ON the 4th of December, 1889, the world rang
with the news that
Stanley and Emin Pasha, attended by several hundred others
who had left Central Africa, had arrived on the East
coast.
This intelligence was hailed with every demonstration
of
delight, and the newspaper press throughout all civilized
nations re-
corded the fact that the great explorer had at last accomplished
his
task.
Previous to this, on November 21st, the Emin Relief Committee
in
Berlin had received the welcome intelligence of Mr. Stanley's,
arrival at
Mpwapwa, in the territories of the German East African
Protectorate.
The intelligence of the intrepid Pasha's safety was hailed
with greater
relief for the reason that, owing to an unfortunate telegraphic
error, it
was at first believed that he had perished. The dismay
caused by this
mistake was naturally great, especially as the Emperor
was reported to
have had confirmation of the sad news from the Imperial
Commission.
His Majesty was said to have at once communicated with
the Relief
Committee and to have evinced the deepest emotion. It
seemed doubly
tragic that the courageous Governor of the Equatorial
Province should
have perished, after all his wanderings and dangers,
when almost within
sight of home and on the borders of German territory.
Happily the
mistake was soon discovered, and served only to enhance
the general
rejoicing over the Pasha's safety.
The New York Herald, with that generous spirit of enterprise
which
has always characterized it, resolved to meet the returning
explorer with
a relief expedition. Under date of November nth, it published
the fol-
lowing dispatch from its correspondent at Zanzibar :
Zanzibar, Nov. 10, 1889. — Captain Wissmann has sent me
word that I
can go up country with my expedition to meet Mr. Stanley,
and carry
him supplies of tea, quinine, tobacco and other necessaries.
Captain
Wissmann will give me an escort in addition to my own
men, but he says
that I must fly the German flag. Captain Wissmann comes
here from the
coast to-night. The German government asked him yesterday
to give
me every assistance.
Stanley's Thrilling Narrative.
The Herald published the following letter which describes
the later
incidents of the extraordinary march.
Mr. Stanley says : First of all, I am in perfect health
and feel like a
laborer of a Saturday evening returning home with his
week's work
done, his week's wages in his pocket, and glad that to-morrow
is the
Sabbath.
Just about three years ago, while lecturing in New England,
a mes-
sage came from under the sea bidding me to hasten and
take a commis-
sion to relieve Emin Pasha at Wadelai ; but, as people
generally do with
faithful pack horses, numbers of little trifles, odds
and ends, are piled on
over and above the proper burden. Twenty various little
commissions
were added to the principal one, each requiring due care
and thought.
Well, looking back over what has been accomplished, I
see no reason
for any heart's discontent. We can say we shirked no
task and that
good will, aided by steady effort, enabled us to complete
every little job
as well as circumstances permitted.
Over and above the happy ending of our appointed duties
we have
not been unfortunate in geographical discoveries. The
Aruwimi is now
known from its source to its bourne. The great Congo
forest, covering
as large an area as France and the Iberian Peninsula,
we can now certify-
to be an absolute fact. The Mountains of the Moon this
time, beyond
the least doubt, have been located, and Ruwenzori, "
The Cloud King,"
robed in eternal snow, has been seen and its flanks explored
and some of
its shoulders ascended. Mounts Gordon Bennett and Mackinnon
Cones
being but giant sentries warding off the approach of
the inner area of
"The Cloud King."
On the southeast of the range, the connection between
Albert Edward
Nyanza and the Albert Nyanza has been discovered and
the extent of
the former lake is now known for the first time. Range
after range of
mountains has been traversed, sepai'ated by such tracts
of pasture land
as would make your cowboys out West mad with envy. And
right
under the burning equator we have fed on blackberries
and bilber-
ries and quenched our thirst with crystal water fresh
from snow beds.
We have also been able to add nearly 6,000 square miles
of water to
Victoria Nyanza.
