LAND AND PEOPLES OF THE KASAI
[Illustration: THE OLD BILUMBU RELATING THE LEGENDS OF HIS TRIBE.
(see page 104)]
LAND AND PEOPLES
OF THE KASAI
BEING A NARRATIVE OF A TWO YEARS’ JOURNEY
AMONG THE CANNIBALS OF THE EQUATORIAL
FOREST AND OTHER SAVAGE TRIBES OF
THE SOUTH-WESTERN CONGO
BY
M. W. HILTON-SIMPSON
F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., F.R.A.I.
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS AND EIGHT FULL-PAGE
COLOUR PLATES AND A MAP
LONDON
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY
LIMITED
1911
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
INTRODUCTION
I ought to say a few words as to how the expedition I have attempted to
describe in the following pages came to be undertaken, and why the task
of describing its wanderings has fallen upon me.
In the summer of 1907 I was contemplating a journey in the Sahara Desert,
a country with which I had some previous acquaintance, when the trouble
between France and Morocco led the French Government to decide that
the state of affairs in the Sahara was too unsettled to admit of its
allowing travellers to wander there unescorted, and, there being already
sufficient to occupy all the troops in that region, it felt itself unable
to offer me any soldiers to accompany me. I was accordingly obliged to
abandon my expedition, for which most of my preparations had been made.
I was determined to go somewhere, however, and Mr. T. A. Joyce, of the
British Museum, suggested that I should visit the Congo, in the natives
of which country he was keenly interested. He introduced me to Mr. Emil
Torday, the Hungarian traveller, with whom he had collaborated in the
writing of numerous papers about the Congo natives for the publications
of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and Mr. Torday invited me to join
him upon an expedition which he was about to undertake in the Kasai basin
of the Congo Free State. I at once agreed to accompany him, delighted at
the opportunity of visiting equatorial Africa, and of seeing something
of the life of its primitive inhabitants. Mr. Torday had already studied
the peoples who dwell in the south-western portion of the Congo State
around the Kwilu River, and he desired to make an ethnographical survey
of the natives of the Kasai and Sankuru basins, at the same time making
extensive collections for the ethnographical department of the British
Museum, and, if possible, of visiting the hitherto unexplored country
between the Kasai and its tributary the Loange, which is inhabited by the
Tukongo, a people so hostile to the white man that their tract of country
had never been traversed by a European.
The Kasai is the largest of those mighty waterways which form the
tributaries of the Congo. Rising not far from the sources of the Zambezi,
it flows northward into Congo territory, turning almost at right angles
to the west at the point where it receives the waters of the Sankuru, and
falling into the Congo about 140 miles above Stanley Pool. The Kasai is
navigable for river steamers up to Wissmann Falls, above its confluence
with the Lulua, and these vessels ply upon the Sankuru to a point a
little above Lusambo. Upon one or two of the lesser streams of the
district, such as the Kwilu (itself a great river), the Inzia, and the
Lubefu, small steamers are employed. The trade of this country was in the
hands of the Kasai Company, which has established numerous factories on
the banks of the principal rivers and in the interior. As no coinage had
in 1907 been introduced in the Kasai district, Mr. Torday knew that we
should require very large quantities of trade goods, such as cloth, salt,
iron bars, knives, &c., which passes for money among the natives, and
in order to avoid the waste of money which would result if we purchased
these commodities in Europe and then found many of them unsaleable in
Africa, he approached the Kasai Company with the request that we might
buy such goods as we required at the factories from the stock kept by
the Company for the purchase of ivory and rubber. In this way we should
be sure of obtaining the goods the people of each locality we visited
really required. The Kasai Company kindly agreed to this proposal, and
also consented to allow our baggage and the collections we were to make
to be conveyed in their steamers. The Government of the Congo, which had
been requested by the authorities of the British Museum to further the
interests of our expedition, and which is ever ready to help forward
the efforts of the scientist or sportsman, agreed to give us special
facilities for collecting natural history specimens, and to allow the
cases we addressed to the Museum to come out of the Congo unopened by the
customs’ officials. While Mr. Torday was busily engaged in making the
arrangements necessary for our journey, Mr. Norman H. Hardy, a well-known
painter of native life, offered to accompany us for the first six months
of our journey, and as Mr. Torday was particularly anxious to secure
reliable coloured pictures of the natives among whom he was to work, he
gladly agreed to this suggestion, and Mr. Hardy became the third member
of our party. While Mr. Torday was making his investigations in the
field, Mr. T. A. Joyce had been engaged upon library work in Europe,
and they have collaborated in publishing the scientific results of the
journey, some of which are not yet fully worked up, although their
monograph on the Bushongo tribe has recently been published.
During the whole journey I carefully kept a personal diary, in which I
described the country we passed through and the various adventures which
befel us in our wanderings. Upon our return home several people suggested
to me that I should write some account of the expedition which might
prove of interest to the general reader. Mr. Torday was anxious that I
should do this, for his own time would be too fully occupied in working
up his scientific notes to allow him sufficient leisure for the writing
of a book of travel.
When I returned to Europe, however, I was in a very bad state of health,
for I had broken a bone in my right hand some nine months previously,
which I had not been able to have set, and which necessitated my carrying
my arm in a sling for a couple of months on reaching England, and also
the frequent fevers of the equatorial forest and the period of starvation
through which we passed during the latter part of 1908 had told seriously
upon my constitution. I was accordingly unable to undertake any work for
a considerable time after my return from Africa. This must be my excuse
for publishing now a book relating to a journey which came to an end in
1909. I would ask my readers to be so kind as to remember that I make no
pretensions to literary merits. I have for some years led the life of a
wanderer, and it has been my good fortune to witness many strange scenes,
to come in contact with many remarkable peoples, and to visit districts
many of which have never hitherto been described in the English language.
I only regret that I do not possess the literary skill necessary to do
justice to them. Had there been any other member of our party who stayed
with the expedition during the whole of its sojourn in Africa, doubtless
the task of narrating our adventures would have been very much better
fulfilled; as it is, with Mr. Torday busily engaged in scientific work,
and Mr. Hardy absent during the last part of our journey, I am the only
person upon whom this task can devolve.
As my readers will observe, this book has no political motive; it is
intended merely to be a record of our journey, and they will find in the
following pages nothing about the atrocities which we hear have been
perpetrated in many parts of the Congo. The reason for this is that we
came across no brutality on the part of white men towards natives during
our journey in the Kasai district. When I returned from Africa I made
this statement to a representative of the Press, with the result that I
aroused such indignation on the part of certain persons that I almost
feel I ought to apologise for my misfortune in having no atrocities to
describe. As my narrative will show, we lived for practically two years
in close contact with the natives, and we were fortunate enough to win
the confidence of nearly all the peoples with whom we dwelt, but I was
able to obtain no tales of atrocities from them. What goes on in parts of
the Congo which I have never visited I am not in a position to state; I
shall only deal with districts which I personally know.
Nor is it my intention to attempt to instruct the Belgians how to govern
their new colony—it would take a far wiser head than mine to face the
many problems by which they are confronted in the Congo—but I would like
to say one word of warning. Let no one imagine that “any sort of man”
will do to administer the black man’s country, and that the negro regards
every European as a great and wonderful personage. Far from it. The
negro judges every white man on his merits, and no one can more quickly
distinguish a gentleman from a scapegrace, or a strong man from a weak,
than the primitive inhabitants of Central Africa. Let the Belgians,
bearing this in mind, do their utmost to induce men of the _best class_
to enter the Congo service, and the success of their colonial enterprise
should be assured.
As my readers may very possibly wonder how we obtained a great deal
of the information relating to tribal customs, &c., to which I shall
allude, I may here give some idea of how Mr. Torday carried on his
investigations. In the first place he never accepted an item of
information concerning the natives imparted to him by a white man, but
only recorded what was told to him by members of the tribe concerned.
Secondly, he used always to select as his informants from among the
natives men who had been as little as possible in contact with the
European, and who were, therefore, still in a primitive state of culture
themselves; very often he obtained his data from chiefs. Thirdly, a
working knowledge of eight native languages enabled him almost always
to dispense with the services of that very unsatisfactory person an
interpreter, and also allowed him to pick up from the natives a lot of
information and some legends which he was able to overhear when they were
being related by the people among themselves, and not directly addressed
to him. An acquaintance with Chikongo and Chituba, two bastard languages
(both very easy to learn) which serve as a medium for trade between the
various tribes, will perfectly well enable one to travel in the Kasai
district unaccompanied by an interpreter speaking English or French, but
a knowledge of the real languages of the tribes is essential to any one
desiring to undertake serious ethnological researches, and this knowledge
Mr. Torday possesses. A long study of the negro, a great liking for the
primitive savage, and a keen insight into his character have endowed him
with a way of gaining the confidence of the negroes, and of becoming
popular with them, which enabled him to visit in safety places where
a less experienced man might easily have been murdered, and to which
must be attributed the success which Mr. Torday obtained in extracting
much valuable information from the natives—information they would never
have imparted to a man they did not both trust and like. As regards the
results of our journey, I gather from the remarks made by scientists at
the conclusion of Mr. Torday’s lecture before the Royal Geographical
Society in March, 1910, that they are considered satisfactory, while the
collections made for the British Museum are very extensive. Unfortunately
lack of space prevents the exhibition there of many of the articles
collected, but any of my readers who care to look in the Ethnographical
Gallery may find some good specimens (a small part of the collection)
of Bushongo wood-carving and embroidery to which I shall allude in my
narrative.
I feel that I ought to say something about the photographs which
illustrate my pages. With the exception of the picture of the statue
facing page 209 (for which I am indebted to Mr. Joyce) and that of
the buffalo head on page 248, they are all reproduced from our own
negatives. Some of them, I know, lack clearness; but if my readers
will remember that the films were used in a terribly damp climate,
that near to the Equator the rainy season continues practically the
whole year round, and that for twenty consecutive months we lived under
canvas and, accordingly, lacked favourable opportunities for developing
our photographs, some allowance may be made for the shortcomings of
certain of my illustrations. We took a large number of photographs, but
unfortunately many of the most important of them (particularly of those
taken in the forest) were ruined by the heat and damp of that most trying
climate.
In bringing my introductory remarks to a close, I wish to thank the
Directors of the Kasai Company for the facilities they gave us, to which
allusion has been made, and also the many employees of that Company
who showed us kindness during our journey; the Belgian Government and
those of its officials who speeded us on our way; the Royal Geographical
Society for permission to reproduce the map which illustrated Mr.
Torday’s lecture in the _Geographical Journal_ for July 1910; and all
those natives who received us well, and to whom we owe the information
we collected, particularly Kwete Peshanga Kena, the king of the
Bushongo, and Okitu, a Batetela chief. I would like, also, to offer my
heartiest thanks to Mr. T. A. Joyce for being the cause of my joining
the expedition, and to Mr. Hardy for the care he has taken to produce
coloured pictures for this book. Lastly, let me express my gratitude to
Mr. Torday for allowing me to accompany him, for the assistance he has
given me in compiling my manuscript, and for his pleasant companionship
during two eventful years, in the whole course of which we never had the
semblance of a dispute.
M. W. HILTON-SIMPSON.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. FROM THE COAST TO THE SANKURU 1
II. IN THE BATETELA COUNTRY 32
III. IN A BUSHONGO VILLAGE 70
IV. WITH THE BANKUTU CANNIBALS 115
V. THE PEOPLES OF THE GREAT FOREST 153
VI. AT THE COURT OF AN AFRICAN KING 185
VII. UP THE KWILU RIVER 229
VIII. INTO THE UNKNOWN COUNTRY 275
IX. AMONG THE BASHILELE 329
INDEX 347
ILLUSTRATIONS
COLOURED PLATES
The Old Bilumbu relating the Legends of his Tribe _Frontispiece_
Wissmann Pool _To face page_ 20
Sounding the Signalling Gong ” 68
Misumba ” 91
Embroidering the Raphia Cloth ” 93
The Equatorial Forest ” 150
Bushongo Elders Dancing ” 201
An Incident at Pana ” 246
HALF-TONES
The Congo at Matadi ” 5
A Street in Matadi ” 5
The Congo Railway ” 10
A Stop at a Wayside Station ” 10
Bateke Village, Kinshasa ” 14
Fishermen on the Congo ” 14
Open Country beside the Kasai ” 29
Mangay ” 29
The Leader of the Basonge Orchestra ” 36
The Sankuru near Batempa ” 36
A Batetela Drummer ” 52
Batetela Wall Pictures ” 52
An Old-fashioned Batetela Hut ” 62
Jadi and some of his Wives ” 62
Batwa Dwarfs ” 84
A Street in Misumba ” 84
The Hunting Fetish, Misumba ” 101
A Bushongo of Misumba ” 101
The Bilumbu taking Pills under a Blanket ” 105
The Bilumbu dismissing an Inquisitive Child ” 105
A Ceremonial Dance by an Elder ” 111
A Dance at Misumba ” 111
A Basongo-Meno Warrior ” 118
Our Camp at Gandu ” 118
A Bankutu Cannibal ” 132
A Bankutu Village ” 132
Bankutu Bark Huts ” 142
A Village in the Equatorial Forest ” 142
Our Loads in a Forest Village ” 162
The Dogs with which the Olemba buy their Wives ” 162
A Vungi Mother ” 173
An Akela Beauty ” 173
A Primitive Signalling Gong ” 176
A Grave-hut in the Equatorial Forest ” 176
An Akela cutting up his Food ” 181
Akela Warriors ” 181
A Belle of the Mushenge ” 194
A Bushongo Elder ” 194
The Nyimi in his Ghost-dance ” 204
An Elder displaying a Statue ” 204
The Statue of Shamba Bolongongo (now in the British
Museum) ” 209
Children at the Mushenge imitating a Bearded White Man ” 222
The Nyimi’s Sons playing with our Firearms ” 222
Mikope and Mingi Bengela ” 226
A Bushongo Village near the Mushenge ” 226
A Child from the Mission at Pana ” 244
Bos Caffer Simpsoni: a cow ” 244
Bos Caffer Simpsoni: our best bull ” 248
Cutting up a Buffalo at Pana ” 250
A Hippopotamus from the Kwilu ” 250
A Bambala Girl playing a Nose Flute ” 255
A Bambala Boy playing an Ordinary Flute ” 255
The Friction Drum ” 257
Bambala Gambling ” 257
A Babunda Hut ” 262
Babunda Porters entering Athenes ” 262
The Kwilu Valley at Bondo ” 269
A View from the Factory of Athenes ” 269
Crossing the Lubue ” 276
A Bapende Dance at Dumba ” 276
Kangala ” 283
Bapende Boys wearing Masks ” 283
A Bakongo Village, photographed from the top of its
Stockade ” 290
A View of the Unknown Country from Kangala ” 290
Carving a Wooden Cup at Insashi ” 295
The Chief of Insashi calling for Canoes ” 295
Gandu, Son of the Chief of Kanenenke ” 308
Removing a Lady’s Eyelashes ” 308
Bakongo of Kenge looking at our Doll ” 321
The Clockwork Elephant ” 321
A Badjok Camp at Makasu ” 330
Bashilele Hunters ” 330
Our Porters from the Kwilu ” 338
Interior of a Bashilele Village ” 338
LAND AND PEOPLES OF THE KASAI
CHAPTER I
FROM THE COAST TO THE SANKURU
We left England on October 1, 1907, and proceeded to Matadi by a vessel
belonging to the Compagnie Belge Maritime du Congo. A journey to the
mouth of the Congo by one of the three-weekly mail steamers from Antwerp
is not one that would be undertaken solely for amusement; a few hours
