A celebrated explorer and author; born in Denbigh, Wales, in 1840; and now living in London. Originally named John Rowlands, he was adopted at 15 by a New Orleans merchant, whose name he took. He served in both the Confederate and Union armies in the Civil War; was a newspaper correspondent in Turkey and Abyssinia in 1868; and started on the search for Dr. Livingston in October 1869, returning in July 1872. He made an exploration of Equatorial Africa 1874–78; founded the Congo Free State 1879–84; and headed a successful expedition for the relief of Emin Pasha in 1887–90. He has been a member of Parliament since 1896. His works include: “Coomassie and Magdala” (1872); “How I found Livingston” (1872); “Through the Dark Continent” (1879); “The Congo and the founding of its Free State” (1885); and “In Darkest Africa,” the title best known to general readers in America.

Personal

  The last time I saw him was four or five years ago in London, on his return from one of his extraordinary expeditions. He had been to Africa for good King Leopold of Belgium, and was living modestly in a suite of rooms in Sackville street, London. I had not then met him since his first lecturing tour in the United States, when he was in his prime—young, vigorous, and handsome. The change in his appearance was startling. The rich black hair had become tawny and tow-colored; the bright, fresh, clear complexion had become sallow and the skin was pitted almost as if from small-pox. I was so startled by the change that I could not resist asking what had produced the marvellous transformations…. And how he had grown intellectually in the years that had elapsed! I was amazed at his power of description when he began to tell me of some of the scenes and incidents of his then last expedition. I was charmed to find him unspoiled by success: as natural and unaffected as the first time I met him after his search for Livingston.

  A man who fills every room he enters with his knowledge, energy, and force of character, yet so quiet in manner that you might overlook him if you did not notice the head, cast in a mould which would turn out cannon-balls, and with eyes that burnt their way through everything.

  His manners always seemed to me—even when being lionized in social circles—to be distinctly modest and unassuming, and his conversation was extremely interesting. He was original in many of his ways, and especially so in his neglect of the conventionalism of dress. At an evening party at Versailles, given expressly for his honour, he appeared in a white flannel suit, whether in ignorance of the requirements of the occasion, or in wilful defiance of them, it is difficult to say.

  Leaving Archdeacon Farrar I went to No. 2 Richmond Terrace and called upon Henry M. Stanley. His home is on a quiet little street just off the bank of the Thames and not more than one hundred steps from the entrance to the House of Commons. It is a little stone house with an English basement and the words “Knock and ring” on the lintels of its door. As you enter the wide hall you find yourself in a very museum. The walls are covered with curios from every part of the world and rare articles from Africa interspersed with photographs of Stanley’s friends in Europe and America. As I looked at these the great explorer entered and led me into his library. This was a large square room looking out upon the Terrace; the walls were covered with books and the desks in the center were littered with manuscripts.

  Henry M. Stanley was never fond of company. He appreciates friends, and those who know him intimately are very fond of him. He is generally cautious and sparing of words, especially when strangers are about. Receptions and dinners worry him, as he cannot bear being on exhibition under showers of forced compliments. His manners and habits are those of a gentleman. He shows great fondness for children, especially young lads, who often approach him for his autograph. He will enter into conversation with them and question them as to their purposes in life, advising them as to the importance of honesty and character as essential to success in life, and generally concluding with some incident in his experience that is sure to make a lasting impression…. Stanley is one of the best-read men I have ever met. He is familiar with the histories of all civilized and uncivilized peoples. As a journalist he is appreciated by reporters and interviewers more highly than any man I ever knew except Mr. Beecher. Never did he refuse to see a representative of the press who sent up his card. If busy, he would say: “Please make my compliments to the gentleman and say that as soon as I am disengaged I will be pleased to see him.”

Explorer

  I was particularly struck when I first found myself face to face with Mr. Stanley, under his palaver shed at Msuwa, with his healthy, robust appearance. I was expecting to see a man prematurely old, worn out and enfeebled by the innumerable attacks of African fever he has sustained, and the accumulated effects of the hardships of nineteen years off and on, of African exploit. His hair and mustache were gray, it is true, but apart from that, he did not look older to me than his nine and forty years. He is a man slightly below medium height, but weighs much more than one would be likely at first sight to guess. His normal weight is about a hundred and seventy-five pounds. He looks like a hard, stocky man of the Phil Sheridan or Stonewall Jackson type, and struck one, on first appearance, as being good yet for two or three more such expeditions as the relief and rescue of Emin Pasha. He nevertheless suffered much on the expedition.

