Stanley in Africa

The only exception to this principle shall be in cases in connection with the transport of articles intended for a belligerent, and held, in accordance with the laws of nations, to be contraband of war.

CHAPTER VI

DECLARATION RELATIVE TO THE ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS FOR NEW ANNEXATIONS ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT TO BE CONSIDERED EFFECTIVE

Article XXXIV

The Power, which in future takes possession of a territory on the coast of the African Continent, situated outside of its actual possessions, or which, having none there, has first acquired them, and the power which assumes a protectorate, shall accompany either act by a notification addressed to the other Powers signatory to the present Act, so as to enable them to protest against the same, if there exist any grounds for their doing so.

Article XXXV

The Powers signatory to the present Act, recognize the obligation to insure in the territories occupied by them on the coasts of the African Continent, the existence of an adequate authority to enforce respect for acquired rights, and for freedom of trade and transit wherever stipulated.

CHAPTER VII

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Article XXXVI

The Powers signatory to the present general Act reserve to themselves the right of eventually, by mutual agreement, introducing therein modifications or improvements, the utility of which has been shown by experience.

Article XXXVII

The Powers who may not have signed the present Act shall accept its provisions by a separate Act.

The adhesion of each Power shall be notified in the usual diplomatic manner to the Government of the German Empire, and by it to those of all the signatory and adherent States.

The adhesion shall imply the full right of acceptance of all the obligations, and admission to all the advantages stipulated for in the present general Act.

Article XXXVIII

The present general Act shall be ratified with as short a delay as possible, and in no case shall that delay exceed a year.

It shall come into force for each Power on the date of its ratification by that Power.

Meanwhile the Powers signatory to the present Act bind themselves to adopt no measure that shall be contrary to the provisions of the said Act.

Each Power shall send its ratification to the Government of the German Empire, which undertakes to ratify the same to all the signatory Powers of the present general Act.

The ratifications of all the Powers shall remain deposited in the archives of the Government of the German Empire. When all the ratifications shall have been produced, a deed of deposit shall be drawn up in a protocol, which shall be signed by the Representatives of all the Powers that have taken part in the Berlin Conference, and a certified copy of it shall be sent to each of those Powers.

In consideration of which, the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed the present general Act, and hereto affix their seals.

Done at Berlin, February 26th, 1885.

Inasmuch as the Congo Free State starts with the sanction of all the leading powers of civilization, it assumes a dignity, at its very inception, which attaches to no other African dynasty. It is, or ought to be, beyond those jealousies which have torn, and are tearing, other possessions in Africa to pieces, and retarding their colonization and development. Further, the terms of its creation ought to assure it the united sympathy and combined energy of its patrons and founders, and these ought to be invincible within its magnificent boundaries for overcoming every obstacle to permanent sovereignty and commercial, industrial and moral development.

But the spirit of comity, which has made a Congo Free State possible, might as well have rescued Equatorial Africa, from ocean to ocean, from the rapacious grasp of the jealous and contending powers of Europe. True, something like a free belt has been recognized, extending to within a few miles of the Eastern coast, and intended to secure an outlet for products which can be more advantageously marketed in that direction; yet this is of no avail against projects designed to appropriate and control, politically and commercially, the immense sweep of country between the Congo Free State and Indian Ocean; it is rather an incentive to these powers to make haste in their work of appropriation and reduction, and they are at it with an earnestness which savors of the days when two Americas furnished the flesh for picking, and the bone for angry contention. Great Britain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, are in clash about East African areas, protectorates, sovereignties, commercial interests, with the likelihood of further trouble, and such deep complications as arms only can simplify and relieve.

Looking but a little into the future, one can catch a glimpse of the fate in store for East Africa. It is to be the grand political offset to the Congo Free State. This has been resolved upon by Great Britain, and its outlines are already mapped in her foreign policy. As matters stand, there is nothing to prevent the consummation of her designs. She has virtual possession of the Eastern coast from Cape Colony to the mouth of the Zambezi. She has Egypt in her grasp, which means the Nile valley from Alexandria to the head lakes, Victoria, Albert and Edward Nyanza, with their drainage systems.

