supplies that had been thoughtfully forwarded to him by the Oriental Society at Calcutta.
His great aim now was to ascend the lake, and reach the sources of the Nile. On the 21st of September he was at Bambarré, in the country of the cannibal Manyuema, upon the Lualaba, the river afterwards ascertained by Stanley to be the Upper Zaire or Congo. At Mamobela the doctor was ill for twenty-four days, tended only by three followers who continued faithful; but in July he made a vigorous effort, and although he was reduced to a skeleton, made his way back to Ujiji.
During this long time no tidings of Livingstone reached Europe, and many were the misgivings lest the rumours of his death were only too true. He was himself, too, almost despairing as to receiving any help. But help was closer at hand than he thought. On the 3rd of November, only eleven days after his return to Ujiji, some gun shots were heard within half a mile of the lake. The doctor went out to ascertain whence they proceeded, and had not gone far before a white man stood before him.
"You are Dr. Livingstone, I presume," said the stranger, raising his cap.
"Yes, sir, I am Dr. Livingstone, and am happy to see you," answered the doctor, smiling kindly.
The two shook each other warmly by the hand.
The new arrival was Henry Stanley, the correspondent of the New York Herald, who had been sent out by Mr. Bennett, the editor, in search of the great African explorer. On receiving his orders in October, 1870, without a day's unnecessary delay he had embarked at Bombay for Zanzibar, and, after a journey involving considerable peril, had arrived safely at Ujiji.
Very soon the two travellers found themselves on the best of terms, and set out together on an excursion to the north of Tanganyika. They proceeded as far as Cape Magala, and decided that the chief outlet of the lake must be an affluent of the Lualaba, a conclusion that was subsequently confirmed by Cameron.
Towards the end of the year Stanley began to prepare to return. Livingstone accompanied him as far as Kwihara, and on the 3rd of the following March they parted.
"You have done for me what few men would venture to do; I am truly grateful," said Livingstone.