In Darkest Africa, Vol. 2; or, The Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria

by Henry M. Stanley

“The other thing that this major has done is his sending 200 soldiers when it was too late and when everything was finished, which thing he did from want of decision and without asking my permission to do so; for if the rebels were strong at first before their capture of guns and ammunition, how much more so were they after that. But these disobediences have become a nature to these persons, &c., &c. But by the help of our merciful and great God, and by the influence of our Government, and by the name of our honourable Sovereign his Highness the Khedive, we were able to preserve the honour of our Government flag up to this date.”

Yes, the honour of the Egyptian flag has been maintained, after the shedding of “rivers of blood,” after the exhibition of noble stout-heartedness, unabated courage, and a prudent Fabian generalship, which dispirited the enemy and animated his troops; he has been able to align his troops in stations well fenced and fortified, so that the struggle may be prolonged until he can hear the wishes of his Highness the Khedive, and sound his plaint in the ears of Europe viâ Zanzibar. It is the story of this brave struggle that enlisted the sympathy of myself and companions, and caused us to press on by the back door of Africa to lend a helping hand, to rescue him if necessary, or to supply him with the means of defence if needed.

In April 1885 he learns “from the poor slave of God, Mohammed El Mahdi, the son of Abdallah,” in a letter to his friend and Governor Karamalla, the son of Sheik Mohammed, to whom may God grant etc., of the death of “that enemy to God—Gordon,” and of the assault and capture of Khartoum, and that all the Soudan from Lado down to Abu Hamad Cataract, is in the hands of the Mahdists, and that from the north no hope of relief may be expected. He examines his prospects and position to the south, east and west. To the east is Kabba Rega, the King of Unyoro, and his tributary chiefs. To him he sends Captain Casati as his representative or ambassador. It is the policy of Kabba Rega to be kind to the Governor. He knew him in past years as an officer of that active vice-king at Khartoum, and was hospitable and friendly to him. He knows not as yet of the wonderful changes that have come over that region of Africa, and is ignorant of the ruin that had overtaken that proud Government which had dictated laws to him. His African mind is too dense to grasp the meaning of this new movement abreast of his territory, and therefore, fearing to displease the Governor, he receives Captain Casati generously and with a grand display of hospitality. By-and-by deserters approach him, cunning Egyptians and treacherous Soudanese, with their arms and ammunition, and bit by bit he discovers the meaning of that fierce struggle, and begins to understand that the Government which he dreaded was a wreck.

On the 2nd of January, 1886, Dr. Junker is taken across the Albert Lake to Kibiro, a port of Unyoro. He is on his way home after years of travel in Monbuttu and the Welle basin. He succeeds in reaching Uganda, and because of his poverty is permitted to embark in a mission boat and proceeds to Usambiro, at the south end of Lake Victoria, and thence to Zanzibar, taking with him the despatches of Emin. It is through this traveller we first learn the real straits that the Pasha is in, and the distresses in prospect for him.

Kabba Rega meanwhile is patient, like an heir-expectant. He knows that eventually he must win. Day by day, week by week, he sits waiting. He affects generosity to the Governor, permits letters to pass and repass between Zanzibar and Equatoria, treats the Ambassador with due consideration, and ostensibly he is a firm friend; so much so, that Emin has “nothing but hearty praises of Kabba Rega.” But about the 13th February, 1888, Kabba Rega wakes up. He hears of an Expedition close to the Nyanza, and native exaggeration has magnified its means and numbers. On or about the same date that the Relief Expedition is looking up and down the waters of the Nyanza for evidences of a white man’s presence in the region, Captain Casati is seized, his house robbed, and himself expelled with every mark of ignominy and almost naked, and from this time forth Kabba Rega is a declared enemy, having first sealed his enmity in the blood of Mohammed Biri, who had been a trusted messenger between Emin and the C.M.S. Mission in Uganda.

To the west there is a great broad white blank, extending from his Province to the Congo, of which absolutely nothing is known. To the south there is a region marked on the map by the same white emptiness, and turn which way he will, with a people unequal to the task of cutting their way out and dreading the unknown, he has no other option than waiting to see the effect of the disclosures of Junker and his own despatches.

