‘Both aspects of his character, the practical and the intellectual, were revealed in the two great expeditions of 1874 and 1879. The crossing of Africa, which began in the first year, was a marvellous performance in every way. Its results were immense, for it was the true opening of the Equatorial region, and added more to geographical knowledge than any enterprise of the kind in the nineteenth century, or perhaps in any century. Great conquerors at the head of an army—an Alexander, or a Genghis Khan—may have done as much; but no single individual revolutionised so large a tract of the earth’s surface, with only a handful of armed men and a slender column of camp-followers and attendants. Wonderful, indeed, was the tour of the great lakes, the circumnavigation of the Victoria Nyanza, the conversion of King Mtesa of Uganda, the unveiling of the fertile, semi-civilised country, islanded for centuries in the ocean of African barbarism, which is now a British Protectorate, linked up with Charing Cross by rail and steamer. But the toilsome journey up from the East Coast was nothing to that which followed, when the party left Uganda and turned their faces to the Congo, resolved to follow the great river down to the sea. His gifts of leadership were at their highest in this memorable march, from the time that he left Nyangwe, in November, 1876, to his arrival at Boma, near the Congo estuary, in August, 1877. He had to be everything by turn in this space of ten eventful months—strategist, tactician, geographer, medical superintendent, trader, and diplomatist. There were impracticable native chiefs to be conciliated, the devious designs of that formidable Arab potentate, Tippu-Tib, to be penetrated and countered, inexorably hostile savages to be beaten off by hard fighting. The expedition arrived at Boma, a remnant of toil-worn men, weakened by disease, and very nearly at the point of starvation. Stanley’s white companions had perished, and his native contingent had suffered heavily; but the allotted task was accomplished, and the silent pledge, registered by Livingstone’s grave, had been fulfilled.

‘It was this famous journey—the most remarkable, if judged by its results, in the whole history of African travel—which placed Stanley’s reputation as a leader and discoverer on the highest pinnacle. It was not an unassailed reputation. Much was said about his high-handed methods, and many good people in England, those

chose to regard him as a sort of filibuster. They contrasted his methods with those of some of his predecessors and contemporaries, who had contrived to spend years in Africa without fighting and bloodshed; but they did not allow for the difference in the conditions. Most of the other travellers had been the sport of circumstances. They had wandered from place to place, turned from their course, again and again, by hostile tribes and churlish chiefs. They found out a great deal, but not, as a rule, that which they came to find. Their discoveries were largely accidental; even Livingstone was constantly deflected from his route, and was unable to pursue to its conclusion the plan of tracing the central watershed which he had set before himself. Stanley had a perfectly definite purpose, which he determined to carry out; and he succeeded. His scheme involved passing through an immense region, inhabited by a comparatively numerous population, of a higher type than those encountered nearer the coast, more energetic and more warlike. As a rule, he made his way among them by bargain and negotiation; but, sometimes, he had to fight or to turn back; and he accepted the sterner alternative. If he had refused to do so, he could not have reached his goal. The expedition might still have added enormously to the sum of scientific knowledge, but in the achievement of its ultimate and clearly-conceived object it would have been a failure. Stanley did not mean that it should fail; he was always ready to sacrifice himself, and when necessary he was prepared, as great men who do great deeds must be, to sacrifice others. But there was never the smallest justification for representing him as a ruthless, iron-handed kind of privateer on land, who used the scourge and the bullet with callous recklessness. There was nothing reckless about Stanley, except, at times, his speech. In action, he was swift and bold, but not careless.

‘To inflict superfluous suffering, to shoot and slay without thinking of the consequences—this was utterly alien to his systematic, calculating methods. He would do it, if there seemed no other means of gaining the end, as a general would order a column to destruction to save his army and win a victory. But he was essentially a humane man, masterful and domineering, and yet, au fond, gentle and kindly, particularly to the weak and suffering. Opposition stiffened the obstinate will to resistance; he was not a safe person to thwart, even in small matters. He remembered a benefit, and he did not forget an injury. It was said that he was unforgiving, and, perhaps, there was something in the charge. In his intense, self-contained nature wounds rankled long; and he had little of that talent for oblivion which is so easily developed among comfortable people, whose emotions and experiences have never been poignant enough to disturb their peace of mind.

‘One who knew Stanley well, and studied him with an eye at once penetrating and friendly, believed that through life he bore the characteristic traces of his Cymric origin. He had the Welsh peasant’s quickness of temper, his warmth of affection, his resentfulness when wronged, his pugnacity, and his code of ethics, ultimately derived from John Calvin. Welsh Protestantism is based on a conscientious study of the biblical text. Stanley carried his Bible with him through life, and he read it constantly; but I should imagine that he was less affected by the New Testament than by the prophetic and historical books of the Hebraic scriptures. He believed profoundly in the Divine ordering of the world; but he was equally assured that the Lord’s Will was not fulfilled by mystical dreams, or by weak acquiescence in any wrong-doing that could be evaded by energetic action. With Carlyle, he held that strength is based on righteousness, and that the strong should inherit the earth; and saw no reason why there should be any undue delay in claiming the inheritance. “The White Man’s Burden” could not be shirked, and should, on the contrary, be promptly and cheerfully shouldered.

‘“It is useless” (he wrote, having in view the American Indians) “to blame the white race for moving across the continent in a constantly-increasing tide. If we proceed in that manner, we shall presently find ourselves blaming Columbus for discovering America, and the Pilgrim Fathers for landing on Plymouth Rock! The whites have done no more than follow the law of their nature and being.”

‘He had his own idea about prayer. A man, he thought, ought to lay his supplications before the Throne of the Universe; and he attached great value to prayers for deliverance from danger and distress. But the answer was not to be expected by way of a miracle. The true response is in the effect on the suppliant himself, in the vigour and confidence it gives to his spirit, and the mental exaltation and clearness it produces. That was Stanley’s opinion; and he had no great respect for the martyrs, who yielded to their fate with prayer, when they might have averted it by action.

