Stanley would be a success. Mr. Beecher had been right. The next lecture
was at Hartford. I could not get a hall or opera house, so I rented
Unity Church. Here in Hartford Mr. Stanley was the guest of his friend
S. L. Clemens (“Mark Twain”), who presided and introduced the explorer
in a characteristic address of welcome to his city and his fireside.
After the lecture, returning to Mr. Clemens’s home, I invited “Mark” to
go to Boston with us on the following day and introduce Stanley, where I
was sure of a great crowd. “Mark” said the only objection to accepting
such an invitation was the “taking a feller so unawares, with no
possible time to prepare a suitable, impromptu, extemporaneous speech
for so important an occasion.” Mr. Stanley seemed pleased with the
suggestion, and as the two men were great friends, the arrangement was
made. As “Mark,” Stanley, and I spent the time together after the
Hartford lecture, each apparently unmindful of the coming event of the
evening, the following introductory speech by Mark on that occasion will
give an idea of his resources in an emergency. The humorist and the
explorer walked on to the platform simultaneously--a combination such as
a Boston audience has rarely met. “Mark” stepped to the front and
introduced his friend as follows:
“Ladies and Gentlemen: If any should ask, Why is it that you are here as
introducer of the lecturer? I should answer that I happened to be around
and was asked to perform this function. I was quite willing to do so,
and, as there was no sort of need of an introduction, anyway, it could
be necessary only that some person come forward for a moment and do an
unnecessary thing, and this is quite in my line. Now, to introduce so
illustrious a name as Henry M. Stanley by any detail of what the man has
done is clear aside from my purpose; that would be stretching the
unnecessary to an unconscionable degree. When I contrast what I have
achieved in my measurably brief life with what he has achieved in his
possibly briefer one, the effect is to sweep utterly away the ten-story
edifice of my own self-appreciation and leave nothing behind but the
cellar. When you compare these achievements of his with the achievements
of really great men who exist in history, the comparison, I believe, is
in his favor. I am not here to disparage Columbus.
“No, I won’t do that; but when you come to regard the achievements of
these two men, Columbus and Stanley, from the standpoint of the
difficulties they encountered, the advantage is with Stanley and against
Columbus. Now, Columbus started out to discover America. Well, he didn’t
need to do anything at all but sit in the cabin of his ship and hold his
grip and sail straight on, and America would discover itself. Here it
was, barring his passage the whole length and breadth of the South
American continent, and he couldn’t get by it. He’d got to discover it.
But Stanley started out to find Doctor Livingstone, who was scattered
abroad, as you may say, over the length and breadth of a vast slab of
Africa as big as the United States.
“It was a blind kind of search. He was the worst scattered of men. But I
will throw the weight of this introduction upon one very peculiar
feature of Mr. Stanley’s character, and that is his indestructible
Americanism--an Americanism which he is proud of. And in this day and
time, when it is the custom to ape and imitate English methods and
fashion, it is like a breath of fresh air to stand in the presence of
this untainted American citizen who has been caressed and complimented
by half of the crowned heads of Europe; who could clothe his body from
his head to his heels with the orders and decorations lavished upon him.
And yet, when the untitled myriads of his own country put out their
hands in welcome to him and greet him, ‘Well done,’ through the Congress
of the United States, that is the crown that is worth all the rest to
him. He is a product of institutions which exist in no other country on
earth--institutions that bring out all that is best and most heroic in a
man. I introduce Henry M. Stanley.”
After this Boston triumph, applications by telegraph and mail came
pouring in from all parts of the country. Stanley saw that he was a
success, and seemed pleased that his manager was on the winning side. He
suggested that I might as well lay my season out for one hundred
lectures, instead of fifty (singular, too, he did not suggest a rise in
his fee), and so we agreed, and I hurried back to New York to complete
the bookings for one hundred nights. Of course, in our contract, Mr.
Stanley had stipulated that in case he was recalled by the King of
Belgium, he was to be allowed to return without let or hindrance, but
that was not expected.
Mr. Stanley was delivering his tenth lecture in Amherst, Mass., on
Saturday evening, November 11th. I was in my office in New York writing
letters. It was ten o’clock in the evening when I received the following
telegram:
* * * * *
“AMHERST, MASS., November 11, 1886.
