The whole of the great southern land they had discovered received the name of Queen Victoria, which name it keeps to-day. They had been south of the Antarctic Circle for sixty-three days, when they recrossed it on 4th March. A few days later they narrowly escaped shipwreck. An easterly wind drove them among some hundreds of icebergs. "For eight hours," says Ross, "we had been gradually drifting towards what to human eyes appeared inevitable destruction; the high waves and deep rolling of our ships rendered towing with boats impossible, and our situation was the more painful from our inability to make any effort to avoid the dreadful calamity that seemed to await us. The roar of the surf, which extended each way as far as we could see, and the dashing of the ice fell upon the ear with painful distinctness as we contemplated the awful destruction that threatened in one short hour to close the world and all its hopes and joys and sorrows upon us for ever. In this deep distress we called upon the Lord ... and our cry came before Him. A gentler air of wind filled our sails; hope again revived, and before dark we found ourselves far removed from every danger."



April found them back again in Van Diemen's land, and though Ross sailed again the following autumn into southern latitudes, he only reached a point some few miles farther than before—being again stopped by a great wall barrier of thick ice. After this he took his ship home by way of Cape Horn, and "the shores of Old England came into view on the 2nd of September 1843." After an absence of four years Ross was welcomed home, and honours were showered on him, including the award of the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of Paris.

"Till then they had deemed that the Austral earth, With a long, unbroken shore, Ran on to the Pole Antarctic, For such was the old sea lore."



CHAPTER LXI

FRANKLIN DISCOVERS THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE

The whole coast-line of North America had now been charted, but the famous North-West 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 rumour 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 Erebus and 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 19th May 1845. He was never seen again!

All were in the highest spirits, determined to solve the mystery of the North-West Passage once and for all! So certain were they of success that one of the officers wrote to a friend: "Write to Panama and the Sandwich Islands every six months."

On 4th 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 various 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 20,000 pounds, to which Lady Franklin added 3000 pounds, to any one 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 (1845-46) at Beechey Island. Captain 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 12th 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-pack. For two hundred and forty-two days she was beset, drifting all through the long, bitter winter with the ice, till on 25th April 1858, 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. Thence up Lancaster Sound, he reached Beechey Island in August and found there 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 16th August, McClintock sailed from Beechey Island, but the short summer was passing quickly and they had no fresh news of the Franklin expedition. Half-way through Bellot Strait the Fox was again icebound, and another long winter had to be faced. By the middle of February 1859 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 men."

Here was news at last—McClintock travelled on some ten miles to Cape Victoria, where the Eskimos 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 men. There were silver spoons, part of a gold chain, buttons, knives made of the iron and wood of the wrecked ships. But none of these people had seen the white men—one man said he had seen their bones upon the island where they died, but some were buried. They said 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 coast-line 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 coast-line of Continental America."



On 2nd April more sledge-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 frostbitten. After 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, a 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 pickaxes 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, lying face downwards, half buried in the snow. It wore a blue jacket with slashed sleeves and braided edging and a greatcoat of pilot-cloth.

The old woman was right. "They fell down and died as they walked along." And now the reward of the explorers was at hand. On the north-west coast of King William's Island was found a cairn and a blue ship's paper, weatherworn 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 Beechey 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 April, having been beset in ice since September 1846—that Sir John Franklin had died on 11th June 1847, and that Captain Crozier was in command.

Then came the last words, "And start to-morrow twenty-sixth for Back's Fish River." That was all.

After a diligent search in the neighbourhood for journals or relics, McClintock led his party along the coast, till on 30th May they found another relic in the shape of a large boat, with 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 Vicar of Wakefield, a small Bible, New Testament, and Prayer Book, seven or eight pairs of boots, some silk handkerchiefs, towels, 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 19th 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 North-West Passage."

It was acknowledged "that to Sir John Franklin is due the priority of discovery of the North-West Passage—that last link to forge which he sacrificed his life."

