CHAPTER XXVII. EMIN PASHA.—A STUDY.

The Relief of David Livingstone compared with the Relief of Emin Pasha—Outline of the journey of the Expedition to the first meeting with Emin—Some few points relating to Emin on which we had been misinformed—Our high conception of Emin Pasha—Loyalty of the troops, and Emin’s extreme indecision—Surprise at finding Emin a prisoner on our third return to the Nyanza—What might have been averted by the exercise of a little frankness and less reticence on Emin’s part—Emin’s virtue and noble desires—The Pasha from our point of view—Emin’s rank and position in Khartoum, and gradual rise to Governor of Equatoria—Gordon’s trouble in the Soudan—Emin’s consideration and patience—After 1883 Emin left to his own resources—Emin’s small explorations—Correctness of what the Emperor Hadrian wrote of the Egyptians—The story of Emin’s struggles with the Mahdi’s forces from 1883 to 1885—Dr. Junker takes Emin’s despatches to Zanzibar in 1886—Kabba Rega a declared enemy of Emin—The true position of Emin Pasha prior to his relief by us, showing that good government was impossible—Two documents (one from Osman Digna, and the other from Omar Saleh) received from Sir Francis Grenfell, the Sirdar.

Now that we have actually turned our backs to the Equatoria, and are “homeward bound” with Emin Pasha, Captain Casati, and a few hundreds of fugitives in company, let us look back upon the late events, and try to discover the causes of them, and in what light we may truthfully regard the late governor.

When I was commissioned, while yet a very young man, for the relief of David Livingstone, the missionary, I had no very fixed idea as to what manner of man he was. The newspapers described him as worthy of the Christian world’s best regard; privately men whispered strange things of him. One, that he had married an African princess, and was comfortably domiciled in Africa; another, that he was something of a misanthrope, and would take care to maintain a discreet distance from any European who might be tempted to visit him. Not knowing whom to believe, I proceeded to him with indifference, ready to take umbrage, but I parted from him in tears. The newspapers were right in his case.

In the instance of Emin Pasha, the newspapers, inspired by travellers who were supposed to know him, described a hero, a second Gordon, a tall, military-looking figure, austere in manners, an amateur in many sciences, who, despite the universal misfortune hovering over a large part of North-Central Africa, maintained evenness of mind, tranquillity of soul, and governed men and things so well that he was able to keep the Mahdi and his furious hordes at bay; that he had defeated his generals several times, but that so severe and desperate had been his resistance that he had almost exhausted his means. Like my personal friends, who so generously subscribed the money for this expedition, it filled me with pity to hear all this, as it filled the hearts of such men as Stairs, Jephson, Nelson, Parke, Barttelot, Jameson, and many hundreds of eager applicants for membership. Junker said his danger was imminent; that the Pasha must yield before the overwhelming forces arrayed against him, if not soon relieved. We seemed to feel that it was true. On board the steamer while at sea, and during our journey up the Congo, within the camp at Yambuya, while pressing on through the sullen shades of the endless forest, until we stood on the verge of the plateau—nay, until we stood on the shore of the Nyanza, the one fear that had possessed us was that, notwithstanding every effort, we should be also too late. Then only, when the natives on the Lake side averred, to our eager and insistent enquiries, that they knew of no white man or steamer being on the Lake, were we tempted to utter our suspicions. But it was yet too early to declaim; the overland couriers from Zanzibar might have been delayed, the steamer may have foundered soon after Junker’s departure, and Emin may have been unable to reach the south-west end of the Lake.

After an absence of nearly four months we were again on the Lake shore. There were letters awaiting us from him. He had heard a rumour by accident of our arrival, and had steamed down to the south-west end of the Lake to verify it. It was only nine hours distant from his southernmost station, and this had been his first visit. The effect was excellent, but it was a great pity that he had not conformed to the request sent by couriers at so much expense from Zanzibar. For the mere number of lives saved it would have been better; we will say nothing of the fatigue and suffering endured by us during the four months, for we were vowed to that, and to the uttermost that he would demand and our mission would exact. Still we said nothing.

We were twenty-six days together after the meeting. During this period we discovered that on some few points we had been misinformed. The Pasha was not a tall military figure, nor was he by any means a Gordon. He was simply Emin Pasha, with a greatness peculiar to himself. He was like unto none that we had met before, but he was like unto some, perhaps, that we had read of.

