 61 Franklin discovers the Northwest Passage. The whole coastline of North America had now been charted, but the famous Northwest Passage, for which so many lives had been laid down, had yet to be found. Sir John Barrow, the father of modern arctic discovery, secretary to the Admiralty, now decided to dispatch another expedition to forge this last link and to connect, if possible, the chain of all former discoveries. Many were the volunteers who came forward to serve in the new arctic expedition, but Sir John Franklin claimed the command as his special right. No service he declared is nearer to my heart. He was reminded that rumor put his age at sixty, and that after a long life of hard work he had earned some rest. No, no, cried the explorer, I am only fifty-nine. This decided the point, and Franklin was appointed to the Erebusan Terror, recently returned from the Antarctic expedition of Sir James Ross. The ships were provisioned for three years, and with a crew of one hundred and twenty-nine men and several officers, Sir John Franklin left England for the last time, on 19 May 1845. He was never seen again. All were in the highest spirits, determined to solve the mystery of the Northwest Passage once and for all. So certain were they of success, that one of the officers rode to a friend, right to Panama and the Sandwich Islands every six months. On 4th of July the ships anchored near the Island of Disco on the west coast of Greenland, after which all is silence. The rest of the story, one of the saddest ever told in connection with Arctic exploration, is dovetailed together from the warrior's scraps of information that have been collected by those who sailed in search of the lost expedition year by year. In 1848 Sir James Ross had sailed off in search of his missing friend, and had reached a spot within three hundred miles of the Erebus and Terror, four months after they had been abandoned. But he returned with no news of Franklin. Then Sir John Richardson started off, but found no trace. Others followed. The government offered twenty thousand pounds, to which Lady Franklin added three thousand pounds, to anyone who should bring news of Franklin. By the autumn of 1850 there were fifteen ships engaged in the search. A few traces were found. It was discovered that Sir John Franklin had spent his first winter, 1845, at Beachy Island. Carlin McClure sailed along the north coast of America and made his way from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, thus showing the existence of a north-west passage, for which he and his men were highly rewarded. For at this time no one knew that Franklin had already found a passage, though he had not lived to tell the story of triumph and success. But it was not till after years of silence that the story of the missing expedition was cleared up. Lady Franklin purchased and fitted out a little steam yacht, the Fox, of one hundred and seventy-seven tons. The command was given to Captain McClintock, known to be an able and enthusiastic Arctic navigator. He was to rescue any possible survivor of the Erebus and terror, and to try and recover any records of the lost expedition. The twelfth of August found the little fox in Melville Bay, made fast to an iceberg, and a few days later she was frozen firmly into an ice-back. For two hundred and forty-two days she was beset, drifting all through the long bitter winter with the ice. Till on twenty-fifths of April, eighteen-fifty-eight, after having been carried, over a thousand miles she was released. McClintock, undaunted by danger, turned northwards, and by May he had reached Melville Bay. To send up Lancaster Sound, he reached Beachy Island in August and found their three lonely graves of three sailors from the Erebus and terror. Here the English commander erected a tablet sent out by Lady Franklin. On the morning of sixteenths August, McClintock sailed from Beachy Island, but the short summer was passing quickly, and they had no fresh news of the Franklin expedition. Halfway through Bellet Strait, the fox was again ice-bound, and another long winter had to be faced. By the middle of February, eighteen-fifty-nine, there was light enough to start some sledging along the west coast of Boothia Felix. Days passed, and McClintock struggled on to the south, but no eskimos appeared, and no traces of the lost explorers were to be found. Suddenly they discovered four men walking after them. A naval button on one of the eskimos attracted their attention. It came, said the eskimo, from some white people, who were starved upon an island where there are salmon, but none of them had seen the white man. Here was news at last. McClintock traveled on some ten miles to Cape Victoria, where the eskimos first built him a commodious snow hut in half an hour. Next morning the entire village of eskimos arrived, some forty-five people, bringing relics of the white man. There were silver spoons, part of a gold chain, buttons, knives, made of the iron and wood of the wrecked ships. But none of those people had seen the white man. One man said he had seen their bones upon the island for they died, but some were buried. They set a ship, having three masts, had been crushed by the ice out in the sea, to the west of King William's Island. One old man made a rough sketch of the coastline, with his spear upon the snow. He said it was eight journeys to where the ship sank. McClintock hastened back to the ship with his news. He had by his sleigh-journey added one hundred and twenty miles to the old charts, and completed the discovery of the coastline of continental America. On second April more sleigh-parties started out to reach King William's Island. The cold was still intense, the glare of the sun painful to their eyes. The faces and lips of the men were blistered and cracked, their fingers were constantly frost-bitten. For nearly three weeks travelling they found snow-huts and eskimos at Cape Victoria. Here they found more traces of Franklin's Party, preserved meat tins, brass knives, and mahogany board. In answer to their inquiries they heard that two ships had been seen by the natives of King William's Island. One had been seen to sink in deep water, the other was forced on shore and broken up. It was in the fall of the year, August or September, they said, when the ships were destroyed, that all the white people went away to the large river, taking a boat with them, and that in the following winter their bones were found there. McClintock now made his way to the opposite coast of King William's Island. Here he found eskimos with pieces of silver plate bearing the crest and initials of Sir John Franklin and some of his officers. They said it was five days' journey to the wreck, of which little now remained. There had been many books said the eskimos, but they had been destroyed by the weather. One woman volunteered a statement. Many of the white men, she said, dropped by the way as they went to the great river. Some were buried, and some were not. Their bodies were discovered during the winter following. Moving onwards, McClintock reached the Great Fish River on the morning of 12th May. A furious gale was raging, and the air was heavy with snow, but they encamped there to search for relics. With big axes and shovels, they searched in vain. No eskimos were to be found, and at last, in despair, the little party of explorers faced homewards. McClintock was slowly walking near the beach, when he suddenly came upon a human skeleton, laying face downwards, half buried in the snow. It wore a blue jacket with slashed sleeves and braided edging under great coat of pillowed clothes. The odd woman was right, they fell down and died as they walked along. And now the reward of the explorers was at hand. On the northwest coast of King William's Island was found a cairn and a blue ship's paper, whether worn and ragged, relating in simple language, written by one of the ship's officers, the fate of the Franklin expedition. The first entry was cheerful enough. In 1846 all was well. His majesty's ships, Erebus and Terror, wintered in the ice at Beachy Island, after having ascended Wellington Channel, and returned to the west side of Cornwallis Island. Sir John Franklin was commanding the expedition. The results of their first year's labour was encouraging. In 1846 they had been within twelve miles of King William's Island, when winter stopped them. But a later entry, written in April 1848, states that the ships were deserted on 22nd of April, having been beset in ice since September 1846, that Sir John Franklin had died on 11th of June 1847, and that Captain Crozier was in command. Then came the last words, and start tomorrow, twenty-six, for back Fish River. That was all. After a diligent search in the neighbourhood for journals or relics, Franklin took lead his party along the coast, till on thirties May they found another relic, in the shape of a large boat, which a quantity of tattered clothing lying in her. She had been evidently equipped for the ascent of the Great Fish River. She had been built at Woolwich Dockyard, near her lay two human skeletons, a pair of worker slippers, some watches, guns, a wicker of Wakefield, a small Bible, New Testament and prayer book, seven or eight pairs of boots, some silk hanger-chiefs, poles, soap, sponge, combs, twine, nails, shot, and cartridges, needle-and-thread cases, some tea and chocolate, and a little tobacco. Everything was carefully collected and brought back to the ship, which was reached on nineteenth June. Two months later the little fox was free from ice, and McClintock reached London towards the end of September, to make known his great discovery. The rest of the story is well known. Most of us know the interesting collection of Franklin relics in the United Service Institution in London, and the monument in Waterloo Place, to the great navigator, and his brave companions, who sacrificed their lives in completing the discovery of the Northwest Passage. It was acknowledged that to search on Franklin is due the priority of discovery of the Northwest Passage, that last link to forge which he sacrificed his life. And on a marble monument in Westminster Abbey, Tennyson, a nephew of Sir John Franklin, wrote his well-known lines. Not here, the white north has thy bones, and though, heroic sailor's soul, art passing on thy happier voyage now, towards no earthly pole. CHAPTER 62 David Livingstone I shall open up a path to the interior, or perish. Such were the words of one of the greatest explorers of Africa in the nineteenth century. Determination was the key note of his character, even as a young boy. At the age of ten he was at work in a cotton factory in Scotland. With his first week's wages he bought a Latin grammar. Fourteen hours of daily work left little time for reading, but he educated himself, till at nineteen he was resolved to be a medical missionary. In the glow of love which Christianity inspires, I resolved to devote my life to the elevation of human misery. He was accepted for service by the London Missionary Society, and in the year 1840 he sailed for South Africa. After a voyage of three months he arrived at Cape Town, and made his way, in a slow ox wagon, seven hundred miles to Kuruman, a small mission station in the heart of Bikwana land, where Dr. Moffat had laboured for twenty years. He did well, and two years later he was sent north to form another mission station at Mabotsa, Transvaal. Having married Moffat's daughter Mary, he worked in these parts till June 1849, when, with his wife and three children, he started with