The true discoverer of the river, the first to recognise its nature and to map its course was the saintly Basingstoke, a pupil of the N.K.C.B.
Basingstoke was very probably born in Murphy county, N.S.W., on the river Thames a few miles above Tarára. On reaching England he did what his right hand finded to do and displayed in several houses a devoted and God-fearing manner which earned him a written character from his last master, Mr Heck, of the Lindens, Fulham. Armed with this he passed to the Continent, worked for some time in what is now the Grand Hotel at Assisi and so encountered the chief adventure of his life.
It was due to a recommendation from this hotel that Basingstoke started from Naples in March 1873, in the company of an Italian named Mucciani, who boasted some foreign title or other, and was possessed of ample means.
This man died; how and where will never be known, for in the awful days of fever that followed nothing but a most exceptional valour saved Basingstoke himself from destruction. We have it in his own hand that “he had no conception where he was or what he did,” and that the clothes and personal effects of Mucciani (which it had been his business to brush and clean) were “lost in the period of delirium.” But, he finely adds, “I must succeed; I know when God is on my side.” The phrase is typical of the man’s true humility, and helps us to understand his power.
The blacks put an absolute trust in him. Just above the Harra rapids (below which point the Italian notes on the map are first misspelt and then cease altogether) he was compelled to shoot two of his carriers for prevarication—to call it by no harsher name. The whole company fled into the woods, and he was left alone with one man, Mahmoud, whose devotion had in it something of hero worship. They had no weapons left, save one rifle, fifteen cartridges, and a heavy whip; all these Basingstoke, as the stronger of the two men, carried without complaint to the journey’s end. Roped together, lest they should lose touch in the thick brushwood, these gallant fellows stumbled on, till they emerged at Háli (or Gambetta as the place is now called) more dead than alive, and received aid from a friendly tribe who knew and trembled at the English name.
Miracles, if one may use the term with reverence, were worked for them upon their journey down the river from this spot to the coast, a hundred and fifty miles away. At one place their canoe was surrounded by a clamorous horde of natives, who were silenced by the reading of that magnificent passage, Genesis xxxvi. 22-28 inclusive. At another they were pursued by a she-hippopotamus of enormous dimensions; at a third they dared not land for fear of lions; at a fourth they touched at a native village in the very nick of time barely three hours after the death of a mighty serpent. Upon reaching the mouth of the river they had every reason to fear that they would be fired upon by a Portuguese gunboat. Basingstoke quietly stretched his white handkerchief upon a reed; the emblem was recognised and he passed in safety. Three days at sea exhausted their provisions. Basingstoke has recorded the generous struggle between himself and Mahmoud and told us in unforgettable language how the servant slid into the water by night to save his master.
Many of us can still remember his reception in Europe, his plea at Exeter Hall for those millions whom he had found in darkness, his decoration by the King of Italy, and his successful lawsuit against the family of Mucciani.
The end of this great man is less well known. Years after, when unfortunate speculations had dissipated his considerable fortune, he returned to Gambetta, but he only returned to die. His life was wasted. The valuable deposits of mineral oil, upon which he had pinned his hopes were already in the hands of a foreign concession. His heart broke. He lies buried in a field just outside the limits of Gambetta, under a fine monument bearing the simple inscription:
C. M. Basingstoke,
Born at Beatrice, N.S.W., on the 6th July 1841,
Educated at the Mason’s Orphans’ College, Clapham,
Died Jan. 6th, 1895.
“I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer upon the earth.”
It is to Mr Barnett’s honour that he paid for the monument, which is of Cornish granite inlaid with plain black. The whole is of British workmanship, designed in Battersea by one of the Chelsea artists, executed in Camberwell, transported by the well-known firm, B. L. Jowel & Co. of Holborn Viaduct, shippers, etc. It was set up by Burroughs. Photographs of the same are to be obtained of Mr Gale, 742 Strand, and a tablet has been erected in Westminster Abbey by American subscription.