Doctor David Livingstone and the Zambezi Expedition
David Livingstone is probably the most storied African explorer of them all, and perhaps his most famous journey was his exploration of the Zambezi River.
David Livingstone arrived in Africa in 1841 as a young missionary, and according to him at least, he remained a missionary throughout his life. With no mission, however, and not a single convert, this was a tough position to argue. In the end, perhaps the best way to look at it is that he explored for Christ.
Livingstone great mission was in fact to expose the horrors of the Slave Trade that in the 1850s and 1860s ravaged east and central Africa. His solution was a concept that he defined as ‘Christianity and Commerce’, the first to banish the evils of paganism, and the second to replace illegitimate trade with legitimate. All that was required was a ‘Highway into the Interior’, in order to import western religion and export trade goods and products. When one day he found himself on the banks of the great Zambezi River, he imagined that this might be precisely that highway.
The year was 1852, and finding himself more or less equidistant between the east and west coasts of Africa, he decided to explore the upper headwaters first. He set off in company of 27 local Makololo tribesmen, and after a seat-of-the-pants journey of some 800 miles through unexplored territory, he stumbled into the Portuguese port of Loanda. Half starved, dressed in rags and almost dead from malaria, officers of the British anti-slaving squadron pleaded with him to return with them to England.
Livingstone, however, would have none of it. If he left his Makololo companions alone, the Portuguese would probably put them in chains and sell them. On the other hand, he had yet to find his highway into the interior, because this route certain was not it. Thus, he set off back the way he had come, after which he began his exploration of the eastern leg of the Zambezi.
This proved a little less rigorous, and a little shorter, at just 600 miles. As he was approaching the east coast, it was beginning to become clear to him that perhaps the Zambezi was navigable, and so eager was he to break this news that he traversed a wide bend in the river, and hurried on to the coast. What he did not know, but what he should have known, was that a bend in the river is usually the site of an obstruction, and indeed, this was the case. The Caborra Bassa Rapids, thirty miles of churning water, blocked all navigation. Livingstone would not discover this until years later when he led the famous Zambezi Expedition upriver to break ground. Oops!
But that is another story.