Chapter 5
I
Two days more of travelling on the Lower Lualaba brought us to Ponthierville, a jewel of a post with a setting of almost bewildering tropical beauty. Here we spent the night on the boat and early the following morning boarded a special train for Stanleyville, which is only six hours distant by rail. Midway we crossed the Equator.
Thirty miles south of Stanleyville is the State Experimental Coffee Farm of three hundred acres, which produces fifteen different species of the bean. This institution is one evidence of a comprehensive agricultural development inaugurated by the Belgian Government. The State has about 10,000 acres of test plantations, mostly Para rubber, cotton, and cacao, in various parts of the Colony.
One commendable object of this work is to instill the idea of crop-growing among the natives. Under ordinary circumstances the man of colour in the tropics will only raise enough maize, manioc, or tobacco for his own needs. The Belgian idea is to encourage co-operative farming in the villages. In the region immediately adjacent to Stanleyville the natives have begun to plant cotton over a considerable area. At Kongolo I saw hundreds of acres of this fleecy plant under the sole supervision of the indigenes.
Stanleyville marked one of the real mileposts of my journey. Here came Stanley on his first historic expedition across Central Africa and discovered the falls nearby that bear his name; here he set up the Station that marked the Farthest East of the expedition which founded the Congo Free State. Directly south-east of the town are seven distinct cataracts which extend over fifty miles of seething whirlpools.
Stanleyville is the head of navigation on the Congo and like Paris, is built on two sides of the river. On the right bank is the place of the Vice-Governor General, scores of well stocked stores, and many desirable residences. The streets are long avenues of palm trees. The left bank is almost entirely given over to the railway terminals, yards, and repair shops. My original plan was to live with the Vice-Governor General, Monsieur de Meulemeester, but his establishment was so taxed by the demands of the Ministerial party that I lodged with Monsieur Theews, Chief Engineer of the Chemin de Fer des Grands Lacs, where I was most comfortable in a large frame bungalow that commanded a superb view of the river and the town.
At Stanleyville the Minister of the Colonies had a great reception. Five hundred native troops looking very smart were drawn up in the plaza. On the platform of the station stood the Vice-Governor General and staff in spotless white uniforms, their breasts ablaze with decorations. On all sides were thousands of natives in gay attire who cheered and chanted while the band played the Belgian national anthem. Over it all waved the flag of Belgium. It was a stirring spectacle not without its touch of the barbaric, and a small-scale replica of what you might have seen at Delhi or Cairo on a fête day.
I was only mildly interested in all this tumult and shouting. What concerned me most was the swift, brown river that flowed almost at our feet. At last I had reached the masterful Congo, which, with the sole exception of the Amazon, is the mightiest stream in the world. As I looked at it I thought of Stanley and his battles on its shores, and the hardship and tragedy that these waters had witnessed.
Stanleyville is not only the heart of Equatorial Africa but it is also an important administrative point. Hundreds of State officials report to the Vice-Governor General there, and on national holidays and occasions like the visit of the Colonial Minister, it can muster a gay assemblage. Monsieur Franck's presence inspired a succession of festivities including a garden party which was attended by the entire white population numbering about seventy-five. There was also a formal dinner where I wore evening clothes for the first and only time between Elizabethville and the steamer that took me to Europe three months later.
At the garden party Monsieur Franck made a graceful speech in which he said that the real missionaries of African civilization were the wives who accompanied their husbands to their lonely posts in the field. What he said made a distinct impression upon me for it was not only the truth but it emphasized a detail that stands out in the memory of everyone who visits this part of the world. I know of no finer heroines than these women comrades of colonial officials who brave disease and discomfort to share the lives of their mates. For one thing, they give the native a new respect for his masters. All white women in the Congo are called "mamma" by the natives.
The use of "mamma" by the African natives always strikes the newcomer as strange. It is a curious fact that practically the first word uttered by the black infant is "mamma," and in thousands of cases the final utterance of both adult male and female is the same word. In northern Rhodesia and many parts of the Congo the native mother frequently refers to her child as a "piccannin" which is almost the same word employed by coloured people in the American South.
Stanleyville's social prestige is only equalled by her economic importance. It is one of the great ivory markets of the world. During the last two years this activity has undergone fluctuations that almost put Wall Street to the blush.
During the war there was very little trafficking in ivory because it was a luxury. With peace came a big demand and the price soared to more than 200 francs a kilo. The ordinary price is about forty. One trader at Stanleyville cleaned up a profit of 3,000,000 francs in three months. Then came the inevitable reaction and with it a unique situation. In their mad desire to corral ivory the traders ran up the normal price that the native hunters received. The moment the boom burst the white buyers sought to regulate their purchases accordingly. The native, however, knows nothing about the law of demand and supply and he holds out for the boom price. The outcome is that hundreds of tons of ivory are piled up in the villages and no power on earth can convince the savage that there is such a thing as the ebb and flow of price. Such is commercial life in the jungle.
Northeast of Stanleyville lie the most important gold mines in the Colony. The precious metal was discovered accidentally some years ago in the gravel of small rivers west of Lake Albert, and near the small towns of Kilo and Moto. Four mines are now worked in this vicinity, two by the Government and two by a private company. At the outbreak of the war this area was on the verge of considerable development which has just been resumed. At the time of my visit all these mines were placers and the operation was rather primitive. With modern machinery and enlarged white staffs will come a pretentious exploitation. The Government mines alone yield more than $2,000,000 worth of gold every year. Shortly before my arrival in the Congo what was heralded as the largest gold nugget ever discovered was found in the Kilo State Mine. It weighed twelve pounds.
Stanleyville has a significance for me less romantic but infinitely more practical than the first contact with the Congo River. After long weeks of suffering from inefficient service I sacked Gerome and annexed a boy named Nelson. The way of it was this: In the Katanga I engaged a young Belgian who was on his way home, to act as secretary. He knew the native languages and could always convince the most stubborn black to part with an egg. Nelson was his servant. He was born on the Rhodesian border and spoke English. I could therefore upbraid him to my heart's content, which was not the case with Gerome. Besides, he was not handicapped with a wife. In Africa the servants adopt the names of their masters. Nelson had worked for an Englishman at Elizabethville and acquired his cognomen. I have not the slightest doubt that he now masquerades under mine. Be that as it may, Nelson was a model servant and he remained with me until that September day when I boarded the Belgium-bound boat at Matadi.
Nelson reminded me more of the Georgia Negro than any other one that I saw in the Congo. He was almost coal black, he smiled continuously, and his teeth were wonderful to look at. He had an unusual capacity for work and also for food. I think he was the champion consumer of _chikwanga_ in the Congo. The _chikwanga_ is a glutinous dough made from the pounded root of the manioc plant and is the principal food of the native. It is rolled and cut up in pieces and then wrapped in green leaves. The favorite way of preparing it for consumption is to heat it in palm oil, although it is often eaten raw. Nelson bought these _chikwangas_ by the dozen. He was never without one. He even ate as he washed my clothes.
The Congo native is in a continuous state of receptivity when it comes to food. Nowhere in the world have I seen people who ate so much. I have offered the leavings of a meal to a savage just after he had apparently gorged himself and he "wolfed" it as if he were famished. The invariable custom in the Congo is to have one huge meal a day. On this occasion every member of the family consumes all the edibles in sight. Then the crowd lays off until the following day. All food offered in the meantime by way of gratuity or otherwise is devoured on the spot.
