At the close of the war he looked about for some field of active service, and what little war he had seen seemed to fit his peculiar character, and hearing that the Cretans were about to attempt to throw off the Turkish yoke, he resolved to join them. He proceeded thither with two other Americans, after having first made an engagement with the New York Herald, as its correspondent. Disgusted, it is said, with the insurgent leaders, he abandoned his purpose, and having a sort of roving commission from Mr. Bennett, he determined to travel in the East. But he and his fellow-travelers were attacked by Turkish brigands, and robbed of all their money and clothing. They laid their complaint before Mr. Morris, then our minister at Constantinople, who in turn laid it before the Turkish government, and at the same time advanced them funds to supply their wants.
After various journeyings Stanley returned to England. Here a strong desire seized him to visit the place of his nativity in Wales, the house where he was born, and the humble dwelling where he received the first rudiments of his education at St. Asaph. One can imagine the feelings with which this bronzed young man, who had traveled so far and wide, entered the quiet valley from which he had departed so long ago to seek his fortune. It speaks well for his heart, that his sympathies turned at once toward the poor-house of which he had been an inmate in his childhood. Remembering that the greatest boon that could have been conferred at that time on him would have been a good, generous dinner, he resolved to give those poor children one. The daring young adventurer, in the presence of those simple, wonderstruck children, would have made a noble subject for a picture. We venture to say that Mr. Stanley enjoyed that unobtrusive meal in that quiet Welsh valley more than he has ever enjoyed a banquet with nobles and princes; and as the shadows of life lengthen he will look back on it with more real pleasure. He addressed the little ones of the Institution, giving them a familiar talk, telling them that he was once one of that household, accompanying his words with good advice, saying for their encouragement, and to stimulate them to noble endeavors, that all he had been in the past and all he hoped to be in the future, he attributed to the education which was begun in that poor-house.
This was a real episode in his eventful life, and, though it doubtless soon passed away in the more stirring scenes on which he entered, yet the remembrance of it still lingers around that quiet, retired Welsh valley, and, to-day, the name of Stanley is a household word there, and is the pride and glory of its simple inhabitants. And as time goes on and silvers those dark hairs, and the "almond-tree flourishes" and "desire fails because man goeth to his long home," he, too, will remember it as a green oasis he once longed to see and found in the arid desert.
In 1867, when he was twenty-seven years of age, he returned to the United States and, in the next year, accompanied the English army in its campaign against Theodore, king of Abyssinia, which was set on foot to revenge the wrongs this tyrant had committed against the subjects and representatives of the British government. Stanley went as correspondent of the New York Herald, and gave a vivid and clear account of the painful march and skirmishes up to the last great battle in the king's stronghold, where, with a gallant dash, the fortress was taken, the king killed and the war ended. With that promptness in acting, which is one of his chief characteristics, he at once dispatched the news of the victory and the ending of the campaign to London, outstripping the government dispatches sent by the commander-in-chief, so that one morning the readers of the London newspapers knew that of which the government was ignorant. This, of course, was a genuine surprise. A young American newspaper correspondent, without a vessel at his command, had, nevertheless, by his enterprise, beaten the government messenger, and steady old conservative England was disgusted to find its time-honored custom reversed, which was that the government should first give notice of successes to the public, leaving to newspaper correspondents to fill up the minor details. But an enterprising young American had furnished the important news, leaving the British government the secondary duty of supplying these details. Notwithstanding the admiration of the enterprise that had accomplished this great feat, there was a ludicrous aspect to the affair, in the position in which it placed official personages, that raised a quiet laugh on both continents. Stanley's letters contain the best history of that expedition that has been written. This was still another onward step in the great work before him, of which he, as yet had no intimation.
The next year, 1868, he returned to the United States, and in the following year was sent by the Herald into Spain, to follow the fortunes of the civil war there, as correspondent. Like everything else that he undertook, he performed his duties more than faithfully. Exposure, danger, hardships, nothing interfered when there was a prospect of acquiring valuable information. It mattered not to him whether he was on the margin or in the vortex of battle—he never thought of anything but the object before him and toward which he bent all his energies. His letters from the seat of war not only gave the best description of the battles fought and of the military position of affairs, but, also, of the political state of the kingdom. But while he was here, considering himself fixed down for an indefinite period, for Spain is proverbial for the protracted duration of its civil wars, Mr. Bennett, in Paris, was planning an expedition to go in search of Dr. Livingstone, buried, alive or dead, somewhere in the heart of Africa. The sympathies of everybody were enlisted in his fortunes, yet the British government, though he had done so much to enhance the fame of his native country, refused to stir a step toward ascertaining his fate, discovering his whereabouts, or relieving him if in want.
