Title: 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
Author: Johnson, William Fletcher, Headley, Joel Tyler, 1813-1897
Language: English
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OF AFRICA***


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.

Covering
Stanley's Expedition to Find Livingstone, His Crossing the Continent and
Exploration of the Congo from Its Headwaters to the Ocean, His
Establishment of the Congo Free State, and His Last Great
Achievement--the Discovery and Deliverance of Emin Pasha.

by

HON. J. T. HEADLEY,

Author of "_Napoleon and his Marshals_," "_Washington and his
Generals_," "_Sherman and his Campaigns_," "_Farragut and our Naval
Commanders_," "_Sacred Mountains_," "_Life of General Grants_," _etc._

and

WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON,

Author of "_The Saga of the Mistletoe_," "_Landmarks_," "_Facts
and Fancies of Evolution_," "_The Age of Commonplace_,"
"_The Johnstown Flood_," _etc._

Illustrated.



Edgewood Publishing Co.
1890.

Entered According to Act of Congress, in the year 1890,
By Walter J. Brooks,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D.C.



[Illustration: HENRY M. STANLEY.]



STANLEY'S WONDERFUL ADVENTURES IN "THE DARK CONTINENT."



PREFACE.


For centuries Africa has been "the dark continent" of our globe. The
sea-washed edges of this immense tract have been known time immemorial.
Egypt, at its northeastern corner, is the oldest of the governments of
the earth; while the nations skirting the Red and the Mediterranean seas
were actors in the earliest recorded history. But Africa as a whole has
been an unknown land.

That it was a fertile land, was demonstrated by the treasures brought
from its depths by those mighty rivers, the Nile, the Niger and the
Congo. That it was populous, was proven by the fact that its native
tribes had furnished to the world without, forty millions of slaves in
the period of two centuries. Both the slave-hunter and the slave told
wondrous tales of the inner depths of the land, but these were mere
hints as to the actual facts of the case. Africa remained a mystery and
a riddle, that seemingly were never to be penetrated.

For many years explorations in Africa were made simply to gratify
curiosity, or from a desire to penetrate beyond lines reached by other
men. All the results desired or expected were amusement or fame. But in
later years African explorations have assumed an entirely different
aspect. From Livingstone, who first began to open up "the dark
continent," to Cameron and Stanley who pierced its very heart, all
explorations have tended to one great end--the civilization and
Christianization of the vast population that inhabits it. No matter
what the ruling motive may have been in each case, whether, as in
Livingstone, to introduce Christianity; or, in Baker, to put a stop to
the slave trade; or, in Stanley, to unlock the mystery of ages, still
the tendency has been the same: to bring Africa into the family of
continents instead of being the earth's "pariah;" to throw light on this
black spot of our planet, and make those who inhabit it practically and
morally, what they are really, a portion of the human race.

Mungo Park, Denham and Clapperton made explorations of considerable
value early in the present century, but Livingstone with thirty years of
toil in Africa was the real pioneer of successful work. In 1840, at the
age of twenty-five, he embarked as a missionary to South Africa, thus
entering the land where he lived and died, and which he never left save
on two brief visits to his native land.

After Livingstone's last return to Africa, circumstantial reports of his
death were received. These were subsequently contradicted and other
reports of death came. He wrote but few letters and some of these failed
to reach their destination; his fate, therefore, remained in painful
uncertainty until Bennett sent Stanley to discover him, dead or alive.

This commission led to the two expeditions of Stanley, the thrilling
events of which are narrated in this volume.



CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.

HENRY M. STANLEY.

Stanley's birth-place--Early roving--Extensive travels--Correspondent
in Abyssinia--The lost Dr. Livingstone--Bennett's confidence
in Stanley--Stanley's marching orders--His interview with Bennett--Off
to his work--En route for Africa--Stanley meets Livingstone--Stanley's
extreme measures,                                                     17

CHAPTER II.

DESCRIPTION OF AFRICA.

Inaccessibility of Africa--Extent of Africa--Products of the land,    42

CHAPTER III.

STANLEY'S SEARCH FOR LIVINGSTONE.

Preparations for the march--The start inland--Wretched
surroundings--Death of the horses--Jungle travel--The belles of
Kisemo--News of Livingstone--African fever,                           49

CHAPTER IV.

WILD EXPERIENCES.

Slow marching--Irreparable losses--The sultana's judgment--Deliverance
from difficulties--In a pitiable plight--New burdens--Incipient
mutiny--Forgiveness--Murderous attempt--A man left behind,            68

CHAPTER V.

TRIALS BY THE WAY.

Down with fever--Strange tribes--A cowardly mob--The country
described--What Africa may be--Tribes of Africa--Marks and
weapons--African ornamentation--A nobler tribe--Warriors
armed--Filthy homes--Social customs--Agriculture,                     93

CHAPTER VI.

ADVENTURES IN GREAT VARIETY.

Chiefs of Tabna--Fighting with Mirambo--A Flying caravan--
Despondency--Triumph--Shaw left--The hunter's paradise--On the
hunt--Crocodiles,                                                    128

CHAPTER VII.

THE END APPROACHES.

Mutinous conduct--News of a white man--Hastening to Ujiji--A
screaming woman--A narrow escape,                                    150

CHAPTER VIII.

STANLEY MEETS LIVINGSTONE.

Ujiji in sight--The village entered--The doctor at hand--The lost
found--Opening his mail--Talking and eating--A long talk--Ambition
satisfied,                                                           161

CHAPTER IX.

STANLEY'S HOMEWARD MARCH.

Sweet converse--Livingstone's surprise--Homeward bound--Parting
with Livingstone--Tribute to Livingstone--Passing the swamps--Again
at Zanzibar,                                                         180

CHAPTER X.

STANLEY'S SECOND EXPEDITION.

Journeying inland--Lost in the jungle--Lion soup--Plenty of
food--Edward Pocoke's death--Letter of condolence--Burial of
Pocoke--Magic doctor,                                                197

CHAPTER XI.

PRESSING TOWARD THE INTERIOR.

A hostile surprise--A battle--A massacre--Summary retribution--Confident
amid perils--Immense table-lands--Geological history,                216

CHAPTER XII.

EXPLORATION OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA.

Getting to work--Journal of the explorations--Navigating the
lake--A narrow escape--Review of the route,                          231

CHAPTER XIII.

EXPLORATION OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA.

Source of the Nile--King Mtesa--Royally entertained--The needed
missionary--Wild justice,                                            243

CHAPTER XIV.

EXPLORATION OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA.

A night surprise--Narrow escape--In a storm--A welcome sight--A
treacherous trick--A critical moment--Terrible recompense--A
night tempest--Again in the storm,                                   256

CHAPTER XV.

AN INTERVAL OF REST.

Proposals to abandon camp--Rest after toil--Stanley's
day-dreams--Seeking canoes--The king's strategy--Treachery
thwarted,                                                            277

CHAPTER XVI.

PREPARATIONS FOR FURTHER EXPLORATIONS.

Organizing an attack--Terrible punishment--Completely subdued--New
schemes--The Albert Nyanza--Military escort,                         291

CHAPTER XVII.

THE EXPEDITION TO ALBERT NYANZA.

Snow-capped mountains--A strange race--Toward the Albert Nyanza--A
miserable failure--The inglorious return--Mtesa's friendship--Lakes
of Karagwe--Sources of the Nile--Exploring the
Kagera--An African village--Bead currency,                           304

CHAPTER XVIII.

EXPLORATIONS OF LAKE TANGANIKA.

Cameron's outlet--A wholesale massacre--Where is the
outlet?--Difficulties in the way--Curious customs,                   331

CHAPTER XIX.

NYANGWE AND ITS HISTORY.

A beautiful region--The slave trade--Slave pens--Hunting the
slaves--How to stop it,                                              345

CHAPTER XX.

ORGANIZING A NEW EXPEDITION.

Stanley's new purposes--Napoleonic spirit--An escort
secured--African markets--Tipo-Tipo's army,                          356

CHAPTER XXI.

THROUGH THE FORESTS.

The start--Discouraging progress--Wonders of the forest--Soko
skulls,                                                              368

CHAPTER XXII.

FLOATING DOWN THE CONGO.

Terrible suspense--Drifting downward--A stratagem--Departure of
Tipo-Tipo--A mournful scene,                                         379

CHAPTER XXIII.

DESCENT OF THE CONGO.

Beset by cannibals--Beautiful scenery--Zaidi in peril--Stanley as
a strategist--Seeking man-meat--Battling onward--Portuguese
muskets--Chased again--Famine at hand--Hospitable
entertainment--"Stanley pool"--Brotherly proceedings,                390

CHAPTER XXIV.

AMONG THE CATARACTS.

Wild surroundings--Terrible rapids--Soudi's marvelous escape--Narrow
escape of Stanley--Cluster of cataracts--Canoes on mountain
tops,                                                                419

CHAPTER XXV.

EXPERIENCES BY THE WAY.

Canoe building--A terrific pass--Trial for theft--Touching
scene--Unexpected dilemma--A merry evening,                          435

CHAPTER XXVI.

DEATH OF FRANK POCOKE.

Pocoke's value to Stanley--Stanley in peril--Drowning of
Pocoke--Stanley in grief--Pocoke's character,                        448

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE COMPLETED WORK.

Incipient mutiny--In despair--A perilous moment--Brightening
prospects--Captured for stealing--Word to the outside
world--A starving company--Greeted by friends--Approaching
Zanzibar--Home again--Stanley's crowning honor,                      460

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE FRUITS OF VICTORY.

Stanley called to Brussels--A conference concerning the Congo
region--A company organized--At the mouth of the Congo--Up the
river--Locating stations--Making treaties--Difficulties
surmounted--Stanley Pool reached,                                    484

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE CONGO FREE STATE.

Treaty concerning the new realm--Area of the Congo
basin--Peculiarities of the river--Its volume--Scenery on the
Congo--Climate--Commercial advantages--Stanley's fame,               494

CHAPTER XXX.

EMIN, THE LAST OF THE SOUDAN HEROES.

History of Emin Pasha--In Egyptian service--Efficient work--Lost
to the world--Betrayal of Gordon--Popular demand for Emin's
rescue--The "Emin Relief Committee,"                                 500

CHAPTER XXXI.

STANLEY TO THE RESCUE.

Stanley in America--Recalled to Europe--Back to Africa--His
escort--Disposition of his forces--Into the wilderness--Distressing
reports--Forged dispatches--Disaster elsewhere--Good news
from Stanley,                                                        505

CHAPTER XXXII.

STANLEY AND EMIN.

Emin's forces--His hesitation--His delays--Discussions on the
subject--Hopes of success,                                           511

CHAPTER XXXIII.

IN THE HEART OF AFRICA.

Stanley heard from--Hidden again--Further news--A barrier of
silence--Summary of incidents--Advance contested--Unholy
regions--Providence or luck--Seriously ill--Promises
kept--Surroundings changed--Sublime scenery--Officers in
doubt--Further news--Emin and his people arrive,                     518

CHAPTER XXXIV.

FORWARD MARCH.

The grand muster--Moving--In camp--Great expectations--Route
of the advance--Supplies forwarded--Arrival at Mpwapwa--Early
arrival of the expedition--Losses by the way--Much
fighting--Dangers everywhere,                                        526

CHAPTER XXXV.

ON THE COAST AT LAST.

Met by journalists--Emin described--Royal entertainments--Emin's
accident--Congratulations--Return messages--Rejoicings
everywhere,                                                          534



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                                  PAGE
HENRY M. STANLEY (Frontispiece).

Zanzibar,                                                           51

Ceremonies of the Queen's Court,                                    79

Shooting Hippopotami near Lake Ugenlo,                              83

Execution for Witchcraft,                                          111

African Warriors and Warfare,                                      117

Waste of Human Life,                                               125

A Council of War,                                                  131

Spring-bok Browsing,                                               145

Stanley Meeting Livingstone,                                       169

Village on Tanganika Lake,                                         185

Burial of Edward Pocoke,                                           211

Reception of Mtesa's Body-guard,                                   247

A Treacherous Assault,                                             265

Stanley's Dash Across Unyoro,                                      305

Hot Springs of Mtagata,                                            323

Setting out to Cross Lake Tanganika,                               339

Scene in Camp at Nyangwe,                                          359

Natives Hunting Sokos,                                             375

Fighting our Way Around,                                           395

Boat Fight with the Savages,                                       409

Death of Kalulu,                                                   425

Drowning of Frank Pocoke,                                          455

Shooting the Rapids,                                               467

Emin Pasha,                                                        515



CHAPTER I.

HENRY M. STANLEY.


Stanley is one of those characters which forcibly illustrate the effect
of republican institutions in developing strong men. Despotism cannot
fetter thought--that is free everywhere--but it can and does restrain
its outworking into practical action. Free institutions do not make
great men, but they allow those endowed by nature with extraordinary
gifts free scope for action. This fact never had, perhaps, a more
striking illustration than in the French Revolution. The iron frame-work
of despotism had rested so long over the heads of the people that it had
become rusted in its place, and no individual force or strength could
rend it asunder. But when the people, in their fury, shattered it into
fragments, there was exhibited the marvelous effects of individual
character. A lieutenant of artillery vaulted to the throne of France and
made marshals and dukes and kings of plebeians. A plebeian himself, he
took to his plebeian bed the daughter of the Cæsars. He took base-born
men and pitted them against nobles of every degree, and the plebeians
proved themselves the better men. In other words, he put men against
titles, and the tiles went down before the men. Thus, no matter how
despotic he became, he and his marshals and new-made kings were the most
terrible democracy. The mighty changes that were then wrought show what
results may be expected when the whole world shall be thus set free, and
every man be allowed to strike his best and strongest blow. When the
race is thus let loose on the planet we inhabit, we shall see the
fulfillment of that prophecy, "a nation shall be born in a day."

The same truth is apparent in our own country, though its exhibitions
are not so sudden and startling. Indeed they could not be, because this
freedom of action has no restraints to break through, and hence no
violent effort is required. Every man grows and expands by degrees
without let or hindrance. In a despotism, Webster would probably have
taught school in a log school-house all his days, and the "mill-boy of
the slashes" never would have made the forum of a nation ring with his
eloquence, nor the "rail-splitter" have become the foremost man of his
time, nor the "tanner-boy" the president of the republic. Republican
institutions never made any of those men--they simply allowed them to
make themselves.

Stanley is among the latest and most extraordinary examples of this. It
is folly to point to such men as he, as a stimulus to youthful ambition.
No amount of study or effort can make such a boy or man as he was and
is. The energy, daring, self-confidence, promptness and indomitable will
were born in him, not acquired. The Latin proverb, _Poeta nascitur, non
fit_, "the poet is born, not made," is not truer of the poet than of a
character such as his. His peculiarities may be pointed out for the
admiration of others, his good qualities may teach youth how
perseverance, and determination, and work will elevate a man, whatever
be his walk in life. One born with a combination of qualities like
Stanley's, must have room given him or he will make room. He has such an
abundance of energy and will-power that they must have scope for action.
A despotism could not have repressed him. He would either have become a
wanderer or adventurer in strange lands, or he would have headed a
revolution and vaulted to power or to a scaffold, as others had done
before him.

But although Stanley developed his character under free institutions, he
was not born under them, he being a native of Wales. He was born near
Denbigh, in 1840. His father's name was Rowland. When three years old,
he was sent to the poor-house at St. Asaph, to get an education. Here
the poor, unpromising lad remained till he had finished such an
education as this institution could furnish, and then he sought
employment as a teacher, and for a year was employed as such at Mold,
Flintshire. But the strong instincts of his nature then began to show
themselves. He felt that a school-teacher's life, however honorable and
useful, could not be his, and, therefore, with his scant earnings, he
shipped as cabin-boy in a vessel bound for New Orleans. Having arrived
in safety, he began to look about for employment. By what lucky chance
it happened we do not know, but he fell into the hands of a merchant
named Stanley, who became so attached to the frank, energetic, ambitious
youth, that he finally adopted him and gave him his name. Thus the Welsh
boy Rowland, became the American youth Stanley.

Fortune had certainly smiled on him, and his future seemed secure. As
the partner, and eventually heir of his benefactor, as he doubtless
would become, fortune, ease and a luxurious life lay before him. But
even here, so pleasantly situated and cared for, the same restless
spirit that has since driven him over the world, exhibited itself, and
he wandered off into the wilds of Arkansas, and in his log-cabin on the
banks of the Wichita River, with the pine-trees moaning above him, he
dwelt for a long time, among the strange, wild dreams of his imaginative
and daring youth. His adopted father mourned him as dead, never
expecting to behold him again. But the youth made his way to the
Mississippi, and going on board a flat-boat, became the companion of the
rough western characters to be found on these boats, and slowly floated
down to New Orleans and was received by his overjoyed father as one
risen from the dead.

But just here, fortune, which seemed to have had him in her special
care, took him another step forward by apparently deserting him. His
adopted father suddenly died without making his will. His place and
prospective heirship both disappeared together, and the curtain was let
down between him and a pleasant, successful future. Doubtless that
father intended to provide for his adopted son, but now all the property
went to the natural legal heirs, and he was once more thrown upon the
world. In the delirium of an African fever, tossing in his hammock, far
from the haunts of civilization, there came back to him remembrances of
his life at this point. We learn that impelled by his roving disposition
he wandered away among the California miners, and at last among the
Indians, and sat by their council fires. He seemed destined to see every
phase of human life, to become acquainted with the roughest characters,
to prepare him for the wildest of all men, the African savage. This kind
of life also toughened and hardened the fibre of the youth, so that he
settled down into the man with a constitution of iron, without which he
could not have endured the trials he has since undergone, and still
retain his health and physical powers unworn.

At this time a new field opened before him. The civil war broke out,
and being a Southern man, he enlisted in the Confederate army. This was
a kind of service just adapted to his peculiar character, one in which a
man with the courage, daring, energy, promptness and indomitable will
that he possessed, was sure to win fame and promotion. But before he had
time to exhibit these qualities, fate, that seemed against him to human
eyes, again advanced him a step toward success by causing him to be
taken prisoner by the Union troops. As a prisoner he was worthless, and
the Union cause really having his sympathies, he proposed to enlist in
the Northern army.

Whether the military authorities were afraid of this sudden conversion
or not daring to give too much freedom of action to one who showed by
his whole bearing and language, that there was no undertaking too daring
for him to attempt, we are not told, but they put him where he would
probably have little chance to show what stuff he was made of, and he
was placed on the iron-clad ship Ticonderoga. It is said, he was
released as prisoner and volunteered to enlist in the navy. Be that as
it may, though totally unfit for service of any kind on board of a
man-of-war, he soon became acting ensign.

At the close of the war he looked about for some field of active
service, and what little war he had seen seemed to fit his peculiar
character, and hearing that the Cretans were about to attempt to throw
off the Turkish yoke, he resolved to join them. He proceeded thither
with two other Americans, after having first made an engagement with the
New York _Herald_, as its correspondent. Disgusted, it is said, with the
insurgent leaders, he abandoned his purpose, and having a sort of roving
commission from Mr. Bennett, he determined to travel in the East. But he
and his fellow-travelers were attacked by Turkish brigands, and robbed
of all their money and clothing. They laid their complaint before Mr.
Morris, then our minister at Constantinople, who in turn laid it before
the Turkish government, and at the same time advanced them funds to
supply their wants.

After various journeyings Stanley returned to England. Here a strong
desire seized him to visit the place of his nativity in Wales, the house
where he was born, and the humble dwelling where he received the first
rudiments of his education at St. Asaph. One can imagine the feelings
with which this bronzed young man, who had traveled so far and wide,
entered the quiet valley from which he had departed so long ago to seek
his fortune. It speaks well for his heart, that his sympathies turned at
once toward the poor-house of which he had been an inmate in his
childhood. Remembering that the greatest boon that could have been
conferred at that time on him would have been a good, generous dinner,
he resolved to give those poor children one. The daring young
adventurer, in the presence of those simple, wonderstruck children,
would have made a noble subject for a picture. We venture to say that
Mr. Stanley enjoyed that unobtrusive meal in that quiet Welsh valley
more than he has ever enjoyed a banquet with nobles and princes; and as
the shadows of life lengthen he will look back on it with more real
pleasure. He addressed the little ones of the Institution, giving them a
familiar talk, telling them that he was once one of that household,
accompanying his words with good advice, saying for their encouragement,
and to stimulate them to noble endeavors, that all he had been in the
past and all he hoped to be in the future, he attributed to the
education which was begun in that poor-house.

This was a real episode in his eventful life, and, though it doubtless
soon passed away in the more stirring scenes on which he entered, yet
the remembrance of it still lingers around that quiet, retired Welsh
valley, and, to-day, the name of Stanley is a household word there, and
is the pride and glory of its simple inhabitants. And as time goes on
and silvers those dark hairs, and the "almond-tree flourishes" and
"desire fails because man goeth to his long home," he, too, will
remember it as a green oasis he once longed to see and found in the arid
desert.

In 1867, when he was twenty-seven years of age, he returned to the
United States and, in the next year, accompanied the English army in
its campaign against Theodore, king of Abyssinia, which was set on foot
to revenge the wrongs this tyrant had committed against the subjects and
representatives of the British government. Stanley went as correspondent
of the New York _Herald_, and gave a vivid and clear account of the
painful march and skirmishes up to the last great battle in the king's
stronghold, where, with a gallant dash, the fortress was taken, the king
killed and the war ended. With that promptness in acting, which is one
of his chief characteristics, he at once dispatched the news of the
victory and the ending of the campaign to London, outstripping the
government dispatches sent by the commander-in-chief, so that one
morning the readers of the London newspapers knew that of which the
government was ignorant. This, of course, was a genuine surprise. A
young American newspaper correspondent, without a vessel at his command,
had, nevertheless, by his enterprise, beaten the government messenger,
and steady old conservative England was disgusted to find its
time-honored custom reversed, which was that the government should first
give notice of successes to the public, leaving to newspaper
correspondents to fill up the minor details. But an enterprising young
American had furnished the important news, leaving the British
government the secondary duty of supplying these details.
Notwithstanding the admiration of the enterprise that had accomplished
this great feat, there was a ludicrous aspect to the affair, in the
position in which it placed official personages, that raised a quiet
laugh on both continents. Stanley's letters contain the best history of
that expedition that has been written. This was still another onward
step in the great work before him, of which he, as yet had no
intimation.

The next year, 1868, he returned to the United States, and in the
following year was sent by the _Herald_ into Spain, to follow the
fortunes of the civil war there, as correspondent. Like everything else
that he undertook, he performed his duties more than faithfully.
Exposure, danger, hardships, nothing interfered when there was a
prospect of acquiring valuable information. It mattered not to him
whether he was on the margin or in the vortex of battle--he never
thought of anything but the object before him and toward which he bent
all his energies. His letters from the seat of war not only gave the
best description of the battles fought and of the military position of
affairs, but, also, of the political state of the kingdom. But while he
was here, considering himself fixed down for an indefinite period, for
Spain is proverbial for the protracted duration of its civil wars, Mr.
Bennett, in Paris, was planning an expedition to go in search of Dr.
Livingstone, buried, alive or dead, somewhere in the heart of Africa.
The sympathies of everybody were enlisted in his fortunes, yet the
British government, though he had done so much to enhance the fame of
his native country, refused to stir a step toward ascertaining his fate,
discovering his whereabouts, or relieving him if in want.

The Royal Geographical Society, ashamed of the apathy and indifference
of the government, had started a subscription to raise funds from
private sources to defray the expenses of an expedition to go in search
of him. In the meantime this American editor, scorning alike state
patronage or private help, conceived the bold project of finding him
himself. Looking around for a suitable leader to command an expedition,
his eye rested upon Stanley in Spain. And here should be noted the
profound sagacity of Mr. Bennett in selecting such a leader for this
desperate expedition, that was to go no one knew where, and end no one
knew how.

Most people thought it was a mammoth advertisement of the New York
_Herald_, nothing more. If he was in earnest why did he not select some
one of the many African explorers who were familiar with the regions of
Central Africa, and had explored in the vicinity of where Livingstone
was, by the best judges, supposed to be, if alive? Men, for instance,
like Speke, Baker, Burton, Grant and others. This certainly would have
given great eclat to the expedition, and, if it failed in its chief
object, would unquestionably have furnished new facts for the geographer
and the man of science. But to send one who made no pretensions to
science, no claims to be a meteorologist, botanist, geologist, or to be
familiar with astronomical calculations, all of which are indispensable
to a great explorer, seemed absurd.

But Mr. Bennett had no intention of making new scientific or
geographical discoveries. He had but one object in view--to find Dr.
Livingstone--and on the true Napoleonic system of selecting the best man
to accomplish a single object, he, with Napoleonic sagacity, fixed on
Stanley. The celebrated men who would have given greater distinction to
the enterprise would, doubtless, divide up their time and resources
between scientific research and the chief object of the expedition, and
thus cause delays that might defeat it; or, with more or less of the
martinet about them, push their researches only to a reasonable extent
and be content with reports instead of personal investigation. But he
wanted a man who had but one thing to do, and not only that, but a man
who would accomplish the errand on which he was sent or die in the
attempt. This was to be no mere well-regulated expedition, that was to
turn back when all reasonable efforts had been made. It was one that, if
desperate straits should come, would resort to desperate means, and he
knew that with Stanley at its head this would be done. He knew that
Stanley would fetch out Livingstone, dead or alive, or leave his own
bones to bleach in the depths of Africa. Stanley was comparatively
young, it was true, and had always accompanied, never led, expeditions.
He knew nothing of Africa, or how an expedition should be organized or
furnished--it mattered not. Bennett knew he had resources within
himself--nerves that never flinch, courage that no amount of danger
could daunt, a will that neither an African fever nor a wasted form
could break down, and a resolution of purpose that the presence of death
itself could not shake, while, to complete all, he had a quickness and
accuracy of judgment in a perilous crisis, followed by equally quick and
right action, which would extricate him out of difficulties that would
overwhelm men who had all his courage, will and energy, but were slower
in coming to a decision.

This latter quality is one of the rarest ever found even in the
strongest men; to think quick and yet think right, to come to a right
decision as if by impulse, is a power few men possess. To go swift and
yet straight as the cannon ball or lightning's flash, gives to any man's
actions tenfold power. In this lay the great secret of Napoleon's
success. His campaigns were started, while those of others were under
discussion, and the thunder and tumult of battle cleared his preceptions
and judgment so that no unexpected disaster could occur that he was not
ready to meet. This quickness and accuracy of thought and action is one
of the prominent characteristics of Stanley, and more than once saved
his life and his expedition.

On the 16th day of October, 1869, as he was sitting in his hotel at
Madrid, having just returned from the carnage of Valencia, a telegram
was handed him. The thunder of cannon and tumult of battle had scarce
ceased echoing in his ear when this telegram startled him from his
reverie: "Come to Paris on important business." In a moment all was
hurry and confusion, his books and pictures were packed, his washed and
unwashed clothes were stowed away, and in two hours his trunks were
strapped and labeled "Paris." The train started at 3 o'clock, and he
still had some time to say good-bye to his friends, and here by mere
accident comes out one of the most pleasing traits of his character. Of
the friends he is thus to leave, he merely refers to those of the
American legation, but dwells with regret on the farewell he must give
to two little children, whom he calls his "fast friends." Like a sudden
burst of sunlight on a landscape, this unconscious utterance reveals a
heart as tender as it is strong, and increases our interest in the man
quite as much as in the explorer. At 3 o'clock he was thundering on
toward Paris, ready, as he said, to go to the battle or the banquet, all
the same. His interview with Mr. Bennett reveals the character of both
these men so clearly that we give it in Stanley's own words:

"At 3 P. M. I was on my way, and being obliged to stop at Bayonne a few
hours, did not arrive at Paris until the following night. I went
straight to the 'Grand Hotel,' and knocked at the door of Mr. Bennett's
room.

"'Come in,' I heard a voice say. Entering, I found Mr. Bennett in bed.

"'Who are you?' he asked.

"'My name is Stanley,' I answered.

"'Ah, yes, sit down; I have important business on hand for you.'

"After throwing over his shoulders his _robe de chambre_, Mr. Bennett
asked: 'Where do you think Livingstone is?'

"'I really do not know, sir.'

"'Do you think he is alive?'

"'He may be, and he may not be,' I answered.

"'Well, I think he is alive, and that he can be found, and I am going to
send you to find him.'

"'What,' said I, 'do you really think I can find Dr. Livingstone? Do you
mean me to go to Central Africa?'

"'Yes; I mean that you shall go and find him, wherever you hear that he
is, and get what news you can of him; and, perhaps'--delivering himself
thoughtfully and deliberately--'the old man may be in want. Take enough
with you to help him, should he require it. Of course, you will act
according to your own plans, and you will do what is best--but FIND
LIVINGSTONE!'

"Said I, wondering at the cool order of sending one to Central Africa
to search for a man whom I, in common with most other men, believed to
be dead: 'Have you considered seriously the great expense you are liable
to incur on account of this little journey?'

"'What will it cost?' he asked abruptly.

"'Burton and Speke's journey to Central Africa cost between £3,000 and
£5,000, and I fear it cannot be done under £2,500.'

"'Well, I will tell you what you will do. Draw a thousand pounds now,
and when you have gone through that, draw another thousand, and when
that is spent draw another thousand, and when you have finished that
draw another thousand, and so on--but FIND LIVINGSTONE!'

"Surprised, but not confused, at the order, for I knew that Mr. Bennett,
when he had once made up his mind, was not easily drawn aside from his
purpose, I yet thought, seeing it was such a gigantic scheme, that he
had not quite considered in his own mind the pros and the cons of the
case, I said: 'I have heard that, should your father die, you would sell
the _Herald_, and retire from business.'

"'Whoever told you so is wrong, for there is not money enough in the
United States to buy the New York _Herald_. My father has made it a
great paper, but I mean to make it a greater. I mean, that it shall be a
newspaper in the true sense of the word; I mean that it shall publish
whatever news may be useful to the world, at no matter what cost.'

"'After that,' said I, 'I have nothing more to say. Do you mean me to go
straight on to Africa to search for Dr. Livingstone?'

"'No; I wish you to go to the inauguration of the Suez Canal first, and
then proceed up the Nile. I hear Baker is about starting for Upper
Egypt. Find out what you can about his expedition, and, as you go up,
describe, as well as possible, whatever is interesting for tourists, and
then write up a guide--a practical one--for Lower Egypt; tell us about
whatever is worth seeing, and how to see it.

"'Then you might as well go to Jerusalem; I hear that Captain Warren is
making some interesting discoveries there. Then visit Constantinople,
and find out about the khedive and sultan.

"'Then--let me see--you might as well visit the Crimea and those old
battle-grounds. Then go across the Caucasus to the Caspian Sea. I hear
there is a Russian expedition bound for Khiva. From thence you may get
through Persia to India; you could write an interesting letter from
Persepolis.

"'Bagdad will be close on your way to India; suppose you go there and
write up something about the Euphrates Valley Railway. Then, when you
have come to India, you may go after Dr. Livingstone. Probably you will
hear by that time that Livingstone is on his way to Zanzibar; but, if
not, go into the interior and find him, if alive. Get what news you can;
and if you find that he is dead, bring all possible proofs you can of
his being dead. That is all. Good-night, and God be with you.'

"'Good-night, sir,' I said, 'what is in the power of human nature I will
do; and on such an errand as I go upon, God will be with me.'

"I lodged with young Edward King, who is making such a name in New
England. He was just the man who would have delighted to tell the
journal he was engaged upon what young Mr. Bennett was doing, and what
errand I was bound upon. I should have liked to exchange opinions with
him upon the probable results of my journey, but dared not do so. Though
oppressed with the great task before me, I had to appear as if only
going to be present at the Suez Canal. Young King followed me to the
express train bound for Marseilles, and at the station we parted--he to
go and read the newspapers at Bowles's Reading-room, I to Central Africa
and--who knows? There is no need to recapitulate what I did before going
to Central Africa."

He started on his travels, and we hear of him first in Constantinople,
from our minister there, Mr. Morris, who had relieved him and his
companions when plundered by Turkish brigands. One of Mr. Stanley's
traveling companions who had been robbed with himself, accused him, in a
published letter, of dishonesty regarding the money our minister had
advanced. It is not necessary to go into this accusation or a refutation
of it now. It is sufficient to say that Mr. Morris declared the whole
charge false, and as the shortest and most complete refutation of such a
charge, we give Mr. Morris's own views of Mr. Stanley:

"The uncouth young man whom I first knew had grown into a perfect man of
the world, possessing the appearance, the manners and the attributes of
a perfect gentleman. The story of the adventures which he had gone
through and the dangers he had passed during his absence, were perfectly
marvelous, and he became the lion of our little circle. Scarcely a day
passed but he was a guest at my table, and no one was more welcome, for
I insensibly grew to have a strong attachment for him myself." In
speaking further on of his projected travels, he said he advised him to
go to Persia, which Stanley suddenly came to the conclusion to follow
out. "He therefore," he says, "busied himself in procuring letters of
introduction to the Russian authorities in the Caucasus, in Georgia and
in other countries through which he would have to pass."

This is quite enough to put to rest the scandal, which at one time
produced quite a sensation, that Stanley had cheated Mr. Morris and
misappropriated the funds advanced by him. No explanations are required
after this indorsement.

Of this long and hazardous journey, the columns of the _Herald_ gave all
the principal details. There is nothing in them that illustrates the
peculiar characteristics of Stanley more than, or even so much as, his
subsequent acts, hence his brief summary of this tour, that seems to
have had no definite object whatever, except to give the correspondent
of the _Herald_ something to do, until the proper moment to start on the
expedition for Livingstone, is, perhaps, the best account that could be
given, so far as the general reader is concerned. All we can say is, it
seems a very roundabout way in which to commence such an expedition.

"I went up the Nile and saw Mr. Higginbotham, chief engineer in Baker's
expedition, at Philæ, and was the means of preventing a duel between him
and a mad young Frenchman, who wanted to fight Mr. Higginbotham with
pistols, because Mr. Higginbotham resented the idea of being taken for
an Egyptian through wearing a fez cap. I had a talk with Captain Warren
at Jerusalem, and descended one of the pits with a sergeant of engineers
to see the marks of Tyrian workmen on the foundation-stones of the
Temple of Solomon. I visited the mosques of Stamboul with the minister
resident of the United States, and the American consul-general. I
traveled over the Crimean battle-grounds with Kinglake's glorious books
for reference. I dined with the widow of General Liprandi, at Odessa. I
saw the Arabian traveler, Palgrave, at Trebizond, and Baron Nicolay, the
civil governor of the Caucasus, at Tiflis. I lived with the Russian
embassador while at Teheran, and wherever I went through Persia I
received the most hospitable welcome from the gentlemen of the
Indo-European Telegraph Company; and, following the example of many
illustrious men, I wrote my name upon one of the Persepolitan monuments.
In the month of August, 1870, I arrived in India."

In completing this sketch of Mr. Stanley's life and character, it is
necessary only to add that his after career fully justified the high
estimate Mr. Bennett had placed on his extraordinary qualities. These
were tested to their utmost extent in his persistent, determined search
after the man he was sent to find. But we believe that Livingstone, when
found, with whom Stanley passed some months, exerted a powerful
influence on the character which we have attempted to portray. Stanley
was comparatively young, full of life and ambition, with fame, greater
probably than he had ever anticipated, now within his reach. Yet, here
in the heart of Africa, he found a man well on in years, of a world-wide
fame, yet apparently indifferent to it.

This man who had spent his life in a savage country, away from home and
all the pleasures of civilized society, who expected to pass the
remnant of his days in the same isolated state, was looking beyond
_this_ life. He was forgetting himself, in the absorbing purpose to
benefit others. Fame to him was nothing, the welfare of a benighted race
everything. This was a new revelation to the ambitious young man.
Hitherto he had thought only of himself, but here was a man, earnest,
thoughtful, sincere, who was living to carry out a great idea--no less
than the salvation of a continent--nay more than this, who was working
not for himself, but for a Master, and that Master, the God of the
universe. He remained with him in close companionship for months, and
intimate relations with a man borne up by such a lofty purpose, inspired
by such noble feelings, and looking so far away beyond time for his
reward, could not but have an important influence on a man with
Stanley's noble and heroic qualities. It was a new revelation to him. He
had met, not a successful, bold explorer, but a Christian, impelled and
sustained by the great and noble idea of regenerating a race and
honoring the God of man and the earth. Such a lengthened companionship
with a man of this character could but lift Stanley to a higher plane,
and inspire him with a loftier purpose than that of a mere explorer.

But while this expedition brought out all the peculiar traits we have
spoken of, yet his later expedition developed qualities which
circumstances had not previously shown. When from this he emerged on
the Atlantic coast with his company, he was hailed with acclamations and
a British vessel was placed at his disposal in which to return home. But
the ease and comfort offered him, and the applause awaiting him, were
nothing compared with the comfort and welfare of the savage band that
had for so long a time been his companions and his only reliance in the
perils through which he had passed. True, they had often been
intractable, disobedient and trustless, but still they had been his
companions in one of the most perilous marches ever attempted by man,
and with that large charity that allowed for the conduct of these
untutored, selfish animals of the desert, he forgot it all and would do
nothing, think of nothing, till their wants were supplied and their
welfare secured. He would see them safe back to the spot from which he
took them, and did, before he took care of himself. A noble nature there
asserted itself, and we doubt not that every one of those poor ignorant
savages would go to the death for that brave man to whom their own
welfare was so dear.

In this sketch of Mr. Stanley, as it appears to us from the record of
his life, we have omitted to notice those faults which are incident to
poor human nature, in whatever person it is enshrined. But perhaps this
is as good a place as any to notice the charge brought against him by
some persons in the English press, of having killed natives, not in
self-defense but to carry out his explorations; they asserting that
neither for fame nor science, nor for any other motive, had a man a
right to take the life of his fellow-man. Without going into an argument
on this point, or bringing forward the circumstances of this particular
case, leaving that to be explained in the narrative, as it will appear
in subsequent pages, we wish simply to say that the philanthropy and
Christianity, in behalf of which the charge is made, is pure Pharisaism.
Those writers asserted that life should be taken only in self-defense.
But in their eyes it is right, from mere covetousness to seize territory
in India, and thus provoke the rightful owners to rise in defense of
their own, which act converts them into assailants that must be killed
in self-defense.

But this man having passed through friendly territory, suddenly finds
himself stopped by hostile savages, who declare that he must retrace his
three months' journey and turn back, not because they are to be
despoiled of their land, or wronged in their persons, but from mere
savage maliciousness and hate. Mr. Stanley quietly insists on continuing
his journey, desiring no conflict, but finding them determined to kill
him and break up his expedition, he anticipates their movements and
shoots down some of them, and lo, these writers who defend the slaughter
of tens of thousands of men in India, so that England may enjoy her
wholesale robbery, nay, who threaten Europe with bloody war at the mere
hint that others may want to share her unjust possessions--these writers
call on the English people to refuse to give Stanley a public reception,
because he killed a half-dozen savages who wanted to kill him. He should
have waited, they say, till they fired the first shot; as he did not his
conduct should be investigated by the philanthropic subjects of Her
Majesty the Queen.



CHAPTER II.

DESCRIPTION OF AFRICA.


All there was of civilization in the world was found at one time in
Africa. Art and science had their home there, while now as a whole it is
regarded as the most benighted and barbarous portion of the earth and
is, not inaptly, called "the dark continent." With a breadth at the
equator of four thousand five hundred miles, with the exception of thin
lines of sea-coast on each side, this vast space has been as much
unknown as the surface of a distant planet. The Barbary States and Egypt
on the Mediterranean and Red Seas, some Portuguese settlements on the
Indian Ocean, the English and Dutch colonies of South Africa, a few
trading ports and the English and American colonies in Guinea,
constituted Africa, so far as the knowledge of the civilized world went.
And yet within these outer rims lay real Africa, and there lived its
immense population.

The vast Desert of Sahara on the north, stretching down to the equator,
presented an impenetrable barrier to explorers entering from that
direction, while along the eastern and western coasts they were beaten
back by savage tribes or fell victims to the diseases of the country.
Matted forests, wild beasts and venomous reptiles were added to the
other obstacles that beset their path, so that only now and then an
adventurous explorer penetrated the continent itself.

The Nile, piercing to the equator, seemed the most natural avenue by
which to enter this region, but the slave hunters by their cruelty, and
the petty wars they had engendered among the various tribes, made the
presence of a white man in their midst the occasion of hostile
demonstrations. The lofty mountains and broad rivers that came out of
this vast unknown region added to the mysterious interest that enveloped
it. Though certain death awaited the daring traveler who endeavored to
penetrate far into the interior, fresh victims were found ready to peril
their lives in the effort to solve the mystery of Central Africa. The
paths of these travelers, when traced on the map, appears like mere
punctures of the great continent. Missionary effort could only effect a
lodgment along the coast, while colonies remained stationary on the spot
where they were first planted.

Although holding the entire southern portion the English colony could
make but little headway against the tribes that confronted them on the
north. The most adventurous men urged not by curiosity or desire of
knowledge, but cupidity, penetrated the farthest into the interior, but,
instead of throwing light on those dark places, they made them seem
more dark and terrible by the miserable naked and half-starved wretches
they brought out to civilization, to become more wretched still by the
life of slavery to which they were doomed.

Hence it could not be otherwise than that the name of white man should
be associated with everything revolting and cruel, and that his presence
among these wild barbarians should awaken feelings of vengeance. A white
man, to those inland tribes, represented wrong and cruelty alone. The
very word meant separation of wives, and husbands, and families, and
carrying away to a doom whose mystery only enhanced its actual horrors.
Hence the white man's rapacity and cruelty put an effectual bar to his
curiosity and enterprise. The love of knowledge and physical science was
thwarted by the love of sin and wrong, and the civilized world, instead
of wondering at the ignorance and barbarity that kept back all research
and all benevolent effort, should wonder that any one bearing the
slightest relationship to the so-called outside civilized world, should
have been allowed to exist for a day where these wronged, outraged
savages bore sway.

It is not a little singular that the first real encroachment of these
forbidden regions was not made by daring explorers either for adventure
or geographical knowledge, or to extend commerce, but by a poor
missionary, whose sole object was to get the Gospel introduced among
these uncounted millions of heathen. Livingstone really broke the spell
that hung over tropical Africa, and set on foot movements that are to
work a change in the continent more important and momentous than the
imagination of man can at present conceive.

It is the tropical region of Africa that gives birth to its largest
rivers, is covered by its most magnificent forests, is crossed by its
loftiest mountains, and where dwell its teeming millions. And this is
the unknown part of the continent and the central point toward which all
explorers press.

This tropical Africa extends from about ten degrees above to ten degrees
below the equator, and from ten to thirty-five east longitude, or in
round numbers, nearly a thousand miles above and below the equator, to
two thousand or more east and west between these parallels of latitudes.
With an ordinary map before him, and with Zanzibar on the east and Congo
on the west as great landmarks, the reader will get a very clear idea of
the ground aimed at and touched, or pierced and crossed by the more
recent explorers, and the thorough final explorations of which will
unlock the hidden mystery of Africa, and open all there is of interest
to both the Christian and commercial world. That to the former there is
a field to be occupied that will tax the self-sacrifice and benevolence
of the Christian world, there can be no doubt; while to the commercial
world a field of equal magnitude and importance will be laid open.

From the mere punctures into the borders of this unknown land, and the
two slight trails recently made across it, there remains no doubt that
from sixty to one hundred millions of men are here living in the lowest
and most degraded condition of heathenism, while the country is burdened
with those articles which the commercial world needs and can make of
vast benefit to man.

A glance at the map will reveal what a vast territory remains to be
explored and what a mighty population exists there, yet to come into
contact with the civilized world. It is probable that that unexplored
region between the equator and the great Desert of Sahara will reveal
even greater wonders than have yet been discovered.

It is a little strange that the enterprise and the curiosity of man
should urge him to make repeated costly and vain attempts to reach the
north pole, where there are neither inhabitants nor articles of
commerce, while one of the largest continents on our globe, crowded with
people and rich in the very products most needed by man, should be
allowed to remain so long a sealed book.

What little of Africa has been traversed reveals untold wealth waiting
the enterprising hand of commerce to bring it forth to civilization. A
partial list of the products of this rich country will show what a mine
of wealth it is destined to be. Sugar-cane, cotton, coffee, oil palm,
tobacco, spices, timber, rice, wheat, Indian corn, India rubber, copal,
hemp, ivory, iron, copper, silver, gold and various other articles of
immense value are found here, and some of them in the greatest
profusion.

Thus it will be seen that this vast continent, which from creation
seemed destined only to be the abode of wild beasts and reptiles, and of
man as wild and savage as the animals amid which he dwelt, and who when
brought into contact with civilization becomes more debased, if
possible, by the bondage in which he is kept, contains almost everything
that civilization needs, and in a future which now seems near, it will
be traversed by railroads and steamboats, and the solitudes that have
echoed for thousands of years to the howl of wild beasts and the yells
of equally wild men, will resound with the hum of peaceful industry and
the rush and roar of commerce. The miserable hut will give way to
commodious habitations, and the disgusting rites of heathenism to the
worship of the true God. Reaching to the temperate zones, north and
south, it presents every variety of climate and yields every variety of
vegetation. What effect the great revolution awaiting this continent
will have on the destiny of the world, none can tell. He would have been
considered a mad prophet who would have predicted one-half of the
changes that the discovery of the American continent, less than four
hundred years ago, has wrought. None can doubt that the Creator of
these continents had some design in letting this one, which constitutes
nearly a fourth part of our planet, remain in darkness and mystery and
savage debasement so long, and now, by the effort of one missionary,
cause it to be thrown open to the world.



CHAPTER III.

STANLEY'S SEARCH FOR LIVINGSTONE.


We have seen how suddenly Mr. Stanley was called from Spain, to take
charge of an expedition in search of Livingstone, how he was sent to see
Baker who was about to enter Africa from the north, and how he was first
sent east. But the time came at last for him to enter upon his work in
earnest, and he sailed from Bombay, on the 12th of October, for
Zanzibar. On board the barque was a Scotchman, named Farquhar, acting as
first mate. Taking a fancy to him, Stanley engaged him to accompany the
expedition to find Livingstone.

Nearly three months later, on the 6th of January, he landed at Zanzibar,
one of the most fruitful islands of the Indian Ocean, rejoicing in a
sultan of its own. It is the great mart to which come the ivory, gum,
copal, hides, etc., and the slaves of the interior. Stanley immediately
set about preparing for his expedition. The first things to decide were:
How much money is required? How many pigeons as carriers? How many
soldiers? How much cloth? How many beads? How much wire? What kinds of
cloth is required for the different tribes?

After trying to figure this out from the books of other travelers, he
decided to consult an Arab merchant who had fitted out several caravans
for the interior. In a very short time he obtained more information than
he had acquired from books in his long three months' voyage from India.

Money is of no use in the heart of Africa. Goods of various kinds are
the only coin that can purchase what the traveler needs, or pay the
tribute that is exacted by the various tribes. He found that forty yards
of cloth per day would keep one hundred men supplied with food. Thus,
three thousand six hundred and fifty yards of cloth would support one
hundred men twelve months. Next to cloths, beads were the best currency
of the interior. Of these he purchased twenty sacks of eleven varieties
in color and shape. Next came the brass wire, of which he purchased
three hundred and fifty pounds, of about the thickness of telegraph
wire. Next came the provisions and outfit of implements that would be
needed--medicines, arms, donkeys, and last of all, men.

[Illustration: ZANZIBAR.

The capital of the island of Zanzibar, off the east coast of Africa.]

A man by the name of Shaw, a native of England, who came to Zanzibar as
third mate of an American ship, from which he was discharged, applied
for work, and was engaged by Stanley in getting what he needed together
and to accompany him on the expedition. He agreed to give him three
hundred dollars per annum, and placed him next in rank to Farquhar. He
then cast about for an escort of twenty men. Five who had accompanied
Speke, and were called "Speke's Faithfuls," among whom, as a leader, was
a man named Bombay, were first engaged. He soon got together eighteen
more men as soldiers, who were to receive three dollars a month. Each
was to have a flint-lock musket, and be provided with two hundred rounds
of ammunition. Bombay was to receive eighty dollars a year, and the
other "faithfuls" forty dollars.

Knowing that he was to enter a region of vast inland lakes, and that
much delay and travel might be avoided by the possession of a large
boat, he purchased one and stripped it of all its covering, to make the
transportation easier. He also had a cart constructed to fit the
goat-paths of the interior and to aid in transportation.

When all his purchases were completed and collected together, he found
that the combined weight would be about six tons. His cart and twenty
donkeys would not suffice for this, and so the last thing of all, was to
procure carriers, or pagosi, as they were called. He himself was
presented with a blooded bay horse by an American merchant at Zanzibar,
named Gordhue, formerly of Salem.

On the 4th of February, 1871, twenty-eight days from his arrival at
Zanzibar, Mr. Stanley's equipment was completed and he set sail for
Bagomayo, twenty-five miles distant on the mainland, from which all
caravans start for the interior, and where he was to hire his one
hundred and forty or more pagosi or carriers. He was immediately
surrounded with men who attempted in every way to fleece him, and he was
harassed, and betrayed and hindered on every side. But, at length, all
difficulties were overcome--the goods packed in bales weighing
seventy-two pounds each--the force divided into five caravans, and in
six weeks after he entered Bagomayo, Stanley himself was ready to start.
The first caravan had departed February 18th; the second, February 21st;
the third, February 25th; the fourth, on March 11th, and the last on
March 21st. All told, the number comprised in all the caravans of the
"Herald Expedition," was one hundred and ninety.

It was just seventy-three days after Stanley landed at Zanzibar, that he
passed out of Bagomayo on his bay horse, with his last caravan,
accompanied by twenty-eight carriers and twelve soldiers, under Bombay,
while his Arab boy, Selim, the interpreter, had charge of the cart and
its load.

Out through a narrow lane shaded by trees, they passed, the American
flag flying in front, and all in the highest spirits. Stanley had left
behind him the quarreling, cheating Arabs, and all his troubles with
them. The sun, speeding to the west, was beckoning him on; his heart
beat high with hope and ambition; he had taken a new departure in life,
and with success would come the renown he so ardently desired. He says,
"loveliness glowed around me; I saw fertile fields, rich vegetation,
strange trees; I heard the cry of cricket and pewit, and jubilant sounds
of many insects, all of which seemed to tell me, 'you are started.' What
could I do but lift up my face toward the pure, glowing sky, and cry,
'God be thanked?'"

The first camp was three miles and a half distant. The next three days
were employed in completing the preparations for the long land journey
and for meeting the rainy season, now very near, and on April 4th, a
start was made for Unyanyembe, the great half-way house, which he
resolved to reach in three months.

The road was a mere foot-path, leading through fields in which naked
women were at work, who looked up and laughed and giggled as they
passed. Passing on, they entered an open forest, abounding in deer and
antelope. Reaching the turbid Kingemi, a bridge of felled trees was soon
made; Stanley, in the meantime amusing himself with shooting
hippopotami, or rather shooting at them, for his small bullets made no
more impression on their thick skulls than peas would have done.
Crossing to the opposite shore, he found the traveling better. They
arrived at Kikoka, a distance of but ten miles, at 5 o'clock in the
afternoon, having been compelled to unload the animals during the day,
to cross the river and mud pools. This was slow marching, and at this
rate of speed it would take a long time to reach the heart of Africa.
The settlement was a collection of rude huts. Though bound to the same
point that Speke and Burton had reached, Ujiji, Stanley took a different
route from them, and one never traveled by a white man before.

On the 27th, he left this place and moved westward over a rolling,
monotonous country, until they came to Rosako, the province of Ukwee.
Just before his departure the next morning, Magonga, the leader of the
fourth caravan, came up and told him that three of his carriers were
sick, and asked for some medicine. He found the three men in great
terror, believing they were about to die, and crying out like children,
"Mama, mama." Leaving them, with orders to hurry on as soon as possible,
he departed. The country everywhere was in a state of nature except in
the neighborhood of villages. Sheltered by the dense forests, he toiled
on but was so anxious about the fourth caravan left behind that, after
marching nine miles he ordered a halt and made a camp. It soon swarmed
with insects, and he set to work to examine them and see if they were
the tsetsé, said to be fatal to horses in Africa. Still waiting for the
caravan, he went hunting, but soon found himself in such an impenetrable
jungle and swamp, filled with alligators, that he resolved never to make
the attempt again. The second and third days passing without the arrival
of the caravan, he sent Shaw and Bombay back after it, who brought it
up on the fourth day. Leaving it to rest in his own camp, he pushed on
five miles to the village of Kingaru, set in a deep, damp,
pestiferous-looking hollow, surrounded by pools of water. To add to the
gloominess of the scene, a pouring rain set in, which soon filled their
camping-place with lakelets and rivulets of water. Toward evening the
rain ceased, and the villagers began to pour in with their vendibles.
Foremost was the chief, bringing with him three measures of matama and a
half a measure of rice, which he begged Stanley to accept. The latter
saw through the trickery of this meagre present, in offering which the
chief called him the "rich sultan." Stanley asked him why, if he was a
rich sultan, the chief of Kingaru did not bring him a rich present, that
he might give him a rich one in return. "Ah," replied the blear-eyed old
fox, "Kingaru is poor, there is no matama in the village." "Well," said
Stanley, "if there is no matama in the village, I can give but a yard of
cloth," which would be equivalent to his present. Foiled in his sharp
practice the chief had to be content with this.

At this place he lost one of his horses. The burial of the carcass not
far from the encampment, raised a terrible commotion in the village, and
the inhabitants assembled in consultation as to how much they must
charge him for burying a horse in their village without permission, and
soon the wrinkled old chief was also at the camp, and the following
dialogue took place, which is given as an illustration of the character
of the people with whom he was to have a year's trading intercourse:

White Man--"Are you the great chief of Kingaru?"

Kingaru--"Huh-uh--yes."

W. M.--"The great, great chief?"

Kingaru--"Huh-uh--yes."

W. M.--"How many soldiers have you?"

Kingaru--"Why?"

W. M.--"How many fighting men have you?"

Kingaru--"None."

W. M.--"Oh! I thought you might have a thousand men with you, by your
going to fine a strong white man who has plenty of guns and soldiers two
doti for burying a dead horse."

Kingaru (rather perplexed)--"No; I have no soldiers. I have only a few
young men."

W. M.--"Why do you come and make trouble, then?"

Kingaru--"It was not I; it was my brothers who said to me, 'Come here,
come here, Kingaru, see what the white man has done! Has he not taken
possession of your soil, in that he has put his horse into your ground
without your permission? Come, go to him and see by what right!'
Therefore have I come to ask you who gave you permission to use my soil
for a burying-ground?"

W. M.--"I want no man's permission to do what is right. My horse died;
had I left him to fester and stink in your valley, sickness would visit
your village, your water would become unwholesome, and caravans would
not stop here for trade; for they would say, 'This is an unlucky spot,
let us go away.' But enough said; I understand you to say you do not
want him buried in your ground; the error I have fallen into is easily
put right. This minute my soldiers shall dig him out again and cover up
the soil as it was before, and the horse shall be left where he died."
(Then shouting to Bombay). "Ho, Bombay, take soldiers with jeinbes to
dig my horse out of the ground; drag him to where he died and make
everything ready for a march to-morrow morning."

Kingaru, his voice considerably higher and his head moving to and fro
with emotion, cries out, "Akuna, akuna, Bana"--no, no, master. "Let not
the white man get angry. The horse is dead and now lies buried; let him
remain so, since he is already there, and let us be friends again."

The matter had hardly been settled, when Stanley heard deep groans
issuing from one of the animals. On inquiry, he found that they came
from the bay horse. He took a lantern and visited him, staying all night
and working to save his life. It was in vain--in the morning he died,
leaving him now without any horse, which reduced him to donkey riding.
Three days passed, and the lagging caravan had not come up. In the
meantime, one of his carriers deserted, while sickness attacked the
camp, and out of his twenty-five men, ten were soon on the sick list. On
the 4th, the caravan came up, and on the following morning was
dispatched forward, the leader being spurred on with the promise of a
liberal reward if he hurried to Unyanyembe. The next morning, to rouse
his people, he beat an alarm on a tin pan, and before sunrise they were
on the march, the villagers rushing like wolves into the deserted camp
to pick up any rags or refuse left behind. The march of fifteen miles to
Imbike showed a great demoralization in his men, many of them not coming
up till nightfall. One of the carriers had deserted on the way, taking
with him a quantity of cloth and beads. The next morning, before
starting, men were sent in pursuit of him. They made that day, the 8th,
but ten miles to Msuwa. Though the journey was short, it was the most
fatiguing one of all. As it gives a vivid description of the
difficulties experienced in traveling through this country, we quote
Stanley's own language:

"It was one continuous jungle, except three interjacent glades of narrow
limits, which gave us three breathing pauses in the dire task of
jungle-traveling. The odor emitted from its fell plants was so rank, so
pungently acrid, and the miasma from its decayed vegetation so dense,
that I expected every moment to see myself and men fall down in
paroxysms of acute fever. Happily this evil was not added to that of
loading and unloading the frequently falling packs. Seven soldiers to
attend seventeen laden donkeys, were entirely too small a number while
passing through a jungle; for while the path is but a foot wide, with a
wall of thorny plants and creepers bristling on each side, and
projecting branches darting across it, with knots of spiky twigs, stiff
as spike-nails, ready to catch and hold anything above four feet in
height, it is but reasonable to suppose that donkeys, standing four feet
high, with loads measuring across, from bale to bale, four feet, would
come to grief.

"This grief was of frequent recurrence here, causing us to pause every
few minutes for re-arrangements. So often had this task to be performed,
that the men got perfectly discouraged, and had to be spoken to sharply
before they would set to work. By the time I reached Msuwa, there was
nobody with me and the ten donkeys I drove but Mabruk, who
perseveringly, though generally stolid, stood to his work like a man.
Bombay and Uledi were far behind with the most jaded donkeys. Shaw was
in charge of the cart, and his experiences were most bitter, as he
informed me he had expended the whole vocabulary of stormy abuse known
to sailors, and a new one which he had invented _ex tempore_. He did
not arrive until two o'clock next morning, and was completely worn out.
Truly, I doubt if the most pious divine, in traveling through that long
jungle, under those circumstances, with such oft-recurring annoyances,
Sisyphean labor, could have avoided cursing his folly for coming
hither."

A halt was made here, that men and animals might recuperate. The chief
of this village was "a white man in everything but color," and brought
him the choicest mutton. He and his subjects were intelligent enough to
comprehend the utility of his breech-loading guns, and by their gestures
illustrated their comprehension of the deadly effects of those weapons
in battle.

On the 10th, somewhat recuperated, the caravan left this hospitable
village and crossed a beautiful little plain, with a few cultivated
fields, from which the tillers stared in wonder at the unwonted
spectacle it presented. But here Stanley met one of those sights common
in that part of the world, but which, it is to be hoped, will soon be
seen no more. It was a chained slave-gang, bound east. He says the
slaves did not appear to be in the least down-hearted, on the contrary,
they were jolly and gay. But for the chains, there was no difference
between master and slave. The chains were heavy, but as men and women
had nothing else to carry, being entirely naked, their weight, he says,
could not have been insupportable.

He camped at 10 A. M., and fired two guns, to show they were ready to
trade with any of the natives in the region. The halting-place was
Kisemo, only twelve miles from Msuwa which was the centre of a populous
district, there being no less than five villages in the vicinity
fortified by stakes and thorny abattis, as formidable, in their way, as
the old fosse and draw-bridge of feudal times. "The belles of Kisemo,"
he says, "are of gigantic posterioral proportions," and are "noted for
their variety in brass wire, which is wound in spiral rings round their
wrists and ankles, and for the varieties of style which their wisped
heads exhibit; while their poor lords, obliged to be contented with
dingy, torn clouts and split ears, show what wide sway Asmodeus holds
over this terrestrial sphere--for it must have been an unhappy time when
the hard besieged husbands gave way before their hotly-pressing spouses.
Besides these brassy ornaments on their extremities, the women of Kisemo
frequently wear lengthy necklaces, which run in rivers of colors down
their black bodies." But a more comical picture is seldom presented than
that of one of those highly-dressed females, "with their huge posterior
development, while grinding out corn. This is done in a machine very
much like an old-fashioned churn, except the dasher becomes a pestle and
the churn a mortar. Swaying with the pestle, as it rises and falls, the
breast and posteriors correspond to the strokes of the dasher in a droll
sort of sing-song, which gave to the whole exhibition the drollest
effect imaginable."

A curious superstition of the natives was brought to light here by Shaw
removing a stone while putting up his tent. As he did so, the chief
rushed forward, and putting it back in its place, solemnly stood upon
it. On being asked what was the matter, he carefully lifted it, pointed
to an insect pinned by a stick to the ground, which he said had been the
cause of a miscarriage of a female of the village.

In the afternoon the messengers came back with the deserter and all the
stolen goods. Some of the natives had captured him and were about to
kill him and take the goods, when the messengers came up and claimed
both. He was given up, his captors being content with receiving a little
cloth and a few beads in return. Stanley, with great sagacity, caused
the thief to be tried by the other carriers, who condemned him to be
flogged. They were ordered to carry out their own sentence, which they
did amid the yells of the culprit.

Before night a caravan arrived, bringing, among other things, a copy of
the _Herald_, containing an account of a Presidential levee in
Washington, in which the toilette of the various ladies were given.
While engrossed in reading in his tent, Stanley suddenly became aware
that his tent-door was darkened, and looking up, he saw the chief's
daughters gazing with wondering eyes on the great sheets of paper he
was scanning so closely. The sight of these naked beauties, glittering
in brass wire and beads, presented a ludicrous contrast to the
elaborately-dressed belles of whom he had been reading in the paper, and
made him feel, by contrast, in what a different world he was living.

On the 12th, the caravan reached Munondi, on the Ungerangeri River. The
country was open and beautiful, presenting a natural park, while the
roads were good, making the day's journey delightful. Flowers decked the
ground, and the perfume of sweet-smelling shrubs filled the air. As they
approached the river, they came upon fields of Indian corn and gardens
filled with vegetables, while stately trees lined the bank. On the 14th,
they crossed the river and entered the Wakami territory. This day and
the next the road lay through a charming country. The day following,
they marched through a forest between two mountains rising on either
side of them, and on the 16th reached the territory of Wosigahha. As he
approached the village of Muhalleh he was greeted with the discharge of
musketry. It came from the fourth caravan, which had halted here. Here
also good news awaited him. An Arab chief, with a caravan bound east,
was in the place, and told him that he had met Livingstone at Ujiji, and
had lived in the next hut to him for two weeks. He described him as
looking old, with long, gray mustache and beard, just recovered from
illness, and looking very wan. He said, moreover, that he was fully
recovered, and was going to visit a country called Monyima. This was
cheering news, indeed, and filled Stanley's heart with joy and hope. The
valley here, with its rich crops of Indian corn, was more like some
parts of the fertile west than a desert country. But the character of
the natives began to change. They became more insolent and brutal, and
accompanied their requests with threats.

Continuing their journey along the valley of the river, they suddenly,
to their astonishment, came upon a walled town containing a thousand
houses. It rose before them like an apparition with its gates and towers
of stone and double row of loop-holes for musketry. The fame of Stanley
had preceded him, being carried by the caravans he had dispatched ahead,
and a thousand or more of the inhabitants came out to see him. This
fortified town was established by an adventurer famous for his
kidnapping propensities. A barbaric orator, a man of powerful strength
and of cunning address, he naturally acquired an ascendency over the
rude tribes of the region, and built him a capital, and fortified it and
became a self-appointed sultan. Growing old, he changed his name, which
had been a terror to the surrounding tribes, and also the name of his
capital, and just before death, bequeathed his power to his eldest
daughter, and in her honor named the town _Sultana_, which name it
still bears. The women and children hung on the rear of Stanley's
caravan, filled with strange curiosity at sight of this first white man
they had ever seen, but the scorching sun drove them back one by one,
and when Stanley pitched his camp, four miles farther on, he was
unattended. He determined to halt here for two days to overhaul his
baggage and give the donkeys, whose backs had become sore, time to
recuperate. On the second day, he was attacked with the African fever,
similar to the chills and fever of the west and southwest. He at once
applied the remedies used in the Western States, using powerful doses of
quinine, and in three days he pronounced himself well again.



CHAPTER IV.

WILD EXPERIENCES.


Stanley had now traveled one hundred and nineteen miles in fourteen
marches, occupying one entire month lacking one day, and making, on an
average, four miles a day. This was slow work. The rainy season now set
in, and day after day it was a regular down-pour. Stanley was compelled
to halt, while disgusting insects, beetles, bugs, wasps, centipedes,
worms and almost every form of the lower animal life, took possession of
his tent, and gave him the first real taste of African life.

On the morning of the 23d of April, he says the rain held up for a short
time and he prepared to cross the river, now swollen and turbid. The
bridge over which he carried his baggage was of the most primitive kind,
while the donkeys had to swim. The passage occupied five hours, yet it
was happily accomplished without any casualties. Reloading his baggage
and wringing out his clothes, he set out again, leaving the river and
following a path that led off in a northerly direction.

