Up to this moment my mind had verged upon non-belief in his existence, and now a nagging doubt intruded itself into my mind that this white man could not be the object of my quest, or if he were, he would somehow contrive to disappear before my eyes would be satisfied with a view of him.
Consequently, though the expedition was organized for this supreme moment, and every movement of it had been confidently ordered with the view of discovering him, yet when the moment of discovery came, and the man himself stood revealed before me, this constantly recurring doubt contributed not a little to make me unprepared for it. ‘It may not be Livingstone after all,’ doubt suggested. If this is he, what shall I say to him? My imagination had not taken this question into consideration before. All around me was the immense crowd, hushed and expectant, and wondering how the scene would develop itself.
Under all these circumstances I could do no more than exercise some restraint and reserve, so I walked up to him, and, doffing my helmet, bowed and said in an inquiring tone,—
‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume?’
Smiling cordially, he lifted his cap, and answered briefly, ‘Yes.’
This ending all scepticism on my part, my face betrayed the earnestness of my satisfaction as I extended my hand and added,—
‘I thank God, Doctor, that I have been permitted to see you.’[14]
In the warm grasp he gave my hand, and the heartiness of his voice, I felt that he also was sincere and earnest as he replied,—
‘I feel most thankful that I am here to welcome you.’
The principal Arabs now advanced, and I was presented by the Doctor to Sayed bin Majid, a relative of the Prince of Zanzibar; to Mahommed bin Sali, the Governor of Ujiji; to Abed bin Suliman, a rich merchant; to Mahommed bin Gharib, a constant good friend; and to many other notable friends and neighbours.
Then, remarking that the sun was very hot, the Doctor led the way to the verandah of his house, which was close by and fronted the market-place. The vast crowd moved with us.
After the Arab chiefs had been told the latest news of the war of their friends with Mirambo, with salaams, greetings, and warm hand-shakings, and comforting words to their old friend David (Livingstone), they retired from the verandah, and a large portion of the crowd followed them.
Then Livingstone caught sight of my people still standing in the hot sunshine by their packs, and extending his hand, said to me,—
‘I am afraid I have been very remiss, too. Let me ask you now to share my house with me. It is not a very fine house, but it is rain-proof and cool, and there are enough spare rooms to lodge you and your goods. Indeed, one room is far too large for my use.’
I expressed my gratification at his kind offer in suitable terms, and accordingly gave directions to the chiefs of the caravan about the storing of the goods and the purchase of rations; and Livingstone charged his three servants, Susi, Chuma, and Hamoyda, to assist them. Relieved thus happily and comfortably from all further trouble about my men, I introduced the subject of breakfast, and asked permission of the Doctor to give a few directions to my cook.
The Doctor became all at once anxious on that score. Was my cook a good one? Could he prepare a really satisfactory breakfast? If not, he had a gem of a female cook—and here he laughed, and continued, ‘She is the oddest, most eccentric woman I have ever seen. She is quite a character, but I must give her due credit for her skill in cooking. She is exceedingly faithful, clean, and deft at all sorts of cooking fit for a toothless old man like myself. But, perhaps, the two combined would be still better able to satisfy you?’
Halima, a stout, buxom woman of thirty, was brought at once to our presence, grinning, but evidently nervous and shy. She was not uninteresting by any means, and as she opened her capacious mouth, two complete and perfect rows of teeth were revealed.
‘Halima,’ began Livingstone, in kind, grave tones, ‘my young brother has travelled far, and is hungry. Do you think you and Ferajji, his cook, can manage to give us something nice to eat? What have you?’
‘I can have some dampers, and kid kabobs, and tea or coffee ready immediately, master, if you like; and by sending to the market for something, we can do better.’
‘Well, Halima, we will leave it to you and Ferajji; only do your best, for this is a great day for us all in Ujiji.’
‘Yes, master. Sure to do that.’
I now thought of Livingstone’s letters, and calling Kaif-Halek, the bearer of them, I delivered into the Doctor’s hands a long-delayed letter-bag that I had discovered at Unyanyembe, the cover of which was dated November 1st, 1870.
A gleam of joy lighted up his face, but he made no remark, as he stepped on to the verandah and resumed his seat. Resting the letter-bag on his knees, he presently, after a minute’s abstraction in thought, lifted his face to me and said, ‘Now sit down by my side, and tell me the news.’
‘But what about your letters, Doctor? You will find the news, I dare say, in them. I am sure you must be impatient to read your letters after such a long silence.’
‘Ah!’ he replied, with a sigh, ‘I have waited years for letters; and the lesson of patience I have well learned!—I can surely wait a few hours longer! I would rather hear the general news, so pray tell me how the old world outside of Africa is getting along.’
Consenting, I sat down, and began to give a résumé of the exciting events that had transpired since he had disappeared in Africa, in March, 1866.
When I had ended the story of triumphs and reverses which had taken place between 1866 and 1871, my tent-boys advanced to spread a crimson table-cloth, and arrange the dishes and smoking platters heaped up profusely with hot dampers, white rice, maize porridge, kid kabobs, fricasseed chicken, and stewed goat-meat. There were also a number of things giving variety to the meal, such as honey from Ukawendi, forest plums, and wild-fruit jam, besides sweet milk and clabber, and then a silver tea-pot full of ‘best tea,’ and beautiful china cups and saucers to drink it from. Before we could commence this already magnificent breakfast, the servants of Sayed bin Majid, Mohammed bin Sali, and Muini Kheri brought three great trays loaded with cakes, curries, hashes, and stews, and three separate hillocks of white rice, and we looked at one another with a smile of wonder at this Ujiji banquet.
We drew near to it, and the Doctor uttered the grace: ‘For what we are going to receive, make us, O Lord, sincerely thankful.’
I need not linger over a description of Livingstone. All this may be found in books, in mine among the number; but I will note some other discoveries relating to him which I made, which may not be found in books. At various times I have remarked that the question most frequently given to me has been: ‘Why did not Livingstone return of his own accord when he found his energies waning, age creeping on him and fettering him in its strong bonds, his means so reduced that he was unable to accomplish anything, even if youth could have been restored to him?’
Briefly, I will answer that his return to home and kindred was prevented by an over-scrupulous fidelity to a promise that he had made to his friend Sir R. Murchison—that he would set the matter of that watershed north of the Tanganyika at rest. But, strive as he might, misfortune dogged him; dauntlessly he urged his steps forward over the high plateaus between Nyasa and Tanganyika, but, steadily, evil, in various disguises, haunted him. First, his transport animals died, his Indian escort malingered, and halted, faint-hearted, on the road, until they were dismissed; then his Johanna escort played the same trick and deserted him, after which his porters under various pretences absconded; the natives took advantage of his weakness, and tyrannised over him at every opportunity. A canoe capsized on Lake Bangweolo, which accident deprived him of his medicine-chest; then, malarial diseases, finding the body now vulnerable and open to attack, assailed him, poisoned his blood, and ravished his strength. Malignant ulcers flourished on the muscles of his limbs, dysentery robbed him of the vital constituent of his body. Still, after a time, he rose from his sick-bed, and pressed on unfalteringly.
