STANLEY ATTACKED BY THE NATIVES.
The greater part of Stanley's battles were fought while descending the Congo. Sometimes the natives came out in canoes and attacked him on the river, and sometimes they attacked him while he was camping on the shore. Once fifty-four canoes, carrying at least two thousand men, were successfully beaten off in a sharp battle. At night the camp had to be protected by a stockade made of brush-wood; and often the tired explorer, after paddling all day, had to watch all night to repel the constant attacks of the enemy. Sometimes, when they were dragging the canoes through the forest around the rapids, the woods would suddenly be alive with cannibals who had been lying in ambush. Armed with clubs and spears and poisoned arrows, they would rush on Stanley and his handful of men, shouting that they would eat the strangers for dinner. But whether there were a hundred or a thousand of them, Stanley always managed to drive them back. It was his cool courage, quite as much as the rifles of his men, which gave him the victory. Had he not been a man born to command, he could never have inspired his men with courage to face such swarms of savages; and had he not been as brave a man as ever lived, he could never have fought hand to hand with a score of hungry cannibals all at once, and driven them back in terror of the dauntless white man.
Mr. Stanley has furnished a splendid example of what patience, perseverance, and courage can accomplish in the face of the most formidable obstacles, and he will always be celebrated as one of the greatest explorers the world has ever known.
"PERSEVERANCE."