No hug for Dr Livingstone: a demonstration of restraint

Summary

One of the most famous greetings in history is the cool and reserved ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume?’ But few people know that, if Stanley had had his way, the meeting would have been far more cordial.

It was 23 October 1871 and not much had been heard from the good doctor for five years. Stanley had been looking for Livingstone since January that year, when he set out from Zanzibar to track down the great explorer.

And at last Stanley found his doctor, at Ujiji on the eastern shores of Lake Tanganyika (now Tanzania). After 10 months of arduous trekking through country ravaged by fighting and disease, Henry Morton Stanley finally stood before David Livingstone.

It was an emotional moment for the Welshman Stanley. All he wanted to do was to give the explorer a big hug. But he didn't. Social restraint and Livingstone's Englishness forbade him to do so. The two men did not even shake hands.

Stanley writes in his memoirs:

As I advanced slowly toward him I noticed he was pale, looked wearied, had a gray beard, wore a bluish cap with a faded gold braid round it, had on a red-sleeved waistcoat, and a pair of gray tweed trousers. I would have run to him, only I was a coward in the presence of such a mob – would have embraced him, only, he being an Englishman, I did not know how he would receive me. […]