I
Unfold the map of Africa and you see a huge yellow area sprawling over
the Equator, reaching down to Rhodesia on the south-east, and converging
to a point on the Atlantic Coast. Equal in size to all Latin and
Teutonic Europe, it is the abode of 6,000 white men and 12,000,000
blacks. No other section of that vast empire of mystery is so packed
with hazard and hardship, nor is any so bound up with American
enterprise. Across it Stanley made his way in two epic expeditions.
Livingstone gave it the glamour of his spiritualizing influence.
Fourteen nations stood sponsor at its birth as a Free State and the
whole world shook with controversy about its administration. Once the
darkest domain of the Dark Continent, it is still the stronghold of the
resisting jungle and the last frontier of civilization. It is the
Belgian Congo.
During these past years the veil has been lifted from the greater part
of Africa. We are familiar with life and customs in the British, French,
and to a certain degree, the Portuguese and one-time German colonies.
But about the land inseparably associated with the economic
statesmanship of King Leopold there still hangs a shroud of uncertainty
as to régime and resource. Few people go there and its literature, save
that which grew out of the atrocity campaign, is meager and
unsatisfactory. To the vast majority of persons, therefore, the country
is merely a name--a dab of colour on the globe. Its very distance lends
enchantment and heightens the lure that always lurks in the unknown.
What is it like? What is its place in the universal productive scheme?
What of its future?
I went to the Congo to find out. My journey there was the logical sequel
to my visit to the Union of South Africa and Rhodesia, which I have
already described. It seemed a pity not to take a plunge into the region
that I had read about in the books of Stanley. In my childhood I heard
him tell the story of some of his African experiences. The man and his
narrative were unforgettable for he incarnated both the ideal and the
adventure of journalism. He cast the spell of the Congo River over me
and I lingered to see this mother of waters. Thus it came about that I
not only followed Stanley's trail through the heart of Equatorial Africa
but spent weeks floating down the historic stream, which like the rivers
that figured in the Great War, has a distinct and definite human
quality. The Marne, the Meuse, and the Somme are the Rivers of Valour.
The Congo is the River of Adventure.
In writing, as in everything else, preparedness is all essential. I
learned the value of carrying proper credentials during the war, when
every frontier and police official constituted himself a stumbling-block
to progress. For the South African end of my adventure I provided myself
with letters from Lloyd George and Smuts. In the Congo I realized that I
would require equally powerful agencies to help me on my way. Wandering
through sparsely settled Central Africa with its millions of natives,
scattered white settlements, and restricted and sometimes primitive
means of transport, was a far different proposition than travelling in
the Cape Colony, the Transvaal, or Rhodesia, where there are through
trains and habitable hotels.
I knew that in the Congo the State was magic, and the King's name one to
conjure with. Accordingly, I obtained what amounted to an order from the
Belgian Colonial Office to all functionaries to help me in every
possible way. This order, I might add, was really a command from King
Albert, with whom I had an hour's private audience at Brussels before I
sailed. As I sat in the simple office of the Palace and talked with this
shy, tall, blonde, and really kingly-looking person, I could not help
thinking of the last time I saw him. It was at La Panne during that
terrible winter of 1916-1917, when the Germans were at the high tide of
their success. The Belgian ruler had taken refuge in this bleak,
sea-swept corner of Belgium and the only part of the country that had
escaped the invader. He lived in a little châlet near the beach. Every
day the King walked up and down on the sands while German aeroplanes
flew overhead and the roar of the guns at Dixmude smote the ear. He was
then leading what seemed to be a forlorn hope and he betrayed his
anxiety in face and speech. Now I beheld him fresh and buoyant, and
monarch of the only country in Europe that had really settled down to
work.
King Albert asked me many questions about my trip. He told me of his own
journey through the Congo in 1908 (he was then Prince Albert), when he
covered more than a thousand miles on foot. He said that he was glad
that an American was going to write something about the Congo at first
hand and he expressed his keen appreciation of the work of American
capital in his big colony overseas. "I like America and Americans," he
said, "and I hope that your country will not forget Europe." There was
a warm clasp of the hand and I was off on the first lap of the journey
that was to reel off more than twenty-six thousand miles of strenuous
travel before I saw my little domicile in New York again.
Before we invade the Congo let me briefly outline its history. It can be
told in a few words although the narrative of its exploitations remains
a serial without end. Prior to Stanley's memorable journey of
exploration across Equatorial Africa which he described in "Through the
Dark Continent," what is now the Congo was a blank spot on the map. No
white man had traversed it. In the fifties Livingstone had opened up
part of the present British East Africa and Nyassaland. In the Luapula
and its tributaries he discovered the headwaters of the Congo River and
then continued on to Victoria Falls and Rhodesia. After Stanley found
the famous missionary at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika in 1872, he returned
to Zanzibar. Hence the broad expanse of Central Africa from Nyassaland
westward practically remained undiscovered until Stanley crossed it
between 1874 and 1877, when he travelled from Stanley Falls, where the
Congo River actually begins, down its expanse to the sea.
As soon as Stanley's articles about the Congo began to appear, King
Leopold, who was a shrewd business man, saw an opportunity for the
expansion of his little country. Under his auspices several
International Committees dedicated to African study were formed. He then
sent Stanley back to the Congo in 1879, to organize a string of stations
from the ocean up to Stanley Falls, now Stanleyville. In 1885 the famous
Berlin Congress of Nations, presided over by Bismarck, recognized the
Congo Free State, accepted Leopold as its sovereign, and the jungle
domain took its place among recognized governments. The principal
purposes animating the founders were the suppression of the slave trade
and the conversion of the territory into a combined factory and a market
for all the nations. It was largely due to Belgian initiative that the
traffic in human beings which denuded all Central Africa of its bone and
sinew every year, was brought to an end.
The world is more or less familiar with subsequent Congo history. In
1904 arose the first protest against the so-called atrocities
perpetrated on the blacks, and the Congo became the center of an
international dispute that nearly lost Belgium her only colonial
possession. In the light of the revelations brought about by the Great
War, and to which I have referred in a previous chapter, it is obvious
that a considerable part of this crusade had its origin in Germany and
was fomented by Germanophiles of the type of Sir Roger Casement, who was
hanged in the Tower of London. During the World War E. D. Morel, his
principal associate in the atrocity campaign, served a jail sentence in
England for attempting to smuggle a seditious document into an enemy
country.
