Stanley in Africa

The region is south of the great Uganda and Unyoro tribes, and had, up to Stanley’s trip through it, never been visited by a traveler of note except Thomas Stevens and Dr. Abbott, who thus narrate what they saw: —

“First we determined to pay a visit to the chief of Machawe in order to make purchases of food, and besides, we anticipated much pleasure in visiting a chief who had never yet set eyes on a white man. Our way led through a very charming plain country, very African in its appearance. The gently undulating plains were dotted with small cones of a hundred feet, or thereabout, in height, so small, symmetrical and uniform in shape as to suggest bubbles floating on the green waves of the plain. Rhinoceri, giraffes, antelopes, buffalo and zebra abounded in great numbers, roaming over the free, broad plains like herds of cattle. Whenever we knocked over any of these, it was very refreshing and soothing to the spirits to see the very men who but yesterday had declared ‘the nyama was not food’ fling down their loads and quarrel violently over big chunks of that very article. As we neared the approaches to Machawe, we came upon a party of Masai women and donkeys, wending their way towards Sigarari with loads of vegetable food, which they had purchased at the former place or at Kibonoto. These were the first real Masai women we had seen. They were not such as to give us a very favorable idea of their sex in Sigarari. All were old and atrociously ugly, it being customary, for obvious reasons, to send the ancient dames of the clan on these food-purchasing expeditions, rather than the possessors of youth and beauty.

“Even though the Masai and their agricultural neighbors may be at war, and the men of either side would, if caught, be brutally speared, it is the custom to let the women pass back and forth unmolested to trade. Africans, even the Masai, who are supposed to be chiefly devoted to war and raiding for cattle, are above all else commercial in their instincts. It appears that, with all their savagery, choice scraps of wisdom are to be picked up among these people here and there. Who could imagine the armies of two European countries proceeding against each other while the trade across the frontier flourished unimpaired in the care of their women?

“We camped near a swamp, in which we found abundant signs of elephants, but saw none of them, and in the morning proceeded to Machawe. Machawe is the largest and most populous of the Kilimanjaro States, and, with its neighbor, Kibonoto, occupies the western extremity of the cultivatable plateau that distinguishes the mountain on its southern slopes. Though the largest, it is the least known to Europeans, and so we looked forward to a novel and interesting visit to its Sultan and people.

“The approaches to Machawe consist of the usual narrow, tortuous paths, leading through dense thickets of scrubby and thorny vegetation, and instead of gates the defenses by this route are deep, narrow ravines, which have been trimmed down and deepened into big trenches. A pole thrown across one of these ditches forms a bridge, which the natives, sure of foot as monkeys, cross over and, in times of war, remove.

“Crossing these obstacles with no little difficulty, we at once found ourselves in the proximity of banana groves, and objects of more than usual interest to swarms of bronze-skinned warriors who had in a remarkably short time collected on the adjacent ridges. We wondered where they had all come from so quickly. They were by no means certain of our intentions, and for some time held aloof, watching us with the keenest interest. At length we managed to make them understand that our intentions were commercial only, and a few of the more venturesome individuals came and pointed out a place for us to camp. After much talkee-talkee with an ancient and exceedingly peaceful-looking savage in a greasy goat-skin toga and anklets of the same material, we sent off a present to the Sultan and stated our intention of paying him a visit next day.

“Our delegation was hospitably entertained by the chief, with a goat and big jars of pombe, but the men were kept in the royal boma until our appearance next day; this as a guarantee, so we afterwards understood, that we would keep our promise and come to see him. He was most anxious to receive us, and particularly requested that the entire caravan might be brought to his residence.

“We had no idea how far it was nor how difficult might be the way. It turned out to be up hill and down dale for many trying miles, through banana plantations of astonishing area and across clear, cold mountain streams that nearly swept us off our feet.

