Religion & morality > David Livingstone

Lost and Found.
295
eight days, during which they had traversed more than
300 miles of water.
The travellers now rested for a while at Ujiji, and
the doctor was busy, day after day, writing letters to
his numerous friends, and copying the scattered notes
he had made in the course of his wanderings into a
large diary. Often did Stanley urge upon him the
advisability of returning to his home and friends; but
the invariable answer was, “ No ; I should like to see
my family very much indeed. My children’s letters
affect me intensely, but I must not go home; I must
finish my task.” For nearly six long years had the
brave traveller been wandering and working beneath
a burning sun, in a strange country, far from friends or
even sympathising associates; constantly surrounded
by dangers, and impeded by difficulties; yet his
energies were still unflagging, his ardour unabated.
The work once commenced must be carried through
to the very end; he felt it to be a great and noble
work, and would allow no selfish desires for rest or
comfort to interfere with its completion. It was
now arranged that Livingstone should accompany
Stanley on his homeward march as far as Un-
yanyembe, in order to procure the stores which had
been forwarded from Zanzibar in 1870, by the
British consul. On the 27th of December, 1871, the
travellers left Ujiji, and proceeded by water to
Urimba, where they were joined by a party that had
been sent along the shore with the heavier stores.
Starting in an easterly direction, the expedition,
guided by the compass, made its way through the