Kelly Wemyss Bay, by Greenock,
August 6th, 1872.
}
Dear Sir.—I write to say that I received last Saturday my father’s letters and the diary which were entrusted to you by him.
I wish also to express to you my heartfelt gratitude for going in search of my father, and aiding him so nobly and bringing the long-looked-for letters safely.
Henry M. Stanley, Esq.
Believe me, yours truly,
AGNES LIVINGSTONE.
3.—Dr. Livingstone’s letter of thanks to James Gordon Bennett, Esq., Jr., the handwriting of which was published in fac-simile in the “Herald,” and fully substantiated by Mr. John Livingstone, of Canada, brother of the explorer, and more familiar with him and his handwriting than any man living.
4.—The letter of John Livingstone to Mr. Blake, American Consul at Hamilton, Ontario, in Canada, which was accompanied by a letter from Dr. Livingstone, proving handwriting, and forwarded to the “Herald” through the Department of State at Washington. This letter follows:
Listowell, August 24, 1872.
F. N. Blake, Esq., United States Consul, Hamilton, Ontario.
Dear Sir.—Would you kindly oblige me by conveying in your official capacity to Mr. Bennett, proprietor of the New York “Herald,” and also to Mr. Stanley, the leader of the “Herald Livingstone Search Expedition,” my warmest congratulations on the successful issue of that expedition.
Having noticed a number of articles in the public press reflecting doubts on the veracity of Mr. Stanley and the “Herald,” I am glad to be able to say that I place the most implicit confidence in the statements of Mr. Stanley and the “Herald.”
I can also assure you that Dr. Livingstone holds the American Government and people in the highest estimation, principally on account of the late abolition of slavery in the United States, and I trust that his persistent efforts to check the nefarious traffic in slaves in Africa will be crowned with success.
I am, yours respectfully,
JOHN LIVINGSTONE.
5.—The Royal Geographical Society of London, fully persuaded of the authenticity of Mr. Stanley’s reports, tendered him a formal reception at Brighton. The meeting occurred, and caused a great deal of comment.
6.—The Sovereign of England herself, on more than one occasion, tendered special honors to Mr. Stanley on account of his success in finding Dr. Livingstone.
Evidence like this was not to be shaken by the asseverations of penny-a-liners. It was regarded by the candid as absolutely conclusive. Such, it is believed, would have been the result had Mr. Stanley been a British subject instead of an American citizen. As the fact is, the case for the “Herald” Expedition was almost immeasurably stronger. It was a matter of profound chagrin to most of the English people that an American enterprise should be successful in the search for one of the most illustrious of Englishmen, whilst English expeditions should have failed. Under such circumstances Mr. Stanley’s proofs had to be absolutely unassailable and his credentials unanswerably satisfactory, or they would not have been received at all. Both majesty and ministry would have given the commander of the American enterprise the coldest possible shoulder. Instead, they crowned him with laurels. The only conclusion with reasonable minds could be that the “Herald” expedition was a splendid success, and further doubt of it would only have been stupid and cruel skepticism.[3]
[3] It is not believed that anything further is needed to convince the public of what most of the intelligent public is already convinced; but it may be well to place on record the statements of a number of prominent journals of the world, and reference to the action of certain learned societies.
On July 4th, 1872, the London “Morning Post” said:
“Far surpassing everything of local import in interest just now is the information afforded by the New York ‘Herald’ to the London press of the discovery of Dr. Livingstone. Far surpassing everything which has been hitherto achieved by journalistic enterprise is the discovery of the great African explorer—concerning whose fate the peoples of every civilized state in the world have been anxious for many years—by the special correspondent of a daily newspaper commissioned to find him. We are accustomed to laugh on this side of the Atlantic at the rage which prevails for a knowledge of what are classed as ‘big things’ among our American kinsmen; but it is not only with a feeling of satisfaction, but also of kindred pride, that we express our admiration of this wonderful undertaking, which was conceived and has been carried to such a successful issue by the proprietor of our New York contemporary.”
The London “Telegraph” of the same date says:
“Yesterday we, in company with the whole people of Britain, listened to the narration of the outlines of a tale describing the accomplishment of a work as daring in its execution as that of Vasco de Gama, as solitary in its accompaniment as that of Robinson Crusoe, and quite as romantic in its progress as that of Marco Polo. The mind delights to realize, even in imagination, the moment when the gallant and indefatigable Stanley won his way in front of his little band of followers—making up in noise what it lacked in numbers—to the outskirts of Ujiji; and we must, all of us, envy the republic of the United States the fact that the American flag was carried proudly at the head of his force in happy agreement, and that under the banner of the Stars and Stripes he afforded succor to the lonely Briton.”
