CHAPTER VII.

GENERAL PROVISIONS.

ARTICLE XXXVI.

The Powers signatory to the present general Act reserve to themselves

the right of eventually, by mutual agreement, introducing therein

modifications or improvements, the utility of which has been shown by

experience.

ARTICLE XXXVII.

The Powers who may not have signed the present Act shall accept its

provisions by a separate Act.

The adhesion of each Power shall be notified in the usual diplomatic

manner to the Government of the German Empire, and by it to those of all

the signatory and adherent States.

The adhesion shall imply the full right of acceptance of all the

obligations, and admission to all the advantages stipulated for in the

present general Act.

ARTICLE XXXVIII.

The present general Act shall be ratified with as short a delay as

possible, and in no case shall that delay exceed a year.

It shall come into force for each Power on the date of its ratification

by that Power.

Meanwhile the Powers signatory to the present Act bind themselves to

adopt no measure that shall be contrary to the provisions of the said Act.

Each Power shall send its ratification to the Government of the German

Empire, which undertakes to ratify the same to all the signatory Powers

of the present general Act.

The ratifications of all the Powers shall remain deposited in the

archives of the Government of the German Empire. When all the

ratifications shall have been produced, a deed of deposit shall be drawn

up in a protocol, which shall be signed by the Representatives of all the

Powers that have taken part in the Berlin Conference, and a certified

copy of it shall be sent to each of those Powers.

In consideration of which, the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed

the present general Act, and hereto affix their seals.

Done at Berlin, February 26th, 1885.

Inasmuch as the Congo Free State starts with the sanction of all the

leading powers of civilization, it assumes a dignity, at its very

inception, which attaches to no other African dynasty. It is, or ought

to be, beyond those jealousies which have torn, and are tearing, other

possessions in Africa to pieces, and retarding their colonization and

development. Further, the terms of its creation ought to assure it the

united sympathy and combined energy of its patrons and founders, and

these ought to be invincible within its magnificent boundaries for

overcoming every obstacle to permanent sovereignty and commercial,

industrial and moral development.

But the spirit of comity, which has made a Congo Free State possible,

might as well have rescued Equatorial Africa, from ocean to ocean, from

the rapacious grasp of the jealous and contending powers of Europe. True,

something like a free belt has been recognized, extending to within a few

miles of the Eastern coast, and intended to secure an outlet for products

which can be more advantageously marketed in that direction; yet this

is of no avail against projects designed to appropriate and control,

politically and commercially, the immense sweep of country between the

Congo Free State and Indian Ocean; it is rather an incentive to these

powers to make haste in their work of appropriation and reduction,

and they are at it with an earnestness which savors of the days when

two Americas furnished the flesh for picking, and the bone for angry

contention. Great Britain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, are in clash about

East African areas, protectorates, sovereignties, commercial interests,

with the likelihood of further trouble, and such deep complications as

arms only can simplify and relieve.

Looking but a little into the future, one can catch a glimpse of the

fate in store for East Africa. It is to be the grand political offset

to the Congo Free State. This has been resolved upon by Great Britain,

and its outlines are already mapped in her foreign policy. As matters

stand, there is nothing to prevent the consummation of her designs. She

has virtual possession of the Eastern coast from Cape Colony to the mouth

of the Zambezi. She has Egypt in her grasp, which means the Nile valley

from Alexandria to the head lakes, Victoria, Albert and Edward Nyanza,

with their drainage systems.

On the ocean side the power of the Sultan has been already limited to

Zanzibar and adjacent islands, and it is now like the last flicker

of a wasted candle. On the Zambezi, and north of it, up the Shire to

Lake Nyassa, come the claims of Portugal. Portugal is weak, and a poor

colonizer at that. She can be ousted by diplomacy or sat down upon by

force. The German and Italian interests will eventually blend with those

of Great Britain, or shape themselves into well-defined states, pledged

to peace and anxious to be let alone.

England is well equipped for this gigantic undertaking. She has an

extensive South African and Egyptian experience. She has her experience

in India, which she need but repeat in Africa to realize her dreams,

or at least achieve more than would be possible with any other power.

And then India is over-populated. It might be that thousands, perhaps

millions, of her people would swarm to African shores, where they would

find a climate not unlike their own, and resources which they could turn

to ready account. At any rate, England could enlist in India an army for

the occupation of East Africa. Her Indian contingent in Egypt answered

an excellent purpose, and redeemed the otherwise fatal campaign toward

Khartoum.

The business of establishing an internal economy in this new empire is

easier for Great Britain than any other country. Her prestige means as

much with native tribes as with the petty sovereignties of Europe, or the

islands of the Pacific. Her shows of force are impressive, her methods

of discipline effective. In the midst of opposition her hand is hard and

heavy. A string of fortifications from the Zambezi to Cairo, with native

garrisons, under control of English army officers, would inspire the

natives with fear and assure their allegiance. The tact of her traders

and the perseverance of her missionaries would bring about all else that

might be necessary to create a thrifty and semi-Christian State.

Our posterity will watch with interest the development of Africa through

the agency of its Congo Free State on the west, and its Imperial

State on the east; the one contributing to the glory of all civilized

nations, the other to that of a single nation; the one an enlargement of

sovereignty, the other a concentration of it. One has for its inspiration

the genius of freedom, the other the genius of force. One is a dedication

to civilizing influences, the other is a seizure and appropriation in the

name of civilization. We can conceive of the latter, under the impetus of

patronage and of concentrated energy, supplemented by arbitrary power,

taking the lead for a time, and maintaining it till its viceroyalties

become centers of corruption and its subjects helpless peons. But in

the end, the former will bound to the front, lifted by internal forces,

which are free and virile, buoyed by a spirit of self-helpfulness

and independence, sustained from without by universal sympathy and

admiration, and from within by beings who have voluntarily consented

and contributed to their progress and enlightenment, and are proud

participants in their own institutions.

The historian of a century hence will confirm or deny the above

observations. If he confirms them, he will add that long experience

proved the inutility of forcing our governments, usages and peoples on

those of Africa without modification, and to the utter subordination of

those which were native; but that, on the contrary, the best civilizing

results were obtained by recognition of native elements, their gradual

endowment with sovereignty, their elevation to the trusts which commerce

and industry impose. It is time that our boasted civilization should

show a conquest which is not based on the inferiority, wreck and

extermination of the races it meets with in its course. It has careered

around the globe in temperate belts, stopping for nothing that came in

its way, justifying everything by its superiority. Nature calls a halt in

mid-Africa, and practically says: “The agents of civilization are already

here. Use them, but do not abuse. You can substitute no other that will

prove either permanent or profitable.”

[Illustration: FRONT. TIPPOO TIB’S GRAND CANOES GOING DOWN THE CONGO.]

[Illustration: REAR. TIPPOO TIB’S GRAND CANOES GOING DOWN THE CONGO.]

[Illustration: HENRY M. STANLEY, FROM A LATE PORTRAIT.]

THE RESCUE OF EMIN.

In the fall of 1886, Stanley was summoned from the United States by

the King of Belgium to come and pay him a visit. That monarch seems to

have remembered what others had forgotten, that a European adventurer

and a European project lay buried somewhere beneath the Equator and in

the very heart of the “Dark Continent.” Stanley responded to the King’s

invitation, and out of the interview which followed sprang a reason for

his late and most memorable journey across equatorial Africa. But it was

deemed wise to interest other agencies, and so the British Geographical

Society was consulted and induced to lend a helping hand. In order to

further nationalize the projected journey a commission was formed under

whose auspices it was to take place. This enlisted for the moment the

sympathies of the German peoples, for the lost one was a German. So

grew up what came to be known as the “Emin Bey Relief Committee,” with

head-quarters at London, and with Sir William Mackinnon as its secretary.

And now, who is Emin Bey, or as he appears most frequently, Emin Pasha?

What is there about his disappearance in the wilds of Africa that makes

knowledge of his whereabouts and his rescue so desirable? What, of more

than humanitarian moment, can attach to a journey planned as this one

was? These questions are momentous, for they involve far more than mere

men or mere projects of rescue. They involve the aims and ambitions of

empires, the policies of dynasties, the destinies of future African

States and peoples. That these things are true will appear from the

answers which history makes to the above queries——a history which is

aglow with events and attractive in its details, however little it may

serve to reveal of the present plans of those who contribute most to its

making. Emin Pasha was born in the Austrian province of Silesia, and the

town of Opplen, in 1840, the same year as Henry M. Stanley. He studied

medicine at Breslau, Königsberg and Berlin, and entered upon the world as

a regular M.D. with a diploma from the Berlin University. Sometime before

the Russian-Turkish war he went to Constantinople and entered the Turkish

army with the title of Bey, or Colonel. A taste for travel took him to

the East where he acquired the oriental languages. On his return we find

him attached to the Imperial Ministry of Turkey, but only during part of

the incumbency of Midhat Pasha, who, finding his ministry opposed to his

ultra hatred of Russia, dismissed it.

Up to this time he was known as Dr. Eduard (Edward) Schnitzer, that

being the name of his parents, with the prefix of Colonel, or Bey as an

affix. This was all as to outside knowledge of him. On his dismissal from

the Court at Constantinople he fled to Asia, and after many wanderings

turned up at Suakim and finally at Khartoum, in Africa, where he made

the acquaintance of that ill-starred and fatalistic English adventurer,

General Gordon, then Governor General of the Soudan, under English

auspices. The General finding him an adventurer of attainments made him

a storekeeper of his army, and upon ascertaining that he was an M.D.,

promoted him to the position of surgeon. In 1877 he was a practitioner

of medicine at Lado, in southern Soudan. He afterwards became

Surgeon-General of Gordon’s staff. In this capacity he served for four

years. During this time he was engaged in making many valuable scientific

researches and collections and in contributing interesting papers to

European learned societies. He was also of great use to Gordon, who sent

him to Uganda and Unyoro on diplomatic missions.

In 1878, when General Gordon was made Governor-General of the Soudan by

the British Government, he raised Col. Schnitzer to the rank of Governor

of the province of Hat el Seva in Southern Soudan. By this time the Mahdi

had risen in the Soudan, and was confronting Gordon with his Mohammedan

followers. To identify himself more fully with the Mohammedan people

among which he had to live, Col. Schnitzer abandoned his German name and

took the Arabic one of Emin (the faithful one) and the full title of

Pasha (General or Governor). The scheme on the part of Gordon was to

seize and hold the equatorial provinces of the Soudan, in the rear of

the Mahdi’s forces, and thus introduce a military menace as well as make

a political and moral diversion in favor of the cause he represented.

Gordon gave him part of his own army, augmented by a large native force,

and with this Emin Pasha took possession of his provinces far toward the

Equator, and abutting on the central lake system of the continent.

[Illustration: EMIN PASHA IN HIS TENT.]

For a time all went well with him. He proved a most indefatigable

traveler, and showed special fitness to govern. He was familiar with the

language of the Turks, Arabs, Germans, French and Italians, and acquired

readily the dialects of the heathen tribes. On every side he displayed

suavity, tact and genius. In 1879, he made an excursion to the western

shore land of the Mwutan, which till then had not been visited by white

men. In 1880 he visited Makralla-land, and planted many trading stations,

thus enlarging his territory geographically and politically. In this

expedition he located many important rivers, chief of which was the

Kibali. In 1881 he pushed his explorations westward into the land of the

powerful Niam Niams, and southward into the lands of the Monbuttus, which

tribes are types of the best physical and political strength in that part

of Africa, west of the Nile sources.

Thus Emin kept on increasing the extent and importance of his territory,

and it came to be recognized as the best governed of any in the

vast undefined domain of the Soudan. He found it infested with Arab

slave-dealers, who practiced all the barbarities of their kind, and much

of his time was occupied in suppressing the nefarious traffic. He became

the recognized foe of those who penetrated his domains to barter in human

flesh, or if cupidity dictated, to burn, pillage and kill, in order that

they might freight their dhwos with trophies of their cruelty.

Though undefined east and west, his kingdom came to recognize Lado as its

northern capital, and Wadelai, on Lake Albert Nyanza, as its southern.

