Scouting for Stanley in East Africa ... With illustrations

Preface

. THE author of this unpretentious volume of East African travels, sport, and adventure, submits it to the public without apology, and without preface other than the expression of gratitude for favors received at the hands of many friends. Kind remembrance is due to my friend and traveling companion, Dr. W. L. Abbott, patron and contributor to the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., for valuable assistance on the Masai-land expedition ; to Mr. L. A. Bachelder, whose hospitality made my stay in Zanzibar pleasant; and to United States Consul Seth A. Pratt and Mrs. Pratt, to whom I am indebted for many courtesies. Also to Her Majesty's Consul- General, Col. Euan-Smith, and to General Matthews, Commander-in-chief of the army of His Highness the Sultan of Zanzibar, thanks are due for courteous con sideration shown to the representative of an American newspaper.

Captain Brackenbury of H. M. S. Turquoise won my gratitude for receiving me aboard his ship in the Baga moyo roadstead, when Major Wissmann, German Im perial Commissioner, allowed himself to forget for the moment that a German officer should always, and under all circumstances, be a gentleman. On the dash up country to meet Stanley and Emin, in

PREFACE.

. too much cannot be said in praise of the courtly behavior of Baron von Gravenreuth, who, though compelled to put me on parole, treated me with every consideration. Thanks are also extended to his second in com mand, Lieutenant Langheld, for releasing me from my parole, a courtesy that enabled me to gratify a personal and journalistic ambition to meet Stanley and Emin ahead of any other newspaper correspondent. I also take this opportunity of thanking Mr. Stanley for making me a sharer in all the good things that reached him from the coast, on the return marches from Msuwa to Bagamoyo — to Mr. Stanley's officers, and to Emin Pasha. Nor do I forget that thanks are likewise due to Bur roughs, Wellcome & Co., for fitting out the expedition with a complete medicine chest, and to Mr. Henry S. Wellcome, personally, for many kind attentions.

And, also, whilst not forgetting many other courte sies shown by many friends, lastly, to the editor and business manager of the New York World, who kindly returned several installments of unpublished MSS., in order that this book might be published without delay. The Author. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PACE I. ZANZIBAR AND MOMBASA, I II. RABAI TO TEITA, 19 III. THE MARCH TO TAVETA, - - - - 26 IV. KILIMANJARO TRIBES, - - - - 53 V. VISIT TO MACHAME, ----- 72 VI. MANDARA OF MOSCHI, ... - 87 VII. INTO MASAI-LAND, 94 VIII. MASAI WOMEN, Il8 IX. HUNTING ADVENTURES, .... j^2 ADVENTURES WITH RHINOCEROSES, 148 X. XI. ELEPHANTS AND OTHER GAME, - - - 166 XII. ARABS AND SLAVES, .... 175 XIII. THE SLAVERS' POINT OF VIEW, ... 199 V CONTENTS. VI PAGE

CHAPTER XIV. STANLEY AT LAST,

- - - - ** 2I° XV. OVER THE " RUBICON," - - - - 223 XVI. MEETING STANLEY, ----- 235 XVII. IN STANLEY'S CAMPS, ----- 255 XVIII. TALKS WITH EMIN PASHA, - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. TO FACE PAGE PORTRAIT OF THOMAS STEVENS, - - - - Title WANYAMWEZI PORTERS, - - - - - - 12 PHOTO OF "WORLD" EXPEDITION, - - - 18 PORTERS BUYING FOOD, ------ 30 KIMAWENZI KILIMA-NJARO KIBO, - - - 74 machame house {unknown before), - - - - 80 MANDARA'S HOUSE, ------ 88 A PAIR OF EL-MORAN, - 96 MASAI WAR-PARTY, IID BAND OF MASAI WARRIORS APPROACHING CAMP, - Il6 A SUCCESSFUL MORNING, I32 A MONSTER PYTHON, J42 DR. ABBOTT'S TRIUMPH, .... - 154 WA-TEITA WARRIORS, I§2 POSING FOR A PHOTOGRAPH, - 2°S CAMP SCENE. ----- ■ 256 \ SCOUTING FOR STANLEY, IN EAST AFRfCA.

