hut
had long been razed to the ground, and sailed all round Lake
Tanganyika.

Two years after he started he was at Nyangwe on the Lualaba. Livingstone
and Cameron had been there before, and we can imagine Stanley's feelings
when he at last found himself at this, the most westerly point ever
reached by a European from the coast of the Indian Ocean. Behind him lay
the known country and the great lakes; before him lay a land as large as
Europe, completely unknown and appearing as a blank on maps. Travellers
had come to its outskirts from all sides, but none knew what the
interior was like. It was not even known whither the Lualaba ran.
Livingstone had vainly questioned the natives and Arabs about it, and
vainly Stanley also tried to obtain information. At Nyangwe the Arab
slave-traders held their most western market. Thither corn, fruit, and
vegetables were brought for sale; there were sold animals, fish, grass
mats, brass-wire, bows, arrows, and spears; and thither were brought
ivory and slaves from the interior. But though routes from all
directions met at Nyangwe, the Arabs were as ignorant of the country as
any one.

The black continent, "Darkest Africa," lay before Stanley. He was a bold
man, to whom difficulties were nothing. He had a will of iron. All
opposition, all obstacles placed in his way, must go down before him. He
had determined not to return eastwards, whence he had come, but to march
straight westwards to the Atlantic coast, or die in the attempt.
Accordingly, early on the morning of November 5, 1876, Stanley left
Nyangwe in company with the rich and powerful Arab chief, Tippu Tib, and
directed his way northwards towards the great forest. Tippu Tib's party
consisted of 700 men, women, and children, while Stanley had 154
followers armed with rifles, revolvers, and axes. "Bismillah--in the
name of God!" cried the Mohammedan leaders of the company, as they took
the first step on the dangerous road.

The huge caravan, an interminable file of black men, entered the forest.
There majestic trees stood like pillars in a colonnade; there palms
struggled for room with wild vines and canes; there flourished ferns,
spear-grass, and reeds, and there bushes in tropical profusion formed
impenetrable brushwood; while through the whole was entangled a network
of climbing plants, which ran up the trunks and hung down from the
branches. Everything was damp and wet. Dew dropped from all the branches
and leaves in a cont