X. DAVID LIVINGSTONE. EUROPE IN AFRICA THE NINETEENTH CENTURY BY ELIZABETH WORMELEY LATIMER AUTHOR OF " FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," " RUSSIA AND TURKEY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," " ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," ETC. CHICAGO ^~--— ^^t1<2^ A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 1895 \^ M Copyright By a. C. McClurg and Co. A.D. iSq:; c^ NOTE. Do my readers know what is meant by a "short yarn " ? It is the nautical phrase for a story that has been broken off short, — a narrative that has never reached its legitimate conclusion. This book is a volume of " short yarns." They will probably be found to have their ends somewhere in the coming century. Meantime it seems well to know something of the beginnings of what in years to come may interest the world exceedingly. "Europe in Africa in the Nineteenth Century" has been a vast subject to be crowded into the limits which I have allowed myself in this series. If I am told by my critics that my book is deficient in histor- ical perspective, I can only reply: "You are right; but my aim has been to tell only what interested my- self, and what I hoped might be interesting to other people. I therefore have put many persons, events, and other matters into the foreground, which, if I aimed to be an historian, I ought to have relegated to a less prominent position." Almost every chapter of the book forms a narra-i tive by itself. It was nearly as hard to write as 3 4 NOTE. would be a history of the United States with no ref- erence to our General Government. The chapters on Uganda, South Africa, and the French in Central Africa, were especially bewilder- ing ; but I have had good material, and only hope I may have succeeded in making clear what seemed a Dark Forest in history before it had been penetrated and explored. E. W. L. BONNYWOOD, Howard Co., Md., September, 1895. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Mehemet Ali .9 II. Arabi Pasha 35 III. Gordon and the Mahdi 66 IV. The Captives of the Mahdi .... 96 V. Livingstone and Stanley 123 VI. Darkest Africa 153 VII. Uganda 189 VIII. The War in Abyssinia 227 IX. Zanzibar 250 X. The Barbary States 266 XI. Liberia, and Maryland's own Colony . . 290 XII. England's Little Wars 321 XIII. Diamond Fields and Gold Mines . . . 345 XIV. Rhodesia 361 XV. The French in Africa 390 XVI. Madagascar 425 Index 441 5 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. David Livingstone Frontispiece Mehemet Ali To face page 12 Ibrahim Pasha 22 General Sir Garnet Wolseley 54 Sir Samuel Baker 70 General Gordon 84 The Mahdi . 96 Father Ohrwalder 106 Henry Moreland Stanley 130 Emin Pasha 154 Tippu Tib 174 Captain F. D. Lugard 208 General Sir Robert Napier . 244 Captain William Bainbridge 272 Commodore Edward Preble 276 Dr. James Hall 296 Cetywayo 322 Prince Louis Napoleon 336 Cecil John Rhodes 362 Abdel Kader 394 Paul du Chaillu 418 Queen Ranavalona HI 432 Charles de Freycinet 436 MAPS. Political Divisions of Africa .... To face page 8 Central Africa 124 South Africa . ,..,.... 346 rSi'/V GAMBIA I Freetown ~> Op lAO'^'' "The |>OLitriCAL Divisions i or AFRICA. eAST IIIIIIIIIiIIIIIIIIy I / GERMAN \b\it!sh sAFm^ ' XAFH/.PK'A , «.,.^ ■i'ui^^ f^.'AV. TITIJO<} 3HT AjmiA \ I EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. CHAPTER I. MEHEMET ALL WHILE one morning preparing to begin this sketch of Europe in Africa, my eye fell upon the column of " Situations Wanted " in a local morning paper, and I read the advertisement of a young Swiss who desired a position as valet and interpreter, concluding with the words : " No objection to Africa." Such an announcement could not have been possible in 1822, the year when the reminiscences contained in this series of papers on the nineteenth century may be said to begin. South Africa was then only a field for missionary labors, or the watering station for great merchantmen upon their way to India ; West Africa, East Africa, and Central Africa were known only to the Portuguese and slave traders. The Africa that borders on the Mediterranean had severed its connection with Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire, and had sunk into that state of semi-barbarism which com- bines the vices of civilization with those of savagery. In 1895, Africa (a country of eleven million, nine hun- dred thousand square miles) is almost entirely under the so- called " protection " of various states of Europe, or belongs 9 lO EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. to their "spheres of influence." Only two and a half mill- ions of miles are as yet unappropriated. For weal or for woe, Africa is now part of the European international system ; the balance of power (the political police plan of Europe) influences its destinies from the Cape to the Mediterranean. " France since 1876 has increased her African lands eight-fold, Great Britain seven-fold ; Congo Free State, of a million of square miles, is a perfectly new creation ; both Germany and Italy have for the first time in their history taken up serious African respon- sibilities, and even Russia, not content with owning half-uninhab- ited Asia, has made some attempts to gain a foothold in Abyssinia. . . . True that at this date there are in most of the regions thus covered by proclamations only a few scattered outposts of European occupation ; still, for better or worse, these African regions, desert, littoral, or riverine, belong to Europe. . . . The map maker will be duly followed by the surveyor and engi- neer, and the minor details of France, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Great Britain, and Belgium in Africa will be worked out accord- ing to scale. At present the paths of explorers are simply thin lines, along which a little general knowledge of the countries and of the natives has been gained, and are mere flying survey-routes preparatory in every sense to the history-making epochs of the Continent, and its development in the succeeding century." Darkness gathered over Egypt after the fall of the Roman Empire, and it settled down on Northern Africa in the fif- teenth century about the same time that wondering Europe turned its eyes upon the Western World. But in the days of early Christianity, and subsequently in those of the Arabian philosophers and mathematicians of the Middle Ages, the in- fluence of lands in Africa that we now despise exceeds our estimation. To Greece, Africa had given arts, letters, and a taste for household luxury ; and through Greece, as the in- tellectual mistress of Rome, had extended her influence over the whole civilized world. While what Christianity owes to Alexandria both before and after the Christian era, and to the North African churches westward on the shores of the Mediterranean, we are only now learning to appreciate. In the division of the Roman Empire into East and West, Egypt was assigned to the Byzantine emperors, under MEHEMET ALL II whose weak administration it soon fell into decay. In 640, eight years after the death of Mohammed, his followers over- ran the country. Under the Abbasides (those caliphs to whose line both Haroun Alraschid and Saladin belonged) Egypt recovered a little of its prosperity ; its native popula- tion, however, whether fellah or Christian, was completely under the heel of the Arab and Saracen conquerors. One of the sultans of Egypt, at the close of the twelfth century, purchased from Genghis Khan, a conqueror who had over- run all Central Asia, twelve thousand youths, whom he ed- ucated as soldiers. These boys were, for the most part, Turks, Mingrehans, or Circassians. The plan of educating slaves for soldiers was subsequently adopted by the Turkish leader Othman, when he formed his corps of Janissaries. The captives purchased by Sultan Malek Salah were all forced to become Mohammedans, they were well trained, were stalwart, handsome men, and became a splendid body of cavalry. They were called Mamelukes, from the Arabic word memalik, a slave, but after the death of their first master they began to interfere in the affairs of government. Their power and their insubordination increased. They made no scruple of assassinating the reigning sultan of Egypt, and in 1254 made their own leader Ibegh, sultan in his room. It was a Mameluke sultan who soon after- wards opposed Saint Louis in Egypt ; and the Mamelukes retained their power 263 years. The place of sultan was awarded always to some acknowledged leader, but their sultans were many ; for nearly all of them perished by assassination. The prophet Ezekiel, when Egypt was in the plenitude of her prosperity, foretold that she should be "a base kingdom," and for seven hundred years it has been true of her, as it has been of no other nation, — she has been ruled by slaves. The ranks of the Mamelukes were recruited, not from their own families, — for the Mamelukes had extraordinarily few descendants, — but by boys bought as slaves in Cir- cassia, or made prisoners of war, and educated to be 12 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. soldiers. In 15 17 Sultan Selim I., the conqueror of Syria, elated by his triumphs, resolved to possess himself of Egypt. He attacked the Mamelukes, and laid siege to Cairo. When his conquest was completed, he left in Egypt a Turkish pasha as its governor, but allowed its twenty-four provinces to be still governed by Mameluke Beys.^ The Turks ruled Egypt, nominally, for two hundred and twenty years ; but the power and wealth of the Mamelukes gave them in all things the direction of affairs ; the Turkish pasha simply did their bidding. They continually assassi- nated their leaders, among them a man named Ali Bey, who had ruled Egypt with unlimited power from 1766 to 1773. In the year 1769, a year signahzed by the birth of Napoleon, Wellington, and Castlereagh, a man little their inferior in talent or in statesmanship was born at Cavalla, a tbwn in Albania, the ancient Macedonia. His name was Mehemet Ali. He was of the Ottoman race, and therefore, although poor, was noble by heredity. Not that the Otto- man is ever of pure Turkish blood, and we know not the race of Mehemet All's mother. His father and a guardian uncle both died when he was in early boyhood ; and the orphan was cared for by the Turkish governor of Cavalla, who brought him up with his ow^n son. The educational attainments of these boys did not, however, extend to the arts of reading and writing, which Mehemet Ali painfully endeavored to acquire when forty- five years old. But education by no means consists in a knowledge of the three Rs. Mehemet profoundly studied men, and the ways by which he might bend them to his will ; he also formed the acquaintance of a French merchant, a native of Mar- seilles, who opened his eyes to the extent and the advan- tages of European civihzation. Mehemet Ali is said never to have forsaken a friend, even when that friend had treated ^The title of Bey is now given to Egyptian colonels, but in the days of the power of the Mamelukes it was bestowed on governors. The Mamelukes considered themselves the aristocracy of Egypt, whether they were chiefs or simply soldiers. ME HE MET ALL MEHEMET ALL . 1 3 him with treachery ; and his gratitude was great to the foreigner who had enlarged his mind's horizon. When he held power and fortune in his hands, he endeavored to shower benefits upon this Frenchman's family. It is a little remarkable that while Mehemet's sympathies and his policy throughout his reign were French, his first step in life was directed to the furtherance of English interests in Egypt, and the destruction of the remnant of the French army deserted by Napoleon. Selim III., the Turkish sultan who had looked on with indifference when the French invaded Egypt, and attempted the destruction of the Mamelukes, was at last, by English influence, stirred into action. He raised an army to assist the English to drive out the French. The Albanian con- tingent, three thousand strong, was commanded by the son of the governor of Cavalla, who chose his old comrade Mehe- met (then deahng in tobacco) as his second in command. After a brief experience of the hardships of war in Egypt the young general returned home to Cavalla, and Mehemet Ali took command of the contingent. General Bonaparte when he quitted his Egyptian army (composed largely of the troops who had fought under him in his first campaign in Italy) left the brave Alsatian Gen- eral Kl^ber in command. Kl^ber was assassinated shortly after by a Mohammedan fanatic, and General Abdullah Menou, who succeeded him, proved utterly incompetent. The discouragement of the troops under his command had been increased when a large force of English landed at Aboukir, reinforced by a considerable body of Turkish troops, of which the Albanian contingent formed part. The whole of the French army and its generals surrendered to the English and Turks, during the summer of 1801, shortly before a general peace was signed at Amiens. . It then remained for the Mamelukes to get rid of the Turks and English. This they did by inducing the former to join them, and attacking the English in Alexandria, when a large body of British troops was forced to surrender, and 14 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. four hundred severed heads of EngHsh soldiers are said to have dangled from the city walls. Egypt was then left at the mercy of its own factions. Four years of anarchy succeeded the expulsion of the French, during which the country was overrun by Mamelukes, Circassians, Albanians, Bedouins, Delhis (the Bashi-bazouks of the period), and Mograbins, all armed, all bent on plundering the native population. It would be little interesting to enter into an account of the ups and downs of fortune among these various armed bands of mutineers and robbers. In 1805 the Porte, forced to side with one party or one chief, took the side of its own Albanian troops, and made Mehemet Ali, their commander, its Egyptia^i viceroy, exacting, however, as the price of this distinction, that he should make an expedition against the Wahabees in Arabia. The Wahabees were a sect of reforming Mohammedans, followers of Abd el Wahab, which means Servant of the Bountiful. The Arabs have always held the Ottoman Turks to be lax and corrupt Mohammedans. Abd el Wahab, born in the heart of the Negid, in 1691, thought that the religion taught by the Prophet had degenerated into mere idolatry, with its invocations of saints, and pilgrimages to shrines. He objected also to the use of tobacco, hashish, and intoxicating drinks, especially tobacco ; also to the wearing of silk and gold. He was, in short, a protesting Mussulman, and he hated Turks as cordially as anti-Papists in Queen Elizabeth's time hated the Spaniards. He died in 1 787, and was succeeded by his son, the Sheikh Mohammed, who, without taking the title of Mahdi, claimed a divine mis- sion. He taught, as the Prophet Mohammed had taught, the existence of one God, the maker of heaven and earth, the rewarder of the good, the punisher of the evil ; but he, rejected the legends contained in the Koran, especially those concerning the Prophet, whom he considered only as a man beloved of God. This protestantism he forced upon ortho- dox Mohammedans, by the same means that the Prophet MEHEME T ALT. 1 5 had employed to force his doctrines on idolaters ; " conver- sion or death " being the sole alternatives. The Wahabees soon became dominant in Southern Arabia. It is said that their military leader, Abdul Aziz, could bring into the field one hundred and twenty thousand armed men. Their soldiers were all cavalry. They spread from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, reached several parts of Asiatic Tur- key, and plundered and defiled the shrine of Hussein, the martyred son of Ali, the most highly venerated saint among the Persians, before any measures were taken by the Porte to put a stop to their devastations and conversions. In 1 80 1 an expedition was sent against them from Bagdad, but their success in opposing it emboldened them to attack Mecca, where they put the Sherif Ghalib to flight, and seized upon the holy city. They destroyed many of its religious monuments, and carried off immense treasures. Emboldened by such success, they attacked caravans of pil- grims, got possession of the Mahmel, a splendid chest in which the Sultan sent yearly offerings to the shrines of the Prophet, gained possession of Medina, and dictated terms to the Porte, on which alone they would permit pilgrims to visit the holy places. By this time Abdul Aziz had been murdered by a Persian, and his son Saood II. was the Wahabite leader. He governed like one of the early caliphs, keeping up war on all sides with all who would not submit to him ; but es- pecially he fought the Turks. He had a negro general named Hark, who carried his arms across the Euphrates, and threatened Damascus. At this point England inter- fered, for Wahabee pirates had begun to interrupt her trade with India by infesting the Persian Gulf, and' in 1809 a considerable force was sent from Bombay to protect the imaun of Muscat. Pressure was then brought by the English to bear upon the Sultan, and its result was the stipulation made with the new Pasha of Egypt, that he should undertake the punishment and extirpation of the Wahabees. 1 6 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. Mehemet Ali, however, dared not undertake an expedition beyond the bounds of his own Pashalic, leaving such a force as the Mamelukes behind. He summoned all their Beys to the citadel at Cairo, to witness the investiture of his son, Toussein Bey, with the command of the forces to be led into Arabia. Four hundred and seventy Mamelukes obeyed his summons. As they were leaving his presence, where they had been graciously received, and, mounted and armed, were passing through a narrow passage to an outer court, fire was opened on them with cannon. Every man was killed but one. He leaped his horse over the parapet, and when his body was searched for shortly after, the mangled carcass of his horse was found, but no trace of the man who had owned him. Here is Mehemet All's own account of the matter, when he frequently in conversations with Lesseps alluded to the massacre. "He said he saw nothing of what took place, but was so near that sounds from the court reached him. He laughed at Horace Vernet's picture, in which he is represented as tranquilly looking on. ' So far from being tranquil,' he said, ' I was in the utmost anxiety ; I was not sure of my troops ; the Mamelukes had many friends among them, and if they could have forced the gates of the enclosure, or if Emin Bey, who blindfolded his horse with his turban, and forced it to leap the parapet, had been followed, I might have been lost. I had horses at the postern of the citadel ready to fly for my life in case of failure.' In fact," said M. de Lesseps, " he contracted on that day a little nervous cough which he never lost." Mehemet Ali is also reported to have said, what is un- questionably the truth : " Had I not destroyed them, they would have destroyed me." More than one of the Europeans who had served under Mehemet Ali said, long after his death, to Mr. Senior : " Mehemet Ali employed cruelty, but only as a means to an end. He was naturally kind-hearted, and the object of his reign was to make Egypt great and powerful." A few days after the massacre, an old woman, closely MEHEMET ALL 1/ veiled, '']^«;;^nted herself before him. She said she came to ask his clemency for Emin Bey. The Pasha assured her that so brave a man might count on his protection, when, throwing back her veil, she disclosed the features of Emin Bey himself. A general massacre of Mamelukes took place, however, throughout Egypt. Some escaped to the north and joined the Wahabees • some escaped south, and found refuge in the Soudan. Toussein Pasha was despatched to Arabia ; but his success was not as great as his father had anticipated. The Arabs defeated him in 1812. But Medina and Mecca fell into his hands in consequence of the treachery of Ghalib, the Sherif of Mecca. The keys of the holy cities were then solemnly delivered to the Sultan at Constantinople, and re- ceived with great rejoicing. In 1813 Mehemet Ali himself came to Arabia and remained eighteen months in Medina. The Wahabees, how- ever, were by no means subdued. Toussein again fought them after the departure of his father, and concluded a treaty of peace with them, which was disavowed by the Sultan. Toussein soon after died of the plague, and his father was almost heart-broken under the bereavement. He sent another son, however, who was subsequently well known through all the world as Ibrahim Pasha, to complete the subjugation of the heretic Wahabees. These were already distracted by disputes among their leader^^nd at last sub- mitted to the nominal sovereignty of ^ Sultan. They occupy a broad belt of land running from me Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, and from time to time, when we read of troubles in Yemen, the meaning of the telegram is that there is an outbreak among the remnant of the Wahabees. After 1818 Mehemet Ali, finding himself securely in pos- session of his Pashalic, set himself to improve and civilize his people. He had in all seventy-two children, but only ten lived to grow up, and he was deeply attached to them. The mortality in harems among the children of slave mothers, who are c 1 8 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. always confided to the care (?) of the legitimate wives, is appalling. His sons were Ismail, Ibrahim, Toussein, Said, Hussein, Abdallah, HaUm, and Mehemet Ali. Of three of these — Hussein, Abdallah, and Mehemet Ali — history knows noth- ing. Ismail was barbarously assassinated in the Soudan. Ibrahim proved himself one of the great men of the nine- teenth century, succeeded his father, and reigned little more than two months. " If Ibrahim Pasha had hved," said those Europeans and Europeanly educated Egyptians who talked to Mr. Senior in 1855, about the troubles in Egypt, " the coun- try would have been very different from what it is now." Ibrahim, by the Turkish law of succession, was succeeded by his nephew. Abbas Pasha, the son of Toussein. Abbas was followed by his uncle Said ; Said, by the first Khedive, Ismail, the son of Ibrahim Pasha ; and, the law of succession having been changed, his successor was his son Tewfik, and Tewfik's son. Abbas II., is the present Khedive. The sons of Mehemet, and most of his grandsons, were sent to Europe for their education. They returned, speak- ing French like Frenchmen, with advanced ideas as to the material improvement of their country, and as to religion less Mohammedans \hdx\. philosophes. Mehemet All's rule in Egypt was that of a stern, hard man. He was determined to be obeyed. Notwithstanding severe exaction^^ forced labor on his public works, his sway was favo^le'to the fellaheen. He might oppress them, himself, btRhe protected them from the more galling exactions of their own sheikhs and the tax-gatherers. The great object of his reign, as I have said, was to make Egypt rich and powerful, though he often mistook the means, as better instructed sovereigns have frequently done. " He adopted," said one of his own officers, " the measures (often erroneous) which he sincerely thought the best, without scru- ple, without pity, without remorse, but he was not selfish." And Lesseps, who knew him well, and whose father for many years had been French Consul General in Egypt, thus described him : — MEHEMET ALL ■ 1 9 "Mehemet All's establishments were too great, not for the objects at which he aimed, but for the strengtli of the nation. He was a man of genius and of strong, unrelenting will. He proposed to himself to raise Egypt into a great country. For this purpose he stimulated his people to efforts that were ex- hausting, but they produced their eiitect. He made the country secure within, and formidable without. He gave to it improved agriculture and industry. He educated his sons and his grand- sons to follow his footsteps. When I returned last year [1854] to Egypt after seventeen years' absence, I was astonished at its progress. Egypt had passed from barbarism to civilization. . . . As a man of creative and administrative genius, I put Mehemet Ali very high ; indeed, I am not sure that I do not put him higher than Napoleon himself, if we take into account their com- parative advantages. Napoleon belonged to the most highly civilized nation on the Continent, and received the best educa- tion that nation could give. The storms of the Revolution had thrown to the surface the men most eminent for talents and for knowledge, and thus gave him the best assistants. He organ- ized France, improved its laws, restored its finances, and created the centralized system of administration, which, partly for good, and partly for evil, still subsists. But he had excellent materials, the civilization of ten centuries to work on, and excellent instru- ments to work Ti/ii/i. Mehemet Ali had to create everything. He had almost to create himself." Such is the judgment of one great man upon another. It may be interesting to see the parallel drawn by Renan between Mehemet Ali and King Herod. " Herod was a splendid Arab, intelhgent, skilful, brave, strong of body, inured to fatigue, and much given to women. Mehemet AU in our own day gives us perfectly his measure and his limit. Capable of everything, even of baseness, when the thing in hand was to reach an object he had at heart (in Herod's case always some object of his own ambi- tion) . He had a true sentiment of greatness, but he was completely out of tune with the country he was to govern. . . . Herod saw the world as it is, and being of a coarse nature, he loved it. Rehgion, philosophy, patriotism, had no meaning for him; he was in short a fine animal — a lion, whom one admires for his massive throat and his thick mane, without expecting any moral sense from him." 20 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. This is a fine passage, but it is not just to Mehemet Ali, who was morally far in advance of King Herod, as Renan depicts that monarch in his History of the People of Israel. Mehemet Ali disciplined his army. He surrounded himself with Christians. He sent many hundreds of young men to be brought up in Europe. He executed public works of inestimable value to his adopted country. He established schools in all the towns and villages, and insti- tutions for the higher education of officers, although knowl- edge was so unpopular among his subjects that instances were known of mothers blinding their children to save them from being forced to receive instruction. Mehemet had, however, no interest in what we now call Egyptology. The monuments of Egypt's past greatness were nothing to him. A story has ibeen circulated which ascribes to his grandson. Abbas Pasha, a design for utiliz- ing the Great Pyramid, but we have the authority of M. de Lesseps for saying that the real Vandal was Mehemet Ali himself. The great scheme of the Barrage, which was started in Mehemet' s time, and remains to be completed in our own day, nearly cost us the Great Pyramid. "Mehemet Ali sent for me one day," says Lesseps, "and said, 'This Barrage threatens to be expensive. I think we can diminish the cost by using the Pyramid for our quarry. Ascertain for me what would be the expense of transporting the stones of the Great Pyramid from Gizeh to the point of the Delta.' 'Oh! ' said I to myself, 'this is the scheme of somebody who is to be entrusted with the affair, and intends to sell half the stones.' I made a very conscientious report on the expense of removing the Pyramid, and also on that of quarrying the stones in Toora, the finest quarries in the world. Happily it turned out that the latter experiment was by far the less expensive. But if I had not been there, or if he had gone to work without consulting me, which, however, would not have been easy, the Pyramid would have been pulled down. The people who proposed it MEHEME T ALT. 2 1 cared nothing for expense; it was for them merely an expe- dient for plunder." "Did Mehemet Ali learn from contact with Europeans any respect for the monuments of Egypt?" asked Mr. Senior, to whom Lesseps was relating this story. " Not in the least," was the answer. "He remained till his death, in this respect, a mere rude Turk. No man destroyed more of them. He pulled down the temples of Abydos, of Arsinoe, and many others, to build his manufactories. At last we persuaded him that this would render him unpopular in Europe, and he ordered the practice to be discontinued. But, as he cared nothing for art or for antiquity, he did not look to the execution of his orders; he did not punish the breach of them, and the destruction went on during all his reign. Abbas Pasha was as igno- rant and careless. It was not until Said Pasha's accession that it was stopped." Meantime in the East a great crisis was approaching. Mehemet Ali, always interested in the affairs of Europe, and keenly alive to the signs of the times, watched his opportunity for acquiring Syria. His ambition seems to have been to found a great empire, which, like that of the Seleucidse, three centuries before Christ, should comprise Asia Minor and Syria, Egypt and Arabia, and stretch from the Levant to the Euphrates, from the equator to the shores of the Dardanelles. But great ambitions in the nineteenth century have not free scope as they had in the days of Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, or Tamer- lane. They are curbed by the international policy of Europe, whose keynote is the preservation of the balance of power. The Sultan was under the protection of Eng- land, and his empire was not to be weakened, lest Con- stantinople should become the prey of Russia, and that great rival, whose naval power England has long learned to dread, should acquire a free entrance to the Mediterra- nean Sea. The mutual jealousy of France and England has led to 22 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. innumerable troubles and complications in the East, and to much of the misgovernment and misery still prevailing in lands whose coasts are washed by the Mediterranean. But for this we might have had no Armenian question to puzzle diplomatists, and rouse the sympathies of Christendom, but a tolerant and progressive government in the East, willing to go hand in hand with the nations of \Vestern Europe in paths of progress and civilization; a government favorable to communication with India, both by sea and land. It is not probable that Mehemet Ali wished to become himself the Sultan at Constantinople. The Padishah, by right of birth, is Caliph; that is, the temporal head of the Mohammedan faith, endowed with a sort of sanctity by virtue of his office. To all this Mehemet Ali could have advanced no claim. During the revolution in Greece, the Pasha of Cairo, as he was then called (for pashas, like bishops, take their titles from the chief cities in their jurisdiction — not from the surrounding territory), sent large bodies of Egyptian troops, well disciplined and well equipped, to aid the Sultan. They were under the command of his brave son, Ibrahim Pasha, and great was the devastation they committed in the Morea. His fleet was less successful than his land forces; it was worsted in several engagements with the Greeks, and was finally destroyed in 1827 by the allied fleets at Navarino. When the war ended, English ships transported Ibrahim Pasha and his army home. In the recently discovered correspondence between the sovereigns of Egypt and Syria, far back in the early days of Hittite, Assyrian, and Egyptian civilization, we find frequent complaints from the Pharaohs that large bands of their peasants had escaped into Syria. The same thing happened four thousand years or so later, when some thou- sands of the fellaheen, "disgusted with the endless and systematic exactions of the Egyptian government, crossed the deserts which separate Africa from Asia, and sought refuge in the territory of the Pasha of Acre." This was in IBRAHIM PASHA. ME HEME T ALL 23 1 83 1, when Europe was too much interested in its own revolutions to pay much attention to the affairs of the East. Mehemet Ali, who, indeed, needed his people to com- plete by forced labor the great works he was carrying on in Egypt (works, it must be confessed, all calculated to improve the country, and multiply its resources), demanded his subjects back again. The Pasha of Acre declined to deport them. Whereupon Mehemet fitted out a large force against him, commanded by Ibrahim Pasha. There are no good harbors except Acre, on the coast of Palestine. Herod had attempted to create one at Caesarea, but time has long since destroyed his works, and Acre continues to be the key of Syria. The sea must always be the base of land operations in that country, because it alone can fur- nish the contending parties with supplies. Napoleon said that had he taken Acre he would have changed the face of the world. Ibrahim Pasha — by nature a great general, and by close study well acquainted with the art of war — began in January, 1832, the siege of Acre, supported by a fleet which supplied him with ammunition and stores. The Porte, roused at length to the dangers of the situa- tion, sent three armies against Ibrahim, who raised the siege of Acre, and, marching against the Turkish troops, defeated one force after the other. He then resumed operations against Acre, and took it at the close of May, 1832. He next fought a brilliant battle with the Turks, in which twenty-five thousand Egyptians encountered thirty- five thousand of the enemy, and by superior generalship and discipline gained a complete victory. He then took Aleppo, and there for a few weeks rested his weary soldiers. It is needless to mention in detail his continuous suc- cesses. In a few months the whole seaboard of Syria, from Egypt to the Taurus, with the Pashalics of Acre, Tripoli, and Aleppo, had fallen into his hands. Then Sultan Mahmoud, who was at that time steeped in de- bauchery and drunkenness, was roused to make a desperate 24 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. effort to avert the dismemberment of his empire. He placed a fresh army of well-disciplined troops under the Grand Vizier Reschid Pasha. On December 22, 1832, was fought the decisive battle of Konieh. Ibrahim, after his victory, was asked : " How far do you propose to ad- vance? " "As far as I am understood in Arabic," was his answer. Had Ibrahim followed up his victory, he could easily have taken Constantinople. Sultan Mahmoud's reforms, and his massacre of the Janissaries in 1826, had made him very unpopular among his subjects, and supported by the Egyptian troops, revolt might have been general. The Sultan sent earnest supplications to France and England to support him against his vassal; but France was then occu- pied by the task of putting her internal affairs in order after the Revolution of 1830, and in regulating those of the new kingdom of Belgium, and England was in the throes that preceded and followed the passage of the Reform Bill. Both declined to interfere between the Porte and the Pasha. Then Russia was appealed to. She had evi- dently expected this, and had everything in a state of preparation — an army on the Pruth, and a fleet all ready at Sebastopol. But swift as had been Russia's response to the Sultan's cry for assistance, the crisis had passed before the Russian troops arrived. The French government had intervened, and proposals of accommodation had been made to Ibrahim, which led to a cessation of hostilities. These terms were the cession to the Egyptian prince of the Pashalics in Syria and the district of Adana, and Egypt in perpetuity to Mehemet AH. But Mehemet Ali passionately refused to ratify this treaty. Syria and Egypt in perpetuity were not enough. He wanted Asia Minor; and, indeed, the inhabi- tants of Asia Minor, impressed by the administrative abili- ties of Ibrahim Pasha, were anxious to be placed under his government. Mehemet Ali, however, at last finding that if Ibrahim MEHEMET ALL 25 pushed his conquests further, he was likely to be con- fronted by the whole power of Russia, declared himself willing to accept the almost independent governments of Egypt and Syria, with the Pashalics of Jerusalem, Tripoli, Aleppo, and Damascus, and the government of Aden, which included the charge of the holy cities. Amnesty was also stipulated for all subjects of the Porte in Anatolia, who had taken part in the rebellion, and in the words of the Sultan's firman, these great concessions were declared to be granted " in consideration of the assurances of fidelity and devotion given to me by the Governor of Egpyt, and his son Ibrahim Pasha." This firman was dated May 6, 1833, after which Ibrahim took quiet possession of his government of Syria. To get rid of the Russians, of whom a large force was encamped on a mountain on the Asiatic shore, within sight of Constantinople, was a less easy task than to pacify Ibrahim. It was accomplished, however, by the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, by which Russia gained all, and more than all, that she could have acquired by a successful war. It was a secret treaty, and contained a super- secret clause. The less secret portions of the treaty soon became known to diplomatists. They provided that for eight years a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, should exist between Russia and Turkey, either party to assist the other with fleet and army in case of need. But the secret clause of the treaty, which was not discovered by the cabinets of Europe for some time, was as follows : — "To prevent any embarrassment that might arise to the Porte from furnishing material assistance to Russia in case of attack, the Ottoman Porte shall be bound, in virtue of its obligations toward Russia, to close the Straits of the Dardanelles — that is to say, not to permit any ship of war of any foreign power to enter those Straits, under any pre- text whatever. This separate and secret article shall have the same force as if it had been inserted word for word in the public and patent treaty." 26 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. This meant that in case of war, or any threatening of war, between Russia and any other power, the Gate of the Dardanelles was closed to Russia's enemies, but might be opened to her own warships as the ally of the Sultan. The Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi has been considered by historians the prologue to the Crimean War. Peace lasted but a short time in the Levantine countries, only long enough to give evidence of the superiority of Ibrahim Pasha's adminstration to that of the pashas ordi- narily despatched to those countries from Constantinople. In those days France and Russia were bitterly hostile to each other. The Emperor Nicholas had many reasons for hating Louis Philippe and his family. France posed in Europe as head of the Revolutionary party; Russia, as the bulwark of Legitimacy. Besides this, all through the present century Egypt has been a bone of contention between England and France. At this hour England has the bone, but France will never cease to worry her. The jealousy of these rival powers acts as a brake on all meas- ures of improvement and of progress. British doggedness may carry them into effect, but it is always under diffi- culties and disadvantages. The importance of influence in Egypt to Great Britain is immense. It secures the highway to India. The inter- est of France in Egypt is sentimental, rather than material. Her Oriental possessions are of small account, and her pos- session of Algeria and Tunis, besides the ports on her own coast, gives her all the advantages in the Mediterranean that she can reasonably desire. The sentimental side of a political question has, however, always appealed to the heart of the French people. Egypt was a land brought into prominence after six hundred years of oblivion, by its conquest by Napoleon, ostensibly undertaken as an offset to the loss of French colonies in the West Indies, conquered by Great Britain. In the end, the glory of the English arms eclipsed that of the French. Acre, de- fended by Sir Sidney Smith, turned back Napoleon; the MEHEMET ALT. 27 French fleet was annihilated by Nelson at the mouths of the Nile, and Menou's remnant of the French forces, having surrendered to the English, were brought back in English ships to the French shores. Frenchmen burned to turn the tables on their rival, but up to 1839 no opportunity seemed to arise. In that year the smouldering enmity between the Padishah and Mehemet Ali broke again into flame, and France and England took part in the quarrel, — France, under the leadership of M. Thiers, as the adviser and ally of Mehemet Ali; England under that of Lord Palmerston, as the friend of the Turks. In vain the allied powers declared their intention of taking part against whichever side should begin hostilities. Sultan Mahmoud, strong in his treaty of alliance with Russia, which, in case of war, would put her forces and her fleets at his disposal, hurried his armies into the field. "He publicly declared that he preferred any event to the present uncertain state of things; that he could no longer tolerate the insolence of his rebellious vassal, who, trampling under foot the principles of Islamism, had not scrupled to expel by force the guards placed by his sovereign round the tomb of the Prophet; who had refused of his own authority the passage of Suez to Great Britain, a power in alliance with the Porte; had done everything he could to prevent the English getting posses- sion of Aden; and had excited rebellion in the provinces of Bassorah and Bagdad, which formed part of the Turkish Empire." A great battle took place near the Euphrates. The Turkish army far outnumbered that of Ibrahim; neverthe- less it was defeated. Many of the Turkish soldiers had not forgotten or forgiven the massacre of the Janissaries, and some officers had taken bribes from the agents of Ibra- him Pasha. In the height of the combat many battalions went over to the enemy. Ibrahim's victory was decisive; amongst other spoils that fell into his hands was the Turkish commander-in- 28 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. chief's insignia of command, set in diamonds, and recently sent him by the Sultan. Sultan Mahmoud never heard of this defeat. Worn out by rage, disappointment, and excesses, he died before the news reached him, and was succeeded by his son, Sultan Abdul Med j id. On learning this the whole Ottoman fleet went over to Mehemet Ali. Thus all the successes of the war were on the side of Egypt, — and it seemed unjust and unbearable to Mehemet Ali that the Allied European Powers should insist that he, the conqueror, should give back to the Sultan advantages wrested from the Porte six years before. The Sultan's ultimatum was that he would give to the Pasha, and his descendants in the direct order of succession, the administration of the whole of Egypt, and, for his lifetime, the government of the southern part of Syria with the Pashalic of Acre. The acceptance of these terms was to take place within ten days, and the Turkish fleet to be delivered to the Sultan. Mehemet Ali nearly died of fury when these terms were made known to him, and swore that rather than accept them he would overturn his empire, and bury himself in its ruins. Great Britain supported the views of the Porte, and proceeded to reduce the Sultan's rebellious vassal to sub- mission. Ibrahim Pasha was driven from the seaboard of Syria ; Alexandria was bombarded, burned, and evacu- ated by the Egyptians. Admiral Sir Charles Napier, a dashing fighter and an experienced seaman, bombarded and took the Fort of Saint Jean D'Acre, with only two small steamers. When this news was received in France a uni- versal cry for war with England arose. But Louis Philippe and his cabinet, in which M. Thiers had been succeeded by M. Guizot, were men of peace. War with England might have shaken the king's throne, and overthrown his dynasty ; in any event it could not but be costly. The war cloud blew over. Mehemet Ali was sacrificed to the entente cordiale between France and England. The French MEHEMET ALL 29 fleet was withdrawn from the Levant, and Louis PhiHppe and his cabinet set themselves to the hard task of cahning the excitement of the Parisians.^ The total defeat of the Egyptians, both by land and sea, had rendered peace imperative, and the French cabinet, now in accord with Turkey and Great Britain, drew up fresh proposals. I. That the Straits of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles should be closed to all ships of war without distinction. IL That the Pashalic of Egypt in hereditary right should be secured to Mehemet Ali and his descendants. III. That guarantees should be given for the good treat- ment of Christians in Syria. Besides this the Turkish fleet was to be delivered to the Sultan, one-fourth of the revenues of Egypt were to be paid him in lieu of tribute, and Ibrahim Pasha was to evacuate Syria. Mehemet AH, now convinced that no further hope of success remained to him, agreed to these terms proposed by the Sultan, and now backed by the Allied Powers. Tearing his hair and his wliite beard as he signed the terms of accommodation, he sent orders for the evacu- ation of Syria and Crete, and restored the Turkish fleet to the new Sultan. Thus ended the great dispute which left Mehemet Ali despoiled of Syria, but hereditary sovereign of Egypt. Thereafter his connection with European pohtics was ended, and he had only to devote himself to the internal improvements of Egypt which he had so much at heart. These improvements were so numerous that it is hard to particularize them. He became the great trader of Egypt ; all its commerce ^WeAvere in Paris during this excitement. We had turned back from the frontier of Italy that my father might be on hand to offer his services to the Admiralty in case of hostilities. Day after day we lived with our trunks packed for swift departure for England; our plans contingent on the conflicting opinions of the press and each day's leading articles. E.W.L. 30 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. passed through his hands. Besides fleets and armies, he created telegraphs (on the old semaphore system), and Congreve rockets were prepared, agriculture was extended, breeds of sheep and horses were improved, the great Mah- moudieh Canal was dug, "connecting Cairo with Alexandria ; olive and mulberry trees were planted, sugar refineries and manufactories of gunpowder were established, vaccination and laws of quarantine were introduced, and schools of all grades were founded. Here let me introduce a picture of the old man who thenceforth was styled the Viceroy of Egypt, as he appeared to an English traveller four years after the bitter disappoint- ment he must have sustained when he suffered checkmate in the game of his ambition : — "Mehemet All is, after all, the true wonder of Egypt. A Turk without a single prejudice of the Turk, — an Oriental eager for the adoption of all the knowledge, the arts, and the comforts of Europe, — a Mohammedan allowing perfect religious toleration, — and a despot moderating his despotism by the manliest zeal for the improvement of his country. He affected nothing of the privacy and little of the usual pomp of rajahs and sultans. He was constantly seen driving through Alexandria in a low berlzn with four horses. The berlin was lined with crimson silk, and there, squatting on one of the low broad seats sat the Viceroy. Two of his officers generally sat opposite to him, and by his side his grandson, a handsome child between eight and nine years old, of whom he was remarkably fond. Like that of many other eminent men, his stature is below the middle size. His counte- nance is singularly intelligent, his nose aquiline, and his eye quick and penetrating. He wears his beard long, thick, and in all its whiteness. Years have so little affected him that he is re- garded as a better life than his son Ibrahim — his general, who is confessedly a man of great ability. But his second son Said Pasha, the half-brother of Ibrahim, is regarded as especially in- heriting the talents of his father. He is an accomplished man, speaks English and French fluently, seems to enter into his father's views with great intelligence, and exhibits a manliness and ardor of character which augur well for liis country. But the appearance of the pasha in his berlin is not without attendant state. In front ride attendants caracolling in all directions. Behind the carriage rides his courier mounted on a dromedary, MEHEMET ALL 3 1 ready to stai't with despatches. He is followed by the pipe- bearer, the pipe-bearer is followed by a man mounted on a mule, and carrying a light for the pipe of the pasha. The cavalcade is closed by a troop of ofificers mounted on strong horses." Mehemet Ali died in 1849. For eighteen months before his death his mind had failed, and his son Ibrahim Pasha governed in his stead. Mehemet made a journey to Naples in order to meet there a French physician who was highly esteemed for his treatment of the insane, but he returned home not benefited by the consultation. Some persons beheved that his illness had been caused by a potion admin- istered to him in his harem by one of his daughters, who conceived it to be an ehxir of youth. This story, however, is hardly probable. Mehemet Ali always prophesied that he should survive his son Ibrahim. Ibrahim always believed that he would govern Egypt ; both prophesies were fulfilled. When Mehemet, in 1848, became hopelessly insane, Ibrahim, as he was entitled to do, assumed the viceroyalty. " It was in summer ; he exposed himself to the sun, and to cool himself poured a couple of bottles of iced cham- pagne into a goblet, and drank it off. This produced an attack of pleurisy. He recovered, however, sufficiently to go to Constantinople to receive his investiture from the Sultan ; but the journey produced a fresh attack, spitting of blood followed, and he died soon after his return to Egypt after a reign of about sixty-two days." Ibrahim was succeeded, according to Mohammedan law, by his nephew Abbas Pasha,, son of his brother Toussoun, a man well calculated to suffer all the great works of his grandfather to fall into ruin. He was coarse minded, cruel, debauched, and ignorant. He had indeed a taste for economy, but his economy in the majority of instances was misapplied. Wanting money for his pleasures, he cut down Mehemet All's establishments ignorantly and rashly. He built a great number of palaces, for his economy did not consist in the contraction of his personal expenses. As he lived in constant fear of assassination, these palaces were 32 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. contrived with many dark corridors, behind whose thin walls men could be stationed to spring out on any suspicious person. He was almost inaccessible to Europeans, for whom he entertained a great dislike, and he knew no language in which he could converse with them. His early years had been passed in the harem, and he seems to have been almost the only male member of Mehemet Ali's family who had never been abroad. The French he particularly dis- liked, he was somewhat more tolerant of the English. Mr. Senior asked a gentleman who had been long in Egypt what were the worst parts of Abbas Pasha's administration, and received this answer : — " Nothing could be worst where everything was as bad as it could be. He was cruel, he was extortionate, he was igno- rant ; he hated knowledge, he hated improvements, he hated civilization ; he hated every one whom he suspected to be the friend of any of these things. He was the exaggeration of all that is detestable in the Turkish barbarian." Abbas left many debts behind him at his death, debts that were paid off by his uncle and successor, Said Pasha. He paid nobody, it is said, whom he could avoid paying ; he hoarded to make fortunes for his family. Dismal stories were told of the cruelties of Abbas in his harem. It is a well-authenticated fact that he sewed up with his own hands the mouth of a slave girl, whom, contrary to his orders, he found smoking within the harem precincts, and left her to die of hunger. He died very suddenly, July 1 2, 1854, in one of his smaller palaces, and his death was concealed for several days. Some thought he perished by order of the Sultan, but the account generally accepted is that given by Mougil Bey, a distinguished French engineer in the Egyptian service, to Mr. Senior : — "Although the surgeons who examined the body certified that he died of apoplexy, — and that is the statement published by the government, — I know that he was murdered. The very sur- geons who signed that certificate admitted to me that it was MEHEME T ALL 3 3 false, and that the body bore unquestionable marks of violence. His own cousin Ahmed Pasha told me that his own servants saw the marks. He himself did not wish to be mixed up in the affair, and would not look at them. It seems that Abbas, some months before his death, had severely bastinadoed two youths belonging to his guard ; that they were on duty on the 12th of July, 1854, and that for some fault he had threatened them with a repetition, which would probably have killed them. They formed their plan as they were at watch over him at his palace at Benha at night. They attempted to suffocate him in his sleep with a pil- low ; but he struggled and threw it off. Then they strangled him. They took the money he had near him and his signet ring, with which they signed an order directing them to proceed to Cairo, and they obtained horses by means of it. One of them fled to Suez, and has not since been heard of; the other rode to Cairo, gave his horse to be held at the gate, walked on and offered a Frenchman three thousand francs if he would conceal him. It was refused, and he took refuge in an Arab house, to which he was traced. The Pasha's horse left at the gate connected him with the murder. He is still in the citadel of Cairo, but unpun- ished. He cannot be publicly accused of murdering a man who, according to the official statement, died of apoplexy. Abbas' family thought it might be possible to place II Hami Pasha, his son, a youth of about nineteen, on the throne, and for that pur- pose concealed the death for a couple of days. II Hami Pasha had gone to Alexandria on his way to make a tour in Europe. An attempt was made to stop him by a telegraphic despatch, but he had already left the port in the Viceroy's swift steam frigate. A vessel was sent after her, but in vain. Then the death was declared, and Said Pasha, the heir, was sent for. If II Hami had been on the spot, I think he might have succeeded, but recollec- tions of his father would not have assisted him. The name of Abbas Pasha was hateful to all, except a portion of the military men, whose favor he had bought by unworthy means." This story came from most credible authority and is cor- roborated by other authorities equally worthy of belief ; yet it is almost impossible in an Oriental country to get at the truth of any event that passes in the seclusion of the harem. There were five different versions of the manner of Abbas Pasha's death current in Cairo. I. That he died of apoplexy. II. That he was suffocated with a wet cloth. 34 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. III. That he was strangled with a palm tree cord. IV. That he was stabbed in the heart. V. That he was stifled under the cushions of his divan. But Diamant Bey, a French physician who examined the body immediately after death, positively affirmed that he died of apoplexy. CHAPTER 11. ARABI PASHA. SAID PASHA, a younger son of Mehemet Ali, — the son of his old age, — succeeded his nephew Abbas Pasha, who had been a few months older than himself, and he has been well described by M. de Leon, who resided many years in Egypt as consular agent of the United States. The political position of Egypt during this century has been so undefined, that consular agents perform for their respective nations the duties of ambassadors at Cairo and Alexandria : — " He was a bold, frank, fearless man ; loving good society and good living. He had also a strong sense of humor, spoke French like a Frenchman, and had a ready wit in repartee. He had been carefully educated by an accomplished French tutor, who had looked after his morals as well as his mind and manners. His policy was opposite to that of Abbas, being a 'policy of expansion.' He encouraged and invited immigration, and sur- rounded himself with European employes, a policy which twenty- eight years later helped to bring on the troubles of 1882. In person he was very like the pictures and descriptions of Henry Vni. in his youth, being of fair complexion, with brown beard and light hair. Like Henry, before his death he became un- wieldy and corpulent. He gave beautiful entertainments, but only to men; and his private dinners were exquisite, his French cook (an Arab) being a perfect chef ; while his table service was of solid gold." He had but one acknowledged wife, a Princess of his own house, and he was devotedly fond of his home and family, though of course his ideas and manners in domes- tic life were those of a Mohammedan. 35 36 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. "In 1854 he mounted the throne of Egypt, a gay, hope- ful, ardent man, with vigorous health, boundless power, and almost inexhaustible wealth. He left it, nine years later, for a premature grave, his strength wasted by disease to childish weakness; hope, fortune, friends, all lost; and, with a soul as sick as his body, he welcomed death as a relief from suffering. He was buried, not among others of his line who have stately mausoleums near Cairo, but in the burying ground of a small mosque in the centre of Alex- andria, where his Georgian mother lies buried. As he was human he had sinned and suffered, both as a public and a private man. His ways were not as our ways; his civili- zation was blended with barbarism; but he was a brave, true-hearted man, a staunch friend, a forgiving enemy, a just, humane, and judicious ruler over the country which -Providence had confided to his care." Said was fortunate in his great minister Nubar Pasha, who for twenty years held high office in Egypt under three viceroys. He was an Armenian Christian, like Loris Melikoff, the great reforming minister of Alexander 11. , but his immediate family had settled in Egypt, where his uncle, Boghos Bey, had been one of the ablest councillors of Mehemet AH. Nubar was educated by this uncle for a career of diplomacy. He could speak and write almost all the languages of Europe; and foreign courts and foreign conferences acknowledged him as a man of great weight and authority. He was an Armenian both in appearance and character. He adhered strictly to his Christian creed and its observances, and no man was ever less of an Oriental courtier. Said Pasha, in 1854, the year of his accession, author- ized the commencement of the Suez Canal, which was opened in 1869 under the reign of his successor, when the Empress Eugenie was the Cleopatra of the occasion ; the festivities over which she presided being the last gleam of brightness in her life, — poor lady! M. Ferdinand de Lesseps had been well known in Egypt ARAB I PASHA. 37 before he undertook the gigantic enterprise of the Suez Canal. His father was French consul-general in Egypt under Mehemet Ali, and, indeed, before he rose to power. M. de Lesseps was assisted by two French engineers, Linant and Mougil, who planned and perfected the canal. Its cost, from first to last, is said to have been about nineteen millions of pounds sterling, or ninety-five millions of dollars — far less than has been already wasted on the Canal of Panama. The enterprise also owed much to the temper, tact, and ability of the company's first vice-presi- dent, a man whose acquaintance with canals may be said to have been national. Mynheer Ruyssennairs, consul- general of Holland. It is needless to speak of the marvellous growth of Port Said, with the effect of its dazzling white buildings against the evening sky, as described with enthusiasm by all East- ern-bound travellers; or of Ismailia, where many passengers join P. and O. steamers on the Suez Canal, as they pass to and from India; or of Suez, now "a beautiful little town charmingly situated," which before the days of the canal was scarcely more than a collection of Arab hovels, whose inhabitants were supplied with drinking water brought on the backs of camels from the Sweet Waters Canal. By a document dated in January, 1856, which regulated the relations of the Canal Company with Egypt and Turkey, it is solemnly declared, in the fourteenth article, that the canal " is to be forever open as a neutral way to every commercial vessel proceeding from one sea to the other, without distinction, preference, or exclusion, either of per- sons or nationalities; subject only to the payment of dues." But this privilege covers only vessels of commerce, and in times of war the Porte and the Khedive may exclude war vessels, as in the case of the Russian War of 1877 was done. Said spent immense sums in what we may call "modern improvements," many of which, like those introduced into our kitchens, proved for a long time far in advance 38 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. of the intelligence required to make them serviceable. He introduced steam-pumps, and steam machinery of all kinds for agricultural purposes, "and," as M. de Leon puts it, "kept Father Nile within his bed, out of which he annually, at a given time, aroused him to take a run over the country, instead of allowing him to tumble out himself in primitive fashion." Under his judicious management, and that of his ministers, the revenues of Egypt steadily increased. But in his last illness he is said to have re- gretted that he left his country saddled with a debt of twenty-five million dollars. He felt and expressed much interest in the working population, the fellaheen, that race of hereditary drudges whom all men compassionate, yet whose case seems beyond the reach of amelioration, com- plicated as it is by the terrible vis inerticB of Oriental apathy -and fatalism, — that dumb stupidity, against which, Schil- ler tells us, "even the gods are powerless," — as well as by the corruption and cruelty of subordinate oppressors. Believing that better lodging might ameliorate the con- dition of the laborers upon his own estates, Said Pasha caused the fellah mud huts to be pulled down, and trans- planted his fellah families to convenient buildings in a model village. Eighteen months later, being asked how his model village was getting on, he merely replied : "You will oblige me, the next time you pass on your way to Cairo, to stop and see ! " The interlocutor did so, and found the model houses deserted and rapidly falling into ruins, while outside the village limits were again grouped the old mud huts in all their primitive discomfort and dirt. The experiment had wholly failed. In 1862, at the height of our Civil War, Said Pasha made a journey to Paris to consult a French surgeon. His disease was, however, incurable, and he died in 1863, not long after his return home. The next heir to the viceroyalty, according to Moham- medan law, was Ismail Pasha. He was the second son of the great Ibrahim Pasha; his brother, Prince Achmet, had ARABI PASHA. 39 been a little older than himself. But early in the year 1858 Said Pasha gave a great fete at Alexandria, to which he invited all the princes of his family. Ismail, under the protection of his lucky star, did not go to. this fete, which ended in a tragedy. The special train carrying back to Cairo the princes and their suites fell through an open draw- bridge when passing over the Nile. Prince Halim, younger brother of Said Pasha, was a man of great strength and energy; he saved himself by swimming, but Prince Achmet, a heavy and inert man, was drowned with nearly all his companions, leaving his brother Ismail heir to the vice- regal throne. Ismail the Lucky some named the new sovereign, and he seemed to be fortunate during the first years of his reign, but he might have been rather styled Ismail the Extravagant. He was the first Khedive, a title equivalent to king, or rather lesser king, much like that of rex bestowed by Rome on the sovereigns of provinces sub- ject to her sway; on Herod, for instance, who was King of the Jews. Sometimes, during the days of the early Roman em.perors, a number of these personages would be in Rome at once, on which occasion they laid aside their regal privi- leges, and were heartily despised by the Roman people. The life-long ambition of the Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Aziz, who reigned from 1861 to 1876, was to change the old Mohammedan law of succession, and leave his throne to Prince Izzedin, his son. Russia supported him, but the other Great Powers and the chief Mohammedan author- ity, the Sheickh ul Islam, upheld the rights of his nephew Murad, son of Abdul Medjid, his predecessor. Abdul Aziz hoped, by making a change in the line of Egyptian succession, and issuing a firman authorizing the new Khedive to leave his throne to his own son, instead of the heir by Mohammedan law, to pave the way for a change in the law of succession at Constantinople. There was this difference, however, between the Ottoman and the Egyptian succession. The Sultan is also Caliph, head of the Mohammedan religion; to meddle with the legitimate 40 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. succession to the Caliphate would be sacrilege and im- piety. The opening of the Suez Canal was a time of great glory to Ismail, whose money flowed like water. He built an Aladdin's palace at Ismailia to receive the French Empress, and gave a ball in it to seven thousand persons. But, alas! the revenues of Egypt, though the fellaheen were taxed to the utmost, would not support the drain of the Khedive's extravagance. Like his suzerain Abdul Aziz, he discovered the facility with which he could raise foreign loans. Amongst other things, the favor of the Sul- tan at Constantinople cost him untold sums of money. Whenever Abdul Aziz was "hard up," he ordered the ruler of Egypt to visit him at Constantinople. Ismail could not appear without magnificent presents to the Sultan, the -grand vizier, and the chief persons about the seraglio. To Abdul Aziz he once presented a beautiful ironclad war steamer. By 1875 the public debt of Egypt, which had been twenty-five million dollars twelve years before, when Said died, had risen to four hundred and fifty million dollars, and Ismail grew so embarrassed that he was thankful to sell his shares in the Suez Canal to the English Govern- ment for four million pounds sterling (twenty million dollars). The English were glad to purchase them, for, although at first they had believed with Lord Palmerston that the enterprise of the Canal was a fraud and a delusion, by 1875 they looked upon it as the high road from England to India, and were glad to embrace the prospect of acquiring a con- trolling interest in its affairs. But the four millions of pounds paid for these shares were but a drop in the bucket to the deficit in the Egyp- tian exchequer. England had guaranteed to foreign bond- holders the payment of the coupons of Egyptian bonds, and investors had been induced to purchase them on this guarantee. It was, therefore, her duty to see that the yearly interest was not withheld. To raise that interest ARABI PASHA. 4 1 the fellaheen, who alone paid taxes, and who, roughly speaking, were five and a half millions of the population, had to pay, in direct and indirect taxes, seven million pounds sterling (thirty-five million dollars), besides other taxes amounting to two and a half million pounds (twelve million dollars) more. It would not be of much interest to non-investors to fol- low the ups and downs of the bankrupt Khedive's affairs. An English and a French controller of his finances were appointed, who proceeded to bring order out of chaos; amongst other things they insisted on his giving up vast estates that he held in the Delta or Lower Egypt, to be managed by English overseers for the good of the state and the creditors. Ismail naturally disliked the inter- ference of these comptrollers in his affairs, and he got rid of them by what we might call "a clever dodge:" he turned out his Ministry, and put in a new one, composed almost entirely of Englishmen and Frenchmen. No one could challenge the Khedive's right to dismiss or select his own ministers; and, as foreigners of high character were in office, the English and French governments con- sented to suspend the functions of the comptrollers. To understand what next took place we must know some- thing about the Egyptian army. It much resembled the army of France under the Old Regime, when officieis bleus (that is, officers who were not up to the highest standard of noble birth) were flouted and overslaughed by any officer who had the prescribed number of quarterings. The rank and file of the Egyptian army was composed of the lowest and the poorest. Every man who could do so bought himself off from conscription, for the Egyptian fellah is an agricultural animal, is timid, industrious, and densely ignorant; simply desiring not to be overtaxed; yielding passively to tyranny; anxious only to be let alone. The officers were nearly all foreigners, or of Circassian descent, the foreigners were of all nationalities; many were ex- Federal or ex-Confederate Americans, who, having once 42 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. taken up the profession of arms, were reluctant to lay down the sword. Occasionally (but very rarely) a fellah by birth rose to the rank of officer^ but he was then treated by the Circassians much as the old noblesse treated the officier bleu. One of these officers of fellah birth was Ahmed Arabi, a tall, burly fellow, about thirty-six years old when he came into prominence. His father had been a fellah who cultivated a few acres of land, and Arabs worked under him, until, being conscripted and unable to pay for his release, he went into the army, and by some unwonted chance rose to be an ofificer. At Said Pasha's death he was a captain, and one of the officers on guard at the palace at Cairo. One night he made too much noise, and disturbed the rest of Ismail, the new Viceroy, who exclaimed that he was " as noisy as the big drum, and , not so useful." He was thereupon punished ignominiously, and ever after cherished revenge. He joined a secret society of native officers whose ob- ject was to oppose the favoritism showed to Circassians and Europeans. At one time he was expelled from the army on a charge (possibly false) of peculation. He Avas rein- stated, however, by Ismail, who was bent on increasing his army, and he then became the leader of the discon- tented faction of native officers. The Khedive, finding the society formed by these men too formidable to be sup- pressed, made friends with its chiefs, and Arabi received promotion, and the high honor of a wife out of the Khe- dive's harem. He was not a man of striking abilities, but he had a reputation for eloquence, and his known hatred to Europeans made him popular with the Egyptian natives, who looked on Europeans, and not on the Khedive, as the cause of their heavy taxation. In one of his speeches on behalf of the establishment of free schools in Egypt, he said: "Before the native was brought in contact with Europe, he was content to ride a donkey, to wear a blue gown, and to drink water, now he must drive in a carriage, wear a coat made in Constantinople, and drink champagne. ARAB I PASHA. 43 . . . Europeans, " he added, " are ahead of us, — but why? It is only because they are better taught. Let us then be educated, and the boasted supremacy of the Franks will disappear." Such is the popular idea among the semi-educated and semi-civilized in many countries; no allowance being made for the backing given to mere instruction by civili- zation, morality, religion, and heredity.' Ismail's new ministry of Europeans by no means worked to his satisfaction, or to that of his people. A mob of officers, probably instigated by himself, assailed the minis- ters, and they were forced to resign. The next ministry refused to pay the interest that Eng- land had guaranteed to bondholders, whereupon England and France appealed to the Sultan, who, delighted to exer- cise his suzerainty, deposed Ismail Pasha in June, 1879, and put his son Tewfik in his place. Ismail received the announcement of his fall (which he did not expect) with great dignity. He sent for his son Tewfik. The young prince entered his presence trembling. His father received him standing, and invited him to sit beside him, saying : " By the will of our master, the Sultan, you are the new Khedive of Egypt, and I am going. Listen; you are young, but you have a firm disposition. Hearken to your counsellors, and be happier than your father." Tewfik and the bystanders were moved to tears. Ismail quitted Cairo the next morning, and went to Naples, accompanied, it is said, by seventy ladies of his harem. At the time of his abdication he was forty-six years old. He was short and very corpulent, with a reddish-brown beard, and one startlingly bright eye; the other he usually kept half-closed. He spoke French well, and his manners were charming. He was an excellent man of business, that is, in all its details, in spite of his extravagance and bankruptcy. He had a mania for doing everything him- self, and with the usual results. Until the time when Ismail obtained favor from Abdul 44 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. Aziz, Egyptian rulers had not been allowed to contract foreign loans without the permission of the Sultan. After that Ismail, as I said, raised the public debt to four hun- dred and fifty millions of dollars. The greater part of this money, he claimed, had been spent in making railroads, establishing lines of telegraph, and beautifying Cairo, which he tried to convert into a paradise; but he only succeeded in deorientalizing its principal streets, and con- verting them into inferior duplicates of the Rue de Rivoli. The Commission of Inquiry, however, made out that by far the larger portion of his funds had been expended in the acquisition of landed property for himself or for his family. Indeed, he seemed desirous of imitating the land policy of Joseph, and becoming, like the Pharaoh of old, owner over all the land of Egypt. At the time when this ^ambition was checked he had actually appropriated, by purchase or by violence, over a million acres; in other words, one-fifth of the land under cultivation in his domin- ions; and his estates paid no taxes. One feels sorry for poor Ismail, remembering how all- glorious he was before his fall, receiving crowned heads and entertaining the fascinating Empress with lavish hos- pitality. The festivities attendant on the opening of the Suez Canal cost him an immense deal of money. By the end of his reign there were more than thirteen hundred miles of railroad in Egypt, opening up the coun- try; the Suez Canal was completed, and it cost the Khe- dive (although it was owned by a joint-stock company) an enormous sum, for he had to buy back lands impru- dently awarded to the company by his predecessor. Gas was introduced into the principal cities, and a good supply of water. His telegraph lines reached to the very verge of the Soudan. The harbor improvements at Alexandria and Port Said cost enormously. He made irrigating canals and dug trenches, erected lighthouses, paved and beauti- fied Alexandria as well as Cairo, set on foot a line of steamers to Greece and Turkey, besides having the cost of ARABI PASHA. 45 two Abyssinian wars, and chronic war in his Soudan prov- inces. In addition to this, the Turkish tribute cost Egypt three million dollars annually, and, as I have said, presents to the Sultan and his court absorbed immense sums. Tewfik was twenty-seven years old when, in this startling and unexpected manner, he became Effendina, — lord and master of Egypt. He had not been born to that dignity, for, although he was the eldest son of Ismail Pasha, the old Mussulman law of inheritance would have placed his uncle Halim, one of the youngest sons of Mehemet Ali, on the viceregal throne. But his father Ismail had spent vast sums to secure the title of Khedive, and, together with other privileges, he obtained his suzerain's sanction to adopt the European rule of primogeniture, which made his eldest son succeed him on his throne. It puzzled the contemporaries of Ismail to understand why he should have labored with such pains, and at such expense, to obtain this honor for a son who was apparently less dear to him than his other children, one on whom he had not bestowed the advantages of education which he had given to the rest, and whom he had systematically kept in the background. The explanation is probably this — that Ismail was little zealous about the line of succession, but that this point was most important to Abdul Aziz. The concession was, therefore, made less to gratify Ismail than to suit the views of the Sultan. Tewfik' s mother, unlike all the rest of Ismail's wives, was a native Egyptian woman, and what the Saxon was to the Norman noble, so is the native race of Egypt to the Turk. Tewfik, however, was far more a Turk and a Mus- sulman than his father. The seclusion in which he had been kept had prevented his adopting or approving modern innovations on the old time customs of the Ori- entals, and he had acquired a certain nervousness and timidity very embarrassing to himself and to his visitors. He spoke French well, and acquired, after a time, a small stock of Enoflish. One who knew him well has said : " It 46 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY was curious to note how, surrounded though he was with difficulties, and exposed, on coming to the throne, to every kind of sinister influence, Tewfik gradually qualified himself for the position he had been called upon to occupy. . . . And of all the dynasty of Mehemet Ali there was not one who, after his own fashion, had the welfare of his people so much at heart." One of Tewfik's first acts on coming to the throne was to conciliate Arabi, whom he made a colonel. Arabi, as I have said, was the leading man among the discontented spirits of the Egyptian army. The leaders were popularly called " the colonels." There were four of these leaders. Two besides Arabi were colonels, while one was a cunning poli- tician, called Mohammed Sami. This man advised his com- panions to give the discontent of the army a national turn, and to call themselves the " National " party. Tewfik's brothers had been educated in Europe, but he had never been suffered to leave Egypt until 1870, when the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War caused his father, in a few weeks, to recall him from Vienna. He was a strict Mohammedan, but he had only one wife, a princess of his own family. Report said that to her he was not only an affectionate but a faithful husband. He led an entirely domestic life before his elevation, looking after his property as a large land owner. It was also reported to his credit that he showed an unusual interest in the condition of the fellaheen who labored on his lands. He displayed at no time in his life any disposition for ostentation or ex- travagance, but was courteous, hospitable, and dignified. Though not a man of marked ability, or restless courage, he fully deserved what has been said of him : " His loy- alty, his patience, his scrupulous honesty, his kindly and amicable disposition, and his shrewd common sense, have undoubtedly stood Egypt, as well as England, in goodly stead." His situation, however, during the first two years of his sovereignty, must have been difficult in the extreme. He ARABI PASHA. 47 had to please the Sultan; to satisfy the demands made on him by the French and English; to propitiate Arabi and the so-called National party; and to endeavor, with imperfect instruments, to carry on a new experiment in constitutional government. Sometimes Arabi and Mohammed Sami had the upper hand; sometimes the French and English, who held threats of the Sultan's interference over the Khedive's head — threats which, at the same time, they would hardly have wished the Sultan to put in execution. Things went on with this kind of see-saw until February, 1 88 1. Then a sort of parliament, called the Chamber of Notables, was set up by the " National " party. The French and English refused to allow this Chamber to interfere with their management of the finances of Egypt, believing that its first step would be to repudiate payment of the interest guaranteed to bondholders by the English government. It seems at first sight hard that Egyptians should have been deprived of the power claimed by all representatives of the people to manage their own financial affairs ; but M. Gambetta, the leading advocate of the rights of men, was French minister for foreign affairs at this period, and he fully concurred with England in the necessity for deny- ing this power to the Egyptians. Things went on thus, becoming more and more entangled and confused, till Sunday, June 11, 1882, when a massacre of Europeans was planned by officers of the army, who were by this time almost all of fellah origin, and there were not wanting persons who, in the terror and excitement of the moment, suspected that it had been connived at by the Khedive. Some Europeans had received warnings, and the foreign population of Alexandria was on the alert. The Sunday morning passed quietly. The English resi- dents in Alexandria went to church as usual, but about 2 p.m. a riot began in one of the principal streets, commencing with a quarrel between some Maltese and a party of Egyptian soldiers. Two thousand Arabs rushed to the assistance of the latter. All were armed with clubs studded with nails, 48 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. called nabotcts. Europeans in the streets fled to their con- sulates or to the police stations, and in the latter some were slaughtered, the soldiers present not being willing to raise a hand for their protection. The shops and dwelUngs of Europeans were broken open, and for four hours and a half Alexandria was hke a sacked city. The English consul, Mr. Cookson, when about ninety yards from the chief police station, was assaulted with stones, and then attacked from behind. He was unarmed, but he stood up in his carriage, and faced his assailants as he would have done wild beasts. This stayed the crowd for a moment, but a gigantic Arab climbed up behind the carriage, and knocked him senseless with a club. When he recovered consciousness he was lying in the street with an Arab officer trying to protect him from the mob, which was -still striking at him with clubs. He managed to stagger, assisted by the officer, to the poHce station ; the soldiers and the police looking quietly on. They said that they had been ordered not to interfere, whatever happened. All the Consulates in Alexandria were attacked, and some of the consuls were severely beaten. The mob, the soldiers, and the pohce paid no attention whatever to a few feeble efforts to protect Europeans, made for form's sake by the civil authorities. The crowd hunted down every Christian they saw. The accounts of men beaten to death, stabbed by the soldiers with sword bayonets, or shot down by Bedouins, are sicken- ing. Robbery went hand in hand with murder, and Arabs possessed themselves of the watches and purses of any whom they spared. The rioters were not more particular as to the nature of their plunder than Nym and Bardolph in their French campaign. One soldier was seen carrying aloft a glass chandelier, another bestriding gallantly a child's toy horse. A missionary and his daughter had that morning landed. The missionary and a gentleman who was with him were killed ; the daughter was beaten about the head and ARABI PASHA. 49 shoulders ; then an Arab soldier flung her over his back, and carried her to the Arab quarter, where she was rescued from further violence. Some officers and men of Her Majesty's ship Superb (then lying in the harbor of Alex- andria) attempted to cross the city to rejoin their vessel. The proceeding was foolhardy. All of them were beaten, and one officer was killed, as well as two seamen. The very children and bootblacks took their part in the fray, killing and stabbing wounded Europeans. Whilst all this was going on, seven thousand soldiers re- mained inactive in their barracks. They said that they must have written orders from Cairo before doing anything to quell the disorders. There was a Turkish commissioner at Cairo, who, the day before, had turned his back on Arabi Pasha ; now he was glad almost to implore him to interpose his authority to stay the riot at Alexandria. To this Arabi, after some curt insolence, agreed, delighted to show the Sultan's delegate that in troubled Egypt he at least could rule as one all-powerful. At 6 p.m. a telegram arrived from him in Alexandria, ordering the troops to act, and the moment they appeared upon the scene the rioters shrank up the side streets, and all was over. There is no way of knowing how many persons perished. It is estimated, however, that there may have been one hun- dred and fifty Europeans, besides native Christians. Many corpses were stripped and thrown into the sea ; all night prayers were offered at the shrines of Mohammedan saints, and curses were invoked upon unbelievers. The governor arrested, after all was over, between two and three hundred of the rioters. Thousands of Europeans flocked from all parts of Egypt to embark at the piers of Alexandria. During the whole of the day after the massacre the streets were blocked by these fugitives. At first they were cursed and spat upon, but at last were suffered to pass unmolested. By the thir- teenth of June the various consuls affirmed that tranquil- lity in the city was restored. 50 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. But English people, great as their courage is, are rarely panic-proof. There was a general stampede throughout Egypt. The ironclads in the harbor, all government steam- ers, and merchantmen, were crowded with men, women, and children, seeking protection ; and numbers hastened away to Malta, Cyprus, and Constantinople. Arabi, as minister of war, — a post to which he was appointed shortly after the massacre, — was the ruler of Egypt de facto, and he appeared to be high in favor both with the Khedive and the Sultan. This favor was by no means reassuring to Europeans, and their exodus, as well as that of Jews and Turks, continued to go on. Great Avas public indignation in England when news of the massacre was received in London. Especially abhor- rent was the thought that Englishmen should have been butchered under the very guns of English war-vessels, and a large English fleet was at once despatched to Malta, with orders to postpone vengeance upon Alexandria only until all Europeans who desired it should be out of the country. What followed has not been considered creditable to the wisdom and discretion of Admiral Seymour, who, as com- mander of the fleet, represented the English government. It resulted in more massacre, more pillage, and the indis- criminate chastisement of friend and foe. By July 3 the fleet was off Alexandria, and Admiral Sey- mour made it a casus belli that earthworks had been thrown up opposite the station of his flag-ship, the Itwincible, and that on these earthworks the Egyptians had mounted guns. The Egyptian authorities promised to mount no more guns, but they refused to dismount at foreign dictation those already in position. On July 12, 1882, after some parley about these guns, the bombardment of Alexandria by the English fleet was begun. The French war steamers, with every ship that was not English, sailed or steamed out of the harbor. The bombard- ment continued all day. The damage done was enough in all conscience, but it would have been more had not the ARABI PASHA. 5 I English shells been so indifferent that the greater part of them failed to explode. Of course the English showed bravery and seamanship, and of course they were successful, and silenced all the forts along the water's edge. On the day of the bombardment the weather was beauti- ful, and life seemed likely to go on as usual among the inhabitants of Alexandria, who were quite unaware that notice of a bombardment had been sent to the authorities. There were still about eighteen hundred Europeans in the city. Suddenly the first gun, fired about seven in the morning, startled the inhabitants, and the bombardment with all its horrors began. The Khedive had retired to the Palace of Ramleh, beyond the city. Arabi was in command of the defenses. The English ships in the harbor vomited forth fire and smoke, while the forts of the Egyptians thundered back an answer. "The scene during the bombardment," says an eye- witness, " was of the grandest description. The immense ships of war seemed to cover the sea around Alexandria, and the shrieks of the projectiles as they flew over were mingled with the boom of the cannon which echoed and re-echoed on all sides. The reports from the large eighty- ton guns of the Inflexible were easily distinguished above the general roar. " By the middle of the day a report gained ground among the Arabs that the English were worsted. There was great rejoicing, and about a dozen Europeans were dragged into the streets and cut down. They however were then rescued, thanks to the exertions of a small foreign brigade connected with the Egyptian police. The firing ceased at 5 p.m. At once all the inhabitants of Alexandria seemed animated by one common desire to escape if possible from the town. The night was calm, the streets in utter darkness. No gas was lighted ; the only sounds, from time to time, were the plaintive bowlings of some forsaken dog. 52 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. When morning came, bands of armed Arabs roamed through the streets searching for Europeans. Then, about noon, the garrison began to evacuate the city. The moment it was known that the troops were leav- ing, the pkmder of all shops and dwellings, European or Egyptian, began. The mob was let loose. Soldiers and civilians alike staggered through the streets laden with plunder. The wildest disorder prevailed. Among the fugitives were Turkish ladies and children, from the harems of rich men. At the gates they were attacked by the mob, and treated brutally. Outside the gates were armed men wait- ing to rob the plunderers of their plunder. One bandanna handkerchief was seen to change hands three times. Not only mirrors, furniture, and such things were carried ofif, but horses and carriages. Soldiers in the streets undressed themselves, and wrapped yards and yards of beautiful stuffs around their persons. Some brought gilt chairs and sofas to the gates, but, find- ing them too cumbersome, broke them up and tore ofif the covering. The day had been gloomy, and, seen from the English ships, a dark haze hung over the city. By evening the town was observed to be on fire in several places, and after some delay Admiral Seymour sent on shore a party of marines to protect fugitives escaping to the shipping. The Arab soldiers before departing had fired the city. The flames broke out first near the British consulate. As Europeans who had been in hiding, terrified at the thought of being burned alive, rushed into the streets, they were set upon by rioters. One of the bravest and most helpful men in Alexandria on that day was the Danish consul. He sheltered one hundred and fifty of these poor creatures. " During the night nothing was heard but the crackling of flames mingled with the cries of incendiaries, and the occasional fall of a heavy building. The volume of smoke ARABI PASHA. 53 filled the air with nauseous vapors. The smell of petroleum was everywhere. The officers of the Anglo-Egyptian Bank had stood by their property. The pillagers and murderers had disappeared, but the atmosphere had become unbeara- ble. The men in the bank made a sortie, with their women and children in their midst, and reached the water's edge in safety." So also did the party from the Danish Consulate. At the waterside they were under the protection of Admiral Seymour's marines. During the bombardment the Khedive in his palace at Ramleh was deserted by his native officers, but his Europeans remained faithful to him. Among these was Stone Pasha, a United States general who during our Civil War had fallen into disrepute for alleged inefficiency. The Khedive sent for Arabi when the bombardment ceased and demanded an account of the affair. This Arabi said he could not give ; he only knew the result, which was that terms must be made with the English admiral. The next day, while negotiations to this effect were going on, the Khedive nearly fell a victim to a plot for his assassination. It was a plan formed openly in a council of officers, led by Mohammed Sami. Tewfik's guard, ac- cording to the programme of this plot, set off suddenly to join Arabi ; but one company remained, " faithful found among the faithless." This company, under its captain Munib Effendi, escorted the Khedive to his seaside palace of Ras el Tin, passing on their way through the still- burning streets of Alexandria. At Ras el Tin the Khedive was met by Admiral Seymour. A day later an English force under Sir Garnet Wolseley reached Alexandria, and took charge of the ruined and de- serted city, putting out fires, cleansing the streets, burying the dead, and executing incendiaries. All over Egypt massacres of Europeans occurred. At one place a whole family was taken from a train and crushed under the wheels of an engine. The Khedive's ministers were imprisoned in Cairo, and 54 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. any orders he or they might issue were pronounced null and void. The Khedive in his turn dismissed Arabi from his position as war minister and commander of the defences of Alexandria. For this Arabi cared little, but proceeded to call around him reinforcements, — old soldiers and conscripts, — and to entrench himself at a place called Kafr Dowar. Alexandria soon began to suffer for want of water. The English engineer of the water-works had stood at his post through the bombardment, but now Arabi let salt water into the chief reservoir, and the old Roman tanks had to be cleaned out by the English, and again brought into use. Sir Archibald Alison, son of the historian, was in com- mand at Alexandria. It was not long before it became evi- dent that Arabi was preparing to get possession of the Suez Canal, and England and France pressed on the Sultan the necessity of sending a Turkish force to protect it against Egyptian mutineers, and to put down the rebellion. But the Sultan could not be persuaded to call Arabi a traitor, until the English and the French were making preparations for a joint expedition to Suez. At this time, however, M. Gambetta was displaced in the French ministry, and his successor declined to co-operate in the expedition. Great was the wrath of M. de Lesseps when the English, having ascertained that Arabi was going to use the canal for war purposes, took possession of Port Said, and of Ismailia, while at Suez they were already land- ing troops from India to co-operate with Sir Garnet Wolseley. The English soldiers suffered terribly from sunstroke, and a good deal from want of provisions. Arabi had put a dam across the canal of Sweet Waters, which carries the water of the Nile across the desert, and a slight engagement was fought to get possession of this water-supply. The dam had been very ingeniously made of bundles of rushes tied to- gether with telegraph wires. Nothing would explode them, and it was several days before English soldiers, bit by bit, succeeded in destroying the dam. Arabi's telegrams to Cairo appropriating to himself the GENERAL SIR GARNET WOLSELEY ARAB I PASHA. 5 5 victory every time he engaged the EngHsh, do not differ much from the telegrams of many other generals, except that their Mohammedan piety sounds strangely to us who rarely send the name of God along a telegraph wire. Thus he telegraphs to the rebel ministry at Cairo, August 28, 1882 : " When the horses have been watered, there will be a charge, please God. Give us the aid of your pure prayers asking for succor from the Lord Almighty." And later : " I pray God for help against all His enemies. Pray God to help all true believers ! " What was the situation of the Suez Canal at the time of the English occupation ? Arabi Pasha as the de facto ruler of the country was practically carrying on war with the British nation, and his forces were occupying places in the neighborhood of the canal, and even on the canal itself. Theoretically it.was competent for the Sultan, as the suzerain of Egypt to put an end both to Arabi and his revolt. That, however, he would not do. The result was that England furnished her troops in Egypt with authority from the Khedive to crush his enemies, and engaged as a belligerent, ostensibly on the Khedive's behalf, against Arabi, the rebel leader. This state of things conferred on England rights as a belligerent, which authorized her to occupy, if necessary for war purposes, any Egyptian territory. It seems as if the English man-of-war, the Si/perb, lying in the harbor of Alexandria during the massacre of Sunday, the nth of June, should have taken prompt measures to punish the mob that was maltreating and murdering Europeans. The bombardment of Alexandria a month later seems to have been unnecessary severity, faUing on the wrong people, and profiting only the pillagers who had been a murderous mob a month before. Having begun by bombarding Alexandria, the English had to go on, especially as, having in 1873 guaranteed the pay- ment of interest on loans made by the Egyptian government, they were forced to see that Egyptian resources were not destroyed by revolt or otherwise. 