Into Africa Page 34
The only connection this discouraged, frazzled third Livingstone relief expedition had with the African expeditions of previous searchers like Burton, Speke, Grant, and Stanley, was the caravan leader—Sidi Mubarak Bombay. The grizzled veteran of three major expeditions in East Africa was going into Africa once again with yet another band of explorers.
The relief expedition was loitering in Tabora in November, trying to figure out its next move. As if by a miracle, Livingstone was suddenly brought into their midst. Chuma and Susi, however, had no intention of stopping or giving up the body of their beloved leader. After a rest of less than a week, the devoted porters marched from Tabora toward Bagamoyo. Two of the relief expedition members accompanied the body. The other, Lieutenant V. Lovett Cameron, continued for Ujiji, where Livingstone had cached letters and journals. He wouldn't stop his westward march until he got to the Atlantic, making Cameron the second British explorer to cross Africa.
Meanwhile, Chuma and Susi reached Bagamoyo in February 1874. When Chuma crossed to Zanzibar to formally present Kirk the news, he learned that the Consul was home in London, on leave. Kirk's deputy, Royal Navy Captain W. F. Prideaux, ordered the warship HMS Vulture to pick up Livingstone's remains in Bagamoyo. Prideaux then dismissed Chuma, Susi, and the rest of the caravan that had labored for almost a year to carry Livingstone's body out of Africa. For Chuma and Susi, who had been with Livingstone throughout his search, and without whose assistance the journey would have been impossible, it was an abrupt and thankless end.
Meanwhile, Livingstone's body was placed in a proper coffin in Zanzibar, then he, his papers, and his personal possessions were transferred to the steamship Malwa. By April 16, 1874, eight years and eighteen days after leaving England, Livingstone finally returned. England went into mourning as Malwa docked at Southampton to the thunder of a twenty-one gun salute. A brass band played Handel's Death March as Livingstone's flag-draped coffin was transferred to a special train provided by Queen Victoria. The train carried Livingstone's body to London, where the remains were formally examined by Sir William Ferguson and five of Livingstone's friends. Kirk, ironically, was present, too. And while sun and salt and eleven hard months had rendered his face unrecognizable, the sight of his shattered left humerus was enough to convince all that this was truly Livingstone.
The body lay in state in the RGS Map Room on Friday, April 17. “Floor and walls were covered with black cloth,” the Times reported. “And on all sides were memorials of the departed—his portraits taken at various periods of his career, his astronomical and drawing instruments, his charts in ink and pencil—the authentic records of his exploration—his chronometer, and other objects of unfading interest. Nor was the mournful darkness of the room unrelieved by graceful and tender devices. There were wreaths of amaranth and branches of palm.”
At half past noon on Saturday, April 18, 1874, a plumed hearse drawn by four horses pulled up at the Savile Row entrance to the RGS headquarters. Livingstone's polished oak coffin was carried out the door and placed in the hearse. Then Livingstone's funeral procession made its way to Westminster Abbey. Twelve mourning carriages containing family, friends, and RGS dignitaries traveled behind Livingstone. The Queen's royal carriage and the Prince of Wales's carriage followed next. A long line of personal carriages joined the procession. Houses along Savile Row had their curtains drawn in respect, and shops along Piccadilly, Regent Street, and Waterloo Place had one or two shutters raised in the customary sign of mourning. Thousands of onlookers lined the road in what would become one of Britain's largest displays of mourning ever. “The crowd in Trafalgar Square was larger than at other and less advantageous vantage points,” the Times reported. “But it was nowhere else so large as round the railings of Westminster Abbey.
“Inside the Abbey an immense congregation had assembled by a little after twelve o'clock,” continued the Times. “So dense was the throng of ticket holders that many who were able to pass into the building were unable to avail themselves of that right.”