We knew nothing positively detracting from our high conception of him. What we saw was entirely in his favour. We witnessed what we conceived to be a high state of discipline among the troops; we saw the steamers, and the admirable state they were in; we thought we saw evidences of a strong civilising and ruling influence; we obtained specimens of the cloth his people had manufactured out of cotton grown by themselves; we had a plentiful supply of liquor distilled from fermented millet; he was exquisitely clean in person; prim, precise, withal courteous in manner; he was extremely kind and affable, accomplished in literature, an entertaining conversationalist, a devoted physician, an altogether gentle man, whom to know was to admire. Had we parted with him at this time we should have come away from his presence simply charmed with him. No, decidedly he was not a Gordon; he differed greatly from Gordon in some things—as, for example, in his devotion to science, in his careful attention to details, in his liberal and charitable views of men and things, in his high desire to elevate and instruct men in practical usefulness, and his noble hopefulness of the land which was the scene of his efforts.

But while we admired him, a suspicion fixed itself in our minds that there was something inexplicable about him. He sent a clerk and an Egyptian lieutenant to speak with me. To my amazement they roundly abused him. Each word they uttered they emphasized with hate and indescribable scorn.

Then a Soudanese captain related to me the story of a revolt of the 1st Battalion which had taken place soon after Dr. Junker had parted from him. He had fled from their neighbourhood, and had never been near them since. But the 2nd Battalion, 650 rifles, was faithful to him, it was said, so were the irregulars, 3000 in number. These formed a very respectable force. So long as the 2nd Battalion and the irregulars were loyal his position was still firm.

Then the major and several captains of the 2nd Battalion were introduced by him to me. After a while he said to the major, “Now, promise me, before Mr. Stanley, that you will grant me forty men for this little station that Mr. Stanley advises us ought to be built.” That is curious, too, for a Governor, I thought, and, try how I might to avoid reflecting upon it as a trifle, its strangeness reverted often to my mind. But, in the absence of frank information, it remained inexplicable.

Then, again, it struck us all that an extreme indecision marked the Pasha’s conduct. Of course, as we were unable to explain it, our sympathies undoubtedly were with him. We did not consider the 1st Battalion, but if the 2nd Battalion and the irregulars were all loyal to him, and were yet firm in their resolution to remain in the country, it would have required a heart of stone to have abandoned them. That the few Egyptians who were involved in restless intrigue against him wished to go home was of no importance. The Pasha led us to believe that he would be glad of their departure. But if the majority of the troops were loyal, and preferred Equatoria to Egypt, and he loved his work, where then was the cause of indecision?

If Egypt intended to cast him off, what matter need it be to him? Here was this offer of £12,000 annual subsidy, and £1500 salary to reimplace Egypt.

Or if Egypt only was objectionable, and another portion of Equatoria under English auspices would be preferable, there was the alternative with superior advantages of regular communication and certain support.

When speaking of the troops—the 2nd Battalion and irregulars—Emin Pasha was confident in their loyalty, and always stout in his declarations that they would follow him if he elected to serve under English auspices in Equatoria. He also said that it was by far the most preferable offer made to him. Well, then, admitting that the troops are loyal to him, that they would follow him anywhere, and that the offer is agreeable to himself—why this indecision?

We were compelled to retrace that weary journey to Banalya, and returning to Fort Bodo to make double marches thence to the Ituri, and arriving at the Nyanza for the third time, after an absence of eight and a half months, we discovered that the object of our solicitude was a prisoner, and that all the troops reputed loyal, and in whom he had such implicit faith, were rebels, and had deposed him! This news was a painful shock and a grievous surprise to us. But was it a surprise to him?

When we come to glance over his letters, and study them with the knowledge we now have, it transpires that in many of them he hints at troubles and dissensions among his troops, but led by his sanguine optimistic nature they were regarded too slightingly by us. People at home believed that they were but temporary ebullitions of discontent. We in Africa knew only that the 1st Battalion were implicated. Dr. Junker had not even deemed them of sufficient importance to mention—he only expressed a doubt that Emin would abandon his civilising mission and relegate himself to a useless life in Egypt as a retired Pasha, hence the doubt implied in the Khedive’s letter: “You may take advantage of Mr. Stanley’s escort, if you please; if you decline doing so, you remain in Africa on your own responsibility.” But Mr. Jephson, who is associated with Emin during our absence, no sooner finds himself within the military circles of the Province than it strikes him that the Pasha has kept us in ignorance of the “true state of affairs.” The dissatisfaction of Mr. Jephson culminates when he finds himself a prisoner, and finds leisure to ponder upon the unhappy prospect of being paraded through the streets of Khartoum as the Khalifa’s syce, or slave, and my own may be forgiven when I find by indisputable proofs that this might have been averted by the exercise of a little frankness and less reticence on the Pasha’s part.

