MEETING OF STANLEY AND EMIN PASHA.
Emin Pasha Arrives by Steamer, Accompanied by Signor Casati and Mr.
Jephson -- Meeting with Stanley -- Camp Together for Twenty-six Days
-- Stanley Returns to Fort Bodo -- Leaves Jephson with Emin --
Relieves Captain Nelson and Lieutenant Stairs -- Terrible Loss
Suffered by Lieutenant Stairs’ Party -- Leaves Fort Bodo for
Kilonga-Longa’s and Ugarrowwa -- The Latter Deserted -- Meets the Rear
Column of the Expedition, a Week Later, at Bunalya -- Meets Bonny and
Learns of the Death of Major Barttelot -- Terrible Wreck of the Rear
Column -- Seventy-one out of Two Hundred and Fifty-seven left -- The
Record one of Disaster, Desertion and Death -- Interview with Emin --
Emin’s Condition -- Emin and Jephson Surrounded by the Rebels and
Taken Prisoners -- Stanley Returns a Second Time to Albert Nyanza --
Emin and Jephson Relieved by Stanley -- Letter of Stanley Graphically
Describing the Forest Region Traversed by Him -- Sketches the Course
of the Aruwimi -- A Retrospect of his Thrilling Experiences as Far as
the Victoria Nyanza, August 28th, 1889.
“On the 29th of April we once again reached the bivouac ground occupied
by us on the 16th of December, and at 5 P. M. of that day I saw the
_Khedive_ steamer about seven miles away steaming toward us. Soon after
7 P. M. Emin Pasha and Signor Casati and Mr. Jephson arrived at our
camp, where they were heartily welcomed by all of us,” writes Mr.
Stanley.
“The next day we moved to a better camping-place, about three miles
above Nyamsassie, and at this spot Emin Pasha also made his camp. We
were together until the 25th of May. On that day I left him, leaving Mr.
Jephson, three Soudanese and two Zanzibaris in his care, and in return
he caused to accompany me three of his irregulars and one hundred and
two Mahdi natives as porters.
“Fourteen days later I was at Fort Bodo. At the fort were Captain Nelson
and Lieutenant Stairs. The latter had returned from Ugarrowwa’s
twenty-two days after I had set out for the lake, April 2d, bringing
with him, alas! only sixteen out of fifty-six. All the rest were dead.
My twenty couriers whom I had sent with letters to Major Barttelot had
safely left Ugarrowwa’s for Yambuya on March 16th.
“Fort Bodo was in a flourishing condition. Nearly ten acres were under
cultivation. One crop of Indian corn had been harvested, and was in the
granaries. They had just commenced planting again.
“On the 16th of June I left Fort Bodo with a hundred and eleven
Zanzibaris and a hundred and one of Emin Pasha’s people. Lieutenant
Stairs had been appointed commandant of the fort, Nelson second in
command, and Surgeon Parke medical officer. The garrison consisted of
fifty-nine rifles. I had thus deprived myself of all my officers that I
should not be encumbered with baggage and provisions and medicines,
which would have to be taken if accompanied by Europeans, and every
carrier was necessary for the vast stores left with Major Barttelot. On
the 24th of June we reached Kilonga-Longa’s, and July 19th Ugarrowwa’s.
The latter station was deserted. Ugarrowwa, having gathered as much
ivory as he could obtain from that district, had proceeded down river
about three months before. On leaving Fort Bodo I had loaded every
carrier with about sixty pounds of corn, so that we had been able to
pass through the wilderness unscathed.
[Illustration: ARABI PASHA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDANESE.]
“Passing on down river as fast as we could go, daily expecting to meet
the couriers who had been stimulated to exert themselves for a reward of
ten pounds per head, or the Major himself leading an army of carriers,
we indulged ourselves in these pleasing anticipations as we neared the
goal.
“On the 10th of August we overtook Ugarrowwa with an immense flotilla of
fifty-seven canoes, and to our wonder our couriers now reduced to
seventeen. They related an awful story of hair-breadth escapes and
tragic scenes. Three of their number had been slain, two were still
feeble from their wounds, and all except five bore on their bodies the
scars of arrow wounds.
