CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND, 
 
 > 
 
 I
 

 
 CIVILISATION 
 
 IN 
 
 CONGOLAND : 
 
 A STORY OF 
 INTERNATIONAL WRONG-DOING. 
 
 BY 
 
 H. R. FOX BOURNE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY,' 'THE LIFE 
 
 OF JOHN LOCKE,' ' THE OTHER SIDE OF THE 
 
 EMIN PASHA EXPEDITION,' &C., &C. 
 
 WITH A PREFATORY NOTE BY 
 THE RIGHT HON. SIR CHARLES W. DILKE, BART., M.P. 
 
 P. S. KING & SON, 
 
 ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTER. 
 1903.
 
 
 r 
 
 | 
 
 -
 
 - 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 HPHE Congo State, misnamed "Free'* in memory 
 of its promise, accepted by Europe, as to the 
 elevation of the native and the encouragement of 
 the foreigner, though founded in the name of 
 Almighty God for international purposes, has been 
 and is the home of appalling misgovernment and 
 oppression. Many of us who were concerned in 
 arranging with Portugal on the basis of freedom 
 of navigation, trade, and missionary enterprise, and 
 measures directed against slavery a treaty the 
 execution of which we should have been allowed 
 to watch, can now unite with those who, when 
 the treaty was ultimately signed in February, 1884, 
 denounced it on the ground that Portugal, even 
 under the strictest guarantees, could never be as 
 satisfactory an occupant of the Lower Congo as 
 would be the so-called International Committee 
 which became the Congo State. The Aborigines Pro- 
 tection Society and the merchants of Liverpool and 
 Manchester are now able to join together in a final 
 condemnation of the Congolese authorities. It will 
 not now be denied outside of Belgium that Europe 
 set up in the vast Congo district a State far worse 
 than the Portuguese, even as the Portuguese then 
 were, without allowance for the improvements which 
 would have been introduced under the treaty. 
 
 The fiendish cruelty towards the natives which 
 
 I 

 
 vi CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 has at times been exercised by some of those 
 employed by the Congo State is not now denied 
 even by the administrators of the State itself, and 
 has been officially recognised by our own Govern- 
 ment. It is, however, declared that things are 
 better now ; but of this there is little or no evidence. 
 
 Much of the story as told by Mr. Fox Bourne is, 
 of course, not new to those who have followed the 
 Congolese literature of Belgium, but the facts cannot 
 be in the minds of the European public generally, 
 or the existing toleration of defiance of promises 
 made to Europe could not continue. 
 
 It is not only by the standard of the Aborigines 
 Protection Society or of the merchants that the 
 Congo State must be judged in order to be con- 
 demned. If there are any who are tempted to think 
 that upon our principles Africa would never have 
 been developed, it may be answered that the African 
 explorers of our own nation and of the French are 
 open-mouthed in their condemnation of Congolese 
 methods. One of the greatest difficulties of our- 
 selves and of the French in Africa has been the 
 extension, outside of Congo boundaries, of the effect 
 produced by the cruelties and consequent insurrec- 
 tions which have prevailed within the Congo valley. 
 
 Our responsibility is such that if, knowing what 
 we do, we fail to denounce the crime, we become 
 
 participators in it. 
 
 CHARLES W. DILKE.
 
 
 THE AUTHOR'S EXPLANATION. 
 
 A LTHOUGH the Aborigines Protection Society, 
 of which it is my privilege to be secretary, is 
 not responsible for the statements made and the 
 views expressed in this volume, the aim of the book 
 is to direct attention to scandals and offences against 
 which the Society has long been protesting, and the 
 removal of which it earnestly desires. 
 
 In common with most of those interested in 
 African affairs, the Society welcomed the decisions of 
 the International Conference that met in Berlin in 
 1884, and its recognition of the lately founded Congo 
 State on the explicit pledge that that State, through- 
 out the area assigned to it, would conform to and 
 carry out the proposals of the Conference. During 
 the deliberations of the subsequent Conference held 
 in Brussels in 1889-1890 the Society used such 
 influence as it could exert in forwarding the avowed 
 policy of King Leopold, who was at that time an 
 honorary member of the Society. It is, therefore, all 
 the more incumbent on it to do what it can towards 
 correcting the error that has been committed. 
 
 It was not till 1890, when Sir H. M. Stanley and 
 his associates in the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition 
 disclosed the treatment to which they and others 
 had subjected Congo natives, that the Society had 

 
 vin CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 cognisance of grave evils calling for redress in this 
 part of Africa ; and even then, and for long after- 
 wards, it declined to believe that the Sovereign of the 
 Congo State and his advisers in Brussels were to 
 blame for more than ignorance or apathy as regards 
 occurrences that it was their duty to put a stop to. 
 It was only after six years had been wasted in com- 
 munications with the Brussels authorities, producing 
 nothing but evasions and empty assurances, that the 
 Society felt it necessary to widen its action. 
 
 In September, 1896, it appealed to the British 
 Government in favour of steps being taken to supple- 
 ment the Berlin and Brussels Conferences, whose 
 requirements^ and stipulations had been disregarded 
 and defied, by another European Conference, " at 
 which measures might be concerted alike beneficial 
 to the native races in Africa and to the civilised 
 nations claiming authority over them." As in reply 
 to this appeal the Marquis of Salisbury merely 
 promised that " its representations should be borne 
 in mind," a much more detailed statement of the 
 abuses complained of, in so far as the Congo Govern- 
 ment was responsible, was submitted three months 
 later, not only to Lord Salisbury, but also to the 
 Congo Government, and the document was exten- 
 sively circulated and commented upon in English 
 and foreign journals. Its demands were supported 
 and strengthened, moreover, in a debate initiated by 
 Sir Charles Dilke in the House of Commons on
 
 THE AUTHOR'S EXPLANATION. ix 
 
 2nd April, 1897, and at a public meeting held on 
 the following 7th April, under the chairmanship 
 of Mr. Leonard Courtney, with Mr. John Morley 
 as well as Sir Charles Dilke among the speakers. 
 Since then the Society has persevered in its as yet 
 unsuccessful efforts to secure justice for the natives of 
 Congoland. 
 
 In the early part of 1901 the Belgian Parliament 
 had, ostensibly, the option of taking over the Congo 
 State, hitherto the private property of King Leopold, 
 and of converting it into a colonial possession of 
 Belgium. Accordingly the Society, with the co- 
 operation of some members of the Legislature in 
 Brussels, made direct appeal to that body in terms 
 briefly set forth in the following pages, where 
 also will be found a sufficient account of the way in 
 which the Belgian Parliament was coerced into 
 abandoning its opportunity. As the Congo State 
 remains in its founder's hands, and is now adminis- 
 tered with, at any rate, no less cruelty than hereto- 
 fore as, moreover, the pernicious methods there 
 employed are being to some extent imitated elsewhere, 
 especially in French Congoland there is greater 
 need than ever for such intervention as the Society 
 seeks to bring about. To this end a fresh and 
 lengthy statement as to the treatment of natives in 
 the Congo was submitted to the British Government 
 on 2yth March, 1902, and an influential meeting in 
 furtherance of its object was, by permission of the
 
 x CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 Lord Mayor, held at the Mansion House on 
 1 5th May. It is with the same purpose that the 
 present volume is issued. 
 
 In putting together an account of the events of the 
 past quarter of a century or so in Congoland I have 
 quoted very freely from my authorities, at the risk 
 of some clumsiness in construction and some repeti- 
 tion or apparent redundancy in the statement of 
 facts. As the sole design of the book is to place in 
 clear and truthful light the initial and fundamental 
 faults in the methods of rule in Congoland, as well 
 as the monstrous abuses which are the natural and 
 inevitable outcome of those faults, I have preferred, 
 wherever they could add weight to my statement, 
 to cite the actual words of official documents, like 
 the reports of the Berlin and Brussels Conferences 
 and the ' Bulletin ' of the Congo State ; of outside 
 and friendly exponents and critics, like Professor 
 Cattier ; of the Congo State's own approved agents, 
 like Sir H. M. Stanley, Major von Wissmann, and 
 Baron Dhanis; and of eye-witnesses whose veracity 
 can scarcely be impugned, like the late Mr. Glave, 
 Mr. Sjoblom, and Mr. Morrison. It will be noticed 
 that scarcely any use has been made of the adverse 
 testimony of discharged servants, whom the Congo 
 Government regards as discredited betrayers of the 
 secrecy imposed upon them. It will be noticed 
 also that, appalling as are the revelations of 
 atrocities which are no longer denied, but which
 
 THE AUTHOR'S EXPLANATION. n 
 
 are made light of on the plea that they are excep- 
 tional occurrences, condemned and as far as possible 
 obviated by the authorities, greater importance has 
 been attached to the inherent defects of the machinery 
 of government than to evidence as to defects in its 
 working. Good laws may be broken, and no system 
 is so perfect that it cannot be abused. But if the 
 laws themselves are bad, and the system itself is 
 vicious, they are inexcusable and intolerable. 
 
 H. R. Fox BOURNE. 
 
 Broadway Chambers, Westminster, 
 22nd December, 1902.

 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 PRELIMINARY. 
 
 The Limits of Congoland The Earliest Congolese Hamitic 
 and Semitic Intrusions The Bakongo The Balunda, 
 Balolo, and Baluba The Advent of the Portuguese French 
 and other Rivalries The Slave Trade Portuguese Slave- 
 Trading Arab Slave -Trading The River Congo Mr. 
 Stanley's Explorations Tipu-Tipu's Slave - Raiding Mr. 
 Stanley on the Congo Europeans in the Lower Congo 
 Europeans and Natives in 1877 Portuguese Proposals for 
 Reform i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 KING LEOPOLD'S PROJECT [1876-1884]. 
 
 The Conference at Berlin in 1876 The International African 
 Association Its Intentions and Proposals Its Early 
 Operations The Comite d'Etudes du Haut- Congo Mr. 
 Stanley's Undertaking Mr. Stanley's Achievements De , 
 Brazza's Rivalry The Planting of Leopoldville The 
 Development of King Leopold's Plans Mr. Stanley's 
 Second Congo Expedition Stanley Falls and the Arab 
 Slave-Raiders Mr. Stanley's Final Arrangements His 
 " Indisputable Treaties " French and Portuguese Compe- 
 tition The Anglo - Portuguese Treaty of 1884 United 
 States Intervention ... 26 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE BERLIN CONFERENCE [1884-1885]. 
 
 France and the Congo Association German "Opposition to 
 Portuguese Proposals Germany and the Congo Association 
 The Berlin Conference The Berlin General Act Its 
 Free Trade Provisions Its Prohibitions of Monopolies 
 Its Prescriptions as regards Natives Prince Bismarck's 
 Conclusions The Establishment of the Congo State Its 
 Conventions with European Powers Its Arrangements with 
 Belgium , 50
 
 xiv CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE CONGO STATE'S COMMENCEMENT [1885-1889]. PAGK 
 
 The Machinery of Government Despotism and its Dangers 
 Extension of the State's Authority Landholding under the 
 State Encroachments on Natives' Land Rights Encroach- 
 ments on Natives' Liberties New Forms of Slavery 
 Contract Labour and Forced Labour The Force Publique 64 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES [1885-1890]. 
 
 Missionary and other Explorers Wissmann in the Kasai 
 District Conquest of the Baluba Country Wissmann's 
 Expedition to Nyangwe The Stanley Falls Disaster The 
 Emin Pasha Relief Expedition Mr. Stanley and Tipu-Tipu 
 Mr. Stanley's Relieving Force His March to Leopold- 
 ville Misrule at Leopoldville Mr. Stanley's Voyage to 
 Yambuya Tipu-Tipu and his Followers The Capture of 
 Yambuya Mr. Stanley's Rear Column His Excursion to 
 Lake Albert Nyanza Results of the Emin Relief Expedition 
 Tipu-Tipu at Stanley Falls The Manyema Slave-Raiders 
 Mr. Stanley on the African Ivory Trade Other Early 
 Expeditions Commercial Enterprises King Leopold's 
 * Will of 1889 78 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE BRUSSELS CONFERENCE [1889-1890]. 
 
 Cardinal Lavigerie's Work The Brussels Conference Its 
 Anti-Slavery Provisions Its Supplementary Declaration 
 The Congo State's Embarrassments The Congo -Belgian 
 Convention of 1890 112 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS [1890-1893]. 
 
 Preparing for Exploitations The Earlier Trading Companies 
 The Proposed Railway The Railway Force Publique 
 The Compagnie du Congo The Compagnie du Katanga 
 The Appropriation of Katanga Troubles in the Arab Zone 
 The Commercial Revolution The State as Monopolist 
 Trader The Domains Prive The Socie'te' Anversoise 
 The Abir Legalisation of the Domains Privt 120
 
 CONTENTS. xv 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADING [1890-1894]. PAGE 
 
 The Congo State and the Arabs The Socie"te Anti-Esclava- 
 giste The Welle and Aruwimi Expeditions Extensions in 
 Northern Congoland Van Kerckhoven's Ubangi Expedi- 
 tion Baron Dhanis's Arab Zone Expedition Gongo Lutete 
 and the Batetela Dhanis's Advance on the Arabs The 
 Capture of Nyangwe The Capture of Kasongo The 
 Re-enslavement of the Manyema The Betrayal of Gongo 
 The Downfall of Arab Power 144 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 INTERNATIONAL COMPLICATIONS [1894-1895.]. 
 
 German Complaints French and British Complaints The 
 Anglo-Congolese Convention of 1894 The Franco-Congo- 
 lese Convention of 1894 The Congo State's Insolvency 
 Help from the Belgian Government Arrangements with 
 the French Government 165 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES [1894-1897]. 
 
 The Congo State and its Servants Chefferies and Prestations 
 The Force Publique The State's Culpability for Congo 
 Cruelties Consul Pickersgill's Testimony Forced Labour 
 State Slavery in the Arab Zone Anti-Slavery Slave- 
 Raiding The Kabambare School for Soldiers The New 
 Slavery in Operation Captain Lothaire and his Soldiers 
 Belgian Successors of Arabs Hangings and Floggings In 
 the Aruwimi District Rebellion in the Equateur District 
 Ruin in the Middle Congo" Everywhere the Same News " 
 The Stokes Affair The Natives Protection Commission 
 Other Reform Proposals Evidence as to Abuses Mr. 
 Murphy's Testimony Mr. Sjoblom's Testimony The 
 Governor-General's Action The Value of the Natives Pro- 
 tection Commission English Protests and Official Contra- 
 dictions Mr. Sjoblom's Justification ... 172 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 RAIDS AND REBELLIONS [1895-1899]. 
 
 The Dhanis and Chaltin Expedition The Welle Campaign 
 The Niam-Niam Mutiny Captain Chaltin's Operations 
 The Lado Occupation The Batetela Mutiny Its Origin 
 Its Development Its Sequels The Consequent Chaos... 227
 
 xvi CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS [1897-1901]. PAGE 
 
 Commercial Developments New and Reconstructed Com- 
 panies The Lower Congo Railway Incidents of its Con- 
 struction Lower Congo Desolation Its Causes and their 
 Working State Budgets and Company Profits Major 
 Lothaire's New Undertaking M. Moray's Revelations 
 The Budja Rising Troubles in the Interior Captain 
 Bell's Fate Mr. Grogan's Report The Kasai Massacres 
 The General Revolt Katanga Expeditions The Rabinek 
 Affair 241 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 BELGIUM'S INHERITANCE [1901-1902]. 
 
 King Leopold's Bargain Belgium's Responsibility Minis- 
 terial Proposals M. Beernaert's Alternative King Leo- 
 pold's Ultimatum The Congo State's New Lease The 
 International Issues The Latest Developments 271 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 THE CONGO STATE'S NEIGHBOURS. 
 
 British Congoland German Congoland Portuguese Congo- 
 land French Congoland The Concessionnaire System ... 282 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 THE OUTLOOK. 
 
 The Native Question The Free Trade Question The Neces- 
 sity for International Action 297 
 
 INDEX 305 
 
 MAP OF CONGOLAND at end of the volume.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PRELIMINARY. 
 
 WHITE men's acquaintance with Conge-land was small 
 until a few years before 1885, when its civilisation was 
 solemnly resolved on by representatives of the European 
 nations assembled in conference at Berlin. But the 
 acquaintance began four centuries earlier, and Diogo 
 Cam, the Portuguese voyager who in 1482 discovered 
 the mouth of the river from which the region takes its 
 name, found it occupied by a people who had acquired, 
 such as it was, a civilisation of their own, the outcome of 
 movements and developments through many earlier cen- 
 turies. 
 
 Congoland, or the Conventional Basin of the Congo, as 
 
 defined by the Berlin International 
 
 ~ r . The Limits of 
 
 Conference, comprises the vast area 
 
 TT i A r t.-u Congoland. 
 
 in Equatorial Africa which is 
 
 watered by the mighty river and its affluents, at least 
 1,500,000 square miles in extent, with a frontage of 
 about 400 miles on the Atlantic side, and broadening 
 out into a rough quadrangle, more than thrice as long 
 and nearly thrice as wide, with its zigzag base in the 
 low level formed by the Tanganyika and adjacent lakes.* 
 The larger part of this region must once have been covered 
 with forests, more or less dense, the remains of which are 
 still densest in its north-eastern quarter. There also are 
 to be found the descendants of, probably, the earliest 
 
 * The following is the wording of the Act, according to the official transla- 
 tion : " This basin is bounded by the watersheds (or mountain ridges) of the 
 adjacent basins, namely, in particular, those of the Niari, the Ogowe, the 
 Shari, and the Nile on the north ; by the eastern watershed line of 
 the affluents of Lake Tanganyika on the east ; and by the watersheds of the 
 basins of the Zambezi and the Loge on the south. It therefore comprises 
 all the regions watered by the Congo and its affluents, including Lake Tan- 
 ganyika, with its eastern tributaries." 
 
 B
 
 2 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 inhabitants of Africa, subsisting wholly on such roots or 
 fruits as they can gather without cultivating the soil and 
 on such animals as they can catch and kill. 
 
 The so-called Pygmies of the Congo forests, rarely above 
 four and a half feet in height, and 
 
 possibly stunted by the hardships 
 Earliest Congolese. * J 
 
 consequent on encroachments ot 
 
 stronger races, short-legged and long-armed, with pro- 
 truding jaws and receding foreheads, hairy bodies and 
 yellowish skins, are supposed to have remote kinship 
 with the almost extinct communities of small people 
 once plentiful in Europe as well as in Asia, and to have 
 had their origin in Southern Asia, the source of so many 
 later migrations to Africa. " From some such stock 
 as this, which is the underlying stratum of all Negro 
 races," writes Sir Harry Johnston, " may have arisen, in 
 Somaliland perhaps, the ancestors of the Bushman-Hot- 
 tentot group, which found its way down through Eastern 
 Africa to Africa south of the Zambezi, in the western parts 
 of which Bushmen and Hottentots still linger. These 
 developed the high-cheek-boned, tall, thin-lipped Negro of 
 the Sudan, and the blubber-lipped, coarse-featured, black- 
 skinned Negro of the West African coastlands, and later 
 the Bantu type, which is little else than the West African 
 Negro tinged in varying degrees with the results of Hamitic 
 intermixture ; the Hamites being either a half-way stage in 
 the evolution of a white man from the Negro or an in- 
 vasion from Asia of a Caucasian people which ages ago 
 mixed considerably with Negroes till it had acquired very 
 marked negroid characteristics."* 
 
 Hamitic migrations from Asia, perhaps by way of the 
 
 Mediterranean, began in far distant 
 Hamitic and Semitic , T? ^.u i*. j ^i 
 
 times. From them resulted the 
 Intrusions. . 
 
 Egyptian, Ethiopian, Berber, Tuareg, 
 
 and other African communities of earlier origin than 
 their Semitic rivals, the Arabs and Phoenicians, who 
 
 * 'The Uganda Protectorate' (1902), pp. 473, 474.
 
 PRELIMINARY. 3 
 
 long before the Mohammedan incursions 01 a thousand 
 years ago, settled in Abyssinia, founded Carthage, and 
 established trading stations on the eastern as well as 
 the northern coasts. As the mixed races with which the 
 Hamitic and Semitic encroachments gradually stocked 
 all the habitable regions outside the Congo Basin 
 expanded, they came in contact with the sturdier 
 Negroes who had been emerging from the forests or 
 improving them as places of abode, and the driving back 
 of some of these Negroes must have conduced to the 
 shrinkage and crippling of the weaker natives whom we 
 call Pygmies. Meanwhile an intermingling of Hamitic 
 and Negro types produced the Bantu nation, which, it is 
 supposed, took its rise somewhere on the fertile highlands 
 to the west of Lake Victoria Nyanza, in what is now the 
 Uganda Protectorate. Thence, if the surmise is correct, 
 the Bantus must have spread not only westward until they 
 reached the Gulf of Guinea, but also, with more vigour and 
 in larger numbers, in a southerly direction. Those who 
 crossed the Zambezi attained, as Zulus, their highest level 
 of intelligence and physical strength, and branches from 
 them, turning northward again, appropriated the southern 
 parts of Congoland. Others, going west as well as north, 
 met other Bantu wanderers and usurpers who had done 
 their share in driving the Pygmies into the forest recesses 
 and in building up the more or less disorganised or dis- 
 orderly communities, differing widely among themselves, 
 that were in possession of nearly all the country before the 
 advent of white men. 
 
 We have no means of knowing how or by what stages 
 this confused agglomeration of large and small commu- 
 nities was brought about, and the conditions and character- 
 istics of many are so diversely reported on by the white 
 travellers and rulers who have had access to them that no 
 safe conclusions can be arrived at as to more than their 
 broadest distinctions. As might be expected, the Negro 
 type has predominated in the north, showing itself notably
 
 4 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 in the savage Mambutu, Niam-Niam, and others between 
 the Middle Congo and its great tributary the Ubangi, and 
 in the Fans, who are supposed to have migrated in com- 
 paratively recent times from the region of the Upper Nile 
 to the northern side of the Ogowe, where they proved 
 themselves stronger than the Mpongwe and other Bantu 
 settlers of earlier date. Other Negroes, akin to those of 
 the Upper Nile valley, are associated, in deteriorated 
 forms, with the Pygmies in the Congo Forest. Others 
 again, with more or less mixture of Bantu blood, have 
 acquired firm foothold and evil reputation as Manyema, 
 on the western side of Lake Tanganyika, as Bakumu, 
 further north, and as Batetela, further west. All or most of 
 these Negro Congolese are cannibals, more barbarous than 
 the Bantus, who abound especially in the central, southern, 
 and western districts of Congoland, and make up the 
 larger part of its population. 
 
 In the Bakongo or Bafiot group, occupying the Atlantic 
 coastlands on both sides of the Congo 
 estuary parts of French Gaboon and 
 
 of Portuguese Kabinda and Angola, as well as the inter- 
 mediate territory now held by the Congo Free State we 
 may see what is probably the strongest surviving element 
 of a widespread empire which, before it was interfered 
 with by the Portuguese four centuries ago, may have 
 included the Mpongwe on the north, a branch of the 
 Bangala on the south, and the Balunda, Mabunda, and 
 other groups more inland.* 
 
 Although considerably influenced, and in many respects 
 injured, by the intercourse with Europeans which has been 
 
 * As this volume makes no attempt at ethnological thoroughness, I have 
 generally, to avoid confusion, followed the most usual spelling of native names 
 of places and people, giving preference, where convenient, to attempts at 
 phonetic accuracy. It may be explained that Ba, Ma, and Wa are prefixes 
 implying multitude. The Bakongo, Manyema, Mpongwe, and Wanyamwezi, 
 for instance, are the people of Kongo or Congo, of Nyema, of Pongwe, and of 
 Nyanwezi. Many of these tribal designations are in the nature of nicknames. 
 Thus the cannibal propensities of the Manyema, as well as of the Niam-Niam, 
 are indicated by the root-word niam, " human flesh."
 
 PRELIMINARY. 5 
 
 far more extensive and lasting in their case than in that 
 of others, the Bakongo have substantially retained their 
 primitive institutions. These agree, in essentials, with the 
 institutions of the Bantu communities in South Africa, and 
 may be regarded as indicative of Bantu culture in general. 
 With but vague notions as to a Supreme Power, the 
 Bakongo are less degraded than are the Negroes of more 
 northern latitudes by the fetish superstitions that attribute 
 supernatural functions to the supposed embodiments or 
 manifestations of deity in visible objects ; and the oppres- 
 sion or misguidance of witch-doctors is proportionately 
 less. The king or chief, deriving hereditary rank through 
 his mother, is supposed to hold the country over which his 
 control extends as trustee for the people inhabiting it, and 
 subordinate to him are the princes or sub-chiefs of each 
 province or district, under whom again are the heads of 
 families or villages. There is no private property in land, 
 but individual cultivators or collectors of its produce have 
 a right to the fruits of their labour, subject to the contribu- 
 tions claimed from them towards the maintenance of the 
 interests of the community. Although polygamy is usual, 
 the first wife holds higher position than the others, and 
 each mother is the guardian of her own children and of 
 any property that they may inherit. " As regards the 
 duties of married persons," we are told, " the woman plants, 
 cooks, carries wood, and draws water ; the man looks after 
 the religious and fetish rights of the family, which are 
 closely allied to the treatment of his sick relatives and their 
 burial, finds his wife in dress, fish, results of the chase, palm- 
 nuts, &c., builds her house, and cuts the bush where she 
 may have selected to plant."* 
 
 The Balunda and other nations, The Balunda, Balolo, 
 broken up into numerous fragments, a d Baluba. 
 
 who chiefly occupy the southern portion of the Congo Basin 
 
 * See an interesting account of ' Laws and Customs of the Fjort or Bavili 
 Family, Kingdom of Loango,' by Mr. R. E. Dennett, in the Journal of the 
 African Society, No. 3, pp. 259-87 (1902).
 
 6 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 are reported to be of more savage disposition than the 
 Bakongo, apparently by reason of the frequent encroach- 
 ments upon them down to comparatively recent times 
 of marauding hordes from the east. But very favourable 
 accounts are given of the Balolo or Mongo, the principal 
 occupants of the horseshoe formed by the Middle 
 Congo, and of some of the Baluba, to the south, on both 
 sides of the Kasai. The Balolo have a right to their 
 name, which means " men of iron." Alike as forgers of 
 metal implements and as warriors, they surpass most of 
 the other Bantu communities ; and their success in clearing 
 and cultivating the forest land to which they migrated 
 from the north-east long ago, and in organising themselves 
 as smiths, carpenters, weavers, and craftsmen in other 
 ways, as well as farmers, is all the more remarkable because 
 they keep up their old tribal institutions without any 
 attempt at political cohesion. Akin to them are the Baluba, 
 whom Major von Wissmann, on his first visit to them in 
 1 88 1, described as " a nation of thinkers," no less industrious 
 than intelligent, but in 1886 condemned for their rude 
 workmanship and "childish insolence."* Mr. Latrobe 
 Bateman said of their Bashilange branch, as the result of 
 more friendly residence among them, " They are thoroughly 
 and unimpeachably honest, brave to foolhardiness, and 
 faithful to each other and to their superiors, in whom, 
 especially if Europeans, they place the most complete, 
 absolutely unquestioning reliance. They are prejudiced 
 in favour of foreign customs rather than othenvise, and 
 spontaneously copy the usages of civilisation. They are 
 warm-hearted and affectionate towards their friends, and 
 especially their kinsfolk, and are the only African tribe 
 amongst whom, in their primitive state, I have observed 
 anything like a becoming conjugal affection and regard. 
 To say nothing of such recommendations as their emanci- 
 pation from fetishism, their ancient abandonment of 
 
 * 'Through Equatorial Africa from the Congo to the Zambezi' (1891), 
 
 pp. 121, 122,
 
 PRELIMINARY. 7 
 
 cannibalism, their heretofore most happy experience of 
 Europeans, and their national unity under the sway of a 
 really princely prince (Kalamba), I believe them to be the 
 most open to the best influences of civilisation of any 
 African tribe whatsoever."* It would seem that the 
 Baluba, scattered over a large extent of country, with much 
 more barbarous communities adjacent to them or inter- 
 spersed among them, and with too much readiness to 
 adapt themselves to their immediate necessities and 
 surroundings, had in some parts succumbed to the injurious 
 influences of native intruders, like the Bakuba from the 
 north and the Balunda from the south-east, long before 
 additional misfortunes came to them through the contact 
 with white men which dates from the later years of the 
 fifteenth-century, and the bearings of which may now be 
 briefly reviewed. 
 
 Eleven years before the memorable voyage of Diogo 
 
 Cam in 1482, Portuguese exploration 
 
 f , u TTT , Ar - , U i j The Advent of the 
 
 of the West African coast had reached ,. 
 
 Portuguese. 
 the mouth of the Ogowe, the northern 
 
 boundary of Congoland. But nothing more was done until 
 Diogo Cam, with the German geographer Martin of Bohemia 
 as his companion, followed the coast for some 200 miles 
 further south, and entered the much larger stream, five 
 or six miles wide at its outlet, which was known to 
 the inhabitants as Nzidi, " the Great River," and to 
 which he gave the name of Ponderoso, " the Mighty." 
 Having ascended its channel for some distance, he con- 
 tinued his investigations as far south as, at any rate, 
 Benguela, and in 1485 he returned to Lisbon, taking with 
 him a few natives to substantiate his report concerning the 
 " kingdom of Congo " which he had discovered. 
 
 Five years later a larger expedition was sent out. 
 Accompanied not only by the borrowed natives, who in 
 the interval had been converted to Christianity and in- 
 structed in its doctrines, but also by a number of white 
 * ( The First Ascent of the Kassai' (1889), p. 20,
 
 8 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 missionaries, Diogo Cam landed in March, 1491, near the 
 southern gate of the mighty river, now known as San 
 Antonio. He and his followers were welcomed by the 
 chief of the district, who escorted them to Nbanza or 
 Ambasi, the capital of the Congo kingdom, where an even 
 heartier welcome awaited them. Not only was the king 
 himself at once converted, accepting the baptismal name 
 of John and altering the name of his city to San Salvador, 
 but, as we are assured by the old chroniclers, all his prin- 
 cipal officers and 100,000 of his subjects became Christians 
 " in a trice." No attempt appears to have been made by 
 the new-comers through the first half century or more to 
 establish any political control over the people, but the 
 religious and social changes they brought about, however 
 superficial, were considerable, especially after a member of 
 their royal family, educated in Lisbon, had been installed 
 as bishop of the diocese. 
 
 The " kingdom of Congo " was probably in its decadence 
 even when the Portuguese first visited it. The readiness 
 with which its people yielded to Portuguese influence and 
 threw themselves on Portuguese support betokened an 
 unfitness to hold their ground against intruders. Before 
 1560 they were attacked by a cannibal horde known as 
 the Yaka or Jaga, apparently coming westward from the 
 neighbourhood of Lake Tanganyika, and their king and 
 his court had to seek shelter on an island near Boma, in 
 the Congo, then usually called the Zaire, as a variation 
 from the native word Nzidi. An appeal to Portugal for 
 help led to the sending out of a formidable army, under 
 Francisco de Gova, which drove back the Yaka invaders ; 
 but fresh troubles were provoked thereby. The region 
 between San Salvador and the sea, with the Lower Congo 
 as its northern limit, having been ceded by the rescued 
 king to the Portuguese as recompense for their assistance, 
 the arrangement was resented by the actual chief of the 
 district, and this chief was strong enough to exclude the 
 aliens from his territory. The patriotic feeling thus
 
 PRELIMINARY. 9 
 
 aroused, moreover, was quickened by the efforts of orthodox 
 Catholics to reform abuses that had grown up in the native 
 churches and of more worldly-minded schemers to obtain 
 access to mines of precious metals supposed to be in the 
 interior. As a consequence, the assumed Portuguese 
 supremacy was cast off by the end of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, although the religious and other influences of the 
 two or three previous generations were by no means rooted 
 out. The fruits and weeds resulting from them continue 
 to this day, and, though European ownership of anything 
 more than the few forts and ports established on the coast 
 only began to be real within the past half century, the 
 work of "civilisation" has ever since been fitfully carried on 
 from those forts and ports, of which the principal was San 
 Paolo de Loanda, founded in 1578. 
 
 Paolo Diaz, who had visited the mouth oftheKwanza in 
 1560, and had been detained there as a guest or a prisoner 
 for several years by the chief of the country, known as 
 king of Angola, and a tributary to the king of Congo, was 
 at length released and sent back to Lisbon with a request 
 for Portuguese aid in putting down a local rebellion. Diaz 
 accordingly returned in 1574, with 700 men in seven ships, 
 and the title of " conqueror, coloniser, and governor of 
 Angola." First taking possession of an island in Bango 
 Bay, from which he rendered the assistance asked for, he 
 planted the city of San Paolo on the mainland four years 
 later. Two other years passed before the Angola king 
 discovered that his authority was being undermined by the 
 new-comers. Thereupon he contrived the massacre of 
 most of them, and many years of fighting ensued before 
 peace of a sort was established on the understanding that 
 the Portuguese, abstaining from conquest of the interior, 
 but trading with and giving occasional military help to its 
 occupants, should have the mastery of the coast. That 
 mastery was gradually extended not only to Benguela and 
 ultimately to Mossamedes and other stations in the south, 
 but also to Kabinda and further north of the Congo, 
 
 *
 
 io CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 On both sides of the great river, however, the claims 
 
 of the Portuguese to ownership of the 
 French and other ,. ,. 
 
 entire coast were disputed by other 
 Rivalries. 11 
 
 European nations, rrench rivalry 
 
 did not begin till 1839, but the Dutch, whose enterprise was 
 in other respects sufficiently vigorous, had, in their prolonged 
 struggle with the Spaniards in the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries, special reasons for assailing the possessions 
 of Portugal while the latter was under Spanish dominion. 
 In 1641 even Loanda fell into their hands for a time. 
 " The Dutch," according to the historian Feo Cardozo, 
 " who for several years had annoyed the Portuguese on the 
 west coast, attempted to possess themselves of some of 
 their ports for the purpose of obtaining a supply of slaves 
 for their colonies in America. During the governorship 
 of Fernan de Souza the Dutch despatched a fleet of eight 
 ships, which attempted to force the bar of Loanda, 
 but, meeting with a determined resistance, they returned 
 from the coast after a stay of three months, having 
 only captured four small vessels. The Count of Nassau, 
 considering that without an abundant supply of slaves 
 from the west coast the Dutch possessions in America 
 would be of little value, determined to take stronger 
 measures for obtaining them and sent a powerful fleet 
 of twenty vessels. On 24th August, 1641, this formidable 
 fleet appeared at Loanda, and such was the consternation 
 it caused that the governor and inhabitants abandoned 
 the city. The Dutch, landing next day, became, 
 without opposition, masters of the place and of a large 
 booty." In 1648 they were expelled, and with them 
 their French and German associates in the enterprise, 
 by an expedition, " towards the expenses of which," 
 we are told, "the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro largely 
 contributed as they saw how hurtful to their interests 
 the loss of Angola would be from the failure in the supply 
 of slave labour."* 
 
 * Monteiro, 'Angola and the River Congo' (1875), Vol. I., pp. 11-14.
 
 PRELIMINARY. 11 
 
 The procuring of slaves for shipment to the West Indies 
 and elsewhere was the main purpose of all appropriations 
 of West African territory and intercourse with its people in 
 the Congo region as well as on the Guinea coast, and 
 though the British, French, Dutch, and other adventurers 
 in this traffic occupied themselves chiefly on the north of 
 the Equator, they were not willing that Portugal, which 
 had taken possession of the Ilha do Principe, or Prince's 
 Island, and of the Island of San Thome, or Saint Thomas, 
 before the close of the fifteenth century, should have a 
 monopoly in the south. 
 
 On this account Portugal's assumption of a right to any 
 territory on the mainland above Loanda was persistently 
 disputed. When, for instance, an expedition from that 
 town seized Kabinda in 1783, and proceeded to establish 
 a port there, a French squadron was promptly sent, it is 
 recorded, " to demolish any fortifications that might 
 impede the free commerce of all nations on the coast of 
 Loango,"* and the right of the Portuguese to Kabinda, 
 though it was soon recovered by them, was not fully 
 acknowledged till 1884, and was most steadily denied 
 by the English, who at one time held a fort there. The 
 French in the meanwhile had secured a footing on the 
 Gaboon in 1839, taken formal possession of it in 1844, and 
 planted Libreville, the present capital of French Congo, as 
 an asylum for freed slaves in 1848. French rivalry for the 
 possession of a share in the Congo Basin, on its northern 
 side, was active from that date. But more progress was at 
 first made by Portugal, though chiefly in the extreme 
 south, and with the object of drawing to Loanda, Benguela, 
 and other ports, not themselves within the Basin, some of 
 the trade with its inland residents which was increasing 
 every year. 
 
 Unfortunately the trade was still largely in slaves as it 
 is, indeed, even at the present time, in a modified form. 
 " Despite the theories and declamation of sensitive minds, 
 
 * 'Angola and the River Congo,' Vol. I., p. 16,
 
 12 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 led away by false notions of the state of the question," 
 
 Feo Cardozo wrote in 1825, " as long 
 
 The Slave Trade. , v , . c ., & 
 
 as the barbarity and ignorance 01 the 
 
 African natives shall exist, the barter of slaves will always 
 be considered by enlightened philanthropists as the only 
 palliation to the ferocity of the L laws that govern those 
 natives."* The same view has ever since been freely held 
 and vigorously acted on in spite of the prohibition of the 
 slave trade which was decreed by Great Britain in 1807, by 
 France in 1815, and by Portugal in 1830 in spite, too, of 
 the subsequent abolition of the legal status of slavery 
 throughout all their dominions which was enacted by Great 
 Britain in 1833, by France in 1840, and by Portugal in 
 1878. 
 
 In the years prior to 1875, according to Mr. Joachim 
 John Monteiro, who then summed up his experiences ol 
 long residence in the country, " the number of slaves 
 shipped in Angola, from the Congo to Benguela 
 inclusively, could not have been far short of 100,000 
 per annum." " I was told by some of the old inhabi- 
 tants," he reported, "that to see as many as ten to 
 twelve vessels loading at a time at Loanda and 
 Benguela was a common occurrence. At the time of 
 the last shipments from Benguela, about ten years ago, 
 I have seen as many as 1,000 slaves arrive in one 
 caravan from the interior, principally from Bihe." " During 
 the time of the slave trade" that is, with America 
 he also wrote, " Benguela was one of the principal ship- 
 ping ports of Angola, many thousands of slaves being 
 sent off from it to the Brazils and Cuba. The last 
 two or three shipments took place whilst I was 
 working the copper deposits near Benguela. They 
 were principally brought for sale by the natives of 
 Bihe, and I once saw a caravan of nearly 3,000 blacks 
 arrive, of whom 1,000 were slaves for sale. The average 
 price of a full-grown healthy man or woman was about 
 
 * ' Angola and the River Congo,' Vol. I., p. 20.
 
 PRELIMINARY. 13 
 
 .3 in cloth or other goods, and as low as $s. for a little 
 nigger."* 
 
 Bihe, about 400 miles to the east of Benguela, and on the 
 
 highway traversed by caravans both 
 
 e i_i_ L j r T i Portuguese 
 
 from the neighbourhood of Lake _, _ .. 
 
 Slave-Trading. 
 
 Tanganyika and the source of the 
 
 Congo in the far west and from the centre of the Congo 
 Basin in the north, has through centuries been a great 
 inland market, offering many advantages for the spread 
 of such " civilisation " as Europeans have provided. The 
 cloths and tools, the firearms and " fire-water " brought 
 to it by native traders, of whom the most enterprising 
 generally claimed to be Portuguese on the strength 
 of their mixed parentage, could there be exchanged 
 for African commodities, including the slaves procured 
 in abundance by other traders, who also frequently 
 had more or less Portuguese blood in their veins. 
 The Ovim-Bundu, a branch of the Mabunda family 
 that shares with the Bakongo most of the country 
 on the western side of Congoland, appear to have been 
 more influenced by the Portuguese in tastes and habits, it 
 not also in blood, than any of the neighbouring tribes, and 
 long ago to have found profit in catering for the new-comers. 
 Many of them took European names and made pretence 
 of being Europeans. 
 
 Such an one was a trader calling himself Jose Antonio 
 Alvez, whom Commander Cameron met in 1874 at Kilamba, 
 about 300 miles to the west of Lake Tanganyika, and more 
 than twice that distance from Bihe. " Dondo, on the river 
 Kwanza, in the province of Angola," Cameron reported, 
 " was his native place. He had left there more than 
 twenty years before and had spent the greater portion of 
 the period in travelling and trading in the interior, formerly 
 as agent for white merchants, but latterly on his own 
 account. He came in state, being carried in a hammock 
 with an awning by two bearers with belts covered with 
 
 * 'Angola and the River Congo,' Vol. I., p. 67 ; Vol. II., pp. 181, 182.
 
 14 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 brass balls round their waists. I had almost taken it for 
 granted from the manner in which he came that he was a 
 white man. Great was my disappointment, however, when 
 an old and ugly Negro turned out of the hammock. Cer- 
 tainly he was dressed in European fashion and spoke 
 Portuguese, but no further civilisation could he boast of, 
 notwithstanding his repeated asseverations that he was 
 thoroughly civilised and the same as an Englishman or 
 any other white man." Another of the " horde of ruffians " 
 whom Cameron had dealings with, and to whom, he said, 
 " must be awarded the palm for having reached the highest 
 grade in ruffianism amongst them all," was " Louren^o 
 da Souza Coimbra, a son of Major Coimbra, of Bihe." 
 Coimbra and Alvez were partners or .allies of the Rua 
 chief Kasongo in his " plundering raids," and Cameron 
 witnessed the issue of one of the raids. "Coimbra 
 arrived," he wrote in July, 1875, "with a gang of fifty- 
 two women tied together in lots of seventeen or 
 eighteen. Some had children in arms, others were far 
 advanced in pregnancy, and all were laden with huge 
 bundles of grass-cloth and other plunder. These poor, 
 weary and footsore creatures were covered with weals 
 and scars, showing how unmercifully cruel had been 
 the treatment received at the hands of the savage who 
 called himself their owner. To obtain these fifty-two 
 women at least ten villages had been destroyed, each 
 having a population of from one to two hundred, or about 
 1,500 in all. Some may, perchance, have escaped to neigh- 
 bouring villages, but the greater portion were undoubtedly 
 burnt when their villages were surprised, and shot whilst 
 attempting to save their wives and families, or doomed to 
 die of starvation in the jungle unless some wild beast put 
 a more speedy end to their miseries." " The cruelties 
 perpetrated in the heart of Africa by men calling them- 
 selves Christians and carrying the Portuguese flag," Cameron 
 averred, " can scarcely be credited by those living in a 
 civilised land, and the Government of Portugal cannot but
 
 PRELIMINARY. 15 
 
 be cognizant of the atrocities committed by men claiming 
 to be her subjects. I have no hesitation in asserting that 
 the worst of the Arabs are in this respect angels of light in 
 comparison with the Portuguese and those who travel with 
 them."* 
 
 The so-called Arabs here compared with the so-called 
 Portuguese, neither of whom had 
 
 more than a very small admixture of 
 
 * Slave-Trading. 
 
 Arab or Portuguese blood to their 
 
 Bantu stock, though there was doubtless much more reality 
 in the Mohammedan professions of the former than in the 
 Christian professions of the latter, had recently been 
 imitating in the eastern parts of Congoland the vicious 
 slave-raiding encouraged by Europeans in the south and 
 west. Their most famous and powerful leader, though not 
 quite the earliest, was Hamed - bin - Mohammed, better 
 known by his nickname of Tipu-Tipu, " the gatherer 01 
 great wealth," whose ivory-collecting and slave - raiding 
 for the Zanzibar market were limited to the southern 
 borders of Lake Tanganyika when Dr. Livingstone made 
 his acquaintance, but who was soon encouraged by Euro- 
 pean example to aim at much more extensive dominion. 
 Although Burton, Speke, Grant, and many other European 
 
 explorers had seen much of the people 
 
 f The River Congo. 
 
 and places in the extreme east of 
 
 Congoland, on all sides and both north and south ol 
 Lake Tanganyika, their researches had no immediate 
 bearings on the condition of its inhabitants, and they were 
 not aware of the connection of its waters with the great 
 river flowing into the Atlantic. Livingstone, it is true, 
 travelling from Loanda to the Zambezi as far back as 1855, 
 and passing the Kasai and other rivers on his journey, 
 " began," as he reported, " to perceive that all the western 
 feeders of the Kasai, except the Kwango, flow first from 
 the western side towards the centre of the country, then 
 gradually turn, with the Kasai itself, to the north, and that 
 * ' Across Africa ' (1827), Vol. II., pp. 57, 58, 94, 106, 136, 137.
 
 16 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 after the confluence of the Kasai with the Kwango, an 
 immense body of water, collected from all these branches, 
 finds its way out of the country by means of the river 
 Congo or Zaire on the west coast"* This was the first 
 correct indication of the geography of the Congo Basin, 
 and a great advance on the information of Captain James 
 Kingston Tuckey, who was sent out by the British Govern- 
 ment in 1816 to ascertain whether the Zaire, as it was still 
 called, was identical with the Niger, and who, amid many 
 disasters, was only able to collect trustworthy details as to 
 the stream and its borders up to the lowest of its cataracts, 
 about 170 miles inland. But though in his twenty-five 
 years of wandering Livingstone threw much valuable light 
 on this and other questions, he thought that the river, 
 known to the natives at successive stages of its course as 
 the Chambezi, the Luapula, and the Lualaba, which he 
 discovered in the watershed between Lakes Nyasa and 
 Tanganyika, and which he tracked as far as Nyangwe 
 before 1871, was the head of the Nile. Cameron guessed 
 the truth when he visited Nyangwe in August, 1874, and 
 wrote, " This great stream must be one of the head waters 
 of the Congo, for where else could that giant among rivers, 
 second only to the Amazon in its volume, obtain the two 
 million cubic feet of water which it unceasingly pours each 
 second into the Atlantic ?"f Instead of verifying his sur- 
 mise, however, Cameron travelled southwards into Katanga, 
 and so made his way to Benguela, leaving to Mr. Henry M. 
 Stanley, who reached the Lualaba two years later, the 
 credit of actual discovery. 
 
 Having visited Livingstone at Ujiji, on the western 
 
 side of Lake Tanganyika, in Novem- 
 Mr. Stanley's ' , . 
 
 , ber, 1871, and accompanied him on 
 
 Explorations. ' ' 
 
 some 01 his later investigations, Mr. 
 
 Stanley returned to Africa in September, 1874, and 
 occupied nearly three years on his famous expedition 
 
 * ' Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa,' chap. xxii. 
 t ' Across Africa,' Vol. II., p. 10.
 
 PRELIMINARY. 17 
 
 " through the Dark Continent" He was at Nyangwe 
 in October, 1876, when Tipu-Tipu, whom Cameron 
 had met there only as a visitor, was in possession of 
 the town and its surroundings, and from Tipu he 
 obtained the canoes and other assistance required for 
 exploring the Lualaba, which Cameron had failed to 
 procure. Mr. Stanley's perilous and eventful voyage, cover- 
 ing with interruptions nearly ten months, had momentous 
 consequences, and for the first time supplied the civilised 
 world with information more or less precise and trust- 
 worthy about the vast extent of country traversed by him 
 and the numerous and diverse communities of savages 
 with whom in some cases he exchanged friendly greetings 
 and in others had fierce encounters. His narrative is very 
 instructive, if misleading in some particulars, and his views, 
 considering their influence on European opinion and action, 
 are all the more noteworthy where they are most open to 
 criticism. For the present purpose only a few citations 
 are necessary. 
 
 Of Tipu-Tipu, when they met and had dealings at 
 
 at Nyangwe, Mr. Stanley thought 
 
 j u c r Tipu-Tipu's 
 
 favourably, and he found excuse, if 
 
 Slave- Raiding. 
 
 not justification, for the Arab en- 
 croachments in quest of ivory and slaves in the district 
 between Lake Tanganyika and Nyangwe, and further west, 
 which was tenanted by the cannibal Manyema. " One must 
 not rashly impute all the blame to the Arabs and Wa-swahili 
 of the Zanzibar coast for their excesses," he wrote, " for the 
 natives are also in a way to blame. Just as the Saxons, 
 Danes, and Jutes, invited by the Britons, became their 
 masters, so the Arabs, invited by the Manyema to assist 
 them against one another, have become their tyrants. 
 Bribes were offered to us three times by the Manyema to 
 assist them in destroying their neighbours, to whom they 
 are of near kin, and with whom they have almost daily 
 relations. Our refusal of ivory and slaves appeared to 
 surprise the chiefs, and they expressed the opinion that we 
 
 C
 
 i8 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 white men were not as good as the Arabs, for the Arabs 
 would have assisted them." " One really does not know 
 whether to pity or to despise the natives of Manyema," 
 Mr. Stanley added. " Many are amiable enough to deserve 
 good and kind treatment, but others are hardly human. 
 They fly to the woods on the approach of strangers. Ii 
 the strangers follow them into the woods to persuade them 
 to return and sell food, the purpose of the visit is mistaken, 
 and they are assailed from behind depths of bush and tall 
 trees. They are humble and liberal to the strong-armed 
 Arab, savage and murderous and cannibalistic to small 
 bands, and every slain man provides a banquet of meat for 
 the forest natives of Manyema."* 
 
 Escorted by Tipu-Tipu till he had passed Riba-Riba 
 
 and was more than half-way between 
 Mr. Stanley on the XT , . , 
 
 Nyangwe and the great cataracts to 
 Congo. 
 
 which he gave the name of Stanley 
 
 Falls, and after that left to his own resources with 
 the dwindling residue of the followers he had brought 
 from Zanzibar, Mr. Stanley explored the river and 
 its banks, peopled by cannibal Bakumu and by the 
 Pygmies of the Congo Forest, by Basoko, northern 
 Bangala, and others. After a fight near the junction 
 of the Aruwimi and the Congo, almost in the centre 
 of the Great Forest, he wrote : " This last of the 
 twenty-eight desperate combats which we had had with 
 the insensate furies of savageland began to inspire us 
 with a suspicion of everything bearing the least semblance 
 of a man, and to infuse into our hearts something of that 
 feeling which probably the hard-pressed stag feels when, 
 after distancing the hounds many times, and having re- 
 sorted to many stratagems to avoid them, wearied and 
 bathed with perspiration, he hears with terror and trembling 
 the hideous and startling yelps of the ever-pursuing pack. 
 We also had laboured strenuously through ranks upon 
 ranks of savages, scattered over a score of flotillas, had 
 * ' Through the Dark Continent ' (1880 edition), pp. 380, 381.
 
 PRELIMINARY. 19 
 
 endured persistent attacks night and day while straggling 
 through them, had resorted to all modes of defence, and 
 yet at every curve of this fearful river the yells of the 
 savages broke loud on our ears, the snake-like canoes 
 darted forward impetuously to the attack, while the drums 
 and horns and shouts raised fierce and deafening uproar. 
 We were becoming exhausted. We were also being 
 weeded out by units and twos and threes. There were 
 not thirty in the entire expedition " which numbered 224 
 hired slaves when it started from Zanzibar, and to which 
 132 other followers had been added " that had not received 
 a wound."* Though Mr. Stanley was the intruder, and the 
 frightened natives, driven to desperation by reports of the 
 treatment already accorded to others of their race, bore 
 mqr$ resemblance to hard-pressed stags than those who 
 forced their presence upon them, his courage and per- 
 severance were remarkable, and when he had passed the 
 confluence of the Ubangi and the Congo, and was ap- 
 proaching the broad waters now known as Stanley Pool, 
 he found, as he reported, that he need " no longer sneak 
 amongst reedy islets or wander in secret amongst wilder- 
 nesses of water," that " the native, as we ascertained oppo- 
 site Bolobo, was not the destructive infuriate of Irebu or 
 Mompurangi, or the frantic brute of Mongala and Marunja," 
 but that " he appeared to be toning down into a man and to 
 understand that others of his species inhabited this globe." f 
 Befriended by these Bateke and Bayanzi and by others, 
 he passed on to Boma, and reached the Atlantic in August, 
 1877. 
 
 At Boma he and 115 survivors of the 356 followers 
 he had taken with him were again 
 
 in touch with civilisation. " There 
 
 , Lower Congo. 
 
 are, he reported, some half-dozen 
 
 factories at Boma, engaging the attention of about 
 eighteen whites. The houses are all constructed of 
 
 * ' Through the Dark Continent' (1880 edition), p. 502. 
 t Ibid., p. 527.
 
 20 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 wooden boards with, as a rule, corrugated zinc roofs. 
 The residences line the front ; the Dutch, French, and 
 Portuguese factories being west of an isolated, high, 
 square-browed hill, and the English factory being a few 
 hundred yards above it. Each factory requires an 
 ample courtyard for its business, which consists in the 
 barter of cotton fabrics, glass-ware, crockery, ironware, 
 gin, rum, guns, and gunpowder for palm-oil, ground-nuts, 
 and ivory. Though Boma is comparatively ancient, and 
 Europeans have had commercial connections with this 
 district and the people for over a century, yet Captain 
 Tuckey's description of the people, written in 1816 
 their ceremonies and modes of life, their suspicion 
 of strangers and intolerance, their greed for rum and 
 indolence, the scarcity of food is as correct as though 
 written to-day."* 
 
 Of the condition of affairs, not only at Boma, which is 
 about sixty miles from the coast, but also at Banana, the 
 northern gate of the Congo, and at Ponta da Lenha, mid- 
 way between the two, as well as in the whole district, an 
 account was given by the British representative at Loanda 
 in a despatch to the British Government a few weeks before 
 Mr. Stanley's arrival on the scene. "Trading factories,'' 
 wrote Consul Hopkins on 28th April, 1877, "are estab- 
 lished at Banana, Ponta da Lenha, and Boma ; at Banana, 
 Dutch, French, and Portuguese ; at Ponta da Lenha, Dutch 
 Flemish, English, and Portuguese ; and the same at Boma. 
 All these factories, with the exception of the English, as far 
 as I can learn, are more or less worked by slave labour. 
 The Dutch, I willingly bear testimony to, found matters as 
 they are when they commenced their trade operations on 
 this coast. They hold about 1 50 slaves ; but these people 
 are so well treated that, to all intents and purposes, 
 they are free, and they are never sold or exchanged ; 
 in fact, it is their boast that they are children of 
 the Dutch house. The next holders of slaves, and they 
 
 * ' Through the Dark Continent' (1880 edition), p. 619.
 
 PRELIMINARY. 21 
 
 should take rank first, are the Portuguese and Spanish 
 traders."* 
 
 That statement was introductory to the consul's report 
 of " certain horrible proceedings that," 
 
 he averred, " have lately taken place 
 
 \ Natives in 1877. 
 
 in the Congo river, and constituted 
 
 " a crime so barbarous and fiendish that it can hardly have 
 ever been surpassed for cruelty in the annals of the slave 
 trade." For an alleged attempt at Ponta da Lenha to 
 burn down a factory rented by the Portuguese " owner 
 of a large number of slaves," notorious as " a very old slave 
 dealer on the coast," one of his slave boys was arrested and 
 tortured until, " under the influence of the great agony he 
 was suffering," he accused first one of his fellow-slaves 
 and afterwards several others of participation in the 
 offence. The first victim, who at the time of the 
 occurrence was " many miles away," was captured 
 and, " without being interrogated at all, was bound 
 hand and foot, taken out in a canoe into the middle 
 of the stream, and drowned." The rest shared the 
 same fate, twelve being taken to Boma by " John Scott, 
 a merchant trading there and a British subject," who 
 caused eleven of them, men, women, and children, 
 to be " all attached to an iron chain and drowned in 
 the river in front of his house." "In all," the consul 
 reported, " I am assured that about thirty-two unfor- 
 tunate, helpless beings were murdered " ; and he added, 
 " I am also informed that the murder of one or more 
 slaves by white men in the Congo is almost a daily 
 occurrence, and that the torture of the thumb-screw 
 was applied to many more besides the boy first alluded 
 to, and in some instances it was so severe that the 
 bones of the fingers of these most unfortunate people 
 were completely crushed before they would implicate 
 others, and beyond a doubt, under their excru- 
 ciating agony, they accused many innocent people, 
 
 * 'Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 2 (1883), p. 80.
 
 22 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 for children of tender years were included and not 
 spared." * 
 
 These outrages, for which no punishment appears to have 
 been found possible, helped before other interests were 
 quickened by the publication of Mr. Stanley's experiences 
 in directing attention to the necessity for some attempt at 
 checking abuses that had long been growing. Though the 
 French had as yet made little use of the Gaboon district 
 occupied by them in 1844, outside of Congoland, and still 
 less of Loango and the other stations which they had 
 subsequently planted to the south of the Ogowe, and 
 although the Portuguese claim to ownership of any territory 
 north of Ambriz had been disputed by the other European 
 Powers, and most persistently by Great Britain, the whole 
 intermediate coastline of about 300 miles, and especially 
 the frontage of Kabinda, which was chiefly possessed by 
 Portuguese adventurers, had come to be a much-frequented 
 no-man's-land, or every-man's-land, in which more or less 
 profitable trade was carried on by unscrupulous adventurers, 
 as well as by respectable merchants and their agents, of 
 various nationalities. 
 
 "To England and to Portugal," the Government in 
 
 Lisbon had pompously and speciously 
 Portuguese Proposals -.. r\ u or ^ 
 
 written in December, 1875, for the 
 for Reform. . _ ' . , ' 
 
 information of the British Govern- 
 ment, " Providence seems to have assigned the glorious 
 mission of civilising the vast regions of Southern Africa. 
 In fact, no other nation occupies territory which in im- 
 portance or extent can be compared with those which, by 
 
 * 'Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 2 (1883), pp. 8l, 82, The Rev. 
 W. Holman Bentley, the Baptist missionary, who arrived in the district two 
 years later, makes light of the affair, although he reports the murder of ' ' some 
 forty." John Scott, he says, "was a half-caste from St. Helena, and figured 
 as an Englishman. He had traded long on the coast and had made and 
 lost several fortunes." Mr. Bentley adds, "When we commenced our work, 
 he showed us always the kindest hospitality." He was angry, however, when 
 his colleague, the Rev. Thomas Combes, was asked to pay twice over a debt 
 of 40 to Scott, " who had been acting as our agent." ' Pioneering in the 
 Congo' (1900), Vol. I., pp. 47, 48, 107.
 
 PRELIMINARY. 23 
 
 right, belong to the Crowns of these two nations. That 
 similarity of opinions and interests which unites in the 
 strictest alliance the two nations in Europe, his Majesty's 
 Government thinks, must and should produce equally 
 favourable results when they are, with sincerity, united on 
 their African colonies." It was accordingly urged that 
 " immediate action " should be conjointly taken by the 
 two Powers to put a stop to " acts of hostility on the part 
 of the indigenous population against the persons and 
 property of merchants established in those parts of the 
 coast of Africa where garrisons had not as yet been 
 appointed." " It is necessary to prevent the repetition 
 of such acts of violence," it is urged, " and the quickest 
 way of doing so would be an effective occupation, which, 
 without embarrassing with useless trammels the transactions 
 of legitimate commerce, would efficaciously protect the 
 same from the depredations and insults of the natives. 
 Of the nations which such an occupation would most 
 immediately interest Portugal is naturally the one most 
 fitted to carry it out." * 
 
 Though it was favourably entertained for a time by the 
 British Government, nothing came of this proposal, and 
 there was much greater need for the defence of native 
 interests against white oppressors than for the protection 
 of Europeans from black malcontents. Yet the Portuguese 
 Government, when asked to punish its subjects for such 
 malpractices as were brought to light in 1877, had some 
 ground for replying that " the recent outrages are but the 
 natural results of the deplorable condition of affairs on the 
 Congo." " The number of Europeans of various nation- 
 alities," it was explained, " who for the purposes of trade 
 have established factories on the banks of the river has 
 rapidly increased of late. These individuals obtain ser- 
 vants from the neighbouring chiefs in exchange for goods, 
 so that, in point of fact, these servants are little removed 
 from slaves. Owing to the lawless state of the country, 
 
 * ' Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 2 (1883), p. 71.
 
 24 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 the masters are in constant dread of their servants or 
 slaves, and therefore do their best to reconcile them to the 
 state of bondage in which they are kept. Nevertheless, 
 there are among these Negroes many bad and turbulent 
 characters who are continually misbehaving and attempt- 
 ing to desert, and who have therefore to be kept down with 
 a strong hand." In feeble apology for the murders at 
 Ponta da Lenha it was urged : " The employer of these 
 men had suffered terrible losses at their hands. His 
 factory and stores, with all they contained, had been twice 
 if not three times set on fire and utterly destroyed by 
 them. The consequence was that, for the protection of 
 their property, and even of their lives, which were in 
 imminent jeopardy, the owners of factories in that neigh- 
 bourhood combined together, and having, with the assist- 
 ance of some friendly native chiefs, succeeded in catching 
 the incriminated Negroes formed a sort of drumhead 
 court-martial for their trial, and condemned to death a 
 certain number of the worst characters amongst them as 
 an example to the rest. These extemporised judges took 
 upon themselves the part of executioners, and, in order 
 that the terrible sentence they had passed should produce 
 the effect they desired on the whole of the surrounding 
 tribes, they divided the condemned men into several 
 batches and drowned them at different points on the river. 
 The lives and property of the unfortunate individuals who 
 were driven to take such desperate remedies are completely 
 at the mercy of savages whom fear alone will effectually 
 restrain from deeds of violence and rapine. In these terri- 
 tories there is no one to whom they can appeal for that aid 
 and protection which they so urgently require. Since there 
 was no law, and, even if there had been any, no one to put 
 it in force, what other course was open to them, unless they 
 had been prepared to abandon altogether the field of their 
 commercial operations, but the adoption of the first of all 
 laws, that of self-preservation ?"* 
 
 * 'Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, Nq. 2 (1883), p. 85,
 
 PRELIMINARY. 25 
 
 Thus reasons or excuses were provided for the larger 
 projects for the spread of civilisation in Congoland which 
 were presently to be entered upon, and of which the most 
 important incidents and their bearings will be set forth in 
 the following pages.
 
 26 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 KING LEOPOLD'S PROJECT [1876-1884]. 
 
 To the enterprise and perseverance of King Leopold II., 
 the Belgian sovereign, is mainly due the commencement, 
 as well as the subsequent guidance and control, of modern 
 movements for the European appropriation of Congoland. 
 It was at his invitation that, in September, 1876, a three 
 
 days' conference of politicians, geo- 
 The Conference at , , , ., 
 
 , . , grapners, travellers, and prmantnro- 
 Brusselsin 1876. & . ' 
 
 pists was held in Brussels, and 
 
 discussed schemes for opening the interior of Africa to 
 commerce, civilisation, and scientific research. At this con- 
 ference, which was in no way official, the Belgian repre- 
 sentatives were the most numerous, the foremost 01 
 thirteen, besides the king himself, being Baron Lamber- 
 mont. But there were nine from England, including Sir 
 Bartle Frere, Sir Henry Rawlinson, Sir William Mac- 
 kinnon, Sir John Kennaway, Sir Thomas Powell Buxton, 
 and Commander Cameron, who had lately returned from 
 his journey across the continent ; also five from France, 
 
 four from Germany, one from Italy, 
 The International r -n A 
 
 . . . and one from Russia. As its result 
 
 African Association. 
 
 an International Commission or 
 
 International African Association was formed, as a central 
 organisation for the National Committees it was proposed 
 to set up in eleven European countries, together with one 
 in the United States. 
 
 The English friends of the movement prudently abstained 
 from taking part in it to this extent, and assisted, instead, 
 in the Royal Geographical Society's strictly scientific 
 expedition in East Africa under Keith Johnston and his 
 successor, Joseph Thompson. France and Italy, too, while 
 giving formal support to the International Association,
 
 KING LEOPOLD'S PROJECT. 27 
 
 devoted their energies to independent and more or less 
 rival researches, the former in and beyond the Gaboon 
 district, the latter in the Abyssinian and Shoan regions. 
 Other nations being inactive, Germany alone co-operated 
 with the Belgian National Committee, or professed to do so. 
 The German African Society, though started with that 
 object, soon found itself in open conflict with its nominal 
 ally. Nearly all the funds of the International Association, 
 moreover, were supplied by the Belgian Committee, and 
 especially by the Royal President of both, and their avowed 
 or unavowed purposes soon came to be carried out under 
 the sole direction of King Leopold and wholly by Belgian 
 members, except that a few outsiders, including General 
 H. S. Sanford, a former United States Minister, and Dr. 
 Nachtigal, the German traveller, were occasionally made 
 use of as advisors or agents.* 
 
 Generous expression of the hopes raised at the time by 
 
 the project, as it was then understood, 
 
 . , ^ j /-> Its Intentions and 
 
 was given by Commander Cameron. 
 
 "The philanthropical efforts of His 
 Majesty the King of the Belgians," he wrote, " if they meet 
 with the support they deserve, although not either of a mis- 
 sionary or of a commercial character, must materially assist 
 in opening up the country. The establishment of depots or 
 stations on a trunk-route across the continent, where the 
 tired and weary explorer may find a resting-place and 
 fresh stores and men to carry on his task, cannot fail to do 
 much towards systematising the work of discovery, instead 
 of leaving every man to hunt for his own needle in his own 
 bundle of hay. The establishment of these stations would 
 necessitate the maintenance of regular means of communi- 
 cation between them, and therefore each new explorer 
 would be able to travel direct to the base of his operations, 
 without wasting time, money, or energy in getting into a 
 
 * J. S. Keltic, 'The Partition of Africa' (1895), pp. 119-124; H. M. 
 Stanley, 'The Congo and the Founding of its Free State' (1885), Vol. I. 
 PP- 33-38.
 
 28 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 new country. These stations might be commanded either 
 by Europeans or by men of character amongst the Arab 
 merchants, who might be thoroughly relied on to do their 
 work in an upright and honourable manner. By com- 
 mencing from both coasts, a chain of stations some 200 
 miles apart might be established in a comparatively short 
 space of time." News of Mr. Stanley's voyage down the 
 Congo had not yet reached Europe ; but King Leopold's 
 original scheme, as understood by Cameron, and supposed 
 by him to be " not of a commercial character," included the 
 utilisation of that and other waterways. " A steamer," he 
 wrote, " should be stationed on each section of a river, 
 depots should be formed at the rapids with provisions and 
 merchandise, and the goods should be carried past them by 
 men stationed there for the purpose, or by bullock-carts or 
 small lines of tramways. The affluents of the Congo would 
 enable our traders and missionaries to penetrate into the 
 greater portion of the at present unknown regions of Africa. 
 The Congo, at its mouth, is not under the dominion of any 
 European power, and the principal merchants there are the 
 Dutch. They would be delighted to see the trade of the 
 interior in the hands of Europeans, instead of being de- 
 pendent on the caprices of some of the most depraved of 
 the West Coast tribes, who, ever since the Congo has been 
 discovered, have been engaged in company with Euro- 
 peans even more vile than they in slave trade and piracy." 
 " Let those interested in scientific research," Cameron urged, 
 " come forward and support the King of the Belgians in his 
 noble scheme for united and systematic exploration. Let 
 those who desire to stamp out the traffic in slaves put their 
 shoulders to the wheel in earnest, and by their voice, money, 
 and energy aid those to whom the task may be entrusted." * 
 The first expedition sent out by the Belgian National 
 
 Committee, in accordance with its 
 Its Early Operations. . . , . , , r , , 
 
 original proposals, started before the 
 
 close ol 1877, and had for its object the planting of stations 
 * ' Across Africa,' Vol. II. pp. 330, 333, 337.
 
 KING LEOPOLD'S PROJECT. 29 
 
 on the west side of Lake Tanganyika, and the improve- 
 ment of communications between them and Zanzibar, with 
 a view to promoting scientific inquiries, befriending all 
 travellers, and, as an " ulterior " aim, suppressing the slave 
 trade " by civilising influences." It met with many 
 disasters, however, and Lieutenant Cambier, on whom its 
 leadership devolved after the death of his superior officer, 
 only contrived to establish one station, and that at Karema, 
 on the south-east of the lake, in August, 1879. 
 
 Meanwhile the announcement of Mr. Stanley's explora- 
 tions had brought about a reshaping of so much as 
 remained of the International African Association. On 
 Mr. Stanley's halting at Marseilles, in January, 1878, he 
 was met by General Sanford and the chief secretary of 
 the Association, who informed him, on behalf of King 
 Leopold, that " his discoveries had given birth to a grand 
 project, for the realisation of which his experience and 
 active assistance were needed."* A year was occupied 
 with elaborate preparations and complicated negotiations ; 
 but these were sufficiently advanced for " various persons 
 of more or less note in the commercial and monetary 
 world, from England, Germany, France, Belgium, and 
 Holland," to be invited to a conference with King Leopold 
 in Brussels in November. " The object of the meeting," 
 reported Mr. Stanley, " was to consider the best way ol 
 promoting the very modest enterprise of studying what 
 might be made of the Congo river and its basin. This 
 body of gentlemen desired to know how much of the 
 Congo river was actually navigable by light - draught 
 vessels ? what protection could friendly native chiefs give 
 to commercial enterprises ? were the tribes along the 
 Congo sufficiently intelligent to understand that it 
 would be better for their interests to maintain a friendly 
 intercourse with the whites than to restrict it? what 
 tributes, taxes, or imposts, if any, would be levied by the 
 native chiefs for right of way through their country ? 
 
 * A. J. Wauters, ' L'Etat Independant du Congo' (1899), p. 19.
 
 30 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 what was the character of the produce which the natives 
 would be able to exchange for European fabrics ? pro- 
 vided that in future a railway would be created to Stanley 
 Pool from some point on the Lower Congo, to what 
 amount could this produce be furnished ? Some of the 
 above questions were answerable even then ; others were 
 not. It was, therefore, resolved that a fund should be 
 subscribed to equip an expedition to obtain accurate 
 information, the subscribers to the fund assuming the name 
 and title of Comite d'Etudes du Haut-Congo."* 
 
 In due course, or in hot haste, the Comite", with a 
 
 nominal capital of 1,000.000 francs. 
 The Comite d'Etudes , 
 
 , ., but with prompt buying out ot all 
 
 du Haut-Congo. ... . 
 
 foreign contributors, was brought into 
 
 such relations with the Association that the old body was 
 practically superseded by the new. King Leopold was presi- 
 dent of both. Colonel Strauch, the working head of the one, 
 was made chief secretary of the other. The Comite, accord- 
 ing to Mr. Stanley, had separate objects from those of the 
 Association, and " the ultimate intention of embarking on 
 a greater enterprise, if the reports from the Congo are 
 favourable " ; but from this time the Association drops out 
 of notice. Three years afterwards, " having satisfied itself 
 that progress and stability were secured," the Comite 
 virtually appropriated the old title and, though in no way 
 international, renamed itself " Association International de 
 Congo." f For this fresh title, as we shall see, another, 
 that of "Etat Independant du Congo" was substituted, two 
 years later. 
 
 Mr. Stanley must be credited, if not with initiation of 
 the more recent developments of the business, at any rate 
 with much of the energy and skill shown in pushing it 
 through successfully, under conditions materially altering its 
 first intention and rendering it far more profitable to his 
 employers, as well as to himself, than it could otherwise 
 have been. " The enterprise," says its historian, " was 
 * Stanley, 'The Congo,' Vol. I., p. 26. f Ibid., Vol. I., pp. 28, 50, 51.
 
 KING LEOPOLD'S PROJECT. 31 
 
 conducted with the most feverish activity and in the 
 greatest secrecy. If, after its ambitious and original 
 conception, anything else could be surprising, it was the 
 rapidity, the discretion, and the orderliness with which it 
 was realised."* The secrecy would have been out of place 
 had the philanthropic intentions of 1876 been adhered to. 
 The fact that secrecy and deceptions were resorted to 
 betrays consciousness of a change of plans and of the need 
 for its concealment. The speed, however, was exemplary. 
 The Comite* d'Etudes du Haut-Congo was not formally 
 constituted until 2Oth November, 1878, and on that day 
 Mr. Stanley received definite instructions and authority to 
 carry out the plans he had suggested. By 2$rd January, 
 1879, he was ready to start for Zanzibar, there to recruit 
 the officers and carriers who were to accompany him round 
 the South African coast, and to meet at Banana, on the 
 mouth of the Congo, the consignments he had before 
 leaving Europe arranged for from "the builders of steamers, 
 lighters, and steel whaleboats, the makers of portable 
 wooden houses and corrugated iron stores, the waggon 
 makers, and the provision packers." " On I2th August, 
 1877," he proudly wrote, " I had arrived at Banana Point, 
 after crossing Africa and descending its greatest river. On 
 1 4th August, 1879, I arrived before the mouth of this river 
 to ascend it with the novel mission of sowing along its 
 banks civilised settlements, to peacefully conquer and 
 subdue it, to remould it in harmony with modern ideas 
 into National States, within whose limits the European 
 merchant shall go hand in hand with the dark African 
 trader, and justice and law and order shall prevail, and 
 murder and lawlessness and the cruel barter of slaves shall 
 for ever cease." f 
 
 How that promise has been broken will presently be 
 shown in some detail. 
 
 Whatever may have been privately expected of him, Mr. 
 
 * Wauters, ' L'Etat Independant du Congo,' p. 20. 
 t ' The Congo,' Vol. I., p. 59.
 
 32 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 Stanley, in entering on his work, vied with his employers in 
 
 the profession of good intentions. "It 
 Mr. Stanley's , , , ^ , , , , , , 
 
 would be wise, Colonel btrauch had 
 Undertaking. 
 
 written, m almost amusing ignorance 
 
 of possibilities and their limitations, " to extend the influence 
 of the stations on the chiefs dwelling near them, of whom 
 a republican confederation of free Negroes might be formed, 
 such confederation to be independent, except that the King, 
 to whom its conception and formation was due, would 
 reserve the right to appoint the President, who should 
 reside in Europe." " Each station should be a little com- 
 monwealth," it was stated in Colonel Strauch's instructions ; 
 also, * This project is not to create a Belgian colony, but to 
 establish a powerful Negro State." On this point, and some 
 others, Mr. Stanley made no secret of his determination 
 to follow his own counsels, under a no less showy assump- 
 tion of philanthropy. As regards the projected Negro 
 Republic, he replied : " It would be madness for one in my 
 position to attempt it, except in so far as one course might 
 follow another in the natural sequence of things. We 
 must leave the petty tribes as we found them, and leave 
 each and all to observe for themselves what is acceptable. 
 To such as seek the protection, comfort, and care of the 
 stations a kindly refuge will be granted, and whatever 
 may be done to improve their condition will be done to 
 the utmost of our power, with the utmost goodwill, with a 
 view of not only consolidating the influence of the stations, 
 but of improving our means of civilising such people as 
 may come in immediate contact or relationship with us."* 
 
 Other statements in the letter of 8th July, 1879, which is 
 here being quoted from, deserve to be borne in mind. " A 
 footing cannot be made on the Congo," wrote Mr. Stanley, 
 " without having first entered into agreement or treaty 
 with the chiefs, either for commercial or philanthropic 
 purposes. This must be done with tact and generosity> 
 exercising large forbearance in all communications. Such 
 
 * 'The Congo,' Vol. I., pp. 52, 53.
 
 KING LEOPOLD'S PROJECT. 33 
 
 privileges as they may grant to us must be paid for, and to 
 meet all such exigencies I am liberally provided. I enter- 
 tain no fear that the natives will place any impediment in 
 my way, and precautions will be taken to prevent suspicion 
 and ignorance aggravating either party in the proposed 
 treaties to the destruction of our hopes." Again, " Along 
 the line of our route you may rest assured that such 
 influence as we may have will be due to our upright and 
 strictly honourable commerce or enterprise with such 
 natives as may seek by self-interest our acquaintance. 
 We shall require but mere contact to satisfy all and any 
 natives that our intentions are pure and honourable, seek- 
 ing their own good, materially and socially, more than our 
 interests. We go to spread what blessings arise from 
 amiable and just intercourse with people who have hitherto 
 been strangers to them." Again, "That they will imme- 
 diately and at once form into a political confederation or 
 union for the general good I entertain no hope. On the 
 contrary, they will retain their own degraded customs, be 
 as jealous as ever of every tribal right, and resent every 
 foreign interference in their own customs or personal 
 modes of life. All we can hope at present is to win 
 suffrage to live and move about without fear of violence, 
 by patience, good nature, loyal friendship, and honourable 
 traffic." To Colonel Strauch's direction that " the stations 
 should be occupied by coloured men, freemen, under the 
 superintendence of white men," Mr. Stanley answered, 
 " With any person but a genuine freeborn and free- 
 living man nothing could be done in Congoland, and 
 I do not believe that in our direst extremity we should 
 be willing to enlist the services of, or place dependence 
 in, any persons or person other than free." * 
 
 Between 2ist August, 1878, when 
 
 , . - ,. Mr. Stanley'5 
 
 his flotilla was ready to leave Banana, 
 
 , T - Achievements. 
 
 and ist June, 1882, after he had 
 
 reached the waters he then discovered and named Lake 
 * 'The Congo,' Vol. I., pp. 53, 54.
 
