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

for Zanzibar. The two letters for New

York were for James Gordon Bennett, junior, as he alone, not his

father, was responsible for the Expedition sent under my command.

I beg the reader’s pardon for republishing one of these letters

here, as its spirit and style indicate the man, the mere knowledge

of whose life or death was worth a costly Expedition.

 

Ujiji, on Tanganika, East Africa, November, 1871.

 

James Gordon Bennett, Jr., Esq.

 

My Dear Sir,—It is in general somewhat difficult to write to one

we have never seen—it feels so much like addressing an abstract

idea—but the presence of your representative, Mr. H. M. Stanley,

in this distant region takes away the strangeness I should otherwise

have felt, and in writing to thank you for the extreme kindness

that prompted you to send him, I feel quite at home.

 

If I explain the forlorn condition in which he found me you will

easily perceive that I have good reason to use very strong

expressions of gratitude. I came to Ujiji off a tramp of between

four hundred and five hundred miles, beneath a blazing vertical

sun, having been baffled, worried, defeated and forced to return,

when almost in sight of the end of the geographical part of my

mission, by a number of half-caste Moslem slaves sent to me from

Zanzibar, instead of men. The sore heart made still sorer by the

woeful sights I had seen of man’s inhumanity to man racked and

told on the bodily frame, and depressed it beyond measure. I

thought that I was dying on my feet. It is not too much to say

that almost every step of the weary sultry way was in pain, and

I reached Ujiji a mere ruckle of bones.

 

There I found that some five hundred pounds’ sterling worth of

goods which I had ordered from Zanzibar had unaccountably been

entrusted to a drunken half-caste Moslem tailor, who, after

squandering them for sixteen months on the way to Ujiji; finished

up by selling off all that remained for slaves and ivory for himself.

He had “divined” on the Koran and found that I was dead. He had

also written to the Governor of Unyanyembe that he had sent slaves

after me to Manyuema, who returned and reported my decease, and

begged permission to sell off the few goods that his drunken

appetite had spared.

 

He, however, knew perfectly well, from men who had seen me, that

I was alive, and waiting for the goods and men; but as for morality,

he is evidently an idiot, and there being no law here except that

of the dagger or musket, I had to sit down in great weakness,

destitute of everything save a few barter cloths and beads, which

I had taken the precaution to leave here in case of extreme need.

 

The near prospect of beggary among Ujijians made me miserable.

 

I could not despair, because I laughed so much at a friend who,

on reaching the mouth of the Zambezi, said that he was tempted

to despair on breaking the photograph of his wife. We could have

no success after that. Afterward the idea of despair had to me

such a strong smack of the ludicrous that it was out of the

question.

 

Well, when I had got to about the lowest verge, vague rumors of

an English visitor reached me. I thought of myself as the man

who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho; but neither priest, Levite,

nor Samaritan could possibly pass my way. Yet the good Samaritan

was close at hand, and one of my people rushed up at the top of

his speed, and, in great excitement, gasped out, “An Englishman

coming! I see him!” and off he darted to meet him.

 

An American flag, the first ever seen in these parts, at the head

of a caravan, told me the nationality of the stranger.

 

I am as cold and non-demonstrative as we islanders are usually

reputed to be; but your kindness made my frame thrill. It was,

indeed, overwhelming, and I said in my soul, “Let the richest

blessings descend from the Highest on you and yours!”

 

The news Mr. Stanley had to tell was thrilling. The mighty

political changes on the Continent; the success of the Atlantic

cables; the election of General Grant, and many other topics’

riveted my attention for days together, and had an immediate and

beneficial effect on my health. I had been without news from

home for years save what I could glean from a few ‘Saturday

Reviews’ and ‘Punch’ of 1868. The appetite revived, and in a

week I began to feel strong again.

 

Mr. Stanley brought a most kind and encouraging despatch from

Lord Clarendon (whose loss I sincerely deplore), the first I have

received from the Foreign Office since 1866, and information that

the British Government had kindly sent a thousand pounds sterling

to my aid. Up to his arrival I was not aware of any pecuniary

aid. I came unsalaried, but this want is now happily repaired,

and I am anxious that you and all my friends should know that,

though uncheered by letter, I have stuck to the task which my

friend Sir Roderick Murchison set me with “John Bullish” tenacity,

believing that all would come right at last.

 

The watershed of South Central Africa is over seven hundred wiles

in length. The fountains thereon are almost innumerable—that is,

it would take a man’s lifetime to count them. From the watershed

they converge into four large rivers, and these again into two

mighty streams in the great Nile valley, which begins in ten degrees

to twelve degrees south latitude. It was long ere light dawned on

the ancient problem and gave me a clear idea of the drainage. I had

to feel my way, and every step of the way, and was, generally,

groping in the dark—for who cared where the rivers ran? “We drank

our fill and let the rest run by.”