56 EUHOPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CEXTUKY. The war against Arabi and his army was carried on with all possible humanity. Provisions were always paid for. But this spirit of humanity was not responded to by the enemy. On one occasion an English soldier asked a wounded Egyptian if he should give him some water. He turned to get it, when the object of his humanity, raising himself on his elbow, shot him in the back. We now come to the battle of Tel el Kebir, at which Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, was present. It was fought September i, 1SS2. Arabi had twenty-five thousand men in an entrenched camp ; Sir Garnet Wolseley, fifteen thousand. Tel el Kebir, besides being an entrenched position, was well defended by nature, and still more by art. The battle ground was in the desert, which, though deep in the sand, was better for an attacking army than the cultivated country, "which, in Egypt, is cut up by trenches and ifrigating canals. Sir Garnet determined on a night march right up to the enemy's defences, and an attack in the gray of the morn- ing. " In moving over the desert that night," he said, " there were no landmarks to guide our movements. We had, consequently, to direct our course by the stars." This was so well done that the different attacking parties reached their stations within a few minutes of each other. The enemy was completely surprised. Prince Arthur re- ceived his " baptism of fire," leading very gallantly his brigade of the Guards. The attack was so completely successful that in a brief time the whole Egyptian army seems to have taken flight, the soldiers throwing away their arms. It was impossible to make them wholesale prisoners, so that they were spared pursuit. Besides, the English cavalry was needed to push on by a rapid march to Cairo. Sir Garnet, in his official despatch, takes occasion to say : *' I do not believe that at any period in our military history has the British intantry distinguished itself more than on this occasion. I have heard it said of our present infantry ARABI PA SUA. 57 regiments that the men are too young, that their training has been for manoeuvTing, not for fighting, and that their powers of endurance were not sufficient for the requirements of modern war. After a trial of an exceptionally severe kind, both of movement and attack, I can say emphatically that I never wish to have under my orders better infantry battalions than those I am proud to have commanded at Tel el Kebir." Arabi said subsequently that at the time of the attack he was in bed ; and that the English had not given him time to put on his boots. Nevertheless his troops received the English with a tremendous fire, and the rank and file of the Egyptians endured the first attack with bravery. The trenches, after the battle, were found to be filled v/ith dead, mostly bayoneted, and the ground in the rear of the entrenchments, as far back as the railroad station, was dotted with the bodies of those shot down in their flight. Over these in itw hours flies collected in such dense swarms, that an English ofiicer on horseback, endeavoring to reach the camp, found difficulty in getting through them. The rout was complete. Most of the wounded were found lying on their backs, as if they had tried to have a parting shot at their pursuers. The animosity of these Egyptians towards the English was very great. One of the English surgeons, while dressing an Egyptian's wounds, happening to turn aside a moment, was shot at by his patient. This ingratitude was too much for the doctor's orderly, who, before his officer could prevent him, killed the man. The English commanders did all they could for the wounded, supplying them with hospital comforts, and send- ing them into Cairo under the charge of Egyptian surgeons. The Egyptian soldiers had fought well, but they had had untrustworthy leaders. Somebody said of these, " Each officer knew that he himself would run, but he hoped better things of his neighbor." The black regiments from the Soudan showed great pluck, and their officers less cowardice than the others. 58 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. The battle of Tel el Kebir made an end of Arabi's army. Arabi himself, with a few of his officers, caught a railroad train, and got to Cairo, where he next day began prepara- tions to destroy the city. But the English cavalry was too quick for him ; two days of forced marches over desert sands, in which they made sixty-five miles a day, enabled the advance of the English army, under Sir Herbert Stewart, to reach Cairo. The garrison, about ten thou- sand men, on being summoned, laid down their arms, and the small body of the English took possession of the city. Arabi, seeing that his cause was lost, surrendered himself a prisoner. "The sun was setting," says an eye-witness, " as the cavalry drew near Cairo. The men had been in the saddle since daybreak, under a blazing sun, and both men and horses were thoroughly exhausted, but, suffering as they were from hunger, parched with thirst, and covered with dust, they yet had strength for the remainder of their task." There was no difficulty whatever in accomplishing it. The city was quiet. The Egyptian soldiers surrendered in the most orderly manner. An English civilian who that day entered Cairo with the English troops, writes thus of what he saw there : — " No one will readily forget the impression produced on him by the seething hordes of panic-stricken natives who thronged the streets of that astonished city. They it was, be it remembered, who until the last moment had believed the boasting vaporing reports of triumphs over the English, daily published on coarse colored posters, issued in profusion by the rebel commander. . . . And now that they found English cavalry in their midst, and Indian troops camped beneath their walls, they could but pace the streets open-mouthed for days and nights together, gaz- ing in amazement at those strange animals, the Highlanders, and those even more fearsome objects, the Indian cavalrymen. ' You must be very glad,' I said to a young officer of Highlanders, 'to find yourself in Cairo after the discomforts of the desert.' ' My experience thus far,' he answered, 'of the blessings of civilization, is that I have slept in a gutter with my mosquito curtain hitched to a lamp-post.' " ARABI PASHA. 59 In the dungeons of the citadel many prisoners were found, some convicts, some British subjects, one a captured midshipman, who had wandered into the Unes at Kafr Dowar. All had been frightened out of their wits, and complained loudly of the cruelties of the commandant of the citadel, who was afterwards tried and sentenced to hard labor. Sir Garnet Wolseley had predicted beforehand that his army would enter Cairo on September 16. Events were a little in advance of his prediction, for his troops were unopposed, and entered the city on the 15th. Arabi Pasha, writing a few months afterwards, said : " We were requested to wait on General Lowe. He asked us whether we were willing to give ourselves up as prisoners to the English government? We thereupon took off our swords and delivered them to General Lowe, telling him at the same time that we only gave ourselves up to the English government because we were confident England would deal with us justly, it being the prayer of humanity, and that of our children, that England would see us restored to our rights and privileges, and we appealed to him as the repre- sentative of the English government and of all Englishmen. "The General agreed with this statement, and we remained with him three days. We then went to Abdin, where we remained till October 4 under Colonel Thynne, who treated us well and kindly." Great was the delight, real or pretended, at Alexandria, when news came of the victory at Tel el Kebir. The Arab mob rushed to embrace the English sentinels. The bands played God save the Queen, and the Khedive's Hymn alter- nately. The Queen telegraphed congratulations to Tewfik. The soldiers in the entrenched camp at Kafr Dowar sur- rendered on being summoned, their chief men denouncing Arabi, now that he was in misfortune, and protesting that they had always been loyal to the Khedive. I said that the men in the camp at Kafr Dowar surren- dered when summoned, but they were allowed to retain their arms till the next morning, when means would be pro- 60 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. vided for carting them away. When the hour came, how- ever, the arms were found already piled, but the men had gone. " Gone off to their fields," said their officers. This disposal of them was perfectly satisfactory to their English conquerors. - The Khedive next day signed an order for all Egyptian soldiers to disband, and the war and the army thus came to an end together. The next thing to be done was to proceed to the trial of the chiefs of the rebellion. This was no easy matter, for with regard to the massacre of June 1 1 at Alexandria, the Sultan, the Khedive, and the Governor of Alexandria were popularly considered about as guilty as Arabi, they, it was said, having connived at the outrages of a riotous mob, whose proceedings each imagined might turn to his own advantage. I say that this was the popular opinion at the time, but the subsequent life of Tewfik Pasha gives no ground for believing him implicated in treachery. I have already quoted the opinion of him published by one Eng- lishman ; here is that of another who was for many years closely connected with Egyptian affairs : — " Within the limitations imposed by his birth, his antece- dents, and his position Tewfik was, I believe, honest, kindly, and loyal. Of all the dynasty of Mehemet Ali there is none who after his own fashion had the welfare of Egypt so much at heart as the prince who has just been gathered to his fathers." Arabi was the prisoner of the English. They had turned him over to the Egyptian government to be tried for treason, but they meant to stand by and see that he was treated with even more than ordinary fairness and humanity. He had two English friends, Sir Charles Wilson and Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, the latter a gentleman who has since been in prison himself for having violated the laws relating to Irish agitators. They provided Arabi with English counsel, but counsel for the prisoner or cross-examination on his behalf, was not to be allowed on an Egyptian court-martial. ARABI PASHA. 6 1 The task of trying the rebel ringleaders was confided to Riaz Pasha, and was particularly pleasing to him, " for clemency," says one who knew him well, "was not among his virtues. To him Arabi and his party were simply im- pious. They had dared to question his infallibility, — no Pope or king by divine right could have felt the outrage more. But they were more than that. They were the curses of their country, for had they not driven away /ii'm, the indispensable first head of the ministry ? Massacre and incendiarism might be forgiven, but not ^/laL^ " "There can be no doubt that Riaz Pasha pursued the rebel leaders with a deadly zeal, but it is hardly fair to call it hate. He would have crushed them, as he would have crushed a scor- pion, by any means. It was a holy duty which he owed his country. When the English government insisted that the pris- oners should have a fair trial, and be defended by counsel, he was shocked. It was almost like asking him to be accessory to a blasphemy. He gravely assured Lord Dufferin, who had been sent to Egypt as envoy of the English government, that he knew of their guilt, and asked him what object there was to be gained by further inquiry. When he found the ambassador still uncon- vinced, he went away mourning at the extraordinary growth of theoretical ideas. When Riaz found that the trial was going to be a simple farce, to end in the practical acquittal of the rebel prisoners, his indignation knew no bounds. In one stormy inter- view with Lord Duflferin his little form shook with rage. He left the house, shook the dust off his shoes, and resigned." And Arabi's trial zaas a farce ; for after two months, during which it became evident that EngUsh rules of fair play could not be reconciled with Egyptian notions of justice, the mat- ter was cut short by Lord Dufferin, who negotiated with the Khedive for Arabi's hfe. There really was no evidence to prove anything against him but rebellion. It was arranged that he and his friends should plead guilty to this charge, be sentenced to death by the Court, and be at once pardoned by the Khedive, on condition that they went into exile wherever the English government might be pleased to send them. " The Khedive, though he became a party to this arrange- 62 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. ment, is said to have bitterly resented the manner in which the English government interfered, with the punishment of Arabi. To treat the defeated insurgents as well-meaning and mistaken patriots, and to condemn them to an honor- able exile in lieu of the stern doom which would have been meted out to them in every Oriental — or indeed in almost every European — country, was to destroy the prestige and authority of the sovereign." The result of the trial was very destructive to English influence in Egypt. It was incomprehensible to Oriental men, unless on the ground that if the trial had proceeded it would have brought out something which it was the object of the English government to conceal. This feeling was intensified by the folly of an English lady (a Mrs. Napier), who presented Arabi in open court with a bouquet of white roses. With many Egyptians, especially in the lower orders, the belief in Arabi's divine mission, which some of his followers attributed to him, increased ; while with some the conduct of the English government was attributed either to some purpose of using him as their instrument in the future, — or to fear. His place of banishment was to be Ceylon, but it was given out that he would never go there, or that if he did he would raise an army and come back to exterminate his enemies. The most moderate Egyptians accused the English of having bribed Arabi to surrender by a promise of immunity for his past misdeeds, because they were afraid of again encountering the prowess of his soldiers. The result of the trial was that England lost in one day all the prestige she had gained by her victory at Tel el Kebir. On the day after Christmas, 1882, Arabi and six other principal rebels left Cairo by a special train, at eleven at night, for Suez, on their way to Ceylon. They took with them sixty people, their wives, servants, and children. Morice Bey, an Englishman in the Egyptian service, went with them, and an escort of English soldiers. ARABI PASHA. 63 Sir Garnet Wolseley and Admiral Seymour were raised to the English peerage, and received from the Sultan the chief decoration of honor of the Turks ; but as, on the same day, he gave the same decoration to his bootmaker, the honor was valued only for the jewels in its badge. An English army of occupation remained in Egypt twelve thousand strong ; it would stay there, it was said, till an Egyptian army should be organized ; and Lord Dufferin, the English commissioner, was instructed to confer on nine points with the Egyptian authorities : — I. The reorganization of the army and police. II. Reorganization of the financial system. III. Improvement in the public service. IV. The gradual disuse of Europeans. V. Better justice for natives. VI. Equal taxation for natives and foreigners. VII. The introduction of parliamentary government. VIII. Suppression of the slave trade. IX. Security of transit across Egypt, and especially freedom of passage through the Suez Canal. These points have not yet (1895) been definitely settled. The constitution drawn up by Lord Dufferin would not " march," as Carlyle has said respecting a similar failure, and the Enghsh army still stays on. England still steers in Egypt the ship of state. " Indeed, to withdraw such guidance would be at once to force the burthened vessel back upon the reefs of anarchy and intrigue, from which the English occupation has res- cued it." Many new complications have arisen since 1882. The position of the Khedive is very much like that of a native prince in India under the guardianship of an English Resident. France is opposed to England's continued occupation of Egypt, but the other Great Powers look calmly on. The Queen with great joy gave a public welcome to the troops, the comrades of her son, who had behaved so soldierly at Tel el Kebir. And the " Times " wrote : — 64 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. " Whose heart would not swell with pride at the sight of those bronzed heroes returning home, covered with glory, — or at the tale of their noble exploits, the grand forced march which secured their position, the adroitly held outposts by which they covered the .movements of other regiments, the perfect discipline which marked the whole campaign and covered the final charge with a glorious victory? " In response to this outburst from the public press, a little poem was written, signed S. S. S. M. It was pubUshed in Miss Yonge's Magazine, "The Monthly Packet," and I think it too well worth preserving to be omitted here : — Heroes? — is that what they say? It is never us that they mean, Poor, common privates, — the lowest of all that serve the Queen. I say, Bill, old chap, what 6.0 you think? There's a mighty fuss About some one; but heroes are swells, you know, — not the likes of us. Discipline? Ah! that sounds fine! But we never thought it grand. Raw recruits in the awkward squad, — just hour after hour to stand In the hot barrack-yard in the sun, doing "Shoulder arms! Right! Left! Wheel!" While the sergeant roared himself hoarse. Well! it's finer to hear than to feel. Grand forced march? — Why, bless your heart, it was only plod, plod, plod, Hour after hour, mile after mile ; then a snooze on the damp, cold sod — Up again, and on once more, with the sun beating down on our heads, — I'll warrant we longed for a good night's rest, safe at home in our beds. As for holding the posts, — well! I don't know, Bill, what you say, As for me I never had such a dull time, — nor shall, for many a day. Just sticking there for weeks, doing nothing, right out of the fun, Twiddling our thumbs, and listening to catch the sound of a STun. ARAB I PASHA. 65 And the " glorious charge " — Ah well ! that was work, no time lost there ; Yet not such work as you'd think, a good free fight and fair. We scarcely saw the foe (the General knew to an inch) — Do as yoicVe told — that's what war is, — and never to flinch. Friends, don't you sometimes think — when the battle of life is o'er, And we meet our angel kin, on our own dear native shore, We shall see many heroes crowned, in the land of our great new birth. Whom we little recked of here, in the shadows and mists of earth . Perfect discipline learned in the drill-yard of every day ; Marches of plodding work, step by step on life's weary way ; Long patient years on guard, never asking the reason why ; Short, sharp, strifes of pain — coming — passing — suddenly. Do what you're told — that's what life is, and never to flinch. Only the General knows, aye, He does know, inch by inch The plan of the long campaign ; and, at last, when all is done, Crowns the victors, who scarce have known that the fight is CHAPTER III. GORDON AND THE MAHDI. THE declared policy of Mr. Gladstone's ministry, which came into power in 1880, and went out in 1885, was non-intervention in foreign affairs. "Their own talents, they conceived, were best adapted to home politics, and, had they been able to carry out their own views, it is little they would have had to do with foreign and colonial policy. Nevertheless, during their five years of office they were constrained to intervene more than any government the country had had for the last half century. "They were always intervening, and the disastrous conse- quences which generally attended their intervention may be attributed to their original disinclination to intervene, — their intervention generally coming too late, and being supported in a half-hearted manner." When the Arabi rebellion had been suppressed, and Lord Dufferin had been sent out to settle the internal administration of Egypt, a large part of the British troops returned to England and to India, leaving twelve thousand men behind. The affairs of Egypt were in wild confusion. Money had to be raised to carry on the government, and to pay interest to those who had invested in Egyptian bonds, yet humanity revolted against the further oppression of the working class, — the poor fellaheen. There was the aristocracy of Egypt, the Pashas, the Beys, and the old officers of the army hating the British; there was the usual Mohammedan detestation of Christians; there was the peasant class who, in their 66 GORDON AND THE MA HDL 6/ ignorance, believed that as they had to be over-worked and over-taxed to pay foreign bondholders, it was all the fault of Europeans, and they wished them out of the country. Then there were the Turks, and above them, and over all, the power of the Sultan, intensely disgusted that his author- ity over his vassal province of Egypt should have been taken out of his hands by unbelievers. But worse than all for the English was the complication that arose from their position in Egypt, involving the ever-recurring question of the European balance of power. Russia resented bitterly England's occupation of Egypt. "You might long ago have had Egypt, and Syria too," was the thought her minis- ters expressed in diplomatic language, "provided you had let Russia take Constantinople, — but to let you have Egypt without compensation to Russia is unfair, and not to be borne." France too has always felt that she had the first claim to Egypt, if any European power was to possess that country. The great Napoleon first opened it to civilization; France had been Mehemet All's faithful ally; her engineers had built the Suez Canal; — and now to have it taken out of her hands by England was, in nursery language, " a great deal too bady Yet she was powerless to do anything to prevent it. Her government was unsettled; her finances embar- rassed ; she had two colonial wars (one in Madagascar, the other in Tonquin) on her hands; and a struggle with Ger- many was always looming on her horizon ; as well as the constantly impending fear of some social revolution at home. England felt Egypt to be a white elephant with which she had embarrassed herself for the sake of India. With the high road to her Indian possessions lying along its borders, she could not leave it bankrupt and disorganized, to become the prey of anarchy, — she could not leave the bondholders unpaid when she had guaranteed them pay- ment; nor subject the Suez Canal to the interference of semi-barbarians. Besides which, civilization and Chris- 68 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. tianity cried out, that, having got Egypt under her control, it was her duty to endeavor to protect and elevate the miserable working people. These questions were met by an arrangement that England should occupy Egypt so lo7ig as might be necessary ; Mr. Gladstone insisting strongly on the restriction contained in these words, and that she would evacuate it as soon as that necessity came to an end. Those who wish to see her give it up are somewhat reassured by knowing that there is a divided public opinion on the subject in England. The army dreads the terrible service in the summer months, and all who have friends in the army sympathize. While these questions were agitating men's minds, the Egyptian government began to be aware of a new impend- ing trouble. To understand it we must go back to the days of Ismail Pasha's prosperity. That potentate, who had great notions of commercial enterprise, and of grand schemes, who, in fact, had he been born on this side of the Atlantic, would have distin- guished himself as a great railroad or real-estate speculator, had been struck by the accounts of Central Africa given to the world by explorers. He already held Khartoum and certain fortified posts in the northern Soudan; his armies too were recruited by black troops from the same region. His predecessor, Said Pasha, had made a wonderful jour- ■ ney, in a carriage, over the roadless desert to Khartoum, escorted by an army, which inflicted untold miseries on the country through which it passed, but added immensely to his prestige and importance. Egyptian princes had before that lost their armies and their lives in that wild region, while endeavoring to enforce some sort of ancient claim on what was called the Nile Basin or the southern Soudan, and the Soudan, if Ismail conquered it, would be subject to him, not as feudatory of the Sultan, but as an independent sovereign. A great deal of trade might be opened, and (though this part of the project was not to be talked about) the great impetus given to the slave-trade might put hush- GORDON AND THE MA HDL 69 money from the slave dealers into his purse, which needed replenishing badly. But as, above all things, he needed European sympathy, to say nothing of European capital, to carry out his plans, it must be represented to Christen- dom that his sole objects were commerce and civilization. Lower Egypt is the delta and the country round the mouths of the Nile, Upper Egypt is the country extending south below Cairo. South of Upper Egypt is what was once Nubia, but is now part of Egypt. As the traveller up the Nile approaches the Nubian deserts, he finds six cataracts, over which, when the river is high, boats, and even steamboats, if unloaded, can be warped, though at the expense of terrible labor. Where the White Nile and the Blue Nile unite is the large well-built city of Khartoum, which became a place of importance after the Egyptian occupation, and was the chief city, if not the capital, of the Khedive's Soudan. About three hundred miles northeast of Khartoum, and separated from it by a desert, is Suakim, a port on the Red Sea, which was taken possession of by the English, in 1882, as an admirable point at which they might disembark troops from India. However, as yet, we are only speaking of 1868 or 1870, when what we call the Soudan was, as I have said, called commonly the Basin of the Nile. In 1870 harmless villagers and happy unmolested beasts lived round the lovely lakes that watered this equatorial region. " It was in some parts," says Sir Samuel Baker, "as perfect a natural paradise as Xenophon could have desired. The peaceful villages were embowered in groves of oil palms." The spoiler came, — all — all that promise fair Soon sought the grave, to sleep forever there. The northern portion of the Soudan was conquered by Egypt, and opened to slave-raids. Sir Samuel Baker, who had first explored these equatorial regions, was commissioned by the Khedive Ismail to plant there the blessings of Egyptian civilization. 70 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. Now it is not an easy matter to impose civilization under any circumstances upon a primitive and pagan people, but civilization, as understood in Egypt, meant oppression and robbery, and forced labor, under the stick and the task- master. With an Egyptian army of seventeen hundred men, mostly officered by Europeans, Sir Samuel Baker, with six steamboats and thirty sailing boats, went up the Nile to Khar- toum, with carte blanche from Ismail Pasha to manage his campaign his own way, and with money to pay all expenses. He carried seeds of all kinds, and flattered himself he should do much to suppress the slave-trade. In point of fact he was completely humbugged. Ismail, who by his powers of persuasion could wind most men round his finger, had deceived and hoodwinked the gallant English explorer. Egyptian rule had not been favorable to civilization in -Nubia, which was so rapidly becoming depleted by the emigration of its inhabitants that much land formerly culti- vated was lying waste. The White Nile flows to Khartoum from the south, the Blue Nile comes from the southeast, . along the borders of Abyssinia. Beyond the shores of the White Nile lies the province of Kordofan, and to the west of Kordofan is Darfour; but these are inhabited by Arab tribes who have indeed villages where their cattle and their women abide, but the men live chiefly on horseback, and are ready at all times for a plundering expedition. There were various tribes throughout these provinces, some Mohammedan and Arab; others blacks, who believed in witchcraft and were-wolves. Some were orderly, and of a high type of the negro race; some were "a feeble folk, like the conies." All had much cattle, — none felt any need of civilization, but were governed by their own head- men and chiefs, and paid taxes and tribute to nobody. Kordofan and Darfour were not, however, included in the equatorial government of Sir Samuel Baker. Sir Samuel said: "The Soudan is divided in two by the great arid deserts which separate its fertile regions on the equator from Egypt." It includes the Victoria and Albert SIR SAMUEL BAKER. GORDON AND THE MAHDI. 7 1 Nyanzas, and from these lakes to the cataracts the Nile falls many hundred feet. In 1869 (or rather from 1S69 to 1875) the Soudan, including Nubia, was first annexed to Egypt by an army, under a grandson of Mehemet Pasha, but the annexation was hardly more than nominal. The governor took up his residence at Khartoum, and for a time exerted considerable influence over the Arab tribes around him. But there is no Egyptian, from the highest to the lowest, who does not heartily approve the slave-trade, and hope to profit by it. Soon Nubia and the country around Khartoum became denuded of young men; all had gone off to join the Arabs, who made slave-raids on the peaceful villages lying along the equatorial great lakes, as seen by Sir Sam.uel Baker; and under Egyptian rule villages in the Nile Basin, once peaceful and populous, entirely disappeared. In Nubia irrigation ceased, industry had vanished, oppression had driven the inhabitants from the soil. And, as Sir Samuel Baker says: "This terrible desolation was caused by the Egyptian Governor-general of the Soudan, who, although himself an honest man, trusted too much to the honesty of others, who preyed on the inhabitants. The population of Nubia, the richest province of the Soudan, fled from oppression, and the greater part betook themselves to the slave-trade on the White Nile in Equatorial Africa, where in their turn they could trample on the rights of others, where, as they had been plundered, they could plunder. Thousands forsook their homes, and commenced a life of brigandage on the White Nile." Shocked by horrors with which he found himself unable to cope, Sir Samuel Baker, after a residence of some years at Gondokoro, resigned his government of the Equatorial Provinces in 1875. Nubar Pasha, the great minister of Ismail Pasha, who had met Colonel Gordon (better known as Chinese Gordon at that period), recommended him to the Khedive, as the only man likely at once to bring order out of anarchy in the Soudan, and whose appointment "JZ EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. would be a sop to the anti-slavery party in Christendom, who were beginning to understand the real meaning of Egyptian annexation and civilization. Gordon was offered the appointment. The English government approved; and he visited Ismail, rather in doubt v/hether he would enter his service or not. But Ismail's persuasive powers triumphed, though Gordon refused the ;;^i 0,000 of yearly pay offered him, and would accept only ;^2,ooo, being sure that the surplus, if he accepted it, would be wrung from the people. He had great misgivings all through his intercourse with Ismail Pasha that he would prove to be — as he said himself — "a Gordon humbugged." From the first he met with worries and opposition from the Egyptian authorities. On February 25, 1875, he reached Suakim. He had with him two hundred and twenty men, who were to escort him across the desert to the town of Ber- ber, on the Nile, a march of about two weeks. His second in command was an Italian named Romulus Gessi. He was also accompanied by two Frenchmen, several Englishmen (one of them Dr. Russell, son of the great war correspond- ent). Colonel Long, a Baltimorean, and Abou Saoud, an ex-slave dealer, whom he had undertaken to convert into a respectable trader. At Berber they embarked in a boat, and thence reached Khartoum in three days. There Gordon was received with great delight. The seat of his government was to be at Gondokoro, and the Governor-general had been employing his soldiers in clearing out the immense masses of vegeta- tion, forming floating islands, that choked the channel of the White Nile, so that the passage from Khartoum to Gondokoro, which it had taken Sir Samuel Baker fourteen months to accomplish, was made in three weeks by Gordon. His journey to Gondokoro was very picturesque and interesting, but we have no space to dwell upon it here. His great object was to suppress the slave-trade, and his vigorous efforts to do so brought down on him the opposi- GORDON AND THE MAHDI. 73 tion of all the Arab tribes, and all those who had now turned to slave-trading to get a living. Already Osman Digna, a man who had made an immense fortune by slave-traffic under the new Egyptian system, and who lost it when Sir Samuel Baker and the English began to carry out their plans, had assembled chiefs, out- raged by British opposition to the slave-trade, near Suakim, and proposed to them to make a stand against these new rulers. But the time was not ripe. The chiefs declined his leadership, and for several years he went back into obscurity. Sir Samuel Baker, on resigning his commission to Gordon, had said: "The Nile has been opened to naviga- tion, and if the troubles I have encountered and overcome shall have smoothed the path for my able and energetic successor I shall have been well rewarded." I cannot find space to give a description of the White Nile slave-trade; the peaceful villages visited ten years before by Sir Samuel Baker, Dr. Schweinfurth, and Captain Speke had been set upon by slave-raiders; slaves, seized by fraud or force, were marched through the desert, with unspeakable horrors, and with frightful loss of life. They were brought to the neighborhood of Khartoum, and again marched across deserts to various points, many being shipped on Arab dhows to Persia or Arabia. It was not long before Abou Saoud, the reformed slave- dealer, proved utterly untrustworthy. He seems to have been a consummate hypocrite and an unmitigated rascal. He, as well as Osman Digna, was connected with the great slave-dealing firm of Agad and Company. Gordon's efforts in his government were, besides raids for the capture of the slave-dealers, and the liberation of their victims, attempts to introduce real civilization, such as a knowledge of the use of money, among his people. He also at once commenced the construction of posts from fifty to a hundred miles apart, to keep open communication between Gondokoro and Khartoum. The first six hundred 74 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. miles of the fourteen hundred lying between these points gave him little difficulty, but where the great river was joined by the Sobat his difficulties began. The authority of the Khedive no longer maintained at least a semblance of law and order. Gordon was also much occupied in nurs- ing the sick, for members of his staff were continually ill. It would be impossible here to tell of his doings in this his first government of a province in the Soudan. But at the close of 1875 he writes to some one who had urged him to explore the sources of the Nile: — " I am now, at the end of nine months of worry, not fit to explore anything but my way out of this province, — indeed, I am not sure I care whether there are two lakes or a million in Equatorial Africa; or whether the Nile has a source or not." ' In the autumn of 1S76, having arranged things pretty satisfactorily in his government, he left it under the charge of Gessi, and returned to England, to keep Christmas at home. He was very much inclined not to go back. He felt himself "a Gordon humbugged," for whilst he, in the name of the Khedive, was putting down the slave-trade in his province, the Khedive's representative, a prince of the blood, was patronizing it at Khartoum, which was the very centre of the slave traffic. Rather than submit to former troubles and disappointments, he said, he would throw up his connection with the country. But Ismail, by his per- suasive speeches, lured him back. He was now offered the post of Governor-general of the Soudan, with liberty to do what he pleased in Khartoum. He was to suppress the slave-trade, and improve means of communication throughout the Soudan, and he was also to settle, if possible, a pending dispute with King John of Abyssinia. He visited that potentate as envoy from the Khedive of Egypt, but the hatred of King John and his people toward the Egyptians was so great that he had much difficulty in getting out of Abyssinia alive. Telegraph wires had been stretched by Ismail from Cairo GORDON AND THE MA HDL ' 75 to the Soudan, and a Nilometer had been established near Khartoum, which would give warning to Egypt many days in advance before the river's rising. Ismail also projected a railroad, and Gordon was directed to inquire into all matters affecting that enterprise. Troubles, and worries, however, accumulated around him. The slave dealers, and those in their interest, were furious, but he had the satisfaction of liberating twelve caravans of slaves. The slaves were not much better than the men who had captured them : when liberated they were quite eager to join slave-hunting raids. There is a striking episode in this part of Gordon's career, the pursuit of Suleiman, the son of Zebdhr Pasha, by Gessi, Gordon's lieutenant; his capture, with that of his force, and the shooting of himself and ten other chiefs, when taken prisoners. Zebdhr Pasha told his own story some years after, to an English lady, who printed it in an English magazine. If one may believe him, he was an honest man, and a great admirer of Gordon, whose lieu- tenant, he thinks, executed his son through a mistake; — but then, how can American or English ladies know how far to believe an Oriental? After three years of hard labor and discomfort in his government, Gordon resigned. He had been sent on a second mission to King John of Abyssinia, had been taken prisoner by him, had, he conceived, been deserted by the Egyptian government, and had been rescued by the timely arrival of the Sea Gull, a British steamer. It is said that King John sent for him when a prisoner. The King sat on his throne, and a chair was placed for Gordon Pasha in an inferior position. The first thing Gordon did was to carry the chair to a place beside the seat of his Majesty. "Do you know, Gordon Pasha," said the King, "that I could kill you on this spot if I liked?" "I am perfectly well aware of it, your Majesty," said the prisoner. "Do so at oncfi if it is your royal pleasure. I am ready." "What! ready to be killed?" cried the king. "Cer- ^6 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. tainly," said the Pasha, "I am always ready to die, and, so far from fearing your putting me to death, you will only confer a favor on me by doing for me that which I am precluded by my religion from doing for myself; — you would relieve me from all the troubles and misfortunes which the future may have in store forme." This com- pletely staggered the king. "Then my power," he cried, "has no terrors for you?" "None whatever;" was the Pasha's answer. " I claim only," he said himself in a letter on the subject of his resignation, " to have done my best for the land, the government of which was entrusted to me. I dare to assert that, in spite of all my errors, the population of the Soudan loves me. A man must be in the Soudan and see how things go with his own eyes to know how matters stand there." Gordon returned to England, and then accepted the post of secretary to Lord Ripon, who was going out to India as its governor. The engagement, however, did not last long. Meantime, his old government in the Soudan began to be seriously threatened by the rise of the Mahdi, The meaning of the words El Mahdi is : He who is led — the well-guided one. The fundamental idea of Moham- medanism is that man cannot rightly guide himself, and that to him in his ignorance God sends prophets, who give him knowledge of what ought to be done. Mahomet never claimed to be the final prophet; after him he prophesied should come other Mahdis, till the appearance of the greatest of them all. If any Mahdi failed in his mission that would prove him to be only the forerunner of the Great Mahdi. This personage would appear after the failures of such forerunners, and directly after the appearance of the Messiah of Jews and Christians. Then Mahdi and Messiah would unite, and give laws to all the earth in the name of the One God.^ No less than five Mahdis (some authorities say twelve) appeared before the 1 It is said that in the royal stables of Persia two horses are always kept saddled in readiness for the Mahdi, and his lieutenant, Jesus the son of Mary. GORDON AND THE MAHDI. y/ Mahdi of the Soudan; and his successor, the Khalifa Abdullah, though he has not arrogated to himself the title of Mahdi, is looked on much in the same light by his fol- lowers. There is also, at this moment, a very powerful though non-militant Mahdi in Northern Africa, a descend- ant of the Prophet, with blue eyes, and other bodily marks that were to denote the Mahdi at his coming. He is the Sheikh Senoussi of Jerboub, and for more than sixty years he and his father have exercised immense influence — in the main beneficent — over the Moslems in Tripoli and Morocco, and the black Moslems of Central Africa, west of the Soudan. The first Mahdi appeared in Persia, and was the founder of the Persian schism. He was a descendant of Fatima, Mahomet's favorite wife, and his followers are called Fatimidse. The next was the Veiled Prophet, whom we know in poetr}^ He also appeared in Persia. Then came one in Northern Africa, among the Saracen Moors. Next appeared a Mahdi in Asiatic Turkey in 1666, in the days of the Sultan who almost made himself master of Vienna. That year, too, the Messiah was expected by Jews and Christians in the East, and at the time appointed appeared a very handsome, eloquent young man, apparently inspired with religious fervor. The Rabbis in Turkey acknowledged him, and his appearance lent great countenance to the Mahdi, as the Great Mahdi and the Messiah were to appear almost at the same time. But the Mahdi was taken prisoner, and carried before the Sultan, when he confessed his imposture with so good a grace that the Sultan forgave him, and made him one of his pages. The anti-Christ was also captured. His pre- tensions were shaken when it was found that he needed an interpreter to speak with the Sultan, who promised to acknowledge his mission if he would be tied naked to a tree and have arrows shot at him. He declined this ordeal, whereupon the Sultan forgave him, and made him one of the warders of his harem. y8 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. In 1799 a Mahdi appeared in Egypt, who was killed by the French in battle. In vain his followers expected his return, but as the French soon after retired from Egypt it was supposed that his prayers for their departure had pre- vailed in heaven. In the year eighteen hundred and eighty, by reason of some prophecy, Mahdis were expected in the Mohammedan world. El Senoussi of Jerboub appeared in the deserts to the south of Tripoli, and the man whom we call par excel- lence the Mahdi in the Soudanese province of Darfour. His name was Mohammed Ahmed. He was the son of a man named Abdullah, and his mother's name was Fatima. These names, according to prophecy, were to be those of the parents of the Mahdi. Mohammed Ahmed was forty years old at the time of his appearance (the same age as the Great Prophet), and he had a peculiar mark upon his face which was to be one of the personal marks of the true Mahdi. From his childhood he had showed a vocation for piety; when twelve years old he knew the Koran by heart. His brothers, who were boat-builders on the Nile, were proud of his talent and sanctity, and supported him while he pursued his studies at Khartoum. Finally, when twenty- five, he became a hermit in a little island in the Nile, called Aba. Soon he began to be venerated as a saint, and when he had been fifteen years engaged in prayer and meditation, like Mahomet, and was, like him, forty years of age, he came forth a Mahdi. He said his mission was to bring the Egyptian government to an end, to draw all the Soudan to himself, and then to go up to Mecca and be there acknowledged as the man whose course had been guided by the Lord. The Egyptian world had so much besides to engross its attention, about that time, that the Mahdi 's emissaries had been preaching a year before the governor of Khartoum so much as heard of him. When he did so he sent two hundred men to Aba to seize him. These two hundred men, after suffering incredible hardships on their march, GORDON AND THE MAHDI. 79 were set upon by the dervishes (such was the name given to the Mahdi's sworn followers), and every one of them perished. This was in August, 1881. This victory gave the Mahdi great prestige. All the Soudan desired to get rid of the Egyptians (whom they call Turks) and of the Europeans. Thousands flocked to his standard. With fifty thousand men the Mahdi's brothers defeated a large Egyptian force sent against him. They were both killed, but only one hundred and fifty Egyptians escaped. From that time till 1883 the Mahdi's successes increased. Whole provinces gave him their allegiance. The town of El Obeid fell into his hands, and became in some sort his capi- tal and stronghold. It is situated northwest of Khartoum, distant from it probably about one hundred miles. A brave English Indian officer, named Hicks, was placed in com- mand of the Egyptian army, or rather was made military dry nurse to a certain Suleiman Pasha, who was nominally the chief general. At first he obtained some slight advan- tages along the shores of the White Nile over the Mahdi's followers, but in an expedition to recover El Obeid he marched, encumbered by heavy artillery and much bag- gage, through waterless deserts. His followers were de- spondent, for the Egyptian troops at that day were un- mitigated cowards. "Conies," Gordon afterwards always called them. "In case of defeat," writes one who was with the expedition, "not a soul of ours will escape massa- cre, and Khartoum and the entire Soudan will then be lost, since all believe the Mahdi is the Mohammedan Messiah." By November 23, 1882, news reached England that Hicks Pasha's force was utterly annihilated, and that all his artillery ammunition and stores had fallen into the hands of the Mahdi. Part of the army is said to have fought three days, and Hicks died, sword in hand, with his European officers, but a large portion of the force went over to the Mahdi. As the writer just quoted had prophe- sied, all the Soudan became his, except the garrisoned cities Khartoum, Sennaar, and Kassala. 80 EUKOFE LY AfKICA LV THE XIXTH CEXTUKY. But the Mahdi's most important acquisition was Osman Digna, son of a Turkish father and an Arab mother, who, after living in retirement since 1S78, suddenly sprung fortli, asserting a divine mission to be a military leader under the I\Iahdi. It seems tliat Osman, and the greater part of the Mahdi's followers, were genuine entlnisiasts, — genuine believers in his divine mission. Osman became one of the dervishes, men who proclaimed universal brotherhood, community of property, rigorous self-denial in all luxuries, even tobacco, and who wore red and green, the ISIahdi's colors. Suakim was Osman Digna's country, and he looked on it as a point of especial importance, for two reasons; there tlie English could land troops from India, and there eventu- ally the IMahdi would embark, when he should go to Mecca in triumph, his mission being done. Osman Digna commanded all forces between Khartoum and Suakim, — all, in other words, between the White Nile and the sea. The Mahdi, who was not deficient in general- ship, commanded all west and south of Khartoum, notably in tlie provinces of Darfour and Kordofan. One can imagine tlie effect upon the Arabs of what tliey believed to be a divine voice crying in the wilderness, and proclaiming that tlie Soudan should be free for tlie Soudanese — no more Egyptians ; no more taxes to be paid over to Eiiropean bondholders ; no more interference with their profits in slave-trading; no more rich, and no more poor; all to share alike. No distinction was to be allowed but tribal distinction. Osman himself was as ragged and as dirty as the poorest of his followers, but he became the inspired agent of the Mahdi, and led a holy war against tlie infidel. Here is a specimen of the persuasions circulated in the Anglo-Egyptian army. One can imagine their effect : — " By the great God and the excellent Koran we swear that our Mahdi is the true Mahdi, — the expected One. There is none other but him, and the man who doubts his mission is an inlidel ; GORDON AND THE MAIIDf. 8 1 and God has already decreed it. The Mahdi seeks no treasure for himself; lie seeks nothin;:^ but God. He is kind, and speaks civilly to all. He abhors falsehoods, and his pride is to spread the glory of our religion. His daily life (peace be unto him) is cjuile opposed to worldly matters ; nor does he care for enjoy- ment. He is simple in his diet, and plain in dress^v He is always smiling, and his face is as resplendent as the full moon. All Muslims to him are equal. Like a kind father to his children, so much is his kindness to us. We all receive a sufficient sum from his treasury for the support of our needs and families ; but do not get any fixed pay." Soon Osman Digna held all the country around Suakim, the Mahdi all that around Khartoum. All was in the hands of the dervishes except the towns of Suakim, Tokar, and Sinkat, in the district of Osman Digna; Khartoum and the fortified cities Kassala and Sennaar. The gallant little garrison of Sinkat held out long, till, reduced to chew leaves, the only eatable thing remaining, they put their women and children in their midst and made a sortie. All perished. The Tokar garrison was more fortunate. It was relieved eventually by General Sir Gerald Graham, with I'^nglish troops landed on their way home from India. Valentine Baker (brother of Sir Samuel Baker) had been the most distinguished of all English cavalry ofificers. In India, in 1848, in the Mutiny, and at the Cape, wher- ever he had served, he had given an example of cool courage, presence of mind in peril, and extraordinary military skill. He had also written books on tactics of great authority in the English army. He was on the high road to be the military chief of England, when one summer day, about 1875, he breakfasted with the Prince of Wales at Aldershot. The day was warm, and the champagne too abundant. Colonel Baker went up to London in a first- class railway carriage, in which he was alone with a young lady. He insulted her grossly, doing her, however, no harm. The moment the train reached London she told her brother, who had come to meet her, and he put the offender in charge of the police. Colonel Baker was con- 82 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. demned to a year's imprisonment, and dismissed the English army. On tlie trial he at least behaved like a gentleman, acquitting the young lady of all blame, and taking the whole fault on himself. After his disgrace he joined the Turkish army,- and brilliantly distinguished himself. Subsequently he Avas in Egypt, and was sent with an Egyptian army against Osman Digna. In February, 1883, there were three massacres in Osman Digna's district, — that of Sinkat, that of Moncrieff, and that of the forces under Valentine Baker. Baker's troops were a forlorn rabble; they did not even know how to handle their guns. They could just load and pull the trigger. "It is ridiculous to call them soldiers," said their unfortunate commander, as he reviewed them, before setting forth on his campaign; and when the moment of danger arrived, and the Arab rush came on with swift sturdiness, the Egyptians broke into wild panic, flung away their guns, and vainly prayed for mercy. A few days after this, English troops returning from India steamed into Suakim. General Sir Gerald Graham was in command. The troops were marched straight from the ship to the field of action, across the desert, and, at the wells of El Teb, the scene of Baker's defeat, and within sight of the unburied corpses of his Egyptians, they won a victory, not, however, without some difficulty, for the Arab rush staggered even the Highlanders. We all know Kip- ling's generous tribute to Arab courage in his stirring barrack ballad of "Fuzzy-wuzzy." Before the battle Osman Digna solemnly blessed his soldiers' clubs, charging them to strike with them the legs of their enemies' horses. Sir Gerald Graham followed up the victory at El Teb by another at a place called Tamai, where the fighting was hand to hand, — a series, as it were, of Homeric scrimmages; and by these victories the power of Osman Digna was thought to be broken. It was by no means so. Osman Digna soon took possession of an GORDON AND THE MAHDI. 83 entrenched camp at Tamanieb, and the English army held little more than the port of Suakim for several years. We must go back now to Gordon. When the Mahdi had got possession of half the Soudan, and Osman Digna of nearly all the other half, the English government came to the conclusion, long held by its employes, that the Soudan had never been anything but a strain and a drain to Egypt, that its petty princes (sultans they called them- selves) had been unjustly dispossessed fifteen years before by Ismail Pasha, and that the Soudan had better be given up to the Soudanese. How far this policy was wise has been since a serious question. Some think that it has cost more to keep the Soudanese out of Egypt than it would have done to govern them. At the time, however, there remained the problem how were the garrisons, and the families compromised by their adherence to the English and Egyptians, to be got safely out of Khartoum, Sennaar, and Kassala? The common voice cried : " Gordon ! " The English prime minister at that period was Mr. Gladstone, and he seems to have had some mistrust of Gordon's sagacity. The ministry resisted the cry for Gordon as long as it dared. He had been already recalled by the King of the Belgians from the Holy Land, where he was travelling, Bible in hand. King Leopold wanted him to go on his service to the Congo, but now his country claimed his help, and he accepted immediately. It is said that in official circles, on his appointment, he was treated with scant courtesy, but the heart of the people went with him on his perilous mission; and waiting for him at the railway sta- tion, when he began his journey, he found three gentlemen, — one a secretary in the War Office, who opened his car- riage door; one the Commander in chief, who seized his valise; and the other a prince of the blood, who rushed to buy his ticket. He reached his destination at the close of January, 1884. I should like to tell the story of Gordon's life, and especially of that part of his career which caused him to 84 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. be best known among his countrymen by the name of Chinese Gordon, but it is impossible to give space here to anything that does not directly concern Europe in Africa. I have already told briefly something of Gordon's first mission to the Soudan. He had been part of the European commission to the Danube in 187 1, and he had there inspired Nubar Pasha, the vizier of the Viceroy of Egypt, with great confidence in his character. His title was His Excellency General Gordon, Governor General of the Equa- tor under the Khedive of Egypt. "A queer mixture," he calls it. On that occasion he started for the Soudan the very day that the news of Livingstone's death was received in England. When he reached Gondokoro the misery that he found around him, in lands happy and well cultivated ten years before, filled his heart with anguish. "No one," he said, "can conceive the utter misery of these lands. It seems as if over them Azrael, the Angel of Death, had spread his wings; " and yet elsewhere he declares, "I sometimes think there is more happiness among these poor blacks than among our own middle classes. When any prosperity comes to them they enjoy it to the full." The English government had fully decided to force the Khedive to abandon the Soudan, and Gordon went there on his third mission to govern Khartoum and its vicinity till the country should be evacuated, and the English could bring away in safety the Egyptian garrisons. On his way to his post he had an interview at Cairo with Zebdhr Pasha, and the two men understood and forgave each other. The result of this better understanding was, that when difficulties thickened around Gordon he besought the English government to send him Zebdhr, "the only man in whom was help." Unhappily, in Memoirs of Gordon, and in newspaper correspondence, Zebdhr had, for some years, been held up to reprobation as the great slave-dealer, the Pasha who had GENERAL GORDON. GORDON AND THE MAHDL 85 enriched himself by slave-trading, and whose son had been slain in consequence. The English government, in its extremity, might have complied with Gordon's wish but for the opposition of Lord Randolph Churchill. They did not, therefore, per- mit Gordon to have Zebdhr's help; they feared public antislavery opinion at home. Gordon reached Khartoum on his fatal mission in Feb- ruary, 1884. The forces of the Mahdi had not yet drawn near, though Mohammed Ahmed, flushed with success, and animated by the fanaticism of his followers, was every day growing more formidable. Nearly all the Arabs had left the city, leaving behind them wives and children. If the Mahdi should be victorious they had joined with him; if Gordon should be successful then pardon would be pleaded for them by their children and their wives. Gordon put up boxes at two of the gates soon after his arrival, to receive petitions for the redress of grievances; he investigated the prisons, he reassured those who dreaded lest he had come to demand arrears of taxes due to the Egyptian government by burning all the ledgers in the tax office, and he made a great bonfire of all whips and instru- ments of torture, as a practical object lesson of a total change of policy. He proclaimed the Soudan for the Sou- danese. He also officially proclaimed that he should no longer interfere with slavery, that in that, as in other things, the Anglo-Egyptian government gave up its authority, and the people of the Soudan must do that which seemed best in their own eyes; — only until he had withdrawn the garrison from Khartoum, and the other fortified cities, his authority in Khartoum and the country that surrounded it must be considered supreme. At first he hoped that the Mahdi might be willing to make peace, and offered him the sultanate of the province of Kordofan, but the Mahdi refused, sending him the robe of a dervish, and inviting him to embrace Islamism, and acknowledge him as the Mahdi. 86 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. After that the year 1884 rolled slowly on, Gordon could have left Khartoum at any time, but he would not abandon his Egyptian garrison to the tender mercies of their enemies, nor those who had conipromised themselves by friendliness to the English, or to the Egyptian government. Nor would he desert the garrisons of Sennaar and Kassala. From time to time he sent away women and children, the aged and the sick, for he had two little steamers that plied between Khartoum and the sixth cataract; steamers that were very precious to him, because he thought that they would aid the English advance after it had passed the cataracts. His whole soul was watching for the arrival of English troops which were to assist in drawing off the garrisons. But alas ! there were all sorts of divided counsels concerning Egyptian affairs in the English cabinet. The starting of the expedition was repeatedly put off from week to week. Sometimes it was proposed to Gordon to embark on one of his steamers and come away from Khartoum. This pro- posal made him furious, and then it made him sorry. His answer to such propositions was ever : " Could you do such a thing?" All through that year of longing and disappointment he kept up his lifelong determination to have a hand yet, if he lived, in the destruction of the slave-trade at its source. He wrote : — "In January, 1886, we will, D. V., be at Bahr-el-Ghazal, and co-operating with the King of the Belgians, and with Henry Stanley. We will take back every province from the slave-traders. But these are secret prophecies." The population of Khartoum consisted for the most part of Arabs and the Soudanese, who were in general secretly inclined to the Mahdi. Of these an English gentleman said in those days: "They are splendid fellows, ground down, and robbed by every Egyptian ruffian who has money enough to buy himself free license to rob. They are quite right to rebel and hurl to destruction this nest of robbers." GORDON AND THE MAHDI. 8/ By and by the telegraph wires were cut, and communi- cation with England became precarious. Gordon knew that an expeditionary force was fitting out — was coming. But why did it not come ? At last it moved, but three weeks too late for boats to be warped over the cataracts without a fearful expenditure of labor and loss of time. Every day the Nile was sinking — sinking that year earlier than usual. A brigade of English sailors, and subsequently of Cana- dian voyageurs, was stationed at the cataracts to help forward the boats. One of the officers commanding this brigade was Lieutenant Rudolph de Lisle, of an old English Roman Catholic family, a man who must have been like-minded with Gordon, however much they differed upon points of faith. At last the steamers were over the falls, and the army on its march across the desert. Gordon sent down his boats with the last of his countrymen, Colonel Stewart and Mr. Power, to effect communication with the advancing force. The steamer was stranded on a sandbank in the river. Stewart and those with him were invited on shore and treacherously murdered, and Gordon was left, the only Englishman in Khartoum, with the force of the Mahdi closing round him. He had sent off his last journal in the steamer. His biographer tells us : — "The old men and women had now gone, and Gordon ordered all the empty quarters of the town to be pulled down, and walled in the rest. Meantime he built himself a tower of observation, from the top of which he could command the whole country round. At dawn he slept, by day he went his rounds, looked to his defenses, adminis- tered justice, cheered the spirits of his people, did such battle as he could with famine and discontent. At night he mounted to the top of his tower, and there, alone with his duty and his God, a universal sentinel, he kept watch over his ramparts, and prayed for help that never came." On November 4, 1884, he had a gleam of hope, as he knew 88 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. that Lord Wolseley's expeditionary force was not far off; but the Mahdi was only eight hours distant from Khartoum. Nearer and nearer the relieving force fought its way onward. The Naval Brigade and some other troops had a terrible battle with the enemy at the wells of Abu Klea, where young Rudolph de Lisle was killed, and there was another severe struggle at the wells of Gulkul. But at last it was reported that a small advanced guard under Sir Charles Wilson was on its way up the river in steamers that had been warped over the cataracts by the Naval Brigade, and was approaching Khartoum. Then came the news, like a thunderbolt. Through treachery the gates of Khartoum had been opened to the Mahdi, the garrison had been massacred, Gordon had fallen. For a long time England refused to believe the news. There was no clear account of Gordon's death; he might have escaped, he might have gone south in disguise and joined Emin Bey near the equator. Years after, when a mysterious white pasha was talked about in Equatorial Africa, many admitted a wild hope that it might be Gordon yet alive. But alas ! there was really no room to doubt, although, until long afterwards, Christendom knew not how he died. Some said he was struck down as he came out of his house to rally his troops for the last time; some said he was brought before the Mahdi and hewn in pieces, after he had refused to embrace Mohammedanism. In January, 1889, however, an English paper published an account of his death, sent by its correspondent from Suakim. It is the narrative of a Greek who was in Khar- toum when it was taken, and who escaped in the disguise of one of the Mahdi's dervishes: — " I was at Khartoum the night that it was taken. The Nile had gone down so that part of Khartoum was open. That night Faragh Pasha, in whom Gordon had entire confidence, treacherously removed his troops out of the way." GORDON AND THE MAHDI. 89 "Do you believe," the narrator was asked, "that if the British had arrived three days earlier Khartoum would have fallen? " The man replied — " If the British, or even a few of them, had arrived one hour before the attack the place would not have been taken, and the troops would have fought to the last. Faragh had sent word to the Mahdi : 'Unless you attack to-night all is lost.' In that night all was blood and flame. The city passed over from the command of Gordon to that of the Mahdi. It was a dire — a dreadful night. I shall remem- ber it to my dying day. The air smelt of blood. I had a Mahdi uniform given to me by an Arab friend. I has- tened to put it on. Seeing me in the uniform some Arabs rushed in and ordered me to the Government House, where, they said, all the Arab officers of the Mahdi had gone to kill Gordon Pasha. I saw Gordon Pasha smoking a cigarette on the balcony facing the river. We had entered the courtyard from the back. The gate was smashed in. With Gordon was standing the Doctor Giorgio Demetrio, and the Greek consul. Five hundred dervishes, who had been sent by the Mahdi with especial orders to take Gordon Pasha alive, stood at the foot of the staircase. I went up the stairs, being pushed up by the men below who were vociferating, ' Gordon Pasha ! Gordon Pasha ! ' Gordon coolly left the balcony. ' Fly,' said his two friends; ' fly while there is yet time. Go in at the little door, and take the little boat! ' ' Shall I fly and leave my post? ' Gordon replied, indignantly. ' That would indeed be a disgrace. I shall not fly. ' He then went into his inner room and put on his full uniform and sword. Then came he forth grandly. He drew himself up to his full height. ' Whom seek ye ? ' he asked, gazing on the sea of fierce angry faces of dervishes he saw below, and hearing the clamor of their angry voices. ' Gordon Pasha ! ' they cried aloud. ' You want him — do you?' he replied. On his visage was a look of scorn. ' I am he. Come up hither. ' Again Giorgio Demetrio and the Greek consul urged him to fly, 90 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. but he spurned their advice, crying, ' Shame ! Would you have me abandon my post ignominiously? " He could easily have escaped at the rear. I have said before that the dervishes were ordered not to kill Gordon, but to stay in the courtyard. In fact, they had been ordered tp kill no one in the palace. There were five hundred of them. They hoisted their flag over the gate. So it came to pass that those dervishes still remained below while Gordon Pasha stood in a bold attitude at the head of the staircase. Then came up some of the Mahdi's generals, ^ — -one Nasr, and another, nephew of a dervish of distinction. The dervishes allowed them to pass, seeing they were men in authority. They ascended the stairs and asked for the Pasha. Gordon met them, saying : ' I am Gordon Pasha. ' He then handed them his sword in military fashion, inti- mating that he knew they had taken the place, and that consequently he surrendered, according to the rules of war. But Nasr snatched hold of his sword; at the same moment, in a brutal and most cowardly fashion, he struck Gordon an unexpected blow. The Pasha would have, of course, fought desperately to the last had he not thought he would be treated in an honorable manner. He fell, and rolled down the stairs, and as he rolled another general spear&d him in the left side. It was a grievous wound. Thus died Gordon. I was there, a spectator of the ghastly deed. I got out of the way as he rolled down the stairs. Now, when Hadji el Zobeir, the Mahdi's treasurer, saw these things, and what had befallen Gordon, he was sorely vexed, and drawing near, cried out : ' Wallah ! have they killed thee? May Allah require thy blood at their hands! May thy blood be upon their heads ! May Allah punish them ! ' "Some say that Gordon was cut up in little pieces; others that they embalmed his body, and sent it to the Mahdi. There were bodies cut up, but I am inclined to believe they were the bodies of the consul and the doctor, not Gordon's. The blacks fought bravely, but when they saw that all was over they surrendered and were made pris- GORDON AND THE MAHDI. 9 1 oners. The Arabs took one day massacring the Egyptian soldiers, but they spared the regiments that let them in." No hands gave Gordon Christian burial. But at Wind- sor, in a glass case, is his Bible, given by his sister, Miss Gordon, to the Queen, who had asked for the privilege of looking over it. It is open at a marked passage. Memorial institutions have been got up to his memory. One may almost say a whole world mourned him. But surely he has not suffered and died in vain ! Gordon hap- pily extricated from his distresses would have been little more to the heart of the world than any other Christian man might have been. When the destruction of the slave- trade comes, and when "the Morian's land shall stretch out her hands to God," surely Gordon will stand foremost among Africa's deliverers, though, humanly speaking, his earthly mission failed. God laid aside that tool and took up others, but that tool had been instrumental in pressing on that work towards its completion. "All Christendom," said the "Daily Telegraph," "turned its eyes to that lonely Englishman ready to ransom the lives of his black people with his own blood, and comprehended that the story of the Divine Founder had a new illustration." The Roman Catholic organ, the "Tablet," thus speaks of Gordon : " He died as he had lived, true to his trust, and faithful to the end. Nor will any one who can get out of his eyes the dust of the present say that he has died in vain. His immediate effort has been foiled, and the city he strove for has fallen, but it is still true that the grandest heritage a hero can leave his race is to have been a hero. His memory, the memory of a soldier whose life was will- ingly laid down for the people he went to save, and whose strength through life was his strong trust in God, may yet be a source of inspiration to generations not yet born." We know of Gordon's life up to the two weeks before his death from his letters and his journals. Of what hap- pened afterwards very little is known, but here is the story of one who formed part of the Egyptian garrison, and who 92 EUROPE IN AFRICA LY THE XIXTH CENTURY. related it subsequently to a correspondent of the " Daily News " : — " We had a great iUumination the night Gordon arrived at Khartoum. If all Christians were like him all the world would become Nazarenes, but you do not follow the teachings of your own Prophet as we Mussulmans do. . . . But bad tidings came day by day of the approach of the cursed Arabs. They had been hovering around us a long time before the Pasha arrived. Then Gordon set every man to work to dig a trench and make a para- pet. We had many traitors. They were known to the Pasha, but he said : ' Let them alone ; in the end they shall be punished.' For a good while provisions came into Khartoum across the river. Gordon used to say to all who wanted to leave, ' Stay, my friends, the English are coming.' The Doctor Giorgio Demetrio stayed, and that pretty girl of sixteen his daughter, and Herr Klein, the German tailor. He had resided twenty-five years in Khartoum. . . . You would like to know the story of our lives from day to day, but every day was like yesterday, and to-day like to-morrow. We were like dogs guarding sheep-folds from the wolf or the hyena ; but we were not down-hearted. Gordon kept saying to us: 'Patience, — the English are coming, — are coming. God watches over you!' He was a good man. ' My trust in God never fails,' he said, 'neither let yours.' In the morning the band would play to him early as he sat in his kiosque. He took his coffee there. He then walked up and down on the top of his house. After this many officials came to him, and others. After this Gordon Pasha took his lunch. After this business was re- sumed. At evening he would ride along the embankments to the White Nile. The enemy were always firing in a desultory way. We were always expecting from dawn to sunset the arrival of the English. Whenever we heard news of them our hearts rejoiced. The Arabs have a fear of the English, dating back to the time of Arabi's defeat. They believe that they carry with them a piece of wood that they can extend to any height, that up this they climb, and can spy their enemy at any distance.^ As time wore on and provisions were becoming scarce, because of the strictness of the siege, Gordon Pasha sent away all the women and old men out of Khartoum. They were afraid to go at first, but Gordon gave them a letter to the Malidi Mohammed Ahmed, writing as follows : ' Be good to these, and treat them well, I charge thee. Behold I have kept and fed all these for four months ; try how thou wilt like doing it for one month.' 1 Probably a confused notion of the heliograph. GORDON AND THE MAHDI. 93 Mohammed Ahmed accepted them, and they are with him to this day. The Soudanese are a light-hearted people, even when a cloud hangs over them. As it was in the days of the Great Flood, and as it will be at the Last Day, so they bought and sold, married and were given in marriage. You would have thought nothing was going amiss. It is true that they all believed the English were coming." The Egyptian next tells us of the dervish dress that the Mahdi sent to Gordon. He continues: — "Gordon Pasha lived alone with his servant. Power Bey lived in the Church of the Roman Catholic Mission to guard the ammunition that was kept there. We strolled when off duty through the bazaar as usual. Some would gamble with domi- noes, and the young men would dress to please the young girls — with cane under arm, and cigarette in mouth. Bargains would be struck, and houses sold as if the end were not. I am told it has been so with great cities in time of siege. It was so, a Jew told me, with his city in Syria. Do not blame me when I tell of this, I am a different man. I have lost a wife — I had only one — and children. We went to the mosque too — crowds of us. Gordon always said the English were coming. I do not know that your coming would have altered matters, for this I tell you advisedly, the will of God determined it. There were traitors in our midst. The plan was to deliver over the city when the English drew near. At night the enemy would come within speaking distance and curse us for infidels, and we would reply and curse them. Thus did we call out to each other all the whole night. The English stayed too long upon their way ; perhaps had they come in the gates would not have been opened, but still I tell you treachery was planned long before. The rebels came over before dawn. Faragh and another opened the gate. All the white and all the black v/omen in the town are now made slaves. My poor wife! I shall never see her again. When I say white I mean those whose fathers were Englishmen and their mothers Abyssinian women ; and there were some Turkish ladies, wives of officers. All are now slaves! " One cannot but wonder whether Gordon ever discovered in what light he was held by the Mahdi. There was, as 1 have said, a prophecy, dating from the time of Mahomet, that the true Mahdi should subdue the representative of Christianity, and then, after converting him to the true faith, should place him at his side, his equal in power 94 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. and glory, and that they should reign together upon earth. This position, there is little room to doubt, the Mahdi be- lieved was reserved for Gordon. In spite of the untimely death of this representative of Christianity, his conquest in his stronghold was a great encouragement to the Mahdi 's followers. Terrible was the disappointment and grief of the English army when a foot messenger reached it three days later at the wells of Gakdul, with news of what had taken place at Khartoum. But greater still was the shock to the detach- ment under Sir Charles Wilson, part of the force which had crossed the desert under Sir Herbert Stewart, and had fought the battles of Abu Klea and Gubat, losing in the former the gallant Colonel Burnaby so famous for his ride to Khiva some years before. At Gubat were lost many men and valuable officers, besides the correspondents of the "Daily News " and the "Standard." The "Times " corre- spondent, Mr. Power, had also perished with Colonel Stewart but a few days before. This news was received by Sir Charles Wilson immediately after the battle of Gubat, and made him more than ever desirous to hurry on. He reached the Nile, found there a steamer that had been warped over the cataracts, and was within forty-eight hours of Khartoum. The banks of the Nile, as the steamer approached the place, were lined with Arabs. An island near Khartoum was in their possession. As the little steamer approached the town there were no welcoming flags displayed. The place seemed crowded with people. They were Arabs gesticulating their triumph. It was no use for the relief to go further. It was too late. The city was lost. The Arabs had won. The same news determined Lord Wolseley to retreat. The object the English army came for could not now be accomplished. The hot season was coming on. The two thousand men who had started to cross the desert were now only fifteen hundred. They had lost one quarter of their privates, an immense number of officers, and nearly all GORDON AND THE MA HDL 95 their camels in a week. It would have been madness to embark in an uncertain campaign by pushing on. So Lord Wolseley returned to Dongola. In the middle of July Kassala surrendered, and subse- quently the garrison in Sennaar. The English government had at one time made arrangements for laying a railroad track from Suakim to Berber on the Nile, but the enter- prise was subsequently necessarily abandoned. They had also sent to the United States for machinery, and men to work it, for artesian wells. Troops came to Suakim from India, and even from Australia. The English government was encouraged by the death of Mohammed Ahmed in the summer of 1885, five months after the fall of Khartoum. When dying he named the Khalifa Abdullah his successor, and passed away into the number of those Mahdis who were but forerunners of the mighty Mahdi yet to come. But the English were quite mistaken if they deemed their troubles at an end. Osman Digna was more on the alert than ever. He fought the English inch by inch and day by day, and they could gain over him no permanent ad- vantage. Meantime Lord Wolseley' s men were dying fast from the climate, and a war cloud looked ominous on the Afghan frontier. It was decided to withdraw the English troops from the southern border of Egypt, but to retain Suakim with an English garrison. The general left in charge, Sir Gerald Graham, had no more land around Suakim than that commanded by his own guns. The Khalifa Abdullah, who has never definitely taken the title of Mahdi, though his followers consider him in that light, has had troubles of his own. The provinces over which he holds sway are now in utter wretchedness and anarchy; it may be safe to say that every man in them has abandoned agriculture and gone to war with his neighbor. CHAPTER IV. THE CAPTIVES OF THE MAHDI. BEFORE we leave the subject of Egypt, which from time to time threatens Europe with serious complications, we must say a few words concerning the condition of that coun- try under the English occupation ; and first of all, a few pages may be devoted to the fate of the European cap- .tives made by the Mahdi, some of whom are still held at Omdurman in a state of slavery. In March, 1880, a party of Austrian Roman Catholic mis- sionaries, headed by an Italian bishop, and comprising three missionary priests, Fathers Ohrwalder, Dichtl, and Primez- zoni, together with several Sisters of Charity, reached Khar- toum on their way to Delem, a station occupied by Egyptian troops with a view to the suppression of the slave-trade. Delem was situated on the verge of the province of Darfour, in a district containing, it was said, one hundred mountains, with rich valleys between them, inhabited by Nubas, a kindly, industrious, and cheerful negro people, who had made con- siderable progress in civilization. They were liable, however, even in 1880, to raids from a fierce Arab tribe, called the Baggaras, who at present, under Abdullah, the Mahdi's suc- cessor, may be said to rule the once Egyptian Soudan, and by 1892 had decimated the Nubas by war, sold numbers of them into slavery, and forced the remainder to take refuge in their mountain fastnesses. On reaching Khartoum the missionary party was welcomed in the principal parlor of the Mission Buildings by the lead- ing Catholics in the city, among them Gessi Pasha, Gordon's THE MAHDI. THE CAPTIVES OF THE MAHDI. 97 lieutenant in the Bahr Gazal, now wearied with his con- tinual campaigns, and Slatin Bey, fresh from his province of Darfour. That evening the European colony dined together and were a cheerful party. " Little did we foresee," says Father Ohrwalder, " the terrible fate in store for nearly all of us." The missionaries found their life at Delem peaceful, pros- perous, and happy. The mission became a little Christian colony, being increased from time to time by rescued slaves, who speedily became deeply attached to the Sisters and the Fathers ; while the Nubas and their chief were from the first their friends. Things went on thus for about two years ; then in Delem were perceptible the first mutterings of the storm that was to burst over the Soudan, bringing massacre and calamity over all the land and on the peaceful Christian mission. Like the great Sheikh of the Wahabees, the Mahdi pro- claimed himself a reformer, protesting against abuses that under the lax Turks had crept into Islamism. Like the sect of the Wahabees, the partisans of his reforms were x\rabs, inspired with intense hatred to all Turks, whom they regarded as degenerate Mohammedans. The term " Turk " is applied in the Soudan to both Ottomans and Egyptians ; Greek to all classes of Europeans, with the exception of Englishmen. I have related the rise of the Mahdi in the preceding chapter. At Delem the news of him was at first very meagre, though there was much talk of his wonderful miracles ; the most important of which was said to be his power to change bullets into water when they were fired against his people. Soon malcontents, as well as fanatics, gathered round him, while to the slave-raiders, who owed their ruin to the new policy of the Egyptian government, — carried out in part by English agents, — Mohammed Ahmed appeared as a savior. These men were well armed, inured to war, and full of enthusiasm. Up to 1881, the Mahdi was simply called The Dervish ; after that time men believed in him as the true Mahdi. Several expeditions sent against him were defeated, H 98 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. and one after another of the Khedive's mihtary posts in Kordofan and Darfour fell into his hands. The Mahdi himself belonged to the Arab tribe of the Dengala, or natives of Dongola, who are noted in the Sou- dan as the most enterprising slave- dealers. His outward appearance was strangely fascinating. He was of strong constitution, and of dark complexion. When he smiled he showed white teeth, and between the two upper middle ones was a V-shaped space, which in the Soudan is con- sidered a sign that its owner will be fortunate. As a mes- senger of God he pretended to be in direct communication with the Deity, by means of visions. He called himself " The successor of the Prophet," and in all things endeav- ored to follow in the footsteps of his master. Under him it was intended to appoint four principal officers called khali- fas, but the place of the fourth one was never filled. The three appointed were the Khalifa Abdullah of the Baggara tribe ; the Khalifa Ali Wad Helu ; and Khalifa Sherif, a member of the Mahdi's own family and tribe. The Mahdi offered the position of fourth khalifa to the son of Sheikh Senoussi, the Mahdi of North Africa, but it was declined. The three khalifas were each in command of a corps d'ar- mee, while the Mahdi himself held no military position. The officers under the khalifas were styled emirs. I have already told of the strict prohibition of strong drinks, tobacco, and hashish, the use of which is common among the Turks and the Egyptians. Women were forbid- den to wear gold or silver ornaments, and were never to be guilty of putting on false hair. The Mahdi predicted the re- turn of our Lord and Saviour during his own lifetime, and the conversion of all Christians, Jews, and idolaters to Islamism, while, as the end of the world was near, Mahdists were expec- ted to prepare for it by much prayer, fasting, and self-denial. The Mahdi and his followers, having taken possession of the large town of El Obeid, turned their attention to Delem, five days' journey to the southward. This expedition was con- fided to the Baggara. On September 2, 1882, the destruction THE CAPTIVES OF THE MAHDL 99 of the mission took place ; the black Christians were made slaves, and the priests and the Sisters sent to El Obeid to be dealt with by the Mahdi. There were seven of them ; Father Bonomi, Father Ohrwalder, two lay brothers, and three sisters. In captivity three of these unhappy people remained ten years. Father Bonomi two years later made his escape ; some have been delivered by death, and the lay brothers are still in slavery. The Austrian consul at Khartoum, before it was besieged, contrived to send a letter to the Mahdi, offering any sum he would name for the ran- som of the members of the two Austrian missions, that of Delem and that of El Obeid. But the Mahdi replied that although it was true that the Prophet had sanctioned the ransom of captives, it was a custom he himself had changed. If the prisoners would not embrace Mahdism he would keep them with him till the appearing of Sayidna Isa (the master Jesus), when all men would become true believers. The annihilation of the army of Hicks Pasha wonderfully increased the prestige of the Mahdi. He became master of Kordofan. Then came his attack on Khartoum, the death of Gordon, and the retirement of the English army. The Soudan was left to the Soudanese ; that is, the Soudanese were left to be murdered, plundered, and oppressed by the Mahdi and the Arabs in his army. The European captives were treated as slaves, and made to work under various masters. After a time some Greeks obtained permission to protect the Sisters, after one of them, escaping from torture and confinement, had made her way to the tent of the Mahdi, and implored him for protection on her knees. The Mahdi pitied her when he saw her state, and having called to mind that the Koran enjoins respect and toleration of the ministers of Christ's rehgion, ordered the release of the Sisters from their masters. After this their chief sufferings were from poverty, small-pox, and famine, which they shared in common with all others in the Mahdi's capital. They endeavored to gain a scanty livelihood by needlework, while Father Ohrwalder wove ribbons, by the 100 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. sale of which he eked out their subsistence, and provided himself with the most absolute necessaries. Father Ohrwalder gives a circumstantial account of the treacherous murder of Colonel Stewart and the consuls Power and Hansal. They were enticed from an island on the Nile where they had taken refuge after the loss of their steamer, and chopped to pieces with axes in the tent of an Arab, from whom they had been led to expect hospitahty. His account of Gordon's death fully corroborates that given by the Egyptian officer. Gordon's head was sent to the Mahdi, and hung on a tree in the Mahdi's capital at Omdur- man, while wild dervishes danced around the tree, heaping curses upon Gordon. The tailor Klein, who had lived in Khartoum for twenty- five years, was murdered before the eyes of his wife and children; his eldest son was murdered with him. The mother, a Venetian lady of good family, fought like a tigress in defense of her younger children, who for a time were spared. The women in Khartoum were divided up between the Mahdi, the khalifas, and the emirs. The remnant were given over to their followers. Omdurman on the Nile, and not Khartoum, became the Mahdi's capital. Dongola, Darfour, and Kordofan were already his ; before long his generals had conquered Sen- naar, and his rule extended from an undefined frontier on the west to the Red Sea, from Bahr Gazal upon the Upper Nile to the frontier of Egypt. None of his followers doubted his divine mission after these successes ; even his uncle Seyid Abdul Kader, who up to that time had doubted if he was the true Mahdi, held out no longer. But while success increased the adulation and worship of his followers to an extraordinary degree, a change came over the Mahdi himself after the fall of Khartoum. Although he was still urging upon his disciples to despise all the good things of this world, he surrounded himself with comforts and luxuries, appreciating to the utmost the very pleasures against which he had declaimed so vehemently. THE CAPTIVES OF THE MAHDI. lOI " He urged moderation in eating and drinking, and yet he secured for himself every dainty tliat Khartoum could possibly furnish. He now wore shirts and trousers of the finest material, and in putting them on his wives were obliged to perfume him with costly fragrances. . . . The man who hitherto had had but a straw mat, now lay on a sumptuous bedstead, brought originally from Jedda, and cap- tured at Khartoum ; and his floor was spread with Persian carpets, while still his fanatical followers honored him as the direct messenger of God, sent to purge the world from the self-indulgent practices of the hated Turks," It was believed that dust touched by the Mahdi's foot had healing properties, and where he passed every trace of his steps was gathered up and stored away. Not a drop of the water in which he bathed was allowed to be wasted, and men and women threw themselves down frantically on the spots his feet had touched, and struggled with each other for the precious possession. But early in Ramadan of the year 1885, the Mahdi was taken dangerously ill, and on the 2 2d of June, not five months after the fall of Khartoum, he died, probably from fatty degeneration of the heart. The shock of his death was terrible to his followers. " Wild fanatics, so to speak, were struck dumb ; their eyes were suddenly opened, and their very confusion showed that they had suddenly realized the falseness of his pretensions." No one in Omdurman believed that the Mahdi's party would continue to bear sway in his name. But he had appointed the first of his khalifas, the energetic Abdullah, as his successor. This man never took the title of Mahdi ; he called himself the khalifa of the Mahdi, but he had much difficulty in establishing his authority, and has been able to maintain it only by great severity. The other two khalifas, Khalifa Ali Wad Helu and Khalifa Sherif, were unwilling to submit to his domination, and for some time there were threats of civil war. The Mahdi's family were especially opposed to Abdullah, and he treated his prede- 102 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. cesser's wives and women very badly. Under him all power is now exercised by his own tribe, the Baggara. In the summer of 1885 Sennaar, the last military post of the Egyptians, fell. An ItaHan who was its governor was taken prisoner, but a telegram from Cairo has recently announced his escape. We heard much in the early days of the Mahdi of the Frenchman Olivier Pain, once a member of the Council of the Commune, who was supposed to assist Mohammed Ahmed with advice, and to plan his military operations. But whatever Pain may have been guilty of in France, the poor fellow never had any chance of directing the Mahdi's councils. Here is his history, abridged from what is told to us by Father Ohrvvalder : — "On August 15, 1884, a great surprise fell upon El Obeid. Quite unexpectedly, at two o'clock in the after- noon, a European and three Arabs, mounted on good camels, entered the city, and rode boldly into the court- yard of the governor's house. The European dismounted and approached a large crowd of dervishes. He was tall, and gave them the impression of being a powerful, ener- getic man. He had a fair beard and was very sunburnt. Instantly all sorts of wild rumors were flying about concern- ing hira. Some said he was the King of France, others that he was one of the principal ministers of that nation. As he was unable to speak Arabic, Father Bonomi was summoned as interpreter. " The stranger informed Bonomi that he had marched from Dongola to El Obeid in thirteen days ; that he had escaped from Dongola, as the English had endeavored to thwart him in his projects ; that his name was Olivier Pain, and that he had been the bearer of letters from Zebdhr Pasha to the Mahdi ; but that fear of the English had induced him to destroy them. He said that he came in the name of France to place his nation's submission in the Mahdi's hands, and that he was prepared to assist the Mahdi by advice, and if necessary with deeds. " The dervishes, however, did not believe him ; they THE CAPTIVES OF THE MAHDI. 103 entirely distrusted Europeans, and concluded that Pain was a spy sent by England to take stock of the situation. They therefore searched him, took from him his money, letters, papers, and maps ; a few books of travels relating to the Soudan, an Arabic dictionary, a copy of the Koran in French, and put him under very strict guard ; the other Europeans were not permitted to see him. Pain com- plained of the food they offered him, but was told that the true adherents of the Mahdi were dead to the things of this world. When asked repeatedly by the dervishes why he should have come into their country, he always answered that, 'The whole of the European nations, more especially France (with the one exception of England), entirely sym- pathized with the Mahdi.' After being kept a little while in confinement, he was forwarded to the Mahdi. On his way he reached a small town where he found one of the lay brothers of the Roman Catholic Mission. To him he confessed that he was the correspondent of a newspaper, and that he came to the country to see the Mahdi and his empire, about which he intended to write full accounts to his paper. The brother endeavored to represent to him the difficulties of the undertaking, but Pain answered that he was full of en- ergy, and that if he succeeded he would reap a great reward. The Mahdi received him very coolly. Pain had imagined that the immense services that he would be able to render the Mahdi would cause the latter to receive him with open arms, — but the poor man was sadly deluded. By this time he was broken down by dysentery, caused by fatigue, bad water and poor food. Still under strict guard, he was compelled to follow the Mahdi. On the way he declared that he could go no further, and begged for medicine. The remedy in the Soudan in such cases is a draught of melted butter. After Pain had drunk a little, he was placed on a camel, but it had only gone a few steps when he fell off in a fainting fit. As he lay unconscious on the ground, and was deathly pale, his guards believed he must be dead ; so they dug a rough grave in which poor Pain was laid, cov- 104 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. ered him over with sand, and then hurried on. It is quite possible the unfortunate man was not dead. This took place November 15, 1884, about two months before Khar- toum fell." In September of the same year Lupton Bey, governor of the Bahr Gazal, arrived at El Obeid as a prisoner; but at first he was far better treated than the rest. After Hicks had been defeated, a large force of Mahdists, con- ducted by two brothers who were slave-dealers, made their way to the lands of the White Nile. Lupton refused to sur- render to them and was anxious to fight, but his own men declared for the Mahdi, and he had no alternative but to surrender himself a prisoner. As long as he had money, he was very kind to his companions in captivity, but falling under suspicion of trying to escape, he was stripped of everything -and confined ten months in chains, treatment which broke down his health entirely. After his release from chains he was carried to Omdurman, where he proposed to adopt soap-boiling for a living, and was about to associate with himself Father Ohrwalder, when ordered by the authorities to assist a certain Hassan Zeki in the manufacture of gun- powder. His need was very great, and he accepted the employment, but disease had so weakened him that he died a few days after. Slatin Bey, ex-governor of Darfour, was also at Omdurman a prisoner. The first member of the Austrian Roman Catholic mis- sion to effect an escape was Father Bonomi. Monsignor Sogaro, at Cairo, had made repeated attempts to send money to the captives, and to lay plans for their rescue, but as it was death to carry a letter to them, nothing had reached them, and sometimes they believed themselves friendless and forgotten. On June 4, 1885, a few days before the Mahdi's death, a Copt handed Father Bonomi a note, saying that he was charged to take him back to Dongola, and would meet him casually in the market the next day. The note, when read by the two priests in secret, was as follows : — THE CAPTIVES OF THE MAHDI. 