HOW STANLEY AND HIS MEN FACED HUNGER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8306, 12 July 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOW STANLEY AND HIS MEN FACED HUNGER.

THRILLING NARRATIVE AT THE TURNERS' BANQUET. Mr. Stanley, at the Turners' banquet, expressed gratification at the manner in which those present had received the Master's reference to his (Mr. Stanley's) engagement. In the course of his speech ho also alluded at some length to the strange sufferings in which ho shared fifteen or sixteen months ago. For six weeks they had not seen a bit of meat ; for ten days they had not seen a, banana or a grain, and the faces of the people were getting leaner, and their bodies were getting thinner, and their strength was fading day by day. A MIRACLE IN THE WILDERNESS They were all pitting down at the time, and he expressed his belief that the age of miracles was not altogether past. Moses struck water out of the Horeb rock, the Israelites were fed with manna in the wilderness, and he told them that he did not think they should be surprised to see some miracle for themselves—perhaps on the morrow or the following day. He had scarcely finished when some guinea fowl [locked round them and were at once seized. On another occasion, fifteen months ago, they had been lost in the wilderness for 188 days. They sent 150 men back to search for food. Out of every thousand 999 men broke their promise ; and the Znnzibaris were famous for doing ?o. The people began to crowd towards him very much broken down. All he could give them was a pound of butter and a tin of condensed milk, which, mixed with abun dance of water, for 130 people, made a broth. After the broth had been taken they went about to search for berries, and many of them wandered away and were lost. A day or two later he went to hunt for the 150 foragers. As they went along they came across the bodies of their men who had dropped away from the party. At, about six o'clock in the evening, tired and hungry, they threw themselves down. They could not light any fire ; there was no reason for doinir so ; there was nothing to eat. They could not erect any tent; and so he sat in the dusk, till the dusk deepened into night. He vowed to himself that if he met the foragers he would decimate them. " ALLAH IS CKKAT !" Just a a ho had made this vow he heard one of their Moslem people call out, " Allah is great !" in a voice of agony, in a voice expressive of utter hopelessness. It struck him as very curious—he who had not thought of God at that moment — that a Moslem should teach a Christian what he ought to have thought of himself ; and it was not long before this thought led to kindlier ones. The next morning at dawn they struggled on, and presently they came full tilt up against those whom they had been seeking. Food was produced, and soon afterwards they were all in camp again. AFRICA AND ANCIENT BRITAIN. Ml'. Stanley continued : Africa and its people were to-day in the same condition as this country and its people were once. A few years ago the patricians of England spoke of Africa as the Roman soldiers spoke of Britain when they had to proceed to what they regarded as "that chilly quarter of the globe." He remembered many asking where Zanzibar was, and now, in 18' JO, they had their worshipful Master a director of a company having in the same country '200,000 square miles of territory.