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 _repertoire_. 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.