With the atrocity business we are not concerned. The only atrocities
that I saw in the Congo were the slaughter of my clothes on the native
washboard, usually a rock, and the American jitney that broke down and
left me stranded in the Kasai jungle. As a matter of fact, the Belgian
rule in the Congo has swung round to another extreme, for the Negro
there has more freedom of movement and less responsibility for action
than in any other African colony. To round out this brief history, the
Congo was ceded to Belgium in 1908 and has been a Belgian colony ever
since.
We can now go on with the journey. From Bulawayo I travelled northward
for three days past Victoria Falls and Broken Hill, through the
undeveloped reaches of Northern Rhodesia, where you can sometimes see
lion-tracks from the car windows, and where the naked Barotses emerge
from the wilds and stare in big-eyed wonder at the passing trains. Until
recently the telegraph service was considerably impaired by the
curiosity of elephants who insisted upon knocking down the poles.
While I was in South Africa alarming reports were published about a
strike in the Congo and I was afraid that it would interfere with my
journey. This strike was without doubt one of the most unique in the
history of all labor troubles. The whole Congo administration "walked
out," when their request for an increase in pay was refused. The
strikers included Government agents, railway, telegraph and telephone
employes, and steamboat captains. Even the one-time cannibals employed
on all public construction quit work. It was a natural procedure for
them. Not a wheel turned; no word went over the wires; navigation on the
rivers ceased. The country was paralyzed. Happily for me it was settled
before I left Bulawayo.
Late at night I crossed the Congo border and stopped for the customs at
Sakania. At once I realized the potency that lay in my royal credentials
for all traffic was tied up until I was expedited. I also got the
initial surprise of the many that awaited me in this part of the world.
In the popular mind the Congo is an annex of the Inferno. I can vouch
for the fact that some sections break all heat records. The air that
greeted me, however, might have been wafted down from Greenland's icy
mountain, for I was chilled to the bone. In the flickering light of
the station the natives shivered in their blankets. The atmosphere was
anything but tropical yet I was almost within striking distance of the
Equator. The reason for this frigidity was that I had entered the
confines of the Katanga, the most healthful and highly developed
province of the Congo and a plateau four thousand feet above sea level.
[Illustration: LORD LEVERHULME]
[Illustration: ROBERT WILLIAMS]
The next afternoon I arrived at Elizabethville, named for the Queen of
the Belgians, capital of the province, and center of the copper
activity. Here I touched two significant things. One was the group of
American engineers who have developed the technical side of mining in
the Katanga as elsewhere in the Congo; the other was a contact with the
industry which produces a considerable part of the wealth of the Colony.
There is a wide impression that the Congo is entirely an agricultural
country. Although it has unlimited possibilities in this direction, the
reverse, for the moment, is true. The 900,000 square miles of area (it
is eighty-eight times the size of Belgium) have scarcely been scraped by
the hand of man, although Nature has been prodigal in her share of the
development. Wild rubber, the gathering of which loosed the storm about
King Leopold's head, is nearly exhausted because of the one-time
ruthless harvesting. Cotton and coffee are infant industries. The
principal product of the soil, commercially, is the fruit of the palm
tree and here Nature again does most of the ground work.
Mining is, in many respects, the chief operation and the Katanga, which
is really one huge mine, principally copper, is the most prosperous
region so far as bulk of output is concerned. Since this area figures so
prominently in the economic annals of the country it is worth more than
passing attention. Like so many parts of Africa, its exploitation is
recent. For years after Livingstone planted the gospel there, it
continued to be the haunt of warlike tribes. The earliest white visitors
observed that the natives wore copper ornaments and trafficked in a rude
St. Andrew's cross--it was the coin of the country--fashioned out of
metal. When prospectors came through in the eighties and nineties they
found scores of old copper mines which had been worked by the aborigines
many decades ago. Before the advent of civilization the Katanga blacks
dealt mainly in slaves and in copper.
The real pioneer of development in the Katanga is an Englishman, Robert
Williams, a friend and colleague of Cecil Rhodes, and who constructed,
as you may possibly recall, the link in the Cape-to-Cairo Railway from
Broken Hill in Northern Rhodesia to the Congo border. He has done for
Congo copper what Lord Leverhulme has accomplished for palm fruit and
Thomas F. Ryan for diamonds. Congo progress is almost entirely due to
alien capital.
Williams, who was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, went out to Africa in 1881
to take charge of some mining machinery at one of the Kimberley diamond
mines. Here he met Rhodes and an association began which continued until
the death of the empire builder. On his death-bed Rhodes asked Williams
to continue the Cape-to-Cairo project. In the acquiescence to this
request the Katanga indirectly owes much of its advance. Thus the
constructive influence of the Colossus of South Africa extends beyond
the British dominions.
In building the Broken Hill Railway Williams was prompted by two
reasons. One was to carry on the Rhodes project; the other was to link
up what he believed to be a whole new mineral world to the needs of
man. Nor was he working in the dark. Late in the nineties he had sent
George Grey, a brother of Sir Edward, now Viscount Grey, through the
present Katanga region on a prospecting expedition. Grey discovered
large deposits of copper and also tin, lead, iron, coal, platinum, and
diamonds. Williams now organized the company known as the Tanganyika
Concessions, which became the instigator of Congo copper mining.
Subsequently the Union Miniere du Haut Kantanga was formed by leading
Belgian colonial capitalists and the Tanganyika Concessions acquired
more than forty per cent of its capital. The Union Miniere took over all
the concessions and discoveries of the British corporation. The Union
Miniere is now the leading industrial institution in the Katanga and its
story is really the narrative of a considerable phase of Congo
development.
Within ten years it has grown from a small prospecting outfit in the
wilderness, two hundred and fifty miles from a railway, to an industry
employing at the time of my visit more than 1,000 white men and 15,000
blacks. It operates four completely equipped mines which produced nearly
30,000 tons of copper in 1917, and a smelter with an annual capacity of
40,000 tons of copper. A concentrator capable of handling 4,000 tons of
ore per day is nearing completion. This bustling industrial community
was the second surprise that the Congo disclosed.
Equally remarkable is the mushroom growth of Elizabethville, the one
wonder town of the Congo. In 1910, when the railway arrived, it was a
geographical expression,--a spot in the jungle dominated by the huge
ant-hills that you find throughout Central Africa, some of them forty
feet high. The white population numbered thirty. I found it a thriving
place with over 2,000 whites and 12,000 blacks. There are one third as
many white people in the Katanga Province as in all the rest of the
Congo combined, and its area is scarcely a fourth of that of the colony.
