now retraces his steps through this grand but savage and dreadful country of the Manyuema. His travels in it had been a great trial to his already exhausted constitution. He had been repeatedly laid

up from illness. He suffered from dysentery and ulcered feet. He was exposed for several hours to great personal risk, when his party were attacked by the natives as they passed through a dense forest. On one occasion a spear, hurled by a native, went within half an inch of his head, and quivered in the ground at his feet. Yet, on the whole, the good Doctor worked greatly on the better nature of these savage Manyuema. Some of them, indeed, displayed great kindliness of feeling towards him, and showed that the savage breast is after all human, and that it is capable of improvement. Indeed, oftentimes great goodness was seen to come out of it, under the kind and genial touch of the good Doctor. Take, as an illustration, the following:"A woman, with leprous hands," says he, "gave me her hut, a nice clean one, and very heavy rain came on. Of her own accord she prepared dumplings of green maize, pounded and boiled, which are sweet; for she said she saw I was hungry. It was excessive weakness from purging she mistook; but seeing I did not eat for fear of the leprosy, she kindly pressed me: 'Eat; you are weak only from hunger; this will strengthen you.' I put it out of sight, and blessed her motherly heart." And this in a country of which he says, "The great want of the Manyuema is national life. Of this they have none. Each headman is independent of each other. Of industry they have no lack, and the villagers are orderly towards each other; but they go no further. If a man of another district ventures among them, it is at his peril. He is not regarded with more favour as a Manyuema than one of a herd of buffaloes is by the rest, and he is almost sure to be killed."

Livingstone spent eleven months in the Manyuema country, and in the latter part of his return journey to Ujiji we find him writing in his journals thus: "I feel as if dying on my feet. Almost every step is in pain, the appetite fails, and a little bit of meat causes diarrhoea, whilst the mind, sorely depressed, reacts on the body." "I was now reduced," he continues, "to a skeleton, but the market being held daily (Ujiji), and all kinds of native food brought to it, I hoped that food and rest would soon restore me; but in the evening my people came and told me that Shereaf had sold off all my goods. This was distressing. I had made up my mind, if I could not get people at Ujiji, to wait till men should come from the coast, but to wait in beggary was what I never contemplated, and I now felt miserable." Relief was at hand, however, by the interposition of a kind Providence, and that from a quarter he did not expect. "When my spirits," he says, were at their lowest ebb, the good Samaritan was close at hand, for one morning Susi came running at the top of his speed and gasped out, 'An Englishman! I see him!' and off he darted to meet him. The American flag at the head of a caravan told of the nationality of the stranger. Bales of goods, baths of tin, huge kettles, cooking pots, tents, &c., made me think, 'This must be a luxurious traveller, and not one at his wits' end, like me' (28th October, 1871). It was Henry Moreland Stanley, the travelling correspondent of the New York Herald, sent by James Gordon Bennett, jun., at an

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expense of more than £4000, to obtain accurate information about Dr. Livingstone, if living, and if dead to bring home my bones. The news he had to tell to one who had been two full years without any tidings from Europe made my whole frame thrill. The terrible fate that had befallen France, the telegraphic cable successfully laid in the Atlantic, the election of General Grant, the death of good Lord Clarendon, my constant friend, the proof that her Majesty's Government had not forgotten me in voting £1000 for supplies, and many other points of interest, revived emotions that had lain dormant in Manyuema. Appetite returned, and, instead of the spare, tasteless two meals a day, I ate four times daily, and in a week began to feel strong. I am not of a demonstrative turn-as cold, indeed, as we islanders are usually reputed to be; but this disinterested kindness of Mr. Bennett, so nobly carried into effect by Mr. Stanley, was simply overwhelming. I really do feel extremely grateful, and at the same time I am a little ashamed at not being more worthy of the generosity. Mr. Stanley has done his part with untiring energy; good judgment in the teeth of very serious obstacles."