The work of organizing his territory extended from 1878 to 1882. He

had practically driven out the slave-traders and converted a deficient

revenue into a surplus for his government, conducting everything on

the basis laid down by his superior, General Gordon, and carrying out

with the most marked success the plans of that noble enthusiast. He was

fast making his territory semi-civilized when the Mahdi arose, led his

hosts northward, massacred the army of Gordon, and finally made himself

master of Khartoum and a great part of the Soudan. This was in 1882. The

Egyptian garrisons throughout the Southern Soudan were then abandoned to

their fate, and the last attempt to save Khartoum ended with the death of

General Gordon.

During the years of bloodshed that followed, Emin remained at his post,

his provinces entirely cut off from the world, and he himself neglected

and left entirely to his own resources. He held at the time about four

thousand native and Egyptian troops under his command. He was completely

surrounded by hostile tribes, but it is generally admitted that if he had

chosen to leave behind him the thousands of helpless women and children

and abandon the province to the merciless cruelties of the slave traders,

he could easily have effected his escape either to the Congo or to the

Zanzibar coast. But he determined to stay and to keep the equatorial

provinces for civilization, if possible.

The great work done by this brave and indefatigable German cannot be told

here in detail. But he organized auxiliary forces of native soldiers; he

was constantly engaged in warfare with surrounding tribes; he garrisoned

a dozen river stations lying long distances apart. His ammunition ran

low and he lacked the money needed for paying his small army; but in the

face of manifold difficulties and dangers he maintained his position,

governed the country well, and taught the natives how to raise cotton,

rice, indigo and coffee, and also how to weave cloth and to make shoes,

candles, soap and many articles of commerce. He vaccinated the natives

by the thousand in order to stamp out small-pox; he opened the first

hospital known in that quarter; he established a regular post-route, with

forty offices; he made important geographical discoveries in the basin

of the Albert Nyanza Lake, and in many ways demonstrated his capacity

for governing barbarous races by the methods and standards of European

civilization.

Murder, war and slavery were made things of the past, so that at last

“the whole country became so safe that only for the wild beasts in the

thickets, a man could have gone from one end of the province to the

other, armed with nothing more than a walking-stick.” A German writer

said of him at the time: “In his capital, Lado, where Dr. Schnitzer

earlier resided, he arose every day before the sun. His first work was to

visit the hospitals and care for the health of the people and the troops.

After a day devoted to executive labors, a great part of the night would

be spent in writing those essays on anthropology, ethnology, geography,

botany, and the languages of the people dwelling in his province which

have made his name famous as a scientific explorer.”

Tn 1885 Emin had ten fortified stations along the Upper Nile, the most

northern one being Lado, and the most southern one Wadelai. The latter

place he made his capital for some time. His command at Wadelai then

consisted of 1500 soldiers, ten Egyptians and fifteen negro officers. The

rest were at the various stations on the Nile. He had ammunition to hold

out until the end of 1886, and longer, he wrote, “if the wild tribes did

not make the discovery that he would be then entirely out of it.” In 1887

he wrote: “I am still holding out, and will not forsake my people.” After

that, letters were received from him in which he described his position

as hopeful. In one of the last of these letters he wrote:

“The work that Gordon paid for with his blood I will strive to carry

on according to his intentions and his spirit. For twelve long years I

have striven and toiled and sown the seeds for future harvests, laid the

foundation stones for future buildings. Shall I now give up the work

because a way may soon open to the coast? Never!”

The successes of the Mahdi had isolated him entirely on the north. To

the west and south were powerful tribes which, though not unfriendly,

could offer him no avenue of escape. To the east were still more powerful

peoples, once friendly but now imbued with the Mahdi’s hatred of white

men and their commercial and political objects. Chief of these were the

Uganda, whose King, Mtesa, had died in 1884, and had been succeeded

by his son Mwanga, a thorough Mahdist and bitter against European

innovation. Emin was therefore a prisoner. This was known in Europe in

1886, but how critical his situation was, no one could tell. It was

natural to regard it as perilous, and it was hoped that the Egyptian

Government would take measures for his relief. The Cairo Government did

nothing except to give him the title of Pasha and to offer £10,000 to any

expedition that might be sent to him. Many relief expeditions were then

planned, but nothing came of them till the one at whose head Stanley was

placed took shape.

[Illustration: NIAM-NIAM VILLAGE.]

Where should such an expedition go? What should it do? It did not take

long for the “wizard of equatorial travel” to decide. Here might be

opened a whole volume of controversy as to whether Stanley’s mission in

search of Emin was really humanitarian or not. The Germans who had the

greatest interest in the safety of their fellow countryman, refused to

look on the expedition as other than a scheme to rid the Southern Soudan

of a Teutonic ruler in the interest of England. They regarded Emin as

abundantly able to take care of himself for an indefinite time, and

the event of his withdrawal as amounting to a confession that Germanic

sovereignty was at an end in the lake regions of Central Africa. It

cannot be ascertained now that Stanley entered upon the expedition for

the relief of Emin Pasha in other than a humanitarian spirit, though

he was backed by English capital. It is fair to presume that since he

was invited to the ordeal by the Belgian King, whose exchequer was

responsible for the greater part of the outlay, he went with perfectly

disinterested motives. But be that as it may, he felt the delicacy of his

task and, after having discovered the lost one, his interviews with him

are models of diplomatic modesty and patience.

On being placed in charge of the expedition by its projectors, Stanley

naturally chose the Congo route into the heart of Africa, because he was

familiar with it by his recent efforts to found the Congo Free State,

and because it would give him a chance to review and refresh his labors

in that behalf. If all things were as he had left them, he knew that a

water-way traversable by steam was open for him to a point on the Congo

opposite the habitation of Emin and distant but a few hundred miles. So

May 11, 1887, found Stanley on the west coast of Africa ready to start

inland. He did not collect his force and equipments at the mouth of the

Congo, but made his way around the cataracts to Stanley Pool. There, at

the station called Kinchassa everything was gathered for the up-river

journey. Thence, the expedition embarked in three steamers, Le Stanley,

the large stern-wheeler belonging to the Congo Free State, towing the

Florida which had just been put together by sections. Le Stanley and

Florida had on board about 300 men, mostly trained and armed natives,

among whom were four English officers and several scientific gentlemen,

besides a cargo of ammunition, merchandise and pack animals. The next

steamer was the Henry Reid, a launch belonging to the American Baptist

Missionary Union, and kindly loaned to Stanley for the purpose of

transporting part of his force and equipments from Stanley Pool to his

proposed camp on the Aruwimi. The other steamer was the Peace, placed at

Stanley’s disposal by the Rev. Holman Bentley, of the English Baptist

Missionary Society, and of which a young missionary named Whitely had

charge.

On their passage up the Congo, and after a sail of ten days a camp was

formed at Bolobo, and left in charge of Captain Ward, who was deemed

a proper person for the command on account of his previous knowledge

of the natives, always inclined to be more or less hostile at that

point. Captain Ward had met Stanley below Stanley Pool and while he was

performing his tedious journey around the cataracts. He thus describes

the expedition on its march at the time of the meeting.

In the front of Stanley’s line was a tall Soudanese warrior bearing the

Gordon Bennett yacht flag. Behind the soldier, and astride a magnificent

mule, came the great explorer. Following immediately in his rear were

his personal servants, Somalis, with their braided waistcoats and

white robes. Then came Zanzibaris with their blankets, water-bottles,

ammunition-belts and guns; stalwart Soudanese soldiery, with great

hooded coats, their rifles on their backs, and innumerable straps and

leather belts around their bodies; Wagawali porters, bearing boxes of

ammunition, to which were fastened axes, shovels and hose lines, as well

as their little bundles of clothing, which were invariably rolled up in

old threadbare blankets. At one point the whale-boat was being carried

in sections, suspended from poles, which were each borne by four men.

Donkeys laden with sacks of rice were next met, and a little further back

were the women of Tippoo Tib’s harem, their faces concealed and their

bodies draped in gaudily-colored clothes. Here and there was an English

officer. A flock of goats next came along, and then the form of Tippoo

Tib came into view as he strutted majestically along in his flowing Arab

robes and large turban, carrying over his right shoulder a jewel-hilted

sword, the emblem of office from the Sultan of Zanzibar. Behind him

followed several Arab sheiks, whose bearing was quiet and dignified.

[Illustration: CUTTING WOOD AT NIGHT FOR THE STEAMERS.]

It was not the intention to hurry over the long stretch of water between

Stanley Pool and the Aruwimi, but to make the trip by easy stages. Yet

it was a trip involving great labor, for there being no coal, and the

steamers being small, the work of wood-cutting had to be done every

night. The launches required as much wood for twelve hours steaming as

thirty or forty men, laboring at night, could cut with their axes and

cross-cut saws. In some portions of the upper Congo where the shores are

swampy for miles in width, the men were often compelled to wade these

long distances before striking the rising forest land, and of course they

had to carry the wood back to the steamers over the same tedious and

dangerous routes.

As has been stated, Stanley’s objective was the mouth of the large river

Aruwimi, which enters the Congo, a short distance below Stanley Falls, in

Lat. 1° N., and whose general westward direction led him to think that by

following it he would get within easy marches of Lake Albert Nyanza and

thus into Emin’s dominions.

On the arrival of the expedition at the mouth of the Aruwimi, an armed

camp was formed at Yambungi and left in charge of the unfortunate Major

Barttelot, and here a conference was awaited with the dual-hearted Arab,

Tippoo Tib, whom Stanley had recognized as ruler at Nyangwe, on the

Congo, above Stanley Falls, and who was bound to him by the most solemn

treaties. The wily chieftain came up in due time, and the interview

was such as to engender serious doubts of his further friendship,

notwithstanding his protestations.

[Illustration: INTERVIEW OF MAJOR BARTTELOT AND MR. JAMESON WITH TIPPOO

TIB.]

The occasion was a palaver, at the request of Major Barttelot, with a

view to obtain some definite understanding as to the providing of the

Manyema porters whom Tippoo Tib had promised Stanley he would supply in

order that the rearguard might follow him up from the Aruwimi River to

Wadelai. How the porters did not come up to time; how the commander of

the rearguard was hampered with new conditions as to weight when the men

did appear; and how the dreadful business ended in the assassination of

Major Barttelot and the breaking up of the camp, will appear further

on. The death of Mr. Jameson soon afterwards, at Ward’s Camp, on the

Congo, a distressing sequel to the former tragedy, was in somber tone

with the reports of Stanley’s death which came filtering through the

darkness at about the same time. The cloud which fell upon the Aruwimi

camp seemed to spread its dark mantle over the entire expedition. Mr.

Werner, in his interesting volume “A Visit to Stanley’s Rear Guard,”

gives a characteristic sketch of the Arab chief; and Mr. Werner was the

engineer in charge of the vessel which took Major Barttelot part of the

way on his last journey to the Falls. “After the light complexion of the

other Arabs,” he says, “I was somewhat surprised to find Mr. Tippoo Tib

as black as any negro I had seen; but he had a fine well-shaped head,

bald at the top, and a short, black, thick beard thickly strewn with

white hairs. He was dressed in the usual Arab style, but more simply

than the rest of the Arab chiefs, and had a broad, well-formed figure.

His restless eyes gave him a great resemblance to the negro’s head with

blinking eyes in the electric advertisements of somebody’s shoe polish

which adorned the walls of railway-stations some years ago——and earned

him the nickname of ‘Nubian blacking.’”

[Illustration: AN AMBUSCADE.]

In June, 1887, Stanley started on his ascent of the unknown Aruwimi,

and through a country filled with natives prejudiced against him by the

Arab traders and friends of the Mahdi. His force now comprised 5 white

men and 380 armed natives. His journey proved tedious and perilous in

the extreme, and though he persevered in the midst of obstacles for two

months, he was still 400 miles from Albert Nyanza. It was now found that

the river route was impracticable for the heavier boats. At this point

their troubles thickened. The natives proved hostile, and ingenious in

their means of opposing obstructions to the further progress of the

expedition. They refused to contribute provisions, and starvation stared

the travelers in the face. For weeks their only food was wild fruit and

nuts. To forage was to invite death, and to engage in open war was to

court annihilation. Disease broke out, and it must have swept them all

away but for the precautions which Stanley took to head off its ravages.

