Stanley, after he had found Livingstone, naturally thought much of the latter's explorations. Africa had become to him an absorbing subject, and he began to imbibe the spirit of Livingstone. This was natural, for Stanley had already won fame there, and why should he not win still greater laurels in the same field? This feeling was much increased after the death of the great explorer, leaving his work unfinished, which Stanley longed to complete. True, Cameron was on the ground to accomplish this very object, but Stanley knew the difficulties one would have to contend with without a boat of his own. The matter was talked over a good deal, and finally the proprietors of the New York Herald and London Telegraph determined to send Stanley once more into Africa.
The vast lake region, embracing some six degrees of longitude, and extending from the equator to fifteen degrees south latitude, had become a region of the greatest interest to explorers. On this vast water-shed lived a mighty population, and these lakes, with the rivers running into and out of them, must furnish the roads to commerce and be the means by which Africa should be lifted out of its barbarism into the light of civilization.
The large lakes Nyassa and Tanganika had been more or less explored, but the one possessing the greatest interest, the Victoria Nyanza—on account of the general impression that it was the head of the Nile—was almost wholly unknown. The persistence with which the Nile had mocked all previous attempts to find its source, had imparted a mystery to it and caused efforts to be made to unlock the secret, which were wholly disproportioned to its seeming value or real importance. This lake, therefore, was to be Stanley's first objective point. Livingstone, Speke and Burton, and others had seen it—he would sail around it in a boat which he would take with him. This he had made in sections, so that it could be carried the nearly one thousand miles through the jungles of Africa to its destination.
Everything being completed he started on his route, and in the latter part of 1874 found himself once more at Zanzibar, after an absence of four years. Here, in organizing his expedition, he discovered that the builder had made his boat, which he had christened the Lady Alice, a great deal heavier than he had ordered; but he luckily found a man in Zanzibar who was able to reduce its weight so that it could be transported by the carriers. His force consisted in all, of a little over three hundred men, and he took with him several powerful dogs.
The interest of this great expedition begins where he struck off from the regular route of the caravans going west, and entered an entirely new country and encountered a new race of people. Instead of moving directly westward, he turned off to the north, and at length reached the western frontier of Ugogo, on the last day of the year 1874. The country at this point stretched before him in one vast plain, which some of the natives said extended clear to Nyanza. He found that his course led him along the extremity of Whumba, which he was glad to know, as he thought his march would now be unmolested. Two days' march brought them to the borders of Usandawa, a country abounding in elephants. Here he turned to the north-west and entered Ukimbu or Uyonzi on its eastern extremity. The guides he had hired in Ugogo to take him as far as Iramba here deserted him. Hiring fresh ones, he continued two days in the same direction, when these deserted him also, and Stanley found himself one morning on the edge of a vast wilderness without a guide.
The day before, the guides had told him that three days' march would bring him to Urimi. Relying on the truth of this statement, he had purchased only two days' provisions. Thinking, therefore, that they would be there by the evening of the next day, he thought little of the desertion and moved off with confidence. But the next morning, the track, which was narrow and indistinct at the best, became so inextricably mixed up with the paths made by elephants and rhinoceros, that they were wholly at a loss what course to take. Halting, Stanley sent out men to seek the lost trail, but they returned unable to find it. They then, of course, could do nothing but march by compass, which they did.
As might be expected, it brought them, after a few hours' march, into a dense jungle of acacias and euphorbias, through which they could make their way only by crawling, scrambling and cutting the entangling vines. Now pushing aside an obstructing branch—now cutting a narrow lane through the matted mass, and now taking advantage of a slight opening, this little band of three hundred struggled painfully forward toward what they thought was open country, and an African village with plenty of provisions.
In this protracted struggle the third night overtook them in the wilderness, and there they pitched their lonely, starving camp. To make it more gloomy, one of the men died and was buried; his shallow grave seeming to be a sad foreboding of what awaited them in the future. The want of provisions now began to tell terribly on the men, but there was nothing to do but go forward, trusting to some break in this apparently interminable wilderness. But human endurance has its limit, and although Stanley kept his little force marching all day, they made but fourteen miles. It was a continual jungle, with not a drop of water on the route. The poor carriers, hungry and thirsty, sank under their loads and lagged behind the main force for many miles, until it became a straggling, weary, despondent crowd, moving without order and without care through the wilderness. The strong endeavored to help the weak, and did relieve them of their burdens and encourage them to hold on, so that most of them were able to reach the camp at night. But in despite of all effort five sick, despairing men, strayed from the path, which was only a blind trail made by those in advance.
After the camp for the night was pitched, Stanley sent back scouts to find the wanderers. They explored the woods for a mile each side of the track, but only one man was found, and he fully a mile from the trail and dead. The other four had wandered off beyond reach and were never heard of more. This was getting to be fearful marching—five men in one day was a death-roll that could not be kept up long, and Stanley began to cast about anxiously to determine what step he should next take. There was but one course left open to him, to attempt to retrace his steps was certain death by famine, to advance could not be worse, while it might bring relief, so "push on," was the order, and they did push on, weary, thirsty, starving, and on the fifth day they came to a little village recently established, and which consisted of only four huts, occupied by four men with their wives and children. These had scarcely provisions enough to keep themselves, and hence could give nothing to Stanley's starving men. It was useless to attempt further marching without food, for the men staggered into camp exhausted, and would rather die there than attempt to move again.
Stanley's experience had taught him how far he could urge on these African carriers and soldiers, and he saw they had now become desperate and would not budge another inch until they had something to eat. He, therefore, ordered a halt, and selecting twenty of his strongest men, sent them off in search of food. They were to press on to a village called Suna, about thirty miles distant, of which the natives told him, and where they said food was in abundance. As soon as they had disappeared in the forest, Stanley took his gun and strolled out in search of game. But, filled as the country seemed with it, he could find nothing to shoot. One of his men, however, came across a lion's den, in which were two cubs, which he brought to Stanley. The latter skinned them and took them back to camp. As he entered it, the pinched and worn faces of his faithful men, as they sat hungry and despairing, moved him so deeply that he would have wept, but for fear of adding to their despondency. The two cubs would go but a little way toward feeding some two hundred and twenty men, if cooked as ordinary meat, so he resolved to make a soup of them, which would go much farther. But the question was where to get a kettle large enough to make a soup for such a large body of men.