Stanley in Africa

This Welle, or Wellemakua, river about which Stanley indulges in surmises, is the celebrated river brought into notice by Schweinfurth’s discoveries, and over which a geographical controversy raged for seventeen years. The question was whether it was the Shari river, which emptied into Lake Tchad, or whether its mysterious outlet was further south. Stanley’s last journey in search of Emin Pasha pretty definitely settled the controversy by ascertaining that the Welle is the upper course of the Mobangi, a tributary of the Congo.

And while speaking of Schweinfurth, we must use him as authority to settle any misapprehension likely to arise respecting the nature of the dwarfs which Stanley encountered on the waters of the Upper Aruwimi. He calls them Monbuttus, thereby giving the impression that the tribe is one of dwarfs. It was Schweinfurth’s province to set at rest the long disputed question of the existence of a dwarf race in Central Africa. He proved, once for all, that Herodotus and Aristotle were not dealing with fables when they wrote of the pygmies of Central Africa. One day he suddenly found himself surrounded by what he conjectured was a crowd of impudent boys, who pointed their arrows at him, and whose manner betokened intentional disrespect. He soon learned that these hundreds of little fellows were veritable dwarfs, and were a part of the army of Munza, the great Monbuttu king. These are the now famous Akka, who, so far as we know, are the smallest of human beings. It is these same Akka who, wandering in the forest a little south of Schweinfurth’s route, picked off many a carrier in Stanley’s late expedition, using arrows whose points were covered with a deadly poison, and refusing all overtures of friendship.

Schweinfurth’s description of the Niam-Niams (Great-Eaters) and of their southern neighbors, the Monbuttus, is the best that has yet appeared in print. He approached the country through the powerful Dinka tribes on the north, whom he found rich in cattle, experts in iron-working and highly proficient in the art of pottery ornamentation, especially as to their smoking-pipes. Competent authorities agree with his opinion that the ornamental designs upon their potteries and iron and copper wares, now exhibited in the Berlin Museum of Ethnology, would not discredit a European artist, and among these people, so far advanced in some respects, Schweinfurth discovered the first evidences of cannibalism which is said to prevail, on very doubtful authority, however, in a very large part of the Congo Basin. It is a noteworthy fact that, in all his travels, Livingstone never saw evidence of this revolting practice except on one or two occasions, and in all his voluminous writings he hardly refers to the topic. Dr. Junker, however, draws a distinction between the Niam-Niam and Monbuttu cannibals which Schweinfurth in his briefer visit failed to observe. Junker says the Niam-Niam use human flesh as food only because they believe that in this way they acquire the bravery and other virtues with which their victims may have been endowed. The Monbuttu, on the other hand, make war upon their neighbors for no other purpose than to procure human flesh for food, because they delight in it as a part of their cuisine. With methodical care they dry the flesh they do not immediately use, and add it to their reserve supplies of food.

Schweinfurth’s journey into Niam-Niam was through a prairie land covered with the tallest grasses he had yet seen in Africa. The people are given to cattle-raising and the chase. They are not of stalwart size, and their color is dark-brown rather than black. What they lack in stature they make up in athletic qualities. They took a keen interest in showing the traveler their sights, and in the evening regaled his camp with music, dispensed by a grotesque singer, who accompanied his attenuated voice with a local guitar of thin, jingling sound. The drums and horns of the Niam-Niams are used only for war purposes. Everything testified to the fruitfulness of the soil. Sweet potatoes and yams were piled up in the farmsteads, and circular receptacles of clay for the preservation of corn were erected upon posts in the yards. The yards are surrounded by hedges of paradise figs; back of these are the plantations of manioc and maize, and beyond their fields of eleusine. The women are modest and retiring in the presence of white men, and their husbands hold them in high respect. The people are great believers in magic. The best shots, when they have killed an unusual number of antelopes or buffaloes, are credited with having charmed roots in their possession. The Niam-Niam country is important as being the water-shed between the Nile and the rivers which run westward into the Congo, the Welle being the largest, which runs nearly parallel with the recently discovered Aruwimi. The Niam-Niam are great ivory traders and take copper, cloth, or trinkets at a cheap figure for this valuable ware. The southern and western part of their country becomes densely wooded and the trees are gigantic. Here the shape of the huts change, becoming loftier and neater, the yards having posts in them for displaying trophies of war and the chase. The characteristics of the Niam-Niam are pronounced and they can be identified at once amidst the whole series of African races.