The watershed, when he reached it, grew to be a tougher problem than he had conceived it to be. On the northern slope, a countless multitude of streams poured northward, into an enormously wide valley. At its lowest depression, they were met by others, rushing to meet them from the north and east. United, they formed a river of such volume and current that he paused in wonder. So remote from all known rivers—Nile, Niger, Congo—and yet so large! Heedless of his beggared state, forgetful of his past miseries, unconscious of his weakness, his fidelity to his promise drives him on with the zeal of an honourable fanatic. He must fulfil his promise, or die in the attempt!
We, lapped as we are in luxury, feeding on the daintiest diet, affecting an epicurean cynicism, with the noble virtues of our youth and earlier life blunted from too close contact with animal pleasures, can only smile contemptuously, compassionating these morbid ideas of honour! This man, however, verging upon old age, is so beset by these severely rigid scruples of his that he must go on.
He traces that voluminous river until it enters a shallow lake called Bangweolo, which spreads out on either hand beyond sight, like a sea. He attempts to navigate it; his intention is frustrated by a calamity—the last of his medicines are lost, his instruments are damaged. He determines to go by land, reaches Cazembe, and by the natives he is told of other lakes and rivers without end, all trending northward. He directs his steps north and west to gather the clues to the riverine labyrinth, until he is, perforce, halted by utter exhaustion of his means. He meets an Arab, begs a loan for mere subsistence; and, on that account, must needs march whither the Arab goes.
Hearing of a caravan bound coastward, he writes a letter to Zanzibar in 1867, and directs that goods should be sent to him at Ujiji; and, bidding his soul possess itself with patience, he wanders with the Arab merchant for a whole year, and, in 1869, arrives at Ujiji. There is nothing there for him; but a draft on Zanzibar suffices to purchase, at an extortionate charge, a few bags of beads and a few bales of cloth, with which he proposes to march due west to strike that great river discovered two years before so far south. This is loyalty to a friend with a vengeance!
The friend to whom he had given his promise, had he but known to what desperate straits the old man was reduced, would long ago have absolved him. Livingstone was now in his fifty-seventh year, toothless, ill-clad, a constant victim to disease, meagre and gaunt from famine: but Livingstone’s word was not a thing to be obliterated by forgetfulness—he had made it his creed, and resolved to be true to it.
Well, this insatiable zeal for his word demands that he proceed due west, to find this river. He travels until within a hundred miles of it, when he is stricken down by African ulcers of a peculiarly virulent type, which confine him to his bed for months. During this forced rest, his few followers become utterly demoralised; they refuse to stay with a man who seems bent on self-destruction, and so blind, they say, that he will not see he is marching to his doom. The ninth month brings relief—his body is cured, a small re-enforcement of men appear before him, in answer to the letter he had sent in 1867.
The new men inform him they have only come to convey him back to the coast. He repudiates the insinuation their words convey with indignant warmth. He buys their submission by liberal largesse, and resumes his interrupted journey westward. In a few days, he arrives at the banks of the Lualaba, which is now two thousand yards wide, deep, and flowing strong still northward, at a point thirteen hundred miles from its source. The natives as well as the Arab traders unite in the statement that, as far as their acquaintance with it is, its course is northward. The problem becomes more and more difficult, and its resolution is ever elusive. His instruments make it only two thousand feet above the sea—the Nile, six hundred miles northward, is also two thousand feet! How can this river be the Nile, then? Yet its course is northward and Nileward,—has been northward and Nileward ever since it left Bangweolo Lake, seven hundred miles south of where he stands,—and, for many weeks’ travel along its banks, all reports prove that it continues its northerly flow.
To settle this exasperating puzzle, he endeavours to purchase canoes for its navigation; but his men become rebellious and frantic in their opposition, and Livingstone finds that every attempt he makes is thwarted. While hesitating what to do, he receives a letter, which informs him that another caravan has arrived for him at Ujiji. He resolves to journey back to Lake Tanganyika, and dismiss these obstinate and mutinous followers of his; and, with new men, carefully chosen, return to this interesting field, and explore it until he discovers the bourn of that immense river.
He arrives at Ujiji about the 1st of November, 1871, only to find that his caravan has been disbanded, and the goods sold by its chief; in other words, that his present state is worse than ever!
He is now in his fifty-ninth year, far away from the scene of his premeditated labours; the sea, where he might have rest and relief from these continually-repeating misfortunes, though only nine hundred miles off, is as inaccessible as the moon to him, because Mirambo and his bandits are carrying on a ravaging and desolating war throughout all the region east of Ujiji. The Arabs of the colony have no comfort to impart to him, for they, too, feel the doom of isolation impending over them. Over and over again, they have despatched scouts eastward, and each time these have returned with the authentic news that all routes to the sea are closed by sanguinary brigandage. Not knowing how long this period may last, the Arabs practise the strictest economy; they have neither cloth nor bead currency to lend, however large may be the interest offered for the loan. But, as the position of the old man has become desperate, and he and his few followers may die of starvation, if no relief be given, Sayed bin Majid and Mohammed bin Gharib advance a few dozen cloths to him, which, with miserly economy, may suffice to purchase food for a month.
And then? Ah! then the prospect will be blank indeed! However, ‘Thy will be done. Elijah was fed by a raven; a mere dove brought hope to Noah; unto the hungering Christ, angels ministered. To God, the All-bountiful, all things are possible!’
To keep his mind from brooding over the hopeless prospect, he turns to his Journal, occupies himself with writing down at large, and with method, the brief jottings of his lengthy journeys, that nothing may be obscure of his history in the African wilds to those who may hereafter act as the executors and administrators of his literary estate. When fatigued by his constrained position on the clay floor in that east-facing verandah, he would lift his heavy Journal from his lap, and, with hand to chin, sit for hours in his brooding moods, thinking, ever thinking—mind ever revolving the prayer, ‘How long, O Lord, must Thy servant bear all this?’
At noon, on the tenth day after his arrival at Ujiji from the west,—while he was in one of these brooding fits on the verandah,—looking up to the edge of that mountain-plateau, whence we, a few hours before, had gazed in rapture on the Tanganyika, several volleys of musketry suddenly startled him and his drowsy neighbours. The town was wakened from its siesta by the alarming sound of firing. The inhabitants hurriedly issued out of their homes somewhat frightened, asking one another if it were Mirambo and his bandits. The general suspicion that the strangers could be no other than the ubiquitous African chief and his wild men caused all to lay their hands on their arms and prepare for the conflict. The boldest, creeping cautiously out of the town, see a caravan descending slowly towards Ujiji, bearing the Zanzibar and American flags in front, and rush back shouting out the news that the strangers are friends from Zanzibar.
