the Tribune Association. For twenty-five years Mr. Ripley has interpreted the intellectual work of the age through its columns to millions of his countrymen; and this has not only been done with conscientious fidelity and rare discrimination, but with a broad and courageous liberality and a catholic sympathy with all that seemed true and excellent, whatever its source. May the paper, in the new epoch upon which it has entered, have all the success that shall be commensurate with its nobleness of aim, and its honorable and high-toned management!
DEATH OF DR. LIVINGSTONE.
Tidings of the death of Dr. David Livingstone, the celebrated African explorer, have been received, and are generally credited. The particulars are meagre and uncertain, but it is said he died of dysentery after severe exposure, returning from Ujiji to Unyanyembe. The expedition of the British Government, under Lieutenant Cameron, is supposed to have met him in an encampment where he breathed his last, and embalmed his body to be taken to Zanzibar.
He was born in 1817, of poor Scottish parents, and, having a taste for books, his father helped him to attend the Glasgow University in the winter, while he helped himself by working in the cotton-mills in vacation. He studied medicine, and was admitted to general practice in surgery and physic in 1838. He desired to go to China as a missionary, but, hearing that a medical agent was wanted for the African missions, he applied, was accepted, ordained to preach, and in 1839 left for Natal. He here met the missionary, Rev. Mr. Moffatt, and married his daughter, by whom he had two sons born in Africa. His first effort at exploration was in the great Kalahari Desert in 1849, when he discovered the
Zonga River, and floated down its current into Lake Ngami, the most southerly of that great chain of lakes which occupies the centre of Africa. The next year he returned to this lake with wife and children, who suffered greatly. He afterward discovered the great Zambezi River, the chief stream of Southern Africa. He now formed the scheme of opening up the Zambezi by means of light steamers, and of evangelizing the inhabitants of the region. His family were sent to Europe, and he undertook a formidable search of this country in 1852. His wanderings, adventures, and discoveries, were continued until the latter part of 1856, when he returned to Europe, and was received with the greatest honors. In 1857 he published a narrative of his travels, and in 1858 returned to Africa to explore the Zambezi with steam-launches. During this expedition he discovered Lakes Nyassa and Shirvan, lost his wife, and the expedition was recalled by the Government in 1863, and he again reached England in 1864. In 1865 he left his native country for the last time, and his object was thus stated in the preface to his book on the Zambezi and its tributaries: "I propose," he wrote, "to go inland north of the territory which the Portuguese in Europe claim, and endeavor to commence that system in the East which has been so eminently successful on the west coast—a system combining the repressive effects of her Majesty's cruisers with lawful trade and Christian missions—the moral and material results of which have been so gratifying. I hope to ascend the Rovuma, or some other river north of Cape Delgado, and, in addition to my other work, shall strive, by passing along the northern end of Lake Nyassa, and round the southern end of Lake Tanganyika, to ascertain the water-shed of that part of Africa. In so doing I have no wish to unsettle what, with so much toil and danger, was accomplished by Speke and Grant, but
