Lake Tanganyika had been known to the Arab slave hunters of the east coast of Africa long before the white man gazed upon its bright blue waters. These cunning, cruel people had good reasons for guarding well the secret of its existence. Yet popular report of it gave it many an imaginary location and dimension. What is remarkable about it is that since it has been discovered and located, it has taken various lengths and shapes under the eye of different observers, and though it has been circumnavigated, throughout its 1200 miles of coast, no one can yet be quite positive whether it has an outlet or not.

It is 600 miles inland from Zanzibar, or the east coast of Africa, and almost in the centre of that wonderful basin whose reservoirs contribute to the Nile, Zambesi and Congo. The route from Zanzibar half way to the lake is a usual one, and we need not describe it. The balance of the way, through the Ugogo and Unyamwezi countries, is surrounded by the richest African verdure and diversified by running streams and granitic slopes, with occasional crags. At length the mountain ranges which surround the lake are reached, and when crossed there appear on the eastern shore the thatched houses of Ujiji, the rendezvous of all expeditions, scientific, commercial and missionary, that have ever reached these mysterious waters.

Burton and Speke were the white discoverers of Tanganyika. It seemed to them the revelation of a new world—a sight to make men hold their breath with a rush of new thoughts, as when Bilboa and his men stood silent on that peak in Darien and gazed upon the Pacific Ocean.

Fifteen years later Cameron struck it and could not believe that the vast grey expanse was aught else than clouds on the distant mountains of Ugoma, till closer observation proved the contrary.

Livingstone struck it from the west side. It was on his last journey through Africa, he had entered upon that journey at Zanzibar, in April 1866, and made for Lake Nyassa and its outlet the ShirÉ River, both of which have been described in connection with the Zambesi.

Then began that almost interminable ramble to which he fell a victim. He was full of the theory that no traveller had yet seen the true head waters of the Nile—in other words that neither Victoria nor Albert Nyanza were its ultimate reservoirs, but that they were to be found far below the equator in that bewildering “Lake Region” which never failed to reveal wonderful secrets to such as sought with a patience and persistency like his own.

He was supported in this by the myths of the oldest historians, by the earliest guesses which took the shape of maps, by the traditions of the natives that boats had actually passed from Albert Nyanza into Tanganyika, but above all by the delusion that the great river Lualaba, which he afterwards found flowing northward from lakes far to the south of Tanganyika, could not be other than the Nile itself.

On his way westward from Lake Nyassa, he came upon the Loangwa River, a large affluent of the Zambesi from the north. Crossing this, and bearing northwest, he confronted the Lokinga Mountains, from whose crests he looked down into the valley of the Chambesi. It was clear that these mountains formed a shed which divided the waters of the central basin, or lake region, of Africa from those which ran south into the Zambesi. Had he discovered the true sources of the Nile at last? Where did those waters go to, if not to the Mediterranean? The journal of his last travels is full of soliloquies and refrains touching the glory of a discovery which should vindicate his theory and set discussion at rest.

And what was he really looking down upon from that mountain height? The Chambesi—affluent of Lake Bangweola? Yes. But vastly more. He was looking on the head waters of the northward running Lualaba, which proved his ignis fatuus and led him a six year dance through the wilderness and to his grave. The Lualaba has been christened Livingstone River, in honor of the great explorer. Then again it was only the Lualaba in name, which he was pursuing, with the hope that it would turn out to be the Nile. It was really the great Congo, for after the Lualaba runs northeast toward Albert Nyanza, and to a point far above the equator, it makes a magnificent sweep westward, and southwestward, and seeks the Atlantic at a point not ten degrees above the latitude of its source.

Thus was Livingstone perpetually deceived. But for all that we must ever admire his enthusiasm for research and his heroism under extreme difficulties. When he plunged down the mountain side into the depths of the forests that lined the Chambesi, it was to enter a night of wandering which had no star except the meeting of Stanley at Ujiji in 1871, and no morning at all. What a story of heroic adventure lies in those years!

Ere his death, his followers had deserted him, carrying back to the coast lying stories of his having been murdered. Trusted servants ran away with his medicine chest, leaving him no means of fighting the deadly diseases which from that hour began to break down his strength. The country ahead had been wasted and almost emptied of inhabitants by the slave-traders. Hunger and thirst were the daily companions of his march. Constant exposure to wet brought on rheumatism and ague; painful ulcers broke out in his feet; pneumonia, dysentery, cholera, miasmatic fever, attacked him by turns; but still, so long as his strength was not utterly prostrated, the daily march had to be accomplished. Still more trying than the fatigue were the vexatious delays, extending sometimes over many months, caused by wars, epidemics, or inundation, that frequently compelled him to retrace his steps when apparently on the verge of some great discovery. Often, in order to make progress, he had no alternative but to attach his party to some Arab expedition which, under pretence of ivory-trading, had come out to plunder, to kidnap, and to murder. The terrible scenes of misery and slaughter of which he was thus compelled to be the witness, had perhaps a stronger and more depressing effect on his mind than all the other trials that fell to his lot. “I am heart-broken and sick of the sight of human blood,” he writes, as he turns, baffled, weary, and broken in health from one line of promising exploration to another.

He has left us only rough jottings of this story of wild adventure and strange discovery. For weeks at a time no entries are found in his journal. The hand that should have written them was palsied with fever, the busy brain stunned into unconsciousness, and the tortured body borne by faithful attendants through novel scenes on which the eager explorer could no longer open his eyes. His letters were stolen by Arabs—both those going to and coming from him. Yet his disjointed notes, written on scraps of old newspapers with ink manufactured by himself out of the seeds of native plants, tell a more affecting tale of valuable discovery than many a carefully written narrative.

He gives us glimpses into the Chambesi jungles, whose population has been almost swept away by the slave dealers. Fires sweep over the virgin lands in the dry season. A single year restores to them their wonted verdure. Song birds relieve the stillness of the African forests, but those of gayest plumage are silent. The habits of bees, ants, beetles and spiders are noted, and of the ants, found in all parts of Africa, those in these central regions build the most palatial structures. The most ferocious enemy of the explorer is not the portentous weapon of lion’s claw, rhinoceros’ horn, or elephant’s tusk, but a small fly—the notorious tsetse, whose bite is death to baggage animals, whose swarms have brought ruin to many a promising expedition, and whose presence is a more effectual barrier to the progress of civilization than an army of a million natives.

Then he is full of quaint observations on the lion, for which he had little respect, and on the more lordly elephant and rhinoceros. A glade suddenly opens where a group of shaggy buffaloes are grazing, or a herd of startled giraffes scamper away through the foliage with their long necks looking like “locomotive obelisks.” Then comes a description of a hippopotamus hunt—“the bravest thing I ever saw.”

