THE SUPPOSED BURNING OF DR. LIVINGSTONE.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 66, 30 April 1870, Page 4

THE SUPPOSED BURNING OF DR. LIVINGSTONE.

The following is the report of the commander of H.M. Petrel, which was off the West Coast of Africa in January last, as to the supposed murder of Dr Livingstone : — " Dr Livingstone has been killed and burned by the natives 90 days' journey from the Congo. He passed through a native town, and was three days on his journey when the king of the town died. The natives declared Livingstone had bewitched him, sent after him, told him he had bewitched their king, and he must die. They then killed and bnrnt him. This news comes by a Portuguese trader travelling that way. Livingstone was on the lakes at the head of the Congo, making his way to the ' Congo, where he was going to come out. I believe this news to be true." Sir Roderick Murchison, who doubts the truth of this Btory, sent the following

letter to the Times, of February 2 : — " Let U3 compare this statement with the facts and dates in our possession regarding the movements of our great traveller. Livingstone wrote from XJjiji on May 30, 1860, to Zanzibar, requesting to be supplied with boatmen and goods, to enable him to proceed to the north of Lake Tanganyike, and, as he expressed it, 'to connect the sources I have discovered with the Nile of Speke and Baker.' Dr Kirk, in his despatch to Lord Clarendon of Oct. 2, 1869, states that he would lose no time in procuring and sending the supplies. Granted that these requirements were forwarded in a week or two from that date, they could not have reached Livingstone before the middle of December, as it takes two months to communicate between Zanzibar and XJjiji. How, then, can Livingstone have had time to organise his expedition to proceed to the northern end of Tanganyika, and then round it to the as yet unknown lakes at the head of the Congo by the date required to verify this new rumour of his death ? For the death, as it will be perceived, must have happened 90 days before the news reached the Portuguese settlements on the West Coast. Even on the incredible supposition that Livingstone started alone and deatitute as he then was at XJjiji, without waiting for the men and supplies he had written for, there would not have been time for him to have penetrated the totally unexplored and extensive region lying between XJjiji. and the head waters of the Congo. Not but that I think it quite possible, as I have expressed it already to the Geographical Society, that if foiled in connecting Tanganyike with the Nile, he might eventually return by way of the Congo and the West Coast of Africa. I may be permitted to refer to the report of a meeting of the society contained in the Times of the 14th of December, 1869, where it will be seen that I stated that in this case we should have before us a long and anxious period of suspense regarding our traveller. I will conclude by hoping that your readers will agree with me that this last rumour may vanish, like all the previous accounts of the great traveller's death." A letter from Dr Livingstone's brother, a consul at Fernando Po, has been published in the Glasgow Daily Herald, in which the writer expresses his entire belief in the safety of the distinguished traveller.