“There was no excuse for quarreling; the people were civil enough, but they did not want us near them. We therefore were shown the path and followed it a few miles, when we camped about half a mile from the lake. We began to consider our position, with the light thrown upon it by the conversation with the Kakongo natives. My couriers from Zanzibar had evidently not arrived, or, I presume, Emin Pasha with his two steamers would have paid the southwest side of the lake a visit to prepare the natives for our coming. My boat was at Kilonga-Longa’s, one hundred and ninety miles distant. There was no canoe obtainable, and to seize a canoe without the excuse of a quarrel my conscience would not permit. There was no tree anywhere of a size to make a canoe. Wadelai was a terrible distance off for an expedition so reduced as ours. We had used five cases of cartridges in five days of fighting on the plain. A month of such fighting must exhaust our stock. There was no plan suggested which seemed feasible to me, except that of retreating to Ibwiri, build a fort, send a party back to Kilonga-Longa’s for our boat, store up every load in the fort not conveyable, leave a garrison in the fort to hold it, and raise corn for us; march back again to Albert Lake, and send the boat to search for Emin Pasha. This was the plan which, after lengthy discussions with my officers, I resolved upon.

“On the 15th we marched to the site of Kavali, on the west side of the lake. Kavali had years ago been destroyed. At 4 P. M. the Kakongo natives had followed us and shot several arrows into our bivouac, and disappeared as quickly as they came. At 6 P. M. we began a night march, and by 10 A. M. of the 16th we had gained the crest of the plateau once more, Kakongo natives having persisted in following us up the slope of the plateau. We had one man killed and one wounded.”

In speaking of his further movements, he says:—

“By January 7th we were in Ibwiri once again, and after a few days’ rest Lieutenant Stairs, with a hundred men, sent to Kilonga-Longa’s to bring the boat and goods up, also Surgeon Parke and Captain Nelson. Out of the thirty-eight sick in charge of the officers, only eleven men were brought to the fort, the rest had died or deserted. On the return of Stairs with the boat and goods he was sent to Ugarrowwa’s to bring up the convalescents there. I granted him thirty-nine days’ grace. Soon after his departure I was attacked with gastritis and an abscess on the arm; but after a month’s careful nursing by Dr. Parke I recovered, and, forty-seven days having expired, I set out again for the Albert Nyanza, April 2d, accompanied by Messrs. Jephson and Parke. Captain Nelson, now recovered, was appointed commandant of Fort Bodo in our absence, with a garrison of forty-three men and boys.

“On April 26th we arrived in Mozamboni’s country once again; but this time, after solicitation, Mozamboni decided to make blood-brotherhood with me. Though I had fifty rifles less with me on this second visit, the example of Mozamboni was followed by all the other chiefs as far as the Nyanza, and every difficulty seemed removed. Food was supplied gratis; cattle, goats, sheep, and fowls were also given in such abundance that our people lived royally. One day’s march from the Nyanza the natives came from Kavali, and said that a white man named ‘Malejja’ had given their chief a black packet to give to me, his son. Would I follow them? ‘Yes, to-morrow,’ I answered, ‘and if your words are true I will make you rich.’

“They remained with us that night, telling us wonderful stories about ‘big ships as large as islands filled with men,’ etc., which left no doubt in our mind that this white man was Emin Pasha. The next day’s march brought us to the chief Kavali, and after a while he handed me a note from Emin Pasha, covered with a strip of black American oil-cloth. The note was to the effect that as there had been a native rumor to the effect that a white man had been seen at the south end of the lake, he had gone in his steamer to make inquiries, but had been unable to obtain reliable information, as the natives were terribly afraid of Kabba-Rega, King of Unyoro, and connected every stranger with him. However, the wife of the Nyamsassie chief had told a native ally of his named Mogo that she had seen us in Mrusuma (Mozamboni’s country). He therefore begged me to remain where I was until he could communicate with me. The note was signed ‘(Dr.) Emin,’ and dated March 26th.

“The next day, April 23d, Mr. Jephson was dispatched with a strong force of men to take the boat to the Nyanza. On the 26th the boat’s crew sighted Mswa station, the southernmost belonging to Emin Pasha, and Mr. Jephson was there hospitably received by the Egyptian garrison. The boat’s crew say that they were embraced one by one, and that they never had such attention shown to them as by these men, who hailed them as brothers.”

CHAPTER XXVII.
MEETING OF STANLEY AND EMIN PASHA.

“On the 29th of April we once again reached the bivouac ground occupied by us on the 16th of December, and at 5 P. M. of that day I saw the Khedive steamer about seven miles away steaming toward us. Soon after 7 P. M. Emin Pasha and Signor Casati and Mr. Jephson arrived at our camp, where they were heartily welcomed by all of us,” writes Mr. Stanley.

