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                               THE TRUTH
                            ABOUT THE CONGO




[Illustration: CHIEF NDOMBE WITH FAMILY GROUP, IN HIS TOWN]




                               THE TRUTH
                            ABOUT THE CONGO

                          THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE
                                ARTICLES

                                   BY
                            FREDERICK STARR

                             [Illustration]

                                CHICAGO
                            FORBES & COMPANY
                                  1907




                             COPYRIGHT 1907
                                   BY
                          THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE




                         THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
                                   TO
                            MANUEL GONZALES,
                     MY COMPANION AND PHOTOGRAPHER
                        UPON MY CONGO EXPEDITION
                                 AND TO
                   OUR BLACK BOYS, MANOELI AND TUMBA




                                PREFACE


WHEN I returned to America, I had decided to express no opinion upon
the public and political questions of the Congo Free State. Having found
conditions there quite different from what I had expected, it was
impossible for me to state my actual impressions without danger of
antagonizing or offending some whom I valued as friends. Hence, on
landing at New York, I refused to say anything upon those matters to
several reporters who interviewed me. A little later, the _Chicago
Tribune_ asked me to write upon these subjects, urging the importance of
the whole matter to our nation, and leaving me entire freedom in
viewpoint and mode of treatment. In response to its request, I prepared
a series of articles, which appeared in successive issues from January
20 to February 3, 1907.

The articles were received with general interest, and many asked that
they should be reprinted in book form. I felt that they were of
momentary interest only, and as I have much other Congo matter for books
and pamphlets—more directly in the line of my professional work—I was
inclined not to reprint them. But I soon found myself the subject of
bitter attack. Malicious and untrue statements were made regarding me
and my motives. I have concluded, therefore, that it is best that my
articles should be accessible to all who are interested. What I wrote, I
am ready to defend. I am not ready to be judged from misquotations, or
condemned for what I never wrote. Hence this book.

I am not personally responsible for the title—_The Truth about the
Congo_. Although I believe all my statements are true, I should not have
selected that title for my articles. No man can say all that is true on
any subject, and I do not arrogate to myself a monopoly in
truth-telling, either about the Congo or any other topic. But after my
announcement under that heading, I decided to let it stand. I preferred
some less assertive title, but I am content. So I use the same title for
this book. The headlines of the articles, however, I have suppressed.
They were not of my preparation and did not adequately suggest the
matter or the treatment. The articles are reprinted with no changes
except corrections in spelling, punctuation, or mistaken words.

No man more desires the happiness and progress of the Congo natives than
do I. I know them pretty well. I am their friend; they are my friends. I
shall be glad if what I here present makes them and their cause better
known to thoughtful and sympathetic men and women, Mere emotion, however
violent, will not help them. Stubborn refusal to recognize and encourage
reforms, which have been seriously undertaken for their betterment, will
only harm them.




                       THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CONGO




                                   I.


                                                       January 20, 1907.

MY own interest in the Congo Free State began at the St. Louis
exposition. As is well known, that exposition made a special feature of
groups of representatives of tribes from various parts of the world.
These natives dressed in native dress, lived in native houses, and so
far as possible reproduced an accurate picture of the daily life to
which they were accustomed in their homes.

Among the groups there brought together was one of Congo natives. This
group was commonly known as the pygmy group, though but four out of the
nine members composing it made claims to be such. The group was brought
by Mr. S. P. Verner, at one time missionary to the Congo, who was
engaged by the exposition to make a special journey into central Africa
to procure it. Four members of the group were Batua, the others were
large blacks representing the Bakuba and Baluba.

The idea of visiting Africa was one which I had never seriously
entertained, but in the study of these Congolese it seemed to me that
there were interesting questions the solution of which would well repay
a visit. The consequence was, that I determined to visit the Congo Free
State—and specifically that part of the state from which these natives
had been brought.

About this time I received considerable literature from the Congo Reform
Association at Boston, the reading of which had its influence in
deciding me to undertake the expedition.

After reading this literature I started for the Congo, fully prepared to
see all kinds of horrors. I supposed that mutilations, cruelties, and
atrocities of the most frightful kinds would everywhere present
themselves. I expected to find a people everywhere suffering, mourning,
and in unhappiness.

My errand, however, was not that of a searcher after all these dreadful
things, but purely that of a student of human races, with definite
questions for investigation.

I may say that my opportunities for forming an opinion of conditions in
the Congo have been exceptional. Mine was no hasty journey, but a tarry
in the country extending over more than one year.

While my original plan was to spend the greater portion of my time in
the district ruled by the Bakuba chief, Ndombe, with but a short period
in other parts of the state, I had decided before reaching the mouth of
the Congo to more evenly distribute my time, and to see far more of the
Congo proper than I at first intended. As a consequence, I went first
into the Kasai district, where I spent four months, after which,
returning to Leopoldville, I went up the main river to the head of
navigation, and even beyond, to Ponthierville, the terminus of the newly
built line of railroad. We also went up the Aruwimi, to the famous
Yambuya camp, where the navigation of that river is interrupted by
cataracts.

I have, therefore, seen not only the lower Congo, which has been so
frequently visited in recent years, but traveled thousands of miles upon
the great river and two of its most important tributaries.

In this extended journey I came into constant contact with
representatives of the three groups of white men who live in the Congo
Free State—state officials, missionaries, and traders. I had repeated
conversations with them all, and have heard opinions upon the Congo
State from these diverse points of view.

My position with reference to Congo matters is peculiar, doubly so. I
may even say it is unique. My journey was made at my own expense; I was
not the representative of any institution, society, or body. I was
without instructions, and my observations were untrammeled by any
demands or conditions from outside.

While I am under many and weighty obligations to scores of state
officials, missionaries, and traders, I am not prevented from speaking
my mind in regard to any and every matter. Both to the missionaries,
state officials, and traders I paid board and lodging at every stopping
point—with the single exception of one American mission station—a fact
which leaves me freedom. While the state facilitated my visit and my
work in many ways, I was not, at any time, in relations with it of such
a kind as to interfere with free observations or free expression. I made
this entirely clear on my first visit to the state authorities at
Brussels, and it was understood by them that I should speak freely and
frankly of everything which I should see. On their part, the state
authorities expressed the liveliest satisfaction that an independent
American traveler should visit the Congo Free State, and said that they
did not wish anything concealed or attenuated, as they felt sure that
such a visit as mine could only do them good.

I have said that my position was doubly peculiar. I was not only
independent and untrammeled in observation and expression, but my
personal attitude to the whole question of colonization and
administration by a foreign power, of natives, is radical. Personally I
dislike the effort to elevate, civilize, remake a people. I should
prefer to leave the African as he was before white contact. It is my
belief that there is no people so weak or so degraded as to be incapable
of self-government. I believe that every people is happier and better
with self-government, no matter how unlike our own form that government
may be. I feel that no nation is good enough, or wise enough, or
sufficiently advanced to undertake the elevation and civilization of a
“lower” people. Still less do I approve the exploitation of a native
population by outsiders for their own benefit. Nor do I feel that even
the development of British trade warrants interference with native life,
customs, laws, and lands. I know, however, that these views are
unpopular and heretical.

In the series of articles, then, which I have been asked to prepare, I
shall try to take the standpoint of the practical man, the business man,
the man of affairs, the philanthropist, the missionary. All these agree
that civilized folk have a perfect right to interfere with any native
tribe too weak to resist their encroachment. They agree that it is
perfectly right to trample under foot native customs, institutions,
ideas—to change and modify, to introduce innovations, either to develop
trade, to exploit a country, to elevate a race, or to save souls. I am
forced, then, to look at Congo matters from the point of view of these
eminently practical men.

Of course, I saw much to criticise. It is true that there are floggings,
and chain-gangs, and prisons. I have seen them all repeatedly. But there
are floggings, chain-gangs, and prisons in the United States.
Mutilations are so rare that one must seek for them; and I had too much
else to do. There is taxation—yes, heavy taxation—a matter which I
shall discuss quite fully further on. And in connection with taxation
there is forced labor, a matter which, of course, I disapprove, but it
appears as just to all the groups of eminently practical men to whom I
have referred. There are, no doubt, hostages in numbers, but I saw less
than a dozen. And the whole matter of hostages is one which merits
careful and candid discussion. And I know that in many a large district
the population is much smaller than in former times. The causes of this
diminution in numbers are many and various, and to them I shall return.

Flogging, chain-gang, prison, mutilation, heavy taxation, hostages,
depopulation—all these I saw, but at no time and at no place were they
so flagrant as to force themselves upon attention. And of frightful
outrages, such as I had expected to meet everywhere, I may almost say
there was nothing. It is, of course, but fair to state that I was not in
the district of the A. B. I. R. I cannot believe, however, that
conditions in that district are so appalling as the newspaper reports
would indicate.

On the contrary, I found at many places a condition of the negro
population far happier than I had dreamed it possible. The negro of the
Congo—or Bantu, if you please—is a born trader. He is imitative to a
degree. He is acquisitive, and charmed with novelties. He is bright and
quick, remarkably intelligent. He readily acquires new languages, and it
is no uncommon thing to find a Congo Bantu who can speak six or seven
languages besides his own. In disposition variable and emotional, he
quickly forgets his sorrow. I saw hundreds of natives who were working
happily, living in good houses, dressing in good clothes of European
stuff and pattern, and saving property. That this number will rapidly
increase I have no doubt.

And now, on my return, after having many of my preconceived ideas
completely shattered, and feeling on the whole that things in Congoland
are not so bad, and that improvement is the order of the day, I am
startled to find the greatest excitement. Pages of newspapers are filled
with stories of atrocities, many of which never happened, some of which
are ancient, and a part of which, recent in date, are true.

I find a fierce excitement about the Belgium lobby, vigorous resolutions
presented in the senate, and the President of the United States
outrunning his most urgent supporters and advisers, ready to take some
drastic action to ameliorate the conditions of the suffering millions in
the Congo Free State. The surprise is so much the greater, as my latest
information regarding the American official attitude had been gained
from the letter written by Secretary Root some months ago.

What can be the reason of such prodigious and sudden change?

What has happened in the Congo since April to produce the present state
of mind? What is the motive underlying the bitter attacks upon Leopold
and the Free State which he established? Is it truly humanitarian? Or
are the laudable impulses and praiseworthy sympathies of two great
people being used for hidden and sinister ends of politics?

I do not claim infallibility. I do claim that my having spent a year in
the Congo Free State, independently, should qualify me to express
opinions on the conditions. I have heard both sides. I have traveled
thousands of miles in Congo territory. I have visited natives of
twenty-eight different tribes. No interference has been placed in my
way. I have gone where I pleased, and when and how I pleased. No
preparations have been made with reference to my visits. I believe no
changes in practice have been produced by my presence.

In the series of articles before us it is my intention to present in
detail what I have seen, and much of what I have heard, in the Congo
Independent State. I may make errors, but I shall tell no intentional
falsehoods. I shall criticise what deserves criticism. I shall praise
what is praiseworthy. I trust that those who are interested in forming a
true idea of Congo conditions may find something useful in my
observations.

At this point it is necessary for us to know something of the Congo
native himself. In Dark Africa—for northern Africa is and always has
been a white man’s country—there are three negro or negroid masses.
There is little doubt that the original inhabitants of the continent
were dwarf people, ancestors of the pygmies of the high Ituri forest,
and the Batua of the upper Kasai.

To-day the pygmies are mere fragments, scattered and separated, but
retaining with tenacity their ancient life. They are the same to-day as
they were 5,000 years ago, when they were objects of interest to the old
Egyptians. Little in stature, scrawny in form, with a face shrewd,
cunning, and sly, the pygmy is a hunter. With his bows and poisoned
arrows he kills the game of the forests and makes no pretense of doing
aught in agriculture. He is universally feared by the large blacks in
the neighborhood of whose towns he settles. He trades his game for
agricultural products with his large neighbors.

In the Soudan and neighboring parts of western Africa live the true
negroes, notable for their thick lips, projecting lower faces, and dark
skin.

Throughout southern Africa we find a group of populations much lighter
in color, and on the whole more attractive in appearance, than the true
negro. These tribes, plainly related in language, are no doubt of one
blood, and are called Bantu. The name is unfortunate, as the word bantu
simply means “men” in that group of languages. Practically the whole of
the Congo population are Bantu—there being almost no true negroes and
but few pygmies in the area.

It would seem as if the Congo native should be so well known by this
time that the current description of him in the text-books would be
accurate; yet, at least in two respects, these stereotyped accounts are
wrong. The Congo Bantu are not long-headed, and it is not true that they
differ from the real negro in the absence of a characteristic and
disagreeable odor. There are scores of Bantu tribes, each with its own
language and minor peculiarities in appearance and life. It would be
untrue to say that all smell badly, but I have often wished the writers
of the books could be shut up a while in the same room with, for
example, a group of Bobangi. It is certain that no type of African
smells worse.

It would be, however, a mistake to think that the Bantu are dirty. Far
from it. I have repeatedly observed my carriers, when we came to some
brook in the forest, set their loads aside, strip themselves when
necessary, and bathe in the fresh cool water. They are scrupulous in
attention to their teeth, and use, often several times a day, a little
stick of wood, somewhat larger than a lead-pencil, shredded at one end,
to clean their teeth. The instrument, by the way, serves its purpose far
better than our own toothbrushes.

According to his tribe, the Bantu may be short, medium, or tall. King
Ndombe of the Bakuba measures six feet three in stature, and is
well-built, though not heavy. Among the Bakuba, Baluba, Batetela, and
Bakete, tall statures are common. It is rare, however, that the Bantu
present what we would call finely developed forms; their chest is often
flat and sunken; their shoulders not well thrown backward; and the
musculature of their back, their chest, arms, and legs, is poor. Of
course, there are exceptions, and one sometimes sees magnificently
developed specimens. In the lower Congo, where on the whole the men are
shorter, they make excellent carriers. In the old caravan days the
standard burden was sixty or seventy pounds, and a man would carry it
without difficulty all the working day. The Kasai tribes are poor
carriers and indifferent workers. The chopbox of sixty pounds weight,
which the lower Congo man shoulders easily and carries without
complaint, will be slung to a pole to be borne by two carriers among the
Baluba.

In life the Bantu populations, so far as the Congo is concerned, present
notable general uniformity. The general pattern is the same everywhere,
though there are local and tribal differences of minor sort. Thus,
almost every tribe has its own tribal marks cut into the flesh of face
or body.

Similarly, the members of one tribe may be distinguished by their mode
of dressing the hair. To a less degree, the form to which the teeth are
chipped and broken mark tribal differences. It may almost be said that
no two tribes in all the Congo build houses that are just alike, and
almost every tribe has its characteristic mode of arranging the houses
in a group. Thus, in one tribe the houses will be arranged in continuous
lines, one on each side of a straight road; in another the houses may be
grouped around the three sides of a square, the group belonging to a
single chieftain and being succeeded in the village by other similar
groups of buildings; in another the houses will be arranged in two
curved lines, leaving the open space in the center of the village oval
or elliptical. The chairs or stools of one tribe will differ in form and
decoration from those of another; so will the wooden spoons, the
stirring-sticks, the combs, the dress and ornaments.

The Congo natives for the most part still lead a tribal life. A chief is
the head of a little community clustered about him. He may not be the
chief of a whole village; for example, at Bomanih, on the Aruwimi, there
are three chiefs. Each one has his own cluster of houses, and though the
three clusters are arranged continuously in two, parallel, straight
lines, every native of the village knows precisely where the domain of
the individual chief ends or begins.

The power and authority of the chief has been greatly weakened by
contact with the whites, but he still retains great influence. At least
over the members of his own household, including, of course, his slaves,
he had the power of life and death. In large affairs, interesting a
considerable number of people, he usually acted on the advice and
opinion of his fellows as expressed in a village or tribal palaver. The
chief was, and still is, distinguished from the common people by his
dress and ornaments. He is usually a man of wealth, and has a
considerable number of people actually dependent upon him, subject to
his orders, and a force upon which he can depend in case of war or
trouble.

When I first entered the Congo my heart sank, for it seemed as if the
native life was gone. In fact, in letters written from Matadi I doubted
whether I had not come too late for aught of interest. My spirits began
to revive, however, with the railroad journey from Matadi to
Leopoldville. Groups of natives, with scanty dress and barbaric
ornaments, replaced those who at Matadi and its neighborhood gathered at
the station to see the train pass.

In my first walk from the mission house where I lodged at Leo, within
three minutes’ walk of the mission I found a little cluster of Bateke
houses which, with its inhabitants, much delighted me.

Almost naked women, with abundance of beads and teeth hung at their
necks as ornaments, with hair elaborately dressed and bodies smeared
with red camwood powder, squatted on the ground, were making native
pottery in graceful forms.

In the shade in front of the door of one of the houses was a true
barbarian, lord of the place. By rare good luck he spoke a little
English, so that we were able to carry on a conversation. When I asked
him who the women were, he replied that they were his wives. I think
there were three of them, and it was my first introduction to African
polygamy. Each of these women occupied a separate house. Each of them
had a garden patch in which she worked. All of them contributed to the
importance and support of their husband.

Polygamy, of course, prevails throughout Dark Africa. But do not
misunderstand me. I do not use the word “dark” to characterize polygamy.
It is a settled institution which seems to work quite well. Later on I
saw the wives of Ndombe, thirty-four in number. Ndombe is a really
important chief, but compared with some whom we met or of whom we heard
in the Upper Congo, he was but scantily equipped. Sixty, seventy, a
hundred, or hundreds of wives and female slaves, which count for much
the same, are in possession of great chieftains. There is, of course,
always one favorite or principal wife. When Ndombe used to come, as he
frequently did, to my house to see the stereoscopic pictures, he
frequently brought his favorite wife with him. She was a pretty
creature—young and plump, graceful and modest. She wore good cloth and
any quantity of beads and brass arm and leg rings.

In every case the women of a chief or rich man live in separate houses,
each having her own. Until a man is married he is but little thought of.
The greater the number of his wives, the more important he becomes. As
each one cultivates a field and does other productive labor, it will be
seen that the man with the most wives is the richest man.

The man has his own house, but visits and lives in the houses of his
wives in turn. The child in Africa is rarely weaned before it is two or
three years old, and during the period of time when a child is unweaned
the father has no marital relations with the woman. On the whole, there
is less quarreling among the wives of a polygamic husband than one would
expect. Bantu women, however, are often termagants, as women elsewhere,
and at times the chief’s house group is lively.

Domestic slavery still flourishes. The state, of course, has done much
to end the actual slave trade for supplying white men and Arabs. It is,
however, difficult to deal with the matter of domestic slavery, and in
fact is scarcely worth the candle.

Every chief or man of any consequence has slaves. Calamba, my
interpreter, at Ndombe, though a young fellow, probably not more than
25, had two. It is rare that the lot of the domestic slave is unhappy.
It is usually women or children who are bought, and they are treated in
all respects as if members of the family. Little is required of them in
the way of work and service, and they must absolutely be provided for by
the master, who is also frequently responsible before the public for
their misdeeds. Formerly, of course, there was the possibility of being
killed upon a festal occasion, the accession of the chief to increased
power, or to grace his funeral. Within those districts where the state
has a firm hold and strong influence this possibility is done away with,
and the most serious disadvantage in being a slave is thus removed.
Slaves may become rich men, and not infrequently themselves hold slaves.

Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the Bantu, as of the true
negro, is his emotionality—one instant joyous, the next in tears.
Vowing vengeance for an injury to-day, he is on the happiest terms with
his injurer to-morrow. He laughs, sings, dances. Of all the
introductions of the white man, perhaps the accordion is the favorite.
Men use it, but women play it constantly. Most of them play one song
piece only, and one may hear it from one end of the state to the other
at every hour of the day and night. Of course, there are native
instruments in plenty, drums of every size and form, from the small hand
drum, made by stretching a skin across an earthen pot three or four
inches in diameter, up to the great cylindrical, horizontal drum made by
hollowing logs a yard in diameter and ten feet long. There are horns,
fifes, pipes, and whistles, and a great series of stringed instruments,
ranging from the musical bow with but one cord to lutes with ten or
twelve. Of course, the instrumental music goes with the dancing.

The native is born to dance. Babies, two or three years old, dance with
their elders. Men dance together; women have their special forms; but in
the majority of cases the two sexes dance together. There is, however,
nothing like our waltzes or round dancing, individuals keeping
themselves separate. The dances are most frequent and lively when the
moon is growing. On moonlight nights hundreds of people—men, women, and
children—gather at dusk, and to the noise of drums dance wildly, often
till morning. It is no uncommon thing for people working on plantations
to work all day and dance almost all night, and this day after day.
While some of the dances are extremely graceful, most of them are
obscene and are followed often by frightful orgies.

One thing greatly interested me. Had I been asked before my trip to
Africa about the cake-walk—a form of amusement which I love to see—I
should have said that it originated in America among the black folk of
our southern states. But no, the cake-walk is no American invention. In
every part of the Congo one may see it—even in regions where white
influence has seldom penetrated. The American cake-walk is an immigrant.

