TO MIRAMBO'S CAPITAL.--STANLEY'S WORK ON THE LIVINGSTONE.
The march to King Mirambo's capital was without any incident of
consequence. When within a few miles of the place they met a delegation,
consisting of one of the officers who had accompanied them down the lake
and two other personages of rank near the king. Doctor Bronson received
them after the customary form--with presents of cloth and beads--and
messengers were sent back to tell the king that his visitors were near.
[Illustration: ROCKS BY THE WAYSIDE.]
As they entered the capital there was a large assemblage along the
principal road leading into the town, and in some places the crowd was
so dense that it was not easy to proceed. In a little while a company of
the king's soldiers cleared the way, and the strangers were conducted to
the presence of the man whom Stanley describes as the "Mars of Central
Africa."
Drums were beaten and hundreds of muskets discharged by the people
around the king, and one might have thought from the uproar that a
battle was in progress. The king met them in front of his palace, which
was a plain building, something in the style of M'tesa's at Rubaga,
though smaller. The king shook hands with our friends in true European
fashion, and said he was glad to see them in his country. He was dressed
in Arab costume, and wore a scimitar at his side. His officers were
similarly clad, and it seemed to Frank and Fred almost as though they
were once more in the presence of M'tesa, so much did the manners of
Mirambo's court resemble that of the ruler of Ugunda.
[Illustration: CROSSING A STREAM.]
Frank endorsed fully the description which Stanley gives of this famous
warrior. "He was the reverse," said the explorer, "of all my conceptions
of the redoubtable chieftain and the man I had styled 'the terrible
bandit.'
"He is a man about five feet eleven inches in height, and about
thirty-five years old, with not an ounce of superfluous flesh about
him--a handsome, regular-featured, mild-voiced, soft-spoken man, with
what one might call a 'meek' demeanor, very generous and open-handed.
The character was so different from that which I had attributed to him,
that for some time a suspicion clung to my mind that I was being imposed
upon; but Arabs came forward who testified that this was indeed Mirambo.
I had expected to see something of the M'tesa type, a man whose exterior
would explain his life and rank; but this unpresuming, mild-eyed man,
of inoffensive, meek exterior, whose action was so calm, without a
gesture, presented to the eye nothing of the Napoleonic genius which he
has for five years displayed in the heart of Unyamwezi, to the injury of
Arabs and commerce and doubling the price of ivory."
Presents were exchanged as tokens of friendship, and then the
conversation turned upon the plans of the travellers. When the journey
to Tanganyika was mentioned Mirambo said it was just then impossible.
This was a piece of intelligence the reverse of pleasing, and Doctor
Bronson proceeded at once to ascertain what it meant.
"I have no objection to your going there," said Mirambo, "but I have
recently received news of war between Uhha and Uvinza, two petty
kingdoms that lie in your way."
The Doctor thought with dismay of the troubles of Stanley and others
with these rapacious rulers, who demanded enormous tribute, and several
times threatened to take by force what they wanted if it was not
voluntarily surrendered.
"If there was no war," continued Mirambo, "you might buy the privilege
of crossing those countries; but at present they have stopped all
commerce, and any caravan attempting to go that way will certainly be
plundered. Your fire-arms would not be so powerful against the
fighting-men as in many parts of Africa, as the most of them are
supplied with muskets, which they have bought from the Arab merchants."
[Illustration: WEAPONS OF THE NATIVES.]
Mirambo farther said that the war was caused by quarrels among the
slave-stealers, and each side was engaged in making as many captives as
possible and selling them to the Arabs. "It will be kept up," said he,
"till they have stolen most of each other's people, and are compelled to
stop for want of more villages to plunder, and more men and women to
carry away."
Mirambo invited the strangers to remain in his country as long as they
liked; and, as their future movements would require a little while for
arrangement, he would give them anything they wanted in the way of
provisions for their men.
The audience then broke up, and our friends went to the camp--which had
been arranged during the interview--to discuss the new turn of events.
[Illustration: MAN OF MASSI KAMBI.]
Abdul and Mohammed were sent to obtain all the information in their
power, and in the course of a couple of hours they returned with a
considerable budget. Mirambo had not exaggerated the state of affairs in
Uhha and Uvinza. Abdul had talked with two Arab merchants who had been
plundered of all they possessed while endeavoring to pass through Uhha.
Their goods were stolen, their porters held for sale as slaves, and they
only escaped by promising to send fifty bales of cloth from Unyamyembe.
A third Arab who accompanied them was held as a hostage, and the King of
Uhha had threatened to put him to death unless the cloth was received
within thirty days.
