Excerpt from The Story of the Rear Column of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition

It is worth while to expatiate a little upon this bold attempt of Mr. Stanley's to mislead people into believing that the evidence upon which he grounded his charge was obtained from a general inquiry into the matter made by him upon the Congo in 1888, and not upon the partien ar evidence of three witnesses obtained in 1890. For instance, he talks on this wise when in troducing to public notice his charges of November 8th, 1890 The sentence of my report with which Mr. Barttelot finds fault, and in which I censure the commander of the Rear Column, was written in August 1888, two days after I had met Mr. Bonny and the emaciated remnant of the Bear Column. Ou learning then the details of what had transpired during my absence, I wrote that the irresolution of the officers, the neglect of their promises, and their indifference to the written orders I gave them, had caused this woful collapse. You ask me to justify that censure, It will probably be the best way, in order to satisfy any legitimate interest in this question, to tell the story as I heard it at Yambuya, because in that way the public will better understand the shocking effect it had on me when, hastening to their relief, I was met by the following reve lations And here comes the point. You will find in the log of my book In Darkest Africa, ' even in its abridged form, that the men of the Rear Column came forward to present their complaints and much of the following information I obtained from Mr. Bonny, the Zanzibaris, the Arabs, and the Man yema. Then follow the statements which Stanley says were at that time made to him, the very first of them being the poisoning story, with which Mr. Bonny's most exciting state ment has since made us familiar. But alas! For the accu racy of Mr. Stanley, Bonny informs us that he told Stanley that tale on Sunday, October 26th, 1890, two years and two months after the date which Mr. Stanley fixes for its first recital. The fact is that Stanley deliberately endeavours to lead the public to believe that the evidence upon which he bases his foulest charges against the officers of the rear-guard was obtained by him in August 1888, when, beyond yea or nay.

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