Into Africa Page 29

  Africa, however, had never made the going easy for Stanley. The last leg of his journey would be no different. Just three hours after leaving the Malagarasi River, Stanley passed through countryside that reminded him of the Nebraska prairie. Villages seemed to be everywhere, comprised of mud huts shaped like beehives. The equatorial sun bleached the grass white. It was while traveling through a village so large it had small suburbs that the New York Herald expedition was suddenly halted by a large group of warriors. They were members of the hostile Ha tribe.

  “How dare you pass by without paying tribute to the King of Uhha,” Stanley was told imperiously.

  “We have paid it,” Stanley sputtered.

  “To whom?”

  “To the Chief of Kawanga.”

  The Chief of Kawanga, it turned out, had kept the tribute for himself. Stanley was in a new territory, one belonging to the King of Uhha. The warriors ordered Stanley to rest his caravan in their village until tribute was paid.

  But Stanley was through dealing with the vagaries of tribute and in no mood to stop his caravan until reaching Ujiji. Under the blazing sun that had become such a regular part of his day, he forced his caravan to stand in the middle of the road as he sorted the matter out. After a series of emissaries had challenged Stanley in the name of the king, a regal young man clad in a crimson toga, a turban, and an ivory necklace sauntered over. “The gorgeously dressed chief was a remarkable man in appearance,” Stanley wrote. “His face was oval in form, high cheekbones, eyes deeply sunk, a prominent and bold forehead, a fine nose, and a well cut mouth. He was tall in figure and perfectly symmetrical.”

  The chief was Mionvu, of the Uhha tribe. His turban, Stanley noted with a keen journalistic eye, was made of cloth woven in Massachusetts. Politely but firmly, Mionvu requested Stanley and his forty-five men come out of the sun. “Why does the white man halt in the road?” Mionvu wanted to know. “The sun is hot. Let him seek the shelter of my village, where we can arrange this little matter between us.”

  Stanley feared a trap. An army of a thousand Ha warriors had assembled around the caravan. Stanley was frightened by how the warriors applauded Mionvu's speech with too much enthusiasm, and noticed with alarm that they were armed with bows, arrows, and spears—and fully prepared to use them. The next time he came to Africa, he vowed to himself, he would march through Mionvu's village with one hundred men and punish the man who didn't fear the New York Herald or the Star-Spangled Banner.

  “Will the white man,” Mionvu concluded his speech, “have war or peace?”

  Though Stanley's reply matched Mionvu's oratory prowess—his words were a stirring and lengthy paraphrase of a speech he once heard General Sherman deliver to the chiefs of the Arapaho and Cheyenne Indian tribes on the North Platte in 1867—it cost him an amazing eighty-five doti to get out of the king's territory alive.

  The next village was Kahirigi. The chief was Mionvu's brother. He wanted thirty doti and was persistent that there would be no negotiation. “I saw my fine array of bales being reduced fast,” Stanley wrote. “Four more such demands would leave me cleaned out.”

  Despite the king's mandate, Stanley sent Bombay and Asmani to negotiate. Stanley stewed in his tent all afternoon, smoking his pipe and searching for a desperate solution to a desperate situation. There were five more chiefs between him and Ujiji. All lived within two hours of each other and would already know about the wealth of Stanley's caravan when he passed. The cloth would certainly go. Arriving in Ujiji without any currency for trade would defeat the purpose—he would find Livingstone but would be unable to buy food or medicine, let alone pay his own way back to Tabora. Stanley considered going to war with the various tribes comprising the kingdom of Uhha, but ruled that out. He had come to the conclusion that prudence, not aggression, was the key to remaining alive in Africa. “How am I to reach Livingstone without being beggared?” Stanley wondered.

  Stanley called his guides into his tent. Unveiling his predicament immediately, Stanley asked how to get past the next five chiefs without paying tribute. They told him it was impossible. However, they added hopefully, there was another guide in the boma who might know a way.

  The guide's name was Mguna. He was the slave of an Arab living in Tabora. When Mguna heard Stanley's intention he didn't reject it out of hand, but he made sure Stanley knew the odds of success were slim. “You must have complete control over your men,” Mguna told Stanley. “And they have to do exactly as told.” Failure would mean war and death.