“A week later, on August 17th, we met the rear column of the expedition
at a place called Bunalya, or, as the Arabs have corrupted it, Unarya.
There was a white man at the gate of the stockade whom I at first
thought was Mr. Jamieson, but a nearer view revealed the features of Mr.
Bonny, who left the medical service of the army to accompany us.
“‘Well, my dear Bonny, where is the Major?’
“‘He is dead, sir; shot by the Manyuema about a month ago.’
“‘Good God! And Mr. Jamieson?’
“‘He has gone to Stanley Falls to try and get some more men from
Tippu-Tib.’
“‘And Mr. Troup?’
“‘Mr. Troup has gone home, sir, invalided.’
“‘Hem! well, where is Ward?’
“‘Mr. Ward is at Bangala, sir.’
“‘Heavens alive! then you are the only one here?’
“‘Yes, sir.’
“I found the rear column a terrible wreck. Out of two hundred and
fifty-seven men there were only seventy-one remaining. Out of
seventy-one only fifty-two, on mustering them, seemed fit for service,
and these mostly were scarecrows. The advance had performed the march
from Yambuya to Bunalya in sixteen days, despite native opposition. The
rear column performed the same distance in forty-three days. According
to Mr. Bonny, during the thirteen months and twenty days that had
elapsed since I had left Yambuya, the record is only one of disaster,
desertion, and death. I have not the heart to go into the details, many
of which are incredible, and, indeed, I have not the time, for,
excepting Mr. Bonny, I have no one to assist me in reorganizing the
expedition. There are still far more loads than I can carry, at the same
time articles needful are missing. For instance, I left Yambuya with
only a short campaigning kit, leaving my reserve of clothing and
personal effects in charge of the officers. In December some deserters
from the advance column reached Yambuya to spread the report that I was
dead. They had no papers with them, but the officers seemed to accept
the report of these deserters as a fact, and in January Mr. Ward, at an
officers’ mess meeting, proposed that my instructions should be
cancelled. The only one who appears to have dissented was Mr. Bonny.
Accordingly, my personal kit, medicines, soap, candles, and provisions
were sent down the Congo as ‘superfluities!’ Thus, after making this
immense personal sacrifice to relieve them and cheer them up, I find
myself naked, and deprived of even the necessaries of life in Africa.
But, strange to say, they have kept two hats and four pairs of boots, a
flannel jacket; and I propose to go back to Emin Pasha and across Africa
with this truly African kit. Livingstone, poor fellow! was all in
patches when I met him, but it will be the reliever himself who will be
in patches this time. Fortunately not one of my officers will envy me,
for their kits are intact--it was only myself that was dead.
“I pray you to say that we were only eighty-two days from the Albert
Lake to Banalya, and sixty-one from Fort Bodo. The distance is not very
great--it is the people who fail one. Going to Nyanza we felt as though
we had the tedious task of dragging them; on returning each man knew the
road, and did not need any stimulus. Between the Nyanza and here we only
lost three men--one of which was by desertion. I brought a hundred and
thirty-one Zanzibaris here, and left fifty-nine at Fort Bodo--total, one
hundred and ninety men out of three hundred and eighty-nine; loss, fifty
per cent. At Yambuya I left two hundred and fifty-seven men; there are
only seventy-one left, ten of whom will never leave this camp--loss over
two hundred and seventy per cent. This proves that, though the
sufferings of the advance were unprecedented, the mortality was not so
great as in camp at Yambuya. The survivors of the march are all robust,
while the survivors of the rear column are thin and most
unhealthy-looking.
