WORK IN REVIEW
The close of the story of Stanley’s African explorations may fitly be
followed by a survey of the net result. Such an estimate is given in a
paper by Mr. Sidney Low, in the ‘Cornhill Magazine,’ for July, 1904,
together with a sketch of Stanley’s personality, at once so just and so
sympathetic that the entire article, with only slight omissions, is here
given a place.
‘The map of Africa is a monument to Stanley, _aere perennius_.[37] There
lie before me various atlases, published during the past sixty years,
which is less than the span of Stanley’s lifetime. I turn to a
magnificently proportioned volume, bearing the date of 1849, when John
Rowlands was a boy at school at Denbigh. In this atlas, the African
Continent is exhibited, for about a third of its area, as a mighty
blank. The coast is well-defined, and the northern part, as far as ten
degrees from the Equator, is pretty freely sprinkled with familiar
names. We have Lake Tchad, Bornu, Darfur, Wadi-el-Bagharmi, Sennaar,
Kordofan, and Khartoum, and so on. But at the southern line of “the
Soudan, or Nigritia,” knowledge suddenly ceases; and we enter upon the
void that extends, right through and across Africa, down to the Tropic
of Capricorn. “Unexplored” is printed, in bold letters, that stride over
fifteen hundred miles of country, from the tropical circle to well
beyond the Equator! The great lakes are marked only by a vague blob,
somewhere in the interior, west of the Zanzibar territory. The estuary
of the “Congo, or Zaire” is shown, and a few miles of the river inland.
After that we are directed, by uncertain dots, along the supposed course
of the stream northward, to where it is imagined to take its rise in the
Montes Lunae, for which the map-maker can do no better for us than to
refer, in brackets, to “Ptolemy” and “Abulfeda Edrisi.”
‘I pass to another atlas, dated 1871. Here there is considerable
progress, especially as regards the eastern side of the Continent. The
White Nile and the Bahr-el-Ghazal have been traced almost to their
sources. The Zambesi is known, and the Victoria Falls are marked. Lakes
Victoria Nyanza and Nyassa appear with solid boundaries. Tanganyika,
however, is still uncertain, the Albert Nyanza with its broken lines
testifies to the doubts of the geographer, and the Albert Edward does
not appear at all; and beyond the line of the lakes, and north of the
tenth degree of south latitude, the blank of the interior is still as
conspicuous, and almost as unrelieved, as it was two-and-twenty years
earlier.
‘By 1882, there is a great change. The name of Stanley has begun to be
written indelibly upon the surface of the Continent. The vague truncated
“Congo, or Zaire” is the “Livingstone River,” flowing in its bold
horseshoe through the heart of the formerly unexplored region, with
“Stanley Falls” just before the river takes its first great spring
westward, and “Stanley Pool” a thousand miles lower down, where, after a
long southerly course, the mighty stream makes its final plunge to the
sea. Tributary rivers, hills, lakes, villages, tribal appellations, dot
the waste. Uganda is marked, and Urua, and Unyanyembe.
‘If we pass on to the present day, and look at any good recent map, the
desert seems to have become--as, indeed, it is--quite populous. There is
no stretch of unknown, and apparently unoccupied land, except in the
Sahara, and between Somaliland and the White Nile. All the rest is
neatly divided off, and most of it tinted with appropriate national
colours; the British, red; the French, purple; the German, brown; the
Portuguese, green. In the map I am looking at there is, right in the
middle, a big irregular square or polygon, which is painted yellow. It
is twelve hundred miles from north to south, a thousand from east to
west. It is scored by the winding black lines of rivers,--not the Congo
only, but the Aruwimi, the Lualaba, the Sankalla, the Ubangi. It is the
Congo Free State, one of the recognised political units of the world,
with its area of 800,000 square miles, and its population computed at
fifteen millions. The great hollow spaces have been filled in. The Dark
Continent is, geographically at any rate, dark no longer. The secret of
the centuries has been solved!
‘Geographical science has still its unfulfilled tasks to finish; but
there can never again be another Stanley! He is the last of the
discoverers, unless, indeed, we shall have to reserve the title for his
friend and younger disciple, Sven Hedin. No other man, until the records
of our civilisation perish, can lay bare a vast unknown tract of the
earth’s surface, for none such is left. The North Pole and the South
Pole, it is true, are still inviolate; but we know enough to be aware
how little those regions can offer to the brave adventurers who strive
to pierce their mysteries. There is no Polar continent, nor open
Antarctic Sea, only a dreary waste of lifeless ice, and unchanging snow.
But the habitable and inhabited globe is mapped and charted; and none of
the explorers, who laboured at the work during the past fifty years, did
so much towards the consummation as Stanley. Many others helped to fill
in the blank in the atlas of 1849, which has become the network of names
in the atlas of 1904.
‘A famous company of strong men gave the best of their energies to the
opening of Africa during the nineteenth century. They were missionaries,
like Moffat and Livingstone; scientific inquirers, like Barth, Rohlfs,
Du Chaillu, Teleki, and Thomson; adventurous explorers, like Speke,
Grant, Burton, Cameron, and Selous; and soldiers, statesmen, and
organisers, such as Gordon, Rhodes, Samuel Baker, Emin Pasha, Johnston,
Lugard, and Taubman Goldie--but there is no need to go through the list.
