King Leopold's Ghost

The “magnificent cake” of this chapter’s title refers to Leopold’s description of Africa and how he wants a “slice” of it. However, the majority of the chapter is devoted to a description of Henry Morton Stanley’s brutal expedition, between 1874-1877, into the African interior, during which he finds the source of the Congo and follows it out. The expedition traveled for over two and a half years, and traversed the whole continent from east, beginning in Zanzibar, to west, ending up in the small town of Boma, some fifty miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

In order to take part in this 365-person expedition, funded by the New York Herald and also by London’s Daily Telegraph, Stanley has left behind another fiancée—“Alice Pike, a seventeen-year-old American heiress” (48). The owners of the two newspapers, James Gordon Bennett, and Edward Levy-Lawson, respectively, along with Alice, are honored by Stanley throughout the expedition as he names hills, mountains, the boat, and various bodies of water after them. He also named a lake and waterfall after himself.

Stanley took only three other white men with him on this expedition, none of whom had any experience in exploration, and all of whom died before reaching the end. Forty-six of the party were the wives and children of some of the senior African members of the group.