Yes, but What Really Happened? This is a tough question, since there are several different versions of “the truth.” Stanley’s mammoth two-volume “In Darkest Africa,” written with incredible speed in a Cairo hotel in 1890, is an astounding whitewash of his own failings and a calumny on those who went with him. Several of his officers wrote to defend themselves from his charges, and a controversy raged for years. Basically, this is what happened. The expedition divided into two columns at Yambuya, ostensibly so that Stanley could blaze a path while Barttelot awaited more porters and stores. Actually, Stanley couldn’t stand to be around his second-in-command, who was becoming increasingly difficult, not to say deranged. The vanguard leapt off into the forest, and got into a fight with the first village it met (see event 1). This set a precedent in which none of the local villagers wanted to trade, or at least not in the quantities needed. Many simply abandoned their homes until the lunatic white men had passed. Progress was very slow, and food ran out rapidly. Stairs got sick (everyone was sick at various times), then got shot by a poisoned arrow. Jephson fell in an elephant pit. The steel boat was put on the river with invalids aboard, and canoes were stolen from the locals, but it became difficult to keep contact between the river and shore parties. Salvation of a sort came on contacting the slaver Ugarrowa. He fed the column -- at exorbitant cost, perhaps, but Stanley could have been more grateful. He’d have gone no further without the help. The column pressed on through ever more desolate country and was reduced to eating insects and wood fungus. Nelson and other invalids were left at a “starvation camp” with promises that the column would return for them. A second slaver village was found where the Arabs fed the surviving explorers grudgingly. Stanley was especially scathing about them but their food enabled Nelson to be rescued. The vanguard stumbled on and eventually reached the edge of the forest. Crossing a grassy plateau, Stanley managed to pick a fight with local tribes who assumed the intruders must be slavers. On reaching Lake Albert several months later than he had led Emin to expect, he was furious to find Emin wasn’t waiting for him. I won’t recount the whole story here but I will state that the allegations of cannibalism are probably untrue, that Emin never intended to fall out of the window, and that Major Barttelot was probably stark raving loony long before the porter shot him dead! BIBLIOGRAPHY Now that I’ve got you interested, you can read the original sources: Henry Morton Stanley, “In Darkest Africa,” 1890 T. H Parke, “Equatorial Africa,” 1891 (the expedition doctor’s version) A. Mounteney Jephson, “Emin Pasha & the Rebellion at the Equator,” 1890, and “Diary of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition,” 1969 Several modern accounts are worth reading also. Roger Jones, “The Rescue of Emin Pasha,” 1972; a huge but engrossing book, and probably the best of the modern versions. Iain Smith, “The Emin Pasha Relief Expedition,” 1972; rather dry. Olivia Manning, “The Remarkable Expedition,” 1947; seems a little dated. Tony Gould, “In Limbo,” 1979; tells the harrowing tale of the rear column. Good shorter accounts can be found in Alan Moorehead’s “The White Nile” (1960) and Thomas Pakenham’s “The Scramble for Africa” (1991). To the Mountains of the Moon: A Campaign Game An Expedition with Mr. Henry Morton Stanley, the Famous Explorer Introduction and Background Stanley's Party and Knowledge Rules Events Battle Report Historical Expedition and Bibliography Back to Table of Contents -- Courier # 90 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com