How I Found Livingstone, Henry M. Stanley [best fantasy books to read txt] 📗

not have received me as he did,

nor would he ask me to live with him, but he would have surlily

refused to see me, and told me to mind my own business. Neither

does he mind my nationality;

for ‘here,’ said he, ‘Americans and Englishmen are the same

people. We speak the same language and have the same ideas.’

Just so, Doctor; I agree with you. Here at least, Americans

and Englishmen shall be brothers, and, whatever I can do

for you, you may command me freely.”

 

I dressed myself quietly, intending to take a stroll along the

Tanganika before the Doctor should rise; opened the door, which

creaked horribly on its hinges, and walked out to the veranda.

 

“Halloa, Doctor!—you up already? I hope you have slept well? “

 

“Good-morning, Mr. Stanley! I am glad to see you. I hope you

rested well. I sat up late reading my letters. You have brought

me good and bad news. But sit down. “He made a place for me by

his side. “Yes, many of my friends are dead. My eldest son has

met with a sad accident—that is, my boy Tom; my second son, Oswell,

is at college studying medicine, and is doing well I am told. Agnes,

my eldest daughter, has been enjoying herself in a yacht, with `Sir

Paraffine’ Young and his family. Sir Roderick, also, is well, and

expresses a hope that he will soon see me. You have brought me

quite a budget.”

 

The man was not an apparition, then, and yesterday’s scenes were

not the result of a dream! and I gazed on him intently, for thus

I was assured he had not run away, which was the great fear that

constantly haunted me as I was journeying to Ujiji.

 

“Now, Doctor,” said I, “you are, probably, wondering why I came

here?”

 

“It is true,” said he; “I have been wondering. I thought you,

at first, an emissary of the French Government, in the place of

Lieutenant Le Saint, who died a few miles above Gondokoro. I heard

you had boats, plenty of men, and stores, and I really believed

you were some French officer, until I saw the American flag; and,

to tell you the truth, I was rather glad it was so, because I could

not have talked to him in French; and if he did not know English,

we had been a pretty pair of white men in Ujiji! I did not like

to ask you yesterday, because I thought it was none of my business.”

 

Well,” said I, laughing, “for your sake I am glad that I am an

American, and not a Frenchman, and that we can understand each

other perfectly without an interpreter. I see that the Arabs are

wondering that you, an Englishman, and I, an American, understand

each other. We must take care not to tell them that the English

and Americans have fought, and that there are `Alabama’ claims left

unsettled, and that we have such people as Fenians in America, who

hate you. But, seriously, Doctor—now don’t be frightened when I

tell you that I have come after—YOU!”

 

“After me?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How?”

 

“Well. You have heard of the `New York Herald?’”

 

“Oh—who has not heard of that newspaper?”

 

“Without his father’s knowledge or consent, Mr. James Gordon Bennett,

son of Mr. James Gordon Bennett, the proprietor of the `Herald,’ has

commissioned me to find you—to get whatever news of your discoveries

you like to give—and to assist you, if I can, with means.”

 

“Young Mr. Bennett told you to come after me, to find me out,

and help me! It is no wonder, then, you praised Mr. Bennett so

much last night.”

 

“I know him—I am proud to say—to be just what I say he is.

He is an ardent, generous, and true man.”

 

“Well, indeed! I am very much obliged to him; and it makes me

feel proud to think that you Americans think so much of me. You

have just come in the proper time; for I was beginning to think

that I should have to beg from the Arabs. Even they are in want

of cloth, and there are but few beads in Ujiji. That fellow Sherif

has robbed me of all. I wish I could embody my thanks to Mr. Bennett

in suitable words; but if I fail to do so, do not, I beg of you,

believe me the less grateful.”

 

“And now, Doctor, having disposed of this little affair, Ferajji

shall bring breakfast; if you have no objection.”

 

“You have given me an appetite,” he said.

 

“Halimah is my cook, but she never can tell the difference between

tea and coffee.”

 

Ferajji, the cook, was ready as usual with excellent tea, and a

dish of smoking cakes; “dampers,” as the Doctor called them. I

never did care much for this kind of a cake fried in a pan, but

they were necessary to the Doctor, who had nearly lost all his

teeth from the hard fare of Lunda. He had been compelled to

subsist on green ears of Indian corn; there was no meat in that

district; and the effort to gnaw at the corn ears had loosened all

his teeth. I preferred the corn scones of Virginia, which, to my

mind, were the nearest approach to palatable bread obtainable in

Central Africa.

 

The Doctor said he had thought me a most luxurious and rich man,

when he saw my great bath-tub carried on the shoulders of one of

my men; but he thought me still more luxurious this morning, when

my knives and forks, and plates, and cups, saucers, silver spoons,

and silver teapot were brought forth shining and bright, spread on

a rich Persian carpet, and observed that I was well attended to by

my yellow and ebon Mercuries.