Under the circumstances it was deemed advisable to abandon the journey
to Lake Tanganyika and proceed to Zanzibar by way of Unyamyembe. Of
course the decision was a great disappointment to Frank and Fred, and
not much less to Doctor Bronson, but all of them had too much philosophy
to grieve over what could not be helped.
"We can do one thing, if we can't do another," said Frank. "We will
question everybody who can give us any information, and perhaps we can
say something about the great lake, even if we don't see it."
Fred agreed to join Frank in the effort to give an account of the
country beyond them, and for a couple of days they attended to little
else than the collection of news concerning it. They talked with the
Arab merchants, read all the books in their possession which had
anything to say about Tanganyika and the Congo, questioned the Doctor,
and in other ways showed that they were not to be set down as
inattentive travellers.
[Illustration: HILL-COUNTRY NEAR MIRAMBO'S CAPITAL.]
They were already aware that the lake was discovered by Burton in 1858,
was partially explored by Stanley and Livingstone a few years later, and
that Stanley in his second visit to Central Africa completed the
circumnavigation. Other investigations were made by Lieutenant Cameron,
and the geographers are able to define the boundaries of the lake very
distinctly. It is about four hundred miles long, and varies from ten to
sixty miles in width; it lies between the third and ninth degrees of
south latitude, and the twenty-ninth and thirty-second degrees of east
longitude. Its position is south-west of the Victoria and Albert lakes,
and north-west of Lake Nyassa, and its shores are for the most part
mountainous.
[Illustration: PORTERS AND WOMAN AND CHILD OF USAGARU.]
The dispute as to its outlet, the Lukuga, was attributed by our friends
to the fact that in the dry season the evaporation is equal to the
amount of water received from tributary streams and the fall of rain, so
that there is no flow whatever from the lake. In the rainy season the
Lukuga becomes an important river, a thousand feet in width, and flowing
with a strong current, while in the dry season a sand-bar is formed
across it, and there is no outflow at all. The Arab traders declared
that this was the case, and so we can understand how Cameron found a
good-sized river where Stanley said there was none, and the flow, if
any, was into the lake rather than out of it.
At his second visit to Ujiji, where he met Livingstone, Stanley observed
that the lake had risen considerably; and a later visitor says that the
bar at the outlet of the lake had broken away, so as to allow the exit
of the water, and the consequent sinking of the lake. All travellers
agree that the shores of the lake are very beautiful, and in most
portions thickly peopled. The principal town is Ujiji, on the eastern
shore, and it will always be famous in history as the place where
Stanley first shook hands with Dr. Livingstone, and offered the relief
which had been sent to the great missionary by the proprietor of the
_New York Herald_.
[Illustration: HUT AT KIFUMA.]
In his second journey Stanley crossed the lake from Ujiji, and plunged
into the wilderness beyond its western shore, in a determination to
reach the Atlantic Ocean by descending the Lualaba River. He believed
the Lualaba flowed into the Congo, and by following its course he could
reach the coast. The country was entirely unknown, as not even the Arab
traders had ever explored it, and no one could tell what the explorer
would encounter. There was a rumor that powerful tribes dwelt on the
Congo, but no one could give an idea of their numbers and strength, or
say whether they would be friendly or hostile.
The work accomplished by Stanley is thus described by an able writer[7]
in _Harper's Magazine_ for October, 1878:
[7] Hon. John Russell Young, now (1883) United States Minister to
China.
"Stanley gave nine months to the exploration of the Lualaba, or
rather to the Livingstone, as he called it, and as it must be
called for all time. Before he went out on this mission we knew
there were two rivers--the Congo and the Lualaba. We knew that the
Congo ran into the Atlantic Ocean, but its source was lost in
cataracts. The Portuguese were content to scatter a few settlements
about its mouth, and trade for gums and ivory along its banks. But
it was an unknown river beyond the cataracts. We knew there was a
river in the middle of Africa called the Lualaba; we knew it had a
swift current, that it was a river of large volume. But beyond that
we knew nothing. Some had one theory, others had another.
Livingstone was convinced that it ran into the Nile, was really the
source of the Nile; and who would question even the theory of so
great a master? What Stanley did was to show that the Congo and
Lualaba were one and the same; that the Congo, instead of losing
itself among the rapids, was to force itself into the very heart of
the continent; that the Lualaba, instead of going north and
submitting to the usurping waters of the Nile, was to turn to the
west and force its way to the sea; that these two rivers were to
disappear from the map, and be known as one river--the Livingstone;
that this river was to be two thousand nine hundred miles in
length; that for nearly ten degrees of longitude it was to be
continuously navigable; that its volume was one million eight
hundred thousand cubic feet a second; that the entire area it
drains is eight hundred thousand square miles--in other words, that
here was an immense waterway three thousand miles into the centre
of Africa, navigable, with the exception of two breaks, which
engineering science can easily surmount--a waterway into a tropical
empire, rich in woods and metals and gracious soil, in fruits and
grains, the sure home of a civilized empire in the years to come.