 34 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 Leopold, and where he was obliged by a dangerous fever 
 to pause in his labours and return to Europe, Mr. Stanley 
 appears to have for the most part fairly carried out his 
 promises and intentions. 
 
 Passing Boma and the other places in which trading 
 factories had already been established, and of which Noki, 
 about 108 miles from Banana, was the most distant, his first 
 long halt was at Vivi, ten miles higher up on the northern 
 side of the river, where he obtained his first " concession " 
 for " 32 down in stock and a rental of 2 per month." 
 The terms of his bargain, which is memorable as a 
 precedent, were that within an area of " twenty square 
 miles at the utmost," as he reported, " of all the land 
 unoccupied by villages or fields or gardens I should make 
 my choice, and build as many houses, and make as many 
 roads, and do any kind of work, I liked. I should be con- 
 sidered as the ' mundele ' (chief trader) of Vivi, and no 
 other white man should put foot on Vivi soil without 
 permission from me ; no native chief of inland or riverside 
 should molest any man in my employ within the district 
 of Vivi ; help should be given for work, and the people of 
 Vivi, such as liked, should engage themselves as workmen ; 
 anybody, white or black, native or foreign, passing to or 
 fro through the land, should do so freely, night and day, 
 without let or hindrance. If any disagreement should arise 
 between any of my people, white or black, and the people 
 of Vivi, they, the chiefs, would promise not to try and 
 revenge themselves, but bring their complaint before the 
 ' mundele ' of Vivi, that he might decide upon the right and 
 the wrong of it ; and if any of their people were caught in 
 the act of doing wrong, then the white man shall promise 
 that his chief shall be called to hear the case against him, 
 and, if the crime is proved, the chief shall pay the price 
 according to custom."* 
 
 With the help of 122 coast natives and other Congolese, 
 besides 81 East Africans brought from Zanzibar, and 
 * ' The Congo,' Vol. I., pp. 135, 137.
 
 KING LEOPOLD'S PROJECT. 35 
 
 twelve Europeans, Mr. Stanley spent more than four months 
 in building Vivi station, with " its snow-white cottages and 
 chalet visible from afar," its storehouses, landing-stage, and 
 other appliances ; and all this appears to have been done 
 without any serious difficulties with the inhabitants. He 
 had harder work, however, in cutting pathways for the 
 conveyance of his boats and stores, as well as of his party, 
 between the river site opposite to Vivi on which Matadi 
 now stands and Isangila, and again between Manyanga 
 and Stanley Pool, in order to avoid the intermediate 
 portions of the Congo which are rendered impassable by 
 its rocks and cataracts. This arduous undertaking involved 
 terrible hardships and heavy loss of life. The gaps from 
 deaths and desertions had to be filled up by fresh reinforce- 
 ments of labour from the coast, paid for in cloth or gin, 
 at rates varying in value from 12s. to 24^. a month, together 
 with food ; but labour was difficult to obtain in spite of its 
 attendant allurements. Mr. Stanley was distressed by 
 " the unconquerable indolence of the people and the 
 scarcity of their numbers." He complained that, " com- 
 pared to the extent of their possessions, they are really too 
 rich to work." Their fruits and nuts and other garden 
 produce "bring sufficient and more than sufficient for 
 native wants," he reported ; " it requires very strong induce- 
 ments to tempt them to abandon their easy home and 
 village life for work at stations or on roads." The chief 
 inducement was the strong drink offered in barter for local 
 commodities, as well as in lieu of wages. " Many of the 
 coast people take pay largely in gin," wrote Mr. Stanley. 
 " Bottles of gin or rum are marketable, and serve as 
 currency. Though we may regret that gin is considered as 
 currency, we cannot help it. We require native produce 
 for food daily; without an assortment of currency we should 
 be put to great shifts frequently. The gin and rum are also 
 largely consumed as grog by our native workmen. We 
 dilute both largely, and so reduce its spirit ; but we are 
 compelled to serve it out morning and evening. A stoppage
 
 36 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 of this would be followed by a cessation of work." In 
 further apology for his use of this agent of " civilisation " 
 Mr. Stanley said, " I have not seen any ill-effects from it as 
 yet. On the contrary, it has increased their sociability, and 
 made people otherwise silent open their minds frankly."* 
 Mr. Stanley was still at Vivi when, in February, 1880, 
 
 he received a letter from Brussels 
 De Brazza's Rivalry. . , . ,, 
 
 warning him that a French expedition 
 
 was on its way from the Ogowe to Stanley Pool. The head of 
 this expedition was Lieutenant de Brazza, a young Italian 
 in the French service, who, between 1875 and 1878, had 
 accompanied Dr. Ballay and M. Marche on the exploration 
 of the district south of the Gaboon and especially of the 
 Ogowe, which was then vainly expected to prove one of 
 the outlets of the Congo. After tracing the Ogowe to its 
 source M. de Brazza came across the Alima, flowing in the 
 opposite direction, and, as his associates objected to his 
 following this stream, he returned to Europe before learning, 
 from the report of Mr. Stanley's earlier expedition, that it 
 was a tributary of the Middle Congo, and might offer a 
 more favourable route to the central parts of Congoland 
 than was afforded by the main river with its long stretch of 
 cataracts. 
 
 M. de Brazza, accordingly, lost no time in going back to 
 the promising field of travel, as the agent of the French 
 Committee of the International African Association, and 
 therefore ostensibly a colleague, though really a keen rival, 
 of Mr. Stanley. He was supplied by the French Govern- 
 ment, it was stated, with a subsidy of 100,000 francs in the 
 expectation that " he would thus open up a road which 
 would tap the country through which the Congo flows, 
 above the rapids, long before Mr. Stanley could reach it, 
 and convey such produce as it may contain to territory 
 under French dominion. "f But he was not able to leave 
 Europe before November, 1879, ten months after Mr. 
 
 * ' The Congo,' Vol. I., pp. 193, 194. 
 t 'Parliamentary Papers,' Slave Trade, No. I (1881), p. 13.
 
 KING LEOPOLD'S PROJECT. 37* 
 
 Stanley. Thereupon, in the hope of forestalling any 
 bargains he might make with native chiefs which would 
 ultimately serve as grounds for French appropriation, 
 Colonel Strauch sent prompt information of his departure 
 to the Congo. Mr. Stanley received it scornfully. " I beg 
 leave to say," he replied on 6th February, 1880, "that I am 
 not a party in a race for the Stanley Pool, as I have already 
 been in that locality just two and a half years ago, and I 
 do not intend to visit it again until I can arrive with my 
 fifty tons of goods, boats, and other property, and after 
 finishing the second station. If my mission simply con- 
 sisted in marching for Stanley Pool I might reach it in 
 fifteen days ; but what would be the benefit of it for the 
 expedition or the mission that I have undertaken?"* 
 
 The probable benefit to Mr. Stanley's employers, had he 
 acted on their suggestion, would have been the making by 
 him instead of by his rival of the " treaties " with native 
 chiefs on the northern side of the river which were 
 recognised in support of European claims to territorial 
 rights in Congoland, and the consequent limitation of 
 French Congo to a very much smaller area than it now 
 occupies. As it happened, M. de Brazza, hurrying on to the 
 Congo, which he reached by way of the Ogowe and the 
 Lupini, had made several treaties and planted several flags 
 before arriving at Stanley Pool. There, on lOth September, 
 1880, he obtained his most important concession from 
 Makoko, the principal Bateke chief on the north side 
 of the river, who represented himself as also overlord of 
 the country on the southern side.f Well satisfied with 
 that achievement, which was the starting of Brazzaville, 
 M. de Brazza was on his way back to the coast when he 
 met Mr. Stanley at Ngoma Point, about twenty miles west 
 of the Pool, on /th November. The one explorer enter- 
 
 * 'The Congo,' Vol. I., p. 158. For details of M. de Brazza's work see his 
 ' Trois Explorations dans 1'Ouest Africain effectuees de 1876 a 1885.' 
 
 t Cattier, ' Droit et Administration de 1' litat Independant du Congo ' (1896), 
 p. 21.
 
 38 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 tained the other for two days, and helped him with passage 
 to Banana ; but apparently there was no more interchange 
 of information about their several enterprises than was 
 unavoidable.* 
 
 It was not until the end of July, 1881, more than eight 
 
 months later, that Mr. Stanley, after 
 The Planting of , , . (' 
 
 Leopoldville. forcm g hls way through jungles and 
 over mountains, came within sight of 
 
 Stanley Pool, and there, on its north-west corner, he was 
 met by three West African Negroes in French uniform, who 
 showed him M. de Brazza's treaty with Makoko. The 
 inquiries he made led to his being satisfied that M. de 
 Brazza's prior claim to the north side of the river could not 
 be disputed, but that the southern side was still open to 
 negotiations and he found opportunity for starting them 
 by renewing friendship with a native, originally a slave, 
 with whom he had sworn blood-brotherhood in 1877, and 
 who, he reported, " during the four years that had elapsed, 
 had become a great man." This person, now known as 
 Ngalyema of Kintamo, " grown rich by ivory trade and 
 become powerful by investing his large profits in slaves, 
 guns, and gunpowder," had usurped the chieftainship and 
 aspired to widespread dominion. " He was about thirty-four 
 years old," wrote Mr. Stanley, " of well-built form, proud in 
 his bearing, covetous and grasping in disposition, and, like 
 all other lawless barbarians, prone to be cruel and sanguinary 
 whenever he might safely vent his evil humour. This was 
 the man in whose hands the destinies of the Association 
 International du Congo were held, and upon whose 
 graciousness depended our only hope of being able to 
 effect a peaceful lodgment on the Upper Congo." f 
 
 Many risks had to be run and many subterfuges resorted 
 to before Ngalyema's support could be secured ; and even 
 after that it transpired that Ngalyema had sold more than 
 he had either right or power to dispose of, and that Makoko 
 although his claim to lordship on the southern side may 
 
 * ' The Congo,' Vol. I., pp.23i-34. t Ibid., Vol. I., pp. 292-300, 305.
 
 KING LEOPOLD'S PROJECT. 39 
 
 have been visionary was also in a position " to decide the 
 future of the Congo State," and must also be humoured 
 and frightened.* All initial difficulties were overcome, 
 however, by the beginning of November. By the beginning 
 of April, 1882, the station of Leopoldville had been estab- 
 lished at the entrance to Stanley Pool, and its founder was 
 able to explore the country up to Lake Leopold, which he 
 had discovered before illness obliged him to leave the 
 management of affairs in the hands of subordinates while 
 he returned to Brussels for recruitment on the voyage and 
 for instructions as to further proceedings. 
 
 M. de Brazza was not the only rival who had been 
 
 visiting Congoland since Mr. Stanley 
 
 i A. TT o o r The Development of 
 
 left Europe in 1878 : foremost among , 
 
 ' *> King Leopold's Plans. 
 
 many being two Portuguese travellers, 
 
 Brito Capello and Roberto Ivens, whose enterprise was 
 partly patriotic in their journeying through what is 
 now the northern part of Angola and the valley of the 
 Kwango up to its junction with the Kasai and further 
 eastward into Katanga. " Much mystery still prevails," 
 the British consul at Loanda had reported in May, 1880, 
 "as to the object of Mr. Stanley's expedition by the 
 reticence he observed to all those who have conversed with 
 him, and the consequence is that rumours are circulated 
 which remove the belief that his mission is purely of a 
 humane and philanthropic character."! Those rumours 
 became much more plentiful, and justification for them was 
 increased, before the end of September, 1882, when Mr. 
 Stanley arrived in Brussels and conferred with the Comite 
 d'Etudes du Haut-Congo. 
 
 " Unless we are prepared to relinquish our discoveries 
 and the moral success we have gained," he then pointed 
 out, " we have to secure all the rights that the native chiefs 
 can endow us with, that we may exercise the political 
 power necessary for guaranteeing the permanency of the 
 
 * 'The Congo,' Vol. II., pp. 327-32. 
 t ' Parliamentary Papers,' Slave Trade, No. i (1881), p. 155.
 
 40 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 benefits we have sought to obtain." Without a railroad 
 connecting the lower with the upper river, however, " the 
 Congo Basin was not worth a two-shilling piece," he urged, 
 and, " to render it even prospectively valuable, you must 
 first have a charter from Europe that you shall be permitted 
 to build that railroad, that you shall govern the land through 
 which it passes, that, in short, the guardianship of it shall 
 not pass into the hands of any Power but your own." * 
 Those and his other proposals being agreed to, and promises 
 given that they should be acted upon as promptly and 
 completely as possible by the Comite" d'Etudes du Haut- 
 Congo, which soon afterwards began to style itself the 
 Association International du Congo, Mr. Stanley hurried 
 back to do in Africa his share of the work, and he was at 
 Banana again on 2Oth December, 1882. 
 
 There, however, he learnt that nearly everything had 
 
 gone wrong in his absence. The 
 
 Mr. Stanley's Second ^ , f . , , r . . , , 
 
 ., orncers left at Vivi and at Leopold- 
 
 Congo Expedition. . * 
 
 ville had deserted their posts. Stores 
 
 had been stolen, and storehouses, harbours, and other 
 buildings allowed to rot. Time was thus wasted and loss 
 incurred. But, with the help of the fourteen additional 
 Europeans he had brought out, Mr. Stanley re-arranged 
 matters more or less to his satisfaction along the 223 miles 
 of river already taken charge of by him between Vivi and 
 Leopoldville, and, before the end of 1883, several new 
 stations were established in the Middle Congo, the last 
 being at Stanley Falls, 1,068 miles beyond Leopoldville. 
 This second task, though covering a much greater distance, 
 was far easier than the first, the river being navigable all 
 the way. It was not achieved without some fighting. But, 
 as Mr. Stanley was now laying the foundations for dominion 
 over millions of blacks by a few white men, he saw the 
 importance of more conciliatory tactics than he had adopted 
 when he was merely passing down the stream in 1887, and 
 he had no difficulty in securing blood -brotherhood even 
 * 'The Congo,' Vol. I., p. 463.
 
 KING LEOPOLD'S PROJECT. 41 
 
 with the chief of the Bangala, "the insensate furies of 
 savageland," whom he had hunted down and been hunted 
 by six years before. 
 
 On approaching Stanley Falls in November, 1883, Mr. 
 
 Stanley heard that the dwellers near 
 
 ., , j i , j u 1 Stanley Falls and the 
 
 it had been harassed by slave- 
 
 . . r 1 , Arab Slave -Raiders. 
 
 raiders, and some of these he over- 
 took a few days later, when he found that they were so- 
 called Arabs from Nyangwe and followers of Tipu-Tipu, 
 who had conducted him part of the way thither in 1876. 
 At that time Tipu-Tipu refused to carry out his bargain 
 with the white explorer, as he feared to wander so far into 
 a strange and perilous country. But he and his followers 
 were not slow in turning to account the experience 
 acquired by them. " After the return of Tipu to Nyangwe 
 from escorting me to Vinya Njara," Mr. Stanley reported, 
 " they made their approaches slowly towards the Falls. 
 Thus they had obtained access to a large island between 
 the Falls, from which, by dint of the exhibition of power 
 coupled with an affectation of leniency, even friendship, 
 towards those who were willing to submit to their imposi- 
 tions, they had succeeded in at last securing the co-opera- 
 tion of the Wenya fishermen " that is, the natives near the 
 highest cataract who, with the Baswa and Wane Rukura 
 fishermen lower down, floated their canoes past all the 
 seven cataracts. " At the seventh," according to Mr. 
 Stanley, " the Wenya fishermen stood ready to navigate 
 them safely through the channels to the head of the 
 navigation leading to Stanley Pool. On their return with 
 their forcibly acquired booty a few slaves whom they were 
 glad to be rid of sufficed to pay the Wenya, Wane Rukura, 
 and Baswa tribes for the trouble of passing their flotilla up 
 in safety to the quiet river leading to Nyangwe." The 
 particular " horde of banditti " whom Mr. Stanley now met 
 consisted chiefly of the Manyema slaves of Abed-bin-Salim, 
 who had invaded and ravaged the country to obtain slaves 
 and ivory for their masters, and were " under the leader-
 
 42 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 ship of several chiefs, but principally under Karema and 
 Kiburuga." Leaving the neighbourhood of Vinya Njara 
 sixteen months before, " for eleven months the band had 
 been raiding successfully between the Congo and the 
 Lubiranzi, on the left bank," and " had then undertaken 
 to perform the same cruel work between the Welle and 
 Wane Kirundu," on the right bank of the river. When 
 Mr. Stanley met them they had about 2,300 slaves women 
 and children and about 2,000 tusks of ivory.* 
 
 In 1883 Mr. Stanley, drawing a lurid picture of the 
 " devilish deeds " of which he saw traces in a " naked land, 
 raided and devastated in this cruel fashion," used much 
 stronger language in condemnation of their perpetrators 
 than he had found occasion for in 1876. But he had 
 friendly relations with them and, unmindful of the mishap 
 resulting from his having introduced the marauders to this 
 part of Congoland, he added to it another blunder. "For 
 reasons of polity," he wrote, " I set about persuading the 
 chiefs to send with us to the coast a few of their con- 
 fidential men, that they might witness for themselves what 
 influences were advancing up the river on whose banks 
 they had created such widespread havoc. It appeared to 
 me the best mode of suggesting to them, rather than 
 saying so in many words, that it would be wiser to abstain 
 from committing their sanguinary battues than to risk 
 meeting some day a gunboat with a police-force on board, 
 who probably might deal summarily with such a slave- 
 raiding band as we had found housed so openly on the 
 river banks. Meantime, they could send specimens of their 
 ivory and obtain a few necessaries of which, perhaps, they 
 were in need. They accepted the proposal, and they 
 accordingly sent ten of their confidential slaves with three 
 tusks each."f No surer plan could have been devised for 
 quickening and strengthening the encroachments of Tipu- 
 Tipu and his colleagues which wrought so much havoc in 
 later years. 
 
 'The Congo,' Vol. II., pp. 138-54. t Ibid., Vol. II., p. 168.
 
 KING LEOPOLD'S PROJECT. 43 
 
 In January, 1884, Mr. Stanley, having concluded the 
 
 work he had undertaken, was at 
 
 ,, ... . ,1 Mr. Stanley'* Final 
 
 Leopoldville again, on the journey 
 
 back to Europe which he was anxious 
 
 to complete. But he was detained four months by fresh 
 troubles that had broken out at Vivi and some other 
 stations, and by the failure of the Brussels authorities to 
 provide him, as they had promised, with a principal 
 assistant, competent to succeed him as chief administrator, 
 " a person who not only could work himself and loyally 
 perform his duty, but who could inspire other men to 
 loyally execute each his special trust and mission." Of 
 the first " superior person " sent out all we are told is that 
 he " made only a short stay at Vivi, but his reign had been 
 a singularly unhappy one." General Gordon was next 
 thought of, and on 6th January he wrote to Mr. Stanley, 
 " I will serve willingly with or under you, and I hope you 
 will stay on, and we will, God helping, kill the slave traders 
 in their haunt." But Gordon was sent to Khartum instead 
 of Leopoldville, and had the proposal been carried out it 
 would have been unwelcome to Mr. Stanley, who feared 
 the issue would be that " we are to abandon the Congo 
 and be diverted from our work of settling, extending, and 
 consolidating along this river to make raids upon Sudanese 
 slave traders in the Nile Basin." A more suitable adminis- 
 trator was found, however, in Sir Francis de Winton, who 
 reached Vivi in May, and Mr. Stanley was able to report 
 himself to King Leopold early in August.* 
 
 He brought with him, as he averred, " treaties made with 
 
 over 450 independent African chiefs, 
 
 , , , Mr. Stanley's " Indis- 
 whose rights would be conceded by 
 
 . 7 putable Treaties." 
 all to have been indisputable, since 
 
 they held their lands by undisturbed occupation, by long 
 ages of succession, by real divine right," and who, " of their 
 own free will, without coercion, but for substantial con- 
 siderations, reserving only a few easy conditions, had 
 
 * 'The Congo,' Vol. I., p. 467 ; Vol. II., pp. 187, 226, 23?.
 
 44 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 transferred their rights of sovereignty and of ownership 
 to the Association." In so far as a general inference can 
 be drawn from the few specimens of these 450 treaties 
 which have been printed, they imply very extensive sur- 
 render of native rights, but at the same time they pledge 
 the Association " to promote to its utmost the prosperity 
 of the country," and " to protect its inhabitants from all 
 oppression," and in one typical case it is laid down that 
 " the term ' cession of territory ' does not mean purchase 
 of the soil by the Association, but the purchase of the 
 suzerainty by the Association and its just acknowledgment 
 by the chiefs."* As regards one at least of the more 
 important chiefs with whom treaties were arranged, more- 
 over, Ngalyema of Kintamo, on whose territory Leopoldville 
 was built, it is admitted that he was an upstart slave, whose 
 chieftainship had been usurped, and certainly did not come 
 to him by " undisturbed occupation " or " long ages of 
 succession," whatever may have been his " real divine 
 right." 
 
 As regards another treaty, which was abandoned after 
 the exposure of its character, we have a report from the 
 British consul at Loanda, who, on 6th November, 1883, 
 informed his Government that the Belgian officer in charge 
 of Vivi had in the previous January proceeded to Palabala, 
 a large inland town to the south of Noki, in which the 
 Dutch Trading Company and the Livingstone Inland 
 Mission had stations, and had there " made a treaty with 
 the princes and chiefs of that district." He added, " The 
 chiefs, to whom the treaty was correctly translated by the 
 agent of the Dutch house and the missionaries, were much 
 surprised at the conditions, and declared that they never 
 understood the full meaning of the treaty imposed upon 
 them, that they had no wish to sell their lands on those 
 terms, that they were given to understand that the expe- 
 dition intended to establish a factory, and not that they 
 were to prohibit others putting trading houses in their 
 
 * ' The Congo,' Vol. II., pp. 195-206, 379.
 
 KING LEOPOLD'S PROJECT. 45 
 
 district, or to be called upon for men to construct roads, 
 &c. The chiefs, on the advice of the Dutch agent, who 
 offered to be responsible for the value of the articles paid, 
 returned the contract to M. Vandevelde, and told him that 
 they would not accept or agree to the treaty. An attempt 
 was made by that officer to enforce acceptance of the treaty 
 by placing an armed force of about twenty to thirty Zanzi- 
 baris in the town and stopping all communications with 
 Noki. But, seeing that most of the inhabitants left their 
 huts and abandoned the town, he withdrew his men and 
 returned to Vivi ; since when matters have resumed their 
 old footing and continue as formerly." In another letter of 
 the same date the same consul, forwarding copies of two 
 other treaties, reported that " great distrust is felt by all 
 classes of people here and in the Congo as to whether the 
 aim and intentions of the King of the Belgians or the 
 Association are strictly carried out, as, by the treaties or 
 contracts that have been entered into, two of which I 
 enclose, the expedition not only reserves to itself the ex- 
 clusive right of trade and other measures tantamount to 
 sovereignty, but excludes the establishment of any trading 
 factory, or the cession of any land to anyone whatsoever, 
 without the sanction or approval of the agent of the 
 Comite." " In the Congo," he added, " the native chiefs 
 are made to do exactly as the Europeans require by means 
 of rum and cloth."* 
 
 Most of the treaties were probably, however, as valid as 
 such documents generally are, implying as they do the 
 assent of native communities to the surrender or weakening 
 of their rights and privileges by chiefs not competent to take 
 such action, and not themselves aware of the conse- 
 quences of their rash proceeding. Whether valid or 
 
 * ' Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 4 (1884), pp. 57-63, and No. 5 (1884), 
 pp. 1-5. The "rum and cloth" paid for the Palabala cession of territory 
 were "one coat of red cloth with gold facings, one red cap, one white tunic, 
 one piece of white baft, one piece of red points, one I -dozen box of liqueurs, 
 4 demijohns of rum, 2 boxes of gin, 128 bottles of gin (Hollands), 20 pieces of 
 red handkerchiefs, 40 singlets, and 40 old cotton caps."
 
 46 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 invalid, moreover, they were serviceable in emphasising the 
 now urgent demand of the Association International du 
 Congo for the international recognition which was necessary 
 to the continuance of its work. 
 
 After his meeting with Mr. Stanley in November, 1880, his 
 
 visit to Europe, and his return to the 
 French and Portu- , . , . 
 
 guese Competition. Ga ^ oon ' w ' th WS.OOO francs placed 
 to his credit by the French Govern- 
 ment in January, 1883, M. de Brazza had occupied himself 
 for some time in other explorations nearer the coast, 
 especially in the hope of finding a route between it and 
 Brazzaville, by way of the Kwilu-Niari river, which would 
 avoid the cataracts of the Lower Congo. With a view to 
 checking this activity Mr. Stanley, immediately after his 
 arrival at Vivi, had sent an expedition " to secure to the 
 Association a wide stretch of inland country and an extent 
 of coast line between the French territory on the Gaboon 
 and the debouchure of the Congo, as a free alternative route 
 to the Upper Congo."* The compromise ultimately arrived 
 at was more favourable to France than to the Congo 
 Association. But the fresh rivalry here going on, in 
 dangerous proximity to the unauthorised Portuguese 
 settlement in Kabinda, so much alarmed the Portuguese 
 Government that it revived its intermittent appeals, dating 
 from 1845, for British assistance in securing to Portugal 
 possession of the coast and country north of Ambriz up to 
 the Congo, and along the southern bank of the river as far 
 as Noki, which is almost opposite to Vivi. 
 
 As the result of more than a year of correspondence, in 
 
 the course of which the British 
 The Anglo- Portu- ~ . . , , 
 
 _ Government insisted on stringent 
 
 guese Treaty of 1884. r i- r 
 
 provisions for securing equality of 
 
 trading rights to all nations, on absolute freedom in the 
 navigation of the Congo, and on recognition of the interests 
 acquired by the Association International du Congo, as 
 
 * Cattier, p. 22; 'The Congo,' Vol. I., pp. 471-76; 'Parliamentary 
 Papers,' Africa, No. 4 (1884), p. 23.
 
 KING LEOPOLD'S PROJECT. 47 
 
 well as on the suppression of every form of slavery, a 
 preliminary Congo Treaty was signed by the two States on 
 26th February, 1 884, subject to its being approved by the 
 other Powers.* 
 
 This approval not being accorded, the treaty was 
 
 abandoned, and a substitute for it 
 
 ., T, .. T . United States 
 
 was found by the Berlin International 
 
 ' Intervention. 
 
 Conference summoned in the autumn 
 
 of 1884. Before that, however, use was made of the con- 
 troversy to advance the claims of King Leopold's great 
 venture to national rank, and to this end General Sanford, 
 who had been King Leopold's zealous supporter and agent 
 from the first, exerted strong influence in the United States. 
 Reminding his countrymen that Mr. Stanley was himselt 
 an American citizen, General Sanford induced them to 
 take the lead in objecting not only to the Anglo-Portuguese 
 Congo Treaty, but also to the adoption of any other treaty 
 that might be unsatisfactory to the Association. He asked 
 for more than that too. " The work which the King of the 
 Belgians has taken under his especial personal and financial 
 protection," he wrote to a senator on 24th March, 1884, 
 " has developed to extraordinary proportions and has had 
 for practical result the opening up to civilising influences 
 and to the world's traffic of this vast, populous, and fertile 
 region, and securing certain destruction to the slave trade 
 wherever its flag floats. The only practical difficulty in 
 this wonderful progress proves to be an unrecognised flag, 
 which is liable to be misunderstood or abused, and the 
 people under it subjected to impediments in their philan- 
 thropic work on the part of those engaged in the slave 
 trade, or for other selfish ends."f 
 
 It was in consequence of specious representations of 
 that sort, put forward by other apologists as well as by 
 General Sanford, that, on 22nd April, 1884, the United 
 States Government exchanged declarations with the Inter- 
 
 * ' Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 2 and No. 5 (1884), passim, 
 t 'The Congo,' Vol. I., p. 37.
 
 48 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 national Association, on the strength of which the latter 
 assumed the dignity and power of a civilised State. " In 
 harmony with the traditional policy of the United States, 
 which enjoins a proper regard for the commercial interests 
 of their citizens, while at the same time avoiding inter- 
 ference with controversies between other Powers, as 
 well as alliances with foreign nations," the Washington 
 document declared, " the Government of the United States 
 announces its sympathy with and approval of the humane 
 and benevolent purposes of the International Association 
 of the Congo, administering as it does the interests of the 
 Free States there established, and will order the officers of 
 the United States, both on land and sea, to recognise the 
 flag of the International African Association as the flag of 
 a friendly Government."* 
 
 No Free States had then, or have yet, been established 
 in Congoland, although the International Association took 
 to itself a new name as the Congo Free State on 
 1st August, 1885. But the United States Government 
 accepted in April, 1884, as did other Governments after- 
 wards, the assurance in the Association's declaration that, 
 " by treaties with the legitimate sovereigns in the basins 
 of the Congo and of the Niari-Kwilu, and in adjacent 
 territories upon the Atlantic, there had been ceded to 
 it the territory for the use and benefit of Free States 
 established and being established, under the care and 
 supervision of the said Association, in the said basins 
 and adjacent territories to which cession the said Free 
 States of right succeed."f 
 
 As fanciful or misleading were such other assertions, 
 in the same document, as that " the said Association and 
 the said States guarantee to foreigners settling in their 
 territories the right to purchase, sell, or lease lands and 
 buildings situated therein, to establish commercial houses, 
 
 * ' Parliamentary Papers,' Protocols and General Act of the West African 
 Conference (1885), p. 263. 
 t Ibid., p. 262.
 
 KING LEOPOLD'S PROJECT. 49 
 
 and to carry on trade, under the sole condition that they 
 shall obey the laws," and that "they pledge themselves 
 never to grant to the citizens of one nation any advantages 
 without immediately extending the same to all other 
 nations, and to do all in their power to prevent the slave 
 trade." But the declaration signed on 22nd April, 1884, 
 by Colonel Sanford, as representative of the Association, 
 answered its purpose and gave new shape and strength 
 to the project of King Leopold which had been growing 
 since 1876. 
 
 E
 
 SO CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE BERLIN CONFERENCE [1884-5]. 
 
 THE recognition of the Congo Association as " a friendly 
 Government" by the United States on 22nd April, 1884, 
 was one of the measures avowedly taken in opposition to 
 the tentative Anglo-Portuguese treaty of 26th February. 
 Another measure, taken immediately afterwards, was an 
 
 agreement between France and the 
 France and the A , L t v **_ i 
 
 Association by which their rivalries 
 
 Congo Association. 
 
 were for a time adjusted. In the 
 
 name of the stations and free territories it has founded on 
 the Congo and in the Niari-Kwilu valley," Colonel Strauch 
 wrote to M. Jules Ferry on 23rd April, " the International 
 Association of the Congo formally declares that, subject to 
 any special conventions that may be arranged between 
 France and the Association fixing the limits and conditions 
 of their respective action, it will not cede them to any 
 other Power. Nevertheless the Association, desiring to 
 give fresh proof of its friendly feeling towards France, 
 undertakes to give it the right of preference if, through 
 unforeseen circumstances, the Association is one day obliged 
 to part with its possessions." u I take note of these 
 declarations with great satisfaction," M. Ferry replied on 
 24th April, " and have the honour to inform you that the 
 French Government undertakes to respect the stations and 
 free territories of the Association, and to place no obstacle 
 in the exercise of its riefhts."* 
 
 o 
 
 Meanwhile the Anglo-Portuguese treaty was being pro- 
 tested against by English as well as 
 German Opposition to , r . c ~ 
 
 Portuguese Proposals. ^ forei ^ n Chambers of Commerce, 
 and these protests supported Prince 
 Bismarck in his pursuance, as regards the Congo, of the 
 
 * Cattier, pp. 74-5.
 
 THE BERLIN CONFERENCE. 51 
 
 colonial policy that had lately arisen in Germany. " We 
 are not in a position," it was written on his behalf to the 
 British Government on /th June, " to admit that the 
 Portuguese or any other nation has a previous right there. 
 We have the fear which, as Earl Granville admits, has 
 been expressed by merchants of all nations that the action 
 of Portuguese officials would be prejudicial to trade ; and 
 for this reason we cannot take part in any scheme for 
 handing over to Portuguese officials the administration, 
 or even the direction, of these arrangements. Even the 
 provision for limiting the dues to a maximum of ten per 
 cent., the basis of the Mozambique tariff" which Lord 
 Granville had agreed to for the Congo " would not be a 
 sufficient protection against the disadvantages that the 
 commercial world rightly anticipates would ensue from an 
 extension of the Portuguese colonial system over terri- 
 tories which have hitherto been free."* 
 
 In consequence of that letter, supplementing so much 
 
 other opposition, the British Govern- 
 
 ,,, T , ,. , , ,.- Germany and the 
 
 ment on 26th June declined to ratify Congo As , ociatlon . 
 
 the treaty with Portugal, and soon 
 
 afterwards assented to an alternative proposal, which had 
 been made earlier in the year by the Lisbon authorities to 
 the French Government, and approved both by it and 
 by the German Government, in favour of an International 
 Conference to deal with the Congo question as well as with 
 other West African affairs now claiming attention, and 
 especially the Niger question. It was substantially agreed 
 to among the three Powers that the establishment of a Free 
 State in the basin of the Congo should be sanctioned and 
 assisted by them, and that all the other Powers concerned, 
 while left free to make their separate conventions with King 
 Leopold, should be invited to join in laying down the 
 general principles. These were outlined in a despatch from 
 Prince Bismarck to the Baron de Courcel, dated I3th Sep- 
 tember, in which he said : " Like France, the German 
 
 * 'Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 7 (1884), p. 2,
 
 52 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 Government will observe a friendly attitude towards 
 the Belgian enterprises on the banks of the Congo, owing 
 to the desire of the two Governments to secure to their 
 countrymen freedom of trade throughout the whole of the 
 future Congo State, and in the districts which France holds 
 on this river and which she proposes to assimilate to the 
 liberal system which that State is expected to establish." 
 Invitations were accordingly issued for the Conference of 
 Berlin, which held its first sitting on I5th November, 1884, 
 
 and the tenth and last on 26th Jan- 
 The Berlin ... . J 
 
 . uary, 1885, and at which fourteen 
 
 Conference. J ' 
 
 Powers were represented Germany, 
 
 France, Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Austria-Hun- 
 gary, Russia, Sweden and Norway, Denmark, Holland, 
 Belgium, Turkey, and the United States of America. To 
 these was added, at the final sitting, the newly recognised 
 International Association of the Congo.* 
 
 " In convoking the Conference," Prince Bismarck an- 
 nounced when he opened the proceedings as its president, 
 " the Imperial Government was guided by the conviction 
 that all the Governments invited agreed in wishing to 
 bring the natives of Africa within the pale of civilisation 
 by opening up the interior of that continent to commerce, 
 by giving its inhabitants the means of instructing them- 
 selves, by encouraging missions and enterprises calculated 
 to spread useful knowledge, and by preparing the way for 
 the suppression of slavery, and especially of the over-sea 
 traffic in blacks, the gradual abolition of which was pro- 
 claimed by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as the sacred 
 duty of all the Powers." " The interest taken by all the 
 nations here represented," he further remarked, " an interest 
 unceasingly shown by bold feats of exploration, by com- 
 mercial movements, and by the sacrifices and efforts made 
 by each nation with one of these objects, affords a guarantee 
 of the success of the labours which we are about to under- 
 
 * 'Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 4 (1885), Protocols and General 
 Act of the West African Conference.
 
 THE BERLIN CONFERENCE. 53 
 
 take in order to regulate and develop the commercial 
 relations of our countrymen with that continent, and 
 to render a service to the cause both of peace and of 
 humanity."* 
 
 At the second meeting of the Conference the prominent 
 part taken by the United States Government in supporting 
 the International Association was explained by Mr. Kasson, 
 the American Minister at Brussels, and General Sanford's 
 fellow-representative of their country at the Conference. 
 Referring to the help given towards bringing " the light of 
 civilisation " to " this obscure region " by Mr. Stanley, 
 " an American citizen who was qualified by courage, 
 perseverance, and intelligence, and by a remarkable 
 intrepidity and aptitude in exploration," Mr Kasson ex- 
 pressed " the earnest desire of his Government that these 
 discoveries should be utilised for the civilisation of the 
 native races and for the abolition of the slave trade." As 
 regards the declaration in favour of the Congo Association 
 in April by the United States, its President, said Mr. 
 Kasson, " believes that, in thus recognising the only 
 dominant flag in that country, he acted in the common 
 interest of civilised nations ; he regards this local Govern- 
 ment, or any successor resting on the same bases of prin- 
 ciple, as an assurance that the dangers of international 
 violence will be averted, that the enormity of the slave 
 traffic will be suppressed, that the blacks will learn from it 
 that the civilisation and the dominion of the white man 
 mean for them peace and freedom, and the development 
 of useful commerce, free to all the world. "f As precise, 
 and in some instances more detailed, were the utterances 
 of other representatives in discussing and agreeing upon 
 the proposals affecting the Congo Basin that were 
 ultimately embodied in twenty-five out of the thirty- 
 eight articles of the General Act of the Berlin Conference 
 which, " in the name of Almighty God," was signed on 
 
 * ' Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 4 (1885), pp. 9, 10. 
 t Ibid., pp. 23, 24.
 
 54 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 26th February, and ratified by all but the United States 
 Government on iQth April, 1886.* 
 
 Some of these articles, providing for an International 
 
 Navigation Commission of the Congo, 
 The Berlin 
 
 were subsequently abandoned, and 
 General Act. 
 
 others, including those dealing with 
 
 the Niger and other subjects, do not here concern us. But 
 the stipulations as regards freedom of trade and protection 
 of natives in the Congo Basin must be clearly understood 
 and carefully borne in mind. 
 
 The first article laid it down that, throughout " the basin 
 
 of the Congo, its mouths and cir- 
 Its Free Trade ., , r n 
 
 cumjacent regions. " the trade of all 
 Provision. . J 
 
 nations shall enjoy complete free- 
 dom "; the second, that "all flags, without distinction of 
 nationality," shall have free access " to all coasts, rivers, 
 lakes, and canals within the regions marked out, and to 
 any ports thereon "; the third, that " merchandise, of what- 
 ever origin, imported into these regions, under whatsoever 
 flag, whether by sea, by river or overland, shall be subject 
 to no other taxes than such as may be levied as fair com- 
 pensation for expenditure in the interest of trade, and 
 these taxes for that reason must be equally borne by the 
 people themselves and by foreigners of all nationalities, 
 all differential dues on vessels, as well as on merchandise, 
 being forbidden "; and the fourth, that " merchandise im- 
 ported into these regions shall be free from entry and 
 transit dues, the Powers reserving to themselves the right 
 of deciding, after the lapse of twenty years, whether the 
 freedom of import shall be retained or not." 
 
 The arguments put forward by the committee that 
 reported on this branch of the subject are noteworthy. 
 " The Powers are in the presence of three interests," it was 
 pointed out ; " that of the commercial and industrial 
 
 * ' Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 3 (1886), p. 21. The refusal of the 
 United States Government to ratify the Act was due not to disapproval of it, 
 but, as the United States had no territorial interests in Africa, to its unwillingness 
 to assume international responsibilities that might be troublesome.
 
 THE BERLIN CONFERENCE. 55 
 
 nations whom a common necessity impels to the search 
 for new outlets; that of the States and Powers called upon 
 to exercise over the regions of the Congo an authority 
 which will have burdens corresponding with their rights ; 
 and, lastly, that which some generous voices have already 
 commended to your solicitude, the interests of the native 
 populations. The system which will result from the 
 deliberations of the Conference ought to be so arranged 
 that, while rendering to the other interests the part that is 
 their due, it may tend above all to stimulate among people 
 still undeveloped a taste for labour, to facilitate their 
 acquisition of the implements required by them and of 
 articles of prime necessity which they lack, to hasten, in 
 fact, their advance towards a better social condition. It is 
 not by imposing custom house charges on imports that 
 these various interests will be satisfied. The custom house 
 system requires premises, establishments, and a staff of 
 officials absorbing most of the revenue. In vast countries, 
 where communications are rare or imperfect, where traffic 
 is carried on by primitive or special methods, where, in 
 fact, administrative machinery is to a large extent wanting, 
 reason and experience alike are in favour of great freedom 
 of action being allowed to commerce. It may be hoped 
 that, aided by a broad system of liberties and guarantees, 
 an important flow of business will speedily be produced 
 throughout the regions of the Congo. That is the end to 
 be kept in view before all else. The realisation of this all- 
 important factor would develop both the traffic and the 
 resources of Equatorial Africa in every kind ; it would 
 compensate, even from the fiscal point of view, for the 
 sacrifice of import duties, and at the same time, by another 
 and a happy consequence, it would tend to the benefit of 
 the native populations. In the present case, which is per- 
 haps without precedent in the commercial history of the 
 world, it will undoubtedly be prudent not to fetter the 
 future for ever. When the impetus has been given, and 
 serious progress has been made, fresh prospects and nece
 
 56 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 sities will probably reveal themselves, and the time may 
 arrive when wise foresight will demand revision of a system 
 which has been more especially adapted to a period of 
 creation and transformation."* 
 
 In the fifth article of the Berlin General Act it was 
 
 stipulated that " no Power which 
 Its Prohibition of . 
 
 -_ exercises or may exercise sovereign 
 
 Monopolies. 
 
 rights in the above-mentioned regions 
 
 shall be allowed to grant therein either monopoly or privi- 
 lege of any kind in commercial matters ; foreigners, without 
 distinction, shall enjoy protection of their persons and 
 goods, as well as the right of acquiring and transferring 
 moveable and immoveable property, and the same treat- 
 ment and rights as subjects of the nation in the exercise 
 of their professions." As question arose at the Conference 
 as to the precise meaning of the first clause of this article, 
 and as it has since acquired enormous importance, the 
 words of the committee responsible for it, of which the 
 Baron de Courcel and Baron Lambermont were the prin- 
 cipal members, are worth noting. " No doubt whatever 
 exists," it was stated, " as to the strict and literal sense 
 that should be assigned to the term 'en matiere com- 
 merciale.' It refers exclusively to traffic, to the unlimited 
 power of every one to sell and buy, to import and to 
 export natural produce and manufactured articles. No 
 privileged situation can be created in this respect ; the way 
 remains open without any restriction to free competition 
 in the sphere of commerce, but the obligations of the local 
 Government do not go beyond that. Etymology and usage 
 assign to the expression ' monopole ' a wider signification 
 than to that of ' privilege. 5 Monopoly conveys the idea of 
 an exclusive right ; privilege does not necessarily go so far 
 as that. The words ' d'aucune espece ' evidently apply to 
 monopoly as well as to privilege, but with the general 
 restriction of their application to the domain of commerce." 
 " To develop commerce," it was added, " it is not enough 
 
 * ' Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 4 (1885), pp. 64, 65.
 
 THE BERLIN CONFERENCE. 57 
 
 to open ports and dispense with custom house barriers. 
 Without merchants there is no commerce. If one wishes 
 to attract merchants to distant and as yet imperfectly 
 known countries, it is necessary to surround with guar- 
 antees that which is of essential interest to them, their 
 persons, their goods, the acquisition of property, rights 01 
 inheritance, and the practice of professions."* 
 
 No less momentous, and no less abused in recent years, 
 
 was the provision in the sixth article 
 
 ... ., ,, . . Its Prescriptions as 
 
 that all the rowers exercising sove- 
 
 . regards Natives. 
 
 reign rights or influence in the afore- 
 said territories pledge themselves to watch over the 
 preservation of the native populations and the improve- 
 ment of their moral and material conditions of existence, 
 and to work together for the suppression of slavery, and 
 especially of the slave trade." " With regard to these 
 native populations," the Baron de Courcel's and Baron 
 Lambermont's committee reported, " who for the most 
 part certainly ought not to be regarded as outside the pale 
 of international law, but who in the present state of affairs 
 are scarcely able to defend their own interests, the 
 Conference must assume the position of an official 
 guardian. The necessity of ensuring the preservation of 
 the natives, the duty of helping them to attain a higher 
 political and social status, the obligation to instruct them 
 and initiate them in the advantages of civilisation, are 
 unanimously recognised. The very future of Africa is 
 here at stake. No difference of opinion on this point has 
 been or can be manifested in the committee. Two loads 
 weigh down the actual condition of the African peoples 
 and paralyse their development slavery and the slave 
 trade. Every one knows, and Mr. Stanley's testimony only 
 confirms the general opinion, that slavery has deeply 
 rooted itself in the constitution of African society. 
 Assuredly this pernicious institution must disappear. 
 That is the essential condition of all economic and political 
 
 * 'Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 4 (1885), p. 65.
 
 58 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 progress ; but tact and gradual transition will be indis- 
 pensable. It is enough to point to the end ; the local 
 Governments must find out the means and adapt them to 
 circumstances of time and place. The slave trade has 
 another character ; it is the negation of all law, of all 
 social order. Man-hunting is an act of treason against 
 humanity. It must be suppressed wherever this is possible, 
 on land as well as on sea. The events of which the 
 Egyptian Sudan is at present the theatre, the scenes 
 that Mr. Stanley has recently witnessed on the banks 
 of the Upper Congo, the abominable expeditions which, 
 according to Dr. Nachtigal, are frequently organised in 
 the Central Sudan, and which are already penetrating into 
 the basin of the Congo, call for an intervention which the 
 local powers will be bound to undertake as a pressing 
 duty and a sacred mission."* 
 
 These and other questions having occupied the Berlin 
 
 Conference during more than two 
 Prince Bismarck's , ^ . ^.. . .. 
 
 months, Prince Bismarck was able, 
 Conclusions. . . 
 
 at the last sitting, to congratulate its 
 
 members on the " complete accord " at which they had 
 arrived. " The resolutions that we are on the point of 
 sanctioning," he said, "secure to the commerce of all 
 nations free access to the centre of the African conti- 
 nent. The guarantees which will be provided for freedom 
 of trade in the Congo Basin are of a nature to offer to the 
 commerce and industry of all nations the conditions most 
 favourable to their development and security. By another 
 series of regulations you have shown your solicitude for 
 the moral and material well-being of the native popula- 
 tions, and there is ground for hoping that these principles, 
 adopted in a spirit of wise moderation, will bear fruit and 
 help to introduce to them the benefits of civilisation. The 
 special conditions existing in the vast regions that you 
 are opening up to commercial enterprise have also required 
 special safeguards for the maintenance of peace and public 
 
 * ' Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 4 (1885), pp. 65, 66.
 
 THE BERLIN CONFERENCE. 59 
 
 order. The scourge of war would, indeed, assume a par- 
 ticularly disastrous character if the natives were led to 
 take part in conflicts between civilised powers. Justly 
 mindful of the dangers which such a contingency might 
 bring to the interests of commerce and civilisation, we 
 have sought means to withdraw a great part of Africa 
 from the vicissitudes of general politics by restricting 
 national rivalries to the peaceful competition of trade and 
 industry."* 
 
 As at this meeting the concurrence of the International 
 Association of the Congo with the proceedings of the Con- 
 ference was formally tendered, and permission given to its 
 representatives to sign the General Act now awaiting com- 
 pletion, Prince Bismarck " paid homage to the noble efforts 
 of His Majesty the King of the Belgians, the founder of a 
 work now recognised by nearly all the Powers, the consoli- 
 dation of which should confer precious services on the 
 cause of humanity," and he concluded by saying, " I believe 
 I express the views of the Conference when I acknowledge 
 with satisfaction the step taken by the International Asso- 
 ciation of the Congo, and in accepting its adhesion to our 
 regulations. The new Congo State is called upon to 
 become one of the chief promoters of the work we have 
 in view, and I pray for its prosperous development and for 
 the fulfilment of the noble aspirations of its illustrious 
 founder." f 
 
 The new Congo State did not formally take to itself 
 
 that title till six months later, on ist 
 
 A oo~ -D <. *u x i The Establishment of 
 
 August, 1885. But in the interval 
 
 . J , c . the Congo State. 
 
 all preparations were made for it. 
 
 The recognition of the Congo Association as " a friendly 
 Government " by the United States in April, 1884, and the 
 less explicit intimations of France and Germany to the 
 same effect, had been followed, before the opening of 
 the Berlin Conference, by a Convention between the 
 
 * ' Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 4 (1885), p. 286. 
 t Ibid., pp. 287, 289.
 
 60 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 German Empire and the Association, dated 8th November, 
 in which the flag, the territories, the rights, and the privi- 
 leges claimed by the latter were agreed to by the former. 
 While the Conference was sitting, moreover, similar Con- 
 ventions were made with Great Britain on i6th December, 
 with Italy on ipth December, with Austria-Hungary on 
 24th December, with the Netherlands on 2/th December, 
 with Spain on /th January, with the French Republic 
 and with the Russian Empire on 5th February, with 
 Sweden and Norway on loth February, with Portugal 
 on 1 4th February, and with Denmark on 23rd Feb- 
 ruary. On the last - named day also declarations were 
 exchanged between the Association and the Belgian 
 Government.* 
 
 All these treaties, though varying in terms, were sub- 
 stantially to the same effect, most of 
 Its Convention with ,. . . . , ... ,, 
 
 them having articles similar to those 
 European Powers. 
 
 in the Anglo-Congo Convention, 
 
 which provided that " British subjects shall have at 
 all times the right of sojourning and of establishing 
 themselves within the territories which are or shall 
 be under the government of the Association ; they shall 
 enjoy the same protection which is accorded to the 
 subjects or citizens of the most favoured nation in all 
 matters which regard their persons, their property, the free 
 exercise of their religion, and the rights of navigation, 
 commerce, and industry ; especially they shall have the 
 right of buying, of selling, of letting, and of hiring lands 
 and buildings, mines and forests, situated within the said 
 territories, and of founding houses of commerce, and of 
 carrying on commerce and a coasting trade under the 
 British flag " ; and that " every British [consul or consular 
 officer within the said territories, who shall be duly 
 authorised by Her Britannic Majesty's Government, may 
 hold a consular court for the district assigned to him, and 
 shall exercise sole and exclusive jurisdiction, both civil and 
 * 'Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 4(1885), pp. 262-78.
 
 ' 
 
 THE BERLIN CONFERENCE. 61 
 
 criminal, over the persons and property of British subjects 
 within the same, in accordance with British law." 
 
 The Congo-French Convention assigned to France the 
 disputed basin of the Kwilu and the left bank of the 
 Congo from Stanley Pool as far north-eastward as its 
 explorations had then reached, but it left the Association 
 in possession of its Banana, Boma, and Cataracts districts. 
 The Congo-Portuguese Convention, mainly brought about 
 through the good offices of the British Government 
 assigned to Portugal the territory south of the Congo as 
 far as Noki and of the parallel of Noki up to its inter- 
 section by the river Kwango, which was from that point 
 to serve as the boundary in a southerly direction. The 
 territorial arrangements of these Conventions were subse- 
 quently modified, and Germany and England have since 
 acquired those portions of the Congo Basin which are to 
 the east of Lake Tanganyika and its parallel north and 
 south. But the Berlin General Act and the Conventions 
 contemporaneous with it placed the Association in assumed 
 ownership of about two-thirds of the 1,500,000 or more 
 square miles of the Congo Basin, two-thirds of the rest 
 being still unclaimed, and the recognised shares of France 
 and Portugal at that time being respectively little more 
 than 60,000 and 30,000 square miles. 
 
 "There can be no doubt," says the historian of the 
 
 Congo Free State, " that the country 
 
 j i .1 i^ r ^i Its Arrangements 
 
 most surprised by the result of the 
 T> r r> f 1 * with Belgium. 
 
 Berlin Conference was Belgium. * 
 
 The schemes and negotiations by which it was brought about 
 had been watched eagerly by a few, but " public opinion 
 remained indifferent and incredulous." Even when it was 
 known that the Belgian Government had, on 23rd February, 
 1885, followed the example of other Powers and recognised 
 the flag of the Association as " on an equality with that of 
 a friendly State " but little interest was aroused. Astonish- 
 ment was great when, on i6th April, King Leopold publicly 
 
 * Wauters, ' L'Etat Independent du Congo,' p. 3$.
 
 I 
 
 62 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 informed his Ministers that he desired the immediate assent 
 of the Chambers to his becoming the Sovereign of the 
 Association, in accordance with the 62nd article of the 
 Belgian Constitution, which provides that " the King cannot 
 be at the same time Sovereign of another State without the 
 consent of both Chambers," and that " neither Chamber 
 can deliberate on this subject unless at least two-thirds of 
 its members are present, and the resolution can only be 
 adopted by at least two-thirds of the votes." However, 
 the Chamber of Deputies on 28th April, and the Senate 
 two days later, each with only one dissentient, acceded to 
 the request, subject to an amendment declaring that " His 
 Majesty Leopold II., King of the Belgians" instead of 
 merely " the King," as the Government had proposed " is 
 authorised to be Chief of the State founded in Africa by 
 the International Association of the Congo " ; and it was 
 added, " The union between Belgium and the new Congo 
 State will be exclusively personal."* The effect of this 
 modified resolution was that, on King Leopold's demise, 
 his successor on the Belgian throne could only become 
 Chief of the Congo State by fresh sanction from Parliament. 
 It also, as far as clumsily or cleverly chosen words could 
 go, preserved the individuality and independence of both 
 States and shielded each from responsibility for the other's 
 actions. 
 
 The setting up of the Congo State, under its new name, 
 with despotic powers to its founder only limited by the 
 conditions imposed by the Berlin Conference, was com- 
 pleted by a letter which King Leopold addressed on 
 1st August to each of the heads of the States represented 
 at that Conference. "Your Majesty's Government," he 
 wrote, " has recognised the flag of the International 
 Association of the Congo as that of a friendly State. At 
 the time of the signature of the General Act of the Berlin 
 Conference the president and members of that august 
 assembly, in accepting the Association's adhesion to the 
 
 * Cattier, pp. 84-6.
 
 THE BERLIN CONFERENCE. 63 
 
 work of the Conference, expressed their sympathy with its 
 undertaking-. Now that the position of the Association is 
 fixed from an international point of view, that its territorial 
 constitution is established, and that its mission has received 
 precious encouragements, I am able to acquaint your 
 Majesty and your Government that the possessions of the 
 Congo International Association will henceforth constitute 
 the Congo Free State. I have at the same time to inform 
 your Majesty and your Government that, authorised by 
 the Belgian Legislative Chambers to become Chief of the 
 new State, I have, by agreement with the Association, 
 taken the title of Sovereign of the Congo Free State. The 
 union between Belgium and this State will be exclusively 
 personal. The new State, I have full confidence, will 
 answer the expectations of the Powers that have, in some 
 sort, welcomed in advance its entry into the family of 
 nations. I have full confidence that the new State will 
 show itself worthy of the good opinion of all the Powers. 
 I shall exert myself to guide it in this path."* 
 
 On the same day, moreover, formal notice was given to 
 the Powers who had signed the Berlin General Act that 
 the Congo Free State " declared itself for ever neutral, 
 and claimed for itself the advantages guaranteed by 
 the Act, while taking on itself the obligations incident to 
 neutrality."f 
 
 * Wauters, ' L'Etat Independant du Congo,' p. 36. 
 t Ibid., p. 37.
 
 
 64 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S COMMENCEMENT [1885-1889]. 
 
 " A NEW State has been founded, its limits are fixed, and 
 its flag is recognised by almost all the Powers," King Leo- 
 pold had written to his Belgian Ministers on i6th April, 
 1885. "There remains the duty of organising a Govern- 
 ment and an administration on the banks of the Congo." 
 This work, in so far as immediate exigencies were con- 
 cerned, and as mere promises can 
 The Machinery of . ... , . 
 
 make a constitution, was on the 
 Government. ' . 
 
 whole very skilfully done during the 
 
 early years of the Congo State's existence. Strictly 
 speaking, of course, there can be no constitution under 
 an absolute monarch, and it has been aptly said of King 
 Leopold II. that he, as Sovereign of the Congo State, 
 has better grounds than had the French Louis XIV. in 
 declaring " L'^tat, c'est Moi." " In the Congo the Sovereign 
 is the direct source of legislative, executive, and judiciary 
 powers. He can, if he chooses, delegate their exercise to 
 certain functionaries ; but this delegation has no other 
 source than his will. He regulates, to his fancy, the nature 
 and the limits of the delegations to which he consents. He 
 can at any moment revoke or modify them. He can issue 
 rules on which, so long as they last, is based the validity of 
 certain acts by himself or by his delegates. But he can 
 cancel those rules whenever they appear to him trouble- 
 some, useless, or dangerous. The organisation of justice, 
 the composition of the army, financial systems, and in- 
 dustrial and commercial institutions all are established 
 solely by him, in accordance with his just or faulty con- 
 ceptions as to their usefulness or efficiency. With like 
 freedom he regulates all the outside relations of the State. 
 The appointment and reception of diplomatic and consular
 
 I 
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S COMMENCEMENT. 65 
 
 agents, treaties, negotiations, alliances, the general policy 
 of the State all are dependent on him alone. In a word, 
 Leopold II. possesses personally and exercises personally, 
 apart from such delegations as he finds convenient, all the 
 prerogatives that the law of nations recognises in Sovereign 
 States. No constitutional rule limits the exercise of these 
 prerogatives, although it is a fact that his will has to be 
 subordinated to observance of any international treaties 
 which the Congo State has concluded."* 
 
 In 1885 and afterwards, however, in lieu of the utterly 
 irresponsible and filibustering machinery hitherto in vogue, 
 the Congo State was provided with, such as it was, a con- 
 stitution. King Leopold appointed three Administrators- 
 General, who formed a Council of State, to advise him, as 
 well as to carry out his instructions, on all questions that 
 might arise. The original holders of these offices were, M. 
 Van Eetvelde, for foreign affairs, including commerce, 
 ports, and justice ; M. Van Neuss, for finances, including 
 land regulation as well as taxation ; and Colonel Strauch, 
 for the interior, including local administration, police, 
 military establishments, means of communication, and 
 much else. Until his retirement in 1901 f M. (afterwards 
 Baron) Van Eetvelde was the Sovereign's chief assistant, his 
 title, with that of his colleagues, being changed to Secretary 
 of State in 1891, and he being the sole Secretary of State 
 after September, 1894. Sir Francis de Winton, who suc- 
 ceeded Mr. Stanley as Administrator-General on the Congo 
 in July, 1884, with his headquarters first at Vivi and sub- 
 sequently at Boma, gave place in July, 1886, to M. Camille 
 Janssen, whose title was changed to Governor- General in 
 April, 1887, and who held the office till 1892. 
 
 The King being the only and uncontrolled law-maker 
 
 * Cattier, pp. 134, 135, where a phrase used in a report of M. Van 
 Eetvelde, the Secretary of State, dated 25th January, 1897, is quoted, "C'est 
 a Votre Majeste qu'appartient 1'Etat.' 
 
 t Even after his retirement, however, it was stipulated that Baron Van 
 Eetvelde's " services as special adviser on all matters of importance " were 
 retained, 
 
 F
 
 * 
 
 66 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 for the Congo State, issuing his laws by arbitrary decrees 
 
 and even reserving to himself the 
 Despotism and its r , f: ,. . ~ 
 
 power of not publishing in Europe 
 
 decrees which it might be thought 
 
 expedient to conceal,* the Administrator - General or 
 Governor-General or the Deputy Governor-General or 
 Inspector of State left in charge during the Governor- 
 General's frequent absence in Europe was to be his 
 principal agent in enforcing those decrees. Under the 
 central authority in Boma, after the seat of Government 
 was transferred to it from Vivi, were to be the District 
 Commissaries, each of the districts now fifteen in number 
 being a " territorial administrative unit." The functions 
 assigned to these officials were comprehensive and diverse. 
 They were accountable for the maintenance of order over 
 enormous areas, for the most part unexplored. They were 
 expected not only to be detectives as well as judges, but also 
 to administer any punishments imposed by themselves, sub- 
 ject to reference in serious cases to their superiors at Boma. 
 Responsible for the finances of their districts, they had to 
 see that sufficient revenue was collected ; and, nominally 
 required to look after the interests of both blacks and whites 
 and to protect either class from injury by the other, they 
 had great temptations, and opportunities as great, to set 
 the interests of their white associates and their own before 
 those of the natives. The abuses inevitable to the system 
 were not, perhaps, very manifest at first, and the system 
 itself was for some years so incomplete that minor officials 
 had much excuse for any blunders they committed. But 
 its ablest apologist is its severest critic. " There is no 
 check, legislative or executive," writes M. Cattier, " upon 
 the will of the Sovereign. The Secretary of State is all- 
 powerful, under the monarch ; and the Governor-General, 
 albeit in the most absolute dependence on the Sovereign 
 
 * ' Bulletin Official de 1'Etat Independant du Congo' (1886), p. 22: "Tous 
 les actes du Gouvernement qu'il y a interet a rendre publics seront inseres au 
 Bulletin Officiel." Instances of secret law-making and its malign working 
 will be given hereafter,
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S COMMENCEMENT. 67 
 
 and the Secretary of State, exercises his functions as abso- 
 lute chief of the local administration. The will of his 
 subordinates must, in every case, bend before his own. 
 They must obey or be dismissed. Moreover, the Governor- 
 General is usually a military officer of high rank, and most 
 of his agents are of lower military grade, trained in habits 
 of passive obedience. This system, in the hands of men of 
 ability, has enabled rapid progress to be made. It was 
 admirably adapted for practising 'the policy of results.' 
 For all that, it is impossible to ignore its vices and its 
 dangers. It is not well for the functionaries and agents of 
 an administration to be forced into passive obedience. The 
 directors of the State, who from Brussels or from Boma 
 govern immense and distant territories, have not sufficient 
 knowledge of the moral and material obstacles to the 
 realisation of their views and projects. Their attention is 
 concentrated on the results to be obtained. In these con- 
 ditions it is inevitable that their real intentions will be 
 liable to be misunderstood by agents to whom the orders 
 of their chiefs are a law that must be obeyed always and 
 without question. The system produces mistakes detri- 
 mental to the interests it is sought to promote, and 
 occasional violations of the rights of natives and the laws 
 of humanity."* 
 
 So each year's events proved with increasing force. At 
 
 the end of 1886 there were only 254 
 
 , ., . ,, ~ c-. . ! Extension of the 
 
 white men in the Congo State s tern- , 
 
 - , re i State's Authority. 
 
 tory, of whom 52 were officials, 104 
 
 were traders and their clerks, and 30 were missionaries. 
 More than half of the number were at Banana and Boma, 
 and a third in other parts of the long frequented and com- 
 paratively small Lower Congo region. Elsewhere, with 
 the exception of a few at Leopoldville, scarcely any were 
 to be found besides the newly appointed District Com- 
 missaries, not yet supplied with even the pretence of a 
 regularly armed force, and the explorers and missionaries 
 * Cattier, p. 217.
 
 68 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 who were already energetic. Three years later the whole 
 white population had only increased to 430, of whom 119 
 were officials, 1 34 were traders, and 70 were missionaries, 
 the great majority being still in Lower Congo.* These 
 intruders from Europe and the United States had, of 
 course, numerous black companions, chiefly natives of the 
 English, French, and Portuguese possessions on the West 
 Coast, and some being Zanzibar! survivors from Mr. 
 Stanley's expedition. But Sir Francis de Winton and, in 
 the first years of his administration, M. Janssen were mainly 
 occupied in keeping watch over the trading operations 
 carried on as heretofore, but more busily, between Boma 
 and the mouth of the Congo, and in directing or encourag- 
 ing the explorations by which various parts of the country 
 were being opened up for occupation. They had, in fact, 
 while doing what they could towards taking actual posses- 
 sion of the enormous tracts of country as yet only nominally 
 held by the Congo State, to adapt to the State's require- 
 ments, and to alter or add to as seemed most desirable or 
 proved most practicable, the arrangements already existing 
 in the four administrative districts of Banana, Boma, 
 Matadi, and the Cataracts, with so much as was then 
 utilised of the fifth district of Stanley Pool. 
 
 Most of the treaties by which Mr. Stanley alleged that 
 
 450 independent African chiefs had 
 Landholding under , f , ,, . . , , r 
 
 * 'transferred their rights of sovereignty 
 
 and of ownership to the Association " 
 that is, to the Congo State were in respect of lands in 
 Lower Congo, already put to considerable use by the Dutch, 
 Portuguese, French, and English traders on the river. 
 With these latter, as well as with the natives, the State and 
 its officials had, in the first instance, to establish as satis- 
 factory relations as they could, while at the same time 
 conforming, as far as they found necessary or convenient, 
 to the stipulations of the Berlin General Act. 
 The earliest of the ordinances issued by Sir Francis de 
 
 * ' Bulletin Official' (1887), p. 12; (1890), p. 34.
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S COMMENCEMENT. 69 
 
 Winton, as Administrator- General of the Congo, con- 
 sequently, was one dated ist July, 1885, by which all 
 " non-indigenes " claiming ownership of, or right to use, 
 lands within the territories of the State were required to 
 submit their titles and contracts to the Government for 
 examination and, in the event of their being approved, for 
 endorsement and registration. Henceforth, it was announced, 
 "no contract or agreement with natives for occupation, 
 under whatever title, of plots of land will be recognised or 
 protected by the Government unless the contract or agree- 
 ment has been made with the intervention of the public 
 officer appointed by the Administrator-General, and accord- 
 ing to rules defined by him in each particular case." And 
 it was added, " No one has a right to occupy vacant lands 
 without a title, or to dispossess natives of lands they occupy 
 Vacant lands must be considered as belonging to the 
 State."* The term "vacant lands" was open to divers 
 interpretations, and the term " occupation," in reference to 
 natives' land-holding, was open to grave misconstruction. 
 But the right of natives to all the land used or possessed 
 by them was clearly implied ; and yet more emphatic was 
 a decree of King Leopold's dated I4th September, 1886. 
 "Lands occupied by native populations, under the authority 
 of their chiefs," it was there laid down, " shall continue to 
 be administered according to local customs and usages. 
 Contracts made with natives for the acquisition or hiring 
 of plots of land will only be recognised or allowed to be 
 registered after they have been approved by the Adminis- 
 trator-General. It is for him to determine the forms and 
 conditions to be followed in concluding such contracts. 
 All acts or agreements are forbidden which tend to the 
 expulsion of natives from the territories they occupy, or to 
 deprive them, directly or indirectly, of their liberty or their 
 means of existence."! 
 
 Although this equitable, if somewhat arbitrary, prescrip- 
 tion was followed by a less satisfactory clause, providing 
 
 * ' Bulletin Official ' (1885), p. 30. t Kid. (1886), pp. 138-40.
 
 70 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 for the sale or letting of " the vacant lands and other lands 
 belonging to the State which the Government may deem it 
 convenient to alienate or let," it must be assumed that, 
 when they began their work, the founders of the Congo 
 State had only humane intentions towards the natives ; 
 also that they intended to abide loyally by the regulations 
 of the Berlin General Act for complete freedom of trade. 
 They had not gone far in their enterprise, however, before 
 they began to find it covenient, and from their point of 
 view, perhaps, necessary, to break away from their pledges 
 as regards both the rights of natives and the rights of the 
 European adventurers. 
 
 The infringements in each direction, closely related to 
 
 one another, were effected cautiously 
 
 Encroachments on , , ,, A , r ,, A ., 
 
 and gradually. A decree ot loth April, 
 Natives' Land Rights. / . J 
 
 1887, laid down rules for protecting 
 
 the rights of individual owners of landed property, and 
 preventing encroachments on lands belonging to the State 
 or occupied by natives, and also for facilitating " the creation 
 of new commercial and agricultural establishments." It 
 was here provided that " nothing in the present decree shall 
 affect the rights of natives recognised by previous decrees." 
 But this was followed up on 3Oth June, 1887, by an 
 ordinance of the new Governor-General, M. Janssen, 
 assigning to a new functionary, " the Keeper of Land 
 Titles," the charge of " everything concerning the adminis- 
 tration of lands belonging to the State," including power to 
 sell or let " des terres domaniales," and to license the 
 cutting of wood, the extracting of minerals, or undertakings 
 of any other sort, on " des terres dont la propriete privee 
 n'a et^ reconnue a personne."* The assumed right of the 
 State to all lands not actually " occupied " by natives or 
 any other persons' " private property " was, for the first 
 time, distinctly asserted in this decree. As throughout 
 almost the whole of Africa, as well as in the Congo region, 
 land tenure is for the most part tribal or communal, and 
 
 * 'Bulletin Official' (1887), pp. 70-4, 129, 130.
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S COMMENCEMENT. 71 
 
 not individual, and as the natives have from time imme- 
 morial considered themselves at liberty to roam about in 
 search of game and other produce of the forests, plains, and 
 rivers, and to settle down in more or less temporary villages 
 wherever they find vacant and suitable spots, the claim now 
 set up was practically one of State ownership of nearly all 
 the land in the country, and it sanctioned proceedings 
 altogether at variance with the decree of I4th September, 
 1886, which recognised local customs and usages as regards 
 land, and forbade anything tending to deprive natives of 
 their liberties or means of existence. 
 
 The first important step in this direction was taken, or at 
 
 any rate authorised, by a decree of 
 
 ', T i *. -ui j Encroachments on 
 
 25th July, 1880, ostensibly issued 
 
 , J 3 '. 7 , Natives' Liberties. 
 
 with a view to preserving the race 
 
 of elephants and of maintaining the rights of the State over 
 elephants caught or killed within its domains " ; a legitimate 
 object in itself if the general advantage of the community 
 was aimed at, but not otherwise defensible. " Elephant 
 hunting," it was here decreed, " is forbidden throughout the 
 territory of the State, unless by special licence," the cost 
 of the licence being determined by the Governor-General, 
 and infraction of the rule being punishable by heavy fines 
 and penal servitude. In case of breach of this rule it was 
 ordered that " the elephants thus caught or killed shall be 
 handed over to the State or confiscated for its benefit," and 
 it was added, " All usages and customs having the force of 
 law and contrary to this edict are abrogated." A similar 
 but less comprehensive decree was issued on i/th October, 
 1889, with reference to "the procuring of rubber, gum 
 copal, and other vegetable products in districts where these, 
 substances are not at present procured by natives, and which 
 form part of the State domain."* This, however, was 
 primarily applicable to the regions of the Upper Congo, 
 which were now a subject of special interest and alarm, as 
 we shall see, but not yet under much control. 
 
 * 'Bulletin Official' (1889), pp. 169-71, 218.
 
 72 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 In a report dated i6th July, 1891, by M. Van Eetvelde 
 credit was asked for the humane arrangements adopted 
 in the interests of the inhabitants. " The Government," it 
 was asserted, " has taken special precautions to prevent 
 spoliation of the natives and infringement of their rights 
 by fraud or violence. The lands occupied by blacks 
 remain under local customs ; the State leaves under this 
 rule spaces extensive enough not only for maintenance but 
 also, in view of increase of the population, for development 
 of their institutions." * The worst interferences with 
 native land rights have been subsequent to the date of 
 this report, but even when it was written it was in flagrant 
 contradiction not only of facts, but also of edicts signed 
 by M. Van Eetvelde himself. As misleading was an 
 earlier report, dated 24th October, 1889, in which he asked 
 credit for the alleged and ostensible abolition of the status 
 of slavery throughout the territories of the Congo State. 
 " Slavery, even domestic," he said, " cannot be officially 
 recognised. Indeed, it is not possible for a single man 
 in the Congo to be subject to another, since every attempt 
 on individual liberty is accounted an offence punishable by 
 the articles of the Penal Code. Every one is punished who, 
 by violence, tricks, or threats, removes or causes to be 
 removed, arbitrarily arrests or causes to be arrested, detains 
 or causes to be detained, any person whatever ; or who 
 disposes of any persons whatever by selling them as slaves. 
 By these general arrangements the procuring, the transport, 
 and the detention of individuals as slaves fall under the 
 arm of the law." f 
 
 All this, it is true, was proposed in the Penal Code ; just 
 
 as much more was enjoined in the 
 New Forms of , ~ , , , , c 
 
 Ten Commandments and the Sermon 
 Slavery. 
 
 on the Mount. But slavery was only 
 
 abolished in name and forbidden as a matter of form. 
 When the State officials were able and willing to enforce 
 "these general arrangements," the bondsmen of black 
 
 * 'Bulletin Official' (1891), p. 180. t Ibid. (1889), p. 199.
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S COMMENCEMENT. 73 
 
 slave owners may have been taken from them, but only, 
 or often, to fall into worse bondage under white masters ; 
 the cruellest and most plentiful employers of forced labour 
 being generally the officials or the protigfe of the State 
 itself. On 8th November, 1888, a decree was issued 
 according " special protection to the blacks." This " pro- 
 tection " took the form of allowing blacks, whether natives 
 of the Congo or recruits from other parts, to be bound 
 over for a term of seven years' service to any white masters 
 or patrons (a term specially employed in the interests of 
 missionaries and others) who satisfied the authorities that 
 these blacks had voluntarily agreed to the conditions 
 imposed upon them as regards wages and the like, and 
 providing that the conditions should be set forth in writing- 
 In case of ill-treatment or breach of contract the hireling 
 was supposed to be able to obtain redress or to recover 
 his liberty ; and it was appointed that some supervision 
 should be exercised by officers of the State over the 
 relations between the hirelings and their masters, in the 
 interests of the former.* It cannot be supposed, however, 
 that, except in very rare cases, an effective check would 
 thus be put upon any harsh treatment to which tyrannical 
 employers might expose ignorant and unlettered natives 
 in their service. 
 
 It was professedly in the interests of natives, as well as of 
 
 traders, and " to repress abuses pre- 
 
 j- i , ,u . ., , ., Contract Labour 
 
 judicial to the regularity and security 
 
 f * and Forced Labour. 
 
 of transport between the Upper and 
 
 Lower Congo," that another decree was issued on 
 1 2th March, 1889, applying especially to the Cataracts 
 district, in which there was always the greatest demand for 
 labourers and carriers until the railway was opened. It 
 was here provided that commercial societies and others 
 wishing to recruit natives must first obtain a permit from 
 the Governor -General, and must after that take out a 
 licence for each native engaged, or, if the engagement was 
 
 * ' Bulletin Official ' (1888), pp. 270-5.
 
 74 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 through a " capita " or head man, for each capita ; the 
 charges being 240 francs for an annual permit, 24 francs 
 for not more than twenty-four recruits under one capita, 
 and 3 francs for each labourer not engaged through a 
 capita.* These licences and permits augmented the 
 revenue ; but it is not easy to see how they could 
 benefit the natives, who, long after as well as before the 
 issuing of the decree, were at the mercy of the District 
 Commissaries, and of the capitas who were practically 
 slave-drivers at their beck and call. " The method of 
 collecting carriers is accomplished after this fashion," wrote 
 Mr. Rose Troup, who entered the Congo State service in 
 1883, and was Mr. Stanley's principal transport officer for 
 the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition of 1887, presently to be 
 dealt with ; " The Commissaire du District keeps at his 
 station a record of the capitas of the surrounding country, 
 and these capitas, according to their influence, are able to 
 promise the service of a number of men belonging to their 
 village. When it is necessary to obtain porters for a 
 caravan the Commissaire sends out his interpreter to make 
 known the fact among the leading men, who forthwith 
 come to the station. As each man arrives he is admitted 
 to the presence of the Commissaire, who inquires his name. 
 ' Capita Lesa,' ' Capita Mwanga,' ' Capita Kupidi,' as the 
 case may be, is the reply. ' How many men can you 
 supply ? ' ' Thirteen,' ' Twenty-five,' ' Thirty,' answers the 
 native, or he mentions even a larger number if he is a great 
 man. ' When can you bring them ? ' ' After Nkandu 
 market ' perhaps four or six days hence for it is at the 
 market that they make arrangements and obtain provisions 
 for the beginning of their term of service. ' Very well,' 
 asserts the Commissaire, ' here are so many pieces of cloth,' 
 and he gives out to the capita an amount in accordance 
 with the number of men promised ; the regulation sum 
 ' for rations,' as it is called, a sort of engagement money, 
 being half a piece of handkerchief that is, six squares of 
 
 * 'Bulletin Official' (1889), pp. 66-9.
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S COMMENCEMENT. 75 
 
 bright-coloured handkerchiefs per man, while the capita 
 receives for his own pay a whole piece. The Commissaire 
 notes in his book some such entry as this : 'Capita Kupidi 
 of Nzonsa, twenty-five men on i8th March.' "* 
 
 The State, though it controlled and assisted in the supply 
 of labour, had not itself, except on special occasions, occupa- 
 tion for many carriers in the earlier years of its existence. 
 But from the first it was in constant need of soldiers, and a 
 decree of 5th August, 1888, had initiated the force publique 
 which was to take the place of the nondescript fighting 
 machinery that till then was all that the State's officials had at 
 their disposal either for police or for military work. Whether 
 employed as soldiers or otherwise, the recruiting of natives 
 for its own use was, by a decree dated i/th November, 
 1888, subject to the same conditions as were appointed for 
 others by the decree of 8th November, i888.f In the case 
 of natives employed by the State, moreover, the slender 
 protection afforded to those in the service of trading 
 corporations was, of course, lacking, seeing that, if they 
 considered themselves ill-used, their only appeal was to 
 State functionaries against whom, or against whose 
 colleagues, they had complaints to make. 
 