The Royal Geographical Society, ashamed of the apathy and indifference of the government, had started a subscription to raise funds from private sources to defray the expenses of an expedition to go in search of him. In the meantime this American editor, scorning alike state patronage or private help, conceived the bold project of finding him himself. Looking around for a suitable leader to command an expedition, his eye rested upon Stanley in Spain. And here should be noted the profound sagacity of Mr. Bennett in selecting such a leader for this desperate expedition, that was to go no one knew where, and end no one knew how.
Most people thought it was a mammoth advertisement of the New York Herald, nothing more. If he was in earnest why did he not select some one of the many African explorers who were familiar with the regions of Central Africa, and had explored in the vicinity of where Livingstone was, by the best judges, supposed to be, if alive? Men, for instance, like Speke, Baker, Burton, Grant and others. This certainly would have given great eclat to the expedition, and, if it failed in its chief object, would unquestionably have furnished new facts for the geographer and the man of science. But to send one who made no pretensions to science, no claims to be a meteorologist, botanist, geologist, or to be familiar with astronomical calculations, all of which are indispensable to a great explorer, seemed absurd.
But Mr. Bennett had no intention of making new scientific or geographical discoveries. He had but one object in view—to find Dr. Livingstone—and on the true Napoleonic system of selecting the best man to accomplish a single object, he, with Napoleonic sagacity, fixed on Stanley. The celebrated men who would have given greater distinction to the enterprise would, doubtless, divide up their time and resources between scientific research and the chief object of the expedition, and thus cause delays that might defeat it; or, with more or less of the martinet about them, push their researches only to a reasonable extent and be content with reports instead of personal investigation. But he wanted a man who had but one thing to do, and not only that, but a man who would accomplish the errand on which he was sent or die in the attempt. This was to be no mere well-regulated expedition, that was to turn back when all reasonable efforts had been made. It was one that, if desperate straits should come, would resort to desperate means, and he knew that with Stanley at its head this would be done. He knew that Stanley would fetch out Livingstone, dead or alive, or leave his own bones to bleach in the depths of Africa. Stanley was comparatively young, it was true, and had always accompanied, never led, expeditions. He knew nothing of Africa, or how an expedition should be organized or furnished—it mattered not. Bennett knew he had resources within himself—nerves that never flinch, courage that no amount of danger could daunt, a will that neither an African fever nor a wasted form could break down, and a resolution of purpose that the presence of death itself could not shake, while, to complete all, he had a quickness and accuracy of judgment in a perilous crisis, followed by equally quick and right action, which would extricate him out of difficulties that would overwhelm men who had all his courage, will and energy, but were slower in coming to a decision.
This latter quality is one of the rarest ever found even in the strongest men; to think quick and yet think right, to come to a right decision as if by impulse, is a power few men possess. To go swift and yet straight as the cannon ball or lightning's flash, gives to any man's actions tenfold power. In this lay the great secret of Napoleon's success. His campaigns were started, while those of others were under discussion, and the thunder and tumult of battle cleared his preceptions and judgment so that no unexpected disaster could occur that he was not ready to meet. This quickness and accuracy of thought and action is one of the prominent characteristics of Stanley, and more than once saved his life and his expedition.
On the 16th day of October, 1869, as he was sitting in his hotel at Madrid, having just returned from the carnage of Valencia, a telegram was handed him. The thunder of cannon and tumult of battle had scarce ceased echoing in his ear when this telegram startled him from his reverie: "Come to Paris on important business." In a moment all was hurry and confusion, his books and pictures were packed, his washed and unwashed clothes were stowed away, and in two hours his trunks were strapped and labeled "Paris." The train started at 3 o'clock, and he still had some time to say good-bye to his friends, and here by mere accident comes out one of the most pleasing traits of his character. Of the friends he is thus to leave, he merely refers to those of the American legation, but dwells with regret on the farewell he must give to two little children, whom he calls his "fast friends." Like a sudden burst of sunlight on a landscape, this unconscious utterance reveals a heart as tender as it is strong, and increases our interest in the man quite as much as in the explorer. At 3 o'clock he was thundering on toward Paris, ready, as he said, to go to the battle or the banquet, all the same. His interview with Mr. Bennett reveals the character of both these men so clearly that we give it in Stanley's own words: