Henry Stanley
Scribner’s/June, 1890
I conclude this narrative with a passage from my forthcoming work, describing one of the most eventful periods of our journey:
NELSON’S STARVATION CAMP
On the morning of October 6 [1887] we were 271 in number, including white and black; since then two had died of dysentery, one from debility, four had deserted, and one man was hanged. We had, therefore, 263 men left. Out of this number 52 had been reduced to skeletons—who, first attacked by ulcers, had been unable to forage, and who had wasted by their want of economy, rations which would have been sufficient to maintain them during the days that intervened of total want. These losses in men left me 211 still able to march; and as among these there were 40 men non-carriers, and as I had 227 loads, it followed that when I needed carriage I had about 80 loads more than could be carried. Captain Nelson, for the last two weeks, had also suffered from a dozen small ulcers, which had gradually increased in virulence. On this day, when the wild state of the river quite prohibited further progress by it, he and 52 men were utterly unfit and incapable of travel.
It was a difficult problem that now faced us. Captain Nelson was our comrade, whom to save we were bound to exert our best force. To the 52 black men we were equally bound by the most solemn obligations, and dark as was the prospect around us we were not so far reduced but that we entertained a lively hope that we could save them. As the Manyema had reported that their settlement was only five days’ journey, and we had already travelled two days’ march then, probably the village or station was still three days ahead of us. It was suggested by Captain Nelson that if we dispatched intelligent couriers ahead they would be enabled to reach Kilonga-Longa’s settlement long before the column. As the suggestion admitted of no contradiction, and as the headmen were naturally the most capable and intelligent, the chief of the headmen and five others were hastened off at once, and instructed to proceed along the south bank of the river until they discovered some landing-place, whence they must find means to cross the Ituri, find the settlement, and obtain an immediate store of food.
Before starting, officers and men demanded to know from me whether I believed the story of Arabs being ahead. I replied that I believed it most thoroughly, but that it was possible the Manyema had underestimated the distance to gratify or encourage us and abate our apparent anxiety.
After informing the unfortunate cripples of our intention to proceed forward until we could find food, that we might not all be lost, and send relief as quickly as it could be obtained, I consigned the 52 men, 81 loads, and 10 canoes in charge of Captain Nelson, bade him be of good cheer, and, hoisting our loads and boat on our shoulders, we marched away.
No more gloomy spot could have been selected for a camp than that sandy terrace, encompassed by rocks and hemmed in narrowly by those dark woods, which rose from the river’s edge to the height of six hundred feet, and pent in the never-ceasing uproar which was created by the writhing and tortured stream, and the twin cataracts which ever rivalled each other’s thunder. The imagination shudders at the hapless position of those crippled men, who were doomed to remain inactive. to listen every moment to the awful sound of that irreconcilable fury of wrathful waters, and the monotonous and continuous roar of plunging rivers; to watch the leaping waves coiling and twisting into uprising columns as they ever wrestled for mastery with each other, and were dashed in white fragments of foam far apart by the ceaseless force of driven currents; to gaze at the dark, relentless woods spreading upward and around, standing perpetually fixed in dull green, mourning over past ages, past times, and past generations; then think of the night with its palpable blackness; the dead, black shadows of the wooded hills; that eternal sound of fury, that ceaseless boom of the cataracts, the indefinite forms born of nervousness and fearfulness; that misery engendered by loneliness, and creeping sense of abandonment; then will be understood something of the true position of these poor men.
And what of us, trudging up those wooded slopes to gain the crest of the forest upland, to tramp on and on, whither, we knew not, for how long a time we dared not think, seeking for food, with the double responsibility weighing us down for these trustful, brave fellows with us, and for those, no less brave and trustful, whom we had left behind at the bottom of the horrible canon?
As I looked at the poor men struggling wearily onward, it appeared to me as though a few hours only were needed to insure our fate—one day, perhaps two days, and then life would ebb away. How their eyes searched the wild woods for the red berries of the phrynia, and the tartish, crimson and oblong fruit of the amoma; how they rushed for the flat beans of the forest, and gloated over their treasures of fungi! In short, nothing was rejected in this severe distress to which we were reduced, except leaves and wood. We passed several abandoned clearings, and some men chopped down pieces of banana stalk, then searched for wild herbs to make potage; the bastard jack fruit or the fenessi and other huge fruit became dear objects of interest as we struggled on.
Return we could not, nor
Continue where we were; to shift our place
Was to exchange one misery with another.
And every day that came, came to decay
A day’s work in us.”
On October 7th we began at six thirty a.m. that funereal pace through the trackless region on the crest of the forest uplands. We picked up fungi, and the matonga wild fruit, as we travelled, and after seven hours’ march we rested for the day. At 11 a.m. we had halted for lunch at the usual hour. Each officer had economized his rations of bananas. Two were the utmost that I could spare for myself. My comrades were also as rigidly strict and close in their diet, and a cup of sugarless tea closed the repast. We were sitting conversing about our prospects, discussing the probabilities of our couriers reaching some settlement on this day, or the next, and the time that it would take them to return; and they desired to know whether, in my previous African experience, I had encountered anything so grievous as this.
“No; not quite so bad as this,” I replied. “We have suffered; but not to such an extremity as this. Those nine days on the way into Ituru were wretched. On our flight from Bumbiré we certainly suffered much hunger, and also while floating down the Congo to trace its course our condition was much to be pitied; we have had a little of something, and at least large hopes, and if they die where are we? The age of miracles is past, it is said, but why should they be? Moses drew water from the rock at Horeb for the thirsty Israelites. Of water we have enough and to spare. Elijah was fed by ravens at the brook Cherith, but there is not a raven in all this forest. Christ was ministered unto by angels. I wonder if anyone will minister unto us?”
Just then there was a sound as of a large bird whirring through the air. Little Randy, my fox-terrier, lifted up a foot and gazed inquiringly; we turned our heads to see, and that second the bird dropped beneath the jaws of Randy, who snapped at the prize and held it fast in a vice as of iron.
