"We had given up all hope of Gondokoro," says Baker, "and I had told my headman to deliver my map and papers to the English Consul at Khartum."

CHAPTER LXVII

LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNEY

In the year 1865 "the greatest of all African travellers" started on his last journey to central Africa.

"I hope," he said, "to ascend the Rovuma, and shall strive, by passing along the northern end of Lake Nyassa and round the southern end of Lake Tanganyika, to ascertain the watershed of that part of Africa."

Arrived at Zanzibar in January 1866, he reached the mouth of the Rovuma River some two months later, and, passing through dense thickets of trees, he started on his march along the northern bank. The expedition consisted of thirteen sepoys from Bombay, nine negroes from one of the missions, two men from the Zambesi, Susi, Amoda, and others originally slaves freed by Livingstone. As beasts of burden, they had six camels, three Indian buffaloes, two mules, four donkeys, while a poodle took charge of the whole line of march, running to see the first man in the line and then back to the last, and barking to hasten him up.

But misfortunes soon began. As they marched along the banks of the Rovuma the buffaloes and camels were badly bitten by the tsetse fly, and one after another died. The cruelty of the followers to the animals was terrible. Indeed, they were thoroughly unsatisfactory.

One day a party of them lagged behind, killed the last young buffalo, and ate it. They told Livingstone that it had died and tigers had come and devoured it.

"Did you see the stripes of the tiger?" asked Livingstone.

Yes; all declared that they had seen them distinctly—an obvious lie, as there are no striped tigers in Africa.

On 11th August, Livingstone once more reached Lake Nyassa. "It was as if I had come back to an old home I never expected again to see, and pleasant it was to bathe in the delicious waters again. I feel quite exhilarated."

Having sent word to the Arab chief of Kota-Kota on the opposite coast, and having received no reply to his request to be ferried across the lake, he started off and marched by land round the southern end, crossing the Shire River at its entrance. He continued his journey round the south-western gulf of Lake Nyassa, till rumours of Zulu raids frightened his men. They refused to go any farther, but just threw down their loads and walked away. He was now left with Susi and Chuma and a few boys with whom he crossed the end of a long range of mountains over four thousand feet in height, and, pursuing a zigzag track, reached the Loangwa River on 16th December 1866, while his unfaithful followers returned to the coast to spread the story that Livingstone had been killed by the Zulus!

Two disasters clouded this month of travel. His poor poodle was drowned in a marsh and his medicine-chest was stolen. The land was famine-bound too; the people were living on mushrooms and leaves. "We get some elephants' meat, but it is very bitter, and the appetite in this country is always very keen and makes hunger worse to bear, the want of salt probably making the gnawing sensation worse."

On 28th January, Livingstone crossed the Tshambezi, "which may almost be regarded as the upper waters of the Congo," says Johnstone, though the explorer of 1867 knew it not.

"Northwards," says Livingstone, "through almost trackless forest and across oozing bogs"; and then he adds the significant words, "I am frightened at my own emaciation." March finds him worse. "I have been ill of fever; every step I take jars in my chest, and I am very weak; I can scarcely keep up the march." At last, on 1st April, "blue water loomed through the trees." It was Lake Tanganyika lying some two thousand feet below them. Its "surpassing loveliness" struck Livingstone. "It lies in a deep basin," he says, "whose sides are nearly perpendicular, but covered well with trees, at present all green; down some of these rocks come beautiful cascades, while buffaloes, elephants, and antelopes wander and graze on the more level spots, and lions roar by night. In the morning and evening huge crocodiles may be observed quietly making their way to their feeding-grounds, and hippopotami snort by night."

After a stay of six weeks in the neighbourhood, Livingstone returned to the Arabs, until the spring of 1868, when he decided to explore the Lake Bangweolo. In spite of opposition and the desertion of more men, he started with five attendants and reached this—one of the largest of the central African lakes—in July. Modestly enough he asserts the fact. "On the 18th I saw the shores of the lake for the first time. The name Bangweolo is applied to the great mass of water, though I fear that our English folks will bogle at it or call it Bungyhollow. The water is of a deep sea-green colour. It was bitterly cold from the amount of moisture in the air."

This moisture converted the surrounding country into one huge bog or sponge, twenty-nine of which Livingstone had to cross in thirty miles, each taking about half an hour to cross.

On 14th February 1869 he arrived on the western shores of the lake, and after the usual delay he was put into it canoe for Ujiji. Though better, he was still very ill, and we get the pathetic entry, "Hope to hold out to Ujiji."