Chapter I. Zanzibar And Mombasa

FOR more than a year previous to the receipt of letters from Mr. Stanley to the Chairman of the Emin Pasha Relief Committee in London, dated Aruwimi River, Aug. 28, 1888, and which were pub lished by the newspapers about April 1, 1889, the whole civilized world was wondering what had become of the Emin Relief Expedition, and its gallant com mander. In December, 1888, the desire for reliable news from Stanley became so intense that the New York World decided to dispatch an expedition into the interior of Africa to satisfy the public demand and relieve the anxious suspense under which it had for eighteen months labored. This decision arrived at, the writer set sail on Jan. 5, 1889, from New York for England. Four days of preparation in London, then overland to Brin disi to embark on the P. and O. steamer Valletta for Port Said, Suez and Aden.

At Aden, after a week's delay in England's great "coal-hole of the East," con nection was made with the British-India steamer Bagh- SCOUTLNG FOR STANLEY. dad, that famous coaster whose cockroaches and bilge water have figured in the narrative of more than one celebrated African explorer, and after a rather tedious voyage of thirteen days, Zanzibar. "Go to Zanzibar. Investigate the state of affairs there. Let us know the truth about the troubles between the Germans and Arabs. See what is to be seen of the slave trade. Find out all you can about Stanley and Emin Pasha, and, if necessary or advisable, organize an expedition and penetrate the interior for reliable news of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. Spare no expense in carrying out the main object of the enterprise, but at the same time don't throw away money recklessly.

Act on your own judgment when you have reached Zanzibar and looked about you." Such was the substance of the instructions on which my actions were to be based. The easy facilities of modern travel had enabled me to promptly carry out the initial letter of this program, and after securing comfortable quarters under the hospitable roof of an American trading house in Zanzibar, no time was lost in setting about the second. When passing through England the London newspapers had predicted that direct news from Stanley, following dispatches that had been received from St. Thome and Zanzibar, Dec. 21, 1888, would reach Lon don and appear in their columns "long before Mr. Stevens reaches Zanzibar." This prediction, as well as the knowledge that there was nothing very improb able in it, naturally kept one on "pins and needles" en voyage.

News was anxiously inquired for at every port. But there was nothing new at Brindisi ; nothing new at Port Said, nor at Suez ; at Mombasa, where we also touched, the missionaries were in communication with the Victoria Nyanza, but they knew no more than I did about the Stanley Expedition. At all these points no news, but what of Zanzibar? How often that question had occurred to the writer during the eleven days' isolation abroad the crawling Baghdad may be left to the reader's imagination. Pro ceeding directly to the American Consulate, I inquired for news of Stanley. "There is nothing new," said the Consul, "nothing later than the simultaneous dispatches from St. Thome and Zanzibar two months ago, which reached America before you left." Nothing new was known either at the British Con sulate, which is the best informed medium in Zanzibar.

Missionaries, Hindi merchants, and Arab traders in com munication with the interior were sought out and inter viewed, and, thanks to the courtesy and friendly inter est of Mr. Pratt, the American Consul, even His High ness Khalifa-bin-Said, the late Sultan of Zanzibar, sat patiently for half an hour in private audience under the catechetical ordeal of the author. The Sultan was most gracious ; he was in communications with Tip poo Tib, he said, had heard from the famous Arab slave-trader and friend of Stanley, in fact, but a few days before, but he could tell me nothing new of the latter gentleman's movements. All sources of possible information were probed and every means at hand exhausted to learn something definite on which to base future movements, but to no avail. The whereabouts and condition of the Emin Relief Expedition remained the same ungraspable point of interest in the terra incognita of the unexplored region between the Albert Nyanza and the Aruwimi, about which the speculations and opinions of half a world had puzzled for eighteen months past.

But though nothing of an authentic nature was to be learned, the atmosphere of Zanzibar was electrical with anticipation. The promised letters from Stanley had been eagerly looked forward to from day to day for several weeks. Hints were freely indulged in by know ing customers that the British Government and the officials of the Emin Relief Committee in London knew more than they cared just at present to give to the public. Any morning a "Reuter's" might be expected to arrive from London and prick the bubble of popular suspense in Zanzibar with positive news of Stanley, to be followed by the next mail with his own letters in the Times. On the other hand, the prognostications of the Lon don press had not been fulfilled, and, although the air was thick with rumors and the hours big with expect ancy, there yet remained the same lack of authentic news that had jarred on the sensibilities of a deeply interested public for many weary months.