The father of Elizabethville is General Emile Wangermee, one of the
picturesque figures in Congo history. He came out in the early days of
the Free State, fought natives, and played a big part in the settlement
of the country. He has been Governor-General of the Colony,
Vice-Governor-General of the Katanga and is now Honorary Vice-Governor.
In the primitive period he went about, after the Congo fashion, on a
bicycle, in flannel shirt and leggins and he continued this
rough-and-ready attire when he became a high-placed civil servant.
Upon one occasion it was announced that the Vice-Governor of the Katanga
would visit Kambove. The station agent made elaborate preparations for
his reception. Shortly before the time set for his arrival a man
appeared on the platform looking like one of the many prospectors who
frequented the country. The station agent approached him and said, "You
will have to move on. We are expecting the Vice-Governor of the
Katanga." The supposed prospector refused to move and the agent
threatened to use force. He was horrified a few minutes later to find
his rough customer being received by all the functionaries of the
district. Wangermee had arrived ahead of time and had not bothered to
change his clothes.
When I rode in a motor car down Elizabethville's broad, electric-lighted
avenues and saw smartly-dressed women on the sidewalks, beheld Belgians
playing tennis on well-laid-out courts on one side, and Englishmen at
golf on the other, it was difficult to believe that ten years ago this
was the bush. I lunched in comfortable brick houses and dined at night
in a club where every man wore evening clothes. I kept saying to myself,
"Is this really the Congo?" Everywhere I heard English spoken. This was
due to the large British interest in the Union Miniere and the presence
of so many American engineers. The Katanga is, with the exception of
certain palm fruit areas, the bulwark of British interests in the Congo.
The American domain is the Upper Kasai district.
Conspicuous among the Americans at Elizabethville was Preston K. Horner,
who constructed the smelter plant and who was made General Manager of
the Union Miniere in 1913. He spans the whole period of Katanga
development for he first arrived in 1909. Associated with him were
various Americans including Frank Kehew, Superintendent of the smelter,
Thomas Carnahan, General Superintendent of Mines, Daniel Butner,
Superintendent of the Kambove Mine, the largest of the Katanga group,
Thomas Yale, who is in charge of the construction of the immense
concentration plant at Likasi, and A. Brooks, Manager of the Western
Mine. For some years A. E. Wheeler, a widely-known American engineer,
has been Consulting Engineer of the Union Miniere, with Frederick Snow
as assistant. Since my return from Africa Horner has retired as General
Manager and Wheeler has become the ranking American. Practically all the
Yankee experts in the Katanga are graduates of the Anaconda or Utah
Mines.
With Horner I travelled by motor through the whole Katanga copper belt.
I visited, first of all, the famous Star of the Congo Mine, eight miles
from Elizabethville, and which was the cornerstone of the entire metal
development. Next came the immense excavation at Kambove where I watched
American steam shovels in charge of Americans, gouging the copper ore
out of the sides of the hills. I saw the huge concentrating plant rising
almost like magic out of the jungle at Likasi. Here again an American
was in control. At Fungurume I spent the night in a native house in the
heart of one of the loveliest of valleys whose verdant walls will soon
be gashed by shovels and discoloured with ore oxide. Over all the area
the Anglo-Saxon has laid his galvanizing hand. One reason is that there
are few Belgian engineers of large mining experience. Another is that
the American, by common consent, is the one executive who gets things
done in the primitive places.
I cannot leave the Congo copper empire without referring to another
Robert Williams achievement which is not without international
significance. Like other practical men of affairs with colonial
experience, he realized long before the outbreak of the Great War
something of the extent and menace of the German ambition in Africa. As
I have previously related, the Kaiser blocked his scheme to run the
Cape-to-Cairo Railway between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Kivu, after King
Leopold had granted him the concession. Williams wanted to help Rhodes
and he wanted to help himself. His chief problem was to get the copper
from the Katanga to Europe in the shortest possible time. Most of it is
refined in England and Belgium. At present it goes out by way of
Bulawayo and is shipped from the port of Beira in Portuguese East
Africa. This involves a journey of 9,514 miles from Kambove to London.
How was this haul to be shortened through an agency that would be proof
against the German intrigue and ingenuity?
[Illustration: ON THE LUALABA]
[Illustration: A VIEW ON THE KASAI]
Williams cast his eye over Africa. On the West Coast he spotted Lobito
Bay, a land-locked harbour twenty miles north of Benguella, one of the
principal parts of Angola, a Portuguese colony. From it he ran a line
straight from Kambove across the wilderness and found that it covered a
distance of approximately 1,300 miles. He said to himself, "This is the
natural outlet of the Katanga and the short-cut to England and Belgium."
He got a concession from the Portuguese Government and work began. The
Germans tried in every way to block the project for it interfered with
their scheme to "benevolently" assimilate Angola.
At the time of my visit to the Congo three hundred and twenty miles of
the Benguella Railway, as it is called, had been constructed and a
section of one hundred miles or more was about to be started. The line
will pass through Ruwe, which is an important center of gold production
in the Katanga, and connect up with the Katanga Railway just north of
Kambove. It is really a link in the Cape-to-Cairo system and when
completed will shorten the freight haul from the copper fields to London
by three thousand miles, as compared with the present Biera itinerary.
There is every indication that the Katanga will justify the early
confidence that Williams had in it and become one of the great
copper-producing centers of the world. Experts with whom I have talked
in America believe that it can in time reach a maximum output of 150,000
tons a year. The ores are of a very high grade and since the Union
Miniere owns more than one hundred mines, of which only six or seven are
partially developed, the future seems safe.
Copper is only one phase of the Katanga mineral treasure. Coal, iron,
and tin have not only been discovered in quantity but are being mined
commercially. Oil-shale is plentiful on the Congo River near
Ponthierville and good indications of oil are recorded in other places.
The discovery of oil in Central Africa would have a great influence on
the development of transportation since it would supply fuel for
steamers, railways, and motor transport. There is already a big oil
production in Angola and there is little doubt that an important field
awaits development in the Congo.
It is not generally realized that Africa today produces the three most
valuable of all known minerals in the largest quantities, or has the
biggest potentialities. The Rand yields more than fifty per cent of the
entire gold supply and ranks as the most valuable of all gold fields.
