THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT
The death of Livingstone, the faithfulness of his native servants in
carrying his body and journals across hundreds of miles of wild country
to the coast, his discovery of the great river in the heart of Africa,
and the great service in Westminster Abbey roused public interest in
the Dark Continent and the unfinished work of the great explorer.
"Never had such an outburst of missionary zeal been known, never did
the cause of geographical exploration receive such an impetus."
The dramatic meeting between Livingstone and Stanley on the shores
of Lake Tanganyika in 1871 had impressed the public in England and
America, and an expedition was now planned by the proprietors of two
great newspapers, the _London Daily Telegraph_ and the _New York
Herald_. Stanley was chosen to command it. And perhaps there is hardly
a better-known book of modern travels than _Through the Dark
Continent_, in which he has related all his adventures and discoveries
with regard to the Congo. Leaving England in August 1874 with three
Englishmen and a large boat in eight sections, the _Lady Alice_, for
the navigation of lake and river, the little exploring party reached
Zanzibar a few weeks later and started on their great inland journey.
The way to Victoria Nyanza lay through what is now known as German
East Africa. They reached Ugogo safely and turned to the north-west,
entering an immense and silent bush-field, where no food was
obtainable. On the eighth day five people died of starvation and the
rest of the expedition was only saved by the purchase of some grain
from a distant village. But four more died and twenty-eight miles under
a hot sun prostrated one of the white men, who died a few days later.
Thus they entered Ituru, "a land of naked people, whose hills drained
into a marsh, whence issue the southernmost waters of the Nile."
Here they were surrounded by angry savages on whom they had to fire,
and from whose country they were glad to escape.
On 27th February 1875, after tramping for one hundred and three days,
they arrived at their destination. One of the white men who was striding
forward suddenly waved his hat, and with a beaming face shouted out,
"I have seen the lake, sir; it is grand."
Here, indeed, was the Victoria Nyanza, "which a dazzling sun
transformed into silver," discovered by Speke sixteen years before,
and supposed to be the source of the Nile. The men struck up a song
of triumph--
"Sing, O friends, sing; the journey is ended.
Sing aloud, O friends; sing to the great Nyanza.
Sing all, sing loud, O friends, sing to the great sea;
Give your last look to the lands behind, and then turn to the sea.
Lift up your heads, O men, and gaze around.
Try if you can to see its end.
See, it stretches moons away,
This great, sweet, fresh-water sea."
"I thought," says Stanley, "there could be no better way of settling,
once and for ever, the vexed question, than by circumnavigating the
lake."
So the _Lady Alice_ was launched, and from the shores of Speke Gulf,
as he named the southern end, the explorer set forth, leaving the two
remaining Englishmen in charge of the camp.
"The sky is gloomy," writes Stanley, "the rocks are bare and rugged,
the land silent and lonely. The rowing of the people is that of men
who think they are bound to certain death; their hearts are full of
misgivings as slowly we move through the dull dead waters." The waters
were not dead for long. A gale rose up and the lake became wild beyond
description. "The waves hissed as we tore along, the crew collapsed
and crouched into the bottom of the boat, expecting the end of the
wild venture, but the _Lady Alice_ bounded forward like a wild courser
and we floated into a bay, still as a pond."
So they coasted along the shores of the lake. Their guide told them
it would take years to sail round their sea, that on the shores dwelt
people with long tails, who preferred to feed on human beings rather
than cattle or goats. But, undaunted, the explorer sailed on, across
the Napoleon Channel, through which flowed the superfluous waters of
the lake rushing northward as the Victoria Nile. "On the western side
of the Channel is Uganda, dominated by an Emperor who is supreme over
about three millions of people. He soon heard of my presence on the
lake and dispatched a flotilla to meet me. His mother had dreamed the
night before that she had seen a boat sailing, sailing like a fish-eagle
over the Nyanza. In the stern of the boat was a white man gazing
wistfully towards Uganda."
On reaching the port a crowd of soldiers, "arrayed in crimson and black
and snowy white," were drawn up to receive him. "As we neared the beach,
volleys of musketry burst out from the long lines. Numerous kettles
and brass drums sounded a noisy welcome, flags and banners waved, and
the people gave a great shout."
[Illustration: STANLEY AND HIS MEN MARCHING THROUGH UNYORO. From a
sketch, by Stanley, in _Through the Dark Continent_.]