Again the night is often made hideous by the shrieks of the soko—probably the gorilla of Du Chaillu, and of which Cameron heard on Tanganyika and Stanley on the Lualaba. But only Livingstone has given us authentic particulars of it. Its home is among the trees, but it can run on the ground with considerable speed, using its long fore-arms as crutches, and “hitching” itself along on its knuckles. In some respects it behaves quite humanly. It makes a rough bed at night among the trees, and will draw a spear from its body and staunch the wound with grass. It is a pot-bellied, wrinkled-faced, human-featured animal with incipient whiskers and beard. It will not attack an unarmed man or woman but will spring on a man armed with a spear or stick. In attack it will seize the intruder in its powerful arms, get his hand into its mouth, and one by one bite off his fingers and spit them out. It has been known to kidnap babies, and carry them up into the trees, but this seems to be more out of sport than mischief. In his family relations the male soko is a model of affection—assisting the mother to carry her young and attending strictly to the proprieties of soko society. A young soko which was in the doctor’s possession had many intelligent and winning ways, showed great affection and gratitude, was careful in making its bed and tucking itself in every night, and scrupulously wiped its nose with leaves. In short, it must be allowed, that the native verdict, that the “soko has good in him,” is borne out by the known facts, and that in some respects he compares not unfavorably, both in character and manners, with some of the men we make acquaintance with in our wanderings through Africa.

It was in April 1867, one year after his start from Zanzibar, that Livingstone crossed the Chambesi, and soon afterwards found himself on the mountains overlooking Lake Liemba, which proved to be none other than the southern point of our old friend Lake Tanganyika. Thence he zigzagged westward over sponge covered earth till he struck Lake Moero, with a stream flowing into its southern end—really the Lualaba, on its way from Lake Bangweola—and out at its northern—again the Lualaba—into other lakes which the natives spoke of. Now, more than ever before, he was persuaded that he was on the headwaters of the Nile, and he would have followed his river up only to surprise himself by coming out into the Atlantic through the mouth of the great Congo, if it had not been for native wars ahead.

Then he put back to examine a great lake of this river system, which the natives said existed south of Lake Moero. After a tramp of weeks through wet and dry, he found himself on the marshy banks of Lake Bangweola. Close by where he struck it, was its outlet, the Lualaba, here known as Luapula. It is a vast reservoir, 200 miles long by 130 broad, and has no picturesque surroundings, but is interspersed with many beautiful islands.

Confident now that he had the true source of the Nile—for the water-shed to the south told him that every thing below it ran into the Zambesi—nothing remained but for him to return to where he had left off his survey of the Lualaba, far to the north, and to follow that stream till he proved the truth of his theory. In going thither he would take in Lake Tanganyika. It was a terrible journey. For sixteen days he was carried in a litter under a burning sun, through marshy hollows and over rough hills. Sight of Tanganyika revived his drooping spirits, but he feared he must die before reaching Ujiji. It was March 1869, before he reached the coveted resting place, but he found awaiting him no aid, no medicines, no letters. He had been dead to the world for three long years. King Mirambo was off on the war-path against the Arabs, and Livingstone had to wait, undergoing slow recovery for many months.

At length, following in the trail of Arab slave dealers who had never before penetrated so far westward of the lake, and frequent witness of their barbarities, he reached a point on the Lualaba as far north as Nyangwe, where the river already began to take the features of cliff and caÑon which Stanley found to belong to the lower Congo, and where the natives showed the prevalence of those caste ideas which prevail on the western coast but are unknown on the eastern. The region was also one of gigantic woods, into which the sun’s rays never penetrated, and beneath which were pools of water which never dried up. The river flats were a mass of luxuriant jungle, abounding in animal life. Livingstone was greatly annoyed at one of his halting places by the depredations of leopards on his little flock of goats. A snare gun was set for the offenders. It was heard to go off one night, and his attendants rushed to the scene with their lances. The prize had been struck and both its hind legs were broken. It was thought safe to approach it, but when one of the party did so, the stricken beast sprang upon the man’s shoulder and tore him fearfully before being killed. He was a huge male and measured six feet eight inches from nose to tail.

Nyangwe, the furthest point of his journey up, or rather down, the Lualaba, or Congo, is in the country of the Manyuema, the finest race Livingstone had seen in Africa. The females are beautiful in feature and form. The country is thickly peopled, and they have made considerable progress in agriculture and the arts. Villages appear at intervals of every two or three miles. The houses are neatly built, with red painted walls, thatched roofs, and high doorways. The inhabitants are clever smiths, weavers and tanners, and all around are banana groves and fields tilled in maize, potatoes and tapioca. The chiefs are important personages, who exercise arbitrary authority and dress regally. Livingstone suspected they practised cannibalism, but could not prove it. Stanley noticed a row of 180 skulls decorating one of their village streets. He was told they were soko skulls, but carrying two away, he presented them to Prof. Huxley, who pronounced them negro craniums of the usual type.

One of their great institutions is the market, held in certain villages on stated days. People come to these from great distances to exchange their fish, goats, ivory, oil, pottery, skins, cloth, ironware, fruit, vegetables, salt, grain, fowls, and even slaves. There is a great variety of costume, loud crying of wares, much bargaining and no inconsiderable hilarity. The market at Nyangwe is held every four days, and the assemblage numbers as many as 3000 people. Even in war times market people are allowed to go to and fro without molestation.

The Arab slave traders are fast demoralizing these people. They set the different tribes to fighting and then step in and carry off multitudes of slaves. One fine market day these miscreants suddenly appeared among the throng of unsuspecting people and began an indiscriminate firing. They fled in all directions, many jumping into the river. The sole object of the slave stealers was to strike terror into the hearts of the inhabitants by showing the power of a gun. Livingstone witnessed this unprovoked massacre and thought that five hundred innocent lives were lost in it.

He found the Lualaba a full mile wide at Nyangwe, and still believed it to be the Nile. In this firm belief he ceased to follow the stream further and turned his weary feet back to Ujiji on Tanganyika. It will always be a mystery how Livingstone could have nursed his delusion that he was on the Nile, for so long a time. The moment Cameron set his eyes on the Lualaba, he saw that it could not be the Nile, for its volume of water was many times larger than that of the Nile, and moreover its level was many hundred feet lower than the White Nile at Gondokoro. And though Stanley had the profoundest respect for the views of the great explorer, he hardly doubted that in descending the Lualaba he would emerge into the Atlantic through the mouth of the great Congo.

Now while Livingstone is struggling foot-sore, sick, dejected, almost deserted, back to Ujiji on the Lake Tanganyika, for rest, for medicine, for news from home, after he has been lost for five long years, and after repeated rumors of his death had been sent from Zanzibar to England, what is taking place in the outside world?

On October 16, 1869, Henry M. Stanley, a correspondent of the New York Herald, was at Madrid in Spain. On that date he received a dispatch from James Gordon Bennett, owner of the Herald, dated Paris. It read, “Come to Paris on important business.”

With an American correspondent’s instinct and promptitude, Mr. Stanley knocked at Mr. Bennett’s door on the next night.

“Who are you?” asked Bennett.

“Stanley,” was the reply.

“Yes; sit down. Where do you think Livingstone is?”

“I do not know sir.”

“Well, I think he is alive and can be found. I am going to send you to find him.”

“What! Do you really think I can find Livingstone? Do you mean to send me to Central Africa?”

“Yes, I mean you shall find him wherever he is. Get what news you can of him. And, may be he is in want. Take enough with you to help him. Act according to your own plans. But—find Livingstone.”

By January, 1871, Stanley was at Zanzibar. He hired an escort, provided himself with a couple of boats, and in 236 days, after an adventurous journey, was at Ujiji on Tanganyika.

It was November, 1871. For weary months two heroes had been struggling in opposite directions in the African wilds—Livingstone eastward from Nyangwe on the Lualaba, to find succor at Ujiji on Tanganyika Lake, Stanley westward from Zanzibar to carry that succor and greetings, should the great explorer be still alive.

