He started in 1871 from Zanzibar, and before the end of the year had come across a white man in the heart of the Dark Continent, and greeted him with the historic query, "Dr.Livingstone, I presume ?" Two years later Livingstone died, a martyr to geographical and missionary enthusiasm.

His work was taken up by Mr.Stanley, who in 1876 was again despatched to continue Livingstone's work, and succeeded in crossing the Dark Continent from Zanzibar to the mouth of the Congo, the whole course of which he traced, proving that the Lualaba or Nyangoue were merely different names or affluents of this mighty stream.

Stanley's remarkable journey completed the rough outline of African geography by defining the course of the fourth great river of the continent.
But Stanley's journey across the Dark Continent was destined to be the starting-point of an entirely new development of the African problem.

Even while Stanley was on his journey a conference had been assembled at Brussels by King Leopold, in which an international committee was formed representing all the nations of Europe, nominally for the exploration of Africa, but, as it turned out, really for its partition among the European powers.

Within fifteen years of the assembly of the conference the interior of Africa had been parcelled out, mainly among the five powers, England, France, Germany, Portugal, and Belgium.