CHAPTER XXXIX 



The Relief of Emin Pasha 



AMONG the remarkable achievements of African travel there is 

 none of more striking and thrilling interest than that of 

 Stanley's expedition for the relief of Emin Pasha, who 

 through the operations of the Mahdists had been left stranded for 

 years in the Egyptian Soudan. How Stanley found Emin is as inter- 

 esting in its way as how Stanley found Livingstone. A tale of super- 

 abundant adventure will be briefly dealt with in the present chapter. 



Readers of modern history are aware of the revolt of the Arabs 

 und'er the Mahdi, of the capture by them of Khartoum, and of the 

 death in that city of the famous General Gordon. In the spring of 

 1878, before this outbreak, Gordon had appointed Dr. Schnitzer, a 

 Russian physician, as governor of the equatorial province of the 

 Soudan. In accepting it, he adopted the Arabic name of Emin and 

 was thenceforward known as Emin Pasha. His province extended 

 from the borders of Uganda and the shores of the Albert Nyanza to 

 some distance north of Gondokoro and the Nile, a region nearly 1,000 

 miles distant from Khartoum. 



With the capture of Khartoum and the surrounding region by the 

 Mahdists, Emin was cut off completely from civilization and for sev- 

 eral years after 1884, nothing was heard from him. He was as iso- 

 vlated as Livingstone had been in the Tanganyika region. It was to find 

 •Emin that Stanley set out in 1887, as he had set out years earlier to 

 *'find Livingstone." 



With the details of this famous expedition we must deal very 

 briefly. On the 29th of April, 1887, Stanley left Leopoldville with the 

 members and' material of his expedition, hi four steamers and three 

 lighters, for the mouth of the Aruwimi, which river he proposed to 

 follow in his march towards the Albert Nyanza. Building a strong- 

 hold here and leaving it in the hands of Major Barttelot, in command 