On the ocean side the power of the Sultan has been already limited to Zanzibar and adjacent islands, and it is now like the last flicker of a wasted candle. On the Zambezi, and north of it, up the Shire to Lake Nyassa, come the claims of Portugal. Portugal is weak, and a poor colonizer at that. She can be ousted by diplomacy or sat down upon by force. The German and Italian interests will eventually blend with those of Great Britain, or shape themselves into well-defined states, pledged to peace and anxious to be let alone.

England is well equipped for this gigantic undertaking. She has an extensive South African and Egyptian experience. She has her experience in India, which she need but repeat in Africa to realize her dreams, or at least achieve more than would be possible with any other power. And then India is over-populated. It might be that thousands, perhaps millions, of her people would swarm to African shores, where they would find a climate not unlike their own, and resources which they could turn to ready account. At any rate, England could enlist in India an army for the occupation of East Africa. Her Indian contingent in Egypt answered an excellent purpose, and redeemed the otherwise fatal campaign toward Khartoum.

The business of establishing an internal economy in this new empire is easier for Great Britain than any other country. Her prestige means as much with native tribes as with the petty sovereignties of Europe, or the islands of the Pacific. Her shows of force are impressive, her methods of discipline effective. In the midst of opposition her hand is hard and heavy. A string of fortifications from the Zambezi to Cairo, with native garrisons, under control of English army officers, would inspire the natives with fear and assure their allegiance. The tact of her traders and the perseverance of her missionaries would bring about all else that might be necessary to create a thrifty and semi-Christian State.

Our posterity will watch with interest the development of Africa through the agency of its Congo Free State on the west, and its Imperial State on the east; the one contributing to the glory of all civilized nations, the other to that of a single nation; the one an enlargement of sovereignty, the other a concentration of it. One has for its inspiration the genius of freedom, the other the genius of force. One is a dedication to civilizing influences, the other is a seizure and appropriation in the name of civilization. We can conceive of the latter, under the impetus of patronage and of concentrated energy, supplemented by arbitrary power, taking the lead for a time, and maintaining it till its viceroyalties become centers of corruption and its subjects helpless peons. But in the end, the former will bound to the front, lifted by internal forces, which are free and virile, buoyed by a spirit of self-helpfulness and independence, sustained from without by universal sympathy and admiration, and from within by beings who have voluntarily consented and contributed to their progress and enlightenment, and are proud participants in their own institutions.

The historian of a century hence will confirm or deny the above observations. If he confirms them, he will add that long experience proved the inutility of forcing our governments, usages and peoples on those of Africa without modification, and to the utter subordination of those which were native; but that, on the contrary, the best civilizing results were obtained by recognition of native elements, their gradual endowment with sovereignty, their elevation to the trusts which commerce and industry impose. It is time that our boasted civilization should show a conquest which is not based on the inferiority, wreck and extermination of the races it meets with in its course. It has careered around the globe in temperate belts, stopping for nothing that came in its way, justifying everything by its superiority. Nature calls a halt in mid-Africa, and practically says: “The agents of civilization are already here. Use them, but do not abuse. You can substitute no other that will prove either permanent or profitable.”

THE RESCUE OF EMIN

In the fall of 1886, Stanley was summoned from the United States by the King of Belgium to come and pay him a visit. That monarch seems to have remembered what others had forgotten, that a European adventurer and a European project lay buried somewhere beneath the Equator and in the very heart of the “Dark Continent.” Stanley responded to the King’s invitation, and out of the interview which followed sprang a reason for his late and most memorable journey across equatorial Africa. But it was deemed wise to interest other agencies, and so the British Geographical Society was consulted and induced to lend a helping hand. In order to further nationalize the projected journey a commission was formed under whose auspices it was to take place. This enlisted for the moment the sympathies of the German peoples, for the lost one was a German. So grew up what came to be known as the “Emin Bey Relief Committee,” with head-quarters at London, and with Sir William Mackinnon as its secretary.