In connection with the _chikwanga_ is an interesting fact. The Congo natives all die young--I only saw a dozen old men--because they are insufficiently nourished. The _chikwanga_ is filling but not fattening. This is why sleeping sickness takes such dreadful toll. From an estimated population of 30,000,000 in Stanley's day the indigenes have dwindled to less than one-third this number. Meat is a luxury. Although the natives have chickens in abundance they seldom eat one for the reason that it is more profitable to sell them to the white man.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Congo native suffers from ailments. Unlike the average small boy of civilization, he delights in taking medicine. I suppose that he regards it as just another form of food. You hear many amusing stories in connection with medicinal articles. When you give a savage a dozen effective pills, for example, and tell him to take one every night, he usually swallows them all at one time and then he wonders why the results are disastrous. A sorcerer in the Upper Congo region once obtained what was widely acclaimed as miraculous results from a red substance that he got out of a tin. It developed that he had stolen a can of potted beef and was using it as "medicine."
Stanleyville was called the center of the old Arab slave trade. While the odious traffic has long ceased to exist, you occasionally meet an old native who bears the scars of battle with the marauders and who can tell harrowing tales of the cruelties they inflicted.
The slave raiders began their operations in the Congo in 1877, the same year in which Stanley made his historic march across Africa from Zanzibar to the north of the Congo. It was the great explorer who unconsciously blazed the way for the man-hunters. They followed him down the Lualaba River as far as Stanley Falls and discovered what was to them a real human treasure-trove. For twenty years they blighted the country, carrying off tens of thousands of men, women and children and slaughtering thousands in addition. This region was a cannibal stronghold and one bait that lured local allies was the promise of the bodies of all natives slain, for consumption. Belgian pioneers in the Congo who co-operated with the late Baron Dhanis who finally put down the slave trade, have told me that it was no infrequent sight to behold native women going off to their villages with baskets of human flesh. They were part of the spoils of this hideous warfare.
Tippo Tib was lord of this slave-trading domain. This astounding rascal had a distinct personality. He was a master trader and drove the hardest bargain in all Africa. Livingstone, Cameron, Stanley, and Wissmann all did business with him, for he had a monopoly on porters and no one could proceed without his help. He invariably waited until the white man reached the limit of his resources and then exacted the highest price, in true Shylockian fashion.
According to Herbert Ward, the well-known African artist and explorer, who accompanied Stanley on the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, Tippo Tib was something of a philosopher. On one occasion Ward spent the evening with the old Arab. He occupied a wretched house. Rain dripped in through the roof, rats scuttled across the floor, and wind shook the walls. When the Englishman expressed his astonishment that so rich and powerful a chief should dwell in such a mean abode Tippo Tib said:
"It is better that I should live in a house like this because it makes me remember that I am only an ordinary man like others. If I lived in a fine house with comforts I should perhaps end by thinking too much of myself."
Ward also relates another typical story about this blood-thirsty bandit. A missionary once called him to account for the frightful barbarities he had perpetrated, whereupon he received the following reply:
"Ah, yes! You see I was then a young man. Now my hair is turning gray. I am an old man and shall have more consideration."
Until his death in 1907 at Zanzibar, Tippo Tib and reformation were absolute strangers. He embodied that combination of cruelty and religious fanaticism so often found in the Arab. He served his God and the devil with the same relentless devotion. He incarnated a type that happily has vanished from the map of Africa.
The region around Stanleyville is rich with historic interest and association. The great name inseparably and immortally linked with it is that of Stanley. Although he found Livingstone, relieved Emin Pasha, first traversed the Congo River, and sowed the seeds of civilization throughout the heart of the continent, his greatest single achievement, perhaps, was the founding of the Congo Free State. No other enterprise took such toll of his essential qualities and especially his genius for organization.
Stanley is most widely known as an explorer, yet he was, at the same time, one of the master civilizers. He felt that his Congo adventure would be incomplete if he did not make the State a vast productive region and the home of the white man. He longed to see it a British possession and it was only after he offered it twice to England and was twice rebuffed, that he accepted the invitation of King Leopold II to organize the stations under the auspices of the International African Association, which was the first step toward Belgian sovereignty.
I have talked with many British and Belgian associates of Stanley. Without exception they all acclaim his sterling virtues both in the physical and spiritual sense. All agree that he was a hard man. The best explanation of this so-called hardness is given by Herbert Ward, who once spoke to him about it. Stanley's reply was, "You've got to be hard. If you're not hard you're weak. There are only two sides to it."
Stanley always declared that his whole idea of life and work were embodied in the following maxim: "The three M's are all we need. They are Morals, Mind and Muscles. These must be cultivated if we wish to be immortal." To an astonishing degree he worked and lived up to these principles.
No explorer, not even Peary in the Arctic wilds, was ever prey to a larger isolation than this man. In the midst of the multitude he was alone. He shunned intimacy and one of his mournful reflections was, "I have had no friend on any expedition, no one who could possibly be my companion on an equal footing, except while with Livingstone."
I cannot resist the impulse to make comparison between those two outstanding Englishmen, Rhodes and Stanley, whose lives are intimately woven into the fabric of African romance. They had much in common and yet they were widely different in purpose and temperament. Each was an autocrat and brooked no interference. Each had the same kindling ideal of British imperialism. Each suffered abuse at the hands of his countrymen and lived to witness a triumphant vindication.
Stanley had a rare talent for details--he went on the theory that if you wanted a thing done properly you must do it yourself--but Rhodes only saw things in a big way and left the interpretation to subordinates. Stanley was devoutly religious while Rhodes paid scant attention to the spiritual side. Each was a dreamer in his own way and merely regarded money as a means to an end. Rhodes, however, was far more disdainful of wealth as such, than Stanley, who received large sums for his books and lectures. It is only fair to him to say that he never took pecuniary advantage of the immense opportunities that his explorations in the Congo afforded.
Still another intrepid Englishman narrowly missed having a big rôle in the drama of the Congo. General Gordon agreed to assume the Governorship of the Lower Congo under Stanley, who was to be the Chief Administrator of the Upper Congo. They were to unite in one grand effort to crush the slave trade. Fate intervened. Gordon meanwhile was asked by the British Government to go to Egypt, then in the throes of the Mahdist uprising. He went to his martyrdom at Khartoum, and Stanley continued his work alone in Central Africa.
While Stanley established its most enduring traditions, other heroic soldiers and explorers, contributed to the roll of fame of the Upper Congo region. Conspicuous among them was Captain Deane, an Englishman who fought the Arab slave traders at Stanley Falls and who figured in a succession of episodes that read like the most romantic fiction.
With less than a hundred native troops recruited from the West Coast of Africa, he defended the State Station founded by Stanley at the Falls against thousands of Arab raiders. Most of the caps in his rifle cartridges were rendered useless by dampness and the Captain and his second in command, Lieutenant Dubois, a Belgian officer, fought shoulder to shoulder with his men in the hand-to-hand struggle that ensued. Subsequently practically all the natives deserted and Deane was left with Dubois and four loyal blacks. Under cover of darkness they escaped from the island on which the Station was located. On this journey Dubois was drowned.
For thirty days Deane and his four faithful troopers wandered through the forests, hiding during the day from their ferocious pursuers and sleeping in trees at night. On the thirtieth day he was captured by the savages. Unarmed, he sank to the ground overcome with weariness. A big native stood over him with his spear poised for the fatal thrust. A moment later the Englishman was surprised to see his enemy lower the weapon and grasp him by the hand. He had succored this savage two years before and had not been forgotten. Deane and his companions were convoyed under an escort to Herbert Ward's camp and he was nursed back to health.