“The next day we moved to a better camping-place, about three miles above Nyamsassie, and at this spot Emin Pasha also made his camp. We were together until the 25th of May. On that day I left him, leaving Mr. Jephson, three Soudanese and two Zanzibaris in his care, and in return he caused to accompany me three of his irregulars and one hundred and two Mahdi natives as porters.

“Fourteen days later I was at Fort Bodo. At the fort were Captain Nelson and Lieutenant Stairs. The latter had returned from Ugarrowwa’s twenty-two days after I had set out for the lake, April 2d, bringing with him, alas! only sixteen out of fifty-six. All the rest were dead. My twenty couriers whom I had sent with letters to Major Barttelot had safely left Ugarrowwa’s for Yambuya on March 16th.

“Fort Bodo was in a flourishing condition. Nearly ten acres were under cultivation. One crop of Indian corn had been harvested, and was in the granaries. They had just commenced planting again.

“On the 16th of June I left Fort Bodo with a hundred and eleven Zanzibaris and a hundred and one of Emin Pasha’s people. Lieutenant Stairs had been appointed commandant of the fort, Nelson second in command, and Surgeon Parke medical officer. The garrison consisted of fifty-nine rifles. I had thus deprived myself of all my officers that I should not be encumbered with baggage and provisions and medicines, which would have to be taken if accompanied by Europeans, and every carrier was necessary for the vast stores left with Major Barttelot. On the 24th of June we reached Kilonga-Longa’s, and July 19th Ugarrowwa’s. The latter station was deserted. Ugarrowwa, having gathered as much ivory as he could obtain from that district, had proceeded down river about three months before. On leaving Fort Bodo I had loaded every carrier with about sixty pounds of corn, so that we had been able to pass through the wilderness unscathed.

“Passing on down river as fast as we could go, daily expecting to meet the couriers who had been stimulated to exert themselves for a reward of ten pounds per head, or the Major himself leading an army of carriers, we indulged ourselves in these pleasing anticipations as we neared the goal.

“On the 10th of August we overtook Ugarrowwa with an immense flotilla of fifty-seven canoes, and to our wonder our couriers now reduced to seventeen. They related an awful story of hair-breadth escapes and tragic scenes. Three of their number had been slain, two were still feeble from their wounds, and all except five bore on their bodies the scars of arrow wounds.

“A week later, on August 17th, we met the rear column of the expedition at a place called Bunalya, or, as the Arabs have corrupted it, Unarya. There was a white man at the gate of the stockade whom I at first thought was Mr. Jamieson, but a nearer view revealed the features of Mr. Bonny, who left the medical service of the army to accompany us.

“‘Well, my dear Bonny, where is the Major?’

“‘He is dead, sir; shot by the Manyuema about a month ago.’

“‘Good God! And Mr. Jamieson?’

“‘He has gone to Stanley Falls to try and get some more men from Tippu-Tib.’

“‘And Mr. Troup?’

“‘Mr. Troup has gone home, sir, invalided.’

“‘Hem! well, where is Ward?’

“‘Mr. Ward is at Bangala, sir.’

“‘Heavens alive! then you are the only one here?’

“‘Yes, sir.’

“I found the rear column a terrible wreck. Out of two hundred and fifty-seven men there were only seventy-one remaining. Out of seventy-one only fifty-two, on mustering them, seemed fit for service, and these mostly were scarecrows. The advance had performed the march from Yambuya to Bunalya in sixteen days, despite native opposition. The rear column performed the same distance in forty-three days. According to Mr. Bonny, during the thirteen months and twenty days that had elapsed since I had left Yambuya, the record is only one of disaster, desertion, and death. I have not the heart to go into the details, many of which are incredible, and, indeed, I have not the time, for, excepting Mr. Bonny, I have no one to assist me in reorganizing the expedition. There are still far more loads than I can carry, at the same time articles needful are missing. For instance, I left Yambuya with only a short campaigning kit, leaving my reserve of clothing and personal effects in charge of the officers. In December some deserters from the advance column reached Yambuya to spread the report that I was dead. They had no papers with them, but the officers seemed to accept the report of these deserters as a fact, and in January Mr. Ward, at an officers’ mess meeting, proposed that my instructions should be cancelled. The only one who appears to have dissented was Mr. Bonny. Accordingly, my personal kit, medicines, soap, candles, and provisions were sent down the Congo as ‘superfluities!’ Thus, after making this immense personal sacrifice to relieve them and cheer them up, I find myself naked, and deprived of even the necessaries of life in Africa. But, strange to say, they have kept two hats and four pairs of boots, a flannel jacket; and I propose to go back to Emin Pasha and across Africa with this truly African kit. Livingstone, poor fellow! was all in patches when I met him, but it will be the reliever himself who will be in patches this time. Fortunately not one of my officers will envy me, for their kits are intact—it was only myself that was dead.