  A born leader of men, white or black, with reserve power for the greatest emergencies, unhampered by scruples as to its exercise while the need lasts, seif-reliant, of almost superhuman endurance, and with the experience of many African campaigns behind him, it is not strange that he lived a life apart, bore his own responsibilities, and made his own decisions, sometimes without the sympathy of his subordinate officers, whom, notwithstanding his high praise of them, he could not always take into his unlimited confidence.

  The expedition for the rescue of Emin Pasha must always remain, so far as Mr. Stanley is concerned, one of the greatest feats of courage and endurance in the annals of adventure. No criticism of its objects or methods can dim its luster as an example of what fortitude can accomplish in the teeth of difficulties of nearly every description. It would be no small thing to make one’s way across Africa on foot, without other concern than one’s own capacity for supporting physical suffering and fatigue. But Mr. Stanley crossed Africa on foot at the head of a column of unwilling, half-hearted, uncivilized followers, for whom he had to supply all the necessary experience and forethought about food, and clothing, and arms, and ammunition, and health. He was the one man in his party who never could afford to be sick, or sorrowful, or discouraged, or doubtful…. He had to flog or hang his own men to maintain discipline. He had to shoot the inhabitants and to pillage and burn their village in order to protect himself against treachery and to supply himself with provisions. As I have said, when he was fairly launched on his march, self-preservation became his first law; but the question still remains to be answered, Who sent him on his march? From whom did he get authority to begin the series of military operations that ended in depositing Emin Pasha at Zanzibar? Under whose order did he enlist troops, and exercise among the Africans the power of a general in the field? If his commission was what it ought to have been, he was really entitled under it to shoot and hang the white men of his command as well as the black ones.

  Crowned with highest honors from all the powers of Europe, no tribute, as Stanley has said, gave such gratification as that from the United States, which, proud of the achievements of its great citizen, extended to him the unprecedented honors of its official, well-considered, and merited commendation, wherein, under date of February 7, 1878, it was “Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled, That, regarding with just pride, the achievements of their countryman, Henry M. Stanley, the distinguished explorer of Central Africa, the thanks of the people of the United States are eminently due and are hereby tendered him as a tribute to his extraordinary patience, prudence, fortitude, enterprise, courage, and capacity in solving by his researches many of the most important geographical problems of our age and globe, problems of a continental scope, involving the progress of our kind in commerce, science, and civilization.”

  The broad features of Stanley’s work show that it had humanitarian and economic as well as geographical value. He was the first to give us an approximately accurate idea of the form and size of Victoria Nyanza, the second largest of freshwater lakes; he revealed the Congo Basin, of which we had no conception, as surpassed in size and in water tribute to the sea only by the Amazon system; he threaded the gloomy and almost impenetrable mazes of the forest belt, larger than most of our States; he made over four hundred treaties with native chiefs who learned to know him as a man who kept his word, and the relations of friendship and confidence which he established paved the way for the teacher, the merchant, and the colonial governments of Europe; he studied the peoples and the economic resources from sea to sea through tropical Africa and incessantly proclaimed that these peoples were capable of development, and that these resources were worth the world’s seeking; he called for missionary volunteers to go to Uganda, where to-day there are ninety thousand professing Christians, three hundred and twenty churches, and fifty thousand persons able to read; he preached the gospel of humanity to the natives, used fire-arms against them, alas! but only on the comparatively few occasions when the existence of his expedition was at stake; and in his dealings with them he set an example of patience, mercy, and justice that has not always been emulated. For over twenty years, he saw the African movement impelled, not only by his own hands, but also by ceaseless reënforcements of strong men and mighty influences, and he lived fourteen years longer to see white agents of the leading European nations firmly established in nearly every nook and corner of the continent.

