Heroes of modern Africa

Front matter

HEROES OI

\-'llfCA

HEROES OF MODERN AFRICA

Preface

THE list of English heroes who have given their life-work, and in many cases their lives, to the exploration and development of Africa is a long one. The following chapters contain the stories of some explorers, naval and military commanders, and administrators, but do not include for the most part philanthropists and missionaries, who will probably be dealt with in another volume in the future. The writer has attempted to give sufficient detail and colour to attract the reader and make him wish to know more ; so, names of books that have been consulted are mentioned at the end of each chapter.

The exploration of Africa, begun by Greece and Rome, has been carried on also by Moslem Arabs, by the Portuguese, the Dutch, and later by the French and Germans, as well as by ourselves. It seems as if unknown Africa would shortly be reduced to a small area, and the long list of explorers and discoverers must soon be completed ; but there is yet room in the world for men of enterprise who will go forth to keep order among men and the lower animals, to organise a higher civilisation, to combat diseases, and teach the natives the truths of science and religion.

Part I Chapter I Jambs Bruce

PAGE

The earliest explorers — Portuguese missions — Bruce at Harrow — Studies law — To London — Marries at twenty-four — Wife dies young in Paris — To Algiers as Consul — Studies Arabic — To Syria and Egypt and Red Sea — Arab friends — Poses as beggar — Massowah — Perils — Shoots with a candle — Source of Blue Nile — Friend of the King — Nubian desert — A narrow escape — Home — Story not believed — Second wife — His writings — Death by accident 19

Chapter II

Mauritius and Ceylon — Black Sea — Marries twice — Goes with second wife to help Speke — Atbara and Nile — A great hunter — Meets Speke — Stops a mutiny by help of wife — Kamrasi's offer to exchange wives — Finds Albert Nyanza — Home — Knighted — Under Ismail 38

Chapter III

Sent down from Oxford — To India — Languages — Treatise on use of bayonet— To Mecca — Somaliland as Hadji — Crimea — Beards — Lord Stratford de Redcliffe — With Speke to Central Lakes — Fever — Tanganyika — Speke leaves him ill — Home — Marries — Fernando Po — Visits Abomey — Up the Congo — Consul at Damascus — Trieste 51

Chapter IV Speke And Geant

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Zanzibar — Hunting — The freed slave — Negro gentlemen — Speke leaves Grant lame and visits Uganda — M'tesa's severe rule and love of sport — 200 wives — Grant follows in a stretcher — Source of the Nile — Speke thought to be a cannibal — Home ... 72

Chapter V

Educated in a stone quarry — Fired by story of Livingstone — To Edinburgh as student — To East Africa with Keith-Johnston — His leader dies, and Thomson leads on to Tanganyika — Home welcome — To Zanzibar to explore for coal — Masailand — Mount Kenia — The Nyanza — Niger Hinterland — Atlas Mountains — Ill-health 89

Chapter VI

Ismail's conquests — Kise of Mahdi — Emin posted by Gordon — Fall of Khartoum — Stanley asked to rescue Emin — Goes up the Congo — The old steamers — Tippu-Tib — The lost brother — The dark forest — Poisoned skewers — Panga Falls — Dwarfs — Deserters — Randy, the terrier — Out into the sun — Nyanza, but no Emin — Builds a fort — Emin comes at last — Indecision of Emin — Back to find the rear-guard — Famine — Mutiny — Home . . . 104

Chapter VII Waltee Montagu Keer

Travels alone from Cape to Zambezi — Calls on Lobengula — Makes fetish — Chuza's heart is sore — The fly — A lion purrs — Tettemen desert — Angoni — Livingstone Mission — All dead — Other journeys 126

A Cambridge student — Walks from Cape to Cairo — Ujiji — Big game

— The Dinkas — Geysers— Hits the Nile and so home . . .138

Chapter VIII Sie Heney Moeton Stanley, G.c.b

Early life and hardships — Kuns away — To New Orleans — Adopted — A soldier — Journalist — Sent to look for Livingstone — Finds him alive — Down the Congo — Founds the Free State — Rescues Emin— Marries Miss Tennant— M.P. — Many writings . . . 142

