European exploration of Africa 1840s, so that around the midpoint of the 19th century and the beginning of the colonial Scramble for Africa, the unexplored parts were now limited to what would turn out to be the Congo Basin and the African Great Lakes. This "Heart of Africa" remained one of the last remaining "blank spots" on world maps of the later 19th century (alongside the Arctic, Antarctic and the interior of the Amazon basin). It was left for 19th-century European explorers, including those searching for the famed sources of the Nile, notably John Hanning Speke, Sir Richard Burton, David Livingstone and Henry Morton
Mary Moffat Livingstone Mary Moffat Livingstone Mary Livingstone (née Moffat; April 12 1821 – 27 April 1862) was the wife of the Scottish Congregationalist missionary David Livingstone. Her father, Robert Moffat, was a Scottish Congregationalist missionary who worked among the Bechuana people at Kuruman. Mary Moffat was the first of ten children born to Robert Moffat, a Scottish missionary and his wife Mary (née Smith 1795–1870). Mary was born in Griquatown, about 93 miles north of Kimberley. From 1839 to 1843 she lived in Britain with her parents. When the family returned to South Africa, she taught in the school at Kuruman where