“There, boys,” I said, “truly the gods are gracious. The age of miracles is not past,” and my comrades were seen gazing in delighted surprise at the bird, which was a fine fat guinea-fowl. It was not long before the guinea-fowl was divided, and Randy, its captor, had his lawful share; and the little doggie seemed to know that he had grown in esteem with all men, and we enjoyed our prize each with his own feelings.
On the next day, in order to relieve the boat-bearers of their hard work, Mr. Jephson was requested to connect the sections together; and two hours after starting on the march we came opposite an inhabited island. The advance scouts seized a canoe and bore straight on to the island, to snatch in the same unruly manner as Orlando, meat for the hungry.
“What would you, unruly men?”
“We would have meat! Two hundred stagger in these woods and reel with faintness.”
The natives did not stand for further questions, but vanished kindly, and left their treasures of food. We received as our share two pounds of Indian corn and half a pound of beans. Altogether about twenty-five pounds of corn were discovered, which was distributed among the people.
In the afternoon I received a note from Mr. Jephson, who was behind with the boat: “For God’s sake, if you can get any food at village, send us some.”
Dispatched answer to Jephson to hunt up the wounded elephant that I had shot, and which had taken refuge on an island near him and, in reply to his anxious letter, a small handful of corn.
On October 9th one hundred men volunteered to go across the river and explore inland from the north bank, with a resolute intention not to return without food of some kind. I went up river with the boat’s crew, and Stairs down river to strike inland by a little track, in the hope that it might lead to some village; those who were too dispirited to go far wandered southward through the woods to search for wild fruit and forest beans. This last article was about four times the size of a large garden bean, encased in a brown leathery rind. At first we had contented ourselves with merely skinning it and boiling it, but this produced sickness of the stomach. An old woman captured on the island was seen to prepare a dish of these beans by skinning them and afterward scraping the inner covering, and finally scraping them as we would nutmegs. Out of this floury substance she made some patties for her captor, who shouted in ecstasies that they were good. Whereupon everybody bestirred themselves to collect the beans, which were fairly plentiful. Tempted by a “ladyfinger” cake of this article that was brought to me, I ventured to try it, and found it sufficiently filling, and about as palatable as a mess of acorns. Indeed, the flavor strongly reminded me of the acorn. The fungi were of several varieties, some pure and perfect mushrooms, others were of a less harmless kind; but surely the gods protected the miserable human beings condemned to live on such things. Grubs were collected; also slugs from the trees, caterpillars, and white ants—these served for meat. The mabengu (nux vomica) furnished the dessert, with fenessi or a species of bastard jack fruit.
The following day some of the foragers from across the river returned bringing nothing, because they had discovered such emptiness on the north bank as we had found on the south bank; but “Inshallah!” they said, “we shall find food either to-morrow or the next day.”
In the morning I had eaten my last grain of Indian corn, and my last portion of everything solid that was obtainable and reserved, and at noon the horrid pains of the stomach had to be satisfied with something. Some potato leaves brought me by Wadi Khamis, a headman, were bruised fine and cooked. They were not bad; still the stomach ached from utter depletion. Then a Zanzibari, with his face aglow with honest pride, brought me a dozen fruit of the size and color of a prize pear which emitted a most pleasant fruity odor. He warranted them to be lovely, and declared that the men enjoyed them, but the finest had been picked out for myself and officers. He had also brought a patty made out of the wood bean-flower, which had a rich, custardy look about it. With many thanks I accepted this novel repast, and I felt a grateful sense of fulness. In an hour, however, a nausea attacked me, and I was forced to seek my bed. The temples presently felt as if constricted by an iron band, the eyes blinked strangely, and a magnifying-glass did not enable me to read the figures of Norie’s epitome. My German servant, with the rashness of youth, had lunched bravely on what I had shared with him of the sweetly smelling pear-like fruit, and consequently suffered more severely. Had he been in a little cockle boat on a mad Channel sea he could scarcely have presented a more flabby and disordered aspect than had been caused by the forest pears. Just at sunset the foragers of No. 1 Company, after an absence of thirty-six hours, appeared from the north bank, bringing sufficient plantains to save the Europeans from despair and starvation; but the men received only two plantains each, equal to four ounces of solid stuff, to put into stomachs that would have required eight pounds to satisfy.
The officers Stairs, Jephson, and Parke, had been amusing themselves the entire afternoon in drawing fanciful menus where such things figured as:
Filet de beuf en Chartreuse.
Pité de volailles 4 la Lucullus.
Petites bouchées aux huitres d’Ostende.
Bécassines réties a la Londres.
Another had shown his Anglo-Saxon proclivities for solids such as:
Ham and eggs, and plenty of them.
Roast beef and potatoes unlimited.
A weighty plum-pudding.
There were two of the foragers missing, but we could not wait for them. We moved from this starvation camp to one higher up, a distance of eleven miles.
A man of No. 3 Company dropped his box of ammunition into a deep affluent and lost it. Kajeli stole a box of Winchester ammunition and absconded. Salim stole a case containing Emin Pasha’s new boots and two pairs of mine, and deserted. Wadi Adam vanished with Surgeon Parke’s entire kit. Swadi, of No. 1 Company, left his box on the road, and departed himself to parts unknown. Bull-necked Uchungu followed suit with a box of Remington cartridges.
On October 12th we marched four and a half miles, east by south. The boat and crew were far below, struggling in the rapids. We wished now to cross the river to try our fortunes on the north bank. We searched for a canoe, and saw one on the other side, but the river was four hundred yards wide, and the current was too strong against the best swimmers in their present state of debility.
Some scouts presently discovered a canoe fastened to an island only forty yards from the south bank, which was situated a little above our halting-place. Three men volunteered, among whom was Wadi Asmani, of the Pioneers, a grave man, faithful, and of much experience in many African lands. Twenty dollars reward was to be the prize of success. Asmani lacked the audacity of Uledi, the coxswain of the “advance,” as well as his bold, high spirit, but was a most prudent and valuable man.