Deane's death illustrates the irony that entered into the passing of so many African adventurers. Twelve months after he was snatched from the jaws of death on the banks of the Congo in the manner just described, he was killed while hunting elephants. A wounded beast impaled him on a tusk and then mauled him almost beyond recognition.
II
Since Stanleyville is the head of navigation on the Congo there is ordinarily no lack of boats. I was fortunate to be able to embark on the "Comte de Flandre," the Mauretania of those inland seas and the most imposing vessel on the river for she displaced five hundred tons. She flew the flag of the Huileries du Congo Belge, the palm oil concern founded by Lord Leverhulme and the most important all-British commercial interest in the Congo. She was one of a fleet of ten boats that operate on the Congo, the Kasai, the Kwilu and other rivers. I not only had a comfortable cabin but the rarest of luxuries in Central Africa, a regulation bathtub, was available. The "Comte de Flandre" had cabin accommodations for fourteen whites. The Captain was an Englishman and the Chief Engineer a Scotchman.
On this, as on most of the other Congo boats, the food is provided by the Captain, to whom the passengers pay a stipulated sum for meals. On the "Comte de Flandre," however, the food privilege was owned jointly by the Captain and the Chief Engineer. The latter did all the buying and it was almost excruciatingly funny to watch him driving real Scotch bargains with the natives who came aboard at the various stops to sell chickens, goats, and fruit. The engineer could scarcely speak a word of any of the native languages, but he invariably got over the fact that the price demanded was too high.
The passenger list of the "Comte de Flandre" included Englishmen, Belgians, Italians, and Portuguese. I was the only American. The steerage, firemen, and wood-boys were all blacks. With this international congress over which beamed the broad smile of Nelson, I started on the thousand-mile trip down the Congo River.
It is difficult to convey the impression that the Congo River gives. Serene and majestic, it is often well-nigh overwhelming in its immensity. Between Stanleyville and Kinshassa there are four thousand islands, some of them thirty miles in length. As the boat picks its way through them you feel as if you were travelling through an endless tropical park of which the river provides the paths. It has been well called a "Venice of Vegetation." The shores are brilliant with a variegated growth whose exotic smell is wafted out over the waters. You see priceless orchids entwined with the mangroves in endless profusion. Behind this verdure stretches the dense equatorial forest in which Stanley battled years ago in an almost impenetrable gloom. Aigrettes and birds of paradise fly on all sides and every hour reveals a hideous crocodile sunning himself on a sandspit.
Night on the Congo enhances the loneliness that you feel on all the Central African rivers. Although the settlements are more numerous and larger than those on the Lualaba and the Kasai, there is the same feeling of isolation the moment darkness falls. The jungle seems to be an all-embracing monster who mocks you with his silence. Joseph Conrad interpreted this atmosphere when he referred to it as having "a stillness of life that did not resemble peace,--the silence of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention." This is the Congo River.
The more I saw of the Congo River--it is nearly twice as large as the Mississippi--the more I realized that it is in reality a parent of waters. It has half a dozen tributaries that range in length from 500 to 1,000 miles each. The most important are the Lualaba and the Kasai. Others include the Itimbiri, the Aruwimi and the Mubangi. Scores of smaller streams, many of them navigable for launches, empty into the main river. This is why there is such a deep and swift current in the lower region where the Congo enters the sea.
The astonishing thing about the Congo River is its inconsistency. Although six miles wide in many parts it is frequently not more than six feet deep. This makes navigation dangerous and difficult. As on the Lualaba and every other river in the Colony, soundings must be taken continually. This extraordinary discrepancy between width and depth reminds me of the designation of the Platte River in Nebraska by a Kansas statesman which was, "A river three-quarters of a mile wide and three-quarters of an inch deep." Thus the Congo journey takes on a constant element of hazard because you do not know what moment you will run aground on a sand-bank, be impaled on a snag, or strike a rock.
Although the "Comte de Flandre" was rated as the fastest craft on the Congo our progress was unusually slow because of the scarcity of wood for fuel. This seems incredible when you consider that the whole Congo Basin is one vast forest. Millions of trees stand ready to be sacrificed to the needs of man, yet there are no hands to cut them. In the Congo, as throughout this distracted world, the will-to-work is a lost art, no less manifest among the savages than among their civilized brothers. The ordinary native will only labour long enough to provide himself with sufficient money to buy a month's supply of food. Then he quits and joins the leisure class. Hence wood-hunting on the Congo vies with the trip itself as a real adventure. The competition between river captains for fuel is so keen that a skipper will sometimes start his boat at three o'clock in the morning and risk an accident in the dark in order to beat a rival to a wood supply.
All up and down the river are wood-posts. Most of them are owned by the steamship companies. It was our misfortune to find most of them practically stripped of their supplies. A journey which ordinarily takes twelve days consumed twenty. But there were many compensations and I had no quarrel with the circumstance:
I had the good fortune to witness that rarest of sights that falls to the lot of the casual traveller--a serious fight between natives. We stopped at a native wood-post--(some of them are operated by the occasionally industrious blacks)--for fuel. The whole village turned out to help load the logs. In the midst of the process a crowd of natives made their appearance, armed with spears and shields. They began to taunt the men and women who were loading our boat. I afterwards learned that they owned a wood-post nearby and were disgruntled because we had not patronized them. They blamed their neighbours for it. Almost before we realized it a pitched battle was in progress in which spears were thrown and men and women were laid out in a generally bloody fracas. One man got an assegai through his throat and it probably inflicted a fatal wound.
In the midst of the mêlée one of my fellow passengers, a Catholic priest named Father Brandsma, courageously dashed in between the flying spears and logs of wood and separated the combatants. This incident shows the hostility that still exists between the various tribes in the Congo. It constitutes one excellent reason why there can never be any concerted uprising against the whites. There is no single, strong, cohesive native dynasty.
Father Brandsma was one of the finest men I met in the Congo. He was a member of the society of priests which has its headquarters at Mill Hill in England. He came aboard the boat late one night when we were tied up at Bumba, having ridden a hundred miles on his bicycle along the native trails. We met the following morning in the dining saloon. I sat at a table writing letters and he took a seat nearby and started to make some notes in a book. When we finished I addressed him in French. He answered in flawless English. He then told me that he had spent fifteen years in Uganda, where he was at the head of the Catholic Missions.
The Father was in his fifth year of service in the Congo and his analysis of the native situation was accurate and convincing. Among other things he said, "The great task of the Colonial Government is to provide labour for the people. In many localities only one native out of a hundred works. This idleness must be stopped and the only way to stop it is to initiate highway and other improvements, so as to recruit a large part of the native population."
Father Brandsma is devoting some of his energy to a change in copal gathering. This substance, which is found at the roots of trees in swampy and therefore unhealthy country, is employed in the manufacture of varnish. To harvest it the natives stand all day in water up to their hips and they catch the inevitable colds from which pneumonia develops. Copal gathering is a considerable source of income for many tribes and usually the entire community treks to the marshes. In this way the lives of the women and children are also menaced. The Father believes that only the men should go forth at certain periods for this work and leave their families behind.
Father Brandsma was the central actor in a picturesque scene. One Sunday morning I heard a weird chanting and I arose to discover the cause. I found that the priest was celebrating mass for the natives on the main deck of the boat. Dawn had just broken, and on the improvised altar several candles gleamed in the half light. In his vestments the priest was a striking figure. All about him knelt the score of naked savages who made up the congregation. They crossed themselves constantly and made the usual responses. I must confess that the ceremony was strangely moving and impressive.
