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THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT.
[Illustration:
_After Walery._] _Frontispiece._
H. M. STANLEY.
]
THROUGH THE
DARK CONTINENT
OR
THE SOURCES OF THE NILE
AROUND THE GREAT LAKES OF EQUATORIAL AFRICA
AND DOWN THE LIVINGSTONE RIVER
TO THE ATLANTIC OCEAN
BY
HENRY M. STANLEY
AUTHOR OF “IN DARKEST AFRICA,” “HOW I FOUND LIVINGSTONE,”
“MY KALULU,” ETC.
MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS
WITH A NEW PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR, WRITTEN FOR THIS EDITION.
VOL. I.
LONDON: GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED
SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND
1899
_RE-ISSUE
BY ARRANGEMENT WITH MESSRS. SAMPSON LOW,
MARSTON AND COMPANY, LTD._
=Dedication.=
-------
THE HEARTY ENCOURAGEMENT AND LIBERAL MEANS WHICH ENABLED ME
TO PERFORM THE MISSION ENTRUSTED TO ME,
OF EXPLORING THE DARK CONTINENT OF AFRICA AND SOLVING MANY INTERESTING
GEOGRAPHICAL PROBLEMS,
AND TO FITTINGLY REWARD THE FAITHFUL SURVIVORS,
INDUCE ME TO MAKE PUBLIC MY DEEP PERSONAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
BY DEDICATING THIS WORK, WHICH RECORDS ITS RESULTS, TO THE
PROMOTERS OF THE ENTERPRISE,
MR. J. M. LEVY AND Mr. EDWARD L. LAWSON,
_Proprietors of the ‘Daily Telegraph,’_
AND
MR. JAMES GORDON BENNETT,
_Proprietor of the ‘New York Herald,’_
AND IN CONSEQUENCE OF THE GREAT AND CONSTANT INTEREST MANIFESTED
BY HIM IN THE SUCCESS OF THE UNDERTAKING, I MUST
BE PERMITTED TO ADD THE NAME OF
MR. EDWIN ARNOLD, C.S.I., AND F.R.G.S.
WITHOUT THE PATRONAGE, FULL CONFIDENCE, AND CORDIAL SYMPATHY OF
THESE GENTLEMEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO ACCOMPLISH
THE TASK NOW HAPPILY COMPLETED.
H. M. STANLEY.
ORIGINAL PREFACE.
Before these volumes pass irrevocably out of the Author’s hands, I take
this, the last, opportunity of addressing my readers. In the first
place, I have to express my most humble thanks to Divine Providence for
the gracious protection vouchsafed to myself and my surviving followers
during our late perilous labours in Africa.
In the second place, I have to convey to many friends my thanks for
their welcome services and graceful congratulations, notably to Messrs.
Motta Viega and J. W. Harrison, the gentlemen of Boma who, by their
timely supplies of food, electrified the Expedition into new life; to
the sympathizing society of Loanda, who did their best to spoil us with
flattering kindness; to the kindly community of the Cape of Good Hope,
who so royally entertained the homeward-bound strangers; to the
directorates of the B. I. S. N. and the P. and O. Companies, and
especially to Mr. W. Mackinnon of the former, and Mr. H. Bayley and
Captain Thomas H. Black of the latter, for their generous assistance
both on my setting out and on my returning; to the British Admiralty,
and, personally, to Captain Purvis, senior officer on the West Coast
Station, for placing at my disposal H.M.S. _Industry_, and to Commodore
Sullivan, for continuing the great favour from the Cape to Zanzibar; to
the officers and sailors of H.M.S. _Industry_, for the great patience
and kindness which they showed to the wearied Africans; and to my
friends at Zanzibar, especially to Mr. A. Sparhawk, for their kindly
welcome and cordial help.
In the next place, to the illustrious individuals and Societies who have
intimated to me their appreciation of the services I have been enabled
to render to Science, I have to convey the very respectful expression of
my sense of the honours thus conferred upon me—to his Majesty King
Humbert of Italy, for the portrait of himself, enriched with the
splendid compliment of his personal approbation of my services,[1] which
with the gold medal received from his royal father, King Victor Emanuel,
will for ever be treasured with pride—to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, for
the distinguished honour shown me by his personal recognition of my
work—to H.H. the Khedive of Egypt, for the high distinction of the Grand
Commandership of the Order of the Medjidie, with the Star and Collar—to
the Royal Geographical Society of London for its hearty public reception
of me on my return, and for the highly valued diploma of an Honorary
Corresponding Member subsequently received—to the Geographical Societies
and Chambers of Commerce of Paris, Italy, and Marseilles, for the great
honour of the Medals awarded to me[2]—to the Geographical Societies of
Antwerp, Berlin, Bordeaux, Bremen, Hamburg, Lyons, Marseilles,
Montpellier, and Vienna, and to the Society of Arts of London, for the
privilege of Honorary Membership to which I have been admitted—to the
very numerous distinguished gentlemen who have lent the influence of
their authority in the worlds of Science, Letters, and Society to the
public favour so liberally extended to me—to all these do I wish to
convey my keen appreciation of the honours and favours of which I have
been the recipient. And for yet another honour I have to express my
thanks—one which I may be pardoned for regarding as more precious,
perhaps, than even all the rest. The Government of the United States has
crowned my success with its official approval, and the unanimous vote of
thanks passed in both Houses of the Legislature has made me proud for
life of the Expedition and its achievements.
Alas! that to share this pride and these honours there are left to me
none of those gallant young Englishmen who started from this country to
cross the Dark Continent, and who endeared themselves to me by their
fidelity and affection: alas! that to enjoy the exceeding pleasure of
rest among friends, after months of fighting for dear life among
cannibals and cataracts, there are left so few of those brave Africans
to whom, as the willing hands and the loyal hearts of the Expedition, so
much of its success was due.
That the rule of my conduct in Africa has not been understood by all, I
know to my bitter cost; but with my conscience at ease, and the simple
record of my daily actions, which I now publish, to speak for me, this
misunderstanding on the part of a few presents itself to me only as one
more harsh experience of life. And those who read my book will know that
I have indeed had “a sharp apprehension and keen intelligence” of many
such experiences.
With reference to the illustrations, I should mention that I carried a
photographic apparatus with me across the Continent, and so long as my
dry plates held out I never lost an opportunity of obtaining a good
view, and when my plates were used up I found the reflection of the
scenes on the ground glass of my camera an invaluable aid to my
unpractised pencil.
In conclusion, I have to thank Mr. Phil. Robinson, the author of ‘In my
Indian Garden,’ for assisting me in the revision of my work. My
acknowledgments are also due to Lieut. S. Schofield Sugden, R.N., for
the perseverance and enthusiasm with which he recalculated all my
observations, making even the irksome compilations of maps a pleasant
task. In their drawing and engraving work, Mr. E. Weller and Mr. E.
Stanford, and in the intelligent reproduction of my pictures, Mr. J. D.
Cooper, have earned my thanks, and in no less a degree Messrs. William
Clowes and Sons, for the care and despatch with which these volumes have
been prepared for the public.
H. M. S.
LONDON, _Nov. 15, 1879_.
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1899.
---
‘THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT’ was first published in June, 1878, and now
that, after an interval of twenty years, another fully illustrated
edition is to be issued, it has been thought desirable by the publishers
that I should employ the opportunity of reviewing a few of the amazing
changes that have taken place in the regions described in the book.
Public speakers, I observe, when they have occasion to refer to the
remarkable progress made of late years in Equatorial Africa, vaguely
date it as having begun some twenty-five or thirty years ago. In
reality, however, the first glimmerings of the dawn only appeared in the
latter part of 1875, which was soon after the publication of my appeal
for missionaries to Uganda. Although the appeal was almost immediately
responded to by the Church Missionary Society, and a sum of £24,000 was
collected, the missionaries did not leave England until April, 1876, and
it was the 30th June, 1877, before two of the band landed in Uganda.
These two pioneer missionaries, and a third, who had been left behind at
the south end of Lake Victoria, were, with myself, the sole Europeans in
all Equatorial Africa on that date. I happened to be then about two
hundred miles from the west coast, laboriously working my way down the
cataracts of the Congo, to put the finishing touch to my exploration of
the course of that river, while over two thousand miles eastward of me
my two fellow-countrymen were preparing for the great work of converting
Uganda to Christianity.
But, after all, the arrival of the missionaries, though an important
event, and one that has had large consequences, was but a sign of the
dawn. Scepticism as to any good resulting from the bold missionary
venture was very general in England, and the publications of the C. M.
Society prove that, for some years afterwards, no great hope of success
was entertained, and, as if to add to the public disbelief in the
efficacy of missionary effort among negro pagans, there came, almost
simultaneously with my return from Africa early in the following year,
the sad news that two out of the three missionaries had been massacred.
Thus, at the beginning of that year, 1878, the surviving missionary in
Uganda was the sole white man in all the regions bordering the African
equator.
The publication of this book in the following June excited unusual,
indeed, I may truly say extraordinary, interest throughout Europe. It
was translated into many languages, and the aggregate sales were
prodigious. In this country, in France, Germany, Belgium, and Italy, it
was discussed from every point of view. It led to much controversy,
personal and general, but the British public did not take kindly to the
suggestions for immediate action in Africa contained in it. England lost
the opportunity of selecting unquestioned her field for enterprise, and
so long was she indifferent to the Continent, and the splendid
possibilities that awaited her, that Equatorial Africa was well-nigh
closed to her altogether.
It happened that there was one person on the Continent who manifested
much more than an abstract interest in Africa, and had, indeed,
solicited my services for the development of the Dark Continent—within a
few minutes of my return to Europe—but had generously admitted that the
people in whose interest I had made my explorations should have the
first claim on them. This person was King Leopold II., whose wonderful
character and extraordinary ability were then unknown to the world. No
Englishman living, not even the geographical expert, paid such close
attention to my letters in the _Daily Telegraph_, my book and speeches
on African subjects, as did the King, and no man shared my zeal and
hopes for Africa as did His Majesty. I waited from January to November,
1878, to see if on this side of the Channel any serious notice was
likely to be taken of my suggestions; but finding public feeling
impossible to be aroused here, I then crossed the Channel, and accepted
the post of chief agent to the _Comité des Etudes du Haut Congo_, of
which King Leopold was President.
As an illustration of the general indifference in this country to what
had been written and spoken about Africa during 1878, I quote what took
place between two members of the Royal Geographical Council and myself
on a certain date of June of that year.
These two gentlemen called at my rooms, and, seeing my original map of
the Congo hanging up, one of them, after a perusal of some of the notes
written along the course, turned to me and asked—
“How long do you think it will be before a white man revisits Stanley
Falls?”
“Two or three years, I suppose,” I replied.
“Two or three years!” he exclaimed. “I expected you were going to say
fifty years.”
“Fifty years!” I cried. “Why, I will venture to wager that, before
twenty years are over, there will not be a hundred square mile tract
left to be explored in the entire Continent.”
“Oh, come,” said the other gentleman, “that is too sanguine a view
altogether. I will take your bet—shall we say £10?—and book it.”
We booked it there and then. The twenty years have lately expired, but
though I cannot claim to have won the wager, it must be admitted that my
hasty prediction has closely approached fact.
About the same time, Sir Rutherford Alcock, then President of the Royal
Geographical Society, remarked, in his Annual Address, that I had told
him that, with money enough, Africa could not only be explored, but
civilised and converted into orderly states. It did not seem to me that
there was anything surprising in that, but to Sir Rutherford it appeared
worthy of public notice. It is of value here only as an indication of
the general ignorance that then prevailed in all circles as regards
Africa.
Seven years later, after seeing the establishment of one of the African
states that promised to be civilised some day, I was introduced by a
Canon of Westminster Abbey to a well-known Bishop as one who had “done
good work on the Congo.”
“Oh, indeed!” said his Lordship, smilingly, “how very interesting; but,”
he added, hesitatingly, “I am really not sure that I know where the
Congo is.”
As may be imagined, I was a picture of wide-eyed surprise. For every
newspaper in the country had been for months daily publishing something
or other about the Congo Conference, and I thought that surely one of
the princes of the Church must have caught sight of the name; but such
had been the Bishop’s culpable inattention to great events in Africa,
that the name even had not attracted his notice.
Resuming my proper subject, I became chief agent on the Congo. Every now
and then during the six years that I occupied that position, directing
the advance into the Congo basin, reports of our doings frequently
reached England in one form or another, and still the trend of events
seemed unperceived there, though there was considerable stir in Germany,
France, Portugal, and Belgium.
Neither, apparently, were the actions of the Germans on the borders of
Cape Colony in 1883-84 of a character to excite alarm, suspicion, or
even intelligent alertness in the British mind. Lord Derby was not in
the least disturbed by the curious inquisitive tone of Bismarck’s
despatches relating to South Africa, and Lord Granville failed to
comprehend the drift of Bismarck’s anxiety about the German settlement
at Angra Pequena, or that the presence of a German warship in South
African waters signified anything.
When it was too late, however, to prevent the seizure of a large
territory neighbouring Cape Colony, the British rubbed their eyes, and
found that a European Power, which might make itself unpleasant some day
to our South African colonists, had wilfully planted itself in close
proximity to the Boer states, with which we had already more than once
grave misunderstandings. It was then inferred that a similar move, a
little further inland, by either the Boers or Germans, would perpetually
confine British South Africa to within the narrow limits of Cape Colony,
and a suspicious manœuvre of a German ship of war in Eastern South
Africa confirmed the British Government that longer delay would be
disastrous to British interests, and the Warren Expedition, which
secured to us Bechuanaland, and an open way to the Zambesi, was the
result. But before the Berlin Conference of 1884-5 was held, Germany had
become the owner of important possessions at various places in
Occidental Africa, and was projecting other surprises of a similar kind.