“I have thus rapidly sketched out our movements since June 28th, 1887. I
wish I had the leisure to furnish more details, but I cannot find the
time. I write this amid the hurry and bustle of departure, and amid
constant interruptions. You will, however, have gathered from this
letter an idea of the nature of the country traversed by us. We were a
hundred and sixty days in the forest--one continuous, unbroken, compact
forest. The grass-land was traversed by us in eight days. The limits of
the forest along the edge of the grass-land are well marked. We saw it
extending northeasterly, with its curves and bays and capes, just like a
sea-shore. Southwesterly it preserved the same character. North and
south the forest area extends from Nyangwe to the southern borders of
the Monbuttu; east and west it embraces all from the Congo, at the mouth
of the Aruwimi, to about east longitude 29°-40°. How far west beyond the
Congo the forest reaches I do not know. The superficial extent of the
tract thus described--totally covered by forest--is two hundred and
forty-six thousand square miles. North of the Congo, between Upoto and
the Aruwimi, the forest embraces another twenty thousand square miles.
“Between Yambuya and the Nyanza we came across five distinct languages.
The last is that which is spoken by the Wanyoro, Wanyankori, Wanya,
Ruanda, and people of Karangwe and Ukerwee.
“The land slopes gently from the crest of the plateau above the Nyanza
down to the Congo River from an altitude of five thousand five hundred
feet to one thousand four hundred feet above the sea. North and south of
our track through the grass-land the face of the land was much broken by
groups of cones or isolated mounts or ridges. North we saw no land
higher than about six thousand feet above the sea; but bearing two
hundred and fifteen degrees magnetic, at the distance of about fifty
miles from our camp on the Nyanza, we saw a towering mountain, its
summit covered with snow, and probably seventeen or eighteen thousand
feet above the sea. It is called Ruevenzori, and will probably prove a
rival to Kilimanjaro. I am not sure that it may not prove to be the
Gordon-Bennett Mountain in Gambaragara; but there are two reasons for
doubting it to be the same--first, it is a little too far west for the
position of the latter, as given by me in 1876; and, secondly, we saw no
snow on the Gordon-Bennett. I might mention a third, which is that the
latter is a perfect cone apparently, while the Ruevenzori is an oblong
mount, nearly level on the summit, with two ridges extending northeast
and southwest.
“I have met only three natives who have seen the lake toward the south.
They agree that it is large, but not so large as the Albert Nyanza.
“The Aruwimi becomes known as the Suhali about one hundred miles above
Yambuya; as it nears the Nepoko it is called the Nevoa; beyond its
confluence with the Nepoko it is known as the No-Welle; three hundred
miles from the Congo it is called the Itiri, which is soon changed into
the Ituri, which name it retains to its source. Ten minutes’ march from
the Ituri waters we saw the Nyanza, like a mirror in its immense gulf.
“Before closing my letter let me touch more at large on the subject
which brought me to this land--viz., Emin Pasha.
“The Pasha has two battalions of regulars under him--the first,
consisting of about seven hundred and fifty rifles, occupies Duffle,
Honyu, Lahore, Muggi, Kirri, Bedden, Rejaf; the second battalion,
consisting of six hundred and forty men, guard the stations of Wadelai,
Fatiko, Mahagi, and Mswa, a line of communication along the Nyanza and
Nile about one hundred and eighty miles in length. In the interior west
of the Nile he retains three or four small stations--fourteen in all.
Besides these two battalions he has quite a respectable force of
irregulars, sailors, artisans, clerks, servants. ‘Altogether,’ he said,
‘if I consent to go away from here we shall have about eight thousand
people with us.’
“‘Were I in your place I would not hesitate one moment or be a second in
doubt what to do.’
“‘What you say is quite true; but we have such a large number of women
and children, probably ten thousand people altogether. How can they all
be brought out of here? We shall want a great number of carriers.’
“‘Carriers! carriers for what?’ I asked.
“‘For the women and children. You surely would not leave them, and they
cannot travel?’
“‘The women must walk. It will do them more good than harm. As for the
little children, load them on the donkeys. I hear you have about two
hundred of them. Your people will not travel very far the first month,
but little by little they will get accustomed to it. Our Zanzibar women
crossed Africa on my second expedition. Why cannot your black women do
the same? Have no fear of them; they will do better than the men.’
“‘They would require a vast amount of provision for the road.’
