"MY DEAR KNOX,--I have been trying ever so much to cross from Europe to the 'land of the free and the home of the brave,' but there are so many fetters binding me in this fierce, stirring world, that I fear I cannot break them, or even have them loosened long enough for the journey. It was my dream in Africa to seek repose in lounging--loafing is the New York term--for a spell about any town: it really did not matter which. A village would do, so that I could rove about unnoticed, and re-gather by degrees a store of vitality to replace that which the cruel fever of West Africa scorched and almost consumed. I mourn now that my dream cannot be realized. When I leave Paris I go to London, which is like 'from the frying-pan into the fire,' and then farewell all.... "As you know, this is winter, and the East Wind strikes me everywhere; he catches me round street-corners; at the street-door I find him; he waits for me late at night from the warm saloons, with bundles of small fevers, coughs, bronchial irritation, catarrh, chest complaint. He shrivels me up till there is scarcely a resemblance of manhood left in the benumbed wretch. "Ah! had it been September, or had it been April, oh, blessed Heaven! I should seek the _Alaska_, or the _Werra_, or Bennett's _Namouna_. "I intend to go presently to Nice, Cannes, Mentone, Andalusia, or where? Anywhere, where I can see man other than in an overcoat. [Illustration: THE FIRST CATARACT OF THE LIVINGSTONE.] "Yet it may be. America is dear, you know--New York has joys, and sometimes you do catch men without overcoats. There are good dinners there, too, and the Lotos has been ever since it was born a most welcome place; and you know, don't you know. ---- himself is a host! And when added to him you have the jolly ----, and the courteous ----, and amiable ----, and the rest--why, I will come! "But no, not yet. I fear the walls of snow in New York--the hilly ridges of frozen water, mud-colored and ancient. "Some time I will come. And then I will seek you, and revive as well as we may the memories of our days in Paris in 1878--good dinners, without one unpleasant face; good wine, of a good vintage, heightened by the sparkling pleasantries of friendship. Meantime, dear old fellow, until we meet, adieu; and whisper, with my regrets that I cannot come at present, the sweet hopes that my firm soul shall entertain to all our mutual friends, and that I am, now as ever, "Theirs and yours most faithfully, "HENRY M. STANLEY." [Illustration: STANLEY'S EXPEDITION DESCENDING THE LIVINGSTONE.] CHAPTER XXXII. UNYAMYEMBE.--AMONG THE ARABS.--MARCHING TOWARD THE COAST.