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. I 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 I 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 any 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 
was 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 
France, 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 
