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 Murchison. On the 15th December the Royal Geographic Society held a special meeting to welcome him. Sir Roderick was in the chair; the attendance was numerous and distinguished, and included some of Livingstone's previous fellow-travelers, Colonel Steele, Captain Vardon, and Mr. Oswell. The President referred to the meeting of May, 1855, when the Victoria or Patron's medal had been awarded to Livingstone for his journey from the Cape to Linyanti and Loanda. Now Livingstone had added to that feat the journey from the Atlantic Ocean at Loanda to the Indian Ocean at Quilimane, and during his several journeys had traveled over not less than eleven thousand miles of African ground. Surpassing the French missionary travelers, Hue and Gabet, he had determined, by astronomical observations, the site of numerous places, hills, rivers, and lakes, previously unknown. He had seized every opportunity of describing the physical structure, geology, and climatology of the countries traversed, and making known their natural products and capabilities. He had ascertained by experience, what had been only conjectured previously, that the interior of Africa was a plateau intersected by various lakes and rivers, the waters of which escaped to the Eastern and Western oceans by deep rents in the flanking hills. Great though these achievements were, the most honorable' of all Livingstone's acts had yet to be mentioned--the fidelity that kept his promise to the natives, who, having accompanied him to St. Paul de Loanda, were reconducted by him from that city to their homes.
"Bare fortitude and virtue must our medalist have possessed, when, having struggled at the imminent risk of his life through such obstacles, and when, escaping from the interior, he had been received with true kindness by our old allies, the Portuguese at Angola, he nobly resolved to redeem his promise and retrace his steps to the interior of the vast continent! How much indeed must the influence of the British name be enhanced throughout Africa, when it has been promulgated that our missionary has thus kept his plighted word to the poor natives who faithfully stood by him!"
On receiving the medal, Livingstone apologized for his rustiness in the use of his native tongue; said that he had only done his duty as a Christian missionary in opening up a part of Africa to the sympathy of Christendom: that Steele, Vardon, or Oswell might have done all that he had done; that as yet he was only buckling on his armor, and therefore in no condition to speak boastfully; and that the enterprise would never be complete till the slave-trade was abolished, and the whole country opened up to commerce and Christianity.