Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone (42 page)

EVEN AS STANLEY
tipped his hat to the Arab crowd in response to deafening choruses of the Swahili congratulatory salute ‘Yambo’, Livingstone motioned towards his small hut. Stanley and Livingstone walked down the red dirt street together, not knowing one another but with much to talk about. Livingstone offered Stanley his goatskin seat on the veranda, but Stanley refused. Then they sat under the eaves that had protected Livingstone from the equatorial sun as he’d prayed for deliverance, hoping against hope for a Samaritan to emerge from the wilderness and save his life.

The people of Ujiji — Arab and African alike — couldn’t stop looking at them. They numbered a thousand strong, and had followed them to Livingstone’s house. Stanley wrote of the locals ‘filling the whole square densely, indulging their curiosity, and discussing the fact of the two white men meeting at Ujiji’.

‘Where’, Stanley began once pleasantries had been exchanged, asking the one question the entire world wanted answered, ‘have you been all this time?’

‘Yes, that was the way it began,’ Stanley wrote later. ‘But whatever the Doctor informed me, and that which I communicated to him, I cannot correctly report, for I found myself gazing at him, conning the wonderful man at whose side I now sat in Central Africa. Every hair of his head and beard, every wrinkle of his face, the wanness of his features and the slightly wearied look he wore, were all imparting intelligence to me — the knowledge I craved for so much.’

Stanley’s rational mind told him to take out his journal and scribble emotions, thoughts, words and sensations — to be a journalist again, after finally capturing the story of a lifetime. But he was too consumed by Livingstone’s words, and by the luminescence of the older man’s presence. ‘He had so much to say that he began at the end, seemingly oblivious to the fact that five or six years had to be accounted for. But his account was oozing out. It was growing fast into grand proportions — into a marvellous history of deeds,’ Stanley remembered later.

The people of Ujiji slowly lost interest and wandered back to their lives. The two men found themselves alone. Remembering himself, Stanley called for Bombay and ordered that Livingstone’s letters and the bottle of Sillery champagne from Zanzibar be brought. The champagne was warm after the many miles of African travel, but not flat, and they drank from silver goblets. Livingstone spent the afternoon glowing in the giddy awareness that he had been rescued, a sensation enhanced by the lion’s share of the champagne. Then food was brought — meat cakes, curried chicken, stewed goat meat, rice — and Stanley was amazed to see how much the feeble old explorer could eat. ‘You have brought me new life,’ Livingstone repeated over and over to Stanley as he mashed the food between his gums. ‘You have brought me new life.’

Throughout that first afternoon on the veranda, and even after they could see the mountains Stanley had crossed at dawn turn dark, they talked. In that whole time, Stanley never once mentioned his occupation, his employer or his motivations; never mentioned that he had
essentially travelled all the way across Africa to profit from Livingstone’s misfortune. The atmosphere on the veranda was so warm, and their moods so jovial, that Stanley never found the courage to explain that he was far more than just a traveller.

The next morning, Stanley awoke not knowing where he was. ‘I woke up this morning with a sudden start. The room was strange,’ he wrote. Instead of his hammock in his tent, he lay in a crude bed on a mattress of palm leaves. He rejoiced as his memories of the previous day triggered a wave of relief: he had done the impossible. He had found Livingstone. The truth of his accomplishment — and the ecstasy that knowledge produced — was almost too good to believe.

The nagging of his conscience detracted from his euphoria bit by bit, however, until Stanley had no choice but to confront his duplicity. By not telling Livingstone the truth of why he had come, he had lied. The lie was silent, and perhaps it could be categorized by omission as a half-truth, but Stanley was more than aware he needed to confront the issue immediately. How, though, to reveal his true motives without jeopardizing their incredible new friendship?

Stanley lay in bed, comfortable in the cocoon of palm-frond mattress and his precious bearskin blanket, but anguished. The thread defining his life had once been failure, but now it was lies that wove together the story of the man alternately named John Rowlands and Henry Morton Stanley. From Denbigh to New Orleans to Central City to Zanzibar, he had spent so many years lying to people about his true self that it was impossible to remember the most outlandish misrepresentations. For they were all, if measured against a man like Livingstone, whose life was on public record, enormous.

