ollowers, and
report his achievements, leaving no trace behind except a recollection
as of some fiery meteor that had vanished without its portents being
apprehended. He returns to make the signification clear, a harbinger not
of disasters, but of a wonderful new era of peace and prosperity. He
bestows lavish gifts, negotiates treaties, purchases territorial rights,
and devotes himself to the task of opening avenues to trade and
preparing the way for colonization. The same energy and pluck, the same
spirit of persistence, that triumphed over the obstacles and dangers of
his earlier enterprises are again called into play, combined with the
suavity and patience demanded for the attainment of the present object
and permitted by the ample means at his disposal and the freedom from
any necessity for impetuous haste or hazardous adventures. Experience,
counsel, and the sense of higher responsibilities have brought a calmer
judgment and greater steadiness of action, but the boyish temperament
has not lost its sway, and more than one crisis is brought to a happy
issue by methods in which a love of fun mingles with sagacity and
foresight and renders their measures more effective.

The work undertaken by the Association of which Mr. Stanley was the
agent is of a purely initiatory character. The acquisition of territory
and of certain rights of sovereignty under treaties with local chiefs
constitutes the "founding" of the "Congo Free State," which has obtained
the recognition of the European powers and become one of the contracting
parties to the articles adopted by the recent Conference at Berlin for
regulating the commercial and political status of the river-basins of
Central Africa. Under these articles absolute freedom of trade,
intercourse, and settlement is secured to the people of all nations
throughout a region of vast extent and unsurpassed fertility, rich in
natural products, not so densely peopled as to resist or restrict any
conceivable schemes of colonization, yet offering in its numerous
village populations material sufficiently available for the needs of
industry and commerce and amenable to philanthropic influences. The
preparatory labors, which leave no room for doubt on this point, have
been already accomplished, with the exception of what Mr. Stanley
regards as the sure and indispensable means of opening up the resources
of the country,--viz., the construction of a railway around the rapids
that impede the navig