And on the marble monument in Westminster Abbey, Tennyson, a nephew of Sir John Franklin, wrote his well-known lines—

"Not here, the white north hath thy bones, and thou, Heroic Sailor Soul, Art passing on thy happier voyage now Towards no earthly pole."



CHAPTER LXII

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 keynote 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 alleviation 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-waggon seven hundred miles to Kuruman, a small mission station in the heart of Bechuanaland 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 waggon for a journey northwards. Across the great Kalahari Desert moved the exploring family, till they came to the river called Zouga, which, said the natives, led to a large lake named Lake Ngami. In native canoes, Livingstone and his little family ascended this beautifully wooded river, "resembling the river Clyde above Glasgow," till on 1st August 1849, Lake Ngami appeared, "and for the first time," says Livingstone, "this fine sheet of water was beheld by Europeans." The lake was two thousand eight hundred 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 far to 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 centre 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 Makololo in garments of blue, green, and red baize." 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 1853 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 twenty-seven faithful black Makololos, 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 gipsy tent and a tin canister, fifteen inches square, filled with a spare shirt, trousers, and shoes for civilised life, and a few scientific instruments, the English explorer started for a six months' 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 30th 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 Makololos 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. Flowers of great beauty grew everywhere. "The ground begins to swarm with insect life, and in the cool, pleasant mornings the place rings with the singing of birds."

On 6th 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 westward through miles and miles of swamp intersected by streams flowing southward to the Zambesi basin. One day Livingstone's ox, Sindbad, threw him, and he had to struggle wearily forward on foot. His strength was failing. His meagre fare varied by boiled zebra and dried elephant, frequent wettings and constant fever, were reducing him to a mere skeleton. At last on 26th 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 lay the valley of the Kwango in glorious sunlight." Another fortnight and they were in Portuguese territory. The sight of white men once more and a collection of traders' huts 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 explorer 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 Makololos began to grow nervous. "We have stood by each other hitherto 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 emaciated 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 Makololos forgotten. They were entertained on board an English man-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 Makololo companions to their Chief, with a view of making a path from here to the east coast by means of the great river Zambesi."

With this object in view, he turned his back on home and comfort, and on 20th September 1854 he left Loanda 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 eastward. He suffered badly from fever as he had done on the outward journey. It had taken him six months to reach Loanda from central Africa; it took a year to complete the return journey, and it was September 1855 before Linyanti was again reached. Waggons 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 Makololos 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 Zambesi to the sea, for which he was now making preparations.

On 3rd 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 it with torrents of tropical rain.

A few days' travelling brought the party to the famous Zambesi 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 vapour, 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 broad Zambesi. In looking down into the fissure one sees nothing but a dense white cloud; from this cloud rushed up a great jet of vapour exactly like steam, and it mounted two or three hundred feet high."



Livingstone now continued his perilous journey with his hundred men along the Zambesi, the country once densely populated, now desolate and still. The Bakota 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 brought in large supplies of food, and expressed great delight when Livingstone 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. Plunging thus unconsciously into the midst of a Kafir war rendered travelling unpleasant and dangerous. In addition, the party of explorers found their animals woefully bitten by the tsetse fly, rhinoceroses and elephants were too plentiful to be interesting, and the great white ant made itself tiresome.

It was 3rd March before Livingstone reached Tete, two hundred and sixty 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 Zambesi rolled down toward the coast at the rate of four miles an hour, while flocks of water-fowl swarmed upon its banks or flew over its waters. Tete was the farthest outpost of the Portuguese. Livingstone 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 Makololos 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 Tete, he now embarked on the waters of the Zambesi, 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 Tete to Sena, whereas the return journey may take twenty days.

"I thought the state of Tete quite lamentable," says Livingstone, 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."

Though suffering badly from fever, Livingstone pushed on; he passed the important tributary of the Zambesi, the Shire, which he afterwards explored, and finally reached Quilimane on the shores of the Indian Ocean. It was now 20th 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 mud bank, surrounded by extensive swamps and rice grounds," which form the site of Quilimane, Livingstone embarked on board a gunboat, the Frolic, for England. He had one Makololo with him—the faithful Sekwebu. The poor black man begged to be allowed to follow his master on the seas.

