The Last Rhino by Robert Gribbin

Author:Robert Gribbin [Gribbin, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781532099670
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2020-04-30T04:00:00+00:00

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To clear his head that evening just before dusk, Phillipe strolled down to the river. He gazed at the stream. It was less than thirty meters wide. Its light brown waters flowed slowly westward with a little chuckle as they moved towards the Atlantic Ocean some thousands of kilometers distant. ‘I am near the headwaters of one of the world’s longest rivers,’ Philippe thought. He remembered that rivers like the Mbomou, the Oubangui and the Congo were the centuries old paths of transportation and communication. African migrants came this way a thousand years ago when Bantu language speakers populated the continent. Movements continued with the rise and fall of chiefdoms and kingdoms and the activities of traders and slavers; most recently the wanderings of the Lord’s Resistance Army or outcasts like Godfrey and Sia. European explorers too used rivers as their guides. Henry Stanley of “Dr. Livingston, I presume” fame crossed the Congo on several epic journeys. In Stanley’s 1887 race to save the beleaguered Ottoman Empire Governor Emin Pasha in Equatoria Province of Sudan on the River Nile, Stanley led his men from the Atlantic rather than the Indian Ocean. He endured great trials and tribulations coming up the Congo and Arumini Rivers, then marching overland to Lake Albert. There his emaciated team was met and saved by Emin Pasha rather than the other way around. Stanley’s choice of following the Arumini, which flowed about a hundred miles south of Garamba, had confined them to the jungle for most of the route. Starved and harassed, Stanley’s bloody determination kept him alive and his expedition intact. His ruthless personality earned him the nickname of “Bula Matari” – Breaker of Rocks.

Philippe’s hero explorer of those olden days, however, was a fellow Frenchman, Jean Baptiste Marchand. As a schoolboy Philippe devoured literature about Marchand and his daring exploits. Marchand earned his stripes as a stalwart military officer in West Africa where he explored and fought to establish French suzerainty. He dreamt of greater glory for Mother France and conceived of a plan to link French territories on the Atlantic across the heart of Africa to the Indian Ocean. If successful, France would draw a line across the continent that would sever British imperialism from Cape to Cairo. It was a risky undertaking politically, as it might - and almost did – draw the two powerful nations into war, but it was also a precarious expedition because of the difficulty of doing it. The route was unknown and the dangers of travel in tropical Africa – malaria, food scarcity, unreliable porters, conflict with indigenous people - were daunting. Yet, Marchand persevered. He led 132 men including a company of Senegalese tirailleurs overland from Loango on the Atlantic Ocean to Brazzaville, then by boat up the Congo, Ubangui and Mbomou rivers. From Zemio near the present border of the Central African Republic and South Sudan, Marchand turned northward marching overland across the low-lying continental divide to the Sue and Jur rivers in Sudan. He then followed them north and eastward to the juncture with the Nile.

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