206 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE
data and reasonings, the proprietor of the New York Herald sent the expedition, whose progress is described in Stanley's book, and which ended so successfully for Livingstone. One wishes that the whole thing could have been effected with less secrecy in the beginning, and less ostentation and comparison of Americans and English to the prejudice of the latter.
When the box of native make that contained Livingstone's remains was brought to England by Cameron, it was deposited in the rooms of the Royal Geographical Society, and a most pathetic sight it was. Many wished to be present at its opening, but Sir Bartle Frere, then the President, determined that no opportunity should be given for journalistic description, and refusing to himself the painful gratification of witnessing it, limited the spectators to very few. Sir William Fergusson, the great operator, was deputed to dissect the arm-bone at the place where the lion had broken it, as means of identification. I forget who were the others. They included some members of Livingstone's family, and Mr. Webb of Newstead Abbey, a great sportsman and friend of Livingstone, familiar with the locality of the injured bone. I think these were all.
The pathos of Livingstone's interment in Westminster Abbey was painfully marred by the use of a conventional coffin and other funeral upholstery. Had he been buried in the box rudely made by natives, that had conveyed his remains from the far interior to the Coast and told its own tale, the ceremony would have been incomparably more touching.
