How I Found Livingstone Travels, Adventures And Discoveries In Central Africa Including Four Months Residence With Dr. Livingstone By Sir Henry M. Stanley







 -   I had intended to interview him,
report in detail what he said, picture his life and his figure,
then bow - Page 244
How I Found Livingstone Travels, Adventures And Discoveries In Central Africa Including Four Months Residence With Dr. Livingstone By Sir Henry M. Stanley - Page 244 of 310 - First - Home

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I Had Intended To Interview Him, Report In Detail What He Said, Picture His Life And His Figure, Then Bow Him My "Au Revoir," And March Back.

That he was specially disagreeable and brusque in his manner, which would make me quarrel with him immediately, was firmly fixed in my mind.

But Livingstone - true, noble Christian, generous-hearted, frank man - acted like a hero, invited me to his house, said he was glad to see me, and got well on purpose to prove the truth of his statement, "You have brought new life unto me;" and when I fell sick with the remittent fever, hovering between life and death, he attended me like a father, and we have now been together for more than a month.

Can you wonder, then, that I like this man, whose face is the reflex of his nature, whose heart is essentially all goodness, whose aims are so high, that I break out impetuously sometimes: "But your family, Doctor, they would like to see you, oh! so much. Let me tempt you to come home with me. I promise to carry you every foot of the way to the coast. You shall have the finest donkey to ride that is in Unyanyembe. Your wants - you have but to hint them, and they shall be satisfied. Let the sources of the Nile go - do you come home and rest; then, after a year's rest, and restored health, you can return and finish what you have to do."

But ever the answer was, "No, I should like to see my family very much indeed. My children's letters affect me intensely; but I must not go home; I must finish my task. It is only the want of supplies that has detained me. I should have finished the discovery of the Nile by this, by tracing it to its connection with either Baker's Lake, or Petherick's branch of the Nile. If I had only gone one month further, I could have said, 'the work is done."'

Some of these men who had turned the Doctor back from his interesting discoveries were yet in Ujiji, and had the Government Enfield rifles in their hands, which they intended to retain until their wages had been paid to them; but as they had received $60 advance each at Zanzibar from the English Consul, with the understanding entered into by contract that they should follow their master wherever he required them to go; and as they had not only not gone where they were required to proceed with him, but had baffled and thwarted him, it was preposterous that a few men should triumph over the Doctor, by keeping the arms given to him by the Bombay Government. I had listened to the Arab sheikhs, friends of the Doctor, advising them in mild tones to give them up; I had witnessed the mutineer's stubbornness; and it was then, on the burzani of Sayd bin Majid's house, that I took advantage to open my mind on the subject, not only for the benefit of the stubborn slaves, but also for the benefit of the Arabs; and to tell them that it was well that I had found Livingstone alive, for if they had but injured a hair of his head, I should have gone back to the coast, to return with a party which would enable me to avenge him.

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