Chapter IX Page

Pellew of Cornwall — Canada — Friend or foe ? — Takes the Cleopatra — Knighted — Saves ships from mutiny — India — Made Baron — Ordered to Algiers — The defences — Accurate firing — Dutch allies — Fire and storm — Slaves freed — Made Viscounty . . 159

Chapter X

Service in India and China — Abyssinian War — Sepoys help British — Difficult march — Sufferings of animals — A dour Good Friday — A touch and go — Suicide of King Theodore — Home with honour — A nation's thanks 175

Chapter XI Lord Wolseley, F.m

His family — Burma — Crimea — Indian Mutiny — Bed Kiver Expedition — Ashantee War — Boad-making through the forest — The King — The scared sentry — Fetish and frights — The Black Watch — Coomassie burnt 195

Chapter XII Lieutenant-general Sir Harry Smith, G.c.b

Whittlesea Yeomanry — Spain — War and love — America and Water- - loo — Juana's ride — Harry's ride to Grahamstown — Hintza shot — Smith recalled — Rain-makers — Aliwal —Governor of the Cape —Boers rebel — Recalled again — Loved by colonists and natives 215

Chapter XIII

The Zulus and their army — Lord Chelmsford finds his camp taken — Chivalry of officers — Rorke's Drift attacked — Defended against odds — Prince Imperial killed — Victory of Ulundi . . . 232

Chapter XIV Page

Bedford — Harrow — Dresden — The "Blues"— A strong giant— Don Carlos — Sudan and Gordon — To Khiva — At Plevna fights Eussians — At El-Teb — Joins Wolseley on the Nile — A kicking camel — " Boys will be boys " — Wounded animals — The gap in the square — Heroic death 246

Chapter XV Lieutenant-colonel Seymour Vandeleur

Eton — Scots Guards' training — To Somaliland for big game — Uganda rifles — Slave-raiders — Nigeria — Fulani and the shepherd kings — Sir G. Goldie's campaign — Haussa daring — To Cairo — Atbara — Omdurman — Boer War — Paardeberg — Joins Irish Guards — Shot 264

Chapter XVI

The training of an army — General A. Hunter — The zereba stormed — The Berber triumph — Battle of Omdurman — A gun-boat saves the camel corps — The Lancers ride to death — MacDonald's drill saves the day — A Gordon requiem — Khalifa dies — Cape Town — March to Pretoria— Peace, 1902 279

Chapter XVII

Bath and Bitton — Governor of Bombay — Bank failure — Zanzibar and slaves — With Prince of Wales in India — Cape — Zulu unrest — Boer discontent — Frere censured — Basutos rebel/ . . . 295

Chapter XVIII

A vicar's son — To Natal — Tries to grow cotton — Diamonds found — Oxford and Oriel — Beads on the veldt — Buys up claims — M.P. and friend of the Dutch — In Basutoland with Gordon — Premier — Matabele War — Jameson's Raid — Goes unarmed amongst natives— Meets the Kaiser — Siege of Kimberley — His will 308

CHAPTEK XIX

J. T. BENT, F.S.A., AND MASHONALAND

PAGE

A Puritan Chief — The desert — Strange food — Khama's ideal rule — Children of the Sun — The Lundi in spate— Semitic origins — Sun worship — Land of Ophir 328

Chapter XX Evelyn Baeing, Lokd Cbomee, G.c.b

Ismail's debts — Arabi's revolt — Evelyn Baring as soldier, aide-decamp, Indian Secretary — Consul-General at Cairo — Lord Milner on his chief — The Nile and the barrage — A pathetic story — The iron hand in the silken glove 338

ERRATUM

By mistake the following acknowledgment was omitted at p. 196 :—

From The Story of a Soldier's Life, by Lord Wolseley, by the kind permission of Messrs. Constable & Co., Ltd.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Bombardment of Algiers Frontispiece

