John Lothrop Motley - "The Life of John of Barneveld, 1610"

Edward Lasker - "Chess and Checkers: The Way to Mastership"

John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1588"

P. G. Wodehouse - "Love Among the Chickens"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: How I Found Livingstone

S >> Sir Henry M. Stanley >> How I Found Livingstone



This eBook was produced by Geoffrey Cowling.



HOW I FOUND LIVINGSTONE.
Travels, Adventures and Discoveries in Central Africa
including four months residence with Dr. Livingstone

by

Sir Henry M. Stanley, G.C.B.

Abridged



CHAPTER. I.

INTRODUCTORY. MY INSTRUCTIONS TO FIND AND RELIEVE LIVINGSTONE.


On the sixteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine, I was in Madrid, fresh from
the carnage at Valencia. At 10 A.M. Jacopo, at No.-- Calle de la
Cruz, handed me a telegram: It read, "Come to Paris on important
business." The telegram was from Mr. James Gordon Bennett, jun.,
the young manager of the `New York Herald.'

Down came my pictures from the walls of my apartments on the
second floor; into my trunks went my books and souvenirs, my
clothes were hastily collected, some half washed, some from the
clothes-line half dry, and after a couple of hours of hasty hard
work my portmanteaus were strapped up and labelled "Paris."

At 3 P.M. I was on my way, and being obliged to stop at Bayonne a
few hours, did not arrive at Paris until the following night. I
went straight to the `Grand Hotel,' and knocked at the door of
Mr. Bennett's room.

"Come in," I heard a voice say. Entering, I found Mr. Bennett in
bed. "Who are you?" he asked.

"My name is Stanley," I answered.

"Ah, yes! sit down; I have important business on hand for you."

After throwing over his shoulders his robe-de-chambre Mr. Bennett
asked, "Where do you think Livingstone is?"

"I really do not know, sir."

"Do you think he is alive?"

"He may be, and he may not be," I answered.

"Well, I think he is alive, and that he can be found, and I am
going to send you to find him."

"What!" said I, "do you really think I can find Dr Livingstone?
Do you mean me to go to Central Africa?"

"Yes; I mean that you shall go, and find him wherever you may
hear that he is, and to get what news you can of him, and perhaps"
--delivering himself thoughtfully and deliberately--"the old man
may be in want:--take enough with you to help him should he require
it. Of course you will act according to your own plans, and do
what you think best--BUT FIND LIVINGSTONE!"

Said I, wondering at the cool order of sending one to Central
Africa to search for a man whom I, in common with almost all other
men, believed to be dead, "Have you considered seriously the
great expense you are likely, to incur on account of this little
journey?"

"What will it cost?" he asked abruptly.

"Burton and Speke's journey to Central Africa cost between £3,000
and £5,000, and I fear it cannot be done under £2,500."

"Well, I will tell you what you will do. Draw a thousand pounds
now; and when you have gone through that, draw another thousand,
and when that is spent, draw another thousand, and when you have
finished that, draw another thousand, and so on; but, FIND
LIVINGSTONE."

Surprised but not confused at the order--for I knew that Mr.
Bennett when once he had made up his mind was not easily drawn
aside from his purpose--I yet thought, seeing it was such a
gigantic scheme, that he had not quite considered in his own mind
the pros and cons of the case; I said, "I have heard that should
your father die you would sell the `Herald' and retire from
business."

"Whoever told you that is wrong, for there is not, money enough in
New York city to buy the `New York Herald.' My father has made
it a great paper, but I mean to make it greater. I mean that it
shall be a newspaper in the true sense of the word. I mean that
it shall publish whatever news will be interesting to the world at
no matter what cost."

"After that," said I, "I have nothing more to say. Do you mean
me to go straight on to Africa to search for Dr. Livingstone?"

"No! I wish you to go to the inauguration of the Suez Canal
first, and then proceed up the Nile. I hear Baker is about
starting for Upper Egypt. Find out what you can about his
expedition, and as you go up describe as well as possible
whatever is interesting for tourists; and then write up a guide--
a practical one--for Lower Egypt; tell us about whatever is worth
seeing and how to see it.

"Then you might as well go to Jerusalem; I hear Captain Warren is
making some interesting discoveries there. Then visit
Constantinople, and find out about that trouble between the Khedive
and the Sultan.

"Then--let me see--you might as well visit the Crimea and those
old battle-grounds, Then go across the Caucasus to the Caspian Sea;
I hear there is a Russian expedition bound for Khiva. From thence
you may get through Persia to India; you could write an interesting
letter from Persepolis.