As it was, the number was greatly reduced, and the men were weak,

emaciated, in a state of panic, amid surrounding dangers and without

spirit for further trials. Writing of this critical period, his letters

say:

“What can you make of this, for instance? On August 17, 1887, all the

officers of the rear column are united at Yambuya. They have my letter

of instructions before them, but instead of preparing for the morrow’s

march, to follow our track, they decide to wait at Yambuya, which

decision initiates the most awful season any community of men ever

endured in Africa or elsewhere.

“The results are that three-quarters of their force die of slow poison.

Their commander is murdered and the second officer dies soon after of

sickness and grief. Another officer is wasted to a skeleton and obliged

to return home. A fourth is sent to wander aimlessly up and down the

Congo, and the survivor is found in such a fearful pest-hole that we dare

not describe its horrors.

“On the same date, 150 miles away, the officer of the day leads 333

men of the advance column into the bush, loses the path and all

consciousness of his whereabouts, and every step he takes only leads him

further astray. His people become frantic; his white companions, vexed

and irritated by the sense of the evil around them, cannot devise any

expedient to relieve him. They are surrounded by cannibals and poison

tipped arrows thin their numbers.

“Meantime I, in command of the river column, am anxiously searching up

and down the river in four different directions; through forests my

scouts are seeking for them, but not until the sixth day was I successful

in finding them.”

Having now brought his different marching columns closer together, and

loaded his sick in light canoes, he started on, intercepted continually

by wild native raiders who inflicted considerable loss on his best men,

who had to bear the brunt of fighting as well as the fatigue of paddling.

Soon progress by the river became too tedious and difficult, and orders

were given to cast off the canoes. The land course now lay along the

north bank of the Itura, amid dense forests, and through the despoiled

lands which had been a stamping ground for Ugarrowa and Kilingalango

raiders. No grass land, with visions of beef, mutton and vegetables, were

within a hundred miles of the dismal scene.

For two weeks the expedition threaded the unknown tangle, looking out

for ambuscades, warding off attacks, and braving dangers of every

description. At length the region of the Dwaris was reached and a

plantain patch burst into view. The hungry wayfarers plunged into it and

regaled themselves with the roasted fruit, while the more thoughtful

provided a store of plantain flour for the dreaded wilderness ahead.

Another plunge was made into the trackless forest and ten days elapsed

before another plantation was reached, during which time the small-pox

broke out, with greater loss of life than any other enemy had as yet

inflicted. Meanwhile they had passed the mouth of the Ihuru, a large

tributary of the Itura, and were on the banks of the Ishuru. As there

was no possibility of crossing this turbulent tributary, its right bank

was followed for four days till the principal village of the Andikuma

tribe was reached. It was surrounded by the finest plantation of

bananas and plantains, which all the Manyemas’ habit of spoliation and

destruction had been unable to destroy. There the travelers, after severe

starvation during fourteen days, gorged themselves to such excess that it

contributed greatly to lessen their numbers. Every twentieth individual

suffered from some complaint which entirely incapacitated him for duty.

From Andikuma, a six days’ march northerly brought them to a flourishing

settlement, called Indeman. Here Stanley was utterly nonplussed by the

confusion of river names. The natives were dwarfs. After capturing some

of them and forcing answers, he found that they were on the right branch

of the Ihuru river and that it could be bridged. Throwing a bridge

across, they passed into a region wholly inhabited by dwarfs who proved

very hostile. They are the Wambutti people, and such were their number

and ferocity that Stanley was forced to change his north-east into a

south-east course and to follow the lead of elephant tracks.

They had now to pass through the most terrible of all their African

experiences. Writing further of this trying ordeal, Stanley says:

“On the fifth day, having distributed all the stock of flour in camp,

and having killed the only goat we possessed, I was compelled to open

the officers’ provision boxes and take a pound pot of butter, with two

cupfuls of my flour, to make an imitation gruel, there being nothing

else save tea, coffee, sugar, and a pot of sage in the boxes. In the

afternoon a boy died, and the condition of the majority of the rest was

most disheartening. Some could not stand, falling down in the effort to

do so. These constant sights acted on my nerves until I began to feel not

only moral but physical sympathy, as though the weakness was contagious.

Before night a Madi carrier died. The last of our Somalis gave signs

of collapse, and the few Soudanese with us were scarcely able to move.

When the morning of the sixth day dawned, we made broth with the usual

pot of butter, an abundance of water, a pot of condensed milk, and a

cupful of flour for 130 people. The chiefs and Bonny were called to a

council. At my suggesting a reverse to the foragers of such a nature

as to exclude our men from returning with news of the disaster, they

were altogether unable to comprehend such a possibility. They believed

it possible that these 150 men were searching for food, without which

they would not return. They were then asked to consider the supposition

that they were five days searching food, and they had lost the road,

perhaps, or, having no white leader, had scattered to shoot goats, and

had entirely forgotten their starving friends and brothers in the camp.

What would be the state of the 130 people five days hence? Bonny offered

to stay with ten men in the camp if I provided ten days’ food for each

person, while I would set out to search for the missing men. Food to make

a light cupful of gruel for ten men for ten days was not difficult to

procure, but the sick and feeble remaining must starve unless I met with

good fortune; and accordingly a stone of buttermilk, flour, and biscuits

were prepared and handed over to the charge of Bonny. In the afternoon

of the seventh day we mustered everybody, besides the garrison of the

camp, ten men. Sadi, a Manyema chief, surrendered fourteen of his men to

their doom. Kibboboras, another chief, abandoned his brother; and Fundi,

another Manyema chief, left one of his wives and her little boy. We left

twenty-six feeble and sick wretches already past all hope unless food

could be brought them within twenty-four hours. In a cheery tone, though

my heart was never heavier, I told the forty-three hunger-bitten people

that I was going back to hunt for the missing men. We traveled nine miles

that afternoon, having passed several dead people on the road, and early

on the eighth day of their absence from camp we met them marching in

an easy fashion, but when we were met the pace was altered, so that in

twenty-six hours from leaving Starvation Camp we were back with a cheery

abundance around us of gruel and porridge, boiling bananas, boiling

plantains, roasting meat, and simmering soup. This had been my nearest

approach to absolute starvation in all my African experience. Altogether

twenty-one persons succumbed in this dreadful camp.”

[Illustration: ELEPHANTS DESTROYING VEGETATION.]

After twelve days journey the party on November 12th, reached Ibwiri. The

Arab devastation, which had reached within a few miles of Ibwiri, was so

thorough that not a native hut was left standing between Urgarrava and

Ibwiri. What the Arabs did not destroy the elephants destroyed, turning

the whole region into a horrible wilderness.

Stanley continues:——“Our sufferings terminated at Ibwiri. We were beyond

the reach of destroyers. We were on virgin soil, in a populous region,

abounding with food. We, ourselves, were mere skeletons——reduced in

number from 289 to but little more than half that number. Hitherto our

people were skeptical of what we told them. The suffering had been so

awful, the calamities so numerous, and the forests so endless, that they

refused to believe that by and by we would see plains and cattle, the

Nyanza, and Emin Pasha. They had turned a deaf ear to our prayers and

entreaties for, driven by hunger and suffering, they sold their rifles

and equipments for ears of Indian corn, deserted with their ammunition

and became generally demoralized. Perceiving that mild punishment would

be of no avail, I resorted to the death penalty, and two of the worst

cases were hanged in the presence of all. We halted 13 days at Ibwiri,

revelling on fowls, goats, bananas, corn, yams, etc. The supplies were

inexhaustible and our people glutted themselves with such effect that

our force increased to 173 sleek robust men——one had been killed with an

arrow.”

[Illustration: THE CAPTURED BUFFALO.]

[Illustration: AFRICAN WARRIORS.]

On November 24th the expedition started for Albert Nyanza, 126 miles

distant. Given food, the distance seemed nothing. On December 1st an open

country was sighted from the top of a ridge which was named Mt. Pisgah.

On the 5th the plains were reached and the deadly, gloomy forest left

behind. The light of day now beamed all around, after 160 days of travel.

They thought they had never seen grass so green or a country so lovely.

The men could not contain themselves but leaped and yelled for joy, and

even raced over the ground with their heavy burdens.

[Illustration: ATTACK ON THE ENCAMPMENT.]

On Nov. 9, 1887, Stanley says, “We entered the country of the powerful

Chief Mazamboni. The villages were scattered so thickly that no road

except through them could be found. The natives sighted us, but we were

prepared. We seized a hill as soon as we arrived in the center of a

mass of villages, and built a zareba as fast as billhooks could cut the

brushwood. The war cries were terrible from hill to hill, pealing across

the intervening valleys. The people gathered in hundreds at every point,

war horns and drums announcing the struggle. After a slight skirmish,

ending in our capture of a cow, the first beef we had tasted since we

left the ocean, the night passed peacefully, both sides preparing for the

morrow.

“Here Mr. Stanley narrates how negotiations with natives failed,

Mazamboni declining a peace offering, and how a detachment of 40 persons,

led by Lieutenant Stairs, and another of 30, under command of Mr.

Jephson, with sharpshooters, left the zareba and assaulted and carried

the villages, driving the natives into a general rout. The march was

resumed on the 12th and here were constant little fights.

“On the afternoon of the 13th,” says Mr. Stanley, “we sighted the Nyanza,

with Kavalli, the objective point of the expedition. Six miles off I had

told the men to prepare to see the Nyanza. They murmured and doubted,

saying, “Why does the master continually talk this way? Nyanza indeed.”

When they saw the Nyanza below them, many came to kiss my hands. We were

now at an altitude of 5,200 feet above the sea, with the Albert Nyanza

2,900 feet below, in one degree twenty minutes. The south end of the

Nyanza lay largely mapped for about six miles south of this position and

right across to the eastern shore. Every dent in its low, flat shore

was visible, and traced like a silver snake on the dark ground was the

tributary Lanilki, flowing into the Albert Nyanza from the south-west.

“After a short halt to enjoy the prospect, we commenced the rugged and

stony descent. Before the rear guard had descended 100 feet the natives

from the plateau poured after them, keeping the rear guard busy until

within a few hundred feet of the Nyanza plain. We camped at the foot of

the plateau wall, the aneroids reading 2,500 feet above the sea level. A

night attack was made, but the sentries sufficed to drive our assailants

off.

“We afterwards approached the village of Kakongo, situated at the

south-west corner of Albert Lake. Three hours were spent by us in

attempting to make friends, but we signally failed. They would not allow

us to go to the lake, because we might frighten their cattle. They

would not exchange the blood of brotherhood, because they never heard

of any good people coming from the west side of the lake. They would

not accept any present from us, because they did not know who we were;

but they would give us water to drink, and would show us the road up to

Nyam-Sassi. From these singular people we learned that they had heard

that there was a white man at Unyoro, but they had never heard of any

white men being on the west side, nor had they ever seen any steamers

on the lake. There was no excuse for quarrelling. The people were civil

enough, but they did not want us near them. We therefore were shown the

path and followed it for miles. We camped about half a mile from the

lake, and then began to consider our position with the light thrown upon

it by conversation with the Kakongo natives.”

But, now he was in more of a quandary than ever. The lake was before

him, but no sign of Emin nor any of his officials. Could he have failed

to hear of Stanley’s sacrifices in his behalf? The famished expedition

looked in vain on that expanse of water for evidence of friendly flag or

welcome steamer. It had left all its own boats behind, a distance of 190

miles, and was therefore helpless for further search. This should not be,

and so with his accustomed heroism, Stanley resolved on a return march to

Kilinga for boats. It was a hard, quick journey, occupying weeks, for the

distance was great.

Writing of his fatigue and disappointment on his arrival at Lake Albert

Nyanza, Stanley says:

“My couriers from Zanzibar had evidently not arrived, or Emin Pasha,

with his two steamers, would have paid the south-west side of the lake a

visit to prepare the natives for our coming. My boat was at Kilingalonga,

190 miles distant, and there was no canoe obtainable. To seize a canoe

without the excuse of a quarrel, my conscience would not permit. There

was no tree anywhere of a size sufficient to make canoes. Wadelai was

a terrible distance off for an expedition so reduced. We had used five

cases of cartridges in five days fighting on the plain.

“A month of such fighting must exhaust our stock. There was no plan

suggested that was feasible, except to retreat to Ibwiri, build a fort,

send the party back to Kalingalonga for a boat, store up every load in

the fort not conveyable, leave a garrison in the fort to hold it, march

back to Albert Lake, and send a boat in search of Emin Pasha. This was

the plan which, after lengthy discussions with the officers, I resolved

upon.”

