It's the 10th of November, 1871.

On a mountain rich in eastern Africa, a group of travel weary porters are trekking up a hillside,

slashing their way through the dense bamboo

to clear a path.

But unlike many European explorers, 30-year-old journalist Henry Morton Stanley, who is leading

the expedition, is not scouting for trade routes or mineral riches.

He is hunting a missing man.

236 days have passed since Stanley landed in East Africa on the most punishing assignment of his career.

He has survived smallpox, dysentery, and cerebral malaria.

Most of his oxen and donkeys have been killed by crocodiles, or disease spread by tetsy flies.

Fewer than 40 of his original 100 porters are still with him. The rest having either

died or deserted Stanley because of his violent temper. But as the group climbs the side of a ravine, carrying food, tents and weapons,

Stanley is in a better mood than usual. He hopes, is finally closing in on his prey.

He is grateful for the shade of the palm forest,

as the root takes them up yet another mountain. As they reach the summit,

Stanley pushes through the trees to see what looks like a glittering silver sea below them.

They are 750 miles inland. It's actually the breathtaking

Lake Tanganyika and it means his destination is just minutes away. He speeds up. Finally he sees the port of Ujiji.

Once a mere trading post, it has grown prosperous from sitting on the route slavers use to take their captives towards Zanzibar, from where they'll be transported to the Middle East and beyond.

Stanley thinks it's a strange place for the man he's seeking, whose passionate

opposition to slavery has made him famous. Nothing has been heard of the

legendary Scottish explorer Dr David Livingston for four years.

...