“I pray you to say that we were only eighty-two days from the Albert Lake to Banalya, and sixty-one from Fort Bodo. The distance is not very great—it is the people who fail one. Going to Nyanza we felt as though we had the tedious task of dragging them; on returning each man knew the road, and did not need any stimulus. Between the Nyanza and here we only lost three men—one of which was by desertion. I brought a hundred and thirty-one Zanzibaris here, and left fifty-nine at Fort Bodo—total, one hundred and ninety men out of three hundred and eighty-nine; loss, fifty per cent. At Yambuya I left two hundred and fifty-seven men; there are only seventy-one left, ten of whom will never leave this camp—loss over two hundred and seventy per cent. This proves that, though the sufferings of the advance were unprecedented, the mortality was not so great as in camp at Yambuya. The survivors of the march are all robust, while the survivors of the rear column are thin and most unhealthy-looking.

“I have thus rapidly sketched out our movements since June 28th, 1887. I wish I had the leisure to furnish more details, but I cannot find the time. I write this amid the hurry and bustle of departure, and amid constant interruptions. You will, however, have gathered from this letter an idea of the nature of the country traversed by us. We were a hundred and sixty days in the forest—one continuous, unbroken, compact forest. The grass-land was traversed by us in eight days. The limits of the forest along the edge of the grass-land are well marked. We saw it extending northeasterly, with its curves and bays and capes, just like a sea-shore. Southwesterly it preserved the same character. North and south the forest area extends from Nyangwe to the southern borders of the Monbuttu; east and west it embraces all from the Congo, at the mouth of the Aruwimi, to about east longitude 29°-40°. How far west beyond the Congo the forest reaches I do not know. The superficial extent of the tract thus described—totally covered by forest—is two hundred and forty-six thousand square miles. North of the Congo, between Upoto and the Aruwimi, the forest embraces another twenty thousand square miles.

“Between Yambuya and the Nyanza we came across five distinct languages. The last is that which is spoken by the Wanyoro, Wanyankori, Wanya, Ruanda, and people of Karangwe and Ukerwee.

“The land slopes gently from the crest of the plateau above the Nyanza down to the Congo River from an altitude of five thousand five hundred feet to one thousand four hundred feet above the sea. North and south of our track through the grass-land the face of the land was much broken by groups of cones or isolated mounts or ridges. North we saw no land higher than about six thousand feet above the sea; but bearing two hundred and fifteen degrees magnetic, at the distance of about fifty miles from our camp on the Nyanza, we saw a towering mountain, its summit covered with snow, and probably seventeen or eighteen thousand feet above the sea. It is called Ruevenzori, and will probably prove a rival to Kilimanjaro. I am not sure that it may not prove to be the Gordon-Bennett Mountain in Gambaragara; but there are two reasons for doubting it to be the same—first, it is a little too far west for the position of the latter, as given by me in 1876; and, secondly, we saw no snow on the Gordon-Bennett. I might mention a third, which is that the latter is a perfect cone apparently, while the Ruevenzori is an oblong mount, nearly level on the summit, with two ridges extending northeast and southwest.

“I have met only three natives who have seen the lake toward the south. They agree that it is large, but not so large as the Albert Nyanza.

“The Aruwimi becomes known as the Suhali about one hundred miles above Yambuya; as it nears the Nepoko it is called the Nevoa; beyond its confluence with the Nepoko it is known as the No-Welle; three hundred miles from the Congo it is called the Itiri, which is soon changed into the Ituri, which name it retains to its source. Ten minutes’ march from the Ituri waters we saw the Nyanza, like a mirror in its immense gulf.

“Before closing my letter let me touch more at large on the subject which brought me to this land—viz., Emin Pasha.

“The Pasha has two battalions of regulars under him—the first, consisting of about seven hundred and fifty rifles, occupies Duffle, Honyu, Lahore, Muggi, Kirri, Bedden, Rejaf; the second battalion, consisting of six hundred and forty men, guard the stations of Wadelai, Fatiko, Mahagi, and Mswa, a line of communication along the Nyanza and Nile about one hundred and eighty miles in length. In the interior west of the Nile he retains three or four small stations—fourteen in all. Besides these two battalions he has quite a respectable force of irregulars, sailors, artisans, clerks, servants. ‘Altogether,’ he said, ‘if I consent to go away from here we shall have about eight thousand people with us.’

“‘Were I in your place I would not hesitate one moment or be a second in doubt what to do.’

“‘What you say is quite true; but we have such a large number of women and children, probably ten thousand people altogether. How can they all be brought out of here? We shall want a great number of carriers.’

“‘Carriers! carriers for what?’ I asked.

“‘For the women and children. You surely would not leave them, and they cannot travel?’

“‘The women must walk. It will do them more good than harm. As for the little children, load them on the donkeys. I hear you have about two hundred of them. Your people will not travel very far the first month, but little by little they will get accustomed to it. Our Zanzibar women crossed Africa on my second expedition. Why cannot your black women do the same? Have no fear of them; they will do better than the men.’