“J. B. POND, EVERETT HOUSE, NEW YORK.
“Must stop lecturing. Recalled. Sail Wednesday at 4 A.M.
“HENRY M. STANLEY.”
* * * * *
All my hopes dashed to the ground in a moment! It was not the first
disappointment in my life, however. I turned out my lights and retired,
to try to rest and think. Stanley certainly would and must go, and no
power on earth could prevent that. I determined to meet him cordially on
his arrival, and to lend him all the aid in my power toward getting away
on so short a notice.
The next morning (Sunday, November 12th), about 6 o’clock, Mr. Stanley
arrived, and came immediately to my room in my hotel to tell me that it
required every moment of his time to get ready and sail Wednesday
morning by steamship _Eidler_ at four o’clock. His decorations and
valuable presents from Queen Victoria and other monarchs were at a
jeweller’s on exhibition. He asked me to collect them personally, as he
had a great deal to do. He had accepted a commission to go back to
Africa at once, heading an expedition for the relief of Emin Pasha;
there was no time to lose, for he must equip the expedition in the
shortest possible time, as many lives were at stake.
Early in the forenoon people began to call. There were representatives
of the manufacturers of firearms and every sort of equipment necessary
for the work.
That evening, after a long day of consultations and dictations of
correspondence in preparation for his hurried departure, after we had
dined together, Mr. Stanley sat down in my office for about two hours,
smoking vigorously and uttering not a word. I knew he was undergoing a
severe mental struggle. He realized the hazardous risk he was taking,
the deprivation and suffering incumbent on such an expedition, with the
chances, even the most favorable to be considered, against losing not
only his own life, but the lives of many others. He finally spoke to me
of the singular business he had been engaged in during the day--that of
examining and getting information as to which were the most effective
firearms for the destruction of human life.
As his and my experience in the Indian country had been somewhat
similar, he asked me if I did not think, after all, that if we had
pursued wholly peaceful tactics with the Indians our Government would
have been more successful with them. He was considering whether it was
not best to undertake this mission across Africa with an unarmed company
rather than to have the appearance of a body of armed invaders. So far
as the natives were concerned, he had no misgivings, but the army of
slave-hunting Arabs under the leadership of Tippoo Tib were dangerous
foes and must be resisted. I discovered in Mr. Stanley that night a good
man, with a brave, sympathetic, tender heart. I know I felt a deep
sympathy and love for him and confidence in him that has lasted ever
since, and will last while I live.
Monday morning Mr. Stanley and his stenographer were at work early.
People that he had set to work on Sunday were going in and out, all busy
carrying out instructions or orders for such arms and equipment as he
wanted and could best get in this country. I know he ordered several
hundred repeating rifles and a large stock of camp equipments.
Monday night a dinner was given to Mr. Stanley at Delmonico’s by his
friend Mr. Henry S. Wellcome, an American merchant residing in London.
It was a delightful occasion. All who were present knew Stanley well and
expressed absolute faith in the ultimate success of this the most
hazardous adventure the great explorer had ever attempted. As the
_Eidler_ was to sail at the unseasonable hour of 4 the next morning, we
proposed to see Stanley on board the ship, so there was a long evening
on hand. Stanley related many incidents of his African experiences,
among them a visit among the Karaguas, a large and somewhat intelligent
African tribe. There was a bulldog in his caravan which attracted the
special admiration of a Karagua chief, who called attention to the fact
that the white man’s dog resembled his men more than the white man
himself, for the dog’s nose and the Karaguas’ noses were very much
alike, and the white man and the Karagua dogs were also very much alike,
both having long noses.
It was proposed that we adjourn to Madison Square Garden, to Buffalo
Bill’s Wild West. We occupied two boxes and enjoyed the performance to a
late hour. And as it was not in the nature of Stanley to keep his
friends waiting up all night, he insisted on a separation then and
there, that he might go on board the steamer. As he and I shook hands
when we parted, all that he said to me was: “I owe you eighty-nine
lectures, which I will deliver if ever I return from Africa.”
