"A Travers l'Afrique avec Stanley et Emin-Pacha"
...Across Africa with Stanley & Emin Pasha......and two White Fathers an account by Fr.
Auguste Schynse
Some background
:
Emin Pasha, alias Dr. Mehemet Emin and real name Eduard Schnitzer, was a German polymath
and polyglot who was appointed governor of “Equatoria,” an Egyptian province in southern Sudan.
When rebel uprisings threatened Emin, the British created the Emin Pasha Relief Committee and
hired renowned explorer Henry Morton Stanley to organize an expedition to find him and either
provide military assistance or rescue him. Stanley and the committee raised the necessary funds
in just one month, and by January 1887, he was on his way to the mouth of the river Congo.
The mission was beset with troubles from the start. The caravan endured rare vermin, starvation, dehydration,
and hostile indigenous peoples. Stanley is now characterized as arrogant, cruel, vain, and deceitful.
Eventually, the Pasha was found but there was no doubt that it was Stanley who needed rescuing.
Hundreds ultimately died during the ordeal. By the end of 1889, he returned to the east coast at
Bagamoyo with Emin, who nearly died there. Stanley immediately wrote the official and best-selling
account “In Darkest Africa” and went on to give numerous lucrative lectures. Emin changed his name
back to Schnitzer and returned to exploring the Great Lakes in East Africa, where he was later murdered by Arab slave traders.
Link to the book here: Across Africa with Stanley & Emin Pasha.
Link to French text here: A travers l'Afrique avec Stanley & Emin-Pacha.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
"Auguste Schynse. the first German W.F.
"
August Wilhelm Schynse was born on 21 June 1857 in Wallhausen near Bad Kreuznach, in southern Hunsrück.
His father was an estate manager on a property owned by the Dalberg family.
At his first holy communion in Trier in August 1869, he decided to become a priest and missionary.
From 1876 to 1879 he studied in Bonn and on 22 August 1880 was ordained by Joseph Georg von Ehrler,
Bishop of Speyer (1878-1905). First he was employed in pastoral care in Wallhausen and Spabrücken.
During the Kulturkampf, conflicts with the notorious Maigesetze put him in prison. Through his participation
in retreats it became clear to him that Africa was his vocation. To get used to the African heat, he walked
for hours at lunchtime. He also studied Stanley’s travels, unaware that he would one day meet him in Africa.
In 1882 he became the first German priest to join the Society of White Fathers at the Mother House near Algiers.
In September 1883 he set sail and in June 1885 he joined the newly opened Congo mission.
On 23 February 1885, the Congo was declared a "free state" by the Belgian king Leopold II.
Fr. Schynse worked in the middle Congo, first in Manyanga, then in Bungana. In 1887 Lavigerie had to recall him
because King Leopold only wanted Belgian missionaries. The Scheutists (founded in 1862 by Theophil Verbiest
in Scheut-Brussels) replaced the White Fathers.
After a short stay in Europe, Schynse became an economist and mathematics teacher at St Eugene’s in Algiers.
In 1888 he was able to return to the mission in Equatorial Africa. He first worked in Kipalapala near Tabora,
but then had to flee before the Arab uprising to Kamoga (Bukumbi) at Lake Victoria. There followed an
interesting episode in his encounter with the daring travellers Stanley and Emin Pasha, in whose company
he came to Zanzibar as a companion of the blind Fr. Girault. His account, a diary of rich observations was
was published without his knowledge and caused a great stir to Stanley concerning the real purpose of the expedition.
Very interested in science, his travels led him to Uganda, where he died on 18 November 1891 in Bukumbi.
His diaries bear witness to a careful exploration of land and people, for the protection of the inhabitants
from slave hunters, for the pacification of the country, and for the preservation of local cultural values.
Who was Fr. Girault ?
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