Every Niam-Niam soldier carries a lance, trumbash, and dagger, made by their own smiths. Wooing is dependent on a payment exacted from the suitor by the father of the intended bride. When a man resolves on matrimony, he applies to the sub-chieftain who helps him to secure his wife. In spite of the practice of polygamy, the marriage bond is sacred, and unfaithfulness is generally punished with death. The trait is paramount for this people to show consistent affection for their wives. Schweinfurth doubts the charge of cannibalism brought against this people, and thinks their name “Great Eaters” might have given rise to the impression that they were “man-eaters.”

The festivities that occur in case of marriage are a bridal procession, at the head of which the chieftain leads the bride to the home of her future husband, accompanied by musicians, minstrels and jesters. A feast is given, of which all partake in common, though in general the women are accustomed to eat alone in their huts. This marriage celebration, with slight variations, is usual with the tribes of Central Africa. Livingstone describes one among the Hamees of the Lualaba river, in which the bride is borne to the home of her husband on the shoulders of her lover or chieftain. The domestic duties of a Niam-Niam wife consist mainly in cultivating the homestead, preparing the daily meals, painting her husband’s body and dressing his hair. Children require very little care in this genial climate, being carried about in a band or scarf till old enough to walk, and then left to run about with very little clothing on.

They are lovers of music, as are their neighbors, especially the Bongo people, who possess a variety of quaint instruments capable of producing fairly tuneful concerts. Their language is an up-shoot of the great root which is the original of every native tongue in Africa north of the Equator. They always consult auguries before going to war. In grief for the dead they shave their heads. A corpse is adorned for burial in dyed skins and feathers. They bury the dead with scrupulous regard to the points of the compass, the men facing the east and the women the west.

Stanley now steamed back to the Congo, and once more breasted its yellow flood. He was now in the true heart of Africa, 1,266 miles from the sea and 921 from Leopoldville, and upon a majestic flood capable of carrying a dozen rivers like the Aruwimi. It was a region of deep, impenetrable forests, fertile soil, and few villages, for the fierce Bahunga seemed to have terrorized and devastated all the shores. The river abounds in large, fertile islands, the homes of fishermen and stalwart canoemen, who carry their products to clearings on the shores, and there exchange them for the inland products. This makes the shore clearings kind of market-places – sometimes peopled and sometimes deserted.

In the distance a fleet of canoes is sighted, bearing down on the steamers. Are they the hostile Bahunga? The En Avant is sent forward on a reconnoissance, and soon makes out the fleet to consist of a thousand canoes, extending a mile and a half in length. Five men to a canoe gave a force of 5,000 men, an army of sufficient size to overwhelm a hundred such tiny steamers as composed the Stanley flotilla. A storm arose, accompanied by vivid lightning and heavy thunder shocks. The elements cleared the river of all fragile barks and left the steamers to their course.

The old town of Mawembé came into view. It was not such as Stanley had mapped it, but a burned and nearly deserted spot. The Arab slave merchant had evidently penetrated thus far, and these ashes were the marks of his cruelty. Another town, higher up, and entirely in ashes, proved the sad conjecture to be true, for before it sat at least 200 woe-begone natives, too abject in their desolation to even affect curiosity at the approaching steamers. On being hailed, they told the pitiful tale of how a strange people, like those in the steamers, and wearing white clothes, had come upon them in the night, slaughtered their people, and carried off their women and children. The fleet of canoes, seen among the islands below, contained their own people, gathered for protection, forced to live on the islands in the day-time and to go ashore at night for food. All this had happened but eight days before, and the marauders had retreated up the river in the direction of Stanley Falls.

A few miles above, the charred stakes, upright canoes, poles of huts, scorched banana groves and prostrate palms indicated the ruins of the site of Yavunga, the twelfth devastated town and eighth community passed since leaving the mouth of the Aruwimi. Opposite Yavunga were the Yaporo, a populous tribe, but now stricken by fire, sword and famine as were their brothers. These had charged on Stanley six years before, but they were now in no mood to dispute his way.

