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COLUMBIA PRESENTING STANLEY TO EUROPEAN SOVEREIGNS.

STANLEY
IN
AFRICA.

THE
WONDERFUL DISCOVERIES
AND
THRILLING ADVENTURES
OF
THE GREAT AFRICAN EXPLORER
AND OTHER
TRAVELERS, PIONEERS AND MISSIONARIES.

BEAUTIFULLY AND ELABORATELY ILLUSTRATED WITH
ENGRAVINGS, COLORED PLATES AND MAPS

BY
JAMES P. BOYD, A.M.

Author of “Political History of the United States” and
“Life of Gen. U. S. Grant,” etc.

ROSE PUBLISHING CO.,
Toronto, Canada.

Copyright, 1889
BY
James P. Boyd.

INTRODUCTION.

A volume of travel, exploration and adventure is never without instruction and fascination for old and young. There is that within us all which ever seeks for the mysteries which are bidden behind mountains, closeted in forests, concealed by earth or sea, in a word, which are enwrapped by Nature. And there is equally that within us which is touched most sensitively and stirred most deeply by the heroism which has characterized the pioneer of all ages of the world and in every field of adventure.

How like enchantment is the story of that revelation which the New America furnished the Old World! What a spirit of inquiry and exploit it opened! How unprecedented and startling, adventure of every kind became! What thrilling volumes tell of the hardships of daring navigators or of the perils of brave and dashing landsmen! Later on, who fails to read with the keenest emotion of those dangers, trials and escapes which enveloped the intrepid searchers after the icy secrets of the Poles, or confronted those who would unfold the tale of the older civilizations and of the ocean’s island spaces.

Though the directions of pioneering enterprise change, yet more and more man searches for the new. To follow him, is to write of the wonderful. Again, to follow him is to read of the surprising and the thrilling. No prior history of discovery has ever exceeded in vigorous entertainment and startling interest that which centers in “The Dark Continent” and has for its most distinguished hero, Henry M. Stanley. His coming and going in the untrodden and

hostile wilds of Africa, now to rescue the stranded pioneers of other nationalities, now to explore the unknown waters of a mighty and unique system, now to teach cannibal tribes respect for decency and law, and now to map for the first time with any degree of accuracy, the limits of new dynasties, make up a volume of surpassing moment and peculiar fascination.

All the world now turns to Africa as the scene of those adventures which possess such a weird and startling interest for readers of every class, and which invite to heroic exertion on the part of pioneers. It is the one dark, mysterious spot, strangely made up of massive mountains, lofty and extended plateaus, salt and sandy deserts, immense fertile stretches, climates of death and balm, spacious lakes, gigantic rivers, dense forests, numerous, grotesque and savage peoples, and an animal life of fierce mien, enormous strength and endless variety. It is the country of the marvelous, yet none of its marvels exceed its realities.

And each exploration, each pioneering exploit, each history of adventure into its mysterious depths, but intensifies the world’s view of it and enhances human interest in it, for it is there the civilized nations are soon to set metes and bounds to their grandest acquisitions—perhaps in peace, perhaps in war. It is there that white colonization shall try its boldest problems. It is there that Christianity shall engage in one of its hardest contests.

Victor Hugo says, that “Africa will be the continent of the twentieth century.” Already the nations are struggling to possess it. Stanley’s explorations proved the majesty and efficacy of equipment and force amid these dusky peoples and through the awful mazes of the unknown. Empires watched with eager eye the progress of his last daring journey. Science and civilization stood ready to welcome its results. He comes to light again, having escaped ambush, flood, the wild beast and disease, and his revelations set the world aglow. He is greeted by kings, hailed by savants, and looked to by the colonizing nations as the future pioneer of political power and commercial enterprise in their behalf, as he has been the most redoubtable leader of adventure in the past.

This miraculous journey of the dashing and intrepid explorer, completed against obstacles which all believed to be insurmountable, safely ended after opinion had given him up as dead, together with its bearings on the fortunes of those nations who are casting anew the chart of Africa, and upon the native peoples who are to be revolutionized or exterminated by the last grand surges of progress, all these render a volume dedicated to travel and discovery, especially in the realm of “The Dark Continent,” surprisingly agreeable and useful at this time.

MARCHING THROUGH EQUATORIAL AFRICA. [Larger.]

CONTENTS.

HENRY M. STANLEY, [19]

Stanley is safe; the world’s rejoicings; a new volume in African annals; who is “this wizard of travel?” story of Stanley’s life; a poor Welsh boy; a work-house pupil; teaching school; a sailor boy; in a New Orleans counting-house; an adopted child; bereft and penniless; a soldier of the South; captured and a prisoner; in the Federal Navy; the brilliant correspondent; love of travel and adventure; dauntless amid danger; in Asia-Minor and Abyssinia; at the court of Spain; in search of Livingstone; at Ujiji on Tanganyika; the lost found; across the “dark continent;” down the dashing Congo; boldest of all marches; acclaim of the world.

THE CONGO FREE STATE, [27]

A Congo’s empire; Stanley’s grand conception; European ambitions; the International Association; Stanley off for Zanzibar; enlists his carriers; at the mouth of the Congo; preparing to ascend the river; his force and equipments; the river and river towns; hippopotamus hunting; the big chiefs of Vivi; the “rock-breaker;” founding stations; making treaties; tribal characteristics; Congo scenes; elephants, buffaloes and water-buck; building houses and planting gardens; making roads; rounding the portages; river crocodiles and the steamers; foraging in the wilderness; products of the country; the king and the gong; no more war fetish; above the cataracts; Stanley

Pool and Leopoldville; comparison of Congo with other rivers; exploration of the Kwa; Stanley sick; his return to Europe; further plans for his “Free State;” again on the Congo; Bolobo and its chiefs; medicine for wealth; a free river, but no land; scenery on the upper Congo; the Watwa dwarfs; the lion and his prey; war at Bolobo; the Equator station; a long voyage ahead; a modern Hercules; tropical scenes; a trick with a tiger skin; hostile natives; a canoe brigade; the Aruwimi; ravages of slave traders; captive women and children; to Stanley Falls; the cataracts; appointing a chief; the people and products; wreck of a steamer; a horrible massacre; down the Congo to Stanley Pool; again at Bolobo; a burnt station; news from missionaries; at Leopoldville; down to Vivi; the treaties with chiefs; treaty districts; the Camaroon country; oil river region; Stanley’s return to London; opinions of African life; thirst for rum; adventures and accidents; advice to adventurers; outlines of the Congo Free State; its wealth and productions; commercial value; the Berlin conference; national jurisdiction; constitution of the Congo Free States; results.

THE SEARCH FOR EMIN, [139]

Stanley’s call; the Belgian king; the Emin Pasha relief committee; Stanley in charge of the expedition; off for Central Africa; rounding the cataracts; the rendezvous at Stanley Pool; who is Emin? his life and character; a favorite of Gordon; fall of Khartoum; Emin cut off in equatorial Soudan; rising of the Mahdi; death of Gordon; Emin lost in his equatorial province; his capitals and country; Stanley pushes to the Aruwimi; Tippoo Tib and his promises; Barttelot and the camps; trip up the Aruwimi; wanderings in the forest; battles with the dwarfs; sickness, starvation and death; lost in the wilds; the plains at last; grass and banana plantations; arrival at Albert Nyanza; no word of Emin; back to the Aruwimi for boats; another journey to the lake; Emin found; tantalizing consultations; Stanley leaves for his forest stations; treachery of Tippoo Tib; massacre of Barttelot; the Mahdi influence; again for the Lake to save Emin; willing to leave Africa; the start for Zanzibar; hardships of the trip; safe arrival at Zanzibar; accident to Emin; the world’s applause; Stanley a hero.

EGYPT AND THE NILE, [185]

Shaking hands at Ujiji; Africa a wonderland; Mizriam and Ham; Egypt a gateway; mother of literature, art and religion; the Jews and Egypt; mouths of the Nile; the Rosetta stone; Suez Canal; Alexandria; Pharos, a “wonder of the world;” Cleopatra’s needles; Pompey’s Pillar; the catacombs; up the Nile to Cairo; description of Cairo; Memphis; the Pyramids and Sphinx; convent of the pulley; Abydos its magnificent ruins; City of “the Hundred Gates;” temple of Luxor; statues of Memnon; the palace temple of Thebes; the old Theban Kings; how they built; ruins of Karnak; most imposing in the world; temples of Central Thebes; wonderful temple of Edfou; the Island of Philæ; the elephantine ruins; grand ruins of Ipsambul; Nubian ruins; rock tomb at Beni-Hassan; the weird “caves of the crocodiles;” horrid death of a traveler; Colonel and Lady Baker; from Kartoum to Gondokoro; hardships of a Nile expedition; the “forty thieves;” Sudd on the White Nile; adventures with hippopotami; mobbing a crocodile; rescuing slaves; at Gondokoro; horrors of the situation; battles with the natives; night attack; hunting elephants; instincts of the animal; natural scenery; different native tribes; cruelty of slave-hunters; ambuscades; annexing the country; hunting adventures; the Madhi’s rebellion; death of Gordon.

SOURCES OF THE NILE, [257]

African mysteries; early adventures; the wonderful lake regions; excitement over discovery; disputed points; the wish of emperors; journey through the desert; Baker and Mrs. Baker; M’dslle Tinne; Nile waters and vegetation; dangers of exploration; from Gondokoro to Albert Nyanza, native chiefs and races; traits and adventure; discovery of Albert Nyanza; King Kamrasi; his royal pranks; adventures on the lake; a true Nile source; Murchison Falls; revelations by Speke and Grant; Victoria Nyanza; another Nile source; Stanley on the scene; his manner of travel; trip to Victoria Nyanza; voyage of the “Lady Alice;” adventures on the lake; King Mtesa and his empire; wonders of the great lake; surprises for Stanley; in battle for King Mtesa; results of his discoveries; native traditions; demons and dwarfs; off for Tanganyika.

THE ZAMBESI, [331]

Livingstone on the scene; how he got into Africa; his early adventures and trials; wounded by a lion; his marriage; off for Lake Ngam; among the Makololo; down the Chobe to the Zambesi; up the Zambesi; across the Continent to Loanda; discovery of Lake Dilolo; importance of the discovery; description of the lake; its wonderful animals; methods of African travel; rain-makers and witchcraft; the magic lantern scene; animals of the Zambesi; country, people and productions; adventures among the rapids; the Gouye Falls; the burning desert and Cuando river; an elephant hunt; the wonderful Victoria Falls; sounding smoke; the Charka wars; lower Zambesi valley; wonderful animal and vegetable growth; mighty affluents; escape from a buffalo; slave hunters; Shire river and Lake Nyassa; peculiar native head-dresses; native games, manners and customs; Pinto at Victoria Falls; central salt pans.

THE CONGO, [367]

Discovery of the wonderful Lake Tanganyika; Burton and Speke’s visit; Livingstone’s trials; his geographical delusions; gorilla and chimpanzee; Livingstone at Bangweola; on the Lualaba; hunting the soko; thrilling adventure with a leopard; the Nyangwe people; struggle back to Ujiji; meeting with Stanley; joy in the wilderness; exploration of Tanganyika; the parting; Livingstone’s last journey; amid rain and swamps; close of his career; death of the explorer; care of his body; faithful natives; Stanley’s second visit; what he had done; strikes the Lualaba; descends in the “Lady Alice;” fights with the natives; ambuscades and strategies; boating amid rapids; thrilling adventures amid falls and cataracts; wonderful streams; the Lualaba is the Congo; joy over the discovery; gauntlet of arrows and spears; loss of men and boats: death of Frank Pocock; the falls become too formidable; overland to the Atlantic; at the mouth of the mighty Congo; return trip to Zanzibar; the Congo empire; Stanley’s future plans.

CAPE OF STORMS, [416]

Discovery of the Cape; early settlers; table mountain; Hottentot and Boer; the diamond regions; the Zulu warriors; the Pacific republics; natal and the transvaal; manners, customs, animals and sports; climate and resources.

NYASSALAND, [423]

A disputed possession; the beautiful Shiré; rapids and cataracts; mountain fringed valleys; rank tropical vegetation; magnificent upland scenery; thrifty and ingenious natives; cotton and sorghum; the Go-Nakeds; beer and smoke; geese, ducks and waterfowls; Lake Shirwa; the Blantyre mission; the Manganja highlands; a village scene; native honesty; discovery of Lake Nyassa; description of the Lake; lofty mountain ranges; Livingstone’s impressions; Mazitu and Zulu; native arms, dresses and customs; slave-hunting Arabs; slave caravans; population about Nyassa; storms on the lake; the first steamer; clouds of “Kungo” flies; elephant herds; charge of an elephant bull; exciting sport; African and Asiatic elephants; the Scottish mission stations; great wealth of Nyassaland; value to commerce; the English and Portuguese claims.

AFRICAN RESOURCES, [441]

African coasts and mysteries; Negroland of the school-books; how to study Africa; a vast peninsula; the coast rind; central plateaus and mountain ranges; Stanley’s last discoveries; a field for naturalists; bird and insect life; wild and weird nature; vast area; incomputable population; types of African races; distribution of races; African languages; character of the human element; Africa and revelation; tribes of dwarfs; “Africa in a Nutshell”; various political divisions; variety of products; steamships and commerce; as an agricultural field; the lake systems; immense water-ways; internal improvements; Stanley’s observations; features of Equatorial Africa; extent of the Congo basin; the Zambesi and Nile systems; the geographical sections of the Congo system; the coast section; cataracts, mountains and plains; affluents of the great Congo; tribes of lower Congo; length of steam navigation; future pasture grounds of the world; the Niam-Niam and Dinka countries; empire of Tippoo Tib; richness of vegetable productions; varieties of animal life; immense forests and gigantic wild beasts; oils, gums and dyes; hides, furs, wax and ivory; iron, copper, and other minerals; the cereals, cotton, spices and garden vegetables; the labor and human resources; humanitarian and commercial problems; the Lualaba section; size, population and characteristics; navigable waters; Livingstone’s observations; tracing his footsteps; animal and vegetable life; stirring scenes and incidents; the Manyuema country; Lakes Moero and Bangweola; resources of forest and stream; climate and soil; a remarkable land;

customs of natives; village architecture; river systems and watersheds; Stanley and Livingstone in the centre of the Continent; the Chambesi section; head-rivers of the Congo; the Tanganyika system; owners of the Congo basin; Stanley’s resume of African resources; a glowing picture.

