SENTENCE PASSED ON TWO FAMOUS TREES

Shannon News, 6 August 1929, Page 1

SENTENCE PASSED ON TWO FAMOUS TREES

Time has " written ' the sentence, of doom on two famous trees in Africa. One is the tree under which Stanley met Livingstone after the explorer had been lost for years in the heart of Central Africa. The other is the tree in which Livingstone's heart wa. e buried.

The tree of meeting is at the old slave-raiding village of Ujiji, in Tanganyika Territory-;, a mango tree where Stanley saw an aged man, grey and worn with disease, and dared not at first believe that this was the gentle hero who had consecrated himself to the task of banishing mystery from the map and tragedy from the lives of the hunted natives.

A traveller Avho lately returned to England from the scene has been telling the Royal Geographical Society that' the great tree, over which nearly 60 years have passed since the meeting, is fast decaying. Its spreading branches are withering.and being consumed by disease ; and great spiders, which avoid the stir and thrust of vigorous life, spread their snares amon<: its sere and failing leaves. The tale of decay is not new. Four years ago the British Administrative Officer in charge of the district had th>forethought'to encircle the tree with' r. stout wall and iron fence. That served to secure the site from native am! animal encroachment, but not to sta;\ the progress of disease. The tree i; dying rapidly, • aand ' must soon fall Recognising the inevitable, the Tangan yika Government has voted £SO fo a memorial to be erected on the spot.

Livingstone is in the abbey now,; lib; acart was Enclosed in the trunk of : ;iant baob tre.e in the-wilds of Citanib' north-east of '.Rhodesia There it was placed, after embalming, by those faithful blacks, who bore the body a thou sand miles to the coast and thousands' of miles over sea to England. Before they left on their tremendous adventure, these gallant natives arranged with the local chief to have the neighbourhood of the tree kept clear of grass so tliaf forest fires might not reach it. But they could not guard against the elements. Lightning blasted the tree. There, too, the bricklayer had to take the place of Nature and build a lasting memorial. The monument is crowned by a cross, which stands at the top of a sloping column'. The reason for this shape is that elephants used to rub against the memorial and destroy it.