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Lost and Found.
281
their mission had been forestalled, and determined to
return home; but Mr. Oswald Livingstone announced
his intention of at once making his way to his father
with such stores, as under the altered circumstances
of the case, seemed necessary. This gentleman was,
however, so strongly advised by his father’s old friend,
Dr. Kirk, not to enter the country during a rainy
season unequalled in severity, that he, though with
great reluctance, relinquished the idea. Mr. Stanley
now disbanded his own forces, and made ready a fresh
expedition, in accordance with wishes expressed by
Livingstone. A large number of stores, consisting of
writing paper, note-books, medicines, and other articles
of which the doctor was in need, were purchased;
while guns, ammunition, cloth, etc., were furnished out
of the English stores. Towards the end of May, Mr.
Stanley had the satisfaction of seeing this expedition
start from Zanzibar for the interior.
And now when the English papers announced the
arrival of tidings that the great traveller who had been
so long lost to sight among the vast forests, jungles,
rivers, and lakes of Central Africa, had been found by
Stanley, a feeling of universal joy and thankfulness
animated the whole nation. Warm and enthusiastic
were the praises showered upon the brave young
American who, it was felt, had thus laid not only
Livingstone’s relations, but the whole civilized world
under a deep and lasting obligation.
In order to render our narrative complete we have
now to retrace our steps, and give some account of
the manner in which the American expedition was