Their discoveries were made often with a more slender equipment and
scantier resources; as administrators, one or two at least could be
counted his equals. But those of the distinguished band, who still
survive, would freely acknowledge that it was Stanley who put the crown
and coping-stone on the edifice of African exploration, and so completed
the task, begun twenty-four centuries ago with the voyage of King
Necho’s Phœnician captains, and the Periplus of Hanno.
‘It was Stanley who gathered up the threads, brought together the loose
ends, and united the discoveries of his predecessors into one coherent
and connected whole. He linked the results of Livingstone’s explorations
with those of Speke, and Grant, and Burton, and so enabled the great
lacustrine and riverine system of Equatorial Africa to become
intelligible. Without him, the work of his most illustrious predecessors
might still have remained only a collection of splendid fragments.
Stanley exhibited their true relation to one another, and showed what
they meant. He is the great--we may say the final--systematiser of
African geography, and his achievements in this respect can neither be
superseded nor surpassed, if only because the opportunity exists no
longer.
‘As a fact, Stanley not only completed, but he also corrected, the chief
of all Livingstone’s discoveries. The missionary traveller was steadily
convinced that the Nile took its rise in Lake Tanganyika; or, rather,
that it passed right through that inland sea. Stanley, when he had found
the Doctor, and restored the weary old man’s spirit and confidence,
induced him to join in an exploration trip round the north end of
Tanganyika, which proved that there was no river flowing out of the
lake, and therefore that no connection was possible with the Nile
system. But Livingstone still believed that he was on the track of the
great Egyptian stream. He persisted in regarding his Lualaba as one of
the feeders of the Nile, and he was in search of the three fountains of
Herodotus, in the neighbourhood of Lake Bangweolo, when he made his last
journey. It was reserved for Stanley to clear up the mystery of the
Lualaba, and to identify it with the mighty watercourse which, after
crossing the Equator, empties itself, not into the Mediterranean, but
into the South Atlantic.
‘Stanley regarded himself, and rightly, as the geographical legatee and
executor of Livingstone. From the Scottish missionary, during those four
months spent in his company in the autumn of 1871, the young adventurer
acquired the passion for exploration and the determination to clear up
the unsolved enigmas of the Dark Continent. Before that, he does not
seem to have been especially captivated by the geographical and
scientific side of travel. He liked visiting strange countries, because
he was a shrewd observer, with a lively journalistic style, which could
be profitably employed in describing people and places. But the finding
of Livingstone made Stanley an explorer; and his own nature made him, in
a sense, a missionary, though not quite of the Livingstone kind. He was
a man who was happiest when he had a mission to accomplish, some great
work entrusted to him which had to be got through, despite of
difficulties and dangers; and when the famous traveller laid down his
tired bones in the wilderness, Stanley felt that it was decreed for him
to carry on the work. So he has said himself in the opening passage of
the book in which he described the voyage down the Congo. When he
returned to England in 1874, after the Ashanti War, it was to learn that
Livingstone was dead:--
‘“The effect which this news had upon me, after the first shock had
passed away, was to fire me with a resolution to complete his work, to
be, if God willed it, the next martyr to geographical science, or, if my
life was to be spared, to clear up not only the secrets of the great
river throughout its course, but also all that remained still
problematic and incomplete of the discoveries of Burton and Speke, and
Speke and Grant.
‘“The solemn day of the burial of the body of my great friend arrived. I
was one of the pall-bearers in Westminster Abbey, and when I had seen
the coffin lowered into the grave, and had heard the first handful of
earth thrown over it, I walked away sorrowing over the fall of David
Livingstone.”
‘There must have been some among those present at the Memorial Service
in Westminster Abbey, on May 17, 1904, who recalled these simply
impressive words, and they may have wondered _why_ the great Englishman
who uttered them was not to lie with the great dead of England at
Livingstone’s side.
‘It is not merely on geographical science that Stanley has left a
permanent impress, so that, while civilised records last, his name can
no more be forgotten than those of Columbus and the Cabots, of Hudson
and Bartolomeo Diaz. His life has had a lasting effect upon the course
of international politics. The partitioning of Africa, and its definite
division into formal areas of administration or influence, might have
been delayed for many decades but for his sudden and startling
revelation of the interior of the Continent. He initiated,
unconsciously, no doubt, and involuntarily, the “scramble for Africa” in
which Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, and Portugal have
taken part. The opening up of the Congo region, by his two great
expeditions of 1874 and 1879, precipitated a result which may have been
ultimately inevitable, but would perhaps have been long delayed without
his quickening touch. The political map of Africa, as it now appears,
and is likely to appear for many generations to come, was not the work
of Stanley; but without Stanley it would not have assumed its present
shape. His place is among those who have set the landmarks of nations
and moulded their destinies.