For had the Pasha informed me that he could not lead his troops to Egypt, nor accept the subsidy and pay offered him, nor accept the position under English auspices, because his troops had long ago cast off all allegiance and had become chronically disloyal, and that he really could not depend upon any one company of them, something else might have been proposed. It could not have been a difficult matter to have attacked every station in detail and reduced one after another to a wholesome dread of authority. It needed only firmness and resolution on the part of the Pasha. Had we begun at Mswa we should have found sixty soldiers led by Shukri Agha, who has as yet not been implicated in any disloyal act. These could have been embarked with our 300 on board the steamer, and we could have advanced upon Tunguru. In thirty minutes that station might have been settled, the disobedient shot, and marching with the prestige of authority and victory, Wadelai would have succumbed without the loss of a man except the ringleaders; and the other stations, hearing of these successive measures, would soon have been so terrified that we should have heard of nothing but capitulation everywhere. The Madhi’s troops being at one end of the line of stations and a resolute column advancing from the other end, these rebels would have had no other option than surrender to one or the other.

But supposing that such a course had been adopted, of what avail, we may well ask, would all this have been? Emin Pasha has been reinstalled in his power and we must of necessity retire. What, then? In a few months he is again in terrible straits for want of resources, and another call for £30,000 and a new expedition is made to be repeated year after year, at immense cost of life and immense sacrifices; for a land so distant from the sea, and surrounded by warlike peoples and other disadvantages, that were its soil of silver dust it would scarcely pay the transport. Yet if Emin Pasha had expressed his desire to embark upon such an enterprise, and been firm in his resolution, it was not for us to question the wisdom of his proceeding, but to lend the right hand and act with good-will.

Was it a delusion on the Pasha’s part, or was it his intention to mislead us? I believe it was the former, caused by his extraordinary optimism and his ready faith in the external show or affectation of obedience. Even the crafty Egyptians had become penetrated with a high sense of their power by the facility with which they gained pardon for offences by ostentatious and obsequious penitence. Is this too harshly worded? Then let me say in plain Anglo-Saxon, that I think his good nature was too prone to forgive, whenever his inordinate self-esteem was gratified. The cunning people knew they had but to express sorrow and grief to make him relent, and to kiss his hands to cause him to forget every wrong. There was therefore too little punishing and too much forgiving. This amiability was extremely susceptible and tender, and the Egyptians made the most of it. The Yakeel had cause to bless it. Awash Effendi, major of the 2nd Battalion, suggested to the rebels, by a letter which I believe the Pasha still possesses, that he should be made the Mudir instead Emin, yet the Pasha never even reproached him. Azra Effendi declared the Khedive’s letter to be forgery, but never a rebuke passed the lips of the Pasha, and Azra was conducted to the sea safely.

The virtues and noble desires for which we must in strict justice commend the man are as great and as creditable to him as those which we cannot attribute to him. Any man striving for the sake of goodness to do what in him lies to deserve the sweet approval of conscience becomes armoured with a happy indifference of all else, and herein lies the Pasha’s merit, and which made his company so grateful to us when the necessity for violent action ceased to vex him. We learned more of his character from his manner than from words. That melancholy shake of the head, the uplifted hand, the composed calm gravity of features, the upturning eyes, and the little shrug, seemed to say to us, “What is the use? You see I am resigned. I am adverse to violence; let it be. Why force them? They surely ought to have seen during these many years that I sought only their welfare. If they reject me, ought I to impose myself and my ideas on them against their will?” He never admitted so much, but we are free to construe these symptoms according to our lights.

It is probable that his steady and loving devotion to certain pursuits tending to increase of knowledge, and the injured eyesight, unfitted him for the exercise of those sterner duties which appeared to us the circumstances of his sphere demanded. But then we cannot blame him because he loved scientific studies more than the duties of government, or because his tastes led him to value the title of M.D. higher than the rank of Pasha, or because he was in danger through a cataract of losing his eyesight altogether. If the page of a book had to be brought within two inches of his face it was physically impossible for him to observe the moods on a man’s face, or to judge whether the eyes flashed scorn or illumined loyalty.

Whatever may have been our own views of what ought to have been done we have always a high respect for him. We cannot, at a moment when his own fate lies trembling on the balance, but admire him when we see him availing himself of every opportunity to increase his store of lacustrine shells, or tropic plants, eager for the possession of a strange bird without regard to its colour or beauty, as ready to examine with interest a new species of rat as he is in the measurements of a human skull. If a great hawk-moth or a strange longicorn, or a typhlops be brought to him, he forthwith forgets the court-martial that is to decide his sentence, and seems to be indifferent whether he is to be summoned to be shot by his soldiery or to be strapped on his angarep to be deported as a prize to the Khalifa at Khartoum. When we learn all this about him, and begin to understand him, though wondering at these strange vagaries of human nature, we are only conscious that the man is worth every sacrifice on our part.

We cannot proceed by force to save him from himself, and rudely awake him out of his dream, without his permission. His position forbids it—our commission does not require it. To us he is only an honoured guest expectant, to whom rudeness is out of place. Without request for help, we are helpless.

