely youths and girls, 
 Of revelry, and wine and flute playing, 
 
74 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Psaltery, reed, marimba, or cithern ; 
 
 Rude sires of more harmonious instruments, 
 
 String' d with a root, a snake-skin strain' d 
 
 athwart 
 One sang me a small song about the dance. 
 
 The dance ! the dance ! 
 Maidens advance 
 Tour undulating charm ! 
 A line deploys 
 Of gentle boys, 
 Waving the light arm, 
 Bronze alive and warm ; 
 Reedflute and drum 
 Sound as they come, 
 Under your eyelight warm ! 
 
 Many a boy, 
 A dancing joy, 
 Many a mellow maid, 
 With fireflies in the shade, 
 Mingle and glide, 
 Appear and hide, 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 75 
 
 Here in a fairy glade : 
 Ebb and flow 
 To a music low, 
 Viol, and flute and lyre, 
 As melody mounts higher : 
 With a merry will, 
 They touch and thrill, 
 Beautiful limbs of fire ! 
 
 Red berries, shells, 
 
 Over bosom-dells, 
 
 And girdles of light grass, 
 
 May never hide 
 
 The youthful pride 
 
 Of beauty, ere it pass : 
 
 Yet, ah ! sweet boy and lass, 
 
 Refrain, retire ! 
 
 Love is a fire ! 
 
 Night will pass ! 
 
 I came to pleasant places on my way ! 
 Lawns of deep verdure by a silvern water ; 
 Wind- waved savannahs flush'd with floral bloom, 
 
76 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Clouded with, saffron or cerulean flowers, 
 And little silken blossoms of pure snow, 
 Dying in dews of every dying eve, 
 Living in all revivals of the morn. 
 Here women singing reap the golden grain, 
 Or bind in sheaves ; here flourish cotton-fleece, 
 Kice, tendrill'd peas, and pulse, and sugar-cane ; 
 While mottled kine, knee-deep in flowering 
 
 grasses, 
 
 At milking time low to their prison'd heifers, 
 And merry kidlings frisk at bower'd doors. 
 The men under some fig's rich canopy 
 Sit weaving limber baskets, or a weir, 
 And fishing- creel. 
 
 Slight palisades preserve 
 Dark jasper-jewell'd women, as they fill 
 Their pitchers in the river, from the foul 
 Scaled alligators that abound below, 
 Watchfully lurking underneath wan water ; 
 Dim treacherous shadows, motionless like stone, 
 Monsters who linger from primaeval time, 
 Ere man appear'd to rule 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 77 
 
 Nay, some still pay them tribute of a prayer ; 
 Offer their very little ones to soothe 
 And sate bestial malign divinities ! 
 These have their priest, temple, and sacrifice, 
 Or priestess, with observances impure : 
 So have green serpents, tongued with flickering fire, 
 Whose stealthy glide flames out in torturing 
 
 hells. . . 
 
 . Are these dark aberrations of the soul 
 Terrible legacies bequeathed to men 
 By some forefather of Egyptian race, 
 Who bore the ritual of his ancient realm 
 To these far wilds of Ethiopia ? 
 Bringing his cast of feature, an.d the modes 
 Of intricate hairbraids involved with bark ; 
 Manners of tilling earth and harvesting, 
 Spindles, and ways of weaving warp with weft. 
 Or was it some primaeval ancestor, 
 Common to all, whom so the Lord made wise, 
 And whom in turn the Enemy beguiled ? 
 But still, upon broad shoulders of strong men, 
 A sacred ark is borne at the full moon 
 
78 LIVINGSTONE IN AFEICA. 
 
 Among dark faces of adoring crowds, 
 Moonsilver'd, lit from lamps of gourd or melon, 
 Amid glad music and loud clapping hands ; 
 Even as in Sais, at the Feast of Lamps, 
 Far away in dim hollows of the past ! 
 
 Among rare visions of celestial glory, 
 And all responsive splendours upon Earth, 
 In such a scene as these, in such a river, 
 Behold ! a maiden in her earliest prime 
 Bound to a stake, bare-limb' d upon a bank, 
 The ripple washing over her slim ankles, 
 And lovely swaying lilies kissing them. 
 She horror-frozen waits the horrid doom . . 
 . . A hideous head protrudes from forth the shoal : 
 There is a whirl of monstrous dragon- tail . . 
 . . Andromeda's red blood afflicts the river ; 
 Whom no fair winged Perseus may save ! 
 
 I travell'd over many lakes and rivers, 
 In floating trees men hollow'd with an adze 
 For a canoe, my rowers with wild song 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 79 
 
 Paddling or poling, in accordant time 
 
 Of oar and voice, chanting some ancient stave 
 
 Of river-song in tones Gregorian, 
 
 Solemn and strange, ancient as Pharaoh ! 
 
 How wonderful it was to float along the river I 
 Dreamily hearing water plash and gargle 
 From my canoe's advancing sides and oars, 
 Washing among green rushes of the shore ! 
 Wherein wing'd warblers, plumed in spousal hues 
 Of green, gold, scarlet, sable, white and azure, 
 Flash'd, thrill'd, and warbled; here in the Summer- 
 land, 
 
 Now in the latest of two fairy summers, 
 When there is snow in England ah ! and bells ; 
 With lovelier light and warmth of home and 
 
 heart ! 
 
 Hark ! how they sing to soft mates in nests woven 
 Of green flags, nimble bills have sown with webs ; 
 While, sunning them, they preen their little wings, 
 Showering drops that trickle down the stems ! 
 Earlier rains have fallen ; a fresh air 
 
So LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Fans clear and lucid now in morning hours ; 
 Vivid green pennons of tall rushes wave 
 Athwart blue light, with dense papyrus reed, 
 Wherein soft brown gazelles rustle and play 
 'Neath hollyhock, brown bulrush, and flagflowers. 
 A mighty river horse 
 
 Protrudes a shining snout ; trumpets aloud, 
 Blowing out spurts of water like a whale. 
 " Pula, pula" calls the " Son-in-law of God; " l6 
 While ever and anon an ebony bird 
 Houses from his dim dreaming on the sand, 
 And screaming harshly, wakes a long wild cry 
 From some fish-eagle, widening vast brown wings. 
 In shoals grave marabouts, with red flamingoes, 
 Wade ; and behold ! yon bird on floating lotus 
 Leaves walks among the holy white lilies, 
 Dipping a glossy fold below the ripple. 
 A snowy ibis, a slim demoiselle, 
 A tall grey heron, an egret of white plume ; 
 These, and the like, stand fairy sentinels, 
 With wavering bright image down below, 
 Silent before a twilit emerald 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 81 
 
 Of river margin, radiant in bloom. 
 
 Yellow milola, blue convolvulus, 
 
 Whose vases seem to overflow with heaven, 
 
 These all are haunts of lustrous dragon-fly ; 
 
 Gorgeous velvet moth, sipping the sweet ; 
 
 Of dappled bees, gold-dusted ; butterflies, 
 
 Wing'd like the train of Juno's heavenly bird. 
 
 Onward we glide, and twine meandering 
 On a moss-colour 'd water, till the gale 
 Relieves my merry rowers ; we expand 
 A little sail, filling with soft sweet air, 
 Like some soft bird's white bosom heaved with 
 
 song, 
 
 White as a foam of waterfalls ; we glide 
 Merrily among wave- enchanted flowers, 
 Glossily heaving while we gently pass ; 
 Or splendid twinkling trees, immersed in light, 
 From shadowy bosoms offering fruits of Eden ; 
 Breathing a perfume as of Paradise 
 From their soft islands ; islands of the blest, 
 Bower'd to the marge, re-echo'd in the water ; 
 G 
 
82 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 With many a fleecy cloudlet sailing slow. 
 Small richly armour 'd quaint iguanas bask 
 On every sunniest bough ; while startled eyes 
 Of glorious lithe beasts flash for a moment 
 Out of the solemn sylvan opaline 
 Of hoary forest boles, and swiftly vanish : 
 Little agamas nod their orange heads ; 
 A lovely praying mantis, green as leaves, 
 Rests on green leaves ; and green cameleons. 
 