“The country was lovely, a chaotic jumble of narrow hills and dales and the whole sloping gently up towards Kibo and clothed with luxuriant vegetation of every shade of green. Everywhere could be heard the music of mountain streams coursing over rocky beds at the bottom of the cañons or leaping and tumbling over cataracts or down rapids. Between the banana plantations stood little patches of primeval forest, and about them, so characteristic of Chaga, were the charming little parks we have noted in Marangu. The groves are believed to be peopled with the shades of their ancestors, and native offerings are placed before the trees. Troops of big reddish baboons also make the groves and the little parks their homes.

“Irrigating ditches were everywhere, and narrow lanes of dracæna hedges divided the plantations. At length we came to a halt on a strip of sward, at the brink of a formidable cañon several hundred feet deep, down which coursed one of the largest streams we had yet encountered. Our guides wanted to conduct us across this, but we had grown tired of the interminable slippery paths and the ascending and descending steep ravines, and so decided to form camp on this extremely interesting spot. No more charming situation could be imagined. Five hundred feet below us a torrent, clear as crystal, cold and fresh from the glaciers of Kibo, tumbled and foamed over the rocks or raced along with gurgling tones. Immediately beyond the chasm a broad table-land of parks and groves and banana plantations stretched away with a slope of one in twenty. The variegated shades of green in the irregular patchwork of forest, park and field, made a most delightful study in colors. Nor was this all nature had to show our wondering eyes in Machawe. Hundreds of warriors, with spear and shield, their naked forms the only dark objects in the landscape, showed out in bold contrast and picturesque relief against the green ground-work of their surroundings as they stood and squatted in dense groups or stretched in long, irregular lines along the opposite brink of the cañon. Beyond all this was a dense mass of cloud that rested on the farther reaches of the green table-land and hid almost the whole of Kilimanjaro. But not all, for the higher strata of the clouds sometimes broke and revealed the eternal wreath of snow on Kibo, at whose very base we now seemed to be standing. Some day an artist will come and paint this picture I have feebly attempted to describe and make himself famous.

“Our first impression of the Sultan, or chief, was not very favorable. He was a young man of medium stature, under thirty, but he looked like a drunkard and debauchee and a decided expression of brutishness marked his face. His voice was thick and husky, but whether from extreme indulgence in pombe, or from an attack of laryngitis, was not then apparent. There was, however, small room for doubt about his being a constant worshiper at the shrines of the twin deities, before which every chief in Chaga, and well-nigh everyone in Africa, bows the knee. But whatever he might ordinarily be, he seemed determined to make as good an impression as he knew how upon his rare visitors, and before we left Machawe we voted him, notwithstanding first impressions, a very good sort of a fellow.

“Knowing that we had visited Miljali and intended visiting Mandara, both of whom were to the native mind possessed of many wondrous things from Europe, the Sultan of Machawe, ashamed of his poverty, seemed reluctant to take us inside his boma. He seemed bewildered and over-awed by the importance of the occasion. Anxious to do anything he could think of to please his visitors, he and all his elders were too ignorant of the white man’s character and requirements to know just what to do. The whole assembly appeared to be in a profound puzzle. We, on our part, made him the customary present of cloth, beads and wire. We showed him his own bloated features for the first time in a mirror, and amazed him with the ticking of a Waterbury watch. After much discussion among themselves, he and his elders seemed to make up their minds that the proper thing would be to take us into the royal boma, poverty or no poverty. The boma itself was a poor affair. It consisted of a small stockade of planks set on end, which had been laboriously hewn from big logs with native tools. Inside the stockade were several houses of very neat construction and of a pattern that is peculiar to Machawe. Instead of the bee-hive houses of Marangu and Taveta, the Machawe hut is of an exaggerated bell-shape.

“Just outside this boma was an inclosure of quite another sort – the kraal in which were kept the royal cattle. This was a remarkable affair, and strong enough to be a pretty good sort of a fort. Young trees had been planted in a ring to form a fence. They were planted in such numbers, and so close together, that as they grew up, they formed a living wall of tree trunks several feet thick, and so compact that one could not see through it.

“To our astonishment the king’s boma seemed to contain no women, a most extraordinary state of affairs, and when we asked the question as to the number of wives he had – always a complimentary piece of curiosity at an African court – he smiled and shook his head.