People had grown sick of rumors, and had been misled so often by dispatches from Zanzibar or from the Congo that noth ing short of reliable information would now satisfy their legitimate craving for news of the long-missing expedi tion. To try and obtain this, and transmit it to civilization, was the principal part of the task that had brought me to Zanzibar. Plainly, so far as could be gathered by the first few days' research, the only way to obtain this would be to organize an expedition and go and seek it in the same distant sphere that had swallowed up for so long a period the object of universal solicitation. Here, then, was a grand opportunity ; the one chance, mayhap, of a lifetime, to spring into fame on the stage of African exploit. How would "How I Found Stan ley" look in the libraries with "How I Found Living stone ?"

Sic iter ad astra ! And yet it would never do to risk the customary three months' advance pay of a large caravan of porters and sink other thousands in outfitting an expedition to-day, if Stanley were going to emerge, crowned with the laurel-wreath of victory, from his puzzling obscurity to-morrow. To a modern Crœsus, responsible to no one but himself, this view of the case might be scarcely worth a thought, but as the writer came under neither one nor the other of these heads, there was no dodging the fact that this was a consideration not to be ignored. It was no easy matter to decide what was best to be done. What I had undertaken was anything but a plain, straightforward task which one could go ahead and accomplish, "looking neither to the right nor the left." After bestowing much thought and investiga tion on the subject, I decided to remain in Zanzibar a month before making up my mind about the expedition into the interior.

Something authentic one way or the other would very likely turn up in that time. Perhaps the promised letters from Stanley would appear in the London papers if I gave them a few weeks' grace, or some definite clue, by which one might be guided in prosecuting a search, would come to light. In the mean time my month of waiting would by no means be four weeks of inactivity. There was plenty to do and to learn, and more than enough to occupy my time and attention in and about Zanzibar. The place had ceased of late to be the Zanzibar of old. Momentous changes were taking place that had riveted upon this entrepot of African commerce the attention of the whole Western world. Zanzibar was no longer the Zanzibar known to Burton, to Livingstone, and to Stanley in the earlier stages of his African career.

Difficulties thickened as one looked about him and grew familiar with his surroundings. Africa, or at all events the Eastern Equatorial part of it, did not now belong to the Africans, nor even to its early colonizers, the Arabs. The white traveler was no longer able to come and go at his pleasure. All the old, well-known routes to the lake region, from Bagamoyo, Dar-es- Salaam, Sadaani, were blocked against the European, and all the ports of the Zangian coast below Mombasa were forbidden him as a result of the troubles growing out of the late German acquisitions. The prestige of that heretofore demi-god, the Mzungu (white man), had sunk to a lower level among the Arabs and Swahali population of Zanzibar and the adjacent coast than it had ever reached in this region before. German war-ships were steaming up and down the coast, bombarding and burning.

Several of the more important coast ports were in ashes, and the trading communities of British Indian subjects had decamped en masse to Zanzibar and Bombay, their business ruined, their houses burned to the ground. The native population was in a ferment of resentment against the whole white race. Missionaries were killed or held for ransom, and the withdrawal of the Germans was de manded by the natives. Moreover, scarcely a day passed in Zanzibar itself without some arbitrary proclamation, arising from the unsettled state of affairs, being issued to hamper and curtail the liberty of one's movements. The whole coast was in a state of blockade by the combined fleets of England and Germany against the importation of arms and ammunition. The sale and purchase of the same articles were prohibited.

Mombasa, being under English management, was still a peaceful, open port : yet, because of blockading restrictions, no arms or ammunition could be landed there without a special permit from the British Consul ; and another document had to be obtained for the privilege of passing inland beyond the ten-mile limit of the littoral, which marked the boundary between the I. B. E. A. Company's actual concessions from the Sultan of Zanzibar and their sphere of influence beyond. Owing to the courtesy and good will shown me, as the representative of a great American newspaper, by the British Consul-General, Col. Euan-Smith, the two latter difficulties were, as a matter of fact, less real than apparent; but, after all, the perfect freedom of other days was gone. Statements had to be made and inten tions declared.