From our point of view we observe the Pasha, serene and tranquil, encircled by wrangling rebels, and yet all along apparently unconscious of the atmosphere of perfidy in which he lives—at least more inclined to resignation than resistance. We feel that were we in his place, we would speedily upset every combination against us, and are confident that only one short resolute struggle is necessary to gain freedom and power. But regarding him absorbed in his delusion that the fawning obsequiousness of his perfidious followers and troops means devotion, and seeing him enmeshed by treachery and fraud, and yet so credulous as to believe this to be fidelity, we are struck dumb with amazement, and can but turn our eyes towards one another, questioning and wondering. For it was our misfortune, that, say what we would, we could not inspire in him a sense of our conviction that his case was hopeless, and that his people had cast him off utterly. We could not tell him that his men looked down on him with contempt as a “bird collector,” that they thought he showed more interest in beetles than in men; that they only paid him the externals of homage because they thought he was pleased and satisfied. We could not tell him all this; but Nelson, who hated deceit, would tell him in plain, blunt terms, that he was wrong in his beliefs, and Parke would discourage them; and Jephson would argue with him, and Stairs would give him open proof. But as often as these energetic young Englishmen, out of pure friendship and pity, would attempt to warn him, the Pasha was prompt to extenuate their offences, and excuse the malice exhibited by his officers, and discouraged the efforts of his friends. What each felt on returning from one of these profitless interviews had better be left unwritten.

He would say, “But I know my people better than you can possibly know them. I have thirteen years’ acquaintance with them, against as many weeks that you have.”

The retort which we might have given to him was crushed under a silent fuming, for he was still the Pasha! We might have said, “Aye; but, Pasha, you know, you find more interest in insects than in men. You are interested in the anatomy of a man, we in the soul. You know something of his skull, but we can feel the pulse, and we are certain that your faith in these men is misplaced, and that in the excess of this faith lies folly.”

Yet in the fervour of his belief in their imaginary fidelity, and the warmth of his manner, there was a certain nobility which deterred us from argument. His unwarying trustfulness was not convincing; but it deepened our regard for him, and it may be that he imbued us with a hope that, though invisible to us, there remained some good in them.

We dare not treat these features of a trustful, loving nature like that of Emin Pasha with an insolent levity. He is a man, as I have said, eminently lovable, and were it only for the pleasure we have oftentimes received in his society, he deserves that what may be said of him shall be delivered with charity at least. For the high though impossible hopes entertained by him, and for the strenuous industry with which he endeavoured to realize them, he deserves the greatest honour and respect.

If we will only consider the accident which brought him to Khartoum, and the rank and position he then filled, and the manner he rose from doctor to storekeeper at Lado, to that of Governor of African Equatoria, we need not wonder that his nature and taste remained unchanged. The story of Gordon’s trouble in the Soudan has never been written, and it never will be. Gordon is a name that English people do not care to examine and define too closely. Otherwise, I should like to know why there were so few English officers with him. I should be curious to discover why such as had an opportunity of working with him did not care to protract their stay in the Soudan. I am inclined to believe by my own troubles on the Congo that his must have been great—perhaps greater; that not one of the least of his troubles must have been the difficulty of finding good, fit, serviceable, and willing men. In Emin Pasha he meets with a man who, though a German and a doctor of medicine, is industrious, civil, ready, and obliging. Had I met Emin on the Congo, those qualities would have endeared him to me, as they must have been appreciated by Gordon. Those qualities are much rarer than editors of newspapers imagine. Out of three hundred officers on the Congo, I can only count ten who possessed them, who by mere request would seize on their duties with goodwill, and perform them. How many did Gordon have? Emin was one of the best and truest.

Now Emin loved botanizing, ornithology, entomology, studied geology, made notes upon ethnology, and meteorology, and filled note-book after note-book with his observations, and at the same time did not neglect his correspondence. I know the courtesy with which he would write to the Governor-General. I can imagine how the latter would be pleased with receiving these letters—precise, careful, methodical, and polite. Therefore Emin is pushed on in his African career from storekeeper to chief of station, then envoy to Uganda, then offered a secretaryship, then envoy of Gordon, then vice-king to the astute and subtle Kabba Rega, and finally Governor of Equatoria.

In the course of his promotions, Emin shows he is ambitious. He wants seeds for the fields; he applies to Gordon for them, and his reply is, “I don’t want you for a gardener; I sent you to govern. If you don’t like it, come away.” A proud young Englishman would have taken him at his word, descended the Nile, and parted with Gordon sulkily. Emin sent an apology, and wrote, “Very good, sir.” Later, Emin sent for a photograph apparatus, and receives, “I sent you to the Equatorial Provinces as governor, not as photographer.” Emin says in reply, “Very well, sir. I thank you, sir. I will do my duty.” Nor does he bother the Governor-General with complaints that he never gets his mails in due time, or of the provisions sent there to him. What a valuable man he was! He showed consideration and patience, and Gordon appreciated all this.

