bout fourteen years of age, and shipped as cabin-boy on board a
sailing vessel bound to New Orleans. Like other British-born youths,
America was to him the promised land, and thither he turned his
steps in pursuit of fortune and fame. In New Orleans he fell in with
a kindly merchant, a Mr. Stanley, who adopted him and gave him his
name, for the youngster's real name was John Rowlands. His protector
dying without leaving a will, the boy was once more turned adrift,
but he managed to live and sustain himself, and when twenty-one
years of age, in 1861, the great Civil War having broken out,
Stanley went into the Confederate service then recruiting at New
Orleans. He was subsequently taken prisoner by the Federal forces,
and being allowed his liberty, he volunteered in the United States
Navy. He did his work well, and was in due time promoted to be
acting ensign on the iron-clad Ticonderoga. He made friends wherever
he went, for he was brave, modest, and of a frank disposition. The
war over he was discharged from the naval service, went to Asia
Minor, where he saw many strange countries, wrote letters to the
American newspapers, and in 1866 revisited his native village in
Wales. Returning to the United States, he entered the service of the
_New York Herald_, and went to Abyssinia as war correspondent, as
before stated.

Stanley returned to Europe after his discovery of Livingstone, in
July, 1872, and published his narrative, but many people in Europe
and in America refused to believe his story. Some persons who
thought themselves expert in knowledge of African travel proved to
their entire satisfaction that he never had been far from the coast,
never had seen Livingstone, and that his wonderful tale was a tissue
of romance. The Queen of England showed her belief and confidence in
him by sending him a box of gold set with jewels, and the Royal
Geographical Society of Great Britain, a very high and mighty body,
showed him great honor.

The attention of geographers and scientific men was now turned to
the great Lake Tanganyika, about which very little was known. The
outlet of the lake was as yet undiscovered. The secret sources of
the Nile were unknown, and the great river that reaches the Congo
coast from the interior was then, so far as men knew, lost in the
foam of the cataracts above. Even the already famous lake known as
the Victoria Nyanza was indistinctly sketched on the maps, and
people familiar with African explora