Providence had a hand in the meeting. Livingstone reached Ujiji just before Stanley. On November 2, Stanley, while pushing his way up the slopes which surrounded Tanganyika met a caravan. He asked the news, and was thrilled to find that a white man had just reached Ujiji, from the Manyuema.

“A white man?”

“Yes, a white man.”

“How is he dressed?”

“Like you.”

“Young, or old?” “Old; white hair, and sick.”

“Was he ever there before?”

“Yes; a long time ago.”

“Hurrah!” shouted Stanley, “it is Livingstone. March quickly my men. He may go away again!”

They pressed up the slopes and in a few days were in sight of Tanganyika. The looked for hour was at hand.

“Unfurl your flags and load your guns!” he cried to his companions.

“We will, master, we will!”

“One, two, three—fire!”

A volley from fifty guns echoed along the hills. Ujiji was awakened. A caravan was coming, and the streets were thronged to greet it. The American flag was at first a mystery, but the crowd pressed round the new comers. Stanley pushed his way eagerly, all eyes about him.

“Good morning, sir!”

“Who are you?” he startlingly inquired.

“Susi; Dr. Livingstone’s servant.”

“Is Livingstone here?”

“Sure, sir; sure. I have just left him.”

“Run, Susi; and tell the Doctor I am coming.”

Susi obeyed. Every minute the crowd was getting denser. At length Susi came breaking through to ask the stranger’s name. The doctor could not understand it all, and had sent to find out, but at the same time in obedience to his curiosity, had come upon the street.

Stanley saw him and hastened to where he was.

“Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”

“Yes,” said he with a cordial smile, lifting his hat.

They grasped each other’s hands. “Thank God!” said Stanley, “I have been permitted to see you!”

“Thankful I am that I am here to welcome you,” was the doctor’s reply.

They turned toward the house, and remained long together, telling each other of their adventures; hearing and receiving news. At length Stanley delivered his batch of letters from home to the doctor, and he retired to read them.

Then came a long and happy rest for both the explorers. Livingstone improved in health and spirits daily. His old enthusiasm was restored and he would be on his travels again. But he was entirely out of cloth and trinkets, was reduced to a retinue of five men, and had no money to hire more.

One day Stanley said, “have you seen the north of Tanganyika yet?”

“No; I tried to get there, but could not. I have no doubt that Tanganyika as we see it here is really the Upper Tanganyika, that the Albert Nyanza of Baker is the Lower Tanganyika, and that they are connected by a river.”

Poor fellow! Did ever mortal man cling so to a delusion, put such faith in native stories and old traditions.

Stanley proposed to lend his assistance to the doctor, to settle the question of Tanganyika’s northern outlet. The doctor consented; and now began a journey, which was wholly unlike the doctor’s five year tramp. He was in a boat and had a congenial and enthusiastic companion.

Tanganyika, like the Albert Nyanza which pours a Nile flood, and Nyassa which flows through the ShirÉ into the Zambesi, is an immense trough sunk far below the table-land which occupies the whole of Central Africa. Its surrounding mountains are high. Its length is nearly 500 miles, its waters deep, clear and brackish. Whither does it send its surplus waters?

We have seen that Livingstone was sure it emptied through the Nile. This was what he and Stanley were to prove. In November 1871, three weeks after the two had so providentially met at Ujiji, they were on their voyage in two canoes. They coasted till they came to what Burton and Speke supposed to be the end of the lake, which turned out to be a huge promontory. Beyond this the lake widens and stretches for sixty miles further, overhung with mountains 7000 feet high. At length they reached the northern extremity where they had been assured by the natives that the waters flowed through an outlet. No outlet there. On the contrary seven broad inlets puncturing the reeds, through which the Rusizi River poured its volume of muddy water into the lake, from the north. Here was disappointment, yet a revelation. No Nile source in Tanganyika—at least not where it was expected to be found. Its outlet must be sought for elsewhere. Some thought it might connect eastward with Nyassa. But what of the great water-shed between the two lakes? Others thought it might have its outpour this way and that. Livingstone, puzzled beyond propriety, thought it might have an underground outlet into the Lualaba, and even went so far as to repeat a native story in support of his notion, that at a point in the Ugoma mountains the roaring of an underground river could be heard for miles.

Nothing that Livingstone and Stanley did, helped to solve the mystery of an outlet, except their discovery of the Rusizi, at the north, which was an inlet. After a three weeks cruise they returned to Ujiji, whence Stanley started back for Zanzibar, accompanied part way by Livingstone. After many days’ journey they came to Unyanyembe where they parted forever, Stanley to hasten to Zanzibar and Livingstone to return to the wilds to settle finally the Nile secret. Stanley protested, owing to the doctor’s physical condition. But the enthusiasm of travel and research was upon him to the extent that he would not hear.

Stanley had left ample supplies at Unyanyembe. These he divided with the doctor, so that he was well off in this respect. He further promised to hire a band of porters for him at Zanzibar and send them to him in the interior. They parted on March 13, 1872.

“God guide you home safe, and bless you, my friend,” were the doctor’s words.

“And may God bring you safe back to us all, my dear friend! Farewell!”

“Farewell!”

This was the last word Doctor Livingstone ever spoke to a white man. They wrung each other’s hands. Stanley was overcome, and turned away. He cried to his men, “Forward March!” and the sad scene closed.

Livingstone waited at Unyanyembe for the escort Stanley had promised to send. They came by August, and on the 14 of the month (1872) he started for the southern point of Tanganyika, which he rounded, to find no outlet there. Then he struck for Lake Bangweolo, intending to solve all its river mysteries. That lake was to him an ultimate reservoir for all waters flowing north, and if the Lualaba should prove to be the Nile, then he felt he had its true source.

This journey was a horrible one in every respect. It rained almost incessantly. The path was miry and amid dripping grass and cane. The country was flat and the rivers all swollen. It was impossible to tell river from marsh. The country was not inhabited. Food grew scarce. The doctor became so weak that he had to be carried across the rivers on the back of his trusty servant Susi. One stream, crossed on January 24, 1873, was 2000 feet wide and so deep that the waters reached Susi’s mouth, and the doctor got as wet as his carrier.

These were the dark, dismal surroundings of Lake Bangweolo. Amid such hardships they skirted the northern side of the lake, crossed the Chambesi at its eastern end, where the river is 300 yards wide and 18 feet deep, and turned their faces westward along the south side.

The doctor was now able to walk no further. When he tried to climb on his donkey he fell to the ground from sheer weakness. His faithful servants took him on their shoulders, or bore him along in a rudely constructed litter. On April 27, 1873, his last entry reads, “Knocked up quite, and remain—recover—sent to buy milch goats. We are on banks of the R. Molilamo.”

His last day’s march was on a litter through interminable marsh and rain. His bearers had to halt often, so violent were his pains and so great his exhaustion. He spoke kindly to his humble attendants and asked how many days’ march it was to the Lualaba.

Susi replied that “it was a three days’ march.”

“Then,” said the dying man, “I shall never see my river again.” The malarial poison was already benumbing his faculties. Even the fountains of the Nile had faded into dimness before his mind’s eye.