With his heart light and cheerful by being once more on the march and
out of the damp and hateful valley, which was made still more hateful
by the disgusting insect life that filled his tent, he ascended to
higher ground, and passed with his caravan through successive glades,
which opened one after another between forest clumps of trees hemmed in
distantly by isolated peaks and scattered mountains. "Now and then," he
says, "as we crested low eminences, we caught sight of the blue Usagara
Mountains, bounding the horizon westerly and northerly, and looked down
on a vast expanse of plain which lay between. At the foot of the lengthy
slope, well watered by bubbling springs and mountain rills, we found a
comfortable Khembi with well-made huts, which the natives call Simbo. It
lies just two hours, or five miles, northwest from the Ungerengeri
crossing."

We here get incidentally the rapidity with which he traveled, where the
face of the country and the roads gave him the greatest facilities for
quick marching, two "hours or five miles," he says, which makes his best
time two and a half miles an hour. In this open, beautiful country no
villages or settlements could be seen, though he was told there were
many in the mountain inclosures, the inhabitants of which were false,
dishonest and murderous.

On the morning of the 24th, as they were about to leave, Simbo, his Arab
cook, was caught for the fifth time pilfering, and it being proved
against him, Stanley ordered a dozen lashes to be inflicted on him as a
punishment, and Shaw was ordered to administer them. The blows being
given through his clothes, did not hurt him much, but the stern decree
that he, with his donkey and baggage, should be expelled from camp and
turned adrift in the forests of Africa, drove him wild, and leaving
donkey and everything else, he rushed out of camp and started for the
mountains. Stanley, wishing only to frighten him, and having no idea of
leaving the poor fellow to perish at the hands of the natives, sent a
couple of his men to recall him. But it was of no use; the poor,
frightened wretch kept on for the mountains, and was soon out of sight
altogether. Believing he would think better of it and return, his donkey
was tied to a tree near the camping-ground, and the caravan started
forward and having passed through the Makata Valley, which afterward
became of sorrowful memory, it halted at Rehenneko at the base of the
Usagara Mountains.

This valley is a wilderness covered with bamboo, and palm, and other
trees, with but one village on its broad expanse, through which the
hartbeest, the antelope and the zebra roam. In the lower portions, the
mud was so deep that it took ten hours to go ten miles, and the company
was compelled to encamp in the woods when but half-way across. Bombay
with the cart did not get in till near midnight, and he brought the
dolorous tale that he had lost the property-tent, an axe, besides coats,
shirts, beads, cloth, pistol and hatchet and powder. He said he had
left them a little while that he might help lift the cart out of a
mud-hole and during his absence they disappeared. This told to Stanley
at midnight roused all his wrath, and he poured a perfect storm of abuse
on the cringing Arab, and he took occasion to overhaul his conduct from
the start. The cloth if ever found, he said, would be spoiled, the axe,
which would be needed at Ujiji to construct a boat, was an irreparable
loss, to say nothing of the pistol, powder and hatchet, and worse than
all, he had not brought back the cook, whom he knew there was no
intention to abandon, and Stanley then and there told him he would
degrade him from office and put another man in his place, and then
dismissed him, with orders to return at daylight and find the missing
property. Four more were now dispatched after the missing cook, and
Stanley halted three days to wait the return of his men. In the
meantime, provisions ran low, and though there was plenty of game, it
was so wild that but little could be obtained, he being able to secure
but two potfuls in two days' shooting, but these were quail, grouse and
pigeons. On the fourth day, becoming exceedingly anxious, he dispatched
Shaw and two more soldiers after the missing men. Toward night he
returned, sick with ague, bringing the soldiers with him, but not the
missing cook. The soldiers reported that they had marched immediately
back to Simbo and having searched in vain in the vicinity for the
missing man, they went to the bridge over the river to inquire there.
They were told, so they said, that a white donkey had crossed the river
in another place driven by some Washensi. Believing the cook had been
murdered by those men who were making off with his property, they
hastened to the walled town and told the warriors of the western gate
that two Washensi, who had murdered a man belonging to the white man,
must have passed the place, with a white donkey. They were immediately
conducted to the sultana, who had much of the spirit of her father, to
whom they told their story. Of the results, Stanley says:

"The sultana demanded of the watchmen of the towers if they had seen the
two Washensi with the white donkey. The watchmen answered in the
affirmative, upon which she at once dispatched twenty of her musketeers
in pursuit to Muhalleh. These returned before night, bringing with them
the two Washensi and the donkey, with the cook's entire kit. The
sultana, who is evidently possessed of her father's energy, with all his
lust for wealth, had my messengers, the two Washensi, the cook's donkey
and property at once brought before her. The two Washensi were
questioned as to how they became possessed of the donkey and such a
store of Kisunga clothes, cloth and beads; to which they answered that
they had found the donkey tied to a tree with the property on the
ground close to it; that seeing no owner or claimant anywhere in the
neighborhood, they thought they had a right to it, and accordingly had
taken it with them. My soldiers were then asked if they recognized the
donkey and property, to which questions they unhesitatingly made answer
that they did. They further informed Her Highness that they were not
only sent after the donkey, but also after the owner, who had deserted
their master's service; that they would like to know from the Washensi
what they had done with him. Her Highness was also anxious to know what
the Washensi had done with the Hindi, and accordingly, in order to
elicit the fact, she charged them with murdering him, and informed them
she but wished to know what they had done with the body.

"The Washensi declared most earnestly that they had spoken the truth,
that they had never seen any such man as described; and if the sultana
desired, they would swear to such a statement. Her Highness did not wish
them to swear to what in her heart she believed to be a lie, but she
would chain them and send them in charge of a caravan to Zanzibar to
Lyed Burghosh, who would know what to do with them. Then turning to my
soldiers, she demanded to know why the Musungu had not paid the tribute
for which she had sent her chiefs. The soldiers could not answer,
knowing nothing of such concerns of their master's. The heiress of
Kisabengo, true to the character of her robber sire, then informed my
trembling men that, as the Musungu had not paid the tribute, she would
now take it; their guns should be taken from them, together with that of
the cook; the cloth and beads found on the donkey she would also take,
the Hindi's personal clothes her chiefs should retain, while they
themselves should be chained until the Musungu himself should return and
take them by force.

"And as she threatened, so was it done. For sixteen hours my soldiers
were in chains in the market-place, exposed to the taunts of the servile
populace. It chanced the next day, however, that Sheikh Thani, whom I
met at Kingaru, and had since passed by five days, had arrived at
Limbamwanni, and proceeding to the town to purchase provisions for the
crossing of the Makata wilderness, saw my men in chains and at once
recognized them as being in my employ. After hearing their story, the
good-hearted sheikh sought the presence of the sultana, and informed her
that she was doing very wrong--a wrong that could only terminate in
blood. 'The Musungu is strong,' he said, 'very strong. He has got ten
guns which shoot forty times without stopping, carrying bullets half an
hour's distance; he has got several guns which carry bullets that burst
and tear a man in pieces. He could go to the top of that mountain and
kill every man, woman and child in the town before one of your soldiers
could reach the top. The road will then be stopped, Lyed Burghosh will
march against your country, the Wadoe and Wakami will come and take
revenge on what is left; and the place that your father made so strong
will know the Waseguhha no more. Set free the Musungu's soldiers; give
them their food and grain for the Musungu; return the guns to the men
and let them go, for the white man may even now be on his way here.'

"The exaggerated report of my power, and the dread picture sketched by
the Arab sheikh, produced good effect, inasmuch as Kingaru and the
Mabrukis were at once released from durance, furnished with food
sufficient to last our caravan four days, and one gun with its
accoutrements and stock of bullets and powder, was returned, as well as
the cook's donkey, with a pair of spectacles, a book in Malabar print
and an old hat which belonged to one whom we all now believed to be
dead. The sheikh took charge of the soldiers as far as Simbo; and it was
in his camp, partaking largely of rice and ghee, that Shaw found them,
and the same bountiful hospitality was extended to him and his
companions."

Stanley was now filled with keen regrets for the manner in which he had
punished the cook, and mentally he resolved that no matter what a member
of his caravan should do in the future he would never drive him out of
camp to perish by assassins. Still he would not yet believe that the man
was murdered. But he was furious at the treatment of his soldiers by the
black Amazon of Limbamwanni, and the tribute she exacted, especially at
the seizure of the guns, and if he had been near the place would have
made reprisals. But he had already lost four days, and so, next morning,
although the rain was coming down in torrents, he broke camp and set
forth. Shaw was still sick, and so the whole duty of driving the
floundering caravan devolved upon himself. As fast as one was flogged
out of the mire in which he had stuck, another would fall in. It took
two hours to cross the miry plain, though it was but a mile and a half
wide. He was congratulating himself on having at last got over it, when
he was confronted by a ditch which the heavy rains had converted into a
stream breast deep. The donkeys had all to be unloaded, and led through
the torrent, and loaded again on the farther side. They had hardly got
under way when they came upon another stream, so deep that it could not
be forded, over which they had to swim, and float across their baggage.
They then floundered on until they came to a bend of the river, where
they pitched their camp, having made but six miles the whole day. This
River Makata is only about forty feet in width in the dry season, but at
this time it was a wide, turbid stream. Its shores, with its matted
grass, decayed vegetable matter and reeking mists, seemed the very home
of the ague and fever. It took five hours to cross it the next morning.
The rain then came down in such torrents that traveling became
impossible, and the camp was pitched. Luckily this proved the last day
of the rainy season.

It was now the 1st of May, and the expedition was in a pitiable plight.
Shaw was still sick, and one man was down with the small-pox. Bombay,
too, was sick, and others complaining. Doctoring the sick as well as he
knew how, and laying the whip lustily on the backs of those who were
shamming, Stanley at length got his caravan in motion and began to cross
the Makata plain, now a swamp thirty-five miles broad. It was plash,
plash, through the water in some places three or four feet deep, for two
days, until they came in sight of the Rudewa River. Crossing a branch of
this stream, a sheet of water five miles broad stretched out before the
tired caravan. The men declared it could not be crossed, but Stanley
determined to try, and after five hours of the most prostrating effort
they reached dry ground. The animals, however, began to sicken from this
day on, while Stanley himself was seized with dysentery caused by his
exposure, and was brought to the verge of the grave. The expedition
seemed about to end there on the borders of the Makata swamp.

On the 4th, they came to the important village of Rehenneko, the first
near which they had encamped since entering the district of Usagara. It
was a square, compact village, of about one thousand inhabitants,
surrounded by a mud wall and composed of cane-topped huts, which the
natives moved from place to place at pleasure. The peculiar ceremonies
of the queen's court were very interesting to witness. They rested here
four days to recruit. On the 8th, they started forward and began to
ascend the mountain. Having reached the summit of the first range of
hills, Stanley paused to survey the enchanting prospect. The broad
valley of Makata stretched out before him, laced with streams sparkling
in the sun, while over it waved countless palm-trees, and far away, blue
in the distance, stretched a mighty range of mountains. "Turning our
faces west," he says, "we found ourselves in a mountain world, fold
rising above fold, peak behind peak, cone jostling cone; away to the
north, to the west, to the south, the mountain tops rolled away like so
many vitrified waves, not one adust or arid spot was visible in all this
scene."

[Illustration: CEREMONIES OF THE QUEEN'S COURT.

As witnessed in the village of Rehenneko, in the district of Usagara.]

The change from the pestilential swamps, through which they had been so
long floundering, was most grateful, but the animals suffered greatly,
and before they reached their first camping-ground, two had given out.
The 9th, they descended into the valley of Mukondokno, and there struck
the road traversed by Speke and Burton in 1817. Reaching the dirty
village, Kiora, Stanley found there his third caravan, led by Farquhar.
By his debaucheries on the way he had made himself sick and brought his
caravan into a sad condition. As he heard Stanley's voice, he came
staggering out of his tent, a bloated mass of human flesh that never
would have been recognized as the trim mate of the vessel that brought
Stanley from India. After he examined him as to the cause of his
illness, he questioned him about the condition of the property intrusted
to his care. Not able to get an intelligent answer out of him, he
resolved to overhaul the baggage. On examination, he found that he had
spent enough for provisions on which to gormandize to have lasted eight
months, and yet he had been on the route but two and a half months. If
Stanley had not overtaken him, everything would have been squandered,
and of all the bales of cloth he was to take to Unyanyembe not one bale
would have been left. Stanley was sorely puzzled what to do with the
miserable man. He would die if left at Kiora; he could not walk or ride
far, and to carry him seemed well-nigh impossible.

On the 11th, however, the two caravans started forward, leaving Shaw to
follow with one of the men. But he lagged behind, and had not reached
the camp when it was roused next morning. Stanley at once dispatched two
donkeys, one for the load that was on the cart and the other for Shaw,
and with the messenger the following note: "_You will, upon the receipt
of this order, pitch the cart into the nearest ravine, gully or river,
as well as all the extra pack saddles; and come at once, for God's sake,
for we must not starve here._" After waiting four hours, he went back
himself and met them, the carrier with the cart on his head, and Shaw on
the donkey, apparently ready, at the least jolt, to tumble off. They,
however, pushed on, and arrived at Madete at four o'clock. Crossing the
river about three, and keeping on, they, on the 14th, from the top of a
hill caught sight of Lake Ugenlo. The outline of it, he says, resembles
England without Wales. It is some three miles long by two wide, and is
the abode of great numbers of hippopotami, while the buffalo, zebra,
boar and antelope come here by night to quench their thirst. Its bosom
is covered with wild fowl of every description. Being obliged to halt
here two days on account of the desertion of the cooper, with one of the
carbines, Stanley explored the lake, and tried several shots at the
lumbering hippopotami without effect.

[Illustration: SHOOTING HIPPOPOTAMI NEAR LAKE UGENLO.]

The deserter having returned of his own free will, the caravan started
forward, cursed by the slow progress of the peevish, profane and violent
Shaw. The next day at breakfast, a scene occurred that threatened
serious consequences. When Shaw and Farquhar took their places, Stanley
saw by their looks that something was wrong. The breakfast was a roast
quarter of goat, stewed liver, some sweet potatoes, pancakes and coffee.
"Shaw," said Stanley, "please carve and serve Farquhar." Instead of
doing so, he exclaimed, in an insulting tone, "What dog's meat is this?"
"What do you mean?" demanded Stanley. "I mean," replied the fellow,
"that it is a downright shame the way you treat us," and then he
complained of being compelled to walk and help himself, instead of
having servants to wait upon him as he was promised. All this was said
in a loud, defiant tone, interlarded with frequent oaths and curses of
the "damned expedition," etc. When he had got through, Stanley, fixing
his black, resolute eye on him, said: "Listen to me, Shaw, and you,
Farquhar, ever since you left the coast have had donkeys to ride. You
have had servants to wait upon you; your tents have been set up for you;
your meals have been cooked for you; you have eaten with me of the same
food I have eaten; you have received the same treatment I have received.
But now all Farquhar's donkeys are dead; seven of my own have died, and
I have had to throw away a few things, in order to procure carriage for
the most important goods. Farquhar is too sick to walk, he must have a
donkey to ride; in a few days all our animals will be dead, after which
I must have over twenty more pagosi to take up the goods or wait weeks
and weeks for carriage. Yet, in the face of these things, you can
grumble, and curse, and swear at me at my own table. Have you considered
well your position? Do you realize where you are? Do you know that you
are my servant, sir, not my companion?"

"Servant, be ----" said he.

Just before Mr. Shaw could finish his sentence he had measured his
length on the ground.

"Is it necessary for me to proceed further to teach you?" said Stanley.

"I tell you what it is, sir," he said, raising himself up, "I think I
had better go back. I have had enough, and I do not mean to go any
farther with you. I ask my discharge from you."

"Oh, certainly. What--who is there? Bombay, come here."

After Bombay's appearance at the tent-door, Stanley said to him: "Strike
this man's tent," pointing to Shaw; "he wants to go back. Bring his gun
and pistol here to my tent, and take this man and his baggage two
hundred yards outside of the camp, and there leave him."

In a few minutes his tent was down, his gun and pistol in Stanley's
tent, and Bombay returned to make his report, with four men under arms.

"Now go, sir. You are at perfect liberty to go. These men will escort
you outside of camp, and there leave you and your baggage."

He walked out, the men escorting him and carrying his baggage for him.

After breakfast, Stanley explained to Farquhar how necessary it was to
be able to proceed; that he had had plenty of trouble, without having to
think of men who were employed to think of him and their duties; that,
as he (Farquhar) was sick, and would be probably unable to march for a
time, it would be better to leave him in some quiet place, under the
care of a good chief, who would, for a consideration, look after him
until he got well. To all of which Farquhar agreed.

Stanley had barely finished speaking before Bombay came to the
tent-door, saying: "Shaw would like to speak to you."

Stanley went out to the door of the camp, and there met Shaw, looking
extremely penitent and ashamed. He commenced to ask pardon, and began
imploring to be taken back, and promising that occasion to find fault
with him again should never arise.

Stanley held out his hand, saying: "Don't mention it, my dear fellow.
Quarrels occur in the best of families. Since you apologize, there is an
end of it."

That night, as Stanley was about falling asleep, he heard a shot, and a
bullet tore through the tent a few inches above his body. He snatched
his revolver and rushed out from the tent, and asked the men around the
watch-fires, "Who shot?" They had all jumped up, rather startled by the
sudden report.

"Who fired that gun?"

One said the "Bana Mdogo"--little master.

Stanley lit a candle and walked with it to Shaw's tent.

"Shaw, did you fire?"

There was no answer. He seemed to be asleep, he was breathing so hard.

"Shaw! Shaw! did you fire that shot?"

"Eh--eh?" said he, suddenly awakening; "me?--me fire? I have been
asleep."

Stanley's eye caught sight of his gun lying near him. He seized it--felt
it--put his little finger down the barrel. The gun was warm; his finger
was black from the burnt gunpowder.

"What is this?" he asked, holding his finger up; "the gun is warm; the
men tell me you fired."

"Ah--yes," he replied, "I remember it. I dreamed I saw a thief pass my
door, and I fired. Ah--yes--I forgot, I did fire. Why, what's the
matter?"

"Oh, nothing," said Stanley. "But I would advise you, in future, in
order to avoid all suspicion, not to fire into my tent; or, at least, so
near me. I might get hurt, you know, in which case ugly reports would
get about, and that, perhaps, would be disagreeable, as you are probably
aware. Good-night."

All had their thoughts about this matter, but Stanley never uttered a
word about it to any one until he met Livingstone. The doctor embodied
his suspicions in the words: "He intended murder!"

Mr. Livingstone was evidently right in his conjecture, and Mr. Stanley
wrong about the intent of Shaw. In the first place, the coincidence in
time between the punishment inflicted on Shaw and this extraordinary
shot, in which the ball took the still more extraordinary direction of
going through Stanley's tent, that is, to say the least, very difficult
to explain. In the second place, his drowsy condition when questioned,
and finally remembering so much as that he dreamed a thief was passing
his door, _is more_ than suspicious. The fact that, as Mr. Stanley says,
he could have had much better opportunities of killing him than this, we
regard of very little weight. Opportunities that are absolutely
_certain_ of success without suspicion or detection, are not so common
as many suppose. Besides, an opportunity so good that the would-be
murderer could desire nothing better might occur, and yet the shot or
stab not prove fatal. In this case it doubtless never occurred to this
man that any one would run his finger down his gun-barrel to see if it
was hot from a recent discharge, while no man could tell, in the middle
of the night, who fired the shot. It is true, that the wretch knew that
the chances were against such a random fire proving fatal, but he knew
it was better to take them than the almost certain discovery if he
adopted any other method. If, for instance, he had in a lonely place
fired at Stanley and the shot had not proved mortal, or if mortal, not
immediately so, he well knew what would have been his fate, in the heart
of Africa, where justice is administered without the form of law.

On the 16th of May the little caravan started off again, and after a
march of fifteen miles, camped at Matamombo, in a region where monkeys,
rhinoceros, steinboks and antelopes abounded. The next day's march
extended fifteen miles, and was through an almost impenetrable jungle.
Here he came upon the old Arab sheikh, Thani, who gave him the following
good advice: "Stop here two or three days, give your tired animals some
rest, and collect all the carriers you can; fill your insides with fresh
milk, sweet potatoes, beef, mutton, ghee, honey, beans, matama, madeira
nuts, and then, Inshalla! we shall go through Ugogo without stopping
anywhere." Stanley was sensible enough to take this advice. He at once
commenced on this certainly very prodigal bill of fare for Central
Africa. How it agreed with him after the short trial of a single day,
may be inferred from the following entry in his diary:

"Thank God! after fifty-seven days of living upon matama porridge and
tough goat, I have enjoyed with unctuous satisfaction a real breakfast
and a good dinner."

Here upon the Mpwapwa, he found a place to leave the Scotchman,
Farquhar, until he should be strong enough to join him at Unyanyembe.
But when he proposed this to the friendly chief, he would consent only
on the condition that he would leave one of his own men behind to take
care of him. This complicated matters, not only because he could not
well spare a man, but because it would be difficult to find one who
would consent to undertake this difficult task. This man, whom Stanley
had thought would be a reliable friend and a good companion in his long,
desolate marches, had turned out a burden and a nuisance. His wants were
almost endless, and instead of using the few words in the language of
the natives to make them known, he would use nothing but the strongest
Anglo-Saxon, and when he found he was not understood, would fall to
cursing in equally good round English oaths, and if the astonished
natives did not understand this, relapse into regular John Bull
sullenness. When, therefore, Stanley opened up the subject to Bombay,
the latter was horrified. He said the men had made a contract to go
through, not to stop by the way; and when Stanley, in despair, turned to
the men, they one and all refused absolutely to remain behind with the
cursing, unreasonable white man, one of them mimicking his absurd
conduct so completely, that Stanley himself could not help laughing. But
the man must be left behind, and somebody must take care of him; and so
Stanley had to use his authority, and notwithstanding all his
protestations and entreaties, Sako, the only one who could speak
English, was ordered to stay.

Having engaged twelve new carriers, and from the nearest mountain summit
obtained an entrancing view of the surrounding region for a hundred
miles, he prepared to start, but not before, notwithstanding the good
milk it furnished, giving Mpwapwa a thorough malediction for its
earwigs. "In my tent," he says, "they might be counted by thousands; in
my slung cot by hundreds; on my clothes they were by fifties; on my neck
and head they were by scores. The several plagues of locusts, fleas and
lice sink into utter insignificance compared with this damnable one of
earwigs." Their presence drove him almost insane. Next to these come the
white ants, that threatened in a short time to eat up every article of
baggage.

He now pushed on toward the Ugogo district, famous for the tribute it
exacted from all caravans.



CHAPTER V.

TRIALS BY THE WAY.


On the 22d of May the two other caravans of Stanley joined him, only
three hours' march from Mpwapwa, so that the one caravan numbered some
four hundred souls, but it was none too large to insure a safe transit
through dreaded Ugogo. A waterless desert thirty miles across, and which
it would take seventeen hours to traverse, now lay before them. On the
way, Stanley was struck down with fever and, borne along in a hammock,
was indifferent to the herds of giraffes, and zebras, and antelopes that
scoured the desert plain around him. The next morning the fever had left
him and mounting, he rode at the head of his caravan, and at 8 A. M. had
passed the sterile wilderness and entered the Ugogo district. He had now
come into a land of plenty, but one also of extortion. The tribute that
all passing caravans had to pay to the chiefs or sultans of this
district was enormous. At the first village the appearance of this white
man caused an indescribable uproar. The people came pouring out, men and
women, naked, yelling, shouting, quarreling and fighting, making it a
perfect babel around Stanley, who became irritated at this unseemly
demonstration. But it was of no use. One of his men asked them to stop,
but the only reply was "_shut up_," in good native language. Stanley,
however, was soon oblivious of their curiosity or noise, as heavy doses
of quinine to check a chill sent him off into a half doze.

The next day, a march of eight miles brought him to the sultan of the
district. Report did not exaggerate the abundance of provisions to be
found here. Now came the pay of tribute to the exorbitant chief. After a
great deal of parley, which was irritating and often childish, Stanley
satisfied the sultan's greed, and on the 27th of May he shook the dust
of the place from his feet and pushed westward. As he passed the
thickly-scattered villages and plenteous fields, filled with tillers, he
did not wonder at the haughty bearing of the sultan, for he could
command force enough to rob and destroy every caravan that passed that
way. Twenty-seven villages lined the road to the next sultan's district,
Matomhiru. This sultan was a modern Hercules, with head and shoulders
that belonged to a giant. He proved, however, to be a much more
reasonable man than the last sultan, and, after a little speechifying,
the tribute was paid and the caravan moved off toward Bihawena. The day
was hot, the land sterile, crossed with many jungles, which made the
march slow and difficult. In the midst of this desolate plain were the
villages of the tribe, their huts no higher than the dry, bleached
grass that stood glimmering in the heat of the noonday sun. Here he was
visited by three natives, who endeavored to play a sharp game on him,
which so enraged Stanley that he would have flogged them out of camp
with his whip, but one of his men told him to beware, for every blow
would cost three or four yards of cloth. Not willing to pay so dearly to
gratify his temper he forbore. The sultan was moderate in his demands,
and from him he received news from his fourth caravan, which was in
advance, and had had a fight with some robbers, killing two of them.

The water here was so vile that two donkeys died from drinking of it,
while the men could hardly swallow it. Stanley, nervous and weak from
fever, paid the extravagant tributes demanded of him, without
altercation. From here to the next sultan was a long stretch of forest,
filled with elephants, rhinoceros, zebras, deer, etc. But they had no
time to stop and hunt. At noon they had left the last water they should
find until noon of the next day, even with sharp marching, and hence, no
delay could be permitted. The men without tents bivouacked under the
trees, while Stanley tossed and groaned all night in a paroxysm of
fever, but his courage in no way weakened. At dawn the caravan started
off through the dark forest, in which one of the carriers fell sick and
died.

At 7 A. M. they drew near Nyambwa, where excellent water was found. The
villagers here crowded around them with shouts and yells, and finally
became so insolent that Stanley grabbed one of them by the neck and gave
him a sound thrashing with his donkey-whip. This enraged them, and they
walked backward and forward like angry tom-cats, shouting, "Are the
Wagogo to be beaten like slaves?" and they seemed by their ferocious
manner determined to avenge their comrade, but the moment Stanley raised
his whip and advanced they scattered. Finding that the long lash, which
cracked like a pistol, had a wholesome effect, whenever they crowded
upon him so as to impede his progress, he laid it about him without
mercy, which soon cleared a path.

The Sultan Kimberah was a small, queer and dirty old man, a great
drunkard, and yet the most powerful of all the Ugogo chiefs. Here they
had considerable trouble in arranging the amount of tribute, but at
length everything was settled and the caravan passed on and entered on a
vast salt plain containing a hundred or more square miles, from the salt
springs of which the Wagogo obtained their salt. At Mizarza, the next
camping-place, Stanley was compelled to halt and doctor himself for the
fever which was wearing him to skin and bones. Early in the morning he
began to take his quinine, and kept repeating the doses at short
intervals until a copious perspiration told him he had broken the fever
which had been consuming him for fourteen days. During this time, the
sultan of the district, attracted by Stanley's lofty tent, with the
American flag floating above it, visited him. He was so astonished at
the loftiness and furnishing of the tent, that in his surprise he let
fall the loose cloth that hung from his shoulders and stood stark naked
in front of Stanley, gaping in mute wonder. Admonished by his son--a lad
fifteen years old--he resumed his garb and sat down to talk. Stanley
showed him his rifles and other fire-arms, which astonished him beyond
measure.

On the 4th of June, the caravan was started forward again, and after
three hours' march it came upon another district, containing only two
villages occupied by pastoral Wahumba and Wahehe. These live in cow-dung
cone huts, shaped like Tartar tents. Stanley says:

"The Wahumba, so far as I have seen them, are a fine and well-formed
race. The men are positively handsome, tall, with small heads, the
posterior parts of which project considerably. One will look in vain for
a thick lip or flat nose amongst them; on the contrary, the mouth is
exceedingly well cut, delicately small; the nose is that of the Greeks,
and so universal was the peculiar feature, that I at once named them the
Greeks of Africa. Their lower limbs have not the heaviness of the Wagogo
and other tribes, but are long and shapely, clean as those of an
antelope. Their necks are long and slender, on which their small heads
are poised most gracefully. Athletes from their youth, shepherd bred,
and intermarrying among themselves, thus keeping the race pure, any of
them would form a fit subject for a sculptor who would wish to
immortalize in marble an Antrinus, a Hylas, a Daphnis, or an Apollo. The
women are as beautiful as the men are handsome. They have clear ebon
skins, not coal black, but of an inky hue. Their ornaments consist of
spiral rings of brass pendent from the ears, brass ring collars about
the neck, and a spiral cincture of brass wire about their loins, for the
purpose of retaining their calf and goat skins, which are folded about
their bodies, and depending from the shoulder, shade one-half of the
bosom, and fall to the knees.

"The Wahehe may be styled the Romans of Africa.

"Resuming our march, after a halt of an hour, in four hours more we
arrived at Mukondoku proper.

"This extremity of Ugogo is most populous. The villages which surround
the central tembe, where the Sultan Swaruru lives, amount to thirty-six.
The people who flocked from these to see the wonderful men whose faces
were white who wore the most wonderful things on their persons, and
possessed the most wonderful weapons: guns which 'bum-bummed' as fast
as you could count on your fingers, formed such a mob of howling
savages, that I, for an instant, thought there was something besides
mere curiosity which caused such a commotion, and attracted such numbers
to the roadside. Halting, I asked what was the matter, and what they
wanted, and why they made such a noise? One burly rascal, taking my
words for a declaration of hostilities, promptly drew his bow, but as
prompt as he had fixed his arrow my faithful Winchester with thirteen
shots in the magazine was ready and at my shoulder, and but waited to
see the arrow fly to pour the leaden messengers of death into the crowd.
But the crowd vanished as quickly as they had come, leaving the burly
Thersites, and two or three irresolute fellows of his tribe, standing
within pistol range of my leveled rifle. Such a sudden dispersion of the
mob which, but a moment before, was overwhelming, caused me to lower my
rifle and indulge in a hearty laugh at the disgraceful flight of the
men-destroyers. The Arabs, who were as much alarmed at their boisterous
obtrusiveness, now came up to patch a truce, in which they succeeded to
everybody's satisfaction.

"A few words of explanation, and the mob came back in greater numbers
than before; and the Thersites who had been the cause of the momentary
disturbance were obliged to retire abashed before the pressure of public
opinion. A chief now came up, whom I afterwards learned was the second
man to Swaruru, and lectured the people upon their treatment of the
'white strangers.'"

The tribute-money was easily settled here. On the 7th of June, the route
was resumed. There were three roads leading to Uyanzi, and which of the
three to take caused long discussion and much quarreling, and when
Stanley settled the matter and the caravan started off on the road to
Kiti, an attempt was made to direct it to another road, which Stanley
soon discovered and prevented only by his prompt resort to physical
arguments.

At last they reached the borders of Uyanzi, glad to be clear of the land
of Ugogo, said to be flowing with milk and honey but which had proved to
Stanley a land of gall and bitterness. The forest they entered was a
welcome change from the villages of the Ugogo, and two hours after
leaving them they came, with the merry sound of horns, to a river in a
new district. Continuing on, they made the forest ring with cheers, and
shouts, and native songs. The country was beautiful, and the scenery
more like cultivated England in former times than barbaric Africa.

Passing thus merrily on, they had made twenty miles by five o'clock. At
one o'clock next morning the camp was roused, and by the light of the
moon the march was resumed, and at three o'clock they arrived at a
village to rest till dawn. They had reached a land of plenty and fared
well. Kiti was entered on the 10th of June. Here cattle and grain could
be procured in abundance.

A valley fifteen miles distant was the next camp, and a march of three
hours and a half brought them to another village, where provisions were
very cheap. They were now approaching Unyanyembe, their first great
stopping-place, and where the term of service of many of Stanley's men
expired. They marched rapidly now,--to-day through grain-fields,
to-morrow past burnt villages, the wreck of bloody wars.

At last, with banners flying and trumpets and horns blowing, and amid
volleys of small arms, the caravan entered Unyanyembe.

Of the three routes from the coast to this place, Stanley discarded the
two that had before been traveled by Speke and Burton and Grant and
chose the third, with the originality of an American, and thus saved
nearly two hundred miles' travel.

Mr. Stanley, after reaching this first great objective point, goes back
and gives a general description of the regions he has traversed. To the
geographer, it may be of interest, but not to the general reader. But
the following, taken from his long account, will give the reader a clear
idea of the country traversed and of its inhabitants. Beginning with
Wiami River, emptying into the Indian Ocean near Zanzibar, he says:

"First it appears to me that the Wiami River is available for commerce
and, by a little improvement, could be navigated by light-draft steamers
near to the Usagara Mountains, the healthy region of this part of
Africa, and which could be reached by steamers in four days from the
coast, and then it takes one into a country where ivory, sugar, cotton,
indigo and other productions can be obtained."

Besides, he says:

"Four days by steamer bring the missionary to the healthy uplands of
Africa, where he can live amongst the gentle Wasagara without fear or
alarm; where he can enjoy the luxuries of civilized life without fear of
being deprived of them, amid the most beautiful and picturesque scenes a
poetic fancy could imagine. Here is the greenest verdure, purest water;
here are valleys teeming with grain-stalks, forests of tamarind, mimosa,
gum-copal tree; here is the gigantic moule, the stately mparamnsi, the
beautiful palm; a scene such as only a tropic sky covers. Health and
abundance of food are assured to the missionary; gentle people are at
his feet, ready to welcome him. Except civilized society, nothing that
the soul of man can desire is lacking here.

"From the village of Kadetamare a score of admirable mission sites are
available, with fine health-giving breezes blowing over them, water in
abundance at their feet, fertility unsurpassed around them, with docile,
good-tempered people dwelling everywhere at peace with each other, and
with all travelers and neighbors.

"As the passes of the Olympus unlocked the gates of the Eastern empires
to the hordes of Othman; as the passes of Kumaylé and Sura admitted the
British into Abyssinia; so the passes of the Mukondokwa may admit the
Gospel and its beneficent influences into the heart of savage Africa.

"I can fancy old Kadetamare rubbing his hands with glee at the sight of
the white man coming to teach his people the words of the 'Mulungu'--the
Sky Spirit; how to sow, and reap, and build houses; how to cure their
sick, how to make themselves comfortable--in short, how to be civilized.
But the missionary, to be successful, must know his duties as well as a
thorough sailor must know how to reef, hand and steer. He must be no
kid-glove, effeminate man, no journal writer, no disputatious polemic,
no silken stole and chasuble-loving priest, but a thorough, earnest
laborer in the garden of the Lord,--a man of the David Livingstone, or
of the Robert Moffatt stamp.

"The other river, the Rufiji, or Ruhwha, is a still more important
stream than Wiami. It is a much longer river, and discharges twice as
much water into the Indian Ocean. It rises near some mountains about one
hundred miles southwest of Nbena. Kisigo River, the most northern and
most important affluent of the Ruhwha, is supposed to flow into it near
east longitude thirty-five degrees; from the confluence to the sea, the
Ruhwha has a length of four degrees of direct longitude. This fact, of
itself, must prove its importance and rank among the rivers of East
Africa.

"After Zanzibar, our _début_ into Africa is made _via_ Bagomayo. At this
place we may see Wangindo, Wasawahili, Warori, Wagogo, Wanyamwezi,
Waseguhha and Wasagara; yet it would be a difficult task for any person,
at mere sight of their dresses or features, to note the differences.
Only by certain customs or distinctive marks, such as tattooing,
puncturing of the lobes of the ears, ornaments, wearing the hair, etc.,
which would appear, at first, too trivial to note, could one
discriminate between the various tribal representatives. There are
certainly differences, but not so varied or marked as they are reported.

"The Wasawahili, of course, through their intercourse with
semi-civilization, present us with a race, or tribe, influenced by a
state of semi-civilized society, and are, consequently, better dressed
and appear to better advantage than their more savage brethren farther
west. As it is said that underneath the Russian skin lies the Tartar, so
it may be said that underneath the snowy dish-dasheh, or shirt of the
Wasawahili, one will find the true barbarian. In the street or bazaar he
appears semi-Arabized; his suavity of manner, his prostrations and
genuflexions, the patois he speaks, all prove his contact and affinity
with the dominant race, whose subject he is. Once out of the coast
towns, in the Washensi villages, he sheds the shirt that had half
civilized him, and appears in all his deep blackness of skin,
prognathous jaws, thick lips--the pure negro and barbarian. Not keenest
eye could detect the difference between him and the Washensi, unless his
attention had been drawn to the fact that the two men were of different
tribes.

"The next tribe to which we are introduced are the Wakwere, who occupy a
limited extent of country between the Wazaramo and the Wadoe. They are
the first representatives of the pure barbarian the traveler meets, when
but two days' journey from the sea-coast. They are a timid tribe and a
very unlikely people to commence an attack upon any body of men for mere
plunder's sake. They have not a very good reputation among the Arab and
Wasawahili traders. They are said to be exceedingly dishonest, of which
I have not the least doubt. They furnished me with good grounds for
believing these reports while encamped at Kingaru, Hera and Imbiki. The
chiefs of the more eastern part of Ukwere profess nominal allegiance to
the Dwians of the Mrima. They have selected the densest jungles wherein
to establish their villages. Every entrance into one of their valleys is
jealously guarded by strong wooden gates, seldom over four and a half
feet high, and so narrow, sometimes, that one must enter sideways.

"These jungle islets which in particular dot the extent of Ukwere,
present formidable obstacles to a naked enemy. The plants, bushes and
young trees which form their natural defense, are generally of the
aloetic and thorny species, growing so dense, interlaced one with the
other, that the hardest and most desperate robber would not brave the
formidable array of sharp thorns which bristle everywhere.

"Some of these jungle islets are infested with gangs of banditti, who
seldom fail to take advantage of the weakness of a single wayfarer, more
especially if he be a Mgwana--a freeman of Zanzibar, as every negro
resident of the island of Zanzibar is distinguished by the Washensi
natives of the interior.

"I should estimate the population of Ukwere, allowing about one hundred
villages to this territory (which is not more than thirty miles square,
its bounds on the south being the Rufu River, and on the north the River
Wiami), at not more than five thousand souls. Were all these banded
together under the command of one chief, the Wakwere might become a
powerful tribe.

"After the Wakwere we come to the Wakami, a remnant of the once grand
nation which occupied the lands from the Ungerengeri to the Great
Makata River. Frequent wars with the Wadoe and Waseguhha have reduced
them to a narrow belt of country, ten rectilinear miles across, which
may be said to be comprised between Kiva Peak and the stony ridge
bounding the valley of the Ungerengeri on the east, within a couple of
miles from the east bank of the river.

"They are as numerous as bees in the Ungerengeri Valley. The unsurpassed
fertility has been a great inducement to retain for these people the
distinction of a tribe. By the means of a spyglass one may see, as he
stands on the top of that stony ridge looking down into the fair valley,
clusters of brown huts visible amid bosky clumps, fullness and plenty
all over the valley, and may count easily over a hundred villages.

"From Ukami, we pass Southern Udoe, and find a warlike, fine-looking
people, with a far more intelligent cast of features, and a shade
lighter than the Wakami and Wakwere--a people who are full of traditions
of race, a people who have boldly rushed to war upon the slightest
encroachment upon their territories, and who have bravely defended
themselves against the Waseguhha and Wakami, as well as against nomadic
marauders from Uhumba.

"Udoe, in appearance, is amongst the most picturesque countries between
the sea and Unyanyembe. Great cones shoot upward above the everlasting
forest, tipped by the light, fleecy clouds, through which the warm,
glowing sun darts its rays, bathing the whole in sunlight, which brings
out those globes of foliage, which rise in tier after tier to the
summits of the hills, colors which would mock the most ambitious
painter's efforts at imitation. Udoe first evokes the traveler's love of
natural beauty after leaving the sea, her roads lead him up along the
sharp spines of hilly ridges, whence he may look down upon the
forest-clad slopes, declining on either side of him into the depths of
deep valleys, to rise up beyond into aspiring cones which kiss the sky,
or into a high ridge with deep, concentric folds, which almost tempt one
to undergo much labor in exploring them for the provoking air of mystery
in which they seem to be enwrapped.

"What a tale this tribe could relate of the slave-trader's deeds.
Attacked by the joint forces of the Waseguhha from the west and north,
and the slave-traders of Whinde and Sa'adani from the east, the Wadoe
have seen their wives and little ones carried into slavery a hundred
times, and district after district taken from their country, and
attached to Useguhha. For the people of Useguhha were hired to attack
their neighbors, the Wadoe, by the Whinde slave-traders, and were also
armed with muskets and supplied with ammunition by them, to effect large
and repeated captures of Wadoe slaves. The people of this tribe,
especially women and children, so superior in physique and intelligence
to the servile races by which they were surrounded, were eagerly sought
for as concubines and domestics by the lustful Mohammedans.

"This tribe we first note to have distinctive tribal marks--by a line of
punctures extending lengthwise on each side of the face, and a chipping
of the two inner sides of the two middle teeth of the upper row.

"The arms of this tribe are similar to the arms of the Wakami and
Wakwere, and consist of a bow and arrows, a shield, a couple of light
spears or assegais, a long knife, a handy little battle-axe and a club
with a large knob at the end of it, which latter is dexterously swung at
the head of an enemy, inflicting a stunning and sometimes a fatal blow.

"Emerging from the forest of Mikeseh, we enter the territory of the
Waseguhha, or Wasegura, as the Arabs wrongly call this country. Useguhha
extends over two degrees in length, and its greatest breadth is ninety
geographical miles. It has two main divisions, that of Southern
Useguhha, from Uruguini to the Wiami River, and Northern Useguhha, under
the chieftain Moto, from the Wiami River to Umagassi and Usumbara.

"Mostly all the Waseguhha warriors are armed with muskets, and the Arabs
supply them with enough ammunition, in return for which they attack
Waruguru, Wadoe and Wakwenni, to obtain slaves for the Arab market, and
it is but five years since the Waseguhha organized a successful raid
into the very heart of the Wasagara Mountains, during which they
desolated the populated part of the Makata plain, capturing over five
hundred valuable slaves.

"Formerly wars in this country were caused by blood feuds between
different chiefs; they are now encouraged by the slave buyers of the
Mirma, for the purpose of supplying these human chattels for the market
of Zanzibar. The Waseguhha are about the most thorough believers in
witchcraft, yet the professors of this dark science fare badly at their
hands. It is a very common sight to see cinereous piles on the roadside,
and the waving garments suspended to the branches of trees above them,
which mark the fate of the unfortunate 'Waganga' or medicine man. So
long as their predictions prove correct and have a happy culmination,
these professors of 'uchawi'--magic art--are regarded with favor by the
people; but if an unusual calamity overtakes a family, and they can
swear that it is the result of the magician's art, a quorum of
relentless inquisition is soon formed, and a like fate to that which
overtook the 'witches' in the dark days of New England surely awaits
him.

[Illustration: EXECUTION FOR WITCHCRAFT.

Sometimes performed by burning; at other times by beheadal and casting
into the river.]

"Enough dead wood is soon found in their African forests, and the
unhappy one perishes by fire, and, as a warning to all false professors
of the art, his loin-cloth is hung up to a tree above the spot where he
met his doom.

"In Southern Usagara, the people are most amiable; but in the north, in
those districts adjacent to the Wahumba, the people partake of the
ferocious character of their fierce neighbors. Repeated attacks from the
Waseguhha kidnappers, from the Wadirigo or Wahehe robbers on the
southwest, from Wagogo on the west and from Wahumba on the north, have
caused them to regard strangers with suspicion; but after a short
acquaintance they prove to be a frank, amiable and brave people. Indeed,
they have good cause to be distrustful of the Arabs and the Wangwana of
Zanzibar. Mbumi, Eastern Usagara, has been twice burned down, within a
few years, by the Arabian Waseguhha kidnappers; Rehemeko has met the
same fate, and it was not many years ago since Abdullah bin Nasib
carried fire and sword from Misonghi to Mpwapwa. Kanyaparu, lord of the
hills around Chunyo, Kunyo, once cultivated one-fourth of the Marenga,
Mkali; but is now restricted to the hill-tops, from fear of the Wadirigo
marauders.

"The Wasagara, male and female, tattoo the forehead, bosom and arms.
Besides inserting the neck of a gourd in each ear--which carries his
little store of 'tumbac' or tobacco, and lime, which he has obtained by
burning land shells--he carries quite a number of primitive ornaments
around his neck, such as two or three snowy cowrie-shells, carved
pieces of wood, or a small goat's horn, or some medicine consecrated by
the medicine man of the tribe, a fund of red or white beads, or two or
three pieced Lungomazzi egg-beads, or a string of copper coins, and
sometimes small brass chains, like a cheap Jack watch-chain. These
things they have either made themselves or purchased from Arab traders
for chickens or goats. The children all go naked; youths wear a goat or
sheep-skin; grown men and women, blessed with progeny, wear domestic or
a loin-cloth of Kaniki, or a barsati, which is a favorite colored cloth
in Usagara; chiefs wear caps such as are worn by the Wamrima Diwans, or
the Arab tarboosh.

"Next on our line of march, appears the Wagogo, a powerful race,
inhabiting the region west of Usagara to Uyanzi, which is about eighty
miles in breadth and about one hundred in length.

"The traveler has to exercise great prudence, discretion and judgment in
his dealings with them. Here he first heard the word 'houga' after
passing Limbomwenni, a word which signifies tribute, though it formerly
meant a present to a friend. Since it is exacted from him with threats,
that if it is not paid they will make war on him, its best
interpretation would be, 'forcibly extorted tribute or toll.'

"Naturally, if the traveler desires to be mulcted of a large sum, he
will find the Wagogo ready to receive every shred of cloth he gives
them. Moumi will demand sixty cloths, and will wonder at his own
magnanimity in asking such a small number of cloths from a great Musungu
(white man). The traveler, however, will be wise if he permits his chief
men to deal with them, after enjoining them to be careful, and not
commit themselves too hastily to any number or amount of gifts.

"They are, physically and intellectually, the best of the races between
Unyamwezi and the sea. Their color is a rich dark brown. There is
something in their frontal aspect which is almost leonine. Their faces
are broad and intelligent. Their eyes are large and round. Their noses
are flat, and their mouths are very large; but their lips, though thick,
are not so monstrously thick as those our exaggerated ideal of a negro
has. For all this, though the Wagogo is a ferocious man, capable of
proceeding to any length upon the slightest temptation, he is an
attractive figure to the white traveler. He is proud of his chief, proud
of his country, sterile and unlovable though it be; he is proud of
himself, his prowess, his weapons and his belongings; he is vain,
terribly egotistic, a bully, and a tyrant, yet the Wagogo is capable of
forming friendships, and of exerting himself for friendship's sake. One
grand vice in his character, which places him in a hostile light to
travelers, is his exceeding avarice and greed for riches; and if the
traveler suffers by this, he is not likely to be amiably disposed toward
him.

"This sturdy native, with his rich complexion, his lion front, his
menacing aspect, bullying nature, haughty, proud and quarrelsome, is a
mere child with a man who will devote himself to the study of his
nature, and not offend his vanity. He is easily angered, and his
curiosity is easily aroused. A traveler with an angular disposition is
sure to quarrel with him--but, in the presence of this rude child of
nature, especially when he is so powerful, it is to his advantage and
personal safety to soften those angles of his own nature. The Wagogo
'Rob Roy' is on his native ground, and has a decided advantage over the
white foreigner. He is not brave, but he is at least conscious of the
traveler's weakness, and he is disposed to take advantage of it, but is
prevented from committing an act because it is to his advantage to keep
the peace. Any violence to a traveler would close the road; caravans
would seek other ways, and the chiefs would be deprived of much of their
revenues.

[Illustration: AFRICAN WARRIORS.

The shields and assegais are flourished in the air while the demon-like
warriors dance and yell in preparation for battle.]

"The Wagogo warrior carries as his weapons a bow and a sheaf of
murderous-looking arrows, pointed, pronged and barbed; a couple of
light, beautifully-made assegais; a broad, sword-like spear, with a
blade over two feet long; a battle-axe, and a rungu or knob-club. He has
also a shield, painted with designs in black and white, oval-shaped,
sometimes of rhinoceros, or elephant, or bull-hide. From the time he was
a toddling urchin he has been familiar with his weapons, and by the time
he was fifteen years old he was an adept with them.

"He is armed for battle in a very short time. The messenger from the
chief darts from village to village, and blows his ox-horn, the signal
for war. The warrior hears it, throws his hoe over his shoulder, enters
his house, and in a few seconds issues out again, arrayed in war-paint
and full fighting costume. Feathers of the ostrich, or the eagle, or the
vulture nod above his head; his long crimson robe streams behind him,
his shield is on his left arm, his darting assegai in his left hand, and
his ponderous man-cleaver--double-edged and pointed, heading a strong
staff--is in his right hand; jingling bells are tied around his ankles
and knees; ivory wristlets are on his arms, with which he sounds his
approach. With the plodding peasant's hoe he has dropped the peasant's
garb, and is now the proud, vain, exultant warrior--bounding aloft like
a gymnast, eagerly sniffing the battle-field. The strength and power of
the Wagogo are derived from their numbers.

"Though caravans of Wagogo are sometimes found passing up and down the
Unyamwezi road, they are not so generally employed as the Wanyamwezi in
trade. Their villages are thus always full of warriors. Weak tribes, or
remnants of tribes are very glad to be admitted under their protection.
Individuals of other tribes, also, who have been obliged to exile
themselves from their own tribes, for some deed of violence, are often
found in the villages of the Wagogo. In the north, the Wahumba are very
numerous; in the south may be found the Wahehe and Wakimbu, and in the
east may be found many a family from Usagara. Wanyamwi are also
frequently found in this country. Indeed, these latter people are like
Scotchmen, they may be found almost everywhere throughout Central
Africa, and have a knack of pushing themselves into prominence.

"As in Western Usagara, the houses of the Wagogo are square, arranged
around the four sides of an area--to which all the doors open. The roofs
are all flat, on which are spread the grain, herbs, tobacco and
pumpkins. The back of each department is pierced with small holes for
observation and for defense.

"The tembe is a fragile affair as constructed in Wagogo; it merely
consists of a line of slender sticks daubed over with mud, with three or
four strong poles planted at intervals to support the beams and rafters,
on which rests the flat clay roof. A musket-ball pierces the wattled
walls of a Wagogo tembe through and through. In Uyanzi, the tembe is a
formidable affair, because of the abundance of fine trees, which are cut
down and split into rails three or four inches thick.

"The tembe is divided into apartments, separated from each other by a
wattled wall. Each apartment may contain a family of grown-up boys and
girls, who form their beds on the floor, out of dressed hides. The
father of the family, only, has a kitanda, or fixed cot, made of
ox-hide, stretched over a frame, or of the bark of the myombo tree. The
floor is of tamped mud, and is exceedingly filthy, smelling strongly of
every abomination. In the corners, suspended to the rafters, are the
fine, airy dwellings of black spiders of very large size, and other
monstrous insects.

"Rats, a peculiarly long-headed, dun-colored species, infest every
tembe. Cows, goats, sheep and cats are the only domestic animals
permitted to dwell within the tembe.

"The Wagogo believe in the existence of a God, or sky spirit, whom they
call Mulungu. Their prayers are generally directed to him when their
parents die. A Wagogo, after he has consigned his father to the grave,
collects his father's chattels together, his cloth, his ivory, his
knife, his jeinbe (hoe), his bows and arrows, his spear and his cattle,
and kneels before them, repeating a wish that Mulungu would increase his
worldly wealth, that he would bless his labors and make him successful
in trade. They venerate, and often perform a dance in honor of the moon.

"The following conversation occurred between myself and a Wagogo trader:

"'Who do you suppose made your parents?'

"'Why, Mulungu, white man.'

"'Well, who made you?'

"'If God made my father, God made me, didn't He?'

"'That's very good. Where do you suppose your father has gone to, now
that he is dead?'

"'The dead die,' said he, solemnly, 'they are no more. The sultan dies,
he becomes nothing--he is then no better than a dead dog; he is
finished, his words are finished--there are no words from him. It is
true,' he added, seeing a smile on my face, 'the sultan becomes nothing.
He who says other words is a liar. There.'

"'But then he is a very great man, is he not?'

"'While he lives only--after death he goes into the pit, and there is no
more to be said of him than any other man.'

"'How do you bury a Wagogo?'

"'His legs are tied together, his right arm to his body, and his left is
put under his head. He is then rolled on his left side in the grave. His
cloth he wore during his life is spread over him. We put the earth over
him, and put thorn-bushes over it, to prevent the fize (hyena) from
getting at him. A woman is put on her right side in a grave apart from
the man.'

"'What do you do with the sultan, when he is dead?'

"'We bury him, too, of course; only he is buried in the middle of the
village, and we build a house over it. Each time they kill an ox, they
kill before his grave. When the old sultan dies, the new one calls for
an ox, and kills it before his grave, calling on Mulungu to witness that
he is the rightful sultan. He then distributes the meat in his father's
name.'

"'Who succeeds the sultan? Is he the eldest son?'

"'Yes, if he has a son; if childless, the great chief next to him in
rank. The msagira is the next to the sultan, whose business it is to
hear the cause of complaint, and convey it to the sultan, who, through
the sultan, dispenses justice, he receives the honga, carries it to the
mtemi (sultan), places it before him, and when the sultan has taken what
he wishes, the rest goes to the msagiri. The chiefs are called
manya-para; the msagiri is the chief manya-para.'

"'How do the Wagogo marry?'

"'Oh, they buy their women.'

"'What is a woman worth?'

"'A very poor man can buy his wife from her father for a couple of
goats.'

"'How much has the sultan got to pay?'

"'He has got to pay about one hundred goats, or so many cows, so many
sheep and goats, to his bride's father. Of course, he is a chief. The
sultan would not buy a common woman. The father's consent is to be
obtained, and the cattle have to be given up. It takes many days to
finish the talk about it. All the family and friends of the bride have
to talk about it before she leaves her father's house.'

"'In cases of murder, what do you do to the man that kills another?'

"'The murderer has to pay fifty cows. If he is too poor to pay, the
sultan gives permission to the murdered man's friends or relatives to
kill him. If they catch him, they tie him to a tree, and throw spears at
him--one at a time first; they then spring on him, cut his head off,
then his arms and limbs, and scatter them about the country.'

"'How do you punish a thief?'

"'If he is found stealing, he is killed at once, and nothing is said
about it. Is he not a thief?'

"'But, suppose you do not know who the thief is?'

"'If a man is brought before us accused of stealing, we kill a chicken.
If the entrails are white, he is innocent; if yellow, he is guilty.'

"'Do you believe in witchcraft?'

"'Of course we do, and punish the man with death who bewitches cattle or
stops rain.'

"Sacrifices of human life as penalty for witchcraft and kindred
superstitions--indeed for many trivial offenses--are painfully numerous
among nearly all the tribes.

[Illustration: WASTE OF HUMAN LIFE.

Human life is sacrificed as a penalty for witchcraft, theft, murder and
many trivial offenses.]

"Next to Wagogo is Uyanzi, or the 'Magunda Mkali'--the Hot Field.

"Uyanzi or Magunda Mkali is at present very populous. Along the
northern route--that leading _via_ Munieka--water is plentiful enough,
villages are frequent and travelers begin to perceive that the title is
inappropriate. The people who inhabit the country are Wakimbu from the
south. They are good agriculturists, and are a most industrious race.
They are something like the Wasagara in appearance, but do not obtain a
very high reputation for bravery. Their weapons consist of light spears,
bows and arrows, and battle-axes. Their tembes are strongly made,
showing considerable skill in the art of defensive construction. Their
bomas are so well made, that one would require cannon to effect an
entrance, if the villages were at all defended. They are skillful, also,
in constructing traps for elephants and buffaloes. A stray lion or
leopard is sometimes caught by them."



CHAPTER VI.

ADVENTURES IN GREAT VARIETY.


Stanley received a noiseless ovation in Unyanyembe as he walked with the
governor to his house. Soldiers and men by the hundreds, hovered round
their chief, staring at him, while the naked children peered between the
legs of the parents. Tea was served in a silver tea-pot and a sumptuous
breakfast was furnished, which Stanley devoured as only a hungry man
can, who has been shut up for so many months in the wilds of Africa.

Then pipes and tobacco were produced, and amid the whiffs of smoke came
out all the news that Stanley had brought from Zanzibar, while the
gratified sheikh smoked and listened. When Stanley took his leave to
look after his men his host accompanied him to show him the house he was
to occupy while he remained. It was commodious and quite luxurious after
his long life in a tent.

All the caravans had arrived, and he received the reports of the chief
of each, while the goods were unpacked and examined. One had had a fight
with the natives and beaten them, another had shot a thief, and the
fourth had lost a bale of goods. On the whole, Stanley was satisfied
and thankful there had been no more serious misfortunes. Food was
furnished with lavish prodigality, and while he was surfeiting himself,
he ordered a bullock to be slain for his men, now reduced to twenty-five
in number.

On the second day of his arrival, the chief Arabs of Tabna came to visit
him. This is the chief Arab settlement of Central Africa, and contains a
thousand huts and about five thousand inhabitants. The Arabs are a fine,
handsome set of men, and living amid rich pastures, they raise large
herds of cattle and goats, and vegetables of all kinds, while their
slaves bring back in caravans from Zanzibar the luxuries of the East,
not only coffee, spices, wines, salmon, etc., but Persian carpets, rich
bedding, and elegant table service. Some of them sport gold watches and
chains. Each one keeps as many concubines as he can afford, the size of
his harem being limited only by his means.

These magnates from Tabna after finishing their visit, invited Stanley
to visit their town and partake of a feast they had prepared for him.
Three days after, escorted by eighteen of his men, he returned the
visit. He arrived in time to attend a council of war which was being
held, as to the best manner of asserting their rights against a
robber-chief named Mirambo. He had carried war through several tribes
and claimed the right to waylay and rob Arab caravans. This must be
stopped, and it was resolved to make war against him in his stronghold.
Stanley agreed to accompany them, taking his caravan a part of the way
and leaving it until Mirambo was defeated, and the way to Ujiji cleared.

Returning to Unyanyembe, he found the caravan which had been made up to
carry supplies to Livingstone in November 1st, 1870. Having gone
twenty-five miles from Zanzibar, to Bagomayo, it had stayed there one
hundred days, when, hearing that the English consul was coming, it had
started off in affright just previous to Stanley's arrival. Whether
owing to his great change in diet or some other cause, Stanley was now
stricken down with fever and for a week tossed in delirium. Selim, his
faithful servant, took care of him. When he had recovered, the servant
also was seized with it.

[Illustration: A COUNCIL OF WAR.

The chiefs of the tribes in a certain vicinity meet to confer concerning
their wrongs and to plan for redress.]

But by the 29th of July all the sick had recovered, and the caravan was
loaded up for Ujiji. But Bombay was absent and they had to wait from
eight o'clock till two in the afternoon, he stubbornly refusing to leave
his mistress. When he arrived and was ordered to his place he made a
savage reply. The next moment Stanley's cane was falling like lightning
on his shoulders. The poor fellow soon cried for mercy. The order
"March" was then given, and the guide, with forty armed men behind him,
led off with flags streaming. At first, in dead silence, they moved on,
but soon struck up a monotonous sort of chorus, which seemed to consist
mostly of "Hoy, hoy," and was kept up all day. The second day he arrived
at Masangi, where he was told the Arabs were waiting for him at Mfuto,
six hours' march distant. The next morning, he arrived at the place
where the Arab army was gathered, numbering in all two thousand two
hundred and twenty-five men, of whom fifteen hundred were armed with
guns. With banners flying and drums beating, they, on the 3d of August,
marched forth, but in a few hours Stanley was again stricken down with
fever.

The next day the march was resumed, and at eleven o'clock Zimbize, the
stronghold of the enemy, came in view. The forces quickly surrounded it.
A general assault followed and the village was captured, the inhabitants
fleeing toward the mountains, pursued closely by the yelling Arabs. Only
twenty dead bodies were found within. The next day, two more villages
were burned and the day after, a detachment five hundred strong scoured
the country around, carrying devastation and ruin in their path. At this
critical period of the campaign, Stanley was still down with fever, and
while he lay in his hammock, news came that the detachment of five
hundred men had been surprised and killed. Mirambo had turned and
ambushed them, and now the boasting of the morning was turning into
despondency. The women made the night hideous with shrieks and
lamentations over their slain husbands. The next day there was a regular
stampede of the Arabs, and when Stanley was able to get out of his tent
only seven men were left to him; all the rest had returned to Mfuto, and
soon after to Tabna twenty-five miles distant.

It was plain that it was useless to open the direct road to Ujiji, which
lay through Mirambo's district. In fact, it seemed impossible to get
there at all, and the only course left was to return to the coast and
abandon the project of reaching Livingstone altogether. But what would
Livingstone do locked up at Ujiji? He might perhaps go north and meet
Baker, who was moving with a strong force southward. But he was told by
a man that Livingstone was coming to Nyano Lake toward the Tanganika, on
which Ujiji is situated, at the very time it was last reported he was
murdered. He was then walking, dressed in American sheeting, having lost
all his cloth in Lake Leemba. He had a breech-loading double-barreled
rifle with him and two revolvers. Stanley felt that he could not give up
trying to reach him now, when it was so probable that he was within four
hundred miles of him.

On the 13th, a caravan came in from the east and reported Farquhar dead
at the place where he had been left. Ten days after, Mirambo attacked
Tabna and set it on fire. Stanley, at this time, was encamped at
Kwihara, in sight of the burning town. The refugees came pouring in, and
Stanley, finding the men willing to stand by him, began to prepare for
defense, and counting up his little force found he had one hundred and
fifty men. He was not attacked, however, and five days after, Mirambo
retreated. The Arabs held councils of war and urged Stanley to become
their ally, but he refused, and finally took the bold resolution of
organizing a flying caravan, and by a southern route and quick marching,
reach Ujiji. This was August 27th, and the third month he had been in
Unyanyembe. Having got together some forty men in all, he gave a great
banquet to them prior to their departure, which an attack of fever
caused him to postpone. On the 20th of September, though too weak to
travel, he mustered his entire force outside the town and found, that by
additional men which the Arabs had succeeded in securing, it now
numbered fifty-four men. When all was ready Bombay was again missing,
and when found and brought up, excused himself, as of old, by saying he
was bidding his "misses" good-bye. As he seemed inclined to pick a
quarrel with Stanley, the latter not being in the most amiable mood and
wishing to teach the others a lesson, gave him a sound thrashing.

Soon, everything being ready, the word "march" passed down the line and
Stanley started on his last desperate attempt to push on to Ujiji, not
much farther than from Albany to Buffalo as the crow flies, but by the
way he would be compelled to go, no one knew how far, nor what time it
would take to reach it. But Stanley had good reason to believe that
Livingstone was alive, and from the reports he could get of his
movements that he must be at or near Ujiji, and therefore to Ujiji he
was determined to go, unless death stopped his progress. He had been set
on a mission, and although the conditions were not that he should
surmount impossibilities, still he would come as near to that as human
effort could. Though sick with fever, and with that prostration and
utter loss of will accompanying it, he nevertheless with that marvelous
energy that is never exhibited except in rare exceptional characters,
kept his great object in view. That never lost its hold on him under the
most disastrous circumstances, neither in the delirium of fever nor in
the utter prostration that followed it. This tenacity of purpose and
indomitable will ruling and governing him, where in all other men it
would have had no power, exhibit the extraordinary qualities of this
extraordinary man. We do not believe that he himself was fully aware of
this inherent power, this fixedness of purpose that makes him different
from all other men. No man possessing it is conscious of it any more
than an utterly fearless man is conscious of his own courage. The
following touching extract from his journal at this time lets in a
flood of light on the character and the inner life of this remarkable
man:

"About 10 P. M. the fever had gone. All were asleep in the tembe but
myself, and an unutterable loneliness came on me as I reflected on my
position, and my intentions, and felt the utter lack of sympathy with me
in all around. Even my own white assistant, with whom I had striven
hard, was less sympathizing than my little black boy Kalulu. It requires
more nerve than I possess to dispel all the dark presentiments that come
upon the mind. But, probably, what I call presentiments are simply the
impress on the mind of the warnings which these false-hearted Arabs have
repeated so often. This melancholy and loneliness which I feel, may
probably have their origin from the same cause. The single candle which
barely lights up the dark shade which fills the corners of my room, is
but a poor incentive to cheerfulness. I feel as though I were imprisoned
between stone walls. But why should I feel as if baited by these stupid,
slow-witted Arabs, and their warnings and croakings? I fancy a suspicion
haunts my mind, as I write, that there lies some motive behind all this.

"I wonder if these Arabs tell me all these things to keep me here, in
the hope that I may be induced another time to assist them in their war
against Mirambo! If they think so, they are much mistaken, for I have
taken a solemn, enduring oath--an oath to be kept while the least hope
of life remains in me--not to be tempted to break the resolution I have
formed, never to give up the search until I find Livingstone alive, or
find his dead body; and never to return home without the strongest
possible proofs that he is alive or that he is dead. No living man or
living men shall stop me--only death can prevent me. But death--not even
this; I shall not die--I will not die--I cannot die!

"And something tells me, I do not know what it is--perhaps it is the
everliving hopefulness of my own nature; perhaps it is the natural
presumption born out of an abundant and glowing vitality, or the outcome
of an overweening confidence in one's self--anyhow and everyhow,
something tells me to-night I shall find him, and--write it larger--FIND
HIM! FIND HIM! Even the words are inspiring. I feel more happy. Have I
uttered a prayer? I shall sleep calmly to-night."