 The force publique was but a small and, relatively, a 
 
 well-managed body at the start. " Its 
 
 J 
 
 .. , ., ,. /> * Force Publique. 
 
 tactical unit, according to M. Cat- 
 
 tier's outline, " is the company, which at ordinary times 
 comprises from 100 to 150 soldiers, besides from 40 to 60 
 military labourers. The companies, when employed on 
 active service, should contain from 200 to 250 soldiers and 
 from 40 to 60 military labourers. Each company has for 
 its European staff a captain or lieutenant commandant, a 
 lieutenant or sub-lieutenant, a sergeant-major, and a 
 sergeant. The native staff comprises two sergeants, and 
 from four to six corporals. Companies of fighting strength 
 have in addition a second officer and a second sub-officer, 
 
 * 'With Stanley's Rear Column' (1890), p. 58. 
 t ' Bulletin Officiel ' (1888), pp. 251, 294-300, 302.
 
 
 76 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 both white, and another sergeant and three corporals who 
 are coloured. The staff department of this force comprises 
 several officers. It is directed by the commandant, who, 
 under the authority of the Governor-General, administers 
 the personnel and the materiel Q{ the army, and the Governor- 
 General, in his capacity of Commander-in-chief, distributes 
 the different units."* 
 
 From the first, however, the force publique had a vicious 
 branch or adjunct. " The organic decree," adds M. Cattier, 
 " sanctions the creation of, besides the regular companies, 
 permanent bodies of native militia, subject to military 
 discipline. This native militia is distributed in companies 
 and detachments, and its branches are, in each district, 
 placed under the superior command of the officers of the 
 regular force publique. The decree adds that the organisa- 
 tion of this militia will be determined by the Governor- 
 General. But no decision on the subject has ever been 
 published."! 
 
 The silence is intelligible. The Congo State's native 
 militia has all along been nothing more than an un- 
 organised and disorderly rabble of such savage allies as 
 might be collected and employed in doing even ghastlier 
 work than the force publique could be put to allies who 
 can scarcely be called mercenaries as their recompense has 
 generally, if not always, been restricted to licence in looting 
 and, when, as usually, they have been cannibals, in 
 devouring the foes against whom they have been led, or 
 sent without leading. 
 
 The way in which these warriors are recruited is thus 
 described by a German who was for many years in the 
 service of the Congo State, and for part of the time a cap- 
 tain commandant in \\s, force publique : " Some district com- 
 missary receives instructions to furnish a certain number 
 of men in a given time. He puts himself in communica- 
 tion with the chiefs, and invites them to a palaver at his 
 
 * ' Droit et Administration de 1'Etat Independant du Congo,' p. 264. 
 t Ibid., p. 270.
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S COMMENCEMENT. 77 
 
 residence. These chiefs, as a rule, already have an inkling 
 of what is coming, and, if made wise by experience, make 
 a virtue of necessity and present themselves. In. that case 
 the negotiations run their course easily enough ; each chief 
 promises to supply a certain number of slaves, and receives 
 presents in return. It may happen, however, that one or 
 another pays no heed to the friendly invitation, in which 
 case war is declared, his villages are burned down, perhaps 
 some of his people are shot, and his stores or gardens are 
 plundered. In this way the wild king is soon tamed, and 
 he sues for peace, which, of course, is granted on condition 
 of his supplying double the number of slaves. These men 
 are entered in the State books as libMs. To prevent their 
 running away they are put in irons and sent, on the first 
 opportunity, to one of the military camps, where their irons 
 are taken off and they are drafted into the army. The 
 District Commissary is paid 2 sterling for every service- 
 able recruit" 
 
 * August Boshart, ' Zehn Jahre Afrikanischen Lebens' (1898), p. 155.
 
 78 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES [1885-1890]. 
 
 GREAT energy, and some of it legitimate and praise- 
 worthy, was shown from the first both by officers of the 
 Congo State and by many others in exploring its least 
 known regions and making acquaintance with its in- 
 habitants. 
 
 Conspicuous among the pacific travellers who engaged in 
 
 this work, as auxiliary to their religious 
 Missionary and other , . ^ , . , . 
 
 occupations, were two Baptist mis- 
 sionaries, the Rev. W. Holman Bentley, 
 
 who, after some experience nearer the mouth of the river, 
 had settled on the shore of Stanley Pool in 1881, and the 
 Rev. George Grenfell, who in 1884 made Leopoldville not 
 only his principal abode, but also the starting-point for 
 frequent voyages in his river steamer the Peace up and 
 down the Congo and its affluents. Much valuable infor- 
 mation was supplied by Mr. Grenfell about the Mongala, 
 the Rubi, and the Lomani, as well as about the Ubangi, 
 which he practically discovered and ascended as far as 
 Zongo in 1885, the Ruki, which he visited with Captain 
 von Franois in the same year, and the Kwango, which 
 in 1886 he tracked with Dr. Mense. 
 
 A more famous traveller was Lieutenant von Wissmann, 
 
 who followed up his exploration of 
 Wissmann in the ,, Tr . -, . . 00 , 00 , 
 ._ . _. , the Kasai Basin in 1881 and 1882 by 
 
 Kasai District. 
 
 another journey in 1884 and 1885, 
 
 when he founded the Luluaburg station, and who, with 
 his colleague Dr. Ludwig Wolf, ascertained that the 
 Sankuru, like the Lulua, was tributary to the Kasai. His 
 third expedition, started upon in March, 1886, was more 
 ambitious. He was invited by King Leopold "to open 
 the Baluba country to any further undertakings in the
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 79 
 
 south of the Congo State ; to make the native tribes to the 
 south, the north-west, and eventually the eastern boundaries 
 of the State acquainted and satisfied with their new political 
 situation ; to investigate and, if possible, counteract the 
 proceedings of the slave-hunters ; and to report about the 
 countries in the south-east with respect to their cultivation."* 
 Though he did not accomplish all that, his experiences 
 were memorable. 
 
 The Kasai and its tributaries, it may be noted, water the 
 whole of southern Congoland until the sources of the 
 Zambezi are approached in the south and the upper reaches 
 of the Congo in the east. The Balolo being the most 
 numerous occupants of the great Congo-bend, north of the 
 Kasai, the Baluba are the predominant race in the south, 
 the principal branches of the latter being the Basonge, on 
 the eastern side of the Sankuru, and the Bashilange on its 
 western side. Akin to them are, on the north-west, the 
 Bakuba, and on the south-west, with less affinity, the 
 Balunda, an extensive and formidable race broken up into 
 many groups, with some of which the Angola Portuguese 
 have long been associated. Between them and Lake Tan- 
 ganyika are the Batetela, the Manyema, and other cannibal 
 communities, more recently and more disastrously asso- 
 ciated with the so-called Arabs of East Africa, who had 
 been ravaging the southernmost or Katanga portion of 
 Congoland, and were already encroaching on the Portu- 
 guese " sphere of influence " among the Balunda and Baluba, 
 before they wandered northward, to Stanley Falls and 
 beyond them. 
 
 While Lieutenant von Wissmann was absent in Europe 
 
 Dr. Wolf, remaining in the Baluba 
 
 j -o i u u j r jj The Conquest of the 
 
 and Bakuba country, had founded a . 
 
 . T , /} .. Baluba Country. 
 
 station at Luebo, near the junction 
 
 of the Lulua and the Kasai, and one of Wissmann's first 
 undertakings on his return was, leaving his English sub- 
 
 * H. von Wissmann, ' My Second Journey through Equatorial Africa ' 
 (1891), p. 3.
 
 8o CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 ordinate Mr. Latrobe Bateman in charge of Luebo, to 
 place matters both there and at Luluaburg on such a 
 footing that control of the latter and more important 
 station might safely be entrusted to two Belgians, Captain 
 De Macar and Lieutenant Paul le Marinel, who had been 
 sent out with that object. The situation was complicated 
 or, from the aggressors' point of view, perhaps, it was sim- 
 plified and the process of aggression was facilitated, by the 
 fact that some fifteen years before, about 1870, a curious 
 feud had arisen among the Bashilange in this neighbour- 
 hood, most of whom favoured, while others opposed, the 
 encouragement of foreign trade. As bhang or hemp was 
 the most attractive of the imports quarrelled about, a 
 league or society, known as " Bena-Riamba," or " the sons 
 of hemp," which had been started, became the centre of a 
 remarkable political and social movement, and even gave 
 to their district a new name Lubuku, "the land of friend- 
 ship," or " Philadelphia." * Kalamba, the most influential 
 king or chief in those parts, was at the head of this party, 
 and, driving the non-smokers across the Lulua, had for his 
 principal colleague or rival a much younger chief, Chin- 
 genge, when Lieutenant von Wissmann undertook to make 
 both of them vassals of the Congo State. Wissmann's 
 earlier tactics had been, he admitted, " to keep the natives 
 separated into two parties, so as, in case of need, to lead 
 one against the other," and to this end he had endeavoured 
 to widen the differences between Kalamba and Chingenge. 
 But, as he added, "experience had taught me that these 
 tactics, which always made the management of the natives 
 difficult, were necessary no longer." He accordingly " re- 
 solved upon a single control of the natives," and his account 
 of the course taken by him is instructive. " There could 
 naturally be no doubt," we read, " as to who was to be the 
 chief dependent on me or my successor. Kalamba was 
 the mightiest, the most respected, and, above all, the most 
 devoted of all the princes of Lubuku. His sister, Sangula 
 
 * A. H. Keane, 'Africa' (1895), Vol. II. p. 118,
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 81 
 
 Meta, the high-priestess of the Riambi worship, who had 
 great influence over her brother, was even more devoted to 
 me and to us all than he was. Both brother and sister had 
 given so many proofs of their trustworthiness and affection 
 that I could not but banish all scruples about Kalamba's 
 faithfulness. Added to this, Kalamba's eldest son and 
 successor, Kalamba Moana, who was much more intelligent 
 than his father, seemed to be equally trustworthy. As I 
 considered Luluaburg and its surrounding Bashilange as 
 the centre whence the Congo State should undertake the 
 further exploration and civilisation of its southern countries, 
 and as the easiest and cheapest way to this object was to 
 have one agent only to superintend and direct from one 
 station, I now began, in the immediate circuit of the station, 
 in the friendly country that is, Lubuku to make the 
 greater chiefs, the eldest members of a family called Baqua 
 or Bena, responsible masters of the districts allotted to 
 them, so that the numerous would-be independent seniors 
 of the villages might easily be managed. So I made the 
 chiefs of the Baqua Chirimba, Baqua Kambulu, Bena 
 Kusu, Bena Chitari, &c., to each of whom belonged from 
 five to fifteen villages, real masters of their districts. I 
 intended to extend my authority over fifty such families. 
 Each of the chiefs was to have a star-flag, and all these 
 flags were to be placed under Kalamba's large union flag. 
 The latter, to whom a certain not too large tribute was to 
 be paid by the chiefs only, was to engage himself always 
 to supply warriors for any chance campaign, conductors 
 for a journey, labourers for keeping the roads clear, &c. 
 He was to provide sufficient means for passing to and fro 
 on the river crossings, to induce the population to grow 
 rice, and to carry out different other projects."* 
 
 In pursuance of this arrangement Wissmann sent 
 word to the " family chiefs " whom he had selected that 
 on a given day they were to present themselves before him, 
 bringing gifts or tribute " according to the wealth of their 
 
 * ' My Second Journey through Equatorial Africa,' pp. 86-8. 
 
 G
 
 82 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 tribe " ; and it was promised that they should, in return, 
 " receive flags and a proper chieftain's suit." Three, who 
 refused to come, " were written on the blackboard, in 
 order to be forced into submission as soon as time per- 
 mitted." Of the others, after the " scruples " raised by 
 them had been removed, " each one returned proudly with 
 an unfurled star-flag, the new ensign of the Congo State 
 dressed in flowing garments, quite ready to be a staff in 
 the alliance of lictors that Kalamba was now to command 
 as a life-guardsman of the new State." The recalcitrants 
 were soon frightened into submission, and some of their 
 people were captured and sent as " criminals in fetters " to 
 work at Luebo " for the sake of example." Wissmann 
 was himself surprised at the ease with which " the subjuga- 
 tion of a people numbering many thousands " was accom- 
 plished with the small force of from twenty to thirty 
 armed carriers brought by him from the coast, and about 
 sixty auxiliaries hired from a " warlike tribe " in the 
 neighbourhood ; but he attributed it to " the unusual 
 intelligence of the Bashilange." Much further pressure 
 had to be resorted to by him in September, when he 
 returned from a ten weeks' expedition to the Sankuru, and 
 formally installed Kalamba as " head chief of Lubuku," 
 subject to his compliance with an arrangement that placed 
 nearly a million and a half of Bashilange under the more 
 or less effective rule of the Belgian officers stationed at 
 Luluaburg. The terms agreed upon were thus summed 
 up : " All the old hostilities were to be forgotten. The 
 chiefs alone were to retain power over their inferiors. The 
 tribute was to be paid regularly, once a year, and it was 
 not to be excessive. The chiefs were to be at liberty to 
 complain of Kalamba to the head of the station. No wars 
 were to be carried on without the consent of the head 
 of Luluaburg. Convicts under sentence of death were 
 to be surrendered to the station. For journeys, wars, or 
 particularly important work Kalamba had to furnish men. 
 For those used for work or for an escort a regular tax had
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 83 
 
 to be paid, and those for warlike purposes he had to furnish 
 gratis. The market price was to be the same throughout 
 Lubuku."* 
 
 With a caravan about 900 strong and with 500 guns, 
 
 most of which were muzzle-loading, 
 
 T . , T7 . , : Wissmann's Expedi= 
 
 Lieutenants von Wissmann, and le 
 
 , , . , , Cl _ , , , .. , tion to Nyangwe. 
 
 Marinel left Luluaburg on loth 
 
 November, and three months later they arrived at 
 Nyangwe. They had lost by the way a good many of their 
 followers, who comprised about 250 Bashilange carriers, 
 as well as some 600 auxiliaries, supplied in accordance 
 with the arrangement with Kalamba ; but this force was 
 formidable enough to prevent necessity for much fighting, 
 and the explorers were able to send home many details 
 about the ever-extending encroachments and maraudings 
 of Tipu-Tipu and his partners. From Nyangwe Le 
 Marinel returned with most of the native followers to 
 Luluaburg, which he reached on i8th April, 1887, to use 
 his experience in many years' later work under the 
 Congo State. Wissmann proceeded, with many halts, to 
 Quelimane, which he reached on 8th August, and after that 
 he lost no time in taking employment under his own 
 Government and turning to account in German East Africa 
 the knowledge he had acquired as one of the Congo State's 
 agents. To the Congo State, however, he had rendered 
 lasting, albeit cruel and ruinous service by the precedent 
 he established for successful employment of savage 
 organizations in introducing to the natives perversions of 
 " civilisation " more injurious than barbarism. 
 
 On his arrival at Nyangwe in February, 1887, Wiss- 
 mann met and renewed acquaintance with Tipu-Tipu's 
 son, Sefu, of whom he had thought well some years 
 before, but whom he now " discovered to be a passionate, 
 suspicious and cunning fellow." " Sefu's behaviour was most 
 shocking," he reported. " The hot-headed young fellow, 
 made insolent by his sense of superiority, treated me in 
 
 * ' My Second Journey throu h Equatorial Africa,' pp. 88-91, 131-134.
 
 84 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 such a manner that it was only with the utmost effort I 
 could master myself sufficiently to answer him as quietly 
 as necessity demanded. We were regularly put through 
 a series of questions as to whence we came, in whose 
 commission, how long we had been coming, &c. At our 
 answers, which may have seemed strange to the half- 
 savage Arabs, who are partly Negroes (Sefu, too, is quite 
 black), they would sometimes laugh right into our faces. 
 They criticised Le Marinel's and my looks without hesita- 
 tion in the Swahili language." The explanation of this 
 treatment was that news had lately arrived of a disturbance 
 at Stanley Falls, where nearly six months before the Arabs 
 had attacked and overcome the occupants of the station 
 set up there by Mr. Stanley, and that there had been 
 general expectation of " an avenging expedition," to meet 
 which, it was stated, " thousands of Tipu-Tipu's people 
 had been sent thither, among them many warriors from 
 Nyangwe, who had only lately returned, as the whites, 
 being too few in numbers to fight against Tipu, had not 
 come back."* Hence the contempt with which the 
 representatives of the Congo State, coming as suppliants 
 for food and shelter, not as assailants, were received. 
 
 The visitors, though threatened with captivity and 
 slavery, and actually debarred from journeying northwards 
 as they intended, suffered only in their dignity. But the 
 treatment accorded to them was conclusive evidence of the 
 gravity of the situation, which had been partly brought 
 about by Mr. Stanley's encouragement of Arab advances 
 in the territory claimed by the Congo State, and of which 
 the Stanley Falls catastrophe was an important incident. 
 
 Mr. Stanley, in December, 1883, had started the Stanley 
 
 Falls station on a small island amid 
 The Stanley Falls ., ., r ,, TT 
 
 Disaster. the raplds f the U PP er Congo, 
 
 accessible from the right bank of the 
 
 river, and had placed it under the custody of " a little 
 Scotchman named Binnie," the engineer of one of his river 
 
 * ' My Second Journey through Equatorial Africa,' pp. 220, 224.
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 85 
 
 steamers, who had volunteered for the post. There, as Mr. 
 Stanley said, Binnie was left " all alone in the very heart 
 of Africa, removed a twenty days' journey from the nearest 
 station, and doomed to at least six months' isolation from 
 the sympathetic world, with only the thought of a large 
 work before him, while his only companionship had to be 
 found among some 1,500 barbarians four hundred yards off 
 on the same island and more than 10,000 within easy reach 
 of him." After a few months, we are told, " the little man 
 was discovered to have done nobly; he had enlarged his 
 possessions ; he had extended his clearing and built an 
 entire village ; he had been planting and making gardens, 
 and the savage natives round about him acknowledged 
 him as their friend ; Binnie was the umpire in all argu- 
 ments, the arbiter in all political controversies in short, 
 he was the general referee in all the disputes which occurred 
 in the locality."* Before long, however, Mr. Binnie was 
 replaced by Lieutenant Wester, who, in October 1884, 
 made a treaty with the Arabs, a son of Tipu-Tipu's being 
 one of its signatories, by which they undertook to abstain 
 from raiding for slaves or ivory to the west of the Falls 
 and to remain at peace with the whites in the district. The 
 natives at the same time placed themselves under the pro- 
 tection of the Congo Association, but without avail. When 
 Captain van Gele, one of the ablest and most persistent of 
 the Congo State pioneers and administrators, arrived at the 
 Falls in January, 1885, after exploring the Ubangi, he found 
 that Tipu had been desolating the neighbourhood for six 
 months and had, in the name of the Sultan of Zanzibar, 
 repudiated the treaty with Lieutenant Wester to which his 
 son had been a party. It was to protect, if possible, the 
 actual station at Stanley Falls, and to make some effort at 
 befriending the natives on this small island, if no others, 
 that early in the year Mr. Walter Deane was sent up by 
 Sir Francis de Winton. His honest action was the imme- 
 diate cause of the troubles that Lieutenant von Wissmann 
 
 * 'The Congo,' Vol. II., pp. 165, 275.
 
 86 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 heard of at Nyangwe, in February, 1887, and that had 
 considerable influence on the famous Emin Pasha Relief 
 Expedition on which Mr. Stanley started almost at the 
 same time. 
 
 Mr. Deane took with him to Stanley Falls thirty-two 
 Hausa soldiers and about forty Bangala auxiliaries. A 
 plentiful supply of ammunition and rifles, with a large 
 reinforcement of men, was promised as soon as the next 
 river steamer could be dispatched ; but this cargo never 
 reached him. " The spirit of his orders," according to his 
 friend, Lieutenant J. R. Werner, " was that he was to afford 
 protection to the natives, to do all in his power to prevent 
 raids and put down the slave trade, and to keep on good 
 terms with the Arabs."* These incompatible and imprac- 
 ticable conditions appear to have been as far as possible 
 complied with ; but about the middle of July an event 
 occurred which forced on a crisis. Tipu-Tipu having gone 
 back to Zanzibar and left his brother-in-law and partner, 
 Bwana Nzige, and that partner's son, Rashid, to complete 
 the business connected with their raid, a woman entered 
 Mr. Deane's camp one day, seeking his protection on the 
 ground that she was the daughter of a chief near Kasongo, 
 Tipu's headquarters, and that Tipu had given her to one of 
 his headmen, who cruelly flogged her. She was taken back 
 to the Arab camp, but on her returning, half-murdered by 
 her Arab master, Mr. Deane gave her asylum and, when 
 Bwana Nzige and Rashid came to claim her, offered to pay 
 for her ransom, but refused to restore her. He was 
 threatened during the next few days, but not attacked 
 until after the expected river steamer had arrived, bringing 
 one Belgian officer, Lieutenant Dubois, but none of the 
 promised and sorely needed fighting material. Thereupon 
 the news of his disappointment gave courage to his enemies. 
 
 * Werner, 'A Visit to Stanley's Rear Guard ' (1890), p. 94. The story of 
 " the loss of Stanley Falls " is fully told both in this volume (pp. 87-127) and 
 in Mr. Herbert Ward's 'Five Years with the Congo Cannibals' (1890), 
 pp. 196-216.
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 87 
 
 A large party of Manyema, having crossed from the main- 
 land in the night, stormed the station in the morning. 
 They were kept at bay for three days, but on the fourth, 
 the ammunition being nearly exhausted and seven Hausas 
 having been killed, the Bangala auxiliaries deserted in 
 canoes promising to inform the authorities on their way, 
 down the river as to the state of affairs. On the fifth day 
 26th August, they were followed by all but five of the 
 remaining Hausas, and in the evening Deane and Dubois 
 decided that their only chance of saving their own lives and 
 those of their five faithful companions, one being an Aru- 
 wimi native, lay in setting fire to the station and taking 
 shelter in the woods till relief, if sent to them, could arrive. 
 This was done by all but Dubois, who slipped from a rock 
 and was drowned in attempting to cross over to the main- 
 land. The others wandered about and concealed them- 
 selves for thirty days, until Captain Coquilhat came to 
 their rescue. In November Mr. Herbert Ward met Deane 
 near Leopoldville, after he had regained strength enough to 
 travel homeward. "If the Governor will give me two hun- 
 dred men," Deane said, " I '11 go up again now, weak as I 
 am, and rescue the station and drive the Arabs back to 
 Nyangwe." That did not happen. Deane, broken in 
 health, died in the following year, and Stanley Falls 
 remained in the Arabs' hands until June, 1888. 
 
 When the news of this catastrophe reached Europe in 
 
 the summer of 1886 preparations 
 
 , r 1 -E- The Emin Pasha 
 
 were being made for supplying Emm _, ,. . _ 
 
 . , ... *^ 3 . s Relief Expedition. 
 
 r asha with the help he sorely needed 
 
 for the preservation of his Equatorial Province, which 
 touched the north-eastern corner of Congoland, and which, 
 in the opinion of most experts, was much easier of access 
 from the eastern than from the western side of Africa. 
 Arrangements were in progress for " a peaceful relief 
 expedition," at a cost of about 21, 500, of which ;io,ooo 
 was to be provided by the Egyptian Government, to be 
 sent to Wadelai by way either of Masailand or of Uganda,
 
 88 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 and the late Mr. Joseph Thompson was talked of as its 
 chief. But in November Mr. Stanley offered himself, and 
 was selected, for the post. " There is only one route which 
 is safely open for the money, and that is the Congo," he 
 wrote. " By this route Emin can be reached safely by the 
 middle of June, 1887." Very unwillingly the Emin Relief 
 Committee agreed to the proposed change on its being 
 informed, early in January, that King Leopold, whose 
 salaried officer Mr. Stanley still was, objected to his taking 
 any other route, but was ready, if the Congo was chosen, 
 " to gratuitously place at the disposal of the expedition the 
 whole of the State's naval stock, as far as the working of its 
 own administration would allow." " The Congo State has 
 nothing to gain by the expedition for the relief of Emin 
 Pasha passing through its territory," King Leopold's agent 
 wrote on /th January* ; but there can be no doubt that the 
 passage of the expedition through the State's territory was 
 insisted upon, and its intention cruelly perverted, on account 
 of the advantages it was expected to bring to the State in 
 the difficulties then pressing upon it and notably revealed 
 by the Stanley Falls disaster. 
 
 On I4th January, 1887, a week before starting for 
 
 Zanzibar, where he had to procure 
 Mr. Stanley and . , T ~. , ., . ., 
 
 _. _. carriers, Mr. Stanley paid a visit to 
 
 his employer. " While at Brussels," 
 
 he wrote, " I was consulted by the King of the Belgians 
 respecting Tipu-Tipu and his designs on the Congo State. 
 I advised that he should be employed as an agent of the 
 Congo State, it being a far cheaper and far more humane 
 method to disarm his hostility than the costly method of 
 force, and I was entrusted with the mission to negotiate 
 with him," with a view to his being "enlisted as the salaried 
 governor of the Stanley Falls region, whose duty it would 
 be to arrest the advance of the Arabs down the Congo, and 
 to save its rich and populous banks from the devastation 
 which had already commenced below the Falls." In 
 
 * ' In Darkest Africa ' (1890), Vol. I., pp. 32, 43, 45.
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 89 
 
 accordance with this preposterous proposal Mr. Stanley 
 made an agreement with Tipu, whom he met at Zanzibar 
 on 23rd February, by which the great slave-raider and 
 empire-maker was appointed "Wali of the Independent 
 State of the Congo at Stanley Falls district, at a salary of 
 ^"30 a month." The principal conditions were that "Tipu- 
 Tipu is to hoist the flag of the Congo State at its station 
 near Stanley Falls, to maintain the authority of the State 
 on the Congo and all its affluents from the said station 
 downwards to the Aruwimi river, and to prevent the tribes 
 thereon, as well Arab as others, from engaging in the slave- 
 trade," and that " Tipu-Tipu is to be at full liberty to carry 
 on his legitimate private trade in any direction, and to send 
 his caravans to and from any places he may desire."* 
 
 Tipu-Tipu was at this time paying one of his periodical 
 visits to Zanzibar, there to dispose of the slaves and ivory 
 he had procured in the interior, and among the marketable 
 goods and chattels were three Krupp shells which six 
 months before Mr. Deane had used in his efforts to hold 
 Stanley Falls station. The shells, according to Mr. Stanley, 
 Tipu kept to exhibit to his friends as "the kind of missiles 
 which the Belgians pelted his settlements with." " He was 
 exceedingly wroth," Mr. Stanley reported, " and nourished 
 a deep scheme of retaliation. It took me some time to 
 quiet his spasms of resentment. When he had poured out 
 his indignation some time I told him in a bland way that 
 I knew well how great and powerful a man he was, &c., 
 and that it was scarcely fair to blame all the Europeans 
 and King Leopold because an officer at Stanley Falls had 
 been pleased to heave Krupp shells at his settlements, that 
 this trouble had been caused by the excess of zeal of one 
 man in defending a slave-woman who had sought his 
 protection, in the same way that Rashid, his nephew, had 
 been carried away by the fury of youth to defend his 
 rights." f Thus conciliated, Tipu-Tipu not only accepted an 
 
 * ' Parliamentary Papers,' C 5,906, p. 4, and C. S,6oi, p. 23. 
 t ' In Darkest Africa/ Vol. I., p. 64.
 
 90 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 appointment very helpful to him in his schemes of 
 conquest, but also promised to supply from Stanley Falls 
 600 carriers, in addition to the 605 Zanzibaris whom 
 Mr. Stanley and his white assistants escorted, with 
 seventy - five Sudanese and Somali soldiers, and with 
 Tipu himself and nearly a hundred of his wives and 
 other attendants, as passengers from Zanzibar to the 
 Congo. 
 
 The carriers were not needed solely to take relief to 
 Emin Pasha. It was known that Emin had accumulated 
 large stores of ivory, to which the Egyptian Government, 
 as Emin's employer, had the first claim, but of which it 
 had been arranged that a fair proportion, if it was secured, 
 should go towards the expenses of the expedition. " Why 
 not attempt the carriage of the ivory to the Congo ? " 
 asked Mr. Stanley, who estimated its value at ;6o,ooo. 
 " Accordingly I engaged Tipu and his people to assist me 
 in conveying the ammunition to Emin, and on return to 
 carry this ivory. After a good deal of bargaining I entered 
 into a contract with him, by which he agreed to supply 
 600 carriers at >6 per loaded head. Thus, if each carrier 
 carries seventy pounds weight of ivory, one round trip will 
 bring to the fund 13,200 net at Stanley Falls."* 
 
 The story of the eventful and lamentable Emin Pasha 
 Relief Expedition, as it was called, concerns us only so far 
 as it had to do with Congo affairs, though the whole 
 business was in grim and ghastly violation of the humane 
 principles by which it professed to be guided and which it 
 made a pretence of serving. 
 
 The Sudanese soldiers for some time placed under the 
 
 control of Major E. M. Barttelot, who, 
 
 with Captain R. H. Nelson, Lieutenant 
 
 W. G. Stairs, Mr. J. S. Jameson, Mr. 
 
 Mountenay Jephson, Dr. T. H. Parke, Mr. Rose Troup, 
 
 * ' In Darkest Africa,' Vol. }!., p. 69. It was openly stated without 
 contradiction that the 6 per head was to be paid wholly or in part in the 
 form of gunpowder.
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 91 
 
 Mr. Herbert Ward, and Mr. William Bonny, accompanied 
 Mr. Stanley from England or met him on the way were, 
 according to Major Barttelot's report, " a most lawless and 
 undisciplined lot," so bad that Major Chermside, who 
 recruited them in Egypt, " must have picked out the 
 biggest scoundrels he could find."* Some of the Zanzi- 
 baris had served under Mr. Stanley in one or more of his 
 previous expeditions, but, as he admitted, "only about 150 
 were free men, all the remainder being either slaves or con- 
 victs " ; and they very soon proved themselves to be a 
 most unmanageable gang of slaves. Two hours after the 
 vessel's departure from Zanzibar, " what is called a shindy 
 took place between the Zanzibaris and the Sudanese," and 
 " it required a mixture of persuasiveness and sharp knocks 
 to reduce the fractious factions to order " ; Mr. Jephson 
 and Captain Nelson in particular, as well as Mr. Stanley, 
 handling their shillelaghs " most gallantly." " The result of 
 the scrimmage was ten broken arms, fifteen serious gashes 
 with spears on face and head, and contusions on shoulders 
 and backs not worth remark."f "The work we are doing," 
 Mr. Jameson wrote five weeks afterwards in his diary, when 
 the motley company had reached Banana and was plod- 
 ding along the northern bank of the Congo, " is not fit for 
 any white man, and ought to be given to slave-drivers. It 
 is all very nice for Mr. Stanley, who rides ahead straight 
 on to the next camp, where we arrive hours afterwards, 
 having done nothing all day but kick lazy carriers and put 
 the loads on the heads of those who fling them down." 
 And five days later, " The work was truly sickening. At 
 every twenty yards one had to stop to put a load on a 
 man's head who had flung it down, and very likely give 
 him a dose of stick before he would go on."| " I felt like 
 a brute, flogging the men to get them on," Major Barttelot 
 
 * Major Barttelot's 'Diaries and Letters' (1890), pp. 55, 56. 
 t ' In Darkest Africa,' Vol. I., pp. 72, 93. 
 
 'Story of the Rear Column,' edited by Mrs. J. S. Jameson (1890), 
 pp. 14, 17.
 
 92 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 wrote on the same day; and four months afterwards he 
 said in a letter to his sister, " I did not hit anybody on the 
 march for a long time, but I found that Stanley did, right 
 and left, and that it really was the only plan to get these 
 Zanzibaris on. Stanley expected us to hit the men, though 
 he always took their part when they complained. We have 
 been nothing but slave-drivers since we started, and the 
 trouble I have had to get the Sudanese along was some- 
 thing dreadful."* 
 
 On arriving at the mouth of the Congo Mr. Stanley 
 
 had found that the transport assist- 
 Mr. Stanley's March . , , , , ~ c . 
 
 ance promised by the Congo State 
 to Leopoldville. J r 
 
 authorities was not forthcoming, and 
 
 he had to get on as best he could with such help as he 
 was able to obtain from traders and missionaries. The 
 tramp of 235 miles from Matadi to Leopoldville lasted 
 from 2 ist March to 22nd April, and after he had been a 
 fortnight on the road Mr. Stanley deemed it expedient, 
 instead of marching in advance with his bodyguard and 
 leaving his subordinates to do all the kicking and flogging, 
 to take into his own hands the management of his slave 
 caravan. " On reaching Mwamba, the 6th April," he 
 wrote, " I was particularly struck with the increase of 
 demoralisation in the caravan. So far, in order not to 
 press the people, I had been very quiet, entrusting the 
 labour of bringing up the stragglers to the younger men, 
 that they might become experienced in the troubles which 
 beset expeditions in Africa. But the necessity of enforcing 
 discipline was particularly demonstrated on this march. 
 The Zanzibaris had no sooner pitched the tents of their 
 respective officers than they rushed like madmen among 
 the neighbouring villages and commenced to loot native 
 property, in doing which one was shot dead by a plucky 
 native. This fatal incident is one of those signal proofs that 
 discipline is better than constant forbearance." f How 
 he " enforced discipline " we learn from the next day's 
 
 * 'Diaries and Letters,' pp. 79, 121. t ' In Darkest Africa,' Vol. I., p. 84.
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 93 
 
 records of two of the young men whom he was making 
 accustomed to " the troubles which beset expeditions in 
 Africa." "Stanley, as rear-guard, got on Ai," wrote 
 Major Barttelot, "he flogged loafers, and they all kicked 
 amazingly." * " Marched to Vombo," Mr. Jameson noted ; 
 " quite the quickest march we have done, owing to a good 
 hard road, and Mr. Stanley doing rear-guard with some 
 of his Somalis himself. How he did lay his stick about 
 the lazy ones ! And the Somalis whacked away too. It 
 was a sight for sore eyes to see the lame, the sick, the 
 halt and the blind running with their loads as if they were 
 feathers ; and I was delighted to see some of my men 
 catch it hot, after I had been told by Mr. Stanley himself 
 not to strike them." f " There is nothing more agreeable," 
 was Mr. Stanley's own comment on this day's quick 
 marching, " than the feeling one possesses after a good 
 journey briskly accomplished. An unreflecting spectator, 
 hovering near our line of march, might think we were 
 unnecessarily cruel ; but the application of a few cuts to 
 the confirmed stragglers secures eighteen hours' rest to 
 about 800 people and their officers, saves the goods from 
 being robbed for frequently these dawdlers lay purposely 
 behind for such intentions and the day ends happily for 
 all, and the morrow's journey has no horrors for us." J 
 
 Some " unreflecting spectators " from a distance may find 
 it difficult to regard with Mr. Stanley's complacency the 
 picture drawn by himself of his march to Stanley Pool, 
 with stick in hand, driving forward his straggling crowd of 
 carriers and soldiers, securing by the ordinary slave-driver's 
 devices a " happy ending " for each day, and seeing " no 
 horror" in the repetition of these devices during each 
 " morrow's journey." 
 
 When he arrived at Leopoldville Mr. Stanley ascer- 
 tained that, besides sixty-three of his party who had 
 deserted or, too ill to carry their loads even under the 
 
 * ' Diaries and Letters,' p. 80. t ' Story of the Rear Column,' p. 18, 
 $ ' In Darkest Africa,' Vol. I., p. 84.
 
 94 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 influence of the stick, had been left to die on the way, " about 
 
 a hundred men were useless as soldiers 
 Misrule at , , , . .. ., ~ ., . 
 
 or carriers, and that the Zanzibans 
 Leopoldville. 
 
 were observed to be weakening 
 
 rapidly," through having been " compelled to live on 
 stinted rations lately, and their habit of indulging in raw 
 manioc." As the rice doled out to them was insufficient) 
 and the country traversed from which most of the natives 
 fled at their^approach was too barren and desolate for 
 much other food to be obtainable either by purchase or 
 by theft, the poor wretches scarcely deserved blame for 
 " plucking up the poisonous manioc tubers and making 
 themselves wretchedly sick."* 
 
 At Leopoldville Mr. Stanley expected to find the Congo 
 State steamers in readiness to transport the whole expe- 
 dition along the Upper Congo to the outlet of the Aruwimi, 
 a distance of nearly 1,000 miles. In this he was disap- 
 pointed, as only one State steamer, the Stanley y was avail- 
 able ; and his excuse for seizing the two missionary vessels 
 which he did find was, as he pleaded, that " our necessities 
 were so urgent, and immediate departure from the famine- 
 stricken region was imperative if we were to be freed from 
 the scandal of seeing these armed men, maddened by 
 hunger, helping themselves."! The cause of the scarcity 
 of food is explained by Mr. Troup, who had old acquaint- 
 ance with the neighbourhood, and who arrived a few days 
 after Mr. Stanley with a large quantity of food brought up 
 by native carriers. " When I was at Leopoldville in 1884," 
 he said, " we could get as much chiquanga as we wanted. 
 We had a regular fixed price for it. The native women of 
 the neighbouring villages used to make this staple article 
 of food from the manioc plant or cassava root, and often 
 we have been obliged to refuse the too plentiful supply 
 offered. This plenty was due largely to the protection 
 that had been extended to the natives hereabouts ; but 
 
 * ' In Darkest Africa,' Vol. I., p. 84. 
 + Parliamentary Papers, C. 5,906, p. 5.
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 95 
 
 during the time of the transport of the sections of a 
 steamer, which necessitated the encampments of large 
 bodies of Zanzibaris at different points on the caravan 
 route, these had, owing to a lack of strict surveillance on 
 the part of the officers in charge, obtained their food by 
 ill-treating the natives. Consequently now the villages on 
 this route were all deserted, the inhabitants having gone 
 further back in the bush."* 
 
 Leaving Mr. Troup to await the return of the Stanley, 
 and then to bring on in it the bulk of 
 
 the stores he had in his charge, and 
 
 to Yambuya. 
 also the men for whom there was not 
 
 room on the first journey, Mr. Stanley started on 1st May 
 with about 500 of his own people and with Tipu-Tipu's 
 party. The voyage was in many ways troublesome, 
 especially as sufficient food could not be procured by 
 either stealing or buying it from the natives in the villages 
 on the river side, and Mr. Stanley had to drop some of his 
 men at the places that he thought likeliest to afford them 
 sustenance while he hurried on with a picked body to 
 prepare the way for the others when they could accompany 
 Mr. Troup's cargo of stores and the 600 carriers promised 
 by Tipu-Tipu. " We had started from England with the 
 cry of urgency in our ears and memories," he wrote, " and 
 it behoved us to speed on as well as circumstances would 
 permit in obedience to necessity, trusting that the rear 
 column would be able to follow on our tracks some six or 
 seven weeks later." At Bolobo, on I5th May, he left under 
 the care of Messrs. Ward and Bonny 125 men, "who 
 appeared weakest in body, to fatten up on the bananas 
 and excellent native bread and fish that were easily pro- 
 curable." At Bangala, Jon 3<Dth May, he told off Major 
 Barttelot and a detachment of forty Sudanese to escort 
 Tipu-Tipu to Stanley Falls without delay. Travelling 
 himself less rapidly, and quitting the Congo at the junction 
 with it of the Aruwimi, he steamed up that tributary till 
 
 * J. Rose Troup, ' With Stanley's Rear Column ' (1890), p. 85.
 
 96 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 he reached Yambuya on 1 5th June. There, a week later, 
 he was rejoined by Major Barttelot, whom, on 28th June, 
 he left with Mr. Jameson, in charge of 127 Zanzibaris and 
 Sudanese, with orders to await not only the arrival of the 
 contingents resting at Leopoldville and Bolobo, 131 men 
 in all, but also his own return, which he expected would 
 be some four or five months later.* 
 
 On his way to Stanley Falls Major Barttelot had had a 
 
 foretaste of the*troubles that weighed 
 Tipu-Tipu and his ,. , 1 ., 
 
 _ him down during the next twelve 
 
 Followers. ... , 
 
 months. Halting at the village of 
 
 Mbunga on loth June, in order that Tipu-Tipu might 
 trade with the inhabitants after " peace brotherhood " had 
 been made with their chief, Major Barttelot reported, " All 
 went well for an hour and they were buying away. I was 
 on shore, walking by myself, unarmed, towards the southern 
 end of the village I had already been to the other end- 
 when suddenly I heard loud vociferations in front of me, 
 and voices raised as in anger. I hurried on to see, but 
 before I got there about twenty of Tipu's men rushed 
 past me, and two were wounded. I then met three of the 
 Sudanese, who forced me to come back. All this while 
 the natives were passing us by dozens, all shouting and 
 flourishing their spears and knives. They never offered to 
 touch me, though unarmed ; in fact, they ran into the long 
 crags on either side of the road to avoid me. About 200 
 yards from the ship I found one of Tipu's men lying in the 
 road, stabbed in the back by a spear. We carried him on 
 board, when I found Tipu had six men and one woman 
 wounded, and a Zanzibari of the ship's crew. I fell my 
 men in and went to the northern end of the village to look 
 for the natives, Tipu going to the southern ; but they had 
 all disappeared into the bush. So we burnt the southern 
 and central part of the village." " About four p.m.," the 
 narrative continues, " we passed another village, where they 
 were assembling, and Tipu-Tipu wished me to put in, but 
 
 * ' In Darkest Africa,' Vol. I., pp. 103-31.
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 97 
 
 I would not. He ordered my men to fire, but, as Stanley 
 had told me on no account to have unnecessary rows with 
 the villagers, I ordered them not to fire. This caused an 
 estrangement between Tipu-Tipu and myself, who said, as 
 I had refused to aid him, he would do nothing more for the 
 expedition. I explained to him how matters were, and 
 that we had already punished one village, that I could not 
 disobey Mr. Stanley's orders, and that my men could only 
 take orders from me. He agreed to this, but was still 
 angry with Stanley, and said he should refer it to him."* 
 
 Meanwhile, on his way up the Congo and the Aruwimi 
 to Yambuya, Mr. Stanley had been doing some trading 
 and grumbling with the natives on his own account. A 
 few of the villagers were hospitable. Others resented his 
 approach and not without reason, as the Stanley was well 
 known to them as a bearer of white men and Zanzibaris, 
 nearly as ready as were Tipu-Tipu and the Arabs to 
 attack them and burn their homesteads. "They are any- 
 thing but friendly," Mr. Jameson wrote on nth June; "at 
 nearly every village they yelled and shouted at us, shaking 
 their spears and shields, and making signs of cutting our 
 throats, heaping all sorts of insults upon us. It is a bad 
 look-out for our chances of trading for food at the 
 entrenched camp." On I4th June, however, some natives 
 timidly consented to have dealings with the intruders. 
 "Just before we started," Mr. Jameson noted, "some of 
 Mr. Stanley's company set fire to the huts a most uncalled- 
 for piece of devilment, and a thing to be regretted, as it 
 is more likely to set the natives against us than any thing." f 
 
 Such were the conditions under which Mr. Stanley 
 
 captured Yambuya, on the south side 
 
 c ru A vu 4-u * 4.- r The Capture of 
 of the Aruwimi, with the intention of 
 
 r . . Yambuya. 
 
 establishing there a camp for his rear 
 
 column. He had visited this place in 1883, and had then, 
 as he reported, " attempted to conciliate the natives, with- 
 
 * ' Diaries and Letters,' p. 104. 
 
 t ' Story of the Rear Column,' pp. 64-7. 
 
 H
 
 98 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 out any permanent result." He now resolved to occupy it, 
 " if not with the natives' goodwill, by fair purchase of the 
 privilege, then by force."* The natives, he admitted, pro- 
 tested against his landing. " Camp on the opposite side if 
 you will," they said, according to his account ; " we will 
 bring you whatever we have to sell ; but, if we permit you 
 to land here, our village will become the common resort of 
 the Arab slavers." To this reasonable plea he paid no 
 attention. " We argued that if we were with them they 
 need have no fear of marauders; but we wasted our breath. 
 We had been nearly two hours at this work of negotiating, 
 and the natives, being addicted to palavers, would not have 
 minded very much had the palavers lasted a week. We 
 therefore signalled to the Stanley to appear with the troops. 
 At a second signal both steamers set up a hideous steam- 
 whistling, under the protection of which the troops dis- 
 embarked, and in a few seconds we were in possession of 
 an empty village. There was no occasion to fire a shot, 
 for the natives had disappeared as completely as the 
 vapour of the steam-whistling had dissolved."! When the 
 invaders landed on the morning of i6th June, according to 
 Mr. Jameson, " not a native was to be seen, and the whole 
 village was occupied in perfect peace." " We put up our 
 tents," he added, " and destroyed the huts which were not 
 required for our men."} 
 
 The natives having established themselves on the other 
 side of the river, Mr. Stanley endeavoured to open up trade 
 with them, and with others in the neighbourhood, on what 
 he considered to be generous terms. " Several captures were 
 made in the woods," he stated, " and, after being shown 
 everything, the natives were supplied with handfuls of beads, 
 to convey the assurance that no fear ought to be enter- 
 tained of us and no harm would be done to them." Major 
 
 * ' In Darkest Africa,' Vol. I. , p. 109. 
 
 \ A letter to Sir William Mackinnon quoted by Mr, Troup in 'With 
 Stanley's Rear Column,' p. 136. 
 
 J ' Story of the Rear Column,' p. 65. 
 ' In Darkest Africa,' Vol. I., p. 112,
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 99 
 
 Barttelot having arrived from Stanley Falls on 22nd June, 
 and it having been finally decided that he should remain 
 at Yambuya until he could follow with the rear column 
 and Tipu-Tipu's 600 carriers, " blood-brotherhood " was 
 made between him and the native chief on the 26th. " Let 
 us hope that it will induce them to bring us something to 
 eat," was Mr. Jameson's comment. " Here are Major 
 Barttelot and myself left absolutely without one atom of 
 meat, tinned or fresh, for several months, and no visible 
 means of obtaining any, for the natives have brought in 
 nothing, and have removed everything from all the villages 
 within reach of this camp."* 
 
 The expected four or five months extended to fourteen 
 before Mr. Stanley returned to find 
 
 that both Major Barttelot and Mr. ~ S 
 
 u j j i j r 4-u ec Column at Yambuya. 
 Jameson had died of their sufferings, 
 
 and that the surviving residue of their party, increased from 
 125 to 271 by the arrival of Mr. Troup and Mr. Ward on 
 I4th August, had dwindled down to, as he called them, 
 " 102 meagre, starved, and anaemic souls." Their and their 
 comrades' sufferings had been maddening and had actually 
 maddened some of them. Waiting in vain for the promised 
 carriers, without whom the enormous packages in their care 
 could not be removed, exposed to insult from the Arabs 
 with whom they occasionally came in contact, they were 
 from the first in desperate straits and driven to desperate 
 methods of trying to keep themselves alive. Deeming it 
 a necessity of self-preservation that in their search for food 
 they should oppress their native neighbours, and excusing 
 themselves on the same ground for the growing tyranny 
 with which they treated their Zanzibari and Sudanese 
 followers, the five Englishmen were at the mercy of Tipu- 
 Tipu and of his Arab and Manyema slave-raiders, settled 
 round Stanley Falls and prowling up to Yambuya itself. 
 " It must be remembered," said Mr. Troup, " that, had the 
 Arabs in anger taken matters into their own hands, they 
 
 * ' Story of the Rear Column,' pp. 75, 76.
 
 ioo CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 could have quickly made an end of our portion of the 
 expedition, either by starving us out or by an attack on 
 our not too strongly fortified and none too well garrisoned 
 camp."* 
 
 From Tipu himself, his nephew Rashid, and others, whom 
 they visited at intervals, Major Barttelot and his companions 
 received barbaric courtesies and repeated promises of the 
 carriers that had been bargained for, and eventually about 
 400 of these men arrived after terms more favourable than 
 Tipu-Tipu obtained from Mr. Stanley had been arranged 
 for at heavy personal expense to Major Barttelot and Mr. 
 Jameson. This arrival, however, was only a cause of further 
 trouble. " The greater part of their men," Mr. Troup 
 explained, speaking of Tipu's followers in general, " were 
 Manyema, natives of this vicinity, cannibals, untrained in 
 serving white men, and never accustomed to carry loads. 
 They are half-slaves, only having been subjugated com- 
 paratively recently by Tipu-Tipu's people. When they are 
 employed by the Arabs it is chiefly as fighting men, and it 
 is beneath their dignity to carry loads, such work being 
 relegated to their women and slaves. They are under the 
 control of Tipu-Tipu's sheikhs, who send them out in 
 marauding parties, under the leadership of an Arab, to 
 obtain ivory or other valuables. They will attack other 
 natives, loot their villages/ kill or make prisoners of whom 
 they please, doing all this in what manner they like. They 
 will be absent on such excursions for weeks or months, but 
 they are obliged after a time to return to the Arabs and 
 give up part of their loot. They are not accustomed to the 
 restraints imposed by white men, who require their 
 followers to march just so many miles a day, to be in 
 camp at a fixed hour, and to be subject to stringent rules."f 
 The Manyema sent to Major Barttelot's camp in the 
 earlier part of 1888, and the others carrying on their 
 vicious occupations outside, only added to the demoraliza- 
 tion of its inmates, and more trouble came when on 
 
 * 'With Stanley's Rear Column,' p. 176. t Ibid., p. 9.
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 101 
 
 nth June the camp was broken up for the march eastward 
 which was attempted on the arrival of the larger party, 
 with one Muni Somai as the chief appointed for them by 
 Tipu. 
 
 On that day a move was made, but five weeks were 
 wasted in covering ninety miles of ground. Desertions, 
 thefts, and acts of insubordination on the part of the 
 127 Zanzibaris were numberless, and the defiance of orders 
 by the 420 Manyema under Muni Somai's independent 
 control was constant. " Muni Somai told me to-day," Mr. 
 Jameson wrote on 22nd June, " that the Manyema were 
 not men but simply ' meat -like beasts'; for, said he, 
 ' How can they be men, and yet love to eat men as they 
 do ? If there were two goats and one man offered them 
 to choose from for food, they would take the man. All 
 they think of now is what a lot of natives they will eat 
 further on.' He added, ' The first lot of natives that they 
 fight, they will eat as many as they can, and when their 
 stomachs are full, they will then catch others to carry their 
 loads.'"* By one of these savages Major Barttelot was 
 shot to the heart and killed instantly on iQth July, when he 
 and some of his rabble had reached Banalya. Mr. Jameson, 
 who arrived three days later after trying to recover some 
 deserters, made futile efforts to obtain capable carriers 
 from Tipu-Tipu, but was stricken down by fever and, being 
 taken by boat to Bangala, died there on i6th August. It 
 was on the following day that Mr. Stanley arrived at 
 Banalya and heard of the disasters that had befallen the 
 comrades he had left at Yambuya nearly fourteen months 
 before. 
 
 His own experiences had been disastrous, though less 
 
 to himself than to those he took with 
 
 ,. , , , ,. Mr. Stanley's Excur- 
 
 him, and much less even to his . , 
 
 sion to Lake Albert 
 
 companions than to the natives, N 
 
 whom he harried and killed during 
 
 more than five months of dreary plodding through the 
 
 * 'Story of the Rear Column,' p. 319.
 
 102 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 forests between Yambuya and the neighbourhood of Lake 
 Albert Nyanza, where he had invited Emin Pasha to await 
 him. Having plunged into the forest with nearly 400 
 hungry followers, for whom food had to be procured in 
 some way, Mr. Stanley felt himself constrained to despoil 
 and persecute all the people he met with whenever they 
 would not or could not supply what he wanted in exchange 
 for the brass rods and beads he offered. He appears 
 to have at all times preferred purchasing to stealing, 
 provided he was free to buy on his own terms ; but any 
 resistance was promptly dealt with by the Remington and 
 Winchester rifles of his marauding host, or by the Maxim 
 gun which he had brought from England and never failed 
 to use on the smallest provocation. That the natives 
 should attempt to defend themselves, or in any way 
 retaliate, seemed to him, if not a monstrous crime, at any 
 rate the excess of folly. 
 
 His first day's conduct after leaving Yambuya is a 
 sufficient example of the proceedings customary during 
 the next five months, and, at intervals, the two years 
 following thereon. When he had journeyed only four miles 
 he saw a fleet of canoes on the Aruwimi, on the southern 
 bank of which his pioneers were cutting a path. " There 
 was much movement and stir," he reported, "owing, of 
 course, to the alarm that the Yambuyas had communicated 
 to their neighbours. The islands were being crowded with 
 the women and children of the Yankonde, whom as yet we 
 had not seen. About a hundred canoes formed in the 
 stream crowded with native warriors, and followed the 
 movements of the column, as it appeared and disappeared 
 in the light and into the shadows, jeering, mocking, and 
 teasing." The " alarm " was reasonable, as Mr. Stanley, a 
 fortnight before, had ruthlessly expelled the Yambuya 
 from their homes. But he considered it foolish and strange, 
 and when he had advanced further and found that some 300 
 natives were not only preparing to defend their village with 
 drawn bows in their hands, but had actually planted sharp
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 103 
 
 skewers on the road to it in order to hamper his approach, 
 he felt that he had indeed good cause to be indignant at 
 " the craft of these pure pagans," and to fiercely resent it. 
 " Forming two lines of twelve men across the road," 
 according to his narrative, " the first line was ordered to 
 pick out the skewers, the second line was ordered to cover 
 the workers with their weapons, and, at the first arrow 
 shown, to fire. A dozen scouts were sent on either flank 
 of the road to make their way into the village through the 
 woods. We had scarcely advanced twenty yards along 
 the cleared way before columns of smoke broke out of the 
 town, and a little cloud of arrows came towards us, but 
 falling short. A volley was returned, the skewers were 
 fast being picked out, and our advance was made until we 
 reached the village at the same time that the scouts rushed 
 out of the underwood, and, as all the pioneers were pushed 
 forward, the firing was pretty lively. Along the river the 
 firing was more deadly. Very many, I fear, paid the 
 penalty of the foolish challenge. The blame is undoubtedly 
 due to the Yambuya, who must have invented fables of the 
 most astounding character to cause their neighbours to 
 attempt stopping a force of nearly 400 rifles."* 
 
 Mr. Stanley's so-called Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, 
 
 in so far as its avowed object was 
 
 11- , Results of the Emin 
 
 concerned, only increased and ensured ..,, 
 
 . ' r . . . . Relief Expedition. 
 
 the mischiet its original proposers 
 
 desired to avert. Nor were the results of the uses to 
 which it was perverted other than disastrous, except to 
 the causers of the perversion and only in part even to them. 
 The wanderings to and fro of Mr. Stanley's marauding 
 host, in portions of what is now British East Africa as well 
 as in Northern Congoland, being on a larger scale and 
 more extensive and elaborate than anything previously 
 attempted by him or by rivals like Lieutenant von 
 Wissmann, established the system of wanton slaughtering 
 and village burning, of wholesale robbery and reckless 
 
 * ' In Darkest Africa,' Vol. I., pp. 136 8.
 
 104 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 persecution, which has been followed by the Congo State 
 for fifteen years. 
 
 The crowning folly or crime of the expedition, however, 
 was in the treatment accorded to Tipu-Tipu. The 
 bargains in accordance with which Tipu was formally 
 appointed Governor of Stanley Falls district under King 
 Leopold, and whereby he was enticed into promising 
 carriers for the conveyance of stores and ammunition to 
 Emin and deportation of his ivory, were none the less 
 pernicious because they were both broken. 
 
 Though Tipu was escorted to Stanley Falls along the 
 
 ,. whole length of the Lower and 
 
 Tipu-Tipu at Stanley ,,.,,, ~ b , ,, . . , 
 
 P .. Middle Congo, and thus introduced 
 
 to the vast expanse of territory and 
 the millions of natives waiting to be " exploited," and as 
 fair game to him and his " Arabs " as to the Congo State 
 and its hangers-on, he was neither backed up in his office 
 nor supplied with the ammunition he claimed in return 
 for his supply of so-called carriers who, so far as they were 
 provided, showed themselves to be nothing but slave- 
 raiders. " It should be remembered," Major Barttelot 
 wrote in March, 1888, "that Tipu is an officer of the State, 
 but that up to the present no notice has been taken of him 
 at all, and he feels justly aggrieved." * And Mr. Jameson, 
 reporting Tipu's complaints in a conversation he had 
 with him in the following May, said, " He has written 
 to the King of the Belgians, asking him to send two 
 officers and about thirty men to the Falls, not to 
 assist him in any fighting, but as visible authority 
 on behalf of the State during his own stay there, and 
 in case of his absence at any time. But ever since the 
 despatch of this letter, about a year ago, not a word 
 have they sent him to the Falls. Tipu-Tipu naturally 
 cannot understand this way of doing things, and looks 
 upon it as a decided slight upon himself." f As it chanced, 
 
 * ' Diaries and Letters,' p. 220. 
 
 t ' Story of the Rear Column,' p. 293.
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 105 
 
 of the two Belgian officers who had been deputed to attend 
 on Tipu one died on the way out and the other had to be 
 invalided home. Mr. Herbert Ward, having been sent 
 down by Major Barttelot to represent the state of the case, 
 met at Leopoldville in April Lieutenant Baert, who had 
 been designated for the work, but did not start on it till 
 June, and had some noteworthy talk with him. " During 
 a conversation with M. Baert upon the Arab situation 
 up in the country about the Falls," Mr. Ward reported, 
 " he said, ' Among us ' Belgian officers in the Congo Free 
 State and in Brussels 'it was pronounced very short- 
 sighted policy on Stanley's part appointing Tipu-Tipu to 
 be chief of the Falls. It was Stanley who brought the 
 Arabs to the Falls eleven years ago, and he is really the 
 cause of their being where they are to-day.' " * 
 
 Mr. Stanley's arrangement with Tipu, though sanctioned 
 by King Leopold, was evidently not approved by his sub- 
 ordinates on the Congo, who saw that the nominal enlist- 
 ment of Tipu in the service of the State was actually a 
 further recognition of his pretensions to complete and 
 uncontrolled authority. Hence, in part, the long delay in 
 sending up ostensible advisers to Tipu. When at length 
 Captains Van Gele and Van Kerckhoven arrived with 
 Lieutenant Baert they were not able to exert any real 
 influence.t Mr. Stanley, who at that time found no fault 
 with Tipu, though he had then heard of all that had hap- 
 pened to Major Barttelot and the rear-column, wrote a very 
 polite letter to him from Banalya on i/th August, mildly 
 suggesting that he might at length be inclined to co-operate 
 with the expedition. " And now, my friend, what are you 
 going to do ? " he asked, after describing his journeys across 
 the forest and back. " We have gone the road twice over. 
 We know where it is bad and where it is good. We know 
 
 * ' My Life with Stanley's Rear Guard,' p 119. 
 
 t M. Wauters (' L'^tat Independant du Congo,' p. 59) strangely asserts 
 that on 1 5th June, 1888, " la station des Falls etait pacifiquement reoccupee 
 par la force armee sous le commandement des capitains Van Gele et Van 
 Kerckhoven."
 
 io6 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 where there is plenty of food and where there is none, 
 where all the camps are, and where we shall sleep and rest. 
 I am waiting to hear your words. If you go with me, it is 
 well. If you do not go with me, it is well also. I leave it 
 to you. Whatever you have to say to me, my ears will be 
 open with a good heart, as it has always been towards 
 you."* 
 
 Ten months before he wrote that letter, however in 
 
 T,. October, 1887 in the north-eastern 
 
 The Manyema Slave- ' ' , ,, _ 
 
 R .. corner of Congoland, Mr. Stanley 
 
 had had fresh evidence of the mis- 
 chief done by some of the Manyema whom he was en- 
 couraging to extend their work near Stanley Falls. Here, 
 he said, " half a dozen resolute men, aided by their hun- 
 dreds of bandits, had divided about three-fourths of the 
 great Upper Congo forest" about 44,000 square miles 
 round Ipoto " for the sole purpose of murder and be- 
 coming heirs to a few hundred tusks of ivory." " They 
 had levelled into black ashes every settlement," he re- 
 ported ; " every canoe on the rivers had been split into 
 pieces ; every island had been searched ; and into the 
 darkest recesses, wherever a slight track could be traced, 
 they had penetrated with only one dominating passion, 
 which was to kill as many of the men and capture as 
 many of the women and children as craft and cruelty 
 would enable them to do." " So many parts of the profits," he 
 added, " are due to the great proprietor, such as Tipu-Tipu 
 or Said-bin-Abed ; a less number becomes the due of the 
 headman ; and the remainder becomes the property of the 
 bandits. At other times, large ivories, over 35 Ib. each, 
 become the property of the proprietor ; all over 20 Ib. to 
 35 Ib. belong to the headman ; scraps, pieces, and young 
 ivory are permitted to be kept by the lucky finders. 
 Hence every member of the caravan is inspired to do his 
 best/'t 
 
 * Quoted by Mr. Ward in ' My Life with Stanley's Rear Guard,' p. 139. 
 t 'In Darkest Africa,' Vol. I., pp. 226, 229.
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 107 
 
 " There is only one remedy for these wholesale devasta- 
 tions of African aborigines," Mr. 
 
 c . , r , Mr. Stanley on the 
 
 btanley from whom we may now ... -, . 
 
 ' , African Ivory Trade. 
 
 part company pointed out, "and 
 
 that is the solemn combination of England, Germany 
 France, Portugal, South and East Africa, and the Congo 
 State against the introduction of gunpowder into any part 
 of the continent, except for the use of their own agents, 
 soldiers and employe's, or seizing upon every tusk of ivory 
 brought out, as there is not a single piece nowadays which 
 has been gained lawfully. Every tusk, piece and scrap in 
 the possession of an Arab trader has been steeped and 
 dyed in blood. Every pound weight has cost the life of a 
 man, woman, or child ; for every five pounds a hut has 
 been burnt ; for every two tusks a whole village has been 
 destroyed ; every twenty tusks have been obtained at the 
 price of a district, with all its people, villages, and planta- 
 tions. It is simply incredible that, because ivory is re- 
 quired for ornaments or billiard games, the rich heart of 
 Africa should be laid waste, that populations, tribes and 
 nations should be utterly destroyed. Whom, after all 
 does this bloody seizure of ivory enrich ? Only a few 
 dozens of half-castes, Arab and Negro, who, if due justice 
 were dealt to them, should be made to sweat out the 
 remainder of their piratical lives in the severest penal 
 servitude."* 
 
 Whatever force there may be in that reproach applies 
 now, not to a few dozens of African half-castes, but to a 
 few dozen or a few hundred European officials and adven- 
 turers. 
 
 In the hope of deriving profit from the enormous territory 
 
 entrusted to the care of King Leopold 
 
 Other Early 
 
 by the European Powers to whom Expeditions. 
 Mr. Stanley appealed, and by others 
 
 as well, some of the officials and adventurers were busy 
 while Mr. Stanley was himself at work. Much was done 
 
 * 'In Darkest Africa,' Vol. I., p. 229.
 
 io8 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 in modest ways by Captain Van Gele and others in ex- 
 ploration of the Ubangi, Welle, and other rivers feeding 
 the Congo from the north and east, and camps for the 
 warding off of Arab intruders, if possible, were set up by 
 Lieutenant Dhanis at Basoko, near the mouth of the 
 Aruwimi, in February, 1889, and by Lieutenant Roget at 
 Djabir, on the Welle, in February, 1890. In the following 
 April, moreover, Lieutenant Paul le Marinel set up another, 
 for a like purpose, in the south, at Lusambo, on the 
 Sankuru. 
 
 These and kindred enterprises had for their avowed 
 
 object the setting up or strengthening 
 Commercial c \, c ,_ , 
 
 of the State s control over the tern- 
 Enterprises. 
 
 tones assigned to it, with intentions 
 
 still ostensibly strictly philanthropic and international. 
 Others had avowedly commercial advantages in view, 
 though under cover of compliance with the philanthropic 
 and international conditions of the State's existence. It 
 was in the interests of trading organisations, that a 
 decree of the Sovereign was issued on 2/th February, 
 1887, directing that all commercial societies should be 
 duly constituted within approved limitations, one being 
 that they should not own more than 10,000 hectares of 
 land, or about thirty-eight square miles, without special 
 authorisation.* Only two such societies appear to have 
 been previously started the Syndicat de Mateba, for 
 agricultural developments in the island of that name in 
 the Lower Congo, and the Sanford Exploring Expedition, 
 founded by General Sanford, for procuring ivory and 
 rubber from the interior ; and of these the first was 
 absorbed by the Compagnie des Produits du Congo, 
 founded in November, 1888, and the second by the 
 Societe" Anonyme Beige pour le Commerce du Haut-Congo, 
 founded in December, 1888. 
 
 More important was the Compagnie du Congo pour le 
 Commerce et 1'Industrie, which was started in March, 
 
 * 'Bulletin Official ' (1887), p. 23.
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. 109 
 
 1887, by Captain Thys and others, with a capital of 
 1,000,000 francs and a concession of 150,000 hectares, or 
 about 477 square miles, of land, to be chosen anywhere 
 in the basins of the Busira and the Momboyo, in the Bololo 
 country, now the Equateur district, on condition that it 
 should by the commencement of 1888 enter on the inquiries 
 necessary for the construction of a railway between the 
 Lower Congo and Stanley Pool.* The railway project was 
 so arduous and costly that it had to be taken over by the 
 Compagnie du Chemin de Fer, which was founded in July, 
 1889 ; but the preliminary researches for the railway were 
 undertaken by the Compagnie du Congo, as it was generally 
 styled, and on its behalf Captain Cambier inspected the 
 lines of route most feasible between Matadi and Leopold- 
 ville. To its initiative also were due M. Alexandre Del- 
 commune's studies as to the commercial opportunities of 
 the region between Bangala and the Kasai, and on towards 
 Katanga, which had for one of their results the formation 
 of the Compagnie du Katanga as another offshoot of the 
 Compagnie du Congo. Meanwhile the exigencies of its 
 earlier offshoot, the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer, of which 
 the initial capital was 25,000,000 francs, led to an applica- 
 tion from the Congo State Government to the Belgian 
 Government for a loan of 10,000,000 francs to be spent on 
 the railway ; and to secure the vote of the Belgian Parlia- 
 ment by which this loan was sanctioned King Leopold, on 
 2nd August, made a will bequeathing the Congo State to 
 the Belgian nation, and, on 5th August, supplemented it 
 by a letter to M. Beernaert, his Prime Minister at the time. 
 
 Both documents are remarkable. 
 
 " Wishing to assure to our well-beloved country the 
 
 fruits of the work which for many . 
 
 , . ., A f . King Leopold's Will 
 
 years we have pursued in the African 
 
 continent with the generous and 
 
 devoted concurrence of many Belgians," the will declared, 
 
 " convinced also that it will tend to secure for Belgium, if 
 
 * Bulletin Official/ pp. 55, 61.
 
 1 10 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 she wishes, indispensable outlets for her commerce and her 
 industry, and open new channels for the activity of her 
 children, we declare by these presents that we bequeath 
 and transmit to Belgium after our death all our sovereign 
 rights over the Congo Free State which have been recog- 
 nised by the declarations, conventions and treaties entered 
 into since 1884 between foreign Powers on the one part 
 and the Congo International Association and the Congo 
 Free State on the other, together with all benefits, rights 
 and advantages appertaining to that sovereignty. Until 
 the Belgian Legislature announces its acceptance of our 
 aforesaid dispositions the sovereignty will be exercised 
 collectively by the Council of three Administrators of the 
 Congo Free State and by the Governor-General."* 
 
 " I have never ceased from calling the attention of my 
 compatriots to the necessity of turning their attention to 
 countries beyond the sea," the King wrote to M. Beernaert, 
 and, after referring to the examples of Greece and Venice 
 in the past and of Holland in the present, he added, " It 
 is in serving the cause of humanity and progress that 
 communities of the second rank show themselves useful 
 members of the great family of nations. More than any 
 other, a maufacturing and trading nation like ours should 
 strive to obtain outlets for the energy of all its toilers with 
 mind, with money, or with hands. These patriotic views 
 have guided my life. They have led to the creation of my 
 African work. My labours have not been wasted ; a 
 young and spacious State, directed from Brussels, has 
 pacifically appeared in the sunshine, thanks to the 
 benevolent support of the Powers that have welcomed its 
 appearance. Some Belgians administer it, whilst others, 
 each day more numerous, there increase their wealth. The 
 vast ramifications of the Upper Congo open rapid and 
 economic channels of communication by which the centre 
 of Africa can be directly reached. The construction of the 
 Cataracts railway, henceforth assured, thanks to the recent 
 * Wauters, ' L'tat Independant du Congo,' p. 96.
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND ENTERPRISES, in 
 
 vote of the Legislature, will notably increase the facilities 
 of access. In these conditions a great future is before the 
 Congo, the immense value of which will presently dazzle 
 every eye. On the morrow of this achievement I have 
 thought it my duty to place Belgium in a position, when 
 death strikes me, to profit by my work and by the labour of 
 those who have helped me in starting and guiding it." 
 Hence this solemn testament. "The wealth of a Sovereign," 
 King Leopold said in conclusion, " consists in the 
 prosperity of his people. That alone can constitute in his 
 eyes a treasure to be desired, and one that he should 
 ever strive to augment. To the day of my death I shall 
 continue, with the same regard for the national welfare 
 which has prompted me hitherto, to direct and uphold our 
 African enterprise ; but if, without waiting till then, the 
 country deems it well to tighten the bonds between it 
 and my Congo possessions, I shall not hesitate to place 
 them at its disposal. I shall be happy, while living, to see 
 it in full enjoyment of them."* 
 
 * Wauters, 'L'6tat Independant du Congo,' p. 98.
 
 H2 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE BRUSSELS CONFERENCE [1889-1890]. 
 
 CARDINAL LAVIGERIE, the Archbishop of Algiers, who 
 
 had started the Mission of the White 
 Cardinal Lavigerie's ^ ^. .^, . . - 
 
 w . Fathers in 1878, with a rescript from 
 
 Pope Leo XIII. enjoining them to 
 
 convert the Sudan and all Congoland to Christianity, and 
 who had laboured zealously to that end for ten years, 
 especially in opposition to Protestant efforts in the same 
 or a rival direction, was the chief apostle in the anti-slavery 
 crusade which, also sanctioned by Leo XI II., was started 
 early in 1888, with the eager encouragement of King Leo- 
 pold. It was in the Cathedral of Brussels that he opened 
 the campaign of fiery eloquence which he carried on in 
 many parts of Europe. On that occasion he reproached 
 " the Catholics of Belgium " for their listlessness. " Your 
 King," he exclaimed, " would open before you a country 
 sixty times as large as your own, an immense field for 
 proselytising and charity! You have not given to the 
 diffusion of Christian truth, to the struggle with barbarism, 
 the assistance that was incumbent on you." 
 
 To this crusade is largely due the International Con- 
 ference held in Brussels in the fol- 
 The Brussels Conference , . ,.1. i *. j- 
 
 lowing years, though its more direct 
 
 incentive was a letter, dated i/th 
 
 September, 1888, addressed by the Marquis of Salisbury to 
 Lord Vivian, the British Minister at the Belgian Court, 
 suggesting that King Leopold should take the initiative 
 in inviting all the civilised Powers to concert measures for 
 " the gradual suppression of the slave-trade in the continent 
 of Africa, and the immediate closing of all the external 
 markets which it still supplies." As a result of the proposal, 
 and of prolonged correspondence on it, King Leopold, on
 
 THE BRUSSELS CONFERENCE. 113 
 
 24th August, 1889, issued invitations for the Conference 
 which met in Brussels, under the presidency of Baron 
 Lambermont, on i8th November, and which held the 
 last of its thirty-three sittings on 2nd July, 1890. All the 
 Powers taking part in the Berlin Conference of 1884-5 
 were here represented, with the addition of Persia ; and, 
 as was inevitable, the shares of the Belgian and Congo 
 State Governments in the deliberations were considerable. 
 
 Claiming, as at Berlin, to speak "in the name of 
 Almighty God," the signatories to the General Act of 
 this Conference declared themselves to be "equally ani- 
 mated by the firm intention of putting an end to the 
 crimes and devastations engendered by the traffic in 
 African slaves, of protecting effectually the aboriginal 
 populations of Africa, and of insuring for that vast con- 
 tinent the benefits of peace and civilisation." Most of the 
 hundred articles drawn up in accordance with that ex- 
 pressed intention were admirable, and, had adequate pro- 
 vision for their enforcement been possible, the work of the 
 Conference would have been of very great value. Un- 
 happily many of the stipulations have been shamelessly 
 neglected, and others have served as excuses and oppor- 
 tunities for fresh wrong-doing. 
 
 The second article, recognising that it is the principal 
 
 duty of Powers having control over 
 
 . .,. i , Its Antl- Slavery 
 
 uncivilised races to prevent slave- _ 
 
 ... ., , - Provisions. 
 
 raiding, prescribed for them the fol- 
 lowing among other subsidiary duties : " To support and, 
 if necessary, to serve as a refuge for the native populations ; 
 to place those under their sovereignty in a position to 
 co-operate for their own defence ; to diminish intertribal 
 wars by means" of arbitration ; to initiate the natives in 
 agricultural pursuits and industrial arts, so as to increase 
 their welfare ; to raise them by civilisation and bring about 
 the extinction of barbarous customs, such as cannibalism 
 and human sacrifices ; and, in giving aid to commercial 
 enterprises, to watch over their legality, controlling espe- 
 
 I
 
 1 14 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 cially the contracts for service entered into with natives." 
 The eighth article, declaring that "the experience of all 
 nations who have intercourse with Africa has shown the 
 pernicious and preponderating part played by firearms in 
 slave trade operations as well as in intertribal wars, and 
 has clearly proved that the preservation of the African 
 populations is a radical impossibility unless restrictive 
 measures against the trade in firearms and ammunition are 
 established," stipulated that, in all parts of Africa between 
 the 2Oth parallel of north latitude and the 22nd parallel of 
 south latitude, the importation of " firearms and especially 
 of rifles and improved weapons, as well as of powder, balls 
 and cartridges," should be carefully restricted and as far as 
 possible prohibited. And in later articles arrangements 
 were made for the carrying out of this prescription in 
 detail and for what were considered necessary exceptions 
 to it, the main exceptions being, of course, " the measures 
 directly taken by Governments for the arming of a force 
 publique and the organization of their defence." The per- 
 version of these regulations, where they have not been 
 ignored, has gone far to counteract, if it has not heavily 
 overbalanced, the benefits resulting from the articles dealing 
 with the actual slave trade, the supply of European liquor 
 to natives, and so forth. 
 
 The most important part of the Brussels General Act, 
 however, was not any one of its 
 
 hundred articles, but a supplementary 
 Declaration. 
 
