Kitabı oku: «Stanley in Africa», sayfa 23
On June 3, he lost his servant, comrade and friend, last of the Europeans, the brave and faithful Frank Pocock. All the boats had been taken from the water and carried past the Massase Falls, except the canoe “Jason,” in which were Pocock, Uledi and eleven others. This had gotten behind on account of Frank’s ulcerated feet. Chafing at the delay he urged Uledi to “shoot the falls,” against the latter’s judgment, and even taunted the crew with cowardice.
“Boys,” cried Uledi, addressing the crew, “our little master is saying that we are afraid of death. I know there is death in the cataract; but come, let us show him that black men fear death as little as white men.”
“A man can die but once!” “Who can contend with his fate?” “Our fate is in the hands of God,” were the various replies of the men.
“You are men,” exclaimed Frank.
The boat was headed for the falls. They were reached, and in another moment the canoe had plunged into the foaming rapid. Spun round like a top in the furious waters, the boat was whirled down to the foaming pit below. Then she was sucked below the surface and anon hurled up again with several men clinging to her, among them Uledi. Presently the form of the “little master” was seen floating on the surface. Uledi swam to him, seized him, and both sunk. When the brave Uledi appeared again he was alone. Poor Pocock’s tragic death was a blow to the whole expedition. Most of the party gave way to superstitious dread of the river and many deserted, but quickly returned, after a trial of the dreary woods.
On June 23, the carpenter of the expedition was swept over the Zinga Falls, in the canoe, “Livingstone,” and drowned. Stanley’s food supply was frequently very short amid the difficulties of Livingstone Falls. Not that there was not plenty on the shores, but his means of buying were exhausted, and such a thing as charity is not common to the African tribes. Even where most friendly, they are always on the lookout for a trade, and a bargain at that. It is a great hardship for them to give, without a consideration.
The appearance of his attendants cut Mr. Stanley to the heart every day – so emaciated, gaunt, and sunken-eyed were they; bent and crippled with weakness who had once been erect and full of manly vigor. And the leader’s condition was no better. Gone now was all the keen ardor for discovery, the burning desire to penetrate where no white man had yet penetrated which animated his heart at the outset of his journey. Sickness that had drained his strength, anxiety that had strained to its utmost pitch the mind, sorrow for loss and bereavement that had wearied the spirit – these had left Mr. Stanley a very different man from that which he was when he set out full of hope and ardor from Zanzibar. All his endeavor now was to push on as fast as possible, to reach the ocean with as little more of pain and death to his followers as possible.
At last Stanley struck a number of intelligent tribes who gave much information about the rest of the river and the coast. There were three great falls still below them, and any number of dangerous rapids. It would be folly to risk them with their frail barks. Moreover, he learned that the town of Boma, on the Atlantic coast, could be reached by easy journeys across the country. His main problem, as to whether the Lualaba and the Congo were the same, had long since been solved. He had been following the Congo all the time, had seen its splendid forests and mighty affluents, its dashing rapids and bewildering whirlpools and falls, had even, through the spectacles of Livingstone, seen its head waters in Lake Bangweolo, amid whose marshes the veteran explorer laid down his life.
What need then to risk life further at this time, and in his very poor condition. He resolved to leave the river and make direct for the coast at Boma. When he assembled his followers to make this welcome announcement to them, they were overcome with joy. Poor Safeni, coxswain of the “Lady Alice,” went mad with rapture and fled into the forest. Three days were spent in searching for him, but he was never seen more.
Relinquishing his boat and all unnecessary equipage at the cataract of Isangila, the party struck for Boma, but only to give out entirely when still three days distant. A messenger was sent in advance for aid. He came back in two days with a strong band of carriers and abundance of food. The perishing party was thus saved, and was soon receiving the care of the good people of Boma. Here all forgot their toils and perils amid civilized comforts and the pardonable pride aroused by their achievements. Stanley’s exploit is unparalleled in the history of African adventure. Though not the first to cross the Continent, he hewed an unknown way and every step was a startling revelation. He did more to unravel African mysteries and settle geographic problems than any other explorer.
