CHAPTER XXVIII. THE FRUITS OF VICTORY.
After victory, the fruits of victory; and to secure the latter is often more difficult than to win the former. The soldier may conquer a realm; it requires the statesman to organize and establish sovereignty. We may be entranced with enthusiasm at the daring of the explorer; we must bow with respect to the man who transformed a wilderness into a peaceful field of industry and commerce. Doubtless, at the end of his great Congo campaign, in 1878, Mr. Stanley longed for rest and home. Up to that time all his life had been a wandering, chiefly amid dangers and discomforts. He had written his name among those of the world's foremost explorers. Well might he have considered his task accomplished, and have turned his way toward scenes of rest and pleasure. Instead of that, all these great deeds were but the prelude to his real life-work.
Early in November, 1878, Mr. Stanley was invited by Leopold, King of the Belgians, to visit the royal palace at Brussels, on a certain day and at a certain hour. He went. He found assembled to meet him a large number of persons of note from all parts of the world, mostly men interested in commerce and finance. The object of the meeting was to promote the enterprise of studying what might best be done with the Congo River and its vast basin. Mr. Stanley was to tell them of the country, and they were to consider how to open it up to trade and civilization. "I have," said the explorer, "passed through a land watered by the largest river of the African continent, and that land knows no owner. A word to the wise is sufficient. You have cloths and hardware, and glassware and gunpowder, and those millions of natives have ivory and gums and rubber and dyestuffs, and in barter there is good profit!"
This was a tempting prospect, and a course of action was soon fixed upon. A company was formed, one hundred thousand dollars capital was subscribed on the spot, and Mr. Stanley was commissioned to organize, equip and lead an expedition. He was to open up a road through the Congo country to the heart of Africa. He was to erect stations, according to the means furnished, along the overland route for the convenience of the transport and the European staff in charge, and to establish steam communication wherever available and safe. The stations were to be commodious, and sufficient for all demands that were likely to be made on them. Ground was to be leased or purchased adjoining the stations, so as to make them in time self-supporting. Land along each side of the route was also to be secured, to prevent persons ill-disposed toward the company from interfering with its plans. The whole scheme was founded on the ideas of peace and equity. The expedition was to make its way by paying, not by fighting.
Mr. Stanley went to work promptly and energetically. This meeting was held on November 25th. The directors of the enterprise met again on December 9th. On January 2d, 1879, Mr. Stanley laid before them plans and estimates for the first six months' work, and on January 23d he was on his way to Zanzibar. It was, of course, desirable to have experienced men associated with him, so he sought out as many of his old comrades as possible. In that work some time was spent, but in the latter part of May he left Zanzibar in the steamer "Albion," which had been chartered for the use of the expedition. He had with him sixty-eight men, recruited at Zanzibar, of whom forty-five had accompanied him on his former journey down the Congo. At nine o'clock in the morning of August 14th he sighted land at the mouth of the Congo, and soon after was at anchor near the Dutch settlement at Banana Point. Here he met, for the first time, the other officers chosen to go with him on the expedition. There were one American, two Englishmen, two Danes, five Belgians, and one Frenchman. In the harbor was a small fleet of steamers intended for the expedition, and on shore was a considerable store of goods for bartering with the natives.
On August 21st, seven days after Mr. Stanley's arrival at Banana, the vessels of the expedition, consisting of the "Albion" and eight other craft of various sizes (the largest being the steel twin screw steamer "La Belgique," sixty-five feet long and eleven feet beam; and the smallest the "Jeune Africaine," a screw launch, twenty-five feet long and five feet ten inches beam) steamed out of Banana Haven, and began the ascent of the noble river. Boma, once the horrible emporium of the slave-trade, was reached after a sail of eight days; a depot was formed at Mussuko, four hours higher up the stream on the south bank; and the "Albion," after making one or two trips between Mussuko and Banana Point, in order to bring up the goods which had been left behind, was released from river duty, taken down to Banana Point, coaled, and sent home, on September 17th.
So far, all had gone well. In thirty-four days it had reached its first base of operations, ninety miles from the sea. All its supplies had been brought hither in safety, and the outlook for the future was promising. Soon after the departure of the "Albion" steps were taken to advance still further up-stream, and the next station was made at Vivi. This was six hours' sail in a nine-knot steamer above Boma. The site was carefully chosen, and Vivi has since become the most important station on the river. But before Mr. Stanley could commence operations in September, 1879, a palaver had to be held, and terms required to be arranged with the neighboring chiefs, of whom there were five. At the palaver the five chiefs formed a somewhat motley group. The introductions being over, the object of the expedition was explained through the medium of a lingster or interpreter; proposals were made on the part of the association; and the chiefs, after begging a bottle of gin apiece, returned to their houses to consider what the Mundelé, or trader, as Mr. Stanley was now called, had said to them.