"But," said Livingstone, "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 Loanda, so he had never seen the sea before. Waves were breaking over the bar at Quilimane and dashing over the boat that carried Sekwebu out to the brig. He was terribly alarmed, but he lived to reach Mauritius, where he became insane, hurled himself into the sea, and was drowned!

On 12th December 1856, Livingstone 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. Banquets 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 sun of Africa," was received by the Queen at Windsor. The enthusiasm aroused by this longest expedition in the history of African travel was unrivalled, and the name of Livingstone was on every lip. But meanwhile others were at work in central Africa, and we must turn from the discoveries of Livingstone for the moment.



CHAPTER LXIII

BURTON AND SPEKE IN CENTRAL AFRICA

Livingstone had just left Loanda 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, although 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 recognised as these lakes just about to be revealed to a wondering world. Ptolemy knew of them, the Arabs spoke of them, Portuguese traders had passed them, and a 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, Speke, 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. Speke 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 portentous 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 eight hundred miles long by three hundred broad, equal in size to the great salt Caspian."

It was April 1857 before Burton and Speke 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 April.

At last on 27th June, with thirty-six men and thirty donkeys, the party set out for the great malarious 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 Speke were badly stricken with fever—they reached Kaze. Speke 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 Nyassa, Tanganyika, and Victoria Nyanza. They stayed over a month at Kaze, till Burton seemed at the point of death, and Speke had him carried out of the unhealthy town. It was January before they made a start and continued their journey westward to Ugyi.

"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 foot, mile after mile, month after month, 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 tramped 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 Tanganyika. "This mountain mass," says Speke, "I consider to be the True Mountains of the Moon." From the top of the mountains the lovely Tanganyika Lake could be seen in all its glory by Burton. But to Speke 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 had reached the lake and they felt sure they had found the source of the Nile. It was a great day when Speke 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 "goatskin uniform." On the far side they encamped on the opposite shore, Speke being the first white man to cross the lake.

Having retired to his hut for the night, Speke proceeded to light a candle and arrange his baggage, when to his horror he found the whole interior swarming with black beetles. Tired of trying to brush them away, he put out his light and, though they crawled up his sleeves and down his back, he fell asleep. Suddenly he woke to find one crawling into his ear, and in spite of his frantic efforts it crept in farther and farther 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 Speke, although still suffering from his ear, started off again, leaving Burton behind, to find the great northern lake spoken of as the sea of Ukerewe, 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. Speke himself carried Burton's large elephant gun. "I commenced the journey," he says, "at 6 p.m., as soon as the two donkeys I took with me to ride were caught and saddled. It was a dreary beginning. The escort who accompanied me were sullen in their manner and walked with heavy gait and downcast countenance. The nature of the track increased the general gloom.

"For several weeks the caravan moved forward, till on 3rd August it began to wind up a long but gradually inclined hill, until it reached its summit, when the vast expanse of the pale blue waters of the Nyanza 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 breadth 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."



Speke returned to Kaze after his six weeks' eventful journey, having tramped no less than four hundred and fifty-two miles. He received a warm welcome from Burton, who had been very uneasy about his safety, for rumours of civil war had reached him. "I laughed over the matter," says Speke, "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 Speke took passage in a passing ship for home.

When he showed his map of Tanganyika and Victoria Nyanza to the President of the Royal Geographical Society in London, Sir Roderick Murchison was delighted.

"Speke, we must send you there again," he said enthusiastically.

And the expedition was regarded as "one of the most notable discoveries in the annals of African discovery."