Mr. Stanley relieved the Doctor's immediate necessities, supplied, as far as he was able, his future wants, and remained with him in mutual labour and brotherly sympathy for six months. A good part of this time they spent in surveying the Tanganyika Lake. They wanted to find out whether it had any outlet. They supposed if it had that it would be found at its northern extremity. They explored that end of the lake, but instead of finding a river running out of it there they found one flowing into it, and at a considerable rate. They were unable to solve the problem; but it has been subsequently solved by Lieutenant Cameron, who has discovered a river flowing out of its western side. The time came at last for Stanley to return to Zanzibar. Livingstone accompanied him as far on his return journey as Unyanyembe. He would fain have persuaded the great traveller to return with him, but he was resolutely bent on finishing his work, and declined all overtures. The time came at last for the friends to part. Stanley finally left him on the 14th of March, 1872, and how much seemed to lie in their separation, when we remember that with the last shake of the hand and the last adieu came the final parting between Livingstone and all that could represent the interest felt by the world in his travels, in the sympathy of the white man. Five days after was his birthday, and on that day is the following entry in his journals:-"My God, my King, my life, my all, I again dedicate my whole self to Thee. Accept me, and grant, O gracious Father, that ere this year is gone I may fiuish my task. In Jesus' name I ask it. Amen, so let it be."

Having received the supplies and men which Mr. Stanley had sent from Zanzibar, and organised his forces, our hero gets once more on the way. He has not proceeded far, however, before his old enemy dysentery is again upon him. Still he pushes on. His object is now to reach the eastern end of Lake Bangweolo, and then to make his way round its southern side to the Luapula, and thence on to Moero, to the Luabula which he intended to follow on, through the other great lakes along his central lines of drainage, until he should reach Petherick's branch, and from that point

make his way down the Nile into Upper Egypt. Truly a herculean project, which he never lived to accomplish. As he approached Lake Bangweolo, the character of the country wholly changed. He finds now nothing but a succession of rivers and watercourses, sponges and floods, through which he has to make his way, or over which he has to be carried on the shoulders of his man Chumah. As he proceeds his health fails him more and more, and he gets weaker and weaker ; still he pushes on with strange tenacity of purpose, and with an intense longing to finish his work. At length he reaches his last birthday. On that day, the 19th of March, 1873, he writes in his journals, "Thanks to the Almighty Preserver of men for sparing me thus far on the journey of life. Can I hope for ultimate success? So many obstacles have arisen. Let not Satan prevail over me, oh, my good Lord Jesus." We are all more or less familiar with the latter incidents of his life-how his faithful servants, when he became so ill as to be unable to sit on the donkey, made a kind of rude palanquin in which he was carried, and how in this way he reached Chitambo's village on Lake Bangweolo, Susi having sent men forward to prepare a hut. We cannot do better than give the picture of the closing scene as quoted here from the lips of Chumah and Susi :

"On reaching their companions it was found that the work was not quite finished, and it became necessary, therefore, to lay him under the broad eaves of a native hut till things were ready. Chitambo's village at this time was almost empty. When the crops are growing it is the custom to erect little temporary houses in the fields, and the inhabitants, leaving their more substantial huts, pass their time in watching their crops, which are scarcely more safe by day than by night; thus it was that the men found plenty of room and shelter ready to their hand. Many of the people approached the spot where he lay whose praises had reached them in previous years, and in silent wonder they stood round him, resting on their bows. Slight drizzling showers were falling, and as soon as possible his house was made ready, and banked round with earth. Inside it the bed was raised from the floor by sticks and grass, occupying a position across and near to the bay-shaped end of the hut; in the bay itself bales and boxes were deposited, one of the latter doing duty for a table, on which the medicine chest and sundry other things were placed. A fire was lighted outside, nearly opposite the door, whilst the boy Majwara slept within to attend to his master's wants in the night. On April the 30th, 1873, Chitambo came early to pay a visit of courtesy, and was shown into the Doctor's presence, but he was obliged to send him away, telling him to come again on the morrow, when he hoped to have more strength to talk with him, and he was not again disturbed. In the afternoon he asked Susi to bring his watch to the bedside, and explained to him the position in which he held his hand, that it might lie in the palm while he slowly turned the key.

"So the hours stole on till nightfall. The men silently took to their huts, whilst others, whose duty it was to keep watch, sat round the fires, all feeling that the end could not be far off. About 11 p.m. Susi, whose hut was close by, was told to go to his master. At the

time there were loud shouts in the distance, and on entering Dr. Livingstone said :—

"Are our men making that roise?'

"No,' replied Susi, 'I can hear from the cries that the people are scaring away a buffalo from their dura fields.'

"A few minutes afterwards he said slowly, and evidently wandering

"Is this the Luapula?'

"Susi told him they were in Chitambo's village, near the Molilamo, when he was silent for a while. Again speaking to Susi, in Suaheli this time, he said-

"Sikun yapi kuenda Luapula?' ('How many days is it to the Luapula ?')