During the sittings of the Conference, which had met to decide the
future of the Congo, the words and acts of the assembled
Plenipotentiaries received due attention from every journal of
importance in the United Kingdom, but they did not appear to impress the
public mind as closely affecting British interests. Yet much was
happening that, had the warning which was sounded occasionally by
experts been taken properly to heart, the significance of the Conference
would have been easily recognised.
On the Continent, however, the diplomatic discussions had a most
stimulating effect. The people of every state now studied their African
maps with a different purpose from the acquisition of mere geographical
knowledge. Societies, miscalled “commercial, geographical, or
scientific,” sprang into existence like mushrooms throughout France,
Germany, Italy, Belgium, and Sweden, and in a short time numerous
expeditions, disguised by innocent titles, were prepared for Africa.
Within two days after the signing of the General Act of the Conference,
the German Emperor proclaimed a protectorate in East Africa over
countries whose names were even unknown until the appearance of this
book. Our Foreign Secretary was in such dread of Prince Bismarck that he
not only acquiesced in this bold act, but obsequiously hastened to
instruct our representative at Zanzibar to use his undeniable influence
in promoting German interests, and lessen his zeal for our own.
To-day, living as we do under a powerful Unionist Government, which has
just triumphed over the Mahdi’s successor, and recovered nearly all that
the Government of that period had lost, these events may appear
incredible, but 1884-85 was a singularly disastrous period for British
prestige. The aged statesman who then presided over England’s affairs
was fast declining in power and ability; but as his influence still
continued supreme, the nation was powerless to avert the blunders and
misfortunes that so repeatedly shocked us. However, not to dwell upon
this painful subject, let me say that when Lord Granville signified to
Prince Bismarck that England would oppose no obstacles to German designs
in Africa, it naturally followed that the Prince would interpret this as
meaning that England would surrender all claims to territory that the
Germans might think desirable, and accordingly the East African
Protectorate expanded in a marvellously brief time from the coast to the
Tanganika, and threatened to absorb the whole of East Africa from
Mozambique to the Gulf of Aden. Though priority of discovery and
exploration may not under all circumstances constitute a full title to
territory, it is certainly aggrieving to find another nation rudely
thrusting itself into the field and forcibly seizing upon it.
Fortunately, however, a Company had been formed in 1885 to take over a
small concession obtained by Mr. H. H. Johnston at Taveta in East
Africa, and as the Germans encroached upon it, Lord Rosebery, who had
become Foreign Secretary, took the opportunity of making a firm protest
against it, which served to arrest the wholesale absorption that had
been meditated, and gave the necessary time for a fuller development of
the British project. A delimitation of territory was determined upon to
define that which was claimed by Great Britain, Germany, and Zanzibar,
and meanwhile the operations of the British Company were suspended to
avoid a clashing of interests, and through Lord Rosebery’s protest the
Germans likewise agreed to prevent their agents from making any new
acquisitions in the debatable zone.
In November, 1886, an understanding was arrived at which recognised the
sovereignty of Zanzibar as existing over Zanzibar and Pemba, and the
smaller islands, within a radius of twelve sea miles of them, as also
over those of Lamu and Mafia, and a strip of the mainland ten sea miles
in depth.
East Africa was delimited into two spheres of influence, divided by the
mouth of the Umbe River, the northern base of Kilimanjaro Mountain, and
thence by a line stretching to the eastern shore of the Victoria Nyanza
at the 1st degree of south latitude.
On the 25th May, 1887, the Sultan of Zanzibar signed a fifty years’
concession of all his rights remaining to him, after the lease he had
given to Germany on the 4th December previous, to the British East
African Association. In April of the following year the Association,
having through its agents concluded treaties with the native tribes to a
distance of two hundred miles inland, became the Imperial British East
African Company with the nominal capital of £2,000,000, for the purpose
of administering the Zanzibar Concession, acquiring territory, and to
undertake trading operations.
Meantime, early in 1887, four months previous to the formation of the
British East African Association, I had started on my fourth expedition
into the Dark Continent, with the object of carrying relief to Emin
Pasha, to whom had been entrusted the government of the Egyptian
provinces near the Equator, by the late General Gordon. Few persons at
the time knew that Emin Pasha was only another name for a Dr. Edouard
Schnitzer, and that he was a German Israelite by birth. The fund for the
relief was contributed to equally by the Egyptian Government and Sir
William Mackinnon’s personal friends.
The story of the march to Emin’s relief and his arrival at the Zanzibar
coast with my expedition, has been related in detail in ‘Darkest
Africa,’ and there is no necessity to give even a summary of it here.
During the journey through the Aruwimi Forest and thence to Zanzibar,
we were able to add considerably to our knowledge of the Equatorial
regions. That of the great forest itself, with its pigmies and
cannibals, was no mean addition, but our march eastward led to the
discovery of the snowy range called Ruwenzori, the interesting Semliki
Valley and its river, which by following upward brought us in view of
the Albert Edward Nyanza, and enabled me to identify it as the lake
I had first seen in January, 1876. The topography of the intra-lake
region became also much better known; and a little later the outline of
the Victoria Nyanza received enlargement by the finding of an unknown
south-western bay of important dimensions.
These discoveries were, however, unimportant compared to the effects
following our return home and the publication of our experiences. The
Brussels Conference of 1890 was preparing to sit, and it was not
difficult to impress the Plenipotentiaries with the immediate
necessities of the Dark Continent, such as railways, prohibition of
importing fire-arms, the suppression of slave-raiding, etc., etc. On the
Congo State authorities our revelations had a still more marked effect.
Preparations were then commenced to deal with the slave-raiders of the
Congo, and the despatch of Vankherkhovin’s Expedition to the Upper
Welle, that of Captain Stairs to Katanga, and for the definite
construction of the railway to Stanley Pool. The spirit of annexation
was once more roused, and there was what might be called a race for the
possession of the undelimited region west of Lake Victoria. The British
East African Company’s troops were pushed into Uganda, and the
expeditions under Mr. Jackson, Captain Lugard, Major Eric Smith, and Mr.
Piggott, performed excellent service in their various explorations.
One of the most important effects of this renewed _furore_ was the
conclusion in July of a Treaty between Great Britain and Germany, which
nullified the efforts of Emin Pasha and of Dr. Peters to seize upon
Uganda and the lake regions west of it. The German Government agreed to
surrender all the territory it occupied or claimed north of the British
sphere, and the protectorate of Witu and the coast up to Kismayu was
transferred to England. This Treaty not only extended the British
possessions to the Abyssinian frontier, thus excluding any European
competitor for influence on the Upper Nile, but established a British
Protectorate over the Sultanate of Zanzibar. In return for the claims
surrendered by Germany, England ceded Heligoland, and for the sum of
£200,000 Germany received the sovereignty and revenue of the African
coast between the Rovuma and the Umbe Rivers.
From the following list of African explorers who have crossed Africa
since this book was issued, it will be recognised at a glance how rapid
has been the increase of geographical knowledge:—
1. Serpa Pinto From Benguella to Durban 1877-1879.
2. Herman von Wissman ” Mossamedes to Quilimane 1881-1882.
3. Arnot the Missionary ” Durban to Benguella 1881-1884.
4. Capello and Ivens ” Mossamedes to Quilimane 1884-1885.
5. Gleerup ” Banana Pt. to Bagamoyo 1883-1886.
6. Dr. Lenz ” Banana Pt. to Quilimane 1885-1887.
7. Herman von Wissman ” Banana Pt. to Quilimane 1886-1887.
(2nd journey)
8. Mons. Trivier ” Loango to Quilimane 1888-1889.
9. Stanley’s second journey ” Banana Pt. to Bagamoyo 1887-1889.
10. Dr. Johnston ” Benguella to Zambezi Mouth 1891-1892.
11. Count von Gotzen ” Pangani to Banana Pt. 1893-1894.
12. M. Moray ” Bagamoyo to Banana Pt. 1892-1895.
13. E. I. Glave ” Zambezi Mouth to Lower 1893-1895.
Congo
14. Mons. Miot ” Zambezi Mouth to Lower 1893-1896.
Congo
15. Mons. Versepuy ” Bagamoyo to Kabinda 1895-1896.
16. M. Descamps et Chargois ” Zambezi Mouth to Kabinda 1893-1896.
17. M. Foa ” Zambezi Mouth to Banana 1896-1898.
18. Mr. Lloyd ” Mombasa to Banana 1897-1898.
While previous to the book, since the beginning of the century, there
had only been three trans-African explorations:—
1. Livingstone From St. Paul da Loanda to 1854-1856.
Quilimane
2. Lieut. Cameron, R.N. ” Bagamoyo to Benguella 1873-1875.
3. Stanley’s first journey ” Bagamoyo to Mouth of the 1874-1877.
Congo
With regard to the numerous other expeditions which took place since
1878, there is no space for mention, but Joseph Thomson’s travels, _viâ_
Nyassa, to the Tanganika, and his brilliant journey through Masai Land;
Count Teleki and Von Hohnel’s travels in Eastern Africa, which resulted
in the discovery of Lakes Rudolf and Stephanie; Captain Bottego’s
journey through Somali Land, and Dr. Donaldson Smith’s exploration of
Somali and Galla Lands were of the first importance. It has, however,
required the services of some hundreds of travellers since 1878 to fill
up the sum of our present knowledge of the Continent.
In 1878 there was not one European-built boat in all Equatorial Africa.
By 1881 there were five, but by December 31st, 1898, there were
seventy-two steamers and one hundred and sixty-four steel boats or
barges, while there is a very large addition to the African flotillas
either on its way, or in process of construction. It may be imagined
how much these vessels have expedited exploration when I say that out
of the seventeen trans-African explorers no less than thirteen of them
were transported with their followers and effects some hundreds of
miles on their way.
Even as late as 1890 the construction of railways in Equatorial Africa
had not been begun, though years of zealous efforts had been made by
myself and others to induce capitalists to undertake them, knowing as we
did that they were the best instruments that civilisation could employ
for the moral, material, and social elevation of the dark peoples. But
just as it took years upon years of publications and speeches to
dissipate the unreasoning terror of Africa in the European mind, it
required years of preaching and encouraging to induce railway
constructors to try Africa as the theatre of their operations. Soon
after the conclusion of the Emin Expedition the Congo Railway was
commenced, and to-day it is fully employed in traffic, and the 500-franc
shares are worth 1700 francs per share, which may be taken as a proof
that the shareholders’ faith has been munificently rewarded. By the
latest news from East Africa we learn that two hundred and forty miles
of the Mombasa and Nyanza Railway have been laid, and it is predicted
that by May next the locomotive will reach the half-way point to Lake
Victoria. In German East Africa thirty miles of railway have been in
operation for some time, but there are serious railway projects under
consideration, and, it may be, an attempt will shortly be made at
construction on an important scale. Meantime, however, the coloured
troops are being employed in making a road suitable for wheeled traffic
between the port of Dar-es-Salaam and Ujiji, _viâ_ Kilossa and Tabora,
and thus far mules have been used with great success.
But though there are not yet five hundred miles of railway open for
traffic in Equatorial Africa, considerable extensions are under
construction, or being meditated. The British East Africa Railway will,
of course, be continued as far as Lake Victoria, as Parliament has
provided the necessary money. The Congo State having successfully
completed the railway connecting the lower with the upper river, is
carrying out surveys for other railways on the Upper Congo. The Zambezi
will also in a short time be connected by rail with Lake Nyassa, and we
learn that the Bulawayo Railway is to be extended to the Tanganika Lake.
My predictions in regard to Africa have so singularly approached
realisation thus far that I am tempted on a safer prophecy, which is,
that by 1918, there will be five thousand miles of iron roads where
there are now not five hundred.
When my letters, calling attention to the spiritual and material needs
of Africa, used to appear in the columns of the _Daily Telegraph_ in
1874-77, there was neither mission, school, church, nor any legitimate
trade started in the regions near the African Equator. But since 1877
wonderful changes in this respect have taken place. The statistics we
have received from the Uganda Protectorate alone tell a remarkable tale
of progress. According to these there have been 372 churches and
missions established, at which there are 97,575 Christian converts.
About 100 Europeans are living in the Protectorate, and the first
official report (for 1897) announced that trade to the value of £30,000
had been begun. It will be remembered, perhaps, that it was for long a
debatable question whether we should retain Uganda or abandon it.
The country of which the first few chapters of this book treat is now
mainly German East Africa. What a change has come over it! No one could
have foreseen or dreamed at the time of my march through it that Germany
could ever have become the controller of its destiny. I dreamed visions
of the future often in the wilds, such as that described in Chapter X.,
but I saw no Teuton in my dreams. However, it may be all for the best
that Germany has annexed it, and England owes too much to Germany for
waking her out of her somnolence to begrudge what Bismarck obtained so
boldly. The white population of this colony at the end of last year
numbered 922, of whom 678 are Germans, and the trade amounted in value
to £600,000. It will, no doubt, be a long time before the Arab coast
towns undergo any external change, but within their character and scenes
are altogether altered. German militarism, which as we know is of the
strictest kind, bears no resemblance to Arab supineness and neglect or
to Arab customs. The small boys have taken kindly to the dominant
spirit, and practise the forms in vogue among the military. There are
custom-houses at every port, and permits for travel and sport inland can
only be obtained through the goodwill of the Governor. The drastic
measures of Von Wissman have long ago suppressed the slave-trade, and
the slave-market is now only a memory.