The Bantu child is wonderfully precocious. This precocity displays
itself in everything. The children run about with perfect freedom,
instead of tottering along, one unsteady step after another, as our
children of the same age. They speak astonishingly soon. A babe in arms
eats solid food—notwithstanding the fact that it is not weaned until
two or three years of age—shockingly early. The little child imitates
the every action of its older friends. Children of four or five, in
shrewdness, comprehension, and intelligence, are like our ten-year-olds.
This precocity suggests the fact of early ripening. As a fact, boys of
sixteen and girls of thirteen are frequently ready for marriage. A man
of twenty-five is in the prime of life, a man of thirty aged, and on the
whole the term of life closes at thirty-five.




                                  II.


                                                       January 21, 1907.

LIFE is easy in the tropics. Wants are few. A house to live in can be
built in a few hours. Food can be gathered or produced with little
labor. Dress is needless. Where life is easy there is little impulse to
labor.

The chief incentive to the Bantu to work is to secure the wherewithal to
buy a wife. The boy, who, through a careless, happy childhood, has done
naught but play, begins to think of settling down. But to have a wife he
must have money or its equivalent. So he goes to work. It may require a
year or more before he has the pieces of cloth which are necessary for
the purchase of his desired loved one. The same stimulus which impelled
him to labor for one wife may prod him to efforts for others. But with
the establishment of a home, and the purchase of two or three wives to
care for him and produce him wealth, his work is done. From fourteen
years to twenty-five is his working period. Before that time a child,
after that time he is a man of means. What wealth comes later comes
through the women and their labor, and through trade.

We have already stated that the Bantu is notably acquisitive. Wealth,
apart from women and slaves, is counted mostly in cloth. One of the
chief aims in life is to accumulate cloth, not for use as clothing, but
as evidence of wealth and for the final display when the man dies and is
buried. Among the Lower Congo tribes the dead body is wrapped in piece
after piece of cloth, until the body disappears in a mass of wrappings
made of scores of pieces, each piece consisting of eight or sixteen
yards, as the case may be. Young men have cloth, and it is most
interesting to look through the boxes of the “boys.” At Basoko we were
robbed, and the authorities instituted a search. I was asked to inspect
the boxes of all the workmen on the place. Without warning, every man
and boy had to open his trunk, chest, tin box, or other store. I saw
young fellows of no more than sixteen or seventeen years who had a dozen
pieces of good cloth carefully folded away, watches, jewelry, ornaments,
knives, dishes—every kind of white man’s tradestuff that could be
imagined. When they are thirty those “boys” will be rich men, with
women, slaves, and piles of stuff.

The government of the Free State has issued coins for native use. There
are large coppers of the value of one, two, five, and ten centimes.
There are silver coins of half-franc, franc, two franc, and five franc
value. But these coins have no circulation beyond Leopoldville. In the
Kasai district and the Upper Congo every commercial transaction is done
by barter.

Certain things are so constantly in use as to have fixed values. For
articles of trifling value nothing is so good as salt. A standard which
varies from place to place is the brass rod, or mitaku. This is simply a
piece of brass wire of certain length. The mitaku in the Lower Congo are
short, those in the Upper Congo much longer. Beads have ever been used
in trade, but the wise traveler avoids them, as their value has
dwindled, and the taste not only varies from place to place, but from
time to time. The bead which one traveler found useful in a given
district may have lost its attractiveness before the next traveler,
loaded with a large supply, comes that way.

At Ndombe the brass rod has no vogue. There the cowries (sea shells) are
the standard in small transactions. Cowries were once used in many parts
of Africa, but in most places have ceased to have value. Ndombe,
however, arrogates to himself and family the sole right of wearing brass
arm and leg rings. Hence mitaku are not used, and the old-fashioned
cowry remains. But the chief tradestuff, of course, is cloth. With it
you may buy chickens or goats, pigs or wives. In the Upper Kasai a piece
of cloth means eight yards—“four fathoms.” In the Upper Congo a piece
of cloth is sixteen yards, or eight fathoms. Formerly at Ndombe eight or
ten chickens were given for a piece of cloth, value five francs, or one
dollar in our currency. To-day one must pay a fathom for each fowl.

The attempt to introduce the use of corn among the natives was
unsatisfactory alike to the people and the trader. It has, however,
taken hold strongly in the Lower Congo, and in time the use of true
money must push its way up the river. Curious is the contempt of all for
coppers. Ten centimes in Belgium would give delight to many a boy of
twelve or fifteen years. The Congo native frequently throws it away or
returns it to the person who gave it to him. Nothing less than a
half-franc piece—ten cents—is valued.

I have seen this illustrated many, many times, the first time in my own
case. We were visiting a miserable fishing village of poor Bakongo. As I
entered the village a naked child, no more than two or three years old,
met me. I smiled at him and he at me. I extended my hand, which he
clasped and accompanied me for half an hour as I wandered from house to
house, never once relaxing his hold upon my fingers. It caused great
amusement to the adult portion of the village, as apparently the little
one rarely made such friendships. When I was about to leave I took a ten
centime piece from my pocket and gave it to him. Such a look of disgust
as came over his face would not be expected in any one short of adult
years. It was the last time that I gave a copper to a native.

Unquestionably one of the most striking characteristics of the Congo
people is loquacity. Their tongues hang loosely, and wag incessantly.
Anything will do to talk about. Start one and he will talk until you
stop him. Quarrels, troubles, friendships, joys, plans, and
achievements, all are retailed at any hour of the day or night. When
excited, several will talk together with great vivacity, though it is
plain that no one knows what any other is saying.

One of the chief occupations of the man is the palaver. The Portuguese
term applies to any serious consultation on any subject, pleasant or
otherwise. A palaver may be confined to chiefs or it may include
practically all the men of one or more villages. In many towns there is
a place for gathering for palavers under a tree known as the palaver
tree. Those who participate in a palaver bring their chairs or stools or
a roll of skin, which they place upon the ground to sit upon. At the
beginning there is more or less formality, and each one presents his
view decently and in order; sometimes, however, hubbub ensues,
disturbance arises, and the palaver breaks up in disorder. In these
palavers frequently speeches of great length and finished oratory are
delivered. Not only are the emotions played upon by the speaker, but
keen argument is employed, and the appeal is made to the intelligence.

All matters of consequence—tribal, inter-tribal, and dealings with the
white man—are settled in palavers. The white man who knows the natives
is wise to conform to native customs. If he has some difficulty to
settle, some favor to ask, some business to arrange, he will do well to
have a formal palaver called in which he himself participates.

On the occasion of my second visit to Ndombe I found the town in great
excitement. Going to the chief’s headquarters, we found a great palaver
in progress. Our coming was looked upon as a favorable omen, and with
much formality chairs were brought and placed for us in the midst of the
gathering. The remarks were translated to me as they were made.

Ndombe’s town is really an aggregation of villages. Not one but four
different tribes are represented in the population. The central town,
walled and of Bakuba style, was Ndombe’s own. Three or four Bakete towns
were clustered near it. In another direction were several Baluba towns,
and close by them small villages of Batua. These four populations,
though living by themselves, were all subject to Ndombe, and the group
of villages taken together made a town of some pretension.

The day before our visit, there had been a battle with the Bakete in
which several men had been wounded, though none were killed. The trouble
was taxes. The state demanded increased payments. The proud Bakuba
decided that the Bakete should pay the new tax, and so informed them.
Against this there had been a feeling of rebellion, and the Bakete
refused to pay the tax. Hence the battle. All were greatly excited. The
speeches were full of fire. The men—Bakuba—challenged each other to
show mighty deeds of valor; they belittled and derided the unfortunate
Bakete; they drew unpleasant contrasts between themselves and their
vassals.

Many of the speeches were fine efforts, and the words were emphasized by
the most graceful and vigorous gesticulation. Finally an old woman
crowded in from one side where she had been listening to the speeches.
In impassioned language she described the heavy labors which the women
of the tribe already endured. They could stand no more. If the Bakuba
were men let them prove it now or forever after remain silent. Force the
Bakete to work. Put no more heavy tasks upon your mothers, wives, and
sisters. The old woman’s speech stirred the audience, and the meeting
broke up, the men hurrying to prepare themselves for a new battle.

The market was among the most important institutions of the Congo
native. It retains importance to the present day. In the Lower Congo a
week consisted of four days, and market was held at each market-place
once a week. The markets were named from the day of the week on which
they were held. Thus, a Nsona market was a market held on the day of
that name.

To these markets people came in numbers from all the country round, and
it was no uncommon thing to see thousands thus gathered. There were
special places for certain products. Thus, women who brought pottery for
sale occupied a set place; those who brought bananas would be grouped
together in their section; sellers of camwood, sweet potatoes, kwanga
(native cassava bread), palm wine, oil, salt, fowls, pigs, goats—all
occupied places well known to the frequenters of the market. In the
olden times, of course, there was a section devoted to the sale of
slaves.

Such a market presented a scene of active life and movement. Yet order
was preserved. No crime was considered more serious than the disturbance
of a market. Such an act deserved severest punishment, and those in
whose hands the maintenance of order lay never hesitated to kill the
offender at once, and to make a public display of his punishment as a
warning to all.

There is no question that the Congo native is cruel, and this cruelty
shows itself in many ways. The killing of slaves was extremely common.
It is true that it was never carried to the extreme in Congoland that it
reached in some true negro kingdoms, as Dahomey and Benin. It was,
however, customary to kill slaves on the occasion of the death of a man
of any consequence. The body of one of the slaves thus killed was placed
first in the grave to serve as a pillow for the dead man. It was a
common practice to preserve the skulls of victims sacrificed on such
occasions as memorials.

Not only were slaves sacrificed to grace the funeral ceremony of chiefs,
but often one or more were killed upon occasions of festivity and joy.
King Ndombe once presented me a skull. It was that of a Batua slave who
had been killed upon the occasion of the chief’s coming into power. In
this case, apparently, judging by the condition of the skull, the victim
had been killed by simply knocking in his head.

Until lately all through the Congo public executions were of a more
formal character than this. At Lake Mantumba we were shown the exact
mode of procedure. A sort of stool or seat was set upon the ground and
sticks were tightly driven in around it, in such a way as to limit the
motions of the victim after he was seated; in fact, to almost prevent
all movement. A sapling was then thrust in the ground. A sort of cage or
framework made of pliant branches was fixed about the head of the
victim. The sapling was then bent over in an arch and firmly fastened to
the cage, thus holding the head firmly and stretching the neck tense and
hard. The hands were tied together, as were the feet. When all was ready
the executioner with his great knife at a single blow struck off the
head.

Enemies killed in battle were often mutilated, and fingers, nails,
bones, or the skulls were treasured as trophies. When the white men
first visited the villages of the Upper Congo there was scarce a house
without its ghastly trophy, and the houses of great chiefs displayed
baskets filled with skulls.

It is doubtful whether the Congo native has as keen a sense of physical
suffering as ourselves. In almost every tribe men and sometimes women,
are marked with tribal marks upon the face or body; thus, among the
Bangala each member of the tribe bears a projection like a cock’s comb
running vertically across the forehead from the nose root to the hair
line. This excrescence is frequently three-quarters of an inch in
breadth and of the same elevation. Its development begins in childhood,
when a series of short but deep horizontal lines are cut in the child’s
forehead; these are irritated to produce swelling; later on they are cut
again, and again, and again, until the full development is produced. We
should certainly find such an operation painful in the extreme. I have
seen women whose entire bodies were masses of raised patterns, produced
by cutting and irritating.

When being operated upon the subject usually squats or lies in front of
the operator, who sits cross-legged on the ground. The head or other
portion of the body which is being cut rests upon the lap or knees of
the cutter. No particular pain is shown by the subject, though the cuts
are often deep and blood flows copiously. A few minutes after the
operation, smeared with fresh oil on the wounds, the scarred person
walks about as if nothing had happened.

The first subject that I saw treated for rheumatism was a young woman.
She was standing before her house door, while the old woman who was
treating her was squatted on the ground before her. In her hand the old
woman had a sharp, native razor, and with it she cut lines several
inches long and to good depth in the fleshy part of the leg of her
standing patient. Not once nor twice, but a dozen times the old woman
cut, and rubbed in medicine in the open wounds. The patient gave but
little signs of pain. Once or twice she winced as the knife went a
little deeper than usual; she held a long staff in her hand, and in the
most serious moments of the cutting she clutched it a little the
tighter. But there were no groans, no cries, nor tears. I have never
seen a white person who could have stood the operation with so little
evidence of suffering.

Part of the time that we were in Ndombe’s district we had charge of an
establishment employing 140 natives, more or less. Among these natives
was one Casati. I think he was a Zappo Zap. Originally a man of
quickness and intelligence, he had become a complete physical wreck
through drink and other forms of dissipation. He boarded with a girl
named Tumba. One afternoon they presented themselves before me with a
palaver. It was some question in regard to payment and service. Like
most Bantu difficulties, its beginning seemed to extend backwards to the
world’s creation.

I knew Tumba to be a worthy and industrious girl; Casati was a miserable
and worthless wretch. I therefore refused to decide the difficulty,
stating that the parties interested must wait until the return of the
true owner of the establishment, who would decide their question. This
was not at all to the satisfaction of Casati, who, merely to show his
dissatisfaction, took a sharp knife and cut three big gashes in his own
shoulder. It seems plain to me, from this apparent lack of pain under
scarring, medical treatment, and self-infliction, that there is a
notable difference between the Bantu and ourselves.




[Illustration: BAKUMU AT EASE: STEAMER CHAIRS AND PIPES FOR THREE]




                                  III.


                                                       January 22, 1907.

NATURALLY, in the Congo there is little need of dress. Before the
white man’s influence most native men wore nothing but a breech-clout—a
long strip of cloth passed between the legs and fastened as a belt
around the waist—or else a piece of native cloth made from palm fiber,
perhaps a yard in width and long enough to go around the body. This
latter garment, technically called a cloth, is still the dress of almost
all the workmen and workwomen on white men’s places, but European stuff
has replaced the old palm cloth.

The women were usually much less clad than the men, but the style of
dress varied from tribe to tribe. The Bangala woman wore, and still
wears, a girdle at the waist, from which hung a fringe of grass or
vegetable fiber reaching to the knees. The women of some Aruwimi tribes
wear a simple cord, from which hangs in front a bit of grass cloth no
more than three or four inches square. On occasion, the Bakuba woman
wears nothing but one string of beads around her waist, from which hang
in front several large brass or copper rings. The Ngombe women regularly
go naked.

Where white influence has become pronounced every one wears white man’s
cloth, and many have this cloth made up in form similar to those of the
Europeans. After a Bantu has begun to be imbued with white man’s ideas
he is unhappy until he has a jacket, trousers, and hat. In form and
material these are frequently so startling as to cause surprise to the
person really accustomed to white men’s clothes. Thus, a man may be
dressed in loose and flowing trousers made of the most brilliant
calicoes in gaudy pattern. He may have a jacket made of a strip of
handkerchiefing which never was meant to be used as material for
clothes, but to be cut or torn into kerchiefs.

But happiness is not complete for the Bantu in transformation until he
has a white man’s umbrella. Not that he needs it for rain, because when
it rains the Bantu always goes into his house and at once falls into a
profound slumber which lasts until the rain is over. It is merely
fashion, or for protection against the sun, a thing of which the Bantu
really has no need. Two boys who were in our employ at Ndombe
accompanied us afterwards as personal servants on our long journey up
and down the Congo. When the time came to leave them at Leopoldville we
took them to the white man’s store and asked them what they wanted as a
parting gift. Their selections were eminently characteristic. My
companion’s boy at once declared his wish for an umbrella, while my own,
of a far livelier and more sportive disposition, wished an accordion.

It is a common complaint among the white men that the native is
ungrateful. Many and many a time have we listened to such tirades. You
will hear them from everybody who has had dealings with the Bantu. The
missionary complains of it as bitterly as does the trader or the state
official. All of them unite in declaring that gratitude does not exist
in native character. This seems to us a baseless claim. The African is
the shrewdest of traders. It is true that frequently he lets things go
to white men for what seems to us a mere nothing. But he gets what he
wants in return for his goods. He enjoys bickering. His first price is
always greatly in excess of what he actually expects to receive. He will
spend hours in debating the value of his wares.

No one need seriously fear for the outcome to the black man in open
trade with whites. The purpose of the white man in visiting him and
dealing with him is a mystery to the native mind. He can understand the
value of palm oil and ivory, for palm oil and ivory he uses himself. Why
rubber and copal should be so precious is beyond his understanding. He
but dimly grasps the purpose of the state and of the missionary. On the
whole, he lends himself to all alike, and being naturally kind, tries to
please all and do what is expected of him. Still, he knows that he is
being exploited by the foreigner, and it is but fair that he should
exploit in return—a thing at which he is an adept. Why, then, should he
be grateful for what is done for him? He naturally believes that
missionaries, government officials, and traders all gain some advantage
from their dealings with him; it is his duty to gain all he can in
return in his dealings with them. And there is no especial ground for
thanks. There is no reason for gratitude.

I presume it is true that on one occasion—perhaps it has been true on
many—a native who had been carefully and lovingly cared for through a
long and trying sickness, when restored wished to know what the
missionary was going to give him. He had taken all the bad medicines and
all the invalid’s slops without complaint, but naturally he expected
some sort of compensation at the end. Yet the missionary would quote the
incident as an example of ingratitude.

It is common to call black Africans dishonest. Here, again, the judgment
is undeserved and arises from miscomprehension. The African knows, as
well as we do, what constitutes truth, yet he lies, especially to white
folk. He has as clear a knowledge of mine and thine as we, and yet he
steals from his employer. The explanation lies in the same idea
precisely. He thinks we are constantly getting something from him; he in
turn must exploit us. The white man is a stranger. Throughout tribal
life the stranger is a menace; he is a being to be plundered because he
is a being who plunders.

Among themselves, lying is not commended and truth is appreciated; but
to deceive a stranger or a white man is commendable. Native houses are
often left for days or weeks, and it would be easy for any one to enter
and rob them. Yet robbery among themselves is not common. To steal,
however, from a white employer—upon whom the native looks as a being of
unlimited and incomprehensible wealth—is no sin. It is unfair to stamp
the native either as a liar or a thief because he lies to white men and
steals from his employer.

Among the Congo natives wealth has weight. The rich man has authority
and power and influence because he is rich. There is a servile,
cringing, element in the Bantu character which showed itself as plainly
in the old days before the white men came as it does to-day. Cringing,
toadying, scheming, marked the daily life. While a man was rich he had
respect and friends and power. If reverses came he lost them all. None
was so poor to do him reverence. Arrogance was the chief element of the
chieftain’s stock in trade; servility the chief mark of the slave and
poor man. White men who have to do with natives are forced to act
decisively. They must inspire fear and respect; kindness is weakness. To
permit discourtesy or insolence invites contempt. Perfect justice,
firmness, and consistency will give the white men who must deal with
natives a respected position which vacillation or mistaken friendliness
will never gain.

Emotional to a high degree, the native often passes for affectionate.
Affection of a certain kind he no doubt has; many examples come to the
mind of personal servants who have almost shown devotion to white
masters. On the whole, true affection as we know it, unvarying,
consistent, which stands the test of varying circumstances, occurs but
seldom. Extremely beautiful and touching, however, is the love which
every Bantu has for his mother—a love undoubtedly encouraged and
strengthened by the polygamous life. A boy’s relation to his father is
nothing; his relation to his mother is the closest tie in human life. He
is of her blood. Her relatives are his. The nearest male connection
which he has is her brother. Toward him the boy shows particular
respect, but toward his mother true love. She is far nearer and dearer
to him than wife or slaves. Through his boyhood she is his refuge in
every kind of trouble; in young manhood she is his adviser and
confidant; in manhood he still goes to her in every trouble and with
every question. There is but one person in his whole lifetime whom he
trusts. She is ever sure to be his friend; she never betrays his
interest.

All early white visitors to dark African populations were profoundly
impressed with the respect shown to the aged. This was genuine. The old
man or woman was the repository of wisdom. The experiences through which
they had passed made them wise counselors. Tribal affairs were decided
by the old. This trait of native character, constantly mentioned by all
the early writers, tends to disappear in all those districts where the
white man’s influence has spread. Such is ever the case. And it is
natural.

The white man’s wisdom is a different thing from that of the native.
Contact with the white man causes contempt and despisal of the wisdom of
the ancients. It is the children who always gain this new wisdom from
the whites, and with their eating of the tree of knowledge there comes a
loss of all respect for older people. Missionaries in vain will preach
the fifth commandment to the children in their schools. The reading,
writing, and arithmetic which they learn from books, the new ways and
manners and points of view which they gain from contact with their
teachers, render all such teaching mere platitudes without vital force.
The children educated by white men, must always lose respect and
admiration for their parents and the elders of their tribes.

