Bibliography:
15. Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa. 16. Vol. 33 of the Royal
Geographical Society.
36. To Fuga. January to March 1857.
The fame of a soldier having been denied him, Burton now turned his
thoughts once more to exploration; and his eagerness for renown is
revealed conspicuously in some verses written about this time. They
commence:
"I wore thine image, Fame,
Within a heart well fit to be thy shrine!
Others a thousand boons may gain;
One wish was mine."
He hoped to obtain one of its smiles and then die. A glorious hand
seemed to beckon him to Africa. There he was to go and find his destiny.
The last stanza runs:
"Mine ear will hear no other sound,
No other thought my heart will know.
Is this a sin? Oh, pardon, Lord!
Thou mad'st me so."
He would obtain the fame of a great traveller; the earth should roll up
for him as a carpet. Happy indeed was Isabel Arundell when he placed the
verses in her hand, but melancholy to relate, he also presented copies
to his "dear Louisa," and several other dears.
He now read greedily all the great geographers, ancient and modern,
and all the other important books bearing on African exploration. If he
became an authority on Herodotus, Pliny, Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pomponious
Mela, he became equally an authority on Bruce, Sonnini, Lacerda, the
Pombeiros, Monteiro and Gamitto.
From Ptolemy downwards writers and travellers had prayed for the
unveiling of Isis, that is to say, the discovery of the sources of the
Nile; but for two thousand years every effort had proved fruitless.
Burning to immortalize himself by wresting from the mysterious river its
immemorial secret, Burton now planned an expedition for that purpose.
Thanks to the good offices of Lord Clarendon, Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, the Royal Geographical Society promised him the
necessary funds; while Cardinal Wiseman, ever his sincere friend, gave
him a passport to all Catholic missionaries. [165] To Burton, as we have
seen, partings were always distressing, and in order to avoid bidding
adieu to Miss Arundell he adopted his usual course, leaving a letter
which mentioned love and that he was gone.
He quitted England for Bombay in October 1856, and crossed to Zanzibar
in the Elphinstone sloop of war, Speke, who was to be his companion in
the expedition, sailing with him. Burton was in the highest spirits.
"One of the gladdest moments in human life," he wrote, "is the departing
upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one effort
the fetters of habit, the leaden weight of routine, the slavery of
civilisation, [166] man feels once more happy. The blood flows with the
fast circulation of youth, excitement gives a new vigour to the muscles
and a sense of sudden freedom adds an inch to the stature." Among the
crew was a midshipman, C. R. Low, who became a life-long friend of
Burton. Says Mr. Low, "We used to have bouts of single-stick in the
pleasant evening sin the poop, and many's the time he has blacked my
arms and legs with his weapons.... Though a dangerous enemy, he was a
warm and constant friend." [167] On reaching Zanzibar, Burton,
finding the season an unsuitable one for the commencement of his great
expedition, resolved to make what he called "a preliminary canter." So
he and Speke set out on a cruise northward in a crazy old Arab "beden"
with ragged sails and worm-eaten timbers. They carried with them,
however, a galvanised iron life-boat, "The Louisa," named after Burton's
old love, and so felt no fear.
They passed the Island of Pemba, and on the 22nd reached Mombasa, which
Burton was glad to visit on account of its associations with Camoens,
who wrote
So near that islet lay along the land,
Nought save a narrow channel stood atween;
And rose a city throned on the strand,
Which from the margent of the seas was seen;
Fair built with lordly buildings tall and grand
As from its offing showed all its sheen,
Here ruled a monarch for long years high famed,
Islet and city are Mombasa named. [168]
Indeed he never missed an opportunity of seeing spots associated with
his beloved "Master." Then they turned southward and on February 3rd
reached Pangany, whence, in company with a facetious fellow named Sudy
Bombay, they set out on a canoe and foot journey to Fuga, which they
found to be "an unfenced heap of hay cock huts." Though a forbidden city
to strangers they managed to get admittance by announcing themselves
as "European wizards and Waganga of peculiar power over the moon, the
stars, the wind and the rain." They found the sultan of the place, an
old man named Kimwere, sick, emaciated and leprous. He required, he
said, an elixir which would restore him to health, strength, and youth.