“‘What, none! – why. Miljali, of Marangu, has fourteen, and Mandara, of Moschi, many more than that.’

“Our looks of surprise and incredulity set the chief and all his elders to laughing. There was evidently a ‘nigger in the fence’ somewhere. This full-blown, sensuous-faced young potentate without a harem? Impossible. And then one of us remembered that, contrary to our experience elsewhere in the country, the fair sex in Machawe had kept themselves well out of sight as our caravan passed their houses. They were too timid and superstitious to let themselves be seen by the white strangers, who might, for all they knew, take it into their heads to assail them with their mysterious powers of ichawi (black magic) which everybody knew they possessed to an alarming degree. The Sultan had wives, then – a goodly number, no doubt – but all had scampered off and hid themselves at our approach, fearful of ichawi.

“Bacchus seemed to have rather the upper hand at Ngamini’s primitive court. I doubt if anything weaker than millet pombe is ever drunk inside the royal boma. During our visit that beverage flowed as freely as beer in a brewery. A huge jar of it was lugged in and placed in the middle of the assembly, and men ladled it out and passed around the gourds continually.

“The Sultan was opulent enough in the matter of pombe, if not in European goods, and so did his best to win our approval of his immense resources in that product. He took us into his brewery, a smaller inclosure that formed an annex to his resident kraal, and enjoyed immensely our astonishment at the vast size of the vats. These were earthenware jars, of bulbous shape, eight in number, and each capable of holding two hundred gallons or more of liquor. I had seen wine jars as large, though of different shape, in Persia, but never expected to find such giant pottery in a Chaga state.

“In brewing pombe the millet, or wimbi, is first pounded with stones to break the grain, then boiled in earthen kettles until it resembles thin cereal soup; the whole is then emptied into the big jars, covered with a cowhide and allowed to ferment. When dipped out for use the sediment is stirred up from the bottom, as also when dipped from smaller vessels to be passed around. Pombe in this condition is a solid tipple, which comes as near being both food and drink as anything of an intoxicating nature can be, and many an African chief all but lives on it. It has a pleasant twang to it, and the European soon comes to like it almost as well as the native boozer does. It goes to the head, too. A pint puts a white man in a joyous frame of mind and sets a negro, who effervesces easier than his white brother, to singing and whooping. The chiefs, however, are as a general thing animated pombe sponges, constantly soaked and with the gourd seldom out of reach.”

A HUNT ON THE ZAMBESI

The accounts of all African travelers agree, that both vegetable and animal life in Africa is rankest and noblest on the banks of the Zambesi. Volumes might be written of thrilling adventures in this extensive region. “One night,” says a noted traveler, “while journeying up the Zambesi, and just as we had fixed our tents for a good night’s rest, a native came rushing in with the news that two lions had been seen in the vicinity. The men wanted to go out and look for them immediately, but I dissuaded them from encountering the dangers of a night hunt, and promised that I would accompany them on the morrow.

“Early next morning the men were astir and busy with their preparations for a grand hunt. We had dogs with us, and when all was ready, these were let loose. A guide led the way to where he had seen the lions on the previous evening, but long before we had gone so far, and while making our way up a ridge, a noise like muttering thunder reached our ears from the valley beyond the ridge. The guide stopped, listened for a moment, and then, half in fear and half in astonishment, gasped, “The lions!”

“He refused to pilot us further, but sought the nearest tree and took refuge amid its branches. The rest of the party pushed on, and on peering over the top of the ridge saw an immense lion lying in the edge of a jungle. Our dogs scented him and made a dash toward him. The beast arose with a bound, and rushed out into the open. This was too much for the dogs, and they beat a hasty retreat.

“In a moment more the lion was joined by his mate, and both were now in plain sight, both crouching and beating the ground with their tails, as if about to make an attack. I took a position a few steps in advance of our party, aimed deliberately from a kneeling posture, and sent a bullet into the side of the male lion just behind the foreleg. Being so close and so deliberate in my aim, and my weapon being of a superior kind, I expected to see the beast turn over in the agonies of death. But instead, he made two or three desperate bounds toward our party, and in his last leap, which was a dying spasm, fell directly on the body of Shumi, one of our native employes. The poor fellow was frightened almost to death, and shrieked as though the lion’s fangs and claws were actually rending his flesh. But in a moment we all saw that no harm was coming to Shumi, for the lion had simply made his last supreme effort, and had fallen in a quivering, helpless mass upon the object of his attack.

