s away
from his family, I only four and a half."

The passengers were sent on _via_ Marseilles, and Livingstone proceeded
homeward by Paris and Dover.

At last he reached "dear old England" on the 9th of December, 1856.
Tidings of a great sorrow had reached him on the way. At Cairo he heard
of the death of his father. He had been ill a fortnight, and died full
of faith and peace. "You wished so much to see David," said his daughter
to him as his life was ebbing away. "Ay, very much, very much; but the
will of the Lord be done." Then after a pause he said, "But I think I'll
know whatever is worth knowing about him. When you see him, tell him I
think so." David had not less eagerly desired to sit once more at the
fireside and tell his father of all that had befallen him on the way. On
both sides the desire had to be classed among hopes unfulfilled. But on
both sides there was a vivid impression that the joy so narrowly missed
on earth would be found in a purer form in the next stage of being.

CHAPTER X.

FIRST VISIT HOME.

A.D. 1856-1857.

Mrs. Livingstone--Her intense anxieties--Her poetical
welcome--Congratulatory letters from Mrs. and Dr, Moffat--Meeting of
welcome of Royal Geographical Society--of London Missionary
Society--Meeting in Mansion House--Enthusiastic public meeting at Cape
Town--Livingstone visits Hamilton--Returns to London to write his
book--Letter to Mr. Maclear--Dr. Risdon Bennett's reminiscences of this
period--Mr. Frederick Fitch's--Interview with Prince
Consort--Honors--Publication and great success of _Missionary
Travels_--Character and design of the book--Why it was not more of a
missionary record--Handsome conduct of publisher--Generous use of the
profits--Letter to a lady in Carlisle vindicating the character of
his speeches.

The years that had elapsed since Dr. Livingstone bade his wife farewell
at Cape Town had been to her years of deep and often terrible anxiety.
Letters, as we have seen, were often lost, and none seem more frequently
to have gone missing than those between him and her. A stranger in
England, without a home, broken in health, with a family of four to care
for, often without tidings of her husband for great stretches of time,
and harassed with anxieties and apprehensions that sometimes proved too
much for her faith, the strain on her was very great. Those who knew her
in Africa, when, "queen of the wagon," and full of life, she directed
the arrangement