The "Pioneer" was detained for five weeks on a shoal twenty miles below Chibisa's, and here the first death occurred--the carpenter's mate succumbed to fever. It was extremely irksome to suffer this long detention, to think of fuel and provisions wasting, and salaries running on, without one particle of progress. Livingstone was sensitive and anxious. He speaks in his Journal of the difficulty of feeling resigned to the Divine will in all things, and of believing that all things work together for good to those that love God, He seems to have been troubled at what had been said in some quarters of his treatment of members of the Expedition. In private letters, in the Cape papers, in the home papers, unfavorable representations of his conduct had been made. In one case, a prosecution at law had been threatened. On New Year's Day, 1862, he entered in his Journal an elaborate minute, as if for future use, bearing on the conduct of the Expedition. He refers to the difficulty to which civil expeditions are exposed, as compared with naval and military, in the matter of discipline, owing to the inferior authority and power of the chief. In the countries visited there is no enlightened public opinion to support the commander, and newspapers at home are but too ready to believe in his tyranny, and make themselves the champions of any dawdling fellow who would fain be counted a victim of his despotism. He enumerates the chief troubles to which his Expedition had been exposed from such causes. Then he explains how, at the beginning, to prevent collision, he had made every man independent in his own department, wishing only, for himself, to be the means of making known to the world what each man had done. His conclusion is a sad one, but it explains why in his last journeys he went alone: he is convinced that if he had been by himself he would have accomplished more, and undoubtedly he would have received more of the approbation of his countrymen[62].
[Footnote 62: Notwithstanding this expression of feeling, Dr. Livingstone was very sincere in his handsome acknowledgments, in the Introduction to _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_, of valuable services, especially from the members of the Expedition there named.]
At length the "Pioneer" was got off the bank, and on the 11th January, 1862, they entered the Zambesi. They prided to the great Luabo mouth, as being more advantageous than the Kongone for a supply of wood. They were a month behind their appointment, and no ship was to be seen. The ship had been there, it turned out, on the 8th January, had looked eagerly for the "Pioneer," had fancied it saw the black funnel and its smoke in the river, and being disappointed had made for Mozambique, been caught in a gale, and was unable to return for three weeks. Livingstone's letters show him a little out of sorts at the manifold obstructions that had always been making him "too late"--"too late for Rovuma below, too late for Rovuma above, and now too late for our own appointment," but in greater trouble because the "Lady Nyassa" had not been sent by sea, as he had strongly urged, and as it afterward appeared might have been done quite well. To take out the pieces and fit them up would involve heavy expense and long delay, and perhaps the season would be lost again. But Livingstone had always a saving clause, in all his lamentations, and here it is: "I know that all was done for the best."
At length, on the last day of January, H.M.S. "Gorgon," with a brig in tow, hove in sight. When the "Pioneer" was seen, up went the signal from the "Gorgon"--"I have steamboat in the brig"; to which Livingstone replied--"Welcome news." Then "Wife aboard" was signaled from the ship. "Accept my best thanks" concluded what Livingstone called "the most interesting conversation he had engaged in for many a day." Next morning the "Pioneer" steamed out, and Dr. Livingstone found his wife "all right." In the same ship with Mrs. Livingstone, besides Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup, the Rev. E. Hawkins and others of the Universities Mission, had come the Rev. James Stewart, of the Free Church of Scotland (now Dr. Stewart, of Lovedale, South Africa), who had been sent out by a committee of that Church, "to meet with Dr. Livingstone, and obtain, by personal observation and otherwise, the information that might be necessary to enable a committee at home to form a correct judgment as to the possibility of founding a mission in that part of Africa." It happened that some time before Mr. Stewart had been tutor to Thomas Livingstone, while studying in Glasgow; this drew his sympathies to Livingstone and Africa, and was another link in that wonderful chain which Providence was making for the good of Africa. From Dr. Stewart's "Recollections of Dr. Livingstone and the Zambesi" in the _Sunday Magazine_ (November, 1874), we get the picture from the other side. First, the sad disappointment of Mrs. Livingstone on the 8th January, when no "Pioneer" was to be found, with the anxious speculations raised in its absence as to the cause. Then a frightful tornado on the way to Mozambique, and the all but miraculous escape of the brig. Then the return to the Zambesi in company with H.M.S. "Gorgon," and on the 1st of February, in a lovely morning, the little cloud of smoke rising close to land, and afterward the white hull of a small paddle steamer making straight for the two ships outside.