THE WHITE MAN IN AFRICA, [526]

Egyptian and Roman Colonists; Moorish invasion; Portugese advent; the commercial and missionary approach; triumphs of late explorers; can the white man live in Africa?; colonizing and civilizing; Stanley’s personal experience; he has opened a momentous problem; Stanley’s melancholy chapters; effect of wine and beer; the white man must not drink in Africa; must change and re-adapt his habits; visions of the colonists; effect of climate; kind of dress to wear; the best house to build; how to work and eat; when to travel; absurdities of strangers; following native examples; true rules of conduct; Stanley’s laws of health; African cold worse than African heat; guarding against fatigue; Dr. Martins code of health; the white man can live in Africa; future of the white races in the tropics; the struggle of foreign powers; missionary struggles; political and commercial outlook.

MISSIONARY WORK IN AFRICA, [565]

Africa for the Christian; Mohammedan influences; Catholic missions; traveler and missionary; the great revival following Stanley’s discoveries; Livingstone’s work; perils of missionary life; history of missionary effort; the Moors of the North; Abyssinian Christians; west-coast missions; various missionary societies; character of their work; Bishop Taylor’s wonderful work in Liberia, on the Congo, in Angola; nature of his plans; self-supporting churches; outline of his work; mission houses and farms; vivid descriptions and interesting letters; cheering reports from pioneers; South African missions; opening Bechuana-land; the Moffats and Coillards; Livingstone and McKenzie; the Nyassa missions; on Tanganyika; the Church in Uganda; murder of Harrington; the gospel on the east coast; Arabs as enemies; religious ideas of Africans; rites and superstitions; fetish and devil worship; importance of the mission field; sowing the seed; gathering the harvest.

AFRICA’S LIGHTS AND SHADOWS, [735]

Arnot’s idea of Central Africa; killed by an elephant; the puff adder; the Kasai region; bulls for horses; a Congo hero; affection for mothers; caught by a crocodile; decline of the slave trade; the natives learning; books in native tongues; natives as laborers; understanding of the climate; Stanley on the Gombe; the leopard and spring-bock; habits of the antelope; Christian heroes in Africa; the boiling pot ordeal; adventures of a slave; Arab cruelties; a lion hunt; Mohammedan influence; a victim of superstition; Hervic women; Tataka mission in Liberia; a native war dance; African game laws; Viva on the Congo; rum in Africa; palavering; Emin Pasha at Zanzibar; the Sas-town tribes; an interrupted journey; in Monrovia; a sample sermon; the scramble for Africa; lions pulling down a giraffe; Kilimanjars, highest mountains in Africa; the Kru-coast Missions; a desperate situation; Henry M. Stanley and Emin Pasha; comparison of the two pioneers. pp. 800.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

CENTRAL AFRICA AND THE CONGO BASIN. Larger: [A.] [B.] [C.] [D.] [E.] [F.]

HENRY M. STANLEY.

HENRY M. STANLEY.

The news rang through the world that Stanley was safe. For more than a year he had been given up as lost in African wilds by all but the most hopeful. Even hope had nothing to rest upon save the dreamy thought that he, whom hardship and danger had so often assailed in vain, would again come out victorious.

The mission of Henry M. Stanley to find, succor and rescue Emin Pasha, if he were yet alive, not only adds to the life of this persistent explorer and wonderful adventurer one of its most eventful and thrilling chapters, but throws more light on the Central African situation than any event in connection with the discovery and occupation of the coveted areas which lie beneath the equatorial sun. Its culmination, both in the escape of the hero himself and in the success of his perilous errand, to say nothing of its far-reaching effects upon the future of “The Dark Continent,” opens, as it were, a new volume in African annals, and presents a new point of departure for scientists, statesmen and philanthropists.

Space must be found further on for the details of that long, exciting and dangerous journey, which reversed all other tracks of African travel, yet redounded more than all to the glory of the explorer and the advancement of knowledge respecting hidden latitudes. But here we can get a fair view of a situation, which in all its lights and shadows, in its many startling outlines, in its awful suggestion of possibilities, is perhaps the most interesting and fateful now before the eyes of modern civilization.

It may be very properly asked, at the start, who is this wizard of travel, this dashing adventurer, this heroic explorer and rescuer, this

pioneer of discovery, who goes about in dark, unfathomed places, defying flood and climate, jungle and forest, wild beast and merciless savage, and bearing a seemingly charmed life?

Who is this genius who has in a decade revolutionized all ancient methods of piercing the heart of the unknown, and of revealing the mysteries which nature has persistently hugged since “the morning stars first sang together in joy?”

The story of his life may be condensed into a brief space—brief yet eventful as that of a conqueror, moved ever to conquest by sight of new worlds. Henry M. Stanley was born in the hamlet of Denbigh, in Wales, in 1840. His parents, who bore the name of Rowland, were poor; so poor, indeed, that the boy, at the age of three years, was virtually on the town. At the age of thirteen, he was turned out of the poor-house to shift for himself. Fortunately, a part of the discipline had been such as to assure him the elements of an English education. The boy must have improved himself beyond the opportunities there at hand, for in two or three years afterwards, he appeared in North Wales as a school-teacher. Thence he drifted to Liverpool, where he shipped as a cabin-boy on a sailing-vessel, bound for New Orleans. Here he drifted about in search of employment till he happened upon a merchant and benefactor, by the name of Stanley. The boy proved so bright, promising and useful, that his employer adopted him as his son. Thus the struggling John Rowland became, by adoption, the Henry M. Stanley of our narrative.

Before he came of age, the new father died without a will, and his business and estate passed away from the foster child to those entitled at law. But for this misfortune, or rather great good fortune, he might have been lost to the world in the counting-room of a commercial city. He was at large on the world again, full of enterprise and the spirit of adventure.

The civil war was now on, and Stanley entered the Confederate army. He was captured by the Federal forces, and on being set at liberty threw his fortunes in with his captors by joining the Federal navy, the ship being the Ticonderoga, on which he was soon promoted to the position of Acting Ensign. After the war, he developed those powers which made him such an acquisition on

influential newspapers. He was of genial disposition, bright intelligence, quick observation and surprising discrimination. His judgment of men and things was sound. He loved travel and adventure, was undaunted in the presence of obstacles, persistent in every task before him, and possessed shrewd insight into human character and projects. His pen was versatile and his style adapted to the popular taste. No man was ever better equipped by nature to go anywhere and make the most of every situation. In a single year he had made himself a reputation by his trip through Asia Minor and other Eastern countries. In 1866 he was sent by the New York Herald, as war correspondent, to Abyssinia. The next year he was sent to Spain by the same paper, to write up the threatened rebellion there. In 1869 he was sent by the Herald to Africa to find the lost Livingstone.

A full account of this perilous journey will be found elsewhere in this volume, in connection with the now historic efforts of that gallant band of African pioneers who immortalized themselves prior to the founding of the Congo Free State. Suffice it to say here, that it took him two years to find Livingstone at Ujiji, upon the great lake of Tanganyika, which lake he explored, in connection with Livingstone, and at the same time made important visits to most of the powerful tribes that surround it. He returned to civilization, but remained only a short while, for by 1874 he was again in the unknown wilds, and this time on that celebrated journey which brought him entirely across the Continent from East to West, revealed the wonderful water resources of tropical Africa and gave a place on the map to that remarkable drainage system which finds its outlet in the Congo river.

Says the Rev. Geo. L. Taylor of this march: “It was an undertaking which, for grandeur of conception, and for sagacity, vigor, and completeness of execution, must ever rank among the marches of the greatest generals and the triumphs of the greatest discoverers of history. No reader can mentally measure and classify this exploit who does not recall the prolonged struggles that have attended the exploration of all great first-class rivers—a far more difficult work, in many respects, than ocean sailing. We must remember the wonders and sufferings of Orellana’s voyages (though in a brigantine,

built on the Rio Napo, and with armed soldiers) down that “Mediterranean of Brazil,” the Amazon, from the Andes to the Atlantic, in 1540. We must recall the voyage of Marquette and Joliet down the Mississippi in 1673; the toils of Park and Landers on the Niger, 1795-1830; and of Speke and Baker on the Nile, 1860-1864, if we would see how the deed of Stanley surpasses them all in boldness and generalship, as it promises also to surpass them in immediate results.

The object of the voyage was two-fold: first, to finish the work of Speke and Grant in exploring the great Nile lakes; and, secondly, to strike the great Lualaba where Livingstone left it, and follow it to whatever sea or ocean it might lead.”

And again:—“The story of the descent of the great river is an Iliad in itself. Through hunger and weariness; through fever, dysentery, poisoned arrows, and small-pox; through bellowing hippopotami, crocodiles, and monsters; past mighty tributaries, themselves great first-class rivers; down roaring rapids, whirlpools, and cataracts; through great canoe-fleets of saw-teethed, fighting, gnashing cannibals fiercer than tigers; through thirty-two battles on land and river, often against hundreds of great canoes, some of them ninety feet long and with a hundred spears on board; and, at last, through the last fearful journey by land and water down the tremendous cañon below Stanley Pool, still they went on, and on, relentlessly on, till finally they got within hailing and helping distance of Boma, on the vast estuary by the sea; and on August 9, 1877, the news thrilled the civilized world that Stanley was saved, and had connected Livingstone’s Lualaba with Tuckey’s Congo! After 7,000 miles’ wanderings in 1,000 days save one from Zanzibar, and four times crossing the Equator, he looked white men in the face once more, and was startled that they were so pale! Black had become the normal color of the human face. Thus the central stream of the second vastest river on the globe, next to the Amazon in magnitude, was at last explored, and a new and unsuspected realm was disclosed in the interior of a prehistoric continent, itself the oldest cradle of civilization. The delusions of ages were swept away at one masterful stroke, and a new world was discovered by a new Columbus in a canoe.”

THE BELLOWING HIPPOPOTAMI. [Larger.]

It was on that memorable march that he came across the wily Arab, Tippoo Tib, at the flourishing market-town of Nyangwe, who was of so much service to Stanley on his descent of the Lualaba (Congo) from Nyangwe to Stanley Falls, 1,000 miles from Stanley Pool, but who has since figured in rather an unenviable light in connection with efforts to introduce rays of civilization into the fastnesses of the Upper Congo. This, as well as previous journeys of Stanley, established the fact that the old method of approaching the heart of the Continent by desert coursers, or of threading its hostile mazes without armed help, was neither expeditious nor prudent. It revolutionized exploration, by compelling respect from hostile man and guaranteeing immunity from attack by wild beast.

For nearly three years Stanley was lost to the civilized world in this trans-continental journey. Its details, too, are narrated elsewhere in this volume, with all its vicissitude of 7,000 miles of zigzag wandering and his final arrival on the Atlantic coast—the wonder of all explorers, the admired of the scientific world.

Such was the value of the information he brought to light in this eventful journey, such the wonderful resource of the country through which he passed after plunging into the depths westward of Lake Tanganyika, and such the desirability of this new and western approach to the heart of the continent, not only for commercial but political and humanitarian purposes, that the cupidity of the various colonizing nations, especially of Europe, was instantly awakened, and it was seen that unless proper steps were taken, there must soon be a struggle for the possession of a territory so vast and with such possibilities of empire. To obviate a calamity so dire as this, the happy scheme was hit upon to carve out of as much of the new discovered territory as would be likely to embrace the waters of the Congo and control its ocean outlet, a mighty State which was to be dedicated for ever to the civilized nations of the world.

In it there should be no clash of foreign interests, but perfect reciprocity of trade and free scope for individual or corporate enterprise without respect to nationality. The king of Belgium took a keen interest in the project, and through his influence other powers of Europe, and even the United States, became enlisted. A

plan of the proposed State was drafted and it soon received international ratification. The new power was to be known as the Congo Free State, and it was to be, for the time being, under control of an Administrator General. To the work of founding this State, giving it metes and bounds, securing its recognition among the nations, removing obstacles to its approach, establishing trading posts and developing its commercial features, Stanley now addressed himself. We have been made familiar with his plans for securing railway communication between the mouth of the Congo and Stanley Pool, a distance of nearly 200 miles inland, so as to overcome the difficult, if not impossible, navigation of the swiftly rushing river. We have also heard of his successful efforts to introduce navigation, by means of steamboats, upon the more placid waters of the Upper Congo and upon its numerous affluents. Up until the year 1886, the most of his time was devoted to fixing the infant empire permanently on the map of tropical Africa and giving it identity among the political and industrial powers of earth.

In reading of Stanley and studying the characteristics of his work one naturally gravitates to the thought, that in all things respecting him, the older countries of Europe are indebted to the genius of the newer American institution. We cannot yet count upon the direct advantages of a civilized Africa upon America. In a political and commercial sense our activity cannot be equal to that of Europe on account of our remoteness, and because we are, as yet, but little more than colonists ourselves. Africa underlies Europe, is contiguous to it, is by nature situated so as to become an essential part of that mighty earth-tract which the sun of civilization is, sooner or later, to illuminate. Besides Europe has a need for African acquisition and settlement which America has not. Her areas are small, her population has long since reached the point of overflow, her money is abundant and anxious for inviting foreign outlets, her manufacturing centres must have new cotton and jute fields, not to mention supplies of raw material of a thousand kinds, her crowded establishments must have the cereal foods, add to all these the love of empire which like a second nature with monarchical rulers, and the desire for large landed estates which is a characteristic of titled nobility, and

you have a few of the inducements to African conquest and colonization which throw Europe in the foreground. Yet while all these are true, it is doubtful if, with all her advantages of wealth, location and resource, she has done as much for the evangelization of Africa as has America. No, nor as much for the systematic and scientific opening of its material secrets. And this brings us to the initial idea of this paragraph again. Though Stanley was a foreign waif, cast by adverse circumstances on our shores, it seemed to require the robust freedom and stimulating opportunities of republican institutions to awaken and develop in him the qualities of the strong practical and venturesome man he became. Monarchy may not fetter thought, but it does restrain actions. It grooves and ruts human energy by laws of custom and by arbitrary rules of caste. It would have repressed a man like Stanley, or limited him to its methods. He would have been a subject of some dynasty or a victim of some conventionalism. Or if he had grown too large for repressive boundaries and had chosen to burst them, he would have become a revolutionist worthy of exile, if his head had not already come to the block. But under republican institutions his energies and ambitions had free play. Every faculty, every peculiarity of the man grew and developed, till he became a strong, original and unique force in the line of adventure and discovery. This out-crop of manhood and character, is the tribute of our free institutions to European monarchy. The tribute is not given grudgingly. Take it and welcome. Use it for your own glory and aggrandizement. Let crowned-heads bow before it, and titled aristocracy worship it, as they appropriate its worth and wealth. But let it not be forgotten, that the American pioneering spirit has opened Africa wider in ten years than all the efforts of all other nations in twenty.

