Stanley and Livingstone

“Dr Livingstone, I presume?”

These were the first words spoken by a white man that the famous British explorer David Livingstone had heard in five years. For four years, in fact, Livingstone had been feared dead. But, on November 13th, 1871 an expedition led by a New York Times journalist by the name of Henry Morton Stanley found Livingstone, frail and short of supplies, but alive, at Ujiji, on the edge of Lake Tanganyika, Central Africa. Livingstone’s response to Stanley’s question was, “You have brought me new life.”

David Livingstone was born in Blantyre, Scotland in 1813. After receiving a medical degree from the University of Glasgow he joined the London Missionary Society. Before long he was sent by the Society to Africa. His work was to convert Africans to Christianity. He was also keen to put a stop to the centuries old African slave trade. But Livingstone became known more as an explorer than as a Christian missionary. He made several trips into the deep interior of Central Africa, searching for rivers that the missionaries could use to gain access to the native people living within this region. He became the first white man to reach Lake Ngami in 1849. Two years later he travelled to the Zambezi River. In 1853 he started on a journey that would take three years and see him become the first white man to cross the African Continent. On the return journey he was to discover a breathtaking waterfall, which was at least 1,000 yards wide and 100 feet deep. He named the falls, thought to be the largest in the world, ‘Victoria Falls’ after his Monarch Queen Victoria.

In December, 1856 Livingstone returned to London. The figure he presented to English society was less than imposing: he was short, shy and not a fluent speaker. Livingstone hated publicity, but knew that he could not avoid it. So he used his celebrity to raise funds for further missions to Africa. The message he espoused to all who would listen – including Queen Victoria herself – was that the salvation of Central Africa depended upon the three C’s – Civilization, Commerce and Christianity.

The man who was to bring Livingstone back to civilization – Henry Morton Stanley - was born in 1841 in Denbigh, Wales. His formative years were spent in a work house for orphans. His escape came at the age of 17, when he sailed as a cabin boy on a ship bound for New Orleans. He was just in time for the American Civil War. He joined as a Confederate soldier but was soon captured by the Union Army. To avoid a prison term he defected to the Union side. Before long, however, he was discharged from the army due to ill health. In 1864 he joined the Union Navy. A year later he deserted. He now set his sights on becoming a newspaper reporter. He secured a position as a field reporter for the New York Times. In this capacity he was to travel extensively. He covered some pivotal encounters of the American Indian Wars as well as a British Military Campaign into Ethiopia. His most famous exploit, however, will forever remain the expedition that the New York Times financed in 1869 in search of David Livingstone.

After their historic meeting Livingstone and Stanley became fast friends. Stanley’s brief was to rush back to New York upon successful completion of his mission. However, he postponed his departure to help Livingstone in his stated aim of finding a source of the Nile River south of the known source in Lake Victoria. Stanley did, in fact, linger with Livingstone until March 1872.

Livingstone died in 1873. His friend Henry Stanley decided to continue his work in Africa. In 1874 he led an expedition into the interior. He followed the Congo River all the way to it’s mouth at the Atlantic Ocean. Reaching the ocean in 1877, he left behind two thirds of his 350 strong party, who had either died or deserted throughout the harrowing expedition. Stanley would go on to help establish the Congo Free State.

Starting a new chapter in his eventful life, Henry Stanley served as a member of the British Parliament between 1895 and 1900. In 1899 he was knighted. He died five years later.