Stanley, after he had found Livingstone, naturally thought much of the latter's explorations. Africa had become to him an absorbing subject, and he began to imbibe the spirit of Livingstone. This was natural, for Stanley had already won fame there, and why should he not win still greater laurels in the same field? This feeling was much increased after the death of the great explorer, leaving his work unfinished, which Stanley longed to complete. True, Cameron was on the ground to accomplish this very object, but Stanley knew the difficulties one would have to contend with without a boat of his own. The matter was talked over a good deal, and finally the proprietors of the New York Herald and London Telegraph determined to send Stanley once more into Africa. The vast lake region, embracing some six degrees of longitude, and extending from the equator to fifteen degrees south latitude, had become a region of the greatest interest to explorers. On this vast water-shed lived a mighty population, and these lakes, with the rivers running into and out of them, must furnish the roads to commerce The large lakes Nyassa and Tanganika had been more or less explored, but the one possessing the greatest interest, the Victoria Nyanza—on account of the general impression that it was the head of the Nile—was almost wholly unknown. The persistence with which the Nile had mocked all previous attempts to find its source, had imparted a mystery to it and caused efforts to be made to unlock the secret, which were wholly disproportioned to its seeming value or real importance. This lake, therefore, was to be Stanley's first objective point. Livingstone, Speke and Burton, and others had seen it—he would sail around it in a boat which he would take with him. This he had made in sections, so that it could be carried the nearly one thousand miles through the jungles of Africa to its destination. Everything being completed he started on his route, and in the latter part of 1874 found himself once more at Zanzibar, after an absence of four years. Here, in organizing his expedition, he discovered that the builder had made his boat, which he had christened the Lady Alice, a great deal heavier than he had ordered; but he luckily found a man in Zanzibar who was able to reduce its weight so that it could be transported by the carriers. His force consisted in all, of a little over The interest of this great expedition begins where he struck off from the regular route of the caravans going west, and entered an entirely new country and encountered a new race of people. Instead of moving directly westward, he turned off to the north, and at length reached the western frontier of Ugogo, on the last day of the year 1874. The country at this point stretched before him in one vast plain, which some of the natives said extended clear to Nyanza. He found that his course led him along the extremity of Whumba, which he was glad to know, as he thought his march would now be unmolested. Two days' march brought them to the borders of Usandawa, a country abounding in elephants. Here he turned to the north-west and entered Ukimbu or Uyonzi on its eastern extremity. The guides he had hired in Ugogo to take him as far as Iramba here deserted him. Hiring fresh ones, he continued two days in the same direction, when these deserted him also, and Stanley found himself one morning on the edge of a vast wilderness without a guide. The day before, the guides had told him that three days' march would bring him to Urimi. Relying on the truth of this statement, he had purchased only two days' provisions. Thinking, therefore, that they would be there by the evening of the next day, he thought little of the As might be expected, it brought them, after a few hours' march, into a dense jungle of acacias and euphorbias, through which they could make their way only by crawling, scrambling and cutting the entangling vines. Now pushing aside an obstructing branch—now cutting a narrow lane through the matted mass, and now taking advantage of a slight opening, this little band of three hundred struggled painfully forward toward what they thought was open country, and an African village with plenty of provisions. In this protracted struggle the third night overtook them in the wilderness, and there they pitched their lonely, starving camp. To make it more gloomy, one of the men died and was buried; his shallow grave seeming to be a sad foreboding of what awaited them in the future. The want of provisions now began to tell terribly on the men, but there was nothing to do but go forward, trusting to some break in this apparently interminable wilderness. But human endurance has its limit, After the camp for the night was pitched, Stanley sent back scouts to find the wanderers. They explored the woods for a mile each side of the track, but only one man was found, and he fully a mile from the trail and dead. The other four had wandered off beyond reach and were never heard of more. This was getting to be fearful marching—five men in one day was a death-roll that could not be kept up long, and Stanley began to cast about anxiously to determine what step he should next take. There was but one course left open to him, to attempt to retrace his steps was certain death by famine, to advance could not be worse, while it might bring relief, so "push on," was the order, and they did push on, weary, thirsty, Stanley's experience had taught him how far he could urge on these African carriers and soldiers, and he saw they had now become desperate and would not budge another inch until they had something to eat. He, therefore, ordered a halt, and selecting twenty of his strongest men, sent them off in search of food. They were to press on to a village called Suna, about thirty miles distant, of which the natives told him, and where they said food was in abundance. As soon as they had disappeared in the forest, Stanley took his gun and strolled out in search of game. But, filled as the country seemed with it, he could find nothing to shoot. One of his men, however, came across a lion's den, in which were two cubs, which he brought