Stanley's Adventures In the Wilds of Africa: A Graphic Account of the Several Expeditions of Henry M. Stanley Into the Heart of the Dark Continent

Growth of an island. Its location. Physical features and peopling.


Atlantis was once a speck blown on the ocean's waves, a spot upon the foam, a floating nut that gathered to itself still other flotsam through the aeons gone and grew as all hath grown.


At first a clod of earth on which no life existed, but the birds of air found rest for weary wings, and sore distress of thirst was quenched in the low pools which caught the water from a weeping sky. Wrecked ships gave matter for its shape and size, and elements in motion added much towards the building of that ocean isle—a grain from out the granary of the deep.


Thus long it floated, sent out roots and sprays down to the coral of the deep sea bed and anchored; solid was it, not else could it have arisen from that dread wall of water in which it was engulfed.


The aeons are the builders in God's building mart, and gave it size and beauty, all that land e’er gathered or land needeth. Fairer far it was than mine * which shows its wastes of sand unsightly; blossoms on that isle were touched with rainbow tints as fair as those where ether makes the planes which ye call "Paradise."


The seeds of fruits and trees were wafted from that land named Africa, and gems which made much wealth were once in galleys borne, and boats once torn to fragments by the wind and waves had given treasure to the ocean isle.