He was placed in a hut in Chitambo’s village, on April 29, after his last day’s journey, where he lay in a semi-conscious state through the night, and the day of April 30. At 11 P.M. on the night of the 30, Susi was called in and the doctor told him he wished him to boil some water, and for this purpose he went to the fire outside, and soon returned with the copper kettle full. Calling him close, he asked him to bring his medicine-chest, and to hold the candle near him, for the man noticed he could hardly see. With great difficulty Dr. Livingstone selected the calomel, which he told him to place by his side; then, directing him to pour a little water into a cup, and to put another empty one by it, he said in a low, feeble voice, “All right; you can go out now.” These were the last words he was ever heard to speak.

It must have been about 4 A.M. when Susi heard Majwara’s step once more. “Come to Bwana, I am afraid; I don’t know if he is alive.” The lad’s evident alarm made Susi run to arouse Chuma, ChowperÉ, Matthew, and MuanuasÉrÉ, and the six men went immediately to the hut.

Passing inside, they looked toward the bed. Dr. Livingstone was not lying on it, but appeared to be engaged in prayer, and they instinctively drew backward for the instant. Pointing to him, Mujwara said, “When I lay down he was just as he is now, and it is because I find that he does not move that I fear he is dead.” They asked the lad how long he had slept. Majwara said he could not tell, but he was sure that it was some considerable time: the men drew nearer.

A candle, stuck by its own wax to the top of the box, shed a light sufficient for them to see his form. Dr. Livingstone was kneeling by the side of his bed, his body stretched forward, his head buried in his hands upon the pillow. For a minute they watched him: he did not stir, there was no sign of breathing; then one of them, Matthew, advanced softly to him and placed his hands to his cheeks. It was sufficient; life had been extinct some time, and the body was almost cold: Livingstone was dead.

His sad-hearted servants raised him tenderly up and laid him full length on the bed. They then went out to consult together, and while there they heard the cocks crow. It was therefore between midnight and morning of May 1, 1873, his spirit had taken its flight. His last African journey began in 1866.

The noble Christian philanthropist, the manful champion of the weak and oppressed, the unwearied and keen-eyed lover of nature, the intrepid explorer whose name is as inseparably connected with Africa as that of Columbus is with America, had sunk down exhausted in the very heart of the continent, with his life-long work still unfinished. His highest praise is that he spent thirty years in the darkest haunts of cruelty and savagery and yet never shed the blood of his fellow-man. The noblest testimony to his character and his influence is the conduct of that faithful band of native servants who had followed his fortunes so long and so far, and who, embalming his body, and secretly preserving all his papers and possessions, carried safely back over the long weary road to the coast all that remained of the hero and his work.

Cameron was on his way toward Ujiji to rescue Livingstone when he heard of his death. He pursued his journey and reached Lake Tanganyika, determined to unravel the mystery of its outlet. He started on a sailing tour around the lake in March 1874. His flag boat was the “Betsy.” He only got half way round, but in this distance he counted the mouths of a hundred rivers, and found the shores constantly advancing in bold headlands and receding in deep bays. Both land and water teem with animal life. Elephants abounded in the jungles, rhinoceri and hippopotami were frequently seen, and many varieties of fish were caught. In one part the cliffs of the shores were sandstone, in another they were precipices of black marble, here were evidences of a coal formation, there crags of chalk whose bases were as clearly cut by the waves as if done with a knife. In many places cascades tumbled over the crags showing that the table land above was like a sponge filled with moisture.

The native boatmen were lazy and full of superstitions. Every crag and island seemed to be the resort of a demon of some kind, whose power for harm had no limit in their imaginations. Never but once, and that in the country of King Kasongo, had he seen the natives fuller of credulity nor more subject to the powers of witchcraft and magic. Their stories of the various forms of devils which dwelt in out of the way places were wilder than any childish fiction, and their magicians had unbridled control of their imaginations.

Cameron’s course was southward from Ujiji. He turned the southern end of the lake and found no outlet there. But he saw some of the most extraordinary examples of rock and tree scenery in the world. There were magnificent terraces of rock which looked as if they had been built by the hands of man, and scattered and piled in fantastic confusion were over-hanging blocks, rocking stones, obelisks, and pyramids. All were overhung with trees whose limbs were matted together by creepers. It was like a transformation scene in a pantomime rather than a part of Mother Earth, and one seemed to await the opening of the rocks and the appearance of the spirits. Not long to wait. The creepers sway and are pulled apart. An army of monkeys swing themselves into the foreground and, hanging by their paws, stop and chatter and gibber at the strange sight of a boat. A shout from the boatmen, and they are gone with a concerted scream which echoes far and wide along the shores.

The inhabitants are not impressive or numerous on the shores, yet they show art in dress, and in manufactures. They have been terribly demoralized by the slave traders, and many sections depopulated entirely. While sailing up the western shore of the lake, Cameron thought he found what was the long sought for outlet of Tanganyika—the traditional connecting link between it and Lakes Ngami and Albert Nyanza. Of a sudden the mountains broke away and a huge gap appeared in the shores. There was evidently a river there, and his boat appeared to be in a current setting toward it. The natives said it was the Lukuga, and that it flowed out of the lake westward toward the Lualaba.

But alas for human credulity. Cameron ran into the Lukuga for seven or eight miles, found it a reedy lagoon, without current, stood up in his boat and looked seven or eight miles further toward a break in the hills, beyond which he was told the river ran away in a swift current from the lake, and then he returned home to tell the wondrous story. Tanganyika had an outlet after all. The wise men all said, “I told you so; the lake is no more mysterious than any other.” Why Cameron should have stopped short on the eve of so great a discovery, or why he should have palmed off a native story as a scientific fact, can only be accounted for by the fact that he was sick during most of his cruise and at times delirious with fever. While it was thought that he had clarified the Tanganyika situation, it was really more of a mystery than when Burton and Speke, or Livingstone and Stanley, left it.

We here strike again the track of our own explorer Stanley. We have already followed him on his first African journey to Ujiji to find Livingstone, in 1871-72. We have seen also in our article on “The Sources of the Nile,” how he started on his second journey in 1874, determined to complete the work of Livingstone, by clearing up all doubts about the Nile sources. This involved a two-fold duty, first to fully investigate the Lakes Victoria Nyanza and Albert Nyanza; second the outlets of Tanganyika and the secret of the great Lualaba, which had so mystified Livingstone.

In pursuit of this mission we followed him to Victoria Nyanza, on his second journey, and saw how he was entertained by King Mtesa, and what adventures he had on the Victoria Nyanza. He settled it beyond doubt that the Victoria was a single large lake, with many rivers running into it, the chief of which was the Alexandra Nile. This done, he had hoped to visit Albert Nyanza, but the hostility of the natives prevented. He therefore turned southwestward toward Tanganyika, and on his way fell in with the old King Mirambo with whom he ratified a friendship by the solemn ceremony of “blood brotherhood.” The American and African sat opposite each other on a rug. A native chief then made an incision in the right leg of Mirambo and Stanley, drew a little blood from each, and exchanged it with these words:—“If either of you break this brotherhood now established between you, may the lion devour him, the serpent poison him, bitterness be his food, his friends desert him, his gun burst in his hands and everything that is bad do wrong to him until his death.”