As Petermann, the eminent German geographer, put it, Stanley's work
was to unite the fragments of African exploration--the achievements
of Livingstone, Burton, Speke, Du Chaillu, Baker, Cameron, of all
the heroic men who had gone before him--into one consecutive whole,
just as Bismarck united the fragments of the German people, lying
about under various princes and dukes, into one grand and
harmonious empire. Even as Bismarck had created imperial Germany,
so Stanley created geographical Africa.
[Illustration: STANLEY'S VOYAGE ON THE LIVINGSTONE.--BATTLE WITH
THE NATIVES.]
"There was a battle at the outset at Ruiki River, which had no
special result except to show the ugly temper of the savages. Then
came the first cataract--the falls of Ukassa. This seems to be a
rapid current, like the first cataract of the Nile, and the boats
and canoes were allowed to float over. A month was passed in these
explorations, when, on December 6, Stanley came to the country of
Usongora Meno, inhabited by a powerful tribe. Stanley's party was
weakened by the fact that his people were suffering from small pox.
Dysentery came and ulcers, and in three days eighteen of the Arab
escort died from various diseases, mainly small-pox. Stanley was
one hundred and twenty-five miles from his starting-place, with
small-pox affecting seventy-two of his party, when he had another
battle, the enemy coming in force, and firing poisoned arrows.
Stanley made a camp, and defended his army as well as he could.
'Through the night the poisoned arrows flew, and were heard tapping
trees and huts most unpleasantly.... Two days and two nights we
bore cruel attacks by land and water. The entire country was
aroused against us. Bowmen climbed tall trees, and any person
showing himself in the broad street of the little town became a
target at once. We were unable to bury our dead or to attend to the
delirious wounded.' From this difficult position Stanley released
himself by a successful night foray, cutting away the canoes of the
attacking party.
[Illustration: FRANK POCOCK, STANLEY'S COMPANION ON THE
LIVINGSTONE.]
"It was necessary, in the eighteen hundred miles from Nyangué to
the ocean, to pass fifty-seven water-falls and rapids. After the
river reached fourteen hundred miles, on its journey to the sea,
it narrowed and ran through close-meeting, uprising banks of naked
cliffs, or steep slopes of mountains, fringed with tall woods. Here
the river was as rough and stormy as a sea, sometimes a steep
glassy fall, sometimes boiling around isles of stone and bowlders,
sometimes whirlpools and caldrons, the air filled with a roar like
that of Niagara. This part of the journey, although not more than
one hundred and eighty miles, required five months to make.
Stanley, looking back, regards the attempt as insanity. But he had
resolved to cling to the river, and not to leave it until it bore
him, whether over smooth beaches or stony bowlders, to the sea. If
he had gone around the cataract region in a land march he would
have lessened his journey, avoided fearful hardships, and saved
lives. But this knowledge he bought for himself and for mankind by
experience. Hard as was the task, it was better done in this way;
otherwise there would have been a farther mystery. As it is, we now
know every mile of the river from the source to the mouth. But the
perils of these falls were the severest of the trip, and it was
here that he lost Kalulu, the faithful black boy whom he found in
Livingstone days and educated in England, and, more than all, his
last remaining white associate, Frank Pocock.
[Illustration: STANLEY'S EXPEDITION RECUPERATED AND RECLAD AFTER
CROSSING THE "DARK CONTINENT."]
