On August 17, 1882, he sailed from Loando for Lisbon. On his arrival in Europe, he laid before the International Association a full account of the condition of affairs on the Congo. He had founded five of the eight stations at first projected, had constructed many miles of wagon road, had left a steamer and sailing vessels on the Upper Congo, had opened the country to traffic up to the mouth of the Kwa, a distance of 400 miles from the coast, had found the natives amiable and willing to work and trade, and had secured treaties and concessions which guaranteed the permanency of the benefits sought to be obtained by the expedition and the founding of a great Free State. Yet with all this he declared that “the Congo basin is not worth a two-shilling piece in its present state, and that to reduce it to profitable order a railroad must be built from the lower to the upper river.” Such road must be solely for the benefit of Central Africa and of such as desire to traffic in that region. He regarded the first phase of his mission as over——the opening of communication between the Atlantic and Upper Congo. The second phase he regarded as the obtaining of concessions from all the chiefs along the way, without which they would be in a position to force an abandonment of every commercial enterprise. The International Association heard him patiently and offered to provide funds for his more extensive work, provided he would undertake it. He consented to do so and to push his work to Stanley Falls, if they would give him a reliable governor for the establishments on the Lower Congo. Such a man was promised; and after a six weeks’ stay in Europe, he sailed again for Congo-land on November 23, 1882. He found his trading stations in confusion, and spent some time in restoring order, and re-victualling the empty store-houses. The temporary bridges on his hastily built roads had begun to weaken and one at the Mpalanga crossing gave way, compelling a tedious delay with the boats and wagons he was pushing on to the relief of Leopoldville. Here he found no progress had been made and that under shameful neglect everything was going to decay. Even reciprocity with the natives had been neglected, and garrison and tribes had agreed to let one another severely alone. To rectify all he found wrong required heroic exertion. He found one source of gratification in the fact that two English religious missions had been founded on the ground of the Association, one a Baptist, the other undenominational. Dr. Sims, head of the Baptists, was the first to navigate the waters of the Upper Congo, and occupy a station above Stanley Pool, but soon after the Livingstone, or undenominational mission, established a station at the Equator. Both missions now have steamers at their disposal, and are engaged in peaceful rivalry for moral conquest in the Congo Basin. [Illustration: A TEMPORARY CROSSING.]