202 STANLEY FINDS THE LOST EXPLORER. 



He asked me to tell him the news. "No, doctor," said I, "read 

 your letters first, which I am sure you must be impatient to read." 



"Ah," said he, "I have waited years for letters and I have been 

 taught patience. 1 can surely afford to wait a few hours longer. 

 No, tell me the general news: how is the world getting along?" 



"You probably know much already. Do you know that the 

 Suez Canal is a fact — is opened, and a regular trade carried on 

 between Europe and India through it?" 



"I did not hear about the opening of it. Well, that is grand 

 news! What else?" 



THE STORY OF THE WORLD'S PROGRESS. 



Shortly 1 found myself enacting the part of an annual per- 

 iodical to him. There was no need of exaggeration — or any penny- 

 a-line news, or of anv sensationalism. The world had witnessed 

 and experienced much the last few years. The Pacific Railroad had 

 been completed; Grant had been elected President of the United 

 States; Egypt had been flooded with savans; the Cretan rebellion 

 had terminated ; a Spanish revolution had driven Isabella from the 

 throne of Spain, and a Regent had been appointed; General Prim 

 was assassinated; a Castelar had electrified Europe with his 

 advanced ideas upon the liberty of worship; Prussia had humbled 

 Denmark, and annexed Schleswig-Holstein, and her armies were 

 now around Paris; the "man of Destiny" was a prisoner at Wil- 

 helmshohe; the Queen of Fashion and the Empress of the French 

 v/as a fugitive; and the child born in the purple had lost forever the 

 Imperial crown intended for his head; the Napoleon dynasty was 

 extinguished by the the Prussians, Bismarck and Von Moltke; and 

 PTance, the proud empire, was humbled to the dust. 



What could a man have exaggerated of these facts? What a 

 budget of news it was to one who had emerged from the depths 

 of the primeval forests of Manyuema ! The reflection of the dazzling 

 light of civilization was cast on him while Livingstone was thus 

 listening in wonder to one of the most exciting pages of history ever 

 repeated. How the puny deeds of barbarism paled before these! 

 Who could tell under what new phases of uneasy life Europe was 