 Declaration introduced to the Con- 
 ference on roth May, 1890, at its thirteenth sitting, which 
 was the chief subject of discussion during the subsequent 
 sittings necessitated by it, and to which so much opposition 
 was offered, especially by the Netherlands Government, 
 that it was not signed till 2nd January, 1892, and that 
 there was thus nearly two years' delay in the ratification of 
 the Act. "Taking into consideration that the execution 
 of the provisions adopted to put an end to the slave traffic, 
 and to improve the moral and material conditions of
 
 THE BRUSSELS CONFERENCE. 115 
 
 existence of the native populations, imposes on some of the 
 Powers who have possessions or protectorates in the Con- 
 ventional Basin of the Congo obligations which absolutely 
 demand new resources to meet them," it was now proposed 
 that the stipulation of the Berlin Conference prohibiting 
 all import duties for twenty years should be withdrawn, 
 and that " the signatory or assenting Powers having posses- 
 sions or protectorates in the said Conventional Basin of 
 the Congo shall be at liberty, so far as authority to this 
 end is required, to establish duties on imported goods, the 
 scale of which shall not exceed a rate equivalent to 10 per 
 cent, ad valorem at the port of entry, always excepting 
 spirituous liquors " for which special arrangements were 
 made in Articles 90 to 95 of the General Act. " Not only," 
 said Baron Lambermont, in proposing this important 
 change, " has geographical acquaintance with the Congo 
 Basin revealed the wealth of the vast regions it comprises, 
 but European commerce, which was blocked at a short 
 distance from the coast, has penetrated the heart of Africa, 
 in countries hitherto utterly unknown. Civilisation, in 
 divers forms, has made no less progress, and has been 
 permanently established in the very centre of Africa. The 
 rapidity with which this transformation has been accom- 
 plished would seem to make it a duty to hasten the revision 
 of the free trade rule temporarily laid down by the Berlin 
 General Act. The protection due to commerce and mis- 
 sions, the establishment of systematic justice, the opening 
 up of easier means of communication with the interior of 
 the continent, the organisation of public services as 
 auxiliaries to private enterprises, require financial resources 
 which it is reasonable to obtain, by means of imposts, from 
 those who profit by the new order of things. While in 
 most of the African colonies tariffs are among the principal 
 sources of revenue, the countries situated in the Conven- 
 tional Basin of the Congo alone are deprived of the right 
 of levying customs duties ; and yet these are the countries 
 that find themselves at the front in the crusade against the
 
 1 16 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 slave-trade ! The resolutions of the Brussels Conference, in 
 imposing on them new tasks, will also increase the expenses 
 necessary for the carrying out of their civilising mission. 
 The legitimacy of import duties destined to meet these 
 expenses cannot be denied."* 
 
 On this plea the proposal of the Congo State was agreed 
 to with a readiness except on the part of Holland 
 which would be inexcusable were it not that as yet the 
 civilised world had very little information as to the real 
 nature of the work that had been entered upon by the 
 founders of the Congo State. Even Mr. Stanley's record 
 of his and others' doings between the dates of the Berlin 
 and the Brussels Conferences had not been published, and 
 it was still generally believed, and by no others more than 
 by philanthropists, that the task taken upon himself by 
 King Leopold was without parallel as an effort of philan- 
 thropic statesmanship. Dutch traders were almost alone 
 in at that time seeing through the specious arguments and 
 pretences which satisfied others, and their discernment and 
 foresight were prompted mainly, if not solely, by com- 
 mercial jealousy and by a shrewd suspicion, amply justified 
 by the results, that the 10 per cent, import duty now 
 proposed would be a prelude and a stepping-stone to 
 violation of all the free trade provisions of the Berlin Act 
 no less flagrant and disastrous than has been the violation 
 of its humanitarian professions. 
 
 Though little or no blame, however, may attach to the 
 
 Powers that helped in drawing up 
 The Congo State's .. , A , j ., 
 
 the Brussels Act and sanctioned its 
 Embarrassments. _ 
 
 Declaration, it is none the less to be 
 
 deplored that they were beguiled into thus giving so much 
 fresh encouragement and substantial support to theambitious 
 projects of the creator of the Congo State and his accom- 
 plices. Until after the event outsiders were as ignorant of 
 
 * 'Actes de la Conference de Bruxelles' (1880), p. 283. The objections 
 raised by Baron Gericke van Herwynen, the Netherlands representative, espe- 
 cially on I4th June (pp. 457-464), are noteworthy.
 
 THE BRUSSELS CONFERENCE. 117 
 
 the financial exigencies that had been the principal though 
 unavowed motive for the bringing about of the Brussels 
 Conference as they were of the further wrongs that were 
 being done to the African natives under a pretence of 
 ensuring to them " the benefits of peace and civilisation." 
 It was known that nearly the whole of the expenses 
 incurred in the preliminary inquiries instituted in the 
 names of the so-called International African Association of 
 1876 and its successors, as well as in the larger exploits 
 of the Congo State subsequent to 1884 with the exception 
 of the largest of all, the Emm Pasha Relief Expedition, 
 which others paid for had been defrayed by the outlay of 
 about 40,000,000 francs a year from the private fortune 
 of the King of the Belgians, and that the burden was too 
 heavy to be borne by him alone. This was one reason, 
 valid and praiseworthy so far as it went, for the generous 
 appreciation and genuine admiration shown to him and his 
 enterprise both by the British and other Governments and 
 by a sympathetic public, and expression of the widespread 
 feeling was given with exceptional grace by Lord Vivian, 
 the British representative at the Brussels Conference, in his 
 endorsement of the proposed customs duty. But very few, 
 probably, were aware of the straits to which the young 
 Congo State had been reduced when, on 2nd July, 1890, 
 the Brussels General Act received ^preliminary signature, 
 subject to the Declaration being duly appended to it. 
 
 There was indication of the urgency in the fact that on 
 
 the very next day a Convention, which 
 
 , j i 4.1 u -z.- f ^ The Congo-Belgian 
 
 had evidently been waiting for the _ 
 
 ', .-, , A , Convention of 1890. 
 
 adoption of the General Act, and 
 
 which saved the Congo Government from bankruptcy, was 
 entered into between it and the Belgian Government. As 
 far back as 29th April, 1887, the Belgian Parliament had 
 passed a law authorising the Congo State to raise a loan of 
 150,000,000 francs under conditions which, though not 
 guaranteeing the debt, made the nation to some extent 
 responsible for it. This had cleared the way for the start-
 
 ii8 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 ing of chartered companies, provided for in the decree of 
 2/th February, 1887, which has already been referred to. 
 But more help was wanted ; and King Leopold's will of 
 29th July, 1889, and the accompanying letter to M. Beer- 
 naert, also referred to, both of which were submitted to 
 the Belgian Parliament on 4th August, 1890, were prepara- 
 tory to the Convention which the dilatoriness of the Con- 
 ference prevented from being signed before 3rd July, 1890. 
 By this document the Belgian State engaged to lend the 
 Congo State 5,000,000 francs at once, and 2,000,000 francs 
 a year for the next ten years, or 25,000,000 francs in all, on 
 condition that Belgium should have the option, six months 
 after the expiry of the ten years, of annexing the Congo 
 State " with all the possessions, rights and advantages 
 attached to the sovereignty of that State, as recognised 
 and fixed, notably by the Berlin Act of 1885 and the 
 Brussels Act and Declaration of 1890," provided it also 
 assumed the obligations of the State to third parties, " the 
 King-Sovereign expressly refusing any indemnity for the 
 personal sacrifices made by himself," and on the under- 
 standing that " the special regime under which the Congo 
 territories should thereafter be placed " should be regulated 
 by law. "From the present time," it was further bargained, 
 " the Belgian State shall receive from the Congo Free 
 State such information as it deems desirable on the 
 economic, commercial, and financial situation of the latter. 
 It may, particularly, demand communication of the budgets 
 of receipts and expenses, and of the customs' collections 
 both on imports and on exports. This information is to 
 have no other object than the enlightenment of the Belgian 
 Government, and the latter shall not in any way interfere 
 in the administration of the Congo Free State, which will 
 continue to be connected with Belgium solely by the per- 
 sonal union of the two Crowns. Nevertheless, the Congo 
 State pledges itself to contract no new loan hereafter with- 
 out the consent of the Belgian Government." It was 
 further stipulated that, while no interest was to be charged
 
 THE BRUSSELS CONFERENCE. 119 
 
 in the intervening ten years, " if at the fixed term Belgium 
 decides not to accept the annexation of the Congo State, 
 the debt of 25,0x30,000 francs shall not become recoverable 
 until after another term of ten years, but it shall bear 
 interest at 3^ per cent., payable half-yearly, and even 
 before this time it will be the duty of the Congo Free 
 State to apply in partial repayments all sums obtained 
 from cessions of lands or mines in the domain."* 
 
 Having served its purpose in inducing the Belgian 
 nation to invest 25,000,000 francs in King Leopold's under- 
 taking, and to make itself in some measure responsible for 
 his management of the Congo State, without right of con- 
 trol or interference of any sort, the Convention became at 
 once, as we shall see, if not a dead letter, something very 
 much worse. 
 
 * Cattier, pp. 120, 122.
 
 120 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS [18901893]. 
 
 WHILE the Brussels Conference was, along with other 
 concerns, deciding on measures to be taken for the suppres- 
 sion of slave-raiding and slave-trading in Central Africa, 
 and before sanction was obtained for the Declaration 
 appended to the General Act of the Conference by which 
 the Congo State was authorised to levy import dues as a 
 contribution towards its expenses in carrying out those 
 measures, steps were in progress for turning to account the 
 commercial opportunities of the country and developing 
 the financial enterprises to which the decisions of the 
 Conference gave fresh impetus. 
 
 The preliminary stages of this movement have already 
 been indicated. We have seen that, 
 whereas an ordinance of lAth Septem- 
 
 Exploi tat ions. 
 
 ber, 1886, forbade "all acts or agree- 
 
 ments which tend to the expulsion of the natives from the 
 territories they occupy, or to deprive them, either directly 
 or indirectly, of their liberty or their means of subsistence," 
 other ordinances, dated 25th July and i/th October, 1889, 
 took from the natives their hitherto undisputed right to 
 collect ivory or rubber without special permission, and 
 declared that " all usages and customs having the force of 
 law and contrary to this edict are abrogated."* Mention 
 has also been made of the Compagnie du Congo pour le 
 Commerce et 1'Industrie which, originated in December, 
 1886, by the energetic Captain Thys and others, obtained 
 an important concession from the Congo Government in 
 March, 1887, and soon afterwards became the parent or 
 foster-parent of several subordinate companies, of which 
 the earliest were the Syndicat de Mateba, absorbed by the 
 
 * 'Bulletin OfficieP (1886), p. 138 ; (1889), p. 169.
 
 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS. 121 
 
 Compagnie des Produits du Congo in November, 1889, and 
 the Sanford Exploring Expedition, which was taken over by 
 the Societe Anonyme Beige pour le Commerce du Haut- 
 Congo in the following month. Besides these was a Com- 
 pagnie des Magasins Ge'ne'raux, started in October, 1888. 
 General Sanford, the American supporter of King 
 
 Leopold's project from its inception. 
 
 . J . . .., AT ^ The Earlier Trading 
 
 and, in conjunction with M. Georges 
 
 . . , Companies. 
 
 Brugmann, the rounder of the asso- 
 ciation bearing his name, may be regarded as the pioneer 
 of the direct trade with the natives of the interior in ivory 
 and rubber which has been attended by such appalling 
 mischief. But the business, while under his management, 
 appears to have been honestly carried on ; its principal 
 agent during the earlier operations being Mr. E. J. Glave, 
 an able and high - minded young Englishman who, at 
 Lukolela and other starting-places of commercial exploita- 
 tion in what is now the Equateur district, found that even 
 cannibals can be made friends of and raised in civilisation 
 by just and generous treatment, but by that alone. 
 
 For a few years, however, this and all other direct 
 commerce with the interior was very small ; and, if the 
 adventurers who rallied round King Leopold desired from 
 the first to supersede the Europeans already in the field, 
 it was not possible for them to do so in a hurry. Most 
 of the trade was carried on by the French firm of Daumas, 
 Beraud et Cie., successors of the old house of Regis et Cie., 
 established at Banana in 1858, and by the Afrikaansche 
 Handels - Vennootschap, of Rotterdam, which opened a 
 branch at Boma in 1860 ; as well as by the agents of Hatton 
 & Cookson, of Liverpool, and of the Portuguese firm of 
 Valle & Azevedo, who were established there a few years 
 later. They could not for some time be materially interfered 
 with, indeed, except in the way of checking real or alleged 
 abuses, under the provisions for complete freedom of 
 commerce laid down by the Berlin Conference in 1885. 
 At that date, notwithstanding the changes made by Mr.
 
 122 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 Stanley seven years before, among sixteen Europeans 
 doing business in Boma there was only one Belgian, M. 
 Alexandre Delcommune, and he was an agent of the 
 French house.* M. Delcommune promptly transferred his 
 allegiance to the Congo State, and associated with him 
 were Major Parminter, an Englishman, and others as 
 representatives of the Soci^te du Haut-Congo which took 
 over the Sanford organisation in 1888. Under their 
 guidance researches beyond Boma were vigorously pur- 
 sued in the following years ; but until 1 890, at any rate, 
 there was little actual or profitable commerce except in 
 competition with the older and independent firms planted 
 in the Lower Congo. 
 
 The obstacles to river traffic above Vivi and Matadi, 
 caused by the numerous cataracts between the latter place 
 and Leopoldville, had to be removed first by improved 
 roadways, and afterwards, more effectively, by the railway 
 which was only completed in 1898 before ivory and other 
 African produce could be brought down in any considerable 
 quantity to the European factories at the mouth of the 
 Congo, there to be exchanged for imported commodities, 
 of which poisonous spirits and murderous guns and gun- 
 powder continued to form the principal part ; and mean- 
 while it was not easy to disturb the long-standing 
 arrangements by which local chiefs and tribes on both 
 sides of the troubled waters acted as intermediaries between 
 the white traders near the coast and the black population 
 further inland. Consequently neither the Compagnie des 
 Magasins, which applied itself to the setting up of ware- 
 houses and dwelling - places, nor the Compagnie des 
 Produits, which aimed at the encouragement of agricultural 
 enterprises, both in the Lower Congo, had the success 
 anticipated for them. 
 
 As far back as 1878 Mr. Stanley 
 The Proposed Railway. ,,..,, , u -. r 
 
 had insisted on the necessity tor a 
 
 railway connecting Matadi, at one end of the Cataracts 
 
 * Wauters, p. 386.
 
 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS. 123 
 
 region, with Stanley Pool, at the other ; and, in antici- 
 pation of its construction, he established in 1883 a new 
 route for the carriage of goods by hand, or rather on 
 the heads of natives, mainly along the track ultimately 
 followed by the railway. For this route the southern 
 side of the river was chosen instead of that on the 
 northern side, which had been in favour hitherto, and, 
 through the systematic pressure put on the neighbouring 
 chiefs for the supply of native labour at a nominal average 
 wage of a franc and a half per diem, the State authorities 
 were able to procure the conveyance of about 12,000 loads 
 in 1885, nearly twelve times as many as were carried under 
 their direction in 1882. The number increased to at least 
 50,000 in 1887, and 80,000 in 1893.* Long before the 
 latter date, however, the enormous waste of life and other 
 inconveniences incident to this mode of transport had 
 furnished additional and conclusive arguments for the 
 proposed railway. It was chiefly to meet the exigency, 
 as an essential preliminary and accessory to its general 
 scheme for widening the field of exploitation by means of 
 a railway, that the Compagnie du Congo was started 
 before the close of 1886. It was then supposed that a 
 couple of years or so would suffice for the work. The two 
 years only served to show that the task assumed by the 
 Compagnie du Congo was far beyond the powers with 
 which it had been invested, and for its performance a 
 separate corporation, the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer du 
 Congo, had to be organised with a capital of 25,000,000 
 francs, the amount for which it was estimated that about 
 260 miles of railroad between Matadi and Leopoldville 
 could be constructed in the course of four years and 
 provided with suitable rolling-stock and all other requisites. 
 The inception and execution of this enterprise have had 
 momentous bearings on the subsequent history ot the 
 Congo State. 
 The new company received its charter on 3ist July, 
 
 * Wauters, pp. 347, 348.
 
 I2 4 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 1889. Two days before that, at the instigation of M. Beer- 
 naert, the then Prime Minister, the Belgian Parliament 
 had voted 10,000,000 francs as a contribution to its capital, 
 and as an incentive to the subscribers of the balance of 
 15,000,000 francs, among whom, besides the leading 
 financiers of Brussels, were three German bankers and, 
 represented by Sir William Mackinnon, several British 
 investors.* Thus, seeing that, although the Compagnie du 
 Chemin de Fer was ostensibly independent of the Congo 
 State, the one was merely an offshoot and agent of the 
 other, the hold of the State on the support of European 
 financiers as well as of the Belgian nation was materially 
 strengthened. This hold was further increased, as also 
 were the complications incident to it, by the difficulties 
 that compelled King Leopold, on behalf of the State or of 
 the railway company, to apply to the Belgian Parliament 
 in 1894 for an additional contribution, under conditions to 
 be detailed hereafter. 
 
 Meanwhile the four years allowed for completion of the 
 whole railway were exhausted in the laying of its first 
 twenty-six miles, stupendous obstacles having to be over- 
 come in twisting through the channels blasted by dynamite 
 through the Palabala Mountain, and in otheroperationswhich 
 were ill-prepared for, and disastrous in their effects on the 
 native labourers coaxed or forced into the service. Between 
 January, 1890, when the work was actually commenced, 
 and May, 1892, it is admitted that, out of 4,500 employed, 
 900 died of the disease and fatigue to which they were 
 exposed, and that hundreds of others had to be sent home 
 to die. "These calamities caused consternation among 
 the reduced contingents. Desertions became more 
 numerous, and there was complete demoralisation among 
 the blacks." f From the first what may be called skilled 
 labour was largely imported by the railway officials from 
 Lagos, the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, and other parts of 
 West Africa, for which wages at the rate of from 2 to 8 
 
 * Wauters, p. 359. f Ibid., p. 360.
 
 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS. 125 
 
 a month were paid, instead of the I fr. 25 c. a day given to 
 the natives on the spot, in addition to " food, housing, and 
 medical attendance." The hardships to which these British 
 subjects were exposed, however, and their compulsory 
 detention if they survived beyond the two years for 
 which they were engaged so vexed them, and led to their 
 sending home such unfavourable reports as to their treat- 
 ment, that further recruiting of coloured labour for the 
 Congo was forbidden in the British colonies,* and measures 
 all the more violent had in consequence to be resorted to 
 in procuring the requisite amount of labour on the spot. 
 To this end the railway company was authorised to set 
 
 up a military organisation of its own, 
 
 , ,. . ^ f ^ r- The Railway Force 
 
 more or less distinct from the Congo 
 Publique. 
 
 State s native army. On 9th August, 
 
 1890, indeed, nearly a year before the force publique was 
 definitely established, a railway auxiliary force or militia 
 was sanctioned by royal decree,f and Captain Weyns was 
 commissioned to recruit and discipline fifty men for the 
 purpose. The number was doubled early in 1892, and 
 soon afterwards increased to 150. The avowed object was 
 protection of the railway works and the labourers employed 
 on them from the hostility of outsiders, but the real occupa- 
 tions of the auxiliary force differed little from slave-catching 
 and slave-driving. At first it was chiefly drawn from the 
 coloured British subjects, recruited as artisans and the like ; 
 and one of the principal complaints made by the men so 
 employed was that, in violation of their contracts, they 
 were compelled to engage in disreputable and dangerous 
 
 * In answer to a question asked in the House of Commons on I2th March, 
 1896, Mr. Chamberlain, as Secretary' of State for the Colonies, stated that 
 " complaints had been received of these British subjects having been employed 
 without their consent as soldiers, and of their having been cruelly flogged, 
 and in some cases shot," and he added, " They were engaged with the know- 
 ledge of Her Majesty's representatives, and every possible precaution was 
 taken in their interests ; but, in consequence of the complaints received, 
 the recruitment of labourers 'for the Congo has been prohibited." Times, 
 I3th March, 1896. 
 
 f 'Bulletin Officiel' (1890), p. 129.
 
 126 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 sorts of soldiership. When this source of supply was 
 closed resort was had to the savages of the Middle 
 Congo region, who were already being employed in the 
 larger force publique, and the change certainly brought no 
 relief to the unfortunate natives of the Lower Congo, 
 who were impressed for the construction of the line of 
 railway on which more than all the company's capital of 
 25,000,000 francs had been spent, though barely a tenth 
 of the ground had been covered, before March, 1894. 
 
 As there was so much unlocked for delay in the com- 
 
 pletion of the Lower Congo railway, 
 The Compagnie du f, ...... r , . . , , 
 
 the responsibility for which had been 
 
 4.U ~ j r 
 
 assigned by the Compagnie du Congo 
 
 to the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer, the parent corpora- 
 tion was able to apply itself with all the more energy to 
 attempts at effective occupation of the interior territories 
 that it was hoped the railway, when finished, would make 
 profitable to the appropriators. Several expeditions were 
 accordingly undertaken with this avowed object, in 
 addition to others, ostensibly philanthropic in intention, 
 which will be referred to hereafter. 
 
 Of the strictly commercial enterprises the most im- 
 portant were those which aimed at the acquisition of the 
 regions between Nyangwe, Lake Tanganyika, and the 
 southern frontier claimed by the Congo State, and there 
 were special reasons for prompt enterprise in this direction, 
 as it was known that occupation of, at any rate, a portion 
 of the district was desired by the British South Africa 
 Company, lately started by Mr. Cecil Rhodes. 
 
 As a result of the preliminary report of M. Delcommune, 
 
 who in April, 1800, was sent out by 
 The Compagnie du I r i 
 
 K the Compagnie du Congo to make 
 
 the necessary investigations, yet 
 
 another offshoot of that company was established in 
 March, 1891, as the Compagnie du Katanga, with a capital 
 of 3,000,000 francs, and an international directorate 
 including Sir William Mackinnon, Sir John Kirk, and the
 
 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS. 127 
 
 French banker, M. Bunau-Varilla. The gold, copper, and 
 other minerals supposed to be plentiful in the Katanga 
 district being the great attraction, preferential rights over 
 all the mines in it were accorded to the company for 
 twenty years, with further privileges, on condition that, 
 besides other stipulations, within three years two steamers 
 should be launched on the affluents of the Upper Congo or 
 the adjacent lakes and at least three stations established 
 within the district.* 
 
 So keen were the magnates of the Congo State in their 
 
 desire to prevent the supposed prize 
 
 r r * *. . j f t. The Appropriation 
 
 from falling into the hands of any but 
 
 9 of Katanga. 
 
 themselves that, before the company s 
 
 formation, Captain Paul le Marinel, then in charge of the 
 Lusambo station, on the Sankuru, which he had set up in 
 the previous year, had been ordered to proceed at once as 
 a State official to Bunkeia, the headquarters of the native 
 chief Msiri, there to assist M. Delcommune in the further 
 action assigned to him, and that two other parties were, 
 with as little delay as possible, fitted out by the company 
 itself. Both of these latter left Europe in May, 1891. 
 One, proceeding by way of Zanzibar and through German 
 East Africa, was entrusted to Captain W. G. Stairs, a 
 native of Nova Scotia, who had accompanied Mr. Stanley 
 in the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, and with whom were 
 Dr. J. A. Moloney and a Belgian officer, Lieutenant Bodson. 
 The other party was under Captain Bia, also a Belgian 
 officer, whose principal assistant was Lieutenant Francqui, 
 and who followed Le Marinel by the Sankuru route. 
 Having but a short distance to traverse, Le Marinel 
 was the first to reach Bunkeia, arriving on i6th April, 
 1891, nearly six months before Delcommune, whose 
 boats were wrecked in the Lualaba rapids, and who 
 was not on the spot until 6th October. Both had quitted 
 Bunkeia to make explorations in the neighbourhood, 
 leaving Lieutenant Legat to keep watch over Msiri, before 
 
 * 'Bulletin Offidel' (1891), pp, 243, 251,
 
 128 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 the appearance, on I4th December, of Stairs, who was 
 joined by Bia on 3Oth January in the next year.* 
 
 Msiri, it must be explained, was a native of Garenganze, 
 the son of one of the Negro associates of the so-called Arab 
 and Portuguese dealers in slaves and ivory, who, having 
 grown rich and powerful by continuing his father's trade 
 had usurped supremacy over the Baluba and other occu- 
 pants of the Katanga district, and had set up a far-reaching 
 tyranny, after the example of Tipu-Tipu and others. He 
 was spoken fairly well of by the Rev. F. S. Arnot and other 
 Protestant missionaries whom he allowed to settle among 
 his people ; but Mr. Alfred Sharpe, afterwards Sir Harry 
 Johnston's assistant and successor in the administration of 
 the British Central African Protectorate, described him as 
 " a wicked and quarrelsome old man, who believed that 
 every foreigner who came to his country had the intention 
 of seizing it." The belief was not without justification. 
 Alarmed by the fate that had befallen so many of his 
 neighbours and rivals among African chieftains, Msiri 
 would not listen to the suggestion of Mr. Sharpe, who 
 visited him in November, 1890, as the agent of the British 
 South Africa Company, that he should fall into a trap 
 similar to that which had been laid for Lobengula, the 
 Matabele despot, and he appears, in the following April 
 and October, to have acted with great shrewdness in 
 resisting the overtures of M. Le Marinel and M. Del- 
 commune without openly defying them. When Captain 
 Stairs arrived in December he found, according to Dr. 
 Moloney, that Le Marinel's lieutenant, M. Legat, " had 
 undoubtedly obtained a marked ascendancy over the 
 Wanyamwezi potentate, considering the handful of men 
 at his disposal," but that Msiri, " with senile cunning, 
 
 * As my principal authority for statements as to these and other expeditions 
 of which detailed accounts are not here necessary, and for further information 
 about them, it may be sufficient to refer to the columns of ' Le Mouvement 
 Geographique,' the official magazine of the Compagnie du Congo, edited by 
 M. A. J. Wauters. In 'With Captain Stairs to Katanga' (1893), Dr. 
 Moloney gives a lively report of his share in the work,
 
 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS. 129 
 
 evidently proposed to foment jealousies between white and 
 white, and so to preserve his independence by a judicious 
 course of trimming." 
 
 To this policy Captain Stairs speedily put an end. At 
 the close of a stormy interview on iQth December, 1891, 
 after Msiri had been bullied into promising that he would 
 " accept the Belgian symbol of sovereignty on the morrow," 
 though he refused at once to hoist the flag that Stairs 
 had with him, the flag was summarily hoisted by Stairs 
 himself. Next day, Msiri having retired to a village three 
 miles off, Bodson was sent with a force of 115 men to 
 arrest him, and in the scuffle that ensued both Bodson 
 and Msiri were killed. Stairs also lost his life in this 
 filibustering enterprise ; but his death did not occur till 
 June, long after he had installed Msiri's son, Makanda 
 Vanta, as " ruler of the fourteen square miles on which 
 Bunkeia stands," had set up other petty chiefs in other 
 parts of Katanga, and had left Captain Bia, who had 
 arrived by this time, to administer the whole district on 
 behalf of the Congo State. 
 
 These discreditable and for the most part disastrous 
 proceedings occupied the earlier months of 1892, as well 
 as most of the previous year, and all the excursions and 
 aggressions incident to them, including much fighting and 
 annexing by M. Le Marinel and M. Delcommune before 
 and after their visits to Bunkeia, merely aggravated the 
 disorder that resulted in subsequent trouble to the agents 
 of the Katanga Company. But their primary object 
 was attained by the defeat of the British South Africa 
 Company's plans to gain possession of this part of Congo- 
 land. 
 
 Meanwhile disorder and trouble in the more northern 
 
 districts, at that time known as the 
 
 rj A u L- u ^u e -JL..JL j Troubles in the 
 
 Zone Arabe, in which the Societe du . 
 
 Arab Zone. 
 Haut-Congo sought to establish a 
 
 monopoly of conquest and exploitation, were threatening 
 immediate ruin to the State. An organisation claiming to 
 
 K
 
 130 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 be purely philanthropic, and styling itself the 
 Anti-Esclavagiste de Belgique, had been started in 1889, 
 with the avowed object of supporting and helping to carry 
 out the proposals of the Berlin Conference as regards the 
 suppression of the Central African slave trade, and in 1 890 
 and 1891 had organised expeditions from the western 
 shores of Lake Tanganyika, under the command of Captain 
 Joubert and Captain Jacques, for the overthrow of the 
 Arab dominion between Nyangwe and Stanley Falls. 
 These proceedings, which will presently be referred to more 
 in detail, were in intentional or unintentional co-operation 
 with those of a more formidable expedition entrusted by 
 the Compagnie du Katanga to M. Hodister, with the 
 object of acquiring for that company control over a part, 
 at any rate, of the ivory-collecting facilities coveted by the 
 Soci6t6 du Haut-Congo. From the confused and con- 
 tradictory reports as to M. Hodister's movements the 
 precise facts cannot be discovered. His own letters,* how- 
 ever, show that he allowed himself to be entrapped by the 
 Arab chiefs with whom he had opened negotiations, who 
 let him enter into direct trading relations with the natives 
 and then organised a " rebellion " at Nyangwe, Riba-Riba, 
 and elsewhere. In consequence of his rashness he and at 
 least two other Belgians, as well as several of his native 
 followers, were killed on I5th May, 1892, and other 
 castastrophes ensued which furnished excuse for more 
 extensive crusading with the assumed purpose of crushing 
 Arab power in Congoland in the interests of humanity. 
 By these and similar operations the huge territory 
 
 assigned to the Congo State's manage- 
 The Commercial c b , . 
 
 ment was, perforce, being more and 
 Revolution. 
 
 more converted into a preserve for 
 
 the commercial advantage, if possible, of the State itself 
 and its favourites. But, in spite of increasing hindrances, 
 some of the older trading enterprises, Portuguese, French, 
 Dutch, and English, continued to thrive, and two of them in 
 
 * Indefendance Beige, 28th July, 1892; Times, I3th August, 1892.
 
 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS. 131 
 
 particular, the Nieuwe AfrikaanscheHandels-Vennootschap, 
 or Socie'te Hollandaise, and the Societe* Franchise Daumas, 
 Beraud et Cie., had extended their activity to Stanley Pool. 
 The former still exists, but the latter was in April, 1892, 
 bought up and absorbed by the Socie'te du Haut-Congo, 
 its steamers and other appliances being largely employed 
 in the commercial explorations then going on in and 
 beyond the Ubangi. By this time, moreover, even the 
 Compagnie du Congo and its offshoots, as well as its 
 foreign rivals, had ample grounds for chagrin and alarm at 
 the new policy which was being adopted towards them, 
 and which was an immediate outgrowth of the State's own 
 employment of military expeditions in opening up fresh 
 markets for its own commercial advantage. 
 
 That policy cannot be more clearly described than in 
 the words of one of its foremost apologists. " It is cha- 
 racterised," according to M. Wauters, "(i) by the State's 
 enforcement of its right to monopolise to its own profit 
 the produce of the vacant lands of the territory ; (2) by 
 the appearance of new commercial societies, endowed with 
 concessions and privileges and constituted with a view to 
 the exploitation of the domaine privt, with the moral and 
 effective support of the State." * By it all the adventurers 
 whom the Congo Government had favoured and found 
 useful to it in the early building up of its fortunes and of 
 theirs Major Thys, Major Parminter, M. Brugmann, 
 M. Jules Urban, M. de Roubaix, and many more were 
 threatened with ruin unless they consented to adapt them- 
 selves to the fresh tactics devised by the Sovereign of the 
 State and his immediate advisers for defying and outraging, 
 far more thoroughly than heretofore, the stipulations of the 
 Berlin Conference, which had been re-affirmed for the most 
 part and added to by the Brussels Conference, as regards 
 alike the maintenance of free trade in Congoland and 
 equitable dealing with its native inhabitants. 
 
 Another outspoken and a more explicit statement, made 
 
 * Wauters, p. 394.
 
 132 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 by Major Parminter, the most important of the Englishmen 
 
 associated in early Congo exploita- 
 The State as , 
 
 tion, at a time when he was smarting 
 Monopolist Trader. 
 
 under the treatment accorded to 
 
 himself, must be quoted.* " When the Congo State 
 was created," he wrote in 1892, "commerce received the 
 most formal and complete assurances from it that never, 
 either directly or indirectly, would the Government trade 
 or traffic within its dominions. Once that official trade 
 was started, however, it came into competition with general 
 commerce, and then ensued, very logically and very 
 naturally, the most strained relations between the State 
 officials and the representatives of trade. The Government 
 found one pretext after another for closing successively all 
 those buying stations of traders in which the most lucrative 
 trade could be done, and then substituted itself for the 
 expelled traders, and purchased from the natives without 
 fear of competition. The consecutive theories which the 
 State has introduced into its political economy tend to 
 constitute a State monopoly of trade, and one directly 
 contrary to the text as well as to the spirit of the Berlin 
 Act. The Powers assembled at Berlin in 1885 desired to 
 throw open to the commerce of the world the rich basin 
 of the Congo. The deliberations of the Conference resulted 
 in the recognition of the hereditary rights of the natives 
 to their soil, and in the proclamation that all, aborigines as 
 well as aliens, were to possess unrestricted liberty of 
 trading throughout the length and breadth of the land. 
 Business, in a word, was to be open to free competition, 
 without any restrictions whatever. No privileges, no 
 monopolies, of any sort or nature, were to hamper the 
 development of the country. The signatory Powers, 
 foreseeing the possibility of some future revision of the 
 
 * This statement and documents in support of it, some of which are quoted 
 above, were handed to me by Major Parminter near the end of 1892, when he 
 sought the assistance of the Aborigines Protection Society in exposing the 
 conduct of the Congo Government. His testimony is none the less valuable 
 because he soon after made his peace with, or was pacified by, King Leopold.
 
 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS. 133 
 
 principles thus proclaimed, placed on record in the protocol 
 that in no case could modifications be introduced which 
 tended to hamper the liberty of trade through the creation 
 of monopolies or of privileges. The decrees of the Congo 
 State, in the matter of trading in ivory, rubber, or other 
 products, constitute a flagrant violation of the text and 
 of the spirit of the Berlin Act. An ordinance dated 
 ist July, 1885, states that 'no one may dispossess any 
 native of lands occupied by him,' and further that ' all 
 vacant ground is considered as belonging to the State.' 
 To-day, however, the Government of the Congo State 
 interprets the term ' vacant ' as meaning all the territory 
 of the State, excepting only the sites of the native villages 
 and the gardens of such villages. The forests and plains, 
 the hills and the valleys, in fact the whole of the Basin 
 of the Congo and its affluents, in the eyes of the State, are 
 its own private property ! Their fruits belong exclusively 
 to it, and not only are aliens debarred from trading, but 
 even the aborigines themselves are no more allowed to 
 traffic freely. No later than January last one of the 
 District Commissaries wrote in a letter, ' The aborigines 
 of the district of Ubangi-Welle are not permitted to gather 
 rubber. It has been notified to them that they can only 
 obtain permission to do so on condition that they gather 
 the produce for the exclusive benefit of the State.' Such 
 a theory is a violation of the natural rights of the 
 aborigines, recognised even by the earlier legislation of 
 the State. It deprives them of the right of gathering any 
 products of the forests and the plains, which are the 
 common property of their tribes, and in which their 
 forefathers from all time have enjoyed every freedom, have 
 hunted unhindered, and have gathered the juice of the 
 palm-tree, the sap of the rubber-vine, and any and all other 
 products which abound in the country. It is contrary also 
 to the spirit which animated the signatory Powers, who, 
 when creating a political State in the Basin of the Congo, 
 certainly had no intention of depriving the native tribes of
 
 134 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 their hereditary rights, and that, too, for the exclusive 
 profit of the State which they had called into existence. 
 To sum up, the application of the new decrees of the 
 Government signifies this, that the State considers as its 
 private property the whole of the Congo Basin, excepting 
 the sites of the natives' villages and gardens. It decrees 
 that all the products of this immense region are its private 
 property, and it monopolises the trade in them. As 
 regards the primitive proprietors, the native tribes, they are 
 dispossessed by a simple circular ; permission is graciously 
 granted to them to collect such products, but only on 
 condition that they bring them for sale to the State for 
 whatever the latter may be pleased to give them. As 
 regards alien traders, they are prohibited in all this territory 
 from trading with the natives." 
 
 The first of the decrees referred to by Major Parminter, 
 
 dated 2 5th July, 1889, and depriving 
 The Domaine r .u u. u it 
 
 , natives of their right to hunt elephants 
 
 throughout the territories of the State, 
 
 has been already cited. It was followed by a decree, dated 
 9th July, 1890, professing " to regulate the collection of 
 ivory in the State, so as to favour free trade." According 
 to this document, " the Government surrenders absolutely 
 to general commerce the collection of ivory throughout all 
 those portions of the domains of the State, situated beyond 
 Stanley Pool, which are directly accessible to steamers in 
 the Congo or its affluents, within a distance of fifty kilo- 
 metres on either side of the rivers indicated." But for the 
 rest of the territory it reserved to itself the right of trading 
 in ivory, concurrently with other traders, and the charges 
 it imposed on others for the privilege of trading were 
 almost prohibitive, a tax of two francs per kilogramme 
 being appointed for the " free trade " localities, and one of 
 double the amount for all the " reserved " areas, with an 
 additional duty of two francs on every kilogramme 
 exported.* These extortions were trivial, however, in 
 
 * 'Bulletin Official' (1890), p. 80.
 
 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS. 135 
 
 comparison with those consequent on another decree, 
 signed on 2Qth September, 1891, but never published in the 
 Bulletin Officiel, which stated that " by reason of the con- 
 siderable cost of the first occupation of the countries, the 
 commissaries of the districts of the Aruwimi, the Welle, 
 and the Ubangi will take the urgent measures necessary 
 to preserve for the use of the State the fruits of its domains, 
 especially ivory and rubber."* On Captain Baert, the 
 Commissary of the Bangala district, till then the most 
 distant part of the region north of the Congo river over 
 which any sort of organised government was attempted, 
 devolved the immediate responsibility of enforcing this 
 secret decree as soon as the " first occupation " of the 
 region had been sufficiently effected by Captain Georges 
 le Marinel and the other pioneers of conquest therein. 
 And Captain Baert was a zealous official. One of the 
 mandates issued by him, dated i$th December, 1891, 
 extended the operation of the royal decrees of the previous 
 July and September as regards ivory to the Mogwandi 
 and Mobuaka portions of his district. In another of the 
 same date, which like its forerunners must have been 
 prompted by his superiors in Brussels, he established a 
 similar rule as regards " the gathering of rubber or any 
 other vegetable products in the Congo or its affluents 
 above Bolobo." Under the second document natives were 
 to be "authorised " a pleasing synonym for " compelled " 
 to collect such "products of the royal domains," but " only 
 for the exclusive profit of the State," and, severe penalties 
 being prescribed for violation of the rule, it was added 
 " All officers, non-commissioned officers, civil servants, 
 
 * I was favoured by Major Parminter with the above translation, also with 
 the following extract from a letter written by Captain Baert, dated 1 8th 
 January, 1892: "I have the honour to inform you that the chief of the 
 post of Bumba has merely put into execution the decision taken by me, dated 
 I5th December, 1891, in virtue of the decree of agth September, 1891. The 
 natives of the district of Ubangi- Welle are not authorised to gather rubber. It 
 has been notified to them that they can only receive permission to do so on 
 condition that they gather the produce for the exclusive benefit of the State."
 
 136 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 and chiefs of stations are hereby empowered to search out 
 and investigate all infractions of the present decision, and 
 to ensure its execution." In keeping with these instruc- 
 tions was an imperious letter from the commandant of the 
 Ubangi- Welle expedition himself, dated I4th February, 
 1892. " I have decided," wrote Captain le Marinel from 
 Yakoma, " to enforce rigorously the rights of the State 
 over its domain, and, in consequence, cannot allow the 
 natives to convert to their own profit, or to sell to others, 
 any part of the rubber or ivory forming the fruits of the 
 domain. Traders who purchase, or attempt to purchase, 
 such fruits of this domain from the natives which fruits 
 the State only authorises the natives to gather subject to 
 the condition that they are brought to it render them- 
 selves, in my opinion, guilty of receiving stolen goods, and 
 I shall denounce them to the judicial authorities, so that 
 proceedings may be taken against them." 
 
 Nor was it only in the remoter parts of the Congo 
 State's territory, not hitherto exploited, that this arbitrary 
 policy was pursued. More alarming, in some respects, 
 than the tyranny established in the Bangala district, and 
 beyond it, was the similar action now taken in localities 
 that had for several years been open to general trade. 
 Of this there is evidence in an edict issued by Lieutenant 
 Lemaire, Commissary of the Iiquateur district, on 3rd May, 
 1892. "Considering that no concession has been granted 
 to gather rubber in the domains of the State within this 
 district," he announced "(i) that natives can only gather 
 rubber on condition of selling the same to the State, (2) 
 that any person or persons or vessels having in his or their 
 possession, or on board, more than one kilogramme of 
 rubber will have a ' proces verbal ' drawn up against 
 him or them or it"; and, it was added, "the ship can 
 be confiscated without prejudice to any subsequent pro- 
 ceedings." 
 
 There was scarcely any secrecy as to the motives for 
 these oppressive restrictions on the trading rights of
 
 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS. 13? 
 
 Europeans, and even of some of the companies chartered 
 by the Congo Government, as well as of the natives. Less 
 than a year before the date of M. Lemaire's scandalous 
 edict M. Beernaert, the Belgian Prime Minister, had been 
 interrogated in the Belgian Parliament as to the extensive 
 trade that, according to public rumour, the Congo Govern- 
 ment was already carrying on. " It is alleged," he said, 
 " that the Congo State is one vast factory, that it wishes to 
 reserve for itself a monopoly of trade, that no sooner do 
 our Belgian officers touch African soil than they become 
 merely a sort of bagmen. Figures will enable us to ascer- 
 tain exactly how much truth there is in these assertions. 
 It happens, and still happens, that officers commanding 
 expeditions which explore new regions purchase for the 
 State a certain number of elephants' tusks. It can scarcely 
 be otherwise. These populations, brought for the first 
 time into contact with white men, cannot understand that 
 a journey may be undertaken with any other end or aim 
 than trading. Friendly relations must be opened, and 
 confidence inspired. But what was the extent of the com- 
 mercial operations of the State in 1890? The total value 
 of ivory purchased by its agents was about 1 19,000 francs." 
 Interrogated again in May, 1892, M. Beernaert stated that 
 the value of the ivory purchased by the State in 1891 was 
 about 650,000 francs, but that this supply came solely from 
 the opening up of country hitherto unvisited by white 
 men, and was in the nature of tribute and in no way 
 the result of trade. 
 
 The Prime Minister's appeals to such figures as were 
 furnished by the Congo Government were unfortunate. 
 The records of sales in the Antwerp market showed that 
 there alone, up to 3rd November, 1892, the State had sold 
 more than 3,000,000 francs' worth of ivory, besides all the 
 sales in the Hamburg and London markets for which no 
 statistics were obtainable. " The continuity and pro- 
 gressive importance of the sales made by the State," 
 according to the unimpeachable testimony of Major Par-
 
 138 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 minter in that month, " no longer allow it to pretend that 
 the ivory it imports is the mere product of presents and 
 tributes from native chiefs in districts hitherto closed to 
 white men. However much the State may wish to hide 
 from the eyes of Europe that it has organised a complete 
 system of trading in its stations in the Basin of the Congo, 
 out in Africa it makes no attempt at concealment. In 
 every district where a profitable trade may be done it has 
 opened buying stations, and it has, on one pretext or 
 another, driven away the general trader, even in cases 
 where he had been actually established before the State 
 appeared on the scene. In certain districts the State has 
 traded openly in guns and powder ; for instance, in the 
 Upper Ubangi, where one of the great chiefs, Bangaso by 
 name, is to this day still paying off in ivory a debt con- 
 tracted with the State for several hundred guns and a 
 quantity of powder and caps sold to him. Th^ trading 
 firms which were at that time established in these regions 
 were not allowed to trade in guns or powder, it being, said 
 the State, contrary to the stipulations of the Brussels Con- 
 ference. These traders have since been suppressed by the 
 State. It found that they still managed to do a little trade 
 with the natives, notwithstanding all the State's competition, 
 so that the District Commissaries found it simpler to close 
 their factories entirely in one instance on grounds of 
 public safety, in others by compelling the natives to sell 
 their ivory and other produce only to the State." 
 
 " Commerce, which by the decision of the Berlin Con- 
 ference was to enjoy complete liberty, finds itself in the 
 following position," said Major Parminter, in summing up 
 his indictment. "It pays import duties varying from 6 to 
 30 per cent, on all articles imported. It pays export 
 duties on ivory from 10 to 25 per cent, according to 
 whence the ivory comes. It pays threepence a pound- 
 weight export duty on rubber. It pays all manner of 
 heavy taxes on carriers, on labourers, on clerks, on lands, 
 on buildings, on enclosures, on steamers, boats, canoes,
 
 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS. 139 
 
 and on the firewood used for steamers, &c. Even then 
 it is only permitted to do business to a small extent. 
 It is prohibited from trading in the goods in which its 
 chief competitor the State itself trades ; and it has to 
 pay to this very same competitor the heavy duties 
 aforementioned." 
 
 The indignation with which all this defiance of the 
 Berlin General Act was regarded by those it victimised 
 was legitimate. The Nieuwe Afrikaansche Handels- 
 Vennootschap, of Rotterdam, being among the chief 
 sufferers by the decree of 9th July, 1890, promptly trans- 
 ferred some of its agents to Portuguese territory, and the 
 rest to the French Congo, where they remained for a couple 
 of years ; and to the ill-feeling thus engendered must be in 
 large measure attributed the prolonged opposition of the 
 Netherlands Government to the Brussels General Act, and 
 its refusal to sign the declaration appended thereto before 
 January, 1892. The protests of Major Thys, Major 
 Parminter, and the other leading members of the Compagnie 
 du Congo and its offshoots brought about a partial com- 
 promise, enabling them to participate in the arrangements 
 by which the Congo Government had reorganised its 
 commercial policy, but not lessening the betrayal of all the 
 nations concerned in the Berlin and Brussels Conferences, 
 through the conversion of nearly the whole of the territory 
 entrusted to the State for the common benefit into a 
 domaine priv. Henceforward, moreover, the older specula- 
 tors, known as the Rue Br^derode group, from the Brussels 
 street in which their offices were located, found themselves 
 in jealous opposition to the newer speculators, known as 
 the Antwerp group. 
 
 That the Congo Government should permanently carry 
 on, as an actual part of its administrative and executive 
 machinery, all the trade in which it proposed to be the 
 principal profit-sharer was not, of course, possible. In 
 February, 1893, as the result of plans laid long before, it 
 chartered two new companies, empowered to deal in novel
 
 140 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 ways with those portions of its domaine privt in which it 
 was then specially interested. 
 
 The first of these companies was the Socie"te Anversoise 
 
 du Commerce au Congo, started 
 TheSociete ... ., , f f . 
 
 with a capital of 400,000 francs, after- 
 Anversoise. 
 
 wards raised to 1,250,000 francs, and 
 
 with M. Browne de Tiege, the great Antwerp financier, as 
 its president, to which was granted, for a term of thirty 
 years, and renewable afterwards, a concession of the forets 
 domaniales in the basin of the Mongala, comprising nearly 
 all that was of value in the Bangala district, with an 
 exclusive right to traffic in the entire produce of the forests 
 and to appropriation, during the same term, of all the terres 
 domaniales there situated. In return for these privileges 
 the company undertook to pay to the State taxes at the 
 rate of 300 francs on every 1,000 kilogrammes of rubber 
 collected, 150 francs on a like quantity of wax or copal, and 
 5 per cent, on the value of all ivory and other produce sold 
 in the European markets. As the State held 50 per cent, 
 of the shares in this monopolist association, considerably 
 more than half of the profits was thus assured to it.* 
 
 The State had a similar stake in the other association, 
 the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber 
 and Exploration Company, generally 
 
 known by its initials as the A.B.I. R., or Abir, which was 
 founded on 6th February with a capital of 1,000,000 francs. 
 Notwithstanding its title and the fact that the late Colonel 
 North was its first president, only a few of the half of its 
 shares not held by the State were in English hands, and it 
 was virtually a Belgian monopoly, invested with complete 
 ownership of the so-called vacant lands claimed as State 
 domain in the basins of the Lopori and the Maringa that 
 is, of the northern half of the liquateur district traversed 
 by those tributaries of the Congo and with an exclusive 
 right for thirty years to all its forest produce.f 
 
 * ' Bulletin Official ' (1893), p. 29 ; Wauters, p. 395. 
 t 'Bulletin Official' (1893), p. 33 ; Wauters, p. 395.
 
 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS. 141 
 
 No other organisations of the same sort were started 
 before 1894, but the Socie'te' des Produits Ve'ge'taux du 
 Haut-Kasai was one of several to which concessions were 
 then granted in other parts of the Congo State's territory. 
 At the end of 1897 and the beginning of 1898, moreover, 
 important changes were introduced on the occasion of the 
 formation of the Societe* Generale Africaine and of the 
 reconstruction of the Societe" Anversoise and the Abir. 
 
 Definitive shape and formal sanction of law, such as it 
 
 was, had, however, been given to 
 
 f cf Legalisation of the 
 
 all such assumptions of State pro- . ,, . - 
 
 , . r . Domaine Prive. 
 pnetorship in any lands proclaimed 
 
 as domaine prive", and available for parcelling out to commerce 
 priv^ by a decree dated 3<Dth October, 1892. This decree, 
 like so many others, made a pretence of bestowing favours 
 while cancelling rights. According to its wording, " The 
 State surrenders altogether to private persons the exploita- 
 tion of rubber in the vacant lands belonging to it, for a 
 period extending to the date at which Belgium may 
 exercise the right to acquire the State which is assigned 
 to it by the Convention of 3rd July, 1890," but with 
 " exceptions and conditions " that went far to convert 
 the boon into a mockery.* Yet, such as it was, it 
 served as the basis of a compromise between the Congo 
 Government and the companies it had tried to throw over ; 
 and, as M. Cattier points out, it was proposed to them, " for 
 political reasons," as a modus vivendi. " This decree," M. 
 Cattier explains, "divides into three zones the desmenial 
 lands belonging to the State. In the first " comprising 
 nearly all the northern and central portions of its territory 
 " the State reserves to itself the exclusive exploitation 
 of rubber. The territories included in this zone are called 
 in the decree and in consequent regulations the domaine 
 prive, of which, in reality, they constitute only a part. In 
 order to avoid confusion and errors there is advantage in 
 terming them domains privt strtctu sensu. The second 
 * ' Bulletin Official ' (1892), p. 307.
 
 142 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 zone " comprising most of the southern and eastern 
 regions, which have since been largely transferred to the 
 first zone, the latest addition being the Kasai region " is 
 reserved, and the decree provides that the exploitation of 
 rubber will be there regulated when circumstances permit. 
 The third zone " chiefly limited to the small districts of 
 Lower Congo and some of the river banks to the extent of 
 fifty kilometres " is open to public exploitation, subject 
 to two restrictions : rights already accorded to third parties, 
 and published in the ' Bulletin Officiel ' before the date of 
 the decree, must be respected ; and the Governor-General 
 may grant to private individuals who establish factories 
 or rubber-collecting agencies exclusive concessions for 
 exploitation within not more than thirty kilometres from 
 their establishments."* 
 
 It will be noticed that this decree of $oth October, 1892, 
 dealt only with rubber, which was then, and is still, the 
 principal source of wealth in the Congo State. But ivory, 
 already lessening in quantity and becoming more difficult 
 and expensive to procure, was separately legislated for, 
 and from the first all minerals were regarded as the 
 property of the State. 
 
 Admitting that, without violation of the free trade pro- 
 visions of the Berlin Act, " the Congo Government could 
 not adopt any legislative measure or establish any regime 
 conceding international monopolies or privileges," and 
 that " all facimies accorded to its subjects in trade affairs 
 ought to be extended to the subjects of other States," M. 
 Cattier argued unconvincingly that " the Congo State can 
 establish any commercial regime it thinks good, and no 
 objection can be raised to its legislative and administrative 
 action if the measures it takes are applicable, under like 
 conditions and in the same manner, to traders of various 
 nationalities, including those of Congolese nationality." 
 The decree of 29th September, 1891, however, he regarded 
 as " a violation of the rights of the natives," and he was 
 
 * Cattier, p. 306.
 
 COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS. 143 
 
 outspoken in his exposure of its dangers. " Its essential 
 vice," he said, " is in placing the native population between 
 the interests of the State and those of its agents, without 
 rules precise and strict enough to protect them against the 
 oppression of the agents." * 
 
 * Cattier, pp. 165, 171, 317.
 
 144 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADING [1890-1894]. 
 
 IN self-defence, if not in fulfilment of pledges given by it 
 to the Brussels Conference and clenched by the sanction- 
 ing of an import duty to defray the expenses of the 
 crusade, it was incumbent on the Congo Government to do 
 all in its power towards resisting the encroachments of the 
 so-called Arab slave-raiders which had been constant and 
 rapid since 1878. 
 
 The enterprise that proved so profitable to Tipu-Tipu 
 
 and his partners and rivals in pro- 
 
 The Congo State and . r ~ , A r . , 
 
 curing ivory from Central Africa and 
 the Arabs. * 
 
 bribing or capturing natives some 
 
 to help in stealing it, others to carry it to the coast and, if 
 they survived the journey, to be sold with it to the highest 
 bidders would probably have extended in any case ; but 
 it was certainly quickened by Congo State activity. As 
 soon as Mr. Stanley had shown how easily the heart of the 
 continent could be reached by way of the Congo, and what 
 spoil was there waiting to be seized, the masters of the 
 region adjacent to Lake Tanganyika hurried up to take 
 possession before their instructors were ready for their own 
 projected raidings. While the Brussels Conference was 
 devising methods and laying down rules for its overthrow 
 the slave trade was assuming unparalleled proportions, and 
 the Congo Government was being convinced that unless it 
 could speedily drive back the invaders from the east it 
 would be in imminent danger of losing all the foothold 
 it had gained, except, perhaps, in the small area between 
 Stanley Pool and the mouth of the Congo. It was to 
 avert this catastrophe that, apart from or in partnership 
 with the admittedly commercial expeditions in the direc- 
 tion of Katanga and elsewhere, other expeditions, osten-
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADING. 145 
 
 sibly philanthropic, but primarily political in their objects, 
 and with a keen eye also for commercial advantages, were 
 especially numerous in the few years following the virtual 
 surrender of the whole Stanley Falls region to Tipu-Tipu 
 under the arrangement made with him by Mr. Stanley. 
 The most honest of all the so-called philanthropic 
 
 expeditions were those despatched by 
 
 c jiA.ji A 4.- T? i -^u The Societe Anti- 
 
 the Soci6i6 Anti-Esclavagiste, with Esc i a vagiste. 
 the object of setting up on the Tan- 
 ganyika side " an insurmountable barrier to the caravans 
 that came from the east to ravage the Manyema country, 
 and returned to the coast laden with plunder and escorting 
 lugubrious convoys of slaves." But the first party, sent 
 out in 1890, and travelling by way of the Congo, got no 
 further than the Lomani, where it was met and igno- 
 miniously driven back by the Arabs. The second was 
 more successful. Led by Captain Jacques, who took the 
 Zanzibar route, in October, 1891, it reached Lake Tan- 
 ganyika, where it joined forces with Captain Joubert, a 
 veteran disciple of Cardinal Lavigerie, who had been 
 working with the Cardinal's White Fathers Mission since 
 1879. 
 
 Some good was doubtless done by these enthusiasts, 
 although the few European priests, officers, and laymen, 
 with their headquarters at Albertville and at Mrumbi, 
 near by, both on the western shore of the lake, appear 
 to have undertaken harder work than they could accom- 
 plish in controlling the natives whom they employed in 
 patrolling the neighbourhood and in petty fights with 
 others besides Arabs whenever occasion arose. Captain 
 Stairs met them more than once on his way to Katanga, 
 and considered that their influence was on the whole in- 
 jurious, as they mainly provoked opposition that they could 
 not crush. Of Captain Jacques, then proceeding to his 
 destination, Dr. Moloney had to record that "his men 
 seemed to be completely disorganised, and, instead of 
 paying the natives, had looted every village on the road." 
 
 L
 
 146 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 " Captain Joubert's most inveterate enemies were the 
 emissaries of Rumaliza," Dr. Moloney also reported, 
 Rumaliza being the Ujiji chieftain now rising into pro- 
 minence as a leader of resistance to interference from the 
 Congo State. " That sheikh had sworn to have Joubert's 
 blood ; and his slaves had for months been enlisting an 
 army of ruga-ruga and other rapscallions to wipe him out." 
 This was before Captain Jacques had arrived to take com- 
 mand of the " anti-slavery " army, augmented by his addi- 
 tions to about 200 Zanzibari and other indifferent warriors. 
 In January, 1893, when matters had become far more 
 serious, and before the arrival of two relief expeditions 
 under Captain Long and Captain Descamps, Dr. Moloney 
 added, " Whether reinforcements save the situation or not, 
 the fact remains that they were left, for over a twelvemonth, 
 face to face with a fanatical and unscrupulous foe, with 
 little powder, and a stock of rifles which might have been 
 furnished by the armoury of some provincial theatre. No 
 more pertinent illustration could be devised of the folly, I 
 had almost set down criminality, of founding empires ' on 
 the cheap.'"* 
 
 Much costlier attempts at empire -founding, however, 
 
 were then in progress. The opera- 
 The Welle and r ~ Jt ,, ?. 
 
 tions of Captains Roget, Van Gele, 
 Aruwimi Expeditions. , _ T _ 
 
 Van Kerckhoven, and others in the 
 
 Welle and Aruwimi districts, dating from 1888, had for 
 their immediate warrant the necessity of warding off the 
 encroachments not only of Tipu-Tipu's followers, raiding 
 north and west from Stanley Falls, but also of the fol- 
 lowers of the Sudanese Mahdi, coming southward from 
 Dongola. That even then the Congo Government aspired 
 to such enlargement of territory as would open up to it the 
 Nile valley was no secret, and was also a ground of alarm 
 to the French ; but excuse was found in the slave-raiding 
 expeditions now plentiful, and threatening the natives 
 already under the nominal care of the Congo Government. 
 
 * 'With Captain Stairs to Katanga,' pp. 46, 129, 133.
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADING. 147 
 
 Captain Roget, having proceeded northwards from 
 Basoko into the Niam-Niam country in February, 1890, 
 established with Sultan Djabir, the most powerful chief 
 there, relations similar to those by which Lieutenant von 
 Wissmann had undermined the authority of Kalamba in 
 the Baluba country, but with the important difference that 
 the cannibal Niam-Niam were much more troublesome 
 allies or vassals than the hemp-smoking Baluba. General 
 Gordon had in 1876 enrolled fifty of them as soldiers, and 
 had admired them as " thick-set and sturdy, as well as 
 very fierce, brave and fearless "; but neither Captain Roget 
 nor the other Belgian officers who followed in his steps 
 succeeded in obtaining from the Niam-Niam leaders more 
 than nominal submission, or any assistance that was not 
 to their own advantage. The first of these leaders to 
 follow Djabir's example was Sultan Bangaso, on the south 
 side of the Ubangi, or Bomu, as it was called in that 
 portion of its course, with whom Captain Van Gele came 
 to terms in August, 1890, and had the dealings with in 
 guns and powder already referred to.* Another was Sultan 
 Semio, on the north side of the river, who a few months 
 later accepted the friendship of Roget's colleague, Lieutenant 
 Milz. Though they called themselves sultans, there was, 
 of course, no fellowship in blood or religion between the 
 Niam-Niam potentates and the spurious Arabs whose 
 lawless pursuits, with the help of Manyema and other 
 dependents, they emulated.! 
 
 By this time the enterprise in northern Congoland, which 
 
 had hitherto been fitful and at the 
 
 ,. c ii- i , Extensions in 
 
 whim ot subordinates, had come to ... _ 
 
 ... Northern Congoland. 
 
 be organised under the command ot 
 
 Captain Van Kerckhoven, Captain Georges le Marinel's 
 predecessor as commissary of the Bangala district. With 
 
 * Ante, p. 138. 
 
 t As in the previous chapter, it may be sufficient for me to refer generally 
 to ' Le Mouvement Geographique ' as the authority for concise statements of 
 facts not otherwise vouched for.
 
 H8 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 a large force of native mercenaries, variously estimated at 
 from one to five thousand, and probably chiefly recruited 
 on the way and varying in numbers from time to time, 
 many, if not all of them, being armed with Mauser rifles, 
 Van Kerckhoven left Leopoldville on 4th February, 1891 ; 
 and he was busily crusading in the country between the 
 Welle and the Ubangi until his death on loth August, 
 1892. "The conduct of the affairs of the Congo Free 
 State," it was pointed out in the Times, " does not to an 
 ordinary onlooker seem calculated to promote the objects 
 for which it was professedly established, or even to promote 
 its commercial development and bring an adequate revenue 
 into the coffers of its Government." The Van Kerckhoven 
 expedition, it was complained, had for eighteen months 
 been raiding outside the then recognised limits of the 
 State's territory, and there setting up "stations" and 
 collecting " large stores of ivory," in defiance of French 
 protests, and, at the time of writing, it was continuing its 
 exploits within the British sphere of influence as marked 
 out by the Anglo-German agreement. If, it was signi- 
 ficantly added in this indictment, the Congo State's 
 encroachments had been sanctioned by the Imperial 
 British East African Company, still alive in 1892, the 
 sanction had not been endorsed by the British Govern- 
 ment.* 
 
 Dividing his force into sections, entrusted to Captain 
 
 .. , . Ponthier, Lieutenant Milz, and others, 
 
 Van Kerckhoven's ^ L . ' , r . . 
 
 Ubangi Expedition. Ca P tam Van Kerckhov en took as 
 complete possession as he could of 
 
 the long stretch of country scoured by him and his sub- 
 ordinates. This he did with the concurrence of Semio and 
 the other native chiefs with whom a sort of friendship had 
 already been sealed, Djabir being actually enrolled as a 
 servant of the State and appointed to the rank of captain 
 in its force publique. The consent of Rashid, Tipu-Tipu's 
 
 * Times, 2Oth September, 1892. The news of Van Kerckhoven's death 
 had not then reached Europe.
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADING. 149 
 
 nephew, was also obtained by a respectful visit that Van 
 Kerckhoven paid to him at Stanley Falls, one alleged 
 object of the expedition being the expulsion of the Arabs 
 who had intruded into the Mambutu country. Much 
 fighting had to be done, however, chiefly or ostensibly with 
 the Arabs, who were defeated at Bomakandi, and thence 
 pursued eastward with the help of Semio's cannibals as 
 well as Djabir's. The Mambutu, instead of welcoming 
 their avowed deliverers, were defiant. " Dervishes, Arabs, 
 whites, men of Semio all liars, thieves, and dogs," they 
 shouted, with mocking cries of " Ponshio ! Ponshio ! " the 
 native term for human flesh. " Strangers have always 
 deceived us," declared one of the local chiefs, Sangebuno ; 
 " we have been the prey alike of Niam-Niam, Dervishes, 
 and Arabs. Are the whites any better ? No, surely. At 
 any rate, as our country is now free from the presence of 
 any foreigners, to admit fresh ones would be cowardice. I 
 shall not let myself be the slave of any one. I shall fight 
 against the whites." This rude patriot was worsted, how- 
 ever, and so were others. Some were easily disposed of; 
 some caused grave embarrassment to the slowly advancing 
 host, hampered by the unruliness and jealousies of the 
 black majority of its own members nearly as much as by 
 the resistance of its foes. It was only by setting against 
 one another the tribes he sought to conquer, and, after or 
 before one group had been overcome, by coaxing its rivals 
 to take sides with him in the foolish hope of benefiting 
 themselves thereby, that Van Kerckhoven traversed about 
 twelve hundred miles in sixteen months. In June, 1892, 
 he was at the junction of the Welle, there called the Kibali 
 or Nzoro. with its tributary the Obi, and only some 
 hundred and fifty miles to the west of Wadelai, when he 
 found himself almost at the end of his resources. For 
 two other months he appears to have made no progress, 
 or only to have moved futilely to and fro, losing by disease 
 or poisoned arrows most of the few survivors of the force 
 he had started with, and deserted by many of those whose
 
 ISO CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 services he had enlisted or whose help he had obtained on 
 the way. At length, before loth August, 1892, while 
 preparing to resist an unexpected attack, he was struck 
 down by a bullet from the Winchester his servant was 
 loading for him. Lieutenant Milz, succeeding to the com- 
 mand of the expedition, went on to the Nile, and on 
 9th October reached Wadelai, which he found still occupied 
 by a small residue of Emin Pasha's old garrison. There, 
 or at Dufile, Lado and elsewhere, he left more than two- 
 thirds of so much as remained of the Van Kerckhoven 
 expedition, returning himself as quickly as he could, with 
 fifty-six native warriors, to the seat of Congo government. 
 Though the expedition had done nothing to check 
 Arab or any other slave-raiding, it had secured for the 
 Congo State a title to the disputed territory up to the 
 Ubangi on the north and along its whole eastward stretch 
 towards the Nile, and, though there was as much conceal- 
 ment as was practicable, what were thought to be good 
 grounds had been established for a claim to extension of 
 the State's dominions over the western side of the Nile 
 valley. " Every one," it was written in the Times, " must 
 sympathise with and wish success to the Government of 
 the Congo Free State in its efforts to develop the resources 
 of its vast territory, to suppress the Arab slave-raiders 
 that devastate the land, and to spread civilisation among 
 the natives. But the sympathy must soon, in this country, 
 cease if such filibustering expeditions are equipped to 
 expend their energies in regions beyond the limits of the 
 State, regions which are known to be within the sphere of 
 a friendly Power. Notwithstanding the repeated assertions 
 of ignorance on the part of the Free State, it is perfectly 
 well known that Van Kerckhoven's expedition has been 
 established at Lado for many months. This profession of 
 ignorance is in itself sufficient to confirm the suspicion 
 that the expedition from the first was intended to be of a 
 secret nature, for the purpose of accomplishing an object 
 which the Government of the State knew was illegitimate
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADING. 151 
 
 and inconsistent with its friendly professions towards this 
 country."* 
 
 It was fortunate for the Congo State that the alarm and 
 suspicion raised by the proceedings of the Van Kerckhoven 
 expedition in the north were quickly followed, and to some 
 extent counteracted, by reports of the professedly beneficent 
 achievements of the Dhanis expedition in the south, within 
 the undisputed sphere of the State, and in apparent com- 
 pliance with the philanthropic obligations assumed by it 
 at the Brussels Conference. 
 
 Lieutenant Frangois Dhanis, who had been in the State's 
 
 service since 1884 and had distin- 
 
 u j L- if A ^ ^ r> Baron Dhanis' s Arab 
 
 guished himself under Captain Roget .... 
 
 . Zone Expedition. 
 
 in the Aruwimi district m 1889 and 
 
 in the Kwango district in 1890, was still a young man 
 when the command at Lusambo was transferred to him by 
 Captain Paul le Marinel in April, 1892. Shortly after that 
 date news arrived of a disturbance at Gandu on the Lomani, 
 about midway between Lusambo and the headquarters of 
 Tipu-Tipu and his son Sefu, at Kasongo and Nyangwe, 
 on the Lualaba or Congo ; M. Dhanis's tact in quelling this 
 disturbance, and turning it to account as a prelude to the 
 overthrow of Arab power in Congoland, made his fame, 
 and saved the Congo State from wreckage, f 
 
 The immediate cause of the disturbance, Congo 
 
 Lutete. was a remarkable and, in 
 
 . . ~ . Gongo Lutete and 
 
 some respects, a typical Central 
 .... . ' TT the Batetela. 
 
 Atncan warrior. He was born at 
 
 Malela, and was by blood a Bakusu," we are told by Dr. 
 Hinde, who accompanied the Dhanis expedition both as a 
 medical and as a military officer. " He had himself been a 
 slave, having as a child fallen into the hands of the Arabs. 
 
 * Times, I3th April, 1893. 
 
 f ' Rapport de Baron Dhanis sur la Campagne Arabe dans le Manyema' in 
 'Documents relatifs a la Repression de la Traite cles Esclaves' (1895), Vol. I., 
 pp. 19-42. I have followed this authoritative account, drawing supplementary 
 matter from Dr. Hinde's ' Fall of the Congo Arabs' (1897). Dr. Hinde now 
 holds important office in the British East Africa Protectorate.
 
 152 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 While still a youth, as a reward for his distinguished 
 conduct and pluck on raiding expeditions, he was given his 
 freedom. Starting with one gun, at eighteen years of age, 
 he gradually collected a band of brigands round him whom 
 he ruled with a rod of iron, and before long he became 
 Tipu-Tipu's chief slave and ivory-hunter. At this time " 
 when Dr. Hinde made his acquaintance in September, 1892 
 "he was perhaps thirty years of age. He was a well- 
 built, intelligent-looking man of about 5 ft. 9 in. in height, 
 with a brown skin, large brown eyes with very long lashes, 
 a small mouth with thin lips, and a straight, comparatively 
 narrow nose. One had to see this man on the warpath to 
 realise the different aspects of his character. The calm, 
 haughty chief, or the genial and friendly companion, became 
 on the battlefield an enthusiastic individual, with a highly 
 nervous organisation, who dealt out his orders, one after 
 another, without a moment's hesitation. He was capable 
 of sustaining intense fatigue, and could lead his warriors 
 through the country at a run for hours together." " The 
 band of brigands with which Gongo had surrounded him- 
 self," according to Dr. Hinde, " were mostly of the Batetela 
 race. These Batetela, and more particularly one tribe 
 called the Bakusu, are, as far as I could ascertain from 
 making inquiries in every direction, the most inveterate 
 cannibals."* Their headquarters were at Gandu. 
 
 Gongo Lutete's raidings had brought him into conflict 
 with the Congo State garrisons, and he had been driven 
 back by Captain Descamps, the officer then in charge of 
 Stanley Falls, before his more severe defeat by Lieutenant 
 Dhanis on 9th May, 1892, which, two months later, was 
 followed by his proposal to enter the service of the State, 
 " since the Arabs for some time past had paid him neither 
 for his work nor for the ivory he sent them." This proposal 
 
 * ' The Fall of the Congo Arabs,' pp. 86, 89. The apparently confusing 
 recurrence of "tete" in "Batetela" and " Lutete " illustrates the formation 
 of names in Bantu languages. They might be more correctly written " ba- 
 Tete-la" and "lu-Tete," meaning, roughly, "the Tete people" and "the 
 Tete chief."
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADING. 153 
 
 was welcome, as the killing of Hodister and his companions 
 at Riba Riba on I5th May, the arrest and imprisonment of 
 two Belgian officers by Sefu at Kasongo, the critical position 
 of Captains Jacques and Joubert near Lake Tanganyika, 
 and much else, had rendered it necessary that steps should 
 be promptly taken for the conquest of all the east as well 
 as all the south of Congoland. 
 
 With the help of Congo and his thousands of Batetela 
 
 and other cannibals, as well as of the 
 
 . c n i Dhanis' s Advance on 
 
 reinforcements of less irregular troops 
 
 _ the Arabs. 
 
 sent up from Leopoldville, M. Dhanis 
 
 now Captain, soon to be Major, and in due course Baron 
 was able to make a formidable advance against the Arab 
 and Manyema forces under Sefu, Tipu's chief representative 
 in this region. It was made with all the more alacrity as 
 on 22nd October Dr. Hinde, who had been sent to Gandu 
 to complete the terms of alliance with Gongo, received 
 warning that Sefu, with 10,000 men armed with guns and 
 swords, had marched out from Kasongo to attack him. 
 " The letter," as Dr. Hinde reported, " went on to say that 
 Sefu's plan was, after killing us, to take all the country as 
 far as Leopoldville, and that the only thing to save us and 
 propitiate Sefu would be either to give up our friend Gongo 
 Lutete, or else to send his head as a present, and then 
 depart out of the country, which Sefu maintained was his. 
 Unless these two conditions were immediately complied 
 with Sefu would cross the Lomani and fight us. We 
 wrote a temporising letter and, as soon as the carriers had 
 started, broke camp and followed them, hoping to reach 
 the river before the Arab forces succeeded in crossing, as 
 our only chance of checking their advance." * 
 
 Sefu was dilatory in his movements, however, and there 
 was no fighting before Captain Dhanis came up, with a 
 Krupp gun, to take command of an army comprising, 
 besides 350 of the Congo State's force publique, under four 
 or five white officers, some 3,400 Batetela auxiliaries, sent 
 
 * ' The Fall of the Congo Arabs,' p. 97.
 
 154 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 up by Gongo and two subordinate chiefs, on whom most 
 of the actual work devolved. The first battle was fought 
 and won on 22nd November, on the western bank of the 
 Lomani, when about 1 ,000 prisoners were said to have been 
 taken, and nearly as many killed, the prisoners being only 
 removed for consumption after those slain on the battle- 
 field had been disposed of. Four days later the river was 
 crossed by the advance guard, with Dr. Hinde, who was 
 surprised by the refinements which Arab encroachments 
 had introduced, and which was to be replaced by savagery 
 at its worst under Congo State sanction. " We rushed 
 a fortified village named Chile," he reported, "the most 
 tastefully built and beautifully planted town I have seen 
 in Central Africa. The houses .were built on platforms 
 raised about two feet from the ground, and were made of 
 wood, thatched with the ordinary grass. On the inside 
 the walls were plastered with white clay, grotesquely 
 ornamented in yellow, black, and red. Nearly all these 
 houses were furnished with regular-made fireplaces and 
 seats." " It was here," he added, " that the cannibal pro- 
 pensities of friendlies and camp followers were first brought 
 before me. On returning through the town, after following 
 the inhabitants a mile or two beyond, I found that the 
 killed and wounded had all disappeared, and some of my 
 men volunteered the information that the friendlies had 
 cut them up and carried them off for food. This I did not 
 believe. On the way home, however, we were again 
 attacked. The friendlies, who were dancing along in front, 
 promptly broke and fled, leaving amongst the loot scattered 
 about the road several human arms, legs, and heads, which 
 the men whose information I doubted took care to point 
 out to me as proof that they had not lied." * 
 
 At Lusuna, about fifty miles from Nyangwe, on nth 
 December, Captain Dhanis met Congo Lutete with Captain 
 Michaux, who had been told off to escort him and the bulk 
 of his followers coming direct from Gandu. The combined 
 
 * 'The Fall of the Congo Arabs,' pp. 117, 118.
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADING. 155 
 
 force of the invaders then numbered about 400 of the force 
 publique and about 25,000 Batetela, including their wives, 
 of whom Gongo's share was 300, the allowance of his 1,500 
 more regular troops being 2,800, and the 4,000 humbler 
 followers having only 400 amongst them.* " The fact that 
 both sides were cannibals, or rather that both sides had 
 cannibals in their train," Dr. Hinde considered, "proved 
 a great element in our success. The teaching of the 
 Mohammedan religion does not allow that a man whose 
 body has been mutilated can enter into the highest heaven, 
 where only perfect men are admitted. As a consequence 
 of this belief the white Arabs and other faithful followers 
 of Islam would, after a rebuff, instead of trying to retrieve 
 the fortunes of the day, fly from the field with all possible 
 speed, not so much in order to save their lives as through 
 fear lest their carcases, in the event of their falling, should 
 be torn to pieces." f One of the grim episodes of the 
 march incident to a tough fight on 3Oth December with 
 Muni Mohara, the Manyema chief, who was Sefu's prin- 
 cipal ally, and 2,000 of his followers may be quoted from 
 Dr. Hinde's record. " I saw on this battlefield the only 
 case I can remember of a native putting love before fear 
 or danger. On a bare spot my comrades had just swept 
 over I passed a woman seated on the ground by a dead 
 chief, quietly crying, with his head in her lap, while the 
 bullets whizzed round her, sometimes only missing her by 
 inches. A little later on, when recrossing the battlefield, 
 the only signs left were bloodstained spots here and there, 
 marking the place where the victims of the fight had been 
 cut up to furnish a banquet in the evening to the victorious 
 survivors. The camp followers and friendlies made no 
 difference in this respect between the killed and wounded 
 on their own side or the enemy's. One of Gongo Lutete's 
 
 * According to Baron Dhanis (p. 19), Gongo's personal following of 9,000 
 was thus made up. The balance of 16,000 consisted apparently in part of the 
 forces of his subordinate chiefs and in part of a hungry rabble picked up on the 
 march. 
 
 t ' The Fall of the Congo Arabs,' p. 124.
 
 i$6 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 wives was killed during the progress of the battle and was 
 cut up and eaten by his own men, on whom, however, he 
 took summary vengeance the day following by handing 
 them over to form a repast for their comrades." * 
 
 The fifty miles' march to the Lualaba lasted five weeks, 
 
 as there were many Manyema villages 
 The Capture of , J , .. . 
 
 to be destroyed, and their occupants 
 
 eaten ; and Captain Dhanis appears 
 to have done little more through another five weeks than 
 watch the Arab stronghold from the opposite side of the 
 Lualaba, which was there about 1,000 yards wide. The 
 delay was probably wise, as in his suspense Sefu took 
 fright and withdrew with part of his force, while Congo's 
 Batetela desolated the neighbourhood. The river was at 
 length crossed on 4th March, 1893, and to everyone's astonish- 
 ment Nyangwe was entered without protest, and occupied 
 almost without bloodshed, although on the gib. there was 
 what was called " an outbreak of treachery," followed by 
 plentiful slaughter of the defeated and burning down of 
 most of the town by Dhanis's orders. " For three days," 
 wrote Dr. Hinde, "we saw nothing of Lutete, and I learned 
 afterwards, when talking over affairs with him, that during 
 this time he had not left his own quarters ; the sights in his 
 camp were so appalling that even he did not care to put 
 himself in the way of seeing them unnecessarily. He told 
 us that every one of the cannibals who accompanied him 
 had at least one body to eat. All the meat was cooked 
 and smoke-dried, and formed provisions for the whole of 
 his force and for all the camp followers for many days 
 afterwards. A volunteer drummer who had been with us 
 for some time disappeared, and, we imagined, had been 
 killed. A day or two afterwards he was discovered dead 
 in a hut by the side of a half-consumed corpse ; he had 
 apparently over -eaten himself and had died in conse- 
 quence."f Yet on the whole Dr. Hinde thought well of 
 the hygienic effects of cannibalism. " During the war in 
 
 * 'The Fall of the Congo Arabs,' p. 134. t Ibid., p. 175.
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADING. 157 
 
 which we were engaged for two years," he said, " we 
 reaped perhaps the only advantages that could be claimed 
 for this disgusting custom. In the night following a battle 
 or the storming of a town these human wolves disposed of 
 all the dead, leaving nothing even for the jackals, and thus 
 saved us, no doubt, from many an epidemic." * 
 
 Kasongo, in which Sefu was residing, was next attacked, 
 
 and on 22nd April it was taken as 
 
 x , c f c The Capture of 
 
 easily as Nyangwe, Sefu and most of .. 
 