As soon as I reached the Congo River I saw that the natives were bigger and stronger than those of the Katanga and other sections that I had visited. The most important of the river tribes are the Bangalas, who are magnificent specimens of manhood. In Stanley's day they were masters of a considerable portion of the Upper Congo River region and contested his way skilfully and bitterly. They are more peacefully inclined today and hundreds of them are employed as wood-boys and firemen on the river boats.
The Bangalas practice cicatrization to an elaborate extent. This process consists of opening a portion of the flesh with a knife, injecting an irritating juice into the wound, and allowing the place to swell. The effect is to raise a lump or weal. Some of these excrescences are tiny bumps and others develop into large welts that disfigure the anatomy. Extraordinary designs are literally carved on the faces and bodies of the men and women. Although it is an intensely painful operation,--some of the wounds must be opened many times--the native submits to it with pleasure because the more ornate the design the more resplendent the wearer feels. The women are usually more liberally marked than the men.
Cicatrization is popular in various parts of Central Africa but nowhere to the degree that it prevails on the Congo River and among the Bangalas, where it is a tribal mark. I observed women whose entire bodies from the ankles up to the head were one mass of cicatrized designs. One of the favorite areas is the stomach. This is just another argument against clothes. Cicatrization bears the same relation to the African native that tattooing does to the whites of some sections. Human vanity works in mysterious ways to express itself.
In this connection it is perhaps worth while to point out one of the reasons why the Congo atrocity exhorters found such ready exhibits for their arguments. The Central African native delights in disfigurement not only as a sign of "beauty," but as a means of retaliation for real or fancied wrongs among his own. In the old days dozens of slaves, and sometimes wives, were sacrificed upon the death of an important chief. Their spirits were supposed to provide a bodyguard to escort the departed potentate safely into the land of the hereafter. One of the former prerogatives of a husband was the sanction to chop off the hand or foot of a wife if she offended or disobeyed him. Hence Central Africa abounded in mutilated men, women and children. While some of these barbarities may have been due to excessive zeal or temper in State or corporation officials there is no doubt that many instances were the result of native practices.
The reference to cicatrization brings to mind another distinctive Central African observance. I refer to the ceremony of blood brotherhood. When two men, who have been enemies, desire to make the peace and swear eternal amity, they make a small incision in one of their forearms sufficiently deep to cause the flow of blood. Each then licks the blood from the other's arm and henceforth they are related as brothers. This performance was not only common among the blacks but was also practiced by the whites and the blacks the moment civilization entered the wild domains. Stanley's arms were one mass of scars as the result of swearing constant blood brotherhood. It became such a nuisance and at the same time developed into such a serious menace to his health, that the rite had to be amended. Instead of licking the blood the comrades now merely rub the incisions together on the few occasions nowadays when fealty is sworn. I am glad to say that I escaped the ordeal.
Much to my regret I saw only a few of the much-described pygmies who dwelt mainly in the regions northeast of Stanleyville, where Stanley first met them. They are all under three feet in height, are light brown in colour, and wear no garments when on their native heath. They are the shyest of all the tribes I encountered. These diminutive creatures seldom enter the service of the white man and prefer the wild life of the jungle. I was informed in the Congo that the real pygmy is fast disappearing from the map. Intermarriage with other tribes, and settlement into more or less permanent villages, have increased the height of the present generation and helped to remove one of the last human links with Stanley's great day.
The Congo River native is perhaps the shrewdest in all Central Africa. He is a born trader, and he can convert the conventional shoe-string into something worth while. One reason why the Bangalas take positions as firemen and woodboys on the river boats is that it enables them to go into business. The price of food at the small settlements up river is much less than at Kinshassa, where navigation from Stanleyville southward ends. Hence the blacks acquire considerable stores of palm oil and dried fish at the various stops made by the steamers and dispose of it with large profit when they reach the end of the journey. I have in mind the experience of a capita on the "Comte de Flandre." When we left Stanleyville his cash capital was thirty-five francs. With this he purchased a sufficient quantity of food, which included dozens of pieces of _chikwanga_, to realize two hundred and twenty francs at Kinshassa.
These river natives are genuine profiteers. They invariably make it a rule to charge the white man three or four times the price they exact from their own kind. No white man ever thinks of buying anything himself. He always sends one of his servants. As soon as the vendor knows that the servant is in the white employ he shoves up the price. I discovered this state of affairs as soon as I started down the Lualaba. In my innocence I paid two francs for a bunch of bananas. The moment I had closed the deal I observed larger and better bunches being purchased by natives for fifty centimes.
This business of profiteering by the natives is no new phase of life in the Congo. Stanley discovered it to his cost. Sir Harry Johnston, the distinguished explorer and administrator, who added to his achievements during these past years by displaying skill and brilliancy as a novelist, tells a characteristic story that throws light on the subject. It deals with one of the experiences of George Grenfell, the eminent British missionary who gave thirty years of his unselfish life to work in the Congo. On one of his trips he noticed the corpse of a woman hanging from the branches of a tree over the water of the great river. At first he thought that she had been executed as a punishment for adultery, one of the most serious crimes in the native calendar. On investigation he found that she had been guilty of a much more serious offense. A law had been imposed that all goods, especially food, must be sold to the white man at a far higher price than the local market value. This unhappy woman had only doubled the quotation for eggs, had been convicted of breaking the code, and had suffered death in consequence.
Since I have referred to adultery, let me point out a situation that does not reflect particular credit on so-called civilization. Before the white man came to Africa chastity was held in deepest reverence. The usual punishment for infidelity was death. Some of the early white men were more or less promiscuous and set a bad moral example with regard to the women. The native believed that in this respect "the white man can do no wrong" and the inevitable laxity resulted. When a woman deserts her husband now all she gets is a sound beating. If a man elopes with the wife of a friend, he is haled before a magistrate and fined.
III
On the Congo I got my first glimpse of the native fashion in mourning. It is a survival of the biblical "sackcloth and ashes." As soon as a death occurs all the members of the family smear their faces and bodies with ashes or dirt. Even the babies show these rude symbols of woe. It gives the person thus adorned a weird and ghastly appearance. When ashes and dust are not available for this purpose, a substitute is found in filthy mud. The mourner is not permitted to wash throughout the entire period of grief, which ranges from thirty to ninety days.
Like the Southern Negro in America these African natives are not only born actors but have a keen sense of humour. They are quick to imitate the white man. If a Georgia darkey, for example, wants to abuse a member of his own race he delights to call him "a fool nigger." It is the last word in reproach. In the Congo when a native desires to express contempt for his fellow, he refers to him as a _basingi_, which means bush-man. It is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Up the Kasai I heard a story that admirably illustrates the native humour. A Belgian official much inclined to corpulency came out to take charge of a post. After the usual fashion, he received a native name the moment he arrived. It is not surprising that he became known as _Mafutta Mingi_. As soon as he learned what it meant he became indignant. Like most fat men he could not persuade himself that he was fat. He demanded that he be given another title, whereupon the local chief solemnly dubbed him _Kiboko_. The official was immediately appeased. He noticed that a broad smile invariably illumined the countenance of the person who addressed him in this way. On investigation he discovered that the word meant hippopotamus.
