CHAPTER XXI. THROUGH THE FORESTS.
On the 5th of November, Stanley, at the head of his motley array, turned his back on Nyangwe and his face to the wilderness. It was an eventful morning for him. Eighteen hundred miles of an unknown country stretched before him, wrapped in profound mystery, peopled with races of which the outside world had never heard, and filled with dangers that would appall the bravest heart. He felt, as he turned and gave a last look at Nyangwe, that the die was cast—his fate for good or ill was sealed. What sad misgivings must at times have made a feeling of faintness creep over his heart—what terrible responsibilities must have crowded upon him; aye, what gloomy forebodings, in spite of his courage, would weigh down his spirit. If he had used canoes, the starting would have been more cheerful, but the dense and tangled forest, whose dark line could be traced against the sky, wore a forbidding aspect. They marched but nine miles the first day, and though the country was open, the manner in which the men bore it did not promise well for their endurance when they should enter the jungle. Every pound was carried on men's shoulders, besides their weapons, all the provisions, stores of cloth, and beads, and wire, the arms and ammunition, of which there had to be a large quantity, for they might be two years fighting their way across the continent, and in addition to these burdens, the boat in sections. The next morning, Tipo-tipo's heterogeneous crowd started first, which impeded the march by frequent halts, for the women and children had to be cared for. They soon entered the gloomy forest of Mitamba, where the marching became more difficult, and the halts more frequent, while the dew fell from the trees in great rain-drops, wetting the narrow path they were following, till the soil became a thick mud. The heavy foliage shut out the sky, and the disordered caravan marched on in gloomy twilight, and at last, drenched to the skin, reached a village four miles from camp and waited for the carriers of the boat to arrive. These found the boat a heavy burden, for the foliage grew so thick and low over the path, that the sections had to be pushed by sheer force through it. To make the camp even more gloomy, one of the Arab chiefs who had been in the forest before, said, with great complacency, that what they had endured was nothing to that which was before them. The next day the path was so overgrown and obstructed by fallen trees, that axemen had to go before the carriers of the boat to clear the way for them. On the 10th, having reached Uregga, a village in the very heart of the forest, they halted for a rest. Its isolated inhabitants seemed to be in advance of those whom Stanley had seen elsewhere. The houses were built in blocks, which were square like those of Manyema, and they contained various fancy articles, some of them displaying great taste. Here Stanley saw curiously carved bits of wood, and handsome spoons, and for the first time in Africa, he beheld a cane settee.
The men carrying the boat did not come up for two days, and then quite broken and disheartened. Indeed, here almost at the very outset, everything seemed to point to an early dissolution of the expedition. Not only were his men discontented, but Tipo-tipo, with all his elegance of manner and pompous pretence, began to glower and grumble, not merely at the hardships his people were compelled to encounter, but because sickness had broken out in his camp.
On the 13th, three hundred out of the seven hundred of his men branched off from the expedition. The marching now became not only monotonous but extremely painful, and so slow that it took a whole day's march to make a distance of nine miles—a rate of progress that Stanley saw very clearly would never bring him to the Atlantic Ocean. They had now been seven days on the march and had made but about forty miles, and scarcely one mile west. Thus far their course had been almost due north toward the great desert of Sahara, and not toward the Atlantic Ocean. These five days had been utterly thrown away, so far as progress in the right direction was concerned; not an inch had been gained, and the whole expedition was discouraged. The carriers of the boat begged Stanley to throw it away or go back to Nyangwe, while the Arab chiefs made no attempt to conceal their discontent, but openly expressed their disinclination to proceed any farther. Even the splendid barbarian dandy, Tipo-tipo, who prided himself on his superiority to all other Arabs, began to look moody, while increasing sickness in the camp cast additional gloom over it. Huge serpents crossed their path, while all sorts of wild beasts and vermin peopled the dense forest and swarmed around them.
On the 15th, they made but six miles and a half and yet, short as was the distance, it took the men carrying the boat twenty-four hours to make it, and all were so weary that a halt of an entire day was ordered to let them rest. In addition to this, the forest became ten times more matted than before. Both the heavier timber and the undergrowth grew thicker and thicker, shutting out not only the light of the sun, but every particle of moving air, so that the atmosphere became suffocating and stifling. Panting for breath, the little army crawled and wormed itself through the interlacing branches, and when night came down were utterly disheartened. Even the elegant Tipo-tipo now gave out, and came to Stanley to be released from his engagement. It was in vain that the latter appealed to his honor, his pride and fear of ridicule should he now turn back to Nyangwe. But to everything he could urge, the very sensible answer was returned: "If there is nothing worse than this before us, it will yet take us, at the rate we are going, a year to make the sixty marches and as long a time to return. You are only killing everybody by your obstinacy; such a country was never made for decent men to travel in, it was made for pagans and monkeys."
