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[Illustration: Henry M. Stanley Signature
1890]
COPYRIGHT 1890 BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
IN DARKEST AFRICA
OR THE
QUEST, RESCUE, AND RETREAT OF EMIN
GOVERNOR OF EQUATORIA
BY
HENRY M. STANLEY
WITH TWO STEEL ENGRAVINGS, AND ONE HUNDRED AND
FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II
“I will not cease to go forward until I come to
the place where the two seas meet,
though I travel ninety years.”--KORAN, chap. xviii., v. 62.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1890
[_All rights reserved_]
COPYRIGHT, 1890, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Press of J. J. Little & Co.,
Astor Place, New York.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
CHAPTER XXI.
WE START OUR THIRD JOURNEY TO THE NYANZA.
PAGE
Mr. Bonny and the Zanzibaris--The Zanzibaris’ complaints--Poison of the
Manioc--Conversations with Ferajji and Salim--We tell the rear column of
the rich plenty of the Nyanza--We wait for Tippu-Tib at Bungangeta
Island--Muster of our second journey to the Albert--Mr. Jameson’s letter
from Stanley Falls dated August 12th--The flotilla of canoes starts--The
Mariri Rapids--Ugarrowwa and Salim bin Mohammed visit me--Tippu-Tib,
Major Barttelot and the carriers--Salim bin Mohammed--My answer to
Tippu-Tib--Salim and the Manyuema--The settlement of the
Batundu--Small-pox among the Madi carriers and the Manyuema--Two insane
women--Two more Zanzibari raiders slain--Breach of promises in the
Expedition--The Ababua tribe--Wasp Rapids--Ten of our men killed and
eaten by natives--Canoe accident at Manginni--Lakki’s raiding party at
Mambanga--Feruzi and the bush antelope--Our cook, Jabu, shot dead by a
poisoned arrow--Panga Falls--Further casualties by the natives--Nejambi
Rapids--The poisoned arrows--Mabengu Rapids--Child-birth on the
road--Our sick list--Native affection--A tornado at Little Rapids--Mr.
Bonny discovers the village of Bavikai--Remarks about Malaria--Emin
Pasha and mosquito curtain--Encounter with the Bavikai natives--A cloud
of moths at Hippo Broads--Death of the boy Soudi--Incident at
Avaiyabu--Result of vaccinating the Zanzibaris--Zanzibari stung by
wasps--Misfortunes at Amiri Rapids--Our casualities--Collecting food
prior to march to Avatiko 1
CHAPTER XXII.
ARRIVAL AT FORT BODO.
Ugarrowwa’s old station once more--March to Bunda--We cross the Ituri
River--Note written by me opposite the mouth of the Lenda River--We
reach the Avatiko plantations--Mr. Bonny measures a pigmy--History and
dress of the pigmies--A conversation by gesture--The pigmy’s
wife--Monkeys and other animals in the forest--The clearing of
Andaki--Our tattered clothes--The Ihuru River--Scarcity of food; Amani’s
meals--Uledi searches for food--Missing provisions--We reach
Kilonga-Longa’s village again--More deaths--The forest improves for
travelling--Skirmish near Andikumu--Story of the pigmies and the box of
ammunition--We pass Kakwa Hill--Defeat of a caravan--The last of the
Somalis--A heavy shower of rain--Welcome food discovery at Indemau--We
bridge the Dui River--A rough muster of the people--A stray goat at our
Ngwetza camp--Further capture of dwarfs--We send back to Ngwetza for
plantains--Loss of my boy Saburi in the forest--We wonder what has
become of the Ngwetza party--My boy Saburi turns up--Starvation Camp--We
go in search of the absentees, and meet them in the forest--The Ihuru
River--And subsequent arrival at Fort Bodo 37
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE GREAT CENTRAL AFRICAN FOREST.
Professor Drummond’s statements respecting Africa--Dimensions of the
great forest--Vegetation--Insect life--Description of the trees,
&c.--Tribes and their food--The primæval forest--The bush proper--The
clearings: wonders of vegetable life--The queer feeling of loneliness--A
forest tempest--Tropical vegetation along the banks of the
Aruwimi--Wasps’ nests--The forest typical of human life--A few secrets
of the woods--Game in the forest--Reasons why we did not hunt the
animals--Birds--The Simian tribe--Reptiles and insects--The small bees
and the beetles--The “jigger”--Night disturbances by falling trees,
&c.--The Chimpanzee--The rainiest zone of the earth--The Ituri or Upper
Aruwimi--The different tribes and their languages--Their features and
customs--Their complexion--Conversation with some captives at
Engweddé--The Wambutti dwarfs: their dwellings and mode of living--The
Batwa dwarfs--Life in the forest villages--Two Egyptians captured by the
dwarfs at Fort Bodo--The poisons used for the arrows--Our treatment for
wounds by the arrows--The wild fruits of the forest--Domestic
animals--Ailments of the Madis and Zanzibaris--The Congo Railway and the
forest products 73
CHAPTER XXIV.
IMPRISONMENT OF EMIN PASHA AND MR. JEPHSON.
Our reception at Fort Bodo--Lieut. Stairs’ report of what took place at
the Fort during our relief of the rear column--No news of
Jephson--Muster of our men--We burn the Fort and advance to find Emin
and Jephson--Camp at Kandekoré--Parting words to Lieut. Stairs and
Surgeon Parke, who are left in charge of the sick--Mazamboni gives us
news of Emin and Jephson--Old Gavira escorts us--Two Wahuma messengers
bring letters from Emin and Jephson--Their contents--My replies to the
same handed to Chief Mogo for delivery--The Balegga attack us, but, with
the help of the Bavira, are repulsed--Mr. Jephson turns up--We talk of
Emin--Jephson’s report bearing upon the revolt of the troops of
Equatoria, also his views respecting the invasion of the province by the
Mahdists, and its results--Emin Pasha sends through Mr. Jephson an
answer to my last letter 112
CHAPTER XXV.
EMIN PASHA AND HIS OFFICERS REACH OUR CAMP AT KAVALLI.
Lieut. Stairs and his caravan are sent for--Plans regarding the release
of Emin from Tunguru--Conversations with Jephson by which I acquire a
pretty correct idea of the state of affairs--The rebel officers at
Wadelai--They release Emin, and proceed in the s.s. _Khedive_ and
_Nyanza_ to our camp at Kavalli--Emin Pasha’s arrival--Stairs and his
caravan arrive at Mazamboni’s--Characteristic letter from Jephson, who
is sent to bring Emin and his officers from the Lake to Kavalli--Short
note from the Pasha--Arrival of Emin Pasha’s caravan--We make a grand
display outside our camp--At the grand divan: Selim Bey--Stairs’ column
rolls into camp with piles of wealth--Mr. Bonny despatched to the Nyanza
to bring up baggage--Text of my message to the rest of the revolted
officers at Wadelai--Note from Mr. Bonny--The Greek merchant, Signor
Marco, arrives--Suicide of Zanzibari named Mrima--Neighbouring chiefs
supply us with carriers--Captain Nelson brings in Emin’s
baggage--Arrangements with the chiefs from the Ituri River to the
Nyanza--The chief Kabba-Rega--Emin Pasha’s daughter--Selim Bey receives
a letter from Fadl-el-Mulla--The Pasha appointed naturalist and
meteorologist to the Expedition--The Pasha a Materialist--Dr. Hassan’s
arrival--My inspection over the camp--Capt. Casati arrives--Mr. Bonny
appears with Awash Effendi and his baggage--The rarest doctor in the
world--Discovery of some chimpanzees--The Pasha in his vocation of
“collecting”--Measurements of the dwarfs--Why I differ with Emin in the
judgment of his men--Various journeys from the camp to the Lake for men
and baggage--The Zanzibaris’ complaints of the ringleaders--Hassan
Bakari--The Egyptian officers--Interview with Shukri Agha--The flora on
the Baregga Hills--The chief of Usiri joins our
confederacy--Conversation with Emin regarding Selim Bey and Shukri
Agha--Address by me to Stairs, Nelson, Jephson and Parke before Emin
Pasha--Their replies--Notices to Selim Bey and Shukri Agha 139
CHAPTER XXVI.
WE START HOMEWARD FOR ZANZIBAR.
False reports of strangers at Mazamboni’s--Some of the Pasha’s
ivory--Osman Latif Effendi gives me his opinions on the Wadelai
officers--My boy Sali as spy in the camp--Capt. Casati’s views of Emin’s
departure from his province--Lieut. Stairs makes the first move
homeward--Weights of my officers at various places--Ruwenzori
visible--The little girl reared by Casati--I act as mediator between
Mohammed Effendi, his wife, and Emin--Bilal and Serour--Attempts to
steal rifles from the Zanzibari’s huts--We hear of disorder and distress
at Wadelai and Mswa--Two propositions made to Emin Pasha--Signal for
general muster under arms sounded--Emin’s Arabs are driven to muster by
the Zanzibaris--Address to the Egyptians and Soudanese--Lieut. Stairs
brings the Pasha’s servants into the square--Serour and three others,
being the principal conspirators, placed under guard--Muster of Emin
Pasha’s followers--Osman Latif Effendi and his mother--Casati and Emin
not on speaking terms--Preparing for the march--Fight with clubs between
the Nubian, Omar, and the Zanzibaris--My judgments on the combatants--We
leave Kavalli for Zanzibar--The number of our column--Halt in
Mazamboni’s territory--I am taken ill with inflammation of the
stomach--Dr. Parke’s skilful nursing--I plan in my mind the homeward
march--Frequent reports to me of plots in the camp--Lieut. Stairs and
forty men capture Rehan and twenty-two deserters who left with our
rifles--At a holding of the court it is agreed to hang Rehan--Illness of
Surgeon Parke and Mr. Jephson--A packet of letters intended for Wadelai
falls into my hands, and from which we learn of an important plot
concocted by Emin’s officers--Conversation with Emin Pasha about the
same--Shukri Agha arrives in our camp with two followers--Lieut. Stairs
buries some ammunition--We continue our march and camp at
Bunyambiri--Mazamboni’s services and hospitality--Three soldiers appear
with letters from Selim Bey--Their contents--Conversation with the
soldiers--They take a letter to Selim Bey from Emin--Ali Effendi and his
servants accompany the soldiers back to Selim Bey 182
CHAPTER XXVII.
EMIN PASHA--A STUDY.
The Relief of David Livingstone compared with the Relief of Emin
Pasha--Outline of the journey of the Expedition to the first meeting
with Emin--Some few points relating to Emin on which we had been
misinformed--Our high conception of Emin Pasha--Loyalty of the troops,
and Emin’s extreme indecision--Surprise at finding Emin a prisoner on
our third return to the Nyanza--What might have been averted by the
exercise of a little frankness and less reticence on Emin’s part--Emin’s
virtues and noble desires--The Pasha from our point of view--Emin’s rank
and position in Khartoum, and gradual rise to Governor of
Equatoria--Gordon’s trouble in the Soudan--Emin’s consideration and
patience--After 1883 Emin left to his own resources--Emin’s small
explorations--Correctness of what the Emperor Hadrian wrote of the
Egyptians--The story of Emin’s struggles with the Mahdi’s forces from
1883 to 1885--Dr. Junker takes Emin’s despatches to Zanzibar in
1886--Kabba Rega a declared enemy of Emin--The true position of Emin
Pasha prior to his relief by us, showing that good government was
impossible--Two documents (one from Osman Digna, and the other from Omar
Saleh) received from Sir Francis Grenfell, the Sirdar 228
CHAPTER XXVIII.
