The London “Telegraph” of the same date says:
“Yesterday we, in company with the whole people of Britain, listened to the narration of the outlines of a tale describing the accomplishment of a work as daring in its execution as that of Vasco de Gama, as solitary in its accompaniment as that of Robinson Crusoe, and quite as romantic in its progress as that of Marco Polo. The mind delights to realize, even in imagination, the moment when the gallant and indefatigable Stanley won his way in front of his little band of followers—making up in noise what it lacked in numbers—to the outskirts of Ujiji; and we must, all of us, envy the republic of the United States the fact that the American flag was carried proudly at the head of his force in happy agreement, and that under the banner of the Stars and Stripes he afforded succor to the lonely Briton.”
And thus the London “Daily News”:
“The extraordinary narrative which has just been communicated to the world by the New York ‘Herald,’ supplies one of the most exciting stories which civilization has had since the revelation of the startling truths of Bruce. Mr. Stanley gives to his collation a somewhat picturesque coloring, but the grand fact remains that he found Livingstone notwithstanding, and not, as Sir Henry Rawlinson conjectured lately, that Livingstone found Stanley. It is not easy to imagine an enterprise more full of toil and peril than this strange journey of the lonely American, attended, to be sure, by a small but reluctant escort, in the hitherto trackless wilds of Africa and among people of native tribes of unknown names. It is wholly impossible not to admire the daring and perseverance which the American discovery has crowned with triumph.”
Said the Edinburgh (Scotland) “Courant”:
“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.”