On May 27, 1876, Stanley reached Ujiji, where he had met Livingstone in 1871. Sadly did he recall the fact that the “grand old hero” who had once been the centre of absorbing interest in that fair scene of water, mountain, sunshine and palm, was gone forever. He came equipped to circumnavigate the lake. He had along his boat, the “Lady Alice,” built lightly and in sections for just this kind of work. Leaving the bulk of his extensive travelling party at Ujiji, well provided for, he took along only a sufficient crew for his boat, under two guides, Para, who had been Cameron’s attendant in 1874, and Ruango who had piloted Livingstone and Stanley in 1871.

Once again the goodly “Lady Alice” was afloat, as she had been on Victoria Nyanza. He cruised along the shores for 51 days, travelled a distance of 800 miles, or within 125 miles of the entire circumference of the lake, and got back without serious sickness or the loss of a man. He found it a sealed lake everywhere—that is, with waters flowing only into it—none out of it.

What then became of Cameron’s wonderful story about the outlet of the Lukuga? Stanley looked carefully into this. He found a decided current running down the river into the lake. He pushed up the river to the narrow gorge in the mountains, beyond which the natives said the Lukuga ran westward toward the Lualaba. There he found a true and false story. In this ancient mountain gap was a clear divide of the Lukuga waters. Part ran by a short course into Tanganyika; part westward into the Lualaba. Stanley was of the opinion that the waters of the lake were rising year by year, and that in the course of time there would be a constant overflow through the Lukuga and into the Lualaba, as perhaps there had been long ages ago. Even now there is not much difference between the level of the lake and the marshes found in the mountain gap beyond, and Mr. Hore, who has since visited the Lukuga gap, says he found a strong current setting out of the lake westward, so that the time may have already come which Stanley predicted.

This Lukuga gap probably represents the fracture of an earthquake through which the waters of the lake escaped in former ages and which has been its safety-valve at certain times since. When it is full it may, therefore, be said to have an outlet. When not full its waters pass off by evaporation. It is only a semi-occasional contribution—if one at all—to the floods of the great Congo, and in this respect has no counterpart in the world. All of which settles the point of its connection with the Nile, and leaves the sources of that river to the north. Had Livingstone known this he could have saved himself the last two years of his journey and the perils and sickness which led to his death in the wilderness.

And now Stanley had clarified the situation behind him, which stretched over 800 miles of African continent. But looking toward the Atlantic, there lay stretched a 1000 miles of absolutely unknown country. Into this he plunged, and pursued his course till he struck the great northward running river—the Lualaba.

The path was broken and difficult. Rivers ran frequent and deep, and crossing was a source of delay, except where, occasionally, ingeniously constructed bridges were found, which answered the double purpose of crossing and fish-weir. These are built of poles, forty feet long, driven into the bed of the stream and crossing each other near the top. Other poles are laid lengthwise at the point of junction, and all are securely tied together with bamboo ropes. Below them the nets of the fishermen are spread, and over them a person may pass in safety.

Stanley’s party had been greatly thinned out, but it still consisted of 140 men. Cameron had found it impossible to follow the Lualaba. Livingstone had tried it again and again, to meet a more formidable obstacle in the hostility of the natives than in the forests, fens and animals. Could Stanley master its secret?

He was better equipped than any of his predecessors, just as earnest, and not averse to using force where milder means could not avail. He had settled so many knotty African problems, that this the greatest of all had peculiar fascination for him. He would “freeze to this river” and see whether it went toward the Nile, or come out, as he suspected it would, through the Congo into the Atlantic.

It was a mighty stream where he struck it, at the mouth of the Luama—“full 1400 yards wide and moving with a placid current”—and close to Nyangwe which was the highest point Livingstone had reached. Here he marshalled his forces for the unknown depths beyond. He had only one of his European attendants left—Frank Pocock. Not a native attendant faltered. It would have been death to desert, in that hostile region.

Such woods, so tall, dense and sombre, the traveller had never before seen. Those of Uganda and Tanganyika were mere jungle in comparison. Even the Manyuema had penetrated but a little their depths. They line the course of the Lualaba for 1500 miles from Nyangwe. At first Stanley’s party was well protected, for ahead of it went a large group of Arab traders. It was the opinion of these men that the “Lualaba flowed northward forever.” Soon the Arabs tired of their tramp through the dark dripping woods, and Stanley found it impracticable to carry the heavy sections of the “Lady Alice.” It was resolved to take to the river and face its rapids and savage cannibal tribes, rather than continue the struggle through these thorny and gloomy shades.

The river was soon reached and the “Lady Alice” launched. From this on, Stanley resolved to call the river the “Livingstone.” He divided his party, so that part took to the boat, and part kept even pace on the land. The stream and the natives were not long in giving the adventurers a taste of their peculiarities. A dangerous rapid had to be shot. The natives swarmed out in their canoes. The passage of the river was like a running fight.

On November 23, 1877, while the expedition was encamped on the banks of the river at the mouth of the Ruiki, thirty native canoes made a determined attack, which was only repulsed by force. On December 8, the expedition was again attacked by fourteen canoes, which had to be driven back with a volley. But the fiercest attack was toward the end of December, when a fleet of canoes containing 600 men bore down upon them with a fearful din of war-drums and horns, and the battle cry “Bo-bo, Bo-bo, bo-bo-o-o-oh!” Simultaneously with the canoe attack a terrible uproar broke out in the forest behind and a shower of arrows rained on Stanley and his followers.

There were but two courses for the leader, either to fight the best he knew how in defense of his followers, or meet a surer death by surrender. The battle was a fierce one for half an hour, for Stanley’s men fought with desperation. At length the canoes were beaten back, and thirty-six of them captured by an adroit ruse. This gave Stanley the advantage and brought the natives to terms. Peace was declared.

Here the Arab traders declared they could go no further amid such a country. So they returned, leaving Stanley only his original followers, numbering 140. The year 1877 closed in disaster. No sooner had he embarked all his force in canoes, for the purpose of continuing his journey, than a storm upset some of them, drowning two men and occasioning the loss of guns and supplies.

But the new year opened more auspiciously. It was a bright day and all were happily afloat on the broad bosom of the Lualaba, where safety lay in keeping in mid-stream, or darting to opposite shores when attacked. What a wealth of affluents the great river had and how its volume had been swelled! The Lomame had emptied through a mouth 600 yards wide.

On the right the Luama had sent in its volume through 400 yards of width, the Lira with 300 yards, the Urindi with 500 yards, the Lowwa with 1200 yards, the Mbura with two branches of 200 yards each, and 200 miles further on, the Aruwimi, 2000 yards from shore to shore.

The Lualaba (Livingstone) had now become 4000 yards wide and was flowing persistently northward. The equator has been reached and passed. Can it be that all these waters are the floods of the Nile and that Livingstone was right? There was little time for reflection. The natives were ever present and hostile, and the waters themselves were full of dangers.

But we have ran ahead of our party. Just after the mouth of the Lomame was passed the expedition reached that series of cataracts, which have been named Stanley Falls. Their roar was heard long before the canoes reached them, and high above the din of waters were heard the war-shouts of the Mwana savages on both sides of the stream. Either a way must be fought through these dusky foes, or the cataract with its terrors must be faced.