oxen and wagon for a journey northwards. Across the great Kalachari Desert moved the exploring family till they came to the river called Zoga, which, said the natives, led to a large lake named Lake Ngami. The native canoes Livingstone and his little family ascended this beautiful wooded river, resembling the river Clyde above Glasgow. Till on the first of August 1849 Lake Ngami appeared, and for the first time, says Livingstone, this fine sheet of water was beheld by Europeans. The lake was 2,800 feet above the sea, but the climate was terribly unhealthy. The children grew feverish, and mosquitoes made life a misery to them, while the tsetse fly made further exploration for the moment impossible. So the family journeyed back to headquarters for a time. But Livingstone was unsatisfied, and once more in 1851 we find him starting again with wife and children to seek the great river Zambesi, known to exist in Central Africa, though the Portuguese maps represented it as rising forth the east of Livingstone's discovery. It was the end of June 1851, he tells us, that we were rewarded by the discovery of the Zambesi in the center of the continent. This was an important point, for that river was not previously known to exist there at all. As we were the very first white men the inhabitants had ever seen, we were visited by prodigious numbers of macalolo in garments of blue, green and red bays. Livingstone wanted to know more of this unknown river, but he now decided that exploring with a wife and family was not only perilous, but difficult. So he returned to the coast, put them on a homeward bound ship for England, and returned to Central Africa to continue his work of exploration alone. It was 11th November 1858 when Livingstone left the town of Linyanti in the very heart of Central Africa, for his great journey to the west coast to trace the course of the Zambesi. The Zambesi nobody knows whence it comes and whither it goes. So ran an old canoe song of the natives. With 27 faithful black macalolos, with only a few biscuits, a little tea and sugar, twenty pounds of coffee and three books, with a horse rug and sheepskin for bedding, and a small gypsy tent and a tin canister, fifteen inches square, filled with a spare shirt, trousers and shoes for civilized life, and a few scientific instruments, the English explorers started for a six-month journey. Soon his black guides had embarked in their canoes and were making their way up the Zambesi. No rain has fallen here, he writes on thirties of November, so it is excessively hot. The atmosphere is oppressive, both in cloud and sunshine. Livingstone suffered badly from fever during the entire journey, but the blacks took fatherly care of him. As soon as we land, he says, the men cut a little grass for my bed, while the poles of my little tent are planted. The bed is made and boxes ranged on each side of it, and then the tent pitched over all. Two macalolos occupy my right and left, both in eating and sleeping, as long as the journey lasts. But my head boatman makes his bed at the door of the tent, as soon as I retire. As they advanced up the Barotse valley, rains had fallen, and the woods had put on their gayest hue. Birds of great beauty grow everywhere. The ground begins to swarm with insect-life, and in the cool, pleasant mornings they place rings with the singing of birds. On 6th of January, 1854, they left the river and rode oxen through the dense parts of the country, through which they had now to pass. Through heavy rains and with very little food, they toiled on Westford, through miles and miles of swamp, intersected by streams, flowing southward to the Zambezi basin. One day Livingstone's ox sinned bad through him, and he had to struggle weirdly forward on food. His strength was failing. His meager fare, varied by boiled zebra and dried elephant, frequent wettings and constant fever, were reducing him to a mere skeleton. But last on 26th of March he arrived at the edge of the high land, over which he had so long been travelling. It is so steep, he tells us, that I was obliged to dismount, and I was so weak that I had to be led by my companions to prevent my toppling over in walking down. Below us lays a volley of the quango in glorious sunlight. Another fortnight and they were in Portagee's territory. The sight of white men once more, and a collection of traders' hearts, was a welcome sight to the weary traveller. The commandant at once took pity on Livingstone. But after a refreshing stay of ten days, the English explorers started off westward to the coast. For another month he pursued his way. It was 31st May, 1854. As the party neared the town of Loanda, the black McCollolos began to grow nervous. We have stood by each other hither too, and will do so to the last, Livingstone assured them, as they all staggered into the city by the seashore. Here they found one Englishman sent out for the suppression of the slave trade, who at once gave up his bed to the stricken and emissated explorer. Never shall I forget, he says, the luxury I enjoyed in feeling myself again on a good English bed after six months sleeping on the ground. Nor were the McCollolos forgotten. They were entertained on board an Englishman of war, lying off the coast. Livingstone was offered a passage home, but he tells us. I declined the tempting offers of my friends, and resolved to take back my McCollolos companions to their chief, with the view of making a path from here to the east coast by means of the great river Sambesi. With this object in view he turned his back on home and comfort, and on twentieth of September 1854 he left Luanda and the White Man's Sea, as the Black Guides called the Atlantic Ocean, that washes the shores of West Africa. Their way lay through the Angola country, rich in wild coffee and cotton plantations. The weather was as usual still and oppressive, but slowly Livingstone made his way of eastward. He suffered badly from fever as he had done on the outward journey. It had taken him six months to reach Luanda from Central Africa. It took a year to complete the return journey, and it was September 1855, before Linyanti was again reached. Vagans and goods left there eighteen months before were safe, together with many welcome letters from home. The return of the travellers after so long an absence was a cause of great rejoicing. All the wonderful things the Mokololos had seen and heard were rehearsed many times before appreciative audiences. Livingstone was more than ever a hero in their eyes, and his kindness to his men was not forgotten. He had no difficulty in getting recruits for the journey down the Sambesi to the sea, for which he was now making preparations. On 3 November he was ready to resume his long march across Africa. He was much better equipped on this occasion. He rode a horse instead of an ox, and his guide, Sekwebu, knew the river well. The first night out they were unfortunately caught in a terrific thunderstorm, accompanied by sheet lightning, which lit up the whole country and flooded at the storms of tropical rain. A few days travelling brought the party to the famous Sambesi Falls, called by the natives where smoke sounds, but renamed by Livingstone after the Queen of England, Victoria. The first account of these now famous falls is very vivid. Five columns of vapor, appropriately named smoke, bending in the direction of the wind, appeared to mingle with the clouds. The whole scene was extremely beautiful. It had never been seen before by European eyes. When about half a mile from the falls I left the canoe, and embarked in a lighter one, with men well acquainted with the rapids, who brought me to an island in the middle of the river, and on the edge of the lip, over which the water rolls. Creeping with care to the verge, I peered down, into a large rent, which had been made from bank to bank, of the Brodsambesi. In looking down into the fissure, one sees nothing, but a dense white cloud, from this cloud rushed up a great jet of vapor, exactly like steam, and it mounted two or three hundred feet high. The king's town now continued his perilous journey, with his hundred men along the Zambezi. The country once densely populated, now desolate and still. The Bacota tribes, the colour of coffee and milk, were friendly, and great numbers came from all the surrounding villages, and expressed great joy at the appearance of a white man, and harbinger of peace. They rolled in large supplies of food, and expressed great delight when living-stone doctored their children, who were suffering from whooping cough. As they neared the coast, they became aware of hostile forces. This was explained when they were met by a Portuguese half-caste, with jacket and hat on, who informed them that for the last two years they had been fighting the natives. Lunging thus unconsciously into the midst of a kafir war, rendered travelling and pleasant and dangerous. In addition, the party of explorers found their animals woefully bitten by the tzatzé fly. Rhinosaurses and elephants were too plentiful to be interesting, and the great white end made itself tiresome. It was third of March before living-stone reached tzatzé, 260 miles from the coast. The last stages of the journey had been very beautiful. Many of the hills were of pure white marble, and pink marble formed the bed of more than one of the streams. Through this country the Zambezi rolled down toward the coast, at the rate of four miles an hour, while flocks of waterfall swarmed upon its banks, or flew over its waters. Tzatzé was the forthest outpost of the Portuguese. Living-stone was most kindly received by the governor, but fever again laid him low, and he had to remain here for three weeks, before he was strong enough to start for the last stage of his journey to the coast. He left his Makolollos here, promising to return some day to take them home again. They believed in him implicitly and remained there three years when he returned according to his word. Leaving Tzatzé, he now embarked on the waters of the Zambezi, high with a fourth annual rise, which bore him to Sena in five days. So swift is the current at times, that twenty-four hours is enough to take a boat from Tzatzé to Sena, whereas the return journey may take twenty days. I thought the state of Tzatzé quite lamentable says Living-stone, but that of Sena was ten times worse. It is impossible to describe the miserable state of decay into which the Portuguese possessions here have sunk. So suffering badly from fever, Living-stone pushed on. He passed the important tributary of the Zambezi, the Shire, which he afterwards explored, and finally reached Quillimani on the shores on the Indian Ocean. It was now twentieth of May, 1856, just four years after he had left Cape Town, on his great journey from west to east, since when he had travelled eleven thousand miles. After waiting six weeks on the Great Mudbank, surrounded by extensive swamps and rice grounds, which forms the site of Quillimani, Living-stone embarked on board a gun boat, the frolic for England. He had won Mokololo with him, the faithful Sekvabu. The poor black man begged to be allowed to follow his master on the seas. But, said Living-stone, you will die if you go to such a cold country as mine. Let me die at your feet, pleaded the black man. He had not been to Oloanda, he had never seen the sea before. Waves were breaking over the bar at Quillimani, and dashing over the boat that carried Sekvabu out to the break. He was terribly alarmed, but he lived to reach Mauritius, where he became insane, hurled himself into the sea, and was drowned. On twelfth of December, 1856, Living-stone landed in England, after an absence of sixteen years. He had left home as an obscure missionary. He returned to find himself famous. The Royal Geographical Society awarded him its gold medal, France and Scotland hastened to do him honour. Bankats and receptions were given for him, and finally this plain, single-minded man, somewhat attenuated by years of toil, and with his face tinged by the son of Africa, was received by the Queen at Windsor. The enthusiasm aroused by this longest expedition in the history of African travel was unrevelled, and the name of Living-stone was on every lip. But meanwhile others were at work in Central Africa, and they must turn from the discoveries of Living-stone for the moment. End of Chapter 62 Chapter 63 of a Book of Discovery. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Book of Discovery by M. B. Singh. Chapter 63 Burton and Speak in Central Africa, 1856 Living-stone had just left London and was making his way across Africa from west to east. When an English expedition set forth to find the Great Lakes, still lying solitary and undiscovered, as though they were known to exist, if we turn to the oldest maps of Africa we find, rudely drawn and incorrectly placed, large inland waters that may nevertheless be recognized as these lakes just about to be revealed to a wandering world. But only my knew of them, the Arabs spoke of them, Portuguese traders had passed them, and the German missionary had caught sight of the mountains of the moon and brought back strange stories of a great inland lake. The work of rediscovering the lakes was entrusted to a remarkable man named Richard Burton, a man whose love of adventure was well known. He had already shown his metal by entering Mecca, disguised as a Persian, and disguised as an Arab he had entered Harar, a den of slave traders, the Timbuktu of eastern Africa. On his return he was attacked by the Somalis, one of his companions was killed, another speak, escaped with terrible spear wounds, and he himself was badly wounded. Such were the men who in 1856 were dispatched by the Royal Geographical Society for the exploration of the mysterious lakes in the heart of Central Africa. Speak gives us an idea of the ignorance prevailing on this subject only fifty-six years ago. On the walls of the society's rooms there hung a large diagram constructed by two missionaries carrying on their duties at Zanzibar. In this section map, swallowing up about half of the whole area of the ground included in it, there figured a lake of such a potential size and such unseemly shape, representing a gigantic slug, that everybody who looked at it incredulously laughed and shook his head. A single sheet of sweet water, upwards of 800 miles long by 300 broad, equal in size to the Great Salt Caspian. It was April 1857, before Burton and Speak had collected an escort and guides at Zanzibar, the great slave market of East Africa, and were ready to start for the interior. We could obtain no useful information from the European merchants of Zanzibar, who are mostly ignorant of everything beyond the island, Burke wrote home on 22nd of April. At last on 27th of June, with thirty-six men and thirty donkeys, the party set out for the Great Malarius Coast Belt, which had to be crossed before Kaze, some five hundred miles distant, could be reached. After three months arduous travelling, both Burton and Speak were badly stricken with fever. They reached Kaze. Speak now spread open the map of the missionaries, and inquired of the natives, where the enormous lake was to be found. To their intense surprise they found, the missionaries had run three lakes into one, and the three lakes were Lake Nöessa, Tangandika and Victoria Neanza. They stayed over a month at Kaze, till Burton seemed at the point of death, and Speak had him carried out of the unhealthy town. It was January before they made a start and continued their journey westward to Ugi. "'It is a wonderful thing,' says Drummond, to start from the civilisation of Europe, pass up these mighty rivers, and work your way alone and on food, mile after mile, months after months, among strange birds and beasts and plants and insects, meeting tribes which have no name, speaking tongues which no man can interpret, till you have reached its sacred heart, and stood where white man has never trod before. As the two men tremed on, the streams began to drain to the west, and the land grew more fertile. Till one hundred and fifty miles from Kaze, they began to ascend the slope of mountains, overhanging the northern half of Lake Tangandika. "'This mountain mass,' says Speak, I consider to be the true mountains of the moon. From the top of the mountains the lovely Tangandika lake could be seen in all its glory by Burton. But to Speak it was a mere mist. The glare of the sun and oft-repeated fever had begun to tell on him, and a kind of inflammation had produced almost total blindness. But they could reach the lake, and they felt sure they had found the source of the Nile. It was a great day when Speak crossed the lake in a long canoe hollowed out of the trunk of a tree, and manned by twenty native savages, under the command of a captain in a goat-skin uniform. On the far side they encamped on the opposite shore Speak being the first white man to cross the lake. Having retired to his hut for the night, Speak proceeded to light a candle and arrange his baggage. When to his horror he found, the whole interior swarming with black beetles. Instead of trying to brush him away, he put out his light, and though they crawled up his sleeves and down his back, he fell asleep. Suddenly he awoke to find one crawling into his ear, and in spite of his frantic efforts it crept in further and further, till it reached the drum, which caused the tired explorer intense agony. Inflammation ensued, his face became drawn, he could with difficulty swallow a little broth, and he was quite deaf. He returned across the lake to find his companion, Burton, still very ill and unfit for further exploration. So Speak, although still suffering from his ear, started off again, leaving Burton behind to find the great northern lake spoken of as the sea of Ukereve, where the Arabs traded largely in ivory. There was a great empire beyond the lake, they told him, called Uganda. But it was July 1858, when the caravan was ready to start from Kaze. Speak himself carried Burton's large elephant gun. I commenced the journey, he says, at six p.m., as soon as the two donkeys I took with me to ride were caught and settled. It was a dreary beginning. The escort who accompanied me were sullen in their manner, and walked with heavy gate and downcast countenance. The nature of the track increased the general gloom. For several weeks the caravan moved forward, till on the third of August it began to wind up along, but gradually inclined hill, until it reached summit, when the vast expanse of the pale blue waters of the Nianza burst suddenly upon my eyes. It was early morning. The distant sea-line of the north horizon was defined in the calm atmosphere, but I could get no idea of the breath of the lake, as an archipelago of islands, each consisting of a single hill rising to a height of two or three hundred feet above the water, intersected the line of vision to the left. A sheet of water extended far away to the eastward. The view was one which even in a well-known country would have arrested the traveller by its peaceful beauty. But the pleasure of the mere view vanished in the presence of those more intense emotions, called up by the geographical importance of the scene before me. I no longer felt any doubt that the lake at my feet gave birth to that interesting river Nile, the source of which has been the subject of so much speculation and the object of so many explorers. This is a far more extensive lake than Tanganyika. It is so broad that you could not see across it, and so long that nobody knew its length. This magnificent sheet of water I have ventured to name Victoria, after our gracious sovereign. He returned to Kaze after six weeks' eventful journey, having trumped no less than four hundred and fifty-two miles. He received a warm welcome from Burton, who had been very and easy about his safety, for rumours of civil war had reached him. I laughed over the matters that speak, but expressed my regret that he did not accompany me, as I felt quite certain in my mind I had discovered the source of the Nile. Together the two explorers now made their way to the coast, and crossed to Aden, where Burton, still weak and ill, decided to remain for a little, while Speak took passage in a passing ship for home. When he showed his map of Tanganyika and Victoria Nuanza to the President of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Sir Roderick Murchinson was delighted. Speak, we must send you there again," he said enthusiastically. And the expedition was recorded as one of the most notable discoveries in the annals of African discovery. End of Chapter 63. Chapter 64 of a book of discovery. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Book of Discovery by M. B. Singe, Chapter 64. Living Stone Traces Like Sherwa and Nuyessa Burton and Speak had not yet returned from Central Africa. When Living Stone left England on another expedition into the interior, with orders to extend the knowledge already attained of the geography of Eastern and Central Africa, and to encourage trade. Living England, on 10th of March, 1858, he reached the east coast the following May, as British Council of Quillimane, the region which lies about the mouth of the Zambezi. Living Stone had brought out with him a small steam lounge, called by the natives Zema Robert, after Mrs. Living Stone. The mother of Robert, their eldest child. In this little steam lounge he made his way up the Shire River, which flows into the Zambezi quite near its mouth. The delight of threading out the meanderings of upwards of 200 miles of a hither-to-unexplored river must be felt to be appreciated, says Living Stone in his diary. At the end of these 200 miles further progress became impossible because of rapids which no boat could pass. These magnificent cataracts we called the Merchantson Cataracts, after one whose name has already a worldwide fame, says Living Stone. Leaving their boat here, they started on foot for the Great Lake, described by the natives. It took them a month of hard travelling to reach their goal. Their way lay over the native tracks which run as a network over this part of the world. They are veritable footpaths, never over a foot and breath, beaten as hard as adamant by centuries of native traffic. Like the roads of the Old Romans, they run straight on over everything, ridge and mountain and valley. On 18th April Lake Shirva came into sight, a considerable body of bitter water containing leeches, fish, crocodiles and hippopotami. The country around is very beautiful, adds Living Stone, enclosed with rich vegetation and the waves breaking and foaming over a rock added to the beauty of the picture. Exceedingly lofty mountains stand near the eastern shore. No white man had gazed at the lake before. Though one of the smaller African lakes, Shirva is probably larger than all the lakes of Great Britain put together. Returning to Tete, the explorer now prepared for his journey for the farther Lake Nyasa. This was to be no new discovery. The Portuguese knew the locality of Lake Shirva. And at the beginning of the 17th century, Nyasa was familiar to them under another name. Landing