In the evening after dinner Lieutenant Stairs and Surgeon Parke were called to my tent, and I addressed them as to their duties during my absence. Said I—
“Gentlemen, I have called you to give you a few parting words.
“You know as well as I do that there is a constant unseen influence at work creating an anxiety which has sometimes tempted us to despair. No plan, however clear and intelligible it may be, but is thwarted and reversed. No promises are fulfilled, instructions are disregarded, suggestions are unavailing, and so we are constantly labouring to correct and make amends for this general waywardness which pursues us. We are no sooner out of one difficulty than we are face to face with another, and we are subjected to everlasting stress and strains of appalling physical miseries, and absolute decimation. It is as clear to you as to me why these things are so. They will go on and continue so, unless I can gather the fragments of this Expedition together once and for all, and keep it together, never to be separated again. But each time I have wished to do so, the inability of the men to march, the necessity of hurrying to one place and then to another, keep us eternally detached. After bringing the rear column, and uniting it with the advance, and collecting your garrison at Fort Bodo, we are astonished at this total absence of news from Jephson and the Pasha. Now I cannot manœuvre with a hospital in tow, such as we have with us. At the muster of to-day, after inspection, there were 124 men suffering from ulcers, debility, weakness, dysentery, and much else. They cannot march, they cannot carry. Jephson and the Pasha are perhaps waiting for me. It is now January 10th, I promised to be on the Nyanza again, even if I went as far as Yambuya, by the 16th, I have six days before me. You see how I am pulled this way and that way. If I could trust you to obey me, obey every word literally, that you would not swerve one iota from the path laid down, I could depart from you with confidence, and find out what is the matter with Jephson and the Pasha.”
1889.
Jan. 10.
Kandekoré.
“I don’t see why you should doubt us. I am sure we have always tried to do our very best to please and satisfy you,” replied Stairs.
“That is strictly true, and I am most grateful to you for it. The case of Yambuya seems to be repeated. Our friend Jephson is absent, perhaps dead from fever or from some accident; but why do we not hear from the Pasha? Therefore we surmise that some other trouble has overtaken both. Well, I set out for the Nyanza, and either send or cause to hear the news, or cut my way through Melindwa to behind Mswa Station to discover the cause of this strange silence. Have the Mahdists come up river, and annihilated everybody, or has another Expedition reached them from the East, and they are all too busy attending to them to think of their promise to us? Which is it? No one can answer, but because of this mystery we cannot sit down to let the mystery unfold itself, and I can do nothing towards penetrating it with 124 men, who require a long rest to recover from their fatigues and sicknesses. Therefore I am compelled to trust to you and the doctor, that you will stay here until I know what has happened, whether for one month or two months. I want you to stay here and look after the camp alertly, and I want the doctor to attend to these sick men and cure them, not to stint medicines, but nurse them with good food from morning until night. Do you promise this faithfully, on your words as gentlemen?”
“We do,” replied both warmly.
“Now Doctor, I particularly address myself to you. Stairs will perform all that is required as Superintendent and Governor of the camp, but I look to you mostly. These 124 men are on the sick list, some are but slightly indisposed, and some are in a dreadful state. But they all require attention, and you must give it devotedly. You must see that your worst cases are fed regularly. Three times a day see that their food is prepared, and that it is given to them; trust no man’s word, see to it yourself in person; we want these men to reach home. I warn you solemnly that your ‘flood-tide of opportunity’ has come. Are you ambitious of distinction? Here is your chance; seize it. Your task is clear before you, and you are required to save these men, who will be the means of taking you home, and of your receiving the esteem of all who shall hear of your deeds.
1889.
Jan. 10.
Kandekoré.
“Gentlemen, the causes of failure in this world are that men are unable to see the thing that lies ready at their hands. They look over their work and forget their tasks, in attempting to do what is not wanted. Before I left England I received some hundreds of applications from volunteers to serve with me on this Expedition. They at least believed that they could win what men vulgarly call ‘kudos,’ though I do not believe that one in a thousand of them knew what is the true way to glory. For instance, there are only six whites here in this camp, yet one of the six sought me the other night to request permission to explore the Welle-Mubangi River—of all places in Africa! His duty was clearly before him, and yet he did not see it. His opportunities were unheeded. He cast yearning looks over and above what was right at his feet. He seemed as if wakened out of a dream when I told him that to escort refugees to their homes was a far nobler task than any number of discoveries. On this Expedition there was a man who received a salary for being loyal and devoted to me, yet when there were opportunities for distinguishing himself, he allowed his employer’s baggage to be sent away before his very eyes, and his own rations to be boxed up, and sent out of camp, and he never knew until told that he had lost his opportunities to gain credit, increase of salary, and promotion. I point out your opportunities, therefore hold fast to them with a firm grip; do all you can with might and main to make the most of them. Don’t think of ‘kudos,’ or ‘glory,’ but of your work. All your capital is in that; it will give you great or little profit, as you perform it. Good-night. To-morrow I go to do something, I know not what, and do not care until I hear what it is I have to do. As I will do mine, do yours.”