 We wind along ; the waters rise from rain ; 
 Blue hazy hills arise, saluting us. 
 Often, when we have doubled some fair cape, 
 With thud and plash fall fragments of rich loam ; 
 And as we round low river promontories, 
 Crocodiles basking upon yellow sand, 
 With dull green eyes, and huge obscene fang'd 
 
 jaws, 
 
 Wake startled ; gliding plunge into the flood ; 
 Where many a delicate -tin ted pelican 
 Stores silver fishes in his hanging pouch. 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 83 
 
 Wandering devious, many-niooded rivers 
 Mazily saunter, with a floating flower, 
 Or leaf, or bubble on their bosom borne ; 
 With labyrinthine silver in the blue ; 
 Indolent dimpling playful light and shadow ; 
 Now washing swiftly round about the roots 
 Of guava, mango, fountainous cocoa-palm, 
 Or palm that, veil'd in climbing green llianas, 
 High over all the verdure lifts a spire. 
 Among blithe rapids my dark boatmen wade, 
 Merrily pushing ; while at waterfalls, 
 Pendent in green woods among roseate rocks, 
 Pendent, like plumes of birds of paradise, 
 They carry our frail bark upon their shoulders. 
 
 Sunset arrives : a stilly-flowing flood 
 Glows, like blent molten metals brilliant, 
 Dark and light green, crimson, purple and gold, 
 Repeating heaven ; as though yon gleaming beetles, 
 Swaying among the verdure, were afloat, 
 One solid army of them, mail'd in glory. 
 
84 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 I enter equatorial lakes, unknown 
 To any European eyes before : 
 Ngami, Bemba, Moero, jNyassa ; 
 Slumbering in grand enfolding arms 
 Of old volcanic mountain, tempest-crowii'd ! 
 Profound and lonely children of the waters, 
 Whom gorgeous-vestured giant forms o'erfrown, 
 Bastion, tower, inviolate precipice, 
 Burying them from all-beholding Sun 
 In sullen shadow, many hours a year. 
 Ngami ! earliest lake mine eyes beheld ; 
 On whose fair shores of old exultantly 
 I stood, with my dear little ones and her ! 
 This inland sea, this noble Tanganika, 
 Where Burton came with Speke, whom England 
 
 mourns, 
 
 Hath all his guardian mountains foliaged 
 From wave to heaven ; magnificently robed 
 In rich luxuriant foliage of Mvule, 
 And other alien blossoming tall trees, 
 Bauhinia, tamarind, teak, and sycomore, 
 Enfolding purple torrent-cloven ravines. 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 85 
 
 While otherwhere long sheeny rapier blades 
 Of green matete cane adorn the marge, 
 With mangroves, whose bare roots affect the fen. 
 One who rows softly, ronnding promontories, 
 When these high hills are overarch' d with azure, 
 Dipping his paddle in a light blue water, 
 Beholds embower'd in sweet shingly coves 
 Palm-nestled, hive-like huts and villages, 
 Whose dwellers ply their busy crafts on shore, 
 While fishing gear and boats adorn the strand . . . 
 . . And what if this great water gender Nile ? 1T 
 For I have seen a Northward drift of boughs, 
 With other floating waifs ; while Arabs tell 
 Sow from far Northern limits of the lake 
 A river floweth North perchance to where 
 Baker, with his heroic consort, came ? . . 
 . . Where issueth else the mighty water forth ? 
 
 18 MOSI-OA-TUXYA. 
 
 Smooth river water holdeth softly furl'd 
 Thee, hoarded wonder of the wondrous world ! 
 
86 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Ere thy tempestuous cataracts are hurl'd, 
 Mosi-oa-tunya ! 
 
 Twenty miles away thy sound 
 Travels from the gulf profound 
 Of thine earth-convulsing bound, 
 
 Mosi-oa-tunya ! 
 
 Five great cloudy columns rise, 
 To uphold the rolling skies : 
 Morning clothes with rainbow dyes 
 Mosi-oa-tunya ! 
 
 Awful phantoms in the moon 
 Rise to thy tremendous tune : 
 'When the fiery evening falls, 
 Hell sulphureous appalls, 
 While thy blazing thunder calls, 
 Mosi-oa-tunya ! 
 
 The huge Mowana, and the Mohonono, 
 
 Like silvery cedar-trees on Lebanon, 
 
 Wave, with light palms, upon the pleasant isles 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 87 
 
 And shores, ere Leeambayee vanishes, 
 As though annihilate in his proud career : 
 Mo tsouri- cypress, yielding scarlet fruit ; 
 All noblest equatorial trees adorn 
 His mile- wide water, clear as a clear day, 
 Gliding like lightning into the abyss. 
 
 Clear a moment, ere thou blanch 
 Into a mile- wide avalanche, 
 Snowfall lapsing twice the height 
 Of Niagara in his might ! 
 Born of thy resounding day, 
 Myriad meteors o'er thee play : 
 There is an evergreen dark grove, 
 Guarded by thine own awful love : 
 Her inner melancholy no sun may move, 
 Mosi-oa-tunya ! 
 
 Tall ghostly forms of sounding cloud 
 Clothe her in a rainbow shroud ; 
 No bird of hers carols aloud, 
 Mosi-oa-tunya ! 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Down the rock's tremendous face, 
 Foam-rills, trenmlons like lace, 
 Flow from roots that grasp the place, 
 To where thy vaporous cauldrons hiss ; 
 But ere they may attain to this, 
 Smoke roaring, whirl'd from the abyss, 
 Licks them off precipitous stone, 
 High into a cloudy zone, 
 
 Mosi-oa-tunya ! 
 
 Water and wind jamm'd in a chasm profound, 
 Tortured, pent-up, and madden'd, with strong 
 
 sound 
 
 War in world-ruining chaos, fierce rebounding ; 
 A wild tumultuous rumour, earth and heaven con- 
 founding. 
 
 After, the river rushes, a long green 
 Serpent, convolved about dark promontories 
 Of sternest basalt, in the unfathomable 
 Chasm to and fro, a swift fork'd lightning-flash ; 
 B ut all the promontories are crown' d with trees, 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 89 
 
 Gorgeous blooming herbage and tall flowers. 
 
 On a green island, hanging o'er the flood, 
 Even where it falleth, lovely flowers are wooed, 
 And with eternal youth imbued, 
 By a lapse of gentle rain 
 From the cataract's hurricane : 
 Love celestial in showers 
 Falls from devastating powers ! 
 Under the foam-bow and the cloud, 
 Here where thunders peal aloud, 
 Human souls with trembling bow'd, 
 Mosi-oa-tunya ! 
 
 Cruel lords of all the isles, 
 Though a heavenly rainbow smiles, 
 Only feel bewildering annihilating terror ; 
 Offer human lives to thee in blind, bewilder 'd error. 
 Love abideth still, sublime 
 O'er the roar and whirl of Time, 
 Foam-bow of a sunnier clime, 
 Mosi-oa-tunya ! 
 
