LITTLE BIOGRAPHEIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

bought one hundred and thirty books relating to
that country, determining to know all that had
been written concerning it. November 17, 1874,
with eight tons of baggage, horses, dogs, and three
hundred and fifty-six men, Stanley started, with
his mind made up to cross the Dark Continent
from shore to shore, and to solve that question of
the centuries, What is the source of the Nile? A
beautiful boat, the Zady Alice, was carried in
eight sections on the shoulders of the men, and in
‘the train was borne every appliance that could
lessen or shorten the labors of their long progress.

And now began one of the most heroic, yet
most painful marches in history. Losing their
way, wandering in jungles and swamps, stealing
aside to die in the brush, the company was
reduced soon to less than two hundred. Once,
when near starvation, two cubs were killed in a
lion’s den, and Stanley made a soup in a sheet
iron trunk which he used to carry baggage, giving
each of his men a good bowlful of lion broth
apiece.

About four hundred miles inland, they were
attacked by the natives, and twenty-five of the men
killed. At Uganda, on the contrary, they were
received with great state, and a present was made
them by King Mtesa of fourteen oxen, sixteen
goats, thirty-six fowls, and one hundred bunches
of bananas. This man was a powerful, half-civil-
ized emperor, governing two million people, with
tens of thousands of soldiers. Four thousand
five hundred women were attached to his house-
hold as servants. His palace was an immense,
barn-like structure on the top of a mountain.
Stanley translated the ten commandments for him,
and through these he professed to accept the
Christian religion instead of Mohammedanism.

In exploring Lake Victoria Nyanza, the treach-
erous natives persuaded the travellers to land, by
holding up sweet potatoes as a sign that they were
friendly. The moment the boats touched the
beach they wrested the oars, and pointed their
spears at Stanley’s head. ‘They then retired, say-
ing they would speedily return and put him to
death, Pulling some boards from the bottom of
the boat, his men used these as oars, and rowed
away just as the furious savages came yelling
back to the shore. On a second exploring tour,
to punish them, Stanley put their king in irons,
killed forty natives, and wounded scores of others.

For over a year, sometimes in peace, sometimes
in war, Stanley explored the inland lakes, learning,
meantime, all the horrors of the slave trade —naked
creatures driven into pens like cattle, and half-
starved ; their villages burned that they might be
the more easily captured. Next he explored the
Lualaba River, which Livingstone believed to
empty into the Nile. Stanley found it to be none
other than the Congo, ten miles broad at its
mouth.

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Stanley knew he had now reached the region
inhabited by cannibals. But he did not quail
among the monsters. Hiring four hundred more
men, he commenced his journey. At first they
could scarcely pierce the jungles ; now they felled
huge trees, and dug them out for canoes; now,
unable to pass the falls, they cut their way four
miles through dense forests, sometimes over
mountains one thousand feet high; now exhausted,
they sank down in the wilderness to die, watched
by huge serpents. For four months they gained
only about a mile a day, yet the intrepid leader
toiled on, inspiring his heart-sick followers.

So superstitious were the natives, that, seeing
him writing in his notebook, they said such black
marks will bring disease and death upon the
people, and the book must be burned. Stanley
was now really aghast. Destroy the records of
nearly three long years, and his maps! He could
not fight now, for the great company had become
reduced by death to only one hundred and fifteen,
and nearly half of these were ill. He bethought
himself of a similar book he had with him, and
hastening into his tent, brought out a volume of
Shakespeare, which he burned before their eyes,
to their intense gratification.

And now the long journey across the continent
was nearly over. When Stanley announced to the
half-starved company that they were nearing the
ocean, one poor fellow went crazy with joy, and
shouting, “ We have reached the sea; we are at
home!” plunged into the forest, and was never
seen again. As soon as tidings of their distressing
condition could be sent, food was brought them
from the coast. On landing, every kindness was
shown them, and Stanley, true to his promise, took
his natives back to Zanzibar, around Cape Town.
When they reached home, they knelt on the beach,
and cried “Allah! Allah!” as they bent their
faces to the sand. When Stanley returned to
England, the devoted fellows shoved his boat into
the sea and then bore him on their shoulders out
into the surf to reach it.

Well, the boy of the Welsh poor-house had come
to world-wide fame! He had made that journey
of over seven thousand miles in the heart of Africa,
which he had planned; he had discovered that
the Shimeeyu River, four hundred miles long, is
the true source of the Nile, making it the longest
river in the world; and he was prepared to show
that this great land with its teeming millions was to
be invaluable to the world’s commerce,

Europe hailed him now. Humboldt, King of
Italy, sent him his portrait ; Victor Emanuel, his
father, bestowed a gold medal; the Khedive of
Egypt decorated him with the grand commander.
ship of the Order of the Medjidie; the Prince of
Wales sent his personal congratulations ; London,
Paris, Italy and Marseilles sent gold medals from
their Geographical Societies ; a dozen other cities,