MASSACRE OF AN ENGLISH EXPEDITION AT NYANZA.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2954, 3 August 1878, Page 3

MASSACRE OF AN ENGLISH EXPEDITION AT NYANZA.

Three or four weeks ago the Church

Missionary . Society received news by telegraph of the murder in A frica of Mr Shergojd Smith and Mr O'Neill, with their party. Tho news is confirmed by the Times of India, which publishes the following letter from its correspondent at Zanzibar, dated March 6th :—" The unfortunate news I have to send you to-day will probably reach your readers before it is known in London, where it is certain to create excitement as the first practical result of Mr Stanley's swashbuckling policy. Two or three days ago Dr. Dirlc, the Political Agent and" Consul General of Zanzibar, received information of the brutal murder of Mr Shergold Smith, late a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and Mr O'Neill, together with nearly the whole of their party. The expedition, it seems, had landed on an island in Lake Victoria Nyanza, where the people were known to be" friendly. As soon,, however, as the news of their arrival was bruited abroad a large gang of natives, belonging to a tribe against whom Stanley, with the British flag flying t before him, had conducted a murderous \panipaign, assembled together and attacked them. The expedition seom to ' hare made no defence, and it is

known that their ammunition was scanty. The whole party were brutally murdered as they stood, only one or two natives escaping to tell tbe tale. Some two years ago a roving correspondent, dating from Aden, described this little missionary enterprise in your columns, and I may recall with melancholy interest one paragraph from that letter:—' The whole party have resolved to make any sacrifice of time and distance rather than stain their sacred mission by a single drop of blood. Even from a mere practical point of view there is a strong necessity for nothing but peaceful measures, if they desire a permanent connecting road to Zanzibar.' Stanley's lawless conduct has, how ever, changed all this. Many of your readers will remember poor Shergold Smith as a naval ' officer of much distinction in the Ashantee campaign. He afterwards came out from England in a little steam .yacht, r the Highland Lassie, which was intended for coast service in connection with the Mombas Mission. At Zanzibar he was joined by O'Neill, an engineer and architect, who was the practical man of the party, and three' or four Europeans, and, engaging the services of an escort of natives, they left for Nyanza last August twelvemonth. Here they were to have been joined by the Rev. 0. T. Wilson, 8.A., of St. Mary's Hall, Oxon, who was the spiritual, as Smith was the lay, leader of the expedition, together with the surgeon, Mr J. Smith, and four other Europeans, who all came out together as far as Aden in the Siam in June* 1876, The mission was started by "An Unprofitable Servant," who anonymoflsty offered £5000 to the Church Missionary Society to organise a permanent settlement at Lake Nyanza-r-an offer that was at once seconded by a number of

zealous people. But the mission may now be considered as over. The first party hare been massacred, Mr Wilson himself is the only survivor of the second party, while the doctor and carpenter both died of fever within a few days of leaving Zanzibar. It is a melancholy end to the eager hopes of of these enthusiastic men, but one that was unhappily foreseen by ererybody who met them here. They had enthusiasm, but they had little besides. The whole of the second party, indeed, were raw and inexperienced young men, without the training, without the knowledge, without the physique to reader such a task as they attempted at all feasible."