In spite of his sufferings and the many compulsory delays, Livingstone's discoveries during these last years were of prime importance as leading to a solution of African hydro graphy. No single African explorer has ever done so much for African geography as Livingstone during his thirty years' work. His travels covered one-third of the continent, extending from the Cape to near the equator, and from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Livingstone was no hurried traveller ; he did his journey ing leisurely, carefully observing and recording all that was worthy of note, with rare geographical instinct and the eye of a trained scientific observer, studying the ways of the people, eating their food, living in their huts, and sympathizing with their joys and sorrows. In all the countries through which he travelled his memory is cherished by the native tribes who, almost without exception, treated Livingstone as a superior being; his treatment of them was always tender, gentle and gentlemanly. By the Arab slavers whom he opposed he was also greatly admired, and was by them styled "the very great doctor." "In the annals of explora tion of the Dark Continent," wrote Stanley many years after the death of the missionary explorer, "we look in vain among other nationalities for a name such as Livingstone's. He stands pre
eminent above all; he unites in himself all the best qualities of other explorers . . . Britain . . . excelled herself even when she produced the strong and perseverant Scotchman, Livingstone." But the direct gains to geography and science are perhaps not the greatest results of Livingstone's journeys. His example and his death acted like an inspiration, filling Africa with an army of explorers and missionaries, and raising in Europe so powerful a feeling against the slave trade that through him it may be con sidered as having received its death-blow. Personally Livingstone was a pure and tender-hearted man, full of humanity and sym pathy, simple-minded as a child. The motto of his life was the ad vice he gave to some school children in Scotland—"Fear God, and work hard." (J. S. K.) See, besides his own narratives, W. G. Blaikie, Life of Livingstone (188o) ; H. H. Johnston, Livingstone (1891, later ed., 1912) ; C. J. Finger, David Livingstone, Explorer and Prophet (1928) ; the Pro ceedings of the London Missionary Society, from 1840, the Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society ; the Despatches to the Foreign Office sent home by Livingstone during his last two expeditions ; and H. M. Stanley, How I found Livingstone (1872) and Autobiography (1909).