"Bagdad will be close on your way to India; suppose you go
there, and write up something about the Euphrates Valley Railway.
Then, when you have come to India, you can go after Livingstone.
Probably you will hear by that time that Livingstone is on his
way to Zanzibar; but if not, go into the interior and find him.
If alive, get what news of his discoveries you can; and if you
find he is dead, bring all possible proofs of his being dead.
That is all. Good-night, and God be with you."

"Good-night, Sir," I said, "what it is in the power of human
nature to do I will do; and on such an errand as I go upon, God
will be with me."

I lodged with young Edward King, who is making such a name in New
England. He was just the man who would have delighted to tell the
journal he was engaged upon what young Mr. Bennett was doing, and
what errand I was bound upon.

I should have liked to exchange opinions with him upon the probable
results of my journey, but I dared not do so. Though oppressed
with the great task before me, I had to appear as if only going to
be present at the Suez Canal. Young King followed me to the
express train bound for Marseilles, and at the station we parted:
he to go and read the newspapers at Bowles' Reading-room--I to
Central Africa and--who knows?

There is no need to recapitulate what I did before going to Central
Africa.

I went up the Nile and saw Mr. Higginbotham, chief engineer in
Baker's Expedition, at Philae, and was the means of preventing
a duel between him and a mad young Frenchman, who wanted to fight
Mr. Higginbotham with pistols, because that gentleman resented
the idea of being taken for an Egyptian, through wearing a fez cap.
I had a talk with Capt. Warren at Jerusalem, and descended one
of the pits with a sergeant of engineers to see the marks of
the Tyrian workmen on the foundation-stones of the Temple of Solomon.
I visited the mosques of Stamboul with the Minister Resident of
the United States, and the American Consul-General. I travelled
over the Crimean battle-grounds with Kinglake's glorious books
for reference in my hand. I dined with the widow of General
Liprandi at Odessa. I saw the Arabian traveller Palgrave at
Trebizond, and Baron Nicolay, the Civil Governor of the Caucasus,
at Tiflis. I lived with the Russian Ambassador while at Teheran,
and wherever I went through Persia I received the most hospitable
welcome from the gentlemen of the Indo-European Telegraph Company;
and following the examples of many illustrious men, I wrote my
name upon one of the Persepolitan monuments. In the month of
August, 1870, I arrived in India.

On the 12th of October I sailed on the barque 'Polly' from
Bombay to Mauritius. As the 'Polly' was a slow sailer, the
passage lasted thirty-seven days. On board this barque was
a William Lawrence Farquhar--hailing from Leith, Scotland--
in the capacity of first-mate. He was an excellent navigator,
and thinking he might be useful to me, I employed him; his pay
to begin from the date we should leave Zanzibar for Bagamoyo.
As there was no opportunity of getting, to Zanzibar direct,
I took ship to Seychelles. Three or four days after arriving
at Mahe, one of the Seychelles group, I was fortunate enough
to get a passage for myself, William Lawrence Farquhar, and
an Arab boy from Jerusalem, who was to act as interpreter--
on board an American whaling vessel, bound for Zanzibar;
at which port we arrived on the 6th of January, 1871.

I have skimmed over my travels thus far, because these do not
concern the reader. They led over many lands, but this book is
only a narrative of my search after Livingstone, the great
African traveller. It is an Icarian flight of journalism, I
confess; some even have called it Quixotic; but this is a word I
can now refute, as will be seen before the reader arrives at the
"Finis."

I have used the word "soldiers" in this book. The armed escort a
traveller engages to accompany him into East Africa is composed of
free black men, natives of Zanzibar, or freed slaves from the
interior, who call themselves "askari," an Indian name which,
translated, means "soldiers." They are armed and equipped like
soldiers, though they engage themselves also as servants; but it
would be more pretentious in me to call them servants, than to use
the word "soldiers;" and as I have been more in the habit of
calling them soldiers than "my watuma"--servants--this habit has
proved too much to be overcome. I have therefore allowed the word
"soldiers " to appear, accompanied, however, with this apology.

But it must be remembered that I am writing a narrative of my own
adventures and travels, and that until I meet Livingstone, I
presume the greatest interest is attached to myself, my marches,
my troubles, my thoughts, and my impressions. Yet though I may
sometimes write, "my expedition," or "my caravan," it by no
means follows that I arrogate to myself this right. For it must
be distinctly understood that it is the "`New York Herald'
Expedition," and that I am only charged with its command by
Mr. James Gordon Bennett, the proprietor of the `New York Herald,'
as a salaried employ of that gentleman.

One thing more; I have adopted the narrative form of relating
the story of the search, on account of the greater interest it
appears to possess over the diary form, and I think that in this
manner I avoid the great fault of repetition for which some
travellers have been severely criticised.