Our naturalist will expatiate upon the new species of
animals, birds
and plants he has discovered. Our surgeon will tell what
he knows of
the climate and its amenities. It will take us all we
know how to say
what new store of knowledge has been gathered from this
unexpected
field of discoveries. I always suspected that in the
central regions
between the equatorial lakes something worth seeing would
be found,
but I was not prepared for such a harvest of new facts.
The Hand of a Divinity.
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 17,
1887, all
the officers of the rear column are united at Yambuya.
They have my
letter of instructions before them, but instead of preparing
for the mor-
row'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.
Upon the same date, 150 miles away, the officer of the
day leads 333
men of the advanced column into the bush, loses the path
and all con-
sciousness 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. Thev are surrounded by cannibals
and poison
tipped arrows thin their numbers.
More Sufferings and Losses.
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-struck, to the tale of
the last surviving offi-
cer 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 iior-
rible forms of men smitten with disease, bloatedj disfigured
and scarred,
while the scene in the camp, infamous for the murder
of poor Barttelot
four weeks before, is simply sickening.
On the same day, 000 miles west of this camp, Jameson,
worn out
with fatigue, sickness and sorrow, breathes his last.
On the next day,
August 18th, 600 miles ast, 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 Madhists.
Emin's Peril.
Having saved Bonny out of the jaws of death we arrived
a second
time at Albert Nyanza, to find Emin Pasha and Jephson
prisoners in daily
expectation of their doom.
Jephson's own letters fully 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 en-
deavored to steer my course as direct as possible, but
there was an un-
accountable influence at the helm.
I gave as much good will to my duties as the strictest
honor would com-
pel. My faith that the purity of my motive deserved success
was first, but
I have been conscious that the issues of every effort
were in other hands.
Not one officer who was with me will forget the miseries
he has en-
dured, yet every one that started from his home destined
to march with
the advance column and share its wonderful adventures
is here to-day
safe, sound and well. This is not due to me. Lieutenant
Stairs was
pierced with a poisoned arrow like others, but others
died and he lives.
The poisoned tip came out from under his heart eighteen
months after
he was pierced. Jephson was four months a prisoner, with
guards with
loaded rifles around him. That they did not murder him
is not due to me.
Hardships of the March.
These officers have had to wade through as many as seventeen
streams
and broad expanses of mud and swamp in a day. They have
endured a
sun that scorched whatever it touched. A multitude of
impediments have
ruffled their tempers and harassed their hours.
They have been maddened with the agonies of fierce fevers;
they have
lived for months in an atmosphere that medical authority
declared to
be deadly. They have faced dangers every day, and their
diet has been
all through what legal serfs would have declared to be
infamous and
abominable, and yet they live.
This in not due to me any more than the courage with which
they
have borne all that was imposed upon them by their surroundings
or the
cheery energy which they bestowed to their work, or the
hopeful voices
which rang in the ears of a deafening multitude of blacks,
and urged the
poor souls on to their goal.
The vulgar will call it luck. Unbelievers will call it
chance, but deep
down in each heart remains the feeling that, of verity,
there are more
things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in common
philosophy.
A Summary of Bravery.
I must be brief Numbers of scenes crowd the memory. Could
one
but sum them into a picture it would have a great interest.
The uncom-
plainmg heroism of our dark followers, the brave manhood
latent in such
uncouth disguise, the tenderness we have seen issuing
from nameless en-
tities, great love animating the ignoble, the sacrifice
made by the unfor-
tunate for one more unfortunate, the reverence we have
noted in barba-
rians, who, even as ourselves, were inspired with nobleness
and incen-
tives to duty, of all these we could speak if we would,
but I leave that to
the correspondent who, if he has eyes to see, will see
much for
himself, and who with his gifts of composition, may present
a very taking
outline of what has been done, and is now near ending,
thanks be to God
forever and ever. Yours faithfully,
Henry M. Stanley.
The following letter from Mr. Stanley relates the additional
incidents
of his homeward march. It was sent to Mr. Smith, Acting
British
Consul at Zanzibar.
German Station, Mpwapwa, November 11, 1889.
