‘As for me, I am determined to open up Africa, or perish.’ —Livingstone.

‘Trade in Africa has been in two ivories, white and black—slaves and elephants’ tusks. ‘—General Gordon.

‘Misfortune, that grand instructress of impatient men.’—Dr. Stewart’s Journal.

IN his Journal Stewart describes himself as ‘a Zambesian.’ He was a Zambesjan in that nobler than geographical sense in which a student at Oxford is called an Oxonian. In Zambesiland he served an apprenticeship without which, so far as we can see, he could not have been the successful founder of Livingstonia, nor the pioneer of the East African Mission. His whole after-life was greatly enriched by the unique experiences of these days.

While he owed much to Livingstone, he was largely a self-taught expert in African affairs. His admiration of Livingstone was great, and it was the admiration of a kindred spirit. It was his desire to carry forward the moral and missionary side of Livingstone’s work. On leaving for Africa he wrote: ‘I give my life to work out his (Livingstone’s) ideas if they are practicable, that is, if climate and national position will permit. I have left my chance of a good position at home. Health must be given up to whatever risks, etc., and a huge amount of labour undergone.’

Stewart’s grand tour during these two wander-years had an immense influence over him. He then gained his diploma as an explorer. His services in this field were fittingly recognised when he was made, like Livingstone, an Honorary Member of the Geographical Society. He was among the very last of the interesting order of explorers. For little room is now left in our little planet for the pioneer save amid the snows of the North and South Poles. Tibet was the last of the great explorations possible in this world. The would-be explorer may now, Alexander-like, sit down and mourn that there are no unknown regions to conquer.

Stewart, like Livingstofle, was a born traveller. African travel was far more dangerous then than it is now. It is plain that he had the courage that can serenely face formless and unknown perils, and is thus greater than the physical courage of the soldier on the battlefield. Strong in him also was that craving to get beyond the limits of the known, which distinguished his Viking forefathers in the Saga times. But his love of adventure and travel was only the obedient and helpful handmaid of a nobler passion. In him the missionary came before the explorer, and both were combined. It was not the Spirit of travel that whispered in his heart, but the voice that still speaks from heaven to him who has an ear to hear, and to which James had responded as he was leaning on his plough.

His powers had been tested and developed by his hard African experiences. Stanley and other African travellers have noted that African travel reveals a European’s character more than any other mode of life does. Stewart endorses that view, for he wrote: ‘African travel tries to the utmost every power and quality a man possesses—his temper teeth and tact, his patience, purse and perseverance all alike heavily.’ These tests helped to make hini the strong and self.reliant man he became.

He had already gained a rich treasure of Africar experience which qualified him to speak with decisior and authority upon the conditions of travel, life, and missions in that land. He was thus delivered from the tentative timidities and those initial mistakes which brought disaster to more than one mission in Central Africa. No other man in Scotland was then so well qualified as a pioneer of missions, to smooth the path for others.

On the Zambesi he was introduced to three men who rendered essential service at the founding of Livingstonia. These were Mr. Edward D. Young, R.N., Captain Wilson, R.N., and the Rev. Horace Wailer.

‘In conclusion, I would say that, were I in your case, I should place myself without reserve in the hands of my elders—men anxious to do just that which will best promote the cause of Christianity which they have at heart. Taking it as a fact that, if two of such men agree as touching a matter and ask the Hearer of Prayer, the request will be granted, how much more when a large number of Christ’s people agree to ask His guidance. Wisdom will, of course, be granted. May the All-Wise One direct your steps.’

The second was addressed to Stewart at Quilimane, ‘or wherever he may be found (ou onde estiver).’

‘The country is completely disorganised and a new system must be introduced with a strong hand. We have counted thirty-two dead bodies floating down the stream, and scarcely a soul is to be seen in the lower Shire valley.

‘I never witnessed such a change. It is a desert, and dead bodies are everywhere. I fear that your friends may find in the deaths and disorders reasons for declining all share in the work of renovation, but it will be done by those who are to do it, and the devil’s reign must cease.

‘Be sure and let me know how our Free Churchmen deal with the important question you will bring before them.’

Livingstone also gave Stewart a letter in which he said, ‘While confidently recommending him to the kind offices of our countrymen, I declare myself ready to pay any expenses he may incur in his Passage to the Cape or homewards.’