CONGO FREE STATE.

In 1877, Stanley wrote to the London Daily Telegraph as follows:—

“I feel convinced that the question of this mighty water-way (the Congo) will become a political one in time. As yet, however, no European power seems to have put forth the right of control. Portugal claims it because she discovered its mouth; but the great powers, England, America, and France, refuse to recognize her right. If it were not that I fear to damp any interest you may have in Africa, or in this magnificent stream, by the length of my letter, I could show you very strong reasons why it would be a politic deed to settle this momentous question immediately. I could prove to you that the power possessing the Congo, despite the cataracts, would absorb to itself the trade of the whole enormous basin behind. This river is and will be the grand highway of commerce to West Central Africa.”

When Stanley wrote this, with visions of a majestic Congo Empire flitting through his brain, he was more than prophetic; at least, he knew more of the impulse that was then throbbing and permeating Europe than any other man. He had met Gambetta, the great French statesman, who in so many words had told him that he had opened up a new continent to the world’s view and had given an impulse to scientific and philanthropic enterprise which could not but have material effect on the progress of mankind. He knew what the work of the International Association, which had his plans for a Free State under consideration, had been, up to that hour, and were likely to be in the future. He was aware of the fact that the English Baptist missionaries had already pushed their way up the Congo to a point beyond the Equator, and that the American Baptists were working side by side with their English brethren. He

knew that the London and Church Missionary Societies had planted their flags on Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika, and that the work of the Free Kirk of Scotland was reaching out from Lake Nyassa to Tanganyika. He had seen Pinto and Weissman crossing Africa and making grand discoveries in the Portuguese possessions south of the Congo. De Brazza had given France a West African Empire; Germany had annexed all the vacant territory in South-west Africa, to say nothing of her East African enterprises; Italy had taken up the Red Sea coast; Great Britain had possessed the Niger delta; Portugal already owned 700,000 square miles south of the Congo, to which no boundaries had been affixed.

SCENE ON LAKE TANGANYIKA.

Stanley knew even more than this. His heroic nature took no stock in the “horrible climate” of Africa, which he had tested for so many years. He was fully persuaded that the plateaus of the Upper Congo and the central continent were healthier than the lands of Arkansas, which has doubled its population in twenty-five years. He treated the coast as but a thin line, the mere shell of an egg, yet he saw it dotted with settlements along every available water-way—the Kwanza, Congo, Kwilu, Ogowai, Muni, Camaroon, Oil, Niger, Roquelle, Gambia and Senegal rivers. He asked himself, What is left? And the answer came—Nothing, except the basins of the four mighty streams—the Congo, the Nile, the Niger and the Shari (Shire), all of which require railways to link them with the sea. His projected railway from Vivi, around the cataracts of the Congo, to Stanley Pool, 147 miles long, would open nearly 11,000 miles of navigable water-way, and the trade of 43,000,000 people, worth millions of dollars annually.

The first results of Stanley’s efforts in behalf of a “Free Congo State” were, as already indicated, the formation of an international association, whose president was Colonel Strauch, and to whose existence and management the leading powers of the world gave their assent. It furnished the means for his return to Africa, with plenty of help and with facilities for navigating the Congo, in order to establish towns, conclude treaties with the natives, take possession of the lands, fix metes and bounds and open commerce—in a word, to found a State according to his ideal, and firmly fix it among the recognized empires of the world.

In January, 1879, Stanley started for Africa, under the above auspices and with the above intent. But instead of sailing to the Congo direct, he went to Zanzibar on the east coast, for the purpose of enlisting a force of native pioneers and carriers, aiming as much as possible to secure those who had accompanied him on his previous trips across the Continent and down the river, whose ascent he was about to make. Such men he could trust, besides, their experience would be of great avail in so perilous an enterprise. A second object of his visit to Zanzibar was to organize expeditions for the purpose of pushing westward and establishing permanent posts as far as the Congo. One of these, under Lieut. Cambier, established a line of posts stretching almost directly westward from Zanzibar to Nyangwe, and through a friendly country. With this work, and the enlistment of 68 Zanzibaris for his Congo expedition, three-fourths of whom had accompanied him across Africa, he was engaged until May, 1879, when he sailed for the Congo, via the Red Sea and Mediterranean, and arrived at Banana Point at the mouth of the Congo, on Aug. 14, 1879, as he says, “to ascend the great river with the novel mission of sowing along its banks civilized settlements, to peacefully conquer and subdue it, to mold it in harmony with modern ideas into national States, within whose limits the European merchant shall go hand in hand with the dark African trader, and justice and law and order shall prevail, and murder and lawlessness and the cruel barter of slaves shall forever cease.”

Once at Banana Point, all hands trimmed for the tropical heat. Heads were shorn close, heavy clothing was changed for soft, light flannels, hats gave place to ventilated caps, the food was changed from meat to vegetable, liquors gave place to coffee or tea—for be it known a simple glass of champagne may prove a prelude to a sun-stroke in African lowlands. The officers of the expedition here met—an international group indeed,—an American (Stanley), two Englishmen, five Belgians, two Danes, one Frenchman. The steamer Barga had long since arrived from Europe with a precious assortment of equipments, among which were building material and a flotilla of light steam launches. One of these, the En Avant was the first to discover Lake Leopold II, explore the Biyeré and reach Stanley Falls.

GATHERING TO MARKET AT NYANGWE. [Larger.]

In seven days, August 21st, the expedition was under way, braving the yellow, giant stream with steel cutters, driven by steam. The river is three miles wide, from 60 to 900 feet deep, and with a current of six miles an hour. On either side are dark walls of mangrove and palm, through which course lazy, unknown creeks, alive only with the slimy reptilia of the coast sections. For miles the course is through the serene river flood, fringed by a leafy, yet melancholy nature. Then a cluster of factories, known as Kissinga, is passed, and the river is broken into channels by numerous islands, heavily wooded. Only the deeper channels are now navigable, and selecting the right ones the fleet arrives at Wood Point, a Dutch trading town, with several factories. Up to this point, the river has had no depth of less than 16 feet, increased to 22 feet during the rainy season. The mangrove forests have disappeared, giving place to the statelier palms. Grassy plains begin to stretch invitingly down to the water’s edge. In the distance high ridges throw up their serrated outlines, and seemingly converge toward the river, as a look is taken ahead. Soon the wonderful Fetish Rocks are sighted, which all pilots approach with dread, either through superstition or because the deep current is broken by miniature whirlpools. One of these granite rocks stands on a high elevation and resembles a light-house. It is the Limbu-Li-Nzambi—“Finger of God”—of the natives.

Boma is now reached. It is the principal emporium of trade on the Congo—the buying and selling mart for Banana Point, and connected with it by steamers. There is nothing picturesque hereabouts, yet Boma has a history as old as the slave trade in America, and as dark and horrible as that traffic was infamous. Here congregated the white slave dealers for over two centuries, and here they gathered the dusky natives by the thousand, chained them in gangs by the dozen or score, forced them into the holds of their slave-ships, and carried them away to be sold in the Brazils, West Indies and North America. Whole fleets of slave-ships have anchored off Boma, with their loads of rum, their buccaneer crews and blood-thirsty officers, intent on human booty. Happily, all is now changed and the Arab is the only recognized slave-stealer in Africa. Boma has several missions, and her traders are on good terms with the surrounding tribes. Her market is splendid, and here may be found

in plenty, oranges, citrons, limes, papaws, pine-apples, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, onions, turnips, cabbage, beets, carrots and lettuce, besides the meat of bullocks, sheep, goats and fowls.

A SLAVE-STEALER’S REVENGE.

After establishing a headquarters at Boma, under the auspices of the International Commission, the expedition proceeded to Mussuko, where the heavier steamer, Albion, was dismissed, and where all the stores for future use were collected. This point is 90 miles from the sea. River reconnoissances were made in the lighter steamers, and besides the information picked up, the navigators were treated to a hippopotamus hunt which resulted in the capture of one giant specimen, upon whose back one of the Danish skippers mounted in triumph, that he might have a thrilling paragraph for his next letter to Copenhagen.

Above Boma the Congo begins to narrow between verdure-clad hills rising from 300 to 1100 feet, and navigation becomes more difficult, though channels of 15 to 20 feet in depth are found. Further on, toward Vivi is a splendid reach of swift, deep water, with an occasional whirlpool, capable of floating the largest steamship. Vivi was to be a town founded under the auspices of the International Commission—an entrepôt for an extensive country. The site was pointed out by De-de-de, chief of the contiguous tribe, who seemed to have quite as keen a commercial eye as his European visitors. Hither were gathered five of the most powerful chiefs of the vicinity, who were pledged, over draughts of fresh palm-juice, to recognize the newly established emporium. It is a salubrious spot, surrounded by high plateaus, affording magnificent views. From its lofty surroundings one may sketch a future, which shall abound in well worn turnpike roads, puffing steamers, and columns of busy trades-people. As Vivi is, the natives are by no means the worst sort of people. They wear a moderate amount of clothing, take readily to traffic, keep themselves well supplied with marketing, and use as weapons the old fashioned flint-lock guns they have secured in trade with Europeans. At the grand assemblage of chiefs, one of the dusky seniors voiced the unanimous sentiment thus:—“We, the big chiefs of Vivi are glad to see the mundelé (trader). If the mundelé has any wish to settle in this country, as Massala (the interpreter) informs us, we will welcome

him, and will be great friends to him. Let the mundelé speak his mind freely.”

Stanley replied that he was on a mission of peace, that he wanted to establish a commercial emporium, with the right to make roads to it and improve the surrounding country, and that he wanted free and safe intercourse with the people for all who chose to come there. If they would give guarantees to this effect, he would pay them for the right. Then began a four hour’s chaffer which resulted in the desired treaty. Apropos to this deal Stanley says:—“In the management of a bargain I should back the Congo native against Jew or Christian, Parsee, or Banyan, in all the round world. I have there seen a child of eight do more tricks of trade in an hour than the cleverest European trader on the Congo could do in a month. There is a little boy at Bolobo, aged six, named Lingeuji, who would make more profit out of a pound’s worth of cloth than an English boy of fifteen would out of ten pound’s worth. Therefore when I write of the Congo natives, Bakougo, Byyanzi or Bateke tribes, I associate them with an inconceivable amount of natural shrewdness and a power of indomitable and untiring chaffer.”

Thus Vivi was acquired, and Stanley brought thither all his boats and supplies. He turned all his working force, a hundred in number, to laying out streets to the top of the plateau, where houses and stores were erected. The natives rendered assistance and were much interested in the smashing and removal of the boulders with the heavy sledges. They called Stanley Bula Matari—Rock Breaker—a title he came to be known by on the whole line of the Congo, up to Stanley Falls. Gardens were planted, shade trees were set out, and on January 8, 1880, Stanley wrote home that he had a site prepared for a city of 20,000 people, at the head of navigation on the lower Congo, and a center for trade with a large country, when suitable roads were built. He left it in charge of one of his own men, as governor, or chief, and started on his tedious and more perilous journey through the hills and valleys of the cataract region. This journey led him through various tribes, most of whom lived in neat villages, and were well supplied with live animals, garden produce and cotton clothing. They were friendly and disposed to encourage him in his enterprise of making a good commercial road

from Vivi, around the cataracts, to some suitable station above, provided they were well paid for the right of way. A melancholy fact in connection with many of these tribes is that they have been decimated by internecine wars, mostly of the olden time, when the catching and selling of slaves was a business, and that thereby extensive tracts of good land have been abandoned to wild game, elephants, buffaloes, water-buck and antelopes, which breed and roam at pleasure. It was nothing unusual to see herds of half a dozen elephants luxuriously spraying their sunburnt backs in friendly pools, nor to startle whole herds of buffaloes, which would scamper away, with tails erect, for safety—cowards all, except when wounded and at bay, and then a very demon, fuller of fight than a tiger and even more dangerous than the ponderous elephant.

Owing to the fact that the Congo threads its cataract section with immense falls and through deep gorges, this part of Stanley’s journey had to be made at some distance from its channel, and with only glimpses of its turbid waters, over lofty ridges, through deep grass-clothed or densely forested valleys, and across various tributaries, abounding in hippopotami and other water animals. Many fine views were had from the mountains of Ngoma. He decided that a road could be made from Vivi to Isangila, a distance of 52 miles, and that from Isangila navigation could be resumed on the Congo. And this road he now proceeded to make, for, though years before in his descent of the river he had dragged many heavy canoes for miles overland, and around similar obstructions, he now had heavier craft to carry, and objects of commerce in view. He had 106 men at his disposal at Vivi, who fell to work with good will, cutting down the tall grass, removing boulders, corduroying low grounds, bridging streams, and carrying on engineering much the same as if they were in a civilized land—the natives helping when so inclined. The workmen had their own supplies, which were supplemented by game, found in abundance, and were molested only by the snakes which were disturbed by the cutting and digging; of these, the spitting snake was the most dangerous, not because of its bite, but because it ejects its poison in a stream from a distance of six feet into the face and eyes of its enemy. The ill effects of such an injection lasts for a week or more. The tall grass was infested

with the whip-snake, the bulky python was found near the streams, while a peculiar green snake inhabited the trees of the stony sections and occasionally dangled in unpleasant proximity to the faces of the workmen.

BUFFALO AT BAY.

As this road-making went on, constant communication was kept up with Vivi. The steamers were mounted on heavy wagons, and were drawn along by hand-power as the road progressed. Stores and utensils of every kind were similarly loaded and transported. The mules and asses, belonging to the expedition, were of course brought into requisition, but in nearly all cases their strength had to be supplemented by the workmen. Accidents were not infrequent, but fatal casualties were rare. Some died of disease, yet the general health was good. One of the coast natives fell a victim to an enraged hippopotamus, which crushed him and his bark as readily as an egg-shell.

Thus the road progressed to Makeya Manguba, a distance of 22 miles from Vivi, and after many tedious trips to and fro, all the equipments of the expedition were brought to that point. The time consumed had been about five months—from March to August. Here the steel lighters were brought into requisition, and the equipments were carried by steam to a new camp on the Bundi river, where road making was even more difficult, because the forests were now dense and the woods—mahogany, teak, guaiacum and bombax—very hard. Fortunately the natives kept up a fine supply of sweet potatoes, bananas, fowls and eggs, which supplemented the usual rice diet of the workmen. It was with the greatest hardship that the road was completed between the Luenda and Lulu rivers, so thick were the boulders and so hard the material which composed them. The Europeans all fell sick, and even the natives languished. At length the Bula river was reached, 16 miles from the Bundi, where the camp was supplied with an abundance of buffalo and antelope meat.

