I had strolled over one day to the office of the _Daily Telegraph_, full of the subject. While I was discussing journalistic enterprise in general with one of the staff, the Editor entered. We spoke of Livingstone and the unfinished task remaining behind him. In reply to an eager remark which I made, he asked:— “Could you, and would you, complete the work? And what is there to do?” I answered: “The outlet of Lake Tanganika is undiscovered. We know nothing scarcely— except what Speke has sketched out—of Lake Victoria; we do not even know whether it consists of one or many lakes, and therefore the sources of the Nile are still unknown. Moreover, the western half of the African continent is still a white blank.” “Do you think you can settle all this, if we commission you?” “While I live, there will be something done. If I survive the time required to perform all the work, all shall be done.” The matter was for the moment suspended, because Mr. James Gordon Bennett, of the _New York Herald_, had prior claims on my services. A telegram was despatched to New York to him: “Would he join the _Daily Telegraph_ in sending Stanley out to Africa, to complete the discoveries of Speke, Burton, and Livingstone?” and, within twenty-four hours, my “new mission” to Africa was determined on as a joint expedition, by the laconic answer which the cable flashed under the Atlantic: “Yes; Bennett.” A few days before I departed for Africa, the _Daily Telegraph_ announced in a leading article that its proprietors had united with Mr. James Gordon Bennett in organizing an expedition of African discovery, under the command of Mr. Henry M. Stanley. “The purpose of the enterprise,” it said, “is to complete the work left unfinished by the lamented death of Dr. Livingstone; to solve, if possible, the remaining problems of the geography of Central Africa; and to investigate and report upon the haunts of the slave-traders.” * * * * “He will represent the two nations whose common interest in the regeneration of Africa was so well illustrated when the lost English explorer was rediscovered by the energetic American correspondent. In that memorable journey, Mr. Stanley displayed the best qualities of an African traveller; and with no inconsiderable resources at his disposal to reinforce his own complete acquaintance with the conditions of African travel, it may be hoped that very important results will accrue from this undertaking to the advantage of science, humanity, and civilisation.” Two weeks were allowed me for purchasing boats—a yawl, a gig, and a barge—for giving orders for pontoons, and purchasing equipment, guns, ammunition, rope, saddles, medical stores, and provisions; for making investments in gifts for native chiefs; for obtaining scientific instruments, stationery, &c., &c. The barge was an invention of my own.