‘The crossing of Africa was Stanley’s premier achievement as a leader of men. The founding of the Congo State revealed him as a great administrator and organiser. It was a wonderful piece of management, a triumph of energy, resource, and hard work. Here it was that Stanley earned the title which, I think, gave him more satisfaction than the belated G. C. B., conferred on him towards the end of his life. The natives called him “Bula Matari,” which, being interpreted, means “the Breaker of Rocks”—an appellation bestowed upon him by the brown-skinned villagers as they watched the sturdy explorer toiling, bare-armed, under the fierce African sun, with axe or hammer in hand, showing his labourers, by example and precept, how to make the road from Vivi to Isangela, which bridged the cataracts of the Lower Congo, and opened the way to the upper reaches of the river.

‘The founding of the Congo State can be compared with the achievements of the two other great enterprises of our own time, which have converted vast tracts of primitive African savagery into organised states under civilised administration. But Stanley’s task was heavier than that of the pioneers of Rhodesia, and the creators of Nigeria. The sphere of his operations was longer; the native populations were more numerous and more utterly untouched by external influences other than those of the Arab slave-raiders; the climatic and physical obstacles were more severe; he had foreign opposition to contend with from without, and many difficulties with the pedantry, the obstinacy, and the greed of some of the officials sent out to him by his employers. Yet in the short space of five years the work was done! The Congo was policed, surveyed, placed under control. A chain of stations was drawn along its banks; systematic relations had been established with the more powerful native potentates; an elaborate political and commercial organisation had been established; the transport difficulties had been overcome, and the whole region thrown open to trade under the complicated and careful regulations which Stanley had devised. It was no fault of Stanley’s if the work has been badly carried on by his successors, and if the Congo State, under a régime of Belgian officials, not always carefully selected, has not, so far, fulfilled the promise of its inception. So long as Stanley was in Africa, no disaster occurred; there was no plundering of the natives, and no savage reprisals. If he had been permitted to remain a few years longer, the advance of the Congo State might have been more rapid, particularly if he could have been seconded by subordinates with a higher inherited capacity for ruling inferior races than Belgians could be expected to possess. It was a cause of regret to him, I believe, that England did not take a larger share in this international enterprise.

‘But England for long ignored or belittled the work that Stanley did. It was not till public opinion, throughout the Anglo-Saxon and Latin world, had acclaimed him a hero, that the governing element recognised something of his greatness; and, to the very last, its recognition was guarded and grudging. One might have supposed that his services would have been enlisted for the Empire in 1884, when he came back from the Congo. He was in the prime of life, he was full of vigour, he had proved his capacity as a leader, a ruler, and a governor, who had few living equals. One thinks that employment worthy of his powers should have been pressed upon him. But the country which left Burton to eat out his fiery heart in a second-rate consulship, and never seemed to know what to do with Gordon, could not find a suitable post for Stanley! I do not imagine he sought anything of the kind; but it seems strange that it was not offered, and on such terms that he would have found it difficult to refuse.

‘If he had been entrusted with some worthy imperial commission, he might have been saved from the fifth, and least fortunate, of his journeys into the interior of Africa. Nothing that Stanley ever did spoke more loudly for his courage, his resourcefulness, and his heroic endurance, than the expedition for the Relief of Emin Pasha. None but a man of his iron resolution could have carried through those awful marches and counter-marches in the tropical forest, and along the banks of the Aruwimi. But the suffering and privations were incurred for an inadequate object, and a cause not clearly understood. Many lives were lost, many brave men, white and black, perished tragically, to effect the rescue of a person who, it appeared, would, on the whole, have preferred not to be rescued!

‘The journey from the Ocean to the Nile, and from the Nile to the East Coast, added much to geographical knowledge, and was the complement of Stanley’s previous discoveries. But the cost was heavy, and the leader himself emerged with his health seriously impaired by the tremendous strain of those dark months. Most of his younger companions preceded him to the grave. Stanley survived Nelson, Stairs, and Parke, as well as Barttelot and Jameson; but the traces of the journey were upon him to the end, and no doubt they shortened his days.

‘Those days—that is to say, the fourteen years that were left to him after he returned to England in the spring of 1890—were, however, full of activity, and, one may hope, of content. No other great task of exploration and administration was tendered; and perhaps, if offered, it could not have been accepted. But Stanley found plenty of occupation. He wrote, he lectured, and he assisted the King of the Belgians with advice on the affairs of his Dependency. He was in Parliament for five years, and he took some part in the discussion of African questions. More than all, he was married, most happily and fortunately married, and watched over, and ministered to, with tactful and tender solicitude.

‘The evening of that storm-tossed and strenuous life was calm and peaceful. Those who knew him only in these closing years saw him, I suppose, at his best, with something of the former nervous, self-assertive, vitality replaced by a mellow and matured wisdom. Whether there was much more than an external contrast between the Stanley of the earlier and him of the later period, I am unable to say; but one may suggest that the change was in the nature of a development.

‘Does any man’s character really alter, after the formative season of youth is over? Traits, half-hidden, or seldom-revealed in the fierce stress of active conflict and labour, may come to the surface when the battling days are done. I cannot think that the serene sagacity, the gentleness, and the magnanimity, which one noted in Stanley in his last decade, could have been merely the fruit of leisure and domestic happiness. No doubt the strands were always in his nature, though perhaps not easily detected by the casual eye, so long as “the wrestling thews that throw the world” had to be kept in constant exercise.

‘In manner and appearance, and in other respects, he was the absolute antithesis of the type he sometimes represented to the general imagination. Short of stature, lean, and wiry, with a brown face, a strong chin, a square, Napoleonic head, and noticeable eyes,—round, lion-like eyes, watchful and kindly, that yet glowed with a hidden fire,—he was a striking and attractive personality; but there was nothing in him to recall the iron-handed, swash-buckling, melodramatic adventurer, such as the pioneers of new countries are often supposed to be. The bravest of the brave, a very Ney or Murat among travellers, one knew that he was; but his courage, one could see, was not of the unthinking, inconsequent variety, that would court danger for its own sake, without regard to life and suffering. What struck one most was that “high seriousness,” which often belongs to men who have played a great part in great events, and have been long in close contact with the sterner reality of things. His temperament was intense rather than passionate, in spite of the outbursts of quick anger, which marked him, in his fighting period, when he was crossed or wronged. Much, far too much, was made of his “indiscretions” of language—as if strong men are not always indiscreet! It is only the weaklings who make no mistakes, who are for ever decorous and prudent.

