Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa | Page 4

Travels.
DAVID LIVINGSTONE. London, Oct., 1857.

Preface.

When honored with a special meeting of welcome by the Royal
Geographical Society a few days after my arrival in London in
December last, Sir Roderick Murchison, the President, invited me to
give the world a narrative of my travels; and at a similar meeting of the
Directors of the London Missionary Society I publicly stated my
intention of sending a book to the press, instead of making many of
those public appearances which were urged upon me. The preparation
of this narrative* has taken much longer time than, from my
inexperience in authorship, I had anticipated.
-- * Several attempts having been made to impose upon the public, as
mine, spurious narratives of my travels, I beg to tender my thanks to
the editors of the `Times' and of the `Athenaeum' for aiding to expose
them, and to the booksellers of London for refusing to SUBSCRIBE for
any copies. --
Greater smoothness of diction and a saving of time might have been
secured by the employment of a person accustomed to compilation; but
my journals having been kept for my own private purposes, no one else
could have made use of them, or have entered with intelligence into the
circumstances in which I was placed in Africa, far from any European
companion. Those who have never carried a book through the press can
form no idea of the amount of toil it involves. The process has
increased my respect for authors and authoresses a thousand-fold.
I can not refrain from referring, with sentiments of admiration and

gratitude, to my friend Thomas Maclear, Esq., the accomplished
Astronomer Royal at the Cape. I shall never cease to remember his
instructions and help with real gratitude. The intercourse I had the
privilege to enjoy at the Observatory enabled me to form an idea of the
almost infinite variety of acquirements necessary to form a true and
great astronomer, and I was led to the conviction that it will be long
before the world becomes overstocked with accomplished members of
that profession. Let them be always honored according to their deserts;
and long may Maclear, Herschel, Airy, and others live to make known
the wonders and glory of creation, and to aid in rendering the pathway
of the world safe to mariners, and the dark places of the earth open to
Christians!
I beg to offer my hearty thanks to my friend Sir Roderick Murchison,
and also to Dr. Norton Shaw, the secretary of the Royal Geographical
Society, for aiding my researches by every means in their power.
His faithful majesty Don Pedro V., having kindly sent out orders to
support my late companions until my return, relieved my mind of
anxiety on their account. But for this act of liberality, I should certainly
have been compelled to leave England in May last; and it has afforded
me the pleasure of traveling over, in imagination, every scene again,
and recalling the feelings which actuated me at the time. I have much
pleasure in acknowledging my deep obligations to the hospitality and
kindness of the Portuguese on many occasions.
I have not entered into the early labors, trials, and successes of the
missionaries who preceded me in the Bechuana country, because that
has been done by the much abler pen of my father-in-law, Rev. Robert
Moffat, of Kuruman, who has been an energetic and devoted actor in
the scene for upward of forty years. A slight sketch only is given of my
own attempts, and the chief part of the book is taken up with a detail of
the efforts made to open up a new field north of the Bechuana country
to the sympathies of Christendom. The prospects there disclosed are
fairer than I anticipated, and the capabilities of the new region lead me
to hope that by the production of the raw materials of our manufactures,
African and English interests will become more closely linked than
heretofore, that both countries will be eventually benefited, and that the
cause of freedom throughout the world will in some measure be
promoted.

Dr. Hooker, of Kew, has had the kindness to name and classify for me,
as far as possible, some of the new botanical specimens which I
brought over; Dr. Andrew Smith (himself an African traveler) has aided
me in the zoology; and Captain Need has laid open for my use his
portfolio of African sketches, for all which acts of liberality my thanks
are deservedly due, as well as to my brother, who has rendered me
willing aid as an amanuensis.
Although I can not profess to be a draughtsman, I brought home with
me a few rough diagram-sketches, from one of which the view of the
Falls of the Zambesi has been prepared by a