In the end of 1862 Livingstone steamed up the Shire with the Pioneer, having in tow the Lady Nyasa, which he hoped to launch on Lake Nyasa, [In this he was sadly disappointed.] the key of Central Africa. On every side he found heartrending evidences of recent slave-raiding. The air was darkened with vultures; hyenas abounded; bodies too numerous for the over-gorged crocodiles and alligators to devour, floated down the stream and clogged the paddles of the steamers. ‘Blood, blood, everywhere blood,’ Livingstone wrote in agony of soul. Of such scenes he wrote: ‘It gave me the impression of being in Hell. . . . It felt to me like Gehenna without the fire and brimstone.’ To him the slaves’ route was ‘hell’s highway.’

Mr. E. D. Young, who was then with Livingstone, told at a meeting in Glasgow that he saw a woman in a slave-gang sinking down exhausted. She had a load on her head and a baby on her back. The slave-driver asked her if she could go on. She shook her head. He then took her baby, dashed its head against a tree, flung its quivering body on the ground, and ordered the mother to take up her load.

Stewart closely studied Livingstone’s methods with the natives. Here is an extract from the report of a speech of Stewart’s in 1875: ‘Without mentioning any names, he wished, as a man and as an African missionary, to take this opportunity before this venerable Assembly which represented so large a section of public opinion in Scotland, of uttering his solemn protest against all explorations carried on in Africa by means of force and bloodshed. It was necessary to open up Africa, but it was not necessary to leave their footsteps tracked in blood. When first, to quote a line from the "March of the Cameron Men," he "followed his chief to the field"—he meant the great chief of African exploration, David Livingstone, who had traversed more of Africa than any man, living or dead—he had got some advice from him (Dr. Livingstone) which he afterwards followed. That advice was, never to shed blood unless he was certain his own would otherwise be shed; and with any quite new or strange people, it was better to retire for a little than bring on a collision.’

Stewart soon discovered the secret of his master’s power over the natives. He soon learnt that the surest way to establish confidence among the Africans was to show it yourself by meeting them with frankness and geniality. In his Journal he writes: ‘Simple acts of Courtesy and kindness are never lost even among savage people.’ Livingstone agreed with Dr. Samuel Johnson, who held that every man may be judged of by his laughter; with Carlyle, who says that ‘no man who has once heartily and wholly laughed, can be altogether irreclaimably bad’; and with Sir Walter Scott, who used to say, ‘give me an honest laugher.’ Whenever he (Livingstone) had observed a chief with a joyous twinkle of the eye accompanying his laugh, he always set him down as a good fellow, and had never been disappointed in him afterwards. ‘An ill-natured or vicious fellow would not laugh in that way,’ was his remark regarding such a laugher. The clever chief Chibisa, whom Stewart visited, he thus describes: ‘A jolly person, who laughs easily, which is always a good sign. Chibisa believed firmly in two things: the divine right of Kings, and the impossibility that Chibisa should ever be in the wrong.’ . . . Livingstone evidently made a great impression on Chibisa; like other chiefs he began to fall under the spell of his influence. Concerning another chief Stewart says: ‘As a laughing fellow we felt safe with him. If a fellow laughs you know that you are likely to be well off: an ill-natured or vicious man does not, nor do great potentates.’

He saw also that Livingstone treated every black man as if he were a blood-relation. He tells that ‘Livingstone saluted the poorest with a very pleasant smile, and raised his gold-laced cap (the badge of his high office) a little above his head. Before the poorest African he maintained self-restraint and self-respect as carefully as in the best society at home.' [I once remarked to an aged woman who knew Livingstone in his youth, that in one of his books he says that he had always used his mother’s methods in managing the natives. ‘Ay, an’ ye may be sure,’ she added, ‘that Dauvid used his mither’s tones tae. He was by ordinar’ saft spoken, and gin ye had shut yer een, ye wad hae thocht that it was juist his mither hersel’ speakin’, guid woman.’]

His keen sense of human brotherhood secured a never-failing princely courtesy towards the blacks. They loved him as the white man who treated black men as his brothers. ‘If some travellers have engraved their names on the rocks and tree trunks, he has engraved his in the very hearts of the heathen population of Central Africa. Wherever Livingstone has passed, the name of missionary is a passport and a recommendation.’ (Coillard.)

Livingstone says: ‘When a chief has made any inquiries of us, we have found that we gave most satisfaction in our answers when we tried to fancy ourselves in the position of the interrogator, and him that of a poor, uneducated fellow-countryman in England. The polite, respectful way of speaking, and behaviour of what we call "a thorough gentleman," almost always secures the friendship and goodwill of the Africans. . . . It ought never to be forgotten that influence among the heathen can be acquired on¹y by patient continuance in well-doing, and that good manners are as necessary among barbarians as among the civilised.’ Livingstone used to say that it was a very dangerous thing to despise the manhood of the meanest savage, and that some white men he had known had lost their lives as penalty for their scorn.