Part 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VI.

January 25, 1907.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VII.

January 26, 1907.

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

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

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