Dr. Livingstone's death has again been falsely rumoured. A letter
from Captain the Honourable Ernest Cochrane, dated the 7th January, on Her Majesty's ship Peterel, on the west coast of Africa, states that Dr. Livingstone had been murdered about 90 days' journey from the Congo. "He passed through a native town, and was three days on his journey, when the king of the town died. The natives declared Livingstone had bewitched him, sent after him, and killed and burnt him." The news came from a Portuguese. Livingstone, at the time of his supposed death, was said to be on the lakes at the head of the Congo. Thus Captain Cochrane's letter. Sir Roderick Murchison makes very light of the story, and to our minds completely disproves it. Livingstone wrote from Ujiji at the end of May, in 1869, asking for boats and other help from Zanzibar to enable him to proceed to the north of Lake Tanganyika, and connect the sources of the Nile he had discovered with the Nile of Speke and Grant and Baker. And yet 00 days before the 7th January of this year,—i.c., not later than 8th October,—or within little more than finfr months of the date of his letter from lijiji, he is supposed to have been at the head waters of the Congo. Even if he had not waited for the supplies from Zanzibar, there would have been no time at all for such a journey (as well as no means for it). But if he did wait till supplies reached him from Zanzibar, the achievement would be physically impossible. The story is not only a fable, but apparently only a re'cliaqtie"of an old fable circulated by the Portuguese traders in 1868, since which time Livingstone has been heard of.
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