GEOGRAPHY AND EAST AFRICA 205 



The popular opinion has been that Livingstone was 

 left to his fate without adequate care on the part of 

 his countrymen to succour him, and that he was 

 rescued owing to the zeal of the proprietor of an 

 American newspaper and the hardihood of his 

 employee, Mr., afterwards Sir Henry, Stanley. 



I was on the Council of the Royal Geographical 

 Society during all the time in question, and can 

 testify to our extreme desire to help Livingstone, 

 but in his later years he had become difficult to 

 meddle with. He had a brusque resentment against 

 anything that might be construed into patronage, 

 feeling, as I understood, that he had been over-much 

 " exploited " by his admirers. There was great fear 

 among those in the Council who knew him better 

 than I did, that he might be annoyed at any attempt 

 to relieve him, and would resent it yet more bitterly 

 than Emin Bey subsequently resented Stanley's com- 

 pulsory relief. Again, there was no reason to 

 suppose Livingstone to be in serious want. He was 

 thoroughly accustomed to natives of the widely 

 dispersed Bantu race, among whom he probably then 

 was. He travelled without a large party or other 

 encumbrance, so that the favour of even a single 

 chief, such as he might reasonably expect to gain, 

 would amply suffice for his wants. Besides this, he 

 had not cared to write, and there was no knowing 

 where a man like him might be, who had already 

 walked right across Africa and back again. So 

 whenever the question was discussed formally, or 

 otherwise, it seemed better to defer action till some 

 intelligence of his wishes and whereabouts had been 

 received. In the meantime, acting upon his own 