The way must now go either over the steep declivities of the Ngoma mountains, or around their jagged edges, where they abut on the roaring Congo. The latter was chosen, and for days the entire force were engaged in cutting a roadway along the sides of the bluffs. This completed, a short stretch of navigable water brought

them to Isangila, 52 miles from Vivi. It was now January 2, 1881. Thither all the supplies were brought, and the boats were scraped and painted, ready for the long journey to Manyanga. Stanley estimated that all the goings and comings on this 52 miles of roadway would foot up 2,352 miles of travel; and it had cost the death of six Europeans and twenty-two natives, besides the retirement of thirteen invalids. Verily, it was a year dark with trial and unusual toil. But the cataracts had been overcome, and rest could be had against further labors and dangers.

FIGHT WITH AN ENRAGED HIPPOPOTAMUS.

The little steel lighters are now ready for their precious loads. In all, there has been collected at Isangila full fifty tons of freight, besides wagons and the traveling luggage of 118 colored carriers and attendants and pioneers. It is a long, long way to Manyanga, but if the river proves friendly, it ought to be reached in from seventy to eighty days. The Congo is three-quarters of a mile wide, with rugged shores and tumultuous currents. The little steamers have to feel their way, hugging the shores in order to avoid the swift waters of the outer channels, and starting every now and then with their paddles the drowsy crocodiles from their habitat. The astonished creatures dart forward, at first, as if to attack the boats, but of a sudden disappear in the flood, to rise again in the rear and give furious chase at a distance they deem quite safe. This part of the river is known as Long Reach. These reaches, or stretches, some of them five miles long, are expansions of the river, between points of greater fall, and are more easily navigable than where the stream narrows or suddenly turns a point. The cañon appearance of the shores now begins to disappear, and extensive grass-grown plains stretch occasionally to the water’s edge.

At the camp near Kololo Point, where the river descends swiftly, the expedition was met by Crudington and Bentley, two missionaries, who were fleeing in a canoe from the natives of Kinshassa, where they had been surrounded by an armed mob and threatened with their lives. They were given protection and sent to Isangila. Stanley had now to mourn the loss of his most trustworthy messenger, Soudi. He had gone back to Vivi for the European mail and on the way had met a herd of buffaloes; selecting the finest, he discharged his rifle at it and killed it, as he thought. But when he

rushed up to cut its jugular vein, the beast arose in fury, and tossed and mangled poor Soudi so that he died soon after his companions came to his rescue.

Stretch after stretch of the turbulent Congo is passed, and camp after camp has been formed and vacated. At all camps, where practicable, the natives have been taken into confidence, and the intent of the expedition made known. With hardly an exception they fell into the spirit of the undertaking, and gladly welcomed the opportunity to open commerce with the outer world. The Nzambi rapids now offer an obstacle to navigation, but soon a safe channel is found, and a magnificent stretch of water leads to a bay at the mouth of the Kwilu river, a navigable stream, with a depth of eight feet, a width of forty yards and a current of five miles an hour. The question of food now became pressing. Each day the banks of the river were scoured for rations, by gangs of six men, whose duty it was to purchase and bring in cassava, bread, bananas, Indian corn, sweet potatoes, etc., not forgetting fowls, eggs, goats, etc., for the Europeans. But these men found it hard work to obtain fair supplies.

By April 7th the camp was at Kimbanza opposite the mouth of the Lukunga and in the midst of a land of plenty, and especially of crocodiles, which fairly infest the river and all the tributaries thereof. Here, too, are myriads of little fish like minnows, or sardines, which the natives catch in great quantities, in nets, and prepare for food by baking them in the sun. The population is quite dense, and of the same amiable mood, the same desire to traffic, and the same willingness to enter into treaties, as that on the river below.

Further up are the Ndunga people and the Ndunga Rapids, where the river is penned in between high, forbidding walls and where nature has begrudged life of every kind to the scene. But out among the villages all is different. The people are thrifty and sprightly. Their markets are full of sweet potatoes, eggs, fish, palm-wine, etc., and the shapely youths, male and female, indulge in dances which possess as much poetry of motion as the terpsichorean performances of the more highly favored children of civilization.

The next station was Manyanga, a destination indeed, for here is a formidable cataract, which defies the light steamers of the expedition, and there will have to be another tedious portage to the open waters of Stanley Pool. It was now May 1, 1881. Manyanga is 140 miles from Vivi. The natives were friendly but adverse to founding a trading town in their midst. Yet Stanley resolved that it should be a station and supply point for the 95 miles still to be traversed to Stanley Pool. He fell sick here, of fever, and lay for many days unconscious. Such was his prostration, when he returned to his senses, that he despaired of recovery, and bade his attendants farewell.

In the midst of hardship which threatened to break his expedition up at this point, he was rejoiced to witness the arrival of a relief expedition from below, other boats, plenty of provisions and a corps of workmen. Then the site of the town of Manyanga was laid out, and a force of men was employed to build a road around the cataract and haul the boats over it. This point is the center of exchange for a wide territory. Slaves, ivory, rubber, oil, pigs, sheep, goats and fowls are brought in abundance to the market, and it is a favorite stopping-place for caravans from the mouth of the Congo to Stanley Pool. But the natives are crusty, and several times Stanley had to interfere to stop the quarrels which arose between his followers and the insolent market people. At length the town was fortified, provisioned and garrisoned, and the expedition was on its way to Stanley Pool, around a portage of six miles in length, and again into the Congo; then up and up, with difficult navigation, past the mouths of inflowing rivers, around other tedious portages, through quaint and curious tribes, whose chiefs grow more and more fantastic in dress and jealous of power, till they even come to rival that paragon of strutting kingliness, the famed Mtesa of Uganda. Though not hostile, they were by no means amiable, having made a recent cession of the country on the north of the Congo to French explorers. King Itsi, or Ngalyema, was among the most powerful of them and upon him was to turn the fortune of the expedition in the waters of the upper Congo. Stanley made the happy discovery that this Ngalyema was the Itsi, of whom he had made a blood brother on his descent of the river,

and this circumstance soon paved the way to friendship and protection, despite the murmurs and threats of neighboring chiefs.

ROUNDING A PORTAGE. [Larger.]

The last king of note, before reaching Stanley Pool, was Makoko, who favored the breaking of rocks and the cutting down of trees in order to pass boats over the country, but who wanted it understood that his people owned the country and did not intend to part with their rights without due consideration. Scarcely had a treaty been struck with him when Stanley was informed that Ngalyema was on his track with two hundred warriors, and determined to wipe out his former negotiations with blood. Already the sound of his war-drums and the shouts of his soldiers were heard in the distance. Stanley ordered his men to arm quickly and conceal themselves in the bush, but to rush out frantically and make a mock attack when they heard the gong sounding. Ngalyema appeared upon the scene with his forces and informed Stanley that he could not go to Kintamo, for Makoko did not own the land there. After a long talk, the stubborn chief left the tent in anger and with threats of extermination on his lips; but as he passed the inclosure, he was attracted by the gong, swinging in the wind.

“What is this?” he asked.

“It is fetish,” replied Stanley.

“Strike it; let me hear it,” he exclaimed.

“Oh, Ngalyema, I dare not; it is the war fetish.”

“No, no, no! I tell you to strike.”

“Well, then!”

Here Stanley struck the gong with all his force, and in an instant a hundred armed men sprang from the bush and rushed with demoniac yells upon the haughty chief and his followers, keeping up all the while such demonstrations as would lead to the impression that the next second would bring an annihilating volley from their guns. The frightened king clung to Stanley for protection. His followers fled in every direction.

“Shall I strike the fetish again?” inquired Stanley.

“No, no! don’t touch it!” exclaimed the now subdued king; and the broken treaty was solemnized afresh over a gourd of palm-wine. Makoko was jolly over the discomfiture of his powerful rival.

A NARROW ESCAPE.

These Kintamo people, sometimes called the Wambunda, now gave to Stanley some 78 carriers and greatly assisted him in making his last twelve miles of roadway and in conveying his boats and wagons over it. The expedition was now in sight of Stanley Pool, beyond the region of the cataracts, and at the foot of navigation on the upper Congo. It was now Dec. 3, 1881, the boats were all brought up and launched in smooth water, a station was founded, and the expedition prepared for navigation on that stupendous stretch of water between Stanley Pool and Stanley Falls.

The Kintamo station was called Leopoldville, in honor of king Leopold of Belgium, European patron of the Congo Free State, and to whose generosity more than that of any other the entire expedition was due. It was the most important town thus far founded on the Congo, for it was the center of immense tribal influence, a base of operations for 5000 miles of navigable waters, and a seat of plenty if the chiefs remained true to their concessions. It was therefore well protected with a block-house and garrison, while the magazine was stocked with food and ammunition. Gardens were laid out and planted, stores were erected in which goods were displayed, and soon Stanley had the pleasure of seeing the natives bringing ivory and marketing for traffic. The stay of the expedition at Leopoldville was somewhat lengthy and it was April, 19, 1882, before it embarked for the upper Congo, with its 49 colored men, four whites, and 129 carrier-loads of equipments.

The boats passed Bamu Island, 14 miles in length, which occupies the center of Stanley Pool, the stream being haunted by hippopotami and the interior of the island by elephants and buffaloes, adventures with which were common. The shores are yet bold and wooded, monkeys in troops fling themselves from tree to tree, white-collared fish eagles dart with shrill screams across the wide expanse of waters, and crocodiles stare wildly at the approaching steamers, only to dart beneath them as they near and then to reappear in their wake. Says Stanley, of this part of the river:

“From the Belize to Omaha, on the line of the Mississippi, I have seen nothing to excite me to poetic madness. The Hudson is a trifle better in its upper part. The Indus, the Ganges, the Irrawaddy, the Euphrates, the Nile, the Niger, the La Platte, the

Amazon—I think of them all, and I can see no beauty on their shores that is not excelled many fold by the natural beauty of this scenery, which, since the Congo highlands were first fractured by volcanic caprice or by some wild earth-dance, has remained unknown, unhonored and unsung.”

WHITE-COLLARED FISH EAGLES.

From Stanley Pool to Mswata, a distance of 64 miles, the river has a width of 1500 yards, a depth sufficient to float the largest steamer, and heavily wooded banks. The people are of the Kiteké tribes and are broken into many bands, ruled by a high class of chieftains, who are not averse to the coming of the white man. The Congo receives an important tributary near Mswata, called the Kwa. This Stanley explored for 200 miles, past the Holy Isle, or burial place of the Wabuma kings and queens, through populous and pleasantly situated villages and onward to a splendid expanse of water, which was named Lake Leopold II.

It was during his exploration of the Kwa that Stanley fell sick; and on his return to Mswata, was compelled to return to Leopoldville and so back to Manyanga, Vivi, and the various stations he had founded, to the coast, whence he sailed for Loando, to take a steamer for Europe. The three-year service of his Zanzibaris was about to expire; and when he met at Vivi, the German, Dr. Peschnel-Loeche, with a large force of men and a commission to take charge of the expedition, should anything happen to him (Stanley), he felt that it was in the nature of a reprieve.

On August 17, 1882, he sailed from Loando for Lisbon. On his arrival in Europe, he laid before the International Association a full account of the condition of affairs on the Congo. He had founded five of the eight stations at first projected, had constructed many miles of wagon road, had left a steamer and sailing vessels on the Upper Congo, had opened the country to traffic up to the mouth of the Kwa, a distance of 400 miles from the coast, had found the natives amiable and willing to work and trade, and had secured treaties and concessions which guaranteed the permanency of the benefits sought to be obtained by the expedition and the founding of a great Free State. Yet with all this he declared that “the Congo basin is not worth a two-shilling piece in its present state, and that to reduce it to profitable order a railroad must be built from the lower to the

upper river.” Such road must be solely for the benefit of Central Africa and of such as desire to traffic in that region. He regarded the first phase of his mission as over—the opening of communication between the Atlantic and Upper Congo. The second phase he regarded as the obtaining of concessions from all the chiefs along the way, without which they would be in a position to force an abandonment of every commercial enterprise.

The International Association heard him patiently and offered to provide funds for his more extensive work, provided he would undertake it. He consented to do so and to push his work to Stanley Falls, if they would give him a reliable governor for the establishments on the Lower Congo. Such a man was promised; and after a six weeks’ stay in Europe, he sailed again for Congo-land on November 23, 1882.

He found his trading stations in confusion, and spent some time in restoring order, and re-victualling the empty store-houses. The temporary bridges on his hastily built roads had begun to weaken and one at the Mpalanga crossing gave way, compelling a tedious delay with the boats and wagons he was pushing on to the relief of Leopoldville. Here he found no progress had been made and that under shameful neglect everything was going to decay. Even reciprocity with the natives had been neglected, and garrison and tribes had agreed to let one another severely alone. To rectify all he found wrong required heroic exertion. He found one source of gratification in the fact that two English religious missions had been founded on the ground of the Association, one a Baptist, the other undenominational. Dr. Sims, head of the Baptists, was the first to navigate the waters of the Upper Congo, and occupy a station above Stanley Pool, but soon after the Livingstone, or undenominational mission, established a station at the Equator. Both missions now have steamers at their disposal, and are engaged in peaceful rivalry for moral conquest in the Congo Basin.

A TEMPORARY CROSSING.

The relief of Leopoldville accomplished, Stanley started in his steam-launches, one of which was new (May 9, 1883), for the upper waters of the Congo, with eighty men. Passing his former station at Mswata, he sailed for Bolobo, passing through a country with few villages and alive with lions, elephants, buffaloes and antelopes,

proof that the population is sparse at a distance from the river. Beyond the mouth of the Lawson, the Congo leaves behind its bold shores and assumes a broader width. It now becomes lacustrine and runs lazily through a bed carved out of virgin soil. This is the real heart of equatorial Africa, rich alluvium, capable of supporting a countless population and of enriching half a world.

WEAVER-BIRD’S NEST.

The Bolobo country is densely populated, but flat and somewhat unhealthy. The villages arise in quick succession, and perhaps 10,000 people live along the river front. They are peaceful, inclined to trade, but easily offended at any show of superiority on the part of white men. Ibaka is the leading chief. He it was who conducted negotiations for Gatula, who had murdered two white men, and who had been arraigned for his double crime before Stanley,

The latter insisted upon the payment of a heavy fine by the offending chief—or war. After long deliberation, the fine was paid, much to Stanley’s relief, for war would have defeated the whole object of his expedition. Ibaka’s remark, when the affair was so happily ended, was: “Gatula has received such a fright and has lost so much money, that he will never be induced to murder a man again. No, indeed, he would rather lose ten of his women than go through this scene again.” A Bolobo concession for the Association was readily obtained in a council of the chiefs.