The Congo native delights in argument. Here you get another parallel with his American brother. A Bangala, for example, will talk for a week about five centimes. One day at Dima I heard a terrific shouting and exhorting down at the native market which is held twice a week. I was certain that someone was being murdered. When I arrived on the scene I saw a hundred men and women gesticulating wildly and in a great state of excitement. I learned that the wife of a wood-boy on a boat had either secreted or sold a scrap of soap, and her husband was not only berating her with his tongue but telling the whole community about it.
The chief function of most Belgian officials in the Congo is to preside at what is technically known as a "palaver." This word means conference but it actually develops into a free-for-all riotous protestation by the natives involved. They all want to talk at the same time and it is like an Irish debating society. Years ago each village had a "palaver ground," where the chief sat in solemn judgment on the disputes of his henchmen. Now the "palavers" are held before Government officers. Most of the "palavers" that I heard related to elopements. No matter how grievous was the offense of the male he invariably shifted the entire responsibility to the woman. He was merely emulating the ways of civilization.
Between Stanleyville and Kinshassa we not only stopped every night according to custom, but halted at not less than a dozen settlements to take on or deliver cargo. These stations resemble each other in that they are mainly a cluster of stores owned or operated by agents of various trading companies. Practically every post in the Congo has, in addition, a shop owned by a Portuguese. You find these traders everywhere. They have something of the spirit of adventure and the hardihood of their doughty ancestors who planted the flag of Portugal on the high seas back in that era when the little kingdom was a world power.
Some of them have been in the Congo for fifteen and twenty years without ever stirring outside its confines. On the steamer that took me to Europe from the Congo was a Portuguese who had lived in the bush for twenty-two years. When he got on the big steamer he was frightened at the noise and practically remained in his cabin throughout the entire voyage. As we neared France he told me that if he had realized beforehand the terror and tumult of the civilization that he had forgotten, he never would have departed from his jungle home. He was as shy as a wild animal.
One settlement, Basoko, has a tragic meaning for the Anglo-Saxon. Here died and lies buried, the gallant Grenfell. I doubt if exploration anywhere revealed a nobler character than this Baptist minister whose career has been so adequately presented by Sir Harry Johnston, and who ranks with Stanley and Livingstone as one of the foremost of African explorers. In the Congo evangelization has been fraught with a truly noble fortitude. When you see the handicaps that have beset both Catholic and Protestant missionaries you are filled with a new appreciation of their calling.
The most important stop of this trip was at Coquilhatville, named in honor of Captain Coquilhat, one of the most courageous of the early Belgian soldier-explorers. It was the original Equatorville (it is at the point where the Equator cuts the Congo), founded by Stanley when he established the series of stations under the auspices of the International African Association. Here dwells the Vice-Governor of the Equatorial Province. Near by is a botanical garden maintained by the Colonial Government and which contains specimens of all the flora of Central Africa.
At Coquilhatville I saw the first horse since I left Rhodesia and it was a distinct event. Except in the Kasai region it is impossible to maintain live stock in the Congo. The tsetse fly is the devastating agency. Apparently the only beasts able to withstand this scourge are goats and dogs. The few white men who live in Coquilhatville have been able to maintain five horses which are used by the so-called Riding Club. These animals provide the only exercise at the post. They are owned and ridden by the handful of Englishmen there. A man must drive himself to indulge in any form of outdoor sport along the equator. The climate is more or less enervating and it takes real Anglo-Saxon energy to resist the lure of the _siesta_ or to remain in bed as long as possible.
Bolobo is a reminder of Stanley. He had more trouble here than at any of the many stations he set up in the Congo Free State in the early eighties. The natives were hostile, the men he left in charge proved to be inefficient, and on two occasions the settlement was burned to the ground. Today it is the seat of one of the largest and most prosperous of all the English Baptist Congo missions and is presided over by a Congo veteran, Dr. Stonelake. One feature of the work here is a manual training school for natives, who manufacture the same kind of wicker chairs that the tourist buys at Madeira.
The farther I travelled in the Congo the more deeply I became interested in the native habits and customs. Although cluttered with ignorance and superstition the barbaric mind is strangely productive of a rude philosophy which is expressed in a quaint folklore. Seasoned Congo travellers like Grenfell, Stanley, Ward, and Johnston have all recorded fascinating local legends. I heard many of these tales myself and I shall endeavour to relate the best.
Some of the most characteristic stories deal with the origin of death. Here is a Bangala tradition gathered by Grenfell and which runs as follows:
The natives say that in the beginning men and women did not die. That one day, _Nza Komba_ (God) came bringing two gifts, a large and a small one. If they chose the smaller one they would continue to live, but if the larger one, they would for a time enjoy much greater wealth, but they would afterwards die. The men said they must consider the matter, and went away to drink water, as the Kongos say. While they were discussing the matter the women took the larger gift, and _Nza Komba_ went back with the little one. He has never been seen since, though they cried and cried for Him to come back and take the big bundle and give them the little one, and with it immortality.
The Baluba version of the great mystery is set forth in this way:
God (_Kabezya-unpungu_) created the sun, moon, and stars, then the world, and later the plants and animals. When all this was finished He placed a man and two women in the world and taught them the name and use of all things. He gave an axe and a knife to the man, and taught him to cut wood, weave stuffs, melt iron, and to hunt and fish. To the women he gave a pickaxe and a knife. He taught both of them to till the ground, make pottery, weave baskets, make oil,--that is to say, all that custom assigns to them to-day.
These first inhabitants of the earth lived happily for a long time until one of the women began to grow old. God, foreseeing this, had given her the gift of rejuvenating herself, and the faculty, if she once succeeded, of preserving the gift for herself and for all mankind. Unfortunately, she speedily lost the precious treasure and introduced death into the world.
This is how the misfortune occurred: Seeing herself all withered, the woman took the fan with which her companion had been winnowing maize for the manufacture of beer and shut herself into her hut, carefully closing the door. There she began to tear off her old skin, throwing it on the fan. The skin came off easily, a new one appearing in its place. The operation was nearing completion. There remained the head and neck only when her companion came to the hut to fetch her fan and before the old woman could speak, pushed open the door. The almost rejuvenated woman fell dead instantly.
This is the reason we all die. The two survivors gave birth to a number of sons and daughters, from whom all races have descended. Since that time God does not trouble about His creatures. He is satisfied with visiting them incognito now and again. Wherever He passes the ground sinks. He injures no one. It is therefore superfluous to honour him, so the Balubas offer no worship to Him.
The animal story has a high place in the legends of these peoples. They represent a combination of Kipling's Jungle Book, Aesop's Fables, and Br'er Rabbit. Nor do they fail to point a moral. Naturally, the elephant is a conspicuous feature in most of them. The tale of "The Elephant and the Shrew" will illustrate. Here it is:
One day the elephant met the shrew mouse on his road. "Out of the way," cried the latter. "I am the bigger, and it is your place to look out," replied the monster. "Curse you!" retorted the shrew mouse furiously. "May the long grass cut your legs!" "And may you meet your death when you walk in the road!" replied the other crushing him under his huge foot. Both curses have been fulfilled. From that day the elephant wounds himself when he goes through the long grass, and the shrew-mouse meets her death when she crosses the road.
The story of the elephant and the chameleon is equally interesting. One day the chameleon challenged the elephant to a race. The latter accepted the challenge and a meeting was arranged for the following morning. During the night the chameleon placed all his brothers from point to point along the length of the track where the race was to be run. When day came the elephant started. The chameleon quickly slipped behind without the elephant noticing. "Are you not tired?" asked the monster of the first chameleon he met. "Not at all," he replied, executing the same manœuvre as the former. This stratagem was renewed so many times that the elephant, tired out, gave up the contest and confessed himself beaten.
