Of Course My Dear, Stanley

by j. scott sly

To: Herbert Legrand, Ph.D. 42 Ipswich Lane, Innsmouth, Massachusetts

Hullo dear friend and colleague,

Although it has been many years since last we spoke, I feel you are the only person I can trust with the information I believe I am in possession of. I have seen evils that defy explanation. These abominable forces have made themselves known in both man and nature. My report of these events coincide with a famous bit of our history, but let it be known that the history that has become common knowledge is far from the truthful telling of the events. Please read carefully my telling of the following; only then will you understand my current state of mental unrest.

As you may be aware, I took a rather long sabbatical from my studies. I was finding the long hours stuffed into an uncomfortable chair in the reading room of the library far too dull, and I felt that an adventure was in order for the new year. When my mind became set on such a (foolish) notion, my heart grew light and it was as if the entire world suddenly came into an acute focus for the first time in my life. The acquisition of knowledge had been my mission, but in what form? What can be learnt from books that cannot be learnt from the world surrounding us? These were the questions that I believed I needed an answer to. I was proud of my infantile naïveté; I realize now what a state of bliss it is to be unknowing.

As I ended my second year at university, I remember the odd feeling as you and my other classmates instantly passed me in social and intellectual rank. I knew then that I would most likely not return to my studies. Either out of shame, or disinterest, my time in academia was over.

I spent the next few nights drunk. I passed through all the local pubs in our small town, but felt a creeping sense of unease. I did not feel welcome at these establishments. The barman would pour my beer and pass it to me without looking at my eyes once. My former classmates singing school songs in a merry choir seemed to not even recognize me; or at the very least acknowledge my existence. I was an outcast from society in less than a week.

One night, as I lay in my bed listening to the sounds of the street, I heard a man speaking about the blessed call of “grand adventure” and how the retched youth do not value their available mental faculties and physical abilities. Whilst in school, I had only a passing interest in current events. I preferred the ancient mysteries to those of our bland society. I was aware, however, of the strange case of the missing doctor in the deep heart of Africa. This man outside my room was either raving to himself, a rather quiet mate, or perhaps to those of us who were lying in bed, waiting for instructions. Either way, I had a mission for the next morning. With a sense of contentment, I closed my eyes.

I awoke in a flash with the rising sun. It was winter, yet I woke bathed in a sticky sweat. I made my way to my wash basin and splashed the cold water on my face. As I peered into the bowl, I noticed that my reflection appeared somewhat distorted, but in not such a noticeable way that I could not simply attribute this distortion to the odd tricks of the light water can play. I cleaned myself, yet I neglected to shave out of an acute fear of the blade. I had a difficult time understanding why I had this sudden aversion to the razor I had used every day since I had been old enough to grow hair on my chin. I know now it was not out of fear of the blade, but out of fear of what the blade can be used for. Quickly I pulled on my trousers and shirtsleeves and headed down to morning tea with the landlady.

When I opened the door, however, I was rather shocked to see a tea tray lying in front of me. Had the old woman an appointment this morning? Why would she simply leave my tea out? It was the custom of the house for all of us to gather for tea. The old woman who owned the house had lost her son and daughter in an odd accident near the seashore of the neighbouring town. The events of the accident were never clear. The father, who had taken them to collect shells, gave such a mad account of the events, that his testimony was deemed inadmissible on the grounds of insanity. The old woman did not like to talk about the accident, or her husband, but she enjoyed the company of her boarders at tea. We would often sit in silence, glancing at each other and giving polite nods and smiles. The topic of conversation would typically centre around the quality of the tea, which despite its actual low quality, was always praised as the finest from Ceylon.

This morning, however, was different. I took the tray and returned to my room. I placed the tray on my desk and poured myself a cup of the tea from the pewter urn the woman used on Christmas for large gatherings. The tea was cold, bitter, and tasted of the grease soap used to clean the urn. I forced down the tea and decided to take my leave and see about a rail ticket to Newcastle where I might inquire about joining an expedition. I did not particularly care where I would go, nor did I have the desire to take the Civil Service exams, I simply wanted to go on an adventure.

