LO
EUROPE AND AFRICA
In July, 1892, a poorly equipped but determined band left
Lusambo for the Lomami district. It was officered by
Commandant Dhanis, Captain de Wouters, Commandant
Ponthier, Captain Doorm, — all Belgians, — with a British
officer, Captain Sidney L. Hinde, as medical adviser, and
two efficient negro leaders, Albert Frees, a Liberian sergeant
from Monrovia, and Gongo Lutete, an extremely able chief
of the Manyema people. Their troops were chiefly Hausas
recruited from Lagos with the consent of the British
Government, together with some irregulars from Sierra
Leone and Liberia. After a year of astounding adventures,
daring exploits, great suffering, and numerous misfortunes,
they succeeded in capturing Nyangwe and Kasongo and in
destroying almost completely the Arab power on the Upper
Congo.}
Meanwhile the Congo officials were steadily pushing their
explorations north and east along the Ubangi and Welle and
Mbomu Rivers until they reached the confines of the Bahr-
el-Ghazal region. In September, 1892, Milz reached the
Nile, and Captain Delanghe occupied three posts on its left
bank in the following June. The Belgians carefully avoided
conflicts with the Dervishes, to whom Egypt and England
had abandoned the Sudan after 1885; but in 1894 the troops
of the Khalifa attempted to occupy the mountain districts
of Bahr-el-Ghazal and to penetrate into the Congo Basin.
A lively contest ensued in which the Congo forces under
Delanghe, Gérard, Donckier, and Francqui achieved a de-
cisive victory; and the Dervish leaders were compelled to
retreat to the main Nile. These successes of the Belgians
prevented the Mahdists from invading Uganda ? and led to
the Belgian occupation of the Lado Enclave. For in the
1 Captain S. L. Hinde, The Fall of the Congo Arabs. Methuen & Co.,
1897.
2 Sir Harry Johnston, George Grenfell and the Congo, vol. 1, p. 437.