Central Africa, explored

Livingstone
1813-1873.
Scots

Dr David Livingstone. Ordained as a missionary, Livingstone, on 20 November 1840 is sent by the London Missionary Society to South Africa to join Robert Moffat's mission at Kuruman on the northern Cape frontier. From this mission, Livingstone soon pushed his search for converts north. By the end of 1842, he had gone further north than any other white man had, and had familiarized himself with the local languages and cultures.
On one of his sorties, Livingstone, with his hunter friend William Oswell, discovered Lake Ngami on 1 August 1849. Livingston was awarded a medal and a cash prize by the RGS. This was the beginning of his lifelong association with the society, which continued to encourage his explorer ambitions.

On 11 November 1853, from his base in Linyanti, Livingstone set out northwestward with little equipment and only a small party of Africans. His intention was to find a route to the Atlantic coast for commerce that he believed would undercut the slave trade.

After an arduous journey and with Livingstone seriously ill, the party finally reached St Paul de Loanda (Luanda) on the west coast of Africa on 31 May 1854.
After 3 months with his health improved, he began the return journey, reaching Linyanti a year later. Continuing eastward, Livingstone explored the Zambezi regions, he discovered the mighty waterfalls on the Zambezi on 17 November 1855. He named them Victoria Falls.
Travelling east to the coast, he travels part overland and missed the Cabora Bassa rapids, an omission that was to haunt him on his next expedition. He passes through Tete, then Sena, finally reaching Quelimane on 20 May 1856.

News from and about him during the previous three years had stirred the imagination of Europeans everywhere. Livingstone returned to England in December 1856 as a national hero.

THE ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION. He arrived in back in Africa as leader and British Consul to Quelimane. This expedition was better organized than Livingstone's previous journeys. It had a paddle steamer, impressive stores, 10 Africans, and 6 Europeans. They intended to find a commercial route from the sea to the centre of Africa.

Quarrels broke out among the Europeans and some were dismissed. Disillusionment with Livingstone as leader set in as it proved impossible to navigate the Zambezi by their paddle steamer -the Zambezi delta was too shallow and the rapids impassable. Livingstone's two attempts to find a route up the Rovuma River to districts around Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) also proved impractical. To add to Livingstone's woes, his wife, who had accompanied him back to Africa, died at Shupanga on the Zambezi on April 27, 1862.
Getting cold feet, the British government recalled the expedition in 1863. Livingstone returns to England in 1864. In hindsight, the Zambezi expedition was a success. It had amassed a valuable body of scientific and geographical knowledge.

Livingstone is 52 when he makes his third and final voyage to Africa, he leaves Zanzibar with 36 Africans and Sepoys -and no Europeans. His trials began almost at once, men deserted, food and supplies went missing, his medicine chest was stolen, and many of his pack animals died.
By August 1866 he reaches the southern end of Lake Nyasa and by April the next year he was at the south end of Lake Tanganyika, still searching for the elusive source of the Nile.

By November 1867 Livingstone was on the eastern shores of Lake, then on to Lake Benguelu. By February 1869 he was back in Ujiji, staying only long enough to collect supplies, he then recrosses Lake Tanganyika and overland to Bambarre.
In March he is at Nyangwe on the Lualaba, returning ill and exhausted to Ujiji in 1871 where he meets Stanley, who's mission was to 'find Livingstone'. Livingstone was unaware that he was 'lost', or that there were grave fears held for him in England.

They stay in and around Ujiji making various expeditions where they formed some sort of bond, both enjoying the other's company. But after 4 months Stanley, after emploring Livingston to return to England with him, returns to the coast alone, with Livingstone accompanying him as far as Tabora.

When supplies sent by Stanley from the coast reached Livingstone in August 1872, he was off again, although it seems with no real master plan, some say wandering aimlessly. Amongst other maladies, Livingstone was suffering chronic dysentery. Reaching Lake Bengeulu in early 1873, by April he was so ill he has to be carried in a litter.
Reaching Chitambo village (in Barotseland) on 30 April, the next day he is found dead, kneeling by his bedside as if in prayer -a servant of his god until the end.

