Stanley in Africa

And here Stanley’s real difficulties began. The party suffered from want of food and lost their way. Sickness fell upon the camp, and Edward Pocock died. The natives themselves were hostile, and Mirambo, chief of the Ruga-Rugas, a noted freebooter, was in the neighborhood with his band of cut-throats. By and by the storm clouds burst in war, not with the bandits however, but with the Ituru tribe. The battle was fought for three days against great odds. It resulted in the complete discomfiture of the foe, but with a loss to Stanley of twenty-four killed and wounded. The weakened expedition moved on bearing twenty-five men on the sick list.

They were now in the valley of the Shimeeyu, an affluent of Victoria Nyanza from the south. It was followed through dense forests over which loomed enormous bare rocks like castles, and hillocks of splintered granite and gneiss, and then through fine rolling plains, rich in pasture lands, hedge inclosed villages and herds of wild and tame animals. Compared with what he had passed through it was a grand and glorious country.

Provisions could be had readily and cheaply – corn, potatoes, fruit, goats and chickens. The half starved men indulged in feasting and marched with recovered strength and confidence. Murmuring and doubt died away. The native attendants who had shown unmistakable proofs of faithfulness in the midst of trial were specially rewarded.

The lake was near at hand. As they dipped through the troughs of land, mounted ridge after ridge, crossed water courses and ravines, passed cultivated fields and through villages smelling of cattle, a loud hurrahing in front told that the great Lake Victoria Nyanza had been sighted. It was February 27, 1875. The spot was Kagehyi, not far from where Speke had struck it. Six hundred feet beneath them, and three miles away, lay a long broad arm of water shining like silver in the bright sunshine, bordered by lines of green waving rushes, groves of trees and native huts.

No time was lost in getting the “Lady Alice” ready, and on March 8 she was launched and her prow turned northward. Her occupants were Stanley, a steersman, and ten oarsmen or sailors. Frank Pocock and Barker were left at Kagehyi in charge of the remainder of the party.

Now began a journey full of thrilling events. Almost every day brought its danger from storm, shoal, animal or hostile natives. For weeks the shores of the Nyanza stretched on, promontory behind promontory, and still the tired mariners toiled along the margin of the unknown lands on their lee, and out and in among the numerous islands. From the starting point round the eastern shore, the coast shows a succession of bold headland and deep bay, at the head of which is generally a river draining the highlands behind. Sometimes a dark mountain mass, covered with wood, overhangs the waters, rising abruptly to a height of three thousand feet or more; and then again there will intervene between the hills and the lake an open plain, grazed over by herds of zebras, antelopes, and giraffes. There is great diversity also in the islands. Many of them are bare masses of rock, supporting no green blade; others are swathed to the summit in masses of rank intertwisted vegetation that excludes the perpendicular rays of the sun. Some of the smallest are highly cultivated, and occupied by a dense population; one or two of the largest, such as Ugingo, betray no sign of human beings inhabiting their dismal shades.

Generally the region is rocky, broken, hilly, and intensely tropical in character. Behind the coast ranges absolutely nothing is known beyond a few vague reports picked up from native sources. The rivers are not large, and it is not probable that they have their sources so far off as the great snowy range that runs down midway between the lake and the east coast of Africa. Some geographers have chosen to call this chain by the old name of “Mountains of the Moon,” throwing the old land mark from the southern borders of Sahara to a point quite south of the equator and at right angles with their former direction. Between the lake and these snow-capped mountains roam the Mdai, a fierce pastoral tribe that subsists by plundering its weaker neighbors.

Stanley heard of hills that smoked in these ranges, and probably they contain active volcanoes. He also heard of the mythical Lake Baringo further north. This lake has appeared almost everywhere on African maps. If it is ever found, it may prove to be the reservoir of the Ashua, an important Nile tributary, after the stream leaves both Victoria and Albert Nyanza.

