But at last the time came for Stanley to turn his footsteps homeward. He tried in vain to prevail on Livingstone to go home with him, but the latter, though anxious to see his children, resolutely refused, saying that he must finish his work. He, however, concluded to accompany Stanley as far as Unyanyembe, to meet the stores which had been forwarded to that place for him from Zanzibar. On the 27th of December, therefore, they set out by a new route. Nothing occurred in the long journey of special interest, except the shooting of a zebra or a buffalo, the meeting of a herd of elephants or giraffes, or a lion. It was a tedious and toilsome journey, during which Stanley suffered from attacks of fever, and Livingstone from lacerated feet. They were fifty-three days on the march, but at last Unyanyembe was reached. Stanley once more took possession of his old quarters. Here both found letters and papers from home, brought by a recent caravan, and once more they seemed put in communication with the outside world. Being well-housed and provided with everything they needed, they felt thoroughly comfortable. The doctor's boxes were first broken open, and between the number of poor articles they contained and the absence of good ones which had been abstracted on the way, they proved something of a disappointment. Stanley then overhauled his own stores, of which there were seventy-four loads, the most valuable of which he intended to turn over to Livingstone. These also had been tampered with; still many luxuries remained, and they determined to have their Christmas dinner over again. Stanley arranged the bill of fare, and it turned out grandly. But now he saw that he must begin to prepare for his return to the coast, and so he left Livingstone to write up his journal and to finish the letters he was to send home. In overhauling the stores and making up the packages he should need on his return route, he was able to select and turn over to the doctor two thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight yards of cloth, nine hundred and ninety-two pounds of assorted beads, three hundred and fifty pounds of brass wire, besides bed, canvas boat, carpenters' tools, rifles, revolvers, ammunition, cooking utensils and various other articles of use, making in all about forty loads. These, with the doctor's personal stores, made Livingstone quite a rich man for Central Africa--in fact, he had a four years' supply.