TO THE ALBERT EDWARD NYANZA.
Description of the road from Bundegunda--We get a good view of the twin
peaks in the Ruwenzori range--March to Utinda--The Pasha’s officers
abuse the officer in command: which compels a severe order--Kaibuga
urges hostilities against Uhobo--Brush with the enemy: Casati’s servant,
Akili, killed--Description of the Ruwenzori range as seen from
Mboga--Mr. Jephson still an invalid--The little stowaway named
Tukabi--Captain Nelson examines the Semliki for a suitable ferry--We
reach the Semliki river: description of the same--Uledi and Saat Tato
swim across the river for a canoe--A band of Wara Sura attack us--All
safely ferried across the river--In the Awamba forest--Our progress to
Baki-kundi--We come across a few Baundwé, forest aborigines--the
Egyptians and their followers--Conversation with Emin Pasha--Unexplored
parts of Africa--Abundance of food--Ruwenzori from the spur of
Ugarama--Two native women give us local information--We find an old man
at Batuma--At Bukoko we encounter some Manyuema raiders: their
explanation--From Bakokoro we arrive at Mtarega, the foot of the
Ruwenzori range--Lieutenant Stairs with some men explore the Mountains
of the Moon--Report of Lieutenant Stairs’ experiences--The Semliki
valley--The Rami-lulu valley--The perfection of a tropical
forest--Villages in the clearing of Ulegga--Submission of a Ukonju
chief--Local knowledge from our friends the Wakonju--Description of the
Wakonju tribe--The Semliki river--View of Ruwenzori from Mtsora--We
enter Muhamba, and next day camp at Karimi--Capture of some fat cattle
of Rukara’s--the Zeriba of Rusessé--Our first view of Lake Albert Edward
Nyanza 250
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE SOURCES OF THE NILE--THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON, AND THE FOUNTAINS OF
THE NILE.
Père Jerome Lobo and the Nile--The chartographers of Homer’s
time--Hekatæus’s ideas of Africa--Africa after Hipparchus--The great
Ptolemy’s map--Edrisi’s map--Map of the Margarita Philosophica--Map of
John Ruysch--Sylvannus’ map--Sebastian Cabot’s map--The arbitrariness of
the modern map maker--Map of Constable, Edinburgh--What Hugh Murray says
in his book published in 1818--A fine dissertation on the Nile by Father
Lobo--Extracts from part of a MS. in the possession of H. E. Ali Pasha
Moubarek--Plan of Mount Gumr--A good description of Africa by
Scheabeddin--The Nile according to Abdul Hassen Ali--Abu Abd Allah
Mohammed on the Nile river 291
CHAPTER XXX.
RUWENZORI: THE CLOUD KING.
Recent travellers who have failed to see this range--Its classical
history--The range of mountains viewed from Pisgah by us in 1887--The
twin cones and snowy mountain viewed by us in 1888 and January
1889--Description of the range--The Semliki valley--A fair figurative
description of Ruwenzori--The principal drainage of the snowy range--The
luxurious productive region known as Awamba forest or the Semliki
valley--Shelter from the winds--Curious novelties in plants in Awamba
forest--The plains between Mtsora and Muhamba--Changes of climate and
vegetation on nearing the hills constituting the southern flank of
Ruwenzori--The north-west and west side of Ruwenzori--Emotions raised in
us at the sight of Ruwenzori--The reason why so much snow is retained on
Ruwenzori--The ascending fields of snow and great tracts of
_débris_--Brief views of the superb Rain Creator or Cloud
King--Impression made on all of us by the skyey crests and snowy breasts
of Ruwenzori 313
CHAPTER XXXI.
RUWENZORI AND LAKE ALBERT EDWARD.
Importance of maps in books of travels--The time spent over my maps--The
dry bed of a lake discovered near Karimi; its computed size--Lessons
acquired in this wonderful region--What we learn by observation from the
Semliki valley to the basin of the twin lakes--Extensive plain between
Rusessé and Katwé--The Zeribas of euphorbia of Wasongora--The raid of
the Waganda made eighteen years ago--The grass and water on the wide
expanses of flats--The last view and southern face of Ruwenzori--The
town of Katwé--The Albert Edward Nyanza--Analysis of the brine obtained
from the Salt Lake at Katwé--Surroundings of the Salt Lake--The blood
tints of its waters--The larger Salt Lake of Katwé, sometimes called
Lake of Mkiyo--The great repute of the Katwé salt--The Lakists of the
Albert Edward--Bevwa, on our behalf, makes friends with the
natives--Kakuri appears with some Wasongora chiefs--Exploration of the
large Katwé lake--Kaiyura’s settlement--Katwé Bay--A black leopard--The
native huts at Mukungu--We round an arm of the lake called Beatrice
Gulf, and halt at Muhokya--Ambuscade by some of the Wara-Sura, near the
Rukoki: we put them to flight--And capture a Mhuma woman--Captain Nelson
and men follow up the rear guard of Rukara--Halt at Buruli: our Wakonju
and Wasongora friends leave us--Sickness amongst us through bad
water--The Nsongi River crossed--Capture of a Wara-Sura--Illness and
death among the Egyptians and blacks--Our last engagement with the
Wara-Sura at Kavandaré pass--Bulemo-Ruigi places his country at our
disposal--The Pasha’s muster roll--Myself and others are smitten down
with fever at Katari Settlement--The south side of Lake Albert Edward
and rivers feeding the Lake--Our first and last view, also colour of the
Lake--What we might have seen if the day had been clearer 334
CHAPTER XXXII.
THROUGH ANKORI TO THE ALEXANDRA NILE.
The routes to the sea, _viâ_ Uganda, through Ankori, to Ruanda and
thence to Tanganika--We decide on the Ankori route--We halt at Kitété,
and are welcomed in the name of King Antari--Entertained by Masakuma and
his women--A glad message from King Antari’s mother--Two Waganda
Christians, named Samuel and Zachariah, appear in camp: Zachariah
relates a narrative of astounding events which had occurred in
Uganda--Mwanga, King of Uganda; his behaviour--Our people recovering
from the fever epidemic--March up the valley between Iwanda and Denny
Range--We camp at Wamaganga--Its inhabitants--The Rwizi River
crossed--Present from the king’s mother--The feelings of the natives
provoked by scandalous practices of some of my men--An incident
illustrating the different views men take of things--Halt at the valley
of Rusussu--Extract from my diary--We continue our journey down Namianja
Valley--The peaceful natives turn on us, but are punished by Prince
Uchunku’s men--I go through the rite of blood-brotherhood with Prince
Uchunku--The Prince’s wonder at the Maxim gun--A second deputation from
the Waganda Christians: my long cross-examination of them: extract from
my journal--My answer to the Christians--We enter the valley of
Mavona--And come in sight of the Alexandra Valley--The Alexandra
Nile 358
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE TRIBES OF THE GRASS-LAND.
The Wahuma: the exact opposite of the Dwarfs: their descendants--Tribes
nearly allied to the true negro type--Tribes of the Nilotic basin--The
Herdsmen--The traditions of Unyoro--My experiences of the Wahuma gained
while at Kavalli--View of the surrounding country from Kavalli
camp--Chiefs Kavalli, Katto, and Gavira, unbosom their wrongs to me--Old
Ruguji’s reminiscences--The pasture-land lying between Lake Albert and
the forest--The cattle in the district round Kavalli: their
milk-yield--Three cases referring to cattle which I am called upon to
adjudicate--Household duties of the women--Dress among the Wahuma--Old
Egyptian and Ethiopian characteristics preserved among the tribes of the
grass-land--Customs, habits, and religion of the tribes--Poor Gaddo
suspected of conspiracy against his chief, Kavalli: his death--Diet of
the Wahuma--The climate of the region of the grass-land 384
CHAPTER XXXIV.
TO THE ENGLISH MISSION STATION, SOUTH END OF VICTORIA NYANZA.
Ankori and Karagwé under two aspects--Karagwé; and the Alexandra
Nile--Mtagata Hot Springs--A baby rhinoceros, captured by the Nubians,
shows fight in camp--Disappearance of Wadi Asmani--The Pasha’s opinion
of Capt. Casati--Surgeon Parke and the pigmy damsel--Conduct of a boy
pigmy--Kibbo-bora loses his wife at the Hot Springs--Arrival at
Kufurro--Recent kings of Karagwé--Kiengo and Captain Nelson’s
resemblance to “Speke”--The King of Uganda greatly dreaded in
Karagwé--Ndagara refuses to let our sick stay in his country--Camp at
Uthenga: loss of men through the cold--We throw superfluous articles in
Lake Urigi in order to carry the sick--We enter the district of
Ihangiro: henceforward our food has to be purchased--the Lake of
Urigi--At the village of Mutara, Fath-el-Mullah runs amuck with the
natives, and is delivered over to them--The Unyamatundu plateau--Halt at
Ngoti: Mwengi their chief--Kajumba’s territory--We obtain a good view of
Lake Victoria--The country round Kisaho--Lions and human skulls in the
vicinity of our camp--The events of 1888 cleared our track for a
peaceful march to the sea--We reach Amranda and Bwanga--The French
missionaries and their stations at Usambiro--Arrival at Mr. Mackay’s,
the English Mission station--Mr. Mackay and his books--We rest, and
replenish our stores, etc.--Messrs. Mackay and Deakes give us a
sumptuous dinner previous to our departure--The last letter from Mr. A.
M. Mackay, dated January 5, 1890 404
CHAPTER XXXV.
FROM THE VICTORIA NYANZA TO ZANZIBAR.
Missionary work along the shores of the Victoria Nyanza and along the
Congo river--The road from Mackay’s Mission--The country at
Gengé--Considerable difficulty at preserving the peace at Kungu--Rupture
of peace at Ikoma--Capture and release of Monangwa--The Wasukuma
warriors attack us, but finally retire--Treachery--The natives follow us
from Nera to Seké--We enter the district of Sinyanga; friendship between
the natives and our men--Continued aggression of the natives--Heavy
tributes--Massacre of caravan--The district of Usongo, and its chief
Mittinginya--His surroundings and neighbours--Two French missionaries
overtake us--Human skulls at Ikungu--We meet one of Tippu-Tib’s caravans
from Zanzibar--Troubled Ugogo--Lieutenant Schmidt welcomes us at the
German station of Mpwapwa--Emin Pasha visits the Pères of the French
Mission of San Esprit--The Fathers unacquainted with Emin’s repute--Our
mails in Africa continually going astray--Contents of some newspaper
clippings--Baron von Gravenreuth and others meet us at Msua--Arrival of
an Expedition with European provisions, clothing and boots for us--Major
Wissman--He and Schmidt take Emin and myself on to Bagamoyo--Dinner and
guests at the German officer’s mess house--Major Wissman proposes the
healths of the guests; Emin’s and my reply to the same--Emin’s
accident--I visit Emin in the hospital--Surgeon Parke’s report--The
feeling at Bagamoyo--Embark for Zanzibar--Parting words with Emin
Pasha--Illness of Doctor Parke--Emin Pasha enters the service of the
German Government--Emin Pasha’s letter to Sir John Kirk--Sudden
termination of Emin’s acquaintance with me--Three occasions when I
apparently offended Emin--Emin’s fears that he would be unemployed--The
British East African Company and Emin--Courtesy and hospitality at
Zanzibar--Monies due to the survivors of the Relief
Expedition--Tippu-Tib’s agent at Zanzibar, Jaffar Tarya--The Consular
Judge grants me an injunction against Jaffar Tarya--At
Cairo--Conclusion 432
APPENDICES.