Mentally, the native of the Congo is quick and bright. We have already
spoken of his ability in languages and his facility in oratory. He
delights in saws and proverbs—condensed wisdom. Hundreds and thousands
of such proverbs, often showing great keenness and shrewdness, deep
observation and insight, might be quoted. No people with a mass of
proverbial philosophy, such as the Bantu and the true negroes have,
could be considered stupid. In learning new ways and customs and in
imitation of others they are extremely quick and apt. Every white
settlement in the Congo has introduced new ways of living, and the black
boys who can cook well, do fair tailoring, good laundry work, and
personal service of other kinds are surprisingly numerous. Under
direction they frequently develop great excellence in work.

In a few years after the establishment of the Free State, the caravan
service for transporting freight of every kind from the head of
navigation at Matadi to Leopoldville, above the rapids, was admirably
developed. The men carried their burdens willingly and uncomplainingly;
it was extremely rare that anything was lost or stolen. So, too, they
have rapidly adopted military life, and the native soldiers under
Belgian training present as great precision, promptness, and grace in
executing their maneuvers as many white troops would do.

With both the true negroes and the Bantu, belief in witchcraft was
prevalent. Sickness, disease, and death were not natural events. That a
man should die in battle or from wounds was understood, but that
sickness should cause death was not grasped by the native mind. Sickness
and death from sickness were regularly attributed to the evil practices
of witches. If a man suffered pains in the head or body, it was because
some enemy was introducing a mysterious and harmful object into his
system. It was necessary, therefore, to adopt some method of undoing the
harm. There were men and women whose business it was to detect the
author of witchcraft and to recommend means for saving the victim from
his operations. Nothing more serious could happen to a man than to be
accused of witchcraft. No matter how rich he was; how high his station;
how many or how strong his friends—the accusation of witchcraft was
dangerous.

A person accused of witchcraft was usually subjected to an ordeal of
poison. It was generally the drinking of a poisoned brew produced by
steeping leaves, or barks, or roots in water. If the accused vomited the
drink and suffered no serious results, his innocence was demonstrated.
If, however, the draft proved fatal, his guilt was clear. It is true
that sometimes the witch doctor played false, and, in administering the
ordeal, might be influenced by bribes.

This whole matter of witchcraft and the ordeal has been magnified by
many writers. It is true that there was constant danger for a
progressive man, a rich man, or a great chief. Such men would naturally
arouse jealousy and envy, and no doubt accusations were frequently made
against them without cause. For my own part, however, I have long
believed that the ordeal for witchcraft was not an unmixed evil, and I
was more than pleased at hearing a missionary, who has been many years
in the Congo, state that, after all, while it was subject to occasional
abuse, it tended toward wholesome control of conditions in a community.

It is much the custom for white men to speak of Congo natives as big
children. Whenever some custom is particularly unlike our own, they will
shrug their shoulders and say: “You see, they are only children.” I
believe as much in the theory of recapitulation as any one. I believe
that the life history of the individual repeats the life history of the
race.

I believe that one may truly say that children among ourselves represent
the stage of savagery; that youth is barbarous; that adult age is
civilization. It is true that children among ourselves present many
interesting survivals of the savage attitude. In a certain sense savages
are children. I think, however, from the points in native character
which I here have touched, that my readers will agree with me that the
adult native of the Congo is no child. He is a man, but a man different
from ourselves. He represents the end of a development, not the
beginning.




                                  IV.


                                                       January 23, 1907.

HAVING some of the more marked characteristics of the Bantu in mind,
let us consider the conditions and circumstances of the white men in the
Congo. There are, of course, but three classes—state officials,
traders, and missionaries. Practically, the state officials and the
traders are in the same condition; the missionary is so differently
circumstanced that he must be considered independently.

Few persons can imagine the trying climate and the serious diseases of
the Congo region. It is claimed that Nigeria is worse. It may be, but,
if so, I should wish to keep away from Nigeria. Fever, of course,
abounds in all the Lower Congo districts. If one escapes it for a time
it is so much the worse for him when finally he succumbs to the
infliction. It is only malaria, but it is malaria of the most insidious
and weakening sort. A man is up and working in the early morning; at
noonday he takes to his bed with fever; at night or next morning he may
again be at his daily work.

It seems a trifling thing—a disease which often lasts less than a day.
But the man is left weak and nerveless. The next attack continues the
weakening process. Finally, with blood impoverished and strength
exhausted, he dies. Of course, the remedy is quinine. Careful people
going into the Congo begin to take their daily dose of this specific at
the beginning of their journey, so that they may be fortified against
attack before arrival. For the most part the English missionaries take
two, three, five, or six grains daily throughout the period of their
stay. Some foreigners prefer ten grain doses on the 1st, 11th, and 21st
of every month. Few really refuse to take it, and such usually find an
early grave.

The disadvantage of this constant dosing with quinine is the danger of
the dreaded hæmaturic fever. This dread disease rarely attacks a person
until he has been a year in the Congo. It is commonly attributed to the
system being loaded up with quinine. The instant that its symptoms
develop, the order to cease taking quinine is promptly issued. Among the
European population of the Congo, hæmaturic fever is regularly expected
to have a fatal issue. It is more than probable that the use of wines,
beers, and liquors predisposes the system to a fatal result. Plenty of
missionaries die of hæmaturic fever also, but the appearance of the
disease among them by no means produces the panic which it does among
continentals. Perhaps one in five or six cases dies, two of the
remainder flee to Europe, the other three recover. But the disease is no
trifling matter, and must be seriously taken.

Few persons realize the frightful effect of the tropical sun in Central
Africa. When Jameson came down the river from the ill-fated Yambuya
camp, natives on the shore sent a flight of arrows against his paddlers,
not knowing that a white man was present with them in the canoe. To show
them that such was the case and prevent further attack Jameson stood in
his canoe and waved his hat at the assailants. It is unlikely that he
had it from his head more than a minute or two, but in that time he was
stricken with the fever which a few days later caused his death.

Glave, after spending six years in Africa at the state post of Lukolela,
returned in safety to his native land. After some years he revisited the
scene of his earlier labors, entering the continent on the east coast
and passing in safety to Matadi. While waiting for a steamer he was
making a short journey on the river in a canoe. His head was exposed for
a mere instant to the sun, and Glave was shortly a dead man.

One who has been on three different occasions in the Congo once remarked
to me that he could see no reason for the strange and frightful modes of
suicide adopted by Europeans who wished to end their lives. All that
would be necessary is to seat oneself upon a chair or stool in the open
sunshine for a brief period. Yet the Bantu goes out every day with no
hat upon his head, and with no apparent bad results. And when he has the
fever one of his quickest means of restoration is to seat himself in the
open sunshine. Of course, the Bantu does not have the fever as
frequently or as severely as the white man.

The Bantu suffers much, however, from sleeping-sickness. For a long time
it was believed that this strange disease was peculiar to the dark
populations of Africa. The disease formerly was local, and while
frightful in its ravages, was not a serious matter. To-day, however, it
is extending up and down the whole length of the main river and
throughout the area drained by many of its main tributaries.

In its approach it is slow and insidious. The saddest cases are those
where the victim attacked was notably intelligent and quick. The subject
becomes at first a little moody, and from time to time has outbursts of
petulance and anger out of proportion to the exciting cause. These
outbursts become more and more common, and assume the character of true
mania, during which the person may attack those around him, even though
they are his best and dearest friends. It is frequently necessary to tie
him, in order to prevent injury to others. Presently the person is
affected with stupor, shows a tendency to sleep, even at his work; this
increases until at last he is practically sleeping, or in a comatose
condition, all the time. In this latter stage of the disease he loses
flesh with great rapidity, and presently is naught but skin and bones.
At last death takes him, after he has been useless to himself and others
for a long time.

The sleeping-sickness is not confined to the Congo Free State, and at
the present time its ravages are felt severely in the British district
of Uganda. The disease has been investigated by learned commissions, but
no satisfactory treatment, at least for an advanced stage of the
trouble, has been yet discovered.

There is a tendency among physicians to connect the transmission of the
sleeping-sickness with, the tsetse fly. It is, “of course,” a germ
disease—such being at the present all the fashion. A medical friend in
New York tells me that the Japanese have made recent important
investigations of the sickness, and that their line of treatment gives
greater promise of success than any other. Latterly the disease has
attacked white people, and a number of missionaries have died from it or
been furloughed home for treatment.

Whole districts of Bantu have been depopulated. We were shown the site
of a Catholic mission until lately highly prosperous; the place has been
deserted, all the natives under the influence of the mission having died
of the sleeping-sickness.

Malaria, hæmaturia, sun fevers, and sleeping-sickness are the most
fearful scourges which the white settler in the Congo faces.

We could, of course, extend the list of strange and dreadful diseases,
but have said enough to show that every white man who goes into the
Congo country does so at a serious risk. No one is quite immune, and the
number who even seem to be so is small. No one is ever quite well, and
every one is chronically in a state of physical disorganization.

The climate and the actual diseases are bad enough. They perhaps would
lose a portion of their terror if the food supply were adequate,
wholesome, and nutritious. Even the missionaries use little native food.
The state officer and trader use practically none. The chopbox is an
institution of the country. Its simplest expression is found at the
trading-post of some company where but a single agent is in residence.
Once in three months the steamer of his company brings him his chopbox
outfit. There are usually two long wooden boxes, one of which contains a
great variety of tinned meats, fish, vegetables, and fruit. I never had
the least idea until my African experience how many things were put in
tins. The second box contains flour, oil, vinegar, salt, and spices. The
quantity is held to be sufficient for the three months. In addition to
the actual food supply, there is a quota of wine in demijohns and of gin
in square bottles.

No one who has not had the experience can imagine the frightful satiety
which comes upon one who has fed for weeks from chopboxes.

It is true that “the boy” does his best to serve a palatable dinner. It
is true that sometimes a piece of elephant or hippopotamus, a guinea
fowl or grouse, some buffalo or antelope, or fresh fish or fowls are
brought in by the natives as gifts or trade. But even with this help the
poor company agent has the same food, meal after meal, day after day.
Frequently the tinned stuff is old and really unfit for eating; but the
quota is none too large for his three months’ period. Sometimes the
flour or macaroni is moldy, having been soaked through with water in the
hold of a leaky steamer. The food is not attractive nor substantial. The
state officer, the company agent, in Central Africa, is underfed and
badly nourished.

Not only does the white man in the Congo suffer physical
disorganization; he also suffers mental disintegration. The memory of
white men in the Congo weakens. This is a matter of universal
observation, and my attention has been called to it repeatedly. A
disinclination to any kind of intellectual activity takes possession of
one, and only by the exercise of strong will-power can he accomplish his
daily tasks and plan for the work of the future. There is a total lack
of stimulus.

When to the weakening effects of fever and other illness, and to the
depression caused by innutritious food, we add the influence of constant
dread of coming sickness and of native outbreaks, it is no wonder that
the white man of the Congo is a nervous and mental wreck. At home,
accustomed to wines and spirits at his meals, he finds it difficult to
discontinue their use. Beer ought to be completely avoided in the Congo;
there is no question of its injurious effect upon the liver. Wine may be
taken in the evening, and a very little spirits in the night after
dinner, without noticeable bad results. But many of these lonely men pay
no attention to wise rules of drinking, and through constant dissipation
lay themselves open to disease and death. Nor are they always satisfied
with intoxicating drinks. The use of opium in different forms is common.
Many a time have company agents or state officials come to me and asked
for some remedy from my medicine chest, for sudden and distressing
pains. In every case it has been a preparation of opium which they have
taken.




                                   V.


                                                       January 24, 1907.

WITH physical and mental disorganization there must, of course, be
moral disintegration. Even the missionaries in an enlightened country
like Japan constantly complain of the depressing influences around them.

Such a complaint, to my mind, is preposterous when applied to Japan, but
it is easy to understand with reference to Central Africa. If there is
but one agent at the station, he rarely sees another white man. Day
after day, and all day long, his constant contact is with the black
folk. There is nothing to appeal to his better nature. He must pit
himself against the scheming and servile native. He must look out for
the interests of the company. He must scheme, browbeat, threaten.
Chances for immorality abound.

Constant sight of cruelty begets cruelty. Alone in a population so
unlike himself, his only safety rests in his commanding at once fear,
respect, obedience. He frequently possesses governmental power. The only
white man in a large area of country, he must insist upon the
fulfillment of the requirements which are passed down to him from his
superiors. There are no white men living who could pass unscathed
through such a trial.

The wonder is not that from time to time company agents and governmental
officials are encountered who are monsters of cruelty. The wonder is,
with the constant sapping of the physical, the mental, and the moral
nature, that any decent men are left to treat with natives.

Of course, there are almost no white women in the Congo Free State
outside the missions. The director-general at Leopoldville, the railroad
station agent at the same point, a commandant at Coquilhatville, and two
of the officers at Stanleyville have their wives with them. It is
possible that there are some of whom I am ignorant, but it is doubtful
if there are a dozen white women of respectability in all the
Congo—except, of course, the ladies in the missions. Almost without
exception, the other state officials and traders have black women.

These black women of the white man are to be seen wherever the white man
himself is seen. A man usually selects his black companion shortly after
reaching the Congo and supports her in his own house, where he treats
her on the whole with kindness. He considers her an inferior being, but
treats her like a doll or toy. She is dressed according to her own fancy
and frequently brilliantly and more or less expensively. She rarely
forces attention upon herself, but where he goes she goes. If he travels
on the steamer, she is there; if he makes a trip through the rubber
district, stopping night after night in native towns, she is ever one of
the caravan. She is true to him and on the whole, though there has been
no marriage, he is true to her.

Frequently, a strong affection appears to spring up between the couple,
and the hybrid children resulting from the relation are almost always
loved and petted by their white father. Not infrequently, the little
ones are taken home to Belgium for education, and are generally received
with kindness by their father’s parents.

On the steamer which brought us back from Congo were two Belgians, one
with a little girl, the other with a boy slightly older. The children
were well dressed, well behaved, pretty and attractive. And it was
interesting to see the affectionate greeting that was given them by
their grandparents on their landing at the dock in Antwerp.

At one post, where we were entertained for several days, the lieutenant
had his two little daughters, 3 and 5 years respectively, at the table
with him at all meal times, together with the other two white men of the
station and his two guests. The little ones were extremely pretty and
gentle. At the table it is their custom to sing between the courses.
Their father almost worships them. While the children are thus
constantly petted in public and appear on all sorts of occasions, the
black woman rarely if ever sits with her white man at the table or
enters the room where he is laboring or receiving guests.

We have described the condition of a single agent at a station. At many
stations there is more than one. At first sight, it would seem as if the
lot of the agent who with one or two others is at a station would be far
happier than that of the lonely man whom we have pictured.

There are, however, two results of the environment to which we have as
yet not alluded. On my return to Brussels, after my visit to the Congo,
a state official who has never been in Africa asked me with interest and
some evidence of concern whether in my judgment it was true that those
in Africa were always a little crazy. I told him that I believed such to
be the case, and quoted to him a statement made by an old Afrikander:
“We are all a little crazy here; it is the sun. You must not mind it.”
Men on the slightest provocation will fly into the most dreadful fits of
anger. A little cause may bring about catastrophe.

The second curious result suggested is the fact that everything appears
much larger, more important, and more serious than it really is. A
slight, neglect, or insult of the most trifling character becomes an
enormous injury. With this unsettled intellectual condition and this
constant tendency to magnify and enlarge an injury, we almost always
find where two men or more are associated in Congo stations frightful
hostilities and enmity. One would think that the common feeling of
loneliness would unite men and cement friendships. On the other hand,
every subordinate is plotting against his superior. Cabals are formed;
injuries planned and developed.

Of course, we understand that criticism, plotting, undermining occur
wherever human beings live. But the thing develops to an extreme among
the white men of the Congo. When a man has an outside visitor ready to
listen to his complaints he will spend hours in pouring out his woes.
The most innocent actions and words on the part of his fellows will be
warped and misconstrued; imaginary insults and neglects will be
magnified, brooded over, and reiterated.

It would be a mistake to think that the men who go to the Congo are bad.
Missionaries assert that the quality of those who come to-day is worse
than formerly, which may be true. When the Congo enterprise was first
launched, sons of good families, lured by the chance of adventure or
pining for novelty, enlisted in the service of the state. Probably the
number of such men going to the Congo is lessening.

To-day, when all the terrors of the Congo are well known, when the
hardships of that kind of life have been repeated in the hearing of
every one, rich men’s sons find little that is attractive in the Congo
proposition. But I was constantly surprised at the relatively high grade
of people in low positions in the Congo state. Most of them are men of
fair intelligence; some, of education. Not only Belgians, but
Scandinavians, Hollanders, Swiss, and Italians, go to the Congo in
numbers. They are not by nature brutal or bad; doubtless they were poor,
and it was poverty that led them to enter the Congo service. The term
for which they regularly enter is three years. No man from any country,
could stand three years of such surrounding influence without showing
the effect.

In passing, we may call attention to certain curious facts of
observation in connection with the strangers who come to Congo. We might
suppose that the Scandinavians would particularly suffer physically in
going from their northern latitudes into the tropics. On the contrary,
it is precisely the Scandinavians who seem most readily to adapt
themselves to their surroundings. Almost all the captains of steamers on
the Congo River are Norwegians or Swedes.

A record astonishing and presumably unparalleled is presented by the
Finns. On one occasion, I was sitting in a mess-room where it proved
that each member of the company spoke a different language—French,
Flemish, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Dutch, German, and English were all
represented. On my expressing interest in there being a Finn present,
the gentleman of that nationality stated that he and fifty-four of his
companions came to the Congo State six years ago; that they were now
ending their second term, and that fifty-one out of the original number
were still living. I presume the statement was true, and, if so, it is
as I have stated, unparalleled. Another member of the company told me
later that the case was far more interesting and striking than I
realized, as three out of the four who died were drowned, not meeting
their death from disease.

There is a tendency for the population of a nationality to flock into
the same line of work in the Congo State. Thus, a large proportion of
the Finns in question were engineers upon the steamers. The Italians are
largely doctors, and one meets with Italian physicians in every quarter
of the country.

I have already stated that those who go to the Congo insist that in
Nigeria the climatic conditions are still worse for health. If they are
no worse, but just as bad, we should find the same disintegration in
physical, mental, and moral ways. It is easy to criticise the lonely
white man in Central Africa; to stamp him as brutal, cruel, and wicked.
But the Englishman occupying a similar position in Nigeria, or even in
Uganda, must present the same dreadful results of his surroundings. I
suspect that our American young men, isolated in remote parts of the
Philippines, show the same kind of decay. Any nation that insists upon
bearing the black man’s burden must pay the price.

Belgium is the most densely populated land in Europe. It, if any
European country, needs room for expansion. Leopold II. claims that his
interest in the Congo from the first has been due to a desire to provide
an opportunity for Belgian overflow. I am loath to attribute to that
monarch so much sagacity. It is, however, true that as a colony of
Belgium, the Congo Free State will ever receive a large number of young
men who hope, by serving a term in Congo, to better their condition.
They realize the dangers and deprivations, but they expect at the end of
their three years to come home with a neat sum of money in their
possession; with this they think to establish themselves in business for
life. Unfortunately, these bright hopes are rarely realized. They start
for home in Europe with the neat little sum of money. For three years,
however, they have had no social pleasure, have spent no money.

Arrived in the home land, old friends must be entertained. The theater,
the saloon, the dance-hall present attractions. Before he knows it, the
man has spent his little hoard in foolish pleasures, and has naught to
show for his three years of labor. He hates to return to Congo, but the
fact that he has been in Congo stands in the way of his securing steady
and normal employment in Belgium. At last, without money and without
work, after a bitter struggle, he decides that there is nothing left but
another term in Congo. If he was a state employé, he decides that he
will better himself by entering into the service of a company; or, if he
were in the employ of a company, he thinks another company or the state
will better appreciate and pay for his services. It is a fatal
assumption. The moment that he presents himself before his would-be
employers and speaks proudly of his experience in Congo as a reason for
his hiring, suspicion is at once aroused that he must have left his
earlier employment under a cloud. He is told to call again, and
inquiries are set on foot with his old employer, who, irritated at his
employé’s desertion, gives as unfavorable report as the case will
warrant. On returning at the appointed date, the applicant is either
told that his services are not wanted, or is offered wages below what he
before received. Angered at this lack of appreciation, he goes back to
his old employer and offers his services at the old price. This is
refused. And the discouraged seeker for work is compelled frequently to
accept, in spite of an experience which would make him more valuable,
lower wages than he was accustomed to.




                                  VI.


                                                       January 25, 1907.

UNDOUBTEDLY the finest houses in the Congo are those at missions. The
grade of living in these mission stations is also of the best. This has
led to strange criticism by many travelers. One of the latest to visit
the Congo State speaks with surprise, and apparently disapproval, of the
English missionaries “living like lords.”

