Oscar Hijuelos - Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

However malevolent were the conditions throughout (of which I will not further elaborate), I had the consolation of my books: my Bible, my atlases, and your own The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , which you had given me back in ’86, during our most agreeable visit in Hartford. I began to read it aboard ship en route from America to England that winter, when I had been called for this mission. Then I read it again in the New Year, on my way from England to Alexandria en route to Cairo — so much of my time otherwise was preoccupied by preparations for the expedition. Thereafter, once the expedition had set out by ship from Zanzibar — easterly around Cape Horn to the mouth of the Congo and onward up by steamboats along the Aruwimi River to the edge of known lands — I began it again as a matter of comfort to me. Through the many months afterward, on many a night, I would remove that book from its protective oilcloth wrappings, for soft paper rots quickly in the dampness of the climate, and light a kerosene lamp by which to read under the mosquito netting (it was impossible to read anything during the day; aside from the heat, there were so many insects about that to open a book, smelling to them of delicious ink and nutritious pulp, would be to attract these famished creatures in great numbers, for they loved the taste of the pages of books). As I reread portions of that novel, your evocation of the Mississippi and thereabouts provoked in me a flood of pleasant reminiscences about our own youthful days in the American South: Or, I should say, it reminded me of the times, so long ago, when we first recognized each other as friends — and lifelong friends at that.

Well, as I am one of the few living Europeans who have been to such a place, I am hoping that you will be amused to know that Huckleberry Finn and his good friend Jim traveled to the land of the Negroes with me. I liked your portrait of Jim, I should add: The scene where he cries (chapter 23) while describing how he had once beaten his little daughter for not speaking to him, then realized she was a deaf mute, remains among my favorites — why I cannot say. As for Huck Finn — that he, like me, was practically an orphan made him a most sympathetic character, and I found his desire to escape from the “civilizing influence” into the freedoms of the river a quite intriguing and amusing idea. As you know, to bring the “civilizing influence” into Africa has been one of my goals, though my own experience, based on what I have seen and on the moral unfitness of the many men now operating in the region, finds me, like Huckleberry, longing for the purer world of the wilds.

As a parting thought, a line from Browning in which I took much comfort during the expedition:

I count life just a stuff

To try the soul’s strength on.

Yours,

H. M. Stanley

HAVING COME BACK FROM AFRICA by way of Alexandria, in April of 1889, Stanley set out from the port city of Brindisi by rail along the Italian countryside to Rome. His progress was met in every little town along the way by ecstatic crowds who, thronging around him, greeted him as though he were a new Caesar. At each stop, the train would pause for about twenty minutes, Stanley, somewhat bronzed from the sun, appeared at the aft and waved at the crowds. In the piazzas of many towns, festivals were held in his honor, and he found himself, however briefly, stepping down into the midst of elaborate celebrations to shake hands and pose for photographs and receive laurels and medals. Along the way he had heard that mothers were naming their newly born babies “Enrico” after him.

In one town, fragrant with wisteria and potted flowers, as Stanley stepped off the train for a few minutes, he found a rotund and affable majordomo pointing out his young daughter in the crowd, all sincerity and good will, asking: “ Vuole sposare a mia figlia? ”—“Would you like my daughter as your bride?” He turned a livid red, bowed, and, in a state of agitation, walked away.

For all his glory, sleep did not come easily to him; having no use for such pithy emotions as guilt, and not feeling any blame for having performed the necessary task of burning down two hundred and twenty-six African villages on his marches (“reduced” is the term he used to refer to such events), and in general equating any inkling of shame with weakness, he, in full control of his emotions — save for rage, impatience, and envy (among others) — found himself vexed over the capricious and troubling thoughts that would come to him in those moments preceding his sleep, and during sleep itself, when he felt very much alone in the world, only Stanley and God existed in the room.

BY THE TIME HE RETURNED to England, in June of 1889, after triumphant processions in Rome, Paris, and Brussels — where Léopold bestowed upon him the Grand Cross of the Order of Léopold and the Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown — he found that his recent exploits, above all others, had not only made him more famous than ever before but had also enhanced his standing with the aging Queen Victoria, who invited Stanley to dinner at Windsor Castle so that she could hear his stories.

The great dame was far more receptive to me than she was on my previous visits. Something in the outpouring of congratulations from all over Europe and the universal publicity — which reflected well on the “English goodwill” accrued by my adventure — seemed to dispose Her Royalness well toward me. I was received in her private quarters, where she showed me some of her drawings of persons and landscapes (not a bad artist, for an amateur) and asked me if I would be disposed to a knighthood; but for many a reason, I had to defer the honor until some other time, mainly (and I could not tell her so without offense) because of my status as an American citizen, which was conferred on me during my trip to the United States in 1885. As she would not have understood the practical reasons for it, involving copyright protection in the United States, I informed the queen that I was not yet worthy of such an honor. Though it did not sit well with her, I am told that, after I held forth on the difficulties of the Emin Pasha expedition before a gathered assembly at Windsor Castle, she was greatly pleased and considered me a “wonderful traveler and explorer.” It had been a help, I think, that I named several geographical sites after her.

A grand reception was given in his honor by the Royal Geographical Society in London. Royal Albert Hall was packed with some ten thousand important spectators, Dorothy Tennant among them. For reasons that were of an intestinal origin, Stanley, hearing one wave after another of applause in anticipation of his appearance, fainted three times. (“What brought that about I do not know,” he wrote.) Finally coming out onto the stage, he stood before Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, president of the society, and, hearing his praises sung as a great and intrepid explorer, and as Sir Mountstuart placed around his neck the red ribbon and gold medal of the RGS, bearing an image of Stanley’s profile imposed upon an image of Africa, he was dearly tempted, in the name of truth, to expose the whole enterprise as a “bold, certainly brave procession of madness, come to a good conclusion.” But when he accepted the medal, he spoke instead of the many great things he accomplished — of the advantages that were to be gained by the European presence in Africa and about the “high moral road to be taken by all.” Methodically, and with the assistance of several maps, he described, in the simplest of terms, the results of his expedition, the high point of his exegesis being a description of his definitive establishment of the exact location of the legendary Mountains of the Moon on his return route, which brought about yet another great ovation. Humbly thanking the gathering, he left the stage to sustained applause — archbishops, scientists, noblemen, and even cynical journalists were on their feet. Shaking many hands backstage, Stanley then inquired as to the whereabouts of a water closet; led to one, he closed the door behind him and vomited. Though he would publicly say that the RGS reception was by far the grandest he had ever known, in the privacy of the loo, he repeated to himself: “This is s — t, all of it the d — est s — t.”