Dear Sir: — We arrived here yesterday on the fifty-fifth
day from
Victoria Nyanza and the iS8th day from the Albert Nyanza.
We
number altogether about 750 souls. At the last muster,
three days ago,
Emin Pasha's people numbered 294, of whom 59 are children,
mostly
orphans of Egyptian officers. The whites with me are
Lieutenant Stairs,
Captain Nelson, Mounteney Jephson, Surgeon Parke, William
Bonny,
Mr. Hoffman, Emin Pasha, Captain Casati, Signor Marco
and a Tunisian,
Vitu Hassan, and an apothecary. We have also Peres Girault
and
Schinze, of the Algerian mission. Among the principal
officers of the
Pasha are the Vakeers, of the Equatorial Province, and
Major Awash
Effendi, of the second battalion.
Since leaving Victoria Nyanza we have lost eighteen of
the Pasha's
people and one native of Zanzibar, who was killed while
we were parley-
ing with hostile people. Every other expedition I have
led has seen the
lightening of our labors as we drew near the sea, but
I cannot say the
same of this one. Our long string of hammock bearers
tells a different
tale, and until we place these poor things on shipboard
there will be no
rest for us. The worst of it is we have not the privilege
of showing at
Zanzibar the full extent of our labors. After carrying
the helpless
1,000 miles, fighting to the right and left of the sick,
driving Warasura
from their prey, over range and range of mountains, with
every energy
on the full strain, they slip through our hands and die
in their hammocks.
One lady, seventy-five years of age, the old mother of
the Valkiel, died
in this manner in North Msukuma, south of Victoria Nyanza.
Four Days' Fighting.
We had as stirring a time for four days as we had anywhere.
For
those four days we had continuous fighting during the
greater part of
daylight hours. The foolish natives took an unaccountable
prejudice to
the Pasha's people. They insisted that they were cannibals
and had
come to their country for no good. Talking to them was
of no use.
Any attempt at disproval drove them into white hot rage,
and in their
mad flinging themselves on us they suffered.
I am advised that the route to the sea via Simba and Mwene
is the
best for one thing that specially appears desirable to
me — an abundance
of food. I propose to adopt that line. As regards the
danger of an
attack, this road seems to me to be as bad as another.
We have rpade the unexpected discovery, of real value
in Africa, of
a considerable extension of the Victoria Nyanza to the
southwest. The
utmost southerly reach of this extension is south latitude
2° 48', which
brings the Victoria Sea within 155 miles only from Lake
Tanganyika.
I was so certain in my mind that this fact was known through
the
many voyages of the Church Missionary Society to Uganda,
that I do
not feel particularly moved by it. Mackay, however, showed
me the
latest maps published by the society, and I saw that
not one had even a
suspicion of it. On the road here I made a rough sketch
of it, and I
find that the area of the great lake is now increased
by this discovery to
26,900 square miles, which is just about 1,900 square
miles larger than
the reputed exaggerations of Captain Speke.
If you will glance at a map of the lake toward the southwest
you will
find that the coast line runs about northwest and east-southeast;
but
this coast line so drawn consists mainly of a series
of large and moun-
tainous islands, many of them well peopled, which overlap
one another.
South of these islands is a large body of water, just
discovered Lake
Uriji, also which Captain Speke so slightly sketched.
It turns out to be
a very j-espectable lake, with populated islands in it.
I hope that we shall meet before long.
I beg to remain your obedient servant,
Henry M. Stanley.
These reports from Mr. Stanley, containing the history
of his journey,
give a dramatic completeness to the story of his expedition.
He has
rescued Emin Pasha just when he stood in the sorest need
of rescue. In
the interval between his first and second meetings with
Emin the latter's
feeble dominion crumbled to pieces under the assaults
of the Madhists.
