What could a man have exaggerated of these facts?  What a budget of news it was to one who had emerged from the depths of the primeval forests of Manyuema!  The reflection of the dazzling light of civilisation was cast on him while Livingstone was thus listening in wonder to one of the most exciting pages of history ever repeated.  How the puny deeds of barbarism paled before these!  Who could tell under what new phases of uneasy life Europe was labouring even then, while we, two of her lonely children, rehearsed the tale of her late woes and glories?  More worthily, perhaps, had the tongue of a lyric Demodocus recounted them; but, in the absence of the poet, the newspaper correspondent performed his part as well and truthfully as he could.

Not long after the Arabs had departed, a dishful of hot hashed-meat cakes was sent to us by Sayd bin Majid, and a curried chicken was received from Mohammed bin Sali, and Moeni Kheri sent a dishful of stewed goat-meat and rice; and thus presents of food came in succession, and as fast as they were brought we set to.  I had a healthy, stubborn digestion—­the exercise I had taken had put it in prime order; but Livingstone—­he had been complaining that he had no appetite, that his stomach refused everything but a cup of tea now and then—­he ate also—­ate like a vigorous, hungry man; and, as he vied with me in demolishing the pancakes, he kept repeating, “You have brought me new life.  You have brought me new life.”

“Oh, by George!” I said, “I have forgotten something.  Hasten, Selim, and bring that bottle; you know which and bring me the silver goblets.  I brought this bottle on purpose for this event, which I hoped would come to pass, though often it seemed useless to expect it.”

Selim knew where the bottle was, and he soon returned with it—­a bottle of Sillery champagne; and, handing the Doctor a silver goblet brimful of the exhilarating wine, and pouring a small quantity into my own, I said,

 “Dr. Livingstone, to your very good health, sir.”

 “And to yours!” he responded, smilingly.

 And the champagne I had treasured for this happy meeting was drunk
 with hearty good wishes to each other.

But we kept on talking and talking, and prepared food was being brought to us all that afternoon; and we kept on eating each time it was brought, until I had eaten even to repletion, and the Doctor was obliged to confess that he had eaten enough.  Still, Halimah, the female cook of the Doctor’s establishment, was in a state of the greatest excitement.  She had been protruding her head out of the cookhouse to make sure that there were really two white men sitting down in the veranda, when there used to be only one, who would not, because he could not, eat