And thus the London “Daily News”:
“The extraordinary narrative which has just been communicated to the world by the New York ‘Herald,’ supplies one of the most exciting stories which civilization has had since the revelation of the startling truths of Bruce. Mr. Stanley gives to his collation a somewhat picturesque coloring, but the grand fact remains that he found Livingstone notwithstanding, and not, as Sir Henry Rawlinson conjectured lately, that Livingstone found Stanley. It is not easy to imagine an enterprise more full of toil and peril than this strange journey of the lonely American, attended, to be sure, by a small but reluctant escort, in the hitherto trackless wilds of Africa and among people of native tribes of unknown names. It is wholly impossible not to admire the daring and perseverance which the American discovery has crowned with triumph.”
Said the Edinburgh (Scotland) “Courant”:
“It is long since the columns of a newspaper have contained so vividly romantic and so startlingly wonderful a story as that which has just been told to us of the fortunes that befell Mr. Stanley in his quest after Livingstone, and of the most strange circumstances under which the object of that quest was fulfilled. The whole narrative reads, indeed, more like a forgotten episode from the travels of some Marco Polo or Vasco de Gama than, as it is, a truthful and unvarnished extract from the severe chronicle of nineteenth century fact.”
This brief extract from the London “Globe” of July 9:
“The final discovery of Dr. Livingstone would seem to have been a bitter disappointment to a large class of his fellow countrymen. The doubt and mystery which hung around his fate promised to produce a perennial stream of quasi-scientific gossip, and to yield an endless crop of letters to the ‘Times.’ As it is, those ‘interested’ in the matter are reduced to patching the rags of the worn-out controversy.”
The London “Times” of July 15th contained a long letter from Mr. Charles Beke, in which he fully answers a number of criticisms upon the Livingstone-Stanley despatches, the said criticisms having originated in British chagrin, not altogether inexcusable, at the fine success of the American enterprise. That great journal of July 27th editorially says:
“To the enterprise of an American newspaper we are indebted for trustworthy information that Dr. Livingstone still lives and prosecutes his unexampled researches.”
The London “Advertiser” of the date last mentioned also published a long leading article upon the subject, beginning:
“In another column we publish the first letter from Dr. Livingstone which has been received in England. By the energy of the proprietor of the New York ‘Herald’ the great English traveller has been found and succored at a moment when he seemed to be upon his ‘last legs.’ In his own words, when Stanley arrived at Ujiji, ‘he thought he was dying upon his feet.’”
The London “Standard” of July 26th remarked with emphasis:
“All doubts concerning the bona fides of Mr. Stanley’s narratives of his adventures in Africa will now be laid at rest by the arrival of Dr. Livingstone’s letters. We shall, apparently, have to wait a little for the publication of the geographical despatches, as the report of an intended meeting of the Geographical Society on Monday for the purpose of hearing them read is unfounded. But it is satisfactory to feel that even the very faint suspicions cast on the authenticity of Mr. Stanley’s story are dissipated, and that we may absolutely rely upon the information which that gallant and triumphant traveller has brought home.”
The Manchester (England) “Guardian” of July 29th, in an elaborate article in criticism of the English authorities because they had not organized a successful expedition, and had given the great explorer just cause for complaint, says the subject is one “which can be matter of no agreeable examination for any Englishman.” And it concludes:
“Our magnificently equipped expedition did simply nothing; and it was reserved for Mr. Stanley, after his return to the coast, to organize a caravan with stores for Dr. Livingstone. ‘Before we left Zanzibar,’ says Mr. New, ‘a caravan numbering fifty-seven men was packed, signed, sealed, addressed, and despatched, like so many packets of useful commodities, to the service and succor of Dr. Livingstone.’ What says England to all this?”
The Leeds (England) “Mercury” of the date last mentioned remarks:
“The success of Mr. Stanley in his search for Dr. Livingstone is one of the most brilliant chapters in the history of newspaper enterprise. The expedition was an unprecedented one, and when it was first reported in this country there were few who did not laugh at it as a Yankee notion, conceived and started for the glorification of the New York ‘Herald’ and to gratify the vanity of Mr. James Gordon Bennett. The result has shown not only how little there was to laugh at, but how much there was to admire in such a project.”
The journals of continental Europe were not less emphatic in awarding unmixed praise to the successful expedition of the American journal, and Geographical Societies, from Italy to Russia, awarded gold medals to Mr. Stanley in recognition of his services in behalf of geographical knowledge.
Earl Granville, upon the receipt of Dr. Livingstone’s despatches, forwarded from Paris by Mr. Stanley, directed an official acknowledgment, which was as follows:
“Foreign Office, August 1, 1872.
“Sir—I am directed by Earl Granville to acknowledge the receipt of a package containing letters and despatches from Dr. Livingstone, which you were good enough to deliver to Her Majesty’s Ambassador at Paris for transmission to this department, and I am to convey to you His Lordship’s thanks for taking charge of these interesting documents.
“I am, your most obedient, humble servant,
“ENFIELD.
“Henry M. Stanley, Esq.”
And on the next day Earl Granville himself wrote the following letter.
“August 2, 1872.
