He
had found Livingstone.
The brief visit which they enjoyed meant much to both men. In vain did
Stanley plead with the doctor to go home with him. The old explorer's heart
was resolute, and he set his face as a flint. He did not feel that his work
was done. At length the newspaper man and his company started eastward.
Livingstone went some distance with them, and then, a broken old man, "clad
in faded gray clothes," with bowed head and slow step, returned to his
chosen solitude. Five months later the relief party reached Zanzibar, and
news of Livingstone's safety and whereabouts was flashed to all parts of
the world.
As the explorer again took up his weary way, physically weak and in
constant pain, the buoyant spirit rose above hardship, and Scotch pluck
smiled at impossibilities. He wrote in his diary: "Nothing earthly will
make me give up my work in despair. I encourage myself in the Lord my God,
and go forward." Weary months followed, filled with travel, toil, and
physical suffering. The last of April, 1873, a year after Stanley left him,
he reached the village of Ilala, at the southern end of Lake Bangweolo.
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