And Zouga it was. Although the boy was officially named William Oswell Livingstone, the nickname “Zouga” stuck with him for the rest of his life.
Mary recovered quickly from the birth, but within a few days, Thomas came down with malaria. David fought to save his son’s life, dosing him with quinine and keeping his body wrapped tightly in a damp sheet to quell the fever. He also drove the wagons up into some distant hills where it was a little cooler. Thomas lay sick for a month before finally showing signs of recovery. When he was up and about again, the party continued on the journey south.
The whole episode with the birth of Zouga and Thomas’s near-fatal illness frightened David. For the first time, he wondered whether Mary’s mother had been right. Was it selfish and stubborn of him to take his family along on the expeditions? The entire matter weighed heavy on his mind, and he spent long hours on the trip back discussing with Cotton Oswell what he should do. By the time he reached Kolobeng, he had made up his mind. Mary and the children should go back to Scotland, where they would be safe. David’s family would help look after the children, who could all go to a proper school. As soon as he was sure of his decision, David wrote to the London Missionary Society asking them to help Mary with expenses when she returned home.
Despite her parents being Scottish, Scotland wasn’t home to Mary Livingstone. Mary had been born and raised in southern Africa. The one time her parents had taken her “home” on furlough, Mary had found Scotland to be a strange and terrifying place. She begged David to allow her to stay with him. She would much rather risk a lion attack in Africa than attend a ladies’ tea party in Edinburgh! But David was firm; he had made up his mind. He planned to go farther inland on his next expedition, and he would not risk taking his wife and children with him.
It was a dejected family that made its way south from Kolobeng to Port Elizabeth. David assured Mary he would join her in Scotland in two years and that his family in Scotland would love the children. Mary, though, wasn’t so sure.
When the group reached Port Elizabeth, Cotton Oswell once again proved himself to be a generous friend. He gave Mary Livingstone a purse containing one hundred seventy pounds—it was well over a year’s salary for the family. Mary was very grateful. Cotton Oswell also insisted on outfitting the entire family in new clothes. As David looked at what they were wearing, he was thankful for the generous gesture. The whole family was wearing the same clothes they’d taken with them on the expedition north, though the clothes were now patched and stained.
David watched as his family stood on the deck of the Trafalgar on April 23, 1852. He could see six-and-a-half-year-old Robert grinning from ear to ear as he peered over the railing. David smiled. He could see that, even at such a young age, Robert had his sense of adventure and drive to travel and explore. Five-year-old Agnes stood holding tightly to Thomas’s hand while Mary stood grim-faced, holding baby Zouga in her arms. David waved as the mooring lines holding the ship to the dock were let go. The Trafalgar drifted out into the bay and hoisted its sails. When the ship was just a speck on the horizon, David finally turned and walked back to the boardinghouse where he was staying.
David remained in Port Elizabeth for three months before again setting out for Kolobeng. He was glad to be on his way north, not only because looking at the ships coming and going from England made him miss his wife and children all the more, but also because the Boers in town were very unfriendly to him. The Boers did not like any of the missionaries from the London Missionary Society because the missionaries often took sides with the Africans in disputes. David was doubly despised because he was also trying to open up northern areas for the British.
David did not know, however, just how much the Boers hated him until he reached Kuruman, where he was delayed for two weeks while a broken wagon wheel was mended. On the day before David was due to head back to his home in Kolobeng, Masebele, Chief Sechele’s wife, came running into the courtyard of the main mission house at Kuruman.
“Is Mr. David here?” Masebele yelled between deep gasps for air.
David was inside the house writing in his journal. He looked up and frowned when he heard the voice, which he immediately recognized. But what was Masebele doing all these miles from her home? Something must be wrong. He flung his journal onto the bed and ran outside. “Masebele, Masebele, I am here. What is it?”
Masebele swung around to face David, who could see the terror in her eyes. She pulled a letter from the leather pouch that was draped around her waist and handed it to David. “Here. My husband wrote this, but he could not come to you. They are still hunting for him. It was terrible, so terrible.”
In an instant David knew what had happened. “It was the Boers, wasn’t it?” he questioned. “The Boers invaded the village, didn’t they?”
Masebele nodded and let out a loud sob. “Two of my sons were carried away. About sixty of the people were shot and killed. The cattle and oxen are all gone, and they burned all of our crops in the fields. Mr. David, what are we to do?”
David didn’t answer her. He tore open the letter and began to read. In the letter Chief Sechele filled in all the details. On September 27, six hundred Boers on horseback plus several hundred more natives had surrounded the village. They had wagons with cannons mounted on them and thousands of rounds of ammunition. The outcome was assured before the first shot was fired. The Boers had taken hundreds of slaves just as Masebele had said, and had killed sixty people. Chief Sechele and Mebalwe, David’s African agent, had escaped, but they had nothing to go back to—no home, no crops, and no neighbors.