“We now turned our attention to the lioness. Two shots were fired at her, which sent her wounded and growling into the jungle. Our party formed a front, and marched cautiously toward the jungle, prepared to fire, at first sight of the game. Our precautions proved to be unnecessary, for we soon discovered the beast too far advanced in her dying throes to be capable of harm to us. Both shots had taken effect in mortal parts. We secured, that day, two of the handsomest lion’s skins I ever saw.”

OPENING A KRU-COAST MISSION

“At Sas Town, Monday morning, April 11, 1887, we had a big palaver. It broke up abruptly in a storm of passion amid the thunder of stentorian voices – a half a hundred big men all talking at once and shouting ‘batyeo! batyeo!’ – same as ‘suno! suno!’ in Hindustani – or in English, ‘listen! attention! attention!’ all shouting for a hearing and no listeners.

“So the king said, ‘We will go away, and when they cool down I will call them together again.’

“When we met again I re-stated our proposals to found a school for book-study and hard work with the hands of teachers and scholars, and to make mission for God palaver, according to the terms of our agreement, as stated in our written articles.

“They responded with great unanimity, ‘Yes, we want you to come and make school and mission, and when your carpenters come we help them to make house.’

“I suspected a reservation in their minds in regard to the no-pay condition, so I asked Nimly to re-state and explain, so they could not misunderstand our terms. He made a clear explanation and an eloquent speech in the Kru language – a commanding, fluent speaker is Nimly.

“The king replied, ‘Our people won’t work without pay.’

“‘That is right,’ I replied, ‘and we give them big pay. Instead of a few leaves of tobacco, which they would burn the first day, I give them missionaries, and make school and mission which will be of great value to you, to your children, grand-children, and on through all the generations of coming years. But if you are not willing to carry lumber and help us, you can wait a year till I come again and we will have another palaver.’

“They shouted unanimously, ‘No! no! we want school and mission now, and we will do all that you have said and written,’ So the kings and chiefs, by their mark, signed the articles of agreement.

“Their names were all hard, yet much easier to get on with than the men they represented. Only one of the long list of kings and chiefs came up to his contract, and he very kindly supplemented his labor by that of his wives. The mission house was built, and in 1889 contained twenty-five native worshipers.” Wm. Taylor.

A DESPERATE SITUATION

Henry Drummond, while pushing his way from Lake Nyassa toward Tanganyika, thus writes: “Buffalo fever still on me. Sallied forth early with Moolu, a large herd being reported at hand. We struck the trail after a few miles, but the buffaloes had moved away, passing up a deep valley to the north. I followed for a time, till the heat became too oppressive. Moolu with one other native, kept up the pursuit.

“They returned in a few hours announcing that they had dropped two bulls, but not being mortally wounded they had escaped. Late in the afternoon, two more of my men came rushing in, saying, that one of the wounded buffaloes had attacked their party and wounded two of them severely. They wanted assistance to bring them home.

“It seems that five of the men, on hearing Moolu’s report about the wounded buffaloes, and being tempted by the thought of fresh meat, had gone off without permission to try to secure the game. It was a foolhardy trick, as they had only spears with them, and a wounded buffalo bull is the most dangerous animal in Africa. It charges blindly at anything, and even after receiving its mortal wound has been known to kill its assailant.

“The would-be hunters soon overtook one of the creatures, a huge bull, lying in a hollow, and apparently wounded unto death. They walked unsuspectingly up to it, and when quite close the brute suddenly roused itself and dashed headlong toward them. They ran for their lives, but were quickly overtaken, and one of them was trampled in a twinkling beneath the feet of the enraged brute. A second man was caught up a few paces further on and was literally impaled on the animal’s horns.

