Stanley in Africa

Since we cannot go on with our journey till the rivers to the south of us fall, it is best to go back to Latooka, where supplies are more abundant. Katchiba sends us off amid a noisy drum ceremony and with his blessing, his brother going along as a guide. There is a new member of the party, one Ibrahimawa, who had been to all the ends of the earth, as soldier and adventurer. He was of Bornu birth, but had been captured when a boy, and taken into the service of the Sultan of Turkey. Even now he was connected with the Turkish garrison, or squad of observation, at Latooka. He got the whole party into a pretty mess the second day after starting back for Latooka, by bringing in a basketful of fine yams, which happened to be of a poisonous variety. On eating them, all got sick, and had to submit to the penalty of a quick emetic, which brought them round all right.

We now journey easily through the great Latooka, where game is so abundant. In sight is a herd of antelope. The Colonel dismounts to stalk them, but a swarm of baboons spy him and at once set up such a chattering and screeching that the antelope take the alarm and make off. One of the baboons was shot. It was as large as a mastiff and had a long brown mane like a lion. This was taken by the natives for a body ornament. That same evening the Colonel goes out in quest of other game. A herd of giraffes appear, with their long necks stretched up toward the leaves of the mimosa trees, on which they are feeding. He tries to stalk them, but the wary beasts run away in alarm. He follows them for a long way in vain chase. They were twice as fleet as his horse.

We are back again at Latooka. But how changed the scene. The small pox is raging among both natives and Turks. We cannot encamp in the town. Mrs. Baker falls sick with fever. Two horses, three camels and five donkeys die for us. King Moy had induced the Turks to join him in an attack on the Kayala tribe, and the combined forces had been beaten. Thus more enemies had been made. It was no place to stay. So we must back to Obbo, and the old chief Katchiba.

But here things are even worse. The small pox is there ahead of us, carried by careless natives or dirty, unprincipled Moslem traders, and the whole town is in misery. A party of roving traders had raided it and carried off nearly the whole stock of cows and oxen. Our horses all die, and most of our other animals, under the attacks of the dreadful tsetse fly. Both the Colonel and Mrs. Baker fall sick with fever, and the old chief comes in to cure them by enchantment. It rains nearly all the time, and rats and even snakes seek the huts out of the wet. Our stay of two months here is dreary enough, and the wonder is that any of us ever get away.

As soon as the Colonel and Lady Baker can go out they pay a visit to Katchiba, which he appreciates, and invites them into his private quarters. It is only a brewery, where his wives are busy preparing his favorite beer. The old chief invites them to a seat, takes up something which passes for a harp, and asks if he may sing. Expecting something ludicrous, they consent, but are surprised to hear a really well sung and neatly accompanied air. The old fellow is evidently as expert in music as in beer drinking.

Waiting is awful in any African village during the rainy or any other season, and especially if the low fevers of the country are in your system. We have really lost from May to October, on account of the fullness of the streams south of us. Our stock of quinine is nearly gone; our cattle are all dead. Shall we go on? If so, it must be afoot. And afoot it shall be, for we have met an Unyoro slave woman who tells as well as she can about a lake called Luta N’Zige, very nearly where we expect to find the Albert Nyanza.

Now the rains have ceased. Wonderful country! Crops spring up as if by magic, especially the tullaboon, or African corn. But the elephants like it and play havoc by night in the green fields. The Colonel, all ague shaken as he is, determines to have a night’s sport and to bring in some meat which he knows the natives will relish. Starting with a servant and a goodly supply of heavy rifles – among them is “The Baby,” which carries a half pound explosive shell – he digs a watch hole near a corn field. Into this they creep, and are soon notified of the presence of a herd of elephants by the crunching of the crisp grain. It is dark, but by and by one approaches within twelve paces. Taking the range of the shoulder as well as he can, the contents of “Baby” are sent on their murderous errand. It was then safe to beat a retreat. Next morning the elephant is found near the pit. He is still standing, but soon drops dead. The shot was fatal, but not for several hours. And now such a time as there is among the natives. Three hundred of them gather, and soon dispose of the carcass with their knives and lances. The huge beast was ten feet six inches in height.