There was now a chartered company in possession of the one available port outside the hostile area, which had the power to demand explana tions and to forbid an expedition, if it willed. This company was desirous of keeping everybody else out of the field in the matter of the expedition for the relief of Emin Pasha. It had invested a large sum SCOUTLNG FOR STANLEY. of money in the Stanley expedition, the great object of which, apart from the relief of the ex-Egyptian governor, was to secure for its exploitation the rich commercial field of the Equatorial Province, Uganda, Unyoro, and the Upper Nile territory. The promoters of the company and the chief patrons of the Emin Relief Expedition were to all intents and purposes one and the same, and it was fully recognized by them that the best interests of the former depended very largely on the success of the latter.

Three weeks passed by, and still no news of Stanley. My plan of campaign had been thoroughly studied and decided on. Even now I was reluctant to embark on a costly expedition, and yet it would be equally rash to delay active operations any longer. Oh, for some definite clue as to whether news of Stanley was actually on the way or not ! After giving the subject much thought, I determined to pursue a conservative policy for some time longer and adopt a middle course which would give me com mand of the field should rivals appear on the scene, and which could yet be carried out at a reasonable out lay. My decision was to organize the advance column of the expedition and proceed inland a couple of hun dred miles from Mombasa, and, forming headquarters near Mount Kilimanjaro, await events for some weeks longer.

If at the end of that time I felt justified in pushing on to the far interior, it would be simply a case of getting more men and goods up from Zanzibar and continuing on my way. My determination to follow out this plan was strengthened and encouraged by the arrival from the ZANZLBAR AND MOMBASA. 9 Kilimanjaro country of Dr. Abbott, who had spent a year up there collecting specimens to be presented to the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. He had returned to the coast to bring his collection and to reorganize his caravan for another campaign in the same region. Much useful information was obtained from this gentleman, who, as it afterwards turned out, was to be the companion of my wanderings for several months. As he was going back at once, we could join forces to Kilimanjaro. We could both make our headquarters at Taveta, a friendly forest community at the southeast corner of the great snowy mduntain that forms the most prominently interesting feature of East Equa torial Africa.

At this point I could command three trade routes leading up toward the region in which the Stanley expedition had disappeared, and by knocking about with him and interviewing returning Arab and Swahili slave-traders I might possibly learn something about it. At all events, this seemed by far the most sensible course to pursue and the one most likely to give results worth having. For one thing, I would gain experience, and be able to profit by it in fitting out the larger expedition, and in many ways this preliminary move would be of great advantage. With all caravans bound long distances into the interior from Pangani or Mom basa, Taveta is regarded as a very convenient first ad vance. All find it desirable to halt there for a certain length of time. One is still within touch, so to speak, of the coast..

Here everything is overhauled, and any changes that may have been suggested by the journey from the coast are made. Here any mistakes that may have been made in the organization and outfitting of a caravan may be rectified, and any important thing that has been overlooked or forgotten can, at a pinch, be got up from the coast before plunging into the wilds of Masai-land beyond, and if superfluities have been dis covered they may be left there in perfect safety any length of time. Here Thomson, when retreating from the menaces of the Sigarari Masai, obtained refuge for his demoralized followers for a couple of months, while he returned to Mombasa for more men and goods ; and at Taveta, also, Count Teleki found it necessary to spend three months in the work of organization before undertaking his great journey to Suk and Elgumi.

The middle of March had arrived, and nothing had been heard of Stanley since the simultaneous and doubtful dispatches from St. Thome and Zanzibar three months before. Dr. Abbott and myself having decided to join forces as far as Kilimanjaro, we deter mined to proceed to Mombasa. One hundred and ten men had been engaged for us by our Zanzibar agent, and we learned that we should be able to secure as many more as we might want at the mission stations of Frere Town and Rabai when we reached the port of our departure for the interior. Sacks of beads, bales of cloth, big coils of senenge (iron wire the size of telegraph wire), and lesser coils of fine and coarser copper wire, boxes of provisions, clothing, ammunition in tin-lined cases, tents for sleep ing in and storing goods — all these were weighed, assorted, and covered with palm-fibre matting, each piece being reduced to sixty pounds weight, a porter's ZANZIBAR AND MOMBASA. 11 load, and were piled up ready for shipment to Mom basa.