A.--CONGRATULATIONS BY CABLE RECEIVED AT ZANZIBAR 481
B.--COMPARATIVE TABLES OF FOREST AND GRASS-LAND LANGUAGES 490
C.--ITINERARY OF THE JOURNEYS MADE IN 1887, 1888, 1889 496
D.--BALANCE SHEET, &C., OF THE RELIEF EXPEDITION 513
GENERAL INDEX 515
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOLUME II.
_STEEL ENGRAVING._
PORTRAIT OF HENRY M. STANLEY _Frontispiece._
(From a Photograph taken at Cairo, March, 1890.)
_FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS._
Facing
page
SWORDS AND KNIVES OF THE ABABUA 22
ENTERING ANDIKUMU 50
THE SCOUTS DISCOVER THE PIGMIES CARRYING AWAY THE CASE OF
AMMUNITION 54
STARVATION CAMP: SERVING OUT MILK AND BUTTER FOR BROTH 66
A PAGE FROM MR. STANLEY’S NOTE-BOOK--SKETCH-MAPS 94
THE PIGMIES AT HOME--A ZANZIBAR SCOUT TAKING NOTES 104
ADDRESS TO REBEL OFFICERS AT KAVALLI 148
THE PIGMIES AS COMPARED WITH THE ENGLISH OFFICERS, SOUDANESE,
AND ZANZIBARIS 152
THE PIGMIES UNDER THE LENS, AS COMPARED TO CAPTAIN CASATI’S
SERVANT OKILI 164
CLIMBING THE PLATEAU SLOPES 170
RESCUED EGYPTIANS AND THEIR FAMILIES 220
RUWENZORI, FROM KAVALLI’S 252
RUWENZORI, FROM MTSORA 286
BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF RUWENZORI, LAKE ALBERT EDWARD, AND LAKE
ALBERT 318
RUWENZORI, FROM KARIMI 328
EXPEDITION WINDING UP THE GORGE OF KARYA-MUHORO 362
A PAGE FROM MR. STANLEY’S NOTE-BOOK--MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 396
WEAPONS OF THE BALEGGA AND WAHUMA TRIBES 400
BABY RHINOCEROS SHOWING FIGHT IN CAMP 406
SOUTH-WEST EXTREMITY OF LAKE VICTORIA NYANZA 419
STANLEY, EMIN, AND OFFICERS AT USAMBIRO 425
EXPERIENCES IN USUKUMA 438
BANQUET AT MSUA 450
UNDER THE PALMS AT BAGAMOYO 454
THE RELIEF EXPEDITION RETURNING TO ZANZIBAR 462
THE FAITHFULS AT ZANZIBAR 474
_OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS._
A SWIMMING RACE AFTER A BUSH ANTELOPE 25
DWARF CAPTIVE AT AVITAKO 41
BRIDGING THE DUI RIVER 60
TWO-EDGED SPEARS 99
PLAY-TABLE 99
BACK-REST AND STOOL 99
DECORATED EARTHEN POT 99
ARROWS OF THE DWARFS 101
ELEPHANT TRAP 102
A BELLE OF BAVIRA 130
VIEW OF CAMP AT KAVALLI 140
SHUKRI AGHA, COMMANDANT OF MSWA STATION 173
SALI, HEAD-BOY 185
AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LADY 207
ATTACK BY THE WANYORO AT SEMLIKI FERRY 260
HOUSES ON THE EDGE OF THE FOREST 264
EGYPTIAN WOMEN AND CHILDREN 266
THE TALLEST PEAK OF RUWENZORI, FROM AWAMBA FOREST 274
SOUTH-WEST TWIN CONES OF RUWENZORI--SKETCH. BY LIEUT. STAIRS 278
[1]AFRICA IN HOMER’S WORLD 293
“ MAP OF HEKATÆUS 294
“ HIPPARCHUS, 100 B.C. 295
PTOLEMY’S MAP OF AFRICA, A.D. 150 295
CENTRAL AFRICA ACCORDING TO EDRISI, A.D. 1154 296
MAP OF THE MARGARITA PHILOSOPHICA, A.D. 1503 296
“ JOHN RUYSCH, A.D. 1508 297
MAP, SYLVANUS', A.D. 1511 297
HIERONIMUS DE VERRAZANO’S MAP, A.D. 1529 298
SEBASTIAN CABOT’S MAP OF THE WORLD, 16TH CENTURY 298
THE NILE’S SOURCES ACCORDING TO GEOGRAPHERS OF THE 16TH AND
17TH CENTURIES 299
MAP OF THE NILE BASIN, A.D. 1819 301
MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON--MASSOUDI, 11TH CENTURY 308
MAP OF NILE BASIN TO-DAY FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN TO S. LAT. 4° 311
VIEW OF RUWENZORI FROM BAKOKORO WESTERN CONES 326
THE LITTLE SALT LAKE AT KATWÉ 342
SECTION OF A HOUSE NEAR LAKE ALBERT NYANZA 348
A VILLAGE IN ANKORI 361
EXPEDITION CLIMBING THE ROCK IN THE VALLEY OF ANKORI 362
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE BALEGGA 399
A HOT SPRING, MTAGATA 406
LAKE URIGI 415
VIEW FROM MACKAY’S MISSION, LAKE VICTORIA 428
ROCK HILLS, USAMBIRO 437
HOUSE AND BALCONY FROM WHICH EMIN FELL 454
SKETCH OF CASKET CONTAINING THE FREEDOM OF THE CITY OF LONDON 488
SKETCH OF CASKET, THE GIFT OF KING LEOPOLD 489
_MAPS._
A MAP OF THE ROUTE OF THE EMIN PASHA
RELIEF EXPEDITION THROUGH AFRICA. _In Pocket._
A MAP OF EMIN PASHA’S PROVINCE. _In Pocket._
PROFILE SKETCH OF RUWENZORI AND THE VALLEY OF THE SEMLIKI.
_Facing page 335_
IN DARKEST AFRICA.
CHAPTER XXI.
WE START OUR THIRD JOURNEY TO THE NYANZA.
Mr. Bonny and the Zanzibaris--The Zanzibaris’ complaints--Poison of
the Manioc--Conversations with Ferajji and Salim--We tell the rear
column of the rich plenty of the Nyanza--We wait for Tippu-Tib at
Bungangeta Island--Muster of our second journey to the Albert--Mr.
Jameson’s letter from Stanley Falls dated August 12th--The flotilla
of canoes starts--The Mariri rapids--Ugarrowwa and Salim bin
Mohammed visit me--Tippu-Tib, Major Barttelot, and the
carriers--Salim bin Mohammed--My answer to Tippu-Tib--Salim and the
Manyuema--The settlement of the Batundu--Small-pox among the Madi
carriers and the Manyuema--Two insane women--Two more Zanzibari
raiders slain--Breach of promises in the Expedition--The Ababua
tribe--Wasp Rapids--Ten of our men killed and eaten by
natives--Canoe accident at Manginni--Lakki’s raiding party at
Mambanga--Feruzi and the bush antelope--Our cook, Jabu, shot dead
by a poisoned arrow--Panga Falls--Further casualties by the
natives--Nejambi Rapids--The poisoned arrows--Mabengu
Rapids--Child-birth on the road--Our sick list--Native affection--A
tornado at Little Rapids--Mr. Bonny discovers the village of
Bavikai--Remarks about Malaria--Emin Pasha and mosquito
curtain--Encounter with the Bavikai natives--A cloud of moths at
Hippo Broads--Death of the boy Soudi--Incident at Avaiyabu--Result
of vaccinating the Zanzibaris--Zanzibari stung by
wasps--Misfortunes at Amiri Rapids--Our casualties--Collecting food
prior to march to Avatiko.
[Sidenote: 1888. Aug. 21. Bavabya.]
That uncanny concurrence of circumstances, illustrated by the contents
of the last chapter, was recalled to my mind again on the next morning
which dawned on us after the arrival of the advance column at Bavabya.
[Sidenote: 1888. Aug. 21. Forest.]
In Mr. Bonny’s entry in the log-book will be found mentioned that the
Soudanese and Zanzibaris mustered of their own accord to lay their
complaints before me. Mr. Bonny, in his official report, had stated it
was his intention, “under God’s help, to make the Expedition more
successful than it had been hitherto.” By his written report, and his
oral accounts, by the brave deliberation of his conduct during the
terrible hours of the 19th July, and by the touching fidelity to his
duties, as though every circumstance of his life was precisely what it
ought to be, Mr. Bonny had leaped at a bound, in my estimation, to a
most admiring height. I was sure, also, that Major Barttelot must have
discovered remarkable elements of power in him, which, unfortunately for
my credit, had been unseen by me. But no sooner had permission been
given to the men to speak, than I was amazed at finding himself
listening to a confession that the first day’s march to the eastward
under Mr. Bonny was to be the signal for his total abandonment by the
Zanzibaris.
I gave them a patient hearing. Only sixty seemed in any way likely to
survive the trials they had endured out of the 101 or 102 remaining.
They all appeared unutterably miserable, many seemed heart-broken, but
there were several whose looks suggested a fixed hate, malice, and
spite.
“Well, sit down, children,” said I, “and let us talk this matter
quietly,” and when they had seated themselves in a semi-circle before
me, and our own robust people from the Nyanza had crowded about behind,
I addressed them thus:--
“Ah, my poor men, the days of weeping and grieving are over. Dry your
tears and be glad. See those stout fellows behind you. They have seen
the white Pasha, they have shared his bounties of meat, and milk and
millet, and have heard him praise their manliness. They are the people
who should weep, but weep for gladness, for every step hence is one step
nearer to Zanzibar. We came back from the Nyanza to seek you who were so
long lost to us. We have found you, thanks be to God! Now, let bygones
be bygones. I cannot restore the dead, but I can rejoice the hearts of
the living. Think no more of your sufferings, but live in hope of a
brighter future. It was necessary for us to go before you, to clear the
road and assist the white man before he perished. We told you all this
before we departed from you. You should have remembered our promise that
as soon as we had found him whom we sought we should come back with the
good news to you. We have kept our word--have you kept yours?
“No, you lost your faith in us. When the runaways from our party
returned to you, and they, with gaping mouths, told you what was false
to hide their crime of desertion, you listened with wide-open ears, and
accepted their tales as truths. Did they bring a letter from any of us?
