Early the next morning, July 1st, Stanley rode away, after cutting his name deep on the Temple. Away, away to Shiraz, where he visits the graves of Saadi, Hafiz, and one of the many graves given to Bathsheba! At last Stanley reaches Bushire, where he took steamer and entered the Persian Gulf; he visits Bunder-Abbas, and then continues his journey to Muscat, Arabia; thence to Kurrachi, arriving at Bombay, on August 1, 1870, his long programme carried through, up to the verge of its last supreme undertaking, the search for Livingstone. First, he brings his story up to date, for the ‘Herald,’ writing seventeen long letters about the Caucasus and Persian experiences; then he plunges deep into books on African Geography, ‘for I feel very ignorant about most things concerning Africa.’ And here on the verge of the great venture, we may see how he reviewed and estimated the long preparatory stage, reckoning it not as a twelve-month, but as six years, when he looked back on it, toward the end. * * * * * As may be imagined, these six years formed a most important period of my life; I had seen about fifteen fair battles with the military service, and three naval bombardments. Twice I had been shipwrecked, and I had been spectator of mighty events; I had seen many sovereign-monarchs, princes, ministers, and generals; I had explored many large cities, and rubbed against thousands of men of vast nations; and, having been compelled to write of what I had seen in a daily paper, it can be understood how invaluable such a career and such a training, with its compulsory lessons, was to me, preparing me for the great work which awaited me. To this training I owed increasing powers of observation, and judgment; the long railway journeys taught me, while watching and meditating upon the characters I met, how to observe most keenly and guide myself; by which I was enabled, I think, to achieve a certain mastery of those infirmities which, I was only too conscious, had cropped up since I had entered the Army [_i.e._, during the Civil War]. * * * * * And now, at last,--for Africa and Livingstone! Zanzibar is to be his starting-point; there is no direct communication from Bombay; so he must creep and zig-zag, by irregular sailing-ship. He starts, October 12, 1870, in the barque ‘Polly,’ a six weeks’ voyage to Mauritius. Off again, in the brigantine ‘Romp’; and, in seventeen days, to St. Anne’s Island, Seychelles group. Thence, in the little brigantine whaler, ‘Falcon,’ to creep along for nineteen days more. * * * * * Still at sea, light breezes every day. Oh! how I suffer from ennui! Oh, torment of an impatient soul! What is the use of a sailing-boat in the tropics? My back aches with pain, my mind becomes old, and all because of these dispiriting calms. December 31st, 1870. Eighty days from Bombay, and Zanzibar, at last! * * * * *