Stanley in Africa

The shores of both the Congo and Aruwimi resounded with the din of the everlasting war-drums, and from every cove and island swarmed a crowd of canoes, that began forming into line to intercept and attack the travellers. These crafts were larger than any that had yet been encountered. The leading canoe of the savages was of portentous length, with forty paddlers on each side, while on a platform at the bow were stationed ten redoubtable young warriors, with crimson plumes of the parrot stuck in their hair, and poising long spears. Eight steersmen were placed on the stern, with large paddles ornamented with balls of ivory; while a dozen others, apparently chiefs, rushed from end to end of the boat directing the attack. Fifty-two other vessels of scarcely smaller dimensions followed in its wake. From the bow of each waved a long mane of palm fibre; every warrior was decorated with feathers and ornaments of ivory; and the sound of a hundred horns carved out of elephants’ tusks, and a song of challenge and defiance chanted from two thousand savage throats, added to the wild excitement of the scene. Their wild war-cry was “Yaha-ha-ha, ya Bengala.”

The assailants were put to flight after a series of charges more determined and prolonged than usual. This time, however, the blood of the strangers was fully up. They were tired of standing everlastingly on the defensive, of finding all their advances repelled with scorn and hatred. They carried the war into the enemy’s camp, and drove them out of their principal village into the forest. In the centre of the village was found a singular structure – a temple of ivory, the circular roof supported by thirty-three large tusks, and surmounting a hideous idol, four feet high, dyed a bright vermillion color, with black eyes, beard and hair. Ivory here was “abundant as fuel,” and was found carved into armlets, balls, mallets, wedges, grain pestles, and other articles of ornament and use; while numerous other weapons and implements of iron, wood, hide, and earthenware attested the ingenuity of the people. Their cannibal propensities were as plainly shown in the rows of skulls that grinned from poles, and the bones and other grisly remains of human feasts scattered about the village streets.

They had now a peaceful river for a time, or rather they were enabled to float in its middle, or dodge from shore to shore, without direct attack. But food became scarce. On February 20, they got a supply from natives whom they propitiated. On the 23, Amima, wife of the faithful Kacheche died. Her last words to Stanley were, “Ah, master, I shall never see the sea again. Your child Amima, is dying. I have wished to see the cocoa-nuts and the mangoes, but, no, Amima is dying, dying in a Pagan land. She will never see Zanzibar again. The master has been very good to his children, and Amima remembers it. It is a bad world master, and you have lost your way in it. Good bye, master, and do not forget poor little Amima.” The simple pathos of this African girl sweetened a death-bed scene as much as a Christian’s prayer could have done.

For a distance of 1000 miles from Stanley Falls the river is without cataracts, flowing placidly here, and there widening to ten miles, with numerous channels through reedy islands. Every thing was densely tropical – trees, flowers, plants, birds, animals. Crocodiles were especially plenty in the water, and all the large land animals of the equatorial regions could be seen at intervals. There were few adventures with these, for the party clung rigidly to their boats; but once in a while, a coterie, organized for a hunting bout, would come back with such stirring tales of attack and escape as we are accustomed to read of in connection with the eastern coasts of the continent where hunting the elephant, rhinoceros, lion, hippopotamus, is more of a regular business, and where spicy stories of adventure are accepted without question.

After a treacherous attack by the people of King Chumbiri – Stanley’s thirty-second battle – the natives showed a more peaceable disposition. They had heard of western coast white men and knew something of their ways. So there was a pleasant flow of water and a safe shore, for many days. But now the river was about to change. It received the Ikelemba, a powerful stream of tea-colored water, 1000 yards wide. Its waters flowed along in the same bed, unmixed with those of the Congo, for 150 miles. This immense tributary and that of the Ibari, were reported to come from great lakes, 800 miles to the south, and probably the same that Livingstone and Cameron both mention in their travels.

For 900 miles the Congo has had a fall of only 364 feet, or a third of a foot to the mile. We are now within 400 miles of the Atlantic, yet 1150 feet above it, and on the edge of the great table lands of Central Africa. The days of smooth sailing are at an end. The mountains come close to the stream, and the channel narrows. The white chalky cliffs remind Frank Pocock of the coasts of Dover in his own England. A roar is heard in advance. The cataracts have begun again, and they sound as ominously as the war-cry of the natives hundreds of miles back in the woods and jungles.

