"29_th July_.--Called on Mr. Gladstone; he was very affable--spoke about the Mission, and asked if I had told Lord Russell about it.... Visited Lady Franklin and Miss Cracroft, her niece.... Dined with Lord and Lady Palmerston, Lady Shaftesbury, and Lady Victoria Ashley, the Portuguese Minister, Count d'Azeglio (Sardinian Minister), Mr. Calcraft--a very agreeable party. Mr. Calcraft and I walked home after retiring. He is cousin to Colonel Steele; the colonel has gone abroad with his daughter, who is delicate."
"_Saturday, 31st July_, 1864.--Came down by the morning train to Harburn, and met my old friend Mr. Young, who took me to Limefield, and introduced me to a nice family."
Dr. Livingstone's relation to Mr. Young's family was very close and cordial. Hardly one of the many notes and letters he wrote to his friend fails to send greetings to "Ma-James," as he liked to call Mrs. Young, after the African fashion. It is not only the playful ease of his letters that shows how much he felt at home with Mr. Young,--the same thing appears from the frequency with which he sought his counsel in matters of business, and the value which he set upon it.
"_Sunday, 1st August_.--Went-to the U.P. church, and heard excellent sermons. Was colder this time than on my former visit to Scotland.
"_2d August_.--Reached Hamilton. Mother did not know me at first. Anna Mary, a nice sprightly child, told me that she preferred Garibaldi buttons on her dress, as I walked down to Dr. Loudon to thank him for his kindness to my mother.
"_3d August_.--Agnes, Oswell, and Thomas came. I did not recognize Tom, he has grown so much. Has been poorly a long while; congestion of the kidney, it is said. Agnes quite tall, and Anna Mary a nice little girl."
The next few days were spent with his family, and in visits to the neighborhood. He had a consultation with Professor Syme as to a surgical operation recommended for an ailment that had troubled him ever since his first great journey; he was strongly urged to have the operation performed, and probably it would have been better if he had; but he finally declined, partly because an old medical friend was against it, but chiefly, as he told Sir* Roderick, because the matter would get into the newspapers, and he did not like the public to be speaking of his infirmities. On the 17th he went to Inveraray to visit the Duke of Argyll. He was greatly pleased with his reception, and his Journal records the most trifling details. What especially charmed him was the considerate forethought in making him feel at his ease. "On Monday morning I had the honor of planting two trees beside those planted by Sir John Lawrence and the Marquis of Lansdowne, and by the Princess of Prussia and the Crown Prince. The coach came at twelve o'clock, and I finished the most delightful visit I ever made."
Next day he went to Oban, and the day after by steamer to Iona and Staffa, and thereafter to Aros, in Mull. Next day Captain Greenhill took him in his yacht to Ulva.
"In 1848 the kelp and potatoes failed, and the proprietor, a writer from Stirling, reduced the population from six hundred to one hundred. None of my family remain. The minister, Mr. Fraser, had made inquiries some years ago, and found an old woman who remembered my grandfather living at Uamh, or the Cave. It is a sheltered spot, with basaltic rocks jutting out of the ground below the cave; the walls of the house remain, and the corn and potato patches are green, but no one lives there...."
Returning to Oban on the 24th August, "... I then came to the Crinan Canal, and at Glasgow end thereof met that famous missionary, Dr. Duff, from India A fine, tall, noble-looking man, with a white beard and a twitch in his muscles which shows that the Indian climate has done its work on him.... Home to Hamilton."