Ninety-five per cent of the diamond output comes from the Kimberley and
associated mines, German South-West Africa, and the Congo. The Katanga
contains probably the greatest reserve of copper in existence. Now you
can see why the eye of the universe is being focused on this region.
II
When I left Elizabethville I bade farewell to the comforts of life. I
mean, for example, such things as ice, bath-tubs, and running water.
There is enough water in the Congo to satisfy the most ardent teetotaler
but unfortunately it does not come out of faucets. Most of it flows in
rivers, but very little of it gets inside the population, white or
otherwise.
Speaking of water brings to mind one of the useful results of such a
trip as mine. Isolation in the African wilds gives you a new
appreciation of what in civilization is regarded as the commonplace
things. Take the simple matter of a hair-cut. There are only two barbers
in the whole Congo. One is at Elizabethville and the other at Kinshassa,
on the Lower Congo, nearly two thousand miles away. My locks were not
shorn for seven weeks. I had to do what little trimming there was done
with a safety razor and it involved quite an acrobatic feat. Take
shaving. The water in most of the Congo rivers is dirty and full of
germs. More than once I lathered my face with mineral water out of a
bottle. The Congo River proper is a muddy brown. For washing purposes it
must be treated with a few tablets of permanganate of potassium which
colours it red. It is like bathing in blood.
Since my journey from Katanga onward was through the heart of Africa,
perhaps it may be worth while to tell briefly of the equipment required
for such an expedition. Although I travelled for the most part in the
greatest comfort that the Colony afforded, it was necessary to prepare
for any emergency. In the Congo you must be self-sufficient and
absolutely independent of the country. This means that you carry your
own bed and bedding (usually a folding camp-bed), bath-tub, food,
medicine-chest, and cooking utensils.
No detail was more essential than the mosquito net under which I slept
every night for nearly four months. Insects are the bane of Africa. The
mosquito carries malaria, and the tsetse fly is the harbinger of that
most terrible of diseases, sleeping sickness. Judging from personal
experience nearly every conceivable kind of biting bug infests the
Congo. One of the most tenacious and troublesome of the little visitors
is the jigger, which has an uncomfortable habit of seeking a soft spot
under the toe-nail. Once lodged it is extremely difficult to get him
out. These pests are mainly found in sandy soil and give the Negroes who
walk about barefooted unending trouble.
No less destructive is the dazzling sun. Five minutes exposure to it
without a helmet means a prostration and twenty minutes spells death.
Stanley called the country so inseparably associated with his name
"Fatal Africa," but he did not mean the death that lay in the murderous
black hand. He had in mind the thousand and one dangers that beset the
stranger who does not observe the strictest rules of health and diet.
From the moment of arrival the body undergoes an entirely new
experience. Men succumb because they foolishly think they can continue
the habits of civilization. Alcohol is the curse of all the hot
countries. The wise man never takes a drink until the sun sets and then,
if he continues to be wise, he imbibes only in moderation. The morning
"peg" and the lunch-time cocktail have undermined more health in the
tropics than all the flies and mosquitoes combined.
The Duke of Wellington recommended a formula for India which may well be
applied to the Congo. The doughty old warrior once said:
I know but one recipe for good health in this country, and that is
to live moderately, to drink little or no wine, to use exercise, to
keep the mind employed, and, if possible, to keep in good humour
with the world. The last is the most difficult, for as you have
often observed, there is scarcely a good-tempered man in India.
If a man will practice moderation in all things, take five grains of
quinine every day, exercise whenever it is possible, and keep his body
clean, he has little to fear from the ordinary diseases of a country
like the Congo. It is one of the ironies of civilization that after
passing unscathed through all the fever country, I caught a cold the
moment I got back to steam-heat and all the comforts of home.
No one would think of using ordinary luggage in the Congo. Everything
must be packed and conveyed in metal boxes similar to the uniform cases
used by British officers in Egypt and India. This is because the white
ant is the prize destroyer of property throughout Africa. He cuts
through leather and wood with the same ease that a Southern Negro's
teeth lacerate watermelon. Leave a pair of shoes on the ground over
night and you will find them riddled in the morning. These ants eat away
floors and sometimes cause the collapse of houses by wearing away the
wooden supports. Another frequent guest is the driver ant, which travels
in armies and frequently takes complete possession of a house. It
destroys all the vermin but the human inmates must beat a retreat while
the process goes on.
Since my return many people have asked me what books I read in the
Congo. The necessity for them was apparent. I had more than three months
of constant travelling, often alone, and for the most part on small
river boats where there is no deck space for exercise. Mail arrives
irregularly and there were no newspapers. After one or two days the
unceasing panorama of tropical forests, native villages, and naked
savages becomes monotonous. Even the hippopotami which you see in large
numbers, the omnipresent crocodile, and the occasional wild elephant,
cease to amuse. You are forced to fall back on that unfailing friend and
companion, a good book.
I therefore carried with me the following books in handy volume
size:--Montaigne's Essays, Palgrave's Golden Treasury of English Verse,
Lockhart's Life of Napoleon, Autobiography of Cellini, Don Quixote, The
Three Musketeers, Lorna Doone, Prescott's Conquest of Mexico and The
Conquest of Peru, Les Miserables, Vanity Fair, Life and Writings of
Benjamin Franklin, Pepys' Diary, Carlyle's French Revolution, The Last
of the Mohicans, Westward Ho, Bleak House, The Pickwick Papers, A Tale
of Two Cities, and Tolstoi's War and Peace. When these became exhausted
I was hard put for reading matter. At a post on the Kasai River the only
English book I could find was Arnold Bennett's The Pretty Lady, which
had fallen into the hands of an official, who was trying to learn
English with it. It certainly gave him a hectic start.
Then, too, there was the eternal servant problem, no less vexing in that
land of servants than elsewhere. I had cabled to Horner to engage me two
personal servants or "boys" as they are called in Africa. When I got
to Elizabethville I found that he had secured two. In addition to
Swahili, the main native tongue in those parts, one spoke English and
the other French, the official language in the Congo. I did not like the
looks of the English-speaking barbarian so I took a chance on Number
Two, whose name was Gerome. He was a so-called "educated" native. I was
to find from sad experience that his "education" was largely in the
direction of indolence and inefficiency. I thought that by having a boy
with whom I had to speak French I could improve my command of the
language. Later on I realized my mistake because my French is a
non-conductor of profanity.