No! but you found silver watches, and Arab cloaks striped with gold in
their baggage. Do common carriers find such things in the forest? If
they do, then you should have said to them, ‘Come, turn back with us,
and show us the place where we may also find such wealth.’ Those
carriers had stolen those things from us, and had run away with their
booty. You saw these things, and yet you believed that we were all
destroyed, that I was shot in seventeen places, and all the white men
except one had been killed, and the one remaining had gone to Ujiji! Oh,
men of little wit!
“What, nearly 400 Zanzibaris, and six white men, all lost except a few,
and those few gone to Ujiji instead of coming to you, their brothers and
friends! That is too much for belief. I thought Zanzibaris were wiser
men, for truly I have seen wise ones in my time.
“And if I were not dead, how came you to believe that I would forget
you, and my white sons whom I left with you. Whither could I go, except
to my own children if I were distressed or unable to go on? Was not the
fact of our long absence a proof that we were still going on doing our
work, since even deserters and thieves had nowhere to flee except back
to you?
“Aye, I see well how it has happened unto you. You lay on your backs
rotting in camp, and have been brooding and thinking until the jiggers
have burrowed into your brains, and Shaitan has caused you to dream of
evil and death. You became hardened in mind, and cruel to your own
bodies. Instead of going to the little masters, and telling them of your
griefs and fears, you have said Mambu Kwa Mungu--it is God’s trouble.
Our masters don’t care for us, and we don’t care for them.
“Now, Ferajji, you are a head man, tell me what cause of complaint in
particular you have. Did the white men ill-treat you?”
“No, they treated me well; but they were hard on some of the men.”
“How hard, and on whom?”
“On the Zanzibaris, and if they were not _chap-a-chap_ (active).”
“But what did they wish to be _chap-a-chap_ for? Had you important work
to do?”
“No, for when the steamer went away there was little to do. Only fixing
the earth work, sweep camp, cut fuel, and stand guard at night. But the
_goee-goees_ (lazy or useless) would not come when called. Then the
white men got impatient, and would call again louder. Then the
_goee-goees_ would come slowly--lazily--little by little, and say they
had pains in the head, or in the body, back, chest, or feet. Then the
masters would get angry, and say it was shamming. Every day it was the
same thing.”
“But how could sweeping camp, getting fuel, and standing guard be hard
work for 250 people?”
“It was no work at all.”
“Was anybody else punished except the _goee goees_?”
“No one except the thieves.”
“Did you have many of them?”
“I think all the thieves of Zanzibar joined the ‘journey-makers’ this
time.”
“That cannot be, Ferajji, because we had some thieves with us, and there
must have been a few left on the coast.”
The audience laugh. Ferajji replied, “That is indeed truth, but we had a
great many. Brass rods, cowries, and garments were lost daily.
Zanzibaris accused Soudanese, Soudanese accused Somalis, Somalis accused
Zanzibaris, and so it went round. Nothing was safe. Put anything under
your pillow, roll it under the sleeping-mat, bind it tight, and make it
into a headrest, and lo! in the morning it was gone! Indeed, I became
afraid my teeth would be stolen next.”
“But those white teeth of yours are not purchased, are they, Ferajji?”
“No, thank Allah, they were born with me, but those who thrive on
thieving may well be feared.”
“That is true, Ferajji; but why should they have stolen all the time?”
“Hunger made them steal. Hunger killed the strong lion in the fable, and
hunger will kill the best man.”
“Hunger! what are you talking of. Hunger, with all those fields of
manioc near here?”
“Manioc, master! Manioc will do for a time, but manioc with sauce is
better.”
“Sauce! I don’t understand you, Ferajji?”
“Why, dry manioc--that is manioc with nothing but itself--manioc in the
morning, and at noon, and at the sunset meal, and nothing but eternal
manioc, with neither salt, nor fish, nor meat, nor oil, nor butter, nor
fat of any kind to assist its passage down the gullet, is apt to cloy.
Give the appetite something now and then new to smell, or see with the
manioc, and the Zanzibari is satisfied. Without that the stomach
by-and-by shuts the door, and won’t take anything, and men die.”
“I see, but I left salt in the storeroom. It was to purchase fish,
bananas and palm oil that the brass rods, cowries and beads were for.”
“Ah, now you are drawing near the point, master. Sometimes--nay, we were
a long time without either.”
“But if they were in the store, surely there must be some reason why
they were not given out?”
“We come to the thieves again, who became so active that they sold our
axes and bill-hooks, and sold them to the natives for fish. Those who
shared in the fish refused to tell who the thieves were, and our rations
of cowries and brass rods were stopped.”
“After all, Ferajji, though manioc by itself is very dry eating, it is
very good food. Think of it, all the blacks from Banana to Stanley
Falls live on it, why should not Zanzibaris of this expedition live on
it as they lived during six years on the Congo with me. I cannot see any
reason for manioc to kill 100 men in eleven months. Tell me when did the
people begin to sicken.”
“There were about a dozen sick when you left, sick of ulcers, bowel and
chest complaints. A few recovered; then, in about four weeks, many got
very feeble, and some sank lower and thinner until they died, and we
buried them. When our friends came up from Bolobo, we thought they
looked very different from us at Yambuya. They were stout and strong--we
were thin and dying. Then, in another month, the men from Bolobo began
to sicken and die, and every few days we buried one, or two, or even
three at a time. There was no difference after a while between the
Yambuya and Bolobo men.”
“Had you any cholera, small-pox, fever, or dysentery among you?”
“No, the men did not die of any of those things. Perhaps the Somalis and
Soudanese did not take kindly to the climate, but it was not the climate
that killed the Zanzibaris. Oh---- ”
“And you say it was not by the stick, or hard work, or cholera,
small-pox, fever, dysentery or climate?”
“Nothing of any of those things killed the Zanzibaris.”
“Were they shot, or hanged, poisoned, or drowned?”
“Neither was any of those things done unto them, and a proper and good
man was never punished, and we had one day out of seven in the week to
ourselves.”
“Now in the name of the Prophet Mohammed--throw your eyesight on these
forty men here who sit apart. Look at those big eyes, hollow cheeks,
thin necks, and every rib bare to the view. You see them? What has
caused those men to be thus?”
“God knows!”
“Yet they are wasting away, man, and they will die.”
“It is true.”
“Well, then, give me some idea--of what is killing them?”
“I cannot tell you, master; may be it is their fate to be thus.”
“Bah! God has done His best for you. He has given you eyes, hands to
feel, feet to walk, a good stomach to digest your food, and a sense to
pilot your path through the world. Don’t say that God made strong men to
wither them away in this manner. I must and will find the reason of this
out.
“Now, you Salim, the son of Rashid, speak to me. The son of a wise
father should know a few wise things. There is Death among you, and I
want to find out why. Say, how you and your comrades living in camp for
a year can lose more lives than we did during all our journey, through
this big forest, despite all the hunger and hard work we met?”
Salim thus urged, replied modestly: “I am not wise, and all the world
knows it. I am but a youth, and a porter, who for a little wage has come
to gather a little money by carrying my load through Pagan lands. What
strength I have I give freely to the owner of the caravan. Bitter things
have happened to us while you were away. I have lost a brother since I
came here. You must know, sir, that dry manioc and water is not good for
a son of Adam. If our friends and relatives have sickened, and died--it
must surely be that the manioc has had something to do with it. Thank
God, I am well, and still strong, but I have seen the days when I would
willingly have sold my freedom for a full meal. Whatsoever tended to
fill the void of the stomach I have sought out and have continued to
live on day after day, until, praise be to God and the Prophet--you have
come back to us. But, sir, all men are not the same--the sense of all
men is not equal, and it may be that white men differ one from the other
as much as we blacks; for I see that some of them are rich, and some are
poor, some attend the engines down in the belly of the ship, and some
walk the quarter deck and command.”
“Aye, Salim has the gift of speech,” murmured the crowd.
This encouraged Salim, who, clearing his throat, resumed: “There is no
doubt that the main fault lies in the manioc. It is a most bitter kind,
and the effects of eating it we all know. We know the sickness, the
retching, the quaking of the legs, the softening of the muscles, the
pain in the head as if it were bound with iron and the earth swimming
round the place whereon we stand, and the fall into a deadly faint. I
say we have felt all this, and have seen it in others. Some of us have
picked up the knack of making it eatable; but there are others who are
already too feeble or too lazy to try, or try to care how to live.
“For some time we have been thinking that in every camp of ours there is
nothing but graves, and dying and burying. There has been no meat, nor
salt, nor dripping, nor gravy. There has been manioc, always manioc, and
no more. But if the gullet be dry, what will drive the food down the
passage? If the stomach is filled with loathing it requires a little
gravy or dripping to make the food palatable.
“We knew that in a few weeks we were to leave here for Stanley Falls, or
for up the river, and we had made up our minds to leave the white men’s
service--every one of us. There has been death among us, it is here
still, and no one knows what is the cause of it. I myself don’t quite
believe that it is because we are working for white men, but there are
some of us who do. But we were all agreed until you came that we had
seen enough of it. There is another thing I wished to say, and that
is--we have wondered why we who belong to the Continent should die, and
white men who are strangers to it should live. When we were on the Congo
and on other journeys it was the white men who died, and not we. Now it
is we who die, a hundred blacks for one white. No, master, the cause of
death is in the food. The white men had meat of goat, and fowls, and
fish; we have had nothing but manioc and therefore died. I have spoken
my say.”
“Well, it is my turn to talk. I have been listening, and thinking, and
everything seems clear to me. You say that manioc was your food at
Yambuya, and that it made you sick and your men died?”
“Yes.”
“And you say that the men of Bolobo when they come to Yambuya were in
good condition?”
“Yes.”
“But that afterwards they became sick and died also?”
“Yes.”
“What did the men of Bolobo eat when there?”
“Chikwanga.”
“Well, what is chikwanga but bread made out of manioc?”
“That is true.”
“Did you make it into bread?”
“Some of us.”
“And some of you have lived. Now the truth of the matter is this. You
went out into the fields, and gathered the manioc tubers, the finest and
best. And you cut some leaves of manioc and brought them in, to bruise
them and make greens. This manioc is of the bitter kind. This bitterness
which you taste in it is poison. It would not only kill a few hundreds.
It would kill a whole race.
“As you peeled the tubers, you cut raw slices and ate them, you pounded
your greens and as ‘kitowêo,’ you ate them also. These are two instances
in which you took poison.
“Now the men from Bolobo had bought the manioc bread from the native
women. They had steeped the tubers in the river for four or five or six
days until the poison had all been washed away, they had then picked the
fibres out, dried the mush, and when dry they had made it into good
bread. That was what fed the Bolobo men, and fattened them. But the men
of Yambuya had scraped their manioc, and cut the roots for drying in the
sun, and as they did so they ate many a piece raw, and before the slices
were well dried they had eaten some, because they had no reserve of
food, and hunger forced them. Even those of you who put your roots to
soak in the water ate many a nice-looking bit, and you bruised and
cooked your greens to serve with your badly-prepared bread, and men
naturally sickened and died of the poison; and the men of Bolobo, when
they came up, did like the men of Yambuya, and by-and-by they fell ill
and died also. That is the reason why there are a hundred graves at
Yambuya, and that is what ails these sick men here. Not one of the white
men died, because they had rice, beans, biscuits and meat of fowl and
goat. If it were the climate that had killed your friends, the white men
less adapted for it would have died first, as they have done on the
lower Congo; but neither the climate nor the camp had anything to do
with your mortal sickness--the retching, and quaking of the limbs, the
vertigo and pain in the head, the weakening of the knees, and the
softening of the muscles, the final loathing, and indifference to
life--nothing else than the poison of the bitter manioc.
