"'You probably know much already. Do you know that the Suez Canal is a fact—is opened and a regular trade carried on between Europe and India through it?'
"'I did not hear about the opening of it. Well, that is grand news! What else?'
"Shortly I found myself enacting the part of an annual periodical to him. There was no need of exaggeration—of any penny-a-line news, or of any sensationalism. The world had witnessed and experienced much the last few years. The Pacific Railroad had been completed; Grant had been elected President of the United States; Egypt had been flooded with savans; the Cretan rebellion had terminated; a Spanish revolution had driven Isabella from the throne of Spain, and a regent had been appointed; General Prim was assassinated; a Castelar had electrified Europe with his advanced ideas upon the liberty of worship; Prussia had humbled Denmark and annexed Schleswig-Holstein, and her armies were now around Paris; the 'Man of Destiny' was a prisoner at Wilhelmshöhe; the queen of fashion and the empress of the French was a fugitive; and the child born in the purple had lost forever the imperial crown intended for its head; the Napoleon dynasty was extinguished by the Prussians, Bismarck and Von Moltke, and France, the proud empire, was humbled to the dust.
"What could a man have exaggerated of these facts? What a budget of news it was to one who had emerged from the depths of the primeval forests of Manyuema! The reflection of the dazzling light of civilization was cast on him while Livingstone was thus listening in wonder to one of the most exciting passages of history ever repeated. How the puny deeds of barbarism paled before these! Who could tell under what new phases of uneasy life Europe was laboring even then, while we two of her lonely children rehearsed the tale of her late woes and glories? More worthily, perhaps, had the tongue of a lyric Demodocus recounted them; but in the absence of the poet, the newspaper correspondent performed his part as well and truthfully as he could.
"Not long after the Arabs had departed, a dishful of hot hashed-meat cakes was sent to us by Sayd bin Majid, and a curried chicken was received from Mohammed bin Sali, and Moeni Kheri sent a dishful of stewed goat meat and rice; and thus presents of food came in succession, and as fast as they were brought we set to. I had a healthy, stubborn digestion, the exercise I had taken had put it in prime order, but Livingstone—he had been complaining that he had no appetite, that his stomach refused everything but a cup of tea now and then—he ate also—ate like a vigorous, hungry man; and as he vied with me in demolishing the pancakes, he kept repeating, 'You have brought me new life.'
"'Oh, by George,' I said, 'I have forgotten something. Hasten, Selim, and bring that bottle; you know which; and bring me the silver goblets. I brought this bottle on purpose for this event, which I hoped would come to pass, though often it seemed useless to expect it.'
"Selim knew where the bottle was, and he soon returned with it—a bottle of Sillery champagne; and, handing the doctor a silver goblet brimful of the exhilarating wine, and pouring a small quantity into my own, I said: 'Dr. Livingstone, to your very good health, sir.'
"'And to yours,' he responded.
"And the champagne I had treasured for this happy meeting was drank with hearty good wishes to each other.
"But we kept on talking and talking, and prepared food was brought to us all that afternoon, and we kept on eating every time it was brought until I had eaten even to repletion, and the doctor was obliged to confess that he had eaten enough. Still, Halimah, the female cook of the doctor's establishment, was in a state of the greatest excitement. She had been protruding her head out of the cook-house, to make sure that there were really two white men sitting down in the veranda, when there used to be only one, who would not, because he could not, eat anything; and she had been considerably exercised in her mind over this fact. She was afraid the doctor did not properly appreciate her culinary abilities; but now she was amazed at the extraordinary quantity of food eaten, and she was in a state of delightful excitement. We could hear her tongue rolling off a tremendous volume of clatter to the wondering crowds who halted before the kitchen to hear the current of news with which she edified them. Poor, faithful soul. While we listen to the noise of her furious gossip, the doctor related her faithful services and the terrible anxiety she evinced when the guns first announced the arrival of another white man in Ujiji; how she had been flying about in a state of the utmost excitement, from the kitchen into his presence, and out again into the square, asking all sorts of questions; how she was in despair at the scantiness of the general larder and treasury of the strange household; how she was anxious to make up for their poverty by a grand appearance—to make up a sort of Barmecide feast to welcome the white man.