The most pathetic part of this eventful history is the fact that Emin

had really received Stanley’s messages, had been surprised at his coming

to rescue him, and had made an effort to meet him on some likely point

on the lake, but having failed had returned to his southern capital,

Wadelai, on the Nile outlet of the lake.

During the time so spent by the expedition the outside world was filled

with rumors of the death of Stanley, either by disease or at the hands

of the natives. These reports would always be followed by some favorable

report from the expedition, not authentic, but enough to give hope

that the hardy explorers were safe and continuing their way across the

continent. Occasionally, too, during the first part of the trip, couriers

would arrive at the coast from Stanley announcing progress, but, as they

advanced, no further communications were received, and the expedition was

swallowed up in the jungles and vast forests of Central Africa.

Putting his plans for a return into execution, Stanley had to fight

his way from the shores of the lake to the top of the plateau, for the

Kakongo natives were determined he should not pass back the way he had

come. He was victorious with a loss of one man killed and one wounded.

The plateau gained, he plunged westward by forced marches, and by

January 7, 1888, was back at Ibwiri. After a few days rest there, he

dispatched Lieut. Stairs with 100 men to Kilinga to bring up the boats.

On his return with the boats, he was sent to Ugarrowas to bring up the

convalescents. Stanley now fell sick and only recovered after a month of

careful nursing.

It was now April 2d, and he again started for the lake, accompanied by

Jephson and Parke, Nelson being left in command at the post, now Fort

Bodo, with a garrison of 43 men. On April 26, he was again in Mazamboni’s

country, who, after much solicitation was induced to make blood

brotherhood with Stanley. Strange to say every other chief as far as the

lake followed his example, and every difficulty was removed. Food was

supplied in abundance and gratis, and the gracious natives, expert in the

art of hut building, prepared in advance the necessary shelter for night.

[Illustration: BEGINNING A HUT.]

When within a day’s march of the lake, natives came up from Kavalli

saying that a white man had given their chief a note done up in a black

packet and that they would lead Stanley to him if he would follow. He

replied, “he would not only follow but make them rich,” for he did not

doubt that the white man was Emin Pasha. The next day’s march brought

them to Chief Kavalli, who handed Stanley a note from Emin Pasha done

up in black American oil cloth. It was to the effect that as there had

been a native rumor that a white man had been seen at the south end of

the lake, he (Emin) had gone thither in a steamer but had been unable to

obtain reliable information. The note further begged Stanley to remain

where he was till Emin could communicate with him.

[Illustration: STANLEY’S FIRST SIGHT OF EMIN’S STEAMER.]

[Illustration: THE SECOND STAGE.]

The next day, April 23d, Stanley sent Jephson with a strong force to take

the boat of the expedition to Lake Nyanza. On the 26th the boat crew

sited Mawa Station, the southernmost station in Emin’s boundaries. There

Jephson was hospitably received by the Egyptian garrison. On April 29th,

Stanley and his party again reached the bivouac ground on the plateau

overlooking the lake, where they had encamped before, and at 5 P.M.,

they sighted the Khedive steamer, seven miles away on the lake, steaming

up towards them. By 7 P.M., the steamer arrived opposite the camp,

and shortly afterwards, Emin Pasha, Signor Carati and Jephson came to

Stanley’s head-quarters where they were heartily welcomed. The next day

Stanley moved his camp to a better place, three miles above Nyamsassi,

and Emin also moved his camp thither. The two leaders were together,

in frequent consultation, till May 25th. The Pasha was surrounded by

two battalions of regulars, besides a respectable force of irregulars,

sailors, artisans, clerks and servants. How different, in many respects,

was the situation from what Stanley expected!

He found Emin Pasha in the midst of plenty and unwilling to be rescued.

He found his own forces jaded with travel, on the eve of starvation, and

anxious to be rescued. He found, moreover, a prince in his own equatorial

empire, who looked with jealous eyes on the relief expedition. In one

of his (Emin’s) letters dated April 17, 1888, he declared that he had

no intention to give up his work in Africa and had determined to await

Stanley’s coming at Wadelai. In another letter he expressed himself

very decidedly to the effect that he did not wish his province to come

under English suzerainty. He was evidently of the opinion that the

British Government in sending out Stanley had its eyes on his province

with a view to eventually incorporating it with the Soudan, should the

Anglo-Egyptians succeed in re-establishing authority at Khartoum. The

same idea gradually forced itself to acceptance in Europe, and, as we

know, the German Government later became no less anxious to get into

communication with Emin in the hope of preventing him from making any

arrangement with England.

[Illustration: HUT COMPLETED IN AN HOUR.]

It was not therefore such a meeting as took place years before between

Stanley and Livingstone, at Ujiji on the banks of Lake Tanganyika.

Long interviews followed which did not impress Stanley with the fact

that his expedition was to be a success, so far as getting Emin out of

the country was concerned. “Altogether,” said Emin, “if I consent to go

away from here we shall have 8000 people with us.” His principal desire

seemed to be that Stanley should relieve him of about 100 of his Egyptian

soldiers, with their women and children. He said he was extremely

doubtful of the loyalty of the first and second battalions. It was this

interview which Stanley announced to the world of civilization by way of

the Congo route. The situation was most delicate. He could not urge upon

the ruler of an empire to flee from his dominions, he could not even ask

one who seemed to be in the midst of peace and plenty, to desert them

for the hardships of a long journey to the coast. He could only impress

on him in a modest way the objects of the expedition and the propriety

of his taking advantage of its presence to effect an escape from dangers

which were thickening every hour, and which must ere long take shape in a

descent upon him by the ever increasing hordes of the Mahdi.

These representations were of no avail and Stanley left him on May 25th,

leaving with him Jephson and five of his carriers. In return Emin gave

Stanley 105 of his regular Mahdi native porters. In fourteen days Stanley

was back at Fort Bodo, where he found Captain Nelson and Lieut. Stairs.

The latter had come up from Ugarrowas, twenty-two days after Stanley had

set out for the lake, bringing along, alas! only 16 out of 56 men. All

the rest had perished on the journey. Stairs brought along the news that

Stanley’s 20 couriers, by whom he had sent word to Barttelot at Yambuna,

had passed Ugarrowas on their way to their destination, on March 16th.

Fort Bodo was in excellent condition on Stanley’s arrival, and enough

ground had been placed under cultivation to insure a sufficient amount of

corn for food.

On June 16th he left Fort Bodo with 111 Zanzibaris and 101 of Emin’s

Soudanese, for Kilonga, where he arrived on June 24th. Pushing on, he

arrived at Ugarrowas on July 19th. While this backward journey was

performed rapidly and without serious hindrance, it was to end in sorrow.

Ugarrowas was found deserted, its occupants having gathered as much

ivory as they could, and passed down the river in company with Stanley’s

couriers. Stanley made haste to follow, and on August 10th came up with

the Ugarrowa people in a flotilla of 57 canoes. His couriers, now reduced

to 17 in number, related awful stories of hair-breadth escapes and

tragic scenes. Besides the three which had been slain, two were down with

wounds, and all bore scars of arrow wounds.

A week later they were all down to Bunalyla, where Stanley met his

friend, Dr. Bonney, at the stockade, and inquired for Major Barttelot,

who, it will be recollected, was left in charge of Stanley’s rear guard

at Yambuna, with orders to secure food and carriers from Tippoo Tib.

Stanley asked:

“Well, my dear Bonney where’s the Major?”

“He is dead, sir; shot by a Manyuema, about a month ago,” replied Bonney.

“Good God,” I cried, “and Jamieson!”

“He has gone to Stanley Falls to try to get more men from Tippoo Tib.”

“And Troup?”

“Troup has gone home invalided.”

“Well, were is Ward?”

“Ward is at Bangala.”

“Heaven alive! Then you are the only one here?”

“Yes, sir.”

Without loss of further time, Stanley hastened down to Yambuna, only

to find the sad story too, too, true. Barttelot and his entire caravan

had been destroyed, and the officers left in charge of the station

had fled panic stricken down the river with all the supplies of the

station. Stanley complained greatly of this desertion, yet proceeded

to do the best he could to re-provision the fort and recuperate his

men. He remained long enough to study the situation, and it was sad

in the extreme as it gradually unfolded in his mind. His governor of

Stanley Falls and the Congo beyond, the Arab Tippoo Tib, was evidently

working in the interest of the Mahdi, in violation of his oath and

most solemn covenants. Though proof of his open hostility was wanting,

Stanley strongly suspected him of conspiring to bring about the massacre

of Barttelot’s caravan, in July, 1888, with a view of preventing his

(Stanley’s) return to the Albert Nyanza. Evidence of a wide spread

conspiracy to rid the entire equatorial section of its European occupants

was also found in the fact that the destruction of Barttelot’s caravan

ante-dated but a month the uprising in Emin Pasha’s provinces, the

desertion of him by his army and his deposition from power and final

imprisonment, the details of which are given hereafter.

[Illustration: CAMP AT KINSHASSA, ON THE CONGO, WITH TIPPOO TIB’S

HEADQUARTERS.]

Yet with these fierce fires of conspiracy crackling about him in the

depths of the African forest, Stanley thought more of others than

himself. He resolved to hasten back to the lake to rescue Emin from a

danger which must by this time have become plain to him, even if it had

not already crushed him. He worked his force by relays till the Ituri

ferry was reached. Here he expected to hear from Emin. Disappointment

increased his fears, and he resolved to rid himself of all incumbrance

and resort to forced marches. He therefore established a camp at the

Ituri ferry and left Stairs in command with 124 people. With the rest he

forced his way across the plains, the natives being the same as those

with which he had engaged in desperate conflict on previous journeys.

But now they were quite changed in spirit, and instead of offering him

opposition they were anxious to make blood brotherhood with him. They

even constructed the huts of his camps, and brought food, fuel and water

as soon as the sites were pitched upon.

With all this kindness and sociability of the natives, not a word could

be gathered from them of the state of affairs on the Albert Nyanza. At

length, January 16, 1889, at a station called Gaviras, a message was

received from Kavalli, on the south-west side of the lake. It was a

letter from Jephson, with two confirmatory notes from Emin, and conveyed

the startling intelligence, that a rebellion had broken out, in the

previous August, in Emin’s dominions, and that the Pasha had been made

a prisoner. The rebellion had been gotten up by some half dozen of the

Egyptian officers, and had been augmented by the soldiers at Laboré,

though those of other stations had remained faithful. Then the letter

goes on to warn Stanley to be careful on his arrival at Kavalli, and

continues in the following pitiful strain:

“When the Pasha and I were on our way to Regaf two men——one an

officer, Abdul Voal Effendi, and the other a clerk——went about

and told the people they had seen you, and that you were only

an adventurer, and had not come from Egypt; that the letters

you had brought from the Khedive and Nubar were forgeries;

that it was untrue Khartoum had fallen; and that the Pasha

and you had made a plot to take them, their wives and their

children out of the country and hand them over as slaves to the

English. Such words in an ignorant, fanatical country like this

acted like fire among the people, and the result was a general

rebellion and we were made prisoners.

“The rebels then collected the officers from the different

stations and held a large meeting here to determine what

measures they should take, and all those who did not join the

movement were so insulted and abused that they were obliged for

their own safety to acquiesce in what was done: The Pasha was

deposed and those officers suspected of being friendly to him

were removed from their posts, and those friendly to the rebels

were put in their places. It was decided to take the Pasha as

a prisoner to Regaf, and some of the worst rebels were even in

for putting him in irons. But the officers were afraid to put

their plans into execution, as the soldiers said they would

never permit any one to lay a hand on him. Plans were also made

to entrap you when you returned and strip you of all you had.

“Things were in this condition when we were startled by the

news that the Mahdi’s people had arrived at Lado with three

steamers and nine sandals and nuggers, and had established

themselves on the site of the old station. Omar Sali, their

general, sent up three peacock dervishes with a letter to the

Pasha demanding the instant surrender of the country. The rebel

officers seized them and put them into prison, and decided on

war. After a few days the Mahdists attacked and captured Regaf,

killing five officers and numbers of soldiers and taking many

women and children prisoners, and all the stores and ammunition

in the station were lost.

