Chapter XXVI: Part II: Private Reflections

The foregoing pages are compiled partly from unpublished papers of Stanley’s, and partly from his private Journals. Some further passages may here be given from private note-books, written in his leisure. The writing was evidently prompted by an impulse of self-defence; partly, with regard to Emin, whose real name was Edouard Schnitzer, and, partly, as the result of strictures on his own character as a commander, in the published Journals of some of his lieutenants. The perspective of events changes rapidly with time, and Emin has so fallen into the background of history, that it seems unnecessary to cite the many instances of his baffling behaviour and egregious weaknesses through his devious career.

STANLEY ON THE PERSONNEL AND TRIALS OF THE EXPEDITION

As to his lieutenants, the limitations of space forbid a full quotation of Stanley’s frank and dramatic account of the difficulties in the early part of the march. There was a sharp difference before leaving the Congo. The Zanzibaris preferred formal complaint against two officers, for beating them, and taking away their food; the officers, each in turn, being summoned to the scene, made a hot defence, in such language and manner that Stanley dismissed them from the expedition on the spot. One of their brother officers interceded, and was told that the lieutenants’ disrespect was evidently the culmination of secret disaffection and grumbling. Stanley said to them:--

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‘Never a sailing-ship sailed from a port but some of the crew have taken the first opportunity to “try it on” with the captain. In every group, or band, of men, it appears to be a rule that there must be a struggle for mastery, and an attempt to take the leader’s measure, before they can settle down to their proper position. I hope you who remain will understand that there can be only one chief in command in this expedition, and I am that chief, and in all matters of duty I expect implicit obedience and respect.’

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Thus Stanley addressed his officers; the two who had offended made manly apologies, which were accepted, and they were restored to their places. With the handshake of reconciliation the incident terminated, so far as Stanley was concerned. But what he calls ‘stupid personalities,’ in certain published Diaries, moved him to write out his own full and private statement of this, and some later fictions, which there seems no occasion now to reproduce. But we are indebted to it for some portraitures, as well as for an exposition of the social and individual experiences, generated in the African wilds, which may well be given here.

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For one so young, Stairs’s abilities and sterling sense were remarkable; and, in military pliancy at the word of command, he was a born soldier. This is a merit which is inestimable in a tropical country, where duty has to be done. A leader in a climate like that of Africa, cannot sugar-coat his orders, and a certain directness of speech must be expected; under such fretting conditions as we were in, it was a source of joy to feel that in Stairs I had a man, who, when a thing had to be done, could face about, and proceed to do it, as effectively as I could do it in person. In the way of duty he was without reproach.

Surgeon Parke’s temper was the best-fitted for Africa. With his unsophisticated simplicity, and amusing naïveté, it was impossible to bear a grudge against him. Outside of his profession, he was not so experienced as Stairs. When placed in charge of a company, his muster-book soon fell into confusion; but by the erasures, and re-arrangements, it was evident that he did his best. Such men may blunder over and over again, and receive absolution. He possessed a fund of genuine wit and humour; and the innocent pleasure he showed when he brought smiles to our faces, endeared him to me. This childlike naïveté, which distinguished him in Africa, as in London society, had a great deal to do with the affectionateness with which everyone regarded him. But he was super-excellent among the sick and suffering; then his every action became precise, firm, and masterful. There was no shade of doubt on his face, not a quiver of his nerves; his eyes grew luminous with his concentrated mind. Few people at home know what an African ulcer is like. It grows as large as the biggest mushroom; it destroys the flesh, discloses the arteries and sinews, and having penetrated to the bone, consumes it, and then eats its way round the limb. The sight is awful, the stench is horrible; yet Parke washed and dressed from twenty to fifty of such hideous sores daily, and never winced. The young man’s heart was of pure gold. At such times, I could take off my cap, out of pure reverence to his heroism, skill, and enduring patience. When Stairs was wounded with a poisoned arrow, he deliberately sucked it, though, had the poison been fresh, it might have been a highly dangerous proceeding. All the whites passed through his hands; and, if they do not owe their lives to him, they owed him a great debt of gratitude for relief, ease, and encouragement, as well as incomparable nursing.