Bruce's Short Method with the Arab 24

Bruce and the Wild Horse 32

The King op the Desert 49

The Trail op the Slave-hunters 66

Speke on the Brink op the Nile 74

Speke and the Hostile Natives 86

Thomson's Narrow Escape 98

Baboons Returning prom a Raid 122 v

Amazon Warriors 154

King Theodore 186

Smith and the Rain-makers 226

ISANDHLWANA 238

Dragging a Gun across a Stream . . . . . . 282

Surrender op Cronje 288

Rhodes and the Matabele Warriors 322

Part I Heroes Of Exploration

HEROES

OF

MODERN AFRICA

Chapter I

IT is strange that Africa, which boasts the oldest of civilisations in Egypt, should be one of the last continents to yield up its secrets to the explorer and geographer. Perhaps the burning sands of its waterless deserts, and the deadly fevers bred in its river valleys, may have secured for it that age-long seclusion. The savants of Memphis, Thebes, and On, whose earliest forerunners lived some four thousand years before our era, only smiled inscrutably at the inquisitive Greek historian, Herodotus, when he pestered them with questions concerning the source of their sacred river. To them there were deep questions of life and death and immortality which far out-clamoured the materialistic probings of that teller of tales.

But the Egyptians were not all immured in religion and the " Book of the Dead " ; for, two hundred years before Herodotus visited the cities on the Nile, Pharaoh Necho had been prompted, about 600 B.C., to solve some of the mysteries of the South land ; and, if Herodotus had not heard the results, no doubt the priests of Isis and Horus may have explained to him how the learned Pharaoh sent Phoenician navigators at his own cost down the Red Sea and along the East Coast of Africa till they doubled the Cape and reappeared after three years by the Pillars of Hercules, and so through the Mediterranean back to Tyre and home.

Again, we know that about five hundred years B.C., Hanno, the Carthaginian admiral, was sent by order of the Senate to plant colonies on the Western Coast of Africa. They sailed southwards in sixty ships, as the Greek translator of the admiral's journal informs us, and landed many times in the far-away regions of the crocodile and the gorilla ; they saw with a strange alarm how the hilltops were alight with beacons, and they heard the wild clang of the tocsin as their fleet appeared off coast or headland.

How far they sailed we cannot be sure, some think to the coast of Guinea.

Again, Rome under Nero sent out two centurions in command of an exploring party to ascend the Nile ; who, with the help of the King of Abyssinia, reached the vast marshes above the junction of the White Nile and the Sobat ; after them for eighteen centuries no European ever visited those regions. In the fourteenth century Ibn Basuta, of Tangiers, made a long journey inland from Fez and saw the Niger. Other Arabians followed his example, notably Leo Africanus.

Then the Portuguese in the fifteenth century took up the adventurous enterprise under the guidance of Prince Henry, the navigator ; they made a friend of the King of the Congo, and sent missionaries to convert his people. Vasco da Gam a doubled the Cape, and reached Mombasa on the East Coast, but we cannot do more than mention his name.

The first great explorer of British blood was James Bruce of Kinnaird, in the county of Stirling, who was born in 1730, and inherited from his mother a weakness of lung. But he shot up quickly in height, and was tall when, at the age of twelve, he was sent to Harrow School, then under the mastership of Dr. Cox.

Two years later a letter was sent to Brace's father by Dr. Glen, in which he wrote of his son James, " I never saw so fine a lad of his years in my life," and Dr. Cox remarked to him, " When you write to Mr. Brace's father about his son, you cannot say too much ; for he is as promising a young man as ever I had under my care, and for his years I never saw his fellow."

Bruce remained at Harrow four years, studying the classics and making valuable friends ; but he had outgrown his strength, being already above six feet high ; and his uncle, Counsellor Hamilton, on seeing and hearing him, wrote to his father, " He is a mighty good youth, a very good scholar, and extremely good-tempered ; has good solid sense and a good understanding ... he inclines to the profession of a clergyman, for which he has a well-fitted gravity."

Bruce, the six-foot-four explorer, the dare-devil who kept every savage in awe — a most grave and reverend student of divinity !

But his father preferred the law for him, and sent for him to Scotland in May 1747. At home he ranged the hills and grew stronger ; in the autumn he got his first taste of field sports and lost some of his gravity. But the study of Scottish law did not agree with him after grouse-shooting, and his physician ordered him home for fresh air and exercise. " Oh ! but he is a bonnie laddie," said the ghillie, looking up into the frank face of the young giant, "and I will mak 1 a man of him yet."

By the time he was twenty-two he had gained his full height, and was no longer a meditative invalid pondering over the probability of an early death. He felt within him the power and the will to do something in the world :

he wished for a writership in the East India Company, but was above the age for admittance.