By January, the waters in the rivers and gulches have subsided enough to admit of travel. Katchiba gives us three oxen – two for pack animals, and one for Mrs. Baker to ride upon. With these, and a few attendants, we start for the south. But Ibrahim precedes us with an armed body of Turks. He is penetrating the country further in search of ivory and booty. It is well for us to follow in his trail, unless forsooth he should get into a fight.

The Colonel walks eighteen miles to Farajoke where he purchases a riding ox. On January 13, Shooa is reached. It is a veritable land of plenty. There are fowls, goats, butter, milk, and food of all kinds. The natives are delighted to see us, and are greedy for our beads and trumpery. They bring presents of flour and milk to Mrs. Baker, who showers upon them her trinkets in return. The people are not unlike the Obbo’s, but their agriculture is very superior. Our five days here are days of real rest and refreshment.

We make an eight mile march to Fatiko, where the natives are still more friendly. But they insist on such vigorous shaking of hands and such tiresome ceremonies of introduction, that we must hasten away. And now our march is still through a beautiful country for several days. We gradually approach the Karuma Falls, close to the village of Atada, on the opposite side of the river. It is the Unyoro country whose king is Kamrasi.

The natives swarm on their bank of the river, and soon a fleet of canoes comes across. Their occupants are informed that Col. Baker wishes to see the king, in order to thank him for the kindness he had extended to the two Englishmen, Speke and Grant on their visit. The boatmen are suspicious, for only a short time before a party of Arab traders had allied themselves with Kamrasi’s enemies and slain 300 of his people. It takes two whole days to overcome the king’s suspicions, and many gifts of beads and trinkets. Finally we are ferried across, but oh! the tedious wait to get a royal interview! And then the surprise, when it did come.

There sits the king on a copper stool placed on a carpet of leopard skins, surrounded by his ten principal chiefs. He is six feet tall, of dark brown skin, pleasing countenance, clothed in a long rich robe of bark-cloth, with well dressed hands and feet, and perfectly clean. Baker explains his object in calling and gives rich presents, among which is a double barrelled gun. The king takes to the gun and orders it to be fired off. The attendants run away in fright, at which the king laughs heartily, as though he had discovered a new test for their courage or played a capital joke. He then makes return presents, among which are seventeen cows.

Thus friendship is established. The king asks for our help against the Riongas, his bitterest enemies. We decline, but in turn ask for porters and guides. The king promises heartily, but as often breaks his promises, for his object is to keep us with him as long as we have presents to give.

These chiefs, or kings, of the native tribes are the greatest nuisances in Africa – not even excepting the mosquitoes. They make the traveller pay court at every stage of his journey, and they know the value of delay in granting a hearing. The wrongs of the humble negro are many. His faults are as many, and among them are his careless good humor and light heartedness – things that in northern climes or under other circumstances might be classed as redeeming traits. But the faults of the average African king – there are exceptions to the rule – are such to try our patience in the extreme. He is as ignorant as his subjects, yet is complete master of their lives. His cruelty, rapacity and sensuality are nurtured in him from birth, and there is no antic he will not play in the name of his authority. In his own eyes he is a demi-god, yet he is seen by visitors only as a dirty, freakish, cruel, tantalizing savage, insisting upon a court which has no seriousness about it.

Accomplished and friendly as King Kamrasi seems to be, he is full of duplicity, cruelty, and rapacity. Speke and Grant complained of his inordinate greed, and we have just seen for what motive he delayed us for three weeks. And scarcely have we gone ten miles when he overtakes us, to ask for other presents and the Colonel’s watch, for which he had taken a great fancy. On being refused this, he coolly informs the Colonel that he would send his party to the lake according to promise, but that he must leave Mrs. Baker behind with him. The Colonel draws his revolver and, placing it at the breast of the king, explains the insult conveyed in such a proposition in civilized countries, and tells him he would be warranted in riddling him on the spot, if he dared to repeat the request, or rather command. Mrs. Baker makes known her horror of the proposition, and the crafty king, finding his cupidity has carried him too far, says he has no intention of offending. “I will give you a wife if you want one,” he continued, “and I thought you might give me yours. I have given visitors many pretty wives. Don’t be offended. I will never mention the matter again.” To make further amends he sends along with our party several women as luggage carriers, as far as to the next village.