 

The Portuguese who visited Cazembe asked for slaves and ivory, and

heard of nothing else. I asked about the waters, questioned and

cross-questioned, until I was almost afraid of being set down as

afflicted with hydrocephalus.

 

My last work, in which I have been greatly hindered from want of

suitable attendants, was following the central line of drainage

down through the country of the cannibals, called Manyuema, or,

shortly Manyema. This line of drainage has four large lakes in

it. The fourth I was near when obliged to turn. It is from one

to three miles broad, and never can be reached at any point, or

at any time of the year. Two western drains, the Lufira, or Bartle

Frere’s River, flow into it at Lake Kamolondo. Then the great

River Lomame flows through Lake Lincoln into it too, and seems

to form the western arm of the Nile, on which Petherick traded.

 

Now, I knew about six hundred miles of the watershed, and

unfortunately the seventh hundred is the most interesting of the

whole; for in it, if I am not mistaken, four fountains arise from

an earthen mound, and the last of the four becomes, at no great

distance off, a large river.

 

Two of these run north to Egypt, Lufira and Lomame, and two run

south into inner Ethiopia, as the Leambaye, or Upper Zambezi, and

the Kaful.

 

Are not these the sources of the Nile mentioned by the Secretary

of Minerva, in the city of Sais, to Herodotus?

 

I have heard of them so often, and at great distances off, that I

cannot doubt their existence, and in spite of the sore longing for

home that seizes me every time I think of my family, I wish to

finish up by their rediscovery.

 

Five hundred pounds sterling worth of goods have again

unaccountably been entrusted to slaves, and have been over a year

on the way, instead of four months. I must go where they lie at

your expense, ere I can put the natural completion to my work.

 

And if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery

should lead to the suppression of the East Coast slave trade, I

shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery

of all the Nile sources together. Now that you have done with

domestic slavery for ever, lend us your powerful aid toward this

great object. This fine country is blighted, as with a curse from

above, in order that the slavery privileges of the petty Sultan

of Zanzibar may not be infringed, and the rights of the Crown of

Portugal, which are mythical, should be kept in abeyance till some

future time when Africa will become another India to Portuguese

slave-traders.

 

I conclude by again thanking you most cordially for your great

generosity, and am,

 

Gratefully yours,

 

David Livingstone.

 

To the above letter I have nothing to add—it speaks for itself;

but I then thought it was the best evidence of my success. For

my own part, I cared not one jot or tittle about his discoveries,

except so far as it concerned the newspaper which commissioned me

for the “search.” It is true I felt curious as to the result of his

travels; but, since he confessed that he had not completed what he

had begun, I felt considerable delicacy to ask for more than he

could afford to give. His discoveries were the fruits of of

his own labours—to him they belonged—by their publication he

hoped to obtain his reward, which he desired to settle on his

children. Yet Livingstone had a higher and nobler ambition than

the mere pecuniary sum he would receive: he followed the

dictates of duty. Never was such a willing slave to that abstract

virtue. His inclinations impelled him home, the fascinations of

which it required the sternest resolves to resist. With every

foot of new ground he travelled over he forged a chain of sympathy

which should hereafter bind the Christian nations in bonds of love

and charity to the Heathen of the African tropics. If he were

able to complete this chain of love—by actual discovery and

description of them to embody such peoples and nations as still

live in darkness, so as to attract the good and charitable of his

own land to bestir themselves for their redemption and salvation—

this, Livingstone would consider an ample reward.

 

“A delirious and fatuous enterprise, a Quixotic scheme!” some will

say. Not it, my friends; for as sure as the sun shines on both

Christian and Infidel, civilised and Pagan, the day of enlightenment

will come; and, though Livingstone, the Apostle of Africa, may not

behold it himself, nor we younger men, not yet our children, the

Hereafter will see it, and posterity will recognise the daring

pioneer of its civilization.

 

The following items are extracted in their entirety from my Diary:

 

March 12th.—The Arabs have sent me as many as forty-five letters

to carry to the coast. I am turned courier in my latter days;

but the reason is that no regularly organized caravans are permitted

to leave Unyanyembe now, because of the war with Mirambo. What if

I had stayed all this time at Unyanyembe waiting for the war to end!

It is my opinion that, the Arabs will not be able to conquer Mirambo

under nine months yet.

 

To-night the natives have gathered themselves together to give me

a farewell dance in front of my house. I find them to be the

pagazis of Singiri, chief of Mtesa’s caravan. My men joined in,

and, captivated by the music despite myself, I also struck in, and

performed the “light fantastic,” to the intense admiration of my

braves, who were delighted to see their master unbend a little from

his usual stiffness.

 

It