  Stanley agreed. For twelve doti, Mguna promised to show Stanley a back road out of town. The caravan would have to leave in the dead of night and observe total silence. Because they would be avoiding villages at all costs, the caravan must be carrying enough food to last at least four days.

  As soon as Mguna left, Stanley sent his men out to purchase four days' worth of grain. They returned with six. All seemed to be going in Stanley's favor. “I did not go to sleep at all last night,” he wrote in his journal the next day. “A little after midnight, as soon as the moon was beginning to show itself, by gangs of four the men stole quietly out of the village. By 3 A.M. the entire expedition was outside the boma and not the slightest alarm had been made.”

  As soon as the caravan was gathered, Stanley whistled softly for Mguna. The new guide appeared out of the shadows and stepped into the light of the moon, which had grown bright. Walking carefully, making sure the donkey and chickens and goats were quiet and the bundles didn't snag on any low tree branches, the New York Herald expedition tramped out of the village through a burned-out section of flat ground. They traveled south, away from Ujiji until clear of the village, then turned due west and made a beeline for Livingstone. Their path was parallel to the main road, but four miles off of it to avoid being seen. As the sun rose they stopped for a silent breakfast in a jungle clearing. Antelope were clearly visible and waiting to be shot, but Stanley didn't dare risk a single sound. He sipped a cup of coffee and exulted that his escape seemed to have worked.

  But as they waded across the swift, knee-deep Rusizi River, a woman who had joined the group to travel with her husband was suddenly overcome with fear. She let out a piercing shriek, as if bitten by a crocodile. Mguna quickly motioned for Stanley to shut her up before the whole countryside knew they were there. “We would have hundreds of angry Wahha about us and probably a general massacre would ensue,” Stanley wrote.

  Stanley quickly ordered the woman to be quiet, but several of the scared porters were already running off with their loads. Instead of silence, what Stanley got from the woman was an even louder brand of shriek. Like a siren, the sound rose higher and higher. The woman's husband became so enraged that he drew his sword and asked Stanley's permission to cut off her head. Instead, Stanley placed his hand over her mouth. When she fought her way clear and began screaming again, Stanley whipped her across the shoulders ten times and had her gagged and bound.

  The exhausted and scared Stanley waded ashore, regrouped his scattered caravan, and resumed his march. Twenty-four exhausting hours later, after being forced to slit the throats of their chickens and goats when Mguna mistakenly led them too close to a village in the middle of the night, the New York Herald expedition emerged from a bamboo jungle and found themselves safe. They cheered each other and knew the brotherhood of those who have endured near death together. Stanley made another estimate of time and distance. They were forty-six miles from Ujiji. They marched on, urgently. “Patience, my soul,” he wrote when they made camp that night. The caravan was in a thick forest, but a village had been spotted nearby, so no fires were lit or noises allowed. “A few hours more then the end of all this will be known!”

  The world seemed brighter to Stanley when they hit the trail the next day. He noticed the smoothness of pebbles, the beauty of wildflowers, a grove where wild fruit trees grew. His happiness grew even more when the group turned onto a smooth road and the pace increased. He thought back on all he had been through and it seemed simple in retrospect.
“What cared we now for the difficulties we had encountered—for the rough and cruel forests, for the thorny thickets and hurtful grass, for the jangle of all savagedom, of which we had been the joyless audience. Tomorrow! Ay, the great day draws nigh and we may well laugh and sing while in this triumphant mood. We have been sorely tried, we have been angry with each other, but we forget all these now, and there is no face but is radiant with the happiness we have all deserved.”

  The men cheered Stanley as Ujiji drew near. He had taken them through a wilderness and boldly past thieving sultans. Now they camped one last night in the village of Nyamtaga, just a short march from town. Beer was served and goats roasted. Stanley was nervous about presenting himself to such an important Englishman, and laid out the clean set of clothes he'd saved for the occasion: a white safari uniform, a new plaid wrap for his helmet, and a polish for his boots. “Hyah Barak-Allah!” the faithfuls shouted to him. “Onward, and the blessing of God be on you!”

