DR. LIVINGSTONE'S CHOICE OF A GRAVE.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1338, 12 November 1872, Page 4

DR. LIVINGSTONE'S CHOICE OF A GRAVE.

The London correspondent of the Glasgow Herald writes : —

Here is an anecdote related by Mr Stanley, which seems to me characteristic of our great traveller ; but of this I shall give, not Mr Stanley's own words, but the / substance of what he said. Your readers will judge for themselves :— One day, during the long excursions which Livingstone and Stanley made together, the party had ridden for hours through a dense brake, in which the stalks of grass rose above their heads. Suddenly they came to an open space, in the centre of which was a tree, and over which green herbage grew. The spot was at once refreshing to the eye and soothing to the mind. Gazing on the scene for a few minutes, Dr Livingtone then turned to his companion and said — " There's where I should like to lie." The youthful and vigorous American replied— "Doctor, you must not think of dying, but of living and finishing your discoveries." The elderly traveller still vent on in the same strain, saying that he always thought of the grave as a still and peaceful place — the end of life's vain tumults — and that this spot entirely realised his anticipations. Probably it recalled the spot on the Zambesi where he buried his wife. Mr Stanley still refused to take the same sombre view of the matter, and he said — " But, Doctor, yon must not think of dying in Africa — certainly not to be buried there. You must be in St. Paul's, or Westminster Abbey : that U the place for you." This anpeal had not the effect of dispelling Dr Livingstone's melancholy mood. I think Mr Stanley is even now unable to understand why the great traveller should be as contented to lay his bones in a quiet resting-place in Africa as to have them laid in either of onr national mausoleums. It seems to me that the storysimple though it be — ia eminently characteristic of the two men, and therefore I make it public.