But in the meantime he is not idle. By the defeat of the rebels and Mahdists in Makkaraka he has compelled a truce, and is left undisturbed by Karamalla. Beyond Wadelai he has established Tunguru and Mswa stations, and though the First Battalion has long ago cast off his authority, the Second Battalion and the Native Irregulars acknowledge, after their way, his authority. He superintends agriculture, the planting, raising, and manufacture of cotton, travels between station and station, establishes friendship with the surrounding tribes, and by his tact maintains the semblance of good government.

There are some things, however, he cannot do: he cannot undo the evil already done; he cannot eradicate the evil dispositions of his men, nor can he, by only the exercise of temperate justice, appease the evil passions roused by the revolution in the Soudan. He can only postpone the hour of revolt. For against his sole influence are arrayed the influences of the officers of the First Battalion, of the hundreds of Egyptian employés scattered over the whole length of the Province, who, by their insidious counsels, reverse the effect of every measure taken by the Pasha, and palsy every effort made by him. He cannot inaugurate, by the expression of his wish, a new system of dealing with the natives. The system has been established throughout the Soudan of exacting from the natives every species of contribution—herds, flocks, grain, and servants; or, whenever there is scarcity, of proceeding by force of arms and taking what they need from the aborigines. And this need, unfortunately, is insatiable; it has no limit. The officers cannot be limited to a certain number; each has three or four wives, besides concubines, and these require domestic servants for their households. Fadl el Mulla Bey’s household requires a hundred slaves—men, women, boys, and girls. The soldiers require wives, and these also must have servants; and with the growth of the boys into manhood there grows new needs, which the natives must satisfy with their women and children of both sexes.

There are 650 men and officers in the First Battalion, and as many in the Second Battalion. There are about 3,000 Irregulars; there is a little army of clerks, storekeepers, artisans, engineers, captains, and sailors. These must be wived, concubined, and fed by the natives, and in return there is nothing given to them. We hear of 8,000 head of cattle being collected on a raid; the Pasha admitted that 1,600 beeves and cows was the greatest number during his government. But these raids are frequent; each station must have herds of its own, and there are fourteen stations. Shukri Agha, Commandant of Mswa, was indefatigable in making these raids. Of course the Pasha found this state of things in his Province. It was an old-established custom, a custom that weighs with all the weight of fearful oppression on the natives; and, embarrassed as he was by the advance of Karamalla and the disease of rebellion that raged like an epidemic in the hearts of his own subjects, he was powerless to restrain them. But we can understand why the natives, who had been for so many years under Egyptian government, hailed the appearance of the Mahdists, and joined them to exterminate the panic-stricken fugitives from the captured forts of the Province. When the Congo State forgets its duties to its subjects, and sanctions rapine and raiding, we may rest assured that its fall will be as sudden and as certain as that of the Egyptian Government in the Soudan.

I am not concerned in writing the history of this unhappy region, which has been given up for years to be the prey of the vilest passions that human nature is capable of feeling, but by these allusions to what I personally know I am able to interest the reader in the true position of Emin Pasha. This solitary man was engaged in as impossible a task as was that of Gordon when he undertook and set out for Khartoum, in 1884, to rescue the garrisons of the Soudan. He did brave things, but the bravest portion of his story is when this earnest-minded man lives among these lost people, and has to endure seeing his subjects robbed and despoiled whenever any officer apprehends scarcity and resolves upon a raiding expedition. He knows exactly what will happen; he knows there will be indiscriminate shooting and looting, he knows there will be destruction of villages and decimation of the owners; that with the captive herds there will be long files of captive women and children, and a distribution of the spoil; and yet he dares do nothing to thwart these cruel and hard proceedings. How can he? He has no cloth or money to buy food for all his people. What answer can he make when they demand of him what they must do to live? Though the soil is gracious and repays labour, it is useless for him to point to it. They will grow cotton to clothe themselves, and cultivate gardens for kitchen vegetables, because no native understands these things; but grain for bread, and cattle for beef, the natives must yield to people nobler than themselves. He is the only man who can think of this work as a wrong, and as he has no force to compel men to think otherwise, he must needs endure this evil as he endures many others. Good government was therefore impossible. It was founded on blood and spoliation from the very beginning, and, like all other Governments which preceded it, that were created with similar views, it was decreed that it should perish utterly.