Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/744

 720 L I V L I V LIVINGSTON&quot;, ROBERT R. (1746-1813), American statesman, brother of Edward Livingston noticed above, was born at New York, November 27, 174G. He gradu ated at King s College, New York, at the age of nineteen, became a practitioner of law, and, in 1773, recorder of the city, but was soon displaced by loyalist influence because of his sympathies with the revolution. In 1776 he was a member of the committee of congress which drew up the Declaration of Independence, and in 1777 was a prominent member of the convention at Kingston, which framed the first constitution of New York. Upon the adoption of that instrument in the same year he became the first chancellor of the St.vte, which office he held until 1801, whence he is best known as &quot; Chancellor &quot; Livingston. He administered the oath of office to Washington at his first inauguration to the presidency in New York, April 30, 1789. In 1801 he was appointed by President Jackson as minister to France, and in 1803 effected in behalf of his Government the purchase from France of the vast territory then known as Louisiana, comprising the entire territory between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, from the Spanish to the British possessions. This was, perhaps, the most im portant transfer of territory by purchase ever made, but none of those who participated in it realized its importance. Napoleon s agent obtained ten million francs more than he had been instructed to accept for the cession, and Jefferson and Livingston were at the time bitterly censured for rashly concluding so useless a purchase. In 1804 Livingston withdrew from public life, and after spending a year in travel in Europe, returned to New York, where he occupied his remaining years in promoting various improvements in agriculture. He also assisted Fulton in his invention of the steamboat. He died in February 1813. LIVINGSTONE, DAVID (1813-1873), missionary and explorer, was born on March 19, 1813, at the village of Blantyre Works, in Lanarkshire, Scotland. David was the second child of his parents Neil Livingston (for so he spelled his name, as did his son for many years) and Agnes Hunter. His parents were poor and self-respecting, typical examples of all that is best among the humbler families of Scotland. At the age of ten years David left the village school for the neighbouring cotton-mill, and by strenuous efforts he qualified himself at the age of twenty-three to undertake a college curriculum. He attended for two sessions the medical and the Greek classes in Anderson s College, and also a theological class. In September 1838 he went up to London, and was accepted by the London Missionary Society as a candidate. During the next two years he resided mostly in London, diligently attending medical and science classes, and spending part of his time with the Rev. Mr Cecil at Ongar in Essex, studying theo logy and learning to preach. He took his medical degree in the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow in November 1840. Livingstone had from the first set his heart on China, and it was a great disappointment to him that the Society finally decided to send him to Africa. To an exterior in these early years somewhat heavy and uncouth, he united a manner which, by universal testimony, was irresistibly winning, with a fund of genuine but simple humour and fun that would break out on the most unlikely occasions, and in after years enabled him to overcome difficulties and mellow refractory chiefs when all other methods failed. ^ Livingstone sailed from England on December 8, 1840. From Algoa Bay he made direct for Kuruman, the mission station, 700 miles north, established by Hamilton and Moffat thirty years before, and there he arrived on July 31, 1841. The next two years Livingstone spent in travelling about the country to the northwards, in search of a suitable outpost for settlement. Durin^ these two years he had already become convinced that the success of the white missionary in a field like Africa is not to be reckoned by the tale of doubtful conversions he can send home each year, that the proper work for such men was that of pioneering, opening up and starting new ground, leaving native agents to work it out in detail. The whole of his subsequent career was a development of this idea. He selected the valley of Mabotaa, on one of the sources of the Limpopo river, 200 miles north-east of Kuruman, as his first station. It was shortly after his settlement here that he was attacked by a lion which crushed his left arm, and nearly put an end to his career. The arm was im perfectly set, and it was a source of trouble to him at times throughout his life, and was the means of identi fying his body after his death. To a house, mainly built by himself at Mabotsa, Livingstone in 1844 brought home his wife, Mary Moffat, the daughter of Moffat of Kuru man. Here he laboured till 1846, when he removed to Chonuane, 40 miles further north, the chief place of the Bakwain tribe under Sechele. In 1847 he again removed to Kolobeng, about 40 miles westwards, the whole tribe following their missionary. With the help of and in the company of two English sportsmen, Mr Oswell and Mi- Murray, he was able to undertake a journey of great im portance to Lake Ngami, which had never yet been seen by a white man. Crossing the Kalahari Desert, of which Livingstone gave the first detailed account, they reached the lake on August 1, 1849. In April next year he made an attempt to reach Sebituane, who lived 200 miles beyond the lake, this time in company with his wife and children, but again got no further than the lake, as the children were seized with fever. A year later, April 1851, Living stone, again accompanied by his family and Mr Oswell, set out, this time with the intention of settling among the Makololo for a period. At last he succeeded, and reached the Chobe, a southern tributary of the Zambesi, and in the end of June discovered the Zambesi itself at the town of Sesheke. Leaving the Chobe on August 13, the party reached Capetown in April 1852. Livingstone may now be said to have completed the first period of his career in Africa, the period in which the work of the missionary had the greatest prominence. Henceforth he appears more in the character of an explorer, but it must be remembered that he regarded himself to the last as a pioneer missionary, whose work was to open up the country to others. Having, with a sad heart, seen his family off to England, Livingstone left the Cape on June 8, 1852, and reached Linyanti, the capital of the Makololo, on the Chobe, on May 23, 1853, received in royal style by Sekeletu, and welcomed by all the people. His first object in this journey was to seek for some healthy high land in which to plant a station. Ascending the Zambesi, he, however, found no place free from the destructive tsetse insect, and therefore resolved to discover a route to the interior from either the west or east coast. To accompany Livingstone in his hazardous undertaking twenty-seven men were selected from the various tribes under Sekeletu, partly with a view to open up a trade route between their own country and the coast. The start was made from Linyanti on November 11, 1853, and, by ascending the Leeba, Lake Dilolo was reached on February 20, 1854. On April 4 the Coango was crossed, and on May 31 the town of Loanda was entered, much to the joy of the men, their leader, however, being all but dead from fever, semi-starvation, and dysentery. Livingstone speaks in the warmest terms of the generosity of the Portuguese merchants and officials. From Loanda Livingstone sent his astronomical observa tions to Maclear at the Cape, and an account of his journey to the Royal Geographical Society, which in May 1855 awarded him its highest honour, its gold medal.