And now, who is Emin Bey, or as he appears most frequently, Emin Pasha? What is there about his disappearance in the wilds of Africa that makes knowledge of his whereabouts and his rescue so desirable? What, of more than humanitarian moment, can attach to a journey planned as this one was? These questions are momentous, for they involve far more than mere men or mere projects of rescue. They involve the aims and ambitions of empires, the policies of dynasties, the destinies of future African States and peoples. That these things are true will appear from the answers which history makes to the above queries – a history which is aglow with events and attractive in its details, however little it may serve to reveal of the present plans of those who contribute most to its making. Emin Pasha was born in the Austrian province of Silesia, and the town of Opplen, in 1840, the same year as Henry M. Stanley. He studied medicine at Breslau, Königsberg and Berlin, and entered upon the world as a regular M.D. with a diploma from the Berlin University. Sometime before the Russian-Turkish war he went to Constantinople and entered the Turkish army with the title of Bey, or Colonel. A taste for travel took him to the East where he acquired the oriental languages. On his return we find him attached to the Imperial Ministry of Turkey, but only during part of the incumbency of Midhat Pasha, who, finding his ministry opposed to his ultra hatred of Russia, dismissed it.

Up to this time he was known as Dr. Eduard (Edward) Schnitzer, that being the name of his parents, with the prefix of Colonel, or Bey as an affix. This was all as to outside knowledge of him. On his dismissal from the Court at Constantinople he fled to Asia, and after many wanderings turned up at Suakim and finally at Khartoum, in Africa, where he made the acquaintance of that ill-starred and fatalistic English adventurer, General Gordon, then Governor General of the Soudan, under English auspices. The General finding him an adventurer of attainments made him a storekeeper of his army, and upon ascertaining that he was an M.D., promoted him to the position of surgeon. In 1877 he was a practitioner of medicine at Lado, in southern Soudan. He afterwards became Surgeon-General of Gordon’s staff. In this capacity he served for four years. During this time he was engaged in making many valuable scientific researches and collections and in contributing interesting papers to European learned societies. He was also of great use to Gordon, who sent him to Uganda and Unyoro on diplomatic missions.

In 1878, when General Gordon was made Governor-General of the Soudan by the British Government, he raised Col. Schnitzer to the rank of Governor of the province of Hat el Seva in Southern Soudan. By this time the Mahdi had risen in the Soudan, and was confronting Gordon with his Mohammedan followers. To identify himself more fully with the Mohammedan people among which he had to live, Col. Schnitzer abandoned his German name and took the Arabic one of Emin (the faithful one) and the full title of Pasha (General or Governor). The scheme on the part of Gordon was to seize and hold the equatorial provinces of the Soudan, in the rear of the Mahdi’s forces, and thus introduce a military menace as well as make a political and moral diversion in favor of the cause he represented. Gordon gave him part of his own army, augmented by a large native force, and with this Emin Pasha took possession of his provinces far toward the Equator, and abutting on the central lake system of the continent.

For a time all went well with him. He proved a most indefatigable traveler, and showed special fitness to govern. He was familiar with the language of the Turks, Arabs, Germans, French and Italians, and acquired readily the dialects of the heathen tribes. On every side he displayed suavity, tact and genius. In 1879, he made an excursion to the western shore land of the Mwutan, which till then had not been visited by white men. In 1880 he visited Makralla-land, and planted many trading stations, thus enlarging his territory geographically and politically. In this expedition he located many important rivers, chief of which was the Kibali. In 1881 he pushed his explorations westward into the land of the powerful Niam Niams, and southward into the lands of the Monbuttus, which tribes are types of the best physical and political strength in that part of Africa, west of the Nile sources.

Thus Emin kept on increasing the extent and importance of his territory, and it came to be recognized as the best governed of any in the vast undefined domain of the Soudan. He found it infested with Arab slave-dealers, who practiced all the barbarities of their kind, and much of his time was occupied in suppressing the nefarious traffic. He became the recognized foe of those who penetrated his domains to barter in human flesh, or if cupidity dictated, to burn, pillage and kill, in order that they might freight their dhwos with trophies of their cruelty.

Though undefined east and west, his kingdom came to recognize Lado as its northern capital, and Wadelai, on Lake Albert Nyanza, as its southern. The work of organizing his territory extended from 1878 to 1882. He had practically driven out the slave-traders and converted a deficient revenue into a surplus for his government, conducting everything on the basis laid down by his superior, General Gordon, and carrying out with the most marked success the plans of that noble enthusiast. He was fast making his territory semi-civilized when the Mahdi arose, led his hosts northward, massacred the army of Gordon, and finally made himself master of Khartoum and a great part of the Soudan. This was in 1882. The Egyptian garrisons throughout the Southern Soudan were then abandoned to their fate, and the last attempt to save Khartoum ended with the death of General Gordon.