Before reaching the northernmost point of the lake the “Lady Alice” had passed through several disastrous storms and escaped many perilous shoals. She had also met the fierce opposition of the Victoria hippopotamus. This behemoth of an animal abounds here, as it does in all the waters of tropical Africa; but while in most other places it refrains from attacking man, unless provoked, it was found on the Victoria Lake to be of a peculiarly bellicose disposition. A few hours after starting on his voyage, Stanley was driven off the land and put to ignominious flight by a herd of savage hippopotami sallying out towards him open-mouthed. On another occasion, the rowers had to pull for bare life to escape the furious charge of a monster whose temper had been ruffled by the boat coming in contact with his back as he was rising to the surface to breathe. Probably the hippopotamus of the Victoria would be no more courageous than his neighbors if he were met with on land. There he always cuts a ridiculous figure, as he waddles along with his short legs and bulky body in search of the grass on which he feeds. He seems to know that he is at a disadvantage on terra firma, which, he seldom visits except by night. When interrupted, he makes the best of his way back to the water, where his great strength always makes him a formidable antagonist. On the Victoria Nyanza the inhabitants do not seem to have discovered the methods of killing him practised by the natives of the Zambesi, by capturing him in pit falls, or setting traps that bring a heavy log, armed with a long iron spike, down on his stupid skull.

But these were not the only ugly customers the crew of the “Lady Alice” had to contend with on the Victoria Nyanza. Frequently when the boat neared the shore, lithe figures could be seen flitting between the trees and savage eyes peering at her through the dense foliage. If an attempt were made to land a wild looking crowd would swarm upon the shore, poising their spears threateningly or placing their arrows in their bows. Though these forms are not so terrible as the Red Indian in war paint or the wild Papuan with his frizzly mop of hair, their natural hideousness is pretty well increased by tattooing and greasy paint. They are treacherous, cruel, vindictive, and one cast away on their shores would stand a poor chance of telling his own story.

At a point near the northeastern extremity of the lake Mr. Stanley was induced to come close to shore by the friendly gestures of half-a-dozen natives. As the boat was pulled nearer, the group on the shore rapidly increased, and it was thought prudent to halt. Instantly there started out of the jungle a forest of spears, and a crowd of yelling savages rushed down in hot haste to the margin, lest their hospitable intentions towards the strangers should be balked. The boat, however, to the astonishment of these primitive black men, hoisted a great sail to the favoring land breeze, which carried it out to an island where the crew could camp and sleep in safety for the night. A little further on, while off the island of Ugamba, a large native canoe, manned by forty rowers and adorned with a waving mane of long grasses, was pulled confidently towards the mysterious craft. After reconnoitering it for a little, they edged up alongside, half of the occupants of the canoe standing up and brandishing their tufted spears. These visitors had been drinking freely of pombe to keep up their courage. They were noisy, impudent, and obstreperous; and finding that the white man and his companions remained quiet and patient, they began to reel tipsily about the boat, shout out their drunken choruses, and freely handle the property and persons of the strangers. Gradually they grew still more unpleasantly aggressive. One drunken rascal whirled his sling over Stanley’s head and, cheered by his companions, seemed about to aim the stone at the white man. Suddenly Stanley, who had his revolver ready in his hand, fired a shot into the water. In an instant the boat was clear of the intruders, every one of whom had plunged into the water at sound of the pistol, and was swimming lustily for the shore. With some little trouble their fears were allayed and the humbled roisterers, sobered by their dip, came meekly back for their abandoned canoe. Presents were exchanged and all parted good friends.

He did not fare so well with the Wavuma tribe. They attracted Stanley’s attention by sending out a canoe loaded with provisions and gifts. But shoreward suddenly appeared a whole fleet of canoes, evidently bent on surrounding the “Lady Alice.” As her crew bent to their oars in order to escape, a storm of lances came upon them from the first canoe, whose captain held up a string of beads in a tantalizing manner which he had stolen from the white man’s boat. Stanley fired upon him and doubled him up in his boat. Then using his larger rifle he punctured the foremost of the other canoes with heavy bullets below the water line, so that they had enough to do to keep them from sinking. They ceased to give chase and the “Lady Alice” escaped.

Directly north of Victoria Nyanza is Uganda or the country of the Waganda,1 over which King Mtesa presides. Stanley struck the country on the next day after his adventure with the Wavuma. It was a revelation to him. He fancied he had, in a night, passed from Pagan Africa to Mohammedan Europe or Asia. Instead of the stones and spear thrusts of the Wavuma he met with nothing save courtesy and hospitality. In place of naked howling savages he now saw bronze-colored people, clean, neatly clad, with good houses, advanced agriculture, well adapted industry, and considerable knowledge of the arts.

The village chief approached attired in a white shirt, and a fine cloak of bark-cloth having over it a monkey skin fur. On his head was a handsome cap, on his feet sandals. His attendants were clothed in the same style, though less costly. He smilingly bade the strangers welcome, spread before them a feast of dressed kid, ripe bananas, clotted milk, sweet potatoes and eggs, with apologies for having been caught unprepared for his guests.