"Stanley, having battled with tempest, disease, and armed enemies,
now came to a halt, and sent a messenger for relief. Already he was
within easy marches of the sea, within four days of Embomma. His
small army had been reduced to one hundred and fifteen souls. His
message was 'to any gentleman who speaks English at Embomma.' 'We
are now,' he wrote, 'in a state of imminent starvation.... The
supplies must arrive within two days, or I may have a fearful time
of it among the dying.... For myself, if you have such little
luxuries as tea, coffee, sugar, and biscuit by you, such as one man
can easily carry, I beg you, on my own behalf, that you will send a
small supply.... You may not know me by name; I therefore add, I am
the person who discovered Livingstone in 1871.' This was on August
6, 1877, and in two days supplies arrived. The letter fell into the
hands of A. Motta Viega and J. W. Harrison, whose names are worthy
of remembrance, and Stanley wrote, in an ecstasy of delight over
'the rice, the fish, and the rum,' the 'wheat bread, butter,
sardines, jam, peaches, grapes, beer (ye gods, just think of it!),
three bottles of pale ale, besides tea and sugar!': 'The people cry
out joyfully, while their mouths are full of rice and fish, "Verily
our master has found the sea and his brothers, but we did not
believe him until he showed to us the rice and the rum."... It will
be the study of my lifetime,' continued Stanley, 'to remember my
feelings of gratefulness when I first caught sight of your
supplies, and my poor faithful and brave people cried out, "Master,
we are saved--food is coming!" The old and the young, the men,
women, and children, lifted their weary and worn-out frames and
began to chant lustily an extemporized song in honor of the white
people of the great salt sea who had listened to their prayers. I
had to rush to my tent to hide the tears that would issue despite
all my attempts at composure.' This closed the journey, which,
beginning at Nyangué, November 5, 1876, lasted nine months and one
day; and counting from the time he left Zanzibar, the entire
journey across the 'Dark Continent' occupied nine hundred and
ninety-nine days, or two years and nine months!"
Stanley went again to Africa in 1879, to establish colonies on the upper
waters of the Livingstone, in the interest of the International African
Society, of which the King of Belgium is president. The object of the
society is to open Africa to trade and civilization, and it has been
liberal in the expenditure of money to accomplish its purposes.
It was near the end of 1879 that Stanley arrived at the mouth of the
Livingstone, with a force of fifteen Europeans, sixty-eight Zanzibaris,
and some twenty or more natives of other parts of Africa. The white
inhabitants on the African coast were hostile to him, as they naturally
feared his operations would interfere with their business.
[Illustration: TRADING STATION ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA.]
The native traders, who act as intermediaries between the whites and the
people of the interior, were also opposed, as they did not care to have
Europeans establish trading stations away from the coast; and the same
was the case with the tribes living near the falls of the great river.
Stanley managed to avoid trouble with any of these interests, and at
once began the work of establishing stations and building roads, to open
up the heart of Africa to European traffic.
What he accomplished in three years may be summed up as follows:
He negotiated with the chiefs of the tribes on the river along the
whole line of cataracts for the right to establish stations and build
roads, paying a rental for the ground he occupied, and dealing liberally
with them in every way. He made two hundred miles of road through the
wilderness, carrying it sometimes over mountains and through country
which presented a great many difficulties. In one place his whole force
was occupied twenty-six days in making twelve hundred feet of road
around the flank of a mountain of nearly solid quartz. At each end of
the road there is a permanent station, consisting of a central house or
residence, with numerous huts and storehouses around it, and with fields
and gardens for the production of anything that will grow in the
country.
[Illustration: CURIOUS HEAD-DRESS.]
There are three intermediate stations between the first and the last,
built in the manner just described. The road through its whole length is
about fifteen feet wide, and suitable for wagons of any kind, and it has
been built with a view to permanency. By his exploit in going around the
mountain Stanley received the name of "The Breaker of Rocks," by which
he is now known in all that region.
In his account of the work the great explorer says:
"The weight and labor of our transport may be imagined when I say that
we had no less than two thousand two hundred and twenty-five loads or
packages, each weighing from sixty-five to seventy pounds. We had seven
large store tents, and besides this we had enormous wagons, built on
purpose for us in Belgium, whereon to transport the two steamers and two
large steel boats, with boilers and machinery, which we had brought
with us to put together on the Upper Congo. We had to go over the ground
no less than thirty-three times, and our rate of progress, calculating
the number of days we travelled, was only a quarter of a mile a day.
After eleven months of unceasing toil the two steamers were put together
at the second station above the Isangila cataract, the place where I
left the _Lady Alice_ after her seven thousand mile journey with me in
the Anglo-American expedition across the Dark Continent."
[Illustration: THE HEIGHT OF FASHION.]
From this point the river is navigable for a distance of seventy-four
miles, and the steamers transported the men and material of the
expedition to the foot of the next cataract. Then came more
road-building, then another navigable distance, and then more roads,
till at last the widening of the river was reached, at the foot of
Stanley Pool. From here the great river is navigable nine hundred miles
farther inland; and there are several tributary rivers where steamers
can go. On one of these tributaries a lake has been discovered about
seventy miles long, to which Stanley gave the name of Leopold II., in
honor of the King of Belgium.