In a few minutes the news becomes more definite: people say that it is a white man’s caravan. Looking out upon the market-place from his verandah, Livingstone is, from the first, aware of the excitement which the sudden firing is causing; but if it be Mirambo, as all suspect it to be, it does not matter much to him, for he is above the miserable fear of death; violent as it may be, it will be but a happy release from the afflictions of life. Soon, however, men cried out to him, ‘Joy, old master, it is a white man’s caravan; it may belong to a friend of thine.’ This Livingstone contemptuously declines to believe. It is then that Susi appears, rushing up to me with his impulsive ‘Good-morning.’ None knew better than Susi what a change in the circumstances of his old master and himself the arrival of an English-speaking white man foreshadowed. With even more energy of movement he returned to Livingstone, crying, ‘It is true, sir, it is a white man, he speaks English; and he has got an American flag with him.’ More than ever perplexed by this news, he asks, ‘But are you sure of what you say? Have you seen him?’
At this moment the Arab chiefs came in a group to him, and said, ‘Come, arise, friend David. Let us go and meet this white stranger. He may be a relative of thine. Please God, he is sure to be a friend. The praise be to God for His goodness!’
They had barely reached the centre of the market-place, when the head of the caravan appeared, and a few seconds later the two white men—Livingstone and myself—met, as already described.
Our meeting took place on the 10th November, 1871. It found him reduced to the lowest ebb in fortune by his endless quest of the solution to the problem of that mighty river Lualaba, which, at a distance of three hundred miles from Lake Tanganyika, flowed parallel with the lake, northward. In body, he was, as he himself expressed it, ‘a mere ruckle of bones.’
The effect of the meeting was a rapid restoration to health; he was also placed above want, for he had now stores in abundance sufficient to have kept him in comfort in Ujiji for years, or to equip an expedition capable of solving within a few months even that tough problem of the Lualaba. There was only one thing wanting to complete the old man’s happiness—that was an obedient and tractable escort. Could I have furnished this to him there and then, no doubt Livingstone would have been alive to-day,[15] because, after a few days’ rest at Ujiji, we should have parted—he to return to the Lualaba, and trace the river, perhaps, down to the sea, or until he found sufficient proofs that it was the Congo, which would be about seven hundred miles north-west of Nyangwe; I journeying to the East Coast.
As my people, however, had only been engaged for two years, no bribe would have been sufficient to have made them tractable for a greater period. But, inasmuch as Livingstone would not relinquish his unfinished task, and no men of the kind he needed were procurable at Ujiji, it was necessary that he should return with me to Unyanyembe, and rest there until I could provide him with the force he needed. To this, the last of many propositions made to him, he agreed. After exploring together the north end of Lake Tanganyika, and disproving the theory that the Lake had any connection with the Albert Nyanza, we set out from Ujiji, on the 27th December, 1871, and arrived at Unyanyembe on the 18th February, 1872.
January 3, 1872. Had some modest sport among some zebras, and secured a quantity of meat, which will be useful. Livingstone, this afternoon, got upon his favourite topics, the Zambesi Mission, the Portuguese and Arab slave-trade, and these subjects invariably bring him to relate incidents about what he has witnessed of African nature and aptitudes. I conclude, from the importance he attaches to these, that he is more interested in ethnology than in topographical geography. Though the Nile problem and the central line of drainage are frequently on his lips, they are second to the humanities observed on his wanderings, which, whether at the morning coffee, tiffin, or dinner, occupy him throughout the meal.
The Manyuema women must have attracted him by their beauty, from which I gather that they must be superior to the average female native. He speaks of their large eyes, their intelligent looks, and pretty, expressive, arch ways. Then he refers to the customs at Cazembe’s Court, and the kindness received from the women there.
In a little while, I am listening to the atrocities of Tagamoyo, the half-caste Arab, who surrounded a Manyuema market, and, with his long-shirted followers, fired most murderous volleys on the natives as they were innocently chaffering about their wares. Then there is real passion in his language, and I fancy from the angry glitter in his eyes that, were it in his power, Tagamoyo and his gang should have a quick taste of the terror he has inspired among the simple peoples of Manyuema. He is truly pathetic when he describes the poor enchained slaves, and the unhappy beings whose necks he has seen galled by the tree-forks, lumbering and tottering along the paths, watched by the steady, cruel eyes of their drivers, etc., etc.
The topics change so abruptly that I find it almost impossible to remember a tithe of them; and they refer to things about which I know so little that it will be hard to make a summary of what I am told at each meal. One cannot always have his note-book handy, for we drop upon a subject so suddenly, and often, in my interest, I forget what I ought to do. I must trust largely to the fact that I am becoming steeped in Livingstonian ideas upon everything that is African, from pity for the big-stomached picaninny, clinging to the waist-strings of its mother, to the missionary bishop, and the great explorers, Burton, Speke, and Baker.
He is a strong man in every way, with an individual tenacity of character. His memory is retentive. How he can remember Whittier’s poems, couplets out of which I hear frequently, as well as from Longfellow, I cannot make out. I do not think he has any of these books with him. But he recites them as though he had read them yesterday.
March 3. Livingstone reverted again to his charges against the missionaries on the Zambesi, and some of his naval officers on the expedition.
I have had some intrusive suspicions, thoughts that he was not of such an angelic temper as I believed him to be during my first month with him; but, for the last month, I have been driving them steadily from my mind, or perhaps to be fair, he by his conversations, by his prayers, his actions, and a more careful weighing and a wider knowledge of all the circumstances, assists me to extinguish them. Livingstone, with all his frankness, does not unfold himself at once; and what he leaves untold may be just as vital to a righteous understanding of these disputes as what he has said. Some reparation I owe him for having been on the verge of prejudice before I even saw him. I expected, and was prepared, to meet a crusty misanthrope, and I was on my guard that the first offence should not come from me; but I met a sweet opposite, and, by leaps and bounds, my admiration grew in consequence. When, however, he reiterated his complaints against this man and the other, I felt the faintest fear that his strong nature was opposed to forgiveness, and that he was not so perfect as at the first blush of friendship I thought him. I grew shy of the recurrent theme, lest I should find my fear confirmed. Had I left him at Ujiji, I should have lost the chance of viewing him on the march, and obtaining that more detailed knowledge I have, by which I am able to put myself into his place, and, feeling something of his feelings, to understand the position better.
It was an ungrateful task to have to reproach the missionaries for their over-zeal against the slave-traders, though he quite shared their hatred of the trade, and all connected with it; but to be himself charged, as he was, with having been the cause of their militant behaviour, to be blamed for their neglect of their special duties, and for their follies, by the very men whom he has assisted and advised, was too much.
But, in thinking that it was rather a weakness to dwell on these bitter memories, I forgot that he was speaking to me, who had reminded him of his experiences, and who pestered him with questions about this year and another, upon this topic and that; and I thought that it was not fair to retaliate with inward accusations that he was making too much of these things, when it was my own fault. Then I thought of his loneliness, and that to speak of African geography to a man who was himself in Africa, was not only not entertaining, but unnecessary; and that to refuse to speak of personal events would, from the nature of a man, be imputed to him as reserve, and, perhaps, something worse. These things I revolved, caused by observations on his daily method of life, his pious habits, in the boat, the tent, and the house.