Floating by is an object which attracts attention. A boat-hook is thrown over, and to it clings the forms of two women bound together by a cord. The ghastly objects are raised, and a brief inspection shows that they could not have been drowned more than twelve hours before. The steamers push on, round a point, and in the distance appear white objects. A glass is brought to bear, and they prove to be the tents of the Arab thieves. They are from Nyangwé, above the Falls, the capital of Tippoo Tib’s empire, unholy conquest from the Manyuema people, founded in flame, murder and kidnapping. The camp was palisaded and the banks were lined with canoes, evidence that the marauders had managed somehow to pass the Falls in force. The first impulse of Stanley was to attempt a rescue and wreak a deserved vengeance on these miscreants. But on second thought, his was a mission of peace, and he was without authority to administer justice. He represented no constituted government, but was on a mission to found a government. To play the rolé of judge or executioner in such an emergency might be to defeat all his plans and forever leave these wretches without a strong arm to cling to in time of future need. Had he come upon an actual scene of strife and burning, it would have been his to aid the weaker party, but now the law of might must have its way, till a sturdier justice than was at his disposal could come to tread in majesty along those dark forest aisles.

And now what a meeting and greeting there was! The steamers signalled the arrival of strangers. A canoe put out from the shore and hailed in the language of the Eastern coast. Both sides understood that the meeting was one of peace. The steamers made for shore below the tents, and a night encampment was formed. Soon Stanley’s Zanzibaris were shaking hands with the Manyuema slaves of Abed bin Salim, who constituted the band that had been ravaging the country to obtain slaves and ivory. They had been out for sixteen months, and for eleven months had been raiding the Congo. The extent of country they had plundered was larger than Ireland, and contained a population of 1,000,000 souls. They numbered 300 men, armed with shot-guns and rifles, and their retinue of domestic slaves and women doubled their force. Their camp, even then, was on the ruins of the town of Yangambi, which had fallen before their torches, and many of whose people were prisoners on the spot where they were born.

Stanley took a view of the stockade in which they had confined their human booty. This is the horrible story as he writes it:

“The first general impressions are that the camp is much too densely peopled for comfort. There are rows upon rows of dark nakedness, relieved here and there by the white dresses of the captors. There are lines or groups of naked forms upright, standing or moving about listlessly; naked bodies are stretched under the sheds in all positions; naked legs innumerable are seen in the perspective of prostrate sleepers; there are countless naked children, many were infants, forms of boyhood and girlhood, and occasionally a drove of absolutely naked old women, bending under a basket of fuel, or cassava tubers, or bananas, who are driven through the moving groups by two or three musketeers. In paying more attention to details, I observe that mostly all are fettered; youths with iron rings around their necks, through which a chain like one of our boat-anchor chains is rove, securing the captives by twenties. The children over ten are secured by three copper rings, each ringed leg brought together by the central ring, which accounts for the apparent listlessness of movement I observed on first coming in presence of the curious scene. The mothers are secured by shorter chains, around whom their respective progeny of infants are grouped, hiding the cruel iron links that fall in loops or festoons over mamma’s breasts. There is not one adult man-captive amongst them.

“Besides the shaded ground strewn over so thickly by the prostrate and upright bodies of captives, the relics of the many raids lie scattered or heaped up in profusion everywhere, and there is scarcely a square foot of ground not littered with something, such as drums, spears, swords, assegais, arrows, bows, knives, iron ware of native make of every pattern, paddles innumerable, scoops and balers, wooden troughs, ivory horns, whistles, buffalo and antelope horns, ivory pestles, wooden idols, beads of wood, berries, scraps of fetishism, sorcerers’ wardrobes, gourds of all sizes, nets, from the lengthy seine to the small hand-net; baskets, hampers, shields as large as doors (of wood or of plaited rattan), crockery, large pots to hold eight gallons, down to the child’s basin; wooden mugs, basins, and mallets; grass cloth in shreds, tatters and pieces; broken canoes, and others half-excavated; native adzes, hatchets, hammers, iron rods, etc., etc. All these littering the ground, or in stacks and heaps, with piles of banana and cassava peelings, flour of cassava, and sliced tubers drying, make up a number of untidy pictures and details, through all of which, however, prominently gleam the eyes of the captives in a state of utter and supreme wretchedness.