This, however, despite his very respectable knowledge of medicine,
Burton was not able to compound, so after staying two days he took his
leave. "It made me sad," says Burton, "to see the wistful, lingering
look with which the poor old king accompanied the word Kuahery!
(Farewell!)" On the return journey Speke shot a hippopotamus which he
presented to the natives, who promptly ate it. By the time Pangany was
again reached both travellers were in a high fever; but regarding it
simply as a seasoning, they felt gratified rather than not. When the
Zanzibar boat arrived Speke was well enough to walk to the shore, but
Burton "had to be supported like a bedridden old woman."
37. Zanzibar to Tanganyika, 26th June 1857 to 26th May 1858.
Burton left Zanzibar on his great expedition at the end of June,
carrying with him various letters of introduction from the Sultan of
Zanzibar, a diploma signed by the Shaykh El Islam of Mecca, and the
passport already mentioned of Cardinal Wiseman. To his star-sapphire
he added some little canvas bags containing horse chestnuts which
he carried about "against the Evil Eye, and as a charm to ward off
sickness." [169] Beside Burton and Speke, the party consisted of two Goa
boys, two negro gun-carriers, Sudy Bombay, and ten Zanzibar mercenaries.
Dr. Steinhauser, who had hoped to join them, was restrained by illness.
"My desire," says Burton, "was to ascertain the limits of Tanganyika
Lake, to learn the ethnography of its tribes, and to determine the
export of the produce of the interior." He held the streams that fed
Tanganyika to be the ultimate sources of the Nile; and believed that the
glory of their discovery would be his. Fortune, however, the most fickle
of goddesses, thought fit to deprive him of this ardently coveted boon.
The explorers landed at Wale Point on June 26th, and on July 14th
reached K'hutu. At Dug'humi Burton, despite his bags of chestnuts, fell
with marsh fever, and in his fits he imagined himself to be "two persons
who were inimical to each other," an idea very suitable for a man
nursing the "duality" theory. When he recovered, fresh misfortunes
followed, and finally all the riding asses died. Burton, however,
amid it all, managed to do one very humane action. He headed a little
expedition against a slave raider, and had the satisfaction of restoring
five poor creatures to their homes.
The tropical vegetation and the pleasant streams afforded delightful
vistas both by daylight and moonlight, but every mile the travellers
were saddened by the sight of clean-picked skeletons or swollen corpses.
Sometimes they met companies of haggard, heavy-gaited men and women half
blind with small-pox--the mothers carrying on their backs infants as
loathsome as themselves. Near every kraal stood detached huts built for
the diseased to die in. They passed from this God-forsaken land to a
district of springs welling with sweet water, calabashes and tamarinds,
and circlets of deep, dew-fed verdure. The air was spicy, and zebras
and antelopes browsed in the distance. Then the scene again changed, and
they were in a slimy, malarious swamp. They were bitten by pismires
an inch long, and by the unmerciful tzetze fly. The mercenaries, who
threatened to desert, rendered no assistance, and the leader, one Said
bin Salim, actually refused to give Burton a piece of canvas to make a
tent. Sudy Bombay then made a memorable speech, "O Said," he said, "if
you are not ashamed of your master, be at least ashamed of his servant,"
a rebuke that had the effect of causing the man to surrender at once the
whole awning. At other times the star-sapphire which Burton carried
on his person proved a valuable auxiliary--and convinced where words
failed. But the mercenaries, mistaking Burton's forbearance for
weakness, became daily bolder and more insolent, and they now only
awaited a convenient opportunity to kill him. One day as he was marching
along, gun over shoulder and dagger in hand, he became conscious that
two of his men were unpleasantly near, and after a while one of them,
unaware that Burton understood his language, urged the other to strike.
Burton did not hesitate a moment. Without looking round, he thrust back
his dagger, and stabbed the man dead on the spot. [170] The other, who
fell on his knees and prayed for mercy, was spared. This, however, did
not cure his followers of their murderous instincts, and a little later
he discovered another plot. The prospective assassins having piled a
little wood where they intended to kindle a fire, went off to search for
more. While they were gone Burton made a hole under the wood and buried
a canister of gunpowder in it. On their return the assassins lighted the
fire, seated themselves comfortably round, and presently there weren't
any assassins. We tell these tales just as Burton told them to his
intimate friends. The first may have been true, the second, we believe,
simply illustrates his inveterate habit of telling tales against himself
with the desire to shock. In any circumstances, his life was in constant
peril; but he and the majority of the party, after unexampled tortures
from thirst, arrived footsore and jaded in a veritable land of
Goshen--Kazeh or Unyanyembe, where they met some kindly Arab merchants.
