NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10407, 3 April 1897, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

According to a letter published in the British Central Africa Gazette, written by Mr. Foulatb Weatherley, an Englishman, who has been for several yearn travelling in a leisurely manner in Central Africa, there is tome danger that the spob where Dr. Livingstone, nearly four-and-twenty years ago, died, and where bis heart was

buried, is likely to be forgotten, It lies

near the southern shores of the Bangweolo. He had travelled from the north of the

Lake, over the horrible swamps, through a district described as one vast spongeshort of food, unable to obtain canoes to escape by water, and sinking under the exhaustion of fever and dysentery. For nearly a fortnight be had been carried in a

litter; bub at last, on April 30, he came to the southern shore, near the village of a chief called Tahitambo, in the country of Ilala. There the party halted for the night, and early next) morning his special attendant entered the hub and found Livingstone dead. They might have lef b bis body where it lay, and decamped with such plunder as

there wai. The most that could reasonably hare been expeoted was that they should give the corpse decent sepulture, and (hen carry their late matter's effects down to the coaeb. Not to theae faithful followers. They made an inventory of his property, and packed it in boxes; they gave a present to the ohief to obtain his co-operation ; rudely embalmed the body, enveloping it in baric and clothe, and buryin? hi) heart beneath atree, oneof them reading the Burial Service; and then slinging their burden to a pole, set off on their voluntary pilgrimage. On their way they met a. relief •a arty, the officers of which' were in favour of burying the remains on that spot. Bat to these men it was a lacred duty to re■tore their master's reuuini to bis own

people and bis own land, and so they portiited until they had accomplished their taik. Within the year the burden which, with m much care and toil, they had conveyed through swamp and forest.ovir hill and valley, from the headwaters of the Congo

across more than a third of the breadth of Africa, was laid in its last testing place in the nave of Westminster Abbey.

The heart of the groat Scotsman, as we have said, had been buried beneath a tree, and the site is still marked by nu inscription. But there is no permanent memorial, The village has been removed, and the chief himself is now dead. The tree, unfortunately, is dying, and when it has dieappeared, the memory of the place will Boon be lost, This should not be. Far away as is the spot, few as may be the travellers who, at any rate for many years to come, will be able to visit it; unattractive and unhealthy as may bo the insecthaunted swamps of Bangweolo, yet this spot witnessed the last scene in a wonderful career, and is inseparably bound up with tender associations. The work and character of Livingstone are not yet likely to pass into oblivion. To the joint object of oarrying civilisation with the Gospel message into Africa, and of exploring the mysterious region in which the water systems of the Congo, and, as he believed, the Nile, had their origin, Livingstone gave up his life, The missionary, no doubt, as time went on, was somewhat lost in the traveller, but never was the Christian man. To this, and to his influence for good, the loyalty of his followers is the best of testimony. His travels in Africa extended over fully thirty years, and the greater explorations over about half that time. Eleven years before the cull came for him, he had laid his wife near the shore of the Zambesi, eo that everything that man valuos was sacrificed to the Dark Continent. Surely the place where hie last journey ended should be marked by an enduring record. Many a less noble career has been deemed worthy of a splendid structure; many a less illustrious memory has become a oynosuro for pilgrims. Here no costly monument is needed. The remoteness of the spot, and the difficulties of access, would make any such thing impracticable, Something very simplo, but permanent, is all that is required.

In our cable columns to-day we announce the death of the Hon. and Most Rev. William Conyngham Plunkot, Archbishop of Dublin, ab the age of 69 Hβ was the eldest sou of the third Lord Plunket, and succeeded to the title op the death of his father in 1871. From 1857 to 1864 he was chaplain to his uncle, the late Bishop ot Tuam, and subsequently became Treasurer and Precentor of St. Patrick's Cathedral. In 1876 he was appointed Bishop of Meath. On the resignation of the oolebrated Arohbiebop Trench in 1884 Lord Plunket was elected Archbiehop of Dublin. He wuß a member of the Senate of the Hoyal University of Ireland. In 1894 he came very prominontly before the public in connection with his relations with the Spanish reformors. i n that year ho visited Madrid and consecrated a Protestant Church which had been opened by the sect known as the reformtd Spanish Church. At the same time he consecrated Senor Cabrera as their Bishop. Thie action of setting up a rival episcopate in Spain was condemned by an influential section of the Church of England, and called forth a proteat from the Papal Nuncio and tho Spanish Bishops. For a time this question caused much angry oxcitement among the Roman Catholics in Spain, and was the subject of considerable controversy in England,

The situation in tho East has undergone a new phase. The Powers have decided to blockade Greece. England and Prance wore iu first opposed to this step, but in tho oriel they agroed to it. An Austrian force has been landed in Crete. Serious fiehting has taken plaoe in Brazil between the republican troops and the forces of a fanatic who has won to his side many thousands. The situation appears to be serious. Mr. Clmmberlain, in the course of a speech at the Colonial Institute, laid great stress on the necessity of the closer unity of the British Empire