The result of this unlawful action was to make him highly popular, he was elected the first mayor of Toronto, and the struggle went on more bitterly than ever. An unlucky expression he had used—"The baneful domination of the mother country"—was now quoted against him as evidence of disloyalty, and Mackenzie, exasperated by the acts of his enemies, lost his self-control and entered into rebellion. He made a compact with Louis Papineau to head a rising in Toronto on the same day with the insurgent rising in Montreal. In furtherance of this he proclaimed a “Provisional Government of the State of Upper Canada,” gathered a force of eight hundred men, and threatened Toronto with capture. But hesitation was fatal to his cause, his men were attacked and dispersed, and he was forced to flee. On Navy Island he flung the flag of rebellion to the breeze, but he had lost his one opportunity and the flag soon went down. Lack of prudence and patience had put an end to a promising political career.
The suppression of this rebellion was followed in 1840 by the Act of Union of the two provinces already mentioned. The population now began to grow with considerable rapidity. From about 1,100,000 in 1840, it grew to nearly 2,000,000 in 1850, and 2,500,000 in 1860. And the people were spreading out widely northward and westward, settling new lands, and stretching far towards the Pacific border. The industries of Canada, which had been greatly depressed by the adoption of free trade in Great Britain, were revived by a treaty of reciprocity in trade with the United States, and prosperity came upon the country in a flood.
But political troubles were by no means at an end, and much irritation arose from acts of citizens of the United States during the Civil War. Refugees and conspirators from the south sought the Canadian cities, and endeavored to involve the two countries in hostile relations. Fenian raids were attempted from the United States, and there was much alarm, though nothing of importance arose from the disturbed condition of affairs.
In time the confederation which existed between the two larger provinces of Canada became too narrow to serve the purposes of the entire colony. The maritime provinces began to discuss the question of local federation, and it was finally proposed to unite all British North America into one general union. This was done in 1867, the British Parliament passing an act which created the “Dominion of Canada.” The new confederation included Ontario (Upper Canada), Quebec (Lower Canada), New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Four years later Manitoba and British Columbia were included, and Prince Edward’s Island in 1874. A parliament was formed consisting of a Senate of life members chosen by the prime minister and an Assembly elected by the people. The formation of the dominion was soon followed by trouble, this time arising in the Indian country, over which the Canadian people had rapidly extended their authority. The Riel RevoltsLouis Riel, son of the leader of the Metés (half-breed) Indians, headed a rebellion in 1869 and established a provisional government at Fort Garry. In the following year the revolt collapsed on the arrival of General Wolseley at this fort. Twice in later years Riel attempted rebellion, the second time in 1885. He was finally captured and executed, and the rebellious sentiment vanished with his death.
Shortly after the formation of the dominion, Sir John Macdonald became a conspicuous figure in Canadian politics and for many years served as prime minister of the country. He took part in the treaty of Washington, which referred to arbitration of the Alabama claim and other questions between Great Britain and the United States, and came near defeat in consequence, since the parts of the treaty which referred to Canada were very unpopular in that country. He was defeated in 1873 on the question of the Canadian Pacific Railway, concerning which a great scandal had arisen, with suspicion of wholesale bribery. In 1878 Macdonald returned to the premiership, which he continued to hold until his death in 1891.
Despite the scandal attending the Pacific Railway bill, that enterprise was pushed forward with much energy, and, after desperate financial struggles, was completed in 1886. It need scarcely be said that it has since played a highly important part in the development of Canada. Under the liberal ministry of Alexander Mackenzie (1873–78) the country prospered greatly for a time, but a period of financial stringency followed, and the people demanded commercial protection. This was given by the Conservatives, under Macdonald, in 1879, a protective tariff being adopted as a measure of defence against the commercial enterprise of the United States. The result was a rapid revival of trade and wide-spread prosperity. In 1880, by an act of the British Parliament, the control of all the British possessions in Canada—except Newfoundland, which had not joined the Union—was transferred to the Dominion Parliament, and the country became in large measure an independent nation.