Kirk was there. Grant, too. Even E. D. Young. And by appropriate coincidence, Stanley had just returned to England after an assignment covering the Ashantee War. Those men—all vital to the arc of Livingstone's search for the source—would serve as four of the eight pallbearers. “Such a gathering of sunburnt visages and far traveled men was never seen before, and indeed, the name might be lengthened with the names of a hundred other famous travelers present, who listen with wistful looks around their great dead chieftain,” the Times noted.
The service proceeded with a minimum of pomp and fanfare. Then, to the strains of Handel, as the choir intoned “His body rests in peace, but his name liveth evermore,” Livingstone was buried. His final resting place was not anonymous and his accomplishments would not be forgotten. As the mourners filed out, they threw flowers and wreaths down into Livingstone's grave. “Each of those present,” concluded the Times, “takes a long parting glance at the great traveler's resting place, and at the oaken coffin buried in spring blossoms, and palms, and garlands wherein lies ‘as much as could die' of the good, great-hearted, loving, fearless, and faithful David Livingstone.”
Stanley was among those taking a last, wistful look. Their time together had been just five short months, but his name and Livingstone's would be forever linked by history. Henry Morton Stanley, the drifter who fled Central City, Colorado, eight years before, striving to eke out a measure of adventure and success in his life, now knew both in spades—thanks in great part to Livingstone. “When I had seen the coffin lowered into the grave, and had heard the first handful of earth thrown over it,” Stanley wrote, “I walked away sorrowing over the fate of David Livingstone.”
Stanley walked solemnly out the great doors of Westminster Abbey into bright London sunshine, already charting yet another course in his life. He was successful, he was wealthy, and he was famous, yet Stanley was preparing to throw it all away. He made a promise to Livingstone in the heart of Africa—a promise to finish the explorer's work, and find the source of the Nile. It was a promise Stanley intended to keep.
Henry Morton Stanley, the new lion, was going back into Africa.
Epilogue
The saga of Stanley and Livingstone sparked an unlikely turning point in history. Journalism's growing power, America's ascendance and Britain's eventual eclipse, one generation of explorer giving way to another, and the opening of Africa—all were either foreshadowed or came about as a result of Livingstone's love affair with Africa and Stanley's unlikely march to find him. Not surprisingly, American journalists of the era even voted Stanley's discovery of Livingstone “the story of the century.”
Though the story's impact waned with every subsequent news cycle, author Joseph Conrad—who, as a child growing up in Poland, was so taken with Livingstone's adventures that he declared of Africa: “When I grow up I shall go there”—gave Stanley and Livingstone literary immortality. Though Conrad called Stanley's search “a newspaper stunt,” and lamented that colonial “empire builders suppress for me the memory of David Livingstone,” some of his biographers suggest Conrad's Heart of Darkness is based loosely on the New York Herald expedition. Stanley is Marlow; Livingstone is Kurtz. Ironically, it is that brilliant novel, not the journals of Livingstone or Stanley, which stands as the literary snapshot synonymous with nineteenth-century Africa.
DAVID LIVINGSTONE's burial site lies in the center of the Nave, one of Westminster Abbey's most cherished positions. The stone reads: “Brought by faithful hands over land and sea, here rests David Livingstone, Missionary, Traveller, Philanthropist, Born March 19, 1813, at Blantyre, Larkshire. Died May 1, 1873, at Chitambo's Village, Ulala. For 30 years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelize the native races, to abolish the desolating slave trade of Central Africa, where his last words he wrote, ‘All I can add in my solitude is, May Heaven's rich blessing come down on every one, American, English, or Turk, who will help to heal this open sore of the world.' ”
Livingstone'
s death opened the floodgates to European exploration of Africa. Within a decade, history's infamous Scramble for Africa had begun. Europe's powers began a pell-mell dash to exploit the resources and peoples of the continent. By the Anglo-German Agreement of 1886, the Sultan of Zanzibar's influence was forever replaced by the two European nations. England took control of what is now Kenya, while Germany named their territory German East Africa. That is the land Stanley marched through on his journey to Livingstone. Nowadays the nation is known as Tanzania, and the railroad tracks from Dar es Salaam to Kigoma roughly follow his path.