at the same spot on the Shire banks as before, Living Stone with 36 Makololo porters and two native guides, ascended the beautiful Shire highlands, some 1200 feet above sea level, and crossed the range on which Zumba, the residence of the British commissioner of Nyasa land, now stands. When within a day's march of their goal, they were told that no lake had ever been heard of in the neighborhood. But, said the natives, the river Shire stretched on and it would take two months to reach the end, which came out of perpendicular rocks which toured almost to the skies. Let us go back to the ship, said the followers. It is no use trying to find the lake. But Living Stone persevered and he was soon rewarded by finding a sheet of water which was indeed the beginning of Lake Nyasa. It was 16th September, 1856. How far is it to the end of the lake, he asked? The other end of the lake? Who ever heard of such a thing? Why, if one started when a mere boy to walk to the other end of the lake, he would be an old gray-headed man before he got there, declared one of the natives. Living Stone knew that he had opened up a great waterway to the interior of Africa. But the slave trade in these parts was terrible, gangs being employed and carrying the ivory from countries to the north down to the east coast. The English explorers saw that if he could establish a steamer upon this Lake Nyasa and buy ivory from the natives with our European goods, he would at once strike a deadly blow at the slave trade. His letters home stirred several missionaries to come out and establish a settlement on the banks of the Shire River. Bishop Mackenzie and a little band of helpers arrived on the River Shire two years later and in 1862 Mrs. Living Stone joined them, bringing out with her a little new steamer to launch on the Lake Nyasa. But the unhealthy season was at its hate and the surrounding low land rank with vegetation and reeking from the late rainy season excaled the malaria poison in enormous quantities. Mrs. Living Stone fell ill and in a week she was dead. She was buried under a large baobab tree at Shapunga where her grave is visited by many a traveler passing through this one solitary region first penetrated by her husband. The blow was a crushing one for Living Stone and for a time he was quite bewildered. But when his old energy returned he super intended the launching of the little steamer the Lady Nyasa. But disappointment and failure awaited him and at last just two years after the death of his wife he took the Lady Nyasa to Zanzibar by the Rovo Mariver and set forth to reach Bombay where he hoped to sell her for his funds were low. On the last day of April 1864 he started on his perilous journey. Though warned that the monsoon would shortly break he would not be deterred and after sailing 2,500 miles in the little boat built only for river and lake a forest of moths one day loomed through the haze in Bombay Harbour and he was safe. After a brief stay here Living Stone left his little lounge and made his way to England on a mail packet. But no one realized at this time the importance of his new discoveries. No one foresaw the value of Nyasa land now under British protectorate. Living Stone had brought to light a lake 1,570 feet above the sea 350 miles long and 40 broad up and down which British steamers make their way today while the long range of mountains lining the eastern bank known as the Living Stone Range testified to the fact that he had done much even if he might have done more. End of Chapter 64 Chapter 65 of a Book of Discovery This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org A Book of Discovery by M. B. Sing Chapter 65 Expedition to Victoria Nyasa While Living Stone was discovering Lake Nyasa Speak was busy preparing for a new expedition. To find out more about the Great Sheet of Water he had named Victoria Nyasa and to solve the next question was this the source of the Nile? In April 8060 accompanied by Captain Grant an old friend and brother sportsman he left England and by way of the Cape reached Zanzibar some five months later. The two explorers started for their great inland journey early in October with some hundred followers bound for the Great Lake. But it was January 1861 before they had covered the 500 miles between the coast and Kazeh the old halting station of Burton and Speak. Through the agricultural plains known as Uzarana the country of Rana where many negro porters deserted because they believed the white men were cannibals and intended to eat them when safe away from the hounds of men. Through Usagara, the country of Gara where Captain Grant was seized with fever through Ugo's Great Wilderness where buffalo and rhinoceros abounded where the country was flooded with tropical rains on to the land of the moon 3,000 feet above sea level till the slowly moving caravan reached Kazeh. Here terrible accounts of famine and war reached them and instead of following Speak's route of 1858 they turned north-west and entered the Uzin the country governed by two chieftains of Abyssinian descent. Here Speak was taken desperately ill. His calf gave him no rest day or night his legs were reduced to the appearance of pipe stacks. But emissated as he was, he made his way onwards till the explorers were rewarded by finding a beautiful sheet of water lying snugly within the folds of the hills which they named the Little Windermere because they thought it was so like our own English lake of that name. To do royal honours to the king of this charming land I ordered my men, says Speak, to put down their loads and fire a volley. The king, whom they next visited, was a fine looking man who with his brother set cross-legged on the ground with huge pipes of black clay by their sides. While behind him, squatting quite as mice were the king's sons, six or seven lads with little dream charms under their chins. The king shook hands in true English fashion and as full of enquiries. Speak described the world as the proportions of land and water under large ships on the sea and begged to be allowed to pass through his kingdom to Uganda. The explorers learned much about the surrounding country and spent Christmas Day with a good feast of roast beef. The start for Uganda was delayed by the serious illness of Grant until at last Speak reluctantly decided to leave him with the friendly king while he made his way alone to Uganda and the Lake Victoria-Nyanza. It was the end of January 1861 when the English explorer entered the unknown kingdom of Uganda. Messengers from the king, Mtsessa, came to him. Now they said, you have really entered the kingdom of Uganda. For the future you must buy no more food. At every place that you stop for the day the officer in charge will bring you plantains. The king's palace was ten days' march. The way lay along the western coast of the Lake Victoria-Nyanza. The roads were as broad as our coach roads, cut through the long grass straight over the hills and down through the woods. The temperature was perfect. The whole land was a picture of quiescent beauty, with a boundless sea in the background. On 13th of February, Speak found a large volume of water going to the north. I took off my clothes, he says, and jumped into the stream, which I found was twelve yards broad and deeper than my height. I was delighted beyond measure, for I had, to all appearance, found one of the branches of the Nile's exit from the Nyanza. But he had not reached the Nile yet. It was not till the end of July that he reached his goal. Here at last, he says, I stood on the brink of the Nile. Most beautiful was the scene. Nothing could surpass it. A magnificent stream from six hundred to seven hundred yards wide, dotted with islets and rocks, the former occupied by fishermen's hats, the latter by crocodiles basking in the sun. I told my men they ought to baze in the holy river, the cradle of Moses. Marching onwards, they found the waterfall, which Speak named the Rippon Falls. By far the most interesting sight I had seen in Africa. The arm of the water from which the Nile issued, he named Napoleon Channel, out of respect to the French geographical society, for the owner they had done him just before leaving England, in presenting their gold medal for the discovery of Victoria Nyanza. The English explorers had now spent six months in Uganda. The civilisation in this country of Metzesas has passed into history. Everyone was closed, and even little boys held their skin cloaks tightly round them, lest their bare legs might by accident be seen. Everything was clean and orderly under the all-powerful ruler Metzesa. Grant, who arrived in the end of May, carried in a litter, found Speak had not yet obtained leave from the king, to open the country to the north, that an uninterrupted line of commerce might exist between England and Uganda, by means of the Nile. But at last on 3 July he writes with joy, The moment of triumph has come at last, and suddenly the road is granted. The explorers bid farewell to Metzesa. We rose with an English bow, placing the hand on the heart, whilst saying adieu. And whatever we did Metzesa in an instant mimicked with the instinct of a monkey. In five boats of five planks each tied together and calmed with crabs, Speak started with a small escort and crew to reach the pellets of the neighbouring king, Kamrasi, father of all the kings, in the province of Unyoro. After some fierce opposition they entered the palace of the king, a poor creature. Rumours had reached him that these two white men were cannibals and sorcerers. His palace was indeed a contrast to that of Metzesa. It was merely a dirty hut, approached by a lane, anchored deep in mud and cow manure. The king's sisters were not allowed to marry, their only occupation was to drink milk from morning to night. With the result that they grew so fat, it took eight men to lift one of them when walking became impossible. Superstition was rife and the explorers were not sorry to leave Unyoro and root for Cairo. Speak and grant now believed that except for a few cataracts, the waterway to England was unbroken. The Karuma Falls broke the monotony of the way, and here the party halted a while before plunging into the kitty wilderness, across which they intended to march to save a great bend of the river. Their paths lay through swampy jungles and high grass, while great grassy plains, where buffaloes were seen and the roar of lions was heard, stretched away on every side. Suddenly they reached a huge rock covered with huts, in front of which groups of black men were perched like monkeys, evidently awaiting the arrival of the white men. They were painted in the most brilliant colours, though without clothes, for the civilisation of Uganda had been left far behind. Pushing on they reached the Madi country, where again civilisation awaited them in the shape of Turks. It was on 3rd of December that they saw to their great surprise three large red flags carried in front of a military procession, which marched out of camp with drums and fives playing. A very black man named Mohamed, in full Egyptian regimentals, with a curved sword, ordered his regiment to halt and threw himself into my arms, endeavouring to kiss me, says Speak. Having reached his huts, he gave us two beds to sit upon and ordered his wives to advance on their knees and give us coffee. I have directions to take you to Gondokoro as soon as you come, said Mohamed. Yet they were detained till 11th of January, when in sheer desperation they started off and in two days reached the Nile. Having no boats they continued their