“What you should have done was to have sent two or three daily out of
each mess to gather in the manioc in sufficient quantities and steep it
in the river, and have always plenty of prepared flour on hand to make
porridge or dumplings when hungry. Had you done so, I should have about
200 sleek and strong men ready for travel with me to Zanzibar.
“Now follow what I say to you now. Eat as little of this manioc as you
can. Go, gather plenty of it, put it in the river to steep, and while it
is soaking eat your fill of bananas and plantains. In a day or two I
will move away from here. The sick shall be carried to a big island a
few hours distant, and there you will prepare twenty days’ provisions of
flour. Those who cannot get sufficient bananas make gratings over the
fire, slice your manioc thin, and let them dry till morning; then pound,
and make into flour, and eat what is good for white man as well as
black. To-morrow, all of you come back again to me, and you will throw
away those filthy rags of clothing into the river, and I shall clothe
you anew. Meantime, rejoice, and thank God that we have come to save you
from the grave.”
We had brought with us a saving salve for all the despair and discontent
that wrought confusion in the minds of those who were herded within the
pen of Banalya. The influence of the beauty of the grass-land, its
wealth of grains and vegetables, and its stores of food had been
impressed so vividly upon the minds of our men of the advance column,
that the subject-matter of their revelations excited the dullest mind to
a lively hope that good times were come again. The men who had feasted
their eyes and glutted their appetites in that glorious land were never
tired of relating those details which have such a charm for those who
know from bitter experience what it is to hunger. As vivid as the word
pictures describing the happy region was the rapture of attention paid
to them by the poor emaciates who bore on their faces the unhealthy
stain of anæmia. To these it seemed an Eden filled with all manner of
pleasant things--abundance of food, grain and meat for strength, milk
and millet for nourishment. Slight regard was paid by the narrators to
the miserable months to be endured before the Eden could be reached, nor
did the eager listeners seem to care to sift the narratives. Their
imagination was so engrossed with the bright scenes that quite obscured
the stern realities to be borne before they could be attained. I
listened to the artless prattle of these adult children, sympathised
with their enthusiasm, and pitied them with all my soul. “Inshallah!”
said the boys from the Nyanza, with fervid emotion, “We shall feast on
beef once again, then you will laugh at the days you fed on manioc roots
and greens.”
Was it to be doubted that these seductive visions would lead the sickly
ones of Banalya from erring thoughts of desertion? Milk and honey, meat
and millet, with wages and bounties, were stronger attractions than the
dried fish of Stanley Falls, the cane of the Arab master, and a doubtful
future.
The cloud that had weighed down the spirits of the men of the rear
column so long was now about to be uplifted. But first it was necessary
to remove every one from the immediate vicinity of Banalya, the scene of
the tragedy and nursery of vicious moods and mischiefs. The couriers
sent on the 17th of August with notice of our arrival to Tippu-Tib must
have reached him on the 24th of August. I had stated I should wait for
him ten days, and even that period was begrudged by the impatient Nyanza
men, who had heard with scorn of his calculating dilatoriness. But this
delay was not only needed to give another opportunity to Tippu-Tib, but
also to enable Mr. Jameson, who was reported to be at Stanley Falls, to
join us, and also to reorganise the Expedition, and re-arrange the
goods, which had become terribly deranged by the demands of Tippu-Tib,
that they should be reduced to suit mere boy carriers.
[Sidenote: 1888. Aug. 21. Bungangeta.]
After three days’ halt at the camp we embarked all the sick and goods in
the canoes, and proceeded to Bungangeta Island, which we reached in
three hours. All the Manyuema carriers proceeded by land to a camp
opposite the island. During our stay at Banalya, Ugarrowwa had descended
the river from Wasp Rapids and occupied the larger island; we therefore
paddled to another higher up, which in some respects was more suitable
for us. The land column straggled into the camp opposite during three
successive days, but the rear guard, driving the stragglers, did not
reach the landing-place until the evening of the 24th, though the
distance was but six miles. Mr. Bonny did not reach until the 22nd. The
advance column in 1887 had covered the distance in four hours, but
meantime the Arabs had destroyed the large settlements, and the
marvellously thriving bush had buried ruins, fields, and plantations
under accumulated layers of leafy parasites. This short march,
protracted over three days, emphasised the necessity that existed for a
complete reorganization and thorough overhaul. We had also lost four
half-loads and two rifles through absconding Manyuema. On the whole it
was a capital test march, and proves, if any further proof was needed
beyond the log-book, the utter unruliness of this mob of slaves, which
had half-maddened the officers of the rear column. Without Tippu-Tib, or
one of his nephews, such a column could not be taken through the broad
extents of wildernesses ahead. At this rate of marching we should be 450
days reaching the Albert Nyanza. Messrs. Jameson and Bonny had been
forty-three days going ninety miles. The difficulties which our officers
met on the road are but slightly glanced at in the log-book, but the
patience with which they had met them was never more manifest. We stayed
on our breezy island until the 31st August. Cloth, beads, cowries, and
brass rods had been distributed at the rate of five doti or twenty
yards, three pounds cowries, one pound beads, and fifteen brass rods per
man of the Nyanza force, and half as much to the men of the rear column,
equal in value to £760 to the Nyanza force, and £283 to the Banalya men.
They all deserved equally, but the latter had already a pretty fair kit,
whereas the Nyanza men had been clad in goat skins and strips of
bark-cloth. This “pocket-money” to each would enable our men to enjoy
perfect rest while Ugarrowwa’s 600 people would only be too happy in
preparing flour, making manioc cakes and bread--as reserve
provisions--for a fair portion of cloth and other articles.
Besides the work of restoring the baggage into order, which needed my
personal supervision, I had to write my reports to the Relief Committee,
to the London Royal, and Royal Scottish Geographical Societies, who were
contributories to the Relief Fund, to hold my palaver with the Manyuema
headmen, who one day vowed strictest fidelity, and the next burdened my
ear with complaints of their moody-mad men, losses by disease,
desertion, thefts of goods, menaces, &c., &c. But my answer to them all
was almost similar in terms to that used in my note to Tippu-Tib on the
17th: “If you decline the journey it is well, if you proceed with me it
is well also. Exercise your own free will. I do not need you, but if you
like to follow me I can make use of you, and will pay you according to
the number of loads you carry.” Some of them understood this as
implying leave to proceed upon their own business--that of ravaging and
marauding--but three head men volunteered to accompany me. I engaged
them on the condition that if they followed me of their own will for
thirty days I would after that time trust them with loads.
At the muster of the Expedition, August 29th, the roll was made out as
follows:--
Men. Carriers.
Zanzibaris capable of carrying goods 165}
Madi carriers 57}= 283
Manyuema carriers 61}
Soudanese and officers 21
Sick, &c. (Zanzibaris) 45
Somali 1
Emin Pasha’s soldiers 4
Manyuema chiefs, women and followers 108
Officers and servant 3
___________
465 283
List of loads to be carried on 2nd Journey to the Albert:--
Gunpowder 37 cases
Remington ammunition 83 “
Winchester 11 “
Maxim 9 “
Beads in sacks 19 “
Cowries 6 “
Brass wire coils 4 “
Cloth in bales 17 “
Percussion caps 4 “
Miscellaneous 40 “
____
230 loads for 283 carriers.
There were besides a few extra loads of miscellanea, which, so long as
all were carried in canoes, were useful and necessary, such as service
ammunition, native provisions, rope, &c., but the above formed the
indispensable baggage, when we should start overland. Though we had
fifty-three carriers in excess of loads, sickness, wounds, and death
would naturally, from the nature of the country and the present physical
condition of the rear column, decrease the number greatly, and the time
would arrive no doubt when the carriers would only be equal to the
loads, and the head men would have to relieve the sick porters. But
meantime a very fair chance of life was offered to the sick. For
something like sixty days they would be carried in canoes, and fed on
plantain flour and garden herbs. Goats and fowls were very scarce, for
Ugarrowwa had despoiled both banks. Also the porters would not be called
upon to exert their strength in the transport of any burdens. It only
remained for individuals to abstain from wild and reckless looting, and
seeking untimely fate by excess of zeal and imprudence, to assure us a
greater immunity from loss of life on this final journey to the Albert
Nyanza than we enjoyed on our first journey.
[Sidenote: 1888 Aug. 30 Lower Mariri]
During our stay out at Bungangeta Island Mr. Jameson’s letter from
Stanley Falls arrived dated August 12th. Though the letter stated he
purposed to descend to Bangala, the messenger reported that he was
likely to proceed to Banana Point, but whether Banana Point or Bangala
mattered very little. When he descended from Stanley Falls he
deliberately severed himself from the Expedition, and no inducement
would tempt me to remain in the neighbourhood of Banalya. I had given my
word to the officers at Fort Bodo and to Emin Pasha and the Egyptians
that on December 22nd, or thereabouts, I should be in the neighbourhood
of Fort Bodo, and by January 16th, or near that date, on the Nyanza. It
was natural that we should grieve and deplore the loss of Mr. Jameson to
the Expedition, for the log-book entries pleaded powerfully for him, but
the fatality that attached itself to the rear column was not to deplete
our numbers also, nor should the garrison at Fort Bodo wonder and bewail
our long absence, and lose their wits in consequence of our breach of
promise. I wrote a letter, however, to Mr. Jameson, wherein I suggested
that if he could muster sixty men, and immediately follow our blazed
path, which was too broad to be mistaken, he might easily overtake our
large column marching in single file through the forest along a road,
bristling with obstacles, of sloughs, marshes, creeks and rivers. But,
as the reader is aware, though we were ignorant of it, Mr. Jameson had
been dead twelve days before my letter was written.
On the 30th August I sent the entire flotilla of canoes--twenty-nine in
number, with twelve of Ugarrowwa’s--to transport Mr. Bonny, 239 men and
their personal kit, provisions and cooking pots, five miles up river to
the landing-place above the Rendi River, with orders to the land column
to continue along our track to the next village, and the canoes having
discharged their passengers returned to the island.
The next day--thirteen days having elapsed since Tippu-Tib had been
communicated with and no reply having been received--we departed from
Bungangeta Island on our final journey through the forest land, east. We
embarked 225 men, inclusive of canoe crews, feeble and sick, and 275
full loads of between sixty and sixty-five pounds each of expeditionary
property, provisions of flour, private kits of the people, &c., and
despite a burning sun, which made extempore awnings very necessary,
pressed on up river for six hours until we arrived at our old camp below
Lower Mariri. On the 1st of September we reached the foot of Mariri
Rapids to find that Bonny’s column had passed on to South Mupé. As the
unsophisticated Zanzibaris and Manyuema had quite overlooked the device
of portage opposite rapids, we had to despatch couriers to South Mupé
for men to assist in the transport of loads overland.