The important questions which have since that time arisen in Canada have had largely to do with its relations to the United States and its people. One of the most troublesome of these has been the question of the fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland and the coasts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. For years the problem of the rights of American fishermen on the Canadian coast excited controversy, In 1877 the Halifax Fishery Commission awarded $5,500,000 to Great Britain, to pay for the privileges granted to the United States, and in 1888 a treaty was signed for the settlement of this vexatious question.
The temporary removal of this difficulty was followed by the development of a still more serious fishery controversy between the two countries, that relating to the fur-seal fishery of Alaska. The fur-seals, frequenting the Pribylof Islands of the Bering Sea for breeding purposes, belonged to the United States, which rented out the right of killing seals on these islands to the Alaska Commercial Company, whose killing privileges were restricted to 100,000 yearly. But these seals had a wide range of excursion at sea, and Canadian fishermen began to prey upon them in the open waters. These depredations, beginning in 1886, reduced the herds by 1890 to such an extent that the Alaska Company could secure only 21,000 skins in that year. There was serious danger of the extermination of the animals, and the United States took active measures to prevent poaching on its preserves, as it regarded the work of the Canadians. The controversy on this question became strenuous as time went on, and it was seriously thought at one time that the easiest way out of the difficulty would be to kill all the seals at once and so put an end to the problem. Finally the two nations concerned agreed to submit the question to arbitration, and a decision was rendered in 1893, establishing a “protected zone” of sixty miles around the Pribylof Islands. Unfortunately the ocean range of the seals is much wider than this, and the diminution of the herd has still gone on. The difficulty, therefore, remains unsettled.
Sir John Macdonald died in 1891 and Sir John S. D. Thompson, a man of marked ability, became premier in 1892. He lived, however, only until 1894 and for a brief interval Sir Charles Tupper filled the office. Before the end of the year he resigned, and Sir Wilfred Laurier became premier, he being the first French Canadian to hold that high office. The most important questions rising under his administration were those springing from the discovery of gold on the Klondike River. This find was made in the autumn of 1896, and as reports quickly spread of the richness of the diggings, a rush of miners, mainly Americans, took place during the following year. But it was quickly perceived that the region was not in Alaska, as at first supposed, but in Canadian territory, and mining laws were imposed by the Canadian government, including heavy fees and royalties, which were bitterly objected to by the American miners.
But the chief question, arising from the find was that concerning the true boundary between the two countries, This had never been clearly decided upon for the southern section of Alaska, and the natural desire of Canada to obtain an ocean outing for the new gold district, which was being very rapidly settled, soon stirred up a very active controversy.
The claim of Russia, transferred by purchase to the United States, called for a strip of land ten leagues wide from the coast backward. This would have been definite enough had it been quite clear what constituted the coast. The sea line of Alaska is marked by deep indentations, some of which are open to question as to whether they should be considered oceanic or inland waters. Such a one is Lynn Canal, which affords the natural waterway to the mountain passes leading to the upper Yukon, by whose waters the gold district can be most easily reached. This inlet, running sixty miles into the land, is less than six miles wide at its mouth; and while the United States claimed that it was part of the open sea, the Canadian government looked upon it as territorial water, and demanded that the coast line should be drawn across its mouth. This would have given Canada control of its upper waters and the access to the sea from the Klondike region over its own territory which it so urgently needed. It would also have given it possession of Dyea and Skagua, two mining towns built and peopled by Americans at the head of the canal, and whose people would have bitterly opposed being made citizens of Canada.
As will be perceived from the above statement a number of international questions had arisen between the United States and Canada, of which only the most urgent have here been mentioned. In 1898 an earnest attempt was made to adjust these annoying problems, by the appointment of an International Commission, whose sessions began in the city of Quebec, August 23, 1898. On the part of Great Britain and Canada the membership consisted of Lord Herschell, ex-Lord Chancellor of England, chairman, Sir Wilfred Laurier, the Premier of Canada, Sir Richard J. Cartwright, Minister of Trade and Commerce, Sir Louis H. Davies, Minister of Marine and Fisheries, John Charlton, M. P., and Sir James T. Winter, Premier of Newfoundland. The American members were Charles W. Fairbanks, United States Senator from Indiana, chairman, George Gray, Senator from Delaware, Nelson Dingley, Representative from Maine, John W. Foster, former Secretary of State and ex-Minister to Spain, Russia and Mexico, John A. Kasson, former Minister to Germany and Austria, and T. Jefferson Coolidge, former Minister to France. Senator Gray resigned in September, to take part in Peace Commission on the Spanish War, and was succeeded by Senator Charles J. Faulkner, of West Virginia.