The coast towns are connected by telegraph with each other, and there
is cable communication, _viâ_ Zanzibar, with Europe. Ujiji, the port
on Lake Tanganika where I met Livingstone in 1871, possesses now quite
a civilised appearance. Its Government buildings are of stone and
two-storied, and a long wide street, shaded by mangoes and other fruit
trees, runs through the centre of the town. German capital, to the
value of £697,000, has been invested in tobacco, coffee, cocoa, tea,
cardamom, and vanilla plantations; and I am glad to learn that the Game
Laws are strict and effective.
The change in Equatorial Africa is nowhere more conspicuous than in that
part described in Chapters XXI.-XXXIV. It may be imagined from the fact
that a Brussels statistician has collected the titles of 3800 printed
works which have been published since 1878 and refer to this part, and
in his chronological table he records forty-eight separate explorations
of the region.
The progress of trade in the Congo basin can be best represented by the
following brief table of imports and exports:—
──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────
│ Years. │ Imports. │ Exports. │ Total. │
──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────
│ │ £ │ £ │ £ │
│ 1893 │ 367,004│ 300,592│ 667,596│
│ 1894 │ 447,789│ 441,268│ 889,057│
│ 1895 │ 427,434│ 485,426│ 912,860│
│ 1896 │ 609,111│ 603,645│ 1,212,756│
│ 1897 │ 887,258│ 698,284│ 1,585,542│
──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────
The average value of the annual exports during each of the five
preceding years (1888-92) amounted to only £207,921.
From the inception of the Congo State in 1879 to the year 1890 the King
of the Belgians personally defrayed all the expenditure; but on July
3rd, 1890, the Belgian Government came to His Majesty’s assistance with
a lump sum of £200,000, and an annual subsidy, to last ten years, of
£80,000 per annum. This amount, with the King’s personal subsidy, was
for some years later the main support of the State; but in 1898 the
revenue from all sources is estimated to amount to £590,608, while the
expenditure is £99,477 in excess.
This excess of expenditure some unkindly critics in this country
attribute to extravagance, ambition, and what not; but the King
justifies his policy by comparing himself to one who had come to a great
but wholly undeveloped estate, which was bound to remain unproductive
unless a liberal expenditure was incurred for such improvements as would
expose its resources and make all parts of it accessible. Now what the
Congo State was in 1879 can best be seen by Chapters XXIV.-XXIX. To the
ordinary white man it was what may well be termed impenetrable, except
at constant peril of his life. It was ravaged by cannibals, fierce
warlike tribes, and slave-raiders, and destructive influences of every
kind tended to maintain its humanity in an eternal struggle for life and
liberty. There were no roads, or means by which the country could be
explored. Every tribe barred the ingress of the traveller; and its
frontiers on all sides lay exposed to any white stranger who took the
trouble to plant a flag; and finally it was made incumbent on every
Power owning African possessions to make its occupation effective. Such
primary necessities of the State involved large and endless expenses,
and few men other than King Leopold would have so long sustained the
great undertaking from his private purse. From 1879 to 1890 His Majesty
spent about £900,000, and since then the total expenditure of the State
has been nearly £3,000,000. To meet this His Majesty’s subsidies,
amounting to £360,000, the aid from Belgium, £200,000, the Belgian
annual subsidies, £720,000, customs duties and taxes, £1,900,000, make a
total revenue of £3,180,000, and prove a deficit of £720,000.
As an offset against the deficit, the State possesses nineteen steamers
and forty steel barges of the value of £100,000; Government
establishments, which we may estimate at £500,000; arms, ammunition,
goods, coal, and lumber, at £100,000; investments in the railway,
telegraph, and commercial societies, and plantations, to the value of
about £400,000—the whole of which aggregate £1,100,000. To these, which
may be rightly taken as assets of the State, should be added the
increment of the land which at present in some places sells at £80 the
hectare, for factories and commercial purposes at £4 the hectare, and
for agriculture at 8s. the hectare. If the State were offered for sale
the value of the land made accessible to market by railway and steam
communication would have to be considered. Beyond what has been
specified as the State assets, consideration must be given to the now
assured growth of the revenue. To-day, exclusive of the subsidies, it
amounts to £470,602. When the State reaps the results of its generous
aid to the planters of coffee, tea, cocoa, etc., to the railway, now
completed, and to the commercial companies, who are now not restricted
in their transport of goods and produce, there must necessarily be a
material increase each year in the revenue. From all of which summary it
does not appear to me that the position of the State is financially
unsound; indeed, I am inclined to think it to be otherwise.
His Majesty’s policy has been to start the State on lines that must end
in prosperity, without regard to personal labour or personal cost, and
by his munificent pecuniary advances to the railway, commercial
societies, planters, timber merchants, and agriculturists, the result
has been that capital to the amount of several millions sterling has
gravitated to the Congo. Personally, he may never recover a penny of the
£900,000 he devoted to the creation of the State, but to that he is
indifferent. Whatever surplus the revenue may furnish will certainly be
devoted to assist new enterprises, new railways, increase of shipping,
telegraph lines—to anything, in short, that promises expansion of the
resources of the State, and enhances the value of the legacy he proposes
to bequeath to the people of whom he is King and loyal servant.
An honourable friend of mine has lately delivered a lecture before the
Statistical Society with a view to prove that the Congo State was
financially a failure. It would be useless, in this place, to do more
than present the balance sheet of four African territories, and ask him
and those who agree with him to give it a fair consideration.
════════════════════════╤═══════════╤═══════════╤════════════╤══════════
Name of State │ Years. │ Receipts.│Expenditure.│ Deficits.
or Territory. │ │ │ │
────────────────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼────────────┼──────────
│ │ £ │ £ │ £
{│ 1891 │ 182,197│ 182,197│ —
{│ 1892 │ 192,035│ 189,279│ —
{│ 1893 │ 266,580│ 217,627│ —
{│ 1894 │ 310,181│ 295,342│ —
{│ 1895 │ 324,650│ 294,837│ —
Congo State {│ 1896 │ 414,396│ 329,452│ —
{│ 1897 │ 374,770│ 405,675│ 30,905
{│ 1898 │ 590,602│ 690,079│ 99,477
_The first year_ } {│(estimated)│} 798,660│ 786,918│ —
_of the railway._ } {│ 1899 │} │ │
│───────────│───────────│────────────│───────────
British East Africa │ 1897 │ 32,670│ 134,346│ 101,676
German East Africa │ 1897 │ 218,495│ 298,260│ 79,765
German Cameroons │ 1897 │ 58,328│ 69,170│ 10,842
════════════════════════╧═══════════╧═══════════╧════════════╧══════════
The Uganda Protectorate, having been established but lately, would
naturally present a still more unsatisfactory balance sheet than any of
the four territories above mentioned, but it is not derogatory to either
British or German Africa that their deficits are so large, for the
Congo, during the state of undevelopment, had absolutely no receipts at
all, except King Leopold’s subsidy, to meet the expenditure. There is no
necessity to labour this matter, but I think it is sufficiently proved
that my honourable friend has been mistaken in his views about the
financial condition of the Congo State.
As a fitting conclusion to this preface, I here append a table which
will exhibit at a glance the advance of Equatorial Africa during the
last twenty years.
────────────────────┬────────┬──────┬─────────┬─────────┬─────────┬──────────
│ │ │ │ │ │
State or Territory. │ White │Miles │ No. of │ No. of │Value of │Revenues,
│ Popul- │ of │Missions,│Christian│ Imports │including
│ ation. │Rail- │ Schools │Converts.│ and │Subsidies.
│ │ way. │ or │ │Exports. │
│ │ │Churches.│ │ │
────────────────────┼────────┼──────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────
Congo State │ 1,678│ 250│ 67│ 10,000│1,585,542│ 590,602
Uganda Protectorate │ 100│ ..│ 372│ 97,575│ 28,400│ 142,000
British E. Africa │ 101│ 237│ 6│ 600│ 218,800│ 102,670
British Cent. Africa│ 300│ ..│ 55│ 5,000│ 116,264│ 30,000
French Congo │ 300│ ..│ 25│ 2,500│ 452,282│ 123,622
German E. Africa │ 922│ 30│ 15│ 2,500│ 638,000│ 218,495
German Cameroons │ 253│ ..│ 5│ 900│ 465,000│ 58,328
────────────────────┼────────┼──────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────
Totals │ 3,651│ 517│ 545│ 119,075│3,504,288│ 1,265,717
────────────────────┴────────┴──────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┴──────────
Remarkable as has been the progress of the above territories hitherto,
my most sincere wish is that there may be still greater acceleration of
it during the next twenty years.
HENRY M. STANLEY.
_January 1st, 1899._
CONTENTS.
---
EXPLANATION.
PAGE
PART I.—My new mission—_The Daily Telegraph_—“_Yes; Bennett_”—
The _Lady Alice_—My European staff—Disappointed applicants and
thoughtful friends—My departure for Africa. PART II.—The
Sources of the Nile—Herodotus on the Nile—Burton on the Nile
basin—Lake Tanganika—Lake Victoria—Speke, Grant, and Cameron—
The Livingstone River—The work before me 1
CHAPTER I.
Arrival at Zanzibar Island—Life at Zanzibar—The town of
Zanzibar, its roadstead and buildings—The One Cocoa-nut Tree
and the red cliffs—Selection and purchase of goods for the
journey—Residence of Prince Barghash—Busy mornings—Pleasant
rides and quiet evenings 22
CHAPTER II.
Seyyid Barghash—His prohibition of slavery, character, and
reforms—Treaty with British Government by Sir Bartle Frere—
Tramways the need of Africa—Arabs in the interior—Arabs in
Zanzibar—Mtuma or Mgwana?—The Wangwana, their vices and
virtues—A Mgwana’s highest ambition—The Wanyamwezi “the coming
race” 31
CHAPTER III.
Organization of the Expedition—The _shauri_—“Poli-poli”—Msenna’s
successful imposture—Black sheep in the flock—The _Lady Alice_
remodelled—Sewing a British flag—Tarya Topan, the millionaire—
Signing the covenants—“On the word of a white man”—Saying
good-bye—Loading the dhows—Vale!—Towards the Dark Continent 43
CHAPTER IV.
Bagamoyo—Taming the dark brother—Bagamoyo in a ferment—An
exciting scene—The disturbance quelled—The Universities
Mission, its origin, history, decline and present condition—
The Rev. Edward Steere—Notre Dame de Bagamoyo—Westward ho!—In
marching order—_Sub Jove fervido_—Crossing the Kingani—The
stolen women 55
CHAPTER V.
On the march—Congorido to Rubuti—The hunting-grounds of
Kitangeh—Shooting zebra—“Jack’s” first prize—Interviewed by
lions—Geology of Mpwapwa—Dudoma—“The flood-gates of heaven”
opened—Dismal reflections—The Salina—A conspiracy discovered—
Desertions—The path lost—Starvation and deaths—Trouble
imminent—Grain huts plundered—Situation deplorable—Sickness in
the camp—Edward Pocock taken ill—His death and funeral 70
CHAPTER VI.
From Chiwyu to Vinyata—Kaif Halleck murdered—The magic doctor—
Giving away the heart—Deeds of blood—“The white men are only
women”—A three days’ fight—Punishment of the Wanyaturu—The
ubiquitous Mirambo—The plain of the Luwamberri—In a land of
plenty—Through the open country—“I have seen the lake. Sir,
and it is grand!”—Welcomed at Kagehyi 93
CHAPTER VII.
A burzah held—Paying off recruits—Kagehyi becomes a great
trading centre—A Central African “toper”—Prince Kaduma—Hopes
of assistance from him relinquished—The boat ready for sea—No
volunteers—Selecting my crew—The start for the
circumnavigation of Lake Victoria 116
CHAPTER VIII.
Afloat on the lake—We catch a guide—Saramba’s terror—The
Shimeeyu—Pyramid Point—The island of Ukerewé—In the haunts of
crocodiles—Shizu Island—The hippopotami—Ururi—The headlands of
Goshi—Bridge Islands—Volcanoes—U-go-weh—The inebriates of
Ugamba—Treachery at Maheta—Primitive man—The art of pleasing—A
night at Uvuma—Mobbed by Wavuma—Barmecide fare—Message from
Mtesa—“In the Kabaka’s name”—Camp on Soweh Island 123
CHAPTER IX.
An extraordinary monarch—I am examined—African “chaff”—Mtesa,
Emperor of Uganda—Description of Mtesa—A naval review—Arrival
at the Imperial capital—Mtesa’s palace—Fascination of the
country—I meet a white man—Col. Linant de Bellefonds—The
process of conversion—A grand mission field—A pleasant day
with Col. de Bellefonds—Starting for my camp 147
CHAPTER X.
Parting with Colonel Linant—Magassa’s vanity and disloyalty—The
sailors’ island—Jumba’s Cove—Uganda—Dumo—The Alexandra Nile—
Lupassi Point—In danger at Mkongo—Alone with Nature—Insect
life—Dreams of a happier future—A dark secret—Murabo and the
fish—Alice Island—A night never to be forgotten—The treachery
of Bumbireh—Saved!—Refuge Island—Wiru—“Go and die in the
Nyanza!”—Back in camp—Sad news 166
CHAPTER XI.