There is nothing in this whole terrible journey so touching, and
revealing so much, as this extract from his journal does. It shows that
he is human, and yet far above common human weakness. Beset with
difficulties, his only white companion dead or about to be left behind,
the Arabs themselves and the natives telling him he cannot go on, left
all alone in a hostile country, his men deserting him, he pauses and
ponders. To make all these outer conditions darker, he is smitten down
with fever that saps the energies, unnerves the heart and fills the
imagination with gloomy forebodings, and makes the soul sigh for rest.
It is the lowest pit of despondency into which a man may be cast. He
feels it, and all alone, fever-worn and sad, he surveys the prospect
before him. There is not a single soul on which to lean--not a
sympathizing heart to turn to while fever is burning up his brain, and
night, moonless and starless, is settling down around him. He would be
less than human not to feel the desolation of his position, and for a
moment to sink under this accumulation of disastrous circumstances. He
does feel how utterly hopeless and sad is his condition; and all through
the first part of this entry in his journal, there is something that
sounds like a mournful refrain; yet at its close, out of his gloomy
surroundings, up from his feverish bed speaks the brave heart in trumpet
tones, showing the indomitable will that nothing can break, crying out
of the all-enveloping gloom, "_no living man or living men shall stop
me_--only death can prevent me." There spoke one of the few great
natures God has made. The closing words of that entry in his journal
ring like a bugle-note from his sick-bed, and foretell his triumph.

But, at last, they were off. Shaw, the last white man left to Stanley,
had been sick and apparently indifferent whether he lived or died; but
all after a short march became enlivened, and things looked more
promising. But Stanley was soon again taken sick with the fever and the
men began to be discouraged. Staggering from his sick-bed he found that
twenty of his men had deserted. Aroused at this new danger he instantly
dispatched twenty men after them, while he sent his faithful follower,
Selim, to an Arab chief to borrow a long slave-chain. At night, the
messengers returned with nine of the missing men. Stanley then told them
that he had never used the slave-chain, but now he should on the first
deserters. He had resolved to go to Ujiji, where he believed Dr.
Livingstone was, and being so near the accomplishment of the mission he
was sent on, he was ready to resort to any measures rather than fail.
Deferring the use of the chain at present, he started forward and
encamped at Iresaka. In the morning, two more men were missing.
Irritated but determined, this resolute man halted, sent back for the
fugitives, caught them, and when brought back, flogged them severely and
chained them. Notwithstanding this severe treatment, the next morning
another man deserted, while to add to his perplexities and enhance the
difficulties that surrounded him, a man who had accompanied him all the
way from the coast asked to be discharged. Several others of the
expedition were now taken sick and became unable to proceed; and it
seemed, notwithstanding the resolute will of the leader, that the
expedition must break up. But fortunately, that evening men who had been
in caravans to the coast entered the village where they were encamped
with wondrous stories of what they had seen, which revived the spirits
of all, and the next morning they started off, and after three hours'
march through the forest came to Kigandu. Shaw, the last white man now
left to him, between real and feigned sickness had become such a burden,
that he determined to leave him behind, as the latter had often
requested.

That night, the poor wretch played on an old accordion "Home, Sweet
Home," which, miserable as it was, stirred the depths of Stanley's heart
for the man now about to be left alone amid Arabs and natives in the
most desperate crisis of the undertaking. But it could not be helped.
Speed was everything on this new route, or Mirambo would close it also.
So on the morning of the 27th he ordered the horn to sound "get ready,"
and Shaw being sent back to Kwihara, Stanley set off on his southern
unknown route to Ujiji and entered the dark forests and pressed rapidly
forward. In seven hours he reached the village of Ugunda which numbers
two thousand souls. It was well fortified against the robber, Mirambo.
Around their principal village, some three thousand square acres were
under cultivation, giving them not only all the provisions they wanted
for their own use, but also enough for passing caravans. They could also
furnish carriers for those in want of them. On the 28th, they arrived at
a small village well supplied with corn, and the next day reached
Kikura a place impregnated with the most deadly of African fevers. Over
desert plains, now sheering on one side to avoid the corpse of a man
dead from small-pox, the scourge of Africa, and again stumbling on a
skeleton, the caravan kept on till they came to the cultivated fields of
Manyara.

A wilderness one hundred and thirty-five miles in extent stretched out
before them from this place, and Stanley was inclined to be very
conciliatory toward the chief of the village, in order to get provisions
for the long and desperate march before him. But the chief was very
sullen and wholly indifferent to the presents the white man offered him.
With adroit diplomacy, Stanley sent to him some magnificent royal
cloths, which so mollified the chief that abundant provisions were soon
sent in, followed by the chief himself with fifty warriors bearing gifts
quite equal to those which Stanley sent him, and they entered the tent
of the first white man they had ever seen. Looking at him for some time
in silent surprise, the chiefs burst into an incontrollable fit of
laughter, accompanied with snapping their fingers. But when they were
shown the sixteen-shooters and revolvers their astonishment knew no
bounds, while the double-barreled guns, heavily charged, made them jump
to their feet with alarm, followed by convulsions of laughter. Stanley
then showed them his chest of medicine, and finally gave them a dose in
the form of brandy. They tasted it, making wry faces, when he produced a
bottle of concentrated ammonia, saying that it was for snake bites. One
of the chiefs asked for some of it. It was suddenly presented to his
nose, when his features underwent such indescribable contortions that
the other chiefs burst into convulsions of laughter, clapped their
hands, pinched each other and went through all sorts of ludicrous
gesticulations. When the chief recovered himself, the tears in the
meanwhile rolling down his cheeks, he laughed and simply said, "_strong_
medicine." The others then took a sniff and went off into paroxysms of
laughter.

Wednesday, October 4th, found them traveling toward the Gombe River.
They had hardly left the waving corn-fields, when they came in sight of
a large herd of zebras. Passing on, the open forest resembled a
magnificent park, filled with buffalo, zebra, giraffe, antelope and
other tropical animals, while the scenery on every side was entrancing.
These noble animals, coursing in their wild freedom through those grand,
primeval forests, presented a magnificent sight. Stanley, thoroughly
aroused, crept back to his camp, which had been pitched on the Gombe
River, and prepared for a right royal hunt. He says:

"Here, at last, was the hunter's paradise! How petty and insignificant
appeared my hunts after small antelope and wild boar; what a foolish
waste of energies, those long walks through damp grasses and thorny
jungles. Did I not well remember my first bitter experience in African
jungles, when in the maritime region? But this--where is the nobleman's
park that can match this scene? Here is a soft, velvety expanse of young
grass, grateful shade under close, spreading clumps, herds of large and
varied game browsing within easy rifle-shot. Surely I must feel amply
compensated now for the long southern detour I have made, when such a
prospect as this opens to the view! No thorny jungles and rank-smelling
swamps are to daunt the hunter, and to sicken his aspirations after true
sport. No hunter could aspire after a nobler field to display his
prowess.

[Illustration: A SPRING-BOK BROWSING]

"Having settled the position of the camp, which overlooked one of the
pools found in the depression of the Gombe Creek, I took my
double-barreled smooth bore, and sauntered off to the parkland. Emerging
from behind a clump, three fine, plump spring-bok were seen browsing on
the young grass just within one hundred yards. I knelt down and fired;
one unfortunate antelope bounded forward instinctively and fell dead.
Its companions sprang high into the air, taking leaps about twelve feet
in length, as if they were quadrupeds practicing gymnastics, and away
they vanished, rising up like India-rubber balls, until a knoll hid
them from view. My success was hailed with loud shouts by the soldiers,
who came running out from the camp as soon as they heard the
reverberation of the gun, and my gun-bearer had his knife at the throat
of the beast, uttering a fervent 'Bismillah' as he almost severed the
head from the body.

"Hunters were now directed to proceed east and north to procure meat,
because in each caravan it generally happens that there are _fundi_
whose special trade it is to hunt for meat for the camp. Some of these
are experts in stalking, but often find themselves in dangerous
positions, owing to the near approach necessary before they can fire
their most inaccurate weapons with any certainty.

"After luncheon, consisting of spring-bok steak, hot corn-cake and a cup
of Mocha coffee, I strolled toward the southwest, accompanied by Kalulu
and Majwara, two boy gun-bearers. The tiny perpusilla started up like
rabbits from me as I stole along through the underbrush; the honey-bird
hopped from tree to tree chirping its call, as if it thought I was
seeking the little sweet treasure, the hiding-place of which it only
knew; but, no! I neither desired perpusilla nor the honey. I was on the
search for something great this day. Keen-eyed fish-eagles and bustards
poised on trees above the sinuous Gombe thought, and probably with good
reason, that I was after them, judging by the ready flight with which
both species disappeared as they sighted my approach. Ah, no! nothing
but hartbeest, zebra, giraffe, eland and buffalo this day.

"After following the Gombe's course for about a mile, delighting my eyes
with long looks at the broad and lengthy reaches of water, to which I
was so long a stranger, I came upon a scene which delighted the
innermost recesses of my soul; five, six, seven, eight, ten zebras
switching their beautiful striped bodies, and biting one another, within
about one hundred and fifty yards. The scene was so pretty, so romantic,
never did I so thoroughly realize that I was in Central Africa. I felt
momentarily proud that I owned such a vast dominion, inhabited by such
noble beasts. Here I possessed, within reach of a leaden ball, any one I
chose of the beautiful animals, the pride of the African forests. It was
at my option to shoot any one of them. Mine they were, without money and
without price; yet, knowing this, twice I dropped my rifle, loath to
wound the royal beasts, but--crack! and a royal one was on his back,
battling the air with his legs. Ah, it was such a pity! but hasten, draw
the keen, sharp-edged knife across the beautiful stripes which fold
around the throat, and--what an ugly gash! it is done, and I have a
superb animal at my feet. Hurrah! I shall taste of Ukonongo zebra
to-night.

"I thought a spring-bok and zebra enough for one day's sport,
especially after a long march. The Gombe, a long stretch of deep water,
winding in and out of green groves, calm, placid, with lotus leaves
resting lightly on its surface, all pretty, picturesque, peaceful as a
summer's dream, looked very inviting for a bath. I sought out the most
shady spot under a wide-spreading mimosa, from which the ground sloped
smooth as a lawn to the still, clear water. I ventured to undress, and
had already stepped to my ankles in the water, and had brought my hands
together for a glorious dive, when my attention was attracted by an
enormously long body which shot into view, occupying the spot beneath
the surface which I was about to explore by a 'header.' Great heavens,
it was a crocodile! I sprang back instinctively, and this proved my
salvation, for the monster turned away with the most disappointed look,
and I was left to congratulate myself upon my narrow escape from his
jaws, and to register a vow never to be tempted again by the treacherous
calm of an African river."



CHAPTER VII.

THE END APPROACHES.


The following extract from Stanley's journal, written up that night
after his hunting tour, shows that this strong, determined, fearless man
was not merely a courageous lion, but that he possessed also the eye of
an artist and the soul of a poet. With a few strokes of his pen, he
sketches a picture on the banks of the forest-lined river, full of life
and beauty:

"The adventures of the day were over; the azure of the sky had changed
to a deep gray; the moon was appearing just over the trees; the water of
the Gombe was like a silver belt; hoarse frogs bellowed their notes
loudly by the margin of the creek; the fish-eagles uttered their
dirge-like cries as they were perched high on the tallest trees; elands
snorted their warning to the herd in the forest; stealthy forms of the
carnivora stole through the dark woods outside of our camp. Within the
high inclosure of bush and thorn which we had raised about our camp, all
was jollity, laughter and radiant, genial comfort. Around every
camp-fire, dark forms of men were seen squatted: one man gnawed at a
luscious bone; another sucked the rich marrow in a zebra's leg bone;
another turned the stick, garnished with huge cabobs, to the bright
blaze; another held a large rib over a flame; there were others busy
stirring, industriously, great black potfuls of ugali, and watching
anxiously the meat simmering, and the soup bubbling, while the firelight
flickered and danced bravely, and cast a bright glow over the naked
forms of the men, and gave a crimson tinge to the tall tent that rose in
the centre of the camp, like a temple sacred to some mysterious god; the
fires cast their reflections upon the massive arms of the trees, as they
branched over our camp; and, in the dark gloom of their foliage, the
most fantastic shadows were visible. Altogether, it was a wild, romantic
and impressive scene."

They halted here for two days, the men hunting and gormandizing. Like
all animals, after gorging themselves they did not want to move, and
when on the 7th of October Stanley ordered the caravan to be put in
motion, the men refused to stir. Stanley at once walked swiftly toward
them with his double-barreled gun, loaded with buck-shot, in his hand.
As he did so he saw the men seize their guns. He, however, kept
resolutely on till within thirty yards of two men, whose heads were
peering above an ant-hill, their guns pointed across the road,--then
suddenly halting, he took deliberate aim at them, determined come what
would to blow out their brains. One of them, a giant, named Azmani,
instantly brought up his gun with his finger on the trigger. "Drop that
gun or you are a dead man," shouted Stanley. They obeyed and came
forward, but he saw that murder was in Azmani's eyes. The other man, at
the second order, laid down his gun and, with a blow from Stanley that
sent him reeling away, sneaked off. But the giant, Azmani, refused to
obey, and Stanley aiming his piece at his head and touching the trigger
was about to fire. The former quickly lifted his gun up to his shoulder
to shoot. In another second he would have fallen dead at Stanley's feet.
At this moment an Arab, who had approached from behind, struck up the
wretch's gun and exclaimed, "Man, how dare you point your gun at the
master?" This saved his life, and perhaps Stanley's also. It required
nerves of iron in a man thus to stand up all alone in the heart of an
African forest surrounded by savages and defy them all, and cow them
all. But the trouble was over, peace was concluded, and the men with one
accord agreed to go on. The two instigators of this mutiny were Bombay
and a savage, named Ambari. Snatching up a spear Stanley immediately
gave the former a terrible pounding with the handle. Then turning on the
latter, who stood looking on with a mocking face, he administered the
same punishment to him, after which he put them both in chains.

For the next fourteen days, nothing remarkable occurred in the march,
which had been in a southwesterly direction. Near a place called Mrera,
Stanley, for the first time saw a herd of wild elephants, and was deeply
impressed with their lordly appearance. Here Selim was taken sick and
the caravan halted for three days, Stanley spending the interval in
mending his shoes.

He now had four districts to traverse, which would occupy him
twenty-five days. Taking a northwesterly route having, as he thought,
got around the country of Mirambo, he pushed forward with all speed.
Buffaloes, leopards and lions were encountered; the country was
diversified, and many of the petty chiefs grasping and unfriendly, so
that it was a constant, long, wearisome fight with obstacles from the
beginning to the end of each week. But, on November 3d, a caravan of
eighty came into Stanley's camp from the westward. The latter asked the
news. They replied that a white man had just arrived at Ujiji. This was
startling news indeed.

"A white man!" exclaimed Stanley.

"Yes, a white man."

"How is he dressed?"

"Like the master," pointing to him.

"Is he young or old?"

"He is old, with white hair on his face; and he is sick."

"Where has he come from?" was the next anxious inquiry.

"From a very far country, away beyond Uguh-ha."

"And is he now stopping at Ujiji?"

"Yes, we left him there eight days ago."

"How long is he going to stay there?"

"Don't know."

"Was he ever there before?"

"Yes; he went away a long time ago."

Stanley gave a shout of exultation, exclaiming: "It is Livingstone!"

Then came the thought, it may be some other man. Perhaps it is Baker,
who has worked his way in there before me. It was a crushing thought,
that after all his sufferings, and sickness, and toils, he should have
been anticipated, and that there was now nothing left for him but to
march back again. "No!" he exclaimed to himself: "Baker has no white
hair on his face." But he could now wait no longer, and turning to his
men, he asked them if they were willing to march to Ujiji without a
single halt. If they were, he would, on their arrival, present each two
doti of cloth. They all shouted, "Yes!" Stanley jots down: "I was madly
rejoiced, intensely eager to resolve the burning question, 'Is it Dr.
Livingstone?' God grant me patience; but I do wish there was a railroad,
or at least, horses, in this country. With a horse I could reach him in
twelve hours."

But new dangers confronted him. The chiefs became more exhorbitant in
their demands and more hostile in their demonstrations, and but for
Stanley's eagerness to get on, he would more than once have fought his
way through some of those pertinacious tribes. But his patience, at
last, gave out, for he was told after he had settled the last tribute
that there were five more chiefs ahead who would exact tribute. This
would beggar him, and he asked two natives if there was no way of
evading the next chief, named Wahha.

"This rather astonished them at first, and they declared it to be
impossible; but finally, after being pressed, they replied that one of
their number should guide us at midnight, or a little after, into the
jungle which grew on the frontiers of Uhha and Uvinza. By keeping a
direct west course through this jungle until we came to Ukavanga, we
might be enabled--we were told--to travel through Uhha without further
trouble. If I were willing to pay the guide twelve doti, and if I were
able to impose silence on my people while passing through the sleeping
village, the guide was positive I could reach Ujiji without paying
another doti. It is needless to add that I accepted the proffered
assistance at such a price with joy.

"But there was much to be done. Provisions were to be purchased,
sufficient to last four days, for the tramp through the jungle and men
were at once sent with cloth to purchase grain at any price. Fortune
favored us, and before 8 P. M. we had enough for six days.

"November 7th.--I did not go to sleep at all last night, but a little
after midnight, as the moon was beginning to show itself, by gangs of
four the men stole quietly out of the village; and by 3 A. M. the entire
expedition was outside the bonna and not the slightest alarm had been
made. After whistling to the new guide, the expedition began to move in
a southern direction along the right bank of the Kanenzi River. After an
hour's march in this direction, we struck west across the grassy plain,
and maintained it, despite the obstacles we encountered which were sore
enough to naked men. The bright moon lighted our path; dark clouds now
and then cast immense long shadows over the deserted and silent plain,
and the moonbeams were almost obscured, and at such times our position
seemed awful--


                         "'Till the moon,
     Rising in clouded majesty, at length
     Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
     And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.'


"Bravely toiled the men, without murmur, though their legs were bleeding
from the cruel grass. 'Ambrosial morn' at last appeared, with all its
beautiful and lovely features. Heaven was born anew to us, with
comforting omens and cheery promise. The men, though fatigued at the
unusual travel, sped forward with quicker pace as daylight broke, until
at 8 A. M. we sighted the swift Rusugi River, where a halt was ordered
in a clump of jungle for breakfast and rest. Both banks of the river
were alive with buffalo, eland and antelope, but though the sight was
very tempting, we did not fire, because we dared not. The report of a
gun would have alarmed the whole country. I preferred my coffee, and the
contentment which my mind experienced at our success.

"An hour after we had rested, some natives carrying salt from the
Malagarazi were seen coming up the right bank of the river. When abreast
of our hiding-place they detected us, and dropping their salt-bags, they
took to their heels at once, shouting out as they ran, to alarm some
villages that appeared some four miles north of us. The men were
immediately ordered to take up their loads, and in a few minutes we had
crossed the Rusugi, and were making direct for a bamboo jungle that
appeared in our front. Almost as soon as we entered, a weak-brained
woman raised a series of piercing yells. The men were appalled at this
noisy demonstration, which would call down upon our heads the vengeance
of the Wahha for evading the tribute, to which they thought themselves
entitled. In half an hour we should have hundreds of howling savages
about us in the jungle, and probably a general massacre would ensue. The
woman screamed fearfully again and again, for no cause whatever. Some of
the men, with the instinct of self-preservation, at once dropped their
bales and loads and vanished into the jungle. The guide came rushing
back to me, imploring me to stop her noise. The woman's husband, livid
with rage and fear, drew his sword and asked permission to cut her head
off at once. Had I given the least signal, the woman had paid with her
life for her folly. I attempted to hush her cries by putting my hand
over her mouth, but she violently wrestled with me, and continued her
cries worse than ever. There remained nothing else for me to do but to
try the virtue of my whip over her shoulders. I asked her to desist
after the first blow. 'No!' She continued her insane cries with
increased force and volume. Again my whip descended on her shoulders.
'No, no, no.' Another blow. 'Will you hush?' 'No, no, no,' louder and
louder she cried, and faster and faster I showered the blows for the
taming of this shrew. However, seeing I was as determined to flog as she
was to cry, she desisted before the tenth blow and became silent. A
cloth was folded over her mouth, and her arms were tied behind her; and
in a few moments, the runaways having returned to their duty, the
expedition moved forward again with redoubled pace."

That night they encamped at Lake Musunya, which swarmed with
hippopotami. No tent nor hut was raised, nor fire kindled, and Stanley
lay down with his rifle slung over his shoulders, ready to act on a
moment's notice. Before daylight they were off again, and at early dawn
emerged from the jungle and stretched rapidly across a naked plain.
Reaching the Rugufa River, they halted in a deep shade, when suddenly
Stanley heard a sound like distant thunder. Asking one of his men if it
were thunder, the latter replied no, that it was the noise made by the
waves of Tanganika breaking into the caverns on its shore. Was he,
indeed, so near this great inland sea, of which Ujiji was the chief
harbor?

Pressing on three hours longer they encamped in the forest. Two hours
before daylight they again set out, the guide promising that by next
morning they should be clear of the hostile district. On this Stanley
exclaims, "Patience, my soul! A few hours more and then the end of all
this will be known. I shall be face to face with that white man with the
white beard on his face, whoever he may be." Before daylight they
started again, and emerging from the forest on to the high road, the
guides, thinking they had passed the last village of the hostile tribe,
set up a shout, but soon, to their horror, came plump upon its
outskirts. Fate seemed about to desert him at the last moment, for if
the village was roused he was a doomed man. Keeping concealed amid the
trees, Stanley ordered the goats to be killed lest their bleating should
lead to discovery, the chickens to be killed also, and then they plunged
into the jungle, Stanley being the last man to follow. It was a narrow
escape. After an half-hour's march, finding they were not pursued, they
again took to the road. One more night in the encampment and then the
end would come. Next morning they pushed on with redoubled speed, and in
two hours, from the top of a mountain Stanley, with bounding heart,
beheld Lake Tanganika, a vast expanse of burnished silver, with dark
mountains around it and the blue sky above it. "Hurrah," shouted
Stanley, and the natives took up the shout, till the hills and forest
rang with their exultant cries. The long struggle was near over; the
goal toward which he had been so long straining was almost won.



CHAPTER VIII.

STANLEY MEETS LIVINGSTONE.


Stanley's excitement at this supreme moment of his life can never be
described or even imagined. When he started from Zanzibar, he knew he
had thrown the dice which were to fix his fate. Successful, and his fame
was secure, while failure meant death; and all the chances were against
him. How much he had taken upon himself no one but he knew; into what
gloomy gulfs he had looked before he started, he alone was conscious. Of
the risks he ran, of the narrow escapes he had made, of the toils and
sufferings he had endured, he alone could form an estimate. With the
accumulation of difficulties and the increasing darkness of his
prospects, the one great object of his mission had increased in
importance, till great though it was, it became unnaturally magnified so
that, at last, it filled all his vision, and became the one, the great,
the only object in life worth pursuing. For it he had risked so much,
toiled so long and suffered so terribly, that the whole world, with all
its interests, was secondary to it. Hope had given way to disappointment
and disappointment yielded to despair so often, that his strong nature
had got keyed up to a dangerous pitch. But now the reward was near.
Balboa, when alone he ascended the summit that was to give him a sight
of the great Pacific Ocean, was not more intensely excited than was
Stanley when he labored up the steep mountain that should give him a
view of the Tanganika.

The joy, the exultation of that moment, outbalanced a life of common
happiness. It was a feeling that lifts the soul into a region where our
common human nature never goes, and it becomes a memory that influences
and shapes the character forever. Such a moment of ecstasy--of perfect
satisfaction--of exultant, triumphant feeling that asks nothing
better--that brings perfect rest with the highest exaltation, can happen
to any man but once in a life-time. To attempt to give any description
of this culmination of all his effort, and longing, and ambition, except
in his own words, would be not only an act of injustice to him, but to
the reader.

The descent to Ujiji and the interview with Livingstone is full of
dramatic interest and the description of it should not be made by a
third party, for to attempt to improve on it would be presumption and
would end only in failure. We, therefore, give it in Mr. Stanley's own
words, that glow with vivid life from beginning to end, and this shall
be his chapter:

"We are descending the western slope of the mountain, with the valley of
the Linche before us. Something like an hour before noon we have gained
the thick matite brake, which grows on both banks of the river; we wade
through the clear stream, arrive on the other side, emerge out of the
brake, and the gardens of the Wajiji are around us--a perfect marvel of
vegetable wealth. Details escape my hasty and partial observation. I am
almost overpowered with my own emotion. I notice the graceful palms,
neat plats, green with vegetable plants, and small villages, surrounded
with frail fences of the matite cane.

"We push on rapidly, lest the news of our coming might reach the people
of Bunder Ujiji before we come in sight and are ready for them. We halt
at a little brook, then ascend the long slope of a naked ridge, the very
last of the myriads we have crossed. This alone prevents us from seeing
the lake in all its vastness. We arrive at the summit, travel across and
arrive at its western rim, and--pause, reader--the port of Ujiji is
below us, embowered in the palms, only five hundred yards from us. At
this grand moment we do not think of the hundreds of miles we have
marched, of the hundreds of hills we have ascended and descended, of the
many forests we have traversed, of the jungles and thickets that annoyed
us, of the fervid salt plains that blistered our feet, of the hot suns
that scorched us, nor the dangers and difficulties now happily
surmounted. At last the sublime hour has arrived! our dreams, our
hopes, our anticipations are about to be realized. Our hearts and our
feelings are with our eyes, as we peer into the palms and try to make
out in which hut or house lives the white man, with the gray beard, we
heard about on the Malagarazi.

"'Unfurl the flags and load the guns.'

"'Ay, Wallah, ay, Wallah, bana!' responded the men, eagerly.

"'One--two--three--fire.'

"A volley from nearly fifty guns roars like a salute from a battery of
artillery; we shall note its effect, presently, on the peaceful-looking
village below.

"'Now, Kirangozi, hold the white man's flag up high, and let the
Zanzibar flag bring up the rear. And you men keep close together, and
keep firing until we halt in the market-place, or before the white man's
house. You have said to me often that you could smell the fish of the
Tanganika. I can smell the fish of the Tanganika now. There are fish,
and beer, and a long rest awaiting for you. MARCH!'

"Before we had gone one hundred yards our repeated volleys had the
desired effect. We had awakened Ujiji to the fact that a caravan was
coming, and the people were witnessed running up in hundreds to meet us.
The mere sight of the flags informed every one immediately that we were
a caravan, but the American flag, borne aloft by the gigantic Asmani,
whose face was one broad smile on this day, rather staggered them at
first. However, many of the people who now approached us remembered the
flag. They had seen it float above the American consulate, and from the
mast-heads of many a ship in the harbor of Zanzibar, and they were soon
heard welcoming the beautiful flag with cries of 'Bindera Kisungu!'--a
white man's flag! 'Bindera Mericani!'--the American flag! These cries
resounded on all sides.

"Then we were surrounded by them--by Wajiji, Wanyamzi, Wangwana,
Warundi, Waguhha, Wamanyuema and Arabs, and were almost deafened with
the shout of 'Yambo, yambo, bona! Yambo bona, Yambo bona, Yambo bona!'
To all and each of my men the welcome was given.

"We were now about three hundred yards from the village of Ujiji, and
the crowds are dense about me. Suddenly I hear a voice on my right say:
'Good morning, sir!'

"Startled at hearing this greeting in the midst of such a crowd of black
people, I turn sharply around in search of the man, and see him at my
side with the blackest of faces, but animated and joyous--a man dressed
in a long white shirt, with a turban of American sheeting around his
woolly head, and I ask: 'Who the mischief are you?'

"'I am Susi, the servant of Dr. Livingstone,' said he, smiling and
showing a gleaming row of teeth.

"'What! is Dr. Livingstone here?'

"'Yes, sir.'

"'In this village?'

"'Yes, sir.'

"'Are you sure?'

"'Sure, sure, sir. Why I just left him.'

"'Good-morning, sir,' said another voice.

"'Hallo,' said I, 'is this another one?'

"'Yes, sir.'

"'Well, what is your name?'

"'My name is Chumah, sir.'

"'What are you, Chumah, the friend of Weko-tani?'

"'Yes, sir.'

"'And is the doctor well?'

"'Not very well, sir.'

"'Where has he been so long?

"'In Manyuema.'

"'Now you, Susi, run and tell the doctor I am coming.'

"'Yes, sir,' and off he darted like a madman.

"By this time we were within two hundred yards of the village, and the
multitude was getting denser, and almost preventing our march. Flags and
streamers were out; Arabs and Wangwana were pushing their way through
the natives in order to greet us, for according to their account we
belonged to them. But the great wonder of all was, 'How did you come
from Unyanyembe?'

"Soon Susi came running back and asked me my name; he had told the
doctor that I was coming, but the doctor was too surprised to believe
him, and when the doctor asked him my name Susi was rather staggered.

"But during Susi's absence the news had been conveyed to the doctor that
it was surely a white man that was coming, whose guns were firing and
whose flag could be seen; and the great Arab magnates of Ujiji--Mohammed
bin Sali, Sayd bin Majid, Abid bin Suliman, Mohammed bin Gharib and
others--had gathered together before the doctor's house, and the doctor
had come out on his veranda to discuss the matter and await my arrival.

"In the meantime, the head of the expedition had halted and the
Kirangozi were out of the ranks, holding the flag aloft, and Selim said
to me, 'I see the doctor, sir. Oh, what an old man! He has got a white
beard.' And I--what would I not have given for a bit of friendly
wilderness where, unseen, I might vent my joy in some mad freak, such as
idiotically biting my hand, turning a somersault, or slashing some
trees, in order to allay those exciting feelings that were well-nigh
uncontrollable. My heart beats fast, but I must not let my face betray
my emotions, lest it shall detract from the dignity of a white man
appearing under such extraordinary circumstances.

"So I did that which I thought was most dignified, I pushed back the
crowds, and, passing from the rear, walked down a living avenue of
people until I came in front of the semi-circle of Arabs, in front of
which stood the white man with the gray beard. As I advanced slowly
toward him I noticed he was pale, looked wearied, had a gray beard, wore
a bluish cap with a faded gold band around it, had on a red-sleeved
waistcoat and a pair of gray tweed trousers. I would have run to him,
only I was a coward in such a mob--would have embraced him, only, he
being an Englishman, I did not know how he would receive me; so I did
what cowardice and false pride suggested was the best thing--walked
deliberately to him, took off my hat and said, 'Dr. Livingstone, I
presume?'

"'Yes,' said he, with a kind smile, lifting his hat slightly.

"I replace my cap on my head, and he puts on his cap, and we both grasp
hands, and then I say aloud: 'I thank God, doctor, I have been permitted
to see you.'

"He answered: 'I feel thankful I am here to welcome you.'

[Illustration: STANLEY MEETING LIVINGSTONE AT UJIJI.]

"I turned to the Arabs, took off my hat to them in response to the
saluting chorus of 'Yambos,' I receive, and the doctor introduces them
to me by name. Then oblivious of the crowds, oblivious of the men who
shared with me my dangers, we--Livingstone and I--turn our faces toward
his tembe. He points to the veranda, or rather mud platform, under the
broad over-hanging eaves; he points to his own particular seat, which I
see his age and experience in Africa have suggested, namely, a straw mat
with a goat-skin over it, and another skin nailed against the wall to
protect his back from contact with the cold mud. I protest against
taking this seat, which so much more befits him than me, but the doctor
will not yield: I must take it.

"We are seated--the doctor and I--with our backs to the wall. The Arabs
take seats on our left. More than a thousand natives are in our front,
filling the whole square densely, indulging their curiosity and
discussing the fact of two white men meeting at Ujiji--one just come
from Manyuema, in the west, the other from Unyanyembe, in the east.

"Conversation began. What about? I declare I have forgotten. Oh! we
mutually asked questions of one another, such as: 'How did you come
here?' and 'Where have you been all this long time? the world has
believed you to be dead.' Yes, that was the way it began; but whatever
the doctor informed me, and that which I communicated to him, I cannot
exactly report, for I found myself gazing at him, conning the wonderful
man, at whose side I now sat in Central Africa. Every hair of his head
and beard, every wrinkle of his face, the wanness of his features, and
the slightly wearied look he wore, were all imparting intelligence to
me--the knowledge I craved for so much ever since I heard the words,
'Take what you want, but find Livingstone.' What I saw was deeply
interesting intelligence to me, and unvarnished truths I was listening
and reading at the same time. What did these dumb witnesses relate to
me?

"Oh, reader, had you been at my side that day at Ujiji, how eloquently
could be told the nature of this man's work! Had you been there but to
see and hear! His lips gave me the details; lips that never lie. I
cannot repeat what he said; I was too much engrossed to take my
note-book out and begin to stenograph his story. He had so much to say
that he began at the end, seemingly oblivious of the fact that five or
six years had to be accounted for. But his account was oozing out; it
was growing fast into grand proportions--into a most marvelous history
of deeds.

"The Arabs rose up with a delicacy I approved, as if they intuitively
knew that we ought to be left to ourselves. I sent Bombay with them to
give them the news they also wanted so much to know about the affairs at
Unyanyembe. Sayd bin Majid was the father of the gallant young man whom
I saw at Masange, and who fought with me at Zimbizo, and who soon
afterwards was killed by Mirambo's Ruga--Ruga in the forest of
Wilyankuru; and knowing I had been there, he earnestly desired to hear
the tale of the fight; but they all had friends at Unyanyembe, and it
was but natural that they should be anxious to hear of what concerned
them.

"After giving orders to Bombay and Asmani for the provisioning of the
men of the expedition, I called 'Kaif-Halek,' or 'how do ye do,' and
introduced him to Dr. Livingstone as one of the soldiers in charge of
certain goods left at Unyanyembe, whom I had compelled to accompany me
to Ujiji that he might deliver in person to his master, the letter-bag
he had been intrusted with by Dr. Kirk.

"This was the famous letter-bag marked 'Nov. 1st, 1870,' which was now
delivered into the doctor's hands, three hundred and sixty-five days
after it left Zanzibar! How long, I wonder, had it remained at
Unyanyembe, had I not been dispatched into Central Africa in search of
the great traveler?

"The doctor kept the letter-bag on his knee, then, presently, opened it,
looked at the letters contained there and read one or two of his
children's letters, his face, in the meanwhile, lighting up.

"He asked me to tell him the news. 'No, doctor,' said I, 'read your
letters first, which, I am sure, you must be impatient to read.'

"'Ah,' said he, 'I have waited years for letters, and I have been taught
patience. I can surely afford to wait a few hours longer. No; tell me
the general news; how is the world getting along?'

"'You probably know much already. Do you know that the Suez Canal is a
fact--is opened and a regular trade carried on between Europe and India
through it?'

"'I did not hear about the opening of it. Well, that is grand news! What
else?'

"Shortly I found myself enacting the part of an annual periodical to
him. There was no need of exaggeration--of any penny-a-line news, or of
any sensationalism. The world had witnessed and experienced much the
last few years. The Pacific Railroad had been completed; Grant had been
elected President of the United States; Egypt had been flooded with
savans; the Cretan rebellion had terminated; a Spanish revolution had
driven Isabella from the throne of Spain, and a regent had been
appointed; General Prim was assassinated; a Castelar had electrified
Europe with his advanced ideas upon the liberty of worship; Prussia had
humbled Denmark and annexed Schleswig-Holstein, and her armies were now
around Paris; the 'Man of Destiny' was a prisoner at Wilhelmshöhe; the
queen of fashion and the empress of the French was a fugitive; and the
child born in the purple had lost forever the imperial crown intended
for its head; the Napoleon dynasty was extinguished by the Prussians,
Bismarck and Von Moltke, and France, the proud empire, was humbled to
the dust.

"What could a man have exaggerated of these facts? What a budget of news
it was to one who had emerged from the depths of the primeval forests of
Manyuema! The reflection of the dazzling light of civilization was cast
on him while Livingstone was thus listening in wonder to one of the most
exciting passages of history ever repeated. How the puny deeds of
barbarism paled before these! Who could tell under what new phases of
uneasy life Europe was laboring even then, while we two of her lonely
children rehearsed the tale of her late woes and glories? More worthily,
perhaps, had the tongue of a lyric Demodocus recounted them; but in the
absence of the poet, the newspaper correspondent performed his part as
well and truthfully as he could.

"Not long after the Arabs had departed, a dishful of hot hashed-meat
cakes was sent to us by Sayd bin Majid, and a curried chicken was
received from Mohammed bin Sali, and Moeni Kheri sent a dishful of
stewed goat meat and rice; and thus presents of food came in succession,
and as fast as they were brought we set to. I had a healthy, stubborn
digestion, the exercise I had taken had put it in prime order, but
Livingstone--he had been complaining that he had no appetite, that his
stomach refused everything but a cup of tea now and then--he ate
also--ate like a vigorous, hungry man; and as he vied with me in
demolishing the pancakes, he kept repeating, 'You have brought me new
life.'

"'Oh, by George,' I said, 'I have forgotten something. Hasten, Selim,
and bring that bottle; you know which; and bring me the silver goblets.
I brought this bottle on purpose for this event, which I hoped would
come to pass, though often it seemed useless to expect it.'

"Selim knew where the bottle was, and he soon returned with it--a bottle
of Sillery champagne; and, handing the doctor a silver goblet brimful of
the exhilarating wine, and pouring a small quantity into my own, I said:
'Dr. Livingstone, to your very good health, sir.'

"'And to yours,' he responded.

"And the champagne I had treasured for this happy meeting was drank with
hearty good wishes to each other.

"But we kept on talking and talking, and prepared food was brought to us
all that afternoon, and we kept on eating every time it was brought
until I had eaten even to repletion, and the doctor was obliged to
confess that he had eaten enough. Still, Halimah, the female cook of the
doctor's establishment, was in a state of the greatest excitement. She
had been protruding her head out of the cook-house, to make sure that
there were really two white men sitting down in the veranda, when there
used to be only one, who would not, because he could not, eat anything;
and she had been considerably exercised in her mind over this fact. She
was afraid the doctor did not properly appreciate her culinary
abilities; but now she was amazed at the extraordinary quantity of food
eaten, and she was in a state of delightful excitement. We could hear
her tongue rolling off a tremendous volume of clatter to the wondering
crowds who halted before the kitchen to hear the current of news with
which she edified them. Poor, faithful soul. While we listen to the
noise of her furious gossip, the doctor related her faithful services
and the terrible anxiety she evinced when the guns first announced the
arrival of another white man in Ujiji; how she had been flying about in
a state of the utmost excitement, from the kitchen into his presence,
and out again into the square, asking all sorts of questions; how she
was in despair at the scantiness of the general larder and treasury of
the strange household; how she was anxious to make up for their poverty
by a grand appearance--to make up a sort of Barmecide feast to welcome
the white man.

"'Why,' said she, 'is he not one of us? Does he not bring plenty of
cloth and beads? Talk about the Arabs! Who are they, that they should be
compared to white men? Arabs, indeed!'

"The doctor and I conversed upon many things, especially upon his own
immediate troubles, and his disappointment upon his arrival at Ujiji
when told that all his goods had been sold, and he was reduced to
poverty. He had but twenty cloths or so left of the stock he had
deposited with the man called sheriff, the half-caste, drunken tailor,
who was sent by the British consul in charge of the goods. Besides which
he had been suffering from an attack of the dysentery, and his condition
was most deplorable. He was but little improved on this day, though he
had eaten well, and already began to feel stronger and better.

"This day, like all others, though big with happiness to me, at last,
was fading away. We, sitting with our faces looking to the east, as
Livingstone had been sitting for days preceding my arrival, noted the
dark shadow which crept up above the grove of palms beyond the village,
and above the rampart of mountains which we had crossed that day, now
looming through the fast-approaching darkness; and we listened, with our
hearts full of gratitude to the great Giver of Good and Dispenser of all
Happiness to the sonorous thunder of the surf of the Tanganika, and to
the chorus which the night insects sang. Hours passed, and we were still
sitting there with our minds busy upon the day's remarkable events, when
I remembered that the venerable traveler had not yet read his letters.

"'Doctor,' I said, 'you had better read your letters. I will not keep
you up any longer.'

"'Yes,' he answered, 'it is getting late, and I will go and read my
friends' letters. Good-night, and God bless you.'

"'Good-night, my dear doctor, and let me hope, your news will be such as
you desire.'"

Since the creation of the world there never has occurred such another
interview. The feelings of Stanley that night, in the heart of Africa,
can only be imagined. The strain had ended, the doubt and suspense were
over--_he had found Livingstone!_ he had succeeded; his most extravagant
dreams had been realized; his wildest ambition was satisfied, and from
that hour the adventurer, the newspaper correspondent, took his place
among the great explorers of the world. But it was no stroke of
luck,--it was the fitting reward of great risks and great endeavor.



CHAPTER IX.

STANLEY'S HOMEWARD MARCH.


Rest and repose were now enjoyed to the full by Stanley. His long
struggles, his doubts and fears, his painful anxiety were over, and the
end toward which he had strained with such unflagging resolution, the
most disheartening circumstances, and which at times seemed to recede
the more as he pressed forward, was at last reached. The sweet repose,
the calm satisfaction and enjoyment which always come with the
consciousness of complete success, now filled his heart, and he felt as
none can feel but he who has at last won a long and doubtful battle. It
was complete rest, the entire fruition of his hopes; and as he sat down
there in the heart of Africa, beside Livingstone, he was doubtless for
at least the first few days, the happiest man on the globe, and well he
deserved to be. The goal was won, the prize secured, and for the time
being his utmost desires were satisfied. Why should he not be happy?

His intercourse with Livingstone for the next four months will be marked
by him as the brightest portion of his eventful life. Independent of all
he had undergone to find this remarkable man, the man himself enlisted
all his sympathies and awakened his most extravagant admiration and
purest love, and a more charming picture can hardly be conceived than
these two men, walking at sunset along the beach of the wild and lonely
lake of Tanganika, talking over the strange scenes and objects of their
strange, new world, or recalling home and friends far away amid all the
comforts and luxuries of civilization. The man whom Stanley had at last
found was almost as new and startling a revelation to him as the country
in which he had found him. Simple, earnest, unselfish--nay, unambitious,
so far as personal fame was concerned, borne up in all his sufferings
and trials by one great and noble purpose, and conquering even savage
hate by the power of goodness alone, he was an object of the profoundest
interest. And no greater eulogium on the innate goodness and nobleness
of Stanley's nature could be given than he unconsciously bestowed on
himself by the deep attachment, nay, almost adoration, he expresses for
this lonely, quiet, good man. He fastens to him at once, and casting off
old prejudices and rejecting all former criticisms of his character, he
impulsively becomes his champion, and crowns him the prince of men.

The talk between them at their first meeting in this far-off land, was
long and pleasant, and when the good-night was given, it was with
strange feelings that Stanley turned into his allotted sleeping place
in a regular bed. After all the toils and almost unnatural excitement of
the day, he soon sank into profound slumber. The next morning he awoke
with a start, and looked about him for a moment in a dazed way. He was
not on the ground, but in a bed; a roof, not a tent, was above him,
while not a sound broke the stillness save the steady, monotonous roar
of the surf beating on the shore. As he lay and listened, strange
thoughts and varied emotions chased each other in rapid succession
through his heart. At length he arose and dressed himself, intending
before breakfast to take a stroll along the shore of the lake. But the
doctor was up before him and met him with a cordial "Good-morning," and
the hope that he had rested well.

Livingstone had sat up late reading the news that Stanley had brought
him from the outside world, from which he had heard nothing for years.

"Sit down," said the venerable man, "you have brought me good and bad
news," and then he repeated, first of all, the tidings he had received
from his children.

In the excitement of the day before, the doctor had forgotten to inquire
of Stanley the object of his coming, or where he was going, and the
latter now said: "Doctor, you are probably wondering why I came here."

"It is true," was the reply, "I have been wondering."

That wonder was increased when Stanley said: "I came after you, nothing
else."

"After me!" exclaimed the now utterly bewildered man.

"Yes," said Stanley, "after you. I suppose you have heard of the New
York _Herald_?"

"Yes," said the doctor.

"Well, Mr. Bennett, son of the proprietor, sent me, at his own expense,
to find you."

Poor Livingstone could hardly comprehend the fact that an American, and
a stranger, should expend $25,000 to find him, a solitary Englishman.

Stanley lived now some four months in the closest intimacy with
Livingstone. Removed from all the formalities of civilized life--the
only two in that far-off land who could converse in the English
language, and who were of the same lineage and faith--their relations of
necessity became very intimate. All restraint was thrown off, and this
noble man poured into the astonished ears of Stanley all he had thought,
prayed for, endured and suffered for the last long five years. It was a
new revelation to his hearer. It opened up a new world; gave him a new
and loftier conception of what human nature is capable of attaining, and
he says: "I had gone over battle-fields, witnessed revolutions, civil
wars, rebellions, emeutes and massacres; stood close to the condemned
murderer to record his last struggles and last sighs; but never had I
been called to record anything that moved me so much as this man's woes
and sufferings, his privations and disappointments, which were now
poured into my ear. Verily did I begin to believe that 'the gods above
us do with just eyes survey the affairs of men.' I began to recognize
the hand of an overruling Providence."

After resting for a week, during which time Stanley became thoroughly
acquainted with Livingstone and learned to respect and love him more and
more, the former asked the doctor if he would not like to explore the
north end of the Tanganika Lake and among other things, settle the
question whether the Rusizi River flowed _into_ or _out_ of the lake.
The doctor gladly consented, and they set off in a canoe manned by
sixteen rowers. The weather was fine, the scenery charming, and it
seemed like floating through a fairyland. Day after day they kept
on--landing at night on the picturesque shores, undisturbed, except in
one or two instances, by the natives. The luxuriant banks were lined
with villages, filled with an indolent, contented people. With no wants
except food to eat, and the lake full of fish, they had nothing to
stimulate them to activity or effort of any kind.

[Illustration: VILLAGE ON TANGANIKA LAKE]

Islands came and went, mountains rose and faded on the horizon, and it
was one long holiday to our two explorers. As the rowers bent steadily
to their oars and the canoe glided softly through the rippling waters,
they spent the time in admiring the beautiful scenery that kept
changing like a kaleidoscope, or talking of home and friends and the
hopes and prospects of the future. A hippopotamus would now and then
startle them by his loud snort, as he suddenly lifted his head near the
boat to breathe, wild fowl skittered away as they approached, a sweet
fragrance came down from the hill-sides, and the tropical sky bent soft
and blue above them. The conventionalities of life were far away and all
was calm and peaceful, and seemed to Stanley more like a dream than a
reality. They were thus voyaging along the coast twenty-eight days,
during which time they had traversed over three hundred miles of water.

But at last the time came for Stanley to turn his footsteps homeward. He
tried in vain to prevail on Livingstone to go home with him, but the
latter, though anxious to see his children, resolutely refused, saying
that he must finish his work. He, however, concluded to accompany
Stanley as far as Unyanyembe, to meet the stores which had been
forwarded to that place for him from Zanzibar. On the 27th of December,
therefore, they set out by a new route. Nothing occurred in the long
journey of special interest, except the shooting of a zebra or a
buffalo, the meeting of a herd of elephants or giraffes, or a lion. It
was a tedious and toilsome journey, during which Stanley suffered from
attacks of fever, and Livingstone from lacerated feet. They were
fifty-three days on the march, but at last Unyanyembe was reached.
Stanley once more took possession of his old quarters. Here both found
letters and papers from home, brought by a recent caravan, and once more
they seemed put in communication with the outside world. Being
well-housed and provided with everything they needed, they felt
thoroughly comfortable.

The doctor's boxes were first broken open, and between the number of
poor articles they contained and the absence of good ones which had been
abstracted on the way, they proved something of a disappointment.
Stanley then overhauled his own stores, of which there were seventy-four
loads, the most valuable of which he intended to turn over to
Livingstone. These also had been tampered with; still many luxuries
remained, and they determined to have their Christmas dinner over again.
Stanley arranged the bill of fare, and it turned out grandly. But now he
saw that he must begin to prepare for his return to the coast, and so he
left Livingstone to write up his journal and to finish the letters he
was to send home. In overhauling the stores and making up the packages
he should need on his return route, he was able to select and turn over
to the doctor two thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight yards of
cloth, nine hundred and ninety-two pounds of assorted beads, three
hundred and fifty pounds of brass wire, besides bed, canvas boat,
carpenters' tools, rifles, revolvers, ammunition, cooking utensils and
various other articles of use, making in all about forty loads. These,
with the doctor's personal stores, made Livingstone quite a rich man for
Central Africa--in fact, he had a four years' supply.

At length the letters were all written, the loads strapped, and the next
day fixed for Stanley to turn his face homeward and Livingstone his to
the heart of Africa. At night the natives gave a great dance as a
farewell compliment, and a wild, weird dance it was. Bombay wore a
water-bucket on his head, while each carried or wore something grotesque
or dangerous. The first was a war dance, and when it ended, a second and
different one was started, accompanied by a chorus or song chanted in a
slow, mournful tone, of which the burden was "Oh-oh-oh, the white man is
going home."

That night as Stanley lay and pondered on the morrow, when he should see
the "good man" for the last time, he was filled with the keenest sorrow.
He had grown to love him like a father; and to see him turn back alone
to the savage life he must encounter in his great work, seemed like
giving him over to death.

It was a sad breakfast to which the two sat down next morning. But it
was over at last and the parting hour came.

"Doctor," said Stanley, "I will leave two men with you for a couple of
days, lest you may have forgotten something, and will wait for them at
Tura; and now we must part--there is no help for it--good-bye."

"Oh," replied Livingstone, "I am coming with you a little way; I must
see you off on the road;" and the two walked on side by side, their
hearts burdened with grief.

At last Stanley said: "Now, my dear doctor, the best friends must part,
you have come far enough, let me beg of you to turn back."

Livingstone stopped and, seizing Stanley's hand, said: "I am grateful to
you for what you have done for me. God guide you safe home and bless
you, my friend."

"And may God bring you safe back to us all, my friend," replied Stanley,
with a voice choked with emotion. "_Farewell._"

They wrung each other's hands in silence for a minute, and then Stanley
turned away to hide his tears, murmuring: "Good-bye, doctor; dear
friend, good-bye."

He would not have been the man he is, not to have been overcome at this
parting; alas, to be, as it proved, a final parting, so far as concerns
meeting again in this life. But this was not all--the doctor's faithful
servants would not be forgotten, and rushing forward, they seized
Stanley's hands and kissed them for their good master's sake. The stern
and almost tyrannical man, that neither danger nor suffering could
move, completely broke down under this last demonstration and could
recover himself only by giving the sharp order, MARCH! and he almost
drove his men before him, and soon a turn in the path shut out
Livingstone's form forever. Yes, forever, so far as the living, speaking
man is concerned, but shut out _never_ from Stanley's life. That one man
fixed his destiny for this world, and who knows but for the eternal
ages? No wonder that he said, long after, "My eyes grow dim at the
remembrance of that parting. For four months and four days I lived with
him in the same house, or in the same boat, or in the same tent, and I
never found a fault in him. I am a man of a quick temper, and often
without sufficient cause, I dare say, have broken ties of friendship;
but with Livingstone I never had cause of resentment, but each day's
life with him added to my admiration of him."

The caravan marched wearily back, meeting with nothing eventful till it
entered the Ugogo territory, where, owing to a misunderstanding on the
part of the natives, who got it into their heads that Stanley meant to
pass them without paying the accustomed tribute, a fight seemed
inevitable. Had it occurred, it is doubtful whether he or Livingstone's
papers would ever have been heard of again. But Stanley had seemed from
his infancy a child of destiny, and escaped here, as everywhere, by the
skin of his teeth. It was a constant succession of toilsome, painful
marches, even when the natives were friendly, while there was often a
scarcity of provisions. To secure these he, at last, when on the borders
of the wilderness of Marenga Mkali, dispatched three men to Zanzibar,
with a request to the consul there to send them back with provisions.
These messengers were told not to halt for anything--rain, rivers or
inundations--but push right on. "Then," says Stanley, "with a loud,
vigorous hurrah, we plunged into the depths of the wilderness which,
with its eternal silence and solitude, was far preferable to the
jarring, inharmonious discord of the villages of the Wagogo. For nine
hours we held on our way, starting with noisy shouts the fierce
rhinoceros, the timid quagga and the herds of antelopes, which crowd the
jungles of this broad Salina. On the 7th, amid a pelting rain, we
entered Mpwapwa, where my Scotch assistant, Farquhar, had died."

In twenty-nine days they had marched three hundred and thirty-eight
miles. Twelve miles a day, including stoppages and delays, was in such a
country rapid marching--nay, almost unparalleled; but Stanley had turned
his face homeward and could stand no African dilly-dallying on the way.
We cannot go into the details of this homeward march,--to-day startled
by a thousand warriors, streaming along the war-path,--to-morrow on the
brink of a collision with the natives, the end of which no one could
foresee, but the caravan pressed on until they came to the neighborhood
of the terrible Makata swamps, that Stanley had occasion so well to
remember. Heavy rains had set in, swelling all the streams and
inundating the plains, so that the marching was floundering through
interminable stretches of water. Now swimming turbulent rivers--now
camping in the midst of pestiferous swamps, and all the time drenched by
the rain, that fell in torrents--they struggled on until, at last, they
came to the dreaded Makata swamp itself. The sight that met them here
was appalling, but there was no retreat, and for long hours they toiled
slowly through, sometimes up to their necks in water, sometimes
swimming, and where it was shallow sinking in deep mire. They thus
fought their way on, and at last, weary, worn and half-starved, came to
the Makata River. But no sooner were they over this, than a lake six
miles wide stretched before them. The natives warned him against
attempting to cross it; but nothing could stop him now, and they all
plunged in.

He says: "We were soon up to our armpits, then the water shallowed to
the knee, then we stepped up to the neck and waded on tiptoe, until we
were halted on the edge of the Little Makata, which raced along at the
rate of eight knots an hour." Fierce and rapid as it was, there was no
course left but to swim it, and swim it they did. For a whole week they
had been wading and swimming and floundering through water, till it
seemed impossible that any one could survive such exposure, but, at last
they came to dry ground and to the famous walled city of the Sultana
Limbamwanni, which we described in his upward journey. But the heavy
rains that had inundated the whole country, had so swollen the river,
near the banks on which it was situated, that the water had carried away
the entire front wall of the town, and some fifty houses with it. The
sultana had fled and her stronghold had disappeared. All along the route
was seen the devastating power of the flood as it swept over the
country, carrying away a hundred villages in its course. The fields were
covered with débris of sand and mud, and what was a paradise when he
went in was now a desert. With the subsidence of the water the
atmosphere became impregnated with miasma, and the whole land seemed
filled with snakes, scorpions, iguanas and ants, while clouds of
mosquitoes darkened the air till life became almost intolerable. At
last, on May 2d, after forty-seven days of incessant marching, and
almost continual suffering, they reached Rosako, where, a few minutes
after, the three men he had sent forward arrived, bringing with them a
few boxes of jam, two of Boston crackers, and some bottles of champagne;
and most welcome they were after the terrible journey through the Makata
Valley. The last great obstacle (a ferry of four miles across a watery
plain) being surmounted, the caravan approached Bagomayo, and in their
jubilant excitement announced its arrival by the firing of guns and
blowing of horns, and with shouting hurrahs till they were hoarse. The
sun was just sinking behind the distant forests, from which they had
emerged and which were filled with such terrible associations, when they
entered the town, and sniffed with delight the fresh sea-breeze that
came softly stealing inland. The putrid air of the swamps, the poisonous
miasma that enveloped the entire country, were left far behind with want
and famine, and no wonder the heart was elated and their bounding joy
found expression in exultant shouts.

Happy in having once more reached civilization; happy in the thought of
his triumphant success; and still more happy in the joy that he believed
the good news he brought would give to others, Stanley's heart was
overflowing with kindness to all, and the world seemed bright to him.
But, in a moment it was all dashed on opening the papers at Zanzibar.
Scarcely one had a kind word for him; on the contrary, he found nothing
but suspicion, jealousy and detraction, and even charges of fabricating
the whole story of having found Livingstone. He was stunned at this
undeserved cruel reception of his declaration, and the faith in the
goodness of human nature, with which Livingstone had inspired him,
seemed about to give way before this evidence of its meanness and
littleness. He could not comprehend how his simple, truthful,
unostentatious story could awaken such unkind feelings, such baseless
slanders. It was a cruel blow to receive, after all that he had endured
and suffered. No wonder he wrote bitter words of the kid-glove
geographers, who criticized him, and the press that jeered at him. But
he has had his revenge, for he has triumphed over them all.

He immediately set to work to organize a caravan to send off to
Livingstone the things he had promised, and then started for home.



CHAPTER X.

STANLEY'S MAIN EXPEDITION.


Stanley, after he had found Livingstone, naturally thought much of the
latter's explorations. Africa had become to him an absorbing subject,
and he began to imbibe the spirit of Livingstone. This was natural, for
Stanley had already won fame there, and why should he not win still
greater laurels in the same field? This feeling was much increased after
the death of the great explorer, leaving his work unfinished, which
Stanley longed to complete. True, Cameron was on the ground to
accomplish this very object, but Stanley knew the difficulties one would
have to contend with without a boat of his own. The matter was talked
over a good deal, and finally the proprietors of the New York _Herald_
and London _Telegraph_ determined to send Stanley once more into Africa.

The vast lake region, embracing some six degrees of longitude, and
extending from the equator to fifteen degrees south latitude, had become
a region of the greatest interest to explorers. On this vast water-shed
lived a mighty population, and these lakes, with the rivers running into
and out of them, must furnish the roads to commerce and be the means by
which Africa should be lifted out of its barbarism into the light of
civilization.

The large lakes Nyassa and Tanganika had been more or less explored, but
the one possessing the greatest interest, the Victoria Nyanza--on
account of the general impression that it was the head of the Nile--was
almost wholly unknown. The persistence with which the Nile had mocked
all previous attempts to find its source, had imparted a mystery to it
and caused efforts to be made to unlock the secret, which were wholly
disproportioned to its seeming value or real importance. This lake,
therefore, was to be Stanley's first objective point. Livingstone, Speke
and Burton, and others had seen it--_he_ would sail around it in a boat
which he would take with him. This he had made in sections, so that it
could be carried the nearly one thousand miles through the jungles of
Africa to its destination.

Everything being completed he started on his route, and in the latter
part of 1874 found himself once more at Zanzibar, after an absence of
four years. Here, in organizing his expedition, he discovered that the
builder had made his boat, which he had christened the Lady Alice, a
great deal heavier than he had ordered; but he luckily found a man in
Zanzibar who was able to reduce its weight so that it could be
transported by the carriers. His force consisted in all, of a little
over three hundred men, and he took with him several powerful dogs.

The interest of this great expedition begins where he struck off from
the regular route of the caravans going west, and entered an entirely
new country and encountered a new race of people. Instead of moving
directly westward, he turned off to the north, and at length reached the
western frontier of Ugogo, on the last day of the year 1874. The country
at this point stretched before him in one vast plain, which some of the
natives said extended clear to Nyanza. He found that his course led him
along the extremity of Whumba, which he was glad to know, as he thought
his march would now be unmolested. Two days' march brought them to the
borders of Usandawa, a country abounding in elephants. Here he turned to
the north-west and entered Ukimbu or Uyonzi on its eastern extremity.
The guides he had hired in Ugogo to take him as far as Iramba here
deserted him. Hiring fresh ones, he continued two days in the same
direction, when these deserted him also, and Stanley found himself one
morning on the edge of a vast wilderness without a guide.

The day before, the guides had told him that three days' march would
bring him to Urimi. Relying on the truth of this statement, he had
purchased only two days' provisions. Thinking, therefore, that they
would be there by the evening of the next day, he thought little of the
desertion and moved off with confidence. But the next morning, the
track, which was narrow and indistinct at the best, became so
inextricably mixed up with the paths made by elephants and rhinoceros,
that they were wholly at a loss what course to take. Halting, Stanley
sent out men to seek the lost trail, but they returned unable to find
it. They then, of course, could do nothing but march by compass, which
they did.

As might be expected, it brought them, after a few hours' march, into a
dense jungle of acacias and euphorbias, through which they could make
their way only by crawling, scrambling and cutting the entangling vines.
Now pushing aside an obstructing branch--now cutting a narrow lane
through the matted mass, and now taking advantage of a slight opening,
this little band of three hundred struggled painfully forward toward
what they thought was open country, and an African village with plenty
of provisions.

In this protracted struggle the third night overtook them in the
wilderness, and there they pitched their lonely, starving camp. To make
it more gloomy, one of the men died and was buried; his shallow grave
seeming to be a sad foreboding of what awaited them in the future. The
want of provisions now began to tell terribly on the men, but there was
nothing to do but go forward, trusting to some break in this apparently
interminable wilderness. But human endurance has its limit, and
although Stanley kept his little force marching all day, they made but
fourteen miles. It was a continual jungle, with not a drop of water on
the route. The poor carriers, hungry and thirsty, sank under their loads
and lagged behind the main force for many miles, until it became a
straggling, weary, despondent crowd, moving without order and without
care through the wilderness. The strong endeavored to help the weak, and
did relieve them of their burdens and encourage them to hold on, so that
most of them were able to reach the camp at night. But in despite of all
effort five sick, despairing men, strayed from the path, which was only
a blind trail made by those in advance.

After the camp for the night was pitched, Stanley sent back scouts to
find the wanderers. They explored the woods for a mile each side of the
track, but only one man was found, and he fully a mile from the trail
and dead. The other four had wandered off beyond reach and were never
heard of more. This was getting to be fearful marching--five men in one
day was a death-roll that could not be kept up long, and Stanley began
to cast about anxiously to determine what step he should next take.
There was but one course left open to him, to attempt to retrace his
steps was certain death by famine, to advance could not be worse, while
it might bring relief, so "push on," was the order, and they did push
on, weary, thirsty, starving, and on the fifth day they came to a
little village recently established, and which consisted of only four
huts, occupied by four men with their wives and children. These had
scarcely provisions enough to keep themselves, and hence could give
nothing to Stanley's starving men. It was useless to attempt further
marching without food, for the men staggered into camp exhausted, and
would rather die there than attempt to move again.

Stanley's experience had taught him how far he could urge on these
African carriers and soldiers, and he saw they had now become desperate
and would not budge another inch until they had something to eat. He,
therefore, ordered a halt, and selecting twenty of his strongest men,
sent them off in search of food. They were to press on to a village
called Suna, about thirty miles distant, of which the natives told him,
and where they said food was in abundance. As soon as they had
disappeared in the forest, Stanley took his gun and strolled out in
search of game. But, filled as the country seemed with it, he could find
nothing to shoot. One of his men, however, came across a lion's den, in
which were two cubs, which he brought to Stanley. The latter skinned
them and took them back to camp. As he entered it, the pinched and worn
faces of his faithful men, as they sat hungry and despairing, moved him
so deeply that he would have wept, but for fear of adding to their
despondency. The two cubs would go but a little way toward feeding some
two hundred and twenty men, if cooked as ordinary meat, so he resolved
to make a soup of them, which would go much farther. But the question
was where to get a kettle large enough to make a soup for such a large
body of men.

Luckily, he bethought himself of a sheet-iron trunk which he had among
his baggage, and which was water-tight. He quickly dumped out of it its
contents, and filling it with water, set it over a fire which he had
ordered to be made. He then broke open his medical stores, and taking
out five pounds of Scotch oatmeal and three one-pound tins of _Revalenta
Arabica_, he made with it and the two young lions a huge trunk full of
gruel, that would give even two hundred and twenty men a good bowl
apiece. He said it was a rare sight to see those hungry, famished men
gather around that Torquay dress-trunk and pile on the fuel, and in
every way assist to make the contents boil, while with greedy eyes, with
gourds in their hands full of water, they stood ready to pour it in the
moment it threatened to boil over and waste the precious contents.
"But," he adds, "it was a rarer sight still to watch the famished
wretches, as, with these same gourds full of the precious broth, they
drank it down as only starving men swallow food. The weak and sick got a
larger portion, and another tin of oatmeal being opened for their
supper and breakfast, they awaited patiently the return of those who
had gone in quest of food."

Stanley's position now became painfully trying. He was five days' march
from where he could obtain food, if he attempted to go back. This march,
in the present condition of his men, they could never make, and if any
did survive, it would be on the terrible condition of the living eating
the dead.

The only hope lay in reaching supplies in advance. But what if those
twenty strong men he had sent on to find them never returned, having
been ambushed and killed on the way, or what if they, at the end of
several days, returned and reported nothing but an unbroken wilderness
and impassable jungle or swamps in front, and themselves famished, ready
to die? These were questions that Stanley anxiously put to himself and
dared not contemplate the answer. The hours of painful anxiety and
suspense, the maddening thoughts and wild possibilities that fire the
brain and oppress the heart in such crises as these cannot be imagined,
they can be known only by him who suffers the pangs they inflict. This
is a portion of the history of the expedition that Stanley can never
write, though it is written on his heart in lines that will never be
effaced.

