The letters of Henry Stanley, the African explorer, have at
length reached London, and reveal to us his story down to August 29th, 1888. They are perfectly simple yet wonderfully impressive narratives of his journey, from the junction of the Aruwhimi with the Congo to the Albert Nyanza, through a region larger than France, covered with an unbroken forest, below which the underwood is so matted that nothing but the elephant can crash through it, and human beings must
make their way painfully with axes at the rate of three furlongs an hour. We have said enough of this marvellous. journey and of the heroism of the explorer elsewhere, but may call attention here to the fresh evidence that it is the ruler who is wanted in Africa. The explorer can do little, and the missionary not much ; it is the ruler who is- needed, with the means to cut broad, rough roads, to import Indian elephants, to organise caravans, to found cities on the uplands to which the malaria does not rise, and to insist on steady labour by enforcing an inexorable taxation. The Arab slave-stealer must, however, first be tamed. He is in Africa the true hostis humani genesis, desolating each State as it becomes settled, extirpating population with his raids, and keeping up a terror which makes civilisation seem worthless.
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