The "Dark Continent" of Africa held an ongoing fascination for Europeans and Americans of the late 19th century. Between 1870 and 1910, much of the continent was colonized by Europeans with dreams of empire, which opened the door for those eager to exploit its natural resources and peoples. The mystique enveloping Africa inspired novelists such as Joseph Conrad, where, in his Heart of Darkness, the inpenetrability of the continent provides a metaphor for the complexity and duplicity of human relations.
David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary who set out to find the source of the Nile, was among the explorers who attempted to penetrate the continent's vast, uncharted territories. The journalist Henry Morton Stanley, charged by the New York Herald to find Livingstone, located the great explorer near Lake Tanganyika in 1871. Stanley led a number of expeditions after Livingstone's death in 1873; the last took place during 1887-89 and helped bring Uganda firmly under British influence. The story "Stanley's Boy Magician" appeared in Boys of New York in August 1887, at the time of Stanley's last African journey. The story recounts how Robert Ray, a precocious, young magician from New York, accompanied Stanley to Africa and was captured. Taken before Zambesi, a great African chief, the young Ray performs a skillful sleight of hand, juggling a handful of deadly knives as the chief and his tribesmen look on attentively.