march overland till 15th of February, when the masts of Nile boats came in sight and soon after the two explorers walked into Gondokoro. Then a strange thing happened. We saw herring on towards us, the form of an Englishman. And the next moment my old friend Baker, famed for his sports in Ceylon, seized me by the hand. What joy this was I can hardly tell! We could not talk fast enough, so overwhelmed where we both to meet again. Of course we were his guests and soon learned everything that could be told. I now first heard of the death of the Prince consort. Baker said, he had come up with three vessels fully equipped with armed men, camels, horses, donkeys, and everything necessary for a long journey, expressly to look after us. Three Dutch ladies also, with a view to assist us, God bless them, had come here in a steamer, but were driven back to Khartoum by sickness. Nobody had dreamt for a moment it was possible we could have come through. Leaving Baker to continue his way to Central Africa, Spiek and Grant made their way home to England, where they arrived in safety after an absence of three years and fifty-one days, with their great news of the discovery of Uganda and their further exploration of Victoria-Nanza. When Spiek reached Alexandria he had telegraphed home. The Nile is settled. But he was wrong, the Nile was not settled, and many an expedition was yet to make its way to the Great Lakes, before the problem was to be solved. CHAPTER 66 BAKER FINDS ALBERT NYANZA Baker had not long been at Gondokoro, when the two English explorers arrived from the South. In March 1861 he tells us, I commenced an expedition to discover the sources of the Nile, with the hope of meeting the East African expedition of Captain Spiek and Grant, that had been sent by the English government from the South via Zanzibar for that object. From my youth I had been inured to hardship and endurance in tropical climates, and when I gazed upon the map of Africa, I had a wild hope that I might, by perseverance, reach the heart of Africa. These are the opening lines of the published travels of Samuel Baker, famous as an elephant hunter in Ceylon, and engineer of the first railway laid down in Turkey. Like Livingstone in his early explorations, Baker took his wife with him. It was in vain that I implored her to remain, and that I painted the difficulties and perils still blacker, than I suppose they really would be. She was resolved to share all dangers, and to follow me through each rough footstep of the wild life before me. On 15th April, 1861, Baker and his wife left Cairo to make their way southward, to join the quest for the source of the Nile. They reached Corosco in twenty-six days, and crossed the Nubian desert on camels, a very wilderness of scorching sand, the seamoon in full force, and the thermometer in the shade standing at one hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit. By Abu Hamad and Berber they reached Atbara. It now occurred to Baker that without some knowledge of Arabic, he could do little in the way of exploration. So for a whole year he stayed in northern Abyssinia, the country explored by Bruce nearly ninety years before. It was there for 18th December, 1862, before he and Mrs. Baker left Khartoum for their journey up the Nile through the slave-driven Sudan. It was a fifty-day voyage to Gondokoro. In the hope of finding speak and grant, he took an extra load of corn, as well as twenty-two donkeys, four camels and four horses. Gondokoro was reached just a fortnight before the two explorers returned from the south. Baker's account of the historical meeting between the white men in the heart of Africa is very interesting. Heard guns firing in the distance. Reports that two white men had come from the sea. Could they be speak and grant? Of Iran and soon met them, Hurrah for ere old England. They had come from the Victorian yanza, from which the Nile springs. The mystery of ages solved. With a heart beating with joy, I took off my cap and gave a welcome Hurrah as I ran towards them. For the moment they did not recognize me. Ten years' growth of beard and moustache had worked a change, and my sudden appearance in the centre of Africa appeared to them incredible. As a good ship arrives in harbour, battered and torn by a long and stormy voyage, so both these gallant travellers arrived in Gondokoro. Speak appeared to me the more worn of the two. He was excessively lean. He had walked the whole way from Zanzibar, never having ridden once during the weary march. Grant was in rags, his bare knees projecting through the remnants of trousers. Baker was now inclined to think that his work was done, the source of the Nile discovered. But after looking at the map of their route, he saw that an important part of the Nile still remained undiscovered, and though there were dangers ahead, he determined to go on his way into Central Africa. We took neither guide nor interpreter, he continues. We commenced our desperate journey in darkness, about an hour after sunset. I led the way, Mrs. Baker riding by my side, and the British flag following close behind us as a guide for the caravan of heavily laden camels and donkeys. And thus we started on our march in Central Africa, on the 26th of March, 1863. It would take too long to tell of their manifold misfortunes and difficulties, before they reached the lake, they were in search of, on the 16th March, 1864. How they passed through the uncivilized country, so lately traversed by Speak and Grant, how in the oboe country all their porters deserted, just a few days before they reached the Karuma Falls. How Baker from this point tried to follow the Nile to the yet unknown lake, how fever seized both the explorer and his wife, and they had to live on the common food of the natives and a little water. How suddenly Mrs. Baker fell down with a sunstroke, and was carried for seven days quite unconscious, through swamp and jungle, the rain descending in torrents all the time, till Baker, weak as a reed, worn out with anxiety, lay on the ground as one dead. It seemed as if both must die, when better times don't, and they recovered to find that they were close to the lake. Baker's diary is eloquent. The day broke beautifully clear, and having crossed a deep valley between the hills, we toiled up the opposite slope, I hurried to the summit. The glory of our prize burst suddenly upon me. There, like a sea of quicksilver, lay far beneath us, the grand expanse of water. A boundless sea-horizon on the south and southwest, glittering in the noonday sun, while at sixty miles distance, blue mountains rose from the lake, to a height of about seven thousand feet above its level. It is impossible to describe the triumph of that moment. Here was the reward for all our labour. England had won the sources of the Nile. I looked from the steep granite cliff upon those welcome waters, upon that vast reservoir, which nourished Egypt, upon that great source so long hidden from mankind, and I determined to honour it with a great name. As an imperishable memorial of one loved and mourned by our gracious queen, I called this great lake the Albert Nyanza. The Victoria and the Albert Lakes are the two sources of the Nile. Weak and spent with fever, the Baker's descended tottering to the water's edge. The waves were rolling upon a white bubbly beach. I rushed into this lake, and thirsty with heat and fatigue, I drank deeply from the sources of the Nile. My wife, who had followed me so devotedly, stood by my side pale and exhausted. I wrecked upon the shores of the great Albert Lake that we had long striven to reach. No European food had ever throed upon its sand, nor had the eyes of a white man ever scanned its vast expense of water. After some long delay, the Baker's procured canoes, merely single trees neatly hollowed out, and paddled along the shores of the newly found lake. The water was calm, the views most lovely. Hippopotami, sported in the water, crocodiles were numerous. Day after day they paddled north, sometimes using a large scotch blade as sail. It was dangerous work. Once a great storm nearly swamped them. The little canoe shipped heavy seas, terrific bursts of thunder and vivid lightning broke over the lake, hitting everything from you. Then down came the rain in turns, swept along by a terrific wind. They reached the shore in safety, but the discomforts of the voyage were great, and poor Mrs. Baker suffered severely. On the thirteenth day they found themselves at the end of the lake voyage, and carefully examined the exit of the Nile from the lake. They now fell off the river in their canoe for some eighteen miles, when they suddenly hear a roar of water, and rounding a corner. A magnificent sight suddenly burst upon us. On either side of the river were beautifully wooded cliffs, rising abruptly to a height of three hundred feet, and rushing through a gap that cleft the rock. The river pent up in a narrow gorge, roared furiously through the rock-bound pass, till it plunged in one leap of about one hundred and twenty feet into a dark abyss below. This was the greatest waterfall of the Nile, and in honour of the distinguished president of the Royal Geographical Society, I named it the Marchinson Falls. Further navigation was impossible, and with oxen and porters they proceeded by land. Mrs. Baker was still carried in a litter, while Baker walked by her side. Both were soon attacked again with fever, and when night came, they threw themselves down in a rich hut. A violent thunderstorm broke over them, and they lay there utterly helpless, and worn out till sunrise. Worse was to come. The natives now deserted them, and they were alone and helpless, with the wilderness of rank-cross, haeming them in on every side. Their meals consisted of a mess of black porridge, of bitter-mouldly flour, that no English pig would notice, and a dish of spinach. For nearly two months they existed here, until they became perfect skeletons. We had given up all hope of Gondokoro, says Baker, and I had told my headman to deliver my map and papers to the English consul at Khartoum. But they were not to die here. The king, Kamrasi, having heard of their wretched condition, sent for them, treated them kindly, and enabled them to reach Gondokoro, which they did on 23rd of March, 1865, after an absence of two years. They had long since been given up as lost, and it was an immense joy to reach Cairo at last, and to find that, in the words of Baker, the Royal Geographical Society had awarded me the Victoria Gold Medal at a time when they were unaware whether I was alive or dead, and when the success of my expedition was unknown. End of Chapter 66 Chapter 67 of a Book of Discovery This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Book of Discovery by M. B. Singh Chapter 67 Living Stones' Last Journey In the year 1865, the greatest of all African travelers started on his last journey to Central Africa. I hope, he said, to ascend the Royuma and shall strive by passing along the northern end of Lake Niasa and round the southern egg of Lake Tanganyika to ascertain the watershed of that part of Africa. Arrived at Zanzibar in January 1866, he reached the mouth of the Royuma River, some two months later, and passing through dense thickets of trees, he started on his march along the northern bank. The expedition consisted of thirteen sepoys from Bombay, nine negroes from one of the missions, two men from the Zambezi, Susi, Amota, and others originally slaves freed by Living Stone. As beasts of burden they had six camels, three Indian buffaloes, two mules, four