3 <H 
THE RELIEF OF EMIN PASHA 
in some dark recess; strong brown-bodied aborigines with terribly 
sharp spears, standing poised, still as dead stumps; rain pattering 
down on you every other day in the year; an impure atmosphere, with 
its dread consequences, fever and dysentery; gloom throughout the 
day, and darkness almost palpable throughout the night; and then, if 
you imagine such a forest extending the entire distance from Plymouth 
to Peterhead, you will have a fair idea of some of the inconveniences 
endured by us.” 
The last month spent in forcing their way through the forest was 
a memorable one. The Arabs had devastated the region through 
which the expedition was now passing; and of inhabitants, and, con¬ 
sequently, of food, there was no trace. In their feeble condition this 
was even worse than active hostility. The fungi, the wild fruits— 
especially a large bean-shaped nut—formed the staple of food—food 
that had to be sought and found and gathered in great quantity before 
it could satisfy the pangs of the famished people. 
At length Stanley reached the district of Ibwiri, and at the same 
time the eastern limit of the great forest. The joy with which the 
whole expedition hailed the open grassy country which lay before 
them was unbounded. The forest—which, according to Stanley, 
covers an area of at least a quarter of a million square miles, or, in 
other words, five times the area of England—had oppressed them with 
its gloom, had fostered’ the fever and ague, the dysentery and other ills 
from which they had suffered so greatly, and had sheltered the relent¬ 
less savages who dogged their every step. Now at Ibwiri their suffer¬ 
ings terminated for a time. 
“Ourselves and men,” wrote Stanley to Sir William Mackinnon, 
“were skeletons. Out of 389 we now only numbered 174, several of 
whom seemed to have no hope of life left. . . . The suffering had 
been so awful, calamities so numerous, the forest so endless apparently, 
that they refused to believe that by and by we should see plains and 
cattle, and the Nyanza, and the white man, Emin Pasha. They turned 
a deaf ear to our prayers and entreaties, for, driven by hunger and 
suffering, they sold their rifles and equipments for a few ears of Indian 
corn, deserted with the ammunition, and were altogether demoral¬ 
ized. . . . We halted thirteen days in Ibwiri, and reveled nu 