“‘They would require a vast amount of provision for the road.’

“‘True, but you have some thousands of cattle, I believe. Those will furnish beef. The countries through which we pass must furnish grain and vegetable food.’

“‘Well, well, we will defer further talk till to-morrow.’

“May 1st, 1888.—Halt in camp at Nsabé. The Pasha came ashore from the steamer Khedive about 1 P. M., and in a short time we commenced our conversation again. Many of the arguments used above were repeated, and he said:

“‘What you told me yesterday has led me to think that it is best we should retire from here. The Egyptians are very willing to leave. There are of these about one hundred men, besides their women and children. Of these there is no doubt; and even if I stayed here I should be glad to be rid of them, because they undermine my authority and nullify all my endeavors for retreat. When I informed them that Khartoum had fallen and Gordon Pasha was slain, they always told the Nubians that it was a concocted story, that some day we should see the steamers ascend the river for their relief. But of the regulars who compose the first and second battalions I am extremely doubtful; they have led such a free and happy life here that they would demur at leaving a country where they have enjoyed luxuries they cannot command in Egypt. The soldiers are married, and several of them have harems. Many of the irregulars would also retire and follow me. Now, supposing the regulars refuse to leave, you can imagine that my position would be a difficult one. Would I be right in leaving them to their fate? Would it not be consigning them all to ruin? I should have to leave them their arms and ammunition, and on returning all discipline would be at an end. Disputes would arise, and factions would be formed. The more ambitious would aspire to be chiefs by force, and from these rivalries would spring hate and mutual slaughter until there would be none of them left.’

“‘Supposing you resolve to stay, what of the Egyptians?’ I asked.

“‘Oh! these I shall have to ask you to be good enough to take with you.’

“Now, will you, Pasha, do me the favor to ask Captain Casati if we are to have the pleasure of his company to the sea, for we have been instructed to assist him also should we meet?’

“Captain Casati answered through Emin Pasha:

“‘What the Governor Emin decides upon shall be the rule of conduct for me also. If the Governor stays, I stay. If the Governor goes, I go.’

“‘Well, I see, Pasha, that in the event of your staying your responsibilities will be great.’

“A laugh. The sentence was translated to Casati, and the gallant Captain replied:

“‘Oh! I beg pardon, but I absolve the Pasha from all responsibility connected with me, because I am governed by my own choice entirely.’

“Thus day after day I recorded faithfully the interviews I had with Emin Pasha; but these extracts reveal as much as is necessary for you to understand the position. I left Mr. Jephson thirteen of my Soudanese, and sent a message to be read to the troops, as the Pasha requested. Everything else is left until I return with the united expedition to the Nyanza.

“Within two months the Pasha proposed to visit Fort Bodo, taking Mr. Jephson with him. At Fort Bodo I have left instructions to the officers to destroy the fort and accompany the Pasha to the Nyanza. I hope to meet them all again on the Nyanza, as I intend making a short cut to the Nyanza along a new road.”

In a subsequent letter wherein he refers to his return to the rear, to bring up those of his forces that had been left behind, he says:

“This has certainly been the most extraordinary expedition I have ever led into Africa.

“A regular divinity seems to have hedged us while we journeyed. I say it with all reverence. It has impelled us whither it would, effected its own will, but nevertheless guided us and protected us.

“What can you make of this, for instance? On August 17th, 1887, all the officers of the rear column are united at Yambuya. They have my letter of instructions before them, but instead of preparing for the morrow’s march to follow our track, they decide to wait at Yambuya, which decision initiates the most awful season any community of men ever endured in Africa or elsewhere.

“The results are that three-quarters of their force die of slow poison. Their commander is murdered, and the second officer dies soon after of sickness and grief. Another officer is wasted to a skeleton and obliged to return home. A fourth is sent to wander aimlessly up and down the Congo, and the survivor is found in such a fearful pest-hole that we dare not describe its horrors.

“On the same date, one hundred and fifty miles away, the officer of the day leads three hundred and thirty-three men of the advanced column into the bush, loses the path and all consciousness of his whereabouts, and every step he takes only leads him further astray. His people become frantic; his white companions, vexed and irritated by the sense of the evil around them, cannot devise any expedient to relieve him. They are surrounded by cannibals, and poison-tipped arrows thin their numbers.

“Meantime, I, in command of the river column, am anxiously searching up and down the river in four different directions; through forests my scouts are seeking for them, but not until the sixth day was I successful in finding them.

“Taking the same month and the same date in 1888, a year later, on August 17th, I listen, horror-stricken, to the tale of the last surviving officer of the rear column at Banalya, and am told of nothing but death and disaster, disaster and death, death and disaster. I see nothing but horrible forms of men smitten with disease, bloated, disfigured and scarred, while the scene in the camp, infamous for the murder of poor Barttelot Barth four weeks before, is simply sickening.

“On the same day, six hundred miles west of this camp, Jamieson, worn out with fatigue, sickness and sorrow, breathes his last.

