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
When he returned to England and made his discovery known, powerful
arguments sprang up about these Nile sources. Speke and one school
contended the Nile reservoirs were under the equator and that Victoria
Nyanza was one of them, if not the only one. Burton and others contended
that Tanganyika, and perhaps a series of lakes further south, must be the
true sources. So in 1860 Speke and Grant were back in Africa, determined
to solve the mystery. They were kept back by delays till 1862, when,
as we have seen, they caught sight of the lake they sought. Keeping on
high ground, they followed it northward to Uganda where they fell in
with Mtesa, the king. Mtesa has been painted in all sorts of colors by
different explorers. Speke and Grant formed the worst possible opinion of
him, but they passed through his dominions safely, till they came to the
northern outlet of the lake——the Victoria Nile. Taking for granted that
this was the real Nile, they cut across the country to Gondokoro, where
they met Baker on his southern march, as we have already seen.
This unsatisfactory journey did not set controversy at rest. Speke’s
opponents ridiculed the idea of a body of water, 250 miles long and 7000
feet above the sea level, existing right under the Equator. Moreover they
denied that its northern outlet was the Nile, or if so, that there must
be a southern inlet. All the old maps located the sources of the stream
further south. Colonel Baker heard a native story, in 1869, to the effect
that boats had gone from Albert Nyanza to Ujiji on lake Tanganyika.
Livingstone held firmly to the opinion that all these equatorial lakes
were one with Tanganyika——till he disproved it himself. He never was
convinced that Victoria Nyanza existed at all as Speke had mapped it, nor
that it had any connection with the Nile River.
Thus what Baker and Speke and Grant had been glorying in as great
discoveries, but which they failed to establish by full research, was
still a puzzle. They are not to be robbed of any honors, but it is not
claiming too much to say that the real discoverer of the true Nile
reservoir is due to the American Stanley. At least he resolved to solve
the problem finally and set discussion at rest. He would establish the
claims of Victoria Nyanza to vastness and to its functions as a Nile
source, or show it up as a humbug.
Henry M. Stanley is no ordinary figure among African explorers. In
tenacity of purpose, courage and endurance, he is second only to
Livingstone. In originality, insight and crowning effort, he is ahead
of all. He introduced a new method of African travel and brought a new
power at his back. Already he had, under the auspices of the New York
_Herald_, made a successful Central African journey and “discovered
Livingstone.” On his present expedition he was accredited to both
American and English papers, and bore the flags of the two countries. He
travelled in a half scientific and half military fashion.
[Illustration: HENRY M. STANLEY.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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