Barker’s illness and death—Other deaths—Traitors in the camp—
Rest!—Sickness—Rwoma blocks our passage by land—Magassa fails
us by water—A serious dilemma—Lukongeh comes to the rescue—
History of Ukerewé—Educated amphibians—Leaving Kagehyi with
half the Expedition—The foundering canoes—All saved—Ito
conciliates us—Arrival at Refuge Island with half the
Expedition—I return for the rest—A murderous outbreak in camp—
Final departure from Kagehyi—All encamped on Refuge Island—We
ally ourselves with Komeh—A dance of kings—Mahyiga Island (in
the Bumbireh group)—Interviewed by Iroba canoes—Our friendship
scorned—The king of Bumbireh a hostage—The massacre of the
Kytawa chief and his crew—The punishment of the murderers—Its
salutary effect upon their neighbours—We arrive in Uganda 190
CHAPTER XII.
We find Mtesa at war—“Jack’s Mount”—Meeting with Mtesa—The
Waganda army in camp and on the march—The imperial harem—In
sight of the enemy—The Waganda fleet—Preliminary skirmishing—
The causeway—The massacre of Mtesa’s peace party—“What do you
know of angels?”—Mtesa’s education proceeds in the intervals
of war—Translating the Bible—Jesus or Mohammed?—Mtesa’s
decision—The royal proselyte 233
CHAPTER XIII.
The war-drum beaten—The wizards play their part—In full
war-paint—Bullets against spears—The Wavuma baulked—Mtesa’s
fury—Victory or the stake!—Hard fighting—The captive chief:
a struggle between the pagan and the Christian—A floating
mystery—“Return, O spirit! the war is ended!”—The camp on
fire: a race for life 256
CHAPTER XIV.
The legend of the Blameless Priest—The heroes of Uganda: Chwa;
Kimera, the giant; Nakivingi; Kibaga, the flying warrior;
Ma’anda; Wakinguru, the champion; Kamanya, the conqueror of
the Wakedi; Suna, the cruel; his massacre of the Wasoga;
Namujurilwa, the Achilles of Uganda; Setuba and his lions;
Kasindula the hero, peasant, and premier—Mtesa the mild-eyed 270
CHAPTER XV.
Life and manners in Uganda—The Peasant—The Chief—The Emperor—The
Land 299
CHAPTER XVI.
TO MUTA NZIGÉ AND BACK TO UGANDA.
The ladies of Mtesa’s family—Sambuzi ordered to take me to Muta
Nzigé—My last evening with Mtesa—_En route_ for Muta Nzigé—
Sambuzi suffers from the “big head”—We come to an
understanding—The white people of Gambaragara—War music—Through
a deserted country—Sinister auguries—A cowards’ council of
war—Panic in the camp—Sambuzi announces his intention of
deserting me—The flight when none pursued—The “Spoiler” eaten
up—Mtesa tries to persuade me to return—At Kafurro 326
CHAPTER XVII.
Kafurro and its magnates—Lake Windermere—Rumanika, the gentle
king of Karagwé—His country—The Ingezi—Among the mosquitoes—
Ihema Island—The triple cones of Ufumbiro—Double-horned
rhinoceros—The hot springs of Mtagata—The Geographical Society
of Karagwé—The philosophy of noses—Rumanika’s thesauron—Some
new facts about the rhinoceros and elephant—Uhimba—Paganus,
var. esuriens—Retrospect 356
CHAPTER XVIII.
The twin rivers—Mankorongo baulked of his loot—Poor Bull!
True to the death—Msenna breaks out again—The Terror of
Africa appears on the scene—Mars at peace—“Dig potatoes,
potatoes, potatoes”—Mirambo, the bandit chief, and I make
blood-brotherhood—Little kings with “big heads”—Practical
conversion of the chief of Ubagwé—The Watuta, the Ishmaelites
of Africa—Their history—African nomenclature—From Msené across
the Malagarazi to Ujiji—Sad memories 379
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
---
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
NO. PAGE
1. H. M. STANLEY. (_After Walery_) _Frontispiece_
2. VIEW FROM THE ROOF OF MR. AUGUSTUS _To face page_ 32
SPARHAWK’S HOUSE. (_From a photograph_)
3. BURYING OUR DEAD IN HOSTILE TURU: VIEW OF ” 92
OUR CAMP
4. RECEPTION BY KING MTESA’S BODY-GUARD AT ” 148
USAVARA
5. MTESA, THE EMPEROR OF UGANDA. (_From a ” 152
photograph_)
6. RECEPTION AT BUMBIREH ISLAND, VICTORIA ” 174
NYANZA
7. THE STRANGE GRANITE ROCKS OF WEZI ISLAND, ” 194
MIDWAY BETWEEN USUKUMA AND UKEREWÉ. (_From
a photograph_)
8. VIEW OF THE BAY LEADING TO RUGEDZI CHANNEL ” 202
FROM KIGOMA, NEAR KISORYA, SOUTH SIDE OF
UKEREWÉ, COAST OF SPEKE GULF. (_From a
photograph_)
9. VIEW OF RIPON FALLS FROM THE UGANDA SIDE. ” 234
(_From a photograph_)
10. THE OUTFALL OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA; RIPON ” 236
FALLS, WHICH GIVE BIRTH TO THE VICTORIA
NILE. CAMP OF REAR GUARD ON HILL. (_From a
photograph_)
11. THE VICTORIA NILE, NORTH OF RIPON FALLS, ” 240
RUSHING TOWARDS UNYORO, FROM THE USOGA
SIDE OF THE FALLS. (_From a photograph_)
12. ONE OF THE GREAT NAVAL BATTLES BETWEEN THE ” 260
WAGANDA AND THE WAVUMA, IN THE CHANNEL
BETWEEN INGIRA ISLAND AND CAPE NAKARANGA
13. THE NAPOLEON CHANNEL, LAKE VICTORIA, FROM ” 268
THE HEIGHTS ABOVE THE RIPON FALLS.
FLOTILLA OF THE EMPEROR OF UGANDA CROSSING
FROM USOGA TO UGANDA. (_From a photograph
by the Author_)
14. RUBAGA, THE NEW CAPITAL OF THE EMPEROR MTESA ” 308
15. MTESA’S AMAZONS. (_From a photograph by the ” 314
Author_)
16. MARCHING THROUGH UNYORO: MOUNT GORDON-BENNETT ” 336
IN THE DISTANCE
---------------------
SMALLER ILLUSTRATIONS.
17. THE ‘LADY ALICE’ IN SECTIONS 4
18. VIEW OF A PORTION OF THE SEA-FRONT OF ZANZIBAR FROM THE 22
WATER BATTERY TO SHANGANI POINT. (_From a photograph_)
19. RED CLIFFS BEHIND UNIVERSITIES MISSION 28
20. A HOUSE AT ZANZIBAR 31
21. SEYYID BARGHASH 32
22. COXSWAIN ULEDI, AND MANWA SERA, CHIEF CAPTAIN. (_From a 39
photograph_)
23. NEW CHURCH ON SITE OF OLD SLAVE MARKET, ZANZIBAR 42
24. TARYA TOPAN 50
25. “TOWARDS THE DARK CONTINENT” 54
26. UNIVERSITIES MISSION AT KANGANI, ZANZIBAR. (_From a 61
photograph_)
27. WIFE OF MANWA SERA. (_From a photograph_) 65
28. THE EXPEDITION AT ROSAKO. (_From a photograph_) 70
29. VIEW FROM THE VILLAGE OF MAMBOYA 73
30. OUR CAMP AT MPWAPWA. (_From a photograph_) 76
31. “IN MEMORIAM.” EDWARD POCOCK, DIED JANUARY 17, 1875 92
32. MNYAMWEZI PAGAZI 111
33. VIEW OF KAGEHYI FROM THE EDGE OF THE LAKE. (_From a 113
photograph_)
34. FRANK POCOCK. (_From a photograph_) 114
35. BRIDGE ISLAND 131
36. CAIRN ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF FREDERICK BARKER: MAJITA 189
AND URURI MOUNTAINS IN THE DISTANCE, ACROSS SPEKE GULF.
(_From a photograph_)
37. AT THE LANDING-PLACE OF MSOSSI; VIEW OF KITARI HILL TO THE 197
LEFT; MAJITA MOUNTAIN TO THE RIGHT. (_From a
photograph_)
38. NATIVES, UTENSILS, &C. OF UKEREWÉ 199
39. SKETCH MAP: CAPE NAKARANGA 244
40. THE FLOATING FORTLET MOVING TOWARDS INGIRA ISLAND 265
41. FISH FOUND IN LAKE VICTORIA 269
42. HUTS OF EAST CENTRAL AFRICA 303
43. AUDIENCE HALL OF THE PALACE 309
44. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 323
45. NGOGO FISH 325
46. IMPLEMENTS AND WEAPONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA 327
47. MOUNT EDWIN ARNOLD 339
48. HOUSE AND WOODEN UTENSILS OF UZIMBA AND ANKORI 343
49. CANOES AND PADDLES OF AFRICA 354
50. RUMANIKA’S TREASURE-HOUSE 360
51. A NATIVE OF UHHA 363
52. VIEW OF UFUMBIRO MOUNTAINS FROM MOUNT NEAR MTAGATA HOT 365
SPRINGS
53. GROUND PLAN OF KING’S HOUSE 372
54. TREASURE-HOUSE, ARMS, AND TREASURES OF RUMANIKA 373
55. “BULL.” (_From a photograph_) 381
56. SEROMBO HUTS 383
57. A “RUGA-RUGA,” ONE OF MIRAMBO’S PATRIOTS 385
58. ONE OF THE WATUTA 393
---------------------
MAPS.
EQUATORIAL AFRICA (SEGUNDO O MAPPA DE DAPPER), _To face page_ 10
1676
MAPPA DE KRAPE, REBMANN, LIVINGSTONE & ERHARDT, ” 12
1849-56
LIVINGSTONE, BURTON AND SPEKE, SPEKE & GRANT AND ” 14
VON DER DECKEN, 1856-1863
SCHWEINFURTH, BAKER, LIVINGSTONE, STANLEY & ” 18
CAMERON, 1866-75
STANLEY, 1874-77 ” 20
A MAP OF THE ROUTE OF STANLEY “THROUGH THE DARK ” 49
CONTINENT,” 1874-1877, AS WELL AS OF THE EMIN
PASHA RELIEF EXPEDITION THROUGH AFRICA
SKETCH MAP; CAPE NAKARANGA ” 244
THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT.
---
EXPLANATION.
PART I.
My new mission—The _Daily Telegraph_—“_Yes; Bennett_”—The _Lady Alice_—
My European staff—Disappointed applicants and thoughtful friends—My
departure for Africa. PART II. The sources of the Nile—Herodotus on
the Nile—Burton on the Nile basin—Lake Tanganika—Lake Victoria—Speke,
Grant, and Cameron—The Livingstone River—The work before me.
While returning to England in April 1874 from the Ashantee War, the news
reached me that Livingstone was dead—that his body was on its way to
England!
Livingstone had then fallen! He was dead! He had died by the shores of
Lake Bemba, on the threshold of the dark region he had wished to
explore! The work he had promised me to perform was only begun when
death overtook him!
The effect which this news had upon me, after the first shock had passed
away, was to fire me with a resolution to complete his work, to be, if
God willed it, the next martyr to geographical science, or, if my life
was to be spared, to clear up not only the secrets of the Great River
throughout its course, but also all that remained still problematic and
incomplete of the discoveries of Burton and Speke, and Speke and Grant.
The solemn day of the burial of the body of my great friend arrived. I
was one of the pall-bearers in Westminster Abbey, and when I had seen
the coffin lowered into the grave, and had heard the first handful of
earth thrown over it, I walked away sorrowing over the fate of David
Livingstone.
I laboured night and day over my book, ‘Coomassie and Magdala,’ for I
was in a fever to begin that to which I now had vowed to devote myself.
Within three weeks the literary work was over, and I was free.
Soon after this I was passing by an old book-shop, and observed a volume
bearing the singular title of ‘How to Observe.’ Upon opening it, I
perceived it contained tolerably clear instructions of ‘How and what to
observe.’ It was very interesting, and it whetted my desire to know
more; it led me to purchase quite an extensive library of books upon
Africa, its geography, geology, botany, and ethnology. I thus became
possessed of over one hundred and thirty books upon Africa, which I
studied with the zeal of one who had a living interest in the subject,
and with the understanding of one who had been already four times on the
continent. I knew what had been accomplished by African Explorers, and I
knew how much of the dark interior was still unknown to the world. Until
late hours I sat up, inventing and planning, sketching out routes,
laying out lengthy lines of possible exploration, noting many
suggestions which the continued study of my project created. I also drew
up lists of instruments and other paraphernalia that would be required
to map, lay out, and describe the new regions to be traversed.
I had strolled over one day to the office of the _Daily Telegraph_, full
of the subject. While I was discussing journalistic enterprise in
general with one of the staff, the Editor entered. We spoke of
Livingstone and the unfinished task remaining behind him. In reply to an
eager remark which I made, he asked:—
“Could you, and would you, complete the work? And what is there to do?”
