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By 1858 seven years had passed since Livingstone first saw the great Zambezi River, and for seven years, Livingstone had eagerly anticipated a second exploration of its vast waters. As in all his travels, his immediate goal was to open a route to Africa's interior.

"If Christian missionaries and Christian merchants can remain throughout the year in the interior of the continent," he wrote, "the slave trader will be driven out of the market."

This was the legacy Livingstone craved, and this river—500 yards wide, 1,000 miles from the sea—would be the greatest tool imaginable.

Instead the expedition turned into his greatest disaster. Livingstone was considered a national hero when he left on his Zambezi Expedition; when he returned, he was thought a madman and a failure. "We were promised cotton, sugar, and indigo, and of course we get none," lamented the Times. "We were promised converts to the gospel, and not a one has been made."

What happened on this infamous expedition reveals a recurring irony in the study of great people. In this case, the qualities in Livingstone that brought him success—his singlemindedness, his courage, his stubborn perseverence—also led him into his biggest failure.

The two-year expedition was funded by the British government. Accompanying Livingstone were naval officer Norman Bedingfield, a zealous abolitionist; young geologist Richard Thornton; John Kirk, medical officer; Thomas Baines, storekeeper; George Rae, the Scottish engineer of the ship; and Charles Livingstone, David's brother, who, as a clergyman, was to be the expedition's "moral agent."

The expedition's troubles began almost immediately. When the party arrived at what appeared to be the mouth of the Zambezi (a river Livingstone called "God's Highway"), Livingstone was too sick, tired, and drugged to enjoy the moment. Two weeks would pass before a passing trader informed the expedition they were not on the Zambezi but a small river just south of their goal.

The party made its way to the Zambezi and started up the river on the HMS Pearl. Immediately the ship became stuck, and Bedingfield, a senior officer in the Royal Navy, began arguing procedure with the Pearl's captain. When Livingstone arbitrarily sided against his second-in-command, Bedingfield offered his first letter of resignation.

With the river falling 10 inches a day, the Pearl ran aground again and again. So on an island a mere 50 miles from the ocean, the party unloaded their goods and their "portable" steam ship, dubbed the Ma Robert (to pass difficult stretches of the river, it had been designed to be taken apart and reassembled). That's when another argument between the captain and Bedingfield broke out.

Livingstone blamed the row on bowel trouble (an ailment he faulted for many problems) and suggested Bedingfield try a laxative. Bedingfield said the advice "had been better addressed to a child" and tendered his resignation—this time for good. (The squabble was followed by a flurry of letters from Livingstone to England, absolving himself of any blame and accusing Bedingfield of, among other misdeeds, insubordination, cowardice, and refusing to work on Sundays.)

In the meantime, Livingstone, knowing every moment spent in the Zambezi's delta was an open invitation to malaria, headed for Tete, the village he visited in 1856, to set up a base. With his glut of supplies, however, that required several trips up and down a difficult 250-mile stretch.

Just getting to what was supposed to be the starting point of the expedition, then, took four months. And the expedition had already lost one member.

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