During the years of bloodshed that followed, Emin remained at his post, his provinces entirely cut off from the world, and he himself neglected and left entirely to his own resources. He held at the time about four thousand native and Egyptian troops under his command. He was completely surrounded by hostile tribes, but it is generally admitted that if he had chosen to leave behind him the thousands of helpless women and children and abandon the province to the merciless cruelties of the slave traders, he could easily have effected his escape either to the Congo or to the Zanzibar coast. But he determined to stay and to keep the equatorial provinces for civilization, if possible.

The great work done by this brave and indefatigable German cannot be told here in detail. But he organized auxiliary forces of native soldiers; he was constantly engaged in warfare with surrounding tribes; he garrisoned a dozen river stations lying long distances apart. His ammunition ran low and he lacked the money needed for paying his small army; but in the face of manifold difficulties and dangers he maintained his position, governed the country well, and taught the natives how to raise cotton, rice, indigo and coffee, and also how to weave cloth and to make shoes, candles, soap and many articles of commerce. He vaccinated the natives by the thousand in order to stamp out small-pox; he opened the first hospital known in that quarter; he established a regular post-route, with forty offices; he made important geographical discoveries in the basin of the Albert Nyanza Lake, and in many ways demonstrated his capacity for governing barbarous races by the methods and standards of European civilization.

Murder, war and slavery were made things of the past, so that at last “the whole country became so safe that only for the wild beasts in the thickets, a man could have gone from one end of the province to the other, armed with nothing more than a walking-stick.” A German writer said of him at the time: “In his capital, Lado, where Dr. Schnitzer earlier resided, he arose every day before the sun. His first work was to visit the hospitals and care for the health of the people and the troops. After a day devoted to executive labors, a great part of the night would be spent in writing those essays on anthropology, ethnology, geography, botany, and the languages of the people dwelling in his province which have made his name famous as a scientific explorer.”

Tn 1885 Emin had ten fortified stations along the Upper Nile, the most northern one being Lado, and the most southern one Wadelai. The latter place he made his capital for some time. His command at Wadelai then consisted of 1500 soldiers, ten Egyptians and fifteen negro officers. The rest were at the various stations on the Nile. He had ammunition to hold out until the end of 1886, and longer, he wrote, “if the wild tribes did not make the discovery that he would be then entirely out of it.” In 1887 he wrote: “I am still holding out, and will not forsake my people.” After that, letters were received from him in which he described his position as hopeful. In one of the last of these letters he wrote:

“The work that Gordon paid for with his blood I will strive to carry on according to his intentions and his spirit. For twelve long years I have striven and toiled and sown the seeds for future harvests, laid the foundation stones for future buildings. Shall I now give up the work because a way may soon open to the coast? Never!”

The successes of the Mahdi had isolated him entirely on the north. To the west and south were powerful tribes which, though not unfriendly, could offer him no avenue of escape. To the east were still more powerful peoples, once friendly but now imbued with the Mahdi’s hatred of white men and their commercial and political objects. Chief of these were the Uganda, whose King, Mtesa, had died in 1884, and had been succeeded by his son Mwanga, a thorough Mahdist and bitter against European innovation. Emin was therefore a prisoner. This was known in Europe in 1886, but how critical his situation was, no one could tell. It was natural to regard it as perilous, and it was hoped that the Egyptian Government would take measures for his relief. The Cairo Government did nothing except to give him the title of Pasha and to offer £10,000 to any expedition that might be sent to him. Many relief expeditions were then planned, but nothing came of them till the one at whose head Stanley was placed took shape.