There was more bad news. The Boers had taken special delight in ransacking David’s belongings, taking what they wanted and burning the rest.
David stood staring at the letter, trying to take it all in. His books, his medicines, his surgical instruments were all gone. Except for what he had taken with him, including his navigational equipment, a few books, and some clothing, he had nothing left.
Although it took David days to recover from the shock of what had happened to his friends and to his own home, he did come to see some good in it. Perhaps now every native in Africa would know he was not secretly on the side of the Boers. He also realized how close he had come to being caught up in the raid himself. If his wagon wheel had not broken on the trip, he would have been back in Kolobeng when the shooting started. It was unlikely the Boers would have let him live to tell about it. And what if his wife and children had been there? David couldn’t bring himself to think about that.
David truly understood for the first time just how much the Boers hated him, and he decided not to make himself an easy target for them again. As well, his missionary goals were to open up the interior to the north and preach the gospel message wherever he went. He began to see that these goals could be accomplished without the need for a home base. From then on, David decided his home would be wherever he laid his head for the night. He would not maintain a mission station again.
Giving up ideas of a permanent mission station freed David tremendously. David could go where he wanted and stay as long as he chose. The first place he headed for was Linyanti in Makalolo territory, where Chief Sechele had apparently escaped. On the way to Linyanti, David met Chief Sechele, headed south on his way to personally protest to the English chief, Queen Victoria herself, what had happened to his people. In the following months, the chief made the thousand-mile trek to Cape Town. However, the chief did not have enough money for passage on a ship to England and eventually had to give up his quest and walk the thousand miles back.
In the meantime, David kept heading north and finally reached Linyanti, the main village of the Makalolo people. The people were glad to see him, especially since the great Chief Mzilikazi was at war with them and Arab slave traders were making more and more raids into their lands. The world was changing quickly for the Makalolo, who hoped that David Livingstone would help them stay safe and make sense of all the changes.
David was introduced to Sekeletu, the new chief. Although Sekeletu was only eighteen years old, his mother, Mamochisane, had handed control of the Makalolo tribe to him because she did not care for the job herself.
David had been at Linyanti only a week when he came down with malaria. This was the first time he had contracted the disease. Although no one at that time understood that mosquitoes spread the disease, David did notice that there appeared to be some connection between them and malaria. He wrote in his journal that the mosquitoes were “showing, as they always do, the presence of malaria.”
The malaria convinced David he needed to press on in his travels and find a better area that he could recommend to white people to settle. With the Boers to the east, the Portuguese and ferocious Zulus to the north, and the Kalahari Desert to the south, David decided to head in a northwesterly direction towards the coast.
On November 11, 1852, David set out from Linyanti accompanied by twenty-seven Makalolo guides and helpers and several oxen. Onto the backs of the oxen were loaded some elephant tusks and a few strings of beads for trading along the way, as well as David’s navigational equipment, books, and clothes, the medicines the Reverend Moffat had given David, a lantern, rifles, ammunition, and a small tent. With these few belongings, David Livingstone was about to attempt a feat successfully completed only twice before in known history. He was about to cross West Africa, using canoes to navigate rivers where possible and completing the rest of the journey on foot. He had little of value to trade with the unknown tribes he would encounter along the way, and even less food. To supplement their food supply, the travelers would eat seeds, meal, and manioc roots that they could find along the way. And since David was the only one who could shoot straight, it fell to him to shoot the wild game they would eat.
David had not counted on its raining as much as it did. The ground soon became sodden and difficult to walk over. Everything made of metal, including his guns, rusted, and the leather on his boots mildewed overnight. Even his tent rotted and ripped. But these difficulties paled when compared to David’s difficulties with the tribes whose territory the expedition passed through. The tribes nearest the Makalolos were friendly enough, but as the men moved farther westward, they met new tribes outside the Makalolos’ sphere of influence who were not so friendly.
David and his men experienced several near heart-stopping moments when they were surrounded and escorted into villages to “meet” the chief. On these occasions David had to talk fast to avoid physical harm, but eventually he and his men were always allowed to go on their way. That is, until David came to cross the Quango River and ended up being taken to see the chief of the Bashinje tribe.
“No, you cannot cross the river,” the chief told David. “Not until you give me something I want.”
“What would that be?” inquired David wearily.
“A man or an ox or a gun would do fine,” replied the chief, smiling to reveal his missing front teeth.
“That is outrageous, but we have some beads,” said David.
“Beads! You would insult me with beads?” spat the chief. “I do not think you are in any position to be telling me what I want. In fact, maybe I need a man and an ox and a gun. Ha! You don’t understand that I am the man of power here.”
David tried not to change the expression on his face. He understood things all too well. The chief of the Bashinje could take everything from them, even kill them if he wanted. And if they did, no one would ever know. David began to pray silently. He could not afford to lose a rifle, even a rusty one, the oxen were useful, and he would certainly never hand over a hired man to become a slave.
