Congratulations and Opinions of Eminent Persons on Stanley’s Last Expedition
The Queen of England, under date of December 12th, cabled Mr. Stanley at Zanzibar:
My thoughts are with you and your brave followers, whose hardships and dangers are at an end. I again congratulate you all, including the Zanzibaris, who displayed such devotion and fortitude during your marvellous expedition. I trust Emin Pasha is making favorable progress.
The Emperor of Germany also cabled:
Thanks to your perseverance and inflexible courage, you have now, after repeatedly crossing the Dark Continent, overcome a new and long succession of exceeding perils and almost unendurable hardships. That after surmounting those your return journey should lead you through lands covered by my flag affords me great satisfaction, and I welcome you heartily to civilization and security.
To which Mr. Stanley sent the following reply:
Imperator et Rex: My expedition has now reached its end. I have had the honor to be hospitably entertained by Major Wissmann and other of your Majesty’s officers under him. Since arriving from Mpwapwa, our travels have come to a successful conclusion. We have been taken across from Bagamoyo to Zanzibar by your Majesty’s ships, Sperber and Schwalbe, and all honors coupled with great affability have been accorded us. I gratefully remember the hospitality and princely affability extended to me at Potsdam, and am profoundly impressed with your Majesty’s condescension, kindness and gracious welcome. With a full and sincere heart I exclaim, “Long live the noble Emperor William!”
The Anti-Slavery Conference in Brussels, sent him a greeting by cable in these words:
We have been deeply moved by the sufferings and perils you have braved. We congratulate you upon the success of your expedition, and appreciate the great services you have rendered. Convey our sympathy to Emin Pasha.
Professor G. B. Adams, of Yale College, says:
This is the greatest and most important of Stanley’s explorations. His pluck and self-confidence are nothing short of miraculous. I am inclined to believe that Stanley has proven what modern geographers have conjectured concerning the soil and physical features of the region he has explored. One of the most striking portions of his letter is his description of a temperate region under the “burning Equator.” Just what the extent of this tract is, and exactly what he means, will be anxiously waited for by the scientific world. There is every reason to believe that Stanley has opened the gates of Africa for the progress of civilization.
His firm belief in religious guidance has been one of the greatest elements of his success, without which even Stanley’s determination and genius would have quailed before such gigantic difficulties.
Professor A. M. Wheeler says:
Every civilized man owes a debt of gratitude to Stanley. To my mind the exploration is without parallel in the history of discoveries. He is the Columbus of the nineteenth century. No geographer had dared to conjecture what Stanley has now made a reality. His unswerving fidelity to one purpose, amid the greatest dangers that have ever befallen man, is wonderful. The discovery of the connection of Albert Edward Nyanza and Albert Nyanza is but one of his triumphs over what was beyond the reach of all other African explorers. Stanley’s work seems like that of an inspired man.
Ex-Judge Charles P. Daly, President of the Geographical Society of New York City, says:
His geographical insight is wonderful. When going north on the Congo and passing the Equator, he felt that he would come out on the east coast of Africa, and he has done so. That, I think, is quite remarkable. Stanley is one of the most remarkable explorers of the age.
George C. Hurlbert, Esq., also of the Geographical Society of New York City, and who has followed the exploration in Africa closely, says:
Everything was against Stanley in his task, but he showed himself to be a born ruler—a leader of men. He overcame dangers with a persistency, energy and pluck that commanded all praise. It was the quality of the man that always conquered and came to the front, and Stanley’s quality has brought him through all difficulties. He had the courage and the enterprise and the will to achieve great things. He had the gifts of a great explorer.
Professor Libbey, of Princeton College, says:
With regard to the geographical results it would be hard to tell their magnitude at present, but we cannot doubt but that they will be of great importance, judging from the information contained in the letters which have reached us from time to time, the discoveries, already hinted at, showing that the White Nile rises in Lake Muta Nzige, giving us a better knowledge of the shape of this lake; the discovery of the River Semlike and Mount Ruevenzori, which rivals in height the giant of the eastern coast, Kilimanjaro, and his further discoveries in the course of the outlines of Victoria Nyanza.
Undoubtedly there will be a rich harvest of information concerning the country lying between the Congo and Lake Albert Edward, and also between the lakes and the coast. I think Stanley was right in his decision to go around the Cape of Good Hope and up the Congo rather than to push his heavily-laden caravan through the mountains and the hostile country between the lakes and the Zanzibar coast. Not one of the least advantages of the trip will be the fact that he has brought Emin Bey back with him to civilization, where it is hoped that this learned, enthusiastic and successful student of the races and the natural history of the country in which he has so long been a voluntary exile will be content to remain and give to the world some of the valuable stores of knowledge, to obtain which came so near costing him his life.