at La Palice (the port of La Rochelle in the Bay of Biscay), Santa Cruz
de Teneriffe, Dakar in Senegal, Sierra Leone, and sometimes at Grand
Bassam on the French Ivory Coast, are the only breaks in the monotony
of a twenty-one days’ voyage, which in itself cannot be expected to
be particularly cheerful when one remembers that the majority of the
passengers are going out to spend three years’ service as officials or
employees of trading companies in one of the most unhealthy climates of
the world. As a rule, I believe, the voyage to the Congo is not marked
by any particular incident, while the monotony of the journey home is
only broken by the temporary gloom cast by the all too frequent burials
at sea. Our own journey to Matadi was devoid of any kind of interest,
and the days dragged on with painful slowness until, long before any land
had appeared in sight, the muddy appearance of our bath water informed
us that we were approaching the mouth of the Congo. The great volume of
water issuing from the river discolours the sea for many miles, and I am
told that the water is quite drinkable at a very considerable distance
from land.
There are four ports at which the steamers call in the estuary of the
Congo—Banana Point, Boma, Noki, and Matadi. At the first of these our
vessel stopped to unload a quantity of cargo for the Dutch House, the
oldest of the Congo trading firms, and we spent an hour or two ashore,
mainly with the object of exercising the two fox terriers we had brought
with us from Europe, exploring the narrow strip of land projecting
southwards from the right bank of the river in the form of the fruit
from which it takes its name, washed on the one side by the waters of
the Congo and on the other by Atlantic surf. There is little to see at
Banana, the place consisting solely of the residences of one or two
officials, the establishment of the Dutch House, and a sanatorium,
whither patients are sent from Boma and Matadi to be braced up by sea air
after severe attacks of fever, though the number of mangrove swamps which
intersect the narrow promontory do not give it exactly the appearance of
a health resort.
At Boma, situated about fifty-five miles further up the river on the
right bank, there is more to be seen, but our time was too much occupied
in visiting various officials upon business connected with our journey
to allow us to take more than a cursory glance at the capital of the
Independent State of the Congo, with its shops, its bungalows, and its
little steam tramway, emblems of civilisation that we were soon to leave
far behind us.
There were formalities to be gone through before we could land our
baggage and stores in the country and proceed upon our journey. We had to
visit the offices of the État Civile, where we filled up “matriculation”
forms dealing with our ages, occupations, and dates of our parents’
birth, and other such matters of great interest to the authorities, and
this done we called upon the Vice Governor-General, Monsieur Fuchs,
acting in place of the Baron Wahis, who was in Europe. Monsieur Fuchs
received us most kindly; he had already been requested from Brussels to
do all in his power to help forward our plans, and he readily consented
to allow us to introduce into the country sundry prohibited articles,
such as arms for an escort, and promised to do his best for us in the
matter of granting us permission to shoot game all the year round, to
hunt in the reserves, and to shoot elephants. He also told us that,
should the necessity arise, we should be provided with an escort of
troops, and he informed us that he would issue an order to all the
officials in the district of Lualaba-Kasai requesting them to render
us all the assistance in their power. The result of our interview with
Monsieur Fuchs was that we obtained facilities for collecting natural
history specimens which the game laws would otherwise have closed to us,
and also our mission was officially recognised by the Government, and we
were thus saved endless annoying delays which might have arisen later on
if any up-country official had chosen to have doubts as to our _bona
fides_.
Having paid our visits to the officials, we partook of tea with Mrs.
Underwood, the wife of Messrs. Hatton and Cookson’s agent at Boma. Mr.
Underwood, who has recently died upon his return to Europe, had, I think,
resided on the Congo longer than any other white man. He was there before
the Congo State was founded, and, except for brief periods of leave
in Europe, remained there until just before his death in 1910. This
gentleman was to arrange for the shipment to England of the many packages
for the Museum which we hoped to send down to the coast, and his firm had
kindly consented to act as our bankers (for banks did not then exist in
the Congo, though I understand one is now to be established), so we had
a good deal of business to transact with him before going on board the
_Bruxellesville_ for the night.
[Illustration: THE CONGO AT MATADI.]
[Illustration: A STREET IN MATADI.]
Our ship left Boma at dawn on the following day, so we had little or no
time to inspect the town. Shortly after leaving the mouth of the Congo,
the woods which had clothed the banks, particularly on the south or
Portuguese shore, gave place to open, grassy plains, sparsely studded
with trees, and low hills began to appear, which, as one draws near to
Noki, rise to a considerable height and extend eastwards to the vicinity
of Stanley Pool. Noki is a small Portuguese post on the left bank of
the river, from which runs a road to San Salvador, an important town in
the interior of Angola, and all the mail steamers call there, but as
landing has to be effected in boats, and the place possesses nothing of
interest, passengers usually remain on board while cargo is discharged.
Between Noki and Matadi, the first Congolese post on the left bank of
the river, the scenery is extremely fine. The Congo makes a sharp turn
to the left at this point, and the stream, flowing through a deep ravine
between ranges of rocky hills, is so strong that the bend in the river
is known as the Devil’s Cauldron. Foam-crested waves break the surface
of the waters, and only by hugging the southern shore can small steamers
make headway against the current. The port of Matadi, or “The Stones,”
is built, as its name implies, among the rocks on the left bank of the
river. It lies just below the cataracts which render the lower Congo
impossible for navigation, and just above the frontier between Angola
and the Belgian Congo. At Matadi commences the railway to Stanley Pool,
so all the merchandise intended for the interior is unloaded there,
and there all the produce of the Congo State is shipped. It is a most
unprepossessing place. Intensely hot, owing to its rocky surroundings,
it is too much enclosed by hills to receive any cooling breezes from the
sea, and there are few trees about the place to afford shelter from the
scorching rays of the tropical sun. We were compelled to spend three days
at Matadi in order to see to the registration of our guns and rifles,
all of which have to be stamped with a Government mark by which they
could be identified should we, in defiance of the law, sell them to the
natives, and to pass our stores through the customs. We had brought with
us several cases of whisky and brandy, sufficient to last us as medical
comforts for the whole of our two years’ journey. We had had to obtain at
Boma special permission to bring this quantity of alcohol into Congolese
territory, for the importation of spirits is very strictly limited, each
white man being allowed to receive but three litres of alcohol per month,
with the double object of checking excessive drinking among the white
residents of the interior, and of preventing strong drink from becoming
an article of exchange in trading with the natives. At Matadi these
regulations do not hold good, and the natives can purchase wine, &c., at
the various stores, for in such close proximity to Portuguese territory,
where no such regulations exist, it would be quite impossible to prevent
the native from obtaining liquor if he required it.