“‘True, but you have some thousands of cattle, I believe. Those will
furnish beef. The countries through which we pass must furnish grain and
vegetable food.’
“‘Well, well, we will defer further talk till to-morrow.’
“_May 1st, 1888._--Halt in camp at Nsabé. The Pasha came ashore from the
steamer _Khedive_ about 1 P. M., and in a short time we commenced our
conversation again. Many of the arguments used above were repeated, and
he said:
“‘What you told me yesterday has led me to think that it is best we
should retire from here. The Egyptians are very willing to leave. There
are of these about one hundred men, besides their women and children. Of
these there is no doubt; and even if I stayed here I should be glad to
be rid of them, because they undermine my authority and nullify all my
endeavors for retreat. When I informed them that Khartoum had fallen and
Gordon Pasha was slain, they always told the Nubians that it was a
concocted story, that some day we should see the steamers ascend the
river for their relief. But of the regulars who compose the first and
second battalions I am extremely doubtful; they have led such a free and
happy life here that they would demur at leaving a country where they
have enjoyed luxuries they cannot command in Egypt. The soldiers are
married, and several of them have harems. Many of the irregulars would
also retire and follow me. Now, supposing the regulars refuse to leave,
you can imagine that my position would be a difficult one. Would I be
right in leaving them to their fate? Would it not be consigning them all
to ruin? I should have to leave them their arms and ammunition, and on
returning all discipline would be at an end. Disputes would arise, and
factions would be formed. The more ambitious would aspire to be chiefs
by force, and from these rivalries would spring hate and mutual
slaughter until there would be none of them left.’
“‘Supposing you resolve to stay, what of the Egyptians?’ I asked.
“‘Oh! these I shall have to ask you to be good enough to take with you.’
“Now, will you, Pasha, do me the favor to ask Captain Casati if we are
to have the pleasure of his company to the sea, for we have been
instructed to assist him also should we meet?’
“Captain Casati answered through Emin Pasha:
“‘What the Governor Emin decides upon shall be the rule of conduct for
me also. If the Governor stays, I stay. If the Governor goes, I go.’
“‘Well, I see, Pasha, that in the event of your staying your
responsibilities will be great.’
“A laugh. The sentence was translated to Casati, and the gallant Captain
replied:
“‘Oh! I beg pardon, but I absolve the Pasha from all responsibility
connected with me, because I am governed by my own choice entirely.’
“Thus day after day I recorded faithfully the interviews I had with Emin
Pasha; but these extracts reveal as much as is necessary for you to
understand the position. I left Mr. Jephson thirteen of my Soudanese,
and sent a message to be read to the troops, as the Pasha requested.
Everything else is left until I return with the united expedition to the
Nyanza.
[Illustration: TERRIFIC FIGHT FOR LIFE.]
“Within two months the Pasha proposed to visit Fort Bodo, taking Mr.
Jephson with him. At Fort Bodo I have left instructions to the officers
to destroy the fort and accompany the Pasha to the Nyanza. I hope to
meet them all again on the Nyanza, as I intend making a short cut to the
Nyanza along a new road.”
In a subsequent letter wherein he refers to his return to the rear, to
bring up those of his forces that had been left behind, he says:
“This has certainly been the most extraordinary expedition I have ever
led into Africa.
“A regular divinity seems to have hedged us while we journeyed. I say it
with all reverence. It has impelled us whither it would, effected its
own will, but nevertheless guided us and protected us.
“What can you make of this, for instance? On August 17th, 1887, all the
officers of the rear column are united at Yambuya. They have my letter
of instructions before them, but instead of preparing for the morrow’s
march to follow our track, they decide to wait at Yambuya, which
decision initiates the most awful season any community of men ever
endured in Africa or elsewhere.
“The results are that three-quarters of their force die of slow poison.
Their commander is murdered, and the second officer dies soon after of
sickness and grief. Another officer is wasted to a skeleton and obliged
to return home. A fourth is sent to wander aimlessly up and down the
Congo, and the survivor is found in such a fearful pest-hole that we
dare not describe its horrors.