The empty trunk lay on one side, and the night came down and the stars
burned bright and tranquilly above, and all was silent in the wide
solitude as Stanley sat and listened for the return of his men. But
they came not, and the morning broke and the sun rode the tropical
heavens once more in his splendor, but no musket-shot from the forest
told of the returning scouts. The weary hours wore on and the emaciated
men lay around in silent suffering. To Stanley those hours seemed days.
Night again darkened the forest and still no sign of the returning
party. Would they ever return? was the terrible question Stanley was
perpetually putting to himself, and if not, what desperate movement
should he attempt?

The third morning broke as calm and peaceful as the rest; he was
beginning to despair, when, suddenly, a musket-shot broke over the
forest, and then another and another, sending sudden life and activity
throughout the despairing camp. The men, as they emerged into view laden
with food, were greeted with a loud shout, and the hungry wretches fell
on the provisions they brought like ravening wolves. The report of
abundance ahead so excited the men that they forgot their feebleness and
clamored to be led on that very afternoon. Stanley was quite willing to
get away from the jungle, filled with such painful associations, and
cheerfully ordered the march, but before they could get away two men
breathed their last in the camp and were left to sleep alone in the
wilderness.

That night they encamped at the base of a rocky hill, from which
stretched away a broad plain. The hill, lifting itself into the clear
air, and the open plain, seemed like civilization compared with the
gloomy jungle in which they had been starving for the last two days, and
where they had left two of their number. They awoke next morning
cheerful and refreshed. Starting off with the prospect of abundant
provisions ahead, they made a steady march of twenty miles and reached
the district of Suna in Urimi.

Stanley was surprised, on entering the rude village, to see a new type
of African life. Men and women of great beauty and fine physical
proportions met his astonished sight. They stood before him in all their
naked beauty, unabashed: the women bearing children alone wearing a
covering of goat skins, designed evidently as a protection against
external injury, and not caused by any notions of modesty. Their fine
appearance seemed to indicate a greater mental development than any
other tribes which they had met. Whether this were so or not, it would
be difficult to tell, for they were the most suspicious, reserved people
Stanley had ever met, being greatly disinclined to barter provisions, of
which they had more than they wanted, for cloth and beads, of which they
apparently had none.

They had no chief, but seemed to be governed in their actions by the old
men. With these Stanley therefore treated for permission to pass
through their land. It required great tact to secure this, and still
more to obtain the required food. Stanley bore this silent hostility
patiently, for though he could have taken all he wanted by force, he
wished to avoid all violence. While lingering here, two more of his
exhausted company gave out and died, while his sick list swelled up to
thirty. Among the latter was Edward Pocoke, whom, with his brother,
Stanley had engaged in England to accompany him as attendants. This
compelled him to halt for four days, but finding that the hostile
feeling of the natives increased the longer he stayed, he determined,
dangerous as it was to the sick, especially to Pocoke, to leave.
Dysentery and diarrhoea were prevailing to an alarming extent, and rest
was especially necessary for these, if they hoped to recover; but he was
afraid matters would become dangerously complicated if he remained, and
he turned his soldiers into carriers and slung the sick into hammocks.
Encouraging them with the prospect of plenty and comfort ahead, he gave
the order to march, and they passed out and entered upon a clear, open
and well cultivated country. Reaching a village at 10 o'clock they
halted, and here, to the great grief of all, young Pocoke breathed his
last. In speaking of this sad event, which cast a gloom over the camp,
Stanley says: "We had finished the four hundredth mile of our march from
the sea and had reached the base of the water-shed, where the trickling
streams and infant waters began to flow Nile-ward, when this noble young
man died." They buried him at night under a tree, with the stars shining
down on the shallow-made grave; Stanley reading the burial service of
the Church of England over the body. Far from home and friends in that
distant lonely land he sleeps to-day, a simple wooden cross marking his
burial place. Stanley sent the following letter home to the young man's
father, describing his sickness and death:


     "KAGEHYI, ON THE VICTORIA NYANZA,
     "March 4th, 1875.

     "DEAR SIR: A most unpleasant, because sad, task devolves upon me,
     for I have the misfortune to have to report to you the death of
     your son Edward, of typhoid fever. His service with me was brief,
     but it was long enough for me to know the greatness of your loss,
     for I doubt that few fathers can boast of such sons as yours. Both
     Frank and Ted proved themselves sterling men, noble and brave
     hearts and faithful servants. Ted had endeared himself to the
     members of the expedition by his amiable nature, his cheerfulness,
     and by various qualifications which brought him into high favor
     with the native soldiers of this force.

     "Before daybreak we were accustomed to hear the cheery notes of his
     bugle, which woke us to a fresh day's labor; at night, around the
     camp-fires, we were charmed with his sweet, simple songs, of which
     he had an inexhaustible _répertoire_. When tired also with
     marching, it was his task to announce to the tired people the
     arrival of the vanguard at camp, so that he had become quite a
     treasure to us all; and I must say, I have never known men who
     could bear what your sons have borne on this expedition so
     patiently and uncomplainingly. I never heard one grumble either
     from Frank or Ted; have never heard them utter an illiberal remark,
     or express any wish that the expedition had never set foot in
     Africa, as many men would have done in their situation, so that you
     may well imagine, that if the loss of one of your sons causes grief
     to your paternal heart, it has been no less a grief to us, as we
     were all, as it were, one family, surrounded as we are by so much
     that is dark and forbidding.

     "On arriving at Suna, in Urimi, Ted came to me, after a very long
     march, complaining of pain in his limbs and loins. I did not think
     it was serious at all, nor anything uncommon after walking twenty
     miles, but told him to go and lie down, that he would be better on
     the morrow, as it was very likely fatigue. The next morning I
     visited him, and he again complained of pains in the knees and
     back, which I ascribed to rheumatism, and treated him accordingly.
     The third day he complained of pain in the chest, difficulty of
     breathing and sleeplessness, from which I perceived he was
     suffering from some other malady than rheumatism, but what it could
     be I could not divine. He was a little feverish, so I applied a
     mustard-plaster and gave him some aperient medicine. Toward night
     he began to wander in his head, and on examining his tongue I found
     it was almost black and coated with dark gray fur. At these
     symptoms I thought he had a severe attack of remittent fever, from
     which I suffered in Ujiji, in 1871, and therefore I watched for an
     opportunity to administer quinine--that is, when the fever should
     abate a little.

     "On the fourth day, the patient still wandering in his mind, I
     suggested to Frank that he should sponge him with cold water and
     change his clothing, during which operation I noticed that the
     chest of the patient was covered with spots like pimples or
     small-pox pustules, which perplexed me greatly. He could not have
     caught the small-pox, and what the disease was I could not imagine;
     but, turning to my medical books, I saw that your son was suffering
     from typhoid, the description of which was too clear to be longer
     mistaken, and both Frank and I devoted our attention to him. He was
     nourished with arrow-root and brandy, and everything that was in
     our power to do was done; but it was very evident that the case was
     serious, though I hoped that his constitution would brave it out.

     "On the fifth day we were compelled to resume our journey, after a
     rest of four days. Ted was put in a hammock and carried on the
     shoulders of four men. At 10 o'clock on the 17th of January, we
     halted at Chiwyn, and the minute he was laid down in the camp he
     breathed his last. Our companion was dead.

     [Illustration: BURIAL OF EDWARD POCOKE.]

     "We buried him that night under a tree, on which his brother Frank
     had cut a deep cross, and we read the beautiful service of the
     Church of England over him as we laid the poor worn-out body in its
     final resting-place so far from his own home and friends.

     "Peace be to his ashes. Poor Ted deserved a better fate than dying
     in Africa, but it was impossible that he could have died easier. I
     wish that my end may be as peaceful and painless as his. He was
     spared the stormy scenes we went through afterwards in our war with
     the Waturn: and who knows how much he has been saved from? But I
     know that he would have rejoiced to be with us at this hour of our
     triumph, gazing on the laughing waters of the vast fountain of the
     old Nile. None of us would have been more elated at the prospect
     before us than he, for he was a true sailor, and loved the sight of
     water. Yet again I say peace be to his ashes; be consoled, for
     Frank still lives, and, from present appearances, is likely to come
     home to you with honor and glory, such as he and you may well be
     proud of. Believe me, dear sir, with true sincerity, your
     well-wisher,

     "HENRY M. STANLEY."


Stanley still traveled in a northwest direction, and the farther he
advanced the more he was convinced that the rivulets he encountered
flowed into the Nile, and he became elated with the hope that he should
soon stand on the shores of the great lake that served as the head
reservoir of the mighty river.

Two days' march now brought them to Mongafa, where one of his men who
had accompanied him on his former expedition was murdered. He was
suffering from the asthma, and Stanley permitted him to follow the party
slowly. Straggling thus behind alone, he was waylaid by the natives and
murdered. It was impossible to ascertain who committed the deed, and so
Stanley could not avenge the crime.

Keeping on they at length entered Itwru, a district of Northern Urimi.
The village where they camped was called Vinyata, containing some two
thousand to three thousand souls, and was situated in a broad and
populous valley, through which flowed a stream twenty feet wide. The
people here received him in a surly manner, but Stanley was very anxious
to avoid trouble and used every exertion to conciliate them. He seemed
at last to succeed, for at evening they brought him milk, eggs and
chickens, taking cloth in exchange. This reached the ears of the great
man of the valley, a magic doctor, who, there being no king over the
people, is treated with the highest respect and honor by them. The next
day he brought Stanley a fat ox, for which the latter paid him twice
what it was worth in cloth and beads, besides making a rich present to
his brother and son. To all this man's requests Stanley cheerfully
consented in his anxiety to conciliate him and the natives.

That day, taking advantage of the bright sun to dry the bales and goods,
he exposed his rich stores, an imprudence which he very quickly deeply
regretted, for he saw that the display awoke all the greedy feelings of
the natives, as was evinced by their eager looks. But the day passed
quietly, and on the third morning the great man made his appearance
again and begged for more beads, which were given him and he departed
apparently very much pleased, and Stanley congratulated himself that he
would be allowed to depart in peace.



CHAPTER XI.

PRESSING TOWARDS THE INTERIOR.


For a half an hour after the magic doctor left, Stanley sat quietly in
his camp, his anxieties now thoroughly dissipated, thinking over his
speedy departure for the Nyanza. The camp was situated on the margin of
a vast wilderness, which stretched he knew not how far westward, while
away to the north, south and east extended a wide, open plain, dotted
over, as far as the eye could see, with villages. There were nearly two
hundred of them, looking is the distance like clusters of beehives.
Everything was peaceful, and not a sound disturbed the Sabbath-like
stillness of the scene, when there suddenly broke on his ears the shrill
war-cry, which was taken up by village after village till the whole
valley resounded with it. It was one loud "he-hu, he-hu," the last
syllable prolonged and uttered in a high, piercing note that made the
blood shiver. Still Stanley felt no alarm, supposing that some war
expedition was about to be set on foot, or some enemy was reported to be
near, and listened to the barbaric cry simply with curiosity. The men in
the camp kept about their usual avocations--some fetching water from a
neighboring pool, while others were starting off after wood--when
suddenly a hundred warriors appeared close to camp in full war costume.
Feathers of the eagle and other birds waved above their heads, "the mane
of the zebra and giraffe encircled their foreheads, their left hand held
the bow and arrows, while the right grasped the spear." Stanley arose,
and telling the men not to leave camp nor do anything to provoke a
hostile act, waited to see what this sudden warlike attitude meant.

In the meantime the throng increased till the entire camp was
surrounded. A slight bush fence had been built around it, which, though
it concealed those within, was too slight to be of use in case of an
attack. Seeing that this hostile demonstration was against _him_,
Stanley sent out a young man who spoke their language, to inquire what
they wanted. Six or seven warriors advanced to meet him, when a lively
conversation followed. The messenger soon returned and reported that
they accused one of the party of having stolen some milk and butter from
a small village, and they must be paid for it in cloth. He at once sent
the messenger back, directing him to tell the warriors that he did not
come into their country to rob or steal, and if anything had been taken
from them they had but to name the price they asked for it and it should
be paid at once. The messenger brought back word that they demanded four
yards of sheeting; although this was worth four times as much as the
articles were which they alleged had been stolen, he was very glad to
settle the matter so easily, and it was measured and sent to them. The
elders declared that they were perfectly satisfied, and they all
withdrew. But Stanley could not at once shake off the suspicion this
unexpected show of hostile feeling had excited, and he watched narrowly
the villages in the distance. He soon saw that the warriors were not
pacified if the elders were, for he could see them hurrying together
from all parts of the plain and gesticulating wildly.

Still he hoped the elders would keep them from any overt act of
hostility. While he was watching them, he saw about two hundred men
separate themselves from the main body, and taking a sweep, make for the
woods west of the camp. They had hardly entered when one of Stanley's
men rushed forth from the same vicinity into camp bleeding profusely
from his face and arms. He said that Suleiman (a youth) and he were
gathering wood when the savages came suddenly upon them. He was struck
with a stick that broke his nose, and his arm was pierced with a spear,
while Suleiman fell pierced with a dozen spears. His story and bloody
appearance so excited the soldiers that Stanley could with difficulty
restrain them from rushing out at once and attacking the murderers. He
did not yet despair of preventing an outbreak, but took care to open the
ammunition and be prepared for the worst. He saw at once that an
immensely large force could be brought against him, and he must fortify
himself or he would be overwhelmed by numbers, and so ordered the men
immediately to commence strengthening the fence. They had not been long
employed at it when the savages made a dash at the camp, and sent a
shower of arrows into it. Stanley immediately ordered sixty soldiers to
deploy fifty yards in front. At the word of command they rushed out, and
the battle commenced.

The enemy soon turned in flight and the soldiers pursued them. Every man
was now ordered to work on the defenses; some cut down thorn-trees and
threw together rapidly a high fence all around the camp, while others
were ordered to build platforms within for the sharp-shooters. All this
time Stanley could hear the fire of the soldiers growing more and more
indistinct in the distance. When the fence was completed he directed the
sections of the Lady Alice to be placed so as to form a sort of central
camp, to which they could retire in the last extremity. As soon as
everything was finished he ordered the bugle to sound the retreat, and
soon the skirmishers came in sight. They reported fifteen of the enemy
killed. All had fought bravely, even a bull-dog had seized a savage and
was tearing him to pieces, when a bullet put the poor wretch out of his
misery.

They were not molested again that day, which gave them time to make
their position still stronger. The night passed quietly, and they were
allowed to breakfast in peace. But about 9 o'clock the savages in great
numbers advanced upon the camp. All hopes of peace were now at an end,
and since he was forced to fight, Stanley determined to inflict no
half-way punishment, but sweep that fair valley with the besom of
destruction. He therefore selected four reliable men, placed them at the
head of four detachments, assigning to each a fleet runner, whose duty
it was, not to fight, but to report any disaster that threatened or
befell the detachment to which the man belonged. He then ordered them to
move out and attack the savages. As the route of the enemy was certain,
he directed them to pursue them separately, yet keep before them as the
place of final rendezvous, some high rocks five miles distant down the
valley. The detachments poured forth from the camp, and the deadly
fire-arms so appalled those savage warriors, armed only with the bow and
spear, that they at once turned and fled. The detachments followed in
hot pursuit, and what promised to be a fight, became a regular stampede.
But one detachment having pursued a large force of the enemy into the
open plain, the latter turned at bay.

The leader of the detachment, excited by the pursuit, and believing, in
his contempt for the savages, that the mere sight of his little band
would send them scurrying away in deadly fear, charged boldly on them.
Quick as thought they closed around him in overwhelming numbers. The
runner alone escaped and bore the sad tidings to Stanley. The
appointment of these runners shows his wonderful prevision--that
foresight which on many occasions alone saved him. He at once sent
assistance to the detachment that the courier had reported surrounded.
Alas, before it arrived every man had been massacred. The aid, though it
came too late to save the brave detachment, arrived just in time to save
the second, which was just falling into the same snare, for the large
force that had annihilated the first had now turned on this, and its
fate seemed sealed. The reinforcements hurried off by Stanley found it
completely hemmed in by the savages. Two soldiers had already been
killed, the captain was wounded, and in a few minutes more they would
have shared the fate of the first detachment.

It was at this critical moment they arrived, and suddenly pouring a
deadly volley into the rear of the assailants, sent them to the right
about with astonishing quickness. The two detachments now wheeled and
poured a concentrated volley into the savages, which sent them flying
wildly over the plain. A swift pursuit was commenced, but the fleet
enemy could not be overtaken, and the march up the valley was scarcely
resisted. Stanley, in camp, carefully watched the progress of the
fight, which could be distinguished at first by the volleys of his
soldiers, and when, receding in the distance, these could be no longer
heard, by the puffs of smoke which showed where the pursuit led.

But at length clouds of smoke of a different character began to ascend
from the quiet valley. To the right and left the dark columns obscured
the noonday sun, and far as the eye could reach, the plain, with its
hundreds of villages of thatched huts, presented one wide conflagration,
till the murky mass of cloudy vapor, as it rolled heavenward, made it
appear like a second Sodom, suffering the vengeance of heaven. To the
distance of eight miles, Stanley could see jets of smoke that told of
burning villages. He had delayed to the last moment hostile action, but
having once commenced it he meant to leave behind him no power of
retaliation.

It was a victorious but sad day, and the return of the detachments was
anything but a triumphal march, for they bore back twenty-one dead men,
besides the wounded, while they could report but thirty-five of the
enemy killed. So little difference in the number of the slain, when one
was the pursued and the other the pursuing party, and when the former
was armed only with spears and bows, and the latter with the deadly
rifle, seems at first sight unaccountable, but it must be remembered
that the unfortunate detachment that was surrounded and massacred to a
man, furnished almost the entire list of the killed.

The camp was at peace that night, but it was a sad peace. A few more
such victories as this and Stanley would be left without an expedition.

This unfortunate experience with these people showed the danger of his
undertaking a new route. His object was not to travel among new people,
but to reach the lake region with his boat and settle great geographical
problems and establish certain facts having an intimate bearing on the
future of Africa. Yet by his chosen course he really obtained no new and
valuable information but imperiled and well-nigh ruined the expedition
fitted out with so much expense and care.

His was the nearest course to the lake, yet the long one by which Speke
reached it was the safest. He had been in a perilous position, and it
was clearly his own foresight that saved him. The appointment of a
courier or swift runner to each detachment to act as a telegraph, would
probably have occurred to few, yet this certainly saved one detachment
from destruction and how much more no one can tell.

But he was not satisfied with the vengeance he had taken and the
devastation he had wrought. He had resolved to teach those savage
negroes a lesson on the danger of treachery to strangers, and he meant,
now he had commenced it, to make it thorough and complete, and so next
morning he sent off sixty men to proceed to the farthest end of the
valley, some eight miles away, and destroy what yet remained; passing on
through the ruins of the villages, they came to a large village in the
extreme northeast. A very slight resistance was made here, and they
entered it and applied the torch, and soon it shared the fate of all the
rest. Before they destroyed it, however, they loaded themselves with
grain. Provisions were now plenty, for the frightened negroes had left
everything behind them in their flight. There was no longer any need of
purchasing food, the valley was depopulated, and all the accumulated
provisions of the inhabitants was at the mercy of the victors. Finding
he had enough to last the expedition six days, Stanley next morning
started westward before daybreak, and was soon far away from this valley
of destruction, leaving the thoroughly humbled natives to crawl back to
the ashes of their ruined homes. Without further trouble, in three days,
he reached Iramba. Here he halted and took a calm survey of his
condition and prospects. He found that out of the more than three
hundred men with which he had left the coast, but one hundred and
ninety-four remained.

Sickness, desertion and battle had reduced his number over a third
before he had reached the point where his actual labors were to
commence. It was not a pleasant look-out, for, although two hundred
men, well armed with rifles, made a formidable force in a country where
only arrows and spears were used, still this heavy ratio of loss must
stop, or the expedition itself must fail. He was not in a country where
he could recruit soldiers, and each one lost was a dead loss, and
thousands of miles of exploration lay before him, in prosecuting which,
he knew not how many battles would be fought, nor how much sickness
would have to be encountered. It would not seem a difficult piece of
arithmetical calculation to determine how long three hundred men would
last if one-third disappeared in three months, or how many men it would
require to prosecute his labors three years. But Stanley never seemed to
act as though he thought defeat possible. Whether his faith was in God,
himself, or his star, it was nevertheless a strong and controlling
faith. Still, now and then it is very evident that he was perfectly
conscious of the desperate nature of his condition, and felt disease,
which carried off his friends and retainers, or the spear, might end, at
any moment, his explorations and his life.

Though out of Urimi at last, yet Stanley found the natives of Iramba a
very little improvement on those of the former district. Mirambo was
their terror, and hence they were suspicious of all strangers. Again and
again he was mistaken for this terrible chieftain, and narrowly escaped
being attacked. In fact, this formidable warrior was fighting at one
time within a day's march of him.

Urukuma was the next district he entered after Iramba, and he found it
thickly peopled and rich in cattle. It consisted for the most part of
rolling plains, with scattered chains of jagged hills. He was on the
slope that led to the Nyanza, and the descent was so gradual, that he
expected to find the lake, whose exploration he designed to make
thorough and complete, comparatively shallow, although it covered a vast
area. At last he reached a little village, not a hundred yards from the
shore, and encamped. At this point he describes the topography of the
new country he had passed over. He says:

"As far as Western Ugogo I may pass over without attempting to describe
the country, as readers may obtain a detailed account of it from 'How I
Found Livingstone.' Thence north is a new country to all, and a brief
description of it may be interesting to students of African geography.

"North of Mizanza a level plain extends as far as the frontier of
Urandawi, a distance of thirty-five miles (English). At Mukondoku the
altitude, as indicated by two first-rate aneroids, was two thousand,
eight hundred feet. At Mtiwi, twenty miles north, the altitude was two
thousand eight hundred and twenty-five feet. Diverging west and
north-west, we ascend the slope of a lengthy mountain-wall, apparently,
but which, upon arriving at the summit, we ascertain to be a wide
plateau covered with forests. This plateau has an altitude of three
thousand eight hundred feet at its eastern extremity; but, as it extends
westward it rises to a height of four thousand five hundred feet. It
embraces all Uyanzi, Unyanyembe, Usukuma, Urimi and Iramba--in short,
all that part of Central Africa lying between the valley of the Rufiji
south and the Victoria Nyanza north, and the mean altitude of this broad
upland cannot exceed four thousand five hundred feet. From Mizanza to
the Nyanza is a distance of nearly three hundred geographical miles;
yet, at no part of this long journey did the aneroids indicate a higher
altitude than five thousand one hundred feet above the sea.

"As far as Urimi, from the eastern edge of the plateau, the land is
covered with a dense jungle of acacias, which, by its density, strangles
all other species of vegetation. Here and there, only in the cleft of a
rock, a giant euphorbia may be seen, sole lord of its sterile domain.
The soil is shallow, and consists of vegetable mould, mixed largely with
sand and detritus of the bare rocks, which crown each knoll and ridge,
and which testify too plainly to the violence of the periodical rains.

"In the basin of Matongo, in Southern Urimi, we were instructed by the
ruins and ridges, relics of a loftier upland, of what has been effected
by nature in the course of long ages. No learned geological savant need
ever expound to the traveler who views these rocky ruins, the geological
history of this country. From a distance we viewed the glistening naked
and riven rocks as a singular scene; but when we stood among them, and
noted the appearance of the rocky fragments of granite, gneiss and
porphyry peeled as it were rind after rind, or leaf after leaf, like an
artichoke, until the rock was wasted away, it seemed as if Dame Nature
has left these relics, these hilly skeletons, to demonstrate her laws
and career. It seemed to me as if she said, 'Lo, and behold this broad
basin of Matongo, with its teeming villages and herds of cattle and
fields of corn, surrounded by these bare rocks--in primeval time this
land was covered with water, it was the bed of a vast sea. The waters
were dried, leaving a wide expanse of level land, upon which I caused
heavy rains to fall five months out of each year during all the ages
that have elapsed since first the hot sunshine fell upon the soil. The
rains washed away the loose sand and made deep furrows in course of
time, until in certain places the rocky kernel under the soil began to
appear. The furrows became enlarged, the waters frittered away their
banks and conveyed the earth away to lower levels, through which it wore
away a channel, first through the soil and lastly through the rock
itself, which you may see if you but walk to the bottom of that basin.
You will there behold a channel worn through the solid rock some fifty
feet in depth; and as you look on that you will have some idea of the
power and force of the tropical rains. It is through that channel that
the soil robbed from these rocks has been carried away toward the Nyanza
to fill its depths and in time make dry land of it. Now you may ask how
came these once solid rocks, which are now but skeletons of hills and
stony heaps, to be thus split into so many fragments? Have you never
seen the effect of water thrown upon lime? The solid rocks have been
broken or peeled in an almost similar manner. The tropic sun heated the
face of these rocks to an intense heat, and the cold rain falling upon
the heated surface caused them to split and peel as you see them.'

"This is really the geological history of this region simply told. Ridge
after ridge, basin after basin, from Western Ugogo to the Nyanza, tells
the same tale; but it is not until we enter Central Urimi, that we begin
to marvel at the violence of the process by which nature has transformed
the face of the land. For here the perennial springs and rivulets begin
to unite and form rivers, after collecting and absorbing the moisture
from the water-shed; and these rivers, though but gentle streams during
the dry season, become formidable during the rains. It is in Central
Urimi that the Nile first begins to levy tribute upon Equatorial
Africa, and if you look upon the map and draw a line east from the
latitude of Ujiji to longitude thirty-five degrees you will strike upon
the sources of the Leewumbu, which is the extreme southern feeder of the
Victoria Nyanza.

"In Iramba, between Mgongo Tembo and Mombiti, we came upon what must
have been in former times an arm of the Victoria Nyanza. It is called
the Lumamberri Plain, after a river of that name, and is about forty
miles in width. Its altitude is three thousand seven hundred and
seventy-five feet above the sea and but a few feet above Victoria
Nyanza. We were fortunate in crossing the broad, shallow stream in the
dry season, for during the _masika_ or rainy season the plain is
converted into a wide lake.

"The Leewumbu River, after a course of a hundred and seventy-five miles,
becomes known as the Monaugh River, in Usukuma. After another run of a
hundred miles, it is converted into Shimeeyu, under which name it enters
the Victoria east of this port of Kagehyi. Roughly the Shimeeyu may be
said to have a length of three hundred and fifty miles."



CHAPTER XII.

EXPLORATION OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA.


Stanley felt, as he stood and looked off on the broad expanse of water,
like one who had achieved a great victory, and he said that the wealth
of the universe could not then bribe him to turn back from his work. The
boat of a white man had never been launched on its surface, and he
longed to see the Lady Alice afloat, that he might change the guesses of
Livingstone, Speke and others, into certainty. He had started to
complete Livingstone's unfinished work, and now he was in a fair way to
do it. How much Cameron, who was somewhere in the interior on the same
mission, had accomplished, he did not know, he only knew that with no
boat at his command, like the Lady Alice, that he had transported
through so many hundreds of miles of jungle, his movements would be very
much crippled.

He now mustered his entire force, to see what he had to rely on before
setting out, and found it to consist of three white men and one hundred
and six Wanguana soldiers, twenty-eight having died since leaving Itwru
thirty days before, or at an average of nearly one a day. This was a
gloomy prospect. Before beginning his real work one-half of his entire
expedition had disappeared. Dysentery had been the great scourge that
had thinned their ranks so fearfully. Stanley in the first place was not
a physician, while even those remedies which ordinarily might have
proved efficacious were rendered well-nigh useless by the necessity of
constant marching. Rest alone would have cured a great many, but he felt
compelled to march. Whether the necessity for marching with the rapidity
he did, was sufficiently urgent to justify him in sacrificing so many
lives, he doubtless is the best judge. These poor men were not
accustomed to travel at the rate he kept them moving. Had they marched
as leisurely as an Arab caravan, they would have been nine months or a
year in making the distance which Stanley had accomplished in the short
space of one hundred and three days.

He was at last on the lake that Baker hoped to reach with his steam
vessels, and here he expected to meet Gordon, his successor, but he
evidently had not yet arrived, for the natives told him that no boats
had been seen on the water. They related strange tales, however, of the
people inhabiting the shores. One told him of a race of dwarfs, another
of a tribe of giants, another still of a people who kept a breed of dogs
so large that even Stanley's mastiffs were small in comparison. How much
or little of this was true, he, of course, could not tell, still it
excited his curiosity, and increased his desire to explore the country.

He reached the lake on the 28th of February, and in eight days had
everything ready, and launched his boat. He selected ten good oarsmen,
who, with the steersman and himself, composed the boat's crew, and the
whole force with which he was to overcome all the difficulties that he
might encounter.

The camp was left in charge of Frank Pocoke and young Barker. Naming the
large body of water, into which the Shimeeyu and Ruano Rivers flowed,
Speke Bay, in honor of the distinguished explorer, he sailed east along
the irregular coast. To-day passing a district thinly populated,
to-morrow a rugged hill country, through which the elephants wandered in
immense droves, and of course, thronged with elephant hunters, he passed
various tribes, until he came to the mouth of the Ruano River,
discharging a large volume of water into Speke Bay, but nothing in
comparison with the Shimeeyu and the Kagera, the two great river
supplies of the lake. The former is the largest of all, and at its mouth
a mile wide. Its length is three hundred and seventy miles and is, he
says, the extreme southern source of the Nile.

The water he named Speke Bay is on the northeastern side, and where he
crossed it about twelve miles wide. Sterile plains succeeded barren
mountains, thin lines of vegetation along the borders of the lake alone
giving space for cultivation, came and went until they reached the great
island of Ukerewe, divided from the mainland only by a narrow channel.
This was a true oasis, for it was covered with herds of cattle, and
verdue, and fruits, and rich in ivory. He found the king an amiable man,
and his subjects a peaceful, commercial people. Although this was a
large island, more than forty miles long, the king owned several of the
neighboring islands. Nothing of importance occurred on this voyage, as
day after day they wound in and out along the deeply corrugated coast or
sailed by islands, the people on shore all being friendly. They at
length came in sight of the high table-land of Majita, which Speke
thought to be an island, but which Stanley demonstrated, by actual
survey, to be only a promontory. It rises some three thousand feet above
the level of the lake, and is surrounded by low brown plains, which, to
the distant observer, resemble water.

Stanley continued his course along the eastern shore of the lake,
proceeding northerly, and at last reached the coast of the Uriri
country, a district of pastoral land dotted over with fine cattle.
Bordering on this is Ugegeya, a land of fables and wonders, the "El
Dorado" of slave hunters and traders in ivory. It is the natural home of
the elephant, which is found here in great numbers. In crossing a broad
bay he first got sight of it, rising in a series of tall mountains
before him. From their base the country rolls away to the east in one
vast plain twenty-five miles wide, over which roam great herds of
cattle, getting their own living and furnishing plenty of meat to the
indolent inhabitants. Stanley constantly inquired of the natives
concerning the country inland, its character and people, and was told
many wonderful stories, in which it was impossible to say how much fable
was mixed. Among other things, they reported that about fifteen days'
march from this place, were mountains that spouted forth fire at times
and smoke.

Keeping north, he says: "We pass between the Island Ugingo and the
gigantic mountains of Ugegeya, at whose base the Lady Alice seems to
crawl like a mite in a huge cheese, while we on board admire the
stupendous height, and wonder at the deathly silence which prevails in
this solitude, where the boisterous winds are hushed and the turbulent
waves are as tranquil as a summer dream. The natives, as they pass,
regard this spot with superstition, as well they might, for the silent
majesty of these dumb, tall mounts awes the very storms to peace. Let
the tempests bluster as they may on the spacious main beyond the cape,
in this nook, sheltered by tall Ugingo isle and lofty Goshi in the
mainland, they inspire no fear. It is this refuge which Goshi promises
the distressed canoemen that causes them to sing praises of Goshi, and
to cheer one another when wearied and benighted, that Goshi is near to
protect them."

Sailing in and out among the clustering islands, they see two low
isolated islands in the distance, and make toward them to camp there for
the night. "There," says Stanley, "under the overspreading branches of a
mangrove tree we dream of unquiet waters, and angry surfs, and
threatening rocks, to find ourselves next morning tied to an island,
which, from its peculiarity, I called Bridge Island. While seeking a
road to ascend the island, to take bearings, I discovered a natural
bridge of basalt, about twenty feet in length and twelve in breadth,
under which one might repose comfortably, and from one side see the
waves lashed to fury and spend their strength on the stubborn rocks,
which form the foundation of the arch, while from the other we could see
the boat, secure under the lee of the island, resting on a serene and
placid surface, and shaded by mangrove branches from the hot sun of the
equator. Its neighborhood is remarkable only for a small cave, the haunt
of fishermen." After taking a survey of the neighboring mainland, he
hoisted sail and scudded along the coast before a freshening breeze. At
noon he found himself, by observation, to be under the equator. Seeing
an opening in the lake that looked like the mouth of a river, he sailed
into it to find it was only a deep bay. Coming in sight of a village, he
anchored near it and tried to make friends with some wild-looking
fishermen on the shore, but the naked savages only "stared at them from
under penthouses of hair, and hastily stole away to tell their families
of the strange apparition they had seen."

This sail of one hundred miles alone the coast of this vast lake, though
somewhat monotonous and tame in its details to the reader, furnished one
of the most interesting episodes in Stanley's life--not because the
scenery was new and beautiful, but because he, with his white sail, and
fire-arms, and strange dress, was as strange and wonderful to these
natives as was Columbus, with his ship, and cannon, and cavaliers to the
inhabitants of the New World. Though often differing in appearance, and
language, and manner, they were almost uniformly friendly, and in the
few cases where they proved hostile, they were drunk, which makes
civilized men, as well as savages, quarrelsome. It was frequently very
difficult to win their confidence, and often Stanley would spend hours
in endeavoring to remove their suspicions. In this wild, remote home,
their lives pass on without change, each generation treading in the
footsteps of the preceding one--no progress, no looking forward to
increased knowledge or new developments. There were no new discoveries
to arouse their mental faculties, no aspirations for a better condition,
and they were as changeless as their tropical climate. Hence, to them
the sudden appearance of this strange phenomenon on their beautiful lake
could not be accounted for. It had seemingly dropped from the clouds,
and at the first discharge of a pistol they were startled and filled
with amazement.

Stanley, whether rowing or sailing, kept close to the shore, that
nothing worthy of note should escape him, frequently landing to
ascertain the name of the district he was in, the bays he crossed, the
mountains he saw, and the rivers that emptied into the lake. In short,
he omitted nothing which was necessary to a complete survey and
knowledge of this hitherto unknown body of water.

After leaving this bay, they came in a short time to a river which was
full of hippopotami. Two huge fellows swam so near the boat that Stanley
was afraid they would attack it, and ordered the men to pull away from
them. Although hunting these huge beasts might be very exciting sport,
and a tolerably safe one in boats properly built, to expose the Lady
Alice, with her slender cedar sides, to their tusks would have been a
piece of folly close akin to madness. Her safety was of more consequence
than all the hippopotami in Africa. He was an explorer, not a hunter;
and to risk all the future of the former to gratify the pleasure of the
latter would have shown him unfit to command so important an expedition
as this. Like the boat that carried Cæsar and his fortunes, the Lady
Alice bore in her frail sides destines greater than the imagination can
conceive. So hoisting sail they caught the freshening breeze and flew
along the ever-changing shore lined with villages, out of which swarmed
a vast crowd of people, showing a much more densely populated district
than they had yet seen. He found the name of it to be Mahita; and
wishing to learn the names of some of the villages he saw, the boat was
turned toward shore and anchored within fifty yards of it, but with a
cable long enough to let them drift to within a few feet of it. Some
half a dozen men wearing small shells above their elbows and a circle
round their heads came down to the beach, opening a conversation with
them. Stanley learned the name of the country, but they refused to tell
him anything more till he landed. While getting ready to do so, he
noticed the numbers on the shore increased with astonishing rapidity,
and seemed to be greatly excited. This aroused his suspicions, and he
ordered the rowers to pull off again. It was lucky he did, for he had
scarcely put three lengths between him and the shore, when suddenly out
of the bushes on each side of the spot where he was to land arose a
forest of spears.

Stanley did not intend to go away entirely, but lie off till they became
less excited, but this evidence of treachery caused him to change his
mind, and he ordered the sail to be hoisted, and moved away toward a
point at the mouth of the cove, which, with the wind as it was blowing,
they could but little more than clear. The negroes seeing this, sent up
a loud shout, and hurried off to reach it before the boat did. Stanley
penetrating their design, ordered the sail to be lowered and the rowers
to pull dead to windward. The discomfited savages looked on in amazement
to see the prize slip through their fingers so easily. It was a narrow
escape, for had Stanley landed, he would doubtless have been overpowered
and killed before he could use his weapons.

It was now late in the afternoon, and the savages made no attempt to
follow them, and at dusk, coming to a small island, they tied up and
camped for the night, lulled to sleep by the murmur of the waves on the
beach.

The next day continuing their course, they at last sailed into the bay,
which forms the northeastern extremity of the Victoria Nyanza. The
eastern side of this bay is lined with bold hills and ridges, but at the
extreme end where the Tagama River comes in, the country is flat. The
expedition now began to move westward in its slow circumnavigation of
the lake, and came at length to Muiwanda. Here they found the savages
friendly, and they landed and obtained from them, at fair prices, such
provisions and vegetables as they desired. They also gave Stanley all
the information they could of the neighboring country. They told him
that the name of the bay in which they rode, and which was the extreme
northern limit of the lake, was Baringo. They had evidently not been
great travelers or much visited by any tribes living away from their own
coast, for they said that they had never heard of any other lake, great
or small, except that one--the Nyanza. Considering that this whole
central region of Africa is dotted with lakes, and that the Tanganika,
an inland sea, is not three hundred miles distant, it is evident they
must live very much isolated from any but their own people. Stanley had
now surveyed the southern, eastern and northeastern shores of the lake,
and had taken thirty-seven observations and entered almost every nook
and cove of this vast body of water. He had corrected the map of Speke,
made on the report of the natives--proved that he was wrong in his
latitude of the lake, and taken such ample notes that he could make out
an accurate chart of that portion he had thus traversed. He makes the
extreme eastern point of the lake end in 34° 35' east longitude, and 33'
43" north latitude.

After he had finished his exploration thus far, Stanley went over his
route, to gain a general knowledge of the country, the location and
approximate size of the various districts, and general character of the
inhabitants. The north shore he found indented with deep bays, and so
completely land-locked, that they might easily be mistaken for separate
lakes, while the islands clustered so thickly and closely to the shore
that unless thoroughly examined, would be taken for portions of the
mainland. But Stanley has traced it out so plainly, that the outline of
the shore is as distinct as that of Lake Ontario.



CHAPTER XIII.

EXPLORATION OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA.


The voyage continued along the northern and then along the western shore
of the lake, revealing at almost every turn new features of scenery and
some new formation of land or new characteristic of the people, till the
journey was like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope. A tribe friendly and
trusting would be succeeded by one suspicious or treacherous, so that it
was impossible to be governed by any general rule, and Stanley was
compelled to be constantly on the alert, watching the motions of each
tribe without reference to the actions of the last, and laying his plans
accordingly. He continued his course down the western shore toward his
camp from which he started, finding this side more densely populated
than the others, and the tribes that occupied it of a more independent,
fearless character, and more inclined to hostilities.

At Uvuma, an independent country and the largest on the Victoria Nyanza,
the hostility took a more determined form. The natives made signs of
friendship to induce Stanley's party to come near the shore. They did
so, sailing up to within a few yards of it. At that point a large
number of natives were hid behind the trees, who suddenly emerged and
hurled a shower of huge stones at the boat in order to sink it. Stanley
instantly ordered the helm to be put hard up, and the boat was quickly
steered away from the dangerous spot, but not before Stanley, enraged at
this act of treachery, leveled his revolver at the wretches and dropped
one of them.

Going on some miles farther, they entered a channel between some islands
and the shore, where they discovered a fleet of canoes, thirteen in
number, with over one hundred warriors in them, armed with shells, and
spears, and slings. The foremost one had some sweet potatoes aboard,
which one of the natives held up as though he wished to trade. Stanley
ordered the crew to cease rowing, but as the breeze was light the sail
was kept up, and the progress was so slow that this canoe soon came up.
While he was bargaining for the potatoes, the other boats approached and
completely surrounded the Lady Alice and began to reach over and seize
everything they could lay hands on. Stanley warned them away with his
gun, when they jeered at him and immediately seized their spears, while
one man held up a string of beads he had stolen and dared Stanley to
catch him. With that promptness which has many a time saved his life,
the latter drew his revolver and shot the villain dead. Spears instantly
flashed in the air, but Stanley seizing his repeating rifle poured shot
after shot into them, knocking over three of them in as many seconds,
when the amazed warriors turned in flight. He then seized his elephant
rifle and began to pour its heavy shot into their canoes, throwing them
into the wildest confusion. As they now continued on their way, an
occasional shot from the big gun waked the echoes of the shore to
announce beforehand what treatment treachery would receive.

As they kept on to the northward, they felt the current drawing them on,
and soon they came to the Ripon Falls, their foam and thunder
contrasting strangely with the quietness of the lake a short time
before, and the silence and tranquility of the scene. It was the Nile
starting on its long journey to the Mediterranean, fertilizing Egypt in
its course. Coasting westerly, they came to the island of Krina, where
they obtained guides to conduct them to King Mtesa, the most renowned
king of the whole region. Sending messengers to announce to the king his
arrival, Stanley continued to coast along Uganda, everywhere treated
with kindness, so far as words went, but very niggardly in fact.

He here observed a curious phenomenon. He discovered an inlet in which
there was a perceptible tide, the water flowing north for two hours and
then south for the same length of time. On asking the guides if this was
usual, they said yes, and it was common to all the inlets on the coast
of Uganda. At Beya they were welcomed by a fleet of canoes sent to
conduct them to the king.

On the 4th of April, Stanley landed, amid the waving of flags, volleys
of musketry and shouts of two thousand people, assembled to receive him.
The chief officer then conducted him to comfortable quarters, where,
soon after, sixteen goats, ten oxen, with bananas, sweet potatoes,
plantains, chickens, rice, milk, butter, etc., etc., in profuse
quantities were sent him.

In the afternoon, the king sent word to his guest, that he was ready to
receive him. Issuing from his quarters, Stanley found himself in a
street eighty feet broad and half a mile long, lined with the personal
guards, officers, attendants and retinue of the king, to the number of
three thousand. At the farther end of this avenue was the king's
residence, and as Stanley advanced he could dimly see the form of the
king in the entrance, sitting in a chair. At every step volleys of
musketry were fired and flags waved, while sixteen drums beaten together
kept up a horrible din. As he approached the house, the king, a tall,
slender figure, dressed in Arab costume, arose and advancing held out
his hand in silence, while the drums kept up their loud tattoo. They
looked on each other in silence. Stanley was greatly embarrassed by the
novelty of the situation, but soon the king, taking a seat, asked him to
be seated also, while a hundred of his captains followed their example.

[Illustration: RECEPTION OF MTESA'S BODY GUARD, PRIME MINISTER AND
CHIEFS.]

Lifting his eyes to the king, Stanley saw a tall and slender man, but
with broad, powerful shoulders. His eyes were large, his face
intelligent and amiable, while his mouth and nose were a great
improvement on those of the ordinary negro, being more like those of a
Persian Arab. As soon as he began to speak, Stanley was captivated by
his courteous, affable manner. He says that he was infinitely superior
to the sultan of Zanzibar, and impressed you as a colored gentleman who
had learned his manners by contact with civilized, cultivated men,
instead of being, as he was, a native of Central Africa, who had seen
but three white men before in his life. Stanley was astonished at his
innate polish and he felt he had found a friend in this great king of
this part of the country, where the tribal territories are usually so
small. His kingdom extends through three degrees of longitude and almost
as many of latitude. He professes Islamism now, and no cruelties are
practised in his kingdom. He has a guard of two hundred men, renegades
from Baker's expedition, defalcators from Zanzibar, and the _élite_ of
his own kingdom.

Behind his throne or arm-chair, stood his gun-bearers, shield-bearers
and lance-bearers, and on either side were arranged his chief courtiers,
governors of provinces, etc., while outside streamed away the long line
of his warriors, beginning with the drummers and goma-beaters. Mtesa
asked many intelligent questions, and Stanley found that this was not
his home, but that he had come there with that immense throng of
warriors to shoot birds. In two or three days, he proposed to return to
his capital at Ulagala or Uragara (it is difficult to tell which is
right). The first day, for Stanley's entertainment, the king gave a
grand naval review with eighty canoes, which made quite an imposing
display, which the king with his three hundred wives and Stanley viewed
from shore. The crews consisted of two thousand five hundred men or
more. The second day, the king led his fleet in person to show his
prowess in shooting birds. The third day, the troops were exercised in
general military movements and at target practice, and on the fourth,
the march was taken up for the capital.

In Mtesa Stanley sees the hope of Central Africa. He is a natural born
king and tries to imitate the manners, as he understands them, of
European monarchs. He has constructed broad roads which will be ready
for vehicles whenever they are introduced. The road they traveled
increased from twenty to one hundred and fifty feet as they approached
the capital, which crowned a commanding eminence overlooking a beautiful
country covered with tropical fruit and trees. Huts are not very
imposing, but a tall flagstaff and an immense flag gave some dignity to
the surroundings.

The capital is composed of a vast collection of huts on an eminence
crowned by the royal quarters, around which run five several palisades
and circular courts, between which and the city runs a circular road
from one hundred to two hundred feet in width, from whence radiate six
or seven magnificent avenues lined with gardens and huts.

The next day, Stanley was introduced into the palace in state. The
guards were clothed in white cotton dresses, while the chiefs were
attired in rich Arab costumes. This palace was a large, lofty structure
built of grass and cane, while tall trunks of trees upheld the
roof--covered inside with cloth sheeting. On the fourth day, the
exciting news was received that another white man was approaching the
capital. It proved to be Colonel Lerant de Bellfonds of the Egyptian
service, who had been dispatched by Colonel Gordon to make a treaty of
commerce with the king and the khedive of Egypt.

This Mtesa, we said, was a Mohammedan, having been converted by Khamis
Ben Abdullah some four or five years before. This Arab, from Muscat, was
a man of magnificent presence, of noble descent, and very rich, and
dressed in splendid Oriental costume. Mtesa became fascinated with him,
and the latter stayed with the king over a year, giving him royal
presents and dressing him in gorgeous attire.

No wonder this brilliant stranger became to such a heathen a true
missionary. But Stanley, in a conversation with the king, soon upset his
new faith, and he agreed at once to observe the Christian as well as the
Moslem Sabbath, to which his captains also agreed. He, moreover, caused
the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Golden Rule, "Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," to be written on a board for his
daily perusal. In stating this remarkable fact, Stanley says; "Though I
am no missionary, I shall begin to think I may become one if such
success is so feasible;" and exclaims, "Oh, that some pious, practical
missionary would come here. What a field and harvest, ripe for the
sickle of the Gospel. Mtesa would give him everything he
desired--houses, cattle, lands, ivory, etc. He might call a province his
own in one day." But he says he must not be a theological one, nor a
missionary of creeds, but a practical Christian, tied to no church or
sect, but simply profess God and His Son, and live a blameless life and
be able to instruct the people in building houses, cultivating land, and
in all those things that make up human civilization. Such a man, Stanley
says, would become the temporal saviour of Africa. Mtesa begged Stanley
to tell such men to come, and he would give them all they wanted.

The subjects of this heathen king number not far from two millions, and
Stanley affirms that one good missionary among them would accomplish
more toward the regeneration of Africa in one year than all other
missionaries on the continent put together. He suggests that the mission
should bring to Mtesa several suits of military clothes, heavily
embroidered, pistols, swords, dinner-service, etc., etc. This sounds
rather strange to the modern missionary, and seems like trusting too
much to "carnal weapons," but it is eminently practical. Anything to
give the missionary a firm footing on which to begin his labors is
desirable, if not wrong in itself or leading to wrong. For its own use
the mission should, he says, bring also hammers, saws, augers, drills
for blasting, and blacksmith and carpenter-tools, etc., etc. In short,
the missionary should not attempt to convert the black man to his
religious views simply by preaching Christ, but that civilization, the
hand-maiden of religion, should move side by side with it in equal step.
The practical effect of the missionary work, in order to influence the
natives, must not be merely a moral change, which causes the convert to
abjure the rites and follies of Paganism, but to lift the entire people,
whether converted or not to Christianity, to a higher plane of
civilization. We know there are different theories on this subject, but
we think that Stanley's mode might safely be tried. It was tried, after
a fashion, almost immediately, but the station has been broken up and
the missionaries murdered.

Perhaps it is as good a place here as anywhere to correct a wrong
statement that has been going the rounds of the papers, which puts
Stanley in a false light. It was not pretended that King Mtesa had
anything to do with this outrage, but that a tribe with which Stanley
had had a fight, killing some of its number, committed it in revenge for
what he did. The truth is, the mission was established by enthusiasts,
and some three or four started with false views and hopes entirely. Only
two of them reached the ground, one of them not being a minister. They
were, however, well received, and allowed to go to work. The king, or
chief of a neighboring tribe, had a daughter with whom a native fell in
love. This man was repugnant to the father, and he refused to let him
have his daughter for a wife. The consequence was they eloped and fled
to the island on which the missionaries were stationed, and placed
themselves under their protection and remained with them. The enraged
savage heard of this, and doubtless believing that the missionaries had
connived at the elopement--certainly harbored the fugitives against his
wish--attacked the station and murdered the missionaries. How much or
how little they were to blame, or, if not guilty of any wrong, how
unwisely they acted, they unfortunately do not live to tell us. But
Stanley's conduct in that region had nothing to do with the tragedy. It
was an act of wild justice by an enraged and savage chieftain, and
militates in no way against carrying out the project of Stanley.



CHAPTER XIV.

EXPLORATION OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA.


Though this royal hospitality was very grateful after his long toils,
and though intercourse with a white man in that remote land was
refreshing, and though he longed to rest, yet Stanley felt he must be
about his work. To finish this would require much time, and he had now
been long absent from his men, who might prove intractable while he was
away, and he was anxious to get back, for the exploration of this lake
was only the beginning of what he proposed to do.

With two canoes belonging to his friend, King Mtesa, accompanying him as
an escort until the grand admiral of his sable majesty, Magassa, who,
with thirty canoes, had been detached for his service, should overtake
him, he set sail from the river, and camped that night on a smooth,
sandy beach, at a point called Kagya. The natives who lived there
received them in a friendly, and for African negroes, hospitable manner.
Stanley took this as a good augury of the reception he should meet with
along the coast of Usongora, which he designed to explore.

In the morning he again set sail, and sweeping leisurely along, came in
the afternoon to the village of Makongo. As the Lady Alice approached
the shore, he saw a crowd of naked savages squatted on the ground,
sucking the everlasting pombé, or beer, through a straw, just as white
men suck punch or a sherry cobbler. As the boat reached the shore, the
chief, with the vacant stare of a drunkard, arose and reeled toward him
and welcomed him in a friendly, though maudlin manner. The natives also
appeared good-natured and quite content with their arrival. After they
had satisfied their curiosity by examining him and his boat, they went
away, leaving him to arrange his camp for the night and prepare his
supper.

The sun went down in glory beyond the purple mountains--a slight ripple
dimpled the surface of the lake, while slender columns of smoke ascended
here and there along the shore from the huts of the natives; and all was
calm and peaceful, though wild and lonely. As night came down, and the
stars, one by one, came out in the tropical sky, Stanley and his
companions stretched themselves on their mats, and, unsuspicious of
danger, fell asleep. About 10 o'clock he was suddenly awakened by a loud
and hurried beating of drums, with ever and anon a chorus of shrieks and
yells that rung through the clear, still air with a distinctness and
sharpness that made the blood shiver. Stanley immediately aroused his
men, and they listened, wondering what it foreboded. The lake was still
below, and the heavens calm and serene above, but all around it seemed
as if demons of the infernal regions were out on their orgies. Stanley
thought it was the forerunner of an attack on the camp, but Mtesa's men,
the Waganda, told him that the drumming and yelling were the wild
welcome of the natives to a stranger. He doubted it, for he had seen too
many savage tribes, and knew their customs too well to believe this
blood-curdling, discordant din was a welcome to him.

It is strange that he did not at once quietly launch his boat and lie
off the rest of the night a little way from the shore till morning, and
see what it all meant. It would seem that ordinary prudence would have
prompted this. His neglect to do so, very nearly cost him his life, and
ended there his explorations. For some reason or other, which he does
not give, he determined to remain where he was, contenting himself with
the precaution of placing his weapons close beside him, and directing
his eleven men to load their guns and put them under their mats. He lay
down again, but not to sleep, for all night long the furious beat of
drums and unearthly yells rang out over the lake keeping him not only
awake, but anxious.

At daybreak he arose, and as he stepped out of his tent, he started as
if he had seen an apparition, for in the gray light of morning, he saw
five hundred naked, motionless forms, with bows, shields and spears,
standing in a semicircle around him, and completely cutting him off
from his boat and the lake. It was a fearful moment, and to his inquiry
what it meant, no answer was given. There was no shouting or yelling,
none of the frantic gesticulations so common to the African savage. On
the contrary, they wore a calm and composed, though stern and determined
aspect. Shoulder to shoulder like a regiment of soldiers they stood, the
forest of spears above them glittering in the early light. There was
nothing to be done--Stanley was entrapped, and with the first attempt to
escape or seize his rifle would be transfixed by a hundred spears. It
was too late to repent the folly of not heeding the warning of the night
before, and so he calmly stood and faced the crowd of stern, malignant
faces. For some minutes this solitary white man met glance for glance,
when the drunken chief of the day before stalked into the semicircle,
and with a stick which he held in his hand forced back the savages by
flourishing it in their faces. He then advanced, and striking the boat a
furious blow, shouted "be off," and to facilitate matters, took hold and
helped launch it. Stanley was only too glad to obey him, and his heart
bounded within him as he felt the keel gliding into deep water, and soon
a hundred rods were between him and the savages that lined the shore.
The Waganda were still on the beach, and Stanley prepared to sweep it
with a murderous fire the moment they were attacked. So dense was the
crowd of natives, that had he fired at that close range, he would have
mowed them down with fearful slaughter. But although there was much loud
wrangling and altercation, they were, at length, allowed to embark, and
followed him as he sailed away toward the isle of Musua. He had learned
a lesson that he did not soon forget.

The whole had been a strange proceeding, and why he was not killed, when
so completely in their power, can be accounted for only on the ground
that they were in Mtesa's dominions, and feared he would take terrible
revenge for the murder. Later in the day this drunken chief came to
visit him on the island, and demanded why he had come and what he
wanted. Being told, he went away, and sent three branches of bananas,
and left him and his party to their fate. They rested here quietly till
afternoon, when they saw Magassa's fleet coming slowly down the lake,
steering for a neighboring island. The canoes were beached and the men
disembarked and began to prepare their camp for the night. Stanley was
getting impatient at these delays, and thinking he would quicken
Magassa's movements by hastening forward, he set sail for Alice Island,
thirty-five miles distant. The two chiefs, with the escorting canoes,
accompanied him for about a mile and a half, but, getting alarmed at the
aspect of the weather, turned back, shouting, as they did so, that as
soon as it moderated they would follow. Bowling along before a spanking
breeze, the little craft danced gayly over the cresting waves, and when
night came down and darkness fell on the lonely lake, kept steadily on
and, finally, at midnight reached the island, where they luckily struck
upon a sheltered cove and came to anchor. When morning dawned they found
they were almost against the base of a beetling cliff, with overhanging
rocks all around them, dotted with the fires of the natives. These came
down to the shore holding green wisps of grass in their hands as tokens
of friendliness. Stanley and his men were hungry, and now rejoiced in
the prospect of a good breakfast. But these friendly natives, seeing
their need, became so extortionate in their demands that they would not
trade with them, and Stanley determined to steer for Bumbirch Island,
twenty five miles distant, and there obtain food.

The breeze was light and they made slow headway, and it was evidently
going to be a long sail to the island. As the sun went down, huge black
clouds began to roll up the sky, traversed by lightning, while the low
growl of thunder foretold a coming storm. As the clouds rose higher and
higher the lightning became more vivid, and the thunder broke with
startling peals along the water, and soon the rain came down in
torrents, drenching them to the skin. The waves began to rise while
darkness, black as midnight, settled down on the lake. The little craft
tossed wildly on the water, and the prospect before them looked gloomy
enough. Fortunately, about midnight, they came upon Pocoke Island, and
anchored under its lee amid thunder and lightning, and rain, and the
angry roar of the surf on every side. All night long the flashes lit up
the angry scene, while the heavy, tropical thunder shook the bosom of
the lake. The haven they had reached was so poor a protection that all
hands were kept bailing, to prevent the overstrained boat from
foundering at her anchor.

We have a very faint idea in our northern latitudes of what a
thunderstorm is in the tropics, and the slight affair that Stanley made
of it is one of those apparently insignificant, and yet most striking
illustrations of his character. Storms on the water--starvation on
land--deadly perils of all kinds are spoken of by him as one would speak
of the ordinary incidents of travel. He has no time, and apparently no
taste, for sensational writing; or perhaps it would be nearer the truth
to say--in his cool courage, calm self-reliance and apparent contempt of
death he does not see the dramatic side of the scenes in which he
performs so important a part. The most tragic events--the most perilous
crises are treated by him as ordinary events. An escape so narrow that
one's heart stops beating as he contemplates it, he narrates with as
much coolness and apparent indifference as he would his deliverance
from a disagreeable companion.

In the morning, Stanley, as he looked around him and saw the surf
breaking on every side, ordered the anchor up and the sail hoisted, for
this was too dangerous a place for the Lady Alice. The thunder-storm had
passed, and a stiff northeast breeze had sprung up, before which he
bowled swiftly along, and in three hours reached the mouth of a quiet
cove near the village of Kajuri, at the southeastern extremity of
Bumbirch Island. After the storm and peril of the last forty-eight
hours, it was a welcome sight that greeted them. The green slopes of
this gem set in the sparkling waters were laden with fruits and covered
with cattle. Groves of bananas, herds of cattle lazily feeding, and
flocks of goats promised an abundance of food; and Stanley and his men,
as they drew near the lovely, inviting shore, revelled in anticipation
of the rest and good cheer awaiting them. Filled with the most peaceful
intentions themselves--their hearts made glad at the sight of the
bountiful provisions before them--they did not dream of any hostility,
when suddenly they heard a wild, shrill war-cry from the plateau above
the huts of the village near the shore, on which were gathered a crowd
of excited men. Stanley was surprised at this unexpected hostile
demonstration, and halted just as the boat was about to ground, to
ascertain what it meant. The savages in the meantime were rushing
wildly toward the shore in front of where the boat lay rocking on the
water. As they approached, they suddenly changed their warlike attitude,
and, ceasing their loud yells, assumed a friendly manner, and invited
them to land in tones and gestures so kind and affable that Stanley's
first suspicions were at once disarmed, and he ordered the rowers to
send the boat ashore. But the moment the keel grated on the pebbly
beach, all this friendliness of manner changed, and the naked savages
rushed into the water, and, seizing the boat, lifted it up bodily and,
with all on board, carried it high and dry on the bank.

[Illustration: A TREACHEROUS ASSAULT.]

Stanley was terribly aroused at this sudden treachery, and reckless of
consequences, determined to avenge it, and twice he raised his revolver
to shoot down the audacious wretches, but his crew begged him to desist,
declaring earnestly that these people were friends, and that if he would
wait a few minutes, he would see that all was right. He accordingly sat
down in the stern sheets and waited to see the end. In the meantime, the
savages came leaping from the hill-sides, tossing their naked limbs in
the air, and uttering loud yells, till a wild, frantic multitude
completely surrounded the boat in which Stanley still sat unmoved and
calm. The wretches seemed crazed with passion, and poised their spears
as if about to strike him, and drew their arrows to the head, one
discharge of which would have riddled Stanley, struck the boat by his
side with their spear handles, gnashed their teeth, foamed at the mouth,
and yelled till their eyes seemed bursting from their sockets. Stanley,
however, never moved nor uttered a word. His life did not seem worth a
thought in that frenzied, demoniacal crowd. But resistance and
expostulation were alike useless, and he could do nothing but wait the
final assault, and then sell his life dearly as possible.

For some strange, unaccountable reason, their chief, Thekha, kept them
from the last act of violence, and at last so quieted them that Stanley
calmly asked him how much he demanded to let him go. The most curious
part of this whole affair is, that the chief condescended to enter into
negotiations with Stanley. Everything the latter had was in the boat,
and he had only to give the word, and in five minutes all was his. But
instead of doing this, he struck up a bargain with Stanley, and agreed
to let him off for four cloths and ten necklaces of large beads. Stanley
at once took them from his packages and gave them to him. But no sooner
had he received them, than he gave a quick order to his men to seize the
oars of the boat. In a twinkling, before Stanley had time to think what
they were about, the oars were caught up and carried away. The natives
seeing through the treacherous trick, enjoyed it thoroughly, and their
loud laughing jeers roused all the devil in Stanley's nature, but he
still said nothing. Having got possession of the oars, they thought he
was helpless as a tortoise on his back, and became quiet, seemingly
enjoying the white man's helplessness. Having no fear of his escape,
they at noon leisurely walked to their huts to get their noonday meal,
and to discuss what the next move should be. Stanley says he was not
idle, he wished to impose on the savages by his indifferent manner, but
he was all the while planning how to escape and the best mode of meeting
the attack when it came.

While the savages were at their dinner, a negress came near them and
told them to eat honey with Thekha, as it was the only way to save their
lives, for he had determined to kill them and take everything they had.
Stanley permitted his coxswain to go to Thekha and make the proposition
to eat honey. The wily chief told him to be at ease, no harm was
intended them and next day he would eat honey with them. The coxswain
returned delighted, and reported the good news. But Stanley checked the
confidence of the men, and told them that nothing but their own wit and
courage could save their lives. This, he said, was all a trick, the next
move would be to seize their guns as they had the oars, when they would
be helpless, and by no means to leave the boat, but be prepared to act
at any moment when he should give the word. The men saw at once the
force of Stanley's suspicions, and kept close by him.

Thus nearly three long hours passed away, neither he nor his crew doing
or attempting to do anything. But about three o'clock, the war-drums
began again their horrid din, and soon the loping, naked savages were
seen running from every quarter, and in half an hour five hundred
warriors had gathered around the chief within thirty paces of the boat.
He was sitting down, and when the warriors were all assembled, he made
them an address. As soon as he had finished, about fifty of them dashed
up to Stanley's men, and seizing his drum, bore it back in triumph. From
some cause or other, this last and apparently most harmless act of all
aroused Stanley's suspicions to a point that made him act promptly and
decisively.

Perhaps it was their scornful, insulting language as they walked off,
bidding him get his guns ready, as they were coming back soon to cut his
throat. At all events, the moment he saw them approach the chief with
the drum, he shouted to his men to push the boat into the water. The
eleven men sprang to its sides, and lifting it as if it had been a toy,
carried it, with Stanley in it, to the water's edge and shot it, with
one desperate effort, far out into the lake and beyond their depth, and
where they had to swim for it. Quickly as it was done, the savages
instantly detected the movement, and before the boat had lost its
headway, were crowding the very edge of the water, to which they had
rushed like a whirlwind, shouting and yelling like madmen. Seizing his
elephant rifle, Stanley sent two large conical balls into the dense mass
with frightful effect. Then pulling one of the men in the boat, and
bidding him help the others in, he seized his double-barreled gun,
loaded with buck-shot, and fired right and left into the close-packed,
naked crowd. It was like firing with small shot into a flock of pigeons,
and a clean swath was cut through the naked mass, which was so stunned
at the horrible effect, that they ran back up the slope without hurling
a spear or shooting an arrow.

With the oars gone, the great struggle would be to get out into the open
lake, where they could hoist sail; for, this once accomplished, they
could bid defiance to their enemies. Stanley knew the first move of the
savages would be to man their canoes, which lined the shore, and
surround his helpless vessel and overwhelm him. He therefore watched the
first movement to launch a canoe, and as soon as a desperate-looking
savage made the attempt, he dropped him with a bullet through his body.
A second, following his example, fell on the beach, when they paused at
the certain death that seemed to await the man who dared to touch a
boat. Just then Stanley caught sight of the sub-chief, who commanded the
party that took the drum, and taking a cool, deliberate aim at him with
his elephant rifle, he sent one of its great conical balls tearing
through his body, killing at the same time his wife and infant, behind
him. This terrified them, for there seemed something supernatural about
this deadly work, and they ceased their efforts to launch the boats, and
hastened to get out of the reach of such fatal firing. In the meantime,
the men were slowly working the boat toward the mouth of the cove. But,
just as they were feeling safe, Stanley saw two canoes, loaded heavily
with warriors, push out of a little bay and pull toward him. Putting two
explosive shells into his elephant rifle, he waited till they came
within the distance where they would be most destructive, and then
commenced firing. He fired rapidly, but being a dead-shot, with great
accuracy, and the shells, as they struck inside the canoes, burst with
terrible effect. Four shots killed five men and sunk both the canoes,
leaving the warriors to swim ashore. This ended the fight, and the
enraged and baffled crowd vented their fury by shouting out, "Go and die
in the Nyanza."

Stanley's rapid deadly firing killed fourteen, and wounded with
buck-shot eight, which, he coolly remarks, "I consider to be very dear
payment for the robbery of eight ash oars and a drum, though barely
equivalent, in our estimation, to the intended massacre of ourselves."
This cool-blooded treachery and narrow escape roused Stanley's whole
nature, and terrible as had been the punishment he had inflicted, he
resolved that he would make it more terrible still before he had done
with them.