In order to embalm Livingstone's body, they removed his heart and viscera (innards) and buried them in the Africa he loved. In a difficult journey of nine months, his two loyal servants, Susi and Chuma carried his body to the coast. It was taken to England and after a great Victorian funeral, was buried in Westminster Abbey on 18 April 1874.

Sir Richard Francis Burton. An intriguing man with brilliant talents. An accomlished swordsman, linguist, and possibly the foremost oriental scholar of his times. He had a sinister reputation (that he encoraged), and also had amassed an extensive collection of Eastern pornography during his travels -destroyed by his wife immediatly after his death.

Burton chose Speke to 'investigate the Seas of Ujiji' with him, as Burton felt he owed Speke a favour following their expedition to Somaliland in 1855, where they were attack by Somalis, both narrowly escaped with their lives. They were speared many times, Burton through the face, giving him a lifelong scar.

In December 1856 Speke joined Burton on the island of Zanzibar. Their intention was to find a great lake said to lie in the heart of Africa and to be the origin of the Nile. After exploring the East African coast for six months to find the best route inland, the two men became the first Europeans to reach Lake Tanganyika (February 1858). During the return trip, Speke with Burton ill in Ujiji, struck out northward alone. On July 30 he reached the great lake, which he named in honour of Queen Victoria.

Speke's conclusion about the lake as a Nile source was rejected by Burton (they had fallen out by this time) and was disputed by many in England, but the RGS which had sponsored the expedition honoured Speke for his discovery.

John Hanning Speke The archetypical Victorian explorer; brave, determined, aloof, although towards the end his pompous self assurance had alienated most, including Burton and the RGS.

On his second expedition into Africa (1860), he and James Grant mapped a portion of Lake Victoria, but generally going nowhere Arab traders and slavers had not gone before. On 28 July 1862, Speke, not accompanied by Grant for this part of the journey, found the Nile's exit from the lake and named it Ripon Falls, which he proclaimed as the source of the Nile. This was the correct conclusion, however flimsy the evidence -and, as Burton icily observed, he had never explored it. Speke did not follow the course of the Nile, but traveled northwest to rejoin Grant in Bunyoro.
In February 1863 they reached Gondokoro in the southern Sudan, where they met the Nile explorers Samuel Baker and Florence von Sass (later Mrs Baker). Speke and Grant told them of another lake said to lie west of Lake Victoria. This data helped the Baker party to discover Lake Albert in 1864.

Speke's claim to have found the Nile source was again challenged in England, and, on the day he was to debate the subject publicly with Richard Burton, he was killed by his own gun in a 'hunting accident'.
Rippon Falls was confirmed as the Nile source by Stanley when he circumnavigated the lake in 1875.

James Augustus Grant. When Speke started his second African expedition in 1860, he asked Grant, a comrade from their India Army days, to join him. A loyal lieutenant, Grant for long intervals during the expedition was given independent command of part of the caravan. During the two and a half year journey, Grant had kept a journal describing events of geographic significance and the customs of native peoples.

For his services, Grant was awarded a gold medal by the RGS.

Henry Morton Stanley. In 1867 Stanley offered his services to the New York Herald as a special correspondent with the British invasion of Ethiopia. An assignment to report the Spanish Civil War followed, and in 1869 he received instructions to undertake a roving commission in the Middle East (he was at the opening of the Suez Canal), which included the search for Livingstone, of whom little had been heard since his departure for Africa in 1866 to search for the source of the Nile.

In January 1871 Stanley was in Zanzibar, and with the aid of the US consul, began preparations to 'find' Livingstone. It was the largest expedition any European had yet mounted -his supplies needing 200 porters. Stanley moved fast, he was in Nyanyembe in four months, shaving a month off Burton and Speke's time, and was in Ujiji by November, greeting Livingstone with that memorable line.