Stanley looked on in wonder. It was a land of sunshine and plenty – a green and flowery Paradise set between the brilliant sky and the pure azure of the lake. Care and want seem never to have intruded here. There was food and to spare growing wild in the woods or in the cultivated patches around the snug homesteads. Every roomy, dome-shaped hut had its thatched portico where the inhabitants chatted and smoked. Surrounding them were court-yards, with buildings which served as barns, kitchens and wash-houses, all enclosed in trimly kept hedges. Outside was the peasants’ garden where crops of potatoes, yams, pease, kidney-beans and other vegetables grew of a size that would make a Florida gardner envious. Bordering the gardens were patches of tobacco, coffee, sugar-cane, and castor oil plant, all for family use. Still further beyond were fields of maize and other grains, and plantations of banana, plantain, and fig. Large commons afforded pasturage for flocks of goats and small, white, harmless cattle.

The land is of inexhaustible fertility. The sunshine is unfailing; drought in this moist climate is unknown; and the air is cooled and purified by the breezes from the lake and from the mountains. Within his own inclosure the peasant has enough and to spare for himself and his household, both of luxuries and necessaries. His maize fields furnish him with the staff of life, and the fermented grain yields the “pombe,” which he regards almost as much a requisite of existence as bread itself. The grinding of flour and the brewing of beer are all performed under his own eye by his family. The fig-tree yields him the bark out of which his clothes are made; but the banana is, perhaps, the most indispensable of the gifts of nature in these climes. It supplies him, says Stanley, with “bread, potatoes, dessert, wine, beer, medicine, house and fence, bed, cloth, cooking-pot, table-cloth, parcel-wrapper, thread, cord, rope, sponge, bath, shield, sun-hat, and canoe. With it, he is happy, fat, and thriving; without it, a famished, discontented, woe-begone wretch.” The banana grows to perfection in Uganda; groves of it embower every village, and the Waganda in addition to being fat and prosperous have plenty of leisure for the arts of war and peace.

They are unfortunately inclined to war, though they make cloth, tan skins, work in metals, and build houses and canoes. Even literature is not unknown among them. Well might Speke have said of Ripon Falls at the outlet of the Nile, with “a wife and family, a yacht and a gun, a dog and a rod, one might here be supremely happy and never wish to visit the haunts of civilization again.”

Word is sent to the king of the arrival of the strangers. An escort comes inviting them to the court. The new comer quite eclipsed the village chiefs in the gorgeousness of his apparel. A huge plume of cock’s feathers surmounted an elaborately worked head-dress. A crimson robe hung about him with a grace worthy an ancient Roman, while over it was hung a snow-white goat-skin. The progress to the headquarters of the court was conducted with due pomp and circumstance. Every step Stanley’s wonderment and admiration increased; each moment he received new proofs that he had fallen among a people as different from those whom his previous wanderings had made him acquainted with as are white Americans from Choctaws. Emerging from the margin of dense forests and banana and plantain groves on the lake shores, the singular beauty of the land revealed itself to him. Wherever he turned his eyes there was a brilliant play of colors, and a boldness and diversity of outline such as he had never before seen. Broad, straight, and carefully-kept roads led through a rolling, thickly-peopled country clad in perennial green. Now the path would dive down into a hollow, where it was shaded by the graceful fronds of plantains and other tropical trees, where a stream murmured over the stones, and the air was filled with the fragrance of fruit; and then again it would crest a ridge, from whence a magnificent prospect could be obtained of the sea-like expanse of the lake, with its wooded capes and islands, the dim blue lines of the distant hills, and the fruitful and smiling country lying between, its soft, undulating outline of forest-covered valley and grassy hill sharply broken by gigantic table-topped masses of gray rocks and profound ravines.

At length crowning the summit of a smooth hill appeared King Mtesa’s capital, Rubaga. A number of tall huts clustered around one taller than the rest from which waved the imperial standard of the Uganda. A high cane fence surrounds the court with gates opening on four broad avenues that stretch to the bottom of the hill. These are lined with fences and connected with paths shaded with groves of banana, fig and other fruit trees, and amid these groves are the houses of the commonalty. After due delay – court etiquette is even more tedious and ceremonious in Africa than Europe – Stanley is ushered into the presence of the king, seated in his great audience hall, and surrounded by a host of chiefs, warriors, pages, standard-bearers, executioners, drummers, fifers, clowns, dwarfs, wizards, medicine men, slaves and other retainers.