Personally, I was twice attacked by gastritis, and how he managed to create out of nothing, as it were, palatable food for an inflamed stomach, for such prolonged periods, and to maintain his tenderness of interest in his fractious patient, was a constant marvel to me. When consciousness returned to me, out of many delirious fits, his presence seemed to lighten that sense of approaching calamity that often pressed on me. Could the wounded and sick Zanzibaris have spoken their opinion of him, they would have said, ‘He was not a man, but an angel’; for the attributes he showed to the suffering were so unusually noble and exquisitely tender, that poor, wayward human nature wore, for once, a divine aspect to them.

And Jephson, so honourable, and high-minded: though of a vehement character at first, one of his intelligence and heart is not long in adapting himself to circumstances. He developed quickly, taking the rough work of a pioneer with the indifference of a veteran. He was endowed with a greater stock of physical energy than any of the others, and exhibited most remarkable endurance. At first, I feared that he was inclined to be too rough on his company; but this was before he mastered the colloquial expressions, which, with old travellers, serve the same purpose as the stick.

When a young Englishman, replete with animal vigour, and braced for serious work, has to lead a hundred or so raw natives, who cannot understand a word he says, a good deal of ungentle hustling must be expected; but, as soon as he is able to express himself in the vernacular, both commander and natives soon lose that morbid fault-finding to which they were formerly disposed, and the stick becomes a mere badge of authority. Chaff, or a little mild malice, spiced with humour, is often more powerful than the rod with Africans. By the time we issued from the forest, Jephson had become a most valuable officer, with his strong, brave, and resolute nature, capable for any work. If I were to sum up the character of Jephson in one word, I should say it was one of fine manliness, and courage.

Nelson, also, was a fine fellow, with whom I do not remember to have had a single misunderstanding. Considering that we were a thousand and thirty days together in Africa, and in the gloomiest part of it, for most of that time, it appears to me wonderful that we ‘pulled together’ so well.

India is a very old land, and provides countless aids to comfort, which are a great balm for trouble. Yet, as the Congo climate is more trying than that of India, and is quite barren of the ‘comforts’ which are supposed to sweeten an Englishman’s temper, it ought not to be expected that five Englishmen should have been able to pierce through darkest Africa without a tiff or two.

As the preceding chapter[35] records all the misunderstandings that occurred between us, I felt justified on reaching the sea in saying, ‘Well done’ to each of them. Not even a saint is proof against a congested liver, and a miserable diet of horse-food and animal provender; and, yet, during their severe experiences of the Forest, the officers were in better temper than when, ascending the Congo, they enjoyed regular meals. The toughest human patience may be stretched to breaking when fever is rioting in the veins, when the head is filled with hot blood, and the poor victim of malaria is ready to sink with his burden of responsibilities, when black servants take advantage of their master’s helplessness, and a thoughtless companion chooses that inopportune moment to air his grievances, or provoke a discussion. When one is recovering from a fever, his senses racked, his ears in a tumult with quinine, his loins aching with inflamed vitals, it is too much to expect a sufferer, at this stage, to smile like a full-fed dreamer at home.

One of my precautions against these intermittent periods of gloom and bitterness, when the temper is tindery, was to mess separately. Years ago, the unwisdom of being too much together had been forcibly impressed on me; I discovered that my remarks formed too much ‘copy’ for note-books, and that my friends were in the habit of indiscriminately setting down every word, too often in a perverted sense, and continually taking snap-shots at me, without the usual formula of the photographer, ‘Look pleasant, please!’ On the Congo, it is too hot to stand on an open-air pedestal for long! One _must_ be in ‘undress,’ occasionally; and during such times he is not supposed to be posing for the benefit of Fleet Street! Then, upon the strength of table acquaintance, I found that the young men were apt to become overweening, familiar, and oblivious of etiquette and discipline. From that date, I took to living alone, by which my judgment of my subordinates was in no danger of being biassed by their convivial discourse; and I was preserved from the contempt which too often proceeds from familiarity.

No doubt, I was debarred by this isolation from much that was entertaining and innocent, as well as deprived of that instruction, which simple youngsters of the jolly, and silly, age are prone to impart to their seniors; but that was my loss, not theirs. On the other hand, my opinions of them were not likely to be tinctured by malicious gossip, which is generally outspoken at a dining-table, or in a camp; and I certainly discountenanced grumblers and cavillers. On an African expedition, there often arises a necessity for sudden orders, which must be followed by prompt obedience, and the stern voice and peremptory manner at such times are apt to jar on the nerves of a subaltern, whose jokes were lately received with laughter, unless he be one whose temper is controlled by his judgment.