As I walked through the town, there was a feeling again that I did not belong. I could feel people’s eyes burning through me. It was as if they knew that I had given up my studies for a frivolous adventure. The whole of the town sat in judgement of my hasty decision. Near the centre of town, I asked where I might be able to hire a coach to the station. I had asked three or four different drivers, but they all informed me that it was too far for them to make any money out of the deal. I was beginning to feel quite distraught. I made my way to the student pub where I figured I would have a bit of lunch then head back to my room and try to come up with a new plan. I sat at a table in the middle of the room, a position I believed to be advantageous to my being able to control my surroundings. This was when, dear friend, things became quite strange.

As I had mentioned, I sat myself in the centre of the room. I did not mention, however, that there was only a few other people in the establishment. There were a couple of Porter drinking old men near the bar, who had quite possibly been there since the pub had first opened fifty or so years ago. Sitting at the table to my left anterior, a well-sunned man was practicing his chess and smoking a rather odd looking yellow-cigarette. As I sat, I could not help but feel this strange man’s eyes on the back of my neck. I tried to turn round without making it appear that I was bothered by his presence, but I imagine my facial expression may have exposed my true feeling. I pivoted in my seat in an attempt to see if he were in fact boring holes in my skull with his wild, colonial eyes. As I shifted, our eyes locked and there was now no escaping conversation. I nodded and gave a polite smile. The odd man did not return these niceties, so I turned back to my table, awkwardly and silently. At this point I felt it best that I returned to my room to avoid any further embarrassment. As I started to stand I felt a hand on my left shoulder pushing me back into my seat. It was the colonial.

To my surprise, the man then proceeded to take a seat at my table! I was absolutely shocked at the brazen attitude of this man, so shocked in fact that I had yet to udder a single word that amounted to more than a confounded grunt. The man was clean-shaven, save for a small patch of hair just under his lower-lip and wore what may have been a fine suit at one point. He was worn, but not dishevelled and he looked at me with eyes that seen more in a few years than most men see in a lifetime. He then asked my name. I could not, at first place his accent. He was certainly not English, but I could not ascertain where he may be from. I told him my name in a small, childish voice. He smiled without showing any teeth, more of a polite grin, but there was happiness in his eyes. He could see that I was uncomfortable and quickly introduced himself as Thomas Van der Merwe. I asked about where it was he was from, presuming by his surname that he was Dutch. He told me that he was in fact from the Transvaal in South Africa. Knowing of the tensions between these Dutch ‘South Africans’ and the English, I trod lightly over the subject and moved simply, and a bit impatiently to my question of his intention in speaking with me.

At the beginning of the conversation he asked me the simple question of my name. I tell you friend, I froze at the question. Either out of fear, confusion, or truly out of a disease of the mind I could not answer the man’s question. At this point, he slapped the table and ordered the barman over to our table. The barman approached and took my order: bitter, pint thereof, and the man’s: a bottle of lowland lager. We waited for our drinks in awkward silence. The man rolled a cigarette with odd, yellow papers and a strange bled of tobacco that I have never seen. When I managed to force words out of my mouth, I first asked from which tobacconist he had purchased such tobacco. The man chuckled (once again not showing teeth) and informed me that such a blend is not available within the shores of England. In fact, his tobacco was a custom blend from his family’s farm in the Transvaal made not only of tobacco but of the Rooibos leaves and stems. I nodded as if I knew at all what he was speaking of, but in fact, I had not the faintest clue. Finally, our drinks arrived and the silence was broken by the standard, ‘ah, grand,’ and ‘cheers mate’ that typically accompany the arrival of much needed beer.

I raised the glass to my mouth, and was about to take a deep drink of the liquid, when the man grabbed my wrist and insisted on a toast. I accepted and held my cup over the table. The man then looked straight into my eyes and, with a disturbing frankness toasted ‘to evil.’ I paused, shocked by this strange toast. As the man drank down nearly half of his bottle of lager, I nervously put the pint to my lips and drank. The man then put down his bottle and looked upon me with a smile.