CHAPTER II. ZANZIBAR.

On the morning of the 6th January, 1871, we were sailing through
the channel that separates the fruitful island of Zanzibar from
Africa. The high lands of the continent loomed like a lengthening
shadow in the grey of dawn. The island lay on our left, distant
but a mile, coming out of its shroud of foggy folds bit by bit as
the day advanced, until it finally rose clearly into view, as
fair in appearance as the fairest of the gems of creation. It
appeared low, but not flat; there were gentle elevations cropping
hither and yon above the languid but graceful tops of the
cocoa-trees that lined the margin of the island, and there were
depressions visible at agreeable intervals, to indicate where a
cool gloom might be found by those who sought relief from a hot
sun. With the exception of the thin line of sand, over which the
sap-green water rolled itself with a constant murmur and moan, the
island seemed buried under one deep stratum of verdure.

The noble bosom of the strait bore several dhows speeding in and
out of the bay of Zanzibar with bellying sails. Towards the
south, above the sea line of the horizon, there appeared the naked
masts of several large ships, and to the east of these a dense mass
of white, flat-topped houses. This was Zanzibar, the capital of the
island;--which soon resolved itself into a pretty large and compact
city, with all the characteristics of Arab architecture. Above
some of the largest houses lining the bay front of the city
streamed the blood-red banner of the Sultan, Seyd Burghash, and the
flags of the American, English, North German Confederation, and
French Consulates. In the harbor were thirteen large ships, four
Zanzibar men-of-war, one English man-of-war--the `Nymphe,' two
American, one French, one Portuguese, two English, and two German
merchantmen, besides numerous dhows hailing from Johanna and
Mayotte of the Comoro Islands, dhows from Muscat and Cutch--traders
between India, the Persian Gulf, and Zanzibar.

It was with the spirit of true hospitality and courtesy that
Capt. Francis R. Webb, United States Consul, (formerly of the
United States Navy), received me. Had this gentleman not rendered
me such needful service, I must have condescended to take board and
lodging at a house known as "Charley's," called after the
proprietor, a Frenchman, who has won considerable local notoriety
for harboring penniless itinerants, and manifesting a kindly
spirit always, though hidden under such a rugged front; or I
should have been obliged to pitch my double-clothed American drill
tent on the sandbeach of this tropical island, which was by no
means a desirable thing.

But Capt. Webb's opportune proposal to make his commodious and
comfortable house my own; to enjoy myself, with the request that
I would call for whatever I might require, obviated all unpleasant
alternatives.

One day's life at Zanzibar made me thoroughly conscious of my
ignorance respecting African people and things in general. I
imagined I had read Burton and Speke through, fairly well, and
that consequently I had penetrated the meaning, the full
importance and grandeur, of the work I was about to be engaged upon.
But my estimates, for instance, based upon book information,
were simply ridiculous, fanciful images of African attractions
were soon dissipated, anticipated pleasures vanished, and all
crude ideas began to resolve themselves into shape.

I strolled through the city. My general impressions are of
crooked, narrow lanes, white-washed houses, mortar-plastered
streets, in the clean quarter;--of seeing alcoves on each side,
with deep recesses, with a fore-ground of red-turbaned Banyans,
and a back-ground of flimsy cottons, prints, calicoes, domestics
and what not; or of floors crowded with ivory tusks; or of dark
corners with a pile of unginned and loose cotton; or of stores of
crockery, nails, cheap Brummagem ware, tools, &c., in what I call
the Banyan quarter;--of streets smelling very strong--in fact,
exceedingly, malodorous, with steaming yellow and black bodies, and
woolly heads, sitting at the doors of miserable huts, chatting,
laughing, bargaining, scolding, with a compound smell of hides,
tar, filth, and vegetable refuse, in the negro quarter;--of streets
lined with tall, solid-looking houses, flat roofed, of great carved
doors with large brass knockers, with baabs sitting cross-legged
watching the dark entrance to their masters' houses; of a shallow
sea-inlet, with some dhows, canoes, boats, an odd steam-tub or two,
leaning over on their sides in a sea of mud which the tide has just
left behind it; of a place called "M'nazi-Moya," "One Cocoa-tree,"
whither Europeans wend on evenings with most languid steps, to
inhale the sweet air that glides over the sea, while the day is
dying and the red sun is sinking westward; of a few graves of
dead sailors, who paid the forfeit of their lives upon arrival
in this land; of a tall house wherein lives Dr. Tozer, "Missionary
Bishop of Central Africa," and his school of little Africans; and
of many other things, which got together into such a tangle, that
I had to go to sleep, lest I should never be able to separate
the moving images, the Arab from the African; the African from
the Banyan; the Banyan from the Hindi; the Hindi from the European,
&c.