“Sir—I was not aware until you mentioned it that there was any doubt as to the authenticity of Dr. Livingstone’s despatches, which you delivered to Lord Lyons on the 31st of July; but, in consequence of what you have said, I have inquired into the matter, and I find that Mr. Hammond, the Under Secretary of the Foreign Office, and Mr. Wyld, the head of the Consular and Slave Trade Department, have not the slightest doubt as to the genuineness of the papers which have been received from Lord Lyons, and which are being printed.
“I cannot omit this opportunity of expressing to you my admiration of the qualities which have enabled you to achieve the object of your mission, and to attain a result which has been hailed with so much enthusiasm both in the United States and in this country.
“I am, sir, your obedient,
“GRANVILLE.
“Henry M. Stanley, Esq.”
As if all this were not enough we have the testimony of the Queen’s speech, delivered for Queen Victoria by commission, on the occasion of the prorogation of Parliament, on Saturday, August 10, 1872. The Queen said: “My government has taken steps intended to prepare the way for dealing more effectually with the slave trade on the east coast of Africa.” The London “Times” of the following Monday, in commenting on this portion of Her Majesty’s speech, said:
“This paragraph is the most significant part of the throne speech, and we suppose it is not an error to connect the announcement which has just been made by Her Majesty with the recent discovery of Dr. Livingstone and the despatches to the Foreign Office brought by Mr. Stanley, of the New York ‘Herald,’ from the great traveler.”
It would be impossible, it is believed, to more completely demonstrate the hearty acknowledgment of the British Government of the success of the American enterprise—an acknowledgment which no earthly power but that of unanswerable truth could have compelled that Government to make.
From Zanzibar Stanley sailed across the Indian Ocean to Bombay, whence he transmitted despatches announcing the success which had crowned his long labors and journeyings. It was this intelligence, transmitted so fully through the London office of the New York “Herald,” which so gratifyingly startled the world about the time of the anniversary of American independence in 1872. From Bombay, Mr. Stanley proceeded to Europe by way of the Suez canal, reaching Aden, southwestern Arabia, July 11; Port Said, the head of the Suez canal, on the 18th; and arrived at Marseilles, in France, on the 24th. Here he was received with kindest welcome, and to some extent besieged by gentlemen of his own profession, who transmitted to their journals accounts of his doings. At Paris a few days afterwards he was received with exhilarating hospitality by the American residents of the city, and was greatly lionized generally. Breakfasting with Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, American Minister, he there met among other distinguished guests, General William T. Sherman, the commanding officer of the Army of the United States, about completing a tour of Europe and the Levant. The General occupied much of the time in examining Mr. Stanley’s maps, and discharging some of his fund of caustic humor on the prevalence of the East African slave trade. On July 30th, Minister Washburne and many other Americans in Paris extended a formal invitation to Mr. Stanley to meet them at a banquet, where they might in a body testify their “high appreciation of the indomitable courage, energy, and perseverance which crowned with such brilliant success your efforts to find Dr. Livingstone, as well as to express their sense of the enterprise and liberality of the New York ‘Herald’ in sending you forth on such an extraordinary mission.”
Mr. Stanley’s reply to this cordial invitation was so modest, so happily expressed, that it is worthy of a place here:
Hotel Du Helder, Paris, July 30, 1872.
Gentlemen—I have received your letter of this date asking me to accept the compliment of a dinner from my compatriots and friends now resident in Paris, to be given in acknowledgment of the “enterprise and liberality of the New York Herald” in sending out an expedition in search of Dr. Livingstone, as well as of the extraordinary good fortune and perfect success which, under Providence, attended the footsteps of the expedition I had the honor to command. Gentlemen, believe me, I am deeply conscious of the great honor you would do me, and through me not only to the journal I have the pleasure of serving, but to the patient, resolute, brave and Christian gentleman whom I left in Central Africa. I therefore gladly accept your invitation, and shall be pleased to meet you July 31 at any house or place that may be deemed most convenient. I have the honor to be, gentlemen, your obedient and humble servant,
HENRY M. STANLEY.
To His Excellency E. B. Washburne, Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America, and many others.
The meeting was one of great enjoyment. The American Minister, after a happy speech, richly flavored with American allusions, proposed the guest of the evening—“Henry M. Stanley, the discoverer of the discoverer: we honor him for his courage, energy, and fidelity. We rejoice in the triumphant success of his mission, which has gained him imperishable renown and conferred additional credit on the American name.” To this the traveller responded felicitously, and was specially eloquent when speaking of the great explorer of Africa. A number of distinguished gentlemen—artists, journalists, public men—addressed the meeting. The assemblage adjourned at a late hour, Mr. Stanley strongly impressed with the difference between a Parisian banquet and an African supper of manioc and hippopotamus. Other like honors flew upon him, thick and fast. From scientific and literary bodies and from distinguished persons he received invitations to accept which would have occupied him a year. These things do not go to the author of a hoax, however magnificent.
