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

Thus nearly three long hours passed away, neither he nor his crew doing or attempting to do anything. But about three o'clock, the war-drums began again their horrid din, and soon the loping, naked savages were seen running from every quarter, and in half an hour five hundred warriors had gathered around the chief within thirty paces of the boat. He was sitting down, and when the warriors were all assembled, he made them an address. As soon as he had finished, about fifty of them dashed up to Stanley's men, and seizing his drum, bore it back in triumph. From some cause or other, this last and apparently most harmless act of all aroused Stanley's suspicions to a point that made him act promptly and decisively.

Perhaps it was their scornful, insulting language as they walked off, bidding him get his guns ready, as they were coming back soon to cut his throat. At all events, the moment he saw them approach the chief with the drum, he shouted to his men to push the boat into the water. The eleven men sprang to its sides, and lifting it as if it had been a toy, carried it, with Stanley in it, to the water's edge and shot it, with one desperate effort, far out into the lake and beyond their depth, and where they had to swim for it. Quickly as it was done, the savages instantly detected the movement, and before the boat had lost its headway, were crowding the very edge of the water, to which they had rushed like a whirlwind, shouting and yelling like madmen. Seizing his elephant rifle, Stanley sent two large conical balls into the dense mass with frightful effect. Then pulling one of the men in the boat, and bidding him help the others in, he seized his double-barreled gun, loaded with buck-shot, and fired right and left into the close-packed, naked crowd. It was like firing with small shot into a flock of pigeons, and a clean swath was cut through the naked mass, which was so stunned at the horrible effect, that they ran back up the slope without hurling a spear or shooting an arrow.

With the oars gone, the great struggle would be to get out into the open lake, where they could hoist sail; for, this once accomplished, they could bid defiance to their enemies. Stanley knew the first move of the savages would be to man their canoes, which lined the shore, and surround his helpless vessel and overwhelm him. He therefore watched the first movement to launch a canoe, and as soon as a desperate-looking savage made the attempt, he dropped him with a bullet through his body. A second, following his example, fell on the beach, when they paused at the certain death that seemed to await the man who dared to touch a boat. Just then Stanley caught sight of the sub-chief, who commanded the party that took the drum, and taking a cool, deliberate aim at him with his elephant rifle, he sent one of its great conical balls tearing through his body, killing at the same time his wife and infant, behind him. This terrified them, for there seemed something supernatural about this deadly work, and they ceased their efforts to launch the boats, and hastened to get out of the reach of such fatal firing. In the meantime, the men were slowly working the boat toward the mouth of the cove. But, just as they were feeling safe, Stanley saw two canoes, loaded heavily with warriors, push out of a little bay and pull toward him. Putting two explosive shells into his elephant rifle, he waited till they came within the distance where they would be most destructive, and then commenced firing. He fired rapidly, but being a dead-shot, with great accuracy, and the shells, as they struck inside the canoes, burst with terrible effect. Four shots killed five men and sunk both the canoes, leaving the warriors to swim ashore. This ended the fight, and the enraged and baffled crowd vented their fury by shouting out, "Go and die in the Nyanza."

Stanley's rapid deadly firing killed fourteen, and wounded with buck-shot eight, which, he coolly remarks, "I consider to be very dear payment for the robbery of eight ash oars and a drum, though barely equivalent, in our estimation, to the intended massacre of ourselves." This cool-blooded treachery and narrow escape roused Stanley's whole nature, and terrible as had been the punishment he had inflicted, he resolved that he would make it more terrible still before he had done with them.

During the perils of the next night that followed, he had plenty of time to nurse his wrath. Having got clear of the land, he hoisted sail, and favored by a light breeze, by night was eight miles from the treacherous Bumbireh. A little after dark the breeze died away, and he set the men to paddling. But, their oars being gone, they made slow headway. At sunrise they were only twenty miles from the island, but near noon, a strong breeze springing up from the northwest, they bowled along at the rate of five miles an hour, and soon saw it sink in the distant horizon. At sunset they saw an island named Sousa, toward which they steered, hoping to reach it by midnight and find a safe haven. But about eight o'clock the breeze began to increase till it rose to a fierce gale, and the sail had to be taken in.

Being without oars, they could not keep the light boat before the wind, and she was whirled away by it like a feather, and wallowed amid the waves that kept increasing, till it seemed impossible to keep much longer afloat. The men strove desperately with their boards for paddles to reach the island, and get to the leeward of it, till the storm should break, but it was of no avail. They were swept by it like a piece of drift-wood, and the lightning, as it lit up its green sides, seemed to mock their despair. The terrific crash of the thunder, the roar of the tempest, and the wild waste of the wrathful water as it was incessantly lit up by the blinding flashes, made it the most terrific night Stanley had ever passed in all his wide wanderings. Between the dashing of the waves over the gunwale and the downfalling deluge of rain, the helpless boat rapidly filled, and it required constant and rapid bailing to keep it from going to the bottom.

The imagination cannot conceive the terrors that surrounded that little boat with its helpless crew on that storm-swept lake during that long, wild night. Above them, rushed the angry clouds, pierced incessantly by the lightning; the heavy thunder shook the very heavens, while all around them were islands and rocks, and a few miles ahead, the main-land peopled by hostile savages. Yet, amid all their terror, the men worn out with their long fasting and exhausting labors, would drop asleep, till awakened by the stern order to bail. The men of Bumbireh had shouted after them, "go and die in the Nyanza," and they now seemed to be prophetic words. Stanley remembered them, and he lived to make the murderous savages remember them, too. At daybreak the tempest broke, and the waves not having the heavy roll of the ocean, quickly subsided, and they saw they had drifted eight miles off the isle of Susa, which they had made such desperate efforts to reach the night before, while other islands rose in the distance. There was not a morsel of food in the boat, and it was now forty-eight hours since they had tasted any, yet the men took to their paddles cheerfully. Soon a gentle breeze set in from the westward, and hoisting sail, they steered for an unknown island, which Stanley named Refuge Island. It was small and uninhabited, but on exploring it, they discovered that the natives had once occupied and cultivated it. To their great joy, they found green bananas, and a small fruit resembling cherries, but tasting like dates. Stanley succeeded, also, in shooting two fat ducks. The men soon stripped these of their feathers and had them in the pot, with which, and the fruit, they made what seemed to them in their famished condition, a right royal repast. The camp was pitched close by the sandy beach, and when night closed sweetly in on the wanderers, "there were few people in the world," says Stanley, "blessed God more devoutly than we did." And well they might, for their double deliverance from the savages on shore and the tempest on the water, was almost miraculous.

They rested here all the next day recruiting, and then set sail, and coming to friendly natives, laid in a supply of provisions. While at anchor, some of the men plucked the poultry they had bought, and they feasted till they were thoroughly satisfied.

At midnight, a favorable wind rising, they set sail for Usukuma. About three in the morning they were in the middle of the Speke Gulf, from which they had started nearly two months before, and bound for their camp. The wind had died away, and the water lay calm and unruffled beneath the tropical sky. But this calm was only the prelude to a fearful storm. Clouds, black as ink, began to roll up the heavens, their edges corrugated and torn by the contending forces that urged them on, while out from their foldings the lightning leaped in blinding flashes, and the thunder, instead of rolling in angry peals, came down in great crashes as if the very frame-work of nature was rending, and then the hail, in stones big as filberts, beat down on their uncovered heads. The waves rose to an astonishing height, and tore like wild horses over the lake. The boat became unmanageable, and was whirled along at the mercy of the wind and waves. But the staunch little craft outrode the fury of the gale, with a buoyancy that surprised Stanley.