These three men chose a small rapid for their venture, that they might obtain a footing now and then on the rocks. At dusk two of them returned to grieve us with the news that Asmani had tried to swim with his Winchester on his back, and had been swept by the strong current into a whirlpool, and was drowned.
We were unfortunate in every respect; our chiefs had not returned, we were fearing for their fate, strong men deserted. Our rifles were rapidly decreasing in number. Our ammunition was being stolen. Feruzi, the next best man to Uledi as a sailor, soldier, carrier, good man and true, was dying from a wound inflicted on the head by a savage’s knife.
The following day was also a halt. We were about to cross the river, and we were anxious for our six chiefs, one of whom was Rashid bin Omar, “the father of the people” as he was called. Equipped with only their rifles, accoutrements, and sufficient ammunition, such men ought to have travelled, in the week that had elapsed since our departure from Nelson’s camp, over a hundred miles. If they, during that distance, could not discover the Manyema settlement, what chance had we, burdened with loads, with a caravan of hungry and despairing men, who for a week had fed on nothing but two plantains, berries, wild fruit, and fungi? Our men had begun to suffer dearly during this protracted starvation. Three had died the day before.
Toward evening Jephson appeared with the boat, and brought a supply of Indian corn, which sufficed to give twelve cupfuls to each white. It was a reprieve from death for the Europeans.
The next day, the 15th, having blazed trees around the camp, and drawn broad arrows with charcoal for the guidance of the headmen when they should return, the expedition crossed over to the north bank and camped on the upper side of a range of hills. Feruzi Ali died of his wound soon after.
Our men were in such a desperately weak state that I had not the heart to command the boat to be disconnected for transport; as, had a world’s treasure been spread out before them, they could not have exhibited greater power than they were willing to give at a word. I stated the case fairly to them thus:
“You see, my men, our condition in brief is this: We started from Yambuya 389 in number and took 237 loads with us. We had 80 extra carriers to provide for those who by the way might become weak and ailing. We left 56 men at Ugarrowwa’s Settlement, and 52 with Captain Nelson. We should have 271 left, but instead of that number we have only 200 today, including the chiefs who are absent. Seventy-one have either died, been killed, or deserted. But there are only 150 of you fit to carry anything, and therefore we cannot carry this boat any farther. I say let us sink her here by the riverside, and let us press on to get food for ourselves and those with Captain Nelson, who are wondering what has become of us, before we all die in these woods. You are the carriers of the boat—not we. Do you speak, what shall be done unto her?”
Many suggestions were made by the officers and men, but Uledi of “Through the Dark Continent,” always Uledi, the ever faithful Uledi, spoke straight to the purpose. ‘Sir, my advice is this. You go on with the caravan and search for the Manyema, and I and my crew will work at these rapids, and pole, row, or drag her on as we can. After I have gone two days up, if I do not see signs of the Manyema I will send men after you to keep touch with you. We cannot lose you, for a blind man could follow such a track as the caravan makes.”
This suggestion was agreed by all to be the best, and it was arranged that our rule of conduct should be as Uledi sketched out.
We separated at 10 a.m., and in a short time I had my first experience among the loftier hills of the Aruwimi valley. I led the caravan northward through the trackless forest, sheering a little to the northeast to gain a spur, and using animal tracks when they served us. Progress was very slow, the undergrowth was dense; berries of the phrynium and fruit of the amomum, fenessi, and nux vomica, besides the large wood beans and fungi of all sorts, were numerous, and each man gathered a plentiful harvest. Unaccustomed to hills for years, our hearts palpitated violently as we breasted the steep wooded slopes, and cut and slashed at the impending creepers, bush, and plants.
Ah, it was a sad sight, unutterably sad, to see so many men struggling on blindly through that endless forest, following one white man, who was bound whither none knew, whom most believed did not know himself! They were in a veritable hell of hunger already! What nameless horrors awaited them further on none could conjecture. But what matter, death comes to every man soon or late! Therefore we pushed on and on, broke through the bush, trampled down the plants, wound along the crest of spurs zigzagging from northeast to northwest, and, descending to a bowl-like valley by a clear stream, lunched on our corn and berries.
During our mid-day halt, one Umari having seen some magnificent and ripe fenessi at the top of a tree sixty feet high, essayed to climb it; but, on gaining that height, a branch or his strength yielded, and he tumbled headlong upon the heads of two other men who were waiting to seize the fruit. Strange to say, none of them were very seriously injured. Umari was a little lame in the hip, and one of those upon whom he fell complained of a pain in the chest.
At 3.30, after a terrible struggle through a suffocating wilderness of arums, amoma, and bush, we came to a dark amphitheatral glen, and at the bottom found a camp just deserted by the natives, and in such hot haste that they had thought it best not to burden themselves with their treasures. Surely some divinity provided for us always in the most stressful hours! Two bushels of Indian corn and a bushel of beans awaited us in this camp. My poor donkey from Zanzibar showed symptoms of surrender. Arums and amoma every day since June 28th were no fit food for a dainty Zanzibar ass, therefore to end his misery I shot him. The meat was as carefully shared as though it were the finest venison, for a wild and famished mob threatened to defy discipline. When the meat was fairly served a free fight took place over the skin, the bones were taken up and crushed, the hoofs were boiled for hours, there was nothing left of my faithful animal but the spilled blood and hair; a pack of hyenas could not have made a more thorough disposal of it. That constituent of the human being which marks him as superior to all others of the animal creation was so deadened by hunger that our men had become merely carnivorous bipeds, inclined to be as ferocious as any beast of prey.
