xious to induce you to put together all your data, and to make
a good book," adding his own strong advice to comply with the request.
If he ever doubted the propriety of writing the book, the doubt must
have vanished, not only in view of the unequaled interest excited by the
subject, but also of the readiness of unprincipled adventurers, and even
some respectable publishers, to circulate narratives often mythical and
quite unauthorized.

The early part of the year 1857 was mainly occupied with the labor of
writing. For this he had materials in the Journals which he had kept so
carefully; but the business of selection and supplementing was
laborious, and the task of arrangement and transcription very irksome.
In fact, this task tried the patience of Livingstone more than any which
he had yet undertaken, and he used to say that he would rather cross
Africa than write another book. His experience of book-making increased
his respect for authors and authoresses a hundred-fold!

We are not, however, inclined to think that this trial was due to the
cause which Livingstone assigned,--his want of experience, and want of
command over the English tongue. He was by no means an inexperienced
writer. He had written large volumes of Journals, memoirs for the
Geographical Society, articles on African Missions, letters for the
Missionary Society, and private letters without end, each usually as
long as a pamphlet. He was master of a clear, simple, idiomatic style,
well fitted to record the incidents of a journey--sometimes poetical in
its vivid pictures, often brightening into humor, and sometimes
deepening into pathos. Viewing it page by page, the style of the
_Missionary Travels_ is admirable, the chief defect being want of
perspective; the book is more a collection of pieces than an organized
whole: a fault inevitable, perhaps, in some measure, from its nature,
but aggravated, as we believe, by the haste and pressure under which it
had to be written. In his earlier private letters, Livingstone, in his
single-hearted desire to rouse the world on the subject of Africa, used
to regret that he could not write in such a way as to command general
attention: had he been master of the flowing periods of the _Edinburgh
Review,_ he thought he could have done much more good. In point of fact,
if he had had the pen of Samuel Johnson, or the tongue of Edmund Burke,
he would not have made the impression he did. His simple style and plain
speech