During the perils of the next night that followed, he had plenty of time
to nurse his wrath. Having got clear of the land, he hoisted sail, and
favored by a light breeze, by night was eight miles from the treacherous
Bumbireh. A little after dark the breeze died away, and he set the men
to paddling. But, their oars being gone, they made slow headway. At
sunrise they were only twenty miles from the island, but near noon, a
strong breeze springing up from the northwest, they bowled along at the
rate of five miles an hour, and soon saw it sink in the distant horizon.
At sunset they saw an island named Sousa, toward which they steered,
hoping to reach it by midnight and find a safe haven. But about eight
o'clock the breeze began to increase till it rose to a fierce gale, and
the sail had to be taken in.

Being without oars, they could not keep the light boat before the wind,
and she was whirled away by it like a feather, and wallowed amid the
waves that kept increasing, till it seemed impossible to keep much
longer afloat. The men strove desperately with their boards for paddles
to reach the island, and get to the leeward of it, till the storm should
break, but it was of no avail. They were swept by it like a piece of
drift-wood, and the lightning, as it lit up its green sides, seemed to
mock their despair. The terrific crash of the thunder, the roar of the
tempest, and the wild waste of the wrathful water as it was incessantly
lit up by the blinding flashes, made it the most terrific night Stanley
had ever passed in all his wide wanderings. Between the dashing of the
waves over the gunwale and the downfalling deluge of rain, the helpless
boat rapidly filled, and it required constant and rapid bailing to keep
it from going to the bottom.

The imagination cannot conceive the terrors that surrounded that little
boat with its helpless crew on that storm-swept lake during that long,
wild night. Above them, rushed the angry clouds, pierced incessantly by
the lightning; the heavy thunder shook the very heavens, while all
around them were islands and rocks, and a few miles ahead, the main-land
peopled by hostile savages. Yet, amid all their terror, the men worn out
with their long fasting and exhausting labors, would drop asleep, till
awakened by the stern order to bail. The men of Bumbireh had shouted
after them, "go and die in the Nyanza," and they now seemed to be
prophetic words. Stanley remembered them, and he lived to make the
murderous savages remember them, too. At daybreak the tempest broke, and
the waves not having the heavy roll of the ocean, quickly subsided, and
they saw they had drifted eight miles off the isle of Susa, which they
had made such desperate efforts to reach the night before, while other
islands rose in the distance. There was not a morsel of food in the
boat, and it was now forty-eight hours since they had tasted any, yet
the men took to their paddles cheerfully. Soon a gentle breeze set in
from the westward, and hoisting sail, they steered for an unknown
island, which Stanley named Refuge Island. It was small and uninhabited,
but on exploring it, they discovered that the natives had once occupied
and cultivated it. To their great joy, they found green bananas, and a
small fruit resembling cherries, but tasting like dates. Stanley
succeeded, also, in shooting two fat ducks. The men soon stripped these
of their feathers and had them in the pot, with which, and the fruit,
they made what seemed to them in their famished condition, a right royal
repast. The camp was pitched close by the sandy beach, and when night
closed sweetly in on the wanderers, "there were few people in the
world," says Stanley, "blessed God more devoutly than we did." And well
they might, for their double deliverance from the savages on shore and
the tempest on the water, was almost miraculous.

They rested here all the next day recruiting, and then set sail, and
coming to friendly natives, laid in a supply of provisions. While at
anchor, some of the men plucked the poultry they had bought, and they
feasted till they were thoroughly satisfied.

At midnight, a favorable wind rising, they set sail for Usukuma. About
three in the morning they were in the middle of the Speke Gulf, from
which they had started nearly two months before, and bound for their
camp. The wind had died away, and the water lay calm and unruffled
beneath the tropical sky. But this calm was only the prelude to a
fearful storm. Clouds, black as ink, began to roll up the heavens, their
edges corrugated and torn by the contending forces that urged them on,
while out from their foldings the lightning leaped in blinding flashes,
and the thunder, instead of rolling in angry peals, came down in great
crashes as if the very frame-work of nature was rending, and then the
hail, in stones big as filberts, beat down on their uncovered heads. The
waves rose to an astonishing height, and tore like wild horses over the
lake. The boat became unmanageable, and was whirled along at the mercy
of the wind and waves. But the staunch little craft outrode the fury of
the gale, with a buoyancy that surprised Stanley.

Next morning, although almost under the equator, they saw the day dawn
gray, and cheerless, and raw. On taken his observations, Stanley found
that he was only about twenty miles northwest of his camp. The news sent
new life into the crew. They hoisted sail, and, though at first the wind
was unfavorable, yet, as if good luck had come at last, it shifted
astern, and, with a full sail, they steered straight for camp--every
heart bounding with joy.

The men in camp discovered the boat when miles away, and hurrying to the
shore sent up shout after shout, and tossed their arms joyfully in the
air. As the boat drove swiftly on, the shouts were changed to volleys of
musketry and waving of flags, while "the land seemed alive with leaping
forms of glad-hearted men." Rumors of their destruction had reached
camp, and his long absence seemed to confirm them, and they had made up
their minds, that, with their leader lost, they must turn back. As the
boat grated on the pebbly shore, fifty men leaped into the water and
seizing Stanley lifted him bodily out, and, running up the bank, placed
him on their shoulders, and danced around the camp like madmen. They
seemed unable to contain their joy. It showed how strong was the hold
Stanley had on their affections. Stern in enforcing discipline and
relentless in punishing crime, he was always careful of their welfare,
attentive to their wants, just in all his dealings, and generous in his
reward for good behavior and faithful service, and by this course he had
bound these simple children of nature to him with cords of iron.



CHAPTER XV.

AN INTERVAL OF REST.


The next morning, as Stanley looked out of his tent-door upon the broad
and beautiful lake, it was with that intense feeling of satisfaction
with which one contemplates a great and perilous undertaking, which,
after being well-nigh abandoned, is at last successfully accomplished.
The waters, glittering in the morning sun, had but a short time before
seemed to him an angry foe, but now they wore a friendly aspect. They
seemed to belong to him. Livingstone, and Speke, and Burton, and others
had looked on that lake, and sighed in vain to solve the mystery that
enveloped it, while he had not only followed its winding shores their
entire length, but had sounded its depths and fixed its geographical
position forever. His toils were over, and the victory won in this his
first great enterprise, and he could well look forward with hope to the
great work still before him. His escapes had been wonderful, and he
might take them as good omens for the future.

It seemed as if fate delighted to place him in positions of danger, from
which there appeared to be no escape, in order to show her power to
save him under any and all circumstances. Even now, when contemplating
so satisfactorily his success, he was startled by the narrowness of his
escape from a danger of which he had never before dreamed. That trouble,
disorder and desertion might befall his camp during his absence he had
often feared, but now he was told by the men he had left in charge of
it, that in a few hours more the expedition would have broken up and
disappeared forever.

This was Frank Pocoke's report. He said that a rumor had reached camp
that Stanley and his crew had been taken prisoners soon after leaving,
and he at once sent off fifty soldiers to effect his release, who found
the report false. They had also heard of his fight with the Wamma, and
that he was killed. In the meantime a conspiracy had been formed by
three neighboring tribes to capture the camp and seize all the goods. It
was discovered, and everything put in the best state possible to defeat
it, when the whole fell through on account of the sudden death of one of
the conspirators and the disaffection of another.

With the report of Stanley's death uncontradicted--nay, corroborated by
his long absence--and in view of the dangers surrounding them, the
soldiers and men held a meeting to determine what course they should
take. He had then been gone nearly a month and a half, and it should not
have taken more than half that time to have circumnavigated the lake
with a boat that, in a fair breeze, could go five or six miles an hour.

Something must have happened to him; that was certain; and it mattered
little whether it was death or captivity. It was finally decided to wait
fifteen days longer, or till the new moon, when, if he did not appear,
they would strike camp and march back to Unyanyembe. The fifteen days
would have expired the next day after Stanley's arrival. If, therefore,
he had been delayed forty-eight hours longer, instead of being received
with the waving of flags, shouts and volleys of musketry, and wild
demonstrations of delight, there would have been no welcome, but a
silent, deserted camp. This would have been a terrible blow, and would
have dashed with the bitterest disappointment all the joy at his task
successfully accomplished. But he had been saved all this; still one
calamity had befallen him for which there was no remedy; young Barker
had died only a few days before his arrival, and six of his strong men
had fallen victims to dysentery and fever. Thus while in all the danger
through which he had passed on the lake he had not lost a man, seven had
died while lying idly in a healthy camp. The death of Barker he felt
keenly, for of the three white men who had started with him, two had
already fallen, and now only one was left.

In writing to his mother, announcing his death, and expressing his
sympathy with her in her affliction, he thus speaks of the manner in
which it occurred: "I was absent on an exploring expedition on Lake
Victoria, having left Francis Pocoke and Frederick Barker in charge of
my camp. Altogether I was absent fifty-eight days. When I returned,
hoping that I would find that all had gone well, I was struck with the
grievous news that your son had died twelve days before, of an
intermittent fever. What little I have been able to learn of your son's
death, amounts to this: On April 22d, he went out on the lake with
Pocoke to shoot hippopotami, and all day enjoyed himself. On the morning
of the 23d he went out for a little walk, had his tea and some pancakes,
washed himself, and then suddenly said he felt ill, and lay down in bed.
He called for a hot stone to be put to his feet; brandy was given him,
blankets were heaped on him, but he felt such cold in his extremities
that nothing availed to restore heat in his body. His blood seems to
have become congealed. At eight o'clock, an hour after he lay down, he
was dead. Such is what I have been able to glean from Pocoke of the
manner of his death. But by our next letter-carrier, Pocoke shall send
you a complete account." He then goes on to speak of his excellent
qualities and promising future, and his own great loss.

One of the curious things that struck Stanley as he looked on his party,
was the strange contrast between Pocoke's face and his own. The former
being most of the time in camp, had bleached to his old English
whiteness, while, under the reflection of the fierce rays of an
equatorial sun, he had been burned till his face was the color of a
lobster--in fact, the natives had come to call him, not the _pale_, but
the _red_-faced man, to which his blood-shot eyes gave a still more
sanguinary appearance.

Now followed a season of rest and of sweet repose; and how deep and
sweet it was, may be gathered from his own language. He says: "Sweet is
the Sabbath day to the toil-worn laborer, happy is the long sea-tossed
mariner on his arrival in port, and sweet were the days of calm rest we
enjoyed after our troublous exploration of the Nyanza. The brusque
storms, the continued rains, the cheerless gray clouds, the wild waves,
the loneliness of the islands, the inhospitality of the natives that
were like mere phases of a dream, were now but the reminiscences of the
memory, so little did we heed what was past while enjoying the luxury of
a rest from our toils. Still it added to our pleasure to be able to
conjure up in the mind the varied incidents of the long lake journey;
they served to enliven and employ the mind while the body enjoyed
repose, like condiments quickening digestion. It was a pleasure to be
able to map at will, in the mind, so many countries newly discovered,
such a noble extent of fresh water explored for the first time. As the
memory flew over the lengthy track of exploration, how fondly it dwelt
on the many picturesque bays, margined by water-lilies and lotus plants,
or by the green walls of the slender reed-like papyrus, inclosing an
area of water, whose face was as calm as a mirror, because lofty
mountain ridges almost surround it. With what kindly recognition it
roved over the little green island in whose snug haven our boat had lain
securely at anchor, when the rude tempest without churned the face of
the Nyanza into a foaming sheet." The lofty rocks once more rose before
him in imagination, while the distant hills were outlined against the
fervid horizon, and the rich grain fields of some of the districts
smiled in the sun. But his memory dwelt with fondest recollection on
Uganda and its hospitable King Mtesa, for there, it not only recalled
the present, but pictured a glorious future, in which smiling villages
took the places of rude huts, from the midst of which church spires
rose, and the clear tones of the bell called the dusky inhabitants to
the place of worship. As he thus lay dreaming, close by the equatorial
circle, he saw the land smiling in affluence and plenty; its bays
crowded with the dark hulls of trading vessels, heard the sound of
craftsmen at their work, the roar of manufactories and foundries, and
the ever-buzzing noise of industry.

With these bright anticipations of the future, the happy result of his
endeavors, would mingle his desperate encounters with the savages, his
narrow escapes, his nights of danger on the tempestuous lake, his
wonderful success so near a failure at last--of all these marvelous
experiences and events crowded on him as he lay and rested, and dreamed
on the shores of the lake that he felt to be his own. If half that he
anticipated, as he lay and rested and dreamed, turns out true, his name
will be linked with changes that will sink all his great discoveries
into nothingness--moral changes and achievements as much above mere
material success as mind is above matter--civilization above
barbarism--Christianity above Paganism.

This successful voyage and safe return inspired the members of the
expedition with renewed confidence in their leader, and Stanley soon set
about prosecuting the great work to which he had devoted himself, and
which, with all its toils and dangers and great sacrifice of life, had
only just begun.

The Grand Admiral Magassa had not yet joined him. There was no reason he
had not done so, except that the fight at Bumbireh and subsequent storm
on the lake had sent them wide apart. But he had two of Stanley's best
men with him, who would direct him to the camp in Speke Bay, toward
which he knew Stanley was working, and where he should have been before
this time. The latter waited nine days in camp for him, and then
concluding that he did not intend to come at all, resolved to march
back overland with his party (as he had no canoes to carry them by
water) to Uganda. Just as they were ready to start, there came into camp
a negro embassy from Ruoma, which lay between him and Ugondo on the land
route, with the following message: "Ruoma sends salaams to the white
man. He does not want the white man's cloth, beads or wire, but the
white man must not pass through his country. Ruoma does not want to see
him or any other man with long red hair down to his shoulders, white
face and big red eyes. Ruoma is not afraid of him, but if the white man
will come near his country, Ruoma and Mirambo will fight him."

"Here, indeed," as Stanley says, "was a dilemma." Mtesa's admiral had
proved false to the instructions given him by the king, and no boats had
arrived to convey his party to Uganda by water, and now the ruler of the
district through which he must pass to reach it by land forbade him to
cross it. To force a passage was impossible; for Ruoma, besides having a
hundred and fifty muskets and several thousand spearmen and bowmen, had
the dreaded Mirambo, with his fierce warriors, within a day's march of
him and ready to aid him. Even if he could fight his way across the
country, it would be at a sacrifice of life that he could not afford,
and which the results he hoped to secure would not justify. Still, he
could not give up Uganda, with its half-civilized king, for it was not
only the most interesting country that bordered on the lake, but it
comprised the unknown region lying between it and Tanganika. If he could
only get canoes from some other quarter, he could take his party to
Uganda by water; and once there, his friend Mtesa would give him all the
aid he wanted. He therefore set on foot inquiries respecting the various
tribes bordering on the gulf on which he was encamped, to ascertain the
number of canoes each possessed. He found that the king of Ukerewe, the
large island lying at the mouth of the gulf, was the most likely person
to have the canoes he wanted, and he applied to him. But he was unable
to negotiate for them in person, as he was taken suddenly and seriously
ill--the result of his long exposure on the lake under an equatorial
sun--so he sent Pocoke, with Prince Kaduma, to make proposals for them.
These, taking a handsome present for the king, departed. In twelve days
they returned with fifty canoes and some three hundred natives under the
command of the king's brother; but to convey him and his party to the
king, not to Uganda.

Stanley's joy at the sight of the canoes was dampened by this request,
and he told the king's brother that even if the king would give all his
land and cattle, he would not let the expedition go to Ukerewe, but that
he himself would go, and the messenger himself might return as soon as
he pleased. As soon as he was well enough he set out, and on the second
day he reached the island. Knowing how much was at stake, he put on his
court costume, which meant the best clothes in his wardrobe, and
equipped himself with his best arms, while his attendants bore valuable
presents.

The next day after his arrival was fixed for the great audience. When
the hour arrived Stanley mustered the crew of the Lady Alice, who had
been dressed for the occasion, and the bugle sounded the order to march.
In ten minutes they came to a level stretch of ground, in the centre of
which was a knoll, where the king was seated in state, surrounded by
hundreds of bowmen and spearmen. He was a young man, with a color
tending more to the mulatto than the negro--possessing an amiable
countenance, and altogether he made a favorable impression on Stanley.
He was quite a conspicuous object sitting on that knoll in the midst of
warriors, for he was wrapped in a robe of red and yellow silk damask
cloth. His reception of Stanley consisted in a long, steady stare, but
being informed that the latter wished to state the object of his visit
to him and a few of his chiefs alone, he stepped aside a short distance
to a pile of stones, and invited them to join him. Stanley then stated
what he wanted, how far he wished the canoes to go, what he would pay
for them, etc., etc. The king listened attentively, and replied in a
kind and affable manner; but he said his canoes were many of them
rotten and unfit for a long voyage, and he was afraid they would give
out, and then he would be blamed and accused of being the cause of the
loss of his property. Stanley replied that he might blame the canoes,
but not him. At the close of the conference, the king said he should
have as many canoes as he wanted, but he must remain a few days and
partake of his hospitality. This was given in no stinted measure, for
beeves, and goats, and chickens, and milk, and eggs, and bananas, and
plantains were furnished in prodigal quantities, together with native
beer for the crew. They luxuriated in abundance, and on the fifteenth
day the king came to Stanley's tent with his chief counselor, and gave
him his secret instructions and advice. He said he had ordered fifty
canoes to carry him as far as Usukuma, Stanley's camp, but his people
would not be willing to go to Uganda. He, therefore, had resorted to
stratagem, and caused it to be reported that Stanley was going to come
and live among them. He said that the latter must encourage this report,
and when he got to Usukuma, and the canoes were drawn up on shore he
must seize them and secure the paddles. Having thus rendered it
impossible for them to return, he was to inform them what he intended to
do.

Stanley having promised to obey his instructions implicitly, the king
sent with him his prime minister and two favorites, and he departed,
after leaving behind him a handsome present as an earnest of what he
would do in the future. The natives bent to their paddles cheerfully,
and at length reached Stanley's camp; but instead of fifty, he found
there but twenty-three canoes. Though disappointed, he was compelled to
be content with these.

He accordingly whispered his orders to the captains of his expedition to
muster their men and seize the canoes and paddles. This was done, and
the canoes were drawn up far on land. The astonished natives inquired
the meaning of this, and when told, flew into a furious passion, and
being about equal in number to Stanley's party, showed fight. The latter
saw at a glance that any attempt to mollify them by talk would be
fruitless, and that energetic, prompt measures alone would answer, and
he immediately ordered the bugle to sound the rally. The soldiers
stepped quickly into line, when he ordered a charge with the muzzles of
their guns, and the astonished, duped creatures were driven out of camp
and away from the shore. Stanley then held a parley with them and
proposed to send them back, and did, or at least a portion of them, in
four canoes, which could return and take off the rest. The other canoes
he kept, and on the third day started for Uganda with a portion of the
expedition, and at the end of five days arrived at Refuge Island.
Remembering when he was there before, that the inhabitants of the
mainland, which was not more than six miles off, were not kindly
disposed toward him, he built a strong camp among the rocks, locating it
so that each high rock could furnish a position for sharp-shooters, and
in every way he could, rendered it impregnable, in case it should be
attacked during his absence.

As he had not been able to embark all his expedition and baggage, he now
returned for them, reaching his old camp again after an absence of
fifteen days. He learned on his arrival that two neighboring chiefs were
planning to seize him and make him pay a heavy ransom. He, however, said
nothing; spoke pleasantly every day to one of them--Prince Kaduma, and
made presents to his pretty wife, and went on loading his canoes. When
the day of embarkation arrived, the two chiefs, with a strong force came
to the water's edge and looked on moodily. Stanley appeared not to
notice it, but laughed and talked pleasantly, and proceeding leisurely
to the Lady Alice, ordered the boats crew to shove her off. When a short
distance was reached, he halted, and swinging broadside on shore, showed
a row of deadly guns in point-blank range of the shore. Taken completely
aback by this sudden movement, and not daring to make a hostile
demonstration with those guns covering them, the treacherous chiefs let
the process of embarkation go on without molestation, and soon the last
canoe was afloat and a final good-bye given to the camp, a scornful
farewell waved to the disappointed natives on shore, and the little
fleet steered for Refuge Island. Rough weather followed, and the rotten
canoes gave out one after another, so that he had only fifteen when he
reached the island. He found the camp had not been disturbed in his
absence. On the contrary, the neighboring kings and chiefs, seeing that
his camp was impregnable, had proffered their friendship and supplied
the soldiers with provisions. They also provided him with a guide and
sold him three canoes.



CHAPTER XVI.

PREPARATIONS FOR FURTHER EXPLORATIONS.


Stanley now rested a few days on this island before beginning his
explorations. It was associated in his mind with bitter memories, and,
as he wandered over it, he remembered the insults he had received, and
his almost miraculous escape from death near it. The treacherous
Bumbireh was almost in sight, and it awakened in him a strong desire for
revenge, and he determined to visit the island again, and demand
reparation for the wrongs he had received, and if it was not given, to
make war on them and teach them a lesson on good behavior. So at the end
of three days he set sail and camped on Mahyiga Island, five miles
distant, and sent a message to the natives saying, that if they would
deliver their king and two principal chiefs into his hands, he would
make peace with them, otherwise he would make war. This was a cool
request, and Stanley himself, suspecting it would be refused, sent a
party to invite the king of Iroba, an island only a mile from Bumbireh,
to visit him, who, dreading the vengeance of the white man, came,
bringing with him three chiefs. On what principle of morals Stanley will
justify his course we cannot say, but the moment the king arrived, he
had him and his chiefs put in chains; the conditions of their release
being that his people should deliver the king of Bumbireh, and two of
his principal chiefs into his hands.

Although the people of Bumbireh had treated his message with contempt,
the subjects of Iroba seized their king and delivered him into the hands
of Stanley. The peril of their own king had stimulated them to effort,
and Stanley at once released him, while he loaded his new royal captive
heavily with chains. He also sent a message to king Antari, on the
mainland, to whom Bumbireh was tributary, requesting him to redeem his
land from war. In reply, the latter sent his son and two chiefs to him
to make peace, who brought a quantity of bananas as a promise of what
the king would do in the future. Stanley, in conversing with them,
detected them in so many falsehoods, and thinking he saw treachery in
their faces, or perhaps it would be more in accordance with truth to
say, that having got them in his power, he thought it better to keep
them as hostages for the appearance of the two chiefs of Bumbireh, who
had not been brought with the king, and he, therefore, did so. In the
meantime, seven large canoes of Mtesa came up, which were out on an
expedition of the king's. The chief commanding them told Stanley that
Magassa had recovered the oars captured at Bumbireh, and that on his
returning and reporting Stanley dead, he had been put in chains by
Mtesa, but subsequently he had been released and dispatched in search of
him. Stanley persuaded this chief, with his canoes, to remain and assist
in the attack on Bumbireh, if his followers refused the terms of peace.

Two days after, this chief sent some of his men to Bumbireh for food,
but they were not allowed to land. On the contrary, they were attacked,
and one man was killed and eight were wounded. This gave Stanley another
strong reason for making war at once without further negotiations, to
which Mtesa's chief gladly consented. Accordingly, next morning, he
mustered two hundred and eighty men with fifty muskets, and two hundred
spearmen, and placed them in eighteen canoes and set out for Bumbireh,
eight miles distant, and reached the island at two o'clock in the
afternoon.

The natives of Bumbireh were evidently expecting trouble, for they felt
sure the attack on the friends of Stanley the day before would be
quickly avenged. As the latter, therefore, drew near the shore, he saw
lookouts on every eminence. Looking through his field-glass, he soon
discovered messengers running to a plantain grove which stood on a low
hill that commanded a clear, open view of a little port on the southern
point of the island, from which he concluded that the main force of the
enemy was assembled there. He then called the canoes together, and told
them to follow him and steer just as he steered, and by no means to
attempt to land, as he did not mean that one of Mtesa's men should be
killed, or, indeed, any of his own soldiers--he intended to punish
Bumbireh without any damage to himself. He then ordered his crew to row
straight for the port--the other canoes following in close order behind.
He managed to keep out of sight of the lookouts; and skirting close to
the land, at the end of a little more than a mile, rounded a cape and
shot into a fine bay, right in the rear and in full view of the enemy.
They were gathered in such large numbers that Stanley saw it would not
do to attack them in such a cover, and so steered for the opposite side
of the bay, as though he intended to land there, where the sloping
hill-sides were bare of everything but low grass. The savages,
perceiving this, broke cover and ran yelling toward the threatened
point. This was exactly what Stanley wanted, and he ordered the rowers
to pull slowly, so as to give them time to reach the spot toward which
he was moving. Very soon they were all assembled on the naked hill-side,
brandishing their weapons fiercely in the air. Stanley kept slowly on
till within a hundred yards of the beach, when he anchored broadside on
the shore--the English and American flags waving above him. The other
seventeen canoes followed his example. Seeing a group of about fifty
standing close together, he ordered a volley to be fired into it. Fifty
muskets and his own trusty rifle spoke at once, and with such terrible
effect that nearly the whole number was killed or wounded. The natives,
astounded at this murderous work, now separated and came down to the
water's edge singly, and began to yell and sling stones and shoot
arrows. Stanley then ordered the anchors up, and gave directions to move
the canoes to within fifty yards of the shore, and each soldier to
select his man and fire as though he was shooting birds. The savages
dropped right and left before this target practice, but the survivors
stood their ground firmly, for they knew if Stanley effected a landing
he would burn everything on the island.

For an hour they endured the deadly fire, and then, unable longer to
stand it, moved up the hill, but still not out of range, especially of
Stanley's unerring rifle. Though every now and then a man would drop,
they refused to move farther away, for they knew that if they were not
near enough to make a dash the moment the boats touched the shore, all
would be lost. Another hour was therefore passed in this long-range
firing, when Stanley ordered the canoes to advance all together, as if
about to make a sudden landing. The savages, seeing this, rushed down
the hill-side like a torrent, and massed themselves by the hundreds at
the point toward which the canoes were moving, some even entering the
water with their spears poised ready to strike. When they were packed
densely together, Stanley ordered the bugle to sound a halt, and, as the
crews rested on their oars, directed a volley to be fired into them,
which mowed them down so terribly that they turned and fled like deer
over the hill. Stanley's men had now got their blood up and urged him to
let them land and make a complete end of this treacherous people, but he
refused, saying that he came to punish, not destroy.

They had fired in all about seven hundred cartridges, and as the savages
were completely exposed, and in the afternoon, with the sun directly
behind the boats, and shining full in their faces, the mortality was
great. Over forty were left dead on the field, while the number of the
wounded could not be counted, though more than a hundred were seen to
limp or to be led away. It was a great victory, and Stanley's dusky
allies were in a state of high excitement, and made the air ring with
their shouts and laughter, as they bent to their paddles. It was dark
when they got back to the island, where they were received with wild
songs of triumph. Stanley was a great hero to these untutored children
of nature.

The next morning more canoes arrived from Uganda, and Stanley prepared
to depart. He had now thirty-two canoes, all well loaded with men, which
made quite an imposing little fleet as they moved into order on the
lake, and constituted a strong force. They sailed close to Bumbireh,
and Stanley looked to see what had been the effect of the severe
thrashing he had given them the day before. He found their audacity
gone, and their proud, insulting spirit completely quelled. There were
no shouts of defiance, no hostile demonstrations. Seeing a hundred or
more gathered in a group, he fired a bullet over their heads, which
scattered them in every direction. The day before they had breasted
bravely volley after volley, but now the war spirit was thoroughly
cowed. In another place some natives came down to the shore and begged
them to go away and not hurt them any more. This gave Stanley an
opportunity to preach them a sermon on treachery, and exhort them
hereafter to treat strangers who came to them peaceably with kindness.
The dead in almost every hut was, however, the most effectual sermon of
the two.

They camped that evening on the mainland, in the territory of King
Kattawa, who treated them in a magnificent style for a savage, to show
his gratitude for the punishment they had inflicted on Bumbireh, who had
a short time before killed one of his chiefs. They stayed here a day,
and then steered for the island of Muzina, where he had last seen
Magassa and his fleet. The people were not friendly to him, but they had
heard of the terrible punishment he had inflicted on the Bumbireh, and
hastened to supply him with provisions. They brought him five cattle,
four goats, and a hundred bunches of bananas, besides honey, milk and
eggs.

The king of Ugoro, near by, also sent him word that he had given his
people orders to supply him with whatever food he wanted. Stanley
replied that he wanted no food, but if he would lend him ten canoes to
carry his people to Uganda, he would consider him as his friend. They
were promptly furnished. Mtesa's chief urged him to attack the king, as
he had murdered many of Mtesa's people, but Stanley refused, saying he
did not come to make war on black people, he only wished to defend his
rights and avenge acts of treachery. Five days after he landed at Duomo
Uganda, half-way between the Kagera and Katonga rivers, and pitched his
camp. He selected this spot as the best place from which to start for
the Albert Nyanza, which he designed next to explore. He wanted to see
Mtesa, and get his advice as to which was the best route to take,
because between these two lakes were several powerful tribes, who were
continually at war with the king of Uganda.

In summing up his losses during this journey of two hundred and twenty
miles by water, he found he had lost six men drowned, five guns and one
case of ammunition, besides ten canoes wrecked and three riding asses
dead, leaving him but one. He had been gone fifty-six days, and though
the distance was but two hundred and twenty miles, a large portion of
it had been traversed three times, so that he had really travelled by
water over seven hundred and twenty miles. He had bought scarcely any
provisions, the expedition subsisting on the corn he bought at the start
with one bale of cloth, but considerable quantities of food had been
given them.

He now resolved, after he had settled his camp, to visit Mtesa again,
and consult with him about the aid he could give him to reach Albert
Nyanza. This lake was the source of the White Nile, up which Baker was
forcing his way, the very year Stanley started on his expedition. Baker
hoped to launch steamers upon it, but he failed even to reach it, though
he saw its waters, twenty miles distant. Between it and the Victoria
Nyanza is an unknown region. The distance from one to the other in a
straight line is probably not two hundred miles, though by any travelled
route it is, of course, much farther. Nothing is definitely known of its
size or shape. Colonel Mason made a partial exploration of it last year,
but it still remains a new field for some future explorer, for Stanley
failed to reach it if Mason's map is correct. The Victoria Nyanza he
computed to contain twenty-one thousand five hundred square miles, and
to be nine thousand one hundred and sixty-eight feet above the sea
level.

There is a large lake almost directly west of the Nyanza called Muta
Nzienge, which Stanley conjectures may be connected with the Albert
Nyanza. The region around the latter is wholly unknown, except that
fierce cannibals occupy its western shore. We say that Stanley did not
reach the Albert Nyanza at all, though if it and the Muta Nzienge are
one, he did. He inserts in his journal that he reached the shore of the
lake, yet by his map he did not. This discrepancy is owing probably to
the fact that he thought, when he wrote, that the lake he saw was the
Albert Nyanza, and though Colonel Mason explored it partially last year,
and makes it an entirely distinct lake, yet Stanley's opinion may still
be unchanged. At all events, his map and journal should agree, but they
do not, which confuses things badly. His route, as he has marked it
down, does not go near this lake. On the other hand, if the Albert and
the Muta Nzienge are one, it rivals in length the great Tanganika, which
no one, however, thinks it to do.

Stanley found Mtesa at war with the Wavuma, who refused to pay their
annual tribute. According to his account this monarch had an army with
him which, with its camp followers, amounted to a quarter of a million
of souls. He remained with Mtesa several weeks, as the war dragged
slowly along, and, in the meantime, translated, with the help of a
young, educated Arab, a part of the Bible for him, and apparently sent
him forward a great way toward Christianity. He at length, after he had
witnessed various naval battles that did not seem to bring the war any
nearer to a termination, built for the king a huge naval structure,
wholly inclosed, which, when it moved against the brave islanders,
filled them with consternation, and they made peace.

At this point, Stanley makes a break in his journal and devotes nearly a
hundred pages to a narrative of Uganda and its king, Mtesa. He gives its
traditions, mingled with much fable; a description of its land, fruits,
customs of the people--in short, a thorough history, as far as the
natives know anything about it. This possesses more or less interest,
though the information it conveys is of very little consequence, while
it is destitute of any incident connected with his journey.

It was now October, and he turned his attention directly to the next
scene of his labors--the exploration of the Albert Nyanza. The great
difficulty here was to get through the warlike tribes that lay between
the lakes and around the latter, of which Abba Rega was one of the most
hostile chiefs. This king, it will be remembered, was the great foe of
Baker, whom the latter drove out of the country, after burning his
capital, and put Rionga in his place. He said then, that this
treacherous king had gone to the shores of the Albert Nyanza. By the
way, Baker's statement and Stanley's journal, placed together, seem to
make it certain that the Muta Nzienge, which the latter reached, and
the Albert Nyanza are the same; for, in the first place, it will be
remembered, Baker's last journey was to Unyoro, where he saw the Albert
Nyanza. Now Stanley, it will be seen hereafter, traverses this same
district to reach the lake he called Muta Nzienge. Again, Baker says
that Abba Rega fled to the Albert Nyanza, and yet Stanley found him on
Lake Muta Nzienge. If Stanley's attention had been called to this, we
hardly think he would have made two lakes on his map, when, from these
corroborating statements, there could have been but one. The fact that
these separate statements, made two years apart, are purely incidental,
makes the fact they go to prove the more certain to be true. It seems
impossible that Baker and Stanley should reach through the same tribe
two large and entirely separate lakes.

Knowing not only of the hostility, but also the power of some of the
tribes between Uganda and Lake Albert, Stanley asked Mtesa for fifty or
sixty thousand men--a mighty army. With such a force he thought he could
not only overcome all opposition on the way, but hold the camp he wished
to establish, while he spent two months in exploring the lake. But Mtesa
told him two thousand would be ample, which he would cheerfully furnish.
He said that he need not fear Abba Rega, for he would not dare to lift a
spear against his troops, for he had seated him on the throne of
Kameazi. Though Stanley was not convinced of the truth of Mtesa's
statements, he would not urge him further and accepted, with many
expressions of thanks, the two thousand soldiers, commanded by General
Lamboozi as an escort.



CHAPTER XVII.

THE EXPEDITION TO ALBERT NYANZA.


Stanley's expedition consisted of one hundred and eighty men, which,
with the troops Mtesa gave him, made a total of two thousand two hundred
and ninety men. To this little army were attached some five hundred
women and children, making a sum total of two thousand eight hundred.
With this force, all ordinary opposition could be overcome, and as it
moved off with the sound of drums and horns, and the waving of the
English and American flags, conspicuous amid those of the negro army, it
presented a very animated appearance. But Stanley was destined to find
out what others have learned before him, that a small force under one's
own immediate command is better than a large, undisciplined one, that is
subject to the orders of another.

[Illustration: STANLEY'S DASH ACROSS UNYORO]

General Lamboozi had no heart in this expedition, and soon showed it.
But they moved off gayly over the swelling pasture-lands of Uganda,
striking northwest toward the lake, which Stanley hoped to explore, as
he had the Victoria Nyanza. The march through Uganda was a pleasant one
and they at length reached the frontier of Unyoro and prepared for war.

On the 5th of January they entered Abba Rega's territory, whom, two
years before, Baker had driven from his throne, and who naturally felt
peculiarly hostile to all white men. But no resistance was offered--the
people, as if remembering the past, fleeing before them, leaving their
provisions and everything behind them, of which the army made free use.
Three days after they came to the base of a mighty mountain, called
Kabrogo, rising five thousand five hundred feet into the air,
presenting, in its naked, rugged outline, a sublime appearance. They
encamped that night on a low ridge, in sight of the Katonga River,
flowing east in its course to the Victoria Nyanza, bringing up many
associations to Stanley's mind--while to the west the Ruanga filled the
night air with its thunderous sound, as it tumbled over cataracts toward
the Albert Nyanza. From an eminence near by could be seen in the
distance the colossal form of Gambaragara Mountain looming up from the
wilderness--a second Mont Blanc, rising some three miles into the
cloudless heavens. Though under the equator, snow is often seen on its
summit. But what gives it peculiar interest is, that on its cold and
lonely top dwell a people of an entirely distinct race, being white,
like Europeans. The king of Uzigo once spoke to Stanley and Livingstone
of this singular people, and now the latter saw half a dozen of them.
Their hair, he says, is "kinky," and inclined to brown in color; their
features regular; lips thin, and noses well shaped. Altogether, they are
a handsome race--the women, many of them possessing great beauty. Some
of their descendants are scattered through the tribes living near the
base of the mountain, but the main body occupy its lofty summit. The
queen of one of the islands in the Victoria Nyanza is a descendent of
them. The history of this singular people is wrapped in mystery.

There is a tradition that the first king of Unyoro gave them the land at
its base, and the approach of a powerful enemy first drove them to the
top for safety. They have become so acclimated that they can stand the
cold, while the dwellers of the plain are compelled to flee before it.
Mtesa once dispatched his greatest general with an army of a hundred
thousand men to capture them. They succeeded in making their way to a
great height, but finally had to withdraw--the cold became so intense.

The retreat of this pale-faced tribe is said to be inaccessible. The top
is supposed to be the crater of an extinct volcano; for on it there is a
lake nearly a third of a mile long, from the centre of which rises a
huge rock to a great height. Around the top of this runs a rim of rock,
making a natural wall, in which are several villages, where the
principal "medicine-man" and his mysterious people reside in their
peculiar separateness.

This account, if true, does not touch the origin of this peculiar race
of people, nor in any way explain the fact of their existence here in
tropical Africa. Two men belonging to this tribe joined Stanley's
expedition in this march to the Albert Lake, yet he seems to have
obtained no information from them of the history of their tribe. Whether
they had any traditions or not we are not informed--we only know that
Stanley found them extremely uncommunicative. It is possible they had
nothing to tell, for a vast majority of the negro tribes of Africa have
no past; they care neither for the past or future, so far as external
life is concerned, living only in the present. These two men occupied a
high position, for some cause, in the army under Lamboozi, and were the
only ones who were allowed more than two milch cows on the route.
Various stories about these people were told Stanley, and it is
difficult to come at the truth. About the only thing that seems
established is that this white race exists, of whose origin nothing
definite has as yet been obtained. Stanley says that he heard they were
of Arab origin, but there are plenty of Arabs in Africa--in fact, all
the soldiers attached to the expedition were Arabs, and colonies of them
had long existed in Central Africa; but they are not white men.

It seems impossible that Livingstone, years before, should have heard
of this singular people, and Stanley seen specimens of them, if no such
tribe really existed. It seems almost equally strange that they should
be able for centuries to keep so isolated that their very home is a
myth. The truth is, that Africa is a land of fables and traditions, that
partake of the wonderful and often of the miraculous. Mr. Stanley was
told of other tribes of white people living in a remote unknown region,
possessing great ferocious dogs, and also of dwarfs of singular habits
and customs. These traditions or reports, that are invariably vague in
their character, usually have more or less foundation in truth. Mixed
with the wonderful, that always holds an important place in savage
literature, there will generally be found at least a grain of truth; and
the traditions of white races among a people who had never seen white
men, could hardly arise if no such tribes existed.

The diet of this strange race consists of milk and bananas. Stanley says
the first specimen he saw of the tribe was a young man, whom he first
took for a young Arab from Cairo, who for some reason had wandered off
to Uganda, and taken up his residence with King Mtesa. The two attached
to his expedition would easily have been mistaken for Greeks in white
shirts. Stanley, after seeing these white Africans, the stories
concerning whose existence he had regarded as one of the fables of the
ignorant, superstitious natives, says that he is ready to believe there
is a modicum of truth in all the strange stories that he has been
accustomed to listen to as he would to a fairy tale. Four years
previous, while exploring the Tanganika with Livingstone, they both
smiled at the story told them of a white people living north of Uzigo,
but now he had seen them, and if it were not that their hair resembles
somewhat that of the negro, he should take them for Europeans. He heard
afterwards that the first king of Kisbakka, a country to the southwest,
was an Arab, whose scimiter is still preserved by the natives, and
infers that these people may be his descendants. He also heard of a
tribe that wore armor and used a breed of fierce and powerful dogs in
battle.

From this point the expedition moved on toward the Albert Nyanza, along
the southern bank of the Rusango River, a rapid, turbulent stream,
winding in and out among the mountains, and rushing onward in fierce,
rapid and headlong cataracts to the peaceful bosom of the lake. For ten
hours they marched swiftly through an uninhabited country, and then
emerged into a thickly populated district. Their sudden appearance, with
drums beating and colors flying, filled the people, who had no
intimation of their coming, with such consternation, that they took to
the woods, leaving everything behind them, even the porridge on the fire
and the great pots of milk standing ready for the evening meal. Fields
and houses were alike deserted in a twinkling, and the army marched in
and took possession. Thus far they had met with no opposition whatever,
and the warlike tribe Stanley had feared so much, and had taken such a
large force to overcome, seemed to have no existence. In fact, the days
had passed by monotonously; for the most part the scenery was tame, and
the march of the troops from day to day was without incident or
interest, and now at this village they were within a few miles of the
lake, to reach which was the sole object of all this display of force.
Instead of fighting their way, they found themselves in undisputed
possession of a large and populous district, with not a soul to give
them any information.

We confess there is something about this journey from the Victoria
Nyanza to the Albert that we do not understand. By the route on the map
it must have been nearly two hundred miles, and yet the expedition
started on January 5th, and on the evening of the 9th was within three
miles of the latter, which would make the marching about fifty miles a
day--an impossibility.

Now, fifty miles a day for four days would be terrible marching for
veteran troops. Hence, we say, the map or journal is wrong. If he took
the route he has marked down and completed it in the time he says he
did, one instead of two parallels of longitude should indicate the
distance between the two lakes. In fact, this whole expedition was such
a miserable failure, that anywhere but in Africa it would be looked upon
as a farce. It shows how utterly futile it is to rely on the native
Africans in any great enterprise. The Arabs are bad enough, but they are
fidelity itself compared to these black savages.

Here was an expedition numbering nearly three thousand souls, organized
to secure a safe march to a lake not five days distant. It met with no
obstacles of any moment, reached the lake, and there, on the mere rumor
that hostilities were intended, practically broke up and returned.
Stanley had, with about three hundred men, traversed an unknown country
for months, fought battles, and at the end of a thousand miles reached
the lake he was seeking, pitched his camp, and with a crew of eleven men
explored the lake in its entire circuit, and returned in safety. Here,
with a small army, after a four days' march, he reaches the Albert
Nyanza, yet does nothing but turn round and march back again. It would
seem, at first sight, strange that if he could march a thousand miles
from the sea to the Victoria Nyanza and then explore it, he could not
now with the same men explore this lake without the aid of Lamboozi and
his two thousand or more soldiers. Doubtless he could but for this very
army. Its disaffection and declaration that they were not strong enough
to resist the force about to be brought against them, created a panic
among Stanley's men. If two thousand fled, it would be madness for one
hundred and eighty to stay. The simple truth is, the more such men one
has with him, unless he is the supreme head and his will is law, even to
life and death, the worse he is off. Stanley, planning, controlling and
directing every movement, is a power; Stanley under the direction of a
swaggering, braggart African negro general, is nobody.

Lamboozi did, next morning after their approach to the lake, send out
two hundred scouts to capture some natives, by whom they could get a
message to the king of the district, saying that they had no hostile
intentions, and if permitted to encamp on the shores of the lake for two
months, would pay in beads, cloth and wire for whatever provisions they
consumed. Five were captured and sent to the king with this proposition,
but he did not deign an answer. On the 11th, they moved the camp to
within a mile of the lake, on a plateau that rose a thousand feet above
its surface. A place was selected for a camp and men sent out to capture
all the canoes they could find. In three hours they returned with only
five, and those too small for their purpose. But they brought back word
that the whole country was aroused, and that a large body of strange
warriors had arrived on the coast to aid the king in making war on the
newcomers.

General Lamboozi now became thoroughly alarmed, and stubbornly refused
to grant Stanley's request to move to the edge of the lake and intrench.
It seemed probable that the natives meant to give battle, but with what
numbers or prospect of success, Lamboozi took no measure to ascertain.
Next day he resolved to march back. Entreaties and threats were alike in
vain, and there was nothing left for Stanley to do but march back with
him. He was greatly disappointed and thoroughly disgusted, but there was
no help for it. That Unyoro and Abba Rega would be hostile, Stanley knew
before he started, and on that account took so large a force with him.
Yet he says, after this miserable failure, that it was a foolhardy
attempt at the outset. Looking at it calmly, he pronounces it a great
folly, redeemed from absurdity only by "the success of having penetrated
through Unyoro and reached the Albert." It is difficult to see wherein
lies the greatness of this success; for, according to his own account,
it was one of the most peaceful marches he ever performed, with hardly
enough incident in it to make it interesting. It matters little,
however; all that can be said is, they marched up to the lake and then
marched back again.

On the morning of the 13th, they began their return in order of
battle--five hundred spearmen in front, five hundred as a rear guard,
and the expedition in the centre--but no enemy attacked them or
attempted to do anything but pick up some stragglers. The next day the
expedition formed the rear guard, and once some natives rushed out of
the woods to attack them, but were quickly dispersed by a few shots.

This is all that happened to this army in terrible Unyoro, and presents
a striking contrast to Baker's gallant march through it with his little
band, fighting every day for nearly a week. Four days after, without any
further molestation, they re-entered Uganda, where Lamboozi turned off
to his home. Stanley had heard no news of Gordon or of the steamers he
was to place on the lake according to the plan of Baker; and though at
first he thought that he would seek some other way to reach it and make
his explorations, he finally resolved to start for Tanganika, which he
would reach in about four months, and explore it. Hence, while Lamboozi
turned eastward toward Lake Victoria, he with his little band, turned
southward. He sent a letter, however, to Mtesa, informing him of
Lamboozi's cowardice and refusal to build a camp at Lake Albert, and
telling him also that this redoubtable general had robbed him. He had
intrusted to his care three porter's loads of goods to relieve his own
carriers, and these he had appropriated as his own.

When the letter reached the emperor he was thrown into a towering
passion, and immediately dispatched a body of troops to seize the
general, with orders to strip him of his wives, slaves, cattle and
everything he possessed, and bring him bound to his presence. He also
sent letter after letter to Stanley, begging him to return, and he would
give him ninety thousand men, with brave generals to command them, who
would take him to Lake Albert, and protect him there till he had
finished his explorations. Stanley was very much moved by this generous
offer and the anxiety of the king to make amends for Lamboozi's
poltroonery and thieving conduct. The noble savage felt it keenly that
he, who valued so highly the esteem of Stanley, should be disgraced in
his sight, and it was hard for the latter to refuse his urgent request
to be allowed to redeem his character and his pledge. But Stanley had
had enough of Waganda troops, and felt that whatever was accomplished
hereafter must be by his own well-trained, compact, brave little band.
He kept on his way, and never saw Mtesa again.

He had been able to add considerably to the geography of the country
bordering on Lake Albert. Usongora, a promontory running thirty miles
into the lake southward, he ascertained to be the great salt field, from
whence all the surrounding countries obtain their salt. From all he
could hear, it was truly a land of wonders, but he says the man who
should attempt to explore it would need a thousand muskets, for the
natives cannot be enticed into peace by cloth and beads. They care for
nothing but milk and goat skins. "Among the wonders credited to it," he
says, "are a mountain emitting fire and stones, a salt lake of
considerable extent, several hills of rock-salt, a large plain encrusted
thickly with salt and alkali, a breed of very large dogs of
extraordinary ferocity, and a race of such long-legged natives, that
ordinary mortals regard them with surprise and awe." They do not allow
members of their tribe to intermarry with strangers, and their food,
like that of the dwellers in the Himalaya Mountains, consists chiefly of
milk. Mtesa once invaded their territory with one hundred thousand men,
to capture cows, of which the natives have an immense number, and in
watching which consists their sole occupation. The army returned with
twenty thousand, but they were obtained at such a fearful sacrifice of
life, that the raid will not be repeated.

Stanley rested a few days after Lamboozi left him, before proceeding
northward. He then continued his march leisurely through the country,
inquiring on the way the character of the tribes westward toward that
part of Lake Albert which extended south from where he struck it, but
one and all were reported hostile to the passage of any strangers
through their territory.

Arriving on the Kagera River, in Karagwe, he found the King Rumanika, a
mild, pleasant-spoken man and very friendly, but he told him that none
of the neighboring tribes would let him enter their lands. Stanley being
a little suspicious of the motives that prompted this bad report of the
surrounding tribes, to test him, asked him if he had any objections to
his exploring his country. He said no, and cheerfully promised to
furnish him guides and an escort, and his party should be supplied with
food free of charge. Stanley, surprised at this generosity, at once got
ready to start. He first went south to Lake Windermere, a small body of
water so named by Captain Speke, because of its fancied resemblance to
the lake of that name in England. The Lady Alice was taken there,
screwed together, and launched on the peaceful waters. Accompanied by
six native canoes, he sailed round it and then entered Kagera River,
called by Speke the Kitangule. Suddenly it flashed on Stanley's mind
that he had discovered the true parent of the Victoria Nile. It fed and
drained this little lake some nine miles long. Moreover, he found that
there was a depth of fifty-two feet of water and a breadth of one
hundred and fifty feet. He therefore pushed up it some three days, and
came to another lake nine miles long and six miles wide. Working up
through the papyrus that covered the stream, he came to another lake or
pond a mile and a half long. Ascending an eminence, he discovered that
this whole portion of the river was a lake, large tracts of which were
covered with papyrus, or that vegetation which we have seen Baker had to
contend with in ascending the Nile. It seemed solid ground, while in
fact it was a large body of water covered over, with here and there an
opening, making a separate lake, of which Windermere was the largest.
This apparently underground lake was some eighty miles in length and
fourteen in width.

Following the river as it flowed eastward into the Victoria Nyanza, he
found he entered another lake, thirteen miles long and some eight miles
broad. This was, of course, the continuation of the lake, covered at
intervals with this tropical vegetation, which gave to it the appearance
of land. There were in all, seventeen of these lakes. This river now
broadening as the formation of the land causes it to expand, now
narrowing till its channel is forty feet deep, it at last tumbles over
cataracts and rushes through rapids into the Victoria Nyanza. All this
seems of little account, except, as Stanley says, he has found in it the
true source of the Victoria Nile.

The great and persistent efforts to find out the source of the Nile have
led explorers to push their theories to an absurd extent. Because
Herodotus made the Nile to rise in some large springs, they seem to
think they must find something back and beyond a great lake as its
source. Now, when a river flows right on through one lake after another,
making lakes as the formation of the ground allows, it of course
maintains its integrity and oneness.

In this case there is but one main stream and as long as the lakes are
the mere spreading out of that stream on low, flat lands, it must remain
the same. But when you come to great reservoirs like the Albert and
Victoria Nyanza and the Tanganika--into which a hundred streams, and
perhaps twice that number of springs, flow--to go beyond such reservoirs
to find the head of the stream is bringing geography down to a fine
point. The outlet is plain--you have traced the river up till you see it
roaring from its great feeder. This is very satisfactory, and should end
all research after the source of the stream. But to insist on taking
measurements of a dozen different rivers that flow into a lake a
thousand miles in circumference, to find which is a mile longest or ten
feet deepest, and thus determine the source of the outlet, is
preposterous. A lake covering twenty-two thousand square miles, fed by a
hundred rivers, is a reservoir of itself, and not an expansion of any
one river. One might as well try to prove which is the greatest source
or feeder of the Atlantic Ocean--the Amazon, Mississippi or Congo.

Thus we find Stanley, when he struck the Shimeeyu in Speke Gulf,
declaring he had found the extreme southern source of the Nile; and now,
when exploring another river of a larger volume on another side of the
lake, he changes his mind and thinks he has made a great discovery in
ascertaining at last the true source of the river. He found it over
fifty feet deep, which showed what a volume of water it poured into the
Victoria Nyanza. Descending it again, he entered another lake some
thirteen miles long by eight wide. Exploring this, he was driven back by
the natives when he attempted to land, who hailed him with shrill shouts
and wild war-cries. The Kagera, through its entire length, maintains
almost the same depth and volume.

[Illustration: HOT SPRINGS OF MTAGATA.]

Returning to his generous host, he asked for guides to take him to the
hot springs of Mtagata, the healing properties of which he had heard of
far and wide from the natives. These were cheerfully given, and after a
march of two days he reached them. Here he was met by an astonishing
growth of vegetation. Plants of an almost infinite variety, covered the
ground, growing so thick and crowding each other so closely, that they
became a matted mass--the smaller ones stifled by the larger--and out of
which trees shot up an arrow's-flight into the air, with "globes of
radiant green foliage upon their stem-like crowns." He found a crowd of
diseased persons here, trying the effect of the water. Naked men and
women were lying promiscuously around in the steaming water, half-asleep
and half-cooked, for the water showed a temperature of one hundred and
twenty-nine degrees. The springs were, however, of different
temperature. The hottest one issued from the base of a rocky hill,
while four others, twenty degrees cooler, came bubbling up out of black
mud, and were the favorites of the invalids. Stanley camped here three
days, and bathed in the water and drank it, but could perceive no effect
whatever on his system. Returning to his friend Rumaniki, he prepared to
start on his journey south to Lake Tanganika, and finish its
explorations.

Having discovered that the Kagera River formed a lake eighty miles long,
and was a powerful stream a long distance from its mouth, he resolved,
as it flowed from the south, to follow it up and try to find its source.
A broad wilderness lay before him, the extent of which he did not
accurately know, and he packed ten days' provisions on the shoulders of
each man of the expedition, and bidding the soft-voiced pagan king, by
whom he had been treated so kindly, a warm good-bye, he entered the
forest and kept along the right bank of the stream. This was the 27th of
March, and for six days he marched through an uninhabited wilderness,
with nothing to break the monotony of the journey. At the end of that
time he came to the borders of Karagwe and to the point where the
Akanyaru River entered the Kagera. He dared not explore this river, for
the natives that inhabit both banks are wild and fierce, having a deadly
hatred of all strangers. They are like the long-legged race of Bumbireh,
and he did not care to come in collision with them. They possess many
cattle, and if one sickens or dies, they do not attribute it to
accident, but believe it has been bewitched, and search the country
through to find the stranger who has done it, and if he is found, _he
dies_.

All the natives of the region are passionately fond of their cows, and
will part with anything sooner than with milk. Stanley says that his
friend Rumaniki, with all his generosity, never offered him a
teaspoonful of milk, and if he had given him a can of it, he believes
his people would have torn him limb from limb. He thinks that half of
their hostility arises from the fear of the evil effect that the
presence of strangers will have on their cattle. Hence they keep a
strict quarantine on their frontiers. It is not strange that they should
cherish this stock carefully, for it is their sole means of subsistence.

This long journey through various tribes is singularly barren of
incident. On the route he lost his last dog, Bull, who had bravely held
out in all their long wanderings, but at last he gave up and laid down
and died, with his eyes fixed on the retiring expedition. He also met
the redoubtable Mirambo, and found him not the blood-thirsty monster he
had been represented to be, but a polite, pleasant-mannered gentleman,
and generous to a fault. They made blood brotherhood together, and
became fast friends. At length, in the latter part of May, he reached
Ujiji, where he formerly found Livingstone. The following extract from
a private letter of Stanley's, written to a friend while at Lake
Victoria, gives a domestic picture that is quite charming, he says that
"Kagehyi is a straggling village of cane huts, twenty or thirty in
number, which are built somewhat in the form of a circle, hedged around
by a fence of thorns twisted between upright stakes. Sketch such a
village in your imagination, and let the centre of it be dotted here and
there with the forms of kidlings who prank it with the vivacity of
kidlings under a hot, glowing sun. Let a couple of warriors and a few
round-bellied children be seen among them and near a tall hut which is a
chief's, plant a taller tree, under whose shade sit a few elders in
council with their chief; so much for the village.

"Now outside the village, yet, touching the fence, begin to draw the
form of a square camp, about fifty yards square, each side flanked with
low, square huts, under the eaves of which, plant as many figures of men
as you please, for we have many, and you have the camp of the exploring
expedition, commanded by your friend and humble servant. From the centre
of the camp you may see Lake Victoria, or that portion of it I have
called Speke Gulf, and twenty-five miles distant you may see
table-topped Magita, the large island of Ukerewe, and toward the
northwest a clear horizon, with nothing between water and sky to mar
its level. The surface of the lake which approaches to within a few
yards of the camp is much ruffled just at present with a northwest
breeze, and though the sun is growing hot, under the shade it is
agreeable enough, so that nobody perspires or is troubled with the heat.
You must understand there is a vast difference between New York and
Central African heat. Yours is a sweltering heat, begetting languor and
thirst--ours is a dry heat, permitting activity and action without
thirst or perspiration. If we exposed ourselves to the sun, we should
feel quite as though we were being baked. Come with me to my lodgings,
now. I lodge in a hut little inferior in size to the chief's. In it is
stored the luggage of the expedition, which fills one-half. It is about
six tons in weight, and consists of cloth, beads, wire, shells,
ammunition, powder, barrels, portmanteaus, iron trunks, photographic
apparatus, scientific instruments, pontoons, sections of boat, etc.,
etc. The other half of the hut is my sleeping, dining and hall-room. It
is dark as pitch within, for light cannot penetrate the mud with which
the wood-work is liberally daubed. The floor is of dried mud, thickly
covered with dust, which breeds fleas and other vermin to be a plague to
me and my poor dogs.

"I have four youthful Mercuries, of ebon color, attending me, who, on
the march, carry my personal weapons of defense. I do not need so many
persons to wait on me, but such is their pleasure. They find their
reward in the liberal leavings of the table. If I have a goat killed for
European men, half of it suffices for two days for us. When it becomes
slightly tainted, my Mercuries will beg for it, and devour it at a
single sitting. Just outside of the door of my hut are about two dozen
of my men sitting, squatted in a circle and stringing beads. A necklace
of beads is each man's daily sum wherewith to buy food. I have now a
little over one hundred and sixty men. Imagine one hundred and sixty
necklaces given each day for the last three months--in the aggregate the
sum amounts to fourteen thousand necklaces--in a year to fifty-eight
thousand four hundred. A necklace of ordinary beads is cheap enough in
the States, but the expense of carriage makes a necklace here equal to
about twenty-five cents in value. For a necklace I can buy a chicken, or
a peck of sweet potatoes, or half a peck of grain.

"I left the coast with about forty thousand yards of cloth, which, in
the States, would be worth about twelve and a half cents a yard, or
altogether about five thousand dollars--the expense of portage, as far
as this lake, makes each yard worth about fifty cents. Two yards of
cloth will purchase a goat or sheep; thirty will purchase an ox; fifteen
yards are enough to purchase rations for the entire caravan."

Why these naked savages put such a high value on cloth, none of these
African explorers informs us. We can understand why they should like
beads, brass wire, shells and trinkets of all sorts. They certainly use
very little cloth on their persons.

He adds: "These are a few of the particulars of our domestic affairs.
The expedition is divided into eight squads of twenty men each, with an
experienced man over each squad. They are all armed with Snider's
percussion-lock muskets. A dozen or so of the most faithful have a brace
of revolvers in addition to other arms."

He then goes on to speak of the battles he has fought, and it is but
just to him to give his feelings as he describes them in confidential
private correspondence, on being compelled to kill the savages. He says:
"As God is my judge, I would prefer paying tribute, and making these
savages friends rather than enemies. But some of these people are cursed
with such delirious ferocity that we are compelled to defend ourselves.
They attack in such numbers and so sudden, that our repeating rifles and
Sniders have to be handled with such nervous rapidity as will force them
back before we are forced to death; for if we allow them to come within
forty yards, their spears are as fatal as bullets; their spears make
fearful wounds, while their contemptible-looking arrows are as deadly
weapons. * * * Since I left Zanzibar, I have traveled seven hundred and
twenty miles by land and a thousand miles by water. This is a good six
months' work."



CHAPTER XVIII.

EXPLORATIONS OF LAKE TANGANIKA.


It was with strange feelings that Stanley caught from the last ridge the
sparkling waters of Tanganika. Sweet associations were awakened at the
sight, as he remembered with what a thrilling heart he first saw it
gleam in the landscape. Then it was the end of a long, wasting and
perilous journey--the goal of his ambition, the realization of his
fondest hopes; for on its shores he believed the object for which he had
toiled so long was resting. No more welcome sight ever dawned on mortal
eye than its waters as they spread away on the horizon; and though he
should see it a hundred times, it will never appear to him like any
other sheet of water. He has formed for it an attachment that will last
forever; and whenever in imagination it rises before him, it will appear
like the face of a friend.

As he now descended to Ujiji, it was with sensations as though he were
once more entering civilized life, for there was something almost
homelike about this Arab colony. People dressed in civilized garments
were moving about the streets, cattle were coming down to the lake to
drink, and domestic animals scattered here and there made quite a
homelike scene.

At first sight, it seems strange that Stanley should have selected this
lake as the next scene of his explorations. He had previously, with
Livingstone, explored thoroughly the upper half of it, and passed part
way down the western side; Livingstone had been at the foot of it, and
to crown all, Stanley had heard, before leaving Zanzibar, that Cameron
had explored the entire southern portion, so that really there was
nothing for him to do but follow a path which had been already trodden.
To employ an expedition fitted out at so great a cost, and spend so much
valuable time in going over old ground, seems an utter waste of both
time and labor, especially when such vast unexplored fields spread all
around him. But there was a mystery about Tanganika, which Stanley
probably suspected Cameron had not solved, and which he meant to clear
up. Here was a lake over three hundred miles long, with perhaps a
hundred streams, great and small, running into it, and yet with no
outlet, unless Cameron had found it, which he thinks he did. To find
this was the chief object of the expedition Stanley and Livingstone made
together to the north end of the lake. They had heard that the Rusizi
River at that extremity was the outlet, but they found it instead a
tributary. In fact, they proved conclusively that there was no outlet at
the northern end. It therefore must be at the southern, and if so, it
was the commencement of a river that would become a mighty stream
before it reached the ocean. But no such stream was known to exist. The
Caspian Sea has large rivers flowing into it, but no outlet, yet it
never fills up. Evaporation, it is supposed, accounts for this. But the
Caspian is salt, while the Tanganika is fresh water, and such a large
body of fresh water as this was never known to exist without an outlet,
and if it could be that evaporation was so great as to equal all the
water that runs into it, it would not remain so fresh as it is.

We will let Cameron state his own case concerning the solution of this
mystery. He started with two canoes and thirty-seven men, and sailed
down the eastern shore of the lake, now ravished with the surpassing
beauty of the scene composed of water and sky, and smiling shores, and
again awed by beetling cliffs; one evening camping on the green banks
and watching the sun go down behind the purple peaks, and another
drenched with rain, and startled by the vivid lightning and awful
thunder crashes of a tropical storm, yet meeting with no incident of any
peculiar interest to the reader. The natives were friendly, and he
describes the different villages and customs of the people and their
superstitions, which do not vary materially from other native tribes. At
last, on the 3d of May, he entered the Lukuga Creek, which a chief told
him was the outlet of the lake. He says that the entrance was more than
a mile wide, "but closed up by a grass sand-bank, with the exception of
a channel three or four hundred yards wide. Across this there is a rill
where the surf breaks heavily, although there was more than a fathom of
water at its most shallow part." The next day he went down it four or
five miles, until navigation was rendered impossible, owing to the
masses of floating vegetation. Here the depth was eighteen feet, and
breadth six hundred yards, and the current a knot and a half an hour.
The chief who accompanied him said that it emptied into the Lualaba. He
tried in vain to hire men to cut a passage through the vegetation that
he might explore the river. This was all the knowledge he obtained by
actual observation, the rest of his information being obtained from the
natives.

Now, we must say, that this is a sorry exhibit for the outlet to a lake
almost twice as long as Lake Ontario. That such an immense body of water
should trickle away at this rate seems very extraordinary. Stanley at
Ujiji started inquiries respecting this stream, and found Cameron's
guide, who stoutly denied that the river flowed south from the lake.
Another veteran guide corroborated this statement, while many others
declared that before Cameron came, they had never heard of an outflowing
river.

These contradictory statements, together with the universal testimony
that the lake was continually rising (the truth of which he could not
doubt, as he saw palm-trees which stood in the market-place when he was
there in 1871, now one hundred feet out in the lake), made him resolve
to explore this stream himself. He started on the 11th of June, and
three days after landed to take a hunt, and soon came upon a herd of
zebras, two of which he bagged, and thus secured a supply of meat.

On the 19th, on approaching a large village, they were astonished to see
no people on the shore. Landing, they were still more astonished at the
death-silence that reigned around, and advancing cautiously came upon
corpses of men and women transfixed with spears or with their heads cut
off. Entering into the village they found that there had been a
wholesale massacre. A descent had been made upon the place, but by whom
no one was left to tell. Its entire population had been put to death.

As Stanley proceeded, he found many evidences of the steady rise of the
lake. He continued on his course, finding the same varied scenery that
Cameron did, with nothing of peculiar interest occurring, except to the
travelers themselves, and at length came to the Lukuga Creek. He found
various traditions and accounts here--one native said the water flowed
both ways. The spot on which Cameron encamped, some two years before,
was now covered with water, another evidence that the lake was rising.
Stanley very sensibly says, that the "rill," which Cameron states runs
directly across the channel, is conclusive evidence that the Lukuga runs
into the lake, not out of it; for it must be formed by the meeting of
the inflowing current and the waves. An outpouring stream driven onward
by waves would make a deep channel, not a dam of sand. He tried several
experiments, by which he proved, to his entire satisfaction, that the
stream flowed into the lake instead of being its outlet. Having settled
this question he set about finding the other river, which the natives
declared flowed out or westward. After traveling some distance inland he
did find a place where the water flowed west; it was, however, a mere
trickling stream. His account of his explorations here, and of the
traditions of the natives, and his description of the formation of the
country and of its probable geological changes, is quite lengthy, and
possesses but little interest to the general reader.