  When Stanley dressed in the morning he was pleased with his appearance, thinking that he looked good enough to parade down the streets of Bombay. The New York Herald caravan set forth with the great blow of a horn, on what it hoped would be the last hours of its mission. The path was rugged and steep, leading them to the top of a small mountain, but Stanley didn't care. He was so taken with the idea of confirming that the white man in Ujiji was Livingstone that the miles flew past.

  The view from the summit, however, took Stanley's breath away. For the first time, Lake Tanganyika shone below him. It was like a silver sea, bordered by the most amazingly ominous mountains. Stanley couldn't take his eyes off of it, even as the caravan descended the mountain's far side. It had been almost exactly two years since Bennett's commission. The pressures and risks of marching across Africa to find Livingstone had been on his mind every day since. Somewhere down there, on the shore of that sparkling lake, lay Ujiji. To finally see the spot where the meeting would take place—and a lovely spot it was, a beautiful reward for all the toils and struggle—was like a dream come true.

  As the miles passed, the caravan's trail wound through a field of ten-foot-tall matete grass—elephant grass—that obscured their view of the lake but did nothing to slow the pace. “In a few minutes we shall have reached the spot where we imagine the objects of our search,” he wrote of the last miles into Ujiji. “Our fate will soon be decided. No one in the town knows we are coming.”

  When the caravan was just a mile outside of town, Stanley ordered the colors raised and the men to begin announcing their arrival. He gave the order for every man to load his guns. “Commence firing,” he roared, growing more nervous by the minute that he was on the verge of meeting Livingstone. What would happen? Would the veteran explorer run in the other direction? Would he be warm? Was there a possibility, as Kirk predicted, that he knew of their coming and had already left Ujiji?

  “The flags are fluttered, the banner of America is in front waving joyfully,” Stanley wrote. The sound of muskets firing and horns blowing filled the air, punctuating the flag's presence. “Never were the Stars and Stripes so beautiful in my mind.”

  The residents of the town came pouring out to greet them. The arrival and departure of caravans was a regular fact of life in Ujiji, but there had been none for months due to the war with Mirambo. Stanley had blazed a new trail for the caravans to travel. He was no longer a journalist, writing about the actions of others. Henry Morton Stanley had become an explorer, with all the incumbent fame and glory.

  Even as Stanley strode into town, surprise and happiness could be seen on the faces of the Arabs and locals alike. The Arabs pressed against him, shaking his hand and asking where he'd come from. “They were much astounded to find it to be a caravan,” Stanley wrote, “and be led by a white man.”

  The whole time, Stanley anxiously surveyed the sea of faces for another white man's. But there was none.

  By the time Stanley made it into the heart of town thousands of people were pressed around the caravan. And though it was a triumphant moment, with all the fanfare Stanley's phenomenal achievement deserved, he grew suddenly impatient. Livingstone was nowhere to be seen.

  A young black man then appeared at Stanley's side and spoke to him in English. “How do you do, sir?”

  “Hello! Who the deuce are you?”

  “I am the servant of Dr. Livingstone.” It was Chuma, and as soon as he uttered those intriguing lines, he dashed off just as quickly as he appeared.

  “Joy,” Stanley wrote in his journal. “Heart beat fast. I had to keep control over my emotions lest my face might betray them or detract from the dignity of a white man appearing under such circumstances. But what would I have given for a bit of friendly wilderness wherein I might vent my joy in some mad freaks, such as idiotically biting my hand, twirling a somersault, slashing at trees or something in order to purge these exciting feelings before appearing in the presence of Livingstone.”

  Everything had come together for Stanley—his years of failure and rejection, his desperate underdog's need to succeed at all costs, his hunger for a loving father figure. Stanley had waited a lifetime for a moment of such appreciation and validation. Now that it had come, the world spun off kilter, robbing him of the stern and angry façade that had driven him across Africa. In its place was a humble young man, desperate to do and say the right thing when meeting one of the world's greatest and most famous men. He wanted to appear smart and genteel, devoid of any pandering tone in his voice.

