Free Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone by Martin Dugard Page A

aquatic paths to the interior. A small group of dedicated searchers and a sturdy boat was all he would need. ‘To take a large force of men into the country, even a boat’s crew from a man o’ war, much less a gunboat, was out of the question,’ he later noted.
    Young planned to follow the Zambezi inland from the coast, having learned that massive river well in his years piloting for Livingstone. He was familiar with its eddies and sandbars, side channels, cataracts, gusting easterly winds and the inevitable late afternoon downpours. The Zambezi was far wider and more easily navigable than the swampy, crocodile-infested Rovuma Livingstone had followed inland to start his Source expedition, with more villages along the shore where Young could trade for food. From the Zambezi he would make a right turn into the narrower Shire, which he would follow upriver until entering Lake Nyassa, through its southern egress. Upon reaching Lake Nyassa Young planned to travel from village to village around the shoreline, questioning tribes about a white man who might have passed through. He would learn for certain whether the explorer was dead or alive. Young needed to know the truth. He could not stomach the maudlin limbo of doubt.
    One major obstacle, among others, stood in Young’s way: the very notion of a search for a lost explorer was outrageous. When they went missing, they stayed missing. With one notable exception, British exploration had been this way for centuries. In the earliest days of exploration, when travelling over a hill from one valley into another was an act of daring, finding a lost explorer wasn’t difficult. But once explorers began trekking thousands of miles from home, or sailing hundreds of miles over the horizon just to find the earth’s limit, rescue was not anoption. Searching for overdue explorers would represent a physical hardship akin to exploration itself; the sheer breadth of the globe and slow pace of communications would render the task like finding a needle in a haystack.
    The notable exception was Sir John Franklin. The year was 1845. Franklin was sixty, a robust white-haired veteran Arctic explorer, leading an expedition through the ice-floes north of Canada in search of the Northwest Passage. In July of that year, normally a hospitable month for Arctic exploration, Franklin disappeared.
    Under normal circumstances, the progression of public status for a lost expedition went from ‘overdue’ to ‘missing’ to ‘presumed dead’. Memorial services were held, and statues might be erected to honour the fallen heroes. Franklin, however, was rich, with an adoring wife and Sir Roderick Murchison for a friend. Murchison leveraged his personal and political connections to continue the search after all was thought lost. ‘He never ceased to stimulate public interest in the matter by the most urgent and moving appeals,’ marvelled Indian explorer Sir Henry Rawlinson. Thanks to Murchison’s zeal and Lady Jane Franklin’s hopes, thirty-two ships took part in various searches before Franklin’s death was confirmed in 1859.
    Ironically, Livingstone and Lady Jane Franklin met in late 1865, when he stopped in Bombay en route to Africa for the Source expedition. He was emblematic of exploration, she of the indefatigable search for lost explorers. A year later, Livingstone was in the process of assuming both mantles.
    Young, unlike Lady Franklin, couldn’t finance a search. Based on the rigid social delineations of Victorian England, Young was considered lower class, a broad stratum including all except the wealthy. Typically, a member of the lower class would never mingle with members of the upper class. But Livingstone — also lower class — was an inspiration in that regard. He represented a newly developing middle class in England, living proof that a man could bridge the void between upper and lower class through achievement and bravado. As Young’sruminations about Livingstone’s alleged