And this station at Bolobo was most important. The natives are energetic traders, and have agents at Stanley Pool and points further down the river, to whom they consign their ivory and camwood powder, very much as if they were Europeans or Americans. They even acquire and enjoy fortunes. One of them, Manguru, is a nabob after the modern pattern, worth fully $20,000, and his canoes and slaves exploit every creek and affluent of the Congo, gathering up every species of merchandise available for the coast markets. Within two hours of Bolobo is the market place of the By-yanzi tribe. The town is called Mpumba. It is a live place on market days, and the fakirs vie with each other in the sale of dogs, crocodiles, hippopotamus meat, snails, fish and red-wood powder.

Negotiations having been completed at Bolobo, and the station fully established, Stanley started with his flotilla, May 28th, on his way up the river. The natives whom he expected to confront were the Uyanzi and Ubangi. He was well provided with guides from Bolobo, among whom were two of Ibaka’s slaves. The shores of the river were now densely wooded, and the river itself spread out to the enormous width of five miles, which space was divided into channels by islands, miles in length, and covered with rubber trees, tamarinds, baobab, bombax, red-wood, palms and date palms, all of which were interwoven with profuse creepers, making an impenetrable mass of vegetation, royal to look upon, but suggestive of death to any one who dared to lift the verdant veil and look behind.

Slowly the tiny steamers push against the strong currents and make their way through this luxuriant monotony, broken, to be sure, every now and then, by the flit of a sun-bird, the chirp of a

weaver, the swish of a bamboo reed, the graceful nodding of an overgrown papyrus, the scurrying of a flock of parrots, the yawn of a lazy hippopotamus, the plunge of a crocodile, the chatter of a disturbed monkey colony, the scream of the white-collared fish eagle, the darting of a king-fisher, the pecking of wag-tails, the starting of jays and flamingoes. Yet with all these appeals to eye and ear, there is the sepulchral gloom of impervious forest, the sad expanse of grassy plain, the spectral isles of the stream, the vast dome of tropical sky, and the sense of slowness of motion and cramped quarters, which combine to produce a melancholy almost appalling. It is by no means a Rhine journey, with gay steamers, flush with food and wine. The Congo is one-and-a-half times larger than the Mississippi, and with a width which is majestic in comparison with the “Father of Waters.” It shows a dozen varieties of palm. Its herds of hippopotami, flocks of gleeful monkeys, troops of elephants standing sentry at forest entrances, bevies of buffaloes grazing on its grassy slopes, swarms of ibis, parrots and guinea-fowl fluttering everywhere—these create a life for the Congo, surpassing in variety that of the Mississippi. But the swift-moving, strong, sonorous steamer, and the bustling river town, are wanting.

At last night comes, and the flotilla is twenty miles above Bolobo. Night does not mean the end of a day’s work with the expedition, but rather the beginning of one, for it is the signal for all hands to put ashore with axes and saws to cut and carry a supply of wood for the morrow’s steaming. A great light is lit upon the shore, and for hours the ringing of axes is heard, varied by the woodman’s weird chant. The supply is borne back in bundles, the tired natives eat their cassava bread and boiled rice suppers, the whites partake of their roast goat’s meat, beans, bananas, honey, milk and coffee, and then all is silence on the deep, dark river. The camp is Ugende, still in the By-yanzi country. The natives are suspicious at first, but are appeased by the order that every member of the expedition shall make up his reedy couch in close proximity to the steamers.

The next day’s steaming is through numerous villages, banana groves, palm groups, and an agreeable alternation of bluff and vale. The Levy Hills approach the water in the airy red projections of

Iyumbi. The natives gaze in awe upon the passing flotilla, as much as to say, “What does it all mean?” “Has doom indeed dawned for us?” Two hours above Iyumbi the steamers lose their way in the multitude of channels, and have to put back. On their return, twenty canoes are sighted in a creek. Information must be had, and the whale-boat is launched and ordered to visit the canoes. At sight of it, the occupants of the canoes flee. Chase is given, and five miles are passed before the whale-boat catches up. The occupants of the canoes are found to be women, who jump into the water and escape through the reeds to the shore. They prove dumb to all inquiries as to the river courses, and might as well have been spared their fright.

On May 31st the journey was against a head wind, and so slow that two trading canoes, each propelled by twenty By-yanzi paddles, bound for Ubangi, kept pace with the steamers all day. Provisions were now running low. Since leaving Bolobo, the eighty natives and seven Europeans had consumed at the rate of 250 pounds of food daily. It was therefore time to prepare for barter with the settlement which came into view on June 1st, and which the guides called Lukolela.

Lukolela is a succession of the finest villages thus far seen on the Congo. They are composed of substantial huts, built on a bold shore, and amid a primeval forest, thinned of its trees to give building spaces. The natives are still of the Wy-yanzi tribe, and whether friendly or not, could not be ascertained on first approach. Stanley took no chances with them, but steaming slowly past their five mile of villages, he ordered all the showy calicoes and trinkets to be displayed, and placed his guides and interpreters in the bows of the boats to harangue the natives and proclaim his desire to trade in peace. Though the throng gradually increased on the shore and became more curious as each village was passed, it gave no response except that the country had been devastated by frightful disease and was in a state of starvation. Horrid indeed was the situation, if they spoke the truth! But what of the fat, well-to-do looking people on the banks? Ah! there must be something wrong somewhere! The steamers passed above the villages and put up for the night. Soon the natives came trooping from the villages, bearing

loads of fowls, goats, plantains, bananas, cassava, sweet-potatoes, yams, eggs, and palm-oil, and all eager for a trade. Barter was brisk that night, and was resumed the next morning, when canoe after canoe appeared, loaded down with rations. A supply of food for eight days was secured. They excused their falsehoods of the previous day to the fear they had of the steamers. On finding that they were not dangerous, their cowardice turned into admiration of a craft they had never seen before.

NATIVES’ CURIOSITY AT SIGHT OF A WHITE MAN.

The Congo now ran through banks 100 feet high and a mile and a half apart, clothed with magnificent timber. Between these the flotilla sailed on June 2d, being visited occasionally by native fishermen with fish to sell. The camp this night was in a deserted spot, with nothing to cheer it except dense flocks of small birds, followed by straggling armies of larger ones resembling crows. On the evening of June 3d the steamers reached a point a few miles below Ngombé. Here Stanley was surprised to hear his name called, in good English, by the occupants of two canoes, who had fish and crocodiles to sell. He encouraged the mongers by making a purchase, and on inquiry found that the natives here carry on quite a brisk trade in young crocodiles, which they rear for the markets. They procure the eggs, hatch them in the sand, and then secure the young ones in ponds, covered with nets, till they are old enough to market.

Ngombé was now sighted, on a bank 40 feet above the river, amid a wealth of banana groves and other signs of abundance. Above and below Ngombé the river is from four to five miles wide, but here it narrows to two miles and flows with a swift current. The sail over the wide stretch above Ngombé was through the land of the Nkuku, a trading people. At Butunu the steamers were welcomed with delight, and the shores echoed with shouts of “Malamu!” Good! But it remained for the Usindi to greet the travelers with an applause which was ridiculously uproarious. Hundreds of canoes pushed into the stream, followed and surrounded the steamers, their occupants cheering as though they were frantic, and quite drowning every counter demonstration. At length a dozen of them sprang aboard one of the steamers, shook hands with all the crew, and gratified their curiosity by a close inspection of the machinery and

equipments. Then they would have the steamers put back to their landing at Usindi, where the welcome was continued more obstreperously than ever. The secret of it all was that these people were great river traders, and many of them had been to Leopoldville and Kintamo, 300 miles below, where they had seen houses, boats and wagons. They were a polished people, not given to show of their weapons for purposes of terrorizing their visitors, and kindly in the extreme. Iuka, their king, besought Stanley to make a station at Usindi and enter into permanent trade relations with his people.

CAPTURING A CROCODILE.

A very few miles above Usindi the flotilla entered a deep channel of the Congo, which seemed to pass between fruitful islands, whose shores were lined with people. They were ominously quiet till the steamers passed, when they gave pursuit in their canoes. The steamers stopped, and the pursuers made the announcement that they bore an invitation from King Mangombo, of Irebu, to visit him. Mention of the Irebu was enough to determine Stanley. They are the champion traders of the Upper Congo, and are equalled only by the powerful Ubanzi who live on the north side of that great flood. The Irebu have, time and again, borne down upon the Lukolela, Ngombé, Nkuku, Butunu and Usindi, and even the fierce Bengala, and taught them all how to traffic in peace and with credit.

When the steamers came to anchor at Mangambo’s village, the aged king headed a procession of his people and welcomed Stanley by shaking his hand in civilized fashion. There were cheers, to be sure, but not the wild vociferations of those who looked upon his flotilla as something supernatural. There was none of that eager curiosity which characterizes the unsophisticated African, but a dignified bearing and frank speech. They had an air of knowledge and travel which showed that their intercourse with the trading world had not been in vain. They know the Congo by heart from Stanley Pool to Upoto, a distance of 600 miles; are acquainted with the military strength and commercial genius of all the tribes, and can compute the value of cloth, metals, beads and trinkets, in ivory, livestock and market produce, as quickly as the most skillful accountant. Blood brotherhood was made with Mangombo, valuable gifts were interchanged, and then the chief, in a long speech, asked Stanley

to intercede in his behalf in a war he was waging with Magwala and Mpika,—which he did in such a way as to bring about a truce.

The large tributary, Lukanga, enters the Congo near Irebu, with its black waters and sluggish current. The flotilla left the mouth of the Lukanga on June 6th, and after a sail of 50 miles, came to Ikengo on June 8th. The route had been between many long islands, heavily wooded, while the shores bore an unbroken forest of teak, mahogany, gum, bombax and other valuable woods. At Ikengo the natives came dashing into the stream in myriad of canoes shouting their welcomes and praising the merits of their respective villages. Here it was, “Come to Ikengo!” There it was, “Come to Itumba!” Between it was, “Come to Inganda!” With all it was, “We have women, ivory, slaves, goats, sheep, pigs,” etc. It was more like a fakir scene in Constantinople or Cairo than a pagan greeting in the heart of the wilderness. Perhaps both their familiarity and importunity was due in great part to the fact they remembered Stanley on his downward trip years before.

Having, in 1877, been royally received at Inganda, Stanley landed there, and stopped temporarily among those healthy, bronze-colored denizens, with their fantastic caps of monkey, otter, leopard or goat skin, and their dresses of grassy fibre. From this point Stanley made a personal exploration to the large tributary of the Congo, called the Mohindu, which he had mapped on his trip down the Congo. He found what he had conceived to be an affluent of 1,000 yards wide, to be one of only 600 yards wide, with low shores, running into extensive timber swamps. He called it an African Styx. But further up it began to develop banks. Soon villages appeared, and by and by came people, armed, yellow-bodied, and dancing as if they meant to awe the occupants of the boat. But the boat did not stop till it arrived at a cheerful village, 80 miles up the river, where, on attempting to stop, it was warned off with the threat that a landing would be a sure signal for a fight. Not wishing to tempt them too far, the steamer put back, receiving as a farewell a volley of sticks and stones which fell far short of their object.

On the return of the steamer to Inganda, preparation was made for the sail to the next station up the Congo, which being in the

latitude of only one minute north of the Equator, or, in other words, as nearly under it as was possible, was called Equator Station. This station was made a permanent one by the appointment of Lieut. Vangele as commander, with a garrison of 20 men. Lieut. Coquilhat, with 20 men, was also left there, till reinforcements and supplies should come up from Leopoldville. After remaining here long enough to prepare a station site and appease the neighboring chiefs with gifts, the balance of the expedition returned down the river to Inganda, or rather to Irebu, for it had been determined that Inganda was too sickly a place for a station. Yet how were these hospitable people to be informed of the intended change of base without giving offence? Stanley’s guide kindly took the matter in hand, and his method would have done credit to a Philadelphia lawyer. Rubbing his eyes with pepper till the tears streamed down his cheeks, and assuming a broken-hearted expression, he stepped ashore among the assembled natives, as the boat touched at Inganda, and took a position in their midst, utterly regardless of their shouts of welcome and their other evidences of hearty greeting. To all their anxious inquiries he responded nothing, being wholly engaged in his role of sorrow. At last, when their importunity could not be further resisted, he told them a pitiful story of hardship and death in an imaginary encounter up the river, and how Mangombo’s boy, of Irebu, had fallen a victim, beseeching them to join in a war of redress, etc., etc. The acting of the native guide was complete, and all Inganda was so deceived by it and so bent on a war of revenge that it quite forgot to entertain any ill-feeling at the departure of the steamer and the abandonment of the station. So Stanley sailed down to Irebu, where he found his truce broken and Mangombo plunged again into fierce war with his neighbors—Mpika and Magwala.

Once more Stanley interceded by calling a council of the chiefs on both sides. After an impressive speech, in which he detailed the horrors of war and the folly of further slaughter over a question of a few slaves, he induced the hostile chiefs to shake hands and exchange pledges of peace. They ratified the terms by firing a salute over the grave of the war, and disbanded. Irebu is a large collection of villages extending for fully five miles along the Congo and Lukanga,

and carrying a depth of two miles into the country. These closely knitted villages contain a population of 15,000 people, with as many more in the immediate neighborhood.

LIONS DRAGGING DOWN A BUFFALO.

The Lukanga was now explored. Its sluggish, reed-obstructed mouth soon brought the exploring steamer into a splendid lake with village-lined shores. This was Lake Mantumba, 144 miles in circumference. The inhabitants are experts in the manufacture of pottery and camwood powder and carry on a large ivory trade with the Watwa dwarfs.

Stanley then returned to the Congo and continued his downward journey, rescuing in one place the occupants of a capsized canoe; at another giving aid to a struggling Catholic priest on his way to the mouth of the Kwa to establish a mission; trying an ineffectual shot at a lion crouching on the bank and gazing angrily at the flotilla, pursuing its fleeing form, only to stumble on the freshly-slain carcass of a buffalo which the forest-king had stricken down while it was drinking, and at length arriving at Leopoldville, after an absence of 57 days, to find there several new houses, erected by the commandant, Lieut. Valcke, who had also founded the new station of Kinshassa. Where two months before all was wilderness, now fully 500 banana-trees were flourishing, terms of peace had been kept with the whimsical Ngalyema, and the store-rooms of the station were regular banks, that is, they were well stocked with brass rods, the circulating medium of the country.