‘Much the same may be said of his early quarrel with the Royal Geographical Society. He did not find it easy to forgive that distinguished body, when it signified its desire to make amends for the coldness with which it had first treated him, and for the ungenerous aspersions, which some of its members had cast upon his fame. They gave him a dinner, and made flattering speeches about the man who had succeeded. It was thought to be ungracious of Stanley that he would not make up the quarrel, until he had vindicated his own part of it by a bitter recital of his grievances. But men who feel intensely, who have suffered deeply under unmerited injuries, and who have Stanley’s defiant sense of justice, are not always so tactful and polite as the social amenities require.

‘As it was, the “indiscretions” for some years left a certain mark upon Stanley’s reputation, and gave an easy handle to the cavillers and the hypercritical, and to the whole tribe of the purists, who are shocked because revolutions are not made with rose-water, or continents conquered in kid gloves. Even after his triumph was acknowledged, after he had been honoured by princes, and had won his way to the tardy recognition of the Royal Geographical Society, there were “superior persons” to repeat that he was egotistical and inhuman.

‘To his friends, both charges must have seemed absurd. Of personal egotism, of mere vanity, he had singularly little. It needed a very obtuse observer to miss seeing that he was by nature simple, affectionate, and modest, with a wealth of kindness and generosity under his mantle of reserve. He had a sympathetic feeling for the helpless, and the unfortunate—for animals, for the poor, and for the children of all races. On the march from Ruwenzori, distressed mothers of Emin’s motley contingent would bring their babies to Stanley’s own tent, knowing that “Bula Matari” would have halted the caravan sooner than needlessly sacrifice one of these quaint brown scraps of humanity. He would tell the story himself; and afterwards, perhaps, he would describe how he made up the connubial differences of some jangling couple of half-clad aboriginals!

‘His full and varied experiences were not easy to extract from him, for he disliked being “drawn,” and preferred to talk on those larger, impersonal questions of politics, history, ethnology, and economics, in which he never ceased to be interested. But his friends were sometimes allowed to be entranced by some strange and stirring episode of African adventure, told with fine dramatic power, and relieved by touches of quiet humour. He was not a witty talker, but he had a fund of that amused tolerance which comes of comprehending, and condoning, the weaknesses of human nature. It is a trait which goes far to explain his success in dealing with native races.

‘In the House of Commons he was not much at home. The atmosphere of the place, physical and intellectual, disagreed with him. The close air and the late hours did not suit his health. “I am a man,” he once said to the present writer, “who cannot stand waste.” The Commons’ House of Parliament, with its desultory, irregular ways, its dawdling methods, and its interminable outpourings of verbose oratory, must have seemed to him a gigantic apparatus for frittering away energy and time. He was glad to escape from St. Stephen’s to the Surrey country home, in which he found much of the happiness of his later years. Here he drained, and trenched, and built, and planted; doing everything with the same careful prevision, and economical adaptation of means to ends, which he had exhibited in greater enterprises. To go the round of his improvements with him was to gain some insight into the practical side of his character.

‘It was not the only, nor perhaps the highest, side. There was another, not revealed to the world at large, or to many persons, and the time has scarcely come to dwell upon it. But those who caught glimpses into a temple somewhat jealously veiled and guarded, did not find it hard to understand why it was that Stanley had never failed to meet with devoted service and loyal attachment, through all the vicissitudes of the brilliant and adventurous career which has left its mark scored deep upon the history of our planet.

‘Sidney Low.’

A further testimony to the importance of Stanley’s discoveries was given by Sir William Garstin, G. C. M. G., in a paper read on December 15, 1908, before the Royal Geographical Society, on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the discovery of the Source of the White Nile by Captain John Speke.

‘I now come,’ said Sir William Garstin, ‘to what is, perhaps, the most striking personality of all in the roll of the discoverers of the Nile, that of Henry Stanley.

‘Stanley on his second expedition, starting for the interior, on November 17, 1874, circumnavigated Lake Victoria, and corrected the errors of Speke’s map as to its shape and area.

‘He visited the Nile outlet, and proved that the Nyanza was a single sheet of water, and not, as Burton had asserted, a series of small, separate lakes.

‘On arriving at Mtesa’s capital, Stanley’s acute mind quickly grasped the possibilities of Uganda as a centre for missionary enterprise. He realised that, if he could succeed in interesting Great Britain in such a project, a most important departure would have been made in the direction of introducing European civilisation into Central Africa.

‘First came his appeal by letter, followed later by Stanley himself, whose eloquence aroused enthusiasm in the English public. A great meeting held in Exeter Hall, resulted in funds being raised, and the first party of English missionaries started for Uganda in the spring of 1876.

‘This, although not at the time realised, was in reality the first step towards the introduction of British rule in Equatorial Africa.

‘Stanley’s last voyage, and in some respects, his greatest expedition, was undertaken for the relief of Emin Pasha, at that time cut off from communication with the outer world. The Relief Expedition started in 1887, under Stanley’s leadership. This time Stanley started from the Congo, and, travelling up that river, struck eastward into the Great Forest, which, covering many thousands of square miles, stretches across a portion of the Semliki Valley and up the western flank of Ruwenzori.

‘On emerging from the Forest, Stanley reached the Valley of the Semliki, and, in May, 1888, he discovered the mountain chain of Ruwenzori.

‘This discovery alone would have sufficed to have made his third journey famous. It was not all, however. After his meeting with Emin, he followed the Semliki Valley to the point where this river issues from the Albert Edward Nyanza.

‘Stanley was the first traveller to trace its course, and to prove that it connects two lakes and, consequently, forms a portion of the Nile system.

‘When skirting the north end of Lake Albert Edward, he recognised that he had really discovered this lake in his previous journey, although at the time unaware of this fact.

‘Stanley has thus cleared up the last remaining mystery with respect to the Nile sources.