CHAPTER LXIV

LIVINGSTONE TRACES LAKE SHIRWA AND NYASSA

Burton and Speke had not yet returned from central Africa, when Livingstone 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." Leaving England on 10th March 1858, he reached the east coast the following May as British Consul of Quilimane, the region which lies about the mouth of the Zambesi. Livingstone had brought out with him a small steam-launch called by the natives the Ma-Robert after Mrs. Livingstone, the mother of Robert, their eldest child. In this little steam-launch he made his way up the Shire River, which flows into the Zambesi quite near its mouth. "The delight of threading out the meanderings of upwards of two hundred miles of a hitherto unexplored river must be felt to be appreciated," says Livingstone in his diary. At the end of this two hundred miles further progress became impossible because of rapids which no boat could pass. "These magnificent cataracts we called the Murchison Cataracts, after one whose name has already a world-wide fame," says Livingstone. 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 in breadth, 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 Shirwa came into sight, "a considerable body of bitter water, containing leeches, fish, crocodiles, and hippopotami. The country around is very beautiful," adds Livingstone, "and clothed 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, Shirwa is probably larger than all the lakes of Great Britain put together. Returning to Tete, the explorer now prepared for his journey to the farther Lake Nyassa. This was to be no new discovery. The Portuguese knew the locality of Lake Shirwa, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century Nyassa was familiar to them under another name. Landing at the same spot on the Shire banks as before, Livingstone, with thirty-six Makololo porters and two native guides, ascended the beautiful Shire Highlands, some twelve hundred feet above sea-level, and crossed the range on which Zomba, the residence of the British Commissioner for Nyassaland, now stands. When within a day's march of their goal they were told that no lake had ever been heard of in the neighbourhood, 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 towered almost to the skies.

"Let us go back to the ship," said the followers; "it is no use trying to find the lake."

But Livingstone persevered, and he was soon rewarded by finding a sheet of water, which was indeed the beginning of Lake Nyassa. It was 16th September 1859.

"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 grey-headed man before he got there," declared one of the natives. Livingstone 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 in carrying the ivory from countries to the north down to the east coast. The English explorer saw that if he could establish a steamer upon this Lake Nyassa and buy ivory from the natives with 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. Livingstone joined them, bringing out with her a little new steamer to launch on the Lake Nyassa. But the unhealthy season was at its height, and "the surrounding low land, rank with vegetation and reeking from the late rainy season, exhaled the malarious poison in enormous quantities." Mrs. Livingstone 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 traveller passing through this once solitary region first penetrated by her husband.

The blow was a crushing one for Livingstone, and for a time he was quite bewildered. But when his old energy returned he superintended the launching of the little steamer, the Lady Nyassa. But disappointment and failure awaited him, and at last, just two years after the death of his wife, he took the Lady Nyassa to Zanzibar by the Rovuma River 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 two thousand five hundred miles in the little boat built only for river and lake, "a forest of masts one day loomed through the haze in Bombay harbour," and he was safe. After a brief stay here, Livingstone left his little launch and made his way to England on a mail-packet.

But no one realised at this time the importance of his new discoveries. No one foresaw the value of "Nyassaland" now under British protectorate. Livingstone had brought to light a lake fifteen hundred and seventy feet above the sea, three hundred and fifty miles long and forty broad, up and down which British steamers make their way to-day, while the long range of mountains lining the eastern bank, known as the Livingstone range, testify to the fact that he had done much, even if he might have done more.



CHAPTER LXV

EXPEDITION TO VICTORIA NYANZA

While Livingstone was discovering Lake Nyassa, Speke was busy preparing for a new expedition to find out more about the great sheet of water he had named Victoria Nyanza and to solve the vexed question: Was this the source of the Nile?

In April 1860, 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 five hundred miles between the coast and Kaze, the old halting-station of Burton and Speke. 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 haunts of men; through Usagara, the country of Gara, where Captain Grant was seized with fever; through Ugogo's great wilderness, where buffalo and rhinoceros abounded, where the country was flooded with tropical rains, on to the land of the Moon, three thousand feet above sea-level, till the slowly moving caravan reached Kaze. Here terrible accounts of famine and war reached them, and, instead of following Speke's route of 1858, they turned north-west and entered the Uzinza country, governed by two chieftains of Abyssinian descent. Here Speke was taken desperately ill. His cough gave him no rest day or night; his legs were "reduced to the appearance of pipe-sticks." But, emaciated 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 Speke, "to put down their loads and fire a volley."