[Illustration: A STATION SCENE AT KONGOLA]
Gerome had a wife. In the Congo, where all wives are bought, the consort
constitutes the husband's fortune, being cook, tiller of the ground,
beast-of-burden and slave generally. I had no desire to incumber myself
with this black Venus, so I made Gerome promise that he would not take
her along. I left him behind at Elizabethville, for I proceeded to
Fungurume with Horner by automobile. He was to follow by train with my
luggage and have the private car, which I had chartered for the journey
to Bukama, ready for me on my arrival. When I showed up at Fungurume the
first thing I saw was Gerome's wife, with her ample proportions swathed
in scarlet calico, sunning herself on the platform of the car. He could
not bring himself to cook his own food although willing enough to cook
mine.
I paid Gerome forty Belgian francs a month, which, at the rate of
exchange then prevailing, was considerably less than three dollars. I
also had to give him a weekly allowance of five francs (about thirty
cents) for his food. To the American employer of servants these figures
will be somewhat illuminating and startling.
One more human interest detail before we move on. In Africa every white
man gets a name from the natives. This appellation usually expresses his
chief characteristic. The first title fastened on me was "_Bwana Cha
Cha_," which means "The Master Who is Quick." When I first heard this
name I thought it was a reflection on my appetite because "_Cha Cha_" is
pronounced "Chew Chew." Subsequently, in the Upper Congo and the Kasai I
was called "_Mafutta Mingi_," which means "Much Fat." I must explain in
self-defense that in the Congo I ate much more than usual, first because
something in the atmosphere makes you hungry, and second, a good
appetite is always an indication of health in the tropics.
Still another name that I bore was "_Tala Tala_," which means spectacles
in practically all the Congo dialects. There are nearly two hundred
tribes and each has a distinctive tongue. In many sections that I
visited the natives had never seen a pair of tortoise shell glasses such
as I wear during the day. The children fled from me shrieking in terror
and thinking that I was a sorcerer. Even gifts of food, the one
universal passport to the native heart, failed to calm their fears.
The Congo native, let me add, is a queer character. The more I saw of
him, the greater became my admiration for King Leopold. In his present
state the only rule must be a strong rule. No one would ever think of
thanking a native for a service. It would be misunderstood because the
black man out there mistakes kindness for weakness. You must be firm but
just. Now you can see why explorers, upon emerging from long stays in
the jungle, appear to be rude and ill-mannered. It is simply because
they had to be harsh and at times unfeeling, and it becomes a habit.
Stanley, for example, was often called a boor and a brute when in
reality he was merely hiding a fine nature behind the armour necessary
to resist native imposition and worse.
III
The private car on which I travelled from Fungurume to Bukama was my
final taste of luxury. When Horner waved me a good-bye north I realized
that I was divorcing myself from comfort and companionship. In thirty
hours I was in sun-scorched Bukama, the southern rail-head of the
Cape-to-Cairo Route and my real jumping-off place before plunging into
the mysteries of Central Africa.
Here begins the historic Lualaba, which is the initial link in the
almost endless chain of the Congo River. I at once went aboard the first
of the boats which were to be my habitation intermittently for so many
weeks. It was the "Louis Cousin," a 150-ton vessel and a fair example of
the draft which provides the principal means of transportation in the
Congo. Practically all transit not on the hoof, so to speak, in the
Colony is by water. There are more than twelve thousand miles of rivers
navigable for steamers and twice as many more accessible for canoes and
launches. Hence the river-boat is a staple, and a picturesque one at
that.
The "Louis Cousin" was typical of her kind both in appointment, or
rather the lack of it, and human interest details. Like all her sisters
she resembles the small Ohio River boats that I had seen in my boyhood
at Louisville. All Congo steam craft must be stern-wheelers, first
because they usually haul barges on either side, and secondly because
there are so many sand-banks. The few cabins--all you get is the bare
room--are on the upper deck, which is the white man's domain, while the
boiler and freight--human and otherwise--are on the lower. This is the
bailiwick of the black. These boats always stop at night for wood, the
only fuel, and the natives are compelled to go ashore and sleep on the
bank.
The Congo river-boat is a combination of fortress, hotel, and menagerie.
Like the "accommodation" train in our own Southern States, it is most
obliging because it will stop anywhere to enable a passenger to get off
and do a little shopping, or permit the captain to take a meal ashore
with a friendly State official yearning for human society.
The river captain is a versatile individual for he is steward, doctor,
postman, purveyor of news, and dictator in general. He alone makes the
schedule of each trip, arriving and departing at will. Time in the Congo
counts for naught. It is in truth the land of leisure. For the man who
wants to move fast, water travel is a nightmare. Accustomed as I was to
swift transport, I spent a year every day.
The skipper of the "Louis Cousin" was no exception to his kind.
He was a big Norwegian named Behn,--many of his colleagues are
Scandinavians,--and he had spent eighteen years in the Congo. He knew
every one of the thousand nooks, turns, snags and sand-bars of the
Lualaba. One of the first things that impressed me was the uncanny
ingenuity with which all the Congo boats are navigated through what
seems at first glance to be a mass of vegetation and obstruction.
The bane of traffic is the sand-bar, which on account of the swift
currents everywhere, is an eternally changing quantity. Hence a native
is constantly engaged in taking soundings with a long stick. You can
hear his not unmusical voice, from the moment the boat starts until she
ties up for the night. The native word for water is "_mia_." Whenever I
heard the cry "_mia mitani_," I knew that we were all right because that
meant five feet of water. With the exception of the Congo River no boat
can draw more than three feet because in the dry season even the
mightiest of streams declines to an almost incredibly low level.
My white fellow passengers on the "Louis Cousin" were mostly Belgians on
their way home by way of Stanleyville and the Congo River, after years
of service in the Colony. We all ate together in the tiny dining saloon
forward with the captain, who usually provides the "chop," as it is
called. I now made the acquaintance of goat as an article of food. The
young nanny is not undesirable as an occasional novelty but when she is
served up to you every day, it becomes a trifle monotonous.
The one rival of the goat in the Congo daily menu is the chicken, the
mainstay of the country. I know a man who spent six years in the Congo
and he kept a record of every fowl he consumed. When he started for home
the total registered exactly three thousand. It is no uncommon
experience. Occasionally a friendly hunter brought antelope or buffalo
aboard but goat and fowl, reinforced by tinned goods and an occasional
egg, constituted the bill of fare. You may wonder, perhaps, that in a
country which is a continuous chicken-coop, there should be a scarcity
of eggs. The answer lies in the fact that during the last few years the
natives have conceived a sudden taste for eggs. Formerly they were
afraid to eat them.