In the wilds, as in civilization, the relation between husband and wife, and more especially the downfall of the autocrat of the home, is a favorite subject for jest. From the northeastern corner of the Congo comes this illuminating story:
A man had two wives, one gentle and prepossessing, the other such a gossip that he was often made angry. Neither remonstrances nor beating improved her, and finally he made up his mind to drive her into a wood amongst the hyenas. There she built herself a little hut into which a hyena came and boldly installed herself as mistress. The wife tried to protest but the hyena, not content with eating and drinking all that the wife was preparing, compelled her furthermore to look after her young. One day the hyena had ordered the woman to boil some water. While waiting the wife had the sudden idea of seizing the young hyenas and throwing them into the boiling water. She did this and then she ran trembling to take refuge in the home of her husband whom she found calmly seated at the entrance of the house, spear in hand. She threw herself at the feet of her spouse, beseeching him for help and protection. When the hyena arrived foaming with rage her husband stretched it dead on the ground with a blow of his spear. The lesson was not lost on the wife. From that day forth she became the joy and delight of her husband.
The Congo can ever reproduce its own version of the fable of "The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg." It is somewhat primitive but serves the same purpose. As told to the naked piccaninnies by the flickering camp-fires it runs thus:
Four fools owned a chicken which laid blue glass beads instead of eggs. A quarrel arose concerning the ownership of the fowl. The bird was subsequently killed and divided into four equal portions. The spring of their good fortune dried up.
To understand the significance of the story it must be understood that for many years beads have been one of the forms of currency in Central Africa. Formerly they were as important a detail in the purchase of a wife as copper and calico. The first piece of attire, if it may be designated by this name, that adorns the native baby after its entrance into the world is an anklet of blue beads. Later a strand of beads is placed round its loins.
When you have heard such stories as I have just related, you realize that despite his ignorance, appetite, and indolence, the Congo native has some desirable qualities. He is shiftless but not without human instincts. Nowhere are they better expressed than in his folklore.
IV
Two stops on the Congo River deserve special attention. In the Congo there began in 1911 an industry that will have an important bearing on the economic development of the Colony. It was the installation of the first plant of the Huileries du Congo Belge. This Company, which is an offshoot of the many Lever enterprises of England, resulted from the growing need of palm oil as a substitute for animal fat in soap-making. Lord Leverhulme, who was then Sir William Lever, obtained a concession for considerably more than a million acres of palm forests in the Congo. He began to open up so-called areas and install mills for boiling the fruit and drying the kernels. He now has eight areas, and two of them, Elizabetha and Alberta,--I visited both--are on the Congo River.
For hundreds of years the natives have gathered the palm fruit and extracted the oil. Under their method of manufacture the waste was enormous. The blacks threw away the kernel because they were unaware of the valuable substance inside. Lord Leverhulme was the first to organize the industry on a big and scientific basis and it has justified his confidence and expenditure.
Most people are familiar with the date and the cocoa-nut palms. From the days of the Bible they have figured in narrative and picture. The oil palm, on the other hand, is less known but much more valuable. It is the staff of life in the Congo and for that matter, practically all West Africa. Thousands of years ago its sap was used by the Egyptians for embalming the bodies of their kingly dead. Today it not only represents the most important agricultural industry of the Colony, having long since surpassed rubber as the premier product, but it has an almost bewildering variety of uses. It is food, drink and shelter. Out of the trunk the native extracts his wine; from the fruit, and this includes the kernel, are obtained oil for soap, salad dressing and margarine; the leaves provide a roof for the native houses; the fibre is made into mats, baskets or strings for fishing nets, while the wood goes into construction. Even the bugs that live on it are food for men.
The "H. C. B." as the Huileries du Congo Belge is more commonly known in the Congo, really performed a courageous act in exploitation when it set up shop in the remote regions and devoted itself to an absolutely fresh enterprise, so far as extensive development is concerned, at a time when the rich and profitable products of the country were rubber, ivory and copal. The company's initiative, therefore, instigated the trade in oleaginous products which is so conspicuous in the economic life of the country.
The installation at Alberta, while not so large as the Leverville area on the Kwilu River, will serve to show just what the corporation is doing. Five years ago this region was the jungle. Today it is the model settlement on the Congo River. The big brick office building stands on a brow of the hill overlooking the water. Not far away is the large mill where the palm fruit is reduced to oil and the kernels dried. Stretching away from the river is a long avenue of palms, flanked by the commodious brick bungalows of the white employes. The "H. C. B." maintains a store at each of its areas, where food and supplies are bought by the personnel. These stores are all operated by the Société d'Entreprises Commerciales au Congo Belge, known locally under the name of "Sedec," formed as its name indicated, with a view of benefiting by the great resources opened to commerce in the Colony.
For miles in every direction the Company has laid out extensive palm plantations. In the Alberta region twenty-five hundred acres are in course of cultivation in what is known as the Eastern Development, while sixteen hundred more acres are embodied in the Western development. An oil palm will bear fruit within seven years after the young tree is planted. The fruit comes in what is called a _régime_, which resembles a huge bunch of grapes. It is a thick cluster of palm fruit. Each fruit is about the size of a large date. The outer portion, the pericarp, is almost entirely yellow oil encased in a thick skin. Imbedded in this oil is the kernel, which contains an even finer oil. The fruit is boiled down and the kernel, after a drying process, is exported in bags to England, where it is broken open and the contents used for salad oil or margarine.
Before the war thousands of tons of palm oil and kernels were shipped from the West Coast of Africa to Germany every year. Now they are diverted to England where large kernel-crushing plants have been installed and the whole activity has become a British enterprise. With the eclipse of the German Colonial Empire in Africa it is not likely that she can regain this lost business.
The creation of new palmeries is merely one phase of the company's development. One of its largest tasks is to safeguard the immense natural palmeries on its concessions. The oil palm requires constant attention. The undergrowth spreads rapidly and if it is not removed is liable to impair the life of the tree. Thousands of natives are employed on this work. A large knife something like the Cuban machete is used.
Harvesting the _régimes_ is a spectacular performance not without its element of danger. The _régime_ grows at the top of the tree, usually a height of sixty or seventy-five feet and sometimes more. The native literally walks up the trunk with the help of a loop made from some stout vine which encircles him. Arriving at the top he fixes his feet against the trunk, leans against the loop which holds him fast, and hacks away at the _régime_. It falls with a heavy thud and woe betide the human being or the animal it strikes. The natives will not cut fruit in rainy weather because many have slipped on the wet bark and fallen to their death.
So wide is the Alberta fruit-producing area that a narrow-gauge railway is necessary to bring the fruit in to the mill. Along its line are various stations where the fruit is mobilized, stripped from the _régime_ and sent down for refining in baskets. Each station has a superintendent who lives on the spot. The personnel of all the staff in the Congo is almost equally divided between British and Belgians.
While the "H. C. B." is the largest factor in the palm oil industry in the Congo, many tons of kernels are gathered every year by individuals who include thousands of natives. One reason why the savage takes naturally to this occupation is that it demands little work. All that he is required to do is to climb a tree in the jungle and lop off a _régime_. He uses the palm oil for his own needs or disposes of it to a member of his tribe and sells the kernels to the white man.
