It has taken the Stanley expedition five…
August 1877 CE
It has taken the Stanley expedition five months, multiple people and canoes to pass the Livingstone Falls.
Among the men lost in the process have been Frank Pocock and Kalulu, his England-educated servant.
From the Isangile Falls, with five falls to go, they pull the canoes and Lady Alice ashore for good and leave the river, aiming for the city of Boma via land.
On August 3, they reach the hamlet Nsada.
From here, Stanley sends forward four trusted men to Boma with letters in English, French and Spanish, explaining his trip and asking them to send food for his starving people.
On August 7 the relief comes, being sent by representatives from the Liverpool trading firm Hatton & Cookson.
On August 9, a thousand and one days since leaving Zanzibar on November 12, 1874, they reach Boma, an outpost at the mouth of the Congo River, founded as a slaving station and entrepôt by merchants of several European countries in the sixteenth century.
Starting with three hundred and fifty-six people, only one hundred and fourteen have survived the expedition, of whom Stanley is the only European.
He will later write about his trials in his book Through the Dark Continent (1878).
In Boma, Stanley mails his editor Bennett in New York to send money for his party: wages and an arrangement to return home to Zanzibar.