 J . . . Kasongo. 
 
 his following having retired to join 
 forces with Rumaliza, the great potentate of Ujiji, who was 
 at Kabambare, midway between Kasongo and Lake 
 Tanganyika. " Kasongo," Dr. Hinde reported, " was a 
 much finer town than even the grand old slave capital, 
 Nyangwe. During the siege of Nyangwe, the taking of 
 which was more or less expected, the inhabitants had time 
 to carry off all valuables, and even furniture, to places of 
 safety. At Kasongo it was different. We rushed into the 
 town so suddenly that everything was left in situ. Our 
 whole force found new outfits, and even the common 
 soldiers slept on silk and satin mattresses, in carved beds 
 with silk mosquito curtains. The room I took possession 
 of was eighty feet long by fifteen feet wide, with a door 
 leading into an orange garden, beyond which was a view 
 extending over five miles. Here we found many European 
 luxuries, the use of which we had almost forgotten: candles, 
 sugar, matches, silver and glass goblets, and decanters were 
 in profusion. We also took about twenty-five tons of ivory, 
 ten or eleven tons of powder, millions of caps, cartridges 
 for every kind of rifle, gun, and revolver perhaps ever 
 made, some shells, and a German flag, taken by the Arabs 
 in German East Africa. The granaries throughout the 
 town were stocked with enormous quantities of rice, coffee, 
 maize, and other food ; the gardens were luxurious and 
 well planted, and oranges, both sweet and bitter, guava, 
 pomegranates, pineapples, and bananas abounded at every 
 
 * ' The Fall of the Congo Arabs,' p. 69.
 
 158 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 turn." " During the time spent at Kasongo," he added, 
 " I was constantly astonished by the splendid work which 
 had been done in the neighbourhood by the Arabs. 
 Kasongo was built in the corner of a virgin forest, and for 
 miles round all the brushwood and the great majority of 
 trees had been cleared away. In the forest-clearing 
 splendid crops of sugar-cane, rice, maize, and fruits grew ; 
 and some idea of the extent of this cultivation may be 
 gathered from the fact that I have ridden through a single 
 ricefield for an hour and a half. When placing groups of 
 people about this country to form villages, these villages 
 became self-supporting within three or four months."* 
 
 This testimony is important as showing that, appalling 
 as was the mischief wrought by the Arabs in raiding for 
 ivory and slaves, they introduced among those natives 
 whom they did not steal or kill a measure of civilisation 
 far in advance of anything attained by the natives for 
 themselves, and far more generous and serviceable than 
 that afterwards forced upon them by the Congo State 
 officials. "The political geography of the Upper Congo 
 Basin has been completely changed, as a result of the 
 Belgian campaign among the Arabs," Dr. Hinde admitted 
 in March, 1895. " It used to be a common saying in this 
 part of Africa that all roads led to Nyangwe. This town, 
 until lately one of the greatest markets in Africa, has 
 ceased to exist, and its site, when I last saw it, was 
 occupied by a single house. Kasongo, a more recent 
 though still larger centre, with perhaps 60,000 inhabitants, 
 has also been swept away, and is now represented by a 
 station of the Free State nine miles away, on the river 
 bank. Despite their slave-raiding propensities during the 
 forty years of their domination, the Arabs had converted 
 the Manyema and Malela country into one of the most 
 prosperous in Central Africa."! 
 
 * ' The Fall of the Congo Arabs,' pp. 183, 187. 
 
 + Ibid. p. 6, citing ' Three Years' Travel in Central Africa,' a paper read by 
 him before the Royal Geographical Society.
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADING. 159 
 
 Having driven Sefu from his strongholds with unlocked 
 
 for ease. Captain Dhanis occupied 
 
 ... . The Re- Enslavement 
 
 more than half a year in appro- of the Manyema . 
 
 pnating the district and its popula- 
 tion for the profit of the Congo State. " While arranging 
 the country after having settled down at Kasongo," Dr. 
 Hinde reported, " we found it advisable to make use of 
 those native and Arab slaves who were capable of teaching 
 the others. All the masons, brickmakers, agriculturists, 
 carpenters, armourers, and ironworkers found among the 
 prisoners were given charge of the intelligent lads from the 
 native tribes, and set to work, with the intention of 
 eventually forming colonies in suitable districts for these 
 trades. We even employed their elephant-hunters, who 
 had been taken fighting, and left them their arms on 
 condition that they hunted for us, and taught every one 
 who chose to go with them what to do." In other words, 
 and without euphemism, the old slavery was continued and 
 strengthened under new masters. " Enormous numbers of 
 people," we are assured, " considered themselves our slaves, 
 and, since the Arabs had been turned out, were like sheep 
 without a shepherd. We selected the petty chiefs who 
 still existed and, in cases where the chiefs had been killed, 
 made new ones and these, in turn, selected their own 
 people. One of us then marched this party out into the 
 surrounding country, and, choosing a convenient place for 
 them, gave them orders that they should build a village 
 and start planting." But the experiment appears to have 
 been generally unsuccessful. It was so, at any rate, as 
 regards Dr. Hinde's share in the work. "Two or three 
 times I established villages," he said, " with invariably the 
 same result ; the whole population decamped, and either 
 took up their abode elsewhere or arrived in Kasongo, 
 clamouring to be placed in some other district." The 
 Congo State's deliverance of the natives from Arab 
 thraldom was not welcomed, and more unwelcome than 
 its regular officials and troops were, with good reason, its
 
 160 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 cannibal allies. " We were at this time," wrote Dr. Hinde, 
 by way of illustration, " having a good deal of trouble with 
 the natives to the westward of the neighbourhood of 
 Kasongo, who had been attacking our friendlies, and even 
 our own people, whenever they went out to look for food." * 
 It was evidently to legalise and systematise the new 
 tyranny which Captain Dhanis was establishing that a 
 Royal Decree was issued on 28th November, 1893, announc- 
 ing that " the Commandant of the forces of the State is 
 authorised to raise in the country, by means of prestations, 
 part of the resources necessary to cover the extraordinary 
 expenses incurred in suppressing the Arab revolt. He 
 determines the nature and the amount of the prestations to 
 be furnished by each locality or native chief. These presta- 
 tions will be, as far as possible, in proportion to the popula- 
 tion placed under the authority of the local chief. Prestations 
 of labour will be used in the establishment of plantations, 
 the cultivation of the rubber plant, and the construction of 
 works of public utility."! These prestations, or levies, were 
 henceforth the rule and authority for every sort of oppres- 
 sion and extortion in other parts of the State's dominions 
 as well as in the Manyema country. 
 
 In September an exceptionally disgraceful incident 
 occurred. Trouble having broken out 
 between the Basuku and Lieutenant 
 Duchesne, who had been left in charge 
 at Gandu, Congo Lutete was at the end of August sent 
 home " to arrange matters," and Dr. Hinde volunteered to 
 follow him, but unfortunately not soon enough. Before 
 Dr. Hinde started news came that Duchesne " had dis- 
 covered that Gongo was a traitor," and had made him a 
 prisoner, and when Dr. Hinde arrived, with a small escort, 
 on i /th September, it was to find that "our brave and 
 faithful ally had been shot forty-eight hours before our 
 arrival." The murder, under cover of a sham court martial, 
 
 * ' The Fall of the Congo Arabs,' pp. 194, 196, 203, 204. 
 t 'Bulletin Officiel ' (1893), ? 2 4 6 -
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADING. 161 
 
 appears to have been as foolish as it was wicked. Congo, 
 whatever his faults as the savage leader of a cannibal horde, 
 had been in every way loyal to Dhanis and the Congo 
 State, had secured for the expedition most of its success 
 up to the time of his death, and had done all he could to 
 restrain the worst tastes of his followers. " When, after the 
 court martial, poor Congo was told that he would be shot 
 the following morning at eight o'clock, he appointed his son 
 Lupungu his successor and, when left in his cell, hanged 
 himself with a rope plaited from part of his clothing, to 
 avoid the disgrace of a public execution. Unfortunately 
 he was discovered before life was extinct, was cut down 
 and resuscitated, and, as soon as he was sufficiently 
 recovered, marched out and shot." A few hours after his 
 death the natives far and near, " by means of the drum- 
 telegraph, all knew of what had taken place at Gandu, and, 
 as their great chief was dead, considered themselves at 
 liberty to eat all his personal followers." Before Dr. Hinde's 
 arrival " the whole population of Gandu and the surround- 
 ing districts, deprived as they were of their head, had split 
 up into factions, which were fighting amongst each other, 
 raiding each other's quarters, and murdering whoever they 
 came across." Before returning to Kasongo, with as many 
 of Congo's followers as he could collect, only about i ,000, 
 Dr. Hinde had " perhaps the hardest worked month he had 
 known during the expedition " in re-establishing some sort 
 of order.* 
 
 Harder work followed. Though the murder of Congo 
 
 alarmed natives who might otherwise 
 
 f . ,, ,, The Downfall of 
 
 have been friendly, and was the cause 
 
 J . Arab Power. 
 
 of years of disaster, it encouraged 
 
 the Arabs to activity that hastened their overthrow. 
 
 Several movements had been conducing to this end, the 
 most important contributory being the defeat of Rashid, 
 Tipu's nephew and Sefu's cousin, who, earlier in the year, 
 had only been prevented from destroying the small Belgian 
 
 * ' The Fall of the Congo Arabs,' pp. 206-13. 
 
 M
 
 1 62 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 garrison at Stanley Falls by the timely arrival of Captain 
 Chaltin, on his way from Basoko with reinforcements for 
 Captain Dhanis. Rashid's army was driven back with 
 great slaughter on i8th May, and there was frequent 
 fighting with more heavy slaughter after Captain Ponthier 
 had brought up further reinforcements on 25th June. 
 Pushing their way down to Kasongo Chaltin, by way of 
 the Lomani, and Ponthier, by way of the Lualaba these 
 officers found Dhanis preparing for a desperate encounter 
 with Rumaliza, who on I3th October left Kabambare in 
 the hope of crushing the invaders. With all the forces he 
 could muster, including 200 men hurriedly brought from 
 Bangala by Captain Lothaire, Dhanis went out to meet 
 the enemy, and there was intermittent fighting from 
 1 5th October till I4th January, 1894. Then the accidental 
 blowing up of a powder store in Rumaliza's principal boma, 
 or fortified encampment, caused such panic that, though 
 he himself escaped, more than 2,000 of his army were 
 forced to capitulate three days later, as they were 
 famishing through lack of water. Other thousands had 
 been killed during the three months' struggle, and the 
 occupation of Kabambare on 25th January, followed by the 
 scouring of the whole country as far as Lake Tanganyika 
 and in the direction of Stanley Falls, in which Captain 
 Lothaire notably distinguished himself, and in which 
 Rashid and other leaders were taken prisoners, virtually 
 brought to a conclusion the long campaign against the 
 Arabs. 
 
 Baron Dhanis, as he now was, the title having been 
 conferred on him in October, 1893, claimed in his official 
 report, dated 2Oth December, 1894, that his long, laborious, 
 and in every way remarkable campaign had avenged the 
 wrong inflicted upon Europeans and natives by Arab 
 intruders, and had rescued for the Congo State the territory 
 it was entitled to. " The annihilation of the Arab power," 
 he said, " has brought about the complete suppression of 
 the devastating bands which, in order to procure slaves,
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADING. 163 
 
 had been ravaging the country with fire and sword, from 
 the Welle in the north down to the Sankuru in the south. 
 With them the slave trade disappears from the regions 
 they exploited, and very soon, we may hope, it will no 
 longer exist in the Congo State. The native chiefs who 
 have submitted have been reinstated in authority ; others 
 who have disappeared have been replaced by intelligent 
 soldiers of the State ; and some of the Arabs, who made 
 their submission, have been left in enjoyment of their 
 possessions. All have been disarmed and warned that 
 their authority must be exercised under the direction of 
 the State's agents, who are charged with the pacific settle- 
 ment of any differences that may arise."* 
 
 The concluding sentences of this report are especially 
 noteworthy as revealing the military policy henceforth to 
 be pursued. " Large camps will be formed at Kasongo 
 and Kabambare, and the numerous soldiers instructed 
 there will form the nucleus of the national army. From 
 this point of view the Arab campaign has forcibly shown 
 that the natives of the various districts of the Congo are in no 
 way inferior as soldiers to the blacks of the coast who are 
 most famous for their bravery. The Baluba and others trained 
 and led by Lieutenant Doorme, the Bangala under Captain 
 Lothaire, &c., have been admirable. Captain Lothaire 
 speaks very highly of them in his reports. In the near 
 future we may expect that it will be no longer necessary 
 to recruit soldiers abroad at great expense. The country 
 will mainly supply its own requirements and the Manyema 
 will be of great importance, alike from the number of men 
 they can furnish and from the special aptitude of these 
 men to the profession of arms." 
 
 More pompous was the report of M. Van Eetvelde to 
 King Leopold, dated 24th December, in which the 
 Secretary of State for the Congo took credit for the 
 brilliant and complete fulfilment by his Government 
 
 * ' Documents relatifs a la Repression de la Traite des Esclaves' (1895), 
 Vol. I., p. 41.
 
 164 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 and its agents of all the duties laid upon them by the 
 Brussels Conference. " The task," he said, " is not over, 
 but what remains of it will be comparatively easy and 
 its accomplishment will be in harmony with measures 
 having for their object the formation of a national army and 
 the consequent reduction of public expenditure." * 
 
 In the eight years that have since elapsed the task taken 
 upon itself by the Congo Government has proved to be 
 more than ever at variance with the duties imposed by the 
 Brussels as well as by the Berlin Conference ; and the 
 economies expected to result from the formation of a 
 national army of cannibals and slave-raiders have been 
 wasteful in many ways. 
 
 * 'Bulletin Official' (1895), pp. 100-19.
 
 INTERNATIONAL COMPLICATIONS. 165 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 INTERNATIONAL COMPLICATIONS [1894-1895]. 
 
 THE uneasiness and annoyance caused in England, France, 
 and Germany by the Congo State's crusading in the east 
 and north, under cover of the obligations assumed by it as 
 regards suppression of the slave trade, continued and 
 showed themselves in frequent complaints which were 
 scarcely allayed by diplomatic arrangements entered into 
 in 1894. 
 
 Germany's only ground of complaint for some time was 
 
 the hindrance thus raised, in defiance 
 
 f , , ,. , . . - . . German Complaints. 
 
 ot the tree trade provisions of the 
 
 Berlin General Act, to the trade with Central Africa 
 which enterprising Germans were anxious to develope by 
 way of Zanzibar and the adjacent coast. This brought 
 them into commercial relations with Tipu-Tipu and other 
 Arab fighting merchants, against which the Congo Govern- 
 ment protested, and which it would have had better right 
 to denounce had its own policy been more honest. Tipu, 
 though formally a servant of the Congo State, was not 
 fettered in any way as to disposal of the ivory procured on 
 the eastern side of Stanley Falls, and sent to market by 
 him or by his agents. If, moreover, some German traders 
 were unscrupulous in selling guns and gunpowder to the 
 ivory-collectors and slave-raiders, in defiance of the pro- 
 visions of the Brussels General Act, the Congo State was 
 at least as unscrupulous in its distribution of like materials 
 of destruction among the murderous savages in its employ. 
 The ill-feeling thus provoked on both sides was, therefore, 
 of a sort that neither party could give vent to in more than 
 undignified quarrelling. German East Africa, as recognised 
 by the other European Powers, and roughly marked out 
 by the Anglo-German Agreements of 1886 and 1890, was
 
 166 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 not encroached upon by the Congo State, and German 
 operations outside of it came to an end when Major von 
 Wissmann retired from the State's service. 
 
 Both Great Britain and France were, as regards Congo 
 
 developments, in different case. 
 French and British ^ , . , 
 
 France has never abandoned the 
 
 Complaints. . 
 
 hope of acquiring dominion over 
 
 nearly the whole of North Africa, and the earlier arrange- 
 ments with King Leopold offered to France a prospect of 
 also succeeding to all his gains. Great Britain, however, 
 as custodian of Egypt, claimed priority of control over the 
 entire region, west of the Nile and north of Congoland, 
 known as the Egyptian Sudan. The north-westernmost 
 portions of British East Africa were actually within the 
 Conventional Basin of the Congo, and there can be small 
 doubt that the transfer of Uganda from the administration 
 of the British East Africa Company to that of the British 
 Crown, early in 1893, was hastened by the apparent 
 necessity for prompt measures being taken to hold the 
 Congo State at bay, as well as to assist the Anglo-Egyptian 
 advances against the followers of the Dongola Mahdi which 
 were then in contemplation. 
 
 It was with a view of harmonising the interests of Great 
 
 Britain with those of the Congo State 
 The Anglo-Congolese ,, r , ,, T 
 
 that, after more than a years corre- 
 
 Convention of 1894. , . * 
 
 spending on the subject, a very un- 
 fortunate compromise was arrived at on I2th May, 1894. 
 By a Convention then signed by the representatives of the 
 two Governments Great Britain made some important con- 
 cessions in return for the lease, during the lifetime of King 
 Leopold, of a strip of Congo territory, twenty-five kilometres 
 or about sixteen miles broad, " extending from the most 
 northern port of Lake Tanganyika as far as the most 
 southern point of Lake Albert Edward," and for permission 
 to construct across Congo State territory a telegraph line 
 connecting British South Africa with the Nile valley. 
 Besides delimiting the frontiers between the Congo State
 
 INTERNATIONAL COMPLICATIONS. 167 
 
 and the British sphere north of the Zambezi, on terms 
 generous to the former, the Convention provided that " the 
 sphere of influence of the Congo State to the north of the 
 German sphere in East Africa shall be limited by a frontier 
 following the 3Oth meridian east of Greenwich up to its 
 intersection with the crest of the water-parting between the 
 Nile and the Congo, and that crest of the parting in a 
 northerly and north-westerly direction." More than that, 
 Great Britain leased to King Leopold, part for his lifetime 
 and part in perpetuity for the Congo State, the territories 
 west of Lake Albert and the Nile from Maagi up to the 
 frontier just mentioned, including Fashoda, and extending 
 to 25 E. longitude and its intersection with 10 N. latitude.* 
 
 This agreement, on being published, gave great offence 
 both to France and to Germany. The German Govern- 
 ment protested so strongly against the article putting Great 
 Britain in possession of the strip of land between Lakes 
 Tanganyika and Albert Edward, adjacent to German East 
 Africa, and manifestly intended for the Cape -to -Cairo 
 railway already being schemed by Mr. Cecil Rhodes, that 
 it had to be withdrawn by arrangement between the British 
 and Congo Governments on 22nd June, 1894. The expos- 
 tulations of the French Government against the proposed 
 handing over to the Congo State of nearly the whole 
 province of Bahr-el-Ghazal, and more than that, resulted in 
 a Convention between it and the Congo Government which 
 was in reality to the benefit ol both parties and prejudicial 
 only to British interests. 
 
 The Convention with France, dated I4th August, pro- 
 vided that the frontier between it and 
 
 ,, n c , ,1 , , , The Franco-Congolese 
 
 the Congo State in the east should 
 
 r , _, TTL ... . Convention of 1894. 
 
 henceforth be the Ubangi, from its 
 
 junction with the Congo, and the Bomu, as it is called 
 above the junction with it of the Welle, and thence further 
 east, in a convenient line, on to 30 E. longitude. From 
 that point the British proposal was so far agreed to as to 
 
 * ' Bulletin Official' (1884), p. 249.
 
 i68 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 allow of the territory up to 5'3O N. latitude, instead of 
 10, being held by the State.* The State's claim to the 
 country over which Captain Van Kerckhoven and other 
 Belgians had been crusading was thus assented to by 
 France, as well as the lease to it of the portion of the Nile 
 valley commonly called the Lado enclave, or " le territoire 
 pris & bail." The rest of the Egyptian Sudan, including 
 most of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, remained debatable land, open 
 to French exploitation unless Great Britain's title to it, as 
 the protector of Egypt, was recognised. To the Congo 
 State, however, were assigned quite as much territory out- 
 side the Conventional Basin of the Congo, and quite as 
 much opporunity for meddling in the political and com- 
 mercial affairs of the Nile valley, as could on any ground 
 be expected to be profitable to it or to its Sovereign. 
 
 Whatever excuses may be found for the singularly 
 ill-advised Convention of I2th May between Great Britain 
 and the Congo State, the recklessness shown in the con- 
 tinuance of its unnecessary and mischievous surrenders to 
 the State, after abandonment of the only hypothetical 
 advantages proposed in it for Great Britain, is inexplicable. 
 The British Government was promptly rewarded for its 
 generosity by the State's assistance to the French advances 
 towards the Nile valley which culminated in the "Fashoda 
 incident," with Captain Marchand for its hero ; and 
 subsequent betrayals of misplaced friendship have been in 
 keeping with that procedure. 
 
 The administrators of the Congo State, for all that, 
 deserve credit for the remarkable ability shown in their 
 conduct of this business, and of other business no less 
 intricate and urgent on later as well as earlier occasions. 
 Notwithstanding the support given by the Belgian Govern- 
 ment to the State in sanctioning and, 
 The Congo State's ~ v ir 
 
 in effect, making itself responsible 
 Insolvency. _ 
 
 for the loan of 150,000,000 francs 
 
 raised in 1887, in lending next year 10,000,000 francs to 
 * 'Bulletin Official' (1884), p. 254.
 
 INTERNATIONAL COMPLICATIONS. 169 
 
 be spent on the Lower Congo railway, and also in under- 
 taking in 1890 to advance to it 25,000,000 francs in the 
 course often years, the State was in 1894 and 1895 in dire 
 financial straits, owing to the costliness of its railway and 
 of its numberless enterprises further inland, Such state- 
 ments as that King Leopold was " no longer in a position 
 to continue his sacrifices for the State " were freely, if not 
 officially, made in the Belgian journals, and in one it was 
 announced in January, 1894, that, as a desperate means 
 of staving off bankruptcy, " a party of speculators led by 
 Colonel North had offered a sum that more than covered 
 the debt for the purchase of the sole privilege of establishing 
 their operations in the vast and rich province of the 
 Manyema," and that a Socie'te' du Manyema had been 
 organised with this object.* It was added, however, that 
 the transaction had been forbidden by the Belgian Govern- 
 ment on the ground that, under King Leopold's will of 
 July, 1889, the Manyema district, as part of the Congo 
 State's property, was a national asset, the mortgaging of 
 which could not be allowed. The Congo Government and 
 the privileged companies in which it was the predominant 
 partner had therefore to struggle on as best they could 
 while the territorial conventions with Great Britain and 
 France were being negotiated and manipulated, and after. 
 A loan of 6,500,000 francs illegally obtained on 3ist 
 March, 1894, fr m M. Browne de Tiege, representing a 
 syndicate of Antwerp financiers, only met the most 
 pressing necessities of the railway, and it was notorious 
 that visits paid by King Leopold himself to Paris, and 
 other financial centres, had for their aim the procuring of 
 funds, and obtained inadequate response. 
 
 So grave had the situation become that, in compliance 
 with an appeal from King Leopold, the Belgian Govern- 
 ment on 9th January, 1895, entered into a treaty with 
 him, "subject to the approval of the Legislature," to at 
 
 * Le Precurseur of Antwerp, 7th January, 1894, quoted in the Times of 
 loth January.
 
 170 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 once, or at an early date to be " determined by Royal 
 
 decree," take over the Congo State, 
 Help from the ' . 
 
 D , . _ , with all its possessions, claims, and 
 
 Belgian Government. 
 
 obligations, as from the preceding 
 
 1st January, instead of waiting for the ten years proposed 
 by the Convention of 2nd July, 1890. 
 
 This treaty was a dead letter, as the approval of the 
 Belgian Legislature was not obtained. Submitted to the 
 Chamber of Representatives, along with a comprehensive 
 " expos6 des motifs " and a " projet de loi," it was referred 
 to a Special Commission which, on 24th May, reported 
 against its adoption, and the decision was in accordance 
 with the weight of public opinion, as expressed in Clerical 
 as well as in Radical and Socialist newspapers, which, 
 viewing the question from different points of view, agreed 
 in deprecating at any rate, without careful consideration 
 and ample safeguards the taking over by so small a 
 nation as Belgium of financial, colonial, and internationa 
 responsibilities so onerous and complicated as the Congo 
 State had incurred. As a compromise, therefore, it was 
 decided on 2/th June, after prolonged discussions and a 
 law was passed to this effect on 29th June that, the 
 question of annexation being indefinitely postponed, two 
 additional loans should be granted, one of 6,850,000 francs 
 to the Congo State, to enable it to repay with interest the 
 amount improperly obtained from M. Browne de Tiege's 
 syndicate, and one of 5,000,000 francs to the Compagnie du 
 Chemin de Fer, in addition to the 10,000,000 francs already 
 handed to it* 
 
 Before that another step had been taken in the hope of 
 
 clearing up the difficulties consequent 
 
 Arrangements with v u> 1 A -i 
 
 the French on Kmg Le P ld s having in April, 
 
 Government. l88 4> assigned to France a right of 
 pre-emption as regards his Congo 
 
 possessions. The right had been to some extent waived 
 by subsequent arrangements ; but enough of it remained 
 
 * Wauters, pp. 103-105, 361 ; Cattier, p. 122.
 
 INTERNATIONAL COMPLICATIONS. 171 
 
 to warrant the French objections offered to the State's 
 abortive treaty of pth January, 1895, with Belgium. With 
 a view to removing these objections an important 
 Convention between France and Belgium was drawn up 
 and signed on 5th February. " The Belgian Government," 
 it was here declared, " recognises the right of preference 
 possessed by France over its Congolese possessions in case 
 of their compulsory alienation, wholly or in part. In order 
 to give effect to this right of preference, any exchange of 
 Congolese territories with a foreign Power, and every con- 
 cession or assignment, wholly or in part, of the said territories 
 to a foreign State or to a foreign company endowed with 
 sovereign rights, will consequently be the subject of prior 
 negotiation between the Governments of Belgium and the 
 French Republic. The Belgian Government declares that 
 it will never gratuitously part with the whole or any part 
 of these possessions, and the arrangements here made 
 apply to all the territories of Belgian Congo."* 
 
 As the Convention creating a Belgian Congoland fell 
 through, this Franco-Belgian Convention has no technical 
 force. " From a moral point of view," however, as M. 
 Cattier points out, " it will be impossible for France to 
 repudiate the interpretation to which it is pledged by 
 iff It remains to be seen whether the Sovereign of 
 the Congo State considers himself equally bound by moral 
 obligations. 
 
 * Cattier, p. 81. t Ibid., p. 82.
 
 172 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES [1894-1897]. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the machinery of government in the Congo 
 was for the most part constituted and set working as soon 
 as possible after the State's establishment in 1884, with 
 M. Van Eetvelde as King Leopold's principal and very 
 able adviser and agent, additions and alterations had of 
 course to be made in later years, as necessity or expediency 
 called for them. Most of these were incident to the 
 administration and partly, perhaps, due to the suggestions 
 of M. Wahis, who succeeded M. Janssen as Governor- 
 General in 1892, and who, his place being taken by deputies 
 during his temporary absences in Europe, has held the office 
 ever since. 
 
 An ordinance of exceptional importance was issued on 
 
 loth October, 1894. defining and 
 The State and its . J ' J* c * . , 
 
 regulating the duties of all officials 
 
 appointed by the Secretary of State 
 or the Governor-General.* Such appointments were, as a 
 rule, to be for three years, during which time the holders 
 were to devote themselves exclusively to the service of the 
 State, to engage in no sort of trade, to receive no payments 
 or rewards of any description from merchants or private 
 individuals, and " not to communicate to outsiders or to 
 publish, without special permission, any information as to 
 affairs of State or private concerns with which their official 
 functions may make them acquainted"; appeal being made 
 to their honour as regards professional secrecy after retire- 
 ment from positions in which, while holding them, they 
 could have been severely punished for breach of discipline.! 
 The chief value of this last rule is in the excuse it affords 
 for refusing to take account of any discreditable facts 
 
 * ' Bulletin Official ' (1894), pp. 221-236. t Ibid., p. 224.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 173 
 
 disclosed by retired servants of the State. There are no 
 records showing anything that may have been done 
 towards enforcement of the other rules, and it is significant 
 that the ordinance fixed no salaries. The arrangement 
 made with each official is at the pleasure of the Secretary 
 of State ; and it is notorious that the regular salaries are 
 generally contemptible in amount, and that, if care is taken 
 to prevent the bribing of officials by outsiders, the State's 
 own policy of " premiums " is systematic. " The blame- 
 worthy custom established itself," says M. Cattier, "of 
 allotting to certain functionaries of the territorial adminis- 
 tration premiums proportionate to the value of the ivory 
 and rubber collected by them, whether in the management 
 of the private domain of the State or in the procuring of 
 payments in kind by natives in the way of taxes. This 
 placed the functionaries in the painful situation of having 
 to sacrifice their pecuniary interests at the bidding of their 
 conscience. It incited them, by the stimulus of self-interest, 
 to severity and harshness in the performance of their 
 duties. On its giving rise to most well-grounded recrimina- 
 tions, this rule was abolished in appearance, but it has been 
 re-established in another form. As long as it lasts it will 
 expose the administration of the State to suspicions often 
 undeserved."* 
 
 The cruelties to natives, as well as other offences, to 
 
 which the arrangement lent itself at 
 
 , , , , r , re i Chefferies and 
 
 the hands of unscrupulous officials are 
 
 Prestations. 
 manifest ; and everything tended to 
 
 facilitate them. On 6th October, 1891, a decree had been 
 issued, establishing what were called chefferies, and providing 
 for the recognition and investiture of native chiefs as 
 accredited agents of the State. " For each investiture," it 
 was appointed, " there shall be prepared a list, indicating 
 the name of the village and its exact locality, the names of 
 the headmen, the number of huts, and the total of the 
 
 * Cattier, p. 235. In support of his grave allegation, M. Cattier refers to 
 the revelations in the Lothaire-Stokes case.
 
 174 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 population men, women, and children. A list shall also 
 be prepared by the District Commissary, showing the 
 annual prestations to be furnished for each village in produce 
 in maize, sorghum, palm-oil, ground-nuts, &c also in 
 corvJes, labourers, or soldiers. This list shall indicate the 
 lands that are to lie fallow, and the nature of the cultivation 
 and all other public works to be carried on. The native 
 chiefs will exercise their authority according to their usages 
 and customs, provided these are not contrary to public 
 order and are in conformity with the laws of the State. 
 They will be under the direction and oversight of the 
 district commissaries."* Thus, with a nickel medal and 
 chain to attest his dignity,! every native chief or aspirant 
 to chieftainship who could be controlled was converted into 
 a vassal, bound to obey State orders in using all the 
 appliances of savagery for the benefit of his masters. 
 Among the " possible dangers " of the arrangement pointed 
 out by M. Cattier were " the discontent of populations con- 
 sequent on investitures disapproved by them, the enhanced 
 power conferred on unstable chiefs, the irritation caused by 
 the intervention of young and imprudent agents in the 
 invested chiefs' exercise of their rights, and the disaffection 
 incident to too heavy prestations "\ 
 
 The prestations appear, at starting, to have been com- 
 paratively light, and the chefferies to have been few in 
 number ; but the operation of the new decree was widespread 
 and ever more and more tyrannical after the new companies 
 for developing the State's private domain had been 
 organised, and while the conquest of that domain was being 
 partially effected by countless military expeditions in the 
 north, south, and east. They were alike serviceable in pro- 
 viding forced labour for the collection of rubber and other 
 commodities and in obtaining recruits and auxiliaries for 
 the force publique. 
 
 "This force publique had been further reorganised by a 
 
 * 'Bulletin Official' (1891), pp. 259-261. t Ibid. (1892), p. 20. 
 Cattier, p. 228.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 175 
 
 decree dated ist October, 1893, before the close of Baron 
 
 Dhanis's anti-Arab crusade, when it 
 
 ...... . The Force Publique. 
 
 was divided into sixteen companies ; 
 
 one, chiefly for training and staff purposes, being at Boma, 
 and the seven of most importance being two in the Welle 
 district and two in the Ubangi district, both in the north, 
 and three in the Stanley Falls district, or Arab Zone, 
 stretching down to the south and including all the Manyema 
 country.* The effective strength appointed for 1894 was 
 4,520, exclusive of the native auxiliaries fitfully supplied, 
 in as many thousands as might be wanted, by great chiefs 
 like the murdered Congo Lutete, and by the minor 
 chefferies, all the arrangements for which were under the 
 private control of the Governor-General. Of the 4,520 
 "regulars" it was ordered that 3,550 should be fresh 
 recruits, of whom 1,480, drawn from the Ubangi and Welle 
 districts, were for the most part apparently Bangala and 
 kindred cannibals, and 700 were Batetela and Manyema, 
 also cannibals, as were also, in large proportion, 450 from 
 the itquateur and Kasai districts and 250 from the 
 Lualaba. The remaining 670 were to be recruited in the 
 western districts, and many of the balance of 970 already 
 in the force were doubtless Hausas, Senegalis, and others 
 still left from the West Africans originally employed or 
 more recently enlisted, f By 1896 the acknowledged 
 strength of the force publique had nearly doubled, 
 amounting to 8,500,! and in the past six years it has 
 again nearly doubled. The regular establishment in 1902 
 is understood to have numbered 15,000, and the aggregate 
 of auxiliaries to have been some 10,000, if not more. 
 
 If we may assume that the Congo 
 Government was really honest and in e Culpability of 
 
 . . J . f the State for 
 
 earnest as regards its plans for carry- CongQ Crue , ties 
 
 ing out the pledges given by it to the 
 
 Berlin and Brussels Conferences, generous allowance must 
 
 * Bulletin Official ' (1894), p. 3. f Ibid (1894), p. 5. 
 % /tf (1896), p. 124.
 
 1 76 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 be made for the blunders and failures inevitably incident 
 to the stupendous attempt at " civilising," and rescuing 
 from their own savagery and the wrong-doing of others, 
 in the course of a few years and with very inadequate 
 appliances, twenty or more millions of African natives 
 spread over an area of nearly a million square miles. The 
 State cannot be excused, however, for the recklessness 
 with which, regardless of the repeated warnings of its early 
 experience, it has persisted in following lines of policy that, 
 however commendable in themselves, were unsuitable for 
 the circumstances in which it was placed, and productive of 
 far more injury than benefit to the people as a whole whom 
 there was pretence of befriending.* Far more inexcusable 
 is the feverish energy with which it has abused the trust 
 imposed upon it at both Conferences by shamelessly, or 
 under transparent cloaks that can deceive no one, converting 
 nearly the whole of the territory assigned to it into a close 
 preserve for exploitation by its own members or by the 
 chartered companies in which it is a partner, and for 
 enslaving, defrauding and in every way maltreating the 
 natives. 
 
 The secrecy enjoined upon all officials of the State, and 
 the terrorism exerted over other residents or visitors in the 
 Congo, stood in the way of authentic information as to 
 events known to have occurred reaching Europe till long 
 after their date ; and these obstacles still exist to some 
 extent. Indisputable records of facts are, however, avail- 
 able in painful abundance, and some of these will presently 
 
 * In support of the above remark two not unfriendly passages may be quoted 
 from Dr. Hinde's ' Fall of the Congo Arabs.' Speaking of the punishments 
 inflicted, even at Leopoldville, for offences scarcely culpable in native opinion, 
 he said (p. 46) : " Prisons, in the present state of the country, are almost an 
 impossibility, and the substitute used of chaining the men in gangs is not only 
 detrimental to health, but is in every way pernicious and abominable in the 
 extreme, and should certainly not be used for any but dangerous criminals. 
 When half a dozen or a dozen men are chained in a row and have to work, 
 rest, eat, and sleep, without being ever free of the chain for weeks and some- 
 times months together, their health naturally gives way." And speaking of 
 the cannibalism which the Government takes credit for prohibiting by decree,
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 177 
 
 be cited in support of conclusions which it is safe, and 
 might be almost sufficient, to draw from the published 
 decrees of the Congo State itself, as well as from the 
 precedents in wrongdoing set up to their own and their 
 employers' satisfaction by Mr. Stanley, Major von Wiss- 
 mann, and other pioneers in Congo enterprise. 
 
 In a cautious official report issued in 1898 the late 
 
 Consul Pickersgill condemned the 
 
 c . . , j. . ., Consul Pickersgill's 
 
 btates proceedings in terms all the _ ,. 
 
 Testimony. 
 
 more significant because he was 
 
 evidently anxious to speak of it as favourably as honesty 
 permitted. After reference to Baron Dhanis's overthrow 
 of the Arabs, he wrote, " It is disappointing to see the 
 outcome of this lofty enterprise sink to a mere modification 
 of the evil that was so righteously attacked. Like the 
 Portuguese in Angola, the Belgians on the Congo have 
 adopted the system of requiring the slave to pay for his 
 freedom by serving a new master during a fixed term of 
 years for wages merely nominal. On this principle is 
 based the senn^ae system of the first-named possession, and 
 the libM system of the latter ; the only difference between 
 the two being that the Portuguese Government permits 
 limited re-enslavement for the benefit of private individuals, 
 but does not purchase on its own account, while the 
 Government of the Independent State retains for itself 
 an advantage which it taboos to everybody else. The 
 State supports this system because labour is more easily 
 obtainable thereby than by enforcing corvee amongst the 
 free people, and less expensively than by paying wages. 
 
 but encourages by sending cannibal troops to scour all parts of the country 
 and allows to devour the inhabitants, he said (p. 66): "Races who until 
 lately do not seem to have been cannibals, though situated in a country sur- 
 rounded by cannibal races, have, from increased intercourse with their neigh- 
 bours, learned to eat human flesh ; for since the entry of Europeans into the 
 country greater facilities for travelling and greater safety for travellers have 
 come about. Formerly the people who wandered from their own neighbour- 
 hood among the surrounding tribes were killed and eaten, and so did not return 
 among their people to enlighten them by showing that human flesh was useful 
 as an article of food." 
 
 N
 
 178 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 The slave so acquired, however, is supposed to have under- 
 gone a change of status, and is baptised officially as a free 
 man. After seven years' service under the new name he is 
 entitled to his liberty complete. In Angola the limit is 
 five years."* 
 
 " The earliest instance of the State's success in enforcing 
 
 labour," Mr. Pickersgill went on to 
 Forced Labour. ,, r ^, 
 
 say, "was the development of the 
 
 primitive transport service between the Lower and the Upper 
 Congo. Development is the right word to use, because the 
 service was originated before the Government arrived. The 
 first Europeans who travelled inland to Matadi had to rely 
 entirely on porters from the coast, and it was not until the 
 missionaries had gained the confidence of the people, and 
 discovered individuals amongst them who could be trusted 
 as gangers, that the employment of local carriers became 
 feasible. But how did the necessity for compulsion arise ? 
 In the same way that it has since arisen in connection with 
 other forms of labour. The State wished to get on faster 
 than circumstances would permit. Accordingly the 
 Government authorities prohibited the missionaries from 
 recruiting where porters were most easily obtained, and 
 under the direction of their military chief, Governor-General 
 Wahis, initiated a vigorous system of corvfa. In spite of 
 the remuneration, this was resisted, at first by the men 
 liable to serve absenting themselves from home, and after- 
 wards, when the State officers began to seize their women 
 and children as hostages, by preparations for war. 
 Deserting their villages, the people of the caravan route 
 took to the bush, and efforts were made by the chiefs to 
 bring about a general uprising of the entire Cataracts 
 district. Things were in so critical a condition that 
 Colonel Wahis had to leave unpunished the destruction of 
 a Government station and the murder of the officer in 
 charge. Mainly through the influence of the missionaries, 
 
 * ' Diplomatic and Consular Reports,' No. 459, Miscellaneous Series (1898), 
 1 Report on the Congo Independent State,' p. 9.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 179 
 
 the general conflagration was prevented ; but the original 
 outbreak continued to smoulder for months, and transport 
 work of all kinds had to be discontinued until means were 
 devised of equalising the burden of the corvee and of 
 enlisting the co-operation of the chiefs in its management."* 
 
 " That was in 1894," Mr. Pickersgill explained, and the 
 disturbance was chiefly confined to 
 the road between Matadi and Leopold- 
 
 ville and the railway works in progress. " Three years later 
 the system appeared to be working with remarkable smooth- 
 ness." But the smoothness was only due to the tyrannical 
 legislation of the Government and to the yet more tyrannical 
 perversion of the Government's legislation by its agents, 
 with its approval, and especially to the " sentry " or 
 " sentinel " system which was an outcome of the chefferies 
 and prestations that provided an unlimited supply of village 
 tyrants. " A sentry on the Congo," according to Mr. 
 Pickersgill, " is a dare-devil aboriginal, chosen, from troops 
 impressed outside the district in which he serves, for his 
 loyalty and force of character. Armed with a rifle and 
 pouch of cartridges, he is located in a native village to see 
 that the labour for which its inhabitants are responsible is 
 duly attended to. If they are india-rubber collectors, his 
 duty is to send the men into the forest and take note of 
 those who do not return with the proper quantity. When 
 food is the tax demanded, his business is to make sure that 
 the women prepare and deliver it : and in every other 
 matter connected with the Government he is the factotum, 
 as far as that village is concerned, of the officer of the 
 district, his power being limited only by the amount of zeal 
 the latter may show in checking oppression."! 
 
 Very notable illustration of the early working of these 
 
 systems was furnished by the late 
 ' , T . , r , Mr. Glare's 
 
 Edward James Glave. a young York- _ 
 
 J ' J Experiences. 
 
 shireman, born in 1862, who in 1883 
 
 entered the service of the Congo International Association as 
 * ' Report on the Congo Independent State,' p. 10. t Ibid., p. 12.
 
 1 80 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 one of Mr. Stanley's subordinates in his founding of the Free 
 State, and who, after a short trial at Stanley Pool, was sent 
 to build and afterwards take charge of the station at 
 Lukolela, three hundred miles beyond Leopold ville. " His 
 conscientiousness, his inflexible determination to do the 
 most that can be done in a given period, the love with 
 which he sets about it, and the absorbing interest it has for 
 him," * commended him to Mr. Stanley, and Glave showed 
 himself worthy of the praise by nearly six years' work, 
 partly at Equateurville, another hundred miles up, whence 
 he explored the country round. His career was, throughout, 
 especially remarkable for the kindly relations he maintained 
 with the natives. Returning to England in 1889, he went 
 back to Africa in 1893, this time as an independent traveller, 
 anxious to see and faithfully report upon the changes 
 wrought there by Congo State and other operations. After 
 spending nearly a year in Nyasaland, Rhodesia, and else- 
 where, he reached the southern end of Lake Tanganyika in 
 September, 1894, and thence proceeded leisurely and often 
 in ill-health to Matadi, where he died on I2th May, 1895. 
 His journals, written from day to day while his experience 
 was fresh, with every desire to speak well of old friends 
 with whom he renewed acquaintance and to think the best 
 of the State and its anti-slavery undertakings, bear the 
 unquestionable stamp of truthfulness and impartiality. 
 They are an unvarnished record of his observations along 
 a route of more than two thousand miles, all the more 
 impressive by reason of its repetitions and reiteration of 
 details. 
 
 He was at Moliro, the port on the southwestern corner 
 
 of Lake Tanganyika, at that time 
 
 State Slavery in the ,, , ' ' ., c .,,, 
 
 . ~ managed by M. Demol for the Societe 
 
 Arab Zone. . ^ / 
 
 Anti - Esclavagiste de Belgique, on 
 
 2 1st October, 1894, when he noted, " All except the Zanzi- 
 
 bari are liberated slaves. Slaves have to serve seven years, 
 
 being well cared for, fed, and clothed during that time ; 
 
 * Mr. Stanley's Introduction to Glave's ' Six Years in the Congo' (1892).
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 181 
 
 afterwards they are at liberty to go where they will." " The 
 Belgians are rather free at flogging, even women are not 
 exempt," he added ; and, on 2^th October, " Demol is very 
 kind-hearted and hospitable ; but I don't think the released 
 natives are very happy with the Belgians there is too 
 much stick for the slightest offence."* 
 
 After leaving Albert ville on 6th December, Glave heard 
 much about Wangwana or Zanzibari followers of the Arabs 
 now in the State's service. " The natives," he wrote, " tell 
 me that before the Wangwana came into the country there 
 were flourishing villages, and any amount of food. But 
 now they have all been driven away by the Wangwana 
 slavers and no permanent villages are met, only a few new 
 villages springing up since the whites took decisive 
 measures against the slavers. But I do not think the 
 Belgians are going the right way to work. When the 
 whites asserted their power, the slaves belonging to the 
 elephant-hunters ran away and joined the native villages. 
 The white men were appealed to, and the chiefs, to whom 
 the slaves had fled, were bound and retained until they had 
 delivered back all the slaves to the Wangwana. This they 
 did to regain their liberty ; but when they were told that 
 they must leave their mountain retreats and build their 
 villages near the caravan road, they naturally failed to 
 carry out their promises." In his next day's entry we 
 read : " It is said, but I must have it corroborated, that the 
 white officer at Kabambare has commissioned several 
 Wangwana chiefs to make raids in the country of the 
 Warua and bring him the slaves. They are supposed to 
 be taken out of slavery and freed, but I fail to see how this 
 can be argued out. They are taken from their villages and 
 shipped south, to be soldiers, workers, &c., on the State 
 stations, and what were peaceful families have been broken 
 up and the different members spread about the place. 
 They have to be made fast and guarded for transportation, 
 
 * An article on ' New Conditions in Central Africa ' in the Century Magazine, 
 Vol. LIIL, p. 903-
 
 1 82 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 or they would all run away. This does not look as though 
 the freedom promised had any seductive prospects. The 
 young children thus ' liberated ' are handed over to the 
 French Mission stations, where they receive the kindest 
 care, but nothing justifies this form of serfdom. I can 
 understand the State compelling natives to do a certain 
 amount of work for a certain time ; but to take people 
 forcibly from their homes, and dispatch them here and 
 there, breaking up families, is not right. I shall learn more 
 about this on the way and at Kabambare. If these con- 
 ditions are to exist I fail to see how the anti-slavery 
 movement is to benefit the native."* 
 
 On 8th December, confirming his earlier surmise, 
 
 Glave wrote : " The Belgians are 
 Anti-Slavery , . ^, , T7 , ,, . 
 
 _. ... employing the Wangwana and their 
 
 Slave- Raiding. . ,, 7 - ~ , i -r 
 
 followers to fight the natives ; and if 
 
 captives are taken they are handed over to the authorities 
 at Kabambare. State soldiers are also employed without 
 white officers. This should not be allowed, for the black 
 soldiers do not understand the reason of the fighting, and, 
 instead of submission being sought, often the natives are 
 massacred or driven away into the hills. To-day I met in 
 Sungula's village thirty-five Baluba soldiers, bound on a 
 fighting expedition against the natives to the south of here, 
 because these people do not consent to send tribute ivory 
 to the whites at Kabambare. Sungula is a tall, wiry man 
 who has killed eighty elephants and owned three hundred 
 slaves ; two hundred have run away and joined the natives. 
 He says some of his slaves he bought ; others had trouble 
 in the villages, and, fearful of punishment, gave themselves 
 up ; some were caught in fights against the natives. Sungula 
 tells that previous to the last fight of Rumaliza and the 
 Belgians he was invited to join the campaign by Sefu, son 
 of Tipu-Tipu, who came to Sungula's village, and wrote 
 letters to Rumaliza, who was at Ujiji. When Rumaliza 
 fled he called at the village of Sungula, and advised the 
 
 * Century Magaiine, Vol. LIU., p. 907.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 183 
 
 latter to remain in the country and accept the Belgian 
 flag." Again, a day later, " The Manyema soldiers com- 
 plain that the native hunters do not go after elephants. 
 Sungula says the reason is that when the hunters are 
 absent the Manyema soldiers take their wives. This is a 
 heinous offence in the eyes of the natives, who have a 
 superstition that, if the wife does not remain constant when 
 the husband is away fighting or hunting dangerous game, 
 the hunter will be sure to suffer serious failure, wounds, or 
 death. The natives of the Congo have the same idea, 
 which prevails generally throughout Central Africa. 
 Sungula does not seem pleased with the big party of 
 Baluba soldiers without a white man. He thinks the natives, 
 upon seeing the forces brought against them, will submit, 
 and pay the desired tribute. But the black soldiers are bent 
 on fighting and raiding ; they want no peaceful settlement. 
 They have good rifles and ammunition, realise their 
 superiority over the natives with their bows and arrows, 
 and they want to shoot and kill and rob. Black delights 
 to kill black, whether the victim be man, woman, or child, 
 and no matter how defenceless. This is no reasonable way 
 of settling the land ; it is merely persecution. Blacks 
 cannot be employed on such an errand unless under the 
 leadership of whites."* 
 
 On loth December, after reaching the village of Loban- 
 gula, Glave reported : " He makes the following complaint 
 against the Manyema soldiers who arrived at his village 
 two days ago. The soldiers saw one or two guns leaning 
 against the huts, loaded and capped. They fired off two of 
 these in the air, then went searching through the village 
 and found in the huts other guns, loaded and capped. In 
 two huts where guns were found two natives were made 
 fast and beaten, one very badly lacerated, his shoulders 
 being cut most unmercifully ; the other bears the marks of 
 the chicotte on his back and a swollen eye as the result of 
 beating. The chief arrived on the scene, and asked the 
 
 * Century Magazine, Vol. LIII., p. 908.
 
 1 84 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 reason of this treatment. The Manyema replied that the 
 villagers had been arming to fight against the whites. The 
 chief replied that this was not so. He had acknowledged 
 the whites, and hoisted the flag given to him by the white 
 men at Kabambare ; moreover, he was engaged in collecting 
 rubber for the whites. He explained that he was menaced 
 by his near neighbours, and, as a matter of precaution, his 
 people kept their guns in readiness. The soldiers were not 
 satisfied by this explanation. The chief was seized and 
 bound, and kept so for several hours, and released only after 
 he had consented to pay to his persecutors one goat, ten 
 fowls, and two slave girls ; then he was set free and the 
 eight guns were returned. Then the hut of Lobangula was 
 rifled. The brutal action of the soldiers so terrified the 
 people that many fled into hiding and have not returned. 
 Lobangula says that in future, when he hears of the 
 approach of a party of soldiers without white men, he 
 and his people will go into hiding till they have passed, 
 as he is afraid of them."* 
 
 The next day's narrative is : " After five hours' hard 
 marching from Lobangula's I reached Bwana Msa's place, 
 in a hollow surrounded on all sides by wooded hills. After 
 the fight with the whites he remained quiet, and when the 
 white men came to Kabambare he asked for a Congo Free 
 State flag. After receiving it he thought he would be free 
 from attack ; but a party of black soldiers, under a headman, 
 Furahani, attacked the village, looted the place, and killed 
 three of his people. Since then the State soldiers have 
 inflicted repeated persecution on him, stealing everything 
 he has. He has given them food each time they have 
 passed. Not content with this, they steal everything on 
 the plantation and in the houses. If the rightful owners 
 object, they are beaten ; the women are taken by force. 
 Msa says he is afraid to complain to Kabambare for 
 fear that out of revenge the soldiers will inflict perse- 
 cution worse than ever. The whole country is being upset 
 
 * Century Magazine, Vol. LIII., p. 810.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 185 
 
 by the brutal and thoroughly unjustifiable conduct of the 
 soldiers."* 
 
 Having on I4th December arrived at Kabambare, which, 
 
 according to Baron Dhanis's plan. 
 
 , . , . The Kabambare 
 
 had been converted into an important . 
 
 School for Soldiers. 
 
 training establishment for Congo 
 
 State soldiers since its capture in the previous January, and 
 having been " met very kindly by Lieutenant Hambursin 
 and Mr. Sinade his second," Glave reported on the 
 following day: " Hambursin has been here since April last. 
 He has a good and substantial brick house in course of 
 construction and nearly finished, needing only doors and 
 windows and plastering. He has a big force at the station ; 
 four hundred soldiers, with their women and children in 
 all over one thousand people." On i/th December it was 
 added : " Yesterday the natives in a neighbouring village 
 came to complain that one of Hambursin's soldiers had 
 killed a villager ; they brought in the offender's gun. 
 To-day at roll-call the soldier appeared without his gun ; 
 his guilt was proved, and without more to do he was 
 hanged on a tree. Hambursin has hanged several for the 
 crime of murder." And, a day later : " The tribute exacted 
 from the natives consists of rubber, ivory, and labour. From 
 six till about seven Hambursin himself gives instruction to 
 the soldiers, who march headed by a band of drummers 
 beating native instruments and whistling. The bugle-call 
 is understood and very well produced by the soldiers. 
 Hambursin was through all the fighting against Rumaliza; 
 he says that Dhanis and Ponthier are to receive the credit 
 of the campaign. Ponthier mastered the country between 
 Stanley Falls and Kasongo, and Dhanis that between 
 Lusambo and Kasongo, and as far as Kabambare. All the 
 troops here are Baluba and from the neighbouring tribes, 
 men taken in the fights. They are to serve seven years at 
 a small salary, cloth, and provisions ; after seven years they 
 are free to go where they like. Hambursin is a stern 
 
 * Century Magazine, Vol. LIII., p. 911.
 
 1 86 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 master; but without that the spirit of this big horde of 
 men would be decidedly rebellious."* 
 
 " I do not think the natives are making much out of this 
 
 partition of Africa," Glave remarked 
 The New Slavery in , ,, ... 
 
 on the same day. Something should 
 Operation. 
 
 be done to permit their earning a 
 
 living, to give them comfort and content. Formerly an 
 ordinary white man was merely called ' bwana ' or 
 ' mzungu ' ; now the smallest insect of a pale face earns 
 the title of ' bwana mkubwa ' (big master). During the 
 campaign against the Arabs by the soldiers of the Congo 
 Free State many cannibals were to be seen so officers 
 tell me provisioning themselves from the killed. This anti- 
 slavery movement has its dark side also. The natives 
 suffer. In stations in charge of white men, Government 
 officers, one sees strings of poor emaciated old women) 
 some of them mere skeletons, working from six in the 
 morning till noon, and from half-past two till six, carrying 
 clay water jars, tramping about in gangs with a rope round 
 the neck, and connected by a rope one and a half yards 
 apart. They are prisoners of war. In war the old women 
 are always caught, but should receive a little humanity. 
 They are naked, except for a miserable patch of cloth of 
 several parts, held in place by a string round the waist. 
 They are not loosened from the rope for any purpose. 
 They live in the guardhouse under the charge of black 
 native sentries, who delight in slapping and ill-using them, 
 for pity is not in the heart of the native. Some of the 
 women have babies, but they go to work just the same. 
 They form indeed a miserable spectacle, and one wonders 
 that old women, although prisoners of war, should not 
 receive a little more consideration ; at least their nakedness 
 might be hidden. The men prisoners are treated in a far 
 better way."f 
 
 On 2 ist December Glave "saw an old woman prisoner, 
 who had died, being dragged to burial by her fellow-prisoners 
 
 * Century Magazint, Vol. LIII., p. 912. t Ibid., p. 913.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 187 
 
 in the rope-gang." On Christmas Day he had theme for 
 reflection on "the miserable, hard-worked, half-starved 
 prisoners, under control of brutal sentries, who delight in 
 every opportunity of ill-treating the wretches placed in 
 their care." * 
 
 On 29th December he was at the village of Kestro, 
 
 near to Kasongo, where he made an 
 
 . , ,, ,. Captain Lothaire and 
 
 interesting note as to the proceedings 
 
 . . p . his Soldiers. 
 
 of the administrator of the district a 
 
 fortnight before the killing of Mr. Stokes. " Kibongo, who 
 ordered the assassination of Emin Pasha," he reported, " is 
 being deserted, and one of his own people, in consideration 
 of cloth, is leading Lothaire to Kibongo's hiding-place. 
 The district of Piana Kitete (piana means successor of ') 
 is said to be full of incorrigible thieves and bravados, who 
 have attacked caravans several times ; but I am assured 
 that Kitete's people have been most unmercifully persecuted 
 by the State soldiers who arrive in the villages, and, without 
 any payment save blows and curses, take fowls and bananas, 
 destroy cooking-pots, &c." The next day's entry is : "I 
 camped near the village of Piana Kitete to-day. He is in 
 a sad frame of mind ; says that he and his people have 
 been fought and raided now four times for no reason that 
 he knows of. Nearly all the women and children have 
 been taken from his villages by Kibangula, Kalombola, and 
 Falabi, the ' Niamparas ' of Kasongo. Kitete swears he 
 has done the whites no harm, nor have the Congo State 
 soldiers or porters been molested by him. On the contrary, 
 he received the Congo Free State flag, and sent goats to 
 Kasongo. The last goats he sent to Kibangula, and also 
 some slaves. The slaves were accepted and the guardians 
 of the goats were also retained as captives. His people's 
 huts have all been burnt, and they have been so hunted 
 that they have not made new huts. A soldier on the trail 
 has women, and always a boy servant ; his wife carries his 
 sleeping outfit, food, &c., cloth, and sandals ; his boy carries 
 
 * Century Magazine, Vol. LI 1 1., p. 913.
 
 1 88 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 his cartridges and gun. Often the wife carries the gun. 
 Some of the soldiers have several wives. Piana Kitete 
 says all his people want to emigrate to more peaceful 
 regions, but he restrains them. A native accompanying a 
 white man, even as an ordinary porter, an occupation as 
 humble as that of a pack donkey, calls other natives 
 ' washensi/ a scornful word for savage. A military spirit 
 prevails through the whole settlement of Kabambare."* 
 Passing the ruins of Tipu-Tipu's Kasongo the traveller 
 
 on 3rd January, 1895, reached New 
 
 Belgian Successors T ^ *_, T , , r 
 
 Kasongo, on the Lualaba river, of 
 of Arabs. 
 
 which Lieutenant rrancken was in 
 
 charge. " The station," he wrote, " is surrounded by 
 villages that pay tribute in different ways. Some do 
 paddling, others build, others again bring in wood for 
 building purposes. Some bring in ivory and rubber. The 
 place has a population of 15,000, nearly all slaves. I left 
 New Kasongo and followed the right or east bank of the 
 Lualaba to Nyangwe, which is built on a treeless plain ; all 
 the timber for building purposes comes from the opposite 
 bank of the river. Lemery has done good work here. 
 He says Nyangwe can be made to produce fifteen tons of 
 rubber a month, when more tribes are brought under 
 control. Also a good deal of ivory is brought in for tribute 
 and for sale. In connection with the station there are five 
 thousand auxiliaries, who are sent all over the country to 
 beat the natives into submission to the State. They go in 
 bands of 1,000, men, women, and children, and all belong- 
 ings, settle upon a suitable spot in a rich district, then bring 
 the natives under their control and prepare the way for the 
 white man to establish a post. The natives, who are all 
 cannibals, are persecuted till they submit. Then there is 
 no more trouble."! 
 
 Glave's account of the condition in which he found every 
 
 * Century Magazine, Vol. LIII., p. 914. 
 
 f Ibid., p. 915. Lieutenant Lemery was afterwards appointed manager for 
 the Compagnie du Lomani, started in July, 1898.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 189 
 
 place that he visited between Lake Tanganyika and the 
 Lomani, less than a year after the country had been 
 conquered for the Congo State, reveals the inherent vices 
 of the administrative system that had now been set up. 
 Slavery had been abolished only in name. If there was 
 no more avowed slave-hunting, the collection of ivory, 
 rubber, and other marketable commodities was as reckless 
 as ever, and the savages employed as soldiers of the State 
 were at least as cruel as they or others had been under 
 Arab domination. 
 
 And the traveller's experience was scarcely different after 
 he left Nyangwe on i/th January, 1895, and passed down 
 the Lualaba and the Congo on his way to Matadi. 
 
 His first halt was at Bayonge. " This," he said, " is a 
 post under Lemery. The natives have complained that 
 they are compelled to bring rubber, which is bought by 
 the officers of the Congo Free State ; half of the price paid 
 goes to the mgwana, or chief, of the district, and half goes 
 to the natives. Many villagers refuse to bring rubber ; then 
 they are attacked and killed or taken prisoners. While I 
 was at Bayonge an expedition sent by Manahuto, under the 
 orders of Lemery, arrived after having a fight with natives 
 on the other side of the Uzimbu. Many natives are said to 
 have been killed, and thirty prisoners taken, mostly women." 
 " Everywhere," we read in the next day's record, " the 
 natives are friendly and polite; and, thanks to the educa- 
 tion received from Lemery, they are all well disciplined and 
 submissive to the white men's demands. The natives are 
 not lazy, good-for-nothing fellows. Their fine powers are 
 obtained by hard work, sobriety and frugal living."* 
 
 On 24th January the traveller was at Risari's village 
 near Riba-Riba, of which Lieutenant 
 
 Rue, " a non-commissioned officer in 
 
 ^ -n i A Floggings. 
 
 the Belgian Army, was in charge. 
 
 " Rue has built excellent dwellings," Glave reported. " He 
 
 * A further article entitled ' Cruelty in the Congo Free State ' in the Century 
 Magazine, Vol. LIV., pp. 699, 701, 
 
 I
 
 190 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 produces stores of rubber a month and one thousand pounds 
 of ivory. There is good discipline in the station. The 
 chain-gang is always a disgusting sight to see in the 
 stations on the Zone Arabe, as those confined are generally 
 old women, reduced to skeletons by want of liberty, hard 
 treatment by the negro sentries, and hunger. The policy 
 of the Arabs is being rather too closely followed, and the 
 natives are treated with the utmost severity. Five women 
 who had deserted were in chains at Riba-Riba ; all were 
 cut very badly, having been most severely chicotted, or 
 flogged. Lemery does not flog much, and uses only the 
 bastinado for women." This official's conduct towards 
 natives, cruel as it was, appears indeed to have been better 
 than that of some of his colleagues further east. " Hangings 
 are now quite frequent on the State stations in the Zone 
 Arabe ; the administration is quite different from the 
 treatment of the natives on the Congo. At Kabambare 
 there is a tree upon which a lot of people have been hanged 
 natives, Wangwana, and soldiers. At Kasongo I saw no 
 construction for this purpose. At Nyangwe and Riba- 
 Riba there is a wooden frame which has often served the 
 purpose. Here at Risari's there is one of those ugly 
 constructions for hangings. It is said that three natives 
 were hanged by Rue because they would not work salt for 
 the Congo Free State. The natives have not a very gay 
 time of it. Before the whites came the Wangwana and 
 Arabs were their masters ; but now the Congo Free State 
 authorities favour the Wangwana element far more than 
 the natives, and the Wangwana and the Arabs have 
 accorded to them the authority of bygone days, with 
 tremendous power, which is most unmercifully employed. 
 When a village does not consent to make rubber, the 
 mgwana of that particular district is empowered to fight 
 the offending village, and to kill and take prisoners, which 
 is quite general. Kibangula had just returned to Kasongo 
 at the time of my arrival, having been engaged on a 
 devastating exploit, burning, killing, and taking prisoners,
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 191 
 
 two hundred of whom were brought to Kasongo station, 
 being principally the people of Piana Kitete, who at the 
 time of my visit to his village, just after a fight, came and 
 gave me a goat, and asked me why he was attacked, his 
 villages burned, his people rendered homeless, some killed, 
 others like himself driven to hiding in the mountains."* 
 
 " The chicotte of raw hippo hide, especially a new one, 
 trimmed like a corkscrew, with edges like knife-blades, and 
 as hard as wood," Glave explained, in terms all the more 
 notable because his own views as to corporal punishment 
 cannot be regarded as over-lenient, " is a terrible weapon, 
 and a few blows bring blood ; not more than twenty-five 
 blows should be given unless the offence is very serious. 
 Though we persuade ourselves that the African's skin is 
 very tough, it needs an extraordinary constitution to with- 
 stand the terrible punishment of one hundred blows ; 
 generally the victim is in a state of insensibility after 
 twenty-five or thirty blows. At the first blow he yells 
 abominably ; then he quiets down, and is a mere groaning, 
 quivering body till the operation is over, when the culprit 
 stumbles away, often with gashes which will endure a 
 lifetime. It is bad enough the flogging of men, but far worse 
 is this punishment when inflicted on women and children. 
 Small boys of ten or twelve, with excitable, hot-tempered 
 masters, are often most harshly treated. At Kasongo there 
 is a great deal of cruelty displayed. I saw two boys very 
 badly cut. At Nyangwe and Riba-Riba boys are punished 
 by beating on the hands. I conscientiously believe that a 
 man who receives one hundred blows is often nearly 
 killed, and has his spirit broken for life."t 
 
 " Before the arrival of the Arabs ivory had no value ; the 
 natives often did not store it," we are next told. " Having 
 killed an elephant, they took only the meat ; and when the 
 Arabs came and, pointing to the ivory, wished to buy, the 
 natives hunted about in the woods for ivory of elephants 
 dead a long time, and big points were sold for a handful of 
 
 * Century Magazine ) Vol. LIV., pp. 701, 702. t Ibid., p. 703.
 
 I 9 2 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND 
 
 beads, or a copper or brass ornament Kibongo was the 
 first to settle after Stanley's passage, he is said to have 
 bought immense stores of ivory, but all seem to have spent 
 all they had. All the natives along here joined Tipu-Tipu 
 on his way to Stanley Falls to establish himself, and they 
 fought and took part in raids for him." " All Arabs," it is 
 added, " have been permitted to retain their slaves. Laschet 
 contemplates a journey into the interior to organise the 
 rubber industry. The market at present is small, but 
 native villages are building in the vicinity."* 
 
 Glave's next statement illustrates another of the scandals 
 incident to Congo State rule. "Two days before my 
 arrival," he wrote at Wabundu, now known as Ponthier- 
 ville, " two Sierra Leoneans were hanged by Laschet. 
 They were sentries on guard and, while they were asleep, 
 allowed a native chief, who was a prisoner and in chains, to 
 escape. Next morning Laschet, in a fit of rage, hanged 
 the two men. They were British subjects engaged by the 
 Congo Free State as soldiers. In time of war, I suppose, 
 they could be executed, after court martial, by being shot ; 
 but to hang a subject of any other country, without trial, 
 seems to me outrageous." t 
 
 After a few days' halt at Stanley Falls the traveller 
 started on 2Oth February for Basoko, 
 
 in ^T * wlmi the station at the mouth of the Aru- 
 
 Distnct. . . , , 
 
 wimi. The natives, he reported, 
 
 " are compelled to transport in their canoes all State loads 
 for nothing ; also to provide work-people for the station, 
 generally women ; and each chief must bring a certain 
 amount of fish. Occasionally they receive a small present 
 of cloth. The State conducts its pacification of the country 
 after the fashion of the Arabs, so the natives are not 
 gainers at all. The Arabs in the employ of the State are 
 compelled to bring in ivory and rubber, and are permitted 
 to employ any measures considered necessary to obtain 
 this result. They employ the same means as in days gone 
 
 * Century Magazine, Vol. LIV., pp. 703, 704. t Ibid., p. 704.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 193 
 
 by, when Tipu-Tipu was one of the masters of the situa- 
 tion. They raid villages, take slaves, and give them back 
 for ivory. The State has not suppressed slavery, but 
 established a monopoly by driving out the Arab and 
 Wangwana competitors. The State soldiers are con- 
 stantly stealing, and sometimes the natives are so persecuted 
 that they resent this by killing and eating their tormentors. 
 Recently the State post on the Lomani lost two men, 
 killed and eaten by the natives. Arabs were sent to 
 punish the natives ; many women and children were taken, 
 and twenty-one heads were brought to the Falls, and have 
 been used by Captain Rom as a decoration round a flower- 
 bed in front of his house. Basoko is in a serious position, 
 surrounded by a powerful enemy, so close that they can 
 hear their speaking-drums. It is the natural outcome of 
 the harsh, cruel policy of the State in wringing rubber from 
 these people without paying for it. The revolution will 
 extend." Three days later Glave wrote from Isangi, mid- 
 way between Stanley Falls and Basoko : " The post is close 
 to the large settlement of an important coast man, 
 Kayamba, who now is devoted to the interests of the 
 State, catching slaves for them, and stealing ivory from 
 the natives of the interior. Does the philanthropic King 
 of the Belgians know about this ? If not, he ought to."* 
 Proceeding from Basoko, past the Bangala and Equateur 
 
 districts, the principal sphere of his 
 
 , . f ., c , Rebellion in the 
 
 work in tormer years, Crlave tound - 
 
 . Equateur District. 
 
 matters in even worse state than else- 
 where. On 25th February he wrote from Basoko : " The 
 natives who are [in revolt are now close to the station. 
 They killed twenty-two soldiers of the post within three 
 hours, and during our stay speared a State soldier within 
 five minutes' walk of the station. They say they have 
 made ' medicine,' and discovered by it that their efforts 
 against the white man will be successful, but they must not 
 begin the attack till after the appearance of new moon in a 
 
 * Century Magazine, Vol. LIV., pp. 705, 706. 
 
 O
 
 194 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 day or so." On 2/th February, from Bumba : " Found that 
 the chief of the station, a Norwegian officer, Sundt, was 
 away on a war expedition in the Ville de Ghent. The 
 persistent badgering of the natives for rubber and ivory has 
 led to the revolt. All are agreed on this point." And on 
 5th March, from Coquilhatville: " Formerly the natives were 
 well treated, but now expeditions have been sent in every 
 direction, forcing natives to make rubber and to bring it to 
 the stations. Up the Ikelemba, away to Lake Mantumba, 
 the State is perpetrating its fiendish policy in order to 
 obtain profit. We are taking down one hundred slaves 
 mere children, all taken in unholy wars against the natives. 
 While at the mission station I saw a gang of prisoners 
 taken along by the State soldiers. War has been waged 
 all through the district of Equateur, and thousands of 
 people have been killed and homes destroyed. It was not 
 necessary in the olden times when we white men had no 
 force at all. This forced commerce is depopulating the 
 country." The next day's entry is : " Left Equateur at 
 eleven o'clock this morning, after taking on a cargo of one 
 hundred small slaves, principally boys, seven or eight years 
 old, with a few girls among the batch, all stolen from the 
 natives. The commissary of the district is a violent-tem- 
 pered fellow. While arranging to take on the hundred 
 small slaves a woman who had charge of the youngsters 
 was rather slow in understanding his order, delivered in 
 very poor Kibanji : he sprang at her, slapped her in the 
 face, and, as she ran away, kicked her. They talk of philan- 
 thropy and civilisation ! Where it is I do not know."* 
 Arriving at his old station, Lukolela, on 8th March, 
 
 Glave was startled by the changes 
 Ruin in the Middle ,, , , , , , , . , . . . 
 
 that had taken place since he left it 
 Congo. . r 
 
 some nine years before. ' 1 here are 
 
 few natives now on this side of the river," he wrote ; " all have 
 been driven to the other side by the impatient policy of the 
 white man who succeeded Schoen here. Very few people 
 
 * Century Magatine, Vol. LIV., pp. 706-708.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 195 
 
 came on the beach to-day ; in old times crowds thronged 
 the place. Of the HbMs brought down the river many die. 
 They are badly cared for ; no clothes to wear in the rainy 
 season, sleep where there is no shelter, and no attention 
 when sick. The one hundred youngsters on board are ill- 
 cared for by the State ; most of them are quite naked, with 
 no covering for the night. They make small fires, and 
 huddle round these for warmth. Many are getting the 
 germs of disease sown in their little bodies. Their offence 
 is that their fathers and brothers fought for a little 
 independence. Most white officers out on the Congo are 
 averse to the india-rubber policy of the State, but the laws 
 command it. Therefore, at each post one finds the natives 
 deserting their homes, and escaping to the French side of 
 the river when possible. Hundreds of people are killed in 
 the wars, whereas if the State merely conducted a humane 
 administration, and allowed traders gradually to develope 
 the rubber industry, there would be no fighting. The 
 Bakongo have gradually taken to labour, the number of 
 porters increasing each year. The same progress would 
 have been possible on the Upper River. The decrease in 
 the native population is very marked at Bangala, Equateur, 
 Lukolela, and Bolobo."* 
 
 " Everywhere," Glave wrote from Leopoldville, which he 
 
 reached on I2th March, " I hear the 
 
 c , u j r , , ^ " Everywhere the 
 
 same news of the doings of the Congo 
 
 , Same News." 
 
 Free State rubber and murder, 
 
 slavery in its worst form. It is said that half the libtrts 
 sent down die on the road." Four days later he added : 
 " All the children lib/r/s are handed over to the Jesuit 
 mission at Kimuenza, south-east four hours from Leopold- 
 ville. A plre told Mr. Rogers that seventy-three died 
 during the month, and thirty-five only a month or two ago. 
 In Europe we understand from the word libfres slaves saved 
 from their cruel masters. Not at all ! Most of them result 
 from wars made against the natives because of ivory or 
 * Century Magazine, VoL LIV., p. 708.
 
 196 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 rubber. It is only the State officials who make war : 
 seldom do the traders have any trouble, and the 
 missionaries never."* 
 
 That remark, of course, had reference to the old- 
 fashioned traders, not to the new chartered companies. 
 " On the other side of Nkisi," wrote Glave, after he had left 
 Leopoldville on 26th March, " I passed five whites destined 
 for the Mongala river as agents of the Socie"t^ Commerciale 
 Anversoise. They are all sub-officers in the Belgian army. 
 It seems to me rather a heartless proceeding to send off 
 inexperienced men to a deadly hole like the Mongala, but 
 the State wants money, and ivory is money, and in the 
 Mongala there is plenty of ivory. These sub-officers are 
 poorly paid in the army, and the three hundred dollars a 
 year, with percentage of purchases, presents to them a 
 golden prospect." At Lukungu, again, when he was 
 nearing Matadi, Glave wrote on 5th April, " I met Baron 
 de Rezen, chief of the public force at Lukungu and chief 
 of the station. He agrees that rubber is the cause of all 
 the trouble on the Congo, but excuses the State on the 
 ground that it is necessary for it to have funds. He thinks 
 the small posts placed among the natives without whites a 
 mistake ; the blacks thus vested with a little authority 
 immediately take advantage of it, and ill-treat the natives." 
 " These people," it was added three days later, " are a hardy 
 race, but the carrying business is a great strain on the 
 system, as is also the constant drenching they get in wet 
 seasons. Often they suffer from hunger, and there are 
 never spare men with a caravan, so that in case of sickness 
 the carrier still has to lug along his sixty-five pounds' 
 weight, a hard enough task for a well man, but killing for 
 an invalid. One sees some miserable wretches dragging 
 along in the rear of a caravan. To-day I saw the dead 
 body of a carrier lying on the trail. There could have 
 been no mistake about his being a sick man ; he was 
 nothing but skin and bones. These posts ought to give 
 
 * Century Magtuine, Vol. LIV., p. 709.
 
 * ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 197 
 
 some care to the porters ; the heartless disregard for life 
 is abominable. Two days ago a native applied to me 
 for medicine and food ; he was ill and starving. The 
 same day I met a poor liberated slave, emaciated, with 
 nothing to eat. I gave him food, but could not under- 
 stand his language, as he was a poor wretch stolen from 
 a far-away home. Native life is considered of no 
 value by the Belgians. No wonder the State is hated. 
 Carrying is pushed to such an extent that it is killing 
 the people. They are on the road the whole time, 
 without rest to enable them to recuperate and get 
 strong aftei each trip. Often the mission stations are 
 applied to for succour, but, as a rule, when the carriers 
 present themselves they are thoroughly overcome by the 
 exertion of carrying a load while ill, and they generally 
 die. Formerly the State sent out its soldiers to tie up the 
 women when the people refused to come in as carriers. 
 This has now been stopped."* 
 
 Glave reached Matadi towards the end of April, and was 
 
 there until his death on I2th May, 
 
 ,, ,,, JUT T Qlave's Conclusions. 
 
 nursed by Mr. and Mrs. Lawson 
 
 Forfeitt, of the American Baptist Missionary Union. From 
 Matadi, on 25th April, he thus summed up some of the 
 conclusions forced upon him by his memorable and 
 melancholy experiences : " The occupation of the terri- 
 tories of the Congo Free State by the Belgians is an 
 enormous expense, and the administration is making most 
 frantic efforts to obtain a revenue of a size sufficient to 
 enable it to pay its way. In the fighting consequent upon 
 this policy, owing to the inability or disinclination of 
 natives to bring in rubber, slaves are taken men, women, 
 and children, called in State documents libtrts / These 
 slaves or prisoners are most of them sent down-stream, first 
 to Leopoldville. There the children are handed over to a 
 Jesuit mission to be schooled and to receive military 
 training from a State officer established at the mission for 
 
 * Century Magazine, Vol. LIV., pp. 710-713.
 