Emin's demoralized army was in full revolt, and Mr. Stanley,
who was
hastening back to the appointed rendezvous for the final
operation of
rescue, learned that there was no time to lose. Emin
and Jephson had
been prisoners for five months. Mr. Stanley pushed forward,
waited
for nearly a month to gather up all the fugitives, and
then left the Albert
Nyanza homeward bound. We have heard nothing so full
nor so direct
from him since the interesting letters published in April,
1889, in which he
announced that he was setting forth on the final expedition
towards
Emin, of which we now know the triumphant result. These
letters, writ-
ten in August, 1888, broke the silence of fourteen months.
Stanley had
been lost to the world from June, 1887. He was again
to be lost until
the date of his very welcome message — despatched, of
course, in advance
by messengers to Zanzibar, and thence telegraphed to
this country.
He met Emin for the first, time in April, 1888, after
struggling through
the almost impenetrable forest described with such vivid
force in his
letters. He found Emin unwilling to return with him,
but he left him to
reconsider his determination while he went back towards
the Aruwimi to
look after his rear guard and to gather up his own supplies.
He reached
the station only to receive news of the direst disaster
— the murder of
Major Barttelot, the abandonment of the station — and
the day after he
received the news, though he was of course unaware of
it at the time,
Emin Pasha, at the other extremity of the line, fell
into the power of the
Mahdists. Stanley set out to join Emin without any knowledge,
though perhaps not without some apprehension of the catastrophe,
but he showed such diligence in his march that he was
in time to act
with decisive energy. The event crowns his wonderful
enterprise in a
becoming manner, and it will have an effect which everyone
must have
thought impossible — in adding even to his reputation
for courage, for
perseverance, and indomitable will. The rescue of Emin
Pasha is glory
enough for Stanley, and the world applauds his brilliant
success.
Emin's Love for His People.
Emin took a prodigious time to make up his mind, and no
wonder.
He was still hoping against hope that he might recover
his old authority
and go on with his life work, the civilizing of the Equatorial
Province,
and with that of the whole Soudan. His was not the vacillation
of the
man who cannot choose between two courses of seemingly
equal advant-
age ; it was the reluctance of a devotee to give up what
alone seemed to
him to make life worth living. In all this Emin was perfectly
consistent
with himself It was no change of purpose at the last
moment that made
him cling to Central Africa ; he had always said that
he would never
leave it with his good will. It was not he that asked
to be relieved, or,
at any rate, to be relieved in the way suggested by his
generous friends
in England. His latest letter, it will be observed, written
in the first
flush of his gratitude, acknowledges only an appeal for
"assistance for
my people." Personally, he wished only to be helped to
stay ; not to be
helped to retire. There can be little doubt that, with
all the chances
against him, he would have preferred to remain — either
to win his prov-
ince back again to law and to civilization, or to leave
his bones in the waste,
A poet in want of a theme for a tragic soliloquy need
ask for nothing
more suggestive than Emin's reflections on quitting Africa.
In the great
venture that led him there for good, he had embarked
his all of genius,
energy, and hope. His devotion to his work led him to
change his very
name in order to remove all traces of his Prankish origin.
From Dr.
Edward Schnitzer he became Emin, or " the Faithful One,"
and he, in a
manner, forgot his German origin in his perfect sympathy
with his new
compatriots. His province was in a frightful state when
it came into
his hands as the lieutenant of Gordon and the servant
of the Khedive.
In three or four years, he had reduced it to peace, contentment,
and
order ; banished the slave traders from his borders ;
introduced agricul-
ture and industry ; established a regular weekly post
; and turned a large
deficit per annum into an immense surplus. When he could
no longer
hold it for the Khedive, he held it on his own account.
He was in a fair
way to become the Rajah Brooke of Central Africa, the
pious founder of
a State. "His whole heart," says Dr. Felkin, "seemed
to be centred in
the welfare of his people and the advancement of science,
and no idea of
fame appeared to enter his mind."
Courageous to the Last.
When Mr. Stanley found him the second time his glorious
experiment
had come to an end in unmistakable failure, and-he was
a prisoner in
the hands of his revolted troops. But mischances of much
the same kind
had happened to him before, and he had survived them
all.