Such was Stanley's welcome to M'tesa's wonderful kingdom of Uganda,
described by Speke sixteen years before. The twelve days spent at the
court of this monarch impressed Stanley deeply. Specially was the king
interested in Christianity, and the English explorer told the story
of the Creation and the birth of the Messiah to this intelligent pagan
and his courtiers. "Ten days after we left the genial court, I came
upon the scene of a tragedy. We were coasting the eastern side of a
large island, having been thirty-six hours without food, looking for
a port where we could put in and purchase provisions. Natives followed
our movements, poising their spears, stringing their bows, picking
out the best rocks for their slings. We were thirteen souls, they
between three and four hundred. Seeing the boat advance, they smiled,
entered the water, and held out inviting hands. The crew shot the boat
towards the natives; their hands closed on her firmly, they ran with
her to the shore and dragged her high and dry about twenty yards from
the lake. Then ensued a scene of rampant wildness and hideous ferocity
of action beyond description. The boat was surrounded by a forest of
spears and two hundred demons contended for the first blow. I sprang
up to kill and be killed, a revolver in each hand, but as I rose to
my feet the utter hopelessness of our situation was revealed to me."
To make a long story short, the natives seized the oars, and, thinking
the boat was now in their power, they retired to make their plans.
Meanwhile Stanley commanded his crew to tear the bottom boards up for
paddles, and, pushing the boat hastily into the water, they paddled
away, their commander firing the while with his elephant rifle and
explosive bullets. They were saved.
On 6th May the circumnavigation was finished and the _Lady Alice_ was
being dragged ashore in Speke Gulf with shouts of welcome and the waving
of many flags. But sad news awaited him. He could see but one of his
white companions.
"Where is Barker?" he asked Frank Pocock.
"He died twelve days ago," was the melancholy answer.
Stanley now took his whole expedition to Uganda, and after spending
some months with the King he passed on to Lake Tanganyika, crossing
to Ujiji, where he arrived in May 1876. Here five years before he had
found Livingstone.
"We launched our boat on the lake and, circumnavigating it, discovered
that there was only a periodical outlet to it. Thus, by the
circumnavigation of the two lakes, two of the geographical problems
I had undertaken to solve were settled. The Victoria Nyanza had no
connection with the Tanganyika. There now remained the grandest task
of all. Is the Lualaba, which Livingstone had traced along a course
of nearly thirteen hundred miles, the Nile, the Niger, or the Congo?
I crossed Lake Tanganyika with my expedition, lifted once more my
gallant boat on our shoulders, and after a march of nearly two hundred
and twenty miles arrived at the superb river. Where I first sighted
it, the Lualaba was fourteen hundred yards wide, pale grey in colour,
winding slowly from south and by east. We hailed its appearance with
shouts of joy, and rested on the spot to enjoy the view. I likened
it to the Mississippi as it appears before the impetuous, full-volumed
Missouri pours its rusty brown water into it. A secret rapture filled
my soul as I gazed upon the majestic stream. The great mystery that
for all these centuries Nature had kept hidden away from the world
of science was waiting to be solved. For two hundred and twenty miles
I had followed the sources of the Livingstone River to the confluence,
and now before me lay the superb river itself. My task was to follow
it to the ocean."
Pressing on along the river, they reached the Arab city of Nyangwe,
having accomplished three hundred and thirty-eight miles in
forty-three days. And now the famous Arab Tippu-Tib comes on the scene,
a chief with whom Stanley was to be closely connected hereafter. He
was a tall, black-bearded man with an intelligent face and gleaming
white teeth. He wore clothes of spotless white, his fez was smart and
new, his dagger resplendent with silver filigree. He had escorted
Cameron across the river to the south, and he now confirmed Stanley
in his idea that the greatest problem of African geography, "the
discovery of the course of the Congo," was still untouched.
"This was momentous and all-important news to the expedition. We had
arrived at the critical point in our travels," remarks Stanley. "What
kind of a country is it to the north along the river?" he asked.
"Monstrous bad," was the reply. "There are large boa-constrictors in
the forest suspended by their tails, waiting to gobble up travellers.
You cannot travel without being covered by ants, and they sting like
wasps. There are leopards in countless numbers. Gorillas haunt the
woods. The people are man-eaters. A party of three hundred guns started
for the forest and only sixty returned."
Stanley and his last remaining white companion, Frank Pocock,
discussed the somewhat alarming situation together. Should they go
on and face the dwarfs who shot with poisoned arrows, the cannibals
who regarded the stranger as so much meat, the cataracts and
rocks--should they follow the "great river which flowed northward for
ever and knew no end"?
"This great river which Livingstone first saw, and which broke his
heart to turn away from, is a noble field," argued Stanley. "After
buying or building canoes and floating down the river day by day, either
to the Nile or to some vast lake in the far north or to the Congo and
the Atlantic Ocean."
"Let us follow the river," replied the white man.
So, accompanied by Tippu-Tib, with a hundred and forty guns and seventy
spearmen, they started along the banks of the river which Stanley now
named the Livingstone River.