There was a genius to Stanley’s deception: the twisting of words, the massaging of facts and the dodging of blame. A master like Stanley would be able to assemble a simple charade that would fool Livingstone, just like he’d fooled the rest of the world — even the intractable
paranoid, James Gordon Bennett, Jr. Stanley merely had to continue pretending he was a traveller: a curious, quirky tourist wandering into Africa to see the sights and plumb the depth of Lake Tanganyika. The lie would harm no one. Livingstone would continue to hold Stanley in high esteem as a modern-day Good Samaritan instead of being repulsed by his mercenary intent.

For the first time in many years, however, Stanley felt lying to be repugnant. Anything but the truth was uncomfortable. Livingstone — the man with
baraka
, the man who trotted through Africa like the Apostle Paul — had effected the moral change Stanley sought since Aden. ‘We also rejoiced in our sufferings,’ Paul had written in his letter to the Romans in the middle of the first century. ‘Because suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope — and hope does not disappoint us.’

Both Stanley and Livingstone had persevered in Africa. Yet while Livingstone had earned the character and hope of which Paul spoke, Stanley struggled mightily in his soul about making that leap. He was capable, yes. But he was unwilling, fighting the urge to tell the truth and risk rejection. His first thoughts were, as usual, self-preservative. He didn’t owe Livingstone an apology for who he was or why he was there. ‘I have paid the purchase,’ he rationalized, ‘by coming so far to do him a service.’

Then he reflected on Livingstone’s great emotion when they met, and that he hadn’t run in the other direction, as Kirk predicted. Certainly that reflected well on Livingstone’s compassion. And, unlike all the other British he’d met, Livingstone certainly wouldn’t take issue with Stanley’s nationality. The stiffness of Stanley’s initial greeting was no doubt due to the sub-current of American versus British tensions in Zanzibar, London, New York and elsewhere on the globe where the reigning powers clashed.

‘Here,’ Livingstone noted of Africa the day before, ‘Americans and Englishmen are the same people. We speak the same language and have the same ideas.’

Stanley had hastily added that they were like brothers:
‘Flesh of your flesh, and bone of your bone.’ Livingstone had agreed. It was obvious the man was eager to accept Stanley as a peer.

Stanley still hadn’t solved his dilemma as he pushed back the bearskin and lowered his bare feet to the cold mud floor. He dressed quietly as the pale light of dawn shone into his window. Carefully he walked past the hut’s only other room and opened the front door. He meant to go outside and slip down to the water’s edge. By taking a walk on the beaches of Lake Tanganyika before Livingstone rose, Stanley would find his answer. Stepping onto the veranda, Stanley cringed as the door’s hinges emitted an awful creak. Their whine seemed as loud as a siren in the still air.

There, meditating on his goatskin, sat Livingstone.

‘Hello, Doctor. Are you up already?’ Stanley wrote of the moment.

‘Good morning, Mr Stanley,’ a rejuvenated Livingstone responded, making room for Stanley to sit down next to him. ‘I am glad to see you. I sat up late reading my letters. You have brought me good news and bad news. But sit down.’ Stanley arranged himself next to Livingstone as the doctor continued talking. ‘Yes, many of my friends are dead. My eldest son has met with a sad accident — that is, my boy Tom. My second son, Oswell, is at college studying medicine and is doing well, I am told. Agnes, my eldest daughter, is enjoying herself in a yacht.’ Livingstone’s outer peace belied inner conflict. The eldest son who had met with a sad accident was not Tom, but Robert, who died in a Confederate prison camp during the winter of 1864. The same detachment that allowed Livingstone to spend years away from his children had already distanced him from that tragedy, and mentally reorganized his offspring as if Robert had never been alive at all. Robert’s death meant Tom was now the eldest, and Oswell the second son.

Stanley failed to catch the slip of the tongue. He stared at Livingstone, still having a hard time believing the explorer was not a figment of his imagination after all
those months on the trail, dreaming of him, striving to find him. ‘Now, Doctor, you are probably wondering why I am here,’ Stanley began.