The result of it all, however, is that he believes the Lukuga was
formerly a tributary of the lake, the bed of which at some former time
was lifted up to a higher level; that the whole stretch of land here has
been sunk lower by some convulsion of nature, taking the Lukuga with it,
and thus making a sort of dam of the land at the foot, which accounts
for the steady rise of the river year by year; and that in three years
the lake will rise above this dam, and, gathering force, will tear like
a resistless torrent through all this mud and vegetation, and roaring
on, as the Nile does where it leaves the Victoria Nyanza, will sweep
through the country till it pours its accumulated waters into the
Lualaba, and thus swell the Congo into a still larger Amazon of Africa.
This seems to be the only plausible solution of the mystery attached to
Tanganika. The only objection to it is, no such convulsion or change of
the bed of the Tanganika seems to have occurred during this generation,
and what has become, then, for at least seventy years, of all the waters
these hundred rivers have been pouring into the lake? We should like the
estimate of some engineer of how many feet that lake would rise in fifty
years, with all its tributaries pouring incessantly such a flood into
it. We are afraid the figures would hardly harmonize with this slow rise
of the lake. It may be that there is a gradual filtering of the water
through the ooze at the foot, which will account for the slow filling up
of the great basin--a leakage that retards the process of accumulation.
But if Stanley's explorations and statements can be relied upon, the
mystery will soon solve itself, and men will not have to hunt for an
outlet long. He makes the length of Tanganika three hundred and
twenty-nine geographical miles, and its average breadth twenty-eight
miles.

The wonderful influence of Livingstone over all African explorers is
nowhere more visible than at Ujiji, on both Cameron and Stanley. Both of
these set out with one object--to try to complete the work that the
great and good man's death had left unfinished. His feet had pressed the
shores of almost every lake they had seen, as well as of others which
they had not seen. The man had seemed to be drawn on westward until he
reached Nyangwe, where dimly arose before him the Atlantic Ocean, into
which the waters flowing past his camp might enter, and did enter, if
they were not the Nile. Discouraged, deserted and driven back, he could
not embark on the Lualaba and float downward with its current till he
should unveil the mystery that wrapped it. Cameron became filled with
the same desire, but disappointed, though not driven back, he had
pressed on to the ocean, into which he had no doubt the river emptied,
though by another route. And now, last of three, comes Stanley, and
instead of finishing Livingstone's work around the lakes, he, too, is
drawn forward to the same point. It seemed to be the stopping-place of
explorations in Africa; and although he knew that Cameron had not
returned like Livingstone, and hence might have discovered all that was
to be discovered, so making further explorations in that direction
useless, still he felt that he must go on and find out for himself.
True, there was an interesting district between Ujiji and the Lualaba.
There was the beautiful Manyema region, about which Livingstone had
talked to him enthusiastically, with its new style of architecture, and
beautiful women and simple-minded people. But those did not form the
attraction. He must stand on the spot where Livingstone stood, and look
off with his yearning desire, and see if he could not do what this good
man was willing to risk all to accomplish.

[Illustration: SETTING OUT TO CROSS LAKE TANGANIKA.]

At all events, he must move somewhere at once, and westward seemed the
most natural direction to take, for if he stayed in Ujiji much longer
the expedition would break up. He found on his return that the small-pox
had broken out in camp, filling the Arabs with dismay. He had taken
precaution on starting to vaccinate every member of his party, as he
supposed, and hence he felt safe from this scourge of Africa. He did not
lose a single man with it on his long journey from the sea to the
Victoria Nyanza. But it had broken out in Ujiji with such fury that a
pall was spread over the place, and it so invaded his camp that in a few
days eight of his men died.

This created a panic, and they began to desert in such numbers that he
would soon be left alone. Thirty-eight were missing, which made quite a
perceptible loss in a force of only one hundred and seventy men. The
chiefs of the expedition were thoroughly frightened, but they told him
that the desertions would increase if he moved westward, for the men
were as much afraid of the cannibals there, as of the small-pox in their
midst. They were told horrible stories of these cannibals till their
teeth chattered with fear. Besides there were hobgoblins--monsters of
every kind in the land beyond the Tanganika. Stanley saw, therefore,
that prompt measures must be taken, and he at once clapped thirty-two of
the discontented in irons, drove them into canoes, and sent them off to
Ukurenga. He with the rest followed after by land to Msehazy Creek,
where the crossing of the lake was to be effected. Reaching the other
side he proceeded to Uguha, where, on mustering his force, he found but
one hundred and twenty-seven out of one hundred and seventy, showing
that one-third had disappeared. Among the last to go, and the last
Stanley expected would leave him, was young Kalulu, whom he had taken
home to the United States with him on his return from his first
expedition. He had him placed in school in England for eighteen months,
and he seemed devoted to Stanley. A gloom hung over the camp, and
desertion was becoming too contagious. If such men as Kalulu could not
be trusted, Stanley knew of no one who could be, and with his usual
promptness he determined to stop it. He therefore sent back Pocoke and a
faithful chief with a squad of men to capture them.

Paddling back to Ujiji, they one night came upon six, who, after a stout
fight, were secured and brought over to camp. Afterward young Kalulu was
found on an island and brought in. This desertion is a chronic disease
among the Arabs. Their superstitious fears are quickly aroused, and
they are easily tempted to break their contract and leave in the lurch
the man to whom they have hired themselves.

Stanley's march to Manyeme was noticeable only for the curious customs
or habits of the people, and on the 5th of October he reached the
frontier of this wonderful country. Livingstone had halted here several
months, and this was an inducement for Stanley to stop a few days. The
weapons of the natives were excellent, and there was one custom that
attracted his particular attention--the men wore lumps in various forms
of mud and patches of mud on their beard, hair and head, while the women
wove their front hair into head-dresses, resembling bonnets, leaving the
back hair to wave in ringlets over their shoulders. He, as well as
Cameron, was amazed at their villages, which, usually had one or more
broad streets running through them, each being from one hundred to one
hundred and fifty feet wide, and along which are ranged the square huts,
with well-beaten, cleanly-kept clay floors, to which they cheerfully
invite strangers.

On the 12th he reached the village on the Luma which he had been
following, where both Livingstone and Cameron left it and turned
directly west to Nyangwe. He, however, determined to follow it till it
reached the Lualaba, and then proceed by this stream to the same place.
He found the natives kind but timid, with many curious traditions and
customs. The expedition at last reached the Lualaba, and moving
majestically through the forest and making rapid marches, it arrived on
the next day at Tubunda.



CHAPTER XIX.

NYANGWE AND ITS HISTORY.


Nyangwe is the farthest point west in Africa ever reached by a white man
who came in from the east. It is about three hundred and fifty miles
from Ujiji, or a little over the distance across New York State, but the
journey is not made in one day--Stanley was forty days in accomplishing
it. Here he found that Livingstone, the first white man ever seen there,
must have remained from six to twelve months. Livingstone had made a
profound impression on the natives of this region. "Did you know him?"
asked an old chief, eagerly. Stanley replying in the affirmative, he
turned to his sons and brothers, and said: "He knew the good white man.
Ah, we shall hear all about him." Then turning to Stanley, he said: "Was
he not a very good man?" "Yes," replied the latter, "he was good, my
friend; far better than any white man or Arab you will ever see again."
"Ah," said the old negro, "you speak true; he was so gentle and patient,
and told us such pleasant stories of the wonderful land of the white
people--the aged white was a good man indeed."

Livingstone made a strong impression on Stanley also, who, speaking of
him says: "What has struck me while tracing Livingstone to his utmost
researches--this Arab depôt of Nyangwe,--revived all my grief and pity
for him, even more so than his own relation of sorrowful and heavy
things, is, that he does not seem to be aware that he was sacrificing
himself unnecessarily, nor to be warned of the havoc of age and that his
old power had left him. With the weight of years pressing upon him, the
shortest march wearying him, compelling him to halt many days to recover
his strength, and frequent attacks of illness prostrating him, with
neither men nor means to escort him and enable him to make practical
progress, Livingstone was at last like a blind and infirm man moving
aimlessly about. He was his own worst taskmaker."

Whether Stanley's views of the mental condition of Livingstone--growing
out of his sickness and want of money while in Nyangwe--are correct or
not, one thing is true: that after the great explorer had seemingly
reached the very point when the problem was to be solved as to where the
mysterious Lualaba flowed, he waited there till he found a caravan going
east, and then returned to Ujiji "a sorely tried and disappointed man."
Standing on the last point which this intrepid explorer reached, Stanley
is reminded of his own earnest efforts to induce that worn hero to
return home and recruit, to which the invariable answer was: "No, no,
no; to be knighted, as you say, by the Queen, welcomed by thousands of
admirers, yes--but impossible, must not, can not, will not be."

Stanley, on this outmost verge of exploration, remembered the words of
Livingstone when speaking of the beauties of the region lying west of
the Goma Mountains, and says, "It is a most remarkable region; more
remarkable than anything I have seen in Africa. Its woods, or forest, or
jungles, or brush--I do not know by what particular term to designate
the crowded, tall, straight trees, rising from an impenetrable mass of
brush, creepers, thorns, gums, palm, ferns of all sorts, canes and
grass--are sublime, even terrible. Indeed, nature here is remarkably or
savagely beautiful. From every point the view is enchanting--the
outlines eternally varying, yet always beautiful, till the whole
panorama seems like a changing vision. Over all, nature has flung a robe
of varying green, the hills and ridges are blooming, the valleys and
basins exhale perfume, the rocks wear garlands of creepers, the stems of
the trees are clothed with moss, a thousand streamlets of cold, pure
water stray, now languid, now quick, toward the north and south and
west. The whole makes a pleasing, charming illustration of the
bounteousness and wild beauty of tropical nature. But, alas! all this is
seen at a distance; when you come to travel through this world of
beauty, the illusion vanishes--the green grass becomes as difficult to
penetrate as an undergrowth, and that lovely sweep of shrubbery a mass
of thorns, the gently rolling ridge an inaccessible crag, and the green
mosses and vegetation in the low grounds that look so enchanting,
impenetrable forest belts."

Stanley once penetrated into one of these great forests and was so
overwhelmed by the majesty and solemn stillness of the scene, that he
forgot where he was, and his imagination went back to the primeval days
when that great, still forest was sown, till the silent trees seemed
monuments of past history. But still, this district of Manyema
(pronounced in various ways), he does not think so interesting as that
of Uregga. In speaking of the Lualaba, after describing the various ways
in which it is spelled and pronounced, he says if he could have it his
own way he would call it "Livingstone River, or Livingstone's Lualaba,"
to commemorate his discovery of it and his heroic struggles against
adversity to explore it. The letter in which he thus speaks of this
region is dated November 1st, 1876. In three days he says he is going to
explore this mysterious river to the utmost of his power. Two days
previous to this letter, he wrote a long one on the horrors of the
slave-trade that casts a pall as black as midnight over all this
tropical beauty. He says that from Unyanyembe to Ujiji one sees horrors
enough, but in this region they are multiplied tenfold. The traffic in
slaves is so profitable and keeps up such a brisk trade with Zanzibar
and the interior of Africa, that the native chiefs enter into it on the
grandest scale, or rather it is more accurate to say, banditti under the
leadership of so-called chiefs enter into it thus, and carry it on with
remorseless zeal.

Raids are made on small independent villages, the aged are slain and
hung up to terrify other villages into a meek acquiescence in their
demands, and young men, young women, and children are marched off to
Ujiji, from whence they are taken to Zanzibar, becoming, by their cruel
treatment on the route, living skeletons before they reach their
destination. Gangs, from one hundred to eight hundred, of naked,
half-starved creatures Stanley met in his travels, and he wonders that
the civilized world will let insignificant Zanzibar become the mart of
such an accursed, cruel traffic.

There are regular hunting-grounds for slaves. When the business is dull,
the inhabitants are left to grow and thrive, just like game out of
season in a gentleman's park; but when the business begins to look up,
the hunt begins, and the smiling villages become arid wastes. The
country, long before he reached Nyangwe, was a wilderness, where a few
years before dwelt a happy population. Stanley gives extracts from his
diary, showing up the horrors of this system, which make the heart
sicken as it thinks of what is daily transpiring in this unknown land.

Livingstone saw enough when he was at this place to awaken his deepest
indignation, but since that time the Arabs have pushed further inland,
and swept, with the besom of destruction, districts that in his time had
been but slightly touched.

The trade in ivory is but another name for trade in human beings, and
the only real commerce this vast, fruitful region has with Zanzibar is
through its captured inhabitants, while the slain equal the number sent
into captivity. But, while Mr. Stanley feels keenly the disgrace to
humanity of this accursed traffic, he evidently does not see so clearly
the way to put a stop to it. He is opposed to filibustering of all
kinds, and to the interference of strong powers to coerce weak ones on
the ground of humanity or Christianity, because it opens the door too
wide to every kind of aggression. In fact, this makes it only necessary
to use some philanthropic catch-word, in order to justify the annexation
of any feeble territory.

Stanley evidently thinks there is some limit to the Monroe doctrine of
non-interference in the affairs of other nations, as the following
extract from one of his letters shows, in which, after discussing the
whole matter carefully, he says he writes, "hoping he may cause many to
reflect upon the fact that there exists one little State on this globe,
which is about equal in extent to one English county, with the sole
privilege of enriching itself by wholesale murder, and piracy and
commerce in human beings, and that a traffic forbidden in all other
nations should be permitted, furtively monopolized by the little island
of Zanzibar, and by such insignificant people as the subjects of Prince
Burghosh." Mr. Stanley is entirely opposed to filibustering and
encroachments of strong powers on feeble ones, under the thousand and
one false pretences advanced in support of unrighteous conquests, yet he
evidently thinks little Zanzibar should be wiped out, or cease to be the
source and centre of this cruel traffic in human beings. One has to
travel, he says, in the heart of Africa to see all the horrors of this
traffic.

The buying and selling of a few slaves on the coast gives no idea of its
horrors. At Unyambembe, sometimes a sad sight is seen. At Uganda the
trade begins to assume a wholesale character, yet it wears here a rather
business aspect; the slaves by this time become hardened to suffering,
"they have no more tears to shed," the chords of sympathy have been
severed and they seem stolid and indifferent. At Ujiji, one sees a
regular slave-market established. There are "slave-folds and pens," like
the stock-yards of railroads for cattle into which the naked wretches
are driven by hundreds, to wallow on the ground and be half-starved on
food not fit for hogs. By the time they reach here they are mere "ebony
skeletons," attenuated, haggard, gaunt human frames. Their very voices
have sunk to a mere hoarse whisper, which comes with an unearthly sound
from out their parched, withered lips. Low moans, like those that escape
from the dying, fill the air, and they reel and stagger when they
attempt to stand upright, so wasted are they by the havoc of hunger.
They look like a vast herd of black skeletons, and as one looks at them
in their horrible sufferings he cannot but exclaim, "how can an
all-merciful Father permit such things?" No matter whether on the slow
and famishing march or crowded like strayed pigs in the overloaded
canoes, it is the same unvarying scene of hunger and horror, on which
the cruel slave-trader looks without remorse or pity.

It may be asked how are these slaves obtained. The answer is, by a
systematic war waged in the populous country of Marungu by banditti,
supported by Arabs. These exchange guns and powder for the slaves the
former capture, which enables them to keep up the war. These Arabs, who
sell the slaves on the coast, furnish the only market for the native
banditti of the interior. These latter are mostly natives of Unyamwege
who band together to capture all the inhabitants of villages too weak to
resist them. Marungu is the great productive field of their Satanic
labors. Here almost every small village is independent, recognizing no
ruler but its own petty chief. These are often at variance with each
other, and instead of banding together to resist a common foe, they
look on quietly while one after another is swept by the raiders. In
crossing a river, Stanley met two hundred of these wretches chained
together, and, on inquiry, found they belonged to the governor of
Unyambembe, a former patron of Speke and Burton, and had been captured
by an officer of the prince of Zanzibar. This prince had made a treaty
with England to put a stop to this horrible traffic, and yet here was
one of his officers engaged in it, taking his captives to Zanzibar, and
this was his third batch during the year.

There are two or three entries in Stanley's journal which throw much
light on the way this hunt for slaves is carried on.

"October 17th. Arabs organized to-day from three districts, to avenge
the murder and eating of one man and ten women by a tribe half-way
between Kassessa and Nyangwe. After six days' slaughter, the Arabs
returned with three hundred slaves, fifteen hundred goats, besides
spears, etc."

"October 24th. The natives of Kabonga, near Nyangwe, were sorely
troubled two or three days ago by a visit paid them by Uanaamwee in the
employ of Mohommed el Said. Their insolence was so intolerable that the
natives at last said, 'we will stand this no longer. They will force our
wives and daughters before our eyes if we hesitate any longer to kill
them, and before the Arabs come we will be off.' Unfortunately, only
one was killed, the others took fright and disappeared to arouse the
Arabs with a new grievance. To-day, an Arab chief set out for the scene
of action with murderous celerity, and besides capturing ten slaves,
killed thirty natives and set fire to eight villages--'a small prize,'
the Arabs said."

"October 17th. The same man made an attack on some fishermen on the left
bank of the Lualaba. He left at night and returned at noon with fifty or
sixty captives, besides some children."

"Are raids of this kind frequent?" asked Stanley.

"Frequent!" was the reply, "sometimes six or ten times a month."

One of these captives said to Stanley, on the march from Mana to Manibo,
"Master, all the plain lying between Mana, Manibo and Nyangwe, when I
first came here eight years ago, was populated so thickly that we
traveled through gardens, villages and fields every quarter of an hour.
There were flocks of goats and black pigs around every village. You can
see what it now is." He saw that it was an uninhabited wilderness. At
that time, Livingstone saw how the country was becoming depopulated
before the slave-traders, but says Stanley, "Were it possible for him to
rise from the dead and take a glance at the districts now depopulated,
it is probable that he would be more than ever filled with sorrow at the
misdoings of these traders."

He thinks there is but one way of putting a perpetual end to this
infernal traffic, and that is by stopping it in the interior. English
and American cruisers on the coast can have but partial success. The
suggestion of the Khedive of Egypt is the right one. Annex the interior
of Africa to some strong power and establish stations on the great
highways over which these traders are compelled to transport their human
chattels, where they will be pounced upon and made to give up their
captives, and the trade will soon cease from its being too hazardous and
unprofitable.

Portugal has no right to the west coast, which it claims. Let England,
or England and America together, claim and exercise sovereignty over it,
and it will need no cruisers on the coast to stop the trade in slaves.
At any rate, it is high time the Christian nations of the world put a
stop to this disgrace and blot upon humanity.



CHAPTER XX.

ORGANIZING A NEW EXPEDITION.


Arriving near Nyangwe, one of the first to meet Stanley was the Arab,
Tipo-tipo, or Tipo-tib, or Tippu-tib (which is the proper spelling
neither Cameron nor Stanley seems to know), who had once conducted
Cameron as far as Utotera or the Kasongo country. He was a splendid
specimen of a man physically, and just the one to give Stanley all the
information he wanted respecting Cameron's movements. He told him that
the latter wanted to follow the river to the sea, but that his men were
unwilling to go; besides, no canoes could be obtained for the purpose.
He also told him that after staying a long time at Kasongo, he had
joined a company of Portuguese traders and proceeded south.

One thing was clear: Cameron had not settled the great problem that
Livingstone wished of all things to solve--this great unfinished work
had been left for Stanley to complete, or to leave for some future, more
daring or more successful explorer. Could he get canoes--could he
surmount difficulties that neither Livingstone nor Cameron were able to
overcome? were the grave questions he asked himself. He had long
dialogues with Tipo-tipo and other Arab chiefs, all of whom dissuaded
him from attempting to follow the Lualaba by land, or trying to get
canoes. They told him frightful stories of the cannibals below--of
dwarfs striped like Zebras and ferocious as demons, with poisoned
arrows, living on the backs of elephants, of anacondas, of impenetrable
forests--in short, they conjured up a country and a people that no
stranger who placed any value on his life would dare to encounter.

The fact that the Lualaba flowed north to a distance beyond the
knowledge of the natives was doubtless one, and perhaps the chief,
reason why Livingstone suspected it emptied into the Nile. Stanley now
knew better. How far north it might flow before it turned he could not
say, yet he felt certain that turn west it would, sooner or later, and
empty into the Atlantic Ocean, and the possibility of his tracing it had
a powerful fascination for him. Its course he knew lay through the
largest half of Africa, which was a total blank. Here, by the way, it is
rather singular that Stanley, following Livingstone who alone had
explored Lake Bembe and made it the source of the Lualaba, adopts his
statement, while Cameron, on mere hearsay, should assert that its source
was in marshes. The river, after leaving the lake, flows two hundred
miles and empties into Lake Mweru, a body of water containing about one
thousand eight hundred square miles. Issuing from this, it takes the
name of Lualaba, which it holds and loses by turns as it moves on its
mighty course for one thousand one hundred miles, till it rolls, ten
miles wide at its mouth, into the broad Atlantic as the Congo.

Stanley, from first to last, seemed to have a wonderful power, not only
over the Arabs that composed his expedition as we have before mentioned,
but over all those with whom he came in contact in his explorations.
Notwithstanding all the horrors depicted as awaiting any attempt to
advance beyond Nyangwe, this Tipo-tipo agreed, for $5,000, to accompany
him with a strong escort a distance of sixty camps, on certain
conditions. That he would do it on any conditions was extraordinary,
considering the fact, if it was a fact, that the last attempt to
penetrate this hostile territory resulted in the loss of five hundred
men. The conditions were, that the march should commence from
Nyangwe--not occupy more than three months--and that if Stanley should
conclude, at the end of the sixty marches, that he could not get
through, he would return to Nyangwe; or if he met Portuguese traders and
chose to go to the coast in the direction they were moving, he should
detail two-thirds of his force to accompany said Tipo back to Nyangwe
for his protection.

[Illustration: SCENE IN CAMP AT NYANGWE.]

To all these Stanley agreed, except the one promising, if he concluded
to go on at the end of the sixty marches, to give him two-thirds of the
men of the expedition to see him safely back. On this article of
agreement there was a hitch, and Stanley showed his Yankee education, if
not Yankee birth, by putting in a last article, by which, if Tipo-tipo
through cowardice should fail to complete his sixty marches, he should
forfeit his $5,000, and have no escort for his return. Stanley then gave
him time to think of it, while he went to see young Pocoke and confer
with him. They went over the whole ground together, and Stanley told him
it was a matter of life and death with both of them; failure would be
certain and perhaps horrible death; success would be honor and glory. It
was a fearful picture he drew of the possible future, but Frank's ready
response was, "go on."

At this point Stanley reveals one of his strongest characteristics,
which we mentioned in the sketch of him at the beginning of the
book--the Napoleonic quality of relying on himself. Ordinary
well-established principles and rules often condemned the action of
Bonaparte--results approved them. So ordinary prudence would have turned
Stanley back as it did Cameron--the stories told him of the character of
the tribes in advance--the obstacles he would have to encounter, all the
mystery, perils and uncertainty of the future--the universal warning and
fearful prognostications of those who were supposed to know best--his
isolated condition in the heart of Africa--all things that could
surround a man to deter him in his actions, were gathered there around
that lonely man at that outpost of civilized enterprise; yet, falling
back on himself, rising superior to all outward influences, gauging all
the probabilities and possibilities by his own clear perceptions and
indomitable will, he determined to push forward. If he could not get
canoes, which he feared he could not any more than Cameron, then he
would try to follow the river by land; if that failed, he would make
canoes in the African forest; if he could not go peaceably, he would
fight his way, and not turn back till deserted by his own men and left
alone in the midst of a savage, hostile people. This determination,
under the circumstances, shows him to be no ordinary character, and
marks him as one who in a revolution would control the stormy elements
around him and mount to power or to the scaffold.

There were also minor obstacles attending this desperate effort to trace
the Lualaba to the sea. He had thirteen women in his expedition, wives
of his chief Arabs, some of them with young children, others in various
stages of pregnancy, who would be delivered of children before they
reached the Atlantic coast, and under what circumstances the hour of
travail might come no one knew. It might be in the hour of battle, or in
the desperate race for life, when one hour's delay would be total ruin
to the expedition and death to all. It might be in the struggle and
fight around a cataract, or in the day of extreme famine. A thousand
things had to be taken into consideration before resolving on this
desperate movement. But no matter, the obstacles might even be more
formidable than represented, the risk tenfold greater, his mind was made
up--the secrets of that mysterious river he would unlock, or his last
struggles and mysterious fate would add one more to the secrets it held.

At length the contract with Tipo-tipo to escort him sixty marches was
made and signed, and then Stanley informed his own men of it, and told
them that if at the end of that time they came across a caravan bound
for the west coast, part would join it, and the rest might, if they
wished, return to Nyangwe. They agreed to stand by the contract and
Stanley moved forward into Nyangwe. Here Stanley was received by one of
the two Arab chiefs that bear sway in the place, with becoming courtesy.
He seemed surprised at the orderly, quiet march of this force, and still
more when told that the distance from Tanganika, some three hundred and
forty miles, had been made in about forty days.

Stanley describes minutely the place and its political management, but
seems, like Livingstone and Cameron, to be particularly struck with its
market. This is held every fourth day, and from one to three thousand
people assemble to trade; most of the vendors are women, and the
animated manner in which trade is carried on amused Livingstone
exceedingly. Though he could not understand their language he could
interpret their gestures, which were very expressive. This pleasant
scene, however, was marred one day by a messenger stalking into the
market with ten jawbones of men tied to a string and hanging over his
shoulder, he boasting of having killed and eaten these men and
describing with his knife how he cut them up.

Early in the morning of the market-day the river, as far as its course
can be seen, presents a lively appearance. It is covered with canoes
loaded to their gunwales with natives and articles for the market piled
on each other, and they all press toward one point. Amid the laughter
and jargon of the natives, may be heard the crowing of cocks, and
squealing of pigs and the bleating of goats. Having reached the
landing-place, the men quietly shoulder their paddles and walk up the
bank, leaving the women to carry the articles up to the market-place.
These are placed in large baskets and slung on their backs by a strap
across their foreheads. When this great crowd of two or three thousand
are assembled the babel begins. But the talking and chaffering are done
by the women; the men move about paying but little attention to the
bartering, unless something important, as the sale of a slave, is going
on. The women do not walk about, but having selected a spot where they
propose to do business, they let down the basket, and spreading the
articles on the ground so as to appear to the best advantage, they squat
themselves in the basket, where they look like some huge shell-fish.

The vendors being thus stationary, the buyers also become so, and hence
it is always a close, jammed mass of human beings, screaming, sweating
and sending forth no pleasant odor, for three or four hours. They do not
break up gradually, but on the movement of some important person a
general scramble will commence, and in twenty minutes the whole two
thousand or more will be scattered in every direction. The markets of
this region are held on neutral ground by the various tribes, and their
feuds are laid aside for that day. Except at Nyangwe, uninhabited spots
are selected. The neighboring chiefs are always present, and can be seen
lounging lazily about. Stanley counted fifty-seven different articles
for sale, ranging from sweet potatoes to beautiful girls, while the
currency was shells, beads, copper and brass wire and palm cloth.

There are two foreign chiefs at the place, who are very jealous of each
other, as each wished to be regarded by the natives as the most
powerful. Sheikh Abed, a tall, thin old man with a white beard, occupies
the southern section of the town, and Muini Dugumbi the other. It has
not long been an Arab trading post, for Dugumbi is the first Arab that
came here, and that was no later than 1868, and pitched his quarters,
and now the huts of his friends, with their families and slaves, number
some three hundred. He is an Arab trader from the east coast, and soon
after his arrival he established a harem, composed of more than three
hundred slave women. Though a rollicking, joking man himself, his
followers are a reckless, freebooting set. The original inhabitants of
Nyangwe were driven out by Muini Dugumbi, and now occupy portions of
both sides of the river, and live by fishing, and are said to be a
singular tribe. Stanley estimated there must have been forty-two
thousand of them in the region previous to the coming of this Arab
chief, who spread desolation on every side. There remain to-day only
twenty thousand of this people.

Stanley remained here only about a week, for Tipo-tipo arriving on the
2d of November, he prepared to start on his unknown journey. The
expedition, when he mustered it on the morning of the 4th, numbered one
hundred and seventy-six, armed with sixty-three muskets and rifles, two
double-barreled guns and ten revolvers. Besides these, there were
sixty-eight axes, that Stanley, with great forethought, purchased,
thinking the time might come when he would need them as much as his
guns. Tipo-tipo brought with him seven hundred followers, though only
four hundred were to accompany the expedition the sixty marches.
Together, they made quite a little army, but many of them were women and
children, who always accompany the Arabs in their marches or forays;
still, the force, all drawn up, presented an imposing display. A hundred
of these were armed with flint-lock muskets, the rest with spears and
shields.



CHAPTER XXI.

THROUGH THE FORESTS.


On the 5th of November, Stanley, at the head of his motley array, turned
his back on Nyangwe and his face to the wilderness. It was an eventful
morning for him. Eighteen hundred miles of an unknown country stretched
before him, wrapped in profound mystery, peopled with races of which the
outside world had never heard, and filled with dangers that would appall
the bravest heart. He felt, as he turned and gave a last look at
Nyangwe, that the die was cast--his fate for good or ill was sealed.
What sad misgivings must at times have made a feeling of faintness creep
over his heart--what terrible responsibilities must have crowded upon
him; aye, what gloomy forebodings, in spite of his courage, would weigh
down his spirit. If he had used canoes, the starting would have been
more cheerful, but the dense and tangled forest, whose dark line could
be traced against the sky, wore a forbidding aspect. They marched but
nine miles the first day, and though the country was open, the manner in
which the men bore it did not promise well for their endurance when they
should enter the jungle. Every pound was carried on men's shoulders,
besides their weapons, all the provisions, stores of cloth, and beads,
and wire, the arms and ammunition, of which there had to be a large
quantity, for they might be two years fighting their way across the
continent, and in addition to these burdens, the boat in sections. The
next morning, Tipo-tipo's heterogeneous crowd started first, which
impeded the march by frequent halts, for the women and children had to
be cared for. They soon entered the gloomy forest of Mitamba, where the
marching became more difficult, and the halts more frequent, while the
dew fell from the trees in great rain-drops, wetting the narrow path
they were following, till the soil became a thick mud. The heavy foliage
shut out the sky, and the disordered caravan marched on in gloomy
twilight, and at last, drenched to the skin, reached a village four
miles from camp and waited for the carriers of the boat to arrive. These
found the boat a heavy burden, for the foliage grew so thick and low
over the path, that the sections had to be pushed by sheer force through
it. To make the camp even more gloomy, one of the Arab chiefs who had
been in the forest before, said, with great complacency, that what they
had endured was nothing to that which was before them. The next day the
path was so overgrown and obstructed by fallen trees, that axemen had to
go before the carriers of the boat to clear the way for them. On the
10th, having reached Uregga, a village in the very heart of the forest,
they halted for a rest. Its isolated inhabitants seemed to be in advance
of those whom Stanley had seen elsewhere. The houses were built in
blocks, which were square like those of Manyema, and they contained
various fancy articles, some of them displaying great taste. Here
Stanley saw curiously carved bits of wood, and handsome spoons, and for
the first time in Africa, he beheld a cane settee.

The men carrying the boat did not come up for two days, and then quite
broken and disheartened. Indeed, here almost at the very outset,
everything seemed to point to an early dissolution of the expedition.
Not only were his men discontented, but Tipo-tipo, with all his elegance
of manner and pompous pretence, began to glower and grumble, not merely
at the hardships his people were compelled to encounter, but because
sickness had broken out in his camp.

On the 13th, three hundred out of the seven hundred of his men branched
off from the expedition. The marching now became not only monotonous but
extremely painful, and so slow that it took a whole day's march to make
a distance of nine miles--a rate of progress that Stanley saw very
clearly would never bring him to the Atlantic Ocean. They had now been
seven days on the march and had made but about forty miles, and scarcely
_one_ mile west. Thus far their course had been almost due north toward
the great desert of Sahara, and not toward the Atlantic Ocean. These
five days had been utterly thrown away, so far as progress in the right
direction was concerned; not an inch had been gained, and the whole
expedition was discouraged. The carriers of the boat begged Stanley to
throw it away or go back to Nyangwe, while the Arab chiefs made no
attempt to conceal their discontent, but openly expressed their
disinclination to proceed any farther. Even the splendid barbarian
dandy, Tipo-tipo, who prided himself on his superiority to all other
Arabs, began to look moody, while increasing sickness in the camp cast
additional gloom over it. Huge serpents crossed their path, while all
sorts of wild beasts and vermin peopled the dense forest and swarmed
around them.

On the 15th, they made but six miles and a half and yet, short as was
the distance, it took the men carrying the boat twenty-four hours to
make it, and all were so weary that a halt of an entire day was ordered
to let them rest. In addition to this, the forest became ten times more
matted than before. Both the heavier timber and the undergrowth grew
thicker and thicker, shutting out not only the light of the sun, but
every particle of moving air, so that the atmosphere became suffocating
and stifling. Panting for breath, the little army crawled and wormed
itself through the interlacing branches, and when night came down were
utterly disheartened. Even the elegant Tipo-tipo now gave out, and came
to Stanley to be released from his engagement. It was in vain that the
latter appealed to his honor, his pride and fear of ridicule should he
now turn back to Nyangwe. But to everything he could urge, the very
sensible answer was returned: "If there is nothing worse than this
before us, it will yet take us, at the rate we are going, a year to make
the sixty marches and as long a time to return. You are only killing
everybody by your obstinacy; such a country was never made for decent
men to travel in, it was made for pagans and monkeys."

It is in circumstances like these that those qualities which have made
Stanley the most successful explorer of modern times, exhibit
themselves. Napoleon said, when speaking of troops, "Even brave soldiers
have their '_moment de peur_,'" the time when they shrink. But this man
seems an exception to this rule. To him the moment of fear never seems
to come, for he never feels the contagion of example. He adheres to his
resolution to go on, if but a handful stand by him. He seems impervious
to the contagion that seizes others, and a panic in battle would sweep
by him unmoved. After talking to Tipo-tipo for two hours, he finally got
him to agree to accompany him twenty marches farther.

There were two things in this village, shut up in the heart of the
forest, that impressed Stanley very much. He found here a primitive
forge, in which the natives smelted iron-ore, found in the
neighborhood, and a smithy, in which the iron was worked up into
instruments of all kinds, from a small knife to a cleaver; hatchets,
hammers, even wire and ornaments for the arms and legs were made. How
this rude people, to whom even an Arab trader had never come, should
have discovered the properties of iron-ore, how to disengage the iron
and then work it into every variety of instruments, is inexplicable. The
whole must have been the product of the brain of some native genius.

The other remarkable thing was a double row of skulls, running the
entire length of the village, set in the ground, leaving the naked,
round top glistening in the sun. There were nearly two hundred of them.
Amazed, he asked his Arabs what they were, they replied "soko skulls."
The soko, Cameron calls a gorilla, and we have no doubt many of the
remarkable stories about gorillas refer to this monkey. But Livingstone
says it is an animal resembling the gorilla, and his account of their
habits shows they are not the fierce, fearless gorilla that is afraid of
neither man nor beast. The soko is about four feet ten inches in height,
and often walks erect, with his hands resting on his head as if to
steady himself. With a yellow face adorned with ugly whiskers, a low
forehead and high ears, he looks as if he might be a hideous cross
between a man and a beast. His teeth, though dog-like in their size,
still slightly resemble those found in the human head. The fingers are
almost exactly like the natives. He is cunning and crafty, and will
often stalk a man or woman as stealthily as a hunter will a deer. He
seldom does much damage, unless driven to bay, when he fights fiercely.
He takes great pleasure in nabbing children and carrying them up into a
tree and holding them in his arms, but if a bunch of bananas is thrown
on the ground he will descend, and leaving the child, will seize it. He
seldom uses his teeth, but in conflict with a man he has been known to
bite off his opponent's fingers and then let him go. They are hunted and
trapped by the natives for their flesh, which is regarded as very good
eating.

[Illustration: NATIVES HUNTING SOKOS.]

Stanley, not satisfied with the answer of his men concerning the skulls,
sent for the chief and asked him whose they were. He said of the sokos,
which they hunt because of the destruction they make of the bananas, and
that their meat was good. Stanley offered him a hundred cowries if he
would bring one to him alive or dead. The chief went into the woods to
hunt them, but at evening returned without success. He, however, gave
him a portion of what he affirmed to be the skin of one. Stanley had the
curiosity to take two of these skulls home with him, and gave them to
Professor Huxley to examine, who reported they were the skulls of a man
and a woman. Stanley, therefore, came to the conclusion that they were
the skulls of men and women who had been eaten by these cannibals. But
we do not believe this conclusion fairly justifiable, from Professor
Huxley's report on two skulls. In the first place, the Arabs would
scarcely have made such a mistake as this implies--they had seen too
many soko skulls. In the second place, the chief corroborated their
statement, and he had no reason for telling a falsehood. If those skulls
were placed thus prominently in the streets, it was to boast of them,
not to lie about them. It is far more likely that there were a few human
skulls mixed in with the sokos, and that when Stanley asked for a
couple, the largest and best-shaped were selected for him which proved
to belong to human beings. His hunting for one was certainly not to
prove he had told Stanley a falsehood. The same peculiarity was noticed
here that Baker mentions of the natives of Fatiko--the women go naked,
while the men are partly covered with skins. The whole apparel of the
women is an apron four inches square.

On the 19th of March, they reached the Lualaba, sweeping majestically
through the silent forest. Stanley immediately determined there should
be no more tangled forests for him, but that the broad current of the
river should bear him to the Atlantic Ocean or to death. The camp was
prepared and the breakfast eaten, while Pocoke was getting the Lady
Alice screwed together. Soon she was launched on the stream, amid the
huzzas of the party. Although the river here was nearly three-quarters
of a mile wide, and the opposite shore appeared like an uninhabited
forest, yet sharp eyes detected the wonderful apparition that had
appeared on the farther shore, and the news spread so rapidly, that when
Stanley in the Lady Alice approached it, he saw the woods alive with
human beings, and several canoes tied to the shore. He hailed them, and
tried to make a bargain with them to transport his party across. They
refused point-blank, but afterwards seemed to relent and offered to
exchange blood-brotherhood with them, and appointed a place on a
neighboring island where the ceremony should be performed. It was,
however, discovered that it was a treacherous plot to murder them, and
but for precautions taken in view of its possibility, there would have
been a fight.

Stanley now determined to cross his men by detachments in his own boat.
He took over thirty above the village and told the natives that they had
better assist him in carrying over the rest, for which he promised they
should be well paid. They finally consented, and the whole expedition
was soon landed safely on the left bank of the river.



CHAPTER XXII.

FLOATING DOWN THE CONGO.


Having been ferried across the river by the natives, Stanley felt quite
secure of the friendship of this first tribe he had met on the banks of
the Lualaba. But here he resolved to change its name to Livingstone,
which ever after he continues to call it. Villages lined the banks, all,
he says, adorned with skulls of human beings. But instead of finding the
inhabitants of them friendly, there were none to be seen; all had
mysteriously disappeared, whether from fright or to arouse the tribes
below, it was impossible to determine; it seemed from the former, for
notwithstanding they had overcome their first fear so much as to ferry
the expedition across the river, they had not taken away their canoes,
nor carried with them their provisions. Leaving these untouched, as a
sort of promise to the tribes below that their property should be held
sacred, the expedition took up its march down the river. Stanley, with
thirty-three men, went by water, in the Lady Alice, while Tipo-tipo and
young Pocoke with the rest of the party marched along the bank. Village
after village was passed; the natives uttering their wild war-cry, and
then disappearing in the forest, leaving everything behind them.
Whether it was a peaceful village, or a crowded market-place they
passed, they inspired the same terror, and huts and market-places were
alike deserted. This did not promise well for the future.

In the middle of the afternoon, Stanley, in the Lady Alice, came to a
river one hundred yards wide. Knowing that the land party could not
cross this without a boat, he halted to wait for its approach in order
to ferry it over, and built a strong camp. This was on November 23d,
1876. At sunset it had not arrived, and he became anxious. Next morning
it did not make its appearance, and still more anxious, he ascended this
river, named the Ruigi, several miles, to see if they had struck it
farther up.

Returning, in the afternoon without hearing anything of the expedition,
he was startled as he approached the camp, by the rapid firing of guns.
Alarmed, he told the rowers to bend to their oars, and sweeping rapidly
downward, he soon came to the mouth of the stream and found it blocked
with canoes filled with natives. Dashing down upon them with loud
shouts, they fled in every direction. One dead man floating in the
stream was the only result of the first fight on the Livingstone.

The day wore away and night came down, and silence and solitude rested
on the forest stretching along the banks of the Ruigi, where he
anxiously waited to hear musket-shots announcing the arrival of the
land party. It was a long and painful night, for one of two things was
certain; Tipo-tipo and Pocoke had lost their way or had been attacked
and overpowered. The bright tropical sun rose over the forest east of
the river Ruigi, but its banks were silent and still. Stanley could not
endure the suspense any longer, and dispatched Uledi, with five of the
boat's crew, to seek the wanderers. This Uledi, hereafter to the close
of the march, becomes a prominent figure. Stanley had made him coxswain
of the boat Lady Alice, and he had proved to be one of the most
trustworthy men of the expedition, and was to show himself in its
future desperate fortunes, one of the most cool and daring, worthy,
only half-civilized as he was, to stand beside Stanley. The latter
gave him strict directions as to his conduct in hunting up the
fugitives--especially respecting the villages he might come across.
Uledi told Stanley not to be anxious--he would soon find the lost party.

Stanley, of course, could do nothing but wait, though filled with the
most anxious thoughts. The river swept by calmly as ever, unconscious of
the troubled hearts on its banks; the great forest stood silent and
still in the tropical sun, and the day wore away as it ever does,
thoughtless of the destinies its hours are settling, and indifferent to
the human suffering that crowds them. But at four o'clock a musket-shot
rang out of the woods, and soon Uledi appeared leading the lost party.
They had gone astray and been attacked by the natives, who killed three
of their number. Luckily they captured a prisoner, whom they forced to
act as a guide to conduct them back to the river, and, after marching
all day, met Uledi in search of them. They were ferried across and
allowed to scatter abroad in search of food, which they took wherever
found, without any regard to the rights of the natives. Necessity had
compelled Stanley to relax his strict rules in this respect.

The next day the march was continued as before, communication being kept
up by those on the land and on the water by drum-taps. The villages they
passed were deserted--every soul fleeing at their approach. Proceeding
down the river, they came across six abandoned canoes more or less
injured. Repairing these, they lashed them together as a floating
hospital for the sick of the land party, the number of which had greatly
increased from the exposures and hardships they were compelled to
undergo. In the afternoon they came upon the first rapids they had met.
Some boats, attempting their descent, were upset and attacked by the
natives, who were, however, soon beaten off. Four Snider rifles were
lost, which brought down on Pocoke, who had permitted the Arabs to run
this risk, a severe rebuke, and a still severer one on the Arab chief,
who had asked the former to let him make the attempt. The chief,
enraged at the reproaches heaped upon him, went to Tipo-tipo, and
declared that he would not serve Stanley any longer. This, together with
the increased hostility of the natives, the alarming sickness, and the
dangerous rapids, brought the head chief to Stanley with a solemn appeal
to turn back before it was too late. But the latter had reached a point
where nothing but absolute fate could turn him back.

The rapids were passed in safety by the canoe--the Lady Alice being
carried around them on men's shoulders. Natives were occasionally met,
but no open hostility was shown for several days. The river would now be
contracted by the bold shores, and rush foaming along and now spread
into lake-like beauty, dotted with green islands, the quiet abodes of
tropical birds and monkeys, which filled the air with a jargon of
sounds.

On the 4th of December they came to a long, straggling town, composed of
huts only seven feet long by five wide, standing apart, yet connected by
roofs, the intervening spaces covered and common to the inhabitants of
both the adjacent huts. It was, however, deserted, like the rest. This
persistent desertion was almost as dispiriting as open hostility, and an
evil fate seemed to hang over the expedition. The sickness kept
increasing, and day after day all that broke the monotony of the weary
hours was the tossing over now and then of dead bodies into the river.
The land party presented a heart-broken appearance as they crawled, at
night, laden with the sick and dying, into camp. At this place Stanley
found an old, battered, abandoned canoe, capable of carrying sixty
people. This he repaired, and added it to his floating hospital.

On the 8th of December he came to another large town, the inhabitants of
which, in spite of all attempts to make peace, were determined to fight.
With fourteen canoes they approached the bank on which the land party
were encamped, and commenced shooting their arrows. This lasted for some
time, when Stanley took the Lady Alice and dashed among them, pouring in
at the same time such a close and deadly fire that they turned and fled.

The story of the slow drifting and marching of the expedition down the
Livingstone is a very monotonous one to read, but was full of the
deepest interest to the travelers, for the forest on either side of the
great river seemed filled with horns and war-drums, while out from a
creek or from behind an island canoes would dart and threaten an attack.
Floating peacefully through those primeval forests on this stately
river, bearing them ever on to the unknown, would make the heart heave
with emotion, but when danger and death were ever present, the intensest
feelings were aroused.

At length they came to a series of villages lining the bank and
surrounded with plenty. There was a large population, and the natives,
at the approach of Stanley, blew their ivory horns and beat their drums,
and soon a whole fleet of canoes, heavily manned, attacked the little
party in the boat. By a bold dash Stanley was able to seize and occupy
the lower village, where he quickly intrenched himself. The savages came
down in immense numbers, filling the air with hideous shouts and rushed
on the slender defenses with desperate fury. It was astonishing to see
these men, to whom fire-arms were new, show so little fear of them. They
were the boldest fighters Stanley had as yet encountered in Africa, and
though he punished them severely they kept up the attack, with short
intervals between, for nearly two days. At last the appearance of
Tipo-tipo along the bank with the land forces made them beat a retreat,
which they did with a tremendous noise of horns and loud threats of
vengeance. Out of the few with Stanley, four were killed and thirteen
wounded, or seventeen out of forty--nearly half of the whole force. This
showed desperate fighting, and as the enemy advanced by hundreds their
loss must have been fearful.

Stanley, who was equal in stratagem to an American Indian, played them a
trick that night which took all their bravado out of them. Waiting till
he thought they were asleep, he took the Lady Alice, and Frank Pocoke a
canoe, and both with muffled oars, rowed up the river to find their
camp. It was a rainy, dark and windy night, and, hence, favorable to the
enterprise he had in hand, and his movements were undiscovered. By the
light of a fire on the bank he ascertained the location of the camp, and
advancing cautiously saw some forty canoes drawn up on shore. Bidding
Frank go down stream and lie to, to catch them as they floated down, he
quietly cut them all adrift. They were caught by the former, and by
midnight were at Stanley's camp. He knew that he now had them in his
power, and so in the morning proceeded to their camp and made offers of
peace, which they were glad to accept on the condition that their canoes
were returned to them. This was agreed to and blood-brotherhood made.
Stanley, however, whose great need had been canoes, determined not to
let all these slip through his hands, and retained twenty-three, giving
back only fifteen.

Tipo-tipo now told Stanley that he would proceed no further, his people
were dying rapidly, the difficulties of marching were increasing and he
must return. The latter saw he was determined to go, although eight
marches remained to be made, and released him. In truth, now he had
boats enough to carry his entire expedition, Tipo-tipo, cumbered with
the sick, would be a burden rather than a help, and at the rate they
were moving, eight marches, more or less, would not amount to much.
Besides, marching by land, Stanley saw must be given up or they would
never get to the sea. Thus far they had scarcely made any westing at
all, having gone almost due north, and were nearly as far from the
Atlantic Ocean as when they left Nyangwe. The only thing he feared was
the effect the departure of the escort would have on his men. In
announcing to them that on the sixth day they should start down the
river, he made them quite a speech, in which he asked them if he had not
always taken good care of them and fulfilled all his promises, and said
that if they would trust him implicitly he would surely bring them out
to the ocean and see them safe back to Zanzibar. "As a father looks
after his children," he said, "so will I look after you." A shout
greeted him at the close. One of his chiefs followed in an address to
the Arabs, while Uledi, the coxswain, spoke for the boatmen in a very
satisfactory strain.

Preparations for starting were now set on foot, canoes were mended,
provisions gathered and everything that could be thought of provided
against future contingencies. Christmas day came, and the poor fugitives
had quite a frolic there in the wilderness. The twenty-three boats they
had captured were christened by the men, amid much merriment, and then
canoe races followed, rowed by both men and women; all wound up with a
wild war-dance on the banks of the river.

The next day Tipo-tipo gave a grand dinner. The day after, the camps
separated, and all intercourse between them ceased.

On the morning of the 28th, Stanley embarked his men to the sound of
drum and trumpet, and Tipo-tipo hearing it in his camp, knew that the
parting hour had come, and paraded his men on the bank. As the
expedition slowly floated down the stream toward it, there was heard a
deep, plaintive chant from the Arabs on the bank, as a hundred melodious
voices arose in a farewell song; out from the dim forest, and over the
rippling water it floated, in sweet melancholy strains, that touched
every heart in that slowly-moving fleet of canoes. Louder and louder
swelled the chant, increasing in volume and pathos, as the wanderers
drew nearer. As they approached the Arab camp they saw the singers
ranged in a row along the bank. Passing slowly by them, they waved a
silent adieu, for their hearts were too full to speak. On they floated,
and still the chant went on, until, at last, it died away in the
distance, and sadness and silence rested on the stream. No one spoke a
word, and Stanley cast his own eyes, not wholly dry, over the crowded
boats, and was moved with the deepest pity. Nearly all were sitting with
their faces hidden in their hands and sobbing. Those they were leaving
behind were about to return to their homes--they to enter new dangers,
out of which they might never emerge. No wonder they were sad, and it is
singular that not a man, even of those who had before deserted, asked
permission to go back. It was a mournful scene there in the wilds of
Africa, and on that mysterious river, and Stanley said it was the
saddest day in his whole life.

The casting of their fortunes in this desperate venture of his, shows
what wonderful influence he had acquired over them, and with what
devotion he had inspired them. No wonder his heart clung to them to the
last, and he would never leave them, until he saw them safe again in
their homes. In order to rouse the men, he shouted, "Sons of Zanzibar,
lift up your heads and be men. What is there to fear? Here we are all
together, like one family, with hearts united, all strong with the
purpose to reach our home. See this river, it is the road to Zanzibar.
When saw you a road so wide? Strike your paddles deep, and cry out
'Bismillah,' and let us forward." No shout greeted this appeal, as with
sickly smiles they paddled downward. Uledi tried to sing, but it was
such a miserable failure that his sad companions could not restrain a
smile.



CHAPTER XXIII.

DESCENT OF THE CONGO.


Stanley was now like Cortez when he burned his ships behind him--there
was no returning--one and all must move on together to a common fate.
All danger of desertion, for the present, was over, and he felt that the
consciousness of there being no possible escape, and that one destiny
awaited them all, not only bound them closer together, but would make
them better fighters.

At first, on their downward march, they met a peaceful tribe, and then a
hostile one which would listen to no terms, and whose reply to every
request for peace was, "We don't want you; we will eat you." They,
however, passed by unmolested, and swept down the river, astonished to
see its banks so thickly populated. That night they encamped in a dense
jungle, which was found to be the home of the hippopotamus in the dry
season. Tipo-tipo had left with Stanley two cannibals that he had
captured, to be used by him in conciliating the savages, as they knew
their language. These tried their arts this night on the natives on the
farther bank, who, no sooner espied the strangers, than they beat their
drums and advanced to attack them. The cannibals talked so eloquently
and plausibly to them, that the savages withdrew and left them in peace.
The next morning they came to the mouth of a large river named Lowwa,
one thousand yards wide, and seemingly quite deep.

On the last day of the year, they were moving quietly down stream--the
heavens bright above them and the banks green beside them--when they
suddenly heard the hated war-drum sound; and soon the canoes of the
natives shot out from both shores, and for a moment a collision seemed
inevitable; but the two cannibals shouted _Sennennch!_ "peace," so
plaintively, that they desisted and the little fleet passed on
unmolested. But the next day they met other boats which advanced, their
crews shouting "we will eat you," but they were easily driven off. It
produced a novel sensation in Stanley to be hailed every day and ordered
to give himself up for a good _roast_. At length they came to a peaceful
tribe, from whom they obtained provisions.

Gathering such information as they could from the natives, they now
continued on very quietly, when they were suddenly attacked by savages
in canoes of immense size. One, eighty-five feet long, singled out the
Lady Alice and made for it. The crew of the latter waited till it came
within fifty feet, and then, pouring in a deadly volley, made a dash to
run it down. The frightened crew, just before the collision, jumped
overboard, leaving the big boat in the hands of Stanley.

Keeping on, after this little fight, they passed small tributaries, and
at length heard the roar of a cataract below. But while they were
listening to the unwelcome sound, there suddenly rose over it the wild,
shrill war-cries of the savages from both sides of the river. There was
no escape for the expedition now--they must turn and fight. Dropping
their stone anchors near the bank, they poured in their volleys, but,
not being able to dislodge this new foe, they pulled up their anchors
and rowed up stream where Stanley divided his forces, and while one
attracted the attention of the enemy in front, the other landed, and
marching across the land, took them in the rear. As soon as Stanley
heard the first shot announcing its arrival, he landed and attacked the
enemy in front and routed them, and camped for the night undisturbed.

Next morning, however, the natives appeared again in strong numbers and
attacked the camp. The fight was kept up for two hours, when a sally was
ordered, and they charged on the enemy, who, though giving way, kept up
the fight for four or five hours more. Two of Stanley's men were killed
and ten wounded. The former were thrown into the river, for Stanley had
determined to bury no more men till out of the cannibal country. This
defeat of the natives gave the expedition a few days' rest, so that
this first of the series of "Stanley falls," as they were named, could
be thoroughly explored, not only for geographical purposes, but to
ascertain the best way of getting around them. He found that the falls
could not be run, and that a carry around them some two miles long must
be made. A path was cleared with axes, and boat and canoes were taken
from the water and carried with great labor, yet safely, overland, and
launched once more on the stream without accident, and anchored in a
creek near its entrance into the main river. Not wishing to remain here,
the order to advance was given, and soon they were again afloat on the
great river. Sweeping downward they heard the roar of another cataract,
and, although the war-horns were resounding on every side, they encamped
on an island in the middle of the river. The hostile natives on the
island, filled with terror, escaped to the mainland. In the morning
Stanley explored the island, and found it contained five villages, all
now deserted, and in them was such a variety of implements as showed
that the inhabitants were adepts in the manufacture of all kinds of iron
tools.

The river was full of islands, winding among which, day after day,
Stanley often found to be the only means of escape from the pertinacious
cannibals. These islands presented a beautiful appearance with their
luxuriant foliage, but while the eye was resting on loveliness, the ear
would be saluted with the sound of war-drums and hideous shouts.
Whenever Stanley landed and visited a village from which the inhabitants
had fled, he would see human bones scattered around, flung aside like
oyster-shells, after the meat was removed, and at times the whole
expedition felt as if they were destined to make a grand luncheon for
these ferocious man-eaters.

The next day Stanley began to make preparations to get around the falls.
The first thing was to clear himself of the savages that crowded the
left bank and were ready to pounce on him any moment. So taking
thirty-six men he led them through the bushes and drove the natives back
to their villages, a mile distant, and after a desperate struggle he
drove them out of these. He next cut a narrow path, three miles long,
around the cataract. This was slow work, and as haste was imperative the
men were kept at work all night, flaming torches lighting up the way and
making the gloomy shadows of the strange forest deeper still. Camps were
distributed at short intervals along the route, and to the first of
these the canoes were carried before daylight. The savages made a rush
on them but were driven back. At night another stretch of path was made,
to which the canoes and baggage were hurried before the cannibals were
astir in the morning. There was less hostility and the work went
steadily on, and at last, after seventy-eight hours of unceasing labor
and almost constant fighting the river was again reached and the boats
launched.

[Illustration: FIGHTING OUR WAY AROUND.]

This was accomplished on January 14th, but though the river had been
reached, new perils awaited them. There was a stretch of two miles of
rapids that must be passed. After six canoes had been passed safely, one
was upset, and one of those in it, Zaidi, instead of swimming ashore, as
the others did, clung to it and was borne helplessly down to the
cataract below. But on the very verge was a solitary rock on which the
boat drifted and split--one part jamming fast. To this the poor wretch
clung with the strength of despair, while all around leaped and whirled
and roared the boiling water. Those on shore shrieked in agony, and
Stanley was hastily sent for. He immediately set to work making a rattan
rope, in order to let down a boat to him by which he could be pulled
ashore. But the rope was not strong enough, and snapped asunder as soon
as the boat reached the heavy suck of water just above the falls, and it
was whirled into the vortex below. Other and stronger ropes were then
made and another canoe brought up and three ropes lashed to it. A couple
of men would be needed to paddle and steer the boat so that it could
reach the unfortunate wretch on his perilous perch, and volunteers were
called for. But one glance at the wild and angry waves was enough, and
no one responded. Stanley then appealed to their feelings, when the
brave Uledi stepped forward and said "I will go." Others of the crew
followed, but only one was needed. The two stepped calmly into the boat
and pushed off--watched with intense anxiety by those on shore. Reaching
a certain distance above the falls, it drifted rapidly down toward them,
guided by those holding two of the cables on shore. The third floated
from the stern of the boat for the poor wretch on the rock to seize.
Attempt after attempt was made to get this within Zaidi's reach, but the
whirling waters flung it about like a whip-lash. At length the boat was
lowered so close to the brink of the falls that he was able to reach it,
but no sooner had he seized it and flung himself loose, than he was
borne over the edge and disappeared below. But he held on to the rope
and soon his head appeared above the boiling waves, when the word was
given to haul away. The strain, however, was too great, and the cables
parted and away dashed the canoe toward certain destruction, and a cry
of horror arose from those on shore, for all three now seemed inevitably
lost. But Zaidi below, by hanging on to the rope, pulled the boat
against the rock where it lay wedged. He was then pulled up, and the
three crouched together on the rock. A stone was now tied to about three
hundred feet of whip-cord and flung to them, but they failed to catch
it. Again and again was it thrown only to be pulled in and recast, but
at last it whirled so close to them that they caught it. A heavy rope of
rattan was then tied to it and drawn across and fastened, and a bridge
thus secured.

But this had taken so much time that night came on before the work could
be finished; the three wretched men were left therefore, to crouch on
the rock, and wait for the morning. All night long they held on to their
wild perch, while the water rushed, and boiled, and roared around them,
and the deep thunder of the cataract rose in one deep monotone over all,
so that they could not hear each other speak.

The next morning, early, the Arabs were set to work making more ropes,
which were finally hauled across, and fastened round the waist of each
man, and then, one by one, they leaped into the water and were drawn
safely ashore, amid the joyous shouts of the people.

They now set to work cutting a road three miles long through the woods.
Over this the canoes were hauled with great labor before the savages on
the farther side knew what was going on. But the moment the canoes were
afloat, the foe discovered them, and rushing forward with their canoes
the battle commenced. Stanley dashed through them, and sweeping down
stream for a mile, landed on the island where the tribe lived, and
quietly detaching twenty men, sent them to the villages, while he kept
the savages at bay. In a short time, the detachment returned, bringing
with them a crowd of women and children as prisoners, and a large herd
of sheep. The savages, when they saw these marching down to the
landing-place, were taken so completely aback, that they stopped
fighting at once, and withdrew to consult what was best to do in this
extraordinary turn of affairs. They sat in their canoes, waiting to see
their friends massacred. Negotiations for peace were soon opened and
concluded, and the ceremony of blood-brotherhood was gone through with,
the captives and herds were then surrendered up and friendly terms were
established.

The fifth cataract was at the foot of this island and was safely passed,
and the expedition encamped on the bank of the river, on a green plat of
ground, and slept undisturbed. In the morning, to their unbounded
surprise, they found themselves inclosed in a net of cord, reaching from
the shore above the camp, to the shore below it, passing through the
bushes. Stanley knew what this meant--that they were to be speared, when
they approached it, like so many wild beasts. He at once ordered one of
the chiefs, Manwa Sera, to take thirty men and row up the river a short
distance and land, thence to march inland, and come up behind those
lying in wait outside of the net. At the end of an hour he ordered men
forward to cut the nets, when the firing commenced. The savages soon
turned and fled, but to their astonishment, met the enemy advancing on
them by the road leading from their villages, at which discovery they
fled in every direction. Eight prisoners were, however, captured and
brought into camp. On being questioned, they confessed that they were
after man-meat and said that their tribe, which lived about a day's
journey inland, ate old men and women and every stranger that fell into
their hands.

They now kept down the river for several miles unmolested, until they
heard the sullen roar of the sixth cataract rising over the woods, when
they camped on the right bank, near an island covered with villages.
Stanley knew what was before him here, and ordered a stockade to be
commenced immediately. But, before this was finished, the everlasting
drum and horn pealed through the woods and soon the savages were upon
them. After a short fight, they retreated, followed by Stanley's
soldiers to a large village, but there were only three or four old women
in it, who were brought into camp. In a short time a heavier force
approached and made a furious attack, but it was quickly driven back and
two wounded men were taken prisoners. A part of Stanley's force was all
this time cutting a path around the cataract. The next morning they set
to work with a will and by noon passed it safely. Stanley having wormed
out of his captives all the information he could of the surrounding
country and the various tribes that inhabited it, set them free. Passing
some rapids, they came to a village in which there was but a single old
man, solitary and alone, who had been there for several days. The next
day they halted to repair the boats. The persistent course of the river,
till within the last few days to the north, and sometimes northeast, had
troubled Stanley, and but for the immense volume of water that he knew
had no eastern outlet, would have shaken his faith in its being the
Congo. But, since he passed the last cataract he had noticed that it
gradually deflected to the northwest, and now swept by almost due west,
having evidently at last started on its journey for the sea. Long
islands still divided the river, making, most of the time, two streams
and shutting out the opposite banks. Keeping down the right channel,
they passed through enchanting scenery, undisturbed by war-drums and
savage shouts. Though the water was smooth on their side, over the
island, on the other, they could hear the roar of rapids, and a few
miles farther down the loud roar of the seventh and last cataract of the
"Stanley Falls" burst on their ears, filling the solitude with its loud
thunder. The river here was over a mile wide, and the fall of such an
immense body of water over a high ledge made the earth tremble.

It was one incessant fight, either with the savages or with nature, and
it seemed as if fate determined to wear out these indomitable men. Soon
the loud war-drums, and horns, and battle-shouts were mingled with the
roar of the cataract, showing that here, too, they must fight before
they could get below it. Dropping down as near as it was safe to the
commencement of the rapids, they pulled ashore and pitched their camp in
a dense forest. Fearful of being attacked before they could intrench,
they immediately set to work with their axes to throw together a
brushwood fence, while thirty soldiers were stationed in front toward
the river, to repel assault. They had hardly completed it before the
naked cannibals were upon them with a fury that threatened to break
through their defenses. All this time out from the woods, adown the
gorge through which the river plunged, war-drums and horns were heard
summoning the thickly-scattered villages to the scene of combat. Before
the steady fire of the musketeers the savages suffered so severely that
at sunset they abandoned the attack and withdrew. Stanley now secured
his boats and strengthened the brushwood fence, and laid his plans for
the morning.

The camp was roused at five o'clock, and they pushed on to a point
nearer the falls, so that the work of carrying around them was completed
before the Wangas opened battle. Everything being made secure, they
waited for the expected attack to begin, but, no enemy appearing,
Stanley sent out scouts to ascertain what they were about. They brought
back word that no savages were to be seen. On advancing to the villages,
Stanley found to his astonishment that they were all deserted. Why, or
whither they had fled was a profound mystery. Here was a town or cluster
of villages, each with four or five streets running through it, and
capable of containing two thousand inhabitants, deserted in a single
night. The silence of death reigned over it.

Left thus at peace, he began to turn his attention to the falls. He
found the river here in this terrific gorge was contracted to less than
one-third of its breadth a short distance above, and hence flowed with a
power and strength that can hardly be conceived. Crowded together, the
waters struggled and leaped, and tore onward with a wildness and fury
like the Niagara River below the falls. He here found baskets tied to
long poles set to catch fish. They emptied some of these and found about
thirty fish, of a different species from any known in our waters. These
fish-baskets showed that they were now among savages that did not depend
wholly on human flesh for subsistence. The villages, houses, and various
implements and articles of household furniture were far in advance of
those among the cannibals above them. At the same time the people here
seemed more alert, fearless and determined.