We have now been over four months on this river, and the next two hundred miles are to be the most tedious, laborious and disastrous of all. The terrors of Stanley Falls are here duplicated a thousand times. Bluffs rise 1500 feet high. Between them the river rushes over piles of boulders, or shoots with frightful velocity past the bases of impending crags, up which one must quickly scramble or else be carried into the boiling whirlpools below.

These falls we shall call the “Livingstone Falls.” In their general features they are not like Niagara, or Victoria on the Zambesi, but a succession of headlong rushes, as if the river were tearing down a gigantic rock stairway.

Of the Great Ntamo Fall, Stanley says: “Take a strip of sea, blown over by a hurricane, four miles in length by half a mile in breadth, and a pretty accurate conception of its rushing waves may be obtained. Some of the troughs were one hundred yards in length, and from one to another the mad river plunged. There was first a rush down into the middle of an immense trough, and then, by sheer force, the enormous volume would lift itself upwards steeply until, gathering itself into a ridge, it suddenly hurled itself twenty or thirty feet straight upwards before rolling down into another trough. The roar was deafening and tremendous. I can only compare it to the thunder of an express train through a rock tunnel.”

In this vast current, rushing along at the rate of thirty miles an hour, the strongest steamer would be as helpless as a cockle-shell, and as for frail canoes, they had to be dragged from rock to rock, or taken clear from the water and borne by land around the obstructions. Frequently canoes were wrecked and then a halt had to be ordered till new ones were hewn from trees. Yet amid trial, sickness and sore distress they had to pause at times in wonder before the imposing sights that opened on them. One was that of the Edwin Arnold River which flings itself with a single bound of 300 feet into the Congo, clearing the base of its cliff by ten yards. Still more wonderful is the cascade of the Nkenke, which is a plunge of a 1000 feet; and near by another with a fall of 400 feet.

Many gaps were made in the ranks of Stanley’s companions through this “Valley of Shadow.” In one day (March 28) he saw eleven of his men swept over a cataract and disappear in the boiling waters below. First a boat, in which was Kalulu, an attendant of Stanley in all his journeys, was sucked within the power of a fall and plunged into the abyss. Hardly had the eye turned from this horror when another canoe was seen shooting down the stream toward what appeared to be certain death. By almost a miracle it made an easy part of the cataract and the occupants succeeded in reaching the shore in safety. Close behind came a third with a single occupant. As the boat made its plunge the occupant rose and shouted a farewell to his companions on the shore. Then boat and man disappeared. A few days afterwards he re-appeared like an apparition in camp. He had been tossed ashore far below and held a prisoner by the natives, who had picked him up more dead than alive.

On April 12, the “Lady Alice” herself, with her crew, came to the very verge of destruction. The boat was approaching a bay in which the camp for the night was to be made, when a noise like distant thunder fell on the ears of the crew. The river rose before them into a hill of water. It was a whirlpool, at its full. All hands bent to their paddles and the boat was plunged into the hill of water before it broke. They thus escaped being sucked into a vortex which would have sunk the boat and drowned all. As it was, the boat was whirled round and round through a succession of rapids, before the crew could bring her under control again.

Fortunately the natives were still friendly and of superior type. They had many European manufactures, which pass from tribe to tribe in regular traffic, and enjoyed a higher civilization than those of the Central African regions. Stanley rested with these people for several days while his carpenter made two new canoes.

On June 3, he lost his servant, comrade and friend, last of the Europeans, the brave and faithful Frank Pocock. All the boats had been taken from the water and carried past the Massase Falls, except the canoe “Jason,” in which were Pocock, Uledi and eleven others. This had gotten behind on account of Frank’s ulcerated feet. Chafing at the delay he urged Uledi to “shoot the falls,” against the latter’s judgment, and even taunted the crew with cowardice.

“Boys,” cried Uledi, addressing the crew, “our little master is saying that we are afraid of death. I know there is death in the cataract; but come, let us show him that black men fear death as little as white men.”

“A man can die but once!” “Who can contend with his fate?” “Our fate is in the hands of God,” were the various replies of the men.