To show how prankish and pitiable royalty is among even a tribe like the Unyoro’s, who dress with some care, and disdain the less intelligent tribes about them, it turned out that this Kamrasi was not the real king at all, but only a substitute, and that the regularly annointed Kamrasi was in a fit of the sulks off in his private quarters, all the time of our visit.

The march is now a long one of eighteen days through the dense forests and swamps of the Kafoor River. Mrs. Baker is sick with fever incident to a sun-stroke, and has to be borne upon a litter most of the way. In crossing the Kafoor upon the “sponge,” it yields to the weight of the footmen, and she is saved from sinking beneath the treacherous surface by the Colonel, who orders the men to quickly lay their burden down and scatter. The “sponge” proves strong enough to bear the weight of the litter alone, and it is safely hauled on to a firmer part by her husband and an attendant.

We are now near our goal and all the party are enthusiastic. Ascending a gentle slope, on a beautiful clear morning, the glory of our prize suddenly bursts upon us. There, like a sea of quicksilver, lays far beneath us the grand expanse of waters – the Luta Nzigé then, but soon to be christened the Albert Nyanza. Its white waves break on a pebbly beach fifteen hundred feet below us. On the west, fifty or sixty miles distant, blue mountains rise to a height of 7000 feet. Northward the gleaming expanse of waters seem limitless. Here is the reward of all our labor. It is a basin worthy of its great function as a gathering place of the headwaters of the Nile, which issue in a full grown stream from its northern end.

Using Colonel Baker’s own language, – “Long before I reached the spot I had arranged to give three English cheers in honor of the discovery, but now that I looked down upon the great inland sea lying nestled in the very heart of Africa, and thought how vainly mankind had sought these sources throughout so many ages, and reflected that I had been the humble instrument permitted to unravel this portion of the great mystery when so many greater than I had failed, I felt too serious to vent my feelings in vain cheers for victory, and I sincerely thanked God for having guided and supported us through all dangers to the good end. As I looked down from the steep granite cliffs upon those welcome waters, on that vast reservoir which nourished Egypt and brought fertility where all was wilderness, on that great source so long hidden from mankind; that source of bounty and of blessings to millions of human beings; and as one of the greatest objects in nature, I determined to honor it with a great name. As an imperishable memorial of one loved and mourned by our gracious Queen and deplored by every Englishman, I called the great lake ‘the Albert Nyanza.’ The Victoria and the Albert Lakes are the two sources of the Nile. My wife, who had followed me so devotedly, stood by my side, pale and exhausted – a wreck upon the shores of the great Albert Lake that we had so long striven to reach. No European foot had ever trod upon its sand, nor had the eyes of a white man ever scanned its vast expanse of water. We were the first; and this was the key to the great secret that even Julius Cæsar yearned to unravel, but in vain.”

And now the lake is christened. We rush down to the shores and bathe our feet in its clear fresh waters. Then we prepare a frail canoe, large enough to carry our party of thirteen and manned with twenty oarsmen. In this we skirt the lake northward from where we first touch it at Vacovia. The journey is full of novelty. Every now and then we get a shot at a crocodile, or a hippopotamus, and herds of elephants are seen along the shores. Thunder storms are frequent, making the navigation dangerous. The heat at midday drives us into the shade. Our work hours are in the mornings and evenings. Here we pass under beetling precipices that line this eastern shore, down which jets of water – each a Nile source – are seen plunging from the height of a thousand feet. There we float through flat wastes of reeds, and water plants and floating rafts of vegetable matter in every stage of growth and decay.

On the thirteenth day we reach the point where the waters from Lake Victoria Nyanza enter the Albert Nyanza. They pour in through the Victoria River, or as some call it, the Somerset River. Now arises a momentous question. Shall we go further. If we are not back in Gondokoro in a few weeks we may leave our bones in Central Africa. We are a fatigued, even a sick party, and the season is approaching when a white man had better be away from under the Equator. The Colonel proposes to forego further navigation and return. Lady Baker, with a fervor the Colonel seems to have lost, proposes to go to the other end of the lake in order to make sure that it is an ultimate reservoir of the Nile.