The "H. C. B." is independent of all other water transport in the Congo. Its river tonnage aggregates more than 6,000, and in addition it has many oil barges on the various rivers where its vessels ply. The capacity of some of the barges is 250 tons of oil. They are usually lashed to the side of the steamer. The decks of these barges are often piled high with bags of kernels and become a favorite sleeping place for the black voyagers for whom the thousands of insects that lurk in them have no terrors. No bug inflicts a sharper sting than these pests who make their _habitat_ among the palm kernels.
One of my fellow passengers on the "Comte de Flandre" was I. F. Braham, the Associate Managing Director of the "H. C. B." in the Congo. Long the friend and companion in Liberia of Sir Harry Johnston, he was a most desirable and congenial companion. It was on his suggestion and invitation that I spent the week at Alberta and he shared the visit. Our hosts were Major and Mrs. Claude Wallace.
Major Wallace was the District Manager of the Alberta area and occupied a brick bungalow on the bank of the river. He is a pioneer in exploration in the French Congo and Liberia and went almost straight from the battlefields of France, where he served with distinction in the World War, out to his post in the Congo. His wife is a fine example of the white woman who has braved the dangers of the tropics. She left the luxury and convenience of European life to establish a home in the jungle.
It is easy to spot the refining influence of the woman in the African habitation. You always see the effect long before you behold the cause. One of these effects is usually a neat garden. Mrs. Wallace had half an acre of English roses in front of her house. They were the only ones I saw in Central Africa. The average bachelor in this part of the world is not particularly scrupulous about the appearance of his house. The moment you observe curtains at the window you know that there is a female on the premises.
My life at Alberta was one of the really delightful experiences in the Congo. Every morning I set out with Braham and Wallace on some tour of inspection. Often we rode part of the way on the little light railroad. The method of transport was unique. An ordinary bench is placed on a small flat car. The propelling power is furnished by two husky natives who stand on either side of the bench and literally shove the vehicle along with long sticks. It is like paddling a railroad canoe. This transportation freak is technically called a _maculla_. The strong-armed paddlers were able to develop an astonishing speed. I think that this is the only muscle-power railroad in the world. Light engines are employed for hauling the palm fruit trains.
After our day in the field--for frequently we took our lunch with us--we returned before sunset and bathed and dressed for dinner. In the Congo only a madman would take a cold plunge. The most healthful immersion is in tepid water. More than one Englishman has paid the penalty with his life, by continuing his traditional cold bath in the tropics. This reminds me of a significant fact in connection with colonization. Everyone must admit that the Briton is the best colonizer in the world. One reason is that he knows how to rule the man of colour for he does it with fairness and firmness. Another lies in the fact that he not only keeps himself clean but he makes his environment sanitary.
There is a tradition that the Constitution follows the flag. I contend that with the Englishman the bath-tub precedes the code of law and what is more important, it is in daily use. There are a good many bath-tubs in the Congo but they are employed principally as receptacles for food supplies and soiled linen.
Those evenings at Alberta were as unforgettable as their setting. Braham and Wallace were not only men of the world but they had read extensively and had travelled much. A wide range of subjects came under discussion at that hospitable table whose spotless linen and soft shaded lights were more reminiscent of London and New York than suggestive of a far-away post on the Congo River on the edge of the wilderness.
At Alberta as elsewhere, the "H. C. B." is a moral force. Each area has a doctor and a hospital. No detail of its medical work is more vital to the productive life of the Colony that the inoculation of the natives against sleeping sickness. This dread disease is the scourge of the Congo and every year takes toll of hundreds of thousands of natives. Nor is the white man immune. I saw a Belgian official dying of this loathsome malady in a hospital at Matadi and I shall never forget his ravings. The last stage of the illness is always a period when the victim becomes demented. The greatest boon that could possibly be held out for Central Africa today would be the prevention of sleeping sickness.
Another constructive work carried out under the auspices of the "H. C. B." is embodied in the native schools. There is an excellent one at Alberta. It is conducted by the Catholic Fathers of the Scheut Mission. The children are trained to become wood-workers, machinists, painters, and carpenters. It is the Booker Washington idea transplanted in the jungle. The Scheut Missionaries and their Jesuit colleagues are doing an admirable service throughout the Congo. Some of them are infused with the spirit that animated Father Damien. Time, distance, and isolation count for naught with them. It is no uncommon thing to encounter in the bush a Catholic priest who has been on continuous service there for fifteen or twenty years without a holiday. At Luluaburg lives a Mother Superior who has been in the field for a quarter of a century without wandering more than two hundred miles from her field of operations.
V
Now for the last stage of the Congo River trip. Like so many of my other experiences in Africa it produced a surprise. One morning when we were about two hundred miles north of Kinshassa I heard the whir of a motor engine, a rare sound in those parts. I thought of aeroplanes and instinctively looked up. Flying overhead toward Coquilhatville was a 300-horse power hydroplane containing two people. Upon inquiry I discovered that it was one of four machines engaged in carrying passengers, mail, and express between Kinshassa and Coquilhatville.
The campaign against the Germans in East Africa proved the practicability of aeroplanes in the tropics. The Congo is the first of the Central African countries to dedicate aviation to commercial uses and this precedent is likely to be extensively followed. Fifteen hydroplanes have been ordered for the Congo River service which will eventually be extended to Stanleyville. Only those who have endured the agony of slow transport in the Congo can realize the blessing that air travel will confer.
I was naturally curious to find out just what the African native thought of the aeroplane. The moment that the roar of the engine broke the morning silence, everybody on the boat rushed to some point of vantage to see the strange sight. The blacks slapped each other on the shoulder, pointed at the machine, and laughed and jabbered. Yet when my secretary asked a big Baluba if he did not think that the aeroplane was a wonderful thing the barbarian simply grunted and replied, "White man can do anything." He summed up the native attitude toward his conqueror. I believe that if a white man performed the most astounding feat of magic or necromancy the native would not express the slightest surprise.
At Kwamouth, where the Kasai flows into the Congo River, we entered the so-called "Channel." From this point down to Stanley Pool the river is deep and the current is swift. This means that for a brief time the traveller enjoys immunity from the danger of running aground on a sandbank. The whole country-side is changed. Instead of the low and luxuriantly-wooded shores the banks become higher with each passing hour. Soon the land adjacent to the river merges into foothills and these in turn taper off into mountains. The effect is noble and striking. No wonder Stanley went into ecstasies over this scenery. He declared on more than one occasion that it was as inspiring as any he had seen in Wales or Scotland.
In the "Channel" another surprise awaits the traveller. The mornings are bitterly raw. This is probably due to the high ground on either side of the river and the strong currents of air that sweep up the stream. I can frankly say that I really suffered from the cold within striking distance of the equator. I did not feel comfortable until I had donned a heavy sweater.
This sudden change in temperature explains one reason why so many Congo natives die under forty. They are scantily clad, perspire freely, and lie out at night with scarcely any covering. They go to sleep in a humid atmosphere and wake up with the temperature forty degrees lower. The natural result is that half of them constantly have colds and the moment pneumonia develops they succumb. Congestion of the lungs vies with sleeping sickness as the ravager of Middle Africa, and especially certain parts of the Congo.
Kinshassa is situated on Stanley Pool, a lake-like expansion of the Congo more than two hundred square miles in area. It is dotted with islands. Nearly one-third of the northern shore is occupied by the rocky formations that Stanley named Dover Cliffs. They reminded him of the famous white cliffs of England and with the sunlight on them they do bear a strong resemblance to one of the familiar signposts of Albion. More than one Englishman emerging from the jungle after long service remote from civilization has gotten a thrill of home at the name and sight of these hills.
