Stanley's African Convert [pp. 445-451]

APPLETONS' JOURNAL.
French translation of Stanley's letter, and thought
it so incredible that he suspected it to be a forgery.
He says:
"Mr. Stanley, who has since visited Mt6sa, as reported in the Explorateur, in a letter dated the i4th of April,
i875, says that'he flatters himself that he has shaken
very sensibly the faith of the black monarch in Mohammedanism.' If (as I can hardly believe possible) such
language was really used by Mr. Stanley, he was either
the dupe of the artful savage, or he appeals to the pseudophilanthrophy which in Europe elevates the African at
the expense of the truth. When I entered the country,
King Mtesa had recently adopted the Mussulman faith.
Being a soldier, not a missionary, I did not attempt the
work of conversion on this savage, which, in my opinion, would be utterly useless. Having already made one
step from fetichism to Mohammedanism, the attempt to
shake that new faith would only cause him to grope
hopelessly in a confused labyrinth of gods. Besides, I
felt conscientious scruples against advocating the sending
of missionaries into a country which I believe would only
devote them to misery and a speedy death, without any
results that could justify their inevitable martyrdom." I
Colonel Long here corroborates one point in Mr.
Stanley's letter-Mtdsa had recently become a believer in Mohammedanism. We imagine that the
time is past when any candid person will seriously
call in question any statement which Stanley makes
as to a matter of fact. And it is now certain that he
was far within the bounds of fact when he "flattered
himself that he had very sensibly shaken Mtesa's
faith in Mohammedanism." In this same letter,
which was sent through M. Linant de Bellefonds to
Colonel Gordon, the Governor-General of the Equatorial Provinces of Egypt, by whom it was forwarded
to Europe, Mr. Stanley urged that an English church
mission should be established in Uganda. When, in
December, I877, Stanley returned to Zanzibar, after
his three years' journey of twelve thousand miles
across and half-way around the Continent of Africa,
he learned something of what had taken place in
Uganda since he had left that country. In a letter
published in the NVew York Herald of February I3,
I878, he says:
" During the first brief visit which I made to the Emperor of Uganda, in April, I875, I undermined his belief and respect in the Mohammedan religion. The
month of August saw me again at the court of Mtesa.
I spent one hundred and ten days on this second visit,
during which time, with the aid of Mr. Darlington, a
pupil of the London Mission, at Zanzibar, I translated
the entire Gospel of St. Luke, the Lord's Prayer, the
Apostles' Creed, several chapters of St. Paul's Epistles,
and a portion of the book of Revelation, besides the
Ten Commandments. During all this time, I spent from
two to six hours each day talking with him about the
great love for mankind which the Saviour manifested
while on earth. When we returned to his capital, in the
latter part of October, I directed how the new church
was to be built, and assisted the chief Mkwenda to plant
the pillars and posts of the building.
"I arrived in the beginning of April, x875, and had
communications with Mtesa until March, x876. When
1 Colonel Long's "Central Africa: Naked Truths about
Naked People," 1877, p. 309.
he was on the point of executing captives, I made him
to understand that if he put to death one person not
convicted of murder, I would publish the fact to the
whole world, and describe him as no better than the
lowest savage. This was done in the presence of all his
chiefs, numbering about two hundred. When he was
about to sentence a great chief of the Wavuma to the
stake for treason and a long course of enmity, I interceded with him, and the chief's life was saved.
"Considering the terrible things recorded in Colonel
Long's book, and that Long but corroborates Speke in
his description of Mtesa's character; considering that I
saw, before appearing in his presence, the ashes of many
victims in the place of execution; that Colonel Linant de
Bellefonds reports in his journals that he heard me begin
the conversion of the cruel despot; that Dr. Schnitzer,
or Emin Bey, who succeeded me in Uganda, reports that
what Mr. Stanley stated about the conversion of Mt6sa is
correct, and that his conversion is real; and that the
Church Mission lately reported that the boy Darlington,
left by me to continue the work, in I875, was still at his
post-considering all these things, surely all right-minded Englishmen will recognize that a great change must
have taken place in the character of the Emperor of
Uganda, and would it be too much for me to claim AMtsa
as my convert?"
The foregoing is, we believe, the fullest account
which Stanley has as yet given of the momentous
eleven months during which he was in almost constant intercourse with Mtesa. It certainly presents
Stanley in an aspect quite different from any in which
we have been accustomed to regard him. Not a few
English philanthropists have persistently held him up
to condemnation-we may even say to execration-as
an unscrupulous and ferocious adventurer; a wanton
destroyer of unoffending Africans, who merely objected to his armed march through their peaceful
territories. We fear that it will not be easy for them
to recognize in him the man who dared over and over
again to fling himself between the terrible Mt~sa
and the objects of his wrath-a thing which we believe Speke ventured only twice, and Long not at
all. Still harder will it be for them to see in him
the patient translator of the Gospels and Epistles,
and the earnest missionary who daily, for months,
spent hours in expatiating before the ferocious monarch upon the exceeding love of the Saviour of mankind. When Stanley's narrative comes to be written, we should not at all be surprised if the most
interesting portion should prove to be that which
will describe this stay in Uganda-surpassing even
that which will tell the full story of the wonderful
canoe-voyage down the Congo.
If King Mt6sa, of Uganda, has been really converted-we will not say to Christianity, but even to
common humanity-it is one of the most remarkable
conversions recorded in sacred or profane history.
To justify this assertion, we need only to look at the
previous character of the man as portrayed by Speke
and Long, the only but all-sufficient authorities upon
the subject.
The kingdom-or, as Stanley sometimes calls it,
the empire-of Uganda lies at the northwest corner
of Lake Victoria Nyanza; its capital being almost
under the equator, but lying at a general elevation
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