To dare the cataract was certain death. The canoes were brought to anchor, and a battle with the natives began. They were too strong, and Stanley retraced his course a little way, where he landed and encamped. Another trial, a fierce surge through the ranks armed with lances and poisoned arrows, gave them headway. The first cataract was rounded, and now they were in the midst of that wonderful series of waterfalls, where the Lualaba cuts its way for seventy miles through a range of high hills, with seven distinct cataracts, in a channel contracted to a third of its ordinary breadth, where the stream tumbles and boils, flinging itself over ledges of rock, or dashing frantically against the walls that hem it in, as if it were struggling with all its giant power to escape from its prison. Within the gorge the ear is stunned with the continual din of the rushing waters, and the attention kept constantly on the strain to avoid the perils of rock, rapid, whirlpool, and cataract with which the course is strewn. With extreme caution and good-luck the rapids may be run in safety; but how are frail canoes to survive the experiment of a plunge over a perpendicular ledge, in company with millions of tons of falling water, into an abyss of seething and gyrating foam?

Ashore, the cannibal natives lie in wait to oppose a landing, or better still, to slay or capture victims for their sport or larder. A toilsome ascent has to be made to the summit of the bluffs forming the river banks over rough boulders and through tangled forest. In places where the fall of the stream is slight it may be possible to lower down the boats, by means of strong hawsers of creepers, to the pool below; but in other cases the canoes have to be dragged painfully up the cliffs, and launched again with almost equal toil where the current seems a little calmer. All this while the poisoned arrows are hissing through the air, spears are launched out of every thicket, and stones are slung or thrown at the unlucky pioneers from each spot of vantage. Only by van and rear guards and flanking parties, and maintaining a brisk fire can the assailants be kept at bay. The vindictive foe are as incessant in their attacks by night as by day; and the whiz of the flying arrow, the hurtling of lances through the temporary stockade and the sharp crack of the rifle, mingle with the dreams of the sleeper.

The descent of Stanley Falls was not made without loss of life and property. In spite of every precaution, canoes would be dragged from their moorings and be sucked down by the whirlpools or swept over the falls; or the occupants would lose nerve in the presence of danger, and allow their craft to drift into the powerful centre current, whence escape was hopeless.

During their passage occurred one of the most thrilling scenes in all this long journey through the Dark Continent. The canoes were being floated down a long rapid. Six had passed in safety. The seventh, manned by Muscati, Uledi Muscati, and Zaidi, a chief, was overturned in a difficult piece of the water. Muscati and Uledi were rescued by the eighth canoe; but Zaidi, clinging to the upturned canoe, was swept past, and seemed on the point of being hurled over the brink of the fall. The canoe was instantly split in two, one part being caught fast below the water, while the other protruded above the surface. To the upper part Zaidi clung, seated on the rock, his feet in the water. Below him leapt and roared the fall, about fifty yards in depth; above him stretched fifty feet of gradually sloping water.

Mr. Stanley and a part of the expedition were at this time on the banks. No more strange and perilous position than that of Zaidi can be imagined. A small canoe was lowered by means of a cable of ratans; but the rope snapped and the canoe went over the falls. Poles tied to creepers were thrown toward him but they failed to reach. The rock was full fifty yards from the shore. Stanley ordered another canoe, fastened by cables, to be lowered. Only two men could be found to man it—Uledi, the coxswain of the “Lady Alice,” and Marzouk, a boat boy. “Mamba Kwa Mungu,” exclaimed Uledi, “My fate is in the hands of God.”

The two men took their places in the canoe and paddled across the stream. The cables which held the boat against the current were slackened, and it dropped to within twenty yards of the falls. A third cable was thrown from the boat toward Zaidi, but he failed to catch it till the sixth throw. Just as he grasped it the water caught him and carried him over the precipice. All thought him lost, but presently his head appeared, and he seemed still to have hold of the cable. Stanley ordered the canoemen to pull. They did so, but the upper cables of the canoe broke and it was carried toward the falls. Fortunately it caught on a rock, and Uledi and Marzouk were saved. They still had hold of the cable which Zaidi clung to. By dint of hard pulling they were enabled to save, for they dragged him back up the falls to their own perilous position. There were three now on the rock instead of one. Twenty times a cable loaded with a stone was thrown to them before they caught it. They drew it taut and thus had frail communication with the shore. But it was now dark and nothing more could be done till light came. In the morning it was decided that the cable was strong enough to hold the men if they would but try to wade and swim to shore. Uledi dared it, and reached land in safety. The others followed, and terminated an anxious scene.

Stanley was in the midst of these falls for twenty-two days and nights. On January 28, 1878, his peril and hardship ended by passing the last fall. By February 8, Rubanga, a village of the Nganza was reached, where he found friendly natives. And not a moment too soon, for his men were fainting for want of food. This was encouraging, but his heart was further rejoiced that the Lualaba had not only assumed its wide, placid flow, but had suddenly changed its northern direction to one almost westward toward the Atlantic. He was then not going toward the Nile. No, it was not a Nile water, but must be the Congo. What a rare discovery was then in store for him!

And the natives verified the thought. For the Rubanga chief, on being questioned, first mentioned the Congo. “Ikutu ya Kongo,” said he, “that is the river’s name.” The words thrilled Stanley. The Lualaba had ceased to flow, the Congo had taken up its song and would witness the further adventures of the brave explorer. It was a mile and a half wide, with a magnificent bosom. Green, fertile islands sprinkled its glassy surface. The party enjoyed needed rest, in this paradise, and then February 10, the boats pulled down stream again, the rowers bending gleefully and hopefully to their arduous task.

On the 14 the mouth of the Aruwimi was passed and they were in the Bangala country. Here they suffered from the most formidable attack yet made. It was the thirty-first struggle through which the party had passed on the Lualaba, or Congo, or Livingstone, though the latter name now seems out of place since we know that all is Congo, clear to Bangweolo, on whose shores Livingstone perished.

The shores of both the Congo and Aruwimi resounded with the din of the everlasting war-drums, and from every cove and island swarmed a crowd of canoes, that began forming into line to intercept and attack the travellers. These crafts were larger than any that had yet been encountered. The leading canoe of the savages was of portentous length, with forty paddlers on each side, while on a platform at the bow were stationed ten redoubtable young warriors, with crimson plumes of the parrot stuck in their hair, and poising long spears. Eight steersmen were placed on the stern, with large paddles ornamented with balls of ivory; while a dozen others, apparently chiefs, rushed from end to end of the boat directing the attack. Fifty-two other vessels of scarcely smaller dimensions followed in its wake. From the bow of each waved a long mane of palm fibre; every warrior was decorated with feathers and ornaments of ivory; and the sound of a hundred horns carved out of elephants’ tusks, and a song of challenge and defiance chanted from two thousand savage throats, added to the wild excitement of the scene. Their wild war-cry was “Yaha-ha-ha, ya Bengala.”

The assailants were put to flight after a series of charges more determined and prolonged than usual. This time, however, the blood of the strangers was fully up. They were tired of standing everlastingly on the defensive, of finding all their advances repelled with scorn and hatred. They carried the war into the enemy’s camp, and drove them out of their principal village into the forest. In the centre of the village was found a singular structure—a temple of ivory, the circular roof supported by thirty-three large tusks, and surmounting a hideous idol, four feet high, dyed a bright vermillion color, with black eyes, beard and hair. Ivory here was “abundant as fuel,” and was found carved into armlets, balls, mallets, wedges, grain pestles, and other articles of ornament and use; while numerous other weapons and implements of iron, wood, hide, and earthenware attested the ingenuity of the people. Their cannibal propensities were as plainly shown in the rows of skulls that grinned from poles, and the bones and other grisly remains of human feasts scattered about the village streets.

