In Darkest Africa, Vol. 2; or, The Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of EquatoriaStanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
History
In Darkest Africa, Vol. 2; 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
_March 5th_.--Mr. Bonny appeared this morning with ninety-four loads of
luggage from below. He was accompanied by the Major of the 2nd
Battalion, Awash Effendi. I am told all this monstrous pile belongs to
him alone. Ninety-four loads represent a weight of 2⅓ tons.
Mr. Mounteney Jephson started for the Nyanza this morning with forty-two
Zanzibaris and Manyuema.
During the six weeks we have been here three men and a baby have died.
This Expedition possesses the rarest doctor in the world. No country in
Europe can produce his equal in my opinion. There may be many more
learned perhaps, more skilful, older, or younger, as the case may be,
but the best of them have something to learn from our doctor. He is such
a combination of sweetness and simplicity. So unostentatious, so
genuinely unobtrusive. We are all bound to him with cords of love. We
have seen him do so much out of pure love for his “cases,” that human
nature becomes ennobled by this gem. He is tenderness itself. He has
saved many lives by his devoted nursing. We see him each day at 8 A.M..
and 5 P.M. with his selectest circle of “sick” around him. None with
tender stomach dare approach it. He sits in the centre as though it were
a rare perfume. The sloughing ulcers are exposed to view, some fearful
to behold, and presenting a spectacle of horror. The doctor smiles and
sweetly sniffs the tainted air, handles the swollen limbs, cleanses them
from impurity, pours the soothing lotion, cheers the sufferers, binds up
the painful wounds, and sends the patient away with a hopeful and
gratified look. May the kindly angels record this nobleness and
obliterate all else. I greatly honour what is divine in man. This gift
of gentleness and exquisite sensibility appeal to the dullest. At
Abu-Klea our doctor was great; the wounded had cause to bless him; on
the green sward of Kavalli, daily ministering to these suffering blacks,
unknowing and unheeding whether any regarded him, our doctor was greater
still.
[Sidenote: 1889.
March 5.
Kavalli’s.]
_March 6th_.--Some chimpanzees have been discovered in a grove which
fills a deep hollow in the Baregga Hills. The Pasha has shown me a
carefully prepared skull of one which he procured near Mswa. It exactly
resembles one I picked up at Addiguhha, a village between the two
branches of the Ihuru River. The chimpanzee is the “soko” of
Livingstone, though he grows to an unusual size in the Congo forest.
During the few days we have been here the Pasha has been indefatigable
in adding to his collection of birds, larks, thrushes, finches,
bee-eaters, plantain eaters, sunbirds, &c., &c.
The Pasha appears to be extraordinarily happy in this vocation of
“collecting.” I have ordered the Zanzibaris to carry every strange
insect, bird, and reptile to him. Even vermin do not appear amiss to
him. We are rewarded by seeing him happy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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