At this moment the Arab chiefs came in a group to him, and said, ‘Come, arise, friend David. Let us go and meet this white stranger. He may be a relative of thine. Please God, he is sure to be a friend. The praise be to God for His goodness!’ They had barely reached the centre of the market-place, when the head of the caravan appeared, and a few seconds later the two white men--Livingstone and myself--met, as already described. Our meeting took place on the 10th November, 1871. It found him reduced to the lowest ebb in fortune by his endless quest of the solution to the problem of that mighty river Lualaba, which, at a distance of three hundred miles from Lake Tanganyika, flowed parallel with the lake, northward. In body, he was, as he himself expressed it, ‘a mere ruckle of bones.’ The effect of the meeting was a rapid restoration to health; he was also placed above want, for he had now stores in abundance sufficient to have kept him in comfort in Ujiji for years, or to equip an expedition capable of solving within a few months even that tough problem of the Lualaba. There was only one thing wanting to complete the old man’s happiness--that was an obedient and tractable escort. Could I have furnished this to him there and then, no doubt Livingstone would have been alive to-day,[15] because, after a few days’ rest at Ujiji, we should have parted--he to return to the Lualaba, and trace the river, perhaps, down to the sea, or until he found sufficient proofs that it was the Congo, which would be about seven hundred miles north-west of Nyangwe; I journeying to the East Coast. As my people, however, had only been engaged for two years, no bribe would have been sufficient to have made them tractable for a greater period. But, inasmuch as Livingstone would not relinquish his unfinished task, and no men of the kind he needed were procurable at Ujiji, it was necessary that he should return with me to Unyanyembe, and rest there until I could provide him with the force he needed. To this, the last of many propositions made to him, he agreed. After exploring together the north end of Lake Tanganyika, and disproving the theory that the Lake had any connection with the Albert Nyanza, we set out from Ujiji, on the 27th December, 1871, and arrived at Unyanyembe on the 18th February, 1872.