At Matadi we engaged the only “boy,” or personal servant, whom we
intended to take with us from the coast, for Torday had determined to
recruit our servants from among the uncivilised and simple-minded natives
whose country we were to visit, and to have only one or two experienced
“boys,” who could turn this raw material into useful servants. We found
a native of Loango, by name Balo, who was willing to accompany us. For
some reason or other, we gave this man the name of Jones, and Jones he
remained until he left us in January 1909. He spoke a little French and
a word or two of English in addition to the Chikongo dialect, which is
the _lingua franca_ of the Lower Congo, and we found him an invaluable
servant during the early part of our journey.
At last all our preparations had been completed and we were free to
depart by the next train for Leopoldville. We were only able to take
with us a comparatively small amount of personal baggage owing to the
high rate of charges for excess baggage on the railway, fifty centimes
being charged for every kilogramme over the thirty kilos allowed to each
first-class passenger; we therefore arranged for our stores and other
heavy baggage to be sent on to us as early as possible by goods train,
for we should not need either food-stuffs or camp equipment during the
ten days or so we intended to stay on the shores of Stanley Pool. These
charges for freight as well as the first-class fare of £8 may sound
exorbitant for a journey of only about two hundred and forty miles,
but it must be remembered that the railway was enormously expensive to
build owing to the mountainous character of the country through which it
passes, and travelling at the present rates, high as they are, is far
cheaper than was the case before the line was completed, when everything
had to be carried up from Matadi by native porters. The cost in life when
making the railway was enormous—it is said that every kilometre cost one
white man’s life and every metre the life of a native—but the existence
of the line has prevented many a death. In the old days the journey on
foot to Stanley Pool took a heavy toll of the white men destined for the
far interior. The newly appointed State agent or trader’s employee had to
march for three weary weeks across a rough and hilly country just after
his arrival in Africa, before he had learned to take care of his health
in the treacherous Congo climate. He would toil breathless and perspiring
to the summit of a hill, and there, in his ignorance, sit down to rest
and enjoy the freshness of the breeze, with the result that in many cases
he never reached the Pool. Had these hills been situated in the far
interior they would have been much less deadly, but lying at the very
commencement of the up-country journey they were a veritable death-trap
to the inexperienced traveller. The cataracts of the Congo, which render
the existence of a railway necessary, are, I presume, too extensive and
the volume of water which pours down them far too great to admit of
the possibility of engineering skill being able ever to open the whole
river to navigation. What a change could be wrought in the opening up of
the country if only steamers could ply between Matadi and the Pool! At
present every vessel intended for use on the Upper Congo and its mighty
tributaries has to be conveyed in small sections at great expense up the
railway and fitted together at Leopoldville or Kinshasa, the result being
that the cost of even a very small steamer has become enormous by the
time it is ready to be used; and at present the possession of a steamer
is a necessity to any individual or company desiring to trade in the
vicinity of the great waterways, for transport upon State vessels is very
costly; accordingly, so much capital is required to start a commercial
enterprise in the interior as to put such undertakings quite beyond the
reach of the small company or individual trader. But it is not the object
of this book to discuss questions relating to the trade in the Congo, so
I will return to the narrative of our journey.
The travelling on the Congo railway is by no means luxurious, the train
consisting of one first-class carriage capable of seating twelve persons
in chairs, placed six on each side of the vehicle, one second-class
carriage with open sides suggestive of a cattle truck and filled to
overflowing with natives attired in every caricature of European dress,
and a baggage van. But any one who has not previously taken the journey
can soon forget the discomfort and stuffy heat of the railway carriage as
he gazes upon the fine scenery through which he passes or marvels at the
triumphs of engineering which the line represents. Shortly after leaving
Matadi the train ascends a steep gradient and runs along a narrow ledge,
cut out of the hill-side, overhanging the precipitous valley of the
Congo, through which the mighty river rushes, turbulent and foam-flecked,
from the cataracts to the sea. But one sees little of the Congo from the
train, for soon the line leaves the riverside, keeping to the south of
the valley, and winds in and out among rocky hills or passes through mile
upon mile of dense woodland, a foretaste of the impenetrable fastnesses
of the equatorial forest; and only when one reaches the shores of Stanley
Pool does one return to the banks of the Congo. The night is spent at
Thysville, named after Colonel Thys, the engineer who built the railway.
There, there is a very decent hotel, maintained by the railway company,
where passengers dine and sleep in comfort. But when once Thysville is
passed the traveller has left hotels behind him, for he will find none
at Leopoldville or beyond. Thysville lies high, and the night air there
is chilly; in fact it strikes one as intensely cold when returning home
after a long stay in the great heat of the interior, and in the early
mornings as a rule the surrounding hills are obscured by a damp mist
which gives the place a distinctly unhealthy appearance. The climate,
however, cannot be so bad as one might think, for I believe that the
State is about to build a sanatorium there, whither officials who have
broken down in health may be sent for a spell of sick leave. Up to
Thysville the line rises, but beyond this point it descends to the Pool.
Our journey was not marked by any incident worthy of note, excepting that
just before arriving at a wayside station our engine refused to face a
particularly steep gradient, and we were left waiting on the line for an
hour or so while a fresh locomotive was summoned from Thysville, which
was, fortunately, not far away. At the numerous little stations natives
would come to the train to sell pine-apples and bananas, but these people
all belonged to the semi-civilised class of negro who possesses but
little interest to any one who wishes to study the African apart from the
influence of European manners and customs.
[Illustration: THE CONGO RAILWAY.]
[Illustration: A STOP AT A WAYSIDE STATION.]
