Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1894 — TIPPU TIB. [ARTICLE]

TIPPU TIB.

All well read people know who Tippu Tib is, but for the benefit of those who do not it may be said that he is the great Arabian ivory and slave dealer who has been a power in Central Africa for a generation, and with whom Livingston, Stanley and nearly all the great explorers of the Dark Continent have hadf dealings more or less agreeable or unpleasant as the occasion, or disposition of the wily potentate, has seemed to dictate. The bulk of testimony tends to establish the character of Tippu Tib as that of a man of great ability and imperial will, who, while he was engaged in tho slave trade, was yet not altogether unmindful of humane considerations. Missionaries have always defended him and many instances are known where the great trader has saved the lives of white men in the interior of Africa who bore him no good will, and who had they been endowed with the power would have returned the~favor by taking the wealth of the slave trader and casting it to the winds while visiting upon its owner the most severe penalties. Tippu Tib’s day of power has however passed. Great wealth has come to him, and in his old age he has emerged from the depths of the African jungles into the light of civilization. Recently he came to Zanzibar and was there stricken with paralysis. He has been an invalid for months, but it is now announced that he has nearly recovered and will soon make his long-deferred visit to Europe—an event that he has anticipated for many years. Tippu Tib will bathe guest of the King of Belgium while in that country and his presence in the European capitals will no doubt create a furore.