Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-11-15

around it-barring the ocsans-on bicycle.
They selected Mr.. Stevens and sent him out
to Zanzibar, with plenty of money in his
pocket. with HawkeFe camera under one
arm and Kodak under the other, and with
a stout heart and good courage.
And what Mr.. Stevens saw, and what
strange places he visited, and the adven-
lures he had, and what he accomplished, IS
written here in Scouting for Stanley"
(Cassell Publishing Co.. j. r. Weldin q
Co., and illustrated with engravings OF the
snap shots which the adventurer himself
made.
Mr.. Stevens did not discover Stanley. He
spent six months hunting for him in NASAL
land, while Stanley was somewhere else.
And he treasured up newspaper mans
journal full of information about those
regions, which he has here set down in order.
Stanley finaliv discovered himself. sending
letters to Zanzibar, and Mr.. Stevens,
and Mr.. Vizetelly, representing the New
York Herald, had quite race to get hrst
hold OF the explorers hand-a race which
Mr.. Stevens won. There they sat down in
an African jungle, the newspaper reporter
and the explorer. and the German school
master, and Mr.. Stevens told what had hap
pened in the world during the three years
that had been spent beyond the reach OF
the postman or the telegraph.
Mr.. Stevens saw more of the slave trade
than he did of Stanley. He tells us some
thing about the better side of it. All Of 1t
is not of the devil, he thinks. The slaves
are better off in their new hones-lf they
ever get there The trouble is that good
MANY never get there. The worst of the
slave business is the long, weary, and often
fatal, journey across the deserts and through
the forests, carrying ivory. Mr.. Stevens has
his theory about the best way to put an end
to 1t all. The chiet purpose of the slave
trade is not slaves, but ivory. What the
Arabs are after is ivory piano keys. Build
railroads; make easy and cheap transporta-
ton; then slave driving will be too expen-
sive to keep up. The steam engine will
liberate the slaves.
Mr.. Herbert Ward, who writes the third
of the African books, which make up this
weeks reading, belonged to the unfortunate
rear guard, whose distresses are common
property and general information just now.
Mr.. Ward has little to say about the misad-
ventures of that ill-fated company. He was
set by Stanley under Major Barttelot; he
was a fellow officer and companion of Will
lam Bonney, who has recently emphasized
the truth of Stanlev's comments upon that
commanders conduct, and who afirms
that Major Barttelot was insane.
But he keeps discreet silence. He
was absent OH an errand to the
coast at the time of the assassination OF Bart
telot, and when he returned Stanley had al
ready appeared upon the scene and taken the
survivors of the company with him. Mr..
Ward knows what the chapters were in that
grim tragedy of the rear guard, and who
was in the right and who was in the wrong.
But he does not tell us.
Give Years With the Congo Cannibals"
(Robert Bonner's Sons) is the title of his
book, and describes it very well. Mungo
Park did his work along the Niger, Thomas
Stevens secuted for Stanley in the East, set
ting out from Zanzibar. Now here is a
south of the Niger and more important than
even that great stream-the Congo, the
Upper and Lower Congo.
Mr.. Ward tells us about everything
geography, mythology, queer customs and
queer dresses, dances and dangers, idols and
elephants. To arrive after a weary day at
the borders of an unknown village, to be
received with wonder by the inhabitants
clad in their best breech-clouts to be in
vited to supper and offered a savory dish of
white and green caterpillars served on fresh
leaves, to sleep in the midst of a regiment
of enthusiastic mosquitoes, to be wakened
by the drumming OF tom-toms and the sing
ing and dancing of savages, and to get up
in the morning to hunt a leopard is the
sort of thing which delights the soul of Mr..
Herbert Ward, and the reading of IL in his
entertaining book will delight all readers
who share in the sympathies of
The CRITIC.