Stanley remained at Leopoldville for some time, rectifying mischiefs which had occurred at Vivi and Manyanga, and dispatching men and supplies up to Bolobo. Here incidents crowded upon him. Having commissioned a young continental officer to establish a station on the opposite side of the river, the fellow no sooner arrived on the ground than he developed a homicidal mania and shot one of his own sergeants. He was brought back in a tattered and dazed condition and dismissed down the river. Word came of the destruction of a canoe by a gale near the mouth of the Kwa, and the drowning of Lieut. Jansen and twelve people, among whom was Abbé Guyot, the Catholic priest above mentioned. From Kimpoko station came word that a quarrel had broken out there with the natives and that relief must be had. A visit showed the station to have been

deserted, and it was destroyed and abandoned. More and more awful grew the situation. A canoe courier brought the harrowing word that Bolobo had been burned, with all the freshly dispatched goods.

This news spurred Stanley to a hasty start for the ill-fated station on August 22d. Arriving opposite Bolobo, Stanley’s rear steamers were fired upon from an ambush on the shore, and forced to administer a return fire. His steamers had never been fired upon before. He effected a landing at Bolobo, only to find a majority of the villages hostile to him, and bent on keeping up a desultory fire from the bush. So, unloading one of the steamers, he sent it back to Leopoldville to bring up quickly a Krupp cannon and ammunition. Despite his endeavors to bring about a better feeling, Stanley’s men were fired upon daily, and they returned it as best they could, occasionally killing a native, and doing damage to their banana trees, beer pots and chicken coups. At length the wounding of a chief brought about a parley and offers of peace tokens, but Stanley replied that since they seemed to be so fond of fighting, and were not doing him any particular harm, he proposed to keep it up from day to day till his monster gun arrived from Stanley Pool, when he would blow them all sky-high. This awful threat was too much for them. A nine days’ palaver ensued, which resulted in their payment of a fine and renewed peace. But when the great gun arrived, they saw, in the absence of trigger, stock and ramrod, so little likeness to a gun, that they claimed Stanley had deceived them, and refused to be propitiated till he proved it to be what he had represented. The Congo at Bolobo is 4,000 yards wide. Stanley ordered the cannon to be fired at a range of 2,000 yards, and when they saw a column of water thrown up by the striking of the charge at that distance, and witnessed the recoil of the piece, they began to think it was indeed a terrible weapon. They were still further convinced of the truth of his representations by a second shot, which carried the charge to a distance of 3,000 yards.

It was by such manœuvres as these that Stanley established fresh relations with these Wy-yanzi tribes. They are naturally wild and turbulent. A dispute over a brass rod, or a quarrel over a pot of beer, is a signal for war. Superstition rules them, as few tribes are

ruled. A bad dream by a chief may lead to the suspicion that he is bewitched, and some poor victim is sure to suffer burning for witchcraft. Ibaka caused a young girl to be strangled because her lover had sickened and died. At an upper village forty-five people were slaughtered over the grave of their chief—a sort of propitiatory sacrifice.

After all matters had been settled, Stanley read them a lecture on the folly of fighting friendly white men, who had never done them an injury, and did not intend to. To show his appreciation of the situation, he made them a present of cloth and brass rods, and offered to pay for a treat of beer. They went out and held a palaver, and then returned with a request that the gifts be duplicated. “Never!” shouted Stanley. “Ibaka, this land is yours. Take it. I and my people depart from Bolobo forever!”

To this all the chiefs remonstrated, saying they had no intention of driving him away, and explaining that their demand was only according to the custom of the Wy-yanzi to always ask for twice as much as was offered them. Despite this rather surprising commercial spirit, they are not a vindictive people—simply superstitious and quarrelsome.

After these difficulties, Stanley resumed his up-river journey for Lukolela, passing on the way the mouths of the Minkené river, of the Likuba, and of the larger river Bunga, whose banks are thickly strewn with villages. Once at Lukolela, a station was formed by clearing away the tall forest trees. Though the forests were magnificent, and capable of furnishing timber for generations, the soil was hard, stony and forbidding, and Stanley despaired of ever getting a garden of sufficient dimensions and fertility to support a garrison. He, however, left a Mr. Glave, a young Englishman, in charge, who seemed to think he could force nature to promise subsistence and comfort.

On September 22d Stanley started for Usindi, having on board Miyongo, of that place, and his shipwrecked crew. On their safe arrival, there was no show of gratitude for the favor done, but blood-brotherhood was made with Miyongo. This provoked the jealousy of the senior chief, Iuka, a dirty old fellow, of wicked mien, whose grievance seemed to be that Miyongo was too popular

in the community. A short palaver reconciled him to the situation, and Stanley departed with the assurance that Usindi might be counted on as a safe stopping-place in the future. Miyongo favored him with a guide who was well acquainted with the upper waters of the Congo.

A FUNERAL DANCE. [Larger.]

Irebu was now passed, and then the mouth of the Bauil, whose people are a piratical crew, dreaded by all their neighbors. By September 29th the flotilla was at Equator Station again, after an absence of one hundred days. What a transformation! The jungle and scrub had disappeared, and in their stead was a solid clay house, roomy, rain-proof and bullet-proof, well lighted and furnished. Around it were the neat clay huts of the colored carriers and soldiers, each the centre of a garden where grew corn, sugar-cane, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, etc. Then there was a grand garden, full of onions, radishes, carrots, beans, peas, beets, lettuce, potatoes and cabbages, and also a servants’ hall, goat-houses, fowl-houses and all the et-ceteras of an African plantation. It was Stanley’s ideal of a Congo station, and sight of it gave him greater heart for his enterprise than any thing he had yet seen. The native chief, Ikengé, was at first disposed to be troublesome, but was soon appeased. On October 11th Stanley congratulated himself that he had passed so much of the river limit, leaving peace behind him with all the nations, and stations abounding in means of support, if they exerted themselves in the right direction.

Equator Station is 757 miles from the Atlantic Ocean and 412 miles above Leopoldville, on Stanley Pool. Stanley’s initial work was really done here, but in response to earnest wishes from Brussels, he continued it in the same spirit and for the same purpose for 600 miles further, with a view of making a permanent station at Stanley Falls. With 68 colored men and 5 Europeans on board, and with his steamers well freighted with necessaries, he left Equator Station on October 16th. The first place of moment passed was at Uranga, near the confluence of the Lulunga with the Congo. The country around is flat, densely wooded, and the villages close together. The Uranga people were anxious for a landing and palaver, but the steamers pushed on to Bolombo, where a famine prevailed, and where the natives were peaceable and anxious to make blood-brotherhood.

STANLEY’S FIGHT WITH THE BENGALA IN 1877. [Larger.]

Above Bolombo the steamers were met by a fleet of canoes, whose occupants bore the news that the Bengala were anxious for a stop and palaver. These were the terrible fighters who harassed Stanley so sorely on his descent of the Congo in 1877. He had heard further down the river that they had threatened to dispute every inch of water with the white man if ever he came that way again. But he had also heard from Mangombo, of Irebu, that the lesson they had learned was so severe that all the white men would have to do would be to shake a stick at them. Still Stanley approached anxiously. The Bengala villages stretch for miles along the Congo. He did not stop his steamers, which were soon surrounded by hundreds of canoes, but kept slowly moving past the countless villages for fully five hours. The canoe-men seemed impelled wholly by curiosity, and no sign of hostility appeared. The guide held frequent talks with the natives, none of which evoked other than friendly replies. They are a tall, broad-shouldered, graceful people, shading off from a dark bronze to a light complexion. The steamers came to a halt for the night at an island, two hours’ sail from the upper end of the villages, and 500 yards from the shore, and thither the guide came in the evening with a young chief, Boleko, who invited a landing the next day. In the morning he came with an escort of canoes and took Stanley to his village, through the identical channel whence had issued the hostile canoes in 1877. Here trading was carried on briskly and satisfactorily, till a message came from old Mata Bwyki to the effect that he regarded it as an insult on the part of a boy like Boleko to be extending the tribal honors in that way. The only way out of this was for the steamers to drop back two miles and spend a day opposite the village of the old chief—Lord-of-many-guns. Old Mata was found to be a Herculean fellow, nearly eighty years old, and walking with a staff that resembled a small mast. By his side appeared seven sons, all fine-looking fellows, but the gray shock of the old man towered above them all when he straightened himself up. Around them was a throng which numbered thousands. The assembly place and place of welcome was laid with grass mats. Stanley and his men marched into it, ogled on every side, and not knowing whether the end would be peace or war. The guide presented them with a speech which described Stanley’s

work and objects—all he had done below them on the river, the advantages it would be to treat and trade with him, winding up with an intimation that it might be dangerous, or at least useless, to prove unfriendly, for his steamers were loaded with guns and ammunition sufficient for the extermination of the entire people. The result was a treaty, sealed with blood-brotherhood, and a promise on the part of Stanley to return at no distant day and establish a permanent station among the Bengala. This village was Iboko.

The Congo here is literally filled with islands which render a passage from one shore to the other almost impossible. These islands are all richly verdure-clad and present a scene of rare loveliness, draped in a vegetable life that finds a parallel no where else in nature. It took the steamers thirteen hours to work their way across to the left, or Mutembo side. But Mutembo was deserted. The steamers made Mkatakura, through channels bordered with splendid copal forests, whose tops were covered with orchilla—fortunes for whole civilized nations, if possessed and utilized. Mkatakura was also deserted. Where were these people? Their places had been populous and hostile in 1877. Had they fallen a prey to stronger tribes? Alas! such must have been their fate in a country where wars never end, and where provocations are the slightest.

Many deserted settlements were now passed, when Mpa, ruled by Iunga, was reached, 744 miles from Leopoldville. The people were peaceful and disposed to make all necessary concessions. The next day brought them to Nganza, ruled by old Rubanga, who had received Stanley with cordiality in 1877. The people were exceedingly anxious to trade, and offered their wares, especially their ivory, of which they had plenty, at ridiculously low figures. The people are known as the Langa-langa—the upper country—and they go almost entirely naked. Their bodies are cross-marked and tattooed. The country is regarded as a paradise for ivory traders, owing to the ignorance of the natives as to the real commercial value of the article. Here is the turning-point in African currency. The cloth and brass-rods of the Atlantic coast no longer hold good, but the Canton bead and the cowry of Ujiji are the measure of exchange. Langa-langa is therefore the commercial water-shed which divides the Atlantic and Pacific influence.

On November 4th Ikassa was passed, whose people fled on the approach of the steamers. It was the same at Yakongo. Then came a series of deserted villages. Presently appeared the newly-settled towns of Ndobo and Ibunda, with their wattled huts. Bumba came next, with whose chief, Myombi, blood-brotherhood was made amid a throng of curious sight-seers. It was the fiftieth time Stanley’s arm had been punctured for treaty purposes since he entered upon his journey. There was little opportunity for trading here owing to the curiosity of the people over the steamers. They could hardly be persuaded that the dreaded Ibanza—devil—did not live down in the boats. It must be he who required so much wood for food and gave such groans. If not, what was it that lived in that great iron drum and made those wheels spin round so rapidly? In this mood they forgot the art of exchange so natural with African natives. Their curiosity was such that the crowds about and upon the steamers became not only a drawback to exchange, but to work. At length one of the cabin-boys tried the effect of a practical joke. He opened the cabin door and pushed forward the form of a splendid Bengal tiger, as Ibanza, which was creating all the noise and trouble in the boat. The frightened natives shrieked and ran at glance of the terrible figure, and the river bank was cleared in a moment. Yells of laughter followed them from the boat’s crew. Being assured by this that nothing harmful was intended, they began to cluster back, and really joined heartily in the merriment, as they saw that the source of their terror was only a tiger skin hurriedly stuffed for the purpose of giving them a scare. Trade was more active after that, and provisions were plenty.

Above Bomba the steamers neared the equally populous town of Yambinga. The chief was Mukuga, who wore an antelope-skin cap adorned with cock’s feathers, a broad shoulder-belt with leopard-skin attachment, and strings of tags, tassels and fetish mysteries. He was a timid chief, notwithstanding his gaudy apparel, and quite willing to make blood brotherhood. All of these later villages were plentifully supplied with war-canoes, the count being 556 at Lower and Upper Yambinga, and 400 at Buruba.

Above Yambinga the flotilla got lost in an affluent of the Congo and had to put back to the main stream. The stream was supposed

to be the Itimbiri. For many days both shores of the Congo had not appeared at once. But on the 12th both sides could be seen, and on the right was a wide plain once inhabited by the Yalulima, a tribe of artisans skilled in the manufacture of iron, including swords, spears, bells and fetishes of various devices. On an island above dwelt the Yambungu, who were disposed to trade and who brought fine sweet-potatoes, fowls, eggs, and a species of sheep with broad, flat tails.

AFRICAN BLACKSMITHS.

The districts were now very populous, and the affluents frequent and very complicated as to name and direction of flow. The Basaka, Bahamba and Baru villages were passed without a stop. At all of these there were canoe demonstrations, but whether for hostile purpose or not was not inquired after. The flotilla was now nearing the great Congo affluent, the Aruwimi, out of whose mouth issued the enormous

canoe-fleet which so nearly annihilated Stanley in 1877. He gave orders to be on the alert, but to resort to hostilities only when all hope of self-preservation otherwise had failed. Scarcely had these orders passed when a stream of long, splendid-looking war-canoes, filled with armed men, dashed out from behind an island, and began to reconnoitre the steamers. They pushed over to the right bank, and kept an upward course, without show of resistance and at a safe distance. The steamers plunged ahead, and soon the mouth of the Aruwimi opened its spacious jaws to receive them. High on the bank appeared the town of Mokulu, whose Basoko inmates had fought the battle with Stanley years before. He knew their disposition then, but what was it now? Was the meeting to be one of war or friendship?

The Congo has a majestic flow where it receives its great tributary, the Aruwimi. Rounding a point, the steamers entered the affluent, to find the villagers in force, dressed in war-paint, armed with spear and shield, beating their war-drums, and disporting themselves fantastically on the banks. The canoes of observation were speedily joined by others. The three steamers were put across to a clearing on the divide between the Congo and Aruwimi, and two of them brought to anchor. The Eu Avant was then steamed up the Aruwimi past Mokulu. Then her head was turned down stream, and the guide was stationed on the cabin to proclaim the words of peace and friendship as the steamer slowly returned. The drums on shore ceased to beat. The battle-horns were hushed. The leaping forms were still. The guide was eloquent in his speech and dramatic in his action. He had the ear of all Mokulu. At length a response came that if all the steamers anchored together, the Basoko would soon come as friends. The canoes hovered about, but could not be persuaded to come within 250 yards. Hours elapsed before they mustered up sufficient courage to approach the shore within hailing distance of the camps at the anchorage. Thither the guide and three companions went, and the ceremony of blood-brotherhood was performed. The town of Mokulu heard the shouts of satisfaction at this result, and a response came in the shape of drum-beats and horn-toots. Intercourse with the fierce Basoko was a possibility.