They get on, and explore the north end of Lake Tanganyika, Stanley staying for 4 months, shocked at Livingstone's physical condition, he urged Livingstone to return with him. Livingstone refuses, but accompanies Stanley as far as Tabora.Stanley, after sending supplies back to Livingstone, writes his copy, and returns to England to the fame he considered he had earned.

His reception was not as warm as he had expected, especially by the RGS, that resented the takeover of their hero by an 'vulgar American' (Stanley was reticient about his background -he was in fact born in Wales as John Rowlands).

......to be continued

Verney Lovatt Cameron. Selected by the RGS in 1874 to command an expedition to find Livingstone and to make independant explorations, they met the party carrying Livingtone's body to the coast. Cameron continued on, spending some time determining the true form of southern Lake Tanganyika and discovered (1974) the lake's outlet, the Lukuga river,

He crossed to Nyangwe, and Arab town on the Lualaba believing correctly that this was a headstream of the Congo river. Unable to follow the river downstream due to Arab hostility, he turned southwest and explored the Congo-Zambezi watershed for hundreds of kilometres, finally arriving sick with fever and scurvy on the Atlantic coast on 28 November 1875, being the first European to cross central Africa from coast to coast.

In 1882 he explores the Gold coast region (Ghana) with Richard Burton.
He was killed in England by a fall from horseback while returing from hunting, 24 March.

de Brazza
1852-1905.
Italian/French

Pierre Paul François Camille Savorgnan de Brazza. His easy manner, his charm and his calm approach made Brazza a favourite with all he met. An Italian count, Brazza became a French citizen (1874) and an officer in the French navy. In Equatorial Africa, from October 1875 to November 1878, he explored the Ogooué River and basin from the coast of Gabon to the interior, where he located its source, and reached a Congo River tributary, the Alima River.

Under French orders he proceeded up the Ogooué again in 1880. Near Stanley Pool (now Malebo Pool) on the Congo, he signed treaties establishing a French protectorate of the region that in 1891 became the French Congo.

After further exploration of Gabon, he returned to France (June 1882) and saw ratification of the treaties he had concluded. In 1884 he went back to the Congo, founded the city of Brazzaville, and, with official financial backing, he established a colony that he governed from 1886 to 1897. By all accounts this was a model colony, treating both black and white fairly, in contrast to Leopold's 'Congo Free State' across the river Congo.

A smear campaign against Brazza by the press in 1897 led to his dismissal, even though he had added an area 3 times the size of France to the French empire in Africa. Following his recall to France, large commercial concessions were granted in the colony. In 1905 he was sent on a government mission to investigate charges of exploitation of the natives of the colony. What Brazza found appalled him, the natives living in almost state of slavery to the concession companies. On his return journey to France with his damming report, he was rushed ashore at Dakar where he died, some say poisoned.

Although given a state funeral in Paris, the French Assembly voted to suppress his report as 'potentially embarrassing'.

Hermann von Wissmann. German explorer who twice crossed the continent of Africa and added to the knowledge of the upper Congo River basin. Wissmann left Luanda, Angola, in 1880 and traversed Africa to Sadani, Tanganyika, where he arrived in 1882. In the course of his trip he discovered the Sankuru River (in Congo-Zaire) and investigated routes between the Kasai and Congo rivers.

In 1884 and 1886 Wissmann undertook missions for King Leopold II of the Belgians to explore the navigability of the Kasai River, and he again explored eastward across the continent to Lake Tanganyika and to Zanzibar. In 1888 Wissmann was appointed imperial commissioner for East Africa to suppress a rebellion led by Arab slave traders and to establish German control in what later became German East Africa.

Sir Samuel White Baker and Florence von Sass Together explored the region of the White Nile, Blue Nile and the Atbara rivers. Baker and party chanced to met with Speke and Grant who told them of another lake said to lie west of Lake Victoria. This data helped the Baker party to discover Lake Albert in 1864.

Baker marries Florence, was knighted in 1866, and in 1869, invited by Ismail Pasha (then nominal ruler of Egypt), to become governers-general of Sudan to stop the slave trade in that region. He returned to England in 1873.