When a young white officer quits England for the first time, to lead blacks, he has got to learn and unlearn a great deal. All that he knows is his mother-tongue, and the arts of reading, writing, and criticising. In Africa, he finds himself face to face with a new people, of different manners and customs, with whom he cannot exchange a word. He can do nothing for himself; there is no service that he can do with his arms; he cannot even cook his food, or set up his tent, or carry his bed. He has to depend on the black men for everything; but if he has a patient temper and self-control, he can take instruction from those who know the natives, and in many little ways he can make himself useful. If he is fault-finding, proud, and touchy, it will be months before he is worth his salt. In these early days he must undeceive himself as to his merits, and learn that, if he is humoured and petted more than the blacks, it is not because of his white skin, but because of his childish helplessness, and in the hope that when his eighteen months’ apprenticeship is over, he will begin to show that his keep was to some purpose.

We _must_ have white men in Africa; but the raw white is as great a nuisance there during the first year, as a military recruit who never saw a gun till he enlisted. In the second year, he begins to mend; during the third year, if his nature permits it, he has developed into a superior man, whose intelligence may be of transcendent utility for directing masses of inferior men.

I speak from a wide experience of white men whom I have had under me in Africa. One cannot be always expostulating with them, or courting their affection, and soothing their _amour-propre_; but their excessive susceptibility, while their bodies are being harrowed by the stern process of acclimatization, requires great forbearance. It took the officers some months to learn that, when they stood at the head of their companies, and I repeated for the benefit of the natives in their own language the orders already given to them in English, I was not speaking about themselves! By and by, as they picked up a word or two of the native language, they became less suspicious, and were able to distinguish between directness of speech and an affront. I, of course, knew that their followers, whom they had regarded as merely ‘naked niggers,’ were faithful, willing, hard-working creatures, who only wanted fair treatment and good food to make them loveable.

At this early period my officers were possessed with the notion that my manner was ‘hard’ because I had not many compliments for them. That is a kind of pap which we may offer women and boys, but it is not necessary for soldiers and men, unless it is deserved. It is true that, in the Forest, their demeanour was heroic; but I preferred to wait until we were out of it, before telling them my opinion, just as wages are paid after the work is finished, and an epitaph is best written at the close of life. Besides, I thought they were superior natures, and required none of that encouragement, which the more childish blacks almost daily received.

In thinking of my own conduct I am at a disadvantage, as there is no likelihood that I should appear to others as I appeared to myself. I may have been in the habit of giving unmeasured offence each day by my exclusiveness; but I was simply carrying out what African experience had taught me was best. My companions had more to learn from me than I had to learn from them.

For the first eighteen months they messed together; but during the latter half of the journey, they also lived apart, experience having taught them the same lesson as I had learned.

To some, my solitary life might present a cheerless aspect. But it was not so in reality. The physical exercise of the day induced a pleasant sense of fatigue, and my endless occupations were too absorbing and interesting to allow room for baser thoughts. There was a strange poverty about our existence, which could not well be matched anywhere. The climate gave warmth, and so we needed no fuel save for cooking. Our clothing could only be called presentable among naked people! There was water in abundance and to spare, but soap was priceless. Our food consisted of maize meal and bananas, but an English beggar would have disdained to touch it. Our salt was nothing better than pulverised mud.

I was not likely to suffer from colds, catarrh, and pneumonia; but the ague with its differing intensities was always with me. My bedding consisted of a rubber sheet and rug over a pile of leaves or grass. I possessed certain rights of manhood, but only so long as I had the nerve to cause them to be respected. My literature was limited to the Bible, Shakespeare, and a few choice authors, but my mind was not wrung by envy, scandal, disparagement, and unfairness; and my own thoughts and hopes were a perpetual solace.