The principal questions that came before this Commission for consideration were the following: The adjustment of the difficulties concerning the Atlantic and Pacific coast fisheries and those still arising in reference to the fur-seals; the establishment of a fixed boundary between Alaska and Canada; provision for the transit of merchandise to or from either country across territory of the other, or to be delivered at points in either country beyond the frontier; the questions of labor laws and mining rights affecting the subjects of either country within the territory of the other; a mutually satisfactory readjustment of customs duties; an understanding concerning the placing of war vessels on the great lakes; arrangements to define and mark the frontier line; provision for the conveyance of accused persons by officers of one country through the territory of the other; and reciprocity in wrecking and salvage rights.
As will be perceived from this list of subjects to be considered, the High Commission had abundance of work mapped out for it. While some of the questions were of minor importance and might be settled with comparative ease, others were of high significance and likely to prove very difficult to adjust. In fact, they proved beyond the powers of the commission. Adjourning from Quebec to meet in Washington in November, the members continued in session there for several months longer, but adjourned finally in the spring of 1899 without having been able to come to a decision on the difficult matters involved.
Several of these questions, indeed, were of the most complex and vexatious character, particularly that relating to the fisheries, which had been a source of trouble and conflict through most of the century. As respects the transport of goods of one country over the territory of the other, it is a matter of much importance to Canada, which sends great quantities of goods over United States territory for shipment abroad, six times more Canadian grain, for instance, going by way of Buffalo, than via Montreal and the St. Lawrence. The problem of reciprocal customs regulations is also one of much importance to Canada, which imports more merchandise from the United States than is sent by that country to all the remainder of the American Continent, amounting in all to about $70,000,000 annually. In return its exports to the United States amount to about $50,000,000, the total commerce being of importance enough to call for special tariff regulations between the two countries.
After the adjournment of the commission, efforts were made to adjust the boundary question, so far as Lynn Canal was concerned, through an understanding between the two governments. The United States, in consideration of the needs of Canada in the Klondike region, showed a disposition to concede temporarily to that country a tidewater port in the Lynn Canal. But decided protests from commercial ports on the Pacific seaboard caused the withdrawal of the proposed concession. A temporary adjustment of the question was subsequently made, a line being drawn by officials of the two countries which followed the mountain summits and cut off Canada from access to the sea except across United States territory.
The progress of Canada during the past quarter of a century has been very great, while her population has increased in that period by nearly one-half. Railways have spread like a network over the rich agricultural territory along the southern border land of the dominion, from ocean to ocean, and are now pushing into the deep forest land and rich mineral regions of the interior and the northwest, their total length in 1899 being over 17,000 miles, a large mileage for a population of 5,000,000. The most recent railway projected is one to the Klondike region, which already has a large population, and possesses in Dawson City a thriving and enterprising headquarters of the mining region. Canada has also been active in canal building, and has now under consideration a project of the highest importance, namely, the excavation of a ship-canal from Lake Huron to the St. Lawrence. This great enterprise, if carried into effect, will shorten the distance of commercial navigation by hundreds of miles and be of untold advantage to the Canadian commonwealth. It is proposed also to deepen the existing canals, so as to permit the conveyance of ocean freight without breaking bulk.
In manufacturing industry almost every branch of production is to be found, the progressive enterprise of the people of the Dominion being great, and a large proportion of the goods they need being made at home. The best evidence of the enterprise of Canada in manufacture is shown by the fact that she exports many thousand dollars worth of goods annually more than she buys—England being her largest customer and the United States second on the list. In addition to her manufactured products, Canada is actively agricultural, and possesses vast natural wealth in the products of her rich mines, vast forests and prolific fisheries. The Yield of Precious MetalsThe most recent of these sources of wealth are her mines of the precious metals, which yielded over $6,000,000 in gold and $7,000,000 in silver in 1897, shortly after the discovery of the Klondike deposits. The yield of those has since very greatly increased.
