Stanley in Africa

It was by such manœuvres as these that Stanley established fresh relations with these Wy-yanzi tribes. They are naturally wild and turbulent. A dispute over a brass rod, or a quarrel over a pot of beer, is a signal for war. Superstition rules them, as few tribes are ruled. A bad dream by a chief may lead to the suspicion that he is bewitched, and some poor victim is sure to suffer burning for witchcraft. Ibaka caused a young girl to be strangled because her lover had sickened and died. At an upper village forty-five people were slaughtered over the grave of their chief – a sort of propitiatory sacrifice.

After all matters had been settled, Stanley read them a lecture on the folly of fighting friendly white men, who had never done them an injury, and did not intend to. To show his appreciation of the situation, he made them a present of cloth and brass rods, and offered to pay for a treat of beer. They went out and held a palaver, and then returned with a request that the gifts be duplicated. “Never!” shouted Stanley. “Ibaka, this land is yours. Take it. I and my people depart from Bolobo forever!”

To this all the chiefs remonstrated, saying they had no intention of driving him away, and explaining that their demand was only according to the custom of the Wy-yanzi to always ask for twice as much as was offered them. Despite this rather surprising commercial spirit, they are not a vindictive people – simply superstitious and quarrelsome.

After these difficulties, Stanley resumed his up-river journey for Lukolela, passing on the way the mouths of the Minkené river, of the Likuba, and of the larger river Bunga, whose banks are thickly strewn with villages. Once at Lukolela, a station was formed by clearing away the tall forest trees. Though the forests were magnificent, and capable of furnishing timber for generations, the soil was hard, stony and forbidding, and Stanley despaired of ever getting a garden of sufficient dimensions and fertility to support a garrison. He, however, left a Mr. Glave, a young Englishman, in charge, who seemed to think he could force nature to promise subsistence and comfort.

On September 22d Stanley started for Usindi, having on board Miyongo, of that place, and his shipwrecked crew. On their safe arrival, there was no show of gratitude for the favor done, but blood-brotherhood was made with Miyongo. This provoked the jealousy of the senior chief, Iuka, a dirty old fellow, of wicked mien, whose grievance seemed to be that Miyongo was too popular in the community. A short palaver reconciled him to the situation, and Stanley departed with the assurance that Usindi might be counted on as a safe stopping-place in the future. Miyongo favored him with a guide who was well acquainted with the upper waters of the Congo.

Irebu was now passed, and then the mouth of the Bauil, whose people are a piratical crew, dreaded by all their neighbors. By September 29th the flotilla was at Equator Station again, after an absence of one hundred days. What a transformation! The jungle and scrub had disappeared, and in their stead was a solid clay house, roomy, rain-proof and bullet-proof, well lighted and furnished. Around it were the neat clay huts of the colored carriers and soldiers, each the centre of a garden where grew corn, sugar-cane, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, etc. Then there was a grand garden, full of onions, radishes, carrots, beans, peas, beets, lettuce, potatoes and cabbages, and also a servants’ hall, goat-houses, fowl-houses and all the et-ceteras of an African plantation. It was Stanley’s ideal of a Congo station, and sight of it gave him greater heart for his enterprise than any thing he had yet seen. The native chief, Ikengé, was at first disposed to be troublesome, but was soon appeased. On October 11th Stanley congratulated himself that he had passed so much of the river limit, leaving peace behind him with all the nations, and stations abounding in means of support, if they exerted themselves in the right direction.

Equator Station is 757 miles from the Atlantic Ocean and 412 miles above Leopoldville, on Stanley Pool. Stanley’s initial work was really done here, but in response to earnest wishes from Brussels, he continued it in the same spirit and for the same purpose for 600 miles further, with a view of making a permanent station at Stanley Falls. With 68 colored men and 5 Europeans on board, and with his steamers well freighted with necessaries, he left Equator Station on October 16th. The first place of moment passed was at Uranga, near the confluence of the Lulunga with the Congo. The country around is flat, densely wooded, and the villages close together. The Uranga people were anxious for a landing and palaver, but the steamers pushed on to Bolombo, where a famine prevailed, and where the natives were peaceable and anxious to make blood-brotherhood.