‘When you conversed with him, at least in his later years, you easily
discovered that he had a firm grasp of the general sequence of European
and Oriental history, and a considerable insight into modern
ethnological and archæological learning. He had formed independent and
original ideas of his own on these subjects; and when he talked, as he
sometimes would, of the Sabæans and the Phœnicians, and the early Arab
voyagers, you saw that, to the rapid observation of the man of action,
he had added much of the systematising and deductive faculty of the
scholar. He possessed the instinct of arrangement, which is the
foundation of all true scholarship, and perhaps of all great practical
achievement as well.
‘His intellectual power was, I think, seldom appreciated at its true
value. Its full measure is not given in his books, in spite of their
vigorous style, their dramatic method of narration, and their brilliant
pictorial passages; but nearly everything he wrote was in the nature of
rather hurried journalism, the main object of which was to explain what
had happened, or to describe what had been seen. Not in these graphic
volumes, but in the achievements which gave rise to them, is Stanley’s
mental capacity made manifest. He was not only a born commander, prompt,
daring, undaunted, irresistible, but also a great administrator, a great
practical thinker. He thought out his problems with slow, thorough
patience, examined every aspect of them, and considered all the possible
alternatives, so that when the time came for action he knew what to do,
and had no need to hesitate. His fiery, sudden deeds were more often the
result of a long process of thought than of a rapid inspiration. The New
York correspondent of the “Times,” who knew him well, tells an
illustrative story:--
‘“He and his whole party had embarked on Lake Tanganyika, knowing that
the banks were peopled, some with friendly, some with hostile tribes.
His canoes moved on at a respectful distance from the nearest shore.
Sometimes the friendly people came off to sell their boat-loads of
vegetables and fruit. “But suppose they were not friendly,” said Stanley
to himself, “then, what?” So one day there approached a fleet of canoes,
with all the usual signs of friendly commerce. They were piled high with
bananas. “I thought” (said Stanley) “they had a large supply, and the
boats were deep in the water; still, there was nothing that looked
really suspicious. There were just men enough to paddle the canoes; no
more. I let them come close, but I kept my eye on them, and my hand on
the trigger of my elephant gun. They were but a few yards off when I saw
a heap of bananas stir. I fired instantly, and instantly the water was
black with hundreds of armed black men who had been hidden beneath the
banana-heaps. I do not think many of them got ashore. If I had stopped
to think, they would have been aboard us, and it is we who should not
have got ashore. But I had done my thinking before they came near.”
‘Similarly he spoke of Gordon’s end. “If,” he said, “I had been sent to
get the Khartoum garrison away, I should have thought of that and
nothing else; I should have calculated the chances, made out exactly
what resistance I would have to encounter, and how it could be overcome,
and laid all my plans with the single object of accomplishing my
purpose.” I believe, though he did not say so, that he thought the
retreat could have been effected, or the town held, till the Relief
Column arrived, if proper measures had been taken, and the one definite
aim had been kept steadily in view all the time. That was his principle
of action. When he had an object to fulfil, a commission to carry out,
he could think of nothing else till the work was done. Difficulties,
toil, hardships, sacrifices of all kinds, of time, of men, of money,
were only incidents in the journey that led to a goal, to be reached if
human endeavour could gain it. “No honour,” he wrote, “no reward,
however great, can be equal to the subtle satisfaction that a man feels
when he can point to his work and say: ‘See, now, the task I promised
you to perform with all loyalty and honesty, with might and main, to the
utmost of my ability is, to-day, finished.’” This was the prime article
in Stanley’s confession of faith--to do the work to which he had set his
hand, and in doing it, like Tennyson’s Ulysses,--
“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
‘Both aspects of his character, the practical and the intellectual, were
revealed in the two great expeditions of 1874 and 1879. The crossing of
Africa, which began in the first year, was a marvellous performance in
every way. Its results were immense, for it was the true opening of the
Equatorial region, and added more to geographical knowledge than any
enterprise of the kind in the nineteenth century, or perhaps in any
century. Great conquerors at the head of an army--an Alexander, or a
Genghis Khan--may have done as much; but no single individual
revolutionised so large a tract of the earth’s surface, with only a
handful of armed men and a slender column of camp-followers and
attendants. Wonderful, indeed, was the tour of the great lakes, the
circumnavigation of the Victoria Nyanza, the conversion of King Mtesa of
Uganda, the unveiling of the fertile, semi-civilised country, islanded
for centuries in the ocean of African barbarism, which is now a British
Protectorate, linked up with Charing Cross by rail and steamer. But the
toilsome journey up from the East Coast was nothing to that which
followed, when the party left Uganda and turned their faces to the
Congo, resolved to follow the great river down to the sea. His gifts of
leadership were at their highest in this memorable march, from the time
that he left Nyangwe, in November, 1876, to his arrival at Boma, near
the Congo estuary, in August, 1877. He had to be everything by turn in
this space of ten eventful months--strategist, tactician, geographer,
medical superintendent, trader, and diplomatist. There were
impracticable native chiefs to be conciliated, the devious designs of
that formidable Arab potentate, Tippu-Tib, to be penetrated and
countered, inexorably hostile savages to be beaten off by hard
fighting. The expedition arrived at Boma, a remnant of toil-worn men,
weakened by disease, and very nearly at the point of starvation.
