Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

by Oscar Hijuelos

  But sometimes, too, when he was in the pink of health—as he was, fresh from a month’s rest in the Swiss Alps, in 1885—there was about him a general robustness, his cheeks bright red, his eyes wildly alert, and his physique sturdy. Despite the man’s diminutive stature—five feet five—to shake Stanley’s hand with one’s eyes closed was to feel the powerful grip of a blacksmith or a quarryman, more akin to stone than flesh. He had a broad chest, wide shoulders, and strong and well-muscled limbs. Which is to say there were two Stanleys—one, helpless as a baby, eased his gastric pains by chewing a mild opiate called “dream gum”; the other, according to the popular imagination of England, was a “modern Hercules.”

  By his own account—his newspaper dispatches and the picaresque narratives that made up his books—he had trekked thousands of miles through the great forests and plateaus of central Africa and, along the way, had often wielded machetes and axes to cut a narrow trail through the dense jungle, foot by foot; he had scaled cliffs, hustled over great rock barriers, and had slipped or fallen so many times on rough terrain that his limbs were covered by scars. He wore a mustache whose waxed tips spiraled upward in the manner of a Bikanir sergeant, and his eyes burned with the intensity of a man who, having come close to death on many occasions, sometimes felt himself immortal. Whatever else could be said about him, for all his demureness around the ladies, he was known as a fearless man.

  HIS CHARMS WERE MANY, BUT as a social creature he felt far more comfortably disposed around a cannibal chieftain of the Congo than around a woman, and less nervous facing a hail of poison-tipped spears in the African bush than facing Cupid’s arrow. During the short periods of time when he was not actively adventuring as a journalist and explorer, what love affairs he had managed to pursue had come to nothing. His courtship of a girl from Greece, whom he encountered in a small village on the island of Syra, in 1868 or so, while he was a reporter at large for the New York Herald covering the Cretan rebellion, ended with rejection. His affections for a well-landed Welsh girl, Katie Gough-Roberts, whom he had been introduced to during one of his quick visits to Denbigh in the late 1860s, had also turned to air. His surest romance, however, had been with Alice Pike.

  Just remembering the particulars of that affair would depress him, for while she, lively and flirtatious, had loved to parade about the city with him (the celebrity of the day) and had, in a sacred pledge, accepted Stanley’s proposal of marriage in the back garden of her Fifth Avenue mansion some months later, during one of his visits back to America—once he had taken off to Zanzibar it was not long afterward that she began to go her own way. While Stanley had been off traveling through equatorial Africa, naming a mountain and then a lake after her—“the shimmering play of light, blue upon blue, upon its surface, glorious as her eyes”—and while the men of his expedition were hauling along, in four heavy sections, the components of a forty-foot wooden boat he had named the Lady Alice over all kinds of difficult terrain, she had been in the midst of enjoying a most carefree life as a social flower in New York. By the time Stanley, back in England after three malaria-ridden years of travel in the Congo, had gone to the Herald’s London office on Fleet Street to collect his mail, he found awaiting him a letter from Alice: In it he read that, during his absence, his beloved had married someone else.

  “If you can forgive me, tell me so; if not, do please remain silent.”

  From then on, Stanley had acquired the air of a man who had been bitterly disappointed, his fame, to which he had never become accustomed, no assurance of earthly happiness.

  TIME PASSED, HIS MEMORIES of that false romance still rankling his soul. If he found himself thinking about the prospect of love, he simply preferred to put it from his mind. “If it should enter my life, it will not be forced,” he would say. Gossiped about by women in whatever city he happened to meet them, whether in London or Paris or Brussels, he became known for his shyness and for blushing at a lady’s first approach; and if he noticed the comeliness of her figure, his ears turned red, so fully did his blood rush; to look at a woman closely was in his mind the same as touching her. A kind of uncontrollable bodily fidgeting followed by many exaggerated arm gestures, as well as a habit of shifting from foot to foot, accompanied a change in the tone of his voice, his baritone rising into a series of squeaky utterances that some took for shouting, as if he thought the woman he was addressing had gone deaf. He was judged as being a sad and remote sort, and his conversations—or so it seemed to the ladies of his passing acquaintance—were somewhat pedantic and dull, reminiscent of a schoolmaster giving a lecture. For around such ladies, he seemed to believe that his own true personality—“that softer side that leads to nothing”—would be of no interest to them. On those occasions, Stanley, to his detriment, took refuge behind the fame and bluster of his life as an explorer.