Above Bolombo the steamers were met by a fleet of canoes, whose occupants bore the news that the Bengala were anxious for a stop and palaver. These were the terrible fighters who harassed Stanley so sorely on his descent of the Congo in 1877. He had heard further down the river that they had threatened to dispute every inch of water with the white man if ever he came that way again. But he had also heard from Mangombo, of Irebu, that the lesson they had learned was so severe that all the white men would have to do would be to shake a stick at them. Still Stanley approached anxiously. The Bengala villages stretch for miles along the Congo. He did not stop his steamers, which were soon surrounded by hundreds of canoes, but kept slowly moving past the countless villages for fully five hours. The canoe-men seemed impelled wholly by curiosity, and no sign of hostility appeared. The guide held frequent talks with the natives, none of which evoked other than friendly replies. They are a tall, broad-shouldered, graceful people, shading off from a dark bronze to a light complexion. The steamers came to a halt for the night at an island, two hours’ sail from the upper end of the villages, and 500 yards from the shore, and thither the guide came in the evening with a young chief, Boleko, who invited a landing the next day. In the morning he came with an escort of canoes and took Stanley to his village, through the identical channel whence had issued the hostile canoes in 1877. Here trading was carried on briskly and satisfactorily, till a message came from old Mata Bwyki to the effect that he regarded it as an insult on the part of a boy like Boleko to be extending the tribal honors in that way. The only way out of this was for the steamers to drop back two miles and spend a day opposite the village of the old chief – Lord-of-many-guns. Old Mata was found to be a Herculean fellow, nearly eighty years old, and walking with a staff that resembled a small mast. By his side appeared seven sons, all fine-looking fellows, but the gray shock of the old man towered above them all when he straightened himself up. Around them was a throng which numbered thousands. The assembly place and place of welcome was laid with grass mats. Stanley and his men marched into it, ogled on every side, and not knowing whether the end would be peace or war. The guide presented them with a speech which described Stanley’s work and objects – all he had done below them on the river, the advantages it would be to treat and trade with him, winding up with an intimation that it might be dangerous, or at least useless, to prove unfriendly, for his steamers were loaded with guns and ammunition sufficient for the extermination of the entire people. The result was a treaty, sealed with blood-brotherhood, and a promise on the part of Stanley to return at no distant day and establish a permanent station among the Bengala. This village was Iboko.

The Congo here is literally filled with islands which render a passage from one shore to the other almost impossible. These islands are all richly verdure-clad and present a scene of rare loveliness, draped in a vegetable life that finds a parallel no where else in nature. It took the steamers thirteen hours to work their way across to the left, or Mutembo side. But Mutembo was deserted. The steamers made Mkatakura, through channels bordered with splendid copal forests, whose tops were covered with orchilla – fortunes for whole civilized nations, if possessed and utilized. Mkatakura was also deserted. Where were these people? Their places had been populous and hostile in 1877. Had they fallen a prey to stronger tribes? Alas! such must have been their fate in a country where wars never end, and where provocations are the slightest.

Many deserted settlements were now passed, when Mpa, ruled by Iunga, was reached, 744 miles from Leopoldville. The people were peaceful and disposed to make all necessary concessions. The next day brought them to Nganza, ruled by old Rubanga, who had received Stanley with cordiality in 1877. The people were exceedingly anxious to trade, and offered their wares, especially their ivory, of which they had plenty, at ridiculously low figures. The people are known as the Langa-langa – the upper country – and they go almost entirely naked. Their bodies are cross-marked and tattooed. The country is regarded as a paradise for ivory traders, owing to the ignorance of the natives as to the real commercial value of the article. Here is the turning-point in African currency. The cloth and brass-rods of the Atlantic coast no longer hold good, but the Canton bead and the cowry of Ujiji are the measure of exchange. Langa-langa is therefore the commercial water-shed which divides the Atlantic and Pacific influence.

