I have met few so quickly responsive to gaiety and the lighter moods, none who was more sociable, genial, tolerant, and humorous. You must think of him as a contented soul, who had yielded himself with an entire and loving submission, and who laboured to the best of his means and ability, awakening to the toil of the day, and resigning himself, without the least misgiving, to the rest of the night; believing that the effect of his self-renunciation would not be altogether barren. If you can comprehend such a character, you will understand Livingstone’s motive principle. * * * * * CHAPTER XIV ENGLAND AND COOMASSIE It is not unadvisedly that the last chapter has been devoted almost as much to Livingstone as to Stanley. The main story of Stanley’s quest he has told effectively elsewhere;[16] and in his interior life, which is the central theme of the present book, his intercourse with Livingstone was no small factor. The way he knew and loved Livingstone reveals Stanley. But to give the whole story of those sixteen months its true perspective, the reader should either turn to the full narrative, or should, at least, give some little play to his own imagination. The few lines given to the contest with Mirambo represent months of struggle with a bandit-chief, and with slippery allies. The three-line mention of the joint exploration of Lake Tanganyika stands for four weeks of adventurous voyaging, geographical discovery, and encounters with hostile or thievish natives. Through the whole period Stanley carried an immense and varied responsibility. He was not only commander, and chief of staff, but the whole staff. The discipline, commissariat, and medical care, of a force often numbering two hundred and more, all fell on him. For his followers he had to take the part of doctor, and occasionally of nurse, sometimes including the most menial offices. Often he was prostrated by fever, and once, before finding Livingstone, he lay unconscious for a week. Problems of war and diplomacy confronted him. Shall he pay tribute, or resist? Shall he join forces with the friendly tribes, and fight the fierce and powerful Mirambo who blocks the way to Ujiji? He fights, and his allies fail him at the pinch; so then he resorts to a long flanking march through unknown country, and literally circumvents his foes. So, for over a year, every faculty is kept at the highest tension.