On the 16th we crossed through four deep gorges one after another, through wonderful growths of phrynia. The trees frequently bore fenessi nearly ripe, one foot long and eight inches in diameter. Some of this fruit was equal to pineapple; it was certainly wholesome. Even the rotten fruit was not rejected. When the fenessi were absent, the woodbean tree flourished and kindly sprinkled the ground with its fruit. Nature seemed to confess that the wanderers had borne enough of pain and grief. The deepest solitudes showed increasing tenderness for the weary and long-suffering. The phrynia gave us their brightest red berries, the amoma furnished us with the finest, ripest scarlet fruit, the fenessi were in a state of perfection, the woodbeans were larger and fatter, the streams of the wood glens were clear and cold; no enemy was in sight, nothing was to be feared but hunger, and nature did its best with her unknown treasures, shaded us with her fragrant and loving shades, and whispered to us unspeakable things, sweetly and tenderly.
During the mid-day halt the men discussed our prospects. They said, with solemn shaking of their heads, “Know you that such and such a man is dead? that the other is lost! another will probably fall this afternoon! the rest will perish to-morrow!” The trumpet summoned all to their feet, to march on, and strive, and press forward to the goal.
Half an hour later the pioneers broke through a growth of amoma, and stepped on a road. And lo! on every tree we saw the peculiar “blaze” of the Manyema, a discovery that was transmitted by every voice from the head to the rear of the column, and was received with jubilant cheers.
“Which way, sir?” asked the delighted pioneers.
“Right turn, of course,” I replied, feeling far more glad than any, and fuller of longings for the settlement that was to end this terrible period, and shorten the misery of Nelson and his dark followers.
“Please God,” they said, “tomorrow or the next day we shall have food,” which meant that, after suffering unappeasable hunger for three hundred and thirty-six hours, they could patiently wait, if it pleased God, another thirty-six or sixty hours more.
We were all frightfully thin, the whites not so much reduced as our colored men. We thought of the future and abounded with hope, though deep depression followed any inspection of the people. We regretted that our followers did not have greater faith in us. Hunger, followed by despair, killed many. Many freely expressed their thoughts, and declared to one another plainly that we knew not whither we were marching. And they were not far wrong, for who knew what a day might bring forth in unexplored depths of woods? But, as they said, it was their fate to follow us, and therefore they followed fate. They had fared badly and had suffered greatly. It is hard to walk at all when weakness sets in through emptiness; it is still worse to do so when burdened with sixty pounds’ weight. Over fifty were yet in fair condition; 150 were skeletons covered with ashy-gray skins, jaded and worn out, with every sign of wretchedness printed deep in their eyes, in their bodies, and movements. These could hardly do more than creep on and moan, and shed tears and sigh. My only dog “Randy,” alas! how feeble he had become! Meat he had not tasted—except with me of the ass’s meat—for weeks. Parched corn and beans were not fit for a terrier, and fenessi and mabengu and such other acid fruit he disdained, and so he declined, until he became as gaunt as the pariah of a Moslem. Stairs had never failed me. Jephson every now and then had been fortunate in discoveries of grain treasures, and had always showed an indomitable front; and Parke was ever striving, patient, cheerful, and gentle. Deep, deep down to undiscovered depths our life in the forest had enabled me to penetrate human nature with all its endurance and virtues.
Along the track of the Manyema it was easy to travel. Sometimes we came to a maze of roads; but once the general direction was found there was no difficulty to point to the right one. It appeared to be well travelled, and it was clearer every mile that we were approaching a populous settlement. As recent tracks became more numerous, the bush seemed more broken into with many a halt and many wayward strayings. Here and there trees had been lopped of their branches. Cording vines lay frequently on the track; pads for native carriers had often been dropped in haste. Most of the morning was expended in crossing a score of lazy, oozy rillets, which caused large breadths of slime-covered swamp. Wasps attacked the column at one crossing, and stung a man into high fever, and being in such an emaciated conditon there was little chance of his recovery. After a march of seven miles southeastwardly we halted on the afternoon of the 17th.
The night was ushered in by a tempest which threatened to uproot the forest and bear it to the distant west, accompanied by floods of rain, and a severe, cold temperature. Nevertheless, fear of famishing drove us to begin the march at an early hour on the following day. In about an hour and a half we stood on the confines of a large clearing, but the fog was so dense that we could discern nothing further than two hundred feet in front. Resting awhile to debate upon our course, we heard a sonorous voice singing in a language none of us knew, and a lusty hail and an argument with what appeared to be some humor. As this was not a land where aborigines would dare to be so lighthearted and frivolous, this singing we believed could proceed from no other people than those who knew they had nothing to fear. I fired a Winchester rapidly in the air. The response by heavy-loaded muskets revealed that these were the Manyema whom we had been so long seeking, and scarcely had the echoes ceased their reverberations than the caravan relieved its joy by long-continued hurrahs.
We descended the slope of the clearing to a little valley, and from all sides of an opposite slope were seen issuing lines of men and women to welcome us with friendly hails. We looked to the right and left, and saw thriving fields, Indian corn, rice, sweet potatoes, and beans. The well-known sounds of Arab greeting and hospitable tenders of friendship burst upon our ears; and our hands were soon clasped by lusty, huge fellows, who seemed to enjoy life in the wilds as much as they could have enjoyed it in their own lands. These came principally from Manyema, though their no less stout slaves, armed with percussion muskets and carbines, echoed heartily their superiors’ sentiments and professions.
We were conducted up the sloping clearing through fields of luxuriant grain, by troops of men and youngsters, who were irrepressibly frolicsome in their joy at the new arrivals and dawning promise of a holiday. On arrival at the village, we were invited to take our seats in deep, shady verandas, where we soon had to answer to hosts of questions and congratulations. As the caravan filed past us to its allotted quarters, which men were appointed to show, numerous were the praises to God uttered by them for our marvelous escapes from the terrible wilderness that stretched from their settlement of Ipoto to the Basopo Cataract, a distance of 197 miles—praises in which, in our inmost hearts, each one of our sorely tried caravan most heartily joined.