Yet it is certain that the missionaries, if any one, should live well.
The state official and the company’s agent go to the Congo with the
expectation of staying but a single term. The English missionary goes
there with the purpose, more or less definitely fixed, of spending the
remainder of his life in his field of labor. No matter how well he is
housed or how good his food, he must meet with plenty of inconvenience
and privation. If he is to accomplish anything for those who send him,
he should be as comfortable as the circumstances will allow. More than
that, the English missionary regularly takes with him his wife, and any
white woman is entitled to the best that can be had; it is a poor return
for what she must necessarily undergo.

There was, of course, mission work in the kingdom of Congo more than 400
years ago. It had an interesting history, it had its periods of
brilliant promise, and apparent great achievement. The work was spent,
its effect had almost disappeared, when recent explorations reintroduced
the Congo to the world. Stanley’s expedition aroused the interest of the
whole world.

The missionaries were prompt to see the importance of the new field open
for their labors. In 1878 three important events in mission history took
place. In February of that year Henry Craven of the Livingstone Inland
Mission reached Banana; in the same month, the Catholic church decreed
the establishment of the Catholic mission of Central Africa, with what
is practically the Congo State as its field of operations. In the same
year Bentley, Comber, Crudington, and Hartland, representatives of the
Baptist Missionary Society, made a settlement at San Salvador, a little
south of the Congo River, which became the center from which extended
the most widely developed and influential mission work of all the
country.

Since that time the representatives of many other missions have
undertaken work within the Congo State—which, of course, in 1878 had
not yet been established. Some of these flourished for but a brief time;
others have continued. At present there are within the Congo limits
missionaries of at least eight different Protestant
societies—representing England, America, and Sweden—and Catholic
missionaries representing five different organizations.

By far the greatest number of the Protestant missionaries are English,
even though they may in some cases be representatives of American
boards. They naturally carry with them into their stations the English
mode of life, traditions, atmosphere. Though the currency of the Congo
Free State is reckoned in francs and centimes, they talk all business
and quote all prices in shillings and pence; in making out an account
everything is calculated in English money, and it is with a certain air
of gentle remonstrance that they will convert the total, at the request
of the debtor, into Belgian or Congo currency. Their importations all
are English; they take their afternoon tea; they look with mild but sure
superiority upon all differing methods around them. Few of them really
talk French, the official language of the country; still fewer write it
with any ease or correctness.

It would seem as if one of the first requirements of a society sending
missionaries into a country where the official language is French and
where the vast majority of the officials, with whom the missionary must
deal and come into relation, know no English, would be that every
candidate for mission work should be a competent French scholar.
Otherwise there is danger of constant misunderstanding and difficulty
between the mission and the government. No such requirement seems to be
made.

Unfortunately, there is a strained relation amounting at times to
bitterness between the state officials and the English-speaking
missionaries. This feeling is general, and there are curiously many
specific exceptions. Thus, there are certain missionaries who, by their
immediate neighbors among officials, are highly spoken of; for example,
the manner, the ingenuity in devising and planning work, the promptness
and energy, of Mr. Joseph Clark at Ikoko, are constant themes of
admiring conversation on the part of officers at the Irebu camp, and
Mrs. Clark’s dress, linguistic ability, and cookery are quoted as models
to be attained if possible.

At first I thought these officials were poking fun, but soon became
convinced that they were speaking in serious earnest, and that it was
not done for effect upon myself was evident from the minute details into
which the praisers entered. I found an almost precisely similar
condition of things at Lisala camp, near the mission of Upoto, where Mr.
Forfeitt’s wisdom and knowledge of the natives and Mrs. Forfeitt’s grace
and charm were frequently referred to. At Stanleyville, also, one heard
constant praises of Mr. Millman’s scholarship and Mr. Smith’s skill in
photography.

In all three of these stations, the officials would talk dreadfully of
British missionaries in general, but for the local missionary they
seemed to feel an actual regard. To a less degree, and tinged, of
course, with English condescension, there was frequently expressed a
feeling of reciprocal regard from the missionary’s side. While the
representative of the state on the whole was a frightful creature,
merely to be condemned, there were usually some local officers, known
personally to the missionary, who presented streaks of excellence.

While it is true that a well-built house, and as good meals as can be
prepared within the Congo, operate to keep the missionary in better
health of mind and body and morals, yet even he feels the disintegration
due to the environment. He lives a fairly normal life. The presence of a
wife and woman of culture and refinement in the household is a great
blessing. Children, of course, are sent home for education and to escape
disease. The result is there are no little ones in the mission homes,
but, apart from this serious lack, the influence is helpful and
healthful.

The missionaries, probably all of them, are abstainers. There is no
question that their refraining from wines and liquors is a physical and
mental advantage. In the nature of the case, they are constantly
subjected to moral restraints, which are lacking to the state official
and the company agent. For all these reasons the missionary stands the
country much better than any other group of white men.

A white missionary is rarely if ever the sole representative at a
station. With a definite continued work, in its nature inspiring, with
congenial companions, and the encouragement of others working in the
same cause, his lot is often a happy one. But even the missionary has
fever, dies of hæmaturia, or must hasten back to England with incipient
sleeping-sickness; he, too, becomes anæmic and nerveless; he becomes
irritable and impatient; the slightest provocation upsets him, and he
magnifies every little grievance, as do his white neighbors in other
lines of work.

On the whole, the missionary is the only white man in the country who
seriously learns the language of the natives among whom he works. He
devotes himself with eagerness to its acquisition. A newcomer in the
country, his first desire is to gain sufficient knowledge of the
language to teach and preach to the people in their own tongue. Many of
these missionaries have written extended grammars and dictionaries of
native languages, and the number of translations of portions of the
Bible and of religious teachings into these languages is large.

It is true that the mere stranger is sometimes doubtful as to the
reality and thoroughness of the missionary’s knowledge of his people’s
language. He hears the missionary give a distinct order to the native,
and, behold, the boy does the precise opposite. This has happened too
often for one to be mistaken. The missionary shrugs his shoulders and
says in explanation that the blacks are stupid or cuffs the boy for
inattention. The fact probably is that the missionary gave a different
order from what he thought. The black is really shrewd and quick to
grasp the idea which the white man is trying to convey to him.

Whether it is true that the white man often gains sufficient control of
the language to make himself completely understood by the natives or
not, it is absolutely certain that much of the reading of translations
into his own language by the native is pure fiction. At one mission
which we visited, it was the custom after breakfast for the houseboys of
the mission to come in to family prayers. Each was supplied with a
translation to be read in the morning’s exercise. The boys, seated on
the floor, read brief passages in turn. They might, through mistake,
skip a whole line or completely mispronounce a word, indicating a total
lack of understanding of the passage read, and yet it was done with the
same air of satisfaction that would accompany a task well done. My own
boy, Manoeli, used to cover whole sheets of paper with meaningless
scrawls in pencil, and with an air of wisdom, which he unquestionably
thought deceived me, he would at my request proceed to read line after
line, and even page after page, of stuff that had no meaning. And even
if I stopped him and turned him back to some earlier point, he would
begin and go on as if it really meant something. I was constantly
reminded by these boys at prayers of Manoeli’s pretended reading of fake
writing.

On the Kasai River steamer many of the Baluba boys and girls had books
from the Luebo mission. These were mostly elementary reading books.
Nothing pleased them better, especially if any one seemed to be paying
attention to what they were doing, than for a group of them to gather
about one who played the teacher. With an open book before him and a
cluster of six or eight about him, looking carefully at the syllables to
which he pointed, they would call out in unison the sounds represented.
It was done with gusto, with rhythm, almost with dancing. It seemed to
show remarkable quickness in recognizing the printed syllables.

After I had seen the thing three or four times I myself took the book in
hand and centering the attention of the group upon one syllable to which
I pointed, I would start them by pronouncing a syllable several lines
below; once started, though distinctly looking at the thing to which I
pointed, they would call out the complete list, one after another, in
proper order, but never the ones, of course, to which my finger pointed
and which they pretended to be reading. In other words, these Baluba
boys and girls knew their primer by heart and repeated it like parrots,
with no reference to the actual text. I must confess that I have little
confidence in the ability of most Congo mission boys and girls to read
understandingly the simplest of the books with which they deal.

There are different types of Protestant missions. At Leopoldville there
would probably be no mission but for the fact that it is the terminus of
the railroad and the place from which the river steamers start. The
natives directly reached by its work live for the most part on the
mission property, in quarters much like those upon the old plantations
of the South. They receive their rations weekly and are paid a monthly
wage. Early in the morning the rising bell is sounded and morning
prayers take place. Work begins and all are kept busily employed upon
the grounds and buildings. Noon hours of rest are given, and at evening
work for the day stops. There are various religious services and classes
meeting after supper on different evenings of the week. The presence of
great numbers of workmen and soldiers of the state at Leopoldville
introduces conditions not helpful to mission labor. It is necessary,
however, to have a force at hand able to help missionaries going up or
coming down the river, transporting their baggage and freight, and doing
other service constantly called for at a point of receipt and shipping
like Leopoldville.

The mission’s work is not confined, however, to the town, and teachers
are sent to neighboring villages to teach and conduct classes.




                                  VII.


                                                       January 26, 1907.

AT Yakusu great stress is laid upon the work of teaching. The mission
property adjoins an important Lokele village. Within easy reach are
villages of three or four other tribes. It is an area of rather dense
population. Villages in number occur all along the shores of the river
for miles downstream. Other villages of inland folk lie behind these.
Thousands of people are within easy reach. The mission maintains a
liberal force of houseboys for the four houses of missionaries; it has
also a corps of excellent workmen, who make brick, do carpentering,
build houses, and keep the grounds in order. These are not from the
local tribe, but are Basoko from down the river. Children from the
immediate village flock to the mission school, but this is only the
least significant portion of the work. More than 200 teachers are in the
employ of the mission, teaching in village schools throughout the
country around. To supply text-books, the mission press at Bolobo turns
out editions of four or five thousand copies.

Similar in its plan of sending out native teachers to outlying villages
is the great work at Wathen, in the Lower Congo. This was once on the
main caravan route from Matadi to Leopoldville. Since the building of
the railroad it is completely off of beaten lines of travel, and only
one who specifically desires to visit it will see it. The main feature
of this work, marking it off from all the other mission work in the
Congo State, is a central boarding school for native children, where a
definite course for study, extending through several years, is
continuously carried on. Boys graduating from this school go out as
teachers. And the mission demands that the villages thus supplied shall
meet the expense of conducting their schools. This seems to me the best
educational experiment in the Congo, and scores of villages throughout
the district of the cataracts have self-supporting schools with Wathen
boys for teachers.

In the official report of the royal commission of inquiry sent to
investigate conditions in the Congo Free State recently, there is found
this passage:

    “Often, also, in the regions where evangelical stations are
    established, the native, instead of going to the magistrate, his
    rightful protector, adopts the habit, when he thinks he has a
    grievance against an agent or an executive officer, to confide
    in the missionary. The latter listens to him, helps him
    according to his means, and makes himself the echo of all the
    complaints of a region. Hence, the astounding influence which
    the missionaries possess in some parts of the territory. It
    exercises itself not only among the natives within the purview
    of their religious propaganda, but over all the villages whose
    troubles they have listened to. The missionary becomes, for the
    native of the region, the only representative of equity and
    justice. He adds to the position resulting from his religious
    zeal the influence which in the interest of the state itself
    should be secured to the magistrate.”—_Translation._

It is true that the Congo native carries all his grievances to the
missionary. On one occasion, when we had been in Leopoldville but a day
or two and had seen but little of native life and customs, we noticed a
line of fifty people, some with staves of office showing them to be
chiefs or chiefs’ representatives, filing in a long line to the mission.
They squatted under the palaver-tree, awaiting the attention of the
missionary. Their errand was in reference to the local market. Formerly
there was a market at Leo, important alike to the people of the town and
to the producing natives of the country around. There had been disorders
and disturbances; the sellers lost their goods through theft and
seizure, and for several years it had been discontinued.

After repeated petitions on the part of the people to the government,
Bula Matadi yielded, promised restoration of the market, assigned a
place, and put up a building. Though apparently all had been done that
they had asked, the people were not satisfied, and this delegation had
presented itself to the missionary to ask him to present their complaint
and desires. The place selected was not a good one; a different one
close by the railroad station and the English traders, was requested.
The missionary brought the matter to the attention of the local
government, which yielded to the people’s suggestion, and gave
permission for the opening of the market on the following Sunday in the
place of preference.

We became interested in this matter, and on the following Sunday the
missionary, my companion, and myself made our way to the spot to see how
matters were progressing. A considerable number of sellers had come in
with produce, mostly kwanga and other foodstuffs. They were beginning to
display these upon the ground. Would-be purchasers were gathered in
numbers, and among them crowds of Bangala women from the workmen’s camp.
The sellers seemed suspicious lest attack might be made upon their
wares. Their suspicions were, unfortunately, well founded. For a little
time things appeared to go well but at last Bangala women, standing by,
swooped down upon the piles of stuff temptingly offered for sale, and
seizing handfuls, started to run away. One soldier-policeman, who, a few
moments before, seemed to be fully occupied with his duty of guarding
the railway station, and several idle men and boys joined in the
looting. The thing was done as quickly as if there had been
pre-concerted plotting and a given signal.

In an instant all was turmoil. Some of the sellers were hastily packing
away in cloths what was left of their stores; others grappled with the
thieves, some of whom, however, were making good escape with their
plunder. We all three rushed in to help the robbed to stay the thieves,
and for a few minutes there was a free-for-all fight. Most of the stolen
stuff was retaken, and the angry sellers, with all that was left to them
packed away, refused to again open up their stores. The missionary
suggested that they should move nearer to the trading-post of the
English traders and ensconce themselves behind a fence, buyers being
allowed to approach only upon the other side, while we three and the
white men from the traders should guard to prevent further attack and
thieving. Finally, this scheme was put into operation. One or two
soldier-police were summoned, the stores were again opened up, though
trading had to stop every now and then to permit of the dispersal of the
crowd which thronged around awaiting the opportunity for another attack.

Under these difficulties, in which the missionary and my Mexican
companion performed prodigies of valor, the market was conducted with a
fair degree of success. I was interested in the further history of this
market. Our missionary friend shortly wrote me that things had been
reduced to order; that the government had built a market-house and
supplied regular guards to maintain order; that the number of sellers
had increased, and that purchasers flocked to buy.

But all this brilliant promise came to a sad end. When we again reached
Leopoldville the market-house was closed; there were no signs of
interest. It seems that Bula Matadi thought the market presented an
admirable chance for getting even. One day, when the stock of kwanga and
other foodstuffs was exceptionally large, the representatives of the law
swooped down upon the sellers, claimed that they were in arrears in
payment of their kwanga tax, and seized their stock in trade. The result
was that the market died.

Among the laws which in their intention, perhaps, were good, but in
their application vicious, is one regarding orphan and abandoned
children. In native life, unaffected by white influence, there could be
no difficulty regarding such children. If a native child were left
without a mother it would at once be taken over by the mother’s family.
There would be no feeling that it was a burden, and it would suffer no
deprivation.

Such a thing as an abandoned child, in strictly native condition, is
scarcely conceivable. According to state law, an orphan or abandoned
child less than 14 years of age may be turned over by the court to
missions for care and education. The mission, of course, is entitled to
the child’s services through a term of years. Advantage of this law has
never been taken by Protestant missions, but Catholic missions have at
different times had numbers of children committed to their charge and
have used their services in the development of property. A child of 14,
the limit of the law’s application, is better than a child of 12,
because capable of immediate service. A boy of 15, 16, 17, 18, would be
still better, but, of course, it is illegal to seize a young fellow of
that age and employ him at such labor. Once committed, the child remains
in the mission’s power until manhood.

There is no question that the missions, taking advantage of this law,
many times seize boys who are beyond the age limit and many others who
are neither orphans nor abandoned. I myself have seen a young man who
could not have been less than 19 or 20 years of age, who was married and
a member of the Protestant church, who had been taken by the peres under
this law. He was brought before the state authorities and immediately
set at liberty.

It is due to this fact, that the native goes constantly to the
missionary with his complaints—that he looks upon him as the proper
person to represent his cause before the state officials; that the
missionary, himself, feels it his duty to bring abuses to the attention
of the authorities—that the feeling already mentioned between the
missionary and the state official has arisen. There have been,
unfortunately, abundant occasions for intervention; there have been
flagrant and cruel things which the missionary has felt called upon to
report.

I do not doubt the honesty of the missionary. I have sometimes felt,
however, that they have become so filled with a complaining spirit that
they are incapable of seeing any good. I have heard them for hours
complain of things that neither in themselves nor in their results were
really open to criticism. I have heard them carp and find fault with any
matter with which the name of the government could be connected. If
their attention is called to some apparent purpose to reform abuses,
they shake their heads and say it will come to nothing; it is a
subterfuge. If, as time passes, the thing assumes the appearance of
reality, they say there is some hidden and mysterious purpose back of
it; the state would never do so well unless it were preparing some new
iniquity. The attitude of complaint becomes habitual: the ability to see
improvement seems completely lost.

The first time that I attended family prayers in a missionary home I
waited with some interest to hear the petition in favor of the
government. When it came, it assumed this form: “O Lord, stay the hand
of the oppressor. Pity and aid the oppressed and overburdened. Prevent
cruelty from destroying its victims. Interfere with the wicked and
designing schemes of the oppressor.”

A dozen such expressions and petitions were uttered, but no request for
divine wisdom and enlightenment for the rulers. It can easily be
conceived that, where godly and pious men cherish such sentiments toward
representatives of the state, the feelings of state officials toward
missionaries are little likely to be completely friendly.




[Illustration: BACHOKO BRINGING IN RUBBER, DJOKO PUNDA]




                                 VIII.


                                                       January 27, 1907.

THE actors in the Congo drama are now clearly before us—the black man
and the white man, the state official, the trader, and the missionary.

Travel in the Congo state is, naturally, for the most part by water. The
mighty river is the main member in a water system surpassed only by that
of the Amazon. The Congo itself presents a total length of almost 3,000
miles, of which more than 2,000 is navigable. The vast network of
tributary streams, with a total length of almost 17,000 miles, gives
nearly 5,000 miles more of navigation connected with that of the main
river.

To-day these thousands of miles of navigation are utilized by a fleet of
steamers eighty or more in number. Most of these are vessels of the
state; a smaller number belong to the great concession companies; a few
are the property of the missions. Many of them are small, but some of
the more recent steamers constructed for the state are vessels of 400
tons burden. They are flat-bottomed steamers of small draft, because the
rivers through which they ply are often shoaled by sand banks. Even the
mighty Congo itself, at certain seasons of the year, becomes dangerous
and almost impassable, even for vessels of this light draft. By means of
these boats it is easy now for travelers not only to go over the chief
part of the main river but to enter the larger tributaries at their
mouth and travel for hundreds of miles up towards their sources.

It can be well imagined with what surprise the natives saw the first
steamer. The pioneer vessels were brought in pieces to the head of
navigation for sea steamers, and then transported by human carriers the
weary distance from Vivi, near Matadi, around the cataracts to Stanley
Pool, where the parts were assembled and the vessels prepared for
service. Some of the earliest steamers are still in service, and, while
they have been eclipsed in size and power and speed by later vessels,
have a true historic interest. No vessel on the Congo deserves more or
has a better record than the Peace. This was the earliest of the mission
steamers, presented to the B. M. S. by Robert Arthington of Leeds,
England. It was throughout its history in charge of George Grenfell, the
intrepid missionary explorer, whose death took place during our stay in
the Congo.

We saw the little vessel at Yakusu, and looked at it with especial
interest. In it George Grenfell explored many thousand miles of unknown
waterway. With it he made the study which enabled him to construct the
best navigation maps and charts so far published of the Congo—charts
which the state still uses on its own steamers.

The state steamers are, of course, primarily for the service of the
state. So far as the main river is concerned, a steamer is started from
Leopoldville for the trip to Stanley Falls every ten days, taking from
twenty-four to thirty days to make the journey. The down trip requires
less time, and can be made under favorable circumstances in fourteen
days—the usual time being seventeen or more. By these steamers state
officials are taken to their posts, workmen and soldiers are transported
to their place of service, chopboxes and other supplies are taken to the
state employés, materials for construction are taken to the place where
needed, products, such as rubber, ivory, and copal, are brought to
Leopoldville for shipment. Generally they are well loaded with both
passengers and cargo.

The company boats do for the company what state boats do for the
state—transporting from place to place, bringing in supplies, taking
out products. Similarly the mission steamers are intended solely for the
movement of the missionaries and their supplies. The state boats may
carry freight and passengers, but only when they are not loaded fully
with the materials of the state. Arrangements must be made by strangers,
and it is only when the state is favorable that they may travel or ship
goods. The company boats are not allowed to carry outside passengers or
freight without the express permission of the state, but are obliged to
carry state people and freight in cases of especial need. If a mission
steamer carries outside passengers or freight, it can do it only
gratuitously.