donkeys, while a poodle took charge of the whole line of march, running to see the first man in the line and then back to the last, embarking to hasten him up. Now that I am on the point of starting on another trip into Africa, wrote Living Stone from Royuma Bay, I feel quite exhilarated. The mere animal pleasure of traveling in a wild, unexplored country is very great. Brisk exercise imparts elasticity to the muscles. Fresh and healthy blood circulates through the brain. The mind works well, the eye is clear, the step firm, and the day's exertion makes the evening's repose thoroughly enjoyable. But misfortunes soon began. As they marched along the banks of the Royuma, the buffaloes and camels were badly bitten by the tsetse fly, and one after another died. The cruelty of the followers to the animals was terrible. Indeed, they were thoroughly unsatisfactory. One day a party of them lagged behind, killed the last young buffalo and ate it. They told Living Stone that it had died and tigers had come and devoured it. Did you say the stripes of the tiger asked Living Stone? Yes, all declared that they had seen them distinctly. An obvious lie, as there are no striped tigers in Africa. On 11th of August Living Stone once more reached Lake Nyasa. It was as if I had come back to an old home I never expected again to see, and pleasant it was to bathe in the delicious waters again. I feel quite exhilarated. Having sent word to the Arab chief of Kota Kota on the opposite coast, and having received no reply to his request to be ferried across the lake, he started off and marched by land round the southern end, crossing the Shire River at its entrance. He continued his journey round the southwestern gulf of Lake Nyasa, till rumors of Zulu raids frightened his men. They refused to go any farther, but just threw down their loads and walked away. He was now left with Susi and Chuma, and a few boys with whom he crossed the end of a long range of mountains, over four thousand feet in height, and pursuing a zigzag track reached the Long River on 16th December 1866. While his unfaithful followers returned to the coast to spread the story that Living Stone had been killed by the Zulus, meanwhile the explorer was plodding on towards Lake Tanganyika. The beauty of the way strikes the lonely explorer. The rainy season had come on in all its force, and the land was wonderful in its early green. Many gay flowers peep out, here and there the scarlet lily, red yellow, and pure white orchids, and pale lobelias. As they ascended higher on the plateau, grasses which have pink and reddish brown seed vessels were grateful to the eye. Two disasters clouded this month of travel. His poor poodle was drowned in a marsh, and his medicine chest was stolen. The land was famine-bound too, the people were living on mushrooms and leaves. We get some elephants meat, but it is very bitter, and the appetite in this country is always very keen, and makes hunger worse to bear, the want of salt probably making the gnawing sensation worse. On 28th of January, Living Stone crossed the Chambezi, which may almost be regarded as the upper waters of the Congo, says Johnstone, though the explorer of 1867 knew it not. Northwards, says Living Stone, through almost treacherous forest and across oozing bogs, and then he adds the significant words, I am frightened at my own amassation. March finds him worse. I have been ill of fever. Every step I take jars in my chest, and I am very weak. I can scarcely keep up the march. At last, on 1st of April, blue water loomed through the trees. It was Lake Tanganyika, lying some two thousand feet below them. Its surpassing loveliness struck Living Stone. It lies in a deep basin, he says, whose sides are nearly perpendicular, but covered well with trees, at present all green. Down some of these rocks come beautiful cascades, while buffaloes, elephants, and antelopes wander in grays on the more level spots, and lie on thrower by night. In the morning and evening huge crocodiles may be observed, quietly making their way to their feeding grounds, and hippopotami snored by night. Going westwards, Living Stone met a party of Arabs, amongst whom he remained for over three months, till he could make his way on to Lake Meoro, reported to be only three days' journey. It took him sixteen days to reach it. Lake Meoro seems of goodly size, he says, and is flanked by ranges of mountains on the east and west. Its banks are of coarse sand and slope gradually down to the water. We slept in a fisherman's cottage on the north shore. After a stay of six weeks in the neighborhood, Living Stone returned to the Arabs, until the spring of 1868, when he decided to explore the Lake Bangwe Olo. In spite of opposition and the desertion of more men, he started with five attendants and reached this, one of the largest of the Central African lakes, in July. Modestly enough, he asserts the fact. On the eighteenths I saw the shores of the lake for the first time. The name Bangwe Olo is applied to the great Ma supporter, though I fear that our English folks will boggle at it, or call it Bangwe Olo. The water is of a deep sea-green color. It was bitterly cold from the amount of moisture in the air. This moisture converted the surrounding country into one huge bog or sponge, twenty-nine of which Living Stone had to cross in thirty miles, each taking about half an hour to cross. The explorer was still greatly occupied on the problem of the Nile. The discovery of the sources of the Nile, he says, is somewhat akin and important to the discovery of the Northwest Passage. It seemed to him not impossible that the great river he found flowing through these two great lakes to the west of Tanganyika might prove to be the upper Nile. It was December before he started for Tanganyika. The new year of 1868 opened badly. Halfway, he became very ill. He was constantly wet through. He persistently crossed brooks and rivers, wading through cold water up to his waist. Very ill all over, he enters in his diary, cannot walk, no ammonia of right lung, and I cough all day and all night. I am carried several hours a day on a frame. The sun is vertical, blistering any part of the skin exposed, and I try to shelter my face and head as well as I can with a bunch of leaves. On 14 February 1869 he arrived on the western shores of the lake, and after the usual delay he was put into a canoe for Ujiji. Though better he was still very ill, and we get the pathetic entry, hope to hold out to Ujiji. At last he reached the Arab settlement on the eastern shores, where he found the goods sent to him overland from Zanzibar, and though much had been stolen, yet warm clothes, tea, and coffee soon revived him. After a stay of three months he grew better and turned the best wards for the land of the Man-Yu-Emma, and the great river supported to be flowing there. He was guided by Arabs whose trade route extended to the great Lualaba river, in the very heart of Africa, some southern miles west of Zanzibar. It was an unknown land, undisputed by Europeans, when Livingstone arrived with his Arab escort at Bambarra in September 1869. Being now well rested he enters in his diary, I resolve to go west to Ualualaba and buy a canoe for its exploration. The Man-Yu-Emma country is all surpassingly beautiful, palms crown the highest heights of the mountains, and the forests about five miles broad are indescribable. Climbers of cable size in great numbers are hung among the gigantic trees. Many unknown wild fruits abound, some the size of a child's head, and strange birds and monkeys are everywhere. With the Arab caravan he traveled almost incessantly zigzagging through the wonderful Man-Yu-Emma country, until, after a year's wandering, he finally reached the banks of the Lualaba Congo on 31st of March 1871. It was a red-letter day in his life. I went down, he says, to take a good look at the Lualaba here. It is a mighty river at least three thousand yards broad and always steep. The banks are steep, the current is about two miles an hour away to the north. Livingstone was gazing at the second largest river in the world, the Congo, but he thought it was the Nile, and confidently relates how it overflows all its banks annually as the Nile does. At Nyangwe, a Man-Yu-Emma village, Livingstone stayed for four months. The natives were dreadful cannibals. He saw one day a man with ten human jaw-bones hung by a string over his shoulder, the owners of which he had killed and eaten. Another day a terrible massacre took place, arising from a scubble over a fowl, in which some four hundred perished. The Arabs, too, disgusted him with their slave raiding, and he decided that he could no longer travel under their protection. So, on 20th of July 1871, he started back for Ujiji, and after a journey of seven hundred miles, accomplished in three months, he arrived reduced to a skeleton, only to find that the rascal who had charge of his stores had stolen the whole and made away. But when health and spirit were failing, help was at hand. The meeting of Stanley and Livingstone on the shores of the Lake Tanganyika is one of the most thrilling episodes in the annals of discovery. Let them tell their own story. When my spirits were at their lowest ebb, says Livingstone, one morning Susie came running at the top of his speed and gasped out, an Englishman, I see him, and off he darted to meet him. The American flag at the head of a caravan told of the nationality of the stranger. Bales of goods, bays of tin, huge kettles, and cooking pots made me think. This must be a luxurious traveler and not one at his wits' end, like me. It was Henry Morton Stanley, the traveling correspondent of the New York Herald, sent at an expense of more than four thousand pounds to obtain accurate information about Dr. Livingstone, if living, and if dead, to bring home his bones. And now Stanley takes up the story. He has entered Ujiji and heard from the faithful Susie that the explorer yet lives, pushing back the crowds of natives. Stanley advanced down a living avenue of people, till he came to where the white man with the long gray beard was standing. As I advanced slowly towards him, says Stanley, I noticed he was pale, looked worried, wore a bluish cap with a faded gold band around it, had owned a red-sleeved waistcoat, and a pair of great-weed trousers. I walked deliberately to him, took off my head, and said, Dr. Livingstone, I presume. Yes, said he, with a kind smile, lifting his cap slightly. Then we both grasped hands, and I say aloud, I thank God, doctor. I have been permitted to see you. You have brought me new life, new life, murmured the tired explorer, and for the next few days it was enough for the two Englishmen to sit on the mud veranda of Livingstone's house, talking. Livingstone soon grew better, and November found the two explorers, surveying the river, flowing from the north of Tanganyika, and deciding that it was not the Nile. Stanley now did his best to persuade Livingstone to return home with him, to recruit his shattered health before finishing his work of exploration. But the explorer, tired and out of health, though he was, utterly refused. He must complete the exploration of the sources of the Nile before he sought that peace and comfort at home, for which he must have yearned. So the two men parted, Stanley to carry Livingstone's news of the discovery of the Congo, back to Europe. Livingstone to end his days on the lonely shores of Lake Pangviolo, leaving the long-sought mystery of the Nile sources, yet unsolved. On 25th of August, 1872, he started on his