The association has now seven steamers on the river: four on the lower
portion, and three above Stanley Pool. By road and river there is now a
direct way of communication between Central Africa and the sea-coast,
where the mails are regularly carried to the officers and men in charge
of the stations and the merchants engaged in business there. In speaking
of his achievements Stanley says as follows:
"I am ambitious only to leave permanent traces of my work on the
east side of the Dark Continent. Expedition after expedition has
followed my track. On the shores of the Victoria N'yanza and on the
shore of the Tanganyika communities of white men are engaged in
disseminating what they think beneficial to the dark outcasts of
this continent. Why should I not hope that the Congo basin
throughout its vast extent, and the bank of the superb river, will
be ultimately studded with civilized communities as well? We have
begun well. Even now Belgians, Germans, English, Americans, Danes,
Swedes, enlisted in our service, are devoting their best energies
to accomplish this. So far we have been welcomed by the natives.
Our object they can appreciate and understand, and they are the
only ones as yet benefited by it. We have spent a large sum, and
shall have to spend more yet. For we look upon ourselves as
husbandmen, tilling and sowing that others may reap. As yet the
Congo basin is a blank, a fruitless waste, a desolate and
unproductive area. The energies of its denizens are benumbed. No
prospect has dawned on them. It has been our purpose to fill this
blank with life, to redeem this waste, to plant and sow that the
dark man may gather, to vivify the wide, wild lands so long
forgotten of Europe. Accursed be he or they who, animated by
causeless jealousy and the spirit of mischief, will compel us to
fire our station, destroy our work so auspiciously begun, and
abandon Africa to its pristine helplessness and savagery."
In our account of Stanley's work in Africa we have gone outside of the
information possessed by Frank and Fred, as the details of his
expedition in behalf of the International Association were not known to
them at the time they were in Africa. We trust the readers of their
narrative will pardon the liberty we have taken, and accept the
assurance that what we have given would have been faithfully chronicled
by "The Boy Travellers," if they had known it in season.
The above apology being accepted, the author will take the reader into
his confidence and show him a personal letter from Stanley, in reply to
an invitation to run over to New York and meet several of his old
friends, who promised to have dinner ready on the day of his arrival. If
any one believes Stanley otherwise than a genial man in his social
relations, he can now have an opportunity to change his opinion:
"Brussels, November 4, 1882.
"MY DEAR KNOX,--I have been trying ever so much to cross from
Europe to the 'land of the free and the home of the brave,' but
there are so many fetters binding me in this fierce, stirring
world, that I fear I cannot break them, or even have them loosened
long enough for the journey. It was my dream in Africa to seek
repose in lounging--loafing is the New York term--for a spell about
any town: it really did not matter which. A village would do, so
that I could rove about unnoticed, and re-gather by degrees a store
of vitality to replace that which the cruel fever of West Africa
scorched and almost consumed. I mourn now that my dream cannot be
realized. When I leave Paris I go to London, which is like 'from
the frying-pan into the fire,' and then farewell all....
"As you know, this is winter, and the East Wind strikes me
everywhere; he catches me round street-corners; at the street-door
I find him; he waits for me late at night from the warm saloons,
with bundles of small fevers, coughs, bronchial irritation,
catarrh, chest complaint. He shrivels me up till there is scarcely
a resemblance of manhood left in the benumbed wretch.
"Ah! had it been September, or had it been April, oh, blessed
Heaven! I should seek the _Alaska_, or the _Werra_, or Bennett's
_Namouna_.
"I intend to go presently to Nice, Cannes, Mentone, Andalusia, or
where? Anywhere, where I can see man other than in an overcoat.
[Illustration: THE FIRST CATARACT OF THE LIVINGSTONE.]
"Yet it may be. America is dear, you know--New York has joys, and
sometimes you do catch men without overcoats. There are good
dinners there, too, and the Lotos has been ever since it was born
a most welcome place; and you know, don't you know. ---- himself is
a host! And when added to him you have the jolly ----, and the
courteous ----, and amiable ----, and the rest--why, I will come!
"But no, not yet. I fear the walls of snow in New York--the hilly
ridges of frozen water, mud-colored and ancient.
"Some time I will come. And then I will seek you, and revive as
well as we may the memories of our days in Paris in 1878--good
dinners, without one unpleasant face; good wine, of a good vintage,
heightened by the sparkling pleasantries of friendship. Meantime,
dear old fellow, until we meet, adieu; and whisper, with my regrets
that I cannot come at present, the sweet hopes that my firm soul
shall entertain to all our mutual friends, and that I am, now as
ever,
"Theirs and yours most faithfully,
"HENRY M. STANLEY."
[Illustration: STANLEY'S EXPEDITION DESCENDING THE LIVINGSTONE.]