Page 275 - The Secret Museum

will ever count them all).

But Livingstone didn’t go to Africa just to collect scientific samples. He went as a

missionary, though only managed to convert one person to Christianity during his 33-
year career with the London Missionary Society. Even that person was only a brief
convert; the African chief lapsed shortly afterwards, due to ‘the temptations of
polygamy’. What really drove Livingstone was exploration. He became the first
European to cross Africa from the Atlantic coast to the Indian coast. He renamed
Victoria Falls after the Queen (they were originally called Mosioatunya, ‘the smoke
that thunders’, by the people who lived there) and, with the help of the RGS, went on

an expedition along the Zambezi River. In 1844 he was mauled by a lion and
survived.

He is best known for his final expedition, sponsored by the RGS, to find the
source of the Nile. He set off in 1866 determined to solve the mystery, though several
others, including the translator of the Kama Sutra, Sir Richard Burton, had failed
before him. Seven years later, he still hadn’t found it and the world had lost all
contact with him. In 1872, Henry Stanley, a journalist, was sent to find him.

Stanley’s real name was John Rowlands. He was born in Wales and grew up in a
Denbigh workhouse after his parents abandoned him. At 17, he joined a ship and

jumped off in New Orleans, where he met Henry Stanley, who was a local cotton
magnate. Rowlands pretended to be his son and took his name. He joined the army
but deserted and became a journalist. The New York Herald paid him to look for
Livingstone. He set off from near Zanzibar in 1871. On his way, Stanley encountered
cannibals who shouted, ‘Niama, niama,’ (‘Meat, meat’). After one violent clash,
according to his diaries, those left on the battlefield had their faces, genitals and
stomachs boiled and eaten with rice and goat meat.

It has been suggested that Stanley made up the line ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume?’

for his article in the Herald in August 1872 and then repeated it in his biography.
Whatever the truth of the matter, it makes for a good story and has been reported ever
since.

Livingstone died within a year of their first meeting. All the years of travelling
had made him sick, and he died, aged 60, while kneeling in prayer. His heart was
buried under a mvuli tree and an African man named Jacob Wainwright carved the
inscription ‘Livingstone May 4 1873’ into its bark. Livingstone was laid in state at
the RGS at 1 Savile Row before being buried in Westminster Abbey. The inscribed

bark was brought back to England two decades later when the tree was cut down. It
is in the RGS archives, along with his letters, diaries, maps and more. In 1902, the
Livingstone Memorial was built to mark the spot where he died.

The RGS keeps the things belonging to Livingstone and Stanley in the ‘hot’
archive, which contains artefacts brought back by explorers who had adventures in
hot parts of the globe. There is also a ‘cold collection’. The ‘coolest’ object I saw
was a Burberry balaclava that once belonged to explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton