The Doctor tramped it on foot like a man of iron. On arrival at Unyanyembe I found that the Englishman Shaw whom I had turned back as useless, had about a month after his return succumbed to the climate of the interior and had died, as well as two Wanguana of the expedition who had been left behind sick. Thus during less than twelve months William Lawrence Farquhar, of Leith, Scotland, and John William Shaw, of London, England, the two white men I had engaged to assist me, had died; also eight baggage carriers and eight soldiers of the expedition had died.
I was bold enough to advise the Doctor to permit the expedition to escort him to Unyanyembe, through the country it was made acquainted with while going to Ujiji, for the reason that were he to sit down at Ujiji until Mirambo was disposed of he might remain a year there, a prey to high expectations, ending always in bitter disappointment. I told him, as the Arabs of Unyanyembe were not equal to the task of conquering Mirambo, that it were better he should accompany the Herald expedition to Unyanyembe, and there take possession of the last lot of goods brought to him by a caravan which left the seacoast simultaneously with our expedition.
The Doctor consented, and thus it was that he came so far back as Unyanyembe.
The “Herald” correspondent complains with much earnestness that Dr. Livingstone has been neglected by the British consulate at Zanzibar. Handsomely admitting the liberality of the British people and government, he has hearty denunciations for those in authority at Zanzibar. The contrast of their insufficiency with the enterprise of the “Herald” expedition is remarkable. Mr. Stanley says: “Within the time that the British Consul’s men took to convey Livingstone’s goods and letters a distance of only 525 miles, the Herald Expedition was formed, and marched 2,059 English statute miles, and before the fourteenth month of its departure from the seacoast the Herald Expedition will have arrived at the seacoast, be paid off and disbanded. In the matter of supplies, then, being sent to Livingstone semi-annually or annually there is no truth whatever. The cause is extreme apathy at Zanzibar and the reckless character of the men sent. Where English gentlemen are so liberal and money so plentiful it should be otherwise.”
Upon this very delicate subject the “Herald” itself editorially remarks:
“On the question of Livingstone’s having received the supplies sent him by his friends in England these letters will throw a startling light. The carelessness, theft, and general mismanagement which overtook the stores forwarded by the British Consulate at Zanzibar, usually wasted and frittered these almost entirely away before they had time to reach him. This cannot be better stated than in the Herald commander’s words: ‘Your correspondent begs to inform his friends that the Herald Expedition found him turned back from his explorations when on the eve of being terminated thoroughly by the very men sent to him by the British Consulate; that the Expedition found him sitting down at Ujiji utterly destitute, robbed by the very men sent by the British Consulate at Zanzibar with his caravan; that the Herald Expedition escorted him to Unyanyembe only in time to save his last stock of goods, for they were rapidly being made away with by the very men entrusted by the British Consulate with the last lot of goods; that it was only by an accident that your correspondent saw a packet of letters addressed to Livingstone, and so, forcibly, took one of Livingstone’s men to carry the letters to his employer.’”
The commander of the Search Expedition supplied Dr. Livingstone with such supplies as he could command, in which were several bales of mixed cloths, about one thousand pounds of assorted beads—all this is African money—a large quantity of brass wire, a portable boat, revolvers, carbines, and ammunition.
And thus Mr. Stanley was ready to depart for the sea coast. Bidding the great explorer farewell, he left Kwihara on March 14, 1872, bending his course toward Zanzibar by the usual caravan track. At Zanzibar he forwarded “men and means” to the explorer of whom he had learned to think so highly, by the aid of which he was doubtless the better enabled to make his departure from Unyanyembe, and with more confident anticipations of success.
Meanwhile the chief of the successful Search Expedition discharged his men at Zanzibar, and by the way of Bombay, thence to Aden in southwestern Arabia, the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal, found his way rapidly to the abodes of those races of civilized men who had been astonished and gratified by the summary of the remarkable success of his enterprise which had preceded him.