“It is long since the columns of a newspaper have contained so vividly romantic and so startlingly wonderful a story as that which has just been told to us of the fortunes that befell Mr. Stanley in his quest after Livingstone, and of the most strange circumstances under which the object of that quest was fulfilled. The whole narrative reads, indeed, more like a forgotten episode from the travels of some Marco Polo or Vasco de Gama than, as it is, a truthful and unvarnished extract from the severe chronicle of nineteenth century fact.”
This brief extract from the London “Globe” of July 9:
“The final discovery of Dr. Livingstone would seem to have been a bitter disappointment to a large class of his fellow countrymen. The doubt and mystery which hung around his fate promised to produce a perennial stream of quasi-scientific gossip, and to yield an endless crop of letters to the ‘Times.’ As it is, those ‘interested’ in the matter are reduced to patching the rags of the worn-out controversy.”
The London “Times” of July 15th contained a long letter from Mr. Charles Beke, in which he fully answers a number of criticisms upon the Livingstone-Stanley despatches, the said criticisms having originated in British chagrin, not altogether inexcusable, at the fine success of the American enterprise. That great journal of July 27th editorially says:
“To the enterprise of an American newspaper we are indebted for trustworthy information that Dr. Livingstone still lives and prosecutes his unexampled researches.”
The London “Advertiser” of the date last mentioned also published a long leading article upon the subject, beginning:
“In another column we publish the first letter from Dr. Livingstone which has been received in England. By the energy of the proprietor of the New York ‘Herald’ the great English traveller has been found and succored at a moment when he seemed to be upon his ‘last legs.’ In his own words, when Stanley arrived at Ujiji, ‘he thought he was dying upon his feet.’”
The London “Standard” of July 26th remarked with emphasis:
“All doubts concerning the _bona fides_ of Mr. Stanley’s narratives of his adventures in Africa will now be laid at rest by the arrival of Dr. Livingstone’s letters. We shall, apparently, have to wait a little for the publication of the geographical despatches, as the report of an intended meeting of the Geographical Society on Monday for the purpose of hearing them read is unfounded. But it is satisfactory to feel that even the very faint suspicions cast on the authenticity of Mr. Stanley’s story are dissipated, and that we may absolutely rely upon the information which that gallant and triumphant traveller has brought home.”