This community of ivory hunters, established at Ipoto, had arrived five months previous to our coming from the banks of the Lualaba, from a point situated between the exits of the Lowwa and the Leopold into the great river. The journey had occupied them seven and a half months, and they had seen neither grass nor open country, nor even heard of them during their wanderings. They had halted a month at Kinnena on the Lindi, and had built a station-house for their chief, Kilonga-Longa, who, when he had joined them with the main body, sent on about two hundred guns and two hundred slave carriers to strike further in a northeasterly direction, to discover some other prosperous settlement far in advance of him, whence they could sally out in bands to destroy, burn, and enslave natives in exchange for ivory. Through continual fighting, and the carelessness which the unbalanced mind is so apt to fall into after one or more happy successes, they had decreased in number within seven and a half months to a force of about ninety guns. On reaching the Lenda River they heard of the settlements of Ugarrowwa, and sheared off the limits of his raiding circle to obtain a centre of their own, and, crossing the Lenda, they succeeded in reaching the south bank of the Ituri, about south of their present settlement at Ipoto.
As the natives would not assist them over the river to the north bank, they cut down a big tree, and with axe and fire hollowed it into a sizable canoe, which conveyed them across to the north bank to Ipoto. Since that date they had launched out on one of the most sanguinary and destructive careers to which even Tippu-Tib’s or Tagamoyo’s career offer but poor comparison. Toward the Lenda and Ihuru Rivers, they had levelled into black ashes every settlement; their rage for destruction had even been vented on the plantain groves, every canoe on the rivers had been split into pieces, every island had been searched, and into the darkest recesses whither a slight track could be traced, they had penetrated, with only one dominating passion, which was to kill as many of the men and capture as many of the women and children as craft and cruelty would enable them. How far northward or eastward had these people reached? one said nine days’ march, another fifteen days’; but wherever they had gone they had done precisely as we had seen between the Lenda River and Ipoto, and reduced the forest land into a howling wilderness, and throughout all the immense area had left scarcely a hut standing.
What these destroyers had left of groves and plantations of plantain and bananas, manioc, and corn-fields, the elephant, chimpanzee, and monkeys had trampled and crushed into decaying and putrid muck, and in their places had sprung up, with the swiftness of mushrooms, whole hosts of large – leafed plants native to the soil, briars, calamus and bush, which the natives had in times past suppressed with their knives, axes, and hoes. With each season the bush grew more robust and taller, and a few seasons only were wanted to cover all traces of former habitation and labor.
From Ipoto to the Lenda the distance by our track is one hundred and five miles. Assume that this is the distance eastward to which their ravages have extended, and northward and southward, and we have something like forty-four thousand square miles. We know what Ugarrowwa has done, what he is still doing with all the vigor of his mind; and we know what the Arabs about Stanley Falls are doing on the Lumami, and what sort of devil’s work Mumi Muhala and Bwana Mohamed are perpetrating around Lake Ozo, the source of the Lulu; and once we know where their centres are located, we may with a pair of compasses draw great circles round each, and park off areas of forty thousand and fifty thousand square miles into which half a dozen resolute men, aided by their hundreds of bandits, have divided about three-fourths of the great upper Congo forest for the sole purpose of murder, and becoming heirs to a few hundred tusks of ivory.
At the date of our arrival at Ipoto, there were the Manyema headmen, physically fine stalwart fellows, named Ismailia, Khamisi, and Sangarameni, who were responsible to Kalonga-Longa, their chief, for the followers and operations intrusted to their charge. At alternate periods each set out from Ipoto to his own special subdistrict. Thus to Ismailia all roads from Ipoto to Ibwiri, and east to the Ituri, were given as his special charge. Khamisi’s area was along the line of the Thuru, then east to Ibwiri; to Sangarameni all the land east and west between the Ibina and Thuru affluents of the Ituri. Altogether there were one hundred and fifty fighting men, but only about ninety were armed with guns. Kilonga-Longa was still at Kinnena, and was not expected for three months yet.
The fighting men under the three leaders consisted of Bakusu, Balegga, and Basongora, youths who were trained by the Manyema as riders in the forest region, in the same manner as in 1876. Manyema youths had been trained by Arabs and Waswahili of the east coast. We see in this extraordinary increase in the number of raiders in the upper Congo basin the fruits of the Arab policy of killing off the adult aborigines and preserving the children. The girls are distributed among the Arab, Swahili, and Manyema harems, the boys are trained to carry arms and are exercised in the use of them. When they are grown tall and strong enough they are rewarded with wives from the female servants of the harem, and then are admitted partners in these bloody ventures. So many parts of the profits are due to the great proprietor, such as Tippu-Tib, or Said bin Abed; a less number becomes the due of the headmen, and the remainder becomes the property of the bandits. At other times large ivories, over thirty-five pounds each, become the property of the proprietor; all over twenty pounds to thirty-five pounds belong to the headmen; scraps, pieces, and young ivory are permitted to be kept by the lucky finders. Hence every member of the caravan is inspired to do his best. The caravan is well armed and well manned by the proprietor, who stays at home on the Congo or Lualaba indulging in rice and pilaf and the excesses of his harem; the headmen, inspired by greed and cupidity, become ferocious and stern; the bandits fling themselves upon a settlement without mercy, to obtain the largest share of loot, of children, flocks, poultry, and ivory.
All this would be clearly beyond their power if they possessed no gunpowder. Not a mile beyond their settlements would the Arabs and their followers dare venture. It is more than likely that if gunpowder was prohibited entry into Africa there would be a general and quick migration to the sea of all Arabs from inner Africa, as the native chiefs would be immeasurably stronger than any combination of Arabs armed with spears. What possible chance could Tippu-Tib, Abed bin Salim, Ugarrowwa and Kilonga-Longa have against the Basongora and Bakusu? How could the Warundi, or how could those of Unyamyembe live among the bowmen and spearmen of Unyamwezi?