And, August 12, 1877, three years after his start from Zanzibar on the Indian Ocean, and eight months after setting out from Nyangwe to follow the Lualaba, he stood on the Atlantic shores at Boma and gazed on the mouth of the Congo, whose waters shot an unmixed current fifty miles out to sea. Though he had proved it to be so, he could still hardly believe that this vast flood pouring 2,000,000 cubic feet of water a second into the ocean, through a channel ten miles wide and 1300 feet deep, was the same that he had followed through wood and morass, rapid and cataract, rock bound channel and wide expanse, for so long a time, and that it was the same which Diego Cam discovered by its color and reedy track four hundred years before, while sailing the ocean out of sight of land.
In the journey of 7200 miles, one hundred and fourteen of Stanley’s original party had perished. Many had fallen in battle or by treachery, more were the victims of disease, and some had succumbed to toil or been “washed down by the gulfs.” But a goodly remnant survived. These were returned, according to contract, to their Zanzibar home. Stanley went with them by steamer around the Cape of Good Hope.
It needs not to tell the joy with which the people again beheld their home; how they leaped ashore from the boat; how their friends rushed down to the beach to welcome back the wanderers; how wives and husbands, children and parents, “literally leaped into each other’s arms,” while “with weeping and with laughter” the wonderful story of the long and terrible journey is told to the eager listeners.
Stanley, having paid his followers in full, according to the terms of his contract, and rewarded some over and above their lawful claims, so that not a few of the men were able to purchase neat little houses and gardens with their savings, prepared to quit Zanzibar forever.
The scene on the beach on the day of Stanley’s departure was a strange and an affecting one. The people of the expedition pressed eagerly around him, wrung his hand again and again, and finally, lifting him upon their shoulders, carried him through the surf to his boat. Then the men, headed by Uledi the coxswain, manned a lighter and followed Mr. Stanley’s boat to the steamer, and there bade their leader a last farewell.
Stanley’s own feelings at this moment were no less keen. As the steamer which bore him home left the shore of Zanzibar behind, his thoughts were busy with the past; he was living once again in retrospect the three strange, eventful years, during which these simple black people had followed him with a fidelity at once simple and noble, childlike and heroic. For him, his comrades in travel through the Dark Continent must ever remain heroes; for it was their obedient and loyal aid that had enabled him to bring his expedition to a successful and noble issue, to accomplish each of the three tasks he had set himself to do, – the exploration of the great Victoria Nyanza Lake, the circumnavigation of Tanganyika, and the identification of Livingstone’s Lualaba River with the Congo.
Ever since this memorable journey, Mr. Stanley has been enthusiastically working to found a great Congo free Government and commercial empire, which all the nations shall recognize and to which all shall contribute. He has projected a steamer system, of heavy draught vessels, from the mouth of the river to the first cataracts. Here a commercial emporium is to be founded. A railway is to start thence and lead to the smooth waters above. This would open 7000 miles of navigable waters on the Upper Congo and a trade of $50,000,000 a year. It would redeem one of the largest fertile tracts of land on the globe and bring peace, prosperity and civilization to millions of human beings. Only climate seems to be against his plans, for it is undoubtedly hostile to Europeans. But if native energies can be enlisted sufficiently to make a permanent ground work for his ideal state, he may yet rank not only as the greatest of discoverers but as the foremost of statesmen and humanitarians. The possibilities of the Congo region are boundless.
A missionary just returned from the Congo country thus writes of it:
“The bounds of this ‘Congo Free State’ are not yet defined, but they will ultimately embrace the main stream and its immense system of navigable tributaries, some of which are 800 miles long. The Congo itself waters a country more than 900 miles square, or an area of 1,000,000 square miles. These rivers make access to Equatorial Africa and to the Soudan country quite easy.
“The resources of this fine region are exhaustless. The forests are dense and valuable. Their rubber wealth is untouched, and equal to the world’s supply. Everywhere there is a vast amount of ivory, which lies unused or is turned into the commonest utensils by the natives. There are palms which yield oil, plantains, bananas, maize, tobacco, peanuts, yams, wild coffee, and soil equal to any in the world for fertility. Europeans must guard against the climate, but it is possible to get enured to it, with care. In the day-time the temperature averages 90° the year round, but the average of the night temperature is 70° to 75°. Rain falls frequently, and mostly in the night. The natives are hostile, only where they have suffered from invasion by Arab slave dealers.
