On the 19th the steamers _K. A. Kieman_, _Albuquerque_, and _Serpa Pinto_, departed from Banana Point, and before night had anchored at Ponta da Lenha. The next day the two former steamers steamed straight up to Mataddi. The _Serpa Pinto_ hauled into the pier at Boma, to allow me to send an official intimation of the fact that the new Governor of Stanley Falls was aboard, and to receive a hurried visit from two of the Executive Committee charged with the administration of the Congo State. We had but time to exchange a few words, but in that short time they managed to inform me that there was a "famine in the country"; that "the villages along the road to the Pool were abandoned"; that "the _Stanley_ was seriously damaged"; that "the Mission steamers _Peace_ and _Henry Reed_ were in some unknown parts of the Upper Congo"; that "the _En Avant_ was on shore without machinery or boiler;" that "the _A. I. A._ was 500 miles above Stanley Pool"; and that "the _Royal_ was perfectly rotten;" and had not been employed for a year; in fact, that the whole of the naval stock promised did not exist at all except in the imagination of the gentlemen of the Bureau at Brussels; and, said one, who seemed to be the principal of the Executive Committee, with deliberate emphasis: "The boats were only to assist you if they could be given without prejudice to the service of the State." The gruff voice of the Portuguese captain of the _Serpa Pinto_ ordered the gentlemen on shore, and we proceeded on our way up the Congo. My thoughts were not of the pleasantest. With my flotilla of fifteen whale boats I might have been independent; but there was an objection to the Congo route, and therefore that plan was abandoned. We had no sooner adopted the East Coast route than the Sovereign of the Congo State invited the Expedition to pass through his territory; the Germans had murmured, and the French Government protested at the idea of our marching through East Africa. When it was too late to order the flotilla of whale boats from Forrest and Son we then accepted the Congo route, after stipulating for transport up the Lower Congo, for porterage to Stanley Pool, and the loan of the steamers on the Upper Congo which were now said to be wrecked, rotten, or without boilers or engines, or scattered inaccessible. In my ears rang the cry in England: "Hurry up, or you may be too late!" and singing through my memory were the words of Junker: "Emin will be lost unless immediate aid be given him;" and Emin's appeal for help; for, if denied, "we shall perish." "Well, the aspect of our work is ominous. It is not my fault, and what we have to do is simple enough. We have given our promise to strive our level best. It is no time for regret, but to struggle and "steer right onward." Every article of our verbal bond, having accepted this responsibility, we must perform, and it is the manner of this performance that I now propose to relate.