E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Martin Pettit, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 38389-h.htm or 38389-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/38389/pg38389-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38389/38389-h.zip) STANLEY'S ADVENTURES IN THE WILDS OF AFRICA: A Graphic Account of the Several Expeditions of Henry M. Stanley into the Heart of the Dark Continent. Covering Stanley's Expedition to Find Livingstone, His Crossing the Continent and Exploration of the Congo from Its Headwaters to the Ocean, His Establishment of the Congo Free State, and His Last Great Achievement--the Discovery and Deliverance of Emin Pasha. by HON. J. T. HEADLEY, Author of "_Napoleon and his Marshals_," "_Washington and his Generals_," "_Sherman and his Campaigns_," "_Farragut and our Naval Commanders_," "_Sacred Mountains_," "_Life of General Grants_," _etc._ and WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON, Author of "_The Saga of the Mistletoe_," "_Landmarks_," "_Facts and Fancies of Evolution_," "_The Age of Commonplace_," "_The Johnstown Flood_," _etc._ Illustrated. Edgewood Publishing Co. 1890. Entered According to Act of Congress, in the year 1890, By Walter J. Brooks, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D.C. [Illustration: HENRY M. STANLEY.] STANLEY'S WONDERFUL ADVENTURES IN "THE DARK CONTINENT." PREFACE. For centuries Africa has been "the dark continent" of our globe. The sea-washed edges of this immense tract have been known time immemorial. Egypt, at its northeastern corner, is the oldest of the governments of the earth; while the nations skirting the Red and the Mediterranean seas were actors in the earliest recorded history. But Africa as a whole has been an unknown land. That it was a fertile land, was demonstrated by the treasures brought from its depths by those mighty rivers, the Nile, the Niger and the Congo. That it was populous, was proven by the fact that its native tribes had furnished to the world without, forty millions of slaves in the period of two centuries. Both the slave-hunter and the slave told wondrous tales of the inner depths of the land, but these were mere hints as to the actual facts of the case. Africa remained a mystery and a riddle, that seemingly were never to be penetrated.