“You are men,” exclaimed Frank.

The boat was headed for the falls. They were reached, and in another moment the canoe had plunged into the foaming rapid. Spun round like a top in the furious waters, the boat was whirled down to the foaming pit below. Then she was sucked below the surface and anon hurled up again with several men clinging to her, among them Uledi. Presently the form of the “little master” was seen floating on the surface. Uledi swam to him, seized him, and both sunk. When the brave Uledi appeared again he was alone. Poor Pocock’s tragic death was a blow to the whole expedition. Most of the party gave way to superstitious dread of the river and many deserted, but quickly returned, after a trial of the dreary woods.

On June 23, the carpenter of the expedition was swept over the Zinga Falls, in the canoe, “Livingstone,” and drowned. Stanley’s food supply was frequently very short amid the difficulties of Livingstone Falls. Not that there was not plenty on the shores, but his means of buying were exhausted, and such a thing as charity is not common to the African tribes. Even where most friendly, they are always on the lookout for a trade, and a bargain at that. It is a great hardship for them to give, without a consideration.

The appearance of his attendants cut Mr. Stanley to the heart every day – so emaciated, gaunt, and sunken-eyed were they; bent and crippled with weakness who had once been erect and full of manly vigor. And the leader’s condition was no better. Gone now was all the keen ardor for discovery, the burning desire to penetrate where no white man had yet penetrated which animated his heart at the outset of his journey. Sickness that had drained his strength, anxiety that had strained to its utmost pitch the mind, sorrow for loss and bereavement that had wearied the spirit – these had left Mr. Stanley a very different man from that which he was when he set out full of hope and ardor from Zanzibar. All his endeavor now was to push on as fast as possible, to reach the ocean with as little more of pain and death to his followers as possible.

At last Stanley struck a number of intelligent tribes who gave much information about the rest of the river and the coast. There were three great falls still below them, and any number of dangerous rapids. It would be folly to risk them with their frail barks. Moreover, he learned that the town of Boma, on the Atlantic coast, could be reached by easy journeys across the country. His main problem, as to whether the Lualaba and the Congo were the same, had long since been solved. He had been following the Congo all the time, had seen its splendid forests and mighty affluents, its dashing rapids and bewildering whirlpools and falls, had even, through the spectacles of Livingstone, seen its head waters in Lake Bangweolo, amid whose marshes the veteran explorer laid down his life.

What need then to risk life further at this time, and in his very poor condition. He resolved to leave the river and make direct for the coast at Boma. When he assembled his followers to make this welcome announcement to them, they were overcome with joy. Poor Safeni, coxswain of the “Lady Alice,” went mad with rapture and fled into the forest. Three days were spent in searching for him, but he was never seen more.

Relinquishing his boat and all unnecessary equipage at the cataract of Isangila, the party struck for Boma, but only to give out entirely when still three days distant. A messenger was sent in advance for aid. He came back in two days with a strong band of carriers and abundance of food. The perishing party was thus saved, and was soon receiving the care of the good people of Boma. Here all forgot their toils and perils amid civilized comforts and the pardonable pride aroused by their achievements. Stanley’s exploit is unparalleled in the history of African adventure. Though not the first to cross the Continent, he hewed an unknown way and every step was a startling revelation. He did more to unravel African mysteries and settle geographic problems than any other explorer.

And, August 12, 1877, three years after his start from Zanzibar on the Indian Ocean, and eight months after setting out from Nyangwe to follow the Lualaba, he stood on the Atlantic shores at Boma and gazed on the mouth of the Congo, whose waters shot an unmixed current fifty miles out to sea. Though he had proved it to be so, he could still hardly believe that this vast flood pouring 2,000,000 cubic feet of water a second into the ocean, through a channel ten miles wide and 1300 feet deep, was the same that he had followed through wood and morass, rapid and cataract, rock bound channel and wide expanse, for so long a time, and that it was the same which Diego Cam discovered by its color and reedy track four hundred years before, while sailing the ocean out of sight of land.

In the journey of 7200 miles, one hundred and fourteen of Stanley’s original party had perished. Many had fallen in battle or by treachery, more were the victims of disease, and some had succumbed to toil or been “washed down by the gulfs.” But a goodly remnant survived. These were returned, according to contract, to their Zanzibar home. Stanley went with them by steamer around the Cape of Good Hope.