 198 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 that purpose. In two years this Catholic mission has 
 buried three hundred of these poor, unfortunate little 
 children, victims of the inhuman policy of the Congo Free 
 State ! On the Ville de Bruxelles, the big State boat upon 
 which I descended the Congo, we took on board at the 
 Equateur 102 little homeless, motherless, fatherless children, 
 varying from four years to seven or eight, among them a 
 few little girls. Many of them had frightful ulcers which 
 showed no sign of having been attended to, although 
 there was a State doctor at the Equateur station. Some 
 few had a tiny strip of cloth, two or three inches wide, 
 tucked in a string around the waist to hide their nakedness, 
 but half of them were perfectly naked. As they were 
 huddled together on the lower deck of the boat on the 
 damp, chill mornings, shivering with cold, death was 
 marking many more for hasty baptism and a grave at 
 the Jesuit mission near Leopoldville. By the time we 
 reached Kinshasa, Stanley Pool, there was a great deal 
 of sickness among the children, principally fevers and 
 coughs ; many were hopelessly ill. If the Arabs had 
 been the masters, it would be styled iniquitous trafficking 
 in human flesh and blood ; but being under the adminis- 
 tration of the Congo Free State, it is merely a part 
 of their philanthropic system of liberating the natives. 
 The whole world seems to think that the Congo Free 
 State is a civilising influence, and that philanthropy and 
 love of justice are prompting every effort of the adminis- 
 tration."* 
 
 Almost the last entry in the traveller's record was this, 
 dated 2nd May, quoting the information of his missionary 
 friends : " Mr. Harvey heard from Clarke, who is at Lake 
 Mantumba, that the State soldiers have been in the vicinity 
 of his station recently, fighting and taking prisoners ; and 
 he himself has seen several men with bunches of hands 
 signifying their individual kill. These, I presume, they 
 must produce to prove their success ! Among the hands 
 
 * Century Magazine, Vol. LIV., p. 796.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 199 
 
 were those of men and women, and also those of little 
 children. The missionaries are so much at the mercy of 
 the State that they do not report these barbaric happenings 
 to the people at home. I have previously heard of hands, 
 among them children's, being brought to the stations, but 
 I was not so satisfied of the truth of the former information 
 as of the reports received just now by Mr. Harvey from 
 Clarke. Much of this sort of thing is going on at the 
 Equateur station. The methods employed are not 
 necessary. Years ago, when I was on duty at the 
 Equateur without soldiers, I never had any difficulty 
 in getting what men I needed, nor did any other 
 station in the old, humane days. The stations and 
 the boats then had no difficulty in finding men or 
 labour, nor will the Belgians if they introduce more 
 reasonable methods."* 
 
 There was too much truth in the statement that " the 
 missionaries are so much at the mercy of the State that 
 they do not report these barbaric happenings to the people 
 at home." Though a good deal of information tardily 
 leaked out, it was generally in such cautious language, 
 designed to conceal the identity of the informants, that 
 it was too vague and incomplete to be in any way authori- 
 tative. Fuller and more trustworthy information was in 
 some cases as regards localities in which they were 
 interested and with which they were intimately acquainted 
 communicated to the central organisations by missionaries 
 in their employ. These authentic details, however, were 
 as far as possible withheld from outsiders. They were 
 used, more or less successfully, in securing from the Congo 
 Government better treatment of the natives within the 
 very limited areas of the aggrieved missionary agencies, 
 and perhaps other indirect profit resulted from them. But 
 they were not allowed to reach the public ear, or to 
 arouse public opinion in favour of changes that, in 
 bringing incalculable benefit to millions of Congo 
 
 * Century Magazine, Vol. LIV., p. 714.
 
 200 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 natives, might have been prejudicial to the missionary 
 organisations.* 
 
 As Glave's journals were not published before the end of 
 
 1896 the first really effective flash of 
 The Stokes Affair. .. * ,, 
 
 light thrown on the lawlessness and 
 
 cruelty prevalent in so many parts of the Congo State's 
 territory came from an offence committed in the Arab Zone 
 while Glave was crossing it, but, as he was four hundred 
 miles away, not known to him, and only indirectly affecting 
 the position of either natives or missionaries. Mr. Charles 
 Henry Stokes, formerly a missionary in Uganda, had for 
 some years been trading in ivory and other articles, which 
 he chiefly paid for in arms and ammunition, and had made 
 himself obnoxious to the Congo authorities by his partner- 
 ship with German traders, when, by order of Captain 
 Lothaire, then in charge of the Stanley Falls district, he 
 was entrapped at Kilongalonga, between the Falls and 
 Lake Albert Edward, on the 9th January, 1895, taken to 
 Lothaire's camp at Lindi, and, after a sham trial, illegal in 
 every particular, hanged on the I4th ; it was alleged by 
 Lothaire's own hand. This " execution " naturally aroused 
 much indignation when it was reported in Europe, and the 
 expostulations and threats of the British Government so 
 far prevailed over or varied the prevarications and evasions 
 of the Congo Government that its perpetrator was put 
 through a second and more scandalous sham trial at Boma 
 in April, 1896, and, as the result of a perfunctory appeal, 
 through a third sham trial, yet more scandalous and farcical, 
 in Brussels in August, 1896.1 
 
 The professed object of the Boma trial, the proceedings 
 of which a Vice-Consul was sent out to watch on behalf of 
 
 * I make this statement deliberately as the result of admissions made to me 
 by several Congo missionaries, including two members of the Natives Pro- 
 tection Commission to be presently referred to, and by managers of Protestant 
 and Catholic missionary organisations both in London and in Brussels. 
 
 f All the facts, or materials available for ascertaining them, are exhaustively 
 set forth in a 'Parliamentary Paper' (C. 8276), Africa, No. 8 (1896), of 
 1 88 foolscap pages.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 201 
 
 the British Government, was " to obtain a full investigation 
 into all the circumstances attending the death of Mr. Stokes, 
 and into the evidence on which he was convicted, as well as 
 into the legality of the proceedings of the Court before 
 which he was brought." All that was attempted in the 
 course of three days' inquiry, even by the nominal prose- 
 cutor appointed by the Congo Government, was to discredit 
 Mr. Stokes on account of his antecedents, and, in effect, to 
 prove that, a bad name having been given to him under 
 other conditions, he only deserved hanging like a dog ; and 
 it was an incident of the inquiry that Captain Lothaire, 
 although acquitted, was " greatly incensed with the Govern- 
 ment of the Free State for prosecuting him, as he thought 
 they had approved his action, considering that, after they 
 had been informed of the proceedings of the Conseil de 
 Guerre held at Lindi, they promoted him to the high rank 
 of Commissaire General."* The Brussels trial, before a 
 Conseil SupeYieur, admittedly incompetent, was deliberately 
 appointed for a date at which evidence for the prosecution 
 could not possibly be procured from Africa, and the prose- 
 cuting counsel vied with his opponent in calling for the 
 acquittal of Commissary-General Lothaire, after the latter, 
 without an oath being administered to him, had been " in- 
 vited to stand up and explain his reasons." f After seven- 
 teen months' acrimonious, irritating, and futile controversy, 
 very inadequate compensation was grudgingly accorded to 
 Mr. Stokes's family for the property stolen from him, but 
 not for his murder; and to a declaration by M. Van Eetvelde, 
 following a long string of quibbles, that " the Government 
 of the Congo Independent State cannot admit that, as a 
 matter of fact, it has neglected any of the obligations imposed 
 on it by a regard for impartial justice," Lord Salisbury 
 made the cynical reply that " Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment do not admit the cogency of the contentions of the 
 Congo Government, but they are of opinion that no prac- 
 
 * ' Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 8 (1896), pp. 104, 122. 
 f Ibid., p. 163.
 
 202 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 tical result will be obtained by continuing the corre- 
 spondence."* 
 
 It was evidently as a sop to European opinion which, 
 
 besides being outraged by the Stokes 
 The Natives Protec- ~ . . 
 
 .. ., affair, was beginning to be further 
 
 tion Commission. 
 
 aroused by fuller and more painful 
 
 reports concerning the treatment of black men that on 
 1 8th September, 1896, less than six weeks after the final 
 verdict on one white man's death for which Captain 
 Lothaire had been promoted, " a permanent Commission 
 charged with the protection of natives throughout the 
 territory of the State " was appointed. The Congo Govern- 
 ment, never neglectful of an opportunity for making 
 pretence of philanthropy, showed remarkable shrewdness 
 in the method and occasion chosen for this new piece of 
 hypocrisy. The Commissioners were invited to notify to 
 the judicial authorities " acts of violence of which natives 
 may be victims," and each was at liberty, on his own 
 responsibility, " to exercise this right of protection and to 
 communicate directly with the Governor-General." More- 
 over, it was announced that " the Commission will point out 
 to the Government measures to be taken to prevent slave- 
 trading, to render more effective the prohibition or 
 restriction of the liquor traffic, and to gradually bring 
 about the disappearance of barbarous customs, such as 
 cannibalism, human sacrifices, and ordeal by poison." Its 
 first members, appointed for two years, were Mgr. Van 
 Ronsle, the Vicar Apostolic of the Congo, as President ; 
 Father Van Hencxthoven, Superior of the Jesuit Mission ; 
 Father de Cleene, of the Scheut Congregation ; Dr. A. Sims, 
 of the American Baptist Missionary Union ; and the 
 Reverends W. Holman Bentley and George Grenfell, of 
 the English Baptist Missionary Society, the last named 
 as Secretary.! 
 
 These six commissioners were doubtless worthy repre- 
 
 * 'Parliamentary Papers,' Africa, No. 8 (1896), p. 183, 184. 
 f ' Bulletin Officiel ' (1886), p. 253.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 203 
 
 sentatives of the 140 Roman Catholic and 220 Protestant 
 missionaries, or thereabouts,* of both sexes and eighteen 
 separate organisations, then working in various parts of 
 Belgian Congoland ; but all appear to have been generally 
 stationed in or near Leopoldville, and few of their comrades 
 had penetrated into regions remote from the Congo river 
 and its principal affluents. It was in the out-of-the-way 
 districts, in which the only white residents or visitors were 
 military men and traders' agents, that there was special 
 danger of " acts of violence," and of such acts it could not 
 be expected that the missionaries would have sufficient 
 cognisance for any reports they might send in to receive, or 
 perhaps to be regarded as deserving, much attention. The 
 commissioners' functions, it must be noted, moreover, were 
 limited to reporting and suggesting. They were not to 
 have any executive powers. They could neither institute 
 official inquiries nor take preventive or punitive measures ; 
 and how much attention would be paid at Boma to reports 
 or complaints made by them in the interests of black 
 people may be inferred from the patronage accorded there 
 to the executioner of Mr. Stokes. It is in no way surprising 
 that, although it has been reappointed for form's sake, the 
 Natives Protection Commission has from the first been of 
 no practical utility. 
 
 As useless would seem to have been the nomination at 
 
 the same date of M. Michel as a 
 
 c , T .,, ,. . ,. Other Reform 
 
 State Inspector, with disciplinary 
 
 powers, to see that the instructions 
 
 of the Government were carried out in the Upper Congo, 
 especially as regards the treatment of natives, and to report 
 every three months upon the results of his inspection ; also 
 the elaborate directions simultaneously promulgated for 
 the guidance of heads of expeditions and commissaries of 
 districts in their dealings with natives. The declared 
 purport of these directions was that humane and con- 
 ciliatory tactics should be pursued, and needless quarrels 
 
 * The above numbers are from the returns for 1897.
 
 204 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 and needless severity avoided, so that the natives might 
 not mistrust the intentions and sentiments of the State 
 regarding them, " a misunderstanding that must inevitably 
 be provoked by over-hasty resort to extreme measures." 
 The terms of the instructions, indeed, show, not that the 
 Government seriously desired or expected the redress of 
 grave abuses and scandals, but that it was well aware of 
 the existence of such abuses and scandals. They made it 
 clear, for instance, that the agents of the State had hitherto 
 been lacking in " the tact necessary for avoidance of con- 
 flicts which may arise from misapprehensions and practices 
 too much at variance with native usages and customs," 
 and that they had not, ' before coming to blows with the 
 natives," recognised that " it is more advantageous to 
 obtain reparation for injury by pacific action than by resort 
 to arms." The agents were urged to remember that, 
 wherever employment of force seemed necessary, the 
 Government ought first to be informed on the subject and 
 its sanction obtained ; that the operations should then 
 be so conducted that, as far as possible, only those really 
 at fault would be attacked ; and that, in time of war, the 
 property of natives must not be destroyed, their villages 
 burnt, or their wounded tortured. Along with much else, 
 they were enjoined "not to award other disciplinary punish- 
 ments than are appointed for breach of discipline, or to 
 pervert legal forms for the repression of offences of which 
 servants of the State may be guilty," and to bear in mind 
 that punishments for breach of military discipline were 
 only applicable to native soldiers under conditions dis- 
 tinctly laid down, and " were not applicable, under any 
 pretext, to non-military servants of the State or to natives, 
 whether or not the latter were in rebellion against the 
 State."* 
 
 Of the monstrous defiance of the principles laid down in 
 those and such like instructions evidence had by that time 
 come to be available. 
 
 * 'Bulletin Official' (1896), pp. 255-9.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 205 
 
 Some samples of it may now be given, and they will be 
 
 selected from the statements of infor- 
 
 , , . L Evidence as to 
 
 mants not open to the complaint Abuses 
 
 made by the Congo Government 
 
 against retired servants of the State, that their allegations, 
 whether true or not, were in violation of the rules of 
 secrecy imposed on them.* 
 
 The Rev. J. B. Murphy, of the American Baptist 
 
 Missionary Union, which has its 
 
 . . , ,4 MI Mr - Murphy's 
 
 principal station at Equateurville, _ 
 
 r Testimony. 
 
 adjacent to the local centre of Congo 
 
 State administration at Coquilhatville, was in England in 
 November, 1895, and the report of his experiences in his 
 own district, as well as of accounts received by him from 
 friends elsewhere, confirms, in many important particulars, 
 the independent and not then published testimony of Mr. 
 Glave as to occurrences spread over a much wider area. 
 "When I left" that is, in August, 1895 he said, "the 
 people were in a very unsettled condition and most 
 unfriendly to the State. The revolt which had broken out 
 throughout the Aruwimi district in consequence of the 
 tyranny of the State officers in regard to the rubber traffic 
 had been quelled ; but not until the State troops, which 
 had been forced to retire upon Basoko and to withstand a 
 siege there, had been reinforced. Scarcely, however, had 
 the steamers which had been sent to the relief of the 
 station returned to Stanley Pool before two were again 
 dispatched, during the months of June and July, to quell 
 another disturbance which had broken out at Luluaburg, 
 
 * For this reason quotations are not here given from the startling and 
 specific statements made by Captain P. Salusbury in the United Service Maga- 
 zine of June, 1896, by Mr. Alfred Parminter in the Times of 8th September, 
 1 896, and by others, though many of these statements are in notable agreement 
 with Mr. Glave's earlier record, not known to them when they wrote, and 
 with those of Mr. Murphy, Mr. Sjoblom, and others, which are cited above. 
 Two other corroborative statements, unfortunately anonymous, appeared in the 
 Times of I4th October, 1895, one by a missionary who had been " working in 
 the Upper Congo for fourteen years," another by " an Englishman lately 
 returned after some years' residence."
 
 206 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 on the Kasai. This time it was a revolt of the State 
 troops against their own officers. The soldiers killed 
 one and wounded another, leaving him for dead upon 
 the field. They then looted the station and escaped 
 into the interior. Although the authorities sent up a 
 strong detachment of forces from Stanley Pool, and 
 commenced hostilities on a larger scale, most of the 
 fugitives are still at large. I was near the mouth of 
 the Kasai when the news of the revolt came down. The 
 wounded officer, although he lay exposed to the sun 
 for many hours, finally reached the Roman Catholic 
 mission station, where his wounds were dressed The 
 attitude of the natives of the Congo Free State is 
 everywhere unfriendly, and if the people do not univer- 
 sally rebel against authority it is because they are 
 reduced to a state of despair. If possible they leave 
 the territory. Two of the most flourishing towns in 
 Mr. H. M. Stanley's time, situated at Stanley Pool 
 viz., Kintama and Kinshasa are now no more, and the 
 people have gone over to the French Congo. Besides 
 the natives of the towns I have named, many people 
 have left the main river and gone into the interior in 
 order to escape the arbitrary demands of the State. 
 Difficulties had arisen, too, between the State and the 
 porters, and as the requisite number of carriers were 
 not forthcoming detachments of soldiers were sent with 
 orders to capture all the women they could find. Several 
 Christians were arrested in this manner. The natives and 
 missionaries remonstrated, and presented a letter to the 
 Governor, without getting any redress. The people were 
 so enraged at these outrages that they took matters in 
 their own hands. They killed three white men, and met 
 and defeated the State forces in more than one pitched 
 engagement. On the Lower Congo the natives have good 
 Snider rifles, and their many conflicts with the State have 
 taught them the arts of war. In many of these fights the 
 State soldiers could not see their foes, as the latter were in
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 207 
 
 ambush. The result was that they were just mowed down 
 by their opponents' guns."* 
 
 Speaking more particularly of atrocities incident to the 
 collection of rubber in the western part of the Equateur 
 district, near the junction of the Ubangi with the Congo, 
 and around Lake Tumba or Mantumba, stretching towards 
 the south-east, Mr. Murphy averred : " I have seen these 
 things done, and have remonstrated with the State in the 
 years 1888, 1889, and 1894, but never got satisfaction. I 
 have been in the interior and have seen the ravages made 
 by the State in pursuit of this iniquitous trade. In one 
 place I stood by the side of the river and heard a little boy 
 describe how he had seen the Belgians shoot people for not 
 fetching rubber, and at the same time he pointed to the 
 flagstaff to which the poor victims had been tied, and which 
 still bore the bullet and blood marks. Let me give an 
 incident to show how this unrighteous trade affects the 
 people. One day a State corporal, who was in charge of 
 the post of Solifa, was going round the town collecting 
 rubber. Meeting a poor woman whose husband was away 
 fishing, he asked, ' Where is your husband ? ' She 
 answered by pointing to the river. He then asked, ' Where 
 is his rubber ? ' She answered, 'It is ready for you.' 
 Whereupon he said, ' You lie,' and, lifting up his gun, shot 
 her dead. Shortly afterwards the husband returned and 
 was told of the murder of his wife. He went straight to 
 the corporal, taking with him his rubber, and asked why 
 he had shot his wife. The wretched man then raised his 
 gun and killed the corporal. The soldiers ran away to the 
 headquarters of the State, and made representations of the 
 case, with the result that the commissary sent a large force 
 to support the authority of the soldiers ; the town was 
 looted, burnt, and many people were killed and wounded." 
 Again, " In November last (1894) there was heavy fighting 
 on the Bosira, because the people refused to give rubber, 
 
 * A report by Renter's Agency, published in the Times and other papers of 
 i8th November, 1895.
 
 208 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 and I was told upon the authority of a State officer that 
 no less than 1,800 people were killed. Upon another 
 occasion in the same month some soldiers ran away from 
 a State steamer, and, it was said, went to the town of 
 Bombumba. The officer sent a message telling the chief of 
 the town to give them up. He answered that he could not, 
 as the fugitives had not been in his town. The officer sent 
 the messenger a second time with the order, ' Come to me 
 at once, or war in the morning.' The next morning the 
 old chief went to meet the Belgians and was attacked 
 without provocation. He himself was wounded, his wife 
 was killed before his eyes, and her head cut off in order 
 that they might possess the brass necklet that she wore. 
 Twenty-four of the chiefs people were also killed and all 
 for the paltry reason given above. Again, the people of 
 Lake Mantumba ran away on account of the cruelty of 
 the State, and the latter sent some soldiers in charge of a 
 coloured corporal to treat with them and induce them to 
 return. On the way the troops met a canoe containing 
 seven of the fugitives. Under some paltry pretext they 
 made the people land, shot them, cut off their hands and 
 took them to the commissary. The Mantumba people 
 complained to the missionary at Irebu, and he went down 
 to see if the story was true. He ascertained the case to be 
 just as they had narrated, and found that one of the seven 
 was a little girl, who was not quite dead. The child 
 recovered, and she lives to-day, the stump of the handless 
 arm witnessing against this horrible practice. These are 
 only a few things of many that have taken place in one 
 district"* 
 
 " Some radical change in government," Mr. Murphy 
 insisted, " must take place before there can be any hope 
 of prosperity. It may well be supposed that the country 
 is in a disturbed state. The people of the district of Lake 
 Mantumba, of Irebu, and Lokolela, and all the Mobangi 
 towns, have crossed over to the French side. The French 
 
 * Times, i8th November, 1895.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 209 
 
 treat them kindly and are glad to get people. They did 
 not run away without great provocation, for it meant 
 starvation to them, all their gardens and their homes being 
 upon the State side. Going over to the French side meant 
 that they would become homeless and hungry wanderers. 
 Even then the State could not leave them in peace ; they 
 heard that they came over at night to their old homes to 
 get food, and they stationed canoes and lay in wait for 
 them, with orders that the soldiers should shoot as many 
 as they caught ; and to my knowledge they shot seven 
 people in one night. The State is strong enough to-day 
 to do these things because the people lack unity. They 
 have no leaders, no common sense, and no weapons to 
 fight. Their condition is indeed deplorable, and needs our 
 sympathy, as well as all that European public opinion can 
 do to secure for them the blessings of a righteous govern- 
 ment under which they can live in peace. The white 
 officers do not know the language of the people that they 
 govern, and trust too much to their native soldiers, who 
 are, as a rule, men belonging to a hostile tribe whose chief 
 aim in life is to plunder. These men are sent out to fight 
 very often without any responsible officer being with them 
 with the result that many cruelties are perpetrated which 
 might have been avoided. For instance, on 23rd December} 
 1893, the State sent down some canoes undercover of night 
 to the town of Ikengo. The people were quietly sleeping 
 in their beds when they heard a shot fired, and ran out to 
 see what was the matter. Finding the soldiers had sur- 
 rounded the town, their only thought was escape. As they 
 raced out of their homes, men, women, and children, they 
 were ruthlessly shot down. Their town was utterly 
 destroyed, and is a ruin to this day. The only reason 
 for this fight was that the people had failed to bring 
 kwanga (food) to the State upon that one day. It is 
 impossible for the Governor at Boma four weeks' journey 
 from Stanley Pool, which ought to be the real seat of 
 Government to manage his vast and unwieldy territory ; 
 
 P
 
 210 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 so the commissaries and petty governors of the interior dis- 
 tricts have almost unlimited power. The officers of the State 
 are young and inexperienced ; they do not come out as 
 colonists to develop the country, but in order that they 
 may receive quick promotion, the Congo decoration, and, 
 above all, to get money. Of course there are some noble 
 exceptions, but it is only the few who have an interest in 
 the country and the well-being of the people. I have been 
 told by naval and other officers of the State that a certain 
 sum per head is paid by the Government to the com- 
 missaries of districts from which slaves are received, and 
 to naval officers who bring them into camp. These 
 wretched slaves soon find that they have only changed 
 masters." "The rubber question," said Mr. Murphy, in 
 conclusion, " is accountable for most of the horrors 
 perpetrated in the Congo. It has reduced the people to 
 a state of utter despair. Each town in the district is 
 forced to bring a certain quantity to the headquarters 
 of the commissary every Sunday. It is collected by 
 force ; the soldiers drive the people into the bush ; if they 
 will not go they are shot down, their left hands being cut 
 off and taken as trophies to the commissary. The 
 soldiers do not care whom they shoot down, and they 
 most often shoot poor helpless women and harmless 
 children. These hands the hands of men, women, and 
 children are placed in rows before the commissary, who 
 counts them to see the soldiers have not wasted the 
 cartridges. The commissary is paid a commission of 
 about a penny per pound upon all the rubber he gets ; it 
 is therefore to his interest to get as much as he can."* 
 To the same effect, but more detailed, and therefore 
 
 more convincing, was the testimony 
 Mr. Sjoblom's ,, c ... u , 
 
 Testimony. ^ lven b >" the Rev ' K V> S J oblom > a 
 
 Swedish missionary, and one of Mr. 
 
 Murphy's colleagues of the American Baptist Missionary 
 Union, at a meeting in London, convened for the purpose 
 
 * Times t i8th November, 1895.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 211 
 
 by the Aborigines Protection Society, on I2th May, 1897. 
 Mr. Sjoblom was then passing through England, apparently 
 almost a dying man, for rest in his own country, where 
 happily his health was so far restored that he was able in 
 the following year to renew his labours in Congoland. 
 When he made the statement he spoke with broken voice, 
 but intense earnestness, in simple language, that left none 
 of his hearers in doubt as to the absolute truthfulness with 
 which he recounted the experiences of five years' residence 
 in the Equateur district, and especially of events in the 
 course of 1895.* 
 
 In general explanation of the system of rubber-collecting 
 adopted not only in the portion of the Equateur district 
 in which he had been working, but elsewhere as well, Mr. 
 Sjoblom said : " The natives in inland towns are, as a matter 
 of custom, asked whether they are willing to gather india- 
 rubber. The question put to them is not, ' Will you live 
 at peace together? Will you acknowledge the Congo 
 Government ? ' It is, ' Will you work india-rubber ? ' Well, 
 many of the people are killed, and they try suddenly to 
 disband, and refuse to bring the india-rubber. Then war 
 is declared. The soldiers are sent in different directions. 
 The people in the towns are attacked, and when they are 
 running away into the forest, and try to hide themselves, 
 and save their lives, they are found out by the soldiers. 
 Then their gardens of rice are destroyed, and their supplies 
 taken. Their plantains are cut down while they are 
 young and not in fruit, and often their huts are burnt, and, 
 of course, everything of value is taken. Within my own 
 knowledge forty-five villages were altogether burnt down. 
 I say altogether, because there were many others partly 
 burnt down. I passed through twenty-eight abandoned 
 villages. The natives had left their places to go further 
 
 * The extracts here given are from a verbatim report of Mr. Sjoblom's 
 address, published in the Aborigines' Friend for July, 1897 (pp. 214-220), with 
 a few additions from an interview with him issued on the following day by 
 Reuter's Agency. Though Mr. Sjoblom spoke fluent English, some foreign 
 idioms are noticeable in his language.
 
 212 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 inland. In order to separate themselves from the white 
 men they go part of the way down the river, or else they 
 cross the river into French territory. Sometimes the 
 natives are obliged to pay a large indemnity. The chiefs 
 often have to pay with brass wire and slaves, and if the 
 slaves do not make up the amount their wives are sold 
 to pay. I was told that by a Belgian officer. Native 
 sentinels " who, of course, are the sentries referred to by 
 Consul Pickersgill " are placed in the villages. The 
 sentinels see that the other natives work. They are forced 
 to build large houses for these sentinels, and have to leave 
 their places and try to find other places further away. The 
 sentinels themselves have told me this. I have been in the 
 towns and seen it myself. In the morning the sentinels 
 will go to and fro in the towns to see that no man stays 
 behind. Only a few slaves are allowed to stay at home 
 besides the women and children. Often they say that 
 they have been told by a commissary that if they saw a 
 man staying behind in the village they must shoot him. 
 
 " I will give you," Mr. Sjoblom continued, " an instance 
 of a man I saw shot right before my eyes. In one of my 
 inland journeys, when I had gone a little further, perhaps, 
 than the commissary expected me to go, I saw something 
 that perhaps he would not have liked me to see. It was 
 at a town called Ibera, one of the cannibal towns to which 
 no white man had ever been before. I reached it at sunset, 
 after the natives had returned from the various places in 
 which they had been looking for india-rubber. They 
 gathered together in a great crowd, being curious to see a 
 white man. Besides, they had heard I had some good 
 news to tell them, which came through the Gospel. When 
 that large crowd gathered, and I was just ready to preach, 
 the sentinels rushed in among them to seize an old man. 
 They dragged him aside a little from the crowd, and the 
 sentinel in charge came to me and said, ' I want to shoot 
 this man, because he has been in the river fishing to-day. 
 He has not been on the river for india-rubber.' I told him,
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 213 
 
 ' I have not authority to stop you, because I have nothing 
 to do with these palavers, but the people are here to hear 
 what I have to say to them, and I don't want you to do 
 it before my eyes.' He said, ' All right, I will keep him 
 in bounds then until to-morrow morning when you have 
 gone. Then I will kill him.' But a few minutes afterwards 
 the sentinel came in a rage to the man and shot him right 
 before my eyes. Then he charged his rifle again and pointed 
 it at the others, who all rushed away like chaff before the 
 wind. He told a little boy, eight or nine years of age, to 
 go and cut off the right hand of the man who had been 
 shot. The man was not quite dead, and when he felt the 
 knife he tried to drag his hand away. The boy, after some 
 labour, cut the hand off and laid it by a fallen tree. A 
 little later this hand was put on a fire to smoke before 
 being sent to the commissary. 
 
 " All except the old chiefs, &c., are forced to go away 
 and work rubber. It is very difficult for the natives to get 
 it. It has been difficult from the very beginning. They 
 have to wade in marshes. I have seen them often when 
 they passed. They have knives in their hands, and they 
 cut until the sap drops, drop by drop, and they stand in 
 the water. It is difficult for them to work close to their 
 own towns, but as they have to bring a large amount they 
 have to cut the trees constantly until they dry up. Then they 
 go to another place, and by-and-by they will have to go 
 still further inland, where the State is not yet fighting the 
 natives, and they have to stay away many days at a time. 
 The sentinel told me that the natives there are not able to 
 carry any food with them, and it often happens that they 
 stay away for days at a time and that they die in the 
 marshes of fainting and starvation. The sentinels are from 
 the wildest tribes. They were wild already, but when they 
 get to this work they are many times worse. They are 
 really small kings in the towns, and they often kill the 
 people for the sake of india-rubber. They often rob, and 
 steal, and plunder, and take whatever they can get hold of.
 
 214 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 At the beginning, when I saw that, I told the commissary 
 about it, but he turned in anger on me and, in the presence 
 of the soldiers, said that he would expel me from the town 
 if I meddled with matters of that kind any more. 
 
 "If the rubber does not reach the full amount required, 
 the sentinels attack the natives. They kill some and bring 
 the hands to the commissary. Others are brought to the 
 commissary as prisoners. Hundreds are constantly taken 
 down in large steamers. Lying in the steamers there are 
 the dead bodies of prisoners who are being taken down to 
 the coast. At the beginning they came with their smoked 
 hands. The sentinels, or else the boys in attendance on 
 them, put these hands on a little kiln, and after they had 
 been smoked, they by-and-by put them on the top of the 
 rubber baskets. I have on many occasions seen this done. 
 
 " At one time I went to an inland lake several miles 
 wide ; the natives told me I was the first white man who had 
 ever seen it. Under the shadow of palms and plantain I saw 
 the villages. I saw somebody coming alone and looking 
 at what was going on. As he met me, he said : ' What 
 am I to do ? The rubber does not reach a large amount, 
 some of the people have run away, and those who are 
 left refuse to bring the full amount.' And then he told me 
 the amount these people had to bring. The commissaries 
 lower down the river do not know how many people there 
 are in a village. They put on a small village as large an 
 amount as on a big village. In this case it was impossible 
 for the people to collect the required amount. From this 
 village I went on to another, where I met a man who 
 pointed to a basket, and said to me, ' Look, I have only 
 two hands.' He meant there were not enough to make up 
 for the rubber he had not brought. He had several 
 prisoners tied to the trees. They were waiting to be taken 
 away. When I came back some of the villages were in an 
 uproar. The people were leaving their homes and rushing 
 to the forest. When I reached the river I turned round 
 and saw that the people had large hammocks, in which
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 215 
 
 they were gathering the rubber to be taken to the com- 
 missary. I also saw smoked hands, and the prisoners 
 waiting to be taken down to the commissary. 
 
 " That is only one of the places in which these practices 
 occur. There is a small island in a stream at Lake 
 Mantumba. The people had not been able to bring the 
 full amount of rubber. The officers with some soldiers 
 went along there. Several of the natives were killed. I 
 saw the dead bodies floating on the lake with the right 
 hands off, and the officer told me when I came back why 
 they had been killed. It was for the rubber. In fact, the 
 officers have always freely told me about the many who 
 were killed, and always in connection with india-rubber. 
 In one village which I passed through, I saw two or three 
 men on the wayside quite recently killed about an hour 
 before. The sentinel, who had to oversee the gathering 
 of the rubber, told me they had killed the men because they 
 had not brought the rubber. When I crossed the stream, I 
 saw some dead bodies hanging down from branches in the 
 water. As I turned my face away at the horrible sight, 
 one of the native corporals who was following us down, 
 said, ' Oh, that is nothing, a few days ago I returned from 
 a fight, and I brought the white man 160 hands, and they 
 are thrown in the river.' 
 
 " At Lake Mantumba, later on in 1895, the natives, after 
 they had begun to get india-rubber close to the lake, found 
 hostile tribes with poisoned arrows. The natives could not 
 get far enough for their india-rubber. Two or three days after 
 a fight a dead mother was found with two of her children. 
 The mother was shot and the right hand was taken off. 
 On one side was the elder child, also shot, and the right 
 hand also taken off. On the other side was the younger 
 child, with the right hand cut off ; but the child, still living, 
 was resting against the dead mother's breast. This dark 
 picture was seen by four other missionaries. I myself saw 
 the child. The natives had begun to cut off the left hand, 
 but, seeing their mistake, they left it and cut off the right
 
 216 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 hand instead. If such punishment is, in any case, right, 
 why not try to find out those who are really guilty, and 
 who failed to gather the full amount of rubber ? But to 
 attack not only one village, but a whole set of villages, 
 because one or two have failed to give their amount that 
 is one of the things we object to. The soldiers are sent out 
 to attack a whole village, instead of finding and punishing 
 the guilty, if any are guilty. At the end of 1895, the com- 
 missary all the people were gathering the rubber said 
 he had often told the sentinels not to kill the people. But 
 on 1 4th December a sentinel passed our mission station 
 and a woman accompanied him, carrying a basket of hands. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Banks, besides myself, went down the road, 
 and they told the sentinel to put the hands on the road 
 that they might count them. We counted eighteen right 
 hands smoked, and from the size of the hands we could 
 judge that they belonged to men, women, and children. 
 We could not understand why these hands had been 
 collected, as the commissary had given orders that no 
 more natives were to be killed for their hands. On my last 
 journey I discovered the secret. One Monday night, a 
 sentinel who had just returned from the commissary, said 
 to me, 'What are the sentinels to do? When all the 
 people are gathered together, the commissary openly tells 
 us not to kill any more people, but when the people have 
 gone he tells us privately that if they do not bring plenty 
 of india-rubber we must kill some, but not bring the hands 
 to him.' Some sentinels, he told me, had been put in 
 chains because they killed some natives who happened 
 to be near a mission station ; but it was only because he 
 thought it might become known that the commissary, to 
 justify himself, had put the men in chains. I said to the 
 sentinel, ' You should obey the first command, never to kill 
 any more.' ' The people,' he answered, ' unless they are 
 frightened, do not bring in the rubber, and then the com- 
 missary flogs us with the hippopotamus hide, or else he 
 puts us in chains, or sends us to Boma.' The sentinel
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 217 
 
 added that the commissary induced him to hide cruelty 
 while letting it go on, and to do this in such a way that he 
 might be justified, in case it should become known and an 
 investigation should be made. In such a case the com- 
 missary could say, ' Why, I told him openly not to kill any 
 more,' and he might put the blame on the soldier to justify 
 himself, though the blame and the punishment in all its 
 force ought to have been put on himself, after he had done 
 such a terrible act in order to disguise or mislead justice. 
 If the sentinels were puzzled about this message, what 
 would the natives be ? 
 
 " One important fact happened on the Saturday before 
 the sentinel told me about it. The chief informed the 
 sentinel that he would report to the commissary that the 
 sentinel had killed his father. But the sentinel said, ' What 
 could you do to me ? I would simply tell the commissary 
 that you had not brought rubber, and then he would put 
 you in chains instead of me.' ' Oh,' said the chief, ' you 
 have killed my father for nothing, but I will not go with 
 you to the commissary ' ; and then he went away from the 
 village, from the place where the rubber was placed. But 
 the sentinel caught the chief. He called some sentinels 
 from other villages, and they forced him along and threw 
 him down, some holding down the head, some the arms, 
 and some other parts of the body, and they flogged him 
 until the blood streamed down his back. Then they told 
 the chief to stop in the camp. They pushed him, and a 
 soldier took his gun and levelled it close to the chiefs 
 heart. The chief stood shivering with fear, and the sentinel 
 said, ' I can kill you if I like.' 
 
 " I have seen extracts from letters in which the writers 
 have freely told about hundreds being killed, about 
 hundreds of hands being brought by the sentinels, about 
 hundreds of slaves being taken ; and one of the State 
 officials said to a resident agent, ' I have two hundred 
 slaves here ; do you want some?' Another agent told me 
 that he had himself seen a State officer at one of the out-
 
 218 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 posts pay a certain number of brass rods to the soldiers for 
 a number of hands they had brought. One of the soldiers 
 told me the same. That was about the time I saw the 
 native killed before my own eyes. The soldier said, ' Don't 
 take this to heart so much. They kill us if we do not 
 bring rubber. The commissary has promised us if we 
 bring plenty of hands he will shorten our service. I have 
 brought in plenty of hands already, and I expect my time 
 of service will soon be finished.' " 
 
 Of ill-treatment of natives not directly incident to rubber- 
 collecting Mr. Sjoblom gave some illustrations. "There 
 is," he said, "a lot of labour besides. The people are 
 compelled to bring in a certain amount of fish and other 
 things. It is not only on a Sunday that they bring their 
 fish and rubber, but they have to bring it, according to the 
 new orders, sometimes every second, sometimes every third 
 or fourth day. Whenever they are told to do anything 
 they must do it, as the soldiers order them. The fish they 
 often buy themselves, because all of them are not fisher- 
 men. Some villagers do not fish at all. They buy a 
 bundle of fish, and pay five brass rods for it. When the 
 fish is scarce they pay fifteen brass rods. When they hand 
 it in perhaps they receive only one brass rod for a bundle. 
 I have seen that over and over again. In doing this, the 
 commissaries say they buy the fish and do not take it for 
 nothing. Again, people about the towns are often told to 
 bring a certain number of bamboos from each village. 
 Perhaps a man has to go far inland, or to cross to the other 
 side of the river, and to spend a whole day in getting a big 
 bundle of bamboos. Then the following day he has to 
 bring it to the commissary, and when he brings a large 
 bundle he gets one brass rod for two days' labour. It is 
 the same with many other things. They are told to bring 
 a kind of cane with which they make baskets to take the 
 rubber down to Boma, and also to make the baskets for 
 the coffee plantations. The women are often called out to 
 cut grass for nothing."
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 219 
 
 In the early part of 1895 Mr. Sjoblom had put forward a 
 
 statement of some of the cruelties he 
 
 u . j u The Governor- 
 
 had seen, and this was submitted by ,. 
 
 . , * General's Action. 
 him to M. De Lancker, one of the 
 
 Congo State's judges, who was sent up in February, 1896, 
 to make investigations as to the truth of the allegations by 
 Mr. Murphy which had been published in the European 
 newspapers of the previous November, and which had 
 caused great annoyance to Governor-General Wahis. Mr. 
 Sjoblom was consequently summoned as a witness at Judge 
 De Lancker's inquiry into Mr. Murphy's charges, and his 
 evidence thereon, supplemented by his own complaints, 
 appears to have increased the Governor-General's indigna- 
 tion. In the course of a journey up the river, M. Wahis 
 called at Equateurville in June, 1896, and sent for Mr. 
 Banks the other American missionary, and chief of the 
 group, who had joined in the complaints as well as for 
 Mr. Sjoblom, to be talked to on the subject. According 
 to the latter's report of the interview, he said, " ' It has 
 been proved by the investigations that what Mr. Murphy 
 told in his recent article was false.' ' Oh,' I said I looked 
 a little doubtful. Then he said, ' About this affair at 
 Bomabumba, for instance : Mr. Murphy said more than 
 twenty people had been killed. That was impossible, 
 because only four soldiers and guns were sent down. They 
 received ten cartridges and brought back seven.' I said, 
 ' Oh, there must be some mistake about that. The soldiers 
 passed down at six o'clock in the morning. When they 
 were going across I saw eight soldiers with guns, and 
 several were discharging their guns. The village is very 
 close to our station, and there were more than twenty shots 
 fired.' He did not try to give another instance about the 
 investigation, and what Mr. Murphy had said. But he 
 took the charges which had been made as to what I had 
 seen, and he held them in his hand when he began to cross- 
 question me. He tried in every possible way to entangle 
 me, and, if an English word had two different meanings, he
 
 220 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 would take the meaning that suited him, and point to 
 different documents as though he would say, ' You contra- 
 dict these ? ' I said, ' Excuse me, I have a right to put the 
 meaning as I like.' Then he went on to something else, 
 and so he went on the whole afternoon. At last he said, 
 ' Yes, you may have seen all these things that you have 
 stated, but nothing is proved.' I said, ' It is not my fault.' 
 When the judge had finished with me he said he could not 
 come down to the mission station to the men who had 
 witnessed this and the other matters stated to him. I put 
 the names down on the list and sent them all up to Coquil- 
 hatville. The first day the commissary called his soldiers, 
 put a cartridge in a gun and pointed it to the witnesses. 
 The next day the witnesses would not go. They were 
 afraid to go.' I said to the Governor, ' It is not my fault 
 that it is not proved,' and he jumped up and said, ' You 
 make these charges.' I said, ' Excuse me, I make no 
 charges. This is only an explanation first given by wit- 
 nesses to me. But they were afraid to come the following 
 day to tell the story now repeated by me. No witnesses 
 were heard.' On the following day," Mr. Sjoblom con- 
 tinued, " I again saw the Governor. The sun was setting, 
 and he said, ' I will come down, and see you at your station 
 next Sunday afternoon.' He came down, and he began 
 again. During the Saturday I had already taken down 
 the names of witnesses to the different charges. I drew 
 the list from my pocket and asked, ' When would it be 
 convenient for me to prove my charges ? ' He said, ' What 
 do you want ? ' I answered, ' I heard from you that my 
 charges were not proved, and I want to prove them. I 
 only ask when it will be convenient.' He replied, ' I don't 
 want to hear any witnesses. The man has left the country.' 
 I said, ' Yes, the man has left the country, but my charge 
 is disputed, and I contend that my witnesses should be 
 heard.' He said, ' Well, if you continue to demand investi- 
 gation in these matters, we will make a charge against you. 
 The natives say that you on your inland journeys have
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 221 
 
 told them not to bring india-rubber to the State. If you 
 continue to demand investigation we will take up a case 
 against you.' I said, ' I never did such a thing. I have 
 been told again and again not to listen to the natives, 
 because they tell you lies, and now you threaten me with a 
 charge founded on native lies.' He said, ' Well, if you go 
 on with this, we will make these charges against you. That 
 means five years' imprisonment.' Then he suddenly turned 
 the conversation to something else, and I saw I could not 
 be heard. I had tried to prove my facts, and I kept quiet. 
 Very soon afterwards he took his departure." 
 
 At an interview following the meeting of the Aborigines 
 Protection Society, Mr. Sjoblom referred to what he called 
 " an even more glaring instance of Congo barbarity and 
 maladministration," which brought upon him and Mr. 
 Banks another visit from the Governor-General. " Towards 
 the end of last year," that is, in October, 1896, he reported, 
 " a force of State soldiers, at the order of the commissary of 
 the district, entered the village of Mandaka Vagigo, near 
 my station, and seeing the natives run away as usual at 
 their approach, held out a quantity of the brass rods with 
 which they trade, indicating that they were not there to 
 fight, but to buy food. Seeing their show of peaceful 
 intentions, the natives returned, and commenced to prepare 
 food. Meanwhile a portion of the troops were sent down 
 to the other end of the village ; the natives were surrounded ; 
 the State soldiers opened fire upon them, and about fifty 
 were killed. This being reported to us by soldiers and 
 natives, Mr. Banks rode out to inquire into it. He himself 
 counted twenty or thirty dead bodies, and the natives 
 wanted him to go into the bush, where they said more were 
 lying. Mr. Banks, having seen the bodies in the village, 
 and hearing of the hands that had been cut off, concluded 
 that he had ample proof without going into the bush. He 
 seemed surprised that the hands had not been sent to the 
 State station to be counted, but was told that it was not 
 necessary to show them to the State officer, as they were
 
 222 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 counted by a native sergeant. A few days later Governor 
 Wahis, on his return down the river, called in at our station 
 and asked Mr. Banks if any further atrocities had taken 
 place since his last visit. Mr. Banks detailed what he had 
 heard, and M. Wahis answered that it was impossible. He 
 then told the Governor that he had seen it himself, where- 
 upon M. Wahis summoned the commandant in charge 
 the officer who had ordered the raid had already gone else- 
 where and asked him in French if the story were true. 
 The Belgian officer assured M. Wahis that it was, but the 
 latter, thinking Mr. Banks did not understand French, said, 
 ' After all, you may have seen this ; but you have no 
 witnesses.' ' Oh,' said Mr. Banks, ' I can call the com- 
 mandant, who has just told you that it is true.' M. Wahis 
 then tried to minimise the matter, when, to his great 
 surprise, Mr. Banks added, ' In any case, I have, at his own 
 request, furnished to the British Consul, who passed 
 through here lately, a signed statement concerning it.' 
 M. Wahis rose from his chair, saying, ' Oh, then, it is all 
 over Europe ! ' Then, for the first time, he said that the 
 responsible commissary must be punished. Some time 
 after the Governor's departure we were surprised to hear 
 that the guilty officer had been sentenced to five years' 
 imprisonment. As the officer was all this time waging 
 warfare in the interior, we failed to understand what it 
 meant. We afterwards learnt that he had been sentenced 
 to remain for five years on the Congo without furlough. 
 These cases are sufficient to show the working of the new 
 regulations on the Congo."* 
 
 Mr. Sjoblom's experiences were of earlier date than the 
 
 appointment of the so-called Natives 
 The Value of the ~ . . . c 
 
 Protection Commission in September, 
 Natives Protection n . , . 
 
 Commission. l8 9 6 5 but before he left the country 
 for a long rest in March, 1 897, he was 
 
 able to recognise the worthlessness of this pretence of 
 philanthropy. " The appointment of the Commission," 
 
 * Tines, I4th May, 1897.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 223 
 
 he stated plainly, " was only for the purpose of throwing 
 dust in the eyes of people at home. I come from a large 
 and important district in the far interior, so I cannot, from 
 personal observation, tell you of what has gone on on the 
 lower river, although I believe that some slight attempt 
 was made at first on the main river, by the Governor, to 
 remedy matters. I can only say that generally, and in my 
 own district particularly, things are as bad as ever. None 
 of the members of the Commission is able to see very 
 much of the real state of things. In the first place they 
 are in positions where there is least need of their services. 
 They are tied to their own districts to a large extent. 
 Moreover, the State authorities have ample opportunity for 
 taking care that the worst cases shall not come under their 
 notice. A few cases have been dealt with, owing to the 
 energetic representations of missionaries or others ; but, as 
 a whole, there is a general indisposition either to hear 
 evidence on the subject of the brutal treatment of the 
 people, or to deal effectually with it. Much more might 
 be said on this subject ; but I will only add that the 
 country is rapidly becoming depopulated by this mis- 
 government, and impoverished instead of benefited, that 
 people are enslaved instead of being freed from slavery, 
 and that this false policy and cruel treatment create hatred 
 and distrust, and thus on every hand fresh obstacles are 
 added to the progress of true civilisation. Something must 
 be done soon, and done effectually, if Europe is to free 
 herself from bloodguiltiness in reference to these down- 
 trodden people. May the day speedily come when the 
 question will cease to be asked, with a curse, ' Why did 
 the white man ever find his way to my country ? ' " * 
 
 The revelations of Mr. Sjoblom in May, 1897, amplifying 
 
 those, of Mr. Murphy in November, 
 
 , . j , , . , English Protests and 
 
 1895, aroused considerable interest ~.,. . , ,, .... 
 
 , yj ' Official Contradictions. 
 
 in Europe, especially as public atten- 
 tion had been called to the whole question of Congo 
 
 * Times, iqth May, 1897.
 
 224 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 misrule in an important debate which Sir Charles Dilke 
 raised in the House of Commons on 2nd April, 1897, and 
 by a scarcely less important meeting convened by the 
 Aborigines Protection Society on the following 7th April 
 over which Mr. Leonard Courtney presided, and at which 
 the principal speakers were Mr. John Morley and Sir 
 Charles Dilke.* In the hope of allaying this agitation a 
 lengthy communication was made to the Belgian press by 
 M. Van Eetvelde, the principal Secretary of the Congo 
 State, who declared that " its object is to create difficulties 
 for the Congo State, to discredit it by magnifying isolated 
 facts, and, under cover of philanthropy, to prepare the way 
 for the financial and territorial ambitions which mask 
 themselves behind this campaign," but who attempted no 
 justification at all of his tu quoque assertion, and, in answer 
 to the specific charges against the agents of the State, 
 offered no more than vague generalisations and appeals 
 to its pompous professions of disinterestedness and humane 
 intentions, f Before that, moreover, M. Jules Houdret, as 
 Consul -General in London for the Congo State, had in 
 similar terms denounced, in the Times of loth April, 
 the attempt to procure some approach towards just 
 treatment of Congo natives. In the correspondence that 
 ensued it devolved on me, with support from Sir Charles 
 Dilke and others, to rebut official contradictions and 
 denials which became more authoritative when Governor- 
 General Wahis, who in the interval had arrived in Europe 
 on a visit, took part in the controversy. Without repro- 
 ducing these lengthy assertions and counter-assertions, it 
 may be sufficient to quote here the cautious remarks of the 
 Times that, on the questions at issue, M. Wahis's defence 
 
 * On this occasion, referring to the Anglo-Congolese Convention of 12th 
 May, 1894, granting to King Leopold a lease of " the Lado enclave" or "le 
 territoire pris a bail," which was agreed to by Earl Rosebery's Cabinet, Mr. 
 Morley, who had been a member of that Cabinet, frankly remarked, " I can 
 only say that, in the light of what I now know, it seems to me perfectly clear 
 that in making this lease we made a very great mistake. " 
 
 f L'fitoile Belgt, 2yd May, 1897.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE ABUSES. 225 
 
 is " hardly calculated to produce the effect he desires," and 
 " will convince few who are not convinced already," and 
 that "we are quite ready to acknowledge the enormous 
 difficulty of these African problems, particularly as they 
 present themselves to a relatively poor State, but we 
 cannot say that there is yet evidence that the Congo State 
 has met them with even moderate success."* 
 
 One outcome of the controversy, and perhaps its most 
 
 significant result, though of minor 
 
 . . .,, ,, Mr. Sjoblom's 
 
 importance in comparison with the ... . 
 
 fate of the entire native population 
 
 of Congoland which was involved in it, was the refutation 
 of the Governor -General's impeachment of Mr. Sjoblom, 
 whose illness necessarily delayed his participation in 
 the dispute he had in part brought about. In reply to 
 Mr. Sjoblom's charges M. Wahis took shelter under evasive 
 generalities, such as that " the mutilation of corpses is a 
 custom that exists and has existed in almost every part of 
 Africa (a warrior brings in hands and heads as a proof of 
 his valour) " ; that if, in an egregious instance, " the 
 inhabitants resisted and lost a certain number of slain, the 
 repression was legitimate in itself," although, " contrary to 
 the instructions, a mistake was made in giving the command 
 to a black sergeant "; and that " in no country is war made 
 without devastations when war is raging it is not in the 
 Congo only that it sometimes assumes a character which 
 our civilisation reproves." He had but prevarication to 
 offer, however, with reference to his threat of penal 
 servitude to Mr. Sjoblom if the latter proceeded in his 
 charges against State officials. " I was brought to declare 
 to him," was M. Wahis's final admission, " that, if I con- 
 stantly relied like himself upon the word of the natives, 
 I ought to summon him before a council of war for having 
 at different times incited inhabitants to refuse to pay the 
 taxes." But he added that it was by a subordinate, not 
 
 * Times, loth, I2th, i6th, and 26th April ; I7th, 26th, and 3ist May; 7th, 
 9th, I7th, and 2ist June, 1897. 
 
 Q
 
 226 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 by himself, that the actual threat was uttered, seeing that 
 " Judge Dr. Hegere, who was present at our interview, 
 expressed his opinion that this fact might make him liable 
 to five years' penal servitude."* 
 
 In the course of the controversy the Governor-General 
 had referred to a letter from Mr. Grenfell, the Protestant 
 member of the new Natives Protection Commission, in 
 assumed refutation of one of Mr. Sjoblom's allegations. 
 Mr. Sjoblom was able to quote the following from Mr. 
 Grenfell, dated I3th February, 1897 : " I am ver 7 sorry to 
 learn that my letter to Baron Dhanis of about a year ago 
 has been used to throw discredit upon your communication 
 to the Press in which you detail some of the incidents of 
 your experience at Bolengi" the name of the mission 
 station "and inland from that place. If I had seen your 
 letter before I wrote to Baron Dhanis, I should certainly 
 have written differently from what I did, for I could not 
 take the same exception to your facts that I felt justified 
 in taking to the previously-published statements. So far 
 as I am aware, the State has not seriously denied the truth 
 of the statements you made in the letters referred to, and 
 I imagine it is owing very largely to the impression caused 
 by them that the recent energetic action of his Excellency 
 the Governor-General may be traced, and I think you may 
 congratulate yourself for having very effectively discharged 
 a very onerous responsibility and for having materially 
 contributed to the commencement of a new and better 
 regime? 't 
 
 The new regime may for a time have been somewhat 
 better than the old as regards the treatment of natives ; 
 but, as we shall see, abuses continued, and soon became 
 more appalling than ever. 
 
 * Times, 3ist May and 23rd September, 1897. 
 f Ibid., roth September, 1897.
 
 RAIDS AND REBELLIONS. 227 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 RAIDS AND REBELLIONS [1895-1899], 
 
 THE native risings in the Equateur district, of which Mr. 
 Glave saw something and heard more on his passage down 
 the Congo, were followed in the same year by graver 
 disturbances further south, in the Luluaba district and 
 elsewhere. Before reviewing these troubles, however, 
 mention must be made of proceedings in the north, 
 one notable incident in which greatly increased the 
 Congo State's difficulties in the attempted suppression 
 of rebellion. 
 
 The questionable success of the Van Kerckhoven expedi- 
 tion, after the death of its leader, in 
 
 ,. ,, ATM . ~ , , The Dhanis and 
 
 reaching the Nile valley in October, _. 
 
 * . Chaltm Expedition. 
 
 1892, procured recognition by the 
 
 French and British Governments of the State's claim to 
 supremacy over the Ubangi and Welle districts and the Lado 
 enclave, as delimited by the Franco-Congolese Convention 
 of August, 1 894. It also resulted in desperate efforts not only 
 to make effective the State's supremacy in those districts, 
 but in addition, and in spite of the convention, to obtain 
 foothold yet further north. Necessity for action of some 
 sort arose out of the refusal of the Niam-Niam, on both 
 sides of the Upper Welle, to consider themselves conquered, 
 and, it was alleged, out of the encroachments of the 
 Mahdists from the Bahr-el-Ghazal country of which they 
 were in possession. At Mundu, in the far east, and near 
 to the Lado enclave, a so-called Dervish force was defeated 
 by Captains Delanghe and Bonvallet in March, 1894, 
 though in that encounter, or immediately after it, the 
 latter officer and some of his men were killed by Mbili, the 
 Niam-Niam sultan of the district. Mbili was punished, 
 and the Dervishes were again repulsed, by Captains
 
 228 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 Francqui and Christiaens in the following December, and 
 in the interval small victories had been won towards the 
 west, on the Darfur frontier, by Lieutenants Gerard and 
 Donckier. But a graver affair was the slaughter of Captain 
 Janssens and about sixty of his troops by Ndoruma, another 
 Niam-Niam sultan, in February, 1895. 
 
 It was ostensibly with a view to the establishment of the 
 State's authority in its assumed territory, and at the same 
 time to the rendering of some assistance to the Anglo- 
 Egyptian expedition against the Mahdists which was 
 about to be entered upon, that in November, 1895, Baron 
 Dhanis was sent back to the Congo, where already Captain 
 Chaltin was getting ready to co-operate with him. Compli- 
 cations nearer the centre of Congo State administration, 
 however, appear to have delayed the commencement of 
 operations, and subsequent complications brought about 
 results which had not been contemplated. 
 
 Captain Chaltin arrived with a strong force at Niampara, 
 
 on the Upper Welle, and, making it 
 The Welle Campaign. - , , ^ ' . 
 
 the base of a campaign against the 
 
 turbulent Niam-Niam, in February, 1896, he proceeded to 
 demolish Mbili's power. Mbili went out to meet the 
 invaders, and, with a chivalry almost peculiar to African 
 savages, sent notice that he intended to attack them, as he 
 did, on 1 7th March. Thereby he hastened his overthrow. 
 After a hot encounter nearly all his followers were either 
 killed or dispersed, and he had to make his escape, 
 accompanied only by a few sturdy warriors. Ndoruma was 
 next attacked, and as signally defeated after two battles, 
 in the first of which the forces were commanded by his 
 brother Mbima, while in the second he was himself 
 engaged. Having thus made himself temporarily master 
 of the situation, Captain Chaltin spent several months in 
 setting up forts and garrisons, including one at Dongu, in 
 the centre of what is now the Welle district, provided with 
 six guns and accommodation for 800 soldiers, and another at 
 Dirfi, on the edge of the Lado enclave.
 
 RAIDS AND REBELLIONS. 229 
 
 In the meanwhile Baron Dhanis was making for the 
 larger undertaking such preparations as the disturbances 
 in the Equateur, Lualaba, and other districts allowed. 
 He was at Stanley Falls in June, 1896, and there and 
 thereabouts he appears to have recruited and roughly 
 trained a large number of native troops, in addition to 
 the Batetela and Manyema for whom he waited until 
 their arrival from Kabambare, the great fighting depot in 
 the south. 
 
 In September, 1896, he sent > forward, under Captain 
 
 Leroi, three battalions, each about 
 
 j ' ^ , . The Niam-Niam 
 
 1 ,000 strong, commanded by Captains . 
 
 Mathieu, Julien, and Doorme, and this 
 
 force, marching eastward through Avakubi, on the Ituri, to 
 Kavali, on Lake Albert Edward, and thence due north, 
 reached Dirfi on I2th February, 1897. Two days later a 
 mutiny broke out among the native soldiers and mer- 
 cenaries, as to which the most detailed information is from 
 M. Achte, a French member of the White Fathers Mission, 
 who for a short time in April was a captive in the rebels' 
 hands. 
 
 According to this missionary's account, the trouble 
 began, not among the Batetela and Manyema brought up 
 by Leroi, but among the Niam-Niam of Niampara, who 
 must have been recruited by Chaltin or his subordinates, 
 and the immediate occasion was an order given by one of 
 the Belgian officers that a Niampara soldier should, for 
 some unnamed offence, receive a hundred lashes with the 
 hippopotamus-hide whip. " Enraged at this," it is added, 
 " the Niampara chiefs, Kandoro, Ladiki, and Kalukula, 
 gave out the watchword ' mutiny,' in order to escape from 
 the rod of the Dervishes and the bludgeon and rope of 
 the Belgians, and to avenge their countrymen, who had 
 been flogged and shot down for years. When night came, 
 two officers fell off their seats, shot through the heart, five 
 others were shot down, and, thanks to the darkness, two 
 escaped. Everything was plundered." Foremost among
 
 230 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 the slain was Captain Leroi, whose advance guard of about 
 3,000 was thus broken up.* 
 
 Baron Dhanis was in no way personally responsible for 
 this outbreak ; and when he arrived at Dirfi, if he got so 
 far, he appears to have found it deserted. The rebels, 
 having chosen as their " king " Mlumba, a Manyema chief, 
 had wandered due south for nearly 200 miles, finding victims 
 and sympathisers on the way, before they were overtaken 
 by Dhanis, with his army of 4,000 or more, chiefly Manyema, 
 at Ekwanga, near the sourceof thelturi,on i8th March. Then 
 a second and greater mutiny broke out. " For three years," 
 Mlumba said to the White Father, " I had stored up in my 
 heart hatred for the Belgians. When I saw Dhanis, face 
 to face with my mutinous countrymen, I trembled with joy ; 
 the moment had come for liberty and revenge. Dhanis 
 had, in the evening, formed his army in rank and file, and 
 placed sentinels. The Europeans, sure of their victory on 
 the following day, slept. Towards two in the morning 
 the mutineers, who had already come to an understanding 
 with the Manyema in Dhanis's camp, were noticed by the 
 sentinels and shot at. General firing began, and the 
 Belgians rushed out of their tents to give orders. But 
 their whole camp was in revolt. When the sun rose, one 
 saw several hundred corpses of black soldiers and seven 
 dead Belgians. All the other Belgians fled, only escaping 
 with their lives." Dhanis's own rifle, eighteen guns, with 
 ammunition and all the other supplies, as well as the white 
 men's tents and kits, were captured. 
 
 Baron Dhanis and his deputies were, as we shall see, 
 occupied for four years in vain attempts to crush the 
 rebellion which has lasted to this day, and Captain Chaltin 
 
 * M. Achte's information was published in Berlin, and extensively repro- 
 duced in the English and other papers, in December, 1897. As in earlier 
 chapters, I do not trouble the reader with icference to my authorities for each 
 item in facts briefly summarised. Such scanty official reports as have been 
 printed being shamelessly misleading, I have had to correct and supplement 
 them by as careful examination as I could make of the numerous statements 
 appearing in current newspapers and other publications.
 
 RAIDS AND REBELLIONS. 231 
 
 had to carry on the Nile expedition without his supervision 
 or assistance. 
 
 With a force of about 800 troops, having a white officer 
 
 over each hundred or so, a contingent 
 
 - _ T . , ' . Captain Chaltin's 
 
 of some "500 Niam-Niam under their 
 
 J Operations. 
 
 own chiefs, Renzi and Basuka, and 
 carriers and others who swelled the total to nearly 2,000, 
 Captain Chaltin had left Dongu on I4th December, 1896, 
 two months before the mutiny of Leroi's party. On 
 ist January, 1897, he was at Surur, the last point reached 
 by Van Kerckhoven, in whose memory it has been re- 
 named Van Kerckhovenville, and, going out of his way to 
 " occupy " part of the Bahr - el - Ghazal, he reached 
 Kaduruma, one of its chief towns, on I3th January. There, 
 as he wrote in his official report, " we were surprised at the 
 sight of the plantations, a veritable ocean of sorghum, 
 extending all around as far as the horizon ; what wealth!" 
 Thence he hurried on to the Nile, which he sighted on 
 1 4th February, the day of Leroi's disaster, and after one 
 pitched battle with about 2,000 Dervishes, which had been 
 preceded by a few skirmishes, he took possession of Rejaf 
 on 1 7th February. Since then, with Lado for the centre 
 of local administration, the "territoire pris a bail" has been 
 more or less effectively controlled by the Congo State, with 
 a nominal garrison of 3,000 troops and a gunboat on the 
 Nile. 
 
 To the British Government this arrangement appears to 
 
 have been for the most part satis- 
 
 c ., j , , i , f , The Lado Occupation. 
 
 factory, as it purported to be helpful 
 
 to the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest of the Eastern Sudan, 
 before and since the decisive battle of Omdurman on 
 2nd September, 1898. Much alarm was caused in England 
 as well as in France by the raids into the Bahr-el-Ghazal } 
 not only from Lado, under Captain Chaltin's successor, 
 Captain Hanolet, but also from the Welle stations. English 
 objectors, however, had no support from their Government, 
 which was hampered by its unfortunate Convention of
 
 232 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 March, 1894, with the Congo State; and French objectors 
 were humoured by the considerable assistance that the 
 State gave to M. Liotard, the Governor of French Ubangi, 
 and to other organisers of French expeditions in the Nile 
 direction, especially to Major Marchand in his temporary 
 occupation of Fashoda concurrently with Lord Kitchener's 
 capture of Omdurman. 
 
 It may be reasonably assumed that, had Baron Dhanis 
 
 been able to follow up Captain 
 The Batetela Mutiny. , ... .,, ,. 
 
 Chaltm with the much larger force 
 
 intended for miscellaneous raiding within and beyond the 
 north-eastern boundary of the Congo State's territory, the 
 proceedings there would have been far more important 
 than those actually conducted, with the utmost possible 
 secrecy. As it happened, Baron Dhanis had a task beyond 
 his power in endeavouring to stamp out the rebellion 
 started, or revived, by the Niam-Niam mutiny of February, 
 1897, with encouragement and vigorous co-operation from 
 the two other great cannibal communities in eastern and 
 southern Congoland, the Manyema and the Batetela. 
 
 The origin of this trouble dates back to the lawless 
 
 killing of Gongo Lutete at Gandu, on 
 Its Origin. % - c u 
 
 the Lomani, m September, 1893, 
 
 after he had rendered all the service required from him in 
 defeating the Arab masters of the country east of the 
 Congo and Lualaba. "Gongo Lutete's bodyguard," 
 according to Dr. Hinde, " consisted of about 600 men, who, 
 as the only members of all his people in whom he could 
 place trust, held special privileges. A day or two after the 
 execution of Gongo these men, who were devoted to their 
 chief, showed a disposition to avenge his death. For his 
 own safety, and the greater security of the station, 
 Lieutenant Scherlink despatched them to Lusambo, and 
 from thence to Luluaburg, since it was thought that outside 
 their own district they would be less likely to cause trouble. 
 I arrived at Gandu from Nyangwe on the day on which 
 they were ordered to leave, and, angry at their power being
 
 RAIDS AND REBELLIONS. 233 
 
 broken, they vowed vengeance against the white men and 
 the rest of Congo's people, whom they had ruled with 
 brutal severity. As they marched out of Gandu they fired 
 on the townspeople, killing and wounding a few, and 
 shouting through the streets that they would come back 
 some day and would kill and eat every one they found 
 there. Shortly after their arrival at Luluaburg they were 
 enlisted as soldiers in the State service, and in this capacity 
 distinguished themselves for intelligence, willingness, and 
 pluck against a rebellious slave-raiding tribe in the Kasai 
 district. Some two years later they revolted, and after 
 murdering their officers at Luluaburg, marched through 
 the country, killing white men and raiding natives, till 
 eventually, having raised the whole country against the 
 Government, they arrived at Gandu."* 
 
 That was near the middle of 1895, and the mutineers 
 numbering at first, it was stated, no more than 350, but armed 
 with Albini rifles and with an ample store of cartridges, 
 and winning recruits as they went had sacked Gandu as 
 well as Luluaburg, Kalinda, and other stations, and had on 
 9th October severely defeated a small force led against 
 them by Lieutenant Gillian, before Captain Lothaire, not 
 yet tried for the killing of Mr. Stokes, was able to march 
 against them from Nyangwe. With 1,000 well-armed men 
 Lothaire surprised and defeated them on i8th October, and 
 on nth November, after an engagement in which four 
 Belgian officers lost their lives, a more important victory 
 virtually brought the campaign to a close. Claiming 
 that he had all but exterminated the remains of Congo 
 Lutete's bodyguard of picked Batetela, Lothaire was able 
 to report that there was " no longer any shadow of danger 
 to the State." There appears to have been a pause of 
 nearly a year in open hostilities ; but fresh risings between 
 the Lualaba and Lomani watercourses compelled Captain 
 Michaud to hurry to the scene with a large force from 
 Kwango in November, 1896, and Governor-General Wahis 
 * ' The Fall of the Congo Arabs,' p. 285.
 
 234 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 himself to bring up additional forces in the following 
 January. After that, though the authorities resolved to 
 adhere more strictly than previously to their rule that 
 native troops should only be engaged in righting with 
 tribes alien to their own and at a distance from their 
 homes, confidence in the Batetela was so far restored 
 that large numbers of them were employed both in 
 Leroi's and in Dhanis's portions of the force destined for 
 crusading in the north. 
 
 There were at least 500 with Dhanis in March, 1897, 
 
 when he overtook the mutineers who 
 Its Development. , , , , T .. , 
 
 had wrecked Lerois advance-guard 
 
 in February, and to their presence was principally due the 
 yet graver wrecking of his main army. In the turmoil 
 his brother, Louis Dhanis, and several other Belgians 
 were killed, and he could himself do no more than, with 
 a few faithful blacks and the whites who had survived, 
 escape to Avakubi, which he left Lieutenant Henry to 
 defend while he went to Stanley Falls to organise a fresh 
 army for pursuit of the insurgents, who were leisurely 
 continuing their journey southward. 
 
 The mutineers had reached the Semliki valley, between 
 Lake Albert Nyanza and Lake Albert Edward, and, if not 
 actually within British territory, were on the borders of 
 the Toru district of the British protectorate of Uganda 
 when, on 2oth April, M. Achte fell into their hands as he 
 was making one of his missionary tours. Taken to the 
 principal tent, where he saw many of the rebels wearing 
 the uniform of European officers, most of his clothes and 
 all his other property were taken from him, and he was 
 threatened with death. " We have killed the Belgians who 
 called us beasts, and who killed our chiefs and our brothers 
 like goats," said his captors ; " why should we not kill 
 you?" But on M. Achte assuring them that he was 
 not a Belgian, but a French priest, who had injured no 
 black men, and on some of the women interceding for him, 
 he was taken to Mlumba, the " king," who ordered that he
 
 RAIDS AND REBELLIONS. 235 
 
 should be well treated, and who released him after eight 
 days' detention. From Mlumba he learned that the inten- 
 tion was, before going south to Kabambare, to divide into 
 two parties, one to stir up revolt in Toru and slaughter the 
 English there, and the other to make as much havoc as 
 possible in Belgian territory. This plan was so far acted 
 upon that many of the insurgents did enter Toru, where 
 they all but captured the British fort at Katwe, and helped 
 to increase the disturbance that led to the mutiny of the 
 Uganda Rifles a few months later, and whence they had to 
 be expelled by Major Ternan, the acting Administrator of 
 Uganda. But they were soon compelled to retire from 
 this part of the country, and in a quarrel that ensued after 
 their defeat at Katwe Mlumba was killed by one of his 
 companions. On I2th June, moreover, Lieutenant Henry, 
 arriving with 600 righting men whom he had got together 
 at Avakubi, joined another force under Captain Sannaes, 
 with whose help he harried the insurgents until I5th July, 
 when he was in a position to inflict on them a severe 
 defeat. Killing about 400, he so disorganised the rest that, 
 breaking up into separate bands, they wandered about in 
 several directions, and for some while could do no more 
 than provoke discontent wherever they showed themselves. 
 The disturbances, which are generally spoken of as 
 the Batetela mutiny, continued or 
 steadily followed one another from 
 year to year, and have not yet been overcome ; but by the 
 middle of 1897 the particular grievance from which they 
 had started appears to have worn itself out. Almost from 
 the first, probably, the malcontents who rallied round the 
 residue of Gongo Lutete's body-guard, and took prompting 
 and guidance from it, outnumbered the pioneers. These 
 pioneers were only the chief promoters of a revolt against 
 Congo State tyranny from which they found plenty of 
 victims wherever they went, and the wrongs complained of 
 by the new recruits scarcely differed from those that the 
 Batetela from Luluaburg, and originally from Gandu,
 
 236 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 sought to avenge. The Manyema and kindred tribes, 
 including the Bakumu, the Batoko, and other inhabitants 
 of regions nearer to Stanley Falls, must have been more 
 numerous than the actual Batetela in the risings of Feb- 
 ruary and March, 1897, in the Niam-Niam country, and, if 
 the Niam-Niam who immediately instigated those risings 
 did not go far in the southern march of their fellow- 
 insurgents and soon returned to keep alive the spirit of 
 insurrection in their own neighbourhoods, their places were 
 evidently taken, in ever increasing numbers, by fresh in- 
 surgents gathered from each locality that the rebel leaders 
 visited. The leaders, as well as the rank and file, doubtless 
 had nothing in common but desire for revenge and plunder. 
 Tribal jealousies aggravated their quarrels, and they were 
 easily dispersed after such " decisive victories " as the one 
 in July, 1897, for which Lieutenant Henry was promoted 
 and decorated. But the victories were ephemeral and 
 decided nothing. The very lack of cohesion and corporate 
 vitality among the insurgents, which made it easy to defeat 
 and disperse them, made it as easy for them to come 
 together again in new shapes, like the despised and incom- 
 plete organisms of some lower forms of animal life which 
 their very inferiority renders it all the harder to destroy. 
 The so-called Batetela mutineers, at any rate, however 
 often and however severely stamped upon, could not be 
 crushed out. 
 
 Leaving his subordinates to deal as they could with the 
 insurgents on the road towards Kabambare, Baron Dhanis 
 appears to have gone thither as soon as he found it con- 
 venient and to have concentrated his energies in attempted 
 strengthening of its defences and those of Kasongo, in 
 anticipation of the avowed design of the insurgents to 
 capture them, with all their arsenals and armouries, and 
 to make them the centre of a dominion at least as 
 ambitious and powerful as that which had been overthrown 
 under Dhanis's direction in 1893. 
 
 Kabambare was not attacked till November, 1898, and
 
 RAIDS AND REBELLIONS. 237 
 
 no important fighting was reported till two months after 
 Captain Henry's success near Lake Albert Edward. On 
 2Oth December, 1897, however, a rebel force was defeated 
 by Captain Doorme at Biko on the Lova, only about 1 50 
 miles to the south-west of the earlier battlefield. By the 
 following April the rebels were in great activity much 
 nearer to Kabambare, on the west of the Rusi, the stream 
 that connects Lake Kivu with Lake Tanganyika. There 
 several engagements were fought with apparent advantage 
 to the rebels. Notwithstanding alleged defeats in April 
 and May, they contrived to push southwards in spite of all 
 the resistance offered to them, and repeated desertions of 
 State troops, after their Belgian officers had been killed, 
 were admitted. On i/th June, 1898, a "complete victory," 
 as it was called, was won by Lieutenant Gloire over 600 
 foemen, of whom a sixth were killed, but Gloire was him- 
 self wounded and had to retire to Kasongo, whence his 
 colleague, Lieutenant Svenson, advanced with a column 
 700 strong to Sangulu near the scene of Gloire's exploit. 
 There he was surprised by the enemy on 4th November 
 and forced to retreat to Kabambare. But the insurgents 
 were close upon his heels, and the southern stronghold, 
 after all that had been done to make it unassailable, had to 
 be evacuated on I4th November, probably through the 
 disaffection of part of its garrison. Three whites and over 
 200 native troops were killed in the fight, and the insurgents 
 had a week in which to remove all the military stores and 
 other valuables for which they cared before the arrival of 
 Baron Dhanis, who hurried up from Kasongo, at that time 
 his headquarters, with two guns, seven white officers, and 
 1,400 native troops, and who, finding the place empty, had 
 no difficulty in recapturing it. On 24th November he 
 considered himself justified in reporting that " peace had 
 been restored," and the statement appears to have been so 
 far correct that there was no immediate renewal of actual 
 warfare on a large scale in this part of Congoland. But 
 elsewhere something like chaos prevailed.
 
 238 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 " For a whole year," Captain Boshart, a German of long 
 
 experience in the force publique. wrote 
 The Consequent . , 
 
 in 1898, the mutineers have, alter 
 
 the massacre of their officers, wandered 
 
 about the country, murdering, burning, and ravaging, and the 
 Congo State is absolutely incapable of putting an end to the 
 scandal. In spite of the victories so pompously announced 
 from time to time, the State troops have not, up to the pre- 
 sent day, succeeded in bringing in a single deserter. Instead 
 of this, all soldiers of the Batetela tribe serving with other 
 contingents have been disarmed, put in irons, and sent 
 with their wives to Boma, where they have been immured 
 in the Shinkakasa Fort and condemned to hard labour at 
 the fortifications for an indefinite time. Among them were 
 some volunteers who served bravely and devotedly to the 
 satisfaction of their officers, and whose time had nearly 
 expired when they were made prisoners."* 
 
 An American Presbyterian missionary, the Rev. S. P. 
 Werner, a tolerant and almost admiring critic of the Congo 
 State's administration, was in England at the end of 
 January, 1899, after four years' residence in the country. 
 " When it is remembered," he stated, " that Baron Dhanis 
 is over three hundred miles from his nearest base, with only 
 a handful of white men and a percentage of unreliable 
 troops, it will occasion no surprise if further disaster awaits 
 the Belgians. According to my latest information, the 
 mutinous natives are practically on all sides of Dhanis's 
 present position. The home of the Batetela is on the west 
 of the Lualaba, and the mutinous troops who have captured 
 Kabambare are on the east and north ; thus he is practically 
 surrounded."t 
 
 More alarming was the report of Lieutenant Frank J. 
 Andrew, a British subject in the Congo State's service, who 
 came to England on sick leave in the following May. 
 