The Boston Transcript, in a late issue, says:
An experience like that which Stanley went through in Africa, and of which he sends the world a graphic and harrowing account, is well calculated to awaken all the latent piety in a brave man’s nature. Men who war with nature and with barbarous peoples, and who pass through narrow escapes and dreadful emergencies, are always the last to assert that they themselves performed the wonders which they witness. Stanley has pretty well established a claim to greatness in this last African venture of his, and it is not strange to those who have read history to find him exclaiming, with many other men of great force and genius: “There was a Divinity that hedged me about.”
Captain O’Kane, Commander of the U. S. Steamer Boston, says:
I consider Mr. Stanley’s expedition a marvellous one, and his successful arrival at the coast an achievement of which the world—and particularly America—may be proud.
Mr. Stanley has now opened to civilizing influences the last important unexplored region of the world, and all future ages will applaud and honor him for it.
Stanley on arriving at Cairo, Egypt, on January 14th, met with a great and notable reception at the station from Sir Evelyn Baring, General Sir Francis Grenfell, Acting United States Consul Grant, and others. He went to the Khedive’s palace in state, and made an official call on him lasting half an hour, and was decorated with the Grand Cordon of the Medjidich, a very distinguished honor. He also here received an officer bearing a special letter of congratulation from King Leopold of Belgium.
“Throughout the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, and the same may be said of Europe and the rest of the civilized world, the name of Stanley is on every tongue. On the streets, in the clubs, wherever men congregate, the one theme of conversation is Stanley, his wonderful achievements and his modesty, as illustrated in his letter to the ‘Herald,’ which is on all sides held to be a masterpiece and to stamp its author as a truly great man.”—London Cablegram to N. Y. Herald.
The Worshipful Company of Turners, of London, at a banquet held on the evening of December 5th, received the following telegram from the King of the Belgians:
I understand you will, as Master for the second year of the Worshipful Company of Turners, propose at their annual dinner the health of your illustrious honorary member, Mr. Henry M. Stanley. Let me, as an honorary member of the Worshipful Company, a title I am proud to possess, assure you beforehand how cordially and gladly I join the Turners in all their expressions of admiration of the unparalleled and heroic services rendered by our friend Stanley to science and civilization in that vast continent, in the discovery of which he has taken so great a share.
KING OF THE BELGIANS,
Sovereign of the Congo State.
Mr. Burdett-Coutts, the President of the Company, proposed the health of Stanley; and, on motion, it was directed that the greetings of the Company should be despatched to the hero at Zanzibar.
The message despatched by Mr. Burdett-Coutts to Zanzibar was as follows:
Turners’ Company, at their annual dinner with the Lord Mayor and other old friends of yours, after listening to the full and gracious telegram with respect to yourself from the King of the Belgians, have just drank your health with stirring enthusiasm, and congratulated you on your splendid achievement, and send you a hearty welcome home.
BURDETT-COUTTS, Master.
Royal Geographical Society of Antwerp,
Under the Patronage of
H. M. the King of the Belgians.
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Antwerp, November 25, 1889.
To the Proprietor of the New York “Herald,” New York.
Sir:—While the civilized world was in suspense over the fate of the two illustrious travellers lost in Africa, Henry Stanley and Emin Pasha (Schnitzler); while governments, exhausting their forces in sterile struggles for the conquest of lands on the African coast, were showing themselves powerless to carry succor to these valiant missionaries of civilization, the New York “Herald,” true to the glory it acquired in rescuing the illustrious and unfortunate Livingstone, did not hesitate to organize a new expedition in aid of Stanley and Emin. On learning the welcome news a joyful cry was uttered by all friends of African civilization, and loudly re-echoed in the midst of our Society.
Pursuant to a resolution passed at the Society’s sitting on the 13th inst., we hereby sincerely congratulate you over, and warmly thank you for this your undertaking.
We hope to soon see in our midst the two illustrious travellers. The festal occasion would be complete were a correspondent of the New York “Herald” to find it convenient to be present at this reception in order to be tendered the expression of our gratitude at the very moment when we shall be welcoming the two greatest travellers of modern times—great, really, by their disinterested devotion to the noble cause of civilization.
We beg, sir, you will herewith accept the expression of our deep and heartfelt sympathy.
M. WAUWERMANS, President.
P. Genaud, Secretary-General.