There is only one remedy for these wholesale devastations of African aborigines, and that is the solemn combination of England, Germany, France, Portugal, South and East Africa, and Congo State against the introduction employees; into any part of the Continent except for the use of their own agents, soldiers, and employees ; or seizing upon every tusk of ivory brought out, as there is not a single piece nowadays which has been gained lawfully. Every tusk, piece, and scrap in the possession of an Arab trader has been steeped and dyed in blood. Every pound weight has cost the life of a man, woman, or child; for every five pounds a hut has been burned; for every two tusks a whole village has been destroyed; every twenty tusks have been obtained at the price of a district, with all its people, villages, and plantations. It is simply incredible that because ivory is required for ornaments or billiard games, the rich heart of Africa should be laid waste at this late year of the nineteenth century, signalized as it has been by so much advance ; that populations, tribes, and nations should be utterly destroyed. Whom, after all, does this bloody seizure of ivory enrich? Only a few dozens of half-castes, Arab and Negro, who, if due justice were dealt to them, should be made to sweat out the remainder of their piratical lives in the severest penal servitude.
On arriving in civilization after these terrible discoveries, I was told of a crusade that had been preached by Cardinal Lavigerie, and of a rising desire in Europe to effect a reform by force of arms, in the old crusader style, and to attack the Arabs and their followers in their strongholds in central Africa. It is just such a scheme as might have been expected from men who applauded Gordon when he set out with a white wand and six followers to rescue all the garrisons of the Soudan, a task which 14,000 of his countrymen, under one of the most skillful English generals, would have found impossible at that date. We pride ourselves upon being practical and sensible men, and yet every now and then let some enthusiast—whether Gladstone, Gordon, Lavigerie, or another—speak, and a wave of Quixotism spreads over many lands. The last thing I heard in connection with this mad project is that a band of one hundred Swedes, who have subscribed twenty-five pounds each, are about to sail to some part of the East Coast of Africa, and proceed to Tanganyika to commence ostensibly the extirpation of the Arab slave-trader, but in reality to commit suicide.
However, these matters are not the present object. We are about to have a more intimate acquaintance with the morals of the Manyema, and to understand them better than we ever expected we should.
They had not heard a word or a whisper of our headmen whom we had dispatched as couriers to obtain relief for Nelson’s party, and as it was scarcely possible that a starving caravan would accomplish the distance between Nelson’s camp and Ipoto before six active and intelligent men, we began to fear that among the lost men we should have to number our Zanzibari chiefs. Their track was clear as far as the crossing place of December 14th and 15th. It was most probable that the witless men would continue up the river until they were overpowered by the savages of some unknown village. Our minds were never free from anxiety respecting Captain Nelson and his men. Thirteen days had already elapsed since our parting. During this period their position was not worse than ours had been. The forest was around them as it was around us. They were not loaded down as we were. The most active men could search about for food, as they could employ their canoes to ferry themselves over to the scene of the forage of December 3d, one day’s journey by land, or an hour by water. Berries and fungi abounded on the crest of the hills above their camp as in other parts. Yet we were anxious; and one of my first duties was to try and engage a relief party to take food to Nelson’s camp. I was promised that it should be arranged next day.
For ourselves we received three goats and twelve baskets of Indian corn, which, when distributed, gave six ears of corn per man. It furnished us with two good meals, and many must have felt revived and refreshed, as I did.
On the first day’s halt at Ipoto we suffered considerable lassitude. Nature either furnishes a stomach and no food or else furnishes a feast and robs us of all appetite. On the day before and on this we had fed sumptuously on rice and pilaf and goat’s stew, but now we b gan to suffer from many illnesses. The masticators had forgotten their office, and the digestive organs disdained the dainties, and affected to be deranged. Seriously, it was the natural result of over-eating; corn mush, grits, parched corn, beans, and meat are solids requiring gastric juice, which, after being famished for so many days, was not in sufficient supply for the eager demand made for it.
The Manyema had about three hundred or four hundred acres under corn, five acres under rice, and as many under beans. Sugar-cane was also grown largely. They possessed about one hundred goats—all stolen from the natives. In their store-huts they had immense supplies of Indian corn, drawn from some village near the Thuru, and as yet unshucked. Their banana plantations were well stocked with fruit. Indeed the condition of everyone in the settlement was prime.
It is but right to acknowledge that we were received on the first day with ostentatious kindness, but on the third day something of a strangeness sprang up between us. Their cordiality probably arose from a belief that our loads contained some desirable articles; but unfortunately, the first-class beads that would have sufficed for the purchase of all their stock of corn were lost by the capsizing of a canoe near Panga Falls, and the gold-braided Arab burnooses were stolen below Ugarrowwa by deserters. Disappointed at not receiving the expected quantity of fine cloth or fine beads, they proceeded systematically to tempt our men to sell everything they possessed, shirts, caps, daoles, waist-cloths, knives, belts, which, being their personal property, we had no objection. But the lucky owners of such articles, having been seen by others less fortunate hugely enjoying varieties of succulent food, were the means of inspiring the latter to envy, and finally to theft. The unthrifty and reckless men sold their ammunition, accoutrements, bill hooks, ramrods, and finally their Remington rifles. Thus, after escaping the terrible dangers of starvation and such injuries as the many savage tribes could inflict on us, we were in near peril of becoming slaves to the Arab slaves.
Despite entreaties for corn, we could obtain no more than two ears per man per day. I promised to pay triple price for everything received on the arrival of the rear column; but with these people a present possession is better than a prospective one. They professed to doubt that we had cloth, and to believe that we had travelled all this distance to fight them. We represented, on the other hand, that all we needed were six ears of corn per day during nine days’ rest. Three rifles disappeared. The headmen denied all knowledge of them. We were compelled to reflect that if it were true they suspected we entertained sinister intentions toward them, that surely the safest and craftiest policy would be to purchase our arms secretly, and disarm us altogether, when they could enforce what terms they pleased on us.
