Our second object in coming here was to receive such at our camp as were disposed to leave Africa, and conduct them home by the nearest and safest route. If there are none disposed to leave Africa our Expedition has no further business in these regions, and will at once retire. Try and understand what all this means. Try and see the utter and final abandonment of all further relief, and the bitter end and fate of those obstinate and misguided people who decline assistance when tendered to them. From the 1st May, 1888, to January 1889, are nine months—so long a time to consider a simple proposition of leaving Africa or staying here!
Therefore, in this official and formal letter accompanying this explanatory note to you, I designate Kavalli’s village as the rendezvous where I am willing to receive those who are desirous of leaving Africa, subject, of course, to any new light thrown upon the complication by a personal interview or a second letter from you.
And now I address myself to you personally. If you consider yourself still a member of the Expedition subject to my orders, then, upon receipt of this letter, you will at once leave for Kavalli’s with such of my men—Binza and the Soudanese—as are willing to obey you, and bring to me the final decision of Emin Pasha and Signor Casati respecting their personal intentions. If I am not at Kavalli’s then, stay there, and send word by letter by means of Kavalli’s messengers to Mpinga, Chief of Gavira, who will transmit the same to Mazamboni’s, when probably I shall receive it. You will understand that it will be a severe strain on Kavalli’s resources to maintain us with provisions longer than six days, and if you are longer than this period we must retire to Mazamboni’s, and finally to our camp on the Ituri Ferry. Otherwise we must seize provisions by force, and any act of violence would cut off and close native communication. This difficulty might have been avoided had the Pasha followed my suggestion of making a depôt at Nyamsassi. The fact that there are provisions at Mswa does not help us at all. There are provisions in Europe also. But unfortunately they are as inaccessible as those of Mswa. We have no boat now to communicate by lake, and you do not mention what has become of the steamers, the Khedive and Nyanza.
I understand that the Pasha has been deposed and is a prisoner. Who, then, is to communicate with me respecting what is to be done? I have no authority to receive communications from the officers—mutineers. It was Emin Pasha and his people I was supposed to relieve. If Emin Pasha was dead, then to his lawful successor in authority. Emin Pasha being alive prevents my receiving a communication from any other person, unless he be designated by the Pasha. Therefore the Pasha, if he be unable to come in person to me at Kavalli’s with a sufficient escort of faithful men, or be unable to appoint some person authorised to receive this relief, it will remain for me to destroy the ammunition so laboriously brought here, and return home.
Finally, if the Pasha’s people are desirous of leaving this part of Africa, and settle in some country not far remote from here, or anywhere bordering the Nyanza (Victoria), or along the route to Zanzibar, I am perfectly ready to assist, besides escorting those willing to go home to
Cairo safely; but I must have clear and definite assertions, followed by prompt action, according to such orders as I shall give for effecting this purpose, or a clear and definite refusal, as we cannot stay here all our lives awaiting people who seem to be not very clear as to what they wish.
Give my best wishes to the Pasha and Signor Casati, and I hope and pray that wisdom may guide them both before it is too late. I long to see you, my dear fellow, and hear from your own lip your story.
Yours very sincerely,
(Signed) Henry M. Stanley.
To A. J. Mounteney Jephson, Esq.
Private Postscript.