Stanley in Africa: The Wonderful Discoveries and Thrilling Adventures of the Great African Explorer, and Other Travelers, Pioneers and MissionariesBoyd, James P. (James Penny)
History
Stanley in Africa: The Wonderful Discoveries and Thrilling Adventures of the Great African Explorer, and Other Travelers, Pioneers and Missionaries
Boyd, James P. (James Penny)
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton), 1841-1904
On the arrival of the expedition at the mouth of the Aruwimi, an armed
camp was formed at Yambungi and left in charge of the unfortunate Major
Barttelot, and here a conference was awaited with the dual-hearted Arab,
Tippoo Tib, whom Stanley had recognized as ruler at Nyangwe, on the
Congo, above Stanley Falls, and who was bound to him by the most solemn
treaties. The wily chieftain came up in due time, and the interview
was such as to engender serious doubts of his further friendship,
notwithstanding his protestations.
[Illustration: INTERVIEW OF MAJOR BARTTELOT AND MR. JAMESON WITH TIPPOO
TIB.]
The occasion was a palaver, at the request of Major Barttelot, with a
view to obtain some definite understanding as to the providing of the
Manyema porters whom Tippoo Tib had promised Stanley he would supply in
order that the rearguard might follow him up from the Aruwimi River to
Wadelai. How the porters did not come up to time; how the commander of
the rearguard was hampered with new conditions as to weight when the men
did appear; and how the dreadful business ended in the assassination of
Major Barttelot and the breaking up of the camp, will appear further
on. The death of Mr. Jameson soon afterwards, at Ward’s Camp, on the
Congo, a distressing sequel to the former tragedy, was in somber tone
with the reports of Stanley’s death which came filtering through the
darkness at about the same time. The cloud which fell upon the Aruwimi
camp seemed to spread its dark mantle over the entire expedition. Mr.
Werner, in his interesting volume “A Visit to Stanley’s Rear Guard,”
gives a characteristic sketch of the Arab chief; and Mr. Werner was the
engineer in charge of the vessel which took Major Barttelot part of the
way on his last journey to the Falls. “After the light complexion of the
other Arabs,” he says, “I was somewhat surprised to find Mr. Tippoo Tib
as black as any negro I had seen; but he had a fine well-shaped head,
bald at the top, and a short, black, thick beard thickly strewn with
white hairs. He was dressed in the usual Arab style, but more simply
than the rest of the Arab chiefs, and had a broad, well-formed figure.
His restless eyes gave him a great resemblance to the negro’s head with
blinking eyes in the electric advertisements of somebody’s shoe polish
which adorned the walls of railway-stations some years ago——and earned
him the nickname of ‘Nubian blacking.’”
[Illustration: AN AMBUSCADE.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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