 * 'Zehn Jahre Afrikanischen Lebens,' p. 157. 
 
 f A Renter's interview in the Manchester Guardian, 3Oth January, 1899, 
 and other newspapers.
 
 RAIDS AND REBELLIONS. 239 
 
 " From Leopoldville to the distant shores of Tanganyika," 
 he said, " the whole interior is the scene of fighting in some 
 form or other. There is, perhaps, scarcely a single post on 
 the whole Congo at which a portion of the garrison is not 
 sent on expeditions against natives. Just before I left the 
 upper river" his station being at Barumba, opposite to 
 Basoko, at the outlet of the Aruwimi " news came down 
 of the capture by revolted troops of the large station of 
 Kabambare, in the Tanganyika region. At the time there 
 were some twelve white officers on the station, and five of 
 them were killed or wounded, the remainder escaping into 
 the bush. The mutineers, after capturing all the baggage 
 and ammunition, evacuated the place, which was, indeed, 
 useless to them. The fall of this post was no doubt chiefly 
 due to the death of Captain Svenson, a Scandinavian, one 
 of Dhanis's most trustworthy officers. For some time 
 previously he had been dangerously ill, and he died on 
 the night before the attack. Baron Dhanis and his 
 expedition were still fighting in the Stanley Falls district 
 when I left in February."* 
 
 Similar testimony is from Mr. Ewart S. Grogan, a young 
 Englishman, who travelled from the Cape to Cairo in 1899, 
 and who, on 5th April, was at Mtoa, on Lake Tanganyika, 
 about 1 50 miles to the north-east of Kabambare, and " the 
 chief Congo station on the lake." " Here," he recorded, 
 " all the officials in the district had collected, having 
 ignominiously fled from the rebels. One gentleman, who 
 had retired from a station further up the lake, had thrown 
 all the station ammunition and ivory into the lake, solely 
 on a report that the rebels were within a hundred miles. 
 The rebels, hearing of the action, went to the place and 
 quietly picked up both the ivory and the cartridges, thereby 
 gaining a new lease of life. At Mtoa the Belgians had 
 built elaborate defences, and had protected all the 
 approaches with barbed wire ; and, in case the rebels 
 
 * A Renter's interview in the Manchester Guardian^ 26th May, 1899, and 
 other newspapers.
 
 2 4 o CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 should come, they had cut down all the bananas and were 
 consequently short of food. There were one or two 
 unfortunate Scandinavians in the service who were being 
 thrown out as pickets. One of these gentlemen came and 
 asked us for some poison in case he should be caught by 
 the rebels with his totally inadequate force. This chaotic 
 condition has now lasted for five years, and there appears 
 to be no man capable of grappling with the situation." * 
 
 The chaos continued. On 2Oth July, 1899, Baron 
 Dhanis, it was averred, won another overwhelming victory 
 over the rebels ; the battlefield being near Sangulu again, 
 and the announcement was that in six hours' fighting a 
 State force of 500 had killed at least 300 and wounded 
 many more of the enemy. But in so far as there was truth 
 in such statements, issued from time to time, their chief 
 significance was in showing that earlier achievements had 
 been by no means so successful as they were alleged to be, 
 and that throughout nearly all the east and south of 
 Belgian Congoland nothing but further havoc resulted 
 from the efforts of the State and its agents to obtain 
 mastery over the inhabitants. 
 
 * ' From the Cape to Cairo/ 1900, p. 90.
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 241 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS [1897-1901]. 
 
 ON 8th October, 1897, ft was announced that Major 
 Lothaire, promoted and otherwise honoured during his 
 stay in Europe after being brought home to offer his 
 explanation of the killing of Mr. Stokes in January, 1895, 
 was about to leave Antwerp for further employment on the 
 Congo. " Major Lothaire," it was stated with a semblance 
 of official authority, " is regarded as a most capable and 
 firm administrator," and it was considered that "such a 
 man was required, as Baron Dhanis was fully occupied in 
 recovering the ground lost by some of his troops." * It 
 was not, however, avowedly as a high functionary of the 
 State, or as Baron Dhanis's colleague in military work, 
 but as chief agent of the Societe Anversoise du Commerce 
 au Congo that Major Lothaire returned to Africa. 
 
 A new stage in the commercial operations of the Congo 
 
 State, on its own responsibility, or 
 
 ,, ,,, ,. - i- ; i Commercial 
 
 through the action of monopolist and 
 
 . ., Developments. 
 
 privileged intermediaries, had by this 
 
 time been entered upon, and Major Lothaire's assistance 
 in controlling affairs, if possible, in the western and cen- 
 tral districts was rendered all the more necessary by the 
 failures of Baron Dhanis in the east and south. 
 
 A show of Congolese curiosities, including a crowd of 
 unfortunate natives brought over for the purpose, had 
 provided King Leopold's great possession with a striking 
 advertisement at the Universal Exhibition held in Antwerp 
 in 1894, and it was followed by a far more imposing show 
 of the same sort in connection with the Brussels Exhibition 
 of 1897. On this occasion a large part of the royal gardens 
 at Tervueren was occupied with improvised villages of 
 
 * Times, 9th October, 1897. 
 
 R
 
 242 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 Bangala, Mayombe, and other natives, and an improvised 
 station of the force publique ; and there were indoor dis- 
 plays of the ivory, rubber, timber, and other products of 
 the country. Grotesque fetish-figures, and artistic carvings 
 and fabrics executed in Belgium from the raw materials of 
 which unlimited supplies were declared to be available, 
 were there in abundance, but no specimens of the chicotte 
 or other instruments of torture, nor were the carefully 
 policed slaves in the enclosures allowed to indulge in 
 cannibal orgies. The whole collection was an effective 
 adjunct to the vigorous efforts that were being made at the 
 same time to attract capital and adventurers to the larger 
 schemes for Congo exploitation which were then on foot, 
 and which were expected to derive enormous benefits from 
 the railway between Matadi and Leopoldville, soon to be 
 completed and opened for traffic. 
 
 Before 1897 a ^ the companies started in Belgium for 
 
 promoting commercial enterprise in 
 New and Recon= ., ^ ., . ,. , ,, 
 
 the Congo even the Abir and the 
 structed Companies. _ . , , 
 
 bociete Anversoise were ostensibly 
 
 international in character and scope, and the State, though 
 it might be a shareholder or profit-sharer, had no avowed 
 control over them, except as parts of the whole community 
 whose welfare and good behaviour it was bound to secure 
 as far as it could. Moreover, it devolved on them to 
 conform to Belgian, not to Congo law, which makes no 
 provision that every limited liability company shall consist 
 of at least seven members, shall submit its accounts for 
 official inspection, and shall comply with other regulations 
 designed to safeguard individual and public interests. The 
 first limited liability company to be constituted under 
 Congo law was the Societe Generate Africaine, started in 
 the autumn of 1897, with a capital of 3,000,000 francs, and 
 with power " to acquire concessions, leases, and properties 
 of every description, and to exercise all the rights of 
 political administration arising out of them." It was 
 founded by royal decree. On the Sovereign devolved the
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 243 
 
 appointment of all its managers and agents, "unless he 
 chose to delegate any of his privileges to the president 
 selected by him." It was, in fact, in every respect a State 
 institution, competent to carry on its work as secretly as it 
 pleased.* 
 
 The more important of the older companies promptly 
 found it convenient or necessary to follow suit. The 
 Socie'te Anversoise and the Abir were dissolved under 
 Congo law and reconstructed in January, 1898 the former 
 with 3,400 shares and the latter with 2,000 shares. In 
 neither case was the nominal value or the ownership of 
 the shares stated ; but there can be no doubt that they 
 remained as before, the State being in each case owner of 
 half of the total shares at 500 francs apiece. At the same 
 date a smaller, but very influential company, the Comptoir 
 Commercial Congolais, originated in 1895, and having its 
 principal seat at Fayala, in the Kwango district, was also 
 reconstructed. In its capital of 500,000 francs the State 
 held no shares, but it claimed 50 per cent, of the profits as 
 payment for its creation of the monopoly. Yet another 
 company, and a new one, availing itself of Congo law, was 
 the Socie'te des Chemins de Fer vicinaux de Mayombe, 
 founded in September, 1898, with a capital of 3,000,000 
 francs, of which the State held half, to build a railway 
 running northward from Boma as an auxiliary to the line 
 from Matadi to Leopoldville which had at length been 
 completed, and interesting in connection with contemporary 
 extensions of Belgian operations in French Congo which 
 the new railway might be expected to assistt 
 
 The conclusion of the larger railway, after more than ten 
 
 years of arduous and costly enter- 
 
 ... j The Lower Congo 
 
 prise, gave occasion for great and Railway. 
 
 not unreasonable rejoicings. It was 
 
 expected to open, as it did to some extent, a new era in 
 
 the political as well as in the commercial development 
 
 * Wauters, ' L'litat Independant du Congo,' pp. 398, 399. 
 f Ibid., pp. 395, 398,
 
 244 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 of Congoland, not only by enabling all the produce of the 
 interior which could be brought by water down to Stanley 
 Pool to be carried overland past the long series of rocks 
 and rapids as far as Matadi, and thence shipped direct 
 for foreign parts, but also by affording equal facilities for 
 the conveyance of troops, military appliances, and the like 
 between Boma and every part of the Upper Congo. 
 Almost the first use to which this railway was put, indeed, 
 five weeks before the formal opening, was, by way of 
 conciliating French critics, the carriage of men and stores 
 towards the French settlement of Brazzaville for Major 
 Marchand's expedition to Fashoda.* For the formal 
 opening on 2nd July representatives of several European 
 nations were escorted to Boma by Major Thys in a 
 special steamer, as guests of the Congo State, and the 
 reports of two of the French guests, M. Pierre Millet and 
 Baron E. de Mandat-Grancey,J threw serviceable light on 
 much besides the actual ceremony. 
 
 An earlier visitor, M. Edouard Picard, a member of the 
 
 Belgian Senate, had preceded them 
 Incidents of its r ' , 
 
 along most of the same ground by 
 Construction. TT b 
 
 nearly two years. He reached 
 
 Banana at the end of August, 1896, and journeyed thence 
 by river and rail as far as Tumba, at that time the 
 terminus of the line, and from Tumba he surveyed the 
 desolation consequent upon the engineering exploits. 
 " The cruel impression conveyed by the mutilated forests," 
 he wrote, " is heightened in the places where, till lately, 
 native villages nestled, hidden and protected by thick 
 and lofty foliage. The inhabitants have fled. They have 
 fled in spite of encouraging palavers and promises of peace 
 and kind treatment. They have burnt their huts, and 
 great heaps of cinders mark the sites, amid deserted palm- 
 groves and trampled -down banana fields. The terrors 
 
 * Daily Chronicle, 5th May and 1 7th June, 1898. 
 
 t 'Au Congo Beige' (1899). 
 
 + ' Au Congo : Impressions d'un Touriste ' (19)'
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 245 
 
 caused by the memory of inhuman floggings, of massacres, 
 of rapes and abductions, haunt their poor brains, and they 
 go as fugitives to seek shelter in the recesses of the 
 hospitable bush, or, across the frontiers, to find it in French 
 or Portuguese Congo, not yet afflicted with so many labours 
 and alarms, far from the roads traversed by white men, 
 those baneful intruders, and their train of strange and 
 disquieting habits." The outlook was as gloomy when he 
 wandered along the path trodden by the caravans to the 
 Pool and back again. " We are constantly meeting these 
 carriers, either isolated or in Indian file ; blacks, blacks, 
 miserable blacks, with horribly filthy loin-cloths for their 
 only garments ; their bare and frizzled heads supporting 
 their loads chest, bale, ivory-tusk, hamper of rubber, or 
 barrel ; for the most part broken down, sinking under the 
 burdens made heavier by their weariness and insufficiency 
 of food, consisting of a handful of rice and tainted dried fish ; 
 pitiful walking caryatids ; beasts of burden with the lank 
 limbs of monkeys, pinched up features, eyes fixed and 
 round with the strain of keeping their balance and the 
 dulness of exhaustion. Thus they come and go by 
 thousands, organized in a system of human transport, 
 requisitioned by the State armed with its irresistible force 
 publique, supplied by the chiefs whose slaves they are and 
 who pounce on their wages ; jogging on, with knees bent 
 and stomach protruding, one arm raised up and the other 
 resting on a long stick ; dusty and maladorous ; covered 
 with insects as their huge procession passes over mountains 
 and through valleys ; dying on the tramp, or, when the tramp 
 is over, going to their villages to die of exhaustion."* 
 
 Speaking of the rapid lessening of the population in the 
 Lower Congo region, where, before the railway was 
 constructed, "the Negro was the only beast of burden," 
 M. de Mandat-Grancey attributed it partly to the excessive 
 mortality consequent on the gross ill-treatment of the 
 natives, and partly to the fact, due to the same cause, that 
 
 * 'En Congolie' (1896), pp. 95-7.
 
 246 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 " many of the small tribes in this region have migrated to 
 Portugese possessions to avoid the corvee" " They prefer 
 slavery," he cynically remarked. " I have always held that 
 the race which has survived three centuries of the slave 
 trade will be destroyed by fifty years of philanthropy. If 
 this voluntary movement of Congolese tribes towards a 
 country in which slavery flourishes, in order to escape from 
 liberty, is proved, it will be a fine argument in support of 
 my thesis." " I am convinced," he wrote on another page, 
 "that, owing to their system of requisitioning carriers, 
 systematically and violently pursued during the past ten 
 years, our good friends the Belgians have destroyed 
 infinitely more Negroes than the Portuguese slave trade 
 disposed of in two or three centuries. I am induced to 
 think so by the evident fact that this country was in former 
 days much more peopled than it is now. All along the 
 railway line I saw abandoned banana fields. Now a 
 banana tree never grows of its own accord, and it quickly 
 disappears if it is not cultivated. A deserted banana field, 
 therefore, always indicates the site of a ruined village. The 
 thousands of skeletons that border the old caravan route, 
 which we crossed two or three times, are those of former 
 inhabitants of these villages. It is possible, now that there 
 will be less need of carriers, thanks to the railway, that 
 those who survive will have quieter times, and that the 
 population will improve ; but I do not expect it."* 
 
 " The most striking characteristic of this country," wrote 
 
 M. Mille, after journeying from 
 Lower Congo Matadi pool H {s ^ 
 
 Desolation. ... * ... ' . 
 
 absence of human life. It is not, 
 
 after you have passed the arid mountains of Palabala, poor 
 or unfertile ; but it is empty. The Portuguese organized 
 the slave trade ; the modern demand for ivory and rubber 
 has organized the carrying system ; and I feel sure that 
 the lot of the slave was much happier than that of the 
 carrier. I ought to observe that the roads are not harder 
 
 'Au Congo,' pp. 7, 175.
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 247 
 
 and that the burdens are lighter in the Congo than in 
 Madagascar. But I have never heard of a porter dying of 
 misery and fatigue under his load between Tamatave and 
 Antananariva. This is a common incident in the Congo, 
 in spite of wages high enough to procure good food."* 
 
 Both travellers found more to deplore and complain of 
 in the management of affairs in the interior, which it was 
 the object of the Matadi-to-Leopoldville railway to open 
 up, and which now began to be more energetically and 
 lucratively exploited than heretofore by the Congo Govern- 
 ment itself, and by the great companies privileged to carry 
 on " trade " in their several areas, as partners of the State 
 and with its assistance. "The basis of King Leopold's 
 political economy," M. Mille pointed out, " has been to 
 form an army strong enough to compel the natives to 
 provide the ivory and rubber required from them. Now 
 the Mohammedan blacks are intellectually superior, faith- 
 ful to their word and their flag ; but they cost too much 
 when 20,000 are wanted. The Congo State, therefore, 
 recruited its troops at home. It took chiefly the Bangala 
 and the Batetela, members of the two great fighting tribes 
 of Equatorial Africa. It had not or it had not sufficiently 
 the wit shown by the Carthaginians, who employed their 
 mercenaries against one another. Grouped in companies 
 and battalions, the Batetela and Bangala have taken thought 
 for themselves. In the service of the Belgians, a-rmed with 
 weapons of precision and knowing how to use them, sub- 
 ject to a discipline quite new to them, and understanding 
 for the first time the power that obedience gives to a chief, 
 perhaps they dreamt that, after having used their new arms 
 and discipline against the enemies of the Belgians, they 
 would use them against the Belgians themselves." That 
 was already happening in parts of the State's territory. 
 In other parts the savage troops served their original 
 purpose. M. Mille tells of one " former military functionary 
 of the State, now become the agent of a great privileged 
 
 * 'Au Congo Beige,' p. 49.
 
 248 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 company, who one day left Stanley Pool for a great 
 plundering and conquering expedition, taking with him 
 25,000 cartridges, which he said represented 25,000 kilos of 
 rubber, 'and who kept his word."* 
 
 "Yes, sir, your king is the biggest ivory and rubber 
 
 merchant in the world," an English 
 
 Its Causes and their fellow . passenger said to M> Picard on 
 
 Working. , . f ,, ~, 
 
 his voyage home from the Congo on 
 
 a steamer laden with more than a million francs' worth of 
 ivory and more than a million francs' worth of rubber from 
 the domaine privt ; and M. Picard has briefly explained 
 the way in which the domaine privt is utilised in the 
 interests of its self-made proprietor. " He obtains from 
 these territories the tributes and payments in kind which 
 appear as receipts in the State's budgets, after having 
 decided, partly to cover certain expenses, partly from a 
 desire to get back the considerable amounts drawn from 
 his personal resources for the foundation and organisation 
 of the State, to become his own factor and negotiator after 
 the fashion of the companies, and to collect the rubber 
 and ivory on its domain. This was easily done, thanks to 
 the posts scattered about by the State, to the terror of 
 its name to the natives, and to the force publique at its 
 disposal. These factors placed it in a commanding position 
 for recruiting rubber-collectors and obtaining ivory. The 
 results are magnificent, and cannot fail to increase. They 
 are the explanation of the vast quantities of merchandise 
 sent to Europe from the domaine privt, which already must 
 yield an annual revenue of many million francs, apart from 
 the relatively small sum shown in the budget. This com- 
 mercial enterprise is, however, attended by some abuses. 
 The agents of the State charged with watching and 
 collecting the products, each around the post assigned to 
 him, are interested in this ' affair,' if not by direct commis- 
 sion, at any rate by bounties proportionate to the results 
 obtained. They are thus induced to use the lash without 
 
 * ' Au Congo Beige,' p. 187.
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 249 
 
 limit in their dealings with the natives, to exact excessive 
 supplies, and, in the event of refusal or resistance, to 
 employ force in ways of which the echoes are sometimes 
 heard in Europe, which cause it to be said that if the 
 Congo is a land of exchange, it is one in which goods are 
 exchanged for gunshots that the result is obtained by 
 burning of villages and mutilation of blacks, not always 
 ordered by the officials themselves, but chargeable against 
 them because they have been committed by barbarous 
 auxiliaries employed in punishing the recalcitrants. The 
 army is composed of Negroes, cannibals by instinct, under 
 a few whites, and when they are in the field their ferocity 
 equals that of a pack of hounds hunting their quarry. In 
 all questions of work, porterage, wages, transport by steamer 
 or rail, the domaine privt naturally obtains a preference, 
 along with the companies which are specially favoured, 
 and in which perhaps shares are held by the State. Hence 
 the recriminations of traders who have to compete so 
 unequally with this redoubtable rival, at once State and 
 Merchant."* 
 
 As explicit were the remarks of Baron de Mandat- 
 Grancey on the Congo State's solution of the problem 
 " how to make the natives pay taxes ? how to compel them 
 to work ? " " To accomplish this feat," he wrote, " it 
 speculated on the ferocious hatreds that divide the tribes. 
 I ought not to say the hatreds. It would be more correct 
 to speak of the liking they have for one another ; for they 
 only make war in order that they may eat the prisoners 
 they have taken. From each tribe a certain number of 
 soldiers was recruited. As soon as these were trained they 
 were sent to a distance. A garrison among the Batetela, 
 for instance, was composed of a hundred Bangala under 
 a white officer, and in the same way a hundred Bangala 
 composed a garrison among the Batetela. It was quite 
 certain that a hundred Batetela, armed with good rifles and 
 under a white officer, could hold their ground against any 
 * ' En Congolie,' p. 201.
 
 250 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 number of Bangala, provided only with arrows, and also 
 that there would be no danger of any deserting, as all who 
 left the fort would at once be eaten. This organisation 
 once set up, the State was absolute master of the country, 
 and the time for making profit out of it had arrived. Each 
 village was taxed. It was required to furnish so many 
 kilogrammes of rubber. If these were not produced, all the 
 women were seized. If, on the other hand, the chief 
 brought more than was ordered, he was paid for the sur- 
 plus at the rate of twenty centimes the kilo " * that is, 
 about a penny a pound. 
 
 The statement that by such methods the Congo Govern- 
 ment made itself absolute master of 
 
 State Budgets and , , . , , 
 
 f r .L the country is not correct, as the 
 
 Company Profits. , ' , 
 
 policy adopted towards the natives 
 
 produced numberless smaller risings in nearly every district, 
 in addition to what are called the Batetela mutinies; but that 
 they were profitable to the monopolists in whose interests 
 they were resorted to cannot be doubted. The published 
 budgets of the State show, except for 1902, a small loss each 
 year. The confessed receipts and expenses severally esti- 
 mated for were, for 1897, the year in which the railway was 
 opened, 9,369,300 and 10,141,871 francs; for 1898, 14,765,050 
 and 17,251,973 francs ; for 1899, 19,066,500 and 19,672,965 
 francs; for 1900, 26,256,500 and 27,731,254 francs; for 
 1901, 30,651,054 and 31,256,054 francs; and for 1902, 
 28,709,000 and 28,549,000 francs. But, throughout, the 
 income derived from tribute and taxes levied in the 
 domaine, and apart from customs dues, licences, stamps, 
 and so forth, has been more than half of the whole. For 
 1901 it was reckoned at 17,424,630 francs, and for 1902 
 at 15,425,000 francs. It was largely in excess, moreover, 
 of the charges for the force publique and other administra- 
 tive services within the country itself, showing a consider- 
 able profit, even if it is assumed that all these appliances 
 were devoted to tribute-collecting and tax-raising among 
 
 * ' Au Congo,' p. 275.
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 251 
 
 the natives. The estimated expenses of the force publique 
 were 7,700,182 francs for 1901, and 7,865,132 francs for 
 1902 ; those of the administrative services were 3,605,545 
 francs for 1901, and 3,635,545 francs for 1902.* 
 
 The profits of some of the privileged companies in which 
 the State was a partner are much more clearly shown and 
 more startling. Those, for instance, of the Socie^te Anver- 
 soise, with a capital of 1,700,000 francs, were 120,697 francs 
 in 1897 ; 3,986,832 francs in 1898, the year of the opening 
 of the railway ; 3,083,976 francs in 1899 ; and 84,833 francs 
 in 1900 or more than 70 per cent, in 1897 ; more than 
 230 per cent, in 1898; more than 1 80 per cent, in 1899; 
 and nearly 50 per cent, in 1900. Again, the profits of the 
 Abir, with a capital of 1,000,000 francs, were 2,692,063 
 francs, or nearly 270 per cent, in 1899; 4,718,575 francs, 
 or more than 470 per cent, in 1900 ; and 2,455,182 francs, 
 or more than 245 per cent., in 1901 ; and, to be content 
 with one other illustration, those of the Comptoir Com- 
 mercial Congolais, with a capital of 500,000 francs, were 
 262,089 francs in 1899, or more than 52 per cent 
 
 Both the great rise in the profits of the Societe Anver- 
 
 soise in 1898, as compared with 1897. 
 
 ,, . , y/ Major Lothaire's 
 
 and their subsequent lowering may _. 
 
 1.1 New Undertaking. 
 
 be in part attributable to Major 
 
 Lothaire's employment as managing director of that 
 company's affairs in Africa from the end of 1897, his 
 headquarters being at Mobeka, on the junction of the 
 Mongala with the Congo, and controlling the Bangala 
 district. 
 
 There had been frequent and serious troubles there in 
 former days, and it was evidently with a view to strong 
 measures being taken that Major Lothaire was sent out 
 His procedure much increased the evils it was ostensibly 
 intended to suppress. In November, 1898, he had to 
 
 * The above and following figures are chiefly taken from the 'Bulletin 
 Officiel,' but some are from valuable articles by Mr. E. D. Morel in the Speaker 
 of i8th July, 4th and 25th August, ist September, and 1st December, 1900, 
 and the Contemporary Review of March, 1902.
 
 252 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 obtain the assistance of Captain Doorme, with about 700 
 native troops and auxiliaries, in an expedition to avenge 
 some exceptionally grave disturbances in his district, where, 
 according to report, six white men, besides 300 or more 
 black men, had been attacked, defeated, and eaten. With 
 this force, it was reported next month, Major Lothaire 
 was killing the natives " by hundreds." * The work of 
 slaughter went on through 1899, 1900, and 1901, and some 
 light was thrown on its causes and antecedents by sworn 
 evidence given at a trial in Boma, the details of which 
 reached Europe in April, 1900. 
 
 In this evidence a subordinate agent of the Socie'te' 
 
 Anversoise named Moray, against 
 M. Moray's , , T . * ' ' 
 
 whom Major Lothaire had taken 
 Revelations. ,. J .. 
 
 proceedings on a charge of dis- 
 obedience, disclosed the nature of the task assigned to him 
 and his colleagues, under the immediate superintendence 
 of one Van Eycken, in " trading " with a Mongala tribe 
 known as the Budja. " When natives bring rubber to a 
 commercial station," Moray averred, " they are received by 
 the agents and surrounded by soldiers. The baskets are 
 then weighed, and if they do not contain the required 
 weight of five kilogrammes the owner receives a hundred 
 lashes with the chicottc. Supposing a village contains a 
 hundred men and only fifty of them present themselves at 
 the station, these are detained as hostages, and soldiers are 
 sent to shoot the remaining fifty and burn the entire 
 village. Natives who have ' submitted ' and who have been 
 induced to fight in this local strife are enrolled as 
 ' auxiliaries,' armed with spears, and expected to pursue 
 their usual mode of warfare pitiless massacre, followed by 
 
 * With reference to these proceedings King Leopold caused a communica- 
 tion to be made in his name to the atriU Beige of 1st December, 1889, in 
 which it was said, " The State would be making but a poor return for the 
 confidence which the Powers placed in it both at Berlin and at Brussels if 
 did not everywhere promptly take steps to overcome barbarism. It intends to 
 rise to the height of its mission, and is convinced that, with the means at its 
 disposal, it will be in a position to meet all contingencies."
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 253 
 
 pillage. When a fight is over they are encouraged to 
 indulge in their cannibal instincts." Of one representative 
 incident he reported : " We were a party of thirty under 
 Van Eycken, who sent us into a village to ascertain if the 
 natives were collecting rubber, and, if not, to murder all, 
 men, women, and children. We found the natives sitting 
 peaceably. We asked what they were doing. They were 
 unable to reply, thereupon we fell upon them and killed 
 them all without mercy. An hour later we were rejoined 
 by Van Eycken, and told him what we had done. He 
 answered ' It is well, but you have not done enough.' 
 Thereupon he ordered us to cut off the heads of the men 
 and hang them on the village palisades, also " after 
 unmentionable mutilations " to hang the women and 
 children on the palisades in the form of a cross."* 
 
 A fortnight before the publication in Europe of these and 
 
 other statements like news had arrived 
 r r<-u -D j- u- UTT- The Budja Rising. 
 
 of a rising of the Budja in which Van 
 
 Eycken and three other Europeans were killed. The imme- 
 diate cause of the rising, it would seem, was the destruction 
 of a native village, when sixty-two men, eighty-four women, 
 and four children were killed.t In retaliation the Budja 
 attacked the Society's factory at Yambinga, held by 
 Captain Wynants, two agents, and thirty soldiers, who 
 were only rescued, after they had been beleaguered for six 
 days, by the arrival of 200 troops under M. Gilson, followed 
 by Major Lothaire with 260 more. The details of the 
 havoc wrought by this force are not on record ; but 
 the district was described as " a vast charnel house," for the 
 
 * Petit Bleu of Brussels, 26th April, 1900, containing the report of its 
 correspondent at Matadi. 
 
 f The publication of this report led to an interview with a returned Congo 
 official, which appeared in the Antwerp Nieuwe Gazette of loth April, 1900. 
 "When first commissioned to establish a fort," he said, " I was given some 
 native soldiers and a prodigious stock of ammunition. My chief gave me 
 the following instructions : ' Crush every obstacle ! ' I obeyed, and cut 
 through my district by fire and sword. I had left Antwerp thinking I was 
 simply to gather rubber. Great was my stupefaction when the truth dawned 
 on roe."
 
 254 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 horrors of which Major Lothaire was primarily responsible. 
 The accuracy of the report was virtually admitted by the 
 Belgian Government when a question was addressed to it 
 on the subject on igth April in the Chamber of Repre- 
 sentatives. The Foreign Minister, while insisting that 
 Belgium was in no way answerable for anything that might 
 be done in the Congo, then announced that this matter 
 was being inquired into by the proper authorities ; and 
 his statement was confirmed by the fact that M. Wahis, 
 who was on holiday at the time, had hurried off from 
 Antwerp on i6th April to resume his post as Governor- 
 General. It was also announced on ist May by the Congo 
 Government that vigorous steps were being taken by the 
 acting Administrator, who had already caused one of the 
 Belgians implicated to be arrested.* This person, Louis 
 Lacroix by name, appears to have been promptly released, 
 his defence being that all he had done was done under the 
 orders of Congo State officials. But Moray and others 
 were tried at Boma on a charge of murder, and sentenced 
 to various terms of imprisonment. Moray's sentence was 
 for ten years : ten months afterwards it was reported that he 
 had escaped from prison and was supposed to have taken 
 refuge in Portuguese territory. Before the trial Major 
 Lothaire, hastily resigning his managing directorship or 
 being recalled from it, returned to Antwerp in time to be 
 married to a sister of Baron Dhanis in September, and to 
 write to the Belgian newspapers in November, substantially 
 admitting the truth of Moray's statements as to the way in 
 which rubber-collecting was carried on, but throwing the 
 whole blame for it on Moray himself, and on others who 
 had been punished for their misdeeds.t 
 
 * Times, 2Oth April, 1900 ; Daily Chronicle, 2nd May, 1900. The brief 
 summary of a painful story which is given above is based on such reports as 
 were allowed to appear in the Belgian and other journals of the time. 
 
 + Major Lothaire was reported to have left Antwerp for the Congo on 
 roth October, 1891, "in the service of another financial group," apparently 
 in connection with one of the Franco-Belgian companies to be referred to 
 hereafter ; but he was in Europe again within two months. A curious attempt
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 255 
 
 The persecution of natives incident to the collection of 
 
 rubber and the troubles consequent 
 
 , , . ., , , Troubles in the 
 
 thereon were by no means limited to 
 
 * Interior. 
 
 the Bangala district, where they have 
 
 lasted to this day, although it was announced in October, 
 1900, that the Budja rising had been " definitely sup- 
 pressed " through the killing of 300 of the insurgents by 
 400 native troops sent against them. " Excluding the 
 section between the coast and Leopoldville," Lieutenant 
 Andrew had reported as to the state of affairs when he left 
 the Congo in February, 1 899, " it is well within the mark 
 to say that the zone of safety and so-called civilisation 
 does not extend a mile back from the Equateur, Bangala, 
 Aruwimi, and Stanley Falls districts. To venture alone a 
 mile from the river would probably mean massacre. Even 
 in the case of steamers tying up for the night to cut wood 
 the native crews sent ashore for this purpose are frequently 
 fallen upon and speared. When I went up the river I saw 
 at least five Belgian wood-ports burning, having been 
 attacked and destroyed by interior cannibal tribes."* 
 
 Lieutenant Andrew's colleague, Captain Maurice Bell, 
 
 a British militia officer in the Congo 
 
 c . . , . uji u- rr Captain Bell's Fate. 
 
 States service, had lost his life 
 
 a few weeks before under conditions painfully illus- 
 trating the general turmoil then prevalent. " On 
 1 8th January," according to Lieutenant Andrew, " Captain 
 Bell, having been ordered down the river from his post at 
 Yambuya to Basoko, left the latter place on an expedition 
 against certain Aruwimi tribes living four days' journey 
 from the river. The expedition was commanded by Com- 
 
 at an explanation of his return, apparently inspired, was published in the 
 Metropole of I2th December, 1901. "After the expedition to Mayombe," we 
 are told, " Major Lothaire demanded to be freed by the Congo Court, but his 
 application was rejected. He then left for Europe ; but when he arrived at 
 Banana the judge came on board and requested him to return to Boma. 
 Major Lothaire went as far as San Thome and returned to Boma. He then 
 re-embarked for Europe." That is the latest news about him. 
 * Manchester Guardian^ 26th May, 1899.
 
 256 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 mandant Van Wert, who was accompanied by Lieutenant 
 Giertsen, a Scandinavian, Captain Bell, and 150 black 
 troops. Its object was to prevent the tribes descending 
 upon peaceful villages on the main Congo river. The 
 force left Basoko in canoes in the morning, and reached 
 Bopamba the same night. Then they left the river and 
 struck into the bush. After two days' march Commandant 
 Van Wert divided the expedition into three sections, each 
 of which consisted of fifty soldiers commanded by one of 
 the white men. Lieutenant Giertsen was sent in an 
 easterly direction, and Captain Bell to the south, the 
 commandant remaining where he was. Captain Bell and 
 his small force proceeded in the direction of a village called 
 Mondimbe. While marching in single file through a dense 
 forest they were suddenly surrounded by 300 spearmen. 
 The soldiers, who were mere boys, and, like all their 
 comrades, arrant cowards, no sooner saw the natives 
 approaching than they threw down their rifles and cartridge 
 belts and cleared into the bush, leaving Bell, his sergeant, 
 and one boy to resist the attack. Aided by his boy, Bell 
 loaded and fired his rifle again and again, and when at 
 close quarters used it with such effect that he accounted 
 for fully ten natives before the end came. The cannibals, 
 however, in the end naturally overcame Bell and his two 
 companions. First he was speared, then cut up, and 
 afterwards eaten. In accordance with their usual custom, 
 when a white man is killed, pieces of the body were 
 despatched to all the surrounding villages to inflame the 
 natives. When the news of the tragedy reached the main 
 river a punitive expedition was sent from Basoko, also a 
 force from Commandant Van Wert. In the punitive 
 expedition a hundred natives were killed and a number 
 taken prisoners."* 
 
 Like " punitive expeditions " were plentiful all over the 
 Congo State's territory. Passing through the Semliki 
 valley and by the side of Lake Albert Nyanza, some 350 
 
 * Manchester Guardian, 26th May, 1899.
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 257 
 
 miles almost due east of the scene of Captain Bell's death, 
 
 and on the borders of Uganda, Mr. 
 
 c u u A Mr - Grogan's Report. 
 
 Grogan, in September, 1899, heard 
 
 " tales of misery and oppression," of which he gave some 
 samples. One was that " a Congo Free State official had 
 suddenly swooped down on the country a year ago, and, 
 after shooting down numbers of the natives, had returned 
 west, carrying off forty young women, numerous children, 
 and all the cattle and goats, and putting a finishing touch 
 to the proceedings by a grand pyrotechnic display, during 
 which they bound the old women, threw them into the 
 huts, and then fired the roof." " Several absolutely 
 independent witnesses informed me that this had actually 
 been done in the presence of the official and the gentlemen 
 who accompanied him," said Mr. Grogan ; and he added, 
 " When I was in Mboga the Balega told me similar tales ; 
 here I was repeatedly given accounts that tallied in all 
 essentials ; and further north the Wakoba made the same 
 piteous complaints. And I saw myself that a country 
 apparently well populated and responsive to just treatment 
 in Lugard's time (and that under very trying conditions, 
 owing to the numbers of destitute aliens in the country 
 to wit, the Sudanese) is now practically a howling wilder- 
 ness ; the scattered inhabitants, living almost without 
 cultivation in the marshes, thickets, and reeds, madly fleeing 
 even from their own shadows. Chaos, hopeless abyssmal 
 chaos, from Mweru to the Nile ; in the south, tales of 
 cruelty of undoubted veracity, but which I could not repeat 
 without actual investigation on the spot ; on Tanganyika, 
 absolute impotence, revolted Askaris ranging at their own 
 sweet will ; on Kivu, a hideous wave of cannibalism ranging 
 unchecked through the land ; while in the north the very 
 white men, who should be keeping peace where chaos now 
 reigns supreme, are spending thousands in making of peace 
 a chaos of their own. I have no hesitation in condemning 
 the whole State as a vampire growth, intended to suck the 
 country dry, and to provide a happy hunting-ground for a 
 
 S
 
 258 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 pack of unprincipled outcasts and untutored scoundrels. 
 The few sound men in the country are powerless to stem 
 the tide of oppression."* 
 
 One of the best rubber-yielding districts a few years 
 
 ago not leased to any chartered 
 The Kasai Massacres. , , , Oi 
 
 company, but reserved for State 
 
 management, and apparently with some tact, as no reports 
 appeared as to grave scandals or disturbances in it was 
 the western portion of the Kasai country, far enough away 
 from Luluaburg to escape the troubles there incident to the 
 Batetela mutinies. In the early days of effort to suppress 
 those mutinies, however, efficient help had been given to 
 the State by a section of the Basongo tribe, to the north- 
 east of the Sankuru, known by the name or nickname of 
 their chief Zapo-Zap. When the Batetela were expelled from 
 Luluaburg large numbers of the Zapo-Zaps were lodged 
 there instead, as soldiers or vassals of the State, and allowed 
 to gratify their own cannibalistic and other savage tastes 
 on condition of meeting the requirements of their em- 
 ployers. " These Zapo - Zaps," the Reverend W. M. 
 Morrison, in charge of the American Presbyterian Congo 
 Mission station at Luebo, about 120 miles north-east of 
 Luluaburg, said in a petition to King Leopold, dated 
 2 ist October, 1899, "armed as they are, and sent out by 
 the State to collect tribute for the Government and other 
 purposes, are a terror to the whole region. They are the 
 great slave dealers of this section a traffic which the 
 State is supposed to be making efforts to suppress." The 
 American missionaries, working at Luebo since 1890, had 
 heard of atrocities in the surrounding region, but had no 
 personal experience of them until September, 1899, when, 
 as Mr. Morrison reported, a raiding party of Zapo-Zaps, 
 who for two months had been "plundering, murdering, 
 burning neighbouring villages, and capturing slaves," came 
 within a few hours' walk of their station at Bongadi or 
 Ibanche. Thereupon one of the missionaries, the Reverend 
 
 * ' From the Cape to Cairo,' p. 227.
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 259 
 
 H. W. Sheppard, went on a tour of inspection. " Within 
 a distance of ten or twelve hours," according to Mr. 
 Morrison's condensed report on the subject, " thirteen 
 villages have been deserted and plundered, and six other 
 villages burned. Mr. Sheppard went to the camp of the 
 Zapo-Zaps, where he found about 500 of them, with one 
 of their own number as leader. There was no white officer 
 in charge. Here the Zapo-Zaps had made a large stockade, 
 into which, a few days before, they had invited all the chiefs 
 and sub-chiefs of the neighbouring villages and their women. 
 When they were all inside tribute of rubber, ivory, and 
 slaves was demanded, which they were unable to pay. There- 
 upon they were fired upon by the Zapo-Zaps, and many 
 were shot down, only a few escaping to tell the tale."* 
 
 Mr. Sheppard's own account of his visit to this stockade, 
 or " the fatal trap," as he called it, may be quoted from. 
 He was admitted to it by the Zapo chief Mlumba Nkusa. 
 " To enter the fatal trap," he wrote, " you must get down 
 on your knees. A man brought me a kind of drink in a 
 pot and placed it before me ; but I refused, asking for 
 water instead, which I could hardly drink because the 
 man's hands were even then dripping with the crimson 
 blood of innocent men, women, and children. The camp 
 or trap is eighty yards long by forty wide, and full of the 
 odours of the dead lying about. The chief remarked, ' You 
 don't like my treatment of the Bakuba people, do you ? ' 
 I replied ' That is not my palaver. The State has sent 
 you, and so you have to go by your instructions ; but was 
 the palaver a strong one ? ' I asked in such a way as 
 to draw the great chief out. He replied, ' I have been here 
 nearly two months. I demanded thirty slaves from this 
 side of the river, thirty from the other side, rubber, goats, 
 and goods. They only gave me eight slaves, two points of 
 
 * These and the following details are quoted from the Aborigine? Friend, 
 April, 1900, pp. 500-508, embodying reports printed in the New York 
 Independent and the magazine of the American Presbyterian Missionary 
 Society.
 
 260 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 ivory, '2,500 balls of rubber, a few goats and fowls, and 
 some corn and chumby.' I then inquired to what tribes 
 the State had sent him. He replied, ' To the Bakete, to the 
 Bena Piana ,and to the Bakuba, and especially to Lukunga's 
 people.' ' Are you going to Lukunga's people ? ' I asked. 
 He evaded, but one of his men eagerly said, ' Yes, and we 
 are going to kill them all.' I then inquired, ' How many 
 guns have you ? ' He answered, ' One hundred and thirty 
 cap-guns and eight State rifles, and plenty of powder, a big 
 box full, which the State gave me, and plenty of caps. 1 
 ' How did the fight come up ? ' I asked. Mlumba replied, 
 ' I sent for all the chiefs, sub-chiefs, and men and women, 
 to come on a certain day to finish the palaver. When 
 they had entered these small gates' (he pointed to the 
 fence round the spot), I demanded all my tribute and 
 threatened death if they refused. They did refuse, and I 
 ordered the gates to be closed, and killed them here inside 
 the fence.' ' How many did you kill ? ' I asked. He replied, 
 ' We killed plenty ; would you like to see some of them ? ' 
 He then added, ' I think we killed between eighty and 
 ninety, besides those in other villages to which I sent 
 my people.' The chief and I then walked out on the plain 
 near the camp. There were three people lying near, with 
 the flesh carved off from the waist down. ' Why are these 
 people carved so, leaving only the bones ? ' I asked. ' My 
 people ate them,' he answered promptly. Near by was the 
 body of a large headless man. ' Where is this man's head ? ' 
 I asked. ' Oh,' the chief replied, ' they have made a bowl 
 of his forehead to rub up tobacco and diamba in.' As we 
 continued our walk I counted forty-one bodies. I asked, 
 ' Where are the rest ? ' He answered, ' The rest are eaten 
 by my people.' As we returned to the camp we saw the 
 dead body of a young woman lying near, with the right 
 hand cut off. I asked what this meant, and Mlumba Nkusa 
 explained that they always cut off the right hand to give it 
 to the State on their return. ' Can you show me some of 
 their hands ? ' I asked. He led me to a shed covered with
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 261 
 
 a framework of sticks, under which a slow fire was btirning, 
 and there they were the right hands of the victims of the 
 slaughter. I counted them, eighty-one in all." 
 
 " Almost daily," Mr. Morrison said in his petition to 
 King Leopold, " slaves are brought down here to Luebo 
 by these same Zapo-Zaps and exposed for sale. In their 
 sad story they tell us of their capture, of the murder of 
 their friends, and of the plundering of their villages. We 
 believe that the Zapo-Zaps are not primarily to blame, for 
 they are armed and sent out by the State ; but we do 
 believe that all State officials, from the highest to the 
 lowest, who give their sanction to such outrages are to be 
 blamed, and we hope and pray that sure and swift justice 
 will be visited upon all who are thus implicated in inflicting 
 these outrages upon an innocent and helpless people ; 
 and that, too, under the guise of a so-called civilised 
 Government." 
 
 In his appeal Mr. Morrison reported that he had 
 complained to the commissary of the district, whose 
 answer was that he had already sent soldiers to catch 
 Mlumba Nkusa and his 500 followers, but they could not 
 find them. He also reported that two State officials had 
 come down " to investigate the affair," with the only result 
 that the frightened people, " in their dread of the State and 
 all connected with it," had fled into the forest. 
 
 It was probably to these perfunctory proceedings that 
 reference was made in a curt letter from the Brussels 
 authorities, dated 23rd February, 1900, informing the 
 transmitter of the petition of 2ist October that " le 
 Gouvernement de 1'Etat Inde"pendant du Congo e"tait 
 inform^ des charges porte"es centre les Zapo-Zaps par le 
 Reverend W. M. Morrison, et la justice en e"tait saisie et 
 indignait." No other action, at any rate, appears to have been 
 taken by the authorities, and they were able to persevere 
 in their persecution of the mild-mannered Bakuba without 
 fear of such resistance as was offered by the Batetela in 
 the east, the Bangala in the north, and others elsewhere.
 
 262 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 It is only, as a rule, through the complaints of mission- 
 aries like Mr. Morrison in the Kasai 
 The General Revolt. ,. . , ,. 
 
 district, and, at an earlier date, Mr. 
 
 Sjoblom in the Iiquateur district, whose mission fields 
 have been intruded upon by rubber-collectors and tribute- 
 collectors, or through the statements and admissions of 
 agents and officials, like M. Moray in the Bangala 
 district, whose sensibilities have not been sufficiently 
 blunted for them to be willing perpetrators of the crimes 
 expected from them, that the facts come to light. But 
 there can be no doubt as to the treatment accorded to vast 
 numbers of Congo natives, alike by the actual servants of 
 the State and by the servants of the privileged companies 
 in which the State is partner, with assistance from the force 
 publique, now numbering 15,000, and from such armed 
 auxiliaries as the Zapo-Zaps, who are scarcely less 
 numerous. Enough evidence on the subject has been 
 furnished.* Nor is it necessary here to follow in detail the 
 military operations of 1900 and the following years in 
 attempted suppression of the Batetela and other risings, 
 which, in spite of all assertions to the contrary, were 
 manifestly, from year to year becoming more and more 
 extended and disastrous. 
 
 One of the most characteristic of the recent revolts, 
 albeit quite local and short-lived, occurred in April, 1900 
 at Fort Shinkakasa, the stronghold erected on the Lower 
 Congo for the protection of Boma and Matadi, in which 
 such Batetela, Manyema, and other " rebels " as could be 
 captured were put to convict labour. They had taken 
 possession of the fortress, and had marched against Boma, 
 
 * The Times, of 2nd November, 1901, and other papers printed extracts 
 from evidence said to have been tendered to the Brussels authorities by one of 
 the trustiest agents of the Abir as to wholesale atrocities committed in various 
 parts of the territory leased to it in the northern part of the liquateur district, 
 one statement being that "in September, 1899, the whole of the Upper 
 Bolombo region was put to fire and sword by the people of the Dikila factory, 
 to force the natives with whom the Abir had not yet come in contact to collect 
 rubber." The Abir had previously been regarded as, relatively, one of the
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 263 
 
 which Jthey bombarded, and the police station of which 
 they destroyed, before they were driven off, and they were 
 only overtaken and defeated at Bulu, when they had 
 covered half the road to Leopold ville. * 
 
 That small disturbance was easily suppressed, as were 
 others in different parts of the territory. But nearly every- 
 where smouldering fires were ready to burst into flames, 
 and explosive materials were merely waiting for sparks 
 to set them alight. The announcement in January, 1901, 
 that the Budja rising in the Bangala district had been 
 " definitely suppressed " was followed in July by another 
 admitting that the rebels had killed 250 of the State troops 
 sent to further suppress them, but taking credit for their 
 subsequent repulse. Great things were expected in August 
 from the setting up of seven new military stations in this 
 neighbourhood by a force sent down under Captain 
 Mardulier ; but in September all that could be boasted 
 of was that the revolt was " not making any further 
 head way." t 
 
 More troublesome, however, to the State, if not to the 
 Socie'te' Anversoise, were the complications on the western 
 side of the Welle district, where, late in 1900, the Ababua, 
 neighbours of the Budja, and perhaps in collusion with 
 them, rebelled and cut off all communications with the 
 Lado enclave. When the details of this affair were reported 
 it appeared that some 700 of them had captured the 
 important trading and military station at Libokwa, which 
 was garrisoned by forty-five State soldiers, and had carried 
 off 48,000 cartridges and a vast store of merchandise, that 
 the officer in charge of the stronghold was hiding some- 
 best managed of the Congo companies. In the same month, moreover, and 
 in the following January appeared interviews with Mr. Edgar Canisius, an 
 American citizen, and Captain Guy Burrows, a retired officer of the British 
 army, as to their experiences in the Congo State's service the former for five 
 years in the Tanganyika and Mongala regions, and the latter for six years 
 in the Luluaburg and other districts. 
 * Times, 3rd and 24th May, 1900. 
 f Times, 8th January, igih July, i2th August, iQth September, 1901.
 
 264 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 where, and that the force sent to relieve him had had to 
 turn aside in the hope of suppressing an outbreak at 
 Djabir. It was not till September and October, 1901, that 
 news arrived that Lieutenant Lahaye, with a force of 
 600, had come to the rescue, and that, after some fighting, 
 the Welle cannibals were " now completely pacified,"* 
 pacification being really, it would seem, as unattainable 
 as ever. 
 
 But it was further south, throughout nearly the whole 
 
 eastern part of the Congo State's 
 Katanga Expeditions. . ,. 
 
 territory, that its difficulties appear 
 
 to have been greatest at this time. The so-called Batetela 
 mutinies, identical in character, though ever changing as 
 regards places and persons, were more embarrassing in and 
 after 1900 than they had been in 1893. While smaller 
 operations were conducted with varying fortunes in other 
 districts, Captain de Wulf, who left Lusambo in October, 
 1900, on a punitive expedition against the main body of 
 the rebels, then in the Katanga region, was reported in 
 March, 1901, to have met and routed them near the Libudi, 
 and to have, as was said six months later of the Welle 
 region, " completely pacified " it. In April, however, 
 elaborate preparations had to be made for further pacifica- 
 tion, as at least a thousand Batetela were reported to be 
 still at large, occupying the mountains south of Lake Kasali 
 or Kisale, and overawing the natives into alliance with 
 them. The command of a formidable expedition was 
 entrusted to Major Malfeyt, who established himself with 
 700 troops at the confluence of the Lukuga with the 
 Lualaba, about 150 miles north of Lake Kasali. Another 
 force, 150 strong, under Captain Sannaes, was some sixty 
 miles nearer to the lake, and a third, 200 strong, under 
 Major Vandenbrock, was at Kilwa, on Lake Mweru, 160 
 miles to the east. In October news arrived that Major 
 Malfeyt had won an overwhelming victory over the main 
 body of the rebels, who were " not expected to give any 
 
 * Times, 8th January, 27th April, I7th September, I5th October, 1901.
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 265 
 
 further trouble."* Perhaps there was more than the usual 
 warrant for this representation. 
 
 There were, at any rate, exceptional reasons for the 
 enterprise here brought, as it was alleged, to a successful 
 conclusion. The Compagnie du Katanga, founded in 
 March, 1891, with a nominal capital of 3,000,000 francs, 
 and trading rights over the vast area acquired for it by 
 Captain Stairs and others in the following year, had not 
 equalled or at all approached the financial prosperity of its 
 great rivals. This, it may be assumed, was chiefly due 
 to the unsettled condition of the country, which had never 
 been really conquered, and since 1893 had been more or 
 less in the hands of " rebels." In the hope of improving 
 matters a bold scheme was started in July, 1900, for 
 utilising the mineral and other wealth in which Katanga 
 was supposed to abound. A Comit6 Special du Katanga, 
 to all intents and purposes a State organisation, took over 
 everything worth holding of the original company's rights 
 and privileges, and was henceforth to have absolute control 
 of the whole, on condition that two-thirds of any " advan- 
 tages and benefits " derived from exploitation on the terri- 
 tory, as well as two-thirds of any expenses and losses 
 incurred therein, should fall to the State, and one-third to 
 the Compagnie du Katanga, t In order to carry out this 
 plan an " administrative expedition " was sent out under 
 Major Weyns, the founder of the force publique sixteen 
 years before, who was to be the new director of Katanga, 
 and who was accompanied by fifty "seasoned travellers." 
 Leaving Antwerp on I9th January, 1901, and travelling by 
 way of Zanzibar and Lake Tanganyika, he reached Pueto 
 or Mpueto, at the head of Lake Mweru, on 24th May, and 
 took formal possession of the country's steamers and ports 
 on both lakes and in the adjacent country, It was to 
 co-operate with Major Weyns, and to prepare for the 
 trading, mining, and other operations confided to him, 
 
 * Times, i8th March, 24th July, I5th October, 1901. 
 t ' Bulletin Official,' 1901.
 
 266 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 that Major Malfeyt had "conquered" the district near 
 Lake Kasali. 
 
 How the natives have fared under the new regime we 
 
 have yet to learn. Of the treatment 
 The Rabinek Affair. . . 
 
 accorded to white men not in the 
 
 employ of the Comite* du Katanga we have illustration 
 in the case of Herr Rabinek, an Austrian trader, 
 associated with influential Hamburg merchants, who had 
 for some years been dealing with the inhabitants in ivory 
 and rubber, having his store at Kazembe, in the adjacent 
 British Central African Protectorate, whence the goods were 
 for the most part conveyed by way of Blantyre to the 
 German markets. He was duly provided with the Congo 
 States's licenses to trade and hunt elephants, as well as 
 with a permit to carry thirty-nine guns for his own and his 
 porters' use ; for all of which privileges he paid, apparently, 
 2,060 francs or about So/, a year. These documents were 
 seen and found satisfactory, in September, 1900, by M. 
 Gustave Levque, at that time the Compagnie du Katanga's 
 director in Africa, who also satisfied himself that Rabinek 
 was acting within his rights. M. Leveque, moreover, 
 obtained from Rabinek " information about the revolt on 
 the Lualaba, whence he had returned," which, as he said, 
 " confirmed the knowledge I already had as to this territory 
 from which came much of the rubber sold by the natives 
 outside the limits of the Congo, being inaccessible to any 
 Congo State official." " Rabinek," he added, " and some 
 Portuguese half-breeds, knowing the language of the 
 country and living with the natives, alone could travel 
 about there. The rubber for the Pueto station came 
 chiefly from Lowule, two or three days' journey, which 
 Europeans who were not officials could still visit with 
 caution. The neighbourhood of Pueto, formerly abound- 
 ing in rubber, no longer produced any, through lack of 
 attention to the proper collection of the article lack of 
 attention mainly due to the natives' hostility to the Congo 
 State officials. Considering the heavy expenses incurred
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 267 
 
 by the Compagnie du Katanga in providing stations and 
 steamers, considering also the entire absence of rubber on 
 Lake Tanganyika, and the difficulty of obtaining it on Lake 
 Mweru in sufficient quantity to cover expenses, I agreed to 
 the proposal of Rabinek that I should grant him a license 
 to collect rubber in the rebel zone, subject to the payment 
 of io/. a year and of one franc per kilo of all rubber and 
 ivory collected and passed through our hands before leaving 
 the Congo ; he also being bound to plant 150 rubber vines 
 for every ton exported, in order to ensure the preservation 
 of the industry. Rabinek reckoned on collecting 100 
 tons of rubber each year, which would have brought the 
 company a profit of 100,000 francs per annum, without 
 risk or outlay, at a time when we were not sufficiently 
 manned or armed to go into the region in revolt." 
 Accordingly, on 23rd September, 1900, M. Levque 
 entered into an agreement with Rabinek on the terms 
 proposed, and the latter, sending an agent to Lowule to 
 begin rubber -collecting in an honest way, went himself 
 to Blantyre to arrange for the goods with which to make 
 his purchases.* 
 
 That attempt at starting something like respectable and 
 profitable trade with the natives in the " rebel zone " of 
 Katanga, however, was soon upset, as a consequence of the 
 establishment of the Comit6 Special du Katanga in July, 
 1900, and the sending out of Major Weyns as its manager 
 in succession to M. Leveque. " Towards the end of 
 October," M. Leveque reports, only about four weeks after 
 the date of his agreement with Rabinek, " I received com- 
 plaints from Rabinek's agents as to injuries and thefts they 
 had incurred from the soldiers of the Congo State " ; and 
 on /th November the first intimation reached him of the 
 setting up of the Comite Special. It was followed, on 
 
 * M. Leveque's signed statement, dated from Abercorn, in Northern 
 Rhodesia, on I2th Augmst, 1901, from which extracts are made above, reached 
 Europe in July, 1902. Much other information on the subject has been 
 collected by Mr. E. D. Morel, and was published in West Africa on 26th July 
 1902, and later dates.
 
 268 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 nth April, 1901, by a letter from the Compagnie du 
 Katanga, dated I2th January, informing him that it refused 
 to recognise the bargain he had made with Rabinek. On 
 2oth April both Major Weyns and Rabinek arrived at 
 a small station near Mtoa, on the Congo side of Lake 
 Tanganyika, where M. Leveque was then staying, and he 
 was able to show them the Company's letter. Before 
 considering it, however, Major Weyns sent Rabinek to 
 Kasongo, the German station on the other side of the lake, 
 there to buy provisions and afterwards convey them 
 to some of his party whom he had left on the way 
 in a destitute condition ; and, while this mission was 
 being performed, the gallant Major paid a visit to 
 Mtoa, whence he returned on 4th May to mysteriously 
 announce that a warrant had been received from Boma 
 for the arrest of a man who, after being taken, " lui 
 ferait un si gentil petit voyage que celui-ci ne recom- 
 mencerait pas, et que les autres s'en souviendraient." 
 " He spoke afterwards of Rabinek," adds M. Leveque, 
 " alleging that he had, in sending armed natives to 
 hunt elephants in that region, supplied the rebels with 
 arms." 
 
 The business was soon done. Proceeding from Mtoa to 
 Pueto, where he arrived on 24th May, Major Weyns 
 appears to have awaited the approach of the African Lakes 
 Corporation's steamer, the Scotia, which was trading on 
 Lake Mweru, and on which Rabinek was a passenger, 
 returning from the errand entrusted to him. Before the 
 passengers could land Rabinek was arrested possibly in 
 British waters by order of Major Weyns, who thereupon 
 took him back to Mtoa and had him tried under the 
 warrant out against him. It seems that on I4th June he 
 was condemned by the official acting as judge to a fine of 
 1,000 francs, the extreme punishment with or without 
 penal servitude for a month which is assigned by law for 
 illegal trading in rubber, but that Major Weyns insisted on 
 the sentence including penal servitude for a term of twelve
 
 MONOPOLIST PERSECUTIONS. 269 
 
 months. Protesting against this monstrous ruling, Rabinek 
 was sent towards Boma to make his appeal if he could. 
 " This nice little voyage of which Major Weyns spoke, then," 
 wrote M. Leveque, " was destined to Rabinek. It is to be 
 hoped that he will be able to bear it, considering the way 
 in which white men are treated by the soldiers of the State, 
 even when there is no better warrant for their arrest than 
 that which served as an excuse in the case of M. Van den 
 Borch.* A similar journey from Mtoa to Boma means 
 certain death." Rabinek, who himself wrote to his friends 
 saying that he did not expect to reach Boma alive, and 
 who left behind him property valued at I5,ooo/., which was 
 confiscated by the State authorities, did die on ist Septem- 
 ber, on board the State steamer that was conveying him to 
 the Lower Congo, the official explanation being that " he 
 was attacked by fever which killed him," and that " he was 
 not in a fit state to bear a strong attack of fever, as he was 
 weakened by a long stay in the tropics and by abuse of 
 morphia." 
 
 Whether there was any truth in the allegation that 
 Rabinek, licensed to use thirty-nine cap guns in protecting 
 his trade caravan and in elephant-hunting, had parted with 
 some of his weapons to natives with whom the State was at 
 war ; whether any excuse can be found for his arrest on a 
 British steamer,he being an Austrian subject, having business 
 relations with German merchants in Hamburg, and licensed 
 to trade with the natives of the region by the Compagnie 
 du Katanga, whose responsibilities the Comitd Special du 
 Katanga took over ; whether his death on the journey of 
 more than 2,000 miles, for the purpose of appealing against 
 an apparently illegal sentence, can be regarded as no more 
 
 * The case of M. Van den Borch, of which I can find no other mention, is 
 thus related by M. Leveque. " He was several times aimed at by the soldiers 
 of the State at Chiniama, then ill-treated by them in a shameful manner, then 
 dragged as far as Lukafu, the black sergeant robbing him of his helmet, his 
 machilla, and a goat which he had brought to feed upon, and giving him 
 nothing but putrid meat. M. Van den Borch returned with a sunstroke and 
 in a permanent state of fever, which had not left him last June."
 
 270 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 than a deplorable accident these and other questions 
 arising out of his case are of international import and 
 must be left for others to decide.* But the case is at least 
 as striking and suggestive as was " the Stokes affair " more 
 than five years earlier.t 
 
 * In answer to a question asked in the House of Commons by Sir Charles 
 Dilke on 27th October, 1902, Lord Cranbourne replied, " Inquiries are being 
 made, and on receipt of definite information His Majesty's Government will 
 be in a position to consider what action should be taken in the matter." 
 
 f The annual report of the Compagnie du Katanga, issued on igth Novem- 
 ber, 1902, while these pages are passing through the press, makes no mention 
 of "the Rabinek affair," but boasts that "the occupation of the territory 
 proceeds without slackening and in complete calm," by help of sixty-five white 
 officials and a well-trained force of " police." " Relations with the natives," 
 it is asserted, "are of the best, and the control of the Comite is effective and 
 respected by all. Its associations with the State authorities, private indi- 
 viduals, and missionaries alike, are most cordial." In the second half of 1901, 
 we are informed, 83,928 kilos of rubber and 1,377 kilos of ivory were collected.
 
 BELGIUM'S INHERITANCE. 271 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 BELGIUM'S INHERITANCE [1901-1902]. 
 
 BY the terms of the Convention of 3rd July, 1890, 
 between King Leopold and the Belgian Government, 
 Belgium had the opportunity, six months after the expira- 
 tion of the ten and a half years over which the loan of 
 
 25.000.000 francs without interest was 
 
 j f js. /* c-i. King Leopold's 
 
 spread, of annexing the Congo State, * 
 
 111* - 1*1 
 
 with all its possessions and rights, 
 
 and also with all its duties and liabilities. It was provided, 
 moreover, that if this was not done the debt should only 
 be recoverable after another period of ten years, but that 
 interest should be paid on it at the rate of 3^ per 
 cent, per annum. The actual debt had by that time 
 swollen to 31,850,000 francs, by the addition of a loan of 
 6,500,000 francs, bearing interest, which had been illegally 
 contracted by the Congo Government with a syndicate of 
 Antwerp bankers in March, 1894, and for which the 
 Belgian Parliament had been induced in June, 1895, to 
 make itself responsible. 
 
 The time-limit expired on 2nd January, 1901, but, by 
 general agreement, public discussion as to the course to be 
 taken with reference to it was postponed until after Easter, 
 and only actively begun in May. 
 
 Among those who took common ground in condemning 
 the policy of the Congo Government and desiring a 
 thorough change in it there was wide difference of opinion 
 as to the expediency of the Belgian nation assuming direct 
 and admitted responsibility for the management of an 
 enormous territory in Africa, seventy times as large as 
 Belgium itself; and unfortunately this difference of opinion 
 greatly strengthened the hands of those who favoured the 
 continuance of existing institutions, with all their abuses 
 and abominations.
 
 272 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 It was at the suggestion of influential members of the 
 
 Belgian Parliament, and in the hope 
 Belgium's . fc 
 
 r. H--...L oi supporting their action, that an 
 
 Responsibility. 
 
 appeal, dated 2Qth April, and in- 
 cluding the names of Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Leonard 
 Courtney, and Mr. Frederic Harrison among its eight 
 representative signatures, was addressed to both Chambers 
 on behalf of the Aborigines Protection Society. In this 
 document the Chambers were urged to take adequate 
 precautions towards securing " humane and equitable 
 treatment of the native populations who are placed under 
 the authority of the Congo State," and were reminded that, 
 by participating in the General Acts of the Berlin and 
 Brussels Conferences, and by entering into treaties with 
 that State, Belgium had placed itself " under a moral 
 obligation as regards the preservation of the native 
 populations entrusted to the Congo State," and was 
 already involved, " at any rate to the extent of responsi- 
 bility for inaction, in whatever discredit and danger 
 may result from any treatment of natives by the State 
 which is contrary to the humane intentions of the 
 Conferences of Berlin and Brussels." With reference 
 to the Conventions of 1885 and 1890, it was pointed out, 
 " the objection that Belgium may not ' interfere in any way 
 with the administration of the Congo Free State,' and that 
 'the union between the two Crowns is strictly personal,' 
 cannot prevail against the actual fact known to the whole 
 world and acknowledged in official documents that the 
 State is an outcome of the enterprise of the Belgian nation, 
 and that all its extensions and all its progress have made 
 more direct and more intimate the tie which unites it to 
 Belgium, governed and administered as it is by Belgians, 
 a field of Belgian enterprise, and a source of profit to 
 Belgian capitalists." " The partnership between the two 
 States appears to have been officially sealed by the fact 
 that since 1889 Belgium has been recognised heir to the 
 Sovereign of the State," it was added, and, " so long as this
 
 BELGIUM'S INHERITANCE. 273 
 
 partnership continues, its responsibilities are none the less 
 shared by both parties to it because one of them is entrusted 
 with the entire business of administration and the other 
 merely participates indirectly in its political risks and its 
 pecuniary gains." 
 
 This appeal was referred to a Special Commission 
 corresponding to a Select Committee of the British Par- 
 liament which was appointed early in May to deal with the 
 general question, and it was honoured by the blame as well 
 as by the approval accorded to it in the discussions of that 
 Commission and, subsequently, of the Chamber of Repre- 
 sentatives. All efforts to materially alter the policy evidently 
 resolved upon from the first were, however, unavailing. 
 
 As a matter of form, at the commencement of delibera- 
 tions, a Bill was introduced by the 
 
 /- t_ 1 ir r Ministerial Proposals. 
 
 Belgian Government, on behalf of 
 
 the Congo Government, vaguely declaring that " the 
 reimbursement of the sums lent to the Congo State in 
 terms of the Convention of 3rd July, 1890, and by virtue 
 of the law of 29th June, 1895 as well as the payment of 
 interest accruing on these sums, is suspended," and that, 
 "should Belgium renounce its option of annexing the 
 Congo State, the financial obligations incurred by the 
 State by reason of the before-mentioned Acts will take 
 effect." 
 
 This, however, was promptly followed by a proposal, 
 put forward by Count de Smet de Naeyer, the Prime 
 Minister, that the Convention of 1890 should merely be 
 renewed for another ten years, without payment of the 
 loan or any interest upon it being required, and without 
 any provision being made for better management of the 
 Congo State's affairs. "Without wishing to go so far as 
 to dissuade the Chambers from immediate annexation," 
 said the Prime Minister in his expos/ des motifs, "the 
 Government cannot ignore the fact that the country seems 
 favourable to the idea of postponing a definite declaration 
 until a future date. It is, indeed, impossible not to ask 
 
 T
 
 274 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 seriously whether it would be expedient to modify the 
 regime under which the State was organised and has since 
 flourished. Could any other arrangement better satisfy 
 the requirements of the Congo and our own national 
 interests ? " 
 
 It was as an alternative to Count de Smet de Naeyer's 
 
 proposal that, at the end of May, 
 M. Beernaert's / -n 4.u r 
 
 M. Beernaert, the former rnme 
 Alternative. 
 
 Minister who had been largely respon- 
 sible for the Convention of 1885, as well as for the 
 Convention of 1 890, and who was now leader of the Liberal 
 Opposition in the Belgian Chamber, introduced a Bill 
 declaring the territories of the Congo State to be, by virtue 
 of the second Convention, " henceforth the property of 
 Belgium," and taking over " all prerogatives, rights, advant- 
 ages, and sovereignty attaching thereto, together with all 
 the responsibilities of the said State towards third parties," 
 but allowing two years for the preparation of " a special 
 regime, in its legislative, administrative, and judicial aspects, 
 for the new Belgian possessions," and directing that, 
 "during the said two years, the Government of the 
 territories shall be carried on under the same conditions as 
 at present." 
 Adoption of M. Beernaert's measure would have afforded 
 
 opportunity for the gradual contriving 
 King Leopold's j ... J . c 
 
 ,,*. and ultimate carrying out of any 
 
 Ultimatum. ' r^ 
 
 reforms in the management of Congo 
 
 affairs which the Belgian Parliament might have the will or 
 the power to insist upon ; but, besides being distasteful to 
 those Radicals who objected to the conversion of King 
 Leopold's African realm into a Belgian possession, it was 
 resented by King Leopold himself, who, if he had ever 
 thought seriously of making the surrender in his lifetime, 
 was now deriving from his speculation profits too welcome 
 to be readily parted with. Accordingly, the proceedings of 
 the Special Commission were interrupted on iith June by 
 the reading of a letter from His Majesty to M. Woeste, the
 
 BELGIUM'S INHERITANCE. 275 
 
 leader of the Catholic party. " If annexation is actually 
 voted before the time arrives when the State is able to 
 assure to Belgium all the advantages which I desire shall 
 accrue to it," the King wrote, as Sovereign of the Congo 
 State, " the Congo Administration will naturally refuse to 
 participate in a hybrid government which can only produce, 
 both internally and externally, friction and loss. Is it 
 conceivable that a State can be annexed and yet compelled 
 to carry on its government ad interim ? For it must be 
 acknowledged that Belgium is not ready for such a step, 
 and is at the moment unable to provide a substitute for the 
 present Administration." 
 
 The effrontery of this message was amazing, and no one 
 can have been deceived by the quibble raised in it. Had 
 the Congo State been at war with Belgium and in danger of 
 conquest by it, there might have been reason in the threat that 
 all the existing machinery for keeping order in the territory 
 would be broken up unless fair terms, acceptable to the 
 conquered, were offered. But there was no semblance of 
 conquest in this case. King Leopold was merely asked to 
 comply with the conditions proposed by himself in his will 
 of 2nd August, 1899, and in his letter of the same month to M. 
 Beernaert, and with the obligations his Congo Government 
 had taken upon itself in the Convention of 3rd July, 1890, 
 and had endorsed by later documents. Belgium, besides 
 being heir to the King, was in the position of a creditor 
 entitled to receive from him either the money lent and now 
 overdue or, as a " going concern," the property tendered as 
 security for the loan. The King's attitude was no more 
 honest than would have been that of a humbler mort- 
 gager who, when invited to fulfil his bond, threatened to 
 destroy the thing he had mortgaged rather than give it up. 
 
 His high-handed procedure, however, achieved its imme- 
 diate object. M. Beernaert's scheme, regarded by himself 
 and his friends as an equitable and statesmanlike com- 
 promise, by which two years would have been allowed for 
 settling the details of the transfer without injury either to
 
 276 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 the outgoing or to the incoming holders of the Congo 
 State's territory, had to be withdrawn, and all he could 
 procure was insertion in Count de Smet de Naeyer's Bill 
 of a clause declaring and confirming the right of Belgium 
 to take possession of the property on the king's death, if 
 not at an earlier date. " If you do not annex to-day," 
 he said when the Bill was passed by a majority of seventy- 
 one votes to thirty-one in the Chamber of Representatives 
 on i /th July, " I fear that you will never annex, and that 
 international complications may arise which will render 
 impossible the annexation of the Congo at any time by 
 Belgium." It was at the same sitting that M. Vandevelde, 
 who with M. Georges Lorand took the chief part in oppos- 
 ing the project, quoted the following sentences from a 
 leading Catholic journal : " Gratitude is not a royal virtue. 
 That is shown once again by the conduct of Leopold II. 
 toward his eminent, old and faithful servant, Minister of 
 State Beernaert. The King has already forgotten that to 
 M. Beernaert he owes his possession of the Congo. If in 
 1885, at the time of the Berlin Conference, Frere-Orban 
 had been in power, Leopold II. would never have become 
 Sovereign of the Congo Free State. It was M. Beernaert 
 who, by his heated discourse to the Chamber and the 
 Senate, brought the majority, and afterwards the nation, into 
 their present liking for a colonial policy. And, for reward, 
 we now see the King in league with his most violent 
 adversary against him ! Alas ! Alas ! " The adversary, 
 of course, was M. Woeste, a German Jew by birth, now the 
 zealous champion of the Catholic party in Belgium, and, 
 it is notorious, having a compact with King Leopold, in 
 accordance with which everything done or desired by the 
 Congo Government within its own area receives the 
 unquestioning and untiring support of the Catholics, 
 in return for a like support given to their resistance of 
 Socialists, Radicals, and Liberals in home affairs. 
 
 The upshot of the controversy over Count de Smet de 
 Naeyer's Bill, which the Belgian Senate sanctioned on
 
 BELGIUM'S INHERITANCE. 277 
 
 6th August by fifty-four votes to six, was a fresh Conven- 
 tion between the Belgian and Congo 
 ~ , . , f The Congo State's 
 
 Governments, leaving the control of 
 
 INcxv l^flgf* 
 
 the Congo State's affairs in the present 
 hands, on the understanding that after the King's death, 
 unless an earlier date may be agreed upon, it shall become 
 a Belgian " colony." As an adjunct to this Convention, 
 moreover, a " loi organique or administrative regime" dated 
 7th August, 1901, was issued, subject to the approval of 
 the Belgian Parliament, which appears to have been since 
 quietly taken for granted. By the terms of the document, 
 absolute legislative and executive control of the colonial 
 possessions of Belgium that is, of the Congo State, in the 
 event of transfer ever taking place is, as heretofore, to be 
 vested in the King, the Colonial Minister appointed as his 
 chief adviser and agent, with a seat in the Belgian Cabinet, 
 being nominated and only removable by him. This 
 Minister is to be assisted by a Colonial Council of four 
 members, also the mere nominees of the King, two of 
 whom " must have already served in a judicial, military or 
 administrative capacity in the colonial possessions, or have 
 participated in the management of an industrial or com- 
 mercial establishment there." Thus all that has been pro- 
 posed is the strengthening and systematising of the existing 
 autocratic machinery. One clause, it is true, provides that 
 "a report on the administration of colonial possessions 
 shall be submitted annually to the Chambers," that " this 
 report must contain the fullest information necessary to 
 enlighten the national taxpayers as to the political, economic, 
 financial, and moral condition of those possessions," and 
 that "the Chambers will have full liberty to discuss the 
 acts of the Administration." According to another clause, 
 moreovor, although "the King makes treaties concerning 
 colonial possessions," and need do no more than " inform 
 the Chambers of such treaties, so soon as the interest and 
 safety of the colony allow it," it is provided that " com- 
 mercial treaties which may tend to become a charge upon
 
 278 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 public finances, or may affect individual interests, are only 
 valid after receiving the assent of the Chambers," and that 
 " the Minister for Foreign Affairs controls in his depart- 
 ment the relations of the colonial possessions with Foreign 
 Powers." But, as regards the general interests alike of the 
 Congo natives, of the Belgian public, and of other Europeans, 
 it is intended that there shall be practically no restraint on 
 the despotic authority of the Sovereign of the State, or on 
 the tyranny of his political agents and commercial partners. 
 If ever the loi organique of 1901 comes into operation the 
 Congo State may throw on the Belgian people far greater 
 risks and burdens than they have yet incurred ; but all its 
 profits will still be reserved for its Sovereign and his 
 favourites. 
 
 As Belgium, while accepting, as it was constrained to do, 
 
 the renewed promise or pretence that 
 The International ., ~ , , ., ... , , , 
 
 the Congo State should ultimately be 
 
 annexed to it, has also consented to 
 
 abstain from all control over its inheritance, the duty of 
 insisting on proper management of the State's affairs 
 remains with the other Powers responsible for the violated 
 prescriptions of the Berlin and Brussels General Acts. 
 
