VETERAN EXPLORER

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 256, 27 March 1914, Page 7

VETERAN EXPLORER

INTERESTING REMINISCENCES. SIR JOHN KIRK'S TRAVELS WITH DR LIVINGSTONE. Sir John Kirk, explorer and scientist, a native of Barry, in Forfarshire, last month celebrated the completion of his eighty-first year. The Morning Post gives an interesting account of his career. As an explorer, he set foot in places where never before had a white mail preceded him; as a diplomatist, lie was instrumental in saving n large slice of East Africa for the Crown, at a time when it seemed possible that it might succumb to Gorman influence; as a collector he lias enriched our national museums with valuable specimens of the flora and fauna of the out-of-the-way regions ho Ims visited; as a medical man he lias added to the Pharmacopoeia a new drug, Btopanthua, which from its peculiar property of stimulating the action of the heart has brought fresh hope to many a sufferer. It is, however, in all probability, as the friend and companion of David Livingstone that his name will chiefly live. Many are the anecdotes lie can tell of that great and good man, with wbom he. was brought into close relationship for five years in the dreary African swamps. LIVINGSTONE'S EXPEDITION.

The most interesting of the veteran explorer's reminiscences was that relating to his connection with the Government expedition sent out to Africa under Dr. Livingstone. Sir John Kirk was naturalist, botanist, and medical officer to the expedition. Describing the adventures of the party, Sir John Kirk said:—

"The members of the expedition were Dr. Livingstone, in command, myself as chief officer, Livingstone's brother, and Mr. Thornton, the geologist. We set out in the Pearl, a vessel which was being despatched to the Governor of Ceylon to be used as a yacht. It dropped us at the mouth of the Zambesi. In those days our knowledge of African geography was very different from what it is now, and we had difficulty in finding the real mouth of the river. As in the delta of the Nile, there were a number of apparent openings, which in course of time had got choked up. We tried one and found it led nowhere, and we had to go back. At length, however, we gained access to the Zambesi by way of the Luabo mouth. That mouth has since become silted up, and the one at present used is the Chinde. where steamers now touch to land the cargo that up to Xyassaland. The craft in which we journeyed was a steam launch which we took out with ns in sections and placed together on the spot. We proceeded as far as a place called Tati, where we deposited our stores, afterwards following the course of the Shire, a tributary of -the Zambesi. FIRST VISIT OF CIVILISED MAN". "We were in a country where civilised man had never yet set foot. What a change has taken place! The country of which I speak is now known ns the Nyassaland Protectorate. It is covered with cofi'ee plantations, cotton plantations, and so forth, and a railway runs

through it. It was easy to see, even at the time of which I speak, what a splendid country it was, rising in some parts to an elevation of 8000 feet above, the level of the sea. At ii certain point on our route were some rapids, which we avoided by proceeding overland, and be-

yond them we discovered Lake Kyassa, -400 miles long, then unknown, but now navigated by steamboats, British and German. The people, although out of touch with civilisation, had, we found made considerable progress. For instance, they understood ore mining and smelting. After discovering the great lake we returned to our headquarters at Tati and went up the Zambqsi on foot, following that river as far as the Victoria Falls. We took with us and repatriated the men whom Livingstone

had borrowed from the chief of the Makolo for the first journey. They had been waiting on the coast for his return ever since lie went back to Eng-

land after that first journey. We borrowed more men from Bebitawane—that was the name of the chief —and we proceeded along the Zambesi iu canoes which we bought from the natives. On getting near Tati, where we had left our stores, we had to pass through a narrow gorge of mountains, where rocks rose sheer up out of the river. There was nothing one could moor the canoes to or even clutch hold of, and the canoe I was in was caught in an eddy which dashed it against the rock and upset it. I lost all my instruments, all my records, and all my collections.

A HAIRBREADTH ESCAPE. "That 1 did not also lose my life was a, great mercy. It is to Livingstone I owe it that I am here to tell the tale. My canoe was leading the way, and as we got into difficulties I called out to Livingstone, who was in another a little lower down the river. He managed to hind just before reaching the dangerous part where we were, and lie cams overland to help us up the rocks. It was his energy and promptitude that saved us. As it was, my legs were in the water, and the force of the current was so great that T thought at first 1 had been caught in the jaws of a crocodile. A little further up the stream, aliout a (|narter of a mile oil', were some rapids with a drop of about fifteen feet. As soon as we had recovered from the (•fleets of our adventure we let go the canoes to see what would happen to them. They were carried by the stream on to (lie rapids, where tliey were hurled on the rocks below, and then they shot up again in the air. The fall had smashed them in half. It was a lucky

thing after all that my canoe gut into difficulties in the way I have downbed. Had it not done so I have not the slightest doubt that the whole party would have been dashed to pieces in those rapids."

Shortly after his return from that expedition, Sir John Kirk went out to Zanzibar as Vice-Consul, and it was largely owing to his elTort that the iniipiitions slave trade was abolished.