of the Congo Basin, and reached the west coast at Benguela in November, 1875.
In 1874 the Daily Telegraph and New York Herald combined to send Mr. Stanley to Africa, to complete the geographical discoveries of Dr. Livingstone.
In Les Belges au Congo, the excellent Christmas number of Le Mouvement Géographique, the official organ of the International African Association, we have a sketch of the life of the greatest living explorer. Born at Denbigh, in North Wales, in 1840, John Rowlands lost his father at two years of age; he was educated at the parish school of St. Asaph. At the age of sixteen he worked his passage to New Orleans, where he obtained employment in the house of a merchant named Stanley. He rose rapidly in favour and esteem, until the sudden death of his employer destroyed his hopes. Assuming the name of his benefactor, Henry Moreland Stanley was enrolled in the Confederate army when the War of Secession broke out in 1861. He was made prisoner at the battle of Pittsburg, in 1862, but effected his escape. Constantly exposed to arrest as an escaped prisoner, he engaged himself as a sailor in the Federal Marine, in which he obtained rapid promotion, becoming secretary to the Captain of the Ticonderoga, and later held the same position under the Admiral.
He accompanied his vessel on a European cruise, and obtained his discharge at the end of the war. He was next correspondent of the Missouri Democrat, and the New York Tribune, and later became travelling correspondent to the New York Herald, for which he accompanied the British forces during the Abyssinian and Ashantee wars. After those he made a journey through Asia Minor, the Caucasus and Persia to India, thence by Egypt to Spain, where he received his commission to find Livingstone.