"doctor livingstone i presume?"

it took henry morton stanley 2 years to find scottish physician and fellow explorer doctor david livingstone after the new york herald sent him to africa to track the exploring doctor down. not bad considering the size of africa and the limited means he would have had at his disposal. i assume he didn't have satnav for example or night vision goggles.

waste of time in the end though as livingstone prescribed stanley a large f**k off tablet, so stanley did just that.

livingstone remained in africa until 1 may 1873 when he elected to part company with the entire planet rather abruptly at the age of 60 with a double dose of malaria and a massive internal bleed from the old dysentry.

his loyal servants and a total of 79 african volunteers were so enamoured with the good doctor they cut his heart out and buried it under a mpundu tree and carried him to a waiting ship on foot for a journey of over a thousand kilometers that lasted 63 days before his enbalmed body embarked on a sea voyage to england the following year where he was buried at westminster abbey.

his decayed corpse was identified by a badly deformed arm that had been broken in an encounter with a lion that hadn't set properly. the arm not the lion.

his abhorrence of the slave trade was instrumental in stirring up public support for the abolition of slavery back in blighty and in 1676 he wrote:

"we passed a slave woman shot or stabbed through the body and lying on the path: a group of men stood about a hundred yards off on one side, and another of the women on the other side, looking on; they said an arab who passed early that morning had done it in anger at losing the price he had given for her, because she was unable to walk any longer.

27th june 1866 - to-day we came upon a man dead from starvation, as he was very thin. one of our men wandered and found many slaves with slave-sticks on, abandoned by their masters from want of food; they were too weak to be able to speak or say where they had come from; some were quite young".

in summary: he was the first european to see victoria falls (at the border of modern zambia and zimbabwe); he named them for queen victoria (the snivelling little s**t).

first european to cross the width of the african continent. his work and discoveries had an important influence on western attitudes toward africa.

he clashed with the boers and the portuguese, whose treatment of the africans he came to detest.

livingstone's legacy was that he made geographical discoveries for european knowledge. he inspired abolitionists of the slave trade, explorers, and missionaries. he opened up central africa to missionaries who initiated the education and healthcare for africans, and trade by the african lakes company. he was held in some esteem by many african chiefs and local people and his name facilitated relations between them and the british.

partly as a result of his work, within 50 years of his death, colonial rule was established in africa, and white settlement was encouraged to extend further into the interior.

however, what livingstone envisaged for "colonies" was not what we now know as colonial rule, but rather settlements of dedicated christian europeans who would live among the people to help them work out ways of living that did not involve slavery.

livingstone was part of an evangelical and nonconformist movement in britain which during the 19th century helped change the national mindset from the notion of a divine right to rule 'lesser races', to more modernly ethical ideas in foreign policy. so it didn't all pan out quite as he'd intended but, hey on a posiitive note we've got some f**king incredible stately homes to gawp at.

Posted By: Tombs on January 15th 2024 at 12:37:16

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