90 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 But I behold there, on high poles exposed, 
 White skulls of strangers, whom the savage 
 
 hordes 
 
 Of river-pirates most inhumanly 
 Slew : these barbarians the Makololo, 
 Sebituane, routed and destroy'd ; 
 Planting his own Bechuana speech abroad 
 Among the nations ; opening thereby , 
 A way wherein our Sacred Oracles 
 May march triumphant, blessing all the land ; 
 Since Moffat arduously render'd them 
 Into a heretofore unletter'd tongue. 
 
 By moonlight, or by starlight, when we pause 
 Upon the river's bosom, ah ! how fair ! 
 Shadowy fruits and flowers in elf-light hanging ; 
 Plaintive low voices floating tenderly. 
 One waking here, in slumber borne from far, 
 Would deem he had died in sleep, and was in 
 heaven. 
 
 Alas ! all fair dreams fade, and this would fade ! 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 91 
 
 Joj only masketh the wan face of woe. 
 For not alone here fever's mortal breath 
 Chills all exultant ardours of the brave ; 
 Slackens bent bows of young impetuous lives, 
 Baffling the swift- wing' d arrows of their aim ; 
 Veils youthful eyes in languorous impotence, 
 So that they love no more fair life than death. 
 But there is worse than treacherous-soul'd 
 
 Miasma, 
 
 Lurking for prey, close-mask'd in orient glory, 
 Enveloping a man with subtle folds 
 Of dull impalpable mortality. 
 Sin is a deadlier malady than all ! 
 These flowers are only strewn upon a corpse. 
 Man has made Earth a hissing and a scorn 
 Among the constellated worlds of light ! 
 And here the plague-spot is the loathliest. 
 
 I have come to pleasant places on my way : 
 Angels beholding might be lured from heaven ! 
 And in the course of my long wandering 
 I have return'd once more to visit them. 
 
92 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Alas ! how changed ! 
 
 . . Bowery villages roll volumed clouds 
 
 Of fiery smoke, staining the limpid light ; 
 
 Rich harvests, charr'd, or trampled, or ungarner'd 
 
 Idly luxuriant, meet the mournful eye. 
 
 While, even beside a fair golden array 
 
 Of bounteous corn, a few starved boys and women, 
 
 Gaunt as yon skeletons around them strewn, 
 
 Crawl ; listless, hopeless famine in their eyes ; 
 
 All that were dear, slain, tortured, or expell'd 
 
 By arm'd assaults of the fierce slave-driver. 
 
 And ah ! these skeletons ! the tales they tell ! 
 
 Beside fair river-banks, beside wreck'd huts, 
 
 Under green trees, under red rocks, in caves, 
 
 Ghastly anatomies, in attitudes 
 
 Of mortal anguish, writhed, and curl'd, and 
 
 twisted, 
 Mutually clasp'd in transports of despair ! 
 
 In one closed cabin, when mine eyes conform 
 To its faint twilight, on a rude raised bed 
 Appear two skeletons in mouldering weeds ; 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 93 
 
 The head of one fallen from its wooden pillow ; 
 And piteous between them a small form 
 Of a starved child, nestled by sire and mother. 
 The dead, and living wounded, and the babes, 
 Are flung by those contemptuous conquerors 
 To feed loathsome hyenas, that assemble 
 Through lurid smoke of sunset, gaunt and grey ; 
 With obscene screaming vultures, heavily 
 Wheeling, or swooping ; rending the live prey. 
 One infant darling, weeping, wilder 'd, still 
 Solicits the cold breast of a dead mother ! 
 
 I have seen Lualaba's mighty rolling water 
 Bed with the blood of a blithe innocent people, 
 Who, unforeboding slant -eyed treachery, 
 Chaffer' d, and bought and sold, as was their wont, 
 In a populous fair by the worn river-marge. 
 And there was melody of mandolin, 
 And dulcet flute ; with dancing, and warm love 
 Of gay young lovers, under broad brown eaves, 
 Sheltering from a hot ascending day : 
 Where clear young laughter blent deliciously 
 
94 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 With falling notes of bowery turtle-doves, 
 Mantled in hues of tender summer cloud. 
 Hearken ! a rush ! a trample of arm'd men ! 
 A sudden deafening crash of musketry ! 
 Hundreds of blithe love-dreaming youths and 
 
 maidens, 
 
 Bathed in their own life-blood, and one another's? 
 Fall, with one last death-quivering embrace : 
 While women in rude violating arms 
 Of strangers struggle ; and the flower of men 
 Strain their necks impotent in yokes of iron, 
 Grappled around them by their insolent foes. 
 Hundreds in panic blind man, woman, child 
 Plunge among waters of deep Lualaba ; 
 Whose drowning bodies the swift current hurries ; 
 These, maim'd swollen corpses, drifting far away, 
 Hideously-croaking famish' d alligators 
 Fight for portentous ; lashing furious trains, 
 Pulling asunder human trunks and limbs ! 
 
 But follow ye the stolen journeying slave ! 
 Behold her toiling shackled, starved, and goaded 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 95 
 
 Upon her weary way through wild and wood, 
 Under the sunblaze ; till her bleeding feet 
 Refuse their office ; till she faints and falls ! 
 Whom the tormentors, with a curse and jeer, 
 Torture to sense of cruel life once more : 
 Two burdens doth she carry ; one, her babe : 
 She cannot bear them both ; they snatch the babe 
 From her, for all the wailing and wrung hands ; 
 Tossing it crush' d upon a mossy stone. 
 They goad her on ; full blinding tears have 
 
 darken' d 
 
 All the parch' d earth ; she cannot stumble far 
 Now shouts arise to kill her it is done ! 
 Christ saith to Satan : " Hold ! the child shall 
 
 sleep!" 
 
96 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 CAISTTO Y. 
 
 OLEMNLY purple night reigns over 
 me, 
 
 With all the solemn glory of her stars. 
 
 Sublime star- worlds, who never have 
 
 disdain' d 
 
 To be my friends, consolers, counsellors, 
 Guiding faint footfalls of a mortal man ! 
 How often, when the moon among your lights 
 Glided, with her wan face beholding day ; 
 A slim canoe, carven from tender pearl, 
 Confused to many crescents as I gaze ; 
 Noting the very punctual moment, I 
 Besought my faithful sextant to reveal 
 What interval of cavernous clear gloom 
 Lay now between her orb and one of you ! 
 I found how high above your brilliant 
 Image in my small pool of mercury 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 97 
 
 Ye rose in heaven on my meridian. 
 So, in the least conjectured realm of all 
 These pilgrim feet have found, my whereabout 
 On this our Earth discovering I record. 
 But the barbarians, when they saw me place 
 And note the readings of mine instrument, 
 Deemed me magician ; some beneath their breath, 
 Viewing my quadrant's ivory curvature, 
 Whisper'd : " The Son of God hath come to us ; 
 And lo ! the moon was underneath his arm ! 
 He holdeth strange communion with stars." 
 
 Yours are fair faces of familiar friends 
 To the lone traveller in a lonely land, 
 Ye constellations, slowly journeying west ! 
 And some of you, my best beloved at home 
 May not behold ; but some of you, Tyith me, 
 Their eyes and mine may gaze upon together. 
 Glorious worlds, unknown to mortal men, 
 My spirit yearns to you from hollow orbs ! 
 Soon shall I slake my longing all divine 
 Even in you, with higher powers than these 
 H 
 
98 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Of this poor worn-out body ! 
 
 Now my soul 
 
 Seeks those immortals, who have passed away 
 From earth to yonder infinite star-worlds : 
 World within world, snn, planet, comet, moon, 
 All in their order and their own degree, 
 One crimson, and one golden, and one green, 
 Harmonious hearing a low voice of Love ! 
 Star of the Nile ! resplendent Sirius ! 
 Whom here men name " Drawer of all the 
 
 Night ! " 
 
 Planet of Love ! Ntanda, 19 fair firstborn 
 Of evening, tremulous dew in a sweet rose ! 
 (She is so large, and clear, she sheds a shadow:) 
 Aldebaran, Orion, Fomalhaut, 
 Altair, Canopus, and the Southern Cross ! 
 
