CHAPTER XXIII

STANLEY DISCOVERS THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON AND LAKE ALBERT EDWARD.--THE END OF EMIN

Two sets of circumstances now hindered further exploration of the Nile basin,--the revolt of the Mahdi, with the disasters that followed at Khartum; and the persecution of the Christians followed by civil war in Uganda. Emin Pasha was left to govern Equatoria for four years, cut off from all communication with Egypt. Dr. Junker, arriving with his collections and journals in 1886, aroused a great wave of enthusiasm in England and Germany. Stanley at once offered to lead a relief expedition to the Equatorial provinces of the Nile. The great prestige of this remarkable man made it impossible for any other candidate to enter the field in England. Many, however, were in favour of entrusting the expedition to Thomson, who believed in the practicability of conducting it by a direct route from Mombasa to Mount Elgon, and so across to the Nile. Whether he would have succeeded is a moot question, owing to the fierceness of the Nile tribes between Elgon and Gondokoro, and the jealousy and suspicion of Uganda and Unyoro; for the King of Uganda, having had his fears aroused as to European aggression, had already caused Bishop Hannington to be murdered for repeating Thomson’s journey to Busoga.

Stanley was precluded from following the old Unyamwezi route, owing to German jealousy. He decided, therefore, to strike at the Upper Nile by way of the Congo, and so found himself struggling through the dense forests of the Congo basin between the navigable waters of the Aruwimi and the cliffs of Lake Albert. This wonderful journey, which he took for the relief of Emin Pasha, resulted in the discovery of the real Mountains of the Moon [Ruwenzori], the complete course of the Semliki River, Lake Albert Edward, and the southwesternmost gulf of the Victoria Nyanza. Stanley added a great deal to our knowledge of the Congo Pygmies, who in this direction stray over into the Nile watershed; but his grand discovery on this occasion was Ruwenzori. On May 24, 1888, about five miles from Nsabe, on the grassy mountains to the southwest of Lake Albert Nyanza,

“while looking to the southeast and meditating upon the events of the last month, my eyes were directed by a boy to a mountain said to be covered with salt, and I saw a peculiar shaped cloud of a most beautiful silver colour, which assumed the proportions and appearance of a vast mountain covered with snow. Following its form downward, I became struck with the deep blue-black colour of its base, and wondered if it portended another tornado; then as the sight descended to the gap between the eastern and western plateaux I became for the first time conscious that what I gazed upon was not the image or semblance of a vast mountain, but the solid substance of a real one, with its summit covered with snow.... It now dawned upon me that this must be the Ruwenzori, which was said to be covered with a white metal or substance believed to be a rock, as reported by Kavali’s two slaves.”

[Illustration:

_Photo by John Fergus._]

SIR HENRY STANLEY, G.C.B.]

This view was obtained from a distance of seventy miles,--about the distance of the chief snows of Ruwenzori from the south end of Lake Albert Nyanza. The constant haze rising from the Semliki valley no doubt keeps this mountain usually invisible from the waters of the lake. It is, therefore, not so surprising that it was not hitherto seen by the explorers of the Albert Nyanza, as it is that Stanley himself should have camped at the very base of this mountain for some days in 1875, and have been ignorant of its true character as the highest ground and the most completely snow-and-glacier-covered range in the whole of Africa. The name that he has given to it unfortunately does not completely correspond with the native pronunciation; it should be Runsororo.

The discovery of this snowy range was soon followed by the realisation of the Semliki River, another geographical name of Stanley’s giving which it is most difficult to trace to any native source. (The Semliki, in fact, is never called by any native tribe “Semliki.” It is known as Dweru, Nyanja, Ituri, Isango, and other Bantu terms indicating _lake_ or _river_. When first discovered by Emin Pasha, a short time before Stanley’s arrival, it was known as the Dweru.) This stream is really the Albertine Nile. Its existence had been surmised by Sir Samuel Baker without much foundation (then) for his theory. Emin Pasha first noted it in 1884 as a feeder of Lake Albert. Stanley, in 1889, traced the Semliki up its course to its point of exit from Lake Albert Edward, which sheet of water he was the first European to discover. Albert Edward is connected by a narrow, winding channel[106] on the northeast with a somewhat extensive, shallow lake, usually known as “Dweru.”[107]

Dweru was discovered by Stanley in 1875, and named by him Beatrice Gulf. Stanley now ascertained that the two lakes were connected. His expedition crossed the Kafuru, as the connecting stream is called, and entered the till then unvisited Hima kingdom of Ankole. Stanley’s guess at the shape of the Albert Edward was incorrect, and it needed subsequent expeditions to give us a truer idea of the form and area of this sheet of water, the eastern shore of which still remains unsurveyed.

[Illustration: SHORES OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA, NEAR EMIN PASHA GULF.]

Passing through Ankole, Stanley reached the southwestern extremity of the Victoria Nyanza, which he named Emin Pasha Gulf. On his journeys of circumnavigation in 1875, he had been deceived by a chain of islands into an incorrect limitation of the area of the Victoria Nyanza in this direction. He now realised that the lake extends much further to the southwest than was previously thought by Speke and himself, and is therefore not of the heart-shape assigned to it in the earliest maps; it is, in fact, much longer from north to south than it is broad from east to west.

The rest of Stanley’s great journey took him out of the Nile watershed.

But the discoveries which he made in the Albertine region of the Nile basin whetted the curiosity of Emin Pasha, who longed to return to these mysterious regions.

He did so in 1890, as a German official. Accompanied by Dr. Franz Stuhlmann, a very able explorer, he directed his steps to these regions of fascinating interest, the Snow-mountains, and the Great Forest. In 1891 Dr. Stuhlmann made an ascent of the Ruwenzori range on its western aspect nearly to the snow-line. He revealed the existence of its remarkable Alpine vegetation of giant groundsels and lobelias. He also attempted to discriminate between the many different snow-peaks of this lofty range, though with only partial success, his failure in arriving at a complete result, like that of subsequent travellers, being due to the constant presence of clouds. Emin and Stuhlmann together added a good deal to our knowledge of the Semliki, and to the clearing up of geographical points connected with the line of watershed between the Nile and the Congo systems immediately west of Lake Albert. Emin Pasha resolved to return by way of the Congo, and was therefore left to do so by Stuhlmann, who returned to his duties in German East Africa. Re-entering the great Congo forest, and following a northern affluent of the Ituri-Aruwimi, Emin was captured by one of the slave-trading, Arabised Manyema who had recently invaded this region to secure ivory and slaves. As a German official, Emin (together with other Germans) had confiscated property belonging to these Manyema, had released slaves, and had severely punished slave-raiders. From motives of revenge, therefore, he was sentenced to death by his captor, and his throat was cut in his house one day in October, 1892.

[Illustration: DR. FRANZ STUHLMANN.

(Deputy Governor of German East Africa.)]