STANLEY'S FOREST MARCH.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2650, 6 July 1889, Page 6 (Supplement)

STANLEY'S FOREST MARCH.

EMIN PASHA AS AN INDEPENDENT MONARCH.

Tn u Spectator of April 6th comments as follows on Stanley's letter giving an account of his march through the trackless African forest Time, incessant exploration in the Dark Continent, and the habit of command have developed Henry Stanley, originally something of an adventurer, into a true hero. It is dillicult to conceivc of a narrative which would rouse English enthusiasm for its author more strongly than his story of his marvellous march from the Congo to the Albert Nyan/.a, through a forest one-fifth larger than France (240,000 square miles), the description of which recalls nothing so much as Gustave Dore's illustrations to Dante's ' Inferno,' Stanley began his march from Yainboys, on the Arinvhimi, on June 28th, 1887, with three European lieutenants and 3S(j black followers ; and after a journey of (i t days, harrasscd and impeded, but not interrupted, by incessant attacks from the negro tribes on his road, who did everything savage man may do to drive him back, entered the ' continuous, unbroken, compact forest,' five times the size of England, which Stanley himself thus described:—'Take a thick Scottish copse, dripping with rain ; imagine this copse to be mere undergrowth, nourished under the impenetrable shade of ancient trees, ranging from 100 feet to ISO feet high ; briars and thorn abundant; lazy creeks meandering through the depths of the jungle, and sometimes a deep aflluent of a great river. Imagine this forest and jungle in all stages of decay and growth—old trees falling, leaning perilously over, fallen prostrate; and the insects of all kinds, sizes, and colours, murmuring around ; monkeys and chimpanzees above, queer noises of birds and animals, crashes in the jungle as troops of elephants rush away ; dwarfs with poisoned arrows securely hidden behind some buttress or in sonic dark recess ; strong brown-bodied aborigines, with terribly sharp spears, standing poised, still as dead stumps ; rain pattering down on you every other day in the year, an imptira atmosphere, with its dread consequences, fever and dysentery ; gloom throughout the day, and darkness almost palpable through the night; and then imagine such a forest extending the entire distance from Plymouth to Peterhead.' The underwood is so matted, that progress is only made possible by cutting, and the little army of half savage but obedient men could advance only at the rate of less than three miles a day. Tho few clearing's had been devastated by Arab .slave stealers; there was nothing to eat but ' wild fruit, fungi, and a largo I'cati-shaped nut,'a diet barely sufficient for monkeys; the water must have been horrible, though no lack of it is mentioned, tho men dropped daiiy from exhaustion or sickness, more than 200 died or deserted, aud the remainder became so mutinous that twice Stanley was compelled, in order to save thorn and himself, to enforce capital sentences ; aud still the indomitable loader, confident in his knowledge and himself, tramped steadily on. That awful march, hardly equalled, wo believe, in its circumstances of horror sinco the world began, lasted more than five months, during which Henry Stanley and his whito lieutenants, protected only by their superiority of race and brain power 1 dragged '—it is his own word—tho ncirro followers along, until at last, on November 12, after IGO days of hunger and misery, during which the whito chief never lost his hope, or changed his tone, or ceased to promise that lie would reach tho lake, the survivors of the march, some 150 skeletons, emerged on a rich grass plain full of cattle and comfort, and bewail to grow fat." After referring to Emin Pasha's determination to remain at his post, our contemporary continues :—•" Indeed, that remarkable personage, tho most unique figure even among t.lio adventurers who have from time to time attained power in Africa aud Asia, has hardly a motive for turning. Originally a German Jew, devoted to science and investigation, he lias become in isrlity an independent sovereign, and having turned Mussulman, he rules the great region entrusted to him with absolute authority. His 1300 black regulars have settled and married in the land, aud will never, he says, return to Egypt by their own consent. He himself livas like an Asiatic, which, 110 doubt, by blood he is; and he has formed a negro army so well disciplined that it has defeated even the frantic soldiers sent from Khartoum. He has herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, ilia supplies of grain are more than ample, and he is accumulating a stock of ivory which, if the road to the northward over opens, may bring him great wealth, in the European sense. He is an African sovereign, and as his authority consolidates itself, and that of the Mahdi dies away under the blows it has sustained from the westward, he may hope to stretch his dominion from the Albert Nyauza northward to Khartoum. Having renounced Judaism, and quitted civilisation for years, he can be little tempted to quit that position, and return to the iess varied life of an almost penniless student of natural history in Berlin. There is no reason to doubt his statement tiiat lie will never desert his followers, aud that if he leaves his kingdom he will carry with him 8000 souls, thousands of thei-i women and children. To march southwards with that civalcadc, through the awful Forrest of the Aruwhiini to the C"ni:o, or eastward to the Zanzibar coast, would be a desperate attempt; nor is tle re anything to be expected from the settlement which, if lie retreats, he must foi in in some new region, to draw him from the banks of the Nile, where he is a prince, and whence he may in time communicate easily with Germany by tho Suakim route. European journalists, in discussing such a personage, arc apt to assume that a cultivated European must always be longing for Europe; atr.l this was elcarly Stanley's own idea ; but wo doubt if that is always the case. Almost all Europeans detest tho tropics ; but every now and then, in India, in Cambodia, in China, and in tropical America a European is to be found whom nothing would induce to return to tho tamer life of Europe, and who finds in the society of the inferior races a never-ending charm. A naturalist has always occupation for all strong minds, and Emin Pasha, though, if we may trust a biography which has every sign of truth, lie has joined tho long list of renegades from a higher to a lower faith—for though Judaism is not Christianity, it is a loftier faith than Islam — may feci that in partly civilising a great African Kingdom, he is doing a great work. That is the impression we derive from his own account in the latest letters published, and thero is no reason why it should not bo true. Wo aro not all alike, or all convinced that 50 years of Europe is better than a cycle of Cathay: and to found a dynasty on tho Upper Nile may seem to Emin Pasha far more attractive work than to lecture in a university which has forgotten him, on tropical beasts and birds. Anyhow, he had, when Stanley left him, elected to stay where is, one of the most, noteworthy figures which even this ago of separate personages has produced. S"v/ii>ts are common enough, and Hurtmls with a love of exploration; but the adventurer who obtains a crown, or the power of a crowned head over a defined territory, is rare. Our countrymen are everywhere, but wo have had in the half-century only ono Rajah Brooke, and it is his career, after all, which that of Sullan Sehnit/ler most resembles."