So he went to London to ask permission from the Court of Directors to trade under its patronage.

One of his old Harrow friends soon introduced him to Adriana Allan, a beautiful and gifted girl, the daughter of a rich wine merchant. As James Bruce was so soon to go to India, Adriana received his attentions with artless appreciation ; the result being that Jamie thought it best to take a share in the wine trade, not omitting a partnership with Adriana. Her mother, now a widow, consented, and they were married in 1754, when Bruce was only twenty-four years old. But a great happiness of a few years' duration was broken by the early death of his young wife from consumption while they were at Paris. Bruce, after the funeral, rode away on horseback all night in the rain, and by the time he arrived at Boulogne was in a high fever. Frequent bleedings ended in a violent pain in his breast, and he returned to his business in London with little zest for affairs. To take off sad thoughts he began to read books of travel ; then an idea occurred to him — why should he not find the source of the Nile ? He fagged at Spanish and Portuguese and drawing, and not long did he tarry in London, but set off for Portugal and Spain and France and Germany. At Brussels he was challenged to fight a duel, and after wounding his antagonist twice, thought it wise to leave for Holland ; he was just in time to see the battle of Crevelt, and was vastly interested to witness a little real warfare : this experience hardened him in his resolve to seek more lions in the path of exploration.

But at Rotterdam a letter was brought him announcing the death of his father, and he at once returned to England.

He had succeeded to the paternal estate at Kinnaird, but remained three years longer in London, winding-up his business and studying Arabic and Ethiopic and the geography of Abyssinia. It was evident to his friends that he was wishing to seek the source of the Nile in Abyssinia, that land of mystery and mountain.

Just then coal mines were found in his Scotch property : his income was increased, and he could afford to travel far. But he had suggested in a letter to Mr. Pitt how easy it would be, in war-time, to capture Ferrol ; Pitt sent for Bruce, and asked him to draw up a memorandum. This brought him to the notice of Lord Halifax, who one day suggested that it would be a fine thing to explore Barbary or the course of the Nile. Bruce leapt at the idea, but just then he was offered the consulship at Algiers ; King George the Third received him kindly, and requested him to make accurate drawings of any ruins he fell in with. So he travelled leisurely through France and Italy, improving his drawing faculties and his taste and his study of astronomy. He was carefully preparing himself for the great work of his life.

But his stay in Algiers was not long ; for the Dey of Algiers, Ali Pasha, a wicked, old tyrant, was bent on slighting Bruce as well as the other consuls : amongst other things he had made a slave of an English sailor, and refused at Brace's request to release him ; nay, he even produced the poor man for Bruce to see how he had been hacked, mangled, and bruised, and to show how the Dey cared neither for the King of England nor his consul.

Bruce wrote home and suggested that the only reason or argument that the Dey would respect was a show of force ; but the home Government did not think it worth while ; so the Dey proceeded to bastinado the English consul's messengers and the captain of his despatch boat in such a manner that the blood gushed out.

While Bruce was waiting for a reply from Lord Halifax, he was studying Arabic and Moorish at every leisure moment, conversing with the natives, and sketching old ruins. When the reply did come, it was so unsatisfactory that Bruce begged to resign his commission as consul.

We must hurry over his next travels : he visited Tunis, Crete, Rhodes, Palmyra and Baalbec, Cyprus and Egypt. He suffered shipwreck and was saved by swimming, only to be stripped and beaten by Arabs ; but he persevered in his intention to find the source of the Nile some day. In July 1768 he reached Cairo, where he posed as a dervish skilled in medicine, as indeed he was ; he made friends with the Greek Patriarch of the Convent of St. George, and obtained letters to the Greek Christians in Abyssinia ; then, in December, he took a boat up the Nile, and noticed that the monasteries of the Coptic Christians dared not sow their land, for they knew it would only expose them to the violence of the Arabs.