Away off northward from where we are, some thirty miles, can be seen with the glasses the outlet of the lake – the Nile. It is settled that the inflow from Victoria Nyanza and the outlet northward are thus close together. But is that outlet the Nile after all? Lady Baker wants to settle this question too, and she proposes, after circumnavigating the lake and proving that it is an ultimate source, to descend the Nile through the northern outlet. But the Colonel urges want of time. The attendants tell horrible stories of dangerous falls and hostile natives. So we decide against Mrs. Baker, and, taking the Colonel’s advice, begin to ascend the Victoria Nile toward lake Victoria Nyanza, that being in the direction of our homeward march. We go but a few miles till a new marvel greets us – the Murchison Falls. On either side of the river are beautiful wooded cliffs 300 feet high. Bold rocks jut out from an intensely green foliage. Rushing through a gap in the rock directly ahead of us, the river, contracted from a broad stream above, grows narrower and narrower, till where the gorge is scarcely fifty yards wide, it makes one stupendous leap over a precipice 120 feet high, into the dark abyss below. The river then widens and grows sluggish again. Anywhere can be seen numberless crocodiles. While the Colonel is sketching the Falls, one of these animals comes close to the boat. He cannot resist a shot at it. The canoemen are disturbed and allow the boat to get an ugly swing on them. It strikes into a bunch of reeds, when out rushes a huge hippopotamus in fright and bumps against the canoe, almost oversetting it.

There are cataracts innumerable on the Nile, but this is its greatest water fall, and a majestic picture it is. Our return journey to Gondokoro repeats many of our former experiences. We revisit the same tribes and meet with the same adventures. Kartoum is reached in May, 1865. Then we go by boat to Berber, and thence by caravan across the desert to Sonakim on the Red Sea, where a steamer is taken for England, and where the Colonel receives the medal bestowed on him by the Royal Geographical Society.

In concluding this long journey we must ever regret that Colonel Baker did not do more to make sure of the honors of his discovery. Since then Gordon Pasha and M. Gessi have navigated Albert Nyanza. They curtailed the proportions it showed on first maps, and proved that, as Lady Baker supposed, it had a southern inlet, which was traced for a hundred miles till it ended in a mighty ambatch swamp, or collection of stagnant waters, which may be counted as the Lake Nzige of the natives, and of which Colonel Baker so often heard.

These travellers also settled forever one of the delusions under which Livingstone ever labored, and that was, that the sources of the Nile must be sought as far south as the great Lake Tanganyika, and even further.

Since then, other travellers have traced the whole course of the Victoria Nile to Lake Victoria Nyanza, discovering on their way a new lake, Ibrahim. And this brings us to Victoria Nyanza again, which must be studied more fully, for after all we may not have seen in Albert Nyanza, so much of an ultimate Nile reservoir as we thought. It is hard too, of course, to rob our travels of their glory, but we cannot bear laurels at the expense of after discovered truth.

It was in 1858 that Speke and Grant, pushing their perilous way westward from Zanzibar on the east coast of Africa, discovered and partly navigated Lake Tanganyika, probably the greatest fresh water reservoir in Central Africa. On their return journey, and while resting at Unyanyembe, Speke heard from an Arab source of a still larger lake to the north. Grant was suspicious of the information, and remained where he was, while Speke made a trial. After a three weeks march over an undulating country, intersected by streams flowing northward, he came in view (July 30, 1858) of the head of a deep gulf expanding to the north. Pursuing his journey along its eastern cliffs, he saw that it opened into an ocean-like expanse of water, girted by forests on the right and left, but stretching eastward and northward into space. He felt that he stood on a Nile source, but could not inquire further then.

When he returned to England and made his discovery known, powerful arguments sprang up about these Nile sources. Speke and one school contended the Nile reservoirs were under the equator and that Victoria Nyanza was one of them, if not the only one. Burton and others contended that Tanganyika, and perhaps a series of lakes further south, must be the true sources. So in 1860 Speke and Grant were back in Africa, determined to solve the mystery. They were kept back by delays till 1862, when, as we have seen, they caught sight of the lake they sought. Keeping on high ground, they followed it northward to Uganda where they fell in with Mtesa, the king. Mtesa has been painted in all sorts of colors by different explorers. Speke and Grant formed the worst possible opinion of him, but they passed through his dominions safely, till they came to the northern outlet of the lake – the Victoria Nile. Taking for granted that this was the real Nile, they cut across the country to Gondokoro, where they met Baker on his southern march, as we have already seen.