Stanley’s white companions had perished, and his native contingent had
suffered heavily; but the allotted task was accomplished, and the silent
pledge, registered by Livingstone’s grave, had been fulfilled.
‘It was this famous journey--the most remarkable, if judged by its
results, in the whole history of African travel--which placed Stanley’s
reputation as a leader and discoverer on the highest pinnacle. It was
not an unassailed reputation. Much was said about his high-handed
methods, and many good people in England, those
“Good people, who sit still in easy chairs,
And damn the general world for standing up,”
chose to regard him as a sort of filibuster. They contrasted his methods
with those of some of his predecessors and contemporaries, who had
contrived to spend years in Africa without fighting and bloodshed; but
they did not allow for the difference in the conditions. Most of the
other travellers had been the sport of circumstances. They had wandered
from place to place, turned from their course, again and again, by
hostile tribes and churlish chiefs. They found out a great deal, but
not, as a rule, that which they came to find. Their discoveries were
largely accidental; even Livingstone was constantly deflected from his
route, and was unable to pursue to its conclusion the plan of tracing
the central watershed which he had set before himself. Stanley had a
perfectly definite purpose, which he determined to carry out; and he
succeeded. His scheme involved passing through an immense region,
inhabited by a comparatively numerous population, of a higher type than
those encountered nearer the coast, more energetic and more warlike. As
a rule, he made his way among them by bargain and negotiation; but,
sometimes, he had to fight or to turn back; and he accepted the sterner
alternative. If he had refused to do so, he could not have reached his
goal. The expedition might still have added enormously to the sum of
scientific knowledge, but in the achievement of its ultimate and
clearly-conceived object it would have been a failure. Stanley did not
mean that it should fail; he was always ready to sacrifice himself, and
when necessary he was prepared, as great men who do great deeds must be,
to sacrifice others. But there was never the smallest justification for
representing him as a ruthless, iron-handed kind of privateer on land,
who used the scourge and the bullet with callous recklessness. There was
nothing reckless about Stanley, except, at times, his speech. In action,
he was swift and bold, but not careless.
‘To inflict superfluous suffering, to shoot and slay without thinking of
the consequences--this was _utterly alien_ to his systematic,
calculating methods. He would do it, if there seemed no other means of
gaining the end, as a general would order a column to destruction to
save his army and win a victory. But he was essentially a humane man,
masterful and domineering, and yet, _au fond_, gentle and kindly,
particularly to the weak and suffering. Opposition stiffened the
obstinate will to resistance; he was not a safe person to thwart, even
in small matters. He remembered a benefit, and he did not forget an
injury. It was said that he was unforgiving, and, perhaps, there was
something in the charge. In his intense, self-contained nature wounds
rankled long; and he had little of that talent for oblivion which is so
easily developed among comfortable people, whose emotions and
experiences have never been poignant enough to disturb their peace of
mind.
‘One who knew Stanley well, and studied him with an eye at once
penetrating and friendly, believed that through life he bore the
characteristic traces of his Cymric origin. He had the Welsh peasant’s
quickness of temper, his warmth of affection, his resentfulness when
wronged, his pugnacity, and his code of ethics, ultimately derived from
John Calvin. Welsh Protestantism is based on a conscientious study of
the biblical text. Stanley carried his Bible with him through life, and
he read it constantly; but I should imagine that he was less affected by
the New Testament than by the prophetic and historical books of the
Hebraic scriptures. He believed profoundly in the Divine ordering of the
world; but he was equally assured that the Lord’s Will was not fulfilled
by mystical dreams, or by weak acquiescence in any wrong-doing that
could be evaded by energetic action. With Carlyle, he held that strength
is based on righteousness, and that the strong should inherit the earth;
and saw no reason why there should be any undue delay in claiming the
inheritance. “The White Man’s Burden” could not be shirked, and should,
on the contrary, be promptly and cheerfully shouldered.
‘“It is useless” (he wrote, having in view the American Indians) “to
blame the white race for moving across the continent in a
constantly-increasing tide. If we proceed in that manner, we shall
presently find ourselves blaming Columbus for discovering America, and
the Pilgrim Fathers for landing on Plymouth Rock! The whites have done
no more than follow the law of their nature and being.”
‘He had his own idea about prayer. A man, he thought, ought to lay his
supplications before the Throne of the Universe; and he attached great
value to prayers for deliverance from danger and distress. But the
answer was not to be expected by way of a miracle. The true response is
in the effect on the suppliant himself, in the vigour and confidence it
gives to his spirit, and the mental exaltation and clearness it
produces. That was Stanley’s opinion; and he had no great respect for
the martyrs, who yielded to their fate with prayer, when they might have
averted it by action.