On the 21st six more rifles were abstracted. At this rate the expedition would be wrecked in a short time, for a body of men without arms, in the heart of the great forest, with a host of men to the eastward and a large body to the westward depending upon them, were lost beyond hope of salvation. Both advance and retreat were equally cut off, and no resource would be left but absolute submission to the chief who chose to assert himself to be our master, or death. Therefore I proposed, for my part, to struggle strongly against such a fate, and either to provoke it instantly, or ward it off by prompt action.
A muster was made, the five men without arms were sentenced to twenty-five lashes each and to be tied up. After a considerable fume and fuss had been exhibited, a man stepped up, as one was about to undergo punishment, and begged permission to speak.
“This man is innocent, sir. I have his rifle in my hut, I seized it last night from Juma [one of the cooks], son of Forkali, as he brought it to a Manyema to sell. It may be Juma stole it from this man. I know that all these men have pleaded that their rifles have been stolen by others while they slept. It may be true as in this case.” Meantime Juma had flown, but was found later on hiding in the corn fields. He confessed that he had stolen two, and had taken them to the informer to be disposed of for corn, or a goat, but it was solely at the instigation of the informer. It may have been true, for scarcely one of them but was quite capable of such a course; but the story was lame, and unreasonable in this case and was rejected. Another now came up and recognized Juma as the thief who had abstracted his rifle, and having proved his statement, and confession having been made, the prisoner was sentenced to immediate execution, which was accordingly carried out by hanging.
It now being proved beyond a doubt that the Manyema were purchasing our rifles at the rate of a few ears of corn per gun, I sent for the headmen, and made a formal demand for their instant restitution, otherwise they would be responsible for the consequences. They were inclined to be wrathy at first. They drove the Zanzibaris from the village out into the clearing, and there was every prospect of a fight, or, as very probable, that the expedition was about to be wrecked. Our men being so utterly demoralized, and utterly broken in spirit from what they had undergone were not to be relied on, and as they were ready to sell themselves for corn—there was little chance of our winning a victory in case of a struggle. It requires fulness of stomach to be brave. At the same time death was sure to conclude us in any event, for to remain under such circumstances tended to produce an ultimate appeal to arms. With those eleven rifles, three thousand rounds of ammunition had been sold. No option presented itself to me than to be firm in my demand for the rifles; it was reiterated, under a threat that I would proceed to take other means, and as a proof of it they had but to look at the body hanging from a tree; for if we proceeded to such extremities as putting to death one of our own men, they certainly ought to know that we should feel ourselves perfectly prepared to take vengeance on those who had really caused his death by keeping open doors to receive stolen property.
After an hour’s storming in their village they brought five rifles to me, and to my astonishment pointed out the sellers of them. Had it not been impolitic in the first place to drive things to the extreme, I should have declined receiving one of them back before all had been returned, and could I have been assured of the aid of fifty men I should have declared for a fight; but just at this juncture Uledi, the faithful coxswain of the Advance, strode into camp bringing news that the boat was safe at the landing-place of Ipoto and of his discovery of the six missing chiefs in a starving and bewildered state four miles from the settlement. This produced a revulsion of feeling. Gratitude for the discovery of my lost men, the sight of Uledi—the knowledge that, after all, despite the perverseness of human nature, I had some faithful fellows, left me for the time speechless.
Then the tale was told to Uledi and he undertook the business of eradicating the hostile feelings of the Manyema, and pleaded with me to let bygones be bygones, on the score that the dark days were ended, and happy days he was sure were in store for us.
“For surely, dear master,” he said, “after the longest night comes day, and why not sunshine after darkness with us? I think of how many long nights and dark days we pulled through in the old times when we pierced Africa together, and now let your heart be at peace. Please God we shall forget our troubles before long.”
The culprits were ordered to be bound until morning. Uledi, with his bold, frank way, sailed straight into the affections of the Manyema headmen. Presents of corn were brought to me, apologies were made and accepted. The corn was distributed among the people, and we ended this troublesome day, which had brought us all to the verge of dissolution in much greater content than could have been hoped from its ominous commencement.
Our land-wandering chiefs, who were sent as heralds of our approach to Ipoto, arrived on Sunday the 23d. They surely had made but a fruitless quest, and they found us old residents of the place they had been dispatched to seek. Haggard, wan, and feeble from seventeen days’ feeding on what the uninhabited wilderness afforded, they were also greatly abashed at their failure. They had reached the Ibina River, which flows from the southeast, and struck it two days above the confluence with the Ituri; they had then followed the tributary down to the junction, had found a canoe and rowed across to the right bank, where they had nearly perished from hunger. Fortunately Uledi had discovered them in time, had informed them of the direction of Ipoto, and they had crawled as they best could to camp.
Before night Sangarameni, the third headman, appeared from a raid, with fifteen fine ivories. He said he had penetrated a twenty days’ journey, and from a high hill had viewed an open country all grass land.
Out of a supply I obtained on this day I was able to give two ears of corn per man, and to store a couple of baskets for Nelson’s party. But events were not progressing smoothly; I could obtain no favorable answer to my entreaty for a relief party. One of our men had been speared to death by the Manyema on a charge of stealing corn from the fields. One had been hanged, twenty had been flogged for stealing ammunition, another had received two hundred cuts from the Manyema for attempting to steal. If only the men could have reasoned sensibly during these days how quickly matters could have been settled otherwise!
I had spoken and warned them with all earnestness to “endure, and cheer up,” and that there were two ways of settling all this, but that I was afraid of them only, for they preferred the refuse of the Manyema to our wages and work. The Manyema were proving to them what they might expect of them; and with us the worst days were over; all we had to do was to march beyond the utmost reach of the Manyema raids, when we should all become as robust as they. Bah! I might as well have addressed my appeals to the trees of the forest as unto wretches so sodden in despair.
The Manyema had promised me three times by this day to send eighty men as a relief party to Nelson’s camp; but the arrival of Sangarameni, and various misunderstandings and other trifles had disturbed the arrangements.