It needs not to tell the joy with which the people again beheld their home; how they leaped ashore from the boat; how their friends rushed down to the beach to welcome back the wanderers; how wives and husbands, children and parents, “literally leaped into each other’s arms,” while “with weeping and with laughter” the wonderful story of the long and terrible journey is told to the eager listeners.

Stanley, having paid his followers in full, according to the terms of his contract, and rewarded some over and above their lawful claims, so that not a few of the men were able to purchase neat little houses and gardens with their savings, prepared to quit Zanzibar forever.

The scene on the beach on the day of Stanley’s departure was a strange and an affecting one. The people of the expedition pressed eagerly around him, wrung his hand again and again, and finally, lifting him upon their shoulders, carried him through the surf to his boat. Then the men, headed by Uledi the coxswain, manned a lighter and followed Mr. Stanley’s boat to the steamer, and there bade their leader a last farewell.

Stanley’s own feelings at this moment were no less keen. As the steamer which bore him home left the shore of Zanzibar behind, his thoughts were busy with the past; he was living once again in retrospect the three strange, eventful years, during which these simple black people had followed him with a fidelity at once simple and noble, childlike and heroic. For him, his comrades in travel through the Dark Continent must ever remain heroes; for it was their obedient and loyal aid that had enabled him to bring his expedition to a successful and noble issue, to accomplish each of the three tasks he had set himself to do, – the exploration of the great Victoria Nyanza Lake, the circumnavigation of Tanganyika, and the identification of Livingstone’s Lualaba River with the Congo.

Ever since this memorable journey, Mr. Stanley has been enthusiastically working to found a great Congo free Government and commercial empire, which all the nations shall recognize and to which all shall contribute. He has projected a steamer system, of heavy draught vessels, from the mouth of the river to the first cataracts. Here a commercial emporium is to be founded. A railway is to start thence and lead to the smooth waters above. This would open 7000 miles of navigable waters on the Upper Congo and a trade of $50,000,000 a year. It would redeem one of the largest fertile tracts of land on the globe and bring peace, prosperity and civilization to millions of human beings. Only climate seems to be against his plans, for it is undoubtedly hostile to Europeans. But if native energies can be enlisted sufficiently to make a permanent ground work for his ideal state, he may yet rank not only as the greatest of discoverers but as the foremost of statesmen and humanitarians. The possibilities of the Congo region are boundless.

A missionary just returned from the Congo country thus writes of it:

“The bounds of this ‘Congo Free State’ are not yet defined, but they will ultimately embrace the main stream and its immense system of navigable tributaries, some of which are 800 miles long. The Congo itself waters a country more than 900 miles square, or an area of 1,000,000 square miles. These rivers make access to Equatorial Africa and to the Soudan country quite easy.

“The resources of this fine region are exhaustless. The forests are dense and valuable. Their rubber wealth is untouched, and equal to the world’s supply. Everywhere there is a vast amount of ivory, which lies unused or is turned into the commonest utensils by the natives. There are palms which yield oil, plantains, bananas, maize, tobacco, peanuts, yams, wild coffee, and soil equal to any in the world for fertility. Europeans must guard against the climate, but it is possible to get enured to it, with care. In the day-time the temperature averages 90° the year round, but the average of the night temperature is 70° to 75°. Rain falls frequently, and mostly in the night. The natives are hostile, only where they have suffered from invasion by Arab slave dealers.

“Already there are some 3000 white settlers in the heart of the Congo country – Portuguese, English, Belgians, Dutch, Scandinavians and Americans, and their influence is being felt for good. The completion of Stanley’s railroad around the Congo rapids will give fresh impetus to civilization and lay the basis of permanent institutions in this great country.”

THE CAPE OF STORMS

The little Portuguese ship of Bartholomew Diaz was the first to round the “Cape of Storms” in 1486. When King John II. of Portugal, heard of his success he said it should thereafter be called Cape of Good Hope. The passage of this southermost point of Africa meant a route to India, on which all hearts were set at the time.