Stanley went to Africa; three years rolled by, during two years of which
no tidings were heard of him or his expedition. Finally the news
came--he had reached the goal. Since his departure for Africa I had been
non-committal in all of my correspondence for Stanley. I heard that his
London agent was booking dates. I was satisfied that if such were the
case he was doing it without authority, for no one had had time to hear
from him; besides, he was otherwise engaged. His friend Mr. Wellcome, in
London, wrote me that he was sure Stanley would not lecture, as he had
his book to write; besides, he was such a hero now, and was receiving so
much recognition from royalty, that he could not lecture in public, for
it would be undignified. The air was full of rumors, but remembering
Stanley’s last words, I had not the slightest fear of these rumors.
In due time, after the explorer’s arrival in Zanzibar with Emin Pasha, I
received a long letter from him, telling me that he had yet to finish
his book; that as soon as he got to London he would write me again. He
reached there in April, 1890, after an absence of three and a half
years. Business took me to London at that time, where I arrived on May
8, 1890. Stanley was the hero of the hour, and his name was on every
tongue. Here let me say that at no time had I for one moment a doubt of
his safe return to civilization, nor--a matter of much less moment--a
single fear that when the time came he would fail me in renewing the
broken lecture tour we were engaged in when he was called to take the
leadership of the Emin Relief Expedition. This brief statement will
serve as a key to the little comedy that followed on my arrival. It was
given out that Mr. Stanley would see no one. The book, which he himself
considered as his report of the Emin Expedition, was being written, and
the publishers naturally were pressing for “copy.” There were other
reasons for speech, as was seen when the cruel and strangely sad story
of the rear guard had not only to be published, but more fully explained
in its tragic features, because a concerted attack on Stanley’s
reputation in Great Britain was made. It came about when there was a
possibility of its wrecking the lecture tour, which finally grew into
the most successful lecture engagement ever made in the United States.
I said nothing of all this in London, but at once called on Mr. Wellcome
at his place of business there. I found him absorbed in preparation for
a great dinner to be given to Henry M. Stanley by “Americans in London.”
He declared himself glad to see me, but regretting that he was too busy
to give me any attention. I was at once informed that no one could see
Stanley. He received no callers in his apartment, I was candidly told,
and was so overwhelmed with letters and cards that none received
attention except those under _royal seal_. I must wait until June 3d and
see him at the banquet, where all would have an equal chance. There was
no use in writing to him, for he opened no letters. So I must wait and
take my chances with the crowd, according to this information. At the
same time, I could see no reason why I should not drop Mr. Stanley a
line of congratulation and let him know I was near him. This I did.
The next morning came a rap on my door and a call, “Letter, sir.” “Tuck
it under the door,” I replied. I took my time getting out of bed. When I
did get up and opened the letter, I found it was from Mr. Stanley, dated
the same evening I had written:
* * * * *
“34 DEVERE GARDENS, S.W.
“DEAR MAJOR POND: I am glad to know that you are in London; come down
and see me at eleven to-morrow. You will see ‘Not in’ on the door. Get
into the lift and come straight to my apartments. Will be glad to see
you.
“HENRY M. STANLEY.”
* * * * *
I was in that “lift” at exactly eleven o’clock on the morning of May 14,
1890. The “lift” boy asked, “Is this Major Pond?” “Yes,” I replied.
“This way, please,” and he opened a door. There stood Stanley; not the
Stanley of three and a half years ago. His black hair was now white. We
grasped each other by the hand, and it was some time before Stanley
said: “It’s all right, Major. I am glad to see you. Sit down.” I replied
that I did not want to occupy one moment of his time. He assured me that
I need not hurry. So for an hour he entertained me, relating much of his
experience; how gratifying it was to return, and how much he would like
to accept the generous hospitality and courtesies shown him on all
sides, but he had his book to finish and some engagements to dine with
friends, so with the coming dinner by Americans he was filled up as far
as he dared engage himself. Of course I said nothing about lecturing in
America and soon arose to bid him “Good-by.” He asked for my address,
which, was given, but I did not see him again until the American
banquet. Then he discovered me in the crowd and sent for me, and in the
presence of that great crowd of hero-worshippers and banqueters,
introduced me to his officers, Dr. Park, Stairs, Jephson, and Nelson,
who were seated on the right and left of him.
After that first interview I thought I would call on Mr. Wellcome again.