At Kwikuru, just before the day we got our letters from Europe, I went to the cook Ulimengo, who was acting in Ferajji’s place; and, being half-mad with the huge doses of quinine I had taken, and distressingly weak, I sharply scolded him for not cleaning his coffee-pots, and said that I tasted the verdigris in every article of food, and I violently asked if he meant to poison us. I showed him the kettles and the pots, and the loathsome green on the rims. He turned to me with astounding insolence, and sneeringly asked if I was any better than the ‘big master,’ and said that what was good for him was good for me—the ‘little master.’
I clouted him at once, not only for his insolent question, but because I recognised a disposition to fight. Ulimengo stood up and laid hold of me. On freeing myself, I searched for some handy instrument; but, at this juncture, Livingstone came out of the tent, and cried out to Ulimengo, ‘Poli-poli-hapo’ [Gently there]! What is the matter, Mr. Stanley?’ Almost breathless between passion and quinine, I spluttered out my explanations. Then, lifting his right hand with the curved forefinger, he said, ‘I will settle this.’ I stood quieted; but, what with unsatisfied rage and shameful weakness, the tears rolled down as copiously as when a child.
I heard him say, ‘Now, Ulimengo, you are a big fool: a big, thick-headed fellow. I believe you are a very wicked man. Your head is full of lying ideas. Understand me now, and open your ears. I am a Mgeni [guest] and only a Mgeni, and have nothing to do with this caravan. Everything in the camp is my friend’s. The food I eat, the clothes on my back, the shirt I wear, all are his. All the bales and beads are his. What you put in that belly of yours comes from him, not from me. He pays your wages. The tent and the bed-clothes belong to him. He came only to help me, as you would help your brother or your father. I am only the “big master” because I am older; but when we march, or stop, must be as he likes, not me. Try and get all that into that thick skull of yours, Ulimengo. Don’t you see that he is very ill, you rascal? Now, go and ask his pardon, Go on.’
And Ulimengo said he was very sorry, and wanted to kiss my feet; but I would not let him.
Then Livingstone took me by the arm to the tent, saying, ‘Come now, you must not mind him. He is only a half-savage, and does not know any better. He is probably a Banyan slave. Why should you care what he says? They are all alike, unfeeling and hard!’
Little by little, I softened down; and, before night, I had shaken hands with Ulimengo. It is the memory of several small events, which, though not worth recounting singly, muster in evidence and strike a lasting impression.
‘You bad fellow. You very wicked fellow. You blockhead. You fool of a man,’ were the strongest terms he employed, where others would have clubbed, or clouted, or banned, and blasted. His manner was that of a cool, wise, old man, who felt offended, and looked grave.
March 4, Sunday. Service at 9 A.M. Referring to his address to his men, after the Sunday service was over, he asked me what conclusions I had come to in regard to the African’s power of receiving the gospel?
‘Well, really, to tell you the truth, I have not thought much of it. The Africans appear to me very dense, and I suppose it will take some time before any headway will be made. It is a slow affair, I think, altogether. You do not seem to me to go about it in the right way—I do not mean you personally, but missionaries. I cannot see how one or two men can hope to make an impression on the minds of so many millions, when all around them is the whole world continuing in its own humdrum fashion, absorbed in its avocations, and utterly regardless of the tiny village, or obscure district, where the missionaries preach the gospel.’
‘How would you go about it?’ he asked.
‘I would certainly have more than one or two missionaries. I would have a thousand, scattered not all over the continent, but among some great tribe or cluster of tribes, organised systematically, one or two for each village, so that though the outskirts of the tribe or area where the gospel was at work might be disturbed somewhat by the evil example of those outside, all within the area might be safely and uninterruptedly progressing. Then, with the pupils who would be turned out from each village, there would be new forces to start elsewhere outside the area.’
‘In a way, that is just my opinion; but someone must begin the work. Christ was the beginner of the Christianity that is now spread over a large part of the world, then came the Twelve Apostles, and then the Disciples. I feel, sometimes, as if I were the beginner for attacking Central Africa, and that others will shortly come; and, after those, there will come the thousand workers that you speak of. It is very dark and dreary, but the promise is, “Commit thy way to the Lord, trust in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.” I may fall by the way, being unworthy to see the dawning. I thought I had seen it when the Zambezi mission came out, but the darkness has settled again, darker than ever. It will come, though, it must come, and I do not despair of the day, one bit. The earth, that is the whole earth, shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
‘Loneliness is a terrible thing, especially when I think of my children. I have lost a great deal of happiness, I know, by these wanderings. It is as if I had been born to exile; but it is God’s doing, and He will do what seemeth good in His own eyes. But when my children and home are not in my mind, I feel as though appointed to this work and no other. I am away from the perpetual hurry of civilisation, and I think I see far and clear into what is to come; and then I seem to understand why I was led away, here and there, and crossed and baffled over and over again, to wear out my years and strength. Why was it but to be a witness of the full horror of this slave-trade, which, in the language of Burns, is sending these pitiless half-castes
‘My business is to publish what I see, to rouse up those who have the power to stop it, once and for all. That is the beginning; but, in the end, they will also send proper teachers of the gospel, some here, and some there, and what you think ought to be done will be done in the Lord’s good time.
I have often quoted those lines of Burns to myself, on my travels in Manyuema, when I saw the trembling natives just on the run, when they suspected that we were Arabs about to take them from their homes and compel them to carry their stolen ivory. Oh, well, there is a good God above who takes note of these things, and will, at the proper moment, see that justice will be measured out to these monsters.’
March 13, 1872. This is the last day of my stay with dear old Livingstone; the last night we shall be together is present, and I cannot evade the morrow. I feel as though I should like to rebel against the necessity of departure. The minutes beat fast, and grow into hours. Our door to-night is closed, and we both think our own thoughts. What his are, I know not—mine are sad. My days seem to have been spent far too happily, for, now that the last day is almost gone, I bitterly regret the approach of the parting hour. I now forget the successive fevers, and their agonies, and the semi-madness into which they often plunged me. The regret I feel now is greater than any pains I have endured. But I cannot resist the sure advance of time, which is flying to-night far too fast. What must be, must be! I have often parted with friends before, and remember how I lingered and wished to put it off, but the inevitable was not to be prevented. Fate came, and, at the appointed hour, stood between us. To-night I feel the same aching pain, but in a greater degree; and the farewell I fear may be for ever. For ever? and ‘For ever’ echo the reverberations of a woeful whisper!
I have received the thanks that he had repressed all these months in the secrecy of his heart, uttered with no mincing phrases, but poured out, as it were, at the last moment, until I was so affected that I sobbed, as one only can in uncommon grief. The hour of night and the crisis,—and oh! as some dreadful doubts suggested the eternal parting,—his sudden outburst of gratitude, with that kind of praise that steals into one and touches the softer parts of the ever-veiled nature,—all had their influence; and, for a time, I was as a sensitive child of eight or so, and yielded to such bursts of tears that only such a scene as this could have forced.
