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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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.
The wan features which had shocked me at first meeting, the heavy
step which told of age and hard travel, the grey beard and bowed
shoulders, belied the man. Underneath that well-worn exterior
lay an endless fund of high spirits and inexhaustible humour;
that rugged frame of his enclosed a young and most exuberant soul.
Every day I heard innumerable jokes and pleasant anecdotes;
interesting hunting stories, in which his friends Oswell, Webb,
Vardon, and Gorden Cumming were almost always the chief actors.
I was not sure, at first, but this joviality, humour, and
abundant animal spirits were the result of a joyous hysteria;
but as I found they continued while I was with him, I am obliged
to think them natural.
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