The traveller-correspondent could not long remain at the fashionable metropolis, and at once departed for England. His reception in England was most cordial on the part of most intelligent persons, but there was a feeling of national chagrin, if one may so speak, on account of the discovery of Dr. Livingstone having been brought about through American enterprise, which vented itself in no little carping criticism and the discharge of British atrabilariousness. Hence at once originated that skepticism in regard to the discovery of the great explorer which continued to becloud some minds and journals for a number of weeks. But the publication of Dr. Livingstone’s several official despatches—already largely quoted from in this work—and the prompt production of other evidence, heretofore mentioned, brought the English people quite generally to an acknowledgment of the truth. At the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which convened at Brighton, August 14th, W. B. Carpenter, LL.D., in the chair, Mr. Stanley’s successful mission was handsomely mentioned. He was twice compelled to rise, in acknowledgment of calls and cheers. Ex-Emperor Napoleon III. of France, was present and joined in the applause. Here at another meeting, Mr. Stanley read a paper on Tanganyika Lake, which was greatly praised. About this time there were many meetings of scientific associations at Brighton, to all of which Mr. Stanley was invited. On the occasion of what has been called “the Brighton Banquet,” it being a dinner given to the British Association by the Brighton and Sussex Medical Society, Mr. Stanley appeared late in the evening, and, being soon called out, responded to some remarks of a previous speaker in such way as to create some feeling. Good nature at last prevailed, and harmony was restored among the English savants.
But his honors in England did not stop below the recognition of his fine success by royalty itself. Early in September he was invited to an interview with Queen Victoria, and afterwards dined with her and the members of the royal family present at Balmoral. Upon this occasion the Queen is reported to have expressed to him in the most warm and friendly terms her congratulations on the successful result of the American enterprise in furnishing intelligence of the English traveller in Africa, his condition of health, his discoveries, and his hopes for the future previous to his return to Great Britain.
The Great Explorer Still in Search of the Sources of the Nile — His Letters to the English Government on His Explorations — Correspondence with Lord Stanley, Lord Clarendon, Earl Granville, Dr. Kirk and James Gordon Bennett, Jr. — His Own Descriptions of Central Africa and the Supposed Sources of the Nile — The Country and People — A Nation of Cannibals — Beautiful Women — Gorillas — The Explorer’s Plans for the Future.
When Mr. Stanley bade good-bye to Dr. Livingstone in Unyanyembe, the explorer entrusted to the care of the correspondent despatches to the government, his journal, addressed to his daughter, and copies of letters of which former messengers had been robbed. The letters, old and new, to the representative of the British government at Zanzibar, Dr. Kirk, and to different members of the British cabinet, were allowed to be published. They give a full account of Dr. Livingstone’s explorations among the supposed true sources of the Nile, and abundantly establish the complete success of the “Herald” search expedition. The letters to the British authorities thus sent to the press, August 1, 1872, through the courtesy of Earl Granville, were: 1. A letter from Dr. Livingstone to Lord Stanley, under date of November 15, 1870; 2. Two letters of November 1, 1871, to Lord Clarendon; 3. A letter of November 14, 1871, to Earl Granville; 4. Letter of October 30, 1871, to Dr. Kirk, British Consul at Zanzibar; 5. Letter of December 18, 1871 to Earl Granville; 6. Letter of February 20, 1872, to Earl Granville.
The first of these despatches to his government is from “Bambarre, Manyema country, say about one hundred and fifty miles west of Ujiji, Nov. 15, 1870,” addressed to Lord Stanley, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In this dispatch, much is contained which Dr. Livingstone orally related to Mr. Stanley, of the “Herald,” and which has already appeared in this work. The country of the Manyema, reputed cannibals, is described generally thus:
“The country is extremely beautiful, but difficult to travel over. The mountains of light gray granite stand like islands in new red sandstone, and mountain and valley are all clad in a mantle of different shades of green. The vegetation is indescribably rank. Through the grass—if grass it can be called, which is over half an inch in diameter in the stalk and from ten to twelve feet high—nothing but elephants can walk. The leaves of this megatherium grass are armed with minute spikes, which, as we worm our way along elephant walks, rub disagreeably on the side of the face where the gun is held, and the hand is made sore by fending it off the other side for hours. The rains were fairly set in by November; and in the mornings, or after a shower, these leaves were loaded with a moisture which wet us to the bone. The valleys are deeply undulating, and in each innumerable dells have to be crossed. There may be only a thread of water at the bottom, but the mud, mire or (scottice) ‘glaur’ is grevious; thirty or forty yards of the path on each side of the stream are worked by the feet of passengers into an adhesive compound. By placing a foot on each side of the narrow way one may waddle a little distance along, but the rank crop of grasses, gingers, and bushes cannot spare the few inches of soil required for the side of the foot, and down he comes into the slough. The path often runs along the bed of the rivulet for sixty or more yards, as if he who first cut it out went that distance seeking for a part of the forest less dense for his axe. In other cases the muale palm, from which here, as in Madagascar, grass cloth is woven and called by the same name, ‘lamba,’ has taken possession of the valley. The leaf stalks, as thick as a strong man’s arm, fall off and block up all passage save by a path made and mixed up by the feet of elephants and buffaloes; the slough therein is groan-compelling and deep.