On November 4th Ikassa was passed, whose people fled on the approach of the steamers. It was the same at Yakongo. Then came a series of deserted villages. Presently appeared the newly-settled towns of Ndobo and Ibunda, with their wattled huts. Bumba came next, with whose chief, Myombi, blood-brotherhood was made amid a throng of curious sight-seers. It was the fiftieth time Stanley’s arm had been punctured for treaty purposes since he entered upon his journey. There was little opportunity for trading here owing to the curiosity of the people over the steamers. They could hardly be persuaded that the dreaded Ibanza – devil – did not live down in the boats. It must be he who required so much wood for food and gave such groans. If not, what was it that lived in that great iron drum and made those wheels spin round so rapidly? In this mood they forgot the art of exchange so natural with African natives. Their curiosity was such that the crowds about and upon the steamers became not only a drawback to exchange, but to work. At length one of the cabin-boys tried the effect of a practical joke. He opened the cabin door and pushed forward the form of a splendid Bengal tiger, as Ibanza, which was creating all the noise and trouble in the boat. The frightened natives shrieked and ran at glance of the terrible figure, and the river bank was cleared in a moment. Yells of laughter followed them from the boat’s crew. Being assured by this that nothing harmful was intended, they began to cluster back, and really joined heartily in the merriment, as they saw that the source of their terror was only a tiger skin hurriedly stuffed for the purpose of giving them a scare. Trade was more active after that, and provisions were plenty.

Above Bomba the steamers neared the equally populous town of Yambinga. The chief was Mukuga, who wore an antelope-skin cap adorned with cock’s feathers, a broad shoulder-belt with leopard-skin attachment, and strings of tags, tassels and fetish mysteries. He was a timid chief, notwithstanding his gaudy apparel, and quite willing to make blood brotherhood. All of these later villages were plentifully supplied with war-canoes, the count being 556 at Lower and Upper Yambinga, and 400 at Buruba.

Above Yambinga the flotilla got lost in an affluent of the Congo and had to put back to the main stream. The stream was supposed to be the Itimbiri. For many days both shores of the Congo had not appeared at once. But on the 12th both sides could be seen, and on the right was a wide plain once inhabited by the Yalulima, a tribe of artisans skilled in the manufacture of iron, including swords, spears, bells and fetishes of various devices. On an island above dwelt the Yambungu, who were disposed to trade and who brought fine sweet-potatoes, fowls, eggs, and a species of sheep with broad, flat tails.

The districts were now very populous, and the affluents frequent and very complicated as to name and direction of flow. The Basaka, Bahamba and Baru villages were passed without a stop. At all of these there were canoe demonstrations, but whether for hostile purpose or not was not inquired after. The flotilla was now nearing the great Congo affluent, the Aruwimi, out of whose mouth issued the enormous canoe-fleet which so nearly annihilated Stanley in 1877. He gave orders to be on the alert, but to resort to hostilities only when all hope of self-preservation otherwise had failed. Scarcely had these orders passed when a stream of long, splendid-looking war-canoes, filled with armed men, dashed out from behind an island, and began to reconnoitre the steamers. They pushed over to the right bank, and kept an upward course, without show of resistance and at a safe distance. The steamers plunged ahead, and soon the mouth of the Aruwimi opened its spacious jaws to receive them. High on the bank appeared the town of Mokulu, whose Basoko inmates had fought the battle with Stanley years before. He knew their disposition then, but what was it now? Was the meeting to be one of war or friendship?

The Congo has a majestic flow where it receives its great tributary, the Aruwimi. Rounding a point, the steamers entered the affluent, to find the villagers in force, dressed in war-paint, armed with spear and shield, beating their war-drums, and disporting themselves fantastically on the banks. The canoes of observation were speedily joined by others. The three steamers were put across to a clearing on the divide between the Congo and Aruwimi, and two of them brought to anchor. The Eu Avant was then steamed up the Aruwimi past Mokulu. Then her head was turned down stream, and the guide was stationed on the cabin to proclaim the words of peace and friendship as the steamer slowly returned. The drums on shore ceased to beat. The battle-horns were hushed. The leaping forms were still. The guide was eloquent in his speech and dramatic in his action. He had the ear of all Mokulu. At length a response came that if all the steamers anchored together, the Basoko would soon come as friends. The canoes hovered about, but could not be persuaded to come within 250 yards. Hours elapsed before they mustered up sufficient courage to approach the shore within hailing distance of the camps at the anchorage. Thither the guide and three companions went, and the ceremony of blood-brotherhood was performed. The town of Mokulu heard the shouts of satisfaction at this result, and a response came in the shape of drum-beats and horn-toots. Intercourse with the fierce Basoko was a possibility.