“Little perhaps as my face betrayed my feelings, other pictures would crowd upon the imagination; and after realizing the extent and depth of the misery presented to me, I walked about as in a kind of dream, wherein I saw through the darkness of the night the stealthy forms of the murderers creeping towards the doomed town, its inmates all asleep, and no sounds issuing from the gloom but the drowsy hum of chirping cicadas or distant frogs – when suddenly flash the light of brandished torches; the sleeping town is involved in flames, while volleys of musketry lay low the frightened and astonished people, sending many through a short minute of agony to that soundless sleep from which there will be no waking. I wished to be alone somewhere where I could reflect upon the doom which has overtaken Bandu, Yomburri, Yangambi, Yaporo, Yakusu, Ukanga, Yakonda, Ituka, Yaryembi, Yaruche, populous Isangi, and probably thirty scores of other villages and towns.

“The slave-traders admit they have only 2,300 captives in this fold, yet they have raided through the length and breadth of a country larger than Ireland, bearing fire and spreading carnage with lead and iron. Both banks of the river show that 118 villages and 43 districts have been devastated, out of which is only educed this scant profit of 2,300 females and children, and about 2,000 tusks of ivory! The spears, swords, bows, and the quivers of arrows show that many adults have fallen. Given that these 118 villages were peopled only by 1,000 each, we have only a profit of two per cent.; and by the time all these captives have been subjected to the accidents of the river voyage to Kirundu and Nyangwé, of camp-life and its harsh miseries, to the havoc of small-pox and the pests which miseries breed, there will only remain a scant one per cent. upon the bloody venture.

“They tell me, however, that the convoys already arrived at Nyangwé with slaves captured in the interior have been as great as their present band. Five expeditions have come and gone with their booty of ivory and slaves, and these five expeditions have now completely weeded the large territory described above. If each expedition has been as successful as this, the slave-traders have been enabled to send 5,000 women and children safe to Nyangwé, Kirundu and Vibondo, above the Stanley Falls. Thus 5,000 out of an assumed million will be at the rate of a half per cent., or five slaves out of 1,000 people.

“This is poor profit out of such large waste of life, for originally we assume the slaves to have mustered about 10,000 in number. To obtain the 2,300 slaves out of the 118 villages they must have shot a round number of 2,500 people, while 1,300 more died by the wayside, through scant provisions and the intensity of their hopeless wretchedness. How many are wounded and die in the forest or droop to death through an overwhelming sense of their calamities, we do not know; but if the above figures are trustworthy, then the outcome from the territory with its million of souls is 5,000 slaves obtained at the cruel expense of 33,000 lives! And such slaves! They are females, or, young children who cannot run away, or who with youthful indifference, will soon forget the terrors of their capture! Yet each of the very smallest infants has cost the life of a father and perhaps his three stout brothers and three grown-up daughters. An entire family of six souls would have been done to death to obtain that small, feeble, useless child!

“These are my thoughts as I look upon the horrible scene. Every second during which I regard them the clink of fetters and chains strikes upon my ears. My eyes catch sight of that continual lifting of the hand to ease the neck in the collar, or as it displays a manacle exposed through a muscle being irritated by its weight or want of fitness. My nerves are offended with the rancid effluvium of the unwashed herds within this human kennel. The smell of other abominations annoys me in that vitiated atmosphere. For how could poor people, bound and riveted together by twenties, do otherwise than wallow in filth? Only the old women are taken out to forage. They dig out the cassava tuber, and search for the banana, while the guard, with musket ready, keenly watches for the coming of the vengeful native. Not much food can be procured in this manner, and what is obtained is flung down in a heap before each gang, to at once cause an unseemly scramble. Many of these poor things have been already months fettered in this manner, and their bones stand out in bold relief in the attenuated skin, which hangs down in thin wrinkles and puckers. And yet who can withstand the feeling of pity so powerfully pleaded for by those large eyes and sunken cheeks?