Zanzibar is the Bagdad, the Ispahan, the Stamboul, if you like, of
East Africa. It is the great mart which invites the ivory traders
from the African interior. To this market come the gum-copal, the
hides, the orchilla weed, the timber, and the black slaves from
Africa. Bagdad had great silk bazaars, Zanzibar has her ivory
bazaars; Bagdad once traded in jewels, Zanzibar trades in
gum-copal; Stamboul imported Circassian and Georgian slaves;
Zanzibar imports black beauties from Uhiyow, Ugindo, Ugogo,
Unyamwezi and Galla.

The same mode of commerce obtains here as in all Mohammedan
countries--nay, the mode was in vogue long before Moses was born.
The Arab never changes. He brought the custom of his forefathers
with him when he came to live on this island. He is as much of an
Arab here as at Muscat or Bagdad; wherever he goes to live he
carries with him his harem, his religion, his long robe, his shirt,
his slippers, and his dagger. If he penetrates Africa, not all the
ridicule of the negroes can make him change his modes of life. Yet
the land has not become Oriental; the Arab has not been able to
change the atmosphere. The land is semi-African in aspect; the
city is but semi-Arabian.

To a new-comer into Africa, the Muscat Arabs of Zanzibar are
studies. There is a certain empressement about them which we must
admire. They are mostly all travellers. There are but few of
them who have not been in many dangerous positions, as they
penetrated Central Africa in search of the precious ivory; and
their various experiences have given their features a certain
unmistakable air of-self-reliance, or of self-sufficiency; there
is a calm, resolute, defiant, independent air about them, which
wins unconsciously one's respect. The stories that some of these
men could tell, I have often thought, would fill many a book of
thrilling adventures.

For the half-castes I have great contempt. They are neither
black nor white, neither good nor bad, neither to be admired nor
hated. They are all things, at all times; they are always
fawning on the great Arabs, and always cruel to those unfortunates
brought under their yoke. If I saw a miserable, half-starved
negro, I was always sure to be told he belonged to a half-caste.
Cringing and hypocritical, cowardly and debased, treacherous and
mean, I have always found him. He seems to be for ever ready to
fall down and worship a rich Arab, but is relentless to a poor
black slave. When he swears most, you may be sure he lies most,
and yet this is the breed which is multiplied most at Zanzibar.

The Banyan is a born trader, the beau-ideal of a sharp money-making
man. Money flows to his pockets as naturally as water down a
steep. No pang of conscience will prevent him from cheating his
fellow man. He excels a Jew, and his only rival in a market is a
Parsee; an Arab is a babe to him. It is worth money to see him
labor with all his energy, soul and body, to get advantage by the
smallest fraction of a coin over a native. Possibly the native
has a tusk, and it may weigh a couple of frasilahs, but, though
the scales indicate the weight, and the native declares solemnly
that it must be more than two frasilahs, yet our Banyan will
asseverate and vow that the native knows nothing whatever about it,
and that the scales are wrong; he musters up courage to lift it--it
is a mere song, not much more than a frasilah. "Come," he will say,
"close, man, take the money and go thy way. Art thou mad?" If the
native hesitates, he will scream in a fury; he pushes him about,
spurns the ivory with contemptuous indifference,--never was such
ado about nothing; but though he tells the astounded native to be
up and going, he never intends the ivory shall leave his shop.

The Banyans exercise, of all other classes, most influence on the
trade of Central Africa. With the exception of a very few rich
Arabs, almost all other traders are subject to the pains and
penalties which usury imposes. A trader desirous to make a
journey into the interior, whether for slaves or ivory, gum-copal,
or orchilla weed, proposes to a Banyan to advance him $5,000, at
50, 60, or 70 per cent. interest. The Banyan is safe enough not
to lose, whether the speculation the trader is engaged upon pays
or not. An experienced trader seldom loses, or if he has been
unfortunate, through no deed of his own, he does not lose credit;
with the help of the Banyan, he is easily set on his feet again.