AFRICAN HEADDRESSES.

These Basokos received Stanley’s guide, Yumbila, first and loaded

him with presents. They then told him of Stanley’s former approach and battle, also of a second visitation far worse than Stanley’s, which must have been one by an Arab gang of slave-stealers, judging from its barbarity. They were averse to a journey up the Aruwimi, though willing that the expedition should proceed up the Congo. It was impossible to get information from them respecting their river. They proved to be willing traders, and possessed products in abundance. Their spears, knives, paddles and shields showed remarkable workmanship, being delicately polished, and carved with likenesses of lizards, crocodiles, canoes, fish and buffaloes. Their headdresses were of fine palm materials, decorated, and a knit haversack formed a shoulder-piece for each man. Physically they are a splendid people, industrious after their style, fond of fishing, and not given to that ignorant, childish curiosity so common among other tribes. They are adepts at canoe construction, and some of their vessels require a hundred stout warriors to propel them in a fight.

Notwithstanding opposition, Stanley determined to explore the Aruwimi, which is 1,600 yards wide at its mouth, and narrows to 900 yards above Mokula. He found in succession the Umaneh, the Basongo, the Isombo, all populous, timid, and friendly. After passing Yambua and Irungu, he came to the quite populous metropolis of Yambumba, on a bluff 40 feet high, containing 8,000 people living in steeply conical huts, embowered by bombax, palms, banana-trees and fig-trees. The puffing of the steamers put the whole town to flight. Further on came the rapids of the river and the Yambuya people and town. These shrewd people declined to trade on the plea of poverty, and even refused to give the correct name of their village. Their appearance belied their assertions. Stanley found the rapids of the Aruwimi a bar to steam navigation. They are 96 miles from the mouth of the river, which runs nearly westward thus far. It was this brief exploration of the river which determined him to use it as a route to Albert Nyanza on his search for Emin Pasha. Should it keep its course and continue its volume, it could not but find a source far to the east in the direction of the lake, and very near to its shores. As one of the fatalities which overhang explorers, Stanley mistook it for the Welle, described by Schweinfurth, just as Livingstone mistook the Lualaba for the Nile.

This Welle, or Wellemakua, river about which Stanley indulges in surmises, is the celebrated river brought into notice by Schweinfurth’s discoveries, and over which a geographical controversy raged for seventeen years. The question was whether it was the Shari river, which emptied into Lake Tchad, or whether its mysterious outlet was further south. Stanley’s last journey in search of Emin Pasha pretty definitely settled the controversy by ascertaining that the Welle is the upper course of the Mobangi, a tributary of the Congo.

ORNAMENTED SMOKING-PIPE.

And while speaking of Schweinfurth, we must use him as authority to settle any misapprehension likely to arise respecting the nature of the dwarfs which Stanley encountered on the waters of the Upper Aruwimi. He calls them Monbuttus, thereby giving the impression that the tribe is one of dwarfs. It was Schweinfurth’s province to set at rest the long disputed question of the existence of a dwarf race in Central Africa. He proved, once for all, that Herodotus and Aristotle were not dealing with fables when they wrote of the pygmies of Central Africa. One day he suddenly found himself surrounded by what he conjectured was a crowd of impudent boys, who pointed their arrows at him, and whose manner betokened intentional disrespect. He soon learned that these hundreds of little fellows were veritable dwarfs, and were a part of the army of Munza, the great Monbuttu king. These are the now famous Akka, who, so far as we know, are the smallest of human beings. It is these same Akka who, wandering in the forest a little south of Schweinfurth’s route, picked off many a carrier in Stanley’s late expedition, using arrows whose points were covered with a deadly poison, and refusing all overtures of friendship.

Schweinfurth’s description of the Niam-Niams (Great-Eaters) and of their southern neighbors, the Monbuttus, is the best that has yet appeared in print. He approached the country through the powerful Dinka tribes on the north, whom he found rich in cattle, experts in iron-working and highly proficient in the art of pottery ornamentation, especially as to their smoking-pipes. Competent authorities agree with his opinion that the ornamental designs upon their potteries and iron and copper wares, now exhibited in the Berlin Museum of Ethnology, would not discredit a European artist, and among these people, so far advanced in some respects, Schweinfurth discovered the first evidences of cannibalism which is said to prevail, on very doubtful authority, however, in a very large part of the Congo Basin. It is a noteworthy fact that, in all his travels, Livingstone never saw evidence of this revolting practice except on one or two occasions, and in all his voluminous writings he hardly refers to the topic. Dr. Junker, however, draws a distinction between the Niam-Niam and Monbuttu cannibals which Schweinfurth in his briefer visit failed to observe. Junker says the Niam-Niam use human flesh as food only because they believe that in this way they acquire the bravery and other virtues with which their victims may have been endowed. The Monbuttu, on the other hand, make war upon their neighbors for no other purpose than to procure human flesh for food, because they delight in it as a part of their cuisine. With methodical care they dry the flesh they do not immediately use, and add it to their reserve supplies of food.

NIAM-NIAM HAMLET ON THE DIAMOONOO. [Larger.]

Schweinfurth’s journey into Niam-Niam was through a prairie land covered with the tallest grasses he had yet seen in Africa. The people are given to cattle-raising and the chase. They are not of stalwart size, and their color is dark-brown rather than black. What they lack in stature they make up in athletic qualities. They took a keen interest in showing the traveler their sights, and in the evening regaled his camp with music, dispensed by a grotesque singer, who accompanied his attenuated voice with a local guitar of thin, jingling sound. The drums and horns of the Niam-Niams are used only for war purposes. Everything testified to the fruitfulness of the soil. Sweet potatoes and yams were piled up in the farmsteads,

and circular receptacles of clay for the preservation of corn were erected upon posts in the yards. The yards are surrounded by hedges of paradise figs; back of these are the plantations of manioc and maize, and beyond their fields of eleusine. The women are modest and retiring in the presence of white men, and their husbands hold them in high respect. The people are great believers in magic. The best shots, when they have killed an unusual number of antelopes or buffaloes, are credited with having charmed roots in their possession. The Niam-Niam country is important as being the water-shed between the Nile and the rivers which run westward into the Congo, the Welle

being the largest, which runs nearly parallel with the recently discovered Aruwimi. The Niam-Niam are great ivory traders and take copper, cloth, or trinkets at a cheap figure for this valuable ware. The southern and western part of their country becomes densely wooded and the trees are gigantic. Here the shape of the huts change, becoming loftier and neater, the yards having posts in them for displaying trophies of war and the chase. The characteristics of the Niam-Niam are pronounced and they can be identified at once amidst the whole series of African races.

NIAM-NIAM MINSTREL.

NIAM-NIAM WARRIORS.

Every Niam-Niam soldier carries a lance, trumbash, and dagger, made by their own smiths. Wooing is dependent on a payment exacted from the suitor by the father of the intended bride. When

a man resolves on matrimony, he applies to the sub-chieftain who helps him to secure his wife. In spite of the practice of polygamy, the marriage bond is sacred, and unfaithfulness is generally punished with death. The trait is paramount for this people to show consistent affection for their wives. Schweinfurth doubts the charge of cannibalism brought against this people, and thinks their name “Great Eaters” might have given rise to the impression that they were “man-eaters.”

RECEIVING THE BRIDE. [Larger.]

The festivities that occur in case of marriage are a bridal procession, at the head of which the chieftain leads the bride to the home of her future husband, accompanied by musicians, minstrels and jesters. A feast is given, of which all partake in common, though in general the women are accustomed to eat alone in their huts. This marriage celebration, with slight variations, is usual with the tribes of Central Africa. Livingstone describes one among the Hamees of the Lualaba river, in which the bride is borne to the home of her husband on the shoulders of her lover or chieftain. The domestic duties of a Niam-Niam wife consist mainly in cultivating the homestead, preparing the daily meals, painting her husband’s body and dressing his hair. Children require very little care in this genial climate, being carried about in a band or scarf till old enough to walk, and then left to run about with very little clothing on.

They are lovers of music, as are their neighbors, especially the Bongo people, who possess a variety of quaint instruments capable of producing fairly tuneful concerts. Their language is an up-shoot of the great root which is the original of every native tongue in Africa north of the Equator. They always consult auguries before going to war. In grief for the dead they shave their heads. A corpse is adorned for burial in dyed skins and feathers. They bury the dead with scrupulous regard to the points of the compass, the men facing the east and the women the west.

Stanley now steamed back to the Congo, and once more breasted its yellow flood. He was now in the true heart of Africa, 1,266 miles from the sea and 921 from Leopoldville, and upon a majestic flood capable of carrying a dozen rivers like the Aruwimi. It was a region of deep, impenetrable forests, fertile soil, and few villages,

for the fierce Bahunga seemed to have terrorized and devastated all the shores. The river abounds in large, fertile islands, the homes of fishermen and stalwart canoemen, who carry their products to clearings on the shores, and there exchange them for the inland products. This makes the shore clearings kind of market-places—sometimes peopled and sometimes deserted.

A BONGO CONCERT.

In the distance a fleet of canoes is sighted, bearing down on the steamers. Are they the hostile Bahunga? The En Avant is sent forward on a reconnoissance, and soon makes out the fleet to consist of a thousand canoes, extending a mile and a half in length. Five men to a canoe gave a force of 5,000 men, an army of sufficient size to overwhelm a hundred such tiny steamers as composed the Stanley flotilla. A storm arose, accompanied by vivid lightning and heavy thunder shocks. The elements cleared the river of all fragile barks and left the steamers to their course.

The old town of Mawembé came into view. It was not such as Stanley had mapped it, but a burned and nearly deserted spot. The

Arab slave merchant had evidently penetrated thus far, and these ashes were the marks of his cruelty. Another town, higher up, and entirely in ashes, proved the sad conjecture to be true, for before it sat at least 200 woe-begone natives, too abject in their desolation to even affect curiosity at the approaching steamers. On being hailed, they told the pitiful tale of how a strange people, like those in the steamers, and wearing white clothes, had come upon them in the night, slaughtered their people, and carried off their women and children. The fleet of canoes, seen among the islands below, contained their own people, gathered for protection, forced to live on the islands in the day-time and to go ashore at night for food. All this had happened but eight days before, and the marauders had retreated up the river in the direction of Stanley Falls.

A few miles above, the charred stakes, upright canoes, poles of huts, scorched banana groves and prostrate palms indicated the ruins of the site of Yavunga, the twelfth devastated town and eighth community passed since leaving the mouth of the Aruwimi. Opposite Yavunga were the Yaporo, a populous tribe, but now stricken by fire, sword and famine as were their brothers. These had charged on Stanley six years before, but they were now in no mood to dispute his way.

Floating by is an object which attracts attention. A boat-hook is thrown over, and to it clings the forms of two women bound together by a cord. The ghastly objects are raised, and a brief inspection shows that they could not have been drowned more than twelve hours before. The steamers push on, round a point, and in the distance appear white objects. A glass is brought to bear, and they prove to be the tents of the Arab thieves. They are from Nyangwé, above the Falls, the capital of Tippoo Tib’s empire, unholy conquest from the Manyuema people, founded in flame, murder and kidnapping. The camp was palisaded and the banks were lined with canoes, evidence that the marauders had managed somehow to pass the Falls in force. The first impulse of Stanley was to attempt a rescue and wreak a deserved vengeance on these miscreants. But on second thought, his was a mission of peace, and he was without authority to administer justice. He represented no constituted government, but was on a mission to found a government. To play the

rolé of judge or executioner in such an emergency might be to defeat all his plans and forever leave these wretches without a strong arm to cling to in time of future need. Had he come upon an actual scene of strife and burning, it would have been his to aid the weaker party, but now the law of might must have its way, till a sturdier justice than was at his disposal could come to tread in majesty along those dark forest aisles.

And now what a meeting and greeting there was! The steamers signalled the arrival of strangers. A canoe put out from the shore and hailed in the language of the Eastern coast. Both sides understood that the meeting was one of peace. The steamers made for shore below the tents, and a night encampment was formed. Soon Stanley’s Zanzibaris were shaking hands with the Manyuema slaves of Abed bin Salim, who constituted the band that had been ravaging the country to obtain slaves and ivory. They had been out for sixteen months, and for eleven months had been raiding the Congo. The extent of country they had plundered was larger than Ireland, and contained a population of 1,000,000 souls. They numbered 300 men, armed with shot-guns and rifles, and their retinue of domestic slaves and women doubled their force. Their camp, even then, was on the ruins of the town of Yangambi, which had fallen before their torches, and many of whose people were prisoners on the spot where they were born.

Stanley took a view of the stockade in which they had confined their human booty. This is the horrible story as he writes it:

“The first general impressions are that the camp is much too densely peopled for comfort. There are rows upon rows of dark nakedness, relieved here and there by the white dresses of the captors. There are lines or groups of naked forms upright, standing or moving about listlessly; naked bodies are stretched under the sheds in all positions; naked legs innumerable are seen in the perspective of prostrate sleepers; there are countless naked children, many were infants, forms of boyhood and girlhood, and occasionally a drove of absolutely naked old women, bending under a basket of fuel, or cassava tubers, or bananas, who are driven through the moving groups by two or three musketeers. In paying more attention to details, I observe that mostly all are fettered; youths with iron

rings around their necks, through which a chain like one of our boat-anchor chains is rove, securing the captives by twenties. The children over ten are secured by three copper rings, each ringed leg brought together by the central ring, which accounts for the apparent listlessness of movement I observed on first coming in presence of the curious scene. The mothers are secured by shorter chains, around whom their respective progeny of infants are grouped, hiding the cruel iron links that fall in loops or festoons over mamma’s breasts. There is not one adult man-captive amongst them.

