an african surprise what livingstone really discovered in tropical

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An African SurpriseWhat Livingstone really discovered in tropical Africa

Thanks to the translator, Mrs van Stolk, and the financial support of several enthusiastic readersof the Dutch version, it is now possible for you to read - albeit in abridged form and later thanpromised - what you have perhaps been looking for since 2003.

It has become a story about David Livingstone, or so it seems. But in fact he is - in hisprofessional capacity - especially an exceptional witness in a case against ‘underdevelopment’.I must confess that originally another writer-traveller opened my eyes. But before that moment,as a doctor in West Africa, I was wondering how it was possible that so many children broughtto my clinic were so ill. They had serious infections of which many died, almost always on thebasis of a food deficiency, called ‘malnutrition’. I had read that this malnutrition was, since 1932,considered to be a ‘new disease’, related to an age-old and long-term ‘underdevelopment’, whichdoctors were unable to influence. My question was: how then was the situation before that yearor, for instance, before 1880? Could it be that African women and men had been able to feedtheir children well in pre-colonial times?

So this is about my search for an answer, and how it was possible that illness and hunger very soonchanged into health and nutrition. The misnomer ‘underdevelopment’ (and all its euphemisms)should be renamed. It is not a book about sick African people. Thanks to David Livingstone thesearch changed tack. One must admit, however, that his information on other subjects thanhealth and food were not always flawless.

The story has become a plea for insight into the historic attainments of the African people. But:will it be of any use? A terrible amount has been lost which cannot be recovered and no onebenefits from money and kind words. We do not know how the exceptionally rich, ecologicallyaccountable food production for subsistence - and for the sake of surplus as well - can berestored. But we know that they still have access to oral traditions of how things were doneformerly. The results of this search can only encourage them to uncover and recover theenormous achievements of their ancestors. We should be humble about the attempts of our ‘aidindustry’.

The specific data on food constituents and on diseases are but an illustration and are not meantas a scientific dissertation.

While condensing the manuscript to these proportions I often thought of J. J. Norwich in hisShort history of Byzantium: ‘To reduce the history ..... has been a long and painful task, one that hasoften seemed to savour less of pruning than of infanticide: many of my favourite brainchildren..... have found their quietus on the cutting-room floor’. What now remained does no justice tomy book, nor to David Livingstone. So I am now trying to publish my rather detailed account,and if I do not succeed, the whole text will appear here and/or will be made available as ‘bookon demand’.

Sjoerd Rijpma, Engsbergen, Belgium, 2007.

http://WWW.davidlivingstone.com

© Sjoerd Rijpma 2007

© translation: Mrs R. van Stolk

© cover design: Pim Oxener

© website: Frank Oxener

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by print, photoprint, microfilm or any other

means without written permission from the author.

The original text of this story was written by Sjoerd Rijpma (pronounced: Rypma) in Dutch, accordingto David Livingstone ‘of all languages the nastiest. It is good only for oxen’ (Family letters, volume 1, page190). That is not the reason it has been translated into English.

The more faults you find in the great man and the more obvious his weaknesses, the more earnestly youhave to look for the real power which enabled him to achieve what he did (T.R. Glover, 1935).

1

An African Surprise. What Livingstone really discovered in tropical Africa

Contents of the abridged chapters

Contents of the manuscript An African Surprise.Preface (abridged)Definitions of the indicators of, and notes for, the tables I and II Some basic data (tables I and II)Summarized Livingstone chronology

PART I: AFRICA’S PAST: SURPRISING N EW ASPECTS

Chapter 1. Health and nutrition in ‘Livingstone’s tropical Africa’

PART II: DAVID LIVINGSTONE IN TROPICAL AFRICA

Chapter 2. 1849 - 1856: Missionary travels and researches Comments1.

Chapter 3. 1858 - 1864: Narrative of an expedition Comments.

Chapter 4. What did Livingstone really do in Africa and why?

PART III: HEALTH AND NUTRITION IN ‘LIVINGSTONE’S TROPICAL AFRICA’

Chapter 5. 1849 - 1856: Missionary travels and researches Comments.

Chapter 6. 1858 - 1864: Narrative of an expedition Comments.

Chapter 7. 1866 - 1873: ‘The last journals of David Livingstone’ Comments.

Chapter 8. What Livingstone really discovered in tropical Africa.

SOME CLOSING REM ARKS

AN ABRIDGED LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

MAPS, based upon those of an anonymous artist in David Livingstone and the Victorianencounter with Africa. Permission to use these maps has been asked.

2, 345

6, 78

9

10

14

1415

1617

18

22

2223

2526

2730

32

37

42

52

1In the ‘comments’ comparisons are made between the text and Livingstone’s diaries and letters. Chapters 4 and 8 are also comments on Livingstone; there a wider range of literature is used.

2

CONTENTS of the Garamond version of the manuscriptAn African Surprise.

What Livingstone really discovered in tropical Africa

PrefaceSome basic data (tables I and II)Definitions of the indicators of, and notes for, the tables I and II Summarized Livingstone chronologyAbbreviations used in text and footnotes

PART I: AFRICA’S PAST: SURPRISING N EW ASPECTS

Chapter 1. ‘Health and nutrition’ or ‘disease and hunger’?- What is the actual meaning of ‘malnutrition’?- Poverty in pre-colonial Africa- Malaria, mal aria and ‘fever’- The correlation between health and nourishment- What is meant by resistance?- Assumptions

PART II: DAVID LIVINGSTONE IN TROPICAL AFRICA

Chapter 2. 1849 - 1856: Missionary travels and researchesSojourn and travels in southern Africa (1841-1849), the ‘missionary travels’ (1849-1853), the trans-Africa journey (1853-1856). A paraphrase of a number of aspects of the book- The first ten years in southern Africa- The Kololo- To Luanda (1853-1854)- Luanda (1854); back to Linyanti (1854-1855)- From Linyanti to Quelimane (1855-1856)

Reflections on Livingstone’s Missionary travels Missionary travels compared Preparations for the Zambesi expedition

Chapter 3. 1858 - 1864: Narrative of an expeditionExploration of rivers and lakes; return to Linyanti with the Kololo.A paraphrase of various aspects of the second book- Investigating the Zambesi- Exploring the river Shire and Lake Malawi- Intermezzo: a journey on foot from Mozambique to Linyanti and back- The Universities’ Mission; the Ruvuma explorations- The end of the expedition

Reflections on Narrative of an expedition Narrative of an expedition compared Once again to Africa

Chapter 4. What did Livingstone really do in Africa and why?

36, 7

89

10

11

14162224262731

32

33

333337414548

545669

70

707174778286

8989

107

109

3

PART III: HEALTH AND NUTRITION IN ‘LIVINGSTONE’S TROPICAL AFRICA’

Chapter 5. 1849 - 1856: Missionary travels and researchesSojourn and travels in Southern Africa (1841-1849), the ‘missionary travels’ (1849-1853), the trans-Africa journey (-1856). A paraphrase with the emphasis on health and nutrition- The first ten years in southern Africa- The Kololo- To Luanda (1853-1854)- Luanda (1854); back to Linyanti (1854-1855)- From Linyanti to Quelimane (1855-1856)

Reflections: health and nutrition in Missionary travels

Chapter 6. 1858 - 1864: Narrative of an expeditionExploration of rivers and lakes; return to Linyanti with the Kololo.A paraphrase with the emphasis on health and nutrition- Investigating the Zambesi- Exploring the river Shire and Lake Malawi- Intermezzo: a journey on foot from Mozambique to Linyanti and back- The Universities’ Mission; the Ruvuma explorations- The end of the expedition

Reflections: health and nutrition in Narrative of an expedition

Chapter 7. 1866 - 1873: Waller’s ‘The last journals of David Livingstone’Searching for the sources of the Nile.A paraphrase of Waller’s The last journals of David Livingstone.- To Lake Malawi, Lake Tanganyika, Lake Mweru and Lake Bangweulu (1866-1868)- From Lake Bangweulu to Lake Tanganyika and back (-1873)

Reflections on Waller’s The last journals of David LivingstoneReflections: health and nutrition in The last journals

Chapter 8. What Livingstone really discovered in tropical Africa- ‘Malnutrition’- Health and sickness- Nourishment and food supply- David Livingstone on health and nutrition

SOME CLOSING REM ARKS

END NOT ES, with abbreviations used in text and notes

LITERATURE

Books consulted, not cited

IND EX

MAPS: from David Livingstone and the Victorian encounter with Africa. London: National PortraitGallery, 1996. Permission has been asked.

130

130

130130133138144148

154

178

178178180183190195

200

213

215215230

244250

258258265274296

298

316

439477

482

508

4

Preface (abridged pages 3-5).

What travellers in pre-colonial times have written about health, nutrition and food supply in tropicalAfrica has received comparatively little attention, although their reports furnish extremely interestinginformation, especially as compared with the picture of the continent today. For instance, Livingstone’sstatement ‘in the more central parts the people were remarkably kind and civil and free from disease’ willsurprise many, just as the comment that many diseases common in England were not present in tropicalAfrica anno 1856. Just as little is it generally known that in those areas, before the ‘scramble for Africa’,exceptionally productive food supply systems existed, and certainly not solely for own use. This led, 150years ago, to the conclusion ‘if agriculture were a test of civilization then these are not savages’, while adevelopment expert avant la lettre remarked with surprise: ‘When telling the people in England what weremy objects in going out to Africa, I stated that, among other things, I meant to teach these peopleagriculture; but I now see that they know far more about it than I do’.

For clarity it must be said that I have never called this glance into the past a ‘development project’:it was clear to me from earlier investigation that the object had to be to verify the impression that foodsupply and health in tropical Africa was and still is disrupted, not by ‘under-development’, but by externalinfluences. Good intentions (e.g. of aid organizations) without sound knowledge of the past (and thepresent) are doomed to failure. In spite of this, there was no willingness on the part of the organizationof scientific research in the tropics to support the investigation: no ‘development project’ would havecome out of it anyway.

My medical and - later - family sociological training cannot disguise the fact that my knowledge ofAfrican history is limited, even in the areas of health and nutrition. It is especially thanks to a whole groupof experts that this treatise has come about. Here I want to make place for Jan Vansina who has assistedand advised me for years by, among other things, furnishing various chapters, almost line for line, withdetailed commentary and additions and by giving the completed manuscript its final reading. Piet Stuiver,Henk Voorhoeve, Gerda Rossel, Rijk Luyken and Peter de Raadt have judged specific areas, so theydeserve a similar place, just as Sjaak van der Geest who not only helped me reconstruct the conclusionof this book, but encouraged me at the start of the project to ‘let Livingstone speak’. I took this literally.

Although an attempt has been made to report as accurately as possible what travellers, especiallydoctors, in pre-colonial times observed in a section of tropical Africa, this book is not intended to be ascientific observation. It is - quite honestly - a plea for insight into the historic attainments of the Africanpeople. Any one who realizes that these attainments were only threatened or lost after the end of thenineteenth century, can wonder why it so happened, why no improvement took place after de-colonization, and what good fifty years of ‘development aid’ has been.

This book cannot answer these questions conclusively, but perhaps the contents can give a point ofview - with due respect for the results achieved by the African people in the past - which contributes tothe re-evaluation of their earlier achievements, and therewith to the recovery of their food supply system,created with so much care. At best the last chapter, ‘some closing remarks’, can give some suggestions.

I am particularly grateful to all those who helped me in my ambitious plan which covered too manyareas for one person. Since 1974 I could - and still do - fall back on the help of the librarian and thelibrary assistants of the African Studies Centre in Leiden, especially Mrs Verkaik. I thank her and hercolleagues heartily, just as the personnel of many other libraries in the Netherlands, The United Kingdom,Belgium, France and Rome (the FAO). Very creative and therefore invaluable assistance was given byConstance Rijpma, who read the manuscript, helped me correct the structure and made the necessarycorrections. I also want to thank Cornélie and Cornelis de Laat de Kanter, Carel ter Linden, J.M.Schoffeleers, the late Wim Oxener, Pim Oxener, as well as Frank Oxener and Messrs R. and J. Faber fortheir help. The phase subsequent to the appearance of the Dutch version was full of surprises. Plunkettvan Stolk read the manuscript and began on the translation immediately. Mr Paul Fentener van Vlissingenand Francis and Willemien Loudon took immediate steps to facilitate the translation. I am extremelygrateful for their appraisal and for their financial assistance, and also to Rudolph van Weede whoprepared the way. My wife is hors concours, being the one who left for Africa with me in 1962, and who hasconstantly accompanied me, also through the manuscript, up till today.

Engsbergen (Belgium), Sjoerd Rijpma.

5

Definitions of the indicators of, and notes for, the following tables I and II:

1Excluding Botswana that plays a limited role in the story. The collection of data such as given above bynational statistical institutes is a labour-intensive and costly business. There are few countries outside theEuropean Union of 15 states, the USA, Australia, Japan and New Zealand, whose (annual) statistics areanywhere near comparable to the afore-said, as far as reliability is concerned. The data from table I(source: UNICEF, 2004) are based on information from the authorities of the countries concerned,supplemented by random checks, calculations, evaluations and other accessible techniques. Whatpercentage reflects the deviation from reality is not known. ‘Take the case of Nigeria, for example, wherethe latest census (the first in three decades) showed its population to be 88 million people - whereas untilthen, the usual estimates were between 100 and 120 million!’ (Uvin, P. (1994), 65).2Meant is Congo Kinshasa or Democratic Republic Congo. 3GNI per capita - Gross national income (GNI) is the sum of value added by all resident producers plusany product taxes (less subsidies) not included in the valuation of output plus net receipts of primaryincome (compensation of employees and property income) from abroad. GNI per capita is gross nationalincome divided by mid-year population. GNI per capita in US dollars is converted using the World BankAtlas method. 4Official development assistance, of which only Africa south of the Sahara: US$ 12486 million.5x indicates data that refer to years or periods other than those specified in the column heading, differfrom the standard definition, or refer to only part of a country.6The whole of Africa gave out US$ 12.7 billion for military ends in 1985 (Uvin, P. (1994), 82; see alsoUNICEF (1990), 1).7Crude death rate: annual number of deaths per 1,000 population; crude birth rate: annual number ofbirths per 1,000 population.8The number of years newborn children would live if subject to the mortality risks prevailing for thecross-section of population at the time of their birth.9Probability of dying between birth and exactly five years of age expressed per 1,000 live births. 10Probability of dying between birth and exactly one year of age expressed per 1,000 live births.11Underweight - moderate and severe - below minus two standard deviations (SD) from median weightfor age of reference population, severe - below minus 3 SD. Wasting - moderate and severe - below minustwo standard deviations from median weight for height of reference population. Stunting - moderate andsevere - below minus two standard deviations from median height for age of reference population. Forthe whole of sub-Saharan Africa the percentage, respectively the total of chronically underfed people wasin 1969/71: 35% - 94 million; in 1979/81: 36% - 129 million; in 1988/90: 37% - 175 million. FAO (1993), 38: ‘Undernourished: persons who, on average during the course of a year, are estimatedto have food consumption levels below those required to maintain body weight and support light activity’.

6

Table I: Some basic information about the most important countries in ‘Livingstone’s tropical Africa’ from UNICEF 20041

total population 2002 (million)population annual growth rate (%) 1990-2002GNI per capita in US$3 (2002)average annual rate of inflation (%) 1990-2002ODA inflow4 in millions US$ 2001ODA inflow as a % of recipient GNI 2001% of central government expenditureallocated to defence (1992-2001)crude death rate7 2002crude birth rate7 2002life expectancy at birth8 2002under-5 mortality rate9 2002infant mortality rate (<1 year)10 2002% of children (1995-2002) still breastfeeding 20-23 mo% of children (1995-2002) exclusively breastfed < 6 mo% of under-fives (1995-2002) suffering from moderate and severe: underweight

wasting stunting11

Angola

13.22.9

660 584 268

4

34x5

24 53 40

260 154 37 11

31 6

45

Congo2

51.22.6

90 728 251

6

18 22 51 41

205 129 52 24

31 13 38

Malawi

11.91.9

160 32

402 22

5x 24 45 38

183 114 77 44

25 6

49

Mozambique

18.52.7

210 27

935 24

35x 24 42 38

197 125 58

30

26 6

44

Tanzania

36.32.8

280 19

1233 13

16x 18 40 44

165 104 48 32

29 5

44

Zambia

10.72.2

330 45

374 11

4 28 42 33

192 108 58 40

28 5

47

world

6504.51.5

5073 8

39317 1

106 9

22 63 82 56 51 39

27 10 31

For definitions of the indicators of, and notes for the tables I and II, see page 5 (Source: UNICEF).

7

Table II for comparison: the same data on these countries from UNICEF 20011

total population 1999 (million)population annual growth rate (%) 1990-99GNP2 per capita in US$ (1999)annual rate of inflation 1990-1998)ODA inflow in millions US$ 1998ODA inflow as a % of recipient GNP 1998% of central government expenditureallocated to defence (1992-99)crude death rate 1999crude birth rate 1999life expectancy at birth 1999under-5 mortality rate 1999infant mortality rate (<1 year) 1999% of children (1995-00) still breastfeeding 20-23 months% of children (1995-00) exclusively breastfed 0-3 months% of under-fives (1995-2000) suffering from moderate and severe: underweight

wasting stunting

Angola

12.53.4

220 924 335

7

34x 18 48 48

295 172 49 12

42 6

53

Congo

50.33.3

110x

1423 126

2

18 14 46 52

207 128 64 32

34 10 45

Malawi

10.61.5

190 33

434 20

5x 23 47 40

211 132 68

! 11

30 7

48

Mozambique

19.33.4

230 41

1039 30

35x 20 43 42

203 127 58 38

26 8

36

Tanzania

32.82.8

240 24

998 14

16x 15 41 48

141 90

- 41

27 6

42

Zambia

9.02.4

362 64

349 11

4 20 42 41

202 112 39

! 11

24 4

42

world

5961.71.4

4884 19

39728 1

9 9

22 64 82 57 51 44

28 10 32

1Both publications (2001 and 2004) appeared as usual under the title The state of the world’s children.2GNP: Gross national product is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers, plus any taxes that are not included in the valuation of output, plus net receipts of primary income fromnon-resident sources. GNP per capita is the gross national product, converted to United States dollars using the World Bank Atlas method, divided by the mid-year population.x indicates data that refer to years or periods other than those specified in the column heading, differ from the standard definition, or refer to only part of a country.

8

DAVID LIVINGSTONE CHRONOLOGY(Summarized from J. Desmond Clark and G. Clay (1973), 88-97)

1813

1836-1840

1840

1841

1842

1843

1844

1845

1846-1847

1848

1849

1850

1851

1852

1853

1854

1855

1856

1857

1858

1859

1860

1861

1862

1863

1864

1865

1866

1867

1868

1869

1870

1871

1872

1873

born in Blantyre, Scotland, 19 March.

medical study (Glasgow, London), accepted as missionary by the L.M.S.

ordained missionary; sailed for Cape Town.

arrived at the Cape (8 Dec.); at Kuruman; first journey among the Bechuana.

second journey among the Bechuana.

met Sechele, chief of the Kwena; established a mission at Mabotsa.

mauled by a lion, with as after-effect a false joint of the left upper arm.

married Mary Moffat; left Mabotsa to found a mission at Chonwane.

two journeys among the eastern Bechuana; moved the mission to Kolobeng.

Sechele baptised, and suspended (1849).

exploration of Lake Ngami.

unsuccessful attempt to reach Sebetwane, chief of the Kololo.

again, now with family and Oswell to Sebetwane, reached the Zambesi.

