EARLY BELGIAN EXPEDITIONS
[Sidenote: Cartography and Civilisation.]
Having narrated the principal political circumstances which
eventuated in the founding of the Congo Free State, it now becomes
necessary to revert to an earlier period, and sketch briefly the
various Belgian expeditions to whose labours are so largely owing
our knowledge of the geography of Central Africa, the suppression
of the slave trade there, and the establishment of civilising and
humanitarian government by Belgians.
It is hardly necessary to say that so great an enterprise was not
possible of achievement without loss of life, and much personal
sacrifice and suffering; that many men of high intellectual power
and indomitable courage fell by the way, martyrs to disease,
treachery, and the innumerable accidents by flood and field which
ever dog the footsteps of pioneer explorers. The official records
of the expeditions, for the most part vouched for by independent
testimony (chiefly English), establish beyond possibility of dispute
the patient forbearance and humanity of the explorers in their
dealings with the natives. The dignity of truth is lost with too
much protesting, and that some few mistakes were committed here
and there, the result of over-zealousness on the part of particular
individuals, is frankly admitted, such admission in no way detracting
from the confident assertion that no exploration of unknown lands
had ever before been made which occasioned so small an amount of
friction with their indigenous occupiers. A sound discretion is not
so much indicated by never making a mistake as by never repeating it.
Mistake, error, is the discipline through which we all advance, and
the greatest of faults is to be conscious of none.
[Sidenote: A Bad Start.]
The first Belgian expedition arrived at Zanzibar in December, 1877,
having been three months on its voyage from Ostend. It was commanded
by Captain Crespel, an officer of the Belgian Army, and included,
besides Lieutenant Cambier, also of the Belgian Army, Dr. Maes,
and M. Marno, an Austrian. Some time was spent by these explorers
in Zanzibar, purchasing supplies and engaging an escort, before
starting for the interior; a task in which they were assisted by the
Sultan, Seyyid Burghash, an enlightened ruler, opposed to slavery
and sympathetic with the expedition and its objects. Unfortunately,
these favourable auspices were not followed by correspondingly happy
events. In less than a month after the arrival of the expedition in
Zanzibar, Dr. Maes was dead of fever; and Captain Crespel, who was
ill from the first moment that he set foot on African soil, survived
Dr. Maes only a few days.
Shortly before these two sad events, Cambier and Marno had started on
their journey into the interior, and at once became the victims of
every sort of misfortune. Their cattle were tormented and destroyed
by the tsetse fly, which in that year assumed the proportions of a
plague, and, their route lying through a marshy region, progress was
rendered impossible. Two months later they returned to Zanzibar worn
out and dispirited, having achieved nothing, only to be greeted by
the melancholy news of the death of Captain Crespel and Dr. Maes.
Command of the expedition now devolved upon Lieutenant Cambier, who
resolved to await reinforcements from Belgium.
It was not until September of the following year that Lieutenant
Cambier, accompanied by Lieutenant Wautier and Dr. Dutrieux, ventured
to move forward. On the occasion of his second attempt he started
from Bagamoyo. His difficulties, if not so great as on his previous
journey, would have daunted any ordinary mortal. His native carriers
gave great trouble, continually deserting or threatening to desert
him, while crossing the Mgonda-Mkali desert. However, after passing
through infinite danger and difficulty, Cambier succeeded in reaching
the territory of Mirambo, and prospered so well in his efforts to
secure the friendship and assistance of that powerful chief that the
two entered into a treaty of alliance, and went through the strangely
barbarous ceremony of taking the oath of blood; after which,
according to African superstition and custom, they became brothers.
This was the first example of a Belgian officer and a native chief
taking the oath of blood. It was entered into by Cambier only after
he had informed himself that it was a ceremony the sanctity of which
the Negro race held to be inviolable, and was therefore exactly
suited to his purpose.
[Illustration: A Saddle Ox, Kassai.]
[Illustration: European Travelling in the Uelle District.]