I think it only needed this softening to secure me as his obedient and devoted servitor in the future, should there ever be an occasion where I could prove my zeal.
On the 14th March, my expedition left Unyanyembe, he accompanying me for a few miles. We reached the slope of a ridge overlooking the valley, in the middle of which our house where we had lived together looked very small in the distance. I then turned to him and said,—
‘My dear Doctor, you must go no further. You have come far enough. See, our house is a good distance now, and the sun is very hot. Let me beg of you to turn back.’
‘Well,’ he replied, ‘I will say this to you: you have done what few men could do. And for what you have done for me, I am most grateful. God guide you safe home and bless you, my friend!’
‘And may God bring you safe back to us all, my dear friend! Farewell!’
‘Farewell!’ he repeated.
We wrung each other’s hands, our faces flushed with emotion, tears rushing up, and blinding the eyes. We turned resolutely away from each other; but his faithful followers, by rushing up to give their parting words, protracted the painful scene.
‘Good-bye, all! Good-bye, Doctor, dear friend!’
‘Good-bye!’
At the moment of parting, the old man’s noble face slightly paled, which I knew to be from suppressed emotion, while, when I looked into his eyes, I saw there a kind of warning, to look well at him as a friend looks for the last time; but the effort well-nigh unmanned me,—a little longer, and I should have utterly collapsed. We both, however, preferred dry eyes, and outward calm.
From the crest of the ridge I turned to take a last long look at him, to impress his form on my mind; then, waving a last parting signal, we descended the opposite slope on the home road.
On the fifty-fourth day after leaving Dr. Livingstone, I arrived at Zanzibar. Two weeks later, that is on the 20th May, fifty-seven men, chosen people of good character, sailed from Zanzibar for the mainland, as the expeditionary force which was to accompany Livingstone for a period of two years for the completion of his task of exploration. They arrived at Unyanyembe on the 11th August, 1872, having been eighty-two days on the road.
Fourteen days later, Livingstone, amply equipped and furnished with men, means, medicines, and instruments, and a small herd of cattle, set out for the scene of his explorations. Eight months later, the heroic life came to its heroic end.
From an unpublished Memorial to Livingstone by Stanley, the following passages are taken.
He preached no sermon, by word of mouth, while I was in company with him; but each day of my companionship with him witnessed a sermon acted. The Divine instructions, given of old on the Sacred Mount, were closely followed, day by day, whether he rested in the jungle-camp, or bided in the traders’ town, or savage hamlet. Lowly of spirit, meek in speech, merciful of heart, pure in mind, and peaceful in act, suspected by the Arabs to be an informer, and therefore calumniated, often offended at evils committed by his own servants, but ever forgiving, often robbed and thwarted, yet bearing no ill-will, cursed by the marauders, yet physicking their infirmities, most despitefully used, yet praying daily for all manner and condition of men! Narrow, indeed, was the way of eternal life that he elected to follow, and few are those who choose it.
Though friends became indifferent to his fate, associates neglectful, and his servants mocked and betrayed him, though suitable substance was denied to him, and though the rain descended in torrents on him in his wanderings, and the tropic tempests beat him sore, and sickened him with their rigours, he toiled on, and laboured ever in the Divine service he had chosen, unyielding and unresting, for the Christian man’s faith was firm that ‘all would come right at last.’
Had my soul been of brass, and my heart of spelter, the powers of my head had surely compelled me to recognise, with due honour, the Spirit of Goodness which manifested itself in him. Had there been anything of the Pharisee or the hypocrite in him, or had I but traced a grain of meanness or guile in him, I had surely turned away a sceptic. But my every-day study of him, during health or sickness, deepened my reverence and increased my esteem. He was, in short, consistently noble, upright, pious, and manly, all the days of my companionship with him.
He professed to be a Liberal Presbyterian. Presbyterianism I have heard of, and have read much about it; but Liberal Presbyterianism,—whence is it? What special country throughout the British Isles is its birthplace? Are there any more disciples of that particular creed, or was Livingstone the last? Read by the light of this good man’s conduct and single-mindedness, its tenets would seem to be a compound of religious and practical precepts.
‘Whatever thy right hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.’
‘By the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread.’
‘For every idle word thou shalt be held accountable.’
‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.’
‘Thou shalt not kill.’
‘Swear not at all.’
‘Be not slothful in business, but be fervent in spirit, and serve the Lord.’
‘Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate.’
‘Live peaceably with all men.’
‘We count those happy who endure.’
‘Remember them that are in bonds, and them which suffer adversity.’
‘Watch thou, in all things; endure afflictions; do the work of an evangelist; make full proof of thy ministry.’
‘Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily.’
‘Set your affections on things above, not on things of the earth.’
‘Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, and forgiving.’
‘Preach the gospel in the regions beyond you, and boast not in another man’s line, of things made ready to your hand.’
I never discovered that there was any printed code of religious laws or moral precepts issued by his church, wherein these were specially alluded to; but it grew evident during our acquaintance that he erred not against any of them. Greater might he could not have shown in this interminable exploration set him by Sir Roderick Murchison, because the work performed by him was beyond all proportion to his means and physical strength. What bread he ate was insufficient for his bodily nourishment, after the appalling fatigues of a march in a tropical land.
His conversation was serious, his demeanour grave and earnest. Morn and eve he worshipped, and, at the end of every march, he thanked the Lord for His watchful Providence. On Sundays he conducted Divine Service, and praised the glory of the Creator, the True God, to his dark followers. His hand was
clear of the stain of blood-guiltiness. Profanity was an abomination to him. He was not indolent either in his Master’s service, or in the cause to which he was sacrificing himself. His life was an evidence that he served God with all his heart.
Nothing in the scale of humanity can be conceived lower than the tribes of Manyuema with whom he daily conversed as a friend. Regardless of such honours as his country generally pays to exceeding merit, he continued his journeyings, bearing messages of peace wherever he went; and when he rested, chief and peasant among the long-neglected tribes ministered to his limited wants. Contented with performing his duty according as he was enabled to, such happiness as can be derived from righteous doings, pure thoughts, and a clear conscience, was undoubtedly his. His earnest labours for the sake of those in bonds, and the unhappy people who were a prey to the Arab kidnapper and land pirate, few will forget. The number of his appeals, the constant recurrence to the dismal topic, and the long lines of his travels, may be accepted as proofs of his heartiness and industry.
He was the first to penetrate to those lands in the Chambezi and the Lualaba valleys; his was the first voice heard speaking in the hamlets of Eastern Sunda of the beauties of the Christian religion; and he was the first preacher who dared denounce the red-handed Arab for his wickedly aggressive acts. In regions beyond ken of the most learned geographers of Europe, he imitated the humility of the Founder of his religion, and spoke in fervent strains of the Heavenly message of peace and good-will.
