I oughta actually read Livingstone’s books. I have done a bit of following in his footsteps. He came through near where I was a Peace Corps volunteer, having visited Lake Chila and crossed the mighty Lucheche. And then of course subsequently I travelled to the spot he died before we visited the spot he was born. Back when I was on the submarine and Africa was really still a strange and novel place to me I read Tim Jeal’s biography of Livingstone (called Livingstone), and quite recently I have read his invaluable follow-up in the form of a biography of Stanley (called Stanley). Still I haven’t actually read Livingstone’s books themselves for fear that it would keep me from reading other books more narrowly tailored to the particular historical niche I have staked out: the Central Africa Mission of the London Missionary Society.

But that is neither here nor there, the here and there in this case being specifically the Livingstone Memorial Museum. The museum is in the spot it is because on its grounds is the memorial to the most famous event in both Livingstone and Stanley’s lives, that day in November 1871 when Stanley found Livingstone. As I have learned from Stanley, there is no real telling which day exactly in November the meeting happened as both men had lost track of the date in various deliriums, and furthermore significant reason to doubt that Stanley ever said “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” But still a very famous spot!

We arrived at the museum in the care of Elizabeth and Peter of Kigoma Eco-Cultural Tourism. When we arrived we were greeted by the only tour guide on duty, but he departed immediately with a different group to give a tour in Swahili. We used the time first to visit the museum’s gift shop (very good, I got two cool bird paintings and a warming basket) and then when it was clear we had even more time we explored the galleries. It is a small museum, but I think it is pretty good for what it is. Although they had a room dedicated to Livingstone’s various journeys much more interesting were some informative displays of local cultural artifacts. They had examples of specially shaped baskets, some designed to hold gifts and other designed to keep food warm, which explained strange baskets I had seen in the Ujiji market alongside the spears.

Eventually the guide returned and off we were to the memorial itself which from the museum sits atop a small bluff. The most interesting thing (to me) the guide said was that the bluff marked where the lake’s shoreline was when Stanley found Livingstone. If true that is a bit ominous for Kigoma and Ujiji given the currently rising lake levels. For the rest of the information our guide here gave us I didn’t pay wayyyy too close attention as I was very familiar with the story. But it was bouncing with excitement to be on this very spot. It is at least the third iteration of a memorial, the first being the mango tree itself under which the meeting took place, the second I think a plaque, and now the third and current monument. Although the original mango tree died the mango trees on the four corners of the plinth are supposed to have been planted from grafts of the original tree. Also on the plinth is a plaque commemorating the arrival of Burton & Speke, which must have also happened near that spot.

Speaking of “near that spot,” the site of the LMS Mission House. Like I said in the last post I wanted to find where it was. Having considered it at length, this is probably impossible; it was just a rented house as the LMS were never given permission to build their own place. When I was in the SOAS archives I did find a map that Hore drew showing the approximate location of the mission house. I tried to do some fancy stuff and overlay the map over the Google aerial image using Bangwe island as a guide (below) and even maybe make the nautical mile match up but I’m not sure it really sheds any light on the issue. The most relevant part of the map is probably that the mission house was near the end of the caravan track, and I think the museum is probably also around where the caravan track ended. Of course probably everything in Ujiji was because it wasn’t all that big of a town, so where Burton & Speke arrived and where Livingstone camped out and where the LMS set up shop were all probably pretty close to one another. And now so were we! Man history is awesome.

After taking photos and admiring the spot we were done and the guide led us down back to the museum. Once again Peter suggested we could “say goodbye” and once again I was confused until the guide himself said exactly “you can give me a tip.” This was a relief because it cleared up the situation and we gave him a tip. He was a very nice man and a very good guide really; he apparently volunteers at the museum and otherwise is retired. It was at this time that I dragged us across the road to see the boatyard where they were building the giant canoes, and we could see up close another spot badly flooded from the rising lake levels. But I’ve covered that and we still had plenty to do on this day so we piled into the car once again and off we went.