If during this Expedition I have not sufficiently manifested the reality of my friendship and devotion to you, and to my friends of the Emin Relief Committee, pray attribute it to want of opportunities and force of circumstances and not to lukewarmness and insincerity; but if, on the other hand, you and my friends have been satisfied that so far as lay in my power I have faithfully and loyally accomplished the missions you entrusted to me in the same spirit and to the same purpose that you yourself would have performed them had it been physically and morally possible for you to have been with us, then indeed am I satisfied, and the highest praise would not be equal in my opinion to the simple acknowledgment of it, such as "Well done." My dear Sir William, to love a noble, generous and loyal heart like your own, is natural. Accept the profession of mine, which has been pledged long ago to you wholly and entirely. Henry M. Stanley. To Sir William Mackinnon, Bart., of Balinakill and Loup, in the County of Argyleshire, The Chairman of the Emin Pasha Relief Committee. &c. &c. &c. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. The Khedive and the Soudan--Arabi Pasha--Hicks Pasha's defeat--The Mahdi--Sir Evelyn Baring and Lord Granville on the Soudan--Valentine Baker Pasha--General Gordon: his work in the Upper Soudan--Edward Schnitzler (or Emin Effendi Hakim) and his province--General Gordon at Khartoum: and account of the Belief Expedition in 1884, under Lord Wolseley--Mr. A. M. Mackay, the missionary in Uganda--Letters from Emin Bey to Mr. Mackay, Mr. C. H. Allen, and Dr. R. W. Felkin, relating to his Province--Mr. F. Holmwood's and Mr. A. M. Mackay's views on the proposed relief of Emin--Suggested routes for the Emin Relief Expedition--Sir Wm. Mackinnon and Mr. J. F. Hutton--The Relief Fund and Preparatory details of the Expedition--Colonel Sir Francis De Winton--Selection of officers for the Expedition--King Leopold and the Congo Route--Departure for Egypt.