‘The crossing of Africa was Stanley’s premier achievement as a leader of
men. The founding of the Congo State revealed him as a great
administrator and organiser. It was a wonderful piece of management, a
triumph of energy, resource, and hard work. Here it was that Stanley
earned the title which, I think, gave him more satisfaction than the
belated G. C. B., conferred on him towards the end of his life. The
natives called him “Bula Matari,” which, being interpreted, means “the
Breaker of Rocks”--an appellation bestowed upon him by the brown-skinned
villagers as they watched the sturdy explorer toiling, bare-armed, under
the fierce African sun, with axe or hammer in hand, showing his
labourers, by example and precept, how to make the road from Vivi to
Isangela, which bridged the cataracts of the Lower Congo, and opened the
way to the upper reaches of the river.
‘The founding of the Congo State can be compared with the achievements
of the two other great enterprises of our own time, which have converted
vast tracts of primitive African savagery into organised states under
civilised administration. But Stanley’s task was heavier than that of
the pioneers of Rhodesia, and the creators of Nigeria. The sphere of his
operations was longer; the native populations were more numerous and
more utterly untouched by external influences other than those of the
Arab slave-raiders; the climatic and physical obstacles were more
severe; he had foreign opposition to contend with from without, and many
difficulties with the pedantry, the obstinacy, and the greed of some of
the officials sent out to him by his employers. Yet in the short space
of five years the work was done! The Congo was policed, surveyed, placed
under control. A chain of stations was drawn along its banks; systematic
relations had been established with the more powerful native potentates;
an elaborate political and commercial organisation had been established;
the transport difficulties had been overcome, and the whole region
thrown open to trade under the complicated and careful regulations which
Stanley had devised. It was no fault of Stanley’s if the work has been
badly carried on by his successors, and if the Congo State, under a
régime of Belgian officials, not always carefully selected, has not, so
far, fulfilled the promise of its inception. So long as Stanley was in
Africa, no disaster occurred; there was no plundering of the natives,
and no savage reprisals. If he had been permitted to remain a few years
longer, the advance of the Congo State might have been more rapid,
particularly if he could have been seconded by subordinates with a
higher inherited capacity for ruling inferior races than Belgians could
be expected to possess. It was a cause of regret to him, I believe, that
England did not take a larger share in this international enterprise.
‘But England for long ignored or belittled the work that Stanley did. It
was not till public opinion, throughout the Anglo-Saxon and Latin world,
had acclaimed him a hero, that the governing element recognised
something of his greatness; and, _to the very last_, its recognition was
guarded and grudging. One might have supposed that his services would
have been enlisted for the Empire in 1884, when he came back from the
Congo. He was in the prime of life, he was full of vigour, he had proved
his capacity as a leader, a ruler, and a governor, who had few living
equals. One thinks that employment worthy of his powers should have been
pressed upon him. But the country which left Burton to eat out his fiery
heart in a second-rate consulship, and never seemed to know what to do
with Gordon, could not find a suitable post for Stanley! I do not
imagine he sought anything of the kind; but it seems strange that it was
not offered, and on such terms that he would have found it difficult to
refuse.
‘If he had been entrusted with some worthy imperial commission, he might
have been saved from the fifth, and least fortunate, of his journeys
into the interior of Africa. Nothing that Stanley ever did spoke more
loudly for his courage, his resourcefulness, and his heroic endurance,
than the expedition for the Relief of Emin Pasha. None but a man of his
iron resolution could have carried through those awful marches and
counter-marches in the tropical forest, and along the banks of the
Aruwimi. But the suffering and privations were incurred for an
inadequate object, and a cause not clearly understood. Many lives were
lost, many brave men, white and black, perished tragically, to effect
the rescue of a person who, it appeared, would, on the whole, have
preferred not to be rescued!
‘The journey from the Ocean to the Nile, and from the Nile to the East
Coast, added much to geographical knowledge, and was the complement of
Stanley’s previous discoveries. But the cost was heavy, and the leader
himself emerged with his health seriously impaired by the tremendous
strain of those dark months. Most of his younger companions preceded him
to the grave. Stanley survived Nelson, Stairs, and Parke, as well as
Barttelot and Jameson; but the traces of the journey were upon him to
the end, and no doubt they shortened his days.
‘Those days--that is to say, the fourteen years that were left to him
after he returned to England in the spring of 1890--were, however, full
of activity, and, one may hope, of content. No other great task of
exploration and administration was tendered; and perhaps, if offered, it
could not have been accepted. But Stanley found plenty of occupation. He
wrote, he lectured, and he assisted the King of the Belgians with advice
on the affairs of his Dependency. He was in Parliament for five years,
and he took some part in the discussion of African questions. More than
all, he was married, most happily and fortunately married, and watched
over, and ministered to, with tactful and tender solicitude.
‘The evening of that storm-tossed and strenuous life was calm and
peaceful. Those who knew him only in these closing years saw him, I
suppose, at his best, with something of the former nervous,
self-assertive, vitality replaced by a mellow and matured wisdom.
Whether there was much more than an external contrast between the
Stanley of the earlier and him of the later period, I am unable to say;
but one may suggest that the change was in the nature of a development.
‘Does any man’s character really alter, after the formative season of
youth is over? Traits, half-hidden, or seldom-revealed in the fierce
stress of active conflict and labour, may come to the surface when the
battling days are done. I cannot think that the serene sagacity, the
gentleness, and the magnanimity, which one noted in Stanley in his last
decade, could have been merely the fruit of leisure and domestic
happiness. No doubt the strands were always in his nature, though
perhaps not easily detected by the casual eye, so long as “the wrestling
thews that throw the world” had to be kept in constant exercise.
