Preface: The first volume of this two-volume biography of Henry Morton Stanley ended with his arrival iat Boma, on the Lower Congo and within striking distance of the open Atlantic, in August 1877, after his epic journey down the hitherto uncharted Congo River. The moment of his greatest triumph was also a time of despair, for on 6 August he and his party were saved from starvation by a gigantic food hamper, despatched in answer to his distress message by Messrs Da Motta Veiga and Harrison of the trading firm Hatton and Cookson. It is at this point that we recommence the story of Stanley's 'stranger than fiction' life.