Stanley's Adventures in the Wilds of Africa / A Graphic Account of the Several Expeditions of Henry M. Stanley into the Heart of the Dark Continent

by Joel Tyler Headley; Willis Fletcher Johnson

CHAPTER I. HENRY M. STANLEY.

Stanley is one of those characters which forcibly illustrate the effect of republican institutions in developing strong men. Despotism cannot fetter thought—that is free everywhere—but it can and does restrain its outworking into practical action. Free institutions do not make great men, but they allow those endowed by nature with extraordinary gifts free scope for action. This fact never had, perhaps, a more striking illustration than in the French Revolution. The iron frame-work of despotism had rested so long over the heads of the people that it had become rusted in its place, and no individual force or strength could rend it asunder. But when the people, in their fury, shattered it into fragments, there was exhibited the marvelous effects of individual character. A lieutenant of artillery vaulted to the throne of France and made marshals and dukes and kings of plebeians. A plebeian himself, he took to his plebeian bed the daughter of the Cæsars. He took base-born men and pitted them against nobles of every degree, and the plebeians proved themselves the better men. In other words, he put men against titles, and the tiles went down before the men. Thus, no matter how despotic he became, he and his marshals and new-made kings were the most terrible democracy. The mighty changes that were then wrought show what results may be expected when the whole world shall be thus set free, and every man be allowed to strike his best and strongest blow. When the race is thus let loose on the planet we inhabit, we shall see the fulfillment of that prophecy, "a nation shall be born in a day."

The same truth is apparent in our own country, though its exhibitions are not so sudden and startling. Indeed they could not be, because this freedom of action has no restraints to break through, and hence no violent effort is required. Every man grows and expands by degrees without let or hindrance. In a despotism, Webster would probably have taught school in a log school-house all his days, and the "mill-boy of the slashes" never would have made the forum of a nation ring with his eloquence, nor the "rail-splitter" have become the foremost man of his time, nor the "tanner-boy" the president of the republic. Republican institutions never made any of those men—they simply allowed them to make themselves.

Stanley is among the latest and most extraordinary examples of this. It is folly to point to such men as he, as a stimulus to youthful ambition. No amount of study or effort can make such a boy or man as he was and is. The energy, daring, self-confidence, promptness and indomitable will were born in him, not acquired. The Latin proverb, Poeta nascitur, non fit, "the poet is born, not made," is not truer of the poet than of a character such as his. His peculiarities may be pointed out for the admiration of others, his good qualities may teach youth how perseverance, and determination, and work will elevate a man, whatever be his walk in life. One born with a combination of qualities like Stanley's, must have room given him or he will make room. He has such an abundance of energy and will-power that they must have scope for action. A despotism could not have repressed him. He would either have become a wanderer or adventurer in strange lands, or he would have headed a revolution and vaulted to power or to a scaffold, as others had done before him.

But although Stanley developed his character under free institutions, he was not born under them, he being a native of Wales. He was born near Denbigh, in 1840. His father's name was Rowland. When three years old, he was sent to the poor-house at St. Asaph, to get an education. Here the poor, unpromising lad remained till he had finished such an education as this institution could furnish, and then he sought employment as a teacher, and for a year was employed as such at Mold, Flintshire. But the strong instincts of his nature then began to show themselves. He felt that a school-teacher's life, however honorable and useful, could not be his, and, therefore, with his scant earnings, he shipped as cabin-boy in a vessel bound for New Orleans. Having arrived in safety, he began to look about for employment. By what lucky chance it happened we do not know, but he fell into the hands of a merchant named Stanley, who became so attached to the frank, energetic, ambitious youth, that he finally adopted him and gave him his name. Thus the Welsh boy Rowland, became the American youth Stanley.

Fortune had certainly smiled on him, and his future seemed secure. As the partner, and eventually heir of his benefactor, as he doubtless would become, fortune, ease and a luxurious life lay before him. But even here, so pleasantly situated and cared for, the same restless spirit that has since driven him over the world, exhibited itself, and he wandered off into the wilds of Arkansas, and in his log-cabin on the banks of the Wichita River, with the pine-trees moaning above him, he dwelt for a long time, among the strange, wild dreams of his imaginative and daring youth. His adopted father mourned him as dead, never expecting to behold him again. But the youth made his way to the Mississippi, and going on board a flat-boat, became the companion of the rough western characters to be found on these boats, and slowly floated down to New Orleans and was received by his overjoyed father as one risen from the dead.

But just here, fortune, which seemed to have had him in her special care, took him another step forward by apparently deserting him. His adopted father suddenly died without making his will. His place and prospective heirship both disappeared together, and the curtain was let down between him and a pleasant, successful future. Doubtless that father intended to provide for his adopted son, but now all the property went to the natural legal heirs, and he was once more thrown upon the world. In the delirium of an African fever, tossing in his hammock, far from the haunts of civilization, there came back to him remembrances of his life at this point. We learn that impelled by his roving disposition he wandered away among the California miners, and at last among the Indians, and sat by their council fires. He seemed destined to see every phase of human life, to become acquainted with the roughest characters, to prepare him for the wildest of all men, the African savage. This kind of life also toughened and hardened the fibre of the youth, so that he settled down into the man with a constitution of iron, without which he could not have endured the trials he has since undergone, and still retain his health and physical powers unworn.

At this time a new field opened before him. The civil war broke out, and being a Southern man, he enlisted in the Confederate army. This was a kind of service just adapted to his peculiar character, one in which a man with the courage, daring, energy, promptness and indomitable will that he possessed, was sure to win fame and promotion. But before he had time to exhibit these qualities, fate, that seemed against him to human eyes, again advanced him a step toward success by causing him to be taken prisoner by the Union troops. As a prisoner he was worthless, and the Union cause really having his sympathies, he proposed to enlist in the Northern army.

Whether the military authorities were afraid of this sudden conversion or not daring to give too much freedom of action to one who showed by his whole bearing and language, that there was no undertaking too daring for him to attempt, we are not told, but they put him where he would probably have little chance to show what stuff he was made of, and he was placed on the iron-clad ship Ticonderoga. It is said, he was released as prisoner and volunteered to enlist in the navy. Be that as it may, though totally unfit for service of any kind on board of a man-of-war, he soon became acting ensign.