“Already there are some 3000 white settlers in the heart of the Congo country – Portuguese, English, Belgians, Dutch, Scandinavians and Americans, and their influence is being felt for good. The completion of Stanley’s railroad around the Congo rapids will give fresh impetus to civilization and lay the basis of permanent institutions in this great country.”
THE CAPE OF STORMS
The little Portuguese ship of Bartholomew Diaz was the first to round the “Cape of Storms” in 1486. When King John II. of Portugal, heard of his success he said it should thereafter be called Cape of Good Hope. The passage of this southermost point of Africa meant a route to India, on which all hearts were set at the time.
Nearly two hundred years later, in 1652, the Dutch settled at the Cape. They called the Quaique, or natives, Hottentots – from the repetition of one of the words used in their dances.
The Colony became a favorite place for banished Huguenots – from France and Peidmont. It grew, got to be strong, and at length tyrannical. The more liberal members left it and pushed into the interior, where they drove back the Kaffirs, and redeemed much valuable territory. The parent Colony tried to force its government on these pioneers, who were called “Boers” – the Dutch word for “farmers.” A rebellion ensued. The Prince of Orange asked England to help suppress it (1795). She did so, and with characteristic greed, kept it till 1803. It then passed to the Dutch, but was retaken by England in 1806.
Settlement marched rapidly up the eastern coast of Africa, and a great agricultural section was opened. The Kaffir tribes protested and five fierce wars were fought, with the loss of all Kaffraria to the natives. The Boers were never reconciled to British authority. They murmured, rebelled, and kept migrating northward, till north of the Orange River they founded the Natal, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal Republic.
The high promontory of Cape of Good Hope – Table Mountain – is visible a long distance from the sea, owing to the dry, light atmosphere. On its spurs are many ruins of block-houses, used by the early settlers. Over it, at times, hangs a veil of cloud, called the “Table Cloth,” which, when dispersed by the sun, the inhabitants say is put away for future use.
The town of Cape Colony, or Cape Town, is now perfectly modern, and very pretty. It was here that the great missionary Robert Moffat began his African career in 1816; here that Pringle started to found his ideal town Glen Lynden.
In 1867 all Cape Colony was thrown into excitement by the discovery that diamond fields existed inland near the Kalihari Desert. There was a rush like that in our own country in 1849 when gold was discovered in California. Exaggerated stories of finds of diamonds by natives, valued at $50,000 a piece, were eagerly listened to, and in a few weeks there was a population of 10,000 in a hitherto unknown region, with the road thither, for hundreds of miles, literally alive with wagons, oxen, pack mules and footmen.
The diamond territory is Griqualand, on the headwaters of the Orange and Vaal Rivers and close to the desert – partly in it. The region is 16,000 square miles in extent and 3000 feet above the ocean. In the diamond fields the diamonds are found in the sand by washing. This is the native method of getting them, and also that adopted by thousands of people who have no capital.
But it was soon found that they could be had in larger numbers and of greater size and purity by digging. This brought capital, machinery, and regular mining tracts, called “Claims.”
At first the mining towns were made up of tents, filled with a mixed people, toiling willingly all day, and dancing, gambling, drinking and rioting at night. At one time there were 60,000 persons in these diamond fields, but now not more than 40,000.
The Kimberley mine is the favorite. It has been excavated to a depth of 250 feet and has proved very rich. It is now surrounded by quite a town, and the people – mostly native diggers – are orderly and industrious. The diggers delve with spade and pick in the deep recesses of the mine, and the sand, rock and earth are pulled to the surface in buckets, where they are sorted, sieved, and closely examined for diamonds.
Formerly the “claims” sold for fabulous prices. Many, only thirty by sixteen feet, brought $100,000. And some rare finds have been made. The great diamond, found a few years ago, and called the “Star of South Africa,” was sold, before cutting, for $55,000. And while we are writing, one is undergoing the process of cutting in Paris which is a true wonder. It arrived from South Africa in August, 1884, and was purchased by a syndicate of London and Paris diamond merchants. It weighs in the rough 457 carats and will dress to 200 carats. The great Koh-i-noor, weighs only 106 carats, the Regent of France 1363⁄4 carats, the Star of South Africa 125 carats, the Piggott 821⁄4 carats, and the Great Mogul 279 carats. But the latter is a lumpy stone, and if dressed to proper proportions, would not weigh over 140 carats.
