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A hundred years ago people knew little or nothing about this part of Africa. It was an unhealthful and a dangerous country for the white man. The marshes and jungles gave white men fever, and there was a little fly called the tsetse which gave men a disease called sleeping sickness, from which they never awoke. Besides allthese terrible things there were fierce wild animals that killed those who escaped other things.
And then there was born in Scotland a boy named David Livingstone. He was just like you or me until he was ten years old. But when he was ten years old he left school and went to work in a cotton mill. There he worked all day from six in the morning until eight at night. If you count this up you will find that it was fourteen hours a day he worked—and he was only ten years old. Every day in the week he worked this way, but whenhe went home at night he wasn’t through working. After his supper he would study until he fell asleep over his books. Livingstone’s one idea in life was to be of some good in the world and to help people who were sick and miserable. So he studied to be a doctor, and he decided he would go to China. He thought also they should be made Christians. So he learned to be a minister as well as a doctor. But he didn’t go to China at all. He was sent to Africa instead.
Every one said he would die, he would be stung by the deadly tsetse fly, or he would drink water that would give him a fever, or he would be devoured by some wild animal. “If I’m going to die,” said he, “it doesn’t matter which way. I’ll have to die some day, but I want to do some good before that day.” So he went to Africa.