‘It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Stanley’s work. The main facts regarding the sources of the Nile were finally revealed by him, and nothing was left for future explorers but to fill in the details. This was a magnificent achievement for one man to have compassed, and Stanley must always stand out as having done more than any other to clear up, and to correct, the errors in the geography of the Nile basin. Stanley not only completed thoroughly the work left unfinished by other explorers, but added largely to it by his own remarkable discoveries. To him also it was due that the first English Mission was despatched to Uganda.

‘Stanley’s glowing accounts of the fertility of the land of the Baganda encouraged British commercial enterprise, and originated the formation of the East African Chartered Company. As we now know, the inevitable sequence was the English occupation of the country.’

As to Stanley’s African work, one or two features may here be specially noted. His master-passion was that, not of the discoverer, but of the civiliser. He had his own methods, but he was sympathetic and helpful toward other methods, and sometimes adopted them. To King Mtesa and his people, he took the part of a Christian missionary with rare efficiency. When the time for his departure came, Mtesa heard it with dismay, and asked: ‘What is the use, then, of your coming to Uganda to disturb our minds, if, as soon as we are convinced that what you have said has right and reason in it, you go away before we are fully instructed?’

Stanley answered that every man has his own business and calling, that his business was that of a pioneer and not of a religious teacher, but if the king wanted real instructors, he would write to England and ask for them. The king said, ‘Then write, Stamlee’ (the native pronunciation of the name), ‘and say to the white people that I am like a child sitting in darkness, and cannot see until I am taught the right way.’ Thereupon followed the appeal to England, the prompt response, the planting of the mission, and the heroic story of the Uganda church triumphing over persecution and martyrdom. When Stanley wrote the story for the ‘Cornhill Magazine,’ January, 1901, the Uganda people had built for themselves three hundred and seventy-two churches, with nearly 100,000 communicants, who were not fair-weather Christians. A week or two after Stanley’s death, the great cathedral of Uganda was solemnly consecrated, and opened for service.

Among these people whom Stanley visited, while taking Emin’s refugees to safety in 1889, was the illustrious missionary A. M. Mackay, who had previously written, ‘For a time the old gods of the land had to give way to the creed of Arabia, as the king saw something in that more likely to add prestige to his court than the charm-filled horns of the magic men, and frantic dance of the foretellers of fortune. Then came Stanley. Let his enemies scoff as they will, it is a fact indisputable that with his visit there commenced the dawn of a new era in the annals of the court of Uganda. The people themselves date from Stanley’s day the commencement of leniency and law, in place of the previous reign of bloodshed and terror. “Since Stanley came,” they say, “the king no more slaughters innocent people as he did before; he no more disowns and disinherits in a moment an old and powerful chief, and sets up a puppet of his own, who was before only a slave.” Compared with the former daily changes and cruelties, as the natives describe them, one cannot but feel thankful to God for the mighty change.’

After the visit, Mackay writes:—

‘I must say that I much enjoyed Mr. Stanley’s company during the short stay here. He is a man of an iron will and sound judgment; and, besides, is most patient with the natives. He never allows any one of his followers to oppress, or even insult, a native. If he has had occasionally to use force in order to effect a passage, I am certain that he only resorted to arms when all other means failed.’

Stanley recognised and appreciated in Mackay a spirit akin to Livingstone. He judged that he had dangerously overtaxed his strength, and urged him to go away with him and secure a rest. But Mackay would not leave his post, and within half a year he succumbed to disease.[38]

Did space permit, a chapter might well be given to Stanley’s labours for African civilisation by means of addresses to the English people, and his efforts, by lectures and personal interviews, to move the Government and the community to meet the successive calls for action. Had England responded to his appeal to take over the Congo region, the leadership, which was left to the Belgian sovereign, would have devolved on the British nation, and history would have had a different course.

After the founding of the Congo Free State, Stanley went over the length and breadth of England to address meetings, urging the English people to build the Congo Railway. But again the deaf ear was turned to him. Now, the wealth to shareholders in that railway is prodigious. He also did his utmost to spur and persuade a laggard and indifferent Government to plant and foster English civilisation in East Africa. He wanted not mere political control, but the efficient repression of the slave-trade, the advancement of material improvements, and especially the construction of railways to destroy the isolation which was ruinous to the interior. One lecture, entitled ‘Uganda; a plea against its Evacuation,’ is a masterpiece of large-minded wisdom, and true statesmanship. He spoke repeatedly before Anti-slavery Societies on the practical means of attaining the great end. His influence with King Leopold was always used to hasten and complete the extirpation of the Arab slave-trade. From that curse Equatorial Africa was freed, and in its deliverance Stanley was the leader.

Stanley constantly urged the vital importance of thoroughly training Medical Officers and Medical Missionaries in the knowledge of Tropical diseases, and the necessity of the proper medical equipment of expeditions and stations, and the considerate medical treatment of natives, as well as white men, for economic reasons, as well as on humanitarian grounds.

From his own terrible experiences Stanley realised to the full the barrier which Malaria and other dread Tropical diseases imposed against the progress of civilisation and commercial enterprise in Africa; and he followed with keen interest and hopefulness the discoveries of Sir Patrick Manson, and Major Ross, proving the mosquito to be the host and carrier of the malarial parasite, and also the successful devices of these scientists for checking and reducing the death-toll from this scourge.

He particularly applauded the great, far-seeing, Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, for his practical measures, by which he had done more than any other Statesman to render the Tropical regions of the Empire habitable and healthy.

Stanley’s last public appearance was at a dinner to Dr. Andrew Balfour, on his appointment as Director of the Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories, Gordon Memorial College, Khartoum, and, in the course of a very moving speech on the development of Africa since his first expedition, Stanley said that, at one time, he thought the Equatorial regions possible for the habitation of natives only, except in limited highlands; but now, thanks to the work of the London and Liverpool Schools of Tropical Medicine, and these Research Laboratories in the heart of Africa, the deadly plagues that harassed mankind were being conquered, and the whole of that Dark Continent might yet become a white man’s land.

One other trait of his African work may be mentioned. In a pecuniary sense, it was absolutely disinterested. He would never take the slightest personal advantage of the commercial opportunities incident to the opening of the new countries, on the Congo, or in Uganda. I desire to emphasise the fact that such property as he had came almost entirely from his books and his lectures. He gave his assistance to the establishment of the British East African Company because he believed in its influence for good, but he declined any pecuniary interest.