 Now fades yon pyramid of nebulous light 
 Zodiacal, that, paling as it soars, 
 Tinges mild splendour of the Milky Way 
 A delicate orange ; but Magellan's, clouds 
 Revolve around our starless Southern Pole. 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 99 
 
 And all is silence only a night air 
 Rustles a palm, dreaming among the stars, 
 From whose dim languorous long fronds they 
 
 rise, 
 
 Slow disentangling their celestial gleam. 
 !N"o human sound disturbs the solitude. 
 Only a cry of some far florican ; 
 A chirping cricket in the herb afar, 
 Or doleful forest-muffled living thing. 
 Also I hear a distant ghostly voice 
 Of plangent surf, alternately resounding 
 And ceasing, on wild Tanganyika's shore. 
 But some low thunder booms at intervals. 
 Some say it is a surge, wandering in caves 
 Unfathomable of a mighty mountain range, 
 Far off to westward, nearer Liemba. 
 And some affirm a river under earth 
 Rushes in yonder mountains of Kabongo, 
 Breathing a strange low thunder on the 
 
 wind . . . 
 
 England ! my children ! shall I see you once 
 Again before I perish ? nay the end 
 
ioo LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Is very near : here I shall die alone : 
 I am weary, worn, deserted, destitute ! 
 
 It may be that my work is nearly done. 
 And though some say Christ cannot conquer here, 
 A noble army of dark men to-day, 
 Following His banner, proudly spurn the lie. 
 The native chief Sechele, 20 whom I taught, 
 Now teaches all his subject countrymen ; 
 And Africaner, the black conqueror, 
 Whose very name was terror to the world 
 Of his resistless ruining career, 
 Moffat alone, no weapon in his hand, 
 Subdued with silent spiritual power. 
 The haughty devastating spirit bow'd, 
 Like Saul of old, a willing thrall to Christ ; 
 So that all marvell'd to behold the man, 
 Saying, " Can this indeed be Africaner ?" 
 I have unveil'd before the feeble eyes, 
 Inured to twilight of a prison cell, 
 Little by little, His fair radiance, 
 Reflecting Him, though faintly, in my life. 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Also I made myself as one of them, 
 Seeking the bent and habit of their souls, 
 That I might govern, order, set to use. 
 
 And I wonld have wise lovers of mankind, 
 Dwelling through all the land in colonies ; 
 Gendering new necessities of life, 
 Desires entwined with all the nobler growth 
 Of reason, mutual reverence, and love ; 
 Arousing men with sturdier enterprise 
 To stir the virtues of a virgin soil ; 
 Fostering civil arts of mutual peace, 
 That ask for interchange of services. 
 So shall they cherish honourable trade 
 In all the wealth of Ethiopia ; 
 Ebony, amber, gold, and ivory ; 
 A care to barter these for what is wrought 
 By fiery familiars of the brain 
 Yonder in Europe, in our world sublime 
 Of godlike labour, triumph, and despair ; 
 In realms more wonderful than Africa ! 
 For in our Europe and America, 
 
102 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Sun, ocean, earth, are vassals unto man ; 
 For whom he moulds huge organs all inform' d 
 With a blind emanation from the soul 
 Wheel within wheel of giant enginery, 
 Thunderously storming, wailing, murmuring, 
 Cow'd slaves of his creative human will ; 
 Eager to mangle the slight taskmaster, 
 If God plunge him among their whirling limbs. 
 
 But with a gauntlet of stern iron crush out, 
 England ! the foul snake coil'd voluminous 
 About this desolate land, feeding on blood ! 
 Forbid, stamp out, the accursed trade in men : 
 "Nor dare neglect the mission of the strong, 
 To bind the oppressor, and to help the poor ! 
 
 Then shall these glorious immemorial rivers, 
 And inland seas, mine eyes have first beholden, 
 The Lord's highways of holiness and peace. 
 Alive with white- wing' d ministers of heaven, 
 Waft sunnier glory to the jubilant shores 
 Of Ethiopia, and the Maurian's land 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 103 
 
 Lift up her dark deliver' d hands to God ! 
 I may not see it ! Like Israel's leader, I 
 Am but a pioneer to bring the people 
 Out of their bondage : as on Pisgah's height, 
 I may behold the promised land from far. . . 
 I have flung wide the portals of the night : 
 Children of hope and morning, enter ye ! " 
 
 CANTO VI. 
 
 OW daylight rules: but Livingstone 
 
 still sleeps 
 
 Within the clay-built shadowy cham- 
 ber walls. 
 
 Fragments of torn soil'd paper, strewn around, 
 Show notes of travel jotted on the way 
 With his own red blood, used in place of ink. 
 A notebook, and a Bible, lie beside ; 
 With sextant, and chronometer, and hides ; 
 Ivory, tusks, a rifle, a javelin. 
 
104 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Hark ! the tranquillity of burning noon 
 A distant shot disturbs ! and now another ! 
 Men rouse them what is it ? another shot ! 
 It must be some approaching caravan. 
 Shall they awake the Master ? Nay, he hears : 
 He is awake, and, listening, wonders too ; 
 Hoping, and fearing ; communing with God. 
 He sends his trusted servant to discover 
 Who is the leader of the caravan. 
 He has heard rumours of a white man near. 
 Who ? can he be commissioned to relieve ? 
 '' 'Tis only some pale trader after all ! " 
 The messenger in breathless haste returns : 
 He has seen the leader of the coming band : 
 " It is a white man ! and he seeks for thee, 
 My Master ! he hath large supplies with him ! 
 But Livingstone can scarce believe for joy. 
 And yet what grateful accents from afar 
 Come faintly wafted on this Afric air ? 
 A hearty ringing Anglo-Saxon cheer ! 
 Benew'd by multitudinous followers, 
 Advancing down the forested hill-sides 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. io 
 
 Of Ukaranga ! swiftly they arrive : 
 
 Eager Ujiji pours excitedly 
 
 To give the strangers greeting a black crowd, 
 
 Among dim huts and trees, with bearded grave,. 
 
 Flowing-robed, turban' d Arabs, in the rear 
 
 Of England's great explorer, waiting now 
 
 To welcome his unknown deliverer. 
 
 How ? 'tis the banner of America ! 
 
 America saves England mighty Child 
 
 Of mighty Mother, it is nobly done ! 
 
 Join your two strong right hands for evermore,. 
 
 And swear that none shall sever them anew ! 
 
 Then tremble, crown'd oppressors of mankind !' 
 
 England, America, on your free soil 
 
 The slave may kneel ; but only kneel to God ! 
 
 Thou, gallant Stanley, scorning toil, alert, 
 
 Stern battling with thy formidable foes, 
 
 Hast won the brilliant prize ; and Europe turns- 
 
 Her enviously grateful eyes on thee ! 
 
 The outer world supposed the traveller dead. 
 But Murchison, and some true friends beside, 
 
106 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 In England, as beyond the sundering sea, 
 Firm in sagacious confidence, divined 
 His living need, and sent strong hearts to help. 
 Young, namesake of a faithful friend at home, 21 
 Finds all the falsehood of a traitor's tale : 
 But Stanley finds the murder' d man alive ! 
 His ardent spirit bounds with generous joy, 
 Proudly exultant ; for himself hath found 
 The man whom Europe and America 
 Delight to honour, and desire to save. 
 