It is difficult for anyone who has not undergone experiences similar to ours to understand the amount of self-control each had to exercise, for fifteen hours every day, amid such surroundings as ours. The contest between human dispositions, tempers, prejudices, habits, natures, and the necessity for self-command, were very disturbing. The extremest forms of repulsiveness were around us, and dogged us day by day; the everlasting shade was a continued sermon upon decay and mortality; it reeked with the effluvia as of a grave; insects pursued our every movement, with their worries of stings and bites, which frequently ended, because of our anaemic condition, in pimples, sores, and ulcers. Nelson was crippled with twenty-two obstinate ulcers, Jephson’s legs will always bear the blue scars of many a terrible ulcer; and I was seldom free from nausea.

It would be impossible within a limited space to enumerate the annoyances caused by the presence of hundreds of diseased individuals with whom we travelled. Something or other ailed them by scores, daily. Animate and inanimate nature seemed arrayed against us, to test our qualities to the utmost. For my protection against despair and madness, I had to resort to self-forgetfulness; to the interest which my task brought; to the content which I felt that every ounce of energy, and every atom of self had been already given to my duty, and that, no matter what followed, nothing more could be extracted from me. I had my reward in knowing that my comrades were all the time conscious that I did my best, and that I was bound to them by a common sympathy and aims. This encouraged me to give myself up to all neighbourly offices, and was morally fortifying.

The anxieties of providing for the morrow lay heavy on me; for, in the savagest part of Africa, which, unknown to us, had been devastated by Manyuema hordes, we were not sure of being able to obtain anything that was eatable. Then again, the follies and imprudences of my black men were a constant source of anxiety to me, for raw levies of black men are not wiser than raw levies of white men; it requires a calamity to teach both how to live. Not a day passed but the people received instruction, but in an hour it was forgotten. If all had been prudent with their food, we should not have suffered so heavily; but the mutinous hunger of the moment obliterated every thought of the morrow’s wants. How extremely foolish men can be, was exemplified by the series of losses attending ten months of camp-life at Yambuya.[36]

The Advance Column consisted of picked men, sound in health. In a month, however, many had been crippled by skewers in the path, placed there by the aborigines; these perforated their naked feet, some suffering from abrasions, or accidental cuts; others had their feet gashed by the sharp edges of oyster-shells as they waded through the creeks; the effect of rain, dew, damp, fatigue, and scant food, all combined to impoverish the blood and render them more liable to disease. The negligence and heedlessness of some of the men was astonishing: they lost their equipment, rifles, tools, and clothing, as though they were so many somnambulists, and not accountable beings. The officers were unceasing in their exertions, but it would have required an officer for every ten men, and each officer well-fed and in perfect health, to have overseered them properly. The history of the journey proves what stratagems and arts we resorted to each day to check the frightful demoralisation. It was in the aid and assistance given to me at this trying period that my officers so greatly distinguished themselves.

I have frequently been asked as to whether I never despaired during the time when the men were dropping away so fast, and death by starvation seemed so imminent. No, I did not despair; but, as I was not wholly free from morbid thoughts, I may be said to have been on the edge of it, for quite two months. ‘How will all this end?’ was a question that I was compelled to ask myself over and over again; and then my mind would speculate upon our slim chances, and proceed to trace elaborately the process of ruin and death. ‘So many have died to-day, it will be the turn of a few more to-morrow, and a few others the next day, and so on. We shall continue moving on, searching for berries, fungi, wild beans, and edible roots, while the scouts strike far inland to right and left; but, by and by, if we fail to find substantial food, even the scouts must cease their search and will presently pass away. Then the white men, no longer supplied by the share of their pickings, which the brave fellows laid at their tent-doors, must begin the quest of food for themselves; and each will ask, as he picks a berry here and a mushroom there, how it will all end, and when. And while he repeats this dumb self-questioning, little side-shows of familiar scenes will be glanced at. One moment, a friend’s face, pink and contented, will loom before him; or a well-known house, or a street astir with busy life, or a church with its congregation, or a theatre and its bright-faced audience; a tea-table will be remembered, or a drawing-room animate with beauty and happiness,--at least something, out of the full life beyond the distant sea. After a while, exhausted nature will compel him to seek a leafy alcove where he may rest, and where many a vision will come to him of things that have been, until a profound darkness will settle on his senses. Before he is cold, a ‘scout’ will come, then two, then a score, and, finally, myriads of fierce yellow-bodied scavengers, their heads clad in shining horn-mail; and, in a few days, there will only remain a flat layer of rags, at one end of which will be a glistening, white skull. Upon this will fall leaves and twigs, and a rain of powder from the bores in the red wood above, and the tornado will wrench a branch down and shower more leaves, and the gusty blasts will sweep fine humus over it, and there that curious compost begun of the earthly in me will lie to all eternity’!

