“The female relatives filed in. With each name of the dead, old griefs were remembered. The poignant sorrow I felt—as the fallen were named after each successive conflict in those dark days, never to be forgotten by me—was revived. Sad and subdued were the faces of those I saw—as sad and subdued as my own feelings. With such sympathies between us we soon arrived at a satisfactory understanding. Each woman was paid without much explanation required—one witness was sufficient. Parents and true brothers were not difficult to identify. The settlement of the claims lasted five days, and then—the Anglo-American Expedition was no more.”
On the 13th of December, Stanley sailed from Zanzibar for Aden, on board the British India Steam Navigation Company’s steamer Pachumba. His late followers had all left their homes early in the morning that they might be certain to arrive in time to witness his departure. Mr. Stanley says of them: “When I was about to step into the boat, the brave, faithful fellows rushed before me and shot the boat into the sea, and then lifted me up on their heads and carried me through the surf into the boat. We shook hands twenty times twenty I think, and then at last the boat started. I saw them consult together, and presently saw them rush down the beach and seize a great twenty-ton lighter, which they soon manned and rowed after me. They followed me thus to the steamer, and a deputation of them came on board, headed by the famous Uledi, the coxswain; Kachéché, the chief detective; Robert, my indispensable factotum; Zaidi, the chief, and Wadi Rehani, the storekeeper, to inform me that they still considered me as their master, and that they would not leave Zanzibar until they received a letter from me announcing my safe arrival in my own country. I had, they said, taken them round all Africa to bring them back to their homes, and they must know that I had reached my own land before they would go to seek new adventures on the Continent, and—simple, generous souls!—that if I wanted their help to reach my country they would help me!
“They were sweet and sad moments, those of parting. What a long, long and true friendship was here sundered! Through what strange vicissitudes of life had they not followed me! What wild and varied scenes had we not seen together. What a noble fidelity these untutored souls had exhibited! The chiefs were those who had followed me to Ujiji in 1871; they had been witnesses of the joy of Livingstone at the sight of me; they were the men to whom I trusted the safeguard of Livingstone on his last and fatal journey, who had mourned by his corpse at Mullala, and borne the illustrious dead to the Indian Ocean.
THE FACE OF A WANGWANA.
“And in a flood of sudden recollection, all the stormy period here ended rushed in upon my mind—the whole panorama of danger and tempest through which these gallant fellows had so staunchly stood by me—these gallant fellows now parting from me. Rapidly, as in some apocalyptic vision, every scene of strife with Man and Nature through which these poor men and women had borne me company, and solaced me by the simple sympathy of common suffering, came hurrying across my memory: for each face before me was associated with some adventure or some peril, reminded me of some triumph or of some loss. What a wild, weird retrospect it was, that mind’s flash over the troubled past! So like a troublous dream!
“And for years and years to come, in many homes in Zanzibar, there will be told the great story of our journey, and the actors in it will be heroes among their kith and kin. For me, too, they are heroes—these poor ignorant children of Africa—for, from the first deadly struggle in savage Iturue to the last staggering rush into Embomma, they had rallied to my voice like veterans, and in the hour of need they had never failed me. And thus, aided by their willing hands and by their loyal hearts, the expedition had been successful, and the three great problems of the Dark Continent’s geography had been fairly solved.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE WONDERFUL RESOURCES OF THE CONGO.
The Messengers of King Leopold II. of Belgium — Meet Stanley at Marseilles, France — Object of the Interview — Another Expedition to Africa, to Explore the Congo in the Interests of Commerce — The Comité d’Etudes du Haut Congo — Object of the Expedition Defined — Stanley Returns to Africa — Arrival at the Mouth of the Congo — Commercial Possibilities of the Congo Basin — Railways Necessary — The Population — Statistics of Trade — Products of the Immense Forests — Marvellous Beauty of the Country — Vegetable Products — Palms — India-Rubber Plants — The Orchilla — Redwood Powder — Vegetable Fibres — Skins of Animals — Ivory — The Climate — Importance of the Expedition, both Commercially and Politically — Stanley Returns to England.