At about three in the afternoon of the second day the train drew up
at Kinshasa, on the banks of Stanley Pool, and we alighted. We had
arranged to be conveyed from Stanley Pool to Dima, the headquarters
of the Kasai Company, in one of the company’s steamers, which vessels
always stop at Kinshasa to unload their cargo and take up merchandise
from the railway, so we did not proceed direct to the rail-head at
Leopoldville, but spent a couple of nights in Kinshasa in the house of a
Portuguese trader, who lodges such travellers as belong to no company,
and therefore have no house to go to, for, as I have said, hotels do
not exist in Kinshasa; all the big up-river companies, however, have
their forwarding-agents resident there, and these provide lodgings for
their other employees journeying to or from the coast. Kinshasa is but
a shadow of its former self. At one time a considerable garrison of
native troops was kept there, but these were moved on to Leopoldville
after an outbreak of sleeping sickness; then extensive plantations of
coffee, &c., were made, but for some reason or other they failed to pay
and were abandoned, with the result that the once flourishing settlement
of Kinshasa has degenerated into a simple post for the despatch by
train of rubber and ivory brought from the interior by steamer, with
a white population consisting only of one or two officials connected
with the customs, who inspect the exports, a missionary, and the
above-mentioned forwarding-agents of companies. Its beautiful shady
avenues are deserted, most of its neat brick-built bungalows have fallen
into decay, and the many acres of plantations are hardly distinguishable
from the surrounding bush. The general air of decadence, combined with
the clouds of mosquitoes which infest the place, do not make Kinshasa
a particularly desirable place to stay in, so we were not sorry to
move on to Leopoldville, where we were to make some anthropological
measurements while waiting the arrival of our stores from the coast. At
Kinshasa we visited the first really native village we had seen in the
Congo, a settlement of the Bateke tribe, situated close to the European
residents’ houses. These people have been (and I believe still are) most
enthusiastic traders, but were not particularly friendly to the white
man when Stanley first established the Congo State upon the shores of
the Pool. Their village at Kinshasa is extremely pretty, the quaint
grass huts scattered about beneath the shade of the palm and baobab
trees forming a picture far more pleasing to the eye, if less suggestive
of progress, than the groups of mud dwellings built in imitation of
Europeans’ bungalows which are to be seen near the wayside stations on
the line.
Leopoldville lies upon the shores of Stanley Pool, a few miles to the
west of Kinshasa. There are here no hotels, and as the quarters occupied
by the agents of Messrs. Hatton & Cookson, who own a considerable trading
establishment here, were full up with three Europeans, we were obliged
to call upon the Commissioner of the district of Stanley Pool to ask
if there was a vacant bungalow in which we could sleep. This gentleman
kindly allowed us to occupy two rooms in the buildings used by a company
which is building the railway through the Upper Congo to the Great Lakes,
situated close to the water’s edge. We took our meals with Messrs. Hatton
and Cookson’s agents. Although Leopoldville is so important a place
and is surrounded by an enormous native population, the cost of living
there is very great, and fresh meat is so difficult to obtain, owing,
I believe, to the ravages of the tsetse fly among the cattle which are
kept in the neighbourhood, that the white residents are more dependent
upon tinned foods imported from Europe than the traders and officials of
most of the remote districts of the interior. In addition to the white
officers of the garrison and the numerous Government officials resident
at Leopoldville, there are a large number of European engineers in the
employ of the Government, whose occupation it is to put together the
steamers brought up the railway in sections and to repair those which
have become damaged in their voyages on the Congo and its tributary
streams. The Great Lakes Railway Company has several European employees
at Leopoldville, and a number of independent traders (for the most
part Portuguese) bring up the number of Europeans in Leopoldville to
somewhere about 300. The natives, who inhabit numberless villages in the
immediate neighbourhood of the settlement, consist for the most part of
retired soldiers, or people who have worked in some other capacity for
the white man and who have become, in their own opinion at any rate, too
civilised to care to return to their primitive homes in the interior.
It would almost appear that Leopoldville is situated too close to the
cataracts of the Congo, which commence a mile or two to the west of
the town at the point where the river flows out of the Pool, and the
long-drawn roar of which is continually in one’s ears in all parts of
the settlement; and in order to prevent vessels approaching the quays of
Leopoldville, which have taken a course rather too near to the rapids,
from being swept by the stream to certain destruction, it is necessary
to keep a small but exceedingly powerful steamer always ready to go to
the assistance of a vessel which may seem to be unable to make the shore.
I will not weary my readers with an account of the work upon which we
were engaged during the fortnight or so that we spent at Leopoldville.
It consisted almost entirely in making a large number of anthropological
measurements, and in photographing types of natives of the many tribes of
which representatives are to be found in this great centre of European
influence. A large number of the people whom we measured were soldiers.
The officer commanding the garrison used to daily send down detachments,
which were drawn up in line outside the bungalow in which we lived, and
one after another the men came up to have the caliper applied to their
heads, and to have their photographs taken. I do not think any of them
enjoyed it very much, but small rewards in the shape of tobacco usually
sent them away smiling. Although this work has, I believe, proved useful,
it was not very interesting to do, and when a telegram arrived from
Kinshasa informing us that the Kasai Company’s steamer had arrived and
was in readiness to convey us to Dima, we quickly packed our baggage and
started off to go on board her, eager to commence our wanderings in the
Kasai.
[Illustration: BATEKE VILLAGE, KINSHASA.]
[Illustration: FISHERMEN ON THE CONGO.]
The _Fumu N’Tangu_, “The Chief of the Sun,” an old Chikongo name for the
late Herr Greshoff, the Director of the Dutch House, is a stern-wheel
steamer, capable of carrying about fifty tons. Upon her upper deck she
carries four very small cabins and one rather larger one, in addition to
the captain’s cabin at the forward end of the deck. On the lower deck,
which, when the steamer is loaded, is but a very few inches above the
water, are the engines and a cabin for the engineer. Above the upper
deck is a good roof of planks, rendering the use of a topee unnecessary
even in the heat of the day. The _Fumu N’Tangu_ draws very little water,
as parts of the Kasai abound in shallows during the dry season. We left
Kinshasa at six o’clock on a glorious November morning, and headed
northwards across the Pool, the course for steamers lying close along
the French shore. Owing to the large wooded island known as Bomu, and
to the presence of numerous grassy islets and sandbanks, one could get
no real view of Stanley Pool from the deck of the steamer; indeed it
is only as one approaches the point where the Congo enters it that one
gets any idea of the width of the Pool, and even here, as one looks to
the southward, one does not see this beautiful stretch of water at its
greatest width. From north to south the greatest width is about sixteen
miles, and the length of the Pool from east to west about seventeen.
In the old days the island of Bomu was a noted haunt of buffaloes,
elephants, and numerous herds of hippopotami, but the guns of the Bateke,
who shot these animals as food for the white men and the garrison, have
long since exterminated them, and save for some crocodiles, and I believe
an occasional hippopotamus, the only inhabitants of the island and the
sandbanks around it are numerous eagles and waterfowl. On a calm day the
waters of Stanley Pool are extremely glassy, notwithstanding the strong
stream which flows through it towards the cataracts to the west; but the
sudden storms, locally dignified with the name of tornado, which are so
frequent in the rainy season, completely change the aspect of the Pool,
and not infrequently canoes which are overtaken by them some distance
from the shelter of land have the greatest difficulty in reaching a
place of safety. The width of the Congo where it flows into Stanley
Pool, through a break in a chain of hills some 700 feet high, is about
one mile, and as one approaches this point the north shore of the Pool
rises abruptly from the water’s edge in the form of white cliffs tinged
with red; these are still known as Dover Cliffs, the name given to them
by Stanley upon his first descent of the Congo. From Stanley Pool to the
mouth of the Kasai the Congo is known as the Channel. In this part of
the river there are practically no islands or sandbanks, for the stream
runs in a comparatively narrow valley, and is deep; in fact many captains
of river steamers will continue their run at night in the channel, a
thing which would be impossible among the shallows and sandbanks of the
Kasai. The average width of the Congo channel is, I believe, something
just under a mile. At first, as one proceeds up the river, its course
is bordered on either hand by wooded hills rising abruptly from the
water’s edge. These hills are rarely, if ever, more than six or seven
hundred feet high, and upon the summits of them the forest gives way to
open meadow land or tree-studded bush; but as one nears the mouth of the
Kasai, the hills upon the left bank of the Congo gradually decrease in
height until just before arriving at Kwamouth, the post at the confluence
of the Kasai and the Congo, the river is running through grassy plains
dotted here and there with stunted trees. With the exception of a fair
number of white-headed eagles, we did not see much of bird life in this
part of the river, the absence of sandbanks and islands accounting for
the absence of the great masses of wild-fowl which we were to see later
in the Kasai. The captain of our ship upon his last voyage had seen
some elephants upon the shores of the channel, and one evening when we
were moored against the French shore, a native from the coast who was
in charge of the fuel supply there told us tales of a wonderful lake
some distance to the northward where elephants are still to be seen in
countless herds. We also met a Frenchman who had gone to the expense of
purchasing a rifle especially for elephant shooting, so we took it that
these animals must be fairly common within easy reach of the right bank
of the channel.