I found him still eagerly engaged in the preparations for the coming
banquet. He was very cordial. I told him that I had called to see if I
could ascertain any further news about our hero. He assured me that I
should surely see him at the dinner; but he could give me one piece of
news: Stanley was not going to lecture. I did not tell him, or any one
else, that I had seen Stanley.
Business kept me fast in London until early in June. It was Friday, the
6th, when I received a telegram from Stanley at Ascot, asking me to meet
him at his London apartments at five o’clock that day. I was there, and
he met me cordially, saying:
“Major Pond, on the 25th of September I am to be married, and on the
10th of October I take a degree at Cambridge. I owe you eighty-nine
lectures. It is needless for me to tell you that I have received some
very fabulous offers. I show you two of them, but I conceal the
signatures.”
They were very dazzling. I recognized the writing of one of them. It was
an offer of fifteen hundred dollars a lecture for one hundred lectures,
and all expenses from London and return.
“I have no thought of accepting them. I want you to go to your hotel and
put your proposition in writing, whatever you wish; do the best you can
for me. Come Sunday at five o’clock and we will sign the papers. We will
have a little dinner together. I will introduce you to the future Mrs.
Stanley. Then you can go about your work.”
I was there with the proposition made out in duplicate, and found a card
on the door, which read as follows:
* * * * *
“MAJOR: Unavoidably called away. Put the papers under the door. I will
sign and return them.”
(No signature.)
* * * * *
I was disappointed, not distrustful. I had expected to meet Miss
Tennant, of whom so much was being said and written. It was a lonesome
walk back to my hotel. I did not care to visit the club and did not wish
to talk, so I dropped into a Methodist meeting at St. James’s Hall,
heard the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes give a great crowd a real Calvinistic
lashing, and then dined at the Café Royal, alone and gloomy and
homesick. Reaching my hotel at ten o’clock I found a package in a large
envelope waiting for me. It was the contract I had drawn up and left at
Stanley’s apartments, duly signed by Henry M. Stanley. It was for one
hundred lectures, more or less, in America, to begin in New York,
Tuesday, November 11, 1890. Not an alteration of any kind or a word of
suggestion was made.
I did smile all by myself that night, and the smile lingered on my face
all the next day, when I called again on my friend Wellcome and told him
I was going back home to America, asking him if he could possibly give
me any encouragement about Stanley; he replied that he could not. “It
would not do for so great a man to disregard the general sentiment of
royalty as to condescend to lecture for money, though he might obey
royal command and speak for some charities.”
I told him that I was going on Wednesday to Glasgow (the Royal Scottish
Geographical Society were to dine Stanley that night, and I had received
an invitation from the president, of course at Stanley’s request), and I
wished that he, Villiers, and a few friends would dine with me at the
Savoy on Tuesday. Wellcome accepted, and six of his friends and my
friends had a jolly good time. During the evening Mr. Wellcome
entertained us with talk about his friend Stanley. Everybody knew he was
the nearest man to the hero of the hour.
During the evening Mr. Wellcome mentioned that Stanley was going to be
banqueted in Glasgow. I suggested (having an invitation in my pocket)
that I should like to be there. He explained how impossible it was for
any one not a member to obtain an invitation or to be admitted.
After a long and to me enjoyable evening, when the gray dawn showed
itself on the Thames embankment, the party broke up. I called Mr.
Wellcome to one side and in strict confidence told him that I had a
contract with Stanley for an American lecture tour; that we had
frequently been together; that I was going to Glasgow to the Stanley
dinner. He--well, he wilted!
Stanley was something more than a lecturer to me. I had known of him
over twenty years before in the West, as a newspaper correspondent. His
graphic descriptions of Western events and scenes in which I was a small
part always found favor in my sight because of their simple exactness. I
had seen him in Omaha and also on the plains, in connection with the
remarkable Indian campaigns of the later sixties, but never had the
courage to approach him. I felt an awe and respect for him that held me
aloof.
And yet Stanley was the personification of modesty. At the dinner given
by Americans in London to Stanley, the Rev. Dr. Joseph L. Parker, the
famous London preacher, came up to me and said: “Major Pond, I wish you
would introduce me to Stanley.”
“I shall not have to go far to do that,” said I; “the gentleman with
whom you just saw me talking is the man himself.”
