[D] Known in Russian literature as Tschtedrin, one of the ablest satirists, editor until last year of the leading scientific literary review, now suppressed on account of its radical tendencies.
LITERATURE OF THE DAY
"The Congo, and the Founding of its Free State: A Story of Work and Exploration." By Henry M. Stanley. Two Volumes. New York: Harper & Brothers.
It is not as the geographical discoverer and explorer—except incidentally and to a limited extent—that Mr. Stanley appears in these volumes. It is as Bula Matari,—"Breaker of Rocks,"—making roads and bridges, establishing stations, pushing the outposts of civilization into the heart of Africa. He no longer fights his way through hostile tribes or seeks to avoid their notice, anxious only to penetrate an unknown region, secure his own safety and that of his followers, and report his achievements, leaving no trace behind except a recollection as of some fiery meteor that had vanished without its portents being apprehended. He returns to make the signification clear, a harbinger not of disasters, but of a wonderful new era of peace and prosperity. He bestows lavish gifts, negotiates treaties, purchases territorial rights, and devotes himself to the task of opening avenues to trade and preparing the way for colonization. The same energy and pluck, the same spirit of persistence, that triumphed over the obstacles and dangers of his earlier enterprises are again called into play, combined with the suavity and patience demanded for the attainment of the present object and permitted by the ample means at his disposal and the freedom from any necessity for impetuous haste or hazardous adventures. Experience, counsel, and the sense of higher responsibilities have brought a calmer judgment and greater steadiness of action, but the boyish temperament has not lost its sway, and more than one crisis is brought to a happy issue by methods in which a love of fun mingles with sagacity and foresight and renders their measures more effective.
The work undertaken by the Association of which Mr. Stanley was the agent is of a purely initiatory character. The acquisition of territory and of certain rights of sovereignty under treaties with local chiefs constitutes the "founding" of the "Congo Free State," which has obtained the recognition of the European powers and become one of the contracting parties to the articles adopted by the recent Conference at Berlin for regulating the commercial and political status of the river-basins of Central Africa. Under these articles absolute freedom of trade, intercourse, and settlement is secured to the people of all nations throughout a region of vast extent and unsurpassed fertility, rich in natural products, not so densely peopled as to resist or restrict any conceivable schemes of colonization, yet offering in its numerous village populations material sufficiently available for the needs of industry and commerce and amenable to philanthropic influences. The preparatory labors, which leave no room for doubt on this point, have been already accomplished, with the exception of what Mr. Stanley regards as the sure and indispensable means of opening up the resources of the country,—viz., the construction of a railway around the rapids that impede the navigation of the Congo. That this crowning enterprise would be highly and immediately remunerative he considers easily demonstrable. "To-day," he writes, "fifty-two thousand pounds are paid per annum for porterage between Stanley Pool and the coast, by native traders, the International Association, and three missions, which is equal to five and one-half per cent. on the nine hundred and forty thousand pounds said to be needed to construct the railway to the Pool. But let the Vivi and Stanley Pool railroad be constructed, and it would require an army of grenadiers to prevent the traders from moving on to secure the favorite places in the commercial El Dorado of Africa." It is, of course, to European capitalists that Mr. Stanley addresses his appeal; and when it is remembered that their least profitable investments have not been those which aided in the development of barbarous countries, it seems not improbable that at no remote period a sufficient portion of the riches that so continually make themselves wings and fly away to distant quarters of the globe may seek the banks of the Congo in preference to those of the Hudson or the Wabash.