In the steamers of the state the traveler who has permission to embark
upon them pays for a ticket, which entitles him merely to
transportation; he is expected to pay five francs a night additional for
his cabin; for food he pays twelve francs per day during the period of
the voyage. The steamers of every class tie up at evening, and no
traveling is done at night. In steamers of the larger class there may be
as many as four white employés—the captain, his assistant, a
commissaire, or steward, and the engineer. In smaller steamers there are
only the captain and the engineer. All the crew and employés in the
cabins, mess, and deck are blacks. In steamers with an upper deck, the
blacks are expected to stay below; only when called for special service
are they allowed on deck.

No black man remains on board during the night. Even the personal
servants, or boys, of the white passengers must go with the crew and
other workmen on to shore to spend the night. As promptly as the ship is
fastened, the black men, women, and children, with cooking utensils,
food supplies, bedding, and beds, hasten off on to shore to pick out the
spot on the bank, or in the forest, where they will spend the night. It
is an animated and curious scene. As darkness comes on, the fires for
cooking their evening food have been kindled here and there over the
terrace or in the forest, and the groups gathered around them while the
cooking proceeds, or eating takes place, are picturesque in the extreme.
At daybreak the steamer whistles the signal for all on board, and the
whole mob come rushing—for no time is lost, and it is easy to be left
behind in the forest—pellmell on board.

The fuel for the steamers is wood, cut from the forest. One of the most
serious problems which the state has had to face is the securing of
sufficient and continuous fuel supply. Wood-posts have been established
wherever possible; the natives at the wood-posts are required to supply,
in form of tax, for which a small compensation is, however, returned, a
certain number of yards or fathoms of wood. A space is marked out on the
ground as many yards in length as there are cutters of wood. Stakes are
placed at intervals of a yard and ropes are stretched from one to
another at a yard’s height. Each bringer of wood is expected to fill the
space indicated for him to supply. Much time is lost, even under the
best circumstances, in taking wood at these wood-posts. Whenever
possible, the night’s landing is made at a wood-post, and as large a
supply of fuel as possible is brought on board during the night.
Sometimes it happens that several steamers reach a wood-post in quick
succession before a new supply has been procured; under such
circumstances the crew frequently must cut wood for itself in the
forest, a task which they greatly dislike.

In each crew is a capita or head man, whose business it is to oversee
the work and to assign the portions of the task. He is held responsible
for the service of his subordinates, and usually is more successful in
securing prompt, efficient service than a white man would be. He is
himself, of course, frequently watched and directed by a white officer,
but on the whole he is the one man on the vessel who comes into direct
contact with the black laborers.

It is extremely interesting to watch the black hands on a steamer when
for any reason landing is made at villages. Many of them have bought a
stock in trade at Leopoldville. Beads, pieces of bright cloth, salt,
accordions, made-up clothes, hats, umbrellas—these are the things they
are most likely to have brought with them. A crowd of women and children
always flocks to the landing, and quickly the bartering begins. If the
steamer-boy has had experience, he makes money both coming and going.
All the product of his sales en route between Leo and Stanley Falls he
at once invests in rice when he reaches the district in which it is so
largely produced. This forms his capital upon his return to
Leopoldville, where it brings a price largely in excess of what it cost
him and enables him to stock up again for new business on his next
voyage.

Our first long voyage on these river steamers was the journey from
Leopoldville to Wissmann Falls, on the High Kasai. We were in a steamer
of the Kasai company, and we had hard luck in wood-posts, frequently
arriving when earlier steamers had taken all the fuel. We were forced
repeatedly to tie up for the night close by the forest and to drive our
force of cutters into the dense, almost impenetrable, mass of trees,
bound together by hundreds and thousands of creeping plants and vines.
The natives not only do not enjoy the cutting of the wood; but they do
not like to be turned out into the dense forest for sleeping.
Particularly after a heavy rain, conditions are disagreeable for
sleeping. Many a time it seemed hard to force them to pass the night in
such conditions, on the wet ground, under the dripping foliage, in
haunts of mosquitos and other insects.

While we were in the Kasai country the governor-general made his journey
of inspection throughout the upper Congo. When we reached that district
in our later journey we found that he had ordered a most excellent
reform, which had been carried out. The steamers were put under orders
to stop at wood-posts or at villages every night, tying up against the
forest only on those rare occasions, when it was unavoidable. The order
also provided for the immediate erection at all wood-posts and villages
of a great hangar for the shelter of the black people. A hangar is a
substantial roof, supported on posts, for giving shelter at night or in
rainy weather. These hangars for the shelter of the black people from
the steamers are enormous things, capable of sheltering 150 to 200
people and giving ample opportunity for the building, by each little
group, of its own fire for cooking and for warmth. While the natural
travel in the Congo Free State is by boat upon the river, there is, of
course, land travel as well.

There are almost no beasts of burden in the country. Horses seem to lose
all force and vigor; oxen suffer in many districts from the tsetse fly.
The State has made several interesting experiments in its effort to
secure some animal of burden. Indian elephants have been brought into
the country, partly with the view of using them as carriers and partly
in the hope that they might be used in the domestication of the African
elephant. At present, of course, the latter animal has the reputation of
being untamable, though for several hundred years in history we know
that it was tamed and used on a large scale for draft and war. The
experiments so far made toward its recent domestication have not met
with much result. Camels have been introduced as an experiment, and in
Leopoldville one sees a little cluster of them under an imported Arab
driver.

In the district where the zebra is at home, efforts are being made now
to tame that animal and use it for practical purposes. But
notwithstanding all these interesting experiments, some of which
ultimately may be successful, it must be stated that at present there is
absolutely no beast of burden in the Congo. The result is that land
travel must be done by caravan. The outfit of the traveler, his trade
stuffs, and whatever else he may have for transportation, must be
carried on human backs.

With the exception of a few experimental roads built with reference to
the introduction of automobiles for moving freight, there is nothing
which we would call a road in all the Congo. The native, on the march,
always go in single file. The trails leading from village to village are
only a few inches wide, though they are usually well worn, sometimes to
a depth of several inches into the soil. Most of them are in use so
constantly that there is little or no grass growing in them. For my own
part, when they are dry I could ask no better path for travel, and my
ideal of African travel is the foot journey over the native trails.

Many white men do not like to walk, and must have their hammock. It is a
simple hammock, usually made of a strip of foreign stuff swung by ropes
to a long bamboo or palm pole. Unless the person to be carried is
extraordinarily heavy, there will be two or four carriers. When four men
are carrying a hammock, two in front and two behind shoulder the pole at
its two ends. Usually the carriers swing along at a sort of dog trot.
Frequently they strike their palms against the carrying pole to make a
noise, and indulge in an explosive snort in taking breath. They may sing
or shout or cry when carrying, and if they approach a settlement, either
native or foreign, their pace quickens, their exertion increases, they
cry and yell with great force, increasing their noise and outcry with
the importance of the person carried. When they rush up to the place
where he is expected to dismount, the whole party bursts into a loud
yell, which would appall the bravest if he never had heard it before, as
they stop suddenly.

For my own part, I can imagine nothing more disagreeable than traveling
in a hammock. The four men rarely are on the same level, and the jolting
and movement up and down, now of one’s head and upper body, now of one’s
feet tilted high in air, are extremely disagreeable; from one’s position
he must look up constantly into the sky and see nothing of the country
through which he travels; if the sun shines, his face must be shaded,
and if one wears, as he usually must do, his cork helmet, it is
difficult to adjust it in any way other than putting it over the face.
Personally, I invariably have a half-day of fever after a hammock
journey. I would rather walk thirty miles every day than to go twenty in
a hammock.

There are still opportunities in the Congo for making fine journeys on
foot. From Stanley Falls to the English steamer on the Lake is a foot
journey of forty days over a good road. If I had had the time, I should
have made that journey.

There are at present two operating railroads in the Congo Free State,
besides a little line of a few miles running from Boma into the country
back. The more important of these two roads is the Congo Railroad,
running from Matadi to Leopoldville. Before its building it took freight
three weeks to go by caravan around the cataracts. The engineering
difficulties of this line were all in its early course within a few
miles of Matadi. Several years were spent in the construction of the
road, which has a total length of about 250 miles. It is a narrow-gauge
road, well-built, and fairly equipped. After a train once starts it is
entirely in the hands of black men as no white conductor or engineer is
employed in its running.

Two classes of cars are run, one for whites, first-class, the other for
blacks. The fare for first-class passage from Matadi to Leopoldville at
the time we made the journey was 200 francs, or $40; the second-class,
jimcrow-car fare, was 40 francs, or $8. The journey requires two days
for its accomplishment. Starting from Matadi at 7 in the morning, the
train reaches Thysville at 5 or 6 in the evening, and stays there for
the night. Starting at 7 the next morning, it is expected to reach
Leopoldville at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, but usually is from half an
hour to two hours behind time. The road, during the period of its
construction, was often considered a wild speculation, but it has paid
remarkably well, and its stock sells at an advance of many hundreds per
cent upon face value.

The second serious obstacle to Congo navigation—the Stanley Falls—is
got around in a similar way by a railroad line just finished. This line
of railroad from Stanleyville to Ponthierville, is about 75 miles in
length. It has just been finished and at the time of our visit, while it
was transporting passengers on account of the state, was not open to
general travel. We had the pleasure, however, of going the full length
of the line, a journey which required some eight hours. The whole course
of the railroad is included in dense forest, and nothing is to be seen
in all the journey except the forest. There is no question that this
little piece of tracking will have great business importance. Hundreds
of miles of navigable water lie above Ponthierville, and steamers—both
state and railroad—are already plying upon it. A country of great
resources is by it brought into near relations with that portion of the
Congo already developed. This piece of road forms but a small part of
the line planned, which is known by the name of the Great Lakes
railroad. Construction is in progress upon another section of it.

While we made our journey from Stanleyville to Ponthierville by rail, we
made the return journey by canoe, in order to see the rapids. Of course,
the construction of the railroad had already affected this old route and
mode of travel. Until lately all passengers and freight going up the
Congo beyond Stanleyville were forced to make the journey by canoe.

It is the district of the Congo where the canoe reaches its fullest
development and most striking expression. There are canoes cut from a
single tree-trunk which will carry tons of freight and scores of men.
Some of the great native chiefs had canoes of state in which they were
paddled from place to place by a hundred or more paddlers. While the one
in which we made our journey was by no means so pretentious, it was
certainly large enough for all practical purposes. An awning, or rather
a thatched roofing, extended over the middle third of its length to
protect us and our things from the sun. An officer of the state, an
Italian, accompanied us through half our journey to see that we met with
prompt and proper treatment. And two native soldiers were deputed to
accompany us the total distance and to take the canoe in charge when we
finally reached the landing at Stanley Falls. It was a most interesting
experience, for nothing that I had read had prepared me for so well
developed a system.

When we came to the rapids we and our stuff were landed. The signal had
been given as we approached the beach, and by the time that we were
ready to take the trail around the rapids the women of the native
village had presented themselves with carrying straps, ready to move our
freight. In ten minutes time everything was ready and the caravan upon
its way, twenty or thirty women carrying our boxes, satchels,
provisions, and collections. Meantime, our paddlers were occupied in
passing the canoe down through the rapids, and by the time we reached
the lower beach they were there ready for re-embarkation. We took five
days for our journey, though it might have been done in half that time
or even less.

At each village where we landed we found arrangements for the traveler.
A neat house of two or three rooms, constructed by the state, was at our
disposition. It was supplied with table, chairs, and beds. Near the
house for white travelers was a comfortable hangar for blacks, and near
it a large hangar for the storage of freight and baggage. The paddlers
who started with us at Ponthierville were dismissed after a day of
service and a new set of paddlers taken on, furnished by the village
chief. These, after a few hours of service, were again at liberty, and a
new crew supplied. Everything was done with promptitude and readiness.
The journey was one of the most interesting I ever made.

You understand, of course, that all this service, the carrying of
freight around the rapids by the women of the village and the supplying
of male paddlers by the chief were taxes to the state, for which a
nominal return in money or trade goods is allowed. At no point did we
see the slightest evidence of difficulty in furnishing the service or of
dissatisfaction in supplying it. Everywhere the people seemed to take it
as a pleasant thing. It is entirely possible that when the caravan
service was at its height and all freighting and traveling was done upon
the river, it may have been a heavier burden. But nowhere did the people
seem to show fear, hostility, or the effects of bad treatment. If we had
made the long walking trip above referred to, from Stanleyville to the
Lake, we would have found analogous arrangements for the traveler’s
comfort. Good sleeping-houses, with necessary furniture, occur at
intervals of four or five hours throughout the entire journey, and no
one need sleep out of doors a single night, unless he chooses to do so.

It will be seen that one to-day may go easily throughout the enormous
area of the Congo Free State without serious hardship and really with
much comfort. But, as a matter of fact, there are almost no true
travelers in the area. One can hardly call a state official, on his way
to his post, or going from place to place in the performance of his
duty, a traveler. Nor is a company agent, making his tour for the
collection of rubber, or for inspection of property, exactly one’s ideal
of a traveler. Nor is the missionary, coming back from furlough or going
home invalided, a traveler. The number of actual travelers in the Congo
at any time is small. My photographer and myself, I think, might be
called travelers.

We spent fifty-three weeks in the Congo Free State. During the period of
time that we were there we learned that Mr. A. Henry Savage-Landor spent
a few days in the High Ubangi. He came in from the north, visited only
one station of a company, and then went out again. Mr. Harrison, who,
some little time ago, took a group of pygmies from the High Ituri forest
to London, was again in the country, though he had left his little
people behind him.

At the same time, an English gentleman was hunting the okapi (that
curious antelope) in the same district. When we were coming out and were
delayed at Leopoldville, a Capt. Daniels of the English navy arrived at
Leopoldville, having made his way across the continent from the east
coast. At Bolengi we met a Mr. Creighton, an American clergyman, who had
made the way so far from Mombasa. Mr. Verner, bringing back his native
group from the St. Louis exposition, was in the Congo during the same
period.

On the steamer coming down from Stanley Falls, we had for fellow
passengers, M. and Mme. Cabra. M. Cabra was a royal commissioner, having
been sent to the country by Leopold himself, to make a careful
examination of conditions throughout the whole upper region of the Ituri
and Congo rivers. M. and Mme. Cabra entered Africa at Mombasa; they had
traversed on foot the forty days of journey I have referred to, but as
the purposes of their investigation required them to zigzag back and
forth instead of following a direct path, they had occupied a much
longer period of time and covered much more distance. Eighteen months on
their long journey, they both of them reached Matadi in good health, and
Mme. Cabra is probably the first lady to have crossed the African
continent in the equatorial regions from ocean to ocean.

Now, these were the only travelers besides one Frenchman, who was a
mystery, of whom we heard or whom we met in our fifty-three weeks in
Congo experience. It is unlikely that there were many others. The
stranger in the Congo is talked of everywhere. We were not within
hundreds of miles of Henry Savage-Landor, or Mr. Harrison, or the okapi
hunter, but we heard of their existence. Even if the given list is but
the half of Congo travelers during the year, it can be seen that the
real traveler is a rarity within the limits of the state.




                                  IX.


                                                       January 28, 1907.

IN the romantic history of African exploration and development there
is no more interesting chapter than that relating to the Congo. In 1854
Livingstone finished a great journey into the continent; in it he had
visited a portion of the district drained by the Kasai River. In his
final journey we find him again within the district of what to-day forms
the Congo Free State; he discovered Lake Moero in 1867 and Lake Bangwelo
in 1868; he visited the southern portion of Tanganika in 1869, and
followed the course of the Congo to Nyangwe.

At that time no one knew, few if any suspected, that the river he was
following had connection with the Congo. Livingstone himself believed
that it formed the uppermost part of the Nile, and in all the district
where he saw it, its course from south to north would naturally lead to
that opinion. It was his heart’s desire to trace the further course and
determine whether it were really the Nile or a part of some other great
river. Death prevented his answering the question.

Backed by the New York _Herald_ and the _Daily Telegraph_, Stanley, on
November 17, 1874, struck inland from the eastern coast of Africa, with
the purpose of determining the question as to the final course of the
great river flowing northward, discovered by his missionary predecessor.
He circumnavigated Lake Victoria, discovered Lake Albert Edward, and
made the first complete examination of the shore of Tanganika. He
reached the Lualaba—Livingstone’s north-flowing stream,—and, embarking
on its waters, devoted himself to following it to its ending.

There is no need of recalling the interesting experiences and adventures
of his journey; every one has read his narrative. Suffice it to say that
his great river presently turned westward so far north of the Congo
mouth that one would never dream of connecting the two waters, but as
unexpectedly it turned again toward the southwest and finally showed
itself to be the Congo. During the interval between Stanley’s two great
expeditions—the one in which he found Livingstone and the one in which
he demonstrated the identity of the Lualaba and the Congo—there had
been a growing interest in Europe in everything pertaining to the Dark
Continent.

This interest, which was widely spread, was focused into definite action
by Leopold II., king of the Belgians, who invited the most notable
explorers of Africa, the presidents of the great geographical societies,
politicians, and philanthropists, who were interested in the progress
and development of Africa, to a geographic conference to be held in
Brussels. The gathering took place in September, 1876, at the king’s
palace. Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, and
Russia were represented. The thirty-seven members who made up the
conference represented the best of European thought.

From this conference there developed the International African
Association. This Association organized a series of local national
associations, through which the different countries interested should
conduct investigations and explorations in Africa upon a uniform plan,
and with reference to the same ideas and purposes. It possessed, also, a
governing international commission, of which the king of the Belgians
was the president, and upon which were representatives of Germany, and
France, and the United States, Minister Sanford replacing a British
representative. This committee laid out a definite plan of exploration.
Its first expedition was to go in from the east coast at Zanzibar,
passing to Tanganika. The commission adopted as the flag of the
International African Association a ground of blue upon which shone a
single star of gold.

The Association’s plan included the discovery of the best routes into
the interior of Africa; the establishment of posts where investigators
and explorers could not only make headquarters but from which they might
draw supplies needed for their journey. These advantages were to be
extended to any traveler. The expeditions themselves were national in
character, being left to the initiative of the local national committees
which had been developed by the Association. This Association existed
from 1876 to 1884. During that time six Belgian, one German, and two
French expeditions were organized, accomplishing results of importance.

It was in November, 1877, that the result of Stanley’s expedition came
to the knowledge of the world. It wrought a revolution in the views
regarding Central Africa. In Belgium it produced at once a radical
change of plan. The idea of entering the heart of Africa from Zanzibar
was abandoned. The future operations of the A. I. A.—at least, so far
as Belgium was concerned—would extend themselves from the Congo mouth
up through the vast river system which Stanley had made known. Details
of this mode of procedure were so promptly developed that when Stanley
reached Marseilles in January, 1878, he found an urgent invitation from
the king of the Belgians to come to Brussels for the discussion of plans
of conference.

After a full study of the matter, it was determined by the Belgian
committee that a society should be organized with the title of the
Committee of Studies of the High Congo. This, it will be understood, was
purely a Belgian enterprise. It had for its purpose the occupation and
exploitation of the whole Congo district. For this purpose prompt action
was necessary. In February, 1879, Stanley went to Zanzibar and collected
a body of workmen and carriers. With this force of helpers and a number
of white subordinates he entered the Congo with a little fleet of five
steamers, bearing the flag of the A. I. A. Arrived at Vivi, where he
established a central station, he arranged for the transportation of his
steamers in sections by human carriers to the Stanley Pool above the
rapids.

He worked with feverish haste. France was pressing her work of
exploration, and there was danger of her seizing much of the coveted
territory. Portugal, too, was showing a renewed interest and activity,
and might prove a dangerous rival in the new plans. Native chiefs were
visited and influenced to form treaties giving up their rights of
rulership in their own territories to the Association. Lands were
secured for the erection of stations; the whole river was traversed from
Stanley Pool to Stanley Falls, for the purpose of making these treaties
and securing the best points for locating the stations. The Committee of
Studies of the High Congo now possessed at least treaty rights over a
vast area of country, and by them governmental powers over vast
multitudes of people. It had these rights, it had a flag, but it was not
yet a government, and it stood in constant danger of difficulties with
governments. About this time it changed its name from the Committee of
Studies of the High Congo to the International Association of the Congo.

Meantime events were taking place which threatened the existence of the
Association. Portugal began to assert claims and rights which had long
been in abeyance. She proposed to organize the territory at the Congo
mouth, and which, of course, was of the greatest importance to the
Association, into a governmental district and assume its administration.
In this project she found willing assistance on the part of England.

Never particularly enthusiastic over the scheme of Leopold II., England
had shown no interest at all during the later part of all these
movements. It is true that she was represented at the first conference
held at Brussels; it will be remembered that in the later organization
an American had replaced the English representative. No work had been
done of any consequence by a British committee. No expedition had been
sent out. By the treaty with Portugal, England would at one stroke
render the whole Congo practically worthless. The crisis had come.
France and Germany came to King Leopold’s help. The former recognized
the political activity and status of the Association and promised to
respect its doings; Germany protested vigorously against the
Anglo-Portuguese treaty, which fell through.

