CHAPTER XVIII. 



StanIvEy's Absorbing Inte:re:st in Livingstone:'s HxpIvOra- 

 TiONS — His Rksoi^ve to Find a Path from Sfa to Sfa — 

 Description of thf Congo Region — Once the Most 

 Famous Kingdom of Africa — A King Georious in Trink- 

 ets — Peopee Prostrating Themseeves Before Their 

 Monarch — The Whims op a Despot — Taxes Levied on 

 Furniture — Kieeing Husbands to Get Their Wives — 

 Strange and Savage Customs — A Nation Famous as Eee- 

 phant Hunters and Men Steai^ers. 



TJ ENRY M. STANLEY thought, and the world thought so too. 

 ^ ^ that his mission was to complete, as far as possible, the mar- 

 vellous discoveries which Livingstone had attempted to make. The 

 young hero never dreamed, however, that the path he blazed out 

 would, in part, be traversed by an Ex-President of the United 

 States. Stanley having been once in the wilds of Africa, and hav- 

 ing learned by actual observation the great fertility of the soil, the 

 channels of commerce which might be opened, the importance of 

 bringing the country into close relations with other parts of the 

 world, the moral needs of the savage races whose history has been 

 lost in oblivion and whose future it is impossible as yet to determine, 

 thought he would discover, if possible, the sources of the Nile, open 

 new avenues in a land almost unknown, and, having found Livings- 

 tone, the lost explorer, he resolved to find a path from sea to sea. 



In this marvellous undertaking we are now to trace him. He 

 is the same strong, heroic soul that he was on his first expedition; 

 the same enterprising man, possessed of the same iron will, the same 

 abounding energy and perseverance, the same tact in dealing with 

 hostile tribes, and the same unswerving resolution to accomplish his 

 object at any cost. 



Before we begin his journey, it will be interesting to the reader 

 to have some account of the Congo region through which Stanley 



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