"I am ambitious only to leave permanent traces of my work on the east side of the Dark Continent. Expedition after expedition has followed my track. On the shores of the Victoria N'yanza and on the shore of the Tanganyika communities of white men are engaged in disseminating what they think beneficial to the dark outcasts of this continent. Why should I not hope that the Congo basin throughout its vast extent, and the bank of the superb river, will be ultimately studded with civilized communities as well? We have begun well. Even now Belgians, Germans, English, Americans, Danes, Swedes, enlisted in our service, are devoting their best energies to accomplish this. So far we have been welcomed by the natives. Our object they can appreciate and understand, and they are the only ones as yet benefited by it. We have spent a large sum, and shall have to spend more yet. For we look upon ourselves as husbandmen, tilling and sowing that others may reap. As yet the Congo basin is a blank, a fruitless waste, a desolate and unproductive area. The energies of its denizens are benumbed. No prospect has dawned on them. It has been our purpose to fill this blank with life, to redeem this waste, to plant and sow that the dark man may gather, to vivify the wide, wild lands so long forgotten of Europe. Accursed be he or they who, animated by causeless jealousy and the spirit of mischief, will compel us to fire our station, destroy our work so auspiciously begun, and abandon Africa to its pristine helplessness and savagery." In our account of Stanley's work in Africa we have gone outside of the information possessed by Frank and Fred, as the details of his expedition in behalf of the International Association were not known to them at the time they were in Africa. We trust the readers of their narrative will pardon the liberty we have taken, and accept the assurance that what we have given would have been faithfully chronicled by "The Boy Travellers," if they had known it in season. The above apology being accepted, the author will take the reader into his confidence and show him a personal letter from Stanley, in reply to an invitation to run over to New York and meet several of his old friends, who promised to have dinner ready on the day of his arrival. If any one believes Stanley otherwise than a genial man in his social relations, he can now have an opportunity to change his opinion: "Brussels, November 4, 1882.