If he is a true lover of wild Nature, where can he view her under so many aspects as in the centre of Africa? Where is she so shy, so retired, mysterious, fantastic, and savage as in Africa? Where are her charms so strong, her moods so strange, as in Africa?
One time she appears so stale, flat, and tedious, that the very memory of the scene sickens and disgusts; another time she covers her prospects with such a mysterious veil, that I suffered from protracted fits of melancholy, and depression of spirits, to such a degree I was glad to turn to meditations on the words of the fourteenth chapter of Job. It is when Africa presents vast desolate wastes, without grandeur, beauty, or sublimity, when even animated life appears quite extinct, then it is that the traveller from long contemplating such scenes is liable to become seriously afflicted with sullen, savage humour, as though in accordance with what he beholds.
At another time, Nature in Africa exposes a fair, fresh face to the light of heaven, a very queen in glory, whose grassy dress exhibits its shimmers as it is gently blown by the breeze; soft, swelling hills, and hollows all green with luxuriant leafage; wild flowers and blooming shrubs perfume the air, and beautiful outlines of hills grace the extensive prospect. Oh! at such times I forgot all my toils and privations, I seemed re-created; the mere view around me would send fresh vigour through my nerves.
In her grand and sublime moods, Nature often appears in Africa, her crown, wreathed in verdure, lifted sheer up to the white clouds, the flanks of her hills descending to the verge of her mighty lakes, vast and impenetrable forests spreading for unending miles. These are the traveller’s reward; therefore his life in this little-known continent need not be intolerable; it is not merely a life of toil and danger; though constant travel may be fatiguing, thirst oppressive, heat a drawback, and the ever-recurring fever a great evil, he may also find much that is pleasant. If he is fortunate in his travels, he will not regret having undertaken his journey, but will always look back upon it, as I do, as a pleasant period of a useful life; for it will have considerably enlightened and matured him, and renewed his love for his own race, his own land, and the institutions of his country, thus preparing him for the cultivation and enjoyment of more perfect happiness at home.
AFTER ONE OF HIS EXPEDITIONS
Stanley writes: ‘When a man returns home and finds for the moment nothing to struggle against, the vast resolve, which has sustained him through a long and difficult enterprise, dies away, burning as it sinks in the heart; and thus the greatest successes are often accompanied by a peculiar melancholy.’
ON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CONGO
1896. The King of the Belgians has often desired me to go back to the Congo; but to go back, would be to see mistakes consummated, to be tortured daily by seeing the effects of an erring and ignorant policy. I would be tempted to re-constitute a great part of the governmental machine, and this would be to disturb a moral malaria injurious to the re-organiser. We have become used to call vast, deep layers of filth, ‘Augean stables’: what shall we call years of stupid government, mischievous encroachment on the executive, years of unnecessary, unqualified officers, years of cumbersome administration, years of neglect at every station, years of confusion and waste in every office? These evils have become habitual, and to remove them would entail much worry and dislike, to hear of them would set my nerves on edge, and cause illness.
ON THE VALUE OF THE CONGO AND BRITISH EAST AFRICA
English legislators imagine they exhibit their wisdom by challenging travellers to describe the value of the countries to which they seek to draw attention. Hasty and preliminary exploration of the topographers cannot be expected to discover all the resources of a country. For sixty years the English were in possession of South Africa before either diamonds or gold were found. Nay, England herself was thought by the Romans to produce nothing but sloes! New Zealand was supposed to be destitute of anything but timber. Australia has been frequently contemptuously alluded to.
The Congo possesses splendid inland navigation, abundance of copper, nitre, gold, palm oil, nuts, copal, rubber, ivory, fibre for rope and paper, excellent grasses for matting, nets, and fishing-lines, timber for furniture and ship-building. All this could have belonged to Great Britain, but was refused. Alas!
The Duke of Wellington replied to the New Zealand Association, in 1838, that Great Britain had sufficient colonies, even though New Zealand might become a jewel in England’s colonial crown!
ON GENERAL GORDON. 1892
I have often wondered at Gordon; in his place I should have acted differently.
It was optional with Gordon to live or die; he preferred to die; I should have lived, if only to get the better of the Mahdi.
With joy of striving, and fierce delight of thwarting, I should have dogged and harassed the Mahdi, like Nemesis, until I had him down.
I maintain that to live is harder and nobler than to die; to bear life’s burdens, suffer its sorrows, endure its agonies, is the greater heroism.
The relief of Khartoum, that is to say, removing the garrison and those anxious to leave, was at first, comparatively speaking, an easy task. I should have commenced by rendering my position impregnable, by building triple fortifications inside Khartoum, abutting on the Nile, with boats and steamers ever ready. No Mahdist should have got at me or my garrison! I should then have commanded all those civilians desirous of submitting to the Mahdi to leave Khartoum; people do not realise how ready, nay eager, they were to do so. Gordon said to an interviewer, before starting, ‘The moment it is known we have given up the game, every man will be only too eager to go over to the Mahdi; all men worship the Rising Sun.’
But I should never have stuck to Khartoum, I would have departed with my garrison to safer lands by the Upper White Nile. It would not have been difficult to get to Berber, if Gordon had started without delay, in fact, as soon as he had fortified himself at Khartoum. My withdrawal would have been to attack the better, ‘leaving go of the leg, to fly at the throat’; but if, for some reason, I had decided to stay, my fortified citadel would have held the Mahdists at bay till help came. There would have been no danger of starvation, as I should have turned all undesirables out. Then, as a last resource, there was the Nile.
My one idea would have been to carry out what I had undertaken to do, without any outside help. If I had gone to Khartoum to rescue the garrison, the garrison would have been rescued! When Gordon started, this is what he undertook to do; there was no thought, or question, of sending a rescue expedition. It was failure all round—Gordon failed first, then Gladstone and the Government.
But I have refrained from all public expression of opinion, because it is not permitted in England to criticise Gordon; and, besides, he was a true hero, and he died nobly. That silences one: nevertheless, I hold that Gordon need not have died!
How I Found Livingstone. With maps and illustrations. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
My Kalulu: Prince, King, and Slave. Illustrated. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Coomassie and Magdala: the British Campaign in Africa. New York: Harper and Brothers.
Through the Dark Continent. Illustrated. 2 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers.
The Congo and the Founding of its Free State. 2 vols. With maps and Illustrations. New York: Harper and Brothers.
In Darkest Africa: the Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria. With maps and illustrations. 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
My Dark Companions and their Strange Stories. Illustrated. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Slavery and the Slave Trade in Africa. Illustrated. New York: Harper and Brothers.
My Early Travels and Adventures in America and Asia. With portraits. 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Through South Africa: a Visit to Rhodesia, the Transvaal, Cape Colony, and Natal. With maps and illustrations. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
⁂ All the above works were published in England by Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston & Co.
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