The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-11-16 00:00:00

MR. STANLEY'S BOOK.

In &portly and handsome book of about 700 octavo
pages, under the title "How I Fourvi Livingatone."
Messrs. Low and Co. have issued Mr. Henry M.
Stauley's relation of his journey through Central
Africa in search of the great traveller. It 1.4. however,.
no more than justice to Mr. Stanley to say that for an
already of t.teld tale, his narrative, in its present fOlll7l,
is marvellotudy frosts and free from traces of having
been told before in letter and speech and lecture.

The Times, in commencing their review on the book,
says that "'How I Footvi Livingstone' is a big, thick
book, emblazoned on the brown cover with black and
gold representations of Lake Tanganyika, and of the
meeting between Livingstone and his discoverer. As
we look at it, and take it in hand, and feel the weight
of it, we admire the more the surprising energy of its
writer, for it was only in the first days of August that
Mr. Stanley arrived in England. Since then it se ima
to us as though his name has been in the paper several
times each week as attending a dinner, making a
speech, or delivering a lecture; yet now with the first
days of November, he gives us this bulky volume of
720 pages."
The intensely personal character of Mr. Stanley's
narrative, which 219 mre dly i 4 the feature that will first
strike every reader, may perhaps be most pleasantly
illustrated by the following extract, which throws a
a certain sidelight on the author's own history, and
indicates one of the many perils that beset his path to
the triumphant teirnination of his labour at I:jiji on
the 10th of November, 1871 :

, tin 7th of July, alyort two pm., I was sitting on the
bnizani as nial I felt listless and languid, and a draw-
sines. came Over me. I did not fall asleep, but the power
of my pmt,s secnied to fail me. Yet the brain was busy;
all my life seemed passing in review before me ; when
these retrospective scenes became serious, I looked
serions ; when they were sorrowful, I wept hysterically ;
when they were joyous, I laughed loudly. Reminiscences
of yet a young life's battles and hard struggles came
surging into the mind in quick succession; events of boy.
hood, of youth, and manhood perils, travels, scenes,
j oys, and ; loves and hates; friendships and Indif-
ference.. My mind followed the various and rapid transition
of my life's passages : it drew the lengthy, erratic, sinuous
lines of travel my footsteps had passed over. If I had
drawn them on the sandy floor, what enigmatical problems
they had been to those around me, and what plain, readable,
intelligent histories they had been t' me !
- - -

The loveliest feature of all to me WWI the form of a noble
and true man who called me son. Of my life in the great
pine forests of Arkansas and in Missouri, I retain the most
vivid impressions. The dreaming days I passed under the
sighing pines on the Ouachita's shores; the new clearing, the
block-house, our faithful black servant, the forest deer, awl
the exuberant life lied, were all well remembered. And I
remember how one day, after we had come to live near the
bilssistippl. I floated down, down, hundreds of miles, with a
wild fraternity of knurly giants, the boatmen of the Missiardppi,
and how a dear old man welcomed me hack, 68,f from the
grave. I remembered also my travels on foot through sunny
Spain, and France, with numberless adventures In Asia
Minor, among !Curdle!, nomads. I remembered the battle-
fields of America and the stormy scenes of rampant
war. I remembered gold mines, and broad prairies,
Indian councils, and much experience in the new
western lands. I remembered the shock it gave me
to hear after my return from • barbarous country
of the calamity that had overtaken the fond man whom I
called father, and the hot, fitful life that followed it. Stop
. . . . Dear me; le It the list of July Yes, Shaw
Informed me that it was the 21st of July after I recovered
from my terrible attack of fever ; the true date was the
14th of July, but I waif not aware that 1 lied jumped • week,
until I met Dr. Livingstone.
Mr. Stanley's book may be pronounced thoroughly
intereating and valuable. His feat was so succeasful
in it, re.ults, and was besides so admirably well
managed in every detail, that it must stand out in
all time corning as exceptional in the records of
African travel.