Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, Volume 2Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, Volume 2
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Africa, West -- Description and travel; Congo River -- Description and travel; Ethnology -- Africa, West
Sir Joseph Banks had suggested a steamer drawing four feet, with
twenty-four horse-power; an admirable idea, but practical
difficulties of construction rendered the "Congo" useless. Of the
fifty-four white men, eighteen, including eleven of the "Congo"
crew, died in less than three months. Fourteen out of a party of
thirty officers and men, who set out to explore the cataracts viâ
the northern bank, lost their lives; and they were followed by
four more on board the "Congo," and one at Bahia. The expedition
remained in the river between July 6th and October 18th, little
more than three months; yet twenty-one, or nearly one-third,
three of the superior officers and all the scientific men,
perished. Captain Tuckey died of fatigue and exhaustion (Oct.
4th) rather than of disease; Lieutenant Hawkey, of fatal typhus
(which during 1862 followed the yellow fever, in the Bonny and
New Calabar Rivers); and Mr. Eyre, palpably of bilious remittent.
Professor Smith had been so charmed with the river, that he was
with difficulty persuaded to return. Prostrated four days
afterwards by sickness on board the transport, he refused physic
and food, because his stomach rejected bark, and, preferring cold
water, he became delirious; apparently, he died of
disappointment, popularly called a "broken heart." Messrs. Tudor
and Cranchalso fell victims to bilious remittents, complicated,
in the case of the latter, by the "gloomy view taken of
Christianity by that sect denominated Methodists." Mr. Galway, on
September 28th, visited Sangala, the highest rapid ("Narrative,"
p. 328). In the Introduction, p. 80, we are wrongly told that he
went to Banza Ninga, whence, being taken ill on August 24th, he
was sent down stream. He, like his commander, had to sleep in the
open, almost without food, and he also succumbed to fever,
fatigue, and exhaustion.
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