Part 14 (1/2)

II

Since Stanleyville is the head of navigation on the Congo there is ordinarily no lack of boats I was fortunate to be able to embark on the ”Comte de Flandre,” the Mauretania of those inland seas and thevessel on the river for she displaced five hundred tons She flew the flag of the Huileries du Congo Belge, the palm oil concern founded by Lord Leverhulme and the o She was one of a fleet of ten boats that operate on the Congo, the Kasai, the Kwilu and other rivers I not only had a comfortable cabin but the rarest of luxuries in Central Africa, a regulation bathtub, was available The ”Comte de Flandre” had cabin accolishineer a Scotcho boats, the food is provided by the Captain, to whoers pay a stipulated sum for e ned jointly by the Captain and the Chief Engineer The latter did all the buying and it was al real Scotch bargains with the natives who caoats, and fruit The engineer could scarcely speak a word of any of the native languages, but he invariably got over the fact that the price deer list of the ”Coians, Italians, and Portuguese I was the only Ae, firemen, and wood-boys were all blacks With this international congress over which beamed the broad smile of Nelson, I started on the thousand-o River

It is difficult to convey the iives

Serene andin its immensity Between Stanleyville and Kinshassa there are four thousand islands, soth As the boat picks its way through theh an endless tropical park of which the river provides the paths It has been well called a ”Venice of Vegetation” The shores are brilliant with a variegated grohose exotic smell is wafted out over the waters You see priceless orchids entwined with the roves in endless profusion

Behind this verdure stretches the dense equatorial forest in which Stanley battled years ago in an alrettes and birds of paradise fly on all sides and every hour reveals a hideous crocodile sunning hio enhances the loneliness that you feel on all the Central African rivers Although the settleer than those on the Lualaba and the Kasai, there is the sale see monster who mocks you with his silence Joseph Conrad interpreted this at ”a stillness of life that did not rese over an inscrutable intention” This is the Congo River

The e as the Mississippi--the more I realized that it is in reality a parent of waters It has half a dozen tributaries that range in length from 500 to 1,000 miles each The most important are the Lualaba and the Kasai

Others include the Itii Scores of sable for launches, empty into the main river This is why there is such a deep and swift current in the lower region where the Congo enters the sea

[Illustration: WOMEN MAKING POTTERY]

[Illustration: THE CONGO PICKANINNY]

The astonishi+ng thing about the Congo River is its inconsistency

Although six miles wide in many parts it is frequently not erous and difficult As on the Lualaba and every other river in the Colony, soundings must be taken continually This extraordinary discrepancy betidth and depth renation of the Platte River in Nebraska by a Kansas statesman which was, ”A river three-quarters of a o journey takes on a constant element of hazard because you do not knohat round on a sand-bank, be ih the ”Coo our progress was unusually slow because of the scarcity of wood for fuel This seeo Basin is one vast forest Millions of trees stand ready to be sacrificed to the needs of o, as throughout this distracted world, the will-to-work is a lost art, no lesstheir civilized brothers The ordinary native will only labour long enough to provide himself with sufficient money to buy a month's supply of food Then he quits and joins the leisure class Hence wood-hunting on the Congo vies with the trip itself as a real adventure The competition between river captains for fuel is so keen that a skipper will so and risk an accident in the dark in order to beat a rival to a wood supply

All up and down the river are wood-posts Most of them are owned by the steamshi+p companies It was our misfortune to find most of them practically stripped of their supplies A journey which ordinarily takes twelve days consumed twenty But there were many compensations and I had no quarrel with the circuood fortune to witness that rarest of sights that falls to the lot of the casual traveller--a serious fight between natives We stopped at a native wood-post--(some of them are operated by the occasionally industrious blacks)--for fuel The whole village turned out to help load the logs In the midst of the process a crowd of natives made their appearance, aran to taunt theour boat I afterwards learned that they owned a wood-post nearby and were disgruntled because we had not patronized thehbours for it Alress in which spears were thrown and enerally bloody fracas One h his throat and it probably inflicted a fatal wound

In the ers, a Catholic priest na spears and logs of wood and separated the combatants This incident shows the hostility that still exists between the various tribes in the Congo It constitutes one excellent reason why there can never be any concerted uprising against the whites There is no single, strong, cohesive native dynasty

Father Brandso He was a member of the society of priests which has its headquarters at Mill Hill in England He caht ere tied up at bu the native trails Wesaloon I sat at a table writing letters and he took a seat nearby and started to make some notes in a book When we finished I addressed hilish He then told anda, where he was at the head of the Catholic Missions

The Father was in his fifth year of service in the Congo and his analysis of the native situation was accurate and convincing Areat task of the Colonial Government is to provide labour for the people In many localities only one native out of a hundred works This idleness hway and other ie part of the native population”

Father Brandsathering This substance, which is found at the roots of trees in swampy and therefore unhealthy country, is employed in the manufacture of varnish To harvest it the natives stand all day in water up to their hips and they catch the inevitable colds fro is a considerable source of income for many tribes and usually the entire community treks to the marshes In this way the lives of the women and children are also o forth at certain periods for this work and leave their families behind

Father Brandsma was the central actor in a picturesque scene One Sundayand I arose to discover the cause I found that the priest was celebrating mass for the natives on the main deck of the boat Dawn had just broken, and on the iht In his vesture All about hiation They crossed themselves constantly and made the usual responses Iand io River I saw that the natives were bigger and stronger than those of the Katanga and other sections that I had visited The alas, who are nificent specimens of manhood In Stanley's day they were ion and contested his way skilfully and bitterly They are more peacefully inclined today and hundreds of them are employed as wood-boys and firealas practice cicatrization to an elaborate extent This process consists of opening a portion of the flesh with a knife, injecting an irritating juice into the wound, and allowing the place to swell The effect is to raise a lump or weal Some of these excrescences are tiny buure the anatons are literally carved on the faces and bodies of the h it is an intensely painful operation,--some of the wounds must be opened many times--the native subn the more resplendent the wearer feels The women are usually more liberally marked than the men

Cicatrization is popular in various parts of Central Africa but nowhere to the degree that it prevails on the Congo River and aalas, where it is a tribal mark I observed women whose entire bodies from the ankles up to the head were one ns One of the favorite areas is the stoainst clothes Cicatrization bears the sa does to the whites of some sections Human vanity works in mysterious ways to express itself

In this connection it is perhaps worth while to point out one of the reasons why the Congo atrocity exhorters found such ready exhibits for their arguuren of ”beauty,” but as ahis own In the old days dozens of slaves, and sometimes wives, were sacrificed upon the death of an important chief

Their spirits were supposed to provide a bodyguard to escort the departed potentate safely into the land of the hereafter One of the foratives of a husband was the sanction to chop off the hand or foot of a wife if she offended or disobeyed him Hence Central Africa abounded in mutilated men, women and children While some of these barbarities may have been due to excessive zeal or temper in State or corporation officials there is no doubt that many instances were the result of native practices