105 " Dear Friend : I am sending this man that you may escape with him. Trust him — he is lionest. Monsignor Sogaro awaits you in Cairo with outstretclied arms. Your fellow countryman, Alois Sartoni." Here was a chance for Bonomi, but his poor fellow captive felt himself forgotten and forlorn. The truth was that a false rumor had reached Cairo that Father Ohrwalder had died of ill-treatment and disease. The messenger refused to take charge of another man, having received orders only for one. Almost heart-broken, Ohrwalder accompanied his brother priest through the mirk midnight to within a short distance of the place where he had engaged to meet his deliverer, and then turned back into a captivity lonelier and more dreary than ever. Father Bonomi arrived safe in Dongola, and Mr. Sartoni was rewarded by His Holiness Pope Leo XHI. with the order of Gregory the Great, in recognition of the humane service he had rendered. Eight years more of misery and slavery lay before the solitary priest and the three Sisters of Charity. One of the latter died in October, 1891, and the others envied her as they stood round her grave upon a sand-hill, with all the Greeks and Syrians in Omdurman. Two weeks later help unexpectedly came. Monsignor Sogaro had found a man who, with two other Arabs, was willing to undertake the dangerous enterprise, and faithfully, intelligently, and energetically they performed it. The commission was for Father Ohrwalder, and two sis- ters, but one of the sisters of the Delem Mission being dead, another from the El Obeid Mission was substituted for her. They also took with them a little black girl, Adila, who had been born at Delem, in the Mission House. Ahmed, their guide, had received ;!^ioo to purchase camels ; and to get them and conceal them was a very diffi- cult task. To no one could they confide their prospect of escape for fear of compromising him. They ascertained, Io6 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. however, to their great satisfaction, that the government had no riding camels in its beit el mal, or depot of supplies, so pursuit could not be very immediate. It was a month before all their preparations were con- cluded, then in the darkness they stole out of the town. The camels were excellent animals, and had been well fed for two weeks ; there was one for each sister, and her driver, Ahmed had one to himself, and little Adila was mounted behind Father Ohrwalder on another. The details of the journey are dwelt on minutely in his narrative ; it must suffice us to say that they went onward at an almost incredible pace day and night, through thorny brakes which tore their clothes, and inflicted painful wounds upon their persons ; over deserts, over rocks, up mountains, and in the stony beds of rivers. They covered the entire distance between Omdurman and Murat, where at last they were in safety, five hundred miles, in seven days. In the first three days and a half they allowed themselves only four hours' sleep. For many hours before reaching safety the one absorbing thought was : " We shall sleep," and on entering the commandant's house at Murat all dropped, worn out, upon the floor, but then to their amazement sleep would not come. They had left Omdurman November 29, 1891 ; they reached Murat December 8, and Cairo on the 21st of December. They had had nothing to sustain life but dates, and a few biscuit. They were worn out and emaciated. "The staying power of our camels," says Father Ohr- walder, " astonished me. How easily one of them might have stumbled and broken its leg, as we trotted hard through the dark nights, unable to see where we were going ! But Ahmed and his companions had used all their knowledge in securing thoroughly good animals : our excellent guides had been ever ready to help and assist us ; full of energy and pluck, they had carried out their enter- prise with the utmost sagacity and integrity. Poor Ahmed had dwindled down almost to a skeleton, and when he dis- mounted at Murat was overcome by a fit of dizziness, from which he did not recover for an hour." FATHER OHRWALDER. THE CAPTIVES OF THE MAHDL lO/ As soon as their escape was discovered at Omdurman, the khaUfa ordered they should be brought back, even if buried in the earth. Happily the pursuers started on a false trail. No one was put to death for their escape, but other prisoners were put in chains, and had much to suffer. When Father Ohrwalder reached Cairo, Major Wingate, R. A., director of mihtary intelligence in the Egyptian army, made him draw up the narrative of his captivity, which he rewrote into English in its present form. In England the book in a few months went through five edi- tions, but it has never been reprinted in this country ; and possibly, like all books full of strange names, hard to pro- nounce, and impossible to remember, it may not be calcu- lated readily to attract the general reader. There have since been other escapes from Omdurman, notably those of Father Rossignoli, another priest of the Austrian Mission, and Slatin Bey, the last of Gordon's lieutenants, ex-governor-general of Darfour. Slatin Bey (now Slatin Pasha) reached Cairo March, 1895, having been one month, all but one day, on his way from captivity to freedom. He is an Austrian by birth, and his age is now about forty. His family holds a good social position, and his brother is in the employ of the Austrian govern- ment. When a very young man, at Cairo, he attracted the attention of General Gordon, who took him with him when he first went to the Soudan. In 1876 he, however, re- turned home, and served his country as a volunteer in the campaign against the Turks in Herzegovina. The war over, he went back to the Soudan, where Gordon made him first inspector-general of East Soudan and Sen- naar, and afterwards a sub-governor of the same district. In 1882, Rauf Pasha nominated him governor-general of Darfour. That province had, however, already gone over in great part to the Mahdi. In vain Slatin Bey was con- tinually fighting against the dervishes, now in the north, and now in the south ; but, though constantly victorious, he could never subdue them. He had, he told Father I08 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. Ohnvalder, since his arrival in Darfour, fought twenty- seven battles. On one occasion he was struck by a bullet, which shattered one of his fingers ; but, " undismayed, he seized the hanging remnant with his other hand, and ordered the man next him to cut it off with his knife, after which he joined again in the fight, and cheered his men on to victory." After the defeat of Hicks Pasha, Slatin Bey was forced to yield : his ammunition was all gone, and his men were refusing to stand by him. He sent in a letter to the Mahdi, saying he would surrender. At the same time he wrote to Gordon : " Officers and men demanded a capitu- lation, and I, standing here alone and a European, was obliged to capitulate. Does your Excellency believe that to me, an Austrian officer, the surrender was easy? It was the hardest day of my life." The Mahdi at first was dis- posed to treat him as he did Lupton, with more considera- tion than a common prisoner ; but a treacherous native, having handed to him a letter written by Lord Wolseley to Slatin, his treatment of the latter became very severe, and he was kept in chains ten months. On the Mahdi's death the Khahfa Abdullah made him one of his bodyguard and kept him always under his own eye. Nine times had Major Wingate endeavored to open for him a chance of escape. The tenth time he succeeded. Last February, as Slatin Bey, in attendance on his master, was at prayers in the mosque, a man knelt down beside him, and in a few words told him he was in Omdurman to effect his escape, and gave him directions. That night, Sla- tin, wrapping his head well up, stole away to the appointed place, where he found two camels and two Arabs. As soon as they were clear of Omdurman they started at full speed, making one hundred and twenty miles in twenty-four hours: This pace exhausted the camels, who were then turned loose, and Slatin Bey hid in the mountains, while his guides went off to procure fresh camels. Pursuit was very hot, and capture repeatedly seemed imminent. They swam the Nile to conceal their track and floated the camels over on blad- THE CAPTIVES OF THE MAHDI. 109 ders made of water-skins. At last Slatin, under the guid- ance of a very old man, reached the Nubian desert. In this he wandered for twelve days, when he reached a railway station at Assouan, and at once started for Cairo, exchang- ing his dress as a member of the khalifa's bodyguard for a rough jacket and trousers and a pair of tennis shoes, the only European garments he could procure at that outpost of civilization. He looked in good health, in spite of his terrible experiences both during his captivity of twelve years and during his adventurous journey. He left behind him a letter to the khalifa, saying that the desire to see his friends in Europe had induced him once more to pay them a visit, and praying the khalifa not to punish other Euro- peans in Omdurman, as none of them had known anything of his intention to escape. It is to be feared, however, that this letter may have been of no avail, as after the departure of Father Rossignoli, a lay brother named Ragnotto had been thrown into chains, and at the time of Slatin's escape was still a prisoner. At the depot at Cairo, Slatin Bey was met by the Aus- trian consul-general, Major Wingate, Father Rossignoli, and others. Father Ohrwalder's information had been invalu- able to the Austrian consul-general and Major Wingate in making plans for the ex-governor's escape, which however might possibly not have been so successfully carried out had it not been for the excitement among the dervishes at the very recent news of the capture of Kassala by the Italians. "The Mahdi's notions of scientific warfare," says the " London Graphic," " are no doubt of the vaguest, but even the most untutored Arab must appreciate the strategical value of Kassala as the thin edge of the dreaded wedge of foreign intrusion into the Soudan." There has been rarely a more tangled skein in history than that which relates at present to Egyptian affairs. They are tangled by international politics, which are af- fected by tangles in English party politics ; they are tangled by ancient arrangements with the Sultan as suzerain and I lO ECROFE IX AFRICA IX THE XIXTH CEXTURY. Caliph, pretensions which cannot be wholly set aside ; by indiscreet utterances as to the duration of the English occu- pation made by a prime minister who by temperament has always believed firmly that what he wills must inevit- ably turn out according to his wishes ; and, lastly, they are tangled by the anomalous position of the young Khedive, besides the now acknowledged mistake that England made in 1SS4, when she recklessly forced Eg}'pt to aban- don control over the valley of the White Nile. They are further tangled by the quarrels, jealousies, and back-biting^ of the mixed multitude in Egypt, but above all by the Levantines, who call themselves Christians, and whose greed has brought the name of Christian into such disgrace that it has become a synonym in Egypt for everything un-Christian. While more entangling than all is the sentimental chauvinism of the French, the whole nation desiring almost as much to supplant English influence and authority in Egypt, as that of Germany in Alsace and Lorraine. Time must untie these various knots in the Egyptian situation. IMeantime English administration seems to be very patiently endeavoring to loosen most of them, and in most cases with extraordinary success. In 1SS5 there were three things that men of experience pronounced were im- possible in Eg}^pt: i, to make it solvent; 2, to collect the taxes without the free use of the whip ; and, 3, the execu- tion of public works without forced labor. Yet by 1S95 all these things have been done. A recent English writer in the " Fortnightly Review " has said : — "It is a fiict that should not be forgotten that the first three years of our intervention in Egypt did more harm than good to the country ; and the harm would never have happened if the government of the day had had the courage to act upon the advice and opinions of those who had had experience in the country, and knew the state of affairs. Had the most ordinary precautions been taken, Alexandria would never have been burnt down, and the probabilities are there would have been no Egyp- tian war. no Tel el Kebir, no massacres of Egyptian troops, and no loss of the Soudanese provinces. It is undoubted that riJE CAPTIVES OF THE MAI/DI. 1 1 1 three years after the British intervention Egypt was in a worse condition than before our intervention. Alexandria had been burnt ; the armies of Hicl l|i I il ■ .",!'';: ,!'i;Vl|' -./"'Vi,.', 'I ■■'",' ■■ ■ ,'■, I'^'ihIii.; 'Ml lif 11* hi TIPPU TIB. DARKE S T AFRICA. 1 7 5 those boxes. Bonny said when first recounting the disaster of the Rear Column at Fort Bodo : " Oh ! Barttelot was off his head ! " The same excuse may be offered I think for other autocrats mentioned in history, who without suffering the effects of African fever have become at least semi- insane under the pressure of the possession of absolute power. For months Barttelot and his officers were kept con- stantly travelling up and down the Congo on fruitless errands. Now to Stanley Falls, now to Katonga, two hun- dred miles south of the Falls, upon the river, in a vain attempt to hurry up Tippu ; now down the Congo to send or receive telegrams from the Central Committee of the Relief Expedition in London. Ward was the man most employed in these later expeditions ; he made some remark- able journeys on the Congo in canoes. But Barttelot, for no visible reason, fell out with him, and wrote him an insult- ing letter which looked like insanity. While all the white men seem to have been running about on various missions, the camp appears to have fallen into a terrible state of sickness, depression, destitution, and undis- cipline, followed by cruel and excessive punishments. The food of the men was chiefly manioc root, which no one seems to have taught them how to prepare properly, and in the crude state in which they used it it was semii-poisonous. On June 11, 1888, Barttelot moved from the entrenched camp at Yambuya to Banalya, having sent Ward two thou- sand miles to the coast to send a telegram to England — two thousand miles there, and two thousand miles back, and for the second time ! Troup had gone home invalided. Barttelot himself had travelled thirteen hundred miles on various errands. On July 17, 1888, when Stanley was on the march back from Fort Bodo, Barttelot, who had been absent, returned to camp with some Manyuema Arabs, whom he had at last got as carriers from Tippu. Jameson was away on some errand, Bonny was the only other white man in camp. 1/6 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. The next morning about five o'clock, when sleepless and irritable, Barttelot was disturbed by the shrill singing of a woman, the wife of one of the Arab head men, whom he had brought with him. He seized his cane and rushing out of his tent began to beat the woman. Her husband fired at him through a loophole in his tent and stretched him dead. Bonny at once sent for Jameson, who on his arrival (leaving the camp again in charge of Bonny) set out at once for Stanley Falls to see Tippu and have punishment dealt out to the murderer. From Stanley Falls he wrote to Bonny that he was going down the river to Bangala to see the despatches from the Committee in London, for at Bangala, Barttelot, from some unaccountable whim, had ordered Ward to keep them. "We at Fort Bodo," writes Parke, on hearing these things on Stanley's return with the remnant of Barttelot's followers, " are kept in a fog of amazement in trying to understand the how and the why of the wreck of the Rear Column." Subsequently he writes : — " My ill-fated friend Major Barttelot, who was the means of my introduction to the expedition, was one of my brightest and pleasantest companions during the first eight months of its course. Although possessed of a rather ungovernable temper, he was always a very jolly comrade, when not depressed or over-tasked by sickness or worry ; and the only thing which tended to neutralize his usefulness in the post assigned him was his pronounced antipathy to the black man. Had he been more fortunate in his choice, and not joined our expedition, his energy and undoubted bravery would probably have secured for him a brilliant soldierly career. The only other officer who died on the expedition, Mr. Jameson, was always quiet, most cheerful, and amiable to a degree." This being the case, Jameson's friends and the public were amazed when, by the revelations of one of the interpreters, it was learned, and repeated all along the Congo, that that DARKEST AFRICA. 1 77 gentleman had paid for a black girl to be purchased, killed, and eaten by cannibals, and had made sketches of the revolting scene. No one would have beheved the story had not a letter from himself pronounced the main facts true. Only he said that when he gave six handkerchiefs to buy the girl, he thought it all a joke on the part of the men to whom he gave them. Jameson died in Warde's arms immediately on arriving at Bangala, about the very day on which Stanley reached his Rear Column in its camp at Banalya ; where Bonny alone of his white officers awaited him. When Stanley's "Darkest Africa" came out, suppressing much of Barttelot's mismanagement of the Rear Column, but still laying considerable blame on him for not at all risks moving forward, Barttelot's friends and family, in a white heat of indignation, published a book intended to be his vindication, but it brought out facts which, no doubt, had they known them, they would have wished suppressed ; and which Stanley magnanimously had passed over lightly. Enough of the Rear Column. We now turn to another episode. Mr. Jephson tells us that when Emin met Stanley at Kavallis, April 28, 1888, he told him there was some trouble in his province, but did not disclose to him that half his troops, in what was called the first battalion (Egyptian army), were in open revolt against him. When Emin heard of the fall of Khartoum, and that the Soudan was to be abandoned to the Soudanese, i.e. to the Arabs and anarchy, he was desirous to withdraw as much as possible from the northern part of his province, and to strengthen himself along the shores of the Albert Nyanza, where he would have his steamers, and might hope to open a route to Zanzibar, if he could gain the good will of Kabba Rega, the potentate who governed Unyoro, the country to the south and east of the lake. To this end he sent an envoy to Kabba Rega, his only white man, Casati, an Italian captain, who had come out to join him before Khartoum N 178 EUROPE IX AFRICA IX THE XIXTH CEXTURY. fell, and who had since travelled extensively to the north of the Dark Forest, along the tributaries of the Aruwimi. Casati seems to have had the art of making himself popular with African chiefs and people, but he was unsuccessful with Kabba Rega, who, after keeping him some months at his court, suddenly plundered his house, tied him all night naked to a tree, and then turned him forth in that condition, forbidding his people to give him clothes, shelter, or food. In that state Casati was found by Emin, who came down the lake in a steamer, during the interval that elapsed between Stanley's first and second visits to the Albert Nyanza. Casati has written a book so entirely without dates, or index, or any other arrangement, that it is a per- fect dark forest, very difficult to find one's way through. When Stanley departed from Kavallis, Jephson, who was left alone with Emin, began to get clearer views of the situ- ation in the pasha's province. It was evident that the European world had been misled by Dr. Junker, and by the few letters from Emin that had made their way to civil- ization. Emin had plenty of ammunition, indeed had de- stroyed much that it might not foil into the hands of the rebels. He had abundant supplies of food and clothing, and as to returning to Egypt, very few of his people, Egyp- tians, Arabs, or Soudanese, had any wish to do so. Some few said that if he went they would follow him, but that meant merely that they dared not stay behind and fall into the hands of the rebels. The people with him were Egyptian military officers and clerks, and Soudanese from Dongola. Such of the Egyptian officers, Jephson says, as had been sent to Equatoria as a sort of military penal station, had for good reasons no wish what- ever to return to Egypt ; nor had the Soudanese any desire to go. They were living in power and plenty, and had wives and families whom they said they would not have money to support if they returned to Egypt. They were well satisfied with things as they were. But if the tranquil- lity of the province was to be disturbed by such advices as DARKEST AFRICA. 1 79 had reached them from Khartoum, and by the sudden arrival out of the Dark Forest of interfering Enghshmen, they would rather retain their hold on Equatoria as a military aristocracy, a race of Mamelukes ; Emin Pasha might de- part ; they would govern the country, and if necessary repulse the Mahdi for themselves. The officers of the second battaUon of Emin's army were for the most part also disaffected, and took advantage of Stanley's arrival and departure to stir up mutiny in their own ranks, already in sympathy with the first battalion. Reports were circulated that Stanley was an adventurer and an impostor. It was utterly impossible he could have come from the Khedive by way of the West of Africa ; he could not have penetrated the Dark Forest ; he was, in short, a European slave-hunter who wanted to get them all into his hands and sell them to the English as slaves ! Emin seems to have been aware of this impression, and, therefore, wanted Jephson to stay with him, and answer any questions about their march that might be put to him ; also to read to his people the Khedive's and Nubar Pasha's letters. It did not take Jephson long to find out two things : I. That no promises made by any Egyptians, Soudanese, or natives, were to be relied on. 2. That Emin had no real authority whatever. He was in the habit of believing in the good intentions of each and all who spoke to him by turns. He was in his own eyes a beneficent governor, at the head of a devoted people. His headquarters were at Wadelai on the Nile, some distance from the lake ; and still further north on the Nile was Dafile, a large military station occupied by the second battalion. Tunguru was the chief port on Lake Albert, but as Emin and Jephson travelled thither they heard that the soldiers of the second battalion were in open revolt at Dafile. Of this Jephson says : — " I pitied poor Emin intensely. Personally he was in no fear, for he was plucky from head to foot, but the thing that cut him to the heart was that his people, for whom he had l8o EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. done everything, should so turn against him. He said how deeply sorry he was that he should have been the means of bringing me into this nest of unpleasant possibilities. Of course I could only assure him that I was glad to be with him in his trouble." They reached Dafile ; were sullenly received, and shortly after imprisoned. However, after some diplomacy, the rebels, for certain not very clearly expressed reasons of their own (for there were intrigues within intrigues among them), permitted Jephson to go south to Wadelai in a steamer, Erain begging him if possible to save his papers and collections, which were in his house at Wadelai. It had been reported that Stanley was at Kavallis again, and the rebels had hopes of getting him and his valuable stores into their hands. If Jephson did not find Stanley at the lake he was under promise to return to imprisonment at Dafile. The report of Stanley's arrival proved untrue. Wadelai, when Jeph- son reached it, was in the hands of the mutineers, who had seized the ammunition. The houses of Emin and his friends had been pillaged. Erain's little daughter Ferida was at Wadelai, and before Jephson left to return to captiv- ity at Dafile, according to his promise, she found a secret moment to give him the beads off her own neck, and beg him to give them to her "baba," and to tell him, if the rebels did not give him enough to eat, to buy chickens with them. " What European child of four years old," asks Jephson, "would have thought of such a thing?" By this time the rebels had got the complete upper hand in the province, and in the midst of their triumph came the news that an expedition of dervishes from the Khalifa Ab- dullah was coming. This changed the situation of affairs. The mutineers began to turn to Emin for advice — nor did Emin refuse to help them. There is a shocking story in Jephson's book relating to the way in which the rebels tor- tured five dervishes, sent as envoys by the Mahdist com- mander, and of the constancy (worthy of Christian martyrs) with which these men endured their sufferings. DARKEST AFRICA. l8l At last the rebels found it necessary to evacuate Dafile, and Emin and Jephson, now once more at liberty, went with the rest of the fugitives to Wadelai. There Emin was received by the population with enthusiasm, and his spirits and his confidence revived. The soldiers implored him to be their commander again and undertake the defense of Wadelai, but he decided to retire to a better position on the lake. It was then that Jephson sunk his boat the Advance, that she might not fall into the hands of the dervishes, a measure for which Stanley afterwards blamed him. At last, early in December, 1888, the fugitives from Wadelai arrived on the lake at the port of Tunguru. It proved, however, that the Mahdists had not advanced, and that the scare that had driven them southward and caused the destruction of the Advance was unfounded. Everything now throughout the province was in wild con- fusion. Drunkenness and debauchery prevailed, and there was no leader to head any party. In the midst of all this, on January 7, 1889, a letter came from Stanley saying that he was within a day's march of the lake. At the close of a private letter to Jephson, he said : — " The committee said : Relieve Emin Pasha with the ammuni- tion. The Khedive said the same thing, and added : ' But if the pasha and the officers elect to stay they do so on their own responsibility.'' Baring said the same thing, and here I am, after four thousand one hundred miles of travel, with the last instalment of relief. Let him who is authorized to take it — take it. Let him who wants to come out of this devouring circle, come. I am ready to lend all my strength and wit to assist him. But this time there must be no hesitation, but posi- tive yea or nay ; and home we go!" On January 30, 1889, Jephson at last reached his leader's camp. The Zanzibaris received him with tumultuous wel- come. Stanley met him calmly, though with a smile. He could not yet forgive the unnecessary destruction of the Advance. Jephson explained as well as he could to Stanley that Emin's many-mindedness had really been the chief 1 82 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. obstacle hitherto to his deliverance. But a few days later, P'ebruary 14, Emin and a party of his followers really did arrive. The officers with Emin brought their wives and children. The rebels had heard exaggerated reports of Stanley's strength, and had been afraid of his vengeance if they should detain Emin. Jephson was sent at once to meet the party. When within an hour's march of Kavallis the train stopped that all might put on their best clothes, " so that when we reached Stanley's camp," said Jephson, 'Sve were quite an imposing-looking caravan, with all the bright clothes and snow-white raiment of Emin's people, as, with flags flying and trumpets playing the Khedival Hymn, we marched into our camp. So for the second time I witnessed the meeting between Stanley and Emin." How Stanley found his rear guard must be told rapidly. Leaving Fort Bodo, June 16, 1888, they came up, on August 10, with the messengers who had been despatched in a body some months before to Barttelot. Fifteen out of twenty were still living, but had halted, discouraged, by the way. On August 17 Stanley and his party unexpectedly sighted the forlorn camp at Banalya, found Bonny in charge, and heard of its misfortunes. Only one hundred and two men were living out of two hundred and seventy-one. Of six hundred loads there remained only two hundred and thirty. All Stanley's personal effects had been sent down the river on the faith of a rumor that he was dead. The Stanley party, with the remnant of the rear guard, reached Fort Bodo, as we have seen, December 20, 1888. Dr. Parke says : — "The men were really in a miserable state from debility and hunger. I never saw so repulsive a sight as that fur- nished by the unfortunate survivors of the rear guard, eaten up as they were with enormous ulcers." These ulcers their medical attendant goes on to describe with particulars almost sickening. "Mr. Stanley," he says, "had plenty of food for himself and his men till, on the return march, they reached a place DARKEST AFRICA. I 83 near the Ituri river. There they found food very scarce. And from that time they had all gone through a terrible period of starvation, as bad as at any period of the expe- dition." Later Parke jots in his journal: "Bonny is very reticent though he tells us that many things that were done at Yam- buya were against his advice, and vice versa." Ten days after Stanley's arrival at Fort Bodo, when Christmas had passed, and his men had washed, eaten, and rested their sore and wearied limbs, the indefatigable leader confessed to Dr. Parke that, on the return journey through the Dark Forest back to Fort Bodo, he had, for the first time in his African experience, almost yielded to despair. On January 11, 1889, the party, partly refreshed, were hur- rying again towards Lake Albert to find out what had become of Jephson and Emin, leaving Fort Bodo like a hospital behind them. We have seen how the pasha and his party joined them at Kavallis, and a little later arrived Stairs and Parke from Fort Bodo with the rest of the expedition. From that time, day after day, scattering parties of Emin's Egyptian officers, with their wives, children, slaves, and household goods, kept dropping in at Kavallis, but only those, apparently, who feared to remain in the province if its pasha was gone. The things they lugged along with them, and expected to have transported to Zanzibar, sent rage and despair into the hearts of Stanley's officers — grindstones, for example. Parke says : — " I never saw a more loathsome set than these indolent, insolent, over-fed, bloated Egyptian officials. They are mostly convicts, and I have already seen a couple of mur- derers." From February 13 to April 30, the history of the camp at Kavallis is a mere record of waiting on the indecisions of the many-minded Emin. At every moment Stanley and his men were in danger of the mutineers marching down on 184 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. them and capturing the expedition and its stores. Jephson says : — " I felt indignant when I saw our hard-worked, patient Zanzi- baris staggering under some of the lieavy loads belonging to Emin's worthless people. " My personal duty to the pasha termi- nated when we reached Kavallis, from thence to the East Coast of Africa I had little or nothing to do with him. I had always cherished the kindest relations to him, and it grieved me when I found my idol not quite equal to what I had imagined him. As a companion, a scientific man, and an entomologist, no one could excel him, but he had not the qualities fitted to exercise authority as a governor. He was capricious in his intercourse with Casati, also with the members of the expedition. However, we hoped that when we were on the march all this would improve. The halt, however, we were compelled by Stanley's illness to make, a few days after we started, brought out the pasha's acerbity of temper more harshly than ever. He was a changed man ; nobody pleased him, the slightest thing provoked him." Emin may not unreasonably have found it "provoking" to be under the direction, if not the orders, of a man so different from liimself as Mr. Stanley, and I think, in one instance at the beginning of the march, Stanley interfered somewliat unwarrantably to make the nurse of the little Ferida return at night to the tent of her husband. But all the Expedition blamed the pasha for not interfering by a word or an order to prevent the Egyptians from cru- elly ill-treating the Zanzibaris who bore their burdens. I have no space to dwell on the journey to the East Coast. Had it not been for the energy and resolution of Stanley and his officers, the helpless creatures dependent upon Emin never could have struggled through. I should like to tell of the halt the expedition made at the station of the missionary, Mr. Mackay, who, together with the French priests, had been expelled, in 1SS8, from Uganda, and had made other stations for themselves upon the line of march taken by Stanley. Mackay's biography is a most interesting book, and his estimate of Stanley as a man and as a leader is of the highest kind, — but, like the expedition, I must hurry to a close. DARKES T AFRICA. 1 8 5 Kabba Rega endeavored to molest the expedition, but was not very successful. Two days' march froni Bagamoyo, October i, 1889, Major Weissman, the German commander and explorer, met the expedition, and great was the rejoicing. Weissman es- corted them all to Bagamoyo, the port on the East Coast of Africa nearest to Zanzibar. Bagamoyo was then in pos- session of the Germans. At a feast given by the Germans to the officers of the expedition on reaching Bagamoyo, all went "merry as a marriage bell," while the Zanzibaris danced outside on the market-place. Emin seemed happy and courteous. Towards the close of the feast he walked round the table, speaking pleasantly to several of the guests, and then passed into the next room to look out on the frolics of the Zanzi- baris, Dr. Parke remarks that for many years Emin had never been in a two-story house. He was very short-sighted, and, besides, had cataract. He walked out of the win- dow, believing he was stepping on a balcony, and fell eighteen or twenty feet to the ground. He was picked up at once, and carried to the German hospital, where he was attended by Dr. Parke and the German doctor. Both thought he had slightly fractured his skull. Parke waited on him day and night, and he seemed to place great con- fidence in him, and to be much attached to him. But Parke was taken ill himself, — so ill that Stanley and his brother ofificers were sent for to bid him farewell. From the hour that Parke left Emin's side he never heard one word from the pasha; no message of gratitude, no little souvenir in recognition of his services ever reached him. Both Emin and Parke recovered, and then came the news that the pasha had renounced all connection with Egypt and with England, and had entered into an engagement to join the German explorers in East Africa. Soon after the German officers had met the expedition, one of them said to Jephson : " I can see what Weissman 1 86 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. intends to do. He intends to get hold of the pasha for tlie German company. All I can say is that, from what we have seen of Emin for the last' few days, it is the best thing that could possibly happen for the English company, for the pasha is bound to make a mess of anytliing he puts his hand into." And so it proved. Emin entered into the German ser- vice, and was sent on an expedition to the interior. The world heard nothing of him for some time, then telegrams from Berlin informed us that Emin had made a settlement east of the Victoria Nyanza, but that his views were so extravagant that the government refused to meet the expense of carrying them out. At one time he was at Kavallis, almost within the limits of his old province, and it was said that it was proposed to him to check the anarchy that reigned there by resuming the government. We next heard that he was at the head of an exploring party marching into the interior. Having led it, how- ever, beyond the bounds of the territory claimed to be under German influence, into lands by treaty under that of England, the German government disavowed all connection with his enterprise, which thus became that of a private adventurer. He wrote, when not far from the east coast of the Albert Nyanza, that the slave-raiders had found their way into that beautiful land, had laid waste its villages, and killed or carried off its inhabitants. Many persons thought that he was hovering on the borders of his old province with the intention of carrying off, if possible, the great hoard of ivory he had cached there, which he never would give up to Stanley, and of which he never employed any part in assisting to pay off, as had been hoped, the expenses of the Relief Expedition. Jephson, alluding to certain paragraphs that appeared in German papers, wholly false in fact, but purporting to be the substance of interviews with Emin, says : — " On reading these constant ebullitions of spite on Emin's DARKES T AFRICA . 1 8 / part, I sometimes feel a certain amount of indignation, but it speedily develops into a feeling of pity. ... I have known Emin Pasha as a man with a kindly and generous mind, physically courageous, but morally a coward. A clever, accomplished gentleman, enthusiastic for the sci- ence of natural history, but not of that firm temper required to lead men, nor of that disposition required to attract and sway them. A man whose natural kindness of heart is being constantly spoiled by his delicate susceptibility and childlike vanity. A man whose straightforward, European directness and accuracy has been warped by a too long residence among Orientals. And yet, too, if you appeal to his generosity he will always meet you more than half way. Emin would always be, to a certain extent, subject to the influence of those by whom he was surrounded." When Stanley crossed the strait between Bagamoyo and Zanzibar, he had been very anxious to take Emin with him, but the surgeons decided that he could not be moved. The Egyptian refugees were, therefore, taken to Zanzi- bar, Emin's own household and immediate followers being left with him. The refugees were well-housed and provided for in Zanzibar, but they so misconducted themselves that they were, after ten days, moved back to the mainland, to Mombassa, where they were more out of the way of temp- tation than in a disorderly city. Thence they were sent to Suez in an Egyptian steamer. Stanley and his officers (except Jephson at the last) were always prevented from visiting Emin in the hospital at Bag- amoyo; they presumed this was by German influence, and never after did any member of the expedition receive sign or word from him. The remaining Zanzibaris received rewards which made them rich men in their own land, and the relations of the dead were cared for. On January i6, 1890, Stanley reached Cairo, and three months afterwards England. He had lingered at Cairo to prepare for the press his account of the wonderful expedi- 1 88 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. tion. How he was honored and feted; how he became engaged to Miss Dorothy Tennant; how a severe attack of African fever came near postponing the marriage; how they were wedded in Westminster Abbey, where, fourteen years before, Stanley made his vow to carry out Livingstone's life-work; how he broke his leg on a Swiss mountain; how he lectured in the United States and in Australia; how he was a candidate for election to Parliament in 1892, and, being defeated, settled into the idyllic existence of an English country gentleman, we all know from our news- papers. We know also that, again becoming a candidate for election to Parliament in 1895, he is now member for North Lambeth; but, while he will sit in the House of Com- mons as the choice of an English constituency, he will be virtually the member for Africa. - Undoubtedly there are roughnesses in the disposition of Mr. Stanley, but those roughnesses assisted in fitting him to be a leader of black men. We see the results of mere amiableness in Emin Pasha, and we contrast them with what was won by Stanley's energy, perseverance, punctuality, quick decision, and even peremptoriness. The hearts of those under him might safely trust in him : it was far dif- ferent with Emin. An American reviewer said, comment- ing on Jephson's book, "We knew Stanley had all the qualities of a great leader, but never till now had we done justice to his forbearance and his magnanimity." CHAPTER VII. UGANDA. " OO far as concerns Africa," wrote a French geographer, Vs3 twenty years ago, " the past has been resuscitated ; old knowledge has become new." The great features of Central Africa were known long before Europe awakened to modern geographical enterprise. Herodotus had an inkling of them, and Ptolemy all but located the great lakes of Equatoria. Old globes of the sixteenth century, founded on reports gathered from Portuguese missionaries and ex- plorers, were far more accurate than those that were in common use almost to our own day. The great lakes, the upper Nile, and upper Congo were effaced at one stroke by the geographers of the eighteenth century ; a tabula rasa was made on their maps of the centre of Africa ; a great white space was left where earlier map-makers had rightly placed the great lakes and mighty rivers, in our day rediscovered, if we may say so, by Speke and Baker, Burton, Livingstone, and Stanley. And now it is bewildering to look upon a map of Africa made during the last few years. On the shores of the Medi- terranean, Morocco alone retains its independence and remains " unprotected," but Spain keeps upon its sultan a watchful eye, Algeria has been long French territory; Tunis is under French protection ; Tripoli alone acknowl- edges the suzerainty of the Sultan, who at the last fin du Steele ruled over the whole shore of Africa on the Mediter- ranean ; Egypt is under EngUsh " protection," if not English sway. Beyond Egypt lie provinces she has been forced to abandon, England, however, retaining the port of Suakim on i8q 1 90 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. the Red Sea. The Itahans claim to " protect " Abyssinia, though Abyssinia vehemently protests against such protec- tion. Italy has likewise acquired treaty rights in Somaliland south of Cape Guardafui, on the Indian Ocean, though England " protects " that part of the Somali coast which is near the entrance to the Red Sea. Below Somaliland is England's East Africa, sometimes called Ibea, whose devel- opment has been confided to the Imperial British East African Company. It stretches back from the coast to the northern shores of the Victoria Nyanza, and the limits of its Hinterland (as the Germans call back-country) seem to be ill defined. South of the territory of the Imperial Brit- ish East African Company lies German East Africa, begin- ning with the mainland territory that in 1886 she acquired from Zanzibar. The Sultan of Zanzibar, with his possessions now limited to Zanzibar itself, and a few smaller islands, is under British protection. Mozambique, with a long line of coast, lying west of Madagascar, is governed by Portugal. Thence British territory stretches to the Cape of Good Hope, though the Dutch Republic of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State have " cut a monstrous cantle " out of the English possessions. On the Atlantic coast Germany's acquisition of a large territory called German West Africa was recognized by England in 1884. North of German West Africa lies Angola, where the Portuguese are still supreme. Along the Congo, where it runs into the sea, Congo Free State has a pan-handle piece of territory, which gives the Free State an outlet to the sea. North of this is French Congo ; north of that the Germans have the Cam- eroons ; northwest of the Cameroons, along the Gulf of Guinea, the British Royal Niger Company has its claim. France, England, and Germany divide the Gold Coast, till stopped by the little Republic of Liberia. Then comes Sierra Leone, which is English ; a small Portuguese state ; the English possessions on the River Gambia ; French Sou- dan, and a large state, httle known to Europeans and claimed by Spain, called Rio di Oro, which hes south of Morocco. UGANDA. 191 The centre of Africa is divided between the Hinterland of these possessions ; French Soudan, which covers an im- mense extent of territory ; the Soudan that was once Egyptian, but that no one protects now from anarchy and devastation ; and the Congo Free State, under the patron- age of Belgium and the good faith of other powers. Thus England has eight portions of Africa under her rule or " protection " ; Germany has German East Africa and German Southwest Africa and the Cameroons ; France has an immense body of territory, with hmits ill defined, in French Soudan, and the French Congo, besides Algeria, which is absolutely French ; Tunis is also under her protec- tion. Italy has Abyssinia and Somaliland, and wants Trip- oli ; while Portugal and Spain have each shares in the Dark Continent. The only independent states are the small empire of Morocco and three little republics, Liberia, the Transvaal, and Orange Free State. Madagascar is about to exchange partial French "protection " for a stronger grip of the French power. If all this is bewildering to the reader, it is far more so for the writer who attempts to make it clear. These divisions have almost all been apportioned since 1884. Since that date no less than fourteen treaties have been made by European powers, among themselves, concerning the division of Africa. England has three companies with territorial rights in the field, — the Royal Niger Company, the South African Company, and the Imperial British East African Company. It is v/ith the troubled story of this last that we are now to deal. When news reached England, in 1876, of Stanley's expe- dition down the Congo, of his sojourn in Uganda, of his remarkable conversion of King 'Mtesa, and of the earnest petition of that singular despot to English Christians that teachers should be sent to him, the Church Missionary Society lost no time in despatching a missionary to his court and capital. That missionary was the Rev. Alexander M. Mackay, the " best man for the work," says Stanley, 192 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. " since Livingstone." His skill in mechanics rendered him of immense value to 'Mtesa. He made the most various things for the king, from a copper coffin for his deceased mother, who 'Mtesa desired might be buried like a European princess, to rope for his flagstaff. Copper was the best sub- stitute for lead to be found in Uganda, and to obtain it a great number of copper salvers, sent as presents from other potentates to 'Mtesa, were used, Mackay was also appealed to to mend everything out of order, from clocks that were " dead," to rifles, which in inexperienced hands had got their locks broken. But 'Mtesa's great zeal for Christian instruction seemed to have worn off since the days when all was new to him, as he listened to Stanley. He wanted nov- elty, and by way of obtaining it had invited a French Roman Catholic Mission to his court, though he subsequently ban- ished its members from his country. 'Mtesa's changes of faith had been various, denoting, however, a real search for an answer to the great question, "What is truth?" pro- pounded, to Him who alone could answer it, by a cultivated heathen. 'Mtesa had been born a pagan, but had been con- verted by Arab traders into a sort of semi-Mohammedan. He, however, refused to submit to the initiatory rite of that religion, nor would he observe the custom of having his cattle killed in orthodox Mohammedan fashion. On this, such of his people as had embraced Islamism declined to eat of the meats sent to them from his table. This he considered high treason. In his rage he murdered Arabs and converts alike. Those who could escape fled, and he thus, between the visits of Captain Speke in 1865 and that of Stanley in 1875, had stamped out Mohammedanism in his dominions. Between the northern waters of the Victoria Nyanza and the southern shores of Lake Albert is a broad belt of land containing the two kingdoms of Unyoro and Uganda. Un- yoro's northern boundary is Lake Albert, and its despot is that Kabba Rega who so ill-treated Emin's envoy. Captain Casati. Uganda lies south of Unyoro and north and west of the Victoria Nyanza. Each kingdom has its tributary UGANDA. 193 provinces. The king of each is the other's born foe. But each kingdom has a government with order, laws, and cus- toms of its own; while between the Victoria Nyanza and the ocean lies a large territory, partitioned by treaty between Germany and England, but inhabited, for the most part, by negro tribes, each governed by its petty sultan or chief, who is continually at war with his neighbor. This is stating the matter in very general terms, for here and there there are small territories, Ankoli, for example, that seem to have something of settled government; but in this brief sketch general terms seem sufficient for our purpose. Over this vast region, by consent of the European powers, England claims right of influence and "protection "; while the "pro- tection " and influence of Germany extend from the sea- coast inland over a region of about equal extent, to the southern and eastern shores of the Victoria Nyanza and to Lake Tanganyika. England at first delegated her East African influence to the Imperial British East African Com- pany, at whose head was the late Sir William Mackinnon, the enterprising son of an indefatigable father, who, at one time, owned large tracts of land in the state of Wisconsin. In 1878 Mackay arrived in Uganda, but 'Mtesa had got over his sense of the superiority of Europeans to himself. He treated Mackay much more as his servant than he had ventured to do Stanley; and Mackay and the missionaries afterwards associated with him, for the sake of carrying on their mission work in peace, submitted to the position assigned to them. The work of teaching, converting, and building up a church in this far-off, isolated kingdom went on with remarkable success. There were, in twelve years, two thousand native professing Christians, from all classes, many of them, like St. Paul's early converts in Rome, mem- bers of "Caesar's household." With Mr. Mackay was associated the Rev. Mr. O'Fla- herty. His name being unpronounceable among the Wa- ganda,^ he was called Father Filipo; and in 1882 the ^ Waganda — the inhabitants of Uganda; called Baganda by some. o 194 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. mission was augmented by the arrival of Rev. Mr. Ashe, who has since published three books on Uganda, and who remained in the country about six years. Mackay was there for twelve years, refusing all chances of going home, even for a visit, and he died exiled from the country, living near the southern shore of the lake, and in full activity, four months after Mr. Stanley, on his way with Emin Pasha and his people to the coast, had visited him. We remark throughout Mackay's, Ashe's, and Stanley's narratives that a great .deal of good feeling existed person- ally between them and the Fathers of the Roman Catholic Missions. It is not probable that either party liked to have its field of work partially obstructed by the other; nevertheless, a common feeling of Europeanism, to say nothing of Christian feeling, seems to have maintained Telations of kindliness and mutual helpfulness for some time between them. The quarrels that have disgraced Christianity in Uganda did not begin till questions of political influence intruded themselves into questions of religion, and the passions of the Christian converts, hav- ing been roused by contentions with the friends of Islam, the old spirit of "I am of Paul" and "I am of Apollos," kindled animosity between them. From the time of the arrival of the missionaries, 'Mtesa seems to have misunderstood their position. They told him that they came as teachers, but, misled by his sus- picious character, he believed them to be political agents. Letters that they brought from the Church Missionary Soci- ety, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Consul-general at Zanzibar (whose positions, of course, the king did not comprehend), confirmed him in this impression; his views on this subject were greatly strengthened by the Arabs, who had resumed their good standing at his court, and who naturally hated English influence as being opposed to their great source of wealth — the slave-trade. Added to this, the Germans were carrying matters with a high hand on the mainland opposite to Zanzibar. The seeds of mistrust were UGANDA. 195 thus sown in 'Mtesa's time, and bore fruit afterwards in the reign of his successor. The chiefs (or rather headmen of the clans, whom Mr. Ashe calls earls, etc.), the officers of the household, and 'Mtesa's numerous pages (sons of chiefs, who were brought up in his court and subject to his caprices), were all assem- bled in the large hut of audience when Mr. Ashe was pre- sented to the king. The etiquette observed was as ceremoni- ous as that of the court of Louis XIV. After this audience Mr. Ashe, once a month, amused the king by reading to him verses translated from the Bible, and such other things as it was thought might interest and instruct him; but the Arabs came, in like manner, to read the Koran, and the king had no scruples in telling Mr. Ashe that their rendering of their prophet's book was far superior to his poor translations. Towards the close of the year 1884, 'Mtesa's health declined rapidly. The Arabs persuaded him to send for doctors from Zanzibar, who had potent prescriptions. The doctors came; but, as they insisted on being shut up alone with their patient while their drug was working, and on see- ing that he observed the strictest regimen, the king refused, after a first experiment, to follow their advice. His con- dition was kept a profound secret, and even when he died the event was not made known till some time after it had taken place. A bloody civil war was apprehended by the chiefs, but it was happily averted. The custom in Uganda is, that a choice is to be made by the chiefs of one of the sons of the deceased king (the eldest one being excluded). Pending this choice, "every one," says Ashe, "stood on the defensive, awaiting the onset of his neighbors, so that there was no one to begin an attack." The choice of the chiefs fell upon Mwanga, a lad of eigh- teen. It was based chiefly on his likeness to 'Mtesa. Mac- kay was requested to make the royal coffin as he had done that of the deceased queen. He did so, by nailing on a large chest brass and copper trays flattened out for the purpose, together with the zinc lining of cases that the \ 196 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. mission had received with various stores. The whole was covered with the finest white cotton cloth, used only for the clothing of the aristocracy. After this the grave was dug deep inside of one of the king's principal houses and the whole country went into mourning; every man (as Herodotus tells us was in such cases the custom among the Egyptians) allowing his hair to grow. "Of 'Mtesa," Mr. Ashe says, "it would be hard to give an accurate judgment. To say he was great would hardly be true, but to say that he showed some fine qualities, and that he was, in spite of his clogging surroundings, a man who sought after better things, is to give him no more than his due. He formed a market; he encouraged bridge- building; and his generally courteous treatment of Euro- peans showed a generous spirit. He looked upon religion ■as an amusement, but grew restive when preached to " of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come." There was much that was good and lovable in his disposition, but his training had been in brutality, cruelty, and lust." Mwanga, who by his elevation changed at once his con- dition, which had been little better than that of a peasant, for the position of an autocrat, was not a lad who possessed any of the high qualities of his father. "How he ruled as a god over his people; how he imbrued his hands in inno- cent blood, at the cruel instigation of his commander in chief, a convert to Islamism; and how, when he had filled his cup of crime to overflowing he was as suddenly hurled from his power as he had been suddenly elevated to it, makes up the history of the earlier part of his reign." The French Fathers, who had been sent away by 'Mtesa, were recalled by Mwanga, apparently to neutralize, if pos- sible, the teaching of the Englishmen; it being supposed, even in East Africa, that the English and the French were national enemies; and he quarrelled on several points of etiquette with Mackay and his coadjutors. Mwanga had not been on the throne six months when, early in 1885, — stirred up by ill advisers, he decided to UGANDA. 197 make the English missionaries feel his power. Their work had greatly prospered. Chiefs, pages, princesses, and peasants, men and boys, had come to the mission to be taught to read books, printed by Mackay in the Waganda language with a private printing press. Nearly all of them were subsequently baptized, and a sort of vestry or church council was organized. As far as mission work was con- cerned, all with the missionaries seemed prosperous; but that prosperity depended on a tyrant's will. Mackay had recently obtained permission to go down the lake in a small boat, to carry letters. On his way to the boat, accom- panied by Ashe, they were arrested, and led back to Mengo, the capital. There they found their mission boys (pupils and personal attendants) with their hands bound, and in custody. Among these boys was one of light complexion, son of a neighboring chief. The boy had been captured after a battle. He had been rescued from death by a Christian chief in Mwanga's army, who brought him to the mission; he there won every one's affection. He was about ten years old, very handsome, and intelligent. His name was Joseph Lugalama, and he was very dear to the mission- aries. Knowing this, Mwanga resolved to make him an exemplary victim, and so strike a wholesome dread of his autocratic power into the hearts of the missionaries. In vain they appealed to the Katikiro or prime minister; in vain they offered ransom; in vain the Christian chief who had first captured the poor child exerted his influence. Lugalama and two other boys were led out to a dismal swamp for execution. They went to death singing the hymns they had been taught at the mission. Their arms were severed first, then their bodies were hung over a slow fire. One boy, the eldest, died calmly, committing himself to "Him who judgeth righteously; " the next appealed to the Mohammedan commander in chief, saying: "You believe in Allah, the All-Merciful ! " Poor little Lugalama was the last. He cried, " Oh ! do not cut off my arms ! I will 198 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. not struggle ! I will not fight. Only throw me in the fire!"^ A Christian convert stood near watching this dreadful spectacle, January 31, 1885! The commander in chief, excited by blood, came up to him: "Oh! you here? I will burn you too, and your household. I know you are a follower of Isa (Jesus)." "I am," was the answer, "and I am not ashamed of it." But happily the brutal soldier turned and left him. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Converts increased rapidly after these executions. Perse- cution in Uganda always came in sudden gusts, and as speedily died away. The king displayed his power, his irritation, or his contempt, and then subsided. Many of the king's ministers and advisers were still, however, constantly urging that Mackay and Ashe should be killed. But Mac- kay's services were too valuable for this, and the mis- sion brought into the country many much-prized goods, of which the king expected to receive his full share in presents. Through the spring of 1885 came distorted rumors con- cerning Emin Pasha and Casati in Unyoro, and a little later the French priests, recalled by Mwanga, arrived. They were three in number. Fathers Lourdel and Jeraud, together with a lay brother who was something of a carpenter. Mr. Ashe says : — " We were always on very good terms with them. I think that by that time we had all recognized that there was room for both parties; and that they had learned the lesson that, however much they objected to our doctrine, public dem- onstration of it was of no use. Their former attacks had been made with an honest purpose, but now there was noth- ing of the kind; and all our dealings with them were of the pleasantest description." 1 "Frederick II. of Germany, in the thirteenth century, the sovereign of the largest intelhgence and finest poHtical genius of all his time, cut off his prisoners' hands and feet, put out their eyes, and so cast them into the fire." — Christian History in its Three Great Periods, by Joseph Henky Allen. UGANDA. 199 For a while there was peace. Then came news that Bishop Hannington was on his way to Uganda. It was an opportunity for Mwanga and his advisers to strike a decisive blow. If the bishop was not an agent of the English gov- ernment he might be murdered with impunity, as several other Englishmen in eastern Africa had been already, and England had taken no notice; if he was an agent having a political mission, the more reason for preventing his arrival. The Arabs were never weary of telling the king that wher- ever the Europeans set their foot the land would be theirs in time. The missionaries always combated this state- ment; but the Arabs were more far-sighted than the churchmen. To understand Mwanga' s principal pretext for the murder of Bishop Hannington, we must know that Uganda had sev- eral outlying provinces under the rule of powerful chiefs, but subject to the king of Uganda as their suzerain. One of these provinces, lying northeast of the Victoria Nyanza, was Usogo. A prophecy had long before declared that conquerors should come through Usogo to "eat up" Uganda, and travellers upon that road were looked upon with great suspicion by Mwanga and his people. One of the lirst questions Mwanga asked the missionaries, when they came to tell him that the bishop was on his way from Zanzibar was, "Will he come through Usogo? " They had answered no; he had written that he was coming by the south of the lake, and would like boats to be sent for him to Kavirondo. News of the German aggressions on the coast, and of their bombardment of the city of Zanzibar, was, also, on the same day, communicated to Mwanga. Most unhappily the bishop changed his route while on the way, not knowing anything of the prophecy which made it dangerous that he should cross Usogo. Mwanga had taken up the impression that the bishop must be, in some way, connected with the Germans. In vain the missionaries brought him a school atlas, and pointed out the different countries. England, France, and Germany probably con- 200 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. veyed as little idea to him as to us the names of Uganda, Unyoro, and Usogo. "The general opinion was, that the bishop should not be allowed to come, especially if he was coming through ^ the back door,'' i.e. Usogo." On October 25, 1885, the missionaries at the capital received sure news that the bishop was in Usogo, and that orders had been sent by Mwanga to the chief to kill him. In vain they pleaded for his safety. A few months after the bishop's death they procured his writing-case, in which was his journal kept up almost to his last moments. The keeper of the king's stores was their friend, and gave the writing-case, as worthless, into their hands. Bishop Hannington was alone on the latter part of his journey. He reached the principal village of Usogo on October 21, 1885. The chief appeared unfriendly, having, indeed, received orders that the white man and his follow- ers were to be all killed. In the evening the bishop climbed a hill near his camp, and had a splendid view of the Vic- toria Nile. Suddenly about twenty ruffians set on him, hustled him, beat him, and dragged him along at a rapid pace, through jungle and brushwood, for about two miles, tearing his clothes and seizing his valuables. He thought that they were robbers. Threatened every moment with death, he believed his time was come, and encouraged himself by singing, "Safe in the arms of Jesus." They dragged him at last into a hut, where they-flung him down, and left him. He was not physically a strong man, and he was wholly disabled by this treatment. He soon discovered that it was by order of the king, but only anticipated a week's detention. His own cook was suffered to bring him food, and his Bible, and writing materials. " My God, I am thine ! " was his constant exclamation. Eight days passed; bruised, strained, and consumed by fever, the bishop could only find comfort in the Psalms, Psalms XXV, xxvii, and xxx being his mainstay. Luba, the chief of Usogo, was said to have one thousand wives; bevies of these ladies came every day to inspect the UGANDA. 201 bishop. "It is not pleasant," he records, "to be examined like a caged lion in the Zoo." At last, on October 29, he was told he would be released, and was summoned to leave his prison. After two hours' rapid walking, under guard, he saw his men, not as he expected to see them, with their loads, their guns, and happy faces, but all bound and prisoners. Then he knew his fate, though, let us hope, he did not anticipate theirs. He was halted before them in an open space, and stripped of his clothing. Then he was made to kneel down. His last words were: "Tell the king that I die for Uganda. My death will have opened the road." Then the spears were thrust into his body. His porters were all massacred, and their bodies left beside that of their master. One only, after some hours, rose, as it were from the dead. His wounds were ghastly, but he dragged himself to a hut, whose inhabitants fed him and tended him. The missionaries were arrested a few days later, and threatened with death unless they told who had broken the king's command and had informed them of the death of the bishop. It was Father Lourdei who had told them, and he was present, but of course they would not betray him. "What if I kill you? " said the king; "What would Queeni do? Was she able to touch Lukongo and Mirambo, who killed white men? What could she, or all Bulaga (Europe) do together? How could they come? Could they fly? " Father Lourdei now kindly attempted a diver- sion in their favor. He said: "If you killed these white men, then I should not care to stay in your country." "If I killed them," was the answer, "should I spare you?" However, the interview ended without any tragedy. Mwanga was tired of threatening. The church grew rapidly in this time of trouble. Some of the leading chiefs came by night to be baptized. It was like the days of the early martyrs, of whom they had never heard. Mr. O' Flaherty fell ill, and was allowed to leave the king- dom. Mackay and Ashe remained. One of their converts 202 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. at this time was Walakugu, the king's blacksmith, an office which, like that of Master of the Buckhounds in England, denotes a high position. "He was," says Mr. Ashe, "one of the most intelligent Africans I have ever known. Mackay, when making a coffin for the queen mother, became acquainted with him. He afterwards visited Mackay and listened most attentively to all he told him. It was the revealing of a new and wonderful idea to him, and the opening up of a hope trans- cending anything of which he had ever before dreamed, and he cried out: 'How is it that when we were making the queen's coffin you told me none of these things? ' " At this time the Russian traveller. Dr. Junker, who had been with Emia in Equatoria, arrived in Uganda. He was anxious to plead for the Christians before the king, but was dissuaded, as, if Mwanga grew angry, it might involve his own life. On Easter day, 1886, there was a report that all Christians were to be seized. Twenty assembled to communion at the morning service, ten in the afternoon, and at night fifteen communed together, the last communion for most of them. On May i the storm burst forth with awful fury upon Prot- estants and Catholics alike. One of the first to fall was a young Roman Catholic reader. Not one accused of being a Christian seems to have denied his faith. One man being asked if there were any Christians concealed in his house, made answer, "I myself am a Christian." At this juncture Monsignor Livinhac, the vicar apostolic for East Africa, arrived on the lake. He had once had Mwanga for his pupil, and it was hoped his influence might be of some avail in saving the lives of the Christians who were in prison. Instead of this, however, on hearing the news of Monsignor's approach, Mwanga at once put to death several of the Fathers' favorite pupils. It is needless to dwell further on such sad details. Father Lourdel remon- strated with the prime minister, saying, " If anything is wrong in our teaching, drive us away j but do not kill your UGANDA. 203 own children." "No," was the reply, "you are guests, and we will not drive you away ; but as many as you teach we will kill." Walakugu, the blacksmith, and twenty-nine other Chris- tians, met the same death as poor little Lugalama, in one fell auto-da-fe. Yet all the time chiefs were coming se- cretly to the Mission House to be instructed and baptized. " What will you do, my friend," asked Mackay of one of them, "if you are asked are you a reader? Will you tell a lie, and say no?" "I would confess, my friend," was the answer. He was baptized and chose the name of Samweli. I think I must conclude this terrible history by an anec- dote told by Mr. Ashe of this man. He had been appointed by the king to go to one of the outlying provinces, and col- lect the tribute. While he was away, the persecution, which had slackened, broke out afresh. Warnings were sent to him not to return, as his was one of the prominent names on the proscription. "I was awakened," says Mr. Ashe, "about 3 a.m. one morning by a low knocking at the door. On opening it I found Samweli, another Christian, and a little step-brother of Samweli's. They told me of Samweli's great trouble, and asked me what he should do? His companions had urged him to fly for his life, but he was on the king's service, and he could not feel it right to leave his trust, so he had come to consult me. I advised him to flee. ' The king has the heart of a wild beast,' I said, '■ and I think you would be fully justified in abandoning your trust.' Samweli sat on the ground looking troubled and disappointed. Then he asked for a piece of paper, and wrote, ' My friend, I cannot leave the things of the king.' Then I cried, 'You are right! You must deliver the tribute.' We prayed together, and I took leave of him, never thinking to see him again. A few days later, to my great delight, he appeared at nightfall, and told me how he had gone boldly into the enclosure of the chief, and had deposited his loads of cowries, and had then walked out. I said ' You ran when you got outside ? ' ' No,' he said, ' for I should have been noticed at once. I walked quite slowly till I was out of sight, and then I ran as quickly as I could, and so escaped.' " Dr. Junker, who had been allowed to come to the court 204 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. of Uganda, was now permitted to leave. Shortly after Mon- signor Livinhac and Father Jeraud, " a very amiable and quiet man," were allowed to leave also. The latter shortly after was drowned in Lake Tanganyika, his boat being upset by a hippopotamus. Mackay and Ashe then endeavored to leave the capital, but with little success. " British prestige was at a low ebb, for the people imagined Englishmen might be killed with impunity in Africa." At last, after strong representations from the British con- sul-general at Zanzibar, Ashe was allowed to go. His mis- sion was to England, to report the state of Uganda, and to create public sympathy for its remote Christians. Mr. Ashe took passage across the lake with some Arab traders. In many instances he relates that the Arabs had prOved help- ful and sympathetic to the missionaries in their troubles. But their dread of English interference with slave traffic, far more than any dislike to Christian teaching, converted them into enemies. Mr. Ashe's arrival at the coast, after great perils, was accomplished, and in January, 1887, he reached London, where his aim was to obtain orders from the Church Mis- sionary Society, and report the condition of Uganda. Six months later he was back in Africa. By this time a new bishop — Bishop Parker — had been appointed to the diocese of East Africa, and he was then on his way to Uganda. Their caravans joined company, but alas ! when they drew near the lake, the bishop, who had suffered much from fever on the march, was so sorely stricken by it that he died one night in his tent. He and his chaplain Dr. Blackburn were buried side by side within two days. When news of his death reached England a third bishop — Bishop Tucker — was appointed to succeed him. Great changes had taken place in Uganda during the few months that Ashe had been away. Mwanga's misgov- ernment, his raids on his own people, his licentious behavior, and his tyranny, had become so intolerable to his subjects UGANDA. 205 that they united to depose him. Conscious that Moham- medans and Christians, Protestants and Roman Catholics alike, detested him, this conviction in 1888 prompted him to a master stroke of butchery. Mackay had been at last allowed to visit the missions at the southern end of the lake, and two more English missionaries, the Rev. E. C. Gordon and Rev. R. H. Walker, had succeeded him. "Mwanga planned to assemble the whole of the Christian and Mohammedan converts in one place, on some pre- tence, and then to transport all of them to an island in the lake, and leave them there to perish. The plot leaked out, the would-be victims refused to obey the command, and marched on to the capital. Deserted by his soldiers Mwanga fled, seized canoes upon the lake, and with only the occupants of his own boat, all others having left him, he took refuge in an island at the south end of the Nyanza. Meanwhile his brother Kiwema was made king, and the Christians, being the party most numerous, assumed most of the offices, the Mohammedans receiving the rest. The latter were jealous of the Christians, and concealing their arms fell on the Christian chiefs as they came, after a baranza or lev^e, from the king's enclosure. Many were thus murdered ; the Christians, panic stricken, fled the country, and took refuge at the southern end of the lake, at Ankoli ; again the lives of Europeans (six in number, the French priests and the English missionaries) were in great danger, but after a period of suspense they were placed together in a boat (which shortly after capsized) on the lake, and were thus expelled the country. The Arabs were now masters of the situation. They tried to make Kiwema conform to the initiatory rite of Mohammedanism. He resisted this, and at an apparently friendly council killed two Mohammedan chiefs with his own hand. Failing, however, to kill their leading official, the Katikiro, he lost courage and fled. Karema, another son of 'Mtesa, was now made king. The Mohammedans were supreme. Kiwema retreated to the northern shores of the lake, and soon after died there." 206 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. Mwanga meantime had fallen into the hands of an Arab trader. He had had some thoughts of fleeing to England, because he had heard that the French emperor, when defeated by the Germans, had found refuge there. It was in the midst of these troubles that Stanley, with the Relief Expedition on its way to Zanzibar, arrived in Ankoli. He passed three weeks with Mr. Mackay, and stayed also at the neighboring French mission. In his journal he wrote : — "I feared, when I first heard of the expulsion of the mission- aries from Uganda that they had been inconsiderate, and impul- sive, and had acted without regard to consequences ; that, though their conduct was strictly upright and according to their code, their narrowness, and want of sympathy, might have caused them to commit errors of judgment ; but when I heard from Christian converts the advice Mr. Mackay had given them, I- perceived that, though the yoke of Mwanga was exceedingly heavy on them, the missionaries had in this abstained from meddling in the politics of the country. . . . The success of the mission to Nyanza is proved by the sacrifices of the converts, by their determined resistance to the tyrant, by their successful depo- sition of him. . . . The progress of their religion became alarm- ing to the Mohammedans and their native sympathizers. . . . The boy prince who succeeded the politic 'Mtesa on the throne, despite the reputable character the whites had won from all classes of the people, regarded them with thoughts foully per- verted by unmeasured slander. To his distorted view the mis- sionaries were men banded together for the undermining of his authority, for sapping the affections and loyalty of his subjects ; and for presently occupying the whole of Uganda. The various expeditions roaming over the country, the quarrels on the coast between the Germans and the Sultan of Zanzibar, the little col- onies of Germans studding the coast line, — what could they aim at but the forcible conquest of Africa? Hence an era of persecution was initiated by the order to burn and slay ; hence the auto-da-fe in Uganda ; the murder of Bishop Hannington ; the doom that seemed ever to be imminent over the head of the faithful and patient Mackay, and the menaced suppression of mission work." Thus wrote Stanley July 23, 1889. A month later he was staying with Mr. Mackay, at a desolate spot on the UGANDA. 207 lake where the missionary was building a mission station, repairing a steam boiler for his boat, and engaged with his converts in all kinds of activities. A month after Stanley had started again upon his journey the revolution already mentioned took place in Uganda; Kiwema fled ; Karema was made king by the Moham- medans, and all was blood and confusion. It was then that the missionaries determined to enter into negotiations with Mwanga and assist him to recover his throne, if he would promise no more to persecute the Chris- tians, and to place much of his authority in the hands of the chiefs or heads of clans, some of whom were Protestants, some Catholics, some heathen, and some Mohammedans. Mwanga accepted the terms; some say that in proof of his sincerity he consented to be baptized. The mission- aries took no part in the fighting, but Mr. Stokes, a trader, led the Christian army. Karema and his Mohammedans were completely routed, and, on October 5, 1889, Mwanga was again seated on the throne. Karema tried to take refuge with Kabba Rega, in Unyoro, but that potentate declined to receive him. He collected around him a small armed band of followers, but soon afterwards died. The Christians, being now victorious, distributed the offices of the kingdom among themselves. They were already divided into two political parties with opposite views of policy, — the Wa-Ingleza, or Protestants, the Wa- Franza, or the converts of the French Fathers. The Wa- Ingleza, with their missionaries, were anxious to see British power established in the country, so as to put an end to civil war; the Wa-Franza, who, under Father Lourdel, had great influence with the king, discouraged the advent of all Europeans, and desired that guns should be imported, so that the natives might be well armed, — "not considering," as Captain Lugard subsequently remarked, "that to place firearms in the hands of natives was to foster civil war." A third influence was that of the trader, Mr. Stokes, who wanted to make himself the great man of Uganda, and sell 208 EUROPE IX AFRICA IX THE XIX™ CEXTURY. his influence to any Europeans who might appear in the country. The jSIohammedans were for the moment sub- dued but neither their strength nor their spirit was broken. By this time the Germans and the Enghsh had made a treaty defining the boundaries of German East Africa and British East Africa, an arrangement which gave to England the kingdoms of Uganda and Unyoro, British East Africa being bounded on the west by the Free State of Congo. No sooner was the treaty with Germany, of July i, 1S90, eflfected, than the Imperial British East African Company engaged the services of Captain F. D. Lugard, an officer of the English army, who had served with distinction in Indian campaigns, to take charge of an expedition to Uganda, and force an acknowledgment of their '"protection" by its kings and chiefs, by making them sign a treaty in conformity with ihe Anglo-German arrangement, and to endeavor to restore peace and order among the various factions that since 'Mtesa's death had distracted the country. Captain Lugard reached Ivlengo, the capital of Uganda, in December, 1S90. In February of that year, in the midst of his varied career of usefulness, ]Mr. Mackay had died at Usam- biro, and all parties were deprived of his usefulness, his influence, and his experience. Captain Lugard determined to take from the first a stand with King ]Mwanga which should show him that he meant to be treated as at least an equal. He crossed into his country (through Usogo) without asking permission, and having arrived at the capital, chose his own camping- ground, and fixed his own time for \dsiting his Majesty. The interview was satisfactory, the Englishman was scrupu- lously courteous and observant of the etiquette of the court of LTganda, and especially polite to the French Fathers and their chief converts, whom he trusted to convert into friends and allies. During the past month, disputes had grown very bitter between Catholics and Protestants. The zeal that can endure martyrdom is little disposed, as history shows us, to practice toleration. The most cruel persecutor of the Hugue- CAPTAIN F. D. LUGARD. UGANDA. 209 nots in the Cevennes was a priest who had returned from China, where he had bravely suffered tortures unspeakable at the hands of the heathen. Of Mwanga, Captain I-ugard said after his first interview : — " His dominant motive was a thirst for arbitrary power. He had been deprived of that power in a great degree, and was now anxious to recover it by playing off the various parties within his kingdom, and without, one against the other. His antagonism to European influence rose not from high patriotism, but from a fear lest such exercise of despot- ism as was left him should be curtailed. But in particular he was opposed to the British, and would infinitely have pre- ferred German or French domination, because his craven heart was tormented by an ever-present fear, that vengeance must come from us for the murder of Bishop Hannington. This fear, I believe, grew into a living terror, when he found he had to deal with a man who would not cringe to him. I was told that his dreams were haunted by these spectres of vengeance, of which he looked on me as the embodiment. He thought I was but biding my time, and it is therefore but little to be wondered at that he both feared and detested me, and did all he could to thwart me." During the first six months of Captain Lugard's stay in Uganda his chief object was to get the king and his chiefs to sign a paper acknowledging the right claimed by the Imperial British East African Company under the Anglo- German arrangement of July, 1890, to manage the affairs of Uganda. The idea of the company seems to have been, to place the native ruler in much the same position as an Indian Maharajah with a British resident at his court, who should be answerable to the English government for the affairs of his kingdom. With this difference, however, that the resi- dent in British India has all the power of his country at his back, while his representative in Uganda would be in a posi- tion of isolation. To this proposed arrangement the king was naturally unwilling to consent. The French Fathers also were op- 2IO EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. posed to it. It would give the Imperial British East African Company a certain right to interfere in their affairs; nor was it long before the vexed question of slavery intruded into the matter. It had been always the custom of Roman Catholics to receive children (boys especially) either by gift or purchase, into their missions and to bring them up as Catholics. By the decree made at Brussels, 1891, all slavery was to be discountenanced by English officials in Africa, and in the eyes of Captain Lugard the children and women harbored in the missions held the position of slaves. There were such boys sheltered also in the English Mission House at Mengo, but the missionaries were instructed to receive no such gifts, and under no circumstances to make such pur- chases ; as the status of such children would be the illegal ■ one of slaves. This very doctrinaire way of treating the subject led to a great deal of trouble. Great difference of opinion also divided the Wa-Inglesa and the Wa-Franza on the subject of firearms. Captain Lugard wished to prohibit all natives from owning or buying guns, unless they had been delivered to them in time of war, by some proper authority, which would reclaim them when war was over. The French Fathers would have preferred to get rid of foreign soldiers (the Somah and Soudanese, for example), and to arm the natives, forgetting possibly that savage warriors not under discipline would lose no time in turning their guns against each other. Mwanga disliked putting the tribute paid him by his out- lying provinces into the hands of the English company. Captain Lugard knew that the company, suffering from financial embarrassment, and having been at great expense to keep up its relations with Uganda, could not afford to abandon its claim on the finances. There were also disputes concerning land titles. When a revolution had taken place the lands of the defeated party had been confiscated, and houses and estates changed hands. This led to endless complications, and to great I UGANDA. 211 complaints among the Wa-Franza ; while ignorant converts, attacking, in their zeal, symbols they did not understand, snatched crosses from the necks of their Roman Catholic fellow Christians. Daily excited by these disputes, the two parties were repeatedly upon the verge of war. Captain Lugard lived in a strongly entrenched camp called Kampala, and he did his best to treat the French Fathers with consid- eration and courtesy ; a courtesy and consideration returned by them and by some of the leading chiefs who were Roman Catholic Christians. That he was impartial is proved by the complaints of the English missionaries that he " snubbed " them, and lent ear to " the too fascinating Fathers," and by complaints sent home by the Fathers that he was entirely under the influence of the English mission- aries, which complaints were widely circulated by the French press. Mwanga all the time was watching his chance to regain his lost authority by playing off one faction against the other ; above all he desired to acquire guns by under- hand dealings with Stokes, who was forbidden to import them. The Mohammedans in the meantime had set up a king in opposition to Mwanga, his uncle Mbogo, brother of 'Mtesa, who was one of their converts. Under him, and in alliance with Kabba Rega, they made continual raids into Uganda, watching their chance to dethrone Mwanga, and effect a revolution, which would overthrow ahke the Europeans and the Christians. Mwanga desired to send an army of his Waganda against these people ; and the Wa-Franza and Wa-Inglesa, having been partially pacified, Captain Lugard agreed to join the expedition with the force of Zanzibaris, Somalis, and Soudan- ese under his command. An account of this campaign would be of little interest. It was not very decisive, though the Mohammedans were worsted. At one time proposals of peace were almost on the point of being accepted. The Mohammedans were to receive a fertile tract of country and to settle upon it, form- 212 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. ing an outlying province of the kingdom of Uganda ; but they were to give up their firearms (a somewhat hard con- dition under the circumstances) and deliver their king Mbogo into the hands of the Enghsh, for they declined to give him up to his nephew Mwanga. The next six months of Lugard's stay he passed in an enterprise beyond the limits of Uganda. One of his various troubles was the difficulty of procuring recruits, to be some- times used as porters, sometimes as soldiers. His men were almost all Mohammedans, nevertheless they fought for him faithfully against their co-rehgionists. The Zanzibaris or Swahilis (for these are identical terras) were grudged him by the company, who continually demanded that they should be sent back to Zanzibar, where they were needed on the coast as porters. How to replace them was a difficulty. -Lugard bethought him of a report that a large body of Soudanese were encamped at Kavallis, the remnant of the Egyptian garrisons in Equatoria, who had failed to reach Stanley in time to accompany the Relief Expedition. They had been at Kavallis two years, raising cotton for clothing and depending for their food supply on the surrounding country. The history of Captain Lugard's second six months' stay in East Africa, as agent of the company, is that of his deter- mination to make his way to Kavalhs ; his endeavor to enlist these Soudanese to recruit his army ; and the story of how he escorted their main body till they could reach the coast ; where they met v/ith no welcome from the Egyptian government. About this time came news from Emin Pasha. He was known to be in command of an expedition in the country of the two Nyanzas, and sent his second in command, Major Stiihlmann, into Uganda, where his relations with Captain Lugard had been pleasant and cordial. News now came that the pasha was entering British territory with a large fol- lowing, without asking permission, which surprised Captain Lugard, as the Germans were officially punctilious in the observance of boundaries. Emin was in fact on his way to UGANDA. 213 Kavallis, hoping to secure reinforcements from these very- Soudanese. Captain Lugard, who had not read Stanley's book, and who still shared the enthusiasm for Erain which preceded the return of the Relief Expedition, says in his diary : " From the time that we had crossed Emin's track the natives fled at our approach, the houses were deserted, and it was with the greatest difficulty I could induce a few men to stop and speak to me, for all feared and distrusted the white man, I am told Emin stayed here for a month, and took food by force the whole time, and paid for nothing. I think I can say that where we have been, the people have learned to know and to trust us, and future travellers will find confi- dence and friendship, not terror and distrust, as on the track of the Germans." The objects of Captain Lugard on this expedition were fourfold. First, to secure possession of a certain salt lake which he thought might be made a commercial centre ; secondly, to secure recruits ; thirdly, to build a fort on the western extremity of the English boundary ; fourthly, to make some settlements which, when the promised railroad should be built, might facilitate trade with the inland country. There were three white men in his party, — him- self, Mr. Grant, and a doctor named Macpherson. The EngUsh expedition was welcomed by the refugees at Kavallis with great joy and kissing of hands and hand- shaking with Shukri Aga (formerly an officer in Equatoria) and with Lugard 's Soudanese. " Every one talked at the same time, and congratulated each other, every one seemed temporarily to have gone out of his mind." As no part of the history of Europe in Africa is probably so interesting as that which relates to Stanley and Emin Pasha, I shall here quote largely from Captain Lugard, who himself quotes from the London " Times : " — "When Stanley arrived at Lake Albert he was joined by Emin and a portion of the Equatorial garrison. Selim Bey, Emin's deputy, was then despatched to complete the evacuation 214 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. of the province, but there was much delay, and Stanley, suspecting treachery, in tlie end departed for the coast, leaving Selim Bey, and a considerable number of Emin's followers, behind. Selim however, was faithful to his trust, and concentrated the whole of his garrisons and their people at Wadelai. But they proved so numerous that it was impossible to transport them in the little steamer. Meantime the rebels attacked Selim, and learning from deserters from Stanley's camp where he had buried the ammunition brought for Emin, and left at Kavallis, they sent an expedition which secured it. The majority of Selim's people, hearing that Stanley had gone on without them, deserted to Fadi Maula, the rebel commander. With the few followers that remained to him he reached Kavallis ; there he planted the Egyptian flag, and hoped that relief would be sent to him event- ually from the coast. Meantime the troops of Fadi Maula, sus- pecting him, with reason, of making friends with the dervishes, who held Rejaf on the Nile, the outlying post of the khalifa, refused to sanction an agreement he had made to receive an -embassy at Wadelai from the dervishes. They fired on them as they approached Wadelai, instead of joining them, and, after a sharp engagement, mutinied against Fadi Maula, who had shown them such bad faith, and marched off to join Selim at Kavallis. They quitted Wadelai in March, 1891 — a force of eight hundred well-armed men, with plenty of ammunition, and upwards of ten thousand camp followers, men, women, and chil- dren. They were forty days journeying to Kavallis, suffering dangers and privations of every description. Shortly before this, Emin Pasha and Dr. StUhlmann arrived, with a force of about three hundred Zanzibaris. Selim Bey and his party wel- comed them warmly, believing that at last the long-expected relief had come ; but to their great disappointment Emin informed them that he had joined the German service ; that it was useless for Selim and his party to expect any relief, and that he had better unite his forces with him and take service under the Ger- mans. Selim Bey represented that being an Egyptian subject, and his men soldiers in the Egyptian government's service, he could not possibly accede to his request. Emin did not dare to proceed to Wadelai, which was then held by the officers and men who had previously mutinied and imprisoned him. He stated his intention of exploring the country to the west and north- west, and called for volunteers to accompany him. Some forty men joined him, and he set out on his journey, but most of those who had volunteered deserted in a few days. . . . Since leaving Wadelai in March, iSgt, the refugees, up to the time of Lugard's arrival, had had no certain news from Equatoria. They UGANDA. 2 1 5 said that all was chaos and civil war in the province, but the dervishes were not in possession, and had only a footing in Rejaf, one hundred and fifty miles to the north ; that Fadi Maula had probably joined them, being afraid to unite with Selim and return to Egypt, because he had led the rebellion and imprisoned Emin." To Captain Lugard, Selim related how he had grown old in the service of the Khedive, and said that nothing would induce him to swerve from his allegiance, but that if the Captain had the Khedive's permission, he would willingly join the company's forces ; without it he would serve under no other flag. It was finally arranged that Captain Lugard should send letters to the Khedive stating the case, and requesting his permission ; that meantime Selim should enlist under Lugard's orders and serve him till the Khedive's answer arrived. There was great joy among Selim's people at the prospect of their release from savagedom, and their return to the status of civilized soldiery. So great preparations were set on foot, preparing food for the journey. There were in all between seven and eight thousand per- sons. Very few of these called themselves privates, almost all having given themselves brevet rank as officers. There were six hundred armed fighting men, each of whom had an average of eleven followers. But a few of the highest rank had followers to the number of one hundred. Their enthusiasm and delight at leaving Kavallis were intense. They appeared fanatical in their loyalty to the Khedive, Captain Lugard's plan was to divide the force, and march them in two companies, building forts along the route in which to station about two thousand at a time. It is needless to tell the story of their march. When letters arrived from Egypt, the Khedive gave the troops a full release from their allegiance, and declined to be held responsible for their back pay. With about twelve hundred people, viz., six hundred Sou- danese fighting men with their wives and followers, including 2l6 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. three hundred and fifty of what were designated as "spare wives and children," and two hundred and fifty of the orig- inal expedition, Lugard returned to Uganda, to be met by letters that caused him the deepest consternation and dis- appointment. Uganda was to be evacuated. The Imperial British East African Company had not means to keep up its influence in so remote and isolated a kingdom. Doubtless the directors were unaware of the chaos and anarchy which, as matters stood, would follow the withdrawal of the English protection. But such were the orders. Not mine to reason why, Not mine to make reply, Some one has blundered was the thought of the unfortunate captain. "The Com- pany," said his despatches, " cannot keep up the expense of Uganda." Under these circumstances, who was to pay the Soudanese recruited at Kavallis? Mr. Williams, who had been left in charge at Uganda during Lugard's absence, came forward at this crisis. He heard the news of the intended evacuation with consternation, and said it could not be done. He should be ashamed to hold up his head in any society of gentlemen if he were involved in such gross breaches of faith as this would lead to, and he said at once, in confidence, that he had some money of his own that he could command, and he would give that, and every penny he had in the world, sooner than break faith by leaving unpaid the- Soudanese who had put themselves under their protection. Happily the question was solved without such sacrifice. On January 7, 1892, another mail arrived from England, reversing the order for evacuation, and giving permission to continue another year, so as to gain time for public opinion in England to declare itself. On reaching the old entrenched fort, Kampala, in Mwanga's capital, Lugard found that all kinds of troubles had occurred during his absence. The Wa-Franza or UGANDA. 