It is in circumstances like these that those qualities which have made Stanley the most successful explorer of modern times, exhibit themselves. Napoleon said, when speaking of troops, "Even brave soldiers have their 'moment de peur,'" the time when they shrink. But this man seems an exception to this rule. To him the moment of fear never seems to come, for he never feels the contagion of example. He adheres to his resolution to go on, if but a handful stand by him. He seems impervious to the contagion that seizes others, and a panic in battle would sweep by him unmoved. After talking to Tipo-tipo for two hours, he finally got him to agree to accompany him twenty marches farther.
There were two things in this village, shut up in the heart of the forest, that impressed Stanley very much. He found here a primitive forge, in which the natives smelted iron-ore, found in the neighborhood, and a smithy, in which the iron was worked up into instruments of all kinds, from a small knife to a cleaver; hatchets, hammers, even wire and ornaments for the arms and legs were made. How this rude people, to whom even an Arab trader had never come, should have discovered the properties of iron-ore, how to disengage the iron and then work it into every variety of instruments, is inexplicable. The whole must have been the product of the brain of some native genius.
The other remarkable thing was a double row of skulls, running the entire length of the village, set in the ground, leaving the naked, round top glistening in the sun. There were nearly two hundred of them. Amazed, he asked his Arabs what they were, they replied "soko skulls." The soko, Cameron calls a gorilla, and we have no doubt many of the remarkable stories about gorillas refer to this monkey. But Livingstone says it is an animal resembling the gorilla, and his account of their habits shows they are not the fierce, fearless gorilla that is afraid of neither man nor beast. The soko is about four feet ten inches in height, and often walks erect, with his hands resting on his head as if to steady himself. With a yellow face adorned with ugly whiskers, a low forehead and high ears, he looks as if he might be a hideous cross between a man and a beast. His teeth, though dog-like in their size, still slightly resemble those found in the human head. The fingers are almost exactly like the natives. He is cunning and crafty, and will often stalk a man or woman as stealthily as a hunter will a deer. He seldom does much damage, unless driven to bay, when he fights fiercely. He takes great pleasure in nabbing children and carrying them up into a tree and holding them in his arms, but if a bunch of bananas is thrown on the ground he will descend, and leaving the child, will seize it. He seldom uses his teeth, but in conflict with a man he has been known to bite off his opponent's fingers and then let him go. They are hunted and trapped by the natives for their flesh, which is regarded as very good eating.
NATIVES HUNTING SOKOS.
Stanley, not satisfied with the answer of his men concerning the skulls, sent for the chief and asked him whose they were. He said of the sokos, which they hunt because of the destruction they make of the bananas, and that their meat was good. Stanley offered him a hundred cowries if he would bring one to him alive or dead. The chief went into the woods to hunt them, but at evening returned without success. He, however, gave him a portion of what he affirmed to be the skin of one. Stanley had the curiosity to take two of these skulls home with him, and gave them to Professor Huxley to examine, who reported they were the skulls of a man and a woman. Stanley, therefore, came to the conclusion that they were the skulls of men and women who had been eaten by these cannibals. But we do not believe this conclusion fairly justifiable, from Professor Huxley's report on two skulls. In the first place, the Arabs would scarcely have made such a mistake as this implies—they had seen too many soko skulls. In the second place, the chief corroborated their statement, and he had no reason for telling a falsehood. If those skulls were placed thus prominently in the streets, it was to boast of them, not to lie about them. It is far more likely that there were a few human skulls mixed in with the sokos, and that when Stanley asked for a couple, the largest and best-shaped were selected for him which proved to belong to human beings. His hunting for one was certainly not to prove he had told Stanley a falsehood. The same peculiarity was noticed here that Baker mentions of the natives of Fatiko—the women go naked, while the men are partly covered with skins. The whole apparel of the women is an apron four inches square.
On the 19th of March, they reached the Lualaba, sweeping majestically through the silent forest. Stanley immediately determined there should be no more tangled forests for him, but that the broad current of the river should bear him to the Atlantic Ocean or to death. The camp was prepared and the breakfast eaten, while Pocoke was getting the Lady Alice screwed together. Soon she was launched on the stream, amid the huzzas of the party. Although the river here was nearly three-quarters of a mile wide, and the opposite shore appeared like an uninhabited forest, yet sharp eyes detected the wonderful apparition that had appeared on the farther shore, and the news spread so rapidly, that when Stanley in the Lady Alice approached it, he saw the woods alive with human beings, and several canoes tied to the shore. He hailed them, and tried to make a bargain with them to transport his party across. They refused point-blank, but afterwards seemed to relent and offered to exchange blood-brotherhood with them, and appointed a place on a neighboring island where the ceremony should be performed. It was, however, discovered that it was a treacherous plot to murder them, and but for precautions taken in view of its possibility, there would have been a fight.
Stanley now determined to cross his men by detachments in his own boat. He took over thirty above the village and told the natives that they had better assist him in carrying over the rest, for which he promised they should be well paid. They finally consented, and the whole expedition was soon landed safely on the left bank of the river.