RECEPTION OF STANLEY'S REPORT IN ENGLAND. 461 



Government, the Royal Geographical Society, and personal friends. As 

 many of the most sanguine believers in his ultimate safety had begun to have 

 grave doubts that Livingstone's great career had ended, as that of many a 

 brave predecessor in African discovery had, the joy and satisfaction felt at the 

 certainty of his safety was of the warmest description. 



When people had time to think calmly about his safety, and the startling 

 nature of the discoveries which he had made, while lost to our view in the 

 recesses of the interior, a feeling of wonder arose that he should have been 

 discovered and succoured by a private individual, a young man at the 

 threshold of his fourth decade, the correspondent of a newspaper, whose only 

 experience of Africa, prior to this great feat which has associated his name 

 for ever with that of the greatest and most successful explorer of ancient or 

 modern times, was gained in company with the expedition sent by the 

 English Government for the rescue of the English prisoners at Magdala. 

 Caravan after caravan, laden with stores, and accompanied by men intended 

 to be of service to the traveller, had been despatched by Dr. Kirk, H.M. 

 Consul at Zanzibar — the Government and the Royal Geographical Society 

 aiding him in his endeavours to discover and succour the man in whose fate 

 the whole eivilised world was interested — in vain. 



As we have seen, an imposing expedition under the auspices of the 

 Geographical Society, and handsomely provided with means by subscriptions 

 from private individuals and corporate bodies, had left this country, and was 

 then popularly supposed to be far on its way towards the unknown region 

 where its mission could be fulfilled. 



That Livingstone's safety should be determined, and his wants supplied, 

 at the cost of the proprietor of a New York newspaper, and through the pluck 

 and daring of one of his subordinates, who went at his bidding to look for Living- 

 stone in Central Africa, just as he would have gone to collect news in any of 

 the great centres of European civilization, was a singular way of accomplishing 

 a great object, sadly puzzling for a time to many ; and fears were entertained 

 that the whole was an audacious canard, which only a Yankee journalist would 

 dare to perpetrate. By and by, as the original intelligence came to be sup- 

 plemented, it became apparent that not only was his story true, but that 

 this young journalist was one who, in determined courage and resolute per- 

 severance, was in every way worthy to take his place among the heroes of 

 African discovery and travel. When James Gordon Bennett, the proprietor 

 of the New York Herald, made up his mind that an effort should be made to 

 find Livingstone, and assigned the task to Mr. Stanley, it fell into the hands 

 of a man capable of carrying it into successful execution. No doubt, if some 

 Englishman or American of fortune had done this thing from a love of adven- 

 ture, or some higher impulse, our ideas of the fitness of things would not have 

 been outraged ; but there are hundreds of capable and adventurous men who 