“On the same date, one hundred and fifty miles away, the officer of the
day leads three hundred and thirty-three men of the advanced column into
the bush, loses the path and all consciousness of his whereabouts, and
every step he takes only leads him further astray. His people become
frantic; his white companions, vexed and irritated by the sense of the
evil around them, cannot devise any expedient to relieve him. They are
surrounded by cannibals, and poison-tipped arrows thin their numbers.
“Meantime, I, in command of the river column, am anxiously searching up
and down the river in four different directions; through forests my
scouts are seeking for them, but not until the sixth day was I
successful in finding them.
“Taking the same month and the same date in 1888, a year later, on
August 17th, I listen, horror-stricken, to the tale of the last
surviving officer of the rear column at Banalya, and am told of nothing
but death and disaster, disaster and death, death and disaster. I see
nothing but horrible forms of men smitten with disease, bloated,
disfigured and scarred, while the scene in the camp, infamous for the
murder of poor Barttelot Barth four weeks before, is simply sickening.
“On the same day, six hundred miles west of this camp, Jamieson, worn
out with fatigue, sickness and sorrow, breathes his last.
“On the next day, August 18th, six hundred miles east, Emin Pasha and my
officer Jephson are suddenly surrounded by infuriated rebels, who
menace them with loaded rifles and instant death; but fortunately they
relent and only make them prisoners, to be delivered to the Mahdists.
“Having saved Bonny out of the jaws of death, we arrive a second time at
Albert Nyanza, to find Emin Pasha and Jephson prisoners in daily
expectation of their doom.
“Jephson’s own letters will describe his anxiety. Not until both were in
my camp and the Egyptian fugitives under our protection, did I begin to
see that I was only carrying out a higher plan than mine. My own designs
were constantly frustrated by unhappy circumstances. I endeavored to
steer my course as direct as possible, but there was an unaccountable
influence at the helm.”
In still another letter he gives us a most graphic account of this vast
forest region. “Until we penetrated and marched through it,” he writes,
“this region was entirely unexplored and untrodden by either white or
Arab.”
“While in England, considering the best routes open to the Nyanza
(Albert), I thought I was very liberal in allowing myself two weeks’
march to cross the forest region lying between the Congo and the
grass-land; but you may imagine our feelings when month after month saw
us marching, tearing, plowing, cutting through that same continuous
forest. It took us one hundred and sixty days before we could say,
‘Thank God! we are out of the darkness at last.’ At one time we were
all--whites and blacks--almost ‘done up.’ September, October, and half
of that month of November, 1887, will not be forgotten by us. October
will be specially memorable to us for the sufferings we endured. Our
officers are heartily sick of the forest; but the loyal blacks, a band
of one hundred and thirty, followed me once again into the wild,
trackless forest, with its hundreds of inconveniences, to assist their
comrades of the rear column. Try and imagine some of these
inconveniences. Take a thick Scottish copse, dripping with rain; imagine
this copse to be a mere undergrowth, nourished under the impenetrable
shades of ancient trees, ranging from one hundred to one hundred and
eighty feet high; briers and thorns abundant; lazy creeks, meandering
through the depths of the jungle, and sometimes a deep affluent of a
great river. Imagine this forest and jungle in all stages of decay and
growth--old trees falling, leaning perilously over, fallen prostrate;
ants and insects of all kinds, sizes, and colors murmuring around;
monkeys and chimpanzees above; queer noises of birds and animals;
crashes in the jungle as troops of elephants rush away: dwarfs with
poisoned arrows securely hidden behind some buttress or in some dark
recess; strong, brown-bodied aborigines with terribly sharp spears,
standing poised, still as dead stumps; rain pattering down on you every
other day in the year; an impure atmosphere, with its dread
consequences, fever and dysentery; gloom throughout the day, and
darkness almost palpable throughout the night; and then, if you will
imagine such a forest, extending the entire distance from Plymouth to
Peterhead, you will have a fair idea of some of the inconveniences
endured by us from June 28th to December 5th, 1887, and from June 1st,
1888, to the present date, to continue again from the present date till
about December 10th, 1888, when I hope then to say a last farewell to
the Congo forest.
