STANLEY’S STORY.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 229, 22 March 1928, Page 3

STANLEY’S STORY.

FINDING DR. LIVINGSTONE. Present-day Search Parallel. The expedition into South America to rescue Colonel P. H. Fawcett, to be led by Commander George M. Dyott, recalls a similar mission in 1871, when a journalist, Henry M. Stanley, commissioned by James Gordon Bennett; of the New York Herald, went into Darkest Africa to find Dr David Livingstone, the British explorer, who sought the watersheds of the Nile. Dr Livingstone had been missing for two years, and had been given up for dead. Portions of Stanley’s own account of his expedition are related here. On 16th October, 1869, I am in Madrid, fresh from the carnage at Valencia. At 10 a.m. I am handed a telegram which reads: “ Come to Paris on important business.” The telegram is from James Gordon Bennett, Junr., the young manager of the New York Herald.

Arrived in Paris, I went directly to the Grand Hotel, and knocked at the door of Mr Bennetts’ room. “ Come in,” I heard a voice say. Entering, I found Br Bennett in bed. “Who are you?” he asked. “ My name is Stanley,” I answered. “ Ah, yes. Sit down; have important business on hand for you.” After throwing a wrap over his shoulders, Mr Bennett asked: “ Where do you think Livingstone is ? ” “ I really do not know, sir.” “ Well, I think he is alive, and that he can be found, and I am going to send you to find him! I mean that you shall go and find him wherever you may hear that he is, and get what news you can of him.” On 12th October, 1870, I sailed from Bombay. On board was a William Lawrence Farquhar - hailing from Leith, Scotland—in the capacity of first mate. He was an excellent navigator, and, thinking he might be useful, I employed him; his pay to begin when we should leave Zanzibar for Bagamoyo. The acting British consul and political resident at Zanzibar when I was preparing my expedition for the African interior was Dr John Kirk. I imagined that if I could obtain positive information from any person regarding Dr Livingstone I should be able to procure it from him. DOTS ON MAP. “ Well, really,” said Dr Kirk, “ it is very difficult; he may be dead. Of one thing I am sure: nobody has heard anything definite of him for over two years. I should fancy, though, he must be still alive. . We are continually sending something up for him. There is a small expedition at Dagamoyo to start shortly. I really think the old man should come home now; he is growing old, you know, and if he died the world would lose the benefit of his discoveries. He keeps neither notes nor journals; it is very seldom that he takes observations. He simply makes a note or dot, or something, on a map, which nobody could understand but himself.”

I was totally ignorant of the in-

orior, and it was difficult at first to know what I needed, but by 4th February, 28 days from the date of my arrival at Zanzibar, the equipment of the New York Herald expedition was complete. On 21st March, exactly 73 days after my arrival at Zanzibar, the fifth caravan, led by myself, left Bagamoyo for our first journey westward. As the kirangozi unrolled the American flag and put himself at the head of the caravan, and the pagazis, animals, soldiers, and idlers (44 in all) lined for the march, we bade a long farewell to civilised life. SWAMP AND JUNGLE. The road, through sandy, fertile plains, swamp, and jungle, was a mere footpath, and the route- was never traversed by a white man previously. The distance from Bagamoyo to Simbamwenni we found to be 191 miles, and this was accomplished in fourteen marches. Kwihara, Friday, 11th August, 1871. —Arrived to-day from Zimbili, village of Bomboma’s. I am quite disappointed and almost disheartened. My wsition is most serious. I have I have a good excuse for returning to the coast, but my conscience will not permit me to do so, after so much money has been expended and so much confidence has been placed in me. . . . have only 13 men left.

I have over 100 loads in the storeroom. Livingstone’s caravan is also here. If Livignstone is at Ujiji he is now locked up, with small means of escape. I may also consider myself also locked up at Unyanyembe, and suppose I cannot go to Ujiji until this war with Mirambo is settled.

Sept. 15.—The third month of my residence in Unyanyembe is almost finished. I hope to be gone before the 23rd.

Sept. 16.—We have almost finished our preparations. On the fifth day from this, God willing, we shall march.

Monday, 2nd October, found us traversing the forest and plain that extend from Ziwani to Many? .a. While we were striding forward at the rate of nearly three miles an hour the caravan sheered off from the road, returning to it about 50 yards ahead of some object in the path. On coming ap I found it to be the dead body of a man who had fallen vict.m to the fearful scourge of Africa—smallpox. He was one of Oseto’s gang of guerrillas. He had apparently been only one day dead. It is a frequent thing with us to discover a skeleton or a skull in the road. Almost every day we saw one, sometimes two. About 10 a.m. on 3rd November there apepared from the direction of Ujiji a caravan of 80 Waguhha, a tribe which occupies a tract of country on the south-western side of Lake Tanganyika. We asked the news, and were told that a white man had just arrived at Ujiji from Manyuema. This news startled us all. “ A white man ? ” we asked. “ Yes, a white man,” they replied. “How is he dressed?” “ Like the master,” they said, indicating me.

