Lady Alice (Stanley)

[john sefton]

The Great Congo Expedition

Stanley proposed an expedition, and in November 1874, in command of a large expedition jointly sponsored by the New York Herald and the Daily Telegraph of London, he set out from Bagamoyo for Lake Victoria, planning to confirm whether Lake Victoria was the principal source of the Nile by sailing around it, and to establish the exact geographic location of East Africa's other great lakes. Moreover, he planned to find the source of the Congo River and, if possible, follow it to the Atlantic. Arriving at Lake Victoria in late February 1875, Stanley undertook a circumnavigation of the lake in the Lady Alice, a portable steamboat that had been carried in pieces into the interior. He then visited a native kingdom to the north in what is now Uganda, coming upon an uncharted lake, which he named Lake Edward.
Stanley headed southward along Africa's Great Rift Valley and in spring 1876 he arrived at Lake Tanganyika, which he also circumnavigated in the Lady Alice. He then found the lake's principal outlet to be the Lukuga river, which he followed to its confluence with the Lualaba. Descending the Lualaba northward, he came to Nyangwe, the farthest inland point known to both Arab traders and Europeans. There, he recruited an armed force of 700 men under the famous African-Arab slaver named Tippoo Tib, who guided his expedition to a series of cataracts, later known as Stanley Falls, which they portaged around with considerable difficulty. The small army was required as, in Stanley's opinion, "the savage only respects force, power, boldness, and decision". Hardly a day went by without an altercation with "murderous" Africans, although frequently it was Stanley's men who were the aggressors and killed the natives.
Abandoned by Tippoo Tib and his men soon after an attack by Africans in war canoes, Stanley and his expedition nevertheless pushed onward, travelling on the river when they could or following its banks. Upon reaching the site of present-day Kisangani (once called Stanleyville) in what is now west-central Zaire, Stanley determined that the river could not flow into the Nile, since at that point it was 14 feet lower in elevation than the larger river. In fact, Stanley's surmise that Lualaba was the upper course of the Congo River was correct. But yet again travel was plagued by jungle, rocks and cliffs (the Lady Alice had to be completely disassembled and carried), as well as attacks by Africans who were afraid that Stanley was the precursor of Arab slave traders. After this, however, Stanley found that the river turned sharply west and south and widened to allow relatively easy travel by boat for more than 1,000 miles, before again encountering rapids and wild series of cataracts. The only surviving European besides Stanley drowned, prompting Stanley to write, "I am weary, oh so weary, of this constant tale of woes and death".
After a few more months of downriver travel, he discovered a large lake-like expanse, later known as Stanley Pool. On August 9, 1877, Stanley and his party reached the Atlantic at Boma. In his 999-day journey, he had crossed Africa from east to west and had determined that the Congo flowed from the Lualaba River. With this finding, he dispelled Livingstone's theory that the Lualaba was a source of the Nile. Of the original 356 men in the expedition, only 114 remained with him when he reached Boma, the rest having died or deserted. Stanley related his 1874-1877 journey across Africa in his book "Through the Dark Continent" (1878). Yet back in England he was condemned in both the newspapers and in Parliament for the ruthless way in which he had conducted the expedition.
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Uganda SG767

[aukepalmhof]

LADY ALICE carried by natives.

The boat was built by Henry M. Stanley of Spanish cedar in five sections, she had two masts and carried lug sails. Dimensions 40 x 6 x 2.6ft.

Source: E.J. Hogan.