“On the next day, August 18th, six hundred miles east, Emin Pasha and my officer Jephson are suddenly surrounded by infuriated rebels, who menace them with loaded rifles and instant death; but fortunately they relent and only make them prisoners, to be delivered to the Mahdists.

“Having saved Bonny out of the jaws of death, we arrive a second time at Albert Nyanza, to find Emin Pasha and Jephson prisoners in daily expectation of their doom.

“Jephson’s own letters will describe his anxiety. Not until both were in my camp and the Egyptian fugitives under our protection, did I begin to see that I was only carrying out a higher plan than mine. My own designs were constantly frustrated by unhappy circumstances. I endeavored to steer my course as direct as possible, but there was an unaccountable influence at the helm.”

In still another letter he gives us a most graphic account of this vast forest region. “Until we penetrated and marched through it,” he writes, “this region was entirely unexplored and untrodden by either white or Arab.”

“While in England, considering the best routes open to the Nyanza (Albert), I thought I was very liberal in allowing myself two weeks’ march to cross the forest region lying between the Congo and the grass-land; but you may imagine our feelings when month after month saw us marching, tearing, plowing, cutting through that same continuous forest. It took us one hundred and sixty days before we could say, ‘Thank God! we are out of the darkness at last.’ At one time we were all—whites and blacks—almost ‘done up.’ September, October, and half of that month of November, 1887, will not be forgotten by us. October will be specially memorable to us for the sufferings we endured. Our officers are heartily sick of the forest; but the loyal blacks, a band of one hundred and thirty, followed me once again into the wild, trackless forest, with its hundreds of inconveniences, to assist their comrades of the rear column. Try and imagine some of these inconveniences. Take a thick Scottish copse, dripping with rain; imagine this copse to be a mere undergrowth, nourished under the impenetrable shades of ancient trees, ranging from one hundred to one hundred and eighty feet high; briers and thorns abundant; lazy creeks, meandering through the depths of the jungle, and sometimes a deep affluent of a great river. Imagine this forest and jungle in all stages of decay and growth—old trees falling, leaning perilously over, fallen prostrate; ants and insects of all kinds, sizes, and colors murmuring around; monkeys and chimpanzees above; queer noises of birds and animals; crashes in the jungle as troops of elephants rush away: dwarfs with poisoned arrows securely hidden behind some buttress or in some dark recess; strong, brown-bodied aborigines with terribly sharp spears, standing poised, still as dead stumps; rain pattering down on you every other day in the year; an impure atmosphere, with its dread consequences, fever and dysentery; gloom throughout the day, and darkness almost palpable throughout the night; and then, if you will imagine such a forest, extending the entire distance from Plymouth to Peterhead, you will have a fair idea of some of the inconveniences endured by us from June 28th to December 5th, 1887, and from June 1st, 1888, to the present date, to continue again from the present date till about December 10th, 1888, when I hope then to say a last farewell to the Congo forest.

“Now that we have gone through and through this forest region, I only feel a surprise that I did not give a greater latitude to my ideas respecting its extent; for had we thought of it, it is only what might have been deduced from our knowledge of the great sources of moisture necessary to supply the forest with the requisite sap and vitality. Think of the large extent of the South Atlantic Ocean, whose vapors are blown during nine months of the year in this direction. Think of the broad Congo, varying from one to sixteen miles wide, which has a stretch of one thousand four hundred miles, supplying another immeasurable quantity of moisture, to be distilled into rain, and mist, and dew over this insatiable forest; and then another six hundred miles of the Aruwimi or Ituri itself, and then you will cease to wonder that there are about one hundred and fifty days of rain every year in this region, and that the Congo forest covers such a wide area.

“Until we set foot on the grass-land, something like fifty miles west of the Albert Nyanza, we saw nothing that looked like a smile, or a kind thought, or a moral sensation. The aborigines are wild, utterly savage, and incorrigibly vindictive. The dwarfs—called Wambutti—are worse still, far worse. Animal life is likewise so wild and shy that no sport is to be enjoyed. The gloom of the forest is perpetual. The face of the river, reflecting its black walls of vegetation, is dark and sombre. The sky one-half of the time every day resembles a winter sky in England; the face of Nature and life is fixed and joyless. If the sun charges through the black clouds enveloping it, and a kindly wind brushes the masses of vapor below the horizon, and the bright light reveals our surroundings, it is only to tantalize us with a short-lived vision of brilliancy and beauty of verdure.

