This miraculous journey of the dashing and intrepid explorer, completed against obstacles which all believed to be insurmountable, safely ended after opinion had given him up as dead, together with its bearings on the fortunes of those nations who are casting anew the chart of Africa, and upon the native peoples who are to be revolutionized or exterminated by the last grand surges of progress, all these render a volume dedicated to travel and discovery, especially in the realm of “The Dark Continent,” surprisingly agreeable and useful at this time. [Illustration: MARCHING THROUGH EQUATORIAL AFRICA.] CONTENTS. HENRY M. STANLEY, 19 Stanley is safe; the world’s rejoicings; a new volume in African annals; who is “this wizard of travel?” story of Stanley’s life; a poor Welsh boy; a work-house pupil; teaching school; a sailor boy; in a New Orleans counting-house; an adopted child; bereft and penniless; a soldier of the South; captured and a prisoner; in the Federal Navy; the brilliant correspondent; love of travel and adventure; dauntless amid danger; in Asia-Minor and Abyssinia; at the court of Spain; in search of Livingstone; at Ujiji on Tanganyika; the lost found; across the “dark continent;” down the dashing Congo; boldest of all marches; acclaim of the world. THE CONGO FREE STATE, 27 A Congo’s empire; Stanley’s grand conception; European ambitions; the International Association; Stanley off for Zanzibar; enlists his carriers; at the mouth of the Congo; preparing to ascend the river; his force and equipments; the river and river towns; hippopotamus hunting; the big chiefs of Vivi; the “rock-breaker;” founding stations; making treaties; tribal characteristics; Congo scenes; elephants, buffaloes and water-buck; building houses and planting gardens; making roads; rounding the portages; river crocodiles and the steamers; foraging in the wilderness; products of the country; the king and the gong; no more war fetish; above the cataracts; Stanley Pool and Leopoldville; comparison of Congo with other rivers; exploration of the Kwa; Stanley sick; his return to Europe; further plans for his “Free State;” again on the Congo; Bolobo and its chiefs; medicine for wealth; a free river, but no land; scenery on the upper Congo; the Watwa dwarfs; the lion and his prey; war at Bolobo; the Equator station; a long voyage ahead; a modern Hercules; tropical scenes; a trick with a tiger skin; hostile natives; a canoe brigade; the Aruwimi; ravages of slave traders; captive women and children; to Stanley Falls; the cataracts; appointing a chief; the people and products; wreck of a steamer; a horrible massacre; down the Congo to Stanley Pool; again at Bolobo;