His letters abound in stories of war and rumors of war,
of treachery
and revolt, and of all those accidents which must so
largely checker the
lot of a ruler of a semi-barbarous State set in the midst
of utter barbar-
ism. It is clear that he had the same hope of surviving
them this time,
and that Mr. Stanley's arrival presented him with the
most painful alter-
native ever submitted to his judgment and his feelings.
Before, it had
been merely a choice between victory and death. Now there
was really
no choice at all, for in gratitude to Mr. Stanley and
to those who had
sent him, he was compelled to accept the offer of retreat.
No one is to
blame, but one man assuredly is to be pitied, and that
is the hero who
has been brought back to unwelcome ease and safety from
as glorious a
field as ever tempted the spirit of man.
African Barbarism Doomed.
Stanley's history of his last great expedition is thoroughly
character-
istic of the man. It is full of thrilling interest, challenging
our admiration
for the writer and awakening a tearful sympathy with
that company of
heroes whose courage overstepped innumerable dangers.
The hardships of this great journey will become a fading
memory; its
successes have already become historic.
The Dark Continent is dark no longer. To Stanley and his
undaunted
comrades the world owes a debt of gratitude which it
will be diffiult to
repay. Africa has at last been opened up to the civilization
of the future.
Its vast tracts of wilderness will stimulate the enterprise
of the pioneer,
and the day is not far distant — within the lifetime
of our children's
children, perhaps — when the shrill echo of the engine's
whistle will be
heard on the rugged sides of snow-capped mountains which
Stanley has
explored; when those illimitable forests will resound
with the woods-
man's axe, and when the law of commerce will change the
tawny native
from a savage into a self-respecting citizen. Barbarism
will retire from
its last stronghold on the planet, as the darkness disappears
when the sun
rises over the hilltops. Long life seems a boon when
such a magnificent
problem is in process of solution.
Our readers will be impressed by the strong though underlying
relig-,
ious tone of the history. Stanley has been overmastered
by the grandeur
of his own achievement. He declares his belief that a
higher power
guided him through the perils which encompassed his little
army. He
builded better than he knew and better than he had planned,
and attrib-
utes it to the fact that "there is a divinity which shapes
our ends, rough
hew them as we will."
The Unseen Power.
This is not an unusual attitude for real greatness to
assume. Under
an Egyptian sky Napoleon followed the same train of thought
and
expressed the same conviction. What he found himself
able to do was
so much greater than his most ambitious dreams that he
willingly
shared the glory of his victories with that unseen Power
which made
him a Man of Destiny. Sg Stanley, hewing his way through
hordes of
cannibals, unscathed in scores of pitched battles, defying
the most por-
tentous diseases which a tropical climate can foster,
accomplishing his
purpose against infinite odds, and at last reaching the
seacoast " in per-
fect health," and feeling " like a laborer on a Saturday
evening return-
ing home with his week's work done, his week's wages
in his pocket
and glad that to-morrow is the Sabbath," brings the history
to a close
with the words, " Thanks be to God, forever and ever."
The dire distresses of this long journey of two and a
half years, are
beyond the reach of language. He merely hints at some
of them and
leaves the rest to the imagination. We ponder his pathetic
references to
the sturdy loyalty of companions and followers, " maddened
with the
agonies of fierce fevers," falling into their graves
through the subtle
poison with which the natives tipped their arrows and
spears, bravely
fighting their way through interminable swamps only to
succumb at
last, and the conviction steals over us that such a story
has never been
told before and may never be told again.
The victories of peace are not far distant, and this Dark
Continent
will shake itself free from barbarism and start on a
career of progress
which will excite the admiration of the world.
For this magnificent prospect we are indebted in part
to the intrepid
explorers who preceded Stanley, but mostly to Stanley
himself.
Grand Reception to Stanley.
On December 5th, 1889, Stanley's party reached the coast,
arriving at
Bagamoyo at eleven o'clock in the morning.