On the 2nd we were engaged in poling the canoes through the dangerous
river, and in the operation two were capsized. The next day we poled
through the upper Mariri Rapids, and at noon we were all assembled at
South Mupé.
[Sidenote: 1888. Sept. 4. Mupé.]
Ugarrowwa had followed us up with his flotilla to collect a little more
ivory, and was encamped at Upper Mariri Village. I had finished my
hastily written letters to the Royal and Scottish Geographical
Societies, and availed myself of his visit to me to request him to see
that they were forwarded to England, but during our halt on the 4th
September at South Mupé he re-visited me with Salim bin Mohammed, the
nephew of Tippu-Tib, so often mentioned in connection with Major
Barttelot and Mr. Jameson. This man was of medium height and of slender
build, with good and regular Arab features, much marred by the
small-pox, and a face that reflected courage and audacity.
Mr. Bonny’s story of him and his malevolence to Major Barttelot
personally had led me to imagine that I had misjudged his character, but
at this interview I was confirmed in my previous impressions of him and
of Tippu-Tib. It was simply this, that both Arabs were quite capable of
shedding pagan blood without concern as to its guilt, but would not plan
out any cold-blooded conspiracy to murder Arabs or white men for a less
cause than revenge. Now as neither had cause to plot the murder of
Barttelot, or to conspire for the destruction of the rear column, there
ought absolutely to be no grounds for supposing that they had ever
imagined such mischiefs. I am not disposed to doubt that Tippu-Tib did
send or lead a contingent of carriers in person to the Aruwimi. His
excuses for his early return--on the plea that he could not find the
camp--may be told to the “Marines.” They prove that he was lukewarm,
that he did not care sufficiently for the promised reward, and he ought
to have been dropped out of mind. When, however, the young officers
pleaded, and entreated, and coaxed him, both he and his nephew saw
clearly that the service so eagerly and earnestly desired was worth
money, and they raised their price; not out of ill-will, but out of an
uncontrollable desire to make more profit. The obligations Tippu was
under by contract, the gratitude due me for my assistance, were all
forgotten in the keen and sharpened appetite for money. The Major
possessed no resources to meet their demands, the worthy uncle and
nephew believed that both he and Jameson were rich, and the Expedition
to be under the patronage of wealthy men. “Why, then,” say they both
with smug complacency, “if they want us so badly, let them pay. Stanley
has been good to us, that is true (see the Major’s report), but a man
can’t work for his friend for nothing--friendship is too dear at the
price”--and so they took another turn of the screw. It was done
effectively I admit. If Tippu-Tib appeared a trifle indifferent he knew
how to assume it, he knew he would be coaxed to good humour with gifts.
If Salim bin Mohammed appeared a little vexed, sour, or talked of
wounded susceptibilities, the Major opened his boxes and chose a gay
uniform jacket, or sent a forty-five guinea rifle, or a bale of cloth,
or a pair of ivory handled revolvers; if Salim bin Massoud his
brother-in-law talked a little big, his condescending kindness was
secured and stimulated by a rich bounty.
Salim had come in person, he said, to give a verbal reply to my note of
the 17th, and he was ordered by his uncle to send couriers immediately
back to him with my words.
The Arab’s inability to comprehend the meaning of a legal contract, his
litigious and wavering spirit, his settled forgetfulness of words
spoken, his facility for breaking promises, and tampering with
agreements, his general inveracity, insincerity and dissimulation, as
well as his gift of pouring a stream of compliments amid a rain of
Mashallahs and Inshallahs, were never better displayed than at this
interview. Salim said that Tippu-Tib had sent him to ask what we should
do. This, after six letters, one in English and five in Arabic and
Swahili, on the 17th!
“Now Salim,” said I, “listen. If I thought you or Tippu-Tib were in any
way implicated in the murder of my friend, you would never leave this
camp alive. You have only seen hitherto one side of me. But I know and
believe from my soul that it was neither you nor Tippu-Tib who caused
the death of the Major. Therefore we can speak together as formerly
without anger. Tippu-Tib has not injured me beyond what the consul and
the Seyyid of Zanzibar can settle easily between them. Into their hands
I will commit the case. Tell your uncle that the passage of himself and
his ninety-six followers from Zanzibar to Stanley Falls must be paid,
that the loss of goods, rifles, powder, and ammunition, the loss of time
of this entire expedition will have to be made good. Tell him to do
what he likes, but in the end I shall win. He cannot hurt me, but I can
hurt him. Tell him to consider these things, and then say whether it
would not be better to prove at the last that he was sorry, and that in
future he would try to do better. If he would like to try, say, that if
he gathers his men, and overtakes me before I cross the expedition over
the Ituri in about fifty days hence, he shall have a chance of
retrieving my good opinion, and quashing all legal proceedings.”
“Very well, I hear all you say. I shall return to-night to Banalya;
Ugarrowwa will lend me canoes. I shall be with Tippu-Tib in eight days,
and on the 17th day I shall be back here, on your track. I shall
overhaul you before forty days.”
“Good, then,” I said, “we had better utter our last farewells, for we
shall not meet again unless we meet at Zanzibar, about eighteen months
hence.”
“Why?”
“Because neither you nor Tippu-Tib have the least intention of keeping
your word. Your business here has been to order the Manyuema who are
with me back to Stanley Falls. But it is perfectly immaterial. Take them
back, for once more I say, it is not in your power to hurt me.”
“Inshallah, Inshallah, let your heart rest in peace, we meet in less
than forty days, I swear to you.”
Poor Salim! he proceeded straight from my presence to the quarters of
the Manyuema headmen, and tempted them to return with him, which,
singular to relate, they obstinately declined to do. Salim waxing
wrathful, employed menaces, upon hearing which they came to me demanding
protection.
Smiling, I said to Salim, “What you promised me just now is true; you
have seen me in less than forty days! But what is the meaning of this?
These are independent Manyuema chiefs, who were sent by Tippu-Tib to
follow us. They are obeying Tippu-Tib in doing so. Let them alone,
Salim, there will be less people for you to look after on the road, you
know, because you also will follow us. Don’t you see? There, that will
do. Come and get into your canoe, otherwise we shall make two marches
before you leave here--and you have promised to catch me, you know, in
forty days.”
Our move on the 5th was to the large settlement of the Batundu, who
owned a flourishing crop of Indian corn, and a splendid plantation of
bananas, as yet untouched by any caravan. The rear column men required
good feeding to restore them to health, and though meat was
unprocurable, bananas and corn were not amiss. Here we halted two days,
during which we became aware of certain serious disadvantages resulting
from contact with the Manyuema. For these people had contracted the
small-pox, and had communicated it to the Madi carriers. Our Zanzibaris
were proof against this frightful disease, for we had taken the
precautions to vaccinate every member of the expedition on board the
_Madura_, in March, 1887. But on the Madis it began to develop with
alarming rapidity. Among the Manyuema were two insane women, or rather,
to be quite correct, two women subject to spasms of hysterical
exaltation, possessed by “devils,” according to their chiefs, who
prevented sleep by their perpetual singing during the night. Probably
some such mania for singing at untimely hours was the cause of the
Major’s death. If the poor Major had any ear for harmony, their
inharmonious and excited madhouse uproar might well have exasperated
him.
The female sympathisers of these afflicted ones frequently broke out
into strange chorus with them, in the belief that this method had a
soothing effect, while any coercive measures for silencing them only
exaggerated their curious malady. Whatever influence the chorus may have
had on the nerves of the sufferers, on us, who were more tranquil, it
was most distressing.
[Sidenote: 1888. Sept. 5. Batundu.]
At this settlement two Zanzibaris, exceedingly useful, and reckoned
among the elect of the force, secretly left camp to make a raid on the
Batundu, and were ambushed and slain. This was the manner our most
enterprising men became lost to us. One of these two was the leader of
the van, and had acted in that capacity since we had departed from
Yambuya, June 1887. The sad occasion was an opportunity to impress on
the infatuated men for the hundredth time the absurd folly they were
guilty of in sacrificing their lives for a goat, in nobly working for
months to earn pay and honour by manliness and fidelity, and then bury
all in the entrails of cannibals. I had bestowed on them cattle, sheep,
goats, fowls, handfuls of silver, and a thousand pounds’ worth of
clothes, but none, no, not one, had offered his throat to me to be cut.
But for the sake of a goat, at any time day or night the cannibal might
kill and then eat them. What monstrous ingratitude! They were instantly
penitential. Again they promised to me by Allah! that they would not do
so again, and, of course, in a day or two they would forget their
promise. It is their way.
But any person who has travelled with the writer thus far will have
observed that almost every fatal accident hitherto in this Expedition
has been the consequence of a breach of promise. How to adhere to a
promise seems to me to be the most difficult of all tasks for every
999,999 men out of every million whom I meet. I confess that these black
people who broke their promises so wantonly were the bane of my life,
and the cause of continued mental disquietude, and that I condemned them
to their own hearing as supremest idiots. Indeed, I have been able to
drive from one to three hundred cattle a five hundred mile journey with
less trouble and anxiety than as many black men. If we had strung them
neck and neck along a lengthy slave-chain they would certainly have
suffered a little inconvenience, but then they themselves would be the
first to accuse us of cruelty. Not possessing chains, or even rope
enough, we had to rely on their promises that they would not break out
of camp into the bush on these mad individual enterprises, which
invariably resulted in death, but never a promise was kept longer than
two days.
[Sidenote: 1888. Sept. 8. Elephant Playground.]
“Elephant Playground” Camp was our next halting-place, and thence we
moved to Wasp Rapids.
I learned from some of Ugarrowwa’s men that inland from Bwamburi are the
Ababua tribe, among whom a different style of architecture prevails, the
huts being more commodious and comfortable, and plastered, and that to
the dwellings are attached wide verandahs. I was also told that their
blacksmith’s art was carried to a high standard, and that on every blade
of spear, sword, knife, or arrow, considerable decorations were
lavished. Some of the tri-bladed and four-bladed knives were shown to
me, and they were recognised as characteristic of the Monbuttu and
Nyam-Nyam as described by Schweinfurth in his “Artes Africanæ.”
On leaving Wasp Rapids, on the 12th, our canoes carried 198; the land
column under Mr. Bonny numbered 262. Being unladen, the trained men
arrived in camp before the advance canoe of the flotilla. The road was
now distinct and well trodden like ordinary African footpaths.
[Sidenote: 1888. Sept. 12. Manginni.]
