News of Stanley

Feilding Star, Volume X, Issue 115, 4 April 1889, Page 2

News of Stanley

By, Electric TelegTapD.^Oopyright. LP^B united. r&km^aßGcipciqtt.l 1 : •■. iiONfcori; A^tfl 3.

A lett er received from Stanley' describes the horrors of the passage through the forests and swamps in '.'search . of Emm Bey,' lwhich occupied six months instead of a fortnight as was anticipated. ...Both the forests and swamps were' infe&fced with. •-,

dwarfs with poisoned arrows, and fierce, tall aborigines, armed, with spears. .They had also to contend against wild beasts and vonomous insects. Eever -wa> rampant among his ..followers, . and at .times they were : tarea'tened . wiiih famine. On emerging on to the grass plains the expedition behaved as if mad with joy. Between Ituri and Lake Albert Nyanza, •there was incessant jfighting between Stanley's followers and the hostile natives. All tln'3 time the members of the expedition were living on fungi and nuts, and. nearly all were reduced to skeletons and almost naked. Many deaths occurred, and a large number of bis Arab followers deserted him. The land over which the expedition passed was a horrible wilderness until reaching Ituria, where supplies, were obtained in abundance. ' Stanley spent 26 days with Emm Bey, whom heleft on June 11th on his return journey, and sixty days later Major Bartellot's expedition. It was ascertained that 200 of Major Bartellofc's followers had perished from exhaustion or want of food, and those who had survived were mere scarecrows. The latter had endured sufferings almost indescribable. In this letter. Stanley says that Emm Bey, being in tfoubt as to whether it was possible to remove 10,000 women and children attached to his camp, had determined- to remain where he is. Stanley expected to rejoin Emm Bey on December 10 when he hoped to say a last farewell to Congo and ita forests.- ■■ ;;