"What a contrast," exclaims Burton, "between the open-handed hospitality
and the hearty good-will of this noble race--the Arabs--and the
niggardliness of the savage and selfish African. It was heart of
flesh after heart of stone." Burton found the Arabs of Kazeh living
comfortably and even sybaritically. They had large, substantial houses,
fine gardens, luxuries from the coast and "troops of concubines and
slaves." Burton gallantly gives the ladies their due. "Among the fair
of Yombo," he says, "there were no fewer than three beauties--women who
would be deemed beautiful in any part of the world. Their faces were
purely Grecian; they had laughing eyes their figures were models for an
artist with--
"Turgide, brune, e ritondette mamme."
like the 'bending statue' that delights the world. The dress--a short
kilt of calabash fibre--rather set off than concealed their charms, and
though destitute of petticoat they were wholly unconscious of indecorum.
These beautiful domestic animals graciously smiled when in my best
Kenyamwezi I did my devoir to the sex; and the present of a little
tobacco always secured for me a seat in the undress circle."
Of the native races of West Africa Burton gave a graphic account when he
came to write the history of this expedition. [171] All, it seems, had
certain customs in common. Every man drank heavily, ate to repletion and
gambled. They would hazard first their property and then themselves.
A negro would stake his aged mother against a cow. As for morality,
neither the word nor the thing existed among them. Their idea of perfect
bliss was total intoxication. When ill, they applied to a medicine man,
who having received a fee used it for the purpose of getting drunk, but
upon his return to sobriety, he always, unless, of course, the patient
took upon himself to die, instead of waiting, attended conscientiously
to his duties. No self-respecting chief was ever sober after mid-day.
Women were fattened for marriage just as pigs are fattened for
market--beauty and obesity being interchangeable terms. The wearisome
proceedings in England necessary to a divorce, observes Burton, are
there unknown. You turn your wife out of doors, and the thing is done.
The chief trouble at Kazeh, as elsewhere, arose from the green scorpion,
but there were also lizards and gargantuan spiders. Vermin under an inch
in length, such as fleas, ants, and mosquitoes, were deemed unworthy
of notice. The march soon began again, but they had not proceeded many
miles before Burton fell with partial paralysis brought on my malaria;
and Speke, whom Burton always called "Jack," became partially blind.
Thoughts of the elmy fields and the bistre furrows of Elstree and the
tasselled coppices of Tours crowded Burton's brain; and he wrote:
"I hear the sound I used to hear,
The laugh of joy, the groan of pain,
The sounds of childhood sound again
Death must be near."
At last, on the 13th February they saw before them a long streak of
light. "Look, master, look," cried Burton's Arab guide, "behold the
great water!" They advanced a few yards, and then an enormous expanse
of blue burst into sight. There, in the lap of its steel-coloured
mountains, basking in the gorgeous tropical sunshine, lay the great lake
Tanganyika. The goal had been reached; by his daring, shrewdness and
resolution he had overcome all difficulties. Like the soldiers in
Tacitus, in victory he found all things--health, vigour, abundance.
No wonder Burton felt a marvellous exultation of spirits when he viewed
this great expanse of waters. Here, he thought, are the sources of that
ancient river--the Nile. Now are fulfilled the longing of two thousand
years. I am the heir of the ages! Having hired "a solid built Arab
craft," the explorers made their way first to Ujiji and then to Uvira,
the northernmost point of the lake, which they reached on April 26th.
On their return voyage they were caught in a terrible storm, from which
they did not expect to be saved, and while the wild tumbling waves
threatened momentarily to engulf them a couplet from his fragmentary
Kasidah kept running in Burton's mind:
"This collied night, these horrid waves, these gusts that sweep
the whirling deep;
What reck they of our evil plight, who on the shore securely
sleep?" [172]
However, they came out of this peril, just as they had come out of
so many others. Burton also crossed the lake and landed in Kazembe's
country, [173] in which he was intensely interested, and some years
later he translated into English the narratives of Dr. Lacerda [174]
and other Portuguese travellers who had visited its capital, Lunda, near
Lake Moero.
