Sudan and the upper waters of the Nile can only be opened to a large commerce by a railroad from Suakin to Berber, about 280 miles. Surveys were made for this road, and some work was done upon it, just before Gen. Gordon's death. The navigation of the Nile above Berber is uninterrupted for many hundred miles. Below Berber the falls interrupt the navigation. The route from Gondokoro down the Nile is by boat to Berber, camel to Assuan, boat to Siut, and railroad to Cairo and Alexandria, making a route so circuitous that it prevents the opening of the Sudan to any extensive commerce.
In Algiers there are 1,200 miles of railroad, and more are being constructed. The French are constructing a railroad from the upper part of the Senegal River to the head waters of the Niger. The English have organized a company to construct a road from the Gold Coast to the mines in the interior.
It will thus be seen that the railroad has already opened a way into Africa that is sure to be carried on more extensively.
STANLEY EXPEDITION.
There are two methods of exploring Africa. One is where an individual, like a Livingstone, or a Schweinfurth, or a Dr. Junker, departs on his journey alone. He joins some tribe as far in the interior, on the line of exploration, as possible; lives with the tribe, adopting its habits and manner of life, learning its language, making whatever explorations he can; and, when the region occupied by such tribe has been fully explored, leaves it for the next farther on. This plan requires time and never-failing patience; but in this way large portions of Africa have been explored. The other way, adopted by Cameron, Stanley, Wissmann, and the Portuguese explorers, has been to collect a party of natives, and at their head march across the continent.
"An immense outfit is required to penetrate this shopless land, and the traveler can only make up his caravan from the bazaar at Zanzibar. The ivory and slave-traders have made caravanning a profession, and every thing the explorer wants is to be found in these bazaars, from a tin of sardines to a repeating-rifle. Here these black villains the porters—the necessity and despair of travelers, the scum of slave-gangs, and the fugitives from justice from every tribe—congregate for hire. And if there is any thing in which African travelers are for once agreed, it is, that for laziness, ugliness, stupidity, and wickedness, these men are not to be matched on any continent in the world." Upon such men as these Stanley was obliged to depend.
Though traveling in this way is more rapid than the other, it is very expensive, and has many difficulties not encountered by the solitary traveler. The explorer always goes on foot, following as far as possible the beaten paths. A late traveler says: "The roads over which the land-trade of equatorial Africa now passes from the coast to the interior are mere footpaths, never over a foot in breadth, beaten as hard as adamant, and rutted beneath the level of the forest-bed by centuries of native traffic. As a rule, these foot-paths are marvellously direct. Like the roads of the old Roman, they move straight on through every thing,—ridge and mountain and valley,—never shying at obstacles, nor anywhere turning aside to breathe. No country in the world is better supplied with paths. Every village is connected with some other village, every tribe with the next tribe, and it is possible for a traveler to cross Africa without being once out of a beaten track."
But if the tribes using these roads are destroyed, the roads are discontinued, and soon become obstructed by the rapid growth of the underbrush; or, if the route lies through unknown regions outside the great caravan-tracks, the paths are very different from those described by Mr. Drummond, for the way often lies through swamps and morass, or thick woods, or over high mountain-passes, or is lost in a wilderness of waters.
The great difficulty in these expeditions is to obtain food. As supplies cannot be carried, they must be procured from the natives. Very few tribes can furnish food for a force of six hundred men (the number with Stanley); and when they have the food, they demand exorbitant prices. Often the natives not only refuse food to the famished travelers, but oppose them with such arms as they have; and then it is necessary, in self-defence, to fire upon them.
The greatest difficulty the explorer meets comes either directly or indirectly from the opposition of the slave-trader. Formerly the slave-trader was not found in equatorial Africa; but, since the explorer has opened the way, the slave-trader has penetrated far into the interior, and is throwing obstacles in the way of the entry of Europeans into Africa. When it was decided that Stanley should relieve Emin Pacha, he was left to choose his route. He met Schweinfurth, Junker, and other African travelers, in Cairo. They advised him to go by his former route directly from Zanzibar to the Victoria Nyanza. The dangers and difficulties of this route, and the warlike character of the natives, he well knew. The route by the Kongo to Wadelai had never been traveled, and he thought the difficulties could not be greater than by the old route; and, beside, he proceeded much farther into the interior by steamer on the Kongo, which left a much shorter distance through the wilderness than by the Zanzibar route. On arriving at Zanzibar, he made an arrangement with Tippo-Tip, the great Arab trader and slave-dealer, for a large number of porters. They sailed from Zanzibar to the Kongo, where Stanley arrived in February, 1887. He then sailed up the Kongo, and arrived in June at the junction of the Aruvimi with the Kongo, a short distance below Stanley Falls. Stanley believed that the Aruvimi and the Welle were the same stream, and that by following up this river he would be on the direct route to Wadelai. Subsequent investigations have shown that he was mistaken. About the 1st of July he left the Kongo, expecting to reach Emin Pacha in October, 1887. No definite information has been received from him from that time to the present. He left Tippo-Tip in command at Stanley Falls, and expected that a relief expedition would follow. There were great delays in organizing this expedition, from the difficulty of obtaining men, and it was thought that Tippo-Tip was unfaithful. The men were finally procured, and the expedition left Aruvimi in June, 1888, under command of Major Barttelot. A day or two after they started, Major Barttelot was murdered by one of his private servants. The expedition returned to the Kongo, and was re-organized under Lieut. Jamieson. He was taken ill, and died just as he was ready to start, and no one has been found to take his place; and that relief expedition was abandoned. Reports say that Stanley found the route more difficult than he anticipated; heavy rainfall, rivers, swamps, and marshes obstructed the way; that the season was sickly, and a large part of his followers died long before he could have reached Emin Pacha.