The king, whom they next visited, was a fine-looking man, who, with his brother, sat cross-legged on the ground, with huge pipes of black clay by their sides, while behind them, "squatting quiet 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 was full of inquiries. Speke described the world, the proportions of land and water, and the large ships on the sea, and begged to be allowed to pass through his kingdom to Uganda. The explorers learnt 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 Speke 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, M'tesa, 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 February, Speke 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 huts, the latter by crocodiles basking in the sun. I told my men they ought to bathe in the holy river, the cradle of Moses."

Marching onwards, they found the waterfall, which Speke named the Ripon 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 honour 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 M'tesa's has passed into history. Every one was clothed, 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 M'tesa. Grant, who arrived in the end of May, carried in a litter, found Speke 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 3rd July he writes with joy: "The moment of triumph has come at last and suddenly the road is granted."

The explorers bid farewell to M'tesa. "We rose with an English bow, placing the hand on the heart, whilst saying adieu; and whatever we did M'tesa in an instant mimicked with the instinct of a monkey."

In five boats of five planks each tied together and caulked with rags, Speke started with a small escort and crew to reach the palace 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 M'tesa. It was merely a dirty hut approached by a lane ankle-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 en route for Cairo. Speke 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 Kidi wilderness across which they intended to march to save a great bend of the river. Their path 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 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 fifes playing.

"A very black man named Mohammed, in full Egyptian regimentals, with a curved sword, ordered his regiment to halt, and threw himself into my arms endeavouring to kiss me," says Speke. "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 Mohammed.

Yet they were detained till 11th 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 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 hurrying 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 were 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 H.R.H. 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 Khartum by sickness. Nobody had dreamt for a moment it was possible we could come through."

Leaving Baker to continue his way to central Africa, Speke 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 Nyanza. When Speke 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 LXVI

BAKER FINDS ALBERT NYANZA

Baker had not been long 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 Captains Speke and Grant that had been sent by the English Government from the south via Zanzibar for that object. From my youth I had been innured 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 supposed 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 Korosko in twenty-six days, and crossed the Nubian desert on camels, a "very wilderness of scorching sand, the simoon in full force and the thermometer in the shade standing at 114 degrees Fahr." By Abu Hamed 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 therefore 18th December 1862 before he and Mrs. Baker left Khartum for their journey up the Nile through the slave-driven Sudan. It was a fifty days' voyage to Gondokoro. In the hope of finding Speke 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—report that two white men had come from the sea. Could they be Speke and Grant? Off I ran and soon met them; hurrah for Old England. They had come from the Victoria Nyanza 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 recognise 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. Speke 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 that wearying 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 16th March 1864. How they passed through the uncivilised country so lately traversed by Speke and Grant, how in the Obbo 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 dawned 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 south-west, 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 Bakers descended tottering to the water's edge. "The waves were rolling upon a white pebbly beach. I rushed into the 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—a wreck upon the shores of the great Albert Lake that we had long striven to reach. No European foot had ever trod upon its sand, nor had the eyes of a white man ever scanned its vast expanse of water."



After some long delay, the Bakers 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 plaid 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, hiding everything from view. Then down came the rain in torrents, 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 followed the river in their canoe for some eighteen miles, when they suddenly heard 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 Murchison 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 wretched 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 a wilderness of rank grass hemming them in on every side. Their meals consisted of a mess of black porridge of bitter mouldy 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 Khartum."

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 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."



CHAPTER LXVII

LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNEY

In the year 1865 "the greatest of all African travellers" started on his last journey to central Africa.