Of course, there was always an abundance of fruit. You can get
pineapples, grape fruit, oranges, bananas and a first cousin of the
cantaloupe, called the _pei pei_, which when sprinkled with lime juice
is most delicious. Bananas can be purchased for five cents a bunch of
one hundred. It is about the only cheap thing in the Congo except
servants.
[Illustration: A NATIVE MARKET AT KINDU]
Not all my fellow passengers were desirable companions. At Bukana five
naked savages, all chained together by the neck, were brought aboard in
charge of three native soldiers. When I asked the captain who and what
they were he replied, "They are cannibals. They ate two of their fellow
tribesmen back in the jungle last week and they are going down the river
to be tried." These were the first eaters of human flesh that I saw in
the Congo. One conspicuous detail was their teeth which were all filed
down to sharp points. I later discovered that these wolf teeth, as they
might be called, are common to all the Congo cannibals. The punishment
for cannibalism is death, although every native, whatever his offence,
is given a trial by the Belgian authorities.
So far as employing the white man as an article of diet is concerned,
cannibalism has ceased in the Congo. Some of the tribes, however, still
regard the flesh of their own kind as the last word in edibles. The
practice must be carried on in secret. To have partaken of the human
body has long been regarded as an act which endows the consumer with
almost supernatural powers. The cannibal has always justified his
procedure in a characteristic way. When the early explorers and
missionaries protested against the barbarous performance they were
invariably met with this reply, "You eat fowl and goats and we eat men.
What is the difference?" There seems to have been a particular lure in
what the native designated as "food that once talked."
In the days when cannibalism was rampant, the liver of the white man was
looked upon as a special delicacy for the reason that it was supposed to
transmit the knowledge and courage of its former owner. There was also a
tradition that once having eaten the heart of the white, no harm could
come to the barbarian who performed this amiable act. Although these
odious practices have practically ceased except in isolated instances,
the Congo native, in boasting of his strength, constantly speaks of his
liver, and not of his heart.
It was on the Lualaba, after the boat had tied up for the night, that I
caught the first whisper of the jungle. In Africa Nature is in her
frankest mood but she expresses herself in subdued tones. All my life I
had read of the witchery of these equatorial places, but no description
is ever adequate. You must live with them to catch the magic. No
painter, for instance, can translate to canvas the elusive and
ever-changing verdure of the dense forests under the brilliant tropical
sun, nor can those elements of mystery with their suggestion of wild
bird and beast that lurk everywhere at night, be reproduced. Life flows
on like a moving dream that is exotic, enervating, yet intoxicating.
Accustomed as I was to dense populations, the loneliness of the Lualaba
was weird and haunting. On the Mississippi, Ohio, and Hudson rivers in
America and on the Seine, the Thames, and the Spree in Europe, you see
congested human life and hear a vast din. In Africa, and with the
possible exception of some parts of the Nile, Nature reigns with almost
undisputed sway. Settlements appear at rare intervals. You only
encounter an occasional native canoe. The steamers frequently tie up at
night at some sand-bank and you fall asleep invested by an uncanny
silence.
I spent six days on the Lualaba where we made many stops to take on and
put off freight. Many of these halts were at wood-posts where our supply
of fuel was renewed. At one post I found a lonely Scotch trader who had
been in the Congo fifteen years. Every night he puts on his kilts and
parades through the native village playing the bagpipes. It is his one
touch with home. At another place I had a brief visit with another
Scotchman, a veteran of the World War, who had established a prosperous
plantation and who goes about in a khaki kilt, much to the joy of the
natives, who see in his bare knees a kinship with themselves.
At Kabalo I touched the war zone. This post marks the beginning of the
railway that runs eastward to Lake Tanganyika and which Rhodes included
in one of his Cape-to-Cairo routes. Along this road travelled the
thousands of Congo fighting men on their way to the scene of hostilities
in German East Africa.
When the Great War broke out the Belgian Colonial Government held that
the Berlin Treaty of 1885, entitled "A General Act Relating to
Civilization in Africa" and prohibiting warfare in the Congo basin,
should be enforced. This treaty gave birth to the Congo Free State and
made it an international and peaceful area under Belgian sovereignty.
Following their usual fashion the Germans looked upon this document as a
"scrap of paper" and attached Lukuga. This forced the Belgian Congo into
the conflict. About 20,000 native troops were mobilized and under the
command of General Tambeur, who is now Vice-Governor General of the
Katanga, co-operated with the British throughout the entire East African
campaign. The Belgians captured Tabora, one of the German strongholds,
and helped to clear the Teuton out of the country.
Lake Tanganyika was the scene of one of the most brilliant and
spectacular naval battles of the war. Two British motor launches, which
were conveyed in sections all the way from England, sank a German
gunboat and disabled another, thus purging those waters of the German.
The lake was of great strategic importance for the transport of food and
munitions for the Allied troops in German East Africa. It is one of the
loveliest inland bodies of water in the world for it is fringed with
wooded heights and is navigable throughout its entire length of four
hundred miles. Ujiji, on its eastern shore, is the memorable spot where
Stanley found Livingstone. The house where the illustrious missionary
lived still stands, and is an object of veneration both for black and
white visitors.
From Kabalo I proceeded to Kongolo, where navigation on the Lualaba
temporarily ends. It is the usual Congo settlement with the official
residence of the Commissaire of the District, office of the Native
Commissioner, and a dozen stores. It is also the southern rail-head of
the Chemin de Fer Grands Lacs, which extends to Stanleyville. Early in
the morning I boarded what looked to me like a toy train, for it was
tinier than any I had ever seen before, and started for Kindu. The
journey occupies two days and traverses a highly Arabized section.
Back in the days when Tippo Tib, the friend of Stanley, was king of the
Arab slave traders, this area was his hunting ground. Many of the
natives are Mohammedans and wear turbans and long flowing robes. Their
cleanliness is in sharp contrast with the lack of sanitary precautions
observed by the average unclothed native. The only blacks who wash every
day in the Congo are those who live on the rivers. The favorite method
of cleansing in the bush country is to scrape off a week's or a month's
accumulation of mud with a stick or a piece of glass.