“I’LL SHOOT YOU, IF YOU DROP THAT BOX.”
“Some of the numerous rivers which in this region flow into Lualaba are covered with living vegetable bridges—a species of dark glossy-leaved grass, with its roots and leaves, felts itself into a mat that covers the whole stream. When stepped upon it yields twelve or fifteen inches, and that amount of water rises upon the leg. At every step the foot has to be raised high enough to place it on the unbent mass in front. This high stepping fatigues like walking on deep snow. Here and there holes appear which we could not sound with a stick six feet long; they gave the impression that anywhere one might plump through and finish the chapter. Where the water is shallow the lotus, or sacred lily, sends its roots to the bottom and spreads its broad leaves over the floating bridge so as to make believe that the mat is its own, but the grass referred to is the real felting and supporting agent, for it often performs duty as bridge where no lilies grow. The bridge is called by Manyema ‘kintefwetefwe,’ as if he who first coined it was gasping for breath after plunging over a mile of it.
“Between each district of Manyema large belts of the primeval forest still stand. Into these the sun, though vertical, cannot penetrate, except by sending down at midday thin pencils of rays into the gloom. The rain water stands for months in stagnant pools made by the feet of elephants; and the dead leaves decay on the damp soil, and make the water of the numerous rivulets of the color of strong tea. The climbing plants, from the size of whipcord to that of a man-of-war’s hawser, are so numerous the ancient path is the only passage. When one of the giant trees falls across the road it forms a wall breast high to be climbed over, and the mass of tangled ropes brought down makes cutting a path round it a work of time which travellers never undertake.”
At this time, Dr. Livingstone was not persuaded that the Manyema were men-eaters. Toward the conclusion of his letter to Lord Stanley, he thus describes them:
“I lived in what may be called the Tipperary of Manyema, and they are certainly a bloody people among themselves. But they are very far from being in appearance like the ugly negroes on the West Coast. Finely formed heads are common, and generally men and women are vastly superior to the slaves of Zanzibar and elsewhere. We must go deeper than phrenology to account for their low moral tone. If they are cannibals they are not ostentatiously so. The neighboring tribes all assert that they are men-eaters, and they themselves laughingly admit the charge. But they like to impose on the credulous, and they showed the skull of a recent victim to horrify one of my people. I found it to be the skull of a gorilla, or soko—the first I knew of its existence here—and this they do eat. If I had believed a tenth of what I heard from traders, I might never have entered the country. Their people told tales with shocking circumstantiality, as if of eye witnesses, that could not be committed to paper, or even spoken about beneath the breath. Indeed, one wishes them to vanish from memory. I have not yet been able to make up my mind whether the Manyema are cannibals or not. I have offered goods of sufficient value to tempt any of them to call me to see a cannibal feast in the dark forests where these orgies are said to be held, but hitherto in vain. All the real evidence yet obtained would elicit from a Scotch jury the verdict only of ‘not proven.’”
The second despatch, a year later, is devoted to the expression of thanks to Lord Clarendon, on account of the expedition of search under Mr. Young, of which an account has already been given; to an explanation of Ali Moosa’s story of the explorer’s death, and an earnest request that the money expended on him and his fellow-impostors might be regained.
The third document of the series, being also a letter to Lord Clarendon, presents an account of Dr. Livingstone’s explorations and views on the watershed of the Nile more in extenso than anywhere else given. It is certainly one of the most interesting and valuable contributions to modern science. The readers of this volume cannot but feel that a large share of this interesting document may appropriately be quoted here.
“I have ascertained that the watershed of the Nile is a broad upland between ten degrees and twelve degrees south latitude, and from 4,000 to 5,000 feet above the level of the sea. Mountains stand on it at various points, which, though not apparently very high, are between 6,000 and 7,000 feet of actual altitude. The watershed is over 700 miles in length, from west to east. The springs that rise on it are almost innumerable—that is, it would take a large part of a man’s life to count them. A bird’s-eye view of some parts of the watershed would resemble the frost vegetation on window panes. They all begin in an ooze at the head of a slightly depressed valley. A few hundred yards down the quantity of water from oozing earthen sponge forms a brisk perennial burn or brook a few feet broad, and deep enough to require a bridge. These are the ultimate or primary sources of the great rivers that flow to the north in the great Nile valley. The primaries unite and form streams in general larger than the Isis at Oxford or Avon at Hamilton, and may be called secondary sources. They never dry, but unite again into four large lines of drainage, the head waters or mains of the river of Egypt. These four are each called by the natives Lualaba, which, if not too pedantic, may be spoken of as lacustrine rivers, extant specimens of those which, in pre-historic times, abounded in Africa, and which in the south are still called by Bechuanas ‘Melapo,’ in the north, by Arabs, ‘Wadys;’ both words meaning the same thing—river bed in which no water ever now flows. Two of the four great rivers mentioned fall into the central Lualaba, or Webb’s Lake River, and then we have but two main lines of drainage as depicted nearly by Ptolemy.