They had now a peaceful river for a time, or rather they were enabled to float in its middle, or dodge from shore to shore, without direct attack. But food became scarce. On February 20, they got a supply from natives whom they propitiated. On the 23, Amima, wife of the faithful Kacheche died. Her last words to Stanley were, “Ah, master, I shall never see the sea again. Your child Amima, is dying. I have wished to see the cocoa-nuts and the mangoes, but, no, Amima is dying, dying in a Pagan land. She will never see Zanzibar again. The master has been very good to his children, and Amima remembers it. It is a bad world master, and you have lost your way in it. Good bye, master, and do not forget poor little Amima.” The simple pathos of this African girl sweetened a death-bed scene as much as a Christian’s prayer could have done.

For a distance of 1000 miles from Stanley Falls the river is without cataracts, flowing placidly here, and there widening to ten miles, with numerous channels through reedy islands. Every thing was densely tropical—trees, flowers, plants, birds, animals. Crocodiles were especially plenty in the water, and all the large land animals of the equatorial regions could be seen at intervals. There were few adventures with these, for the party clung rigidly to their boats; but once in a while, a coterie, organized for a hunting bout, would come back with such stirring tales of attack and escape as we are accustomed to read of in connection with the eastern coasts of the continent where hunting the elephant, rhinoceros, lion, hippopotamus, is more of a regular business, and where spicy stories of adventure are accepted without question.

After a treacherous attack by the people of King Chumbiri—Stanley’s thirty-second battle—the natives showed a more peaceable disposition. They had heard of western coast white men and knew something of their ways. So there was a pleasant flow of water and a safe shore, for many days. But now the river was about to change. It received the Ikelemba, a powerful stream of tea-colored water, 1000 yards wide. Its waters flowed along in the same bed, unmixed with those of the Congo, for 150 miles. This immense tributary and that of the Ibari, were reported to come from great lakes, 800 miles to the south, and probably the same that Livingstone and Cameron both mention in their travels.

For 900 miles the Congo has had a fall of only 364 feet, or a third of a foot to the mile. We are now within 400 miles of the Atlantic, yet 1150 feet above it, and on the edge of the great table lands of Central Africa. The days of smooth sailing are at an end. The mountains come close to the stream, and the channel narrows. The white chalky cliffs remind Frank Pocock of the coasts of Dover in his own England. A roar is heard in advance. The cataracts have begun again, and they sound as ominously as the war-cry of the natives hundreds of miles back in the woods and jungles.

We have now been over four months on this river, and the next two hundred miles are to be the most tedious, laborious and disastrous of all. The terrors of Stanley Falls are here duplicated a thousand times. Bluffs rise 1500 feet high. Between them the river rushes over piles of boulders, or shoots with frightful velocity past the bases of impending crags, up which one must quickly scramble or else be carried into the boiling whirlpools below.

These falls we shall call the “Livingstone Falls.” In their general features they are not like Niagara, or Victoria on the Zambesi, but a succession of headlong rushes, as if the river were tearing down a gigantic rock stairway.

Of the Great Ntamo Fall, Stanley says: “Take a strip of sea, blown over by a hurricane, four miles in length by half a mile in breadth, and a pretty accurate conception of its rushing waves may be obtained. Some of the troughs were one hundred yards in length, and from one to another the mad river plunged. There was first a rush down into the middle of an immense trough, and then, by sheer force, the enormous volume would lift itself upwards steeply until, gathering itself into a ridge, it suddenly hurled itself twenty or thirty feet straight upwards before rolling down into another trough. The roar was deafening and tremendous. I can only compare it to the thunder of an express train through a rock tunnel.”

In this vast current, rushing along at the rate of thirty miles an hour, the strongest steamer would be as helpless as a cockle-shell, and as for frail canoes, they had to be dragged from rock to rock, or taken clear from the water and borne by land around the obstructions. Frequently canoes were wrecked and then a halt had to be ordered till new ones were hewn from trees. Yet amid trial, sickness and sore distress they had to pause at times in wonder before the imposing sights that opened on them. One was that of the Edwin Arnold River which flings itself with a single bound of 300 feet into the Congo, clearing the base of its cliff by ten yards. Still more wonderful is the cascade of the Nkenke, which is a plunge of a 1000 feet; and near by another with a fall of 400 feet.

Many gaps were made in the ranks of Stanley’s companions through this “Valley of Shadow.” In one day (March 28) he saw eleven of his men swept over a cataract and disappear in the boiling waters below. First a boat, in which was Kalulu, an attendant of Stanley in all his journeys, was sucked within the power of a fall and plunged into the abyss. Hardly had the eye turned from this horror when another canoe was seen shooting down the stream toward what appeared to be certain death. By almost a miracle it made an easy part of the cataract and the occupants succeeded in reaching the shore in safety. Close behind came a third with a single occupant. As the boat made its plunge the occupant rose and shouted a farewell to his companions on the shore. Then boat and man disappeared. A few days afterwards he re-appeared like an apparition in camp. He had been tossed ashore far below and held a prisoner by the natives, who had picked him up more dead than alive.

On April 12, the “Lady Alice” herself, with her crew, came to the very verge of destruction. The boat was approaching a bay in which the camp for the night was to be made, when a noise like distant thunder fell on the ears of the crew. The river rose before them into a hill of water. It was a whirlpool, at its full. All hands bent to their paddles and the boat was plunged into the hill of water before it broke. They thus escaped being sucked into a vortex which would have sunk the boat and drowned all. As it was, the boat was whirled round and round through a succession of rapids, before the crew could bring her under control again.

Fortunately the natives were still friendly and of superior type. They had many European manufactures, which pass from tribe to tribe in regular traffic, and enjoyed a higher civilization than those of the Central African regions. Stanley rested with these people for several days while his carpenter made two new canoes.

On June 3, he lost his servant, comrade and friend, last of the Europeans, the brave and faithful Frank Pocock. All the boats had been taken from the water and carried past the Massase Falls, except the canoe “Jason,” in which were Pocock, Uledi and eleven others. This had gotten behind on account of Frank’s ulcerated feet. Chafing at the delay he urged Uledi to “shoot the falls,” against the latter’s judgment, and even taunted the crew with cowardice.

“Boys,” cried Uledi, addressing the crew, “our little master is saying that we are afraid of death. I know there is death in the cataract; but come, let us show him that black men fear death as little as white men.”

“A man can die but once!” “Who can contend with his fate?” “Our fate is in the hands of God,” were the various replies of the men.

“You are men,” exclaimed Frank.

The boat was headed for the falls. They were reached, and in another moment the canoe had plunged into the foaming rapid. Spun round like a top in the furious waters, the boat was whirled down to the foaming pit below. Then she was sucked below the surface and anon hurled up again with several men clinging to her, among them Uledi. Presently the form of the “little master” was seen floating on the surface. Uledi swam to him, seized him, and both sunk. When the brave Uledi appeared again he was alone. Poor Pocock’s tragic death was a blow to the whole expedition. Most of the party gave way to superstitious dread of the river and many deserted, but quickly returned, after a trial of the dreary woods.