“Besides the shaded ground strewn over so thickly by the prostrate and upright bodies of captives, the relics of the many raids lie scattered or heaped up in profusion everywhere, and there is scarcely a square foot of ground not littered with something, such as drums, spears, swords, assegais, arrows, bows, knives, iron ware of native make of every pattern, paddles innumerable, scoops and balers, wooden troughs, ivory horns, whistles, buffalo and antelope horns, ivory pestles, wooden idols, beads of wood, berries, scraps of fetishism, sorcerers’ wardrobes, gourds of all sizes, nets, from the lengthy seine to the small hand-net; baskets, hampers, shields as large as doors (of wood or of plaited rattan), crockery, large pots to hold eight gallons, down to the child’s basin; wooden mugs, basins, and mallets; grass cloth in shreds, tatters and pieces; broken canoes, and others half-excavated; native adzes, hatchets, hammers, iron rods, etc., etc. All these littering the ground, or in stacks and heaps, with piles of banana and cassava peelings, flour of cassava, and sliced tubers drying, make up a number of untidy pictures and details, through all of which, however, prominently gleam the eyes of the captives in a state of utter and supreme wretchedness.

“Little perhaps as my face betrayed my feelings, other pictures would crowd upon the imagination; and after realizing the extent and depth of the misery presented to me, I walked about as in a kind of dream, wherein I saw through the darkness of the night the stealthy forms of the murderers creeping towards the doomed town, its inmates all asleep, and no sounds issuing from the gloom but the drowsy hum of chirping cicadas or distant frogs—when suddenly flash the light of brandished torches; the sleeping town is involved in flames, while volleys of musketry lay low the frightened and

astonished people, sending many through a short minute of agony to that soundless sleep from which there will be no waking. I wished to be alone somewhere where I could reflect upon the doom which has overtaken Bandu, Yomburri, Yangambi, Yaporo, Yakusu, Ukanga, Yakonda, Ituka, Yaryembi, Yaruche, populous Isangi, and probably thirty scores of other villages and towns.

“The slave-traders admit they have only 2,300 captives in this fold, yet they have raided through the length and breadth of a country larger than Ireland, bearing fire and spreading carnage with lead and iron. Both banks of the river show that 118 villages and 43 districts have been devastated, out of which is only educed this scant profit of 2,300 females and children, and about 2,000 tusks of ivory! The spears, swords, bows, and the quivers of arrows show that many adults have fallen. Given that these 118 villages were peopled only by 1,000 each, we have only a profit of two per cent.; and by the time all these captives have been subjected to the accidents of the river voyage to Kirundu and Nyangwé, of camp-life and its harsh miseries, to the havoc of small-pox and the pests which miseries breed, there will only remain a scant one per cent. upon the bloody venture.

“They tell me, however, that the convoys already arrived at Nyangwé with slaves captured in the interior have been as great as their present band. Five expeditions have come and gone with their booty of ivory and slaves, and these five expeditions have now completely weeded the large territory described above. If each expedition has been as successful as this, the slave-traders have been enabled to send 5,000 women and children safe to Nyangwé, Kirundu and Vibondo, above the Stanley Falls. Thus 5,000 out of an assumed million will be at the rate of a half per cent., or five slaves out of 1,000 people.

“This is poor profit out of such large waste of life, for originally we assume the slaves to have mustered about 10,000 in number. To obtain the 2,300 slaves out of the 118 villages they must have shot a round number of 2,500 people, while 1,300 more died by the wayside, through scant provisions and the intensity of their hopeless wretchedness. How many are wounded and die in the forest or droop to death through an overwhelming sense of their calamities,

we do not know; but if the above figures are trustworthy, then the outcome from the territory with its million of souls is 5,000 slaves obtained at the cruel expense of 33,000 lives! And such slaves! They are females, or, young children who cannot run away, or who with youthful indifference, will soon forget the terrors of their capture! Yet each of the very smallest infants has cost the life of a father and perhaps his three stout brothers and three grown-up daughters. An entire family of six souls would have been done to death to obtain that small, feeble, useless child!

“These are my thoughts as I look upon the horrible scene. Every second during which I regard them the clink of fetters and chains strikes upon my ears. My eyes catch sight of that continual lifting of the hand to ease the neck in the collar, or as it displays a manacle exposed through a muscle being irritated by its weight or want of fitness. My nerves are offended with the rancid effluvium of the unwashed herds within this human kennel. The smell of other abominations annoys me in that vitiated atmosphere. For how could poor people, bound and riveted together by twenties, do otherwise than wallow in filth? Only the old women are taken out to forage. They dig out the cassava tuber, and search for the banana, while the guard, with musket ready, keenly watches for the coming of the vengeful native. Not much food can be procured in this manner, and what is obtained is flung down in a heap before each gang, to at once cause an unseemly scramble. Many of these poor things have been already months fettered in this manner, and their bones stand out in bold relief in the attenuated skin, which hangs down in thin wrinkles and puckers. And yet who can withstand the feeling of pity so powerfully pleaded for by those large eyes and sunken cheeks?

“What was the cause of all this vast sacrifice of human life—of all this unspeakable misery? Nothing but the indulgence of an old Arab’s ‘wolfish, bloody, starved and ravenous instincts.’ He wished to obtain slaves to barter away to other Arabs, and having weapons—guns and gunpowder—enough, he placed them in the hands of three hundred slaves, and despatched them to commit murder wholesale, just as an English nobleman would put guns in the hands of his guests and permit them to slaughter the game upon his estate. If

we calculate three quarts of blood to each person who fell during the campaign of murder, we find that this one Arab caused to be shed 2,850 gallons of human blood, sufficient to fill a tank measurement of 460 cubic feet, quite large enough to have drowned him and all his kin!”

Nyangwé, above mentioned, is an important market-town on the Congo, some distance above Stanley Falls, and the capital of the undefined possessions of which Tippoo Tib holds sway. Livingstone says he has seen fully 3,000 people at the Nyanwe market of a clear day, anxious to dispose of their fish, fruits, vegetables and fowls. Many of them had walked twenty-five miles, bearing their baskets, heavily laden with produce, and some had come even further in canoes. On one occasion a riot broke out, instigated either by jealousy among the surrounding tribes or by the Arab slave-dealers for the purpose of making captures. Three burly fellows began to fire their guns into the throng of women, who hastily abandoned their wares and dashed for the canoes. The panic was so great that the canoes could not be manned and pushed into the river. The frantic women, fired into continually from the rear, leaped and scrambled over the boats and jumped wildly into the river, preferring the chances of a long swim to an island rather than inevitable destruction on the shore. Many of the wounded wretches threw up their hands in despair ere they reached mid-stream, and sank to rise no more. Rescuing canoes put out into the water, and many were thus saved; but one poor woman refused to be rescued, saying she would take her chances of life in the water rather than return to be sold as a slave. The Arabs estimate the slaughter that day at 400 souls.

Stanley now fully understood the meaning of all he had heard below of the terrible visitations of these banditti—of the merciless character of the Bahunga, which name they had misunderstood, and of the desire of the dwellers on the lower waters that he should ascend the Congo, thereby hoping that all the whites would destroy one another in the clash which seemed inevitable. After an exchange of gifts with these cut-throats and the loan of an interpreter to speak with the people at the Falls, the steamers departed from a scene which nature had made beautiful, but which the hand of man had

stained with crime and blood. The Congo here has bluffy, picturesque shores on the one side, and on the other lowlands adapted for sugar-cane, cotton, rice and maize.

THE MASSACRE AT NYANGWE. [Larger.]

Some critics of Stanley have expressed wonder at his failure to assert his usual heroism when made to witness these Arab barbarities while ascending the Congo. They think he should have attacked and driven off these thieves and murderers, no matter what the result might have been to himself and his enterprise. The same, or a similar class of critics, think that when he was making his last journey up the Congo and the Aruwimi in search of Emin Pasha, he showed entirely too much consideration for the Arab marauders, and especially for that cunning and depraved official, Tippoo Tib, whom he recognized as governor at Nyangwé.

Despite what are regarded by some impulsive people as the higher claims of humanitarianism, we are perfectly willing to trust to Mr. Stanley’s sense of right as modified by the exigencies of a situation about which no one else can know as much as himself. That situation was altogether new and peculiar on both his ascents of the Congo in behalf of the Congo Free State, and in search of Emin Pasha. In the first instance he bore a commission from a higher power, the International Commission, whose agent he was. He had instructions to do certain things and to leave others undone. To provoke hostilities with those he met, to quarrel and fight, except in self-preservation, were not only things foreign to his mission, as being sure to defeat it, but were expressly forbidden to him. Conquest was no part of the new policy of the Congo Free State, but its foundation was peace and free concession by all the tribes within its boundaries. Time will vindicate his leniency in the midst of such scenes as he was forced to witness at the mouth of the Aruwimi and on the Congo above, during his first ascent of the river.

And the same will prove true of his second ascent. To be sure, he was on a different mission and had greater freedom of action, but he knew well, from former experience, the character of the peoples upon the two great rivers near their jurisdiction. And if any events ever proved the wisdom of the steps which a man took, those surely did which clustered about and composed the eventful, if melancholy, history of Stanley’s “Rear Guard” on the Aruwimi. Several correspondents,

some of whom accompanied Stanley on his two up-river journeys, and others who have been over the ground, have written fully of the Aruwimi situation, and their views are valuable, though space forbids more than a condensation of them here.

A fatal river, say they all, was the Aruwimi for Stanley. It was so in 1877. 1883 served to recall regretful memories of his canoe descent, and introduced him to sadder scenes than he had ever occasioned or witnessed. The details of the deserted and blackened camp of his “Rear Guard” on the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition will prove to be more tragic than any which went before. It was close to the confluence of the Aruwimi with the Congo, as narrated elsewhere in this volume, that Stanly was compelled, in 1877, to storm a native village; and, as we have just seen, when he passed the spot again in 1883, what wonder that the dusky warriors reassembled to receive him! Round the bend “where the great affluent gaped into view,” the river was thronged with war-canoes, and on the banks stood the villages of Basongo and Mokulu, where Stanley’s ancient foes resided. In fantastic array appeared long lines of fully armed warriors—a land force supporting the fighting men afloat. How, aided by a picturesque and showy interpreter, with a voice as powerful as his eloquence, Stanley, on this latter occasion, appeased their warlike ardor and made them friends, has just been told in these pages.

The reader will understand, however, from the number of the force against him and the ferocious character of the tribes, why Stanley was so careful when forming his latest camp on the Aruwimi, to have it well stockaded and efficiently sentinelled. The local natives had not only the incentive of their previous defeat by Stanley to keep their hostility alive, but they had had meanwhile some bitter experiences of the Arab raider. They are splendid races of men, the tribes of the Mokulu and the Basoko, picturesque in their yellow war-paint, their barbaric shields and decorative headdresses. They are skilled workmen. Their paddles are beautifully carved, their spears and knives artistic and of dexterous shapeliness. They have also broadswords, and in a general way their weapons are of wonderful temper and sharpness. Now and then the Arab raiders find their work of massacre and plunder a hot business among

such natives as these; but the advantage of the rifle is, of course, tremendous, and can only have one result. The Arabs do not, however, always have it entirely their own way. They leave both dead and wounded sometimes in the hands of the enemy, who frequently condemn both to the pot, and make merry, no doubt, over their grilled remains.

Among the many hardships of the Aruwimi camp, established by Stanley for his “Rear Guard,” on his latest upward trip, and left under Major Barttelot, was the uncontrollable character of the Manyema carriers and escort. These people have for many years been the slave-hunting allies of the Arabs—their jackals, their cheetahs; and the Stanley camp had actually to be spectators of the attack and raiding of a native village, opposite their own quarters, on the other side of the river. It was towards night when the onslaught began. The sudden sound of the warlike drums of the surprised natives came booming across the water, followed by the fierce rattle of the Arab musketry. Dark figures and light were soon mixed together in the fray. The natives fought bravely—but they fell rapidly before the rifle. Pelted with the deadly hail of shot, they were soon vanquished. Then from hut to hut the flames of ruin began to spread, and in the lurid light women and children were marched forth to the slave-hunter’s stockade—some to be ransomed next day by the remainder of the ivory the natives had successfully hidden; others probably to be passed on from hand to hand until they eventually reached a slave-dealing market. And all this the officers and comrades of Mr. Stanley had the humiliation to witness without daring to interfere—not from any fear of losing their lives in the defence of the weaker—a death which has been courted by thousands of brave men on land and sea—but for reasons of policy. They were not there to protect the natives of the Aruwimi from Arab raiders, but to follow Mr. Stanley with the stores necessary for the success of his expedition. Nor is it likely that the force under Major Barttelot would have obeyed him if he had desired to intervene. Mr. Stanley himself more than once in his African experience has had to shut his eyes to Arab aggression and cruelty, although his influence with Tippoo Tib has no doubt paved the way for the realization of his humane ambition in the matter of slavery. From their stockade

and on board their launch at Yambuya, Barttelot and his comrades could see the woefully unequal warfare on the raided village, and there is no need of the assurance that their hearts beat high with indignation and a desire to take a hand in it. Moreover, these lawless brutalities practiced upon the natives made the difficulties of the camp all the greater, not only affecting the dangers of the advance, but increasing the perils of the way to the Falls, as was experienced by Ward on his travels to and fro—his “aimless journeys” Mr. Stanley has called them, but undertaken nevertheless by order of Ward’s superior officer, Major Barttelot.

Whether or not the Arabs of the camp or the Manyuemas had a share in the tragedy on the other side of the river is a question perhaps of no serious moment; but confessions were made to Ward which rather tend to show that the Arabs, while waiting for the expected advance, fulfilled other engagements on the river. “I went to Selim’s camp to-day,” writes Mr. Ward in one of his private letters, “and they told me that two more of their men (Arabs) had been caught and eaten by the natives whose village they had raided and burnt some weeks ago.” The same correspondent again writes: “This morning some of the raiders came down from up-river with news of the defeat of ten of their number, cut to pieces by the natives, who sought refuge in their canoes above the rapids.” Selim and his men started off in pursuit, and returned at night lamenting that they had killed only two of the natives. On the next day he told Ward that where his men had fallen he found their fingers tied in strings to the scrub of the river-bank, and some cooking-pots containing portions of their bones. What a weary time it was waiting, and with only this kind of incident to ruffle the monotony of it—waiting for the promised carriers that did not come—waiting for news of Stanley that only came in suggestions of disaster! It is hardly a matter of surprise that the camp began to fear the worst. Their own experiences of the broken word of Tippoo Tib and the utter unreliability and ferocity of a portion of their force might well give a pessimistic tone to their contemplation of the awful possibilities of Stanley’s march. Every omen of the Aruwimi was unfavorable to success; and they must have been terribly impressed by such a scene as that which cast its murderous light upon the river not

long previously to the forward march, with the assassination of the commander and the eventual dispersion of the rear-guard.