38. The Return Journey, 26th May 1858 to 13th February 1859.
The explorers left Tanganyika for the return journey to Zanzibar on May
26th. At Yombo, reached June 18th, Burton received a packet of letters,
which arrived from the coast, and from one he learnt of the death of his
father, which had occurred 8 months previous. Despite his researches,
Colonel Burton was not missed in the scientific world, but his son
sincerely mourned a kind-hearted and indulgent parent. At Kazeh,
Fortune, which had hitherto been so favourable, now played Burton a
paltry trick. Speke having expressed a wish to visit the lake now called
Victoria Nyanza, a sheet of water which report declared to be larger
than Tanganyika, Burton, for various reasons, thought it wiser not to
accompany him. So Speke went alone and continued his march until he
reached the lake, the dimensions of which surpassed his most sanguine
expectations. On his return to Kazeh he at once declared that the
Victoria Nyanza and its affluents were the head waters of the Nile, and
that consequently he had discovered them. Isis (he assured Burton) was
at last unveiled. As a matter of fact he had no firmer ground for making
that statement than Burton had in giving the honour to Tanganyika, and
each clung tenaciously to his own theory. Speke, indeed, had a very
artistic eye. He not only, by guess, connected his lake with the Nile,
but placed on his map a very fine range of mountains which had no
existence--the Mountains of the Moon. However, the fact remains that
as regards the Nile his theory turned out to be the correct one.
The expedition went forward again, but his attitude towards Burton
henceforth changed. Hitherto they had been the best of friends, and it
was always "Dick" and "Jack," but now Speke became querulous, and the
mere mention of the Nile gave him offence. Struck down with the disease
called "Little Irons," he thought he was being torn limb from limb by
devils, giants, and lion-headed demons, and he made both in his delirium
and after his recovery all kinds of wild charges against Burton, and
interlarded his speech with contumelious taunts--his chief grievance
being Burton's refusal to accept the Victoria Nyanza-Nile theory. But
Burton made no retort. On the contrary, he bore Speke's petulance with
infinite patience. Perhaps he remembered the couplet in his favourite
Beharistan:
"True friend is he who bears with all
His friend's unkindness, spite and gall." [175]
There is no need for us to side either with Speke or Burton. Both were
splendid men, and their country is proud of them. Fevers, hardships,
toils, disappointments, ambition, explain everything, and it is quite
certain that each of the explorers inwardly recognised the merit of the
other. They reached Zanzibar again 4th March 1859.
Had Burton been worldly wise he would have at once returned home, but
he repeated the mistake made after the journey to Mecca and was again to
suffer from it.
Speke, on the other hand, who ever had an eye to the main chance, sailed
straight for England, where he arrived 9th May 1859. He at once took a
very unfair advantage of Burton "by calling at the Royal Geographical
Society and endeavouring to inaugurate a new exploration" without his
old chief. He was convinced, he said, that the Victoria Nyanza was the
source of the Nile, and he wished to set the matter at rest once and
for every by visiting its northern shores. The Society joined with him
Captain James A. Grant [176] and it was settled that this new expedition
should immediately be made. Speke also lectured vaingloriously at
Burlington House. When Burton arrived in London on May 21st it was only
to find all the ground cut from under him. While Speke, the subordinate,
had been welcomed like a king, he, Burton, the chief of the expedition,
had landed unnoticed. But the bitterest pill was the news that Speke
had been appointed to lead the new expedition. And as if that was not
enough, Captain Rigby, Consul at Zanzibar, gave ear to and published
the complaints of some of Burton's dastardly native followers. Although
Fortune cheated Burton of having been the actual discoverer of the
Source of the Nile, it must never be forgotten that all the credit of
having inaugurated the expedition to Central Africa and of leading it
are his. Tanganyika--in the words of a recent writer, "is in a very true
sense the heart of Africa." If some day a powerful state spring up
on its shores, Burton will to all time be honoured as its indomitable
Columbus. In his journal he wrote proudly, but not untruly: "I have
built me a monument stronger than brass." The territory is now
German. Its future masters who shall name! but whoever they may be, no
difference can be made to Burton's glory. Kingdoms may come and kingdoms
may go, but the fame of the truly great man speeds on for ever.