By the courtesy of the British Consul-General our arms and ammunition had already preceded us aboard H. M. S. Turquoise, of the blockading squadron, and were now awaiting our orders at Mombasa. Arab dhows were invented by His Most Satanic Majesty at some obscure period of the past for the pur pose of trying white men's souls and tempting Chris tain tongues to sulphurous profanity. They are, beyond doubt, the most uncomfortable craft that ride the seas. Our dhow seemed built for the express purpose of div ing under the first wave that might come along. Her stern pointed rakishly cloudward and her bow dipped toward the water like the toe of a shoe. Most dhows are so atrociously filthy that, as they pass you to wind ward, though a mile away, you will, if at all fastidious, do well to bury your nose in your handkerchief.

But we had been fortunate in securing the services of a craft known in Zanzibar as the "mail dhow," because it is sometimes intrusted with the native mail between Zanzibar and Muscat. The mail dhow, besides a reputation for speed, had the redeeming feature of cleanliness. Pointing this out and waving a skinny hand at an incoming dhow, whose cargo of half-decayed shark polluted the air, by way of emphasizing his point, her ancient skipper demanded $300 for the trip. After no end of bargaining, however, we beat the old fellow down to a more reasonable price, and on the morning in question, our preparations being complete, we got the men and goods aboard and bid farewell to Zanzibar. It has become a settled custom in Zanzibar to pay porters engaged for an expedition into the interior three months' wages in advance.

It is one of the most mischievous and annoying innovations that could pos sibly have been introduced. The money itself is noth ing ; that might as well be paid in advance as at any other time. But the system has called into existence a brood of artful dodgers who engage as porters for the sole purpose of receiving this advance pay and decamp ing at the first favorable opportunity with their guns. Many of these worthies have already become quite ex pert bounty-jumpers, receiving as the reward of persever ance in this slippery course three months' advance pay from first one white traveler and then another. Occas ionally the outraged Msungu has the satisfaction of hearing that his agent has pounced on one of the delin quents and put him in the Zanzibar chain-gang for a term of weeks, and with this he must fain be content.

The custom, as may be supposed, exerts a pernicious influence on the whole tribe of porters. The East African pegazi is a happy and irresponsible scamp at best, and to come forward willingly and work out three months' wages that he has already squandered in a few days and nights of riotous living is altogether too much to expect of one whose name is, or ought to be, "Unstability." Nothing but the fear of dire punish ment prevents every Zanzibar porter who has received and squandered this advance leaving you in the lurch on the day of departure, and on the way up country the knowledge that he owes you three months' service is a standing temptation for him to desert. The system ought to be abolished. Its abolition would lessen the difficulties and annoyances of African travel one half, WANYAMWEZI I'ORTERS and would, moreover, be a benefit rather than a hard ship to the men.

The Wanyamwezi are the only porters on whom the system does not seem to exert a pernicious influence. Instead of squandering their money in a few days' debauchery, these sensible men, whom the Zanzibaris despise as "washenzies," or uncivilized, bank it with the agent that books them until their return. In a few years they return to Unyamwezi comparatively wealthy men. The day of our departure was fearfully hot. The tropic sun glared down into the stuffy dimensions of the dhow and heated her rude timbers like a furnace. We stood on the after-deck and called the roll of the expedition while the crew cleared away and hoisted sail. The indescribable "bouquet" from a hundred sweltering sons of Africa filled the vessel from stem to stern. Our dhow sported one enormous and apparently top-heavy lateen sail.