And here we have a fine opportunity to compare the notes of two observers of the king’s receptions. Stanley had a second interview at the “royal palace,” on which occasion the king received also M. Linant De Bellefonds, sent by Gordon Pasha on a mission to Uganda. The monarch prepared a surprise for him by having Stanley by his side. But let De Bellefonds speak.

“On entering the court I am greeted with a frightful uproar. A thousand instruments produce the most discordant and deafening sounds. Mtesa’s bodyguard, carrying guns, present arms on my appearance. The king is standing at the entrance to the reception hall. I approach and bow like a Turk. We shake hands. I perceive a sun-burned European by the king’s side, whom I take to be Cameron. We all enter the reception room – a room 15 feet wide by 60 feet long, its roof supported by two rows of light pillars, making an aisle, which is filled with chief officers and guards, the latter armed. Mtesa takes his seat on the throne, which is like a wooden office chair. His feet rest on a cushion. The whole is in the centre of a leopard skin spread upon a Smyrna rug. Before him is a highly polished elephant’s tusk, at his feet two boxes containing fetishes, on either side a lance of copper and steel. At his feet are two scribes. The king behaves dignifiedly and does not lack an air of distinction. His dress is faultless – a white couftan finished with a red band, stockings, slippers, vest of black and gold, a turban with a silver plate on top, a sword with an ivory hilt and a staff. I show my presents, but royal dignity forbids him to show any curiosity. I say to the traveller on his left ‘Have I the honor to address Mr. Cameron?’ He says, ‘No sir; Mr. Stanley.’ I introduce myself. We bow low, and our conversation ends for the moment.”

Who is this singular Mtesa and how has his more singular fabric of empire been built up in the heart of savage Africa?

All around is the night of Pagan darkness, ignorance, and cruelty. Here, in the land of the Waganda, if there is, as yet, no light to speak of, there is a ruddy tinge in the midst of the blackness that seems to give promise of approaching dawn. If the people are still blood-thirsty, revengeful, and fond of war and pillage, they have learned some lessons in observing law and order; they practice some useful arts; they observe many of the decencies of life, and in the cleanliness of their houses and persons they are examples to some European countries. The Waganda themselves have a high opinion of their own importance; and their legends carry back their origin to what, for an African tribe, is a remote past. The story, as related by them to Captain Speke, is as follows: —

“Eight generations ago a sportsman from Unyoro, by name Uganda, came with a pack of dogs, a woman, a spear, and a shield, hunting on the left bank of the Katonga Valley, not far from the lake. He was but a poor man, though so successful in hunting that vast numbers flocked to him for flesh, and became so fond of him as to invite him to be their king. At first Uganda hesitated. Then the people, hearing his name, said, ‘well at any rate let the country between the Nile and the Katonga be called Uganda and let your name be Kimera the first king of Uganda.’ The report of these proceedings reached the ears of the king of Unyoro, who merely said, ‘The poor creature must be starving, allow him to feed where he likes.’

“Kimera assumed authority, grew proud and headstrong, punished severely and became magnificent. He was content with nothing short of the grandest palace, a throne to sit on, the largest harem, the smartest officers, the best dressed people, a menagerie for pleasure and the best of everything. Armies were formed and fleets of canoes built for war. Highways were cut from one end of the country to the other and all the rivers were bridged. No house could be built without its necessary out buildings and to disobey the laws of cleanliness was death. He formed a perfect system of paternal government according to his own ideas, and it has never declined, but rather improved.”

Stanley heard from Sabadu, the court historian of Uganda, a somewhat different story. According to him Kimera did not found the government but was only one of a long list of thirty-five monarchs. He however first taught his countrymen the delight of sport. He was, in fact, the Nimrod of Uganda genealogy, and a mighty giant to boot, the mark of whose enormous foot is still pointed out on a rock near the lake, where he had slipped while hurling a spear at an elephant. The first of the Waganda was Kintu, a blameless priest, who objected to the shedding of blood – a scruple which does not seem to have been shared by any of his descendants – and who came into this Lake Region when it was absolutely empty of human inhabitants. From Kintu, Sabadu traced the descent of his master through a line of glorious ancestry, – warriors and legislators, who performed the most astounding deeds of valor and wisdom, – and completely proved that, whatever may be the condition of history, fiction, at least, flourishes at the court of Mtesa. Passing over a hero who crushed hosts of his enemies by flying up into the air and dropping great rocks upon their heads, and a doughty champion who took his stand on a hill and there for three days withstood the assaults of all comers, catching the spears thrown at him and flinging them back, until he was surrounded by a wall of two thousand slain, we come to Suna, the father of Mtesa, who died only a little before Speke and Grant’s visit to the country. Suna, by all accounts, was a gloomy monarch, who sat with his eyes broodingly bent on the ground, only raising them to give the signal to his executioners for the slaughter of some of his subjects. It is told of this sanguinary despot that one day he caused 800 of his people to be killed in his sight, and that he made a ghastly pyramid of the bodies of 20,000 Wasoga prisoners, inhabitants of the opposite shore of the Victoria Nile.