He visited ancient Thebes and its sepulchres and sketched some of the paintings there, then on to Karnac and Luxor, where he prescribed for the Sheikh and obtained his blessing : " Cursed be the man who lifts his hand against you." Bruce revealed to his new friends, Ababde Arabs, that he was hoping to visit Abyssinia, a country from which no stranger was allowed to return ; and all took the oath to help " Yagoube," as they called Bruce, in the tell or in the desert. On the 16th of February 1769, Bruce joined a caravan to cross the desert to the Red Sea. It was burning hot on the sand : no living herb or animal or bird was to be seen. Next they reached hills of green and red marble and red sand. Bruce writes, "In four days we passed more granite, porphyry, marble, and jasper than would build Rome, Athens, Corinth, Syracuse, and half-a-dozen such cities. " At length they came to Cosseir, a mud- walled village on the shore of the Red Sea, where, as he showed the firman of the

Bruce's Short Method with the Arab

The Scotsman was a man of great stature and immense strength. He seized the Arab who was inciting his companions to attack the explorer and flung him ten or twelve feet away.

Grand Seignior and the letter of the Bey of Cairo, he was treated with great respect.

But during his stay here four hundred Ababde Arabs came in on camels, and taking Brace's Arab, Abd-el-gin, for an enemy of theirs they put a rope round his neck to cut his throat outside the walls.

Bruce, on being told of the danger of his servant, vaulted on his horse and rode two miles in pursuit. A crowd of Arabs whom he overtook came round him, gabbling dire threats.

" Salaam alicum," said Bruce, " we are friends : where is your chief ? "

They pointed to a black tent which had a long spear thrust up in the end of it.

" I met Ibrahim, the Sheik's son, at the door of the tent. At first he did not recognise me ; but I took hold of the pillar of the tent and said, 6 Fiardac 1 1 when he cried, 4 What ! are you Yagoube, our physician and friend ? and my people are about to kill your servant, you say ? Verily, God renounce me and mine, if it is as you say ; if one of them hath touched but the hair of his head, that man shall never drink of the Nile again.' "

Thereat order was sent to release the Arab servant, and the incident closed with good feeling on both sides.

Bruce had proved that he dared to face danger in defence of his servants, and the Arabs respected him for it.

He now explored the coast, crossed the Gulf, encountered a storm, and cut the mainsail into shreds with a knife whilst his skipper was muttering his prayers to a local saint. At the port of Jidda he appeared before the English consul shaking with ague, weather-beaten and in rags.

He was treated as a beggar, for he was too ill to explain matters, and fell asleep on a mat in the cook's quarters.

Meanwhile the Vizier, wishing to see what so wretched a tramp should have in his trunks, opened them at the hinges, and stood aghast at his own temerity when the first thing he saw was the firman of the Grand Seignior powdered with gold dust and wrapped in green taffeta ; next he found a white satin bag addressed to the Khan of Tartary ! then a green and gold silk bag with letters directed to the Sheriff of Mecca ! and last of all he found a letter addressed to himself by Ali Bey of Cairo, written with all the arrogant superiority of a prince to a slave, and ending with an intimation that if he neglected the noble Bruce he, the Bey of Cairo, would punish the affront at the very gates of Mecca. The Vizier turned pale. " Nail up those boxes," he cried peevishly ; " why did ye slaves not tell me the stranger was a great personage ? " The terrified Vizier mounted his horse and rode at a gallop to the English factory. His suite scampered about, crying, "Where is the English nobleman ? has any one seen him ? "

They only found, as it seemed, his servant yawning on a mat ; but the Vizier approached and said, " Where is your master ? " " In Heaven ! " replied Bruce calmly, stretching forth one long arm. " Not dead, surely ? the noble Bruce is not dead, I hope ? " " Oh ! dear, no ! I am not dead — only dead tired, my friend " ; and the giant shook himself, got up and bowed with dignity. The courtyard was full of gaping Arabs and Turks : the story soon brought hundreds to see the big and noble stranger. Then followed great joy and rich banquets, and offers of help in entering Abyssinia. Finally he sailed for Massowah, the port of Abyssinia, not as a beggar, but as a prince, with the compliment of a salute from the fort. He spent seventeen days in reaching Massowah, but he used most of the time in surveying the islands and coast, taking latitude and longitude, finding the depth of the harbours and determining the currents. All these observations were then entirely new, and were of utmost value to succeeding traders.