"I hope," he said, "to ascend the Rovuma, and shall strive, by passing along the northern end of Lake Nyassa and round the southern end of Lake Tanganyika, to ascertain the watershed of that part of Africa."

Arrived at Zanzibar in January 1866, he reached the mouth of the Rovuma 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 Zambesi, Susi, Amoda, and others originally slaves freed by Livingstone. 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, and barking to hasten him up.

"Now that I am on the point of starting on another trip into Africa," wrote Livingstone from Rovuma Bay, "I feel quite exhilarated. The mere animal pleasure of travelling 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 a day's exertion makes the evening's repose thoroughly enjoyable."

But misfortunes soon began. As they marched along the banks of the Rovuma 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 Livingstone that it had died and tigers had come and devoured it.

"Did you see the stripes of the tiger?" asked Livingstone.

Yes; all declared that they had seen them distinctly—an obvious lie, as there are no striped tigers in Africa.

On 11th August, Livingstone once more reached Lake Nyassa. "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 south-western gulf of Lake Nyassa, till rumours 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 Loangwa River on 16th December 1866, while his unfaithful followers returned to the coast to spread the story that Livingstone 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 we 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 January, Livingstone crossed the Tshambezi, "which may almost be regarded as the upper waters of the Congo," says Johnstone, though the explorer of 1867 knew it not.

"Northwards," says Livingstone, "through almost trackless forest and across oozing bogs"; and then he adds the significant words, "I am frightened at my own emaciation." 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 April, "blue water loomed through the trees." It was Lake Tanganyika lying some two thousand feet below them. Its "surpassing loveliness" struck Livingstone. "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 and graze on the more level spots, and lions roar by night. In the morning and evening huge crocodiles may be observed quietly making their way to their feeding-grounds, and hippopotami snort by night."

Going westwards, Livingstone 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 neighbourhood, Livingstone returned to the Arabs, until the spring of 1868, when he decided to explore the Lake Bangweolo. 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 18th I saw the shores of the lake for the first time. The name Bangweolo is applied to the great mass of water, though I fear that our English folks will bogle at it or call it Bungyhollow. The water is of a deep sea-green colour. 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 Livingstone 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 in importance to the discovery of the North-West 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. Half-way, 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. Pneumonia 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 14th February 1869 he arrived on the western shores of the lake, and after the usual delay he was put into it 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 westwards for the land of the Manyuema and the great rivers reported 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 thousand miles west of Zanzibar. It was an unknown land, unvisited by Europeans when Livingstone arrived with his Arab escort at Bambarra in September 1869.

"Being now well rested," he enters in his diary, "I resolved to go west to Lualaba and buy a canoe for its exploration. The Manyuema 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 travelled almost incessantly zigzagging through the wonderful Manyuema country until, after a year's wandering, he finally reached the banks of the Lualaba (Congo) on 31st 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 deep. 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 Manyuema 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 squabble 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 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 Susi 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, baths of tin, huge kettles, and cooking-pots made me think, 'This must be a luxurious traveller and not one at his wits' end, like me.'"

It was Henry Morton Stanley, the travelling correspondent of the New York Herald, sent at an expense of more than 4000 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 Susi 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 grey 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 round it, had on a red-sleeved waistcoat and a pair of grey tweed trousers. I walked deliberately to him, took off my hat, and said, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?'

"'Yes,' said he, with a kind smile, lifting his cap slightly.

"Then we both grasp 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 verandah 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 Bangweolo, leaving the long-sought mystery of the Nile sources yet unsolved.

On 25th 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 Bangweolo, the 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 April: "Knocked up quite. We are on the banks of R. Molilamo."



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 Bangweolo under the shadow of a great tree in the still forest. Then they wrapped his body in a cylinder of bark wound round in a piece of old sailcloth, lashed it to a pole, and a little band of negroes, including Susi 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, be that his fame. Let marble crumble: this is living-stone."