Where should such an expedition go? What should it do? It did not take long for the “wizard of equatorial travel” to decide. Here might be opened a whole volume of controversy as to whether Stanley’s mission in search of Emin was really humanitarian or not. The Germans who had the greatest interest in the safety of their fellow countryman, refused to look on the expedition as other than a scheme to rid the Southern Soudan of a Teutonic ruler in the interest of England. They regarded Emin as abundantly able to take care of himself for an indefinite time, and the event of his withdrawal as amounting to a confession that Germanic sovereignty was at an end in the lake regions of Central Africa. It cannot be ascertained now that Stanley entered upon the expedition for the relief of Emin Pasha in other than a humanitarian spirit, though he was backed by English capital. It is fair to presume that since he was invited to the ordeal by the Belgian King, whose exchequer was responsible for the greater part of the outlay, he went with perfectly disinterested motives. But be that as it may, he felt the delicacy of his task and, after having discovered the lost one, his interviews with him are models of diplomatic modesty and patience.

On being placed in charge of the expedition by its projectors, Stanley naturally chose the Congo route into the heart of Africa, because he was familiar with it by his recent efforts to found the Congo Free State, and because it would give him a chance to review and refresh his labors in that behalf. If all things were as he had left them, he knew that a water-way traversable by steam was open for him to a point on the Congo opposite the habitation of Emin and distant but a few hundred miles. So May 11, 1887, found Stanley on the west coast of Africa ready to start inland. He did not collect his force and equipments at the mouth of the Congo, but made his way around the cataracts to Stanley Pool. There, at the station called Kinchassa everything was gathered for the up-river journey. Thence, the expedition embarked in three steamers, Le Stanley, the large stern-wheeler belonging to the Congo Free State, towing the Florida which had just been put together by sections. Le Stanley and Florida had on board about 300 men, mostly trained and armed natives, among whom were four English officers and several scientific gentlemen, besides a cargo of ammunition, merchandise and pack animals. The next steamer was the Henry Reid, a launch belonging to the American Baptist Missionary Union, and kindly loaned to Stanley for the purpose of transporting part of his force and equipments from Stanley Pool to his proposed camp on the Aruwimi. The other steamer was the Peace, placed at Stanley’s disposal by the Rev. Holman Bentley, of the English Baptist Missionary Society, and of which a young missionary named Whitely had charge.

On their passage up the Congo, and after a sail of ten days a camp was formed at Bolobo, and left in charge of Captain Ward, who was deemed a proper person for the command on account of his previous knowledge of the natives, always inclined to be more or less hostile at that point. Captain Ward had met Stanley below Stanley Pool and while he was performing his tedious journey around the cataracts. He thus describes the expedition on its march at the time of the meeting.

In the front of Stanley’s line was a tall Soudanese warrior bearing the Gordon Bennett yacht flag. Behind the soldier, and astride a magnificent mule, came the great explorer. Following immediately in his rear were his personal servants, Somalis, with their braided waistcoats and white robes. Then came Zanzibaris with their blankets, water-bottles, ammunition-belts and guns; stalwart Soudanese soldiery, with great hooded coats, their rifles on their backs, and innumerable straps and leather belts around their bodies; Wagawali porters, bearing boxes of ammunition, to which were fastened axes, shovels and hose lines, as well as their little bundles of clothing, which were invariably rolled up in old threadbare blankets. At one point the whale-boat was being carried in sections, suspended from poles, which were each borne by four men. Donkeys laden with sacks of rice were next met, and a little further back were the women of Tippoo Tib’s harem, their faces concealed and their bodies draped in gaudily-colored clothes. Here and there was an English officer. A flock of goats next came along, and then the form of Tippoo Tib came into view as he strutted majestically along in his flowing Arab robes and large turban, carrying over his right shoulder a jewel-hilted sword, the emblem of office from the Sultan of Zanzibar. Behind him followed several Arab sheiks, whose bearing was quiet and dignified.

It was not the intention to hurry over the long stretch of water between Stanley Pool and the Aruwimi, but to make the trip by easy stages. Yet it was a trip involving great labor, for there being no coal, and the steamers being small, the work of wood-cutting had to be done every night. The launches required as much wood for twelve hours steaming as thirty or forty men, laboring at night, could cut with their axes and cross-cut saws. In some portions of the upper Congo where the shores are swampy for miles in width, the men were often compelled to wade these long distances before striking the rising forest land, and of course they had to carry the wood back to the steamers over the same tedious and dangerous routes.