RECEPTION OF MTESA'S BODY GUARD, PRIME MINISTER AND CHIEFS.
Lifting his eyes to the king, Stanley saw a tall and slender man, but with broad, powerful shoulders. His eyes were large, his face intelligent and amiable, while his mouth and nose were a great improvement on those of the ordinary negro, being more like those of a Persian Arab. As soon as he began to speak, Stanley was captivated by his courteous, affable manner. He says that he was infinitely superior to the sultan of Zanzibar, and impressed you as a colored gentleman who had learned his manners by contact with civilized, cultivated men, instead of being, as he was, a native of Central Africa, who had seen but three white men before in his life. Stanley was astonished at his innate polish and he felt he had found a friend in this great king of this part of the country, where the tribal territories are usually so small. His kingdom extends through three degrees of longitude and almost as many of latitude. He professes Islamism now, and no cruelties are practised in his kingdom. He has a guard of two hundred men, renegades from Baker's expedition, defalcators from Zanzibar, and the élite of his own kingdom.
Behind his throne or arm-chair, stood his gun-bearers, shield-bearers and lance-bearers, and on either side were arranged his chief courtiers, governors of provinces, etc., while outside streamed away the long line of his warriors, beginning with the drummers and goma-beaters. Mtesa asked many intelligent questions, and Stanley found that this was not his home, but that he had come there with that immense throng of warriors to shoot birds. In two or three days, he proposed to return to his capital at Ulagala or Uragara (it is difficult to tell which is right). The first day, for Stanley's entertainment, the king gave a grand naval review with eighty canoes, which made quite an imposing display, which the king with his three hundred wives and Stanley viewed from shore. The crews consisted of two thousand five hundred men or more. The second day, the king led his fleet in person to show his prowess in shooting birds. The third day, the troops were exercised in general military movements and at target practice, and on the fourth, the march was taken up for the capital.
In Mtesa Stanley sees the hope of Central Africa. He is a natural born king and tries to imitate the manners, as he understands them, of European monarchs. He has constructed broad roads which will be ready for vehicles whenever they are introduced. The road they traveled increased from twenty to one hundred and fifty feet as they approached the capital, which crowned a commanding eminence overlooking a beautiful country covered with tropical fruit and trees. Huts are not very imposing, but a tall flagstaff and an immense flag gave some dignity to the surroundings.
The capital is composed of a vast collection of huts on an eminence crowned by the royal quarters, around which run five several palisades and circular courts, between which and the city runs a circular road from one hundred to two hundred feet in width, from whence radiate six or seven magnificent avenues lined with gardens and huts.
The next day, Stanley was introduced into the palace in state. The guards were clothed in white cotton dresses, while the chiefs were attired in rich Arab costumes. This palace was a large, lofty structure built of grass and cane, while tall trunks of trees upheld the roof—covered inside with cloth sheeting. On the fourth day, the exciting news was received that another white man was approaching the capital. It proved to be Colonel Lerant de Bellfonds of the Egyptian service, who had been dispatched by Colonel Gordon to make a treaty of commerce with the king and the khedive of Egypt.
This Mtesa, we said, was a Mohammedan, having been converted by Khamis Ben Abdullah some four or five years before. This Arab, from Muscat, was a man of magnificent presence, of noble descent, and very rich, and dressed in splendid Oriental costume. Mtesa became fascinated with him, and the latter stayed with the king over a year, giving him royal presents and dressing him in gorgeous attire.
No wonder this brilliant stranger became to such a heathen a true missionary. But Stanley, in a conversation with the king, soon upset his new faith, and he agreed at once to observe the Christian as well as the Moslem Sabbath, to which his captains also agreed. He, moreover, caused the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Golden Rule, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," to be written on a board for his daily perusal. In stating this remarkable fact, Stanley says; "Though I am no missionary, I shall begin to think I may become one if such success is so feasible;" and exclaims, "Oh, that some pious, practical missionary would come here. What a field and harvest, ripe for the sickle of the Gospel. Mtesa would give him everything he desired—houses, cattle, lands, ivory, etc. He might call a province his own in one day." But he says he must not be a theological one, nor a missionary of creeds, but a practical Christian, tied to no church or sect, but simply profess God and His Son, and live a blameless life and be able to instruct the people in building houses, cultivating land, and in all those things that make up human civilization. Such a man, Stanley says, would become the temporal saviour of Africa. Mtesa begged Stanley to tell such men to come, and he would give them all they wanted.
The subjects of this heathen king number not far from two millions, and Stanley affirms that one good missionary among them would accomplish more toward the regeneration of Africa in one year than all other missionaries on the continent put together. He suggests that the mission should bring to Mtesa several suits of military clothes, heavily embroidered, pistols, swords, dinner-service, etc., etc. This sounds rather strange to the modern missionary, and seems like trusting too much to "carnal weapons," but it is eminently practical. Anything to give the missionary a firm footing on which to begin his labors is desirable, if not wrong in itself or leading to wrong. For its own use the mission should, he says, bring also hammers, saws, augers, drills for blasting, and blacksmith and carpenter-tools, etc., etc. In short, the missionary should not attempt to convert the black man to his religious views simply by preaching Christ, but that civilization, the hand-maiden of religion, should move side by side with it in equal step. The practical effect of the missionary work, in order to influence the natives, must not be merely a moral change, which causes the convert to abjure the rites and follies of Paganism, but to lift the entire people, whether converted or not to Christianity, to a higher plane of civilization. We know there are different theories on this subject, but we think that Stanley's mode might safely be tried. It was tried, after a fashion, almost immediately, but the station has been broken up and the missionaries murdered.