CHAPTER XXX. EMIN, THE LAST OF THE SOUDAN HEROES.
Mr. Stanley returned to civilization, and in 1886 revisited America for the first time in thirteen years. He was received with the highest honors, and the lectures which he delivered were attended by crowded and delighted audiences. It seemed at last as though he were to enjoy a considerable period of rest. He had opened up the Dark Continent, and founded the Congo Free State on a secure basis. He might now direct its operations from London or Brussels, and spend his years in well-won ease. But this was not to be. He was abruptly summoned to undertake one of the most arduous of all his tasks, which was to lead an expedition to the relief of Emin Pasha at Wadelai, on the Nile.
The history of Emin Pasha is a most romantic and noble one. His real name is Edward Schnitzer, and he was born in 1840 at Oppeln, in Silesia. His father, a merchant, died in 1845, and three years before that date the family removed to Neisse. When Edward Schnitzer had passed through the gymnasium at Neisse he devoted himself to the study of medicine at the University of Breslau. During the years 1863 and 1864 he pursued his studies at the Berlin Academy. The desire for adventure and an exceptional taste for natural sciences induced the young medical student to seek a field for his calling abroad. He, therefore, at the end of 1864, left Berlin with the intention of obtaining a post of physician in Turkey. Chance carried him to Antivari and then to Scutari. Here he soon managed to attract the attention of Valis Ismael Pasha Haggi, and was received into the following of that dignitary, who, in his official position, had to travel through the various provinces of the empire. When, in this way, Dr. Schnitzer had learned to know Armenians, Syrians, and Arabians, he finally reached Constantinople, where the Pasha died in 1873. In the summer of 1875 Dr. Schnitzer returned to Neisse; but after a few months the old passion for travel again came over him, and he betook himself to Egypt, where favorable prospects were opened out to him. With the beginning of the year 1876 he appears as "Dr. Emin Effendi," enters the Egyptian service, and places himself at the disposal of the Governor-General of the Soudan. In the post there given him Dr. Emin met with Gordon, who two years before (1874) had been intrusted with the administration of the newly-created Equatorial province. Gordon sent him on tours of inspection through the territory and on repeated missions to King M'tesa at Uganda. When Gordon Pasha, two years later, became administrator of all territory lying outside the narrower limits of Egypt, Dr. Emin Effendi received the post of commander at Lado, together with the government of the Equatorial province. With how much fidelity and self-denial he devoted himself to his task is well known.
During the first three years of his term he drove out the slave-traders from a populous region with six million inhabitants. He converted a deficiency of revenues into a surplus. He conducted the government on the lines marked out by General Gordon, and was equally modest, disinterested, and conscientious. When the Mahdi's rebellion broke out, a governor-general of another stamp was at Khartoum. Emin's warning from the remote South passed unheeded. Hicks' army, recruited from Arabi's demoralized regiments, was massacred; the Egyptian garrisons throughout the Soudan were abandoned to their fate; atrocious campaigns of unnecessary bloodshed were fought on the seaboard, and General Gordon was sent to Khartoum to perish miserably while waiting for a relief expedition that crawled by slow stages up the Nile, and was too late to be of practical service. During all these years of stupid misgovernment and wasted blood Emin remained at his post. When the death of General Gordon and the retreat of Lord Wolseley's army wiped out the last vestige of Egyptian rule in the regions of the Upper Nile, the Equatorial Provinces were cut off, neglected, and forgotten.
It then became impossible for Emin to communicate with the Egyptian Government, and he was practically lost to the world. He was dependent upon his own resources in a region encompassed by hostile tribes. He might easily have cut his way out to safety, by the way of the Congo or Zanzibar, with the best of his troops, leaving the women and children behind to their fate. But this he scorned to do. He stood at his post, and bravely upheld the standard of civilization in Africa. He had with him about four thousand troops at the outset. He organized auxiliary forces of native soldiers; he was constantly engaged in warfare with surrounding tribes; he garrisoned a dozen river stations lying long distances apart; his ammunition ran low, and he lacked the money needed for paying his small army. But, in the face of manifold difficulties and dangers, he maintained his position, governed the country well, and taught the natives how to raise cotton, rice, indigo, and coffee, and also how to weave cloth, and make shoes, candles, soap, and many articles of commerce. He vaccinated the natives by the thousand, in order to stamp out small-pox; he opened the first hospital known in that quarter; he established a regular post-route with forty offices; he made important geographical discoveries in the basin of the Albert Lake; and in many ways demonstrated his capacity for governing barbarous races.
The last European who visited him was Dr. Junker, the German traveller, who parted from him at Wadelai on January 1st, 1886. His position was then more favorable, but he had been reduced at one time to extremities, his soldiers having escaped by a desperate sortie, cutting their way through the enemy after they had been many days without food, and "when the last torn leather of the last boot had been eaten." Letters written by him in October, 1886, at Wadelai, describing his geographical discoveries, were received in England in 1887, with a contributed article for a Scotch scientific journal. The provisions and ammunition sent to him by Dr. Junker had had a very encouraging effect upon his troops. He wrote: "I am still holding out here, and will not forsake my people."
The betrayal of Gordon at Khartoum by the British Government had so disgusted and exasperated decent public opinion in England that a popular demand was made for the rescue of Emin. The Government took no step other than to allow a small grant of money to be made from the Egyptian treasury. But private subscriptions furnished an ample sum, and an "Emin Relief Committee" was formed to press the work.