I answered:
“The outlet of Lake Tanganika is undiscovered. We know nothing scarcely—
except what Speke has sketched out—of Lake Victoria; we do not even know
whether it consists of one or many lakes, and therefore the sources of
the Nile are still unknown. Moreover, the western half of the African
continent is still a white blank.”
“Do you think you can settle all this, if we commission you?”
“While I live, there will be something done. If I survive the time
required to perform all the work, all shall be done.”
The matter was for the moment suspended, because Mr. James Gordon
Bennett, of the _New York Herald_, had prior claims on my services.
A telegram was despatched to New York to him: “Would he join the _Daily
Telegraph_ in sending Stanley out to Africa, to complete the discoveries
of Speke, Burton, and Livingstone?” and, within twenty-four hours, my
“new mission” to Africa was determined on as a joint expedition, by the
laconic answer which the cable flashed under the Atlantic: “Yes;
Bennett.”
A few days before I departed for Africa, the _Daily Telegraph_ announced
in a leading article that its proprietors had united with Mr. James
Gordon Bennett in organizing an expedition of African discovery, under
the command of Mr. Henry M. Stanley. “The purpose of the enterprise,” it
said, “is to complete the work left unfinished by the lamented death of
Dr. Livingstone; to solve, if possible, the remaining problems of the
geography of Central Africa; and to investigate and report upon the
haunts of the slave-traders.” * * * * “He will represent the two nations
whose common interest in the regeneration of Africa was so well
illustrated when the lost English explorer was rediscovered by the
energetic American correspondent. In that memorable journey, Mr. Stanley
displayed the best qualities of an African traveller; and with no
inconsiderable resources at his disposal to reinforce his own complete
acquaintance with the conditions of African travel, it may be hoped that
very important results will accrue from this undertaking to the
advantage of science, humanity, and civilisation.”
Two weeks were allowed me for purchasing boats—a yawl, a gig, and a
barge—for giving orders for pontoons, and purchasing equipment, guns,
ammunition, rope, saddles, medical stores, and provisions; for making
investments in gifts for native chiefs; for obtaining scientific
instruments, stationery, &c., &c. The barge was an invention of my own.
It was to be 40 feet long, 6 feet beam, and 30 inches deep, of Spanish
cedar ⅜ inch thick. When finished, it was to be separated into five
sections, each of which should be 8 feet long. If the sections should be
over-weight, they were to be again divided into halves for greater
facility of carriage. The construction of this novel boat was undertaken
by Mr. James Messenger, boat-builder, of Teddington, near London. The
pontoons were made by Cording, but though the workmanship was beautiful,
they were not a success, because the superior efficiency of the boat for
all purposes rendered them unnecessary. However, they were not wasted.
Necessity compelled us, while in Africa, to employ them for far
different purposes from those for which they had originally been
designed.
There lived a clerk at the Langham Hotel, of the name of Frederick
Barker, who, smitten with a desire to go to Africa, was not to be
dissuaded by reports of its unhealthy climate, its dangerous fevers, or
the uncompromising views of exploring life given to him. “He would go,
he was determined to go,” he said. To meet the earnest entreaties of
this young man, I requested him to wait until I should return from the
United States.
[Illustration: THE ‘LADY ALICE’ IN SECTIONS.]
Mr. Edwin Arnold, of the _Daily Telegraph_, also suggested that I should
be accompanied by one or more young English boatmen of good character,
on the ground that their river knowledge would be extremely useful to
me. He mentioned his wish to a most worthy fisherman, named Henry
Pocock, of Lower Upnor, Kent, who had kept his yacht for him, and who
had fine stalwart sons, who bore the reputation of being honest and
trustworthy. Two of these young men volunteered at once. Both Mr. Arnold
and myself warned the Pocock family repeatedly that Africa had a cruel
character, that the sudden change from the daily comforts of English
life to the rigorous one of an explorer would try the most perfect
constitution; would most likely be fatal to the uninitiated and
unacclimatized. But I permitted myself to be overborne by the eager
courage and devotion of these adventurous lads, and Francis John Pocock
and Edward Pocock, two very likely-looking young men, were accordingly
engaged as my assistants.
I crossed over to America, the guest of Mr. Ismay, of the ‘White Star’
line, to bid farewell to my friends, and after a five days’ stay
returned in a steamer belonging to the same Company.
Meantime, soon after the announcement of the “New Mission,” applications
by the score poured into the offices of the _Daily Telegraph_ and _New
York Herald_ for employment. Before I sailed from England, over 1200
letters were received from “generals,” “colonels,” “captains,”
“lieutenants,” “midshipmen,” “engineers,” “commissioners of hotels,”
mechanics, waiters, cooks, servants, somebodies and nobodies, spiritual
mediums and magnetizers, &c. &c. They all knew Africa, were perfectly
acclimatized, were quite sure they would please me, would do important
services, save me from any number of troubles by their ingenuity and
resources, take me up in balloons or by flying carriages, make us all
invisible by their magic arts, or by the “science of magnetism” would
cause all savages to fall asleep while we might pass anywhere without
trouble. Indeed I feel sure that, had enough money been at my disposal
at that time, I might have led 5000 Englishmen, 5000 Americans, 2000
Frenchmen, 2000 Germans, 500 Italians, 250 Swiss, 200 Belgians, 50
Spaniards and 5 Greeks, or 15,005 Europeans, to Africa. But the time had
not arrived to depopulate Europe, and colonize Africa on such a scale,
and I was compelled to respectfully decline accepting the valuable
services of the applicants, and to content myself with Francis John and
Edward Pocock, and Frederick Barker—whose entreaties had been seconded
by his mother, on my return from America.
I was agreeably surprised also, before departure, at the great number of
friends I possessed in England, who testified their friendship
substantially by presenting me with useful “tokens of their regard” in
the shape of canteens, watches, water-bottles, pipes, pistols, knives,
pocket companions, manifold writers, cigars, packages of medicine,
Bibles, prayer-books, English tracts for the dissemination of religious
knowledge among the black pagans, poems, tiny silk banners, gold rings,
&c. &c. A lady for whom I have a reverent respect presented me also with
a magnificent prize mastiff named ‘Castor,’ an English officer presented
me with another, and at the Dogs’ Home at Battersea I purchased a
retriever, a bull-dog, and a bull-terrier, called respectively by the
Pococks, ‘Nero,’ ‘Bull,’ and ‘Jack.’
There were two little farewell dinners only which I accepted before my
departure from England. One was at the house of the Editor of the _Daily
Telegraph_, where I met Captain Fred. Burnaby and a few other kind
friends. Captain Burnaby half promised to meet me at the sources of the
Nile. The other was a dinner given by the representative of the _New
York Herald_, at which were present Mr. George Augustus Sala, Mr. W. G.
Stillman, Mr. George W. Smalley, and three or four other journalists of
note. It was a kindly quiet good-bye, and that was my last of London.
On the 15th of August, 1874, having shipped the Europeans, boats, and
dogs, and general property of the expedition—which, through the kindness
of Mr. Henry Bayley, of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and Mr.
William Mackinnon, of the British India Steam Navigation Company, were
to be taken to Zanzibar at half-fares—I left England for the east coast
of Africa to begin my explorations.
EXPLANATION.
PART II.
THE SOURCES OF THE NILE.
“Yet still no views have urged my ardour more
Than Nile’s remotest fountains to explore;
Then say what source the famous stream supplies,
And bids it at revolving periods rise;
Show me the head from whence since time begun
The long succession of his waves have run;
This let me know, and all my toils shall cease,
The sword be sheathed, and earth be blessed with peace.”
_Pharsalia_ (_Cæsar loq._).
In the fifth century, before the Christian era began, Herodotus, the
first great African traveller, wrote about the Nile and its sources as
follows:—
“Respecting the nature of this river, the Nile, I was unable to gain any
information, either from the priests or any one else. I was very
desirous, however, of learning from them why the Nile, beginning at the
summer solstice, fills and overflows for a hundred days; and when it has
nearly completed this number of days, falls short in its stream, and
retires; so that it continues low all the winter, until the return of
the summer solstice. Of these particulars I could get no information
from the Egyptians, though I inquired whether this river has any
peculiar quality that makes it differ in nature from other rivers. Being
anxious, then, of knowing what was said about this matter, I made
inquiries, and also how it comes to pass that this is the only one of
all rivers that does not send forth breezes from its surface.
Nevertheless, some of the Greeks, wishing to be distinguished for their
wisdom, have attempted to account for these inundations in three
different ways; two of these ways are scarcely worth mentioning, except
that I wish to show what they are. One of them says that the Etesian
winds are the cause of the swelling of the river, by preventing the Nile
from discharging itself into the sea. But frequently the Etesian winds
have not blown, yet the Nile produces the same effects; besides, if the
Etesian winds were the cause, all other rivers that flow opposite to the
same winds must of necessity be equally affected and in the same manner
as the Nile; and even so much the more, as they are less and have weaker
currents; yet there are many rivers in Syria, and many in Libya, which
are not all affected as the Nile is. The second opinion shows still more
ignorance than the former, but, if I may so say, is more marvellous. It
says that the Nile, flowing from the ocean, produces this effect; and
that the ocean flows all round the earth. The third way of resolving
this difficulty is by far the most specious, but most untrue. For by
saying that the Nile flows from melted snow, it says nothing, for this
river flows from Libya through the middle of Ethiopia and discharges
itself in Egypt; how therefore, since it runs from a very hot to a
colder region, can it flow from snow? Many reasons will readily occur to
men of good understanding, to show the improbability of its flowing from
snow. The first and chief proof is derived from the winds, which blow
hot from those regions; the second is, that the country, destitute of
rain, is always free from ice; but after snow has fallen, it must of
necessity rain within five days; so that if snow fell, it would also
rain in these regions. In the third place, the inhabitants become black
from the excessive heat: kites and swallows continue there all the year;
and the cranes, to avoid the cold of Scythia, migrate to these parts as
winter quarters: if then ever so little snow fell in this country
through which the Nile flows, and from which it derives its source, none
of these things would happen, as necessity proves. But the person who
speaks about the ocean, since he has referred his account to some
obscure fable, produces no conviction at all, for I do not know any
river called the Ocean, but suppose that Homer, or some other ancient
poet, having invented the name, introduced it into poetry.”
Captain Burton the learned traveller has some excellent paragraphs in
his ‘Nile Basin,’ and remarks on this topic in connection with Ptolemy:—
“That early geographer places his lake Nilus a little to the south of
the Equator (about ten degrees), and 5° E. long. from Alexandria—that
is, in 34° or 35° E. long. by our mode of reckoning. He was led into an
error in placing these portions of the interior, bearing, as he
conceived, from certain points in the east. Thus he places Cape Aromatum
(Cape Asser or Cape Guardafui) in 6° N. lat., which we know to be in 11°
48′ 50″, being thus, say, 6° out of its true place. He places the lake,
the source of the western branch of the river, 1° more to the north and
8° more to the west than the one for the eastern branch; subsequent
inquiries may show us that these great features of Africa may yet turn
out to be substantially correct.
“We cannot here enter into any disquisition regarding the discrepancies
that appear amongst the very ancient authors regarding these parts of
Africa. We notice only those that are consistent and most valuable, and
as bearing upon the priority of discovery and geographical knowledge.
The earliest period we hear of Ethiopia is in the capture of the capital
thereof by Moses 1400 years before our era, and 90 or 100 years before
the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. Josephus calls it Saba, and
states that it was very strong, situated on the River Astosabos, and
that the name was changed to Meroë, by Cambyses, in honour of his sister
Meroë. There were known to ancient writers three great tributaries to
the Nile in Ethiopia, namely, the Astaboras (Tatazze), the Astosabos
(Blue River), and the Astapus (White River). Herodotus says the source
of the Nile, Astosabos, was twenty days’ journey to the south of Meroë,
which will bring it to Lake Dembea or Tzana. According to Ptolemy, the
position of Meroë was in 16° 25′ N. lat., but the ancient astronomer
Hipparchus has placed it in 16° 51′, which may be taken as the most
correct. Caillaud found the vast ruins in 16° 56′. Under Psammeticus,
the first Egyptian king that reigned after the final expulsion of the
Ethiopian kings from Egypt, 240,000 emigrants from Egypt settled in an
island south of the island of Meroë, that is beyond Khartoum, between
the Blue and the White Rivers, and at eight days’ journey east of the
Nubæ, or Nubatæ. Subsequently the Roman arms extended to those parts.
Petronius, the Roman general under Augustus, thirty years before our
era, took and destroyed Napata, the ancient capital of Tirhaka, situated
on the great northern bend of the Nile at Mount Barkhall, where vast
ruins are still found. Meroë certainly, the capital of Queen Candace,
mentioned in the New Testament (Acts viii. 27), also fell under the
Roman yoke. Nero, early in his reign, sent a remarkable exploring party,
under two centurions, with military force, to explore the source of the
Nile and the countries to the west of the Astapus or White River, at
that early day considered to be the true Nile. Assisted by an Ethiopian
sovereign (Candace, no doubt), they went through the district now known
as Upper Nubia, to a distance of 890 Roman miles from Meroë. In the last
part of their journey they came to immense marshes, the end of which no
one seemed to know, amongst which the channels were so narrow that the
light boat or canoe in use was barely sufficient to carry one man across
them. Still they continued their course south till they saw the river
tumbling down or issuing out between the rocks, when they turned back,
carrying with them a map of the regions through which they had passed:
for Nero’s guidance and information. This, it may be remarked, is
exactly the case still. The Dutch ladies told us last year that they
found the channels amongst these marshes so thick that the lightest
canoe, made of bulrushes, scarcely fit to carry one man, could not find
room to pass on them or across them. After this Pliny, Strabo, and other
Roman authors took notice of this position of Africa, but without giving
us anything important or new.”
