As to Stanley, he speaks for himself: “With profound tenderness Kachéché handed to me the mysterious bottles, watching my face the while with his sharp detective eye as I glanced at the labels, by which the cunning rogue read my pleasure. Pale ale! Sherry! Port wine! Champagne! Several loaves of bread—wheaten bread, sufficient for a week. Two pots of butter. A packet of tea! Coffee! White loaf sugar! Sardines and salmon! Plum pudding! Currant, gooseberry, and raspberry jam!
“The gracious God be praised forever! The long war we had maintained against famine and the siege of woe were over, and my people and I rejoiced in plenty! It was only an hour before we had been living on the recollections of the few peanuts and green bananas we had consumed in the morning; but now, in an instant, we were transported into the presence of the luxuries of civilization. Never did gaunt Africa appear so unworthy and so despicable before my eyes as now, when imperial Europe rose before my delighted eyes and showed her boundless treasures of life, and blessed me with her stores.”
On the 9th August, 1877, the 999th day from the date of his departure from Zanzibar, he prepared himself to greet the van of Civilization. He was met on the road by an escort of Europeans, residents of Boma, who accorded him a gracious welcome to the town. Three little banquets were given him, and he was generously toasted by everybody.
On the 11th, at noon, the expedition embarked on the Kabinda, an English steamer, for the town of Kabinda. “A few hours later,” says Stanley, “and we were gliding through the broad portal into the ocean, the blue domain of Civilization!
“Turning to take a farewell glance at the mighty river on whose brown bosom we had endured so greatly, I saw it approach, awed and humbled, the threshold of the water immensity, to whose immeasurable volume and illimitable expanse, awful as had been its power and terrible as had been its fury, its flood was but a drop. And I felt my heart suffused with purest gratitude to Him whose hand had protected us, and who had enabled us to pierce the Dark Continent from east to west, and to trace its mightiest river to its ocean bourne.”
The expedition, after a stay of eight days at Kabinda, was kindly taken on board the Portuguese gunboat Tamega to San Paulo de Loanda. From thence through the kindness and courtesy of the English officers of the Royal Navy, who had placed H. M. S. Industry at Stanley’s disposal, the expedition was given passage to Cape Town.
On arriving at Simon’s Bay, Cape of Good Hope, on the 21st of October, Stanley was agreeably surprised by a most genial letter, signed by Commodore Francis William Sullivan, inviting him to the Admiralty House as his guest, and who, during the entire stay of the party at the Cape, extended the most hearty courtesy and hospitality. He had also made preparations for transporting the entire expedition to Zanzibar, when a telegram from the Lords of the British Admiralty was received authorizing him to provide for the transmission of Stanley’s followers to their homes.
STANLEY RETURNING TO THE COAST.
On the 6th of November, H. M. S. Industry was fully equipped and ready for her voyage to Zanzibar. Fourteen days later the palmy island of Zanzibar hove into sight, and in the afternoon the steamer was bearing straight for the port.