By-and-by came trouble. After 1883 he is left to his own resources. The people obey the Governor mechanically, and stations are building, and a quiet progress is evident. They do not know yet how soon that Cromwell at Khartoum may not ascend the Nile to Lado, and examine into the state of affairs with his own eyes. Emin Bey, their Governor, is a very mild ruler; that other one at Khartoum is in the habit of shooting mutineers. Therefore, though there are many Arabists, and many inclined to that new prophet, the Mahdi, among the troops of Emin, they are quiet. But presently news leak that Khartoum is fallen, and Gordon slain, and all power and stern authority prostrate; then comes the upheaval—the revolt of the First Battalion and the flight of Emin to his more faithful Irregulars and the Second Battalion, and finally universal dissolution of the government. But Emin’s tastes and nature remain unchanged.

There are some things, however, I have wondered at in Emin. I have already observed that he was earnest and industrious in making observations upon plants, insects, birds, manners and customs, so that he was well equipped for geographical exploration; but I was somewhat staggered when I learned that he had not explored Lake Albert. He possessed two steamers and two life-boats, and one station at the north-west end of the Lake called Tunguru, and another called Mswa, half-way up the west side; and yet he had never visited the southern end of the Lake, examined the affluent at the south side, sounded the Lake from the north to south and east to west; never visited the Ituri River, which was only two days’ good marching from Mswa. Had he done so he would probably have seen the snowy range and left very little for us to discover in that district. He had been to Monbuttu Land on business of his province, where he had vast stores of ivory treasured; he had sent soldiers to the edge of Turkan territory; he had been twice to Uganda and once to Unyoro; but he had never stepped on board his steamer for a visit to the south end of the Lake until March, 1888, when he came to enquire into a report concerning our arrival, and then he had steamed back again to his stations.

The Emperor Hadrian wrote of the Egyptians that he found them “frivolous and untrustworthy, fluttering at every wave of rumour, and were the most revolutionary, excitable and criminal race in existence.”

Had he been present in our camp during our tedious sojourn at Kavalli’s, could he have written differently? The revolutionary character disclosed to us compel us to endorse this description as perfect truth. “Frivolous” we know them to be to our cost. “Untrustworthy:” were ever men so faithless as these? “Fluttering at every wave of rumour:” our camp bred rumours as the ground bred flies; there were as many as the chirpings of an aviary; the least trifle caused them to flutter like a brood from under the mother bird. A mail from Wadelai caused them to run gadding from one circle to another, from hut to hut, from the highest to the lowest, emulating the cackle of many hens. “Revolutionary:”—“Up with Arabi!” “Vive le Mahdi!” “Hurrah for Fadl el Mullah Bey!” “More power to the elbow of Selim Bey Mator!” and “Down with all Governments!” And thus they proved themselves an excitable, frivolous, untrustworthy, and criminal race which required government by stern force, not by sentiment and love.

But relieved from the dread of due penalty and the coercive arm of the law by the fall of Khartoum and the death of the Governor-General, and recognising that their isolation from Egypt gave them scope to follow their vain imaginings, they were not long before they disclosed their true characters, and revolted against every semblance of authority. Happy was the Pasha, then, that the good record he had won in the memories of his soldiers pleaded against the excesses to which their unprincipled chiefs were inclined, which generally follows the ruin of government.

These were the people—practised in dissimulation, adepts in deceit, and pastured in vice—which this mild-mannered man, this student of science, governed for several years all alone, before any outbreak among them occurred. During this portion of his career as Governor of Equatoria only unqualified praise can be given. The troops were not all seized with the mania prevalent in the Soudan, to uproot every vestige of authority.

To the north, west, and east gathered the Mahdists, barring all escape by the Nile and cutting off all communication with Khartoum. On the 7th of May, 1883, the first disaster occurs. Seventy soldiers are massacred at El-del station who have been sent to reinforce the beleaguered garrison, which, in its turn, is totally destroyed. On the 27th of February, 1884, Lupton, the Governor of Bahr-el-Ghazal, informs him that the rest of the inhabitants had rebelled, and on the 28th of the following month he receives the news of the destruction of General Hicks’s army. On the 8th of April, the news is brought that the tribes of Waddiafen, Elyat, Eofen, Euknah, Kanel, and Fakam were in open rebellion. On the 30th of May he is informed by Lupton Bey, Governor of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, that the Mahdi is within six hours of his headquarters, and had summoned him to surrender his authority and province, and warning him to take immediate steps for his defence. Four days later, Karamalla—who in the meantime, had been appointed Governor of Equatoria by the Mahdi to fill his place—wrote to him to deliver up his province to him. Lupton Bey had already been vanquished. A committee of six officers having debated this serious matter, came to the conclusion that Emin had no other option open to him than to surrender. In order to gain time he expressed his willingness to conform with their decision, and despatched the judge of their province with some other officers with the declaration of his readiness to yield.[12]

