Читать книгу: «Stanley in Africa», страница 48

OPENING A KRU-COAST MISSION

“At Sas Town, Monday morning, April 11, 1887, we had a big palaver. It broke up abruptly in a storm of passion amid the thunder of stentorian voices – a half a hundred big men all talking at once and shouting ‘batyeo! batyeo!’ – same as ‘suno! suno!’ in Hindustani – or in English, ‘listen! attention! attention!’ all shouting for a hearing and no listeners.

“So the king said, ‘We will go away, and when they cool down I will call them together again.’

“When we met again I re-stated our proposals to found a school for book-study and hard work with the hands of teachers and scholars, and to make mission for God palaver, according to the terms of our agreement, as stated in our written articles.

“They responded with great unanimity, ‘Yes, we want you to come and make school and mission, and when your carpenters come we help them to make house.’

“I suspected a reservation in their minds in regard to the no-pay condition, so I asked Nimly to re-state and explain, so they could not misunderstand our terms. He made a clear explanation and an eloquent speech in the Kru language – a commanding, fluent speaker is Nimly.

“The king replied, ‘Our people won’t work without pay.’

“‘That is right,’ I replied, ‘and we give them big pay. Instead of a few leaves of tobacco, which they would burn the first day, I give them missionaries, and make school and mission which will be of great value to you, to your children, grand-children, and on through all the generations of coming years. But if you are not willing to carry lumber and help us, you can wait a year till I come again and we will have another palaver.’

“They shouted unanimously, ‘No! no! we want school and mission now, and we will do all that you have said and written,’ So the kings and chiefs, by their mark, signed the articles of agreement.

“Their names were all hard, yet much easier to get on with than the men they represented. Only one of the long list of kings and chiefs came up to his contract, and he very kindly supplemented his labor by that of his wives. The mission house was built, and in 1889 contained twenty-five native worshipers.” Wm. Taylor.

A DESPERATE SITUATION

Henry Drummond, while pushing his way from Lake Nyassa toward Tanganyika, thus writes: “Buffalo fever still on me. Sallied forth early with Moolu, a large herd being reported at hand. We struck the trail after a few miles, but the buffaloes had moved away, passing up a deep valley to the north. I followed for a time, till the heat became too oppressive. Moolu with one other native, kept up the pursuit.

“They returned in a few hours announcing that they had dropped two bulls, but not being mortally wounded they had escaped. Late in the afternoon, two more of my men came rushing in, saying, that one of the wounded buffaloes had attacked their party and wounded two of them severely. They wanted assistance to bring them home.

“It seems that five of the men, on hearing Moolu’s report about the wounded buffaloes, and being tempted by the thought of fresh meat, had gone off without permission to try to secure the game. It was a foolhardy trick, as they had only spears with them, and a wounded buffalo bull is the most dangerous animal in Africa. It charges blindly at anything, and even after receiving its mortal wound has been known to kill its assailant.

“The would-be hunters soon overtook one of the creatures, a huge bull, lying in a hollow, and apparently wounded unto death. They walked unsuspectingly up to it, and when quite close the brute suddenly roused itself and dashed headlong toward them. They ran for their lives, but were quickly overtaken, and one of them was trampled in a twinkling beneath the feet of the enraged brute. A second man was caught up a few paces further on and was literally impaled on the animal’s horns.

“The first man was able to hobble into camp, but the second had to be carried in, more dead than alive. He had two frightful wounds, one through the shoulder, the other beneath the ribs. I dressed them, and set two natives to watch him through the night, lest he should bleed to death. When I came in, on my last visit before retiring, I found the nurses busy blowing on the wound. Their conception of pain was that it is due to evil spirits, and they were exorcising them by blowing. As they were doing no harm, I permitted them to indulge in their work through the night. The patient had a hard siege of it, but finally got well. He did not readily forget his adventure with the buffalo bull.”

STANLEY AND EMIN

The London Spectator brings Henry M. Stanley and Emin Pasha into strong contrast in its discussion of the celebrated rescue. It chooses to regard the rescue as of greater psychological than of historic or scientific interest to the world, and says. “The revelation it affords is the radical difference in character between the two great African adventurers. For years past, Emin Pasha has seemed to be the greater of the two, a man who actually ruled, and in a degree civilized, great African provinces, who had by his character alone maintained his ascendency over a body of successful Mohammedan troops, and who had earned, if not the love, at least the respect and regard, of millions of black subjects. It now appears that some part of all this success must have been accidental. The trusted troops revolted on their first great opportunity – as, we must in justice remember, did also our own Sepoys – the obedient blacks proved equally obedient to the new Arab authority; and Emin himself stood revealed as a thoughtful man of science, patient and unfearing, but with little either of the energy or the decision which make the true man of action. It may be that in his long sojourn at Wadelai, surrounded by Egyptians and blacks, possibly taking native wives, for we hear of a young daughter named Ferida, and conforming to the ritual of an Asiatic faith, Emin may have become Africanized; but no change of conditions could deprive him of the power of recognizing men, had he originally possessed it. That he erred in his judgment of his agents is clear, for they mutinied against and imprisoned him; his hope that they would follow him to the coast, and thence to Egypt, turned out as baseless as the hope of many an old Sepoy officer that his ‘children’ at least would never mutiny; and to the last, one native officer, if Stanley’s account may be trusted, deluded the experienced Viceroy like a child.

“One suspects, though perhaps the suspicion may be unfair, that he owed much of his apparent success to his profession of Mohammedanism – which up to the very last induced his followers to draw a distinction between the Pasha, who was only led away, and Jephson and Casati, who are called wicked Christians, and suspected of designs against their own Egyptian soldiers – and of his reputation in Europe to his feeling for science and civilization, a cause which also produced the much too favorable estimate of the Emperor of Brazil. On the other hand, the more the true man of action is tried, the stronger he appears. Perhaps no man that ever lived had his energy and endurance more taxed than Henry M. Stanley, who for years on end has suffered all that any great African explorer has suffered, with the addition of heavy responsibility to and for others, and who through it all has steadily grown greater in himself as well as in the world’s eyes. Statesmen would now trust the lad from the Welsh workhouse with African kingdoms to govern, and the new sovereign companies, who claim such immense districts, will compete with each other for his aid. He has the qualities which make rulers, and it is in the end on these, and not on amiability and feeling for science, or even a perplexed devotion to doubtful duty, that statesmen must rely. We shall do nothing in Africa by passing and repassing through its endless forests. We must govern, organize, and above all train its people, before anything is accomplished; and for that work we need the service of men who, like Stanley, know that the one cure for savagery is discipline, and can enforce it to the end.”