I only made it through the first volume of this two-volume journal. The second half, which I didn't read, describes Stanley's journey from Lake Tanganyika, along the Congo river to the west coast of Africa.

I'm sure, for 1875, this was a very good book. But the endless paragraphs of names of petty kingdoms and land forms, all without maps to help me understand, just got too boring. He'd happen upon a tribe and make friends with king after giving him a bunch of goods, then that king's promises to help him further his journey wouldn't be kept and Stanley would move on. Or, he'd have to use bluster and bribery and trickery, and sometimes violence, to get through a kingdom that didn't want him there. Through it all, Stanley propounds his view that Whites are superior to even the best of the Africans and that they can't be trusted unless he impresses them as their father-figure. It was just much the same thing over and over and I wasn't interested in another 400 pages of it.