The carry around these falls was not interrupted, and the immense labor
of transporting so many boats and so much baggage along a rough-cut path
was cheerfully performed. The next day, however, while congratulating
themselves on the changed condition of things, they saw a large number
of canoes approaching, and soon a musket-shot rang over the water, and
one of Stanley's men fell. A new peril now threatened them--they found
the natives armed with Portuguese muskets. Though it was a sure sign
that they were approaching the coast, it showed also that hereafter it
was to be fire-arms against fire-arms, not rifles against spears and
arrows; and if the natives continued hostile, the destruction of the
expedition seemed certain with such odds against it. Heretofore, in
every combat the men picked up a number of native shields, almost as big
as doors, which they preserved. In battle, the women and children would
hold these before the soldiers, which was the chief reason why there had
been so few casualties when fighting from the boats; but if bullets
hereafter were to be fired, these would be of no use. Still there was
nothing left but to fight to the last.

This changed condition of things caused Stanley the greatest anxiety.
He, however, formed his boats in line of battle and the firing
commenced--the natives after every discharge retiring to reload.
Stanley's soldiers fired so rapidly, and with such deadly effect, that
after an hour had past the natives withdrew, and the expedition moved
off and was soon lost to sight amid the innumerable islands that studded
the river, and each of which was loaded with the most luxuriant
vegetation.

The next day they floated down the river undisturbed, the islands
growing more numerous as it expanded, until now it had become several
miles wide. On one island they saw an immense elephant standing amid the
trees, but no one proposed to stop and kill him, though his huge tusks
were a tempting sight; there was too much at stake to think of hunting
the great crocodiles and hippopotami and other amphibious monsters, who
made the channels around these islands their home.

The next day, the 13th of February, they suddenly came upon a large
number of villages. They were hidden from view, till the boats were so
close upon them that it was too late to retreat. The next minute the
forest resounded with the loud war-drums and ivory horns, while the
fierce war-cries had changed their character and sounded like nothing
human Stanley had ever heard. Bright gun-barrels gleamed above the
light, graceful boats as they came swiftly on. But as they drew near the
natives seemed to be filled with such strange wonder at the novel
spectacle of two white men, that they did not fire, but sat and stared
at them as if they had been ghosts. They followed for five miles in dead
silence, when one of them fired and killed an Arab. In an instant, the
boats wheeled and opened such a rapid fusillade that the savages
retreated. But, when Stanley again resumed his downward course they
turned and followed again, hovering like hawks around him for five
miles, but making no attack.

They were now just above the equator, and were moving south-west. The
next morning the islands were so thick that they shut out both banks,
but keeping on down stream they at length came upon a village, and
attempted to pass it unobserved, but the tap of a drum showed that they
were observed, and their hearts sank within them at the prospect of
another fight. In a few minutes drum was answering drum in every
direction, and soon the savages were seen manning their canoes. Stanley,
seeing his men were worn down by this incessant fighting, made them a
short speech, telling them if they must die it should be with their guns
in their hands. He had come to have great contempt for the natives on
the water so long as they were without fire-arms. He could soon scatter
them and keep them at a respectful distance with his rifles, but when it
should be five hundred muskets against his forty guns, the whole
character of the struggle would be changed.

As they quietly floated down, canoe after canoe filled with
gayly-decorated savages shot out into the river, till an immense fleet
of them was in pursuit. Stanley ordered his men to cease paddling and
wait their approach, determined, if possible, to make peace. But, while
he was standing up holding out cloth and wire and making peaceful
gestures, the crew of one canoe fired into his boat, wounding three men.

There was nothing left now but to fight, and soon the crash of fire-arms
awoke the echoes of the forest-covered shores. The men had raised their
shields, and to their joy found them a perfect protection, as the enemy
fired bits of iron and copper, that could not penetrate them any more
than the native arrows. As the fight went on other canoes arrived, until
Stanley counted sixty-three canoes which he estimated carried five guns
apiece, which would make three hundred and fifteen to his forty-four--a
desperate odds truly, and if the Africans' guns had been loaded with
bullets, they would have doubtless then and there ended the expedition.
It is a little curious that whenever Stanley gets into a desperate
strait that even his boldness and pluck cannot help him out of, some
unforeseen thing comes to his aid, and he escapes.

[Illustration: BOAT FIGHT WITH THE SAVAGES.]

In this case his rifles had much longer range and greater penetrating
force than the old-fashioned muskets, so most of the enemy kept at a
distance of a hundred yards. One brave fellow, however, kept dashing up
to within fifty yards and firing, till he was wounded. It was a lucky
thing for Stanley that their guns were poor, their cartridges feeble and
their aim bad. At length the fire began to slacken, and dwindling down
to now and then a random shot, before six o'clock it ceased altogether.

The fight being over, the men laid down their guns and once more took up
their paddles and were soon out of sight of their enemies, and at sunset
they camped on an island that lay amid a nest of islets.

The next day, the 15th, they continued their journey and for three days
were unmolested and allowed to enjoy the magnificent scenery amid which
they floated; but they had little inclination to admire scenery, for
they were half-starved, not having been able to purchase a particle of
food for a week. On the 19th they came to a great river, the largest
tributary they had yet seen, pouring an enormous volume of black water
into the Livingstone.

It now began to look as if, having escaped death by battle and the
cataracts, they were about to yield to famine. They met fishermen, but
these would have nothing to do with them. On the 19th, nine days since
they had been able to purchase any provisions, they came to Ikengo,
where to their great joy they found friendly natives. The next day
Stanley held a market on the island where he had encamped, to which the
neighboring chiefs came, as well as the villagers. Trade was brisk and
before night he had a bountiful supply of sheep, goats, bananas, flour,
sweet potatoes and various tropical fruits, for which he exchanged
cloth, beads and wire. The men revelled in the unexpected abundance, and
hope and joy took the place of gloom and discontent. The next day they
resumed their apparently endless journey, and floated peacefully amid
green islands, scattered like gems over the broad bosom of the now
friendly stream.

On the 23d, while floating quietly down, word was brought Stanley that
the wife of one of the Arab chiefs, who had been sick for some time, was
dying, and he pulled his boat alongside of the one in which she lay. She
knew she was going, and bade him an affectionate good-bye. Soon after
she expired. At sunset a weight was tied to her body, and she was
dropped into the waters of the river, and left to sleep in this lonely
bed, far away from the cocoa-nuts and mangoes of her native land.

Their course now led them among beautiful islets, made gay by the rich
plumage of tropical birds. Occasionally they met a few canoes, but no
hostility was exhibited. On the 27th, they came upon natives fishing,
who at once showed themselves to be friendly, and exhibited no distrust
at all. It was a new revelation to the wanderers. Hitherto, it was only
after the most patient waiting and persevering efforts that they could
gain the confidence of the savages, if, indeed, they secured it at all.
Here it was freely given, and they directed them to a good camping
place, on an island from whence they looked across to the fields and
villages of Chumbiri, where these fishermen belonged. The fishermen then
departed, to report to their king, who sent them back with presents of
food, and a promise that he would visit the camp. True to his word, he
appeared next day, escorted by five canoes filled with soldiers,
carrying muskets. He wore a curious hat, was very cool and
self-possessed in his manner, and inclined to be sociable. He took snuff
incessantly, and in enormous quantities. After a long conversation, he
invited them to make his village their home, and Stanley, wishing to
learn all he could of the river below, accepted the invitation, and the
expedition crossed the river and was received in savage pomp. A grand
market was held, and exchanges freely made. The women did not seem to be
of the pure African blood, being brown instead of black, with large
eyes, beautifully shaped shoulders, and altogether very pretty. They
were fond of ornaments, some of them wearing thirty pounds of brass wire
around their necks. Stanley estimated that the forty wives, six
daughters and the female slaves of the king carried on their necks about
one thousand four hundred pounds of brass wire.

He stayed here a week, enjoying the hospitality of the king, who, in
addition to all his other kindnesses, gave him three canoes, as an
escort, and on the 7th of March he turned the prows of his boats again
down stream. That night they encamped in a jungle, into which two
immense serpents crawled, one of which was killed just as he began to
twine his folds about a woman. It measured thirteen feet and a half in
length, and fifteen inches round the body. Having passed tributary after
tributary, they went ashore on the morning of the 9th to cook breakfast.
The women were busily engaged in preparing it, when they were startled
by loud musket shots and six of the men fell. They had been taken
completely by surprise, but springing to their guns, they dashed into
the woods and a fierce fight followed, which lasted an hour. It was one
incessant crack of musketry, each one sheltering himself as best he
could. The savages were finally driven off, but not until they had
wounded fourteen of Stanley's men. This was the sharpest fight he had
yet had, and if it were a fair prelude to what was to follow, the
expedition would soon consist of nothing but wounded men. It is
astonishing, that in all these fights, of which this was the
thirty-second and last, neither Stanley nor Pocoke should receive a
wound.

After the wounded men had been attended to, they again set out and
floated peacefully down, not suspecting any danger, until they
approached a settlement which suddenly swarmed with excited armed men.
Rowing away as fast as possible, they soon got clear of the village, and
encamped three miles below. The next day the voyage was charming, taking
them through beautiful and ever-changing scenery. Nothing occurred to
mar their pleasure the following day except a fierce south wind, which
now began to set in regularly every day, making the river exceedingly
rough for the canoes, especially at this point, where the river expanded
to nearly two miles in width. This great breadth extended as far as the
eye could reach, and, hemmed in by cliffs, it resembled a pool, which
young Pocoke christened "Stanley Pool."

Paddling slowly down this pool, they passed several villages. Makoneh,
the chief of one, proved very kind and hospitable, and offered to
conduct Stanley to the next cataract. As they swept down, they halted at
a friendly village, the chief of which inquired how they expected to get
over the mighty falls below. He was a bluff, genial, good-souled negro,
who seemed glad to assist them in any way in his power, and finally
offered to guide them to the cataract. Moving down, soon its low roar
was heard swelling over the forest, gradually increasing as they
advanced till it rose like a continuous thunder-peal from the solitude
below.

Makoneh led the way, and just skirting the first line of breakers he
landed on a pebbly beach. The village of Itsi was in sight, he being the
petty king of a neighboring tribe. Some canoes soon crossed from it,
and were received so kindly that the natives went back with such
wonderful stories to their king that next day he paid Stanley a visit.
He came in a large canoe carrying eighty-six persons. It was over
eighty-five feet long, and propelled by sixty paddlers. These, standing
up and keeping time with their strokes to the steady beat of a drum,
sent the boat like an arrow through the water and made a stirring
picture as they dashed up to Stanley's camp. There were several
gray-headed men present, one of whom was introduced to Stanley as the
king. The latter noticed that the rest laughed heartily at this, which
afterwards turned out to be a practical joke. However, Stanley sat down
with the venerable person in amicable conversation, while a young native
and Frank seemed to strike up a warm friendship for each other, or at
least the native for Pocoke, judging by the way he pressed presents on
him.

It seemed strange to Stanley that the young savage should give twice as
much to Frank as the king gave to him, but it now came out that this
young man was the king, and the aged man Stanley had been conversing
with was merely one of his counselors. Stanley at once changed his
attention, and asked him what present would please him. The royal young
savage had been looking about at the various things in camp, and seeing
a very large goat, told Stanley that he wished "big goat." Now this
happened to be the last thing the latter wished to part with. A lady in
England had requested him to bring back a goat of this very breed, and
he had purchased several, of which this alone had survived the long and
dangerous journey. He therefore endeavored to bribe the young king by
doubling the other presents he had prepared. No, he would have the "big
goat." Stanley then offered to give him an ass instead. At this the
savage seemed to hesitate. The donkey was very desirable, but at this
critical moment the animal sent up a huge bray, which so frightened the
women that he would not take him. Other tempting offers were made but
nothing would do but the "big goat," and as Stanley was short of
provisions (the men having squandered those the king of Chambiri had
given them), and as he must have these, he reluctantly turned over the
big goat and the young king departed highly delighted. The next day he
returned bringing three ordinary goats in exchange and some provisions.
Soon the kings or chiefs of other neighboring tribes came in bringing
fruit, and everything was harmonious, and treaties of amity were made
with all. The one with Itsi was quite ceremonious. Among other things,
he gave Stanley a white powder as a charm against evil, in return for
which, the latter, with all due gravity, presented him with a half-ounce
vial full of magnesia as the white man's charm. This and
blood-brotherhood closed the formal proceedings of the treaty-making
powers--quite as important, in their way, as similar councils in
civilized countries.

Stanley found by observation that though he had traveled from Nyangwe
over one thousand two hundred miles, he had descended not quite a
thousand feet.



CHAPTER XXIV.

AMONG THE CATARACTS.


It is a little singular, that in this age of inquiry and persistent
effort to get at the cause of things, no one has yet attempted to
explain the reason of tribal differences. Aborigines occupying the same
parallels of latitude and longitude, subject to the same influences of
climate, living on the same diet, are different in color, features, and
more than all, in disposition. The real, or supposed influences, that
lie at the bottom of the different races, do not apply here. Difference
of origin, of climate, of food, all these must have great effect in
changing color, features and character, and hence, to a certain extent,
explain how such distinct nationalities exist, but they do not in the
least account for tribal differences where all these are the same, and
where there are not even barriers of mountains and rivers separating
them. Why should our western Indian tribes, roaming over the same
prairies, living on the same food, and similar in all their modes of
life, be yet so different in form, feature and disposition? Is there
really no way of getting a satisfactory, true explanation of all this?

So in Africa, Stanley crossed the continent in the same general range
of latitude. The savages he met were all dwellers of the equatorial
region, and hence lived in the same climate, used the same food, dressed
in the same way, and lived the same life, and yet they were as
dissimilar as different nationalities. If any educational influences had
been brought to bear upon them one could understand this, but none have
been exerted. These same tribal differences Stanley found on the Congo.
Fierce cannibals and gentle agricultural people were living side by
side. Suspicious, faithless men, differing very little from the better
class of monkeys, lived neighbors to tribes unsuspicious and trustful,
and wonderfully advanced in the arts of mechanism. At the falls, which
were named "Stanley Falls," the natives were suspicious, faithless,
cruel, but when he reached the Livingstone Falls, he found the people
hospitable, kind and trustful. When this difference burst on Stanley
practically, he felt it sensibly, but he philosophically dismissed it
with the simple remark, such "is the effect of trade." We cannot accept
this explanation at all, for they had no trade with the outside world,
and they showed the same kindly natures before _he_ commenced trading
with them. The only evidence of their connection with civilized life was
that they had muskets, and yet the very first tribe which possessed them
was the most fierce, implacable and relentless he met with. This
ethnological question has never yet been settled. Still it is not
singular that Stanley did not just then trouble himself with it. As long
as the difference existed and was now in his favor he was content, as
well he might be. The friendly natives at the head of these falls
assured him that he had passed the cannibal country, but they differed
materially as to the number of falls below--one making them three,
another a half dozen or more. No matter whether they were few or many,
they must be passed, though he dragged his canoes over lofty mountains
to do it.

But if the differences in the character of the natives was great, that
in the character of the scenery and aspect of the river was no less so.
The wild, fierce savages had become tame, while the gently flowing
river, studded with green islands, had become wild and fierce and angry.
The gradually descending plain was transformed into the terrific gorge
over which hung beetling cliffs, and the placid current into a roaring
torrent dashing amid rocks, plunging over precipices, and filling the
solitudes with an ever-angry voice. Hostile savages were behind, but
hostile nature was before the adventurers, to whom there would be no
rest till they found the restless sea.

Immediately before them were two stretches of rapids and then a
cataract. The first was a mere piece of broken water that was easily
passed. Having no fear of hostile natives, Stanley leisurely explored
both river and shore to ascertain the best way of getting around the
second rapids. The goods, asses, women and children were taken overland,
while the boats were led with hawsers from rock to rock along the shore.
Fortunately not a rope broke, and by five o'clock the rapids were passed
and all were in camp together.

The last of the rapids Stanley declared to be the wildest stretch of
water he had ever seen. For four miles the river looked as if thrown
upward by volcanic action beneath and at the same time swept by a fierce
hurricane above, and all the while it was dashing madly on at the rate
of thirty miles an hour. Huge troughs would be formed, as if the stream
was yawning asunder, and then the divided water would come together with
a crash, sending up columns twenty feet high to dissolve in foam and
spray. The crash of colliding waves and the steady roar of the rapids
were awful. It was literally a "hell of waters." The land carriage
around this wild stretch was a rough piece of work. Paths of brushwood
were made, and the canoes slowly hauled up rocky heights and slid down
into deep gullies--the women and children toiling after. They were
nearly four days getting around this four miles of impassable rapids.
The men were fainting for want of food when smooth water was at last
reached. This, however, continued but a short distance, when they had to
take to land again and haul their boats over a rocky point for
three-quarters of a mile. This task took three days to accomplish. When
it is remembered that one of the canoes was eighty-five feet long, and
another seventy-five and dug out of a solid tree, we can get some
conception of the tremendous effort it required to transport them over
rocks and hills. When smooth water was again reached, it gave them only
a short respite. Stanley, however, found it necessary to halt and give
the people rest, for the tremendous strain of the last week was telling
fearfully on them.

On the 25th, they found themselves once more confronted by ugly rapids.
In endeavoring to lead the boats around them, the best canoe was dragged
by the mere force of the current from the hands of fifty men and whirled
down the mad stream and dashed to pieces. Toiling amid the rocks several
men were injured, one having his shoulder dislocated, while Stanley fell
into a chasm thirty feet deep, but fortunately struck on his feet, and
thus escaped with some slight bruises, though he was very much stunned.
On the 27th, they succeeded in getting past this "cauldron," as it was
called, although they narrowly escaped losing their largest canoe. The
next day they had smooth water for a short distance and then they came
to "Rocky Falls." These, however, were passed with comparative ease and
two men were sent forward to explore. They reported, on their return,
that about a mile below was another cataract, and that at its head was
an excellent camping place in a sheltered bay. Stanley determined to
reach this spot before dark, and so, manning his seventeen remaining
canoes, he led the way, hugging the shore, so as not to get into the
suction of the water above the falls. All were told to follow him and by
no means to venture out into the middle of the stream. Keeping close to
the right bank, he felt his way carefully onward and at last floated
into the tranquil bay, at the head of the fall. Three canoes followed
him, and as he was waiting for the others to come in he saw, to his
horror, the largest canoe in midstream and coming down like a
race-horse. Kalulu had charge of this, and deceived by the smooth,
glassy surface of the stream, he had pulled out into midcurrent. The
moment he was caught by it his doom and that of the four men with him
was sealed. There was nothing to be done by those on shore but to watch
the swiftly-gliding boat till it shot over the edge of the falls to
disappear in the tumult below. Three of the men were Stanley's especial
favorites, and he felt their loss keenly. While his eyes was yet resting
on the spot where they had gone down, another canoe shot in sight,
driving straight for the falls. Fortunately, it struck them at the least
dangerous point and went over safely, then, skillfully working the canoe
toward the shore, its two inmates sprang overboard and swam to land.
Stanley immediately dispatched his boat's crew up-stream to tell the
rest to hug the shore, and in no case to venture out into the stream.
Before they reached the canoes, another one, with only the lad Soudi,
shot by, he crying, as he was borne swiftly onward, "There is but one
God--I am lost, master," and the next moment he too dropped out of
sight. Strange to say, though the canoe was whirled about at the bottom
like a spinning-top, it did not sink, and was finally swept out of sight
behind an island. The rest of the canoes arrived safely.

[Illustration: DEATH OF KALULU.]

The next day Stanley sent Frank to bring over the goods to where he was
encamped, while he himself traded with the natives, whom he found very
friendly, and from whom he obtained abundant provisions. After resting
one day, they got everything round the falls and encamped on the 1st of
April. In the afternoon, to the surprise and joy of all, young Soudi
walked into camp. He had a strange story to tell. He was borne
helplessly down the rapids, confused and dizzy, till at last the boat
drifted against a rock, when he jumped out and got on shore. Before he
had time to think where he was, he was seized from behind and pinioned,
and dragged to the top of the mountain by two men, who stripped and
examined him with great curiosity. The next day several of the tribe
came to see him, one of whom had been in Stanley's camp when King Itsi
visited it, and he told such terrible stories about Stanley and of his
gun that could shoot all day, that they became frightened and took
Soudi back to the place where they had found him, and told him to speak
well of them. The other two men who had gone safely over the fall, and
also joined the camp.

Proceeding on down-stream they came to more rapids, in passing which
they met many narrow escapes. It was, indeed, a succession of rapids,
and while Stanley conducted the boats through them, Frank took the rest
of the party and goods overland. The former examined every inch of the
way carefully before starting. Thus day after day passed, they
continually fighting the relentless river. Sometimes the water was too
rough to admit the passage of the boats, and then they had to be carried
overland. It was slow and tedious work, and but little progress was
made. The question each one kept asking himself was, how long will this
last and when shall we see smooth water again?

Each day was but the repetition of its predecessor, and if the natives
had been as hostile as those farther up the river, they could not have
got on at all. The only variation was when the river took some new whim
or the formation of the country required more effort and new modes of
getting on. Thus one day they undertook to lead the canoes by hawsers
around a rocky point where the eddies set up-stream with the strength
and velocity of a torrent, so that it seemed impossible to get them
down-stream. To add to the difficulty, the cliffs on the top of which
the men with the hawsers stood, were fifty feet high and their jagged
edges sawed the ropes till they parted one after another.

So creeping along the shore to-day, and daring the midstream, which,
though boisterous, was clear of rocks, to-morrow, they kept on, hoping
after the next stretch to reach a quiet flowing river. The Lady Alice
fared hard in this perilous navigation, and once came near being lost.
All this time the resources of the expedition were being exhausted, for
though the natives were friendly everything had to be paid for, and it
was not difficult to answer the question, "How long will our remaining
currency last?"

The next rapids they came to Stanley named the "Lady Alice Rapids,"
because, as we suppose, both he and the boat escaped almost by a miracle
from sharing one sad fate in the wild and mad waters of the Livingstone.
The cables lashed to bow and stern, to let the boat down, parted, or
were snatched from the hands on shore, and away she dashed down the
foaming current. Above, the naked cliffs rose three hundred feet
high--around boiled and tossed the tumultuous waters, and certain
destruction seemed to await the man who had triumphed over so many
obstacles and who at last was nearing the goal of his ambition. The
Arabs, whose life depended on his life, were in despair--their master
was gone--there was no one left to lead them out of this strange
wilderness. Nothing but the coolness of Stanley saved him and his crew.
Watching every change in the flow of the current--resigning himself to
the wild will of the mad waters when struggling was useless--taking
advantage of every favorable change of the current and bidding his men
row for life at the right time, he at length reached shore, and at once
sent messengers to his despairing camp to tell them he was safe. He
knew, and they knew, that all their lives hung on his. He had a narrow
escape, and the natives on shore, as they watched his boat flung about
like a cockle-shell in the boiling surge, looked upon him as lost.

If Stanley wanted any new proof of the affection of his Arabs for him,
he had it now. He had been able, after his fierce struggle with the
rapids and being carried, in the meantime, over one fall, to reach land
at least two miles below his camp, in which he was looked upon as lost.
When, therefore, the message was received that he was alive and safe,
his followers streamed forth in one confused mass, and hastening down
the river, came in a long, straggling line in sight of Stanley, waving
their arms on high, shouting words of welcome and overwhelming him with
expressions of exuberant joy. This involuntary outburst of feeling and
gratitude that their "master" was safe, repaid him tenfold for all the
suffering and peril he had endured. It is strange, when such momentous
results hang on a single life, how we go on as though nothing depended
upon it till the moment comes when we are about losing it.

The men, women and children had joined in this grand exodus to
congratulate Stanley on his deliverance from what appeared certain
death, and the men now returned to bring the goods to this point where
the new camp was pitched. Not twenty rods from it the Nikenke River came
foaming and tumbling into the Livingstone from a precipice one thousand
feet high, with a terrific roar and rumble. Almost as near, another
tributary dashed over a ledge four hundred feet high, while just above
was the wild rapids he had just passed, and just below another stretch
of swift and tumbling water. The din of these surrounding cataracts made
a fearful, terrific music in these mysterious solitudes, and awakened
strange feelings in Stanley, as he lay and listened and wondered what
would come next.

The sharp crash of the near cataract tumbling from its height of a
thousand feet, the low rumble of the lower fall and the deep boom of the
mighty river made up a grand diapason there in the wilds of Central
Africa. West from the great lakes the continent seemed to stretch in one
vast plateau, across which the river moved in placid strength, its
gently sweeping current parted with beautiful islands, that filled the
air with perfume exhaled from countless flowers and tropical plants, and
making a scene of loveliness that intoxicated the senses. But all this
was marred by the presence of blood-thirsty cannibals, whose war-drums
and savage cries filled this world of beauty with terrific sounds and
nameless fears. But the moment the stream reached the edge of this
plateau, where man seemed to become more human, it rolled into cataracts
and rapids, down a steep incline, till it came to the sea. Canoes were
upset and lost, and men were barely saved from death by expert swimming
during these fearful days, and yet Stanley could get no reliable
information from the natives how far down this remorseless stretch of
water extended. This terrible struggle, which the party underwent, and
the exhausting nature of their work may be faintly imagined when it is
stated that for thirty-seven consecutive days they _made less than a
mile a day_. It was a constant succession of rapids from the middle of
March to the latter part of April.

At length, on the 22d, they came to the "big cataract," called by the
natives Inkisi, which Stanley fondly believed would be the last. The
table-land here is one thousand feet high, and the natives occupying it
flocked into Stanley's camp, curious to know how he was to get his
canoes past the falls. When he told them he was going to drag them over
that table-land one thousand feet high, they looked at him in speechless
astonishment. His own men were thunderstruck when he announced to them
his determination. But they had become so accustomed to believe he
could do anything he resolved upon, that they silently acquiesced. The
natives, as they looked at the heavy canoes and then on the lofty
height, with its steep, craggy ascent, took their departure and began to
climb back to their homes to secure their property, for they said, if
the white man intended to fly his boats over the mountains, they did not
know what terrible things might next happen.

Having settled on the undertaking, Stanley immediately set to work to
carry it out, and the first day built a road nearly a mile long. The
next day the Lady Alice and a small canoe were resting on the high
summit. The work was done so quietly and without any disastrous results
to life and property, that the native chiefs were dumb with admiration
and offered to bring six hundred men next day to help haul up the heavy
canoes. They kept their word, and soon boats and baggage were in camp on
the top of the mountain. Sending off a party ten miles ahead to prepare
the natives for his coming, Stanley took the women and children, with
the goods and boat's crew, on to the next tribe to make a camp near the
river, for the purpose of exploring the defile through which he was
finally to work his way.

He had found many articles of English make among the natives, showing
that he was approaching the coast from which these must have been
obtained. They had not, however, been brought there by traders, but had
worked their way up from market to market along the river. The sight of
them was encouraging to the members of the expedition who were getting
worn out, while disease also prevailed to a large extent and threatened
to increase. Still they might be a great way off from the coast yet, in
time if not in distance, if they continued to make but one mile a day.
Hence Stanley had to be very economical in everything, especially in the
use of meat, though the constant and terrible mental and physical strain
on him made it necessary that he should have the most nourishing food.
For lack of this in a simple form, he concocted a dish out of
vegetables, fruit and oil, which proved to him a great benefit.



CHAPTER XXV.

EXPERIENCES BY THE WAY.


It was the 29th of April when Stanley gave his last instructions to his
Arab chiefs about getting the canoes down the mountain to Nzabi, the
home of the next tribe west. On his way he entered a magnificent
forest--the tall and shapely trees of which reminded him of his early
wanderings in the wilds of Arkansas and on our western frontiers. It was
not strange, while looking at them, that he should be reminded of the
"dug-outs" of the Indians which he had so often seen, and that the
thought should occur to him to make some canoes, to take the place of
those which he had lost in the passage of the rapids and falls above. It
seems as if his early life had prepared him especially for all the
contingencies that were to occur in his long and varied explorations in
Africa. After thinking the matter over a short time, he resolved that
the boats should be built, and having obtained permission of the chief
of the district, he at once commenced operations. The first tree
selected was more than three feet in diameter and ran up sixty feet
straight before it reached a limb. As soon as it was prone on the ground
the men were set to work in sections upon it, and in a week it was
finished. In a week more another was completed, measuring forty-five
feet in length and eighteen inches deep. All this time the canoes were
advancing over the land at the rate of a little more than a third of a
mile a day, and finally they reached camp the day before the second boat
was finished.

Things, however, had gone badly in the camp on the mountain-top after
Stanley left, for the Arabs, following their apparently natural
propensity, began to steal. One man, who had been caught in the act, was
seized and made a prisoner by the natives who resolved to keep him as a
slave. Stanley spent an entire day negotiating for his redemption, and
finally had to give one hundred and fifty dollars' worth of cloth to get
him released. It was plain that he could not afford to redeem many men
at this price, and he distinctly told them that if after this any of
them were caught stealing, they would be left in the hands of the
natives, to be held as slaves for life. A terrible punishment, yet as it
proved not great enough to deter them from committing the same crime
afterwards, as opportunity offered.

The labor of the men engaged in hauling the canoes over the high
mountain had been so great, that Stanley felt that some days of rest
were demanded to recuperate them. But as idleness was always the
fruitful source of all kinds of evil with the Arabs, he determined to
keep the men who had hewed out the two boats still at work, and set
them to making a third canoe.

The chief of this district now informed Stanley, greatly to his surprise
and disappointment, that there were five falls immediately below him,
while how many lay between these and the sea no one could tell. No
matter; he must still move on, and, for the present, cling to the river
on account of the sick, if for no other reason.

On the 18th, he sent off a man to get some axes repaired by a native
blacksmith. While the latter was engaged in the work, a spark flew from
the anvil against the body of one of his children playing near by,
burning him slightly. The enraged man asserted that the accident was
owing to a wicked charm of the stranger, and, running out, he beat the
war-drum, at which the excited natives assembled in great fury, and the
poor Arab was in danger of immediate immolation, when the chief happened
to arrive and saved him.

On May 22d, the great teak canoe, the third which had been built, and
which Stanley named Livingstone, was launched in the creek just above
its entrance into the river amid the shouts of the natives. It could
carry forty-six people. So far as means of transportation was concerned,
Stanley was now at ease--but would there ever be a peaceful river on
which these twelve canoes could float?

It was now the 22d of May, and since the 24th of February there had
been forty rainy days, and hence for the month they had been working
their slow, tedious way over the ridges and mountains, the river had
been continually rising and now, more than eleven feet above its usual
height, it was rolling in a grand, resistless flood through the gorges.
Thunder and lightning had accompanied the storms, lighting up the wild
river, drowning its fierce roar and drenching the wanderers, till it
seemed as if heaven itself was leagued with the natives and the
cataracts to drive them to despair and to destruction. The river was
still rising, and the rush and roar of the waters were only less
terrific than the deafening thunder-peels that shook the chasm in which
they were confined. Still they must move on, even though it should be to
greater horrors and more desperate conditions and a darker fate. So on
the 23d of May they set out, and carrying around a short fall in the
creek on the banks of which they had been encamping, and ascending a
mountain, they pushed slowly on for three miles over a plateau--the sick
and suffering complaining bitterly, while the well were almost ready to
give out and die then and there on the shores of the river. Every fall
was expected to be the last, and yet each proved the forerunner only of
a worse one to come.

From this creek Stanley led those of the expedition who could walk to
the head of the Mowwa Falls. Frank, whose lame foot did not permit him
to walk, took the Lady Alice, followed by the canoes, out of the mouth
of the creek, to coast carefully along down the river to the same
camping-place. In the meantime, Stanley, who had arrived first, took a
long and anxious survey of the terrific scene before him. At the head of
the falls, where he stood on a grassy plot, a ledge of rock twelve feet
high ran straight across the river like a wall for a mile and a quarter
and then stopped. From the end to the opposite shore it was a clear
space of a little more than a quarter of a mile, through which the
compressed river rushed with a strength and shout and fury that were
appalling. This wall of rock, however, was not solid--here and there it
was cut through as if by some mighty blow, making separate channels that
had a fall of twelve feet. Below, as far as the eye could reach,
treeless mountains arose nearly a mile into the heavens, while halfway
up from the mad river, that tore with the sound of thunder along their
bases, perpendicular cliffs stood walling in this awful embodiment of
power.

A scene of more utter desolation cannot be imagined than was here
presented to his view in this solitary spot. The camp seemed a mere
speck amid these gigantic outlines of mountain and river. As he thus
looked and listened, awe-struck and subdued, he saw Frank in the Lady
Alice coming through the rapids at a terrific pace. This was the first
time Frank had attempted such a feat, and he got confused, and was
finally thrown into the worst part of the rapids, and in his frantic
struggles to release himself, he struck a rock and stove a hole six
inches square into the boat. However, all were landed in safety, though
Stanley mourned greatly over the severe injury to his boat, which thus
far had escaped all harm. It took him a whole day to repair it. Two days
after, the goods were transferred below and the boats dropped carefully
through the ledge near the shore, where the water was less rough, and
reached the camp below the great falls in safety.

While resting here there occurred one of the most interesting scenes of
this whole remarkable journey. In the transportation of goods over the
mountains robberies of beads, etc., had been committed, and now the last
man in the whole party Stanley would wish to have accused of theft was
found guilty--the noble, brave, reliable and kind Uledi. True as steel
in the hour of danger, quiet, obedient, thinking nothing of his life if
Stanley asked him to risk it, he had yet stolen--not things of ordinary
value, but that on which their very existence might depend. Cloth was
getting so plenty among the natives that its value was very much
decreased, but beads were worth ten times their weight in gold, and
these Uledi had stolen and hidden in his mat. Of course this must be
stooped at all hazards and at whatever sacrifice, still Stanley would
almost as soon have lost his hand as to leave Uledi, as he had
threatened he would the next man he caught stealing, in the hands of the
savages as a slave forever. He therefore called the chiefs together and
made them a speech, in which he clearly showed them that their lives
depended on putting a stop to theft, for if they were left without
anything to buy provisions with they all would inevitably perish of
famine before they reached the sea. He also asked them what should be
done with Uledi, on whom stolen goods had been found.

The principal chief would not answer for some time, but being urged to
give his opinion said at last: It was very hard, seeing it was Uledi.
Had it been anybody else he declared he would vote to pitch him into the
river, but now he gave his vote for flogging. The rest of the chiefs
concurred with him. Stanley then turned to the boat's crew, of which
Uledi was coxswain and by whom he was dearly loved. The principal one
and the most relied on, the watchman of the boat, replied, "Ah, it is a
hard question, master. He is like our elder brother; but, as the fathers
of the people have spoken, be it so; yet, for our sakes, master, beat
him _just a little_." He next accosted Zaidi, by whose side Uledi had
clung all night in the midst of the cataract, and had saved his life by
risking his own. He replied, "Remember it is Uledi, master." Next he
addressed Uledi's brother, who cried "Spare Uledi, but, if he must be
flogged, give me half of it, I shall not feel it if it is for Uledi."
Last of all he asked the poor culprit's cousin, when he replied in a
speech that the London Athenæum, in quoting it, said would stand beside
that of Jeanie Dean's when pleading for her sister. It occurred thus:

The poor fellow asked, "Will the master give his slave liberty to
speak?" "Yes," replied Stanley. He then came forward, and kneeling
before him and clasping his feet with his hands, said: "The master is
wise. All things that happen he writes in a book. Each day there is
something written. We black men know nothing, neither have we any
memory. What we saw yesterday is to-day forgotten. Yet the master
forgets nothing. Perhaps, if the master will look into his book, he may
see something in it about Uledi. How Uledi behaved on Lake Tanganika;
how he rescued Zaidi from the cataract; how he has saved many men, whose
names I cannot remember, from the river--Bill Ali, Mabruki, Kom-kusi and
others. How he worked harder on the canoe than any three men; how he has
been the first to listen to your voice always; how he has been the
father of the boat-boys. With Uledi, master, the boat-boys are good and
ready, without him they are nothing. Uledi is Shumari's brother. If
Uledi is bad, Shumari is good. Uledi is my cousin. If, as the chiefs
say, Uledi should be punished, Shumari says he will take half of the
punishment; then give Saywa the other half, and set Uledi free. Saywa
has spoken."

All this was uttered in a low, humble tone, with his head bowed to
Stanley's feet. Stanley could not resist such an appeal, and said: "Very
well, Uledi, by the voice of the people, is condemned; but as Shumari
and Saywa have promised to take the punishment on themselves, Uledi is
set free and Shumari and Saywa are pardoned." The moment the poor fellow
was set free, he stepped forward and said: "Master, it was not Uledi who
stole--it was the devil which entered into his heart."

This touching scene is given, not merely for its pathos, but because
these untutored natives, here in the wilds of Africa, illustrated the
principles that lie at the very foundation of the Christian religion.
First, they recognized the great fundamental doctrine of atonement--of
expiation--the suffering of the innocent in the place of the guilty, by
which the offender can be pardoned. In the second place, Uledi uttered
over again the sentiments of Paul--when a man's whole nature revolts at
the wrong he has done, and hates himself for it, it is not he that
commits it, but "sin that dwelleth in him," when he would do good, evil
was present with him. It was a happy termination of the affair, for it
would have been a cruel act to have had the noble, true, unselfish and
brave Uledi suffer the indignity of a whip.

Another scene occurred, while in camp, that shows on what an
insignificant, nay, ridiculous, thing the fate of a great expedition may
turn. One day, Stanley being at leisure took out his note-book and began
to write, as was his custom when he had a few hours to himself. The
natives who flocked into camp in great numbers daily, noticed him and
began to whisper among themselves. The crowd around him gradually
increased and began to be strangely agitated, as the word "tara tara"
passed from lip to lip, and presently, as if seized by a single impulse,
they all ran away. Stanley merely observed the fact without stopping to
think what the cause of this sudden abandonment of the camp might be. He
therefore went on writing, when suddenly he was startled by loud
war-cries ringing far and near over the mountain top, and, two hours
after, he saw between five and six hundred natives fully armed rushing
down the table-land toward the camp. He quickly mustered his men to be
prepared for what seemed an unprovoked attack, but determined, if
possible, to avoid a collision. He therefore advanced toward them as
they drew near, and, sitting down on the ground, in a friendly tone
asked what it all meant and why they had come in such a warlike manner
to their friends. A large savage, acting as spokesman, replied that they
had seen him make marks on some "tara tara." Those black lines he had
drawn on paper, he said, would bring sickness and death and utter ruin
on the land, and the people, and animals, unless the book containing
them was burnt up.

Here was an unexpected dilemma. He must burn up that note-book or fight
these five or six hundred armed, desperate savages. But that note-book,
the gathered results of nearly three years of exploration, was the most
precious thing on earth to him. He was astounded and sorely perplexed at
the strange demand--burn up that note-book! He might as well burn up
himself. Even if he could remember his main adventures, he could not
recall all the observations, plans of maps and routes, and statistics of
every kind it contained, and without which the whole expedition was a
failure. No, he could not give it up, but what then--fight one against
four, all armed with muskets, to retain it? Suppose he could put them to
rout, it could not be done without a serious loss of life to himself as
well as to them. But this was not the worst of it--with the natives
friendly and aiding him as they had done, and supplying him with
provisions, it would be almost a miracle if he ever reached the
sea-shore; but with them hostile, even if he could fight his way through
them, he would certainly perish from famine, for he could obtain no
provisions, without which, he and the book would perish together. But,
still, he could not give up that book, and he turned over in his mind
every conceivable plan of averting the catastrophe. Finally, he told
them to wait a moment, while, in the meantime, he stepped back to his
tent as if to fetch it.

All at once it occurred to him that he might substitute another book for
it, if, among his scant collection, he could find one at all resembling
it. Turning them over, he came across a volume of Shakespeare of just
about the same size. True the binding was different, but those savages
knew as little of the peculiar binding of a book as they did of its
contents. Besides it lay open on Stanley's knee when they saw it, and
they observed only the black lines. However, the attempt to pass it off
on these wild savages for the real book was worth making. So taking it
in his hand, he walked back to where they stood with ferocious looks
waiting for his decision, and handing it to them, told them to take it.
No, they would not touch it, he must burn it. Well, Stanley said, he
would do anything to please such good friends as they were. So together
they went to a camp-fire near by, and solemnly consigned poor
Shakespeare to the flames.

The natives were delighted at this evidence of Stanley's good-will, and
became faster friends than ever. What he would have done had it come to
the issue--burn that note-book or fight--he does not tell us.

The river had been thoroughly explored for two miles below where they
were encamped to the head of Zinga Falls. It was a rough, wild stretch
of water, but it was thought it might be passed safely by using great
caution and keeping out of the midstream rapids. At all events, Stanley
had determined to try it first himself in his own boat--a resolution
that nearly cost him his life. The next day, the 3d of June, the attempt
was to be made, and Frank passed the evening in Stanley's tent in great
spirits, talking and singing songs of merry old England. He was always
singing, and most of the time religious songs which he had learned at
home. The wilds of Africa had equalized these men, and they held sweet
communion together this last night on the banks of the wild river. Frank
seemed unusually exhilarated, little dreaming, alas, that the next night
his lifeless body would be tossing amid the rocks that lined the bed of
the fierce torrent below--his merry songs all hushed--nevermore to while
away the weary hours in this dreary solitude of Africa or brighten the
life of his England home.



CHAPTER XXVI.

DEATH OF FRANK POCOKE.


Frank Pocoke, as stated previously, joined the expedition under Stanley
as a servant, and his brother had fallen at what proved to be the mere
outset of the real main expedition, subsequently Frank, by his
intelligence, geniality, ability and courage, and perhaps quite as much
by the necessity of companionship that Stanley felt the need of in that
wild region, and which only a white, civilized man could furnish, had
risen above the position he had taken till Stanley looked upon him more
as a friend than as a servant. This was natural; he was the only man he
could talk with in English; the only man who had the taste and manners
of civilized life; the only one who in the long halt could in any way be
his companion; and, more than all, the only man who could certainly be
depended on to stand by him in the hour of danger to the last, and fall,
if fall they must, side by side. Whoever else might prove false in these
vast untrodden solitudes, Frank Pocoke, he well knew, would not be one
of them. Under such circumstances and conditions, Stanley would not have
been the true man he is if he had not lifted the servant up to the
place of a friend. It was therefore but natural that in the long mental
discussion at Ziangwe as to whether he should return or choose some
other route than through the hostile tribes whose territory the waters
of the Lualaba washed, or push on at all hazards by following its
current to the sea, that he should take his quondam servant into his
confidence and they should together talk over all the probabilities of
the different routes to be adopted. In another place we have shown what
those difficulties were, and what the real or imaginable obstacles were
that confronted Stanley if he determined to follow the Lualaba at all
hazards to the sea.

In speaking of the death of young Pocoke, we wish to show what influence
he had at last in fixing the determination that led to his own death and
to Stanley's fame as an explorer. One day, while Stanley was discussing
with Pocoke the wisest course to pursue, the latter said: "Mr. Stanley,
suppose we toss up, to determine whether we shall follow the Lualaba as
far as the Lowra, and then strike off for Monbruto, or follow it to the
sea?"

Stanley, who had become almost indifferent as to whether one course or
the other would end his life, agreed, and a toss-up was made, the result
being on the side of following the river to the sea. The drawing of
straws was then resorted to. Three trials of chances were made, and the
decision of fate, as proposed by Pocoke, was to follow the river to the
sea. He little thought that accidental toss was a toss-up for his own
life, and that so trivial an affair settled his fate forever. We know
what was Stanley's final decision, and though he does not acknowledge
that this trial by chances had any effect on his final determination,
the experience of human nature, since the world began, proves that it
must have had. Even Napoleon, who believed that Providence was on the
side of the strong battalions, had an equally strong belief in his
"star." While it, doubtless, did have more or less influence on Stanley,
it did not weaken his faith in the "strong battalions," which was, in
his case, a wise provision, so far as he could make it, against all
possible and probable contingencies.

We have said thus much to show the real relations that Frank Pocoke at
last sustained to the expedition. In the long and terrible march through
the gloomy forest after leaving Zywague, and before finally launching on
the Lualaba, to quit it no more till they reached the sea or lay at rest
forever on its solitary banks, Pocoke's shoes had become completely worn
out. In traversing, half-barefoot, the tangled undergrowth, they had at
last given out entirely, and the result was his feet became chafed, and
at last, through constant irritation, caused by the necessity of
hastening forward at all hazards, the abrasions that would have healed,
could they have made a short halt, became ulcers, so that when they
again struck the Lualaba he was unable to walk any farther, and Stanley
said that if at any time they would have to leave the river and carry
around rapids, Frank would have to be carried also. Stanley always led
the way over the rapids and selected the paths for hauling around the
canoes, while Pocoke superintended the soldiers, distributed the
rations, etc. But now he was placed on the sick-list.

On the morning of the 3d of June, they came to the Mowwa Falls, around
which they must carry and the men shouldered the goods and baggage and
started overland for Zinga, three miles distant, while Stanley attempted
to run two small falls, named Massesse and Massassa, with the boat's
crew. Hugging the shore for about three-quarters of a mile, they came at
last to a lofty cliff, against which the tide threw the down-rushing
stream back in such fury that great whirlpools were formed and they
steered for the centre of the river and endeavored to stem the tide, but
failed. After fighting fiercely against the raging of whirlpools, they
tried again to advance in another direction, when Stanley discovered
that his boat was fast filling with water, while the surface became
still more terribly agitated at a point toward which he had been
unconsciously drifting. The danger now became imminent. Shouting to the
men to leave off bailing and pull for life for the shore, he threw off
his coat, belt and shoes, to be in readiness to swim when the boat
should capsize, as he expected it would. A wild whirlpool was near the
boat and for a moment it seemed certain that it would drift into the
vortex. But by a strong effort it was forced away and they pulled for
shore. By the time they had reached it, the leaky boat was half-full of
water. Finding it impossible to proceed in it he returned to Mowwa
Falls, and after a short rest took a canoe and tried to proceed. But
while he was talking with Pocoke, the crew had scattered, and as those
who had gone to Zinga had not returned, he determined to go overland and
look after the goods, and leave to his chief captain, Manwa Sera, the
supervision of the passage of the falls. He told him to first send
forward a reserve canoe with short ropes fastened to the sides. "The
crew," he said, "will pick their way carefully down the river until near
the falls, then let the men judge for themselves whether they are able
to take the canoe farther. Above all things stick to the shore and do
not play with the river." He then bade Pocoke good-bye, saying he would
send him his breakfast immediately with hammock bearers, shook hands and
turned to climb the mountain toward the camp.

Sending back the breakfast as he had promised, he paid a visit to the
kings of Zinga. Becoming anxious about the boats, as this was the first
time he had ever permitted any one but himself to lead the way in any
dangerous part of the river, he about three o'clock took his glass and
going to the shore began to look up the river that came tearing out of
the mountain like a wild animal and shaking the shores with its loud
thunder. Suddenly he saw something black tossing amid the turbulent
water. Scanning it closely, he saw it was an upturned canoe and to its
sides several men were clinging. He instantly dispatched two chiefs and
ten men to a bend toward which the wreck was drifting. The crew,
however, knowing there was another cataract just below, attempted to
right the boat and save themselves; but, unable to do so, got on the
keel and began to paddle for dear life with their hands toward the
shore. As they got near the far bank, he saw them jump off the boat and
swim for shore. They had hardly reached it when the overturned boat shot
by Stanley like an arrow and with one fierce leap dashed over the brink
of the cataract and disappeared in the foam and tumult below. In a few
minutes a messenger arrived out of breath, saying that eleven men were
in that canoe, only eight of whom were saved--the other three being
drowned, one of whom was Pocoke. Stanley turned fiercely on Uledi, his
coxswain, and demanded how he came to let Pocoke, a lame man, go in the
rescue canoe. "Ah, master," he replied, "we could not help it, he would
not wait. He said, 'since the canoe is going to camp I will go too. I am
hungry and cannot wait any longer. I cannot walk and I do not want you
to carry me, that the natives may all laugh at me. No, I will go with
you;' and refusing to listen to Captain Manwa Sera, who remonstrated
with him, he got in and told us to cast off. We found no trouble in
forcing our way against the back current. We struck the down current,
and when we were near the fall I steered her into the cove to take a
good look at it first. When I had climbed over the rocks and stood over
it, I saw that it was a bad place--that it was useless to expect any
canoe to go over it without capsizing, and I went to the little master
and told him so. He would not believe me, but sent other men to report
on it. They told the same story: that the fall could not be passed by
shooting over it in a canoe. Then he said we were always afraid of a
little water and that we were no men. 'All right,' I said, 'if you say
cast off I am ready. I am not afraid of any water, but if anything
happens my master will be angry with me.' 'Cast off,' the little master
said, 'nothing will happen; am I not here?' You could not have counted
ten, master, before we were all sorry. The cruel water caught us and
tossed and whirled us about and shot us here and shot us there, and the
noise was fearful. Suddenly the little master shouted 'Look out! take
hold of the ropes! and he was tearing his shirt off when the canoe,
which was whirling round and round with its bow in the air, was dragged
down, down, down, until I thought my chest would burst; then we were
shot out into daylight again and took some breath. The little master and
two of the men were not to be seen, but soon I saw the little master
with his face upward but insensible. I instantly struck out for him to
save him, but we were both taken down again and the water seemed to be
tearing my legs away; but I would not give in; I held my breath hard
then and I came to the surface, but the little master was gone forever.
This is my story, master." Stanley then examined the men separately, to
ascertain if it were true and found it was. This man was brave but not
foolhardy, and the best and most reliable in the whole party.

[Illustration: DROWNING OF FRANK POCOKE.]

Stanley very briefly expressed the sadness and loneliness of his
feelings that night as he sat and looked on the empty tent of young
Pocoke, but no language can express the utter desolation of his
situation. His position, surroundings, prospects, all combined to spread
a pall black as midnight over his spirit and fill his heart with the
gloomiest forebodings. Sitting alone in the heart of a country never
before trod by the foot of a white man, on the banks of a mysterious
river, on whose bosom he was to be borne he knew not where, the gloomy
forest stretching away beyond him, the huts of strange natives behind
him, the water in deep shadows rushing by, on whose foam and whirlpools
his friend had gone down, and whose body then lay tossing amid the
broken rocks, the strangely silent tropical sky, brilliant with stars,
bending over him, the thoughts of home and friends far away caused a sad
and solemn gathering of emotions and feelings around his heart till they
rushed over it like that rushing water, and made him inconceivably sad
there in the depths of the forest. With no one to talk to in his native
tongue, no one to counsel with, without one friend on whom he could
rely, left all alone to meet the unknown future, was to be left desolate
indeed. Before, he knew there was one arm on which he always could lean,
one stout, brave heart that would stand unflinchingly by his side in the
deadliest peril, share all his dangers, and go cheerfully to the very
gates of death with him. But now he was alone, with none but natives
around him, with whom he must meet all the unknown dangers of the
untrodden wilderness before him--perhaps be buried by them in the gloomy
forest or left to be devoured by cannibals. It was enough to daunt the
bravest spirit, appall the stoutest heart, and that lonely night on the
banks of the Lualaba will live in Stanley's memory forever.

Stanley pronounced a high eulogium on his young friend, saying that he
was a true African explorer--he seemed to like the dangers and even the
sufferings of the expedition, so well did they harmonize with his
adventurous spirit. Quick and resolute, he was always docile and in the
heat and excitement of battle would obey Stanley's slightest wish with
alacrity. He seemed fitted for an explorer; no danger daunted him, no
obstacle discouraged him, while his frame, though slight, was tough and
sinewy, and he was capable of undergoing any amount of labor and could
endure the heaviest strain. He had so endeared himself to Stanley that
the latter said, in a letter to young Pocoke's parents, that his death
took away all the joy and exultation he should otherwise have felt in
accomplishing the great task the two had undertaken together.



CHAPTER XXVII.

THE COMPLETED WORK.


The next morning Stanley arose with a sad and heavy heart; the cruel,
relentless river seemed more remorseless than ever, and its waves flowed
on with an angrier voice that seemed full of hate and defiance.

Eighty men were still behind, at Mowwa, and the next day word reached
Stanley that they had mutinied, declaring they would follow the river no
longer, for death was in it. He, borne down with his great loss, paid no
attention to the report, and stayed and mourned for his friend for three
days before he set out for Mowwa. He found the men sullen, sad and
reckless. It would be strange, however, if he could not regain his old
influence, which, after much effort, he did. But he did not get all down
to Zinga till after four days. Meantime Frank's body had been found
floating, face upward, some distance below the falls. All the canoes did
not reach Zinga till the 19th, more than a fortnight after Frank's
death.

On June 20th Stanley began to make preparations to continue on down the
river. There had been terribly hard work in passing and getting round
the falls where Frank lost his life, but the worst of it was, when they
had succeeded, they seemed to have just begun their labors, for it had
all to be repeated again. The men had lost all spirit and did not seem
to care what became of them; and so, when on the 20th Stanley ordered
the men to their work to lay brushwood along the tracks marked out for
hauling the canoes from the Pocoke basin around Zinga point into the
basin beyond, the men seemed disinclined to move. Stanley, in surprise,
asked what was the matter. "We are tired of this," growled a burly
fellow, "and that's what's the matter."

Stanley soon discovered that he was not alone in his opinion, and though
once he would have quelled this spirit of rebellion with prompt,
determined action, he did not feel like using harsh measures now, or
even harsh language. He knew he had tasked them to the uttermost--that
they had followed his bidding unquestioned so far as he ought to ask
them, and so he called them together to talk with them and give them an
opportunity frankly to tell their grievances. But they had nothing to
say, except that they had gone far enough and did not mean to make
another effort. Death and famine awaited them, and they might as well
give up first as last. Stanley did not attempt even to appeal to them,
except indirectly. He simply told them that he too was hungry, and could
have had meat, but saved it for them. He too was weary and sad. They
might leave him if they chose--he had his boat still, and if he was
left alone he had but to step into it--the falls were near, and he would
soon be at rest with his friend. It is most pitiful and sad to see how
the indomitable will of this strong man had given way. The bold and
confident manner with which he set out from Nyangwe--the healthy, cheery
tone in which he addressed them when bowed down with grief at the
farewell song of Tipo-tipo's Arabs are gone, and in their place had come
a great weariness and despair. To see such a strong man forced at last
to yield, awakens the deepest sympathy. No wonder he was weary of life,
and longed to die. Under his terrible mental and physical strain of the
last six months the toughest nature must give way, while to this was
added the feebleness that comes from want of food and the utterly
dreary, hopeless prospect before him. As he stood amid his dusky
followers, his once sinewy frame looked lean and languid, and his voice
had a weary, despairing tone. The star of fame that had led him on was
gone down, and life itself had lost all its brightness, and when he had
done speaking he turned away indifferent as to the future. The men
listened, but their hungry, despairing hearts felt no sympathy. They too
had reached the point of indifference as to the future, except they
would no longer cling to that cruel river, and thirty-one packed their
baggage and filed away up the ascent and were soon lost to view. When it
was told to Stanley, he inquired how many had gone. Learning that only
thirty-one had left, and that the rest would stand by him to the last,
he roused himself, and unwilling that the faithful should perish through
the disaffection of a few men he sent messengers after the deserters to
plead with them to come back. They overtook them five miles away and
urged them to return, but in vain. Setting the faithful to work, he
dispatched two men to cut off the fugitives and to tell the chiefs not
to let them pass through their territory. They obeyed and beat the
war-drum, which so terrified the wanderers that they were glad to
return. It would seem strange that men who have been accustomed to obey
him implicitly for nearly three years, and had stood by him so staunchly
in many a fight and through countless perils, could so easily desert him
now. But despair will make even a wise man mad, and these poor creatures
had got into that hopeless condition which makes all men reckless.
Starting off with no definite aim in view, no point to travel toward,
shows how desperate they had become. No wonder they saw no hope in
clinging to the river, for they had now been over a month going three
miles, and it seemed worse than useless to attempt to push further in
that direction.

On the 23d of June, the work of hauling out the canoes to take them over
a hill two hundred feet high was commenced, and by noon three were
safely on the summit. Next came the Livingstone, which had been recently
made. It weighed some three tons, yet, with the aid of a hundred and
fifty natives, they had succeeded in getting it twenty feet up the bank,
when the cables parted and it shot swiftly back into the river. The
chief carpenter clung to it, and being carried beyond his depth, climbed
into it. He was only a short distance above the falls when the brave
Uledi, seeing his peril, plunged into the river and swimming to the
boat, called out to him to leap overboard instantly. The poor wretch
replied that he could not swim. "Jump," shouted Uledi, "you are drifting
toward the cataract." The terrified creature, as he cowered in the
canoe, faltered out, "I am afraid to." "Well, then," said Uledi, "you
are lost--brother, good-bye," and struck out with all his might for the
shore. A minute's longer delay, and he, too, would have been lost, for,
though a strong swimmer, he was able, only by the most desperate effort,
to reach shore less than sixty feet from the brink of the falls. The
next minute the canoe was shooting over them into the boiling cauldron
below. Tossed up and down and whirled about, it finally went down and
was seen no more.

The next day the other boats were hauled up and then the process of
letting them down commenced. This was done in safety, when the goods
were sent overland to the Mbelo Falls beyond, while the boats should
attempt to run the rapids There was no abrupt descent, but a wild waste
of tumbling, roaring water dashing against the cliffs and rocks in
reckless fury. Stanley resolved to try them before risking his men, and
embarking in the Lady Alice, with men on shore holding cables attached
to bow and stern, he drifted slowly downward amid the rocks. The little
boat seemed a mere toy amid the awful surroundings in which it floated,
and Stanley realized as it rocked beneath him what a helpless thing it
would be in the wild and turbulent midstream. Just as he reached the
most dangerous point, one of the cables parted. The boat swung to, when
the other snapped asunder and the frightened thing was borne like a
bubble into the boiling surge and carried downward like an arrow. Down,
down, between the frowning precipices, now barely escaping a huge rock
and now lifted like a feather on the top of a wave it swept on,
apparently to certain destruction. But death had lost all its terrors to
these hard-hunted men, and the six in the boat sat resigned to their
fate. The brave Uledi, however, kept his hand on the helm and his steady
eye on the hell of waters around and before them. Sometimes caught in a
whirlpool that tossed them around and around, and then springing like a
panther down a steep incline, the boat continued to plunge on its mad
course with death on every side, until at last it shot into the Niguru
basin, when they rowed to the sandy beach of Kilanga. Here, amid the
rocks, they found the broken boat in which Pocoke went down, and the
body of one of the men who was drowned with him jammed among the
fragments.

Stanley looked back on this perilous ride with strange feelings. It
seemed as if fate, while trying him to the utmost, was determined he
should not perish, but that he should fulfill the great mission he had
undertaken. His people seemed to think so too, for when they saw his
boat break adrift and launch into the boiling rapids they gave him up
for lost; but when they caught sight of him coming toward them alive and
well, they gave way to extravagant joy and exclaimed, "it is the hand of
God--we shall reach the sea." The escape was so wonderful, almost
miraculous, that they could not but believe that God had spared him to
save them all.

They now pushed on with little trouble to Mpakambendi, the terminus of
the chasm ninety-three miles long, in which they had been struggling a
hundred and seventeen days. This simple statement conveys very little to
the ear, yet what fearful shapes does it conjure up to the imagination!
Ninety-three miles of rapids and cataracts, with only here and there a
stretch of smooth water! A mile and a quarter a day was all the progress
they had made now for nearly four months. No wonder the poor Arabs gave
up in despair and refused any longer to follow the river.

[Illustration: SHOOTING THE RAPIDS.]

Although below the chasm the stream did not flow with that placidity it
did through the cannibal region, still it did not present any dangerous
rapids, as they glided on toward the sea with new hopes. The natives
along the banks were friendly, though difficulties were constantly
arising from the thieving propensities of the Arabs. Two were seized by
the natives, and Stanley had nearly to bankrupt himself to redeem them,
on which he gave the men a talk and told them plainly that this was
positively the last time he would redeem a single prisoner seized for
theft, nor would he resort to force to rescue him.

It was now the 7th day of July, and although hope had revived in the
hearts of the people, some of the sick felt that they should never see
their native island again. Two died this day and were buried on the
banks of the river whose course they had followed so long. They now had
clear, though not smooth sailing for some nine or ten miles, when they
came to another fall. This was passed in safety, with the assistance of
the natives, who assembled in great numbers and volunteered their
services, for which they were liberally rewarded. More or less broken
water was experienced, but not bad enough to arrest the progress of the
boats. Provisions were getting scarce, and consequently the thieving
propensity of the Arabs to obtain them more actively exhibited itself,
and one man, caught while digging up roots in a garden, was held as a
prisoner. The men asked his release, but Stanley, finding that the price
which the natives asked for his redemption was far greater than his
means to pay, would not interfere and the man was left to live and die
in perpetual slavery. But this did not stop thieving, and soon another
man was caught in the act and made prisoner. This case was submitted to
the chiefs, and their decision was to let him remain in slavery. But the
men were starving, and even this terrible exhibition of the doom that
awaited them was not sufficient to deter the men from stealing food. The
demands of the stomach overrode all fears of punishment, and three or
four days after another man was detected and made a prisoner. He, too,
was left a slave in the hands of the natives. Dangerous rapids were now
and then encountered, but they were passed without accident, and Stanley
at last found that he was close to the sea. He announced the fact to his
people, who were intensely excited at the news. One man, a boatman, went
crazy over it, and, shouting "we have reached the sea, we are at home,"
rushed into the woods and was never seen again. The poor wretch,
probably, lay down at last in the forest, with the groves of Zanzibar,
in imagination, just ahead of him. Sweeping downward, frequent rapids
occurred, but the expedition kept on until it reached the district of
Kilolo.

Stanley here lay down weary and hungry, but was aroused by musket-shots.
His people, starving and desperate, had scattered about, entering every
garden they saw to get something to eat, and the natives had attacked
them. Soon wounded men were brought in, whom the natives had shot.
Several had been captured whom Stanley refused to redeem, and they were
left to pine in endless captivity, never again to see the hills of
Zanzibar, as he over and over again had promised they should.

Changing from bank to bank, as the character of the river changed, the
expedition, on the 30th of July, heard in advance the roar of the
cataract of Isingila. Here Stanley ascertained that they were but five
days' journey from Embomma, a distance always traveled by land by the
natives, on account of the obstructions in the river.

As the whole object of the expedition had been accomplished and the
short distance beyond these falls to the sea was known to Europeans, he
resolved to leave the river and march by land to Embomma. At sunset the
Lady Alice was drawn out of the water to the top of some rocks and
abandoned forever. To Stanley it was like leaving a friend behind. The
boat had been his companion for nearly three years. It had carried him
over the waters of the lakes, dashed at his bidding among hostile
canoes, rocked him to sleep amid the storms, borne him all safely over
foaming cataracts, and now it must be left ignobly to rot in the wilds
of Africa. As he turned to cast a last farewell glance on it resting
mournfully on the rocks, the poor boat had almost a human look, as if it
knew it was to be left behind and abandoned forever.

On the 1st of August, the famished, weary column took up its line of
march towards the sea--the mothers carrying infants that had been born
amid the cataracts, and the larger children trudging slowly after.
Nearly forty of the one hundred and fifteen were sick, and though it was
painful to travel, they were cheered by the promise that in four or five
days they should once more look on the sea, towards which their longing
hearts had been turned for so many weary months. Coming to a village,
the king stopped them and told them they could not pass without they
gave him a bottle of rum. Uledi, hastening up, asked Stanley what the
old man wanted. "Rum," he replied. Hitting him a severe slap in the
face, "there is rum for him," growled Uledi, as the drunken negro
tumbled over. The latter picked himself up and hurried away, and Stanley
and his worn and wasted band passed on without further molestation. It
was hard to get food, for one party would demand rum and refuse to
furnish it without, while another wanted them to wait till the next
market-day.

On the third day they reached Nsanda, the king of which told Stanley it
was but three days' march to the sea. The latter asked him if he would
carry a letter to Embomma for him. He replied no, but after four hours
of hard urging he agreed to furnish guides for three of Stanley's men.

The next day they set out, carrying the following letter:--


     VILLAGE NSANDA, August 4th, 1877.

     _To any gentleman who speaks English at Embomma_:

     DEAR SIR: I have arrived at this place from Zanzibar with one
     hundred and fifteen souls, men, women and children. We are now in a
     state of imminent starvation. We can buy nothing from the natives,
     for they laugh at our kinds of cloth, beads and wire. There are no
     provisions in the country that may be purchased except on
     market-days, and starving people cannot afford to wait for these
     markets. I therefore have made bold to dispatch three of my young
     men, natives of Zanzibar, with a boy named Robert Ferugi of the
     English mission at Zanzibar, with this letter, craving relief from
     you. I do not know you, but I am told there is an Englishman at
     Embomma, and as you are a Christian and a gentleman, I beg of you
     not to disregard my request. The boy Robert will be better able to
     describe our condition than I can tell you in a letter. We are in a
     state of the greatest distress, but, if your supplies arrive in
     time, I may be able to reach Embomma in four days. I want three
     hundred cloths, each four yards long, of such quality as you trade
     with, which is very different from that we have; but better than
     all would be ten or fifteen man-loads of rice or grain to fill
     their pinched bellies immediately, as even with the cloths it would
     require time to purchase food, and starving men cannot wait. The
     supplies must arrive within two days, or I may have a fearful time
     of it among the dying. Of course I hold myself responsible for any
     expense you may incur in this business. What is wanted is immediate
     relief, and I pray you to use your utmost energies to forward it at
     once. For myself if you have such little luxuries as tea, coffee,
     sugar and biscuits by you, such as one man can easily carry, I beg
     you, on my own behalf, that you will send a small supply, and add
     to the great debt of gratitude due to you upon the timely arrival
     of supplies for my people. Until that time, I beg you to believe
     me,

     Yours, sincerely,
     H. M. STANLEY,
     _Commanding Anglo-American Expedition,
     for Exploration of Africa_.

