STANLEY’S AFRICAN EXPLORATION.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1051, 9 November 1877, Page 2

STANLEY’S AFRICAN EXPLORATION.

A “Daily Telegraph” despatch from Stanley says he arrived at the west coast of Africa after accomplishing, amid extreme perils and difficulties, the continuous navigation of the great stream of the Lualaba from Nyanza down to the mouth of the Congo, which is thus proved to be the same river. Stanley says there was much desperate fighting during the journey, the natives harassing his party day and night, and killing and wounding his people with poisoned arrows. His progress was impeded at one point by five great cataracts, to pass which he had to cut his way through thirteen miles of dense forest, frequently exchanging axes for rifles as they were attacked. “ Not until three of my men were killed,” writes Stanley, “did I desist from crying out that we were friends and offering clothes;” and he continues: “ For a distance of twelve miles the desperate fighting on this terrible river was maintained. This was the last save one of thirty-two battles on the Lualaba, which river, after changing its name scores of times, became known as we approached the Atlantic Ocean as the Kwango and the Zaire.. The river runs through the great basin which lies between E. long. 26 deg. and E. long. 17 deg., and has an uninterrupted course over 1100 miles, with magnificent affluents, especially on the southern side. Thence cleaving: a broad belt of mountain between the great basin and the Atlantic Ocean, it descends- by about 30 feet fast and furious rapids to a greatriver between the Falls of Yellala ami the' Atlantic. Our losses were most severe, andl my grief is still new over the loss of my last white assistant—a brave young Englishman, Francis Pocock —who was swept over the Falls of Massassa on June the 3rd last. On the same day I with seven men was almost drawn into the whirlpools of Mowa Falls, and: six weeks later myself and the entire crew of the Lady Alice were swept over the furious Falls of Mbello, whence only by a miracle weescaped. My faithful young companion Kalulu is also among the lost.”