Germany's control of the region concluded at the end of the First World War. The British, who defeated the Germans in a major battle on the sands of Bagamoyo, effected total control of the region. In 1964, exactly one century after the Nile Duel, the British ended their colonial reign and the independent Republic of Tanzania was born.
HENRY MORTON STANLEY's reportage defined his era; from the Civil War to the American Indian Wars to the British invasion of Abyssinia to Livingstone to the Scramble for Africa. By inserting himself into the story during the Livingstone search, he began a new tradition of first-person adventure journalism.
Though Stanley always swore he uttered the words “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” the journal page pertaining to that specific moment was torn out, so there is nothing in Stanley's journals stating that he ever asked the question. It is possible that the missing page was an act of sabotage, likely perpetrated by a farsighted collector. But if Stanley didn't make the statement, and tore out the page to cover his tracks, it would be in keeping with his character. He may have fabricated the quote when writing his Herald stories (he mentions the quote in two separate dispatches; the first was published July 15, 1872, the other on August 10, 1872). However, what began as a self-professed attempt to sound eloquent became the journey's defining moment. The line would even become the standard greeting for later generations of African explorers when encountering one another on the trail.
By the time Stanley returned to London, then America, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” was so well known that recanting would have caused considerable loss of face and further corroborated the public perception created by the RGS and Bennett's rivals that the journalist's credibility was dubious. He continued using the quote in How I Found Livingstone. To the day he died, Stanley maintained he uttered the famous line.
More germane to the discussion is the heights to which Stanley soared after Livingstone died. Not only did he assume Livingstone's mantle of African explorer extraordinaire, he surpassed his mentor.
Stanley returned to Africa in 1874 to find the source of the Nile. The expedition was funded jointly by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., and the London Daily Telegraph. In one of the most incredible achievements in the history of exploration, he marched inland from Bagamoyo, traveled around the circumference of Lake Victoria seeking confirmation of Speke's theories, continued his travels inland to circumnavigate Lake Tanganyika, then pushed ever farther inland to the Congo River, which he followed all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. His reputation later in life, however, was besmirched when Stanley was paid a substantial sum by the king of Belgium to colonize western Africa. Leopold IV was a manipulative man who had long sought ways to expand the size of his tiny country in order to increase his personal wealth. With Stanley's help, the Belgian Congo came into being. Sadly, and contrary to Livingstone's legacy, Stanley would unwittingly help found one of the greatest slave-trading nations in history. Even after Stanley left Leopold's employ, the stench of that period left its mark on him.
Later in life he turned his back on America and lived out his days as a British citizen. Stanley married one Dorothy Tennant, and successfully ran for Parliament. Stanley's legacy, however, could not shake the stigma of his association with slavery. When Stanley died from complications of a stroke and pleurisy on May 10, 1904, the funeral service was held in Westminster Abbey, just as Livingstone's. But the dean of Westminster, the Reverend Joseph Armitage Robinson, refused to allow the internment of Stanley's remains in the cathedral. Instead, the body was cremated. The ashes were buried twenty-five miles southwest in a village churchyard. A more fitting site would have been outside his house in Tabora, which still stands. Shaw's clearly marked grave lies just beyond its walls.
In 2002, almost a thousand of Stanley's artifacts from his African travels were discovered in a descendant's attic. These items, which included Stanley's annotated manuscript of The Lake Regions of Central Africa, his Winchester, his compass, and a personally inscribed map of his Congo expedition from 1874–1878—perhaps the most epic adventure in exploration history—were auctioned at Christie's on September 23, 2002. “Never before,” a Christie's representative noted, “has such a large collection of artifacts relating to one explorer been offered at auction.”