But on the departure of the Commission, he set about fortifying the stations in his charge, and prepared for resistance against Karamalla, then fresh from the conquest of the Bahr-el-Ghazal. He concentrated troops from the petty stations in the vicinity at Amadi station, and strengthened that place against the expected attack of that proud chief, and also gathered at headquarters a formidable force. At this critical period he was able to weed out the most forward in their desire for submission to the Mahdi, and to separate the loyal from the disloyal, and vigorous orders were issued that traitors would meet with no mercy at his hands if found communicating with the enemy. Arbeek, Ayak, and Wafi Stations are abandoned, and the troops are gathered at Amadi. The month following witnesses the struggle proceeding. Some of the principal stations are so well defended that the Mahdists suffer repeated losses of chiefs and men, while many of the Government officers have basely abandoned their posts, and take service with Karamalla; but on the 27th February, 1885, a month after the fall of Khartoum, the enemy has surrounded Amadi on all sides, and a brisk siege is maintained. On the first of April, after extraordinary efforts, the fall of Amadi is announced, with great loss of life, ammunition, cannon, small arms, and rockets. After hearing of this disaster, measures are taken for the concentration of the force of the Province along the Nile, in order to secure means of communication with Egypt viâ Zanzibar, and Birri, Kirri, Bedden and Rejaf stations are founded, and out of the soldiers who have managed to escape with life from the many skirmishes and fights in which they were engaged, during 1883, 1884, to this date (April 1885) eight companies of eighty men each are formed, and called the First Battalion, under the command of Major Rehan Agha Ibrahim. On the 1st of June, after the small outlying stations have been abandoned, a sufficient number of officers have been collected to form a second Battalion, under the command of Major Awash Effendi Montazir, to whom was given the command of the southern stations. In his despatch of 1st September, 1885, to the Government of Egypt, we observe near the close of it the first note of discontent with the Major of the First Battalion. He says:

“The other thing that this major has done is his sending 200 soldiers when it was too late and when everything was finished, which thing he did from want of decision and without asking my permission to do so; for if the rebels were strong at first before their capture of guns and ammunition, how much more so were they after that. But these disobediences have become a nature to these persons, &c., &c. But by the help of our merciful and great God, and by the influence of our Government, and by the name of our honourable Sovereign his Highness the Khedive, we were able to preserve the honour of our Government flag up to this date.”

Yes, the honour of the Egyptian flag has been maintained, after the shedding of “rivers of blood,” after the exhibition of noble stout-heartedness, unabated courage, and a prudent Fabian generalship, which dispirited the enemy and animated his troops; he has been able to align his troops in stations well fenced and fortified, so that the struggle may be prolonged until he can hear the wishes of his Highness the Khedive, and sound his plaint in the ears of Europe viâ Zanzibar. It is the story of this brave struggle that enlisted the sympathy of myself and companions, and caused us to press on by the back door of Africa to lend a helping hand, to rescue him if necessary, or to supply him with the means of defence if needed.

In April 1885 he learns “from the poor slave of God, Mohammed El Mahdi, the son of Abdallah,” in a letter to his friend and Governor Karamalla, the son of Sheik Mohammed, to whom may God grant etc., of the death of “that enemy to God—Gordon,” and of the assault and capture of Khartoum, and that all the Soudan from Lado down to Abu Hamad Cataract, is in the hands of the Mahdists, and that from the north no hope of relief may be expected. He examines his prospects and position to the south, east and west. To the east is Kabba Rega, the King of Unyoro, and his tributary chiefs. To him he sends Captain Casati as his representative or ambassador. It is the policy of Kabba Rega to be kind to the Governor. He knew him in past years as an officer of that active vice-king at Khartoum, and was hospitable and friendly to him. He knows not as yet of the wonderful changes that have come over that region of Africa, and is ignorant of the ruin that had overtaken that proud Government which had dictated laws to him. His African mind is too dense to grasp the meaning of this new movement abreast of his territory, and therefore, fearing to displease the Governor, he receives Captain Casati generously and with a grand display of hospitality. By-and-by deserters approach him, cunning Egyptians and treacherous Soudanese, with their arms and ammunition, and bit by bit he discovers the meaning of that fierce struggle, and begins to understand that the Government which he dreaded was a wreck.

On the 2nd of January, 1886, Dr. Junker is taken across the Albert Lake to Kibiro, a port of Unyoro. He is on his way home after years of travel in Monbuttu and the Welle basin. He succeeds in reaching Uganda, and because of his poverty is permitted to embark in a mission boat and proceeds to Usambiro, at the south end of Lake Victoria, and thence to Zanzibar, taking with him the despatches of Emin. It is through this traveller we first learn the real straits that the Pasha is in, and the distresses in prospect for him.