 Who should this be with venerable mien, 
 And ashen hair, and worn wan countenance, 
 Travel-marr'd, in dun raiment, with bowed form, 
 Wearing a mariner's goldbanded cap ; 
 Of aspect firm, beneficent, and calm ; 
 He who advances with a kindly smile 
 Before the Arabs ? 'tis a stranger's face 
 Yet Stanley knows it must be Livingstone ! 
 Longing to clasp him in a friend's embrace, 
 And yet restraining transports honourable, 
 He only bares the deeply reverent head, 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 107 
 
 With questioning accent naming the great name. 
 
 Livingstone warmly grasps the proffer 'd hand. 
 
 And after salutation courteous 
 
 To some around, these recent yet fast friends 
 
 Turn toward the claybuilt tembe; whose broad eaves 
 
 This afternoon shall shelter two glad men, 
 
 In place of one alone and desolate. 
 
 The traveller, slowly dying yesterday, 
 
 Now shares with relish in a plenteous meal, 
 
 Reiterating : " You have brought me life ! " 
 
 Letters from loved ones, how long silent ! soon 
 The pilgrim reads ; and while soft evening wears, 
 They sit communing of how many things ! 
 They speak of friends ; of some whom fame well 
 
 knows ; 
 
 And one whom Livingstone may chance to name 
 Yet lives another he has pass'd away ! 
 Then the explorer tells a wondrous tale 
 Of his exploits, adventures, and desires. 
 But on himself, emerged but yesterday 
 From forests of the dark barbarian, 
 
io8 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 His comrade pours a flood of radiance 
 
 From royal Europe trembling to her base, 
 
 And deluged in the lifeblood of her sons 
 
 France, the Colossus, shatter' d at Sedan ; 
 
 Her emperor, with all her chivalry, 
 
 Slain, or enthrall' d ; while Germany the proud 
 
 Draws stern inveterate coils of battle close 
 
 About the fairest city in the world ! 
 
 Moltke and Bismarck are dismembering France j 
 
 William assumes old Barbarossa's crown 
 
 In that great mirror'd chamber of the halls, 
 
 Which Louis, Gaul's grand monarch, piled in 
 
 pride 
 To all the glories of his conquering race ! 
 
 The wanderer listens, marvelling, to all ; 
 While darkness deepens over Africa. 
 He turns to dearer themes tells how he yearns 
 For home and his beloved ; but would fain 
 Finish his work, since all the means are here. 
 u Nor will my labour now detain me long ! " 
 They pore upon their notes, and charts ; arrange 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 109 
 
 The future, lying on a fur-strewn floor, 
 By oil-light, burning in a shard for lamp ; 
 Sipping black coffee, breathing fragrant fume . . . 
 With other _heart and other hopes to-night 
 Livingstone hearkens to the solemn sound 
 Of Tanganika's melancholy wave ; 
 And his friend hearkens ; for he may not sleep, 
 Whose heart is buoyant with a wondering joy. 
 
 CANTO VII. 
 
 UILD me a hut to die in ! nevermore 
 May I behold my land, or my be- 
 loved." 
 So spake the Master; for the end 
 
 was near ; 
 
 Whom his dark silent followers obey. 
 For Livingstone, resuming his life-load 
 With a light heart, for all his years, and frame 
 Outworn with mighty labour and long pain, 
 
no LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Help'd even more the Mistress of his soul, 
 His dark and awful Mistress, Africa. 
 But that inveterate foe, the dire disease, 2 ' 2 
 Watching lynx-eyed for opportunity, 
 Found it, alas ! when, with a dwindling life, 
 The old, but still young-hearted traveller 
 Would flounder, as in manhood's vigorous prime,, 
 Through foul morasses, many hours a day. 
 The foe sprang on him ; and he felt full well 
 Its gripe this time was mortal : then the flesh 
 QuaiPd and rebell'd let him but struggle home t 
 Homeward they hasten life ebbing apace. 
 And first he rides ; but soon they carry him. 
 So when they have arrived at Muilala, 
 He bows the head "A hut where I may die !" 
 
 Now all the mists of death pass over him : 
 Terrible pain, ill dreams ; with longings vain 
 For one glimpse of a loving face afar. 
 It is the hour of mortal agony. 
 Watchman ! will the terrible night soon pass ? 
 Then through the darkness mounts a bitter cry * 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. in 
 
 As through, more darkness upon Calvary 
 Rose a more bitter crying from the Lord. 
 
 Gloomy the night and sullen ; whose faint breath 
 Moans among grasses of a lonely hut ; 
 While Bemba mourns with dying wave afar . . 
 . . . Behold ! a dim procession slowly moves 
 Athwart the gloom ! phantasmal Hero-forms, 
 Scarr'd as with thunder ; marr'd, yet glorious ; 
 Their pale brows aureoled with martyr-flame ; 
 Lovers of men, sublime in suffering ; 
 Patriots of all races and all time ; 
 Christian confessors whom the world admires ; 
 And some, whom none regarded, saving Heaven. 
 They are come to claim their brother ; and the 
 
 First 
 Seems like unto the lowly Son of God. 
 
 " Strew grass upon the hut ; for I am cold !" 
 And those dark silent followers obey. 
 But Majuahra kneels beside the bed ; 
 Dark Majuahra, a young slave set free, 
 Kneels by a rude bed in a bough-built hut ; 
 
U2 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 And while his tears fall on the wasted hand, 
 That never did a fellow- creature wrong, 
 But only wrought deliverance for all ; 
 After the fourth day of his coming there, 
 At solemn midnight, noble Livingstone, 
 Saying, in a low voice, " I am going home ! " 
 Quietly sleeping, enters into rest. 
 A lamp faint glimmers on the little slave, 
 As 'on those grand wan features of the dead . . 
 . Daylight has dawn'd the Conqueror is 
 crown'd ! 
 
 Then all consult what it were best to do. 
 And his true followers, whom he has loved, 
 And taught, and saved from bondage worse than 
 
 death, 
 
 "Who have shared his perils and long wanderings ; 
 Ohumah, Hamoyda, Susi, and the rest ; 
 Resolve to bear away the dear remains, 
 Even to the coast a thousand miles away ! 
 That so the English may receive their Chief, 
 And bring him home where he desired to be. 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 113 
 
 But fearing lest the village interpose, 
 They hide the truth of their commander's death ; 
 And, building a high fence around a booth, 
 Bury the body's inner parts beneath 
 A shadowy tree, with solemn funeral rites ; 
 Carving thereover name and date of death. 
 All that remains they reverently prepare 
 During twelve mournful days beneath the sun, 
 Embalming it with salt that purifies. 
 Last in rude bark of a great tree they bear him 
 Toward the isle of clove and cinnamon, 23 
 Bulbul and orange, and pomegranate flower ; 
 Carrying their dead Leader to the sea, 
 Who in glad triumph should have brought them 
 there ! 
 
 THE CAKAVAN. 
 
