Chapter 38—A Happy Reunion
Two days after d**k’s marvellous deliverance the party had the good fortune to fall in with a caravan of honest Portuguese ivory-traders on their way to Emboma, at the mouth of the Congo. They rendered the fugitives every assistance, and thus enabled them to reach the coast without further discomfort.
This meeting with the caravan was a most fortunate occurrence, as any project of launching a raft upon the Zaire would have been quite impracticable, the river between the Ntemo and Yellala Falls being a continuous series of cataracts. Stanley counted as many as sixty-two, and it was hereabouts that that brave traveller sustained the last of thirty-one conflicts with the natives, escaping almost by a miracle from the Mbelo cataract.
Before the middle of August th