At last he reached the Arab settlement on the eastern shores, where he found the goods sent to him overland from Zanzibar, and though much had been stolen, yet warm clothes, tea, and coffee soon revived him. After a stay of three months he grew better, and turned westwards for the land of the Manyuema and the great rivers reported to be flowing there.

He was guided by Arabs whose trade-route extended to the great Lualaba River in the very heart of Africa some thousand miles west of Zanzibar. It was an unknown land, unvisited by Europeans when Livingstone arrived with his Arab escort at Bambarra in September 1869.

"Being now well rested," he enters in his diary, "I resolved to go west to Lualaba and buy a canoe for its exploration. The Manyuema country is all surpassingly beautiful. Palms crown the highest heights of the mountains, and the forests about five miles broad are indescribable. Climbers of cable size in great numbers are hung among the gigantic trees, many unknown wild fruits abound, some the size of a child's head, and strange birds and monkeys are everywhere."

With the Arab caravan he travelled almost incessantly zigzagging through the wonderful Manyuema country until, after a year's wandering, he finally reached the banks of the Lualaba (Congo) on 31st March 1871.

It was a red-letter day in his life. "I went down," he says, "to take a good look at the Lualaba here. It is a mighty river at least three thousand yards broad and always deep. The banks are steep; the current is about two miles an hour away to the north." Livingstone was gazing at the second-largest river in the world—the Congo. But he thought it was the Nile, and confidently relates how it overflows all its banks annually as the Nile does.

At Nyangwe, a Manyuema village, Livingstone stayed for four months. The natives were dreadful cannibals. He saw one day a man with ten human jaw-bones hung by a string over his shoulder, the owners of which he had killed and eaten. Another day a terrible massacre took place, arising from a squabble over a fowl, in which some four hundred perished. The Arabs too disgusted him with their slave-raiding, and he decided that he could no longer travel under their protection. So on 20th July 1871 he started back for Ujiji, and after a journey of seven hundred miles, accomplished in three months, he arrived, reduced to a skeleton, only to find that the rascal who had charge of his stores had stolen the whole and made away.

But when health and spirit were failing, help was at hand. The meeting of Stanley and Livingstone on the shores of the Lake Tanganyika is one of the most thrilling episodes in the annals of discovery. Let them tell their own story: "When my spirits were at their lowest ebb," says Livingstone, "one morning Susi came running at the top of his speed and gasped out, 'An Englishman! I see him!' and off he darted to meet him. The American flag at the head of a caravan told of the nationality of the stranger. Bales of goods, baths of tin, huge kettles, and cooking-pots made me think, 'This must be a luxurious traveller and not one at his wits' end, like me.'"

"'Yes,' said he, with a kind smile, lifting his cap slightly.

"Then we both grasp hands and I say aloud, 'I thank God, Doctor, I have been permitted to see you.'

"'You have brought me new life—new life,' murmured the tired explorer," and for the next few days it was enough for the two Englishmen to sit on the mud verandah of Livingstone's house, talking. Livingstone soon grew better, and November found the two explorers surveying the river flowing from the north of Tanganyika and deciding that it was not the Nile.

Stanley now did his best to persuade Livingstone to return home with him to recruit his shattered health before finishing his work of exploration. But the explorer, tired and out of health though he was, utterly refused. He must complete the exploration of the sources of the Nile before he sought that peace and comfort at home for which he must have yearned.

So the two men parted—Stanley to carry Livingstone's news of the discovery of the Congo back to Europe, Livingstone to end his days on the lonely shores of Lake Bangweolo, leaving the long-sought mystery of the Nile sources yet unsolved.

CHAPTER LXVIII

THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT

The death of Livingstone, the faithfulness of his native servants in carrying his body and journals across hundreds of miles of wild country to the coast, his discovery of the great river in the heart of Africa, and the great service in Westminster Abbey roused public interest in the Dark Continent and the unfinished work of the great explorer. "Never had such an outburst of missionary zeal been known, never did the cause of geographical exploration receive such an impetus."

Here they were surrounded by angry savages on whom they had to fire, and from whose country they were glad to escape.

On 27th February 1875, after tramping for one hundred and three days, they arrived at their destination. One of the white men who was striding forward suddenly waved his hat, and with a beaming face shouted out, "I have seen the lake, sir; it is grand."