“The result of this was a general stampede of the people from

the stations of Biddon Kirri and Muggi, who fled with their

women and children to Labore, abandoning almost everything. At

Kirri the ammunition was abandoned and was seized by natives.

The Pasha reckons that the Mahdists number about 1500. The

officers and a large number of soldiers have returned to Muggi

and intend to make a stand against the Mahdists.

“Our position here is extremely unpleasant, for since the

rebellion all is chaos and confusion. There is no head and

half-a-dozen conflicting orders are given every day, and no

one obeys. The rebel officers are wholly unable to control the

soldiers. The Boris have joined the Mahdists. If they come down

here with a rush, nothing can save us. The officers are all

frightened at what has taken place and are anxiously awaiting

your arrival, and desire to leave the country with you, for

they are now really persuaded that Khartoum has fallen, and

that you have come from the Khedive. We are like rats in a

trap. They will neither let us act nor retire, and I fear,

unless you come very soon, you will be too late, and our fate

will be like that of the rest of the garrisons of the Soudan.

Had this rebellion not happened, the Pasha could have kept the

Mahdists in check some time, but now he is powerless to act.

“I would suggest, on your arrival at Kavallis, that you write

a letter in Arabic to Shukri Aga, chief of the Mswa Station,

telling him of your arrival, and telling him that you wished to

see the Pasha and myself. Write also to the Pasha or myself,

telling us what number of men you have with you. It would,

perhaps, be better to write me, as a letter to him might be

confiscated. Neither the Pasha nor myself think there is the

slightest danger now of any attempt to capture you, for the

people are now fully persuaded that you are come from Egypt,

and they look to you to get them out of their difficulties.

Still it would be well for you to make your camp strong. If we

are not able to get out of the country, please remember me to

my friends, etc. Yours faithfully, JEPHSON.”

To this letter were appended two postscripts, the first dated November

24th, 1888. It ran:

“Shortly after I had written you, the soldiers were led by

their officers to attempt to retake Regaf, but the Mahdists

defended it, and killed six officers and a large number of

soldiers. Among the officers killed were some of the Pasha’s

worst enemies. The soldiers in all the stations were so

panic-stricken and angry at what happened that they declared

they would not attempt to fight unless the Pasha was set at

liberty. So the rebel officers were obliged to free him and

send him to Wadilai, where he is free to do as he pleases; but

at present he has not resumed authority in the country. He

is, I believe, by no means anxious to do so. We hope in a few

days to be at Tunguru Station, on the lake, two days’ steamer

from Nsabe, and I trust when we hear of your arrival that the

Pasha himself will be able to come down with me to see you.

We hear that the Mahdists sent steamers down to Khartoum for

reinforcements. If so, they cannot be up here for another six

weeks. If they come up here with reinforcements, it will be all

up with us, for the soldiers will never stand against them, and

it will be a mere walk-over. Every one is anxiously looking

for your arrival, for the coming of the Mahdists has completely

cowed them. We may just manage to get out if you do not come

later than the end of December, but it is entirely impossible

to foresee what will happen.”

Jephson in a second postscript, dated December 18th, says:

“Mogo, the messenger, not having started, I send a second

postscript. We were not at Tunguru on November 25th. The

Mahdists surrounded Duffle Station and besieged it for four

days. The soldiers, of whom there were about 500, managed to

repulse them, and they retired to Regaf, their headquarters,

as they have sent down to Khartoum for reinforcements, and

doubtless will attack again when strengthened. In our flight

from Wadelai the officers requested me to destroy our boats

and the advances. I therefore broke it up. Duffle is being

renovated as fast as possible. The Pasha is unable to move hand

or foot, as there is still a very strong party against him,

and his officers no longer in immediate fear of the Mahdi. Do

not on any account come down to us at my former camp on the

lake near Kavalli Island, but make your camp at Kavalli, on the

plateau above. Send a letter directly you arrive there, and

as soon as we hear of your arrival I will come to you. Will

not disguise facts from you that you will have a difficult and

dangerous work before you in dealing with the Pasha’s people.

I trust you will arrive before the Mahdists are reinforced, or

our case will be desperate. Yours faithfully, (Signed) JEPHSON.”

Imagine the effect of such word as this on one who stood almost alone in

the midst of a continent, without power to face the disciplined forces

of the Mahdi, and with no open line of retreat. The best he could do for

the moment was write an assuring letter and dispatch it to the Nyanza as

quickly as possible, pushing on after it to Kavalli.

With Stanley, to resolve was to act. He accordingly sent word to Jephson

that he need have no anxiety on his (Stanley’s) account for he was in the

midst of natives who were not only friendly but ready to fight for him;

that on his arrival at Kavalli he would be in a condition to rescue Emin

and his attendants; and that every inducement must be brought to bear on

him to come southward on the lake with his command, if not still held

prisoners.

On Stanley’s arrival at Kavalli, he again wrote, under date of January

18th, 1889. And this letter, together with those which followed, reveals

a situation quite as embarrassing as the former one had been, for still

Emin seemed to be unaware of his danger. Stanley’s letter read:

“KAVALLI, January 18, 3 o’clock P.M.——My dear Jephson: I now send thirty

rifles and three Kavalli men down to the lake with my letters with my

urgent instructions that a canoe should be sent off and the bearers be

rewarded. I may be able to stay longer than six days here, perhaps ten

days. I will do my best to prolong my stay until you arrive without

rupturing the peace.

“Our people have a good store of beads and couriers cloth, and I notice

that the natives trade very readily, which will assist Kavalli’s

resources should he get uneasy under our prolonged visit. Should we get

out of this trouble I am his most devoted servant and friend but if he

hesitates again I shall be plunged in wonder and perplexity. I could save

a dozen Pashas if they were willing to be saved. I would go on my knees

and implore the Pasha to be sensible of his own case. He is wise enough

in all things else, even for his own interests. Be kind and good to him

for his many virtues, but do not you be drawn into the fatal fascination

the Soudan territory seems to have for all Europeans in late years. As

they touch its ground they seem to be drawn into a whirlpool which sucks

them in and covers them with its waves. The only way to avoid it is to

blindly, devotedly, and unquestioningly obey all orders from the outside.

The Committee said:

“Relieve Emin with this ammunition. If he wishes to come out the

ammunition will enable to do so. If he elects to stay it will be of

service to him. The Khedive said the same thing and added that if the

Pasha and his officers wished to stay, they could do so on their own

responsibility. Sir Evelin Baring said the same thing in clear, decided

words, and here I am after 4,100 miles travel with the last instalment

of relief. Let him who is authorized to take it, take it and come. I am

ready to lend him all my strength and will assist him, but this time

there must be no hesitation, but positive yea or nay, and home we go.

Yours sincerely, STANLEY.”

In the course of his correspondence Mr. Stanley says: “On February 6th

Jephson arrived in the afternoon at our camp at Kavalli. I was startled

to hear Jephson, in plain, undoubting words, say: “Sentiment is the

Pasha’s worst enemy. No one keeps Emin back but Emin himself.” This is

the summary of what Jephson learned during the nine months from May 25th,

1888, to February 6th, 1889. I gathered sufficient from Jephson’s verbal

report to conclude that during nine months neither the Pasha, Casati,

nor any man in the province had arrived nearer any other conclusion than

what was told us ten months before. However, the diversion in our favor

created by the Mahdists’ invasion and the dreadful slaughter they made of

all they met inspired us with hope that we could get a definite answer

at last. Though Jephson could only reply: ‘I really can’t tell you what

the Pasha means to do. He says he wishes to go away, but will not move.

It is impossible to say what any man will do. Perhaps another advance

by the Mahdists will send them all pell-mell towards you, to be again

irresolute and requiring several weeks’ rest.’”

Stanley next describes how he had already sent orders to mass the whole

of his forces ready for contingencies. He also speaks of the suggestions

he made to Emin as to the best means of joining him, insisting upon

something definite, otherwise it would be his (Stanley’s) duty to destroy

the ammunition and march homeward.

It seems that Stanley’s letters were beginning to have weight with Emin,

and that he was coming to think it cruel to subject his followers to

further danger, whatever opinion he entertained of his own safety. So on

the morning of February 13th, 1889, Stanley was rejoiced to receive in

his camp on the plateau above Kavalli, at the hands of a native courier,

a letter from Emin Pasha himself, which announced his arrival at Kavalli.

But let the letter speak for itself:

“Sir: In answer to your letter of the 7th inst., I have the honor to

inform you that yesterday I arrived here with my two steamers, carrying

a first lot of people desirous to leave this country under your escort.

As soon as I have arranged for a cover for my people, the steamers have

to start for Mswa Station to bring on another lot of people. Awaiting

transport with me are some twelve officers, anxious to see you, and only

forty soldiers. They have come under my orders to request you to give

them some time to bring their brothers from Wadelai, and I promised them

to do my best to assist them. Things having to some extent now changed,

you will be able to make them undergo whatever conditions you see fit

to impose upon them. To arrange these I shall start from here with

officers for your camp, after having provided for the camp, and if you

send carriers I could avail me of some of them. I hope sincerely that the

great difficulties you had to undergo and the great sacrifices made by

your expedition on its way to assist us may be rewarded by full success

in bringing out my people. The wave of insanity which overran the country

has subsided, and of such people as are now coming with me we may be

sure. Permit me to express once more my cordial thanks for whatever you

have done for us.

“Yours, EMIN.”

Thus the two heroes of African adventure came together on the west shore

of the lake which marked the southern boundary of Emin Pasha’s influence.

It was a trying meeting for both. Stanley was firm in his views and true

to the objects of his mission. Emin was still divided between his desire

to save all of his followers who were willing to go, and his sense of

obligation to those who chose to remain behind. In a modified form his

convictions, expressed in April, 1887, still held. He then said:

“The work that Gordon paid for with his blood I will strive to carry on,

if not with his energy and genius, still according to his intentions

and in his spirit. When my lamented chief placed the government of this

country in my hands, he wrote to me: “I appoint you for civilization

and progress sake.” I have done my best to justify the trust he had in

me, and that I have to some extent been successful and have won the

confidence of the natives is proved by the fact that I and my handful

of people have held our own up to the present day in the midst of

hundreds of thousands of natives. I remain here as the last and only

representative of Gordon’s staff. It therefore falls to me, and is my

bounden duty, to follow up the road he showed us. Sooner or later a

bright future must dawn for these countries; sooner or later these people

will be drawn into the circle of the ever advancing civilized world.

For twelve long years have I striven and toiled, and sown the seeds for

future harvest——laid the foundation stones for future buildings. Shall I

now give up the work because a way may soon open to the coast? never!”

As if anticipating the end, Stanley had already begun to call in the

detachments of his expedition. On February 18th Lieut. Stairs arrived

at Kavalli with his strong column from the remote Ituri. Meanwhile

negotiations were going on daily with Emin. The force he had brought

up the lake consisted of himself, Selim Bey, seven other officers, and

sixty-five people. Selim Bey became the spokesman for both Stanley

and Emin. He had just achieved a victory over the Madhi’s forces by

recapturing Duffle, killing 250 of the enemy and lifting the restraints

from Emin, himself. At length, on February 18th, the date of the arrival

of Lieut. Stairs, Selim, at the head of a deputation, announced to

Stanley a request on the part of Emin that he (Stanley) allow all the

equatorial troops and their families to assemble at Kavalli.

In reply Stanley explained fully the object of his expedition, and

offered to remain at Kavalli for a reasonable time in order to give

Emin’s forces an opportunity to join him. Selim and his deputation

retired satisfied, saying they would proceed at once to Wadelai and begin

the work of transportation. They started on February 26th. On the 27th,

Emin returned to Kavalli with his little daughter, Ferida, and a caravan

of 144 men. He and Stanley agreed that twenty days would be a reasonable

time in which to gather all the people and movables at Kavalli. These

twenty days were necessary to Stanley’s comfort, too, for much sickness

had prevailed among his forces, and now, under the ministrations of

Surgeon Parke, his active force had been raised from 200 to 280 men.

The refugees from Wadelai soon began to pour into Kavalli. They were a

mixture of soldiers, their wives and children, loaded with promiscuous

camp effects, most of which was practically rubbish, entailing great

labor in handling, and nearly all of which would have to be abandoned on

the subsequent march. Stanley saw the result of all this accumulation

and on March 16th issued orders to stop bringing the stuff to his camp.