The chiefs rejected his eldest son as his successor and chose the mild-eyed Mtesa. The “mild-eyed” signalized his election by killing all his nearest relatives and his father’s best counsellors. He was drunk with power and pombe. It was now that Speke and Grant saw him. They describe him as a wretch who was peculiarly liable to fits of frenzy, during which he would order the slaughter of those who were his best friends an hour before, or arming himself with a bundle of spears would go into his harem and throw them indiscriminately among his wives and children.

It is said a change came over him by being converted to Mohammedanism. He gave up his drinking and many Pagan practices of his fathers, though still believing in wizards and charms. The Moslem Sabbath is observed and Arabic literature has been introduced.

Stanley describes him as a tall slim man of thirty years, with fine intelligent features and an expression in which amiability is blended with dignity. His eyes are “large lustrous and lambent.” His skin is a reddish brown and wonderfully smooth. In council, he is sedate and composed; in private, free and hilarious. Of his intelligence and capacity there can be no question. Nor can it be doubted that he has a sincere liking for white men. His curiosity about civilized peoples, their customs, manufactures and inventions is insatiable, and he seems to have once entertained the idea of modeling his kingdom after a civilized pattern. He showed “Stamlee” (Stanley) and other white visitors the greatest hospitality. Yet there was something cat-like in his caressing and insinuating ways. His smiles and attentions could not be relied on any more than the fawning of the leopard, which the kings of Uganda take for their royal badge.

Stanley tried to convert him from his Moslem faith to Christianity. He got so far as to have him write the Ten Commandments for daily perusal and keep the Christian along with the Moslem Sabbath. This was on his first visit. But on his return to Rubaga he found the king had gone to war with the Wavuma. He went along and had excellent opportunity to notice the king’s power.

His estimate of Mtesa’s fighting strength on this occasion was an army of 150,000 men, and as many more camp followers in the shape of women and children. There were not less than 500 large canoes, over seventy feet in length, requiring 8500 paddlers. The whole population of his territory he estimated at 3,500,000, and its extent at 70,000 square miles.

The Wavuma could not muster over 200 canoes, but they were more agile on the water than the Uganda, so that the odds were not so great after all. Day after day they kept Mtesa’s fleet at bay, and readily paddled out of reach of his musketry and howitzers planted on a cape which extended into the lake. Mtesa got very mad and began to despair. He applied to all his sorcerers and medicine men, and at length came to Stanley, who suggested the erection of a causeway from the point of the cape to the enemy’s shore. It proved to be too big a task, and was given over. But the American pushed his project of converting the king, now that he stood in the position of adviser. He succeeded, as he thought. But a few days later the Uganda fleet suffered a reverse, and the newly fledged Christian was found running around in a frenzy, shouting for the blood of his enemies and giving orders for the roasting alive of a prisoner who had been taken. Stanley gave his pupil a well-deserved scolding; and thinking it was time to interfere in the war, which was hindering him from continuing his journey, he put into operation a little project he had conceived, and which is worthy of being placed beside the famous device of the “horse” by which the Greeks captured Troy town. Joining three canoes together, side by side, by poles lashed across them, he constructed on this platform a kind of wicker-work fort, which concealed a crew and garrison of two hundred men. This strange structure, covered by streamers, and with the drums and horns giving forth a horrible din, moved slowly towards the enemy’s stronghold, propelled by the paddles working between the canoes. The Wavuma watched with terror the approach of this awful apparition, which bore down upon them as if moved by some supernatural force. When it had advanced to within hailing distance, a voice was heard issuing from the mysterious visitant, which called on the Wavuma to submit to Mtesa or destruction would come on them. The bold islanders were awestruck. A council of war was held, when a chief stepped to the shore and cried, “Return, O Spirit; the war is ended!” A peace was sealed with the usual tribute of ivory and female slaves for the king’s harem.