“Emerging from the forest, finally, we all became enraptured. Like a captive unfettered and set free, we rejoiced at sight of the blue cope of heaven, and freely bathed in the warm sunshine, and aches and gloomy thoughts and unwholesome ideas were banished. You have heard how the London citizen, after months of devotion to business in the gaseous atmosphere in that great city, falls into raptures at sight of the green fields and hedges, meadows and trees; and how his emotions, crowding on his dazed senses, are indescribable. Indeed, I have seen a Derby day once, and I fancied then that I only saw madmen—for great, bearded, hoary-headed fellows, though well dressed enough, behaved in a most idiotic fashion, amazing me quite. Well, on this 5th of December we became suddenly smitten with madness in the same manner. Had you seen us you would have thought we had lost our senses, or that ‘Legion’ had entered and taken possession of us. We raced with our loads over a wide, unfenced field (like an English park for the softness of its grass), and herds of buffalo, eland, roan antelope, stood on either hand with pointed ears and wide eyes, wondering at the sudden wave of human beings, yelling with joy, as they issued out of the dark depths of the forest.

“On the confines of this forest, near a village which was rich in sugar cane, ripe bananas, tobacco, Indian corn, and other productions of aboriginal husbandry, we came across an ancient woman lying asleep. I believe she was a leper and an outcast, but she was undoubtedly ugly, vicious, and old; and, being old, she was obstinate. I practiced all kinds of seductive arts to get her to do something besides crossly mumbling, but of no avail. Curiosity having drawn toward us about a hundred of our people, she fastened fixed eyes on one young fellow (smooth-faced and good-looking), and smiled. I caused him to sit near her, and she became voluble enough—beauty and youth had tamed the ‘beast.’ From her talk we learned that there was a powerful tribe, called the Banzanza, with a great king, to the northeast of our camp, of whom we might be well afraid, as the people were as numerous as grass. Had we learned this ten days earlier, I might have become anxious for the result; but it now only drew a contemptuous smile from the people—for each one, since he had seen the grass-land and evidences of meat, had been transformed into a hero.

“We poured out on the plain a frantic multitude, but after an hour or two we became an orderly column. Into the emptied villages of the open country we proceeded to regale ourselves on melon, rich-flavored bananas and plantains, and great pots full of wine. The fowls, unaware of the presence of a hungry mob, were knocked down, plucked, roasted, or boiled; the goats, meditatively browsing, or chewing the cud, were suddenly seized and decapitated, and the grateful aroma of roast meat gratified our senses. An abundance, a prodigal abundance, of good things, had awaited our eruption into the grass-land. Every village was well stocked with provisions, and even luxuries long denied to us. Under such fare the men became most robust, diseases healed as if by magic, the weak became strong, and there was not a goee-goee or chickenheart left. Only the Babusesse, near the main Ituri, were tempted to resist the invasion.”

It is not possible yet fully to determine the geographical results of the expedition. That they are very great and important appears certain. In the brief narratives already furnished by Mr. Stanley many facts of value and interest appear, adding new details to the map of Africa. The Aruwimi, Mr. Stanley says, is also called the Ituri, the Dudu, the Biyerre, the Luhali, the Nevva, and the Nowelle-Itire. Throughout several hundred miles of its upper part it is invariably called the Ituri, as it is by the natives around the Albert Nyanza.

“The main Ituri, at the distance of six hundred and eighty miles from its mouth,” says Mr. Stanley, “is one hundred and twenty-five yards wide, nine feet deep, and has a current of three knots. It appears to run parallel with the Nyanza. Near that group of cones and hills affectionately named Mount Schweinfurth, Mount Junker, and Mount Speke, I would place its highest source. Draw three or four respectable streams draining into it from the crest of the plateau overlooking the Albert Nyanza, and two or three respectable streams flowing into it from northwesterly, let the main stream flow southwest to near north latitude 1°, give it a bow-like form north latitude 1° to north latitude 1° 50´, then let it flow with curves and bends down to north latitude 1° 17´ near Yambuya, and you have a sketch of the course of the Aruwimi, or Ituri, from the highest source down to its mouth, and the length of this Congo tributary will be eight hundred miles. We have travelled on it and along its banks for six hundred and eighty miles; on our first march to the Nyanza for one hundred and fifty-six miles along its banks or near its vicinity; we returned to obtain our boat from Kilonga-Longa’s; then we conveyed the boat to the Nyanza for as many miles again; for four hundred and eighty miles we travelled its flanks or voyaged on its waters to hunt up the rear column of the expedition; for as many miles we must retrace our steps to the Albert Nyanza for the third time. You will, therefore, agree with me that we have sufficient knowledge of this river for all practical purposes.”