“In passing over sixty miles of latitude I waded thirty-two primary sources from calf to waist deep, and requiring from twenty minutes to an hour and a quarter to cross stream and sponge. This would give about one source to every two miles. A Suaheli friend in passing along part of the Lake Bangweolo during six days counted twenty-two from thigh to waist deep. This lake is on the watershed, for the village at which I observed on its northwest shore was a few seconds into eleven degrees south. I tried to cross it in order to measure the breadth accurately. The first stage to an inhabited island was about twenty-four miles. From the highest point here the tops of the trees, evidently lifted by the mirage, could be seen on the second stage and the third stage; the mainland was said to be as far as this beyond it. But my canoe men had stolen the canoe and got a hint that the real owners were in pursuit, and got into a flurry to return home.
“The length of this lake is, at a very moderate estimate, 150 miles. It gives forth a large body of water in the Luapula; yet lakes are in no sense sources for no large river begins in a lake; but this and others serve an important purpose in the phenomena of the Nile. It is one large lake, and, unlike the Okara, which, according to Suaheli, who travelled long in our company, is three or four lakes run into one huge Victoria Nianza, gives out a large river which, on departing out of Moero, is still larger. These men had spent many years east of Okara, and could scarcely be mistaken in saying that of the three or four lakes there only one (the Okara) gives off its waters to the north. The ‘White Nile’ of Speke, less by a full half than the Shire out of Nyassa (for it is only eighty or ninety yards broad), can scarcely be named in comparison with the central or Webb’s Lualaba, of from two thousand to six thousand yards, in relation to the phenomena of the Nile. The structure and economy of the watershed answer very much the same end as the great lacustrine rivers, but I cannot at present copy a lost despatch which explained that. The mountains on the watershed are probably what Ptolemy, for reasons now unknown, called the Mountains of the Moon. From their bases I found that the springs of the Nile do unquestionably arise. This is just what Ptolemy put down, and is true geography. We must accept the fountains, and nobody but Philistines will reject the mountains, though we cannot conjecture the reason for the name.
“Before leaving the subject of the watershed, I may add that I know about six hundred miles of it, but am not yet satisfied, for unfortunately the seventh hundred is the most interesting of the whole. I have a very strong impression that in the last hundred miles the fountains of the Nile, mentioned to Herodotus by the Secretary of Minerva in the city of Sais do arise, not like all the rest, from oozing earthen sponges, but from an earthen mound, and half the water flows northward to Egypt, the other half south to Inner Ethiopia. These fountains, at no great distance off, become large rivers, though at the mound they are not more than ten miles apart. That is, one fountain rising on the northeast of the mound becomes Bartle Frere’s Lualaba, and it flows into one of the lakes proper, Kamolondo, of the central line of drainage; Webb’s Lualaba, the second fountain rising on the Northwest, becomes (Sir Paraffin) Young’s Lualaba, which passing through Lake Lincoln and becoming Loeki or Lomame, and joining the central line too, goes north to Egypt. The third fountain on the southwest, Palmerston’s, becomes the Liambia or Upper Zambesi; while the fourth, Oswell’s fountain, becomes the Kafue, and falls into Zambesi in Inner Ethiopia.
“More time has been spent in the exploration than I ever anticipated. Many a weary foot I trod ere I got a clear idea of the drainage of the great Nile valley. The most intelligent natives and traders thought that all the rivers of the upper part of that valley flowed into Tanganyika. But the barometers told me that to do so the water must flow up hill. The great rivers and the great lakes all make their waters converge into the deep trough of the valley, which is a full inch of the barometer lower than the Upper Tanganyika.
“Let me explain, but in no boastful style, the mistakes of others who have bravely striven to solve the ancient problem, and it will be seen that I have cogent reasons for following the painful, plodding investigation to its conclusion. Poor Speke’s mistake was a foregone conclusion. When he discovered the Victoria Nyansa he at once jumped to the conclusion that therein lay the sources of the river of Egypt, ‘20,000 square miles of water,’ confused by sheer immensity. Ptolemy’s small lake, Coloc, is a more correct representation of the actual size of that one of three or four lakes which alone sends its outflow to the north. Its name is Okara. Lake Kavirondo is three days distant from it, but connected by a narrow arm. Lake Naibash, or Neibash, is four days from Kavirondo. Baringo is ten days distant, and discharges by a river, the Nagardabash, to the northeast.
“These three or four lakes, which have been described by several intelligent Suaheli, who have lived for many years on their shores, were run into one huge Victoria Nyanza. But no sooner did Speke and Grant turn their faces to this lake, to prove that it contained the Nile fountains, than they turned their backs to the springs of the river of Egypt, which are between four hundred and five hundred miles south of the most southerly portion of the Victoria Lake. Every step of their heroic and really splendid achievement of following the river down took them further and further from the sources they sought. But for the devotion to the foregone conclusion the sight of the little ‘White Nile,’ as unable to account for the great river, they must have turned off to the west down into the deep trough of the great valley, and there found lacustrine rivers amply sufficient to account for the Nile and all its phenomena.