217 French party, and the Wa-Inglesa or EngUsh party, were ready to fly at each other's throats, not so much on the ground of rehgious differences, as on grounds of poUtical dissension, while the Mohammedans, under their king Mbogo, and in alhance with Kabba Rega, made continual trouble on the frontier. Mwanga had quarrelled with the French Fathers, and professed a desire to become a Protestant. It is a sad story and not worth telling. The leaders. Englishmen and Frenchmen, and some chiefs of either party, tried to make peace ; but the passions of the factions were too strong for them. The murder of a Protestant by a Wa-Franza was the immediate occasion of an outbreak. The French mission station was burned. All Europeans, including the French Fathers, with the miscel- laneous population of their mission, took refuge in Kampala. The king fled to one of the islands in the lake. While war between the factions was at its height the Mo- hammedan party on the frontier conceived that the opportu- nity had arrived for attacking the Christians of both parties and effecting a revolution. They tried to get the Soudanese from Kavallis to join them, but these men, though Moham- medans, remained faithful, saying that Captain Lugard had rescued them, and that they would fight against all who fought against him. Thus foiled, the Mohammedans offered to make peace with the company's white men ; but at first nothing came of the proposal. Lugard next proposed to the Fathers, as a solution of the Wa-Franza and Wa-Inglesa difficulties, that a province should be assigned to the French party, where they might live under their own rule, with the king of Uganda as their sovereign, and the " protective " influence of the company over all. But affairs were complicated by reports that the Germans, under Major Peters, were offering assistance to the Wa-Franza party. Towards the end of March, however, peace seemed in a 2l8 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. fair way to be made. The gusts of passion had blown them- selves out. Mwanga was induced, or more properly was compelled, to return to his capital. He came in fear and trembling, not doubting he should be killed or imprisoned, and was as much surprised as overjoyed to iind himself hailed with acclamations by all classes of his people. He rode into Mengo on a man's back, escorted by Captain Lugard on his pony. The Roman Catholic Waganda embraced the Protestants, and all was a scene of congratu- lation and joy. Captain Lugard quitted Uganda at the end of his third six months of office, in August, 1892. Before he left he had the satisfaction of settling both the French party and the Mohammedan faction in their own provinces, and of receiving from the latter Mbogo their king. The two royal personages, uncle and nephew, met, and publicly embraced each other. This peace with the Mohammedans was largely brought about by Selim Bey. The close of Selim's history is a sad one. Captain Macdonald who succeeded Lugard in Uganda conceived mistrust of him, and accused him of treachery, sending him to the coast a pris- oner. On his way he died, being already far gone with dropsy. "To me," says Lugard, "it is a sad contemplation that this veteran, selected by Gordon for an important command in Equatoria, whose valor saved Dafil^ ; against whom no charge of disloyalty had ever been proved amidst all the faithlessness of the Soudanese troops ; and who had proved at the risk of his life his loyalty to me, should have been hurried off in a dying state, discredited and disgraced, to succumb upon the march a prisoner and an outcast." It is not to be supposed that the Wa-Franza or the Mohammedan party settled into their provinces without great complaints and ardent endeavors to get further exten- sion of territory. This, in the case of the Mohammedans, was not allowed; but subsequently, in April, 1893, other considerable territories and an island in the lake, were accorded to the CathoHcs. UGANDA. 219 It has also been arranged, since an English Roman Catho- lic bishop — Bishop Hanlon — has been appointed by Car- dinal Vaughan to the diocese of Uganda, that the Roman Catholic field for mission work shall lie in the eastern provinces of Uganda, and the Church Missionary Society shall conduct its operations to the westward. The bishop is to reside at Mengo, the king's capital. How this arrange- ment will work it is impossible as yet to say. It was only concluded on April 20, 1895. Meantime, in the spring of 1893, the Imperial British East African Company yielded up its authority in Uganda to the English government, and Sir Gerald Portal was sent to compose troubles, to report upon the country, and to pave the way for the new administration of Wagandian affairs. He spoke of the country as being for the most part a close agglomeration of steep rounded hills varying from three hundred to six hundred feet above the level of Lake Victoria, and divided one from another by swampy valleys contain- ing either a stagnant marsh overgrown by tall rushes and papyrus grass, or a sluggish muddy stream oozing through dense masses of tropical vegetation and tangled under- growth. The hillsides, and such parts of the valleys as are not swamps, are undoubtedly fertile, and would bear with great luxuriance any crop that might be put into them. " In comparatively recent times the whole country appears to have been extensively cultivated in every direction, but the result of the wholesale massacres conducted by the present King Mvvanga and his predecessor 'Mtesa, and of the successive religious wars by which Uganda has been devastated, is that at present there is no cultivation except in the immediate neighborhood of villages, and nothing appears to be grown throughout the country except bananas, plantains of many kinds, sweet potatoes, and a few beans." The population of Uganda has been very variously esti- mated from five millions to two hundred and fifty thousand ; and the Church Missionary Society has claimed one million 220 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. converts. In a recent report it speaks of having two hun- dred churches, each with a considerable membership, and nearly all of them under the charge of native pastors ; the most reliable information, however, procurable by Sir Gerald Portal was that the population of Uganda was not quite five hundred thousand souls. Into the causes of the war of religion in 1892, or the re- lation between the Wa-Franza and the Wa-Ingleza Sir Gerald declines to enter. After that war the province of Buddu was assigned to the Catholic Mission by Captain Lugard, and three smaller provinces were given to the Mo- hammedans. Six provinces remained to the Protestants, and Mwanga, who had been by turns a heathen, a Moham- medan, again a heathen, and then a Roman Catholic, now professed himself a Protestant. In these changes of faith ^he was joined by a large number of chiefs and sub-chiefs of every degree, who held or expected office under him. Their subordinates, in turn, according to native custom, professed the faith of their superiors, and this accounts for the im- mense increase of Protestant converts in Uganda, as recently reported by the Church Missionary Society. We may consider such professions of the Christian faith to indicate a very inferior kind of Christianity ; nevertheless it breaks up the soil of heathenism. It prepares the way for better Christianity in succeeding generations, and after all it was much in the same way that Christianity was estab- lished among our ancestors, whether they were Saxons, Norsemen, Teutons, or Gaels. In our own age we are apt to forget the early history of Christian Missions. Early mission work among the heathen natives of northern and western Europe, was carried on by compulsory baptisms at the command of conquerors ; and by the more genuine con- version of heathen kings, who imposed their new faith upon our forefathers. Missionaries first converted the kings, then followed in the wake of their rough dealings with their subjects. We are apt to imagine that all the world was converted UGANDA. 221 by such missionary work as St. Paul, St. Philip, and the Eleven Apostles did among the Greeks, Jews, and barba- rians of the Roman Empire. But the case was far different in Western Europe, and the methods of conversion were not the same. The hand of God had been preparing the soil for centuries for the introduction of the faith of Christ in Western Asia and in Eastern Europe. Those who study history may see this for themselves. The civilized portions of the world under the Roman Empire were made ready, nay eager, for gospel teaching. The case of rude unculti- vated heathen men was different. So it is with the Wa- ganda and other tribes in Central Africa. Nor need we stand amazed at the total absence of any ideas of tolerance among them. Zeal always comes first ; tolerance is of much slower growth. And after tolerance comes a sense of Christian fellowship with all of any creed, "who," as St. Paul says in his definition of a united Christian Church, " love the Lord Jesus Christ with sincerity." All history shows us that the more keen a convert is in his own convictions, the less is he able to put up with differing keen convictions in others. The fine of thought the world is taking in our day is quite a new one. It may be com- pressed into a few words : " God is the All-Father ; and all are brothers who love and seek to serve Him." As " one army of the living God " we march in different regi- ments and under different standards, but all have the same foe to fight and the same cause to be won. In Uganda, however, the religious question is complicated with politics, and indeed it has been so in civilized Europe almost up to our own day. Sir Gerald Portal says : — " The political situation accounts in a great measure for the importance attached by the bishops and political leaders of the opposing parties to the possession of certain chieftain- ships or provincial governorships. The acceptance by a great chief of the Protestant creed may mean the addition of one thousand fighting men to the Protestant cause, while the appointment of a Catholic governor to the command of 222 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. a province may mean that every chief, sub-chief, and villager in that province has to make up his mind quickly between embracing the same faith or being forthwith turned adrift, and deprived of his house, dignity, and position." Sir Gerald Portal having stayed about two months in Uganda,^ in the spring of 1893, left the country under the command of Captain Macdonald as acting commissioner for the English government. This commissioner appears to have been possessed by an idea that the Mohammedans (whose power Sir Gerald had considered he had put down) were on the point of being joined by Kabba Rega, the Manyuema, and the Soudanese troops enlisted at Kavallis, to effect the overthrow of the English government. This led to the harsh treatment of Selim Bey, already mentioned. Captain Macdonald's fears seem to have had small foundation. In April, 1893, an agreement signed by "Alfred, Bishop of Equatorial Africa," "J. Hirth, vicar-apostolic of Nyanza," " G. H. Portal, Her Majesty's commissioner and consul-gen- eral, " and "J. R. L. Macdonald, Captain R. E." made a settlement between Protestants and Catholics in six articles, the last of which was, that " the sons of Karema should be brought at once to the capital, and should reside in the charge of the resident, and within the precincts of the Fort Kampala." This stipulation has given rise to endless trouble. The boys, Josephino and Augustino, are sons of Mwanga's deceased brother, at one time a competitor for his throne. On the death of their father they fell into the hands of a Mohammedan chief, from whom they were rescued by Roman Catholic missionaries in the west of Uganda. Minute were the stipulations made with Colonel Colville, who had succeeded Captain Macdonald as resident com- missioner, as to how they should be surrounded by Roman Catholics, and carefully educated in that faith, if they were brought to Kampala and given up to the English govern- ment ; endless too were the promises made by Monsignor 1 Sir Gerald unhappily died from the effects of African fever, very shortly after his return to England. UGANDA. 223 Hirth that they should be placed in the hands of the Eng- lish. The value of these boys to the English government is, that they seem to be the only lawful descendants of 'Mtesa, and as such are successors to Mwanga on his throne. At last, on April 15, 1894, Colonel Colville forwarded this despatch to the Foreign office : — "I have the honor to inform you that on the loth instant it was decided in full council of king and chiefs that the two young princes, nephews of the king, who are being kept in Ger- man territory by Monsignor Hirth, having been so long under foreign tuition, are ineligible as heirs to the throne of Uganda." Some months later, however, they were brought back, but what may be their position now it is hard to determine. Uganda, at the close of November, 1894, was, with the full consent of Mwanga and his chiefs, proclaimed a British protectorate. Mwanga has, in spite of his apparent docility, embarrassed his advisers by desiring to make another change in his faith ; he wishes, he says, to become a Roman Catholic. It will be easily seen, from what has been said already, how much trouble this might cause in Uganda and to the English administration. Colonel Colville, during 1894, was involved in a danger- ous and bloody war with Unyoro. War more or less, in- deed, had been waged with Kabba Rega since 1891. The campaign was opened by Major Owen, who with a force of Zanzibaris and Soudanese gained an important victory in December, 1893. I" January, 1894, Kabba Rega's capital was entered but found deserted. He himself had fled, narrowly escaping being taken prisoner. When the Unyoro war was ended a British reconnoitering party was sent up Lake Albert to Wadelai, under Major Owen. Emin's old capital was held by a native sheikh, with whom Major Owen made a treaty of friendship. He planted the British flag on Emin's old fort by permission of the sheikh, and also on the opposite bank of the Nile. No Europeans had been seen in Wadelai since Emin left it. The remnant 224 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. of the Egyptian army had joined the dervishes. There was no news of the Mahdists ; only constant reports that they might be coming disturbed the minds of the people. Major Owen would have pushed on further, but his orders were precise. So he turned back from Wadelai. A second ex- pedition, sent under Major Thurston a few months later, reported that the people in the Nile Valley were peaceful, and were preparing to restore their lands to cultivation. Before closing this chapter, much of which seems to re- flect httle credit on the Christian converts of Uganda after their days of persecution ceased, I should hke to qualify the impression made by the quarrels between the Wa- Franza and Wa-Ingleza by quoting a letter written to Captain Lugard, shortly after the war ended, by Zechariah, one of the converts of the English mission. Captain Lugard speaks of him as a type of the new regime in Uganda, and he has equally high praise for another high official, a chief of the Roman Cathohc party. Zechariah made part of the expedition to Kavallis, and was always intelligent, faithful, and reliable. The captain had told Zechariah of the financial difficulties which led to the fear that the company might not be able to retain Uganda. Zechariah pondered the subject, and addressed to the cap- tain the following letter : — " You told me that a very great deal of money was being spent by the company for our sakes, and you said : ' When I made the treaty I wrote in it " The country itself shall return some portion of this money little by little." ' But since the country has not become in good order, so it could make some returns, I myself began to reflect in my own mind ; and I saw that the evil came from us. We Waganda are spending the money of our friends with no return, nor have we the memories to say : all this money which is being spent is for our good, let us then do some good to please our friends. We do not consider this in the least ; we know but one practice, and that is to beg every day. We have not yet learned better. There is nothing in us to please the directors of the company, nor are we able to pay the money. How can we repay all that has gone in the wages of the men who have come to fight for our country for us? In UGANDA. 225 addition there is the cost of food and the presents you have made us. All that we can do is to give you satisfaction that you may know we are your children, and are glad to be under the British. But I see a plan myself, my father. I put it out of my own mind. Give me an answer, father, whether it is good or bad ; you to whom I am greatly attached. My plan is to try and kill elephants and give the money to the company. Perhaps I may thus be able to return my thanks. I will not put 'the ivory into my own property. I have no property. Had I any I would have put aside from it sufficient to return my thanks. As it is, I will return my thanks according to my ability, and try my plan. May God add to your wisdom to arrange all these coun- tries rightly. Many salaams. Your friend, Zechariah." " When it is remembered," says Captain Lugard, " that ivory is the sole wealth in Uganda, with which alone a chief can buy the cloth, etc., so dear to his heart, and that Zechariah meant himself to lead his men, and to expose his life that he might show them an example that would lead to successful results, I think the reader will agree with the remarks that follow in my diary : ' I have been at pains to translate this letter right through, for it is a remarkable one from a semi- savage in Africa. Surely it betokens a sign of progress when such a letter is possible? ' " Very few particulars have reached us of the last hours of Emin Pasha. After his first visit to Kavallis, where he failed to secure recruits from the Soudanese, he marched through dense forests and foodless lands with no provisions, and his men were in great straits. They mutinied at last, and Emin was obliged to return to Kavallis, where he found the camp deserted. But small-pox, which had swept over the country after Lugard and Selim left, decimated his followers. He sent Dr. Stiihlmann away with those who were not sick, while he himself remained behind. This was at the close of 1891, —and it is the last really authentic account we have of him. No white man was in his party. At the close of March, 1892, Lugard received a letter from Captain Lang- held, a courteous German officer, telling him of Emin's sad position at Kavallis, and asking him to do what he could for Q 226 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIX^H CENTURY. him. Lugard at once despatched a party of Soudanese to his relief. Emin was no longer in the service of the German government, which had repudiated all connection with his expedition. Before Captain Lugard's party of Soudanese could reach Kavallis, news came that Emin had met some of Kilonga-Longa's Manyuema and had contracted with them to convey him, together with his boxes of specimens of natural history, to the West Coast, via the Congo. We know what these Manyuema slave-hunters were like, from the experience of Parke and Stairs in their society. " Later still, as every one knows," says Lugard, " came a report that Emin had been killed by the men he had hired to protect him. Sad close to this picturesque figure in African history. " "I believe Emin," he continues, "to have been as kind-hearted a man as ever lived, and a brave one too. " His almost morbid sensitiveness led him to resent the de- scriptions of his character and abilities that had reached Europe, and I believe it was the desire to prove himself a capable explorer, and refute by his actions what he would not deign to reply to in words, which led him to embark on this fatal journey." His papers, it is reported, have been recovered, and it may be hoped that his valuable collections are yet safe. His httle daughter Ferida, to the despair of her Abyssinian nurse, has been sent home to Germany, to become a well-regulated German m'ddchen under the charge of her relations. In 1892 East Africa claimed another European as its vic- tim, whose loss must be sensibly felt among all the tens of thousands who read " Darkest Africa," Captain Robert H. Nelson, who had taken service with the Imperial British East African Company. He was sent by his new employers early in 1892 to take charge of Kikuyu, a district lying between the coast and the Victoria Nyanza, where he met his sad fate. Captain Stairs is also dead. He perished likewise on the soil of Africa. Dr. Parke has died in India. The only one left of that noble band, except Stanley himself, is the gallant and genial Mr. A. J. Mounteney Jephson. CHAPTER VIII. THE WAR IN ABYSSINIA.* FIVE and twenty years ago it was the fashion to reproach England for her numerous little wars. I do not speak of wars in India, where the ruling powers have to be con- tinually on the alert, because, as General Sir Charles Napier bluntly expressed it, "There is deviltry on hand in India at every moment;" but the term "little wars" was applied commonly to four petty wars in Africa — the war with Abyssinia in 1868; the war with Coomassie in 1873; the Zulu war with Cetewayo in 1877 j and the war in the Transvaal in 1878 and 1879. All these wars fall into the history of " Europe in Africa in the Nineteenth Century." I shall speak of them without giving much space to their military details. The war with Abyssinia seems to have originated in offi- cial inadvertence on the part of the British government. "The celebrated letter out of which it grew was," says an English writer, "to the late expedition what the carrying off of Helen was to the siege of Troy." The war cost much money and much suffering. It resulted in nothing but the enhancement of the prestige of the Anglo-Indian army and * For a great deal in this chapter I am indebted to Mr. Stanley's letters when, as the war correspondent of the " New York Herald," he accompanied the British army. His letters were repubhshed by Messrs. Harper in book form in 1874. It is hard to recognize the Mr. Stanley whom we know so well, probably the most distinguished and world- famous man in this last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, in the some- what flippant newspaper reporter who vivaciously relates the events in which he took a subordinate part in 1868, three years before he started on his expedition to " find Livingstone." 227 228 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. the release of certain captives who had good cause to blame their own government that they were ever imprisoned. Abyssinia is one of the oldest kingdoms in the world. It claims to have a history older than the days of the Queen of Sheba, and after her to have had a race of sovereigns descended from Menilek, her son and the son of King Solomon. The circumstance of Judaism having formed the religion of the people from the time of their conversion from the worship of the serpent to the establishment of Christianity in the fourth century, sufificiently accounts for the tincture of the Mosaic dispensation which is still discernible in the country; for example, in the retention of circumcision, and the observance of the distinction concerning clean and unclean meats. There were large Jewish colonies estab- "lished in the country, we know not how many years before the Christian era. It may have been as early as the days of Solomon; it may have been, as the Abyssinians them- selves think, when his fleets on the Red Sea brought gold from Southern Africa, and spices and -rare animals from India; or it may not have been till after the dispersion and the captivity. Abyssinia proper is a country resembling the Oberland of Switzerland, or the Scotch Highlands, on a far more savage scale. It consists only of mountains with their plateaux and their valleys, but there is a low, unhealthy strip of land lying along the shore of the Red Sea, which has been claimed and at times possessed by Egypt, as far back as any modern knowledge of Abyssinian history extends. Its chief town is Massowah. As Sir Samuel Baker said in reference to its being handed over to the Italians by the English government, "We have been very generous with what belonged to other people." Abyssinia proper was divided into provinces ; in other words, into small feudal kingdoms, whose sovereigns were only bound to pay a certain tribute into the emperor's treasury, and to follow him with their sub-chiefs when he THE WAR IN ABYSSINIA. 229 went to war. The emperor was a man of magnificent titles, and for ages was supposed to be a descendant of Solomon and Menilek. Then a revolution took place, men or boys of other families were placed upon the throne, and lived in the royal city of Gondarj but each king was governed as a roi faineant, by his Ras, or prime minister, who was always the chief of some province, and who had seated him upon the throne. There was an old prophecy in Abyssinia, handed down from generation to generation, which said that in the ful- ness of time a king should arise in Ethiopia, of Solomon's lineage, who should be acknowledged to be the greatest king on earth; and his power should embrace all Ethi- opia and Egypt. He should scourge the infidels out of Palestine and purge Jerusalem from all defilers. He should destroy all the inhabitants thereof, and his name should be Theodorus. This prophecy made a great impression on a young man, the son of a widow, who, though in humble circumstances, was nephew to the governor of Kuara, and descended, as he believed, from Menilek. He was born in 18 18, had been well educated (so far as Abyssinian education goes) by the care of his uncle, but on reaching man's estate he pre- ferred a roving life, and was made captain of a band of ban- ditti. On his uncle's death he became governor of Kuara, and marching against Ras Ali, sovereign of Dembea, dis- played so much prowess and such promise of future great- ness, that Ras Ali gave him Tavavitch, his daughter, in marriage. While she lived her influence over her hus- band was unbounded and beneficial. He practised none of the degrading vices common among Oriental princes. After her death, which took place when she was still young, he mourned her sincerely for a time, and then consoled himself with dreams of ambition. He conquered Gondar; he raised a large army; and the news of his martial prowess spreading abroad, the chiefs of the neighboring provinces made common cause with him. It was then that he pro- 230 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. claimed his name to be Theodorus, as it probably was, though he had been always known as Kassai, for the Abyssinians have a custom of giving a babe in baptism a Christian name, which is never brought into common use by his friends and family. One province after another was conquered, with the exception of Tigre, the most northerly, which alone had a port upon the sea. Theodorus, " Emperor of Ethiopia, by the Power of God," was, in 185 1, at the height of his prosperity, and probably thought little less of himself than did King 'Mtesa, who thus addressed Mr. Mackay in their first interview : " Mackay, when I go to England God in heaven will be witness that I shall take greatness and glory with me. Every one will say: 'O! 'Mtesa is coming! ' when I reach England; and when I return: 'O! 'Mtesa is coming back again ! ' " Theodorus refused to dwell in the royal city of Gondar. "My head," he said, "shall be my empire; and my tent my capital." In time, however, after a successful campaign against the Wallo Gallas, a Mohammedan tribe, who had settled in southern Abyssinia, he built a fortress upon what might well seem to him an impregnable mountain, and called it Magdala. He was very partial to Europeans ; he treated all travellers, especially military men, with kindness and consideration; but his chief favorite was Mr. Plowden, Her Majesty's consul at Massowah, who, leaving the port to which he was accredited, resided with Theodore for five years. Theodore could conquer his enemies, but he failed to convert them into faithful subjects. "No sooner was he conqueror of a rebel province, than he was compelled to overrun it. By such wars he was continually harassed, and gradually his whole nature changed. He became embittered at the ingratitude of the people, whose welfare he so ardently desired, and for whom he labored so assidu- ously." THE WAR IN ABYSSINIA. 23 1 Russian and German engineers and workmen, attracted by his liberalities and his promises, came to him, and hav- ing told him of the monster cannon then coming into fash- ion in European warfare, they were employed to construct for him the most wonderful guns and the most enormous mortars they could invent. At this time the Church Missionary Society, which already had missionaries in Abyssinia, determined to send out a band of laymen, who were to assist in extending knowledge of the methods of civilization at the same time that they endeavored to infuse new life into the national religion. Mr. Plovvden constantly urged the emperor to send an embassy to England, but for a long while Theodore was so much engaged in civil wars that he had no time to think of foreign relations. In i860, while journeying to Mas- sowah, Mr. Plowdenwas killed by a band of rebels. Theo- dore mourned for him greatly, and severely punished his murderers. In gratitude for his consideration for the consul. Queen Victoria sent him presents; among them a revolver, whereon was inscribed on a silver plate : " Pre- sented to Theodore, Emperor of Abyssinia, by Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, for his kindness to her servant, Plowden, 1861." These presents were con- veyed to Theodore by Captain Cameron, an English army officer. He reached Massowah in February, 1862, and proceeded to the camp of Theodore, who cordially received him, as well as the Rev. Messrs. Stern and Rosenthal, who arrived soon after him. It has been thought that Theodore's brain about this time became unsettled. Human nature rarely bears for long the strain of autocratic power. The defection of his provinces embittered him greatly, and his whole nature seemed to undergo a violent change. Up to this time his life had been remarkable for a continence and temperance unusual among Oriental princes; now he began to lead a very different life, and in his drunken fits his atrocities were absolutely fiendish. 232 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. There was an Abyssinian convent at Jerusalem to which, for many years, England had extended British protection. Earl Russell, then Secretary for Foreign Affairs, withdrew that protection shortly before Captain Cameron reached Abyssinia. This greatly enraged the emperor. It was an illustration of the proverb : " Penny wise and pound fool- ish." It would have cost little to protect the convent, whereas the withdrawal of that protection was the first step that led to the loss of the confidence of Theodore. The subject of an embassy to Queen Victoria was again brought forward by Cameron. Theodore wrote a letter to the Queen telling her that he intended, as soon as practi- cable, to attack the Turks {i.e. the Egyptians), and he enu- merated the various causes of complaint he had against Abbas Pasha, Said Pasha, and their people. , In the same letter he expressed a hope that " lasting good- will might exist between their two countries, which would be to the glory and advantage of both," and requested Her Majesty to prepare means by which his ambassadors might safely reach England, for, as soon as he should be informed that all was ready, his envoys should proceed to the sea- coast. No notice whatever was taken of this letter. In vain Theodore waited for an answer. The only effect it pro- duced was to bring Cameron into disgrace with his own government. He was ordered to go back to Massowah, and told to attend only to his consular duties. It did not, of course, suit English policy to countenance or abet any attack on Egypt; and besides, Cameron had given umbrage to the Egyptian government by too vigorous efforts for the suppression of the slave-trade. In 1863, when England began to feel apprehensive about her supplies of cotton by reason of the war in our Southern States, she desired Captain Cameron to go into the equa- torial provinces of Egypt contiguous to Abyssinia and report upon their capabilities for cultivating cotton. This visit was an additional offence to Theodore. In an interview THE WAR IN ABYSSINIA. 233 with Cameron on his return from his trip he said that since the Queen of England could send him to visit his enemies, the Turks, perhaps to conspire against him, and could not write a civil answer to a civil letter, Cameron should not be permitted to leave him till an answer came. "Three months later Theodore, further exasperated by the apparent discourtesy of the English government, ordered the servant of Captain Cameron, and two of those of Mr. Stern, to be so severely beaten in his presence that two of them died the same evening. The poor missionary, moved by the spectacle of his servants' torture, put his hand before his mouth to repress a cry of horror. This was understood by the emperor as a revengeful threat; he at once cried out to his men : " Beat that man; beat him as you would a dog; beat him, I say! " Stern was flung on his face and beaten till he fainted. Thus commenced his four long years and six months of imprisonment." Then followed more exasperation, and more imprison- ments. One of Theodore's great favorites had been Captain Charles Speedy, who, with a young relative, named Kerens, had come into the country to shoot elephants. Speedy was a man of gigantic stature and of wonderful skill as a swords- man. Theodore proposed to him to enter his service, and he soon enjoyed the degree of favor that had been accorded to Plovvden. At last Theodore, in one of his suspicious fits, ordered the governor of one of his provinces to arrest Speedy while he was engaged in executing some mission. The governor attempted to make the arrest, but was deterred when he considered Speedy' s strength and prowess. The captain executed his mission, and returned to Theodore. But he insisted on at once obtaining leave to quit his ser- vice. In vain Theodore condescended to implore him to remain with him; until, finding that nothing he could say would alter his resolution, he paid all the money that was due to him, gave him a horse, a shield and spear, and took an affectionate leave of him. Again, in 1863, letters from the Foreign office, despatched 234 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. by the hand of Kerens, were received in Abyssinia, still making no mention of Theodore's proposal to send an embassy to Queen Victoria. This so exasperated the emperor that consul Cameron, the missionaries, and all their servants were put in chains, together with poor young Kerens, whose offence was aggravated by his having brought as a present to the emperor a large rug, the pattern on which was considered by Theodore to be a deliberate insult to himself, since one of his official titles was the Lion of the Tribe of Judah — and the royal beast on the carpet was about to fall a victim to a man who wore a turban, like a Turk. Kerens was severely flogged, and put in chains with the other captives. Individual efforts were made to ransom the prisoners, and to induce ministers to advise the Queen to write to Theodore on their behalf. The petitioners were answered calmly that " it is not thought advisable that the Queen should write to the Abyssinian emperor." Lamentable letters were sent home by the captives, who contrived to bribe some of their guards to convey their correspondence to Massowah : — " In one of the letters Cameron explained at length the causes of his captivity and sufferings, and said : ' There is no hope of my release unless a letter is sent as an answer to his Majesty.' This letter found its way to the ' Times,' and thence through all the ramifications of the EngHsh and American press. The 'Times' thundered, and Ministers surrendered. Under the storm of popular indignation Her Majesty was advised to write. The letter was at once written and sent off." The envoy who carried it was Mr. Hormuzd Rassam. Mr. Rassam was a native of Mosul, near Nineveh; his fam- ily, who were Armenians, had rendered the greatest services to Mr. Layard in his early excavations. Mr. Rassam him- self, when very young, had been made his secretary and assistant; and proved of great help, being a man of no little influence among the Arabs of Mesopotamia. He had sub- sequently been made Her Majesty's consul-general at Aden, THE WAR IN ABYSSINIA. 235 and rendered important services to England by conciliating Arab tribes. With the Queen's letter, Mr. Rassam proceeded to Mas- sowah, where he waited a year before the irate Theodore would suffer him to enter Abyssinia, the Foreign office hav- ing charged its envoy not to proceed without a safe conduct, as his capture would lead to further complications. King Theodore said afterwards that he kept Mr. Rassam waiting to try if he was as hasty-tempered and ill-mannered as other Europeans. At last, in August, 1865, Mr. Rassam received permission to enter Abyssinia, and journeyed by a pre- scribed route to the king's presence. He had with him two English gentlemen, both with French names, Doctor Blanc and Lieutenant Prideaux. All the way along their route, the envoy and his companions were treated with the great- est distinction. Priests came out to greet them with ban- ners and processions, and ominous prayers to Heaven for their safety. Everywhere they received favorable impres- sions of the Abyssinians, and in every incident of their journey they perceived how Theodore was feared. The captives that they came to rescue were Cameron, Kerens, Mr. Stern, a German missionary, his wife and family, and the small body of European artisans who had constructed for the emperor his monstrous guns and mortars. When Mr. Rassam and his party reached Theodore's camp, they were received with all possible courtesy and dis- tinction. The monarch took one of his capricious fancies for Mr. Rassam at once. "The singular mixture of char- acteristics in this strange being was very remarkable. No one could ever rely on his being twenty-four hours in the same mind. He could be gracious and winning to an extraordinary degree; ferocious and unreasonable beyond belief; one moment he would gloat over the destruction of a village and its inhabitants, and the next he would show tender care for the safety of women and little children crossing a ford. He was a great warrior, but was thought to have no talent for organization. He wanted Europeans 236 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. to carry out his plans, but was naturally jealous of their acquiring any influence over him. At one moment he de- scribed himself as a poor, ignorant Ethiopian; at another he acted as if he were king of kings, and lord of the whole earth." He promised at once to release the captives, and wrote humble apologies to the Queen. There were some delays, but at last the captives were handed over to Mr. Rassam. The king wrote him an affectionate farewell letter, and all was prepared for their departure, when, unhappily, news reached King Theodore which changed his purposes. Friends of the missionaries, impatient of the repeated delays in effecting their release, had despatched a private agent. Doctor Beke, with handsome presents for the king, and offers of ransom. News of Doctor Beke reached King Theodore a few hours after he had given up his prisoners, and he at once regretted that he had not made more out of them. He seized them again, loaded them with chain^, and summoning Mr. Rassam, Doctor Blanc, and Lieutenant Pri- deaux to his presence, had them also seized and detained as captives. Yet even as captives they were treated with such consideration that, on one occasion, King Theodore with his own hands swept up Mr. Rassam's room for him. Finally, however, they were transferred to Magdala, and kept two years in chains, not knowing from moment to moment what their fate might be. They suffered, of course, terrible strain of mind, but they were not compelled to endure privation, and rarely personal violence. Mr. Ras- sam, indeed, was not infrequently consulted by King Theo- dore, whose confidence he retained, although his prisoner. On learning these events, the English government sent an- other envoy, Mr. Palgrave, a distinguished traveller. He was permitted to present his letter from Her Majesty, which, however, was not respectful enough to please the emperor, who,, though he allowed the chief envoy to leave his country, added his subordinates to the number of his prisoners. THE WAR IN ABYSSINIA. 237 Meantime the chiefs and sub-chiefs in Theodore's various provinces became more and more rebelUous, and his cruel punishments drove his soldiers by hundreds away from him. It became evident to the English government, in 1866, that something more must be done, and it was resolved to send an army to Abyssinia, to storm Theodore's stronghold, the citadel of Magdala, release the captives, and depose the emperor. On January 7, 1868, a British army of 12,000 men, drawn from the Bombay presidency, was landed at ZouUa, on Annesley Bay, under the command of General Sir Robert Napier, already distinguished in the Indian Mutiny. Zoulla was in the province of Tigr6, then in rebelhon against Theo- dore. Interpreters were scarce, and Captain Speedy was recalled from New Zealand to serve the commander in chief in that capacity. An advance party had been sent forward to gain information as to roads, supplies, and the dangers of the enterprise. It was found necessary to make the road, four hundred miles long, across valleys and over mountains, where there were only bridle paths which the sure-footed active little Abyssinian horses were alone able to travel. The days were hot, the nights extremely cold. Horses and mules died by hundreds from fatigue or want of water. Had the country through which they passed been well affected to Theodore, a mere handful of men stationed on many a rocky cliff looking down on many a difficult mountain pass, might have obstructed the whole army. But Kassa, the Prince of Tigre, was the enemy of Theodore. The British army paid for all supplies, and was generally welcomed all along its route. Here are a few words from the pen of an eye-witness descriptive of the march : — " Imagine three regiments, two white, one dusky, with miles of artillery baggage wagons, mules, and followers crawling after them, passing over mountains high as Mont Cenis, to halt at a point seven thousand five hundred feet above the sea ; moun- 238 EUROPE IN AFRICA IlSf THE XIXTH CENTURY. tains behind, before, and around ; mountains all conical, looking as if they belonged to another world. And at the halt only one wretched spring to be found, its water loaded, as such water always is, with the seeds of dysentery. It is hard to paint the frantic scene ; the rush to the spring, the confusion that followed, the trampling through the water, the angry craving of parched soldiers and followers, and worn-out beasts! In the midst of it all, half a dozen mules are driven up loaded with their steel tubes. These are the appliances for a driven well. Tap, tap, tap, goes a hammer, all is rigged up in five minutes, and in ten pure water for the army is spouting among the stones." On Good Friday of the year 1868 the British army reached the plateau of Affeejo. It was now in hostile terri- tory, and confronted by the two outposts of Magdala, — Fahla and Selasse. When a round shot from the brow of the former hill struck the ground not far from his Excellency the commander in chief, it was hailed with a cheer for Theodore from the soldiery, who had begun to fear that the expedition might end in a walk-over. This was not to be, however. The next day was fought a bloody battle, called the battle of Arogeh, and Theodore's power received a fatal shock. Hitherto, whenever he fought he had con- quered. Theodore's exasperation at the loss of this battle was terrible, and he took vengeance on all of his own soldiers who fell wounded into his hands. "Have you seen Theodore's last handiwork?" said a newspaper reporter to Mr. Stanley after the troops had entered Magdala. Being answered in the negative he led him to a precipice, and pointed downward. There lay three hundred and eight dead people, most of them these unfortunate defeated, wounded soldiers, piled one upon another, stripped naked, with fetters round their limbs. They had been manacled and fettered hand and foot, and sabred by Theodore and his men as they lay helpless upon the ground. It would be impossible to describe in detail the diffi- culties of the wondrous march to Magdala. I will give only one extract from Stanley's narrative : — THE WAR IN ABYSSINIA. 239 " On arriving at the river Takasse we tliought we were hemmed in, and paused in bewilderment. ' No ! we will neither go back nor follow the Takasse to the Blue Nile,' said Captain Speedy, to his wondering comrades ; ' we intend to scale that apparently interminable wall you see before you.' 'Great Caesar!' In very truth most men would have uttered this exclamation upon seeing the lengthy sky-wrapt walls of granite before them. But what had been done could be done by Napier and his men. Already the Fourth Foot was half-way up the perpendicular wall serpentining at right and acute angles with each other, and round and round like the windings to the summit of a cathedral spire. The higher we ascend the grander the scene becomes. Under gorgeous sunshine, and a sky as blue as any vaunted by Italy, spreads the wildest land, growing each step wilder as we approach Magdala. Upward unceasingly we toil, but often pause to rest. The fleetest and hardiest of our Arab horses become blown ; the hardiest of iron frames relax the firm tension of their nerves. Each highest angle or curve in the road formed a perfect fortress. The slightest effort would over- turn a ton weight of rock. Ten stout-hearted men could have defied a thousand! The Fourth Foot having, like heroic souls, mounted to the plateau ten thousand feet above the level of the sea, their colonel requested his men to give three cheers ; but they were too tired to give more than a feeble response ; and from the state of their feet it was cruel to prevent their lying down the moment they had reached the green sward of the plateau, which was soon covered with the forms of weary men." All that toil and sxiffering for want of a letter ! Queer are the ways of diplomacy. On the evening of April 7th, after the campaign had lasted three months, the army was in sight of Magdala. " Magdala," says Mr. Stanley in his preface, " was a town planted on the top of a mountain about ten thousand feet above sea level, amid gigantic mountains piled one upon another, grouped together in immense gatherings — profound abysses, two thousand, three thousand, and even four thou- sand feet deep ; a region of almost indescribable wildness and grandeur. It was an almost impregnable stronghold, situated four hundred miles from the point of disembarka- tion ; a strange weird country, full of peaks and mountains 240 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. and ruggedness, lay between it and the sea. k battle was fought, Magdala was taken by assault, then set on fire, and utterly destroyed. The emperor committed suicide ; the captives were released, and the conquerors returned to the sea, flushed with success, having suffered the smallest loss that could possibly follow an invasion of a hostile country." The outposts Fuhla and Selasse fell into the hands of the British, after some sharp fighting. The army had been all brought from the Bombay presidency. There were Sikhs and Punjaubees and Sepoys there, who all fought admirably, the Thirty- third was an Irish regiment, and the Fourth Foot has been already mentioned. After the battle of Arogeh Lieutenant Prideaux and Mr. Flad were sent by Theodore on a mission to the English general. Lieutenant Prideaux created some amusement among the worn and weary men who had come to rescue him and his fellow prisoners from " a horrible captivity," by appearing spick and span in a glittering, well-brushed uniform, with his face well shaved, his boots well blacked, and his spurs well pohshed. One of the first questions asked him was what had been the effect on Theodore of the late battle? Then he told them how, when Theodore had seen the gigantic elephants, which, with their ponderous loads, had ascended the precipices that have just been described, coming down from the plateau, and the long line of men in red, men in white, men in all colors, that accompanied them, an exclamation of admiration burst from him, and he cried that the great wish of his lifetime was about to be granted; he should see how soldiers, real soldiers, would conduct themselves in battle. When he found that the English soldiers advanced upward steadily towards Mag- dala, disregarding his chain-shot and 200-pound balls, he fell to weeping violently, gnashing his teeth, and stamping on the ground, flis rage was increased when he saw his best army melting away before the steady fire of the THE WAR IN ABYSSINIA. 24 1 English. Then he threatened that the lives of the captives should pay for his defeat, and when night came, and the battle had ended, he took to drinking arrack to drown his agony of despair. He decided towards morning to send Prideaux and Flad to the English general. But the result was not what he had hoped. To have come so far, and spent so much money, merely to set the captives free, was no longer enough. More was demanded ; the surrender and dethronement of Theo- dore. Sir Robert replied: "Your Majesty, after having fought like a brave man, has been defeated by the superior might of England. It is not our wish that more blood should be shed. If, therefore, your Majesty will bring with you, into our camp, all the Europeans in your hands, and deliver them in safety to us, and submit yourself to her Majesty, the Queen of England, honorable treatment for yourself and all your family will be guaranteed. Signed R. Nap- ier, Lieutenant-general, Commander in chief." "Honorable treatment!" cried Theodore, when he re- ceived this letter. "What is meant by honorable treatment? Will they carry me away to England? or will they help me to punish my rebellious subjects?" He then dictated an answer to the general's letter, and sent back the two envoys with it to the English general. When they had left him he lay down, and covering himself completely with a cotton sheet, lay motionless for upwards of an hour. At last he rose from the ground, and drawing a pistol from his girdle, placed the muzzle of it between his teeth. For some reason the trigger did not at once answer to his touch, and there was time for his attendants to throw themselves upon him and take the pistol away. The failure of this attempt at self-destruction changed the current of his thoughts; and he began to believe it was the will of God that he should live and conquer. The document he had sent to Sir Robert Napier was incomprehensible to that general and his staff; they did not 242 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY: then know that when Theodore dictated it he believed that he was uttering his dying words. Sir Robert's previous letter, already quoted, Avhich had been sent back by the envoys, was returned to them to be given again to the emperor, with only an oral message. "If that paper had proved the death-warrant of all the captives," writes one of Sir Robert's staff-officers, "still it was the only thing to do; they would but have sacri- ficed their lives for their country's honor — a cause for which thousands of brave men had joyfully given their blood before them." Nevertheless, "the whole Eng- ish army," says Stanley, "looked anxiously on Prideaux and his companion with compassionate tenderness, an- ticipating for them the very worst of calamities that Theodore, in revengeful rage, might pour upon their heads." But what was the joy of Prideaux and Flad, to say nothing of their surprise, when, shortly after dark, as they were ascending the mountains, they met Mr. Rassam and the rest of their fellow-captives coming down under the guidance of one of the emperor's artisans, who had been ordered to see them in safety to the tent of the British commander. A sudden impulse had induced Theodore to order that the captives should all assemble at one of the gates of the citadel in half an hour. "They had not long to wait. Theodore arrived at the gate, clad in his proudest robes, surrounded by his princi- pal men. All the captives salaamed to him, except one. His Majesty then gave orders to open the gate, and the prisoners defiled before him, bowing low as they passed him. "Farewell, Cameron," Theodore said, "we part friends, I hope? " The consul, with his heart full of bitter memories, could only answer: "Adieu, your Majesty," and once more bowing low, passed on, " Farewell, Mr. Stern," said the king, "forgive me for what I did by you." Stern answered like Cameron, but young Kerens, with his fresh. THE WAR IN ABYSSINIA. 243 youthful impulses, while yet with all his sufferings strong in his mind, went up to Theodore and, clasping his hand, said, with a lowly obeisance: "Good-bye, your Majesty; I wish you well." The captives looked a great deal better than their deliv- erers could have expected. But, strange to say, they were received in the English camp with curiosity but no enthu- siasm. Only three seemed broken down by their captivity. One of these was Kerens. Mrs. Flad, and a Frenchman, both sick, were left behind, but Mrs. Flad was brought down by her husband in the morning. The next day was Easter Sunday, Theodore sent a drove of bullocks and a flock of sheep to the camp, saying that the English soldiers ought to feast upon that day. But the general refused to receive any presents until after Theo- dore's personal submission. Then came the assault of Magdala. Theodore now hope- less, knowing that all was lost, attempted to escape, but the soldiers of his escort, attacked by a Mohammedan tribe the Wallo Gallas, deserted him. Then Theodore returned to Magdala, put ragged raiment over his outer clothing, and, returning to his citadel, animated his soldiers to fire through the stockade at all who approached it. A few of the attacking party were thus wounded, but the capture of the fortress was almost bloodless. Two Irish privates were advancing a few paces from each other to the upper revetment, when they saw about a dozen fellows aiming at them. They instantly opened fire ; and so quick and so well delivered was it, that but few of their assailants escaped. Then over the upper revetment the two men made their way, and at the same time they saw a man standing near a haystack with a revolver in his hand. When he saw them pre- pare to fire he ran back, and both men heard a shot fired. They found the man lying prostrate, dying, with the revolver still con- vulsively clenched in his hand. The revolver they considered their proper loot, and took it from him, but on possessing them- selves of it what was their surprise to see engraved upon a silver plate, — 244 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. PRESENTED VICTORIA, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, THEODORUS, Emperor of Abyssinia, As a slight token of her gratitude for his kindness to her servant Plowden. 1861. At about the same moment the gate was forced, and Magdala was won. Theodore's palace at Magdala was a rude hut. "A private soldier entering it found the queen, a fair complexioned woman, crouching in a corner with her son. He felt pity for her forlorn state, but could only express his compassion by pats upon her shoulder." The widowed empress was the Princess Ettige, a lady about six and twenty, already suffering from consumption. She was the daughter of one of her husband's rebellious chiefs. Her nearest relatives were still captives in his prisons. She had married Theodore against her will, but having become his wife, she was said, by report in Magdala, to have been his guardian angel. Theodore left one son by this lady, a bright little boy eight years old, named Alamaio. Mother and child, with all their household, were placed at once under Captain Speedy' s protection. The poor lady, however, died on her way to the coast; and her little son was taken to Bombay, to be carefully educated, but he had inherited his mother's malady, and died before he reached manhood. The empress was consulted as to her husband's funeral. She only expressed a wish that the prayers of his own church might be read over him by his own chaplain. The funeral was a very simple one. The body, which had been stripped and exposed to the gaze and the jeers of the soldiers for some hours, was decently swathed in silken robes, pre- paratory to burial. A photograph was taken of the dead GENERAL SIR ROBERT NAPIER. THE WAR IN ABYSSINIA. 245 emperor, and a post-mortem examination was held, by which it was ascertained that Theodore had received no wound from any English rifle but a slight scratch on the leg. The next question to be determined was, what should be done with Magdala and its two outpost stations, Fuhla and Selasse. They were offered to a chief who had rendered considerable assistance to the English, but he declined them. It was then that two rival Mohammedan queens, the heads of Gallo tribes, Mastervit and Walkeit, came to Sir Robert to press on him their claims to Magdala. It was decided in the end to burn and destroy all buildings on the mountain heights, and leave them bare, to be occupied by whosoever chose to take possession of them. On the march of the army back to the coast, as it passed through Tigre, the soldiers were received by people who came out to meet them, dancing and singing the Psalms of David. A knowledge of the Scriptures is universal among the Abyssinians, ''and probably," says the officer on Sir Robert Napier's staff whose words I have several times quoted, "a careful examination of the religion of modern Abyssinia would show that it is less corrupt than is often stated. Indeed, it is probable that much of what is good in the character of the people, is due to the influence exerted upon them by their Christian faith. In the midst of sad ignorance, and considerable depravity, there is evi- dence on every side that the lamp of truth has been burn- ing through all these ages in the country." Kassa, Prince of Tigr^, had been of invaluable assistance to the English. Without his alliance they could hardly have accomplished their almost superhuman march to Magdala. Many of the nobility of his province, who had been held in captivity at Magdala, were among the one hundred native prisoners liberated by the English when they stormed the citadel; in return for Kassa' s services a small battery of cannon was presented to him, together with sufficient muskets to arm a regiment, and a large quantity of ammunition. 246 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY, When the English had departed, Kassa set himself to recover the lost throne of Theodore, being himself a de- scendant, as he claimed, of the royal house of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Two feelings influenced his for- eign policy, — hatredto the Turks {i.e. the Egyptians), and gratitude to England. He was a man of ability far above the common order, of great martial skill and personal strength. At the time of the English campaign he was twenty-eight. His abilities had apparently lain latent, but he resolutely applied himself to the task of bringing under his control the great kingdom, which, under the sway of Theodore, had been consolidated and then broken again to pieces. In 1873 he was able to place the triple crown upon his head, and to call himself King Johannes, or John, King of Kings of Ethiopia. In 1876 war broke out between Abyssinia and Egypt; it may be said that there had never been actual peace between them. Each claimed the strip of country of which Masso- wah is the port, bounded on the west by Nubia and washed on the east by the Red Sea. In this campaign of 1876 all the advantage lay with the Abyssinians. The Egyptian commander in chief was captured, as well as a large part of his army, notwithstanding the superior equipment of the soldiers. Some prisoners were massacred in the first heat of victory by the Abyssinians, but the greater part were cruelly mutilated, sent down to Massowah, and thence home. It is very curious to read the divergent accounts of Amer- ican officers in the Egyptian army, who represent King John as no better than a barbarian, and the opinions of him given us by English travellers, especially by Mr. De Cosson, to whom he showed "distinguished consideration." This gentleman speaks of him as "a great soldier, a just judge, and a powerful ruler; of distinguished and refined appear- ance, a fine horseman, master of athletic exercises, alike learned and practical, faithful to his religion, interested in other countries, and unquestionably the ablest prince who has been allotted to his own." THE WAR IN AB YSSINIA. 247 These are virtues enough to adorn a tombstone ; and we have no means of adjusting our opinion of King John to a juste milieu. He undoubtedly bulhed Gordon in 1879, when he visited Abyssinia on his way to his government at Khartoum. But then Gordon was an Egyptian officer and obnoxious accordingly. Gordon's impression of the poten- tate may, however, be set against that formed in the same year by Mr. De. Cosson. " I write in haste, but I will sum up my impression of Abyssinia. The king is rapidly growing mad. He cuts off the noses of those who take snuff, and the hps of those who smoke. The king is hated more than Theodore was. Cruel to a degree, he does not, however, take life. He muti- lates his victims." The last page of King John's history we must take from Father Ohrwalder. A man calling himself the son of King Theodore, though not by the Princess Ettig^ his wife, entered the camp of the dervishes, the Khalifa Abdullah being then at war with Abyssinia, and offered to fight against his own countrymen. He said his name was Todros (Theodore) like his father's, that when the English stormed Magdala he was two years old, but had been long hidden by his friends, that King John might not discover him. The Mahdist general was then at Galabat, an important town on the Abyssinian frontier, which had for years been claimed by both Egyptians and Abyssinians. He sent Todros and two sons that he had brought with him, to his master the khalifa at Omdurman. The khalifa re- ceived Todros very cordially, and engaged to reinstate him on his father's throne, provided he would promise that all Abyssinians should become Mohammedans, and that tribute should be paid to him as a sign of subjection. Shortly after a more formidable army of dervishes was de- spatched to subdue Abyssinia, and soon after their departure the khalifa received secretly a note from King John, offering to make a friendly treaty with him, on the ground that together they might make war on the Europeans, their common 248 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. enemy, instead of turning their arms against each other. To which the khahfa repUed that he could not but regard the king as an enemy to God and His prophet, and that he had no choice left but to exterminate him. This roused King John, he determined to retake Galabat, to advance on Omdurman, and destroy Mahdism. There was a prophecy among the Arabs that a king of Abyssinia should advance on Khartoum', his horsemen wad- ing in blood, and that he should tie his horse to a lone tree standing on a certain hill near the city. When the war broke out belief in this prophecy caused almost a panic in Omdurman. A hard fight was fought near Galabat in February, 1890. The dervishes were getting the worst of it, their ammunition was almost spent, when a bullet struck King John. His army at once fled, and their camp fell into the hands of their enemies. The dead body of King John was taken, when, two weeks later, a large force of dervishes came up with the remains of the retreating army. The body had been packed in a long box, which was then sealed with wax. At first the box was supposed to contain treasure. The king's head was cut off and sent to the khalifa. The khalifa's joy knew no bounds : the head was placed upon a camel's back and paraded through the streets of Omdurman with shouts of rejoicing. Among the precious objects captured with it was a superb New Testament written on parchment in the Amharic language, profusely illustrated and illuminated, also a friendly letter from Queen Victoria to King John, dated November, 1887. The present history of Abyssinia relates to its struggle with the Italians. In the general division among European powers of " spheres of influence " in Africa, protectorates, and ports of entry, Italy seems to have been left out till the year 1884. Her position reminds me of a story told of a small child, who cried compassionately when looking with his mother over pictures in a family Bible, one of which THE WAR IN ABYSSINIA. 24.9 represented the traducers of Daniel with their wives and families being cast into the den of lions: "Oh! mamma, there is one poor little lion hasn't got a bit! " The same spirit seems to have animated the parliament of the Euro- pean powers, and the strip of seacoast, now called Eritrea, so long in dispute between Egypt and Abyssinia, was as- signed to Italy. Ever since the Crimean War, when it was the policy of Sardinia to take a position among the great powers, and so pave the way for her sovereign's future rec- ognition as King of Italy, that country has strained every nerve, and exhausted her resources, in an effort to keep abreast of the Great Powers. Possessing Massowah, which, built on a coral island, is an important port on the Red Sea, and having Abyssinia for her "sphere of influence," Italy has been engaged in perpetual and apparently unprofitable warfare. We read telegrams concerning her successes and defeats, which we understand little about. Recently, how- ever, we have learned that she has effected the re-conquest of Kassala from the followers of the Mahdi. Abyssinia would appear to be an unconquerable country. It rises out of the desert as some mountains rise out of the sea. It is divided into three principal provinces, Tigrd, Amkara, and Shoa; these again are inhabited by various clans, each with its Ras, who is its chief or headman. These provinces united, or any two of them united, could resist an invader, or, even if he penetrated into the country, could prevent his ever holding it. Abyssinia is the Switzer- land of Africa, and it is probable that the utmost the Italians will be able to do will be to hold as their own the strip of territory along the shore of the Red Sea. A strip which is, however, of immense value to the Abyssinians, as, with the exception of Zoulla, which is little more than a beach on Annesley Bay, Massowah is the only port through which Abyssinia can hold communication with the civilized world. CHAPTER IX. ZANZIBAR. I THINK my readers by this time understand that I do not claim to be writing a sketch of the history of " Europe in Africa" in proper historical perspective. I allow myself to place in the foreground any figures that have interested myself and seem likely to interest my readers; and as Zan- zibar has, for the last twenty years, played a prominent part in the history of East Africa, I offer but a slight apology for giving a little sketch of Mohammedan life in its pal- aces : — the life of the sons and daughters of Seyyid Said, first Sultan of Zanzibar and of Muscat, father of Sultan Seyyid Medjid and of Sultan Seyyid Burghash, the latter of whom is well known to us in connection with Living- stone, Stanley, and Emin Pasha. The Sultan Imam of Oman died at Muscat in the latter part of the eighteenth century, leaving three children. The eldest boy, Seyyid Said, was only nine years of age, and the restless Arab tribes in the interior of Arabia, and the Per- sians on the east of his dominions, flattered themselves that they could, without difficulty, throw off their allegiance to Oman, and made light of the boy-Sultan's authority. But to the amazement of the viziers, who had expected to gov- ern during a long minority, the reins of government were picked up, before they could be grasped by any of the min- isters, by the late Sultan's sister, and they had nothing to do but to submit. She was, as Froissart says of a certain brave lady in his day, "as good as a man." She defended her nephew's capital with her sword as well as by her wisdom, and was able to transfer to him, when he came of 250 ZANZIBAR. 251 age, an empire so unimpaired as to place him in a position to extend his dominions by the conquest of Zanzibar. Sultan Seyyid Said is spoken of by contemporary English and German writers as distinguished by energy and intel- ligence; and as affording, by his justice, protection to the property of every one in his dominions. He was an Arab, and was proud of it, for an Arab, however high he rises in the world, never renounces his connection with his tribe. He ruled over Oman, and laid claim to all the coast of Southern Arabia from Aden to Cape Ras el Had, and thence along the west side of the Persian Gulf to Bassorah; besides this he conquered the Isle of Zanzibar, and with it a long coast-line of East Africa, from Cape Dongola to Cape Guardafui. Muscat, the capital city of Oman, is a fortified town on the eastern coast of Arabia, and carries on considerable commerce with the interior, besides being the emporium for trade with the Persian Gulf. It is not often that we have a chance of obtaining a glimpse into the private life of a Mohammedan house- hold, especially from a female standpoint; and I have been surprised that more notice has not been taken of a little book published some years since in Germany, "The Memoirs of an Arabian Princess, by Sal'me, daughter of the Sultan of Zanzibar." It was extensively reviewed in France, and the genuineness of its authorship has never been dis- puted. As the Princess gives us not a single date in the whole course of her narrative, it is a little hard to supply her with chronology. She seems to have been born near the close of the first quarter of the present century. Her mother was the daughter of a Circassian farmer, torn away from her home by marauding Turkish soldiers when she was in early child- hood. The family took shelter in a cellar, but were sur- prised in their place of refuge. The parents were shot, and the children were carried off by three mounted Arnauts. 252 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. One of these, with the elder boy, soon disappeared; the little girls (one only three years old, who was crying bit- terly for her mother) were kept together until evening, when they, too, were parted, and the mother of Princess Sal' me heard no more of her lost ones as long as she lived. She came into possession of the Sultan of Zanzibar, and was brought up with his own children. "She could scarcely be called pretty," says her daughter, "but she was tall and shapely; had black eyes, and hair down to her knees; of a very gentle disposition, her pleasure consisted in assisting other people, in looking after and nursing any sick person in the household. She could read, and I well remember her going about, with her books, from one patient to another, and reading prayers to them. She was as kind and pious as she was modest, and in all her dealings she was frank and open. She was always a tender and loving mother to me, but this did not hinder her from punishing me severely when she deemed it necessary." The Sultan had a princess of Oman for his legal wife, who reigned absolute mistress of his household, treating all the other wives and their children in a very haughty and impe- rious manner. "Happily for us," says Sal'me, "she had no children of her own." The old Sultan when he died left thirty-six children, eighteen sons and eighteen daughters; but they were all by his sarari, so that there was no difference of rank among them; though Circassian women refused to eat with Abys- sinians, and the children of Abyssinian and Circassian mothers looked down on those whose mothers were negro women. "It is generally believed by Europeans," says Princess Sal'me, "that with us the sons are greatly preferred to the daughters, but such was not the case in our family. I know not a single instance in which the son was more liked by his father and mother merely because he was a son." The most delightful spot in Zanzibar was an enclosed gallery — a loggia of great length — belonging to a round ZANZIBAR. 253 tower at the Bet il Mtoni, the great palace and harem. It was open to all breezes from the sea, and there the old Sultan would walk for hours. There, too, his wife and grown-up children would take coffee with him in the day- time, and often in the evenings the whole household, young and old, would assemble to hear musicians, or see conjurors or dancing girls perform before their master. The mother of Sal' me had a strong friendship for Sara and Medine, two Circassian sarari who came from the same part of the country as herself. Sara had two children, Medjid and Chadudj ; and when she died, Sal'me's mother, accord- ing to promise, gave them a mother's care, for which they were not ungrateful. Medjid became Sultan after his father's death. When he came of age, and had his own establishment, he entreated his adopted mother to take the head of his household, and she did so, though to leave the lively, populous Bet il Mtoni (a household consisting of a thousand persons) was not altogether to her taste. When reproached by her friends at Bet il Mtoni for leaving them, she answered : " Oh ! my friends, I do not leave you with my own free-will; but it is my fate to part from you!" Her daughter, commenting on this, says : — "She used the word 'fate ' ; many persons would lay the stress on what they call chance. It should be borne in mind that I once was a Mohammedan, and grew up as one. I am, moreover, speaking of Arab life, of an Arab home, and there are two things above all quite unknown in a real Arab house, the word 'chance ' and materialism. The Mohammedan not only believes in God as his Creator and Preserver, but he is convinced at all times of His presence, and he feels likewise sure that not his own will, but the will of the Lord, is done in little things as well as great." Poor Princess Sal'me, from her new life as a German haus frau, looked back on her more animated existence in the great household in her father's harem at Bet il Mtoni, with regretful sadness ; and, though she had embraced Chris- tianity, could never forget she had been a daughter of Islam. 2 54 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. I have long cherished the idea, and I think travellers in Africa appear to entertain it too, although it seldom finds expression, that were it not for the connection of Arabs with slave-catching and slave-dealing, which makes them the enemies of all Christian powers who are pledged to put down such traffic, we should consider them a race believing, like ourselves, in one God and in the efficacy of prayer, holding many of our rules of conduct, indeed, recognizing all but one of our Ten Commandments, i.e. that which has reference to continence and marriage. It seems to me, in other words, that, after Christian peoples, the Arabs are the finest race on earth, and that their civilization, where they spread it in Africa, is a great advance on the fetish worship and heathen abominations of the negroes. But so long as the Arabs are man-stealers and man-sellers, their hands must be against the Christian nations endeavoring to suppress slave-dealing, and ours against them. Sal'me and her mother left the great harem establishment at Bet il Mtoni to live with Medjid, in a smaller palace, where his adopted mother superintended his household. Prince Medjid was fond of his little sister Sal'me, who was a great deal of a tomboy. He taught her fencing, and took care she should have good instruction in reading and the Koran; writing she insisted upon learning, and diti so in secret when her request for an instructor was refused. The Sultan had two domestic establishments, the great one at Bet il Mtoni, presided over by Azze, his lawful wife, the other at Bet il Sahil, which was more under his own eye. Of the household at Bet il Sahil the Princess thus speaks : — " A painter would have found many models for a picture in our gallery, for a more variegated company could not easily be met with. The faces of the people showed eight to ten different complexions at least; and it would indeed have puzzled a clever artist to make out the many-tinted garments worn. The noise was truly appalling, — quarrel- ling or romping children were in every corner, loud voices ZANZIBAR. !55 and clapping of hands, the eastern equivalent for ringing a bell, the rattle and clatter of the women's wooden sandals, — all combined in producing a distracting din. . . . Arabic was the only language sanctioned in my father's presence, but as soon as he turned his back a confusion of tongues commenced, and Arabian, Persian, Turkish, Cir- cassian, Swhalli, Nubian, and Abyssinian were spoken and mixed up together." It was to this establishment that Sal'me and her mother removed after the peace of Medjid's household was broken up by the jealousy of his sister, Chadudj, when he brought home a wife, Asche, a distant relative from Oman, who had recently arrived at Zanzibar. Asche was pretty, gentle, and charming. She was mistress of the house, by right of mar- riage, but Chadudj, disregarding this, ruled over her so tyrannically "that," says Sal'me, "poor, gentle Asche fre- quently came to my mother in tears, complaining of her troubles." At last she applied for a divorce, and returned to an old aunt she had in Oman. Sal'me and her mother then removed to Bet il Sahil, but Medjid came often to see them, "and remained," says his sister, "the dear and true friend he had always been." She tells a pretty anecdote of the old Sultan's fatherly affection. Medjid was taken very ill one day at hi-, palace at Watoro, and a messenger on horseback was at once de- spatched to Bet il Mtoni to inform his father. To the sur- prise of everybody the old man arrived alone, an hour afterwards, rowing himself in a tiny fishing boat, and hur- ried into the house. Tears ran down his beard as he stood at his son's sick bed. "O Lord! " he prayed, in anguish, "spare the life of my son." Being asked, after Medjid recovered, why he had come alone in so unwonted a manner, he answered: "When the messenger brought the news, there was not a single boat on shore; one would have had to be signalled for, and I had no time to wait. It would also have taken too long to have a horse saddled. I saw a fish- erman passing nenr in his boat, so I seized my weapons. 256 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. calling to him to stop and give me his boat; I jumped in and rowed here by myself." Princess Sal'me maintains that it is a great mistake to suppose that ladies, especially in so populous a harem, have nothing to do. At night they go to bed fully dressed and with all their jewels on. Meals were taken in silence; and although the master of the house was present, no woman ate at the same table with him but his wife. On sitting down to meals, each person said in an undertone : " In the name of the Merciful Lord"; and on rising, "Thanked be the Lord of the Universe." Sal'me gives a lively account of the great event of the year, the arrival of a little fleet of vessels at the island, con- taining the goods ordered for the yearly outfit of all persons, great and small, in the Sultan's households. Each lady had previously sent in a list of what she asked for. The fleet had been sent forth laden with produce, principally cloves, the proceeds of which were to be reinvested in foreign articles of dress and luxury. The slaves did the unpacking in the Sultan's treasure chamber, the elder princes and princesses were entrusted with the general distribution. Naturally it gave occasion to much heart-burning, and to many grievances, imaginary or real. The amount of per- fumes demanded by the ladies in an Eastern household was something extraordinary. When Sal'me was about nine years old her father made his last voyage to Oman, whither he went every three or four years. Oman was governed by his eldest son, Tueni (or Sueni); and on this occasion there were some disturb- ances on the Persian frontier. The Persians had never become reconciled to the Arabians since the incursion of the Wahabees early in the century. The Arab aristocracy in Oman, poor and proud, greatly despised the mixed multitude who resided in Zanzibar. In their opinion their relatives in Zanzibar were not much better than the negroes they had been brought up among, and their speaking any language but Arabic was a sure indi- ZANZIBAR. 257 cation of barbarism in Arab eyes. The Sultan set sail in the ship Kitorie, which is Arabic for Victoria, the vessel being named in honor of the Queen. The government of Zanzibar was entrusted, for the principal part of the time he was away, to Prince Medjid, and his son Seyyid Burghash accompanied him. Time passed, and the old man did not return. At last the fleet was sighted, and all the women and slaves in his great households arrayed themselves in their best finery to receive him. Alas ! he had died upon the voyage. His son Burghash had insisted that his body should not be buried at sea, but, contrary to Mohammedan custom, it should be kept unburied till the ship reached land. At his earnest request the remains were placed in a coffin, which, when the vessel came in sight of land, Burghash placed in a small boat, and, silently and secretly, it was interred in the usual burying place. Then came of course disputes as to the succession. Bur- ghash wished to succeed his father, but Medjid had already all power in Zanzibar in his own hands. He retained it till his death in 1870, and Tueni was left in undisputed posses- sion of Oman ; thus dividing the empire acquired by Sultan Seyyid Said. Tueni was an accomplished soldier and very popular among his people, but the necessity he was under of making constant war against wild tribes from the desert so impoverished him that he was at last obliged to impose light taxes. The Arabs of Muscat had never before been taxed. Salum, Tueni's eldest son, took advantage of their discontent to rebel against his father, and shot him dead with a revolver as he lay taking his usual rest at midday. Aden was lost to Oman in January, 1839, when it was be- sieged by the English, in consequence of a dispute with the Sultan about indemnity for the maltreatment of a shipwrecked British crew by the Arabs. It has ever since remained in the possession of the English, a rent of 8500 Ger- man thalers being paid for it to the Sultan of (Jman. It is now a place of considerable importance, being one of 25S EC'ROPE IX AFRICA IX THE XIXTH CEXTURY. the coaling stations of the P. Ot O. steamers, on their way to India. Princess Sal'nie was mixed up. after her mother's death, in a conspiracy to overthrow her favorite brother Medjid, and place Burghash in his stead upon the throne. Burghash was entirely discomfited ; and by the help of the English, whose assistance was implored by Medjid, was transported to Bombay. No vengeance was taken by ivledjid on his rebellious sisters, who had been most active in the plot to dethrone him, in Avhich case his life would doubtless have been in peril. After a year or two even Burghash was allowed to return to Zanzibar, and dwelt there in peace, until he quietly succeeded his brother Medjid in 1870. Meantime Princess Sal'me, who, by Mohammedan law, was not allowed to speak to any free man, unless a relative, had managed to make acquaintance, on her housetop, with a young German, the representative of a Hamburg com- mercial firm. On board an English man-of-war she made her escape to Aden, where she was baptized into the Christian faith, and was soon afterwards joined by her lover, who had suffered no persecution from her forgiving brother, INledjid. They were married and Avent to Hamburg, where the husband was run over by a railroad train three years after, leaving her a widow with young children to be provided for by herself. "When Sultan Seyyid Burghash visited England, she en- deavored to see him, but Sir Bartle Frere, then in London, and all-influential in matters concerning East Africa, refused to obtain for her permission to do so. In 1SS5, however, she paid a visit to Zanzibar, under the protection of the German government, and in a German war vessel. The visit was partly pain and partly pleasure. She had left her own countr}' in 1866; she returned after nineteen years of absence. "I had left my country," she says, "an Arab and a true Mohammedan; I returned to it no longer a princess, an indifferent Christian, and half a German." The Sultan not only refused to see her, but wholly dis- ZANZIBAR. 259 approved of her visit, accompanied as she was everywhere by German naval officers. She dared not visit her own relations foi fear of getting them into trouble, the Sultan being, so to speak, in the hands of the British government, but everywhere she went she found herself received with demonstrations of affectionate sympathy. Even her change of faith seems to have been condoned. She met one day two Arabs who proved to be from her own tribe; "And when I touched," she says', "on the religious question, one said: 'This fate had been destined to you from the begin- ning of the world. The God who has severed you and us from our homes is the same God whom all men adore and revere.' " "If foreigners," says the Princess, "had more frequent opportunities to observe the cheerfulness, the exuberance of spirits even, of Eastern women, they would soon, and more easily, be convinced of the untruth of all those stories afloat about the degraded, listless, and oppressed state of their lives. It is impossible to gain a true insight into the act- ual domesticity in a few moments' visit. And the conver- sation carried on on those ceremonious occasions barely deserves that name, being rarely more than the expression of a few remarks about dress, — and it is always question- able whether even these are rightly interpreted." That charming French writer, Madame Vincent (Arvede Barine), says, at the close of her review of this narrative of Princess Sal'me : — " It confirms what we knew before, viz., that there is incom- patibility of temperament between us and the Arabs. Neither time, nor policy, nor mission work will ever change it. It may be in our blood, it may be in their religion, but the antipath}' is there ; it will endure from generation to generation. It is founded in nature. Princess SaPme has been trying to find out for twenty years why she cannot like us. She is trying still, and yet we can see the reason upon every page of her Memoirs. Her people and we are irreconcilable, because our differences of manners and customs make it impossible to put the same interpretation on such essential terms as ' the dignity of the human race,' or 'moral 260 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. responsibility ; ' because we can never agree in our conception of man's duty in this life, or on the task confided to humanity ; be- cause the watchwords of the Arab and the Christian are diametri- cally opposed to each other. That of the Arab is : ' Stand still ! ' that of the Christian is : ' Press forward ! ' " But pressing forward involves an immense amount of disorder and discomfort; no wonder that the Oriental dreads the progressive spirit of the present day. Sultan Seyyid Burghash died in 1887, two months after he had kindly received Stanley, who was then on his way to the Congo, the Dark Forest, and the relief of Emin Pasha. He was succeeded by a brother, named Seyyid Ali, who, in 1893, was succeeded by his nephew. Said Hamid bin Thwain, whose power is far less than that inherited by Seyyid Burghash in 1870. In 1885 a Congress of the European powers met in Ber- lin to confer on the affairs of Africa. At the previous Berlin Congress of 1878, the plan of the Congo Free State under the protection of King Leopold of Belgium had been started, and the success that had attended the experi- ment and the partition of Western Africa among Portugal, France, and Great Britain, besides the territorial influence acquired by Belgium, induced the Germans to seek com- pensating power on the Dark Continent, while Great Brit- ain was stimulated by the discoveries and successes of Mr. Stanley, to desire to claim her part in the commerce, explo- rations, and missionary work of Eastern Africa. It was agreed, in 1885, by the European powers, that the east coast of Africa, unappropriated as yet by any civilized nation, should be divided into three spheres of influence among Italy, England, and Germany. " Each power pledged itself to confine its operations to its own sphere, and to proceed to organize and administer it, as opportunity offered, upon a civilized basis." The three powers did not propose to conquer or annex their " spheres of influ- ence." The plan was to charter companies which should, by lease, obtain authority from kings or tribal chiefs over ZANZIBAR. 261 certain districts for which they should pay, as rent, an annual subsidy. The principal object of the partition among Italy, England, and Germany was, that each should confine its operations to its own field, uninterfered with by the others. A German company accordingly, in 188J, rented from the Sultan of Zanzibar (Seyyid Burghash, at that period) the long line of coast upon the mainland, including Bagamoyo, the African port opposite the island of Zanzibar. The company was to pay the Sultan an annual rent for the acquisition, and was entitled to appropriate the collection of customs. This arrangement did not last long. The agents of the company used their authority with masterful Teutonic hands. The Arabs were exasperated, and commenced hostilities. They murdered an English missionary who was making his way to the coast on his return to England, and with great difficulty Captain Lugard and some mis- sionary friends subsequently passed through them to em- bark at Mombassa. The German government had to intervene; the German Company was broken up, and the imperial government appointed Major von Weissman with full powers and ample means to suppress the revolt. "This led, in 1890, to the Anglo-German Convention, by which the German frontier was drawn about one degree south of the equator, across the Victoria Nyanza, and thence east to the Indian Ocean, skirting the northern base of the great mountain of Kilima Njaro to Wanga on the seacoast, a few miles south of the port of Mombassa. The British territory extended north from Wanga on the sea as far as the mouth of the Juba River, a distance of about four hun- dred and fifty miles of coast, and thence inland as far as the Congo state." ^ The Anglo-German agreement, signed July i, 1890, pledged England and Germany to advance the interests of the native races of their Hinterlands; to protect and to ^ Slavery and the Slave-trade in Africa, by Henry M. Stanley, 1893. 262 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. encourage Christian missions, of whatever creed; to co-op- erate for the suppression of the slave-trade; and to discour- age the importation of firearms. Each country, to secure its acquired rights, was to take care so far to extend its autliority that it would not be possible for any power, soci- ety, or person to lay any claim to its lands, by right of a prior occupation. England's interests were confided to the Imperial British East African Company, already formed in 1S85, which found itself thus bound to extend its authority over an immense extent of country, with very inadequate means. Its most important possession is its outlying dependency of Uganda. We have seen what difficulties it encountered there. Under its present resident ruler, Captain Williams, disputes have ceased to rage, at least they have not led , again to war among the factions, but the great obstacle to progress is, that transportation to and from the coast is ruinously costly. Government had promised, when the company assumed its obligations, to build five hundred miles of railroad, from Mombassa to the Victoria Nyanza. The railroad has not yet been even begun. To send twelve tons of ammunition or supplies from the seacoast to Uganda costs three thousand six hundred pounds, or above seventeen thousand dollars. The Germans have been more active. They have put an end to slave-raids and to the passage of slave-caravans to the coast throughout their territory; they have supplied the coast with a large fleet of steamers, and are sending steam launches in sections to be put together and ply on their great lakes : the Victoria Nyanza, of which they hold the southern half and part of the eastern shore; Lake Tan- ganyika, and Lake Nyasa. They have surveyed, and are extending surveys for, several lines of railroad in their in- terior, and have already opened channels for a future exten- sion of commerce. The present Sultan of Zanzibar is now as much under English rule as any native prince in India, and yet there ZANZIBAR. 263 not unfrequently occur cases of collision of authority. It was hoped that if Zanzibar were once placed within the sphere of English influence the slave-trade would die out for want of a base of operations, Zanzibar being the place on which Arab slave-traders had long depended for their supplies. There is no question that in Zanzibar itself, slaves were almost uniformly treated with kindness and even affection, and Princess Sal' me tells us it was the cus- tom of Arabs to set them free after faithful service of fifteen years. By treaty with the English, the Sultan of Zanzibar has prohibited the extension of slavery in his dominions; but Arab traders still look to Zanzibar for the supply of their needs, pretending that they are engaged in legitimate traffic. One difficulty that beset the British company was occa- sioned by an edict issued in September, 1891, after the Brussels Conference, which absolutely prohibited Europeans from enlisting Zanzibaris on the island, or in any part, whether nominal or actual, of the Sultan's dominions. The reason for this was, that so many Zanzibaris were found to be engaged in the work of porterage that lands all over the island were lying waste for want of peasant labor. As all transportation to the interior must at present be effected by man-power, this was a severe blow to the interests of the company. It is even doubtful how, under such conditions, laborers can be obtained to make a rail- way. One African official of great experience suggests the importation of what he calls the yellow race : the Hin- doos, the Sikhs, the Goanese, and other Indian peoples. His opinion is thus expressed in the "New Review" : — " The yellow race most successful hitherto in Eastern Africa is the native of Hindustan, — that race in divers types, and of divers religions, which under the British or Portuguese segis has already created and developed the commerce of the East African littoral. The immigration of the docile, kindly, thrifty, industri- ous, clever-fingered, sharp-witted Indian into Central Africa will furnish us witli the solid core of our armed forces on that conti- 264 EUROPE IX AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. nent, and -will supph' us with the telegraph clerks, the petty shop-keepers, the skilled artisans, the minor e»iplo\'cs, the clerks and the raihvay officials needed in the civilized administration of tropical Africa. The Indian, liked both by black and white, will ser\-e as a link between these two divergent races. Moreover, Africa, in opening this vast field to the enterprise and overflow of the yellow races of the Indian Empire, will direct a large cur- rent of wealth to the impoverished peninsula, and afford space for the reception, in not far-distant homes, of the surplus popula- tion of Southern Asia." ^ This seems to be looking very far ahead, however, since civilization can hardly be said, as yet, to have secured a sure footing in Eastern Africa. Captain Lugard, in view of the difficulties of transporta- tion, recommended human post-houses, military stations, along the route for the exchange of carriers; he advocated the introduction of camels; and urged attempts at the domestication of the zebra and the African elephant.^ At the present moment negotiations are going on between the Imperial British East African Company and the British government. The former has found its responsibilities too great, and has been glad to be relieved of them by the Imperial administration. England has thus assumed the obligation of building forts, as object-lessons to foreign 1 H. H. Johnston, administrator at present of Nyasaland. - On June 13, 1895, the British House of Commons at last agreed to a measure which pledged the country to build a railroad from the Indian Ocean to the Victoria Nyanza. It was not a party question, and the vote was almost unanimously in its favor, the House standing 249 to 51. The road -will be about eight hundred miles long. Fifteen years ago no white man had entered the country through which the road is to be built ; it was the hunting ground of a great nomad people, the Masai, who were the terror of all the tribes living between the Victoria Nyanza and the sea. Eleven years ago !Mr. Stanley said to a young explorer who proposed to venture into this country : " Take one thousand men with you 'or make your will." ]\Ir. Thomson, however, accomplished his purpose vAXh. one hundred and fifty ; for even at that time the most formidable days of the Masai had passed away. They had been ruined by the cattle plague which swept over East Africa, and their only wealth having thus passed away from them, they are now settling quietly down to till the soil for a living. — Cyrus C. Adams, N. Y. Sun, July /j, i^gs- ZANZIBAR. 