In a letter, dated South End, Victoria Nyanza, September 3, 1889, referring to his experiences on the Aruwimi, he says: “For the time being you can believe me that one day has followed another in striving fully against all manner of obstacles, natural and otherwise. From the day I left Yambuya to August 28, 1889, the day I arrived here, the bare catalogue of incidents would fill several quires of foolscap. The catalogue of adventures, accidents, mortalities, sufferings from fever, and morbid musings over the mischances that meet us daily would make a formidable list. You know that all the stretch of country between Yambuya and this place is an absolute new country except what may be measured by five ordinary marches. First, there is that dead white of the map now changed to a dead black. I mean that the region of earth confined between east longitude 25° and south latitude 29° 45´ is one great compact of a remorselessly sullen forest with a growth of an untold number of ages, swarming at stated intervals with immense numbers of vicious man-eating savages, and crafty, undersized men who were unceasing in their annoyance. Then there is that belt of grass-land lying between it and Albert Nyanza, whose people contested every mile of our advance with spirit, and made us think that they were guardians of some priceless treasure hidden in the Nyanza shores or at war with Emin Pasha and his thousands. Sir Percival in search of the Holy Grail could not have met with hotter opposition. Three separate times necessity compelled us to traverse these unholy regions with varying fortunes.”

CHAPTER XXVIII.
GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES EN ROUTE.

Stanley first sighted the Albert Nyanza on December 13th, 1887. Its southern part lay at the feet of the explorer almost like an immense map. He glanced rapidly over the grosser details, the lofty plateau, the wall of Unyoro to the east and that of Baregga to the west, rising nearly three thousand feet above the silver water, and between the hills the stretched-out plain, seemingly very flat and grassy, with here and there a dark clump of brushwood, which, as the plain trended southwesterly, became a thin forest. The southwest edge of the lake he fixed at nine miles in a direct southeasterly line from this place. This will make the terminus of the southwest corner 1° 17´ N. latitude, by prismatic compass, magnetic bearing; of the southeast corner, just south of a number of falls, 1° 37´. This will make it about 1° 11´ 30` N. latitude, magnetic bearing of 1° 48´.

Taken from N. latitude 1° 25´ 30`, this about exactly describes the line of shore running from the southwest corner of the lake to the southeast corner of Albert. Baker fixed his position latitude 1° 15´ N., if we recollect rightly. The centre of Mbakovia Terrace bears 1° 21´ 30` magnetic from Stanley’s first point of observation. This will make Baker’s Vacovia about 1° 15´ 45`, allowing 10° west variation. In trying to solve the problem of the infinity of Lake Albert, as sketched by Baker, and finding that the lake terminus is only four miles south of where he stood to view it “from a little hill” and on “a beautifully clear day,” one would almost feel justified in saying he had never seen the lake.

But Baker’s position of Vacovia proves that he actually was there, and the general correctness of his outline of the east coast from Vacovia to Magungo also proves that he navigated the lake.

Stanley says: “When we turn our faces northeast we say that Baker has done exceedingly well; but when we turn them southward our senses in vain try to penetrate the mystery, because our eyes see not what Baker saw. With Lieutenant Stairs, Mounteney, Jephson, Surgeon Parke, Emin Pasha, Captain Casati, I look with my own eyes upon the scene. I find Baker has made an error. I am somewhat surprised also at Baker’s altitudes of Lake Albert and the Blue Mountains and at the breadth attributed by him to the lake. The shore opposite Vacovia is ten and a quarter miles distant, not forty or fifty miles. The Blue Mountains are nothing else but a west upland, the highest cone or hill being not above six thousand feet above the level of the sea. The altitude of Lake Albert by the aneroid and the boiling point will not exceed two thousand three hundred and fifty feet.”

Last of all, away to the southwest, while Baker has sketched his infinite stretch of lake, there rises, about forty miles from Vacovia, an immense snowy mountain, a solid, square-browed mass, with an almost level summit between two lofty ridges. If it were a beautifully clear day he should have seen this, being nearer to it by thirteen geographical miles than Stanley was.

“About the lake discovered by me in 1876 I can learn very little from the natives,” says Stanley. “At the Chief of Kavallis I saw two natives who came from that region. One of them hailed from Unyampaka and the other from Usongora. The first said that the Albert Lake is much larger than that near Unyampaka. The other said that the southern lake is the larger, as it takes two days to cross it. He describes it as being a month’s march from Kavallis. Their accounts differ so much that one is almost tempted to believe that there are two lakes, the smaller one near Unyampaka and connected by a river or channel with that of Usongora.

“My interest is greatly excited, as you may imagine, by the discovery of Ruevenzori, the snowy mountain, and a possible rival of Kilimanjaro. Remember that we are in north latitude, and that this mountain must be near or on the Equator itself; that it is summer now, and that we saw it in the latter part of May; that the snow-line was about estimated at only one thousand feet below the summit.

“Hence I conclude that it is not Mount Gordon-Bennett seen in December, 1876—though it may be so—which the natives said had only snow occasionally.

“At the time I saw the latter there was no snow visible. It is a little further east, according to the position I gave it, than Ruevenzori. All questions which this mountain naturally give rise to will be settled, I hope, by this expedition before it returns to the sea.

