Stanley countered this act by founding, on the plain of Kintamo, near the lake, a station out of which has grown the modern Leopoldville, named in honour of the King of the Belgians, and now recognised as the capital of Central Africa.
The spread of French influence so far as Brazzaville was significant and ominous. Clearly the nations of Europe were waking up to the importance and value of Central Africa. Leaving the expedition in charge of Captain Hanssens, Stanley hurriedly returned to Brussels to report the circumstance in person. That was in April, 1882; and by February, 1883, he was back again with the expedition in Africa, recharged, as it were, with energy, and busied himself in establishing numerous stations.
Native Employees of the State Waiting for Rations at Boma.
In all, Stanley served five years with this expedition, which, notwithstanding his nationality, must in all fairness be accounted a Belgian expedition.
Such, then, were the early expeditions in Central Africa undertaken by Leopold, King of the Belgians. There were other contemporaneous expeditions in the same region undertaken by France, Germany, and Russia, or rather by natives of those countries presumably working in the interest of their respective nations, but their results will not stand comparison with those achieved by Belgians. At one time it was the intention of King Leopold to appoint General Gordon to the chief command on the Congo, and that extraordinary man had agreed to accept his Majesty’s offer; but the British Government had a prior claim on Gordon’s services, who went to Khartoum and lost his life there in tragic circumstances so well known that they need not be recounted here.
CHAPTER V
THE WATERWAYS OF THE CONGO
Discovery of the Congo.
It was Diego Cam, an intrepid Portuguese navigator, who, in 1484, voyaging towards the mythical East Indies, discovered the Congo. In the name of his sovereign, King Juan II., he took possession of the country, though it does not appear that he proceeded far into the interior. From n’zadi, the native name for river, the Portuguese formed the word Zaire, and it is by this name that the river was long called. It so appears in the map of Martin of Bohemia, who accompanied the expedition. The globe prepared by this German cosmographer is still to be seen in the museum of Nuremberg. It was not until two centuries later that the river was called Rio de Congo.