While holding out this tempting bait to merchants, manufacturers, and the moneyed classes generally, Mr. Stanley declines to dilate upon the advantages of the Congo basin as a field for immigration. That portion of it which in his view "is blessed with a temperature under which Europeans may thrive and multiply" is at present inaccessible to settlers. It is "the cautious trader, who advances, not without the means of retreat," who is to act as the pioneer and the missionary of civilization, stimulating and directing the industry of the natives. The suppression of the internal slave-trade is another object to be aimed at,—one which Mr. Stanley, in an address recently delivered in London, held up as capable of accomplishment by an outlay of five thousand pounds a year. What rebate should be made, on this point and on others, from the anticipations which a sanguine temperament, that has enabled its possessor to struggle with so many difficulties and to achieve so many enterprises, would naturally tend to heighten and render glowing, is a question that may be reserved for those whom it directly concerns. Equatorial Africa is not likely ever to become the home of a white population, but it need not for that reason be left to "stew in its own juice." On the contrary, it offers on that very account a fit subject for the experiment, which has nowhere yet been adequately tried, of developing latent capacities for progress in races that have raised themselves above the level of absolute savagery without attaining to those ideals which, never wholly realized, are essential to continuous improvement. It has been found easy to enslave, to debase, to exterminate races in this condition, while the ill success of efforts to enlighten and elevate them has led to the inference that this is impracticable. The trial, however, will not have been made till the counteracting influences have ceased to act, or at least to predominate, and time has been allowed for hidden forces that may possibly exist to be called into play. As Mr. Stanley observes, "It is out of the fragments of warring myriads that the present polished nations of Europe have sprung. Had a few of those waves of races flowing and eddying over Northern Africa succeeded in leaping the barrier of the equator, we should have found the black aboriginal races of Southern Africa very different from the savages we meet to-day."
It was the spirit in which Mr. Stanley labored—the ardor and hopefulness, the unfailing patience and good temper, with which he applied himself to the task of cultivating the good will and securing the co-operation of the natives—that made his enterprise a success. With some exceptions, for which he gives ample credit, his European subordinates seem to have been a constant source of embarrassment. Possibly there may have been on his own part a lack of that administrative ability which, acquired through discipline, imparts the skill and power to enforce it. At all events, it is the sympathy and humor with which he portrays his innumerable "blood-brothers"—greedy, cunning, and capricious, but untainted with ferocity, and consequently manageable, like children, by a judicious blending of severity and indulgence—that give interest and charm to his narrative. It has many faults and deficiencies which in a work of greater literary pretensions would be inexcusable. The grammatical blunders with which it abounds are the least annoying, since their grossness makes it easy for the reader to supply mentally the needed correction without effort or consideration. Looseness of diction, repetitions and redundancies of all kinds, and, above all, a frequent lack of clearness and vividness both in statement and description, are more serious impediments to the wish to gain comprehension and instruction. Like most untrained writers, Mr. Stanley imagines that, with a sufficiency of matter, it is only necessary to refrain from striving after picturesque effects or ornate embellishments in order to attain the qualities of clearness and simplicity. Happily, the impulsiveness that betrays itself in his style seems to have been kept well under control in the management of his enterprise. It is always, indeed, apparent as a leading characteristic, but it breaks loose only on occasions when it may be safely and not unattractively displayed.
"Life of Frank Buckland." By his Brother-in-Law, George C. Bompas. London: Smith, Elder & Co. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company.
There is a story told of Sir Edwin Landseer's being presented to the King of Portugal, who impressively greeted the famous painter with, "I am rejoiced to make your acquaintance, Sir Edwin Landseer, I am so fond of beasts." An equally ardent sympathy with Frank Buckland's specialty was necessary to his friends while he was alive, and is required by those who read this delightful, bizarre, and admirable history of a man whose fellow-feeling for all creatures endowed with life was as broad and comprehensive as Dame Nature's for all her children. He had, it might seem, no antipathies. Everything excited his interest, curiosity, and tenderness. Bears, eagles, vipers, jackals, hedgehogs, and snakes roomed with him. He not only lived on intimate terms with his zoological curiosities, petting them, training them, studying them, but he finally ate them. As Douglas Jerrold said of the New Zealanders, "Very economical people. We only kill our enemies; they eat 'em. We hate our foes to the last: while there's no learning in the end how Zealanders are brought to relish 'em."