Hitherto nothing had been known of the interior of Africa, exeept by a few missionaries, who seldom returned to give any account of their labours. Bruce made many interesting observations on the climate and geology of Abyssinia : he noted that a belt of some eleven hundred miles on each side of the Equator was periodically deluged with rain, and that this region was covered with enormous trees and climbing shrubs ; here the flamingo and heron, crane and duck, goose and plover, kingfisher and the fishing-eagle held their revels, while the air vibrated with the song of myriads of little birds. It sounds delightful ; but we still have to reckon with the mosquito, the ant, the crocodile, and the fever.

Abyssinia, which country Bruce was now about to enter, being the oldest monarchy in Africa, lies in the middle of the north torrid zone : it contains enormous forests and rugged mountains, which run parallel with the Red Sea ; the Blue Nile rises within its frontiers ; the rains are of tropical violence, and are attended by the presence of myriad flies that for six months render that part of the land which they infest almost intolerable to the life of man or animal.

The low, flat country is occupied by the Shangalla, the ancient Ethiopians, pagans black and naked, living in forests upon the game they catch : they are all archers from boyhood, sober and manly.

But when a new king mounted the throne of Abyssinia, it was the custom for the mountain-bred Abyssinians to hunt the Shangalla, kill the men, and carry off the boys and girls to become their slaves.

Besides these races there is a shepherd race, the Galla, who ride on horseback, swim wide rivers, eat raw meat, and are generally Mahometans.

About 1550 Ignatius Loyola persuaded the Pope to send a mission to Massowah, to convert the Abyssinians ; the

n

Portuguese followed this up by later missions, although a form of Coptic Christianity had been introduced from Alexandria in the fourth century — a form which soon became degraded into gross superstitions. The older Coptic priests stirred up the people to resist Rome, and the Romans were expelled in 1630.

With this slight sketch of the country to help us we can follow Bruce in his travels through Abyssinia. He found it in a state of civil war, and narrowly escaped being murdered at the port of Massowah in September 1769.

But the story of the salute given him at Jidda, and the news that he was a great prince, saved his life. He presented his letters to the man in authority. " Do you think I shall read all these letters ? Why, it would take me a month." "Just as you please," replied Bruce, reclining easily in a large elbow chair. A day or two after, the Nagbe asked for 300 ounces of gold.

" I am not a trader," said Bruce ; " I have no gold for you."

" Then I will confine you in a dungeon till your bones come through your skin."

" Since you have broken your faith with the Government of Cairo, you may expect to see the Lion, an English man-of-war, some morning soon," said Bruce firmly.

" Ha ! ha ! I should like to see the man that would carry as much writing from you to Jidda as would lie upon my thumb-nail ! I would strip off his skin and hang him before your door, Englishman ! "

" My wisdom has already taught me to prevent this," replied Bruce ; " my letter has already gone to Jidda. So I advise you to let me continue my journey."

The Nagbe swore under his breath : " Go, then, and think of the ill that is before you."

On the 15th of November Bruce got away and faced the three ridges of mountains, crossing lovely water-courses in which he bathed, finding that the skylark sang the same notes as in England, having battles with herds of hyenas. One day he bought an Arab horse and groom, Arab stirrups, saddle, and bridle ; the horse he called Mirza, a name of good fortune to him hereafter.

When at length he reached Adowa, the capital of Tigre, the chief officer of Customs was so shocked at Brace's torn and bleeding feet that he burst into tears and cursed the Nagbe of Massowah. The Governor of the city received Bruce cordially, and feasted him and his company.

On their way to Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, they came upon the ruins of Axum, in which were forty obelisks, each being made of one piece of granite. Soon after they witnessed an episode, the narration of which on his return to London served to make many stay-at-homes sceptical of Brace's veracity. For he says, " We overtook three travellers driving a cow before them ; as we drew near a river the drivers suddenly tripped up the cow ; then one of them sat across her neck, holding down her head by the horns, another twisted a halter round her fore feet, while the third cut out of her buttocks two good-sized beefsteaks. Then they clapped down the skin, made a plaster of clay, forced the animal to rise, and drove it on before them." Even Dr. Johnson, who had travelled as far as Scotland, found this story too difficult for his digestion ; though he may have often enjoyed a supper of live oysters, and heard of English sailors eating the tail of a live shark. However, later travellers have confessed that they had often seen the very disgusting act which Bruce was found guilty of imagining.