  Minutes earlier, Livingstone was sitting on the mud veranda of his small house, pondering his woeful future. His seat was a straw mat with a goatskin on top for cushioning. Behind his back, as he leaned against the hut's mud wall, another goatskin was nailed. The skin kept him from getting a chill as he leaned against the cold mud. Suddenly, he witnessed the unusual sight of little Susi racing down the dirt street. “When my spirits were at their lowest ebb the Good Samaritan was close at hand, for one morning Susi came running at the top of his speed, and gasped out, ‘An Englishman! I see him!' and off he darted to meet him.”

  Livingstone slowly rose. His doorway faced east, the direction from which the caravan was marching. Livingstone could see everything clearly. Above the throngs of people gathered to greet the incoming caravan, he saw the American flag snapping in the breeze. He didn't see a white man, but saw porters bearing an incredible assortment of goods: bales of cloths, huge kettles, cooking pots, tents. “This must be a luxurious traveler,” Livingstone thought. “And not one at wit's end like me.”

  All the most prosperous Arabs stepped forth to greet Stanley, shielding him from Livingstone. They clamored for news of Stanley's path and war with Mirambo. But even in their excitement at the prospect of the trade route to the coast being reopened, the crowd began to part. Livingstone was pushing his way through, curious to see who the traveler might be.

  What Livingstone saw was a tanned, gaunt young man whose hair was turning prematurely white from stress. His uniform was as crisp as could be expected, given the travel. His boots were well worn. His sun-beaten helmet had been cleaned. All in all, the man had such a formal bearing that, despite the Stars and Stripes, Livingstone assumed he was French. He hoped the traveler spoke English, because Livingstone didn't speak French. He thought that they would be “a pretty pair of white men in Ujiji if neither spoke the other's language.”

  What Stanley saw was a pale white man wearing a sun-faded blue cap and red Jobo jacket like the Arabs. His clothing showed signs of being patched and repaired. The explorer's hair was white, he had few teeth, and his beard was bushy. He walked “with a firm but heavy tread,” as if stepping on thorns.

  Stanley stepped crisply toward the old man, removed his helmet, and extended his hand. Not counting the months between his great commission and the start of his journey, Stanley had come 975 miles in 236 days for the moment. They wordlessly shook hands, each man appraising the other. Livingstone didn't know who the young man was, or what he might want. The Arabs and citizens
of Ujiji crowded around.

  According to Stanley's journal it was November 10, 1871, a day that would change the world.

  Stanley's heart was beating furiously, and he was striving desperately to say exactly the right thing to such a distinguished gentleman. Livingstone's British background, though, gave Stanley great pause. He wasn't sure whether or not he was welcome, how Livingstone would react, or whether he was about to be embarrassed in front of a large throng. But Stanley had not come across Africa to be denied.

  With formal intonation, representing America instead of his native Britain but trying to affect British gravity, and trying to quiet that singsong Welsh flutter that crept in when he got excited, Stanley spoke the most dignified words that came to mind: “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

  “Yes,” Livingstone answered simply. He was relieved that the man wasn't French.

  “I thank God, Doctor,” Stanley said, appalled at how fragile Livingstone looked, “I have been permitted to see you.”

  “I feel thankful,” Livingstone said with typical understatement, “I am here to welcome you.”

  • CHAPTER 36 •

  Brompton

  October 27, 1871

  Brompton Cemetery, London

  On a fifty-two-degree autumn morning, under a black sky that would threaten rain all day long, Sir Roderick Murchison was laid to rest. A man of his stature could have been buried in Westminster Abbey or St Paul's, but Murchison preferred to be buried alongside his beloved Charlotte in Brompton Cemetery.

  The end came just two months earlier, when he had suffered a second stroke, which made him unable to speak or swallow. “He got better,” as the Times noted, “and desired a trip into the outdoors.” The man who had ridden to hounds as a country squire, trekked the Alps as a newlywed, and roamed the countrysides of England, Scotland, and Russia in the name of geology, went for a ride in his open-air carriage. During the drive he caught a cold. The cold became bronchitis. At eight-thirty on the night of October 22, 1871, in his Belgrave Square mansion, Sir Roderick Impey Murchison's ambitious life came to an end.