“May 19, 1862.—­Vividly do I remember my first passage down in 1856, passing Shupanga house without landing, and looking at its red hills and white vales with the impression that it was a beautiful spot.  No suspicion glanced across my mind that there my loving wife would be called to give up the ghost six years afterward.  In some other spot I may have looked at, my own resting-place may be allotted.  I have often wished that it might be in some far-off still deep forest, where I may sleep sweetly till the resurrection morn, when the trump of God will make all start up into the glorious and active second existence.

“25_th May_.—­Some of the histories of pious people in the last century and previously tell of clouds of religious gloom, or of paroxysms of opposition and fierce rebellion against God, which found vent in terrible expressions.  These were followed by great elevations of faith, and reactions of confiding love, the results of divine influence which carried the soul far above the region of the intellect into that of direct spiritual intuition.  This seems to have been the experience of my dear Mary.  She had a strong presentiment of death being near.  She said that she would never have a house in this country.  Taking it to be despondency alone, I only joked, and now my heart smites me that I did not talk seriously on that and many things besides.

“31_st May_, 1862.—­The loss of my ever dear Mary lies like a heavy weight on my heart.  In our intercourse in private there was more than what would be thought by some a decorous amount of merriment and play.  I said to her a few days before her fatal illness:  ’We old bodies ought now to be more sober, and not play so much.’  ‘Oh, no,’ said she,’ you must always be as playful as you have always been; I would not like you to be as grave as some folks I have seen.’  This, when I know her prayer was that she might be spared to be a help and comfort to me in my great work, led me to feel what I have always believed to be the true way, to let the head grow wise, but keep the heart always young and playful.  She was ready and anxious to work, but has been called away to serve God in a higher sphere.”

Livingstone could not be idle, even when his heart was broken; he occupied the days after the death in writing to her father and mother, to his children, and to many of the friends who would be interested in the sad news.  Among these letters, that to Mrs. Moffat and her reply from Kuruman have a special interest.  His letters went round by Europe, and the first news reached Kuruman by traders and newspapers.  For a full month after her daughters death, Mrs. Moffat was giving thanks for the mercy that had spared her to meet with her husband, and had made her lot so different from that of Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup.  In a letter, dated 26th May, she writes to Mary a graphic account of the electrical thrill that passed through her when she saw David’s handwriting—­of