As we ordered round after round (by his suggestion) I found myself not only drunk, but comforted in his company. Although we did not talk very much, I gathered that this man could help me find the adventure I was seeking. We sat at that table whilst droves of people flocked through the doors of the tiny student pub. Around midnight, we arrived at the heart of our conversation. The man told about his childhood, growing up first in the Cape, and then moving inland with his father to work on the farm. When he spoke of his father, the man seemed to disappear into his eyes. There was a sudden and inescapable chasm between us when he spoke of home, there was something that happened, but I dared not ask what.

When he had finished speaking about his homeland, he asked me again my name. I responded appropriately, but the words felt shallow. It was as if I was telling a lie by simply telling him my name. I believe he picked up on this and grinned. The smoke from his cigarette was obscuring my vision, and the noise of the pub was defining, but the look in his eyes at that moment sunk into to my mind and have yet, even at the time of my writing this letter, to evade me.

I felt the effect of the drink heavily in my eyes, and I told the man that perhaps it were time for me to take my leave. I thanked the man for the beer and the conversation and arose from the table. The man then beckoned me to sit for one more beer. I protested, but was persuaded to sit and have one final nightcap with the strange man. As I acknowledged the man’s offer, he ordered another round then turned to me with a renewed energy. As we sipped our beer in a haze of drunkenness, the man asked me blatantly about my plans. He wanted to know, if I were not a tradesman, a labourer, a soldier, a civil servant, or a student; what was I going to do with myself? I told him that I had been wondering myself what it was that I was to do with my life. I told the man that I felt a calling for adventure. That I wanted to learn what made the earth the interestingly diverse place that it had become. The chasm in the man’s eyes appeared again. I sat, embarrassed that I had just spilt my soul to this stranger. I wondered what he was thinking. Perhaps he thought me a young, ideological fool. Or perhaps he thought me the mental defect I began thinking myself to be. As I sat self-consciously afraid of his next words a great grin appeared on his face as he took another drag of his odd cigarette.

We set out the next morning for Belfast via London. Because of my stint at university I was brought in as an historian and stenographer for a troupe of hired explorers in the employ of the strange man from the pub. As we made our way from my adopted university-town to Belfast, we picked up a number of ragged and weary looking men. These men scared me dear friend, I do not hesitate to tell you. They drank spirits out of label-less bottles and possessed accents of unknown origin. I attempted on one occasion to speak with one of these men, but found only abject futility in the matter. Once we arrived in Belfast, the final member joined our odd little convoy. This man spoke with the same Boer accent as the man I met in the pub. He did not smoke the same yellow-cigarettes, but in its stead a pipe that produced a most foul smelling smoke. The two men, the man from the pub and this man in Ireland embraced and spoke an odd language that sounding faintly Dutch, but with strange accents in the words.

We set to water that summer 1870 with the hopes of meeting with an explorer who had been living in America for some time. We were to meet him somewhere along what the French call the Côte d'Ivoire. We had been at sea for a few days before I started to feel the pining for home. I had never really considered the flat I was living in to be my home, but since I had been living there for more than two years, it had unquestionably become so. I missed tea with the landlady and the other residents of the house. The tea aboard the ship was not that bad, but it was different. It was not my familiar India tea, which produces the sense that one is capable of anything. The tea made aboard this ship was of South American origin, Yerba Mate, as I was told. This Mate, looks much like green China tea, but gives one the jitters like strong coffee. There was comfort in its warmth, but this comfort was fleeting. We also drank much spirits on this voyage. Drink which I had never tasted, and frankly never wish to taste again. There was a complete absence of creature comfort on this short journey, and this began to wear on me most heavily.

When we finally landed upon the continent, I walked on the foreign soil and felt the tinge of excitement that I had so long been craving. I looked around the harbour town and saw almost nothing which struck me as familiar. The man from the pub, who I had come to call Thomas put his arm around me in a most affectionate manner and led me to a smallish hut. When the wooden door was opened, I was actually surprised to see a full-functioning pub serving the seamen that came to port. Thomas explained that this pub was one of the more frequented establishments that came before the treacherous journey around the cape and was therefore a popular stopping point for those heading to the eastern-side of the continent. The crew and I settled in for the night at this pub, content to drink until forced out into the sickly-warm air. Up to this point, I was still quite unaware of the actual mission ahead of us, but I had not the courage to ask my employer for fear of looking foolish. That is when, perhaps sensing my unease Thomas pulled me aside and related to me the journey ahead. He asked me if I was aware of the missionary Dr. Livingstone who had gone missing in East Africa. I was somewhat aware, but asked him to remind me the specifics of the story. As you may well remember friend, Dr. Livingstone was an abolitionist and missionary who had gone missing after his last visit to England to talk of heroics. There was talk that the journalist Henry Stanley was to lead an expedition to search out Livingstone. I happened, as it were, to be requited into this expedition.