“ Is he young or old ? ” “He is old. He has white hair on the face, and is sick.” “ Was he ever at Ujiji before?” “ Yes; he went away a long time

ago.” This must be Livingstone. I addressed my men and asked them if they were willing to march to Ujiji without a single halt. All answered in the affirmative, almost as much rejoiced as I was myself. Nov. 10, Friday.—The two hundred and thirty-sixth day from Bagamoyo and the fifty-first from Unyanyembe. General direction to Ujiji. west by south. I am warned to prepare for a view of the Tanganyika. An immense broad sheet, a burnished bed of silver, canopy of blue above, lofty mountains are its valances, palm forests form its fringes. The Tanganyika—hurrah ! The men respond to the exultat cry of the Anglo-Saxon with the lungs of Stentors, and the echoes of the great hill forests s>>*re in our triumph. The port of Ujiji is below us, only 500 yards away. “ Unfurl the flags and lead your guns.” “ One, two, three—fire ! ” SALUTE VOLLEYS. A volley from nearly 50 guns roars like a salute from a battery of artillery. Our volley had the desired effect, and the people were seen running out in hundreds to meet us. There were cries of “ Binders Kisunga ” —a white man’s flag ! “ Binders Merikani ” —the American flag ! “ Good morning, sir 1 ” Starting at hearing this greeting in the midst of a crowd of black people, I turned sharply to a man with the blackest of faces, but animated and joyous—a man dressed in a long white shirt, with a turban of American sheeting around his woolly head, and I ask: “ Who the mischief are you?” “ I am Susi, the servant of Dr Livingstone,” he said, smiling, and showing a gleaming row of teeth. “ Is Dr Livingstone here ? ” “Yes, sir.” “ And is the doctor well?” “ Not very well, sir.”

The head of the expedition had halted, and the kirangozi was out of the ranks holding the flag aloft. Selim said to me:

“ I see the doctor. What an old man ! He has a white beard.” THE WHITE MEN MEET.

I walked down a living avenue of people until I came in front of a semi-circle of Arabs, in front of which stood the white man with the grey beard. As I advanced slowly toward him I noticed he was pale, looked weary, wore a bluish cap with a faded gold band around it, had on a redsleeved waistcoat and a pair of grey tweed trousers. I walked deliberately to him, took off my hat, and said: “ Dr Livingstone, I presume?” “ Yes,” he said, with a kind smile, lifting his cap slightly. I replaced my hat on my head, and we both grasped hands, and then I said aloud:

“ I thank God, doctor, I have been permitted to see you.” He answered: “ I feel thankful that I am here to welcome you.” We were seated, Dr Livingstone and I, with our backs to the wall. More than 1000 natives are in our front, filling the whole square densely, indulging their curiosity and discussing the meeting of two white men in Ujiji. I called one of the soldiers to give Dr Livingstone the letter bag entrusted to him by Dr Kirk. This was the famous mail sack marked “ November 1, 1870,” now delivered in the doctor’s hands 365 days after it left Zanzibar. The doctor kept the letter bag on his knee, looked at the letters, and read one or two of his children’s letters, his face in the meanwhile lighting up. He asked me to tell him the news.

Shortly I found myself enacting the

part of an annual periodical to him. The Pacific railroad had been completed; Grant had been elected President of the United States; Egypt had been flooded with savants; the Cretan rebellion ha dterminated; a Spanish revolution had driven Isabella from the throne, and a regent had been appointed; General Prime was assassinated; a Castelar had electrified Europe with the advanced ideas upon the liberty of worship; Prussia had humbled Denmark and annexed Schelswig-Holstein, and her armies were now round Paris; the “ man of desti._y ” was a prisoner at Wilhelmshohe; the queen of faslion had terminated; a Spanish revofugitive; and the child born in the purple had lost forever the imperial crown intended for his head; the Napoleon dynasty was extinguished by the Prussians, Bismarck and Von Moltke; and France, the proud empire, was humbled to the dust. What a budget of news it was to one who had emerged from the primeval jungles of Manyuema ! Dr Livingstone’s acknowledgment of his rescue by Stanle. was made in a letter to Mr Bennett. This letter said in part: “ I am as cold and non-demonstrat-ive as we islanders are usually said to be; but your kindness made my frame thrill, and I said in my soul: ‘ Let the richest blessing descend from the Highest on you and yours ! ’ “ The news Mr Stanley had to tell was thrilling . . . and many topics riveted my attention for days together, and had an immediate and beneficial effect on my health. And if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should lead to the suppression of the east coast slave trade I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than tl.e discovery of all the Nile sources together. Now that you (in America) have done with domestic slavery forever, lend us your powerful aid toward this great project.” Recent cablegrams say that Colonel Fawcett (mentioned at the head of the above interesting narrative) is at present held prisoner by a savage ndian tribe. It is asserted that natives informed a special emissary that Colonel Fawcett was captured at the head of the Dasmortes River. He has met the same fate as other explorers who have previously penetrated into that region.