These Basokos received Stanley’s guide, Yumbila, first and loaded him with presents. They then told him of Stanley’s former approach and battle, also of a second visitation far worse than Stanley’s, which must have been one by an Arab gang of slave-stealers, judging from its barbarity. They were averse to a journey up the Aruwimi, though willing that the expedition should proceed up the Congo. It was impossible to get information from them respecting their river. They proved to be willing traders, and possessed products in abundance. Their spears, knives, paddles and shields showed remarkable workmanship, being delicately polished, and carved with likenesses of lizards, crocodiles, canoes, fish and buffaloes. Their headdresses were of fine palm materials, decorated, and a knit haversack formed a shoulder-piece for each man. Physically they are a splendid people, industrious after their style, fond of fishing, and not given to that ignorant, childish curiosity so common among other tribes. They are adepts at canoe construction, and some of their vessels require a hundred stout warriors to propel them in a fight.

Notwithstanding opposition, Stanley determined to explore the Aruwimi, which is 1,600 yards wide at its mouth, and narrows to 900 yards above Mokula. He found in succession the Umaneh, the Basongo, the Isombo, all populous, timid, and friendly. After passing Yambua and Irungu, he came to the quite populous metropolis of Yambumba, on a bluff 40 feet high, containing 8,000 people living in steeply conical huts, embowered by bombax, palms, banana-trees and fig-trees. The puffing of the steamers put the whole town to flight. Further on came the rapids of the river and the Yambuya people and town. These shrewd people declined to trade on the plea of poverty, and even refused to give the correct name of their village. Their appearance belied their assertions. Stanley found the rapids of the Aruwimi a bar to steam navigation. They are 96 miles from the mouth of the river, which runs nearly westward thus far. It was this brief exploration of the river which determined him to use it as a route to Albert Nyanza on his search for Emin Pasha. Should it keep its course and continue its volume, it could not but find a source far to the east in the direction of the lake, and very near to its shores. As one of the fatalities which overhang explorers, Stanley mistook it for the Welle, described by Schweinfurth, just as Livingstone mistook the Lualaba for the Nile.

This Welle, or Wellemakua, river about which Stanley indulges in surmises, is the celebrated river brought into notice by Schweinfurth’s discoveries, and over which a geographical controversy raged for seventeen years. The question was whether it was the Shari river, which emptied into Lake Tchad, or whether its mysterious outlet was further south. Stanley’s last journey in search of Emin Pasha pretty definitely settled the controversy by ascertaining that the Welle is the upper course of the Mobangi, a tributary of the Congo.

And while speaking of Schweinfurth, we must use him as authority to settle any misapprehension likely to arise respecting the nature of the dwarfs which Stanley encountered on the waters of the Upper Aruwimi. He calls them Monbuttus, thereby giving the impression that the tribe is one of dwarfs. It was Schweinfurth’s province to set at rest the long disputed question of the existence of a dwarf race in Central Africa. He proved, once for all, that Herodotus and Aristotle were not dealing with fables when they wrote of the pygmies of Central Africa. One day he suddenly found himself surrounded by what he conjectured was a crowd of impudent boys, who pointed their arrows at him, and whose manner betokened intentional disrespect. He soon learned that these hundreds of little fellows were veritable dwarfs, and were a part of the army of Munza, the great Monbuttu king. These are the now famous Akka, who, so far as we know, are the smallest of human beings. It is these same Akka who, wandering in the forest a little south of Schweinfurth’s route, picked off many a carrier in Stanley’s late expedition, using arrows whose points were covered with a deadly poison, and refusing all overtures of friendship.

