Editing David Livingstone (section)

===Zambezi expedition===<!-- This section is linked from [[Zambezi]] -->
In December 1857 the [[Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office|Foreign Office]] proposed a huge expedition. Livingstone had envisaged another solo journey with African helpers, and in January 1858 he agreed to lead a [[second Zambezi expedition]] with six specialist officers, hurriedly recruited in the UK.<ref name="Wisnicki 2015" />{{sfn | Ross | 2002 | pp=126–132}}

The prefabricated iron river steamer ''Ma Robert'' was quickly built in portable sections, and loaded onto the [[Colonial Office]] steamer ''Pearl'', which took them out on its way to Ceylon. They left on 10 March, at [[Freetown]] collected twelve [[Krumen people#Seafaring|Kru seafarers]] to man the river steamer, and reached the Zambezi on 14 May. The plan was for both ships to take them up the river to establish bases, but it turned out to be completely impassable to boats past the [[Cahora Bassa]] rapids, a series of [[Waterfall#Types of waterfalls|cataracts]] and [[rapids]] that Livingstone had failed to explore on his earlier travels. ''Pearl'' offloaded their supplies on an island about {{convert|40|mi|km}} upstream. From there, ''Ma Robert'' had to make repeated slow journeys, getting hauled across shoals. The riverbanks were a war zone, with Portuguese soldiers and their slaves fighting the [[Chikunda#The Zambezi wars|Chikunda]] slave-hunters of Matakenya (Mariano), but both sides accepted the expedition as friends.{{sfn | Ross | 2002 | pp=129–138}}<ref>{{cite wikisource|chapter= I|wslink=A Popular Account of Dr Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries|plaintitle=A Popular Account of Dr Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries| last=Livingstone|first=David|year= 1894 |publisher=John Murray|page=|wspage=|scan=}}</ref>

[[File:MaryMoffatGravestone.JPG|thumb|upright=1.3|The grave of Livingstone's wife, [[Mary Moffat Livingstone]], in [[Chupanga]], Mozambique. She died in 1862.]]
The experts, stuck at Shupanga, could not make the intended progress, and there were disagreements. Artist [[Thomas Baines]] was dismissed from the expedition. Others on the expedition became the first to reach [[Lake Malawi|Lake Nyasa]] and they explored it in a four-oared [[Captain's gig|gig]]. In 1861 the Colonial Office provided a new wooden paddle survey vessel, ''Pioneer'', which took the [[Universities' Mission to Central Africa]] (UMCA) led by Bishop [[Charles Mackenzie (bishop)|Charles MacKenzie]] up the Shire river to found a new mission.

Livingstone raised funds for a replacement river steamer, ''Lady Nyasa'', specially designed to sail on Lake  Nyasa. It was shipped out in sections, contrary to his request, with a mission party including Mary Livingstone, and arrived in 1862. The ''Pioneer'' was delayed getting down to the coast to meet them, and there were further delays after it was found that the bishop had died. Mary Livingstone died on 27 April 1862 from [[malaria]].

Livingstone took ''Pioneer'' up the coast and investigated the [[Ruvuma River]], and the physician [[John Kirk (explorer)|John Kirk]] wrote "I can come to no other conclusion than that Dr Livingstone is out of his mind and a most unsafe leader".

When ''Pioneer'' returned to Shupanga in December 1862, they paid (in cloth) their "Mazaro men" who left and engaged replacements. On 10 January 1863 they set off, towing ''Lady Nyasa'', and went up the Shire river past scenes of devastation as Mariano's Chikunda slave-hunts caused famine, and they frequently had to clear the paddle wheels of corpses left floating downstream. They reached [[Chikwawa|Chibisa's]] and the [[Kapachira Falls|Murchison Cataracts]] in April, then began dismantling ''Lady Nyasa'' and building a road to take its sections past the cataracts, while explorations continued.{{sfn | Livingstone | Livingstone | 1866 | pp=[https://archive.org/details/narrativeanexpe03livigoog/page/n509/mode/2up 472–475]}}{{sfn | Ross | 2002 | pp=180–182}}

He brought the ships downriver in 1864 after the government ordered the recall of the expedition. The Zambezi Expedition was castigated as a failure in many newspapers of the time, and Livingstone experienced great difficulty in raising funds to further explore Africa. John Kirk, Charles Meller, and Richard Thornton, scientists appointed to work under Livingstone, contributed large collections of botanical, ecological, geological, and ethnographic material to scientific Institutions in the United Kingdom.