Should I ever return to the scenes that we knew together, my mind would instantaneously revert to the good man whom I shall never see more. Be it a rock he sat upon, a tree upon which he rested, ground that he walked upon, or a house that he dwelt in, my first thought would naturally be that it was associated with him. But my belief is that they would flush my mind with the goodness and nobleness of his expression, appealing to me, though so silently, to remember, and consider, and strive.
I remember well when I gazed at Ujiji, five years later, from the same hill as where I had announced the coming of my caravan: I had not been thinking much of him until that moment, when, all at once, above the palm grove of Ujiji, and the long broad stretch of blue water of the lake beyond, loomed the form of Livingstone, in the well-remembered blue-grey coat of his marching costume, and the blue naval cap, gold-banded, regarding me with eyes so trustful, and face so grave and sad.
It is the expression of him that so follows and clings to me, and, indeed, is ever present when I think of him, though it is difficult to communicate to others the expression that I first studied and that most attracted me. There was an earnest gravity in it; life long ago shorn of much of its beauty—I may say of all its vulgar beauty and coarser pleasures, a mind long abstracted from petty discontents, by preference feeding on itself, almost glorifying in itself as all-sufficient to produce content; therefore a composure settled, calm, and trustful.
Even my presence was impotent to break him from his habit of abstraction. I might have taken a book to read, and was silent. If I looked up a few minutes later, I discovered him deeply involved in his own meditations, right forefinger bent, timing his thoughts, his eyes gazing far away into indefinite distance, brows puckered closely—face set, and resolute, now and then lips moving, silently framing words.
‘What can he be thinking about?’ I used to wonder, and once I ventured to break the silence with,—
‘A penny for your thoughts, Doctor.’
‘They are not worth it, my young friend, and let me suggest that, if I had any, possibly, I should wish to keep them!’
After which I invariably let him alone when in this mood. Sometimes these thoughts were humorous, and, his face wearing a smile, he would impart the reason with some comic story or adventure.
I have met few so quickly responsive to gaiety and the lighter moods, none who was more sociable, genial, tolerant, and humorous. You must think of him as a contented soul, who had yielded himself with an entire and loving submission, and who laboured to the best of his means and ability, awakening to the toil of the day, and resigning himself, without the least misgiving, to the rest of the night; believing that the effect of his self-renunciation would not be altogether barren.
If you can comprehend such a character, you will understand Livingstone’s motive principle.
IT is not unadvisedly that the last chapter has been devoted almost as much to Livingstone as to Stanley. The main story of Stanley’s quest he has told effectively elsewhere;[16] and in his interior life, which is the central theme of the present book, his intercourse with Livingstone was no small factor. The way he knew and loved Livingstone reveals Stanley. But to give the whole story of those sixteen months its true perspective, the reader should either turn to the full narrative, or should, at least, give some little play to his own imagination.
The few lines given to the contest with Mirambo represent months of struggle with a bandit-chief, and with slippery allies.
The three-line mention of the joint exploration of Lake Tanganyika stands for four weeks of adventurous voyaging, geographical discovery, and encounters with hostile or thievish natives. Through the whole period Stanley carried an immense and varied responsibility. He was not only commander, and chief of staff, but the whole staff. The discipline, commissariat, and medical care, of a force often numbering two hundred and more, all fell on him. For his followers he had to take the part of doctor, and occasionally of nurse, sometimes including the most menial offices. Often he was prostrated by fever, and once, before finding Livingstone, he lay unconscious for a week.
Problems of war and diplomacy confronted him. Shall he pay tribute, or resist? Shall he join forces with the friendly tribes, and fight the fierce and powerful Mirambo who blocks the way to Ujiji? He fights, and his allies fail him at the pinch; so then he resorts to a long flanking march through unknown country, and literally circumvents his foes. So, for over a year, every faculty is kept at the highest tension.
Along with the developing effect of the experience, comes the solitary communing with Nature, which brings a spiritual exaltation. Then follows the companionship with Livingstone, a man of heroic and ideal traits, uniquely educated by the African wilds; these two learn to know each other by the searching test of hourly companionship, amid savages, perils, perplexities, days of adventure, nights of intimate converse; Stanley’s deepest feelings finding worthy object and full response in the man he had rescued, and suggestions of spiritual and material resources in the unknown continent, destined to germinate and bear fruit;—all this his first African exploration brought to Stanley.
His return to civilisation was not altogether a genial home-coming. In a way, he had been more at home in Africa than he found himself in England. There his companionship had been with Nature, with Livingstone, with his own spirit; the difficulties and dangers confronting him had been a challenge to which his full powers made response; and ‘the free hand,’ so dear to a strong man, had been his. Now he was plunged into a highly-artificial society; its trappings and paraphernalia, its formal dinners, and ceremonies, were distasteful to him; above all, he was thrust into a prominence which brought far more pain than pleasure.
A flood of importunate, or inquisitive, letters from strangers poured in on him; he notes that in one morning he has received twenty-eight. Relatives and acquaintances of his early years became suddenly affectionate and acquisitive; greedy claims were made on his purse, which he would not wholly reject. Worst of all, with the acclamations of the public which greeted him, were mingled expressions of doubt or disbelief, innuendoes, sneers! Men, and journals, of high standing, were among the sceptics.
Sir Henry Rawlinson, President of the Royal Geographical Society, wrote to the ‘Times’ that it was not true that Stanley had discovered Livingstone, but that Livingstone had discovered Stanley! The silly quip had currency long after Sir Henry Rawlinson had changed his tone, and the Society had passed a vote of thanks to Stanley. The ‘Standard,’ in oracular tones, called for the sifting of the discoverer’s story by experts; it ‘could not resist some suspicions and misgivings’; it found ‘something inexplicable and mysterious’ in the business! There were those who publicly questioned the authenticity of letters which, at Stanley’s suggestion, Livingstone had written to the ‘Herald.’
Geographical pundits mixed their theoretic speculations with slighting personal remarks. Perhaps no great and eminent body of scholars escapes a touch of the Mutual-Admiration Society; there are shibboleths of nationality, of social class, of clan and coterie; and when an outsider steps on the stage, there is solemn wrinkling of official foreheads, and lifting of distinguished eyebrows. So from the ‘Royal Geographical’ some chill whiffs blew towards this ‘American,’ who brought strange tidings from Africa. To Stanley, sensitive, high-strung, conscious of hard work, loyally done and faithfully reported, not hungry for fame, but solicitous of trust and confidence, all this was intensely bitter.
There was a field-day at Brighton at the meeting of the Geographical Section of the British Association, under the presidency of Mr. (now, Sir) Francis Galton. Stanley was the central figure of the occasion. He spoke to an audience of three thousand, with a group of great geographers, and Eminences of high degree, including the ex-Emperor and Empress of the French. The ‘Telegraph’s’ report describes him as speaking with entire self-possession, with composure, with a natural and effective oratory, and ‘with the evident purpose to speak his mind to everybody, without the slightest deference, or hesitation.’