Mary Livingstone and children sent to England; DL reached Kuruman

and set out to visit Sekeletu, the new chief of the Kololo.

arrived at Linyanti, the Kololo capital; to the Barotse valley; to Luanda.

arrival at Luanda; departed for Linyanti.

returned to Lynianti, left for Quelimane: visit to the Victoria Falls.

reached Quelimane; sailed for England; return to England 9 December.

publication of Missionary travels; Cambridge lecture.

appointed H.M. consul; arrival of the Zambesi Expedition at the Zambesi delta;

inspection of the Cabora Bassa waterfall.

three Shire explorations: January, April, August; exploration of Lake Malawi.

met Sekeletu in Sesheke; return journey to Tete.

arrival of the Universities’ Mission: first attempt to explore the Ruvuma

river; mission party settled at Magomero; second exploration of Lake Malawi.

arrival of Mary Livingstone and additional mission party; death of bishop

Mackenzie; death of Mary; second exploration of the Ruvuma river.

return to the Zambesi; exploration of Lake Malawi area; expedition recalled.

sailed to Bombay; arrived in London; address concerning the slave trade.

publication of Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi; sailed for Africa.

arrived at Zanzibar; reached Lake Malawi; false report of his death reached Zanzibar;

crossed the Luangwa valley.

reached south end of Lake Tanganyika; exploration of Lake Mweru.

exploration of Lake Bangweulu; joined party of Arabs.

reached Ujiji; set out to explore Maniema and the Lualaba river.

returned to Bambarre; remained ill for six months.

left Bambarre to explore the Lualaba river; reached Nyangwe on the Lualaba,

‘Nyangwe massacre’; began return journey and reched Ujiji; met by H.M. Stanley;

set out for Unyanyembe with Stanley.

parted with Stanley; left Unyanyembe.

approached Lake Bangweulu; died in Chitambo’s village on 28 April.

1Rhodes, Cecil John (1853-1903), British colonialist, financier and politician.

9

PART I: AFRICA’S PAST: SURPRISING NEW ASPECTS (abridged pages 11-13)

This story deals with health and nutrition in an area of Africa I shall call ‘Livingstone’s tropical Africa’.Many are under the impression that sickness and hunger were always characteristic for the continent, andthat the images reaching us via the media are also true for the period before 1880. This would mean thatthere is an unbroken course of events in Africa from the past to the present, marked by disaster and onlyinterrupted by a period of regulation - the colonization - which was doomed to failure, because the whitesproved unable to transmit their culture to the inhabitants of the continent. From this point of view thecolonial ‘peace and order’ was only temporary and the training for self-government too short. This shouldexplain, one assumes, the continued ‘under-development’, or the ‘relapse’ into primitiveness once thecolonizers had left.

If disease and hunger - and poverty, wars and famine - are not typical of the past of the continent, andwe shall find indications of this, then there can be no question of ever present ‘under-development’. Ifanything, it is a case of disruption in the development of the people of tropical Africa, and it must bedetermined since when that is so. Here ‘development’ denotes a society which is able to keep its membershealthy and well fed. If this applies in general to pre-colonial tropical Africa, then it could encourage theindigenous inhabitants of today who try by all means to do this.

Merrie or primitive? It seems that the (extreme) ‘merrie Africa approach, which sees stable pre-colonialcommunities as having lived in harmony with nature before suffering depopulation, ecological disastersand economic exploitation under colonial rule’ has come off second best versus the equally extreme‘primitive Africa approach, which depicts pre-colonial [Africans] as having inhabited a hostile environmentin perilous proximity to famine, epidemic and demographic reversals before achieving somewhat greatersecurity in the colonial period’. According to the last opinion, the distant past cannot have looked verydifferent from the present. It will have been known even then for its inherent infant mortality, povertyand low life expectance.

Observations from the pre-colonial era give us reasons to believe that the continent at that timediffered from the ‘primitive’ sketch, and that the opinion that colonization was a well-meant butunsuccessful attempt to tame and develop a wild native population, was far from the truth.

The year 1880 has been - quite arbitrarily - chosen as the beginning of the colonization of Africa. Atthat moment whole stretches of the coast, extending land inwards sometimes hundreds of miles, hadalready been put under foreign jurisdiction: think about the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique, butalso about the slaves released in the New World who set about ‘ruling the natives’ of Liberia, Sierra Leone(Freetown) and Gabon (Libreville). Elsewhere the foreigners (Europeans, Arabs) had limited themselves toconstructing fortified settlements on a small coastal strip, from which they could ply their trade in -especially - slaves and ivory. In the second half of the nineteenth century the Europeans began to enlargetheir sphere of influence. They sent expeditions, often following in the footsteps of explorers,missionaries and traders. The Belgians arrived as newcomers. During the Berlin conference in 1884-1885Africa was ‘divided’ between a number of European powers, whereby the borders were drawn straightthrough existing indigenous structures, and formerly independent communities were placed under westernrule. The results still dictate the politics in African states today.

Livingstone in Africa. The first line of part I resembles a collection of illogicalities. The terms ‘health’ and‘nutrition’ appear where one would expect ‘disease’ and ‘hunger’, and ‘Livingstone’s tropical Africa’ doesnot exist. It could be that some people on the continent remember the white explorer with respect; othersregard him as the forerunner of imperialists1 like Cecil Rhodes. His adage ‘Christianity and commerce’was to lead ultimately to the pacification and colonization he wished for, and inclusion in the westerntrading system. He could not fully envisage the result, the serious disruption of the native communitieswhich continued after the independence of the colonies. ‘Livingstone’s tropical Africa’ is thus a randomterm: it only shows on the map points where ‘The Doctor’ stayed, in Botswana, the Caprivi strip,Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania and Congo (Kinshasa), joined by linesindicating his journeys. The emphasis lies on the six latter countries. It is ultimately all about the

1In Europe most infectious diseases had entirely or practically disappeared as a result of a number of attainments, longbefore effective remedies had been found: improved nutrition, hygienic measures and better housing. 2She clearly meant mal nutrition, improper food, and not the specific disorder ‘malnutrition’ among children under 5.

chapter 1 (abridged), page 10

extraordinary and extensive information he furnished about the health and the nutrition of the inhabitantsof these areas.

For whom is the gathered information of importance? It seems logical that western readers should formthe most important group, in the hope that they get a picture of the healthy, well-fed people in these sixcountries before colonization. But the inhabitants of the continent are an equally important readingpublic, whether they are, or are not, aware of their own past. Their ancestors’ oral history might well tellthe same story as is told in part III of this book, thus correcting the misconceptions about ‘under-development’. At the same time it might stimulate the study of how the old systems and methods couldbe adapted for use today. This is only possible if one distances oneself from a number of achievementsof the ‘superior’ European food production (bio-industry) with its damaging side effects.

CHAPTER 1, HEALTH AND NUTRITION IN ‘LIVINGSTONE’S TROPICAL AFRICA’ (abridged pages 14-31).

The majority of my patients in West Africa suffered from infectious diseases1. With children from sixmonths to five years of age, the infections were the result of ‘malnutrition’. The death rate due to thiscombination of malnutrition and infection is high, as much as fifty percent in some areas. In the hospitaleven the most modern medicines did not help without correction of the feeding. Long-term success wasnot ensured: often it appeared later that the child had died at home, for food and hygiene there were stillinsufficient.

My native informants told me it had always been so; the few whites in the area blamed it on ‘under-development’. A colonial scientist wrote in 1939 about ‘the extremely wide prevalence of malnutrition2;according to her insufficient diets ‘existed for centuries’. A medical expert explained in 1979 that there hadalways been serious ‘inadequacies of diet, especially of protein’ in Africa, resulting in an ‘appalling childmortality’, which ‘has contributed so strikingly in the past to the low density of the population’. Thepaediatrician Cecily Williams considered the often fatal ‘malnutrition’ in the Gold Coast in the nineteen-thirties a new disease among under-fives. (It is here used in inverted commas for the necessary distinction,because the old term only meant ‘bad food’.) Her ‘fundamental characteristics of the syndrome’ were:‘retardation of growth, changes of hair and skin, edema (fluid in legs and abdomen), disorders of the liver,a heavy mortality if not or incorrectly treated, gastrointestinal disorders and a protruding abdomen.

But it was not a new disease: during the Industrial Revolution (18th and 19th centuries in Europe andthe U.S.A.) the same symptoms were described as an ‘artificial disease, totally occasioned by improper food’.Many babies had been taken off the breast too soon, in the Western world because the mother had towork, e.g. as a wet-nurse, or - as now in Africa - because of a new pregnancy. They then were (in Africa:are) incorrectly weaned, with cheap meal (mainly starch and water, lacking essential proteins and otherfood elements), dissolved in unreliable drinking water, which led to often fatal diarrhoea. Europeandoctors who travelled in pre-colonial tropical Africa were able to recognize this ‘disease’, for it was thesame affliction. Their knowledge of the attendant diseases, mainly infections, was - certainly in thenineteenth century - well developed as is to be found in their textbooks.

Malnutrition. Why did this ‘new disease’ appear in tropical Africa just at the beginning of the twentiethcentury? Cecily Williams’ explanation in 1962 was: ‘maldistribution of wealth, under-development,improvidence’, together with civil disorder, poverty, ignorance and other evils (as increasing labourdemands for women). Were these new in Africa? Or had African men and women never been able toprovide their children with sufficiently nutritious food?

In 1974 I left for tropical Africa once more to find an answer to my questions. Only after my returnhome did I realize that I had taken the statement that Africans had probably had too little to eat ‘forcenturies’ too lightly: the answer was to be found in travel books. For instance, the French traveller Paul

1‘The pill’, if available, was too expensive; if used by lactating mothers the milk might dry up. 2The meaning of this ‘precise’ percentage is undermined by the observation of M.E. Wilson that there is, especially inAfrica, an ‘oft lamented absence of reliable statistics’. Well-founded research shows that the number of children with‘malnutrition’ is increasing. 3‘Fever’ was well known because everywhere in Europe the mild form of malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax was prevalent.The dangerous African variety is caused by P. falciparum.4The indigenous population is semi-immune to the malaria parasite: it is called semi-immunity, because it is only maintainedby being regularly infected, contrary to e.g. scarlet fever, where immunity is preserved once the germs have disappearedafter recovery.


Belloni du Chaillu (1863) praised the wonderful gardens of the natives of Gabon. They cultivated a widespectrum of crops and made a healthy, well-fed impression. Should this be confirmed by others, it couldbe assumed that African women and men were once able to provide their children with enough nutritiousfood: prolonged breastfeeding, sufficient supplementary feeding, the right weaning food, while thefollowing pregnancy was delayed long enough for the baby to be able to go without breast-milk. Now,however, the mothers want more children and their husbands are opposed to any form of contraception1.

As regards the colonial past and the post-colonial present, there were and are reasons for Africanwomen to reduce breast feeding in frequency and duration, with as undesirable result a new ovulationand thus a new pregnancy: increasing labour demands through, among other things, the emigration ofmen, and heavy working conditions. Reduction of kitchen gardens became necessary and ‘easy’ plants likecassava ousted ‘difficult’ crops (grains etc.). Now in tropical Africa four million children die from‘malnutrition’ each and every year. At present it is assumed that in the countries of ‘Livingstone’s tropicalAfrica’ of 2002, 20% of all babies born alive die before their fifth birthday, from ‘malnutrition’ andinfection2.

In all publications of European doctors (and other travellers) in tropical Africa before 1880 only a fewstray symptoms were found in some children, especially under circumstances which could have put thefood supply in jeopardy: climatic catastrophes, marauding expeditions by slave-traders, indigenous wars(called indeed ‘their little wars’ by Livingstone) and other disruptions. If ‘malnutrition’ played a greaterrole than appears from these publications, then circumstantial evidence had to be found in the sameliterature: insufficient food supplies, illness and high death rates, with famines and poverty as conditionalfactors. But these evils were exceptions, as part III will show.

Because he has provided such unique material on health and nutrition, David Livingstone is put inthe limelight. The limited period of his observations, from 1853 to 1873, is compensated for by the factthat the others, Bastian, Brun, Buchner, Christie, Coillard, Holub, Kirk and Meller gave their impressionsin the time between 1624 and 1880. However, with our central figure the Trojan horse was brought in:he was not only explorer, missionary and doctor, but also propagandist for ‘Christianity, commerce andcivilization’, agitator for pacification and colonization, and more. How did these ‘aspects’ of him affecthis dependability as source of information, or rather: how valuable is his story? Therefore we followLivingstone through Missionary travels and Narrative of an expedition to the Zambesi twice: part II presentsevents which influence Livingstone’s usability as source of general information and part III, the parallelversion on his travels show his observations in the field of health and food.

‘Fever’. This featured largely in the reports of travellers before 1880, because many whites died of it,including members (and doctors) of expeditions. Natives caught ‘fever’ too, only they seldom died fromit. No one knew that it was caused by the malaria parasite3, and the relation with mosquitoes was not evenguessed at. When one spoke of malaria, not ‘fever’, but mal aria or ‘bad air’ was meant. Malaria has nowbecome a much greater killer among Africans than before: ‘the resurgence of malaria has put a sizableportion of the world’s population at risk’.

Without prompt and correct treatment malaria can be fatal, certainly for non-immune people4.Originally quinine was not used on European expeditions, or in inadequate doses; only after 1841 a strictregime was followed. Many bacterial, viral and parasitic infections can cause a malaria-like fever. ‘Fever’was not always malaria.

The correlation between health and nutrition. The definition for health used here is: ‘health is the conditionwhich allows an optimal development of the individual in physical, intellectual and emotional respect, as

1An epidemic is an explosion of an infectious disease which was not endemic or against which resistance has decreased (e.g.as a result of war, hunger, and other disturbances). By the way: death during the Great Pestilence (the plague) in England wasaccording to Shrewsbury not more than 5%.


long as this is compatible with other individuals’. There remain uncertainties with all definitions of health.Nutrition means both the food as well the ingesting of it, and food is defined as ‘that which can be

used as nourishment’ but is in practice everything which produces energy for all human processes. I thinkthis description is good enough. The importance of food in the prevention of sickness will be foundunder resistance.

As more Africans changed over gradually from hunting and gathering to farming, a more labourintensive occupation that called for more people per community, they became more vulnerable. The menucomponents changed. Hunter-gatherers live on meat and on everything edible to be found. Farmersmanage with plants mainly (grain and vegetables; and products of gathering in the wild). Where possiblethey supplement this with animal products from nature, and by bartering their farm products withhunters, fishermen and cattle breeders. Certainly with disappointing harvests, edible substances can becollected, but if the total amount available is insufficient, hunger threatens and therefore sickness(especially infections).

Normally each individual comes in contact with micro-organisms, usual for his surroundings, in earlyyouth. As reaction to this, the body defends itself against infiltrating micro-organisms. The patientbecomes immune to that specific infection. Formerly, as soon as all the members of the (small) groupwere immune, the sickness disappeared. In larger communities infections ‘survive’, partly due to ‘defectivehygiene and crowding’ and because they continually come across non-immune individuals. Diseasesspread by insects (e.g. malaria, sleeping sickness) are less prevalent in small than in large communities,because there the chance for an insect to contact an infected individual is limited.

Most, if not all, diseases originate in animals (zoonoses). Man is a relatively late arrival. Once hestarted living with animals and eating their meat, he risked infection by their germs, also those to whichthe animals were immune. The same happened when he began domesticating animals.

‘Resistance’. This notion plays a role in answering the questions: how does one remain healthy, what makesa person sick and how does he recover? Too simply put, micro-organisms lead to infections, derailed cellsto cancer, degeneration to ‘wear’, but this does not explain why not all people, classmates, co-workers andfamily members, get the same disease in similar circumstances. When epidemics raged in Europe, arelatively low percentage of people died1. An acceptable explanation lies, I think, in the existence of anindividual factor which decides whether the person concerned is capable of resisting all sorts of ‘disease-producing agents’. The layman’s word ‘resistance’ lends itself well for this, when defined as the ability todefend. If the resistance is optimal, so is the health; should resistance weaken then the successivegradations follow: (vague) complaints, passing sickness, permanent sickness, defects which could provefatal, and should resistance fail - death.

Only like this can one imagine why one becomes ill and the other not. Then it is not the micro-organism, the uncurbed cell or the degeneration which is responsible for the outbreak of the disease, butthe reduced resistance. By using the term ‘resistance’ sickness in general and the high death rate amongchildren in tropical Africa in particular, can be seen in a different perspective: everything which reducesresistance has a negative effect on health. The innate defence system cannot work as required. Topreserve resistance, a certain (not yet specified) amount of energy is necessary. Food shortages, war,accidents, despotic governments (all these kinds of factors, also interrelated) cause people (and the smallchild indirectly through the parents) to feel powerless. Powerlessness saps energy, for food shortagesprevent the supply of energy, while continually nagging worries consume a lot of energy.

Let us compare the notion resistance with another metaphor, defence. This term proved to be vague norphilosophical, nor just nonsense, but a theoretically usable concept. Antibodies (defence mechanisms)were only demonstrable much later; now they can be made visible. ‘Defence’ against all sorts of(micro)organisms became understood. A fundamental answer to the question of why one person candefend himself against a certain disorder and the other not is not covered by this concept. One can saythat not enough antibodies are made because resistance is lowered. New investigations suggest thatresistance will eventually be measurable.

1But visitors to the early colonized African, particularly coastal, areas however, were confronted with many sick andunderfed natives.


In general a patient recovers ‘spontaneously’. If it did not work like this, man would have died out atan early stage, as there were few effective medicines known, and the more successful medical and surgicalinterventions date from the twentieth century. We must regard resistance as ‘indivisible’, just like health.The division between ‘physical’ and ‘mental’ health is artificial and the same applies to resistance.

From investigations by the demographer McKeown it is apparent how important nourishment is. Hehas demonstrated that the remarkable reduction in deaths among the population of England and Walesin the eighteenth and nineteenth century was mainly due to improved nutrition, due to the gradualimprovement of the economic situation, and only in the second place to measures like hygiene and betterhousing. Particularly infant and child mortality fell, also through the continuance of breastfeeding andthe improvement of supplementary and weaning foods. The most usual cause of death, infections, becameless significant: formerly they were responsible for 75% of deaths, now only 1%. People in the westernworld still die, but on average thirty-five to forty years later than they did a century and a half ago. Lackof quality food plays the principal role in causing and prolonging many of the diseases in tropical Africa.

It has been mentioned that pre-colonial visitors to the interior of tropical Africa were, on the whole,suitably impressed with the state of the people’s health and nutrition1. Therefore, with my knowledge ofwhat part III discloses, the earlier questions about the African past (particularly: must one assume thatAfrican men and women have never been able to provide their children with sufficiently nutritious food?)will be replaced by assumptions that before 1880

1. the population was generally considered healthy and well-fed;2. frequent and lengthy breast feeding (and possibly sexual abstinence) resulted in birth spacing and thereby protection of the last-born child from ‘malnutrition’, for years;3. the commonly reported poverty, famine and wars were of limited magnitude, certainly compared with the time after 1880.


PART II: DAVID LIVINGSTONE IN TROPICAL AFRICA (abridged page 32)

The following two chapters give a sketch of David Livingstone, based on the books Missionary travels andresearches (1857) and Narrative of an expedition to the Zambesi (1865). A sketch; it is purposely not called areview of his life, for its aim is to help in judging the usability of his information, and that demanded anapproach different from the biographic.

While reading one realizes that Livingstone seldom stayed long in one place; this was also true duringhis time as missionary in South Africa. His reports are those of a passing traveller, albeit a remarkableone: a man with many interests. One wonders if one man can give reliable information on such diversesubjects, now all covered by specialists. Also whether he was capable of making a clear judgement nowthat he - in order to ban slavery - coupled the future of the continent with Christianity and (‘western’)civilization and trade.

The first book is undeniably the most enthralling and interesting, especially due to the description ofhis travels from South Africa to Linyanti (in the present Caprivi strip) and from there to Luanda in Angolaand back, and from Linyanti to Quelimane in Mozambique (1853-1856). Chapter 2 deals specifically withthe period between 1841 and 1856.

