Appendix D: Notes on Sources and Method

“it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order … that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast instructed.”

— Luke 1:3-4, ASV

This appendix explains where the story told in this book comes from, how the sources were weighed, and which popular claims have been corrected. It is written for readers who want to check the story for themselves, and for anyone who will retell it.

Livingstone’s Own Books

Three books by Livingstone, all now in the public domain, are the backbone of this biography. Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (London: John Murray, 1857) covers his life to 1856, and is the source of his account of his childhood, his conversion, the lion at Mabotsa, Sechele, the journeys to Lake Ngami, Luanda and the east coast, and the Victoria Falls. The Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries (1865), written with his brother Charles, covers 1858 to 1864, including the release of the captives at Mbame’s and the famine in the Shire valley. The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, edited by Horace Waller (two volumes, 1874), covers the last journey and includes the narrative of his death and of the journey to the coast as Susi and Chuma gave it to Waller.

Each of these was written or edited for publication, and each has its silences. Missionary Travels says little about his quarrels and less about his family’s hardships. The Narrative passes lightly over the conflicts within the expedition. The Last Journals passed through Waller’s reverent hands, and comparison with Livingstone’s surviving field diaries shows that the published text was sometimes smoothed. This book quotes all three freely, because they let Livingstone speak, and it reads them with those limits in mind.

Other Early Sources

W. G. Blaikie, The Personal Life of David Livingstone (1880), written with the family’s cooperation, printed many private letters and journal entries not otherwise available in his time. It is the source here for the story of the forgotten sermon at Ongar, the last morning at Blantyre in 1840, Moffat’s recollection of the smoke of a thousand villages, the journal entry of 14 January 1856, the resolution to place no value on anything, and his grief at Mary’s death. Blaikie was protective of his subject and passed quickly over the hardest matters.

H. M. Stanley, How I Found Livingstone (1872), is the only full outside account of Livingstone in his last years, and the source of the Ujiji greeting and of Stanley’s portrait of his faith. Stanley wrote for a mass readership and had every reason to make the story vivid; his book should be read alongside the doubts about the date and wording discussed below.

Modern Scholarship

This book has drawn, for facts and interpretation, on modern scholarship that remains in copyright and has not been quoted. The most important works are Tim Jeal’s biography, first published in 1973 and revised in 2013, which first set out in detail the failures, quarrels and family costs of Livingstone’s career; Andrew Ross’s David Livingstone: Mission and Empire (2002), which gives careful attention to his missionary convictions and to his African context; and the work of the Livingstone Online project, which has published his manuscripts and, through spectral imaging, recovered his 1871 field diary. Biographies of Mary Livingstone, studies of Sechele and the Bakwena by historians of Botswana, and work on Chuma, Susi and Jacob Wainwright have also informed the account. Facts about the African companions’ later lives come from such studies and from records of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, and are given with that caution.

African Voices

African voices in this story are fewer than they should be, because the written record was mostly kept by Europeans. Some survive: Sechele’s statements made at Cape Town in 1853; the testimony of Susi, Chuma and the boy Majwara, given to Waller and to British officials at Zanzibar; the diary of Jacob Wainwright; and oral traditions among the Bakwena and in the Shire valley. This book has tried to give the African people of the story their own place, and to name them where the record allows.

Corrections to the Popular Story

One convert. It is often said that Livingstone made only one convert. The record supports the statement that Sechele is the only African he is known to have baptised. It does not follow that his work bore no fruit: Sechele went on to lead his people in the faith, and Livingstone was one of many missionaries working among the Batswana.

Sechele’s baptism. Sechele was baptised on 1 October 1848, not in 1849 as some popular accounts have it. His suspension from communion followed early in 1849.

The lion. Livingstone’s words about the stupor he felt in the lion’s jaws are widely quoted with small variations, notably whether the mouse felt the first “shake” or the first “grip” of the cat. This book has quoted the passage only where the wording is secure and paraphrased the rest. The man who saved his life, Mebalwe, is often left out of the story; he belongs in it.

The smoke of a thousand villages. The phrase comes from Robert Moffat’s later recollection of a private conversation, as reported by Blaikie. The popular story of a boy hidden in an organ loft hearing it in a sermon has no basis.

“Anywhere, provided it be forward.” The saying carved on memorials is a tidied version of words in one of his letters to the Missionary Society, in which he spoke of holding himself in readiness to go anywhere, provided it be forward.

Discoveries. Lake Ngami, the Victoria Falls, Lake Nyasa and the other places Livingstone is said to have discovered were known to the African peoples who lived there, and some had been visited by Portuguese or Arab-Swahili traders. He was the first European to report them to the wider world. Afro-Portuguese traders had crossed the continent before him.

The Ujiji meeting. The words “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” come from Stanley alone; the relevant pages of his diary are missing, and his own texts differ in detail. The date is uncertain: 10 November 1871 in Stanley’s book, 3 November in other versions, and late October by Livingstone’s own disordered reckoning.

“The open sore of the world.” The inscription in Westminster Abbey presents these words as among the last he wrote. He wrote them at Unyanyembe in 1872, about a year before his death.

His death. The date is given as 1 May 1873 by Waller and on his grave, but his companions carved 4 May on the tree at Chitambo’s village. The account of his being found kneeling in prayer comes from the testimony of Majwara, Susi, Chuma and Matthew Wellington, through Waller. It is cherished testimony, consistent with his habits, and not independently verifiable.

The distance to the coast. Some popular accounts say that his body was carried fourteen hundred miles. The usual estimate is about a thousand miles, over some nine months from his death to the coast.

Mary Livingstone. Claims that Mary Livingstone drank heavily in her years in Britain rest on the reports of contemporaries and have been taken seriously by modern biographers, but they cannot be proved and are not stated here as fact.

Nyangwe. The account of the massacre in the Last Journals is substantially true, but the recovered field diary shows that Livingstone’s situation before it was more entangled with the traders, and with violence by his own followers, than the published version suggests.

Quotations

Words in quotation marks are given only where their exact wording could be confirmed. Some of Livingstone’s best-known words, and some of Stanley’s and Sechele’s, are given in close paraphrase, clearly attributed, because their exact wording could not be checked against the original editions; among them are the journal entry of 14 January 1856, his grief at Mary’s death, his resolution to place no value on anything, his words on losing his medicine chest and at Nyangwe, Sechele’s question about his ancestors, and most of the exchange at Ujiji. “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” is quoted as Stanley’s own account. Readers who wish to quote Livingstone in print should check the wording against a facsimile of the first editions. Several sayings popularly attributed to him, such as “Fear God and work hard,” have not been used as his.

Language

Livingstone and his contemporaries used words for Africans and African customs that are offensive today. This book quotes such language only where it is needed to show what he thought, and marks it when it does. It uses modern spellings of place names (Zambezi, Luanda, Quelimane, Tete, Lake Nyasa) except in quotations and titles.

Scripture

All Scripture quotations at the head of the chapters and in the text are from the American Standard Version of 1901, in the public domain. Where Livingstone himself quotes the Bible, he quotes the King James Version, and his words are given as he wrote them.