to Stanley. The latter skinned them and took them back to camp. As he entered it, the pinched and worn faces of his faithful men, as they sat hungry and despairing, moved him so deeply that he would have wept, but for fear of adding to Luckily, he bethought himself of a sheet-iron trunk which he had among his baggage, and which was water-tight. He quickly dumped out of it its contents, and filling it with water, set it over a fire which he had ordered to be made. He then broke open his medical stores, and taking out five pounds of Scotch oatmeal and three one-pound tins of Revalenta Arabica, he made with it and the two young lions a huge trunk full of gruel, that would give even two hundred and twenty men a good bowl apiece. He said it was a rare sight to see those hungry, famished men gather around that Torquay dress-trunk and pile on the fuel, and in every way assist to make the contents boil, while with greedy eyes, with gourds in their hands full of water, they stood ready to pour it in the moment it threatened to boil over and waste the precious contents. "But," he adds, "it was a rarer sight still to watch the famished wretches, as, with these same gourds full of the precious broth, they drank it down as only starving men swallow food. The weak and sick got a larger portion, and another tin of oatmeal being opened for their Stanley's position now became painfully trying. He was five days' march from where he could obtain food, if he attempted to go back. This march, in the present condition of his men, they could never make, and if any did survive, it would be on the terrible condition of the living eating the dead. The only hope lay in reaching supplies in advance. But what if those twenty strong men he had sent on to find them never returned, having been ambushed and killed on the way, or what if they, at the end of several days, returned and reported nothing but an unbroken wilderness and impassable jungle or swamps in front, and themselves famished, ready to die? These were questions that Stanley anxiously put to himself and dared not contemplate the answer. The hours of painful anxiety and suspense, the maddening thoughts and wild possibilities that fire the brain and oppress the heart in such crises as these cannot be imagined, they can be known only by him who suffers the pangs they inflict. This is a portion of the history of the expedition that Stanley can never write, though it is written on his heart in lines that will never be effaced. The empty trunk lay on one side, and the night came down and the stars burned bright and tranquilly above, and all was silent in the wide solitude The third morning broke as calm and peaceful as the rest; he was beginning to despair, when, suddenly, a musket-shot broke over the forest, and then another and another, sending sudden life and activity throughout the despairing camp. The men, as they emerged into view laden with food, were greeted with a loud shout, and the hungry wretches fell on the provisions they brought like ravening wolves. The report of abundance ahead so excited the men that they forgot their feebleness and clamored to be led on that very afternoon. Stanley was quite willing to get away from the jungle, filled with such painful associations, and cheerfully ordered the march, but before they could get away two men breathed their last in the camp and were left to sleep alone in the wilderness. That night they encamped at the base of a Stanley was surprised, on entering the rude village, to see a new type of African life. Men and women of great beauty and fine physical proportions met his astonished sight. They stood before him in all their naked beauty, unabashed: the women bearing children alone wearing a covering of goat skins, designed evidently as a protection against external injury, and not caused by any notions of modesty. Their fine appearance seemed to indicate a greater mental development than any other tribes which they had met. Whether this were so or not, it would be difficult to tell, for they were the most suspicious, reserved people Stanley had ever met, being greatly disinclined to barter provisions, of which they had more than they wanted, for cloth and beads, of which they apparently had none. They had no chief, but seemed to be governed in their actions by the old men. With these Stanley therefore treated for permission to pass
Stanley still traveled in a northwest direction, and the farther he advanced the more he was convinced that the rivulets he encountered flowed into the Nile, and he became elated with the hope that he should soon stand on the shores of the great lake that served as the head reservoir of the mighty river. Two days' march now brought them to Mongafa, where one of his men who had accompanied him on his former expedition was murdered. He was suffering from the asthma, and Stanley permitted him to follow the party slowly. Straggling thus behind alone, he was waylaid by the natives and murdered. It was impossible to ascertain who committed the deed, and so Stanley could not avenge the crime. Keeping on they at length entered Itwru, a district of Northern Urimi. The village where they camped was called Vinyata, containing some two thousand to three thousand souls, and was situated in a broad and populous valley, through which flowed a stream twenty feet wide. The people here received him in a surly manner, but Stanley was very anxious to avoid trouble and used every exertion to conciliate them. He seemed at last to succeed, for at evening they brought him milk, eggs and chickens, taking cloth in exchange. This That day, taking advantage of the bright sun to dry the bales and goods, he exposed his rich stores, an imprudence which he very quickly deeply regretted, for he saw that the display awoke all the greedy feelings of the natives, as was evinced by their eager looks. But the day passed quietly, and on the third morning the great man made his appearance again and begged for more beads, which were given him and he departed apparently very much pleased, and Stanley congratulated himself that he would be allowed to depart in peace. |