Chapter 3 deals with Livingstone’s Zambesi expedition in what is now Mozambique, Malawi andZambia, between 1858 and 1864. This story caused less excitement when published. Although importantobservations can be distilled from it, the text is overshadowed by ‘political’ issues: explorationcommissioned by the British government, permanent criticism of the Portuguese and the Arabs, and theplan ‘to bring before my countrymen, and all others interested in the cause of humanity, the miseryentailed by the slave-trade in its inland phases’.

Chapter 4 concludes this section and goes into whether Livingstone can be regarded as a reliablesource of general information. The comments at the end of the summaries of chapter 2 and 3, based upondifferences between his books and his journals and letters, already make us doubt his reliability. The vastamount of secondary material about Livingstone has been used (selectively) to verify whether this doubtis reasonable, and also to explain the background of his ‘inaccuracies, distortions and omissions’. Waller’sThe last journals of David Livingstone in central Africa from 1865 to his death (in 1873) is not dealt with in partII as it is a mutilated version of his notebooks (his ‘field diaries’ were not even used) and other material.

CHAPTER 2, MISSIONA RY TRAVELS AND RESEARCHES (abridged pages 33-69).David Livingstone (1813-1873) was born in Blantyre, Lanarkshire. As a factory worker he financed his(own) medical study at Anderson’s college (University of Glasgow), where he graduated in November1840. Once ordained a missionary, he was sent by the London Missionary Society to South Africa. Therehe travelled from Cape Town in May 1841 to the most northerly post of the L.M.S., Kuruman inBechuanaland, the residence of Dr. Robert Moffat, the head of the mission, who was still in England.

Livingstone made many journeys while staying in Bechuanaland. In 1843 he set up his mission stationin Mabotsa, together with ‘another missionary’ about whom nothing more was said (for parts of sentences put initalics, see ‘comments’ at the end of the summary). In 1844 he married Mary, eldest daughter of RobertMoffat. In 1846 they settled in Chonwane, the capital of the Kwena chief Sechele and then in 1847 inKolobeng. In 1848 Sechele was christened, but as he had several wives, his ‘redundant wives’ had toleave. No more was heard of this conversion.

Livingstone did not stay with the Kwena, having determined that his primary duty was to explore andopen up the country to the north, to spread ‘Christianity and commerce’, so that Africans would to beencouraged to produce raw materials which could be exchanged for European products instead of usingslaves as barter. The explanation to Sechele was that he wanted to avoid the Boers, most of whom he disliked:they ‘had become degraded as the blacks’, and then went on to explore the north (Lake Ngami and the landof the Kololo). In 1849 he reached the lake, accompanied by ‘two English gentlemen’, one of whom,W.C. Oswell, ‘undertook to defray the entire expense’. One year later a journey without Oswell to thechief of the Kololo, Sebetwane, fell through, but he succeeded the next year, with Oswell. Sebetwane diedshortly after his arrival.

In 1852, having sent his family to England, Livingstone again travelled to the Kololo, where he arrived

1The new factories in North America did not need slaves anymore, but free labour.


in 1853. ‘The Directors of the London Missionary Society signified their cordial approval of my project’. The new chief,Sekeletu, received him cordially, and when told that Livingstone wanted to open a trade route (a ‘highway’)to Luanda for the Kololo, appointed 27 men to escort Livingstone and made provisions for the suppliesin areas under his and friendly chiefs’ aegis. Thus initially he met no problems in Lunda country: thechiefs Shinte and Katema helped him in every way, but after he had crossed the Kasai river other Lundachiefs made him pay for everything. Livingstone suffered incessantly from fever (with all the symptomsof malaria) and his Kololo became mutinous, but he restored discipline and led them to the safe area ofthe Portuguese colony Angola. Having once arrived there, all his worries were over. The Portugueseprovided shelter, food and clothing. He was one and all praise. Still seriously ill, Livingstone reached Luandaon 31 May 1854, where he were hospitably welcomed by Mr Gabriel, the English commissioner for thesuppression of the slave-trade.

They left the colony on 5 March 1855. Although Livingstone had to fend off hostile Lunda, theyreached Katema and Shinte unscathed, and at the end of July they were back in the land of the Kololo.Livingstone gave an account of their adventures and proposed ‘opening’ another highway, now to the eastcoast. Again Sekeletu equipped him, and now he appointed 114 men as escorts.

First they visited the waterfall Shongwe, re-named ‘Victoria Falls’ by Livingstone. Then they left theZambesi river, passed through the country of the Tonga and reached the river again at the western borderof the Portuguese colony Mozambique, in January 1856. Later, in Tete Livingstone heard that becauseof the short-cut, he had not seen a waterfall in the Zambesi, called ‘Kebrabassa’ (Cabora Bassa), which heassumed was a small rapid. Major Sicard, the commandant of Tete, helped Livingstone in every way. Theyarranged that the Kololo were given land on which to cultivate their own food and were allowed to huntwhile Livingstone paid a visit to England. He stayed at the island Mauritius until he was fully recoveredfrom the consequences of the fever, and was back in England in December 1856, a famous man.

Comments (chapter 2).Comparison of Livingstone’s Missionary travels, an extraordinary and many-sided story, with his journalsand letters makes clear that in the book several ‘inaccuracies, distortions and omissions’ can be found.Whether they undermine the importance of Livingstone as a source of information will be considered inchapter four. The most notable ones (put in italics in the text above) follow here:1. ‘Another missionary’ was Rogers Edwards. He led Livingstone to Mabotsa: it had long been his wish toestablish a mission station there. Indeed land was purchased and building was started, but Livingstone’sarticle in a magazine did not mention Edwards. This resulted in extended rows between them andanonymity for Edwards.2. No more was heard of Sechele’s conversion. Chief Sechele had several wives, but he was allowed to keeponly one. But when within six months it appeared that he had made one of his rejected wives pregnant,Livingstone expelled him. The fact was omitted from the book (but is to be found in his diary). Sechelestayed Livingstone’s only convert.3. The purpose of ‘Christianity and commerce’ was, that Africans - after the abolition of slavery and slave-trade - would to be encouraged to produce raw materials, to be exchanged for European products, insteadof using slaves as barter. He knew that Arabs, Portuguese, and Africans purchased chiefly for ‘internal’(domestic) purposes. On the one hand he repeated the stereotypes of the transatlantic slave-trade in thepast1, and on the other hand he condoned both the trade in and the position of internal ‘slaves’, but ‘manyof them seemed to live and work just as their so-called masters did and whites and often other Africans,could not tell them apart’.4.Livingstone wanted to avoid the Boers, understandable because he had attacked them for being slave-holders (whites, including the English, took young people on as ‘apprentice’) and had sold guns to theKwena, which was forbidden by law (he denied, but in a letter one can read: they ‘would never haveenjoyed the gospel but for the firearms’, which is exactly the opposite of what he told the press). 5. To explore the north was the real reason , and not only the north: discovery - by him alone - was animportant issue since his youth. He went with Oswell to Lake Ngami, but quickly sent the report toEngland. He tried to reach Sebetwane first (alone) and failed. Livingstone now took the dangerous route


through the Kalahari: ‘we require to go in to the North soon (a trading party might ‘forestall us’) andwhen that succeeded: ‘God seemed kindly to reserve the honour of reaching [Sebetwane and the Zambesi]first for us’. That Portuguese traders had been there earlier than he was of no importance; he was the firstwhite man to discover the Zambesi; they were ‘half-castes’ and ‘slave-traders’.6. ‘The Directors of the London Missionary Society signified their cordial approval of my project’. This proved true afterhe had sent his wife and children to England and after he had left for the Kololo. ‘I will go, no matterwho opposes’. In 1856 he took steps to get a government assignment, but informed the directors of theL.M.S. only one year later. When the missionaries arrived in Linyanti in 1860 he was not there.7. All the time Livingstone remained alert for new ‘highways’. The one to Luanda was no success, and hedid not see the Cabora Bassa falls before 1858, when he had to admit that the Zambesi downstream wasno ‘highway’ either.8. The Portuguese provided shelter, food and clothing. He was one and all praise. His friendly judgementof them changes into ever stronger attacks later in the book. The Portuguese in Angola and Mozambiquewere upbraided later in books and articles, and did not like it.9. He had not seen a waterfall in the Zambesi, called ‘Kebrabassa’ (Cabora Bassa), which he assumed wasa small rapid, but see chapter 3.10. He was back in England in December 1856, a famous man. His speech at ‘the Senate House’ inCambridge was an unequivocal success. It led to the organization of the Universities’ Mission to CentralAfrica (U.M.C.A.) (Chapter 3). For him priorities had changed: ‘I go back to Africa to try to make an openpath for commerce and Christianity’, as leader of a government expedition to the eastern Zambesi. This‘open path’ was meant for the missionaries of the L.M.S. and the U.M.C.A.: they would be responsiblefor the execution of trade and conversion. He terminated his years of service for the London MissionarySociety on 27 October 1857, after the discussions about establishing a mission station among the Kololo.

CHAPTER 3, NARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION (abridged pages 70-108).David Livingstone arrived off the Zambesi delta in May 1858. ‘Dr Kirk, Mr. Charles Livingstone, Mr. R.Thornton, and others composed [the Expedition]’. The sections of their paddle-steamer ‘Ma-Robert’ wereput together and the ship went upstream to Tete, where the Kololo gave ‘the Doctor’ an enthusiasticwelcome, but the fact that the authorities had not supported them, was reason for Livingstone to criticizethe Portuguese anew. In the meantime a nameless naval officer on board ‘failed to answer the expectations’ andhad to ‘resign’ owing to disagreements with David Livingstone.

It was reported there was a dangerous rapid in the Zambesi upstream. After a perilous climb they sawthe largest waterfall, Cabora Bassa, a ‘channel’ with high rock faces less than fifty yards apart. Even ‘a moresuitable vessel’ could not master the rapids, so Livingstone had to accept that here was no ‘highway’.Without transport over water no mission post could be founded on the Tonga highlands in the west.

In 1859 they made exploratory voyages on the river Shire; in vain chief Tengani tried to bar Livingstone’svoyage over the river. Slave-traders followed him now the river was ‘opened’. Yet the expedition membershad to make propaganda for the cultivation of cotton for the international market. The next time‘amicable relations’ were begun with chief Chibisa. Then they went on to Lake Malawi and returned tothe delta, where the ‘Ma-Robert’, leaking, was provisionally repaired.

In 1860 the two Livingstones and Dr Kirk started their journey to Sekeletu to bring the Kololo back.Many deserted. On reaching the chief they found that he was ill with leprosy. The recently arrivedmissionaries of the L.M.S. Mission to the Kololo had been given no help. Five of the nine missionaries andfour of their thirteen native attendants had succumbed to the fever; the survivors had already retired.Having failed to sail to the Cabora Bassa waterfall, they went on foot to Tette ‘having been absent a littleover six months’.

In January 1861 the new expedition steamer, the ‘Pioneer’, arrived and two cruisers brought BishopMackenzie and his missionaries of the Universities’ Mission (U.M.C.A.). After an unsuccessful trip to theRuvuma river they re-entered the Zambesi delta and passed up to the Shire. On the highlands theyencountered several slave parties. Fighting with a band of Yao slave raiders ensued. Slaves were liberatedand taken up by the missionaries, who settled at Magomero. The expedition members went on footaround the Shire cataracts and sailed into Lake Malawi. Then they returned to the ‘Pioneer’, got stranded


on the Shire, and reached the Zambesi delta two months later. In January 1862 they met a warship at thecoast, with Mrs Livingstone, Miss Mackenzie, and new members of the mission on board, and the partsof a ship (which David Livingstone had ordered privately), the ‘Lady Nyassa’. He wanted to have the shipstationed on Lake Malawi, to be used for trading ivory to undercut the slave-trade. When they arrived atChibisa’s village, it appeared that the bishop had died, of ‘fever’.

In April David Livingstone and his wife left for Shupanga on the Zambesi, where Mary died of feveron the 27th. Eight weeks later the ‘Lady Nyassa’, partly assembled, was launched. She was towed up theShire by the ‘Pioneer’ six months later. Slave raiders had demolished several villages along the river andmany dead bodies were seen. On arrival at the cataracts the ‘Lady Nyassa’ was unscrewed and the partybegan to make a road by which to transport the pieces over the forty miles round the falls. But neithernative labour nor supplies were obtained, dysentery attacked the party, and Charles Livingstone wasordered home, followed by Kirk who first had to attend the sick David Livingstone. On returning to the‘Pioneer’ (July 1863) a despatch from the Foreign Secretary arrived, ordering the withdrawal of theexpedition. As the water was too low for the ships to return, Livingstone organized a little expedition to theshores of Lake Malawi, and westward along the route to Central Africa. But then he had to retrace his stepsand regained the ‘Pioneer’ on 1 November. The river, however, did not rise till 19 January 1864. Theremaining members of the Universities’ Mission were picked up, and on 15 February the mouth of theZambesi was reached. The ‘Pioneer’ returned to Cape Town and Livingstone took the re-assembled Lady Nyassato Bombay, where he arrived on 13 June. He arrived in England on 23 July 1864.

Comments (Chapter 3).The record of the Zambesi expedition was written, according to the title page, by David and CharlesLivingstone. There is no indication as to who made which contribution, but the philippic against thePortuguese, the hatred expressed of unnamed people, and the omission of names are characteristic ofDavid. The same applies to certain descriptions of nature, geological and physical geographicalexpositions and reports about game, hunting, agriculture, fishing, chiefs, et cetera.

Comparisons between the Narrative and David Livingstone’s writings of that time (published muchlater) are difficult to make. It is difficult to judge the original book when well-edited and annotatedpublications of diaries and letters are almost lacking for comparison. Still several ‘inaccuracies, distortionsand omissions’ have been found. The most notable ones follow here:1. Dr Kirk, Mr. Charles Livingstone, Mr. R. Thornton and others composed the expedition. Indeed (apartfrom ship’s mechanic, George Rae), naval commander Norman Bedingfeld, expedition painter ThomasBaines and the majority of African personnel were never mentioned by name in the record.2. Livingstone criticized the Portuguese anew. The repeated attacks on them are really too much of a goodthing, and they - having heard of Livingstone’s negative opinion - had not much reason to co-operate.They even questioned his discoveries. Thus they got the blame for everything that went wrong.3. Commander Bedingfeld ‘failed to answer the expectations’ and had to ‘resign’ and more dismissals followed:Baines, Thornton, and several others, because they also failed, according to David Livingstone in hisdiary. Bedingfeld, for instance, meant that he was in command of the ship; Baines and Thornton weresupposed to be lazy.4. They saw the largest waterfall, Cabora Bassa, which was an absolutely unnavigable obstruction. It is notclear why Livingstone had not, as usual, estimated the height on certain points along the Zambesi. Thedifference in height between Zumbo, where he left the river in 1856 and Tete, where he joined it again,is 180 metres, only to be explained by the presence of a waterfall; he only noticed his mistake in 1858.As the river was no highway to the healthy Tonga plateau, another place had to be found for the missionposts of the L.M.S. and the U.M.C.A..5. In vain chief Tengani tried to bar Livingstone’s voyage over the river. While Livingstone knew that this was doneto keep slave-traders out of the area upstream, the opening of this ‘highway’ seemed to him the onlychance to establish the new mission post of the U.M.C.A., for ‘Christianity and commerce’, as the Tongaplateau was out of the question. But once the Tengani barrier proved surmountable, the slave-traderssoon arrived, which resulted in the radical disruption of the entire Shire area. 6. David Livingstone could have foreseen the fate of the L.M.S. Mission to the Kololo: contrary to the Tongaplateau ‘fever’ was rampant here and he knew this area was therefore dangerous for white people. He did


not, however, tell this to the L.M.S. directors, nor did he suggest what medicines should be given to themissionaries as prevention and as treatment. The directors, erroneously, expected him to be at Linyantithe moment the missionaries arrived. The chief’s expectations were the same: he and his father hadoffered a place for the mission, to ‘The Doctor’ and his wife and to them alone (and not to any othermissionary). Livingstone had never decisively said no, but neither did he consider complying. 7. The unsuccessful trip to the Ruvuma river was made because Livingstone wanted to enter the Lake Malawiregion without having to pass the Portuguese authorities and he was also afraid that the provisions forthe U.M.C.A. (but especially for the wished-for colonists) could not reach the country over the Zambesiand the Shire rivers in the future.8. It appeared that the bishop had died, of ‘fever’: Bishop Mackenzie, leader of the U.M.C.A. had travelled byboat to the Shire-Ruo confluence to meet the ‘Mission ladies’, but the boat capsized and his luggage,including his medicines, had gone. Livingstone believed that the Upper Shire Valley was very healthy, andthat fever there ‘just resembled a cold’. He also was of the opinion that the bishop’s quinine was inferior,but he had not given instructions where (in England) it had to be purchased. Five of the seven U.M.C.A.missionaries died within 2 years, of a fever that was undoubtedly malaria. In 1863 the mission wasevacuated to Zanzibar. The new bishop had left de remaining widows and orphans at the desertedmission post.9. Livingstone organized a little expedition to the shores of Lake Malawi . The story of this ‘little expedition’reminds one of ‘Missionary travels’, as does the report of the journey to Sekeletu (1860). All worries weretemporarily forgotten and the writer revived. Thus the first episode (10% of the expedition period) takesup 30% of the text of the Narrative, and the second one (6% of the time) 18%. The Expedition to theZambesi must have been a heavy burden to Livingstone, the more as it was self-inflicted: the expectationshe invoked in ‘Missionary travels’ were too high.10. Livingstone took the re-assembled Lady Nyassa to Bombay. Even now Livingstone exposed others to greatdanger by sailing to India without knowledge of ocean navigation, on a ship built for rivers and lakes.There was fuel for four days. Instead of eighteen days, the passage took forty-five. He and his crewsuffered from hunger, thirst, sickness and ‘frayed tempers’. ‘No one noticed our arrival’.

CHAPTER 4, WHAT DID LIVINGSTONE REALLY DO AND WHY? (abridged pages 109-129).Many readers will be disconcerted to learn from the preceding ‘comments’, that doubts have risen as tothe credibility of the author of Missionary travels and Narrative of an expedition. If the ‘comments’ invalidatesome of his information, does that also apply to his observations as a professional in medicine and‘natural history’? For an answer to these question we must wait until chapter 8. First it is necessary toexplore the reasons for the discrepancies mentioned in the chapters above.

As said on page 14 the comments at the end of the summaries of chapter 2 and 3 already make usdoubt his reliability. Secondary material about Livingstone has been added as verification and explanation.

Already his autobiographic notes in ‘Missionary travels’ provide an explanation. Belonging to the‘honest poor’, David Livingstone was ‘put into the factory’ at the age of ten, where he worked fourteenhours a day. Yet he went to evening classes, and read everything he ‘could lay hands on’, especially‘scientific works and books of travel’. In his twentieth year he became conscious of strong religiousconvictions. To become ‘a pioneer of Christianity’ as missionary doctor, he studied medicine and ‘naturalhistory’. The holy fire came when he heard the abolitionist Buxton speak about his theory, ‘Christianityand commerce’, in 1840: missions had to be made responsible for encouraging the natives to produce rawmaterials for the (international) market instead of slaves. Livingstone decided to put this theory intopractice and never gave up these ideas, which remained the basis of his ‘mission’. His ‘missionary travelsand researches’ were meant to investigate the possibilities for ‘Christianity and commerce’, so that otherswould take responsibility for the execution.

Livingstone was no success as missionary. Although employed as such between 1841 and 1849, hespent at least a third of the time travelling, exploring. Sechele was Livingstone’s only (temporary) convertand ‘commerce’ was no success either: nothing remained of his purchases on his return in Linyanti in1855. He expected the Kololo, once evangelized, to prompt the conquered tribes to trade and imposetaxes on them, but they did not consider conversion. Even the first journey to the Kololo, in 1851, can


hardly be called a ‘missionary travel’, although Livingstone originally said he was going to settle amongthem. It turned out to be the instigation for the exploration of a ‘highway’ to the coast. Although heexplained Christianity during his journeys, it was not understood: he spoke of (spiritual) peace, but thepeople took him to mean worldly peace. Two mission stations were founded on his advice, but theorganizations concerned were not warned when it proved that there was no ‘highway’ from the placewhere the mission posts had to be established to the coast. He had even minimized the gravity of his‘fever’ attacks.

