N.Z. MAIL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7,1890.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 936, 7 February 1890, Page 16

N.Z. MAIL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7,1890.

The greatest of modern explorers is Stanley. He has earned the eulogium by his marvellous accomplishments in

“by their DEEDS YE SHALL KNOW THEM ”

the “ Dark Continent.” How he found Livingstone, in the first instance, has been resolved into household words. But how he rescued Emin Bey—his latest exploit —is but very vaguely apprehended even, much less understood. Emin Bey was an associate of the lamented Gordon, and established himself as ruler in one of the Equatorial Provinces near the sources of the Nile, arid it was hoped would maintain his position and be a permanent and effectual check upon the slave raiders. Somewhat magniloquent accounts of the man reached Europe from time to time, and in one or two quarters the Hungarian savant and adventurer came to be regarded as quite a potentate with a future of rare promise before him. But the veil soon lifted, and the trqe position vyas disclosed. Instead of q strprg potentate Emin Pasha was said to be in dire extremity. He was threatened by the Arab Slave Powers all round him, and his position was so precarious that an expedition, with j Stanley at its head, was organised to

relieve him. From that moment Stanley, not Emin Bey, became the centrepiece, especially when Stanley declared his intention to proceed from south-west to north east, starting from the Congo State, through regions absolutely unknown to Europeans. For nearly two years his expedition was unheard of ; eei'tainly only the vaguest rumours reached the realms of civilisation. But in due time a fragmentary account of his terrific ex periences in the equatorial forests of South Africa found publicity. He had explored to some purpose and brought the astonished world into almost touch with what had been regarded as mere fable : Pigmies and giants and nature in a guise repellant and yet wondrous. The story of his passage through those forests, his encounters with savages great and small, with horrid animal life of a lower grade, and disease always, reads like a weird and impossible romance We know that Stanley effected the first part of his purpose, connecting with Emin Bey on, we understand, the east shore of Lake Victoria Nyanza, and left him there to push northward to effect a juncture with Major Bartelofct’s relief column ; that he wandered to and fro, was three times at Lake Albert Nyanza, and at last heard of the revolution in Emin Bey’s province; how the Mahdists and Dervishes had reconquered the equatorial provinces and threatened Emin with annihilation. What accounts there are to band, however, are very vague and disconnected, and what we can be only sure of is that Stanley met with a series of reverses that would have disheartened any lesser man, aud had to reorganise his expedition in September, 1888. He was then somewhere near the junction of the Aruwimi and Congo rivers, and thence made for the Albert Nyanza again, How he journeyed and what the expedition suffered from semi-starva-tion and disease is graphically related in a series of letters from Stanley to Sir William McEunnon, chairman ot the Emin Pasha relief fund. He at. last reached Kuvalli, on the southwest shore of the lake, in January, last year. There he heard full particulars of the revolution that had made Emin Bey ft prisoner, and who, with a few semi-laithful followers, was at a place named Duflje. Wi<h characteristic energy, determination, and ability Stanley proceeded to effeet Emin’s release, and succeeded ; but owing to the extraordinary vacillation of the latter, his peculiarly emotional temperament, which made him an easy dupe of the crafty, lying Natives, his followers, a very mixed lot, it was not until April the 10th that the expedition, numbering some 1500 people, left the Lake Albert en route for Zanzibar. Emin Bey was, of course, with it. Hqw the expedition was delayed a month by the illness of Stanley, qnd frequently delayed by sickness among his people, is well told in the letters. The toil was arduous in the extreme, and finding food for so many mouths most precarious. But the Europeans of Hie party were buoyed up by the excitement of exploring an unknown region, which promised to be of great interest, for very soon after the departure from Lake Albert the peak of a great snow range of mountains loomed up ahead. The expedition toiled on, making many detours, often attacked by hostile tribes, but steadily gaining in the desired direction to the south-east,the snow mountains rising higher and higher, till at last theexpedition seemed to be right under the huge range, the central mount of which was called by the natives lduwenzori. From this snowcapped range, which lies between the Lakes Victoria Nyanza and Albert Nyanza, and is nearly on the Equator, say about 2deg. N. latitude and 30deg. E. longitude, very many streams flow, all into a river which feeds the Lake Albert, but it is exceedingly probable that Lake Victoria is also fed from the satnri source; and in this range is the real source of the Eiver Nile. ’ It is rilso asserted that the range is really the long-lost Mountains of the Moon, for it occupies about the position assigned to those mounts on ancient maps, and Native traditions place it thereabouts also. An Arab geographer ot’ the fifteenth century,’ narried Scheabecldin, thus writes ;

From the Mountains of the Moon the Eayi Nije takes jth' rise. It cats horizontally tjie Equator. in' its course north.. Many rivers'run'from this mountain and unite in a great lake. From this lake comes the .Nile, the most beautiful and greatest of the rivers ef all the earth. Thus the ancient geographer, the modern explorer, Stanley, to use his owe words, said—

From Ruwenzori, the snow mountain, the western branch of the Upper Nile, takes its rise. Many rivers come from this riiountain, and Uniting in the Sernbki River, empty into a great lake named by the discoverer, the Albert Nyanza. From this lake, which also receives the eastern branch of the Upper Nile, issues the triie Nile, one of the most famous rivers of all the earth.

The ascent of the mountain was attempted last June by Lieutenant Stair, an officer of the expedition, aud he succeeded in gaining an altitude of nearly 11,000 ft, to find his further progress blocked by d- ep and thicklywooded ravines, beyond which the main peak towered to an estimated altitude of 18,000 ft. The fauna of the locality was most meagi’e, scarcely an animal was seen; but the flora was varied and interesting, the übiquitous blueberry and blackberry among it. From the Mountains of the Moon the expedition had a dreadful march to the coast. The loss of life from fever was appalling—indeed, this was a characteristic of the journey from the Lake Albert. We have no details of the dismal journey from the mountains, but it was not until December 6th, nearly six months, that the expedition reached Bugamoya, on the coast immediately facing Zanzibar. It was there that Emin Bey met with the accident that nearly cost him his life. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between Emin Bey and Stanley, The latter, bold, dominant, far - seeing, resolute, a born leader of men ; the former an accomplished scientist, but weak, vacillating, swayed by emotion, and more controlled than controlling. Only his adoption of the Mohamedan religion maintained him in the position he so long held in the equatorial provinces. He had evidently taken a wife or wives, for he brought away a little daughter named f ‘ Farida.” Stanley has undoubtedly proved hi 3 right to the title of explorer in the highest sense of the term. The stupid stories afloat about his lust for ivory, and that that was the chief object of his expedition, have been blown to the winds. There was ivory, it is true, aad some of it reached England, but in quantity absurdly short of ills magnified reports about it. Stanley’s main object was “duty,” the true Englishman’s lodestar, and he faithfully pursued it, and to it sacrificed every other consideration. Human life, his own included, was held in very little esteem compared with the success of the mis-iiou he had undertaken. Stanley is a true hero ; his character is not "to be gauged bv such a demagogue as Mr Burns, of dock strike notoriety, and who so far forgot himself as to cast mud at the great explorer by calling him a buccaneer, stigmatising him a mere ivoryhunter; and in consequence a motion brought forward at the London County Council to accord him a public reception was withdrawn. The blatancy of demagogism is its surest antidote, for “level-headed” people are repelled by it, and we daresay that, Mr Burns notwithstanding, Stanley will meet with a fitting recepI't.von from end to end ot the United Kingdom. He will visit the colonies ere Jong.