Her answer came promptly: a two-page missive along with a pressed rose. Although she made it clear in her reply that she cared deeply for Stanley, to his dismay he quickly realized that he was being rejected — and on the maddening grounds that he was too “great” a man.
August 15, 1886
Dear Samuel,
Since I have told you somewhat of my ongoing relations with Miss Tennant, and as it the kind of story that deserves some closure, I will tell you, without mincing words, that it has ended badly; in short, she has thrown me off, and it seems that I have wasted the past sixteen months living in a fool’s paradise. As a writer (and a fine one indeed), you surely know of the vacancy that occurs when you have let go of a book — there is a great void of mental activity and emotions to be filled — and this, alas, is what, upon reflection, made me particularly susceptible to her cunning and charms. In retrospect, it is no coincidence that I fell into her trap just after I had finished my book on the founding of the Congo Free State; if I hadn’t the time to while away in the first place, I doubt if I would have spent so many hours in that woman’s company or been swept up in her gush of compliments and fulsome adulations or put up with her obnoxious mother. Without going into the bloody details, I hope it will suffice to say that I have decided to stick, henceforth, to those things I do best; as I am apparently ill-suited for romance, I have resigned myself to my bachelorhood, for, as solitary as that may be, I can at least be free of female manipulations. Thankfully I have enough friendships to make it bearable. Which is to say, Samuel, that despite this debacle, I feel remarkably well and, truthfully, somewhat relieved that it is over.
“Not at all true,” Stanley confessed in person to his friend several months later, while on a lecture tour of America. “It’s not as if I haven’t tried to forget Miss Tennant — indeed I have. But the confounded woman creeps into my thoughts in the most unexpected ways: I think it is worst at night, when I am in my bed alone. Have you any idea, Sam, of the loneliness of such nightly solitude, year after year?”
“I do, fellow traveler. I’ve had my share of such nights.”
“But at least you have the solace of a fine home.”
“It is one of my few.” Then, impatiently: “What makes you think I would have an answer to your dilemma, anyway? I wish there were a potion you could take — or maybe a hypnotist would be of help to you. Obviously that high dame means a lot to you still, and I expect that it will take you some time to get over her. But as you are about the most hard-nerved and steely man I’ve ever known in my life, I expect you to quickly put her from your mind: Think of her as just another jungle that you have hacked your way through; sure, you’re sad and disappointed, but this, too, will pass. Use your noggin on this one, Stanley. It pains me to see you this way. And, at any rate, what makes you think that this life is anything but imperfect? You of all people should know that the best.”
Then, more calmly: “In the meantime, dear Stanley, whatever you do, my friend, do not allow your memories of that woman — what was her name, anyway? — to lay you low. Now, with all due respect, buck up.”
And that was all that either man said of the Tennant affair.
HUCK FINN IN AFRICA
BACK IN LONDON IN THE NEW YEAR, on the eve of setting out to Zanzibar by way of Alexandria and Cairo, in the service of King Léopold, Stanley dashed off several notes to friends; one of them was addressed to Samuel Clemens:
February 17, 1887
160 New Bond Street
Dear Samuel,
This brief ditty is to inform you that I am off on the Emin chase; don’t know what awaits me, and the weight of details and preparations boggles the mind, but as I have been making my final preparations and packing away an entire case of geographical and scientific books, I should let you know, for what it’s worth, that among the few books I am bringing along for my leisure (should that exist) is your own Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which you were gracious enough to have given me.
Until we meet again,
Henry M. Stanley
ON MARCH 18, 1887, STANLEY’S hurriedly organized expedition, commencing from Zanzibar by ship, arrived, after a month’s sailing, at the port of Matadi, at the mouth of the Congo River, on the west Atlantic coast of Africa. In Stanley’s party were some six hundred native Zanzibari carriers, sixty-one Sudanese soldiers, thirteen Somalis, and his own two servants, Hoffman and Baruti. Joining the group was a Zanzibari ivory and slave trader named Tippu Tib, high lord of the Stanleyville region, whose personal retinue included thirty-six wives and concubines and some sixty-one guardsmen and porters. There was Stanley’s contingent of European officers: Captain Robert Nelson, a veteran of the Zulu Wars; Lieutenant John Rose Troup, who had seen service at one of Stanley’s stations along the Congo and was fluent in Swahili; William Bonny, a former medic in the British army; James Sligo Jameson, an amateur naturalist, who was put in charge of cooking and the distribution of rations for the expedition; and one Arthur J. M. Jephson, who had no qualifications save for the fact that he, like Jameson, donated one thousand pounds to join this glorious enterprise. (Hundreds of others had also applied.) Two more officers, on special leave from active duty in the army, were on hand: Lieutenant William Grant Stairs of the Royal Engineers and one Major Edmund Barttelot of the Seventh Fusiliers, his high-strung second in command. Finally, as chief medical officer, there was Dr. Thomas Heazle Parke, whom Stanley had signed on in Cairo.
At Matadi, the fleet of five steamboats that Léopold had earlier promised to Stanley for the expedition’s transport upriver turned out to be useless rotting hulks in total disrepair. Instead of commencing their journey by water, Stanley’s column marched uphill for twenty-eight days, along the very road Stanley had built seven years before, toward the Congo plateau.
At first, the column set off in good order: At the lead was a tall Sudanese soldier carrying a banner — not a Union Jack or the flag of Belgium, but the standard of a New York City yacht club to which Stanley’s former employer, Gordon Bennett, belonged. Behind him was Stanley himself, dressed in a Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers, and a peaked hat with a sun flap hanging off its back, riding a mule with silver-plated strappings along its side. Following Stanley were Baruti, dressed in white, wearing a turban, and carrying his rifle, and Hoffman, in safari garb; then a contingent of Somali soldiers followed by a hundred porters. Behind them was Tippu Tib, wearing long, flowing white Arab robes and carrying a scimitar, its handle encrusted in jewels, aloft on his shoulders, and his harem, wearing colored robes; their faces were half hidden by veils.
Despite its initial glorious appearance, the expedition was beset with problems of discipline from the beginning. Aside from certain old “faithfuls” from Stanley’s last expedition, the hurriedly recruited corps of porters and guards proved to be an unruly lot, prone to desertion, pilfering, and a reluctance to take orders. Within a few weeks of their march, the expedition began to suffer the ravages of malaria and dysentery. By the time the column had reached the first way station of Léopoldville, eleven of his porters had died, twenty-six were too ill to go farther, and twenty had deserted.