In the Congo the trains, like the boats, stop for the night. Various
causes are responsible for the procedure. In the early days of
railroading elephants and other wild animals frequently tore up the
tracks. Another contributory reason is that the carriages are only built
for day travel. Native houses are provided for the traveller at
different points on the line. Since everyone carries his own bed it is
easy to establish sleeping quarters without delay or inconvenience. On
this particular trip I slept at Malela, in the house ordinarily occupied
by the Chief Engineer of the line. The Minister of the Colonies had used
it the night before and it was scrupulously clean. I must admit that I
have had greater discomfort in metropolitan hotels.
I was now in the almost absolute domain of the native. The only white
men that I encountered were an occasional priest and a still more
occasional trader. At Kibombo the train stopped for the mail. When I got
out to stretch my legs I saw a man and a woman who looked unmistakably
American. The man had Texas written all over him for he was tall and
lank and looked as if he had spent his life on the ranges. He came
toward me smiling and said, "The Minister of the Colonies was through
here yesterday in a special train and he said that an American
journalist was following close behind, so I came down to see you." The
man proved to be J. G. Campbell, who had come to install an American
cotton gin nine kilometers from where we were standing. His wife was
with him and she was the only white woman within two hundred miles.
Campbell is a link with one of the new Congo industries, which is cotton
cultivation. The whole area between Kongolo and Stanleyville,
three-fourths of which is one vast tropical forest, has immense
stretches ideally adapted for cotton growing. The Belgian Government has
laid out experimental plantations and they are thriving. In 1919 four
thousand acres were cultivated in the Manyema district, six thousand in
the Sankuru-Kasai region, and six hundred in the Lomami territory.
Altogether the Colony produced 6,000,000 pounds of the raw staple in
1920 and some of it was grown by natives who are being taught the art.
The Congo Cotton Company has been formed at Brussels with a
capitalization of 6,000,000 francs, to exploit the new industry, which
is bound to be an important factor in the development of the Congo. It
shows that the ruthless exploitation of the earlier days is succeeded by
scientific and constructive expansion.
Campbell's experience in setting up his American gin discloses the
principal need of the Congo today which is adequate transport. Between
its arrival at the mouth of the Congo River and Kibombo the mass of
machinery was trans-shipped exactly four times, alternately changing
from rail to river. At Kibombo the 550,000 pounds of metal had to be
carried on the heads of natives to the scene of operations. In the Congo
practically every ton of merchandise must be moved by man power--the
average load is sixty pounds--through the greater part of its journey.
Late in the afternoon of the day which marked the encounter with the
Campbells I reached Kindu, where navigation on the Lualaba is resumed
again. By this time you will have realized something of the difficulty
of travelling in this part of the world. It was my third change since
Bukama and more were to come before I reached the Lower Congo.
[Illustration: NATIVE FISH TRAPS AT STANLEY FALLS]
At Kindu I had a rare piece of luck. I fell in with Louis Franck, the
Belgian Minister of the Colonies, to whom I had a letter of
introduction, and who was making a tour of inspection of the Congo. He
had landed at Mombassa, crossed British East Africa, visited the new
Belgian possessions of Urundi and Ruanda which are spoils of war, and
made his way to Kabalo from Lake Tanganyika. He asked me to accompany
him to Stanleyville as his guest. I gladly accepted because, aside from
the personal compensation afforded by his society, it meant immunity
from worry about the river and train connections.
Franck represents the new type of Colonial Minister. Instead of being a
musty bureaucrat, as so many are, he is a live, alert progressive man of
affairs who played a big part in the late war. To begin with, he is one
of the foremost admiralty lawyers of Europe. When the Germans occupied
Belgium he at once became conspicuous. He resisted the Teutonic scheme
to separate the French and Flemish sections of the ravaged country.
After the investment of Antwerp, his native place, accompanied by the
Burgomaster and the Spanish Minister, he went to the German Headquarters
and made the arrangement by which the city was saved from destruction by
bombardment. He delayed this parley sufficiently to enable the Belgian
Army to escape to the Yser. Subsequently his activities on behalf of his
countrymen made him so distasteful to the Germans that he was imprisoned
in Germany for nearly a year. For two months of this time he shared the
noble exile of Monsieur Max, the heroic Burgomaster of Brussels.
I now became an annex of what amounted to a royal progress. To the
Belgian colonial official and to the native, Franck incarnated a sort of
All Highest. In the Congo all functionaries are called "Bula Matadi,"
which means "The Rock Breaker." It is the name originally bestowed on
Stanley when he dynamited a road through the rocks of the Lower Congo.
Franck, however, was a super "Bula Matadi." We had a special boat, the
"Baron Delbecke," a one hundred ton craft somewhat similar to the "Louis
Cousin" but much cleaner, for she had been scrubbed up for the journey.
The Minister, his military aide, secretary and doctor filled the cabins,
so I slept in a tent set up on the lower deck.
With flags flying and thousands of natives on the shore yelling and
beating tom-toms, we started down the Lualaba. The country between Kindu
and Ponthierville, our first objective, is thickly populated and
important settlements dot the banks. Wherever we stopped the native
troops were turned out and there were long speeches of welcome from the
local dignitaries. Franck shook as many black and white hands as an
American Presidential candidate would in a swing around the circle. I
accompanied him ashore on all of these state visits and it gave me an
excellent opportunity to see the many types of natives in their Sunday
clothes, which largely consist of no clothes at all. This applies
especially to the female sex, which in the Congo reverses Kipling's
theory because they are less deadly than the male.
At Lowa occurred a significant episode. This place is the center of an
immense native population, but there is only one white resident, the
usual Belgium state official. We climbed the hill to his house, where
thirty of the leading chiefs, wearing the tin medal which the Belgian
Government gives them, shook hands with the Minister. The ranking chief,
distinguished by the extraordinary amount of red mud in his wool and the
grotesque devices cut with a knife on his body, made a long speech in
which he became rather excited. When the agent translated this in French
to Franck I gathered that the people were indignant over the advance in
cost of trade goods, especially salt and calico. Salt is more valuable
than gold in the Congo. Among the natives it is legal tender for every
commodity from a handkerchief to a wife.
Franck made a little speech in French in reply--it was translated by the
interpreter--in which he said that the Great War had increased the price
of everything. We shook hands all round and there was much muttering of
"yambo," the word for "greeting," and headed for the boat.
