Part 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VIII.

January 27, 1907.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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