One hundred years ago
AFRICA has grown darker this week. Mr Stanley has been compelled by opinion to formulate his charges against his Rear-Guard, and they prove to be of the most frightful kind. He accuses Major Barttelot of habitual and murderous cruelty to his followers, whom he perpetually kicked, prodded with a steel-pointed stick, and flogged for little reason, the latter punishment being continued in one instance till the victim died, covered with sores, and with flesh dropping from him. He also accuses Mr Jameson, the naturalist, of having purchased a Negro girl of ten years, and given her to the Mamyuema Negroes in order that he might witness her murder, and the eating of her remains. This he did, making sketches the while of the revolting scenes. We have stated our opinion of these dread- ful charges elsewhere, but must say here that the testimony of Mr Bonny, in medical charge of the Rear-Guard, and of Lieutenant Troup, second-in- command, confirms the general accusa- tion against Major Barttelot, but leaves no reason to doubt that he had become insane, in the most ordinary medical sense. The charge against Mr Jameson, on the other hand, breaks down. The Levantine, Assad Faran, who originally made it, retracted it. . . . There is no apparent reason to question Mr Bon- ny's good faith, and, indeed, the inven- tion of such a tale is nearly as impossible as its truth; but he either mistook what Mr Jameson said, or the latter was telling him a traveller's tale against himself, of a kind by no means unusual in human experience. Private soldiers are said to be always doing it. Such a crime in an educated Englishman, not insane and personally gentle, would be a moral miracle; and, for our part, we disbelieve it utterly.
The Spectator, 15 November 1890
Previous page