Along the left bank of the Congo runs the telegraph line, and it spans
the mouth of the Kasai raised upon two iron structures, one on each side
of the Kasai, somewhat suggestive of the Eiffel Tower, about ninety feet
in height. At the post of Kwamouth there are now two white officials
connected with the telegraph line, and it is to Kwamouth that one must
send if one wishes to despatch a cable to Europe when travelling in
the district of the Kasai. Formerly there was a Roman Catholic mission
at Kwamouth, but this has been abandoned owing to the ravages of the
sleeping sickness.
Though the channel had been in its way beautiful, especially when the
various greens of the forest gave place to the purple hues of evening,
the journey up the lower Kasai was, to my mind, far more enjoyable. As I
have said, the Congo up to Kwamouth had but little to show in the way of
animal life, but the Kasai, a little above its mouth, is simply teeming
with hippopotami, crocodiles, and innumerable varieties of aquatic and
other birds. At the confluence with the Congo the Kasai is only some
500 yards in width, but as one ascends it the river becomes broader,
and numerous islands, some covered with forest, others merely clothed
in coarse dry grass or reeds, begin to appear. There are some rocks
in the bed of the lower Kasai, which cause the captains some little
uneasiness in the dry season when the waters are low; in fact our vessel
touched lightly upon some of them, when our captain took us hastily
to the shore to avoid a tornado. These storms come up very quickly in
the rainy season. One sees dark masses of cloud overhanging the river
valley in the distance, and one hears a far-off rumble of thunder; in
an incredibly short space of time the storm draws near, and one sees a
grey mist sweeping down the river towards one, the thunder increasing
momentarily in violence until its peals are so frequent as to be almost
indistinguishable one from another and to produce one long-drawn roar.
Just before the mist reaches one a violent gust of wind strikes the
vessel, often sufficient to capsize her should she not have been made
fast to the bank, and then the rain, which has appeared like mist in the
distance, comes down with a violence seldom, if ever, seen outside the
tropics. Fortunately, these storms are usually of brief duration, and
pass away as quickly as they come; accidents, however, are sometimes
caused by them to the steamers, and our captain had knowingly put his
vessel over the rocks, preferring the possibility of sinking close to the
shore to the probability of being capsized in mid-stream when the wind
struck the vessel.
On the Congo we had seen but few natives; in the Kasai their canoes were
far more frequently visible rowing fishermen to and from the sandbanks,
where they set their nets and fish-traps. Often they would approach us
holding up fish for sale, and occasionally we stopped to purchase it.
The purchase of fish by our native crew caused us no little amusement.
Money has not yet found its way to the natives of the Kasai, so that
everything had to be purchased by exchange. The hard bargaining which
an ancient piece of dried fish can produce must be seen to be believed.
Cloth, salt, mitakos (_i.e._ brass rods), torn shirts, hats, empty
bottles, &c., were all exchanged for the fish, and on one occasion a
member of the crew took off the trousers he was wearing and handed them
over in exchange for a particularly choice morsel!
In the evenings we would make fast to a grassy island or a sandbank, and
all of the crew would go ashore to spend the night. As the vessel slowly
approaches to within a yard or two of the shore a man springs overboard
from the bows, carrying a light anchor if there are no trees at hand, or
a wire rope if there is anything on the shore to attach it to, and in a
very short time the vessel is securely moored to the bank; the crew then
hasten ashore, carrying with them their bedding, and firebrands from the
furnaces (for wood fuel only is used) with which to cook their evening
meal. As darkness falls, the scene on shore is very picturesque. In the
background the tall rank grass stands motionless in the still air of the
African night, while the flickering light of the numerous fires plays
upon the small cotton shelters of all colours of the rainbow erected
by the crew as a protection against mosquitoes. Meantime pots are on
the fire, and the men grouped round them are talking in subdued voices,
while a gurgling sound is to be heard as many tobacco pipes, in which
the smoke is drawn through water in a calabash under the bow, are passed
from man to man, and in the distance one hears the weird grunt of the
hippopotamus, mildly indignant at the invasion of his feeding-ground by
man. But if the evenings are delightful on a river steamer, the days
are no less so, particularly when passing through such stretches of
river as that known as Wissman Pool just below the spot where the Kasai
receives on its left bank the waters of the Kwango. In Wissman Pool
the naturalist, sportsman, or photographer can scarcely allow himself
time for meals, so much life is there to be seen, so many chances of a
shot, and always the possibility of a sufficiently near approach to a
hippo to admit of a snapshot being taken. To any one like myself, whose
previous wanderings have mainly been in desert lands, the journey through
Wissman Pool must be particularly delightful. The pool is wide, that is
to say the course of the river is broken up into innumerable channels
between sandbanks and islands, the latter covered with bushes, rank
grass, or reeds. The land on either side of the river is flat. On all
sides numerous herds of hippopotami were in sight, varying in numbers
from three or four to about fifteen. Early in the morning and again in
the evening they were to be seen upon the islands, and sometimes even at
midday they would be moving about amid the grass or on the sandbanks,
while many times we passed close by them as they lay in the water, their
ears, eyes, and nostrils only exposed, scarcely heeding the approach of
the steamer. Wissman remarks upon the enormous quantity of these great
animals in this part of the river, and it is difficult to believe that
they can have decreased materially in numbers since his day. Sometimes
as the vessel drew near, one of the monsters would slowly rise to his
feet in the shallow water in which he had been basking, showing for a
moment all his great body as he quietly moved off into deeper water, in
which he would disappear, to rise again in a few seconds and gaze at the
receding form of the steamer with an air of mild surprise. Crocodiles,
too, were very numerous, and whenever we were within reach of the shore
I was always momentarily expecting to get a shot at one as he lay asleep
with his mouth open beside the water. Torday, too, was at these times
ever ready with his shot-gun to bring down a duck or a spur-winged goose
for the table, or to shoot a specimen for skinning of one of the many
kind of birds with which the islands swarm. Hardy, who does not shoot,
found plenty of exercise for his pencil in making hasty sketches, to be
worked up later, of the inhabitants, human and otherwise, of the Pool.
During our ascent of the Kasai towards Dima we saw no elephants, but
these animals are numerous in that country, and upon our return journey
in 1909 we got a magnificent view of a herd of six as they slowly
retreated from the water’s edge into the long grass at the approach of
the steamer.
