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"Find Livingston": Famous phrase of Journalism - Part I

by Arefa Tehsin

Despondent circumstances, destitution, dismal days and deprived nights describe the childhood of Livingston. Born in Scotland in 1813 in a wretchedly poor family, he was not the one to give way to ruthless circumstances. At the age of 10, he was working in a textile mill.

This lotus, born in murky waters, was soon to become a legend. He worked hard, read, studied in all adverse conditions and became a medical missionary in South Africa. For many years he served the subjugated and browbeaten.

At the age of 50 he began visiting the most remote areas and exploring the interiors of the southern half of the African continent. He mapped a good deal of that part of Africa. He also explored the Zambazi River and wrote several articles and some outstanding books describing his exploits.

He also condemned the Slave Trade. The impressed Royal Geographical Society entrusted him with the work of exploring the country between lakes, Tanganika and Nayasa.

He left England in the mid summer of 1865. Zanzibar, the springboard to any exploration into Central Africa, was made the first base by Livingston. Eighteen months after starting off on the expedition, some of his porters returned to Zanzibar and declared him dead, a thing not readily accepted by his friends. These friends were proven right when Livingston's letter dated as far as July 1868 was received, hinting at his return.

This news of his impending return moved the eccentric Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald to send his star reporter to intercept the missionary explorer in the hope of getting his story before it reached the West. This reporter was Stanley. With Stanley he started a chronicle, which turned an exploration and mission of upliftment of a grossly exploited race into one of the biggest evils that took birth in the name of journalism and discovery.

Stanley, born in Wales, was a poor brat who had run away from the workhouse at the age of 15 in 1856 to a whole new world of experiences. He held a number of unsavoury jobs, jumped from a ship in New Orleans once and after deserting the armed services of both the Confederacy and the Union during civil war, finally turned a journalist. By now, he had enough experience behind him. He had also written a few novels.

Stanley celebrated his 28th birthday in Aden, awaiting Livingston. Then he moved on to other assignments. In the autumn of 1869, when he was covering the war in Spain, the younger James Gordon Bennett summoned him to Paris and once more assigned him to the Livingston's story - whether he was alive or dead and if alive then where. Bennett sent Stanley off saying - "Find Livingston", which became a legendary phrase in journalism.

Stanley had also been asked to cover the opening of Suez Canal, the happenings on Upper and Lower Nile, Jerusalem, Constantinople, the Crimea, Persia, India and finally the Euphrates Valley Railroad. Only then was he to go after Livingston.

Finally he reached Zanzibar on 6th Jan 1871. Enquiries revealed that no one had heard from Livingston since long. But Stanley's adventures as well as misadventures had made him a man of firm determination and determined firmness. "When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on", and hanging is not only what he did.

After treading across a thousand miles of tropical Africa in a period of 6 months, the rescue expedition's search was rewarded at Ujiji, on the eastern side of Lake Tanganyka. Stanley met Livingston.

Henry M. Stanley greeted Dr. David Livingston oddly and stiltedly, as observed later by the critics, near Lake Tanganyka. Thus took place one of the most famous and feted meetings in history for nearly a century. But not many know what Stanley had written about the meeting. He was so excited he says he wanted to turn a somersault, bite his hand and slash at a tree. He goes on:

"I would have run to him, only I was a coward in the presence of such a mob. I would have embraced him, only he being an Englishman, I did not know how he would receive me so I did what moral pride and cowardice and conceit suggested was the best thing - walked deliberately to him, took off my hat and said, 'Dr. Livingston, I presume.' 'Yes', said he with a kind smile lifting his cap slightly."

Stanley's first glimpse of the grey bearded Doctor, looking just a little pale, made him wonder if he needed rescuing. But he needed only supplies, which Stanley promised to send. They travelled together for four months and then parted ways. Stanley returned to London carrying a box full of papers of Dr. Livingston. The doctor continued his exploration and it was not long before Stanley heard the news of the departure of this great explorer and social worker. He died in his quest on 1st May 1873. His body was returned to England for burial in Westminster Abbey.

Stanley wrote in his notebook, "May I be selected to succeed him in the opening up of Africa, my methods however would not be those of Livingston's". He sincerely wanted to explore the remaining problem of the geography of Central Africa and to investigate the haunts of slave traders as the Daily Telegraph announced. Though he set out to do a novel thing, he somehow forgot that "The right to swing my fist ends when the other man's nose begins".

In November 1874, an expedition consisting of 350 persons, 36 of whom were women, left Zanzibar. The expedition was well equipped, unlike that of Dr. Livingston, and had a 40 ft portable boat in 5 sections called Lady Alice. In the next 2 years Stanley circumnavigated the Lakes Victoria and Tanganyka, which was never done before. He made fairly accurate maps of these places and explored some parts of Uganda also.

Stanley's main objective was to trace the course of Lualaba River, a part of which he had already covered with Livingston, both of them believing that this river would ultimately join the Nile.

Livingston and Stanley had traced the course of the Lualaba upto Nyangwe, the dead centre of the continent between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, about four degrees South of the Equator. In the years to come, Stanley's 'main objective' led to consequences, which the so-called "Dark Continent" is agonisingly facing to date.

To be continued...

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