282 STANLEY AND THE MAP OF AFRICA. 



for the position in the iSudaii, was compelled to take action. Our 

 representative at Zanzibar, as early as August of that year, instituted 

 Inquiries as to the possibility of a relief expedition, but in the end, in 

 dread of international complications, it was decided that a government 

 expedition was impracticable. In this dilemma. Sir (then Mr.) William 

 Mackinnon, chairman of the British India Steam Navigation Company, 

 whose connection with east Africa is of old standing, came forward 

 and offered to undertake the responsibility of getting up an expe- 

 dition. The Emin Pasha relief committee was formed in December, 

 1886, and Government did all it could to aid, short of taking the 

 actual responsibility. Mr. H. M. Stanley generously offered his services 

 as leader, without fee or reward, giving up many lucrative engage- 

 ments for the purpose. No time was lost. The sum of £20,000 had 

 been subscribed, including £10,000 from the Egyptian Government. 

 Mr. Stanley returned from America to England in the end of Decem- 

 ber ; by the end of January he had made all his preparations, selecting 

 9 men as his staff, including ,3 English officers and 2 surgeons, and 

 was on his way to Zanzibar, which was reached on February 21. 

 On the 25th the expedition was on board the Maditra, bound for the 

 mouth of the Congo, by way of the Cape ; 9 European officers, 61 

 Sudanese, 13 Somalis, 3 interpreters, 620 Zanzibaris, the famous Arab 

 slaver and merchant, Tippu Tip, and 407 of his people. The mouth of 

 the Congo was reached on March 18; there the expedicion was trans- 

 shipped into small vessels and landed at Matadi, the limit of naviga- 

 tion on the lower river. From Matadi there was a march of 200 mdes, 

 past the cataracts, to Stanley Pool, where the navigation was resumed. 

 The troubles of the expedition began on the Congo itself. The ques- 

 tion of routes was much discussed at the time of organizing the 

 expedition, the two that found most favor being that from the east coast 

 through Masai land and round by the north of Uganda, and that by 

 the Congo. Into the comparative merits of these two routes we shall 

 not enter here. For reasons which were satisfactory to himself — and 

 no one knows Africa better — Mr. Stanley selected the Congo route, 

 though had he foreseen all that he and his men would have to undergo 

 he might have hesitated. As it was, the expedition, which it was 

 thought would be back in England by Christmas, 1887, only reached 

 the coast in November, 1889. But the difficulties no one could have 

 foreseen, the region traversed being completely unknown, and the 

 obstacles encountered unprecedented even in Africa. Nor when the 

 goal was reached was it expected that months would be wasted in per- 

 suading Emin and his people to quit their exile. Not the keenest-eyed 

 of African explorers could have foreseen all this. 



Want of sufficient boat accommodation and a scarcity of food almost 

 amounting to famine hampered the expedition terribly on its way up 

 the Congo. The mouth of the Aruwimi, the real starting ])oint of the 

 expedition, some 1,500 miles from the mouth of the Congo, was not 