‘In manner and appearance, and in other respects, he was the absolute
antithesis of the type he sometimes represented to the general
imagination. Short of stature, lean, and wiry, with a brown face, a
strong chin, a square, Napoleonic head, and noticeable eyes,--round,
lion-like eyes, watchful and kindly, that yet glowed with a hidden
fire,--he was a striking and attractive personality; but there was
nothing in him to recall the iron-handed, swash-buckling, melodramatic
adventurer, such as the pioneers of new countries are often supposed to
be. The bravest of the brave, a very Ney or Murat among travellers, one
knew that he was; but his courage, one could see, was not of the
unthinking, inconsequent variety, that would court danger for its own
sake, without regard to life and suffering. What struck one most was
that “high seriousness,” which often belongs to men who have played a
great part in great events, and have been long in close contact with the
sterner reality of things. His temperament was intense rather than
passionate, in spite of the outbursts of quick anger, which marked him,
in his fighting period, when he was crossed or wronged. Much, far too
much, was made of his “indiscretions” of language--as if strong men are
not always indiscreet! It is only the weaklings who make no mistakes,
who are for ever decorous and prudent.
‘Much the same may be said of his early quarrel with the Royal
Geographical Society. He did not find it easy to forgive that
distinguished body, when it signified its desire to make amends for the
coldness with which it had first treated him, and for the ungenerous
aspersions, which some of its members had cast upon his fame. They gave
him a dinner, and made flattering speeches about the man who had
succeeded. It was thought to be ungracious of Stanley that he would not
make up the quarrel, until he had vindicated his own part of it by a
bitter recital of his grievances. But men who feel intensely, who have
suffered deeply under unmerited injuries, and who have Stanley’s defiant
sense of justice, are not always so tactful and polite as the social
amenities require.
‘As it was, the “indiscretions” for some years left a certain mark upon
Stanley’s reputation, and gave an easy handle to the cavillers and the
hypercritical, and to the whole tribe of the purists, who are shocked
because revolutions are not made with rose-water, or continents
conquered in kid gloves. Even after his triumph was acknowledged, after
he had been honoured by princes, and had won his way to the tardy
recognition of the Royal Geographical Society, there were “superior
persons” to repeat that he was egotistical and inhuman.
‘To his friends, both charges must have seemed absurd. Of personal
egotism, of mere vanity, he had singularly little. It needed a very
obtuse observer to miss seeing that he was by nature simple,
affectionate, and modest, with a wealth of kindness and generosity under
his mantle of reserve. He had a sympathetic feeling for the helpless,
and the unfortunate--for animals, for the poor, and for the children of
all races. On the march from Ruwenzori, distressed mothers of Emin’s
motley contingent would bring their babies to Stanley’s own tent,
knowing that “Bula Matari” would have halted the caravan sooner than
needlessly sacrifice one of these quaint brown scraps of humanity. He
would tell the story himself; and afterwards, perhaps, he would describe
how he made up the connubial differences of some jangling couple of
half-clad aboriginals!
‘His full and varied experiences were not easy to extract from him, for
he disliked being “drawn,” and preferred to talk on those larger,
impersonal questions of politics, history, ethnology, and economics, in
which he never ceased to be interested. But his friends were sometimes
allowed to be entranced by some strange and stirring episode of African
adventure, told with fine dramatic power, and relieved by touches of
quiet humour. He was not a witty talker, but he had a fund of that
amused tolerance which comes of comprehending, and condoning, the
weaknesses of human nature. It is a trait which goes far to explain his
success in dealing with native races.
‘In the House of Commons he was not much at home. The atmosphere of the
place, physical and intellectual, disagreed with him. The close air and
the late hours did not suit his health. “I am a man,” he once said to
the present writer, “who cannot stand waste.” The Commons’ House of
Parliament, with its desultory, irregular ways, its dawdling methods,
and its interminable outpourings of verbose oratory, must have seemed to
him a gigantic apparatus for frittering away energy and time. He was
glad to escape from St. Stephen’s to the Surrey country home, in which
he found much of the happiness of his later years. Here he drained, and
trenched, and built, and planted; doing everything with the same careful
prevision, and economical adaptation of means to ends, which he had
exhibited in greater enterprises. To go the round of his improvements
with him was to gain some insight into the practical side of his
character.
‘It was not the only, nor perhaps the highest, side. There was another,
not revealed to the world at large, or to many persons, and the time has
scarcely come to dwell upon it. But those who caught glimpses into a
temple somewhat jealously veiled and guarded, did not find it hard to
understand why it was that Stanley had never failed to meet with
devoted service and loyal attachment, through all the vicissitudes of
the brilliant and adventurous career which has left its mark scored deep
upon the history of our planet.
‘SIDNEY LOW.’