 

This was the beginning of our life at Ujiji. I knew him not as

a friend before my arrival. He was only an object to me—a great

item for a daily newspaper, as much as other subjects in which the

voracious news-loving public delight in. I had gone over

battlefields, witnessed revolutions, civil wars, rebellions,

emeutes and massacres; stood close to the condemned murderer to

record his last struggles and last sighs; but never had I been

called to record anything that moved me so much as this man’s woes

and sufferings, his privations and disappointments, which now were

poured into my ear. Verily did I begin to perceive that “the

Gods above do with just eyes survey the affairs of men.” I began

to recognize the hand of an overruling and kindly Providence.

 

The following are singular facts worthy for reflection. I was,

commissioned for the duty of discovering Livingstone sometime in

October, 1869. Mr. Bennett was ready with the money, and I was

ready for the journey. But, observe, reader, that I did not

proceed directly upon the search mission. I had many tasks to

fulfil before proceeding with it, and many thousand miles to

travel over. Supposing that I had gone direct to Zanzibar from

Paris, seven or eight months afterwards, perhaps, I should have

found myself at Ujiji, but Livingstone would not have been found

there then; he was on the Lualaba; and I should have had to

follow him on his devious tracks through the primeval forests of

Manyuema, and up along the crooked course of the Lualaba for

hundreds of miles. The time taken by me in travelling up the

Nile, back to Jerusalem, then to Constantinople, Southern Russia,

the Caucasus, and Persia, was employed by Livingstone in fruitful

discoveries west of the Tanganika. Again, consider that I arrived

at Unyanyembe in the latter part of June, and that owing to a war I

was delayed three months at Unyanyembe, leading a fretful, peevish

and impatient life. But while I was thus fretting myself, and

being delayed by a series of accidents, Livingstone was being forced

back to Ujiji in the same month. It took him from June to October

to march to Ujiji. Now, in September, I broke loose from the

thraldom which accident had imposed on me, and hurried southward

to Ukonongo, then westward to Kawendi, then northward to Uvinza,

then westward to Ujiji, only about three weeks after the Doctor’s

arrival, to find him resting under the veranda of his house with

his face turned eastward, the direction from which I was coming.

Had I gone direct from Paris on the search I might have lost him;

had I been enabled to have gone direct to Ujiji from Unyanyembe

I might have lost him.

 

The days came and went peacefully and happily, under the palms of

Ujiji. My companion was improving in health and spirits. Life

had been brought back to him; his fading vitality was restored,

his enthusiasm for his work was growing up again into a height

that was compelling him to desire to be up and doing. But what

could he do, with five men and fifteen or twenty cloths?

 

“Have you seen the northern head of the Tangannka, Doctor?” I

asked one day.

 

“No; I did try to go there, but the Wajiji were doing their best

to fleece me, as they did both Burton and Speke, and I had not a

great deal of cloth. If I had gone to the head of the Tanganika,

I could not have gone, to Manyuema. The central line of drainage

was the most important, and that is the Lualaba. Before this line

the question whether there is a connection between the Tanganika

and the Albert N’Yanza sinks into insignificance. The great line

of drainage is the river flowing from latitude 11 degrees south,

which I followed for over seven degrees northward. The Chambezi,

the name given to its most southern extremity, drains a large tract

of country south of the southernmost source of the Tanganika;

it must, therefore, be the most important. I have not the least

doubt, myself, but that this lake is the Upper Tanganika, and

the Albert N’Yanza of Baker is the Lower Tanganika, which are

connected by a river flowing from the upper to the lower. This

is my belief, based upon reports of the Arabs, and a test I

made of the flow with water-plants. But I really never gave

it much thought.”

 

“Well, if I were you, Doctor, before leaving Ujiji, I should

explore it, and resolve the doubts upon the subject; lest,

after you leave here, you should not return by this way.

The Royal Geographical Society attach much importance to

this supposed connection, and declare you are the only man

who can settle it. If I can be of any service to you, you

may command me. Though I did not come to Africa as an

explorer, I have a good deal of curiosity upon the subject,

and should be willing to accompany you. I have with me about

twenty men who understand rowing we have plenty of guns, cloth,

and beads; and if we can get a canoe from the Arabs we can

manage the thing easily.”

 

“Oh, we can get a canoe from Sayd bin Majid. This man has been

very kind to me, and if ever there was an Arab gentleman, he is

one.”

 

“Then it is settled, is it, that we go?”

 

“I am ready, whenever you are.”

 

“I am at your command. Don’t you hear my men call you the

`Great Master,’ and me the `Little Master?’ It would never

do for the `Little Master’ to command.”

 

By this time Livingstone was becoming known to me. I defy any

one to be in his society long without thoroughly fathoming him,

for in him there is no guile, and what is apparent on the surface

is the thing that is in him.