Many of Livingstone’s ‘inaccuracies, distortions and omissions’ are to be traced back to the fact thathe could not (did not want to) dissociate himself from the mercantile and pseudo-humanitarian doctrinewhich had become his ‘mission’, his article of faith, since 1840. His ideas on the transport and keepingof slaves were based on old stories about the transatlantic slave-trade and the position of slaves inAmerica; the transatlantic slave-trade was way beyond its zenith. He only came - from 1861 - into contactwith ‘real’ Portuguese slave trading during his Zambesi expedition and it would take till 1866 before hewas confronted with the (Arab) long distance trade in slaves and ivory. He never criticized the Europeandemands for products resulting from slave labour such as sugar and cloves.

Many of the ‘comments’ in the preceding chapters concern people who violated Livingstone’s ‘mission’.Rogers Edwards became ‘another missionary’, because he did not accept that Livingstone appropriatedMabotsa as ‘his mission’. The Boers were ‘ignorant savages’, who kept ‘slaves’ (the apprentices) andobjected to his providing Africans with fire-arms. It was dangerous for Sechele to beget a child with abanned woman. The directors of the L.M.S. often gave him carte blanche to establish and then againabandon a mission station. They even made no objection when he announced he was going on a journeythrough Africa and was sending his family back to England. But when they expressed slight doubts abouthis further plans for ‘the spread of the Gospel’ in 1855, he evidently interpreted that as a threat to his‘mission’. The journey with Oswell to Lake Ngami (never visited before by a white man), was the causeof his future fame: Livingstone’s rushed report was published in England immediately. His attempt toreach the Kololo without Oswell failed and during the second attempt, with Oswell, a dangerous routewas followed to forestall certain traders. The Zambesi, ‘was not previously known to exist there at all’ andwhen he met a number of Portuguese who had visited this river a long time previously, he called them‘half-castes’ who, just as the Arabs, did not count as discoverers. The discovery of Lake Malawi by aPortuguese was dismissed as incorrect, once he had studied his map. Thus he was the first discoverereach time. The Portuguese went slave hunting along new ways Livingstone had ‘opened’ to find a placefor a mission. Although discovery was paramount for the Zambesi expedition and although Livingstone’s‘mission’ remained extant in a changed form, the responsibility had shifted: Livingstone had composedthe text of the government’s commission himself, but he now had to comply with the demands of hisprincipal. The premises proved unrealistic, the raised expectations could not be realized and theantagonism aroused was such that all that remained on his return in 1866 was a solo undertaking in theArab sphere of influence. Finding the sources of the Nile meant ‘a means of enabling me to open mymouth with power among men’. Expedition personnel who ‘misbehaved’ had disregarded theassignments, drawn up according to David Livingstone’s maxim. He saw Bedingfeld, Baines andThornton and several others as an impediment to his aspirations. Chief Tengani was literally in the way.Livingstone was well aware of the object of this hindrance, but he did it for ‘Christianity and commerce’.Even the missionaries of the U.M.C.A. were, according to Livingstone, to blame for the many deaths thatoccurred among them.

After the period when Livingstone was presented as a sort of saint by most biographers, a wave ofcriticism followed in the nineteen-seventies. Many of these writers compared the new image with the giantstature accorded to Livingstone by Stanley, Waller and ‘early’ biographers. But, by putting the emphasison ‘missionary’ (and ‘doctor’), they obliterated the notion ‘explorer’, who needs an entirely differentmentality to succeed. Although one could find fault with him in all described areas, it can be traced backto his youthful identifying with Buxton’s ‘Christianity and commerce’, which he evidently never doubted.Even his ambition, recklessness, neglect of wife and children, falsifying of information and the desire tobe the first at all costs, come what may, and thereby disparaging the achievements of others, based on raceor colour, disgraceful for a missionary, do not qualify him for blame. It does not say much against thereal ‘explorer with a mission’. That he had insight into the consequences of his actions (e.g. the Tengani


case) is then easily accounted for. Most of the criticism of Livingstone had to do with his way of dealing with people. And it is true: he

was better at observing facts than dealing with them. People fulfilled a function in his ‘mission’, as eitherbearers or receivers of salvation. He did not venture a scientific analysis of the Christian religion and thereligion of the ‘natives’ was left unstudied, being ‘superstition’. But, by expecting the nineteenth centuryexplorer, also missionary, to be interested scientifically in these religions, we allow ourselves to be led bythe same overestimation of his person as the disappointed biographers.

Livingstone, with great flair, gave a lively and inspiring description on many subjects. It is not alwaysapparent, whether his information is first hand or based on hearsay. But he recorded the times ofhappenings as well as possible, which resulted in reliable data, such as the exact time of the death ofSebetwane. Although it is apparent that Livingstone studied the language of the Tswana (the Kololospoke a related tongue), he probably did not learn more than some words in other African languages. Onthe way an average interpreter was sufficient, but for the traveller as observer of customs, habits, traditions,histories, mutual relationships et cetera, a very good interpreter was indispensable, but these were scarce.It is remarkable that Livingstone managed to avoid a real fight during his trans-Africa journeys, with orwithout an interpreter, a sign of his caution and the goodwill of the African chiefs. The results of anarmed conflict would have been catastrophic: loss of men, and equally difficult, the problem oftransporting or abandoning the wounded.

His scientific activities in Africa in such diverse disciplines as anthropology, geology, African history,archeology, sociology, ethnology, ethnography and geography were judged by various specialists in 1973.Many were quite ambivalent: some observations could be of value, but ‘they were not equal to theobservations of the best reporters’. In fact many of Livingstone’s map coordinates are verifiably exactwhich says everything about his astronomical and geodetic readings: ‘more than any other man, DavidLivingstone put Africa “on the map”’. But his estimates of height were occasionally inaccurate or evennon-existent; one only has to think of the Cabora Bassa waterfall: he did not measure the height of theZambesi before he left the river for his short cut over the Chicova flats and back to the river near Zumbo.His Nile speculations, since 1855, had nothing to do with cartography, and others also thought that theNile rose more to the south. To judge Livingstone on the ground of ‘scientific achievements’ is in factincorrect: he had had no thorough training in any of these ‘diverse disciplines’. One must attribute manyof the recorded notes of criticism to the exaggerated expectations which - certainly after his death - wereaccorded to him. He was an ‘amateur field scientist’, interested in too many subjects, at a time whenspecialized training was in its infancy. Even in geography and cartography, areas which had his specialattention, unexpected errors crept in. No attention was given to his observations in medicine and ‘naturalhistory’!

One gets the impression that it was his recognition of the enormous development of the agricultureand stock-breeding of the Africans, which confirmed his acceptance of Buxton’s maxim. By judging whathe saw during his stay in tropical Africa from that angle, natural products were sources to be exploited,fallow land was a future plantation and agriculture the supplier of market produce; iron and otherminerals were destined for export, to be exchanged on the British market for (factory) products. Partlyunnavigable waterways were to become ‘highways’ for ‘Christian’ traders. The arrival of ‘ruthlesscolonists’ was an unavoidable risk. It was clear to him that much, if not everything, would change,willingly or unwillingly. That this could lead to the worst injustice he took into account.

The maxim, changed in 1858 into ‘commerce, Christianity, and civilization’, was in fact anintroduction to free trade, and the large-scale production for the international market would only bepossible once ‘rest and order’ were achieved. The excuse was the existence of slavery and slave-trade inAfrica (but see above) and the ‘wars’ between the African people themselves, but he never experienced‘their little wars’ himself. Livingstone envisaged a course for Africa which would be just as dramatic asthe one of his forefathers, who had had to leave the countryside of Scotland, when crofters had to makeway for sheep: the Africans would have to give up their land for plantations or had to produce cash cropson their own land. He had no reason to pause to consider the (adverse) effects of this ‘progress’. Hisdesire to climb will not have increased his understanding of, or his insight into, the lives of the ‘people’,at home and abroad. He even suggested that the position of the poor at home was better than that of the

1Poverty and misery were rampant during the Industrial Revolution; death among children under- fives was higher than50%, while in the cities in 1841 the average age at death was 19.5 years.


poor and the ‘internal slaves’ (and even the ‘chiefs’) in Africa1. But the impression Livingstone himselfgave of the quality of life of the Africans (the ‘state of glorious ease’) was much more favourable thanthe statistics teach us about England and Scotland then.

He knew more of medicine and ‘natural history’ than the average doctor. He read, anyway during thefirst fifteen years of his sojourn in Africa, authoritative medical journals and books and extended hisknowledge of ‘natural history’ and ‘natural products’.

Finally the question whether Livingstone affected the course of history. Some have called him‘undeniably an imperialist’, but at first colonization did not fit in the framework of ‘commerce,Christianity and civilization’. Gradually it seemed to him that British colonization favoured theachievement of these aims: ‘Emigration - colonization of Christian families - ought to form a feature ofthis age’. The production of raw materials for the world market and the raising of the African to westernstandards played an important role.

His description of the ‘Nyangwe killings’ of 1871 (chapter 7) may have caused the public (and theBritish government) to insist that the pressure on the Sultan of Zanzibar to reduce the Arab slave-tradebe increased. The colonization which eventually ensued was much worse than the slave-trade had been.

It may have been disconcerting to hear ‘what Livingstone really did in Africa’. Yet, if one considers thathe was an explorer with a ‘mission’ in the first place, and that he did not want to be obstructed in thismission, it is possible to see our own frustration and that of his twentieth century biographers inperspective. He was not the nice missionary, and doctor, and not even a successful ‘amateur field scientist’,nor a ‘highly motivated Victorian missionary’. For those reasons one must conclude that DavidLivingstone cannot be considered as a ‘usable’, let alone ‘reliable’ source of ‘general’ information. However,his specific observations as a professional, all in the field in which he was trained (medicine, naturalhistory), ‘reveal Livingstone at his best, recording information in which his emotions and ideals were notdirectly engaged’, as we soon shall see.

1For parts of sentences put in italics, see again the ‘comments’ at the end of the chapter. 2The bite of the tsetse fly passes trypanosomiasis on, a deadly disease for cattle (nagana) and humans (sleeping sickness).3‘Real’ Kololo were the offspring of the first ‘Basuto’ (Sotho) immigrants from South Africa, where no malaria occurred.The conquered people were called ‘Makalaka’. But Livingstone used the term ‘Kololo’ for all the men who accompaniedhim by orders of Sekeletu, even though most of them were ‘Makalaka’.


PART III: HEALTH AND NUTRITION IN ‘LIVINGSTONE’S TROPICAL AFRICA’: A JOURNEY WITH BLINKERS (abridged page 130)

With limited vision we once again follow David Livingstone on his journeys. Whereas the previoussection dealt with Livingstone as a person, we are now interested in his observations, particularly thoseconcerning ‘health’ and ‘nutrition’, in different areas of tropical Africa. Beside Missionary travels andNarrative of an expedition, Waller’s curtailed edition of The last journals of David Livingstone has been givena place, with the necessary restrictions. Finally the summing up in chapter 8 must clarify whether or notDavid Livingstone’s books are usable sources of information regarding the subjects to be treated here.

CHAPTER 5, MISSIONA RY TRAVELS AND RESEARCHES (abridged pages 130-177).Of the journeys Livingstone made in Bechuanaland, several led to the eastern part of the Kalahari desert.There the aborigines, called ‘Bushmen’, were skilled hunters who lived mainly on ‘flesh of the game’, andon the roots, beans and fruits of the desert, gathered by their women. The other inhabitants of theKalahari, the ‘Bakalahari’ (Kgalagadi), were less fortunate. They had long since lost their cattle when theywere driven into the desert. Often they had to subsist on melons and pumpkins. They had thin legs andarms, and large protruding abdomens1. ‘Their children’s eyes lack lustre. I never saw them at play’.

In 1851, descriptions of the native food production, observed on the way to the Kololo, begin. To avoidrepetition, an abbreviated version of his observations at the beginning of his journey follows: the people‘cultivate sorghum, maize, pumpkins, melons, cucumbers and different kinds of beans. The chief labourfalls on the female portion of the community. The men engage in hunting, milk the cows, and have theentire control of the cattle. They keep large flocks of sheep and goats’. Further northwards danger luredfor the animals, in the form of the tsetse fly. Livingstone lost many oxen as a result. He wrote that thebite was ‘perfectly harmless’ for humans2.

In Linyanti, the southern Kololo capital, he was told that the ‘real’ Kololo were unhealthy and oftendied of ‘fever’, unlike ‘the black races’, the people they conquered3. Here Livingstone was seized withfever for the first time, ‘closely resembling a common cold’. The Kololo knew better: it was ‘the fever,with which I have since made a more intimate acquaintance’. He was treated by their doctors, but his quininemixture worked better. They permitted him to treat the sick, whose complaints ‘seemed to surmount theskill of their own doctors’.

The vast lands of the Kololo were mainly tended by Makalaka. Similar crops as those mentionedabove were cultivated, plus ground-nuts and water-melons, while Sekeletu received tributes from diverseparts of his realm in the form of sorghum, ground-nuts, hoes, spears, honey, canoes, paddles, woodenvessels, tobacco, cannabis, dried wild fruits, prepared skins, and ivory.

A survey of the Barotse valley, the flood plain of the Zambesi, followed; it was described as anextremely rich area which was by no means used to the full. Apart from the crops mentioned, yams, sugar-cane,the Egyptian arum, sweet potato and cassava were grown. Cattle were described, as well as (‘prodigious’)fauna: elephant, antelope, buffalo, kudu, zebra, tsessebe, wild pig, tahetsi, eland, and a large variety ofbirds. In the river hippopotamus, crocodile, tortoise, iguano and all sorts of fish. In November 1853 heleft for Luanda with twenty-seven men in canoes. They were provided with food, and ivory for trade inAngola, while villagers along the river were instructed to supply provisions.

Having passed the Barotse valley, they reached the country of the Lunda. Once again the foodproduction, including game, fish, gathering in the wild , and the vast meadows were described. His Kololowere amazed. The town of the most prominent Lunda chief, Shinte, stood in the ‘most lovely valley’ andwas ‘embowered in banana and other tropical trees’. They were offered a variety of food. The cassavaplants here attained ‘a height of six feet and upwards’, without manuring: ‘very little labour is required for its

1‘Without manuring’ means without animal manure. See page 24: the people burned branches etc. and ‘manured’ with ash.


cultivation’1.At the beginning of February 1854 they approached the territory of the next Lunda chief, Katema.

Farmers were at work everywhere and Livingstone’s men considered Lunda a place with infiniteagricultural possibilities. Katema gave them a lot of food; Livingstone complimented him on his beautifulwhite cows and suggested having them milked (a mistake: they were too wild).

Then they crossed the boundary into a different sort of Lunda, the Chokwe. Every passer-by wastreated as a slave-trader, thus they had to buy their food. The Chokwe lived in ‘beautifully fertile valleys’and ‘are favoured with two rainy seasons and two crops’, while ‘the cultivated land is as nothingcompared with what might be brought under the plough’. ‘The state in which the inhabitants here liveis one of glorious ease’. Livingstone described shifting cultivation, reclamation of (often secondary) forest,followed by burning of branches, bushes and other growth. The resulting ash was used as fertilizer(‘manure’).

The report remained unchanged up to the Angolan border: but once they crossed into the colony thePortuguese supplied them with everything. Livingstone was critical of their agricultural and stock farmingachievements. He still had recurrent attacks of ‘fever’ (no longer mentioned in the book, only in his diary),also at arrival in Luanda, on the end of May 1854. His men seldom suffered from fever, but thePortuguese certainly did.

They left the colony in March 1855, and the reports once again describe the plentiful food supply, butthe country ‘bears no population compared to what it might easily sustain’. In the Chokwe areaLivingstone had ‘an extremely severe attack of rheumatic fever. (-) This was the most severe attack I hadendured’. Once back among the ‘friendly Lunda’, food was cheap and often even free. On enquiring after‘old friends’, he was told ‘they are recovering’. After arrival in the Barotse valley in September he reportedthat ‘the fever is almost the only disease prevalent’; he distributed ‘medicine’, probably quinine and otheringredients sent by Mr Moffat. Having mentioned which illnesses were not known in the country, hisconclusion was: ‘many diseases common in England, are here quite unknown’ and ‘in the more centralparts the people were remarkably kind and civil and free from disease’.

For the next journey, exploring the ‘highway’ to the Portuguese colony Mozambique, Livingstone wasagain provided for by Sekeletu. He was given a much larger group of Kololo attendants. After thewaterfall Shongwe (renamed Victoria Falls), they branched off from the Zambesi and traversed thecountry of the Tonga: vast grazing lands, alternating with wild fruit trees, but no cattle: the Kololo underSebetwane had ‘driven off’ all the cattle. The Tonga chiefs supplied free food. Once again Livingstone providedthe sick people in the villages with medicine: they ‘brought their sick children for cure’ (for ‘hooping-cough’). Journeying further towards the Zambesi, through extremely fertile land, there was again an‘abundance of room for thousands and thousands more of population’, where ‘amazing quantities’ of grainand other crops were produced and there was more big game on the plains than elsewhere. They hurried on,followed by tsetse flies. There were even nurseries on islands in the river, whence young shoots weretransplanted to the bank.

Just over the Mozambique border they left the river and traversed the Chicova plains, thereby missingthe ‘Kebrabassa’ waterfall. Livingstone wrote from Tete in March that the soil was so fertile, the peoplecould produce good cotton for the world market.

Two months later he left for England from the east coast. He arrived on 9 December 1856.

Comments (chapter 5).As in Part II here also Missionary travels is compared with what Livingstone wrote in his journals andletters, but now it is about his observations on ‘health and nutrition’. Ultimately chapter 8 must tell us -based upon other literature - whether he is a usable, even reliable, source of information on this subject.The sentences put in italics in the text above, reappear and will be explained here:1. They (the adults) had thin legs and arms, and large protruding abdomens, but in a letter he wrote: ‘TheBakalahari children are usually distinguished by the large protruding abdomen and thin ill-formed legs& arms’. A protruding stomach in children is a sign of ‘malnutrition’, and the ‘ill-formed legs & arms’ too.There are indeed indications of an unbalanced diet. It is thus possible that the Kgalagadi children suffered

1‘Poverty’ was rarely connected with lack of food: it was rather a lack of ‘storable’ or ‘visible wealth’.2It was different in the Portuguese colonies: ‘many of the [Portuguese and half-caste] children are cut off by fever’.


from ‘malnutrition’, but important information is missing (about breast feeding, weaning foods, seechapter 1). Only one other doctor in ‘Livingstone’s tropical Africa’, Francis Galton, made similarobservations among displaced Herero ‘cattle-watchers’, between 1850 and 1851. ‘They all have dreadfullyswelled stomachs, and emaciated figures’. There are again indications for an unbalanced diet.

These children were, however, absolute exceptions. For, in 1855 Livingstone wrote in his diary:‘women in general prolong the period of suckling till the child is 3 or four years old, or until symptomsof pregnancy appear. From the first appearance of this, & until the child is 2 or 3 years of age, there isa separation of husband and wife among those who have more wives than one. Intercourse before thechild is thus grown is considered prejudicial to the child’. Due to the spacing of births the number ofchildren was limited: ‘Two or at most three children to a hut is all that can be given’. Malnourishedchildren were nowhere else described. Prolonged breast feeding and sexual abstinence prevent‘malnutrition’ of the last-born child.