 A solemn, strange, a holy Caravan ! 
 When was the like thereof beheld by man ? 
 Slow journeying from unconjectured lands, 
 Behold ! they*bear him in their gentle hands ; 
 His dark youths bear him in the rude grey bark, 
 I 
 
ii 4 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 As though, their burden were a holiest ark. 
 Embalm'd they bear him from the lands of Nile, 
 As men bore Israel, Abraham, erewhile. 
 Weary and weak, and faint and fallen ill, 
 Through desert, jungle, forest wild and still, 
 By lake, and dismal swamp, and rolling river, 
 Slowly their dark procession winds forever. 
 How would the Chief exult at every sight ! 
 Alas ! those eagle eyes are seal'd in night. 
 Behold them winding over hill and plain, 
 In storm, in sunshine, calm and hurricane ! 
 And if th.ey may not hide what thing they bear, 
 Men banish them with horror and wild fear, 
 Far from all human dwelling ; nor will feed ; 
 Nor furnish aught to fill their bitter need ; 
 Assailing them with hindering word and deed. 
 But though their burden may not wake to cheer, 
 The Hero- Spirit hovers very near : 
 Upon them rests the holy Master's power : 
 His soul before them moves, a mighty tower ! 
 They, and the body, rest beneath the stars, 
 Or mooned ghostly-rainbow'd cloudy bars ; 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 115 
 
 Until at length they hear the sounding sea, 
 In all the grandeur of Eternity ! 
 A solemn, strange, a holy Caravan ! 
 When was the like thereof beheld by man ? 
 
 Now waft him homeward in the gallant ship, 
 Expanding her white wings for a long flight ! 
 It is not far from when we look'd for him. 
 In Maytime we had hoped to greet the sail, 
 Wafting our stainless conqueror to rest 
 In his own land, irradiate with love, 
 Wearing our well-earn' d honour on his brow. 
 Then bells would have peal'd over him, and flowers 
 Strewn his triumphant path, and shouts of joy 
 Have rent the summer air to welcome him. 
 So we have welcomed our victorious 
 Warriors yesterday from Africa 
 And so alas ! have mourn' d the noble band, 
 Who, call'd by honour, gloriously died. 
 
 A sail is sighted he is coming home. 
 
u6 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 But all fair colours of the many nations 
 In harbour, flying low from many a mast, 
 And minute guns, and muffled voice of bells, 
 With reverent silence of assembling throngs, 
 And mourning emblems in the public ways, 
 Mournfully tell of how the hero comes ! 
 
 Now yet a little farther carry him. 
 Westminster opens wide her ancient doors 
 For more illustrious dust to enter in. 
 Honour the noble Scottish weaver-boy, 
 The lowly-born illustrious Livingstone ! 
 With solemn music we will leave him here, 
 Among the ashes of our mighty fallen. 
 Behold ! world-honour 'd Shades that haunt the 
 
 fane, 
 
 Statesman, or monarch, poet, soldier, sage 
 The while he moves along their awful line 
 To his own hallow'd English sepulchre ; 
 From yon far forest of lone Muilala 
 Moves to more glorious glooms of Westminster 
 Bend in a grand reverent humility 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 117 
 
 Before our stainless warrior of the cross ; 
 Uncnrsed of any humblest human soul ; 
 Blest and for ever to be blest by man ; 
 Foremost of all explorers ; Liberator 
 Of the dark continent, and all her sons ! 
 
 Africa, and America, appear 
 His mighty mourners ; for a staunchest friend, 
 Stanley is here ; and here the slave set free, 24 
 Who brought his noble master to the coast ; 
 The Negro youth, who breathed our English words 
 Of faithful hope, words we are breathing now, 
 Over that heart entomb'd in Africa. 
 For though she hath restored some dust to us, 
 In life, in death, She claims to hold his heart ! 
 . . . Hath he not died in her own awful arms ? 
 His sons and daughters in deep sable robed 
 Bear large white wreaths of blossom for his grave : 
 Yea, dark Death lies all buried and conceal'd 
 Under sweet emblems of immortal life ! 
 Alas ! if he had come to us alive, 
 He might have gather'd violets to-day ; 
 
1 1 8 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Listening to our earliest nightingale 
 
 Under the woodland sprays of soft young green ; 
 
 But we have strewn spring flowers upon the bier 
 
 And we have wrought in white azaleas 
 
 A cross thereover ; while our kindly Queen 
 
 Has twined her delicate wreath for him ; and some 
 
 Lay fadeless amaranth, with roses rare, 
 
 And his own cherish' d palms of Africa, 
 
 Palms of the conqueror, upon his breast. 
 
 Now while those ashes slowly sink to rest, 
 
 All Europe, and his Country bending over ; 
 
 While solemn music soars with seraph plume ; 
 
 Pearly soft sun-rays, like sweet wings of doves, 
 
 Enter yon high clerestories, and abide 
 
 Athwart grey marrying fans of the dim ceiling : 
 
 So all we mourners, piers, and monuments, 
 
 Glow with a rainbow glory, as from Heaven. 
 
 Is it not better as the Lord hath will'd ? 
 On his own chosen battle-field he falls, 
 Still pressing forward, face toward the foe ! 
 A martyr's death and tomb illume with light 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 119 
 
 His plain severe sublimity of life. 
 
 Could lie have borne, who drank the liberal wind 
 
 Of deserts, like a lion or a pard, 
 
 Our stifling air of dull proprieties, 
 
 And pale decorum's mild monotony ? 
 
 Who, with clear eyes on the Celestial Pole, 
 
 Loved, like an Arab, wandering wild and free ! 
 
 While some surmise the dubious dim realm, 25 
 Where he surrender' d to a sacred cause 
 His very life-breath in a life-long war, 
 Holds verily the furthest founts of Nile ! 
 
 His death-cold hand unveils a Mystery, 
 Which all the unyielding ages from of old 
 Have shrouded in impenetrable gloom ; 
 A darkness formidable from tongues confused 
 Of hydra-headed Error, breathing fear. 
 Champion of knowledge, and celestial love ! 
 Conqueror of unconquerable Mle ! 
 Mortal too bold ! who dared to penetrate 
 That awful phantom-guarded Presence-chamber, 
 
120 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 
 
 Where never mortal came ! there blinded fell, 
 All unaware of his own victory ! 
 
 For here, between these very parallels, 
 Ancient Puranas of the Indian 
 Place Soma Giri ; whence a vast long lake 
 Amara flows, Amara " of the Gods," 
 And from Amara, Nile. 
 
 Alas ! he died 
 
 Unknowing all the hopeful fruit that Frere 26 
 Ripened from those indignant words of truth, 
 A lone old man, among Hell's legionaries, 
 Unquailing hurl'd against the slave-trader. 
 He learn'd stern Baker's wonderful campaign : 
 Now, peradventure, he hath learn'd the whole ! 
 
 But if Columbus, voyaging forlorn, 
 Wandering ever in wan ways unknown 
 Of shoreless ocean toward the dying day, 
 Daring, presumptuous mortal ! to assail 
 Barriers Heaven piles against mankind : 
 
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA. 12 
 
 If that Columbus, fronting desperate crews 
 Of mutinous men, with tranquil eyes unmoved 
 From all their high and visionary aim ; 
 Landing at last upon another world, 
 Conquer 'd from chaos in the power of faith, 
 A blooming world, that seem'd the Paradise 
 Of our first parents in their innocence, 
 And proudly named Columbia to-day 
 If he, the Navigator, lives for ever 
 In all men's green, and grateful memory ; 
 With Raleigh, Gama, Bruce, and Magelhaens 
 Then surely shall our English Livingstone, 
 Honouring this our own tumultuous time ; 
 Heroic with immortal heroism, 
 That burns for ever in humanity ; 
 Rouse all the race unto a loftier life ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 NOTE 1. 
 