265 powers and the natives that her authority extends to cer- tain defined frontiers; it is she who is pledged to prevent slave-caravans from passing through these territories, and will enforce the prohibition of the sale of intoxicating drinks and firearms. The company claims reimbursement for money spent in upholding British influence in Uganda, for which, commercially, it can at present expect no return. The English parliament has been apparently not disposed to deal so liberally with its company in East Africa as the German Reichstag has done with a similar one. But then, the area in Africa over which England extends authority, influence, or protection is far larger than that of Germany, and great as may be Germany's zeal for col- onization, the claims upon her for help are far less.-^ 1 "The old adage of ' better late than never' is applicable to the final settlement of the claims of the British East African Company, but it must be confessed that the delay has ?jeen little creditable to the government, who were chiefly responsible for it. As matters now stand the com- pany are asked to surrender their concession to the Sultan of Zanzibar for the consideration of ;^ 150,000, their private assets fur another ^^50,000, and their charter to our government for another ^^50,000. The fairness of the company's demands has never been in question ; and the whole delay in coming to a settlement was caused by the haggling of our government as to what constituted the public and private assets of the company. ... In the meantime this pitiful question, involving a really paltry sum, has stood in the vray of any of those steps which ought to be taken with a view of strengthening our position in East Africa. It is bad enough that the government should vacillate between tv/o opinions as to the value of its interests in that region, but almost worse that it should attempt to treat with harshness the private company that has had the public spirit to undertake and perform the government's own duties." — Weekly Graphic, March 30, 1895. CHAPTER X. THE BARBARY STATES. THE Moors of Barbary have given to European lan- guages the adjectives ''barbarous," ^^ barbare,^^ '^ bar- ba/v.'' They were the sea robbers, the arch-pirates, who swept the INIediterranean (sometimes indeed remoter seas), and hindered commerce between the West and East, during the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteentli centuries, nay, even to the first quarter of the century now fading into the past. Not that piracy in the iSlediterranean originated with the JNIoors of Barbary. Pirates in the Greek islands were the successors of Sextus Pompeius and his galleys. The Turks early took up the same career. A Turkish pirate became the ally and brother-in-arras of a Greek emperor, who gave him his daughter in marriage. " Risk, uncertainty, danger, a sense of superior skill, and ingenuity, will always attract the adventurous spirit — the love of sport — which is inherent in mankind." But an immense stimu- lus was given to this spirit of adventure when Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the IMoors from Spain and continued their work by the persecution and exile of INIoriscoes and Jews. Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole, author of " A History of the Moors in Spain," who has recently written the " Story of the Barbary Corsairs," speaks thus upon this subject : — "No sooner was Granada fallen than thousands of desperate IMoors left the land which for seven hundred years had been their home, and disdaining to live under a Spanish yoke, ci^ossed the Strait to Africa, where they established themselves at various strong points, notably Algiers, which till then had been little heard of. No sooner were the banished JNIoors fairly settled in 266 THE liARIiARY STATES. 26/ their new seats, than they did what every one else in their place would have done, they carried the war into their oppressor's country. To m-iet the Spaniards in the open field was impossi- ble with their reduced numbers, but at sea their fleetness and knowledge of the coasts gave them the opportunity for reprisal for which they longed. ... It must also be remembered that just about this time, when the Corsairs made their appearance in Barbary, the riches of the new-found Western world began to pour through the Straits to meet those of the East, which were brought to France and Spain, England and Holland, from Alexandria and Smyrna. Any bold man who could hold Tunis or Algiers, Ceuta or Tangier, might reckon on numerous oppor- tunities of stopping argosies of untold wealth as they passed by his lair." The three countries now called Tunis, Algeria, and Mo- rocco were held, up to the sixteenth century, by Moham- medan princes of their own, who, exercising hospitality, the most conspicuous virtue of Islarnism, welcomed their Spanish coreligionists, and opened their ports to their enterprises. The government of the Barbary states had for two centuries been tolerant to Christians and friendly to European powers, but as soon as the Moorish Corsairs had made good their footing this policy was changed. The sons of a Greek renegade, a native of Lesbos, became conspicuous figures in the sixteenth century. They were indeed the most famous pirates in history. We know them both as Barbarossa (red-beard); the elder was Uraj (or Araj), the younger Kheyr-ed-Din (or Heyreddin). Both were distinguished by their auburn hair and their red beards, both for their seamanship, diplomacy, and audacity. Uraj, — i.e. Barbarossa the first, — "after acquiring great reputation as a sea-captain, made an alliance with the King of Tunis, who offered him the shelter of his ports, covenanting at the same time to receive one-fifth of his captured spoils." Quarrelling after a time with the King of Tunis, down on whom he had drawn the wrath of the Genoese, Barbarossa made another piratical settlement upon the coast, and became Sultan of Jijil. An appeal for his help was soon made by the Moors of Algiers, who for seven years had suffered from 268 ECJiOPE IX AFRICA LV THE XIXTH CEXTURY. an embargo laid upon their commerce by the Spaniards. The deaths of Ferdin'and and Isabella roused them to resist- ance ; they secured the aid of a neighboring Arab sheikh who promised to assist them on the land side ; but there was a Spanish garrison in their fort, and to get rid of it they needed a naval force. Who so proper to afford this help to INIoslem brethren as Barbarossa? Soon, however, the old story was repeated. Barbarossa, called in to help, lost little time in making himself master. He became Sultan of Algiers and its surrounding country, and all Europe began to eye him with considerable anxiety. His dominions nearly coincided with modern Algeria. He had Tunis on his east, and Fez on his western frontier. He was in a position to form alliances with Fez and Morocco. But his career was nearly over. A large force sent against him by Charles V. defeated his army, and in a brave attempt to succor his rear guard after he himself was safe from pur- suit, he was slain, at the age of forty-four, leaving neither son nor daughter. He had matie his headquarters in Barbary for fourteen years, doing all the harm he could to Chris- tians. " He was highly beloved, feared, and respected by his soldiers and domestics, and when he died was by them most bitterly lamented." His fame and his power, even his war name Barbarossa, fell to his brother Kheyr-ed-Din, a man as astute as he was brave. He sent an ambassador to Constantinople to lay his humble homage at the feet of the Grand Seignior, and to beg His Majesty's favor and protection for the new province of Algiers, which his servant had added to the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan granted his petition very willingly. He had just conquered Egypt and Tripoli, and the acquisi- tion of Algiers was an important extension of his dominion in Africa. He loaded the new Barbarossa with honors, sent him a force of two thousand Janissaries, and bestowed on him a horse, a scimitar, and a horse-tail banner. As soon as Kheyr-ed-Din felt secure upon his throne he resumed his piratical profession, with almost unbroken sue- THE BAKBARY STATES. 269 cess, in the western waters of the Mediterranean. Solyman the Magnificent, who had conquered Rhodes and planned the subjugation of Italy, resolved to reorganize the Ottoman fleet, and, in 1533, summoned the ruler of Algiers to Constan- tinople. Kheyr-ed-Din's fame as a naval commander was great, both among Christians and Moslems. He alone might defy the great Genoese commander Andrea Doria, then cruising unopposed in the Mediterranean. Great was the joy of the Sultan when the Barbary fleet, gaily dressed with colors, rounded Seraglio Point and anchored before Constantinople. Barbarossa and his eighteen captains were cordially received by their caliph and suzerain. The red- bearded old sea-dog was made commander in chief of the Turkish navy, and spent the whole of that winter in the dock-yards of Constantinople constructing and fitting out vessels. The Turks had now all the African seacoast on the Medi- terranean except Tunis and Morocco ; and Tunis they pro- posed to have. For three centuries it had been ruled with mildness and justice by its own sultans, and had kept up, on the whole, friendly relations with European powers, but the reigning prince had won the throne by murdering forty- four of his own brothers, after which the httle state had been weakened by jealous rivalries. Tunis, like Algiers, was added to the Ottoman Empire by Kheyr-ed-Din's masterful hands. It was won by him and lost by him, for Hassan, the expelled king, appealed for aid to Charles V., who, unwilling to see the Turks such near neighbors to Sicily, sent a large expedition under Doria to reinstate Hassan. The flower of the Spanish troops was a small body of the Knights of St. John. The Christians restored Hassan, to the intense disgust of his own subjects, over whom he reigned five years, till his own son blinded and imprisoned him. This is not the place to tell of the great naval rivalry between Doria and Barbarossa. The contest between them ended in a drawn battle, but as two hundred splendid 2/0 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. Christian ships had fled before an inferior force of Ottoman galleys, Sultan Solyman, when on one of his campaigns he heard the news, ordered public rejoicings, and made a magnificent addition to the revenues of his great admiral. In 1543, when Francis I. of France was for a time in alliance with Turkey, Barbarossa sailed with 150 ships into the port of Marseilles. He wintered at Toulon, and sent expeditions to plunder the coasts of Italy. A French con- tingent was put under his command, but he said of it scorn- fully, when it had to return to port for ammunition, " Fine soldiers are they ! — to fill their ships with wine casks, and leave the powder barrels behind ! " It must have been not a Uttle trying to the French to see hundreds of Christian captives chained to the oars of Barbarossa's galleys, for that captain, all through his career, kept his Moslems to fight and his captives to row for them. Finally the French, having, at great expense, got rid of Barbarossa, the old Corsair sailed away, with his ships laden with spoils. But this was the last of his exploits. He died two years later, in July, 1546, being then about ninety years old, that is, twice the age of his illustrious brother. "The Chief of the Sea is dead 1 " said his coreligionists, who long honored the memory of their great admiral. Shortly before Barbarossa's death a great expedition was set on foot by Charles V. to crush the Corsairs. He had conquered Tunis, though somehow it slipped out of his hands ; now he proudly resolved to lead an expedition in person against Algiers. Ill luck attended him from the outset. With his army xitterly broken and his fleet almost destroyed, he made a disastrous retreat. Herman Cortes, then home from Mexico, was in the expedition, and offered his master advice, which the emperor was too proud to follow. Algiers was left stronger and more defiant than ever. The story of the defense of Malta by its knights when besieged by Dragut, one of Barbarossa's captains, the man who succeeded him as Capitan Pasha of the Ottoman fleet, THE BARBAE Y STA TES. 2 / 1 is one of the most thrilling and picturesque narratives in history. It has been told by Mr. Prescott in his " Reign of Philip II.," and who could tell it better? Dragut was struck down, and the Turks were in the end repulsed. " In all his- tory," says the author of "The Story of the Barbary Corsairs," " there is no record of such a siege, of such disproportionate numbers, and of such a glorious outcome. The Knights of Malta hve forever among heroes ! " After this, for a long succession of years, — " It is not too much to say that the history of the foreign relations of Algiers and Tunis is one long indictment of not one, but of all, the maritime powers of Europe, on the charge of cowardice and dishonor. There had been some excuse for dismay at the powerful armaments and inimitable seamanship of Barbarossa, or the fateful ferocity of Dragut, but that all the maritime powers should have cowered and cringed as they did before the miserable braggarts who succeeded the heroic age of the Corsairs, should have suffered their trade to be harassed, their coasts menaced, and their representatives to be insulted by a series of insolent savages, whose entire fleet and army could not have stood for a day before any properly generaled fleet of any European power, seems absolutely incredible, and yet it is literally true." ^ One of the pirates appeared in the northern seas, and raided the coast of Ireland, sacking the town of Baltimore, and carrying off from it two hundred and thirty-seven pris- oners, men, women, and children. "A piteous sight it was to see them exposed for sale at Algiers," says a Redemp- tionist Father, one of an order set on foot to negotiate for the ransom of Roman Catholic Christian captives; and large legacies were sometimes left by dying Englishmen for ^ While writing these pages I took down an old Appleton's Cyclo- pedia, published in 1827, to verify a date, and was astonished to see the desponding way in which the writer talked of the prospect of extinguishing Algerian piracy, and the little hope he seemed to have that any good would result from the impending expedition of the French. 2/2 EUROPE EV AEKICA EV THE XEXTH CENTURY. the ransom of Protestants. Yet, after all, the funds thus expended ser\ed only to rescue a few drops from the great sea of misery. The Corsair who sacked Baltimore was a renegade Fleming. Indeed, nearly all the leading Corsairs were renegades: Germans, Greeks, Flemings, or Italians. In the early part of this present century there was a Scottish renegade of some mark among them. All nations paid trib- ute (called presents) to the Bashaw of Tripoli, to the Bey of Tunis, and to the Dey of Algiers, in hopes of securing safety for their subjects on the high seas. Their consuls led a dog's life, being obliged to humble tliemselves in the presence of Moslem tyrants, notably in that of the Dey of Algiers, who was always some common soldier elected by his comrades, the Janissaries. In 1 712 the Dutch purchased the forbearance of the Dey by ten 24-pounders, mounted, twenty-five large masts (the Algerines were hard put to it to get timber for ship build- ing), five cables, two hundred and forty barrels of powder, twenty-five hundred great shot, fifty chests of gun-barrels, swords, etc., and five thousand dollars. This largesse secured them peace for only three years. The story of the first dealings of the United States with the powers on the Barbary coast will show the relation that these barbarous princes held, at the beginning of this cen- tury, with civilized nations. In January, 179S, we have the record of the frigate Crescent, which sailed from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to be delivered over to the Dey of Algiers, as " compensa- tion for delay on the part of the United States in fulfil- ling their treaty obligation to pay him tribute." She carried also valuable presents, among them twenty barrels of dol- lars. Her captain, the majority of her officers, and many of her seamen, had all, at one time, been captives in x\.lgiers. The result of sending this handsome present to the Dey, was that the Bashaw of Tripoli and the Bey of Tunis complained that the United States had sent them nothing. The Bashaw (or Pasha) of Tripoli declared war in conse- CAPTAIN WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE. THE BARBAE Y STA TES. 273 quence against the United States, whicii meant that his Corsairs should take their ships as prizes; and the Bey of Tunis demanded ten thousand stand of arms, saying, inso- lently, to the American consul : '' Tell your government to send them without delay; peace depends upon compli- ance." The United States were consequently at war with Tunis and Tripoli. In May, 1800, the George Washington frigate, under command of Captain Bainbridge, was sent to Algiers to carry the annual tribute. On her arrival, the Dey demanded that she should take from him an embassy to Constantinople with presents that he was anxious to send at once to the Sul- tan, whom he had offended by making a treaty with France for the protection of French merchantmen, while that power was at war with his suzerain. Captain Bainbridge refused to do the Dey this service, whereupon the Dey changed his request to a demand, threatening to blow the ship out of the water if it were not complied with. The George Washing- ton lay right under the guns of the Algerine batteries. The consul assured Captain Bainbridge that English, French, and Spanish war ships had complied with similar demands, and he at last consented. The Dey's argument was : "You pay me tribute, by which you become my slaves. I have a right to order you to do what I think proper." He fur- ther insisted that this American frigate should fly at her mainmast the Algerine colors, giving a second place to the Stars and Stripes. This demand, also. Captain Bainbridge thought it prudent to comply with, till he got out of gun- shot, when he hauled down the Algerine flag, and the Star- Spangled Banner was run up to its proper place. At Con- stantinople this first war ship of the new nation was very kindly received by the Sultan. Not so the Dey's ambassa- dors, who were refused pardon unless their master declared war with France in sixty days. Captain Bainbridge, before his departure from Constan- tinople, received a firman assuring him and his ship of the Sultan's favor and protection. 274 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. On returning to Algiers, the captain took care to bring his ship to anchor out of range of the shore batteries, and it was well he did so, for the Dey's plan was to bring his guns to bear upon the vessel, seize all her officers and sea- men, and then declare war against his rebellious tributa- ries. Having brought the United States government to a better frame of mind, by threats of torturing and murdering his prisoners, he would then refuse to grant peace unless he received promises of better behavior in future, and an im- mense ransom for the George JVashing/on's officers and men. Captain Bainbridge at last, at the earnest solicitation of the American consul, and assurances of his personal safety, consented to appear before the Dey in his council cham- ber. The tyrant flew into a rage, and threatened him with torture and captivity. But his wrath changed almost to ser\dlity when Captain Bainbridge produced the firman given him at Constantinople, which all feudatories of the Sultan were bound to obey. The next day war was declared against the French, and the Dey threatened to put every French man, woman, and child into irons Avho was found in his dominions after forty-eight hours. America had not concluded peace with France, but Captain Bainbridge offered an asylum on board his ship to those unfortunate persons, and with his decks crowded with passengers, among them the family of the French consul, he set sail for Alicante, and landed them full of gratitude for his generous assistance. In May, 1801, a squadron was fitted out, consisting of three frigates and a 12 -gun schooner, to bring to reason the Bashaw of Tripoli, and strike terror also, if possible, into the rulers of Tunis and Algiers. The latter gave in at once at sight of so formidable an armament, and the squadron remained some weeks upon the coast, watching over the interests of American merchantmen, and convoying them in safety through the Straits of Gibraltar. Although no attempt was made to attack Tripoli, so great was the fear America inspired along the Barbary coast, that during the THE BARB A RY STATES. 2/5 winter of 1801-1802 not a single American ship was cap- tured. After several small successes, during 1803, Commodore Morris was superseded by Captain Edward Preble, a native of Maine, a thorough seaman, a strict disciplinarian, a man of quick temper (which he inherited from his father, General Jedediah Preble, who had commanded the Massa- chusetts troops at the siege of Louisburg) and of undaunted resolution and bravery. It was not long before he had succeeded in bringing the Dey of Algiers to reason, and next he turned his attention to Tripoli. Unhappily the Philadelphia, which Captain Bainbridge now commanded, while blockading that port ran aground upon a reef, and was at last obliged to strike her colors. Before this was done, however, her guns were thrown overboard, and her magazine was flooded. The captain, officers, and crew, three hundred and fifteen in all, were carried in triumph as prisoners to the city. They were lodged in the citadel, which was also the Bashaw's palace, but they were not treated with great rigor. ^ The Philadelphia was got off the reef by the Tripolitans and repaired. A court-martial, held to inquire into her loss, paid a high compliment to the fortitude and conduct of Captain Bainbridge. An immense ransom was demanded for the captives, and meantime they were harassed by continual demands, with which, in honor, they could not possibly comply, in spite of threats of torture and decapitation. Captain Bainbridge, by means of letters written with lemon juice, contrived to communicate to Commodore Preble a plan for recapturing the Philadelphia, or, at least, destroy- 1 One of them was John Wallace Wormeley, my father's cousin. My grandfather, then in England, made great efforts to ransom him. He returned at last to his family in Virginia. An old family servant, then a child on his father's plantation, has described to me the excitement in the family, among the neighbors, and in the quarter, on Mas' Wallace's return ; and the amazement among the servants that he had been a slave in Africa to black people. A pipe of Madeira was broached on the occasion, and whites and blacks held high festival to celebrate his return. 276 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. ing her. It would be impossible, in the space I could give to the subject, to describe the brilliant enterprise by which Stephen Decatur, then a lieutenant, carried out the plan communicated to his commander by Captain Bainbridge. As we read accounts of these early operations of the United States Navy, it is surprising to see how many well- known na.mes we meet; men whose families occupy lead- ing social positions, and men who subsequently rose high in the service of their countr}''. The Philadelphia was boarded and blown up, on a dark night, by a boat's crew commanded by Decatur. "The mighty frigate was rent by the terrible explosion into fragments, which, hurled upward, blazing, into the night, gracefully curved and descended into the sea like a cascade of fire." Nelson, then in command of the British fleet blockading Toulon, spoke of it as "the most bold and daring act of the age." The loss of his prize exasperated the Bashaw, who at once vented his disappointment on his prisoners. They were all confined together in one close, damp apartment, with a grating in the roof which alone admitted light and air. After this. Commodore Preble made active preparations for the bombardment of Tripoli. The American force was greatly inferior, in guns and men, to that of the Tripolitans. In one boat affair the brother of Decatur was treacherously killed after the Turks had surrendered, and Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, burning to avenge his brother, engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with his murderer, in which he would have met his death but for the bravery and prompt- itude of a wounded seaman. This attack and bombardment had been productive of great loss to the enemy, but it was not conclusive. On August 7 a second bombardment took place, the guns being chiefly directed against the citadel where the Bashaw kept his prisoners, hoping that the American ships would on that account not fire on his stronghold. All this time the weather was extremely rough. It was next resolved to COMMODORE EDWARD PREBLE. THE BARBARY STATES. 2/7 send in a ketch fitted up as a floating mine, and explode her in the midst of the ships of the enemy lying in the harbor. She was commanded by Master-commandant Richard Somers, and his second in command was Lieu- tenant Henry Wadsworth (uncle of the poet, Henry Wads- worth Longfellow).-^ They were joined at the last moment, without orders, by midshipman Joseph Israel. Every man on board the ketch had devoted himself to death, and, alas, they all perished. She ran aground, was attacked by Tri- politan gun-boats and blown up by her officers, destroying at the same time the Tripolitan gun-boats that surrounded her. The weather being very boisterous, on September 5, 1804, part of the fleet was withdrawn, leaving enough, however, to blockade the port of Tripoli, and Commodore Preble returned to the United States in the John Adajns, reaching it in February, 1805; when Congress voted him a gold medal for "his distinguished services," and voted "also a sword to be presented to each of the commissioned officers and midshipmen who had distinguished themselves in these several attacks, and one month's pay be given to the squad- ron." Meantime, a plot, encouraged by Captain Bainbridge, who, though a captive, managed to keep well informed on Tripolitan affairs, was on foot to dethrone the reigning Bashaw, Yusef Karamauli, who had usurped the throne and exiled his brother Hamet. The latter, a wanderer in Egypt among the Mamelukes, was very ready to raise a force and co-operate with the Americans. " His army was a rabble of twenty thousand undisciplined banditti, eager for pillage." The Bashaw, Yusef Karamauli, finding his situation desperate, now offered to come to terms with the United States. Some of the captives were to be exchanged for Tripolitan prisoners, and the rest were to be redeemed 1 Mr. James Russell Lowell once wrote to me : " My maternal grandfather was also a sufferer by the Barbary Corsairs. He was an officer on board the Philadelphia." 278 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. for six thousand dollars. He also relinquished all claim to tribute from the Americans. Hamet, who had not proved himself a satisfactory ally, was pensioned by the government at Washington on two hundred dollars a month. Meantime the United States had another enemy upon their hands, — the Bey of Tunis, — who was disposed to consider America an "unimportant nation," of a new and distant world. Commodore Rodgers, however, who had succeeded Commodore Preble, soon convinced him of his mistake. The show of a large fleet imposed on him, and a treat)' of peace was signed under the very guns of his batteries. In September, 1805, a Tunisian minister embarked for the United States, and in due time reached Washington.^ The result of all this roused the conscience of other pow- ers, who had so tamely submitted to the insolence of the corsairs ; and it was generally remarked that no nation had ever before negotiated with the potentates upon the coast of Barbary on such honorable terms. From that day the power that for six hundred years had defied Christendom was almost over. Nine years later, after the close of the war of 18 12, the United States determined to follow up their success in Tripoli and Tunis by obtaining from the Dey of Algiers a treaty by which their payment of tribute or of presents was abolished; all American captives and property were released and the United States were placed on the footing of the most favored nations. England followed this up by mak- ing terms for some of her Mediterranean dependencies, but these treaties were made on the basis of tribute and pres- ents. After Lord Exmouth had arranged the matter with 1 He afterwards paid a visit to Boston, when my grandfather, Mr. Eben Preble (brother of the commodore), entertained him at his country place. There he endeavored to persuade my mother, a fair- haired child of seven, to give him a kiss. He tried to bribe her with a promise of some attar of rose. But she was not to be persuaded, being afraid of his black beard. On his return to Tunis he, however, sent her a box containing twelve large-sized bottles of the delicious perfume. THE BARBAR Y STATES. 279 Algiers, he went on to Tunis and Tripoli, and obtained a promise that they would abolish Christian slavery. Strange to say, Caroline, Princess of Wales, the wandering wife of the Prince Regent, was the guest of the Bey of Tunis at the time Lord Exmouth was threatening to bombard his city. Her intervention was requested by the Bey, but she intervened in vain, and became much alarmed lest she should be imprisoned as a hostage. The Bey assured her, however, that, being his guest, she was under the protec- tion of the Moslem rules, enjoining hospitality. Holland declined to pay tribute in 18 19, but Italy paid it up to 1827. Lord Exmouth had hardly returned to England after the conclusion of his treaty with Algiers before that treaty was violated, and he went back with a large squadron of eigh- teen war vessels. The Dey imprisoned the English consul, confining him, half-naked, in the cell set apart for con- demned murderers, loading him with chains and fastening him to the wall, exposed to heavy rains, and momentarily expecting his doom. Lord Exmouth, however, gained by threats a complete victory; though its results were hardly as complete as they should have been. However, a new treaty was signed, by which, in future, all prisoners of war were to be exchanged and not enslaved; and the whole number of Christian slaves in Algiers, then only sixteen hundred and forty-two, were set at liberty. These were chiefly Italians — only eighteen of them were Englishmen. This victory and this treaty, however, did not very much intimidate the Dey. So late as 1824 he continued to com- mit outrages, and then the matter was taken up by France in conjunction with England. France, desiring settlements on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, undertook to deal with the matter more radically than England and the United States had done. A private quarrel between the French consul at Algiers and the Dey, in 1827, led to a blockade of the Algerine coast by a French squadron, which lasted two years. Just 28o EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. as the Revolution of July, 1830, was at hand, a French fleet landed an army on the coast, which slowly pressed its way into the city. The Dey surrendered, and, with his family, was sent in a French frigate to Naples. The French took possession of Algiers. Thus began their rule in Africa; and so ended the career of the Algerine Corsairs. I may best tell the story of the French in Algeria in a future chapter. Indeed, I have partly told the story once before elsewhere.^ Algeria has been a school in which French marshals have been trained, and Frenchmen have found an outlet for hot blood and dreams of glory; but French rule in Algeria has been purely military and bureau- cratic. Yet, though the wild tribes continue rude, the Arabs, who dwell beside the French in cities, have settled down peaceably, as apparently all Arabs will do under sim- ilar circumstances. The Arab needs his desert and his horse to prove himself an Arab. Recently, in 1881, France has made another acquisition on the northern coast of Africa. She coveted Tunis. This shoulder of Africa, lying as it does half-way between Gib- raltar and the Suez Canal, may probably play an important part in the fortunes of the Mediterranean, should the peace of the world be disturbed in the century at hand. Through the narrow channel between Sicily and Cape Bon passes the main stream of traffic from the East to western Europe. Tunis has been greatly desired by Italy, being so near her southern shores. It contained a very large Italian popula- tion in 1881, and very few Frenchmen. The boundary line between Tunis and Algeria was ill-defined. Nomadic tribes could hardly be expected to respect it. An incursion of Kroumirs upon the soil of Algeria led to warlike opera- tions on the part of the large army of French always sta- tioned in Algeria. In six weeks they had forced the Bey to sign away the independence of his country, and Tunis was a protectorate in French hands. It was in this cam- paign that General Boulanger won fame and honor. The ^ France in the Nineieenik Century, page 82, etc. THE BA REAR Y STATES. 2 8 1 Italians were furiously angry at the French occupation of Tunis, and it is a very bitter thought with them that they might have anticipated France, and have done the same thing. They could hardly, however, have moved troops into Tunis so quietly as the French, whose large forces in Algeria entered, as it were, by the back door, and had done their work before diplomatic obstruction had arisen, Italy still maintains that if any European power is to pos- sess Tunis she has the best right to it. She even owns a railroad along the coast from Tunis to Goletta. As far as an army and a large staff of office-holders can promote civilization and improvement, French rule in Tunis has proved a success. There are railroads, tele- graphic lines, post-offices, and roads in all directions, but, except in the city of Tunis, there are not in the whole country one thousand Frenchmen. The need of France is Frenchmen; and why she should be continually grasping after territorial expansion is a mysterious problem to the rest of the world. The vast tracts of the earth's surface that she claims, but cannot settle, are a constant drain upon her treasury, and in case of war may prove her weakness. In the twentieth century, however, to use her own familiar expression, "we may see what we shall see." Meantime Tunis has ceased to be a protectorate and has become a regency. The Bey is still its nominal ruler, and the French regent who acts for him is called a resident-gen- eral. France is thought to cast longing eyes on Tripoli. But Tripoli is faithful to the Porte, and the Porte watches jeal- ously over this last remnant of her African possessions. No less jealously would England regard any French inter- ference in Tripoli, which touches Egypt on it eastern fron- tier. Tripoli continues to be a Turkish vilayet, — that is, a province governed by a pasha. Such provinces have very little history, unless they revolt under oppression; and the rule of the Bashaws of Tripoli has been generally mild. 282 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. The most interesting thing about modern Tripoli is the history of its Mahdi. His name is Mohammed ben Ali ben Senoussi, His father was a native of Algeria, and, undoubtedly, descended from Fatima, the only daughter of Mahomet. Early in the century the Turks, who were op- posed to his reforms, exiled him from Algeria. He took refuge in Morocco, and soon became known as a celebrated preacher. He visited Mecca, passing through Egypt, and making no small stir among orthodox Mohammedans by his zeal and eloquence as a revivalist. At Mecca his mission seems to have been disregarded, but he enjoyed the good-will of the Sultan, and retiring to Tripoli, sought refuge in the hills near ancient Cyrene. There he erected a convent, and turned it into a sort of seminary for preach- ers, who went forth teaching in his name. This was about fifty years since, in 1845. A few years later he moved to an oasis in the desert, called Jerboub, which has ever since been the headquarters of his influence and his followers. Jerboub lies remote from the control of any organized government. It is in the Libyan desert, on an important caravan route between Northwestern Africa and the Nile delta. It is a convent settlement, with its college attached, standing alone in its oasis, remote from other populations. Pilgrims, however, visit it in crowds. The fact that the Caliph — the Sultan at Constantinople — looks kindly on its prophet has, probably, a great effect. While the fol- lowers of Senoussi are very strict as regards Mohamme- dan observances, they do not require rigid uniformity on all points of doctrine, consequently they have absorbed several other Mohammedan sects, all of whom unite in bitter enmity to Christians. When the old Senoussi died, whom his followers had looked upon as a prophet, he indicated his son as the Mahdi, and his followers now style him by that name, though he has never formally assumed it. The Central African Mohammedan sultanate Wadai, which lies east of Lake Tchad, and west of the Soudan THE BARBAE V STA TES. 283 provinces, now under the yoke of the Khalifa Abdullah, acknowledges the spiritual superiority of the prophet of Jer- boub. The spread of his influence in Central Africa has been rapid and very great. Meantime he sits in close retire- ment in his great convent. He has the blue eyes and the mark between the shoulders that were to be signs of the true Mahdi, but he has never employed any but peaceful means to spread his doctrines. The Soudanese Mahdi Mohammed Ahmed invited him to join him and to become one of his khalifas, to which proposal the prophet of Jer- boub vouchsafed no reply. -^ "While the Mahdism of the Soudan has carried everywhere waste and war, the teachings of the prophet Senoussi and his followers have carried into the districts over which their influence has gained sway, peace, order, and prosperity. While professing to discourage modern civihzation, Senoussi and his teachers have given a new impulse to agriculture, to the opening of wells, to the planting of date palms, and the sowing of crops. His fol- lowers respect their Mahdi, and not only him, but also his depu- ties, and the situation is utterly different from that prevailing on the Nile, where the Khalifa Abdullah holds the power of the sword. Mahdism, as associated with the name of Mohammed Ahmed, is almost dead ; Mahdism, as it might be associated with the name of Mohammed es Senoussi, is a force dormant at present but representing a formidable and growing power." Some people have a theory that Northern Africa, along the shores of the Mediterranean, is in no sense negro- Africa, though in recent centuries much negro blood has been mixed with that of the Moors. They declare that Northern Africa is European; that in every way its plants, its animals, its insects, and its native population bear wit- ness to its having been as entirely European as Spain or Greece, until the Saracens from the Orient made it their home. An Englishman arriving in Tangier feels at once as " if he were suddenly set down in the life of the Old Testa- 1 By last advices Senoussi has mysteriously quitted Jerboub with a large following, and gone it is not known whither. 284 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. ment," which is not negro life at all. The Kabyles, — aboriginal Berbers, — "stranded Europeans," some one calls them, — who still vigorously subsist in the midst of a Mo- hammedan folk, were once Christians. They are reduced, for the time being, to the faith and the manners of Islam, but they remain for all that essentially European in many underlying ideas, habits, and customs. A recent writer says : — " The Kabyle resembles essentially in all important points the European Mediterranean population . . . and as his blonde complexion, his blue eyes, his ruddy hair, and his high straight forehead point him out at once as in all fundamentals a European though in haick and burnous, so in spite of generations of Islam do his language, his life, and his arts also. . . . He is not a polygamist. He has but one wife, who lives with him, not in subjection and inferiority like an Arab woman. ... In Kabylia the face of wife or maiden is never veiled, and, strange to say, it still bears a remote mark of Christian influence, a cross being tattooed on it in childhood. . . . The whole surface of the country is strewn with the remains of Roman civilization. Rome Romanized as well as conquered. Roman amphitheatres, baths, and temples of extreme magnificence stand even far among the mountains. Aqueducts span half the gorges and ravines. Mosaics and inscriptions turn up by the dozen. Not even, I venture to say, in Provence itself, do Roman ruins and Roman remains strew the soil in such astonishing numbers as in these Berber countries." As regards the revival of civilization in North Africa, Morocco alone still holds aloof. Already, however, a rail- road in Algeria skirts her frontier, and some think this the thin edge of the wedge to introduce French influence, whenever the overthrow of the reigning Shereefian dynasty gives France her opportunity. But it is Spain that keeps a jealous eye upon Morocco, and looks on it as her legiti- mate acquisition in the future. Morocco is the finest portion of North Africa; its moun- tains are the highest, its rivers are the longest, its harvests are the richest, and its rainfall the most abundant. We know very little of the geography of Morocco; by we THE BARBAE Y STATES. 285 I mean to designate the general reader. It has several large provinces, each governed by its viceroy, and innumerable nomadic as well as settled tribes. Among its provinces are Fez, Tafilet, and Wazan. Fez and Wazan border on Alge- ria. Tafilet lies among the Atlas Mountains. Wazan is governed by hereditary chiefs, all-powerful in their own dominions. Morocco was never largely engaged in piracy. When she sent forth a sea-rover it was generally from Salee on the Atlantic, a place known to the greater part of us only through its connection with an early adventure of Robin- son Crusoe. Tangier, indeed, has now become a resort for invalids, artists, and refugees from justice; but Tangier is not the capital of Morocco. The capital is Morocco City. As we all know, since 1580 the Spaniards own Ceuta, the rock and small town opposite to Gibraltar, and have a sort of penal settlement and a strong garrison at Melilla. Along the shores of the Atlantic live the Riff tribes — famous wreckers in the past, and now ferocious warriors. In 1893 the reigning Sultan, Muley el Hassan, undertook a campaign against certain unruly tribes living in the south- ern part of his dominions. He reached the oasis of Tafilet in October, but the difficulties of the march had been very great, and the Sultan suffered under them even more than his soldiers.-^ From being a man of youthful appearance a few months before, he now showed marks of age; his beard had become streaked with gray, the fire in his eyes was gone, his head drooped; he looked like a man dis- heartened and weary. The return of the army to Morocco City was worse than its advance. The recrossing of the Atlas was terrible. Three weeks the army marched over mountain and desert, through wild tribes, where dangers were many, and where food was scarce, while, added to all the responsibilities 1 The personal particulars of the death of Muley el Hassan, and the accession of the present Sultan, are taken from a narrative published in Blackwood's Magazine, September, 1894, by Walter B. Harris. 286 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. and cares that weighed upon the Sultan as a general, he was harassed by news of the hostilities that had broken out between the Riff tribes and the Spaniards at Melilla. Muley Hassan ended his campaign a broken man. "Travel-stained and weary he rode his great white horse, with its mockery of green-and-gold trappings, while over a head that was the picture of suffering waved the imperial umbrella of crimson velvet. After him staggered into the city a horde of half-starved men and animals." No sooner had he arrived than a Spanish embassy, under General Campos, waited on him, to insist upon his paying indemnity, and punishing the Riff tribes, who had attacked the Spaniards. This forced the Sultan, ill as he was, to leave his southern capital, and undertake a long march to Rabat, thence to Fez, that he might punish the Riffians. He died upon his march, and entered Rabat a dead man. The Sultan of Morocco names his own successor, his choice being subject to the approval of his viziers and more powerful shereefs, some of whom claim a descent far more ancient and honorable than the reigning family. There were four members of Muley Hassan's family on whom the choice might have fallen; on either of his two brothers, Muley Ismain and Muley Omar; or on either of his two sons, Muley Mohammed, the eldest (son of a slave woman), or Muley Abdul Aziz, his young son by his Circas- sian wife, whom he himself had educated as his successor. " The mother of Abdul Aziz was a lady of great intelligence and remarkable ability, who, though no longer in her first youth, was able, to the day of his death, to obtain a most singular and no doubt beneficial influence over Muley el Hassan. Her foreign extraction and her education abroad, her general knowledge of the world, and her opportuni- ties for watching the court intrigues, rendered her of more service to the Sultan than any of his viziers. The affection he bestowed on her was also shared by her son Muley Abdul Aziz, who, with the tender anxiety of both an affectionate father and mother, was brought up in a far more satisfac- THE BARBAE Y STATES. 28/ tory manner than is generally the case with the sons of Moorish potentates. While his elder brothers were left to run wild, and to lead lives of cruelty and vice, Abdul Aziz was the constant companion of his parents, who, both intending that he should be one day Sultan of Morocco, lost no oppor- tunities of educating him to the best of their abilities to fill the post." The elder son of Muley Hassan, Muley Mohammed, was living as viceroy in Morocco City. A newspaper corre- spondent dubbed him " the one-eyed decapitater " ; but this telling epithet was not true in any particular. "Vicious and immoral he was to an extent that surpasses description, but beyond that his sins were no greater than those of the ordinary Moorish official." Muley Hassan had been in the habit of carrying on the government of his country through half a dozen viziers, who alone were able to gain the ear of their master. Among these viziers and advisers existed the most intense jealousy. But the one most favored by the Sultan was Sid Ahmed ben Moussa, son of a man who for many years had been in the service and the confidence of his father and himself. The Grand Vizier was Haj Amanti, whose brother also was one of the viziers, and bitterly as these men hated each other, the Sultan appeared to place equal confidence in both. Haj Amanti was by no means worthy of this favor. His cupidity was notorious. He robbed the Sultan ; he sold appointments ; and in the two years of his vizierate he had aijQassed a large fortune. The Sultan, about two weeks before his death, had taken a most tender leave of Abdul Aziz, whom he sent before him to Rabat, causing him to travel with all the pomp and paraphernalia of a sultan, thereby indicating him to his people as his successor. Muley Hassan died upon his march, June 6, 1894, Sid Ahmed alone of his viziers being present. He swore over the deathbed to support the succession of Abdul Aziz, and never to desert him while they both lived. 288 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. The Sultan died in a hostile country, and it was danger- ous to let either the army or the surrounding tribes know what had happened. A council of the viziers decided that the death should be kept secret, and the army was by forced marches hurried on to Rabat, bearing the dead body of the Sultan in his palanquin. When the procession reached Rabat the truth was told. It was imperative that the body should immediately be buried ; it was secretly carried out at night, and laid by a few soldiers in a mosque that contained the remains of the dead Sultan's ancestors. The army, before reaching Rabat, had discovered the truth, the greater part of the soldiers had disbanded; many small parties of men, attempting to get back to their own villages, were cut in pieces by the wild tribes that sur- rounded them. INIuley Hassan had written letters concerning the succes- sion to his viziers, and a letter of advice to his young son. The next morning Muley Abdul Aziz was led forth, " the great crimson-and-gold umbrella waving over him, sur- rounded by his father's viziers and mounted on his fa- ther's white horse, and was proclaimed Sultan of Morocco. "Those who saw the spectacle," says Mr. Harris, "described it to me. The boy's eyes were filled with tears, for his love for his father was intense, and report says that it was only by force he was induced to mount the horse and be proclaimed. On his return to the palace, the mosque in which his father had been buried the previous night was passed. Leaving the procession, Muley Abdul Aziz pro- ceeded alone to the door, and, weeping copiously, dis- mounted and entered to do his last homage to his father and his Sultan." There was great excitement in Tangier; a wholesale massacre of Europeans was dreaded. But the disaffected tribes around the city contented themselves with displac- ing an unpopular governor, each village electing a local sheikh to be responsible for the conduct of those under THE BARBARY STATES. 289 him. These sheikhs preserved quiet. It was the time of harvest. "The Sultan was dead," they said, "and his son had been proclaimed. God orders everything — but wheat must be gathered in." The cause of peace was also greatly indebted to the two brothers of Muley Hassan, both quiet men and much respected by the people. They at once gave in their adhe- sion to the new Sultan, their nephew. But while the boy Sultan was accepted by his subjects, the rivalries among his viziers portended great confusion. Sid Ahmed ben Moussa became, not unnaturally, the sole adviser of the new Sultan; Haj Amanti and his brother, who had both been Sid Ahmed's bitter enemies for some years, were dismissed, and soon after ignominiously impris- oned. The men who had cringed to Haj Amanti the day before, now outrageously insulted him as he was led away to prison. Muley Mohammed, the elder brother of the young Sultan, was also imprisoned, and recent reports speak of many executions. The other viziers were not displaced, but they are little consulted. The government seems now to be carried on by three persons, Sid Ahmed ben Moussa, the Sultan's mother, and an aunt who had assisted largely in his edu- cation. Let us hope that the reign of the Moorish Abdul Aziz may be more prosperous and less tragic than that of his namesake, the Sultan Abdul Aziz, at Constantinople. CHAPTER XI. LIBERIA, AND MARYLAND'S OWN COLONY. IT is not generally known that, although the United States ■ have never embarked in schemes of colonization, col- onies have been planted on the west coast of Africa by three of the states of the American Union: Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The colonies of Mississippi and Pennsylvania soon perished, but the colony of Mary- land, i.e. Maryland in Liberia, or, in other words, the col- ony of Cape Palmas, lived and flourished for twenty years as a colony of the parent state; afterwards, for a brief period, it was an independent republic; and it is now an integral part of the republic of Liberia. The world's civilization began in Africa, and thither the cycle of time seems to be reconducting it. From the twelfth century almost to our own time the world in general knew little more of the interior of Africa than we know of the Antarctic continent, but on its northern border had flour- ished philosophers, scientists, and arithmeticians among the Saracens, and afterwards all light in Africa faded away. The first notion of missionary effort on the west coast of Africa came from old Dr. Samuel Hopkins of Newport, Rhode Island, — the good man whose love-story has been told by Mrs. Stowe in "The Minister's Wooing." He talked the matter over with a clerical friend, the Rev. Ezra Stiles, and proposed to educate two colored youths as missionaries. But Dr. Stiles thought that two lonely mis- sionaries upon a heathen coast would not succeed; and that a Christian colony had better be planted on the soil of West Africa, which would teach the natives something 290 LIBERIA, AND MARYLAND'S OWN COLONY. 29 1 of agriculture, trading, and mechanics, besides infusing some notions of the arts and decencies of civilizacion. A very little had been done in furtherance of this project when our Revolutionary War broke out, and interest in the affairs of the Gold Coast was, for a time, suspended; but when the government of the United States had been estab- lished, Dr. Hopkins, whose interest in the cause and knowledge of the coast was stimulated by the fact that in Newport the slave-trade was especially active, took the matter up once more. A party was formed to migrate and colonize on the west coast of Africa; but our great-grand- fathers would not raise money for the object, — they could not "see the good of it," — and the project failed. This was in 1787. One hundred years later Stanley was traversing the Dark Continent; missionaries and explorers were scattered all over Central Africa; and the whole coast line on the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean was, with the exception of Morocco, Tripoli, and one little republic, under the direct rule, or the "protec- tion," of some European power. In the same year, 1787, there went out an English colony to Africa under a young man named Granville Sharpe, who founded the settlement of Sierra Leone. Dr. Hopkins died in 1803. He had sown good seed; he had tended it and watered it; but he did not live to see its increase, though he died a very old man. In 18 15 Captain Paul Cuffee, a colored man of New Bedford, took out, in his own ship, thirty emigrants to Africa and settled them at Sierra Leone, In 1826 two of Dr. Hopkins's colored disciples, the "two hopeful young men" whom he had educated to be missionaries, now aged seventy-iive and seventy, went out to Africa, hoping to promote their beloved pastor's fervent wishes by inducing younger men to follow their example. But before this, in 1800, Virginia had made some move- ment towards colonization. Her idea, as at first started, was to provide a place of transportation for criminal or dangerous negroes. Nothing, however, was done. 292 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. Meantime two great movements of another kind grew out of the agitation of the subjects of colonization and missionary work in Africa, namely, the establishment of the American Board of Missions and the American Bible Society. These originated from a little association of undergraduates at Williams College, Massachusetts, whose interest had been excited in the African colonization scheme. "Tall oaks from little acorns grow." The leader, of this band of Christian brothers was named Samuel J. Mills, and he adhered through life to the object he had taken up in the days when he was an undergrad- uate. He studied the negroes, their needs and their capac- ities, and when a project was set on foot to colonize them in the vast wilderness then lying between the Great Lakes and the Ohio, he said: "Whether any of us live to see -it or not, the time will come when white men will want all that region, and will have it, and our colony would be overwhelmed." During this time the idea of colonizing Africa with American colored people seems to have been in the air. Various persons were thinking on the subject; and in December, 1816, a meeting was called in Washington mainly by the personal exertions of Dr. Finley. Henry Clay presided; John Randolph spoke, and Robert Wright of Maryland. A week later a colonization society was organized. Judge Bushrod Washington was its president, and among its twelve vice-presidents were some of the most distin- guished men in Washington. Henry Clay, General Mercer, Bishop Meade, and Francis S. Keys were all very active in promoting it. In November, 181 7, Mr. Mills ami Mr. Burgess went out to the west coast of Africa to choose a suitable situation for the proposed colony. That wonderfully little was known in the year 181 7 about African geography I have told in a former chapter. In the seventeenth century the Portuguese had picked up a good LIBERIA, AND MARYLAND'S OWN COLONY. 293 deal of informati'on, principally from traders and mission- aries, and old maps of two hundred years ago are covered over thickly with queer names, great rivers, towns, lakes, and kingdoms, with well-defined boundaries,^ laid down incorrectly, for the most part, but showing some imperfect true ideas concerning the interior of the country. By 181 7 geographers had discarded this imperfect knowledge, and marked all the interior of the Dark Continent "unknown" and "desert"; lakeless and riverless, without nations or towns. When I learned geography at my mother's knee, I was taught that the Niger was a marvellous river, having no outlet into any other river, lake, or sea; that the Congo was a small river (it looked no longer than the Thames upon my map), and that it flowed into the Atlantic near the Portuguese settlement of Loanda. Sierra Leone had received its first emigrants in 1787, and subsequently all the American slaves captured by Great Britain in the war of 181 2 were transported there. All negroes, also, who were captured on board slavers were sent to Sierra Leone. There, too, were what remained of Captain Cuffee's Newport blacks, thirty in number, who had gone out in 1815, with their own pastor, to form a church there. ^ Mr. Mills and Mr. Burgess, the committee sent out by the Colonization Society, went first to England. The Duke of Gloucester (lately married to his cousin. Princess Mary) was very favorable to them; so was Mr. Wilberf orce ; but when they reached Sierra Leone they found the colonial authorities by no means pleased with their mission; they did not fancy an American state planted on their southern 1 This is the case on an old globe of 1 762 that I possess. Australia was as little known then as Africa. There is no water between Van Diemen's Land and the Australian Continent. — E. W. L. 2 The colored people of old Newport, before the days of hotels and lavish expenditure, were an exceptionally respectable race. The greater part of them were old retainers of old Rhode Island families, and in this respect Newport, when I first lived there, in 1848, was more like a Southern than a New England city. — E. W. L. 294 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. frontier. The only cordial reception the commissioners met with was from Captain Cuffee's band of emigrants, whose chief man, John Kizell, was eager to assist them. But his advice proved disastrous. They had not money to enable them to explore far along the coast, and so fixed on the most southern point they reached, viz. Sherboro' Island, which they proposed to recommend for the settlement of the colony. Mr. Mills died of consumption on the voyage home. His name and that of Mr. Burgess are associated in the name of the second city of Liberia, i.e. Millsburg. President Monroe favored the Colonization Society, and by his means a number of African negroes, who had been imported into the Southern States by slave-dealers, and taken out of their hands by the government of the United States, were given into the care of the society, with funds for their support and transportation. On board the Elizabeth, the Mayflower of Liberia, eighty- eight emigrants left New York, early in 1S20, for the new colony. First and last, the number of recaptured Africans committed by the United States to the keeping of the col- ony has been five thousand seven hundred and twenty-two. The Sherboro' Island location proved unhealthy in the extreme. Captain Stockton and Dr. Ayres, the only white men among the colonists, were finally sent down the coast to find a better place for a settlement. They saw, and succeeded in purchasing, a bold bluff, called Cape Mesurado, and in April, 1822, the colonists removed there. But even then there was still talk of abandoning the enterprise; and this might have been done but for the bravery and firmness of Elijah Johnson, one of the immi- grants, who exclaimed, at a meeting held to consider the proposition: "No! I have been two years searching for a home in Africa. I have found it. I shall stay here." His companions, for the most part, threw in their lot with Johnson, and he was appointed the society's sole agent in Africa. But, left to themselves, the colonists found dangers aris- LIBERIA, AND MARYLAND'S OWN COLONY. 2g$ ing from the hostility of the natives, from the jealousy of the British authorities at Sierra Leone, and from disputes among themselves, consequent on the want of a code of laws and a settled government. At last, August 9, 1822, a ship arrived containing a new white agent, Mr. Ashmun. He has been the historian of Liberia, but writing, not as a maker of history so much as a collector of subscriptions, his pictures are decidedly devoid of shade. Shortly after Mr. Ashmun' s arrival, the settlers — thirty- six fighting men in all — repulsed eight hundred natives; and on being a second time attacked, completely routed them. The troubles incident to the loose nature of the government of the colony had been led by a very able col- ored man. Lot Carey; "a, Cromwell, may be," said one who knew him well, " but the ablest of his race ever sent to Africa." The question had arisen, to whom did the new settle- ment belong? To the men who paid the native kings for it, or to the society? If to the former, why should they abdicate self-government in favor of the dictation of a society in America ? These troubles grew so complicated that Ashmun gave up in despair and retired to the Cape de Verde Islands. There he found a United States war vessel, having on board Ralph Randolph Gurley, a young colored man, sent out to com- pose the difficulties. By Gurley' s good sense, and the wis- dom of his instructions, all disputes were adjusted, and a plan for the colonial government of Liberia was adopted by its people. On Cape Mount a flourishing little town was now rising. In consequence of a suggestion from Mr. John H. B. Lat- robe, of Maryland, then secretary of the Colonization Soci- ety, and subsequently its president, the pretty name of Monrovia was given to it, out of compliment to the colony's first influential patron. President Monroe. The plan of the city was, however, far too magnificent for the wants of its 296 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. inhabitants, or even for their power of keeping it in order. The town, as it appeared in 183 1, is thus described by Dr. James Hall in a very interesting paper in the " African Repository," October, 1885: — " On my way out I had made myself acquainted with Mr. Ashmun's town on paper, with its streets and public buildings, as when he left it three years previously ; — perhaps the actual town looked better then, — doubtless it did to hi/n, — better than the original forest, but Monrovia could not be called a town, village, or city, the term settlement only being applicable. There were streets, houses, shops, and people, but to say the least, not well arranged. The streets had the appearance of a young forest of second growth. It should be borne in mind that there were no carriages, or beasts of pleasure or of burthen, nor likely to be on this rocky cape, and yet the main streets, east and west, from a half to a mile in length, were from sixty to one hun- dred feet wide, and nothing but zigzag footpaths traversing them from side to side, or from house to house. I believe the cross streets were of less width. I judge so from recollections of one near the Government House, the only one that could be desig- nated a street, the connection elsewhere being by footpaths, obliquing across the vacant lots, possibly within the bounds of the streets laid out on paper. Along all these so-called streets the footpaths were then bordered by a thick growth of sedge grass and shrubs from one to two feet high, rendering it very difficult — almost impossible — for females to pass along it in the early morning or in the rainy season without wet garments. I was often forced to ride cross-legged, tailor-fashion, on my donkey, from the same cause. In addition to this nuisance were the guava and other fruit trees, shedding water and hiding the houses from view. From the side path a building line of the street houses on the opposite side only was visible, the inevitable guava trees obstructing all views of the houses on the same side. The condition of the houses and shops was more creditable than that of the streets, the public buildings perhaps excepted. There were in 1832 three very plainly built barn-like churches. two Baptist and one Methodist. The Court House was a little shop with a porch to dignify it. The Government Agency House, built at the expense of the United States, was much better. The dwellings of the colonists were generally of one story, elevated or based on a rude stone underpinning, often of insufficient height for a storeroom. Even those of the poorest DR. JAMES HALL. I* ( LIBERIA, AND MARYLAND'S OWN COLONY. 297 people were shut in by weather-boarding, and the roof covered with shingles ; but at that time they were mostly of poor mate- rial, — soft wood, subject to early decay, if not destroyed sooner by the white ants. Three only were of two stories and good finish, one of them being of stone. There was, when I arrived, but one good warehouse or store in the town, but two years later the frontage on the river was surveyed, divided into suitable lots for wharves and warehouses, and sold to merchants. Several large buildings were soon erected, materially improving the appearance and the commercial facilities of the town ; but the blunder com- mitted in laying out the streets is irremediable. The entire population and the native servants, who do all such work, could not have kept the broad avenues in a decent shape for travel." And now, having spoken of Dr. Hall, I must be per- mitted to enliven this paper by a few personal reminiscences that he published a few years since in some papers which he contributed to the "African Repository." I supplement them by a few anecdotes from the pen of Mr. John H. B. Latrobe ; well knowing, however, that had Dr. Hall been living, he would have deprecated my saying anything which would tend to place him in the light of a hero; — a good, useful, very remarkable man. This is how he came first to visit Liberia, that land with which his life "was blended in warp and woof"; which he aided by thirty years of active service, and by half a century of interest and watchful care. "The summer of 1831," he says, "found me a patient in a Baltimore hospital, laboring under a severe and painful affection of the knee joint and general debility of the system, induced by arduous professional labor two years previous, by which I was forced to abandon my profession and my New England home. The loss of my wife, and my having two orphaned children of tender age, if not actually aggravating my complaints, deprived me for a time, at least, of that vigorous mental energy so essen- tial an adjuvant in restoring health or in endurance of suffer- ing. I had spent two seasons in the West Indies, the first in Cuba, the second in Hayti, with some temporary benefit, espe- cially in the voyaging, to my genera] health, but in no way reliev- ing the agony of the limb affected. "On arriving in Baltimore in the summer of 1831 I placed myself in the hands of three distinguished medical professors. 298 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. It was decided I had better take a room in the Infirmary, which I did. ... At the end of five months little health or vigor of mind remained, barely enough to enable me to rebel and aban- don further ?nedical aid. ... As in all hopeless cases, or cases so viewed by others, I still had hope that if I could take a long sea voyage, with absolute rest for my limb, that with the move- ment of the vessel and free air I might recover. To that end I opened communication with friends for securing a passage to the East Indies or China. While waiting a response the first providence, if it be so considered, comes in. The papers con- tained an address by Dr. Eli Ayres, one of the many agents in founding Liberia, to the colored people of Baltimore, contain- ing notice of a vessel being about to set sail for that colony. I lost no time in making application for a passage, little hope as I then had of benefiting any but myself. It was granted, and orders given to Dr. Ayres to call on me and make arrange- ments therefor, which he soon did, accompanied by that friend of Liberia, Moses Shepherd. Little was said to or before me of my condition, but their look of astonishment at my presumption -was not encouraging. It was clear that I did not see myself as others saw me, but I had determined on the voyage and was bent on a restcrgam. Had I then known what one of my medi- cal attendants afterwards communicated to me, I fear I should have committed the breach of one commandment at least. Said one, ' He is not fit to be moved. He will not reach the vessel.' A second thought he would, but not the coast ; a third voted him food for the African fever." The time was Avell into the autumn, and the weather clear and cold, but the doctor, with his indomitable courage, took advantage of a warm and pleasant day to go down to Fell's Point and get a view of the vessel. It was not until he saw himself in a glass that he was overpowered for one moment by a sense of the hopelessness of his condition. He was literally a living skeleton. At Fell's Point he was weighed, and with boots and heavy clothes turned the scale at 91 pounds. But at Fell's Point, in a little public house called the Pilot's Tavern, he received the first sensible proof that he had a prospect of recovery. The salt air and the tender care of Mrs. Watson, the landlady, revived him in- expressibly. And fifty-five years afterwards he told me that he recalled those hours in her house with grateful memory. LIBERIA, AND 3IAR VIAND'S OWN COLONY. 299 The Orion sailed, after a long delay. The doctor, partially restored to life, was carried on board, not at all to the satisfaction of the captain, who, hailed by a shipmate with the remark, "Your passenger won't live to reach the Capes!" replied, "I hope to the devil he won't. I don't want him on board." But the fresh air in Hampton Roads carried on the renovation already begun by the kind ministrations of Mrs. Watson. There had been a lively clipper schooner in port at Baltimore bound also for Africa. The doctor, in his old tub the Orion, felt annoyed at his choice every time he looked at her, and as they saw her bowling past them with all sails set when six days out, while the cautious captain of the Orion was taking in sail, the doctor, with an invalid's impatience, told the captain he was doing the society in- justice by his slow sailing, as his charter was by the month. His answer was: "Know nothing — fear nothing," and he proceeded to take in more . sail. Dr. Hall watched the schooner till she was hull down in the offing, and his were the last eyes that rested on her. That night, under her press of canvas, she went down in a gale. At last the Orion sighted Grand Cape Mount, some sixty miles to the windward of Monrovia. Grand Cape Mount is the only elevation noticeable from the sea from Sierra Leone to Monrovia, and from Monrovia to Cape Palmas. " It is," said Dr. Hall, " the most beautiful, symmet- rical, natural pyramid conceivable, without shoulder, rock, slide, or other break in its entire outline, covered with dense forest to its very summit ; an elevation over a thousand feet high." At daylight they lay anchored in the harbor of Monrovia in company with two Philadelphia traders. The crews of these vessels were for the most part down with African fever, and ashore, under the charge of the physician of the colony. How Dr. Hall in his professional capacity went on board one of these brigs ; what he did, and the piteous 300 EUKOPE IX AFKICA IX THE XIXTH CEXTURY. sight he saw there, — a poor sick cabin-boy ivll sores, being eaten up alive by cockroaches, — need not liere be toki. " My first impressions, " he said, " while lying in the road- stead were far from favorable." He looked for the town, but it was hidden in trees and bushes. " The only houses visible were the thatched haycock cottages of the native fishermen, near the beach, with their black pickaninnies rolling in the sim and sand." The governor. Dr. Mechlin, received Dr. Hall very kindly, and invited him to stay in the Government House. There commenced Dr. Hall's friendship with !Mr. Russwurm. then the secretary of the governor, and afterwards, for fifteen years, governor of Maryland's own colony in Liberia. His father had been an American mer- chant in the West Indies, his mother was an African. He had graduated A.M. at Bowdoin College, in New England, where Dr. Hall also had taken his medical diploma, so that they had many friends in common; and now Dr. Hall began to feel how much he had gained in his long, tedious voyage, and found that in weiglU he had won a pound a day. Most amusingly he tells how, unable to bear the jolting of a sort of native palanquin, and unwilling to ride pick- a-back on a Krooman, tlie solitary sur\ivor of five imported donkey's was procured for him. He says he seemed to him- self like Don Quixote mounted on Sancho's Dapple. The natives, as man and donkey threaded the weedy Monrovian streets, designated the doctor with his crutches as "the man with two sticks on him bullock"; but years after, at Cape Palmas, having occasion to visit a native king in his own quarters, he set out on his good Jack, at- tended by two colonists and Yellow Will, his headman. On his nearing a large native town, all tlie population turned out, wildly shouting and gesticulating. Their behavior was so odd, and laughter is so contagious, that the doctor roared too. Then they became so frantic that Tack was terrified and refused to move. His master turned UJihRfA, AND MAKYLAND'S OWN COLONY. 30! to Yellow Will for an explanation; but Yellow Will (ordi- narily a glum and stolid personage) was lying, convulsed with laughter, on the sand of the shore. After some delay and much scolding he was brought to order. "You wan' know what make dem peoples act so?" "Yes; that's exactly what I do want to know," said the am?jassador. "I mo' 'fraid tell you — but it be dis. All dem peoples tink you an' donkey be one, — one Gubnoo. Dey laugh so, 'cos one face look so he be sorry, — go cry; — an' t'other face laugh, — all same man ! " "Is it possible," adds the doctor, "that the Centaurs in Grecian mythology had a like origin? Unexplained, would not these five hundred — yes! one thousand — people in Half-Cavalla have died in the belief, and have transmitted it to their descendants, that the American governor of Cape Palmas had two heads, six legs, and, as the nursery riddle runs, four down-standers, two down-hangers, and a whisk- about?" Again, when he dismounted and removed the housing, saddle and bridle, another shout of astonishment went up. "They are taking the Gubnoo all apart, apart! " was the cry of the bystanders. liut we must hasten on to Dr. Hall's connection with Cape Palmas, where, indeed, this incident occurred. France is now aggressive in her intercourse with Liberia; but in 1846 England was the little settlement's most power- ful neighbor. Some trading difficulties arose, in conse- quence of which England appealed to the government at Washington, to know if Liberia was subject to American jurisdiction, — was, in fact, an American colony? I'he government at Washington replied that it was not the policy of the United States to colonize; that Liberia was under the jurisdiction of an American society. The British government responded that it could not treat with a society, and the situation became so embarrassing and so dangerous to the colony that the Liberians, who had already their own legislature, requested the consent of their 302 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. American rulers to choose a flag,^ elect a president, agree upon a constitution, and declare themselves an independent republic. They obtained their independence, and have ever since governed themselves. Their first two presidents. President Roberts and President Benson, were exceptionally good men. Several letters, written by President Roberts, in 1850, to Commodore Latimer, when in command of a small United States squadron on the west coast, are in my possession. They are excellent letters, written, not in the style and handwriting of a half-educated man, but like the letters of a gentleman. One related to a request made by Commodore Latimer to be allowed to land some stores on Sunday. The President replied that such work would be contrary to law and contrary to the feelings of the people, but that every facility he could give should be at the command of the American commodore by sunrise on Monday morning. When United States officers were in port, the President and chief merchants entertained them handsomely. The only thing peculiar about their dinners was, that canned vegetables and imported fruits were considered the correct things to be served to foreign guests, to the exclusion of delicious tropical vegetables and fruits, which were dis- carded as too common. Unhappily, the climate is unfa- vorable to the curing of bacon or to the growth of cabbages. At one time (1854) I received a number of letters from Liberians, and all, though praising the new land in other respects, bemoaned its lack of pigs and cabbages. The subsequent history of Liberia, after it became an independent state, has been one of slow but gradual im- provement. It has had ten presidents,^ and, although the Liberians, being an imitative people, have wasted their 1 Like that of the United States, except that a white cross takes the place of the thirteen stars. 2 Joseph Jenkins Roberts, Stephen Allen Benson, Daniel Dashiel Warner, James Spriggs Payne, Edward James Roye, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, James Spriggs Payne, Anthony Williams Gardner, Hilary Richard Wright Johnson, Joseph James Cheeseman. LIBERIA, AND MARYLAND'S OWN COLONY. 303 energies too often in political strife, it has certainly "gone ahead" to a degree quite unparalleled in other west coast settlements. Liberia is rather proud of her superior standing to the colony of Sierra Leone, which was founded in 1787, and on which the British government has expended, prob- ably, more than thirty millions of dollars. It is to be hoped Sierra Leone has improved greatly in the last twenty years, but even now it is very far behind Liberia, though it has had the advantages of paternal care from the British govern- ment, and thirty years the start of her. In 1873 Stanley, on his way to join Sir Garnet Wolseley's Coomassie cam- paign, speaks of Sierra Leone most unfavorably. "After a hundred years of occupation, the English are building a wharf ! After a hundred years of occupation the Episcopal Church is half constructed, and I should fear to say how much precious money has been spent on the rickety edifice. After a hundred years of occupation the English mission- aries have not been able to inculcate in the negroes' mind that it is sinful to lie, to steal, and to be lazy." However, when Stanley wrote this he was not the staid, sober-minded Stanley of the Congo and the African forest, but the irresponsible reporter for a newspaper. What all Africa needs and is crying out for is the immigra- tion of superior men from foreign countries, and, I repeat, why France should so much desire extension of colonial ter- ritory when she has not Frenchmen enough for her own use, is a problem as difficult to solve as why Italy, under straitened circumstances, should wish to expend large sums on quarrels with Abyssinia. The wisdom of Lord Bacon is quite as applicable to territorial extension in the nineteenth as in the sixteenth century. "It is a Shameful and Unblessed Thing," he says, "to take the Scume of People to be the People with whom you plant: and not only so, but it spoileth the Plantation- for they will ev-er live like Rogues, and not fall to Work, but be lazie and do Mischief, and spend Victuals, and be 304 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. quickly wearie, and then certifie over to their Country to the discredit of the Plantation." It is the climate which makes it hard to find superior men willing to go out and foster colonies in Western Africa; but the problem of how to keep white men in health has been, in a great measure, solved recently by the Congo State, in its management of two hundred and fifty railroad laborers. And Liberia, which offers good education to thos'e among her own people who are willing to profit by it, seems to be raising up here and there men of energy and common sense. Still it might have been better for her had she continued longer under colonial management, and not adopted prematurely the "blessings of universal suffrage," and its attendant weakness and intrigues. Liberia is not by any means inhabited solely by immi- grants. Its territory includes within its limits important African tribes, the Veys, the Mandingoes, etc., among whom the missionaries have sometimes found more satis- factory disciples than the common run of emigrants from the United States. At first there was not unfrequently a tendency in these last to relapse into that savage state from which they had been evolved during their trans-Atlantic slavery; but, as time goes on, and the civilized element grows stronger, this is no longer the case. The upper class of Liberians have done, and are doing, their country great credit in education, commerce, agricultural enterprise, missionary work, and even as philologists and explorers. Having thus sketched Liberia, with which Marylanders had no more to do than other subscribers to the Coloniza- tion Society, except, indeed, that her leading men took proininent parts in that association, we will turn to Mary- land in Liberia — Maryland's own colony. The first ap- propriation made by any state for colonization purposes, was made by Maryland, and in the session of the Maryland Legislature in 1831-1832 several acts were passed especially favoring African colonization. First, the Maryland State Colonization Society was chartered, iiidependent of the LIBERIA, AND MARYLAND'S OWN COLONY. 305 American Colonization Society. Secondly, a sum of two hundred thousand dollars was voted to be expended on colonization by a state board of managers, in connection with the Maryland Colonization Society. This action partly owed its origin to the excitement pro- duced by a rising of negroes under Nat Turner in 1831, and what is called the Southampton massacre in Virginia. At the same date the Virginia legislature came within a few votes of passing an act for the gradual extinction of slavery. The gentleman to whose personal exertions the largest share of praise is due in this work was Mr. John H. B. Latrobe. Educated at West Point, he was expected to gain the highest honors, when the death of his father (the archi- tect of the first capitol at Washington) made him feel it his duty to give up his prospect of distinction in a military life, and to return home to take care of his mother and her younger children. He died an old man, rich in civic honors, but never could he think, without a pang, of that act of renunciation. How he struggled in the fields of law and literature this is not the place to tell, but from the days when he renounced army life he became the most earnest worker in the colonization cause in Maryland. His inter- est in it had been excited when he studied law in the law office of General Harper, and of all the enterprises of the Maryland State Colonization Society, he became the active, if not the nominal head. In the autumn of 1832 that society fitted out its own emigrant vessel, the Lafayette; put on board of her one hun- dred and forty-six Maryland emigrants and sent them to Liberia. On reaching Monrovia, it became apparent that the immigrants of two independent societies could not be harmoniously settled on the same spot, and the Maryland State Colonization Society, on receiving reports from the emigrants and the captain of the Lafayette, resolved to make a new and independent settlement; to found, in fact, Maryland's own colony outside the limits of Liberia. Some years earlier Mr. Latrobe had pointed out that Cape Pal- 306 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. mas, standing, as it does, at an angle of the great continent, where the coast line changes from southeast to east, leading to the Gold Coast and the outlets of the great river Niger, was the best place for a colony. While the subject was under discussion there arrived a letter from Dr. Hall, dated Monrovia, in which he pointed out to his old Baltimore friend. Dr. Ayres, the advantageous position of Cape Palmas for any future enter- prise in colonization. This letter decided the question. Cape Palmas was adopted by the Maryland State Coloniza- tion Society; and as the society was connected only with the state, the colony had nothing to do with the Federal government. Just as this resolution was taken. Dr. Hall returned to Baltimore, invalided from malaria, after two years' unceas- ing service as a physician in Liberia. He had navigated the Liberian rivers; he knew the coast, the natives, and the country; he coiild advise in everything as to the outfit; and lastly, having recovered some measure of health dur- ing his sea voyage, he proved ready to devote himself to the cause of the new colony by going out as its first governor. "His early training, before and while acquiring his pro- fession" (the doctor is speaking of himself), " had made him familiar with business, and in Africa he had acquired knowl- edge most valuable and important for the position. He was acclimated; he had attended scarcely less than a thousand patients with the African fever; he was familiar with the African trade, with the peculiarities and habits of the natives, well acquainted with the col6nists, and, more than all, had visited the various towns on the entire coast line, including the point proposed for settlement." Thus far the doctor's modesty permitted him to speak: he does not add that he was peculiarly fitted for the work by his zeal, his bravery, his power of controlling his subor- dinates, and his strict integrity, which made all men (even savages) feel certain they could trust him. Unlike many men put in authority, he was cordially backed and supported LIBERIA, AND MARYLAND'S OWN COLONY. 307 by the society that confided its work to him, and which was stimulated to liberality by Mr. Latrobe. A forlorn little brig, the Ann, little bigger than a Ches- apeake Bay schooner, but the best craft that could be had, was chartered to take out the new governor. She carried also three missionaries, and another ordained minister, the Rev. John Hersey, who was to act as assistant to the governor. "He was a man," said Dr. Hall, "not more distinguished for his piety than his eccentricities; a veri- table John the Baptist in food and clothing." The details of the voyage, such as how Hersey 's prayers for a fair wind were answered by a roaring nor'-wester, which drove the sluggish Ann within six days' sail of the coast, and then left her in the dold7-ums ; of the impatience of the governor, who wanted to get his people housed before the rainy season; how he took to a boat, and made sail to the eastward; how he made land off Sherboro' Island, and finally landed at Monrovia, I have not space to tell; but by the time the laggard Ann crawled into the harbor, the ener- getic governor had recruited thirty able-bodied and accli- mated volunteers. As soon as the brig came in they were embarked and sent down the coast to the new colony, still under the government of its native king. "Cape Palmas," says Mr. Latrobe, "is a promontory, which, approached from the northwest, presents the appear- ance of three slightly marked eminences, that which is furthest from the sea being separated by a steep declivity from a level plain, beyond which the land rises gradually towards the interior. On this eminence, and looking down upon this plain, was the native town, the residence of King Freeman. A river, first called the Hoffman, empties into the sea north of the Cape, and afforded a landing-place near the plain. There was also an available landing-place where the river washed the base of the Cape itself." The first thing to be done was to choose a site for the new settlement. Should it be along the shore, or on Cape Palmas itself? Dr. Hall chose the latter. A settlement 30S EUROPE IX AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CEXTURY. on the plain, he thought, might place the colonists at the mercy of natives, while on the Cape he would plant his battery of three tiny guns and command the native village. The first step was to hold a palaver. A palaver by no means indicates a rude, disorderly assembly; so long as evil passions are not roused, it is conducted with great dignity. After two days' negotiation, and an utter refusal on Dr. Hall's part to treat on a basis of rum, the land needed by the settlers was purchased with merchandise worth about one thousand dollars. The moment the agreement was signed stores were landed from the Ann, and she was sent back to bring more emigrants from Monrovia. The expert thieving of King Freeman's men and women at first gave some trouble. "However," says Mr. Latrobe, "while thefts were com- mitted by the natives, a colonist was found one day with his pockets filled with cassava, stolen from the natives; when the king, who had been forced to pay for the depre- dations committed by his subjects, not unnaturally called upon the 'Gubnoo ' to apply to himself the same law. 'When Africa man steal from America man,' said King Freeman, *I pay. If America man steal from Africa man, you pay.' 'But,' replied Dr. Hall, 'I have a law to catch thief. You make the same law, you no pay ! ' " The result was, that the king forthwith set up two native justices and two constables, and soon after sent to America as "his mouth" one of his headmen, called Simleh Balla, to get law, as he said, "after America fash." The simple code was produced, every item in it being discussed between Simleh and I\Ir. Latrobe. Simleh was a handsome man and an intelligent one. More than once he posed his white superiors on points of speculative theology, "whereupon," says ]\Ir. Latrobe, " the discussion of the code was resumed, and the theological question remained unanswered." Four months after the purchase the energetic governor had got his people housed. One of the fundamental laws of the colony was the non- introduction of any kind of LIBERIA, AND MARYLAND'S OWN COLONY. 309 spirits. To the strict enforcement of this law, Dr. Hall attributed the general peace and good feeling that prevailed between the colonists and the natives. A war- cloud, however, rose within a few months of the arrival of the colonists, but was dispersed by the firmness of Dr. Hall. King Freeman, after the manner of African kings, who are strict protectionists, undertook to prescribe that rice might be purchased only from his own people. The col- onists were sending a boat up the river to procure supplies from a more inland village. Dr. Hall, on hearing that King Freeman meant to stop this boat, mounted his donkey, visited the monarch, and, after explaining to him the ne- cessity of bringing rice from Rocktown to feed his people, added that he had but one word to say: that if King Free- man and his subjects persisted in their course, he would never again meet them to talk over palaver ; and that if they attempted by force to stop any trade coming to the settlement, or interrupted any trade goods sent for rice, that war would then begin; that the settlers and their gov- ernor were as willing to meet death one way as another, and that war would not end while one American was left alive on the Cape, or till their guns had destroyed everything within gunshot of their fort. The rice-boat was made ready to start the next morning for Rocktown, but at dawn Dr. Hall received a mes- sage from the king and headmen, to the effect that they were convinced of their error and were sorry for the trouble they had given. "When it is stated," says Mr. Latrobe, "that from the day when he left America Dr. Hall was an invalid; that he was at no time able to go about, except when aided by crutches; that his life at Cape Palmas was rarely that of a person in even ordinary health; and that the whole fighting force of the colony did not exceed thirty fighting men, we are better able to appreciate the bravery, the cool judgment, and the indomitable energy that gave 3IO EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. him ascendency with the natives, and secured the colony's success." Here is another anecdote that connects itself with those times, reported, as in duty bound, by Dr. Hall to the society, but given to the public by Mr. Latrobe; though in private I have heard the same story from the doctor himself. Mr. Latrobe says : — " Dr. Hall writes : ' They have a custom here (like our fore- fathers in Salem) of attributing all the great calamities of life to witchcraft, particularly all sudden deaths of the middle-aged and 'active. In such cases the gree-gree man, doctor or Grand Devil, is consulted, and he points out the witch offending, who is com- pelled to drink large quantities of a decoction of a poisonous tree called sassa-wood. Should he survive he is deemed innocent. Quite a number have been subjected to this ordeal since our settlement, who have died in excruciating agony. One of the headmen who had uniformly befriended the colony was arraigned, -and found guilty of bewitching sundry members of the family of one of his rivals, and was doomed to the trial. He had also taken his first potion before I was informed of it. It had a severe effect on the poor fellow, though he was quite comfortable by night. But the head devil had declared that he must take it again on the morrow. Being informed of this I went down early in the morning, called a palaver, and endeavored to have the man released. But all gifts, entreaties, reasoning, and threaten- ing were in vain. There seemed to be a deep grudge, which nothing but his death could appease. On returning home I was informed there was an ancient custom, something like this : If a man was compelled to drink sassa-wood, any friend of superior worth and standing could clear him by taking him by the hand when the potion was about to be administered, and taking upon himself the responsibility, becoming liable either to occupy his place or be subject to heavy damages. In this case the king wanted to clear Popo (the victim) but he knew the consequences would be dangerous, so great was the excitement. Upon hearing this I mounted my donkey and set off for the sand beach, where I arrived just as they were driving off Popo's wives and children, who had been taking their last farewell. About four hundred people were collected, and formed a hollow square, in the midst of which was the gree-gree man in full panoply, just raising a two-gallon pot filled with the poisonous decoction to the lips of Popo. Poor fellow ! he was so altered from his yesterday's drenching, and the dismal prospect before him, that I should not LIBERIA, AND MARYLAND'S OWN COLONY. 