In case Livingstone and other travellers had missed the diagnosis, ‘circumstantial evidence’ for thepresence of ‘malnutrition’ has been sought for: symptoms of food shortages, failing breast feeding, civildisorder, poverty1, ignorance and other evils, but these have not been found. Sick children in the interiorwere mentioned, but only in connection with whooping cough and mumps2. Very few children had died.Briefly, except for malaria, Livingstone and other doctors apparently only came across incidental, isolatedcases of various sicknesses (see also nr. 8).2. Because the objective was to open up trade routes for a large caravan, Livingstone registered everythingconcerning native food production and supplies, particularly in his African journal. The result is an almostcontinuous ‘collage’ of descriptions of food, plants, cattle, game, gardens and natural pastures. He alsodescribed the sexual division of labour: both men and women had specific tasks. There was seldom ashortage; his own lack of food was due to lack of barter goods, and cassava was travellers’ food (cassava-meal contains especially carbohydrate and water, and only 1,1% protein per 100 gram; sorghum 11,1%).3. Indeed Livingstone made a more intimate acquaintance with ‘the fever’: his journal disclosed 27 attacksduring the first journey. The symptoms suggest that these were almost always caused by malaria.4. Fertile fallow ground caused Livingstone to make statements like ‘the part of the country indicated, isas capable of supporting millions of inhabitants as it is of its thousands’. This was where the idea ofcultivating market crops on all the land came from (the factor ‘commerce’). It will become apparent inchapter 8 why an extremely rich area . . . was by no means used to the full for agriculture and cattle breeding.5. Cattle were described: the Kololo mentioned Barotse oxen and Toka (Tonga) cattle (see comment 10).6. The statement ‘very little labour is required for its cultivation’ fits in with comment 4: assumed possibilitiesfor fast-growing cash-crops.7. The description of shifting cultivation, an advanced ecological and agricultural labour-saving technique:‘The soil is so rich that no [animal] manure is required; when a garden becomes too poor for good cropsof maize, millet, &c., the owner removes a little farther in the forest, applies fire round the roots of thelarger trees to kill them, cuts down the smaller, and a new rich garden is ready for the seed’. The treestumps left standing prevented erosion and sprouted out later. 8. Livingstone’s attack of rheumatic fever: he thought he had ‘rheumatic fever’ and ‘rheumatism’, but thesewere probably the ‘bone and joint pains’ as symptom of malaria, for he never complained of thecomplications of rheumatic diseases.9. They are recovering - of the fever: almost everyone had once and again an attack of malaria. In chapter 1we have seen that the indigenous population is semi-immune to the malaria parasite, a type of immunityonly maintained by being regularly infected. In certain areas they build up too little semi-immunity in theiryouth against malaria, which leaves them susceptible to more serious attacks at a later age. The general impression got from the book, diaries and letters is of a healthy population.10. The Kololo under Sebetwane had ‘driven off’ all the cattle: ‘their little wars’ were mostly about cattle, in thiscase the Tonga cattle.11. The ‘amazing quantities’ of grain and other crops and good cotton for the world market: see comment 4:production of cash-crops.


CHAPTER 6, NARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION (abridged pages 178-212).‘The chief object of the Expedition to the Zambesi was to note the climate, the natural productions, thelocal diseases, the natives and their relation to the rest of the world’, and immediately on arrival in 1858the agricultural production in the colony was described: on a wonderfully rich soil with excellent gardensrice, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, tomatoes, cabbages, onions, peas, a little cotton, and sugar-cane werecultivated. The whole area was highly suitable for sugar-cane (as cash-crop). The few (black) people theysaw were reasonably well fed, and had honey, bees-wax, fowls, rice and meal for sale. There was anabundance of large game, buffalo, warthog, antelope, heron, ibis, kudu, zebra, impala, waterbuck, wildboar, buffalo, elephant, crocodile and hippopotamus, goose, spoonbill, heron and flamingo.

As the Zambesi could not be used as ‘highway’, Livingstone’s attention was ‘turned to the explorationof the River Shire’. To find a place for the Universities’ Mission, the barrier of Tengani was forciblypassed. The Shire valley was exceedingly fertile: lemon and orange trees grew wild, and pineapples in thegardens. The large population cultivated maize, pumpkins and tobacco, caught fish, water-fowl and gameand collected ‘lotus roots’, as food’, but were in no hurry to sell rice. ‘The state of eager competition,which in England wears out both mind and body, and makes life bitter, is here happily unknown’. Thecultivated spots were mere dots: ‘pity that the plenty in store for all is not enjoyed by more’.

On their way to Lake Malawi in August 1859 they climbed the highlands, where ‘every sort of nativefood’, was available. There were no mosquitoes. They next descended into the Upper Shire Valley, anexceptionally fertile and densely populated area, with people called Manganja. They bought all sorts offood, and beer, under the motto ‘English do not buy slaves, they buy food’. Although the Manganja, ‘anindustrious race’, made all sorts of utensils, they were actually farmers, and Livingstone described theirclearing of woodland and grass land, a family undertaking. This was followed by the burning of trunks andbranches, respectively the grass collected in heaps. The ash and burned soil fertilized the ground. Inaddition to the above mentioned crops, sorghum, millet, beans, ground-nuts, yams, cucumbers, cassava,and cannabis sativa were raised. ‘Never before did we see so many old grey-headed men and women’. Theworst complaint mentioned were ‘almost incurable’ leg ulcers. Having arrived at Lake Malawi, it struckLivingstone that it was an attractive, healthy region, where ‘our countrymen’ could live and teach thenatives to cultivate ‘valuable produce’, to exchange for goods of European manufacture and teach them‘the great truths of our holy religion’.

As the missionaries were not expected at the Zambesi delta before December, it was decided to bringthe Kololo back to Linyanti. From the start the availability of food was described: fowls, eggs, sugar-cane,sweet-potatoes, ground-nuts, turmeric, tomatoes, chillies, rice, sorghum and maize were for sale in largequantities. They crossed the Chicova plains, very fertile; back at the Zambesi river they found that theAfrican women filtered the water, used for drinking and cooking, through sand. They were expert traders,and sold their own wares in the camp. Also here men and women were busily engaged in preparing the groundfor planting. Food was given free. Livingstone mentioned ‘what has actually been seen by us’ on one day:the same as before, and guinea-fowl, three species of francolin, turtle-dove, duck and ‘strange birds’;eland, many species of antelope; a troop of monkeys, lion, hyaena, a maki or lemur, numerous reptiles,and several days later a rhinoceros and wild dogs. As their meals consisted of meat and meal, they ‘feltthe want of vegetables’; the natives collected wild plants in the woods, to be used as vegetables. Theprovision of food (as a present) remained the same all the way. ‘However largely they may cultivate, andhowever abundant the harvest, it must all be consumed in a year’, so the people drank lots of beer.

They were informed that in Sekeletu’s town the corn crops had been lost as the rain had been scarce.People were digging up the ‘tsitla’ root out of the marshes, and cutting out the soft core of the youngpalm-trees, for food. There was no dearth of meat: all sorts of game were seen (and hunted). They wentby canoe to Sesheke, where the headman brought a fatted ox as a present from Sekeletu. But many cropshad suffered as also had the pasture of Linyanti. Livingstone discovered that his wagon (with his medicinechest) was still in the same place. People were searching everywhere for wild fruits. The chief’s face wasslightly disfigured by leprosy. Once again he offered to migrate with all the Kololo to the healthy Tongahighland, if the ‘Doctor’ and his wife went too. But Livingstone did not go into it any further, and left,accompanied by a new group of Kololo. The people on the islands in the Zambesi had an abundance offood, and were in good condition. They grew maize, pumpkins, water-melons, tobacco, hemp and this


was offered to Livingstone, together with a fat goat. The land party arrived with presents of food. At theentrance to the Kariba gorge the country swarmed with wild animals.

On 31 January 1861 the ‘Universities’ mission’ and the new ship ‘Pioneer’ arrived. After a trip to theRuvuma river they proceeded up the Shire, where natives daily brought an abundance of provisions. HereBishop Mackenzie, the leader of the Universities’ Mission, remarked to Livingstone, having seen the fieldsof the Manganja, ‘I meant to teach these people agriculture; but I now see that they know far more aboutit than I do’. And although fighting had broken out in the area, the expedition members, together withMackenzie and his group, climbed the hills to the highlands. The next day two groups of slaves werefreed. Finally the mission station was established at Magomero, chief Chikunda’s village. After an encounterwith Yao warriers, which got out of control through a misunderstanding, they returned to the village.Thence they proceeded towards Lake Malawi. The lake area was low and fertile, with sometimes milesof rich plains and more northerly the table-land was extremely suitable for pastures and agriculture, butthe new ‘Zulu’ (Mazitu) immigrants only kept large herds of cattle and had now overran the lowlands.‘Never before in Africa have we seen anything like the dense population on the shores of Lake Nyassa[Lake Malawi]’. The people grew large quantities of rice and sweet potatoes, as well as maize, mapira, andmillet. In the north cassava was the staple product. There were clouds of minute insects, ‘kungo’, whichtasted a bit like caviar. ‘Abundance of excellent fish are found in the lake’, and the fishing methods weredescribed. They were loaded with provisions by the chief.

After their reconnoitring had ended, they reached the ‘Pioneer’, but owing to low water the ship wasstranded for five weeks. Not till the end of January 1862 did she anchor in de Zambesi mouth, whereMrs. Livingstone, Miss Mackenzie, the sister of the bishop, and Mrs Burrup arrived. When they finallyreached Chibisa’s village, it appeared that Bishop Mackenzie and Mr Burrup had died of ‘fever’. Theladies and some U.M.C.A. members returned immediately to Cape Town. Mrs. Livingstone, having beensick for two weeks, died of fever in Shupanga on 27 April.

Because of drought many slaves were gathering wild fruits. But also the farmers along the Shire weredestitute as a result of plundering by Portuguese and African slave-traders. The women were collectinginsects, roots, wild fruits, and whatever could be eaten. Bodies drifted by. The Shire valley now lookedcompletely different. There were few remaining people after the panic from the slave hunt, and droughthad set in. Food was abandoned and hunger had taken its toll. Chief Tengani was defeated. Starvingchildren crawled around the huts. Normally the inhabitants would have descended into the marshes duringa drought: there they could raise maize within three months each season, using special methods to get thebest result, but this was now impossible. As the ‘Lady Nyassa’ could not be brought to Lake Malawi, andas attacks of dysentery went the round of the expedition, David Livingstone sent every European whocould be missed away, and in July 1863 he himself received orders to return to England. Because thewater would stay low till January, he left for an exploration of the undisturbed land west of Lake Malawi.

On the way to the lake he again described special methods, for instance a way of cultivating maize(and grain, beans, and pumpkins) so that the farmers had ‘a flourishing crop at a time of year when allthe rest of the country was parched and dusty’. Others gathered all weeds and grass, covered them withsoil, and then set fire to them. Afterwards these mounds yielded abundantly. Going in northerly direction,they ‘passed mile after mile of native cornfields’. From Lake Malawi he went west, where cassava was ‘thechief food cultivated on the heights’. ‘A herd of fine cattle showed that no tsetse existed in the district’.They passed clearings, each a mile square, in which all the trees had been cut down, and the stumps leftonly two or three feet high; the large heaps of dry wood were burned, and the ashes were used as manureto raise millet. Patches of maize and pumpkins were watered from running streams with pots, before thestart of the rainy season.

In January 1864 the water of the Shire was deep enough to depart. They reached the Zambesi deltawithout trouble. The expedition was over.

Comments (chapter 6).1. The Shire valley was exceedingly fertile, obvious from the dense population and the extensive agriculture, butbehind it is the thought, ‘pity that the plenty in store for all is not enjoyed by more’ (the ‘future colonists’, asLivingstone suggested in his diary, but also in the ‘Narrative’: ‘our countrymen’).2. Clearing of woodland and grass land and ‘men and women were busily engaged’: see chapter 1 for ‘the (present)

1Sepoys: Pakistani marines (Baluchis). Africans: ten from Johanna Island, nine ‘Nassick’ boys from ‘The African asylumschool and orphanage for Africans’ in Nasik (India), two from Mozambique: Susi and Amoda, two Yao’s: Wekotani andChuma.


emigration of men’ and 8 for their activities: a sign of the undisturbed community and its activities. 3. Livingstone saw among the ‘Portuguese’ population infections typical of reduced resistance:pneumonia, bronchitis, colds, diarrhoea, fever, and a non-syphilitic, but very contagious, disease. Beyondthe colony his diary mentions: swelling of the scrotum, a late result of filaria infection or of leprosy,‘fever’, skin diseases, among which leprosy and the ‘almost incurable’ leg ulcers which were then very difficultto cure and are still a medical problem.4. The harvest ‘must all be consumed in a year’: Livingstone realized that their consumption of so much beerpointed to an abundance of grain. See chapter 8 for this over-production: the farmers sowed with a widemargin for setbacks. If there were no setbacks, they consumed the surplus, after having stored the grainnecessary for sowing next year.5. The corn crops had been lost in Sekeletu’s realm. Drought held sway among the Kololo, but the disruptionof their economy was worse for lack of leadership: the subjected tribes paid less tribute, thus less food.6. Sekeletu’s face was slightly disfigured by leprosy. Livingstone and Kirk told him that the disease wasunknown in their country. Leprosy had indeed almost disappeared in Western Europe, without treatment.In the diary, Livingstone also thought of pemphigus, a then lethal disease with blisters of skin andmucous membranes. He suspected that the complaints were due to ‘mental anxiety’. Sekeletu died a fewyears later: of what is not reported and the final diagnosis is not known.7. An encounter with Yao warriers: the Yao slave-traders had penetrated after Livingstone had ‘opened’ theShire at Tengani’s village. During the encounter they were shot at by the Europeans.6. Because of drought many slaves were gathering wild fruits (hearsay). Kirk, however, wrote in his diary: ‘thescarcity of food is by no means so great as we had heard’.7. This is the only moment that starving children were mentioned, during the greatest upheaval in the Shireregion for a long time, because of the access of slave-traders after the ‘opening’ up of the river. This wasno ‘malnutrition’, but a total lack of food. Not Livingstone, but Kirk described a high death rate amongPortuguese and mulatto children in the colony, possibly an indication for malnutrition/infection.8. Special methods: see in chapter 8 under ‘specialization’. One illustration of what the Manganja highlandersdid to raise crops on heavy black mud, which is unuseable for planting: they mixed it with coarse riversand and sowed the maize in that.

CHAPTER 7, Waller’s ‘THE LAST JOURNALS OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE’ (abridged pages 213-257).This book, edited by Horace Waller, has been included in this section, as Livingstone’s reports on ‘health andnutrition’ appear to have remained mostly intact, and to have escaped censor.

The British Government granted Livingstone permission to return to Africa on condition he remainedbeyond the influence of the Portuguese. What was supposed to be a fight against slavery, proved to bea quest for the source of the Nile. Because he sought further south than the others, he naturally arrivedin the dominions of the sultan of Zanzibar, whose ‘Arab’ traders in ivory and slaves had extended theircaravan net over the whole continent, to far west of the Great Lakes. Although slavery in the Britishcolonies ended in 1833, this did not apply to Zanzibar, which fell under the jurisdiction of theindependent East India Company. In 1845 the export of slaves was over (in name only), but not theimport nor the slave labour in the sultan’s area: from then on Indian financiers organized the trade inivory, weapons, and slaves. There was not even an embargo on commercial activities of western customers. Theslave market on the island kept delivery, but not in large quantities. It must have been because of ‘Britishfriendship’ that the Sultan gave Livingstone permission (his ‘letter’) to enter his dominion.

Livingstone arrived in Zanzibar in January 1866. In March he disembarked in a bay north of theRuvuma estuary, with thirteen Sepoys, twenty-three Africans1, two mules, four donkeys, six camels andthree buffaloes (to test whether camels and buffalo were resistant to tsetse bites). Tsetse flies, butparticularly overloading and ill-treatment by the sepoys, killed the animals in due course. The people here,Makonde, cultivated excellent sorghum, maize, and cassava; fowls, rice and maize were cheap. Soon they

1Casembe or Cazembe, Kazembe: ruler of the eastern Lunda kingdom.


reached the Ruvuma river, which they followed for 400 kilometres. There were elephants, hippopotamiand pigs, and fish in the pools. ‘We had showers occasionally, but at night all the men were under coverof screens. The fevers were speedily cured; no day was lost by sickness’. The country was denselypopulated. The behaviour of the sepoys was such, that Livingstone dismissed the lot and sent them witha trustworthy trader to the east coast. He came across several dead, supposedly victims of the slave-trade.An unexpected and unexplained sentence appeared, which will be explained in comment 5.

South of the river Ruvuma a large Yao population was making new gardens; others had stored uplarge quantities of grain. The miles of cultivated land yielded large crops of sorghum, congo-beans andpumpkins, sown on damp spots. In spite of being given ‘a lecture on the evil of selling his people’, thechief sent lots of food. The next Yao town, 800 metres above sea level, consisted of at least a thousandsquare Arab houses and was surrounded by villages. Their agriculture was adjusted to the needs of theArab caravans, with cassava, sweet potatoes and maize cultivated on ridges; the English pea and tobaccowere raised by irrigation. Cattle and sheep were plentiful and Livingstone was offered porridge, beef, anox to slaughter, and lots of flour. The area between the towns was depopulated. With new guides he wentto Lake Malawi, ‘among people and plenty of provisions all the way’.

On the way to Lake Tanganyika they saw women working all day in their gardens, while the men madenets, built huts and fished at night. In a densely populated town, 240 metres above the lake, salt wasproduced, the work in the fields being done by the people, chief and slaves alike. Going west, they nowreached a huge Bisa village on the south-western end of Lake Malawi. Here the Johanna men deserted.In fields like ‘the cultivated fields of England’, the people made deep trenches with their hoes and burnedgrass and weeds to manure the soil and again Livingstone gave a description of the whole process. Theyraised large crops: men, women and children worked together. At every village people were ‘very liberalwith their food’: beer, a goat and lots of porridge were offered. Now Livingstone and his men movednorthwards, but before long Livingstone was too ill to march.

The rainy season began. Now they traversed uninhabited ‘bushy country’ with a lot of game: antelopemeat was the only food they got. When in early 1867 two bearers stole the medicine chest with thequinine, Livingstone felt as if he had ‘received the sentence of death’, but the chief of the area didnothing about it, and demanded ever more ‘presents’. He did provide meat, maize, grain, calabashes,groundnuts and hippo meat. Finally Livingstone, sick of ‘rheumatic fever’ was allowed to leave.

Again they arrived in an area where there was ‘plenty of agriculture’, game and food as present. On1 April 1867 they reached the south bank of Lake Tanganyika. Livingstone still had fever, his head was‘out of order’, he was disoriented and became unconscious. A month is missing from the diary.

The local headman said that two Arabs had inquired after the traveller, and indeed the next day veryfriendly ‘Arabs’ and ‘black Suahelis’ were encountered. Livingstone was invited to join their caravan, but firstthey had to solve problems with a paramount chief, Nsama. Livingstone gave an interesting report of a‘heathen town’. In the meantime he made the acquaintance of Nsama, and of Tippu Tib, who later becamethe most important Arab trader and later ruler. It was three months before he could resume his journey,with the Arab caravan. His plan was to discover Lake Mweru and determine whether the watershed hewould follow was ‘either the watershed of the Congo or Nile’. In this district women had goiters and menhad large hydroceles. The great plains were densely populated and there was a lot of game; the peoplewere ‘numerous and friendly’. He saw ‘ugly images’ in huts, used in rain-making and curing the sickceremonies. The rainy season began and Livingstone was seriously ill: the fever was not influenced by medicine.

Travelling through the Nyamwezi hill area, he described the large Arab caravan of which he was part,and the disciplined behaviour of the 450 participants, including his own men and the slaves. The Arabswere ‘extremely kind’ to him: they respected the Sultan's letter. ‘If one wished to depict the slave-tradein its most attractive, or rather least objectionable, form, he would accompany these gentlemen subjectsof the Sultan of Zanzibar’. In Kabwabwata he joined another caravan to Lake Mweru, where the shoreswere densely populated. The lake was full of fish.

