How *did* Stanley find Livingston? I mean, Africa's kind of a biggish place. Fred Allen plotted the sketch as a string of incidents of Stanley (played by Allen) asking the locals if they'd seen another white guy, and that seems like a viable enough strategy, except that I'd expect the number of alternative possible paths would get so big so fast that ... well, why didn't Stanley end up more lost than Livingston?
I'm aware that Livingston had no idea he was lost.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone> says he was writing home but only one batch of letters got through. I suppose /he/ knew where he was.
By the way, I don't know whether "Livingston" is an acceptable variation;
it appears once in the Wikipedia page, and may or may not be a mistake.
"Living stone" may be a reference to something that Jesus said, although
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livingston_Village> apparently is due to
a Norse-sounding Levingi family in the 12th century.
I suppose that "Which way to the white missionary?" must have been the approach,
plus any evidence previously provided by Livingstone.
> On Aug 6, 9:45 pm, nebu...@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
>> How *did* Stanley find Livingston? I mean, Africa's kind of a
>> biggish place.
> True, but wasn't Stanley aware of where in Africa Livingstone was
> headed?
> John Savard
There is also the point that Livingston was not exactly incognito. As the only white man in hundreds of miles, probably all the local people knew of him. All Stanley would have to do is to get his guides to ask around.
Brenda Clough <BrendaWri...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On 8/7/2012 2:34 PM, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Aug 6, 9:45 pm, nebu...@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
>>> How *did* Stanley find Livingston? I mean, Africa's kind of a
>>> biggish place.
>> True, but wasn't Stanley aware of where in Africa Livingstone was
>> headed?
>> John Savard
>There is also the point that Livingston was not exactly incognito. As >the only white man in hundreds of miles, probably all the local people >knew of him. All Stanley would have to do is to get his guides to ask >around.
Yeah, but in a village enviromnent, "local people" means "within
twenty miles". There are a lot of twenty-mile circles near the upper
Nile.
-- I used to own a mind like a steel trap.
Perhaps if I'd specified a brass one, it
wouldn't have rusted like this.
>>On 8/7/2012 2:34 PM, Quadibloc wrote:
>>> On Aug 6, 9:45 pm, nebu...@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
>>>> How *did* Stanley find Livingston? I mean, Africa's kind of a
>>>> biggish place.
>>> True, but wasn't Stanley aware of where in Africa Livingstone was
>>> headed?
>>> John Savard
>>There is also the point that Livingston was not exactly incognito. As
>>the only white man in hundreds of miles, probably all the local people
>>knew of him. All Stanley would have to do is to get his guides to ask
>>around.
> Yeah, but in a village enviromnent, "local people" means "within twenty > miles".
I doubt it. Bet the story about something as unusual as that
spread a hell of a lot more quickly than over just that area.
> There are a lot of twenty-mile circles near the upper Nile.
But I bet the word got around even quicker than he did.