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EQUATORIAL AFRICA (SEGUNDO O MAPPA DE DAPPER) 1676.
[Illustration: _London, Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Limited._ E.
Weller, _Litho._]
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I quote from Captain Burton once more certain passages. “Edrisi, who was
born in Nubia, but who wrote in Egypt about A.D. 1400, says, in that
part of Ethiopia south and south-west of Nubia is first seen the
separation of the two Niles. The one flows from south to north into
Egypt, and the other part of the Nile flows from east to west; and upon
that branch of the Nile lie all, or at least the most celebrated
kingdoms of the Negroes. ‘From the Mountains of the Moon,’ says
Scheadeddin, ‘the Egyptian Nile takes its rise. It cuts horizontally the
equator in its course north. Many rivers come from this mountain, and
unite in a great lake. From this lake comes the Nile, the greatest and
most beautiful of the rivers of all the earth. Many rivers derived from
this great river water Nubia,’ &c.
“From the Arabs we may fairly descend to our own times. The early
Portuguese discoverers obtained a great deal of geographical information
regarding the interior of Africa, and especially regarding two lakes
near the Equator, from one of which, the most northern, the Egyptian
Nile was stated to flow. This information was largely used by the French
geographer (D’Anville), and the Dutch geographers of that time.
Subsequently Bruce and others told us about the great disparity in
magnitude between the Blue and the White Rivers; the latter, they
asserted, rose far to the south, near to the Equator, and amongst
mountains covered with eternal snow. Twenty-five years ago, Mohammed
Ali, the clear-sighted and energetic ruler of Egypt, sent an expedition,
consisting of several barques well provided with everything necessary,
and under able naval officers, to explore the White Nile to its source,
if possible. They did their work so far well, but were forced to turn
back on the 26th of January, 1840, in lat. 30° 22′ N., for want of
sufficient depth of water for their vessels. At lat. 3° 30′ they found
the river 1370 feet broad and say six feet deep. In every day’s work on
the voyage they gave the width of the river, the depth of the river, the
force of its current, its temperature, and the miles (geographical) made
good daily.”
These quotations bring us down to our own times. A few of the principal
characters, through whose agency the problem of the Sources of the Nile
has been solved, still live. The old African Association became merged
in 1831 into the Royal Geographical Society. The change of title seems
to have evoked greater energies, and the publications of the new
society, the position of its President, his influence, learning, and
tact, soon attracted general public attention. In the midst of this,
Messrs. Krapf and Rebmann and Erhardt, missionaries located at Mombasa,
on the east coast of Africa, announced that Arab traders and natives
acquainted with the interior informed them that far inland there was a
very large lake, or several lakes, which some spoke of under one
collective title. The information thus obtained was illustrated by a
sketch map by Mr. Erhardt, and was published in the ‘Proceedings of the
Royal Geographical Society’ in 1856, “the most striking feature of which
was a vast lake of a curious shape, extending through 12° of latitude.”
LAKE TANGANIKA.
The Royal Geographical Society was induced to despatch an expedition to
East Africa for the exploration of this interesting inland region, the
command of which it entrusted to Lieutenant Richard Francis Burton, and
Lieutenant John Hanning Speke, officers of the East Indian Army.
Lieutenant Burton was already distinguished as an enterprising traveller
by his book, ‘Pilgrimage to Mekka and Medina.’ Speke had, until this
time, only a local reputation, but bore the character of being a very
promising officer, and an amiable gentleman with a fondness for natural
history and botanical studies, besides being an ardent sportsman and an
indefatigable pedestrian.
Burton and Speke’s expedition landed at Zanzibar on the 20th of
December, 1856. On the 13th of February, 1858, after a journey of 950
miles, and at a distance of 540 lineal geographical miles from the point
of departure on the Indian Ocean, they first sighted and discovered Lake
Tanganika. How much they explored of the lake is best illustrated by
their map, which is appended to this present volume. Speke first crossed
Lake Tanganika to the western side to Kasengé, an island, then returned
by the same route to Kawelé, the district or quarter occupied at that
time by the Arabs, in a large straggling village on the shores of the
lake, in the country of Ujiji.
On the second exploration of the lake, Lieutenant Burton accompanied
Lieutenant Speke to a cove in Uvira, which is about thirteen miles from
the north end of the lake. Unable to reach the extremity of the lake,
they both returned to Ujiji. Lieutenant Speke was most anxious to
proceed on a third tour of exploration of the lake, but was overruled by
his chief, Lieutenant Burton. On the 26th of May, 1858, the expedition
turned homewards, arriving in Unyanyembé on the 20th of June.
LAKE VICTORIA
While Lieutenant Burton preferred to rest in Unyanyembé to collect the
copious information about the Lake Regions from the Arabs and natives,
which we see set forth in a masterly manner in his book, Lieutenant
Speke, of a more active disposition, mustered a small force of men, and,
with his superior’s permission, set out northward on July 9, 1858, on an
exploring tour, and on the 30th of the same month arrived at the south
end of a lake called by the Wanyamwezi who were with him the N’yanza, or
the Lake, and by the Arabs, Ukerewé.
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MAPPA DE KRAPF, REBMANN, LIVINGSTONE, & ERHARDT — 1849-56.
[Illustration: _London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Limited.
E. Weller, Litho._]
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At Muanza, in Usukuma, he took a survey of the body of the water such as
might be embraced in a view taken from an altitude of 200 feet above the
lake.
In his reflections on the magnitude of the water expanse before him,
Speke wrote: “I no longer felt any doubt that the lake at my feet gave
birth to that interesting river, the source of which has been the
subject of so much speculation, and the object of so many explorers.”
* * * * * *
And again: “This is a far more extensive lake than the Tanganika; so
broad you could not see across it, and so long that nobody knew its
length.” To this magnificent lake Lieutenant Speke, its discoverer, gave
the name of Victoria N’yanza.
From this short view of the Victoria Lake, Speke returned to Unyanyembé,
and announced to Lieutenant Burton that he had discovered the source of
the White Nile. Lieutenant Burton did not acquiesce in his companion’s
views of the importance of the discovery, and in his ‘Lake Regions’ and
‘Nile Basins,’ in lectures, speeches, and essays in magazines, and
conversations with friends, always vigorously combated the theory.
On the 30th of February, 1859, Burton and Speke’s task of exploration,
which had occupied twenty-five months, terminated with the arrival of
the expedition at the little maritime village of Konduchi, on the Indian
Ocean.
* * * * * *
On opening John Hanning Speke’s book, ‘Journal of the Discovery of the
Source of the Nile,’ we are informed on the very first page that his
second important expedition into Africa, “which was avowedly for the
purpose of establishing the truth of the assertion that the Victoria
N’yanza (which he discovered on the 30th of July, 1858) would eventually
prove to be the source of the Nile, may be said to have commenced on the
9th of May, 1859, the first day of his return to England from his last
expedition, when, at the invitation of Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, he
called at his house to show him his map, for the information of the
Royal Geographical Society.”
Mr. Speke who was now known as Captain Speke, was intrusted with the
command of the succeeding expedition which the Royal Geographical
Society determined to send out for the purpose of verifying the theories
above stated. He was accompanied this time by an old brother officer in
India, Captain James Augustus Grant.
The expedition under Speke and Grant set out from Zanzibar on the 25th
of September, 1860. On the 23rd of January, 1861, it arrived at the
house occupied by Burton and Speke’s expedition, in Tabora, Unyanyembé,
having traversed nearly the entire distance along the same route that
had been adopted formerly. In the middle of May the journey to Karagwé
began. After a stay full of interest with Rumanika, king of Karagwé,
they followed a route which did not permit them even a view of Lake
Victoria, until they caught sight of the great lake near Meruka, on the
31st of January, 1862. From this point, the expedition, up to its
arrival at the court of Mtesa, emperor of Uganda, must have caught
several distant views of the lake, though not travelling near its
shores. During a little excursion from the Emperor’s capital, they also
discovered a long broad inlet, which is henceforth known as Murchison
Bay, on its northern coast.
On the 7th of July, 1862, the two travellers started in a north-easterly
direction, away from the lake, and Speke states that he arrived at
Urondogani on the 21st. From this point he marched up the river along
the left bank, and reached the Ripon Falls at the outlet of Lake
Victoria on the 20th of July. He thus sums up the result and net value
of the explorations of himself and companion in the years 1860-62:—
“The Expedition had now performed its functions. I saw that old Father
Nile without any doubt rises in the Victoria N’yanza, and as I had
foretold, that Lake is the great source of the holy river which cradled
the first expounder of our religious belief.... The most remote waters,
or _top-head of the Nile_, is the southern end of the lake, situated
close on the 3° lat., which gives to the Nile the surprising length in
direct measurement, rolling over 34 degrees of latitude, of above 2300
miles, or more than one-eleventh of the circumference of our globe. Now,
from the southern point round by the west, to where the great Nile
stream rises, there is only one feeder of any importance, and that is
the _Kitangule_ River; while from the southernmost point round by the
east, to the strait, there are no rivers of any importance.”...
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LIVINGSTONE, BURTON & SPEKE, SPEKE & GRANT & VON DER DECKEN — 1856-1863.
[Illustration: _London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Limited.
E. Weller, Litho._]
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He christened the falling effluent, where it drops from the level of the
lake and escapes northerly into the Victoria Nile, “Ripon Falls,” in
honour of the Earl of Ripon, who was President of the Royal Geographical
Society when the expedition was organised, and the arm of the lake from
which the Victoria Nile issued, Napoleon Channel, as a token of respect
to the Paris Geographical Society, who had honoured him with a gold
medal for the discovery of Lake Victoria.
Following this paragraph, Captain Speke makes an important statement, to
which I beg attention: “One thing seemed at first perplexing, the volume
of water in the Kitangule (Alexandra Nile) looked as large as the Nile
(Victoria), but then the one was a slow river, and the other swift, and
on this account I could form no adequate judgment of their relative
values.”
On the 4th of June, Captain Speke and Grant embarked at Alexandria,
Egypt, for England, where they arrived after an absence of 1146 days.
Though one might suppose that the explorers had sufficient grounds for
supposing that Lake Victoria covered an enormous area, quite as large,
or, approaching to the 29,000 square miles’ extent Captain Speke boldly
sketched it, there were not wanting many talented men to dispute each
point in the assertions he made. One of the boldest who took opposing
views to Speke was his quondam companion, Captain R. F. Burton, and he
was supported by very many others, for very plausible reasons, which
cannot, however, be touched upon here.
Doctor David Livingstone, while on his last expedition, obtained much
oral information in the interior of Africa from Arab traders, which
dissected Speke’s Grand Lake into five; and it really seemed as if, from
the constant assaults made upon it by geographers and cartographers, it
would in time be erased from the chart altogether, or become a mere
“rush drain,” like one of those which Speke and Grant found so numerous
in that region. It was evident, therefore, that a thorough exploration
of Lake Victoria was absolutely necessary to set at rest, once and for
ever, one of the great problems that was such a source of trouble and
dissatisfaction to the geographers of Europe and America.
LAKE TANGANIKA AGAIN.
The next European to arrive at the shores of Lake Tanganika, after
Burton and Speke, was Dr. David Livingstone. He first saw it as he stood
on the verge of the plateau which rises steeply from the surface of the
Tanganika at its south-west corner, on the 2nd of April, 1867; and on
the 14th of March, 1869, and after traversing nearly the whole of the
western shore from the extreme south end of the lake to Kassengé, the
island which Speke visited in 1858, he crossed over to the east side and
reached Ujiji.
On the 15th of July, 1869, after camping at Kassengé, when on his way to
Manyema, he writes in his journal the following opinion of Lake
Tanganika; “Tanganika narrows at Uvira or Vira, and goes out of sight
among the mountains; then it appears as a waterfall into the Lake of
Quando, seen by Banyamwezi.”
In his letters home Dr. Livingstone constantly made mention of two
lakes, called Upper Tanganika, which Burton discovered, and Lower
Tanganika, which Sir Samuel Baker discovered, and which formed, as he
said, the second line of drainage trending to and discharging its waters
into the Nile.
He makes record in his Journals of the causes which induced him to
verify his opinions by a personal investigation of the north end of Lake
Tanganika on the 16th of November, 1871, a few days after my arrival, at
Ujiji, I being the fourth European who had arrived on the shores of the
Lake, in this manner:—
“_16th November, 1871._—As Tanganika Explorations are said by Mr.
Stanley to be an object of interest to Sir Roderick, we go at his
expense and by his men to the north end of the lake.”
“_24th November._—To Point Kisuka in Mukamba’s country. A Mgwana came to
us from King Mukamba, and asserted most positively that all the water of
Tanganika flowed into the River Lusizé, and then on to Ukerewe of Mteza;
nothing could be more clear than his statements.”
“_25th November._—Our friend of yesterday now declared as positively as
before, that the water of Lusizé flowed into Tanganika, and not the way
he said yesterday! Tanganika closes in except at one point N. and by W.
of us.”
“_26th November._—The end of Tanganika seen clearly, is rounded off
about 4′ broad from east to west.”