They were now in the kingdom of the Kazembe1; here Livingstone was received by an influential man,Mohammed bin Saleh, who had been Kazembe’s prisoner for ten years, and by an Arab slave-trader,Mohammed ibn Gharib. The Kazembe listened attentively to Livingstone’s report on his journey to


Lunda (1853-54). Then Livingstone accompanied Mohammed ibn Saleh to Kabwabwata, where heoccupied himself with speculations on the source of the Nile: did the river begin at Lake Bangweulu? Hedecided to go there immediately, and although four of his men refused he left the next day with the rest.On the 18 July 1868 he ‘saw the shores of the Lake for the first time’. He visited three smaller islands inthe lake, but his supplies were exhausted and the rowers forced him to go back.

Although the situation in the country was uncertain, he managed to reach Kabwabwata. He wantedto survey the Lualaba and find a connection with Lake Albert, but he was too ill. It was months before theycould undertake the horrible journey to Ujiji where his supplies were. He still had ‘fever’ and startedcoughing blood: he diagnosed it as pneumonia and saw himself dying on the way to Ujiji. But Mohamadibn Gharib came up, nursed him, gave laxatives and something for his cough and saw to it that he wascarried on a stretcher. On arrival in Ujiji on 14 March 1869, there were no medicines, and three quartersof the material ordered by Livingstone had been stolen. Tea, coffee, some sugar, butter and four year oldmeal for bread was all that was available. People here were ‘miserable Suaheli’.

On 10 July they went by canoe to the western shore of the lake, where the caravan of Mohammed ibnGharib was. Livingstone, although ‘panting in distress’, described the cultivation of sorghum on the banksof rivers, the villages with large cassava fields, and the tropical mountain landscape with oil palms on theway to Bambarre. The people here, Maniema, of ‘man-eating fame’, neither bought nor sold slaves. InNovember Livingstone went west to the Lualaba river. He described the country as ‘surpassinglybeautiful’, and the lay-out and architecture of the villages as sophisticated. The Maniema men weresuperior in shape of head and physical form; many of the women were light-coloured and very pretty,though very naked. The people had heard of the misdeeds of the slaves of the Arabs and were equallysuspicious of Livingstone, so although a few miles from the Lualaba, he was sent back to Bambarre, thewinter camp of the Arab ivory hunters where he got ‘choleraic symptoms’. Opium from Mohammed did notwork but he found that boiling the water helped a little. During several months there are only a few notesin his diary. Only three of his men, Susi, Chuma and Gardner remained, and with them he attemptedagain to reach the Lualaba, but failed.

Now the sores on his feet became real ulcers. The slaves suffered the same, and several became lamepermanently (or died). Medicines did not help: the pain in his feet did not abate. The country wasunhealthy and rheumatism was a deadly disease, he wrote. From necessity he stayed in Bambarre from22 July 1870 to 16 February 1871. Again the diary skips many days, even weeks.

All the time in Bambarre he was the guest of Mohammed who looked after him constantly. It was twomonths before he improved. He heard that a fatal epidemic raged between Ujiji and the coast, and indeedit reached them and killed thirty people. He wrote in his diary that he followed ‘with unswerving fidelitythe line of duty’: hardship, hunger, all the struggling served the discovery of the real source of the Nile,even if it meant his death. Livingstone saw diseases among the slaves he had not seen before: people died of‘Safura’ (the disease of clay or earth eating), of ‘an epidemic’ (symptoms: swollen hands, feet and face)and of ‘broken-heartedness’, which attacked free men who had been made slaves. They indicated exactlyon the chest the place that hurt, the heart.

In January 1871 the news of a serious cholera epidemic was confirmed by Kirk, who was now politicalagent at Zanzibar. He wrote that on receiving Livingstone’s request, he had sent out ten porters. Butwhen they arrived they went on strike immediately. Yet on 16 February Livingstone left with the remainsof the original group and the ten new men for Nyangwe on the Lualaba: over grassy plains, throughstreams and dense forest, between mountains and past pretty, big villages which he described in detail.They arrived at Nyangwe on 30 March.

‘One must see the gathering at the market, of about 3000, chiefly women’. Although officially the marketwas held every three days, even the following day there were a thousand people. But they mistrustedLivingstone, because of ‘the villainous conduct of many of the followers of the Arabs’. Three months laterthey were proved right: on 15 July, while nearly fifteen hundred people had come to the market,accomplices of one of the Arab leaders opened fire on them. According to the Arabs there were 330 to400 dead among the population. Never before had women coming to or from the market been molested.Livingstone never found out why the murders took place. He was so ashamed of the Arab company hekept that he immediately returned to Ujiji.

On 8 August 1871 he walked into an ambush. He thought he had been mistaken for Mohammed ibn

1The so-called Unyanyembe diary.2Lunars: lunar observation, finding of longitude by lunar distance.


Gharib: he wore the same red jacket. It is a wonder that he survived the attack (spears, gunshots and afalling tree). He lost three goats, all his material, telescope, and umbrella. It did not stop his reporting: theentries in his diary are minimal, but nevertheless daily, about cannibalism (‘it is not want that has led tothe custom, for the country is full of food’), about his illness, and his arrival at Bambarre, but the nextfive days are missing in the diary. He recuperated and pressed on after two days, but the whole way toUjiji he felt ‘as if dying’ on his feet. The diary is again very limited.

On arrival in Ujiji on 23 October Livingstone found out that all his goods had been stolen: ‘this wasdistressing’. But a few days later ‘the good Samaritan was close at hand’, for a very large caravan, precededby an American flag, arrived: it was Henry Moreland Stanley, travelling correspondent of the ‘New YorkHerald’. Livingstone wrote: since that day ‘I ate four times daily, and in a week began to feel strong’. Afterthree weeks he was so much better that he and Stanley explored the north point of Lake Tanganyika where,however, the water of the Rizizi river came into the Lake instead of going northwards to the Nile.

In January 1872 they went land inward, in the direction of Unyanyembé (Tabora). Livingstonedescribed the territory as ‘an English gentleman’s park’, full of game. The inhabitants cultivated dura andrice. Over open plains with much agriculture they reached the most important Arab settlement,Unyanyembé. Stanley tried to persuade Livingstone to go home to regain his strength, and then comeback to explore the sources of the Nile, but it was no use. He had planned his route: from Unyanyembeto Fipa, then to the Chambeshi river, round the south side of Lake Bangweulu and then to the ‘fountains’.He remained sick; the fear that he was on the way to the source of the Congo and not of the Nile, gotstronger. Livingstone bundled his notes into a report1 which he handed over to Stanley, who supplied himwith everything he could possibly need. Stanley then left for Zanzibar, on 14 March 1872, whileLivingstone stayed in Tabora. He still had fever. He wrote letters to the New York Herald, and a numberof essays. He pondered over ‘the atonement of Christ’. It appeared that he had been given a slave, Halima.He wanted to free her and give her a house and garden on his return in Zanzibar. Only now it becomesclear from the diary that he was waiting for a caravan which Stanley had assembled.

In August the caravan from Bagamoyo arrived, completely equipped and paid in advance for two yearsby Stanley. They followed the route to Lake Tanganyika and from there along the south-eastern side ofthe lake. Livingstone had fever and bloody diarrhoea; although he sometimes felt better, he did notrecover. Still he tried to register game and crops by name, agricultural techniques, (abundance of) food,and the progress of his journey. It was December 1872. The clouds made any observation impossible;their position was uncertain. One of the men died. They waded through the many streams, rivers andmarshes, without knowing where exactly they were. It appeared that they had made enormous detoursthrough the fault of their guides, which took them half a month. Then: ‘I got lunars, for a wonder’2, inthe north-easterly marshy area of Lake Bangweulu. People brought cassava, although for a considerableprice. Then the journey proceeded over a ‘grassy sea on all sides’, with water underneath. They slept onsmall mounds. It rained and thundered, but Livingstone wrote: ‘Nothing earthly will make me give upmy work in despair. I encourage myself in the Lord my God, and go forward’ and he kept on observing,measuring and writing. He was then transported on a donkey: ‘It is not all pleasure this exploration’. Thelast sentences in the diary are: ‘Knocked up quite, and remain = recover sent to buy milch goats. We areon the banks of the Molilamo’. It was 27 April 1873. Hereafter everything rests on Waller’s interpretationof the report of Chuma and Susi (found dead - ‘kneeling by the side of his bed, his body stretchedforward, his head buried in his hands upon the pillow’). His body was carried to Zanzibar, a journey ofnine months. Many bearers died on the way.

Comments (chapter 7). Though the sections ‘health’ and ‘nutrition’ appear to have largely escapedcensor, comment upon the situation in this area will be postponed until chapter 8.1. The material for ‘The last journals’, edited by Horace Waller, consisted of the so-called ‘Unyanyembediary’, and the diaries, note-books and notes in Livingstone’s ‘battered travelling-case’. His original ‘fielddiaries’ were not used (they only arrived in London after the book had been published) and quite a lotmore was left out: passages which the Livingstone family excluded (‘a huge amount’), and anything else

1Helly, Dorothy O. Livingstone's legacy. (1987, 144).


that should, according to Waller, be kept from the readers, including ‘all the strictly scientific matter foundin Dr. Livingstone’s journals’. Waller’s ‘improvement’ of the text is frankly annoying.2. Arab traders: the men Livingstone called ‘Arabs’, were in fact Swahili, an age-long mixture of Africanswith Arabs from Oman. By permission of the African chiefs they took - at a price - ‘criminals’ and‘captives’ (and others) away and, as the object was to collect living slaves, the number of dead was low.Livingstone’s ‘real Arabs’ were light-coloured Swahili; ‘black Suaheli’ were disreputable ‘Nigger-Moslems’and this differentiation continued even after the attack on the market of Nyangwe.3. No embargo on commercial activities of western customers: ‘Christianity and commerce’ had to lead to theconversion of Africans who then would produce raw materials which could be exchanged for Europeanproducts instead of using slaves as barter. But this ‘legitimate trade’ the abolitionists wanted was usuallycommerce in the products of slave labour, of which fact some of them were quite conscious. 4. Not in large quantities. The Arab slave ‘export’ from East Africa (and the number of deaths accordingto Livingstone) was far from ‘prodigious’, compared to the transatlantic - European - slave-trade: thepresent low concentration of Africans in the former market places for slave trading also indicates this.5. Without any reason he suddenly wrote about women who ‘refuse all intercourse with their husbands whenenceinte and .... continue this for about three years afterwards, or until the child is weaned’, came from his‘field diary’ in which he also condemned this ‘stupid’ custom. Dorothy Helly suggested that he found this‘stupid’ because the five pregnancies of his wife had followed each other very quickly1

6. The area between the towns was depopulated: this was no ‘depopulation’ but concentration of peopleround the big Yao ‘trading chiefs’, to protect themselves and improve their position in dealing with theArabs. 7. Livingstone was too ill to march, not for the last time. As a few days later he was marching again, it is veryprobable that it had been malaria and that his medicines worked.8. Livingstone sick of ‘rheumatic fever’: again the ‘bone and joint pains’? (comment 8, chapter 5).9. Livingstone was invited to join an Arab caravan: from the beginning his caravan was much too small andinsufficiently equipped. After he had sacked the sepoys and after the desertion of the Johanna men, heneeded protection, help in providing supplies and perhaps even assistance in preserving discipline. TheArabs could solve these problems, and did so: Livingstone possessed the letter from the Sultan. Hisperiods of ill health made him even more dependent on them.10. Livingstone gave an interesting report of a ‘heathen town’ - under the motto ‘There is nothing interestingin a heathen town’. He here explained the hard labour of the preparing of food or clothing, mats orbaskets, the cleaning or grinding their corn, and more. ‘My remaining here enables me to observe thatboth men and women are in almost constant employment’.11. Livingstone’s fever was not influenced by medicine (this was July 1867): in January 1867 his quinine hadbeen stolen. The medicine he now mentioned was obviously different from quinine.12. Speculations on the source of the Nile: he had read the description by Herodotus, but forgot that Herodotushad said about his informant: he ‘seemed to me to jest when he said that he had full knowledge’. 13. Neither the connection of the Lualaba and Lake Albert, thus with the Albert Nile, nor the one of LakeTanganyika with the Nile exists (also comment 18).14. Livingstone’s ‘choleraic symptoms’, thus cholera-like; probably watery diarrhoea, collapse, cold skin,abdominal cramps. As there was no epidemic and, as the text betrays, he was the only victim, it wasindeed only cholera-like. The fatal epidemic came indeed later, and Kirk confirmed that it was cholera.15. Livingstone saw diseases: his own infections were mainly described, and only a few minor ones amongthe people on the way (goiters, hydroceles). But among the slaves he mentioned particularly ‘clay or eartheating’, which is now said to be characteristic for people with sleeping sickness, a mysterious ‘presentepidemic’ when people died within a few days with swollen feet, hands and face (perhaps a violentlyprogressing kidney infection), and ‘broken-heartedness’, a deadly affliction among the dispossessed.Livingstone never described a patient with sleeping sickness. Other diseases among the slaves were(tropical) ulcers and cholera, related to the unfavourable circumstances of the Arab caravan trade. Signsof ‘malnutrition’ are absent, as is any circumstantial evidence of it. Prolonged breast feeding was nowcriticized, for personal reasons. One child died; he saw mumps and heard whooping cough.

1F. Galton (Namibia: among displaced Herero), T.M. Winterbottom (Sierra Leone, an early colonized coast area), E.Schnitzer (during war in Sudan) and J. Falkenstein (in early colonized Loango, Gabon).


16. Livingstone described the gathering at the market of Nyangwe and its visitors again and again between1 April and 15 July. Indeed his report is ‘one of the clearest pictures we have of African trade’.17. He walked into an ambush: after Nyangwe it was no accident that the Africans attacked the group withthe man in the red jacket. But it might have been about Livingstone personally as most important anddangerous witness of the ‘Nyañgwé massacre’: in that case the raid would have been staged by the Arabs.18. See comment 13: Livingstone and Stanley explored the northern point of Lake Tanganyika: Livingstonesupposed the water from the Ruzizi river came from the lake into Lake Kivu, but it did not. 19. Waller’s interpretation of Livingstone’s death is now called ‘a well-established part of Victorianliterature’, but it is a construction with a farewell message: ‘Dr. Livingstone was not lying on [the bed],but appeared to be engaged in prayer’. There is reason to believe that everything written by Waller aboutLivingstone’s death is based on misconceptions: the place, the time, the finding and the posture of thebody; the reason for transport to Zanzibar (what would have happened to them had they come withoutit?). Anyhow, Waller ‘wanted to fix in the public memory the legendary, saintly figure first presented tothe world by Stanley’.

CHAPTER 8, WHAT LIVINGST ON E REALLY D ISCOVERED IN T ROPICAL AFRICA,A VALUABLE SOURCE OF INFORMATION (abridged pages 258-298).

David Livingstone sketched as self-confident explorer what he went through and thought on his trans-Africa journey in an amusing and often witty way. The report on the Zambesi expedition was less excitingand was marred by his grudges, especially against the Portuguese whom he considered responsible forthe failure of the undertaking. His following and final journey may be regarded as an effort to rehabilitate:‘The Nile sources are valuable only as a means of enabling me to open my mouth with power amongmen’.

Livingstone’s information on health and nutrition is quite comprehensive (though it is here discussedin lesser detail than in the book). His positive observations on the health of the indigenous populationmake a reliable impression and are confirmed by other doctors. There is also much information aboutfood (availability, production, supply). But what seemed to be ‘merry Africa’ had also its ‘primitive’counterparts, be it less dramatic than in later years. Livingstone has shown us several examples. Hisdescription of the negative aspects of the forced migration of people into the Kalahari desert was one.Also elsewhere the situation was far from positive. In the Portuguese colony Mozambique many peoplewere unhealthy. After Tengani was compelled to let Livingstone’s expedition pass, slave-traders destroyedthe delicate balance of the Shire - Lake Malawi region, and famine and illness followed. The Kololo realmhad become unstable in the last years of Sekeletu’s life, and drought had unexpected consequences.Normally the food supply system had inbuilt checks and balances (Livingstone even described the relativeoverproduction to wend off famine in case of climatological setbacks), but that could not help the peopleon the run. One should not forget however, that the described abnormal circumstances were in generalcaused by human actions. It has been said that in history famine and social disturbances were‘inextricably, almost causally, linked’, but in most cases it is better to leave ‘almost’ out.

The question was if one of the most dangerous, ubiquitous nutritional problems of our times,‘malnutrition’, a food deficiency among children under five years of age in the so-called third (and second)world, could in general be found in pre-colonial tropical Africa. Or: how abnormal must thecircumstances be to lead to this affliction? Livingstone mentioned symptoms only once, in 1849, amongthe Kgalagadi people whose circumstances had changed for the worse. Elsewhere signs of ‘malnutrition’were described in the country now called Namibia in 1853, in Sierra Leone in 1803, in Sudan in 1877 andin Loango in 1879, only in a few children and always under very abnormal circumstances (especially socialdisruption, civil disorder, poverty)1. He and Kirk presented circumstantial evidence in the form ofsickness and death among children in the Mozambique colony and in the disrupted regions further north.

During the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe and North Americamany small children died of an ‘artificial disease’, a combination of the lack of specific food elements and

1The suggestion that the people of Africa at that time did not consult the foreign doctors, and that sick children and babiesremained hidden in their huts is a (post)colonial experience for, according to Livingstone, people usually knew he was adoctor, also because his men said so, and he reported that the people brought their patients, also children, spontaneously.In the same area Kirk and Holub had the same experience.2Important is also that ovulation in fertile women only takes place when the fat reserves have been restored. 3Another explanation for the suppression of fertility (like under-nutrition) could be excluded by using biochemicalmeasurements.


infections. The symptoms of this condition are identical to the present-day ‘malnutrition’, and the socialdisruption, deterioration and impoverishment are indeed comparable. It is striking that doctors who hadseen the symptoms in Europe, and even knew the background of the ‘disease’, namely prematureweaning, wrong weaning foods and unreliable water, saw so little of it in pre-colonial Africa1. The onlyexplanation possible is that the conditions leading to ‘malnutrition’ were generally absent in pre-colonialAfrica and that mothers were able to follow the practice - the tradition - of extended breast feeding and sexualabstinence, with the resultant birth interval. Furthermore, the listing of food sources available indicates the widerange of possibilities for the people to obtain food, and thus for mothers to arrange for supplementaryor substitute sorts of nutriment.

To be certain that no cases of ‘malnutrition’ were overlooked, it was necessary to search everywherefor signs of premature diminishing or disappearance of this tradition. In pre-colonial times the nursingperiod was usually extended to three or four years. Sometimes the mother got pregnant sooner, but notbefore the child was two or three years old. Intercourse was not permitted earlier. Infanticide and abortionwere seldom mentioned. We have seen that in 1855 Livingstone gave an objective description of thetradition and that later he suddenly, in 1865, found the custom stupid, but it is nowhere apparent that hedoubted its efficacy. Other doctors and travellers commented likewise between 1705 and 1849 and thistradition existed in Egypt between 5000 BC and 300 AD. In the colonial time it was understood that thetradition produced birth spacing: this was opposed in the Belgian Congo to prevent the current lack ofworkforce becoming structural.

Research in the twentieth century verifies that reports on birth spacing by protracted (and frequent)lactation were made since the seventeenth century. It was a case of ‘a virtually universal principle for thewhole of traditional sub-Saharan Africa’, which suggests its early origin. This, and sexual abstinence, formthe elements ‘of the most fundamental and central mechanisms regulating fertility and infant mortalityin most sub-Saharan African cultures’, whereby polygyny encourages the observation of abstinence.