When the Congo Railway stock was paying very high dividends, he was asked why he did not take some of it, and he answered that ‘he would not have even the appearance of personal profit out of Africa.’ When princes and potentates made advantageous offers to him, they were quietly put aside. Once an English magnate in Africa, who had aggrandised England and enriched himself, asked playfully, ‘Why don’t you take some of the “corner lots” in Africa?’ Stanley put the question by, and afterwards said: ‘That way may be very well for him, but, for myself, I prefer my way.’

When the retention of Uganda was under discussion, Lord Salisbury said publicly: ‘It is natural that Mr. Stanley should favour the retention, for we all know that he has interests in Africa.’ Stanley took the earliest occasion to say publicly; ‘It is true, but not in the sordid sense in which the imputation has been made; my whole interest there is for Africa herself, and for humanity.’

CHAPTER XIX

EUROPE AGAIN

I was reminded of this very forcibly when I descended from the Suez train, and entered Cairo. My pampered habits of solitary musing were outraged, my dreaming temper was shocked, my air-castles were ruthlessly demolished, and my illusions were rudely dispelled. The fashionables of Cairo, in staring at me every time I came out to take the air, made me uncommonly shy; they made me feel as if something was radically wrong about me, and I was too disconcerted to pair with any of them, all at once. They had been sunning without interruption in the full blaze of social life, and I was too fresh from my three years’ meditations in the wilds.

If any of the hundreds I met chanced to think kindly of me at this period, it was certainly not because of any merit of my own, but because of their innate benevolence and ample considerateness. I am inclined to think, however, that I made more enemies than friends, for it could scarcely be otherwise with an irreflective world. To have escaped their censure, I ought to have worn a parchment band on my forehead, bearing the inscription: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have been in Darkest Africa for three continuous years, living among savages, and I fear something of their spirit clings to me; so I pray you have mercy.’

Indeed, no African traveller ought to be judged during the first year of his return. He is too full of his own reflections; he is too utterly natural; he must speak the truth, if he dies for it; his opinions are too much his own. Then, again, his vitals are wholly disorganised. He may appear plump enough, but the plumpness is simply the effect of unhealthy digestion; his stomach, after three years’ famishing, is contracted, and the successive feasts to which he is invited speedily become his bane. His nerves are not uniformly strung, and his mind harks back to the strange scenes he has just left, and cannot be on the instant focussed upon that which interests Society. To expect such a man to act like the unconscious man of the world, is as foolish as to expect a fashionable Londoner to win the confidence of naked Africans. We must give both time to recover themselves, or we shall be unjust.

To avoid the lounging critics that sat in judgment upon me at Shepheard’s Hotel, I sought a retired spot, the Villa Victoria, surrounded by a garden, where, being out of sight, I might be out of mind. There was also an infectious sickness prevailing that season in London, and my friends thought it better that I should wait warmer weather. I reached Cairo in the middle of January, 1890, and, until the beginning of February, I toyed with my pen. I could not, immediately, dash off two consecutive sentences that were readable. A thousand scenes floated promiscuously through my head, but, when one came to my pen-point, it was a farrago of nonsense, incoherent, yet confusedly intense. Then the slightest message from the outside world led me astray, like a rambling butterfly. What to say first, and how to say it, was as disturbing as a pathless forest would be to a man who had never stirred from Whitechapel. My thoughts massed themselves into a huge organ like that at the Crystal Palace, from which a master-hand could evoke Handel’s ‘Messiah,’ or Wagner’s ‘Walküre,’ but which to me would only give deep discords.

The days went by, and I feared I should have to relegate my book to the uncertain future. At last I started on the ‘Forest’ chapter, the writing of which relieved me of the acuter feeling. Then I began the ‘March from Yambuya’; and, presently, I warmed to the work, flung off page after page, and never halted until I had reached ‘The Albert.’ The stronger emotions being thus relieved, I essayed the beginning, and found by the after-reading that I was not over-fantastic, and had got into the swing of narrative. I continued writing from ten to fifty pages of manuscript during a day, from six in the morning until midnight; and, having re-written the former chapters with more method, was able on the eighty-fifth day to write ‘Finis’ to the record of the journey.

I think the title of it was a happy one—‘In Darkest Africa, or the Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin Pasha.’ It was the choice out of more than fifty taking titles on the same subject, but none of them was so aptly descriptive of the theme. Since then, some dozen or so book-titles have been founded on it, such as ‘Darkest England,’ ‘Darkest London,’ ‘Darkest New York,’ ‘Darkest Russia,’ etc., etc. It was the custom for Germans, Anglo-Germans, Philo-Germans, etc., etc., for some three or four years later, to print the word ‘Rescue’ with quotation marks, which signified, of course, ‘so-called’; but if the word is not absolutely truthful, I know not what is true.

Emin was rescued from being either sold to the Mahdists, or killed by Fadle Mullah, or perishing through some stupid act of his own; and, so long as he was in the British camp, he was safe. The very day he was kissed by his countrymen, he was doomed to fall, and he nearly cracked his poor head. When they placed power in his hands, they sent him to his death.

Though not secure from interruptions at the Villa Victoria, I could, at aleast, make my selection of the visitors who called. Might I have been as safe from the telegraph and mails, I should have been fairly comfortable; but my telegrams were numerous, and letters arrived sometimes by the hundred. The mere reading of the correspondence entailed a vast loss of time, the replies to them still more, and occupied the best efforts of three persons. What with a tedious sitting for my portrait, visits, interviews, dining-out, telegraphic and postal correspondence, calls of friends, instructions to the artist for the book, and revisions of my MS., it appears to me wonderful that I was able to endure the strain of writing half a million of words, and all else; but, thank Goodness! by the middle of April, the book was out of my hands, and I was alive and free.

