“I must be brief. Numbers of scenes crowd the memory.
“Could one but sum them into a picture it would have grand interest. The uncomplaining heroism of our dark followers, the brave manhood latent in such uncouth disguise, the tenderness we have seen issuing from nameless entities, the great love animating the ignoble, the sacrifice made by the unfortunate for one more unfortunate, the reverence we have noted in barbarians, who, even as ourselves, were inspired with nobleness and incentives to duty—of all these we would speak if we could, but I must end with, thanks be to God forever and ever!”
This letter is characteristic of Stanley. The hardships of his journey will fade from memory, but its successes will become historic. He has made the “Dark Continent” dark no longer. To him and his undaunted comrades the world owes a debt of gratitude it will be difficult to repay. The vast tracts of hitherto unknown wilderness through which he traveled will stimulate the enterprise of the pioneer, and the day is not far distant—within the lifetime of our children’s children, perhaps—when the shrill echo of the engine’s whistle will be heard on the rugged sides of snow capped mountains which Stanley has explored; when those illimitable forests will resound with the woodman’s axe, and when the law of commerce will change the tawny native from a savage into a self-respecting citizen. Barbarism will retire from its last stronghold on the planet, as the darkness disappears when the sun rises over the hilltops.
The dire distresses of his long journey, begun two and a-half years ago, are beyond the reach of language. He merely hints at some of them and leaves the rest to the imagination. We ponder his pathetic references to the sturdy loyalty of companions and followers, “maddened with the agonies of fierce fevers,” falling into their graves through the subtle poison with which the natives tipped their arrows and spears, bravely fighting their way through interminable swamps only to succumb at last, and the conviction
steals over us that such a story has never been told before and may never be told again. He rescued Emin and his comrades, who were “in daily expectation of their doom,” then turned his face southward, made various and important explorations on his way, and at last came within speaking distance of the millions who followed him from the hour he entered the mouth of the Congo with a solicitude which no other man of our time has commanded.
It would not do to close any account of Stanley’s brilliant career without noting the fact that Emin Pasha, in one of his last published letters, written after he was beyond all danger from Mahdi vengeance and African climate, fully acknowledges the value of the aid sent him, and makes it clear that his hesitation at availing himself of it was due to that high sense of duty which had gained him the name of Emin, or the Faithful One. The last and most trusted of Gordon’s lieutenant’s, he regarded it as his “bounden duty” to follow up the road the General showed him; and it must have been a wrench to tear himself away from the life-work to which he had in a measure consecrated himself—to see the labors of years thrown away, and all his endeavors come to naught. But it could not be helped under the circumstances, and Emin, like many before him, has had to succumb to the force of fate. And so ends for the present the attempt to civilize the equatorial Provinces of Egypt. The ruler of Egypt has formally renounced them, Gordon is dead, and his trusted lieutenant has at last thrown up the sponge. It has been a strange and eventful story, in which the heroes have been of the race which has done so much for the regeneration of the dark places of the world. For a time the dark and turbid waves of ignorance, of slavery, and of cruelty will roll back over this part of the Dark Continent and pessimists will say that nothing more can be done. But it is only for a time. The day will surely come when the dreams of Gordon and of Emin will become actual realities; and when that time comes we may be sure that the name of Henry M. Stanley will be remembered and honored.
EGYPT AND THE NILE.
The historic approach to “The Dark Continent” is by way of storied Egypt and its wonderful river, the Nile. In making this approach we must not forget the modern commercial value of the route from Zanzibar, pursued by Stanley (1871-72) while hastening to the rescue of Dr. Livingstone, the great English explorer, nor of that other, by way of the Congo, which bids fair to prove more direct and profitable than any thus far opened.