He then goes on to speak of the battles he has fought, and it is but just to him to give his feelings as he describes them in confidential private correspondence, on being compelled to kill the savages. He says: "As God is my judge, I would prefer paying tribute, and making these savages friends rather than enemies. But some of these people are cursed with such delirious ferocity that we are compelled to defend ourselves. They attack in such numbers and so sudden, that our repeating rifles and Sniders have to be handled with such nervous rapidity as will force them back before we are forced to death; for if we allow them to come within forty yards, their spears are as fatal as bullets; their spears make fearful wounds, while their contemptible-looking arrows are as deadly weapons. * * * Since I left Zanzibar, I have traveled seven hundred and twenty miles by land and a thousand miles by water. This is a good six months' work." CHAPTER XVIII. EXPLORATIONS OF LAKE TANGANIKA. It was with strange feelings that Stanley caught from the last ridge the sparkling waters of Tanganika. Sweet associations were awakened at the sight, as he remembered with what a thrilling heart he first saw it gleam in the landscape. Then it was the end of a long, wasting and perilous journey--the goal of his ambition, the realization of his fondest hopes; for on its shores he believed the object for which he had toiled so long was resting. No more welcome sight ever dawned on mortal eye than its waters as they spread away on the horizon; and though he should see it a hundred times, it will never appear to him like any other sheet of water. He has formed for it an attachment that will last forever; and whenever in imagination it rises before him, it will appear like the face of a friend. As he now descended to Ujiji, it was with sensations as though he were once more entering civilized life, for there was something almost homelike about this Arab colony. People dressed in civilized garments were moving about the streets, cattle were coming down to the lake to drink, and domestic animals scattered here and there made quite a homelike scene.