The conversation began—­but Stanley could not remember what it was.  “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 bore, were all imparting intelligence to me—­the knowledge I craved for so much ever since I heard the words, ’Take what you want, but find Livingstone,’ What I saw was deeply interesting intelligence to me and unvarnished truth.  I was listening and reading at the same time.  What did these dumb witnesses relate to me?

“Oh, reader, had you been at my side on this day in Ujiji, how eloquently could be told the nature of this man’s work?  Had you been there but to see and hear!  His lips gave me the details; lips that never lie.  I cannot repeat what he said; I was too much engrossed to take my notebook out, and begin to stenograph his story.  He had so much to say that he began at the end, seemingly oblivious of 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 most marvelous history of deeds.”

And Stanley, too, had wonderful things to tell the Doctor.  “The news,” says Livingstone, “he had to tell one who had been two full years without any tidings from Europe made my whole frame thrill.  The terrible fate that had befallen France, the telegraphic cables successfully laid in the Atlantic, the election of General Grant, the death of good Lord Clarendon, my constant friend; the proof that Her Majesty’s Government had not forgotten me in voting L1000 for supplies, and many other points of interest, revived emotions that had lain dormant in Manyuema.”  As Stanley went on, Livingstone kept saying, “You have brought me new life—­you have brought me new life.”

There was one piece of news brought by Stanley to Livingstone that was far from satisfactory.  At Bagamoio, on the coast, Stanley had found a caravan with supplies for Livingstone that had been despatched from Zanzibar three or four months before, the men in charge of which had been lying idle there all that time on the pretext that they were waiting for carriers.  A letter-bag was also lying at Bagamoio, although several caravans for Ujiji had left in the meantime.  On hearing that the Consul at Zanzibar, Dr. Kirk, was coming to the neighborhood to hunt, the party at last made off.  Overtaking them at Unyanyembe, Stanley took charge of Livingstone’s stores, but was not able to bring them on; only he compelled the letter-carrier to come on to Ujiji with his bag.  At what time, but for Stanley, Livingstone would have got his letters, which after all were a year on the way, he could not have told.  For his stores, or such fragments of them as might remain, he had afterward to trudge all the way to Unyanyembe.  His letters conveyed the news that Government had voted a thousand pounds for his relief, and were besides to pay him a salary[74].  The unpleasant feeling he had had so long as to his treatment by Government was thus at last somewhat relieved.  But the goods that had lain in neglect at Bagamoio, and were now out of reach at Unyanyembe, represented one-half the Government grant, and would probably be squandered, like his other goods, before he could reach them.