[Illustration: SWORDS AND KNIVES. (_From a photograph._)]
On reaching camp, however, the men, under pretence of cutting phrynia
leaves to roof their huts, vanished into the forest, eluding the guards,
and escaped along a path leading inland. Some of these managed to gain a
few fowls, a sheaf or two of sugar-cane, and an abundance of mature
plantains, but there were others who met only misfortune. Three Manyuema
were killed, and a Lado soldier of the irregulars of Emin Pasha received
a broad and sharp spear through his body, which, glancing past the
vertebræ, caused a ghastly wound, but fortunately uninjured a vital
part. The wounds were sewn up and bandages applied. The rear guard
reported that on the road five Manyuema, three Zanzibaris, and one
Soudanese were killed and eaten by ghoulish natives who had been hiding
while the column was passing, and that these men belonging to the
Banalya party had been resting near their hiding-place, when they were
suddenly set upon and despatched. It was only five days previously that
I had addressed the people publicly on the danger they were incurring
by these useless and wholly unnecessary raids. When food was really
required, which was once in five days, a foraging party would be sent to
cut plantains in such abundance that they sufficed for several days, and
twelve hours’ drying over a fire rendered the provisions portable. Their
absolute inability to keep their promise, and the absolute impossibility
of compelling them to do so, had been the cause of twelve deaths, and
the thirteenth person was so seriously wounded that he was in imminent
danger of dying. We had the small-pox raging among the Manyuema and
Madis, and daily creating havoc among their numbers, and we had this
fatal want of discipline, which was utterly irremediable in the forest
region. The more vehemently I laboured to correct this disorder in the
mob, the more conscious I became that only a death penalty on the raider
would stop him; but then when the natives themselves executed infallibly
the sentence, there was no necessity for me to do it.
Just above Manginni a canoe was capsized through pure carelessness. With
our best divers we proceeded to the scene and recovered every article
excepting a box of gunpowder and one of beads. The canoe was broken.
Passing by Mugwye’s, we reached Mambanga, and halted two days to prepare
food for the uninhabited wilderness that stretches thence to Engwedde.
At this camp Lakki or a “Hundred thousand,” a veritable Jack Cade, loud,
noisy, blustering--the courier who in the midst of the midnight fray at
Bandeya shouted to his comrades: “These fellows want meat, and meat they
shall have, but it will be their own!”--heading a secret raiding party
made up of choice friends, and returned twenty-four hours later with a
curious and most singular wound from a poisoned arrow. Carbonate of
ammonium was injected into the wound, and he was saved, but Lakki was
firmly of the opinion that he was indebted to the green tobacco leaves
employed to cover it.
[Sidenote: 1888. Sept. 14. Mambanga.]
[Illustration: A SWIMMING RACE AFTER A BUSH ANTELOPE.]
[Sidenote: 1888. Sept. 17. Ngula River.]
While preparing our forest camps we were frequently startled at the
sudden rush of some small animal resembling a wild goat, which often
waited in his covert until almost trodden upon, and then bounded swiftly
away, running the gauntlet among hundreds of excited and hungry people,
who with gesture, voice, and action attempted to catch it. This time,
however, the animal took a flying leap over several canoes lying abreast
into the river, and dived under. In an instant there was a desperate
pursuit. Man after man leaped head foremost into the river, until its
face was darkly dotted with the heads of the frantic swimmers. This
mania for meat had approached madness. The poisoned arrow, the
razor-sharp spear, and the pot of the cannibal failed to deter them from
such raids; they dared all things, and in this instance an entire
company had leaped into the river to fight and struggle, and perhaps be
drowned, because there was a chance that a small animal that two men
would consider as insufficient for a full meal, might be obtained by one
man out of fifty. Five canoes were therefore ordered out to assist the
madmen. About half a mile below, despite the manœuvres of the animal
which dived and swam with all the cunning of savage man, a young fellow
named Feruzi clutched it by the neck, and at the same time he was
clutched by half-a-dozen fellows, and all must assuredly have been
drowned had not the canoes arrived in time, and rescued the tired
swimmers. But, alas! for Feruzi, the bush antelope, for such it was, no
sooner was slaughtered than a savage rush was made on the meat, and he
received only a tiny morsel, which he thrust into his mouth for
security.
During the next journey it was the river column that suffered. We were
near our old camp at the confluence of the Ngula and the Ituri. A man in
the advance canoe was shot in the back with a poisoned arrow. The wound
was treated instantly with an injection of carbonate of ammonia, and no
ill-effects followed.
The day following, the river column again suffered, and this time the
case was as fatal as that caused by a bullet, and almost instantaneous.
Jabu, our cook, somewhat indisposed, was sitting in the stern of a canoe
while the crew was on shore about forty feet from him, hauling it past a
bit of rapids. A bold and crafty native, with fixed arrow before him,
steadily approached the vessel and shot a poisoned wooden dart, which
penetrated the arm near the shoulders and pierced the base of the
throat. The wound was a mere needle-hole puncture, but Jabu had barely
time to say “Mahommed!” when he fell back dead.
Our next move was to Panga Falls. On the following day, 20th September,
we made a road past the Falls, hauled twenty-seven canoes to the
landing-place above, in view of Fort Island and then conveyed all goods
and baggage to the camp.
[Sidenote: 1888. Sept. 21. Nejambi Rapids.]
During our first journey through the neighbourhood we had lost no person
through native weapons, but since our first passage the natives had been
stimulated into aggressive efforts by the ease with which the reckless
improvident black when not controlled by a white man, could be
butchered. The deserters from the advance column had furnished the
wretches with several meals; the stupid, dense-headed Bakusu under
Ugarrowwa had supplied them with victims until the cannibal had
discovered that by his woodcraft he could creep upon the unsuspecting
men and drive his spear through them as easily as through so many goats.
We had lost fourteen men in thirty days. A silly Madi strayed into the
bush on the 20th, to collect fuel. A native confronted him and drove his
weapon clean through his body. On the 21st a Manyuema woman, fifty paces
from our camp, was pierced with a poisoned arrow, and was dead before we
could reach her. And, to complete the casualties, a Zanzibari of the
rear column succumbed to manioc poison.
Nejambi Rapids was our next camp. As soon as we had arrived and stacked
goods, about a hundred men, driven by hunger, started in a body to
forage for plantains. We, who remained in camp, had our hands full of
work. The twenty-seven canoes required to be hauled, on the next day,
past the rapids, and a road had to be cleared, and rattan cables were
wanted for each vessel for hauling.
By sunset several of the foragers had returned well rewarded for their
enterprise, but many were belated, and, till long past midnight, guns
were fired as signals, and the great ivory horns sounded loud blasts
which travelled through the glades with continued rolling echoes. About
nine p.m., tidings came that two Zanzibaris had been killed by poisoned
arrows. An hour later a dead body, that of Ferajji, the humorous
head-man, who was cross-examined at Banalya, was brought in. On
inspection, the corpse was found studded with beads of perspiration. The
arrow wound was a mere pin-hole puncture in upper left arm, but it had
proved quite enough. It was said that he walked about an hour after
being struck, towards camp, but then cried out for a little rest, as he
was faint. During the ten minutes’ rest he died.
Young Hussein bin Juma, of a respectable parentage at Zanzibar, was soon
after carried in, and brought to me, not dead, as reported, but in an
extremely low condition. I discovered that the arrow had pierced the
outer flesh of the right arm, and had entered an inch above the third
rib. The arrow was hastily withdrawn and shown to me. It was smeared
over with a dark substance like thick coal tar, and emitted a most
peculiar odour. The arm was not swollen, but the body wound had caused a
considerable tumour, soft to the touch. He said that he had felt
exceedingly faint at one time, and that he perspired greatly, but had
felt great relief after retching. At present he was languid, and
suffered from thirst. After washing well both wounds, five grains of
carbonate ammonia were injected into each wound, and a good dose of
strong medical brandy was administered.
In ten days young Hussein was quite restored, and went about performing
his accustomed duties.
A squad of men returned long after midnight with fowls, plantains, and
fortunately without accident. But early in the morning, Tam, a native of
Johanna, raving from small-pox, threw himself into the rapids and was
drowned. He had declined being vaccinated.
After hauling our canoes overland three-quarters of a mile, we halted a
day above the rapids to prepare five days’ rations of flour. The strain
of hauling the rotten craft had reduced our flotilla to twenty-two
vessels.
Engwedde’s long series of rapids was passed without accident, and thence
we moved to Avisibba, and a good march brought us to the camp below
Mabengu Rapids, where we had waited so long for the lost column under
Jephson in August, 1887.
The next day was a halt, and a strong foraging party was sent over to
Itiri to collect food. In the afternoon it returned, bringing several
days’ supply of plantains with a few goats and fowls, and for the first
time we were able to make soup and distribute meat to the Banalya sick.
It was reported to me that the Manyuema had carved a woman most
butcherly to allay their strong craving for meat, but the headman
assured me that it was utterly false, and I am inclined to believe him,
for the Zanzibaris, if they had really detected such a monstrous habit
in people who might at any time contaminate their cooking-pots, would
have insisted on making a severe example.
[Sidenote: 1888. Sept. 30. Avugadu.]
On the last day of September we moved up to above upper rapids of
Avugadu, at which camp we discovered wild oranges. There were also wild
mango-trees, if we may trust the flowering and foliage. Red figs of a
sweetish flavour were very common, but as their shrunk pedicels
possessed no saccharine secretions they were uneatable.
A native woman was delivered of a child on the road. She was seen
standing over the tiny atom. The Zanzibaris as they came up crowded
around the unusual sight, and one said, “throw the thing into the river
out of the way.” “But why should you do that when the infant is alive?”
asked another. “Why don’t you see that it is white? it must be some
terrible disease I am sure.” “Oh Ignorance, how many evils transpire
under thy dark shade.” “Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do,” rushed to my mind, as I looked in wonder at the speakers, who,
utterly unconscious that they were committing murder, would have
extinguished the little spark of life there and then.
Our anxieties at this period were mainly on the account of those
suffering from ulcers. There was one wise little boy of about thirteen
called Soudi, who formerly attended on the Major. An injury he had
received had caused about four inches of the leg bone to be exposed. We
had also fifteen cases of small-pox, who mingled in the freest manner
possible with our Zanzibaris, and only the suicide, Tam, had thus far
been attacked.
[Sidenote: 1888. Oct. 1. Avejeli.]
On arriving at Avejeli, opposite the Nepoko, the wife of the Manyuema
drummer, a prepossessing lassie, went out to the gardens close by to
collect herbs. A band of natives were in hiding, and they pierced her
with arrows. Seven of them quivered in her body. Her screams attracted
attention, and she was hastily brought in, but even as we were about to
inject the ammonium she rolled over, raised her arms, and embraced her
young husband in the most touching manner, gave a long sigh, and died.
“Oh, ye travellers! who belong to that clique who say the Africans know
neither love, affection, nor jealousy. What would you have said to this
pitiful death-scene?” We had also a Manyuema woman who was a hideous
object, a mass of loathsome pustules, emitting an almost unbearable
stench, but her husband tended and served her with a surpassing and
devoted tenderness. Death, death everywhere, and on every day, and in
every shape; but love, supreme love stood like a guardian angel to make
death beautiful! Poor unlettered, meek creatures, the humblest of
humanity, yet here unseen, and unknown of those who sing of noble
sacrifices, of constancy and devotion, proving your brotherhood with us
amid the sternest realities by lulling your loved ones to rest with the
choicest flowers of love!
On the 2nd of October we moved up to Little Rapids below the confluence
of the Ngaiyu with the Ituri, where a tornado visited us, churned up the
generally waveless river into careering rollers, that stretched from
bank to bank, with a power and force that disturbed the very bed and
muddied the stream until it resembled a wild strip of shallow
wind-driven sea, beating on an alluvial shore. Our canoes were dashed
one against the other until they promised to become matchwood, while the
great forest groaned and roared with the agony of the strife, but in
half-an-hour the river had resumed its placid and tender face, and the
forest stood still as though petrified.
