Dr Livingstone. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2251, 22 April 1897, Page 39

Dr Livingstone. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — I am not in the habit of writing to the paper, but there was an extract of a letter from Mr Edwards, C.E., in your issue of March 18 with which I was much interested, because I remember seeing Mr Edwards visiting tbrjf harbour works on his way from the Midisi.ua Railway, bsfore going to Africa. But I t»s more particalvrly interested in hi» reminiscences of Dr Livingstone— the mart above afi men I have ever seen,— to whose memory J iovl inclined to bow the knee in reverence. I was about 18 months with him up the Zambesi. That period was full of big events to him. His lovely, loving, and beloved wife died, and I was beside him when he pressed h\n last fond kisr upon her cold lips, aud his great heart war- like to burst. -We laid her gently — ar. the then rude circumstances wculd permit—under the great babob tree. I saw some time ago mention being made in somo cf the newspapers that a pilgrimsgo hed been inside to her grttre, and that they had some difficulty in finding it>. There is one thing that I have lone thought I shouid let tbe publlo know t It will bo remenv

bered the doctor failed to gab ap tho Zarnixil to tho lakes while tho floods wore on in 1860, aud the Geographical Socioty recalled him from the attempt later on. I have often thought that that recall was a kind of a reflection on the doctor's management ; whilo tho facts were these, briefly told : I was the junior of the two mechanics putting the boat together. M» senior (Mr ) was under an engagement for a time —not for the completion of the job. H« had no interest in getting ready for the rain season, for if his contract titno ended when he was at the lakes he would have some difficulty in getting back. Beside?, ho was engaged to be married to the niece of a millionaire on Ifta return home, a felicity the poor fellow did not live to enjoy, as he died before the marriage v/as consummated. I was the only one privy to the different motives of the two men. Dr Livingstone, on theonehana, anxious and pushing to get ready in time, while the other man employing all the cuuning of his calling to keep back the work. The arts employed to cause delay was apparent only to me. As the doctor did nob pretend to know engineering, I bluntly told htm he was not being faithfully helped in his endeavour to get ready, but his noble mind could not realise that anybody could purposely thwart him who had been sent to help bis getting to the lakes. When the recall came I left in disgust to go home. Though I was quite a young man at that time I enjoyed the doctor's friendship and confidence, but somehow those coining in contact with him every day became imbued with the reverence and respect, if not awe, so commonly shown him by the natives, and it made ono kind of measured in their intercourse with him. When I reached home I went to the Geographical Society's offices in London for the purpose of explaining what I knew of the delay in getting ready for the flood season, but Sir Rodrick Murohison, who was at the head of the society then, was absent from town. I did not think any one else would be sufficiently interested, aud coming out to this country shortly after the subject was lost among tha cares of colonial life until seeing Mr Edwardi's letter, from which, I am afraid, I have caught a writing contagion.-— I ate, &c, William M'Leod*, Cape Foulwind, April 12. i ! ! i