 T may be said by somebody that I have 
 taken a liberty with the Mountains of the 
 Moon. Let him that is without sin cast 
 the first stone. Burton maintains that 
 Ptolemy knew perfectly well what he was about in 
 making a great range of mountains run east and west 
 across Central Africa. It is even probable (from what 
 Du Chaillu and others have seen) that snowy Kilim- 
 andjaro (Meru) and Kenia form its eastern limit, while 
 Burton's Cameroons Mountain, with the mountains 
 Du Chaillu saw, form its western. But, at any rate, 
 the most recent discoveries seem to indicate that the 
 Karagwe highlands also send out branches southward. 
 These flank Tanganyika, and run down to the west of 
 
NOTES. 123 
 
 Lake Bangweolo or Bemba, afterwards trending off 
 again south of the same lake to enclose lakes Nyassa 
 and Shirwa (see Keith Johnstone's Map of Livingstone's 
 discoveries). The high plateau of Lobisa, where the 
 river Chambezi probably takes its rise, may on this 
 view be considered as belonging to the same system. 
 But there are north and south coast ranges inosculating 
 with these latitudinal mountains while possibly neither 
 Abyssinian highlands on the one hand, nor heights 
 enclosing Albert Nyanza on the other, ought to be 
 regarded as cut off from them. Where Livingstone's 
 " four fountains of Herodotus " (which he was so keen 
 to find) are, seenis indeed to be still a moot point like 
 most matters connected with Central African geo- 
 graphy. 
 
 2. Livingstone's discoveries remarkably confirmed 
 Sir R. Murchison's theories as to the geological con- 
 dition of South Africa for he found no evidences of 
 marine formations, which would be found if the land 
 had been submerged, as other continents have been, since 
 the oldest secondary era of geologists. In his books 
 may be read his statements of fact, and his inferences 
 on these matters. The great lakes that, at the time of 
 the deposition of the oldest secondary strata, were 
 much larger than at present, have been let out, he 
 
124 NOTES. 
 
 believes, by fissures suddenly opened in the flanking 
 ranges, as at the Falls of Mosi-oa-tunya. See Murchison 
 on the Physical Geography of Inner Africa. Journal 
 R. Geog. Society, 1864. 
 
 3. In Manyuema, west of Tanganyika, where Living- 
 stone has been, the huts are built almost entirely of 
 ivory ; while in Ashantee gold is profusely employed. 
 
 4. Du Chaillu ; and Schweinfurth, the record of 
 whose very remarkable and daring explorations have 
 been recently published. I am of course aware that 
 Livingstone did not really know of the latter. It is 
 indeed sad to think how near the two travellers were 
 to one another when both were turned back. 
 
 5. I do not deem this inconsistent with Living- 
 stone's large, though reverent and evangelical, utter- 
 ance respecting the death of Sebituane. (See "Mis- 
 sionary Travels.") 
 
 6. A bird of Ashantee with brilliant red plumage. 
 This vision is suggested by descriptions given of Afri- 
 can races that practise human sacrifice e. g. those of 
 Ashantee and Dahomey. 
 
 7. The negroes can hardly conceive of death, in 
 the case of young persons, without supposing it 
 brought about by some malignant enchantment. They 
 believe themselves surrounded by all kinds of spiritual 
 
NOTES. 125 
 
 agencies, good and bad and, though their ideas about 
 spiritual matters are vague and variable enough, they 
 are often found to hold a somewhat crude form of the 
 doctrine of transmigration. 
 
 8. The medicine-man or magician is relied on to 
 point out who have bewitched the dead which affords 
 him ample scope for malignity. He makes each victim 
 drink the ordeal poison (various plants are used the 
 Muave, the Mboundou, &c.) ; then if the poison takes 
 effect, the popular voice decides that the person is truly 
 guilty, and the tribe despatch him or her with knives. 
 It is said that the old rascal has some secret, by the 
 knowledge of which he renders the poison innocuous to 
 himself. 
 
 9. This anecdote is told in Livingstone's first great 
 book of missionary travels and it was by the imper- 
 fectly-healed fracture of the bone of his left arm that 
 the remains brought over to England were identified 
 on their arrival as those of Livingstone ; Sir W. Fergu- 
 son making the examination in the presence of the 
 Kev. Dr. Moffat, Dr. Kirk, Mr. Webb of Newstead, 
 and Mr. Waller, who had formerly seen Livingstone's 
 injured arm. 
 
 10. This dog the traveller seems to have procured 
 on his last voyage. Mr. Young, in his " Search for 
 
126 NOTES. 
 
 Livingstone," says that he heard of this dog at a village 
 where he arrived ; and where he gained such informa- 
 tion as assured him of the falsehood of the traitor 
 Musa's fabricated report respecting Livingstone's mur- 
 der by theMa-Zitu said to have taken place in 1866. 
 Sir R. Murchison, doubting the report, as President of 
 the Royal Geographical Society, together with the 
 Council, sent out Mr. E. Young to ascertain the truth. 
 He proved a most competent leader. The native woman 
 who spoke of this dog said, laughing, " it seemed to have 
 two tails ' ? and the Rev. Mr. Waller afterwards sug- 
 gested an explanation of this to Mr. Young ; relating 
 how Livingstone (ever fond of a joke) had disputed the 
 fact alleged by learned men, that every dog under 
 domestication still retains the tendency of a wild dog's 
 tail to curl to the left, and complained that he was always 
 obliged now, whenever he heard a dog bark, to march 
 out of his way in order to examine his tail ! Mr. Waller 
 further suggested that Livingstone had picked up a dog, 
 whose tail curled to the right; and that this contro- 
 versy being explained to the natives, they made a hash 
 of it, saying the dog Chitani seemed to have two tails. 
 
 11. At St. Paul de Loanda, the Portuguese settle- 
 ment on the West Coast. 
 
 12. Mrs. Livingstone died at Shupanga, whither 
 
NOTES. 127 
 
 she had come from England to join her husband for the 
 second time having before gone with him, after their 
 marriage, from Kuruman (Moffat's station) to Kolobeng; 
 and after residing with him there as a missionary's wife, 
 having travelled with him and some of their children to 
 Lake Ngami, across the Kalahari desert, when the chil- 
 dren greatly suffered. In the lyric that follows I have to 
 acknowledge some obligation to a pretty poem in a 
 small life of the traveller, published by Messrs. Hodder 
 and Stoughton. Bishop Mackenzie and Rev. Mr. Burrup 
 are alluded to. 
 
 13. The Makololo chief, Sekeletu, and his people, 
 furnished Livingstone with the means necessary to 
 enable him to go from Linyanti to the west coast, and 
 afterwards to the east. Without these " niggers," 
 who urged him and helped him to explore to open a 
 highway for commerce and Christianity he could have 
 done nothing. 
 
 14. This was the little ship Livingstone built with 
 the 6000 derived from the sale of his first book ; for 
 the steamer sent by Government did not answer his 
 purpose of exploring the Zambesi and Shire. This sum, 
 as Stanley tells us, in his latest edition of "How I 
 Found Livingstone," the traveller lost. Having crossed 
 to Bombay in his little craft a marvellous feat he 
 
128 NOTES. 
 
 sold her for 2000 ; but lost this afterwards through the 
 bankruptcy of the banker with whom it was deposited. 
 
 15. See Irving's " Life of Columbus." 
 
 16. A kind of cuckoo, so called by the natives. 
 
 17. This was before Stanley explored the north of 
 Tanganyika with Livingstone, and found the Rusizi river 
 to be an influent. If there should be an effluent in the 
 direction of the Kabogo mountains, to the west, this 
 might join the Lualaba ; and so possibly (according to 
 Livingstone's theory), the Nile. Perhaps Lieutenant 
 Cameron, now at Ujiji, will discover this. But Schwein- 
 furth's discoveries seem to prove that this could only be 
 by way of the Albert Nyanza ; not by way of Petherick's 
 branch, the Bahr el Ghazal. 
 