On the 24th firing was heard on the other side of the river, and under the plea that it indicated the arrival of Kilonga-Lonea, the relief caravan was again prevented from setting out.
The next day those who had fired arrived in camp, and proved to be the Manyema knaves whom we had seen on October 2d. Out of fifteen men they had lost one man from an arrow wound. They had wandered for twenty-four days to find the track; but having no other loads than provisions these had lasted with economy for fifteen days, but for the last nine days they had subsisted on mushrooms and wild fruit.
On this evening I succeeded in drawing a contract, and getting the three headmen to agree to the following: “To send thirty men to the relief of Captain Nelson, with four hundred ears of corn for his party.
“To provide Captain Nelson and Surgeon Parke, and all sick men unable to work in the fields, with provisions, until our return from Lake Albert.
“The service of a guide from Ipoto to Ibwiri, for which they were to be paid one bale and a half of cloth on the arrival of the rear column.”
It was drawn up in Arabic by Rashid, and in English by myself, and witnessed by three men.
For some fancy articles of personal property I succeeded in purchasing for Mr. Jephson and Captain Nelson two hundred and fifty ears of Indian corn, and for two hundred and fifty pistol cartridges I bought another quantity, and for an ivory-framed mirror from a purchased two basketfuls: for three bottles of ottar of roses I obtained three fowls, so that I had one thousand ears of corn for the relieving and relieved parties.
On the 26th Mr. Mounteney Jephson, forty Zanzibaris, and thirty Manyema slaves started on their journey to Nelson’s camp. I cannot do better than introduce Mr. Jephson’s report on his journey.
Jephson’s Rescue of Nelson
ARAB SETTLEMENT AT Troro,
November 4, 1887
Dear Sir: I left at midday on October 26th, and arrived at the river and crossed over with thirty Manyema and forty Zanzibaris under my charge the same afternoon and camped on landing. The next morning we started off early and reached the camp, where we had crossed the river when we were wandering about in a starving condition in search of the Arabs; by midday the signs and arrowheads we had marked on the trees to show the chiefs we had crossed were still fresh. I reached another of our camps that night. The next day we did nearly three of our former marches. The camp where Feruzi Ali had got his death-wound, and where we had spent three such miserable days of hunger and anxiety, looked very dismal as we passed through it. During the day we passed the skeletons of three of our men who had fallen down and died from sheer starvation; they were grim reminders of the misery through which we had so lately gone.
On the morning of the 29th I started off as soon as it was daylight, determining to reach Nelson that day and decide the question as to his being yet alive. Accompanied by one man only, I soon found myself far ahead of my followers. As I neared Nelson’s camp a feverish anxiety to know his fate possessed me, and I pushed on through streams and creeks, by banks and bogs, over which our starving people had slowly toiled with the boat sections. All were passed by quickly today, and again the skeletons in the road testified to the trials through which we had passed. As I came down the hill into Nelson’s camp, not a sound was heard but the groans of two dying men in a hut close by. The whole place had a deserted and woe-begone look. I came quietly round the tent and found Nelson sitting there; we clasped hands, and then, poor fellow! he turned away and sobbed, and muttered something about being very weak.
Nelson was greatly changed in appearance, being worn and haggard-looking, with deep lines about his eyes and mouth. He told me his anxiety had been intense, as day after day passed and no relief came; he had at last made up his mind that something had happened to us, and that we had been compelled to abandon him. He had lived chiefly upon fruits and fungi which his two boys had brought in from day to day. Of the fifty-two men you left with him, only five remained, of whom two were in a dying state. All the rest had either deserted him or were dead.
He has himself given you an account of his losses from death and desertion. I gave him the food you sent him, which I had carefully watched on the way, and he had one of the chickens and some porridge cooked at once; it was the first nourishing food he had tasted for many days. After I had been with him there a couple of hours my people came in, and all crowded round the tent to offer him their congratulations.
You remember Nelson’s feet had been very bad for some days before we left him; he had hardly left the tent the whole time he had been here. At time he had had ten ulcers on one foot, but he had now recovered from them in a great measure, and said he thought he would be able to march slowly. On the 30th we began the return march. I gave out most of the loads to the Manyema and Zanzibaris, but was obliged to leave thirteen boxes of ammunition and seven other loads; these I buried, and Parke will be able to fetch them later on.
Nelson did the marches better than I expected, though he was much knocked up at the end of each day. On the return march we crossed the river lower down and made our way up the right bank and struck your old road a day’s march from the Arab camp. Here again we passed more skeletons, at one place there were three within two hundred yards of each other. On the fifth day, that is November 3d, we reached the Arab camp, and Nelson’s relief was accomplished. He has already picked up wonderfully in spite of the marching, but he cannot get sleep at night, and is still in a nervous and highly strung state; the rest in the Arab camp will, I trust, set him up again. It is certain that in his state of health he could not have followed us in our wanderings in search of food; he must have fallen by the way.
I am &c., &c.,
(Signed) A. J. Mountenry JEPHSON.
On the evening of the 26th Ismaili entered my hut and declared that he had become so attached to me that he would dearly love to go through the process of blood-brotherhood with me. As I was about to entrust Captain Nelson and Surgeon Parke, and about thirty sick men, to the charge of himself and to brother chiefs, I readily consented, though it was somewhat infra dig. to make brotherhood with a slave; but as he was powerful in that bloody gang of bandits, I pocketed my dignity and underwent the ceremony. I then selected a five-guinea rug, silk handkerchiefs, a couple of yards of crimson broad-cloth, and a few other costly trifles. Finally, I made another written agreement for guides to accompany me to the distance of fifteen camps, which he said was the limit of his territory, and for good treatment of my officers, and handed to him a gold watch and chain, value £49 in London, as pledge of this agreement, in presence of Surgeon Parke.
The next day, after leaving Surgeon Parke to attend to his friend Nelson, and twenty-nine men, we left Ipoto with our reduced force to strive once more with the hunger of the wilderness.
The Archive 