On the arrival of the expedition at the mouth of the Aruwimi, an armed camp was formed at Yambungi and left in charge of the unfortunate Major Barttelot, and here a conference was awaited with the dual-hearted Arab, Tippoo Tib, whom Stanley had recognized as ruler at Nyangwe, on the Congo, above Stanley Falls, and who was bound to him by the most solemn treaties. The wily chieftain came up in due time, and the interview was such as to engender serious doubts of his further friendship, notwithstanding his protestations.
INTERVIEW OF MAJOR BARTTELOT AND MR. JAMESON WITH TIPPOO TIB.
The occasion was a palaver, at the request of Major Barttelot, with a view to obtain some definite understanding as to the providing of the Manyema porters whom Tippoo Tib had promised Stanley he would supply in order that the rearguard might follow
him up from the Aruwimi River to Wadelai. How the porters did not come up to time; how the commander of the rearguard was hampered with new conditions as to weight when the men did appear; and how the dreadful business ended in the assassination of Major Barttelot and the breaking up of the camp, will appear further on. The death of Mr. Jameson soon afterwards, at Ward’s Camp, on the Congo, a distressing sequel to the former tragedy, was in somber tone with the reports of Stanley’s death which came filtering through the darkness at about the same time. The cloud which fell upon the Aruwimi camp seemed to spread its dark mantle over the entire expedition. Mr. Werner, in his interesting volume “A Visit to Stanley’s Rear Guard,” gives a characteristic sketch of the Arab chief; and Mr. Werner was the engineer in charge of the vessel which took Major Barttelot part of the way on his last journey to the Falls. “After the light complexion of the other Arabs,” he says, “I was somewhat surprised to find Mr. Tippoo Tib as black as any negro I had seen; but he had a fine well-shaped head, bald at the top, and a short, black, thick beard thickly strewn with white hairs. He was dressed in the usual Arab style, but more simply than the rest of the Arab chiefs, and had a broad, well-formed figure. His restless eyes gave him a great resemblance to the negro’s head with blinking eyes in the electric advertisements of somebody’s shoe polish which adorned the walls of railway-stations some years ago—and earned him the nickname of ‘Nubian blacking.’”
AN AMBUSCADE.
In June, 1887, Stanley started on his ascent of the unknown Aruwimi, and through a country filled with natives prejudiced against him by the Arab traders and friends of the Mahdi. His force now comprised 5 white men and 380 armed natives. His journey proved tedious and perilous in the extreme, and though he persevered in the midst of obstacles for two months, he was still 400 miles from Albert Nyanza. It was now found that the river route was impracticable for the heavier boats. At this point their troubles thickened. The natives proved hostile, and ingenious in their means of opposing obstructions to the further progress of the expedition. They refused to contribute provisions, and starvation stared the travelers in the face. For weeks their only food was wild fruit
and nuts. To forage was to invite death, and to engage in open war was to court annihilation. Disease broke out, and it must have swept them all away but for the precautions which Stanley took to head off its ravages. As it was, the number was greatly reduced, and the men were weak, emaciated, in a state of panic, amid surrounding dangers and without spirit for further trials. Writing of this critical period, his letters say:
“What can you make of this, for instance? On August 17, 1887, all the officers of the rear column are united at Yambuya. They have my letter of instructions before them, but instead of preparing for the morrow’s march, to follow our track, they decide to wait at Yambuya, which decision initiates the most awful season any community of men ever endured in Africa or elsewhere.