     P. S.--You may not know my name; I therefore add, I am the person
     that discovered Livingstone.

     H. M. S.


After writing this letter, Stanley called his chiefs and boat's crew to
his tent and told them of his purpose to send a letter to Embomma for
relief, and wanted to know which were the most reliable men--would
travel fastest and least likely to be arrested or turned back by
obstacles. The ever-ready Uledi sprang to his feet and exclaimed, as he
tightened his belt, "O master, I am ready now!" The other volunteers
responded as quickly, and the next day, the guides appearing, they
started off. In the meantime, the expedition resumed its slow march,
having eaten nothing but a few nuts to stay their stomachs. Coming to a
village, the chief demanded payment for passing through his country, and
armed his followers; but on Stanley threatening to destroy every man in
the place, his rage subsided, he shook hands, and peace was made and
sealed by a drink of palm wine and the promise of a bottle of rum.

In the meanwhile, Uledi and his companions pressed swiftly on, but when
about halfway the guides, becoming frightened, deserted them. Unable to
obtain others, they resolved to follow the Congo. All day long they
pressed steadily forward, and, just after sunset, reached Boma, to which
the name Embomma had been changed, and delivered the letter. The poor
fellows had not tasted food for thirty hours, and were well-nigh
famished. They soon had abundance, and the next morning (August 6th),
while Stanley was leading on his bloated, haggard, half-starved,
staggering men, women and children, Uledi started back with carriers
loaded down with provisions.

At nine o'clock, the expedition had to stop and rest. While they lay
scattered about on the green sward, suddenly an Arab boy shouted, "I
see Uledi coming down the hill!" and sure enough there were Uledi and
Kacheche leaping down the slope and waving their arms in the air. "La il
Allah, il Allah!" went up in one wild shout--"we are saved, thank God!"
Uledi had brought a letter to Stanley, who had scarcely finished reading
it when the carriers appeared in sight laden with provisions. The sick
and lame struggled to their feet and, with the others, pressed around
them. While Stanley was distributing them, one of the boat-boys struck
up a triumphant song, that echoed far over the plain. They then set to
and ate as only starving men can eat.

When all were supplied, Stanley turned to his tent, to open the private
packages sent to him. Heavens! what a vision met his astonished sight! A
few hours before, he had made his breakfast on a few green bananas and
peanuts, washed with a cup of muddy water, and now before him were piled
champagne, port and sherry wines, and ale, and bread and butter, and
tea, and sugar, and plum-pudding, and various kinds of jam--in short,
enough luxuries to supply half a regiment. How Stanley felt that night
as he looked on his happy, contented followers, may be gathered from the
following extract from a letter he sent back next day to his
kind-hearted deliverers. After acknowledging the reception of the
bountiful supplies, he says:


     "Dear Sirs--Though strangers I feel we shall be great friends, and
     it will be the study of my lifetime to remember my feelings of
     gratefulness when I first caught sight of your supplies, and my
     poor faithful and brave people cried out, 'Master, we are
     saved--food is coming!' The old and the young men, the women and
     the children lifted their wearied and worn-out frames and began
     lustily to chant an extemporaneous song in honor of the white
     people by the great salt sea (the Atlantic), who had listened to
     their prayers. I had to rush to my tent to hide the tears that
     would come, despite all my attempts at composure.

     "Gentlemen, that the blessing of God may attend your footsteps,
     whithersoever you go, is the very earnest prayer of

     "Yours faithfully,

     "HENRY M. STANLEY."


That day was given up to feasting and rejoicing, and the next morning--a
very different set of men--they started forward. All this and the next
day they marched cheerfully over the rolling country, and on the third,
while slowly descending a hill, they saw a string of hammocks
approaching, and soon Stanley stood face to face with four white men,
and so long had he been shut up in a country of blacks that they
impressed him strangely. After some time spent in conversation they
insisted on his getting into a hammock, and borne by eight stout bearers
he was carried into Boma, where rest and abundance awaited him. He
stayed in this village of a hundred huts only one day and then embarked
on a steamer for the mouth of the river, a hundred or more miles away.
Turning northward he reached Kabinda, where one of the expedition died.
The reaction on these poor creatures after their long and desperate
struggle was great, and they fell back into a sort of stupor. Stanley
himself felt its influence and would fall asleep while eating. The sense
of responsibility, however, aroused him and he attempted in turn to
arouse his men. But, notwithstanding all his efforts, four died of this
malady without a name after he reached Loanda, and three more afterwards
on board the vessel that carried them to Cape Town.

Stanley gave his poor followers eight days' rest at Kabinda and then in
a Portuguese vessel proceeded to Loanda. Here the governor-general
offered to send him in a gun-boat to Lisbon. This generous offer was
very tempting, and many would have accepted it, but Stanley would not
leave his Arab friends who had shared his toils and hardships, and shown
an unbounded trust in his promise to see them back to Zanzibar. A
passage being offered them in the British ship _Industry_, to Cape Town,
Stanley accepted it, and, instead of going home where comfort and fame
awaited him, turned southward with his Arab followers. At Cape Town he
was received with every mark of distinction, and delivered a lecture
there giving a brief account of the expedition, especially that part of
it relating to the Congo. A British vessel here was placed at his
disposal, and while she was refitting Stanley gave his astonished Arabs
a ride on a railroad, on which they were whirled along at the rate of
thirty miles an hour. Of all the wonders they had seen since they left
Zanzibar, nearly three years before, this was the greatest.
Entertainments were prepared for them, suitable garments for that cold
latitude provided, till these poor, simple children of nature were made
dizzy by the attentions they received. Among other things a special
evening was set apart for them in the theatre, and they were thrown into
raptures at the performance of the acrobats and made the building ring
with their wild Arab shouts of approval.

At length, on the 6th of November, nearly two months from the time they
reached the Atlantic coast, they set sail for Zanzibar. Stopping for two
days at Natal to coal, where every possible attention was lavished on
them, they again put to sea and stretched northward through the Indian
Ocean.

Day after day these now contented people lay around on deck, drinking in
health from the salt sea air. All but one was shaking off every form of
disease contracted in their long wanderings. This one was a woman who
was slowly dying, and who was kept alive alone by the thought of seeing
her home once more. At last the hills of Zanzibar arose over the sea,
and as these untutored Arabs traced their well-known outline, their joy
was unbounded, and Stanley felt repaid for the self-denial that had
refused a passage home from Loanda to stay by his faithful followers to
the very last. Their excitement increased as the caves and inlets grew
more distinct, and at last the cocoanut and mangrove-trees became
visible. As the vessel entered port their impatience could not be
restrained, and the captain of the vessel, sympathizing with their
feelings, had no sooner dropped anchor than he manned the boats, while
the eager creatures crowded the gangway and ladder, each struggling to
be the first to set foot on their native island. As boat-load after
boat-load reached the shore, with a common feeling they knelt on the
beach and cried "Allah!" and offered up their humble thanksgiving to
God, who had brought them safely back to their homes.

The news of their arrival spread like wild-fire on every side, and soon
their relatives and friends came flocking in from all directions, and
glad shouts, and wild embracings, and floods of glad tears made a scene
that stirred Stanley's heart to its profoundest depths. Still, there was
a dark side to the picture. Scores of those that came rushing forward to
greet them, fell back shedding tears, not of gladness, but of sorrow,
for they found not those whom they fondly hoped to meet. Of the three
hundred that had set out, nearly thee years before, only one hundred and
twelve were left--and one of these, the poor sick woman, lived only long
enough to be clasped in her father's arms, when she died.

The great journey was ended, and Stanley, after paying off the living
and the relatives of the dead, at last started for home. As he was about
to enter the boat that was to bear him to the ship, the brave Uledi and
the chiefs shoved it from shore, and seizing Stanley, bore him through
the surf on their shoulders. And when the latter stood on the deck, as
the vessel slowly steamed away, the last object he saw on shore through
his eyes filled with tears, was his Arab friends watching him till he
should disappear from sight.

An enthusiastic reception awaited him in England, while from every part
of the continent distinguished honors were bestowed upon him.

He had performed one of the most daring marches on record--traced out,
foot by foot, one of the largest lakes of Central Africa, followed its
mightiest river, which, from the creation, had been wrapped in mystery,
from its source to its mouth, and made a new map of the "_dark
continent_."

Among the testimonials of the estimation in which the great work he had
accomplished was held, may be mentioned the gift of the portrait of King
Humbert of Italy, by himself, with the superscription:


     "ALL' INTREPEDO VIAGGATORE,
           ENRICO STANLEY.

                         UMBERTO _RE_.

     TO THE INTREPID TRAVELER,
           HENRY STANLEY.

                         KING HUMBERT."


The Prince of Wales also complimented him warmly on his achievements,
while the Khedive of Egypt conferred on him the high distinction of the
Grand Commandership of the Order of Medjidie, with the star and collar.
The Royal Geographical Society, of London, gave him a public reception,
and made him Honorary Corresponding Member, and the Geographical
Societies and Chambers of Commerce of Paris, Italy and Marseilles sent
him medals. He was also made Honorary Member of the Geographical
Societies of Antwerp, Berlin, Bordeaux, Bremen, Hamburg, Lyons,
Marseilles, Montpelier, Vienna, etc., etc. Honorary membership of almost
every distinguished society in England and on the continent were
conferred on him, and all seemed to vie with each other in heaping
honors on the most intrepid traveler of modern times.

As Americans, however, it gives us great pleasure to record the
following sentiment, showing that Stanley takes especial pride in being
an American. He says: "For another honor I have to express my
thanks--one which I may be pardoned for regarding as more precious than
all the rest. The Government of the United States has crowned my success
with its official approval, and the unanimous vote of thanks passed in
both houses of legislature, has made me proud for life of the expedition
and its success."



CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE FRUITS OF VICTORY.


After victory, the fruits of victory; and to secure the latter is often
more difficult than to win the former. The soldier may conquer a realm;
it requires the statesman to organize and establish sovereignty. We may
be entranced with enthusiasm at the daring of the explorer; we must bow
with respect to the man who transformed a wilderness into a peaceful
field of industry and commerce. Doubtless, at the end of his great Congo
campaign, in 1878, Mr. Stanley longed for rest and home. Up to that time
all his life had been a wandering, chiefly amid dangers and discomforts.
He had written his name among those of the world's foremost explorers.
Well might he have considered his task accomplished, and have turned his
way toward scenes of rest and pleasure. Instead of that, all these great
deeds were but the prelude to his real life-work.

Early in November, 1878, Mr. Stanley was invited by Leopold, King of the
Belgians, to visit the royal palace at Brussels, on a certain day and at
a certain hour. He went. He found assembled to meet him a large number
of persons of note from all parts of the world, mostly men interested
in commerce and finance. The object of the meeting was to promote the
enterprise of studying what might best be done with the Congo River and
its vast basin. Mr. Stanley was to tell them of the country, and they
were to consider how to open it up to trade and civilization. "I have,"
said the explorer, "passed through a land watered by the largest river
of the African continent, and that land knows no owner. A word to the
wise is sufficient. You have cloths and hardware, and glassware and
gunpowder, and those millions of natives have ivory and gums and rubber
and dyestuffs, and in barter there is good profit!"

This was a tempting prospect, and a course of action was soon fixed
upon. A company was formed, one hundred thousand dollars capital was
subscribed on the spot, and Mr. Stanley was commissioned to organize,
equip and lead an expedition. He was to open up a road through the Congo
country to the heart of Africa. He was to erect stations, according to
the means furnished, along the overland route for the convenience of the
transport and the European staff in charge, and to establish steam
communication wherever available and safe. The stations were to be
commodious, and sufficient for all demands that were likely to be made
on them. Ground was to be leased or purchased adjoining the stations,
so as to make them in time self-supporting. Land along each side of the
route was also to be secured, to prevent persons ill-disposed toward the
company from interfering with its plans. The whole scheme was founded on
the ideas of peace and equity. The expedition was to make its way by
paying, not by fighting.

Mr. Stanley went to work promptly and energetically. This meeting was
held on November 25th. The directors of the enterprise met again on
December 9th. On January 2d, 1879, Mr. Stanley laid before them plans
and estimates for the first six months' work, and on January 23d he was
on his way to Zanzibar. It was, of course, desirable to have experienced
men associated with him, so he sought out as many of his old comrades as
possible. In that work some time was spent, but in the latter part of
May he left Zanzibar in the steamer "Albion," which had been chartered
for the use of the expedition. He had with him sixty-eight men,
recruited at Zanzibar, of whom forty-five had accompanied him on his
former journey down the Congo. At nine o'clock in the morning of August
14th he sighted land at the mouth of the Congo, and soon after was at
anchor near the Dutch settlement at Banana Point. Here he met, for the
first time, the other officers chosen to go with him on the expedition.
There were one American, two Englishmen, two Danes, five Belgians, and
one Frenchman. In the harbor was a small fleet of steamers intended for
the expedition, and on shore was a considerable store of goods for
bartering with the natives.

On August 21st, seven days after Mr. Stanley's arrival at Banana, the
vessels of the expedition, consisting of the "Albion" and eight other
craft of various sizes (the largest being the steel twin screw steamer
"La Belgique," sixty-five feet long and eleven feet beam; and the
smallest the "Jeune Africaine," a screw launch, twenty-five feet long
and five feet ten inches beam) steamed out of Banana Haven, and began
the ascent of the noble river. Boma, once the horrible emporium of the
slave-trade, was reached after a sail of eight days; a depot was formed
at Mussuko, four hours higher up the stream on the south bank; and the
"Albion," after making one or two trips between Mussuko and Banana
Point, in order to bring up the goods which had been left behind, was
released from river duty, taken down to Banana Point, coaled, and sent
home, on September 17th.

So far, all had gone well. In thirty-four days it had reached its first
base of operations, ninety miles from the sea. All its supplies had been
brought hither in safety, and the outlook for the future was promising.
Soon after the departure of the "Albion" steps were taken to advance
still further up-stream, and the next station was made at Vivi. This
was six hours' sail in a nine-knot steamer above Boma. The site was
carefully chosen, and Vivi has since become the most important station
on the river. But before Mr. Stanley could commence operations in
September, 1879, a palaver had to be held, and terms required to be
arranged with the neighboring chiefs, of whom there were five. At the
palaver the five chiefs formed a somewhat motley group. The
introductions being over, the object of the expedition was explained
through the medium of a _lingster_ or interpreter; proposals were made
on the part of the association; and the chiefs, after begging a bottle
of gin apiece, returned to their houses to consider what the _Mundelé_,
or trader, as Mr. Stanley was now called, had said to them.

On the following day they returned, and as the conference which followed
was, in its general features, similar to many others that were held, we
may as well use Mr. Stanley's description of it:--

"The conference began by the lingster, Massala, describing how the
chiefs had gone home and consulted together for a long time; they had
agreed that if the Mundelé would stay with them, that of all the land
unoccupied by villages, or fields and gardens, I should make my choice,
and build as many houses, and make as many roads, and do any kind of
work I liked; that I should be considered as the 'Mundelé' of Vivi, and
no other white man should put foot on Vivi soil, which stretched from
the Lufû up to the Banza Kulu district, and inland down to the Loa
river, without permission from me; no native chief of inland or
riverside should molest any man in my employ within the district of
Vivi; help should be given for work, and the people of Vivi, such as
liked, should engage themselves as workmen; anybody, white or black,
native or foreign, passing to and fro through the land, should do so
freely, night and day, without let or hindrance; if any disagreement
should arise between any of my people, white or black, and the people of
Vivi, they, the chiefs, would promise not to try and revenge themselves,
but bring their complaint before the Mundelé of Vivi, that he might
decide upon the right and the wrong of it; and if any of their people
were caught in the act of doing wrong, then the white man shall promise
that his chief shall be called to hear the case against him, and if the
crime is proved the chief shall pay the fine according to custom.

"'All this,' continued Massala, 'shall be set down in writing, and you
shall read it, and the English lingster shall tell it straight to us.
But first we must settle what the chiefs shall receive in return for
these concessions.'"

This was not so easily settled. Four hours were spent before the bargain
was concluded, and Mr. Stanley found himself obliged to pay one hundred
and sixty dollars down in cloth and a rental of ten dollars per month.
The papers confirming the agreement were then drawn up in due form, and
signed by the various parties concerned in the matter.

Mr. Stanley, as "Mundelé of Vivi," had no good reason to congratulate
himself upon his bargain. He had, of course, secured a site for his
station, but he had been compelled to pay a big price for it, and his
land was a mere wilderness of rocky and barren hillsides. All the really
good land at Vivi was already occupied, and the natives would not part
with it. On the evening of the day on which his contract was signed he
wrote in his diary: "I am not altogether pleased with my purchase. It
has been most expensive, in the first place, and the rent is high.
However, necessity has compelled me to do it. It is the highest point of
navigation of the Congo, opposite which a landing could be effected. The
landing-place is scarcely three hundred yards long, but if the shores
were improved by leveling, available room for ships could be found for
fifteen hundred yards." On the plateau near the river was room for a
town of twenty thousand people, and the situation seemed salubrious. So
a road was made up to the plateau, buildings erected, and a large
quantity of goods brought up from Mussuko, and safely housed.

So far the expedition had had plain sailing. The Congo affords a
magnificent waterway from the ocean, at Banana, up to Vivi. But a little
distance above Vivi are the Livingstone Falls, rendering further
navigation impossible. It was therefore necessary to build a road and
make further progress overland. So work was begun on a new road, from
Vivi to Isangila, fifty-two miles above, which had been chosen as the
site of the next station. The country was wild and rugged, and ruled by
thirty or forty different chiefs. Each of these chiefs had to be
negotiated with and won over, and each in his own way. Moreover, the
individual owners of farms and gardens had to be dealt with, and often
paid exorbitant prices for their land. Surveying the route was a long
and toilsome job. The work of clearing and grading would have been
stupendous had it been designed merely to make it a wagon-road. But it
was to be more than that. It was to be a road over which several of the
steamboats could be transported, to be relaunched on the river above the
falls. Mr. Stanley never faltered, however, and at noon of March 18th,
1880, the work of making the road was begun. On January 2d, 1881, within
ten months from the actual beginning of the work, the road, fifty-two
miles in length, was completed, the boats were on the shore at Isangila
waiting to be repaired, scraped, and painted, and the "Royal," a small
screw steamer presented to the expedition by the King of the Belgians,
was steaming on the river.

From Isangila there was smooth navigation up-stream for eighty-eight
miles, to the Falls of Ntombo Mataka. Adjoining the latter is the
district of Manyanga, where Mr. Stanley decided to erect the next
station, and on May 1st, 1881, the whole expedition was safely encamped
there. Of his achievements thus far Mr. Stanley speaks thus: "We were
now one hundred and forty miles above Vivi, to accomplish which distance
we have been employed four hundred and thirty-six days in road-making
and in conveying fifty tons of goods, with a force of sixty-eight
Zanzibaris and an equal number of West Coast and inland natives. During
this period we had travelled four thousand eight hundred and sixteen
English miles, which, divided by the number of days occupied in this
heavy transport work, gives a quotient of over eleven miles per day!"

This expedition was intended to reach, as its farthest point, Stanley
Pool, which was still ninety-five miles away, and every mile was full of
difficulties. The river was not navigable, so an overland road had to be
surveyed, "palavered" for, purchased and built, and the boats dragged
over it. Worse still, Mr. Stanley was stricken down with fever, and for
a long time lay on the brink of the grave. But even from his sick-bed he
continued to direct affairs and to inspire his followers with his own
unshaken faith in the success of the enterprise. So, by December 3d,
1881, the expedition was safe at Stanley Pool with the steamer "En
Avant" launched in the Bay of Kintamo, beyond which were thousands of
miles of navigable water. The new station was founded on Leopold Hill, a
fine site overlooking the river, and was named Leopoldville, in honor of
the royal patron of the enterprise. Doubtless this place will become the
chief centre of Central African commerce. Its situation is magnificent.
The climate is salubrious. The surrounding natives are friendly. Other
stations have since been founded, further up the river, all tributary to
Leopoldville. The most distant of them is on the island of Wané Rusari,
at the foot of Stanley Falls, one thousand and sixty-eight miles from
Leopoldville.



CHAPTER XXIX.

THE CONGO FREE STATE.


Mr. Stanley's discoveries, and the enterprise of the "Committee for the
Study of the Upper Congo"--which was the real name of the company under
which he was sent out--soon attracted universal attention, and that,
too, of a most practical kind. It became evident that the Congo Valley
must have a fixed and potent government. King Leopold did not desire to
assume the sole responsibility, nor, indeed, would the other European
powers have agreed to his transform so large a slice of the African
continent into a Belgian colony. Accordingly, an international
conference was summoned to meet at Berlin, and the result of its
deliberations was the erection of the entire valley into a potentially
independent commonwealth, called the Congo Free State. On February 25th,
1885, treaty was signed by the representatives of the United States and
the chief European powers. A Constitution and Government were provided
for the new state, with King Leopold at its head, under the protection
of the treaty-signing powers. Thenceforward civilization made rapid
progress. The state was admitted to the International Postal Union, and
post-offices were opened at Banana, Boma, Vivi, and elsewhere. Courts,
schools, etc., were also established. A railroad has been constructed
over the route of Mr. Stanley's roads around the cataracts, connecting
with the steamer routes, and making an unbroken line of steam
transportation from Stanley Falls to the Atlantic Ocean.

The entire area of the Congo basin is estimated by Mr. Stanley at one
million five hundred and eight thousand square miles. Some of it is
claimed by France, some by Portugal, and some is yet unapportioned. But
the overwhelming bulk, one million sixty-five thousand and two hundred
square miles, belongs to the Congo Free State. It has not all yet been
surveyed, of course, but its character is pretty well known. It has vast
forests, extensive and fertile plains, and unsurpassed systems of lakes
and rivers. Its lakes cover thirty-one thousand seven hundred square
miles; among them being Lakes Leopold II., Muta Nzige, Tanganyika,
Bangweola, and Mweru. The Congo, of course, is the principal river. It
is one of the five or six longest streams in the world, and in point of
volume surpasses all but the Amazon.

Unlike the Amazon, Mississippi, Nile, Ganges, Volga, and, indeed, almost
all other great rivers, the Congo has no delta. It discharges itself by
a single unbroken estuary seven miles and a half broad, in many places
over two hundred fathoms deep, and with a current of from five to seven
knots an hour. The volume of water brought down has been variously
estimated; the lowest estimate being two million cubic feet per second.
The Mississippi, when at the height of its March flood, has an outflow
of one million one hundred and fifty thousand cubic feet per second; so
that its volume must be very greatly exceeded by that of the Congo.

The scenery along the banks of the Congo is affirmed by all who have
seen it to be magnificent. Mr. Stanley has seen none to equal it. In his
opinion neither the Indus nor the Ganges, the Nile nor the Niger, nor
any of the rivers of North or South America has any glories of mountain
or foliage or sunlight which are not greatly excelled by those of his
favorite river, and many of the finest passages in his volumes are
devoted to descriptions of the beauty and magnificence seen along its
banks.

The population of the Free State of the Congo Mr. Stanley estimates at
about forty-five millions. According to the latest trustworthy
calculations, the population of the whole of Africa is represented by
two hundred millions. Some place it at one hundred and seventy millions.
The data on which these calculations are based are, of course,
imperfect, and Mr. Stanley's seem to have been based chiefly upon the
density of population he found on the banks of the upper Congo. But in
other parts, and especially away from the rivers, there must be large
tracts of country where the population is much less dense than it is
along the banks of the Congo, and any generalization for the whole of
the country, based upon the latter, must manifestly give too high a
figure.

Of the climate of the country, Mr. Stanley is entitled to speak with
authority, and justly, as no European has had so large an experience of
it. With care as to food, clothing, and exposure, Europeans, it would
seem, may live as long, and enjoy as good health on the banks of the
Congo as they may in most other places. But care is absolutely
requisite; without it the climate proves as hurtful as the climate of
the west coast of Africa is generally said to be.

As a field for commerce, Mr. Stanley speaks of the country in the most
glowing terms, and believes that it excels all other known lands for the
number and rare variety of precious gifts with which nature has endowed
it. He says: "The forests on the banks of the Congo are filled with
precious redwood, lignum vitæ, mahogany, and fragrant gum-trees. At
their base may be found inexhaustible quantities of fossil gum, with
which the carriages and furniture of civilized countries are varnished;
their boles exude myrrh and frankincense; their foliage is draped with
orchilla-weed, useful for dye. The redwood, when cut down, chipped and
rasped, produces a deep crimson powder, giving a valuable coloring; the
creepers, which hang in festoons from tree to tree, are generally those
from which india-rubber is produced (the best of which is worth fifty
cents per lb.); the nuts of the oil palm give forth a butter, a staple
article of commerce; while the fibres of others will make the best
cordage. Among the wild shrubs is frequently found the coffee-plant. In
its plains, jungle, and swamp luxuriate the elephants, whose tusk
furnishes ivory worth from $2.00 to $2.75 per lb.; its waters teem with
numberless herds of hippopotami, whose tusks are also valuable; furs of
the lion, leopard, monkey, otter; hides of antelope, buffalo, goat,
cattle, etc., may also be obtained. But, what is of far more value, it
possesses over forty millions of moderately industrious and workable
people. The copper of Lake Superior is rivaled by that of the
Kwilu-Niadi Valley, and of Bembé. Rice, cotton, tobacco, maize, coffee,
sugar, and wheat would thrive equally well in the broad plains of the
Congo. I have heard of gold and silver, but this statement requires
corroboration, and I am not disposed to touch upon what I do not
personally know. A large portion of the Congo basin, at present
inaccessible to the immigrant, is blessed with a temperature under which
Europeans may thrive and multiply. There is no portion of it where the
European trader may not fix his residence for years, and develop
commerce to his own profit with as little risk as is incurred in India."

Such is the country which the skill, tact, courage, and, in brief, the
genius of Mr. Stanley have rescued from the degradation and barbarism of
ages, and given a place among the great nations of the world. It is his
fame to have been not merely an intrepid explorer, not merely a peaceful
and almost bloodless conqueror, but in fully equal measure a civilizer,
a trade-bearer, a statesman; the finder, the founder, and the builder of
a great and mighty state.



CHAPTER XXX.

EMIN, THE LAST OF THE SOUDAN HEROES.


Mr. Stanley returned to civilization, and in 1886 revisited America for
the first time in thirteen years. He was received with the highest
honors, and the lectures which he delivered were attended by crowded and
delighted audiences. It seemed at last as though he were to enjoy a
considerable period of rest. He had opened up the Dark Continent, and
founded the Congo Free State on a secure basis. He might now direct its
operations from London or Brussels, and spend his years in well-won
ease. But this was not to be. He was abruptly summoned to undertake one
of the most arduous of all his tasks, which was to lead an expedition to
the relief of Emin Pasha at Wadelai, on the Nile.

The history of Emin Pasha is a most romantic and noble one. His real
name is Edward Schnitzer, and he was born in 1840 at Oppeln, in Silesia.
His father, a merchant, died in 1845, and three years before that date
the family removed to Neisse. When Edward Schnitzer had passed through
the gymnasium at Neisse he devoted himself to the study of medicine at
the University of Breslau. During the years 1863 and 1864 he pursued
his studies at the Berlin Academy. The desire for adventure and an
exceptional taste for natural sciences induced the young medical student
to seek a field for his calling abroad. He, therefore, at the end of
1864, left Berlin with the intention of obtaining a post of physician in
Turkey. Chance carried him to Antivari and then to Scutari. Here he soon
managed to attract the attention of Valis Ismael Pasha Haggi, and was
received into the following of that dignitary, who, in his official
position, had to travel through the various provinces of the empire.
When, in this way, Dr. Schnitzer had learned to know Armenians, Syrians,
and Arabians, he finally reached Constantinople, where the Pasha died in
1873. In the summer of 1875 Dr. Schnitzer returned to Neisse; but after
a few months the old passion for travel again came over him, and he
betook himself to Egypt, where favorable prospects were opened out to
him. With the beginning of the year 1876 he appears as "Dr. Emin
Effendi," enters the Egyptian service, and places himself at the
disposal of the Governor-General of the Soudan. In the post there given
him Dr. Emin met with Gordon, who two years before (1874) had been
intrusted with the administration of the newly-created Equatorial
province. Gordon sent him on tours of inspection through the territory
and on repeated missions to King M'tesa at Uganda. When Gordon Pasha,
two years later, became administrator of all territory lying outside the
narrower limits of Egypt, Dr. Emin Effendi received the post of
commander at Lado, together with the government of the Equatorial
province. With how much fidelity and self-denial he devoted himself to
his task is well known.

During the first three years of his term he drove out the slave-traders
from a populous region with six million inhabitants. He converted a
deficiency of revenues into a surplus. He conducted the government on
the lines marked out by General Gordon, and was equally modest,
disinterested, and conscientious. When the Mahdi's rebellion broke out,
a governor-general of another stamp was at Khartoum. Emin's warning from
the remote South passed unheeded. Hicks' army, recruited from Arabi's
demoralized regiments, was massacred; the Egyptian garrisons throughout
the Soudan were abandoned to their fate; atrocious campaigns of
unnecessary bloodshed were fought on the seaboard, and General Gordon
was sent to Khartoum to perish miserably while waiting for a relief
expedition that crawled by slow stages up the Nile, and was too late to
be of practical service. During all these years of stupid misgovernment
and wasted blood Emin remained at his post. When the death of General
Gordon and the retreat of Lord Wolseley's army wiped out the last
vestige of Egyptian rule in the regions of the Upper Nile, the
Equatorial Provinces were cut off, neglected, and forgotten.

It then became impossible for Emin to communicate with the Egyptian
Government, and he was practically lost to the world. He was dependent
upon his own resources in a region encompassed by hostile tribes. He
might easily have cut his way out to safety, by the way of the Congo or
Zanzibar, with the best of his troops, leaving the women and children
behind to their fate. But this he scorned to do. He stood at his post,
and bravely upheld the standard of civilization in Africa. He had with
him about four thousand troops at the outset. He organized auxiliary
forces of native soldiers; he was constantly engaged in warfare with
surrounding tribes; he garrisoned a dozen river stations lying long
distances apart; his ammunition ran low, and he lacked the money needed
for paying his small army. But, in the face of manifold difficulties and
dangers, he maintained his position, governed the country well, and
taught the natives how to raise cotton, rice, indigo, and coffee, and
also how to weave cloth, and make shoes, candles, soap, and many
articles of commerce. He vaccinated the natives by the thousand, in
order to stamp out small-pox; he opened the first hospital known in that
quarter; he established a regular post-route with forty offices; he
made important geographical discoveries in the basin of the Albert Lake;
and in many ways demonstrated his capacity for governing barbarous
races.

The last European who visited him was Dr. Junker, the German traveller,
who parted from him at Wadelai on January 1st, 1886. His position was
then more favorable, but he had been reduced at one time to extremities,
his soldiers having escaped by a desperate sortie, cutting their way
through the enemy after they had been many days without food, and "when
the last torn leather of the last boot had been eaten." Letters written
by him in October, 1886, at Wadelai, describing his geographical
discoveries, were received in England in 1887, with a contributed
article for a Scotch scientific journal. The provisions and ammunition
sent to him by Dr. Junker had had a very encouraging effect upon his
troops. He wrote: "I am still holding out here, and will not forsake my
people."

The betrayal of Gordon at Khartoum by the British Government had so
disgusted and exasperated decent public opinion in England that a
popular demand was made for the rescue of Emin. The Government took no
step other than to allow a small grant of money to be made from the
Egyptian treasury. But private subscriptions furnished an ample sum, and
an "Emin Relief Committee" was formed to press the work.



CHAPTER XXXI.

STANLEY TO THE RESCUE.


Mr. Stanley arrived in New York, after his thirteen years' absence, on
November 27th, 1886. On December 12th of the same year he was requested
by the King of the Belgians to return immediately to Europe. He did so,
and was commissioned to head the expedition then being formed for the
relief of Emin Pasha. There was much discussion as to the route to be
taken, most authorities favoring that overland from Zanzibar. But Mr.
Stanley determined upon the Congo, and he described the character of the
expedition as follows:

"The expedition is non-military--that is to say, its purpose is not to
fight, destroy, or waste; its purpose is to save, to relieve distress,
to carry comfort. Emin Pasha may be a good man, a brave officer, a
gallant fellow deserving of a strong effort of relief, but I decline to
believe, and I have not been able to gather from any one in England an
impression, that his life, or the lives of the few hundreds under him,
would overbalance the lives of thousands of natives, and the devastation
of immense tracts of country which an expedition strictly military
would naturally cause. The expedition is a mere powerful caravan, armed
with rifles for the purpose of insuring the safe conduct of the
ammunition to Emin Pasha, and for the more certain protection of his
people during the retreat home. But it also has means of purchasing the
friendship of tribes and chiefs, of buying food and paying its way
liberally."

Mr. Stanley went from England to Egypt, where he stopped for a time at
Cairo, completing his arrangements with the Egyptian government. On
reaching Zanzibar he found that his agents had already recruited a force
of six hundred men for the expedition, and that Tippu-Tib, who had
escorted his caravan in 1877, when the first descent of the Congo was
made, was waiting for him. Tippu-Tib was the Zobehr of the Upper Congo,
commanding two of the best roads from the river to Wadelai. He agreed to
supply six hundred carriers at thirty dollars a man; and as Emin was
reported by Dr. Junker to have seventy-five tons of ivory, the expenses
of the expedition might be largely defrayed by the return of the
Zanzibaris to the Congo with their precious loads. Tippu-Tib was also
offered the position of governor at Stanley Falls at a regular salary.
He consented to accompany Mr. Stanley on these terms. The steamer set
out on February 25th for the mouth of the Congo with about seven hundred
men of the expedition, reaching its destination in four weeks. He was
then twelve hundred and sixty-six miles from Aruwimi, whence he was to
march four hundred miles through an unknown country to Emin's capital.
It was as late as April 26th before he could leave Leopoldville, on
Stanley Pool, and it was not until the second week in June that the
explorer himself was at Aruwimi, much delay having been caused by
defective transportation.

He left men at Stanley Falls, with instructions to rebuild the
storehouses, to open negotiations with the tribes, and to provide
convoys of provisions for the relief expedition. A rear-guard was left
at Yambouya, and the advance column passed on to the limits of
navigation, whence the overland march was taken up. Few difficulties
were encountered apart from the natural obstacles presented by a country
very difficult to traverse. About July 25th the expedition had ascended
the River Aruwimi as far as an elevated tract of country forming a
portion of the Mabodi district.

Thus, Mr. Stanley and his comrades plunged into the wilderness, and were
lost to the sight of the world. From time to time thereafter countless
rumors came from Africa regarding them, rumors varied in tone as in
number. At one time they had reached Emin in safety. Again they were all
massacred long before they got to Wadelai. Now, Mr. Stanley had put
himself at the head of Emin's army and was marching on Khartoum to
avenge Gordon and overthrow the Mahdi; and then he and Emin were
captured by the Mahdist forces at Lado. Stories came of a mysterious
"White Pasha" who was leading a conquering army through the Bahr Gazelle
country, and it was very generally believed that it was Mr. Stanley, who
had reached Wadelai and was returning to the coast by the way of the
Niger. But on December 15th, 1888, startling news came from Suakim, on
the Red Sea coast of Egypt. Osman Digna, the Frenchman who had turned
Arab and was leader of the Mahdist army there, under a flag of truce
informed the British commander that Emin's province had fallen into Arab
hands, and that Emin and Stanley were prisoners. In proof of this he
sent a copy of a letter just received from a Mahdist officer in the
Soudan, as follows:

"In the name of the Great God, etc. This is from the least among God's
servants to his Master and chief Khalifa, etc. We proceeded with the
steamers and army. Reached the town Lado, where Emin, Mudir of Equator,
is staying. We reached this place 5th Safar, 1306. We must thank
officers and men who made this conquest easy to us before our arrival.
They caught Emin and a traveller staying with him, and put both in
chains. The officers and men refused to go to Egypt with the Turks.
Tewfik sent Emin one of the travellers, whose name is Mr. Stanley. This
Mr. Stanley brought with him a letter from Tewfik to Emin, dated 8th
Jemal Aowal, 1304, No. 81, telling Emin to come with Mr. Stanley, and
gave the rest of the force the option to go to Cairo or remain. The
force refused the Turkish orders, and gladly received us. I found a
great deal of feathers and ivory. I am sending with this, on board the
'Bordain,' the officers and chief clerk. I am also sending the letter
which came to Emin from Tewfik, with the banners we took from the Turks.
I heard that there is another traveller who came to Emin, but I heard
that he returned. I am looking out for him. If he comes back again, I am
sure to catch him. All the chiefs of the province with the inhabitants
were delighted to receive us. I have taken all the arms and ammunition.
Please return the officers and chief clerk when you have seen them and
given the necessary instructions, because they will be of great use to
me."

This was accompanied by what appeared to be a letter written by the
Khedive at Cairo to Emin, which had been intrusted to Mr. Stanley to
deliver, and this convinced many of the truth of Osman Digna's story.
But, as a matter of fact, as will be seen later, it was all an ingenious
lie, concocted for the purpose of frightening the British into
abandoning Suakim to the slave-traders. Meantime there was true news of
actual disasters on the Congo. Major Barttelot, commanding the rear
guard of the expedition, was murdered; and Mr. Jamieson, who succeeded
to the command, died of fever. Under these circumstances, the gloomiest
and most anxious views prevailed regarding Mr. Stanley's fate.

It was in December, 1888, that the dark views concerning Stanley's fate
most prevailed, but ten days later positive and authentic news of Mr.
Stanley's safe arrival at Emin Pasha's capital was received, and on
April 3d, 1889, full details of the campaign, written by Mr. Stanley
himself, were published. His letter to the chairman of the Emin Pasha
Relief Committee was dated at Bungangeta Island, Ituri or Aruwimi River,
August 28th, 1888, and gave full accounts of the varying fortunes of the
expedition, with its disasters and successes.



CHAPTER XXXII.

STANLEY AND EMIN.


In his letter to the Emin Pasha Relief Committee Mr. Stanley closes by
saying: "Let me touch more at large on the subject which brought me to
this land--viz., Emin Pasha.

"The Pasha has two battalions of regulars under him--the first,
consisting of about seven hundred and fifty rifles, occupies Duffle,
Honyu, Labore, Muggi, Kirri, Bedden, Rejaf; the second battalion,
consisting of six hundred and forty men, guard the stations of Wadelai,
Fatiko, Mahagi and Mswa, a line of communication along the Nyanza and
Nile about one hundred and eighty miles in length. In the interior west
of the Nile he retains three or four small stations--fourteen in all.
Besides these two battalions he has quite a respectable force of
irregulars, sailors, artisans, clerks, servants. 'Altogether,' he said,
'if I consent to go away from here we shall have about eight thousand
people with us.'

"'Were I in your place I would not hesitate one moment or be a second in
doubt what to do.'

"'What you say is quite true, but we have such a large number of women
and children, probably ten thousand people altogether. How can they all
be brought out of here? We shall want a great number of carriers."

"'Carriers! carriers for what?' I asked.

"'For the women and children. You surely would not leave them, and they
cannot travel?'

"'The women must walk. It will do them more good than harm. As for the
little children, load them on the donkeys. I hear you have about two
hundred of them. Your people will not travel very far the first month,
but little by little they will get accustomed to it. Our Zanzibar women
crossed Africa on my second expedition. Why cannot your black women do
the same? Have no fear of them; they will do better than the men.'

"'They would require a vast amount of provision for the road.'

"'True, but you have some thousands of cattle, I believe. Those will
furnish beef. The countries through which we pass must furnish grain and
vegetable food.'

"Well, well, we will defer further talk till to-morrow."

"May 1st, 1888.--Halt in camp at Nsabé. The Pasha came ashore from the
steamer 'Khedive' about one P. M., and in a short time we commenced our
conversation again. Many of the arguments used above were repeated, and
he said:

"'What you told me yesterday has led me to think that it is best we
should retire from here. The Egyptians are very willing to leave. There
are of these about one hundred men, besides their women and children. Of
these there is no doubt, and even if I stayed here I should be glad to
be rid of them, because they undermine my authority and nullify all my
endeavors for retreat. When I informed them that Khartoum had fallen and
Gordon Pasha was slain, they always told the Nubians that it was a
concocted story, that some day we should see the steamers ascend the
river for their relief. But of the regulars who compose the first and
second battalions I am extremely doubtful; they have led such a free and
happy life here that they would demur at leaving a country where they
have enjoyed luxuries they cannot command in Egypt. The soldiers are
married, and several of them have harems. Many of the irregulars would
also retire and follow me. Now, supposing the regulars refuse to leave,
you can imagine that my position would be a difficult one. Would I be
right in leaving them to their fate? Would it not be consigning them all
to ruin? I should have to leave them their arms and ammunition, and on
returning all discipline would be at an end. Disputes would arise, and
factions would be formed. The more ambitious would aspire to be chiefs
by force, and from these rivalries would spring hate and mutual
slaughter until there would be none of them left.'

"'Supposing you resolve to stay, what of the Egyptians?' I asked.

"'Oh! these I shall have to ask you to be good enough to take with you.'

"'Now, will you, Pasha, do me the favor to ask Captain Casati if we are
to have the pleasure of his company to the sea, for we have been
instructed to assist him also should we meet?'

"Captain Casati answered through Emin Pasha:

"'What the Governor Emin decides upon shall be the rule of conduct for
me also. If the Governor stays, I stay. If the Governor goes, I go.'

"'Well, I see, Pasha, that in the event of your staying your
responsibilities will be great.'

"A laugh. The sentence was translated to Casati, and the gallant Captain
replied:

"'Oh! I beg pardon, but I absolve the Pasha from all responsibility
connected with me, because I am governed by my own choice entirely.'

"Thus day after day I recorded faithfully the interviews I had with Emin
Pasha; but these extracts reveal as much as is necessary for you to
understand the position. I left Mr. Jephson thirteen of my Soudanese,
and sent a message to be read to the troops, as the Pasha requested.
Everything else is left until I return with the united expedition to the
Nyanza.

[Illustration: From Harper's Weekly. Copyright, 1887, by Harper &
Brothers.

EMIN PASHA.]

"Within two months the Pasha proposed to visit Fort Bodo, taking Mr.
Jephson with him. At Fort Bodo I have left instructions to the officers
to destroy the fort and accompany the Pasha to the Nyanza. I hope to
meet them all again on the Nyanza, as I intend making a short cut to the
Nyanza along a new road."



CHAPTER XXXIII.

IN THE HEART OF AFRICA.


It was in April, 1889, that the thrilling narrative of Mr. Stanley's
march from the Congo to the Lakes was made known. Then he disappeared
again from view, but not for long. Early in November following he was
heard from again, authoritatively, and in the same month the story of
his work in the Equatorial Province was rehearsed to the listening
world. It was on November 24th that Mr. Marston, of London, the
well-known publisher, received this letter from the explorer, dated at a
mission station at the southern end of Victoria Nyanza, September 3d,
1889:

"It just now," wrote Mr. Stanley, "appears such an age to me since I
left England. Ages have gone by since I saw you, surely. Do you know
why? Because a daily thickening barrier of silence has crept between us
during that time, and this silence is so dense that in vain we yearn to
pierce it. On my side I may ask, what have you been doing? On yours you
may ask, and what have you been doing? I can assure myself, now that I
know you live, that few days have passed without the special task of an
enterprising publisher being performed as wisely and as well as
possible.

"And, for the time being, you can believe me that one day has followed
another in striving strifefully against all manner of obstacles, natural
and otherwise. From the day I left Yambuya to August 28th, 1889, the day
I arrived here, the bare catalogue of incidents would fill several
quires of foolscap; the catalogue of skirmishes would be of respectable
length; the catalogue of adventures, accidents, mortalities, sufferings
from fever, morbid musings over mischances that meet us daily, would
make a formidable list.

"You know that all the stretch of country between Yambuya and this place
was an absolutely new country except what may be measured by five
ordinary marches.

"First there is that dead white of the map now changed to a dead
black--I mean that darkest region of earth confined between east
longitude 25 deg. and east longitude 29 deg. 45 min.--one great,
compact, remorselessly sullen forest, the growth of an untold number of
ages, swarming at stated intervals with immense numbers of vicious,
man-eating savages and crafty, undersized men, who were unceasing in
their annoyance.

"Then there is that belt of grass land lying between it and Albert
Nyanza, whose people contested every mile of our advance with spirit,
and made us think that they were the guardians of some priceless
treasure hidden on the Nyanza shores, or at war with Emin Pasha and his
thousands. Sir Percival, in search of the Holy Grail, could not have met
with a hotter opposition.

"Three separate times necessity compelled us to traverse these unholy
regions, with varying fortunes. Incidents then crowded fast. Emin Pasha
was a prisoner, an officer of ours was his forced companion, and it
really appeared as though we were to be added to the list. But there is
a virtue, you know, even in striving unyieldingly, in hardening nerves
and facing these everclinging mischances, without paying too much heed
to reputed danger. One is assisted much by knowing that there is no
other _coup_ and danger.

"Somehow, nine times out of ten the diminished rebels of Emin Pasha's
government relied on their craft and on the wiles of a 'heathen Chinee,'
and it is rather amusing now to look back and note how punishment has
fallen upon them.

"Was it Providence or luck? Let those who love to analyze such matters
reflect on it. Traitors without the camp and traitors within were
watched, and the most active conspirator was discovered, tried and
hanged. Traitors without fell foul of one another and ruined themselves.
If not luck, then surely it is Providence, in answer to good men's
prayers far away.

"Our people, tempted by extreme wretchedness and misery, sold our
rifles and ammunition to our natural enemies, the Manyema slave-holders.
True friends, without the least grace in either their bodies or souls!
What happy influence was it that restrained me from destroying all those
concerned in it?

"Each time I read the story of Captain Nelson's and Surgeon Parkes'
sufferings I feel vexed at my forbearance, and yet again I feel
thankful, for a higher power than man's severely afflicted the
cold-blooded murderers by causing them to feed upon one another a few
weeks after the rescue and relief of Nelson and Parkes. The memory of
those days alternately hardens and unmans me.

"With the rescue of Emin Pasha, poor old Casati, and those who preferred
Egypt's flesh pots to the coarse plenty of the province near Nyanza, we
returned, and while we were patiently waiting the doom of the rebels was
consummated.

"Since that time of anxiety and unhappy outlook I have been at the point
of death from a dreadful illness. The strain had been too much, and for
twenty-eight days I lay helpless, tended by the kindly and skilful hand
of Surgeon Parkes. Then little by little I gathered strength and ordered
the march for home.

"Discovery after discovery in this wonderful region was made. The snowy
ranges of Ruevenzoni, the 'Cloud King' or 'Rain Creator,' the Semliki
River. Albert Edward Nyanza, the plains of Noongora, the salt lakes of
Kative, new peoples, Wakonju of the Great Mountains, dwellers of the
rich forest region, the Awamba, the fine-featured Wasonyora, the Wanyoro
bandits, and then Lake Albert Edward, the tribes and shepherd races of
the Eastern uplands, then Wanyankori, besides Wanyaruwamba and Wazinja,
until at last we came to a church, whose cross dominated a Christian
settlement, and we knew that we had reached the outskirts of blessed
civilization.

"We have every reason to be grateful, and may that feeling be ever kept
within me. Our promises as volunteers have been performed as well as
though we had been specially commissioned by the government. We have
been all volunteers, each devoting his several gifts, abilities and
energies to win a successful issue for the enterprise. If there has been
anything that clouds sometimes our thoughts, it has been that we were
compelled by the state of Emin Pasha and his own people to cause
anxieties to our friends by serious delays.

"At every opportunity I have endeavored to lessen these by despatching
full accounts of our progress to the committee, that through them all
interested might be acquainted with what we are doing.

"Some of my officers also have been troubled in the thought that their
government might not overlook their having overstayed their leave, but
the truth is that the wealth of the British treasury could not have
hastened our march, without making ourselves liable to an impeachment
for breach of faith, and my officers were as much involved as myself in
doing the thing honorably and well."

The same mail brought to Sir William Mackinnon a letter from Stanley,
dated Kafurro, Arab Settlement, Karagwa, August 5th, 1889, from which
the following is taken:


     "On the 13th of February a native courier appeared in camp with a
     letter from Emin Pasha with news which electrified us. He was
     actually at anchor just below our plateau camp; but here is his
     formal letter:


     "'IN CAMP, February 13th, 1889.

     "'To HENRY M. STANLEY, Commanding the Relief Expedition:

     "'SIR--In answer to your letter of the 7th inst., for which I beg
     to tender my best thanks, I have the honor to inform you that
     yesterday, at three, I arrived here with my two steamers, carrying
     the first lot of people desirous to leave this country under your
     escort. As soon as I have arranged for the cover of my people the
     steamships have to start for Mswa station, to bring on another lot
     of people awaiting transport. With me there are some twelve
     officers anxious to see you, and only forty soldiers. They have
     come under my orders to request you to give them some time to bring
     their brothers, at least such as are willing to leave from Wadelai,
     and I promised them to do my best to assist them.

     "'Things having to some extent now changed, you will be able to
     make them undergo whatever conditions you see fit to impose upon
     them. To arrange these I shall start from here with my officers for
     your camp, after having provided for the camp, and if you send
     carriers I could avail myself of some of them. I hope, sincerely,
     that the great difficulties you have had to undergo, and the great
     sacrifices made by your expedition on its way to assist us, may be
     rewarded by full success in bringing out my people. The wave of
     insanity which overran the country has subsided, and of such people
     as are now coming with me we may be sure.

     "'Signor Casati requests me to give his best thanks for your kind
     remembrance of him. Permit me to express to you, once more, my
     cordial thanks for whatever you have done for us until now, and
     believe me to be yours, very faithfully,

     "'DR. EMIN.'"


On the 17th of February Emin Pasha and a following of about sixty
people, including several high officials, arrived at Stanley's camp.
They seemed unanimously in favor of departure from their position; but
they pleaded for time, and finally the 10th of April was decided upon as
the final day of the delay, which now had aggregated nearly a year. Emin
Pasha throughout this interview insisted that it all remained with his
people, but still April 10th was agreed to as a day when all could be
ready for the start. This decision was emphasized by a council of
Stanley's officers, all of whom agreed that no delay beyond the
appointed day should be thought of. After much hesitation and
questioning on Emin's part, lest he should do a wrong in abandoning any
of his people, his final muster was made and the march was begun on the
day set by Mr. Stanley.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

FORWARD MARCH!


"At muster this curious result was returned: There were with us one
hundred and thirty-four men, eighty-four married women, one hundred and
eighty-seven female domestics, seventy-four children above two years,
thirty-five infants in arms--making a total of five hundred and
fourteen. I have reason to believe that the number was nearer six
hundred, as many were not reported from fear probably that some would be
taken prisoners.

"On the 10th of April we set out from Kavallis, in number about one
thousand five hundred, for three hundred and fifty native carriers had
been enrolled from the district, to assist in carrying the baggage of
the Pasha's people, whose ideas as to what was essential for the march
were very crude.

"On the 11th we camped at Masambonis, but in the night I was struck down
with a severe illness, which well nigh proved mortal. It detained us at
the camp twenty-eight days, which, if Selim Bey and his party were
really serious in their intentions to withdraw from Africa, was most
fortunate for them, since it increased their time allowance to
seventy-two days. But in all this interval only Shukri Aga, the chief of
Mswa Station, appeared. He had started with twelve soldiers, but they,
one by one, disappeared, until he had only one trumpeter and one
servant. A few days after the trumpeter absconded. Thus only one servant
was left out of a garrison of sixty men who were reported to be the
faithfullest of the faithful.

"On the 8th of May our march was resumed. The route skirted the Mega
Mountains at their southern end, and encountered the King of Uyoro. The
first day's encounter was in our favor, and it cleared the territory as
far as the Semliki River, of the Wanyoro. Meantime we had become aware
that we were on the threshold of a region which promised to be very
interesting, for daily, as we advanced to the southward, the great snowy
range which had so suddenly arrested our attention and excited our
intense interest on May 1, 1888, grew larger and bolder into view. It
extended a long distance to the southwest, which would inevitably take
us some distance off our course, unless a pass could be discovered to
shorten the distance to the countries south.

"Much, however, as we had flattered ourselves that we should see some
marvellous scenery, the 'Snow Mountain' was very coy and hard to see. On
most days it looked impending over us like a tropical storm cloud, ready
to dissolve in rain and ruin. On its snowy cap shot into view jagged
clouds, whirling and eddying round. Often at sunrise Ruwenzori would
appear like a crag deeply marked and clearly visible, but presently all
would be buried under mass upon mass of mist until the immense mountain
was no more visible than if we were thousands of miles away; and then,
also, the 'Snow Mountain' being set deeply in the range, the nearer we
approached the base of the range the less we saw of it.

"It took us nineteen marches to reach the southwest angle of the range,
the Semliki Valley being below us on our right, and which, if the
tedious mist had permitted, would have been exposed in every detail.
That part of the valley traversed by us is generally known under the
name of Awamba, while the habitable portion of the range is principally
denominated Ukonju. The huts of the natives, the Bakonju, are seen as
high as 8,000 feet above the sea.

"A few days later we entered Unyampaka, which I had visited in January,
1876. Ringi, the king, allowed us to feast on his bananas unquestioned.
After following the lake shore until it turned too far to the southwest,
we struck for the lofty uplands of Aukori, by the natives of which we
were well received, preceded as we had been by the reports of our great
deeds in relieving salt lake of the presence of the universally
obnoxious Warosura.

"If you draw a straight line from Nyanza to the Uzinja shores of
Victoria Lake it would represent pretty fairly our course through
Aukori, Karagwe and Uhaiya to Uzinja.

"Aukori was open to us because we had driven Wanyaro from the salt lake.
The story was an open sesame. Here also existed a wholesome fear of an
expedition which had done that which all the power of Aukori could not
have done. Karagwe was open to us, because free trade is the policy of
Wanyamba and because the Wateanda were too much engrossed with their
civil war to interfere with our passage. Uhaiya admitted our entrance
without cavil, out of respect to our numbers, and Wakwiya guided us in a
like manner, to be welcomed by Wazinja.

"Nothing happened during our long journey from Albert Lake to cause us
any regret that we had taken this straight course, but we have suffered
from an unprecedented number of fevers. We have had as many as one
hundred and fifty cases in one day. In the month of July we lost one
hundred and forty-one Egyptians.

"Out of respect to the first British Prince who has shown an interest in
African geography we have named the southern Nyanza, to distinguish it
from the other two Nyanzas, Albert Edward Nyanza. It is not a very large
lake compared to Victoria, Tanganika and Nyassa. It is small, but its
importance and interest lie in the sole fact that it is the receiver of
all the streams at the extremity of the southwestern or Left Nile basin,
and discharges these waters by one river, the Semliki, into Albert
Nyanza. In a like manner Lake Victoria receives all streams from the
extremity of the southeastern or Right Nile basin and pours these waters
by the Victoria Nile into Albert Nyanza. These two Niles amalgamate in
Lake Albert, under the well-known name of White Nile.

"By the route taken I traversed the Semliki Valley, the Awamba, the
Usongora, the Toro, the Utraiyana, the Unyampaka, the Antrosi, the
Karagive, the Uhaiya, the Uzimza, the South Victoria and the Nyanza. No
hostile natives were met. Since we left Kabbarega we travelled along the
base of the snowy range Ruwenzori. Three sides of the Southern Nyanza or
Nyanza of Usongora, which is called now Albert Edward Nyanza, are about
nine hundred feet higher than Albert Nyanza, having an exit at Semliki
which receives over fifty streams from the Ruwenzori and finally enters
the Albert Nyanza, making the Albert Edward the source of the southwest
branch of the White Nile, the Victoria Nyanza being the source of the
southeast branch."

The relief committee at once made arrangements for the forwarding of
supplies to meet Stanley at Mpwapwa. It was thought that he could not
reach the coast before the beginning of next year. Mpwapwa is a station
about one hundred and fifty miles from the coast, on the road from
Zanzibar and Bagamoyo to Lake Tanganika. But the expedition made rapid
progress. On November 20th Captain Wissmann telegraphed from Zanzibar
that Stanley had reached Mpwapwa on November 10th, and simultaneously
there came a despatch which Captain Wissmann had written at Mpwapwa on
October 13th, as follows:

"Four of Stanley's men and one of Emin's soldiers have arrived here.
They left Stanley at Neukmma on August 10th, and came by way of Noembo
and Mwerieweri north to Mgogo in thirty-three days, including nine days
on which they rested. Emin and Casati had three hundred Soudanese
soldiers and many other followers with them. They had in their
possession a large quantity of ivory. Stanley had a force of two hundred
and forty Zanzibaris and was accompanied by six lieutenants--Nelson,
Jephson, Stairs, Parke, Bonny and William. The expedition struck camp as
soon as the messengers started. Therefore the party should reach Mpwapwa
by November 20th. Emin and Stanley repeatedly fought and repulsed the
Mahdists, capturing the Mahdi's grand banner. A majority of Emin's
soldiers refused to follow him southwards, asserting that their way home
did not lie in that direction. Emin left two Egyptian officers in
charge of stations."

This prediction that the expedition would reach Mpwapwa by November 20th
was more than verified. He got there on November 10th. On November 11th
Sir William Mackinnon received a despatch from Stanley announcing his
arrival there, and stating that he expected to reach Zanzibar in a few
days.

To the British Consul at Zanzibar Mr. Stanley wrote, under the same
date:

"We arrived here yesterday on the fifty-fifth day from Victoria Nyanza
and the one hundred and eighty-eighth day from the Albert Nyanza. We
number altogether about seven hundred and fifty souls. At the last
muster, three days ago, Emin Pasha's people numbered two hundred and
ninety-four, of whom fifty-nine are children, mostly orphans of Egyptian
officers. The whites with me are Lieutenant Stairs, Captain Nelson,
Mounteney, Jephson, Surgeon Parke, William Bonny, Mr. Hoffman, Emin
Pasha and his daughter, Captain Casati, Signor Marco and a Tunisian,
Vitu Hassan, and an apothecary. We have also Pères Girault and Schinze,
of the Algerian mission. Among the principal officers of the Pasha are
the Vakeers, of the Equatorial province, and Major Awash Effendi, of the
Second battalion.

"Since leaving Victoria Nyanza we have lost eighteen of the Pasha's
people, and one native of Zanzibar, who was killed while we were
parleying with hostile people. Every other expedition I have led has
seen the lightening of our labors as we drew near the sea, but I cannot
say the same of this one. Our long string of hammock bearers tells a
different tale, and until we place these poor things on shipboard there
will be no rest for us. The worst of it is we have not the privilege of
showing at Zanzibar the full extent of our labors. After carrying some
of them one thousand miles, fighting to the right and left of the sick,
driving Warasura from their prey, over range and range of mountains,
with every energy on the full strain, they slip through our hands and
die in their hammocks. One lady, seventy-five years of age, the old
mother of the Valkiel, died in this manner in North Msukuma, south of
Victoria Nyanza.

"We had as stirring a time for four days as we had anywhere. For those
four days we had continuous fighting during the greater part of daylight
hours. The foolish natives took an unaccountable prejudice to the
Pasha's people. They insisted that they were cannibals and had come to
their country for no good. Talking to them was of no use. Any attempt at
disproof drove them into white hot rage, and in their mad flinging of
themselves on us they suffered."



CHAPTER XXXV.

AT THE COAST AT LAST.


A special correspondent of the _New York Herald_ reached Msuwah at 5 P.
M., on November 29th, and immediately sent to that paper the following
despatch:

"I have just met Henry M. Stanley, Emin Pasha, Casati, Lieutenant
Stairs, Mr. Jephson, Dr. Parke, Nelson and Bonny and five hundred and
sixty men, women and children.

"I have found Stanley looking exceedingly hearty. He wears a Prussian
cap, linen breeches and canvas shoes.

"I presented him with the American flag with which I was intrusted, and
it is now flying from Mr. Stanley's tent.

"The great explorer's hair is quite white and his moustache is iron
gray.

"Emin Pasha is a slight, dark man. He wears spectacles. In a short
conversation which I had with him he told me he did not wish for any
honors for what he had done. He simply desired to be employed again in
the Khedive's service.

"I have given Captain Casati his letters. He looks well, but the
hardships which he has undergone seem to have quite undermined his
constitution.

"All the other Europeans are well. We shall proceed toward the coast the
day after to-morrow.

"Stanley, Emin and Casati were entertained at dinner last night in this
camp by Baron Gravenreath. Speeches were made by the Baron and by
Stanley. The Baron complimented Stanley, Emin and their companions on
their march from Central Africa. Stanley responded and praised German
enterprise and civilizing abilities."

Mr. Stanley and his comrades moved steadily forward, and on December 3d
were met by Major Wissmann at Atoni on the Kinghani River. The occasion
was duly celebrated by the drinking of healths and loyal toasts in
bumpers of champagne. Major Wissmann provided horses, and Mr. Stanley
and Emin Pasha made a triumphal entry into Bagamoyo at 11 o'clock on
Wednesday morning, December 4th. The town was profusely decorated with
bunting and verdant arches, and palms were waving from every window.
Major Wissmann's force and the German man-of-war "Sperber" fired
salutes. All the vessels in the roadstead were handsomely decked with
flags.

Major Wissmann entertained the party at luncheon, when the captain of
the "Sperber" formally welcomed Mr. Stanley, and then congratulated Emin
on behalf of Emperor William. During the afternoon many Europeans came
to greet the explorers.

In the evening there was a champagne banquet. The German Consul offered
a toast in honor of Queen Victoria. Major Wissmann toasted Stanley,
calling him his master in African exploration. Mr. Stanley made an
eloquent reply. He thanked God that he had done his duty, and referred
with emotion to the soldiers whose bones were bleaching in the forest.
He said his motto had always been "Onward." He testified to the divine
influence that had guided him in his work. Emin Pasha toasted Emperor
William. Lieutenant Stairs responded to a toast to Stanley's officers.
Major Brackenbury proposed the health of Major Wissmann, which was drunk
with all honors, the company heartily singing "He's a jolly good
fellow."

The festivities of the evening had, however, a sad ending. A great crowd
gathered outside, lustily cheering the illustrious guests. Emin Pasha
went to a window and stepped out upon the balcony to acknowledge the
compliment. Being nearly blind, he stumbled and fell over the low
parapet to the street, a distance of twenty feet. He was picked up
terribly bruised, the blood streaming from his ears, and it was feared
that his skull was fractured. All the physicians present declared his
injuries fatal, excepting Stanley's comrade, Dr. Parke. He took a more
hopeful view of the case. Next day it was found that the skull was not
broken, although Emin had sustained various severe internal injuries.
Mr. Stanley telegraphed to England that the Pasha's condition was most
critical, and that the German naval surgeons there declared that only
twenty in a hundred of such cases ever recover, this percentage
including all the cases of men in the vigor of life. Emin's age was not
great, but his physical condition was not good. In addition to other bad
symptoms, the hemorrhage from the ears continued, and this, though it
prevented the immediate formation of a large clot in the brain, menaced
life by loss of strength. He was lying in the German hospital at
Bagamoyo. Dr. Parke still had some hope. Day by day news of the patient
grew better, and soon he was regarded as on the sure though slow road to
recovery.

Mr. Stanley was conveyed from Bagamoyo to Zanzibar by the German warship
"Sperber," which had been placed at his disposal by the Emperor. This
was a compliment without precedent.

On December 5th the German Emperor telegraphed to Emin:

"Now you have at last returned from your post, where you have remained
over eleven years, with truly German loyalty and devotion to duty, I am
glad to greet you, sending my congratulations and imperial appreciation.
I have felt special satisfaction from the fact that it was through
territory under our protection that German forces were able to smooth
the way to the coast for your return."

At the same time the Emperor cabled to Stanley as follows:

"Thanks to your perseverance and inflexible courage, you have now, after
repeatedly crossing the Dark Continent, overcome a new and long
succession of exceeding perils and almost unendurable hardships. That,
after surmounting those, your return journey should lead you through
lands covered by my flag, affords me great satisfaction, and I welcome
you heartily to civilization and security."

Stanley cabled the following answer:

"Imperator et Rex: My expectation has now reached its end. I have had
the honor to be hospitably entertained by Major Wissmann and other of
your Majesty's officers under him. Since arriving from Mpwapwa our
travels have come to a successful conclusion. We have been taken across
from Bagamoyo to Zanzibar by your Majesty's ships 'Sperber' and
'Schwalbe' and all honors, coupled with great affability, have been
accorded us.

"I gratefully remember the hospitality and princely affability extended
to me at Potsdam, and am profoundly impressed with your Majesty's
condescension, kindness and gracious welcome. With a full and sincere
heart I exclaim, Long live the noble Emperor William!"

The Emperor was immensely pleased with Stanley's reply. He read it
aloud, encircled by a brilliant party, at a supper given by the Grand
Duke of Hesse. Then he again cabled to Stanley, urging him to make an
early visit to Berlin, and giving him hearty assurance of a warm German
greeting.

In England Mr. Stanley was the hero of the day. Tributes to his worth
abounded on every hand. The Royal Geographical Society took in charge
the arrangements for a formal welcome on his return.





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