In his diary, Jameson admitted that he paid the charged price, saw the event, and made sketches of it, but claimed that he had considered the whole affair a joke and had not expected her to be actually killed.

After elementary education at Scottish schools, Jameson was, in 1868, placed under Leonard Schmitz at the London International College, and subsequently read for the army, but in 1877 he decided to devote himself to travel.

In that year he went by way of Ceylon and Singapore to Borneo, where he was the first to describe the black honey buzzard, and he returned home with a collection of birds, butterflies, and beetles.

In the early part of 1879, he returned to Potchefstroom, whence despite the disaffection of the Boers he reached the Zambesi district of the interior, trekking along the Great Marico River and up the Limpopo.

Together with H. Collison he next passed through the "Great Thirst Land" into the country of the Matabelis, whose king received them hospitably, and joined by the well-known African hunter, Frederick Selous, they pushed on into Mashonaland (today a part of Zimbabwe).

"[2][3] In 1882, accompanied by his brother, he went on a shooting expedition to the Rocky Mountains, passing from the main range into Montana and thence to the North Fork of the Shoshone River.

Jameson's sister Annie became the mother of the Italian electrical engineer and inventor Guglielmo Marconi, creator of the practical wireless telegraph system.

[4][5][6] Jameson joined as a naturalist, by an agreement signed on 20 January 1887, the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition under the direction of Henry Morton Stanley, after agreeing to contribute 1,000 pounds to the funds.

"[10] In June 1887, Jameson was left as second in command of the so-called rear column under Major Edmund Musgrave Barttelot at Yambuya on the Aruwimi River, while Stanley's party pushed further into the interior in search of Emin.

Noting that there were no plantains and only very little meat left and that the natives still refused to trade, Jameson concluded one of his diary entries with: "As a last resource we must catch some more of their women.

[18][19] In February 1888, Jameson started on a strenuous journey to pay another visit to Tippu Tip, this time finding him at Kasongo, a further 300 miles (480 km) higher up the Congo River than Stanley Falls.

I sent my boy for six handkerchiefs, thinking it was all a joke ..., but presently a man appeared, leading a young girl of about ten years old at the hand, and I then witnessed the most horribly sickening sight I am ever likely to see in my life.

According to a sworn statement made by Farran in Stanley's presence, Jameson had expressed curiosity to witness cannibalism, and Tippu Tip had suggested that he purchase and sacrifice a slave for the purpose.

In reality, he now claimed, Jameson had happened upon the scene when the girl was already dead and had merely watched and made sketches while "the cannibals [were] carving parts of her body" and getting them ready for cooking.

[30] This version of the events is in conflict with Jameson's own admission that he saw the murder, and Farran was unable to convincingly explain why his statement in front of the committee members differed so much from what he said earlier and later.

Bierman supposes that his recantation was due to "enormous" pressure which the relief committee may have exerted to avoid scandal,[25] while Christian Siefkes suspects he "must have been somewhat opportunistic, telling people what he thought they preferred to hear".

[25][29] Both accounts agree on the price Jameson paid for the girl, her age, her being killed by being stabbed twice in the upper body, and the fact that the events started in the house of the local chief.

"[32] Robert B. Edgerton interprets this as meaning that "Jameson had admitted to [Bonny] that he had known the girl would be killed and had calmly sketched the scenes while they were taking place.

"[33][34] From these statements, Edgerton draws the conclusion that Jameson had indeed apparently knowingly purchased the girl "in order to satisfy his intellectual curiosity about cannibalism", sketching "what happened as she was killed and her body was butchered, then cooked, and finally eaten.

He therefore suspects that Farran added this scene in order to make Jameson appear more callous – giving him more time in which he could have intervened to save the girl, but did not.

[39][40] His colleague Herbert Ward was even better informed – he had repeatedly seen how human flesh was roasted, had been invited to eat it by well-intended hosts, and had had other conversations with cannibals who failed to see anything wrong in their custom.

A. Richardson similarly argues that Jameson knew very well that cannibalism was a real custom and "that he would not have paid out handkerchiefs for nothing", concluding that he bought the girl to watch the "spectacle" of her slaughter.

[42][43] While not explicitly judging the credibility of Jameson's and Farran's tales, Bierman observes that the former seems to have held "no rancor" towards Tippu Tip and his men, despite them having deliberately (and for no clearly discernible reason) arranged the girl's death if his version of the event is to be believed.

[44][45] Bierman also points out that, though the fact that Jameson had witnessed the girl's butchering was "beyond dispute", the assertion of a deliberately ordered murder was originally largely dismissed in the English-speaking world.

Instead of accepting that a British gentleman might have done such a thing, Farran was "wished away as a typically malicious Levantine liar", while Bonny was considered "a noncommissioned malcontent, motivated by resentment" against the other members of the rear guard.

[48] Edgerton puts the incident in the context of the Congo at that time, observing that while the direct involvement of Jameson, a "gentlemanly" European, was unusual, the slave girl's fate was not, since "cannibalism ... was undoubtedly widespread" and "many people were murdered expressly so that others might feast upon their bodies".

[49] Eyewitness accounts describe the purchase, butchering, and consumption of slaves as a "daily-life activity, free from strong emotions", seen by those who practised it as not essentially different from the eating of goats and other animals.

On 7 August, he was present at the trial and execution of Sanga, Barttelot's murderer, while trying to negotiate an agreement with Tippu Tip about finding a trustworthy leader for the unruly natives.

[74][75] A number of authors see Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness as inspired by the events and personalities of the rear guard, suggesting that Barttelot, Jameson, or both may have served as models for its central character Kurtz.

[76] Several scholars consider Jameson the most plausible candidate, arguing that like Kurtz he appeared to have been "a cultivated, even idealistic man until 'the wilderness found him out'" and that he too "had been present at certain ... dances ending with unspeakable rites.