Kabba Rega meanwhile is patient, like an heir-expectant. He knows that eventually he must win. Day by day, week by week, he sits waiting. He affects generosity to the Governor, permits letters to pass and repass between Zanzibar and Equatoria, treats the Ambassador with due consideration, and ostensibly he is a firm friend; so much so, that Emin has “nothing but hearty praises of Kabba Rega.” But about the 13th February, 1888, Kabba Rega wakes up. He hears of an Expedition close to the Nyanza, and native exaggeration has magnified its means and numbers. On or about the same date that the Relief Expedition is looking up and down the waters of the Nyanza for evidences of a white man’s presence in the region, Captain Casati is seized, his house robbed, and himself expelled with every mark of ignominy and almost naked, and from this time forth Kabba Rega is a declared enemy, having first sealed his enmity in the blood of Mohammed Biri, who had been a trusted messenger between Emin and the C.M.S. Mission in Uganda.

To the west there is a great broad white blank, extending from his Province to the Congo, of which absolutely nothing is known. To the south there is a region marked on the map by the same white emptiness, and turn which way he will, with a people unequal to the task of cutting their way out and dreading the unknown, he has no other option than waiting to see the effect of the disclosures of Junker and his own despatches.

But in the meantime he is not idle. By the defeat of the rebels and Mahdists in Makkaraka he has compelled a truce, and is left undisturbed by Karamalla. Beyond Wadelai he has established Tunguru and Mswa stations, and though the First Battalion has long ago cast off his authority, the Second Battalion and the Native Irregulars acknowledge, after their way, his authority. He superintends agriculture, the planting, raising, and manufacture of cotton, travels between station and station, establishes friendship with the surrounding tribes, and by his tact maintains the semblance of good government.

There are some things, however, he cannot do: he cannot undo the evil already done; he cannot eradicate the evil dispositions of his men, nor can he, by only the exercise of temperate justice, appease the evil passions roused by the revolution in the Soudan. He can only postpone the hour of revolt. For against his sole influence are arrayed the influences of the officers of the First Battalion, of the hundreds of Egyptian employés scattered over the whole length of the Province, who, by their insidious counsels, reverse the effect of every measure taken by the Pasha, and palsy every effort made by him. He cannot inaugurate, by the expression of his wish, a new system of dealing with the natives. The system has been established throughout the Soudan of exacting from the natives every species of contribution—herds, flocks, grain, and servants; or, whenever there is scarcity, of proceeding by force of arms and taking what they need from the aborigines. And this need, unfortunately, is insatiable; it has no limit. The officers cannot be limited to a certain number; each has three or four wives, besides concubines, and these require domestic servants for their households. Fadl el Mulla Bey’s household requires a hundred slaves—men, women, boys, and girls. The soldiers require wives, and these also must have servants; and with the growth of the boys into manhood there grows new needs, which the natives must satisfy with their women and children of both sexes.

There are 650 men and officers in the First Battalion, and as many in the Second Battalion. There are about 3,000 Irregulars; there is a little army of clerks, storekeepers, artisans, engineers, captains, and sailors. These must be wived, concubined, and fed by the natives, and in return there is nothing given to them. We hear of 8,000 head of cattle being collected on a raid; the Pasha admitted that 1,600 beeves and cows was the greatest number during his government. But these raids are frequent; each station must have herds of its own, and there are fourteen stations. Shukri Agha, Commandant of Mswa, was indefatigable in making these raids. Of course the Pasha found this state of things in his Province. It was an old-established custom, a custom that weighs with all the weight of fearful oppression on the natives; and, embarrassed as he was by the advance of Karamalla and the disease of rebellion that raged like an epidemic in the hearts of his own subjects, he was powerless to restrain them. But we can understand why the natives, who had been for so many years under Egyptian government, hailed the appearance of the Mahdists, and joined them to exterminate the panic-stricken fugitives from the captured forts of the Province. When the Congo State forgets its duties to its subjects, and sanctions rapine and raiding, we may rest assured that its fall will be as sudden and as certain as that of the Egyptian Government in the Soudan.