Stanley Pool has always been associated in my mind with one of the most picturesque episodes in Stanley's life. He tells about it in his monumental work on the Congo Free State and again relates it in his Autobiography. It deals with Ngalyema, who was chief of the Stanley Pool District in the early eighties. He demanded and received a large quantity of goods for the permission to establish a station here. After the explorer had camped within ten miles of the Pool the old pirate pretended that he had not received the goods and sought to extort more. Stanley refused to be bullied, whereupon the chief threatened to attack him in force. Let Stanley now tell the story, for it is an illustration of the way he combated the usury and cunning of the Congo native.
I had hung a great Chinese gong conspicuously near the principal tent. Ngalyema's curiosity would be roused. All my men were hidden, some in the steamboat on top of the wagon, and in its shadow was a cool place where the warriors would gladly rest after a ten-mile march. Other of my men lay still as death under tarpaulins, under bundles of grass, and in the bush round about the camp. By the time the drum-taps and horns announced Ngalyema's arrival, the camp seemed abandoned except by myself and a few small boys. I was indolently seated in a chair reading a book, and appeared too lazy to notice anyone; but, suddenly looking up and seeing my "brother Ngalyema" and his warriors, scowlingly regarding me, I sprang up and seized his hands, and affectionately bade him welcome, in the name of sacred fraternity, and offered him my own chair.
He was strangely cold, and apparently disgruntled, and said:--
"Has not my brother forgotten his road? What does he mean by coming to this country?"
"Nay, it is Ngalyema who has forgotten the blood-bond which exists between us. It is Ngalyema who has forgotten the mountains of goods which I paid him. What words are these of my brother?"
"Be warned, Rock-Breaker. Go back before it is too late. My elders and people all cry out against allowing the white man to come into our country. Therefore, go back before it be too late. Go back, I say, the way you came."
Speech and counter-speech followed. Ngalyema had exhausted his arguments; but it was not easy to break faith and be uncivil, with plausible excuse. His eyes were reaching round seeking to discover an excuse to fight, when they rested on the round, burnished face of the Chinese gong.
"What is that?" he said.
"Ah, that--that is a fetish."
"A fetish! A fetish for what?"
"It is a war-fetish, Ngalyema. The slightest sound of that would fill this empty camp with hundreds of angry warriors; they would drop from above, they would spring up from the ground, from the forest about, from everywhere."
"Sho! Tell that story to the old women, and not to a chief like Ngalyema. My boy tells me it is a kind of a bell. Strike it and let me hear it."
"Oh, Ngalyema, my brother, the consequences would be too dreadful! Do not think of such a thing!"
"Strike it, I say."
"Well, to oblige my dear brother Ngalyema, I will."
And I struck hard and fast, and the clangourous roll rang out like thunder in the stillness. Only for a few seconds, however, for a tempest of human voices was heard bursting into frightful discords, and from above, right upon the heads of the astonished warriors, leaped yelling men; and from the tents, the huts, the forest round about, they came by sixes, dozens, and scores, yelling like madmen, and seemingly animated with uncontrollable rage. The painted warriors became panic-stricken; they flung their guns and powder-kegs away, forgot their chief, and all thoughts of loyalty, and fled on the instant, fear lifting their heels high in the air; or, tugging at their eye-balls, and kneading the senses confusedly, they saw, heard, and suspected nothing, save that the limbo of fetishes had suddenly broken loose!
But Ngalyema and his son did not fly. They caught the tails of my coat, and we began to dance from side to side, a loving triplet, myself being foremost to ward off the blow savagely aimed at my "brothers," and cheerfully crying out, "Hold fast to me, my brothers. I will defend you to the last drop of my blood. Come one, come all."
Presently the order was given, "Fall in!" and quickly the leaping forms became rigid, and the men stood in two long lines in beautiful order, with eyes front, as though "at attention!" Then Ngalyema relaxed his hold of my coat-tails, and crept from behind, breathing more freely; and, lifting his hand to his mouth, exclaimed, in genuine surprise, "Eh, Mamma! where did all these people come from?"
"Ah, Ngalyema, did I not tell you that thing was a powerful fetish? Let me strike it again, and show you what else it can do."
"No! no! no!" he shrieked. "I have seen enough!"
The day ended peacefully. I was invited to hasten on to Stanley Pool. The natives engaged themselves by the score to assist me in hauling the wagons. My progress was thenceforth steady and uninterrupted, and in due time the wagons and good-columns arrived at their destination.
Kinshassa was an accident. Leopoldville, which is situated about ten miles away and the capital of the Congo-Kasai Province, was expected to become the center of white life and enterprise in this vicinity. It was founded by Stanley in the early eighties and named in honour of the Belgian king. It commands the river, cataracts, forests and mountains.
Commerce, however, fixed Kinshassa as its base of operation, and its expansion has been astonishing for that part of the world. It is a bustling port and you can usually see half a dozen steamers tied up at the bank. There is a population of several hundred white people and many thousands of natives. The Banque du Congo Belge has its principal establishment here and there are scores of well-stocked mercantile establishments. With the exception of Matadi and Thysville it has the one livable hotel in the Congo. Moreover, it rejoices in that now indispensable feature of civic life which is expressed in a cinema theatre. In the tropics all motion picture houses are open-air institutions.
In cataloguing Kinshassa's attractions I must not omit the feature that had the strongest and most immediate lure for me. It was a barber shop and I made tracks for it as soon as I arrived. I was not surprised to find that the proprietor was a Portuguese who had made a small fortune trimming the Samson locks of the scores of agents who stream into the little town every week. He is the only barber in the place and there is no competition this side of Stanleyville, more than a thousand miles away.
The seasoned residents of the Congo would never think of calling Kinshassa by any other name than "Kin." In the same way Leopoldville is dubbed "Leo." Kinshassa is laid out in streets, has electric lights, and within the past twelve months about twenty automobiles have been acquired by its residents. There is a gay social life, and on July first, the anniversary of the birth of the Congo Free State, and when a celebration is usually held, I saw a spirited football game between British and Belgian teams. Most of the big international British trading companies that operate in Africa have branches in Kinshassa and it is not difficult to assemble an English-speaking quorum.
In the matter of transportation Kinshassa is really the key to the heart of the Congo. It is the rail-head of the narrow-gauge line from Matadi and all merchandise that comes from Europe is transshipped at this point to the boats that go up the Congo river as far as Stanleyville. Thus every ton of freight and every traveller bound for the interior must pass through Kinshassa. When the railway from the Katanga is constructed its prestige will increase.
Kinshassa owes a part of its development to the Huileries du Congo Belge. Its plant dominates the river front. There are a dozen huge tanks into which the palm-oil flows from the barges. The fluid is then run into casks and sent down by rail to Matadi, whence it goes in steamers to Europe. More than a hundred white men are in the service of the "H. C. B." at Stanley Pool. They live in standardized brick bungalows in their own area which is equipped with tennis courts and a library. On all English fête days the Union Jack is hoisted and there is much festivity.
Two months had elapsed since I entered the Congo and I had travelled about two thousand miles within its borders. This journey, short as it seems as distances go these days, would have taken Stanley nearly two years to accomplish in the face of the obstacles that hampered him. I had only carried out part of my plan. The Kasai was calling. The time was now at hand when I would retrace my way up the Congo River and turn my face towards the Little America that nestles far up in the wilds.