* * * * *
A further testimony to the importance of Stanley’s discoveries was given
by Sir William Garstin, G. C. M. G., in a paper read on December 15,
1908, before the Royal Geographical Society, on the occasion of the
Fiftieth Anniversary of the discovery of the Source of the White Nile by
Captain John Speke.
‘I now come,’ said Sir William Garstin, ‘to what is, perhaps, the most
striking personality of all in the roll of the discoverers of the Nile,
that of Henry Stanley.
‘Stanley on his second expedition, starting for the interior, on
November 17, 1874, circumnavigated Lake Victoria, and corrected the
errors of Speke’s map as to its shape and area.
‘He visited the Nile outlet, and proved that the Nyanza was a single
sheet of water, and not, as Burton had asserted, a series of small,
separate lakes.
‘On arriving at Mtesa’s capital, Stanley’s acute mind quickly grasped
the possibilities of Uganda as a centre for missionary enterprise. He
realised that, if he could succeed in interesting Great Britain in such
a project, a most important departure would have been made in the
direction of introducing European civilisation into Central Africa.
‘First came his appeal by letter, followed later by Stanley himself,
whose eloquence aroused enthusiasm in the English public. A great
meeting held in Exeter Hall, resulted in funds being raised, and the
first party of English missionaries started for Uganda in the spring of
1876.
‘This, although not at the time realised, was in reality the first step
towards the introduction of British rule in Equatorial Africa.
‘Stanley’s last voyage, and in some respects, his greatest expedition,
was undertaken for the relief of Emin Pasha, at that time cut off from
communication with the outer world. The Relief Expedition started in
1887, under Stanley’s leadership. This time Stanley started from the
Congo, and, travelling up that river, struck eastward into the Great
Forest, which, covering many thousands of square miles, stretches across
a portion of the Semliki Valley and up the western flank of Ruwenzori.
‘On emerging from the Forest, Stanley reached the Valley of the Semliki,
and, in May, 1888, he discovered the mountain chain of Ruwenzori.
‘This discovery alone would have sufficed to have made his third journey
famous. It was not all, however. After his meeting with Emin, he
followed the Semliki Valley to the point where this river issues from
the Albert Edward Nyanza.
‘Stanley was the first traveller to trace its course, and to prove that
it connects two lakes and, consequently, forms a portion of the Nile
system.
‘When skirting the north end of Lake Albert Edward, he recognised that
he had really discovered this lake in his previous journey, although at
the time unaware of this fact.
‘Stanley has thus cleared up the last remaining mystery with respect to
the Nile sources.
‘It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Stanley’s work. The
main facts regarding the sources of the Nile were finally revealed by
him, and nothing was left for future explorers but to fill in the
details. This was a magnificent achievement for one man to have
compassed, and Stanley must always stand out as having done more than
any other to clear up, and to correct, the errors in the geography of
the Nile basin. Stanley not only completed thoroughly the work left
unfinished by other explorers, but added largely to it by his own
remarkable discoveries. To him also it was due that the first English
Mission was despatched to Uganda.
‘Stanley’s glowing accounts of the fertility of the land of the Baganda
encouraged British commercial enterprise, and originated the formation
of the East African Chartered Company. As we now know, the inevitable
sequence was the English occupation of the country.’
* * * * *
As to Stanley’s African work, one or two features may here be specially
noted. His master-passion was that, not of the discoverer, but of the
civiliser. He had his own methods, but he was sympathetic and helpful
toward other methods, and sometimes adopted them. To King Mtesa and his
people, he took the part of a Christian missionary with rare efficiency.
When the time for his departure came, Mtesa heard it with dismay, and
asked: ‘What is the use, then, of your coming to Uganda to disturb our
minds, if, as soon as we are convinced that what you have said has right
and reason in it, you go away before we are fully instructed?’
Stanley answered that every man has his own business and calling, that
his business was that of a pioneer and not of a religious teacher, but
if the king wanted real instructors, he would write to England and ask
for them. The king said, ‘Then write, Stamlee’ (the native pronunciation
of the name), ‘and say to the white people that I am like a child
sitting in darkness, and cannot see until I am taught the right way.’
Thereupon followed the appeal to England, the prompt response, the
planting of the mission, and the heroic story of the Uganda church
triumphing over persecution and martyrdom. When Stanley wrote the story
for the ‘Cornhill Magazine,’ January, 1901, the Uganda people had built
for themselves three hundred and seventy-two churches, with nearly
100,000 communicants, who were not fair-weather Christians. A week or
two after Stanley’s death, the great cathedral of Uganda was solemnly
consecrated, and opened for service.
Among these people whom Stanley visited, while taking Emin’s refugees to
safety in 1889, was the illustrious missionary A. M. Mackay, who had
previously written, ‘For a time the old gods of the land had to give way
to the creed of Arabia, as the king saw something in that more likely to
add prestige to his court than the charm-filled horns of the magic men,
and frantic dance of the foretellers of fortune. Then came Stanley. Let
his enemies scoff as they will, it is a fact indisputable that with his
visit there commenced the dawn of a new era in the annals of the court
of Uganda. The people themselves date from Stanley’s day the
commencement of leniency and law, in place of the previous reign of
bloodshed and terror. “Since Stanley came,” they say, “the king no more
slaughters innocent people as he did before; he no more disowns and
disinherits in a moment an old and powerful chief, and sets up a puppet
of his own, who was before only a slave.” Compared with the former daily
changes and cruelties, as the natives describe them, one cannot but feel
thankful to God for the mighty change.’
