Already is my imagination busy picturing the various scenes through which you must pass, from the first transport of joy on meeting till that painful anxious hour when you must bid adieu to your darlings, with faint hopes of ever seeing them again in this life; and then, what you may both have to pass through in those inhospitable regions....

“From what I saw in Mr. Livingston’s letter to Robert, I was shocked to think that that poor head, in the prime of manhood, was so like my own, who am literally worn out.  The symptoms he describes are so like my own.  Now, with a little rest and relaxation, having youth on his side, he might regain all, but I cannot help fearing for him if he dashes at once into hardships again.  He is certainly the wonder of his age, and with a little prudence as regards his health, the stores of information he now possesses might be turned to a mighty account for poor wretched Africa....  We do not yet see how Mr. L. will get on—­the case seems so complex.  I feel, as I have often done, that as regards ourselves it is a subject more for prayer than for deliberation, separated as we are by such distances, and such a tardy and eccentric post.  I used to imagine that when he was once got out safely from this dark continent we should only have to praise God for all his mercies to him and to us all, and for what He had effected by him; but now I see we must go on seeking the guidance and direction of his providential hand, and sustaining and preventing mercy.  We cannot cease to remember you daily, and thus our sympathy will be kept alive with you....”

Dr. Moffatt’s congratulation to his son-in-law was calm and hearty: 

“Your explorations have created immense interest, and especially in England, and that man must be made of bend-leather who can remain unmoved at the rehearsal even of a tithe of your daring enterprises.  The honors awaiting you at home would be enough to make a score of light heads dizzy, but I have no fear of their affecting your upper story, beyond showing you that your labors to lay open the recesses of the fast interior have been appreciated.  It will be almost too much for dear Mary to hear that you are verily unscathed.  She has had many to sympathize with her, and I daresay many have called you a very naughty man for thus having exposed your life a thousand times.  Be that as it may, you have succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectations in laying open a world of immortal beings, all needing the gospel, and at a time, now that war is over, when people may exert their exergies on an object compared with which that which has occupied the master minds of Europe, and expended so much money, and shed so much blood, is but a phantom.”

On the 9th of December, as we have seen, Livingstone arrived at London.  He went first to Southampton, where his wife was waiting for him, and on his return to London was quickly in communication with Sir Roderick