From Cairo, I proceeded to Cannes, to consult with Sir William Mackinnon about East Africa, and explain about German aggressiveness in that region. Thence I moved to Paris; and, not many days later, I was in Brussels, where I was received with a tremendous demonstration of military and civilian honours. All the way to the royal palace, where I was to be lodged, the streets were lined with troops, and behind these was the populace shouting their ‘vivas!’ It appeared to me that a great change had come over Belgian public opinion about the value of the Congo. Before I departed for Africa, the Belgian journals were not in favour of Africa. But now, all was changed, and the King was recognised as ‘the great benefactor of the nation.’ While I was the guest of His Majesty, state, municipal, and geographical receptions followed fast upon one another; and at each of the assemblages I was impressed with the enthusiasm of the nation for the grand African domain secured to it by the munificence of their royal statesman and sovereign. Besides gold and silver medals from Brussels and Antwerp, the King graciously conferred on me the Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold, and the Grand Cross of the Congo.

Every morning, however, between 10.30 and 12, the King led me into his private room, to discuss questions of absorbing interest to both of us. Since 1878, I had repeatedly endeavoured to impress on His Majesty the necessity of the railway, for the connection of the Lower with the Upper Congo, without which it was impossible to hope that the splendid sacrifices he proposed to make, or had made, would ever bear fruit. In 1885-86, I had been one of the principal agents in the promotion of an English Company for the construction of the Royal Congo Railway; but my efforts were in vain. Now, however, the King expressed his assurance that the time was ripe for the Belgian nation to construct the line, and he was pleased to say that it was my success which had produced this feeling, and that the welcome extended to me was a proof of it. I would have been better pleased if His Majesty had expressed his determination to economise in other directions, and devote his energies to the railway.

The next subject was the suppression of the slave-trade in the Congo. I proposed that troops should be pushed up the Congo, and that posts should be established at the mouths of the Aruwimi and Lumami, and that the garrisons should be increased month by month, until about two thousand troops had been collected, when an onward movement should be made against Stanley Falls, and the Arab power be summarily broken.

As this would be a signal of resolute action against all the Arabs above the Falls, about thirty steel boats should be provided, to enable the war to be carried up the Lualaba; for there would be no peace for the State, until every slaver in the Congo State had been extirpated or disarmed. I explained the project in great detail, and urged it vehemently, as after the treachery of Tippu-Tib in the Forest region, it was useless to hope that any other method would prevail. His Majesty promised cordial assent to the plan, and promised that the orders should be issued at once for the building of the boats.

The next subject debated was the better delimitation of the Congo State to the east. I proposed that instead of the vague and uncertain line of East longitude 30, the boundary between British territory and the Congo State should be the centre of the Albert Edward Nyanza and the course of the Semliki River, by which the parting of tribes would be avoided. The benefits to both England and the State would be that, while the whole of the snowy range of Ruwenzori, intact, would belong to England, the Congo State would be extended to the Albert Nyanza. In size, the exchanged territories would be about equal in area. His Majesty appeared pleased with the idea, and expressed his willingness to negotiate the exchange of territories with the East African Company.

The King introduced the third subject himself, by expressing his desire to know what point was the best to occupy as a central post along the Northern frontier between France and the Congo State. I unhesitatingly pointed out the confluence of the Mbornu with the Welle-Mubangi, but that to supply such a distant station would require a large number of steel whale-boats, such as Forrest & Son, of London, had made for me.

Then he wished to know how the North-eastern frontier could be defended. I replied that a clever officer would find no difficulty in establishing himself within easy reach of Makraka, and holding out inducements to the former Makraka soldiers of Emin, many of whom would be glad of a refuge against the Mahdists. At these private receptions His Majesty is accustomed to sit with his back to the window, on one side of a large marble-topped table, while his visitor sits on the other side. The table is well furnished with writing-paper, ink, pens, and pencils. Three years and a quarter had passed since I was in the room, where I had been fifty times before, probably; nothing had changed except ourselves. The King’s beautiful brown beard had, in the interval, become grey from ear to ear; while my hair, which had been iron-grey, was now as white as Snowdon in winter.

I made a smiling reference to the changes Time had wrought in us since we had first met in June, 1878, and discussed the possibilities of introducing civilisation on the Congo.

The King began by saying that my visit to Brussels was sure to be followed by great results. He was very certain of being able to get the Congo Railway started now; for the Belgian people were thoroughly roused up, and were even enthusiastic. He said my letters from Africa and my present visit had caused this change. My description of the Forest had fired their imagination; and the people seemed to be about as eager to begin the railway as they were previously backward, indifferent, even hostile. The railway shares had been nearly all taken up, etc., etc.

‘Now, Mr. Stanley,’ said he, ‘you have put me under still further obligations, by pointing out how slave-raiding can be stopped; you have also suggested how we could transform slave-raiders into policemen, which is a splendid idea; and, finally, you have indicated how we are to protect our frontiers and make use of Emin’s troops, as soldiers in the service of the State.’

We now discussed the value of the country between the Congo and Lake Albert. He listened to what I said with the close attention of one who was receiving an account of a great estate that had just fallen to him, of which, previously, he had but a vague knowledge.

I said that from the mouth of the Aruwimi to within fifty miles of Lake Albert, the whole country, from 4° S., to about 3° N., was one dense tropical forest, and that its area was about equal to France and Spain put together.

‘Does the Forest produce anything that is marketable in Europe?’

‘Well, Sire, I suppose that when elephants have been exterminated in all other parts of Africa, there will still be some found in that Forest, so that the State will always be able to count upon some quantity of ivory, especially if the State has kindly set aside a reservation for them to retreat to, and forbidden the indiscriminate slaughter of these animals. Such a reservation will also be useful for the pigmies and other wild creatures of the forest. But the principal value of the Forest consists in the practically inexhaustible supply of valuable and useful timber which it will yield. You have a great source of revenue in this immense store of giant trees, when the Congo Railway enables timber merchants to build their saw-mills on the banks of the many tributaries and creeks which pierce it. The cotton-wood, though comparatively soft, will be adapted for cargo barges, because it is as unsinkable as cork, and will be useful for transporting down the Congo the mahogany, teak, greenheart, and the hard red and yellow woods.