Here, indeed, was the Victoria Nyanza, "which a dazzling sun transformed into silver," discovered by Speke sixteen years before, and supposed to be the source of the Nile. The men struck up a song of triumph—

"I thought," says Stanley, "there could be no better way of settling, once and for ever, the vexed question, than by circumnavigating the lake."

So the Lady Alice was launched, and from the shores of Speke Gulf, as he named the southern end, the explorer set forth, leaving the two remaining Englishmen in charge of the camp.

"The sky is gloomy," writes Stanley, "the rocks are bare and rugged, the land silent and lonely. The rowing of the people is that of men who think they are bound to certain death; their hearts are full of misgivings as slowly we move through the dull dead waters." The waters were not dead for long. A gale rose up and the lake became wild beyond description. "The waves hissed as we tore along, the crew collapsed and crouched into the bottom of the boat, expecting the end of the wild venture, but the Lady Alice bounded forward like a wild courser and we floated into a bay, still as a pond."

So they coasted along the shores of the lake. Their guide told them it would take years to sail round their sea, that on the shores dwelt people with long tails, who preferred to feed on human beings rather than cattle or goats. But, undaunted, the explorer sailed on, across the Napoleon Channel, through which flowed the superfluous waters of the lake rushing northward as the Victoria Nile. "On the western side of the Channel is Uganda, dominated by an Emperor who is supreme over about three millions of people. He soon heard of my presence on the lake and dispatched a flotilla to meet me. His mother had dreamed the night before that she had seen a boat sailing, sailing like a fish-eagle over the Nyanza. In the stern of the boat was a white man gazing wistfully towards Uganda."

On reaching the port a crowd of soldiers, "arrayed in crimson and black and snowy white," were drawn up to receive him. "As we neared the beach, volleys of musketry burst out from the long lines. Numerous kettles and brass drums sounded a noisy welcome, flags and banners waved, and the people gave a great shout."

To make a long story short, the natives seized the oars, and, thinking the boat was now in their power, they retired to make their plans. Meanwhile Stanley commanded his crew to tear the bottom boards up for paddles, and, pushing the boat hastily into the water, they paddled away, their commander firing the while with his elephant rifle and explosive bullets. They were saved.

On 6th May the circumnavigation was finished and the Lady Alice was being dragged ashore in Speke Gulf with shouts of welcome and the waving of many flags. But sad news awaited him. He could see but one of his white companions.

"Where is Barker?" he asked Frank Pocock.

"He died twelve days ago," was the melancholy answer.

Stanley now took his whole expedition to Uganda, and after spending some months with the King he passed on to Lake Tanganyika, crossing to Ujiji, where he arrived in May 1876. Here five years before he had found Livingstone.

"We launched our boat on the lake and, circumnavigating it, discovered that there was only a periodical outlet to it. Thus, by the circumnavigation of the two lakes, two of the geographical problems I had undertaken to solve were settled. The Victoria Nyanza had no connection with the Tanganyika. There now remained the grandest task of all. Is the Lualaba, which Livingstone had traced along a course of nearly thirteen hundred miles, the Nile, the Niger, or the Congo? I crossed Lake Tanganyika with my expedition, lifted once more my gallant boat on our shoulders, and after a march of nearly two hundred and twenty miles arrived at the superb river. Where I first sighted it, the Lualaba was fourteen hundred yards wide, pale grey in colour, winding slowly from south and by east. We hailed its appearance with shouts of joy, and rested on the spot to enjoy the view. I likened it to the Mississippi as it appears before the impetuous, full-volumed Missouri pours its rusty brown water into it. A secret rapture filled my soul as I gazed upon the majestic stream. The great mystery that for all these centuries Nature had kept hidden away from the world of science was waiting to be solved. For two hundred and twenty miles I had followed the sources of the Livingstone River to the confluence, and now before me lay the superb river itself. My task was to follow it to the ocean."

"This was momentous and all-important news to the expedition. We had arrived at the critical point in our travels," remarks Stanley. "What kind of a country is it to the north along the river?" he asked.

"Monstrous bad," was the reply. "There are large boa-constrictors in the forest suspended by their tails, waiting to gobble up travellers. You cannot travel without being covered by ants, and they sting like wasps. There are leopards in countless numbers. Gorillas haunt the woods. The people are man-eaters. A party of three hundred guns started for the forest and only sixty returned."

Stanley and his last remaining white companion, Frank Pocock, discussed the somewhat alarming situation together. Should they go on and face the dwarfs who shot with poisoned arrows, the cannibals who regarded the stranger as so much meat, the cataracts and rocks—should they follow the "great river which flowed northward for ever and knew no end"?