Bismarck, who favored the plans of the Belgian monarch in Africa,
officially recognized, on November 3, 1884, the Association as a
sovereign power, and invited representatives of the powers to Berlin for
the purpose of establishing an international agreement upon the
following points: First, commercial freedom in the basin of the Congo
and its tributaries; second, application to the Congo and the Niger of
the principle of freedom of navigation; third, the definition of the
formalities to be observed in order that new occupations of African
shores should be considered as effective. The conference began November
15th, Bismarck himself presiding. Fifteen powers participated—Germany,
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, United States, France, Great Britain,
Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Turkey.

As the result of three months of deliberation, the Congo State was added
to the list of independent nations, with King Leopold II. as its ruler.
Promptly the new power was recognized by the different nations of the
world.




[Illustration: CHILDREN AT MOGANDJA, ARUWIMI RIVER]




                                   X.


                                                       January 29, 1907.

WHAT has the Congo Free State done during its twenty-two
years—almost—of existence?

It has taken possession of a vast area of land, 800,000 square miles in
extent, and dominated it. It has most skillfully developed a mighty
waterway. We are already familiar with the simple and original method of
development which has been and is being pursued. We have already called
attention to the fact that, notwithstanding interruption to navigation
here and there in the Congo and its larger tributaries, there are long
stretches of navigable water above the obstacles. The plan of
utilization and development has been to occupy directly the natural
stretches of navigable water and to get around the cataracts by the
shortest railroad lines possible. This has been done already at two
points, and will be done at others in the near future. It is the most
economical manner of developing a way of penetration into the great area
to be developed and exploited.

It has continuously carried on geographical explorations by which the
world’s knowledge of African geography has been profoundly increased. We
have already called attention to the fact that during the eight years
when the A. I. A. was in existence, Belgium equipped and maintained six
expeditions; during the same period France maintained but two, Germany
one, and England none. In other words, Belgium did more for geographic
science during that time than the other three great nations combined.

It has put an end to inter-tribal wars, to execution of slaves at
funerals and festal occasions, and to cannibalism in all those districts
to which its actual authority extends. It is understood, of course, that
twenty years is a short time for the penetration of the state’s
authority into remote parts of its territory. There are still
inter-tribal wars in remote parts of the Congo Free State; executions
and the eating of human flesh are no doubt still common in districts
which have but little felt the influence of the white ruler. With the
extension of the definite power of the state into these remoter
sections, these evils will disappear as they have disappeared in the
more accessible portions of the country.

It has developed a native army which is available in case of attack upon
the integrity of the state, and which serves as a policing party within
its territory. In the first days of the state’s history its soldiery was
drawn from the Zanzibar district, and to a less degree from the English
possessions along the western coast of Africa. It soon was realized that
from every point of view this condition was undesirable. Between the
foreign soldiery and the native people there were no bonds of common
interest. No national feeling or spirit could develop among them. From
the point of view of expense the foreign soldier was extremely costly.
For these different reasons the state early developed the idea of an
army made of Congo natives. To-day there are but few foreign soldiers in
the public force.

If there is ever to be a real nation in the Congo district there must
develop in some way a feeling of unity of blood and interests among the
people. In tribal life each tribe is absorbed in its own
interests—petty, of course—and looks upon all other tribes as enemies.
Many of the tribes were insignificant in number and in the area which
they occupied. Nothing but an outside influence can unite into one
useful whole such a multitude of petty, distrustful, hostile groups of
men. In the public force there are soldiers from almost every tribe
within the Congo. At the great training camps men are brought together
who speak different languages, have different customs, and come from
widely separated areas. Under the military discipline, these men are
brought into close and long continued relations. They must accommodate
themselves to one another. They must respect each other’s ways of
thought and doing. At the end of his term of service the soldier goes
out necessarily broadened in his ideas, necessarily less prejudiced and
more tolerant. The army is the most important influence toward arousing
national existence.

It has conducted many interesting experiments and researches along
scientific lines. While these had frequently practical ends, they were
in themselves worth doing, and their beneficent results are not confined
to the Congo. Thus, at Leopoldville there is a well-equipped
bacteriological institute for the study of tropical diseases. Naturally,
the most of its attention up to the present has been given to the
subject of sleeping-sickness.

The experiments upon the utilization of the African elephant and the
zebra have general interest; if they fail, the warning may be useful; if
they succeed, their results will be by no means confined to the Congo
Free State. At Eala is a botanical garden creditably devised and well
conducted. Six hundred species of plants are there in cultivation,
something more than half of them being foreign species. There
experiments are being made upon a broad scale to discover the uses of
native plants and the possibility of cultivating them to advantage.
Forty species of African plants yield rubber; those the product of which
is of a quality to warrant experimenting, are here being cultivated with
reference to ascertaining their value in plantations. Foreign rubber
producers, coffees from different portions of the globe, medicinal
plants, dye and other useful plants are being tested to find out how
they flourish in Congo.

Nor is the interest of the Congo Free State in scientific investigations
limited to its own enterprises. Some time ago a British commission,
consisting of three specialists in tropical medicines, visited the Congo
with the purpose of investigating the sleeping-sickness. Not only were
they given every facility for their investigation, but after they
returned to England the total expenses of their expedition were returned
with the compliments of the State government in recognition of the
general value and utility of their investigations. Individual
investigators and expeditions of a scientific character within the Congo
State always have found the government interested in furthering and
aiding their studies.

It has developed a significant and growing section of the world’s
commerce. When Stanley came down the Congo, the value of the exports
from that region was so small that it might be neglected. To-day the
Congo furnishes the world with ivory and supplies a most significant
portion of the rubber which is used. To-day Antwerp is the greatest
market for these two products. That Liverpool should lose in relative
importance in the matter of West African trade is no doubt hard for
Englishmen. But the world gains by having several great trading centers
in place of one.

It has checked the extension of the Arab influence with all its horrors.
To one who reads Stanley’s description this means much. With this
checking, the foreign slave trade ceased. Do not misunderstand me. There
was much admirable in the Arab culture. There is no question that the
practical men, whose views we always keep in mind, and to whom we make
our argument, would approve the substitution of it or the barbarism that
existed before. But it is certain that it stood in the way of European
influence; that it came into conflict with European ideas, and if it
were desirable that these should ultimately prevail, the Arab life and
culture must disappear.

We might, of course, continue and extend our list of the achievements of
the Congo Free State. We have said enough, however, to show that it has
done much toward carrying out its promise to civilize and modify the
native population in the direction of our own ideals. Even the bitter
enemies of the Free State government will admit all this, and more. But
they claim that all the credit of it disappears in view of the
atrocities, the cruelties, and horrors connected with its own
administration.

Atrocities no doubt exist; they have existed; they will exist. They are
ever present in cases where a population of natives is exploited by an
active and aggressive “higher race.” The process of elevating natives,
of making them over in new pattern, is never a happy one for the native.
The wrenching of old ties, the destruction of old ideals, the replacing
of an ancient life by one different in every detail, is a painful thing.

I deplore atrocities, but I have often thought that, if I were a member
of a race that was being improved by outside influences, I would rather
they should kill me outright with bullet or with knife than subject me
to the suffering of years in molding me to new ideas. In other words, I
sometimes feel that flagrant outrage is less painful to the victim than
well-meant direction, teaching, and elevation to their object.

Let us turn, however, to the whole subject of atrocities.




                                  XI.


                                                       January 30, 1907.

MUCH has been said of flogging and the chicotte. There is no question
that flogging is general throughout the Congo Free State. The English
word “flogging” is one which is generally known and understood by
officials of every nationality throughout the country; it is known, too,
by a surprising number of natives. The chicotte is known to everybody
within the state limits—its name is Portuguese. In all my journey in
the Congo, while I frequently heard the word “flogging” and constantly
heard the word “chicotte,” I never heard the French term for either. Nor
do I think the native has. It is plain that neither flogging nor the
chicotte was introduced by Belgians. These found them in the country on
their arrival, introduced by English and Portuguese.

It is not the fact of flogging in itself that raises objections; not
only the state and traders but the missionaries find it necessary to
whip their black employés. In fact, at a missionary conference—I think
it was—one missionary referred laughingly to the boys whom another (by
the way, one of the chief witnesses against the state) “had flogged into
the kingdom of heaven.” He did not mean the boys had died as a result of
the flogging, but simply that they had found salvation through its
means. It is, then, the amount, severity, and undeservedness of the
whipping which are reprobated.

I saw, of course, plenty of flogging. Not, indeed, with such an
instrument as has been recently shown throughout the United States by a
complaining missionary. I was conversing recently with a friend who had
been profoundly stirred in connection with Congo atrocities. He happened
to mention the chicotte, then said: “Have you ever seen a chicotte? You
know it is made of six thongs of hippopotamus skin, twisted tightly
together.” I told him that I had seen hundreds of chicottes, but that I
had never seen one such as he described. As a matter of fact, I have
seen chicottes of a single thong, and of two or three twisted together,
but I have never seen one composed of six. I do not know whether such an
instrument would cause greater suffering in punishment, but it certainly
is better suited for display to sympathetic audiences who want to be
harrowed by dreadful reports. The first flogging that I happened to see
was at a distance. I was busy measuring soldiers; hearing cries, I
looked in the direction whence they came, and saw a black man being
publicly whipped before the office of the commissaire. An officer of
proper authority was present inspecting the punishment, which I presume
was entirely legal.

In the second flogging which I witnessed, this time at close quarters, I
was myself implicated to a degree. We were at a mission station. The
mission force and practically all the people from the place were
attending Sunday morning service. It was fruiting time for the mango
trees, which were loaded with golden fruit. Suddenly we heard an outcry,
and in a moment the mission sentry, delighted and excited, came up to
our veranda with an unfortunate prisoner, whom he had taken in the act
of stealing fruit. He insisted on leaving him with us for guarding. I
turned him over to my companion, who set him on his veranda, telling him
to stay there until the missionary should come from the service.

The prisoner squatted down upon the veranda without a word of
discussion, laying the fruit, evidence of his guilt, upon the floor at
his side. We were so angry at him that he made no attempt at escaping,
and did not even eat the fruit which he had stolen, that we washed our
hands of the whole affair, and believed he deserved all that might be
coming. The service over, the missionary appeared, accompanied by the
triumphant sentry. When the prisoner had admitted his guilt, the
missionary asked whether he preferred to be sent to the state for
punishment or to be whipped by him, to which the prisoner replied that
he should prefer the mission flogging.

With great formality the instrument of punishment was produced; it
consisted of two long and narrow boards, perhaps six feet in length and
two or three inches wide; between them was fixed a board of the same
width, but of half the length. At one end these were firmly screwed
together, while the other end was left open. It will be seen that when a
heavy blow was given with the instrument the free ends of the two long
sticks would strike together, producing a resounding whack which, no
doubt, produced a psychic suffering in the victim in addition to the
true physical pain. However that may be, fifteen blows, I think, were
administered, and the prisoner discharged.

One day, upon the Kasai steamer, we witnessed a wholesale whipping,
which was typical of this mode of punishment as regularly administered.
The night before we had been forced to tie up beside the forest. The
night was dark and the cutters refused to make wood for the next day’s
journey. This was a serious act of insurrection, involving delay and
trouble. When, finally, the next morning the wood had been loaded and
the steamer was under way, ten of the rebels were marched up to the
captain. In turn each lay down upon the floor, a friend held his hands
and wrists, while the capita administered twenty blows. It is
comparatively rare that the white man himself does the flogging; usually
it is the regular capita who is in charge of the workmen, or a special
one of the working force detailed to play the part.

It makes a notable difference in the way in which the punishment is
received whether the hands are firmly held to prevent struggling. An
English-speaking white man not in the government or company employ, who
had had more or less opportunity for observation in our Southern states,
and whose experience in the Congo extends over several years, told me
that flogging with the chicotte was a rather mild and simple punishment;
that it hurt but little, and that, for his part, he preferred to hit the
workmen on the head and kick them in the shins, those being places more
tender to the application than the part subjected to the chicotte. On
the whole, I am inclined to think that there was something in what he
said. It is certain that in most cases the suffering from a flogging is
momentary. I have even seen persons undergoing serious flogging exchange
significant glances and signals with their friends, in which the
suggestion of pain was quite absent. Many a time, also, I have seen a
man immediately after being flogged, laughing and playing with his
companions as if naught had happened. Personally, though I have seen
many cases of this form of punishment, I have never seen blood drawn,
nor the fainting of the victim.

It is common to speak of the chain-gang with great sympathy. One sees
chain-gangs at every state post; it is the common punishment for minor
offenses to put the prisoner on the chain. Sometimes as many as twelve
or fifteen are thus joined together by chains attached to iron rings
placed about their necks. They are employed in all sorts of
work—bringing water for use about the station, sweeping roads, clearing
fields, carrying burdens. On our arrival at a state post, immediately
after we had presented our introductions to the commandant, the
chain-gang would be sent to bring our freight and baggage to the rooms
to which we were assigned. The ring around the necks of these prisoners
is a light iron ring, weighing certainly not to exceed two pounds. The
weight of chain falling upon each prisoner can hardly be more than six
or eight pounds additional. In other words, the weight which they are
forced to carry in the shape of ring and chain does not exceed, probably
does not equal, ten pounds.

From the viewpoint of service rendered, the chain-gang has little value.
It dawdles, lags, idles, and plays; only when it is carrying burdens
does it really work. I have never seen a chain-gang composed of women,
nor have I seen women on the same gang with men. It is stated by the
missionaries that such things occur. Certainly, every one would object
to the chaining together of male and female prisoners. Apart from this,
the chain-gang does not particularly arouse my sympathy. It is a very
mild form of punishment, and one which, of course, is common in as bad a
form or worse throughout many of our Southern states. To grieve over the
weight carried in the form of chain and ring is simply ridiculous; there
are to-day thousands of women among these Congo tribes who for the sake
of decoration carry about their neck a heavy ring of brass weighing
twenty, twenty-five, or thirty pounds. It is no uncommon thing for both
men and women to have a weight of thirty, forty, or fifty pounds of
brass and iron rings and ornaments upon them.

I cannot believe that the ordinary flogging, such as I have seen, causes
notable suffering to people who, for purposes of decoration or treatment
of rheumatism, submit without evidence of pain to such operations as I
have described in detail in an earlier article. Nor can I feel that the
mere fact of carrying chain and ring of less than ten pounds’ weight
involves terrible suffering for people who regularly carry much heavier
burdens of ornaments.

Much has been said of late in regard to hostages. The taking of hostages
and holding them until some obligation or agreement had been performed
was a common native custom. Stanley frequently captured women and
children, or even men, of tribes in the districts through which he was
passing and held them as hostages until they should show him the trail
he should follow, or until their people supplied him with the food or
other things which he desired. At the ill-fated Yambuya camp the rear
guard frequently seized the women of the natives who had failed to bring
in food supplies in return for the trade stuffs offered. This seizure of
hostages is mentioned repeatedly in the writings of the early travelers,
and seems to have caused no outcry on the part of the sensitive
civilized world at that time. Why should it now?

It is a common practice, though a disagreeable one to us, for one who
sells a thing to keep back a part of it in making delivery of the goods.
On one occasion we bought a musical instrument, a marimba, which
consisted, in part, of a dozen gourds as resounding bodies. Every one of
these gourds was necessary to the instrument, yet the seller, after we
had examined it with care to see that it was perfect, removed three of
the gourds, in accordance with this custom. The instrument was sent to
us by the son of the seller’s chief, old Chicoma. When we found the
instrument at home we at once noted the absence of the three gourds. Old
Chicoma’s son had a companion with him. We at once decided to hold the
chief’s son as a hostage, sending word by his companion that he would be
set free only on the appearance of the missing gourds. When we told the
youth that we had “tied him up,” that being the expression for holding a
person hostage, he looked sheepish, but made no complaint, recognizing
the justice of our action.

This was at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. He made no attempt to escape,
although we had not in any way actually interfered with his freedom of
movement. We gave him supper when the time came and breakfast in the
morning. He found his stay tedious, however, and finally, when none was
looking, slipped away. He must have met the messenger bringing the
missing gourds before he was any distance from the house, as he appeared
with our property about half an hour after the flight.

The only other personal experience in the matter of hostages that we had
was in the High Kasai. A white man, agent of the Kasai company, was our
guest for the night. In the early morning our friend, Chief Ndombe,
appeared, in great excitement, begging us to loan him cloth, as the
white man had seized one of his slaves and would not release him until
he had fully paid a debt which the white man claimed he owed him. The
question appeared complicated, and we let him have the cloth, after
which we went over to hear the palaver accompanying the payment. Both
sides told their story, with much gesticulation. The white man’s boy had
owned a woman, for whom he claimed to have paid six pieces of cloth; she
had run away, and he had sought in vain for her. The chief, old Chicoma,
told him that the woman was at Ndombe and in the house of the great
chief. So they seized Ndombe’s slave—a little lad about 11 years of
age, whose bright face and curious head shaving always had greatly
attracted me. This boy our visitors were holding as a hostage until
Ndombe should produce the woman or pay her value.

Of course, the whole procedure was illegal, and I was inclined to take
up the matter vigorously. There were, however, so many elements of doubt
in the matter that I finally concluded to let it pass. Of hostages held
by company agents or by state people we saw but few, and never learned
the circumstances under which they had been taken. They were rarely in
actual confinement, and we saw no evidences of bad treatment toward
them. In native custom, the hostages are regularly well treated and fed
regularly, while held in captivity. While we have never seen
maltreatment of hostages, we can readily understand how such could
arise. Taken, as they usually are, in order to force the bringing in of
food or forest products, if their holding does not produce the desired
effect the feeling of vexation resulting may easily lead to cruelty.




[Illustration: MEN SENTENCED TO THE DEATH PENALTY FOR MURDER
 AND CANNIBALISM, BASOKO]




                                  XII.


                                                       January 31, 1907.

PEOPLE in this country seem to expect that every traveler in the Congo
must meet with crowds of people who have had one or both hands cut off.
We have all seen pictures of these unfortunates, and have heard most
harrowing tales in regard to them. Casement, the English consul, whose
report to the British government has caused so much agitation, and who
described many cases of mutilation, himself saw[A] but a single case;
and that case, though put forward by the missionaries as an example of
state atrocities, was finally withdrawn by them, as the subject had not
been mutilated by human assailants, but by a wild boar. Casement
traveled many miles and spent much time in securing the material for his
indictment, and yet saw[B] but this one case. We saw a single case of
mutilation. It was a boy at Ikoko, probably some twelve years old. He
had been found, a child of three or four years, by the side of his dead
mother, after a punitive expedition had visited the town. His mother’s
body had been mutilated and the child’s hand cut off. We might have seen
a second case of this sort at this place if we had searched for her.
There is a second there.

No one, I think, would desire to excuse the barbarity of cutting off the
hands of either dead or living, but we must remember that the soldiers
in these expeditions are natives, and in the excitement and bloodthirst
roused by a military attack they relapse to ancient customs. There has,
indeed, been considerable question recently whether the cutting off of
hands is really a native custom. Sir Francis de Winton, himself an
Englishman, and Stanley’s successor in the administration of the Congo
State, says that it was. And Glave says: “In every village in this
section (Lukolela) will be found slaves of both sexes with one ear cut
off. This is a popular form of punishment in an African village. It is
not at all unusual to hear such threats as ‘I will cut your ear off,’ ‘I
will sell you,’ or ‘I will kill you,’ and often they are said in
earnest.” Where such customs were constant in native life it is not
strange that they have lasted on into the present.

Of course, in this connection we must not forget that mutilation of dead
bodies is not by any means confined to the Congo Free State, nor to its
natives. Only a few months ago, in Southern Africa, the British force
cut off the head of a hostile chief. When the matter was investigated,
the excuse given was that it was done for purposes of identification,
and that the body was afterwards brought in and buried with it.

The most of the difficulty with the natives of the Congo Free State, of
course, comes in connection with the demand to gather rubber. The native
hates the forest; he dislikes to gather rubber; it takes him from his
home, and comfort, and wife. We have never accompanied a party of
natives gathering rubber, but we have seen them started and have also
seen them bringing in their product. The best rubber of the Congo is
produced by vines which frequently grow to several inches in diameter.
The same vine may be tapped many times. The milky juice, which exudes
abundantly, promptly coagulates into rubber; as it hardens it is rolled
into balls between the palm and some portion of the body, such as the
chest or leg.

The place where we have seen most of rubber production is in the High
Kasai, where the famous red rubber is produced, which sells for the
highest price of any African caoutchouc. My missionary friends have told
me that conditions in the Kasai are not bad and that they have no
special fault to find with the Kasai company. While there were things
that might be criticised, there was apparent fairness in the business.
The natives waited several days after they had gathered their balls of
rubber before bringing them in. This was for the reason that the
company’s agent had but an unattractive stock of goods in his magazine
at the moment; they preferred to wait until a new stock should come up
on the expected steamer. As soon as it appeared they sent word that they
might be expected the following day.