Schweinfurth’s description of the Niam-Niams (Great-Eaters) and of their southern neighbors, the Monbuttus, is the best that has yet appeared in print. He approached the country through the powerful Dinka tribes on the north, whom he found rich in cattle, experts in iron-working and highly proficient in the art of pottery ornamentation, especially as to their smoking-pipes. Competent authorities agree with his opinion that the ornamental designs upon their potteries and iron and copper wares, now exhibited in the Berlin Museum of Ethnology, would not discredit a European artist, and among these people, so far advanced in some respects, Schweinfurth discovered the first evidences of cannibalism which is said to prevail, on very doubtful authority, however, in a very large part of the Congo Basin. It is a noteworthy fact that, in all his travels, Livingstone never saw evidence of this revolting practice except on one or two occasions, and in all his voluminous writings he hardly refers to the topic. Dr. Junker, however, draws a distinction between the Niam-Niam and Monbuttu cannibals which Schweinfurth in his briefer visit failed to observe. Junker says the Niam-Niam use human flesh as food only because they believe that in this way they acquire the bravery and other virtues with which their victims may have been endowed. The Monbuttu, on the other hand, make war upon their neighbors for no other purpose than to procure human flesh for food, because they delight in it as a part of their cuisine. With methodical care they dry the flesh they do not immediately use, and add it to their reserve supplies of food.

Schweinfurth’s journey into Niam-Niam was through a prairie land covered with the tallest grasses he had yet seen in Africa. The people are given to cattle-raising and the chase. They are not of stalwart size, and their color is dark-brown rather than black. What they lack in stature they make up in athletic qualities. They took a keen interest in showing the traveler their sights, and in the evening regaled his camp with music, dispensed by a grotesque singer, who accompanied his attenuated voice with a local guitar of thin, jingling sound. The drums and horns of the Niam-Niams are used only for war purposes. Everything testified to the fruitfulness of the soil. Sweet potatoes and yams were piled up in the farmsteads, and circular receptacles of clay for the preservation of corn were erected upon posts in the yards. The yards are surrounded by hedges of paradise figs; back of these are the plantations of manioc and maize, and beyond their fields of eleusine. The women are modest and retiring in the presence of white men, and their husbands hold them in high respect. The people are great believers in magic. The best shots, when they have killed an unusual number of antelopes or buffaloes, are credited with having charmed roots in their possession. The Niam-Niam country is important as being the water-shed between the Nile and the rivers which run westward into the Congo, the Welle being the largest, which runs nearly parallel with the recently discovered Aruwimi. The Niam-Niam are great ivory traders and take copper, cloth, or trinkets at a cheap figure for this valuable ware. The southern and western part of their country becomes densely wooded and the trees are gigantic. Here the shape of the huts change, becoming loftier and neater, the yards having posts in them for displaying trophies of war and the chase. The characteristics of the Niam-Niam are pronounced and they can be identified at once amidst the whole series of African races.

Every Niam-Niam soldier carries a lance, trumbash, and dagger, made by their own smiths. Wooing is dependent on a payment exacted from the suitor by the father of the intended bride. When a man resolves on matrimony, he applies to the sub-chieftain who helps him to secure his wife. In spite of the practice of polygamy, the marriage bond is sacred, and unfaithfulness is generally punished with death. The trait is paramount for this people to show consistent affection for their wives. Schweinfurth doubts the charge of cannibalism brought against this people, and thinks their name “Great Eaters” might have given rise to the impression that they were “man-eaters.”

The festivities that occur in case of marriage are a bridal procession, at the head of which the chieftain leads the bride to the home of her future husband, accompanied by musicians, minstrels and jesters. A feast is given, of which all partake in common, though in general the women are accustomed to eat alone in their huts. This marriage celebration, with slight variations, is usual with the tribes of Central Africa. Livingstone describes one among the Hamees of the Lualaba river, in which the bride is borne to the home of her husband on the shoulders of her lover or chieftain. The domestic duties of a Niam-Niam wife consist mainly in cultivating the homestead, preparing the daily meals, painting her husband’s body and dressing his hair. Children require very little care in this genial climate, being carried about in a band or scarf till old enough to walk, and then left to run about with very little clothing on.

They are lovers of music, as are their neighbors, especially the Bongo people, who possess a variety of quaint instruments capable of producing fairly tuneful concerts. Their language is an up-shoot of the great root which is the original of every native tongue in Africa north of the Equator. They always consult auguries before going to war. In grief for the dead they shave their heads. A corpse is adorned for burial in dyed skins and feathers. They bury the dead with scrupulous regard to the points of the compass, the men facing the east and the women the west.