November 10, 1871

Henry Morton Stanley, who had departed Zanzibar bound for Ujiji in March, arrived in Ujiji, where Dr. David Livingstone resided. Livingstone, a medical missionary originally from Scotland, had not been heard from in many years, and Stanley had been sent to find him. When Stanley and Livingstone met face to face, Stanley offered his hand and said, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” When asked why he said it, he replied, “I couldn’t think of what else to say.” Stanley, world-renowned explorer of the Belgian Congo, specifically the Congo River, lived in Arkansas for a few months in 1860–1861, working as a clerk in a country store at Cypress Bend on the Arkansas River near Pine Bluff (Jefferson County).