I am not concerned in writing the history of this unhappy region, which has been given up for years to be the prey of the vilest passions that human nature is capable of feeling, but by these allusions to what I personally know I am able to interest the reader in the true position of Emin Pasha. This solitary man was engaged in as impossible a task as was that of Gordon when he undertook and set out for Khartoum, in 1884, to rescue the garrisons of the Soudan. He did brave things, but the bravest portion of his story is when this earnest-minded man lives among these lost people, and has to endure seeing his subjects robbed and despoiled whenever any officer apprehends scarcity and resolves upon a raiding expedition. He knows exactly what will happen; he knows there will be indiscriminate shooting and looting, he knows there will be destruction of villages and decimation of the owners; that with the captive herds there will be long files of captive women and children, and a distribution of the spoil; and yet he dares do nothing to thwart these cruel and hard proceedings. How can he? He has no cloth or money to buy food for all his people. What answer can he make when they demand of him what they must do to live? Though the soil is gracious and repays labour, it is useless for him to point to it. They will grow cotton to clothe themselves, and cultivate gardens for kitchen vegetables, because no native understands these things; but grain for bread, and cattle for beef, the natives must yield to people nobler than themselves. He is the only man who can think of this work as a wrong, and as he has no force to compel men to think otherwise, he must needs endure this evil as he endures many others. Good government was therefore impossible. It was founded on blood and spoliation from the very beginning, and, like all other Governments which preceded it, that were created with similar views, it was decreed that it should perish utterly.

As a fitting conclusion to this chapter, I append the following documents received from Sir Francis Grenfell, the Sirdar of Egypt. Those who love to trace effects to causes may find in these documents criminating proofs of that intercourse with the enemy which was maintained by the rebel officers. They explain what I have asserted. They prove conclusively that their object in proceeding to the Pasha at Tunguru, and imploring his forgiveness, promising to reinstate him in power, and begging him to introduce them to me, was for the purpose consummating the vile plot of betraying us into the hands of the Mahdists. Thanks to Jephson, who was “a chiel takin’ notes,” and to the clumsiness of their acts, Omar Saleh did not have the satisfaction of conveying that “other traveller who had come to Emin,” and whom he was so anxious to catch, for exhibition at Khartoum—which he may possibly regret more than I.

Letter from Osman Digna to the Governor-General, Suakim.

“In the name of the Great God, &c.

“This is from Osman Digna to the Christian who is Governor of Suakim. Let me inform you that some time ago Rundle sent me a letter asking me of the man who was Governor in the Equatorial Provinces. On the arrival of the said letter in our hands I sent it at once to the Khalifa, on whom be peace, &c. The Khalifa has sent me the answer, and has informed me that the said Governor of the Equator has fallen into our hands, and is now one of the followers of the Mahdi. The Khalifa sent steamers to the Equator, commanded by one of our chiefs, named Omar Saleh. They reached Lado, and on their arrival they found that the troops of the said Governor, who were composed of military men and officers, had seized the Governor, with a traveller who was with him. They put them in chains and delivered them into the hands of our chief. Now all the province is in our hands, and the inhabitants have submitted to the Mahdi. We have taken the arms and ammunition which were there; we also brought the officers and chief clerk to the Khalifa, who received them kindly, and now they are staying with him. They have handed to him all their banners.

“Therefore, as Rundle wishes to know what has become of this Governor, you tell him of this message.

“I enclose a copy of the letter which our chief in the Equator sent to the Khalifa, and also a copy of that which Tewfik had sent to the said Governor.

“I also send you a dozen rounds of the ammunition, which were brought from the Equator. I praise God for the defeat of the unbeliever, and defeat of the infidels.

“Sealed”

“The ammunition sent was Snider ammunition, marked 1869, and is in very good condition. Two letters were enclosed. The first of these is recognised by his Excellency the Sirdar as being the one given to Mr. Stanley by his Highness the Khedive on his departure from Cairo.”

“The second is a copy of a letter of Omar Saleh to the Khalifa, dated 15th October, 1888, and is as follows:—

“We proceeded with the steamers and army, and reached the town of Lado, where Emin, the Mudir of the Equator, is staying, on the 5th Safar, 1306 (10th October, 1888). We must thank the officers and men who made this conquest easy, for they had seized Emin and a traveller who was staying with him, and put them both in chains, refusing to go to Egypt with the Turks.

“Tewfik had sent to Emin one of the travellers; his name is Mr. Stanley. This Mr. Stanley brought with him a letter from Tewfik to Emin, dated 8th Gamad Awal (the date of the Khedive’s letter), telling him to come with Mr. Stanley, and give the rest of the force the option of coming with him or remaining here, as they please.

“The force refused the Turkish orders, and received us gladly. I have found a great deal of ivory and feathers. I am sending with this the officers and Chief Clerk on board the Bordein, commanded by Mohammed Kheir. I am also sending the letter which came from Tewfik to Emin, together with the banners we took from the Turks.

“I have heard that there is another traveller who came to Emin. I am looking out for him, and if he returns I am sure to catch him.

“All the chiefs of the Province, with the inhabitants, are delighted to see us. I have taken all the arms and ammunition. When you have seen the officers and Chief Clerk, and given them the necessary instructions, please send them back, as they will be of great use to me.”

True copy.

(Sd.) T. R. Wingate.
Kaim.
A. A. G. Intell.

W. O.
15/1/90.