"Let us follow the river," replied the white man.

So, accompanied by Tippu-Tib, with a hundred and forty guns and seventy spearmen, they started along the banks of the river which Stanley now named the Livingstone River.

"On the 5th of November 1876," says Stanley, "a force of about seven hundred people, consisting of Tippu-Tib's slaves and my expedition departed from the town of Nyangwe and entered the dismal forest-land north. A straight line from this point to the Atlantic Ocean would measure one thousand and seventy miles; another to the Indian Ocean would measure only nine hundred and twenty miles; we had not reached the centre of the continent by seventy-five miles.

A camp was hastily constructed by Stanley in defence, and for several days there was desperate fighting, at the end of which peace was made. But Tippu-Tib and his escort refused to go a step farther to what they felt was certain destruction. Stanley alone was determined to proceed. He bought thirty-three native canoes and, leading with the Lady Alice, he set his face towards the unknown country. His men were all sobbing. They leant forward, bowed with grief and heavy hearts at the prospect before them. Dense woods covered both banks and islands. Savages with gaily feathered heads and painted faces dashed out of the woods armed with shields and spears, shouting, "Meat! meat! Ha! ha! We shall have plenty of meat!"

"Armies of parrots screamed overhead as they flew across the river; legions of monkeys and howling baboons alarmed the solitudes; crocodiles haunted the sandy points; hippopotami grunted at our approach; elephants stood by the margin of the river; there was unceasing vibration from millions of insects throughout the livelong day. The sun shone large and warm; the river was calm and broad and brown."

Through the country of the Bangala they now fought their way. These people were armed with guns brought up from the coast by native traders. It was indeed an anxious moment when, with war-drums beating, sixty-three "beautiful but cruel canoes" came skimming towards Stanley with some three hundred guns to his forty-four. For nearly five hours the two fleets fought until the victory rested with the American. "This," remarks Stanley, "was our thirty-first fight on the terrible river, and certainly the most determined conflict we had endured."

They rowed on till the 11th of March; the river had grown narrower and steep, wooded hills rose on either side above them. Suddenly the river expanded, and the voyagers entered a wide basin or pool over thirty square yards. "Sandy islands rose in front of us like a seabeach, and on the right towered a long row of cliffs white and glistening, like the cliffs of Dover."

But a yet more heart-rending loss was in store for him. Progress was now very slow, for none of the cataracts or rapids could be navigated; canoes as well as stores had to be dragged over land from point to point. Frank Pocock had fallen lame and could not walk with the rest. Although accidents with the canoes were of daily occurrence, although he might have taken warning by the death of Kalulu, he insisted that his crew should try to shoot the great Massassa Falls instead of going round by land. Too late he realised his danger. The canoe was caught by the rushing tide, flung over the Falls, tossed from wave to wave, and finally dragged into the swirling whirlpool below. The "little master" as he was called was never seen again! Stanley's last white companion was gone! Gloom settled down on the now painfully reduced party.

"We are all unnerved with the terrible accident of yesterday," says Stanley. "As I looked at the dejected woe-stricken servants, a choking sensation of unutterable grief filled me. This four months had we lived together, and true had been his service. The servant had long ago merged into the companion; the companion had become the friend."

At sunset on 31st July they carried the Lady Alice to the summit of some rocks above the Isangila Falls and abandoned her to her fate.

"Farewell, brave boat!" cried Stanley; "seven thousand miles up and down broad Africa thou hast accompanied me. For over five thousand miles thou hast been my home. Lift her up tenderly, boys—so tenderly—and let her rest."

Then, wayworn and feeble, half starved, diseased, and suffering, the little caravan of one hundred and fifteen men, women, and children started on their overland march to the coast.

"Staggering, we arrived at Boma on 9th August 1877; a gathering of European merchants met me and, smiling a warm welcome, told me kindly that I had done right well. Three days later I gazed upon the Atlantic Ocean and saw the powerful river flowing into the bosom of that boundless, endless sea. But grateful as I felt to Him who had enabled me to pierce the Dark Continent from east to west, my heart was charged with grief and my eyes with tears at the thought of the many comrades and friends I had lost."

The price paid had indeed been great; he had lost his three English companions and one hundred and seventy natives besides. But for years and years to come, in many a home at Zanzibar, whither Stanley now took his party by sea, the story of this great journey was told, and all the men were heroes and the refrain of the natives was chanted again and again—

Stanley had solved the problem of the Congo River at last.