Subtitled "Stanley's Mad Journey through the Congo", this book appealed to the historian in me. It also appealed to my armchair-traveler sense of adventure and exploration. There was much to learn here too because, prior to reading this book, all I knew about Henry Morton Stanley is that he is often remembered for searching for the explorer, David Livingstone in Africa and, upon finding him uttering the words "Mr. Livingstone I presume". This was in 1870. Years later, in 1886, Stanley went back to Africa with a huge expedition, the stated purpose of the mission to rescue Emin Pasha, the governor of the southern Sudan. This book is about that mission, the unstated nature of which was territorial expansion and a hoard of ivory. It makes fascinating reading.
Filled with details taken directly from some of the diaries of the men on the expedition, this is a story of one bumbling misadventure after another. Stanley started out with more than 700 men; barely 200 returned. There was illness, warfare, wrong judgments and mistakes. And through it all, Stanley was absolutely convinced that he was right in all things and had no trouble putting the blame on others. Perhaps it was this very pigheadedness that helped them survive at all. After all, Stanley had something to prove because he was an illegitimate child who was brought up in an orphanage. Later, he went to America and briefly fought for the confederacy in the Civil War but he deserted, became a journalist and eventually went back to England.
There are a lot of characters in this book and I must say I sometimes got confused about all the players. There were officers who tried their best to follow orders in horrible situations. There were hundreds of African natives who acted as porters and who often deserted. Then there were the sponsor with big money and nations looking for glory.
There was never enough food. Disease was everywhere. They had to deal with a notorious slave trader. They also had to deal with the conflicting ambitions of several nations, most notably the Belgians. They had to leave most of their provisions and belongings along the trail. There were wars with hostile natives. They were attacked by poisoned arrows to which they responded by using their guns and burning villages. There was the heat and the bugs and the wrong decisions and illnesses which added an extra two years to their trip. And then, when they finally found Emin Pasha, he didn't really want to be rescued. But he finally joined them along with about 600 Egyptians fleeing the Sudan with their families, slaves and household goods. Mostly, I felt sorry for the poor porters.
This book was a slow read but I kept coming back to it, mostly because it was an escape from my day-to-day life and added some perspective to my knowledge of history. It doesn't read like a novel though. It's full of facts and figures and conflicting points of view. I enjoyed it. However, I stop short of recommending it to everyone. It is for history buffs only.
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The Last Expedition: Stanley's Mad Journey Through the Congo Books In Print, Audio Books.