Halfway down the hill we heard shouting and hissing. We stopped and
looked back. On the crest were a thousand native women, jeering,
hooting, and pointing their fingers at the Minister, who immediately
asked the cause of the demonstration. When the agent called for an
explanation a big black woman said:
"Ask the 'Bula Matadi' why the franc buys so little now? We only get a
few goods for a big lot of money."
I had gone into the wilds to escape from economic unrest and all the
confusion that has followed in its wake, yet here in the heart of
Central Africa, I found our old friend the High Cost of Living working
overtime and provoking a spirited protest from primitive savages! It
proves that there is neither caste, creed nor colour-line in the
pocket-book. Like indigestion, to repeat Mr. Pinero, it is the universal
leveller of all ranks.
IV
On this trip Franck outlined to me his whole colonial creed. It was a
gorgeous June morning and we had just left a particularly picturesque
Arabized village behind us. Hundreds of natives had come out to welcome
the Minister in canoes. They sang songs and played their crude musical
instruments as they swept alongside our boat. We now sat on the upper
deck and watched the unending panorama of palm trees with here and there
a clump of grass huts.
"All colonial development is a chain which is no stronger than its
weakest link and that is the native," said the Minister. "As you build
the native, so do you build the whole colonial structure. Hence the
importance of a high moral standard. You must conform to the native's
traditions, mentality and temperament. Give him a technical education
something like that afforded by Booker Washington's Tuskegee Institute.
Show him how to use his hands. He will then become efficient and
therefore contented. It is a mistake to teach him a European language. I
prefer him to be a first-class African rather than third-class European.
"The hope of the Congo lies in industrialization on the one hand, and
the creation of new wealth on the other. By new wealth I mean such new
crops as cotton and a larger exploitation of such old products as rice
and palm fruit. Rubber has become a second industry although the
cultivated plantations are in part taking the place of the old wild
forests. The substitute for rubber as the first product of the land is
the fruit of the oil palm tree. This will be the industrial staple of
the Congo. I believe, however, that in time cotton can be produced in
large commercial quantities over a wide area."
Franck now turned to a subject which reflects his courage and
progressiveness. He said, "There is a strong tendency in other Colonies
to give too large a place to State enterprise. The result of this system
is that officers are burdened with an impossible task. They must look
after the railways, steamers, mills, and a variety of tasks for which
they often lack the technical knowledge.
"I have made it a point to give first place to private enterprise and to
transfer those activities formerly under State rule to autonomous
enterprises in which the State has an interest. They are run by business
men along business lines as business institutions. The State's principal
function in them is to protect the native employes. The gold mines at
Kilo are an example. They are still owned by the State but are worked by
a private company whose directors have full powers. The reason why the
State does not part with its ownership of these mines is that it does
not want a rush of gold-seekers. History has proved that in a country
with a primitive population a gold rush is a dangerous and destructive
thing.
"We are always free traders in Belgium and we are glad to welcome any
foreign capital to the Congo. We have already had the constructive
influence of American capital in the diamond fields and we will be glad
to have more."
The average man thinks that the Congo and concessions are practically
synonymous terms. In the Leopold day this was true but there is a new
deal now. Let Monsieur Franck explain it:
"There was a time when huge concessions were freely given in the Congo.
They were then necessary because the Colony was new, the country
unknown, and the financial risk large. Now that the economic
possibilities of the region are realized it is not desirable to grant
any more large concessions. It is proved that these concessions are
really a handicap rather than a help to a young land. The wise procedure
is to have a definite agricultural or industrial aim in mind, and then
pick the locality for exploitation, whether it is gold, cotton, copper
or palm fruit."
"What is the future of the Congo?" I asked.
"The Congo is now entering upon a big era of development," was the
answer. "If the Great War had not intervened it would have been well
under way. Despite the invasion of Belgium, the practical paralysis of
our home industry, and the fact that many of our Congo officials and
their most highly trained natives were off fighting the Germans in East
Africa, the Colony more than held its own during those terrible years.
In building the new Congo we are going to profit by the example of other
countries and capitalize their knowledge and experience of tropical
hygiene. We propose to combat sleeping sickness, for example, with an
agency similar to your Rockefeller Institute of Research in New York.
"The Congo is bound to become one of the great centers of the world
supply. The Katanga is not only a huge copper area but it has immense
stores of coal, tin, zinc and other valuable commodities. Our diamond
fields have scarcely been scraped, while the agricultural possibilities
of hundreds of thousands of square miles are unlimited.
"The great need of the Congo is transport. We are increasing our river
fleets and we propose to introduce on them a type of barge similar to
that used on the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers.
"An imposing program of railway expansion is blocked out. For one thing
we expect to run a railway from the Katanga copper belt straight across
country to Kinshassa on the Lower Congo. It is already surveyed. This
will tap a thickly populated region and enable the diamond mines of the
Kasai to get the labour they need so sorely. The Robert Williams railway
through Angola will be another addition to our transportation
facilities. One of the richest regions of the Congo is the north-eastern
section. The gold mines at Kilo are now only accessible by river. We
plan to join them up with the railway to be built from Stanleyville to
the Soudan border. This will link the Congo River and the Nile. With our
railroads as with our industrial enterprises, we stick to private
ownership and operation with the State as a partner.
"The new provinces of Ruanda and Urundi will contribute much to our
future prosperity. They add millions of acres to our territory and
3,000,000 healthy and prosperous natives to our population. These new
possessions have two distinct advantages. One is that they provide an
invigorating health resort which will be to the Central Congo what the
Katanga is to the Southern. The other is that, being an immense cattle
country--there is a head of live stock for every native--we will be able
to secure fresh meat and dairy products, which are sorely needed.
"The Congo is not only the economic hope of Belgium but it is teaching
the Belgian capitalist to think in broad terms. Henceforth the business
man of all countries must regard the universe as his field. As a
practical commercial proposition it pays, both with nations as with
individuals. We have found that the possession of the Congo, huge as it
is, and difficult for a country like ours to develop, is a stimulating
thing. It is quickening our enterprise and widening our world view."
It would be difficult to find a more practical or comprehensive colonial
program. It eliminates that bane of over-seas administration, red tape,
and it puts the task of empire-building squarely up to the business man
who is the best qualified for the work. I am quite certain that the
advent of Monsieur Franck into office, and particularly his trip to the
Congo, mean the beginning of an epoch of real and permanent exploitation
in the Congo.
[Illustration: THE MASSIVE BANGALAS]
[Illustration: CONGO WOMEN IN STATE DRESS]