Henry M. Stanley Handout for Docents

Henry M. Stanley, "Through the Dark Continent"

The explorer Henry Morton Stanley gave his famous talk "Through the Dark Continent" in St. Johnsbury in mid December 1886 (reported in the local paper on December 16), just two weeks after giving the same speech to the Lotos Club in New York City. An intrepid journalist, in 1869 he was assigned by the publisher of the New York Herald to go to Africa and search for the "missing" missionary David Livingstone. When Stanley asked publisher James Gordon Bennett how much he could spend on this effort, Bennett said, "Draw a thousand pounds now, and when you have gone through that, draw another thousand pounds, and when that is spent, draw another thousand pounds, and when you have finished that, draw another thousand pounds, and so on - BUT FIND LIVINGSTONE!"

So in 1871 Stanley traveled to Zanzibar and outfitted an expedition that included at least two hundred porters, for the seven-thousand-mile trek through tropical forest. The journey was a nightmare, with horses dying, carriers deserting, tropical diseases, and Stanley's own brutal flogging of the remaining carriers to keep them going (standard procedure at the time, and probably exaggerated in Stanley's reporting in order to enlist the emotions of his Victorian readers). After eight months, he found Livingstone in Tanzania and may have said to him the now-famous line "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Because Stanley tore out the pages of his diary describing the actual meeting, we can't be sure. But the successful finding of Livingstone led to Stanley drawing other African exploration assignments, like mapping the River Congo.

In St. Johnsbury, Stanley drew 1200 people. The Caledonian-Record reported:

Those who had preconceived notions of how the traveller and author of "Through the Dark Continent" should look, found it rather difficult to imagine that the dapper little gentleman, who came forward in full dress suit, with ample shirt front and glistening diamonds, was Stanley, the man who found Livingstone and traced the Congo to its mouth, but such was the fact.

The lecture was exceedingly interesting, the narrative graphic, and in parts eloquent. ... Two maps were shown, the Africa which Stanley entered on his strange quest, and the Africa of today. With the help of these the traveller took his audience from Zanzibar to the interior, where, at Ujiji, occurred the dramatic meeting with Livingstone.

Little known then was Stanley's early history: Bastard child of a 19-year-old Welsh woman and an alcoholic, he was born John Rowlands and suffered from the shame of his birth, as well as family deaths that put him into a workhouse. However, he completed school and became a teacher. At age 18 he took passage to the United States and was more or less adopted by a New Orleans trader named Stanley; the youth adopted this kind man's name, served on both sides in the Civil War (first Confederate, then Union), and after the war began the career as a journalist that would lead to his fame.

[from Stanley's narrative:]

On the 21st of March, exactly seventy-three days after my arrival at Zanzibar, the fifth caravan, led by myself, left the town of Bagamoyo for our first journey westward, with "Forward!" for its mot du guet.  As the kirangozi unrolled the American flag, and put himself at the head of the caravan, and the pagazis, animals, soldiers, and idlers were lined for the march, we bade a long farewell to the dolce far niente of civilised life, to the blue ocean, and to its open road to home, to the hundreds of dusky spectators who were there to celebrate our departure with repeated salvoes of musketry.

Our caravan is composed of twenty-eight pagazis, including the kirangozi, or guide; twelve soldiers under Capt. Mbarak Bombay, in charge of seventeen donkeys and their loads; Selim, my interpreter, in charge of the donkey and cart and its load; one cook and sub, who is also to be tailor and ready hand for all, and leads the grey horse; Shaw, once mate of a ship, now transformed into rearguard and overseer for the caravan, who is mounted on a good riding-donkey, and wearing a canoe-like tepee and sea-boots; and lastly, on, the splendid bay horse presented to me by Mr. Goodhue, myself, called Bana Mkuba, "the "big master," by my people--the vanguard, the reporter, the thinker, and leader of the Expedition.

Altogether the Expedition numbers on the day of departure three white men, twenty-three soldiers, four supernumeraries, four chiefs, and one hundred and fifty-three pagazis, twenty-seven donkeys, and one cart, conveying cloth, beads, and wire, boat-fixings, tents, cooking utensils and dishes, medicine, powder, small shot, musket-balls, and metallic cartridges; instruments and small necessaries, such as soap, sugar, tea, coffee, Liebig's extract of meat, pemmican, candles, &c., which make a total of 153 loads.  The weapons of defence which the Expedition possesses consist of one double-barrel breech-loading gun, smooth bore; one American Winchester rifle, or "sixteen-shooter;" one Henry rifle, or "sixteen-shooter;" two Starr's breech-loaders, one Jocelyn breech-loader, one elephant rifle, carrying balls eight to the pound; two breech-loading revolvers, twenty-four muskets (flint locks), six single-barrelled pistols, one battle-axe, two swords, two daggers (Persian kummers, purchased at Shiraz by myself), one boar-spear, two American axes 4 lbs. each, twenty-four hatchets, and twenty-four butcher-knives. ...

We left Bagamoyo the attraction of all the curious, with much eclat, and defiled up a narrow lane shaded almost to twilight by the dense umbrage of two parallel hedges of mimosas.  We were all in the highest spirits.  The soldiers sang, the kirangozi lifted his voice into a loud bellowing note, and fluttered the American flag, which told all on-lookers, "Lo, a Musungu's caravan!" and my heart, I thought, palpitated much too quickly for the sober face of a leader. But I could not check it; the enthusiasm of youth still clung to me--despite my travels; my pulses bounded with the full glow of staple health; behind me were the troubles which had harassed me for over two months.  With that dishonest son of a Hindi, Soor Hadji Palloo, I had said my last word; of the blatant rabble, of Arabs, Banyans, and Baluches I had taken my last look; with the Jesuits of the French Mission I had exchanged farewells; and before me beamed the sun of promise as he sped towards the Occident.  Loveliness glowed around me.  I saw fertile fields, riant vegetation, strange trees--I heard the cry of cricket and pee-wit, and sibilant sound of many insects, all of which seemed to tell me, "At last you are started."  What could I do but lift my face toward the pure-glowing sky, and cry, "God be thanked!"