On June 23, the carpenter of the expedition was swept over the Zinga Falls, in the canoe, “Livingstone,” and drowned. Stanley’s food supply was frequently very short amid the difficulties of Livingstone Falls. Not that there was not plenty on the shores, but his means of buying were exhausted, and such a thing as charity is not common to the African tribes. Even where most friendly, they are always on the lookout for a trade, and a bargain at that. It is a great hardship for them to give, without a consideration.

The appearance of his attendants cut Mr. Stanley to the heart every day—so emaciated, gaunt, and sunken-eyed were they; bent and crippled with weakness who had once been erect and full of manly vigor. And the leader’s condition was no better. Gone now was all the keen ardor for discovery, the burning desire to penetrate where no white man had yet penetrated which animated his heart at the outset of his journey. Sickness that had drained his strength, anxiety that had strained to its utmost pitch the mind, sorrow for loss and bereavement that had wearied the spirit—these had left Mr. Stanley a very different man from that which he was when he set out full of hope and ardor from Zanzibar. All his endeavor now was to push on as fast as possible, to reach the ocean with as little more of pain and death to his followers as possible.

At last Stanley struck a number of intelligent tribes who gave much information about the rest of the river and the coast. There were three great falls still below them, and any number of dangerous rapids. It would be folly to risk them with their frail barks. Moreover, he learned that the town of Boma, on the Atlantic coast, could be reached by easy journeys across the country. His main problem, as to whether the Lualaba and the Congo were the same, had long since been solved. He had been following the Congo all the time, had seen its splendid forests and mighty affluents, its dashing rapids and bewildering whirlpools and falls, had even, through the spectacles of Livingstone, seen its head waters in Lake Bangweolo, amid whose marshes the veteran explorer laid down his life.

What need then to risk life further at this time, and in his very poor condition. He resolved to leave the river and make direct for the coast at Boma. When he assembled his followers to make this welcome announcement to them, they were overcome with joy. Poor Safeni, coxswain of the “Lady Alice,” went mad with rapture and fled into the forest. Three days were spent in searching for him, but he was never seen more.

Relinquishing his boat and all unnecessary equipage at the cataract of Isangila, the party struck for Boma, but only to give out entirely when still three days distant. A messenger was sent in advance for aid. He came back in two days with a strong band of carriers and abundance of food. The perishing party was thus saved, and was soon receiving the care of the good people of Boma. Here all forgot their toils and perils amid civilized comforts and the pardonable pride aroused by their achievements. Stanley’s exploit is unparalleled in the history of African adventure. Though not the first to cross the Continent, he hewed an unknown way and every step was a startling revelation. He did more to unravel African mysteries and settle geographic problems than any other explorer.

And, August 12, 1877, three years after his start from Zanzibar on the Indian Ocean, and eight months after setting out from Nyangwe to follow the Lualaba, he stood on the Atlantic shores at Boma and gazed on the mouth of the Congo, whose waters shot an unmixed current fifty miles out to sea. Though he had proved it to be so, he could still hardly believe that this vast flood pouring 2,000,000 cubic feet of water a second into the ocean, through a channel ten miles wide and 1300 feet deep, was the same that he had followed through wood and morass, rapid and cataract, rock bound channel and wide expanse, for so long a time, and that it was the same which Diego Cam discovered by its color and reedy track four hundred years before, while sailing the ocean out of sight of land.

In the journey of 7200 miles, one hundred and fourteen of Stanley’s original party had perished. Many had fallen in battle or by treachery, more were the victims of disease, and some had succumbed to toil or been “washed down by the gulfs.” But a goodly remnant survived. These were returned, according to contract, to their Zanzibar home. Stanley went with them by steamer around the Cape of Good Hope.

It needs not to tell the joy with which the people again beheld their home; how they leaped ashore from the boat; how their friends rushed down to the beach to welcome back the wanderers; how wives and husbands, children and parents, “literally leaped into each other’s arms,” while “with weeping and with laughter” the wonderful story of the long and terrible journey is told to the eager listeners.

Stanley, having paid his followers in full, according to the terms of his contract, and rewarded some over and above their lawful claims, so that not a few of the men were able to purchase neat little houses and gardens with their savings, prepared to quit Zanzibar forever.

The scene on the beach on the day of Stanley’s departure was a strange and an affecting one. The people of the expedition pressed eagerly around him, wrung his hand again and again, and finally, lifting him upon their shoulders, carried him through the surf to his boat. Then the men, headed by Uledi the coxswain, manned a lighter and followed Mr. Stanley’s boat to the steamer, and there bade their leader a last farewell.

Stanley’s own feelings at this moment were no less keen. As the steamer which bore him home left the shore of Zanzibar behind, his thoughts were busy with the past; he was living once again in retrospect the three strange, eventful years, during which these simple black people had followed him with a fidelity at once simple and noble, childlike and heroic. For him, his comrades in travel through the Dark Continent must ever remain heroes; for it was their obedient and loyal aid that had enabled him to bring his expedition to a successful and noble issue, to accomplish each of the three tasks he had set himself to do,—the exploration of the great Victoria Nyanza Lake, the circumnavigation of Tanganyika, and the identification of Livingstone’s Lualaba River with the Congo.

Ever since this memorable journey, Mr. Stanley has been enthusiastically working to found a great Congo free Government and commercial empire, which all the nations shall recognize and to which all shall contribute. He has projected a steamer system, of heavy draught vessels, from the mouth of the river to the first cataracts. Here a commercial emporium is to be founded. A railway is to start thence and lead to the smooth waters above. This would open 7000 miles of navigable waters on the Upper Congo and a trade of $50,000,000 a year. It would redeem one of the largest fertile tracts of land on the globe and bring peace, prosperity and civilization to millions of human beings. Only climate seems to be against his plans, for it is undoubtedly hostile to Europeans. But if native energies can be enlisted sufficiently to make a permanent ground work for his ideal state, he may yet rank not only as the greatest of discoverers but as the foremost of statesmen and humanitarians. The possibilities of the Congo region are boundless.

A missionary just returned from the Congo country thus writes of it:

“The bounds of this ‘Congo Free State’ are not yet defined, but they will ultimately embrace the main stream and its immense system of navigable tributaries, some of which are 800 miles long. The Congo itself waters a country more than 900 miles square, or an area of 1,000,000 square miles. These rivers make access to Equatorial Africa and to the Soudan country quite easy.

“The resources of this fine region are exhaustless. The forests are dense and valuable. Their rubber wealth is untouched, and equal to the world’s supply. Everywhere there is a vast amount of ivory, which lies unused or is turned into the commonest utensils by the natives. There are palms which yield oil, plantains, bananas, maize, tobacco, peanuts, yams, wild coffee, and soil equal to any in the world for fertility. Europeans must guard against the climate, but it is possible to get enured to it, with care. In the day-time the temperature averages 90° the year round, but the average of the night temperature is 70° to 75°. Rain falls frequently, and mostly in the night. The natives are hostile, only where they have suffered from invasion by Arab slave dealers.

“Already there are some 3000 white settlers in the heart of the Congo country—Portuguese, English, Belgians, Dutch, Scandinavians and Americans, and their influence is being felt for good. The completion of Stanley’s railroad around the Congo rapids will give fresh impetus to civilization and lay the basis of permanent institutions in this great country.”

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