"On the 5th of November 1876," says Stanley, "a force of about seven
hundred people, consisting of Tippu-Tib's slaves and my expedition
departed from the town of Nyangwe and entered the dismal forest-land
north. A straight line from this point to the Atlantic Ocean would
measure one thousand and seventy miles; another to the Indian Ocean
would measure only nine hundred and twenty miles; we had not reached
the centre of the continent by seventy-five miles.
"Outside the woods blazed a blinding sunshine; underneath that immense
roof-foliage was a solemn twilight. The trees shed continual showers
of tropic dew. As we struggled on through the mud, the perspiration
exuded from every pore; our clothes were soon wet and heavy. Every
man had to crawl and scramble as he best could. Sometimes prostrate
forest-giants barred the road with a mountain of twigs and branches.
For ten days we endured it; then the Arabs declared they could go no
farther. I promised them five hundred pounds if they would escort us
twenty marches only. On our way to the river we came to a village whose
sole street was adorned with one hundred and eighty-six human skulls.
Seventeen days from Nyangwe we saw again the great river and, viewing
the stately breadth of the mighty stream, I resolved to launch my boat
for the last time. Placing thirty-six of the people in the boat, we
floated down the river close to the bank along which the land-party
marched. Day after day passed on and we found the natives increasing
in wild rancour and unreasoning hate of strangers. At every curve and
bend they 'telephoned' along the river warning signals; their huge
wooden drums sounded the muster for fierce resistance; reed arrows
tipped with poison were shot at us from the jungle as we glided by.
On the 18th of December our miseries culminated in a grand effort of
the savages to annihilate us. The cannibals had manned the topmost
branches of the trees above the village of Vinya Njara to shoot at
us."
A camp was hastily constructed by Stanley in defence, and for several
days there was desperate fighting, at the end of which peace was made.
But Tippu-Tib and his escort refused to go a step farther to what they
felt was certain destruction. Stanley alone was determined to proceed.
He bought thirty-three native canoes and, leading with the _Lady
Alice_, he set his face towards the unknown country. His men were all
sobbing. They leant forward, bowed with grief and heavy hearts at the
prospect before them. Dense woods covered both banks and islands.
Savages with gaily feathered heads and painted faces dashed out of
the woods armed with shields and spears, shouting, "Meat! meat! Ha!
ha! We shall have plenty of meat!"
"Armies of parrots screamed overhead as they flew across the river;
legions of monkeys and howling baboons alarmed the solitudes;
crocodiles haunted the sandy points; hippopotami grunted at our
approach; elephants stood by the margin of the river; there was
unceasing vibration from millions of insects throughout the livelong
day. The sun shone large and warm; the river was calm and broad and
brown."
[Illustration: "TOWARDS THE UNKNOWN": STANLEY'S CANOES STARTING FROM
VINYA NJARA. From _Through the Dark Continent_.]
By January 1877 the expedition reached the first cataract of what is
now known as the Stanley Falls. From this point for some sixty miles
the great volume of the Livingstone River rushed through narrow and
lofty banks in a series of rapids. For twenty-two days he toiled along
the banks, through jungle and forest, over cliffs and rocks exposed
all the while to murderous attacks by cannibal savages, till the
seventh cataract was passed and the boats were safely below the falls.
"We hastened away down river in a hurry, to escape the noise of the
cataracts which for many days and nights had almost stunned us with
their deafening sound. We were once more afloat on a magnificent stream,
nearly a mile wide, curving north-west. 'Ha! Is it the Niger or Congo?'
I said."
[Illustration: THE SEVENTH CATARACT, STANLEY FALLS. From _Through the
Dark Continent_.]
But day after day as they dropped down stream new enemies appeared,
until at last, at the junction of the Aruwimi, a tributary as large
as the main stream, a determined attack was made on them by some two
thousand warriors in large canoes. A monster canoe led the way, with
two rows of forty paddlers each, their bodies swaying to a barbarous
chorus. In the bow were ten prime young warriors, their heads gay with
the feathers of the parrot, crimson and grey: at the stern eight men
with long paddles decorated with ivory balls guided the boat, while
ten chiefs danced up and down from stem to stern. The crashing of large
drums, a hundred blasts from ivory horns, and a song from two thousand
voices did not tend to assure the little fleet under Stanley. The
Englishman coolly anchored his boats in mid-stream and received the
enemy with such well-directed volleys that the savages were utterly
paralysed, and with great energy they retreated, pursued hotly by
Stanley's party.
[Illustration: THE FIGHT BELOW THE CONFLUENCE OF THE ARUWIMI AND THE
LIVINGSTONE RIVERS. From a sketch, by Stanley, in _Through the Dark
Continent_.]