On the 29th of November, Livingstone and I, in a canoe manned by several
strong rowers, entered into Lusizé, or Rusizi, and discovered that it
flowed _into_ Lake Tanganika by three mouths with an impetuous current.
The explorations of Livingstone and myself in November 1871 to the north
end of Lake Tanganika resolved that portion of the problem, but
described only about thirteen miles of coast unvisited by Burton and
Speke. On our way back, however, by a southern route to Unyanyembé, we
added to the knowledge of the Tanganika coast-line, on the eastern side
from Kabogo Point as far as Urimba, about twenty miles farther than
Speke had seen.
In August 1872, about five months after I had departed from him
homewards, he recommenced his last journey. On the 8th of October of the
same year he saw the Tanganika again about sixty miles south of the
point where he and I bade farewell to the lake, eight months previously.
Clinging to the lake, he travelled along the eastern shore, until he
reached the southernmost end of it.
From this it will appear evident that the only portion of Lake Tanganika
remaining unvisited was that part of the west-end shore, between Kasengé
Island and the northernmost point of what Burton and Speke called Ubwari
Island, and what Livingstone and I called Muzimu Island. Doubtless there
were many portions of Livingstone’s route overland which rendered the
coast line somewhat obscure, and in his hurried journey to Ujiji in
1869, by canoe from Mompara’s to Kasengé, a portion of the Uguha coast
was left unexplored. But it is Livingstone who was the first to map out
and give a tolerably correct configuration to that part of Lake
Tanganika extending from Urimba round to the south end and up along the
eastern shore to Kasengé Island, as it was Burton and Speke who were the
first to map out that portion of the Tanganika extending from Ujiji to a
point nearly opposite Ubwari and the north-west, from Ubwari’s north end
as far as Uvira.
In February 1874 Lieutenant Verney Lovett Cameron, R.N., arrived at the
same village of Ujiji, which had been seen by Burton and Speke in 1858,
and which was known as the place where I discovered Livingstone in 1872.
He had traversed a route rendered familiar to thousands of the readers
of the ‘Lake Regions of Central Africa,’ ‘the Journal of the Discovery
of the Nile,’ and ‘How I found Livingstone,’ through a country carefully
mapped, surveyed and described. But the land that lay before him
westerly had only been begun by Livingstone, and there were great and
important fields of exploration beyond the farthest point he had
reached.
Lieutenant Cameron procured two canoes, turned south, and coasted along
the eastern shore of the Tanganika, and when near the southern end of
the Lake, crossed it, turned up north along the western shore, and
discovered a narrow channel, between two spits of pure white sand.
Entering this channel, the Lukuga creek, he traced it until farther
progress was stopped by an immovable and impenetrable barrier of
papyrus. This channel, Lieutenant Cameron wrote, was the outlet of Lake
Tanganika. Satisfied with his discovery, he withdrew from the channel,
pursued his course along the west coast as far as Kasengé Island, the
camping-place of both Speke and Livingstone, and returned direct to
Ujiji without making further effort.
Lake Tanganika, as will be seen, upon Lieutenant Cameron’s departure,
had its entire coast-line described, except the extreme south end, the
mouth of the Lufuvu and that portion of coast lying between Kasengé
Island and the northern point of Ubwari, about 140 miles in extent.
LIVINGSTONE’S GREAT RIVER.
What we knew distinctly of this great river began with Livingstone’s
last journey, when he wrote from Ujiji in 1869, repeating what he had
already written in 1867, at the town of Cazembe, in a despatch to Lord
Clarendon.
Briefly, this last journey began, let us say, at Zanzibar, the date of
his arrival being the 28th of January, 1866. On the 19th of March he
sailed in H.M.S. _Penguin_ for the mouth of the Rovuma river, after
invoking the blessing of the Most High upon his meditated intercourse
with the heathen. Effecting a landing at Mikindini Bay, he directed his
course in a south-westerly direction, arriving within view of Lake
Nyassa on the 13th of September, 1866.
----------------------------------------------------------------
SCHWEINFURTH, BAKER, LIVINGSTONE, STANLEY & CAMERON — 1866-75.
[Illustration: _London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Limited.
E. Weller, Litho._]
----------------------------------------------------------------
On the 16th of January, 1867, he reached the most southerly streams
emptying into the Chambezi, after crossing the mountains which separate
the streams flowing east to the Loangwa. He describes the northern slope
which gives birth to the affluents of the new river thus: “It is
needless to repeat that it is all forest on the northern slopes of the
mountains—open glade and miles of forest; ground at present all sloppy,
oozes full and overflowing, feet constantly wet. Rivulets rush with
clear water; though they are in flood we can guess which are perennial
and which are torrents that dry up; they flow northwards and westwards
to the Chambezi.”
Eight days later, in S. lat. 10° 34′, he reached the main river—the
Chambezi—a stream “flooded with clear water-banks not more than 40 yards
apart, showing abundant animal life in its waters and on its banks as it
flowed westwards.” Just at the point Livingstone first saw the Chambezi,
numerous streams are gathered from all points—northerly, easterly, and
southerly, from the westerly slope of the uplands of Mambwe into the
main river, which presently becomes a formidable river, and which
subsequent explorations proved to enter Lake Bemba on its eastern side.
On the 8th of November, 1867, the traveller makes a very comprehensive
statement. It is the evening of his arrival at Lake Mweru or Moero.
“Lake Moero seems of goodly size, and is flanked by ranges of mountains
on the east and west. Its banks are of coarse sand, and slope gradually
down to the water; outside of these banks stands a thick belt of
tropical vegetation in which fishermen build their huts. The country
called Rua lies on the west, and is seen as a lofty range of dark
mountains; another range of less height, but more broken, stands along
the eastern shore.”
* * * * * *
“The northern shore has a fine sweep, like an unbent bow, and round the
western end flows the water that makes the River Lualaba, which, before
it enters Mweru, is the Luapula, and that again (if the most intelligent
report speak true) is the Chambezi before it enters Lake Bemba or
Bangweolo.”
On page 261, vol i., of ‘Livingstone’s Last Journals,’ he sums up very
succinctly what knowledge he has gained of the country which was the
scene of his explorations, 1866-67. “First of all the Chambezi runs in
the country of Mambwe, N.E. of Molemba. It then flows S.W. and W. till
it reaches 11° S. lat. and long. 29° E., where it forms Lake Bemba or
Bangweolo. Emerging thence, it assumes the new name Luapula, and comes
down here to fall into Mweru. On going out of this lake it is known by
the name Lualaba as it flows N.W. in Rua to form another lake with many
islands called Ulengé or Urengé. Beyond this, information is not
positive as to whether it enters Tanganika, or another lake beyond
that.”
On the 18th of July, 1868, the discovery of Lake Bemba or Bangweolo was
made by Dr. Livingstone.
On page 59, vol. ii., ‘Last Journals,’ we think we have an explanation
of the causes which led him to form those hypotheses and theories which
he subsequently made public by his letters, or elaborated in his
journals, on the subject of the Nile Sources.
“_Bambarre, 25th August, 1870._—One of my waking dreams is that the
legendary tales about Moses coming up into Lower Ethiopia, with Merr his
foster mother, and founding a city which he called in her honour
‘Meroe,’ may have a substratum of fact.”
* * * * * *
“I dream of discovering some monumental relics of Meroe, and if anything
confirmatory of sacred history does remain, I pray to be guided
thereunto. If the sacred chronology would thereby be confirmed, I would
not grudge the toil and hardship, hunger and pain I have endured—the
irritable ulcers would only be discipline.”
The old explorer, a grand spectacle and a specimen of most noble manhood
in these latter days of his life, travels on and on, but never reaches
nearer the solution of the problem which puzzles his soul than the Arab
depot Nyangwé, which is situate a few miles south of 4° S. lat. and a
little east of 26° E. long. where he leaves the great river still
flowing north.
Livingstone never returned to this point, but retracing his steps to
Ujiji, thence to the north end of Lake Tanganika and back again to Ujiji
and Unyanyembé, directed his course to the southern shore of Lake Bemba,
where he died of dysentery in the beginning of May 1873.
----------------------------------------------------------------
STANLEY — 1874-77.
[Illustration: _London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Limited.
E. Weller, Litho._]
----------------------------------------------------------------
In the month of August 1874, Lieutenant Cameron, whom we left at Ujiji
after the delineation of that part of Lake Tanganika south of Ujiji,
after traversing Livingstone’s route to Kasongo’s Manyema, and
travelling by canoe about thirty-five miles, reaches Nyangwé, his
predecessor’s farthest point. Though he does not attempt to resolve this
problem, or penetrate the region north of Nyangwé, Lieutenant Cameron
ventures upon the following hypothesis: “This great stream must be one
of the head-waters of the Kongo, for where else could that giant amongst
rivers, second only to the Amazon in its volume, obtain 2,000,000 cubic
feet of water which it unceasingly pours each second into the Atlantic?
The large affluents from the north would explain the comparatively small
rise of the Kongo at the coast; for since its enormous basin extends to
both sides of the equator, some portion of it is always under the zone
of rains, and therefore the supply to the main stream is nearly the same
at all times, instead of varying as is the case with tropical rivers,
whose basins lie completely on one side of the equator.” Lieutenant
Cameron illustrates his hypothesis by causing Livingstone’s great river
to flow soon after leaving Nyangwé straight westward, the highest part
of which is only 3° 30′ S. lat.
At Nyangwé, Lieutenant Cameron crossed the river, proceeded south with
some Arab traders a few days’ journey, then, accompanied by guides,
travelled still south to Juma Merikani’s, or Kasongo’s, thence, after a
stay of nearly nine months, accompanied by Portuguese traders, he
proceeded to Benguella, a small port belonging to the Portuguese
Government on the Atlantic Ocean, having crossed Africa from east to
west south of S. lat. 4°.
The above is a brief sketch which with the aid of the small maps
attached to this volume explains and illustrates the several
geographical problems left by my predecessors. I now propose to describe
how these problems were solved, and the incomplete discoveries of Burton
and Speke, Speke and Grant, and Doctor Livingstone were finished, and
how we sighted the lake Muta N’zigé, by its broad arm, which I have
called Beatrice Gulf, by a comprehensive exploration, lasting, from sea
to sea, two years eight months and twenty days; the results of which are
to be found embodied in these two volumes, entitled: ‘_Through the Dark
Continent; the Sources of the Nile, around the Great Lakes of Africa,
and down the “Livingstone” to the Atlantic Ocean_.’
-----
# 1:
The portrait has been graciously subscribed—
“All’ intrepido viaggiatore
“Enrico Stanley
“UMBERTO RE.”
# 2:
I have received the honour of appointment as Officier de l’Instruction
Publique, France; Gold Medallist of the Geographical Societies of
London, Paris, Italy, and Marseilles; Silver Medallist of the Chamber
of Commerce of Marseilles, and of the Municipality of Marseilles;
Honorary Member of the Geographical Societies of Antwerp, Berlin,
Bordeaux, Bremen, Hamburg, Lyons, Marseilles, Montpellier, Vienna, &c.
[Illustration:
VIEW OF A PORTION OF THE SEA-FRONT OF ZANZIBAR, FROM THE WATER
BATTERY TO SHANGANI POINT.
(_From a photograph by Mr. Buchanan, of Natal._)]
]
CHAPTER I.
Arrival at Zanzibar Island—Life at Zanzibar—The town of Zanzibar, its
roadstead and buildings—The One Cocoa-nut tree and the red cliffs—
Selection and purchase of goods for the journey—Residence of Prince
Barghash—Busy mornings—Pleasant rides and quiet evenings.
_Sept. 21._—Twenty-eight months had elapsed between my departure from
Zanzibar after the discovery of Livingstone and my re-arrival on that
island, September 21, 1874.
The well-remembered undulating ridges, and the gentle slopes clad with
palms and mango trees bathed in warm vapour, seemed in that tranquil
drowsy state which at all times any portion of tropical Africa presents
at first appearance. A pale-blue sky covered the hazy land and sleeping
sea as we steamed through the strait that separates Zanzibar from the
continent. Every stranger, at first view of the shores, proclaims his
pleasure. The gorgeous verdure, the distant purple ridges, the calm sea,
the light gauzy atmosphere, the semi-mysterious silence which pervades
all nature, evoke his admiration. For it is probable that he has sailed
through the stifling Arabian Sea, with the grim, frowning mountains of
Nubia on the one hand, and on the other the drear, ochreous-coloured
ridges of the Arab Peninsula; and perhaps the aspect of the thirsty
volcanic rocks of Aden and the dry brown bluffs of Guardafui is still
fresh in his memory.
But a great change has taken place. As he passes close to the deeply
verdant shores of Zanzibar Island, he views nature robed in the greenest
verdure, with a delightful freshness of leaf, exhaling fragrance to the
incoming wanderer. He is wearied with the natural deep-blue of the
ocean, and eager for any change. He remembers the unconquerable aridity
and the dry bleached heights he last saw, and lo! what a change!
Responding to his half formed wish, the earth rises before him verdant,
prolific, bursting with fatness. Palms raise their feathery heads and
mangoes their great globes of dark green foliage; banana plantations
with impenetrable shade, groves of orange, fragrant cinnamon, and
spreading bushy clove, diversify and enrich the landscape. Jack-fruit
trees loom up with great massive crowns of leaf and branch, while
between the trees and in every open space succulent grasses and plants
cover the soil with a thick garment of verdure. There is nothing grand
or sublime in the view before him, and his gaze is not attracted to any
special feature, because all is toned down to a uniform softness by the
exhalation rising from the warm heaving bosom of the island. His
imagination is therefore caught and exercised, his mind loses its
restless activity, and reposes under the influence of the eternal summer
atmosphere.