With a vast expenditure of grunts and orders this sail was finally hoisted, and a scarcely per ceptible breeze enabled us to tack slowly toward the north. About noon a launch from a British blockader boarded us, and once during the night, which was bril liantly moonlit, a second Englishman overhauled us on a stern chase. Our singing, garrulous cargo, how ever, although slaves for the most part, were not the raw material, subject to confiscation, and drawing near enough to ascertain who we were, the big blockader passed on about her business. Toward evening of the second day out Mombasa Island, distinguished by cocoa-palms and the rigging of a man-of-war in the harbor, came in view. We were plunging at great speed, under the influence of a spank ing breeze, through water startlingly shallow and of remarkable clearness.

Coral reefs shone white beneath us and pointed up in huge, jagged masses so near the surface that we expected every minute to hear a crash and to see the dhow shivered to splinters against some bold submarine crag. With what seemed to us like a sublime faith in kismet the captain of the dhow steered his craft over these dangerous shoals without the aid of chart or compass. His blind faith, however, carried him through, for near sunset we swung round a bold point of shore, and skimming through an extremely narrow channel found ourselves inside the lovely, land locked harbor of Mombasa. Our old friend H. M. S. Turquoise policed the harbor. She had, a few days before, run aground in the canal-like entrance. And now, as we "lay to" and submit to a second over hauling of the mail dhow's papers, a word about Mom basa, the point selected for the departure of the expedition, will not be out of order.

As our craft hove to and sandwiched herself in between various other speci mens of her kind which were marshaled in disorderly array before the town, we looked about us and thought our eyes had seldom rested on a lovelier spot. The British Company had at least secured a noble harbor, whatever the value of their concession as a whole. We were in a land-locked bay in which twenty steam ships might find safe and easy anchorage. On the south side lay the town of Mombasa, the same unpre possessing jumble of dilapidated houses that characterize Eastern towns in general, but, like these also, presenting a fair enough picture when not too closely inspected. An element of the mediæval, and not a little pictur esqueness, is imparted to the scene by the remains of an old Portuguese fort which occupies a position on a bold bluff overlooking and commanding the entrance to the harbor.

The crenelated battlements of this venerable reminder of the Portuguese occupation of the sixteenth century is about the only interesting piece of architecture in Mombasa, though some affect to see this quality in certain remains of some old Persian houses that still exist. On the north shore, opposite the city, a bold coral bluff rises from the water and describes an arc of a mile or thereabouts to the westward, where it terminates in the sandy beach and luxuriant vegetation of Frere Town. All around the precipitous shore is crowned with a continuous belt of cocoa-palms, and tropic creepers climb in profusion down its steep face to the water. The flourishing C. M. S. mission settlement of Frere Town occupies the upper end of the harbor. It is separated from Mombasa, which is on an island, by a picturesque creek or inlet, which winds back a dozen miles toward the Rabai hills, and which, with its southern branch, separates Mombasa from the mainland.

Frere Town is named in honor of Sir Bartle Frere and his memorable visit to Zanzibar to try and induce Seyyid Barghash to agree to the suppression of the slave trade in his dominions. The station is beauti fully situated, and presents a charming picture of white houses, feathery palms, and dense mango groves, sloping gently up from a curved strip of beach. Such, then, was Mombasa as we saw it and its immediate surroundings from the deck of our dhow. Its aspect and situation are not unworthy of its history, which has been somewhat interesting and at times quite stirring. As far back as the fourteenth century Mom basa — called by its inhabitants Mvita — was known to the Arabs as a flourishing and important place. Two centuries later it was visited by the celebrated voyager Vasco di Gama during his famous voyage around the Cape of Good Hope to India.

Indeed, this venture some navigator came near being shipwrecked on the very reefs over which our dhow had skimmed like a bird as we approached the entrance to its harbor. Since those days the city has changed hands by the stormy fortunes of siege and assault some fifteen times. Portuguese, Arabs, Turks, and Swahilis have occupied and been ousted from it in turn. At length, in 1827, it came under the dominion of the Sultanate of Zanzi bar, since which time its trade has steadily decayed and its importance diminished. Its latest transfer, however, will probably change its fortunes for the better once again. As the chief port of the I. B. E. A. Co.'s con cession we may expect to see this interesting old town revive and flourish as it never did before, for the policy of the Company is to induce Hindis and Banyan traders to settle and do business in Mombasa.