“What was the cause of all this vast sacrifice of human life – of all this unspeakable misery? Nothing but the indulgence of an old Arab’s ‘wolfish, bloody, starved and ravenous instincts.’ He wished to obtain slaves to barter away to other Arabs, and having weapons – guns and gunpowder – enough, he placed them in the hands of three hundred slaves, and despatched them to commit murder wholesale, just as an English nobleman would put guns in the hands of his guests and permit them to slaughter the game upon his estate. If we calculate three quarts of blood to each person who fell during the campaign of murder, we find that this one Arab caused to be shed 2,850 gallons of human blood, sufficient to fill a tank measurement of 460 cubic feet, quite large enough to have drowned him and all his kin!”

Nyangwé, above mentioned, is an important market-town on the Congo, some distance above Stanley Falls, and the capital of the undefined possessions of which Tippoo Tib holds sway. Livingstone says he has seen fully 3,000 people at the Nyanwe market of a clear day, anxious to dispose of their fish, fruits, vegetables and fowls. Many of them had walked twenty-five miles, bearing their baskets, heavily laden with produce, and some had come even further in canoes. On one occasion a riot broke out, instigated either by jealousy among the surrounding tribes or by the Arab slave-dealers for the purpose of making captures. Three burly fellows began to fire their guns into the throng of women, who hastily abandoned their wares and dashed for the canoes. The panic was so great that the canoes could not be manned and pushed into the river. The frantic women, fired into continually from the rear, leaped and scrambled over the boats and jumped wildly into the river, preferring the chances of a long swim to an island rather than inevitable destruction on the shore. Many of the wounded wretches threw up their hands in despair ere they reached mid-stream, and sank to rise no more. Rescuing canoes put out into the water, and many were thus saved; but one poor woman refused to be rescued, saying she would take her chances of life in the water rather than return to be sold as a slave. The Arabs estimate the slaughter that day at 400 souls.

Stanley now fully understood the meaning of all he had heard below of the terrible visitations of these banditti – of the merciless character of the Bahunga, which name they had misunderstood, and of the desire of the dwellers on the lower waters that he should ascend the Congo, thereby hoping that all the whites would destroy one another in the clash which seemed inevitable. After an exchange of gifts with these cut-throats and the loan of an interpreter to speak with the people at the Falls, the steamers departed from a scene which nature had made beautiful, but which the hand of man had stained with crime and blood. The Congo here has bluffy, picturesque shores on the one side, and on the other lowlands adapted for sugar-cane, cotton, rice and maize.

Some critics of Stanley have expressed wonder at his failure to assert his usual heroism when made to witness these Arab barbarities while ascending the Congo. They think he should have attacked and driven off these thieves and murderers, no matter what the result might have been to himself and his enterprise. The same, or a similar class of critics, think that when he was making his last journey up the Congo and the Aruwimi in search of Emin Pasha, he showed entirely too much consideration for the Arab marauders, and especially for that cunning and depraved official, Tippoo Tib, whom he recognized as governor at Nyangwé.

Despite what are regarded by some impulsive people as the higher claims of humanitarianism, we are perfectly willing to trust to Mr. Stanley’s sense of right as modified by the exigencies of a situation about which no one else can know as much as himself. That situation was altogether new and peculiar on both his ascents of the Congo in behalf of the Congo Free State, and in search of Emin Pasha. In the first instance he bore a commission from a higher power, the International Commission, whose agent he was. He had instructions to do certain things and to leave others undone. To provoke hostilities with those he met, to quarrel and fight, except in self-preservation, were not only things foreign to his mission, as being sure to defeat it, but were expressly forbidden to him. Conquest was no part of the new policy of the Congo Free State, but its foundation was peace and free concession by all the tribes within its boundaries. Time will vindicate his leniency in the midst of such scenes as he was forced to witness at the mouth of the Aruwimi and on the Congo above, during his first ascent of the river.

And the same will prove true of his second ascent. To be sure, he was on a different mission and had greater freedom of action, but he knew well, from former experience, the character of the peoples upon the two great rivers near their jurisdiction. And if any events ever proved the wisdom of the steps which a man took, those surely did which clustered about and composed the eventful, if melancholy, history of Stanley’s “Rear Guard” on the Aruwimi. Several correspondents, some of whom accompanied Stanley on his two up-river journeys, and others who have been over the ground, have written fully of the Aruwimi situation, and their views are valuable, though space forbids more than a condensation of them here.