During a halt on the 3rd, Mr. Jameson’s box, containing various trifles
belonging to an industrial naturalist, was opened. Books, diaries, and
such articles as were worth preserving, were sealed up for transport
athwart the continent; the others, unnecessary to a person in
civilization, were discarded.
[Sidenote: 1888. Oct. 3. Bavikai.]
Mr. Bonny was despatched with twenty-eight men past the Ngaiyu, to
verify my hope that a landing-place I had observed in passing and
repassing would lead to the discovery of a road by which I could avoid
the devastated wilderness that stretched for nearly 200 miles along the
south bank between the Basopo Rapids and Ibwiri. Mr. Bonny, after
returning, was pleased to express his surprise at the marvellous
dexterity and agility of the scouts, who sprang with the lightness of
springing bush antelopes over every kind of impediment, and who in
almost every thousand paces gained five hundred ahead of him. A mile and
a half from the landing-place on the north bank he had found a fine
village surrounded by rich groves of plantains. To this village, called
Bavikai, we proceeded more in the hope that we could utilize some road
going north-easterly, whence, after sixty miles or so, we could strike
on a bee-line course for the Albert.
As the men were being transported across the river opposite the
landing-place of the Bavikai on the 4th, I saw a dozen Madis in a
terrible condition from the ravages of the small-pox, and crowding them,
until they jostled them in admirable unconcern, were some two dozen of
the tribe as yet unaffected by the disease. This little fact put me on a
line of reflections which, had a first-class shorthand writer been near,
might have been of value to other thoughtless persons. Never did
ignorance appear to me so foolish. Its utter unsuspectingness was
pitiful. Over these human animals I saw the shadow of Death, in the act
to strike. But I said to myself, I see the terrible shade over them
ready to smite them with the disease which will make them a horror, and
finally kill them. When I fall also it will probably be from some
momentary thoughtlessness, when I shall either be too absorbed, or too
confident to observe the dark shadow impending over me. However, _Mambu
Kwa Mungu_, neither they nor I can avoid our fate.
Among my notes on the 5th of October I find a few remarks about Malaria.
While we have travelled through the forest region we have suffered less
from African fevers, than we did in the open country between Mataddi and
Stanley Pool.
A long halt in the forest clearings soon reminds us that we are not yet
so acclimated as to utterly escape the effects of malaria. But when
within the inclosed woods our agues are of a very mild form, soon
extinguished by a timely dose of quinine.
On the plateau of Kavalli and Undussuma, Messrs. Jephson, Parke, and
myself were successively prostrated by fever, and the average level of
the land was over 4500 feet above the sea.
On descending to the Nyanza plain, 2500 feet lower, we were again laid
up with fierce attacks.
At Banana Point, which is at sea-level, ague is only too common.
At Boma, 80 feet higher, the ague is more common still.
At Vivi, there were more cases than elsewhere, and the station was about
250 feet higher than Boma, and not a swamp was near it.
At Stanley Pool, about 1100 feet above sea level, fever of a pernicious
form was prevalent.
While ascending the Congo with the wind astern we were unusually
exempted from ague.
But descending the Upper Congo, facing the wind, we were smitten with
most severe forms of it.
While ascending the Aruwimi we seldom thought of African fever, but
descending it in canoes, meeting the wind currents, and carried towards
it by river-flow and paddle, we were speedily made aware that
acclimatisation is slow.
Therefore it is proved that from 0 to 5000 feet above the sea there is
no immunity from fever and ague, that over forty miles of lake water
between a camp and the other shore are no positive protection; that a
thousand miles of river course may serve as a flue to convey malaria in
a concentrated form; that if there is a thick screen of primeval forest,
or a grove of plantains between the dwelling-place and a large clearing
or open country there is only danger of the local malaria around the
dwelling, which might be rendered harmless by the slightest attention to
the system; but in the open country neither a house nor a tent are
sufficient protection, since the air enters by the doors of the house,
and under the flaps, and through the ventilators to poison the inmates.
Hence we may infer that trees, tall shrubbery, a high wall or close
screen interposed between the dwelling-place and the wind currents will
mitigate their malarial influence, and the inmate will only be
subjected to local exhalations.
Emin Pasha informed me that he always took a mosquito curtain with him,
as he believed that it was an excellent protector against miasmatic
exhalations of the night.
Question, might not a respirator attached to a veil, or face screen of
muslin, assist in mitigating malarious effects when the traveller finds
himself in open regions?
Three companies of forty men each were sent in three different
directions to follow the tracks leading from Bavikai. The first soon got
entangled in the thick woods bordering the Ngaiyu, and had an engagement
with the natives of Bavikai, who were temporarily encamped in the dark
recesses, the second followed a path that ran E. by N., and soon met a
large force of natives coming from three different villages. One of our
men was wounded in the head with a poisoned arrow. The third was
perplexed by a network of paths, and tried several of them, but all
ended in plantations of plantains and thin bush of late growth, and in
the search these men encountered savages well armed and prepared with
poisoned darts. We were therefore compelled to recross the river to the
south bank, to try again higher up, to avoid the trying labour of
tunnelling through the forest.
[Sidenote: 1888. Oct. 10. Hippo Broads.]
On the 10th the Expedition reached Hippo Broads. On this date we saw a
cloud of moths sailing up river, which reached from the water’s face to
the topmost height of the forest, say 180 feet, so dense, that before it
overtook us we thought that it was a fog, or, as was scarcely possible,
a thick fall of lavender-coloured snow. The rate of flight was about
three knots an hour. In the dead calm morning air they maintained an
even flight, but the slightest breeze from the banks whirled them
confusedly about, like light snow particles on a gusty day. Every now
and then the countless close packed myriads met a cloud of moth migrants
from above river, and the sunbeams glinting and shining on their
transparent wing caused them to resemble fire sparks.
Bits of turfy green, cropped close by hippo, which favours this fine
reach of river, distinguish the banks near this locality. Many oil
palms, some raphia, arums, phrynia, amoma, pepper bushes, &c., denote a
very ancient site of a human settlement. My tent was pitched under a
small branching fig-tree, which protected it from a glowing Equatorial
sun, but the heat reflected from the river’s face mounted up to 87° in
the shade at 3 P.M. This unusual heat preceded a tempest, with
lightning, startling thunder, and deluging rain.
At the Bafaido Cataract, a woman who fell into our hands informed us
that the Medze tribe lived on the other side of the Ngaiyu River and
that the Babandi were found on its left bank.
Near Avaiyabu, a lurking native who had been standing behind a leafy
screen of parasites depending from the branches of a big tree, suddenly
stepped into the path, snatched a little girl belonging to the Manyuema,
and drove his double-edged dagger from breast to back, and holding his
weapon above his head uttered a furious cry, which might well have been
“Death to the invader!”
And at the next camp, Avamberri landing-place, Soudi the wise little boy
who had served the Major, while being carried past the rapids to the
canoes waiting above, died on the carriers’ shoulders. The enamel
covering of the leg-bone had been all destroyed by the virulent ulcer.
Since we had left Bungangeta Island, Soudi had been carried and nursed,
but want of exercise, and exposure to sun in the canoe and constant rain
had weakened his digestion. His constitution had been originally healthy
and sound. The little fellow had borne his sufferings bravely, but the
reserve medicines were at Bangala, and we could do nothing for him.
On the 18th of October we were at Amiri Rapids, and the second Zanzibari
showed symptoms of small-pox. So far we had been remarkably free of the
disease, despite the fact that there were from ten to twenty sufferers
daily in the camp since arriving at the settlement of the Batundu. Out
of 620 Zanzibaris who were ordered to be vaccinated, some few
constitutions might possibly have resisted the vaccine; but no more
decided proof of the benefits resulting to humanity could be obtained
from Jenner’s discovery than were furnished by our Expedition. Among the
Manyuema, Madis, and native followers, the epidemic had taken deadly
hold, and many a victim had already been tossed into the river weighted
with rocks. For this was also a strange necessity we had to resort to,
to avoid subsequent exhumation by the natives whom we discovered to be
following our tracks for the purpose of feeding on the dead.
One of the Zanzibari headmen while acting as coxswain of a canoe was so
stung by wasps at this camp that he despaired of his life, and insisted
that his will should be written, wherein he made his brother, then with
us, his sole legatee. I conformed to his wish in a clerkly fashion that
pleased him well, but I also administered a ten-grain dose of carbonate
of ammonium hypodermically, and told him he should reach Zanzibar in
spite of the vicious wasps who had so punished him. The next day he was
a new man, and boasted that the white man’s medicines could cure
everything except death.
[Sidenote: 1888. Oct. 18. Amiri Falls.]
After moving to the top of Amiri Rapids, a series of misfortunes met us.
Some few of the flighty-headed untrained men of the rear-column rushed
off to the plantain plantations without a leader or authority, and
conducted themselves like children. The natives surrounded them and
punished them, wounding three. Two others, one suffering from a
palpitation of the heart, and another feeble youth, had left the trail
to hide from the rear-guard.
Up to date, we had lost since 1st of September, nine Zanzibaris killed,
one from suicide, one from ulcers, and two were missing. Of the Manyuema
contingent, fifteen had been killed or had died from small pox, and
eighteen Madis had either been killed or had perished from the pest.
Total loss, forty-four deaths within forty-nine days.
[Sidenote: 1888. Oct. 19.
Amiri Falls.]
From Amiri Falls to Avatiko was a seven-days’ march through a
depopulated country, through a land wholly empty of food. Beyond Avatiko
by the new route I proposed to follow, two days would probably transpire
before another supply of food could be obtained. This was my estimate,
at which with the Zanzibaris of the advance column who were now trained
in forest life, we might perform these journeys. If we could obtain no
food at Avatiko, then our lot would be hard indeed. Up to within a day’s
march of Avatiko, we could employ the canoes in carrying an extra supply
of provisions. It would not be impossible to take twenty days’ rations
of flour per capita; but a leader to perform such a work must be obeyed.
He performs his duties by enjoining on all his followers to remember his
words, to take heed of his advice, and do their utmost to conform to his
instructions.
On the 20th at dawn, 160 rifles were despatched to the plantations five
miles inland from Amiri Falls. The men were told how many days Avatiko
was distant, and that they should employ one day in collecting food, in
peeling, slicing and drying their plantains in the plantation, so that
they could bring from sixty to seventy pounds of food, which when
distributed would supply each person with over twenty pounds, equal to
ten days’ rations. Experience of them proved to me that the enterprising
would carry sufficient to satisfy them with fifteen days’ unstinted
food; others, again, despite the warning of death rung in their ears,
would not carry more than would suffice them for four days.
On the afternoon of the 21st I was gratified to see that the people had
been very successful. How many had followed my advice it was impossible
to state. The messes had sent half their numbers to gather the food, and
every man had to contribute two handfuls for the officers and sick. It
only remained now for the chiefs of the messes to be economical of the
food, and the dreaded wilderness might be safely crossed.