But 1355 loads had already arrived, enough to embarrass the march of

ten times such a force as was then in camp. At this time Stanley was

gratified by a report from Selim announcing that the rebellious soldiers

and officers at Wadelai, and all of the people there, were anxious to

depart for Egypt under his escort. But while this was true of Wadelai, it

was not true of Kavalli, for Stanley discovered a conspiracy among the

promiscuous gathering there, which took the shape of a concerted attempt

on the part of Emin’s Egyptian soldiers to steal the arms of Stanley’s

Zanzibaris, and stir up general mutiny. Knowing that while Emin had been

praised for personal bravery and at the same time condemned for laxity of

discipline, and seeing that such a state of affairs would be fatal, both

in getting a start and in prosecuting a long march, Stanley decided on

immediate and resolute action. Forming his own men, armed with rifles,

into a square on the plateau, he ordered all of the Pasha’s people

into it. Those who refused to go, he arrested and forced in, or had

them placed in irons and flogged. They were then questioned as to their

knowledge of the conspiracy, but all denied having had anything to do

with it. Then all who desired to accompany Stanley were asked by Emin to

stand aside. They were told that the condition upon which they could go

was that of perfect obedience to Stanley’s orders as their leader, and

that extermination would speedily follow the discovery of any further

tricks. They promised a most religious obedience. This muster revealed

the fact that Emin’s followers numbered 600 people, necessitating the

enlistment of 350 new carriers. The entire number now ready for the march

was 1500 persons.

But on May 7th, Stanley received an intercepted letter from Selim Bey

which stated that the rebels at Wadelai had changed their mind, risen in

mutiny, and robbed the loyal forces of all their ammunition. They also

asked with the greatest effrontery that Stanley be called before them and

questioned as to his future objects before they consented to go with him.

The letter in addition contained hints of a plot to attack and capture

his expedition in case he started without giving them satisfaction.

Instantly Stanley assembled all the officers in his camp and asked them

if they felt he would be justified in remaining there after April 10th.

They all replied in the negative. Going to Emin, he said, “There Pasha,

you have your answer. We march on the 10th.” Emin asked whether they

could acquit him in their consciences for abandoning his people, alluding

to those who had not yet arrived from Wadelai. Stanley replied that they

could most certainly do so, as to all who had not arrived by the 10th.

All of Stanley’s accounts of this part of his expedition bear evidence of

trouble with Emin. He still trusted the rebellious soldiers, even those

who had agreed to leave for Egypt. He mistrusted Stanley’s ability to

reach Zanzibar with so numerous a caravan, on account of a lack of food.

He had left many valuable servants behind, whom he desired to take along,

but he said, “They are unwilling to accompany me.” This opened Stanley’s

eyes. He says, “It now became clear that the Pasha had lost his authority

at Wadelai, however obstinately he clung to his belief in his forces

there.”

May 10th came and Stanley started with his immense expedition for the

sea, his objective being Zanzibar, on the east coast of Africa. He had

promised Emin to march slowly for a few days in order to give Selim, with

such servants and stragglers as he might bring along, an opportunity to

overtake them, but he never saw them more. To pursue a route eastward

from Albert Nyanza was impracticable, for the powerful Unyoro and Uganda

tribes lay in that direction. These and other tribes had been infected

with the Mahdi spirit, and would therefore prove hostile. He therefore

chose a route in a southerly direction, till the extreme southern waters

of Victoria Nyanza had been rounded, when he would be on the natural

lines running from Zanzibar into the interior. Besides, this would bring

him through nearly 400 miles of practically undiscovered country.

Zanzibar, the objective point of the journey, is on an island of the same

name, twenty miles from the east coast of Africa, and in latitude 6°

South. It is a Mohammedan town of 30,000 people, with many good houses

and mosques. Though the soil is excellent and prolific of fruits and

vegetables, the town depends for its prosperity on trade and commerce.

When the slave trade was driven from the Atlantic coast of Africa, it

found its way to the eastern, or Pacific coast, and flourished in a

manner never before known. Zanzibar, always notorious as a slave depot,

became the recognized headquarters of the horrid traffic, and rapidly

rose to a position of great wealth and influence. Her slave market

attracted the notice and excited the disgust and indignation of strangers

of every creed and country. Nothing could be more revolting than sight

of the Arabic purchasers of slaves examining the build, the eyes, the

teeth, and all the physical qualities of the victims offered for sale

in the marts. Tens of thousands of slaves were known to pass through

Zanzibar annually on their way to various parts of Egypt and Turkey. On

the appearance of British cruisers on the coast, with orders to capture

and condemn all slave dhows, the Sultan of Turkey prohibited the traffic

at Zanzibar. But this only diverted its course. The next step was to

induce the Sultan to issue a general proclamation, prohibiting the trade

in all places on the coast, under his authority. This was done in 1876.

The result has been a considerable diminution of the infamous traffic,

which can now only be carried on by a system of smuggling, which incurs

much risk. Zanzibar is the most important starting point for travelers

and missionaries destined for Central Africa, and is a depot for such

supplies as may be needed from time to time.

[Illustration: SLAVE MARKET.]

From every point of view his route was well chosen. Skirting the Unyoro

country, he fell under their displeasure and became the victim of a

fierce attack, which he parried successfully. This opened his way for a

considerable distance along the ranges of mountains which pass under the

general name of the Baleggas These mountains rise to the immense height

of 18,000 to 19,000 feet, and their summits are capped with snow. The

huts of the natives were visible on their sides at altitudes of 8,000

feet. During their nineteen marches along the base of these ranges, their

severest obstacle was the Semliki river, a bold stream, 100 yards wide,

whose crossing was rendered doubly difficult by the Warasmas natives.

They formed an ambuscade, from which they delivered a single volley at

the travelers, but fortunately it proved ineffective. It did not take

much of a demonstration to put them to flight.

After a march of 113 days the southern waters of Victoria Nyanza were

reached. From this point Stanley sent letters to the coast stating that

his objective was now Mpwapwa, 230 miles inland, whither provisions

should be sent. This was done, and an armed escort was furnished him by

German officials thence to the coast, at Bagamoyo, opposite Zanzibar,

where the expedition arrived about December 1, 1889. Thence steamer was

taken to Zanzibar, where the hero of the expedition, together with Emin

Pasha, and all the officials, were received with open arms, fetes and

acclamations. Telegrams of congratulations poured in from crowned heads,

and all parts of the world. A sample from Queen Victoria types them all.

London, December 12th:

“My thoughts are after you and your brave followers, whose hardships

and dangers are at an end. I again congratulate you all, including

the Zanzibaris, who displayed such devotion and fortitude during your

marvelous expedition. I trust Emin Pasha is making favorable progress.”

One drawback to all these exultations at Zanzibar was the fact that Emin

Pasha, after escaping all the tribulations of the wilderness, had fallen

from the piazza of his hotel at Bagamoyo, on December 5th, and received

injuries of an alarming nature. The sad announcement of this clouded the

occasion somewhat, and gave a tone of melancholy to what would have been

unmixed gratulation.

In reply to a cablegram from the Emperor of Germany, Stanley said,

December 7th:

“Imperator et rex. My expedition has now reached its end. I have had

the honor to be hospitably entertained by Major Weismann and other of

your Majesty’s officers under him. Since arriving from Mpwapwa our

travels have come to a successful conclusion. We have been taken across

from Bagamoyo to Zanzibar by your Majesty’s ships Sperber and Schwalbe,

and all honors coupled with great affability, have been accorded

us. I gratefully remember the hospitality and princely affability

extended to me at Potsdam; and profoundly impressed with your Majesty’s

condescension, kindness and gracious welcome. With a full and sincere

heart I exclaim, long live the noble Emperor William.”

And writing for the general public, he says:

“Over and above the happy ending of our appointed duties, we have not

been unfortunate in geographical discoveries. The Aruwimi is now known

from its source to its bourne. The great Congo forest, covering as

large an area as France and the Iberian Peninsula, we can now certify

to be an absolute fact. The Mountains of the Moon this time, beyond the

least doubt, have been located, and Ruwenzori, “The Cloud King” robed

in eternal snow, has been seen and its flanks explored, and some of its

shoulders ascended, Mounts Gordon Bennett and Mackinnon cones being but

giant sentries warding off the approach to the inner area of ‘The Cloud

King.’

“On the south-east of the range the connection between Albert Edward

Nyanza and the Albert Nyanza has been discovered, and the extent of

the former lake is now known for the first time. Range after range of

mountains has been traversed, separated by such tracts of pasture land as

would make your cowboys out West mad with envy.

“And right under the burning Equator we have fed on blackberries and

bilberries, and quenched our thirst with crystal water fresh from snow

beds. We have also been able to add nearly six thousand square miles of

water to Victoria Nyanza.

“This has certainly been the most extraordinary expedition I have ever

led into Africa. A veritable divinity seems to have hedged us while we

journeyed. I say it with all reverence. It has impelled us whither it

would, effected its own will, but nevertheless guided and protected us.

“I gave as much good will to my duties as the strictest honor would

compel. My faith that the purity of my motive deserved success was firm,

but I have been conscious that the issues of every effort were in other

hands.

“Not one officer who was with me will forget the miseries he has endured,

yet everyone that started from his home destined to march with the

advance column and share its wonderful adventures is here to-day, safe,

sound and well.

“This is not due to me. Lieutenant Stairs was pierced with a poisoned

arrow like others, but others died and he lives. The poisoned tip came

out from under his heart eighteen months after he was pierced. Jephson

was four months a prisoner, with guards with loaded rifles around him.

That they did not murder him is not due to me.

“These officers have had to wade through as many as seventeen streams and

broad expanses of mud and swamp in a day. They have endured a sun that

scorched whatever it touched. A multitude of impediments have ruffled

their tempers and harassed their hours.

“They have been maddened with the agonies of fierce fevers. They have

lived for months in an atmosphere that medical authority declared to

be deadly. They have faced dangers every day, and their diet has been

all through what legal serfs would have declared to be infamous and

abominable, and yet they live.

“This is not due to me any more than the courage with which they have

borne all that was imposed upon them by their surroundings or the cheery

energy which they bestowed to their work or the hopeful voices which rang

in the ears of a deafening multitude of blacks and urged the poor souls

on to their goal.

“The vulgar will call it luck. Unbelievers will call it chance, but deep

down in each heart remains the feeling, that of verity, there are more

things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in common philosophy.

“I must be brief. Numbers of scenes crowd the memory.

“Could one but sum them into a picture it would have grand interest. The

uncomplaining heroism of our dark followers, the brave manhood latent in

such uncouth disguise, the tenderness we have seen issuing from nameless

entities, the great love animating the ignoble, the sacrifice made by

the unfortunate for one more unfortunate, the reverence we have noted

in barbarians, who, even as ourselves, were inspired with nobleness and

incentives to duty——of all these we would speak if we could, but I must

end with, thanks be to God forever and ever!”

This letter is characteristic of Stanley. The hardships of his journey

will fade from memory, but its successes will become historic. He has

made the “Dark Continent” dark no longer. To him and his undaunted

comrades the world owes a debt of gratitude it will be difficult to

repay. The vast tracts of hitherto unknown wilderness through which

he traveled will stimulate the enterprise of the pioneer, and the day

is not far distant——within the lifetime of our children’s children,

perhaps——when the shrill echo of the engine’s whistle will be heard on

the rugged sides of snow capped mountains which Stanley has explored;

when those illimitable forests will resound with the woodman’s axe, and

when the law of commerce will change the tawny native from a savage into

a self-respecting citizen. Barbarism will retire from its last stronghold

on the planet, as the darkness disappears when the sun rises over the

hilltops.

The dire distresses of his long journey, begun two and a-half years ago,

are beyond the reach of language. He merely hints at some of them and

leaves the rest to the imagination. We ponder his pathetic references

to the sturdy loyalty of companions and followers, “maddened with the

agonies of fierce fevers,” falling into their graves through the subtle

poison with which the natives tipped their arrows and spears, bravely

fighting their way through interminable swamps only to succumb at last,

and the conviction steals over us that such a story has never been told

before and may never be told again. He rescued Emin and his comrades,

who were “in daily expectation of their doom,” then turned his face

southward, made various and important explorations on his way, and at

last came within speaking distance of the millions who followed him from

the hour he entered the mouth of the Congo with a solicitude which no

other man of our time has commanded.