‘I think the timber-yards at Stanley Pool will be a sight to see, some few years hence. Then, for local purposes, the Forest will be valuable for furnishing materials for building all the houses in the Congo Valley, and for making wooden tram-lines across the portages of the many rivers. The Concessionaires will also find the rubber produce of the forest highly profitable. Almost every branchy tree has a rubber parasite clinging to it; as we carved our way through the Forest our clothes were spoiled by the rain of juice which fell on us. As there are so many rivers and creeks in the Forest, accessible by boats, and as along the Congo itself, for some hundreds of miles, the woods come down and overhang the water, a well-organised company will be able to collect several tons, annually, of rubber. When rubber is, even now, two shillings per pound,[39] you can estimate what the value of this product alone will be, when the industry has been properly developed.

‘With every advance into the Forest, the gummy exudations will also be no mean gain. Every land-slip along the rivers discloses a quantity of precious fossil-gum, which floats down the streams in large cakes. Experience will teach the Concessionaires when and how to hunt for this valuable article of commerce. I am inclined to think, in fact, that the Great Forest will prove as lucrative to the State as any other section, however fertile the soil and rich its produce.

‘No one can travel up the Congo without being struck by the need of the saw-mill, and how numerous and urgent are the uses of sawn timber for the various stations which are being erected everywhere.

‘If you had saw-mills established now on the Aruwimi, they could not produce planking fast enough to satisfy all demands, and what a help for the railway hard-wood sleepers would be!’

I was then questioned as to the tribes of the Forest, and had to explain that as the experiences of these unsophisticated aborigines with strangers had been most cruel, it would not do to be too sanguine about their ability to supply labour at first demand. ‘But,’ I said, ‘I came across no tribe, excepting the pigmies, which, after two years’ acquaintance with the white man, could not be brought to a right sense of the value of their muscle. If a station were built in any part of the Forest, the tribe in its neighbourhood might be induced by patient and fair treatment to become serviceable in a short time; but the other tribes would remain as aloof as ever, until they had the same opportunities of intimately knowing the white strangers. As the Forest is so dense, and so many miles of untrodden woods separate the tribes, it will be a long time before all the people will be tamed fit for employment. Good roads through the Forest, gentle treatment of the natives employed, and fair wages to them, will tend to hasten the white man’s good influence; for rumour spreads rapidly; in a mysterious way good, as well as evil, news travels; and every month will show a perceptible increase in the numbers of those natives desirous of associating themselves with the white strangers.’

When the King asked me about the people of the grass-lands near the lakes, he was much interested at hearing, how, from enemies, formidable by their numbers and courage, they had become my allies, carriers, servants, and most faithful messengers. His Majesty was much impressed by this, and I told him how I had been affected by their amiability and good service; to any one listening to the warm praise I gave the Mazamboni and Kavallis, I might have appeared to exaggerate their good qualities; but His Majesty is so generous-minded that he could appreciate the frank way in which they had confessed their error in treating us as enemies, and the ready way in which they had atoned for it.

I showed the King that the grass-lands were not so distant from the Congo as my painful and long journey through the Forest had made them appear. ‘Without any great cost it will be possible for the State to send expeditions to Lake Albert from the Congo within ten days. For, when saw-mills have been established at Yambuya, a wooden tram-line, topped by light steel bars, may be laid very easily along the Aruwimi, over which a small engine, drawing five trucks, could travel five miles an hour, or sixty miles a day. But before this tram-line will be possible, the railway to Stanley Pool must be finished, by which the resources of civilisation, saw-mills, tools, engines, boats, provisions, will be brought thirteen hundred miles nearer the lakes than they are now.’

After this, we adjourned to lunch, etc., etc.

A few weeks later, the King came over to London; and, after a talk with Lord Salisbury and the principal Directors of the East African Company, whereby the boundaries between their respective territories were agreed to be the Albert, and Albert Edward, and the course of the river Semliki, from the centre of the southern shore of the Albert Edward to the northern head of the Tanganyika Lake, a strip of ten miles in width was secured to Great Britain for free transit,[40] with all powers of jurisdiction. Sir William Mackinnon and myself were the signatories duly empowered.[41] In my opinion, the advantages of this Treaty were on the side of the British, as there was now a free broad line of communications between Cape Town and British Equatoria, while my own secret hopes of the future of the Ruwenzori range were more likely to be gratified by its acquisition by the English, because, once the railway reached within a reasonable distance of the Snowy Mountains, a certain beautiful plateau—commanding a view of the snow-peaks, the plain of Usongora, the Lake Albert Edward, and the Semliki Valley—must become the site of the future Simla of Africa. On the other hand, the King was pleased with the extension of his territory to the Albert Nyanza, though the advantages are more sentimental than real. The narrow pasture-land between the Great Forest and the lake may become inhabited by whites, in which case the ninety-mile length of the Nyanza may be utilized for steamboat communication between the two ends of it.

As Monsieur Vankherchoven, King Leopold’s agent, was by this time well on his way to the confluence of the headwaters of the Wellé-Mubangi, the conclusion of this Treaty necessitated a slight change in his instructions.

On arriving in England, April 26, 1890, I was met by a large number of friends at Dover, who escorted me on a special train to London. At Victoria Station a large crowd was assembled, who greeted me most warmly. The Baroness Burdett-Coutts and Mr. Burdett-Coutts had done me the honour of meeting me with their carriage, and in brief time I found myself in comfortable rooms at De Vere Gardens, which had been engaged and prepared for me by Sir Francis and Lady De Winton.

For the next three or four weeks, proof-reading and revising, banquets, preparing lectures, etc., absorbed far more time than was good for my health. Two of the most notable Receptions were by the Royal Geographical Society and the Emin Relief Committee; the first, at the Albert Hall, was by far the grandest Assembly I ever saw. About ten thousand people were present; Royalty, the Peerage, and all classes of Society were well represented. While Sir Mountstuart Grant-Duff, the President, was speaking, my eyes lighted on many a noble senator, chief of science, and prince in literature, whose presence made me realise the supreme honour accorded to me.

