ABSTRACT
Dr David Livingstone (1813-73) is the most celebrated of British explorers of Africa. Born in humble circumstances in Lanarkshire, Scotland, Livingstone worked hard to educate himself at night while employed from the age of ten in a cotton mill. He earned the money to take a medical degree in Glasgow, leaving the mill at the age of twenty-three and graduating in 1840. During this time he also trained in England as a missionary. He was sent to Bechuanaland by the London Missionary Society at the end of 1840. Grandfather could give particulars of the lives of his ancestors for six generations of the family before him. The earliest recollection of the author mother recalls a picture so often seen among the Scottish poor—that of the anxious housewife striving to make both ends meet. In the glow of love which Christianity inspires, the author soon resolved to devote the author life to the alleviation of human misery.