“But all that can in modern times and in common modesty be fairly claimed is the re-discovery of what had sunk into oblivion, like the circumnavigation of Africa by the Phœnician admirals of one of the Pharaohs about B. C. 600. He was not believed because he reported that in passing round Libya he had the sun on his right hand. This, to us who have gone round the Cape from east to west, stamps his tale as genuine. The predecessors of Ptolemy probably gained their information from men who visited this very region, for in the second century of our era he gave in substance what we now find to be genuine geography.
“The geographical results of four arduous trips in different directions in the Manyema country are briefly as follows:—The great river, Webb’s Lualaba, in the center of the Nile valley, makes a great bend to the west, soon after leaving Lake Moero, of at least one hundred and eighty miles; then, turning to the north for some distance, it makes another large sweep west of about one hundred and twenty miles, in the course of which about thirty miles of southing are made; it then draws round to northeast, receives the Lomani, or Loeki, a large river which flows through Lake Lincoln. After the union a large lake is formed, with many inhabited islands in it; but this has still to be explored. It is the fourth large lake in the central line of drainage, and cannot be Lake Albert; for, assuming Speke’s longitude of Ujiji to be pretty correct, and my reckoning not enormously wrong, the great central lacustrine river is about five degrees west of Upper and Lower Tanganyika.
“Beyond the fourth lake the water passes, it is said, into large reedy lakes, and is in all probability Petherick’s branch—the main stream of the Nile—in distinction from the smaller eastern arm which Speke, Grant, and Baker took to be the river of Egypt. In my attempts to penetrate further and further I had but little hope of ultimate success, for the great amount of westing led to a continued effort to suspend the judgment, lest, after all, I might be exploring the Congo instead of the Nile, and it was only after the two great western drains fell into the central main, and left but the two great lacustrine rivers of Ptolemy, that I felt pretty sure of being on the right track.
“The great bends west probably form one side of the great rivers above that geographical loop, the other side being Upper Tanganyika and the Lake River Albert. A waterfall is reported to exist between Tanganyika and Albert Nyanza, but I could not go to it; nor have I seen the connecting link between the two—the upper side of the loop—though I believe it exists.
“The Manyema are certainly cannibals, but it was long ere I could get evidence more positive than would have led a Scotch jury to give a verdict of ‘not proven.’ They eat only enemies killed in war; they seem as if instigated by revenge in their man-eating orgies, and on these occasions they do not like a stranger to see them. I offered a large reward in vain to any one who would call me to witness a cannibal feast. Some intelligent men have told me that the meat is not nice and made them dream of the dead. The women never partake, and I am glad of it, for many of them far down Lualaba are very pretty; they bathe three or four times a day and are expert divers for oysters.
“Markets are held at stated times and the women attend them in large numbers, dressed in their best. They are light colored, have straight noses, finely formed heads, small hands and feet and perfect forms; they are keen traders, and look on the market as a great institution; to haggle and joke and laugh and cheat seem the enjoyments of life. The population, especially west of the river, is prodigiously large.
“Near Lomani the Bakuss or Bakoons cultivate coffee, and drink it highly scented with vanilla. Food of all kinds is extremely abundant and cheap. The men smelt iron from the black oxide ore, and are very good smiths; they also smelt copper from the ore and make large ornaments very cheaply. They are generally fine, tall, strapping fellows, far superior to the Zanzibar slaves, and nothing of the West Coast negro, from whom our ideas of Africans are chiefly derived, appears among them; no prognathous jaws, barndoor mouth, nor lark heels are seen. Their defects arise from absolute ignorance of all the world.
“There is not a single great chief in all Manyema. No matter what name the different divisions of people bear—Manyema, Balegga, Babire, Bazire, Bokoos—there is no political cohesion; not one king or kingdom. Each head man is independent of every other. The people are industrious, and most of them cultivate the soil largely. We found them every where very honest. When detained at Bambarre we had to send our goats and fowls to the Manyema villages to prevent them being all stolen by the Zanzibar slaves.
“Manyema land is the only country in Central Africa I have seen where cotton is not cultivated, spun, and woven. The clothing is that known in Madagascar as ‘lambas’ or grass cloth, made from the leaves of the ‘Muale’ palm.”
This despatch, it will be observed, is about a year later than the one to Lord Stanley, in which the statement occurs that the fact as to whether the Manyema were man-eaters was “not proven,” though the explorer observed that they ate the gorilla, of which beast Dr. Livingstone evidently has a rather favorable opinion, as respects his disposition, and as surely holds his gross stupidity as clearly demonstrated. In the development of instinct, there appear to be several animals in Africa approaching nearer the capacity of reflection than the gorilla.
