THE HEIGHT OF FASHION.
From this point the river is navigable for a distance of seventy-four miles, and the steamers transported the men and material of the expedition to the foot of the next cataract. Then came more road-building, then another navigable distance, and then more roads, till at last the widening of the river was reached, at the foot of Stanley Pool. From here the great river is navigable nine hundred miles farther inland; and there are several tributary rivers where steamers can go. On one of these tributaries a lake has been discovered about seventy miles long, to which Stanley gave the name of Leopold II., in honor of the King of Belgium.
The association has now seven steamers on the river: four on the lower portion, and three above Stanley Pool. By road and river there is now a direct way of communication between Central Africa and the sea-coast, where the mails are regularly carried to the officers and men in charge of the stations and the merchants engaged in business there. In speaking of his achievements Stanley says as follows:
"I am ambitious only to leave permanent traces of my work on the east side of the Dark Continent. Expedition after expedition has followed my track. On the shores of the Victoria N'yanza and on the shore of the Tanganyika communities of white men are engaged in disseminating what they think beneficial to the dark outcasts of this continent. Why should I not hope that the Congo basin throughout its vast extent, and the bank of the superb river, will be ultimately studded with civilized communities as well? We have begun well. Even now Belgians, Germans, English, Americans, Danes, Swedes, enlisted in our service, are devoting their best energies to accomplish this. So far we have been welcomed by the natives. Our object they can appreciate and understand, and they are the only ones as yet benefited by it. We have spent a large sum, and shall have to spend more yet. For we look upon ourselves as husbandmen, tilling and sowing that others may reap. As yet the Congo basin is a blank, a fruitless waste, a desolate and unproductive area. The energies of its denizens are benumbed. No prospect has dawned on them. It has been our purpose to fill this blank with life, to redeem this waste, to plant and sow that the dark man may gather, to vivify the wide, wild lands so long forgotten of Europe. Accursed be he or they who, animated by causeless jealousy and the spirit of mischief, will compel us to fire our station, destroy our work so auspiciously begun, and abandon Africa to its pristine helplessness and savagery."
In our account of Stanley's work in Africa we have gone outside of the information possessed by Frank and Fred, as the details of his expedition in behalf of the International Association were not known to them at the time they were in Africa. We trust the readers of their narrative will pardon the liberty we have taken, and accept the assurance that what we have given would have been faithfully chronicled by "The Boy Travellers," if they had known it in season.
The above apology being accepted, the author will take the reader into his confidence and show him a personal letter from Stanley, in reply to an invitation to run over to New York and meet several of his old friends, who promised to have dinner ready on the day of his arrival. If any one believes Stanley otherwise than a genial man in his social relations, he can now have an opportunity to change his opinion:
"Brussels, November 4, 1882.
"My dear Knox,—I have been trying ever so much to cross from Europe to the 'land of the free and the home of the brave,' but there are so many fetters binding me in this fierce, stirring world, that I fear I cannot break them, or even have them loosened long enough for the journey. It was my dream in Africa to seek repose in lounging—loafing is the New York term—for a spell about any town: it really did not matter which. A village would do, so that I could rove about unnoticed, and re-gather by degrees a store of vitality to replace that which the cruel fever of West Africa scorched and almost consumed. I mourn now that my dream cannot be realized. When I leave Paris I go to London, which is like 'from the frying-pan into the fire,' and then farewell all....
"As you know, this is winter, and the East Wind strikes me everywhere; he catches me round street-corners; at the street-door I find him; he waits for me late at night from the warm saloons, with bundles of small fevers, coughs, bronchial irritation, catarrh, chest complaint. He shrivels me up till there is scarcely a resemblance of manhood left in the benumbed wretch.
"Ah! had it been September, or had it been April, oh, blessed Heaven! I should seek the Alaska, or the Werra, or Bennett's Namouna.
"I intend to go presently to Nice, Cannes, Mentone, Andalusia, or where? Anywhere, where I can see man other than in an overcoat.
THE FIRST CATARACT OF THE LIVINGSTONE.
"Yet it may be. America is dear, you know—New York has joys, and sometimes you do catch men without overcoats. There are good dinners there, too, and the Lotos has been ever since it was born a most welcome place; and you know, don't you know. —— himself is a host! And when added to him you have the jolly ——, and the courteous ——, and amiable ——, and the rest—why, I will come!
"But no, not yet. I fear the walls of snow in New York—the hilly ridges of frozen water, mud-colored and ancient.
"Some time I will come. And then I will seek you, and revive as well as we may the memories of our days in Paris in 1878—good dinners, without one unpleasant face; good wine, of a good vintage, heightened by the sparkling pleasantries of friendship. Meantime, dear old fellow, until we meet, adieu; and whisper, with my regrets that I cannot come at present, the sweet hopes that my firm soul shall entertain to all our mutual friends, and that I am, now as ever,
"Theirs and yours most faithfully,
"Henry M. Stanley."