After the visit, Mackay writes:--
‘I must say that I much enjoyed Mr. Stanley’s company during the short
stay here. He is a man of an iron will and sound judgment; and, besides,
is most patient with the natives. He never allows any one of his
followers to oppress, or even insult, a native. If he has had
occasionally to use force in order to effect a passage, I am certain
that he only resorted to arms when all other means failed.’
Stanley recognised and appreciated in Mackay a spirit akin to
Livingstone. He judged that he had dangerously overtaxed his strength,
and urged him to go away with him and secure a rest. But Mackay would
not leave his post, and within half a year he succumbed to disease.[38]
Did space permit, a chapter might well be given to Stanley’s labours for
African civilisation by means of addresses to the English people, and
his efforts, by lectures and personal interviews, to move the Government
and the community to meet the successive calls for action. _Had England
responded to his appeal to take over the Congo region_, the leadership,
which was left to the Belgian sovereign, would have devolved on the
British nation, and history would have had a different course.
After the founding of the Congo Free State, Stanley went over the length
and breadth of England to address meetings, urging the English people to
build the Congo Railway. _But again the deaf ear was turned to him._
Now, the wealth to shareholders in that railway is prodigious. He also
did his utmost to spur and persuade a laggard and indifferent Government
to plant and foster English civilisation in East Africa. He wanted not
mere political control, but the efficient repression of the slave-trade,
the advancement of material improvements, and especially the
construction of railways to destroy the isolation which was ruinous to
the interior. One lecture, entitled ‘Uganda; a plea against its
Evacuation,’ is a masterpiece of large-minded wisdom, and true
statesmanship. He spoke repeatedly before Anti-slavery Societies on the
practical means of attaining the great end. His influence with King
Leopold was always used to hasten and complete the extirpation of the
Arab slave-trade. From that curse Equatorial Africa was freed, and in
its deliverance Stanley was the leader.
Stanley constantly urged the vital importance of thoroughly training
Medical Officers and Medical Missionaries in the knowledge of Tropical
diseases, and the necessity of the proper medical equipment of
expeditions and stations, and the considerate medical treatment of
natives, as well as white men, for economic reasons, as well as on
humanitarian grounds.
From his own terrible experiences Stanley realised to the full the
barrier which Malaria and other dread Tropical diseases imposed against
the progress of civilisation and commercial enterprise in Africa; and he
followed with keen interest and hopefulness the discoveries of Sir
Patrick Manson, and Major Ross, proving the mosquito to be the host and
carrier of the malarial parasite, and also the successful devices of
these scientists for checking and reducing the death-toll from this
scourge.
He particularly applauded the great, far-seeing, Colonial Secretary,
Joseph Chamberlain, for his practical measures, by which he had done
more than any other Statesman to render the Tropical regions of the
Empire habitable and healthy.
Stanley’s last public appearance was at a dinner to Dr. Andrew Balfour,
on his appointment as Director of the Wellcome Tropical Research
Laboratories, Gordon Memorial College, Khartoum, and, in the course of a
very moving speech on the development of Africa since his first
expedition, Stanley said that, at one time, he thought the Equatorial
regions possible for the habitation of natives only, except in limited
highlands; but now, thanks to the work of the London and Liverpool
Schools of Tropical Medicine, and these Research Laboratories in the
heart of Africa, the deadly plagues that harassed mankind were being
conquered, and the whole of that Dark Continent might yet become a white
man’s land.
One other trait of his African work may be mentioned. In a pecuniary
sense, _it was absolutely disinterested_. He would never take the
slightest personal advantage of the commercial opportunities incident to
the opening of the new countries, on the Congo, or in Uganda. _I desire
to emphasise the fact that such property as he had came almost entirely
from his books and his lectures._ He gave his assistance to the
establishment of the British East African Company because he believed in
its influence for good, but _he declined any pecuniary interest_.
When the Congo Railway stock was paying very high dividends, he was
asked why he did not take some of it, and he answered that ‘he would
not have even the appearance of personal profit out of Africa.’ When
princes and potentates made advantageous offers to him, they were
quietly put aside. Once an English magnate in Africa, who had
aggrandised England and enriched himself, asked playfully, ‘Why don’t
_you_ take some of the “corner lots” in Africa?’ Stanley put the
question by, and afterwards said: ‘That way may be very well for him,
but, for myself, I prefer my way.’
When the retention of Uganda was under discussion, Lord Salisbury said
publicly: ‘It is natural that Mr. Stanley should favour the retention,
for we all know that he has interests in Africa.’ Stanley took the
earliest occasion to say publicly; ‘It is true, but not in the sordid
sense in which the imputation has been made; _my whole interest there is
for Africa herself, and for humanity_.’
[Illustration: HENRY M. STANLEY, 1890, ON HIS RETURN FROM AFRICA]