“Now that we have gone through and through this forest region, I only
feel a surprise that I did not give a greater latitude to my ideas
respecting its extent; for had we thought of it, it is only what might
have been deduced from our knowledge of the great sources of moisture
necessary to supply the forest with the requisite sap and vitality.
Think of the large extent of the South Atlantic Ocean, whose vapors are
blown during nine months of the year in this direction. Think of the
broad Congo, varying from one to sixteen miles wide, which has a stretch
of one thousand four hundred miles, supplying another immeasurable
quantity of moisture, to be distilled into rain, and mist, and dew over
this insatiable forest; and then another six hundred miles of the
Aruwimi or Ituri itself, and then you will cease to wonder that there
are about one hundred and fifty days of rain every year in this region,
and that the Congo forest covers such a wide area.
“Until we set foot on the grass-land, something like fifty miles west of
the Albert Nyanza, we saw nothing that looked like a smile, or a kind
thought, or a moral sensation. The aborigines are wild, utterly savage,
and incorrigibly vindictive. The dwarfs--called Wambutti--are worse
still, far worse. Animal life is likewise so wild and shy that no sport
is to be enjoyed. The gloom of the forest is perpetual. The face of the
river, reflecting its black walls of vegetation, is dark and sombre. The
sky one-half of the time every day resembles a winter sky in England;
the face of Nature and life is fixed and joyless. If the sun charges
through the black clouds enveloping it, and a kindly wind brushes the
masses of vapor below the horizon, and the bright light reveals our
surroundings, it is only to tantalize us with a short-lived vision of
brilliancy and beauty of verdure.
“Emerging from the forest, finally, we all became enraptured. Like a
captive unfettered and set free, we rejoiced at sight of the blue cope
of heaven, and freely bathed in the warm sunshine, and aches and gloomy
thoughts and unwholesome ideas were banished. You have heard how the
London citizen, after months of devotion to business in the gaseous
atmosphere in that great city, falls into raptures at sight of the green
fields and hedges, meadows and trees; and how his emotions, crowding on
his dazed senses, are indescribable. Indeed, I have seen a Derby day
once, and I fancied then that I only saw madmen--for great, bearded,
hoary-headed fellows, though well dressed enough, behaved in a most
idiotic fashion, amazing me quite. Well, on this 5th of December we
became suddenly smitten with madness in the same manner. Had you seen us
you would have thought we had lost our senses, or that ‘Legion’ had
entered and taken possession of us. We raced with our loads over a wide,
unfenced field (like an English park for the softness of its grass), and
herds of buffalo, eland, roan antelope, stood on either hand with
pointed ears and wide eyes, wondering at the sudden wave of human
beings, yelling with joy, as they issued out of the dark depths of the
forest.
“On the confines of this forest, near a village which was rich in sugar
cane, ripe bananas, tobacco, Indian corn, and other productions of
aboriginal husbandry, we came across an ancient woman lying asleep. I
believe she was a leper and an outcast, but she was undoubtedly ugly,
vicious, and old; and, being old, she was obstinate. I practiced all
kinds of seductive arts to get her to do something besides crossly
mumbling, but of no avail. Curiosity having drawn toward us about a
hundred of our people, she fastened fixed eyes on one young fellow
(smooth-faced and good-looking), and smiled. I caused him to sit near
her, and she became voluble enough--beauty and youth had tamed the
‘beast.’ From her talk we learned that there was a powerful tribe,
called the Banzanza, with a great king, to the northeast of our camp, of
whom we might be well afraid, as the people were as numerous as grass.
Had we learned this ten days earlier, I might have become anxious for
the result; but it now only drew a contemptuous smile from the
people--for each one, since he had seen the grass-land and evidences of
meat, had been transformed into a hero.