[Illustration: WISSMANN POOL.]
The country continues to consist of open grass land studded with
trees until the mouth of the Kwango is left behind, when the banks
become thickly wooded. The Kwango flows into the Kasai between swamps
covered with papyrus and reeds, a favourite wallowing-place for buffalo
during the fierce heat of the midday sun. Dima lies but eight or nine
miles above the confluence, upon the left bank of the Kasai. As the
headquarters of the Kasai Company it contains the residence of the
director and the general stores, to which all trade goods are brought
upon their arrival from Europe, and where they are sorted before being
distributed among the factories, each factory receiving such goods as
are most saleable in its locality. Here, too, are the workshops wherein
the steamers of the company are repaired. There is, therefore, always
a fair number of European residents in Dima. The director has a couple
of secretaries, the accountant’s office occupies several clerks, the
transport of the trade goods requires the services of two or three white
men, while the workshops are looked after by quite a staff of European
engineers. In addition to this, there are nearly always several people
staying temporarily in Dima, for every new agent of the company goes to
headquarters on his arrival in Africa to be appointed to a factory, and
every agent calls at Dima on his way home. The situation of Dima does
not at first sight strike one as being particularly desirable, for the
post is built in a clearing of the dense forest, and the banks of the
river are by no means high; but it would be difficult to find an equally
convenient spot for the transport of trade goods and the reception of
the rubber and ivory collected in the district. A great deal of produce
comes from the basin of the Kwilu River, a tributary of the Kwango,
of which I shall have more to say later on, so that it would take a
considerable time to get this produce far up the Kasai, where the current
is very strong and the speed of the steamer low, should the headquarters
of the company be moved higher up the river to a more healthy locality,
such, for instance, as Pangu, near the mouth of the Lubue River, where
the Kasai Company has recently founded a hospital. Dima itself, as we
saw it in 1909, was a far more agreeable post than when we stayed there
in November 1907. Upon our arrival only the houses of the director
and the chief engineer, the two mess-rooms, the accountant’s office,
and the stores were of brick, but upon our return we found that all
the old plaster houses, with their thatched roofs, had given way to
neat structures, roofed with tiles, and built of locally made bricks.
The clearing, too, in which the post is situated had been considerably
extended, and this has had the effect of rendering the place far more
airy, and lessening the oppressive heat; and better drainage of the
swampy ground in the neighbouring forest has led to a great reduction in
the numbers of the mosquitoes, which were quite as numerous as we cared
about when we arrived in Dima. The varied kinds of work, from the mending
of machinery to the wheeling of small barrow-loads of bricks, naturally
necessitates the employment of natives of many grades of civilisation.
All the native clerks and most of the mechanics and carpenters come from
the coast, the majority of them from Sierra Leone, Lagos, or Accra. These
gentlemen are very far up in the social scale, and their costumes on
Sunday are, as a rule, neat and in good taste. Next in magnificence to
them come the civilised Congo natives, not infrequently retired soldiers
who have attained the rank of sergeant or corporal; the costumes of
these, though very spotless on the Sabbath, will sometimes be marred by
the presence of some incongruous article, such, for example, as a long
drooping feather in the side of a straw hat. These people are usually
employed as headmen in charge of a certain number of labourers. Then
come the “boys,” or white men’s personal servants, and the “civilised”
workmen who have received some teaching at a mission. The appearance
of such people when attired in their best is strongly suggestive of a
rainbow, and the various garments which compose their costumes are just
those which would _not_ be worn at the same time by any but an African
negro whose “civilisation” has just brought him to the wearing of
trousers and whose wage will allow him to indulge the savage’s craving
for brilliant colours. The fourth class of native employee at Dima is
composed of the man who has recently joined the company’s services
and adheres to the loin-cloth, and the little boy who, by no means
overdressed, is commencing his career by wheeling small barrow-loads of
earth to the brick-makers. Nearly, if not quite all of the inhabitants
of the workmen’s village in Dima profess some form of Christianity.
The majority of the Kasai district natives working there come from the
Sankuru or upper Kasai, originating from the country around the Lusambo
and Luebo. When an agent from up the river is told to enlist a certain
number of men for service at Dima, he naturally does not suggest to his
best and most willing workmen that they should go; he tries to get rid
of the worst men he has got, therefore one finds at Dima representatives
of many different tribes, often men who have made their villages too
hot to hold them, and have thus been obliged to earn a livelihood as
workmen in one of the company’s factories, from which they have been
drafted as undesirable. Thus the vices of many tribes are to be found
among the native inhabitants of Dima and the virtues of but few. This it
appears is specially the case among the “boys” who offer themselves for
service to the new-comer from Europe. Some of these have very likely been
dismissed for theft, idleness, or general incompetence, and are working
at Dima until they can get another job; others, good enough boys in the
bush, have been left at Dima when their masters have gone home, and
have preferred to stay there in the hope of finding another employer to
returning to their native villages, for which they have often conceived
a feeling of contempt. These latter have usually suffered by contact
with the low-class workman referred to above, and it is a very risky
thing to engage one of them as a servant for the journey up country. We
took no servants from Dima, though many such offered themselves, but
were content with two boys who had come with us until we could get some
absolutely uncivilised and unspoilt youths whom we could train ourselves.
At the time of our arrival in Dima the workmen from the coast received
their pay in Congolese coin, but the natives were paid in trade goods,
money being as yet without value in the district. An attempt to introduce
coin is being made now in two or three of the larger centres of the
Kasai district, such as Lusambo and, I believe, Luebo, and the Kasai
Company now pays all its people in Dima in money; the company’s stores
being open daily to supply the workmen with such articles for exchange
with the local natives as they may wish to buy. The large number of
people permanently resident in Dima necessitates the importation of a
considerable quantity of food-stuffs from a distance, the local Baboma
not producing sufficient to supply the post; every ten days, therefore, a
steamer ascends the Kwilu as far as the post of Kikwit with trade goods
for the factories on that river, and returns laden with manioc flour,
maize, plantains, live chickens, and goats from that land of plenty,
the country near Luano. There is a farm a mile or two east of Dima which
produces some vegetables, and where a few cows and a small flock of sheep
are kept under the superintendence of a European farmer; as yet, however,
it is rather an experiment to ascertain what can be grown and reared in
the neighbourhood than an attempt to supply Dima with the necessaries
of life. Should it ever be able to provide all that Dima wants, the
agricultural people of the Kwilu will lose a very considerable trade.
A certain amount of sport is to be obtained near Dima; in 1907 I shot
a harnessed bush-buck in a small clearing in the forest less than
half-an-hour’s walk from the post, while in January 1909 I saw an
elephant’s spoor very little further away, and spent a day hunting
buffalo without success in the papyrus swamps towards the mouth of the
Kwango. The animals were in the swamps right enough, but I made too
much noise wading and slipping about upon the papyrus trampled down by
the buffalo to get a shot. These swamps were alive with mosquitoes, and
altogether were by no means an ideal hunting-ground. At one time a native
hunter was employed to shoot buffalo for the white men’s mess, but this
seems to have caused very little reduction in their numbers.