We spent a few months in wait for Stanley’s crew to arrive from America. The months spent in African taverns and tea houses changed me. I began to pick up small amounts of local Creole languages as we waited the arrival of the exploratory envoy. After quite some time, we received word that Stanley’s crew had landed on the continent and were waiting for us near Lake Victoria. Our ragged little group set off again to head for Kenya, where we would meet with Stanley’s men and find this Dr. Livingstone.

Dear friend, I am conscious of the length of this letter, but as Pascal once wrote ‘I had not the time to write a short one.’ I fear that if the events to which I was privy to are not written, they will indeed be forgotten. I will, however, spare you the account of the second voyage. We rounded the Cape and passed the shark-infested waters that make that crossing so dangerous. After a longish journey, we landed in Mombasa and proceeded into the interior.

Our guide, a local Kenyan named Jomo Muhimu took us from the relative comfort of Mombasa, to the deep jungle interior. Thomas, for his part translated Jomo’s directions the best he could, but I had the sneaking suspicion that neither of them truly had any idea where we were going. Whilst we were trekking through the harsh climate and terrain, I began to regret my decision to accompany Thomas on this expedition.

Day after day passed and the comforts became more and more sparse. The tea we had brought along with had long run out, as had the beer. The only water we found was brackish and could not be made the least bit potable. Jomo showed us a trick to harness the morning dew with the leaves of the low hanging trees, but the small amount of water was hardly enough to hydrate our bodies and our minds. The men and I became edgy and sniped comments at each other. These hurtful little barbs only highlighted our sense of discomfort in the situation, and out waning faith in the mission.

Finally we came upon the banks of Lake Victoria! I cannot describe the feeling of jubilation upon finding this lake, which at once felt as though it must be the original oasis which provided the ground water for Eden. As I bent down to drink the clear water, I felt an instant sense of ease. I cupped my hand and dipped it into the cool liquid. Each time as I brought my hands to my face, I felt a renewed sense of why I had come this far into the interior of Africa. When I had drunk my fill and the water in front of me settled, I once again saw a strange figure reflected back at me. When I saw this stranger in the reflection I smirked and then disturbed the water, obscuring the reflection and wiping the image from my mind. We met up with Stanley’s expedition shortly after arriving at Lake Victoria. We spent a night resting and plotting a course to Lake Tanganyika, where it was believed Livingstone had been.

As we made our way toward Tanganyika, I witnessed true evil in a form I never imagined. Stanley and his crew did not have the same modicum of respect that I felt the crew of my employ held for the native people. I tell you now dear friend, we were not perfect, but the atrocities I witnessed at the hand of Stanley’s crew I dare not repeat. I will say only that the claustrophobic and impending fear of unknown horrors are enough to drive a team of strong men mad; mad enough to open their guns upon women and children.

I apologize for the melodramatic form in which I am presenting this to you, but you must understand that since my return I have not been able to remove the images of these horrors from my mind. As I mentioned previously, my duty in this murderous crew was to perform the job of Historian. As we pushed through the bush, I recorded what I could of notable flora and fauna as well as interesting landmarks. With much zeal I took to sketching odd fetish statues and other native rock sculpture. The native culture, being far more advanced than we could have previously known before seems to have had some sort of contact with pre-Ottoman eastern traders. These traders were most likely involved in a slave trade -possibly originating from either Shiraz or Persia- and were likely forbearers of the European trade in our too recent past. I remark on this only because the sculptures that I recorded did bear a rather striking resemblance to those recorded in your own journal and that of your colleague (who being from the region himself may be able to shed some amount of light on my sketches). It is far too difficult to understand what the carvings are meant to be. One assumes a primitive God to the natives here. The creature appears to have the body of a man with the head of what might be a squid, or other tentacle sea-creature. The most peculiar element in the make-up this fetish item was the eyes. The eye sockets appeared at first to be empty, as with a Grecian statue. I beg to make the distinction of empty not blank as there was a space where perhaps eyes may have been placed into to make the stature appear more life-like. Upon further inspection however, it appeared that there had been some form of reflective surface inside the sockets of the eye –making it appear as though one’s own reflection was inside the eyes of this rather peculiar deity.