 18. Named by Livingstone "Victoria Falls." The 
 native name signifies "sounding smoke." Mr. Oswell, 
 who was with Livingstone when he first discovered the 
 cataract, and had seen Niagara, gave the palm to Mosi- 
 oa-tunya. The Mowana is the gigantic Baobab tree of 
 Africa. The Mohonono tree is said to be like a cedar, 
 and the Motsouri like a cypress. For a full account of 
 the falls, see Livingstone's two books of travel. The 
 water (of the river Zambesi, or Leeambayee) clears a 
 moment as it falls, becomes a sheet of foam, or rather a 
 sheet of comets of foam, separate from one another, with 
 
NOTES. 129 
 
 nucleus and tail. This phenomenon is apparently very 
 remarkable ; though I think I remember to have ob- 
 served something like it in the falls of the Rhine. 
 The " Evergreen Grove " is on a ledge of rock opposite 
 the fall. But " Garden Island," where the travellers 
 made a garden, is on the same side. 
 
 19. Ntanda, a native name for the planet Venus, 
 meaning firstborn. 
 
 20. The Bakwain chief, with whom Livingstone 
 resided at Kolobeng. For an account of Africaner, see 
 the Rev. Dr. Moffat's " Missionary Travels." 
 
 21. Mr. Young, of Kelly, a true friend to Livingstone, 
 without whose private generosity he could not have 
 carried forward his great labours. 
 
 22. Dysentery was the disease to which he was sub- 
 ject, and of which he died (1873). The precise locality 
 where he died seems almost strangely vague. 
 
 23. Zanzibar. 
 
 24. Jacob Wainwright, a negro slave, educated at 
 Nassick College, near Bombay, came over in the "Malwa" 
 with his master's remains, and attended the funeral in 
 Westminster Abbey. He read some of the English 
 service over those parts of the body that were buried 
 under the tree at Muilala, or Ilala. He was sent up to 
 the Doctor from Zanzibar by Mr. Stanley, with other 
 
 K 
 
130 NOTES. 
 
 valuable men, as soon as the latter reached the coast 
 Livingstone having resolved to wait for them and other 
 necessary supplies at Unyanyembe. 
 
 25. If in Lobisa the Chambezi rises which is the 
 same river that flows out of Lake Bangweolo or Bemba as 
 the Luapula ; which again, on issuing from Lake Moero, 
 becomes Lualaba and if the Lualaba send one branch 
 to the Congo, and another to the Nile then this claim 
 may be made for the presumed whereabouts of Living- 
 stone's death. On the other hand, Mr. Findlay still 
 maintains (unless I mistake) with Sir S. Baker and 
 Captain Burton, that Tanganyika is virtually the same 
 as Albert Nyanza ; or has an effluent north, which joins 
 the latter. But as Livingstone died somewhere near the 
 southern feeders of Lake Liemba, which is the same 
 lake as Tanganyika, even on this view, the same claim 
 can be made. 
 
 26. It is to be hoped that the provisions of Sir 
 Bartle Frere's treaty, concluded with the Sultan of 
 Zanzibar, which we owe to Livingstone's fearless re- 
 presentations by letter of the slave-trading horrors he 
 witnessed on his last journey, will be faithfully carried 
 out, and that England will see that they are. 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS : PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WII.KINS, 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. 
 
THE RED FLAG. 
 
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 The promise of Mr. Noel's earlier poem in this style, ' Pan,' is here fulfilled." 
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 ... In spite of these faults, he is capable on occasions of writing noble 
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By the same Author. 
 
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 coloured flowers. Few people will remain long in doubt that we have among 
 us another young writer of great originality and sweetness, whose specially 
 poetic faculty is as unmistakable as the taste of good Falernian or the smell of 
 a musk rose. . . . 'Ganymede,' an idyl thoroughly Greek, a bit of work 
 which reads like Theocritus in the original. Artistically a finished gem, it 
 remains in the eye like a small Turner." Athenceum. 
 
 "It is impossible to read 'Beatrice' through without being powerfully 
 moved. There are passages in it which for intensity and tenderness, clear 
 and vivid vision, spontaneous and delicate sympathy, may be compared with 
 the best efforts of our best living writers." Spectator. 
 
 " Mr. Noel is an original poet of a high order, possessing in addition to 
 imaginative insight, a lyrical faculty of exceeding depth and sweetness, and 
 a sensitiveness to mere colour which is perhaps unexampled among recent 
 writers. . . ' Pan ' and ' Ganymede ' alone entitle Mr. Noel to a place among 
 living poets." London Review. 
 
 " Beatrice is the heroine of a true love story of great delicacy, power, and 
 passion, in which the author shows his entire mastery of many different kinds 
 of verse, and his intimate acquaintance with the broader workings of human 
 nature. It is a story of power and beauty, told as a poet only can tell it." 
 Stindard. 
 
 " Mr. Noel must be recognised as endowed with that delicacy of perception, 
 that peculiar power of receiving and imparting ideal impression, which are 
 marks of the born poet. He excels in delicate colour, floating suggestiveness, 
 and dreamy imaginative beauty. The following lines from ' Summer Clouds 
 and a Swan ' are probably as exquisite as any word-picture in the English 
 language. . . ." Guardian. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. 
 
MEMOIR OF DE. LIVINGSTONE. 
 
 BY H. M. STANLEY. 
 
 8# 
 
 HOW I FOUND LIVINGSTONE, 
 
 This Edition contains all the Small and some of the Large 
 Illustrations, and a long Introductory Chapter on the Death 
 of Livingstone, with a brief Memoir, and Extracts from 
 Dr. Livingstone's last Correspondence with Mr. Stanley, now 
 first published. 
 
 7s. 6d., crown 8vo., cloth extra, uniform with the Cheap 
 Edition of Major Butler's " The Great Lone Land." &c. 
 
 This Edition has been revised mostcarefully from beginningto 
 end, and all matter of a personal or irrelevant character omitted. 
 
 !N .B. Copies of the Original Edition, cloth extra, gilt edges, 
 may be had, 10s. 6d. 
 
 A few Extracts from Press Notices: 
 
 " The freshness with which Mr. Stanley writes, his real powers of 
 narrative and description, his quick observation and very industrious 
 collection of materials, all going hand in hand as they do with the reader's 
 keen interest in the subject, with admiration of the courage, energy, self- 
 reliance, and ready resource of the traveller, and with the strange, semi- 
 chivalrous, semi-commercial nature of his mission, render the work he has 
 so soon published excellent reading." The Times. 
 
 " The book is admirably illustrated, and the whole story of adventure 
 and discovery is so well told that we go along with the author in his ex- 
 plorations, realise his dangers, feel the very climate of Africa to be around 
 us, and are almost able to see Dr. Livingstone himself at work." Daily 
 News. 
 
 " It would be impossible within the narrow limits of a first notice, to 
 attempt to convey an adequate idea of the thousand and one topics of 
 interest dealt with in this volume." Morning Post. 
 
 " Mr. Stanley's book may be pronounced thoroughly interesting and 
 valuable. His feat was so successful in its results, and was besides so 
 admirably well managed in every detail, that it must stand out in all time 
 coming as exceptional in the records of African travel." Daily Telegraph, 
 
 " It is needless to recommend a book like this, which is certain to be 
 eagerly devoured by every one who can get hold of it ; we will, therefore, 
 only say that Mr. Stanley's pen is as facile and flowing as his heart is 
 courageous, and that the story of his adventures, perils, and final triumph 
 in his search after Livingstone suffers no drawback from any tediousness 
 or clumsiness in the telling." Graphic. 
 
 " We know of no book of African travel which has a better story to tell, 
 and few which, on the whole, tell their story more graphically .... his 
 book well deserves reading." Saturday Review. 
 
 LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW AND SEARLE, 
 CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET, E.C. 
 
Cn 
 
 
 
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