But, in his Journal, he records that his stage-fright was so extreme he could only begin after three trials. At the request of the ‘Royal Geographical,’ he had prepared a brief paper, dealing only with the exploration of the north end of Lake Tanganyika. But, unexpectedly, he was called on to give some account of his whole expedition.
He told his story, and read his paper. A general discussion followed, turning mainly on certain geographical questions; and, at the end, Stanley was called on for some final words, and ‘winged words’ they were, of passionate ardour and directness. On some of the geographical opinions, there was criticism; and a special attack was made on the theory to which Livingstone inclined, that the river Lualaba was the source of the Nile. Stanley had grave doubts of that theory, which he was destined ultimately to disperse; but, for Livingstone’s sake, he wanted it treated at least with respect.
In the discussion there were allusions to himself, perhaps tactless rather than intentional; as when Mr. (now, Sir) Francis Galton remarked that they were not met to listen to sensational stories, but to serious facts! Whether malicious, or only maladroit, such allusions were weighted by what had gone before in the Press.
Stanley summed up with a fervent eulogy of Livingstone, and a biting comparison of the arm-chair geographer, waking from his nap, to dogmatise about the Nile, with the gallant old man seeking the reality for years, amid savage and elemental foes.
One cannot doubt that his own essential veracity and manliness stamped themselves on the minds of his audience; and, in truth, the great preponderance of intelligent opinion seems to have been, from the first, wholly in his favour. The ‘Times,’ the ‘Daily News,’ the ‘Daily Telegraph,’ and ‘Punch,’ were among his champions. Livingstone’s own family gratefully acknowledged his really immense services, and confirmed beyond question the genuineness of Livingstone’s letters brought home by Stanley, so confounding those who had charged him with forgery. Lord Granville, at the Foreign Office, handed him, on the Queen’s behalf, a note of congratulation, and a gold snuff-box set with diamonds; and, in a word, the world at large accepted him, then and thenceforward, as a true man and a hero.
But Stanley suffered so keenly and so long, not only at the time, but afterwards, from the misrepresentation and calumny he encountered, that a word more should be given to the subject. The hostility had various sources. In America, the ‘New York Herald,’ always an aggressive, self-assertive, and successful newspaper, had plenty of journalistic foes.
A former employee of Stanley’s, whose behaviour had caused serious trouble, and brought proper punishment on him, gained the ear of a prominent editor, who gave circulation to the grossest falsehoods. In later years, other subordinates, whom Stanley’s just and necessary discipline had offended, became his persistent calumniators. The wild scenes of his explorations, and the stimulus their wonders gave to the imagination, acted sometimes like a tropical swamp, whence springs fetid and poisonous vegetation. Stories of cruelty and horror seemed to germinate spontaneously. Stanley himself laid stress on the propensity in average human nature to noxious gossip, and the pandering to this taste by a part of the Press.
It is to be remembered, too, that the circumstances of his early life heightened his sensitiveness to gossiping curiosity and crude misrepresentation. And, finally, he had in his nature much of the woman, the Ewigweibliche; he craved fame far less than love and confidence.
Renown, as it came, he accepted, not with indifference,—he was too human for that,—but with tempered satisfaction. He met praise in the fine phrase Morley quotes from Gladstone, ‘as one meets a cooling breeze, enjoyed, but not detained.’ The pain which slander brought he turned to account, setting it as a lesson to himself not to misjudge others. His thoughts upon his own experience may be sufficiently shewn by an extract from one of his Note-books.
The vulgar, even hideous, nonsense, the number and variety of untruths published about me, from this time forth taught me, from pure sympathy, reflection, and conviction, to modify my judgment about others.
When anyone is about to become an object of popular, i. e., newspaper censure, I have been taught to see how the scavenger-beetles of the Press contrive to pick up an infinitesimal grain of fact, like the African mud-rolling beetle, until it becomes so monstrously exaggerated that it is absolutely a mass of filth.
The pity of it is that most of the writers forget for whom they write. We are not all club-loungers, or drawing-room gossips; nor are we all infected with the prevailing madness of believing everything we see in the newspapers. We do not all belong to that large herd of unthinking souls who say, ‘Surely, where there is so much smoke, there must be a fire’; those stupid souls who never knew that, as likely as not, the fire was harmless enough, and that the alarming cloud of smoke was owing to the reporter’s briarwood!
Therefore I say, the instant I perceive, whether in the Press, or in Society, a charge levelled at some person, countryman, or foreigner, I put on the brake of reason, to prevent my being swept along by the general rage for scandal and abuse, and hold myself unconscious of the charge until it is justified by conviction.
All the actions of my life, and I may say all my thoughts, since 1872, have been strongly coloured by the storm of abuse and the wholly unjustifiable reports circulated about me then. So numerous were my enemies, that my friends became dumb, and I had to resort to silence, as a protection against outrage.
It is the one good extracted from my persecution that, ever since, I have been able to restrain myself from undertaking to pass sentence on another whom I do not know. No man who addresses himself to me is permitted to launch judgment out in that rash, impetuous newspaper way, without being made to reflect that he knew less about the matter than he had assumed he did.
This change in me was not immediate. The vice of reckless, unthinking utterance was not to be suddenly extirpated. Often, as I opened my mouth in obedience to the impulse, I was arrested by the self-accusation, ‘Ah! there you go, silly and uncharitable as ever!’ It was slow unlearning, but the old habit was at last supplanted by the new.
Stanley bore himself in the spirit of the words which F. W. H. Myers[17] applies to Wordsworth:—
‘He who thus is arrogantly censured should remember both the dignity and the frailty of man, ... and go on his way with no bitter broodings, but yet ... “with a melancholy in the soul, a sinking inward into ourselves from thought to thought, a steady remonstrance, and a high resolve.”’
In the months following his return to England, alternating with indignant protests against misrepresentation, his Journal records many public and private hospitalities, and meetings with eminent and interesting people, on some of whom he makes shrewd and appreciative comment. One portraiture cannot be omitted,—his impressions of Queen Victoria. The first occasion on which he was received by Her Majesty was at Dunrobin Castle, when he visited the Duke of Sutherland, in company with Sir Henry Rawlinson, who did his best to make amends for his early doubts.
Monday, 10th September, 1872. About noon, we had got ready for our reception by the Queen. Sir Henry had been careful in instructing me how to behave in the Presence, that I had to kneel and kiss hands, and, above all, I was not to talk, or write, about what I should see or hear. I almost laughed in his face when he charged me with the last, for I doubt whether the Queen’s daughter would be less apt for gossip about such things than I. As for kneeling, I was pleased to forget it. We stood for a while in a gay salon, and presently Her Majesty, followed by Princess Beatrice, entered. We all bowed most profoundly, and the Queen advancing, Sir Henry introduced me in a short sentence. I regarded her with many feelings, first as the greatest lady in the land, the mistress of a great Empire, the head of brave soldiers and sailors whom I had seen in various lands and seas, the central figure to which Englishmen everywhere looked with eyes of love and reverence; and, lastly, as that mysterious personage whom I had always heard spoken of, ever since I could understand anything, as ‘The Queen.’ And poor, blind Sir Henry, to think that I would venture to speak or write about this lady, whom in my heart of hearts, next to God, I worshipped! Besides, only of late, she has honoured me with a memorial, which is the more priceless that it was given when so few believed me.
