LIVINGSTONE’S BURIAL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19204, 21 June 1924, Page 10

LIVINGSTONE’S BURIAL.

“It is 50 years ago since the relcs of the body of David Livingstone were lowered into the grave in the centre of the nave of Westminster Abbey” (writes E. J. Dukes in the Christian World). "He had breathed out his life upon his knees at Hala, at the goal of his long labours, among the countless fountains and streams of Lake Bangeweol. There is nothing in history to surpass the pathos of that lonely death followed by the burial of his heart in the soil of the land he died for. the mummifying of the body for 14 da>e in the heat of the sun, and then the procession of £6 men, con manded by his devoted servants, Susi and Chousa, through dense forests, over pathless mountains, across unbridged rivers, without resources of food, and opposed by numbeFoss hostile tribes whose superstitions and tribal hatred barred their way. For nine long months they persisted with patient endurance, unt : l they‘laid their burden down at the feet of tho British -Consul at Zanzibar. Not the body alone, but their beloved master’s effects, his journals, and instruments, were brought in safety, and nothing was missing. Some five weehe later the remains lay in the rooms of the Royal Geographical Society, the Zanzibar coffin lacing enclosed in lead, and the English coffin of onlc, covered with a velvet pall, w-as overhung by a gigantic fan-palm, sent by the Baroness Burdctt-Coutts. Great crowds lined the route down Bond street and St. James’s street to the Abbey, which was thronged. Among the nail-hearers honoured with the foremost place was Jacob Waimvright, an African slave rescued by Livingstone, an earnest Christian who had read the burial service over the heart of his master at Hala.”