|
:: Home | :: Hotels in Cyprus | :: Hotels in Greece | :: Hotels in London | :: Hotels in Paris |
|
Travel articles 
Dr. David Livingstone (1813-1873), Scottish doctor and missionary, considered one of the most important European explorers of Africa, also pioneering the abolition of the slave trade. Livingstone was born in Blantyre. After completing his medical course in 1840, Livingstone was ordained and sent as a medical missionary to South Africa. In 1841 he reached Kuruman, a settlement founded by Scottish missionary Robert Moffat in Bechuanaland (now Botswana). In 1849 Livingstone crossed the Kalahari Desert and became the first European to discover Lake Ngami. On another expedition (1852-1856), he followed the Zambezi River to its mouth in the Indian Ocean, thereby becoming the first European to discover Victoria Falls.Livingstone was a curious combination of missionary, doctor, explorer, scientist and anti-slavery activist. He spent 30 years in Africa, exploring almost a third of the continent, from its southern tip almost to the equator. Livingstone received a gold medal from the London Royal Geographical for being the first to cross the entire African Continent from west to east. He was the first white man to see Victoria Falls and though he never discovered the source of the Nile, one of his goals, he eliminated some possibilities and thereby helped direct the efforts of others. He had many harrowing adventures, but finally, after journeying for more than six months by canoe, ox-back and on foot, through forests and flooded rivers, in peril from wild beasts and savage men, for 1500 miles of jungles, which no white man had ever traversed before, Livingstone and his men came to Loanda on the west coast. He had suffered thirty-one attacks of intermittent fever, had been assailed by huge swarms of fierce mosquitoes, and was reduced to "a bag of bones." Yet he staggered on. "Cannot the love of Christ," he asked, "carry the missionary where the slave trade carries the trader?" He was not a missionary part of the time and something else the rest of the time. He was a missionary all the time, whatever the means he was using, whether healing, teaching, or exploring. "The end of the geographical feat is only the beginning of the missionary enterprise," is an oft-quoted saying of his. Chief Sekeletu was proud of having helped Livingstone. He now sent 120 of his men with him as he set out down the Zambesi River toward the east coast. They came to a forest where lived the tsetse fly so deadly to horses and oxen, and, despite a torrential downpour of rain, they took the animals through at night when the tsetse fly sleeps. One day Livingstone saw five columns of vapor rising far ahead and heard the sound of distant booming. "It is Sounding Smoke," said the Makololo. Livingstone was the first white man who ever saw "Sounding Smoke," a magnificent spectacle twice as large as Niagara Falls. He named it Victoria Falls. Mosi-oa-Tunya - the smoke that thunders - was how locals knew Africa's most famous waterfall. Since those exploring days in the last century, little other than river levels has changed the physical sight of Vic Falls. Here is a river, one of Africa's mightiest, thundering over a 100m-high, 1.5km-long cliff before squeezing its enormous flow - 120 million gallons of water a minute - into the claustrophobic defile of the Batoka Gorge, producing some of the world's best, meanest white water. Visitors can gaze at the mighty Zambezi as it flows, broad and placid, to the brink of a basalt lip, nearly two kilometers wide before taking a headlong 100 meters plunge into the thunderous, frothy chasm of the gorge below. This is the world's largest sheet of falling water. The spray (often accompanied by rainbows) falls back as a permanent "rain", nourishing the exotic vegetation forming the rain forest through which paths wind leading the spectator on a magnificent tour of the various view points. It is a World Heritage Site, one of two in Zimbabwe. Named by Livingstone after Queen Victoria in November 1855. Visited in 1947 by King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. Death came to David Livingstone on April 30, 1873, after a long illness. Though his heart remained in Africa, his body, along with his belongings - papers and maps - was transported to Bagamoyo on the coast and then sent to England, where he is buried in Westminster Abbey. © 2003 by HotelsOffer.com All rights reserved. You can use and copy any information from this page, but the reference to our website is mandatory |
|
Travel articles Dr. David Livingstone more articles :: Our projects :: Luxury Cyprus Hotels - Anassa, LE Meridien Resort, Annabelle... — information about Luxury Cyprus hotels in Cyprus. Best rates and discounts. Most luxury hotel: Anassa Hotel, luxury Hotel in Paphos - Annabelle, luxury Hotel in Limassol - LE Meridien Resort.Cyprus villas, located in Ayia Napa, Larnaca... — Cyprus villas accommodation service. There are villas with two, three and more bedrooms. Travels2Greece.com - Santorini, Crete... — information about greek hotels & excursions in Greece - Santorini, Crete, Mykonos. Best rates and discounts 30%. Accommodation in London, category or location — luxury and cheap hotels in London. Best rates and special discounts. Best luxury London hotel. Car service - Cyprus - car service in Cyprus. Discounts, new & budget cars. Most popular hotels in Paris - luxury & cheap hotels in Paris, discounted rates, online hotel guide. Cyprus based wedding organizers company - wedding services in Cyprus. Wedding of your dreams. World Villas Open Project - world wide villas. Buy property - We help our clients to find the property according to their needs and wants. |
|
Copyright © 2000—2004 HotelsOffer.com |
|