Nearly two hundred years later, in 1652, the Dutch settled at the Cape. They called the Quaique, or natives, Hottentots – from the repetition of one of the words used in their dances.

The Colony became a favorite place for banished Huguenots – from France and Peidmont. It grew, got to be strong, and at length tyrannical. The more liberal members left it and pushed into the interior, where they drove back the Kaffirs, and redeemed much valuable territory. The parent Colony tried to force its government on these pioneers, who were called “Boers” – the Dutch word for “farmers.” A rebellion ensued. The Prince of Orange asked England to help suppress it (1795). She did so, and with characteristic greed, kept it till 1803. It then passed to the Dutch, but was retaken by England in 1806.

Settlement marched rapidly up the eastern coast of Africa, and a great agricultural section was opened. The Kaffir tribes protested and five fierce wars were fought, with the loss of all Kaffraria to the natives. The Boers were never reconciled to British authority. They murmured, rebelled, and kept migrating northward, till north of the Orange River they founded the Natal, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal Republic.

The high promontory of Cape of Good Hope – Table Mountain – is visible a long distance from the sea, owing to the dry, light atmosphere. On its spurs are many ruins of block-houses, used by the early settlers. Over it, at times, hangs a veil of cloud, called the “Table Cloth,” which, when dispersed by the sun, the inhabitants say is put away for future use.

The town of Cape Colony, or Cape Town, is now perfectly modern, and very pretty. It was here that the great missionary Robert Moffat began his African career in 1816; here that Pringle started to found his ideal town Glen Lynden.

In 1867 all Cape Colony was thrown into excitement by the discovery that diamond fields existed inland near the Kalihari Desert. There was a rush like that in our own country in 1849 when gold was discovered in California. Exaggerated stories of finds of diamonds by natives, valued at $50,000 a piece, were eagerly listened to, and in a few weeks there was a population of 10,000 in a hitherto unknown region, with the road thither, for hundreds of miles, literally alive with wagons, oxen, pack mules and footmen.

The diamond territory is Griqualand, on the headwaters of the Orange and Vaal Rivers and close to the desert – partly in it. The region is 16,000 square miles in extent and 3000 feet above the ocean. In the diamond fields the diamonds are found in the sand by washing. This is the native method of getting them, and also that adopted by thousands of people who have no capital.

But it was soon found that they could be had in larger numbers and of greater size and purity by digging. This brought capital, machinery, and regular mining tracts, called “Claims.”

At first the mining towns were made up of tents, filled with a mixed people, toiling willingly all day, and dancing, gambling, drinking and rioting at night. At one time there were 60,000 persons in these diamond fields, but now not more than 40,000.

The Kimberley mine is the favorite. It has been excavated to a depth of 250 feet and has proved very rich. It is now surrounded by quite a town, and the people – mostly native diggers – are orderly and industrious. The diggers delve with spade and pick in the deep recesses of the mine, and the sand, rock and earth are pulled to the surface in buckets, where they are sorted, sieved, and closely examined for diamonds.

Formerly the “claims” sold for fabulous prices. Many, only thirty by sixteen feet, brought $100,000. And some rare finds have been made. The great diamond, found a few years ago, and called the “Star of South Africa,” was sold, before cutting, for $55,000. And while we are writing, one is undergoing the process of cutting in Paris which is a true wonder. It arrived from South Africa in August, 1884, and was purchased by a syndicate of London and Paris diamond merchants. It weighs in the rough 457 carats and will dress to 200 carats. The great Koh-i-noor, weighs only 106 carats, the Regent of France 1363⁄4 carats, the Star of South Africa 125 carats, the Piggott 821⁄4 carats, and the Great Mogul 279 carats. But the latter is a lumpy stone, and if dressed to proper proportions, would not weigh over 140 carats.

The Kaffraria country, lying between Cape Colony and Natal, is rich in beautiful scenery and abounds in animal life. While the larger animals, as the elephant and lion, have retreated inland, there are still many beasts of prey, and the forests have not given over their troops of chattering baboons. Its greatest scourge is periodical visits of immense flights of locusts, which destroy all vegetation wherever they light. The natives make them into cakes and consider them a great delicacy. These natives are a brave, fine people, and have been conquered and held with difficulty. As they yield to civilization they make an industrious and attractive society.