  The irony of it all was that he could be quite personable in private conversation with men, possessing as he did a wide range of interesting anecdotes culled from the many lives he had already lived. In one moment, if he cared to, he could, with some fondness, reminisce about his days riding along the Western plains as a dashing reporter for the Missouri Democrat, covering the Indian Wars of 1867 along with the likes of Wild Bill Hickok, icon of the American frontier. He could recall strolling through the bazaars of Cairo with the late General Gordon in the 1870s; or, if one happened to bring up the name of Mark Twain among persons ranging from Queen Victoria to the Prince of Wales, Stanley could speak at length about him, and happily so.

  “I have always found him an interesting and amusing character,” he was once quoted as saying.

  Because Stanley had a photographic memory—after he read a page of a book, its contents remained with him always—he could be many things to many people. With classicists he could recite by heart passages from Ovid and Catullus in Latin, the bawdier aspects of the latter not escaping him; with literary friends he quoted Byron or Browning or Milton; with geographers he could discuss the intricacies of mapping; with navigators he deliberated the uses of the sextant and the difficulties of taking river “soundings.” Even his medicinal knowledge was deep: He devoured the contents of various medical books so that he would know just what to do when physical disaster afflicted him or one of his native porters. He could draw quite well: Having won prizes for his renderings at St. Asaph’s, he might have followed a career in art in a different life, and he was something of a musician, too, able—like Samuel Clemens—to play the piano and guitar serviceably enough. He was mildly proficient at other instruments as well: Often on his expeditions, he had soothed the gloomy hearts of his native porters and charmed the chieftains he encountered by playing, as he appeared before them in some smart cream-colored outfit, French, English, and Yankee melodies on an accordion (as long as the instrument was not worm-ridden or soaked through with the moisture of the jungle).

  Nor did languages elude him. While his own native tongue, Welsh, had slipped with the years into the recesses of memory, he spoke Spanish and French and Arabic fluently, Italian and Portuguese well enough, and German, Russian, and Dutch passably. He could converse in various dialects of the Bantu language and efficiently speak Swahili (to the point that in later years, while under malarial delusions, he would write entire letters in Swahili, regardless of the recipients’ knowledge of the language). Holding forth with much erudition about a wide range of subjects, from Ptolemy to the czar, he could be randy as well, having heard during dozens of voyages the filthiest jokes from the sailors—although he rarely pursued this latter talent, and never in mixed company. To preachers he could talk about the Bible; to astronomers he could talk about the charting of the stars. With such diverse folks he could go on and on and hold his own, but never with women.

  That he had no lady companion or a family of his own was among the things he had come to regret during his life of adventure. In any event, he was always bound up with his writing. After each of his expeditions, he always had a massive book to produce and speaking tours that t
ook him from city to city, so he had no sure home in which to lay down roots.

  IT WAS ONLY IN THE PREVIOUS YEAR that he had moved into a many-roomed apartment on New Bond Street, where he lived with his manservant, Hoffman, and with Baruti, a former member of the Basoko tribe, whom Stanley had brought back from the Congo on his last expedition with the aim of “civilizing him” as a kind of social experiment. At heart, his hope was to eventually teach the unruly Baruti, whose name meant “gunpowder” in Bantu, how to read and write and feel comfortable in a gentleman’s wardrobe so that he might one day become an upright and sturdy British citizen. To break him in, Stanley had Baruti dress in pantaloons, shirt, and jacket, plus stockings and stiff leather shoes, but this was a mode of apparel for which Baruti, accustomed to a more unencumbered life in the Ituri Forest of the Congo, had little liking. He tended to shed his clothes, and it was not an uncommon sight for visitors to Stanley’s flat to encounter Baruti stripped down to a mere loincloth and climbing over the front parlor’s furniture, couches and sturdy club chairs toppling over in his wake. Stanley’s nonchalance about the aforementioned behavior contributed to his bachelor’s air of distraction.