It would not do to close any account of Stanley’s brilliant career

without noting the fact that Emin Pasha, in one of his last published

letters, written after he was beyond all danger from Mahdi vengeance and

African climate, fully acknowledges the value of the aid sent him, and

makes it clear that his hesitation at availing himself of it was due

to that high sense of duty which had gained him the name of Emin, or

the Faithful One. The last and most trusted of Gordon’s lieutenant’s,

he regarded it as his “bounden duty” to follow up the road the General

showed him; and it must have been a wrench to tear himself away from the

life-work to which he had in a measure consecrated himself——to see the

labors of years thrown away, and all his endeavors come to naught. But it

could not be helped under the circumstances, and Emin, like many before

him, has had to succumb to the force of fate. And so ends for the present

the attempt to civilize the equatorial Provinces of Egypt. The ruler

of Egypt has formally renounced them, Gordon is dead, and his trusted

lieutenant has at last thrown up the sponge. It has been a strange and

eventful story, in which the heroes have been of the race which has done

so much for the regeneration of the dark places of the world. For a time

the dark and turbid waves of ignorance, of slavery, and of cruelty will

roll back over this part of the Dark Continent and pessimists will say

that nothing more can be done. But it is only for a time. The day will

surely come when the dreams of Gordon and of Emin will become actual

realities; and when that time comes we may be sure that the name of Henry

M. Stanley will be remembered and honored.

EGYPT AND THE NILE.

The historic approach to “The Dark Continent” is by way of storied Egypt

and its wonderful river, the Nile. In making this approach we must not

forget the modern commercial value of the route from Zanzibar, pursued

by Stanley (1871-72) while hastening to the rescue of Dr. Livingstone,

the great English explorer, nor of that other, by way of the Congo, which

bids fair to prove more direct and profitable than any thus far opened.

[Illustration: LIVINGSTONE AND STANLEY AT UJIJI.]

It was an enterprise as bold as any of those undertaken by hardy mariners

to rescue their brother sailors who had met shipwreck while striving

to unfold the icy mysteries which surround the North Pole. And, unlike

many of these, it was successful. The two great explorers shook hands

in October 1871, at Ujiji, on the banks of Lake Tanganyika, in the very

heart of the great forest and river system of Africa, and amid dark

skinned, but not unkind, strangers, who constitute a native people as

peculiar in all respects as their natural surroundings.

We mention this because it was a great achievement in the name of

humanity. Livingstone had started on this, his last, exploring tour in

1866, and had been practically lost in African wilds for nearly four

years. But it was a greater achievement in the name of science and

civilization, for it not only proved that “The Dark Continent” was more

easily traversable than had been supposed, but it may be set down as the

beginning of a new era in African exploration.

In all ages Africa has been a wonderland to the outside world. As the

land of Cush, in Bible story, it was a mystery. It had no bounds, but was

the unknown country off to the south of the world where dim legend had

fixed the dark races to work out a destiny under the curse laid upon the

unfortunate Ham.

Even after Egypt took somewhat definite meaning and shape in Hebrew

geography as “The Land of Mizriam,” or the “Land of Ham,” all else in

Africa was known vaguely as Ethiopia, marvellous in extent, filled with

a people whose color supported the Hamitic tradition, wonderful in

animal, vegetable and mineral resources. Thence came Sheba’s queen to see

the splendors of Solomon’s court, and thence emanated the long line of

Candaces who rivalled Cleopatra in wealth and beauty and far surpassed

her in moral and patriotic traits of character.

In olden times the gateway to Africa was Egypt and the Nile. As an

empire, history furnishes nothing so curious as Egypt; as a river nothing

so interesting as her Nile. We may give to the civilization of China and

India whatever date we please, yet that of Egypt will prove as old. And

then what a difference in tracing it. That of China and India rests,

with a few exceptions, on traditions or on broken crockery tablets

and confused shreds of ruins. That of Egypt has a distinct tracery in

monuments which have defied the years, each one of which is a book full

of grand old stories. We can read to-day, by the light of huge pillar

and queer hieroglyphic, back to Menes, the first Egyptian King, and to

Abydos, the oldest Egyptian city, and though the period be 4500 years

before Christ, scarcely a doubt arises about a leading fact. There was

wealth then, art, civilization, empire, and one is ever tempted to

ascribe to Egypt the motherhood of that civilization which the Hebrew,

Indian, Etruscan, Persian, Roman, Greek and Christian, carved into other

shapes.

Says the learned Dr. Henry Brugsch-Bey, who has spent thirty years among

Egyptian monuments and who has mastered their inscriptions, “Literature,

the arts, and the ideas of morality and religion, so far as we know, had

their birth in the Nile valley. The alphabet, if it was constructed in

Phœnicia, was conceived in Egypt, or developed from Egyptian characters.

Language, doubtless, is as old as man, but the visible symbols of

speech were first formulated from the hieroglyphic figures. The early

architecture of the Greeks, the Doric, is a development of the Egyptian.

Their vases, ewers, jewelry and other ornaments, are copies from the

household luxury of the Pharaohs.”

The influence of Egypt on the Hebrew race has a profound interest for the

whole Christian world. Let the time of Abraham be fixed at 1900 B.C. The

Great Pyramid of Egypt, built by the first Pharaoh of the fourth dynasty,

had then been standing for 1500 years. Egypt had a school of architecture

and sculpture, a recorded literature, religious ceremonies, mathematics,

astronomy, music, agriculture, scientific irrigation, the arts of war,

ships, commerce, workers in gold, ivory, gems and glass, the appliances

of luxury, the insignia of pride, the forms of government, the indices

of law and justice, 2000 years before the “Father of the Faithful” was

born, and longer still before the fierce Semitic tribes of the desert

gave forth their Hebrew branch, and placed it in the track of authentic

history.

In the Bible we read of the “God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of

Jacob.” In the prayer of King Khunaten, dating long before any biblical

writing, we find a clear recognition of one God, and a reaching out of

the soul after him, embraced in a language without parallel for beauty of

expression and grandeur of thought. Ages before the giving of the law on

Sinai and the establishment of the Hebrew ceremonial worship, the “Book

of the Dead,” with its high moral precepts, was in the possession of

every educated Egyptian.

The Jews went out of Egypt with a pure Semitic blood, but with a modified

Semitic language. They carried with them in the person of their great

leader, Moses, “all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” This is shown by

their architecture, religious customs, vestments, persistent kindred

traditions. Both Moses and Jesus were of the race whose early lessons

were received with stripes from Egyptian masters. The hieroglyphical

writings of Egypt contained the possibilities of Genesis, the Iliad, the

Psalms, the Æneid, the Inferno, and Paradise Lost. In the thought that

planned the Hall of Columns upon the Nile, or sculptured the rock temple

of Ammon, was involved the conception of Solomon’s Temple, the Parthenon,

St. Peters, Westminster Abbey and every sacred fane of Europe and America.

Therefore, travel and exploration in this wonderful land, the remote

but undoubted source of letters, morals, sciences and arts, are always

interesting. Thebes, Memphis, Zoan-Tanis, Pitom, Tini, Philæ, Bubastis,

Abydos, are but as fragments of mighty monuments, yet each discloses

a story abounding in rich realities and more striking in its historic

varieties than ever mortal man composed. But for the powerful people that

made the Nile valley glow with empire, but for the tasteful people that

made it beautiful with cities and monuments, but for the cultured people

that wrote on stone and papyrus, were given to costly ceremonies, and who

dreamed of the one God, the Israelites would have recrossed the Isthmus

of Suez, or the Red Sea, without those germs of civilization, without

those notions of Jehovah, which made them peculiar among their desert

brethren, and saved them from absorption by the hardy tribes of Arabia

and Syria.

[Illustration: ROSETTA STONE.]

In going from Europe across the Mediterranean to Egypt, you may think

you can sail directly into one of the mouths of the Nile, and ascend that

stream till the first cataract calls a halt. But neither of the great

mouths of the Nile give good harbors. Like those of our own Mississippi,

they are narrow and exposed by reason of the deposits they continually

carry to the sea. The two main mouths of the Nile——it has had several

outlets in the course of time——are over a hundred miles apart. The

Western, or Rosetta, mouth was once the seat of a famed city from whose

ruins were exhumed (1799) the historic “Rosetta Stone,” now in the

British Museum. It was found on the site of a temple dedicated by Necho

II. to Tum, “The Setting Sun;” and the inscription itself, written in

three kinds of writing, Greek, hieroglyphic, and enchorial, or running

hand, was a decree of the Egyptian Priests assembled in synod at Memphis

in favor of Ptolomy Epiphanes, who had granted them some special favor.

Its great value consisted in the fact that it afforded a safe key to the

reading of the hieroglyphical writings found on all Egyptian monuments.

[Illustration: M. DE LESSEPS.]

The Eastern, or Damietta, mouth of the Nile gives a better harbor, but

the boats are slow. Beyond this is Port Said, where you can enter the

ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez and pass to the Red Sea. But you

are not now in the Egypt you seek. There are no verdant meadows and

forests of date palms and mulberry, which give to the interior of Lower

Egypt——covered with numerous villages and intersected by thousands of

canals——the picturesque character of a real garden of God. You only see a

vast sandy plain, stretching on either side of the canal. It is a sea of

sand with here and there little islands of reeds or thorny plants, white

with salty deposits. In spite of the blue sky, the angel of death has

spread his wings over this vast solitude where the least sign of life is

an event.

[Illustration: CLEOPATRA.]

Speaking of canals, reminds one that this Suez Canal, 100 miles long,

and built by M. de Lesseps, 1858-1869, was not the first to connect the

waters of the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. One was projected B.C. 610

by Pharaoh Necho, but not finished till the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus,

which ran from the Red Sea to one of the arms of the Nile. It was

practically out of use in the time of Cleopatra.

The best Mediterranean port of Egypt is Alexandria, the glory of which

has sadly departed. It is far to the west of the Rosetta mouth of the

Nile, but is connected by rail with Cairo. Though founded 330 B.C., by

Alexander the Great, conqueror of Egypt, as a commercial outlet, and

raised to a population, splendor and wealth unexcelled by any ancient

city, it is now a modern place in the midst of impressive ruins. Its

mixed and unthrifty population is about 165,000.

As you approach it you are guided by the modern light house, 180 feet

high, which stands on the site of the Great Light of Pharos, built

by Ptolemy II., 280 B.C., and which weathered the storms of sixteen

centuries, lighting the sea for forty miles around. It was of white

marble and reckoned as one of the “Seven Wonders of the World.”

Standing in the streets of Alexandria, what a crowd of historic memories

rush upon you. You are in Lower Egypt, the Delta of the Nile, the country

of the old Pharaohs whose power was felt from the Mediterranean to the

Mountains of the Moon, whose land was the “black land,” symbol of plenty

among the tribes of Arabia and throughout all Syria, land where the

Hebrews wrought and whence they fled back to their home on the Jordan,

land of the Grecian Alexander, the Roman Cæsar, the Mohammedan Califf.

[Illustration: PHAROS LIGHT.]

No earthly dynasty ever lasted longer than that of the Pharaohs. We

hardly know when time began it, but Brugsch dates it from Menes, B.C.

4400. It fell permanently with Alexander’s Conquest, 330 B.C., and was

held by his successors, the Greek Ptolemeys, for three hundred years,

or until the Romans took it from Cleopatra, whose name is perpetuated

in the famous Cleopatra’s Needles, which for nearly 2000 years stood as

companion pieces to Pompey’s Pillar.

The Pillar of Pompey, 195 feet high, still stands on high ground

southeast of the city, near the Moslem burial place. But the Needles

of Cleopatra are gone. Late investigations have thrown new light on

these wonders. They were not made nor erected in honor of Cleopatra at

all, but were historic monuments erected by the Pharaoh, Thutmes III.,

1600 B.C., at Heliopolis, “City of the Sun.” The two largest pair were,

centuries ago, transported, one to Constantinople, the other to Rome.