The Kaffraria country, lying between Cape Colony and Natal, is rich in beautiful scenery and abounds in animal life. While the larger animals, as the elephant and lion, have retreated inland, there are still many beasts of prey, and the forests have not given over their troops of chattering baboons. Its greatest scourge is periodical visits of immense flights of locusts, which destroy all vegetation wherever they light. The natives make them into cakes and consider them a great delicacy. These natives are a brave, fine people, and have been conquered and held with difficulty. As they yield to civilization they make an industrious and attractive society.
Natal was so named, in honor of our Saviour, more than 300 years ago by Vasco de Gama. It was the centre of the Zulu tribes, whom King Charka formed into an all-conquering army, until the invasion of the country by the Boers. It became a British colony in 1843, and has been held with the greatest difficulty, for the Zulu warriors showed a bravery and method in their warfare which made them formidable enemies even against forces with superior arms and discipline. It was in the English wars with the Zulus that the Prince Imperial, of France, lost his life. A writer describes the Zulus “as a race of the most handsome and manly people found among savages; tall, muscular, and of remarkable symmetry, beauty and strength. Their carriage is upright, and among the chiefs, majestic.”
The Drackenberg Mountains, many of whose peaks are 10,000 feet high, shut off Natal from the Transvaal Republic. This Transvaal region was, as already seen, redeemed from the natives by the Boers, who are mostly devoted to farming, but many to a pastoral life like that of the old patriarchs, living in wagons or tents and leading, or rather following, about immense herds of cattle and sheep. They are a hardy, strong, brave people, and in subduing them and annexing their beautiful and fertile country, it is very doubtful whether Great Britain has done herself credit or humanity benefit. Boers may not be all that modern civilization could desire. In their contact with the natives they may have retrograded to a certain extent. But it is very probable they have made larger and more beneficial conquests over nature than any other more highly endowed and uncompromising people could have done in the same length of time. There is hardly a product of the soil that does not grow in the Transvaal – corn, tobacco, apricots, figs, oranges, peaches – two and sometimes three crops a year. It is finely watered with noble mountain streams, and is rich in iron, tin, copper, lead, coal and gold. The capital, Pretoria, is the centre of a rich trade in ostrich feathers.
Ostrich farming is a large industry in these South African States. Farmers buy and sell these animals like cattle. They fence them in, stable them, tend them, grow crops for them, study their habits, and cut their precious feathers, all as a matter of strict business. The animals begin to yield feathers at eight months old, and each year they grow more valuable. They are nipped or cut off, not plucked. The ostrich feather trade of South Africa is of the value of $1,000,000 a year. The birds are innocent and stupid looking, but can attack with great ferocity, and strike very powerfully with their feet. The only safe posture under attack by them is to lie down. They then can only trample on you.
The Transvaal region is a paradise for hunters. The elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, buffalo, giraffe, zebra, springbok, gnu, lion, and indeed every African animal, finds a home amid its deep woody recesses and sparkling waters. As he entered its borders from the desert, Pinto’s camp was attacked by two lions, who scented his desert pony and herd of cattle. The natives became demoralized, and Pinto himself could do little toward saving his property on account of the darkness. Fortunately he got his hand on a dark lantern, in which was a splendid calcium light. Placing this in the hand of a native, he ordered him to go as near to the growling intruders as was safe, Pinto following with a double-barreled rifle. The glare of the light was then turned full in the faces of the beasts. They were dazed by it, and cowered for a moment. That moment was fatal. Pinto gave both a mortal wound and saved his cattle. And it was here that Cummings lost one of his guides, who was pounced upon by a lion as he lay asleep before a camp fire. Here also Lieutenant Moodie and his party got the ill-will of a herd of elephants, which charged upon them and gave furious chase, knocking the Lieutenant down and tramping him nearly to death. One of his companions was killed outright by the charging beasts and his body tossed angrily into the jungle with their tusks.
But the finest sport is hunting the buffalo. He is stealthy, cunning and swift. It requires a long shot or a quick ingenious chase to bag him. He never knows when he is beaten and will continue to charge and fight though riddled with bullets or pierced with many lances. Gillmore was once intent on an elephant track when suddenly his party was charged by five buffaloes. His horse saved him by a tremendous leap to one side, but one of his attendants was tossed ten feet in the air, and another landed amid the branches of a tree, one of which he fortunately caught.