Not only is the outside world largely ignorant of the importance of Canada, but few of her own people realize the greatness of the country they possess. Its area of more than three and one-half millions of square miles—one-sixteenth of the entire land surface of the earth—is great enough to include an immense variety of natural conditions and products. This area constitutes forty per cent. of the far extended British empire, while its richness of soil and resources in forest and mineral wealth are as yet almost untouched, and its promise of future yield is immense. The dimensions of the dominion guarantee a great variety of natural attractions. There are vast grass-covered plains, thousands of square miles of untouched forest lands, multitudes of lakes and rivers, great and small, and mountains of the wildest and grandest character, whose natural beauty equals that of the far-famed Alpine peaks. In fact, the Canadian Pacific Railway is becoming a route of pilgrimage for the lovers of the beautiful and sublime, its mountain scenery being unrivaled upon the continent.
The population of Canada varies in character according to location. In Ontario the people are generally English. In Quebec, and many other portions of what was formerly called Lower Canada, the original settlers were French, and their descendants are still in the majority and retain many of the habits and customs of their mother country—so much so, in fact, that, though England has ruled the land for about one hundred and fifty years, the French language is still almost exclusively spoken. Even in the cities of Montreal and Quebec the prevalence of the language makes the visitor from Toronto feel that he is in a foreign city.
In the west, until a few years ago, the prevailing population was the original Indian and the half-breed. But this element, though still numerous, is fast being swallowed up or hidden by the throng of immigrants, who are now pouring into that vast and resourceful region. These immigrants, unlike those of the older eastern provinces, are made up of all the nationalities of northern Europe, the British Isles, however, being well represented. Out of this mixture a new people, combining the good and progressive elements of various nations, is springing up. In this respect the Canadians of the northwest are much like the inhabitants of the northwestern United States.
Population at present is densest on the southern borders of the country, along the Great Lakes and the shores of the St. Lawrence. The interior is very sparsely settled, and as the latitude increases the cold of winter, except where the country is warmed by the winds of the Pacific, becomes more intense, until, in the northern part of the dominion, it is practically impossible for the Caucasian race to live in comfort. Much of this unbroken wilderness is covered with gigantic forests, which make lumbering the chief industry of that section, as agriculture is of the lower latitudes. In fact, lumbering and agriculture are the chief industries of all sections except the sea-coasts, where fishing interests are of great importance, and certain portions of the great northwest, like the Yukon districts, where mining is predominant. On the whole, Canada has before it a great future, and what its political destiny will be no man can foresee.
In several conditions the people of Canada, while preserving the general features of English society, are much more free and untrammeled. The caste system of Great Britain has gained little footing in this new land, where nearly every farmer is the owner of the soil which he tills, and the people have a feeling of independence unknown to the agricultural population of European countries. There has been great progress also in many social questions. The liquor traffic, for instance, is subject to the local option of restriction; religious liberty prevails; education is practically free and unsectarian; the franchise is enjoyed by all citizens; members of the parliament are paid for their services; and though the executive department of the government is under the control of a governor-general appointed by the queen, the laws of Canada are made by its own statesmen, and a state of practical independence prevails. Recognizing this, and respecting the liberty-loving spirit of the people, Great Britain is chary in interfering with any question of Canadian policy, or in any sense in attempting to limit the freedom of her great Transatlantic Colony.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, long as man had previously existed upon the earth, much more than half its surface was unknown to the most civilized nations. Of the extensive continent of Africa, for instance, only the coast regions had been explored, while the vast interior could fairly be described as the “Great Unknown.” The immense continent of Asia was known only in outline. With its main features men had some acquaintance, but its details were as little known as the mountains of the moon. With America men were little better acquainted than with Africa. The United States itself had been explored only as far west as the Mississippi, and that but imperfectly. The vast space between that great stream and the Pacific almost wholly awaited discovery. The remainder of the continent was divided into national domains, which were thinly inhabited and very imperfectly known. Of the continental island of Australia only a few spots on the border had been visited, and still less was known of the broad region of the North Polar zone.