last journey. He had a well-equipped expedition sent up by Stanley from the coast, including sixty men, donkeys and cows. He embarked on his fresh journey, with all his old eagerness and enthusiasm, but a few days' travel showed him how utterly unfit he was for any more hardships. He suffered from intense and growing weakness, which increased day by day. He managed somehow to ride his donkey, but in November his donkey died, and he struggled along on foot. Descending into marshy regions north of Lake Pangviolo, his journey became really terrible. The rainy season was at its height, the land was an endless swamp, and starvation threatened the expedition. To add to the misery of the party, there were swarms of mosquitoes, poisonous spiders, and stinging ants, by the way. Still, amid all the misery and suffering, the explorer made his way on through the dreary autumn months. Christmas came and went. The new year of 1873 dawned. He could not stop. April found him only just alive, carried by his faithful servants. Then comes the last entry in his diary, 27th of April. Knocked up quite, we are on the banks of Ermoli Alamo. They laid him at last in a native hut, and here one night he died alone. They found him in the early morning, just kneeling by the side of the rough bed. His body stretched forward, his head buried in his hands upon the pillow. The negroes buried his heart on the spot where he died, in the village of Ilala, on the shores of Lake Bangveolo, under the shadow of a great tree in the still forest. Then they wrapped his body in a cylinder of bark, bound round in a piece of old sail-clothes, lashed it to a pole, and a little band of negroes, including Susie and Chuma, set out to carry their dead master to the coast. For hundreds of miles they tramped with their precious burden, till they reached the sea, and could give it safely to his fellow countrymen, who conveyed it to England, to be laid with other great men, in Westminster Abbey. He needs no epitaph to guard a name, which men shall praise while worthy work is done. He lived and died for good, beside his fame. Let marble crumble, this is Living Stone. End of Chapter 67 Chapter 68 of A Book of Discovery This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Book of Discovery by M. B. Sing, Chapter 68, Through the Dark Continent The death of Living Stone, the faithfulness of his native servants, in carrying his body and journals across hundreds of miles of wild country to the coast, his discovery of the Great River in the heart of Africa, and the great service in Westminster Abbey, browsed public interest in the Dark Continent, and the unfinished work of the Great Explorer. Never had such an outburst of missionary zeal been known, never did the cause of geographical exploration receive such an impetus. The dramatic meeting between Living Stone and Stanley on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in 1871 had impressed the public in England and America, and an expedition was now planned by the proprietors of two great newspapers, the London Daily Telegraph and the New York Herald. Stanley was chosen to command it, and perhaps there is hardly a better known book of modern travels than through the Dark Continent, in which he has related all his adventures and discoveries with regard to the Congo. Living England in August 1874 with three Englishmen, and a large boat in eight sections, the Lady Alice, for the navigation of Lake and River, the little exploring party reached Zanzibar a few weeks later, and started on their great inland journey. The way to Victorian Yanzeh lay through what is now known as German East Africa. They reached Hugo safely and turned to the northwest, entering an immense and silent bush field where no food was obtainable. On the eighth day five people died of starvation, and the rest of the expedition was only saved by the purchase of some grain from a distant village. But four more died, and twenty-eight miles under hot sun prostrated one of the white men, who died a few days later. Thus they entered Ituro, a land of naked people, whose hills drained into marsh, once issued the southernmost waters of the Nile. Here they were surrounded by angry savages, on whom they had to fire, and from whose countries they were glad to escape. On the 27th of February 1875, after tramping for 103 days, they arrived at their destination. One of the white men, who was striding forward, suddenly waved his head, and with a beaming face shouted out, I have seen the lake, sir, it is grand. Here indeed was the Victorian Yanzeh, which a dazzling sun transformed into silver, discovered by speake sixteen years before, and supposed to be the source of the Nile. The men struck up a song in triumph. Sing, O friends, sing, the journey is ended. Sing aloud, O friends, sing to the great Nyanza. Sing all, sing loud, O friends, sing to the great sea. Give your last look to the lands behind, and then turn to the sea. Lift up your heads, O men, and gaze around. Try if you can to see its end, see its stretches moons away, this great, sweet, fresh water sea. I thought, says Stanley, there could be no better way of settling, once and for ever, the vexed question, than by circumnavigating the lake. So the Lady Alice was lounged, and from the shores of speake gulf, as he named the southern end, the explorer set forth, leaving the two remaining Englishmen in charge of the camp. The sky is gloomy, writes Stanley. The rocks are bare and rugged. The land silent and lonely. The rowing of the people is that of men, who think they are bound to certain death. Their hearts are full of misgivings, as slowly we move through the dull, dead waters. The waters were not dead for long. A gale rose up, and the lake became wild beyond description. The waves hissed as we tore along. The crew collapsed and crouched into the bottom of the boat, expecting the end of the wild venture. But the Lady Alice bounded forward like a wild coarser, and they floated into a bay, still as a pond. So they coasted along the shores of the lake. Their guide told them it would take years to sail round their sea, that on the shores dwelled people with long tails, who preferred to feed on human beings rather than cattle or goats. But, undaunted, the explorer sailed on, across the Napoleon Channel, through which floats of superfluous waters of the lake, rushing northward as the Victorian Isle. On the western side of the channel is Uganda, dominated by an emperor, who is supreme over about three millions of people. He soon heard of my presence on the lake, and dispatched a flotilla to meet me. His mother had dreamed the night before that she had seen a boat sailing, sailing like a fish eagle over the Nyanza. In the stern of the boat was a white man, gazing wistfully towards Uganda. On reaching the port a crowd of soldiers, arrayed in crimson and black and snowy white, were drawn up to receive him. As we neared the beach, valleys of musketry burst out from the long lines. Numerous kettles and brass drums sounded a noisy welcome. Flags and banners waved, and the people gave a great shout. Such was Stanley's welcome to Mozesa's wonderful Kingdom of Uganda, described by Speake sixteen years before. The twelve days spent at the court of this monarch impressed Stanley deeply. Especially was the king interested in Christianity, and the English explorer told the story of the creation and the births of the messiah to this intelligent pagan and his courtiers. Ten days after we left the genial court, I came upon the scene of the tragedy. We were coasting the eastern side of a large island, having been thirty-six hours without food, looking for a port where we could put in and purchase provisions. Natives followed our movements, poising their spears, stringing their bows, picking out the best rocks for their slings. We were thirteen souls, they between three and four hundred. Seeing the boat advance, they smiled, entered the water, and held out inviting hands. The crew shot the boat towards the natives. Their hands closed on her firmly, they ran with her to the shore, and dragged her high and dry about twenty yards from the lake. Then ensued a scene of rampant wildness and hideous ferocity of action beyond description. The boat was surrounded by a forest of spears and two hundred demons contended for the first blow. I sprang up to kill and be killed, a revolver in each hand. But as I rose to my feet, the utter hopelessness of our situation was revealed to me. To make a long story short, the natives seized the oars, and sinking the boat was now in their power, they retired to make their plans. Meanwhile Stanley commanded his crew to tear the bottom boards up for paddles, and pushing the boat hastily into the water, they paddled away. Their commander firing the vial with his elephant rifle and explosive bullets, as they were saved. On 6th of May the circumnavigation was finished, and the Lady Alice was being dragged ashore in speake gulf with shouts of welcome and the waving of many flags. But sad news awaited him. He could see but one of his white companions. Where is Barker? he asked Frank Pocock. He died twelve days ago, was the melancholy answer. Stanley now took his whole expedition to Uganda, and after spending some months with the king, he passed on to Lake Tanganyika, crossing to Ujiti, where he arrived in May, 1876. Here, five years before, he had found Livingstone. We launched our boat on the lake, and circumnavigating it, discovered that there was only a periodical outlet to it. Thus, by the circumnavigation of the two lakes, two of the geographical problems I had undertaken to solve were settled. The Victoria Nyanza had no connection with the Tanganyika. There now remained the grandest task of all. Is the Loa Laba, which Livingstone had traced along a course of nearly thirteen hundred miles, the Nile, the Niger, or the Congo? I crossed Lake Tanganyika with my expedition, lifted once more my gallant boat on our shoulders, and after a march of nearly two hundred and twenty miles, arrived at the superb river. Where I first sighted it, the Loa Laba was fourteen hundred yards wide, pale gray in color, winding slowly from south and by east. We hailed its appearance with shouts of joy, and rested on the spot to enjoy the view. I likened it to the Mississippi, as it appears before the impetuous, full-volumed Missouri pours its rusty brown water into it. A secret rapture filled my soul as I gazed upon the majestic stream. The great mystery that for all these centuries nature had kept hidden away from the world of science, was waiting to be solved. For two hundred and twenty miles I had followed the sources of the Livingstone River to the conflands, and now before me lays the superb river itself. My task was to follow it to the ocean. Pressing on along the river, they reached the Arab city of Nyangve, having accomplished three hundred and thirty-eight miles in forty-three days. And now the famous Arab Tiputib comes on the scene, a chief with whom Stanley was to be closely connected here after. He was a tall, black-bearded man with an intelligent face and gleaming white teeth. He wore clothes of spotless white, his face was smart and new, his decor is splendid with silver filigree. He had escorted Cameron across the river to the south, and he now confirmed Stanley, in his idea, that the greatest problem of African geography, the discovery of the course of the Congo, was still untouched. This was momentous and all important news to the expedition. We had arrived at the critical point in our travels, remarked Stanley. What kind of a country