General

  Whatever may be the value of Mr. Henry M. Stanley’s late discoveries in Central Africa, the indomitable courage and energy with which he has, under the most untoward circumstances, pursued his explorations in that far-off region must command general admiration and respect. If his book entitled “Through the Dark Continent,” lately published in London, shows that he has not yet succeeded in revealing the grand secret of the Nile sources, it goes to prove that he has at least contributed largely towards narrowing the problems down to comparatively circumscribed limits, and added many striking facts to the common stock of geographical knowledge. By the aid of the camera he has enriched his book with a number of interesting pictures, which are particularly valuable because of their being faithful illustrations of the beautiful scenery of Central Africa, and of the manners prevailing among her savage tribes…. An introductory chapter is given, covering almost everything worthy of notice which historians and travelers have said of the Nile Country, from the time of Herodotus down to that of Stanley himself. In fact, nearly everything on the subject that may be met with in any respectable cyclopædia is given; and if he has omitted the pretty story about the Nile related by the Registrar of Minerva’s treasury in Egypt to the father of history, he may be pardoned on the score of desiring to economize space.

  It was in that part of the hotel farthest removed from the street that Mr. Stanley took up his abode. Here he had a fine suite of rooms on the ground floor, very handsomely furnished in the oriental style. A large, lofty reception room and an equally large and handsome dining-room. In these he received some of the most important or most persistent of his many callers; but as a rule he shut himself up in his bedroom, and there he wrote from early morning till late at night, and woe betide anyone who ventured unasked into this sanctum. He very rarely went out, even for a stroll round the garden. His whole heart and soul were centered on his work. He had set himself a certain task, and he had determined to complete it to the exclusion of every other object in life. He said of himself, “I have so many pages to write, I know that if I do not complete this work by a certain time, when other and imperative duties are imposed upon me, I shall never complete it at all. When my work is accomplished, then I will talk with you, laugh with you, and play with you, or ride with you to your heart’s content; but let me alone now, for Heaven’s sake.” Nothing worried him more than a tap at the door while he was writing; he sometimes glared even upon me like a tiger ready to spring, although I was of necessity a frequent and privileged intruder, and always with a view to forwarding the work in hand. He was a perfect terror to his courier and black boy. When his courier knocked tremblingly at his door, he would cry out, “Am I a prisoner in my own house?” “I’ve brought you this telegram, sir.” “Well, I detest telegrams; why do you persist in bringing them?”

  There are few of us who are acquainted with his earlier books, and who have cared to follow intelligently not only what they say, but what they imply, who feel inclined to sanction…. Mr. Stanley’s habitual conduct towards the natives with whom he came in contact; and there is perhaps no modest or honourable Englishman who has not felt a touch of shame in reading these narratives at the boastfulness and arrogance of the writer, and at the peculiarly unpleasant mixture of journalistic exaggeration, unscrupulous dealing, and religious sentiment which characterise Mr. Stanley’s actions as they are depicted in Mr. Stanley’s own words…. Mr. Stanley is not only an explorer, with a sword in his hand and a Bible in his jack-boot, as we are sometimes inclined to fancy in reading his highly spiced narratives, he is an ambitious, wary, and long-headed man of the world; a keen weapon in the hands of a king desirous of territory, or a commercial company eager for wealth.

  “In Darkest Africa” is a narrative on whose current the reader is borne from the hour of setting forth to that of returning, without a break in the fascination of the story and its setting. The contributions which it brings to science are not inconsiderable…. For brilliant description and tragic interest, Mr. Stanley’s pages are unsurpassed.

  An author may have a great name and yet fail to write a successful book. Stanley afterward published a volume called “Through South Africa.” His fame had in no wise grown dim, and the land in which he won it was again his theme; but his book awakened no interest whatever. Three weeks after its publication his own American publishers had not heard of it, and no American edition has ever been brought out. The secret of this indifference lay in the fact that Stanley recorded no great achievement. His book comprised merely a series of newspaper letters from a region fast passing into the list of well-ordered and prosperous States. It was cast aside, while James Bryce’s weighty book on the same subject, issued at the same time, aroused wide interest, bearing as it did to South Africa the relation which his “American Commonwealth” bears to the United States. Stanley’s book was a commonplace traveller’s chronicle, for which its author had created no public waiting to receive it.