It has been said that as the modern (western?) person cannot deal with sexual abstinence, there is noreason to imagine that the African could manage like that and could contribute to birth spacing. Frompresent-day Africa we hear a different sound, whereby a difference in mentality is pointed out: the fatherfeels it is also his responsibility to protect the baby. But, is it not true that a woman who is breastfeedingis not, or less, fertile? According to western medicine of the twentieth century this is not a safecontraceptive: only an insufficiently effective prevention of the first ovulation occurs. An Americanresearch project from 1934 proved that one could not rely on the efficacy of this contraceptive. However,for breast feeding to be sufficiently contraceptive the rules had to be defined, which one forgot to do, forvery frequent feeding is the prerequisite for the suppression of ovulation.. Women from the so-called firstworld are quick to reduce the number of feedings to six, then five per day, or less. Strict schedules weredesigned, the ‘breast feeding discipline’: at first every three hours, and then preferably not at night, thenevery four, five hours, etc.. Supplementary feeding was prescribed earlier and earlier. Although the womenbreastfed, in twelve percent pregnancy occurred, even if menstruation did not.

‘Under favorable conditions lactational practices can result in birth spacing intervals of three or moreyears with a degree of reliability comparable to modern mechanical and chemical contraceptives’ andindeed the biochemical explanation for the effect of these ‘practices’ have been determined among !Kungwomen in the Kalahari2. They led indeed to birth spacing of 44 months, without failure, while sexualabstinence was short3. One can ask oneself if the worries about sexual abstinence among monogamousmen are justified under these circumstances. With women from the so-called ‘developing countries’ theneeds of the suckling are primary factors (this is still so, but less feasible than previously). Thus it mayeven drink several times an hour, briefly, but day and night. The hormone prolactin which stimulates themilk glands (and indirectly helps to suppress the ovulation) reaches a high level each time.

1sorghum, maize, millet (sources of protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins), cassava (only carbohydrates). 2The - still existing - territorial cult is a centuries-old religious ‘institution’ with ecological aims, an area-bound ‘rituallydirected ecosystem’ with specific influence on the production and distribution of food, the protection of natural sources,and social rules within the area, among which care for health in preventive and curative sense but also, for instance, thecontrol of migratory movements.


As we know now that in the pre-colonial past this tradition was the rule, it is necessary to find out ifthere was such a lack of supplementary and weaning foods that ‘malnutrition’ could develop. A widevariety from Livingstone’s enumerations of foods can be given: meal of sorghum, maize, millet, roots likecassava1 et cetera, as porridge, bananas and other local fruits, vegetables (which, like fruits, were gathered,while cassava leaves contain more proteins, minerals and vitamins than the root), and later eggs, meat(finely cut up), fish. In fact all these foodstuffs were available. And about reliable water for the porridge:the women in Gabon told me they never drew water from the river in the old days, as it was ‘cursed’, andthey travelled a greater distance to another source. Later they were ordered to draw water from the river,with infectious diseases as a result.

With reference to former food production one must realize that there was nothing primitive aboutAfrican agriculture. Livingstone mentioned very specialized agriculture, practised in many places. ‘Theissue can hardly be that African agriculture has not had time to intensify, but rather that it has found othersolutions, maintaining its essentially extensive character through local specializations’. Much of this isobvious from Livingstone’s descriptions. His conclusion was: ‘If agriculture were a test of civilizationthen these are not savages’, but it is not only about clearing, burning, manuring and cultivating. It is alsoabout efficient specialization, diversification, division of labour, about livestock-husbandry, foodgathering in the wild, the cunning systems of fishing, of hunting, and other achievements. He evenrecognized that so many important locally cultivated crops and trees were imported from other parts ofthe African continent and from South America and Asia (‘innovation’).

Livingstone - who did report these observations with admiration and was aware that the inhabitantseverywhere took food, cotton and other products to the market - nevertheless preferred to keep agitatingfor large-scale market production. His fallacy about under-utilization of the African soil had not changed.Colonization would severely unsettle the African indigenous production systems, so that eventually thefundamental knowledge founded on traditions would be lost, also in the case of the religious, social andpolitical structure of the ‘territorial cults’2. He did not foresee this.

At last another factor must put one on the alert. The combination ‘malnutrition’ - infectious diseaseshas been described in chapter 1, so the occurrence of these diseases among African children must beconsidered as circumstantial evidence. On the ground of Livingstone’s medical knowledge and experienceone could expect his report on diseases to be a reliable basis on which to build. He wrote that manydiseases common in England did not occur in the interior of tropical Africa, and modern sources affirmthat this was indeed so before 1880. He was told about epidemics of smallpox and measles, but these hadnot broken out during the thirty years he travelled in the area. ‘The fever’, meaning malaria, was the mostcommon cause of sickness and death, among whites as well as among the equally susceptible Kololo.Because of Livingstone’s own illness and the death of his wife Mary, bishop Mackenzie and many otherEuropeans, ‘fever’ got disproportionate attention. He meanwhile emphasized that ‘the fever’ seldom ledto death among the (semi-immune) ‘black races’. He rarely reported the death of a child in the interior.This was not for lack of attention, because he did describe a large child mortality among the non-immuneKololo and the inhabitants of disturbed areas: in the Portuguese colonies and in the Shire-Lake Malawiregion, where resistance was low. But a situation comparable with the high child mortality of our timesis nowhere to be found in his books, letters or diaries (or in other publications about tropical Africa frombefore 1880). The explanation for this is apparent: proper feeding prevents the children in a generallystable community from getting ‘malnutrition’ and thereby becoming vulnerable to all sorts of infections.

Fever, meaning heightened body temperature, can have many causes. Livingstone was able torecognize acute sicknesses brought on by infections of the upper respiratory tract, the alimentary canal,the liver (infectious jaundice), the gall bladder and the urinary organs, as also infections like sepsis (bloodpoisoning), sleeping sickness and ‘the fever’. All these diseases were described in his textbooks. It waspossible to trace which diseases he actually knew: practically all the diagnoses, even those he could


possibly come across in the tropics, were in the books he used. More important is how many of the topten diseases of today’s World Health Organization he did or did not recognize. It is apparent that hismedical education bore fruit. After studying his text the conclusion is, that of the top ten fatal illnessesprevalent in tropical Africa today he mentioned nine (only AIDS not). He knew the diseases concerned,but seldom quoted them as cause of death. In sequence of importance he mentioned only malaria (underthe name ‘fever’) and intestinal disorders, under which diarrhoea (dysentery, cholera), certainly not amongchildren as now, and as accidents mainly those caused by wild animals. Occurrence of diseases notmentioned in the top ten list was apparently rare (the most important: leprosy - or was it framboesia? -‘ophthalmia’, ulcers, elephantiasis, anthrax or splenic fever ulcers, mumps and whooping cough).

Had he missed one of the causes of fever, it would not have made a practical difference, because theonly anti-fever substance he (sometimes) had with him, was quinine. Although he was frustrated by hisinterpreters’ lack of skill, he exceptionally did record the diseases of the indigenous population: most otherdoctors wrote primarily about their own sicknesses and those of other Europeans.

In The last journals diseases among children were not reported, not even in the slave caravans, but manyadults in Maniema were seriously ill, slaves, inhabitants, and Livingstone himself. One can imagine thatthe disturbances caused by the Arab slave-trade, especially as this was their first venture into Maniema,led to many diseases. The combination of lack of sufficient food, deficient hygiene and housing, seriouslyenfeebled by duress, will have resulted in extremely reduced resistance.

The preceding summary of diagnoses gives the wrong picture: it concerns mainly incidental andsporadic disorders. The prerequisites for the spreading of diseases were not yet present in ‘Livingstone’stropical Africa’: shortage of food was an exception; the little Livingstone said about hygiene was positive.Mobility, so the spread of epidemics, and infections in general, increased only when the number and sizeof the caravans grew (and thereafter during colonization).

Tropical Africa of today is characterized by the enormous medical and economic consequences of theexplosion of diseases, contributing to poverty and death. In the book a special section is devoted to the(epidemic) explosion of sleeping sickness in the twentieth century, as an example of the spreading of allsorts of infectious diseases since colonization, on the one hand those prevalent already, like malaria,framboesia, and leprosy, on the other hand those not usual there and not observed by Livingstone andother doctors, such as infectious meningitis, infantile paralysis and tuberculosis. More than half of thepresent-day top ten list in Africa concerns infectious diseases. Just as in Europe formerly, they arepromoted by a fundamental lack of quality food, reliable water, hygiene, but also by factors which counteverywhere: powerlessness, lack of security and other shortcomings. The increase of all illnesses in thispart of the world makes this likely: one can say that the resistance of the people of Africa is so badlyweakened that germs have been given ample space.

David Livingstone’s specific limitations did not prevent his making a number of highly valuable reportson health and nutrition, which were corroborated by John Kirk, Emil Holub and Max Buchner, bydoctors in other regions of southern Africa and in later literature.

We must acknowledge that he was an expert in his own field, medicine, and in the adjacent field,‘natural history’, now under the name ‘biology’ still part of the medical curriculum. Evidently his medicalstudy did not encourage the critical faculty which should make it possible to dissociate himself from asocially accepted idée fixe, but that formed no obstacle to his making balanced and sober observations inthe two areas important to us. Sometimes his ideas on progress got the upper hand, in his declaredexpectations of the possibility of industrial agriculture and stock breeding in tropical Africa.

The fact that some of his information was second hand should make us cautious. Also it is adisadvantage that his books describe travels, thus momentary impressions. It is reassuring that the doctor-biologist John Kirk furnished us with both medical and zoological/botanical confirmation during thegreater part of the Zambesi expedition. Although one can justifiably ask whether generalisations regardinghealth and nutrition are possible, based on limited sources, I think that what Livingstone, Kirk and severalother doctors have observed is convincing enough to draw conclusions.

Livingstone’s time-bound limits in the medical sphere are balanced by his explicit statements on healthamong the indigenous population. True, he has not given quantitative facts on food, but that was not whatit is about here. When one draws a sharp line between what he saw and what he presumed - or hoped for


the future - one can call him a useful and even trustworthy informant in these special fields.Historical sources do not support that ‘an appalling child mortality’ occurred in pre-colonial Africa

and that ‘inadequacies of diet’ were general, nor that ‘most of the current dietary staples of Africanpeoples have been developed elsewhere’. The food value of the original African ‘dietary staples’ is higherthan that of the ‘current dietary staples’ (cassava and maize). These opinions, like those on ‘frequentfamines’, are based on (post-)colonial projection, while the odd thing about the so-called ‘poor soils’ isthat formerly the population proved capable of producing considerable harvests there. Publications onAfrican ‘staples’, especial the grain crops, ‘ecological equilibrium’ and on birth spacing were ignored.

These mistakes were not made by Livingstone, on the contrary. Although his ‘general’ information wasnot often usable, he described the specific fields of health and nutrition meticulously.

some closing remarks (abridged), page 37

SOME CLOSING REMARKS

Assumptions and confirmation. What was suggested at the close of chapter 1 as a series of assumptions, isconfirmed by the reports of doctors visiting pre-colonial Africa, and in later publications. This leads tothe positive reformulation of the assumptions, namely that one can accept that before 1880: 1. the inhabitants in general were known for good health and good feeding arrangements, not counting societal disruptions, especially those caused by foreign intruders;2. frequent and prolonged breast feeding (and sexual abstinence) contributed to birth spacing and thereby the protection of young children for years against disease and death;3. the frequently reported wars, poverty and famine were of limited scope, especially as compared with the time after 1880.

It seems remarkable that much of this reformulation is based on facts supplied by David Livingstonehimself. Critics, mainly from the second half of the twentieth century, doubt his credibility. Most of theobjections arose after new information became available from sources not previously (fully) published.The ideal image sketched by the ‘old’ biographers did not tally. Livingstone had entered a world entirelynew to him, where he took his place and made his own rules appropriate for his ‘mission’. The rigidityof this ‘mission’ was bad for others as well as himself, and besides he changed facts to fit in. Theapplication of contemporary models to this historical figure prevented some people from seeing thingsin perspective. Perhaps that is why many did not appreciate his observations in his own field ofknowledge. An unaccountable number of facts on health and nutrition was lost in the criticism.

That the sketch of the pre-colonial ‘health and nutrition’ given in the previous chapters can causeobjections lies not so much in the favourable results from rummaging through the publications oftravellers, as in the sharp contrast one finds there between Africa then and the ‘highly developed Europe’of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where so many succumbed to hunger and epidemic diseases.It must be galling to realize that Africans were better off before than during, and after, the colonialoccupation, and even unacceptable for those who took the old European descriptions of poverty on theAfrican coast and the reports from colonial times as typical of the whole ‘under-developed’ continent.Equally unpleasant and for many still unacceptable is the conclusion that the European colonization wascatastrophic for the African people. There was no technological backwardness of African agriculture (orin general husbandry and other industries) before colonialism. But few people paused to consider howafter independence ‘patterns of trade and investment, of aid to local “élites”, or the transfer of Westerntastes’ made things worse in the new African states.

Much has been said about the health of children and adults. Yet it is necessary to mention the fact that‘malnutrition’ is one of the most important indicators of public health. This ‘new disease’ was neither newnor a disease, although doctors during the Industrial Revolution in the West called it an ‘artificial disease’,a comparable deficiency. Though in our time the number of fatalities seemed to decline somewhat(between 1960 and 1987), recent research points to the ‘disastrously high and even rising levels of infantand toddler malnutrition’. Many children suffer from it: the risk of getting an infection and dying of it ismuch higher than it is in those who receive optimal feeding. It is fairly safe to say that their chance ofsurvival is good. They are the under-fives in tropical Africa who show no signs of ‘malnutrition’. Under-reporting may influence the statistics, but even then quite a percentage is free of symptoms.

The comparable ‘artificial disease’ disappeared from Europe and the U.S.A. at the beginning of thetwentieth century. A number of the factors preventing improvement in tropical Africa will be elucidated:‘underdevelopment’, population explosion, ‘western’ medicine, production of wood, food and otherarticles for the world market, colonization and decolonization, and ‘aid’.

‘Underdevelopment and development’. Probably already before 100 AD foreigners arrived at the coasts ofAfrica. What started as trade with Africans, before long was followed by trade in Africans, as slaves, toAsia and to the Americas. This loss of people had a negative influence upon the development of theoriginal communities. Later the industrial revolutions in the ‘western’ world of that time set a series ofdevelopments in motion, which led to further differences between ‘north’ and ‘south’. Thus originated

1As of Sisyphus, a Greek condemned to push a stone up hill & begin again when it rolled down.


the idea of under-development on the African continent, as opposed to development in Europe and the U.S.A..There development in the eighteenth and nineteenth century went hand in hand with poverty, disease andhigh child mortality, and since then with pollution, over-consumption and alienation. During colonization‘northern achievements’ penetrated all occupied African areas, and not only the coastal areas as before.Although human aspects like ‘Christianizing’, ‘civilization’, ‘medical assistance’, ‘schooling’ and‘development’ were soon posed as important tasks for the colonial authority, the emphasis was on theprovision of raw materials from Africa for the world market, for the good of the ‘mother country’. Thenative African food supply, so admired by Livingstone, was disrupted in many places. The switch tocultivating cash crops, the disappearance of men to work for colonial enterprises, the annexation of largeareas for these enterprises and for ‘protection’ of the environment, for white hunters, made life muchmore difficult for indigenous farmers and cattle breeders. Their efforts to provide food for the growingpopulation themselves failed increasingly. The argument that they could earn ‘money for food’ by workingfor the whites proved false: because of the inadequate infrastructure only limited supplies got throughand where the people were dependent on traders the food often proved expensive and inferior.

‘Population explosion’. The native population was (and is) held responsible for the great increase in numbersever since the start of colonization. This is demonstrably incorrect: there was a considerable decline inthe size of the population after 1880, till about 1920. The high death toll among the Africans throughmilitary actions, but even more through accompanying diseases and lack of food, went for all Europeancolonies to a greater or lesser extent. Only long after that did the population begin to increase in earnest,as compensation for the vast loss of people. Important traditions were undermined through thedisturbances, principally those concerning birth spacing. There was no longer a curb on the populationgrowth any more. More and more children died, although the total number of children grew. Theirexistence and development were nevertheless precarious: one could say that the least unfit survived.

‘Traditional’ and ‘western’ medicine. There is reason to deem the influence of ‘western medical care’ asminimal, for doctors and medicines have no effect on important underlying causes of disease asimpoverishment and lack of food. Even if ‘western medicine’ had the desired effect, the number ofuniversity trained doctors in tropical Africa was and is much too small and too unevenly spread over eachcountry to alter the disturbed balance between births and deaths. The population expansion is correlatedto the increased birth rate and not to the number of doctors trained in ‘the West’.

The primacy of western medicine in the impoverished ‘southern’ countries needs to be put intoperspective on other grounds too. In Europe improved nutrition (including the stimulation of breastfeeding since the eighteenth century), hygienic measures (among which good housing and reliable water),the development of transport infrastructure which also benefited the transport of food, and ultimately themovement towards social security, led to a considerable improvement in public health in the end of thenineteenth and in the twentieth century. This all took place before effective cures were discovered againstthe then most usual causes of illness and death, the infectious diseases. In tropical Africa it was the otherway round: the changes since the end of the nineteenth century caused deterioration of the formerlyflourishing societies. Medical help remains under those circumstances a Sisyphean labour1.

Just as doctors from the ‘North’, so can the African ‘traditional healers’, present in all African societies,do little since they cannot solve the problems caused by colonization. It is nonetheless regrettable thattheir influence and knowledge has diminished. They and their methods are accepted by the community,as ‘a service that local people consider to be beyond biomedical clinics’. Where possible they contributeto improving human resistance, and they treat all their patients’ disorders as well as possible. Thesedoctors, patronizingly called ‘traditional African medicine men’, have basic principles which are just asusable as those of an old-fashioned general practitioner in Europe. Both have their place in society whichallows them to work with people and at the same time try to cope with their circumstances, social,medical and political. Livingstone studied the methods and abilities of the African doctors, and he wasnot the only one: many more have done that through the ages, with more or less understanding.

Western medicine has been successful sometimes - but not generally - in treating abstract problems,often an infection, where the ‘traditional healer’ failed. Perhaps just because of the success of antibiotics


(as imperatively demanded of the doctor as in European and American cities) many Africans have theimpression that western methods are magic, and therefore the value of the traditional methods isundermined. One forgot that the human body has many mechanisms to protect itself from sickness, ifbased on normal, steady food production and social stability. Neglected was the healers’ tasks, connectedwith ‘a very traditional belief (-) that illness occurs when a person allows the spiritual, social, physical andemotional aspects of his or her life to fall out of balance’.

African production of wood, food, et cetera after 1880. William Allan has described the situation of Africanfarming, and of the farmers, in the twentieth century, where necessary compared with the pre-colonialpast: a clear and panoramic analysis of the results of colonial intervention in the African agricultural worldwhich can serve as a warning for every post-colonial society. Others have been more explicit when itcomes to the damage inflicted by colonization: ‘a major ecological catastrophe’. Even in ‘fertile andhospitable land’ the people were ‘impoverished and disease-ridden’. What happened in less fertile areascan only be guessed at.

The Africans often got the blame for things which failed. Their ‘heedless system’ of agriculture hadto change as quickly as possible through modern clearing and fertilizing, and by using ‘better’ crops.Equally damaging was the demand for permanent residence, in order to prevent the disappearance oftropical forests and other vegetation ‘because of the natives’ reclamation’. Where now, since colonization,whole forests disappear it is due to large-scale clearing for the benefit of ‘white’ plantations and the exportof tropical timber. It is done ‘by root and all’, resulting in total loss of the original diversity. The(European, American and African) plantations with rubber trees, oil palms, coffee bushes, cocoa plantsare typical examples of monoculture. If a timber company however abandons such large waste lands, theyare too extensive for the farmers to fertilize and replant. No trees come out spontaneously any more, asthere are no stumps left as in former times. Livingstone realized - with some delay - that the indigenousfarmers always left stumps standing in order to prevent erosion and to regenerate the forest.