The object of the expedition was to found a station on the shores of
Lake Tanganyika. Having been provided with some necessary supplies
by his newly made “blood brother,” M. Cambier was about to resume
his journey, of which another hundred and fifty miles remained, when
he learned with consternation of the death of M. Wautier, the able
lieutenant to whom he had entrusted the difficult task of keeping
open his communications with the coast, who had succumbed to the
climate after prolonged exposure to torrential rain. M. Wautier was
the third Belgian who had lost his life in the cause of African
exploration. His place was taken by M. Bryon, a Swiss traveller
of much experience, who rendered good and faithful service. But
though so near to his destination, M. Cambier’s difficulties were
by no means ended. As before, it was his carriers who made the
trouble. They were insubordinate, quarrelled among themselves, and
deserted in great numbers, on the slightest provocation, and often
for none at all. Finally, however, on August 12, 1879, Karema, on
Lake Tanganyika, was reached in safety, and the first station of
the International Association for the Exploration and Civilisation
of Central Africa established by the Belgian Committee. The site
chosen for the station was about five thousand acres of land, very
healthfully situated, which Cambier obtained by treaty with a local
chief. Thus through difficulty and danger, by the expenditure
of energy, money, and of life itself, was the object of the first
Belgian expedition successfully accomplished, and M. Cambier set out
to return to Belgium. When he reached the coast he was surprised to
meet a second expedition, of whose existence he knew nothing, which
had just arrived from Belgium. In consequence, M. Cambier decided not
to return to Europe, but to remain in Africa for a while to assist,
so far as he was able, in this second enterprise. The period was May,
1879. The new expedition, under command of Captain Popelin, of the
Headquarters Staff, assisted by Dr. Van den Heuval and Lieutenant
Dutalis, had not completed their arrangements for their inland
journey when the latter fell ill and was obliged to return at once to
Belgium. The expedition had brought with it four Indian elephants,
attended by two English keepers accustomed to the management of those
animals, it having been suggested to King Leopold that elephants were
better adapted for transport purposes in Central Africa than oxen.
The experiment proved a costly failure. All four of the elephants
died before any use could be made of them, and their English keepers
were waylaid by brigands and murdered on their way back to Zanzibar.
Notwithstanding these misfortunes, MM. Cambier and Popelin persevered
bravely with their task, stocked the station at Karema with
provisions, and organised a native guard for its protection.
The third expedition, judged by results, hardly deserves to be called
such. It consisted of only two Belgians (MM. Burdo and Roger), and
the health of the former breaking down immediately on his arrival at
Zanzibar, he was obliged to return home at once. War was now being
waged between the chiefs Mirambo and Simba; but though each of the
contestants was friendly to the Belgians, the conflict rendered their
position very precarious. In the circumstances, MM. Cambier and
Popelin judged it expedient to divide their forces, so as to ensure
efficient protection for the newly founded station at Karema, and the
route thence to the coast.
While matters were standing thus, a fourth expedition arrived, the
strongest and best equipped yet sent out by Belgium, commanded by
Captain Ramaeckers, an experienced African traveller, skilled in
native wiles, who had been more successful in his dealing with
the black man than any other Belgian. Captain Ramaeckers was ably
seconded by MM. Becker and De Leu, lieutenants in the Belgian
Artillery, and an expert photographer. The moment of the arrival of
this expedition was opportune, for the difficulties of MM. Cambier
and Popelin, due to the war between the natives, increased daily, and
they were in a bad way. Captain Ramaeckers made all possible haste
to succour them, and after a perilous journey succeeded in joining
his colleagues on the banks of Lake Tanganyika; but he lost by death
on the way his brave lieutenant, De Leu, a victim of malarial fever,
and the health of the photographer failed so completely that it was
found necessary to send him home. Captain Ramaeckers now took over
the command from Lieutenant Cambier, who had carried on the work in
Central Africa for three years, and was now desirous of returning to
Europe. In that period Cambier had contrived to achieve much valuable
work, of which the worth is more apparent to-day than it was in
December, 1880, when he resigned his command. But in estimating its
value, then or now, the enormous difficulties under which he laboured
should never for a moment be lost sight of. These difficulties were
so great as hardly to admit of exaggeration. Language is inadequate
to convey any just conception of the trackless deserts, impenetrable
forests, and malarial swamps, through which the explorers’ route lay,
complicated by two friendly but warring tribes, each suspicious of
the strangers’ relations with the other.
Popelin and Ramaeckers, unlike Cambier, were not destined to see
their native land again. Eighteen months after the departure of
Cambier, Popelin died of malarial fever, and a short while after
Ramaeckers also, from a like cause. In spite of these terrible
losses, the Belgian station continued to exist, and even prospered in
its work. The command now devolved upon Lieutenant Storms, then on
his way to Central Africa to establish a new station on the western
shore of Lake Tanganyika. When Storms arrived and took command he
chose as the site of the new station a spot called Mpala, immediately
opposite Karema. The chief of the district, who himself bore the name
of Mpala, proved friendly to the expedition, and the new station soon
became as important as Karema itself. So great was the influence
exerted by Storms over Mpala that that chief, when dying, left
the appointment of his successor to be determined by the Belgian
officer. Storms showed himself a clever diplomatist, and during his
two-and-a-half-years’ control did much to consolidate the work of his
predecessors.