“We poured out on the plain a frantic multitude, but after an hour or
two we became an orderly column. Into the emptied villages of the open
country we proceeded to regale ourselves on melon, rich-flavored bananas
and plantains, and great pots full of wine. The fowls, unaware of the
presence of a hungry mob, were knocked down, plucked, roasted, or
boiled; the goats, meditatively browsing, or chewing the cud, were
suddenly seized and decapitated, and the grateful aroma of roast meat
gratified our senses. An abundance, a prodigal abundance, of good
things, had awaited our eruption into the grass-land. Every village was
well stocked with provisions, and even luxuries long denied to us. Under
such fare the men became most robust, diseases healed as if by magic,
the weak became strong, and there was not a goee-goee or chickenheart
left. Only the Babusesse, near the main Ituri, were tempted to resist
the invasion.”
It is not possible yet fully to determine the geographical results of
the expedition. That they are very great and important appears certain.
In the brief narratives already furnished by Mr. Stanley many facts of
value and interest appear, adding new details to the map of Africa. The
Aruwimi, Mr. Stanley says, is also called the Ituri, the Dudu, the
Biyerre, the Luhali, the Nevva, and the Nowelle-Itire. Throughout
several hundred miles of its upper part it is invariably called the
Ituri, as it is by the natives around the Albert Nyanza.
“The main Ituri, at the distance of six hundred and eighty miles from
its mouth,” says Mr. Stanley, “is one hundred and twenty-five yards
wide, nine feet deep, and has a current of three knots. It appears to
run parallel with the Nyanza. Near that group of cones and hills
affectionately named Mount Schweinfurth, Mount Junker, and Mount Speke,
I would place its highest source. Draw three or four respectable streams
draining into it from the crest of the plateau overlooking the Albert
Nyanza, and two or three respectable streams flowing into it from
northwesterly, let the main stream flow southwest to near north latitude
1°, give it a bow-like form north latitude 1° to north latitude 1° 50´,
then let it flow with curves and bends down to north latitude 1° 17´
near Yambuya, and you have a sketch of the course of the Aruwimi, or
Ituri, from the highest source down to its mouth, and the length of this
Congo tributary will be eight hundred miles. We have travelled on it and
along its banks for six hundred and eighty miles; on our first march to
the Nyanza for one hundred and fifty-six miles along its banks or near
its vicinity; we returned to obtain our boat from Kilonga-Longa’s; then
we conveyed the boat to the Nyanza for as many miles again; for four
hundred and eighty miles we travelled its flanks or voyaged on its
waters to hunt up the rear column of the expedition; for as many miles
we must retrace our steps to the Albert Nyanza for the third time. You
will, therefore, agree with me that we have sufficient knowledge of this
river for all practical purposes.”
In a letter, dated South End, Victoria Nyanza, September 3, 1889,
referring to his experiences on the Aruwimi, he says: “For the time
being you can believe me that one day has followed another in striving
fully against all manner of obstacles, natural and otherwise. From the
day I left Yambuya to August 28, 1889, the day I arrived here, the bare
catalogue of incidents would fill several quires of foolscap. The
catalogue of adventures, accidents, mortalities, sufferings from fever,
and morbid musings over the mischances that meet us daily would make a
formidable list. You know that all the stretch of country between
Yambuya and this place is an absolute new country except what may be
measured by five ordinary marches. First, there is that dead white of
the map now changed to a dead black. I mean that the region of earth
confined between east longitude 25° and south latitude 29° 45´ is one
great compact of a remorselessly sullen forest with a growth of an
untold number of ages, swarming at stated intervals with immense numbers
of vicious man-eating savages, and crafty, undersized men who were
unceasing in their annoyance. Then there is that belt of grass-land
lying between it and Albert Nyanza, whose people contested every mile of
our advance with spirit, and made us think that they were guardians of
some priceless treasure hidden in the Nyanza shores or at war with Emin
Pasha and his thousands. Sir Percival in search of the Holy Grail could
not have met with hotter opposition. Three separate times necessity
compelled us to traverse these unholy regions with varying fortunes.”
[Illustration]