  In his employ was one female: Mrs. Holloway, his cook and housekeeper, who put up endlessly with his attitude that a gentleman should be picked up after. Despite all her efforts, his flat was a disaster of cast-off things. He had four hounds, rescued from the Battersea’s home for unwanted animals, one of whom, a Scottie, had recently given birth to a litter of puppies. To the distress of Mrs. Holloway, these creatures peed upon and otherwise disfigured the fine Persian carpets that were laid out on the floors of every room, a state of affairs to which Stanley was indifferent—“As long as they do not eat up my maps, books, or important papers, let them do as they please. After all, it is not as if they are carrying malaria.” Two parrots chortled happily away in cages that stood in his front parlor.

  In general, Stanley could not have cared less about his cluttered, and sometimes chaotic, surroundings, for he had set aside for himself one orderly area for his work—on the floor below the parlor, under one of the windows that looked out onto the traffic of New Bond Street, a humble and orderly space. With an Islamic prayer carpet spread out beneath him, Stanley, replicating the way he made his journal entries in a tent in the African jungle, would sit on a wicker stool about eight inches high and write on a small table just big enough to hold a quire and an ink pot. It was on that table that Stanley composed his lectures and wrote his most important correspondence, the brunt of which was sent to King Léopold, with whom he was in nearly daily contact.

  As the king’s handsomely paid consultant for Africa, Stanley spent a large part of his day answering Léopold’s many queries about further enhancements to the organization of the Congo, wherein Stanley, combing over maps and his own journals, would make suggestions as to the possible locations of future river stations and where new roads might be cut through that territory to expedite the trade and fortification in the region.

  RECEIVING MUCH MAIL DAILY, Stanley also had notes of a personal nature (but no love letters) to attend to, mostly in polite response to the great number of dinner and luncheon invitations he received from various persons and clubs in London—high society always requesting his presence in those days. He got so many invitations that he accepted only a few, generally considering such outings—save for when he had the opportunity to voice his (preferred) advocacy for greater British involvement in Africa—a waste of time.

  Then, too, there was practical correspondence with several people of importance in his life—among them William Mackinnon, head of the British India Steam Navigation Company, and Edwin Arnold, the poet and “old India hand” who was also the editor of the Daily Telegraph.

  Though he saw all these gentlemen socially in London, usually at the premises of the Royal Geographical Society in Knightsbridge or at one or another of the famous clubs—the Carlton, the Travellers, the Oxford and Cambridge, the National Liberal Club, and the Garrick—the “public” Stanley, being somewhat formal and privately disposed, was wary about his assignations, for wherever he went, groups of admirers gathered about him, and he, wanting to be left alone, would feel resentful of the way strangers would press him to hold forth about his past journeys—“as if I were an intimate friend.” On the other hand, if he entered a room and people did not turn and notice him instantly, he took it as a personal failing, as if he had been judged and rejected, his mood sinking low. Then he’d sit off in a corner, sulkily, until someone, recognizing him, introduced him around, as “Henry Stanley, the eminent explorer.” And all would be well with the world again.

  WHAT HE, BORN OUT OF WEDLOCK, mainly wanted, beyond the admiration of others, was a modicum of affection from the public—or from anyone. What family he had on his mother’s side were distant cousins and a few aunts and uncles, though he had several half siblings from his mother’s marriage to Robert Jones.

