  On the tenth of April, 1889, the horn gave the signal to prepare for departure. Stanley kept his word. The caravan was arranged in marching order and at seven o’clock moved away, while behind them a dense black cloud of smoke and crackling flames from the burning camp said farewell to them. Their course took them over a range of grassy, treeless hills, whose monotony was dispelled by valleys with groups of palms. Farmers and shepherds occupied the region and millet, sweet potatoes, and bananas were cultivated. The march was very regular when one considers that the most of the people were unaccustomed to efforts of this kind and that there was a considerable number of children and women and old broken-down men. Stanley rode at the head of the expedition followed by the Zanzibarites and Manjema bearers. Emin led his own people and hardened veterans brought up the rear, who urged on the laggards and relentlessly drove them along. Ferida rode continually by the side of her tender father. He now began to rejoice for her sake that they were going to a safe and peaceful country, where his little daughter could be educated and properly brought up. Emin thought with a sad heart of those left behind and there was much to trouble him on the journey, for his servants and soldiers were so thoroughly convinced that they would be abandoned at Wadelai that when they pitched their camp that night at Niamgabe, sixty-nine of them eluded the vigilance of the sentinels and escaped. So sure were they that they would be attacked by the natives on the road that the most stringent measures were adopted to prevent further desertions. Unfortunately Stanley was taken seriously ill at this time, and they had to remain at Niamgabe nearly a month, until by the efforts of Emin and Dr. Parke, he recovered. It became difficult, therefore, to procure provisions at that place and still more difficult to maintain order in the great expedition. Early on the eighth of May they moved forward again and Emin found much consolation in turning his attention to scientific matters. He discovered new and unknown species of plants and insects which he investigated and added to his collections and soon made the greatest discovery of all. For the first time he had an opportunity to make a close observation of a great mountain phenomenon, which had been seen from a distance by Casati and by Stanley on the first expedition, but which was now thoroughly investigated for the first time. This was the snow mountain Ruwenzori (Cloud King), as the natives called it, according to Stanley, separating the Albert Nyanza from the Albert Edward Lake. Its mighty glaciers and copious rainstorms fed the Semliki, a great tributary of the Nile, thus solving the question of the sources of this tributary which had so long been obscure. The spectacle of this snow mountain below the equator in a world of heat and sunshine is a magnificent one. Deep, dark valleys lie along its base. Beautiful trees, shrubs, and ferns bedeck its slopes, with timber below and the flowers of the Alpine world, while its lofty summit and glaciers belong to the region of eternal snow. In company with Lieutenant Stairs and forty men Emin undertook the ascent of the mountain, but did not get far because of deep intersecting valleys and the lack of food and proper clothing for the higher region. At the south end of Victoria Lake they turned southward and there took an easterly direction. On the seventeenth of October the French missionaries, Fathers Girault and Schynse, joined them. On the tenth of November the bearers shouted: “To-day we shall come to Mpapua,” and about noon from an eminence they beheld a station with a German flag waving. Lieutenant Rochus Schmidt welcomed them to German territory and accompanied them with his soldiers to the coast. They soon exchanged the sight of the parched and thorny wilderness for a land fragrant with lilies and clad in spring greenery. The Makata plain, with its green grass and its numerous groups of villages, was ample compensation for the four months of wretchedness and hardship they had endured. THE SNOW MOUNTAIN Shortly after this messengers from Major Wissmann, governor of German East Africa at Bagamojo, met them with ample supplies. As the travellers were pursuing their way by moonlight on the third of December they heard the report of a cannon. It was the evening gun at Zanzibar. The Zanzibarites gave a joyous shout, for it told them that their long journey across the continent was at an end. The Egyptians and their attendants also joined in the shout, for they now knew that in the next twenty-four hours they would see the ocean over which they would go safely and comfortably to Egypt, their future home. |
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