hed a
people supplied by traders from the Congo coast.

The passing of the last group of cataracts was attended by numerous
dangers. In spite of all their efforts, canoes were sometimes
carried over the falls and wrecked, and on June 3d, Frank Pocock,
the last of Stanley's white companions, was drowned in the Congo by
the upsetting of a boat. Pocock was a brave, faithful, and devoted
follower of Stanley, who has paid a touching tribute to the
manliness, affection, and courage of the young Englishman who lies
buried in the savage wilderness of the Congo.

Very soon, as they drew nearer to the west coast, in the latter part
of the summer of 1877, sickness, distress, and famine pressed hard
upon the way-worn travellers. They were destitute of nearly
everything that could sustain nature. The natives refused to sell
supplies, and starvation stared them in the face. Knowing that a
trading-post was established at Embomma, a two days' journey down
the river, Stanley wrote on an old piece of cotton cloth a letter
asking for help, which was sent to the trading-post by his swiftest
runners. This letter was written in Spanish, French, and also in
English, Stanley in his anxiety and despair leaving no means untried
to reach the unknown traders whom he heard were at Embomma. The men
into whose hands this three-fold message fell were English and
Portuguese. Their response was prompt and generous. The messengers
were sent back, followed by a small caravan laden with ample
supplies of food and the necessaries of life, greatly to the relief
of the starving people who, on the arrival of this timely aid, had
eaten nothing for thirty hours. On August 9, 1877, the nine hundred
and ninety-ninth day from the date of their departure from Zanzibar,
Stanley's company, now numbering one hundred and fourteen blacks and
one white man, met the generous traders and merchants of Embomma,
who received the way-worn voyagers that had crossed the Dark
Continent. From the mouth of the Congo the expedition was carried by
steamer to Kabinda, a seaport a short distance up the coast, whence
they were taken to the port of San Paolo de Loanda, where they
embarked on board a British man-of-war and were taken to Cape Town;
thence, touching at Port Natal, they steamed to Zanzibar, where they
arrived on November 20, 1877. Long since given up for dead, the
Zanzibar men were greeted by their kindred with signs of
thanksgiving, tears and cries of joy. They had crosse