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.