311 have recognized him had he been mixed with the crowd. His countenance was despair itself. I told them that if any one had palaver for Popo I would satisfy him, according to our law, and would be responsible for all they could prove against him. Then taking him by the hand I bore him off amid the mingled shouts and execrations of his friends and persecutors.' " "So much," adds Mr. Latrobe, "for the letter of Dr. Hall. The facts were that he was in his house, having left the king and the palaver' in despair, when the native cus- tom which placed the life of Popo in his hands, as it were, was told him. At once mounting his donkey, and with his crutches, he rode to the native town, and to the brink of the hill overlooking the plain. Here he left the animal, and began his descent through bushes and rocks. Falling in his great haste, one of his crutches broke, but with the remaining one he hobbled across the interval between the hill and the square, into which he broke just in time to save the life of Popo at the imminent peril of his own." Eighteen years later the society's agent, Dr. Samuel McGill, after a quarrel with the people of King Freeman, consequent on the rescue of a native woman by a colonist from the gree-gree man and his ordeal, had a palaver, by which this custom was put a stop to within the limits of the colony. When the colonists began to prosper and to trade, the necessity of a circulating medium became apparent. At first cotton was tried, as tobacco had been in colonial days in Maryland, but cotton not answering the purpose, the society issued fifteen hundred dollars' worth of paper cur- rency, in sums of five cents, ten cents, twenty-five cents, fifty cents, and a dollar. As the natives and others could not read, a head of tobacco was printed on the five-cent notes; a chicken on the ten-cent; one duck stood for twenty- five cents; two ducks for fifty cents; and a goat for a dollar. These notes were redeemable at any of the soci- ety's stores. In 1836 Dr. Hall, after four years of governorship, 312 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. during which he added to his labors by explorations into the interior, found himself obliged, by failing health, to relinquish his position and return to America. There he became the agent of the society, and in that capacity made several subsequent visits to Africa. After a brief interval, and by his advice, John B. Russ- wurm, already spoken of, was appointed his successor as governor of Maryland in Liberia. Governor Russwurm died in office in 185 1, having made an excellent record. Under him the trade of the colony greatly increased, and its boundaries extended. Missions of all kinds flourished, especially those of the Episcopal Church. Cape Palmas has now two bishops. Bishop Pennick, a white bishop of the Episcopal Church, and Bishop Payne (colored), of the Methodist Episcopal. The colonists, very early in their history, built a stone lighthouse, which is invaluable to ships that navigate that coast, and after keeping it alight by primitive means for several years, they imported a modern lighthouse apparatus from England. The town upon the Cape they named Harper; the near- est village is Latrobe. There is a high school named for Dr. Hall, and many other Maryland friends are remem- bered in the geography of the colony. It has a fine har- bor, the best upon the coast, and probably the climate is the healthiest on that seaboard, the town having been planted on a hill; but all along the water's edge lurks dan- ger after dark, though the peril has been greatly mitigated of late years by the free use of quinine. On one occasion, Dr. Hall advised a French physician in charge of a boat party sent out to survey one of the rivers, to give his men large doses of quinine every morning in their coffee. The Frenchman, who had never heard of such doses of quinine, thought the recommendation not worth attending to. I believe that only one man survived the expedition. A free use of quinine was, at least until a few years since, little practised in England. It is half piteous, half amusing, to LIBERIA, AND MAR YLAND 'S WN COL ONY. 3 1 3 an American to read of the bright boyish young English officer who entered on the campaign to Coomassie in 1873, confident that he should not catch African fever, because some one had advised him to take tivo grains of quinine every morning before breakfast. So feeble a dose, as we know, would not cure a cold ! Europeans on the Guinea coast usually sleep on board their ships and land during the daytime. The temperature is about an even 85°, seldom more and seldom less. Thus it is not so hot as the ordinary climate of the United States in summer time, but the heat is continuous. On Governor Russwurm's death, Dr. McGill, another col- ored man, succeeded him, but by this time Liberia proper had become a republic, and the inhabitants of Maryland in Liberia, who had been gradually educating themselves in self-government for fifteen years, began to grow anxious to advance in independence and to become a sister republic. To this end they sent Messrs. Cassell and Prout to present their wishes to the society. The former was chief justice of the colony, having been trained for that purpose in the law office of Mr. Hugh Lacy Evans, of Baltimore. The managing committee would have preferred to see the gen- eral mass of the colonists more advanced in education and prosperity before breaking their connection with their white rulers, but they listened to the wishes of their proteges and agreed to their independence. They also sent them out a code of laws for their new republic, judiciously framed by Mr. Evans. On the return of their delegates the people proceeded to elect Mr. Prout president of their republic. On June 8, 1854, he was inaugurated, and a few days later was pre- sented to the native kings and headmen as their new ruler. The change that had taken place was explained to them, and "dashes" {i.e. presents) were given appropriate to the occasion. Le roi est mort, vive le roi ! But the independence of Maryland in Liberia did not terminate its relations to the state society. The state of 314 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. Maryland continued to appropriate to its welfare ten thou- sand dollars a year, a sum which Maryland in her most unprosperous times had never withheld from her colony. These appropriations the state society had always de- voted to the transportation and settlement of emigrants, the expenses of government had been met by subscriptions, and otherwise provided for. President Prout died during his term of office, and Pres- ident Drayton took his place. Drayton, apparently, had not the cautious, patient temper of his predecessors, and he precipitated his republic into a war with the native tribes within its territory, which came very near being the ruin of it. It was during the dry season of 1856-185 7 that Dr. Hall, arriving at Monrovia in the Liberian ship, Mary Caroline Stevens, was met by the startling news of a war at Cape Palmas between colonists and natives. "The former," he says, "having been worsted in their last battle, were pent up on the Cape, and the colony in danger of destruction. An appeal for aid had been made to the government at Monrovia, which I warmly seconded, and offered to supply funds for that purpose. The joint peti- tion was granted, and a call for volunteers made. Within twenty-four hours one hundred and twenty fellows followed the recruiting officer, being a surplus of twenty over the hundred asked for. Such a string of sojers I never before witnessed; mostly boys born and raised in the upper settle- ments, many shoeless, — merely shirted and breeched, — decidedly light infantry. To a friend I expressed surprise that any good could be expected from such material. 'Fear not,' said he, 'they'll fight like devils! ' — Not otherwise, I felt sure. In another twenty-four hours all were on board the Mary Ca7-oline Stevens, one hundred and fifteen rank and file, well officered and equipped. The boy sojers were now in full Zouave dress, so well known to us in later times, but seeming to me then to comport with my friend's des- ignation of their character as fighters. They appeared fear- fully lawless, even endangering the management of the ship, LIBERIA, AND MARYLAND'S OWN COLONY. 315 but they were soon brought to order by their ofificers, and never did I witness so gi-eat a change as two days' severe drilling on shipboard wrought in those wild Cape Mount boys. On landing at Palmas, their reputation as Cape boys, their remarkable dress and martial bearing, most effectually did the business. No fighting followed. A palaver was called and peace established, much, I appre- hend, to the disappointment of these young Dalgettys, who seemed anxious for 'a little shindy ' at least." But the infant republic had been decidedly demoralized. It appreciated the assistance received from Monrovia, and it felt the desirability of strengthening its own feebleness by annexation to the older and more powerful republic of Liberia. It therefore applied to be absorbed into that republic, and changed its style and title from the republic of Maryland in Liberia to Maryland County, in the Libe- rian republic. For two years after that the state legislature of Maryland continued to make an annual grant of five thousand dollars to its late protege ; then our Civil War broke out and the grant was discontinued. Cape Palmas continues to be a flourishing place, sharing with Monrovia the boom given to all things on the West African coast by the new interest created in Africa. The International Association that has taken the Congo Free State into its care has drawn on the experience of Maryland's own colony for instruction as to the way of making treaties with native princes. Thus ends this episode in the history of early coloniza- tion on the western coast of Africa; before I conclude, however, wi,th some brief remarks on the present prospects of Liberia, I ask my readers' leave to say a few words con- cerning my own connection with Liberia proper (not Mary- land in Liberia) in 1853. There was very considerable abolition and anti-abolition feeling that year in Virginia, promoted by the publication, in 1852, of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." There were laws in 3l6 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. Virginia, never put in force, but standing threateningly on the statute book, that all free negroes must be expelled the state, and public opinion, roused by outside aggression (as it was considered), seemed disposed to insist that they should be put in operation; On a farm in the valley of Virginia, where I had passed the summer with my near relatives, there were two free negroes who had married slaves. One was a maid-servant, beloved and trusted in the family in which she had been brought up, who had married a slave-man in the neighborhood] the other was a man of very light com- plexion, who had married a favorite servant of my cousin's, and had five children. He was very anxious to emigrate with his family to Liberia. I was urged by their friends to see if anything could be done to raise the purchase money, and, on going North, I published a letter in several papers and also in the London "Spectator," offering to receive subscriptions. No words can describe the kindness and generosity my appeal brought forth. Money and letters came to me from all quarters. Rough farmers from the West sent in their contributions with touching words that meant " God speed you"; colored school-teachers in Maine and Canada, and the leading rich men in Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York sent me money. People who had much sent much; people who had little must often have sent more than they could afford. It seemed to readers of " Uncle Tom's Cabin" a practical way of expressing sympathy. Among the letters I received was one from Mr. James Russell Lowell, so characteristic of himself and of the feeling that prevailed at that time among men like himself in New England, that I insert it here. " Elmwood, Cambridge, Atigiist i, 1853. " . . .It was very kind of you to begin your note with a list of all possible excuses for my not giving anything — spreading a sort of merciful feather bed to break my fall in case I should attempt to escape my duty by some desperate spring through the window. It is probably true that (as one of the Executive Com- LIBERIA, AND MARYLAND'S OWN COLONY. 317 mittee of the Anti-Slavery Society) I have an ex-officio theory on the subject that we ought not to consent to any compensation at all, — a kind of ice-palace which affords but a fugitive shelter against the kindly sunshine of human nature, — and on the other hand, I have another, and quite as good a theory in my private capacity as a man, that it inight be a difficult thing for me, were I a slaveholder, to sacrifice all I have to my sense of duty, nay, that it might be hard to have a sense of duty at all in the prem- ises. Now I allow my two theories a fair fight, and like the Western hunter, my prayer is : ' Lord help me — or, if you won't help me, don't help the b'ar.' Under these circumstances the human theory generally gets the better of the bearish. As an executive committee man, therefore, I resolutely refuse to give anything, but in my private capacity I send what I can, assuring you that were my poems more popular my gift should be larger." It was not long before I raised the three thousand dollars needed. Two of my people, husband and wife, went to Philadelphia. John Gordon, with his wife and family, came down to Baltimore, where they were received by a friend who undertook to buy stores, and to see them off in the colonization ship for Monrovia. As he stood on the deck watching them, the captain, pointing to the father of the family, a man of very light complexion, said : "There's a man now who will not stand the climate for a year." They were well provided, every one having given me the stores needed at cost price. They reached Monrovia after an averagely good passage, but my next news was that the mother of the family had died of dysentery, brought on by too free indulgence in pineapples and guavas. Her husband followed her within a year. The children became accli- mated ; for several years I heard frequently of them through a colored minister at Monrovia, — then I heard of them no more; and to this day I cannot but feel humbled when I think how disproportioned to the generous enthusiasm I evoked was the good that it accomplished. Liberia is becoming, however, more salubrious. There are new healthy settlements in the hill country, especially Arthington, which is about twenty-five miles north of Mon- rovia, on the St. Paul River. Coffee is the principal export; 3l8 EUROPE I lY AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. last year nine hundred and eighty thousand pounds were exported, eighteen thousand being from one plantation at Arthington.. The Liberians have commercial treaties with England and Holland, and send to those countries double the amount of produce shipped to the United States. The population of Liberia is put down at one million, but this includes the native tribes. A few years ago much was expected from the development of the hinterland of the republic, said to be inhabited by a not wholly uncivilized tribe, but the French, who have appropriated so large a share of the west coast, are closing round upon Liberia. An expedition, having principally for its object the exploration of the river Cavally, the eastern boundary of Liberia, has been confided to two French officers, Captains Merchant and Manet. The river Cavally is supposed to be navigable for nearly its whole extent. Its headwaters are in the French protectorate, and it divides Liberia from territory claimed by France. France desires command of the river Cavally, and a seaport near its mouth on the Gulf of Guinea; and demands, in consequence, from Liberia a cession of one-third of her coast line. The policy of the United States forbids more than the expression of friendly interest in the welfare of Liberia. Formerly a United States Navy vessel yearly visited Mon- rovia and Cape Palmas and took in supplies there; this, it is said, had a salutary and moral influence upon rebel- lious and predatory tribes of natives and aggressive foreign powers. President Cleveland, in a recent annual message to Con- gress, spoke thus of the difficulties that at present threaten Liberia : — " A notable part of the southeasterly coast of Liberia, between the Cavally and San Pedro rivers, which for nearly half a century has been generally recognized as belonging to that republic by cession and purchase, has been claimed to be under the protecto- rate of France in virtue of agreements entered into by the native tribes, over whom Liberia's control has not been well maintained. More recently negotiations between the Liberian representative LIBERIA, AND MARYLAND'S OWN COLONY. 319 and the French government resulted in the signature, in Paris, of a treaty whereby, as an adjustment, certain Liberian territory is ceded to France. This convention, by last advices, had not been ratified by the Liberian legislature and executive. Feeling a sympathetic interest in the fortunes of the little commonwealth, the establishment and development of which were largely aided by the benevolence of our countrymen, and which constitutes the only independently sovereign state on the west coast of Africa, this government has suggested to the French government its earnest concern lest territorial impairment in Liberia should take place without her unrestrained consent." As to the lines of cable that now run between Europe and the west coast of Africa, their number is amazing. There are two lines of steamers running from England to all ports from Sierra Leone to St. Paul de Loanda; there are steam- boats on the Congo, on the Niger, on Lake Tanganyika, and on Lake Nyasa. They have plied, with occasional interruptions, upon Lake Albert and the Victoria Nyanza. There are Protestant missionaries and missions scattered all over Congo Free State, to say nothing of East Africa, besides Cardinal Lavigerie's White Fathers, — and yet, alas! rum, whiskey, gin, and brandy have been literally poured into Africa, and tribes where Christianity had seemed to be making progress now have their headmen drunkards. To the credit of Liberia be it said that, although Dr. Hall's prohibition of the importation of liquor into his colony has long been repealed, the importation and sale of spirits in Liberia is far less in proportion to the population than in other parts of Western Africa. Mr. Stanley, who has more than once been in Liberia, speaks thus of the young republic. He had been express- ing wonder that America, in view of her own share in the trade of Africa, had not done more to assist Liberia to develop her resources : — "The American people have apparently forgotten that it was through the philanthropy of their own citizens that the Free State of Liberia was ever founded; to the establish- 320 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. ment of which Americans had contributed two million five hundred and fifty-eight thousand dollars to create homes for the eighteen thousand free Africans whom they despatched to settle in that country. This state, which they ought to regard with honest pride, has an area of fourteen thousand square miles, and a revenue of over one hundred thousand dollars. Its establishment was a work well worthy of the great republic. It was her place to take the lead in pub- licly recognizing and supporting the great work of African civilization, and she ought to promote the extension of its commerce, in view of the future interests of the seven mill- ions of people of African descent now within the Union." From what has been said, however, it will be seen that our Federal government had nothing to do with the coloni- zation of Liberia- this was solely due to private philan- thropy and to the little state of Maryland. CHAPTER XII. England's liti'le wars. ENGLAND'S traditional policy is to abstain if possible from great wars. The universal satisfaction felt in England at the severance of the crowns of Great Britain and Hanover arose largely from the belief that England, being no longer a continental power, need have nothing to do thenceforth with continental wars. Twenty years later there was to be seen a iierce flame of warlike enthusiasm, which we now regard with astonishment, at the time of the Crimean War, but this was, as it were, a fire of straw. Eng- land had more than enough war from 1854 to 1858 in the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny. But with her vast extent of empire, owning, as the Queen-Empress does, the suze- rainty of one-sixth of the whole world, England has neces- sarily complicated interests to protect, and is continually involved in little wars. In Africa, during the past thirty years, she has engaged in six of these small wars. I have told of two of these, the war with Abyssinia in 1868, the war with Egypt in 1882. Four others remain to be accounted for ; the brief war with Coffee, King of Ashantee, in 1873, the war with Cetywayo in Zululand (1879), the war with the Boers (1881), and the recent war with King Lobengula in Matabeleland. The kingdom of Ashantee is in the west of Africa, and hes north of possessions on the Gold Coast under English protection. The inhabitants of Ashantee call themselves Santees, or Shantees, and are of the same race as the mis- erable cowardly Fantees who inhabit the EngHsh posses- sions. The Santees and the Fantees are continually at war. Y 321 322 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIX'TH CENTURY. The one race has been for ages the oppressor, and the other the oppressed ; nothing has prevented the subjects of the King of Ashantee from " eating up," as the African phrase is, the feeble Fantees but the power of the Dutch and Enghsh on the coast. Sir Garnet Wolseley, in an article in the " Fortnightly Review " on the " Negro as a Soldier," attributes the great difference between the two branches of a kindred race to their opposite forms of native government. The Ashantee kingdom is a pure despotism of the most rigorous kind. " It was at the time of its last war with the English a purely military monarchy, whose first aim was to be power- ful and to dominate over all its neighbors. The laws of the kingdom were little more than an iron code, intended for the government of an arm}', before the wants and require- ments of which every other consideration had to bend. All those laws which in civilized nations of to-day are designed for the protection of property and the social well-being of the men, women, and children who compose them, were contrived solely with a view to the fighting efficiency of the army ; upon which the kingdom rested, and which in fact was that kingdom itself." Several times the Santees had come into colHsion with the Enghsh. Once in 1S24, when they had the satisfaction of massacring an English army one thousand strong, and carrying off the skull of its general to the King's treasure- house at Coomassie, where it was mounted with gold and brought forth as a drinking cup for king and chiefs on great occasions. In 1833 another dispute occurred. Some fugitive slaves, belonging to the King of Ashantee, had taken refuge at Cape Coast Castle, under the protection of its governor Captain MacLean, husband of Miss Letitia Eliza- beth Landon, whose writings we all know as those of L. E. L.-^ 1 Captain MacLean was at one time popularly supposed to have murdered his wife, or to have driven her to commit suicide. The poor poetess died most probably of a wrong dose of medicine, which she swallowed when meaning only to take an anodyne. It is a melan- choly story of an ill-assorted marriage, but no blame seems justly due to Captain MacLean. CETVIVAYO. ENGLAND'S LITTLE WARS. 323 The dispute became so warm when the king insisted that the escaped wretches should be given up to his vengeance, that Captain MacLean organized an expedition into the Ashantee country, where fever and dysentery so attacked the troops that they died off like flies, and the best' attain- able peace had to be patched up. In 1872 the Dutch ceded Elmina and several other set- tlements they had upon the coast to the English. The Dutch had always paid some pension or tribute to the Ashantee king; this the English refused to continue. King Coffee then menaced the English with hostilities, and attacked the Fantees, who were under English protection. An army was sent out to punish and put him down. It was largely composed of black regiments from the West Indies, under the command of English officers. The general in chief was Sir Garnet Wolseley, who, in 1870, had distin- guished himself in a campaign in Manitoba. "In the Ashantee army," said Sir Garnet, speaking of the campaign, "each man fought in dread of the executioner's knife. The man in front felt that he ran less danger by going forward than by running away. The refrain of the Ashantee war-song, which they shouted in chorus when going into battle, was : — " If I go forward I die ; If I go backward I die ; Better go forward and die." If the coward deserted to the enemy, or became a fugitive to avoid condign punishment, not only was he an outlaw forever, but his children and nearest relatives paid for his sins by suffering decapitation or by being sold as slaves." The expedition started from Portsmouth in September, 1873. It was back again at the same port in March, 1874, with its work well accomplished. It was not the Ashan- tees — fierce warriors as they were — that were to be dreaded, but the climate. All had to be accomplished in the cooler months. "The success of the campaign was a question of days, almost of hours, and the victory was 324 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. snatched out of the very jaws of approaching sun and fever." Sir Garnet, who was a wonderful organizer, timed him- self almost to a day. He pushed on rapidly to Coomassie, burnt it, and began his retreat. He had not gone far when envoys from the king met him, proposing terms of peace. His Majesty was the great property owner and legal heir of his subjects. Wives were considered an important part of a man's property, as they cultivated his land, but the king was limited by an unwritten law to three thousand three hundred and thirty-three. One part of the treaty made by Sir Garnet Wolseley with King Coffee provided for the abolishment of human sacrifices. There are supposed to be vast gold mines in the Ashantee country, but they are under the protection of local demons, and, therefore, not worked. The only good or glory England got out of the Ashantee war was a sense of the admirable management with which it was conducted. The empire of King Coffee was broken up after the war; his prestige and power were gone. The nation split up into little clans or kingdoms; the king at Coomassie having, however, power to call out the chiefs as his feudatories in case of war. King Coffee died not long after, and those who came after him seem to have had neither his power, his prestige, nor his capacity. A traveller to Coomassie, in 1884, describes the town as inhabited by a dejected, demoralized people, scattered among a mass of almost tenantless houses, the homes once of a large population, now sadly reduced by war, the knife, and desertion. " A perpetual terror pervades the population, a terror in marked contrast to the calm of their brethren in the protectorate, who, untaught, untaxed, and protected, wallow through life in peaceful contentment." We turn now to South Africa and two other little wars, that with the Zulus in 1878, and the subsequent war with the Boers in the Transvaal, which took place in 1881. We ENGLAND'S LITTLE WARS. 325 may, perhaps, begin by correcting an error common, at least among middle-aged and elderly people, who took their first lessons in geography at their mothers' knees, viz., that the Cape of Good Hope is the southernmost point of Af- rica. It is not so by one hundred miles. The real south- ern point is Cape Agulhas, a bold bluff southeast of the reputed southerly point of Africa. On Cape Agulhas a lighthouse was erected by the authorities at the Cape in 1849. When the continent was first rounded by the Portuguese in i486, there may be said to have been three divisions of the aboriginal inhabitants of South Africa. Bushmen, the lowest in intelligence, physical structure, and moral instincts; Hottentots, differing somewhat from the Bushmen, even in physical formation; and the great Bantu race, commonly known to settlers by the generic name of Kafirs, of which the best-known tribe is the Zulu. Those who study the history of races believe these people to be the descendants of men of Indian blood who have intermarried with the negro race. "Among them, at the present day, are men with perfect Asiatic features, born of parents with the negro cast of countenance; and while, as a general thing, they seem unable to rise to the European level of civilization, not a few individuals have shown themselves possessed of mental power equal to that of white men." The first Portuguese commander to round the Cape of Good Hope in i486 called it the Cape of Storms. He was Bartholomew Diaz. Vasco da Gama followed him five years after Columbus had discovered America. In 15 10 a large party of Portuguese were murdered by Hottentots in Table Bay; and after that Portuguese fleets doubled the continent year after year, but never touched at a land inhab- ited by such dangerous savages. At the close of the sixteenth century a Dutch company was formed for trading with the East Indies and the Spice Islands. A similar company, a few years later, was incor- porated for trading to the West Indies, and had its head- 326 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. quarters at New Amsterdam on the island of Manhattan. The servants of the Dutch East India Company found the valley under Table Mountain an excellent halting place. It was held to be two-thirds of the distance from Amsterdam to Batavia, and soon a fort and a little settlement sprang up there. The company by degrees increased its colony. It made a rule that only married men of Dutch or German birth should be sent out, or have land assigned them. As each man proved himself capable to make a competent liv- ing, he had only to apply for his wife and children to be forwarded to him from Europe, and they were sent to him. Still the great cry in the settlement was for Europeans. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes many Hugue- not refugees in Holland consented to join a large number of emigrants forwarded by the company to its South African colony. In 1705 there was considerable discontent among the colonists with their governor; quarrels, more or less, went on during the century; the company was tottering to its fall, it was unable to bear the expenses of the colony, and in 1795 the colonists effected a revolution. At this time the revolutionary armies of France invaded Holland, and were received by the Dutch with enthusiasm. The English, looking on Dutch colonies as now French, lost no time in sending an expedition to South Africa and taking possession of Capetown. They held it till the Peace of Amiens, very much to the discontent of the Dutch colonists, whose domestic affairs they interfered with, im- pelled by English aversion to slavery. At the Peace of Amiens the colonists were restored to Holland, but only for two years. In 1806, when war again broke out with Napoleon, the English recovered the colony, and the last representative of the Netherlands in South Africa set sail in an English ship for Holland. The government of the colony at once became autocratic; every vestige of the democratic institutions which during three years the burghers had endeavored to re-establish, ENGLAND'S LITTLE WARS. 327 was swept away. Perpetual disputes and discontents arose, a large number of them growing out of divergent views concerning the treatment of the natives, whether free or in slavery. In 1820 and 182 1 nearly five thousand emigrants were sent out to the Cape by the British government. Capetown was becoming a most important station on the route to India. Villages and farms were scattered over the interior. But the English rule was always distasteful to Dutch farm- ers, called Boers, — the same word that is applied to German agriculturists, — bauer. Many of the Boers had acquired large farms, especially those who devoted themselves to grape culture, and made that delicious sweet wine, once popular in Europe, called Constantia. The disputes on the slavery question growing more and more bitter, large numbers of the Boers harnessed up their ox-teams, deserted their farms, and passed beyond the English jurisdiction, which then only extended to the Orange River. Some also settled in Natal. But English annexation pursued them even there. Natal became part of the British South African dominion, as well as the country between the head- waters of the Orange and the Vaal rivers, though that is now Orange Free State, having subsequently been given up to its Boer farmers, who have made of it an independent republic. These annexations brought the frontier of the English to the Transvaal, or land beyond the river Vaal, a country inhabited by the Zulus (a tribe of the Bantu or Kafir race), who dwelt also in Natal. In Natal many Boers had settled and made homes. The keenest antipathy of a Boer was to a Kafir; his next keenest dislike was to an Englishman. The Kafirs and the Boers lived in perpetual enmity. The Kafirs, of course, were savages, and the Boers, in their intercourse with Kafirs, were accused of being civilized savages, which is worse still. Kafir means simply z. pagan, and is the name given by Mohammedans to all idolaters. 328 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. The race that we call Kafirs call themselves Bantu, and are divided into many different clans or tribes, like our Red Indians. They are called by some a handsome race, and are dark copper-colored, though I should think the term "handsome" applied only to their physique, their faces, as represented in their portraits, being generally repulsive. They are proud of their nationality and of their persons. They can be genial, good-humored, and com- panionable, or ferocious, hypocritical, and untrustworthy. Strange to say, the Zulu power, which, in 1879, so sadly extinguished the hopes of the Napoleonic dynasty, owed its origin indirectly to the great Napoleon. Chaka, a young Zulu chief, heard of the great doings in Europe of " Sultan Buonaberdi," and resolved to imitate him. He formed a phalanx of young men around him like Napoleon's Old Guard, and imposed himself, by this organized force, upon liis neighbors as a sort of feudal emperor. His discipline was as severe as that of the King of Ashantee. He trans- formed his people into an armed nation by a system not very unlike that of Germany. Every man had to spend much of his life as a soldier. The only exceptions to this rule were the sorcerers. On these sorcerers he, however, looked with a jealous eye, as did his grandson, Cetywayo, who, after his captivity, complained that the English had enormously increased the power of those men by taking them under their protection and forbidding him to put them to death. Chaka having made his own land into a camp, cruelly ravaged Natal, leaving, out of a million of inhabitants, not more than twenty thousand. The Zulus are hunters, soldiers, and cattle breeders, while tribes of other races found among them are not unskillful workers in metals. The women are the agriculturists. The principal grain raised is a species of Indian corn, called mealies. But their chief food is milk and its various preparations. The heaven of the Zulus, peopled by their chiefs and great men, is a species of Valhalla. Witchcraft of course they firmly believe in. ENGLAND'S LITTLE WARS. 329 Up to 1848 what are now Orange Free State and the Transvaal RepubUc were settled by Dutch farmers, who had " trekked " north to be beyond British dominion. They could not have been said to have much government. Each Boer lived many miles from the farm-house of his next neighbor, and each patriarchal householder did pretty much what seemed good in his own eyes. If any circumstance called for magisterial interference he sought out the nearest landrost, who probably lived far away, like the minister or the doctor. There was no taxation, there was no police, there were no roads ; and with the surrounding savage tribes, or his own Kafir servants, the Boer dealt as he thought proper. England in 1852 distinctly recognized the independence of the Transvaal RepubUc ; and that of the Orange Free State in 1854. In 1874 there was a Kafir war in Natal between the English and a Bantu or Kafir chief, called Langalibalele. This man, though apparently lord only of a little village, had an immense influence over a number of the Bantu clans. Natives were forbidden to purchase fire- arms in Natal, but Langalibalele was accumulating a large number of guns and a considerable quantity of ammunition. Government demanded the arms, or at least such an account of them as might lead to their registration, and when obedi- ence was refused, sent troops to enforce it. The troops were resisted and suffered loss. Then the whole country awoke to a sense of danger. Volunteers poured in from every part of South Africa ; Cape Colony and the two repubhcs sent Natal help. By prompt measures the chief, with a large detachment of his followers, was surrounded, and surrendered to the Cape armed and mounted police. Langalibalele was imprisoned on Robbins Island, and many thought that he was treated with more harshness than was necessary. He was subsequently, however, removed to a large farm on the mainland, where he was joined by his wives and children. It was the fate of Langalibalele that subsequently inspired 330 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. the mistrust and suspicion of Cetywayo, that king whose name according to its spelling, Cetshwayo, it was said could only be pronounced by two sneezes and a cough. He had succeeded to the power of Chaka after a great victory over his own brother, and on his accession was inclined to be on good terms with the English, thinking he would acquire power and consideration among his people if the Great White Nation was known to be his friend and ally. He even proposed to go through a ceremony in which Sir Theophilus Shepstone (the English commissioner to the Transvaal, sent out by the English government to effect, if possible, a confederation of the South African States) should act the part of Pandulph, and himself that of King John. He also probably thought that, being a vassal of the English, he would be better protected from the Boers. He was personally much attached to Sir Theophilus Shepstone, also to John Dunn, an English sailor, whom he made one of his chiefs, to Bishop Colenso of Natal, and to a Dutchman named Vijn. Meantime the Transvaal Republic, which had little or no government, organization, or public money, made war on a Kafir chief called Secocoeni, who got the better of the Dutchmen. In their dread of being wholly overpowered, some of the leading men of the Transvaal appealed to Sir Theophilus and offered to turn over their republic, which was bankrupted, to England as the price of her protection. It was not a national offer. The majority of the Boers detested English rule. Sir Theophilus Shepstone, how- ever, too hastily accepted the proposition, and proclaimed the Transvaal to be an English colony. At this time (1878) disputes were going on about a strip of land of which the Boers claimed to have been purchasers, but which the Zulus declared had been only leased to them for a limited term of years. The Boers had to fly for their lives from the disputed territory, and Sir Bartle Frere, arriving from England only two days after Sir Theophilus Shepstone had, by proclamation, annexed the Transvaal, took the direction of affairs. ENGLAND'S LITTLE WARS. 331 By the time, however, that Sir Bartle Frere reached Africa, views in the English Cabinet of colonial policy had somewhat changed. Lord Carnarvon, whose pet scheme it was to consolidate into a confederation the South African States, as he had already done those in Canada, had resigned his post as colonial secretary. The Turkish war had just closed, with all the complications it entailed upon the rest of the European powers. The cabinet of Lord Beaconsfield had enough perplexing matters on its hands, and was by no means desirous to involve itself in disputes about fragments of South African territory. A bill permitting the South African States to form a confederation had been passed in the English Parliamentj but public opinion at the Cape was much opposed to the scheme. Cape Colonists objected to sharing the expense of guarding an extended frontier from the inroads of the Kafirs. Their own Kafirs were now peaceable, their Kafir wars were things of the past. "But those living near the frontier believed that the natives were growing in strength and restlessness, and were stirred by a general movement against the white people." This was Sir Bartle Frere 's own view. He had a sharp controversy with the local government at Cape Town, and then went to the frontier to see things for him- self. He seems to have formed the opinion that affairs in South Africa were analogous to those in India on the eve of the Mutiny. The Zulus were by far the most powerful of the native tribes, and Sir Bartle Frere, regarding their king as the probable leader in the general rising that he anticipated, seems to have felt that no time should be lost in firmly putting him down. Horrible massacres and barbarities had been committed by Zulus in the disputed strip of territory, and now that the Transvaal was annexed, it was the business of the British administration to deal sternly, decisively, and at 332 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. once, with Cetywayo and his people. English arbitrators had been appointed to investigate the rival claims to the disputed territory. They reported in favor of the Zulus and against the Boers. This was not what Sir Bartle Frere either wished or expected; and he delayed communicating the decision to Cetywayo, until he had introduced, not unreasonable stipulations, that the Boer farmers should be either compensated for their loss, or protected, accord- ing as they elected to leave their farms or remain on them. He also demanded that a British resident at the king's kraal should be especially charged with the duty of seeing this done. This began to inspire Cetywayo with distrust, and the Zulus are naturally suspicious. He remembered the fate of Langalibalele, and determined to prepare himself, as diplomatists would say, " for all even- tualities." He strengthened his army and made ready for war. An ultimatum was sent to him early in December, 1878, demanding that his army should be disbanded, or else the English would declare war. In vain the colonial ofifice had sent letters and telegrams from England, urging on its representative to avoid rather than precipitate a war in Zululand. Sir Bartle looked only to what he conceived was the welfare of the Transvaal and other African depen- dencies on the frontier. He forgot that England had other interests, and that the little war he proposed in his prov- ince might prove to her of no advantage. He had, however, taken the first step. He had sent his ultimatum on December 11, two days before peremptory orders from England to keep the peace reached him. Cetywayo declined to dismiss his warriors. On January 10, 1879, English troops entered Zululand. This force was under the command of Lord Chelmsford, and was composed partly of British soldiers, partly of colonists, and partly of blacks. It marched in three columns, and each had a prodigious train of wagons, drivers, and cattle; for the army had to carry its own supplies. ENGLAND'S LITTLE WARS. 333 The objective point was Cetywayo's chief kraal at Ulundi, in the centre of his dominions. It seems to have been taken for granted that the Zulus had no notion of tactics; but their movements had been well conceived, and were excuted with secrecy, celerity, and effect. On January 20, ten days after entering the country, the main body of the English army encamped on a hillside at a place called Isandlwana, a name to be long remembered by English- men, who are not used to a severe military disaster. Lord Chelmsford had written, " The country is in a terrible state from rain. I do not know how we shall manage to get our wagons across the valley. ... In seventy miles three rivers have to be crossed, which are almost impassable." No precautions were taken at Isandlwana to fortify the camp, no trench was dug, no scouts sent out; even the numerous wagons of the train were not used to form a laager. A local correspondent wrote at the time : — "The head camp was no camp; all wagons, tents, etc., were scattered about anywhere; and when the Zulus made their attack they came on like waves on the ocean shore, — never stopped, never shouted, or said a word, till our fellows, white and black, were surrounded; then they gave a shout and dashed at the camp, and in five minutes there was not a man left." Lord Chelmsford, the commander in chief, was absent. With part of his force he had gone to attack a kraal sev- eral miles away. A few men, chiefly mounted irregular cavalry, managed to make their way through the circle of Zulu spears and escape; but the ground was full of bowlders and the dry beds of irregular torrents, so that many were overtaken and killed; among them two young officers who were endeavoring to save the colors of their regiment. " Nearly seven hundred British soldiers, white and black, perished; and one hundred and thirty colonists. The victors' loss was estimated at three to one." The same afternoon the news reached Lord Chelmsford, who, under a blazing sun, hurried back his tired troops to 334 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. Isandhvana. The Zulus had departed, carrying off their plunder. Lord Chelmsford and his forces found little but the corpses of the slain. Destitute of stores, they had no alternative but to retreat. A small party, left to defend the crossing of the Buffalo River at Rorke's Drift, — or ford, — received warning in time to enable them to make a laager of cornsacks and boxes of biscuits, behind which they fought so gallantly that they drove off the enemy. "This splendid defence," says Mr. Theal, the latest and most exhaustive writer on South Africa, " saved Natal from invasion, for if the post at Rorke's Drift had fallen, the colony would have been open to the Zulus." Colonel Pearson, who was in command of another column, consisting of about four thousand men, of whom half were Europeans, crossed into Zululand near the sea, and marched towards Ulundi, the king's capital, or chief kraal, where it had been proposed that the three columns should unite. Fighting his way, he reached a Norwegian mission station called Etshowe, and there learned of the disaster at Isandhvana. He at once fortified the station and held it bravely till reinforcements reached him, on the arrival of Sir Garnet Wolseley from England. The third column, under Sir Evelyn Wood (since well known to the public by his connection with Egypt, and by his most interesting personal reminiscences of the war in the Crimea) also fortified a post, and held out although attacked by an immense Zulu army. It may easily be imagined what excitement this news produced in England and throughout South Africa. That an English army should have been surprised and massacred in broad day, by naked savages, seemed past belief. To Sir Bartle Frere the shock was the most terrible he had ever experienced; he said that in Natal there was a panic such as he had never witnessed during the Indian Mutiny. At home the ministry were vehemently attacked for their South African policy, and, although in Parliament ENGLAND ' S LITTLE WARS. 335 they supported their representative, they did not forbear from writing him a despatch to the effect that he ought not, without first obtaining the sanction of the British government, to have insisted in an ultimatum on the dis- bandment of Cetywayo's army; on his receiving a resi- dent; or on the fulfilment of his promises of better government. The despatch pointed out that no evidence had been produced of urgent necessity for present action, "which alone," it said, "could justify you in taking, without the full knowledge and sanction of the govern- ment, a course almost certain to result in war, which, as I had previously impressed upon you, every effort should have been made to avoid." Of course reinforcements were hurried out to Lord Chelmsford. In June, 1879, Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived to become governor-general of Natal and the Transvaal, but the military command remained with Lord Chelms- ford, who had already completed arrangements for an advance -upon Ulundi. Before Sir Garnet arrived upon the scene, the disaster at Isandlwana had been retrieved, and a final battle fought with Cetywayo. His men had lost heart. Since their first triumph they had been unsuc- cessful in every attack on the white men. Lord Chelms- ford penetrated to Ulundi, and in the battle that followed formed his men into a hollow square, against which the rush of Zulus dashed itself in vain. Utterly defeated, the army of Cetywayo dispersed, never to be united again. Ulundi and the military kraals near it were burned. The war was over. The colonists were dismissed to their own homes, and all that remained to be done was to make Cetywayo prisoner. He successfully eluded capture a long time. Not one of his subjects could be, for many weeks, induced by bribes or threats to betray him. At last one man yielded to temptation, and pointed out a little kraal on the edge of a thick forest, where, weary and footsore, he was resting. The English officer in command of the party in pursuit 336 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. threatened to burn down the hut, when the king came forth and, standing before him, said: "You would not have taken me, but I never thought troops could come down the mountain through the forest." A chief, seven men, a boy, five women, and a girl were captured with Cetywayo. With the reinforcements sent out to Zululand to retrieve the disaster of Isandlwana went the Prince Imperial, son of Napoleon III., and the Empress Eugenie, who was then little more than twenty-one years old. He had been educated at Woolwich, the West Point for English officers; all his companions were going; it was the first opportunity he had had to see war; to show himself to the French people as a man and a soldier; to begin to acquire that experi- ence that some day would enable him to head French armies against Germany, and recover the lost prestige of his name. There may have been another motive, too, a desire to stand well with the English people, in view of a possible marriage with the youngest English princess. Lord Chelmsford was not glad to see him. He felt a new responsibility added to his cares. And yet it was hard to thwart and to resist the poor young fellow's great anxiety to be of use and to see service; which, with his gentleness and humanity, endeared him to all his com- rades, and proved him to be a true soldier to his heart's core. For some time he acted as extra aid-de-camp to Lord Chelmsford. After a while, however. Colonel Harrison of the Engineers, having been appointed assistant quarter- master-general, with Lieutenant Carey of the 98th Regiment as his assistant. Lord Chelmsford requested the colonel to give some work to the Pripce Imperial, as he was anxious for it, saying he did not find enough to do as an extra aid-de-camp. For some days he worked hard at office work, then, as Lord Chelmsford was going to the town of Newcastle for a few days, Colonel Harrison sug- gested that it would be advisable in his lordship's absence PRINCE LOUIS NAPOLEON. ENGLAND'S LITTLE WARS. 337 to make a reconnaissance into Zululand, to determine the exact route by which fresh columns were to advance a second time to Ulundi. Lord Chehnsford assented, and told Colonel Harrison to take the prince with him. The prince had brought several horses from England, but one he had given away and others had fallen sick, so he provided himself at Newcastle with another charger, a handsome, spirited gray animal, but at all times hard to mount. The prince was delighted with his reconnoitering life, the simple fare, the comrade-like association, the camp-fire cooking, the strange country, the sight of the enemy, the exhilarating gallops over hill and dale, and the night bivouac. It made him feel, he said to Colonel Harrison, that he was doing soldier's work as he had never done before. Colonel Harrison, having determined to advance further into the enemy's country, sent back the Prince Imperial to Utrecht, but a few days later he was surprised by the reappearance of the prince, who, having obtained Lord Chelmsford's permission, came galloping into his camp to rejoin him. The expedition had some little skirmishes with the Zulus, and accomplished its work successfully. The prince was then attached to the quartermaster's depart- ment with orders in writing never to go outside the camp without a sufficient escort, which would always be given him. The prince's especial work was making a map of the country. He was an artist and a draughtsman by nature. As soon as one thing was done he was asking for more. He and Lieutenant Carey were great friends. Carey had been at a French school and spoke French well, although this was no object with the prince, who spoke English and French with equal fluency. On May 31 the prince was told he might go out and report on the roads, etc., for the marching of the troops the next day. Lieutenant Carey asked leave to go with 338 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. him, to verify a sketch he had made the day before. Colonel Harrison had intended to send another officer, but replied: "All right — then you can look after the prince." Six European soldiers and six natives were to have been the escort, but the latter kept the party waiting, and finally the prince, Carey, a guide, and the six English soldiers started without them. This was the fatal mistake; the natives, with their wonderful powers of sight and hearing, were always considered essential to an escort in such a country. After some hours the prince and his party halted at a recently deserted kraal, surrounded by tall, dry grass. They unsaddled their horses and turned them out to graze. The prince and Carey began sketching. The prince was thought to have his great-uncle's gift of recognizing, at a glance, the strategic capabilities of a country. It was about three in the afternoon when they halted. In half an hour a soldier reported that he saw a Zulu on a neighboring height, and the prince gave the order to saddle the horses and mount. Some of the men were already in their saddles when a sudden volley was fired on them, out of the midst of the tall, dry grass. A scouting party of Zulus had been creeping stealthily up to them under the thick cover. The horses all started and swerved. The prince's reared and became restive. He was unable to mount. No man seems to have known what any of the rest were doing. One of the troopers was a Frenchman, who called out to the prince : " Depechez vous, monsieur! " — but did not pause to help him. To be sure he was hardly on his horse's back himself, but flew by lying across his saddle. The prince was doing his best, but in another minute he was left alone. " He was seen endeavoring to mount his restive charger, running beside it, the enemy close at hand. He made one desperate attempt to leap into the saddle by the help of the holster flap; that gave way, and then he fell. The ENGLAND 'S LITTLE WARS. 339 charger dashed riderless past some mounted men, but, alas ! not one turned back. About dusk they galloped wildly into camp with news that the brave young prince, for or with whom each of them should have died that day, lay slain upon the hillside, where he had made his last brave stand alone." Two soldiers were killed and the native who had served them for a guide. Next day a cavalry patrol was sent out to search for the prince's body. They found it lying about two hundred yards from the kraal where the party had stopped to sketch. The body was stripped of everything save a gold chain round the neck, to which hung some medallions. Could one of these have been the tiny fragment of the so-called true cross, set beneath a sapphire that had hung round the neck of the Emperor Charlemagne, whence it was taken when his grave at Aix-la-Chapelle was opened in the presence of the great Napoleon? Napoleon III. inherited it and always wore it as a talisman. The body had eighteen assegai wounds, all in front. The spurs and one sock were found near, and marks of a desperate resistance. The two white soldiers were buried, and a cairn was raised to mark the spot where the prince fell. His body was placed upon a soldier's bier of lances lashed together, and carried back to camp, thence to the sea-coast and embarked on board Her Majesty's ship Orontes, which bore it home. He was buried beside his father at Chiselhurst, and his statue was erected in Westminster Abbey. A year later, when the war was over, his unhappy mother went out to South Africa to visit the place where he had been slain. On her voyage she paused at St. Helena, and went to see the nineteen-years resting-place of the body of the Great Napoleon. A memorial had been raised by private soldiers on the spot where the prince was killed. The white stones with which it had been made were shaped by 340 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. English soldiers in the garrison. The headstone and those composing the letter N were white, the others were of a darker color. Over these stones the long grass of South Africa now waves. Subsequently a beautiful white cross was put up on the spot by Queen Victoria. The little graveyard has been walled in. It is kept in good order by a neighboring Zulu chief, and the Zulus, when they enter the enclosure, make always their military salute. " Much has been said and written of the gracious and gentle side of the prince's character. Yet he also pos- sessed in a great degree the dash and elan of a thorough Frenchman. His political position was always a dignified one. He refused to issue any manifesto which might have brought a civil war on France. He had declared, how- ever, on the day on which he attained his majority, that, /'If, for the eighth time, the French people should, by universal suffrage, declare in favor of a Napoleon for their ruler, he was ready to accept the trust of imperial power." He left, by will, his rights to the imperial crown to his cousin, Victor Napoleon, thus overlooking his father's cousin. Prince Jerome Napoleon, who, however, assumed the title of Prince Imperial. Lieutenant Carey was tried by a court of inquiry, which indignantly condemned his conduct. A court-martial, however, acquitted him : as the prince, and not himself, had been in command of the party. It is said that the Empress Eugenie, through the queen, used her influence to have him dealt with leniently. He was released from arrest and returned to duty. Cetywayo, after his capture, was not received by Sir Garnet Wolseley with any courtesies, but was forwarded to Cape Town. Here many persons saw him, although not some members of the family of Bishop Colenzo, who were very friendly to him, it being considered undesirable to excite him by sympathy. Here is an account by one who was allowed to visit him. ENGLAND'S LITTLE WARS. 34I " At ten A.M. we were introduced and found Cetywayo sunning himself on the ramparts of the castle, and having his hair dressed. He shook hands with all of us, a good wholesome grip, with a cool hand, and a huge fist. He was sitting on a mat spread on the ground, and had on a red tablecloth, which partly covered his body and his enormous thighs. His manner was subdued and self-possessed, and he seemed extremely shy of being looked at. He said he had known in his head all along that his army would be beaten by the English, and did all he could to prevent a war. He was very angry, he said, with his young men for kill- ing the officers taken at Isandlwana. He had told them to bring to him all who wore swords. But they said they could not dis- tinguish them. He had been measured for a suit of clothes and a pair of boots, which subsequently, however, he hated to wear, a good deal appalling propriety in this respect when he arrived in England." There he was treated with consideration and kindness, and had a personal interview with the queen. " No cap- tive," says Mr. George M. Theal, "ever conducted himself more decorously than the fallen chief of the Zulus." "Zululand was divided by Sir Garnet Wolseley into thirteen districts, each of which was placed under the government of a chief independent of all the others, and nominally guided by the advice of a single British resi- dent. But this plan of settlement did not answer, and in 1883 Cetywayo was allowed to return to his own land. In England, where he was very well received, he had, by his sensible observations and dignified deportment, acquired the favorable opinion of every one with whom he came in contact. It was thought that, after the experience he had gone through, he might, without imprudence, be allowed to return to his own country, upon making his promise to observe conditions that would prevent his power from becoming dangerous again. Some of his people welcomed him back, but a larger part adhered to a rival chief named Sibepu. War at once broke out between these chiefs, and when Cetywayo died the following year, it continued between his son and Sibepu. But the state of confusion and strife became such that, in 1887, what remained of 342 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. Zululand was, of necessity, annexed to Great Britain. It was divided into six districts, and a European magistrate, supported by soldiers, now has charge of each." It was natural that the son of Cetywayo should object to this disposal of his country. He endeavored to create disturbances, and it became evident to the English that order could not be maintained while he remained in the country. He was, therefore, in 1889 sent, with two other chiefs, to reside at St. Helena. The Zulu war having terminated, England had before long to deal with the Boers. The Dutch of the Transvaal were wholly averse to the annexation to the British Empire that had been proclaimed four years before. Their first governor. Sir Theophilus Sheptsone, they personally liked, but when he was succeeded by Sir Owen Lanyon, a man of a haughty, unconciliating disposition, the general feel- ing gained ground that if the Dutch settlers could not recover their independence by fair means, they must commit their cause to God, and take up arms. Their ex-president. Burgers, addressing a sympathetic crowd of his countrymen, exclaimed: "But one heart beats in the breasts of Dutchmen from Table Mountain to the banks of the Limpopo ! " At that time the descendants of the Dutch and the French Huguenot settlers outnumbered the British settlers about eight to one. The proportion is now the other way. The Africanders descended from the Huguenots have been always treated by Dutch Boers with great respect, a feeling that, at the time of which I now write, by no means extended to Englishmen, who were known to the Dutch only as soldiers, meddlesome adminis- trators, rough navvies, impudent shop-keepers, or washers in the diamond fields discovered in the Orange Free State in 1870. The favor shown by the English to the blacks was most odious in the eyes of the Boers, while, on the other hand, the Kafirs professed much devotion to the Great White Queen, whom they called their "mother." When, in 1880, the Boers received intelligence that Mr. ENGLAND'S LITTLE WARS. 343 Gladstone, who, in his Mid-Lothian speeches, had de- nounced their annexation as unjust, was the Queen's Prime Minister, they naturally concluded he would give them back their independence; not understanding that party speeches made before a general election might prove very inconven- ient to a ministry that considered itself pledged to act upon them when in power. For a time excitement in the Trans- vaal calmed down, and the farmers patiently waited for the fulfilment of words that they looked on in the light of promises. Sir Garnet Wolseley and a large part of his soldiers were called home, and the administration of the Transvaal, civil and military, was transferred to Sir George Colley. Then, when it was known that Mr. Gladstone declined to pull down the British flag in the Transvaal, matters came to a crisis. A great meeting of the Boers took place; three of their number, Kruger, Pretorius, and Joubert, were formed into a triumvirate to conduct the government, and the volksraad resumed its functions as the supreme legislative power. This took place December 16, 1880. The English colors were hauled down and the flag of the South African Republic was hoisted in their place. Under General Joubert, a leader of French Huguenot descent, the Boers, with great bravery, attacked English troops in every direction. Disaster after disaster came upon the English arms. An attack on part of the g4th regiment took place, in which the English were massacred or captured almost to a man. There was an English stronghold in the Transvaal called Standiton, which it was very important to hold till help could arrive from England. An English officer who belonged to the 94th regiment, but was not with it when his comrades were attacked, was sent to "hold the fort" as long as possible. He subsequently published a narrative of the defence of Standiton in three very interesting papers in "Blackwood's Magazine," called "Besieged in the Trans- vaal." The Dutch farmers considered themselves to be 344 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. fighting in a righteous cause, and with the blessing of Heaven. They would kneel down on the field after a vic- tory and return thanks to God for preservation and success. Standiton stood not far from the river Vaal, the boundary between the Transvaal and Orange Free State. Day after day for two months, i.e. from December 23 to the begin- ning of March, the little garrison expected the arrival of an English column to their relief. But the column had been repulsed. On February 20, 1881, Sir George Colley, in an attempt to come to their help, had taken position on a height called Majuba Hill with a little force of about six hundred. The Dutch charged straight up the hill in the face of the enemy. The troops of Sir George Colley were seized with a panic, and he himself was killed. The loss of the Eng- lish was ninety-two killed, one hundred and thirty-four wounded, and thirty-nine taken prisoners, while the Dutch farmers lost only one man killed and five wounded. Matters grew very serious. Orange Free State and Natal were greatly excited, when President Brand of Orange Free State offered his mediation, and an armistice was concluded early in March, which permitted the English to send provisions to Standiton and two other besieged places. Finally a peace was concluded. The Transvaal was to be an independent republic, under the suzerainty of Queen Victoria, whose resident agent was to conduct all matters relating to its foreign policy, i.e. disputes with neigh- boring states, or Kafir tribes, but was not to interfere in any way with its domestic government. CHAPTER XIII. DIAMOND FIELDS AND GOLD MINES. IT seems impossible to understand the past or present history of English power in South Africa without some knowledge of the geography of its various states, and of their present different forms of government. First there is Cape Colony, the presiding state, which, ever since 1852, has had its own parliament, but not until 1872 a cabinet responsible to that body. It has, besides, a governor appointed by the crown, the office being held at present by Sir Hercules Robinson, who is, besides. Imperial High Commissioner for South Africa. There is a small property qualification required for voters. A man who can sign his name, write his address, and has property worth seventy-five pounds, or a salary to that amount, can vote for his representative in the House of Assembly withotit regard to race, color, or condition. The native races in Cape Colony are the Bushmen, the Hotten- tots, and the Bantu or Kafirs; the two former races are dying out, in consequence of association with civilization, but the latter thrives. In 1865 a large territory called Kaffraria was united to Cape Colony; and other colonies have been "taken over," as it is called, by degrees; that is, they become crown colonies, and send representatives to the Cape Town parliament; previously they were British protectorates, that is, their own chiefs and headmen carried on home rule, subject to interference by a British resident, who kept the chiefs in order. Before, however, a province became a protectorate, it formed j)art of the British 345 346 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. "sphere of influence," extending to the line of limitation marked out by treaty with other European powers. No foreign power may intrude upon this " sphere of influence," but it is expected that Great Britain or its chartered com- pany of South Africa, to whom it has delegated its powers in this "sphere," will visibly establish its authority within its bounds as speedily as possible. North of Cape Colony is the Orange River, which is the southern boundary of the German " sphere of influence " in Western Africa. East of German territory, and north of Orange River, lies British Bechuanaland, which is under three kinds of gov- ernment; the southern part is a crown colony; the centre a protectorate ; the north, containing Mashonaland and Matabeleland, is a "sphere of influence," given over to the chartered company, which is doing its utmost to develop its resources. Cape Colony is washed on the west by the Atlantic, and southeast by the Indian Ocean, but on its east side just south of Natal is a small native state, Pondoland, which is enclosed on three sides by British territory, and on its remaining border has a seacoast with a fine port called St. Johns, which was reserved by treaty to Cape Colony. An English resident is stationed there. The present chief of Pondoland is a young man v/hose grandfather was one of the most savage tyrants on record, even in Africa. North of Cape Colony, on the eastern coast, is Natal, a state which, in 1S93, acquired "responsible" government. The Drakenberg chain of mountains runs down this part of Africa, one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles from the sea, and forms the western boundary of Natal. The climate of Natal is tropical for about fifteen miles from the coast; but beyond this it becomes temperate as the land rises in a series of terraces, ending in a lofty table-land. North of Natal, with a long coast line but no seaport, lies Zululand, now under British protection. To its north, on the borders of the Portuguese "sphere of influence," DIAMOND FIELDS AND GOLD MINES. 347 lies a small district called Anatongaland or Tongaland; while wedged into the South African Republic (or Trans- vaal) is Swaziland, which has recently been annexed to the Dutch Republic. Hemmed in by Tongaland, Zululand, and Swaziland, to which it afforded an exit to Delagoa Bay, is a tiny strip of land which has cost diplomatists much trouble. Till lately it was occupied by three chiefs, one of them a woman. Within a few months it has been assigned to England, to the great annoyance of the Boers, who wanted to find an outlet through it to the sea, their country lying entirely inland. Portuguese territory in East Africa, with a long coast line, lies north and east of the " sphere of British influ- ence " and east of the South African Republic. It pos- sesses Delagoa Bay, which receives the Limpopo and other rivers. Lorenzo Marquez, a fine seaport, is on this bay. We used to call the country Mozambique and Monomotapa. West of the Drakenberg, and north of the river Vaal, lies the Transvaal or South African Republic, whose largest town is Johannesburg, but its capital is Pretoria. South of the Vaal, and north of the Orange River, which has its rise in the Drakenberg, is another little Dutch Republic — Orange Free State. Its capital is Bloem- fontein. West of Orange Free State, lying north of the Orange River, is Griqualand West, with its capital Kimberley (Griqualand East is part of Kaffraria). Then north of Cape Colony, west of Portuguese territory, and east of the German sphere in Southwest Africa, is that sphere of British influence, accorded in 1891 to the chartered com- pany of South Africa, whose chief town is Salisbury. It is with the diamond fields of Griqualand West, and the gold mines of the Transvaal, Mashonaland, and Matabeleland, that this chapter concerns itself.-^ ^ It may assist the reader's memory to have a brief summary of the twelve divisions of South Africa : — I. Cape Colony. Capital, Cape Tovi^n. Seaports, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and East London. 348 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. One day, on a farm in the northern part of Cape Colony, in 1867, a child was observed to be playing with a remark- ably brilliant pebble, which a trader, to whom it was shown as a curiosity, suspected to be a gem of much value. It was sent for examination to Grahamstown, and pro- nounced to be a diamond of twenty-one carats' weight, and its value five hundred pounds. Search was immediately commenced in the neighborhood by several persons in odd hours, and soon another, though much smaller, diamond was found. Then a third was picked up on the bank of the Vaal River, and attention was directed to that locality. " During 1868 several diamonds were found, though as yet no one was applying himself seriously to looking for diamonds. In March, 1869, the Star of South Africa (now in possession of Lady Dudley) was obtained from a Hottentot, who had been in possession of it a long time, without the least idea of its value, except as a powerful charm. It was a magnificent brilliant of eighty-three carats' weight, when uncut, and was readily sold for eleven thousand pounds. From all parts of South Africa men now began to make their way to the banks of the lower Vaal to search for diamonds, and trains of wagons, conveying provisions and goods, were to be seen on every wagon track leading to the interior. Some of the diggers were fortunate in amassing wealth, but this was by no means the case with all of them. Diamond digging, in fact, was like a great lottery, with a few prizes and many blanks. But it had a powerful attraction, and shortly many II. Pondoland. Seaport, St. Johns (annexed to Cape Colony). III. Natal. Capital, Pietermaritzburg. Seaport, Durban. Other towns, Utrecht and Newcastle. IV. Zululand. Chief station, Etshowe. V. Tongaland. VI. Swaziland. VII. South African Republic (or Transvaal). Capital, Pretoria. Other towns, Johannesburg, Heidelberg, and Barberton. VIII. Orange Free State. Capital, Bloemfontein. IX. Basutoland. X. Griqualand West. Capital, Kimberley. XL British Bechuanaland. Capital, Vryberg. Other town, Mafe- king. XII. The Protectorate of Bechuanaland, and sphere of British influ- ence, including Mashonaland and Matabeleland. Chief town, Salisbury. DIAMOND FIELDS AND GOLD MINES. 349 in it. The quiet, simple, Iiomely life of the South African farm and village in olden times — rarely disturbed, except by wars with Kafir tribes — had passed away forever, and a bustling, struggling, restless mode of existence was rapidly taking its place. The wealth of the country was enormously increased ; for diamonds soon attained a high place in the exports ; but it may be ques- tioned if the people were, on the whole, as happy as they were before. . . . After a while much richer diamond mines than those along the Vaal were discovered on some farms to the southward, and most of the diggers removed to them. The public offices of the district in which they were situated were at a considerable distance, but as soon as arrangements could be made by the Dutch government a resident landrost was appointed, a postoffice was set up, and some policemen were engaged." Such is Mr. Theal's account of the first years succeeding a discovery that created in South African life a social revolution. It was soon found that the richest mine was on the spot now called Kimberley, in a tract of land beyond the Orange River, whose possession was disputed between a Griqua chief and the Orange Free State. The Griqua chief, named Waterboer, claimed the land, but sold his claim to the English. Orange Free State denied Water- boer's claim, and the Transvaal Republic also professed to have an interest in the matter. Not many months before, in what was called the Con- vention of Aliwal, the English government was supposed to have pledged itself to interfere with no lands further north than the Orange River. But circumstances in politics appear to alter cases. An immense, rough, lawless popu- lation began a mad rush to the great mine. Almost all these men were of English birth, and it seemed necessary that the strong hand of England should be stretched out to keep them in order. By an arbitration which the Dutch party held to be unfair, the land in dispute was adjudged to England. It received the name of Griqualand West, and was soon a British protectorate. The whole Dutch population of South Africa was made furiously angry. They accused the English of having 350 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. violated the Treaty of Aliwal before the ink was dry. The old dogged animosity of the Dutch to the English was revived in all its bitterness. Orange Free State refused to take any part in settling the boundaries of the newly annexed British province. The native tribes became insubordinate, and confusion reigned. Meantime, diamonds were dug out in enormous quanti- ties, but the natives, who worked in the diggings with the whites, expended their earnings in rifles and ammunition. A brisk traffic in powder, balls, and guns was carried on by them with other natives. It was thus that the Zulus got the arms with which they fought the British at Isandl- wana. The quiet possession of Griqualand West was finally secured by an offer on the part of the English gov- ernment to pay ninety thousand pounds to Orange Free State in satisfaction of its claim, and the country, in 1880, was definitively annexed to Cape Colony. After this offer was accepted, and the public debt of Orange Free State was largely reduced by the sum paid into its treasury, the sore feeling entertained on the sub- ject began to die away. The burghers could not but reflect that perhaps it was better for them, on the whole, to be relieved from the responsibility of keeping order among the diggers. Besides this, they had discovered other mines in their own undoubted territory, and hoped to profit from English enterprise in various ways. "Since this settlement of the question the Free State has enjoyed constant peace, and no part of South Africa has made greater progress. Roads, bridges, and good public buildings have been constructed, and an excellent system of public schools is maintained by the govern- ment." Kimberley, which can now be reached by railroad from the seaboard, is forty-two hundred feet above the sea. After leaving the immediate coast the land rises gradually, till, after ascending a ridge three or four thousand feet high, the traveller, who expects thence to descend into a DIAMOND FIELDS AND GOLD MINES. 35 1 valley, finds himself on a wide, sandy plain which formed, possibly, a vast lake in bygone ages. Kimberley mine, formerly called New Rush, obviously from the rush of diggers who flocked to it in 1870, has now been excavated to the extent of thirty-five or forty acres. That and three other mines, the De Beers mine, Bultfontein, and Der Toits Pan, are owned by a great syndicate which has expended vast sums on labor and machinery. In i8gi the excavation in Kimberley mine had gone seven hundred feet below the surface. In its original state, before this mine was hollowed out, the land had been staked off in a variety of small claims. These were bought up by companies who introduced steam machinery. The diamonds are found embedded in what is called blue rock. The toughness of this rock necessi- tates the use of dynamite, and the heavy blasting is described as startling. The hours for blasting are midday and after sunset, when all men are out of the mine. " Then, with deafening roar after roar, begins the fusilade. Masses of the ground heave with a burst of smoke, tremble and crumble to pieces. For ten minutes the great noise flaps and buffets round the -chasm. Then the smoke clears away, and for twenty-four hours there is peace. Enough * blue ' has been loosened for the next day's work." "All search for diamonds is done above ground. The labor in the mine is simply to attend to sending up the ' reef, ' that is, the fragments of blue rock shattered by the blast, which is carried to the surface in iron buckets hauled on wire ropes by water power. " When brought to the surface the ' reef ' is tipped on to the depositing floor, where it undergoes a variety of processes before it is ready for washing. Finally, what are called dry sortings are deposited on tables, and the dia- monds are picked out by hands, black and white, under the strictest surveillance. The pretty red garnets and other pebbles are swept aside, and the diamonds are dropped into a sort of locked poor-box, until, finally, its 352 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. contents, all classified and valued, lie on the office table of the company on their way to impregnable safes." Unlawfully to possess an uncut diamond subjects the individual to very severe penalties, the maximum being imprisonment with hard labor for fifteen years. But these penalties having proved insufficient to suppress what are called the I. D. B. or Illicit Diamond Buyers, the "com- pound system " is now employed. Each company has a large yard or compound, one side of which is enclosed by buildings, the other by sheet-iron walls ten feet high. This compound has an opening into the mine. In it the native workers sleep, eat, bathe, and receive medical attendance, should they be sick. And during the time they engage to serve — that is, two or three months — they are never allowed to go out of it. Of course on their _^departure they are rigorously searched; so, too, each day, as they come from the mine, when each man undergoes, naked, a searching of mouth, ears, nose, hair, and arm- pits. So rigorously is the search made that it is almost impossible to conceal a diamond. "The largest diamond up to 1891 found in South Africa is the 'Porter Rhodes,' belonging to the De Beers Com- pany. Before cutting it weighed four hundred and four carats; after cutting, one hundred and fifty carats. It is a purely white diamond, and worth sixty thousand pounds. In the Bultfontein mine one weighing one hundred and fifty carats was discovered; and stones from this mine, though they average a size smaller than those from the other mines, are said to excel in color." The declared value of the diamonds exported in 1892, as officially reported, was ;^3,9o6,992.^ The purely 1 " The production of the four diamond mines at Kimberley was, in the year 1890, nineteen million dollars, and the yield of the Kimberley mine alone has, in fourteen years, — 1871 to 1885, — probably exceeded one hundred million dollars in value. The total export of diamonds from the Cape from the date of their discovery until the present, 1893, has probably exceeded three hundred and fifty million dollars. The annual expenditure in procuring the product is now five million dollars, DIAMOND FIELDS AND GOLD MINES. 353 white diamonds are rare at Kimberley; amber-colored, pinkish, lilac, blueish, and black are abundant. The "dry diggings " do not often produce the best white stones. "The question which agitates the anxious diamond digger is to know how the blue rock, the diamondiferous deposit, came there. And this is to him a practical ques- tion. Does the 'blue' come from below? And if from below, from what unknown depth does it come? Or has the 'blue ' entered the mine from above, running down in a muddy stream carrying, besides the diamonds, shells, and pieces of carbonized wood along with it? The most prevalent impression is that the diamonds are the result of enormous pressure and of the effect of fire upon metals in the depths of the earth. Yet on this theory it is hard to account for the presence of delicate shells and carbon- ized wood which could not have resisted extreme heat." Kimberley is a large and flourishing town, abounding in hotels, saloons, club-houses, and billiard-tables. The country round it for thirty miles is bare of trees, all having been cut down to feed the steam machinery. " At its Diamond Exchange you meet men of all ranks : officers of the army and navy, always foremost on any field of adventure; university men and Eton and Harrow men, acting as time-keepers, or secretaries on the works. At Kimberley there is now little or no prospecting by indi- viduals; all diamond workers are employed by the com- panies. The wages for a Zulu are one pound a week, that of a white worker five pounds." Kimberley is a city of one-storied houses built of corru- gated iron. The church, the clubs, the hotels — everything and the exportation is limited to four or four and a half millions of carats annually, to prevent a depreciation in price. The advantages to the Cape Colony and to the commercial world at large of the diamond industry, are the employment of native labor and the demonstration of the native's willingness to work, which so many still doubt, the teaching of haljits of industry, and the steady advance of civilization into hith- erto unexplored regions." — George R. Stetson, Washington, D.C., Liberia Bulletin, November, 1893. 2 A 354 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. inhabited by man or beast — are roofed and often walled with corrugated iron. Young trees are being planted round the houses to repair the devastation of past years. At one time Kimberley was sadly destitute of water; an ample supply is now brought from the Vaal River. From six to eight every morning the market-place is thronged with the ox wagons of burly Dutch farmers, bringing products of all kinds from Orange Free State and from the neighboring country. The wagons of South Africa are drawn by spans of eighteen or twenty oxen harnessed to each wagon, in charge of Kafir drivers. Daily, numbers of these wagons bring logs and branches of wild olive and camel 's-thorn trees for the use of the steam engines. Individual enterprise in diamond digging, though extinct at Kimberley, still flourishes for seventy miles along the banks of the river Vaal. There the operations of the diamond seekers are much like those of the old gold washers with pick and pan in California. The average find of a Vaal diainond digger is estimated at one hundred and twenty -five pounds a year, about six hundred and fifty dollars. Sometimes hundreds of " loads " of earth will not afford a single diamond; then, perhaps, a rich pocket is found under some great boulder, and a handful of diamonds is turned out. The gross yield of diamonds from the river throughout the year remains pretty much the same, over four thousand pounds a month. There are, however, advantages enjoyed on the Vaal by the individual prospector. The climate is healthy, living cheap^ and other expenses far lighter than at Kimberley. The Vaal is a deep stream, and, except in case of a pro- longed drought, there is little chance of prospecting in its bed, where it is thought a great deposit of diamonds might be found. Bloemfontein, the capital of Orange Free State, is thus described by Lady Frederick Cavendish, who, in 1890, made a visit to Kimberley to see her clerical brothers, one DIAMOND FIELDS AND GOLD MINES. 355 of whom was settled at Kimberley, the other at Bloem- fontein. " Passing from Kimberley, with its money making and diamond market and smart shops and ' go-aheadness,' into the Free State, with its undulating desert solitudes, its wagons with spans of oxen, trekking at a mile an hour, and its scattered homesteads, was like driving out of the nine- teenth century into the Book of Genesis." In 1 88 1 the Transvaal, after having been for four years subject to England, was given back to its Dutch adminis- trators, and has been since that time the South African Republic, a title which seems rather to intrude upon the Orange Free State, which is likewise a republic in South Africa. It contained, in 1881, one thousand English inhabitants to eight thousand of Dutch extraction. The proportions are now reversed, the English numbering eight to one; while Johannesburg, its chief city, promises to be second only to Cape Town in a few years. "About eighteen years ago Sir Hercules Robinson (the present governor of Cape Colony), when on a visit to the Transvaal, camped out on a site near the present town of Johannesburg and remarked to two gentlemen on his staff : ' If I were in Australia I should say that I was standing on a gold field ' ; so similar were the soil and the lay of the land to the gold regions in Australia with which he was familiar. He proved a true prophet, and on that very spot is now gathered a great array of diggers and miners, bring- ing gold to the surface in ever-increasing quantity." In 1885, four years after the re-establishment of the republic, very rich and extensive gold fields were dis- covered in a range of hills which are the watershed between the Vaal and Limpopo rivers. It had been long known that there was some gold in the Transvaal, but the supposed quantity was not sufficient to attract atten- tion from the outside world. But the production of gold went on, so much increasing, that the export of gold for the year ending December 31, 1893, was worth nearly four 356 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY, and a half million pounds sterling.^ The country has, also, iron in abundance, silver, lead, copper, and several other minerals. After the discovery of gold the prosperity of the country largely increased, and its revenue has far exceeded its expectation. Villages have sprung up, telegraph lines are constructed, rivers have been bridged, and roads opened. Mr. Froude, in "Lectures on South Africa," delivered before the Philosophical Institute in Edinburgh, January 6 and 9, i88o, thus speaks of the character of the Boers: — '^ " The South African Republic is larger than the United King- dom. Its soil is admirable, its mineral wealth is as varied as it is boundless. Scattered over the surface are eight thousand or nine thousand Dutch households. The Transvaal Boer, when he settles on his land, intends it for the home of his family. His _estate is from six thousand to twenty thousand acres, and his wealth is in his sheep and cattle. He comes on the ground in his wagon. He builds sheds or pens for his stock. He encloses three or four acres of garden, carrying a stream of water through it. He plants peaches, apricots, oranges, lemons, figs, apples, pears, olives, and almonds. In a few years they are all in full bearing. The garden being planted, he builds a modest house. In his hall he places his old chairs and tables, which his father brought from the Colony ; his sofa, strung with strips of antelope hide, and spread with antelope skins. He has generally but one 1 Mr. Barnato, at a meeting of the Johannesburg Water Works Estate and Exploration Company, held in London, December 5, 1894, said : " It may be a bold prophecy, but I am prepared here and now to make it, that I should not be surprised if within the next two years the output of the Transvaal mines alone should, instead of two hundred thousand ounces, be three hundred thousand to three hundred and fifty thousand ounces per month, equivalent to sixty million dollars or sixty- five million dollars a year." — The Statist, London, England. Never- theless, of sixty-five companies in the Transvaal, but twenty-five have declared dividends within three years. They are using all their earn- ings, which are great, to put in additional machinery. "^ We all know Mr. Froude to have been a special pleader for any cause in which he was interested. His character of the Dutch farmers is corroborated, however, by all who know them; but his bitter arraignment of the policy and methods of the English govern- ment in South Africa is in his own peculiar style and with all his usual force. DIAMOND FIELDS AND GOLD MINES. 357 book, — a large-clasped Bible, with the births, deaths, and mar- riages of his family for half a dozen generations on the fly-leaf. He breaks up fifty acres of adjoining land for his corn and green crops. There he lives, and begets a huge family ; huge in all senses, for he has often a dozen children, and his boys grow to the size of Patagonians. When a son or daughter marries, another house is built for them on the property ; fresh land is brought under tillage ; and the Transvaal is thus being gradually filled up, in patriarchal fashion, by a people who know nothing of the world and care nothing for it ; who never read a news- paper ; whose one idea beyond their own concerns is hatred of the English ; but who are civil and hospitable to English trav- ellers and sportsmen. They are a proud, stubborn race ; free, and resolute to remain free ; made of the same stuff as their ancestors who drove the Spaniards out of Holland. I stayed with more than one of them. The beds were scrupulously clean ; the food plain and abundant. Before and after meals there is a long grace. The day begins with a psalm, sung by the girls. They are strict Calvinists, ignorant, obstinate, and bigoted. But even Calvinism has its merits. They are, I sup- pose, not unlike what Scotch farmers were two hundred years ago. I inquired much about the slavery said to prevail there. I never saw a slave, or anything like one." The coach drive from Kimberley to Johannesburg is two hundred and eighty miles. It takes three days to accom- plish it in an old-fashioned country stage, drawn by ten mules and two horses. Johannesburg is an even more wonderful place than the newest of our Western cities. In 1886 the land on which it stands was a solitary, silent plain, with (as Sir Hercules Robinson believed) a proba- bility of gold beneath its surface. The Dutch govern- ment in that year planted its flagstaff in the waste, and proclaimed the territory a gold field. In i88g this is a traveller's description of the place : — "For a new town, named only in 1886, there was a sur- prising manifestation of Old-World liveliness. It almost seemed as though a handful of miners had bought a town ready made, with streets, squares, and public buildings complete; and that some great carrying company had brought it over sea and land and delivered it in a habitable 358 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. form, with the electric light laid on, the beds made, and the corks drawn for dinner." In 1854 gold had been first remarked in the northern portion of the Transvaal. But it was not till 1884 that gold in that region began to be much talked about. One man averred that his assays showed nine hundred and thir- teen ounces of gold to the ton. The Dutch government sent out officers to inspect the gold fields. "The line of reef was satisfactorily determined. Government de- cided to proclaim the land on nine farms a gold field. There was a rush of diggers and speculators, traders and tradesmen, and in a twinkling the town of Johannesburg rose, as it were, out of the earth. To the farmers, whose land was thus appropriated, was reserved the right to take up for themselves a pro rata area according to the size of 'their farms, and in all instances their homesteads were secured to them. The rest of the ground was then thrown open at the rate of one pound per claim a month, one-half of which went to the farmers who had owned the land, and one-half to the government." The discovery and development of the gold fields came at a happy moment for the newly restored South African Republic. Its financial condition in 1884 was so bad that the gravest fears were expressed by local politicians lest their country should drift into bankruptcy; again be obliged to seek the protection of England, and so lose their regained and dearly cherished independence. The Dutch farmers, too, have thriven by the gold seek- ing and the influx of English money. "Many have received for their farms sums of money they had never dreamed they would possess. But the Boer farmer has little liking for the bustle, stir, and excitement raised around him by speculation and by labor; when he makes a large sum by the sale of his land he does as his father did before him. He harnesses up his ox teams and goes away to some unsettled region to look for land, where he may make a quiet home, undisturbed by the commercial spirit of the nineteenth century." DIAMOND FIELDS AND GOLD MINES. 