“The first man was able to hobble into camp, but the second had to be carried in, more dead than alive. He had two frightful wounds, one through the shoulder, the other beneath the ribs. I dressed them, and set two natives to watch him through the night, lest he should bleed to death. When I came in, on my last visit before retiring, I found the nurses busy blowing on the wound. Their conception of pain was that it is due to evil spirits, and they were exorcising them by blowing. As they were doing no harm, I permitted them to indulge in their work through the night. The patient had a hard siege of it, but finally got well. He did not readily forget his adventure with the buffalo bull.”

STANLEY AND EMIN

The London Spectator brings Henry M. Stanley and Emin Pasha into strong contrast in its discussion of the celebrated rescue. It chooses to regard the rescue as of greater psychological than of historic or scientific interest to the world, and says. “The revelation it affords is the radical difference in character between the two great African adventurers. For years past, Emin Pasha has seemed to be the greater of the two, a man who actually ruled, and in a degree civilized, great African provinces, who had by his character alone maintained his ascendency over a body of successful Mohammedan troops, and who had earned, if not the love, at least the respect and regard, of millions of black subjects. It now appears that some part of all this success must have been accidental. The trusted troops revolted on their first great opportunity – as, we must in justice remember, did also our own Sepoys – the obedient blacks proved equally obedient to the new Arab authority; and Emin himself stood revealed as a thoughtful man of science, patient and unfearing, but with little either of the energy or the decision which make the true man of action. It may be that in his long sojourn at Wadelai, surrounded by Egyptians and blacks, possibly taking native wives, for we hear of a young daughter named Ferida, and conforming to the ritual of an Asiatic faith, Emin may have become Africanized; but no change of conditions could deprive him of the power of recognizing men, had he originally possessed it. That he erred in his judgment of his agents is clear, for they mutinied against and imprisoned him; his hope that they would follow him to the coast, and thence to Egypt, turned out as baseless as the hope of many an old Sepoy officer that his ‘children’ at least would never mutiny; and to the last, one native officer, if Stanley’s account may be trusted, deluded the experienced Viceroy like a child.

“One suspects, though perhaps the suspicion may be unfair, that he owed much of his apparent success to his profession of Mohammedanism – which up to the very last induced his followers to draw a distinction between the Pasha, who was only led away, and Jephson and Casati, who are called wicked Christians, and suspected of designs against their own Egyptian soldiers – and of his reputation in Europe to his feeling for science and civilization, a cause which also produced the much too favorable estimate of the Emperor of Brazil. On the other hand, the more the true man of action is tried, the stronger he appears. Perhaps no man that ever lived had his energy and endurance more taxed than Henry M. Stanley, who for years on end has suffered all that any great African explorer has suffered, with the addition of heavy responsibility to and for others, and who through it all has steadily grown greater in himself as well as in the world’s eyes. Statesmen would now trust the lad from the Welsh workhouse with African kingdoms to govern, and the new sovereign companies, who claim such immense districts, will compete with each other for his aid. He has the qualities which make rulers, and it is in the end on these, and not on amiability and feeling for science, or even a perplexed devotion to doubtful duty, that statesmen must rely. We shall do nothing in Africa by passing and repassing through its endless forests. We must govern, organize, and above all train its people, before anything is accomplished; and for that work we need the service of men who, like Stanley, know that the one cure for savagery is discipline, and can enforce it to the end.”

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Note: – In Eastern and Central Africa, from the Lakes of the Nile to Hottentotland the native races belong to the Bantu division of the African stock. They are not so dark as, and in many respects differ from, the true negroes of the Western or Atlantic coast. Throughout this entire Bantu division the prefix “U” means a country. Thus U-ganda is the country of Ganda. So “Wa,” or in some places “Ba,” “Ma” or “Ama,” means people. Thus Wa-ganda means the people of Uganda. So would Ba-ganda, Ma-ganda, or Ama-ganda. “Ki” means the language. Ki-ganda is the language of the Uganda. “Mena” means the prince of a tribe. By recollecting these, the reader will be much assisted.