The Portland daily press., 1888-12-15
A Land OF Romance and Terrors,

The public have by this time been suffi-
GENTLY schooied by the generally unreliable
nature OF stories coming from Central Africa,
to view with great suspicion a story like that
telegrapbed to yesterdays PRESS from Lon
don In regard to the fate of Stanley and
Emin Bey. Osman Digna, the Arab chief
tain who is besieging the English in the little
Red Sea port Of Suakim, has sent word to the
English that the troops Of the new Mahdi
have at last overcome Emin and captured
with him white traveller, who is supposed
to be Stanley. Arabs are not always reliable
when they are friends; and when they are
enemies 1t is safe to assume that they are
wholly unreliable, unless there may be a
strong motive for them to be otherwise.
Unfortunately 1t is possible to assign to
Osman Digna reasonable motive for telling
the truth. The Arabs delight to taunt their
enemies, as the English found after Gordon's
death; and nothing would please 0sman
Digna more than to inform the besieged
English, in letter full of many pious refer
ences to the Allah and the goodness of Allah,
Of the capture Of Stanley and Emin Bey.
Nothing on the other hand would more dis
hearten the English, and the whole civilized
world as well, than the receipt of the terrible
news. What the fate of the captives could
be is only too certain. Gordon was murdered
at once. Lupton Bey, who was Governor of
the Equatorial Province, sister province to
the one governed by Emin Bey, was not
killed but kept In most degrading and ter
rible captivity. Half starved, tortured and
with the fear Of death hanging over him
continually. he was further Inundated by
being compelled to run at full speed ahead Of
the Mabdi whenever that ruthless potentate
made progress among his subjects One
of Lupton Bey's lieutenants was treated
even worse, being hung up by the neck daily
until unconscious, thus undergoing all the
fortunes Of being hung until he prayed
for death. There is no mercy for the
enemies of the Mahdi of Khartoum.
Without so great a hold upon the
sympathies of the world as had Gordon,
1t would yet be difficult to say in what
respect the careers of Stanley and Emin BeY
have been less perilous. Well known to the
world since lie carried out the order of the
New York Herald to find Livingstone,
Stanley fully established his fame by lis
journey through Africa and down the Congo
In 1877. In 1879 he returned to Africa under
the auspices Of the King Of the Belgians, and
the result of his labors was the founding of
the Congo Free State in 1885 and the parti-
ton Of the rest of Central Africa, with its
two million square miles and sixty millions
of inhabitants among the nations of Europe.
1t is now about two years since he started up
the Congo with few white men and several
hundred natives to reach Emin Bey In the
mysterious region around the headwaters of
the Nile. OF Emin Bey the world has known
less, though he is one Of the most romantic
characters of the century His real name is
Eduard Schnitzer. and he was born in the
Prussian Province Of Silesia in the year 1910.
He commenced the study of medicine at'i
Berlin In 1858, and graduated at the UniveI-
sity OF that city in 1864. He was then a
young man Of "a, adventurous and not con-
tent to settle down to the hard struggle of a