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.