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MY AFRICAN TRAVELS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
Summary
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I propose to present you to-night with a short history of events that have transpired since 1870 in Equatorial Africa, and it may be, if you are devoid of prejudice in the matter, you will be able to perceive that the outcome of them may in time result in great good to the Dark Continent, and to its myriads of dark nations. By mere reiteration of the more uncomplimentary terms, people have sometimes half persuaded me that my enthusiasm has undermined my better judgment, and that I am an altogether unpractical man. However that may be, I will endeavour to place the more salient facts before you to-night in such a manner that each of the more attentive amongst you may be able to form a judgment upon the matter in much quicker time than I confess to have been able to form mine.
In 1869, while pursuing the avocations of a newspaper correspondent, dabbling in politics and other high matters with that self-sufficiency usual with young journalists, I was summoned by a brief telegram from my chief, Mr. Bennett, of the ‘New York Herald,’ to come to Paris without delay. On the second evening after the receipt of the telegraphic command, a personal interview took place at the Grand Hotel. With characteristic abruptness, he informed me that the object for which he had sent for me was the search for an old traveller named David Livingstone, who, three years before, had disappeared in the wilds of Africa.
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- My African Travels , pp. 1 - 46Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009First published in: 1886