359 Gold-mining, however, in the South African fields has been too often disappointing. "The gold is there," says the correspondent of the "Pall Mall Gazette," "not in chunks to be had for the asking; not in richness which would repay the cost of bringing machinery in balloons; but in such quantities as mankind will not readily give up the hope of winning from its rocky envelope. ... At present (the letter was published in 189 1) only half the gold in the ore is got out, and even that half cannot be got out at a decent profit." All expenses are enormous, especially the cost of trans- port. "The gold industry," it has been said, "is crushed under the ox wagon of the Boer." The gold region lies nearly three hundred miles beyond a railway terminus, and from eight hundred to one thousand miles from a shipping port. Goods forwarded from Port Elizabeth were some- times, in 1893, three months in reaching Pretoria. This city, an old Dutch town, is the seat of government, and of the parliament or volksraad. The present executive of the republic is President Kruger, who is serving his second term, and is deservedly popular. He is now about sixty- five years old, and was born in Cape Colony. His history is that of most Africanders in the Transvaal. When ten years old he trekked with his father and mother to Orange Free State; thence to Natal; and finally to the Transvaal, where the family ultimately settled. At seventeen he was appointed assistant field cornet, and at twenty became . commandant of a district. Thirteen years later he was created commandant general of the Transvaal, and, under President Burgers, became vice-president, being finally elected president in 1883. We may not unreasonably ask why no railway was at once projected to connect the gold fields with the sea-coast, and we shall receive the reply that the Boer farmers strongly objected to having their republic crossed by English lines of railway. It would be destructive, they thought, to their lucrative monopoly of hauling by ox teams; and to them 360 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. it would bring no compensating profit. There were miners and speculators enough in the country, in their opinion, and it was not Boer policy to offer those who were there facilities, or to bring in more of them. But since 1891 a company, called the Netherlands South African Company, has found aid and favor with both the Portuguese and South African Republicans. A line from Pretoria to the Vaal River, passing Johannesburg, is now open. At its terminus on the Vaal it connects with the great trunk line through the Orange Free State, whence it branches south by three lines to Cape Town, Port Eliza- beth, and East London. This great trunk line has, by the British Chartered Company of South Africa, been carried north to Kimberley and Mafeking, whence it is now under construction to Salisbury, the most important British station -in Matabeleland. There is also a railway in the Trans- vaal from Johannesburg to "the Springs," passing over a great coal region which supplies fuel to the city and to the quartz-crushing machinery along a route of fifty-five miles. A very important piece of railway is being constructed between Port Beira, a Portuguese town on Sofala Bay, and Salisbury. Natal, also, has her railroad, which is to con- nect her port of Durban with countries in the interior, which, ten years since, were accessible only by teams of oxen. Much of the recent development of South Africa is due to the British South African Company, which received its royal charter in 1889. This charter entrusted it with the development of the extensive regions lying south of the Zambesi. These, by the recent Anglo-German convention of 1890, which apportioned unappropriated parts of Africa to European powers as "spheres of influence," have been proclaimed British territory, and are being now developed rapidly. CHAPTER XIV. RHODESIA. I HAVE called this chapter by no recognized geographical name, but by one which newspaper writers and others apply frequently to the vast country in which Mr. Cecil John Rhodes is now prominent, and which he earnestly desires to consolidate into one powerful South African Empire. Mr. Rhodes is the fourth son of the Rev. F. W. Rhodes, vicar of Bishop Stortford, Hertfordshire. He was born July 5, 1853, and is, therefore, little more than forty years old. He went to Oxford, but broke down in health before he took his degree. Then, being ordered to South Africa to check pulmonary trouble, he joined his eldest brother, who was a colonist in Natal. On the discovery of the diamond fields in Griqualand West both brothers joined the rush, and Cecil Rhodes embarked his few pounds of capital in what appeared to him to be profitable schemes. His ventures were all successful, because judicious, and in a little more than four years he was worth, it is said, a million of pounds sterling. Satisfied with this large fort- une, and with his health fully restored, he returned to England, and, having studied hard even while actively engaged in practical life, he went to Oxford and obtained his degree. He then went back to South Africa determined to prove himself a financier and an administrator. He organized a powerful diamond and gold-mining syndicate; was elected to the Cape Parliament as member for Kimberley; and, in 361 362 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 1890, accepted the premiership. Before this, however, he had accompanied General Gordon, who, during his brief stay at the Cape, made a campaign into the Basuto country. "The two men, with strong fundamental similarities and divergencies, could not fail to be attracted by each other, though they were not the kind of men to share opinions upon each and every topic. Now and then, doubtless, discussion would wax warm. 'You are the sort of man, ' the general impatiently said to Mr. Rhodes on one of these occasions, 'who will never approve of anything you don't arrange yourself.' But Gordon appears to have had a great liking for, and a high opinion of, Rhodes, for before he started on his last mission to the Soudan, he wrote to him, asking the young politician — Mr. Rhodes was then in the Legislative Assembly — to join him as his -private secretary." It may be well to add here that Mr. Rhodes emerged from the somewhat sordid jnilieic of Kimberley finance with the reputation of a man of incorruptible honesty, whose promise was a bond always strictly fulfilled. Day after day in Cape Colony his influence increased. He dreamed again the dream of Lord Carnarvon and Lord Beaconsfield, i.e. the close federation of the various states of South Africa — and their possible future absorption into one system of government. " His vast scheme of South African unification soon began to bear fruit, and the colony, almost to a man, was behind him." The mining syndicate, of which he became the head, is known under the title of the Consolidated De Beers Mines. In 1889 the British South African Company received a royal charter, entrusting it with the development of the extensive regions lying to the south of the Zambesi, which the year before had been proclaimed British territory. The chairman of this company is the Duke of Abercorn- his coadjutor is the Duke of Fife, the Prince of Wales's son-in-law. Mr. Rhodes is its most active managing director. He is a tall, stalwart, broad-shouldered man, ^ CECIL JOHN RHODES. ^ RHODESIA. 363 whom no one would suspect to have come out to Africa twenty years ago as an invalid. His manners are quiet and unassuming, and he has the power possessed by other very great men, of temporarily relieving himself at will from the strain and stress of mental worry. He is a sports- man, a great lover of horses, and a scholar. In a speech made recently before the shareholders of the British South African Company, Mr. Rhodes said, summing up the geo- graphical power and importance of South Africa: "We have a country twelve hundred miles in length and iive hundred in breadth, and it is mineralized from end to end." This is the country popularly named Rhodesia, of which it is the purpose of this chapter to speak, though briefly, for at present its history is a record of beginnings. Mr. Rhodes has had six brothers. Mr. Herbert Rhodes, the eldest, was killed while elephant-hunting in the Ny- asaland; Colonel Frank Rhodes distinguished himself in the Soudan campaign, and was in command of the ist (Royal) Dragoons. Sir Herbert Stewart spoke of him as " the best aid-de-camp it was ever the good fortune of a general to have." Captain Ernest Frederick Rhodes is in the Royal Engineers; Captain Elmhart Rhodes in the Royal Berkshire regiment. Another brother is farming near Buluwayo, and the youngest is a captain in the Royal Artillery. It is, indeed, a family to be proud of. Its principal member has not escaped the notice of a very prominent novelist. Mr. Anthony Hope has sketched his career in "The God in the Car," which will make him widely known to fiction-loving readers. When the South African Company entered on its duties of administration in the country assigned to it by its charter, a good understanding existed between Lobengula, who governed Matabeleland and Mashonaland, and the white gold seekers, not very numerous in 1889, although large min- ing concessions had been made to English companies. In that year a pioneer force, under Colonel Pennefather, was despatched into Mashonaland from Kimberley. In Septem- 364 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. ber of the next year it reached a spot in the mountains where many mining claims had already been staked out, and some were in operation. A fort was built and called Fort Salisbury. The Union Jack was hoisted, a royal salute was fired, and the town of Salisbury, destined ?iereafter to be a place of paramount importance in South Africa, was begun. Salisbury is now connected with the sea-coast by a railroad through Portuguese territory. It has had, I may say from the first, telegraphic communication with Cape Town; it has good hotels, churches, and a newspaper. It stands about five thousand feet above sea-level, and ''enjoys an abundance of that peculiarly exhilarating air which is only to be found in the tropical highlands." The valleys and low lands that must be passed to reach it are, however, full of fever. The unfortunate chief, Lobengula, the pot de terre des- tined to be crushed by the pot de fer whenever they should come into collision, was not a native ruler of those lands. His father, Moselekatse, was an invader, conqueror, and oppressor. When the great Chaka, aiming to imitate the "Sultan Buonabardi," — rumors of whose power and glory had reached even the Zulus, — organized his army, Mosele- katse was one of his great sub-chiefs, but on his proving insubordinate to some royal command, Chaka marched against him with a great body of his warriors. On arriv- ing, however, in the district of the offender, Moselekatse and all belonging to him were not to be found. They had crossed the Drakenberg, and entered the Transvaal. There they were not long tolerated by the Boers, and were driven north to form a new nation in a new country. They brought with them Chaka' s ideas of army organiza- tion. Their warriors were banded into regiments. They made war upon the docile, peaceful, cowardly Mashonas, to whom the land belonged. From that time forward, that is to say, for more than sixty years, the cruel raids of the Matabele, — the name by which the followers of Moselekatse are known, — have desolated the country of the once peaceful RHODESIA. 365 and, in some respects, semi-civilized Mashonas. " For years and years," said the traveller who explored the ancient ruins in that region, " Mashonaland has been the happy hunting-ground of the Matabele. It is impossible to speak too emphatically upon the misery wrought by the Matabele on the Mashona tribes. Matabeleland is to-day full of Mashona slaves. The aristocratic Matabele do not care to do their own work, but entrust the care of their cattle and their fields to Mashonas snatched from their homes and their relatives in their annual raids. This is why all Mashona villages are perched on rocky pinnacles, and when we travelled through untrodden paths in Ma- shonaland, we could see the naked black savages scampering away up the rocks, like goats or lizards; and on more than one occasion we had some difficulty in explaining to them that we were not a Matabele band." The name Mashona is unknown among these people. They call themselves Makalanga, which means " Children of the Sun." Three hundred years ago, when Portuguese traders penetrated into their lands, their chief was called the Monomotopa, and under the name of Mokaranga, his people were well described by one of the missionary fathers. There was once a great empire of the Monomo- topa, which in time split up into various sub-chieftainships. The Mashona or Makalanga are very skilful in smelting iron ; whole villages devote their time to working in that metal, tilling no land and keeping no cattle, but exchang- ing their iron-headed assegais, barbed arrow-heads, tools, wire, etc., for grain and such commodities as they require. At the proper season whole villages go forth into the for- ests to collect bark, which is woven into blankets, bags, string, quivers, and even beehives. The bark industry is second only to that of iron-smelting among them. The most wonderful thing, however, in Mashonaland is its ruins, — ruins of great cities built by an unknown race. The land may be Ophir, — the land of gold of Scripture. The Portuguese, in 1506, discovered a ruined city, in- 366 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. habited by a people they called Moors, ruling over a sub- ject race of Kafirs. Of late years Mr. Theodore Bent has been employed by the Royal Geographical Society to explore these ruins, and has written on the subject a very interesting book, abounding in illustrations. The princi- pal ruin is at a place called Zimbabwe, whence for three hundred miles the remains of a line of fortifications may be traced, works which seem once to have connected the strong- hold of Zimbabwe with another similar city and fortress, leaving no doubt that they are the work of the same people. Whoever may have built these wonderful structures of hewn stones, — here and there ornamented with somewhat rude tracings, it is evident that they were attracted thither by gold, and that these masses of masonry were constructed partly for the protection of miners, whose shafts and work- ings may still be seen in their vicinity, also as strongholds for extracting and storing the precious metal. Near Tati, the most southerly of the fortifications, old diggings are met with by thousands, along with more modern shafts and workings, showing that the Portuguese, or natives whom they encouraged to seek gold, have striven to follow the example set them by the builders and miners of an unknown period. The triple walls of Zimbabwe are, in some places, thirty feet high, and are built of cut granite stones about the size of bricks; but columns, pilasters, and even figures of colossal birds, carved for the most part in soapstone, are found among the ruins. It is said that when the Port- uguese first visited the ruins there were inscriptions on some parts of them, but they were not of any interest to rough traders and missionaries, and no trace of them can now be found. It would be impossible here to enter into the arguments by which Mr. Bent seems conclusively to prove that these buildings, their pillars, monoliths, round towers, and temples, were of Phoenician origin. That quartz was crushed and gold extracted is proved by the remains found in some places, and by the tools that have been used. RHODESIA. 367 There would have been many more remains of pottery and other objects in the ruins had not many parts of them been converted, at one time, by Kafirs into habitations. Though no mortar has been used in their construction, the floors are made of cement, composed of pounded granite, as are some steps in the principal temple. It is curious that the more important of these ancient buildings are found on the sunless side of a hill. This, to a certain degree, has been the cause of their preservation, the natives loving sunshine and dreading to be chilly. Mr. Bent, accompanied by his wife, some gentlemen, and a small body of white workmen, stayed at the ruins of Zimbabwe two months. He engaged the native Mashonas to work for him, and soon found them handy, honest, and careful. Here are a few lines from his description of these people : — ■ "The men were forever dancing; either a beer drink, a new moon, or simple, unfeigned joviality being the motive power. Frequently on cold evenings our men would dance round the camp-fire. Round and round they went, capering, shouting, and gesticulating. Now and again scouts would be sent out from the dance, who would engage in fight with an imaginary foe. If one had not had personal experience of their cowardice, one might almost have been alarmed at their hostile attitudes. On pay-day, w^hen our thirty workmen each received a blanket for his month's work, they treated us to a dance, each man wrapped in his new acquisition. Their chief presided with his sceptre and battle-axe, and a string of very ancient Venetian beads around his neck, brought, probably, into the country long ages back by traders from Portugal. It was a most energetic and ridiculous-looking scene as the blankets whirled round in the air and the men shouted and yelled with joy. The novelty of possessing a blanket was an intense delight to these savages." The features of these people were less negroid than those of the common run of Kafirs. Everywhere, in their 368 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. appearance and their customs, Mr. Bent seemed to find traces of their Arabian or Semitic origin. Such were the people into whose land of peace Mosele- katse and his warriors suddenly came. The old chief died about 1870, and for a time the affairs of the Matabele were managed by an old prime minister, while search was made for the eldest son of the chief, who had gone down to Natal and been killed in a skirmish with some Boers. When his fate was ascertained, Lobengula, the next son of Moselekatse, was proclaimed king. One of his first acts was to grant gold-mining concessions to Mr. Thomas Baines, then in his country as agent for one of the new gold-finding companies. Mr. Baines had been associated with Living- stone in one of his explorations, and enjoyed great respect and confidence among the native tribes. Lobengula was repeatedly and very sincerely assured that the cession of these mining privileges involved no cession of sovereignty. He was, in general, disposed to be very friendly to the English, believing that the countenance and friendship of white men would give \\\Ta. pi-estige among his people. In 1888 he said to Lieutenant Maund, who visited his country as agent for some mining company : " I am afraid of being eaten up either by the Portuguese or the Boers, — the Boers come to my country and also the Portuguese, but I will not have them eat me up. I wish to make friends with the Great White Queen, but the Boers tell me that there is no White Queen, — that England has been eaten up by the Dutch long ago. I don't know what to believe among them all. You must do this for me. Maundy, — you must take two of my chiefs home with you to England, and let them see the Great White Queen themselves and bring me word again." He furnished money for their expenses, and Lieutenant Maund, though much embarrassed by the commission, accepted it, being sure that if he refused the king would believe all the stories of there being no White Queen, and would make the best bargain he could with the Dutch. RHODESIA. 369 The lieutenant took his charges down to Cape Town, where the High Commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson, at first made much objection to the irregular embassy, but at length having learnt all the facts in the case, he permitted them to proceed to England. There, after some diflficul- ties, an informal interview with her Majesty was arranged for them. The queen received them with the utmost kind- ness, and ordered a turn-out of fifty Life Guardsmen to receive them. These magnificent men, all over six feet high, in splendid uniforms, greatly impressed the chiefs. And when their king's letter (which he had dictated to Lieutenant Maund) was placed in the White Queen's hand, their joy knew no bounds, — they had accomplished their mission. A year later, however, the chartered company of South Africa assumed jurisdiction over the British sphere of influence, lying between the protectorate of Bechuana- land and the Zambesi. Neither Lobengula nor his chiefs had made any resistance to the advance of the pioneer force under Colonel Pennefather, which built Fort Salis- burv for the protection of the mining region; but there was great excitement among the young warriors of the Matabele regiments, and it required all the restraining in- fluence of the older chiefs, and of King Lobengula, who was anxious to protect the lives of the white men in his dominions; to prevent murder and outrage in Mashona- land; and attacks on the pioneer force as it made its way to Salisbury. Having reached that place, and built a fort, September, 1890, the greater part of the pioneers dis- persed to prospect in the surrounding country. "Around Fort Salisbury there was a network of old workings and deep shafts, proving the existence of gold, and how it had been looked for by the ancients." The English now considered themselves masters of Ma- shonaland, which is the eastern portion of the sphere of British influence confided for protection and development to the chartered company of South Africa. Three principal forts were built, Fort Salisbury, Fort Victoria, and Fort Charter. 370 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. During 1891 and 1892 the European population con- tinued to increase. Wagons blocked the miry swamps and rocky hillside roads that led to the new thriving towns of Salisbury and Victoria. The railroad between Salis- bury and Beira, through Portuguese territory to the Indian Ocean, was being pushed forward. The miners suffered much from fever, "the sickness" among their horses, starvation, and a general lack of medicines and supplies; but no general attack was made on them by the Matabele. Lobengula was still able to restrain his people. But, although at considerable risk to himself he protected the lives of the white men, he did not see why, having given mining concessions to the English, those concessions need restrain him from the privilege of making raids on the Mashonas. For fifty years the Matabele had harried the Mashonas when it pleased them; and in July, 1893, a band of warriors broke into the district around Victoria, killed four hundred Mashonas, who were at work for European settlers, murdered domestic servants before their masters' eyes, wrecked homesteads, drove off cattle, and threatened the white men that their day was coming. The settlers in Mashonaland at once drew up a memorial to the British South African Company imploring its pro- tection, and urging that horses and other supplies might be sent them at once, that they might advance on Lobengula' s capital Buluwayo. Dr. Jameson was then the company's administrator in Mashonaland. Mr. Rhodes instantly raised recruits, including three hundred men from the Transvaal; collected supplies; and, notwithstanding the lateness of the season, pushed forward a column into Matabeleland on the west, while Dr. Jameson, with the other leading white men in Mashonaland, was untiring in his efforts to equip and organize a co-operative force as speedily as possible. By the end of October, 1893, this little force of six hundred and seventy white men, supported by a small native con- tingent, was ready at Victoria and Charter to advance in two columns on Buluwayo. RHODESIA. 371 Meantime the main body was pushing onward from the south, by a more difficult road, into Matabeleland, which lies west of Mashonaland and borders on the unoccupied sphere of German influence in Southwestern Africa. This body consisted of two hundred men of the Bechuana police, under Colonel Goold-Adams; three hundred men recruited in the Transvaal under a brave and efficient officer, the commandant Raaff j and a force of two thou- sand men sent by Khama, a native chief living in the protectorate of Bechuanaland. King Khama is thus described by Mr„ Theodore Bent, who is excellent authority : — " He is a model savage, if a black man who has been thor- oughly civilized by European and missionary influence can be called one. He is an autocrat of the best possible type, whose influence in his country is entirely thrown into the scale of virtue and the suppression of vice. Such a thing as theft is not known in his realm. He has put a stop to drinking, and to the wiles of witch-doctors among his people. He conducts, in person, ser- vices every Sunday, in his large, round Hotla or place of assem- bly, standing beneath the tree of justice and the wide canopy of heaven, in a truly patriarchal style. . . . Khama in manner and appearance is a gentleman, dignified and courteous. He wears well made European clothes, a billy-cock hat and gloves, and in his hand he brandishes a dandy cane. He pervades every- thing in his country, riding about from point to point wherever his presence is required, and if he is just a little too much of a dandy it is an error, in his peculiar case, in the right direction. On more than one occasion he has driven back Matabele raids from his country, which is the threshold of Mashonaland, a series of rivers dividing it from the high plateau where dwell the tribes we collectively call Mashonas. Fifty years ago these people had no external enemies to molest them. Their quarrels, jealousies, and rivalries were all amongst themselves. Then came Moselekatse and his Zulus, and made short work of the aborigines, taking from them the best part of their country, which we now know as Matabeleland." Unhappily Khama' s contingent, though it fought bravely beside the English in one battle, deserted in a body a few days after. The season for ploughing had arrived, small- 3/2 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. pox had broken out, and the campaign promised to be long. These reasons seemed sufficient to men not trained in Euro- pean codes of military honor. The commander in chief of the three Mashonaland col- umns marching to invade Matabeleland was Major Patrick William Forbes. Some men thought that in accepting the responsibility of invading the lands of the warlike Matabele with a force of seven hundred and fifty men he was doing a rash thing in face of the opinion of a great military authority, expressed three years previously, that success could not be hoped for with an army of less than seven thousand men; but he says himself: "I had always looked upon the Matabele as being overrated, and thought that with our superiority, both as regards men and arms, we ought to be successful; in addition to which I knew -that Dr. Jameson had had considerable experience in Matabeleland and that he was satisfied it was safe." A great difficulty at starting was to procure suitable horses. Horses "unsalted," as it is called, were almost sure to die of a lung disease peculiar to the climate. The force had three Maxim guns, one of which was drawn by horses, one by mules, and the other by oxen; besides this there was a small one-pounder Hotchkiss gun. One of the Maxims fired shells. The success of the expedition lay in this artillery. The officers in command of the three troops in the Salisbury column were Captains Heany, Spreckley, and Borrow. The last-named lost his life in the disaster on the Shangani River at the close of the expedition. The Victoria column was commanded by Captain Allan Wilson, late an officer in the Queen's service, who was in command of the thirty-four who perished afterwards at the Shangani River. The Tuli column was composed chiefly of Dutch Boers, who had settled in Mashonaland; commander Raaff, their commander, survived the war, but died shortly after, broken down by its hardships. There was a scouting section which rendered invaluable service, two of its men RHODESIA. 373 especially, called the American scouts, Messrs. Burnham and Ingram, who had been trained for that work by service among the Indians. The point chiefly insisted on by Major Forbes was that each night his camp should form a laager. That is, that its wagons should encircle it, guarded by the Maxim guns, which were always in position. The horses were picketed within the camp, the oxen close around it, the wagons on the outside. It was the custom of the Matabele to attack before daylight. Their natural mode of fighting was to rush on with their assegais, but, unfortunately for them, they had been armed with rifles, whose management they imperfectly understood. The white men constantly heard their chiefs (indunas) exhorting them to throw away their guns and trust to their assegais, but they generally preferred to fight under cover of the bush. There the Maxim guns, of which they were horribly afraid, had them at advantage. In no instance did they get near enough to the laager to rush upon it, and the loss of the little European force in killed and wounded was extraordinarily small. The Salisbury column, which was in advance, left Charter October 2, 1893; two weeks later the Victoria column joined it, and they moved on together, the weather proving very wet; for from the middle of October to Christmas is in Matabeleland the rainy season. They had constant skirmishings, but no severe fighting until they came within a short distance of Buluwayo, when they were attacked by the whole Matabele army. According to the tactics brought from Zululand by Moselekatse, that army was organized into ijnpis or regiments. Several of these, the Insukameni regiment in particular, considered themselves invincible. They marched boldly, straight up to the laager, when the Maxims and the Hotchkiss gun drove them back. When half their number had been killed they desisted from their attacks. One wounded induna or chief, subsequently taken, laughed, though even then in mortal agony, at the idea that his incomparable 374 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. regiment should have "been beaten by boys." Indeed, when one looks upon the portraits of the officers and men preserved for us in the handsome volume called "The Downfall of Lobengula," the extreme youth and comeli- ness of all concerned in the expedition is the first thing that impresses us. A few days after this battle another engagement took place with two other crack regiments, the Imbeza and Ingubu, whose chiefs had scorned the Imben- besi for being worsted in the fight, and had assured the king that they would walk into the white men's laager and lead them out on the other side, killing the older men and keeping the rest for slaves. They had been ordered to attack the columns on their march, when the Maxim guns were supposed to be useless, but they could never find the opportunity. The Imbeza regiment, which led the advance, lost about five hundred men out of seven hundred. They acknowledged themselves to be completely beaten, though they could not understand how it was so. Thus the Mashonaland columns met and practically annihilated the most formidable force that Lobengula could send against them. Exactly a month after the columns left Charter Buluwayo was occupied by the English, and the army of Lobengula was scattered over the country. The king had quitted his capital, burning his own build- ings and his own storehouse, which contained much valu- able ivory, but giving orders to the people whom he left behind to destroy the city, to spare the houses and the lives of some white men who had still remained under his protection. Buluwayo was entered on November 2, and on November 10 the news of its capture was published in the London papers; Mr. Burnham, one of the American scouts, having ridden two hundred and ten miles in four days to carry the news to Palapye in the protectorate of Bechuanaland, whence it was telegraphed to Cape Town and to England. This was not the only famous ride at that period through RHODESIA. 375 a hostile country. In the Bechuanaland Border police, — a force composed of men of all sorts and conditions, — university men, professional men, burghers, farmers, and adventurers, — was Corporal Owen Hassall. He was the son of an English gentleman; had a taste for active life, and had first tried his fortune in Canada; thence he found his way to Africa. When Colonel Goold-Adams, command- ing the southern advance, had reached Buluwayo, it became necessary to send him a despatch from Colonel Gray, who was bringing up reinforcements and was near the danger- ous Mangwe Pass in the mountains of Matabeleland. Mr. Owen Hassall at once volunteered for the duty. Leaving the Mangwe Pass at 9 a. m., in company with one trooper, he reached Buluwayo, seventy-four miles distant, at noon the next day. The country was still hostile, infested by small parties of the Matabele intensely irritated against white men, and eager to attack isolated traveller^, who were not backed by a conquering force, or protected by Maxim guns. This journey was rendered the more hazardous as the last twenty miles had to be performed on foot, when their horses were broken down and failed them. This was only one of many hair-breadth 'scapes and bold, brave deeds that signalized the African career of this young soldier. "It is to be hoped," said the "Army and Navy Gazette," when recording his adventure, "that when the despatches arrive at headquarters the plucky ride of this non-commissioned officer will be noticed, and his gallan- try rewarded." This hope has been fulfilled by the imme- diate promise of a commission which will enable him to devote his whole life to military duty. Some of his rela- tions are officers of rank in the service of her Majesty. The annals of this Matabele war, which lasted only three months, are full of episodes recording individual feats of self-devotion and bravery. It seemed to the authorities of the chartered company of immense importance that Lobengula should either send in his submission or be captured. Messages were sent to I'j6 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. him offering liim his choice of these alternatives, but mes- sengers were very difficult to find. They dreaded, not the displeasure of the king, in whose consideration for the English they seemed to have confidence, but the anger of the young men who surrounded him. Twice Lobengula expressed his intention of coming in and holding a conference with Dr. Jameson, if assured of safety, but meantime, accompanied by a small force, he was travelling with two wagons, himself drawn by sixteen men, in a bath- chair, to the Zambesi River, which he was urged by his younger warriors to cross, and, like his father Moselekatse, form a new nation. He was terribly infirm. He had gout and a complication of disorders, so that his sufferings in his rapid flight, hunted from station to station by the force under Major Forbes, must have been terrible. "Although the nation," says Major Forbes, "acknowl- edged itself beaten and a large number of the natives wished to submit, they would do nothing so long as the king remained at large and in the country. He had, tliere- fore, to be captured or driven out of it." As the major and his men advanced to the Shangani River day by day, on the heels, as it were, of Lobengula, they had frequent skirmishes. Whenever they took prison- ers, or met natives in their kraals who did not attack them, they assured them of protection or advised them to return in peace to their abandoned homes. The expedition, however, grew short of supplies, and it became necessary to turn back to Buluwayo. Before doing so Major Wilson proposed to take with him a small party, and crossing the river reconnoitre the position of a scherin, or temporary camp, about four miles further, where it was supposed the king lay. Two days before they had come on the remains of his old bath-chair, and one account says that his empty beer-bottles marked out his road. Major Wilson took with him twelve men mounted on the best horses in the camp. He did not return that night as was expected, but sent back word that he had every expec- RHODESIA. 377 tation the next day of capturing the king, and a reinforce- ment of twenty men, under Captain Borrow, was sent up to him, together with the American scouts and a young man named Gooding. Meantime, before dawn, the main body, under Major Forbes, was attacked, the enemy in the end were driven off after sharp fighting, but in the midst of their own anxieties the white men heard firing in the distance across the river, and became apprehensive for Major Wilson. Shortly after, when the enemy had retired, driven off by the Maxim guns, the two scouts and their companion, Gooding, rode into the laager, and Burnham, dropping from his horse, exclaimed, pointing in the direction Wilson had taken, " I think I may say we are the sole survivors of that party!" Alas ! this was true. It was not till the war was over that all the sad story was gathered from the natives, who had been deeply impressed with the pluck of the thirty- four white men who would not save themselves by flight because they could not carry off two disabled comrades. Here is the story as a recent writer tells it : — " Major Wilson and his party had ridden on, meeting with no resistance, till they reached the royal scherui ; within which the king's wagons were dimly visible in the gathering gloom. Here a halt was called, and Lobengula summoned to surrender. The reply was an ominous rattle of arms within the reed fence, while parties of Matabele, rifle in hand, would issue from their cover to attempt a conclusion ; they would charge, but again and again were repulsed by a well-directed fire ; upon which Wilson and his men would wake the echoes with an undismayed defiant cheer. But at last the end came. Of the thirty-four valiant men whose hearts beat high with hope and courage as they rode behind their leader in the early dawn that morning, only one remained erect ; the rest lay prone, dead or dying, upon the field of honor. The name of the one man who stood at bay against an army of Matabele will never be known ; his remains could not be identified. But the natives tell, that picking up several rifles and bandoliers^, this hero among heroes made his way to an ant-heap some twenty yards from where the rest lay stretched upon the earth. From that point of vantage he checked, single- 378 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. handed, several rushes of the Matabele, with a cool and deadly fire. At length, shot through the hips, he fell upon his knees, but continued to load and fire until he succumbed to his wounds. Then, and not till then, the Matabele came out from the bush, but on reaching the hallowed circle where the Patrol lay side by side, they were fired upon by several of the unconquerable wounded who were still alive. So great had been the terror and demoralization inspired by the desperate bravery of the Patrol, that when the revolvers rung out, the natives turned and fled precipitately into the bush, and it was not till several hours later, — ' when the sun was right overhead,' as the Matabele tell the tale, — that they again ventured to leave their cover. But by this time death had mercifully come to the wounded, and as the native warriors gazed upon the forms of their fallen foes there was silence. For some weeks afterwards the comrades of these brave men hoped against hope that even one of the Patrol might have escaped down the Shangani River, although, as Ingram the American scout had explained : ' Two of the men were dis- mounted and many of the horses were completely done up. Some of those with the best horses might have got away, but — well, they were not the sort of men to leave their chums.' He added, 'No, — I guess they fought it out right there — where they stood.' Thus it was. For some weeks after the bones of thirty- three of Wilson's heroic band were found lying close together. Those of the dauntless man who had faced the Matabele alone lay apart. " Thus they died. Youths fresh from English schools and universities, older men who looked back upon a useful span of life spent upon the frontiers of our great African empire. ... A hospital has been raised to their memory at Buluwayo, and their bones have been interred at Zimbabwe, where, amidst the monu- ments of a prehistoric civilization, a simple monument of granite marks the resting-place of a band of England's lion-hearted dead." Lobengula had retreated north toward the Zambesi, but overmastered by his misfortunes and infirmities, he died when within forty miles of that river. He had sent mes- sengers to negotiate terms of peace with Dr. Jameson, but these had never reached their destination. Only one of his indunas was with him at his death, who at once sent for Mjan, the commander in chief of the Matabele armies. He hastened to the spot and interred the body. RHODESIA. 379 The death of Lobengula was the closing event of the campaign. His principal indunas sent in their submission as soon as they found that it would be accepted, and the warriors, with their wives and children, went back to their deserted homes. The volunteers were at once disbanded and, on Decem- ber 23, 1893, they were dismissed to their homes. A civil police force of one hundred and fifty men was formed to remain on duty in the country, together with four hundred and twenty men of the Bechuana Border police force, for the purpose of doing garrison work during the rainy season, while sixty men were distributed along the southern line of communication. This small force was now deemed sufficient to secure the company's interest in Matabele- land. The natives had been disarmed; about ten thou- sand assegais had been brought in and about one thousand rifles. The conditions on which the volunteers had enlisted for the war were : I. Protection of all claims in Mashona- land till six months after the war ended. 11. A farm of six thousand acres free of occupation. III. Twenty gold claims. IV. A share of all cattle taken, half of which was to go to the company, the other half to be equally divided among all members of the expedition, share and share alike. Buluwayo is fast becoming a place of some consequence. A member of the Bechuana Border police, who has recently written his experiences in the " National Review," says: — "When I passed through Buluwayo on my way down country, prospectors were pegging out gold claims and searching for likely spots. . . . Each man was then bringing his own necessaries, and the sole accommodation consisted of huts run up quickly. One building of this description was dignified by the name of a hotel. But on my way down I met the materials for a large number of corrugated iron stores and shanties; also, marvellous to relate, a billiard-table on a wagon in the Mangwe Pass, 380 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. which had been stuck in the mud for some time, or rather, to be strictly accurate, was progressing at the rate of about three miles a week." The same authority says also : — " Though I was one of those who, under Forbes, pursued poor old Lobengula to the Shangani River, I make bold to say that a general feeling of sympathy for the poor old king pervaded the whole force, as we tracked the wheel- prints of his old bath-chair, intent on his capture or destruction." There is no doubt that Lobengula' s treatment of English- men during the last years of his life was wonderfully chivalrous for a savage. But it is alleged against him by no less a person than Mr. Rider Haggard, that in 1878 he basely planned and caused to be executed the murder of , three Englishmen, Captain Patterson, Mr. Sargeaunt, and a young son of Mr. Thomas, a missionary. Captain Pat- terson was anxious to visit the Great Falls of the Zambesi, and to kill big game on his way through Matabeleland. Learning his intention. Sir Bartle Frere asked him to under- take a friendly mission to Lobengula, for the purpose of remonstrating with him concerning his oppression of cer- tain white traders. "Sir Bartle Frere's choice," says Mr. Haggard, "was in one way ill-considered, as its terrible issue proved, seeing that his envoy had little experience of natives of Zulu blood, and none of dealing with them diplomatically." They reached Lobengula 's kraal in safety, but at a cer- tain point in the negotiations Captain Patterson is believed to have reminded Lobengula, by way of threat, that his elder brother, Kruman, who had fled to Natal, was still living, and that many of the Matabele believed him to be Moselekatse's rightful heir. " The effect of this communication was startling; from that moment Lobengula, before unfriendly, became profusely civil to the envoys, and from that moment, as I believe," says Mr. Haggard, " he doomed them to a sudden and cruel death. " RHODESIA. 381 He readily gave them permission to visit the Falls of the Zambesi, and furnished them with twenty bearers. He was, however, unwilling to allow young Thomas, son of a missionary whom he liked, to accompany them, not wish- ing, apparently, to include him in a slaughter that was already planned. " The next thing heard at Pretoria of the progress of the party was from the lips of messengers sent by Lobengula, who announced that the bearers had returned to the king's kraal, but that the three white men and their two servants had died of drinking poisoned water. The manner of their deaths was given, I remember, in great detail, Mr. Sargeaunt being represented as living longest, 'because he was very strong.' " There were circumstances that made this story seem improbable; still, in the shock and confusion of the news, it was accepted without close scrutiny. Some time later, however, news came through a Bechuana man who was wearing a coat of Captain Patterson's, "that a while back a brother of his was out hunting in the desert for ostriches, in the company of other natives, when, hearing shots fired some way off, they followed the sound, thinking that white men were shooting game and they might beg some of the meat. On reaching a spot by a pool of water, they were horrified to see the bodies of three white men lying on the ground, and with them those of a Hottentot and a Kafir surrounded by a number of Matabele. They asked the Matabele what they had been doing, — killing the white men? — -and were told to 'be still,' for the deed was done by 'order of the king, who killed whom he chose.' Then they learned the story of the treachery." It seemed Captain Patterson was writing in his diary as he sat by the pool, when one of the bearers called him to look at a great snake in the water. Captain Patterson, who was devoted to natural history, at once ran up, and, as he stooped over the edge of the pool, his neck was broken by a blow from his own axe. The others were shot down and assegaied, Mr. Sargeaunt making a desperate resistance. 382 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. The coat the Bechuana informant wore had been given, he said, by the Matabele to his brother. " No public notice was taken of the matter, for the obvi- ous reason that without enormous expense and the under- taking of war upon a large scale, it was impossible to get at Lobengula to punish him." But the day of retribution came at last, and this story diminishes our sympathy for Lobengula. Nor can we do otherwise than rejoice that the power of the Matabele is broken. Mr. Theodore Bent, writing before the war began, speaks thus of the Matabele raids around Fort Victoria : — " An eye-witness writes to me that not far from Fort Victoria a whole village under the chief Setousi has been wiped out by the last raid; the younger inhabitants being made slaves of, while the older ones were ruthlessly butchered. I was witness myself of the devastation wrought by these raids in the direction of the Sali River, — of a whole district depopulated which had once pos- sessed many villages, the remains of which could be traced on every side; of the abject terror of the inhabitants, who fled at our approach to the rocks, and yet there are those found in England who profess to support this state of affairs, and to say that Lobengula has a perfect right to do what he likes with what they call his own." Rhodesia, great as is its extent, is not the only portion of British Central Africa that has been made over, for development, to the chartered South African Company. In May, 1891, the field of the company's operations was extended to the mouth of the Zambesi, and its territories now cover the whole of British Central Africa from the British protectorate of Bechuanaland to the southern shore of Lake Tanganyika, with the exception of Nyasaland, which is a British protectorate, ruled over by Mr. H. H. Johnston as consul-general and her Majesty's commissioner. The company's "sphere of influence" west of Nyasa- RHODESIA. 383 land is bounded on the west by a Portuguese possession (Angola) ; south b)' the Portuguese East African possessions and by the Zambesi, which separates it from Mashonaland and Matabeleland; and north by Congo Free State. It has not yet been settled, governed, or developed in any way. It is the haunt of Arab slave-traders whose chief care is to push their caravans across the English or the Ger- man sphere either to the coast or into Portuguese territory, whence they ship cargoes of negroes to Madagascar. It is not needful here to say more about this sphere of British influence in Central Africa, and a few words may suffice for the protectorate of Nyasaland. Nyasaland was the chief scene of the labors of Dr. Livingstone, whose name still lives among its natives in their songs. He died there. He had labored there. There he had settled many of the faithful Makololo who had followed his fortunes from sea to sea, most of whom became chiefs in their new land. After Dr. Livingstone returned to England he assisted in establishing two missions in Nyasaland. Bishop Mac- kenzie was sent out by the Universities Mission, but died of fever on a boat journey not long after his arrival. That mission now occupies the east coast of Lake Nyasa, and has its chief station at the south end of the lake upon two islands. It has a steamer on the lake, and, before the arrival of the Arab slave-traders, was making good progress among the Yaos, an intelligent and warlike tribe, inhabit- ing the surrounding country. The Arabs, however, found their way to this land not long after the missionaries. The road had been pointed out to both by Dr. Living- stone. They made friends with the chiefs of the Yaos, especially with one called Makanjira, converted them to Mohammedanism and made them their allies in slave- raiding. The Church of Scotland's Mission founded the chief town in Nyasaland, called Blantyre. It has, also, a station at Zomba, which is the official capital, and has likewise teachers 384 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. in other places. It has given great attention to its schools, and has trained Yao boys to habits of industry, making some of them excellent type-setters. Its ministers have been men of activity and zeal, even outside of their pro- fession, and have rendered great services as explorers, philologists, botanists, etc. Besides the Scotch and the Universities missions, there are five others in Nyasaland; one of which is Roman Catholic, sent thither by Cardinal Lavigerie. In 1889 there was a station at Karongas on the west coast of Lake Nyasa, under the charge of the Scotch mis- sion. It was attacked by the Arabs and their native allies. The mission implored help from the African Lakes Com- pany, whose employes at that time were the only white men in the country except missionaries. The African Lakes jCompany had offered to supply those who entered their service with heavy rifles and all the requirements for ele- phant hunting, provided they were convinced that the applicant was likely to make a successful elephant hunter. The company had a right to buy, at a reduced price, all the ivory its hunters obtained, and made a very handsome profit, while the hunter took a share of the proceeds. Captain Lugard, afterwards so well known for his connec- tion with Uganda, was made commander of the little force raised by the Lakes Company, and sent to the succor of the missionary station at Karongas. While this little war went on, however, a number of events were taking place which affected its conclusion. Lord Salisbury, roused by unreasonable claims made by the Portuguese, insisted on the free navigation of the Zambesi. Colonel Serpa Pinto had marched into British territory, ascended the Shir^ River and shot down the native tribes, men who, under the Makololo chiefs, left them by Livingstone, had been always fast friends to the English. Serpa Pinto even threatened Blantyre. "The question of the rights of the English in the Shir6 Highlands and in Nyasaland had passed into the region of foreign office RHODESIA. 385 investigation, and national indignation was excited by the action of Portugal." Mr. Rhodes was then in England and offered to buy out the rights of the African Lakes Company, but his negotia- tion hung fire, and he was compelled to return to the Cape leaving the affair unconcluded. Mr. H. H. Johnston was sent out by the foreign office to report on what he saw in Nyasaland, and to quiet, if pos- sible, the feud between the Arabs and the missionaries. He did his best, and made some treaties which were not altogether satisfactory to those who had fought at Karongas, and who considered the terms too favorable to the slavers and their black allies. The event, however, has proved the success of Mr. Johnston's policy. He went back to England and made his report; soon after which Nyasaland was proclaimed to be a British protectorate, and he returned to Africa to be its ruler. "His task as an administrator," says Captain Lugard, "was one of no ordinary difficulty and demanded the exercise of great tact and foresight. With characteristic pluck Mr. Johnston threw down the gauntlet to the slavers." With the small force of Sikhs and Zanzibaris at his com- mand, a seven-pounder gun, and later a Maxim, success attended all his expeditions, until at last occurred a sad disaster, viz., the killing of Captain Maguire, a brave Indian officer, the commander of the Sikhs; with him died another European, a Parsee doctor, and nine other men, "nor was the commissioner in a position to exact any vengeance for this massacre and the treachery of Makanjira." Subsequently, having received reinforcements, and being joined by the Germans under Baron von Eltz, of the Ger- man Anti-slavery Society, Mr. Johnston put down the slave-raiders, though not effectually till gun-boats were sent to the lake, together with those on the Shire River. At present slaves are occasionally ferried, by night, across the 386 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. lake, but such enterprises are difificult and dangerous in the extreme to the offenders. The Protectorate of Nyasaland is a country full of lakes. It has, also, high plateaux and lofty mountains. Its prin- cipal lakes are Tanganyika and Nyasa. Lake Tanganyika, whose southern shore is the northern boundary of the Brit- ish sphere, is over four hundred miles in length, and from thirty to sixty miles broad. Lake Nyasa (the third largest lake in Africa) is three hundred and sixty miles long, and about half the width of Tanganyika. There is also Lake Bangweolo, whose shores are so covered with reedy swamps that its area cannot be measured. The same may be said of Lake Rukwa, a salt lake lying just beyond the northern limit of Nyasaland. There is Lake Mweru and a salt lake with various names, — Chilwa, Kilwa, Shiwa. Indeed, the -varieties of spelling used by map-makers and explorers in Central Africa are a great puzzle to all who would know anything of its geography. Hardly one lake, tribe, or dis- trict is known to natives by the name we call it. There is also a lake of liquid mud, called Malombe, through which the Shir6 River has forced a channel. Except in the rainy season, no rivers in Nyasaland seem to be navigable for any distance, for anything but canoes or barges of light draught. Nyasaland is known to be rich in minerals : iron that is smelted and worked skilfully by natives; coal which was discovered by the earliest missionaries; copper in abun- dance, and in Sultan Jumbe's country, on the west side of Lake Nyasa, has been found gold. But no attempts have been yet made to turn those mineral resources to account. "The inhabitants of Nyasaland are, in general, of the Bantu or Kafir stock, though in one district there is a milder race, a peaceful and industrious people, excellent agriculturists, and great smiths, being particularly clever in the working of iron. At no time do they seem to have been warlike, and consequently they have been always the victims of their predatory neighbors. The early Portu- RHODESIA. 387 guese settlers in the Zambesi exploited them pitilessly for the slave-trade, and when there was a slight surcease of Portuguese spoliation the western part of their country was overrun by Zulu hordes at various periods, from 1820 to 1870; above all, with the first appearance of Englishmen on the scene came the invasion of the Yaos." These inoffensive people are supposed to have been the original inhabitants of the land, and among them Living- stone settled his Makololo. As the coast people and Arabs began to penetrate to the lake region of East Central Africa they came in contact with the Yaos, who, from their predatory nature, entered into the idea of slave-raiding with real appreciation. Many of the Yao chiefs became inclined to Moham- medanism, and these people have ever since associated themselves with the Arabs. Nevertheless, as soon as a British protectorate was about to be established, many of the chiefs placed themselves voluntarily under British pro- tection, because, on the one hand, they disliked the idea of Portuguese rule, which was the only alternative, and on the other hand, the Mohammedan Yaos were greatly influ- enced by the decision of Jumbe, the Sultan of Marimba, the accredited agent of the Sultan of Zanzibar. "Jumbe," says Mr. Johnston, "at the time of my arrival, in 1889, was regarded in some respects as the most important chief on Lake Nyasa, and, being an Arab and a very orthodox Mohammedan, his example had considerable moral weight with all the other Yao chiefs, except the recalcitrant Makanjira." Recently another chief of the same band, Zarafi by name, has figured in newspaper reports as having become troublesome. "At present," adds Mr. Johnston, "the Arab represents, in the eyes of the natives, a rival civilization to that of the white man, and a civilization which is much more to their taste. ... A small subsidy is paid to Sultan Jumbe, and probably no chief in Africa has ever done more for his money than he. I really believe that he has honestly striven to pull down the slave-trade in 388 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. his dominions. He is not always very kindly spoken of by the missionaries, because, being a zealous Mohammedan, he objects to the establishing of a Christian mission in his town, though he readily permits mission stations to be erected elsewhere in his country." In July, 189 1, when the protectorate was first established, there were fifty-seven European residents in the country. Three years later the number had increased to two hundred and thirty-seven, besides quite a large Hindoo immigration from India. I have elsewhere quoted Mr. Johnston's views as to the desirability of uniting the black with the yellow races through intermarriage. He hopes that East- ern and Central Africa may hereafter become the America of the Hindoos. "The mixture of the races would," he says, "give the Indian the physical development which he Jacks, and he in his turn would transmit to his half-negro offspring the industry, ambition, and aspiration towards a civilized life of which the negro so markedly stands in need." The armed force at the disposition of her Majesty's com- mission consists of three European officers; two hundred Sikhs, belonging to the regular army of India, who, for this service, have been allowed to volunteer from various regiments in the Punjaub; forty Zanzibaris, recruited by permission of the Sultan, their master; forty Arabs; sixty- nine natives from Portuguese territory, by permission, and a varying number of negro irregulars. Of a very spirited colored print in the weekly " Graphic " of May 18, 1895, Mr. Johnston says: — " It represents one of the Sikh soldiers serving in British Central Africa. It was drawn at a time when Fort Johnston was little more than a hastily thrown up stockade, instead of being, as it is now, an imposing fortress, with elaborate earthworks. Fort Johnston is situated on the Upper Shir^ two miles from the exit of that river from Lake Nyasa, the shores of which are visi- ble from the watch-tower of the fort. Fort Johnston was orig- inally founded by the late Captain Maguire in 1891, to overawe the large town of Mponda on the opposite bank of the river. RHODESIA. 389 Mpondo was one of the most formidable of the Yao chiefs, and almost the biggest slave-trader in British Central Africa. He tried conclusions with the small force of seventy Sikhs who accompanied Captain Maguire and myself on our first expedition to Lake Nyasa, but sustained a complete defeat, which he had the grace to acknowledge by immediate peace-making ; since which he has remained fairly well behaved, while his people have markedly profited from the establishment of a large military force on the opposite bank of the river, trade being very brisk, and the Sikhs having plenty of money to spend." It is evident, from the foundations of old villages, and fragments of pottery buried several feet under the soil, that Central Africa was once peopled by races very superior to those now inhabiting the land. The slave-trade became prevalent when the Arabs first established their influence upon the coast, and it obtained an enormous development when the Portuguese succeeded the Arabs in power and introduced guns and gunpowder. Then it was that native races were taught to hunt down and to destroy each other. "The constant hunting of man by man kept the whole country in a state of unrest. Each native felt that at any moment his people might be attacked by another tribe, have their homes broken up and their wives and children sold. Consequently even now, except when they are settled near Europeans, they lead a hand-to-mouth exist- ence, just growing enough food for the support of their small community, and not daring to venture on any enter- prise or industry which might attract the cupidity of others. From every point of view, philanthropic and economic, we are right in trying to extirpate the slave-trade in Central Africa." Such are the views of Mr. Johnston, the man who has, probably, been more closely brought face to face with the subject than any other official in Africa. CHAPTER XV. THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. IN the year 1805 the United States had good reason to be proud of the success of their infant navy in humbling the pride of the Barbary pirates, and securing privileges that were denied to European powers. But when the war of 18 1 2 broke out with Great Britain the Dey of Algiers .was easily persuaded "that the United States, as a mari- time power, would be swept from the face of the seas; that their commerce would be annihilated, and that England would consent to peace only upon the stipulation that the United States forever after should build no ships of war heavier than a frigate." The United States, in common with other maritime and Christian powers, still paid an annual tribute to the Dey of Algiers, in consideration of which his cruisers respected the Stars and Stripes on American merchantmen, and this tribute was commonly paid in kind. The Dey lost no time in getting up a dispute with the United States consul, Mr. Lear, on the plea that the goods sent him on the Alleghany, an American vessel, were not in good condition, and forth- with despatched his cruisers in search of American prizes. Tunis and Tripoli also, being assured that the United States navy would speedily be crushed by a superior mari- time power, allowed four prizes sent into their ports by American privateers to be recaptured by the English. It was impossible for the United States to take notice of this insolence while the war of 18 12 was still upon their hands, but no sooner was peace signed with Great Britain 390 THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 391 than a fleet of ten United States ships-of-war, under Com- modore Decatur, sailed for the coast of Africa. The success of the expedition was complete with the Dey, the Bey, and the Bashaw. A brilliant naval engage- ment took place between the flagships of the American and Algerine squadrons, in which the great Algerine admiral, Reis Hammida, was killed and his ship taken. Considerable effect was produced upon the Barbary pirates when they discovered that three vessels in the American fleet, the Macedonian, the Gtcen-iere, and the Epervier, had been captured from the English in open fight. Peace was made with the Dey of Algiers; one stipulation was the release of ten American seamen. But the Epej'vier, on which they were embarked to return home, foundered in a gale soon after passing the Straits of Gibraltar. The conclusion of this treaty with the United States was followed by the expedition of Lord Exmouth, who accepted terms less advantageous than those that had been exacted by the American commander. Upon which the Dey thought proper to repudiate the agreement with the United States when it was brought back to him with the Senate's ratification. He was reduced to reason, however, by a prompt display of force, and the treaty, with many expres- sions of friendship, was sent on board the American flag- ship, duly signed. In the year 1830, at the close of the reign of Charles X., France roused herself to suppress Algerine piracy. The inhabitants of Algeria may be roughly said to have been of three races, the dominant Turks, the Arabs, descendants of the Saracens who had overrun the country in the tenth century, and the Kabyles or Berbers, the much-mixed descendants of an aboriginal race, converted by the invad- ing Arabs to Mohammedanism. As is ever the case, the Arabs hated and despised the Turks, accounting them very recreant Mohammedans. With regard to them and to what followed their discom- fiture by the French, the Arab father of Abdel Kader said : — 392 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. "Their tyranny has cramped and curbed our energies, but the disorder and anarchy that has succeeded the arrival of the French will destroy us utterly. The bonds of society are broken. Every man's hand is raised against his neigh- bor. Our people, given up to their vile passions, are daily outraging the laws of God and men. At the same time, the evils which menace us from without are not less formidable than those which consume us from within." The Arabs themselves were divided into two classes, the Marabouts, or men of religion, learning, and wisdom, and the warriors. These classes, except in time of war, were by no means in accord. The military chiefs were all for cruelty and plunder; the Marabouts insisted only on the spread of their religion. For three years a French navy had been blockading the coast of Africa. The Dey, whose insolence to foreign (iiplomats we have noticed in a former chapter,^ had slapped the French consul in the face with his fan when irritated in the extreme, and no adequate apology for this offence had been offered. At this point Mehemet AH, ruler of Egypt, wishing to strengthen his alliance with France, offered to invade Algeria, and take up the French quarrel. France could not allow this. The French government was spurred up to more vigorous measures, and announced to the Pasha of Egypt that she was going to purge the Mediterranean of the pirates that infested it. It seems to have been somewhat difficult, on this occa- sion, to get an admiral to take command of the French fleet, for the expedition against Algiers seemed to promise little credit to its commander. But at last a fleet, under Admiral Duperr^, was fitted out at Toulon. The Dauphine went down to that port to see it off, and very soon news arrived that the city of Algiers had been taken. This success did not inspire the Arabs with very great anxieiy. The French had defeated the Turks, whom they ^ The Barbary States. THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 393 despised. It was only — what several times before had happened — a change of masters in the coast towns; but very soon events and proclamations put a different aspect on the affair. In Oran lived a Marabout of great sanctity, wisdom, and influence, named Mehi-ed-Deen. He had been much dis- trusted by the Turks, and alternately cajoled and maltreated by the Turkish Bey who governed the province of Oran. Mehi-ed-Deen was the father of several sons. His fourth son, born in 1807, was the celebrated Arab chieftain, Abdel Kader. A splendid horseman and a leader in all warlike sports, this youth was even more famed among his people for his learning and his piety. At the age of twelve he was a Taleb, that is, an approved proficient in the Koran and the writings of its expositors; at fourteen he was a Hafiz, or one who knows the whole Koran by heart. He was then promoted to be a religious teacher in the mosque, and his ambition was to be a great Marabout like his father. He had not only made a pilgrimage to the holy cities with that pious parent, but had journeyed with him to Bagdad to make offerings at the tomb of the patron Mussulman saint of his family, after whom he had been named Abdel Kader. As the French penetrated further into Algeria, disorder and anarchy in the country increased. Inhabitants of the seacoast towns who had fled from the invader were roam- ing about the country in terror and despair. The Arabs, never able to resist an opportunity to pillage, "waylaid them, and robbed them without mercy. Abdel Kader and his brothers, with followers of their own tribe, scoured the plains in all directions, protecting the unfortunate fugitives and conducting them to places of safety." The principal men of several tribes consulted Mehi-ed- Deen as to how, under these circumstances, they should establish order and government. He advised them to turn to the only Mohammedan power capable of assisting them, and to put themselves under the leadership of the Emperor 394 EUROPE IN AFRICA IM THE XIXTH CENTURY. of Morocco. That potentate, Muley Abderrahman, declined their propositions. They then vehemently urged Mehi-ed- Deen to become their Sultan. He repeatedly refused the position. At last, in a great assembly, they cried out, " How long, O Mehi-ed-Deen, are we to be left without a leader?" and then, the chiefs placing their swords against his breast exclaimed, "Choose between being thyself our Sultan or instant death! " Mehi-ed-Deen, violently agitated, but still preserving his presence of mind, demanded to be heard. "You all know," he said, "that I am a man of peace, devoting my- self to the worship of God. The task of ruling involves the use of brute force and the shedding of blood. But since you insist on my being your Sultan I consent, and abdicate in favor of my son Abdel Kader! " , Thus on November 21, 1832, Abdel Kader was pro- claimed Sultan of Algeria. Not only did he command armies, always foremost in the fight, on his black charger, but he daily preached to his people, conducting classes in the mosque for their instruction, and stirring them to enthusiasm by his eloquence. "My great object," he said, in a proclamation, "is to reform and to do good as much as in me lies. My trust is in God, and from Him, and Him only, I expect reward and success ! " With these words he proclaimed the D jehad or Holy War against the Infidels. The war commenced in 1833, and from that time for forty years, it may be said that fighting never ceased between the French and the native population — the Arabs and Kabyles. For, though brief peace was occasionally made with certain chiefs, or in certain districts, there was always insurrection against the authority of the French going on in some part of the country. The occupation of Algeria during these years was purely military. "Punch's" celebrated picture of a few French colonists cultivating the ground under the guns of a strong ABDEL KADER. THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 395 fortress, each man as he held the plough protected by a soldier, was hardly an exaggeration. It may be remarked here, in connection with the feeling at this day in France regarding the foothold of England in Egypt, that in 1832, when it became evident that the French occupation of Algeria meant more than the sup- pression of piracy, the government of Louis Philippe assured the government of England that France had no intention of holding Algeria, but would evacuate the coun- try as soon as peace and good government could be restored. Subsequently, England acquiesced in the possession of Algeria by her neighbor, subject to a stipulation that France should not enlarge the borders of that country either by annexing Tunis on the east, or Morocco to the westward. England on her part has made no diplomatic stipulation with France as to her Egyptian occupation. It has been simply an understood thing, founded on possibly indiscreet remarks made in Parliament by an ex-minister and his sup- porters, that England would evacuate Egypt as soon as the withdrawal of British troops and British influence could take place with a reasonable prospect of leaving peace and good government behind. The French Minister in Cairo once referred to evacua- tion in speaking to Nubar Pasha. When that man, the ablest in Egypt, and not prejudiced in favor of England, said: *'Yes, Monsieur le Ministre, and when they go three people will go with them, — the Khedive, you, and I." "So long as you say you are going," said another French resident in Egypt to an Englishman, " it is our nature to say, 'Go ! ' — but if you were to say on the first of March that you were going on the first of April, we should all be on our knees to you by the 15 th of March, begging you to stay." This is par parenthese. To return to Abdel Kader. He was elected Sultan of Algeria by the voices of a large number of his countrymen, but there were others who were very far from acknowledging his rule. The religious 396 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. party was inclined to give him strenuous support, but rapacious and ambitious men looked with jealousy on such an assumption of sovereignty. Were the Arab chiefs who had carried on for centuries a struggle against the Turkish Sultan and his pashas, now to accept the unbounded sway of a man whose claims, in their eyes, were no better than their own? But where no feudal influence prevailed, the authority of Abdel Kader was promptly and even thank- fully accepted. It was, however, rather as a great military chief than as head of a central government that he was generally received, and he found it often necessary to assert his authority among his countrymen with a strong hand. Meantime, the conquest of Algeria was far from popular among the French people. They found that in thirty-four years, i.e. from 1830 to 1864, it had cost the lives of one hundred and fifty thousand Frenchmen, and six hundred million dollars. It was perpetually said, that while the seacoast might be held with a view to the prevention of piracy, and in support of the national honor, the interior of the country had better be let alone. While this policy prevailed the French were left, by the tribes, in quiet possession of Algiers and other strong places; though Abdel Kader forbade his Arabs to sell them corn or cattle. The situation grew, at last, intolerable, and General Desmichels, commanding the French troops in the prov- ince of Oran, made pacific propositions; in consequence of which a treaty was drawn up between himself and Abdel Kader, the principal stipulations in which were, that the Emir should be acknowledged the independent governor of his native province, having his capital at Mascara, with the exception of three strongholds, garrisoned by the French, — Oran, Mostagenem, and Arzew. A monopoly in corn, for the supply of these French garrisons, was secured to Abdel Kader and his people; and this excited great opposition to the treaty, both in France and among some of the unruly THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 397 Arab tribes. General Desmichels was recalled, his action disapproved, and the French government took the earliest opportunity of declaring war against the man who had aspired to be supreme ruler in Algeria. It had been stipu- lated in the Desmichels treaty, that deserters on both sides should be given up. A whole tribe of Arabs having gone over to the French, Abdel Kader claimed that according to the terms of the treaty they should be handed over to him for punishment. The French naturally declined to take this view of the question. Abdel Kader persisted, saying: "My religion prohibits me from allowing a Mus- sulman to be under the dominion of a Christian. See what suits you best; otherwise the God of Battles must decide between us." The history of the war that followed belongs more to French history than to that of Algeria. It was carried on with barbarity and ferocity on both sides. In 1835 M. Thiers spoke thus of the course pursued in Algeria by the French government: "It is not colonization; it is not occupation on a large scale; it is not occupation on a small scale; it is not peace; it is not war; but war badly made." The French Chamber of Deputies was at last roused. General Clausel with a large force was sent to the field of action. His energy alarmed and demoralized the Arab army, which had already been long in the field. Abdel Kader' s followers melted away from him. Mascara was occupied by the French, and a forced contribution of ten thousand francs was demanded from the inhabitants. But famine — in the French camp — came to the assistance of Abdel Kader. It is said that at this time General Cavignac was buying cats at forty francs apiece for his table. Another treaty was made with Abdel Kader, called the Treaty of Tafna, defining boundaries, and the Sultan (or Emir as he is always called by the French) acknowledged the sovereignty of France over its actual possessions. Tlemcen, which had been taken by the French, was given 398 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. up. Commerce was to be thenceforth free. Abdel Kader was at the summit of his power. Peace being thus concluded with the French, Abdel Kader was at liberty to reduce his rebellious subjects to obedience, while the French made a second advance on the strong fortress Constantine, which its Bey held out against them. The year before an expedition had marched against it, accompanied by the Duke of Orleans, and led by Marshal Clausel. The French had reached the walls of the stronghold and were then obliged to retreat, repulsed, not by the enemy but by the extraordinary severity of the weather. This second expedition, in the autumn of 1836, was more fortunate. The French commander in chief, General Dauremont, was indeed killed, and a terrible explosion took place which buried French and Arabs in -one common ruin. The victory was largely due, after this catastrophe, to the dare-devil bravery of a young officer in the foreign legion, afterwards Marshal Saint-Arnaud. Constantine being taken, disputes speedily arose between Abdel Kader and the French as to the limits of their respective territories, and war once more broke out in 1841. General Bugeaud then returned to Algeria with a force of from eighty to a hundred thousand men. He adopted a new plan of campaign, dividing his force into three mov- able columns, and attacking Abdel Kader' s people on three points at once. The Due d'Aumale was with the French army. It had complete success. Abdel Kader' s capital, Mascara, was again taken. His forces dispersed. Tlemcen fell. Overawed and overpowered by the French, the Arabs and Kabyles everywhere surrendered. Adbel Kader took refuge in Morocco. There he raised a new army of Mohammedan enthusiasts. But these men of Morocco were not like his own Arabs. Marshal Bugeaud and the Due d'Aumale fell suddenly upon his camp-^ while a large part of his force was absent. Abdel Kader 1 A large collection of valuable manuscripts greatly valued by Abdel Kader was destroyed on this occasion. THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 399 escaped with difificulty, and again sought refuge in Morocco. Once more he raised an army, but his hopes were disappointed; the Sultan of Morocco made peace with the French, who stipulated that he should no longer harbor Abdel Kader in his dominions. Then the Emir sur- rendered to General Lamoriciere and received his promise that, with his mother, wife, family, and immediate fol- lowers, he should be sent either to Alexandria or St. Jean d'Acre; his desire being to dwell in a land inhabited by Mohammedans. He was taken, however, to France and landed at Toulon, with thirty of his people, January 30, 1848, three weeks before the downfall of the Orleans dynasty. It is said that the Due d'Aumale remonstrated vehemently upon a breach of faith which seemed to violate his word. The French republic showed no disposition to deal generously with the enemy that had fallen into its hands. Abdel Kader and his followers who would not leave him were sent first to the Castle of Pau, in Bt^arn, and after- wards to the Chateau of Amboise on the Loire, the old place of residence of Louis XL and of the kings of the House of Valois. One of my friends, who was at Amboise during their imprisonment, told me it was piteous to wit- ness the utter despondency of these poor creatures, who refused all offers to set them free if they would but aban- don their imprisoned master. There were several cases of suicide among them. Abdel Kader himself was rarely seen abroad. He lived shut up with his family, devoting himself to study and to prayer. In vain he pleaded to the republic the promise made to him by General Lamoriciere. That promise was ignored by the French government even when Lamoriciere was Minister of War. At first Abdel Kader was allowed to receive visitors, and many Frenchmen of distinction flocked to see him. Among them was Monsignor Derpuch, the French bishop of Algiers to whom General Daumas, who had charge of the prisoners, addressed this letter: — 400 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. " You will find Abdel Kader greater and more extraordinary in his adversity than he was in his prosperity. Still, as ever, he towers to the height of his position. You will find him mild, simple, afli'ectionate, modest, resigned, never complaining ; excus- ing his enemies, even those at whose hands he may yet have much to suffer, — and never permitting evil to be spoken of them in his presence. Mussulmans and Christians alike, however justly he might complain of them, have found his forgiveness. In going to console such a noble, such an exalted character, you will add another work of holiness to those by which your life is already distinguished." The same character is drawn of Abdel Kader by all who, having been brought in contact with him, have recorded their impressions. Even prisoners led captives to his camp, who, as "dogs of Christians," received every manner of cruelty and insult from his followers, found him courte- ous, kindly, desirous to provide for their comfort and their safety, though the moment they were out of his presence the Arabs, who, in all matters not military, seem to have been little subordinate to his commands and to his wishes, renewed their blows, insults, and revilings, not sparing worse atrocities, especially where women were concerned. Death was busy among the followers of Abdel Kader at Pau and at Amboise. The climate and despondency told heavily upon them. He lost a son, a daughter, and a nephew. His wife, mother, and mother-in-law were with him. The former, Leila Heira, who was also his cousin, he had married young, and to her he was ever affectionate and strictly faithful. At last came to Abdel Kader a change as joyful as it was unexpected. Louis Napoleon, when Prince Presi- dent, remembering well his own days of captivity at Ham, being at Blois, announced his intention of paying Abdel Kader a visit. On his way thither he forwarded to him a little note written in pencil. " Abdel Kader : I am coming to announce to you your lib- erty. You will be conducted to Broussa in the Sultan's terri- tory as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made. The THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 4OI French government will give you a pension worth}' of your former rank. For a long time your captivity has caused me real distress. It constantly reminded me that the government that preceded mine had not fulfilled its engagements tov/ard an unfortunate enemy ; and in my eyes a great nation is humiliated when it so far distrusts its own power as to break its promise. Generosity is always the best counsellor, and I am persuaded that your residence in Turkey will in nowise affect the tran- quillity of my possessions in Algeria. Your religion, as well as mine, inculcates submission to the decrees of Providence. Now if France is supreme in Algeria, it is because God has so willed it ; and the nation will never renounce the conquest. You have been the enemy of France, but I nevertheless am ready to' do ample justice to your courage, your character, and your resigna- tion in misfortune. I consequently feel it a point of honor to put an end to your imprisonment, and to place a complete reliance on your word." The Prince President was received at Amboise with demonstrations of the most heartfelt thanks. The old mother of Abdel Kader begged to be allowed to see one who had spread such joy and consolation through her house- hold, and covered him with benedictions. Abdel Kader, before leaving for his retreat in a land of his coreligionists, went to Paris, in October, 1852, where he was received by both emperor and people with many honors. He was shown the public edifices in Paris, but was par- ticularly interested in the churches, saying, on entering the Church of the Madeleine, to the priest who accom- panied him: "When I first began my struggle with the French I thought they were a people without religion. I have found out my mistake. Such churches convince me of my error." His reception in Turkey was far from being cordial, as his reception had been, after his liberation, in France. The old scorn of the Turk for an Arab lost no time in dis- playing itself. The building assigned him for his resi- dence was a ruin. He bought a farm near it, however, to which he went for change of air from time to time. In 402 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. 1855, after an earthquake which laid half Broussa in ruins, he was permitted to remove to Damascus. The Druses of the Lebanon hailed him with enthusiasm on his journey through their country, and on entering Damascus he received an ovation. He soon settled himself in his own house, surrounded by his followers, whom he maintained out of the liberal pen- sion (twenty thousand dollars) allowed him by the Emperor Napoleon; and the Turkish authorities paid no further attention to him. The year after he settled in Damascus occurred the ter- rible massacre of Christians in that city. "The Christians of Syria," says one who lived for years among them, " have ever been viewed by the Turks with gloomy jealousy. They are all called the 'key to the Franks. ' The Turks imagine them to be ever ready to welcome and aid a Frank invading force; furnishing it with supplies, and in every way initiating it into the land's capabilities and resources. The increase of the Christian population, its wealth, and its prosperity, are to the Turks a perpetual source of exasperation." The Hatt Homayun, a firman put forth by the Sultan in obedience to the Treaty of Paris in 1856, had excited hopes among the Christians of civil, military, and political equality, which made them, in the opinion of the Turks, somewhat insolent and presuming. The Druses were insti- gated to rise against the Christians. The Turkish troops and officers assisted and encouraged them. The Lebanon became a vast scene of slaughter and conflagration. The spirit of massacre spread to Damascus. In vain Abdel Kader had used his popularity with the Druses of the Lebanon to stay their fury. In vain he sought an interview with the Turkish governor of Damascus and implored him to take measures for the protection of the Christians. On July 9, i860, the massacre commenced. At once Abdel Kader sallied forth, calling on his Algerines to follow him. There were, at that time, about one thou- THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 403 sand Algerine exiles in Damascus. They hurried through the flaming streets of the Christian quarter, calling on sur- vivors to come forth: "For we are Abdel Kader's men, and are here to protect you ! " In vain the Turks insulted the Arab chieftain. "What! you," they cried, "the great slayer of Christians ! — you, come out to prevent us slaying them in our turn ! " There was no place of refuge for Christians in Damascus but his house and its courtyards. With him the European consuls and their families sought refuge. It was calculated that fifteen thousand Christians, including all the repre- sentatives of European powers, owed their lives to Abdel Kader's energetic personal exertions for ten days. The western world, fully occupied with its own affairs, heard little of Abdel Kader from that day forward. He had once said to the Bishop of Algiers: "As you may have discovered from our conversation, I was not born to be a warrior. It seems to me I never ought to have been one for a single day. Yet I have borne arms all my life. By a wholly unforeseen course of circumstances I was thrown completely out of the career pointed out to me by my birth, my education, and my predilection — a career • I ardently long to resume, and to which I never cease pray- ing God to allow me to return at the close of my laborious years." That career was the career of a religious teacher. He desired to attain to the highest dignity of a devout Mussul- man, that which entitles him to be called the " Fellow of the Prophet." To attain this it was necessary he should reside, for many months, at Mecca. Thither he went in January, 1863. He gave himself up to his devotions, and in July, 1864, he returned to his family at Damascus. Strange to say, he was a freemason; and in Alexandria, on his return home, he added to the privilege of being called the " Fellow of the Prophet," the time-honored title of a "free and accepted mason." 404 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. In 1873 ^^ seems to have been again at Mecca, and his death, in that year, was reported. The report was false, however. He died at his home in Syria in 1883, by no means an aged man, being seventy-six years old. The French continued a desultory war with Arab tribes until 187 1, when, after a general insurrection had been put down and punished, — a rising consequent on the with- drawal of French troops for service in the Franco-Prussian war, and against the commune, — it was decided to aban- don military rule and place the country under civil admin- istration; giving the privileges of French citizens to such natives as would declare themselves faithful to France. Since then the country has enjoyed comparative tranquil- lity, and with peace has come prosperity and vast schemes for internal improvement. Algeria has about two thousand miles of railway, and a population of rather more than four million; one-eighth of this consists of Europeans, of whom Frenchmen are about one-half. Large grants of land in Algeria were offered by the French government in September, 187 1, to any inhabi- tants of Alsace or Lorraine who might choose to settle there. Many availed themselves of this and became genu- ine colonists. There have been, during the last decade, two great projects conceived by the French in connection with Algeria; of which, although they are only projects and may never be realized, it may be well here to say a few words. One is the formation of a great inland sea in the Sahara; the other, the construction of a railroad reaching from Tunis or Algiers to Lake Chad and Timbuctoo. It may be in connection with this project that the French have recently reopened the port of Bizerta in Tunis, the most northern town of Africa, on the site of the ancient Syrian colony of Hippo Zaritus, the harbor of which was considered by the ancients one of the safest and finest in the world. The French have now opened for navigation a canal connecting the port with the lake of Bizerta, an THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 405 interior basin, large as Paris itself, where the entire navies of all nations could safely ride at anchor. South of the Atlas Mountains is the Sahara, a region not as vast as the Great Desert of that name which used upon our iiiaps to monopolize all Central Africa, but a sort of hinterland of Algeria stretching south of Tripoli to the mouth of the Senegal. It is inhabited for the most part by nomadic tribes called Touaregs, descended (though their blood has become much mixed) from the tribes who fought the Romans, and were crowded by the Saracens back into the Sahara. Algeria is geographically divided into three regions : the Tell or coast-land, which reaches to the first range of the Atlas; the second region, which reaches to the edge of the great sands; and the Sahara.^ The "second region" is known among the French as the haiits plateaux. In it are the ruins of Roman cities, some of whose names are now unknown to us. In one of these Roman towns, which was destroyed by Genseric, king of the Vandals, who landed in Africa a.d. 429, a recent traveller found the remains of a Christian church; a slab of red stone with the cross, dove, and vine beautifully carved upon it; a triumphal arch dedicated to the emperors Valens and A'^a- lentinian ; innumerable specimens of pottery, and old coins of all sizes lying loose upon the sand. Tunis lies between the province of Constantine in Algeria and the Gulf of Kabes or Gabes, south of which, and south of Tunis, there exist vast depressions of the soil, the sup- posed bed of some mighty inland sea. The idea advanced is to cut a canal about two hundred and fifty miles in length which would let the waters of the Mediterranean run from the Gulf of Gabes into their ancient bed, which would thus 1 The attention of the Geographical Society in Paris has been called lately to Saharan emeralds. It is thought that a complete explora- tion of the mountains of the Touareg and their dependent valleys would result in the rediscovery of the emeralds of our museums. Colonel Flatters found a. great number of emeralds, several of them as large as eggs. — E Afrique. 406 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. become once more a sea about fifteen times the size of the lake of Geneva. It would turn a vast district, now- unhealthy and unprofitable, into a salubrious and fertile region; would promote commerce with the interior of Africa, and would cost, according to the late M. Ferdinand de Lesseps (whose calculations, however, are not always to be trusted), about thirty millions of dollars. The boundaries of the " sphere of French influence " in Central Africa are, at present, so undetermined that it is hard to say where the hinterland of Algeria ends, or where the French Soudan, the French Congo and Senegal begin. According to an agreement between France and England in 1890, the French sphere reaches to Lake Chad, a small part of whose western shore belongs to the Royal Niger Company, which owns the mouths of the Niger. The head-waters of that river are in the French Soudan, together with all the valleys and basins drained by the affluents of the Senegal and Upper Niger. In the French Soudan, also, is Timbuctoo, which once was depicted on our maps as the central spot of Central Africa. French " influence " is thus continuous from Algeria to the head-waters of the Niger, but as yet the only French- men in French Soudan or the Great Desert are roving explorers or military men charged with scientific, official, or diplomatic missions. Ten years ago Timbuctoo, though the chief emporium of commerce between northern and central Africa, had been visited by only five European travellers, though its caravans, sent semiannually from Mogador, in Morocco, have been large and very valuable. One, for instance, in 1887, con- sisted of six hundred and fifty camels, fifty of which carried water, and six hundred merchandise. It was attended by a powerful escort, and the value of its goods was estimated at one hundred and seventy thousand dollars. The first European who gave the world any written account of Timbuctoo was a Frenchman, named Caillie, THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 407 who reached it in 1828.-^ Two former explorers, a French sailor and a Scotchman, Major Laing, met tragic deaths. M. Caillie was stimulated by a prize of ten thousand francs, offered by the French Geographical Society to whoever would bring evidence of having reached Timbuctoo. He could speak Arabic; in disguise he made his way from the seacoast, and returned in safety to Europe, but no one followed his steps for five and twenty years, when the German traveller. Dr. Barth, reached Timbuctoo, re- mained there five months, and gave the public a complete account of the city that had been once known as the Queen of the Desert. His narrative was corroborated, after the lapse of another quarter of a century, by Dr. Lenz, who was also a German. Towards the close of 1893 a French column, three or four hundred strong, with a small battery, took possession of Timbuctoo, to the great indignation of the desert tribes, who looked upon it as their holy city, and on its chief mosque (built in 1327) as a place of great sanctity. Reinforcements were sent, under the command of Colonel Bonnier, but the expedition was surprised by the Touaregs and cut off, losing nine French officers, two non-commis- sioned officers, and sixty-nine men. The rest were forced to retreat, but the French have continued to hold the city. At present it seems as if there were small chance for the terminus of a trans-Saharan railway at Timbuctoo. The idea of the projectors of this road has been to build it from Algeria to Lake Chad, with, eventually, a branch to Timbuctoo. Stanley has told us that the future of Africa will depend on whatever nation first may build its railroads. Should the French maintain permanent possession of Tim- buctoo — the great trade mart for the interior of Africa — 1 In the days of my childhood little people had few story-books. I read RoUin's "Ancient History" for amusement, Captain Cook's " Voyages," Captain Hall's "Travels," "Rasselas," and "The Rambler." But my favorite books (next to the "Tales of a Grandfather ") were the narrative of this Rene Caillie, and Maundrell's " Travels in Palestine." — E. W. L. 408 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. their first object would be to open a line of communication with the seacoast, not only for purposes of commerce, but to relieve themselves of the present enormous cost of the ravitaillement — that is, the forwarding of necessary supplies. There are but three ways in which the products of the interior could reach the sea, besides the present route by caravan to Mogador, which involves fifty-five days of dangerous desert travel, and would lead only to Morocco, with little benefit to the French. A route could be made by a railroad to the Senegal; another by boats of light draught on one of the branches of the Niger, connecting with another line of railway. But both these routes would be unhealthy, and could be made practicable only at great expense. The route by railroad to Algiers or Bizerta would be two thousand miles long. The country is healthy, the line would be easy to construct, but it would have to pass through lands inhabited by hostile nomads, and might require a long line of military posts for its protection. A company has been already formed in France for the promotion of this project; but at present the idea of a national enterprise, undertaken by a private company, is new to the French. They are not in the habit of doing anything without an official subsidy. "The English push their way into Africa — merchants, engineers, surveyors — well-armed, and supplied by syndicates, and their own government only intervenes to protect them from foreign interference and to reap, later on, the fruit of their labors." Timbuctoo lies north of the Niger, on one of its small tributary streams. It is of great value as a commercial d^pot. Goods are brought on camels from the north, but camels cannot travel south of Timbuctoo. Indeed, the country round that city is so unsuited to them that their owners make all haste to reload and turn their faces home- ward. At Timbuctoo, or rather at Kabara, its port upon the Niger, merchandise is shipped on boats of light draught and sent down to other markets on the river. THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 409 Timbuctoo is a city of merchants. All its inhabitants are concerned in trade. It is estimated that it contains eight thousand traders. Caravans bring from the north, European goods, cottons, mostly from English or German manufactories, paper in reams,^ papier mache snuff-boxes, spices, especially cloves and pepper, silks, beads for embroidery or necklaces, perfumes, knives, needles, scis- sors, looking-glasses, tea, sugar, teapots and other crockery. Morocco sends salt, tobacco. Oriental robes, and silks from the Levant. The caravans return loaded with agricultural products, kola nuts, dried fish, dried onions, honey and beeswax, ginger, dye-woods, incense, soap, hides, cheap to- bacco, an excellent kind of stout cotton much prized by the desert tribes, cotton of a finer fabric used for turbans, blank- ets, — blue, white, and variegated, — from certain districts in the interior, straw hats, pottery, ostrich feathers, ele- phants' tusks, gold and iron bars smelted in native furnaces. Last December (1894) two thousand camels arrived at Timbuctoo, each laden with about three hundred pounds of merchandise. December, January, and July are the principal months for the arrival of caravans. For a little while after the French occupation this traffic diminished, but confidence is now restored. It is claimed by French explorers that the lands watered by the Niger are as fertile as those watered by the Nile. The Niger, like the Nile, annually overflows its banks, and a system of irrigation would develop immense possibilities in the way of agriculture, while the high lands are admi- rably adapted for raising sheep, horses, and cattle. This country was once populous and prosperous. A century back Mungo Park and other travellers found it so, but in those days the present French Soudan was, to a certain extent, subject to Morocco. Early in this century the war- like Foulahs drove the Moors out of Timbuctoo and the lands that are fertilized by the overflow of the Niger, and 1 The cost of transportation is so great that in Timbuctoo paper sells, it is said, at ten cents a sheet. 