A full account of this perilous journey will be found elsewhere in this volume, in connection with the now historic efforts of that gallant band of African pioneers who immortalized themselves prior to the founding of the Congo Free State. Suffice it to say here, that it took him two years to find Livingstone at Ujiji, upon the great lake of Tanganyika, which lake he explored, in connection with Livingstone, and at the same time made important visits to most of the powerful tribes that surround it. He returned to civilization, but remained only a short while, for by 1874 he was again in the unknown wilds, and this time on that celebrated journey which brought him entirely across the Continent from East to West, revealed the wonderful water resources of tropical Africa and gave a place on the map to that remarkable drainage system which finds its outlet in the Congo river.
Says the Rev. Geo. L. Taylor of this march: “It was an undertaking which, for grandeur of conception, and for sagacity, vigor, and completeness of execution, must ever rank among the marches of the greatest generals and the triumphs of the greatest discoverers of history. No reader can mentally measure and classify this exploit who does not recall the prolonged struggles that have attended the exploration of all great first-class rivers – a far more difficult work, in many respects, than ocean sailing. We must remember the wonders and sufferings of Orellana’s voyages (though in a brigantine, built on the Rio Napo, and with armed soldiers) down that “Mediterranean of Brazil,” the Amazon, from the Andes to the Atlantic, in 1540. We must recall the voyage of Marquette and Joliet down the Mississippi in 1673; the toils of Park and Landers on the Niger, 1795-1830; and of Speke and Baker on the Nile, 1860-1864, if we would see how the deed of Stanley surpasses them all in boldness and generalship, as it promises also to surpass them in immediate results.
The object of the voyage was two-fold: first, to finish the work of Speke and Grant in exploring the great Nile lakes; and, secondly, to strike the great Lualaba where Livingstone left it, and follow it to whatever sea or ocean it might lead.”
And again: – “The story of the descent of the great river is an Iliad in itself. Through hunger and weariness; through fever, dysentery, poisoned arrows, and small-pox; through bellowing hippopotami, crocodiles, and monsters; past mighty tributaries, themselves great first-class rivers; down roaring rapids, whirlpools, and cataracts; through great canoe-fleets of saw-teethed, fighting, gnashing cannibals fiercer than tigers; through thirty-two battles on land and river, often against hundreds of great canoes, some of them ninety feet long and with a hundred spears on board; and, at last, through the last fearful journey by land and water down the tremendous cañon below Stanley Pool, still they went on, and on, relentlessly on, till finally they got within hailing and helping distance of Boma, on the vast estuary by the sea; and on August 9, 1877, the news thrilled the civilized world that Stanley was saved, and had connected Livingstone’s Lualaba with Tuckey’s Congo! After 7,000 miles’ wanderings in 1,000 days save one from Zanzibar, and four times crossing the Equator, he looked white men in the face once more, and was startled that they were so pale! Black had become the normal color of the human face. Thus the central stream of the second vastest river on the globe, next to the Amazon in magnitude, was at last explored, and a new and unsuspected realm was disclosed in the interior of a prehistoric continent, itself the oldest cradle of civilization. The delusions of ages were swept away at one masterful stroke, and a new world was discovered by a new Columbus in a canoe.”
It was on that memorable march that he came across the wily Arab, Tippoo Tib, at the flourishing market-town of Nyangwe, who was of so much service to Stanley on his descent of the Lualaba (Congo) from Nyangwe to Stanley Falls, 1,000 miles from Stanley Pool, but who has since figured in rather an unenviable light in connection with efforts to introduce rays of civilization into the fastnesses of the Upper Congo. This, as well as previous journeys of Stanley, established the fact that the old method of approaching the heart of the Continent by desert coursers, or of threading its hostile mazes without armed help, was neither expeditious nor prudent. It revolutionized exploration, by compelling respect from hostile man and guaranteeing immunity from attack by wild beast.
For nearly three years Stanley was lost to the civilized world in this trans-continental journey. Its details, too, are narrated elsewhere in this volume, with all its vicissitude of 7,000 miles of zigzag wandering and his final arrival on the Atlantic coast – the wonder of all explorers, the admired of the scientific world.
Such was the value of the information he brought to light in this eventful journey, such the wonderful resource of the country through which he passed after plunging into the depths westward of Lake Tanganyika, and such the desirability of this new and western approach to the heart of the continent, not only for commercial but political and humanitarian purposes, that the cupidity of the various colonizing nations, especially of Europe, was instantly awakened, and it was seen that unless proper steps were taken, there must soon be a struggle for the possession of a territory so vast and with such possibilities of empire. To obviate a calamity so dire as this, the happy scheme was hit upon to carve out of as much of the new discovered territory as would be likely to embrace the waters of the Congo and control its ocean outlet, a mighty State which was to be dedicated for ever to the civilized nations of the world.
In it there should be no clash of foreign interests, but perfect reciprocity of trade and free scope for individual or corporate enterprise without respect to nationality. The king of Belgium took a keen interest in the project, and through his influence other powers of Europe, and even the United States, became enlisted. A plan of the proposed State was drafted and it soon received international ratification. The new power was to be known as the Congo Free State, and it was to be, for the time being, under control of an Administrator General. To the work of founding this State, giving it metes and bounds, securing its recognition among the nations, removing obstacles to its approach, establishing trading posts and developing its commercial features, Stanley now addressed himself. We have been made familiar with his plans for securing railway communication between the mouth of the Congo and Stanley Pool, a distance of nearly 200 miles inland, so as to overcome the difficult, if not impossible, navigation of the swiftly rushing river. We have also heard of his successful efforts to introduce navigation, by means of steamboats, upon the more placid waters of the Upper Congo and upon its numerous affluents. Up until the year 1886, the most of his time was devoted to fixing the infant empire permanently on the map of tropical Africa and giving it identity among the political and industrial powers of earth.
In reading of Stanley and studying the characteristics of his work one naturally gravitates to the thought, that in all things respecting him, the older countries of Europe are indebted to the genius of the newer American institution. We cannot yet count upon the direct advantages of a civilized Africa upon America. In a political and commercial sense our activity cannot be equal to that of Europe on account of our remoteness, and because we are, as yet, but little more than colonists ourselves. Africa underlies Europe, is contiguous to it, is by nature situated so as to become an essential part of that mighty earth-tract which the sun of civilization is, sooner or later, to illuminate. Besides Europe has a need for African acquisition and settlement which America has not. Her areas are small, her population has long since reached the point of overflow, her money is abundant and anxious for inviting foreign outlets, her manufacturing centres must have new cotton and jute fields, not to mention supplies of raw material of a thousand kinds, her crowded establishments must have the cereal foods, add to all these the love of empire which like a second nature with monarchical rulers, and the desire for large landed estates which is a characteristic of titled nobility, and you have a few of the inducements to African conquest and colonization which throw Europe in the foreground. Yet while all these are true, it is doubtful if, with all her advantages of wealth, location and resource, she has done as much for the evangelization of Africa as has America. No, nor as much for the systematic and scientific opening of its material secrets. And this brings us to the initial idea of this paragraph again. Though Stanley was a foreign waif, cast by adverse circumstances on our shores, it seemed to require the robust freedom and stimulating opportunities of republican institutions to awaken and develop in him the qualities of the strong practical and venturesome man he became. Monarchy may not fetter thought, but it does restrain actions. It grooves and ruts human energy by laws of custom and by arbitrary rules