Of our doings at Dima there is little to tell; we were anxious to get to
work on the Sankuru River, but were compelled to await the arrival of
our provisions from the coast. In the meantime Torday put in a little
ethnographical work among the Baboma, purchased a number of articles of
their manufacture, and, making as many inquiries as possible among the
white men as to the conditions prevailing in the country we proposed to
visit, he formed his plans definitely for the first six months or so of
our journey. We were to proceed up the Kasai and Sankuru rivers as far
as Batempa, a little above Lusambo, whence we were to go further inland
to the Lubefu River, there to study a portion of the Batetela tribe.
After this we were to descend the Sankuru and visit the Bushongo people,
commonly but erroneously termed the Bakuba, who bade fair to prove of
exceptional interest, to judge by several magnificent pieces of their
wood-carving which we saw in Dima.
This work, we anticipated, would occupy us about six months, at the end
of which time Hardy was to leave us for England. As a matter of fact, the
study of the Batetela on the Lubefu led us to continue our work among
the sub-tribes of that people in the equatorial forest after Hardy had
departed, and the success which attended Torday’s work among the eastern
Bushongo induced him to visit the capital of their king, so that our stay
in the region of the Sankuru was extended to fourteen months instead of
the six in which we had expected to complete our work.
We heard in Dima that there lived near the Kasai Company’s factory of
Mokunji, close to the Lubefu River, a deposed Batetela chief, who was
a remarkably intelligent native and very well disposed towards the
European. In the hope of obtaining some valuable information from this
man, Torday decided to proceed to Mokunji as directly as possible.
We left Dima early in the morning of December 2, 1907, on board the Kasai
Company’s steamer _Velde_. This little vessel contained accommodation
for no one excepting her captain and European engineer, so that we
were obliged to pitch our tents every evening upon the river bank or
upon an island. This necessitated the captain terminating his day’s
run sufficiently early to enable us to encamp by daylight, and also
considerably delayed the steamer’s start in the mornings. The voyage,
therefore, occupied more time than is usually taken over the journey to
Batempa, and it was only upon the twenty-third day after our start from
Dima that we reached the end of our voyage. The upper deck of the _Velde_
was very small, there being only just sufficient room for the five of
us to sit around a table for meals, so that our journey cannot be said
to have been a very luxurious one, but the glorious river scenery and
the numberless interesting sights which nature had to offer in the way
of birds and beasts combined to make the voyage pleasant. Just above
Dima the Kasai is only about half a mile in width and very deep, with
a strong current. Further on, however, between the factory of Eolo and
the Government post of Basongo, near the confluence of the Kasai and the
Sankuru, the river often attains a width of fully three miles, and its
course is much broken by sandbanks and islands, its depth being reduced
in proportion to the greater width of its bed. Although the shores of
the river are usually clothed in forest, undulating grassy downs are to
be seen behind the belt of woodland that borders the stream, and only
after entering the Sankuru does one reach a real forest country. Upon
its right bank the Kasai receives no tributaries of any importance, for
the Lukenye River flows parallel to it into Lac Leopold II., about fifty
miles to the north; but upon its left or southern bank it receives the
waters of the Kancha, Lubue, and Loange rivers, rising in the uplands of
the Congo-Angola frontier, as well as numerous small streams. There is a
Kasai Company’s factory at Eolo, and some plantations of rubber belonging
to the Société Anonyme Belge at a spot called Mangay, about fifty miles
farther up the river, also on its left bank. At the mouth of the Lubue
there is a factory of the Kasai Company, whence communication is kept
open by means of a whale-boat with the company’s post of Dumba on the
Lubue, which we visited during the last part of our journey. The company
has recently founded a hospital for its white and native employees on the
high bank of the Kasai near the mouth of the Lubue, but the building of
this post had not been commenced at the end of 1907. The only Government
station on the Kasai is the post of Basongo. We spent one night here, and
were told by Lieutenant Le Grand that the Bashilele people who inhabited
the country to the south of his post were a most warlike and hostile
people; indeed he gave us a number of arrows which had been shot at him
and his soldiers during a few days’ journey he had just undertaken in
the interior. We were to make acquaintance ourselves later on with the
Bashilele, as my narrative will show.
[Illustration: OPEN COUNTRY BESIDE THE KASAI.]
[Illustration: MANGAY.]
During our journey up the Kasai the captain of the _Velde_ told us that
about the year 1904 or 1905 a very deadly epidemic had broken out among
the hippopotami of that river and the Sankuru. So great had been the
mortality among the animals (which even now exist in the middle Kasai in
almost as great numbers as in Wissman Pool) that the factories on the
bank had been obliged to employ men with canoes to push out into the
current the carcases which had lodged on the shore close at hand, the
stench from which, as they began to decay, had been appalling. I could
gather no information as to the nature of this disease.
When we entered the Sankuru the river banks became more densely wooded,
and the patches of open grass land visible in the background rarer
and more rare. The river is narrower than the Kasai, seldom exceeding
about a mile in width, and the foliage on the banks rises abruptly
from the water’s edge, forming solid walls of luxuriant vegetation.
This kind of scenery, although undoubtedly beautiful, is very apt to
become monotonous, so that we were always glad when a call at one of
the factories, of which there are about eight below Lusambo, broke the
dulness of a voyage through the forest. Of course there was always plenty
to look at; for, in addition to animal life, canoes of native fishermen
were ever to be seen darting in and out of the almost invisible openings
in the vegetation, making the entrance to the little harbours where are
kept the canoes of the villages, which as a rule are situated some little
way inland. But we were eager to begin our work in earnest, and naturally
chafed at our enforced inactivity upon the steamer. In addition to the
delay of which the pitching and striking of our camp was the cause, our
progress was retarded by the lack of prepared fuel on the banks. Wood
only is burned on the steamers, and the Kasai Company has established
posts all along the river, at each of which about half-a-dozen natives
are employed in felling trees and cutting the wood into suitable lengths
for the furnaces of the vessels. As these men are under no supervision
they by no means overwork themselves, with the result that one often
finds very little wood ready when the steamer calls; consequently the
voyage has frequently to be interrupted while the crew cut wood in the
forest or on the shore. We were, I believe, exceptionally unlucky in
finding so little wood prepared, and our stoppages were therefore more
frequent than is usual. We paid a brief visit to the English mission at
Inkongu, a few miles below Lusambo, where Mr. Westcott is doing a very
good work, strictly undenominational, among the natives, and at Lusambo
itself, the centre of government of the district of Lualaba-Kasai.
We found that Commandant Gustin, the commissioner, was absent upon a
tour of inspection, but we were received by the deputy-commissioner,
Commandant Saut. On hearing that our destination was the Lubefu River,
this gentleman informed us that he was expecting a caravan to arrive with
rubber from that river, and that he had no doubt the men would be glad
to earn an additional wage instead of returning without loads to their
homes. He therefore promised to send them on to us at Batempa, where we
agreed to await their arrival.
Just as our steamer was leaving we received a message from the magistrate
who resides at Lusambo, strongly advising us to abandon our journey
to Mokunji, for he had heard that there was considerable unrest and
anti-European feeling among the Batetela villages that lay upon the road,
and he was of the opinion that we should not reach the Lubefu without
being attacked. We thanked the magistrate for his friendly warning,
but we had come too far to abandon our journey at the first rumour of
trouble, and we continued our voyage to Ikoka, a factory between Lusambo
and Batempa, fully determined to try our best to reach our destination,
Mokunji.