At the end of the century a very different tale could be told. The hundred years had been marked by an extraordinary activity in travel, adventure, and discovery; daring men had penetrated the most obscure recesses of continents and islands, climbed the most difficult mountains, ventured among the most savage tribes, studied the geographical features and natural productions of a thousand regions before unknown, and learned more about the conditions of the earth than had been learned in a thousand years before. The work of the century has no parallel in history except the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when America was discovered and the East Indies were explored, and the horizon of human knowledge was immensely extended.
The great achievements of the century with which we have to deal were performed by a large number of adventurous men, far too numerous even to be named in this review.
In fact it would need a volume, and one of considerable extent, to tell, even in epitome, the story of travel and exploration within the nineteenth century. Such a story, given in any fulness, would far transcend our purpose, which is confined to the description of the great events of the century, those of epoch-making significance, and which played leading parts in the progress of the period with which we are concerned. In this review, therefore, we may fairly confine ourselves to records of travel in two regions of the earth, the continent of Africa and the Arctic Zone, of both of which little was known at the opening of the century, while the story of their exploration has been of startling interest and importance. The interior of Asia and America, while presenting problems to be solved, were not unknown in the sense in which we speak of Africa, over which rested a pall of darkness as black as the complexion of its inhabitants. Australia alone was unknown in a similar sense. But the interior of that great island is practically a desert, and its exploration possesses nothing of the interest which attaches to that of Africa, a land which for many centuries has attracted the active attention and aroused the vivid curiosity of mankind, while a satisfactory acquaintance with it has been left for the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Of the great travelers to whom we are indebted for our present knowledge of this continent two stand pre-eminent, David Livingstone and Henry M. Stanley, and we may deal with their careers as the pivots around which the whole story of African exploration revolves.
The first of modern travelers to penetrate the interior of western Africa to any considerable depth was the justly celebrated Mungo Park, whose first journey to the Niger was made in 1795–96, and the second in 1805. He traced that important stream through a large part of its upper course—finally losing his life as a result of his intrepid daring. On the east coast, at a somewhat earlier date (1768–73) the equally famous James Bruce penetrated Abyssinia to the head-waters of the Blue Nile, which he looked upon as the source of the great river of Egypt. About the same time the French traveler Vaillant entered the continent at Cape Town and journeyed north for more than three hundred miles, into the country of the Bushmen.
Such was the state of African exploration at the beginning of the century under consideration. The travelers named, and others of minor importance, had not penetrated far from the coast, and the vast interior of the continent remained almost utterly unknown. In fact the century was half gone before anything further of consequence was discovered, the first journey of Dr. Livingstone being made in 1849.
David Livingstone, an enterprising man, of Scotch birth, left England in 1840 to devote his life to missionary work in Africa. He had studied medicine and theology, and was well equipped in every way for the arduous and difficult work he had undertaken. Landing at Port Natal, he became associated with the Rev. Robert Moffat, a noted African missionary, whose daughter he afterwards married, and for years he labored perseveringly as an agent of the London Missionary Society. He studied the languages, habits, and religious beliefs of a number of tribes, and became one of the most earnest and successful of missionaries, his subsequent journeys being undertaken largely for the advance of his religious labors.
His experience in missionary work convinced him that success in this field of duty was not to be measured by the tale of conversions—of doubtful character—which could be sent home every year, but that the proper work for the enterprising white man was that of pioneer research. He could best employ himself in opening up and exploring new fields of labor, and might safely leave to native agents the duty of working these out in detail.
This theory he first put into effect in 1849, in which year he set out on a journey into the unknown land to the north, the goal of his enterprise being Lake Ngami, on which no white man’s eyes had ever fallen. In company with two English sportsmen, Mr. Oswell and Mr. Murray, he traversed the great and bleak Kalahari Desert,—which he was the first to describe in detail,—and on the 1st of August the travelers were gladdened by the sight of the previously unknown liquid plain, the most southerly of the great African lakes.
Two hundred miles beyond this body of water lived a noted chief named Sebituane, the chief of the Makololo tribe, whose residence Livingstone sought to reach the following year, bringing with him on this journey his wife and children. But fever seized the children and he was obliged to stop at the shores of the lake. Nothing daunted by this failure, he set out again in 1851, once more accompanied by his family, and with his former companion, Mr. Oswell, his purpose being to settle among the Makololos and seek to convert to Christianity their great chief. He succeeded in reaching the tribe, but the death of Sebituane, shortly after his arrival, disarranged his plans, and he was obliged to return. But before doing so he and Mr. Oswell made an exploration of several hundred miles to the northeast, their journey ending at the Zambesi, the great river of South Africa, which he here found flowing in a broad and noble current through the centre of the continent.