At the house of my dear wife-to-be, I met the ex-Premier, the Right Honourable Mr. W. E. Gladstone, who had come for a chat and a cup of tea, and to be instructed—as I had been duly warned—about one or two matters connected with the slave-trade. I had looked forward to the meeting with great interest, believing—deluded fool that I was!—that a great politician cares to be instructed about anything but the art of catching votes. I had brought with me the latest political map of East Africa, and, when the time had come, I spread it out conveniently on the table before the great man, at whose speaking face I gazed with the eyes of an African. ‘Mr. Gladstone,’ said I, intending to be brief and to the point, as he was an old man, ‘this is Mombasa, the chief port of British East Africa. It is an old city. It is mentioned in the Lusiads, and, no doubt, has been visited by the Phœnicians. It is most remarkable for its twin harbours, in which the whole British Navy might lie safely, and—’

‘Pardon me’ said Mr. Gladstone, ‘did you say it was a harbour?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said I, ‘so large that a thousand vessels could be easily berthed in it.’

‘Oh, who made the harbour?’ he asked, bending his imposing glance at me.

‘It is a natural harbour,’ I answered.

‘You mean a port, or roadstead?’

‘It is a port, certainly, but it is also a harbour, that, by straightening the bluffs, you—’

‘But pardon me, a harbour is an artificial construction.’

‘Excuse me, sir, a dock is an artificial construction, but a harbour may be both artificial and natural, and—’

‘Well, I never heard the word applied in that sense,’ And he continued, citing Malta and Alexandria, and so on.

This discussion occupied so much time that, fearing I should lose my opportunity of speaking about the slave-trade, I seized the first pause, and skipping about the region between Mombasa and Uganda, I landed him on the shores of the Nyanza, and begged him to look at the spacious inland sea, surrounded by populous countries, and I traced the circling lands. When I came to Ruwenzori, his eye caught a glimpse of two isolated peaks.

‘Excuse me one minute,’ said he; ‘what are those two mountains called?’

‘Those, sir,’ I answered, ‘are the Gordon Bennett and the Mackinnon peaks.’

‘Who called them by those absurd names?’ he asked, with the corrugation of a frown on his brow.

‘I called them, sir.’

‘By what right?’ he asked.

‘By the right of first discovery, and those two gentlemen were the patrons of the expedition.’

‘How can you say that, when Herodotus spoke of them twenty-six hundred years ago, and called them Crophi and Mophi? It is intolerable that classic names like those should be displaced by modern names, and—’

‘I humbly beg your pardon, Mr. Gladstone, but Crophi and Mophi, if they ever existed at all, were situated over a thousand miles to the northward. Herodotus simply wrote from hearsay, and—’

‘Oh, I can’t stand that.’

‘Well, Mr. Gladstone,’ said I, ‘will you assist me in this project of a railway to Uganda, for the suppression of the slave-trade, if I can arrange that Crophi and Mophi shall be substituted in place of Gordon Bennett and Mackinnon?’

‘Oh, that will not do; that is flat bribery and corruption’; and, smiling, he rose to his feet, buttoning his coat lest his virtue might yield to the temptation.

‘Alas!’ said I to myself, ‘when England is ruled by old men and children! My slave-trade discourse must be deferred, I see.’

Turning now to the extraordinary charges made against me, on my return to Europe, that I deliberately employed slaves on my expedition, I would point out that every traveller, before setting out on his journey, took all precautions to avoid doing this. Each of my followers was obliged to prove that he was free—by personal declaration and two witnesses—before he could be enrolled. Four months’ advance wages were paid to the men before they left Zanzibar, and, on their return, their full wages were delivered into their own hands. No doubt many who had been slaves had managed to get into the expedition, as I found to my cost, when well away in the interior; but, since they had been able to earn their own living, their slavery had been merely nominal, and all their earnings were their own to do what they liked with, and their owners never saw them except when, at the end of Ramadan, they called to pay their respects. To all intents and purposes, they were as much freemen as the free-born, inasmuch as they were relieved from all obligation to their masters.

To proceed on the lines that, because they were not free-born they must be slaves, one would have to clear out the Seedy-boy stokers from the British fleet in the Indian Ocean, and all the mail, passenger, and freight steamers which ship them at Aden and Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore, and Yokohama. All the British consulates on the East Coast—Zanzibar, Madagascar, etc.—would have to be charged with conniving at the slave-trade, as also all the British merchants in those places, because they employed house-servants, door and horse-boys, who were nominally slaves.

White men are not in the habit of proceeding to an Arab slave-owner, and agreeing with him as to the employment of his slaves. I employed English agents at Zanzibar to engage my people, and every precaution was taken that no one was enlisted who could not swear he was an Ingwaria, or freeman. I was only four days in Zanzibar, but, before these men were accepted, they had to re-swear their declarations before the British Consul-general that they were free.

The accusations made against me that I employed slaves were, therefore, most disgraceful. History will be compelled to acknowledge that I have some right to claim credit in the acts which have followed, one upon another, so rapidly of late, and which have tended to make slave-raiding impossible, and to reduce slave-trading to sly and secret exchanges of human chattels in isolated districts in the interior.

The book ‘In Darkest Africa’ was published in June by my usual publishers, Messrs. Sampson, Son & Co., and the Messrs. Scribners of New York brought it out in America. It was translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch, and in English it has had a sale of about one hundred and fifty thousand.

The month of May was mainly passed by me in stirring up the Chambers of Commerce and the Geographical Societies to unite in pressing upon the British Government the necessity of more vigorous action to prevent East Africa being wholly absorbed by Germany; and, on coming southward from Scotland, where I had been speaking, the news reached me that Lord Salisbury had secured for Great Britain, Zanzibar and the northern half of East Africa, but singularly curtailed of the extensive piece of pasture-land west of Kilimanjaro. This odd cutting off is due to a Permanent Official in the Foreign Office, whose hand can be traced in that oblique line running from the northern base of the Devil’s Mountain to S. Lat. 10, on Lake Victoria. Had that gentleman been a member of an African expedition, he would never have had recourse to an oblique line when a straight line would have done better. However, while it remains a signal instance of his weakness, it is no less a remarkable proof of German magnanimity! For, though the Germans were fully aware that the official was one of the most squeezable creatures in office, they declined to extend the line to the Equator! Kilimanjaro, therefore, was handed over to Germany, ‘because the German Emperor was so interested in the flora and fauna of that district!’ That, at any rate, was the reason given for the request!