A fatal river, say they all, was the Aruwimi for Stanley. It was so in 1877. 1883 served to recall regretful memories of his canoe descent, and introduced him to sadder scenes than he had ever occasioned or witnessed. The details of the deserted and blackened camp of his “Rear Guard” on the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition will prove to be more tragic than any which went before. It was close to the confluence of the Aruwimi with the Congo, as narrated elsewhere in this volume, that Stanly was compelled, in 1877, to storm a native village; and, as we have just seen, when he passed the spot again in 1883, what wonder that the dusky warriors reassembled to receive him! Round the bend “where the great affluent gaped into view,” the river was thronged with war-canoes, and on the banks stood the villages of Basongo and Mokulu, where Stanley’s ancient foes resided. In fantastic array appeared long lines of fully armed warriors – a land force supporting the fighting men afloat. How, aided by a picturesque and showy interpreter, with a voice as powerful as his eloquence, Stanley, on this latter occasion, appeased their warlike ardor and made them friends, has just been told in these pages.

The reader will understand, however, from the number of the force against him and the ferocious character of the tribes, why Stanley was so careful when forming his latest camp on the Aruwimi, to have it well stockaded and efficiently sentinelled. The local natives had not only the incentive of their previous defeat by Stanley to keep their hostility alive, but they had had meanwhile some bitter experiences of the Arab raider. They are splendid races of men, the tribes of the Mokulu and the Basoko, picturesque in their yellow war-paint, their barbaric shields and decorative headdresses. They are skilled workmen. Their paddles are beautifully carved, their spears and knives artistic and of dexterous shapeliness. They have also broadswords, and in a general way their weapons are of wonderful temper and sharpness. Now and then the Arab raiders find their work of massacre and plunder a hot business among such natives as these; but the advantage of the rifle is, of course, tremendous, and can only have one result. The Arabs do not, however, always have it entirely their own way. They leave both dead and wounded sometimes in the hands of the enemy, who frequently condemn both to the pot, and make merry, no doubt, over their grilled remains.

Among the many hardships of the Aruwimi camp, established by Stanley for his “Rear Guard,” on his latest upward trip, and left under Major Barttelot, was the uncontrollable character of the Manyema carriers and escort. These people have for many years been the slave-hunting allies of the Arabs – their jackals, their cheetahs; and the Stanley camp had actually to be spectators of the attack and raiding of a native village, opposite their own quarters, on the other side of the river. It was towards night when the onslaught began. The sudden sound of the warlike drums of the surprised natives came booming across the water, followed by the fierce rattle of the Arab musketry. Dark figures and light were soon mixed together in the fray. The natives fought bravely – but they fell rapidly before the rifle. Pelted with the deadly hail of shot, they were soon vanquished. Then from hut to hut the flames of ruin began to spread, and in the lurid light women and children were marched forth to the slave-hunter’s stockade – some to be ransomed next day by the remainder of the ivory the natives had successfully hidden; others probably to be passed on from hand to hand until they eventually reached a slave-dealing market. And all this the officers and comrades of Mr. Stanley had the humiliation to witness without daring to interfere – not from any fear of losing their lives in the defence of the weaker – a death which has been courted by thousands of brave men on land and sea – but for reasons of policy. They were not there to protect the natives of the Aruwimi from Arab raiders, but to follow Mr. Stanley with the stores necessary for the success of his expedition. Nor is it likely that the force under Major Barttelot would have obeyed him if he had desired to intervene. Mr. Stanley himself more than once in his African experience has had to shut his eyes to Arab aggression and cruelty, although his influence with Tippoo Tib has no doubt paved the way for the realization of his humane ambition in the matter of slavery. From their stockade and on board their launch at Yambuya, Barttelot and his comrades could see the woefully unequal warfare on the raided village, and there is no need of the assurance that their hearts beat high with indignation and a desire to take a hand in it. Moreover, these lawless brutalities practiced upon the natives made the difficulties of the camp all the greater, not only affecting the dangers of the advance, but increasing the perils of the way to the Falls, as was experienced by Ward on his travels to and fro – his “aimless journeys” Mr. Stanley has called them, but undertaken nevertheless by order of Ward’s superior officer, Major Barttelot.