"Na zani sikutatu, Bwana' ('I think it is three days, master') replied Susi.

"A few seconds after, as if in great pain, he half sighed, half said, 'Oh, dear, dear!' and then dozed off again.

"It was about an hour later that Susi heard Majwara again outside the door, Bwana wants you, Susi.' On reaching the bed the Doctor told him he wished him to boil some water, and for this purpose he went to the fire outside, and soon returned with the copper kettle full. Calling him close, he asked him to bring his medicine chest and to hold the candle near him, for the man noticed he could hardly see. With great difficulty Dr. Livingstone selected the calomel, which he told him to place by his side; then, directing him to pour a little water into a cup, and to put another empty one by it, he said, in a low, feeble voice, 'All right, you can go out now.' These were the last words he was ever heard to speak. It must have been about 4 a.m. when Susi heard Majwara's step once more. 'Come to Bwana, I am afraid; I don't know if he is alive.' The lad's evident alarm made Susi run to arouse Chumah, Chowpere, Matthew, and Muanyaséré, and the six men went immediately to the hut. Passing inside, they looked towards the bed. Dr. Livingstone was not lying on it, but appeared to be engaged in prayer, and they instinctively drew back for the instant. Pointing to him, Majwara said, 'When I lay down he was just as he is now, and it is because I find that he does not move that I fear he is dead.' They asked the lad how long he had slept. Majwara said he could not tell, but he was sure that it was some considerable time. The men drew nearer.

"A candle, stuck by its own wax to the top of the box, shed a light sufficient for them to see his form. Dr. Livingstone was kneeling by the side of his bed, his body stretched forward, his head buried in his hands upon the pillow. For a minute they watched him he did not stir, there was no sign of breathing; then one of them, Matthew, advanced softly to him and placed his hands to his cheeks. It was sufficient; life had been extinct some time, and the body was almost cold: Livingstone was dead.

"His sad-hearted servants raised him tenderly up, and laid him full length on the bed; then, carefully covering him, they went out into the damp night air to consult together. It was not long before the cocks crew, and it is from this circumstancecoupled with the fact that Susi spoke to him shortly before mid

night-that we are able to state, with tolerable certainty, that he expired early on the 1st of May, 1873."

Thus died Dr. Livingstone, the greatest and best of all the great men who have devoted their lives to African exploration. He had not accomplished the work to which he had set himself, and which he so ardently desired to finish, but his work was done nevertheless. He was cut off in the midst of his labours, undertaken for the good of humanity and for the glory of God. The Master had said to him, "Well and faithfully done, enter into thy rest." He died in the attitude and perhaps in the act of prayer. All earthly resources had failed him, and now he betakes himself to that source of help which he knew so well could not fail, and he was not, for God took him. "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them."

We all know how his few faithful followers mourned over him, and how lovingly they preserved his mortal remains, taking out the heart and burying it in the very centre of that great continent he loved so well, while his body they embalmed and carried as a sacred trust, from the farthest point of his travels, where he fell, during a period of ten months' incessant marching, to the coast, and delivered it into the hands of her Majesty's officers appointed to receive it, and who conveyed it to Zanzibar. We also know how it was afterwards brought to England, and, after being identified, was buried in Westminster Abbey, to mingle with the dust of many of the wisest, best, bravest, and most noble of our race, at the nation's expense, and amid the universal sorrow and affection of the whole kingdom.

(To be continued.)

THE GRAVES OF EMINENT MINISTERS.

"There is a low and lonely place of rest,

Upon whose couch the worn and wearied frame

Reposes in forgetfulness; and there

The streaming eye of misery is closed

In sweet and dreamless slumber; on that bed

The painful beatings of the creaking heart

Are hushed to stillness, and the harrowing pangs

Of hopeless agony are felt no more!

Around that silent dwelling-place the veil
Of darkness curtains closely: not a sigh
Nor lightest whispering of the summer wind
Steals on the breathless and eternal calm
Which o'er that region spreads its canopy."

EPITAPHS express either the estimate by the living of the dead, or some trait of their characters, or embody some wish or hope, or state the moving principle of their character and lives. These statements are sometimes beautiful, sometimes elegant, sometimes quaint, sometimes humorous, sometimes witty, and sometimes odd. Epitaphs link us to the dead, and the dead to us. They are an evidence of