The subsequent travels of Livingstone were performed more for purposes of exploration than for religious labors, though to the end he considered himself a missionary pioneer. Sending his family to England, he left Capetown in June, 1852, and reached Linyanti, the capital of the Makololo, in May, 1853, being received in royal style by the chief and his people, by whom he was greatly esteemed. He next ascended the Zambesi, in search of some healthy high land for a missionary station. But everywhere he found the tsetse fly, an insect deadly to animals, and, annoyed by the ravages of this insect among his cattle, he determined to leave that locality and enter upon the greatest journey ever yet undertaken in Africa, one through the unknown interior to the west coast.
The start was made from Linyanti on November 11, 1853, the party ascending the Leeba to Lake Dilolo, which was reached in February, 1854. Finally, on the 31st of May, they came to the coast town of St. Paul de Loanda, in Portuguese West Africa. Their long and dangerous journey had been attended by numberless hardships, and Livingstone reached the coast nearly worn out by fever, dysentery and semi-starvation. But nothing could deter the indefatigable traveler. He set out again after a few months, reached Lake Dilolo on June 13, 1855, and Linyanti in September. After a brief interval of rest he left this place with a determination to follow the broad-flowing Zambesi to its mouth in the eastern sea.
A fortnight after his start he made the most notable of his discoveries, the one with which his name is most intimately associated in popular estimation, that of the great Victoria Falls of the Zambesi, a cataract which has no rival upon the earth except the still mightier one of the Niagara. Here an immense cleft or fissure in the earth cuts directly across the channel of the river, which pours in an enormous flood down into the cavernous abyss, whence “the smoke of its torrent ascendeth forever.” The country surrounding seems to be a great basin-shaped plateau, surrounded by a ring of mountains, the depression having probably at one time been filled with an immense lake whose waters were drained off when the earth split asunder across its bed.
On went the untiring traveler, and on May 20, 1856, he reached the east coast at the Portuguese town of Quillimane, at the mouth of the Zambesi, in a frightfully emaciated condition. He had, in two and a half years of travel, performed one of the most remarkable journeys ever made up to that time. First proceeding north from the Cape to Loanda, through twenty-five degrees of latitude, he had for the first time in history, crossed the continent of Africa from ocean to ocean, through as many degrees of longitude, while his discoveries in the geography and natural history of the region traversed had been immense.
Livingstone returned to England in the latter part of the year and was received with the highest enthusiasm, being welcomed as the first to break through that pall of darkness which had so long enveloped the interior of Africa. The Royal Geographical Society had already conferred upon him its highest token of honor, its gold medal, and now honors and compliments were showered upon him until the modest traveler was overwhelmed with the warmth of his reception.
The desire to complete his work was strong upon him, and after publishing an account of his travels, in a work of modest simplicity, he returned to Africa, reaching the mouth of the Zambesi in May, 1858. In 1859 his new career of discovery began in an exploration of the Shire, a northern affluent of the Zambesi, up which he journeyed to the great Lake Nyassa, another capital discovery. For several years he was engaged in exploring the surrounding region and in furthering the interests of missionary enterprise among the natives. In one of his journeys his wife, who was his companion during this period of his travels, died, and in 1864 he returned home, worn out with his extraordinary labors in new lands and desiring to spend the remainder of his days in quiet and repose.
But at the suggestion of Murchison, the famous geologist and his staunch friend, he was induced to return to Africa, one of his main purposes being to take steps looking to the suppression of the Arab slave trade, whose horrors had long excited his deepest sympathies. Landing at the mouth of the Rovuma River—a stream he had previously explored—on March 22, 1866, he started for the interior, rounded Lake Nyassa on the south, and set off to the northeast for the great Lake Tanganyika—which had meanwhile been discovered by Barton and Speke, in 1857.
