The Life & Explorations of Dr Livingstone: Victorian book
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 4:36 am
I have this Victorian-era book published by Adam & Co, 14 Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, London, printed by Murray & Gibb, Edinburgh. It says "compiled from reliable sources", has no named author and no publishing date, but from the general tone I surmise it was written within about 10 years of Livingston's death in 1873. I've scanned it into a Word document and here it is straight from that book: In the introduction to his" Missionary Travels and Researches" in South Africa, published in 1857, Dr. Livingstone gave a brief and modest sketch of his early years together with some account of the humble, although notable family from which he sprang. "One great-grandfather," he tells us, "fell at the battle of Culloden, fighting for the old line of kings, and one grandfather was a small farmer in Ulva, where my father was born. It is one of that cluster of the Hebrides thus spoken of by Sir WaIteI Scott : 'And Ulva dark, and Colon say, And all the group of islets gay That guard famed Staffa round.' " Our grandfather was intimately acquainted with all the traditionary legends which that great writer has since made use of in 'The Tales of a Grandfather,' and other works. As a boy I remember listening with delight, for his memory was stored with a never-ending stock of stories, many of which were wonderfully like those I have since heard while sitting by the African evening fires. Our grandmother too, used to sing Gaelic songs, some of which, as she believed, had been composed by captive Highlanders languishing among the Turks." The reverence of your true Highlander for his ancestors,and his knowledge of them and their doings for many generations, has been frequently the subject of mirth to the Lowlanders or Sassenachs, as they are termed by the Celts; but in such instances as that of the family of which we are treating, such feelings are not only virtues, but are the incentives to bold and manly effort in the most trying circumstances. Livingstone tells us that his grandfather could rehearse traditions of the families for six generations before him. One of these was of a nature to make a strong impression on the imaginative and independent mind of the boy, even when almost borne down with toil too severe for his years. He says, " One of these poor hardy islanders was renowned in the district for great wisdom and prudence; and it is related that, when he was on his death-bed, he called all his children around him, and said, 'Now, in my lifetime, I have searched most carefully through all the traditions I could find of our family, and I never could discover that there was a dishonest man among our forefathers. If therefore, any of you or any of your children should take to dishonest ways it will not be because it runs in our blood; it does not belong to you. I leave this precept with you: Be honest! , ', ', With pardonable pride and some covert sarcasm, Livingstone points out that at the period in question, according to Macaulay, the Highlanders" were much like Cape Caffres, and anyone, it was said, could escape punishment for cattle stealing by presenting a share of the plunder to his chieftain." Macaulay's assertion was true of the clans and bands of broken men who dwelt near the Highland line; but even in their case these cattle-lifting raids hardly deserved the designation of pure theft; as even up to the middle of the last century they looked upon the Lowlanders as an alien race, and consequently enemies whom it was lawful to despoil. The conduct of the needy and ambitious nobles who drove them from their native haunts where their fathers had lived and hunted for centuries, with a view to possessing themselves of their inheritance, too often furnishing a sufficient excuse for the deeds of violence and plunder which figure so prominently in the annals of the country down even to the days of George II. Like most of the Highlanders, his ancestors were Roman Catholics, but when Protestantism got fairly established in Scotland, .the apostacy of the chief was followed by that of the entire clan. Livingstone says, "they were made Protestants by the laird (the squire) coming round, with a man having a yellow staff, which would seem to have attracted more attention than his teaching, for the new religion went long afterwards, perhaps it does so still, by the name of 'the.religion of the staff.'" In the olden time, religion to them was only secondary to their devotion and attachment to their chief, and never seems to have taken any firm hold of their imaginations.