Major Wissmann had provided horses for Stanley and Emin,
and upon
them they made their triumphal entry into Bagamoyo. The
town was
profusely decorated. Verdant arches were built across
all the avenues
and palm branches waved from every window. A salute of
nine guns
was fired by Major Wissmann's force and the same number
by the Ger-
man man-of-war. All the officers of the expedition wers
sumptuously
entertained at a luncheon at Major Wissmann's headquarters.
Emperor William of Germany sent greetings. A message of
con-
gratulation came from Leopold, King of Belgium. Her Majesty,
Queen
Victoria, soon forwarded a cordial dispatch, expressing
satisfaction at
Stanley's brilliant success.
At a banquet in the evening Stanley was toasted, and in
reply said he
thanked God he had performed his duty. He spoke with
emotion of
his soldiers whose bones were bleaching in the forest,
and remarked
that with him and those of his party work was always
onward. He
bore testimony to the Divine influence that had guided
him in his work.
Emin Pasha's reception was extremely cordial. Unfortunately,
owing
to his poor eyesight, he met with a serious accident,
and by falling from
a balcony was more severely injured than he had been
in all his wan-
derings and conflicts. The world was moved to sympathy
for his mis-
fortune and hope for his recovery.
On the 14th of December, 1889, the United States Government,
through
our Secretary of State, sent the following congratulatory
message :
" Stanley, Zanzibar ; —
" I am directed by the President of the United States
to tender his con-
gratulations to you upon the success which has attended
your long tour
of discovery through Africa and upon the advantages which
may accrue
therefrom to the civilized world."
From the extraordinary interest taken in Mr. Stanley's
explorations
and particularly in his last expedition, it is plain
that he is regarded as
something more than a geographical discoverer ; nor can
it be said that
his highest mission has consisted in rescuing those who
were in peril,
like Livingstone and Emin Pasha. Stanley's explorations
have a broader
and deeper meaning than this. He has done more than any
other man
to open the .heart of Africa, and to prepare the way
for the onward
march of civilization and those Christianizing influences
which elevate
nations, which tame savage races, which bring the blessings
of education
and refinement. It is only in the light of such results
as these — results
which are sure to be realized in the near future — that
we can measure the
meaning of Mr. Stanley's achievements in the Dark Continent.
Stanley would be a great hero if he had done nothing more
than save
those whose lives were in danger ; nothing more than
penetrate some of
the mysteries of Africa; nothing more than cross the
continent from
sea to sea. Where one man with his brave band of devoted
followers has
gone, civihzation will march, and the path 'which our
hero has marked
through the wilderness will become the highway of empire.
Great as is
our hero's fame at the present time, it will be greater
as the ages go by.
When the wilds of Africa are wild no longer and the immense
resources
of that wonderful country have been developed, it will
be acknowledged
by all the nations of the globe that one of the chief
agencies in this mag-
nificent consummation was the intrepid explorer whose
fortunes have
been followed by all civilized nations.
We who read the thrilling narrative ofthe foregoing pages,
surrounded
by all the comforts of life, are not really able to take
in the situation ; we
do not understand the length, the breadth, the height,
the depth of it.
We do not appreciate the imminent perils, the extreme
privations, the
agonizing sufferings which have attended the brave men
who have sought
the sources of the Nile, and by their daring exploits
and heroic deeds
have thrown back the curtains of mystery and have made
the Continent
of Africa one mighty object of wonder and interest. It
may be ques-
tioned whether Mr. Stanley himself has been able to weigh
the value of
his discoveries and the brilliancy of his exploits. Not
a general, he was
more than a general ; not a fortune seeker, he has brought
a fortune to
the world ; not a conquerer of kingdoms, he has marked
the way and
laid out the ground for kingdoms whose glory will be
equal to that of
any of the empires famed in history.
It is fitting, therefore, that the dignitaries of the
earth, the crowned
heads of Europe and a nation like ours, where all men
are crowned,
should preserve the fame, admire the successes, and tell
the magnificent
results of Stanley's 'heroic deeds.