“If at all near my line of march, its length, height and local history will be ascertained. Many rivers will be found to issue from this curious land between the two Muta Nziges. What rivers are they? Do they belong to the Nile or the Congo? There is no river going east or southeast from this section except the Katonga and Kafur, and both must receive, if any, but a very small supply from Mount Gordon-Bennett and the Ruevenzori. The new mountain must therefore be drained principally south and west—if the south streams have connection with the lake, south; if west, Semiliki, a tributary of Lake Albert, and some river flowing to the Congo must receive the rest of its waters. Then, if the lake south receives any considerable supply, the interest deepens.

“Does the lake discharge its surplus to the Nile or the Congo? If to the former, then it will be of great interest to you, and you will have to admit that Lake Victoria is not the main source of the Nile. If to the Congo, then the lake will be the source of the river Lowa or Loa, since it is the largest tributary to the Congo from the east between the Aruwimi and Luama.”

Of the many geographical discoveries that have resulted from the expedition just completed, the following may be noted as among the most prominent: The snowy ranges of Ruevenzori, the Cloud King, or Rain-creator; the Semliki River, the plains of Noongora, the salt lakes of Kative; new peoples, Wakonyu of the Great Mountains; dwellers of the rich forest regions, the Awamba, the fine-featured Wasonyora, the Wanyora bandits, and then Lake Albert Edward, the tribes and shepherd races of the Eastern Uplands, then Wanyankori, besides Wanyaruwamba and Wazinya.

Stanley found that Albert Nyanza does not extend as far south by considerable as Baker represented, and as has generally been believed. He discovered a new lake, which he named Albert Edward Nyanza, southwest of Albert Nyanza, and connected with it by a considerable river, which now bears the name Semliki. This new lake must thus be considered the source of the White Nile. And he has found that Victoria Nyanza extends much farther southwest than has been supposed, and approaches within one hundred and fifty-five miles of Tanganyika.

In a letter, under a recent date, giving some details of his later experiences, Stanley glowingly refers to his geographical discoveries:

“Over and above the happy ending of our appointed duties, we have not been unfortunate in geographical discoveries. The Aruwimi is now known from its source to its bourne. The great Congo forest, covering as large an area as France and the Iberian peninsula, we can now certify to be an absolute fact. The mountains of the Moon this time, beyond the least doubt, have been located, and Ruevenzori, ‘the Cloud King,’ robed in eternal snow, has been seen and its flanks explored, and some of its shoulders ascended, Mounts Gordon-Bennett and Mackinnon cones being but giant sentries, warding off the approach to the inner area of ‘the Cloud King.’

“On the southwest of the range the connection between Albert Edward Nyanza and Albert Nyanza has been discovered, and the extent of the former lake is now known for the first time. Range after range of mountains have been traversed, separated by such tracts or pasture land as would make your cowboys out West mad with envy.

“And right under the burning Equator we have fed on blackberries and bilberries, and quenched our thirst with crystal water fresh from snow-beds. We have also been able to add nearly six thousand square miles of water to Victoria Nyanza.

“Our naturalist will expatiate upon the new species of animals, birds and plants he has discovered. Our surgeon will tell what he knows of the climate and its amenities. It will take us all we know how to say what new store of knowledge has been gathered from this unexpected field of discoveries.

“I always suspected that in the central regions between the equatorial lakes something worth seeing would be found, but I was not prepared for such a harvest of new facts.”

Of the relative importance of Stanley’s discovery, made through his survey of the Victoria Nyanza, the New York “Herald” says, editorially:—

“Along the blood-stained line of his march from Albert Nyanza to the ocean, Stanley has discovered a large addition to the great Victorian sea. This most expansive of Africa’s inland waters, discovered thirty years ago by the lamented and dashing explorer Speke, is the source of the Nile, and drains the eastern plateau of Equatorial Africa bordering the head waters of the mighty Congo. On this water-shed, within a radius of two hundred miles, collects the rainfall which feeds and fertilizes two enormous river basins rivalling that of the Amazon.

“According to our cable despatches Stanley now finds that the Victoria Nyanza covers twenty-six thousand square miles. This extension, when combined with its elevation (4100 feet) above the sea level, makes it the most important, if not the largest, reservoir of fresh water on the globe. Lake Superior overspreads more territory, but Victoria is probably much deeper, and is perched up more than six times as high. Though not quite rivalling tempestuous Lake Titicaca, which stands on the Bolivian table-land over twelve thousand feet high, the Victorian sea is vastly larger and more influential, both as a hydrographic and meteorological agent.

“Mr. Stanley’s survey of this Mediterranean bears with very special interest on the future of Central Africa. The most effective entrances which the wedge of Civilization has ever made into the Dark Continent have been on its southern and southeastern coast. If the routes from Zanzibar and other points on the southeast coast to the lake region centering in Victoria Nyanza can be opened up, the wave of Progress and Illumination will enter the populous heart of Africa more rapidly by these short cuts traversing a comparatively healthy region than by the sickly, tortuous valley of the Congo.”

CHAPTER XXIX.
FROM THE ALBERT NYANZA TO THE INDIAN OCEAN.