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'Dr. Livingstone, I presume' presumed false

'Dr. Livingstone, I presume.' Four words that made the explorer Henry Morton Stanley enduringly famous. They have been repeated in history books and entered into common speech. Unfortunately it looks as if he never said them.

An exhaustive study of Stanley's life to be published next month contains new evidence about the first meeting in Africa between the lost missionary, Dr. David Livingstone, and Stanley, the adventurer who had spent two years looking for him...

They met in 1871 in Ujiji, now in western Tanzania, but the initial account in Stanley's diary of the moment when he spotted Livingstone just refers to 'a pale-looking white man in a faded blue cap'. The following two pages have been ripped from the book.

'Stanley told lies, that is the problem,' said author Tim Jeal. 'And a liar can never subsequently tell the truth.'

Read entire article at The Observer