|
|
|
| Sunday, 28 August 2005 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Different outlook
"Find Livingston": Famous phrase of Journalism - Part II by Arefa Tehsin An Arab ivory trader, Tippoo Tip, the most influential and powerful man in Central Africa had never dared to venture beyond Nyangwe. Stanley persuaded him to accompany him North to explore the Lualaba River. Tippoo Tip agreed on condition that he would be allowed to take along 800 of his men and be paid a fee of $5000 for 60 days. They started on November 5, 1876. Just within two days, the jungle became too dense to carry Lady Alice. Stanley launched her on the river and went aboard. In the early days they encountered only discrete villages, as people fled at the approach of Tippoo Tip, leaving behind fresh skulls and human bones as proof of their cannibalism. After a month, they came across seven cataracts, now called the Stanley falls, which marked the beginning of the Congo proper. Meanwhile, another mishap was in store. Smallpox broke out killing 45 and incapacitating many more who were sent back. The rest of the members now joined Lady Alice on a flotilla of captured native dug-out canoes. Stanley's narrative comprised the only available information about this part of Africa over that period to the West. He was amazed at the constant hostility of all the natives he encountered and came to the conclusion that this was because they regarded Stanley and his party merely as meat on hoofs. This created a false and long lasting notion in the West that all Africans were cannibals. By February 1877, they encountered the advanced Bosoko tribesmen who carved ivory and used iron tools. This was now Stanley's 28th battle. Sir Winston Churchill had long after advised the world, "If you are going through hell, keep going"; kept going, he did. He lost thirty-three men in this battle. Almost all had been wounded except Stanley. Bosoko put up the hardest fight and the account of it as given by Stanley, a true specimen of his style, is as under: "There are fifty-four of them. A monster canoe leads the way, with two rows of upstanding paddlers, forty men on a side, their bodies bending in unison as with a sculling chorus they drive her down towards us. In the bow, standing on what appears to be a platform, are ten prime young warriors, their heads covered with the feathers of the parrot, crimson and grey. At the stern eight men, with long paddles, whose tops are decorated with ivory balls, guide the monster vessel, and dancing up and down from stern to stern are ten men who appear to be chiefs. All the paddlers are headed with ivory balls, each head bears a feathered crown, and every arm shows gleaming white ivory armlets. From the bow of the canoe streams a thick fringe of long white fibre of the Hyphen palm. The crashing sound of large drums, a hundred blasts from ivory horns, and a thrilling chant from 2000 human throats do not tend to soothe our nerves or to increase our confidence." The 45 guns of the expedition gave ample margin of victory in this battle. This time Stanley realised that this river is not Nile as he was too far west. But he was not sure if it was the Congo or the Niger. A few days later they met friendly tribes who were willing to sell them food instead of treating them as food. Here, their progress was rapid. Now they encountered a new enemy armed with old Portuguese muskets. This was the expedition's 32nd encounter. Stanley's modern weapons gave him an edge over the enemy's old weapons.Now Lady Alice floated into what looked like a lake. It was named Stanley Pool. By now they had covered 1,235 miles from Nyangwe. And it was a little more than four months. Downstream of the Stanley Pool is the famous series of cataracts which Stanley named Livingston Falls. Here the river plunges into narrow gorges. The first 34 miles took them 37 days and then they had to go even slower. The manpower of the expedition had painfully reduced to fewer than 100 able-bodied men by now. Another 8 men slipped into oblivion when one canoe was swept over the falls. At last on July 30, Stanley decided to abandon the river and headed for the sea via a land route. Leaving Lady Alice high and dry, they started to walk. But the lands were not as dry as they had thought them to be. Here, rum had been introduced as the currency for trade. The people were not ready to barter food in exchange for gifts other than rum. At last, Stanley persuaded one of the tribal chieftains to send a messenger to the nearest European settlement with a letter. Stanley wrote in English, French and Spanish requesting for supplies to be sent within two days if he was to be saved from death due to starvation. Within two days supplies of food and rum, enough to finance him the rest of the way, arrived. Within a few days, he had finished tracing the Congo, a grand feat in the history of explorations. Exploration, 'which is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance'. The party now numbered only 89, 12 of whom were women and 6 were children born en route. Stanley's exploits not only made him a hero but his navigation from Stanley Falls to Stanley Pool, set forth in two volumes called "Through the Dark Continent", also inspired great commercial and political activity in the west. Stanley was sent back as an agent for King Leopold of the Belgians. Within five and a half years, he laid the foundation of that monarch's private empire, later known as Belgian Congo. In 1877, only a fifth of the African continent was claimed by the Europeans. Stanley died in 1904 and by then the entire continent had been colonialised. Trying to search for new lands somewhere he lost his own way. We forget that sometimes 'truth is more important than the facts', obscurity is better than light and vagueness is preferable to discovery. Stanley traversed the vast Ituri forest three times calling it a region of horrors. He thought of the Pygmies as: "Living out their lives in terror, pain and dark superstition. Dying they leave behind no monument, no progress, no history, no hope. Pygmies, the ugly and diminutive Negrillos, here live out their secluded furtive lives." But obviously Stanley, overdressed and miserable, was transferring his own superstition and disgusts to the little people of the forest. Marching through the jungle with tonnes of equipment and scores of unhappy men is not the way to see it. Also, it must be remembered that he was writing for an audience what would have been disappointed by anything pleasant found in a tropical forest. While exploring, Stanley and party were terrified by natives' noises and monster vessels not realising that was all those invaded clans had to drown in their own devastation and helplessness in front of the firearms from the "civilised" world digging hot holes into their supposedly sinister bodies and souls... |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