CHAPTER LXVIII

THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT

The death of Livingstone, 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 roused 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 Livingstone 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. Leaving 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 Victoria Nyanza lay through what is now known as German East Africa. They reached Ugogo safely and turned to the north-west, 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 a hot sun prostrated one of the white men, who died a few days later. Thus they entered Ituru, "a land of naked people, whose hills drained into a marsh, whence issue the southernmost waters of the Nile."

Here they were surrounded by angry savages on whom they had to fire, and from whose country they were glad to escape.

On 27th February 1875, after tramping for one hundred and three days, they arrived at their destination. One of the white men who was striding forward suddenly waved his hat, and with a beaming face shouted out, "I have seen the lake, sir; it is grand."

Here, indeed, was the Victoria Nyanza, "which a dazzling sun transformed into silver," discovered by Speke sixteen years before, and supposed to be the source of the Nile. The men struck up a song of 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, it 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 launched, and from the shores of Speke 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 courser and we 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 dwelt 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 flowed the superfluous waters of the lake rushing northward as the Victoria Nile. "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, volleys 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 M'tesa's wonderful kingdom of Uganda, described by Speke sixteen years before. The twelve days spent at the court of this monarch impressed Stanley deeply. Specially was the king interested in Christianity, and the English explorer told the story of the Creation and the birth of the Messiah to this intelligent pagan and his courtiers. "Ten days after we left the genial court, I came upon the scene of a 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, thinking 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 while with his elephant rifle and explosive bullets. They were saved.

On 6th May the circumnavigation was finished and the Lady Alice was being dragged ashore in Speke 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 Ujiji, 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 Lualaba, 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 Lualaba was fourteen hundred yards wide, pale grey in colour, 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 confluence, and now before me lay the superb river itself. My task was to follow it to the ocean."

Pressing on along the river, they reached the Arab city of Nyangwe, having accomplished three hundred and thirty-eight miles in forty-three days. And now the famous Arab Tippu-Tib comes on the scene, a chief with whom Stanley was to be closely connected hereafter. He was a tall, black-bearded man with an intelligent face and gleaming white teeth. He wore clothes of spotless white, his fez was smart and new, his dagger resplendent 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," remarks Stanley. "What kind of a country is it to the north along the river?" he asked.

"Monstrous bad," was the reply. "There are large boa-constrictors in the forest suspended by their tails, waiting to gobble up travellers. You cannot travel without being covered by ants, and they sting like wasps. There are leopards in countless numbers. Gorillas haunt the woods. The people are man-eaters. A party of three hundred guns started for the forest and only sixty returned."

Stanley and his last remaining white companion, Frank Pocock, discussed the somewhat alarming situation together. Should they go on and face the dwarfs 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 and knew no end"?

"This great river which Livingstone 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 Congo and the Atlantic Ocean."

"Let us follow the river," replied the white man.

So, accompanied by Tippu-Tib, with a hundred and forty guns and seventy spearmen, they started along the banks of the river which Stanley now named the Livingstone River.

"On the 5th of November 1876," says Stanley, "a force of about seven hundred people, consisting of Tippu-Tib's slaves and my expedition departed from the town of Nyangwe 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 centre 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 Nyangwe we saw again the great river and, viewing the stately breadth 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 rancour and unreasoning hate of strangers. At every curve and bend they 'telephoned' along the river warning signals; their huge wooden drums sounded the muster for fierce resistance; reed arrows tipped with poison were shot at us from the jungle as we glided by. On the 18th of December our miseries culminated in a grand effort of the savages to annihilate us. The cannibals had manned the topmost branches of the trees above the village of Vinya Njara to shoot at us."

A camp was hastily constructed by Stanley in defence, and for several days there was desperate fighting, at the end of which peace was made. But Tippu-Tib 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 leant forward, bowed with grief and heavy hearts at the prospect before them. Dense 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 haunted the sandy points; hippopotami grunted at our approach; elephants stood by the margin of the river; there was unceasing vibration from millions of insects throughout the livelong day. The sun shone large and warm; the river was calm and broad and brown."