After his departure Livingstone vanished from sight and knowledge, and for five years was utterly lost in the deep interior of the continent. From time to time vague intimations of his movements reached the world of civilization, but the question of his fate became so exciting a one that in 1871 Henry M. Stanley was dispatched, at the expense of the proprietor of the New York Herald, to penetrate the continent and seek to discover the long-lost traveler. Stanley found him at Ujiji, on the northeast shore of Tanganyika, on October 18, 1871, the great explorer being then, in his words, “a ruckle of bones.” Far and wide he had traveled through Central Africa, discovering a host of lakes and streams, and finding many new tribes with strange habits. Among his notable discoveries was that of the Lualaba River—The Upper Congo—which he believed to be the head-waters of the Nile. His work had been enormous, and the “Dark Continent” had yielded to him a host of its long hidden mysteries. Not willing yet to give up his work, he waited at Ujiji for men and supplies sent him by Stanley from the coast, and then started south for Lake Bangweolo, one of his former discoveries. The Death of the Great ExplorerBut attacked again by his old enemy, dysentery, the iron frame of the great traveller at length yielded, and he was found, on May 1, 1873, by his men, dead in his tent, kneeling by the side of his bed. Thus perished in prayer the greatest traveler in modern times.
For more than thirty years Livingstone had dwelt in Africa, most of that time engaged in exploring new regions and visiting new peoples. His travels had covered a third of the continent, extending from the Cape to near the equator, and from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, his work being all done leisurely and carefully, so that its results were of the utmost value to geographical science. He had also aroused a sentiment against the Arab slave-trade which was to give that frightful system its death-blow.
The work of Livingstone stirred up an enthusiasm for African travel, and many adventurous explorers set out for that continent during his career. After the discovery of Lake Tanganyika by Burton and Speke, in 1857, the latter started to the northeast, and reached the head-waters of the great Victoria Nyanza, the largest body of water on the continent. Subsequently this traveler, accompanied by Mr. Grant, journeyed to the White Nile, north of this lake, while Samuel Baker, another adventurous traveler, accompanied by his heroic wife, reached in 1864 a great lake west of the Victoria, which he named the Albert Nyanza.
Further north Dr. Barth, as early as 1850, set out on a journey across the Sahara to the Soudan, and at a later date various travelers explored this northern section of the continent, while in 1874–75 Lieutenant Cameron repeated Livingstone’s feat of crossing the continent from sea to sea. But the greatest of African travelers after Livingstone was Henry M. Stanley, with whose work we are next concerned.
While a reporter in the New York Herald, this enterprising man had been sent to Crete to report upon the revolution in that island, to Abyssinia during the British invasion, and to Spain during the revolution in that country. While in Spain, in 1869, James Gordon Bennett sent him the brief order to “find Livingstone.” This was enough for Stanley, who proceeded at once to Zanzibar, organized an expedition, and did “find Livingstone,” as above stated.
Next, filled with the spirit of travel, Stanley set out to “find Africa,” now as joint agent for the Herald and the London Daily Telegraph. Setting out from Zanzibar in November, 1874, he proceeded, with a large expedition, to the Victoria Nyanza, which he circumnavigated; and then journeyed to Tanganyika, whose shape and dimension he similarly ascertained. From these he proceeded westward to the Lualaba, the stream which Livingstone had supposed to be the Nile. How Stanley made his way down this great stream, overcoming enormous difficulties and fighting his way through hostile tribes, is too long a story to be told here. It must suffice to say that he soon found that he was not upon the Nile, but upon a westward flowing stream, which he eventually identified as the Congo—a great river whose lower course only had been previously known. For ten months the daring traveler pursued his journey down this stream, assailed by treachery and hostility, and finally reached the ocean, having traversed the heart of that vast “unexplored territory” which long occupied so wide a space on all maps of Africa. The Descent of the Great Congo RiverHe had learned that the interior of the continent is a mighty plateau, watered by the Congo and its many large affluents and traversed in all directions by navigable waters. Politically this remarkable journey led to the founding of the Congo Free State, which embraces the central region of tropical Africa, and which Stanley was sent to establish in 1879.