4IO EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. from that time to the present incessant wars have desolated all that part of Africa. The Foulahs had hardly estab- lished themselves in Timbuctoo, v/hen they were driven out by Touareg tribes, who, fighting incessantly, held it till the French troops took possession. During these years agriculture was suspended, caravans were frequently cut off, and Kabara, the port of Timbuctoo upon the Niger, was deserted. Timbuctoo lies not very far from the boundary that sepa- rates French Soudan from the " sphere " of the Royal Niger Company. Towards the east the boundaries of the French Soudan are, at present, undefinable. Between it and the province of Darfour, wrenched from Egypt by the Mahdi, lies the great negro sultanate of Wadai, now under the spiritual influence of the Prophet of Jerboub. - French Soudan and the French Sahara are, for the most part, inhabited by the Touaregs, men of Berber descent, of whom the grandson of Marshal Ney has recently given us an account in the "Cosmopolitan." They have an evil reputation among travellers for the murder and plunder of all who intrude into their country. In 1874 they murdered a whole party of Cardinal Lavigerie's White Fathers, and subsequently killed Colonel Flatters, a French officer who commanded an exploring expedition. It was they who, early last year (1894), attacked Colonel Bonnier and his people. Besides these, many others have fallen victims to their lances and their knives. They seem resolved to keep the road to the equator closed to all white men. They are, nominally, Mohammedans, but their forefathers were Christians, before they were assailed by Saracen invaders who overran the West African portion of the Roman Empire. Their religion, however, is very nominal. They neither perform their prayers like true Mohammedans nor prac- tise polygamy. Their wealth is in their camels, which are extraordinarily swift. Their women go unveiled, but the men veil their faces, leaving little to be seen but their THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 41 1 eyes. One of their names in native speech is "Red Men." This is supposed to denote that their race had once red hair, but their blood has been so much mixed with that of Arabs and negroes, that their hair (what little is seen of it, for they conceal both head and beard) is dark, and their complexion is bronze-color. They use no firearms, but each man carries a perfect arsenal of other weapons on his person. The tribes that live nearest to Algeria, the Azdjir Touaregs, have entered into friendly relations with the French, and have promised to protect their railroad should it be constructed. They are a tall, shapely people, grave, silent, and, like our own red men, profess disdain or indifference to the novelties of civilization. Some tribes, called Praying Tribes, are looked down upon by other clans whose men are warriors, but the Praying Tribes carry on trade, and attend to commerce and agriculture. This division of labor is not unlike that which existed between the religious orders and the feudal lords in the Middle Ages. " The Praying Tribes pay a rather heavy tribute in cattle, slaves, and dates to the warriors ; but, this settled, they enjoy absolute freedom. They spend much time in restoring peace among the nobles, or in conducting caravans, and are willing to establish friendly relations with foreigners. Such are the Touaregs, those strange nomads unexpugnable in the desert fastnesses which they have inherited from time immemorial, and where, till now, they have confined themselves. This state of things seems to be passing away, and, at any rate, it is soon to be modified. " It is claimed by geographers, botanists, ethnologists, and zoologists that North Africa is an integral part of Europe, and has nothing at all to do with the barbarous Africa of the negro race. ' The existing fauna and flora of the Atlas region,' says Mr. Grant Allen, ' in which I venture to include the human inhabitants, entered the country from the north, and are of European origin. Africa proper begins south of the Sahara. Even the seasons north of that point are European, spring, sum- mer, autumn, and winter. After passing into French Soudan, the seasons are the rainy and the dry.' " West of the French Soudan lies Senegal, a land in which 412 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. France planted her flag as far back as early in the seven- teenth century; but, except building the town of St. Louis on the coast, she had done little for its improvement until 1852, when General Failherbe was sent out to administer. At that time even St. Louis was menaced by the native kings; now the country is open to civilization and com- merce. The French have a line of fortified posts along the valleys of the Senegal, and a railroad running a consider- able distance into the interior. In 1887 a gun-boat, under command of Lieutenant Caron, went up the Niger to within sight of Timbuctoo; and General Failherbe has been enthusiast enough, in speaking of the province he has redeemed from barbarism, to invite summer tourists to visit it instead of spending their vacation in the Pyre- nees. The round trip, he tells them, with ten days for sport in Senegal, could be made from France in thirty days. South of the French Soudan is French Congo. The limits of both French Soudan and French Congo are, at present, ill-defined. In 1885 a treaty was made between France and the Congo Free State to settle the limits of their respective spheres. Diplomatic knowledge of these regions was then founded on the explorations of M. de Brazza, the French rival of Mr. Stanley. By this treaty the fourth degree of north latitude and the seventeenth degree of east longitude were to be respectively the northern and western limits of Belgian territory, exclusive of the "pan- handle " towards the mouth of the Congo. In other words, future surveys were to fix the exact boundaries as nearly as possible according to these lines. It was vaguely supposed that the river Licona, entering the Congo (as was assumed) exactly on the seventeenth parallel, would be a suitable boundary. But a month after the treaty was signed the river Ubangi (or Mobangi, or Oubangi), a far larger and more navigable stream than the Licona, was explored by an English missionary. Its mouth was found to be exactly where De Brazza' s map had placed that of the Licona, and THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 413 the French claimed it to be their boundary. In 1887 the Congo Free State ceded to France the large extent of ter- ritory thus claimed. There have been disputes, besides, concerning the northern boundary of Congo Free State, all arising out of imperfect geographical knowledge when the protocols and treaties were put on paper. When Congo Free State was organized by the Congress of Berlin it was stipulated that, should future differences arise about its boundaries which could not be settled amicably, the matter should be referred for adjustment to the other powers. Differences concerning boundary lines have arisen with Port- ugal and England, but in each case the parties have settled these disputes by mutual concessions. This, in the case of the Congo State and France, has not yet been done. Boundary is, however, not the only cause of contention between France and the Belgian colony. In 1890 the latter made an agreement with the Imperial British East African Company, which was not assumed by the British government until 1894. By it the Congo Free State was to extend north to Lado, on the western bank of the Nile, north of Lake Albert. When the British government took the territorial jurisdiction of the East African Company off its hands, it leased to the Congo Free State, during King Leopold's lifetime, the equatorial province of Bahr Gazal (the region once governed by poor Lupton), receiving in exchange from the Congo Free State a broad road from Lake Tanganyika to Lake Albert Edward, through a country which had hitherto formed a barrier to England's direct line of future communication between the Cape and the Nile. But, in making this arrangement, England had consulted neither France nor Germany. It had seemed to her foreign office that it was a matter between herself and the Belgian State. Both powers, however, intervened, and so successfully, that King Leopold asked leave to retire from his engagement. The road from Tanganyika northward has likewise been given up, and Congo Free State retains 414 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. only a small part of the territory she would gladly have taken upon lease, and which she would have developed jointly with England, giving both countries access to the Albert Nyanza and the equatorial waters of the Nile. Germany respects boundaries, and since she would not give her assent to the above arrangement, it was felt that it was neighborly and prudent, as she occupies lands closely bordering on the "sphere of English influence," to avoid a cause of quarrel. But it is hard to understand what claim France has to interfere in the matter. The territory leased to the Congo Free State lies outside the limit diplo- matically assigned to French influence. Up to 1894 France had never manifested any intention of claiming an interest in the basin of the Upper Nile or in the equatorial region. The king of the Belgians, and Germany, and Italy had, in 1890, recognized that that portion of Africa might be con- sidered to be under British influence, and England and the Congo Free State conceived themselves justified in making a treaty calculated to extend civilization and promote the welfare of the Belgian State. The Free State retains Lado and some portion of terri- tory along the shore of the Albert Lake, while an English expedition was sent at once to Wadelai, where, with the full consent of the sheikh, it raised the British flag. The French, meantime, despatched an expeditionary force, under an able African explorer, Colonel Monteil, to raise the tricolor in the Bahr Gazal. It has been asserted by France that the equatorial prov- inces abandoned by Egypt in 1883 are derelict, and may be taken possession of by whoever chooses to occupy them. To this the English oppose the recognition of their prior claim by Belgium, Italy, and Germany; propinquity to these possessions, and a previous interest taken in those regions; besides which, France is not prepared in any sense to occupy those provinces. Another argument put forth by Frenchmen is, that if the provinces belong to anybody they belong to Egypt, and if THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 415 to Egypt then to Turkey. It is added that by the Treaty of Paris, no great power was to annex any part of the Turk- ish Empire without the consent of the others. To this the answer is twofold. In no treaty or official document has Turkey ever asserted any claim to the Egyp- tian Soudanese provinces. They were not a part of Egypt, they were a conquest made by the Khedive; or, admitting that they formed part of the Turkish Empire, there is a til quoque argument, since France has had no scruple in annexing Tunis, which was certainly more a part of the Sul- tan's African dominions than the Bahr Gazal in Equatoria. The matter is still under the consideration of cabinets and diplomatists. In good time we shall know what children call "the end of it." Meantime, nothing Englishmen could do or say would be likely to affect the feelings of French chauvinists.-' The land in dispute, the Bahr Gazal, is that where the tributaries of the Nile on its west bank rise and flow northward and the tributaries of the Congo flow west and south. England makes no secret of her intention to have and to hold the valley of the Nile. Con- trol of the water supply of the Nile is of the last impor- tance to the power that holds Egypt. This valley lies within the recognized sphere of British influence, and it is certain that that power will not give it up to the French. Meantime, there are vast territories unappropriated by any European power lying contiguous to French Soudan and to French Congo, though these are Mohammedan sultanates ^ with settled governments and a very considerable share of semi-civilization. The French are credited with an ambition to form a 1 The words chauvinist, chauvinism come from a character in a French play wherein M. Chauvin figures as a fanatic in matters of patriotism, eager to take offence where no offence could have been meant; and on all occasions clamorously announcing himself the champion of France, ready to do or dare anything in the cause of national honor. 2 Sultanates are Mohammedan, kingdoms pagan, when speaking of Africa. 4l6 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. North African Empire of immense extent, stretching from the mouth of the Senegal to the shores of the Red Sea, and thence stretching out its hand to the French settlement of Obok, in Arabia, with, possibly, ulterior designs. The possession of Madagascar may form part of this system of colonial extension. But the attention of England is now fully aroused. Both Liberals and Conservatives hold themselves pledged to block the realization of this project. The London "Spectator " (July 6, 1895) says, in a notice of Captain Lugard's recent article on "England and France in the Nile Valley " : — '■'■ No doubt our English claim is diplomatically sound, but we must consider more than diplomatic claims, however good. We must provide against those diplomatic claims being acted upon in such a way as to bring us into conflict with France, and prov- ing a source of grave embarrassment. France, though she does ■not venture actually to repudiate our claims, does not admit them. Under these circumstances we must proceed to put our claims into action. It may be safe to leave a piece of valuable prop- erty lying abovit on the roadside when no one thinks of disput- ing the right of possession. When that right is disputed, the best, indeed the only way of avoiding the risk of an ugly quarrel is to take actual possession, — to have the valuable possession in our hands. If we had begun this operation five years ago we should not now be worried by the fear of friction with France. Unfortunately we did not look ahead, but were content to drift. Still, better late than never." The latest news from the Upper Nile and the lakes Albert and Victoria informs us that an English expedition started north about eight months ago from Uganda It passed through Unyoro, where the English have now estab- lished three mihtary stations, and proceeded on a steamer of light draught up the Albert Nyanza. Pausing at Wadelai, the leaders learned that the dervishes had established an advanced post at Rejaf, their former station on the Upper Nile. Rejaf is south of Lado, between that place and Daiil6, which was the furthest point reached by the expedition on the 15th of January, 1895. The navigation there became too difficult, and they made their way back to the Albert THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 417 Lake. We have since heard that the Belgians at Lado have encountered and routed the dervishes at Rejaf. Major Cunningham, commander of the English expedition, returned to Unyoro, having on his way fought a severe battle with Kabba Rega, whom he routed, and dfrove into exile. He lost, however, an efificient English officer in the engagement, and was himself badly wounded. ' The enemies of the KhaUfa Abdullah appear to be closing round him. The English are in a position to attack him from the north ; the Belgians are already at war with him ; the Ital- ians are strengthening their armies to oppose him in the east. Should Sheikh Senoussi of Jerboub, his rival in spiritual influence, stir up the negro sultans on the west to attack him, he would find himself in the midst of a circle of foes. The various little colonies of European powers, which, wedgelike, stud the western coast of Africa, from French Senegal to the French Congo, are Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast (including Cape Coast Castle), and Lagos, which are British, together with the Oil Rivers or Old Cala- bar, which is an English protectorate. There are, besides, French, German, and Portuguese trading stations, and the little Africo-American Republic of Liberia; there are, like- wise, the German Cameroons, and the large territory ad- ministered by the Royal Niger Company. France, during the past ten years, has been absorbing the hinterland of all these states, concerning which, as regards the Cameroons, she is still in dispute with Germany. Her power now restricts the trade of these coast settlements, and blocks any advance that they may wish to make into the interior. The possessions of England, Germany, Portugal, and Spain upon the Guinea coast are hardly to be called colonies. They are, for the most part, trading settlements, in which the products of the interior are collected and exchanged for European goods. Unhappily, in spite of the great convention held at Brussels in 1892, to take inter- national steps for the suppression of the slave-trade, the liquor traffic, and the sale of firearms and ammunition to 41 8 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. the natives, a great trade in such articles is still carried on by the English on the west coast, and thence slave-raiders in Central Africa draw ' indirectly their supplies. The imports of these things in one year (189 2-1 893) amounted to one and one-half million gallons of cheap liquor, sixty- two thousand two hundred and seventy-two guns, and over half a million pounds of powder. " It is true that this import, prior to April, 1892, the date of the ratification of the Brussels Act, was not an absolute breach of inter- national treaty, but its continuation since that date is an absolute violation of the most solemn pledges."^ The west coast of Africa has been frequented by Euro- peans since it was first explored by the Portuguese, shortly before the discovery of America by Columbus. In the seventeenth century all the maritime nations of Europe, -except Spain, had forts or factories on the coast, whence they supplied slaves for their plantations in America. Within the last ten years France has been unceasing in her efforts to found a great African Empire; she is ambitious to extend it from the Mediterranean to the Congo. South of Tripoli and east of the vaguely defined limits of the French "sphere of influence" in the western Soudan, the central part of Central Africa is very little known. The first traveller who seems to have penetrated into the equatorial forest of the west coast hinterland was M. Paul du Chaillu, who, between 1855 and 1865, spent five years there. His accounts of almost impenetrable forests, dwarfs, cannibals, and gorillas, were received by the pub- lic with incredulity. Time has vindicated his veracity as it has done that of Herodotus. He found negro tribes living in neat villages, expert hunters, eager for trade, and skillful workers in iron. A piece of advice, given to him by an African chief, was very useful to him on his journey: — ■ 1 " In Nyasaland and British East Africa the British have not imported, so far as I know, one single pint of intoxicating liquor for sale to the natives." — Captain F. D. Lugard. PAUL DU CHAIIJ L ■■ a great trade ix:i such ariiciec? is still carried -• ;.h .,!-. the west coast, and thence slave-raid; draw ' indirectlj' tlieir supplies. uapoils o( ii.ese things in one year (1892-1893) amounlv to on; and one-half million gallons of cheap liquor, sixt usand two hundred and seventy-two guns, and ov ii^U a. million pounds of powder. "It is true that tl.; import, prior to April, 1892, the date of the-ratificati< of the Brussels Act, was not an absolute breach of inte; national treaty, but its continuation since that date -'• absolute violation of the most solemn pledges." ^ The west coast of Africa has been frequented by Eur peans since it was first explored by the Portuguese, shorl; before the discovery of America by Columbus. In tJ seventeenth century ail the maritime nations of Euro] < -except Spain, had forts or factories on the coast, when* they supplied slaves for their plantations in Arherir Within the last ten years France has been unceasing in b, efforts ■■'■ f.:.;i;-.;l ;';. k^reat African Empirej she is arnbitio; to ext; [iterranean to the Congo. Soui of Tripoli and east ot ihe" vaguely defined limits 6f ti. French "sphere nf inflriencc " in the western Soudan^ ti- cenrr. ' 'tie knowr I'he nrM iMvenc: ■'.-.^o ■ ,^•.i■ ;o nas-e penetratea iniu ; equatorial forest of the west coast hinterland was M. Pa du Chaillu, who, between 1855 and 1865, spent five yert there. His accounts of almost impenetrable fores; dwarfs, cannibals, and gorillas, were received by the pir lie with incredulity. Time has vindicated his verac: as it has done that of Herodotus. He found negro iti' living in neat villages, expert hunters, eager for and skillful -workers in iron. A piece of advice, to him by an African chief, was verv useful to him journey : — ^ " In Nyasaland and British East Africa the British have not in so far as I know, one single pint of intoxicating lif|P"'- f-- '^''' natives." — Captain F. D. Lttgard. PAUL DU CHAILLU. THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 419 "Now listen to what I say — you will visit many strange tribes. If you see on a road or in the streets of a vil- lage a fine bunch of plantains with ground nuts lying by its side, do not touch them; leave that village at once; this is a tricky village, for the people are on the watch to see what you will do with them. If the people of any village tell you to go and catch fowls and goats, or to cut plantains for yourself, say to them: 'Strangers do not help themselves. It is the duty of the host to catch the goat or fowl, and to cut the plantains, and bring the present to the house that has been given to the guest. ' I tell you these things that you may journey in safety." Du Chaillu travelled without tent and without baggage, with only seven followers. " Mr. Stanley, on the other hand," he says, "was, practically, at the head of a small army, 'tied to time,' and hampered by the responsibilities of feeding his numerous followers, of transporting his valu- able stores, and above all, of fulfilling within a limited time his all-important mission." But M. du Chaillu did not penetrate to the negro Mohammedan sultanates which occupy the centre of Africa. There is almost universal testimony to the great change for the better produced among savage tribes by the adop- tion of Islamism. They are taught that there is but one God; they learn the value of prayer; and they are instructed in the laws contained in the ten commandments. The Mohammedan prohibition of wine is strictly observed by all the proselytes of Islam, and at least the regulated polygamy of Mussulmans is better than the negro plural- ity of wives. Mohammedanism inculcates cleanliness, decency, and industry. It does away with cannibalism, fetishism, human sacrifices, and the negro trial by ordeal. It is matter of general observation among travellers that the native followers of Islamism acquire dignity of character, sobriety, and self-control. On the other hand, Moham- medanism is the uncompromising enemy of Christianity. "The savage who becomes a Moslem will remain a Moslem; 420 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. and whatever control over a barbarous or semi -barbarous people Islam gets, it keeps." Dr. Blyden, the colored explorer and philologist, doe« not hesitate to say: "I believe that Islam has done for vast tribes in Africa what Christianity in the hands of Europeans has not yet done. It has cast out the ignorance of God, the vices of drunkenness and gambling, and has introduced customs which subserve for the people the highest purposes of growth and self-preservation." Yet this very improvement builds up a strong barrier against the advance of Christianity, and the sympathies of jail Mohammedans are in favor of slavery. In domestic life the Mohammedan is, in general, considerate and kindly to his slaves, patriarchal in his family, as Abraham himself may have been, but he sees no reason to oppose slave-raid- ing, or even why he should refuse to take part in its profits. We must have faith in time. The Mussulman who finds the leading articles of his faith in the first two command- ments of the Decalogue is bitterly opposed to what he conceives to be the Christian belief, as represented by Roman Catholic *' image-worship " and Mariolatry. He is a strict monotheist. He clings to the teaching com- prised in one short chapter of the Koran, which Moham- medans are said to look upon as equal in value to one-third of the whole. " Say, There is One God alone ; God the Eternal. He begetteth not, and He is not begotten ; And there is none like Him." Meantime, it is the dream of Cardinal Lavigerie's life, as Archbishop of Algeria, to bring back the old Roman North African provinces to the fold of Christendom. One great desire of his heart has been to erect a metropolitan cathedral once again in Carthage, and the building of that cathedral is now well on its way. But his aggressive move- ment against Islamism is far less successful. His White Fathers penetrate to every part of Africa; they wear the THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 42 1 Arab burnous, speak the Ai*abic tongue, and adopt native customs. Their zeal and self-devotion are worthy of all honor. "But thus far they have only scratched the top soil of Mohammedan Africa." A few words must suffice for the recent French war in Dahomey, for the German settlements on the west coast, and for the Royal Niger Company. In 1890 Behanzin, king of Dahomey, signed a treaty with the French, and in 1893 he broke it. He attacked the French protectorate of Porto Novo. Dahomey is a kingdom known to us as the highest example of savagery, with its "Grand Custom," i.e. its yearly offering of a crowd of slaves in sacrifice to its last sovereign's memory, its army of Amazons, and the uncurbed despotism of its kings. General Dodds (said to be, like General Dumas, another very illustrious French general, a man of color) was sent against Behanzin, who had received some education in France. General Dodds was not at first successful. He was recalled to France, but sent back with reinforcements. Behanzin was driven into the jungle, and Aboumey, his capital, was destroyed. War, however, has not yet ceased. Dahomey is not completely subdued. It is said that the French are importing Arab mercenaries from Arabia to complete the subjugation of the country, and to open trade routes into the interior. German rule in Africa dates only from 1884, when the German flag was hoisted at various places on the west coast. Germany, besides large possessions in East Africa, has now settlements on the Atlantic; Togoland, a small district on the Gulf of Guinea, and the Cameroons, a large territory lying between the possessions of the Niger Com- pany and French Congo, and extending northward to Lake Chad. Lately a. governor of this province was recalled to Germany, and there tried and punished for harsh treatment of the natives. There is also a large " sphere of German influence " south of Portuguese Angola. This has been in German possession since 1884, and, apparently, has not 422 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. proved profitable, since its development has been recently leased to an English company. It contains two restless Kafir tribes, the Namas and Damaras, and has a good harbor on Walfisch Bay which belongs by treaty to Cape Colony, and which that colony seems determined to retain. The Royal Niger Company had its origin in another African company, which, in 1884 and 1885, bought out some French companies trading on the Niger, and shortly afterwards assumed the administration of the country, which was declared a British protectorate. The company has now thirty steamers on the Niger and its tributaries. Its recog- nized limits reach to Lake Chad, as do those of the German Cameroons and the French Soudan. Near the boundary between French territory and itself, about six hundred miles distant from the mouth of the Niger, lies a country called Borgu, inhabited by a tribe of probably outcast Ber- bers, and a land hitherto little known to Europeans. The exceeding activity of the French in Western Africa has now aroused Englishmen to the importance of asserting Eng- land's influence and protection over the hinterlands of her coast colonies. That of Lagos, formerly one of the centres of the slave-trade, but occupied by the British since 1861, is peopled by a very superior negro tribe, called the Yorubas, engaged in the cultivation of the oil-palm. But the Yorubas have from time immemorial been invaded by warlike bands from the country of Borgu, brigands who have mercilessly intercepted small parties of traders, and so harassed the villages that the greater part of Northern Yoruba has now become a wilderness in spite of every precaution known to primitive man to fortify its villages. Besides their prowess as warriors, the people of Borgu are supposed to possess especial magical arts which give them immense superiority when they encounter their enemies. A treaty was made between Great Britain and France in 1890, recognizing England's "influence" over the lands under the authority of the king of Borgu, in consequence THE FRENCH IN AFRICA. 423 .of which the Royal Niger Company made a treaty with that potentate at Boussa on the Niger, his capital. The men of Borgu are a remarkable race, being profes- sionally divided into banditti and agriculturists. They are the only pagan tribe who have successfully resisted the invasion of the Mohammedans, and they attribute this '' not so much to their fighting powers as to their religion, which they afi&rm is that of " Kisra, a Jew " (can it be Christ?), who gave his life for the sins of mankind. They say that their forefathers were originally settled in the north of Africa, and were driven thence about the eighth or ninth century by Mohammedan conquerors." The native name for Borgu is Bariba, and for their neighbors in Bornu it is Berebere, seeming to denote their old con- nection with the Barbary states.-^ " But with all their good points, the Borgu are cut-throats and robbers at heart, and travelling in their country is attended with much danger." Although England had treaty right of " influence " in Borgu, the French have asserted a right to the country on the ground that the king living at Boussa was not king of the whole land but a vassal of the king who lived at Nikki. It became important, therefore, to supplement the treaty with the king at Boussa by one with the king at Nikki. Then began what has been called "the race for Borgu." The French sent out an expedition, commanded by Captain Decoeur, in September, 1894, to secure a treaty before the English could reach the monarch's capital. A large force was sent because it was thought that the king of Nikki would sign any paper backed by many guns. The Royal Niger Company confided its interests to Cap- tain Lugard, who, although the rainy season had set in, and travelling was very difficult, started with thirty followers on the race, and won. He reached Nikki and obtained his treaty, which was signed November 10. Five days after he and his party left Nikki Captain Decceur arrived, and 1 " In an old English Atlas (1825) I find a country marked Barbara, corresponding to the situation of Borgu and Bornu." — E. W. L. 424 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. is claimed by the French to have induced the king to sign a treaty with France on November 25. Captain Lugard, on his return journey, signed treaties with the feudal chiefs of northern Yorubaland." The French were extremely disappointed at their checkmate, and are still very sore over the affair. Captain Lugard thinks that the motive of France in her Central African policy is threefold, viz. : — " (i) Access to the navigable waterway of the Nile as an outlet for the trade of her Central African possessions, a claim she would be certain to advance if she had a station on any navigable tributary to the Nile. " (2) Extension of her African Empire from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, an extension for which she has long been energeti- cally preparing from her base at Obok and Tanjurrah opposite Aden, and by agents in Abyssinia. " (3) The embarrassment of England in Egypt by the acqui- sition of the Upper Nile, and the control of the waters of the river." Captain Lugard's expedition was several times attacked on its return journey by Borgu banditti, who fight with arrows tipped with deadly poison. One porter in the caravan was struck in the shoulder by one of these arrows, and, in spite of care, charms, and antidotes, was never fit for anything again. The only fighting man wounded was the captain himself, "an arrow," he says, "having pene- trated deep into my skull I ate indiscriminately all kinds of native concoctions said to be antidotes to the poison, administered on the principle that if one did not cure another might. The result proved satisfactory, though the process of ' waiting to see what would happen ' is by no means an agreeable one under such circumstances." CHAPTER XVI MADAGASCAR. ALL honor to a people who can accept defeat ; can rise superior to adverse circumstances, can think and speak justly of those from whom their cause received its check, can take the fortunes of war after doing their best, from the hand of God Himself, and, accepting His decision, set themselves loyally to make things " work for good "; putting their faith in time, " And that which shapes it to some perfect end." Such is not the case with the French nation. Instead of rising superior to defeat. Frenchmen lose no opportunity of proclaiming themselves humiliated. It is that sense of humiliation which they feel (and which nobody else would perceive unless they persisted in drawing attention to it) that hurried them into profitless schemes of aggressive colonization, and weighs down with taxes their rural popu- lation and their bourgeoisie. It hampers also the policy of statesmen, and makes France an obstacle and an annoy- ance to other powers, with whom, as part of the Police Committee that regulates the affairs of the Eastern Hemi- sphere, she is associated. Far better for these powers it would now seem had they intervened to prevent the separation of Alsace and Lorraine (Lorraine at least) from France. They pay the penalty of their mistake in the ruinous cost of their enormous armies, and perpetual checks and diplomatic quarrels con- cerning their colonial affairs. We know in daily life how - - - 425 426 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. the pleasure of social intercourse is destroyed by a perpet- ual consciousness that we may hurt the feelings of some hyper-sensitive person who wants "a higher room" than it is convenient to assign him, whereas if he accepted his posi- tion with dignity and self-respect his claims to his " proper place" would be recognized more readily. What in Eng- land was called Jingoism is now rampant in France. The French, once honored and sympathized with by all the world in the days of their misfortune, are doing themselves small credit by their present attitude. Had France in silence built up her prosperity, instead of wearying all the world by the clamor of chauvinists, ex-communists, and Boulangists, she would stand higher at this moment in the eyes of those who love her not, and lie deeper in the hearts of those who love her. It is this that impels France into schemes of territorial aggression, not that she means to colonize the vast area of the earth's surface to which in " the scramble for Africa " she lays claim. She does not, like England, send a super- fluous population to colonize and develop her acquisitions ; Frenchmen are few and far between in savage countries. France marches armies at vast expense through desert lands, involves herself in diplomatic difficulties, establishes bureaucracy, and, to do her justice, builds railroads and sets up telegraph poles at her taxpayers' expense. And that is all. Her colonies seem of no manner of use to their mother-land. They are an expense grievous to be borne. And yet, not satisfied with having acquired twenty-six per cent of the whole African continent, in the greater part of which there is not one Frenchman (if we except explorers and Cardinal Lavigerie's White Fathers), she is now straining her resources beyond her strength to effect the destruction of a nation which has shown an aptitude for civilization hardly inferior to that of Japan. In 1890 England and Germany, out of consideration for French feelings, and to prevent France from interfering by reprisal in the African countries under their own control, united to give her a free MADAGASCAR. 42/ hand in Madagascar ; and one sympathizes with the Hovas who, a few weeks ago, refused to have anything to do with Englishmen, repulsing them as "sham friends." Well might the Scotch theologian, Dr. Guthrie, compare the effect of the white man's appearance in the lands of savage tribes as being as fatal to them as the arrival of the Hebrews to the Canaanites ; and Sir Fowell Buxton, speak- ing of the slave-raids, the liquor trade, the diseases incident to civilization, and the sale of firearms, said : " The darkest day for many a heathen tribe has been that which saw a white man first set foot upon its shore." Not many of my readers are probably aware that three centuries ago Madagascar was known to Englishmen as the Island of St. Lawrence, and that the English no less than the French in our own day had once a craze for the possession of it. A scheme was set on foot and advocated in print by one Richard Boothby, who professed himself " sure that any Prince once settled there with the riches of the island at his back, might, if he had the mind, become Emperor of the East Indies." Lord Arundel, father of the lady who has given her name Anne Arundel to one of the counties of Maryland, delighted in adventures. He was Earl Marshal of England, and en- tered heartily into the realization of the scheme. Charles I. was persuaded not only to favor it, and to promise both a fleet and funds, but to deem that the part of emperor of the East might be a fitting one to offer to his young nephew Prince Rupert, who was at that time hanging about his court " out of employ." Poets lauded the prospects of the young prince in verse, and Rupert was eager to put the plan in execution. But his mother. Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia, gave it her decided disapproval. " As for Rupert's romance about Madagascar," she wrote to a friend, " it sounds like one of Don Quixote's conquests when he promised his trusty squire to make him king of an island." 428 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. The project came to an untimely end. The cause of its failure is not clearly known ; probably its prospects were ruined by the distracted condition of affairs in England. There exists a picture by Vandyke of the Earl of Arundel and his lady sitting beside a terrestrial globe, the Earl pointing with his marshal's staff to Madagascar. The English project was taken up in 1642 by the French. Richelieu sent out an expedition to annex the island to the crown of France, but nothing came of it. Madagascar, whose native name means the Island of Wild Boars, has been coveted by the French for more than two centuries, but they never succeeded till 1887 in gaining any permanent foothold on its shores. They gave it indeed in Louis XIV. 's day the high-sounding title of La France Orientale, " and, on the most shadowy pretensions of pos- session, have ever since hankered after the conquest of the great African island." All their expeditions have, however, hitherto been attended with disaster. The island is peopled by various tribes who, although they speak a common language, are not a homogeneous people. Malagasy^ is their collective name. They have all, more or less, the characteristics of the Malay, or light Polynesian race. In some tribes this Oriental blood has been much mixed with that of negroes brought over from the coast of Mozambique, which is only two hundred and fifty miles distant. As far back as we know anything of the history of Mada- gascar its people were cattle-breeders, cattle-stealers, and perpetually at war with each other. Each tribe, however, seems to have paid tribute, and owed some kind of feudal allegiance, to a superior king, whose power, except as a military chief, seems to have been limited. A very curious narrative has been of late years reprinted, and may be ^ A year or two since a friend from Southern Virginia, when talking about negro dialect, asked me if I could account for a term of reproach or contempt she had heard frequently used in the "Quarter," — "You! — you Malagasy nigger you! " MADAGASCAR. 429 found in public libraries, containing the experiences of Robert Drury, a sailor-boy who, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, was for fifteen years a slave in Mada- gascar. He found the people generous and kindly, fierce in war, affectionate in their famihes, and with some ideas of religion, apparently derived from a Semitic source, but mixed up with the usual negro superstitions. Madagascar is nearly one thousand miles in length, and measures three hundred and fifty at its broadest part. Its centre is for the most part a plateau, about three thousand feet above sea-level. On the coast are dense forests and wide malarious plains. The southern part of the island is very little known. The east coast has one magnificent harbor towards the north, but with that exception it is en- tirely without inlets or bays. Tamatave, its chief port, has only an open roadstead. To north and west the coast line is better provided. One of the largest of the Malagasy tribes is the Sakalava, which is divided into several clans, each under the local government of its own chief. It inhabits the low lands on the eastern coast. The Sakalava are a restless, plundering, nomadic race, and number, it is thought, nearly one million three hundred thousand. The whole native population of the island, according to the latest official estimate in 1894, is between four and five million, of which about one million are Hovas. For centuries the Hovas were but a small tribe confined to the plateau province of Imerina in the centre of the island. " Their complexion is light olive, frequently fairer than that found in Spaniards, Italians, or Turks. They have soft, straight or curling hair, dark hazel eyes, a well-propor- tioned and erect carriage, and are distinguished by great activity and courage." King Radama I., a Hova chief (1810-1828), was the first to exercise any centralized authority. He founded the first dynasty, and in 1824, as soon as he felt his power estab- lished, he commenced reforms and improvements in his 430 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. country. For a knowledge of civilization he was greatly indebted to the friendship of Mr. Hastie, a British agent long resident among his people. In 1820 a Protestant mission was established at the capital city Antananarivo with the approval of the king, who, though himself a heathen, is rep- resented as having been a kind of Malagasy Peter the Great. He sent some of his young men to Mauritius, and even to England, to acquire knowledge, especially a knowledge of ship-building, and ardently desired that his people should be enlightened. " A small body of earnest men," says Mr. James Sibree, Jr., the best authority on the history and affairs of Madagascar, " who were sent out by the London Missionary Society, did a great work during the fifteen years they were allowed to labor in the central provinces." The Malagasy language h'ad never been reduced to writing, though orally it was rich in folk-lore, and also had several poems. " The mis- sionaries reduced it to a written form, gave the people the beginnings of a native literature and a complete ver- sion of the Holy Scriptures, and founded several Christian churches. To all appearance Christianity and civilization seemed hkely soon to prevail throughout the country." But King Radama died in 1828, at the early age of thirty- six, and was succeeded by Queen Ranavalona I., who soon broke up all these bright hopes and anticipations. In 1835 she commenced a cruel persecution of the Christians, " which, however, utterly failed to prevent the progress of Christianity, and only served to show in a remarkable man- ner the faith and courage of the native Christians, of whom at least two hundred were put to death, whilst others were enslaved or tortured. The political state of the country was also deplorable under Queen Ranavalona's reign ; the missionaries were forced to leave the island, almost all for- eigners were excluded, and for some years even foreign commerce was forbidden." In 1 86 1 the queen died, and was succeeded by her son Radama II., a young man steeped in insane follies and vices, MADAGASCAR. 43 1 in which he was encouraged by worthless foreigners and native favorites. Commerce, however, was reopened, and the missionaries resumed their work. But the brief reign of Radama II, laid a foundation for the great woes that at present threaten Madagascar. " Soon after he came to the throne a French planter named Lambert, from the island of Reunion, managed to obtain his consent as King of Mad-. agascar to a charter conceding to a company, to be formed by Lambert, very extensive rights over the whole of Mada- gascar. The king's signature was obtained while he was in a state of intoxication at a banquet given at the house of the French consul, and against the remonstrances of all the leading people of the kingdom. This concession was one of the principal causes of the revolution in which the king lost both his crown and his life. He was succeeded by one of his wives, Ranavalona II. (or, as she is called by some writers, Rasoherina) . She and her ministers promptly re- pudiated the concession to Lambert, as a virtual abandon- ment of their country to France. Threats of bombardment, etc., were freely used, but at length it was arranged that on the payment of an indemnity of a million francs by the native government to the company, its rights should be abandoned. It is said that this pacific result was largely due to the good sense and kindly feeling of the Emperor Napoleon III., who, on being informed of the progress in Christianity and civi- lization made by the Malagasy, refused to allow this to be imperilled by an aggressive war." The French Republic of the present day not only bases rights to the country on the treaty of 1862, but asserts that it has never acknowledged any native sovereign to be king or queen of Madagascar. But M. Galos, a writer in the "Revue des Deux Mondes," in an article in the number for Octo- ber, 1863, says, commenting upon the treaty : — " In it Radama II. appears as king of Madagascar. We have recognized without restriction his sovereignty over the whole island. As such, two consuls have been, accredited to him, one at Tamatave, the other at his capital." And in 432 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. a subsequent treaty with Queen Ranavalona II. in 1868, she is styled by the French government, Queen of Mada- gascar. Queen Ranavalona II., the immediate predecessor of the present Queen Ranavalona III., had been a Christian in secret before her elevation to the throne. She at once is- sued orders for the pubUc burning of her " ancestral idols." The better educated classes, long disgusted with the rapacity and imposture of the idol-keepers, who had spread deso- lation over Madagascar in previous reigns, were quick to follow the queen's example. " Christianity thus inaugu- rated under royal auspices, bore immediate and wonderful fruits. The schools and the churches, which, at the com- mencement of her reign, numbered respectively twenty- five and one hundred and twenty, exceeded when she died, in 1883, eleven hundred churches and twelve hundred schools." The work of governing the country was divided among eight ministers. The army was reorganized and a rural police established ; slaves brought from Africa were liber- ated ; a code of laws was promulgated, and great reforms in the administration of justice were made. Ranavalona II. died in 1883, after a reign of twenty years, and was succeeded by her niece, Ranavalona III., who still reigns over her people. She was educated in the girls' school of the London Missionary Society; and she is thus described by an Enghshman, Digby Willoughby, who, in 1887, was the general officer commanding the Mala- gasy forces, and conducted negotiations on the queen's be- half with the French invaders of her country : — " Her life is full of business and responsibility, for every- thing regarding the government of her country and the welfare of her people is referred to her. To gentleness of manner she adds firmness of character. She is a fair rider and a wonderful shot ; she is a good musician, and plays the organ with skill and feeling. Her skill in lace-work is remarkable. When she appears in pubUc, which is not A % QUEEN RANAVALONA III. MADAGASCAR. 433 often/ it is in European costume. The queen seldom, if ever, acts in matters of national importance without first ascer- taining the national will ; this is done by publishing a royal edict for a great Kabary, which is always held on the great Mahmasina, or Champ de Mars, a magnificent plain at the foot of the mountain on which the capital is built. ... It is the law of the land that the queen should marry the prime minister. Ranavalona III. complied with this law by mar- rying, on her accession, the experienced minister who had conducted reforms under her predecessor. His name is Raini- laiarivony. But to the foreign residents, who despair of being able to pronounce such a worse-than-Russian word, he is commonly known as ' Deal Fair.' From the day of his entrance into the palace as secretary in 1842 to the present time, his life and the political history of Madagascar have been identical. His hair is now gray, but the fire in his eyes, and their depths of intelligence, are not dimmed by age. He has achieved a great position and has won his laurels step by step, by merit, not by favor." ^ And now has come a time in which French policy is to disintegrate the newly consolidated empire, to stir up out- lying tribes, in which the central authority is weak, to dis- 1 Since the invasion of her country by the French during the present year (1895) ^^^ ^^^ made a point of daily appearing among her sub- jects, exhorting them to make a brave resistance to the invaders. 2 A book very recently published in England by Captain Maude, V.C., gives a less favorable view of Rainilaiarivony than is taken by other writers. He depicts him as being cruel and despotic, but speaks highly of his talents for statesmanship and diplomacy. The cruelties charged against him are probably less due to any innate ferocity on the part of Rainilaiarivony than to what might be called the African system of exacting forced labor from agriculturists in lieu of taxes. Captain Maude speaks of the immense wealth of the island, undeveloped as yet by mining enterprise or systematic cultivation. He also shows, by his description of the great difficulties of transportation over roadless mountains from the seacoast to Antananarivo, what obstacles await the French on their advance to that capital, if increased a thousand- fold by the determined resistance of a brave race, well armed and familiar with the passes and goat paths in their own mountains. 2F 434 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. content and rebellion. " Truly," adds Mr. Sibree, "a noble mission for a great and enlightened European nation ! " It is difificult to imagine what motives except Chauvin- Jingoism induced the French Republic in 1885 to revive what it called its " historic rights " in Madagascar. The history of these " historic rights " may be best collected from an article written by General Digby Willoughby in the "Fortnightly Review" in 1887 at the conclusion of the war. One subject in dispute was that the Malagasy government refused to foreigners the right to purchase land. It was willing to grant leases for thirty-five years, but not for ninety-nine, or in perpetuity. The earliest historic right claimed by France was the treaty made with the Sakalavas, when that tribe was in re- bellion against Ranavalona I. in 1842. The Sakalavas were defeated by the queen, and their country reduced to obedi- ence. France had attempted no settlement whatever on the mainland ; but she had taken possession of two islands, Ste. Marie, off the eastern coast, and Nosi-bfe, a volcanic island to the northwestward. Subsequently the country over which in 1842 the Sakalavas had offered to acknowl- edge a French protectorate was acknowledged by France to belong to the sovereign of Madagascar, when, in 1862 and 1868, it was desirable to negotiate a charter which would give a French company rights in that very country now claimed as having been since 1842 a French pro- tectorate. In May, 1883, these pretensions of the French not having been admitted by the Malagasy government, Mojanga, a port on the west coast, and Tamatave on the east were bombarded ; after which Mojanga was occupied by French troops, the garrison having retired to the interior. It is probable the French expected that the war would end with this bombardment, and that the Malagasy would accept their ultimatum. This was (I.) that the French were to have guaranteed to them all the island north of the sixteenth parallel. (II.) An indemnity of two hundred thousand MADAGASCAR. 435 dollars for the claims of French citizens. (HI.) A voice in matters affecting the policy of the Hova government. The queen promptly refused to negotiate unless she were recognized as sovereign of Madagascar. A few days later Admiral Pierre opened fire from his six vessels on Tamatave. The garrison retired, when the bom- bardment commenced, to an entrenched camp in a lofty and secure position. The Hovas had ineffectually attempted to set fire to their town before evacuating it, and it was taken possession of by the French. Nearly two years passed with- out any change in the situation. Admiral Pierre had gone home invalided, and was succeeded by another admiral who recommenced operations in October, 1885, by utterly de- stroying another sea-port town. The Malagasy government now proposed to make some concessions. It emphatically declared with regard to " the sovereignty or protectorate claimed by France over certain territories, that no protec- torate was recognized, and that Madagascar would never yield her independence." She offered, however, to pay the proposed indemnity for the French claims during twenty years, and to make some concessions regarding the renting of land. The French admiral refused these terms, and at once the war opened more actively. General Willoughby was now in command of the queen's forces. The French at- tacked the Malagasy camp. A battle took place, and al- though the French were supported by the effective fire of eleven or twelve warships, they were repulsed with a loss of sixty killed and woiinded. Admiral Miot led the French column in person with conspicuous coolness and gallantry. Two other battles, in which the French were assisted by their allies the Sakalavas, were equally disastrous to the French, so that after this trial at arms negotiations recom- menced. M. de Freycinet, then French Minister for Foreign Affairs, drew up a scheme on what appeared a somewhat liberal basis, and entrusted a M. Patrimonio with a mission of peace. This gentleman informed his government that Admiral Miot 436 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. '. was convinced " that the Malagasy government would never accept, of its free will, the protectorate of France, even lim- ited to the external relations of Madagascar." Unhappily for Madagascar, her plenipotentiary saw no great harm in en- trusting to France the foreign relations of a country that had not, and did not appear likely to have, any foreign rela- tions. So a treaty of peace was concluded on what seemed a satisfactory basis and was signed December 17, 1885. No protectorate was acknowledged, but the government of the Republic was to " represent Madagascar in all its foreign relations," as had been a stipulation made previously between Great Britain and the Transvaal. The queen of Madagascar undertook to pay ten million francs to the French government, out of which were to be settled the claims made by foreigners for damages caused by the war, and this sum being paid, the French troops were to evacuate Tamatave. The word "protectorate " was nowhere in the treaty, and a Malagasy embassy sent to the President of the French Re- pubhc was received by President Gr^vy at the Elys^e with no mention of a protectorate. Throughout, the Malagasy government treated with the French on equal terms. Out of the first article in the treaty of 1885, which said " Malagasy abroad will be placed under the protection of France, and France will represent Madagascar in all her foreign relations," comes the pretext now put forward for the present war. The second article ran thus : " A resident representing the government of the Republic will preside over the foreign residents of Madagascar without interfering in the internal administration of her Majesty the Queen." In answer to an official inquiry made before the sign- ing of this treaty as to the exact meaning of these clauses, Admiral Miot replied : " This means that the resident will have the right to interfere in matters having the character of foreign politics ; that he will have the right, for instance, to oppose any cession of territory to any foreign nation CHARLES DE FKEYCINET. MADAGASCAR. 437 whatever, any military or naval establishments, or the grant- ing of any assistance by men or vessels by the queen of Madagascar to any foreign nation without the consent of the French government ; without whose approval no treaty agreement, or convention can be made. ... In answer to the question whether the queen's government may as hereto- fore continue to negotiate commercial treaties with foreign powers ? — the answer is : Undoubtedly ; as far as such commercial treaties are not contrary to the stipulations of the treaty of December 17, 1885." In a treaty made by France, England, and Germany August 5, 1890, regarding the partition of Africa, the claim of the French to consider Madagascar a French protectorate unhappily was recognized. It seems hard to imagine on what just ground this cession of a right which Madagascar had always denied was made to France by foreign powers, unless we consider Madagascar as thrown in as a sort of make-weight to pacify France, whose claims in Central and Eastern Africa threatened to conflict with those of Germany, and whose jealousy of the occupation of Egypt by Great Britain is always on the alert. " By this agreement the Madagascar question was taken out of the circle of international questions, and became a question of how much money the French Assembly was willing to spend in another attempt to extend French au- thority on the island." Under the shelter of this joint convention with Great Britain and Germany, the French Republic sent in to Queen Ranavalona, at the close of 1894, an ultimatum so framed as to justify the French in doing anything they chose thereafter. Should the Malagasy gov- ernment refuse to accept these terms of the French ulti- matum war was to be declared. The government of Queen Ranavalona replied, acknowl- edging the position of the French Resident, M. Bompard, as intermediary between Madagascar and foreign powers ; and agreeing that France, to whom had been ceded the fine port of Diego Suarez, should create such pubhc works on the 438 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. island as the authorities might deem necessary ; also propos- ing that disputes between the two countries should be settled by a mixed court, the Malagasy government retaining the right to import arms and munitions of war. Meantime the French Ministry obtained from the Cham- bers a credit of sixty-five miUion francs to prosecute the war ; and General Duchesne with fifteen thousand men is at present engaged in the work of reducing the kingdom of Madagascar, stable and largely civilized for fifty years, prac- tically to a French colony. The French army landed in Tamatave in April of this year, 1895. Its objective point is the capital Tananarivo, (or Antananarivo). This is in the province of Imerina, in quiet times seven days' journey by palanquin from Tama- tave. The central mountain plateau, on which Tananarivo fs situated, is divided from the coast by a belt of forest- land, forty miles wide, which is extremely unhealthy. The advance of the French to Antananarivo will be much like that of Sir Robert Napier to Magdala, with two excep- tions. Sir Robert's way lay through a country hostile to King Theodore, and no attempt was made to stop the Eng- lish army in the mountain passes. Secondly, the climate of Abyssinia was salubrious, that on the coast line of Mada- gascar is so unhealthy that it has already twice stopped the advance of French forces to the interior. Antananarivo has a population of one hundred thousand. It is built on the sides and summit of a granite mountain. As approached from the seacoast, it is said to present an appearance both grand and singular. A gray-colored palace seems to dominate the city. Little by little the other buildings upon the summit and the spires of Protestant churches come into view, and later the clay huts, roofed with straw, which cover the sides of the moun- tain. The dwellings of the ministers and commandants are, however, more imposing. And on the plain, surround- ing the Mahmasina — the Champ de Mars — are erected pretty cottages, a little summer palace, and several churches. MADAGASCAR. 439 The London Missionary Society, established since 1820, had taken the lead in converting Madagascar into a Chris- tian island. It has now twenty-nine European missionaries, eight hundred and eighty-five native pastors, and forty-two hundred and ninety-eight evangelists. It has eight hundred and ninety-three schools, and sixty-six thousand children under its instruction. The Quakers of England have also one hundred and thirty-nine churches, a large hospital, and a school for medical students and nurses. The Norwegians have a mission among the Sakalavas, and claim to have sixty thousand adherents. In 1861 the Jesuits founded a mission with a bishop and a large staff of priests, friars, and sisters. The Catholics number one hundred and thirty thousand, and a consider- able party of Cardinal Lavigerie's White Fathers have accompanied the French expedition. The primary pretext for the quarrel which it may be feared will result in the extinction of the native govern- ment, was the refusal of the queen and her ministers to acknowledge the justice of the English, French, and German convention in 1890, by recognizing the French right to grant papers to newly appointed foreign consuls. Exequa- turs were granted to consuls, both of Germany and the United States in 1891, by the Malagasy Minister for Foreign Affairs without any reference to the French representative. •■■ 1 This United States consul was Mr. Waller, of whom the Outlook (Sept. 21, 1895) ssys • — " The Waller case has now advanced to such a stage that a recapitu- lation of it may be timely. In 1891 the Hova government in Mada- gascar granted an exequatur to Mr. John L. Waller, who had previously been our Consul at Tamatave, the port of the capital of Madagascar, Antananarivo. As the protectorate of France over Madagascar set up ill 1890 had been acknowledged by Great Britain, but not by the United States, the French Resident-General was angered, as he had directed Mr. Waller to apply only to him, and thus to accord a half- recognition of the French protectorate. Mr. Waller refused, however, and remained as Consul under the Hova government until January, 1894, when he was superseded. Mr. Waller then applied to the Mala- 440 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. The Malagasy government had previously taken this stand in 1885, when the prime minister and M. le Myre de Vilers, the French Resident, had a quarrel on the subject of grant- ing an exequatur to the first British consul appointed at Antananarivo. This gentleman was Mr. Haggard, brother of the novelist. The point was then waved, after a display of temper by M. de Vilers, and the granting of exequaturs to foreign governments had remained in the hands of the Malagasy ministers, till it was convenient to revive it a few months since. The same M. de Vilers was then sent to Madagascar to extract certain concessions from the queen's government, i.e. the right of Frenchmen absolutely to pur- chase land on the island, the right of the French Resi- dent to interfere in the administration of Malagasy internal affairs, and the recognition of an effectual French protecto- gasy government for a lease of certain public lands. In spite of the protest of the French Resident-General, this lease was granted in March, 1894. The concession covered nearly one hundred and fifty thousand acres, and the land was not only fertile for agriculture, but was especially valuable by reason of its splendid forests yielding ma- hogany, ebony, rosewood, and especially a wealth of rubber-trees. The French authorities, whose claim was of course still disputed by the Hovas (who had never given them authority other than that of a super- vision of the island's foreign affairs), attempted to get the lease from Mr. Waller by offering to approve a concession for about one-tenth the number of acres, and to furnish the money with which to develop it. When Mr. Waller refused this offer, the French Resident-General de- clared his original lease null and void. This declaration violated the rights guaranteed to citizens of the United States by our treaty of 1883 with Madagascar, France having since then announced that she would change nothing in the treaties between the Hova government and other nations. When Mr. Waller attempted to take possession of his con- cession, he was forcibly prevented by the French authorities. Later on the French claimed that Mr. Waller was acting as a revolutionary agent. He was, therefore, arrested and thrown into prison by the French, and was tried by military court martial and sentenced to imprisonment for twenty years on the charge that he was a Hova spy who had conspired against the French protectorate. It is interesting to note that some of the English papers have followed our own in warning the French gov- ernment that the action in regard to Mr. Waller has been precipitate, and that a court martial may not take the place of the civil law, especi- ally in adjudicating the offenses of foreigners." MAD A G A SCAR. 44 1 rate. The final reply to these demands was made by Rai- nilaiarivony that Madagascar would submit to such condi- tions only by force. Meantime, the army of Queen Ranavalona is being drilled on the European plan; its general and his staff are fine, soldierly-looking men, dressed in European uniforms. When news of the declaration of war was received at Antananarivo, it was a touching sight in the royal chapel when, after public prayers to implore the God of armies to deliver Madagascar from its enemies, the queen stood up and, addressing her people, counselled them not to be afraid, for God always helped those who have right on their side, and that in Him she put her trust; for success in war was not in the multitude of an host, but in strength from Heaven. There is a fine harbor at the north of Madagascar which is almost landlocked. If the French government could annex the island, fortifications could be built there which would be almost impregnable, and in time of war the pos- session of this great harbor would give France such a sweep of the Indian Ocean as might seriously interfere with Eng- land's commerce, and threaten her possessions in Eastern and Southern Africa. The jealous rivalry between France and England regard- ing their colonial possessions, or more properly (in the case of France) uncolonized possessions in Africa, opens melancholy possibilities in the future. Each country, as it stretches out its limbs, is apt to touch the claims or the possessions of some other; and until surveys can be made, reliable maps drawn out, and boundaries established, cases requiring settlement cannot but arise. When this is the case with Germany, amicable arrangements are easily entered into. Germany respects boundaries, and deals with rival nations in a spirit of compromise. Not so France. It is the great misfortune of republics that their foreign policy is rarely left to the sole guidance of states- men's hands. 442 EUROPE IN AFRICA IN THE XIXTH CENTURY. It is sad to close these chapters on " Europe in Africa in the Nineteenth Century " with a melancholy foreboding. But there are yet five years before the century will end; let us hope that, during that period, the prospects of Mada- gascar, its queen, and its prime minister may brighten. A Lost Cause is not always a cause lost in every sense of the word; sometimes a thunder-storm revives the earth. All the same, I trust my readers join me in the hope that the cause of the queen and of her Christianized people in Mada- gascar may be, in no sense, a Lost Cause. POSTSCRIPT. Events in Africa now move with such rapidity that even while these pages were being corrected in proof several things have taken place which can hardly be passed over without notice. King Khama (see p. 371) is now in England protesting against his kingdom's being absorbed into Cape Colony with the rest of Bechuanaland. Mr. Stokes, the trader (see pp. 207, 211), has been seized and summarily executed by a Belgian major in charge of an expedi- tionary force in Congo Free State. His offence was the old one of selling firearms to the natives. The present English ministry have announced their intention of completing the railway from Mombassa to the Victoria Nyanza in three years. The work will probably be done by Hindoo labor, and the Government will keep the enterprise in its own hands. The Hovas have apparently made less opposition to the advance of General Duchesne than was expected. 443 INDEX. Abbas Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt, 32- 34- Abbas Pasha II. Khedive, 42, 43, 46, 47. 49. SO, 51. 59-62. Abdel Kader, 394-404. Abdul Aziz, Sultan of Turkey, 39,40, 43- Abdul Aziz, Sultan of Morocco. See Muley. Abdullah Ahmed. See Mahdi. Abdullah. See Khalifa Abdullah. Abdul Medjid, Sultan, 28. Abu Klea, 94. Abyssinia, 228, 229, 237-239, 249. English war with, 237-245. Christianity in, 228, 245. makes war on Egypt, 246. Italians in Abyssinia, 248, 249. Acre, 22, 23, 26, 28. Adams, C. C, quoted, 264, note. Adams, Colonel Goold, 371, 375, Aden, 257. Advance, steamer, 162, 168, 181. Africa, in 1822, 9 ; in 1895, g, 10. early in the Christian era, 10-12. Central Africa, 389, 406, 411, 412. Eastern, 260-262. Northern, 411, 417. Southern, 331, 346, 347. Western, 418, 421-424. African Lakes Company, 384, 385. Agulhas, Cape, 325. Albert Nyanza, 115, 136, 164, 168. Alexandria, bombarded, 28, 50-53, 55. massacre in, 47-50. Algeria, 280, 392-400, 405, 406. Algiers, 268, 273, 274, 279, 390, 391, 392. Aliwal, 349, 350. Allen, Joseph Henry, quoted, 198, 7iote. Antananarivo, 430, 438. Arabi Ahmed (Arabi Pasha), 42, 43, 46, 47, 49-51. 59-63- his rebellion, 53-60. Arogeh, battle of, 238. Arthington, 317, 318. Aruwimi, river, 147, 150, 153, 158, 159. Arundel, Earl of, 427, 428. Ashantee war, 322-324. Ashmun, 295, 296. Aumale, Due d', 398, 399. Ayres, Dr. Eli, 298. B. Bacon, Lord, quoted, 303, 304, Bagamoyo, 185, 261. Bahr Gazal, 100, 155, 414. Baines, Thomas, 368. Baker, Sir Samuel, 69-71, 73, 115, 116, 228. Baker, Valentine (Baker Pasha), 81, 82. Baltimore in Ireland, 271, 272. Bainbridge, Commodore, 273-277. Banalya, 175, 177. Bangala, 176, 177. Barbary States, 266-284. Barbary Corsairs, 266-272. Barbarossa (Kheyr-ed-Din), 267- 270. Barbarossa (Uraj), 267, 268. Barine Arvfede, quoted, 259, 260. Barrage, 20, 113, 114. Barttelot, Major, 156, 159-161, 170, 173- Bechuana Border Police, 371, 375, 379. 380. Bechuanaland, 346. See Postscript. Behanzin, King of Dahomey, 421. Beira, 360. 445 446 INDEX. Berlin, Congress of, 124. Convention of 1885, 260, 261. Bent, Theodore, 366, quoted, 365-368, 371, 382. Bet el 'Mtomi, 253, 254. Bet el Sahil, 254, 255. Bizerta, 404. Blanc, Dr., 235, 236. Blantyre, 383, 384. Bloemfontein, 348, Bodo, Fort, 165, 167-173, 182. •Boers, 126, 327, 342-344, 356. Bonaparte, 12, 13, 23. Bonny, William, 156, 159, 175, 176. Bonomi, Father, 99, 102, 104, 105. Borgu, Race for, 422, 423, 424. Borrow, Captain, 372, 377. Boulanger, General, 280. Brand, President of Orange Free State, 344. British East African Company, 193, 208-210, 216, 219, 263, 264, . 265. British Chartered South African Company, 346, 360, 362, 363, 370. 382, 383. Buluwayo, 370, 373, 374, 379. Burgess, Mr., 292, 293. Burgess, President, South African Republic, 342. Burnaby, Captain, 94. Burnham, American scout, 373, 374, 377- Cairo, 58, 59. Caillie, Rene, 407. Cameron, Captain, traveller, 141. in Abyssinia, 231-234, 242. Cameroons, 417, 422. Cape Colony, 326, 327, 345, 346. Carey, Lieutenant, 337, 338, 340. Carey, Lot, 295. Carnarvon, Lord, 331. Casati, 161, 168, 177, 178. Cavaignac, General, 397. Cetywayo (Cetshwayo), Zulu king, 330. 332, 334-336, 340, 341. his sons, 342. Chad, Lake, 406. Chaka, Zulu chief, 328, 364. Chaillu, Paul de, 418, 419. Charles V., 269, 270. Chauvinism, 415, note. Chelmsford, Lord, 332, 335, 336. Christian captives in Algeria, 270- 272. in Abyssinia, 233-236, 241, 243. Christian martyrs in Uganda, 197- 203. in Madagascar, 430. Clay, Henry, 292. Cleveland, President, quoted, 318, 319- Colley, Sir George, 343, 344. Colville, Colonel, 222. Congo Free State, 146-148, 413, 414. Congo River, 135, 136, 142, 143, 146- 148, 158, IS9, 175. Conventions, in 1878, 124. in 1885, 261, 264. in 1890, 208, 422, in 1891, 210, 418. Cookson, consul at Alexandria, 48. Coomassie, 134, 324. Corduroy road, 147. Cortez, Herman, 270. Cromer, Lord (Sir Evelyn Baring), 112. Cuffee, Captain Paul, 291, 293, D. Dafilfe, 179, 180. Dahomey, 421. Damascus, 402, 403. Darfour, 70. Dark Forest, 161, 162. Daumas, General, 399, 400. Decatur, Commodore Stephen, 276, 391- Dervishes, 79, 80, 180. Desmichels, General, 396, 397. Diamonds, 348, 349, 352. at Kimberley, 350-352. on the Vaal River, 354. Djehad (Holy War), 394. Dodds, General, 421. Doria, Admiral Andrea, 269, 270. Dragut, 270, 271. Drury, Robert, 429. Druses, 402. Duchesne, General, 438. Dufferin, Lord, 63, 112. Dutch in Africa, 323, 325, 326, 327. INDEX. 447 E. Egypt, 10-14, 20-23, 26-30, 37, 38, 41-45, 47, 63, 66-71, 109-119. army of, 41, 42. Egyptian refugees with Emin Pasha, 182-184. with Selim Bey, 213-216. Eltz, Baron von, 385. Emboma (Boma), 143, 144, 146. Emeralds, 405. Emin Bey, Mameluke, 17. Emin Pasha, 136, 148-150, 153, 154, 159, 168, 172, 177-182, 184-188, 212-214, 225, 226. Emin Relief Expedition, 148-150, 154-187. English in Egypt, 13, 14, 41, 43, 50- 69. soldiers return from Egypt, 64, 65- administration in Egypt, 63-65, 109-120. French jealousy of, 67, 119, 211, 414-416. Equatorial Provinces, 68-95, 213-215, 413-416. abandoned in 1882, 109, 116, 117. Eritrea. See Italian sphere of influ- ence. Ettig^, wife of Emperor Theodore, 244. Eugenie, ex-Empress of the French, 36, 340- F. Failherbe, General, 412. Ferida, 180, 184, 226. Flad, Rev. Mr., 240, 242. Flatters, Colonel, 405, 410. Forbes, Major P. W., 372-377. France supports Mehemet Ali, 27. abandons his interests, 29. joins England in administering Egyptian affairs, 41, 43, 44. withdraws 1882, 50. France and Liberia, 301, 318. France and Congo Free State, 412- 414. Francis I., 270. Frederick II. of Germany, 198, note. French aggressiveness and jealousy accounted for, 425, 426. French so-called historic claims to Madagascar, 431-434. French make war on Madagascar, in 1883, 434-436. in 1894, 437-440. Frere, Sir Bartle, 258, 330, 331, 334, 335- Froude, J. Anthony, quoted, 356, 357- G. Galabat, 247, 248. German convention with England in 1890, 261, 262. German administration in Africa, 190, 260-262, 414, 421, 422. Gessi Pasha, 72, 96. Gladstone, Mr. W. E., 66, in, 343. Gold in the Transvaal, 355-359. in Ashantee, 329. in Mashonaland, 369, 379. Gondokoro, 71, 136. Gondar, 229. Gordon, General, 71-95, 100, 362. Gordon, Rev. E. C, 205. Graham, Sir Gerald, 81, 82, 95. Griqualand, East, 347. Griqualand, West, 347, 349, 350. Gubat, 94. Gurley, Ralph Randolph, 295. Guthrie, Dr., quoted, 427. H. Haggard, Rider, quoted, 380-382 ; his brother, 440. Hall, Dr. James, 296-301, 306-312, 315. 316. Hanlon, R. C. Bishop in Uganda, 219. Hannington, Bishop, 199, 200. Hansal, Austrian Consul, 100. Hassall, Owen, 375. Hicks Pasha, 79, 99. Hirth, R. C. Vicar Apostolic of Ny- anza, 222. Hopkins, Dr. Samuel, 290, 291. Hovas, 429. Ibea, 190. See East Africa. Ibrahim Pasha, 23-28, 31. Ibwiri, 164. Inland Algerian Sea, 405, 406. 448 INDEX. Isandlwana, 333, 334. Ismail Pasha, Khedive, 38-41, 43-45, 68, 74, 75, 122. Israel, Joseph, 277. Italians in Abyssinia, 190, 248, 249. in Somaliland, 190, 191. in Tunis, 281. Italian sphere of influence, 190, 191, 248, 249. J- Jameson, James, 156, 161, 176, 177. Jameson, Dr, 370, 372, 376. Jephson, J. Mounteney, 156, 160, 177, 179-181, 184, 186, 187, 226. Jeraud, Father, 204. Johannesburg, 356-358. John, King of Abyssinia, 74-76, 246, 248. makes war on Egypt, 246. conflicting views of his character, 246-248. Johnson, Elijah, 294. Johnston, H. H., 263, 264, 382, 385, 387-389. Johnston, Fort, 388, 389. Joubert, General, 343. Jumbe, Arab sultan, 387, 388. Junker, Dr., 154, 178, 203, 204. K. Kabba Rega, King of Unyoro, 155, 168, 185, 222, 223. Kabyles, 284. Kafr Dowar, 59, 60. Kafirs, 327, 328. Karema, 205, 207. his sons, 222, 223. Karongas, 384. Kassala, 79, 86, 95, 249. Kassa. See John of Abyssinia. Kavallis, 168, 169, 182-184, 212, 215, 225, 226. Kennaway, Sir John, quoted, 151. Kerens, 233, 234. Key, Francis Scott, 292. Khartoum, 69, 72, 92, 93, 96, 100. Khalifa, Abdullah, 95, loi. Khalifas, 98. Khedive, 39. Khama, 371. '&e.Q postscript, /^\. Kilonga Longa, 166, 167. Kimberley, 350-357, 360-363. Kiwema, 205, 207. Kizell, John, 294. Kordofan, 70. Kruger, President, 343, 359. L. Lambert, M., 431. Lamoricifere, General, 399. Langalibalele, 329. Latimer, Commodore William K., 302. Latrobe, J. H. B., 295, 297, 305, 307- 312. Lavigerie, Cardinal, 420. Leon, de, quoted, 35. Leopold II, S3, 146. Leopoldville, 147. Lesseps, Count Ferdinand de, 18, quoted, 19-21, 36, 37, 54, 406. Liberia, 294, 295, 301-304, 315-320. presidents of, 302, note. Liquor traffic, 151, 152, 417, 418. Lisle, Rudolph de, 87, 88. Little wars, 227, 321. Livingstone, David, 124, 134, 383. Livinhac, Mongr., Vicar Apostolic of East Africa, 202, 204. Lobengula, 363, 364, 368-370, 374, 378, 380-382. war with, 370-374, 379. Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 277. Lourdel, Father, 198, 201, 202, 203. Lowell, James Russell, 277, note, 316, 317- Lugalama, 197, 198. Lugard, Captain F. D., 208-217, 225, 226, 264, 384,385,423,424. Lupton Bey, 104, 155. M. Madagascar, 427-442. Macdonald, Captain, 222. Mackay, Rev. A., 155, 184, 194-198, 204, 206, 208. Mackenzie, Bishop, 128, 383. Mackinnon, Sir William, 193. McLean, Captain, 322, 323. Magdala, 239, 244, 245. march to, 237-239. Maguire, Captain, 385, 388. Mahdi, Abdullah Ahmed, 78-81, 85, 93. 95. 97-IOI- INDEX. 449 Mahdis, 76, 'jj, 78. Mahmoud, Sultan, 24, 25, 27, 28. Majuba Hill, 344. Makanjira, 383. Makololo, 127, 383. Malta, 270, 271. Mamelukes, 11, 12. massacre of, 16, 17. Manyuema, 162, 166, 167, 173, 226. Marabouts, 392, 393. Martyrs, Christian, in Uganda, 197- 205. Mashonas, 365, 367-369. Mashonaland, ruins in, 365-367. Masai, 264. Massowah, 249. Matabele, 364, 365, 369, 382. Maryland State Colonization Society, 304. 305. 313-315- Maryland's own colony, Cape Pal- mas, now Maryland in Liberia, 305-309, 311-313, 315. Maund, Lieutenant, 368, 369. Mazamboni, 168. Mbogo, 217, 218. Mechi-ed-Deen, 393, 394. Mehemet Ali, 12-14, 16, 17, 24, 25, 27-31. his sons, 18. compared to Napoleon, 19. compared to Herod, 19, 20. Moffat, Rev. Dr., 125, 126. Mohammedanism, 253, 419-421. in Uganda, 192, 205, 206, 211, 218. Mojanga, 434. Monteil, Colonel, 414. Morocco, 284, 285, 398, 399. Moselekatse, 364, 368. 'Mtesa, 137-139, 151, 191, 192, 194- 197, 219, 230. Muley el Hassan, 285-288. Muley Abdul Aziz, 286-289. 'Mwanga, 196-198, 202, 204-209, 217- 219, 223. N, Napier, Lord (Sir Robert), 237, 241, 242. Napier, Admiral (Sir Charles), 28. Napier, General (Sir Charles), 227. Napoleon HL, 400, 401, 431. Natal, 327-329, 334, 335. Navarino, battle of, 22. Nelson, Lord, 276. Nelson, Captain Robert H., 156, 160, 162-170, 226. Ney, Napoleon, quoted, 410, 411. Niger, 409. Niger Company, 422. Nile, 70-74, 115, 128. Nile Basin. See Equatoria. Nubar Pasha, 36, 71, 84, 395. Nubia, 70, 71. Nyangwe, 140, 148. Nyasa Lake, 128, 135, 386. Nyasaland, 383-389. O. O'Flaherty, Rev, Philip, 193, 201. Ohrwalder, Father, 96-109. Omdurman, 100. Orange Free State, 329, 347, 349, 350, 355- Osman Digna, 73, 80-83. Owen, Major, 223, 224. P. Pain, Olivier, 102-104. Palgrave, 236. Parke, Dr., 157-170, 172, 173, 176, 182, 183, 185, 226. Parker, Bishop, 204. Patrimonies, 435. Patterson, Captain, 380-382. Pennefather, Colonel, 363, 369. Philadelphia, U.S. man-of-war, 275, 276. Philse, 114, 115. Pierre, Admiral, 435. Pinto, Serpa, Captain, 384. Plowden, Consul, 230, 231. Pocock, 137, 142. Poole, Stanley-Lane, quoted, 266, 267. Pondoland, 346. Portal, Sir Gerald, 219, 221, 222. Portuguese, 347, 384, 385. Power, 87, 100. Preble, Commodore Edward, 275- 277. Prescott, William H., 271. Pretorius, 343. Prideaux, Lieutenant, 236, 240-242. Prince Imperial, 336-340. Pygmies, 172. 450 INDEX. Quinine, 312, 313. R. RaafF, Commandant, 371, 372. Radama I., 429, 430. Radama II., 430, 431. Railroads in Africa, 281, 359, 360, 407, 408, 411, 412. Rainilaiarivony, 433. Ranavalona I., 430. Ranavalona II., 431, 432. Ranavalona III., 432, 433, 439, 441. Randolph, John, of Roanoke, 292. Rassam, Hormuzd, 234-236. Renan, quoted, 10. Renegades, 272. Revue des Deux Mondes, quoted, 431- Rhodes, Hon. J. Cecil, 361-363, 370, 385. Rhodesia, 361, 382. Riaz Pasha, 61. Roberts, President, 302. Robinson, Sir Hercules, 345, 355. Rorke's Drift, 334. Rossignoli, Father, 107. Rupert, Prince, 427, 428. Russwurm, John B., 300, 312, 313. Sahara, 405. Said Pasha, Viceroy, 35-38, 68. Sakalavas, 429, 434, 435. Salisbury, Fort, 364, 369, 370. Salisbury, Lord, 384. Sal'me, Princess, 251-256, 258, 259 ; quoted, 252, 253, 259. Samweli, 203. Selim Bey, 213-215, 218, 222. Senegal, 411, 412. Senior, Mr., quoted, 16, 18, 32. Senoussi, Sheikh of Jerboub, 282, 283. Seyyid Burghash, 250, 257, 260. Seyyid Medjid, 250, 254-258. Seyyid Said, 250, 251, 257. Shepstone, Sir Theophilus, 330, 342. Sierra Leone, 291, 293, 295. Sikhs, 385, 388, 389. Sinkat, 82. Sisters of Charity, 96, 99, 100, 105, 106. Slatin Bey (Pasha), 97, 104, 107, 108, 109. Somers, Richard, 277. Soudan, 68, 70, 71, 79, 84, 115, 117. French, 406-411. Speedy, Captain Charles, 233, 237. Speke, Captain, 128, 137. St. Louis, 412. Stairs, Captain Grant, 156, 159, 167, 226. Standiton, 343, 344. Stanley, Henry M., 123, 130-148, 153- 155. 157-170, 172, 173-189, 206, 207, 227, 238-240, 242, 303, 319, 320, 407. Starvation Camp, 162, 165, 294. Stewart, Sir Herbert, 363. Stewart, Colonel, 87, 100, Stiles, Dr., 290, 291. Stokes, trader, 207, 211. See post- script, 443. Suakim, 69, 80, 82, 83. Suez Canal, 36, 37, 40, 50, 55. Swaziland, 347. T. Tamatave, 429, 431. Tananarivo. See Antananarivo, 438. Tanganyika, lake, 128, 135, 140, 413- Tel el Kebir, 56, 57. Tewfik Pasha, Khedive, 43,45-47,51, S3, 119, 120, 157. Theal, 334 ; quoted, 63, 64, 348, 349. Theodore, Emperor of Abyssinia, 229-245. Thiers, Adolphe, quoted, 397. Timbuctoo, 406-410. " Times," quoted, 213-215. Tippu Tib, 140-142, 151, 157, 158, 174. Todros, 247. Tokar, 81. Tongaland, 347. Touaregs, 405, 410, 411. Transvaal (South African Republic, 327, 329, 330, 342, 355-358. Tribute paid by Christian nations to Barbary corsairs, 272-278, 279. Tripoli, 273-279, 281-283. Troup, Rose, 156, 159. Tsetse fly, 129. Tunis, 268, 273, 278-280, 415. INDEX. 451 U. Uganda, 137, 155, 192, 219, 221. political and religious differences in, 194, ig8, 206-208, 210, 211, 216-222. Britisti protectorate over, 223. cost of transportation to, 262. United States, 272-275. has no colonies, 290, 301, 320. Unkiar Skelessi, treaty of, 25. Unyoro, 155, 164, 192. Usogo, 199, 200. V. Vaal River, 347, 354. Victoria, Queen, 63, 232-236. Victoria Nyanza, 136, 137. railroad to, 189. See postscript, 443- Virginia, 291. W. Wadai, 410. Wadelai, 179, 416. Wadsworth, Henry, 277. Waganda, note, 193. Wahabees, 14, 15. V^alker, Rev. R. H., 205. Waller, ex-consul, 439, note Walukugu, 201-203. 214, 224, 414, Ward, Herbert, 156, 159, 175. Washington, Judge Bushrod, 292. Weissman, Major, 185, 261. Wells of El Teb, battle, 82. White Fathers (see Mahdi and Ugan- da), 410, 420, 421, 426, 439, Williams, Mr., 216. Williams College, 292. Willoughby, General Digby, quoted, 434. 435- Wingate, Major, 107, 108. Wolseley, Field Marshal, Lord (Sir Garnet), S3, 56, 59, 63, 94, 95, 108. Wormeley, John Wallace, 275. Yambuya, 159, 160, 175. Yaos, 383, 384. Yellow race, 263, 264, 38! Zanzibar, 250-263 Zebdhr Pasha, 75, 84, 85. Zechariah, 224, 225. Zimbabwe, 366-368, 378. Zoulla, 237, 249. Zululand, 341, 342, 346. Zulus, 328, 335, 336. Zulu war, 324, 331-334. By Mrs. Elizabeth W. Latimer. France in the Nineteenth Century, 1830=1890. Beautifully illustrated with twenty-two full-page half-tone portraits. 8vo. 450 pages. $2.50. The story of " France in the Nineteenth Century" as told by Mrs. Latimer is as absorbing as a work of fiction. Indeed, for rapid changes of front, for picturesque situations, remarkable vacillation of public opinion, no period of European history is more remarkable than this. . . . For telling situations and for startling effects she certainly does not lack. . . . She is always picturesque. In her analysis of character she displays a thorough mastery of her subject. . . . 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The exploits of Livingstone and Stanley and Gordon ; the settlement of Liberia, and especially of Maryland's own colony there ; the founding of the South African Republic, the Orange Free State, and the Congo Free State, — these and many other subjects are treated in a style so pleasantly familiar, attractive, and entertaining, that the book once taken up cannot be laid down until it is finished. For sale by booksellers generally, or will be sent, post- paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers, A. C. McCLURG & CO., CHICAGO. By Miss Marguerite Bouvet. A Child of Tuscany. Illustrated by Will Phillip Hooper. Small 4to. $1.50. " This is a sweet, wholesome, and cheerful story, bright with Italian sunshine, and warm with its author's ' kindly love' to all the young. The scene is laid in the city of Florence and its richly picturesque neighborhood. The characters are all Italian. The children will follow with unabated interest the career of the little peasant hero, who, by unselfish love, and patient, persistent labor, rises from poverty to wealth." My Lady : A Story of Long Ago. Illustrated by Helen Mait- land Armstrong". l6mo. $1.25. The author of " Sweet William " has but to write, and she is read. There is no more universally beloved volume in the children's library, and none with more reason. " My Lady," a tender love story, is as charming as anything she has ever written. . . . It is exquisite. — The Chicago Herald. It is, indeed, a little idyl of rare charm and delicacy, wherein first the mother's love story and then the daughter's are told in a manner altogether captivating. The flavor is quaint, like that of a bit of old lace smelling of lavender, and the illustrations are as dainty as the tale. — Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia. Sweet William. Illustrated by Helen and Margaret Armstrong. Eleventh thousand. Small 4to. $1.50. It is told with a grace of style that has not been surpassed in any of the juvenile fiction of the year. " Sweet William " is a charming little figure. The author has given her story a marked individuality that must ensure it wide popularity. — The Boiton A dvertiser. Little Marjorie's Love Story. Illustrated by Helen Maitland Armstrong. Fifth thousand. Small 4to. $1.00. It is one of the most fascinating tales for children of the season. . . . The beauty and pathos of the story are touching, and the delicate way in which the characteristics of the one child are contrasted with those of the other is as skilful as the manage- ment of the lights and shadows in an artistic picture. The illustrations by Miss Arm- strong, it is needless to say, are exquisite, and the topography is a delight to the eye. The Philadelphia Press. Prince Tip Top : A Fairy Tale. With numerous illustrations by Helen M. Armstrong. Fourth thousand. Small 4to. $1.00. It is a charming little fairy story. . . . Little folk will enjoy the tale hugely, and it will do them no harm. The style is simple and engaging, and the illustrations are all conceived in the spirit of the text, and daintily executed. — The Com-mercial Adver- tiser, New York. It is a jolly and healthy little bit of opera-boufFe for children, full of fun and go, with a happy adjustment of fairy machinery. In all its mirth it is delicate and refined, and it is sure to amuse the little ones vastly. — Literary News, New York. For sale by booksellers generally, or will be sent, post- paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers, A. C. McCWRG &- CO., CHICAGO. By Miss Elizabeth S. Kirkland. A Short History of English Literature for Young People. With eleven portraits. 12mo. 398 pages. $1.50. The story of English literature has rarely been more delightfully told than in these pages. Miss Kirkland goes boldly back to the dawn when English was first written, and not only tells about Caedmon, and Alfred, Chaucer, and their contemporaries and followers, but gives a few short examples of their language, such as can most easily be interpreted. From this time down to Tennyson, Miss Kirkland has picked out the important writers and schools, and treats them in a way that should interest every young student, not only in the men, but in their writings even more. — The Journal of Education., Boston. A Short History of England for Young People. i2mo. 415 pages. $1.25. It is never trite, never dull ; while its brief explanations of intricate systems, as, for example, the feudal system, and of great movements such as the developments which led to the Restoration, are almost flawlessly clear. — TJie Evangelist, New York. A Short History of France for Young People. i2mo. 398 pages. $1.25. Miss Kirkland has admirably succeeded in her "Short History of France" in making a book both instructive and entertaining. It is not a dry compendium of dates and facts, but a charmingly written history. Children can hardly fail to be interested in it ; and if used as a text-book, it will be found by all competent teachers an important addition to the school library. — The Christian Union, New York. The author has aimed to present a consecutive and agreeable story, from which the reader can not only learn the names of kings and the succession of events, but can also receive a vivid and permanent impression as to the characters, modes of life, and the spirit of different periods. — The Nation, New York. Six Little Cooks ; or, Aunt Jane's Cooking Class. i2mo. 236 pages. 75 cents. A lucky stroke of genius, because it is a good thing well done. It has the charm of a bright story of real life, and is a useful essay on cooking. — The Times, New York. Dora's Housekeeping. l2mo. 275 pages. 75 cents. We cordially recommend these two books ("Dora's Housekeeping" and "Six Little Cooks") as containing almost the whole gospel of domestic economy.— The Nation, New York. Speech and Manners for Home and School. i2mo. 263 pages. 75 cents. The author's theory of manners and of speech is good. Her modest manual might be read, re-read, and read again with great advantage in most American families. — The Independent, New York. For sale hy booksellers generally , or will he sent, post- paid, on receipt of price, hy the ptihlishers, A. C. McCLURG Sr CO., CHICAGO. By Mr. George P. Upton. The Standard Operas : Their Plots, their Music, and their Composers. A Handbook. l2mo. Flexible cloth, yellow edges. $1.50. Among the multitude of handbooks which are published every year, and described by easy-going writers of book-notices as supplying a long-felt want, we know of none which so completely carries out the intention of the writer as " The Standard Operas," whose object is to present to its readers a comprehensive sketch of each of the operas contained in the modern repertory. — R. H. Stoddard, in The Mail and Express, New York. The summaries of the plots are so clear, logical, and well written that one can read them with real pleasure, which cannot be said of the ordinary operatic synopses. But the most important circumstance is that Mr. Upton's book is fully abreast of the times. — The Nation, New York. The Standard Oratorios : Their Stories, their Music, and their Composers. A Handbook. l2mo. Flexible cloth, yellow edges. $1.50. Nothing in musical history is so interesting to the general reader as the story of the great oratorios, — the scenes and incidents which gave them rise, how they were com- posed, and how first performed- These things are told in Mr. Upton's volume with a grace and charm comporting with the character of the subject. — Observer, New York. The book is a masterpiece of skilful handling, charming the reader with its pure English style, and keeping his attention always awake in an arrangement of matter which makes each succeeding page and chapter fresh in interest and always full of instruction, while always entertaining. — The Standard, Chicago. The Standard Cantatas: Their Stories, their Music, and their Composers. A Handbook. l2mo. Flexible cloth, yellow edges. $1.50. This is a study of the cantata in its various forms, from its c.rly simple recitative or aria style down to its present elaborate construction. The selections include quite all of the cantatas that rank high in merit. It is the only handbook and guide for musicians and their friends, and is as valuable as either of the two admirable works preceding it. — The Boston Globe. The Standard Symphonies : Their History, their Music, and their Composers. A Handbook. l2mo. Flexible cloth, yellow edges. $1.50. The usefulness of this handbook cannot be doubted. Its pages are packed full of these fascinating renderings. The accounts of each composer are succinct, and yet sufficient. The author has done a genuine service to the world of music-lovers. The comprehension of orchestral work of the highest character is aided efficiently by this vfilume. The mechanical execution of the volume is in harmony with its subject. No worthier volume can be found to put into the hands of an amateur or a friend of music. — Pttblic Opinion, Washington. Woman in Music. 161T10. Gilt top. $1.00. Mr. Upton, in a series of comparatively brief chapters, has given us a kind of interior history of the domestic and heart relations of such composers as Bach, Handel, BeetliWven, Mozart, Schumann, Chopin, and Wagner, filling in the larger sketches of these masters by lightly drawn but very interesting pictures of their relations with various gifted and unselfish women. — The Book Buyer, New York. For sale by booksellers generally, or will be sent, post- paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers, A. C. McCLURG Sr CO., CHICAGO. MAY 2 4194!