  Other persons who claimed to be family only came forward after he had achieved his greatest fame—supposed cousins and long-unheard-of brothers and sisters on his father’s side who sent the most heartfelt notes, bursting with pride over the Rowlands line, and all, in the end, asking him for money. He sometimes received letters from England and America claiming that such and such a person, whom Stanley had never heard of before, was a relation. One missive, from a woman in Colorado, where Stanley had once roamed as a frontier reporter, went so far to say that she had borne his child and was now ready to take her place by his side (an impossibility, unless it was an instance of what the Catholics call immaculate conception, as Stanley wrote her). Another letter came from a certain Joanna Eastaway, who claimed to be his mother:

  My dear William Henry [sic]—

  How I’ve missed and longed for you all these years… Why it is that I have not been in touch with you is owed to “curious circumstances.” Many years before, I was a wanton and innocent young lady, working in London, where through grave necessity I, having fallen under the spell of hunger, made arrangements with a certain high lord; without spelling out the obvious I must tell you that scandal and threats to my livelihood were pressed upon me, and so with my heart broken I had to convey you, darling infant that you were, into the hands of strangers—the Parry family, who claimed you as their own. That you have suffered all these years, without a mum, weighs heavily upon me, but rest assured I am here to give you all my love—to hold you is my dream.

  Sometimes gifts arrived at his flat—cakes, articles of hand-stitched clothing, and books, for which he always remained grateful. From several misguided ladies there arrived notes that amounted to marriage proposals: “To have the great Stanley as the father of my child would be all,” one said. Some ladies sent a photograph, and, in one instance, he received a pair of perfume-doused bloomers. Most correspondents just asked for his autograph. But it was the children he most enjoyed answering, this grave and serious-minded explorer, not only writing back but often embellishing his notes with some outlandish details about Africa, as if to enchant them:

  My dear little Tom of Cheshire,

  I very much appreciated the note that you took the time to compose for me: Enclosed you will find a photograph of me, so pleased was I by the drawing of you that you sent me. Well done! I imagine you must be a very bright boy, having learned to write at five, you say. That alone tells me—and say this to your lucky parents—that you will always do well in this life. My cap is off to you, young Tom. As for your question—“What are the animals of Africa like?”—I will say this, and I only tell you the truth. In Africa, there is a breed of antelopes who fly; and of the flying creatures there are birds who sing like angels, and there are many very wise and kindly elephants afoot, some over a thousand years old, but youthful in their ways, and these elephants, loving children, will lift them with their trunks onto their backs and take them along on exciting adventures. It is a place that you should certainly see, when it is all the more peaceful and its bad people driven away. This,
I assure you, will happen one day.

  With my sincerest best wishes,

  Your friend, Stanley

  He was no less willing to play the kindly uncle for the children he met in the homes of friends or out on their country estates. He took great pains to share with them the amusing things he had seen during his travels, delighting them with his tales of the pygmies of the Ituri Forest. Imitating many an animal’s growl and utterances, he was not above getting on his hands and knees to demonstrate how a lion walked or emulate an elephant’s lumbering gait.

  Still, as with most things regarding his life, Stanley had another side, for the man who could be so playful with children had thought nothing about putting his beloved rifle bearer, Kalulu, in neck and ankle chains during their last expedition together. And he was quick with a lash, quick to administer proper justice to those he considered his enemies.

  IN THOSE DAYS, before his eventual fall from public esteem, he was a heroic figure to the masses, his popularity such that his image appeared on coffee mugs, on candy boxes, on cigar wrappers, tea tins, and plates. Even on toys: There were Stanley cork-shooting rifles and tops, a children’s marble maze game entitled the Stanley Souvenir, even lead figure sets from Germany with names like Stanley on Safari and Stanley in Darkest Africa. Plays were mounted about his exploits, and for more than a decade, English vaudeville comedians had spun endless skits from his defining moment in Ujiji, the one when he had uttered the words “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” (That phrase was so much a part of collective English consciousness that Stanley was often greeted, much to his irritation, the same way.) His face appeared in cartoons in magazines like Punch and in newspaper advertisements. Songs were written about him: “The Stanley March,” “The Stanley Polka,” and “The Source of the Nile Waltz” among them.