As I thought of this end, the chief feeling, I think, was one of pity that so much unselfish effort should finish in a heap of nothingness. I should not venture to say that my comrades shared in such thoughts. I could see that they were anxious, and that they would prefer a good loaf of bread to the best sermon; but their faces betrayed no melancholy gravity such as follows morbid speculations. Probably, the four brave young hearts together managed to be more cheerful than I, who was solitary; and thus they were able to cheat their minds out of any disposition to brood.

While, however, one part of my nature dwelt upon stern possibilities, and analysed with painful minuteness the sensations of those who daily perished from hunger, another part of me was excessively defiant, active in invention, fertile in expedients, to extricate the expedition from its impending fate, and was often, for no known reason, exhilarant with prescience of ultimate triumph. One half of me felt quite ready to seek a recess in the woods, when the time would come; the other half was aggressive, and obstinately bent upon not yielding, and unceasingly alert, day and night, in seeking methods to rescue us all. There was no doubt that the time had come to pray and submit, but I still felt rebellious, and determined to try every stratagem to gain food for my people.

The darkest night, however, is followed by dawn; and, by dint of pressing on, we emerged once more, after two months of awful trials, into a land of plenty; but before we could say a final farewell to those Equatorial woods much more had to be endured. Jephson had to retrace his steps, to convey succour to Nelson, who had been left to guard a camp of dying men; and I know not which to admire most, the splendid energy with which Jephson hastened to the help of his poor comrade, along a track strewn with the ghastly relics of humanity, or the strong and patient endurance of Nelson, who, for weeks, was condemned to sit alone amid the dying (at ‘Starvation Camp’).

Then came the turn of Parke and Nelson together, to struggle for months against the worrying band of Manyuema, whose fitful tempers and greed would have made a saint rebel; and Stairs had to return two hundred miles, and escort, all unaided, a long line of convalescents through a country where one hundred and eighty of their fellows had left their bones. This was a feat second to none for the exhibition of the highest qualities that a man can possess.

The true story of those four would make a noble odyssey. While learning the alphabet of African travel, they were open to criticism, as all men must be when they begin a strange work. They winced at a word, and were offended by a glance, and, like restive colts, untried in harness, they lashed and kicked furiously at me and everyone else, at first; but when these men who had been lessoned repeatedly by affliction, and plied so often with distresses, finished their epical experiences of the Great Forest, and issued into the spacious daylight, I certainly was proud of them; for their worth and mettle had been well tried, their sinews were perfectly strong, their hearts beat as one, and their discipline was complete. Each had been compelled to leave behind something that had gathered, in the artificial life of England, over his true self, and he now walked free, and unencumbered, high-hearted, with the stamp of true manhood on him.

Nor was the change less conspicuous in our dark followers. The long marching line was now alive with cheerfulness. Even if one stood aside on a hummock to observe the falling and rising heads, one could see what a lively vigour animated the pace, and how they rose to the toes in their strides. The smallest signal was obeyed by hundreds with a pleasant and beautiful willingness. At the word ‘Halt!’ they came to a

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dead stop on the instant. At ‘Stack loads!’ each dropped his burden in order; at the morning call of ‘Safari!’ there was no skulking; at the midnight alarm, they leapt, as one man, to arms.

We began now to re-date our time. What happened in the Forest was an old, old story, not to be remembered; it was like the story of toddling childhood; it is what happened _after_ the Forest days that they loved to be reminded of! ‘Ah! master,’ they would say, ‘why recall the time when we were “wayingo” (fools, or raw youths)?’

What singular merits we saw in one another now! We could even venture upon a joke, and no one thought of being sullen. We could laugh at a man, and he would not be displeased! Each had set his life upon a cast, stood bravely the hazard of the die, and triumphed! All were at peace, one with another, and a feeling of brotherhood possessed us, which endured throughout the happy aftertime between the Forest and the sea.

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