Henry Morton Stanley

Henry Morton Stanley, certainly the most prolific explorer, led his expeditions for overt colonisation purposes. He journeyed for extensive periods between 1871 and 1889, at various time for King Leopold II of Belgium.

Chief Mirambo, a local warlord, turned the supremacy in long-distance trading and porterage into a political, economic and military system by uniting the numerous Nyamwezi clans into a powerful kingdom in 1870 with its capita) in Urambo.

Between 1876 and 1881 he undertook missions to make alliances with neighbouring rulers and led expeditions to Burundi, the Vinza and Tongwe in the West, the Pimbwe and Konongo in the South, the Nyaturu, Iramba and Sukuma in eastern Tanzania, and to Kabaka Mutesa of Uganda.

Using Ngoni mercenaries - the 'ruga-ruga' - his rule extended from the Northwest Buganda border to Lake Tanganyika and covered the area south of Tabora down to Uvinza. To consolidate his power he made an alliance with the sultan of Zanzibar but constant incidents led to the Sultan withdrawing his support, and Mirambo's kingdom disintegrated after his death in 1884.

He is a national hero and a famous war song honours his memory; Iron Breaks the Head.

Stanley called him the 'Napoleon of Central Africa'.

A tramway is one thing that is needed for Africa. All other benefits that can be conferred by contact with civilisation will follow in the wake of the tramway, which will be an iron bond, never to be again broken, between Africa and the more favoured continents.