The old Bachoko chief, Maiila, was brought in state, in his blue
hammock; his people came singing and dancing with the baskets full of
balls of rubber on their heads. All proceeded to the magazine, where the
great steelyards were suspended and the rubber weighed; each man looked
carefully to see that his stock balanced evenly, and one of their
number, who understood the instrument and could figure, stood by to see
that all went fair. While the rubber was a demanded tax, a regular price
of 1 franc and 25 centimes the kilo was paid. This was given in stuffs,
of course, and the native selected what he pleased from the now abundant
stock of cloths, blankets, graniteware, and so forth. It may truly be
said that they came in singing gayly and went home glad.

At Mobandja we saw a large party setting out to the forest to gather
rubber, different from any that we had seen before in that a
considerable number of women formed a part of it. This feature I did not
like, although I presume it is an effort to meet the criticisms of the
report of the royal commission of investigation. The commission
particularly criticised the fact that the men, in going into the forest,
were deprived of the company of their women—a hardship strongly
emphasized. It is surely a mistake, however well it may be meant, to
send the women into the forest with the men to gather rubber. Such a
procedure involves the neglect of her fields and interrupts the woman’s
work.

And here we touch upon the thing which in my opinion is the worst
feature of the whole Congo business. Anything that affects the woman’s
work necessarily brings hardship. I have seen many heart-rending
statements in regard to the loss of work time which the man suffers by
going to the forest to gather rubber. We are told that by the time he
has gone several days’ journey into the dense forest, gathered his balls
of rubber, and returned again to his village, he has no time left for
work, and his family and the whole community suffers as a consequence.
But from what work does this gathering of rubber take the man?

We have already called attention to the fact that the support of the
family and the actual work in any village fall upon the woman. The man,
before he went into the forest to gather rubber, had no pressing duties.
His wife supported him; he spent his time in visiting, dancing, lolling
under shelters, drinking with his friends, or in palavers, sometimes of
great importance but frequently of no consequence; in other words, he
was an idler, or a man of leisure. I feel no sorrow on account of the
labors from which he is restrained. Personally, I should have no
objection to his idling. If he does not want to work and need not work,
I see no reason why he should not idle. But my readers are practical
men, who talk much of the dignity of labor and the elevation of the lazy
negro. Very good; if work is dignified and the elevation of the negro
necessary, let him collect rubber, but do not mourn over the fact that
he is deprived of opportunity to earn a living for himself and family.

There is, indeed, one set of circumstances under which the man may
really be deprived of opportunity to aid in the work of gaining a
living. Where the men in a community are really fishermen—they are not
always so—to take them from their fishing entails a hardship.

The thing which seems to me the worst is the kwanga tax on women and the
fish tax on men. The former is at its worst, perhaps, in Leopoldville;
the latter is bad enough at Nouvelle Anvers. Leopoldville is situated in
a district which yields much less for food than necessary. It has always
been so. Even in the days before the white man came, the people in the
native villages on Stanley Pool were obliged to buy food supplies from
outside, as they themselves, being devoted to trading, did no
cultivation. With the coming of the white man, and the establishing of a
great post at Leopoldville, with thousands of native workmen and
soldiers to be fed, the food question became serious. The state has
solved the problem by levying a food tax on the native villages for many
miles around.

The women are required to bring a certain amount of kwanga—native
cassava bread—to Leopoldville within a stated period of time. To do
this involves almost continuous labor, and really leaves the women
little time for attending to the needs of their own people. Some of them
are forced to come many miles with the supply of bread. When they have
cared for the growing plants in their fields, prepared the required
stint of kwanga, brought it the weary distance over the trails, and
again come back to their village, they must begin to prepare for the
next installment. For this heavy burden there must certainly be found
some remedy. Personally, it seems to me that the women belonging to the
workmen and the soldiers might be utilized in cultivating extensive
fields to supply the need. The condition of the men who pay the fish tax
is analogous to that of these kwanga-taxed women.

The question of the population of the Congo is an unsettled one. Stanley
estimated it at 29,000,000 people; Reclus, in 1888, estimated it at
something over 20,000,000; Wagner and Supan claimed 17,000,000, and
Vierkandt sets the figure at 11,000,000. The governor-general, Baron
Wahis, who has several times made the inspection of the whole river, is
inclined to think that even Stanley’s figure is below the true one.
Between these limits of 11,000,000 and 29,000,000 any one may choose
which he prefers. No one knows, or is likely for many years to know.
Those who believe that Stanley’s figure was true in its time, and that
Vierkandt’s is true at present, may well insist, as they do, that
depopulation is taking place.

Personally, I have no doubt that depopulation is going on. Of course,
the enemies of the Free State government attribute the diminution in
population chiefly to the cruelties practiced by the state, but it is
certain that many causes combine in the result.

The distribution of the Congo population is exceedingly irregular. From
Stanley Pool to Chumbiri there has been almost no population during the
period of our knowledge. On the other hand, from Basoko to Stanley Falls
the population is abundant and there is almost a continuous line of
native villages along the banks for miles. Practically, the state of
population is really known only along the river banks. Back from the
riverines are inland tribes, the areas of which in some cases are but
sparsely settled, while in others they swarm. They are, however, little
known, and just how the population is distributed is uncertain. The
district which we personally best know—the Kasai—is one of the most
populous of all the Congo State, and around the Sankuru, one of the main
tributaries of the Kasai, we perhaps have the densest population of the
country. If we take Stanley’s estimate as accurate, the population would
average twelve to the square kilometer.

Among known causes for the diminution of Congo population we may mention
first the raiding expeditions of the Arabs. These were numerous and
destructive in the extreme, throughout the region of the Upper Congo and
the Lualaba. Organized for taking slaves and getting booty, they
destroyed ruthlessly the adult male population and deported the women
and children. Towns were burned and whole districts left unoccupied.
There is no question that many of the punitive expeditions of the state
have been far more severe than necessity demanded; “the people must be
shown the power of Bula Matadi.” It is said that Vankerckhoven’s
expedition destroyed whole towns needlessly in the district of Chumbiri
and Bolobo. Certainly, the population in this section was formerly
abundant. Everywhere along the shores one sees the groups of palm trees
marking the sites of former villages; probably the present population is
no more than one fourth that which existed formerly.

Throughout the whole district, where the French Congo touches on the
river, it is a common thing for timid or disgruntled villagers to move
_en masse_ across the river into French territory. These wholesale
removals are an advantage to the natives, as that portion of the French
Congo is less well occupied by white posts and government officials than
the corresponding part of the Congo Free State. The natives who have
thus removed unquestionably have an easier time in the French colony.
This, however, can hardly be called depopulation, as it involves no loss
in persons, but merely a transfer from the Free State side to the other.
It does not at all affect the actual number of the race.

Sleeping-sickness is carrying off its tens of thousands.

But after we suggest these causes we are still far from a full solution
of the problem of depopulation, which is a mysterious thing. In
Polynesia we have another example of it on a prodigious scale. In
Polynesia we have neither slave raids, nor punitive expeditions, nor
sleeping-sickness. Yet, adults die and children are not born. If things
continue in the future as in the past, the time is not far distant when
the Polynesian—one of the most interesting and attractive of human
races—will be a thing completely of the past.

The case of our own American Indians is similar. Whole tribes have
disappeared; others are dying out so rapidly that a few years will see
their complete extinction. I am familiar with the arguments which, from
time to time, are printed to demonstrate that the number of American
Indians is as great as ever. It seems, however, that it is only rich
tribes that hold their own; the reason is not far to seek, but we may
not here pursue the argument further.

-----

[A] I am here in error. Casement _saw_ more than one case of mutilation;
he carefully _investigated_ but one.

[B] See footnote A.




                                 XIII.


                                                       February 1, 1907.

NOR is apparent depopulation of the Congo a matter of recent date.
Quotations might be given from many travelers. We quote three from
Bentley, because he was well acquainted with the country and because he
was an English missionary. In speaking of the town of Mputu, an hour and
a half distant from San Salvador, he describes the chief, Mbumba, a man
of energy, feared in all his district. He was strict in his demands
regarding conduct. In his presence others were required to sit
tailor-fashion. “To ease the cramped limbs, by stretching them out
before one, is a gross breach of decorum; any one who did so in Mbumba’s
presence was taken out, and was fortunate if he lost only an ear. We
have known several great chiefs who would order a man who sat carelessly
to be thus mutilated. His own people were much afraid of him on account
of his cruel, murderous ways; for a small offense he would kill them
relentlessly. He was superstitious and very ready to kill witches.
Through his evil temper, pride, and superstition, his town of several
hundred people was reduced to eighty or ninety souls.”

Again he says: “Our next camp was at Manzi; but as we had so many
people, the natives preferred that we should camp in a wood at Matamba,
twenty minutes’ walk beyond the town. The wood marked the site of a town
deserted some years before. There were no other towns on the road from
there to Isangila, a distance of thirty miles, for the wicked people had
killed each other out over their witch palavers. This was what the
natives told us themselves. Yet they went on killing their witches,
believing that if they did not do so all the people would be
exterminated. Two wretched villages of a few huts each were to be found
a few miles off the path, but the country was practically depopulated.”

In another place he says, in speaking of the caravan days: “All the
carriers suffered acutely from fever, and this was the case with all the
caravans on the road. This mortality was largely increased by the
improvidence of the carriers themselves. Thousands of men were engaged
in transport work at the time, but very few troubled to carry enough
food with them, or money wherewith to buy it. As a rule, the young men
staid in their towns as long as they had anything to buy food with; when
they failed, they borrowed until their debts became too great. Then they
arranged to go with some caravan to carry, and received ration money for
the road. This would be partly used up in the town, and the rest go to
those from whom they borrowed. On the road they lived largely on palm
nuts and raw cassava, and returned to their homes in a terribly
exhausted condition. With the influx of cloth gained by transportation
came hunger, for wealth made the women lazy; they preferred to buy food
rather than produce—the gardens came to an end, then hunger followed,
and sickness and death. Women staid at home to mourn, and the mischief
became worse. Sleep-sickness and smallpox spread. The population of the
cataracts district is not more than half what it was fifteen years ago.
The railway is now complete, and the country will adapt itself to its
new conditions.”

Those who are hostile to the state, of course, will find great comfort
in this quotation; for the transport system was an introduction by the
Belgians. It will be observed, however, that the author mentions no
cruelty on the part of the new masters in this connection; it must also
be remembered that the missionaries were as much interested in the
caravan system as any, and assisted in its development. My chief object
in introducing the quotation is to show how impossible it is to affect
native conditions in one way without bringing about a connected series
of changes, not always easy to foresee.

To me, the real wonder is that there are any of the Congo peoples left.
Think of the constant drain due to the foreign slave trade, continued
from an early date until after the middle of the last century. Think of
the continuous losses due to the barbarism of native chiefs and demands
of native customs—to wars, cannibalism, execution, and ordeal. Think of
the destruction caused by punitive expeditions—towns burned, people
killed. Think of the drafts made by the caravan system and the public
works which the state has been forced to carry out. Think of the
multitudes who have died with the diseases of the country and from
pestilence introduced by the newcomers. Yet the population really shows
signs of great vitality to-day, and the most discouraged missionary
hesitates a real prediction for the future.

There is a most interesting and suggestive map in Morel’s new book, “Red
Rubber.” It bears the legend, “Map showing revenue division of the Congo
Free State.” Upon this map we find marked with little crosses the
localities where specific reports of atrocities have been received. The
distribution of these crosses is interesting. We find a concentration of
them along the main river from the Rubi River almost to the mouth of the
Kasai, a notable bunch of them in the region of the A. B. I. R., and in
an area worked by the Antwerp trust; also in the district of Lake
Leopold II. There are few crosses indicative of bad treatment in the
Congo above this district, and practically none in the lower Congo and
the Kasai. It is precisely in the areas where these crosses are so
frequent that the early travelers had difficulty with the natives in
first traversing the country. In other words, the districts where native
hostility has in recent years produced the acts of alleged cruelty have
always been centers of disturbance and attack against the white man.
Districts which were found occupied by peaceful and friendly tribes have
been the scenes of few outrages. This seems to me a point worthy of
serious consideration.

For my own part, I believe that any well-behaved white man can to-day
traverse Africa in every direction without danger as long as his journey
confines itself to areas of Bantu and true negroes. Livingstone
practically had no trouble with native tribes; Schweinfurth, entering
from the Nile, penetrated to the heart of Africa with little trouble; Du
Chaillu traveled throughout the Ogowe valley without difficulty with
natives; Junker, following Schweinfurth’s trail, penetrated farther into
what is now the Congo Free State, passing through the territory of many
warlike and cannibal tribes, but never armed his men and never had a
difficulty with any native chief. It is true, however, that the tribes
of the Congo differ vastly from each other in disposition. Some are
warlike, some are peaceful to cowardice; some are genial, friendly,
open; others are surly, hostile, reserved, treacherous. While I have
always felt that Stanley looked for trouble and that he left a trail of
blood unnecessarily behind him, I recognize that the Bangala and many of
their neighbors are less agreeable, less kindly, more disposed for
trouble than many of the other tribes in the Free State. It is precisely
with these tribes that the chief difficulties of the state have been.

Another curious point is shown on Morel’s map. From what has been said
by critics of the state we would be justified in expecting to find those
districts where the white man’s influence had penetrated most fully, and
where he himself existed in greatest number, the worst in the matter of
atrocity. But it is precisely in these districts that Morel’s map shows
no marks of reported atrocities. It is plain, then, that the officials
of the Congo Free State are not, as a body, men delighting in cruelty
and outrage. Where there are numbers of them, instead of conditions
being at their worst they are at their happiest. It is only where there
are lonely men surrounded by depressing influences and in the midst of
hostile and surly tribes that these dreadful things are found. It is
natural to expect that with fuller penetration of the white men into
these districts conditions will change hopefully.

But why should we pick out the Congo Free State for our assault?
Atrocities occur wherever the white man, with his thirst for gold, comes
into contact with “a lower people.” He is ever there to exploit; he
believes that they were created for exploitation. If we want to find
cruelty, atrocities, all kinds of frightful maltreatment, we may find
them in almost every part of negro Africa. They exist in the French
Congo, in German Africa, in Nigeria, even in Uganda. If we insist on
finding them, we may find cruelty, dispossession, destruction of life
and property, in all these areas. The only ruthless act involving the
death of a black native that we really saw was in French territory. If
there were any object in doing so, we could write a harrowing story of
British iniquity in Africa, but it is unnecessary; every one who stops
to think and who reads at all knows the fact.

Wherever British trade finds native custom standing in its way, we shall
find cruelty. Why was King Ja Ja deported? I have heard an interesting
incident connected with his case. One who for many years has voyaged up
and down the western coast of Africa tells me that while Ja Ja was still
at his height of power the natives of his district, paddling near the
shores in their canoes, were always happy and joyous. Ja Ja stood in the
way of the British traders gaining so much money as they wanted, and so
he was exiled and taken a prisoner to distant lands. From the day of his
departure the happiness of life was gone from all the country. Few
natives put out in their canoes, and those who did were silent; the song
and laughter of former days were hushed. Until the day when he was
brought home, a corpse, for burial, somberness and sadness settled down
upon his people, before so gay and light hearted. What was it caused the
trouble at Benin but British greed insisting on opening up a territory
which its natives desired to keep closed? The Benin massacre that
followed was dreadful, but it did not begin to compare in frightful
bloodshed with the punitive expedition which followed—a feat scarce
worthy of British arms. What was the cause of hut-tax wars? What is the
matter now in Natal? Do we know all that goes on in Nigeria? Wherein is
excellence in the expropriation of lands and products in Uganda for the
benefit of concession companies of the same kind exactly as those in
Congo? Why is it worse to cut off the hands of dead men for purposes of
tally than to cut off the heads of dead chiefs for purposes of
identification? But let it pass—we are not undertaking an assault on
Britain.




                                  XIV.


                                                       February 2, 1907.

RETURNED from the Congo country and a year and more of contact with
the dark natives, I find a curious and most disagreeable sensation has
possession of me. I had often read and heard that other peoples
regularly find the faces of white men terrifying and cruel. The Chinese,
the Japanese, other peoples of Asia, all tell the same story.

The white man’s face is fierce and terrible. His great and prominent
nose suggests the tearing beak of some bird of prey. His fierce face
causes babes to cry, children to run in terror, grown folk to tremble. I
had always been inclined to think that this feeling was individual and
trifling; that it was solely due to strangeness and lack of contact.
To-day I know better. Contrasted with the other faces of the world, the
face of the fair white is terrible, fierce, and cruel. No doubt our
intensity of purpose, our firmness and dislike of interference, our
manner in walk and action, and in speech, all add to the effect. However
that may be, both in Europe and our own land, after my visit to the
blacks, I see the cruelty and fierceness of the white man’s face as I
never would have believed was possible. For the first time, I can
appreciate fully the feeling of the natives. The white man’s dreadful
face is a prediction; where the fair white goes he devastates, destroys,
depopulates. Witness America, Australia, and Van Diemen’s Land.

Morel’s “Red Rubber” contains an introductory chapter by Sir Harry
Johnston. In it the ex-ruler of British Central Africa says the
following: “A few words as to the logic of my own position as a critic
of King Leopold’s rule on the Congo. I have been reminded, in some of
the publications issued by the Congo government; that I have instituted
a hut-tax in regions intrusted to my administration; that I have created
crown lands which have become the property of the government; that as an
agent of the government I have sold and leased portions of African soil
to European traders; that I have favored, or at any rate have not
condemned, the assumption by an African state of control over natural
sources of wealth; that I have advocated measures which have installed
Europeans as the master—for the time being—over the uncivilized negro
or the semicivilized Somali, Arab, or Berber.”

It is true that Sir Harry Johnston has done all these things. They are
things which, done by Belgium, are heinous in English eyes. He proceeds
to justify them by their motive and their end. He aims to show a notable
difference between these things as Belgian and as English. He seems to
feel that the fact of a portion of the product of these acts being used
to benefit the native is an ample excuse. But so long as (a) the judge
of the value of the return made to the sufferer is the usurper, and not
the recipient, there is no difference between a well-meaning overlord
and a bloody-minded tyrant; and (b) as long as the taxed is not
consulted and his permission is not gained for taxation, there is only
injustice in its infliction, no matter for what end. Sir Harry uses the
word “logic.” A logical argument leaves him and Leopold in precisely the
same position with reference to the native.

Sir Harry closes his introduction with a strange and interesting
statement. He says:

“The danger in this state of affairs lies in the ferment of hatred which
is being created against the white race in general, by the agents of the
king of Belgium, in the minds of the Congo negroes. The negro has a
remarkably keen sense of justice. He recognizes in British Central
Africa, in East Africa, in Nigeria, in South Africa, in Togoland,
Dahomey, the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, and Senegambia that, on the
whole, though the white men ruling in those regions have made some
mistakes and committed some crimes, have been guilty of some injustice,
yet that the state of affairs they have brought into existence as
regards the black man is one infinitely superior to that which preceded
the arrival of the white man as a temporary ruler. Therefore, though
there may be a rising here or a partial tumult there, the mass of the
people increase and multiply with content and acquiesce in our tutelary
position.

“Were it otherwise, any attempt at combination on their part would soon
overwhelm us and extinguish our rule. Why, in the majority of cases, the
soldiers with whom we keep them in subjection are of their own race. But
unless some stop can be put to the misgovernment of the Congo region, I
venture to warn those who are interested in African politics that a
movement is already begun and is spreading fast which will unite the
negroes against the white race, a movement which will prematurely stamp
out the beginnings of the new civilization we are trying to implant, and
against which movement, except so far as the actual coast line is
concerned, the resources of men and money which Europe can put into the
field will be powerless.”

This is curious and interesting. But it is scarcely logical or candid.
Allow me to quote beside Sir Harry’s observations the following, taken
from the papers of March 4, 1906:

“Sir Arthur Lawley, who has just been appointed governor of Madras,
after devoting many years to the administration of the Transvaal, gave
frank utterance the other day, before his departure from South Africa
for India, to his conviction that ere long a great rising of the blacks
against the whites will take place, extending all over the British
colonies from the Cape to the Zambesi. Sir Arthur, who is recognized as
an authority on all problems connected with the subject of native races,
besides being a singularly level-headed man, spoke with profound
earnestness when he explained in the course of the farewell address:
‘See to this question. For it is the greatest problem you have to face.’
And the solemn character of his valedictory warning was rendered
additionally impressive in the knowledge that it was based upon
information beyond all question.”