it is to the north along the river, he asked. Monstrous bed was the reply. There are large bow constrictors in the forest, suspended by their tails, waiting to gobble up travellers. You cannot travel without being covered by ants and the sting-like wasps. There are leopards in countless numbers. Gorillas hound the woods. The people are man-eaters. A party of three hundred guns started for the forest, and only sixty returned. Stanley and his lost remaining white companion, Frank Pocock, discussed the somewhat alarming situation together. Should they go on and face the dwarves who shot with poisoned arrows, the cannibals who regarded the stranger as so much meat, the cataracts and rocks, should they follow the great river which flowed northward for ever a new no end? This great river, which Living Stone first saw, and which broke his heart to turn away from, is a noble field, argued Stanley. After buying or building canoes and floating down the river day by day, either to the Nile or to some vast lake in the far north or to the Cogo and the Atlantic Ocean, let us follow the river, replied the white man. So, accompanied by tip o' tip with a hundred and forty guns and seventy spearmen, they started along the banks of the river, which Stanley now named the Living Stone River. On the 5th of November 1876, says Stanley, a force of about seven hundred people, consisting of tip o' tip slaves and my expedition, departed from the town of Nyangve and entered the dismal forest land north. A straight line from this point to the Atlantic Ocean would measure one thousand and seventy miles, another to the Indian Ocean would measure only nine hundred and twenty miles. We had not reached the center of the continent by seventy-five miles. Outside the woods blazed a blinding sunshine, underneath that immense roof foliage was a solemn twilight. The trees shed continual showers of tropic dew. As we struggled on through the mud the perspiration exuded from every pore. Our clothes were soon wet and heavy. Every man had to crawl and scramble as he best could. Sometimes prostrate forest giants barred the road with a mountain of twigs and branches. For ten days we endured it, then the Arabs declared they could go no farther. I promised them five hundred pounds if they would escort us twenty marches only. On our way to the river we came to a village whose sole street was adorned with one hundred and eighty six human skulls. Seventeen days from Nyangve we saw again the Great River and viewing the stately breath of the mighty stream I resolved to launch my boat for the last time. Placing thirty-six of the people in the boat we floated down the river close to the bank along which the land-party marched. Day after day passed on and we found the natives increasing in wild rancor and unreasoning hate of strangers. At every curve and bend they telephoned along the river warning signals. Their huge wooden drums sounded the master for fierce resistance. Reed arrows tipped with poison were shot at us from the jungle as we glided by. On the eighteenth of December our misery is culminated in the grand effort of the savages to annihilate us. The cannibals had manned the topmost branches of the trees above the village of Binyanyara to shoot at us. A camp was hastily constructed by Stanley in defense and for several days there was desperate fighting at the end of which peace was made. But Tiputib and his escort refused to go a step farther to what they felt was certain destruction. Stanley alone was determined to proceed. He bought thirty-three native canoes and leading with the lady Alice he set his face towards the unknown country. His men were all sobbing. They leaned forward bowed with grief and heavy hearts at the prospect before them. Ben's woods covered both banks and islands. Savages with gaily feathered heads and painted faces dashed out of the woods armed with shields and spears shouting meat meat ha ha we shall have plenty of meat. Armies of parrots screamed overhead as they flew across the river. Legions of monkeys and howling baboons alarmed the solitudes. Crocodiles hounded the sandy points. Hippopotamian grounded at our approach. Elephants stood by the margin of the river. There was unceasing vibration from millions of insects throughout the lifelong day. The sun shone large and warm. The river was calm and broad and round. By January 1877 the expedition reached the first cataract of what is now known as the Stanley Falls. From this point for some sixty miles the great volume of the Livingstone River rushed through narrow and lofty banks in a series of rapids. For twenty-two days he toiled along the banks through jungle and forest. Our cliffs and rocks exposed all the wild to murderous attacks by cannibal savages till the seventh cataract was passed and the boats were safely below the falls. We hastened away downriver in a hurry to escape the noise of the cataracts which for many days and nights had almost stunned us with their deafening sound. We were once more afloat on a magnificent stream nearly a mile wide curving northwest ha is it the Niagara or Congo I said. But day after day as they dropped downstream new enemies appeared until at last at the junction of the Auro Vimy atributary as large as the mainstream a determined attack was made on them by some two thousand warriors in large canoes. A monster canoe lids away with two rows of forty paddlers each their bodies swaying to a barbarous chorus. In the bow were ten prime young warriors their heads gave with the feathers of the parrot crimson and gray. At this turn eight men with long paddles decorated with ivory balls guided the boat while ten chiefs danced up and down from stem to stern. The crashing of large drums a hundred blasts from ivory horns and a song from two thousand voices did not tend to assure the little fleet understandly. The Englishman coolly anchored his boats in midstream and received the enemy with such well directed volleys that the savages were utterly paralyzed and with great energy they retreated pursued hotly by Stanley's party. Leaving them wandering and lamenting I saw the mid channel again and wandered on with the current. In the voiceless depths of the watery wilderness we encountered neither treachery nor guile and we floated down down hundreds of miles. The river current westward then southwestward asked straight for the mouth of the Congo. It widened daily the channels became numerous. Through the country of the Bangala they now fought their way. These people were armed with guns brought up from the coast by native traders. It was indeed an anxious moment when with war drums beating sixty-three beautiful but cruel canoes came skimming towards Stanley with some three hundred guns to his forty-four. For nearly five hours the two fleets fought until the victory rested with the American. This remarked Stanley was our thirty first fight on the terrible river and certainly the most determined conflict we had endured. They rode on till the eleventh of March. The river had grown narrower and steep. Wooden hills rose on either side above them. Suddenly the river expanded and the voyagers entered a wide basin or pool over thirty square yards. Sandy islands rose in front of us like a sea beach and on the right toward a long row of cliffs white and glistening like the cliffs of Dover. Why not call it Stanley pool and those cliffs Dover Cliffs suggested Frank Pocock and these names may be seen on our maps today. Passing out of the pool the roar of a great cataract burst upon their ears. It was the first of a long series of falls and rapids which continued for a distance of one hundred and fifty-five miles. To this great stretch of cataracts and rapids Stanley gave the name of the Living Stone Falls. At the fifth cataract Stanley lost his favorite little native page, Boy Kalulu. The canoe in which he was rowing shot suddenly over the rapids and in the furious whirl of rushing waters poor little Kalulu was drowned. He had been born a prince and given to Stanley on his first expedition into Africa. Stanley had taken him to Europe and America and the boy had repaid his kindness by faithful and tender devotion to that fatal day when he went to his death over the wild Living Stone Falls. Stanley named the rapid after him Kalulu Falls. But a yet more heart-rendering loss was in store for him. Progress was now very slow for none of the cataracts or rapids could be navigated. Canoes as well as stores had to be dragged over land from point to point. Frank Pocock had fallen lame and could not walk with the rest. Although accidents with the canoes were of daily occurrence, although he might have taken warning by the death of Kalulu, he insisted that his crew should try to shoot the great Massassa Falls instead of going round by land. Too late he realized his danger. The canoe was caught by the rushing tide, flung over the falls, tossed from wave to wave, and finally dragged into the swirling whirlpool below. The little master as he was called was never seen again. Stanley's last white companion was gone. Gloom settled down on the now painfully reduced party. We are all unnerved with the terrible accident of yesterday, says Stanley, as I looked at the dejected Wu-Austrican servants. A choking sensation of unutterable grief filled me. These four months had we lived together, and true had been his service. The servant had long ago merged into the companion. The companion had become the friend. Still Stanley persevered in his desperate task, and in spite of danger from cataracts and danger from famine, on 31st of July he reached the Isanguila cataract. Thus far in 1816, two explorers had made their way from the ocean, and Stanley knew now for certain that he was on the mighty Congo. He saw no reason to follow it further, or to toil through the last four cataracts. I therefore announced to the gallant but varied followers that we should abandon the river and strike overland for Boma, the nearest European settlement, some sixty miles across country. At sunset on 31st of July they carried the Lady Alice to the summit of some rocks above the Isanguila Falls, and abandoned her to her fate. Farewell, brave boat, cried Stanley. Seven thousand miles up and down broad Africa, though has accompanied me. For over five thousand miles, though has been my home, lift her up tenderly, boys, stow tenderly, and let her rest. Then, way-worn and people, half-starved, deceased and suffering, the little caravan of one hundred and fifteen men, women and children, started on their overland march to the coast. Staggering, we arrived at Boma on 9th of August 1877, a gathering of European merchants met me, and smiling a warm welcome, told me kindly that I had done right well. Three days later I gazed upon the Atlantic Ocean, and saw the powerful river flowing into the bosom of that boundless, endless sea. But grateful as I felt to him, who had enabled me to pierce the dark continent from east to west, my heart was charged with grief, and my eyes with tears at the thought of the many comrades and friends I had lost. The price paid Hedindine being great, he had lost his three English companions, and one hundred and seventy natives besides. But for years and years to come, in many a home and Zanzibar, with their Stanley now took his party by sea, the story of his great journey was told, and all the men were heroes, and the refrain of the natives was chanted again and again. Then thing of friends, sing, the journey is ended, sing aloud of friends, sing to this great sea. Stanley had solved the problem of the Congo River at last.