On the following day they returned, and as the conference which followed was, in its general features, similar to many others that were held, we may as well use Mr. Stanley's description of it:—
"The conference began by the lingster, Massala, describing how the chiefs had gone home and consulted together for a long time; they had agreed that if the Mundelé would stay with them, that of all the land unoccupied by villages, or fields and gardens, I should make my choice, and build as many houses, and make as many roads, and do any kind of work I liked; that I should be considered as the 'Mundelé' of Vivi, and no other white man should put foot on Vivi soil, which stretched from the Lufû up to the Banza Kulu district, and inland down to the Loa river, without permission from me; no native chief of inland or riverside should molest any man in my employ within the district of Vivi; help should be given for work, and the people of Vivi, such as liked, should engage themselves as workmen; anybody, white or black, native or foreign, passing to and fro through the land, should do so freely, night and day, without let or hindrance; if any disagreement should arise between any of my people, white or black, and the people of Vivi, they, the chiefs, would promise not to try and revenge themselves, but bring their complaint before the Mundelé of Vivi, that he might decide upon the right and the wrong of it; and if any of their people were caught in the act of doing wrong, then the white man shall promise that his chief shall be called to hear the case against him, and if the crime is proved the chief shall pay the fine according to custom.
"'All this,' continued Massala, 'shall be set down in writing, and you shall read it, and the English lingster shall tell it straight to us. But first we must settle what the chiefs shall receive in return for these concessions.'"
This was not so easily settled. Four hours were spent before the bargain was concluded, and Mr. Stanley found himself obliged to pay one hundred and sixty dollars down in cloth and a rental of ten dollars per month. The papers confirming the agreement were then drawn up in due form, and signed by the various parties concerned in the matter.
Mr. Stanley, as "Mundelé of Vivi," had no good reason to congratulate himself upon his bargain. He had, of course, secured a site for his station, but he had been compelled to pay a big price for it, and his land was a mere wilderness of rocky and barren hillsides. All the really good land at Vivi was already occupied, and the natives would not part with it. On the evening of the day on which his contract was signed he wrote in his diary: "I am not altogether pleased with my purchase. It has been most expensive, in the first place, and the rent is high. However, necessity has compelled me to do it. It is the highest point of navigation of the Congo, opposite which a landing could be effected. The landing-place is scarcely three hundred yards long, but if the shores were improved by leveling, available room for ships could be found for fifteen hundred yards." On the plateau near the river was room for a town of twenty thousand people, and the situation seemed salubrious. So a road was made up to the plateau, buildings erected, and a large quantity of goods brought up from Mussuko, and safely housed.
So far the expedition had had plain sailing. The Congo affords a magnificent waterway from the ocean, at Banana, up to Vivi. But a little distance above Vivi are the Livingstone Falls, rendering further navigation impossible. It was therefore necessary to build a road and make further progress overland. So work was begun on a new road, from Vivi to Isangila, fifty-two miles above, which had been chosen as the site of the next station. The country was wild and rugged, and ruled by thirty or forty different chiefs. Each of these chiefs had to be negotiated with and won over, and each in his own way. Moreover, the individual owners of farms and gardens had to be dealt with, and often paid exorbitant prices for their land. Surveying the route was a long and toilsome job. The work of clearing and grading would have been stupendous had it been designed merely to make it a wagon-road. But it was to be more than that. It was to be a road over which several of the steamboats could be transported, to be relaunched on the river above the falls. Mr. Stanley never faltered, however, and at noon of March 18th, 1880, the work of making the road was begun. On January 2d, 1881, within ten months from the actual beginning of the work, the road, fifty-two miles in length, was completed, the boats were on the shore at Isangila waiting to be repaired, scraped, and painted, and the "Royal," a small screw steamer presented to the expedition by the King of the Belgians, was steaming on the river.
From Isangila there was smooth navigation up-stream for eighty-eight miles, to the Falls of Ntombo Mataka. Adjoining the latter is the district of Manyanga, where Mr. Stanley decided to erect the next station, and on May 1st, 1881, the whole expedition was safely encamped there. Of his achievements thus far Mr. Stanley speaks thus: "We were now one hundred and forty miles above Vivi, to accomplish which distance we have been employed four hundred and thirty-six days in road-making and in conveying fifty tons of goods, with a force of sixty-eight Zanzibaris and an equal number of West Coast and inland natives. During this period we had travelled four thousand eight hundred and sixteen English miles, which, divided by the number of days occupied in this heavy transport work, gives a quotient of over eleven miles per day!"
This expedition was intended to reach, as its farthest point, Stanley Pool, which was still ninety-five miles away, and every mile was full of difficulties. The river was not navigable, so an overland road had to be surveyed, "palavered" for, purchased and built, and the boats dragged over it. Worse still, Mr. Stanley was stricken down with fever, and for a long time lay on the brink of the grave. But even from his sick-bed he continued to direct affairs and to inspire his followers with his own unshaken faith in the success of the enterprise. So, by December 3d, 1881, the expedition was safe at Stanley Pool with the steamer "En Avant" launched in the Bay of Kintamo, beyond which were thousands of miles of navigable water. The new station was founded on Leopold Hill, a fine site overlooking the river, and was named Leopoldville, in honor of the royal patron of the enterprise. Doubtless this place will become the chief centre of Central African commerce. Its situation is magnificent. The climate is salubrious. The surrounding natives are friendly. Other stations have since been founded, further up the river, all tributary to Leopoldville. The most distant of them is on the island of Wané Rusari, at the foot of Stanley Falls, one thousand and sixty-eight miles from Leopoldville.