Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa

David Livingstone spent sixteen years crossing southern and central Africa as a missionary and a doctor, and this 1857 book is the record he brought home. He describes the long march from the Kalahari to the Zambezi, the first European sighting of the falls he named for Queen Victoria, and the coast to coast walk that made him a household name in Britain. Livingstone writes as a medical man and a patient observer, noting fevers, rivers, trade routes, and the workings of the slave trade he wanted abolished. The tone is plain and often stubborn, and his regard for the people he traveled among shows through even where his assumptions have aged badly. The book shaped how a generation imagined the continent. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.