In 1887 he set out on another great journey. The conquest of the Egyptian Soudan by the Mahdi, described in a preceding chapter, had not only greatly diminished the territory of Egypt, but had cut off Emin Pasha (Dr. Edward Schnitzler), governor of the Equatorial Province of Egypt, leaving him stranded on the Upper Nile, near the Albert Nyanza. Here Emin maintained himself for years, holding his own against his foes, and actively engaging in natural history study. But, cut off as he was from civilization, threatened by the Mahdi, and his fate unknown in Europe, a growing anxiety concerning him prevailed, and Stanley was sent to find him, as he had before found Livingstone.
Organizing a strong expedition at Zanzibar, the traveler sailed with his officers, soldiers and negro porters for the mouth of the Congo, which river he proposed to make the channel of his exploration. Setting out from this point on March 18, 1887, by June 15th the expedition had reached the village of Yambuya, 1,300 miles up the stream. Thus far he had traversed waters well known to him. From this point he proposed to plunge into the unknown, following the course of the Aruwimi, a large affluent of the Congo which flowed from the direction of the great Nyanza lake-basins.
It was a terrible journey which the expedition now made. Before it spread a forest of seemingly interminable extent, peopled mainly by the curious dwarfs who form the forest-folk of Central Africa. The difficulties before the traveler were enormous, but no hardship or danger could daunt his indomitable courage, and he kept resolutely on until he met the lost Emin on the shores of Albert Nyanza, as he had formerly met Livingstone on those of Lake Tanganyika.
Three times in effect Stanley crossed that terrible forest, since he returned to Yambuya for the men and supplies he had left there and journeyed back again. Finally he made an overland journey to Zanzibar, on the east coast, with Emin and his followers, who had been rescued just in time to save them from imminent peril of overthrow and slaughter by the fanatical hordes of the Mahdi. This second crossing of the continent by Stanley ended December 4, 1889, having continued little short of three years. The discoveries made were great and valuable, and on his return to Europe the explorer met with a reception almost royal in its splendor. Among the large number of travelers who during the latter half of the century have contributed to make the interior of Africa as familiar to us as that of portions of our own continent, Livingstone and Stanley stand pre-eminent, the most heroic figures in modern travel: Livingstone as the missionary explorer, who won the love of the savage tribes and made his way by the arts of peace and gentleness; Stanley as the soldierly explorer, who fought his way through cannibal hordes, his arts being those of force and daring. They and their successors have performed one of the greatest works of the nineteenth century, that of lifting the cloud which for so many centuries lay thick and dense over the whole extent of interior Africa.
Leaving this region of research, we must now seek another which has been the seat of as earnest efforts and terrible hardships and has aroused as ardent a spirit of investigation, the Arctic Zone. At no point in the story of the nineteenth century do we find a greater display of courage and resolution, a more patient endurance of suffering, and a more unyielding determination to extend the limits of human knowledge, than in this region of ice and snow, the delving into whose secrets has actively continued during the latter half of the century.
A number of voyages were made to the Arctic regions in former centuries, and Henry Hudson as early as 1607 sailed as far north as the latitude of 81 degrees 30 minutes in the vicinity of Spitzbergen. With the opening of the nineteenth century exploration grew more active, and voyage after voyage was made; but the distance north reached by Hudson two centuries before was not surpassed until 1827, when Parry reached 82 degrees 40 minutes north latitude in the same region of the sea. Beyond these efforts to penetrate the ice barrier, and the discovery of some islands in the Arctic Ocean, nothing of special interest occurred until the date of Sir John Franklin’s expedition, which left England in 1845 and disappeared in the icy seas, every soul on board perishing. This expedition was made famous by the many search parties which were sent out in quest of the lost mariners.
By one of these parties the northwest passage from ocean to ocean, around the Arctic coast of America, was traversed in 1854. The fate of Franklin and his men was not fully solved until 1880, when an American expedition, under Lieutenant Schwatka, found the last traces left by the unfortunate explorers.
As famous and as disastrous as the Franklin expedition was the “Lady Franklin Bay Expedition,” conducted by Lieutenant Greely, of the United States army, which set out in 1881. This expedition was not sent for purposes of polar research, but in pursuance of a plan to conduct a series of circumpolar meteorological observations. The relief party of 1883, dispatched to the rescue of the explorers, was unfortunately put under the control of military men, who not only failed to reach their destination, but even to leave a supply of food where Greely and his men might justly expect to find one.