JAMES GORDON BENNETT, JR., and the Herald saw their heyday in the 1870s. In addition to Stanley finding Livingstone, Stanley tracing the path of the Congo, and assorted other expeditions Bennett funded, the Herald had its second great scoop of the decade in July 1876. Acting on information wired to New York from, coincidentally, Fort Macpherson, Nebraska, the Herald broke the story of the massacre of General George Custer and his cavalry at Little Big Horn. That would be the end of Bennett's New York triumphs. He moved to Paris in 1877 after disgracing himself before New York society by drunkenly urinating in a fireplace during a formal dinner with his fiancée. By 1900 he was dividing his time between an apartment on the Champs-Elysées and a mansion near Versailles, and owned a 301-foot yacht with a crew of one hundred. Bennett died in Paris on May 14, 1918. His body was interred in an unmarked mausoleum in the cemetery of Passy. The New York Herald spawned a Paris edition, merged with the New York Tribune, and is known today as the International Herald Tribune.
SIDI MUBARAK BOMBAY crossed Africa as Cameron's caravan leader between January 1874 and November 1875. Upon reaching Luanda, on the Atlantic coast, Bombay sailed home to Zanzibar. On May 5, 1876, just two months after his return, the Reverend W. Salter Price of the Church Missionary Society approached Bombay about leading a caravan into Uganda. Bombay accepted. But in August of that year, while concluding final preparations in Bagamoyo, word reached Bombay that the Royal Geographical Society was awarding him a lifetime pension as thanks for his many years of service. He immediately announced his retirement and returned to Zanzibar, where he died on October 12, 1885. Between February 8, 1857, when Burton and Speke plucked him from the obscurity of the Chokwe garrison, until the day he died, Bombay was a member of the Burton and Speke, Speke and Grant, Stanley, and Cameron expeditions. He traveled the Nile from Lake Victoria all the way to Cairo, and from Bagamoyo to the Atlantic coast. The former slave died as one of the most accomplished African travelers in history.
DAVID SUSI and JAMES CHUMA traveled to England shortly after Livingstone's funeral. Their fare was paid for by Livingstone's friend, Horace Waller, who relied upon their insights and geographical expertise while compiling Livingstone's final journals for publication. At a Royal Geographical Society meeting on June 1, 1874, Chuma and Susi were presented with special medals by the society. They returned to Africa in October of that year. The date of Susi's death is unknown, but Chuma died on September 12, 1882, at the mission hospital in Zanzibar.
JOHN KIRK remained British Consul at Zanzibar until 1884. He endured a major investigation into his mishandling of Livingstone's relief supplies, and was exonerated of all charges of neglect. When the Zanzibar slave trade came to an end in the late 1870s, Kirk claimed credit for the accomplishment and was knighted.
SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER left Gondokoro for England on May 26, 1873, just over three weeks after Livingstone's death. He returned to England, where he died at home in Florence's arms on December 30, 1893.
E. D. YOUNG returned to eastern Africa in 1875, leading a group of missionaries sent by the Free Church Mission of Scotland to establish a new site known as the Livonstonia Mission, site of present-day Blantyre. He launched the fi
rst steamship ever to navigate Lake Nyassa. A warrant officer all his life, Young was officially bumped into a higher social standing when he was promoted to the rank of honorary lieutenant upon his retirement in June 1891.
F. R. WEBB transferred from Zanzibar to become American Consul in New Zealand.
BUFFALO BILL CODY and WILD BILL HICKOCK were invited to New York by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., at the conclusion of their 1871 hunting trip. Cody, in particular, was the toast of the town. As a result of his newfound fame he abandoned life on the plains and became a successful and extremely wealthy entertainer, circus owner, and movie producer. He owed that prosperity to a combination of dime-store novels about his exploits by writer Ned Buntline, and also to Bennett's ten-day journey across the plains. A series of business setbacks cost Cody his fortune. At the end of his life he was almost destitute. He died in Denver on January 10, 1917.
Hickock, who didn't share Cody's passion for New York, returned to the West after his visit. He became mayor of Hays, Kansas, but was run out of town on the railroad for trying to arrest George Custer's brother, Tom. Hickock died on August 2, 1876, in Deadwood, South Dakota. He was shot in the back while playing cards in a saloon.