A quarrel among African explorers when they have done their
work may be taken to be inevitable, and this time it has broken out between Mr. Stanley and the friends of Major Barttelot, who commanded his rear-guard. Major Barttelot's brother, in a book containing his brother's letters, accused Stanley of having, for his own selfish objects, drained the rear-guard left at Yambuya of all healthy men, and of having intended that Major Barttelot should fail, which is in effect a charge of treachery. Mr. Troup, Major Barttelot's second- in-command, in part endorses this, and further charges Mr. Stanley with being a self-seeker, who sought Emin Pasha not to rescue him, but to secure his store of ivory, reported to be enormous. To these charges Mr. Stanley replies by hinting that Major Barttelot destroyed his own force by shocking cruelties, and that he was " killed, not murdered," by Zanga, a Negro chief, for beating the chief's wife with his own hand. He has, he says, documentary proofs of his statements, but will not publish them unless he is compelled. As to the self-seeking, he spent £12,000 of his own money on the expedition. Mr. Stanley sailed for America on Wednesday, and, pending his return and further explanations, the feeling is that he has not behaved quite well. He should either have held his tongue, as he originally intended to do, and trusted to his record for defence, or he should have made explicit charges, and supported them by good evidence. Hinting that a dead subordinate was a frightful tyrant who deserved his fate, something, in fact, like an habitual torturer, is not a nice line of action.
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