Henry M. Stanley's Graphic Story Against Africans, Cannibals, In Battle

1878

Stanley's Graphic Story

Incidents of His March across the Continent — Fighting with Cannibals — A Monster Canoe — A Temple of Ivory

Henry M. Stanley continues his graphic story of African exploration in a letter to the New York Herald. We give the most interesting incidents: On January 4, 1877, we came to the first of what proved a series of cataracts, or, to use a more correct term, falls, below the confluence of the Lumami, and the Lualaba, or the Lowa, as the river was now called. Our troubles began now in earnest. We were hunted like game. Night and day every nerve was strained to defend ourselves. Four times on January 4 we broke through the lines of canoes brought out against us, and finally we were halted by the Baswa Falls. The savages seemed to think that we had no resource left but to surrender and be eaten at their leisure.

Again and again were we compelled to repulse the furious charges that they made to drive us over the falls. The people of the Falls Islands also came up to assist the cannibals of Mwana Ntaba. We were at bay, and became desperate. Return we could not, as we could not pull against stream and fight. We pulled ashore first on the right bank, then across river to the left, and made a camp in the woods, drawing our canoes and boat up after us. After constructing a fence of brush around on the forest side the best sharpshooters were placed in position for defence. After a short time the natives retired and left us to rest.

For the ensuing twenty-four days we had fearful work, constructing camps by night along the line marked out during the day, cutting roads from above to below each fall, dragging our heavy canoes during the day, while the most active of the young men — the boat's crew — repulsed the savages and foraged for food. On January 27 we had passed in this desperate way forty-two geographical miles, by six falls, and to effect it had dragged our canoes a distance of thirteen miles by land and by roads which we had cut through the forest. Our provisions in the meantime we had to procure as we best could. When we had cleared the last fall, we halted two days for rest, which we all very much needed. In the passage of these falls we lost five men only.

After passing this series of falls we entered upon different scenes. The river was gradually widening from the usual 1,500 to 2,000 yards breadth to two and there miles. It then began to receive grander affluents, and soon assumed a lacustrine breadth from four to ten miles. Islands also were so numerous that once a day were we able to obtain a glimpse of the opposite bank. We had reached the great basin lying between the maritime and lake regions.

The first day we entered this region we were attacked three times by three separate tribes; the second day we maintained a running fight almost the entire day, which culminated in a grand naval fight at the confluence of the Aruwimi — the Welle (?) — with the Lualaba. As we crossed over from the current of the Lualaba to that of the Aruwimi, and had taken a glance at the breadth of the magnificent affluent, we were quite taken aback at the grand preparations for our reception. Fifty-four canoes rushing down on us with such fury that I saw I must act at once if I wished to save the expedition. Four of our canoes, in a desperate fright, became panic stricken and began to pull fast down stream, but hey were soon brought back.

We dropped our stone anchors, formed a close line and calmly waited events. Down the natives came, fast and furious but in magnificent style. Everything about them was superb. Their canoes were enormous things, one especially, a monster, eighty paddlers, forty on a side, with paddles eight feet long, spear-pointed, and really pointed with iron blades for close quarters, I presume. The top of each paddle shaft was adorned with ivory balls. The chiefs pranced up and down a planking that ran from stem to stem. On a platform near the bow were ten choice young fellows swaying their long spears ready. At the stern of this great war canoe stood eight steersmen, guiding her toward us. There were about twenty — three-fourths of her size — also fine looking, but none made such an imposing show. At a rough guess there must have been from fifteen hundred to two thousand savages within these fifty-four canoes.

I cannot think that these belonged to one power. I imagine that it was a pre-concerted arrangement with neighboring tribes, got up especially for our entertainment. We had no time even to breathe a short prayer or to think of indulging in a sentimental farewell to the murderous cannibalistic world in which we found ourselves. The enemy, in full confidence of victory, was on us, and the big monster as it shot past us launched a spear — the first. We waited no longer; they came to fight. The cruel faces, the loudly triumphant drums, the deafening horns, the launched spears, swaying bodies, all proved it; and every gun in our little fleet angrily gave response to our foes. We were in a second almost surrounded, and clouds of spears hurtled and hissed for a short time — say, ten minutes. They then gave way, and we lifted our anchors and charged them, following them with fatal result. We were carried away with our feelings. We followed them to the shore, chased them on land into their villages, ten or twelve of them, and, after securing some of the abundance of food we found there, I sounded the recall.

To the victors belong the spoil — at least so thought my people — and the amount of ivory they discovered lying useless about astonished me. There was an ivory "temple," a structure of solid tusks surrounding an idol; ivory logs, which, by the marks of hatchets visible on them, they must have used to chop wood upon; ivory war horns, some of them three feet long; ivory mallets, ivory wedges to split wood, ivory pestles to grind their cassava, and before the chief's house was a veranda, or burzah, the posts of which were long tusks of ivory. There were 133 pieces of ivory, which, according to rough calculation, would realize, or ought to realize, about $10,000. These, I told the men, they must consider as their prize money. In this fight we only lost one man.