The two smaller pair were taken to Alexandria by Tiberius and set up

in front of Cæsar’s Temple, where they obtained the well known name of

“Cleopatra’s Needles.” One fell down and, after lying prostrate in the

sand for centuries, was taken to London in 1878 and set up on the banks

of the Thames. It is 68 feet high, and was cut out of a single stone from

the quarries of Syene. The other was taken down and transported to New

York, where it is a conspicuous object in Central Park. They bear nearly

similar inscriptions, of the time of Thutmes III. and Rameses II.

[Illustration: ALEXANDER THE GREAT.]

Egypt fell into the hands of the Saracen invaders in A.D. 625, and has

ever since been under Mohammedan or Turkish rule. The Alexandria of the

Ptolemeys with its half million people, its magnificent temples, its

libraries and museums, its learning and art, its commerce for all the

world, has lost all its former importance, and is to-day a dirty trading

town filled with a mixed and indolent people.

[Illustration: A CLEOPATRA NEEDLE IN ALEXANDRIA.]

There is no chapter in history so sweeping and interesting as that

which closed the career of Alexandria to the Christian world. It was

the real centre of Christian light and influence. Its bishops were

the most learned and potential, its schools of Christian thought the

most renowned. It was in commerce with all the world and could scatter

influences wider than any other city. It had given the Septuagint version

of the Bible to the nations. All around, it had made converts of the

Coptic elements, which were native, and Egypt’s natural defenders in case

of war. But these it had estranged. Therefore the Saracen conquest was

easy. Pelusium and Memphis fell. Alexandria was surrounded, and fell A.D.

640. “I have taken,” says Amrou, “the great city of the west with its

4000 palaces, 4000 baths, 400 theatres, 12,000 shops, and 40,000 Jews.”

Amrou would have spared the great library of 700,000 volumes. But the

Califf’s (Omar’s) answer came, “These books are useless if they contain

only the word of God; they are pernicious if they contain anything else.

Therefore destroy them.”

Aside from the monuments above mentioned, there is little else to connect

it with a glorious past except the catacombs on the outskirts, which are

of the same general character as those at Rome. These catacombs possess a

weird interest wherever they exist. They abound in one form or another in

Egypt, and are found in many other countries where, for their extent and

curious architecture, they rank as wonders.

[Illustration: IN THE SERAPEION.]

Those lately unearthed in the vast Necropolis of Memphis, and called the

Serapeion, were the burial place of the Egyptian God Apis, or Serapis,

the supreme deity represented by the bull Apis. This sacred bull was not

allowed to live longer than twenty-five years. If he died before that

age, and of natural causes, he was embalmed as a mummy and interred

in the Serapeion with great pomp. Otherwise, he was secretly put to

death and buried by the priests in a well. In the Serapeion are some

magnificent sarcophagi in granite, and inscriptions which preserve the

Egyptian chronology from 1400 B.C. to 177 B.C.

[Illustration: BRONZES OF THE EGYPTIAN GOD APIS.]

[Illustration: ROMAN CATACOMBS.]

The great catacombs at Rome were the burial places of the early

Christians. It was supposed they were originally the quarries from

which the building stone of the city had been taken. But while this is

true of the catacombs of Paris, it is now conceded that those of Rome

were cut out for burial purposes only, less perhaps to escape from the

watchfulness of despotic power, than in obedience to a wish to remain

faithful to the traditions of the early church which preserved the Jewish

custom of rock or cave sepulture. These catacombs are of immense and

bewildering proportions. Their leading feature is long galleries, the

sides of which are filled with niches to receive the remains. At first

these galleries were on a certain level, twenty to thirty feet below the

surface. But as space was required, they were cut out on other levels,

till some of the galleries got to be as much as three hundred feet below

the surface. There are some attempts at carving and statue work about the

remains of illustrious persons, and many inscriptions of great historic

value, but in general they have been much abused and desecrated, and we

are sorry to say chiefly by Christian peoples, mostly of the time of

the Crusades, who found, or supposed they would find, rich booty, in

the shape of finger rings and other precious things laid away with the

dead. MacFarlane, in his book upon the catacombs, tells of a company

of gay young officers of the French army who entered them on a tour of

inspection. They had plenty of lights, provisions, wine and brandy,

and their exploration became a revel. They finally began to banter one

another about venturing furthest into the dark labyrinthine recesses.

One, as impious as he was daring, refused to leave the crypts till he

had visited all. Darting away, torch in hand, he plunged into gallery

after gallery, until his torch began to burn low and the excitement

of intoxication left him. With great difficulty he found his way back

to the chapel where he had left his companions. They were gone. With

still greater difficulty he reached the entrance to the catacomb. It

was closed. He shouted frantically, and madly beat upon the railings

with a piece of tombstone. But it was night and no one could hear. In

desperation he started back for the chapel. He fell through a chasm

upon crackling, crumbling bones. The shock to his nerves was terrible.

Crawling out, he reached the chapel, amid intolerable fear. He who had

many a time marched undauntedly on gleaming lines of bayonets and had

schooled himself to look upon death without fear, was not equal to the

trials of a night in a charnel house. His thirst became intolerable. He

stumbled upon a bottle left by his companions and, supposing it contained

water, drank eagerly of its contents. In a few moments the drink acted

with violence and, in his delirium, he became the victim of wild visions.

Spectres gathered around him. The bones of the dead rose and clattered

before him. Fire gleamed in eyeless skulls. Fleshless lips chattered and

shrieked till the caves echoed. Death must soon have been the result of

this fearful experience had not morning come and brought fresh visitors

to the catacombs, who discovered the young officer in a state of stupor

and took him to the hospital. For months he lay prostrate with brain

fever. He had been taught the weakness of man in that valley of the

shadow of death, and ever after gave over his atheistic notions, and

lived and died a christian.

You may leave Alexandria by canal for the Nile, and then sail to Cairo.

You will thus see the smaller canals, the villages, the peasantry, the

dykes of the Nile, the mounds denoting ruins of ancient cities. You will

see the wheels for raising water from the Nile by foot power, and will

learn that the lands which are not subject to annual overflow must be

irrigated by canals or by these wheels. You will see at the point where

the Nile separates into its Damietta and Rosetta branches, the wonderful

Barrage, or double bridge, intended to hold back the Nile waters for the

supply of Lower Egypt without the need of water wheels. It is a mighty

but faulty piece of engineering and does not answer its purpose. From

this to Cairo the country gets more bluffy and, ere you enter the city,

you may catch glimpses of the Pyramids off to the right.

[Illustration: THE MASSACRE OF THE MAMELUKES.]

But the speediest route from Alexandria is by rail. You are soon whirled

into the Moslem city. Cairo is not an ancient city, though founded

almost on the site of old Egyptian Memphis. It is Saracen, and was then

_Kahira_ (Cairo) “City of Victory,” for it was their first conquest under

Omar, after they landed and took Pelusium. It was greatly enlarged and

beautified by Saladin after the overthrow of the Califfs of Bagdad. It

dates from about A.D. 640.

It is a thickly built, populous (population 327,000) dirty, noisy, narrow

streeted, city on the east bank of the Nile. Its mosques, houses,

gardens, business, people, burial places, manners and customs, tell at a

glance of its Mohammedan origin. Its mosques are its chief attraction.

They are everywhere, and some of them are of vast proportions and great

architectural beauty. The transfer of the Mameluke power in Egypt to the

present Khedives was brought about by Mohammed Ali, an Albanian. The

Mamelukes were decoyed into the citadel at Cairo and nearly all murdered.

One named Emim Bey escaped by leaping on horseback from the citadel. He

spurred his charger over a pile of his dead and dying comrades; sprang

upon the battlements; the next moment he was in the air; another, and he

released himself from his crushed and bleeding horse amid a shower of

bullets. He fled; took refuge in the sanctuary of a mosque; and finally

escaped into the deserts of the Thebaid. The scene of this event is

always pointed out to travelers.

[Illustration: VEILED BEAUTY.]

It is a city divided into quarters——the European quarter, Coptic quarter,

Jewish quarter, water carriers’ quarters, and so on. The narrow streets

are lined with bazaars——little stores or markets, and thronged by a

mixed populace——veiled ladies, priests in robes, citizens with turbaned

heads, peddlers with trays on their heads, beggars without number, desert

Bedouins, dervishes, soldiers, boatmen and laborers.

Abraham sent Eliezer to find a wife for Isaac. Matrimonial agents still

exist in Cairo in the shape of Khatibehs, or betrothers. They are women,

and generally sellers of cosmetics, which business gives them opportunity

to get acquainted with both marriageable sons and daughters. They get to

be rare matchmakers, and profit by their business in a country where a

man may have as many wives as he can support.

Your sleep will be disturbed by the Mesahhar who goes about the city

every morning to announce the sunrise, in order that every good Moslem

may say his prayers before the luminary passes the horizon.

There is no end to the drinking troughs and fountains. Joseph’s well,

discovered and cleaned out by Saladin, is one of the leading curiosities.

It is 300 feet deep, cut out of the solid rock, with a winding staircase

to the bottom.

West of the Nile and nearly opposite Cairo, is the village of Ghiseh,

on the direct road to the pyramids, mention of which introduces us to

ancient Egypt and the most wonderful monuments in the world.

Menes, “the constant,” reigned at Tini. He built Memphis, on part of

whose site Cairo now stands, but whose centre was further up the Nile.

The Egyptian name was Mennofer, “the good place.” The ruins of Memphis

were well preserved down to the thirteenth century, and were then

glowingly described by an Arab physician, Latif. But the stones were

gradually transported to Cairo, and its ruins reappeared in the mosques

and palaces of that place.

Westward of the Nile, and some distance from it, was the Necropolis of

Memphis——its common and royal burying ground, with its wealth of tombs,

overlooked by the stupendous buildings of the pyramids which rose high

above the monuments of the noblest among the noble families who, even

after life was done, reposed in deep pits at the feet of their lords and

masters. The contemporaries of the third (3966 B.C. to 3766 B.C.), fourth

(3733 B.C. to 3600 B.C.) and fifth (3566 B.C. to 3333 B.C.) dynasties are

here buried and their memories preserved by pictures and writings on the

walls of their chambers above their tombs. This is the fountain of that

stream of traditions which carries us back to the oldest dynasty of that

oldest country. If those countless tombs had been preserved entire to us,

we could, in the light of modern interpretation, read with accuracy the

genealogies of the kings and the noble lines that erected them. A few

remaining heaps enable us to know what they mean and to appreciate the

loss to history occasioned by their destruction.

They have served to rescue from oblivion the fact that the Pharaohs of

Memphis had a title which was “King of Upper and Lower Egypt.” At the

same time he was “Peras,” “of the great house”——written Pharaoh in the

Bible. He was a god for his subjects, a lord par excellence, in whose

sight there should be prostration and a rubbing of the ground with noses.

They saluted him with the words “his holiness.” The royal court was

composed of the nobility of the country and servants of inferior rank.

The former added to dignity of origin the graces of wisdom, good manners,

and virtue. Chiefs, or scribes carried on the affairs of the court.

The monuments clearly speak of Senoferu, of the third dynasty, B.C. 3766.

A ravine in the Memphian Necropolis, where are many ancient caverns,

contains a stone picture of Senoferu, who appears as a warrior striking

an enemy to the ground with a mighty club. The rock inscriptions mention

his name, with the title of “vanquisher of foreign peoples” who in his

time inhabited the cavernous valleys in the mountains round Sinai.

The Pharaohs of the fourth dynasty were the builders of the hugest of the

pyramids. The tables discovered at Abydos make Khufu the successor of

Senoferu. Khufu is the Cheops of the historian Herodotus. His date was

3733 B.C.

No spirited traveler ever sets foot on the black soil of Egypt, without

gazing on that wonder of antiquity, the threefold mass of the pyramids

on the steep edge of the desert, an hour’s ride over the long causeway

extending out from Ghiseh. The desert’s boundless sea of yellow sand,

whose billows are piled up around the gigantic pyramids, deeply entombing

the tomb, surges hot and dry far up the green meadows and mingles with

the growing grass and corn. From the far distance you see the giant forms

of the pyramids, as if they were regularly crystalized mountains, which

the ever-creating nature has called forth from the mother soil of rock,

to lift themselves up towards the blue vault of heaven. And yet they are

but tombs, built by the hands of men, raised by King Khufu (Cheops) and

two other Pharaohs of the same family and dynasty, to be the admiration

and astonishment of the ancient and modern world.

[Illustration: PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT.]