“No, no,” said Dr. Parker, “that can’t be; why, that is a small man.
Stanley must be a great big fellow.”
The explorer is not more than five feet seven inches in height, but
stocky and well set.
A moment later Stanley advanced toward Dr. Parker, reached out his hand,
and said: “I am very glad to meet you, Dr. Parker, and I am gratified
that so eminent a man should have expressed a desire to be introduced to
me.” As a matter of fact, nothing of the sort had been intimated to
Stanley; he had simply overheard the remark about his size and at once
had tactfully smoothed matters over.
It was on his return from a trip to Aldershot, 1890, where he had been
to visit the graves of some of his comrades, that he told me of his
coming marriage and the honor awaiting him at Cambridge. He then
suggested a date for his departure to New York after October 25th. “The
_Teutonic_ sails on October 29th,” was my reply. His answer was: “That
will do.”
The _Teutonic_ arrived November 5th, and was detained over night at
quarantine on account of a heavy fog. The party consisted of Mr. Stanley
and his bride, Mrs. Dorothy Tennant Stanley; Mrs. Tennant, her mother;
Lieutenant Mounteney Jephson, and Hamilton Aide, a well-known London
literary man, dramatic author, and critic. I met Stanley and his wife
standing on the upper deck, and he greeted me very cordially,
introducing me to Mrs. Stanley, who quietly remarked:
“I don’t like you, Major Pond.”
“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Stanley. I think so much of your husband that it
will be sad for me if I cannot have your friendship.”
“That’s why I’m sure I’ll dislike you. Why should you want him more than
I do?”
“We’ll see,” I said. In a few minutes more we were all having a
delightful conversation together. I was introduced to Mrs. Tennant, Mrs.
Stanley’s mother, and Mr. Hamilton Aide, her nephew.
At the first word of the sighting of the _Teutonic_, the New York
newspaper men, headed by Colonel Finley Anderson, of the United Press,
Stanley’s personal friend, came down to meet their distinguished
fellow-craftsman. It was noticed that Mr. Stanley, in replying to
Colonel Anderson’s little speech of welcome, referred to his arrival as
to a “home-coming.” Then an appointment was made at my office for five
o’clock in the afternoon. The New York newspaper men were waiting in my
office at the time set, but Stanley was then unaware of the important
matter that they wished to bring to his attention. A representative of
the London _Times_ awaited his arrival at the hotel with a cabled
message from the _Thunderer_. While Stanley was on the ocean the English
press had contained severe and somewhat startling attacks on the truth
of the famous chapter on the rear guard in his new book. In this the
story of Major Bartellot and his death had been told, not to the credit
of the deceased officer. I am not intending again to present the
controversy that Bartellot’s family and Lieutenant Throop had launched
with their volumes replying to Stanley’s severe but restrained criticism
of Bartellot’s actions and methods. A storm of almost savage indignation
against Stanley had been aroused thereby. _The Times_ had cabled in full
the article it had published, and had directed its representative in New
York to obtain and cable Mr. Stanley’s reply. The situation had become
almost threatening.
I did not doubt that Stanley would fully maintain his own honor, but I
began to understand that such scandals were involved as might set the
public mind against the whole business of African exploration.
Stanley retired with _The Times_ correspondent. It is a matter of almost
“ancient history” to recall the plain and simple, but able and
courageous, frankness with which the Bartellot-Throop-Jamieson attacks
were met. The explorer had endeavored to hold back the personal
misconduct, of which he knew the men intrusted with the command of the
rear guard had been guilty. He now told the whole story, the details of
which are still fresh in the public mind. Forced to defend himself, he
did so with the same steady courage and directness of will that had
always marked his actions. He gave dates and names, as well as acts, and
placed at the disposal of the London _Times_ the complete evidence which
he had heretofore been very desirous, because of the families and
friends of the men, to keep from becoming public property. That
interview was printed in _The Times_ the next morning. It changed the
situation almost immediately so far as English opinion was concerned.
But it was the American press and what might follow of adverse
criticism that affected me most closely.
I dined with the party that evening, and Stanley was as jovial, cordial,
and self-poised as I ever saw him. He showed no sign of the fatigue
attending such a remarkable strain as that five hours of momentous
interviewing.