1874 - Exploration, Colonization

Exploration, Colonization

Journalist-explorer Henry M. Stanley, now 33, sets out in late November from Zanzibar to cross the African continent from east to west with three European aides and more than 340 natives, hoping to find the sources of the Nile and Congo rivers (see 1871). Some of his bearers have been supplied by the king of Zanzibar and arrive in chains, but Stanley does not ask questions. By Christmas he has crossed the desert, endured temperatures as high as 140° F., and slogged through torrential downpours, his weight has dropped from 180 pounds to 134 as food supplies dwindled, and he writes to his teen-aged U.S. fiancée, heiress Alice Pike, "The camp is in the extreme of misery and the people appear as if they were making up their minds to commit suicide or to sit still inert until death relieves them" (see 1875).