The next despatch is to Earl Granville, and is dated at Ujiji, November, 1871. It is almost wholly official, and relates in a clear and most forcible manner, the insurmountable difficulties by reason of which he had been forced to cease explorations at a time when a little longer work would most probably have been crowned with complete success. It is in this despatch that Dr. Livingstone relates the particulars of the horrid massacre at Nyanme, the fearful outlines of which have appeared in Mr. Stanley’s letter already quoted. On his return to Ujiji, Dr. Livingstone narrowly escaped death three times in a single day from the savages, who would not be persuaded that he did not belong to “the traders” guilty of the massacre.
The despatch to Dr. Kirk, Consul at Zanzibar, is of interest, as showing how the explorer had been annoyed, pained, and his plans frustrated by the inefficiency of those charged with sending him supplies from Zanzibar. In view of the dispute that has arisen upon this subject among certain representatives of public opinion in the United States and England, it may be well to show whether Dr. Livingstone himself thought he had been well or ill treated. In a postscript to this communication, he says, with evident reluctance and evident feeling:
“P. S.—November 16, 1871.—I regret the necessity of bringing the foregoing very unpleasant subject before you, but I have just received letters and information which make the matter doubly serious. Mr. Churchill informed me by a letter of September 19, 1870, that Her Majesty’s government had most kindly sent £1,000 for supplies, to be forwarded to me. Some difficulties had occurred to prevent £500 worth from starting, but in the beginning of November all were removed. But it appears that you had recourse to slaves again, and one of these slaves informs me that goods and slaves all remained at Bagamoio four months, or till near the end of February, 1871. No one looked near them during that time, but a rumor reached them that the Consul was coming, and off they started, two days before your arrival, not on their business, but on some private trip of your own. These slaves came to Unyanyembe in May last, and there they lay till war broke out and gave them, in July, a good excuse to lie there still.
“A whole year has thus been spent in feasting slaves on £500 sent by government to me. Like the man who was tempted to despair when he broke the photograph of his wife, I feel inclined to relinquish hope of ever getting help from Zanzibar to finish the little work I have still to do. I wanted men, not slaves, and free men are abundant at Zanzibar; but if the matter is committed to Ludha instead of an energetic Arab, with some little superintendence by your dragoman or others, I may wait twenty years and your slaves feast and fail.
D. L.
“I will just add that the second batch of slaves had, like the first, two freemen as the leaders, and one died of smallpox. The freemen in the first party of slaves were Shereef and Awathe. I enclose also a shameless overcharge in Ludha’s bill. $364 061⁄2.—D. L.”
This should appear to be a complete justification of Mr. Stanley’s energetic animadversions upon the general maladministration of affairs at Zanzibar by the British Consulate there so far as they were related to Dr. Livingstone. It should be a source of honest congratulation to every American that a citizen of the United States, representing one of the most widely circulated public journals of the nation, energetically sent forward “men, not slaves,” and furnished supplies by means of which, it may reasonably be expected, the explorer may proceed with his great work and accomplish the object so dear to his admirable ambition.
Dr. Livingstone’s next dispatch is to Earl Granville, from Ujiji, December 18, 1871. It is almost wholly of an official nature, containing his theory, already herein set forth, of the watershed of the Nile, but contains a paragraph relating the arrival of the “Herald” expedition, which is well worthy of quotation:
“A vague rumor reached Ujiji in the beginning of last month that an Englishman had come to Unyanyembe with boats, horses, men, and goods in abundance. It was in vain to conjecture who this could be; and my eager inquiries were met by answers so contradictory that I began to doubt if any stranger had come at all. But one day, I cannot say which, for I was three weeks too fast in my reckoning, my man Susi came dashing up in great excitement, and gasped out, ‘An Englishman coming; see him!’ and off he ran to meet him. The American flag at the head of the caravan told me the nationality of the stranger. It was Henry M. Stanley, the travelling correspondent of the New York ‘Herald,’ sent by the son of the editor, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., at an expense of £5,000, to obtain correct information about me if living, and if dead to bring home my bones. The kindness was extreme, and made my whole frame thrill with excitement and gratitude. I had been left nearly destitute by the moral idiot Shereef selling off my goods for slaves and ivory for himself. My condition was sufficiently forlorn, for I had but a few articles of barter left of what I had taken the precaution to leave here, in case of extreme need. The strange news Mr. Stanley had to tell to one for years out of communication with the world was quite reviving. Appetite returned, and in a week I began to feel strong. Having men and goods, and information that search for an outlet of the Tanganyika was desired by Sir Roderick Murchison, we went for a month’s cruise down its northern end. This was a pleasure trip compared to the weary tramping of all the rest of my work; but an outflow we did not find.”
The opening paragraph of the dispatch from which this is taken is so finely characteristic, that it should not be omitted. Dr. Livingstone began his letter to Lord Clarendon’s successor in this beautifully courteous manner:
“My Lord—The despatch of Lord Clarendon, dated 31st May, 1870, came to this place on the 13th ult., and its very kindly tone and sympathy afforded me a world of encouragement. Your lordship will excuse me in saying that with my gratitude there mingled sincere sorrow that the personal friend who signed it was no more.”