 It was in the hope of arousing the British Government 
 to a sense of its share in the responsibility, and in continu- 
 ance of appeals to the same intent in previous years, that the 
 Aborigines Protection Society, in a letter dated 2nd August, 
 1901, urged it to take measures " towards securing the 
 co-operation of the other signatory Powers in upholding 
 the provisions of the Acts in question, if necessary by pro- 
 posing that another International Conference shall be 
 convened at an early date." More detailed was yet another 
 appeal from the Society dated 2/th March, 1902, including 
 " a very brief review of the policy hitherto pursued by the 
 administrators of the Congo State, by legislation and in 
 practice, and of the consequent disasters to its Congolese 
 subjects." " Surely," it was urged, in the concluding 
 sentence of this review, " the time has arrived for inquiry
 
 BELGIUM'S INHERITANCE. 279 
 
 to be instituted, and for suitable remedial measures to be 
 taken, by the civilised Powers who, as signatories to the 
 Berlin General Act, which provided the Congo State with 
 its opportunities for wrong-doing, are sharers in its responsi- 
 bilities and, so long as they knowingly tolerate that wrong- 
 doing, must be regarded as accomplices in it." " The 
 offences complained of appear to be now greater and more 
 widespread that formerly," it was pointed out, moreover, 
 " and, as an arrangement was come to last year by the 
 Government of the Congo State with the Government and 
 Parliament of Belgium, by which the existing relations 
 between them were continued indefinitely, but with an 
 increased prospect of the Congo State being before long 
 converted into a Belgian possession, there might be great 
 advantage in the necessary reforms in the administration of 
 native affairs being effected, if possible, before the probable 
 change takes place." 
 
 In support of that appeal, in response to which the British 
 Government has promised to take such action as it may 
 find practicable, and which received considerable backing 
 on commercial grounds from several Chambers of Commerce, 
 as well as from influential newspapers, not only in Great 
 Britain, but also in Germany, the United States, and else- 
 where, a public meeting was held in the London Mansion 
 House on 1 5th May. At this meeting, presided over by 
 Mr. Alfred E. Pease, the weightiest speech was made by 
 Sir Charles Dilke, who was followed by Sir Mark Stewart, 
 by Mr. John Holt and Mr. F. Swanzy, as representatives of 
 the Liverpool and London Chambers of Commerce, and by 
 others. Its importance was not lessened by the presence 
 of two self-invited delegates from the Congo Government ? 
 one of whom, Mr. R. D. L. Mohun, a District Commissary of 
 varied experience on. the Congo, claimed to be the bearer 
 of a message from King Leopold to the effect that " the 
 Government of the Congo State will open an inquiry into 
 any of the charges which may be brought specifically before 
 it by the Aborigines Protection Society, and will assist in
 
 28o CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 every way to stop what they consider to be the bad things 
 going on in the Congo Free State." * 
 
 It is not necessary here, in so far as facts concealed as 
 far as possible have come to light, to set forth the events 
 of Congo State history in 1902. They have been sub- 
 stantially little more than repetitions. 
 The Latest . , . ;. 
 
 with variations in time and place, of 
 Developments. 
 
 the occurrences of previous years, 
 
 which have been sufficiently narrated. There have been 
 fitful risings and constant oppressions of natives in nearly 
 all portions of the territory. There have been further 
 extensions of the domaine privt system, and the granting 
 of monopolies under it, especially in the Kasai district, and 
 the enterprise of the privileged companies, old and new, 
 has certainly not slackened, although, through increasing 
 difficulties in the collection of rubber, which now constitutes 
 in value nearly seven-eighths of all the produce exported, 
 their profits have been notably reduced. Hence the 
 speculative value of the shares issued by the privileged 
 companies has, in some cases, fallen to less than half the 
 amount reached in their palmier days. For all that, 
 however, it was reckoned in August, 1902, that the 
 aggregate of the shares held by the State alone in those 
 companies might have been sold for 80,000,000 francs, 
 or nearly thrice the 28,709,000 francs estimated for the 
 entire revenue of the State in 1902. The State is still 
 a valuable asset to its Sovereign and his partners ; and 
 others besides financiers and financial gamblers have been 
 enriched by it. Throughout the past decade and more it 
 has vastly augmented the commerce of Antwerp and the 
 
 * The actual telegram was quite different in its purport. Mr. Mohun's 
 inaccuracy was in keeping with the usual tactics of the Congo State and of its 
 hirelings. The message was a defiance, not a promise, and ran as follows : 
 " Pouvez declarer que Gouvernement Congo ouvrira enquete judiciaire severe 
 sur tout delit porte & sa connaissance. Loi Congolaise, pas plus que loi 
 autre pays, ne permet ingerence de tiers dans action judiciaire." Count de Smet 
 de Naeyer had, in like manner, thrown down an evasive challenge in 
 addressing the Belgian Chamber in July, 1901 : " Un de vos auteurs," he
 
 BELGIUM'S INHERITANCE. 281 
 
 general trade of Belgium, especially in ivory carving, as 
 well as in the manufacture of rubber goods and other 
 industries. Yet prudent and patriotic Belgians, even if 
 they are not troubled with humane considerations, may 
 well ask whether the Congo possessions to which their 
 country is ostensibly the heir are worth having. 
 
 And none of the other nations responsible for the setting 
 up of the Congo State, in 1884, and for its continuance with 
 ever-growing violation of the conditions under which it 
 was allowed to take shape, can be deterred by mercenary 
 considerations from regarding in their true light the crimes 
 which have been perpetrated in the name of civilisation. 
 Nearly the whole of such commerce as is carried on in the 
 Congo State's territory is for the benefit of but a small 
 section of the Belgian population. Of the 2,346 white or 
 European inhabitants of the State's territory accounted for 
 at the beginning of 1902, 1,465, and nearly all the holders 
 of military and other important positions, were Belgians. 
 Amongst the rest were 156 Italians, 155 Swedes, Nor- 
 wegians or Danes, 126 Dutch, 108 Portuguese, 90 English, 
 63 Germans, and 55 Frenchmen. 
 
 Many, too many, names of Englishmen, and others who are 
 not Belgians, appear in the shareholders' lists of the Congo 
 companies, but all the signatories to the Berlin Act, with 
 the exception of the Congo State, and perhaps of Belgium, 
 have suffered more or less from the flagrant disregard and 
 perversion of the free trade provisions of that Act. The 
 State's actual neighbours in Africa, its partners in the 
 occupation of the Congo Basin, have suffered too, more or 
 less, both from the dangers incident to contact with it and 
 from the pernicious example set by it. 
 
 said, "semble tre la Societe pour la Protection des Indigenes, qui, sous 
 couleur de philanthropic, attaque pe"riodiquement des institutions Congolaises. 
 Si cette association connalt des fails precis d'actes de pouvoir et de cruaute, 
 pourquoi ne les defere-t-elle pas au Gouvernement du Congo et aux tribunaux 
 competents ? Au lieu de cela, on prefere rester dans le vague et livrer a la 
 publicite des accusations trop generates pour etre saissibles. Pareils precedes 
 permettent de juger le but et le degre de veracite de ces denonciations."
 
 282 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S NEIGHBOURS. 
 
 THE proceedings of the Congo State in the main portion of 
 the Congo Basin entrusted to its care about two-thirds of 
 the whole have been far more momentous than those of 
 its British, French, German, and Portuguese neighbours 
 and partners or rivals within the same vaguely defined 
 area. Brief mention of these contemporary movements, 
 and of the questions incident to them, however, must now 
 be made. 
 
 The Congo State had been in existence for six years 
 
 1A , . before Great Britain acquired any 
 
 British Congoland. . .. ., ~ 
 
 footing m the Congo Basin, apart 
 
 from the trade and other relations that had been 
 unofficially established by British settlers or visitors 
 near the mouth of the great river. It was only in 1890 
 that German enterprise, more or less connected with or 
 consequent upon the pretended rescue of Emin Pasha, 
 induced the British East Africa Company to enter on 
 enough " effective occupation " of Uganda to satisfy 
 international requirements. Even after that date Captain 
 Lugard and subsequent administrators were sufficiently 
 engaged in settling and unsettling matters in Uganda 
 itself, without troubling themselves about the western parts 
 of the protectorate which were within the Congo Basin, 
 until complications arose in the Ankole and Toru districts, 
 between Lakes Victoria Nyanza and Albert Edward, and 
 northward through the Semliki valley up to Lake Albert 
 Nyanza, as a result of Baron Dhanis's raiding and crusading 
 in the Arab Zone in 1892 and 1893. Unable or not caring 
 to discriminate between Belgians and British, the natives 
 were encouraged in defiance of all whites by the news that 
 reached them as to the doings of the Congo State's forces
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S NEIGHBOURS. 283 
 
 on the east of the Lualaba. These complications lasted till 
 1897, and they were then revived by Captain Chaltin's 
 successful march to Lado, and yet more by Baron Dhanis's 
 unsuccessful attempt to follow him. The supposed ex- 
 pediency of Congo State co-operation with Great Britain 
 in opposing the Mahdists of the north, as well as the 
 sympathisers with them among the Batetela, Manyema, 
 and others, if not also their Arab teachers and oppressors, 
 in the south, was one of the grounds for Lord Rosebery's 
 ill-advised lease of the Lado enclave to King Leopold in 
 1894, and conduced to many subsequent embarrassments. 
 With the expulsion of some of the Batetela or Manyema 
 mutineers from Toru by Major Ternan in June, 1897, and 
 the establishment of firmer British rule which followed, the 
 difficulties consequent thereon on that side of the Uganda 
 Protectorate practically ended. But like difficulties have 
 been growing ever since in the north-west. 
 
 Whatever faults may be found in British methods of 
 conquest and administration, as shown in Uganda and 
 other parts of British East Africa and also in the Egyptian 
 Sudan, they are by no means open to equal censure with 
 the methods of the Congo Government. It is on every 
 ground deplorable, therefore, that by blundering states- 
 manship and inexplicable submission to the versatile 
 requirements of the Belgian King, in his capacity of 
 Congo Sovereign, the British authorities should have 
 enabled so much confusion to be caused and so many 
 seeds of mischief to e planted during the past few years 
 in the Bahr-el-Ghazal region and thereabouts. But, the 
 scene of these errors being outside the Congo Basin, bare 
 reference to them, in incidental illustration of the general 
 course of Congoland wrong-doing, is all that would be 
 proper here. 
 
 Having Great Britain for a neighbour and an ally over 
 a long stretch of its north-eastern territory, from Lake 
 Albert Edward up to and round the Lado enclave, the 
 Congo State is in contact with the same neighbour again
 
 284 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 on the south-east, from the extremity of Lake Tanganyika 
 round to the southern frontier of the Katanga and Kasai 
 districts, which in 1891 Mr. Cecil Rhodes was foiled in 
 an attempt to acquire. Very little, however, has since, 
 till lately, been done in the small sections of British Central 
 Africa under the rule of the British South Africa Company 
 which form part of Congoland. It was only in 1901 that 
 Mr. Robert Codrington, the Commissioner for Northern 
 Zambezia, entered on preliminary arrangements for turning 
 this region to account, and found in the chaotic condition 
 of the country on the other side of the border grave 
 obstacles to be overcome. "There is no trade, properly 
 so called, on the Congo coast of Tanganyika," he reported 
 in 1902, on returning from a tour of inspection, "but all 
 rubber and ivory are regarded as the property of the State, 
 and have to be surrendered by the natives in fixed quan- 
 tities annually. The natives are, however, continually in 
 rebellion, and the country is unsafe except in the imme- 
 diate vicinity of the military garrisons and within the 
 sphere of the influence of the missionaries."* Perhaps 
 the revelations growing out of " the Rabinek affair " will 
 lead to some improvement in administrative institutions 
 affecting the position of natives, as well as of white traders, 
 on both sides of Lake Mweru and throughout this part of 
 Congoland. 
 
 Between the southernmost points of Lakes Tanganyika 
 
 and Albert Edward, the limits of the 
 German Congoland. .,_. , 
 
 two British protectorates, and consti- 
 tuting the westernmost portion of German East Africa, is 
 German Congoland, chiefly separated from the Congo 
 State's territory by water, but not on that account free 
 from disputes as to frontier. The controversy as to the 
 rights of the two States in respect of Lake Kivu has not 
 yet been ended, and no treaties can be expected to lessen 
 the inevitable rivalry that has here grown up. The earliest 
 European traders throughout the southern half of the 
 
 * Geographical Journal, May, 1902, p. 601.
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S NEIGHBOURS. 285 
 
 Congo Basin were the Portuguese, or natives claiming to 
 be Portuguese on account of the slight admixture of white 
 blood descending to them. Their commerce, chiefly in 
 slaves and fire-arms, had its outlets both on the Atlantic 
 side of the continent, where it is still maintained, and on 
 the Pacific coast. Much of the East African trade with 
 Congoland, however, passed into the hands of the Germans 
 while King Leopold's project was in its initial stages, and 
 was almost limited to efforts at draining the country of its 
 wealth by way of the Congo river. The appropriation 
 of all such wealth within the Arab Zone, much larger 
 supplies of which were being conveyed by so-called Arabs 
 through German territory to Mombasa and Zanzibar than 
 by so-called Portuguese to Mozambique, was manifestly 
 the real though unavowed motive for Baron Dhanis's 
 famous expedition ; and the overthrow of Arab power 
 which it effected, while breaking down the slave trade in 
 that part of Africa, by no means put an end to the ivory 
 trade formerly associated therewith. There would have 
 been good grounds for Congo State complaints as to 
 German violation of the arms and ammunition clauses of 
 the Brussels General Act had not those clauses been violated 
 at least as unscrupulously by the Congo State itself in its 
 dealings with the native chiefs, from Katanga up to the 
 Niam Niam country, whom it bribed and coaxed into 
 its service as oppressors of other natives. But, whatever 
 may have been done in the past, there are welcome signs 
 of improvement in the German administration which of 
 late years has been established in much more orderly and 
 comprehensive ways than heretofore, with greater firmness 
 as well as humaner policy, on the eastern side of Lake 
 Tanganyika and up to the Uganda Protectorate. This 
 improvement adds weight to the reasonable demands of 
 the German authorities that there shall be equal justice in 
 the control of the adjacent Congo State territory, and that 
 the free trade provisions of the Berlin General Act shall no 
 longer be disregarded with impunity,
 
 286 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 There is yet more need for reform, both parties being 
 
 alike to blame, along the zig-zag 
 Portuguese . r ' * 
 
 stretch or territory that includes 
 
 Congoland. * 
 
 Portuguese Longoland and the Congo 
 
 State as neighbours. Except as regards the small Kabinda 
 enclave, to the north of the Congo river, Portuguese Congo- 
 land is now limited to the block of territory, also 
 comparatively small, which has its sea frontage between 
 Ambriz and the mouth of the Congo and extends inland to 
 the Congo State's Kwango district. Albeit the site of the 
 ancient " kingdom of Congo," this fragment of the 
 unprofitable and ill - managed Angola possession of 
 Portugal is even less profitable and appears to be even 
 worse-managed than are the much larger provinces in the 
 south. Whatever prospect there might have been of 
 healthy revival for Portuguese Africa, and healthy develop- 
 ment of other European intercourse with the Congo Basin, 
 from adoption of the proposed Anglo-Portuguese Conven- 
 tion of 1884 which was abandoned in favour of the 
 proposals put into shape by the Berlin Conference, with 
 such force as a General Act could give them the 
 working or the perversion of the Berlin Act has been fatal 
 to Angola. 
 
 Until the Congo State railway from Matadi to Leopold- 
 ville was completed in 1898, as has already been mentioned, 
 there appears to have been a constant migration of Bakongo 
 and other natives across the frontier into Portuguese 
 territory, in order that they might thus escape from the 
 killing tyranny to which they were subjected by their new 
 masters. Here, however, it is to be feared, their troubles 
 were not much lightened. Though scarcely any attempt 
 has ever been made to establish in this district even so 
 much " civilisation " as is to be found further south, at 
 San Paolo de Loanda and Benguela,the inhabitants known 
 as Mushikongo have for generations been exposed to the 
 influences, aggravating their savagery, which have come to 
 them from the supply of rum, the staple commodity of
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S NEIGHBOURS. 287 
 
 Angola, and the procuring of slaves for the manufacture of 
 that product as well as for sale abroad. 
 
 The Transatlantic slave trade was prohibited and well- 
 nigh abolished long ago, and slavery no longer exists under 
 that name ; but forced labour, equivalent to slavery, is still 
 the rule, and is abundantly employed both in the cultivated 
 portions of Angola and in the more prosperous St. Thomas's 
 Island and Prince's Island, Portuguese possessions in the 
 Atlantic, to the west of French Congoland. This labour 
 for some time obtained chiefly by the compulsory engage- 
 ment of services, under contracts for five years, and also 
 by resgates, or ransoms, paid to slave-dealers who had 
 brought natives from the interior was in 1899 supple- 
 mented by means of a Royal Decree, under which, as 
 Mr. Nightingale, the British Consul at Loanda, reported 
 in that year, " vagrant natives, and such as cannot prove 
 that they have any means of livelihood as labourers 
 carriers, artisans, &c., render themselves liable to be 
 sentenced to a term of corrective labour (trabalho correc- 
 tional}" There appears to be no difficulty in procuring 
 such " corrective labour " seeing that, " to ensure the better 
 carrying out of this law, a gratuity is offered to all persons, 
 including native chiefs and heads of villages, for each 
 vagrant or vagabond presented to the authorities." Most 
 of the " ransomed labour " is brought from distant parts, 
 especially from the old hunting-grounds of the old slave- 
 raiders, the Kasai and Katanga regions, now under the 
 Congo State, and it is conveyed across Angola, by the old 
 slave caravan route, past Bihe, to Loanda and Benguela. 
 Much of the " corrective labour " is doubtless obtained by 
 seizure of the luckless fugitives from Congo State oppres- 
 sion in the Boma and Matadi districts. Of the quantity of 
 either, and also of the " contracted labour " used up in the 
 colony itself, there is no record. But between 1875 and 
 1896, according to the British consular reports, "22,140 
 contracted services left the ports of Angola for the islands 
 of San Thome and Principe to work on the plantations
 
 288 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 there," and these were followed by 1,919 in 1897, by 3,131 
 in 1898, and by 3,648 in 1899. " This emigration," accord- 
 ing to Consul Nightingale, " is a great drain on the 
 province, and the planters in Cazengo and other parts 
 complain very bitterly of it, as they are unable to offer such 
 high sums for the resgates as the richer planters in the 
 above-mentioned islands. A good healthy man and woman 
 cost at the present time" that is, in 1899 "about 50 
 sterling, placed in San Thome. This seems very much 
 like quoting for cattle or any other marketable commodity. 
 Such quotations are made, and contracts are signed, to 
 deliver so many pairs at so much per pair."* 
 
 If there is less slavery in the Kabinda enclave, on the 
 other side of the Congo mouth, where more flourishing, if 
 not less degrading, trade is carried on than in other parts 
 of Portuguese Congoland, the "blessings of civilisation" 
 have not made the natives' lot happier. " Boatmen and 
 sailors are supplied from the Kabindas, who hire themselves 
 as Krumen do on the north coast," wrote Consul Hopkinson 
 in 1874; "there is, in fact, a great similarity in these tribes, 
 both being fearless and experienced boatmen." Comment- 
 ing on this remark, Consul Casement, Mr. Nightingale's 
 predecessor, said in 1 899, " However true of that day, the 
 comparison does not hold good now. The Kabindas, as a 
 tribe, have retrograded since 1874, not only in physical 
 characteristics, but morally, and above all in actual numbers. 
 A visit to Kabinda and a week's sojourn there would 
 convince any unprejudiced observer that the deterioration 
 is due very largely to drink." " So recognised is the evil 
 of trading in drink," he added, after describing one of his 
 visits, " that every trader with whom I came in contact 
 they were both Dutch and English assured me that a 
 compulsory prohibition of alcohol would be the most 
 welcome measure the Government could adopt, and the 
 one best calculated ultimately to benefit their trade. To 
 
 * Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 2,363, 2,555, an d 
 2,721,
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S NEIGHBOURS. 289 
 
 take from a race of savages large and profitable consign- 
 ments of what their country affords, and to leave them 
 highly brutalised, or in no way morally improved, by their 
 share in the transaction is not, whatever balance-sheets may 
 show, a lasting good business. As they are improved, not 
 degraded, by their contact with the white races, so will our 
 dealings with the natives of Africa prove more profitable."* 
 That warning is all the more worthy .of attention because 
 
 it has been so often uttered and so 
 
 r . j j T , . j French Congoland. 
 
 often ignored or defied. Its wisdom 
 
 is being proved most conspicuously by the impolitic action 
 of the Congo State throughout at least a dozen years, and 
 now, in smaller measure, throughout four years or so, by 
 adoption of Belgian tactics in French Congoland, which 
 covers by far the largest portion of the third of the Congo 
 Basin not monopolised by the Congo State. This region 
 which, it should be borne in mind, forms only a part of the 
 territory marked in the maps as " Congo Frangais " has 
 a sea -frontage stretching from the Kabinda frontier up 
 to the parallel of 2^30 north latitude, and extends inland, 
 according to the Berlin General Act, " until it reaches the 
 geographical basin of the Congo, avoiding the basin of 
 the Ogowe." Eastward and northward of it is " Ubangi 
 Frangais." 
 
 France owes its slice of Congoland to the enterprise of 
 M. de Brazza, who was allowed to control its affairs 
 honestly and judiciously till 1897, when he was relieved in 
 the governorship of the colony by M. de Lamothe. In 
 November, 1901, reasonably disturbed and alarmed by the 
 course that events had taken in the interval, M. de Brazza 
 made a memorable confession of faith. " France," he then 
 wrote, " has assumed a duty towards the native tribes of 
 French Congoland who for twenty-seven years have lent 
 her their assistance in the work of expansion. These 
 people have received from us the seal of their future 
 liberties. We must not sacrifice them to the vain hope of 
 
 * Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, No. 2,363. 
 
 U
 
 290 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 immediate results by thoughtless measures of coercion, at 
 variance with the generous ideas that our flag symbolises. 
 We should be committing a great mistake in weakening 
 that result by, at the present time, imposing taxes on the 
 products of the soil, or by compelling the natives to work 
 in the form of forced labour or military service. Our 
 dignity would be greatly injured if such labour and such 
 taxes were supplied at the beck and call of concessionnaires." 
 "It is to bring these considerations to men's minds," he 
 added " and to avert the moral bankruptcy to which 
 economic and financial disasters may lead us, that I have 
 emerged from the reserve I had imposed upon myself."* 
 
 French Congoland had been happy in having compara- 
 tively no history for thirteen years. The main object of 
 its founders had been achieved by acquisition of the terri- 
 tory, and the " work of expansion " there accomplished had 
 made it sufficiently serviceable as a ground of vantage for 
 further expansions. Trading establishments had been set 
 up by French merchants at Libreville, the political capital 
 of the whole colony, and on the Ogowe, outside the Congo- 
 land area, and also at Loango and elsewhere within the 
 Congo limits ; but far more enterprise was shown by 
 the two Liverpool firms of Messrs. Hatton & Cookson, 
 and Messrs. John Holt & Co. From the first this enterprise 
 was encouraged and found useful by the French authorities ; 
 and M. de Brazza's policy towards natives throughout his 
 governorship appears to have been one of tolerance and 
 protection, provided they submitted themselves, as was 
 mainly to their advantage, to the paternal system of French 
 rule. In 1897, however, a change occurred in French 
 colonial policy, under M. Guillain, the new Minister for 
 the Colonies in M. Maine's Cabinet. A decree for the 
 administrative reorganisation of the French Congo was 
 issued on 28th September, and M. de Lamothe was sent 
 out to replace M. de Brazza as Commissary-General. 
 
 Though other causes conduced to this revolution, it was 
 
 * L( Temps, I7th November, 1901,
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S NEIGHBOURS. 291 
 
 manifestly connected with contemporary developments 
 in Congo State policy, and with the approaching comple- 
 tion of the Matadi-to-Leopoldville railway which was 
 opened in 1898. After attending that ceremony in June, 
 M. Pierre Mille crossed over to Brazzaville, said to have the 
 best harbour on Stanley Pool, and he sorrowfully con- 
 trasted the easy-going procedure that he saw there with 
 the bustling progress he had just parted from. " Among 
 our people," he said, " individual enterprise is admirable ; 
 but collective enterprise and practical skill in turning 
 energy to account are lacking." Recognising the faults of 
 Congo State rule, he still admired its theory. Admitting 
 that French methods should not and could not be a 
 counterpart of Belgian methods, he yet envied the outcome 
 of the latter. "Here," he said, "the problem is embarrass- 
 ing. On the other side of the Congo, the lessor and the 
 exploiter has been King Leopold. It is, in fact, a single 
 individual who manages the business. A Parliament has 
 no such opportunities, and State exploitation among us 
 would probably arouse too many susceptibilities, and lead 
 to inconveniences not to be played with. The gravest 
 would be the constant interference of political bodies at 
 home with colonial administration. If this danger could 
 be avoided, I do not see, after all, why we should not do 
 to-day what the Dutch have long been doing in Australasia. 
 At any rate, in these absolutely new countries we ought 
 to assist and guide private initiative. We ought to 
 commence by organising a service of agriculture, and that 
 will be a small thing to do if the Government does not 
 take on itself the responsibility of wholesale exploitation 
 by the State. Failing that, it should at least entrust the 
 responsibility to others strong enough to bear it ; it should 
 lease the soil to societies having capital enough to be able 
 to wait some time for their reward. That is to say, for 
 experiments too small to be successful should be substituted 
 collective enterprise, without which nothing can be done in 
 regions so vast and so new. That is what has happened
 
 292 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 in the Leopoldian Congo, and I should like the example 
 to be followed. Otherwise, in our Congo there will be 
 nothing to be found in a few years' time but virgin forests. 
 That will be interesting. Cook's tourists will come here, 
 and will spout pages from Ruskin congratulating us on our 
 reverence for nature and our regard for hippopotami, but 
 they will take care not to imitate us."* 
 
 These sentences reveal the genesis of the concessionnaire 
 
 system as it took shape in other parts 
 The Concessionnaire ~ ^ , A r . . . 
 
 of French Africa as well as in the 
 
 French share of the Congo Basin. 
 On 28th March, 1899, at the instigation of M. Guillain, three 
 memorable decrees were signed by President Loubet one 
 laying down the " conditions d'octroi des concessions," 
 another providing for the "exploitations des forets," and 
 a third, more elaborate, establishing a " regime foncier " 
 for the French Congo.t 
 
 " Lands vacant and without masters," it was laid down 
 in the first, " form part of the State domain," and, unless 
 otherwise ordered, the proceeds of their alienation, by sale 
 or lease under concession, are to be applied in defraying 
 the expenses of colonisation, including the introduction 
 of settlers and of workmen, either free or subject to a 
 " regime de 1'immigration," and the recruitment, armament, 
 and maintenance of the police forces necessary for the 
 safety of the settlers. The State domain in French Congo- 
 land corresponds to the domaine privt of the Congo State, 
 except that it is regarded as the property of the nation, 
 not of one individual. 
 
 Of kindred purport was the decree concerning the 
 exploitation of forests, which assumes ownership by the 
 State, with power to alienate them, of all " bois domani- 
 aux," with the exception of recognised " bois particuliers." 
 In this second decree it is stipulated that " natives shall 
 
 * 'Au Congo Beige,' pp. 135, 140-142. 
 
 f All these are printed, and easily accessible, as an appendix to M. Mille's 
 ' Au Congo Beige,' pp. 266-303.
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S NEIGHBOURS. 293 
 
 retain, in the woods and forests of the domain, and also in 
 those belonging to particular individuals, all the customary 
 rights (asylum, wood cutting, pasturage, hunting, Sec.) which 
 they have hitherto enjoyed"; but the equitable provision is 
 seriously hampered, if not made worthless, by the condition 
 that " woods and forests may be freed from all customary 
 rights, subject to a cantonment " or what is usually 
 termed " a native reserve " in English " being provided, 
 which shall be approved by the Commissary-General." 
 
 It may be reasonably argued that, in the very fact of 
 monopolies and privileges of every sort being prohibited by 
 the Berlin Act throughout the Congo Basin, there is excuse, 
 if not necessity, for the assumption by the French Govern- 
 ment of such lordship over all vacant and forest lands as 
 will enable it to safeguard the interests of the native 
 community and to secure fair play for all outsiders having 
 dealings with the people. That is the policy wisely 
 pursued when it is not abused in British possessions, 
 under the Torrens Act, as it is called. But the responsi- 
 bilities and obligations taken upon itself by any Government 
 adopting this policy are enormous ; as, also, are the oppor- 
 tunities and facilities for disregarding and violating them. 
 If in the much smaller area of French Congoland, and in 
 the yet shorter time that the evil has had for growing, the 
 malpractices which have there come into vogue by no 
 means equal the similar misdeeds in Belgian Congoland, 
 they are very alarming and most reprehensible. 
 
 Since the summer of 1899 more than half of the French 
 Congo, chiefly within the Congo Basin, has been parcelled 
 out into huge concessions among upwards of forty 
 companies, of which a few have already collapsed, but of 
 which others claim to be rivalling the commercial or 
 financial success, as they are certainly emulating the vices, 
 of the great Congo State companies. It is significant that 
 these companies, albeit French in name, have been mainly 
 instigated and encouraged by Colonel Thys and other 
 Belgian promoters and that several of them notably, the
 
 294 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 Comptoir Colonial Frangais, which is the parent of the Com- 
 pagnie Franais du Congo and five other organisations, with 
 an aggregate capital of nearly 10,000,000 francs are as 
 much under Belgian as under French management. Though 
 most of the capital has been subscribed in Paris, guidance 
 as to its disposal comes from Brussels ; with some restraint 
 it is true, seeing that the French Government can scarcely 
 tolerate such cruelty to natives and injustice to others as 
 are sanctioned, if not prompted, by the Congo Government, 
 " French Congo," M. Jean Hess, an eminent authority on 
 French colonial questions, wrote in 1901, "has been 
 divided into a certain number of territorial concessions, 
 which were given to French concessionnaires, who formed 
 companies that ought to have been French. The French 
 financial world believed that the exploitation of French 
 Congo would immediately result in enormous profits, as 
 in the case of the Belgian companies. But it was forgotten 
 that the prosperity of the Belgian companies was due to 
 barbarous methods, to slavery and every abuse, every crime, 
 which this odious custom inevitably entails. To-day the 
 knowledge is historical. It is proved up to the hilt that 
 the Belgians, in order to obtain ivory and rubber from the 
 Congo, have perpetrated abominations, and that to his 
 title of King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Congo 
 State His Majesty might add King of the Slave Dealers. 
 Our colonial administration is not admirable ; but it could 
 not allow the barbarity of King Leopold's agents to be 
 imported into the territories of the Republic." Writing 
 while the French Colonial Minister was M. De'crais, in 
 M. Waldeck Rousseau's Cabinet, M. Hess added, " An 
 active campaign is being carried on to compel M. De'crais 
 to force the natives to collect rubber and to bring that 
 rubber to the concessionnaires, and, as part of the arrange- 
 ment, these good concession naires want M. De'crais to 
 quarter all over the Congo sufficient police forces to see 
 that not a single Negro escapes working for their exclusive 
 profit. For a long time past the word of the agents of
 
 THE CONGO STATE'S NEIGHBOURS. 295 
 
 King Leopold has been law here in Paris, thanks to the 
 interested complicity of a few contemptible persons. It 
 seems to me that their audacity is getting beyond bounds, 
 and that it is time to call a halt."* 
 
 M. De"crais, while he remained in office, appears to have 
 done all he found practicable in lessening the hardships of 
 the natives ; but his efforts in this direction have been of 
 small avail, and meanwhile the English and other traders, 
 whose dealings with the natives of the French Congo 
 were of much longer standing and L far wider scope than 
 those of French or Belgian concessionnaires, have been 
 treated with shameless injustice. In defiance of inter- 
 national law, or by perversion of the forms of law, they have 
 been practically excluded from the country, and everything 
 possible has been and is being done to force the natives on 
 the north side of the Congo into bondage as pitiless and 
 ruinous as that established in the south. 
 
 The decree of March, 1 899, concerning " exploitations 
 des forets," promised to the natives continuance of their 
 customary rights to use of these woods and forests, subject 
 to suitable cantonments or reserves being marked out for 
 their exclusive enjoyment ; and a subsequent decree pro- 
 vided that " the area of the lands in permanent occupation 
 by natives, or those temporarily and successively occupied 
 by them, shall be fixed by the instructions of the Governor 
 of the colony, who will also appoint the areas reserved for 
 hunting and fishing." In accordance with this decree a 
 circular was on 26th March, 1901, sent out by the Governor 
 to the administrators of the several districts under his 
 control, inviting from each of them " clear and precise 
 information as to the state of affairs in his district, and 
 
 * An article in La Petite RepiMique, cited in ' Trading Monopolies in West 
 Africa' (1901, p. 50), by Mr. E. D. Morel, to whom I am indebted not only 
 for the information given in this pamphlet, but for his numerous communi- 
 cations on Congo affairs in West Africa and other publications. Much of this 
 matter is embodied and supplemented in & volume on ' Affairs of West Africa,' 
 which he has just published (December, 1902).
 
 296 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 suggestions for the orders to be issued as regards native 
 reserves within it"; but the same circular declared that 
 " all the produce of the conceded territory, whatever it is, 
 is the property of the concessionnaire company, whose 
 agents alone have the right to collect or buy that produce 
 from the natives"; that "these natives can only dispose 
 freely of the produce of the reserves specially assigned to 
 them " ; and that, " if they are in possession of any produce 
 obtained elsewhere, they must surrender it to the conces- 
 sionnaires, whose interest of course it will be to recompense 
 them for their labour."* The promised reserves have not 
 been marked out; but the order obliging the natives to 
 sell to none but agents of the concessionnaire companies any 
 produce not obtained from the reserves hereafter to be 
 assigned to them is in force. 
 
 The natives of French Congoland have thus been as 
 completely deprived of their land-rights as their fellow 
 victims under the Congo State, and, as regards " recom- 
 pence for their labour" in collecting rubber and other 
 articles, are at the mercy of the only people with whom 
 they are allowed to have dealings. They have not yet been 
 exposed to such tyranny as the Congo State employs in 
 procuring, on its own terms, the commodities it covets. 
 But the machinery of tyranny is being built up by methods 
 and in ways that show how pernicious is the example set 
 by that State and how degrading is the rivalry it has pro- 
 voked. It is a very significant fact, moreover, that the 
 policy pursued in the French Congo and the French 
 Ubangi is completely at variance with that pursued by 
 France in most of her other colonies. 
 
 * This circular was the subject of an appeal from the Aborigines Protection 
 Society to the British Government on 7th September, 1901, in reply to which 
 Lord Lansdowne agreed that "it is of the utmost importance to safeguard the 
 native inhabitants of regions which form the subject of trading concessions 
 against abuse," and promised that the Government would, "so far as their 
 opportunities permit, endeavour to arrange that such protection is accorded." 
 Aborigines' Friend, October, 1901, pp. 105-108.
 
 THE OUTLOOK. 297 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 THE OUTLOOK. 
 
 IT is easier to take a false step than to retrace it, to commit 
 a blunder or be party to a crime, however innocently, than 
 to repair any evils that may result therefrom. Too often 
 the discredit to those who have erred, and, yet more, the 
 disasters both to them and to other sufferers through their 
 acts, are irremediable. The survivors may mend their 
 ways, and profit by their experiences ; but dead victims, 
 whether individuals or nations, cannot be brought back to 
 life, nor can fundamental injuries, once incurred or inflicted, 
 be more than patched up and plastered over. This truism 
 is especially worth heeding, and acting upon as far as may 
 be, in its bearings on the outcome of the Berlin Con- 
 ference of 1884 in respect of the affairs of the Conven- 
 tional Basin of the Congo which have been reviewed in the 
 foregoing pages. 
 
 Let all possible allowance be made for the good 
 intentions of the promoters of this memorable enterprise, 
 and of the contributories to it. But that its avowed and 
 ostensible purposes, as regards benefit either to the native 
 populations of Equatorial Africa or to the civilised 
 communities anxious to have honourable and serviceable 
 dealings with them, have been achieved or are in the way 
 of achievement by present methods will be asserted by few 
 and can be reasonably maintained by none. They have, of 
 course, procured temporary and inglorious gain to some, 
 perhaps to many, not all of whom are blameworthy. A 
 few lessons may have been taught or offered for learning, 
 of which it should be possible for good use to be made in 
 reforms and reconstructions fitted to lessen the evils that 
 have been wrought and to bring about changes helpful to 
 all worthy of help. But every day's delay increases the
 
 298 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 difficulties of the task that ought to be undertaken and 
 aggravates dangers that already threaten to be over- 
 whelming. 
 
 It is for statesmen to work out the details of this task, 
 and to face these dangers, with as much skill and energy 
 and honesty as they can command. Here I attempt no 
 more than a very concise statement of the problem that 
 awaits their solution. 
 
 The problem really comprises two problems, distinct but 
 closely related and interdependent. Neither can be solved 
 without solution of the other. The solution of either 
 will be the solution of both. The one requires that 
 justice shall be done to the native populations with whom 
 civilised communities have forced themselves, or been 
 forced, into contact. The other requires that the rival, 
 but not properly or necessarily antagonistic, claims and 
 interests of the several civilised communities who are con- 
 cerned in the matter shall be equitably adjusted and 
 satisfactorily advanced. 
 
 The native question I venture to place first. The earliest 
 
 white visitors to Equatorial Africa, 
 The Native Question. , , , 
 
 whether they went as mere travellers, 
 
 prompted by a love of adventure or a desire to acquaint 
 themselves with places and people hitherto unknown, as 
 missionaries eager to improve the moral and material con- 
 ditions of ignorant savages whose ways of life and religious 
 beliefs and practices were obnoxious to them, or as traders 
 seeking fresh markets for their wares and anxious to turn 
 to account the as yet wasted or insufficiently developed 
 resources of the soil and the mineral wealth beneath it, 
 were, as a rule, welcomed by the black races they found in 
 occupation of the country. These blacks, with a keen, 
 albeit a rude, sense of their own rights and powers, were 
 only too ready to take advantage of the opportunities 
 offered to them, to accept instruction and guidance in 
 material, if not in spiritual affairs from those whom they 
 regarded as their superiors. Under enlightened and
 
 THE OUTLOOK. 299 
 
 enlightening leadership, firm but generous, they might 
 have been made prompt disciples and capable partners, 
 with as much benefit to themselves as to the new- 
 comers. That, indeed, has happened in other parts 
 of Africa, as well as in other parts of the world, 
 and even, though rarely and inadequately, in portions 
 of the Congo Basin. There, however, the partial and 
 almost accidental success of civilising agencies has done 
 little more than demonstrate the folly and wickedness 
 of the other and by no means civilising agencies at work. 
 From the first the predominating influences and achieve- 
 ments have been degrading, not elevating. Whatever 
 advantages to the natives may have resulted from mis- 
 sionary efforts and scientific inquiries and travellers' 
 pastimes, the chief aim and the chief attainment of white 
 men's intrusion in Congoland have been not the natives, 
 profit, but their own. So it was in the early days, when 
 only the otherwise uninviting coasts were scoured in order 
 to provide American and other sugar plantations and 
 cotton fields with slaves, for whom the payment, if any 
 was made, principally consisted of poisonous liquors and 
 more immediately destructive implements of war. So it 
 is now, when all accessible regions in the interior are 
 scoured for ivory and rubber and so forth ; with tools and 
 textile fabrics added to the rum and rifles, the gin and 
 gunpowder, which were the former staples of trade. If the 
 over-sea slave traffic has been suppressed and the enslave- 
 ment of one native by another forbidden, the old forms 
 of slavery have been succeeded or supplemented by new, 
 more grinding and hateful to the victims, and for the 
 satisfaction of white instead of black oppressors. Savage 
 customs and institutions have been condemned and inter- 
 fered with in so far as they proved inconvenient to the 
 usurpers of land and its produce, but, for the most part 
 with nothing but increase of savagery. Under Congo 
 State rule, if nowhere else, the tribes most prone to killing 
 and eating their neighbours have been allowed to continue
 
 300 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 and extend their cannibalism ; and the Congo State has 
 only been more reckless and unscrupulous than its British, 
 French, German, and Portuguese associates in training and 
 arming the most warlike for righting and slaughtering 
 purposes of their own. All this is in monstrous contempt 
 and defiance of the avowed intentions and the explicit 
 injunctions of the Brussels as well as of the Berlin Con- 
 ference. 
 
 Nor has any more respect been paid to the free trade 
 
 stipulations of the Berlin Conference. 
 The Free Trade ~ r> -^ u 
 
 Question. Great Bntam > navm g lts general 
 
 fiscal policy to uphold, and as yet 
 making no commercial use of its small portion of Congo- 
 land, is not an offender in this respect ; and in Germany 
 there is sufficient appreciation of the advantages of free 
 trade, not at home, but for its colonial possessions, 
 to prevent abuse of the provisions of the Berlin Act here 
 involved. But in the immediately adjoining territory of 
 France and also of Portugal, though the latter may be 
 scarcely worth taking account of the Congo State has apt 
 pupils, and accomplices as zealous as they can be. In 
 French Congoland persistent efforts have of late been 
 made, and are still being made, to imitate therein the 
 illegal monopolist system to which the Congo State 
 and its favourites owe most of the spurious success they 
 enjoy. There is imitation also of the arbitrary and 
 excessive taxation of the Congo State, in the shape of 
 licences and the like, which is, to say the least, an abuse 
 of the privileges accorded by the Berlin Conference as 
 regards the collection, from those who use rivers, harbours, 
 and so forth, of sufficient revenue to pay for their con- 
 struction and upkeep. 
 
 On these points enough has been said, perhaps, in 
 previous pages ; but the very cautious view of the situation 
 presented by Consul Pickersgill in 1898 may here be 
 quoted. Matters have certainly not improved in the five 
 years since he reported that of the Europeans then in the
 
 THE OUTLOOK. 301 
 
 State's territory, "less than 1,408 all told," the majority 
 were " either in the service of the Government or employe's 
 of the trading companies in which the Government had 
 special interest, or engineers, clerks, and workmen engaged 
 in the construction of the railway." After mentioning the 
 missionaries who are there on sufferance, specially favoured 
 in some respects, he added, " Then come the agents of the 
 once all-powerful 'Dutch house,' noteworthy still as the only 
 independent trading association having factories on the 
 upper river ; the representatives of an old Liverpool firm, 
 which used to make, in the pre-partition days, its hundreds 
 of thousands a year in West Africa, but which now is glad 
 to clear a very modest percentage on its invested capital ; 
 a few Portuguese traders, and a sprinkling of Belgian 
 storekeepers, competing hard for the business of supplying 
 the wants of their fellow-countrymen. There are no 
 planters, no ranchers, no miners. With the mercantile 
 portion of the community the monopolisation of the 
 principal sources of ivory and india-rubber by the Govern- 
 ment has always been a standing grievance. I may 
 conclude my report by quoting the jocose observation of 
 the English and American missionaries, who declared to 
 me that there is nothing free in the Independent State 
 except fevers ; while a Belgian father, with whom I had 
 some conversation on the subject, remarked, ' The Govern- 
 ment taxes even the civilisation we bring.' " * 
 
 The "civilisation" brought, by ways for which the 
 missionaries are scarcely responsible, and which they 
 cannot control, is almost wholly uncivilising, and its pur- 
 pose is principally, if not altogether, the conversion of 
 King Leopold's share of Congoland into a monopolist 
 field for exploitation in the exclusive interests of those 
 seeking temporary and unjustifiable profit from their un- 
 scrupulous investments. According to present arrange- 
 ments, Belgium is heir to the property that is being built 
 up on unstable foundations, and in scandalous contraven- 
 
 * Report on the 'Congo Independent State' (1898), pp. 12-14.
 
 302 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 tion of the requirements of the Berlin and Brussels Con- 
 ference^xas regards alike the native populations and the 
 outside world. If Belgium, when it has the chance, declines 
 to accept the ugly legacy, as it may reasonably do, and 
 if King Leopold's successor is not in a position to carry on 
 his project, France has the reversion, and in this fact is, 
 apparently, the strongest motive and excuse, such as it may 
 be, for recent leanings of French statesmen and ambitions 
 of French speculators. 
 
 It is for the other signatories to the Berlin and Brussels 
 
 General Acts to decide whether they 
 The Need for .... ,, ,, 
 
 are willing that the systematic and 
 International Action. . / ,. 
 
 deliberate perversion of policy they so 
 
 strongly insisted upon in 1884, and again in 1889, shall be 
 further developed and rendered permanent ; whether, while 
 some of them are eagerly aiming at and acquiring fresh 
 territories and markets in other parts of Africa for their 
 especial benefit, they consent to the appropriation of the 
 vast Congo Basin by those to whom its guardianship and 
 management have been entrusted, not for their own selfish 
 use or misuse, but for the advantage of the indigenous 
 inhabitants and of the civilised world. The apathy shown 
 by these signatory Powers hitherto is well nigh inex- 
 plicable. Surely the time has fully arrived for action on 
 their part, if not on behalf of the worst sufferers, their 
 native clients, at any rate in their own interests. 
 
 The two issues at stake cannot be separated. If the 
 primary object for which the Berlin Conference was con- 
 vened, the assertion and attainment of equitable free trade 
 within and throughout the Congo Basin, is no longer 
 cared for, the iniquitous and perilous treatment to which 
 the millions of its aboriginal races are subjected imposes 
 moral obligations on all responsible for it which cannot 
 honourably, and, more than that, prudently be ignored. 
 
 Let it be remembered that in the heart of Africa, vitally 
 affecting the welfare of all the surrounding portions of the 
 continent which are in present or prospective occupation
 
 
 THE OUTLOOK. 303 
 
 by the European Powers is a poisonous growth of spurious 
 '' civilisation " which contaminates and more than tjfreatens 
 overwhelming injury to all its neighbours. The territory 
 of th^e Congo State has been converted into a vast field 
 of havoc and spoliation, mainly through the training and 
 arming of Congo savages for the shooting of other savages. 
 Events have there proved that, though the training and 
 arming may be of lasting effect, the uses to which they 
 have been put are temporary, and cannot be other than 
 dangerous to the authors. The Congo State has created 
 vvfeat will surely be its own Nemesis, and has taken a 
 leading part in the organisation of forces of savagery 
 which, when they have served their immediate purpose, if 
 not before, will inevitably wreck the machinery of well- 
 meant or ill - meant, or at any rate ill - contrived and 
 disastrous, " civilisation " in Africa. To those by whom 
 humanitarian obligations are scouted, consideration of this 
 question of expediency is earnestly commended. 
 
 *
 
 
 
 -- : ' "' 
 
 
 : 

 
 INDEX. 
 
 
 Ababua, the, 265 
 
 .Abir, the. See Anglo-Belgia* India- 
 Rubber Company. 
 
 Aborigines Protection Society, the, 
 224, 272, 273, 278, 279, 2g6n. 
 
 Achte, Father, 229, 230, 234 
 
 Afrikaansche Handels-Vennootschap, 
 121, 131, 139 
 
 Agreements, International. See Con- 
 ventions. 
 
 Albert Edward, Lake, 168 
 
 Albert Nyanza, Lake, IOI 
 
 Albertville, 145 
 
 Alima, the river, 36 
 
 Alvez, Jose Antonio, 13 
 
 Ambriz, 22, 46, 286 
 
 American Baptist Missionary Union, 
 the, 205, 210, 219 
 
 American Presbyterian Missionary 
 Society, the, 238, 258 
 
 Andrew, Lieut. Frank J., 238, 255 
 
 Anglo-Belgian India - Rubber Com- 
 pany, the, 140, 242,251, 262n. 
 
 Angola, natives of, 4, 7 ; Portuguese 
 occupation of, 7-9 ; slave-trade in, 
 10-15 ; recent events in, 22, 46, 177, 
 178, 286 
 
 Ankole, 282 
 
 Antwerp Exhibition of 1894, the, 241 
 
 Arab slave-trading in Congoland, 15, 
 18, 41, 42, 100, 101, 144, 285 
 
 Arab Zone, the, 129, 144, 161, 175, 
 190, 285 
 
 Arnot, Rev. F. S., 128 
 
 Aruwimi, the district, 146, 151, 255, 
 256 ; the river, 18, 94, 95, 97, 102, 
 
 135. 192 
 Association International du Congo. 
 
 See Congo Free State. 
 Avakubi, 229, 234, 235 
 
 Baert, Capt., 105, 135 
 
 Bafiot, the, 4 
 
 Bahr-el-Ghazal, the, 167, 168, 227, 
 
 231, 283 
 
 Bakongo, the, 4, 5, 286 
 Bakuba, the, 79 
 Bakumu, the, 4, 18 
 Bakusa, the, 151, 160 
 
 the, 6, 109 
 
 Balubf, the, 7, 78, 79, 128, l# ; 
 soldiers, 163, 182, 185 
 
 Balunda, the, 4, 5, 79 
 
 Banalya, 101, 105 
 
 Banana, 20, 33, 40, 67, 91, 121, 244 
 
 Bangala, the district, 135, 136, 140, 
 147, 193, 251, 255, 263; the people, 
 4, 1 8, 41 ; soldiers, 162, 163, 175, 
 247, 249 ; the town, 95, loi, 109, 
 
 195 
 
 Bangaso, the Ubangi chief, 138, 147 
 Banks, Rev. Mr. and Mrs., 219, 221, 
 
 222 
 
 Bantus, the, 2, 3 
 Baptist Missionary Society, the, 22n., 
 
 44 
 
 Barttelot, Major E. M., 90, 91, 93, 
 
 95. 96, 99. I oo, 101, 104 
 Barumba, 239 
 Bashilange, the, 6, 79, 82 
 Basoko, the people, 147, 162, 192, 
 
 193. 239, 255, 256 ; the river, 18 
 Basonge, 79 
 Bateke, the, 19, 37 
 Bateman, Mr. Latrobe, 6, 80 
 Batetela, the, 4. 151, 152, 160; 
 
 soldiers, 175, 247, 249 
 Batetela risings, the, 229, 232-238, 
 
 249, 264 
 Bayanzi, the, 19 
 Bayonge, 189 
 Beernaert, M., 109, no, 118, 124, 
 
 137, 274, 276 
 Belgium's relations with the Congo 
 
 State, 61, 109, 117-119, 169, 170, 
 
 271-278 
 
 Bell, Capt. Maurice, 255 
 Benguela, 9, n, 12, 286 
 Bentley, Rev. W. H., 22n., 78, 202 
 Berlin International Conference, the, 
 
 47, 52-59, 1 13, I 3 2 , 175, 272; its 
 
 General Act, 54, 56, 57, 59, 63, 
 
 J 33, 139, 142, 163, 279, 285 
 Bia, Capt., 127, 129 
 Bihe, 12, 13, 287 
 Biko, 237 
 Binnie, Mr., 85 
 Bismarck, Prince, 51, 52, 58, 59 
 
 X 
 
 m
 
 
 
 306 
 
 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 Blantyre, 266, 267 
 
 Bodson, Lieut., 127 
 
 Bolobo, 19, 95, 195 
 
 Boma, 19, 34, 65, 67, 121, 122, 175, 
 
 243, 244, 254 
 Bomakandi, 149 
 Bomu, the river, 147 
 Bonny, Mr. William, 91, fe *' 
 Bonvallet, Capt., 227 
 Boshart, Capt. August, 76, 238 
 Brazza,M. de, 36, 38, 46, 289, 290 
 Brazzaville, 37, 46, 244, 291 
 British Central Africa, 128 
 British Congoland, 61, 282, 283 
 British East African Company, the,* 
 
 148, 1 66 
 British South Africa Company, the, 
 
 126, 128, 129, 1 66, 284 
 Browne de Tiege, M., 140, 169 
 Brugmann, M. Georges, 121, 131 
 Brussels, King Leopold's Conference 
 
 at, in 1876, 26 
 
 s Brussels Exhibition of 1897, the, 241 
 Brussels International Conference, the, 
 
 112-116, 120, 144, 151, 164, 175, 
 
 2/2; the General Act of, 113-115, 
 
 120, 138, 139, 285 
 
 Budja risings, the, 252, 253, 255, 263 
 Bunkeia, 127 
 
 Burrows, Capt. Guy, 263n. 
 Bushmen and Hottentots, the, 2 
 Busira, the river, 109 
 
 Cabinda. See Kabinda. 
 
 Cam, Diogo, I, 7 
 
 Cambier, Capt., 29, 109 
 
 Cameron, Commander, I3> 16, 26, 27 
 
 Canisius, Mr. Edgar, 263n. 
 
 Capello, Brito, 39 
 
 Casement, Consul, 288 
 
 Cataracts district of the Congo State, 
 
 the, 122, 178 
 Cattier, Prof. F.,64, 66, 75, 141, 173, 
 
 174 
 
 Chaltin, Capt., 162, 228, 229, 231, 283 
 Chamberlain, Mr. Joseph, I25n. 
 Chambezi, the river, 16 
 Chefferies, 173, 174, 179 
 Chicotte, the, 191, 252 
 Chile, in the Arab Zone, 154 
 Christiaens, Capt., 228 
 Cleene, Father de, 202 
 Codrington, Mr. Robert, 284 
 Coimbra, Louren9O de Souza, 14 
 Comite d'Etudes du Haul-Congo, the. 
 
 See Congo Free State. 
 
 Comite Special du Katanga, 265, 267 
 
 Commercial Companies. See Anglo- 
 Belgian, Compagnie, Comptoir, Qttd 
 Societe. 
 
 Qjmpagnie des Magasins Generaux, 
 121 
 
 Compagnie des Produits du Congo, 
 108 ^ 
 
 Compagnie du Chemin de Fer, 109, 
 123, 124, 126, 170, 243 
 
 Compagnie du Congo pour le Com- 
 merce et PIndustrie, 108, 109, 120, 
 123, 126, 131, 139 
 
 Compagnie du Katanga, 109, 126, 
 129, 130, 263, 266 
 
 Comptoir Colonial Fran9ais, 294 
 
 Comptoir Commercial Congolais, 243, 
 251 
 
 Concessiontiaire system in French 
 Congoland, the, 292-296 
 
 Congo, the Conventional Basin of 
 the, I, 61 
 
 Congo, the kingdom of, 7, 8 
 
 Congo, the river, 7, 9, 16. See also 
 Lualaba. 
 
 Congo Free State, the, its origin, 26, 
 
 29, 47, 50. 5 1 . 53- 59-63; its 
 organisation, 64, 66 ; its relations 
 with Belgium, 109, 117-119, 168- 
 170, 271-278 ; its domaine prive, 
 I3I- T 39> 248, 249 ; its budgets, 
 250 ; its present position, 277, 281, 
 298-302. 
 
 Congoland, British, 6l, 282 - 284 ; 
 French, 61, 289-296; German, 6l, 
 
 165, 284, 285 ; Portuguese, 61, 
 286-289 
 
 Conventions, Treaties, and Inter- 
 national Agreements of the Congo 
 State with Belgium in 1885, 60, 61, 
 272; in 1889, 109, no; in 1890, 
 117, 141, 271, 272, 275; in 1895, 
 169, 271, 273 ; in 1901, 273, 277 
 with France in 1885, 60 ; in 1894, 
 
 166, 167; in 1895, I 7, T 7 X with 
 Germany in 1884, 60 with Great 
 Britain in 1884, 60 ; in 1894, 166, 
 1 68, 231, 283 with the United 
 States in 1884, 47, 59 with other 
 countries, 60 
 
 of France with Germany in 
 
 1884, 50, 51 
 
 of Great Britain with Germany 
 
 in 1886, 165 ; in 1890, 165 with 
 Portugal in 1884, 46, 51, 286 
 
 Coquilhat, Capt., 87
 
 INDEX. 
 
 307 
 
 Coquilhatville, 194 
 Corvee, the, in the Congo Sate, 177 
 Cqurcel. Baron de, 51, 56, 57 
 Courtney, Mr. Leonard, 224, 272 
 
 Darfur, 228 
 
 Daumas, Beraud et Cie, 121^131 
 Deane, Mr. Walter, 85-87 
 Decrais, M., 294, 295 '*. 
 Decrees and Ordinances of the Congo 
 
 State in 1885^69, 133; 1886, 120; 
 
 1887, 70 ; 1888, 73, 75 ; 1889, 71, 
 
 73, 120, 134; 1890, 125, 134; 
 
 1891, 135, 173; 1892, 141, 142; 
 
 1893, 175 ; 1894, 172 
 - of French Congo, 292, 295 
 
 of Portuguese Congo, 287 
 Delanghe, Capt., 227 
 Demol, M., 180, 181 
 Descamps, Capt., 146, 150 
 Dhanis, Baron, 108, 254 ; his Arab 
 
 Zone expedition, 151-163, 177, 182, 
 
 185, 282 ; his Welle expedition, 
 
 228, 232, 283 ; his operations 
 
 against the Batetela, 230, 232, 234, 
 
 236-241 
 
 Dhanis, Louis, 234 
 Diaz, Paolo, 9 
 Dilke, Sir Charles W., 224, 27on, 
 
 272, 279 
 Dirfi, 229, 230 
 Djabir, the Niam-Niam chief, 108, 
 
 147, 148 ; the town, 264 
 Doinaine Ptive of the Congo State, 
 
 the, 131-139, I4I-H3. 2 48, 249, 
 
 280, 292 
 
 Donckier, Capt., 228 
 Dongu, 228 
 
 Doorme, Capt., 163, 229, 237, 252 
 Duchesne, Lieut., 160 
 Dufile, 150 
 Dutch advances in Congoland, 10 
 
 Betvelde, Baron Van, 65, 72, 163, 172 
 
 Egyptian Sudan, the, 166 
 
 Emin Pasha, 187 
 
 Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, the, 87, 
 
 103, 117, 282 
 Equateur district, the, of the Congo 
 
 State, 136, 140, 175, 193, 194, 255, 
 
 Set 
 
 . 
 
 Equateurville, 195 
 Etat Independant du Congo. 
 Congo Free State. 
 
 Fans, the, 4 
 
 Fashoda, 168, 244 
 
 Fayala, 243 
 
 Ferry, M. Jules, 50 
 
 Force Publique, the, of the Congo 
 
 State, 75, 125, 174, 175,' 185, 247, 
 
 248, 250, 262 
 Forced, labour in Angola, 27 ; under 
 
 the .Congo State, 73, 186, 244, 245, 
 
 246, 262 
 
 Francken, Lieut., 188 
 Francqui, Capt., 127, 228 
 French Congoland, 10, 22, 36-38, 46, 
 
 245, 289-296 
 
 French relations with the Congo State, 
 50, 146, 166, 167, 170, 293, 302 
 
 Gaboon, the, 4, n, 22, 36, 46 
 Gandu, 151, 154, 160, 161, 232/233 
 Garenganze, 128 
 Gele, Capt. Van, 85, 105, 108, 146, 
 
 147 
 
 Gerard, Capt^, 228 
 German African Society, the, 27 
 German Congoland, 61, 165, 284, 285 
 German East Africa, 165, 284 
 Germany's relations with the Congo 
 
 State, 50, 165 
 Giertsen, Lieut., 256 
 Gillian, Lieut., 233 
 Glave, Mr. E. J., 121, 179-199 
 Gloire, Capt., 237 
 Congo Lutete, the Batetela chief, 151- 
 
 156, 160, 161, 175, 232 
 Gordon, General, 43, 147 
 Gova, Francesco de, 8 
 Granville, Earl, 51 
 Great Britain's relations with the 
 
 Congo State, 60, 166, 168, 231, 283 
 Grenfell, Rev. George, 78, 202, 226 
 Grogan, Mr. E. S., 239, 257 
 Guillain, M., 290, 292 
 
 Hambursin, Lieut., 185 
 Hamed-bin-Mohammed. See Tipu- 
 
 Tipu. 
 
 Hanolet, Capt., 231 
 Harrison, Mr. Frederic, 272 
 Hatton and Cookson, Messrs., 121, 
 
 290 
 Hausas in the Congo State service, 
 
 175 
 
 Henry, Lieut., 234, 237 
 Hess, M. Jean, 294 
 Hodister, M., 130, 153 
 Holt, Mr. John, 279 
 Holt & Co., Messrs., 290 

 
 ' 
 
 308 
 
 CIVILISATION IN COXGOLAXD. 
 
 Hopkins, Consul, 20 # 
 Hopkinson, Consul, 288 
 Houdret, M. Jules, 224 
 
 Ikilamba, the river, 194 
 International African Association, the, 
 
 26, 27, 29, 117. See Congo Free 
 
 State. 
 International Association of the Congo, 
 
 30, 36. See Congo Free State. 
 Isangi, 193 
 Isangila, 35 
 Ivens, Roberto, 39 
 
 Jacques, Capt., 130, 145, 146, 153 
 Jameson, Mr. J. S., 90, 91, 93, 97, 
 
 101, 104 
 Janssen, Governor-General, 65, 68, 
 
 70, 172 
 
 Janssens, Capt., 228 
 Jephson, Mr. Mountenay, 90, 91 
 Johnston, Sir Harry, 2, 128 
 Joubert, Capt., 145, 146, 153 
 Julian, Capt., 229 
 
 Kabafnbare, 157, 162, 163, 181, 182, 
 
 184, 185, 190, 136-239 
 Kabinda, the natives of, 4, 288 ; the 
 
 Portuguese in, n, 22, 285, 288 
 Kalamba, the Bashilange chief, 7, 80, 
 
 147 
 
 Kalinda, 233 
 
 Kasai, the Congo State district, 175, 
 
 233, 258, 280 ; the river, 39, 78, 
 
 79, 109 
 
 Kasai massacres, the, 258 
 Kasali or Kisale, Lake, 264 
 Kasongo, 151, 153, 157, 158, 162, 
 
 163, 187, 188, 190, 191, 236, 237, 
 
 268 
 
 Kasongo, New, 188 
 Kasson, Mr., 53 
 Katanga, 39, 79, 109, 127-129, 144, 
 
 145, 264-269 
 
 Katanga, Compagnie du. See Com- 
 pagnie. 
 Kavali, 229 
 Kazembe, 266 
 Kerckhoven, Commandant Van, 105, 
 
 146-151, 168, 227, 231 
 Kibali, the river, 149 
 Kibangula, 187, 190 
 Kibongo, 187, 192 
 Kilwa, 264 
 Kimuenza, 195 
 Kitete, Piana, 187, 191 
 
 Kivu, Lake, 257, 284 
 
 Kongo. See Congo. 
 
 Kwango, the Congo State district, 151, 
 
 243, 285 ; the river, 39, 78 
 Kwanza, the river, 9, 13 
 Kwilu, the river, 46 
 
 Lado, 150, 283 
 
 Lado enclave, the, 227, 228, 231, 263, 
 283 
 
 Lambermont, Baron, 56, 57, 113, 115 
 
 Lamothe, M. de, 289, 290 
 
 Lancker, Judge de, 219 
 
 Laschet, Lieut., 192 
 
 Lavigerie, Cardinal, 112, 130, 145 
 
 Legat, Lieut., 127 
 
 Lemaire, Capt., 136 
 
 L Marinel, Capt. Georges, 135, 136, 
 147 
 
 Le Marinel, Capt. Paul, 80, 83, 108, 
 127-129, 151 
 
 Lemery, Lieut., 188, 189, 190 
 
 Leo XIII., Pope, 112 
 
 Leopold II., King his Brussels Con- 
 ference of 1876, 26 ; his founding of 
 the Congo State, 29-31, 59 ; his 
 position as its Sovereign, 61, 62, 
 272 ; his will, 109, 169 ; his share 
 in the Brussels International Con- 
 ference, 112; his letter to M. 
 Woeste, 274, 275 ; his message to 
 the Aborigines Protection Society, 
 279, 28on. See also Compagnie, 
 Congo Free State, Conventions, 
 Decrees, Societe, &c. 
 
 Leopold, Lake, 39 
 
 Leopoldville, 39, 40, 43, 67, 92, 94, 
 109, 195, 196 
 
 Leroi, Capt., 229, 230 
 
 Leveque, M. Gustave, 266-269 
 
 Libfrh in the Congo State, 177, 180, 
 
 .195 
 
 Libokwa, 263 
 Libreville, n, 290 
 Liotard, M., 232 
 Livingstone, Dr., 15, 16 
 Loanda, San Paolo de, 9, 10, 1 1, 286 
 Loango, 1 1 , 22, 290 
 Lobangula, 183, 184 
 Lomani, the river, 78, 145, 151, 154, 
 
 162, 232 
 
 Long, Capt., 146 
 Lopori, the river, 140 
 Lorand, M. Georges, 276 
 Lothaire, Major, 162, 163, 187, 200, 
 
 201, 233, 241, 251, 252, 253, 254 

 
 INDEX. 
 
 309 
 
 Lower Congo Railway, the. See 
 
 Matadi-to-Leopoldville. 
 Lowule, 266, 267 
 Lualaba, the river, 16, 151, 162, 175, 
 
 188, 189, 232, 264, 266. See also 
 
 Congo. 
 
 Luapula, the river, 16 
 Lubuku, 80, 82 
 Luebo, 79, 82, 258, 261 
 Lugard, Sir Frederick, 257, 282 
 Lukolela, 121, 194, 195 
 Lukuga, the river, 264 
 Lukungu, 196 
 Lulua, the river, 78 
 Luluaburg, 78, 80, 82, 83, 232, 233, 
 
 2 5 8 
 
 Mabunda, the, 4, 13 
 
 Mackinnon, Sir William, 26, 124, 126 
 
 Makoko, the Bateke chief, 37, 38 
 
 Malfeyt, Major, 264 
 
 Mambutu, the, 4, 149 
 
 Mandat-Grancey, Baron E. de, 244, 
 
 245. 249 
 
 Mantumba, Lake. See Tumba. 
 
 Manyanga, 35, 41 
 
 Manyema, the, 4, 17, 145, 155, 159, 
 169, 175 ; their slave-raiding, 17, 41, 
 79, 99, 100, 106 ; as Congo State 
 soldiers, 163, 175, 182, 184; their 
 revolt, 229, 230, 236 
 
 Marchand, Major, 168, 244 
 
 Mardulier, Capt., 263 
 
 Maringa, the river, 140 
 
 Matadi, 35, 92, 109, 122, 178 
 
 Matadi-to-Leopoldville Railway, the, 
 40, 109, 122-125, r 7 > J 79 242, 
 244, 247, 286, 291 
 
 Mathieu, Capt., 222 
 
 Mayombe, the Congo State district, 
 243, 255 
 
 Mbili, the Niam-Niam chief, 227, 228 
 
 Mbima, the Niam-Niam chief, 228 
 
 Mboga, 257 
 
 Mbunga, 96 
 
 Meline, M., 290 
 
 Mense, Dr., 78 
 
 Michaud, Capt., 154, 233 
 
 Mille, M. Pierre, 244, 246, 247, 291 
 
 Milz, Lieut., 147, 148, 150 
 
 Missionaries, American, 197, 198, 
 202, 205, 210, 219, 238, 258 : Bel- 
 gian, 195, 202; British, 22n., 44, 
 78, 202; French, 112, 182, 229, 
 234 ; Portuguese, 7 
 
 Mlumba, the Manyema chief, 230, 234 
 
 Mlumba Nkusa, the Zapo-Zap leader, 
 
 259, 260, 261 
 Mobeka, 251 
 
 Mohun, Mr. R. D. L., 279, 28on. 
 Moliro, 1 80 
 
 Moloney, Dr. J. A., 127, 145, 146 
 Momboyo, the river, 109 
 Mongala, the district, 140, 196, 251, 
 
 254 ; the river, 78 
 Monteiro, J. J., 10, 12 
 Morel, Mr. E. D., 267n., 295n. 
 Morrison, Rev. W. M., 258, 259, 261 
 Morley, Mr. John, 224 
 Mossamedes, 9 
 Mpongwe, the, 4 
 Mpueto. See Pueto. 
 Mrumbi, 145 
 
 Msa, Bwana, the Manyema chief, 184 
 Msiri, the Katanga chief, 127-129 
 Mtoa, 239, 268, 269 
 Mundu, 227 
 
 Muni Mohara, the Manyema chief, 155 
 Muni Somai, the Manyema chief, 101 
 Murphy, Rev. J. B., 205, 207-210, 219 
 Mushikongo, the, 286 
 Mwamba, 92 
 Mwero, Lake, 257, 264, 265, 268, 284 
 
 Ndoruma, the Niam-Niam chief, 228 
 
 Negro origins, 2, 3 
 
 Nelson, Capt. R. H., 90, 91 
 
 Ngalyema of Kintamo, 38, 44 
 
 Ngoma, 37 
 
 Niam-Niam, the, 4, 147, 227, 229, 
 
 232 
 
 Niampara, 228, 229 
 Niari, the river, 46 
 Nightingale, Consul. 287, 288 
 Nieuwe Afrikaansche Handels-Venn- 
 
 ootschap, 121, 131, 139 
 Nieuwe Gazette, the, of Antwerp,253n. 
 Nile and Nile Valley, the, 146, 150, 
 
 166, 168, 227 
 Nkisi, 196 
 Noki, 34, 44, 45 
 North, Colonel, 140 
 Nyangwe, 16, 17, 41, 83, 130, 151, 
 
 154, 156, 157, 158, 188, 189, 191, 
 
 232. 233 
 Nyasa, Lake, 1 6 
 Nzidi the river. See Congo. 
 Nzoro, the river, 149 
 
 Obi, the river, 149 
 
 Ogowe, the river and district, 22, 36, 
 290
 
 CIVILISATION IN CONGOLAND. 
 
 Ovimbunda, the, 13 
 
 Palabala, 44, 124 
 
 Parke, Dr. T. H., 90 
 
 Parminter, Major, 122, 131-134, 137- 
 
 139 
 
 Parminter, Mr. Alfred, 22, 2050. 
 Pease, Mr. Alfred E., 279 
 Peres Blancs, Mission des. See White 
 
 Fathers Mission. 
 Petit Bleu of Brussels, 253n. 
 Picard, M. Edouard, 244, 248 
 Ponta da Lenha, 20 
 Ponthier, Capt., 148, 162, 185 
 Ponthierville, 192 
 Portuguese, the, in Congoland, I, 7, 
 
 22, 46, 50, 245, 246, 285, 286, 289 
 Prcstations in the Congo State, 160, 
 
 174, 179 
 
 Prince's Island, u, 287 
 Pueto, 265, 266, 268 
 Pygmies, the, of Congoland, 2, 3, 18 
 
 Rabinek affair, the, 266-270, 284 
 Rashid, nephew of Tipu-Tipu, 86, 
 
 100, 148, 161, 162 
 Regis etCie., 121 
 Rejaf, 231 
 
 K.ezen, Baron de, 196 
 Rhodes, Mr. Cecil, 126, 167, 284 
 Riba-Riba, 130, 153, 189, 190, 191 
 Risari, 189, 190 
 
 Roget, Capt., 108, 146, 147, 151 
 Rom, Capt., 193 
 Roubain, M. de, 131 
 Rubi, the river, 78 
 Rue, Lieut., 189, 190 
 Ruki, the river, 78 
 Rumaliza, the Ujiji chief, 162, 182, 
 
 185 
 
 Saint Thomas's Island, II, 287 
 
 Salisbury, the Marquis of, 112 
 
 Salusbury, Capt. P., 2O5n. 
 
 San Antonio, 7, 8 
 
 San Salvador, 8 
 
 Sanford, General H. S., 27, 29, 47, 
 
 49, 108, 121 
 Sanford Exploring Expedition, the, 
 
 108, 121, 122 
 
 Sangebuno, the Mambutu chief, 149 
 Sankuru, the river, 78, 79, 82, 127, 163 
 Sannaes, Capt., 235, 264 
 Scott, John, 21, 22n. 
 Sefu, son of Tipu-Tipu, 83, 151, 153, 
 
 155, 157, 159, 182 
 
 Semio, the Ubangi chief, 147, 148, 149 
 Semliki Valley, the, 234, 256, 282 
 Senegalis in the Congo State service, 
 
 175 
 Sentry, or sentinel, system, the, in 
 
 the Congo State, 179, 212 
 Sen:iqae system, the, in Angola, 177 
 Sharpe, Sir Alfred, 128 
 Sheppard, Rev. H. W. , 259 
 Shinkakasa Fort, 238, 262 
 Sierra Leoneans in the Congo State 
 
 service, 125, 192 
 Sims, Rev. Dr. A., 202 
 Sinade, M., 185 
 Sjoblom, Rev. E. V., 210-222, 225, 
 
 226 
 Smet de Naeyer, Count de, 273, 274, 
 
 2 7 6 , 
 
 Societe Anonyme Beige pour le Com- 
 merce au Haut-Congo, 108, 121, 
 122, 129, 130, 131 
 
 Societe Anti-Esclavagiste de Belgique, 
 130, 145, 180 
 
 Societe Anversoise du Commerce au 
 Congo, 140, 141, 195, 241, 242, 
 243, 251, 252, 253, 263 
 
 Societe des Chemins de Fer vicinaux 
 du Mayombe, 243 
 
 Societe du Manyema, 169 
 
 Societe Fran9aise, 131 
 
 Societe Generate Africaine, 141, 142 
 
 Societe Hollandaise, 131 
 
 Souza, Fernan de, 10 
 
 Stairs, Capt. W. G., 90, 127-129, 145 
 
 Stanley, Sir H. M., 16-19, 28, 30-45, 
 88-106, 122, 144, 177, 180 
 
 Stanley Falls, the district, 175, 229, 
 2 39> 2 55 5 tne station, 18, 40, 41, 
 84-87, 95, 99, 104, 130, 149, 162, 
 192 
 
 Stanley Pool, 19, 35, 39, 93, 123, 131, 
 144 
 
 Stewart, Sir Mark J., 279 
 
 Stokes affair, the, 200, 201, 241 
 
 Strauch, Col., 30, 32, 37, 50, 65 
 
 Sudan, the Egyptian, 150, 166, 224, 
 227, 231, 283 
 
 Sundt, Lieut., 193 
 
 Sungula, the Manyema chief, 152, 183 
 
 Swanzy, Mr. F., 279 
 
 Tanganyika, Lake, I, 8, 15, 16, 29, 
 130, 144, 145, 166, 180, 237, 239, 
 284 
 
 Ternan, Major, 234, 283 
 
 Thompson, Joseph, 26, 88
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Thys, Col., 109, 120, 131, 139, 244, 
 
 293 
 
 Times, the, 150, 224 
 
 Tipu-Tipu, 15, 17, 41, 88, 144, 145, 
 151, 165, 182, 192 
 
 Torrens Act, the, 293 
 
 Toru district of Uganda, the, 234, 282, 
 283 
 
 Treaties, International. See Con- 
 ventions. 
 
 Treaties, Mr. Stanley's, with Congo 
 natives, 43-45, 68 
 
 Troup, Mr. Ross, 74, 90, 94, 99, 100 
 
 Tumba, Lake, 194, 207, 208, 215 
 
 Tumba, the town, 244 
 
 Ubangi, the Congo State district, 138, 
 147, 148, 175, 227 ; the river, 19, 
 78, 85, 108, 131, 147, 167 
 
 Ubangi, French, 232, 289 
 
 Uganda, 166, 257, 282, 283 
 
 Ujiji, 16, 146, 182 
 
 United States' support of the Congo 
 State, 47, 48 
 
 Urban, M. Jules, 131 
 
 Valle & Azevedo, 121 
 
 Van Den Borch, M., 276 
 
 Vandenbrock, Major, 264 
 
 Vandevelde, If., 276 
 
 Van Eetvelde, Baron, 65, 72, 163, 
 
 172 
 
 Van Eycken, M., 252, 253 
 Van Gele, Capt., 85, 105, 108, 146, 
 
 147 
 
 Van Henexthoven, Father, 262 
 Van Kerckhoven, Capt., 105, 146, 
 
 151, 168, 227, 231 
 Van Neuss, M , 65 
 
 Van Ronsle, Mgr., 202 
 Van Wert, Commandant, 256 
 Vivi, 34, 35, 40, 43, 45. 65, 122 
 Vivian, Lord, 112, 117 
 Vombo, 93 
 
 Wabundu, 192 
 
 Wadelai, 149, 150 
 
 Wahis, Governor- General, 172, 178, 
 
 219, 222, 224, 225, 233, 254 
 
 Wangwana, the, 181, 182, 190 
 Ward, Mr. Herbert, 87, 91, 95, 99, 
 
 i5 
 
 Warua, the, 181 
 Wauters. Mr. A. J., 131 
 Welle, the Congo State district, 146, 
 
 148, 175, 227, 231, 263, 264 ; the 
 
 river, 108, 149, 163, 167 
 Werner, Lieut. J. R., 86 
 Werner, Rev. S. P., 238 
 White Fathers Mission, the, 112, 130, 
 
 145 
 Winton, Sir Francis de, 43, 65, 68, 
 
 69,85 
 Wissmann, Major von, 6, 78-83, 103, 
 
 147 > 177 
 
 Woeste, M., 274, 276 
 Wolf, Dr. Ludwig, 78 
 Wulf, Capt. de, 264 
 
 Yaka, the, 8 
 
 Yambuya, 96, 97-99, IOI, 255 
 
 Zaire, the river. See Congo. 
 Zambezi, the river, I, 15, 167 
 Zambezia, Northern, 284 
 Zapo-Zaps, the, 258, 259 
 Zongo, 78 
 Zone Arabe, 129 
 
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