"Leaving them wondering and lamenting, I sought the mid-channel again
and wandered on with the current. In the voiceless depths of the watery
wilderness we encountered neither treachery nor guile, and we floated
down, down, hundreds of miles. The river curved westward, then
south-westward. Ah, straight for the mouth of the Congo. It widened
daily. The channels became numerous."
Through the country of the Bangala they now fought their way. These
people were armed with guns brought up from the coast by native traders.
It was indeed an anxious moment when, with war-drums beating,
sixty-three "beautiful but cruel canoes" came skimming towards
Stanley with some three hundred guns to his forty-four. For nearly
five hours the two fleets fought until the victory rested with the
American. "This," remarks Stanley, "was our thirty-first fight on the
terrible river, and certainly the most determined conflict we had
endured."
They rowed on till the 11th of March; the river had grown narrower
and steep, wooded hills rose on either side above them. Suddenly the
river expanded, and the voyagers entered a wide basin or pool over
thirty square yards. "Sandy islands rose in front of us like a seabeach,
and on the right towered a long row of cliffs white and glistening,
like the cliffs of Dover."
"Why not call it Stanley Pool and those cliffs Dover Cliffs?" suggested
Frank Pocock. And these names may be seen on our maps to-day. Passing
out of the Pool, the roar of a great cataract burst upon their ears.
It was the first of a long series of falls and rapids which continued
for a distance of one hundred and fifty-five miles. To this great
stretch of cataracts and rapids Stanley gave the name of the
"Livingstone Falls." At the fifth cataract Stanley lost his favourite
little native page-boy, Kalulu. The canoe in which he was rowing shot
suddenly over the rapids, and in the furious whirl of rushing waters
poor little Kalulu was drowned. He had been born a prince and given
to Stanley on his first expedition into Africa. Stanley had taken him
to Europe and America, and the boy had repaid his kindness by faithful
and tender devotion till that fatal day, when he went to his death
over the wild Livingstone Falls. Stanley named the rapid after him,
Kalulu Falls.
But a yet more heart-rending loss was in store for him. Progress was
now very slow, for none of the cataracts or rapids could be navigated;
canoes as well as stores had to be dragged over land from point to
point. Frank Pocock had fallen lame and could not walk with the rest.
Although accidents with the canoes were of daily occurrence, although
he might have taken warning by the death of Kalulu, he insisted that
his crew should try to shoot the great Massassa Falls instead of going
round by land. Too late he realised his danger. The canoe was caught
by the rushing tide, flung over the Falls, tossed from wave to wave,
and finally dragged into the swirling whirlpool below. The "little
master" as he was called was never seen again! Stanley's last white
companion was gone! Gloom settled down on the now painfully reduced
party.
"We are all unnerved with the terrible accident of yesterday," says
Stanley. "As I looked at the dejected woe-stricken servants, a choking
sensation of unutterable grief filled me. This four months had we lived
together, and true had been his service. The servant had long ago merged
into the companion; the companion had become the friend."
Still Stanley persevered in his desperate task, and in spite of danger
from cataracts and danger from famine, on 31st July he reached the
Isangila cataract. Thus far in 1816 two explorers had made their way
from the ocean, and Stanley knew now for certain that he was on the
mighty Congo. He saw no reason to follow it farther, or to toil through
the last four cataracts. "I therefore announced to the gallant but
wearied followers that we should abandon the river and strike overland
for Boma, the nearest European settlement, some sixty miles across
country."
At sunset on 31st July they carried the _Lady Alice_ to the summit
of some rocks above the Isangila Falls and abandoned her to her fate.
"Farewell, brave boat!" cried Stanley; "seven thousand miles up and
down broad Africa thou hast accompanied me. For over five thousand
miles thou hast been my home. Lift her up tenderly, boys--so
tenderly--and let her rest."
Then, wayworn and feeble, half starved, diseased, and suffering, the
little caravan of one hundred and fifteen men, women, and children
started on their overland march to the coast.
"Staggering, we arrived at Boma on 9th August 1877; a gathering of
European merchants met me and, smiling a warm welcome, told me kindly
that I had done right well. Three days later I gazed upon the Atlantic
Ocean and saw the powerful river flowing into the bosom of that
boundless, endless sea. But grateful as I felt to Him who had enabled
me to pierce the Dark Continent from east to west, my heart was charged
with grief and my eyes with tears at the thought of the many comrades
and friends I had lost."
The price paid had indeed been great; he had lost his three English
companions and one hundred and seventy natives besides. But for years
and years to come, in many a home at Zanzibar, whither Stanley now
took his party by sea, the story of this great journey was told, and
all the men were heroes and the refrain of the natives was chanted
again and again--
"Then sing, O friends, sing: the journey is ended;
Sing aloud, O friends, sing to this great sea."
Stanley had solved the problem of the Congo River at last.