As the recent movements of this well known African explorer have not been given in detail, the following translation of a letter written by Father Carrie, head of the Congo Mission, dated Landana, December 3, 1879, and published in Les Missions Catholiques (No. 559), may not be without interest.
Father Carrie says: “Having just returned from a voyage through the whole navigable portion of the Lower Congo, I take the first opportunity of sending you the following particulars concerning Mr. Stanley and his explorations. The party of the great explorer is somewhat numerous. It consists, besides the leader, of a superintendent, an engineer, a sea captain, several mechanics, carpenters, etc., in all, twenty whites of different nationalities—Belgians, Americans, English, Italians, and Danes. A French naturalist, M. Protche, just come to Landana from Paris, and an old member of the German expedition to Chinchoxo, near Landana, are also about to join The ‘Society for the Investigation of the Upper Congo,’ as this expedition terms itself.
“The blacks of the party consist of about one hundred men, Arabs and natives from Sierra Leone and the Congo. The stores are very considerable, comprising especially five small steamers and some auxiliary craft, engines and trucks for land carriage, wooden houses ready for erection, &c.
“Mr. Stanley, as I am informed by Mr. Greshoff, proposes to go up the Congo to the Lualaba, where he hopes to meet his Arab friend Tibu-tin. He will then explore the Western part of the Congo as well as the countries near both of its banks, and will endeavor at the same time to bring the ivory-trade to Emboma. When we arrived at Vivi (four or five miles below the first cataract of the Yellala Falls), Mr. Stanley was on his way across the mountains in the direction of the great village of the same name, doubtless studying the start for his route to the interior. M. Van Schandel, chief engineer of the expedition, told us that the celebrated traveller habitually started on such excursions without warning any one of his going or returning. Soon, however, Mr. Stanley himself was announced; he returned tired to death and covered with dust and perspiration.
“While waiting for the end of the rainy season, he is engaged in firmly establishing his first station—the base of all his future operations—and in maturing his plans for overcoming the gigantic difficulties in his way.
“It is, indeed, a startling enterprise to traverse some two hundred miles of precipitous, rocky mountains, piled up—so to speak—one on the other, and almost without any intermediate passage, not only with a numerous party, but a considerable weight of baggage, wooden houses, trucks and steam vessels, which must be hoisted over heights of from 1,000 to 1,300 feet, with extremely abrupt rises; and this not once, or twenty, or a hundred times, but on thousands of occasions.
“Happen what may, it will require some years’ work to reach the end of this terrible chain of mountains at Stanley Pool, where the second station is to be established.”
Making every allowance for the fears of the worthy ecclesiastic whose letter we have here given, it is sufficiently evident that Mr. Stanley has his work cut out in executing the Belgian international programme. He will, apparently, have a land journey of three hundred miles before he can make use of the river, and he himself considers that it will take three years to carry out the project successfully.
