Before closing the record of this period, we must take a glance at the remarkable literary activity which it witnessed.  We have had occasion to refer to Livingstone’s first letters to Captain Steele, for the Geographical Society; additional letters were contributed from time to time.  His philological researches have also been noticed.  In addition to these, we find him writing two articles on African Missions for the British Quarterly Review, only one of which was published.  He likewise wrote two papers for the British Banner on the Boers.  While crossing the desert, after leaving the Cape on his first great journey, he wrote a remarkable paper on “Missionary Sacrifices,” and another of great vigor on the Boers.  Still another paper on Lake ’Ngami was written for a Missionary Journal contemplated, but never started, under the editorship of the late Mr. Isaac Taylor; and he had one in his mind on the religion of the Bechuanas, presenting a view which differed somewhat from that of Mr. Moffat.  Writing to Mr. Watt from Linyanti (3d October, 1853), on printing one of his papers, he says: 

“But the expense, my dear man.  What a mess I am in, writing papers which cannot pay their own way!  Pauper papers, in fact, which must go to the workhouse for support.  Ugh!  Has the Caffre War paper shared the same fate? and the Language paper too?  Here I have two by me, which I will keep in their native obscurity.  One is on the South African Boers and slavery, in which I show that their church is, and always has been, the great bulwark of slavery, cattle-lifting, and Caffre-marauding; and I correct the mistaken views of some writers who describe the Boers as all that is good, and of others who describe as all that is bad, by showing who are the good and who are the bad.  The other, which I rather admire,—­what father doesn’t his own progeny?—­is on the missionary work, and designed to aid young men of piety to form a more correct idea of it than is to be had from much of the missionary biography of ‘sacrifices.’  I magnify the enterprise, exult in the future, etc., etc.  It was written in coming across the desert, and if it never does aught else, it imparted comfort and encouragement to myself[34]....  I feel almost inclined to send it....  If the Caffre War one is rejected, then farewell to spouting in Reviews.”

[Footnote 34:  For extracts from the paper on “Missionary Sacrifices,” see Appendix No.  I. For part of the paper on the Boers, see Catholic Presbyterian December, 1879 (London, Nisbet and Co.).]

If he had met with more encouragement from editors he would have written more.  But the editorial cold shoulder was beyond even his power of endurance.  He laid aside his pen in a kind of disgust, and this doubtless was one of the reasons that made him unwilling to resume it on his return to England.  Editors were wiser then; and the offer from one London Magazine of L400 for four articles, and from Good Words of L1000 for a number of papers to be fixed afterward,—­offers which, however, were not accepted finally,—­showed how the tide had turned.