How I Found Livingstone Travels, Adventures And Discoveries In Central Africa Including Four Months Residence With Dr. Livingstone By Sir Henry M. Stanley
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When
Walking He Has A Firm But Heavy Tread, Like That Of An Overworked
Or Fatigued Man.
He is accustomed to wear a naval cap with a
semicircular peak, by which he has been identified throughout
Africa.
His dress, when first I saw him, exhibited traces of
patching and repairing, but was scrupulously clean.
I was led to believe that Livingstone possessed a splenetic,
misanthropic temper; some have said that he is garrulous, that
he is demented; that he has utterly changed from the David
Livingstone whom people knew as the reverend missionary ; that
he takes no notes or observations but such as those which no other
person could read but himself; and it was reported, before I
proceeded to Central Africa, that he was married to an African
princess.
I respectfully beg to differ with all and each of the above
statements. I grant he is not an angel, but he approaches to that
being as near as the nature of a living man will allow. I never
saw any spleen or misanthropy in him - as for being garrulous, Dr.
Livingstone is quite the reverse: he is reserved, if anything;
and to the man who says Dr. Livingstone is changed, all I can say
is, that he never could have known him, for it is notorious that
the Doctor has a fund of quiet humour, which he exhibits at all
times whenever he is among friends. I must also beg leave to
correct the gentleman who informed me that Livingstone takes
no notes or observations. The huge Letts's Diary which I
carried home to his daughter is full of notes, and there are
no less than a score of sheets within it filled with observations
which he took during the last trip he made to Manyuema alone;
and in the middle of the book there is sheet after sheet,
column after column, carefully written, of figures alone.
A large letter which I received from him has been sent to
Sir Thomas MacLear, and this contains nothing but observations.
During the four months I was with him, I noticed him every evening
making most careful notes; and a large tin box that he has with
him contains numbers of field note-books, the contents of which I
dare say will see the light some time. His maps also evince great
care and industry. As to the report of his African marriage, it is
unnecessary to say more than that it is untrue, and it is utterly
beneath a gentleman to hint at such a thing in connection with the
name of David Livingstone.
There is a good-natured abandon about Livingstone which was not
lost on me. Whenever he began to laugh, there was a contagion
about it, that compelled me to imitate him. It was such a laugh
as Herr Teufelsdrockh's - a laugh of the whole man from head to heel.
If he told a story, he related it in such a way as to convince one
of its truthfulness; his face was so lit up by the sly fun it
contained, that I was sure the story was worth relating, and
worth listening to.
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