We will suppose, for the sake of illustrating how trade with the
interior is managed, that the Arab conveys by his caravan $5,000's
worth of goods into the interior. At Unyanyembe the goods are
worth $10,000; at Ujiji, they are worth $15,000: they have
trebled in price. Five doti, or $7.50, will purchase a slave in
the markets of Ujiji that will fetch in Zanzibar $30. Ordinary
menslaves may be purchased for $6 which would sell for $25 on the
coast. We will say he purchases slaves to the full extent of his
means--after deducting $1,500 expenses of carriage to Ujiji and
back--viz. $3,500, the slaves--464 in number, at $7-50 per head--
would realize $13,920 at Zanzibar! Again, let us illustrate
trade in ivory. A merchant takes $5,000 to Ujiji, and after
deducting $1,500 for expenses to Ujiji, and back to Zanzibar, has
still remaining $3,500 in cloth and beads, with which he purchases
ivory. At Ujiji ivory is bought at $20 the frasilah, or 35 lbs.,
by which he is enabled with $3,500 to collect 175 frasilahs, which,
if good ivory, is worth about $60 per frasilah at Zanzibar.
The merchant thus finds that he has realized $10,500 net profit!
Arab traders have often done better than this, but they almost
always have come back with an enormous margin of profit.

The next people to the Banyans_in power in Zanzibar are the
Mohammedan Hindis. Really it has been a debateable subject in my
mind whether the Hindis are not as wickedly determined to cheat in
trade as the Banyans. But, if I have conceded the palm to the
latter, it has been done very reluctantly. This tribe of Indians
can produce scores of unconscionable rascals where they can show
but one honest merchant. One of the honestest among men, white or
black, red or yellow, is a Mohammedan Hindi called Tarya Topan.
Among the Europeans at Zanzibar, he has become a proverb for
honesty, and strict business integrity. He is enormously wealthy,
owns several ships and dhows, and is a prominent man in the
councils of Seyd Burghash. Tarya has many children, two or three
of whom are grown-up sons, whom he has reared up even as he is
himself. But Tarya is but a representative of an exceedingly
small minority.

The Arabs, the Banyans, and the Mohammedan Hindis, represent the
higher and the middle classes. These classes own the estates,
the ships, and the trade. To these classes bow the half-caste
and the negro.

The next most important people who go to make up the mixed
population of this island are the negroes. They consist of the
aborigines, Wasawahili, Somalis, Comorines, Wanyamwezi, and a host
of tribal representatives of Inner Africa.

To a white stranger about penetrating Africa, it is a most
interesting walk through the negro quarters of the Wanyamwezi and
the Wasawahili. For here he begins to learn the necessity of
admitting that negroes are men, like himself, though of a different
colour; that they have passions and prejudices, likes and
dislikes, sympathies and antipathies, tastes and feelings, in
common with all human nature. The sooner he perceives this fact,
and adapts himself accordingly, the easier will be his journey
among the several races of the interior. The more plastic his
nature, the more prosperous will be his travels.

Though I had lived some time among the negroes of our Southern
States, my education was Northern, and I had met in the United
States black men whom I was proud to call friends. I was thus
prepared to admit any black man, possessing the attributes of true
manhood or any good qualities, to my friendship, even to a
brotherhood with myself; and to respect him for such, as much as
if he were of my own colour and race. Neither his colour, nor any
peculiarities of physiognomy should debar him with me from any
rights he could fairly claim as a man. "Have these men--these
black savages from pagan Africa," I asked myself, "the qualities
which make man loveable among his fellows? Can these men--these
barbarians--appreciate kindness or feel resentment like myself?"
was my mental question as I travelled through their quarters
and observed their actions. Need I say, that I was much comforted
in observing that they were as ready to be influenced by passions,
by loves and hates, as I was myself; that the keenest observation
failed to detect any great difference between their nature and my
own?

The negroes of the island probably number two-thirds of the entire
population. They compose the working-class, whether enslaved or
free. Those enslaved perform the work required on the plantations,
the estates, and gardens of the landed proprietors, or perform the
work of carriers, whether in the country or in the city. Outside
the city they may be seen carrying huge loads on their heads, as
happy as possible, not because they are kindly treated or that
their work is light, but because it is their nature to be gay and
light-hearted, because they, have conceived neither joys nor hopes
which may not be gratified at will, nor cherished any ambition
beyond their reach, and therefore have not been baffled in their
hopes nor known disappointment.

Within the city, negro carriers may be heard at all hours, in
couples, engaged in the transportation of clove-bags, boxes of
merchandise, &c., from store to "godown" and from "go-down" to
the beach, singing a kind of monotone chant for the encouragement
of each other, and for the guiding of their pace as they shuffle
through the streets with bare feet. You may recognise these men
readily, before long, as old acquaintances, by the consistency
with which they sing the tunes they have adopted. Several times
during a day have I heard the same couple pass beneath the windows
of the Consulate, delivering themselves of the same invariable tune
and words. Some might possibly deem the songs foolish and silly,
but they had a certain attraction for me, and I considered that
they were as useful as anything else for the purposes they were
intended.