As we moved closer to Lake Tanganyika, I discovered more of these odd statures along the primitive road on which we were travelling. As you may have read in the newspapers, we were successful in finding the doctor, but I must tell you that the report which you have read was not the same which I wrote that day. When we came upon the doctor’s camp, there was an tangible sense unease about the place. We arrived about dusk to the camp and carried out a campaign of mad shouting at the prospect of finding the good doctor. After a good deal of riffling through tents and native structures, we came upon Dr Livingstone himself. The man was thin and emaciated and had a sunken look about his eyes. His skin appeared weather-beaten and chapped and his lips were white and seemed to have a layer of crust on them. As you have read, accurately I must say, our adventurer Stanley then ejaculated with his now famous line: ‘Dr Livingstone I presume?’ That, however, is where the accuracy of the story ends. I recorded the conversation between the two men verbatim and I reproduce it here for you. The actual account reads quite different from the newspaper’s over-zealous report of heroism. This is the draft I submitted to the Pall-Mall Gazette, only to have just one sentence used in the whole account. As stated, here is the version I witnessed:

[Stanley] ‘Dr Livingstone I presume?’

[Livingstone] ‘Of course my dear Stanley, of course. Never before have I been so glad to see another human being as I am to see you! I have been in the heart of it, the heart of darkness. Oh the tales I could tell of an evil so old it makes one's own religions like as if merely in its infancy. There secrets kept in the dark corridors, under the dense canopy where light seldom shows. It is in this humid, and fetid environ that this evil lives, feeding off the ignorance of the locals and drawing power through the millennia from the rotting corpses of the devout. My dear Stanley I must warn you, there is an evil that will soon emerge from its gruesome slumber, an evil which will destroy us all. Under the swamp lands, beneath the sands and seas lies the true first inhabitants of this planet, and they are coming dear boy, to reclaim what is theirs.’

Stanley stood in stunned silence after Livingstone’s seemingly mad diatribe. The crew and I believed that Livingstone had succumb to a bush sickness of some kind and worked at once to get him into a tent. It was our belief that perhaps the good doctor had perhaps become ill though a form of miasma from burning strange fungi or wood on his fire. All we really knew was that we would need to trek out with greater speed than we had trekked in.

We did manage to make it to Mombasa and finally London in good time. The Doctor was able to recover some amount of his wits and went on a lecture tour to enlighten others about what he saw whilst deep in the jungle. I attended one of these lectures and was quite surprised that there was no mention of his illness or of the odd beings he spoke of whilst on the shores of Tanganyika.

I am writing to you because of your interest in these curious stories and native legend. I cannot help but feel that perhaps the odd statues that I found littering the path toward Tanganyika are not in some way related to the beings Livingstone raved about. He may have been affected by some form of jungle fever, but I believe that he has witnessed something, something terrible that I pray will never emerge from the depths at which it may currently rest. The more I research these beings, the more connections I gain within the legends, but the fewer connections with sanity I hold. I pass this information along to you in hopes that you may continue my research into this odd cult. I can no longer trust my mind enough to point me in the right direction towards truth. In time I will send what research I have completed, but for now I can pass along but one piece of information. There is a land in vast reaches of the north, its name in unpronounceable to the English tongue, but well known in the dialects of the people who populate the area. This northern land is the home of what I believe to be an ancient race of beings. More than that I cannot yet say, nor did I want to continue with the search. There are some things that perhaps we are not meant to know. I wish you well with your university position in Massachusetts dear friend. Be careful with this search; do not allow it to consume you as it consumed me.

Your friend always,

Walter