eft; top in mobile) An image of a page of Field Diary III (Livingstone 1866b:). Copyright David Livingstone Centre. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. (Right; bottom) Tattoo of Matambwe. Illustration from the Last Journals (Livingstone 1874,1:49). Courtesy Internet Archive. These two images present some of the same illustrations and so allow comparison between Livingstone's original drawings and the revised versions posthumously published in the Last Journals.|
In addition, shifting away from the more strictly narrative record of travel, the diary also contains many observations about African culture, including many drawings of tattoos and notes on their meaning, describing them as “a sort of heraldry” (Livingstone 1866b:). Livingstone also records local agriculture, topography, food preparation methods, pottery, and practices in sickness.
More than the previous two notebooks, Field Diary III appears to function both as a reference work in the moment as well as a record for future writing. In addition to the usual notes about wages and loads to carry, Livingstone takes down first-hand information from Africans. Toward the end of the journal he labels one map “Chirikaloma’s account of North end of Lake journey of Kandulo" (Livingstone 1866b:).
|Images of two pages of Field Diary III (Livingstone 1866b:, ). Copyright David Livingstone Centre. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. The page at left (top in mobile) includes the name of a chief as written by him in Arabic and as transliterated by Livingstone.|
Livingstone also asks a chief to write his name on the facing page, which he does in Arabic. Livingstone then transliterates the name as “Bonārie o boana salale” and notes the language as “Somalie,” thereby underscoring the diverse African populations that Arab expansion helps escort into east and central Africa (Livingstone 1866b:). The moment also shows a shift toward Livingstone’s eventual use of the field diaries as both reference and record of his experiences, shaped and marked by those around him.