African conquistador

Press, 18 August 1979, Page 15

African conquistador

In Limbo: The Story of Stanley’s Rear Column. By Tony Gould. Hamish Hamilton, 1979. 253 pp. Bibliography and Index. $22.30. (Reviewed by Vincent Orange)

Not many years pass without a book on some aspect of the amazing career of Henry Morton Stanley, the Welsh-American-English conquistador whose ruthless ambition and complete indifference to human suffering shame such tiros as Cortes and Pizarro. This year’s book focuses upon one of the most terrible episodes in Stanley’s most terrible expedition — that to relieve Emin Pasha (1886-9). By a curious repetition in Stanley’s history, just as Livingstone had no desire to be “found” in 1871, so Emin had no desire to be “rescued” in 1888. But found and rescued they were, for a whole host of reasons that have kept Stanleyists busy for more than a century. As Mr Gould writes, the fate of Stanley’s rear column has attracted little attention. By concentrating on the miseries of the five Englishmen and 250 porters left at Yambuya Camp in the Congo Free State to await Stanley’s return from his search for Emin, Mr Gould claims to have found *‘a significant moment” in “that State’s relations with the Arab slave traders and Africans who became its subjects.” I did not, myself, find anything so profound in Mr Gould’s book, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it

He has an absorbing tale to tell and gets on with it most skilfully, drawing upon a wide range of published material — material which he has absorbed and not merely collected. Mr Gould has also profited from at least two sources rarely used before: the papers belonging to the family of the man who commanded the rear column and some of Stanley’s own papers, now in the hands of the conquerorexplorer’s grandson. Very wisely, Mr Gould begins with a brief, but clear historical introduction in which he outlines the background to the Emin Pasha affair before settling to his detailed study of one part of it. Unfortunately, he has taken little account of the work done by Africanists in the last generation and therefore his book has a decidedly old-fashioned flavour. It is very much a tale of the White Man’s trials and crimes among the Mysterious Natives of Darkest Africa. At that .level it is well done.

The book’s title will perplex those who read it. I have always understood Limbo to be rather a pleasant place, full of excellent Greeks and Romans, Mayas and Incas (among others) who had no chance to hear the Word that we have heard. If Stanley’s rear column was in anything remotely like Limbo during the 14 ghastly months it spent at Yambuya Camp, I hereby pray that the sole alternative to Heaven is Hell: it will be much more comfortable.