All sorts of planners have believed - even after colonial debacles - that intensive ‘western’ methodsof agriculture were possible in many areas after decolonization. It is striking that since the 1950s planshave again been ventilated for large-scale agriculture for the international market and not only by western-trained agricultural engineers, but also - and especially - by theoreticians. It is useful to keep the statementof Schoffeleers in mind when considering these ideas and thoughts about ‘development’: ‘There is nodoubt that Africa is being formed in the image of industrialized society. While the world is bemoaningits ecological woes and is trying to construct a viable ideology, Africa is divesting herself of the one sheso long possessed’. In the meantime we see how difficult it is to reach ‘a viable ideology’ in Europe.

Colonisation and decolonisation. During colonisation all the problems merged: rapid population growth, highchild mortality, deforestation (with erosion and drying-up), decreasing food production, impoverishmentand the loss of indigenous healing methods. At the same time as the reduction of birth spacing, of shiftingcultivation and other ecological production systems, of the careful management of natural resources, andthus of a balanced food supply, also the traditions were disappearing. The post-colonial period provedthat it could be worse.

The training in self-government for the African élite was not ideal. Colonial administrators hadmodelled a ‘nation state’ for them, dependent on the West, with a similar structure and consumptionpattern. Imports from industrialized countries should increase and had to be paid with export goods fromthe African world. An ethical government policy concerning the group set back by colonization could notevolve. It did not improve after de-colonization. The increasing demand for mineral resources for exportnecessitated an ever growing labour force and thus resulted in a new escalation in the migration of mento mines and production centres. Where farm products were concerned, export was detrimental to thenative food production for sustenance, just as during colonization.

Only a tiny group of people has become wealthy. In the countries where tropical hardwood andsoftwood, and minerals like oil, diamonds, copper and others are plentiful, these were already ‘developed’indiscriminately in the colonial period. It is understandable that the same sources (and income as taxesand development contributions) are regarded as private property by many rulers (and rebel leaders) of thepresent. A large part of it is spent on protecting their safety and power. Their expenditure on consumergoods is also important, just as the depositing of the money in ‘safe havens’.


The people, regarded as under-developed for more than one hundred years, still lose ever moreoriginal know-how. The ‘unhappy and dependent mass’, could not, through hunger and disease, achievethe same resistance they had shown to the colonial rulers. It got more and more apathetic under their‘own’ rulers. In view of the above, the creation of a ‘guarantee state’ for economic growth suggested bythe former commissioner of the European Union Bolkestein, is an illusion. The confidence that theAfrican rulers are able or willing to do it is lacking. A call on them is, in the light of his otherwise sharpanalysis, not easily understood. His conclusion that ‘Africa’ must fend for itself could be better explainedas: the African people will have to work it out themselves in spite of their governments.

Aid for ‘under-developed’ countries. When the first African countries got their independence, Europe and theU.S.A. offered help to this ‘underdeveloped’ continent. The help organizers knew little of the past. Forthem the undeniable development in the previous centuries and the break since 1880 was not important:safeguarding their spheres of influence against the Soviet Union came first. In theory the improvedlinking of the ‘south’ with the world economy would lead to the prosperity of receivers and givers. Insightinto the origin of ‘under-development’ remained non-existent, just as insight into why help is offered.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the wealthy countries still want to achieve what Livingstonedid: the creation of possibilities for their own trade and industry, and philanthropic ‘doing good’ or‘making amends’ for a situation for which one feels partially morally responsible or for which one takesthe responsibility. ‘Aid’ arrived with a vengeance; that it was still useless in 1999 is illustrated by theslogan ‘Aid works - let’s prove it’. If that has to be proved after fifty years, ‘aid works’ seems a cynicism,and the sentence ‘we acted inconsistently by supporting our own export production with our aid’ mustbe meant critically. But the then following suggestion, namely that the ‘third world’ should start producingfor ‘our’ market, corresponds however with the original intentions of the international organizations andonce again ignores the necessity for poor countries to restore their own food supply first.

The white ‘development workers’ who settled in African countries after the departure of the colonizersalso assumed that the slumbering riches would be ‘developed’ with western help, but now for the benefitof the ‘natives’ (to relieve their poverty and backwardness). That ‘invisible wealth’ existed formerly, thatthe present poverty is of a later date, and that the ‘natives’ had usually controlled the natural resourceswith great care escaped attention. No one anticipated that the help offered could not take root under theexisting circumstances. It was not always understood that the projects created often had negative, evenfatal, side-effects. The obstacles in the way of the people have remained the same. Their removal isimpossible for aid organizations: for that a political reversal is necessary.

The history of the past fifty years suggests that the people of tropical Africa will have to solve theseenormous problems themselves. For, it is all about whether the aid can ever relieve the burden and theloss of status of the women, can cause re-migration of the men, can encourage birth spacing throughprolonged breast feeding, in short whether ‘aid’ is the means of helping the recovery of food supplies, andof health. Considering the obstacles put in the way of the African peoples, very few possibilities remainfor investing the international development budget for tropical Africa well. An important share of it couldbe used to buy up the alienated farming land, hunting grounds, meadows and fishing grounds, and givethem back to the native inhabitants (but not to their élites). Concessions to fell forests, given tointernational concerns, could be redeemed. All this could expand the area for food production and energysupply, as long as the preceding destruction has not led to unemployability.

Even if this were to happen, the interminable problems of the (female) farmers and peasants wouldnot be solved. To name but a few: if they got stolen land back, how do they compensate for the loss ofmanpower for clearing and preparing the ground, and for harvesting, in order to return to more nutritious,but labour intensive (grain) crops? How can the ecological management (the traditions) be restored? Howcan they get nearer to clean water sources, obtain new supplies of seeds, find time to breastfeed morefrequently, prepare meals and keep up the house and garden? In short, how can they survive?

There is no way back for Africa, but knowledge of former accomplishments can restore confidenceand thereby bring a solution for present problems nearer. Pre-colonial African society was characterizedby a natural, and differing from the ‘western’, economic system, although this had suffered from thetransatlantic slave-trade. David Livingstone saw social structures where poverty, sickness and hunger werethe exception rather than the rule, a compliment for the population of the time.


African solutions. Until recently there was no record made by indigenous members of rural communitiesthemselves on how they managed to prevent the failure of their food supply. But even in the colonialperiod non-Africans recognized the quality of indigenous agriculture: in Nigeria ‘the native farmer hasalready evolved a scheme of farming which cannot be bettered (-) this scheme affords almost completeprotection against soil erosion and loss of fertility’ (1938). In 1983 ‘small-scale farming in Africa’ wascalled ‘detailed and skilled work of considerable complexity in which quality is as important as quantity’.Ten years later it was recognized that ‘The human potential, basic wisdom and knowledge of Africa’s localpeoples have been seriously underestimated’. A former progress report of Pierre Pradervand summed uphow farmers in various places on the continent managed to reverse the failure of their food supplywithout help from the rich North. A lot remained to be done, but that had to do with the limitedinfluence of the inhabitants on the politics of the country (or region) concerned.

Successful actions of female and male African farmers themselves did not reach the press: they didnot publish. But gradually the practices of the African farmers became clearer, which led in 2001 to thesummary Farmer innovation in Africa. The efforts had led to a definite improvement in, among other things,‘the food security of their families, as well as the environment’. They shared their knowledge with othersand did not look upon themselves as exceptions. Although the authors did not report the knowledgewhich was ‘inherited from parents or grandparents’, there was mention of revival of ‘traditional soilmanagement practices’ and ‘traditional crop varieties’. There was ‘a total of over 800 farmer innovators[the tip of the iceberg], identified in the seven countries involved’ (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia,Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe); similar innovations might be found in other African countries.

These innovations concern practically the same subjects we know from Livingstone. The main thingis that African and some foreign authors have been open-minded enough to observe and value them attheir true worth. They have clarified their first impression that the innovators were ‘relatively rich’: thesefarmers had often started from scratch and had improved their situation while introducing changes, inproviding food for home consumption, in increasing household income and in maintaining or increasingsoil fertility. Although originally it seemed to be the men who innovated, women did it too, usually lessconspicuously but with success. That the favourable effect of the results on ‘malnutrition’ was notbroached does not mean it did not exist: food supply improved, why should that not be so with theinsight that the length of breast feeding and the supply of weaning foods was thereby essential? This‘innovation’ can naturally not be missed.

Results in this area are now also reported by an indigenous organization in Zimbabwe. Begunoriginally for the establishment of indigenous tree nurseries, a switch was made to ‘rehabilitation of sacredwoodlands, wetlands, vleis and springs [and] experiments with organic farming’ (among other thingsmaize, finger and bulrush millet, based on organic manure). Traditional methods are used, also for inter-cropping and pest control. ‘Traditional ceremonies were held to ask the ancestors to protect crops frompests and diseases’. Crops thus produced ‘could withstand drought better than chemically producedcrops’. These methods led to ‘improvements in their nutritional status [of the families]. The incidence ofprotein-shortage related diseases has declined in the communities’, possibly an indication that‘malnutrition’ occurs less frequently. And: ‘The eco-cultural villages actively function as a health clinicand traditional pharmacy for the majority of the communities in the area’. These traditions are not losteverywhere or entirely; we must hope that Africans will succeed in propagating their knowledge.Though the difference between the past and the present is still great, ‘The Africans have wonderfullyborne up under unnatural conditions that would have proved fatal to most races’ (David Livingstone).

1The name of doctors who travelled in pre-colonial Africa and whose printed documents (books, articles) are of value forhealth and nutrition in ‘Livingstone’s tropical Africa’, is indicated by *. When first mentioned in this list, the name is inheavy print. ** : editor of printed documents of a physician or surgeon who travelled in tropical Africa before 1880.

short literature list, page 42

AN ABRIDGED LIST OF PUBLICATIONS1.

Allan, William. The African husbandman. Oliver & Boyd: Edinburgh, 1965 (reprint: Westport, Connecticut:

Greenwood Press, 1977).

Amin, Samir. Underdevelopment and dependence in black Africa - origins and contemporary forms. The Journalof modern African studies, 1972, 503-524.

*Atkins, J. A voyage to Guinea, Brasil and the West-Indies: in His Majesty's ships the Swallow and Weymouth. 2nd ed.London: Ward and Chandler, 1737. (1st ed. 1735)

Austen, Ralph A. African economic history. Internal development and external dependency. London: James Currey, 1987.

Autret, M. Disease of a hundred names. Alfa Laval International, Tumba, Sweden, 1967-1968, 12-13.

*Bastian, A. Afrikanische Reisen: ein Besuch in San Salvador der Hauptstadt des Königreichs Congo. Bremen: Heinrich Strack,

1859.

Belloni du Chaillu, Paul. Voyages et aventures dans l’afrique equatoriale. Paris: editions française revue et augmentee,1863.

Blaikie, W.G., D.D., LL.D. The personal life of David Livingstone, LL.D., D.C.L., chiefly from his unpublished journalsand correspondence in the possession of his family. London: John Murray, 1880.

Bleek, Wolf. Spacing of children, sexual abstinence and breast-feeding in rural Ghana. Soc. sci. & med., 1976, 225-230.

Bolkestein, Frits. Verstikkende hulp Afrika zit klem tussen goede bedoelingen en slechte bestuurders. Hollandsmaandblad, 2000, 10, 3-10.

Bontinck, F. (1974b) Commentaire d’un passage de Livingstone Last Journals, 1er juin 1872. Koninklijke academievan overzese wetenschappen. Mededelingen der zittingen./ Académie Royale des sciences d’outre-mer. Bulletin des séances. 1974, 570-597.

Bontinck, F. La mort de Livingstone réexaminée. Africa, (Roma) 1978, 579-603.

Bontinck, François. La date de la rencontre Stanley - Livingstone. Africa (Roma), 1979, 225-241.

Bosazza, V.L. The Hero's brother - Charles Livingstone. In: David Livingstone and Africa. Proceedings of a Seminarheld on the occasion of the Centenary of the Death of David Livingstone at the Centre of African Studies,University of Edinburgh, 4th and 5th May 1973 (mimeograph), 105-111.

Boserup, E. The conditions of agricultural growth. The economics of agrarian change under population pressure.London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1965.

Boucher, Maurice (ed.). Livingstone letters 1843 to 1872. David Livingstone correspondence in the Brenthurst libraryJohannesburg. Houghton: the Brenthurst Press Ltd, 1985.

Bridges, R.C. The sponsoring and financing of Livingstone's last journey. In: African Historical Studies, 1968, 79-104.

Bridges, R.C. (1973a) The problem of Livingstone's Last Journey. In: David Livingstone and Africa. Proceedings ofa Seminar held on the occasion of the Centenary of the Death of David Livingstone at the Centre of AfricanStudies, University of Edinburgh, 4th and 5th May 1973 (mimeograph), 163-177.

Bridges, Roy C. Nineteenth century East African travel records. Paideuma, Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde, 1987,179-196.

Brock, J.F., M. Autret. Kwashiorkor in Africa. Geneva: WHO, 1952, xxi (Brock, J.F. and M. Autret. Le Kwashiorkoren Afrique. Genève: OMS, 1952).

*Brun, Samuel. Schiffarten: Welche er in etliche newe Länder und Insulen/zu fünff onderschiedlichen malen/mit Gottes hülffgethan: (-). Basel: Johan Jacob Gmatys, 1624. Reprint in: Werken uitgegeven door de Linschotenvereniging: VI: ed.L'Honoré Naber S.P.. 's Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1913.

*Bryson, A. On the prophylactic influence of quinine. Medical Times and Gazette, January 7th, 1854, 6-7.

[*Buchner, Max] **Heintze, Beatrix (Hrsg). Max *Buchners Reise nach Zentralafrika 1878-1882. Köln: Rüdiger KöppeVerlag, 1999.

1See R. Longhurst.


Cairns, H.A.C. Prelude to imperium. British reactions to central East-African society, 1840-1890. London: Routledge

& Kegan Paul, 1965.

Campbell, Reginald J. Livingstone. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1930.

Cassava symposium 14th November 1985. Working group on nutrition in developing countries. Netherlands societyof tropical health1.

Chadwick, Owen. Mackenzie's grave, London: Hodders & Stoughton, 1959.

Chamberlin, D. (ed.). Some letters from Livingstone 1840-1872. London: Oxford University Press, 1940.

Chanock, Martin. Agricultural change and continuity in Malawi. In: Palmer, Robin, and Neil Parsons (ed.). The rootsof rural poverty in Central and Southern Africa. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977, 396-409.

Clendennen, G. (ed.) David Livingstone on the Zambesi: letters to John Washington, 1861-1863. Pasadena: Californiainstitue of technology, 1976.

Clendennen, G.W. (compiled by G.W.C., assisted by I.C. Cunningham). David Livingstone: a catalogue of documents.Edinburgh: National Library of Scotland for the David Livingstone documentation project, 1979.

Clendennen, Gary, and James A. Casada. The Livingstone documentation project. History in Africa, 1981, 309-317.

Clendennen, G.W. (ed.) David Livingstone’s Shire journal, 1861-1864. Aberdeen: Scottish Cultural Press, 1992.

Clendennen, Gary W. Historians beware: you can’t judge a book by its critics; or, problems with a nineteenth-century exploration record [of Livingstone’s Zambesi expedition]. History in Africa, 1994, 403-407.

*Coillard, François. On the threshold of central Africa. A record of twenty years’ pioneering among the Barotsi of the upperZambesi. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1897.

*Coillard, François. Sur le Haut-Zambèze, voyages et travaux de mission. Paris-Nancy: Berger-Levrault et Cie, 1899.

Cole-King, P.A. Searching for Livingstone: E.D. Young and others. In: Pachai, B. (ed.) (1973a), Livingstone: Manof Africa. Memorial essays 1873-1973. London: Longman, 1973, 152-174.

Cone jr., Thomas E. History of infant and child feeding. In: Bond, Jenny T., L.J. Filer jr, Gilbert A. Leveille, AngusThomson, William B. Weil jr (ed.) Infant and child feeding. New York/London: Academic Press, 1981, 5-32.

Cook, G.C. Manson’s tropical diseases. London: W.B. Saunders company, 1996.

Cooley, William Desborough. Dr. Livingstone and the Royal Geographic Society, London: printed for the Author; soldby Dulan & Co., 1874.

Coupland, Reginald. East Africa and its invaders. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938.

Coupland, Reginald. Livingstone's last journey, London, Collins, 1945.

Craddock, Sally. Retired. Except on demand. The life of Dr Cecily Williams. Oxford: Green College, 1983.

Cunningham, I.C. (compiled by I.C. C.). David Livingstone: A catalogue of documents. Supplement. Edinburgh: NationalLibrary of Scotland for the David Livingstone documentation project, 1985.

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Curtin, Philip, Steven Feierman, Leonard Thompson, Jan Vansina. African history. London and New York: Longman,1978; tenth impression 1992.

Czerny, A., und A. Keller. Des Kindes Ernährung, Ernährungsstörungen und Ernährungstherapie. Wien: Franz Deuticke,1906.

Czerny, A., und A. Keller. Des Kindes Ernährung, Ernährungsstörungen und Ernährungstherapie. Leipzig und Wien: FranzDeuticke, 1. Band, 1923, 2. Band, 1925.

Daddieh, Cyriel Kofie. Recovering Africa’s self-sufficiency in food and agriculture. In: Adedeji, Adebayo, and

Timothy M. Shaw. Economic crisis in Africa. Boulder: L. Rienner publishers, 1985, 187-200.

Dapper, Dr. O. Naukeurige beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche gewesten [-] Getrokken uit verscheyde hedendaagse lantbeschrijvers engeschriften van bereisde ondersoekers dier landen. Amsterdam: Jacob van Meurs, 1668.

Darby, William J., Paul Ghalioungui, Louis Grivetti. Food: the gift of Osiris, London: Academic Press, 1977.

Darkoh, Michael B.K. and Mohamed Ould-Mey. Cash crops versus food crops in Africa: a conflict betweendependency and autonomy. Transafrican journal of history, 21, 1992, 36-50.


Davidson, Basil. The black man's burden. Africa and the curse of the nation-state. London: James Currey, 1992.

Davidson, S., R. Passmore, J.F. Brock, A.S. Truswell. Human dietietics and nutrition. 7th ed. Edinburgh/London/NewYork: Churchill Livingstone, 1979.

Davidson, S., R. Passmore, M.A. Eastwood. Human nutrition and dietetics. London: Churchill Livingstone, 1986.

Davies, J.N.P. Pestilence and disease in the history of Africa. 14th Raymond Dart lecture. Johannesburg: WitwatersrandUniversity Press , 1979.

Debenham, F. New light on Livingstone’s last journey. The geographical journal, 1954, 1-14.

Debenham, F. The way to Ilala. David Livingstone's pilgrimage. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1955.

Desmond Clark, J. and Gervase Clay. David Livingstone: chronology. In: Lloyd, B.W. (ed.) Livingstone 1873-1973.Cape Town: C. Struik Ltd, 1973, 88-97.

Dias, Jill R. Famine and disease in the history of Angola c. 1830-1930. Journal of African History, 1981, 349-378.

The Dictionary of National Biography, from the earliest times to 1900. London: Oxford University Press; vol I, 1937-1938,913-914 (Thomas Baines); vol VII, reprint 1966, 70-73 (Francis Galton); vol. XI, reprint 1967-1968, 1263 (CharlesLivingstone), 1263-1275 (David Livingstone)*.

The Dictionary of National Biography, 1922-1930 (ed. J.R.H. Weaver). London: Oxford University Press, 1937, 472-473(John Kirk).

Duffy, James. Portuguese Africa. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press/London, Oxford University Press,1959.

Ebrahim, G.J. (editorial) Breastmilk endocrinology. Journal of tropical pediatrics, 1996, 2-4.

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an african surprise what livingstone really discovered in tropical

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