How I found Livingstone : $b Travels, adventures, and discoveres in Central Africa, including an account of four months' residence with Dr. LivingstoneStanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
History
How I found Livingstone : $b Travels, adventures, and discoveres in Central Africa, including an account of four months' residence with Dr. Livingstone
Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Livingstone, David, 1813-1873
"Simply because I was forced. My men would not budge a step forward.
They mutinied, and formed a secret resolution--if I still insisted upon
going on--to raise a disturbance in the country, and after they had
effected it to abandon me; in which case I should have been killed. It
was dangerous to go any further. I had explored six hundred miles of the
watershed, had traced all the principal streams which discharge their
waters into the central line of drainage, but when about starting to
explore the last hundred miles the hearts of my people failed them,
and they set about frustrating me in every possible way. Now, having
returned seven hundred miles to get a new supply of stores, and another
escort, I find myself destitute of even the means to live but for a few
weeks, and sick in mind and body."
Here I may pause to ask any brave man how he would have comported
himself in such a crisis. Many would have been in exceeding hurry to get
home to tell the news of the continued explorations and discoveries,
and to relieve the anxiety of the sorrowing family and friends awaiting
their return. Enough surely had been accomplished towards the solution
of the problem that had exercised the minds of his scientific associates
of the Royal Geograpical Society. It was no negative exploration, it was
hard, earnest labor of years, self-abnegation, enduring patience, and
exalted fortitude, such as ordinary men fail to exhibit.
Suppose Livingstone had hurried to the coast after he had discovered
Lake Bangweolo, to tell the news to the geographical world; then had
returned to discover Moero, and run away again; then went back once more
only to discover Kamolondo, and to race back again. This would not be in
accordance with Livingstone's character. He must not only discover the
Chambezi, Lake Bangweolo, Luapula River, Lake Moero, Lualaba River, and
Lake Kamolondo, but he must still tirelessly urge his steps forward to
put the final completion to the grand lacustrine river system. Had he
followed the example of ordinary explorers, he would have been running
backwards and forwards to tell the news, instead of exploring; and he
might have been able to write a volume upon the discovery of each lake,
and earn much money thereby. They are no few months' explorations that
form the contents of his books. His 'Missionary Travels' embraces a
period of sixteen years; his book on the Zambezi, five years; and if the
great traveller lives to come home, his third book, the grandest of all,
must contain the records of eight or nine years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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