The word ‘Majesty’ does not rightly describe her bearing. I have often seen more majestic creatures, but there was an atmosphere of conscious potency about her which would have marked her in any assemblage, even without the trappings of Royalty. The word ‘Royal’ aptly describes another characteristic which clung to her. Short in stature as she is, and not majestic, the very carriage of her person bespeaks the fact of her being aware of her own inviolability and unapproachableness. It was far from being haughty, and yet it was commanding, and serenely proud.
The conversation, which was principally about Livingstone and Africa, though it did not last more than ten minutes, gave me abundant matter to think about, from having had such good opportunities to look into her eyes, and absorb as it were my impressions, such as they were.
What I admired most was the sense of power the eyes revealed, and a quiet, but unmistakeable, kindly condescension; and an inimitable calmness and self-possession. I was glad to have seen her, not only for the honour, and all that, but also, I think, because I have carried something away to muse over at leisure. I am richer in the understanding of power and dominion, sitting enthroned on human features.
He began in England his career as a public lecturer, and in pursuance of it went, in November, 1872, to America. He was received with high honours by the public, and with great cordiality by his old friends; was given a warm welcome by ‘the boys,’ the sub-editors of the ‘Herald,’ and was banqueted by the Union League Club, and the St. Andrew’s Society, etc., etc. Then he spent several months in travelling and lecturing.
Returning to England, before the clear summons came to his next great exploration, he once more, as correspondent of the ‘Herald,’ accompanied and reported the British campaign against the Ashantees, in 1873-74. That warlike and savage people, under King Coffee, had been harrying the Fantees, who had lately come under the British Protectorate, as occupying the ‘hinterland’ of Elmina on the Gold Coast, which England had taken over from the Dutch.
At intervals for half a century there had been harassing and futile collisions with the Ashantees, and it was now determined to strike hard. ‘In 1823, Sir Charles McCarthy and six hundred gallant fellows perished before the furious onset of the Ashantees, and that brave soldier’s skull, gold-rimmed and highly venerated, was said still to be at Coomassie, used as a drinking-cup by King Coffee.
‘In 1863-64, the English suffered severe loss. Couran marched to the Prah, eighty miles from here, and marched back again, being obliged to bury or destroy his cannon, and hurriedly retreat to the Cape Coast.’
Stanley gave permanent form to his record in the first half of his book, ‘Coomassie and Magdala’ (1874). This campaign on the West Coast, under Sir Garnet Wolseley, was like, and yet unlike, the Abyssinian expedition on the East Coast, under Sir Robert Napier. The march inland was only one hundred and forty miles, but, instead of the grand and lofty mountains of Abyssinia, the British soldiers and sailors had to cut their way through unbroken jungle. Stanley’s book is the spirited story of a well-conducted expedition, told with a firm grasp of the historical and political situation, with graphic sketches of the English officers, some of an heroic type, and with descriptions of a repulsive type of savagery.
Writing of the march, Stanley says:—
What languishing heaviness of soul fills a man, as he, a mere mite in comparison, travels through the lofty and fearful forest aisle. If alone, there is an almost palpable silence, and his own heart-pulsations seem noisy. A night darkness envelops him, and, from above, but the faintest gleams of daylight can be seen. A brooding melancholy seems to rest on the face of nature, and the traveller, be he ever so prosaic, is filled with a vague indefinable sense of foreboding.
The enemy lay hiding in wait, in the middle of a thorny jungle, so dense in some places that one wonders how naked men can risk their unprotected bodies. This vast jungle literally chokes the earth with its density and luxuriance. It admits every kind of shrub, plant, and flower, into a close companionship, where they intermingle each other’s luxuriant stalks, where they twine and twine each other’s long slender arms about one another, and defy the utmost power of the sun to penetrate the leafy tangle they have reared ten and fifteen feet above the dank earth. This is the bush into which the Ashantee warriors creep on all fours, and lie in wait in the gloomy recesses for the enemy. It was in such localities Sir Garnet found the Ashantees, and where he suffered such loss in his Staff and officers. Until the sonorous sounds of Danish musketry[18] suddenly awoke the echoes, few of us suspected the foe so near; until they betrayed their presence, the English might have searched in vain for the hidden enemy. Secure as they were in their unapproachable coverts, our volleys, which their loud-mouthed challenge evoked, searched many a sinister-looking bush, and in a couple of hours effectually silenced their fire.
The fighting, when it came, was stubborn. King Theodore’s warriors had shewn no such mettle as did the Ashantees, who, for five continuous days, waged fierce fight. On the first day, with the 42nd Highlanders, the Black Watch, bearing the brunt, and the whole force engaged, the battle of Amoaful was won; then three days of straggling fighting; finally, on the fifth day, with the Rifle Brigade taking its turn at the post of honour, and Lord Gifford’s Scouts always in front, the decisive battle of Ordahsu was won, and Coomassie was taken. In the Capital were found ghastly relics of wholesale slaughters, incidents of fetish-worship, which far outdid the horrors of King Theodore’s court.
We are unable to realise, or are liable to forget, what Africa was before the advent of Explorers and Expeditions. The Fall of Coomassie, though attended with great loss of life, put an end to indescribable horrors and atrocities.
Each village had placed its human sacrifice in the middle of the path, for the purpose of affrighting the conquerors. The sacrifice was of either sex, sometimes a young man, sometimes a woman. The head, severed from the body, was turned to meet the advancing army, the body was evenly laid out with the feet towards Coomassie. This meant, no doubt, ‘Regard this face, white man, ye whose feet are hurrying on to our capital, and learn the fate awaiting you.’
Coomassie is a town insulated by a deadly swamp. A thick jungly forest—so dense that the sun seldom pierced the foliage; so sickly that the strongest fell victims to the malaria it cherished—surrounded it to a depth of about one hundred and forty miles seaward, and one hundred miles to the north; many hundred miles east and west.
Through this forest and swamp, unrelieved by any novelty or a single pretty landscape, the British Army had to march one hundred and forty miles, leaving numbers stricken down by fever and dysentery—the terrible allies of the Ashantee King with his one hundred thousand warriors.
Stanley, speaking of Coomassie, writes:—
The grove, which was but a continuation of the tall forest we had travelled through, penetrated as far as the great market-place. A narrow foot-path led into this grove, where the foul smells became suffocating. After some thirty paces we arrived before the dreadful scene, but it was almost impossible to stop longer than to take a general view of the great Golgotha. We saw some thirty or forty decapitated bodies in the last stages of corruption, and countless skulls, which lay piled in heaps, and scattered over a wide extent. The stoutest heart and the most stoical mind might have been appalled.