So far, we have seen, these expeditions were exclusively Belgian.
They owed their inception to King Leopold, by far the larger part of
the heavy expense they entailed was met out of his Majesty’s private
purse, and the _personnel_ was Belgian almost to a man. Humanitarian
in their object, the expeditions had been conducted so humanely that
no injury had resulted to any one for which the expeditions could
be blamed. With the exception of the two English elephant-keepers,
murdered by Arab brigands, the loss of life was wholly Belgian,
resulting in every case from the trying climate of Equatorial Africa.
[Sidenote: An Intrepid Journalist.]
But before any Belgian expedition had started, Henry M. Stanley, the
great Anglo-American traveller, had penetrated Africa as far as the
mouth of the Congo, and had startled the world by the information
contained in his letters addressed thence to the New York _Herald_
and the London _Daily Telegraph_. In glowing and incisive language
Stanley demonstrated the future commercial importance of the superb
Congo River, and significantly pointed out that, so far, no European
power, except Portugal, had put forth any claim to its control—a
claim which England, France, and the United States had refused to
recognise.
This pregnant statement excited widespread remark, but the King of
the Belgians was alone in acting upon the startling information.
His Majesty invited Mr. Stanley to Brussels to confer with some
distinguished geographers, merchants, and financiers; and out of that
meeting grew the _Comité d’Études du Haut-Congo_, to which reference
has been made in an earlier chapter. Soon after, however, the name of
this body was changed to that of the International Association of the
Congo. Mr. Stanley was invited to enter its service, and to establish
along the Congo a series of stations, designed as bases for future
operations, humanitarian and commercial, _i. e._, suppression of the
slave trade and securing the commerce of the Congo country.
How Stanley accepted that invitation, and carried out the mission
which the King of the Belgians entrusted to him, is almost as well
known as the story of the same intrepid traveller’s discovery of
Dr. Livingstone a few years before. With only ten companions (five
Belgian, two English, two Danish, and one French), Stanley left
Europe in January, 1879. At Zanzibar he hoped to be reinforced by at
least some of those who had been associated with him on his previous
journey. Meanwhile the steamboats _En Avant_ and _Royal_, the
twin-screw steamer _La Belgique_, one-screw barge _Young Africa_, and
two steel lighters, were sent direct from Belgium to the mouth of the
Congo, there to await Stanley’s coming. Stanley recruited a hundred
and forty blacks (Askaris and Kabindas), to say nothing of carriers,
whom he obtained as he required them during his progress along the
Congo.
[Sidenote: Difficult Pioneering.]
The first station to be founded was Vivi, and six months were spent
in fortifying it. Then came the construction of a road from Vivi to
Isanghila—fifty miles higher up the river—required for the conveyance
of the steamers in section, stores, merchandise, etc. This proved
a formidable task and took a whole year to accomplish. But Stanley
and his men proved equal to it, and another station was founded at
Isanghila. At that station, fortunately, the Congo was again found
to be navigable, and Stanley pushed on to Manyanga by boat, where
he founded a third station. It was while at Manyanga that Stanley
first learned of M. de Brazza’s having set up the French flag on the
northern shore of Stanley Pool, and calling it Brazzaville, a fact
previously referred to.
Stanley countered this act by founding, on the plain of Kintamo, near
the lake, a station out of which has grown the modern Leopoldville,
named in honour of the King of the Belgians, and now recognised as
the capital of Central Africa.
The spread of French influence so far as Brazzaville was significant
and ominous. Clearly the nations of Europe were waking up to the
importance and value of Central Africa. Leaving the expedition in
charge of Captain Hanssens, Stanley hurriedly returned to Brussels
to report the circumstance in person. That was in April, 1882;
and by February, 1883, he was back again with the expedition in
Africa, recharged, as it were, with energy, and busied himself in
establishing numerous stations.
[Illustration: Native Employees of the State Waiting for Rations at
Boma.]
In all, Stanley served five years with this expedition, which,
notwithstanding his nationality, must in all fairness be accounted a
Belgian expedition.
Such, then, were the early expeditions in Central Africa undertaken
by Leopold, King of the Belgians. There were other contemporaneous
expeditions in the same region undertaken by France, Germany, and
Russia, or rather by natives of those countries presumably working in
the interest of their respective nations, but their results will not
stand comparison with those achieved by Belgians. At one time it was
the intention of King Leopold to appoint General Gordon to the chief
command on the Congo, and that extraordinary man had agreed to accept
his Majesty’s offer; but the British Government had a prior claim on
Gordon’s services, who went to Khartoum and lost his life there in
tragic circumstances so well known that they need not be recounted
here.