‘It is true,’ Livingstone said, ‘I have been wondering.’

‘Doctor,’ Stanley said. ‘Now don’t be frightened when I tell you that I have come after …
you
.’

‘After me?’ Livingstone answered in his Glasgow burr.

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘Well … Have you heard of the New York
Herald
?’

‘Oh. Who has not heard of that despicable newspaper?’ Livingstone retorted, not understanding the connection between his adventurous new acquaintance and the journalistic scourge of the free world. The paper had been a mere tabloid when he sailed from London in 1866. The transformation to international titan had not begun.

‘You will not call it despicable after you have heard what I have to say,’ Stanley continued. Then Stanley poured out the story, making certain that Livingstone knew James Gordon Bennett, Jr was the driving force behind Livingstone’s rescue. There was honesty in mentioning Bennett, but also a secondary motive: Stanley secretly hoped Livingstone would write a letter to Bennett. At the very least the letter would prove he’d found the explorer. At best, Livingstone might praise Stanley in a way that would boost his career.

Livingstone was not concerned with motives. He was so destitute that any help at all was welcome. ‘I am not of a demonstrative turn,’ a touched Livingstone wrote later. ‘As cold, indeed, as we islanders are usually reported to be. But this disinterested kindness of Mr Bennett, so nobly carried into effect by Mr Stanley, was simply overwhelming. I really do feel extremely grateful and at the same time, I am a little ashamed at not being more worthy of the generosity.’ Livingstone did not push Stanley away. Instead, as a gesture of thanks for Stanley’s courage, Livingstone wrote a long letter for Bennett to publish, praising the newspaper and Stanley.

In the days that followed, their friendship deepened. Stanley attached himself to Livingstone as a needy child would to a long-absent father. The
Herald
and the
Herald
expedition receded into the background. More relevant discussions of their lives and travels moved to the fore. Livingstone told of an eagerness to go home and see his children again. Stanley described paying tribute in Ugogo and Mirambo’s war. He also darkened Livingstone’s mood by telling of Kirk’s apathy. Livingstone wrote another long letter as a consequence, this one lambasting Kirk as a coward and poseur with ‘an eager desire to mix up his name with discoveries which he had too much regard for money to make himself’.

On the surface, Livingstone and Stanley should have been at odds. Both were solitary men, given to following their own paths. Both balanced introspection with showmanship, and seemed oblivious to occasional lapses into temper. They were both stubborn, not suffering fools or hypocrites gladly. In fact, Stanley’s initial plan had even acknowledged their adversarial natures: he would find Livingstone, say hello, stay just one day or however long it took Livingstone to jot a letter in his own hand to prove they had linked up, then race back to Zanzibar to tell the world. As they grew to know one another through long hours of conversation, however, Stanley’s haste evaporated. He longed to stay with Livingstone, basking in the older man’s wisdom and grace.

Not that Livingstone was undamaged mentally and emotionally by his travels. He had grown quirky in his time away from civilization, and talked to himself without noticing. He could only sleep on the ground or a native sleeping platform of grass and sticks — attempts to sleep in his bed in Ujiji left him tossing and turning. As for religion, on those Sundays when no Africans cared to join his congregation, Livingstone preached a sermon to himself. But Stanley was willing to overlook any quirks, just as Livingstone had overlooked Stanley’s jaded demeanour. ‘Dr Livingstone is about sixty years old, though after he was restored to health he looked like a man who has not
passed his fiftieth year. His hair has a brownish colour yet, but here and there is streaked with grey lines over the temples. His beard and moustache are very grey. His eyes, which are hazel, are remarkably bright. He has a sight as keen as a hawk’s. His teeth alone indicate the weakness of age,’ Stanley wrote. ‘I grant that he is not an angel, but he approaches to that being as near as the nature of a living man will allow … His gentleness never forsakes him, his hopefulness never deserts him. No harassing anxieties, distraction of mind, long separation from home and kindred can make him complain. He thinks “all will come out right at last”.’