This unsatisfactory journey did not set controversy at rest. Speke’s opponents ridiculed the idea of a body of water, 250 miles long and 7000 feet above the sea level, existing right under the Equator. Moreover they denied that its northern outlet was the Nile, or if so, that there must be a southern inlet. All the old maps located the sources of the stream further south. Colonel Baker heard a native story, in 1869, to the effect that boats had gone from Albert Nyanza to Ujiji on lake Tanganyika. Livingstone held firmly to the opinion that all these equatorial lakes were one with Tanganyika – till he disproved it himself. He never was convinced that Victoria Nyanza existed at all as Speke had mapped it, nor that it had any connection with the Nile River.

Thus what Baker and Speke and Grant had been glorying in as great discoveries, but which they failed to establish by full research, was still a puzzle. They are not to be robbed of any honors, but it is not claiming too much to say that the real discoverer of the true Nile reservoir is due to the American Stanley. At least he resolved to solve the problem finally and set discussion at rest. He would establish the claims of Victoria Nyanza to vastness and to its functions as a Nile source, or show it up as a humbug.

Henry M. Stanley is no ordinary figure among African explorers. In tenacity of purpose, courage and endurance, he is second only to Livingstone. In originality, insight and crowning effort, he is ahead of all. He introduced a new method of African travel and brought a new power at his back. Already he had, under the auspices of the New York Herald, made a successful Central African journey and “discovered Livingstone.” On his present expedition he was accredited to both American and English papers, and bore the flags of the two countries. He travelled in a half scientific and half military fashion.

He started from Zanzibar November 17, 1874. Let the reader keep in mind that this was his second exploring trip into Africa – the first having been made a few years before under the auspices of the New York Herald for the rescue of Livingstone, if alive. Here, in his own words, is the gallant young leader’s order of march: —

“Four chiefs, a few hundred yards in front; next, twelve guides, clad in red robes of Jobo, bearing coils of wire; then a long file, two hundred and seventy strong, bearing cloth, wire, beads, and sections of the Lady Alice; after them, thirty-six women and ten boys, children of the chiefs, and boat-bearers, followed by riding-asses, Europeans, and gun-bearers; the long line closed by sixteen chiefs, who act as rearguard: in all, three hundred and fifty-six souls connected with the Anglo-American expedition. The lengthy line occupies nearly half a mile of the path.”

Mr. Stanley did not mean to be stopped on the route he had chosen by the objections of any native chief to the passage of the little army through his territory. If the opposition were carried to the extent of a challenge of battle, the American explorer was prepared to accept it and fight his way through. In this way he counted on avoiding the long delays, the roundabout routes, and the fragmentary results which had marked the efforts of previous travellers. It is an admirable method, if your main object is to get through the work rapidly, if you are strong enough to despise all assaults, and if you have no prospect of travelling the same road again. Its wisdom and justifiableness need not be discussed; but it may simply be remarked that this conjunction of campaigning and exploration gives an extra spice of danger and an exciting variety to the narrative, which carries us back to the time when the Conquistadors of Spain and Portugal carved their rich conquests into the heart of Mexico and South America.

He carried with him the sections of a boat, forty feet long, with which to explore the Victoria Nyanza, or any other lake or stream he might discover. It was named the “Lady Alice.” He had only three English assistants – two Thames watermen by the name of Francis and Edward Pocock, and a clerk named Frederick Barker – none of whom emerged alive from the African wilds into which they plunged so light heartedly.

Unyanyembe is the half-way station between Zanzibar and the lakes of interior Africa. It is simply a headquarters for slave stealers and a regular trading den for land pirates. Stanley turned to the northwest before reaching this place, and in about the fifth degree south latitude came upon the water shed which separates the waters trending northward from those running southward. Here in a plain 5000 feet above the sea, and 2500 miles in a straight line from the Mediterranean, seemed clearly to be the most southerly limit of the Nile basin.