In Darkest Africa, Vol. 1; or, The Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of EquatoriaStanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
History
In Darkest Africa, Vol. 1; or, The Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria
Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Emin Pasha, 1840-1892
Fort Bodo, _8 February, 1888_.
Sir,--I have the honour to forward this report for your
information. In compliance with your orders dated 24th October,
1887, I remained at the Manyuema Camp to take charge of invalids
and impedimenta left there on your departure, 28th October, up to
the time the relief party arrived, 25th January, 1888. Of those
invalids whom you left at camp, seven were sufficiently recovered
to send on with Captain Jephson, 7th November; those remaining were
increased in number by the arrival of Captain Nelson, his two boys,
and two men, 3rd November; also headman Umari and nine men, who
were found in a starving condition in the bush by Kilonga-Longa,
and brought to camp by him 9th January; this made a total of one
sick officer and thirty-nine invalids remaining in camp; of this
number Captain Nelson and sixteen men left with the relief party.
Twelve men were away on a journey looking for food, therefore
remain at Manyuema Camp, and eleven deaths occurred; this extremely
high mortality will no doubt astonish you, especially as it was
entirely due to starvation, except in two instances only. From the
time you left the Manyuema Camp until our departure, 26th January,
the chiefs gave little or no food to either officers or men; those
men who were sufficiently strong to do a good day's work, sometimes
got as many as ten heads of corn (Indian) per man, but as the
working men were not constantly employed, their average ration of
corn was about three per day; those invalids unable to work, of
whom there were many, received no food from the chiefs, and were
therefore obliged to exist on herbs. Remembering the wretched and
debilitated condition of all these men, both from privation and
disease, you will readily understand that the heartless treatment
of the Manyuema chiefs was sufficient to cause even a much greater
mortality.
The men were badly housed, and their scanty clothing consisted of
about half a yard of native bark-cloth, as they sold their own
clothes for food; they experienced not only the horrors of
starvation, but were cruelly and brutally treated by the Manyuema,
who drove them to commit theft by withholding food, and then scored
their backs with rods, and in one case speared a man to death
(Asmani bin Hassan) for stealing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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