Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/401

 civilians who had come with him from Egypt and their native dependants. He was still undecided when Stanley left him to retrace his steps through the forest and look for his rear-guard.

Of that force nothing had been heard, and Stanley's anxiety on its account was fully justified. The rear-column had met with terrible disaster. Tippu Tib had broken faith, and failed to supply food and proper transport ; and Major Barttelot had been compelled to linger for ten months at Yambuya before setting out on Stanley's traces with a body of disorderly Manyuema savages, whom Tippu Tib had sent as carriers. With these Barttelot advanced ninety miles to a place called Banalya. A month before Stanley's arrival the Manyuema broke out into mutiny and Barttelot was shot through the heart. Jameson, who had been sent up the Congo to collect fresh carriers, soon afterwards died of fever, two other officers had gone down to the coast, and only one European was left ; three-quarters of the native followers were dead or dying. The remnants Stanley re-organised with his own column, and once more made a march through the Aruwimi forest. Many perished during this toilsome and painful journey ; but by the first month of 1889 the whole force (reduced, however, to a third of its original number) was collected on the shores of Lake Albert. Emin, whose troops had revolted during Stanley's absence, was at length induced to join the party, with several hundred of his people, Egyptian officers, clerks, native servants, women, and children. The march to the coast occupied the summer and autumn of 1889 ; and in the course of the journey Stanley discovered the great snow-capped range of Ruwenzori, the Moimtains of the Moon, besides a new lake which he named the Albert Edward Nyanza, and a large south-western extension of Lake Victoria. On the morning of 4 Dec. 1889 the expedition reached the ocean at Bagamoyo. Friction again occurred with Emin, who ultimately transferred himself to the German service, leaving Stanley to come home without him. Thus the expedition had failed to achieve its primary object. It had, however, accomplished great things, it had made notable additions to African geography and ethnology, and it had come upon the pigmy tribes who had inhabited the great African forest since prehistoric times. On his way down to the coast Stanley had concluded treaties with various native chiefs which he transferred to Sir William Mackinnon's company and so laid the foundation of the British East African Protectorate. In the short space of fifteen years a single private individual, unsupported by a great armed force or the authority of a government, had been the means of incorporating over two million square miles of the earth's surface with the political system of the civilised world.

Before he returned to Europe Stanley stayed for some weeks in Egypt to rest after the fatigue and privations of a journey which shortened the lives of his younger com- panions and left his own health shattered. After his arrival in England he had to encounter much hostile comment upon the miscarriage of the Emin Pasha 'rescue' project ; and an embittered controversy arose over the tragedy of the rear-guard. But the value of Stanley's work and the magnitude of his achievements were recognised by those best capable of understanding them and by the public at large. If he cannot be cleared of all responsibility for some of the misfortunes incurred in the expedition, his gifts of character were never more conspicuously displayed than in the courage and tenacity by which he redeemed the failures, saved his broken columns from utter ruin, and rendered the enterprise fruitful, and, in its ultimate consequences, epoch-making. Only a man of his iron resolution and invincible resource could have carried through the awful marches and counter-marches in the tropical forests and along the banks of the Aruwdmi. The journey from the lakes to the coast, with his own weak and exhausted column escorting Emin's mob of a thousand men, women, and children, a worn, diseased multitude, ill-supplied with food, in itself called for the highest qualities of leadership. Sir George Grey, the veteran pro-consul, wrote from Auckland to congratulate Stanley on his exploit. 'I have thought over all history, but I cannot call to mind a greater task than you have performed. It is not an exploration alone you have accomplished ; it is also a great military movement.' Honours and distinctions were conferred upon Stanley by universities and learned societies at home and abroad. Ten thousand people attended the reception given by the Royal Geographical Society at the Albert Hall to hear him lecture on his discoveries ; and the vote of thanks to the lecturer was moved by the Prince of Wales. The press controversy only increased the demand for the book, 'In Darkest Africa' (1890), in which he wrote an account of his journey. It was published simultaneously