It is certain that the affairs in the Congo Free State have produced
neither restlessness nor concerted action in British Africa. Why is it
that on both sides of Southern Africa there have been recent outbreaks
of turbulence? The natives, indeed, seem ungrateful for the benefits of
English rule. Sir Arthur Lawley looks for a rising over the whole of
British Africa, from the Cape to the Zambesi. In what way can the
misgovernment of the Congo by its ruler have produced a condition so
threatening? Both these gentlemen have reason, perhaps, for their fears
of an outbreak, but as I have said, there is neither logic nor candor in
attributing the present agitation in Southern Africa to King Leopold.

What really is the motive underlying the assault upon the Congo? What
has maintained an agitation and a propaganda with apparently such
disinterested aims? Personally, although I began my consideration of the
question with a different belief, I consider it entirely political and
selfish. Sir Harry Johnston naïvely says: “When I first visited the
western regions of the Congo it was in the days of imperialism, when
most young Britishers abroad could conceive of no better fate for an
undeveloped country than to come under the British flag. The outcome of
Stanley’s work seemed to me clear; it should be eventually the
Britannicising of much of the Congo basin, perhaps in friendly agreement
and partition of interests with France and Portugal.”

Unquestionably this notion of the proper solution of the question took
possession of many minds in Great Britain at the same time. And England
was never satisfied with the foundation of the Congo Free State as an
independent nation.

A little further on, Sir Harry states that the British missionaries of
that time were against such solution; they did not wish the taking over
of the district by Great Britain. And why? “They anticipated troubles
and bloodshed arising from any attempt on the part of Great Britain to
subdue the vast and unknown regions of the Congo, even then clearly
threatened by Arabs.” In other words, Britons at home would have been
glad to have absorbed the Congo; Britons on the ground feared the
trouble and bloodshed necessary. But now that the Belgians have borne
the trouble and the bloodshed and paid the bills, Britain does not
despise the plum. Indeed, Britain’s ambitions in Africa are magnificent.
Why should she not absorb the entire continent? She has
Egypt—temporarily—and shows no sign of relinquishing it; she has the
Transvaal and the Orange Free State; how she picked a quarrel and how
she seized them we all know. Now she could conveniently annex the Congo.

The missionaries in the Congo Free State are no doubt honest in saying,
what they say on every possible occasion, that they do not wish England
to take over the country; that they would prefer to have it stay in
Belgian hands; that, however, they would have the Belgian government
itself responsible instead of a single person. I believe them honest
when they say this, but I think them self-deceived; I feel convinced
that if the question was placed directly to them, “Shall England or
Belgium govern the Congo?” and they knew that their answer would be
decisive, their vote would be exceedingly one-sided and produce a change
of masters. But the missionaries are not the British government; they do
not shape the policies of the empire; their agitation may be useful to
the scheming politician and may bring about results which they
themselves had not intended. It is always the scheme of rulers and of
parties to take advantage of the generous outbursts of sympathy and
feeling of the masses for their selfish ends.

The missionaries and many of the prominent agitators in the propaganda
against the Free State have said they would be satisfied if Belgium
takes over the government. This statement never has seemed to me honest
or candid. The agitators will not be suited if Belgium takes the Congo;
I have said this all the time, and the incidents of the last few days
have demonstrated the justness of my opinion. Already hostility to
Belgian ownership is evident. It will increase. When the king really
turns the Congo Free State government into Belgium’s hands the agitation
will continue, complaints still will be made, and conditions will be
much as formerly.

Great Britain never has been the friend of the Congo Free State; its
birth thwarted her plans; its continuance threatens her commerce and
interferes with expansion and with the carrying out of grand
enterprises. In the earlier edition of his little book entitled “The
Colonization of Africa,” Sir Harry Johnston spoke in high terms of the
Congo Free State and the work which it was doing. In the later editions
of the same book he retracts his words of praise; he quotes the
atrocities and maladministration of the country. My quotation is not
verbal, as for the moment I have not the book at hand, but he ends by
saying something of this sort: “Belgium should rule the Congo Free
State; it may safely be allowed to govern the greater portion of that
territory.”

“The greater portion of the territory”—and what portion is it that
Belgium perhaps cannot well govern? Of course, that district through
which the Cape-to-Cairo Railroad would find its most convenient roadbed.
If Great Britain can get that, we shall hear no more of Congo
atrocities. There are two ways possible in which this district may be
gained. If England can enlist our sympathy, our aid, our influence, she
may bid defiance to Germany and France and seize from Leopold or from
little Belgium so much of the Congo Free State as she considers
necessary for her purpose, leaving the rest to the king or to his
country.

If we are not to be inveigled into such assistance, she may, in time and
by good diplomacy, come to an understanding with France and Germany for
the partition of the Free State. Of course, in such event France would
take that section which adjoins her territory, Germany would take the
whole Kasai, which was first explored and visited by German travelers,
and England would take the eastern portion, touching on Uganda and
furnishing the best site for her desired railroad.

The same steamer which took me to the Congo carried a newly appointed
British vice-consul to that country. On one occasion he detailed to a
missionary friend his instructions as laid down in his commission. I was
seated close by those in conversation, and no attempt was made on my
part to overhear or on their part toward secrecy. His statement
indicated that the prime object of his appointment was to make a careful
examination of the Aruwimi River, to see whether its valley could be
utilized for a railroad. The second of the four objects of his
appointment was to secure as large a volume as possible of complaints
from British subjects (blacks) resident in the Congo Free State. The
third was to accumulate all possible information regarding atrocities
upon the natives. These three, out of four, objects of his appointment
seem to be most interesting and suggestive.

On a later occasion I was in company with this same gentleman. A
missionary present had expressed anxiety that the report of the
commission of inquiry and investigation should appear. It will be
remembered that a considerable time elapsed between the return of the
commission to Europe and the publishing of its report. After the
missionary had expressed his anxiety for its appearance and to know its
contents, the vice-consul remarked: “It makes no difference when the
report appears; it makes no difference if it never appears; the British
government has decided upon its course of action, and it will not be
influenced by whatever the commission’s report may contain.” Comment
upon this observation is superfluous.

Upon the Atlantic steamer which brought us from Antwerp to New York City
there was a young Canadian returning from three years abroad. He knew
that we had been in the Congo Free State, and on several occasions
conversed with me about my journey. We had never referred to atrocities,
nor conditions, nor politics. One day, with no particular reason in the
preceding conversation for the statement, he said: “Of course, the
Belgians will lose the Congo. We have got to have it. We must build the
Cape-to-Cairo road. You know, we wanted the Transvaal. We found a way to
get it; we have it. So we will find some way to get the Congo.”

Of course, this was the remark of a very young man. But the remarks of
young men, wild and foolish though they often sound, usually voice the
feelings and thoughts which older men cherish, but dare not speak.




[Illustration: CONSTRUCTING NEW HOUSES AT BASOKO]




                                  XV.


                                                       February 3, 1907.

OUGHT we to interfere? In this whole discussion I have looked at the
question solely from the humanitarian standpoint. I assume that
Secretary Root’s first presentation of the matter was carefully
prepared. He insisted that we had no grounds for interference, insofar
as the Berlin conference was concerned. It is only, then, from the point
of view of interest in the natives, the desire to save them from
suffering and from atrocity, that we can join with England in calling a
new conference of the world’s powers to consider Congo matters. Ought we
to pursue such a course? We ought not, and that for several reasons.

First—We should not interfere in Congo matters from philanthropic
reasons, unless we are ready to undertake the policing of the whole of
Africa. If the atrocities in the Congo are sufficient to involve us in
difficulty with Belgium or with Belgium’s king, the atrocities and
cruelty practiced in the French Congo, throughout German Africa, in the
Portuguese possessions, and even in the English colonies, must also
attract our notice. If we really intervene to save the African black man
from white oppression, we must do this job thoroughly and on a large
scale.

Second—We should not interfere with the conditions in Congo unless we
desire strained relations with France and Germany. No possible agitation
will bring about a second meeting of all the powers that participated in
the Berlin conference. Turkey alone, so far, has signified her
willingness to act with England. The only other nation in which there
seems to be the slightest trend toward participation is Italy. No
Scandinavian country—Sweden, Norway, Denmark—will join in the
movement. The many Scandinavians who, in one capacity or another, have
labored in the Congo Free State are, on the whole, well satisfied with
the conditions. Though there is a vigorous and aggressive Swedish
mission in the country, it is significant that its members have never
joined in the agitation. Nor is Holland, which has sent a large number
of individuals into the Congo State as employés of government and
concession companies, likely to favor an agitation. Austria, for various
reasons, stands aloof. France has a definite understanding whereby in
case of the dissolution of the Congo Free State she becomes heir to all
the district. Germany, responsible for the foundation of the Congo Free
State, has, on the whole, always favored its existence, and would
certainly oppose interference in its affairs. In case of the partition
of the Congo, Germany would be willing enough to take her share, but it
is really more to her interest both at home and abroad to maintain its
independence. All these European countries speak quite freely in regard
to England’s design. France and Germany would seriously oppose any
demonstration by England and the United States.

Third—We ought not to interfere unless we are really willing to play
the undignified part of pulling England’s chestnuts from the fire. What
would we, nationally, gain by the partition of the Congo? Our repeated
declarations about not wishing new territory in distant regions are, of
course, looked upon as twaddle by other nations. If we really mean them,
we must avoid the very appearance of evil. What will the natives gain by
partition? They will still have their oppressors, only they will be
divided around among three instead of being exploited by one. Suppose
the redistribution did take place. Suppose France, Germany, and England
divided the Congo between them; suppose—as would be certain—that
oppression and atrocity continued in the divided territory. Would we
still continue our noble effort in behalf of the suffering black
millions?

Fourth—We should not interfere, unless we wish to present a glaring
example of national inconsistency. Distance lends enchantment to the
view. We are solicitous about the Bantu in their home under the rule of
Leopold II.; we have 12,000,000 or more of them within our own United
States. The Bantu in the Congo we love. We suffer when he is whipped,
shudder when he is put upon a chain-gang, shriek when he is murdered.
Yet, here he may be whipped, put on the chain-gang, murdered, and if any
raise an outcry he is a sentimentalist. Our negro problem is a serious
and difficult one. We do not know how to treat it. But it is at our
door, and we can study it and strike out some mode of treatment. But the
years pass, and we do nothing. So complicated is it and so united
together and interdependent its issues and its elements, that any course
of action is dangerous, because we frequently cannot foresee the outcome
of well-meant effort. With this example constantly before us, one would
suppose that we would hesitate in meddling with the equally complicated
problem, regarding conditions of which we know little or nothing, on the
other side of the globe.

Fifth—We ought not to interfere, unless we come with clean hands. We
have an even closer parallel to Congo conditions than our negro problem
in the South. In the Philippines we found a people to be elevated; an
inscrutable Providence—so we say—thrust the Philippine Islands, with
their millions, upon us. A few years ago we heard much of benevolent
assimilation. Benevolent assimilation is the most dreadful of all forms
of cannibalism. Our Congo reformers emphasize the fact that the Congo
State was founded with many philanthropic assertions and with
high-sounding promises of improving and elevating the native population.
The parallel is close. We took the Philippines and Filipinos for their
good. So we said. Of course, we took them just as the European nations
have taken Africa—for exploitation. Had there been no hope of mines, of
timber, of cheap land for speculation, of railroads to be built, and
other enterprises to be undertaken and financed, we should never have
had such a tender interest in the advancement of the Filipinos. And how
has our benevolent assimilation proceeded? Just exactly as it always
proceeds everywhere in tropic lands with “lower peoples.” Torture,
punitive expeditions, betrayal of confidence and friendship,
depopulation—these have been the agencies through which we have
attempted to elevate a race.

You will tell me that what I am about to quote is ancient history and
has lost its force. It is no more ancient than the bulk of the
atrocities and cruelties within the Congo. We quote a newspaper of April
12, 1902:

“From the Philippines authentic news is now at hand tending to confirm
the charges of barbarity on the part of American army officers, which
have hitherto been strenuously and sweepingly denied. This news comes in
Associated Press dispatches reporting the court-martial trial of Major
Waller, now in progress at Manila. This officer led an expedition last
winter into the interior of the island of Samar. After being given up
for dead, he and his party returned to camp January 28th, delirious from
privation. Major Waller was next heard of in this connection in a
dispatch of March 6th from Manila. He had been subjected to
court-martial proceedings, on charges of having, while on this ill-fated
expedition, executed natives of the island of Samar without trial. One
of the specifications alleged that in one instance the accused had
caused a native to be tied to a tree, and on one day to be shot in the
thigh, on the next in the arm, on the third in the body, and on the
fourth to be killed. Friends of Major Waller attributed his horrible
action to delirium caused by privation; but Major Waller himself refused
to make this defense, insisting that he had acted under superior
authority.”

This sounds like an indictment of the Belgians in the Congo put forth by
the Congo Reform Association. It is revolting; it is horrible; it
probably is true. Personally, I believe that Major Waller must have
suffered from the physical, the mental, the moral disintegration which
the tropics so constantly produce in white men. It is unlikely that he
was by nature a man of exceptional cruelty. He became what he
was—either permanently or for a time—through the environment in which
he lived. He had excuse; so have the Belgians. There is another respect
in which this quotation sounds Congo-like. Major Waller insisted that he
had “acted under superior authority.”

This phrase, he “acted under superior authority,” is constantly harped
upon by Morel and others of the Congo agitators. Much is made of it, and
we are constantly asked to trace home the order which issued from
superior authority From whom came Major Waller’s orders? In his trial,
February 8th, 1902, he disclosed the startling nature of General Smith’s
orders, as he had understood them. He swore that General Smith had said:
“I wish you to kill and burn. The more you kill, the more you will
please me. The interior of Samar must be made a howling wilderness. Kill
every native over ten years old.”

When serious complaints of maladministration are brought before the
Belgian authorities of the Congo, investigation and trial are usually
ordered. The Congo agitators lay great stress upon the fact that in the
Congo these trials are farces; that the accused is rarely sentenced to
punishment; that sometimes after his acquittal he is lionized, made a
hero of, advanced in office. This is an unpardonable crime when
committed by the Belgians. Lothaire—and really Lothaire was as bad as
any—was thus treated. One would imagine from the chorus of complaint
along this line that every English or American officer accused of
cruelty, misgovernment or maladministration was promptly and severely
punished.

Major Waller received the verdict that he had acted “in accordance with
the rules of war, the orders of his superior, and the military
exigencies of the situation.” This, again, can hardly be improved upon
in all the cases put forward joyously by the reformers. When complaint
is made it is never treated honestly. There is always whitewashing. Why
howl over Belgian failure to punish? Waller’s verdict shows that we do
precisely the same thing in the same circumstances. But look at what was
done with General Smith, the man who ordered that down to ten years of
age the natives should be killed. He, too, was ordered to undergo
court-martial. From a newspaper of May 3d, 1902, we quote: “At the
opening, Colonel Woodruff announced his willingness to simplify the
proceedings by admitting that most of the accusations were true. He said
he was willing, in behalf of General Smith, to admit that inasmuch as
the country was hostile, General Smith did not want any prisoners, and
that he had issued orders to Major Waller to kill all persons capable of
bearing arms, fixing the age limit at ten years, because many boys of
that age had borne arms against the American troops, and that he had
ordered Major Waller also to burn the homes of the people and to make
Samar a howling wilderness.”

What was done with General Smith? His court-martial began on April 25.
Its result was, of course, a whitewash; it always is, whether the person
tried is American, French, German, or Belgian. It is curious, however,
to observe how others were affected by this case. There was one man who
knew better than any other all the facts relating to the Philippines.
His utterance, which we shall quote, was expressed, indeed, before this
trial, but it was expressed with full knowledge of similar facts. That
man, on March 5th, made the assertion: “It is not the fact that the
warfare in the Philippines has been conducted with marked severity; on
the contrary, the warfare has been conducted with marked humanity and
magnanimity on the part of the United States army.” What a pity that we
are less ready to talk of marked humanity and magnanimity of others! Can
Waller’s crime be surpassed by anything from Congo; can any order be
more cruel than General Smith’s?

I have said that this would be called ancient history. At Leopoldville I
asked about atrocities; the response was that at present there was
nothing serious to complain of in that region beyond the kwanga tax;
when I reached Ikoko, where undoubtedly many cruel things have taken
place, they told me that at present such things did not occur there,
that to find them I must go to the A. B. I. R.; that the fish tax was
too heavy, but that of cruelties, atrocities and mutilations there had
been none for years. At Bolobo I heard precisely the same story—the
most frightful things had taken place at Lake Leopold II.—that recently
nothing serious had happened at Bolobo itself. I presume that there are
outrages and cruelties of recent date in the A. B. I. R. and the Antwerp
Concession. But here, again, the parallel between the Congo and the
Philippines is close. While the Waller and Smith incident is ancient,
there is plenty doing at the present time. We quote a paper August 18,
1906: “The Pulajanes—wild tribesmen of the Philippine island of
Leyte—continue their fighting. Five Americans, including a lieutenant
and a surgeon, were killed in a hand-to-hand encounter in the town of
Burauen on the 9th. It was reported on the 14th that Governor-General
Ide has determined to exterminate the Pulajanes, even if it should take
every American soldier on the islands to do it.”

This sounds like depopulation. And why is depopulation worse in Africa
than in the Philippines? Why should a President who views the latter
with complacency—and I may say with commendation—feel so keenly with
reference to the former? A special message of commendation was promptly
sent to an American leader for his killing of hundreds of men, women,
and children; depopulation on a large scale and of the same kind as he
reprobates when done by Leopold’s soldiers. Our friends of the Congo
Reform Association are strangely silent in regard to such letters of
commendation; they are much grieved because Lothaire was lionized, but
they hurrah over the accumulating honors of a Funston.

When our hands are clean and when we have given the Filipinos their
well-deserved independence and free government, and left them to work
out their own salvation, then and not till then, should we intervene in
the Congo Free State for reasons of humanity. I say when we have left
the Filipinos to work out their own salvation; we have strange ideas
regarding the kindnesses we do to other peoples. Thus Cuba is supposed
to be under an eternal debt of obligation to us for the government which
we set up in that unhappy land. We devised a model government, according
to our own ideas; to be sure, it is a government so expensive to keep up
that few, if any, portions of the United States with the population of
Cuba could possibly support it. We put in sanitary improvements,
nominally for the benefit of Cubans, but actually with a shrewd
afterthought for ourselves, which we demanded should be maintained at
any price. Of course, it is impossible for a country with the population
and resources of Cuba to maintain them. This will give us repeated
opportunities for interference in the affairs of the island,
interference which ultimately may weary the people into assent to
uniting with us. They will lose both independence and happiness, and we
will gain an added problem; and the only persons profited will be those
who are, and will be, exploiting the island for their selfish ends.

So, in the Philippines, we will develop a government which,
theoretically, may seem perfect. The difficulty is that it must be much
less suitable for Filipinos than a less perfect government, planned and
carried out along lines of their own ideas. Lately a Filipino in this
country has said something which has the ring of truth. “We have money
enough to maintain a better and less expensive government than that
costly one which is trying to make the people what the government wants
them to be, and not to make itself what the people want and expect,
dictating laws one day which next day are canceled and changed in a
thousand places and in a thousand ways, so that justice is converted
into a mere babel. Believe me, dear sir, that even our ephemeral
government at Malolos showed no such incapacity. This is due to the fact
that he who governs the house does not belong to the house, and
everybody knows the old Spanish proverb, ‘The fool is wiser in his own
house than the wise man in his neighbor’s.’”

If it is necessary for us as a nation to look for African adventure; if
to give a strenuous President the feeling that he is “doing something”
we must meddle in the affairs of the Dark Continent, there is a district
where we might intervene with more of reason, and consistency, and grace
than we are doing by going to the Congo. We once established on African
soil, whether wisely or not I do not intend to discuss, a free republic
for the blacks. In Liberia we have an American enterprise, pure and
simple. It has not been a great success. It is just possible—though I
doubt it—that Liberia would at several times have profited and been
advantaged by our instruction and interest. But it seems to possess
little interest for us. Just now, like the Congo, it is attracting
British attention. Whether it has large or little value, whether it
possesses great opportunities or not, it is now a center of interest to
Great Britain. She does not need our help in pulling chestnuts from the
fire there, and there has been strange silence and ignorance in this
country regarding it as a new sphere for English influence. If we assist
England in expanding her African possessions at the expense of the Congo
Free State, Liberia will be the next fraction of Africa to succumb to
English rule. England’s methods of procedure are various. It might be a
useful lesson for our statesmen and politicians to study Liberia’s
prospects with care. We are still young in the business of grabbing
other people’s lands. England could teach us many lessons. The latest
one may well be worthy our attention, since, in a certain sense, it
deals with a district where we naturally possess an interest.




                     PRINTED BY R. R. DONNELLEY
                     AND SONS COMPANY AT THE
                     LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO, ILL.




                           TRANSCRIBER NOTES


Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in punctuation have been maintained.

Some illustrations were moved to facilitate page layout.

[The end of _The Truth About The Congo_, by Frederick Starr (Ofuda
Hakushi).]





End of Project Gutenberg's The Truth About the Congo, by Frederick Starr