Presently on the horizon there rises the thin upright shadows of ships’
masts, and to the left begins to glimmer a pale white mass which, we are
told, is the capital of the island of Zanzibar. Still steaming
southward, we come within rifle-shot of the low green shores, and now
begin to be able to define the capital. It consists of a number of
square massive structures, with little variety of height and all
whitewashed, standing on a point of low land, separated by a broad
margin of sand beach from the sea, with a bay curving gently from the
point, inwards to the left towards us.
Within two hours from the time we first caught sight of the town, we
have dropped anchor about 700 yards from the beach. The arrival of the
British India Company’s steamer causes a sensation. It is the monthly
“mail” from Aden and Europe! A number of boats break away from the beach
and come towards the vessel. Europeans sit at the stern, the rowers are
white-shirted Wangwana[3] with red caps. The former are anxious to hear
the news, to get newspapers and letters, and to receive the small
parcels sent by friendly hands “per favour of captain.”
The stranger, of course, is intensely interested in this life existing
near the African Equator, now first revealed to him, and all that he
sees and hears of figures and faces and sounds is being freshly
impressed on his memory. Figures and faces are picturesque enough.
Happy, pleased-looking men of black, yellow, or tawny colour, with long
white cotton shirts, move about with quick, active motion, and cry out,
regardless of order, to their friends or mates in the Swahili or Arabic
language, and their friends or mates respond with equally loud voice and
lively gesture, until, with fresh arrivals, there appears to be a Babel
created, wherein English, French, Swahili, and Arabic accents mix with
Hindi, and, perhaps, Persian.
In the midst of such a scene I stepped into a boat to be rowed to the
house of my old friend, Mr. Augustus Sparhawk, of the Bertram Agency. At
this low-built, massive-looking house near Shangani Point, I was
welcomed with all the friendliness and hospitality of my first visit,
when, three years and a half previously, I arrived at Zanzibar to set
out for the discovery of Livingstone.
With Mr. Sparhawk’s aid I soon succeeded in housing comfortably my three
young Englishmen, Francis John and Edward Pocock and Frederick Barker,
and my five dogs, and in stowing safely on shore the yawl _Wave_, bought
for me at Yarmouth by Mr. Edwin Arnold, the gig, and the tons of goods,
provisions, and stores I had brought.
Life at Zanzibar is a busy one to the intending explorer. Time flies
rapidly, and each moment of daylight must be employed in the selection
and purchase of the various kinds of cloth, beads, and wire, in demand
by the different tribes of the mainland through whose countries he
purposes journeying. Strong, half-naked porters come in with great bales
of unbleached cottons, striped and coloured fabrics, handkerchiefs and
red caps, bags of blue, green, red, white and amber-coloured beads,
small and large, round and oval, and coils upon coils of thick brass
wire. These have to be inspected, assorted, arranged, and numbered
separately, have to be packed in portable bales, sacks, or packages, or
boxed according to their character and value. The house-floors are
littered with cast-off wrappings and covers, box-lids, and a medley of
rejected paper, cloth, zinc covers and broken boards, sawdust and other
débris. Porters and servants and masters, employés and employers, pass
backwards and forwards, to and fro, amid all this litter, roll bales
over, or tumble about boxes; and a rending of cloth or paper, clattering
of hammers, demands for the marking-pots, or the number of bale and box,
with quick, hurried breathing and shouting, are heard from early morning
until night.
Towards evening, after such a glaring day of glaring heat and busy
toil, comes weariness: the arm-chair is sought, and the pipe or cigar
with a cup of tea rounds off the eventful hours. Or, as sometimes the
case would be, we would strike work early, and after a wholesome dinner
at 4.30 P.M. would saddle our horses and ride out into the interior of
the island, returning during the short twilight. Or we would take the
well-known path to Mnazi-Moya—the One Cocoa-nut Tree, where it stands
weird and sentinel-like over humble tombs on the crest of an ancient
beach behind Shangani Point. Or, as the last and only resource left to
a contemplative and studious mind, we would take our easy-chairs on the
flat roof, where the cowhides of the merchant are poisoned and dried,
and, with our feet elevated above our heads, watch the night coming.
If we take our ride, in a few minutes we may note, at the pleasantest
hour, those local features which, with the thermometer at 95° Fahr.,
might have been a dangerous pleasure, or, at any rate, disagreeable.
Through a narrow, crooked, plastered lane, our horses’ feet clattering
noisily as we go, we ride by the tall, white-washed, massive houses,
which rise to two and three stories above our heads. The residences
of the European merchants and the officials here stand side by side,
and at the tall doorway of each sits the porter—as comfortable as his
circumstances will permit. As we pass on, we get short views of the
bay, and then plunge again into the lane until we come in view of the
worm-eaten old fort, crumbling fast into disuse and demolition. Years
ago, behind it, I saw a market where some slaves were being sold.
Happily there is no such market now.
We presently catch sight, on our right, of the entrance to the fort
at which sit on guard a few lazy Baluchis and dingy-looking Arabs. On
our left is the saluting battery, which does frequent service for the
ignition of much powder, an antique mode of exchanging compliments
with ships of war, and of paying respect to Government officials. The
customs sheds are close by, and directly in front of us rises the
lofty house and harem of Prince Barghash. It is a respectable-looking
building of the Arab architecture which finds favour at Muscat, three
stories high and whitewashed—as all houses here appear to be. It
is connected by a covered gangway, about 30 feet above our heads,
with a large house on the opposite side of the lane, and possesses
an ambitious doorway raised 3 feet above the street, and reached by
four or five broad and circular-steps. Within the lower hall are some
soldiers of the same pattern as those at the fort, armed with the
Henry-Martini rifle, or matchlock, sword, and targe. A very short time
takes us into a still narrower lane, where the whitewash is not so
white as at Shangani, the European quarter. We are in the neighbourhood
of Melindi now, where the European who has not been able to locate
himself at Shangani is obliged to put up with neighbours of East Indian
race or Arabs. Past and beyond Melindi is a medley of tall white
houses and low sheds, where wealth and squalor jostle side by side,
and then we find ourselves at the bridge over the inlet of Malagash,
which extends from the bay up to Mnazi-Moya, or the One Cocoa-nut,
behind Shangani. The banks on either side are in view as we pass over
the bridge, and we note a dense mass of sheds and poor buildings,
amid hills of garbage and heaps of refuse, and numbers of half-naked
negroes, or people in white clothes, giving the whole an appearance
somewhat resembling the more sordid village of Boulak, near Cairo.
Having crossed the bridge from Melindi, we are in what is very
appropriately termed Ngambu, or “t’other side.” The street is wide, but
the quarter is more squalid. It is here we find the Wangwana, or
Freedmen of Zanzibar, whose services the explorer will require as escort
on the continent. Here they live very happily with the well-to-do
Coastman, or Mswahili, poor Banyans, Hindis, Persians, Arabs, and
Baluchis, respectable slave artisans, and tradesmen. When the people
have donned their holiday attire, Ngambu becomes picturesque, even gay,
and yields itself up to wild, frolicsome abandon of mirth. On working
days, though the colours are still varied, and give relief to the clay
walls and withered palm-frond roofs, this poor man’s district has a
dingy hue, which black faces and semi-naked bodies seems to deepen.
However, the quarter is only a mile and a half long, and quickening our
paces, we soon have before us detached houses and huts, clusters of
cocoa-nut palms and ancient mango trees crowned with enormous dark green
domes of foliage. For about three miles one can enjoy a gallop along an
ochreous-coloured road of respectable width, bordered with hedges.
Behind the hedges grow the sugar-cane, banana, palm, orange, clove
cinnamon, and jack-fruit trees, cassava, castor-oil, diversified with
patches of millet, Indian corn, sweet-potatoes, and egg-plant, and
almost every vegetable of tropic growth. The fields, gently undulating,
display the variety of their vegetation, on which the lights and shadows
play, deepening or paling as the setting sun clouds or reveals the
charms of the verdure.
Finally arriving upon the crest of Wirezu hill, we have a most beautiful
view of the roadstead and town of Zanzibar, and, as we turn to regard
it, are struck with the landscape lying at our feet. Sloping away
gradually towards the town, the tropical trees already mentioned seem,
in the bird’s-eye view, to mass themselves into a thin forest, out of
which, however, we can pick out clearly the details of tree and hut.
Whatever of beauty may be in the scene, it is Nature’s own, for man has
done little; he has but planted a root, or a seed, or a tender sapling
carelessly. Nature has nourished the root and the seed and the sapling,
until they became sturdy giants, rising one above another in hillocks of
dark green verdure, and has given to the whole that wonderful depth and
variety of colour which she only exhibits in the Tropics.
The walk to Mnazi-Moya will compel the traveller to moralize, and
meditate pensively. Decay speaks to him, and from the moment he leaves
the house to the moment he returns, his mind is constantly dwelling
upon mortality. For, after lounging through two or three lanes, he
comes to a populous graveyard, over which the wild grass has obtained
supreme control, and through the stalks of which show white the fading
and moss-touched headstones. Across the extensive acreage allotted
to the victims of the sad cholera years, the Prince of Zanzibar has
ruthlessly cut his way to form a garden, which he has surrounded
with a high wall. Here a grinning skull and there a bleached thigh
bone or sunken grave exposing its ghastly contents attract one’s
attention. From time immemorial this old beach has been the depository
of the dead, and unless the Prince prosecutes his good work for the
reclamation of this golgotha (and the European officials urge it on
him), the custom may be continued for a long period yet.
Beyond this cemetery is to be seen the muddy head of Malagash inlet,
between which and the sea south of Shangani there lies only this antique
sand bar, about two hundred yards in breadth. On the crest of the sand
bar stands the One Cocoa-nut Palm which has given its name to this
locality. Sometimes this spot is also known as the “fiddler’s” grave. It
is the breathing place of the hard-worked and jaded European, and here,
seated on one of the plastered tombs near the base of the One Cocoa-nut
Palm, with only a furtive look now and then at the “sleep and a
forgetting” which those humble white structures represent, he may take
his fill of ocean and watch the sun go down to his daily rest.
[Illustration: RED CLIFFS BEHIND UNIVERSITIES MISSION.]
Beyond Mnazi-Moya is Mbwenni, the Universities Mission, and close behind
are some peculiar red cliffs, which are worth seeing.
From the roof of the house, if we take the “last resource” already
mentioned, we have a view of the roadstead and bay of Zanzibar.
Generally there ride at anchor two or three British ships of war just in
from a hunt after contumacious Arabs, who persist, against the orders of
their prince, in transporting slaves on the high seas. There is a vessel
moored closer to Frenchman’s Island, its “broken back” a memento of the
Prince’s fleet shattered by the hurricane of 1872. Nearer in-shore float
a number of Arab dhows, boats, lighters, steam launches, and two
steamers, one of which is the famous _Deerhound_. One day I counted as a
mere matter of curiosity, the great and small vessels in roadstead and
harbour, and found that there were 135.
From our easy-chairs on the roof we can see the massive building
occupied formerly by the Universities Mission, and now the residence of
Captain Prideaux, Acting British Consul and Political Resident, whose
acquaintance I first made soon after his release from Magdala in 1868.
This building stands upon the extremity of Shangani Point, and the first
line of houses which fronts the beach extends northerly in a gentle
sweep, almost up to Livingstone’s old residence on the other side of
Malagash inlet.
During the day the beach throughout its length is alive with the moving
figures of hamals, bearing clove and cinnamon bags, ivory, copal and
other gums, and hides, to be shipped in the lighters waiting along the
water’s edge, with sailors from the shipping, and black boatmen
discharging the various imports on the sand. In the evening the beach is
crowded with the naked forms of workmen and boys from the “go-downs,”
preparing to bathe and wash the dust of copal and hides off their bodies
in the surf. Some of the Arab merchants have ordered chairs on the
piers, or bunders, to chat sociably until the sun sets, and prayer time
has come. Boats hurry by with their masters and sailors returning to
their respective vessels. Dhows move sluggishly past, hoisting as they
go the creaking yards of their lateen sails, bound for the mainland
ports. Zanzibar canoes and “matepes” are arriving with wood and produce,
and others of the same native form and make are squaring their mat
sails, outward bound. Sunset approaches, and after sunset silence
follows soon. For as there are no wheeled carriages with the eternal
rumble of their traffic in Zanzibar, with the early evening comes early
peace and rest.
The intending explorer, however, bound for that dark edge of the
continent which he can just see lying low along the west as he looks
from Zanzibar, has thoughts at this hour which the resident cannot
share. As little as his eyes can pierce and define the details in that
gloomy streak on the horizon, so little can he tell whether weal or woe
lies before him. The whole is buried in mystery, over which he ponders,
certain of nothing but the uncertainty of life. Yet will he learn to
sketch out a comparison between what he sees at sunset and his own
future. Dark, indeed, is the gloom of the fast-coming night over the
continent, but does he not see that there are still bright flushes of
colour, and rosy bars, and crimson tints, amidst what otherwise would be
universal blackness? And may he not therefore say—“As those colours now
brighten the darkening west, so my hopes brighten my dark future”?
[Illustration: A HOUSE AT ZANZIBAR.]
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# 3:
Wangwana (freed negroes).